worldofweirdcraft.net

The Devil is in the details when it comes to end game content, more so now than ever with ICC fully open.  I get asked alot, what Gear Score do I need to raid ICC?  Sadly the question does not have a simple answer at all, its all about the details that gear score doesn’t cover or take into account.  You see,  to start off, I recommend a GS of 5000, but I can stand two DPS next to each other, same class, race  and watch one pump out 5k dps while the other does 3.5k.  I have seen it many times before and the lower dps is like…WTF what am I doing wrong?

• Know your Class and Spec – When I started raiding with my death knight I was always impressed by a fellow guildie who was hitting 1k dps higher than me at all times. I would check his gear and stats and we both ran the same build and never really got it untill I started really searching on my hit rotations.  BAM!  It hit me hard when I found out half the spells and junk I used was actually dragging down my DPS.  I realized that my total hit rotation only needed to be about 3 keys. Blood Strike, Plague Strike, Death Strike…spam repeat.  Wait, it can’t be that simple can it?  Yes, it really is. Don’t over complicate your DPS, know what your heaviest hitting spells and attacks are, stick to them like they are written in stone.  You may have lots of fancy spells, attacks and abilites you can use, but how much to they contribute to your total DPS?  I advised a warrior to stop using his thunderclap and demorializing shouts on boss fights because in the time it takes him to throw those shouts, he could have popped off another mortal strike for bigger dps.
• Hit Cap -  This is something I notice a lot on DPS all the time.  They come into ICC talking about how they pull 6k DPS on mobs easy, raid starts, clear trash, get to the boss and their dps shows at 3k… So were they full of it?  NO, mobs are 80, raid bosses though are not, they are a 83 Elite.  You may have enough hit ratting to never miss a trash mob but when it comes to that boss, your coming up to bat with a big swing and a miss.   Research your class and know what the hit cap is for your character, I don’t care if you have to switch out Crit or Haste gem with a hit ratting, because your haste and crit do you no good if you can’t hit your target.
• Armor Penetration- If you have hit cap on your character and you know how to DPS, its time to stack your Armor Penetration.  Its a new stat added in Lich King that alot of people still don’t fully understand it, but the basic rundown is how much of a targets armor you ignore.  The more armor pen = how much armor you ignore on hit = more damage delt to target.
• Gem for Success – Once again, know your class and what stat you need to succeed, and not just in terms of DPS. For my disc priest, its not just about stacking intelligence and crit.  Yes big heals are great, but for me personaly, I stack haste.  I prefer to cast my heals fast and often compared to big slow heals.  When you heal raids, being able to heal multiple targets very quickly can prevent a wipe.  When it comes to DPS, do you know which gems help your class and spec the most?  My death knight stacks strength and armor pen, once I met my hit cap and got my expertise to a place I like.  Also..I don’t know if I even need to bring this up, but if your not fully socket with northrend epic gems, you just flat out fail.  What are you waiting for?  ICC is it!   Stop waiting for your next piece upgrade for that epic gem, spend the gold you cheap bastard.
• Enchant Everything – Do I really need to say more about this?  Stop being cheap and waiting.  If you plan to raid ICC you better have everything enchanted head to foot.  Buying the best enchants for each piece makes a huge difference.  From the added spell power or attack power on your weapon to the strength, agility, stamina, what every is best for your character, stack it.  Every piece on my DK is for added strength, my priest, spell power, if your a hunter, go pure agility.  Let your gems and gear stats take care of your hit and armor pen, but try to keep your enchants based off of your main stat.
• Bonus Enchants – Bonus enchants you say?  This is the big one people.  Do you have exalted with Sons of Hodir?  You should, you need that exalted shoulder enchant for bonus spell power or attack power.  You need to get the head enchant from Ebon Blade for attack power or Kirin Tor for spell power.  Have you added on epic leg armor?  You need it, spend the gold and do it.

• Flasks – Once again, its not the time to be cheap, hopefully you have a good raid that keeps a bank tab full of flasks for raiding parties, but if not, then you need to get a few flasks and keep them up during the entire raid.

Last but not least, don’t think for a second that ICC is the only raid that you can run anymore.  There is a lot of value to running Naxx, Ulduar, TOC, even the dragons of Northrend.  Get that time in, gain the raid experience and use it as a way to build your skills.  ICC is not the time to be trying out a new spec, or a new rotation, its game day so show up with your A game ready and remember gear score is only a starting point, without everything else I covered above, your not ready.

3 Responses to “The Devil is in the Details”