[Charlagain]

As most of you know, I have a pretty un-spectacular internet connection. My latency at its best is in the 180 range, and can go into the 200-300ms range at the drop of a hat (or higher). Sometimes I choke/disconnect when there's too much data trying to come down the pipe but just recently I've had high latency with no disconnects - just a steady 400 to 500 ms latency. It sucks, but where I live I have no alternatives aside from dial up, so what I got is what I got.

So this gets me to thinking - what class do you think would be the "best" one to perform under those conditions, in a dungeon and/or raid environment? Playing with high latency means I mash my ability keys a lot - but this seems to work better for spells with a cast time - for instance, on the DK, if I'm supposed to use one Unholy Blight I don't want to spam it, because if I hit a 2nd one it messes up my rotation. Whereas if I'm casting 5 lightning bolts in a row I can spam that key to my heart's content, and watch for the cast bar to show up.

I have a number of 80s and of the four I have (DK, Shaman, Warlock, and Hunter) I think the Ele Shaman seems to be the best, for a number of reasons:

1. few spells in the rotation
2. Only 1 instant (flame shock)
3. Two cast-time spells are on decently long cooldowns (lava burst and chain lightning) so spamming these works to get one off, and doesn't fire an additional one off by accident (no messing up rotation)
4. main damage spell is spammable (lightning bolt)

The Warlock is not as good in this environment because there are 2 instant DoTs, Haunt is spammable due to its cooldown, but spamming UA is bad since if you cast it multiple times you're overwriting it.

The Hunter (Survival) seems bad since there are so many spells to worry about (then again, I don't really like this character, so maybe that's it).

The DK seems worst of all due to excessive spamming messing up your runes.

My Shadow Priest seems ok, right now she casts VT - MB (both have a cast time) then Mind Flay - channeled - then a couple of dots (this is in soloing, I have no experience in raiding with her of course).

So would you say casters have a better time of this than melee? Maybe that's the general lesson to take from this.

Anyone have any other thoughts? I'd be especially interested to hear what anyone else with high latency thinks.

[Wrathblood]

BM Hunter ftw. Get a devilsaur for general purpose and a worm for tanking (something I've been dying to try is use a worm on Putricide. Its not great for the hunter's dps, but the worm's acid spit, after 2 stacks, is just as good as an expose or full stack of sunders on a target. The acid spit has a 30 yard range and a 10 second cooldown, so if you're careful, those stacks could be up really quickly. No need for the rogue/warrior/abom to worry about debuffing the oozes with a BM hunter around).

I'm a big fan of BM hunters anyway. Easy to play, few buttons to work with and since auto-shot and your pet don't care about latency, like 70+% of your offense is extremely latency tolerant. Their dps ceiling is higher than people realize, and is getting slightly better in 3.3.3. In BiS gear, BM will be very close to SV in potential damage output (though both will still be behind MM, and BM is clearly the worst of the 3 specs at AoE damage), and its extremely strong at mobility fights (a properly spec'ed pet is virtually indestructible to AoE damage. Marrowgar's fire/bonestorm is a trivial inconvenience to a BM pet) especially if you spec into Aimed shot. Also, there are very few BM hunters, so its sort of unusual.

[Passa]

Charles a marks hunter would also be good since the 2 instant abilities are on a 10s CD and you can get away with SS

[Sobeyet]

I feel your pain. I'm usually around 400 ms with spikes up to 800 maybe half a dozen times per boss. Don't seem to DC as much as you though!

I'd agree on the Ele shaman thing, and Arcane mage is probably in the same ballpark.

Half of affliction DPS is having a good feel for dot timers and the other half is mashing shadow bolt, so it's probably not as bad as you think. Overall it seems like one of the more difficult classes to play.

Shadow priest is the same but with less micromanagement.

Hunter is one of the more annoying classes to play. SV has a lot of buttons. MM has fewer but more CDs. As a class it's entirely dependent on global usage.

Unholy DK must suck too, maybe even more mashing than hunter, never played one at 80 though.



Have you tried AHK? Everyone I've recommended it to loves it. Button mashing can be imprecise and is just plain annoying. I even use it on my warrior even though all his abilities are instants.

Edit: I guess BM hunters aren't that dependent on globals, but I still have trouble taking them seriously (sorry Wrath). I would disagree about the auto shot thing though, auto shot ignores latency if you're standing still, but if you're moving in small increments between auto shots latency still blows. My chain heal monkey gets irritable from trying to move between 0.7 sec auto shots.

[Googleme]

SERIOUSLY??? Are you honestly saying that Arcane mage rotation is easy?? let me enlighten you my son


Ya, thats what I thought... speechless

[Wrathblood]

Sobe, that's ok, I know that no one takes them seriously, but that's perfectly alright. In fact, half the fun is doing, say, a PuG ICC 25 and having people make fun of BM as a spec and the tanking gun, and questioning whether you should really be there. Then proceeding to lead the raid in damage on Marrowgar and Deathwhisper, including over the 3 MM hunters (all with at least ilevel 251 launchers and 2 piece t10) who were busting on you, and by a substantial margin, too. No, I'm not bitter. I'm gloating. Hee hee.

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 15 March 2010 - 03:12 PM, said:

Sobe, that's ok, I know that no one takes them seriously, but that's perfectly alright. In fact, half the fun is doing, say, a PuG ICC 25 and having people make fun of BM as a spec and the tanking gun, and questioning whether you should really be there. Then proceeding to lead the raid in damage on Marrowgar and Deathwhisper, including over the 3 MM hunters (all with at least ilevel 251 launchers and 2 piece t10) who were busting on you, and by a substantial margin, too. No, I'm not bitter. I'm gloating. Hee hee.

Interesting, the top BM parse on marrowgar is 10.3k from a requiem hunter. Only about 600 DPS behind my last kill, though he's using a bow from heroic Deathwhisper and the kill was a min quicker. Not bad, though with that gear and kill time I'd probably hit 12.5k fairly easily as MM.

He has the top BM parse on Saurfang too, though it begins to show its limitations - 9.7k. I was at 12.2k this week, and if I got the gear from just the bosses we've killed so far I should be able to break 13.5k. Would give me the top MM parse, 28th atm. Though these long kill times are cramping my style - only 2 hunters are in the top 150 with a +4 min kill. If we could crank out a low-3 min kill I may pump out 14k.

[Guinthel]

Sobeyet, on 15 March 2010 - 03:53 PM, said:

Wrathblood, on 15 March 2010 - 03:12 PM, said:

Sobe, that's ok, I know that no one takes them seriously, but that's perfectly alright. In fact, half the fun is doing, say, a PuG ICC 25 and having people make fun of BM as a spec and the tanking gun, and questioning whether you should really be there. Then proceeding to lead the raid in damage on Marrowgar and Deathwhisper, including over the 3 MM hunters (all with at least ilevel 251 launchers and 2 piece t10) who were busting on you, and by a substantial margin, too. No, I'm not bitter. I'm gloating. Hee hee.

Interesting, the top BM parse on marrowgar is 10.3k from a requiem hunter. Only about 600 DPS behind my last kill, though he's using a bow from heroic Deathwhisper and the kill was a min quicker. Not bad, though with that gear and kill time I'd probably hit 12.5k fairly easily as MM.

He has the top BM parse on Saurfang too, though it begins to show its limitations - 9.7k. I was at 12.2k this week, and if I got the gear from just the bosses we've killed so far I should be able to break 13.5k. Would give me the top MM parse, 28th atm. Though these long kill times are cramping my style - only 2 hunters are in the top 150 with a +4 min kill. If we could crank out a low-3 min kill I may pump out 14k.

I wana join the leet rankings club too

[Sobeyet]

Guinthel, on 15 March 2010 - 05:52 PM, said:

I wana join the leet rankings club too

Step 1: Look for fire out of range from other healers
Step 2: Put lightwell next to fire
Step 3: Stand in fire and heal yourself
Step 4: Profit



I wouldn't take the rankings too seriously as DPS anyway, all the people worth competing with are doing hard modes now. I tried looking for a BM hunter in a heroic Saurfang/BQL kill but couldn't find a single one, that would be funny.

[Wrathblood]

Especially BQL. That's a fight (along with Twin Valks) where BM kinda gets kicked in the nuts since your pet doesn't get the buff.

That having been said, the models say that in BiS gear, BM is in a virtual tie with SV right now (and BM is getting buffed slightly in 3.3.3), and both are 9-10% behind MM in a Patchwerk style fight, though I'd argue BM is superior in a movement fight (depending on the kind of movement fight, of course. As noted, moving between autoshots is kind of a pain in the ass when you're at 1.3 second shot speed, to say nothing of the 0.7ish second shot time you can reach with Rapid Fire+BL up. On the other hand, when Marrowgar starts spinning and all the hunters are madly trying to get away from his gigantic hit box, your pet is cheerfully gnawing away, procing Invigoration, etc).

[Sobeyet]

Wrathblood, on 15 March 2010 - 07:06 PM, said:

Especially BQL. That's a fight (along with Twin Valks) where BM kinda gets kicked in the nuts since your pet doesn't get the buff.

That having been said, the models say that in BiS gear, BM is in a virtual tie with SV right now (and BM is getting buffed slightly in 3.3.3), and both are 9-10% behind MM in a Patchwerk style fight, though I'd argue BM is superior in a movement fight (depending on the kind of movement fight, of course. As noted, moving between autoshots is kind of a pain in the ass when you're at 1.3 second shot speed, to say nothing of the 0.7ish second shot time you can reach with Rapid Fire+BL up. On the other hand, when Marrowgar starts spinning and all the hunters are madly trying to get away from his gigantic hit box, your pet is cheerfully gnawing away, procing Invigoration, etc).

I almost wish BM was the top hunter spec in ICC so Blizz would fix pet buffing. No one cared on Thaddius when BM was strong because the content was so easy, but I bet there would be enough qq to spur change if most hunters were BM right now.

And Marrowgar's hitbox is annoying, but can be worked around with a little foresight. He likes to pick individual people and charge at them, so if you stand slightly off to the side you can maintain shooting range (and if you're the unlucky one picked, disengage out). One benefit of the large hitbox is that if you're standing close to the middle of the room, you can hit him just about every corner of the room he goes. Not to make if sound too complicated, but if you see Marrowgar on one side of the room, pick someone on the other side of the room, draw a line between them and stand perpendicular to it about 20 yds out, you can DPS through bonestorm most of the time. I don't think out these instructions in my head, but it's more of a visual reaction from seeing the different stuff going on.

For example, on this week's kill we had two bonestorms: http://www.worldoflo...ne/?s=743&e=949

During the first bonestorm I was pulling 8.5k, partly because I didn't position myself properly and partly due to bad luck: http://www.worldoflo...ne/?s=788&e=810

Second one I did 10.1k, partly because I positioned myself better and partly due to decent rng with crits: http://www.worldoflo...ne/?s=879&e=902

So no reason a MM hunter can't maintain close to max DPS during bone storm, and since the ceiling is higher than BM, you'll still get beat by an equally skilled/geared hunter!

I try to do a similar thing as melee, though I have far less experience playing one. While he's spinning, I can strafe around his hitbox to the edge where I think he'll end up next. If he's picking someone within 20 yds of the previous target, I can stay on him the whole time and never go out of melee range. If he's picking someone +30 yds I can still intercept and maintain high DPS time.

Going back to Charl, while ranged usually have longer nukes, it seems like they're asked to move more than melee. Maybe I have a false impression but it seems like there are more bosses where melee just sit on his ass than those where they run around chasing/switching targets. And the longer nukes mean that every unnecessary step you take as ranged is cutting into your DPS. That can be tough to evaluate in a log, but I'd keep it in the back of your head when you're thinking about how latency can effect performance.