Gevlon has a post today where he predicts some doom and gloom as regards the future of roles in raids, ie tank/healer/dps. What follows is a long line of comments, a lot of which refer to how dps already sucks, will suck or how they suck the most.
As a rogue from day 1 of when I begna playing this game, I have to say that I’m getting tired of this. I’m going to quote one of the comments from that thread here:
“…I pug raids, as in 100% of my raiding is pugging.
DPS comes on a scale from truly atrocious to decent. A couple of times every month I see good DPS, and by good I mean touching the 10k dps single target.
I see 2k dps on our way clearing to Marrow 25-man, and just trust me, 2k dps there is way, way, way worse than 900 dps in a five-man heroic.
I see “I’ll AFK this, call me when we’re at boss.” -DPS.
I see 8k dps refusing to move from goo on floor because “it would lower my dps.”…”
So here is the catch-22: on the one hand good dps are those hitting really high figures, such as the 10k single target one quoted here. On the other hand he disparages dps for not standing out of the goo because the dps thinks that it would lower his dps. How can this person not see that the one is connected to the other? If the only way that you quantify a good dps is by how much damage they do, why on earth are you surprised when their whole focus becomes locked on the dps chart? The dps is probably looking at his health, calculating the chance of dying versus the chance of being healed versus how much dps he will lose by backing off. And he decides not to move as he doesn’t want his dps to go down.
What about backing off because the tank hasn’t got very good threat? A good dps player will recognise and do just that, thus ensuring that he loses dps on the boss. The group gets the boss down, and then the dps is called out on his relatively average dps? After saving the tank? This has happened to me more than once. Or for using my interrupts. Or for saving a healer from getting taken down by an add. The list goes on and on. It starts to wear you down. You play your class to the best of your ability, you utilise all the tricks at your disposal, but still the only difference between you and drooling retard is the amount of dps that you do. And if drooling retard stands in the goo and gets through it and does higher dps than you, then he is a better dps.
Dps have been steadily pushed into this corner where the only thing that matters is the numbers that you put out. That is what makes a good dps, apparently. So don’t be surprised when the dps stand in the goo and then expects to be yanked out by a priest. Because you asked them to stand there.
update on my daggers: Last night I ran an heroic Forge of souls with a really lovely PuG, (you know it’s going to be nice when you zone in and the tank says, “A rogue! I haven’t seen one in a PuG for ages! Neat!”). Anyway, I got the Unsharpened Ice Razor, a rare random epic drop, and just the fast off hand that I needed. I also got Nightime, a very nice combat main hand. So it was a brilliant run. So this weekend I need to learn how to play mutilate. This should be interesting.
Also, the class changes for rogues come out today. I will take a good look at them and then post something up when I have formulated a clear opinion, which usually takes me a good three of four Hendricks and tonic.
April 9, 2010 at 8:19 am
This is a very good article. Something I also wanted to say in Gevlon (and some others’) blog. To put things in context, I’m a healer so am not biased towards DPS.
This line sums up the crux of what I mean:
The dps is probably looking at his health, calculating the chance of dying versus the chance of being healed versus how much dps he will lose by backing off. And he decides not to move as he doesn’t want his dps to go down.
Healers are there to heal. DPS are there to dps. If a DPS plays too defensively and loses say 10% damage, that is MASSIVE. The best dps knows how to ride this fine line effectively.
A lot of these bloggers are not raiding cutting edge content where every drop of DPS needs to be squeezed out.
April 9, 2010 at 10:00 am
I just want to reiterate for arguments sake that presently I am not raiding end game content either. But I don’t think that this is appliacable only to the end game but to all raids and 5 man instances.
April 9, 2010 at 9:35 am
Don’t be too down hearted. You, I and lots of other people know that good dps isn’t just about the numbers. I read through all of the comments from Gevlon’s post and came to one conclusion – being controversial generates a lot of responses. I didn’t find anything worth worrying about (but then maybe I’m just too stupid to realise, “see the little moron…” I won’t go there again :))
Blizzard don’t owe me anything, I choose to play or I choose not to, my call.
I’m glad you got your daggers, I look forward to hearing about further adventures in your own inimitable style.
April 9, 2010 at 10:06 am
Yes, you’re right. But it really does start to get a bit much over a while. It’s why I don’t raid anymore. I couldn’t stomach the links to recount after a boss fight where I saved the group a couple of times and the fail hunter brags about his top dps. I’m enjoying pvp much more to be honest. You live or die by how good you are.
April 9, 2010 at 12:50 pm
I use the unsharpened Ice Razor with another nice random drop from ICC 5-men HC as MH: Sevenfingered Claw.
It even allows me to do competitive DPS as Combat CQC rogue 🙂
April 9, 2010 at 1:54 pm
Good article and I guess its one of the reasons I hung up my daggers and deleted my rogues after WoTLK (and the fact vanish wasnt fixed….still waiting).
PvP is much more enjoyable but arenas Im not too sure about, I get too worked up 🙂
Oh and yeah I regret deleting my Rogues now 😦
April 10, 2010 at 9:15 am
You deleted your rogues? Fit of rage?
April 10, 2010 at 2:49 pm
yup worst mistake ever! I left WoW for a while after that and havent levelled one up since. I’ll me making my main a Rogue at cataclysm tho
April 9, 2010 at 5:00 pm
I sense the beginnings of an add-on here, one that combines DPS output with damage taken and utilities (like interrupts, dispels, etc.) to give a better picture. Of course, it would ignore raid-wide damage that is unavoidable (XT’s Tantrum as a prime example), but would make deductions for time spent standing in avoidable Bad™. How to compute credit for utility? Devise a DPS value per GCD and add it to DPS output (this can also apply to healing analysis – spending GCDs on cleansing or other utility function rather than casting a heal).
I have no problem linking “Damage Taken” to point out the pools of drool left by the retards as they mash their buttons, but to be able to make it a penalty in THEIR minds would be even better.
April 10, 2010 at 9:15 am
That would be a very interesting addon. Perhaps combine recount with invidia fails or whatever it’s called.
April 18, 2010 at 8:34 pm
My heart really goes out to the DPS players that do more than well… DPS. I’ve met some amazing ones on all my healers (end-game and lowbie healers) and my 71 pally tank too.
I don’t only look at DPS numbers since I know, at times, there is more involved with DPS than seeing how much damage can be done. Those that DPS, CC, and look after my healer the few times she has gotten mobs on her have really been appreciated. At times I hop onto my DPS toons to take a break. it’s not always as “easy” as it seems, especially when you have people trained thinking rocking the DPS charts is all that matters. It’s great, there can be more too. 😉
Yet another reason why I don’t raid anymore, I healed but also did a lot of dispelling too. There were a few healers that didn’t do that. I try to use all my abilities with the classes I play.
August 10, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Yeah yesterday I had some tank who couldn’t keep aggro and just dissapeared while the healer was being attacked by something they aggroed and ran of on. Anyway about half way though heroic nexus this tank started complaining about how I wasn’t doing 6k dps with a 4 piece t 9. I was like well I first don’t have the buffs I would in a 25 man or something like that. Then secondly things die faster in a heroic then in a normal raid so I am unable to get my full rotation up. Even spamming FoK doesn’t do a lot and lastly protecting the healer so you can run around like a mad man grabbing and loosing aggro all over the place tend to lower dps a lot. I actually saved him a few times. I am grabbing aggro so I trick of the trade him. of course a couple of times I went to do that and he was out of range due to the whole grabbing aggro and running into the next room. All and All good dps has only a little to do with how much damage at any given time. Sometimes it has to do with making up for and idiot tank that can’t seem to just pull aggro correctly.