Episode# 24 is now live and available for download. In this episode, we cover all of the things you need to know about starting your own guild and include an Icecrown Chili Cheeseburger challenge!
SHOW NOTES:
THE BREAKING WIND
In our new NEWS FOR NOOBS segment, we cover Blizzard’s most recent announcements about the Cataclysm Alpha and Beta clients. We touch on the “controversy” surrounding the Celestial Steed and wrap things up with a discussion on battle.net’s new REAL ID system!
A HELPING HAND
In our tips and tricks segment, we break down all that you need to know about starting your own guild, including how to avoid the dreaded guild drama!!
For a great breakdown of guild systems in-game, check out this link:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Guild
And for those looking for a list of web hosts for World of Warcraft guilds, check out this list here:
http://www.wowwiki.com/Guild_website_utilities
WELCOME TO THE END GAME
This week, on our WELCOME TO THE END game segment, we discuss ways in which to maximize your DPS. The first is knowing AND memorizing your rotation which can be found here: Elitistjerks.com
Rather than bore our listeners to tears, I’ve linked the portion of our discussion on GCDs here for your reading…should you choose to read it:
GCDs mean your Global Cooldown. Every toon has a base global cooldown of one second. Which means, you can only use an ability once every second. However, there’s a HUGE difference between clicking on the ability when it lights up and learning to maximize your keyboard-spam to ensure that abilities are being used as quickly as possible.
Let me give you an example:
Let’s say your rotations has five spells. The average DPS player will simply click on Spell# 1, wait for the little grey countdown of the one-second GCD to come off and click on Spell# 2, repeat the process and hit Spell# 3.
What’s wrong with that you ask? Lag. Yup, everyone has lag. If you have a clean connection and you’re close to a data center, your lag may be a small 50 milliseconds. Good for you. For the average player, you’ll normally see numbers around 100 – 150ms. That’s a tenth of a second. Now let’s imagine you’re a fast clicker…so you’re clicking on that spell as soon as you see the it blink. I’d say a half-second is a good reaction time.
Let’s add it up. In that five spell rotation, lag has account for 500 ms (or half a second). Across five spells, you’re average a half-second reaction time between each spell. 5 spells x ½ second reaction time each equals 2.5 seconds. Add in the half second from lag and you’re looking at 3 seconds of lost DPS time! Taking into account the GCDs, you’re missing out on two abilities to do damage!!
But wait, that can’t be that much, right? Let’s do the math again. Let’s say the average boss fight takes four minutes. In the above example of a five spell rotation, you are using five abilities across 8 seconds (five seconds for the GCDs and 3 seconds of wasted GCD time due to lag and clicking on spells). Across four minutes (or 240 seconds), you’ve used 30 rotations or 150 abilites.
Let’s say that each ability does 4000 damage each. Multiplied by 150 abilities and divided by 240 seconds, you get a DPS number of: 2500 DPS.
Now, let’s say you get rid of the lag and wasted GCDs, by minimizing the time between abilites to a tenth of a second. Now, you’re completed 5 abilities in 5.5 seconds instead of 8 seconds. Let’s round it up to 6 seconds to make the math easier. Cutting out the wasted time, you now are using 40 rotations or 200 abilities in the four minute boss fight. Do the math and you are now at a respectable: 3333 DPS. An increase of 33%!
Whether or not you following the math doesn’t matter. What matters is…the more abilities you’re doing, the more damage you’re doing. So how can you use more abilities…simple: use key-bindings and spam them.
Instead of mouse-clicking those five spells, move them to your keyboard shortcuts of 1 – 5 (or whatever is convenient for you).
Then, learn to spam buttons. Instead of WAITING for a spell or ability to become available, know which one you are going to use next and start hitting that ability key repeatedly as your GCD is almost up. What does this do? It’s sending the command to the WoW server, so that despite lag, the command is being spammed to your character so that the MOMENT the GCD is available on the server, your ability is already being cast. For casters with cast time, you’ll literally be spamming your next ability while your previous cast is still going!
Also, for casters, I highly suggest downloading an addon that adjusts your castbar to show latency as this only help provide another reminder of when you should be spamming the next button.
Remember, the above is taking into account a “perfect scenario” for DPS. Think patchwork, where you don’t have to move your character at all. Every other boss fight in the game is going to cause you to move…as such you’ll have to be spamming abilities AND moving at the same time. For casters, this is even worse, since moving means no damage. However, even in those fights, you’ll have time to chain off multiple abilities in a row…and learning to use every bit of you GCDs will only make you a stronger and more effective DPS player.
THE RAZOR’S EDGE
This week, we cover a great tool for understanding your rotation on boss fights called FACEROLLER.
GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS
We congratulate the most recent level 80 dingers.
Enjoy!