The Ten Commandments for DPS
by Matthew Rossi 
Feb 11th 2009 at 4:00PM
As you might expect, I tend to be on the lookout for sites that talk about DPSing as a warrior. My blog overlord recently pointed out DPS Plate to me. It's a solid site that for now seems to be arms warrior focused and is even looking for paladin and DK contributors to help expand what they talk about. Since I'm all for a one stop shop for DPS discussion among the plate wearing set, I figured I would mention that. Go send Weryl an email if you're interested.The post that caught my attention first was this set of commandments for DPS. While it's clearly focused on melee, a lot of it can be useful for anyone just starting out in raids as a damage dealer. My personal favorites are:
- III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage. In this spirit, do not stand in front of the Big Nasty, nor should you stand in any nastiness the Big Nasty has strewn on the floor
- VII. If you have a buff to share with melee, use it. This includes debuffs to the Big Nasty and anything that mitigates damage on the Tank. Though he is unintelligent and stands in front of the Big Nasty and probably smells a little funny, he is your melee brethren.
Filed under: Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Warrior, Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Death Knight
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Bill Nye Feb 12th 2009 6:53PM
first!
Weryl Feb 11th 2009 4:12PM
Thanks for the link, Matt!
Actually, I have found a Pally, Shaman, and rogue to blog with as I joined the staff of Big hit Box (http://www.bighitbox.com) just this week.
We still need a solid DK and Druid poster, though! :D
Kaeb Feb 11th 2009 4:15PM
and i still wish i had gone with the "probably smells of leper gnome" line.
At the time I thought it too Alliance-centric, but after Hallow's End, I think everyone know what a Leper Gnome is (and smells like. eew.)
MusedMoose Feb 11th 2009 4:16PM
Many thanks for the link. I'm currently playing a fury warrior as one of my alts, so it'll be a big help.
Delano Feb 11th 2009 4:22PM
"III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage."
I'd add to that, don't overtax your healers by completely ignoring stamina for raw DPS stats only, as some gear guides suggest; sooner or later you're going to be the guy at the bottom of the charts because your 12k health pool just isn't sufficient to survive the first burst of raid damage.
nbcaffeine Feb 11th 2009 4:25PM
I ignore stamina on all my rogue gear. Still over 20k buffed in 10 mans.
Kemikalkadet Feb 11th 2009 4:27PM
Stamina comes naturally with gear, you should never actively seek out a higher stam piece at the loss of offensive stats.
Delano Feb 11th 2009 4:39PM
Yes, it does, and for the most part, you'll never have to seek it out.
However, there are some idiots who can't bear to replace an epic with anything less than an epic, and religiously follow certain gear guides and sites (MaxDPS.com being a major offender) who look only at how gear is ranked according to someone, somewhere's stat-weighting system. These people can come to the conclusion that they'd rather have, say, 8 AP and 0.3% crit more from an old BC epic, than 50 stamina on an 80 blue, all other things being equal. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
zappo Feb 11th 2009 5:17PM
For the most part Blizzard seems to have figured this out and it's not so much of an issue anymore. I can say it's quite a relief being one of those people that was in fel leather and primal mooncloth. At the time I guess I got lucky and was able to balance it out with some PvP gear, but even then I had survival issues.
One thing a tank I run with pointed out was that you can now usually tell how well geared people are simply by their hit points. it's actually sort of true too. I think I've gotten over the whole "maximizing at the cost of stamina" thing. When choosing between a rare and epic quality item that are nearly the same I just go with the epic since it always (as far as I've seen) has more stamina.
JALbert Feb 11th 2009 5:58PM
As a former tank, I'd like to point out that stamina does nothing for healers in terms of easing their casting load. All stamina does is give you buffer time to live. Mitigation and avoidance ease the burden on the healer, but that's not your job. That's the tank's job.
You want to ease the load on your healers? Forgo that 50 stamina (if you have enough hp to survive the raid damage in the encounter, that's all that matters) and get that AP and crit. More DPS = Faster boss death = less pressure on healers nearing OOM.
Stamina only serves as a buffer against spikes. If you're DPS, you shouldn't be taking spikes large enough for this to matter. Stamina does not help your healer's burdens. Doing your job as DPS does.
xtyle Feb 11th 2009 6:22PM
@Delano
I agree... Sites like MaxDPS are good tools to help, their ranking should often be taken with a grain of salt. You think that one is bad, you should check out wowheroes. It's got a lot of fun and useful information, but if you take it as scripture, you're doomed to be face down, eating dirt.
I do use MaxDPS a lot as a good start point... mainly because they did a gread job with presentation and made it easy. Their stat rating really isn't too bad.
Another site, lootrank, has a fully customizable tool to where you can use your own multipliers to make your own scoring scheme. Great site, good presentation, but often too complex for the average joe. I'm continualy updating my numbers because I can't come up with results I want.
I like wow-loot to see what items per boss are ideal for different classes I'm less familiar with, but with recent itemization... it's almost not needed anymore.
Y'all know of any other gear sites that have trusted stat prioritized rankings? I'd love to see what else was out there.
_____
But more on topic, it's my opinion, having been Tank, Heals AND DPS... DPS is the easiest. It's a matter of just keeping your nose clean and not getting in the way of the healers and tanks. Assuming they do their job right... things should seem effortless to the dps. As stated, avoid damage as best you can... don't blow up the healers... whatever. Noone but you care if your dps dips, as long as it's present, steady and enough to kill the target.
Tanks = The machine. Moving parts and heavy equipment are useless in and of themselves.
Healers = Fuel/lubrication/protectants within the machine. Running out of Fuel or not having oil will disable the machine and render it useless.
DPS = The engines of the machine. 500hp or 266hp? Don't matter.. get enough umph to get where you're going and make sure you last long enough to get there.
When the parts don't work together, they're useless. When they DO work together, it's almost effortless.
McRaider Feb 11th 2009 4:24PM
Nice, I don't need to think about this, fortunately. I have a more difficult part. Being a tankadin with a bad group can be a nightmare! They usually attack the mob as soon as it attacks me EVEN if I haven't done anything to them yet (eg. I'm pulling the mob, putting holy shield up and stuff). And sometimes the group gives me the 3 seconds I love to get the aggro to sky-high. Avenger's shield and hammer of the righteous usually does the job.
nbcaffeine Feb 11th 2009 4:28PM
Maybe you should pull with Avenger's Shield then...
Also, kill order. Explain it, use it, kick anyone who doesn't listen. There, your tanking problems solved. If aggro is still an issue, bring a rogue :) we help with the threat.
Weryl Feb 11th 2009 4:41PM
Read it again, McRaider the Paladin.
You are our melee brethren and should heed many of these words. If you do not, we will withhold the Old Spices, dooming you to smell of Leper Gnome for the rest of your days!
Malkia Feb 11th 2009 4:24PM
As a hunter I can say that a lot of those uhm commandments apply very well to us ranged DPS also
As a mage I wanted to slap the DK who was pulling from the tank and going omg look at my dps!!! And even I sacrifice myself before letting my healer die.
Kymbyr Feb 11th 2009 4:27PM
Thanks, great site!
Kemikalkadet Feb 11th 2009 4:26PM
How could he miss one of the most obvious ones for melee DPS: "Stand behind the mob". Not only to stop yourself getting parried and losing DPS, but to stop your tank getting gibbed by the parry haste.
nbcaffeine Feb 11th 2009 4:30PM
Did you not read either the article or the summary?
"III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage. In this spirit, do not stand in front of the Big Nasty[...]"
Kemikalkadet Feb 11th 2009 4:35PM
Hmm yeah i guess that point applies to that, i took number 3 to mean stay out of frontal cone attacks and cleaves since point 3 was dealing with the DPS taking damage. You'd be amazed at the amount of people that don't know that standing behind the mobs stops parrys though, so it's an important point to make. Just take a look at the training dummies and watch how many people test their dps while standing in front of the target.
KilgoreTrout XL Feb 11th 2009 4:28PM
V. Use your trinkets and cooldowns wisely. When in doubt, early and often.
I have a serious problem with remembering that second part.