Also titled, “Why the Previous Post Has No Merit”.

After finally getting the chance to go over the two separate fights I was comparing, let me show you exactly why a gain of 500DPS is almost completely unrelated to the changes I made in spec and rotation.

First of all, I was using the only fight I’d done in the same gear – Saurfang.

Let me explain to you how our guild has been running Saurfang: Each hunter kites/kills a beast. This often requires instant high-yield shots, such as Arcane. So I still used Arcane during my post-changes Saurfang fight. Not to mention, there were times when I forgot not to use it in my normal rotation.

Secondly, the first fight was unsuccessful, and because of this, much shorter than the successful post-changes fight. Here are the details:

So you can see here the huge differences in the fights themselves, and also the similarities which actually shouldn’t be there. Just look at the pie chart.

The group makeup was only slightly different each night. Both nights, we only had 24 people (my Marksman self is not included in the following lists).

Group Makeup 1

Assasination/Mutilate Rogue

Survival Hunter x2

Ret Pally

Blood DK

Fury Warrior

Arcane Mage x2

Shadow Priest

Affliction Lock

Feral Druid

Boomkin

Elemental Shaman

Enhance Shaman

Unholy DK

Marksman Hunter

Prot Pally

Prot Warrior

Resto Shaman

Holy Priest

Holy Pally

Resto Druid

Disc Priest

Group Makeup 2

Assasination/Mutilate Rogue

Survival Hunter

MM Hunter x2

Blood DK x2

Fury Warrior

Arms Warrior

Arcane Mage x2

Shadow Priest

Elemental Shaman

Enhancement Shaman

Afflic Lock

Feral Druid

Holy Pally x2

Disc Priest

Holy Priest

Resto Shaman

Prot Warrior

Prot Pally

Resto Druid

So you can see that the two nights are slightly different in makeup. This can account for a number of possible DPS changes.

Thirdly, I know for a fact that my performance with the talent and rotation changes was worse than my performance without them. How do I know? You should always know how well or how poorly you’ve performed in a raid and be honest about it. Sometimes you have good nights, and sometimes you’re just not quite on top of things.

Fourthly, and as Wulf mentioned in a previous comment, I do believe my pet was at mid-range happiness while fighting in the post-changes battle, while in the previous fight, he was very happy. This affects pet damage, and so affects the outcome of the comparison. If I had noticed, and fed Ceallach before the post-changes Saurfang fight, the DPS would’ve been higher.

I also know for a fact that my GUILD’S performance was much better on the post-changes fight than the previous fight. Just the fact that one was a failure and the other a success can prove that. What does this change? This can change any number of things, like for instance, how much target-changing I had to do, or how much movement I had to make to compensate for mistakes. When the guild performs well, it’s easier for me to stand in one place and PewPew.When everything clicks, the fight goes much smoother.

And finally, notice the differences in damage outputs and critical strikes, as well as the number of shots fired.

Because of all of these things, my plan is to dual-spec both particular talents/glyphs, pay more attention to each rotation, and make comparisons which are much more related to one another before coming to any conclusions.

All in all, what’s my point?

ALWAYS DOUBLE-CHECK YOURSELF BEFORE YOU WRECK YOURSELF!