“The Meters” and Why They’re Useless (May 29th, 2008 // 11:36am)

Wynthea over at World of Matticus wrote a post yesterday about why she’s always checking the meters. She raises many good points about how she uses “the meters” to help her better herself in raids. I agree with many of her points, and believe she’s definitely on to something. However, I feel like playing devil’s advocate, and play the opposite side. Don’t get me wrong, I do believe that Wynthea is correct in many aspects, and in many ways I’m on her side, I just feel like stating the opposite approach to get myself (and you) thinking. I’m going to go ahead and say that you should go ahead and toss your meters away. Ignore them, don’t even look at them. Got your attention, didn’t I? Well, let me explain.

“The Meters”

Before I go into why “the meters” are something you should stay away from, let me explain what I’m referring to. When I’m talking about “the meters,” I’m talking about any utility where a player’s performance is represented as a number, and then compared to other players in the same group. I’m talking about utilities that track everything from DPS to heals done. I’m talking about Recount, Violation, Assessment, WoW Web Stats, SW-Stats, DamageMeters, and other add-ons of a similar nature.

When They’re Useful

I can’t deny that in certain situations they can be tremendously useful. However, the middle of a raid is not one of those situations. These add-ons are most useful after the fight, for analysis. While raiding on my mage, I would save my Recount data after every boss fight, and crop out the relevant section of my combat log for WWS. After every raid, I’d sit down and look at the recap of each fight, and analyze my performance. I look at everything from the timing of my cooldowns to when I use my potions and trinkets. I could compare various item sets, and various spell rotations. I would use this information to better myself, and to perform even better at the next raid. Healers can use this information to better downrank their abilities, and to work on the timing of their heals, and the use of their cooldowns and potions. Tanks can work on timing their “oh shit” buttons better, and learn when to use their trinkets.

Few players in the game go out of their way to research their class, reading about each spec and how it works, and looking into the math behind their game. Few players optimize their item builds, and research optimal spell rotations. However, even fewer players go the extra length and analyze their raid style after the fact. When they do, it becomes clearly obvious that they took the extra mile. When I was raiding with my mage (pre Frost buff), I was a healthy 5% above the other mages in my guild (including equally geared fire mages). But that’s because I knew exactly when to use each cooldown, and each trinket, in order to maximize my DPS.

The biggest mistake with the meters is that people think they’re making the most progress by analyzing their raid style while actively raiding, when in fact you make the most progress and do your best work if you analyze the information afterwards.

Why They’re Useless: DPS

I know what you’re thinking right now. You’re going to tell me how seeing your meters creates a need to achieve, and creates the sense of competition between you and the other DPS. You’re going to tell me that seeing yourself drop below your usual rank inspires you to give it that extra 10% and see yourself rise the ranks again, which improves the raid’s performance.

Well, I’m going to say that I think that’s a completely wrong way to approach the situation. I believe that it is the duty of every player in the raid to always bring their best game to each and every fight that the raid encounters. Not doing so would be letting the raid, and your fellow raiders, down.

There shouldn’t be an extra 10% to give, as you should already be giving it your all. You should be doing everything in your power to perform at your absolute best. If there’s an extra 10% you should be giving, then you’re not working hard enough.

Relying on the sense of competition to give it your all can easily end up with one (or more) of three problems. First of all, think about it, if you need that sense of competition to be your best, what are you going to do when you don’t have that competition? Are you not going to be able to give it your all? Are you going to under-perform? Being used to constant competition to enhance oneself only hurts you when you don’t have that competition.

Two, it can form unhealthy relationships. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve made many friends and had an absolute blast when we’re really close on the charts, and we’re going back and forth, and the competition is something that makes adrenaline pump through your body. However, think of the player who can’t seem to reach where they want to be on the charts. I’ve seen multiple instances where the meters have caused guild drama, and have even ruined friendships.

Finally, it can actually harm the raid. I’ve been in quite a few fights where two players were fighting for the top spot, and were blinded by the need to beat the other, and ended up ignoring the logistics of the fight and causing a raid wipe. In many fights DPS have various roles, and focusing on the charts too much can cause you to forget a responsibility you have, which costs the raid.

Why They’re Useless: Healers

First and foremost, the meters should be the last thing a healer should look at. The only reason a healer should be looking at the meters is to look for sudden DPS spikes so they can proactively heal the player that’s about to pull aggro. Healers have a lot going on around them at any one time. They need to watch health bars, watch their own mana, track their cooldowns, track the other healers’ mana, track what’s going on in the fight, do downranking, and so much more. The last thing they should be focusing on is the meters in the corner of their screen. The healer’s job is to keep players alive. Knowing that you healed for X amount over the whole fight tells you absolutely nothing useful. Additionally, a healer’s performance can vary greatly based on their healing assignment, and the fight. The only thing a healer could possibly use a healing meter for is for benchmarking purposes, and even that’s a bit shaky, as situations change (tanks become better, or take more damage this one fight, etc.). And let’s not even mention how some don’t correctly track statistics such as Lifebloom blooming, and Prayer of Mending bouncing.

A few of you are probably going to tell me that you use meters to help track your overhealing, in an attempt to minimize it. That again is both class-dependent and situation-dependent. And in many ways, it’s affected more by other players than by yourself (someone throws a quick heal to a target you were healing). However, tracking overhealing is something important, but I state yet again that it’s something that’s better done after the raid is over, in order to analyze one’s performance, as opposed to watching it while the fight is happening (and comparing it to the other healer’s performance).

Why They’re Useless: Tanks

I considered not even writing this section, as it almost speaks for itself. However, discussing only two out of the three roles in a raid made this post seem incomplete. Honestly, I’ll be surprised if any tank out there can actually get valuable information from the meters (other than the threat meter, of course) while a fight is happening. Knowing how much DPS someone is doing doesn’t help the tank, knowing how many deaths a player’s had isn’t really helpful either. Even tank-related stats such as Damage Taken, Total Threat, and (for Druid and Warriors) Rage Generated are completely and totally unhelpful in a raid situation.

Again, quite a few of these statistics can be very helpful in improving oneself after a raid when you’re analyzing your performance (”Where did most of my damage I took come from? Should I get more dodge or more health? Why did I die? etc.”), but there’s really no reason to have any sort of meters (again, other than the threat meters) open while tanking.

When I tank, I look at only one meter (after the raid), and that’s “Healing Received.” I look at the healers who gave me most heals, and focused most of their time on me, and whisper them a quick thank you, and compliment them on a job well done.

Why They’re Useless: Overall

In addition to each role not really requiring the meters during a fight, there are many reasons not to have the meters open on your screen. First and foremost, the meters are a “heavy” add-on. They take up a lot of memory, and are very active during the fight (as they sync with the meters of other players). I’ve found disabling my meters during fights has given me a 5-10 fps increase easily. While for quite a few people this isn’t much, those raiding at 20-25fps will notice a huge performance boost by increasing their fps. Some meters (such as Recount) are smart as to when they sync to minimize this, but they still take up a lot of memory, it just can’t be helped.

Another thing that removing the meters will give you is increased screen estate. I play WoW on two computers, with resolutions of 1280×1024 (2560×1024 if you count the other monitor) and 1680×1050. My brother plays WoW with a resolution of 1024×768. I’ve found that if there’s one thing that remains constant regardless of how much space you have, is that you never have enough space. With my UI setup, I aim for a minimal approach, but my screen can still look and feel really cluttered during a boss fight. I have threat meters bouncing over here, I have my damage meters bouncing over here, all my raid and their health bars and casting bars bouncing over there, all my incoming/outgoing information bouncing here, my buffs taking up that space, my cooldowns taking up space as well. You can never have enough screen space, and eliminating the meters will not only free up some room on your monitor, but also remove a HUGE distraction (don’t lie, we all feel that “oooh, growing and shrinking bars” feeling).

Additionally, you’ll find that you’ll become a better player overall, as not only are you focusing on the correct things during a fight, you’re doing the proper analysis afterwards. Plus, as I’ll talk about in just a moment, you’ll find that you’ll become much better at doing the role you’re assigned, and your guild will notice.

Finally, and to sum it up, the meters are almost never practically useful during a fight. They don’t provide immediately useful information (for any role), they take up memory, they are distracting, they make you lose focus of your goal, they can cause disagreements and arguments, and can ruin guilds who focus on them too much. The bottom line is that the meters are truly no more than an ego boost for whoever’s at the top.

How My Guild Handles It

One of the reasons I love my guild as much as I do is they way they approach this tricky dilemma. Most guilds use meters as a way to rank players, and use it as a means to remove players who are under performing. I’ve seen some guilds use it as a way to attempt to improve raid performance by offering bonuses (ie: extra DKP) to those on the top of the charts. If you’re in one of those guilds, and you’re happy with your system, then more power to you, I have nothing against that. However, I think the way my guild handles it is phenomenal, which is one of the reasons I’m in the guild in the first place.

The way my guild handles it is by thinking of each fight as a collection of roles. Basically, each person has a job. The performance of each person is determined solely by how well they did their specific job (or if they did it at all). True, for many fights a job can be something as simple as DPS the boss and ignore everything else, but every so often you get a special job, like “pick up the add that spawns”, or “dodge the bombs”, or even “CC this target at this time.” If you do your job, and you do it to the best of your ability, then that’s all the raid can ask of you. If we don’t kill a boss within the enrage timer, we may sub out some DPS, but that’s rarely based on how they did on the meters, but rather their gear level. We assume everyone is optimizing their spell rotation and pushing themselves to play as best as they can (given their gear). My guild simply approaches the situation with a simple yet complete question; “Did you do your job?”

Twitter Replies

I asked a very simple question over on Twitter:

“The Meters” (damage, healing, etc.), useful or not? Ditch them or keep them?

Anna from Too Many Annas replied:

[They are] situationally useful. Keep them, but on a short leash (so to speak)

Brendan from With That Said stated:

They are useful until you are repremanded [sp] for being too low. They should only be used as a guide to how your raid is doing as a whole

Chris from ChrisWeeden commented:

I’d say keep them. The data is useful if you look beyond the generic who did the most damage/healing.

Aurdon from I Sheep Things mentioned:

I vote keep them but turn them hide them during boss fights to keep you focused on other meters like omen

Softthistle from A Little WoW for Me had the following to say:

I like them so long as they’re not used in the wrong way - ie fighting for 1st position etc >_<

How About You?

I’m sure you probably have a lot to say after reading my post. Perhaps you still vehemently believe that everyone should be using meters, and that throwing them aside would be a tragic mistake. Or maybe you used to believe that and after reading my post I’ve changed your mind and now you’re unsure or have switched sides.

So I ask you, what do you think about the meters? Do you use them personally? Do you recommend them to new players? Do you analyze your performance during a raid or afterwards? How does your guild approach this situation? Does your guild encourage them, or discourage them? Does it use them to rank players?

Let me know what you think in a comment, or in a blog post of your own!