The Joys of Spreadsheeting.

All names have been changed for the purpose of protecting the innocent.

A few days ago, post Professor Putricide attempts, I happened to catch the tail-end of a conversation happening in guild chat. Lungblender, a rogue/officer of ours who seems to have a genetic disease that makes him incapable of speaking on vent, was speaking to xxArthasxx, a Death Knight officer/co-raid leader. (I don’t know the events leading up to this as I had just logged back online. :3) “Xxarthasxx,” Lungblender said, “the day you outdps a spreadsheet is the day I learn to play a priest.” Now, I’m not positive what Lungblender’s problems with priests are, especially since he could than cite a vow of silence as his reason for not talking on vent, but the rest of that sentence filled me with a joy only achieved during sex or a really good piece of chocolate cake. Because it’s true, and I’m glad to see that our melee lead gets it.

As many of us know, there is a veritable wealth of spreadsheets out there. Enhancement Shaman have Enhsim, Hunters have Female Dwarf, Rogues have excel spreadsheets found at Elitist Jerks, and a gigantic number of classes have at least some sort of use for Rawr. What’s surprising to me is that, with all the spreadsheets available, there is still a gigantic part of the World of Warcraft playerbase that refuse to utilize them to their advantage. This is stupid. Don’t do it.

World of Warcraft combat is math. Every Kill Shot you cast requires the game to calculate your attack power and multiply it by Kill Shot’s coefficient, multiply by relevant %Damage multipliers, calculate mob armor, calculate your armor penetration, recalculate mob armor based on your armor penetration, and more. (Not necessarily in that order or anything.) These formulas are known, and they’re set in stone. What this means is that the creator of spreadsheets know the exact formula the game is going to use for each of your abilities, and calculates your dps doing the exact same thing the game will do when you’re in combat.

Math doesn’t lie. If the spreadsheet says that gemming armor penetration is a dps loss, gemming armor penetration is a dps loss. It doesn’t matter that a bunch of hunters who aren’t you are doing it, or that it’s become the vogue stat of Wrath of the Lich King, or that you think by trying rly rly hard it will be a dps upgrade. If the spreadsheet says it’s a dps loss, it’s a dps loss.

So, I’m going to move on to a few frequently used arguments against using the spreadsheet.

A) Gear and proper spec don’t matter, all that matters is how well I play. For lack of a better word, this is the most retarded argument I’ve seen in a while. Here are the facts: If you play well, you will do good dps. If you gear/spec well while playing well, you will do better dps. See how that works? The fact that you’re trying to bring back Beast Master DPS because all it takes is playing well is a fun concept, but  if you were playing that well as Marksmanship you’d be better. All offense.

B) I tried out X spec on a dummy and it did less damage than Y spec, even though X spec is supposedly better. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Not all specs are created equal, and dummies are missing relevant raid debuffs that can make or break a spec. (For example, Enhancement Shaman scale with nearly every buff/debuff in the game, while Elemental scales with only the caster debuffs. This means that on a dummy with no debuffs, Elemental will likely pull ahead…if it wasn’t in a crappy state right now.) More important than debuffs, 5 minute dummy tests are not statistically accurate. Just because you have a 50% crit rate does not mean that in a 5minute test you’ll crit 50% of the time, and the fact that you got really lucky RNG when testing your Frostfire Bolt spec does not mean that it’s better for you than Arcane. Enhsim, for example, simulates dps over multiple hours of gameplay, meaning that nearly all RNG is hammered out of the equation, resulting in a more accurate simulated dps.

C) I tried X spec that the spreadsheet said was better, but I’m more comfortable in Y spec. This is actually a fine argument, but one you need to get over. Change is hard, and we’re resistant to it, but in the end that change will end up being better for you. If you’re worried about underperforming on Putricide attempts as Marksmanship because you’ve been Survival since you hit 80, that’s fine. Don’t spec MM for Putricide yet. Instead, run VoA10s/25s, pug ToCs, raid the test dummy, and practice on unconsequential first bosses of ICC as Marksmanship to familiarize yourself with playing the spec in raids that don’t matter. And, in a week or two when you’re feeling confident in your ability, then make the change.

There are more arguments, and I’m sure I’ll see a few in comments if people read this. However, I have to leave for work now, so I’ll save those for later and add them in.

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