Just put together a new melee group, couple questions

[d0z3rr]

Taking a break from the paladins and the grind to 80 (almost there!). I did a character transfer and put this new melee group together:

Paladin tank lvl 60
Fury warrior (terribad gear) lvl 60
Combat rogue (mainly swords) lvl63
Feral druid lvl 68 (some northrend greens)
Resto Shaman lvl 68

After getting all the castsequences sorted out on the dps, I set them off to the target dummy. I compared the AP on the 3 dps, rogue has 1400 fully buffed, druid has 2700, warrior has 1300.

First of all the warrior's dps is just sad as can be. He averages about 250-300 dps with titans grip and 2 2h weapons. I made sure my castsequence was not the cause. I'm really hoping he picks up the pace once he gets more gear. He will be dualwielding most of the time, but his off hand damage is piddly! I haven't played a fury warrior since pre BC, but the offhand damage is so low I'm wondering if I should just stick to 2h?

Rogue's dps is right at 500 when attacking by himself. But once he's in the group and everyone is attacking, fully buffed, he almost out dps's the druid! I was very surprised by this, he's an animal. His dps increases 300 when everyone is attacking. The druid and rogue are neck and neck for total dmg and dps, sometimes the rogue is on top.

Here's my question, if the druid has a 1300 AP advantage, how the hell is it not outdpsing the rogue? She does about 650dps by herself.

If the warrior's dps continues to be fail, I might swap it out for something else.

[Ualaa]

With a lot of melee gear, the warrior will do very well.
Not sure how much constitutes "a lot".
For a lot of raid content (in various expansions), the DPS warrior has been top or near the top on DPS.
Had one in Tier 5/6, which was always behind the warlocks, but ahead of everyone else.
Have one, who through Naxx25/Ulduar25 was top, every raid he played - but guild kind of fell apart, so not sure if that would have continued in ToC/ICC25's.
If you stick with the warrior, it should really improve; not sure another toon wouldn't be easier though.

A few questions...
The Druid is going cat and not bear to DPS, correct?
Are either the druid or rogue attempting to be behind the mob?
What are they using, as far as abilities?

[d0z3rr]

With a lot of melee gear, the warrior will do very well.
Not sure how much constitutes "a lot".
For a lot of raid content (in various expansions), the DPS warrior has been top or near the top on DPS.
Had one in Tier 5/6, which was always behind the warlocks, but ahead of everyone else.
Have one, who through Naxx25/Ulduar25 was top, every raid he played - but guild kind of fell apart, so not sure if that would have continued in ToC/ICC25's.
If you stick with the warrior, it should really improve; not sure another toon wouldn't be easier though.

A few questions...
The Druid is going cat and not bear to DPS, correct?
Are either the druid or rogue attempting to be behind the mob?
What are they using, as far as abilities?

Whenever I can, I always position melee behind the target. Of course, the rogue is sword spec so he doesn't have to worry about backstab. The druid does not have shred in her rotation, and I wouldn't want to deal with her being incorrectly positioned, and having shred hold up one of the castsequences (unless this can be worked around? I use castsequences and /click).

The rogue does a 2 combo point slice n dice, then does a 3 combo point eviscerate, rinse and repeat. The druid starts out with rake, then tiger fury, then builds up a 5 combo point ferocious bite with mangle. rake is always put up after cooldown, and tiger's fury as well.

The warrior simply spams bloodthirst, and keeps rend up. He also will do overpower if it's available.

I changed the warrior to use a 2h, and his dps went from 180 to 350, but I really like dualwielding....I like the warrior because his macros were so easy to set up, did it first try. The only thing I need to figure out is how to only apply battleshout when it's not up, I basically loaded his battle shout cast with max commas so he doesn't waste a rotation so often.

If anyone could offer tips, that would be nice. I'd say I have the least experience with feral druids and warriors.

*edit* After more testing and tweaking, I squeezed 850 dps out of the rogue, and about 760 on the druid. Still weird how the druid has such a large AP advantage, not to mention 5 levels, yet falls behind on dps. She also has a 29% crit rate, where the rogue has a 19%.

[Ualaa]

I'd guess there's room for more improvement on your druid.

The best I can see, for your macro to not get stuck, would be to go with two macros.
One is spammable from any direction.
And one is spammable only from behind the mob.
The rear attack will be a lot of DPS for the cat, just as it can be for a dagger rogue.

Even if the rogue is swords, I'd attempt to get behind the mob as much as possible.
You'll land more hits, with fewer dodges, parries and blocks.
And need fewer heals from frontal effects, etc.

I don't have much experience on warriors.
Dual wielding generally had a lot more rage, and dumped it via specials.
While the big two-handers were more Mortal Strike types with slower but bigger hits.
Pretty sure, Fury will beat out Arms for dps.

[Multibocks]

combat daggers is dead, so I assume you mean mutilate rogue and for that you dont have to be behind.

[Ualaa]

While you don't have to be behind, to use a Mutilate.

If you can arrange to be behind, you'll land a lot more hits where the mob does not dodge, parry or block.
And you'll eat no ripostes.
Most mobs also have nastier abilities in the frontal cone, which is why tanks turn them from the raid.
Being behind means you don't take these types of attacks either.

With Mutilate, if you cannot get behind, you can still land your blows fine.
But if you can get behind the mob, it is an immense advantage.
That goes for all melee classes, using daggers, maces, claws or polearms.

[Multibocks]

While you don't have to be behind, to use a Mutilate.

If you can arrange to be behind, you'll land a lot more hits where the mob does not dodge, parry or block.
And you'll eat no ripostes.
Most mobs also have nastier abilities in the frontal cone, which is why tanks turn them from the raid.
Being behind means you don't take these types of attacks either.

With Mutilate, if you cannot get behind, you can still land your blows fine.
But if you can get behind the mob, it is an immense advantage.
That goes for all melee classes, using daggers, maces, claws or polearms.

Haha Ualaa I just had to point this one out. You must be an old Everquest player as ripostes don't exist in WoW, which I'm sure you know.

[Frausty]

Haha Ualaa I just had to point this one out. You must be an old Everquest player as ripostes don't exist in WoW, which I'm sure you know.

Parry's in WOW are all effectively riposte's - when you parry an attack it reduces your swing timer on your MH weapon by 40%, leading to a faster attack back. Thus, if you have 5 guys meleeing a target and that target is capable of parrying you will be eating extra dmg from his faster attacks after parries, effectively a riposte, thus the reason expertise is such a useful tank stat.

Also, rogues have an 11 point combat skill called riposte that becomes available only after parrying an attack -

I played eq too btw, and while I love wow, nothing will ever replace my joy in casting ice comet for the first time... ah that was epic.

As far as the fellow who was trying fury dps without berserker stance and whirlwind --

Whirlwind for a fury warrior hits 4 targets for mh and oh weapon dmg (8 hits) every 8 seconds, so its a pretty incredibly huge deal

As far as buffing the melee group goes though, I think arms buffs that increase physical dmg for you will be better in the long run as a fury warriors rampage doesn't stack with the feral druids superior leader of the pack effect.

Grand Marshal Frausty
80 Gnome Berserker

[d0z3rr]

So I have been playing this group a lot more lately, and it is really fun. I did Ring of Blood at 65 and it was a cakewalk, did they nerf the bosses in that quest sequence? I remember struggling with that on my paladins.

Anyhoo, before that, the warrior continued to have absolutely terrible dps, I'm talking 350 if he's on a roll, and an average of 120 on trash. I got the druid up to about 1000 with some tweaking, and the rogue not far behind with like 800.

I was super close to ditching the warrior and putting in an enhancement shaman, which is the only spec I have never played before. As a last resort, I respecced the warrior arms and gave him a 2hander. Now he is doing some very nice dps, it's almost a 5 fold increase in dps for him. The funny thing is his macros stayed practically the same, and all I had to do was swap out bloodthirst for mortal strike and remove some commas.

Now he's a beast with about 30% crit fully buffed and more AP than the rogue.

[Acerak]

So I have been playing this group a lot more lately, and it is really fun. I did Ring of Blood at 65 and it was a cakewalk, did they nerf the bosses in that quest sequence? I remember struggling with that on my paladins.

Anyhoo, before that, the warrior continued to have absolutely terrible dps, I'm talking 350 if he's on a roll, and an average of 120 on trash. I got the druid up to about 1000 with some tweaking, and the rogue not far behind with like 800.

I was super close to ditching the warrior and putting in an enhancement shaman, which is the only spec I have never played before. As a last resort, I respecced the warrior arms and gave him a 2hander. Now he is doing some very nice dps, it's almost a 5 fold increase in dps for him. The funny thing is his macros stayed practically the same, and all I had to do was swap out bloodthirst for mortal strike and remove some commas.

Now he's a beast with about 30% crit fully buffed and more AP than the rogue.

I've played my warrior as DPS for a long time, and I can say with certainty that until you get at least ilevel200+ gear on him (if not better), don't bother with fury. Played as a main and not using castsequences, I get the same crappy results you did until I respecced.

Arms is the way to go until he gets WAY better gear. Sad, but true.