How much does ilvl affect dps?

Classes Mage
1

This is a question that I’ve asked before, although it might only have been a sub-question i.e. a reply or part of a reply I gave to a reply to one of my posts. Either way, I want to throw it out there again for more potential feedback: I saw a Fire mage at 4th dps on a Grong Heroic fight just now. I was Frost at the time and came 12th but when I was Fire the time before I came 14th. Now I know that in at least 1 of the Grong Heroic fights I did today, things went horribly wrong, but just wondering how much of the difference in dps rank might be explained by the ilvl difference. He’s 391. I’m 382. Both of us only have 1 x WIldfire piece. He has Duplicative Incineration and Blaster Master on his other pieces. I noticed he also has Trailing Embers, but I think take Stronger Together instead as I PvP and don’t want sheeps breaking. Other than that, I have 2 x Blaster Master and Firemind, although have Frost traits right now as I tried Frost out earlier.

Also Blizzard you need to fix this forum: when trying to edit my title to make it long enough for your requirements, it threw up a wobbling ‘title needs to be at least 15 chars’ error every time I pressed space. Mega irritating.

2

There’s not much between those traits but 10 ilvls is a big difference yh. Fire isn’t a straight foward spec though an error in combustion can really cost your dps and having the wrong talents can cost you dearly too.

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3

Like a 5 ilvl difference is quite small compared to the other factors.
what if the lower ilvl guy has bis traits, bis trinkets and sockets in almost every slot? his gear would be better than the other guys who has bigger ilvl.
But even this is almost irrelevant when compared to the fact that if you dont know how to use your gear (aka dont know how to play your class), you might actually be 30 ilvl behind the other dude in pure dps numbers.

4

Thanks for your reply, but it would be more useful I think if you would comment on a 10 ilvl difference than a 5, since that’s closer to what there was between us.

I know you touched on this when you said

but it’s you initial comment:

which I think should be adjusted to fit the situation of a 10 ilvl difference, even if all that means is changing the 5 to a 10. I mean to be totally exact, it was actually a 9 ilvl difference, as you know. Maybe this too is ‘quite small compared to the other factors’ and this is what I’m interested in finding out about.

5

These are all meaningless numbers. What is the difference between 4th and 12th in your encounter? Could be anything between 1 and 10k dps. Impossible to say anything valuable.

Otherwise, you need to remember that item level is only about intellect and stamina, and on top of that you have itemisation that will additionally affect performance.

But if you really want to check out what you could do better, and if it’s just gear difference you simply need logs. Everything else is just guesswork.

6

I actually don’t think you need to know what the difference in dps was in order to answer the question. You can just answer the question of how much of an increase in dps 10 ilvls provides, all other factors being equal.

That said, I don’t have a problem sharing that info. I don’t recall exactly, but I think the difference in our dps may have been as much 4 to 6k or more.

7

Getting the raw value of just 9 ilvl can be easilly aquired by simming, but my whole point was that its not that simple. Even 10 ilvl can be overcome with sockets alone, not to mention bis gear, bis azerite perks, bis trinkets and better choice of talents for that particular situation.

You should not look for an easy answer, because if you ever get one, it will most likely be wrong.

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8

This is something I’m unfamiliar with, but thanks for the info.

I heard what you said about how there are other factors than ilvl which need consideration. My issue was why you said ‘like a 5 ilvl difference’ when it was more like 10 a ilvl difference and I just wanted you to clarify whether or not you would also consider a 10 ilvl difference to be ‘quite small compared to the other factors.’

I’m not looking for an easy one, but I am looking for one that’s as clear as possible.

9

for heaves sake, 10 is just twice as much as 5, it just needs more of those other factors to overcome, which are impossible to calculate.
the clearest answer you will ever get is this.
Sim yourself with the gear and talents you had and then sim the other guys with the gear and talents he had and see the difference in raw dps number.
Thats the best you can do right now.

to tl;dr go look up simming (simcraft), learn to use it and see what you can do.
Additionally there are sites that when fed the logs of the fight tell you what mistakes you made, like rotation wise and what abilities you got hit by, same for the other guy, not really related to ilvl but will give you a better picture of why his dps was so much bigger.
(if you dont have the logs for the fight, ignore the last part, but look it up once you get logs of a fight that you were in)

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10

You asked if 10 ilvl difference could explain the different ranking, not how much difference it provides. That is a different question, especially in this context. To be fair, it could be said the difference is mostly academic, depending on your goals and perspective.

However, the important part is that you should not be looking at item level. You are focused on the wrong variable. You cannot boil down quality of your gear to average item level for a number of reasons.

First of all, as others mentioned, there are sockets, trinket effects, and azerite traits. For a taste, go to bloodmallet, and check the difference between best and worst trinkets and traits.

Secondly, average item level is a poor representation of even primary stats like intellect. It is an average after all, but different slots contribute differently to your damage. Head has more stat budget than shoulders, for example, so the same item level difference will provide more stats and more damage. Weapon has disproportionate amount of intellect. Trinkets’ effects can be game changing.

On top of all that, there is so much more to a single encounter than gear alone. There are procs, there are crits, there is personal variation in execution of the rotation. Go to warcraftlogs, view statistics for some boss, and then check how dps of a spec changes between 20th and 80th percentile even if you narrow it down to just 3 different possible item levels. For mythic Grong and mages in 403-405 item level range that’s over 3k DPS difference alone.

That of course means that yes, the gear difference could explain different rankings, easily. Even if you had the same item level, the difference in itemisation could explain the difference in ranking. And if you used that to justify to yourself how you don’t have room to improve and it was really just down to gear, you would still be lying to yourself, especially if you told yourself you just need more item level. Nobody wants to be part of such a lie, which is why we write more than a simple “yes.”

It is more likely that difference in dps (especially if it was as huge as 6k, although it’s relative ratios that are better for judging things like that rather than absolute numbers) was caused by difference in handling mechanics (or being targetted by mechanics). If you need to ask these questions and don’t even know about simming, you are far more likely to have a lot more of room for improvement in how you handle the spec and the fight than in terms of gear. Gear only amplifies that, and you can use it to narrow the gap.

For example, if you check different item level ranges on that mythic Grong stats, 10 item levels wouldn’t be enough to generate a 6k dps difference. (It’s more like 3k, at that level of play and gear.)

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11

No I didn’t. I asked these 2 questions:

’ HOW MUCH DOES ILVL AFFECT DPS?’

This said, the rest of your reply is useful, so thanks and admittedly it was the difference in dps that I was interested in finding out about rather than the difference in dps rank, although I’m not convinced they aren’t effectively the same question, but I don’t see any need to get into that, so I say let’s just replace dps rank with dps and call it a day.

12

Bottom line. Numbers on gear increase dps but that can come ilvl, traits and trinkets.

Keep playing, do your research on your spec and the fights, your gear and your ability will get better at the same time.

Edit: just had a thought. If you sim your character then you will get your maximum dps. That’s gonna be hard to hit but if someone doing more than your max then you know it’s your gear and not you.

13

Ok thanks for that.

14

I must have been confused by too much focus on presenting ranking during the encounter as useful information.

15

I mean I think you gave a good answer to the question which you could still have given without any of the dps numbers I gave, since I don’t recall your using them in the answer at all.

This said, I think what you say about the dps difference between 4th and 12th varying from group to group is useful to have pointed out.

16

Let’s say you have all your gear at 380 and he has all his gear at 390, let’s also say he has 30 more intellect on stats along with secondary stats on every item (azerite will give him more than 30 of int) 9 items * 30 = 270 int + around 200 from 3 azerite pieces, he has almost 600 int more and that is very big difference, also he has more chances to crit, more stable damage via versatility, or bigger burst due to mastery, more haste means he can put more spell in the same timeframe, so yes, 10 ilvl is difference.

17

Ok thanks. I did a Heroic Jadefire the other night and a similar thing happened (right down to the fact that the other Fire mage was even Russian again, funnily enough), although this time I think I was 16th and the other Fire mage was 4th (we had 18 dps this time, rather than 14 as we did in the group I referred to in my OP). Now I didn’t log the fight (I might do this, especially if I find that my dps still seems low with better gear), but I remember that his ilvl was 394 and mine 387. He had 3 400 ilvl Azerite pieces with 2 x Wildfire, 1 Blightborne Infusion and 1 Heed My Call. His dps was 15k. Mine was 9.6 or something. Just thought I’d share this in case it sheds any more light on the matter.

18

Someone did log it. You can find it (and few others) if you search for yourself on warcraftlogs.

The low hanging fruit to improve is to use the Meteor. If you spec in it, you should actually use it on cooldown. It seems you cast it only once the whole fight. He also had lower downtime (time spent not casting).

Jadefire is a cleave fight, so to maximise dps on it you should probably make sure to burst around when both bosses are down. He was also not using rune, but had a burst trinket which specifically will result in better damage on a fight with downtime.

19

If you’re doing 9.6k dps at 387 then it’s not an ilvl issue. It’s a learn to play issue.

20

Thanks a lot. I searched myself on warcraftlogs and although I found my character there, I don’t see the information you refer to about my meteor casts and overall downtime. Could you yell me how to see that please?

Ok thanks. I have done 11.2k on some bosses, including Rastakhan. I suppose there may still be room for improvement though. I have a question about rotation I hope you or someone can help with.

On Icy veins it says this under Combustion usage:

Before activating Combustion you should generate a Hot Streak. You should also try and save at least one charge of Fire Blast though preferably all charges will be available.

I find this in itself a little confusing, as I’m not sure how I would have all charges of Fire Blast available when using Combustion. The only way I can see of doing this is to wait until it comes off cd after generating the pre-Combustion Hot Streak, but if I do this, what do I do in the time between generating the Hot Streak and Fire Blast coming off cd? Just cast Fireballs and Meteor if it’s off cd? If I do cast Fireballs, what do I do if I get a Heating Up? Risk wasting it, use use my Hot Streak and another Fire Blast charge and prolong my use of Combustion, or something else?

The way I’ve actually been using Combustion may not be optimal, but I’m wondering how much of a difference it has made. The way I’ve used it to wait until I get a Heating Up, then cast Scorch and then pop Combustion just before the Scorch cast completes. The reason for this is so that I have all charges of Fire Blast up and don’t have to wait for Fire Blast to come off cd to use Combustion. I wouldn’t have thought I lose that much dps by doing this, if any, but please correct me if I’m wrong.

I do wonder why my downtime if higher than the mages I’ve mentioned above. Maybe it’s simply that I’ve not been pressing the buttons as much and have been too focused on other things like moving, for example.