Thoughts on DPS Players & Teamwork

Fact and Fiction Regarding DPS (And the disappearance of the Tanks)

The more I read and learn about WoW the more I realize that there are huge gaps in knowledge of the game and what people think is important in the game. Another over stated issue in the game relates to DPS. This has become much more evident now that most warriors do not want to spec Protection anymore and the problem on Gilneas is near epidemic. Prot warriors are getting burned out from all of the tanking they do and no one wants to tank because of it. I watched a recent discussion in trade chat this weekend that went like this:

"(player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ..., (player 2) you've been spamming for tanks for an hour, just look at all the warriors in your zone and ask someone. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... I have, everyone is either Arms or Fury and none of them want to tank. (player 3) Ask a pally then... (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... done that as well. Seems I can find all the healers I need but no one is specced Prot., (player 2) that's sooo ridiculous, aren't there any tanks playing any more? (player 4) nope, tanking sucks.... (player 5) everyone wants one but tanks get no love. (player 1)LFM Tank for Heroic ... $@#$$%^&* "

Either way, most players find an abundance of dps and never a tank. In fact I've seen more and more Druids tanking these days on Gilneas than any of the other classes. Most of the die hard tanks are in the more serious raid guilds and they have no time or desire to tank outside of their raid schedules and who can blame them. The glory it seems lies in toping the DPS meters, and what does all of this mean?

There are 4 DPS classes that are designed to reign and compete for the top spot. Rogues, Fire Mages, Warlocks, and BM or MM hunters. Outside of these 4, the other dps classes fall into a secondary dps roll as many of them have other responsibilities in a raid group. Technically, if a class other than one of these 4 is at the top of the list, then something is unbalanced within that group. The importance of these classes being at the top lies in the fact they are your principal sources of pouring out lots of damage as fast as possible. And in many cases that is all they are suppose to do. The exception here is in situations that require a significant amount of CC and timig to work through an encounter, and in these cases other classes can rise above the traditional 4. So the question becomes, why is that so many players are so bent on being the best DPS player they can be?

The answer lies partly in the release of BT and even more so in the release of Sunwell. With these to raid instances the importance of putting out high amounts of damage has become something that needs to be looked into. On average a player in BT needs to be outputting around 1500 DPS to be able to kill the bosses in a timely manner. This equates to a raid party dealing 37.5k damage in a second. Now in Sunwell this amount is increased to 1800 DPS per player or 45k for the entire raid group in a second. In Sunwell this is critical as Brutallus is on rage timer and if he reaches that his rage time, which happens somewhere around 6 and a half minutes, the party will wipe. So for players going into Sunwell there has been an even bigger push to get their personal dps number really up there. The ripple affect of this is that players that are unfamaliar with the overall mechanics of the game and all the classes believe they have to have numbers at or above the 1800 DPS mark themselves. Herein lies the problem.

The top 4 DPS classes in proper gear and with the proper talent spec can easily reach 2100 or higher DPS. For everyone else, this gets a lot harder. Fury and Arms warriors can get there, but they will be at the limits of their gear possiblilites in game. Druids can also get there in cat form combining rogue gear with their druid gear. Shadow Priests can also just reach that pinnacle but for the other classes it is out of the quetions given gear and other factors currently in game. Overall though, in a raid group it will balance out to approximately 1800 DPS per player. As the top guilds have been gearing for these fights and as more and more players have been getting into the Arena's, DPS has really taken ahold of everyone on the server in some form or another. In this process, we've lost a lot of tanks. (Although as I understand this, it isn't quite a problem on the horde side.)

The real problem here is that in everyone's personal quest to become the top DPS'er for their guild, team or raid group they are losing focus on what really matters in these intances.

"Teamwork"

And what happens when there is teamwork? The "Impossible!"

In a recent battleground, for example, we were trying to take one of the towers in EoT. We weren't getting anywhere becuase the horde had a Tauren Warrior there in full S4 gear that was just devastating our attack group. Someone asked for help and two rogues came to help. The rogues kept this warrior under a constant stun-lock while we finished off everyone else so we could focus on him to kill him. Otherwise we were doomed. Another solid example of this lies in our guild's "Charlie's Angels" dungeon runs. These 5 players have successfully and quickly knocked out every 5-man they have been in without a "pure" tank. The stories can go on and on. The point is, without people willing to work and learn together, no amount of DPS will win the day. And this is what makes the worlds top raid guilds what they are.

From what I can determine the top 20 raid guilds in the world all one-shotted Brutallus when Sunwell went live. These guilds were no better or worse geared than the best guilds on Gilneas. This was only accomplished because of their high expectations of teamwork. Dishing out 10.5 million damage in 6 minutes or less isn't exactly an easy task when you only have 17 people that are DPS'ing the boss. It is doable, but it requires everyone to do their part and to make sure that all the buffs and debuffs stay up and constant. Otherwise things get trickly and questionable real fast.

Another factor that has led to the issue over DPS and the disappearance of tanks on Gilneas is the growing issue of threat management. This is another topic that I see in various chat channels on on the forums. While players are wanting to maximize their DPS, they are forgetting that the more damage you do, the more threat you do. This creates major issues for tanks and their ability to maintian aggro. As tanks generate threat the DPS classes need to be watching their threat meters so they don't pass a tanks threat level. For Melee classes this means you cannot pass 105% of a tanks threat, and if you do, you pull aggro and the mob or bosses attention. Ranged classes have it easier in the they can go to 120% of a tanks threat level before they have the boss running at them. And here is the interesting factor that all tanks face.

Regardless of gear, tanks generate threat at the same rate regardless of the boss, instance or any other factor. A tank in full Onslaught gear generates nearly the same amount of threat as a tank in full blues entereing Kara for the first time. The better geared your DPS classes are, the more damage they will do, and thusly the faster they will approach a tanks threat level. The only thing that a tank here has is survivability over a lesser geared tank. The DPS classes really have to pay attention to their spells and their meters until the tank has established full aggro on a boss, and then they can unload. Good groups will hold off, use lower ranked spells and such, until the tanks says "Go" and they everyone unloads. Even here though the melee classes still need to be vigilant as it is not hard for a rogue or shaman to steal aggro from a tank in these instances.

I've often pondered why there was such a vast chasm between PVE and PVP gear with regards to stats that directly affect damage. PVP gear is built, designed and to be used for the purpose of allowing for the maximum amount of damage to be output in the shortest amount of time possible. For DPS classes this means generating huge amounts of threat almsot instantaneously. PVE gear has always seemed watered down, but there is a reason for this. PVE gear is built and designed for sustainability, which means being able to do your job over a long period of time. This reduces the amount of threat you generate and it allows for a player to do more damage over a longer period of time than would be possible otherwise. This lends to the overall survivability of the group and gives the group the maximum amount of options to complete the instance. And it keeps the tanks happy as they don't have to work so hard in maintaining threat.

Overall the point to remember is that DPS is necessary, but it isn't something that should be sought out to the exclusion of all else. When your in a group, being at the top of the damage meters does not mean much. If your group completed the instance successfully and did not wipe, that means more than who did the most damage. All to often I hear people talking about individuals that always top the damage charts, but also always get groups killed because the eclipse the tanks threat all of the time and do not listen to reason with regards to watching their threat meters. The only time a person can take DPS to the hilt is if they are in the battlegrounds and they don't care about whether they win or lose, and they are there to see how many kills they can rack up. Outside of that venue, there is not a lot of places where being a DPS hog is needed or acceptable if a person isn't willing to watch and maintian his threat levels. Of note though, and I've witnessed this many times. Players that are super heavy on DPS that wait till the tank has fully established their hold on the boss can do amazing things damage wise and this is definitely what players should be doing.

On the whole, it has been unfortunate in that I've heard a lot of tanks talk about the lack of respect or help they get from players. We all know that there are a lot of younger players that are running around in really good gear, and unfortunately some of these players do not fully understand the mechanics behind the game as of yet. This leads to a lot of failed attempts in instances and raids and it has also led to the vast desert we are now in regarding tanks. I know that our own tank in Lost Sleep has voiced these kinds of concerns with regards to his dungeon runs in the past and I consider him to be one of the best tanks I've ever seen in action. So as we continue to grow and learn here in Lost Sleep keep in mind for as casual as we are we are also still a team.