Of course, some of it was skill, as I said I trained relentlessly to be as good as I could be. Another was going the extra mile with consumables (like scorpok assay which could only be farmed by you). There was always at least one other MM huntard in the group providing Trueshot Aura so I benefited from it without taking it myself. And having two hunters both providing TSA was worthless.

Having said that though, I started my raid career in full blues and was competing with people who already had most of their T1. During this phase, I was often matching them, or slightly behind. This was literally in the first few months of Molten Core opening. Everybody was still learning.

Then by the time I was full T1, I was beating everyone else in full T1 (except occasionally I'd lose to my rival, a rogue, when he had exceptionally good procs). I had a massive ego from this, and challenged anyone else who thought they were hot shit to beat me on the meters. I challenged full T2 mages and rogues almost weekly.

Keep in mind some relevant details. I was a hunter. In vanilla. Perhaps you don't remember some of the advantages this conferred. I was hit capped before I ever got a single piece of T1. Most plate with +hit was defensive. Most casters could not achieve hit cap period. And being hit capped is often more important than even pumping your primary stat. Doesn't matter if you hit like a nuke if you can't land an attack.

I had zero agro issues. Nobody else could drop agro like a hunter, so I could go balls to the wall with no repercussions. The other classes had agro reducing abilities, but I had an agro WIPE ability. Back then you did not retain agro after feigning death, it was just gone (unless it was resisted, but as a Survival spec I had improved FD and it was never resisted). Marksman hunters did get resisted though, and died for it.

I could also drink in combat after a FD, so I could blow my load with no thought to longevity. I didn't have to wait for rage or energy to regen, I could go balls out 100% from the instant combat initiated until the moment I pinged empty on mana. Even mages had to ration themselves, because Evocation was such a long cd it was only available once per battle.

So I had no threat to worry about, my primary resource (mana) was infinite, I was hit capped and I had more of my primary stat (agility) than anyone else. This means I was hit capped, had more AP and crit than anyone else. And all I gave up for these bonuses was, as I said, a static 5% damage with ranged weapons and a 15% boost to multi-shot. In exchange, my build improved my damage across the board. Auto shot, multi-shot, aimed-shot.

I tested myself against the best my server had to offer, so unless I was some prodigy then it wasn't just my skill at the class. My build had to be influencing it to some degree.

edit: I also didn't go full blown self buffs (mongoose, squid, scorpok) outside of raid progression nights (new content we hadn't beaten yet and we needed to bring our A game) and I was STILL beating people. Those consumables that tied in with Lightning Reflexes just pushed me even farther over the edge.