The Like/Hate thread (WoW)

[Ashe]

Is there actually a reason to compete for DPS or is just, like, what people do?

(I understand the whole epeen aspect of it, I just wasn't expecting that people would demand classes like Priests to meet a minimum threshold of DPS. There are other mechanics in the game.)

A healing character of any class is not expected to meet any standard of DPS.

If they are intending to fulfill a role of DPS, however (a priest specced Shadow, for example, for DPS) then that means someone else is taking the slots of healing and tanking. If the person isn't making a minimal accepted contribution, then they are essentially not contributing and may as well be afk through the fight. The less damage one person may be doing, the more damage another must do to make up for this missing amount. Take into account also healer mana only lasting so long. If a dps does something dumb and dies, you can assume that all potential dps from them for the rest of the fight has to now be split amongst the remainder.

Due to fight mechanics, also, there are some fights where it can even be beneficial to just sit the low dpser out if they are in a fight that say requires everyone to move in unison back and forth to certain spots to stay alive, or to spread out at certain points a minimum distance from every other person in the area while slowed at risk of causing damage, or them getting a bomb on them (like Zilean), and actually BEING afk or not paying attention, thus blowing the entire raid up and causing a wipe.

Most people (absolute idiots are the exception) don't sit and go "ok, you were lowest dps, you suck" if its something really close in the runnings. But if its like DPS1 - 6700, DPS2 - 6500, Tank - 4500, DPS3 - 4000, Healer - 200. DPS3 is doing TERRIBLE in this situation. They can have another Tank completely replace them, do a BETTER job than them at DPS contribution, AND BE PERFORMING ANOTHER ROLE at the same time. So the most common reason is A - that dps is pretty much watching tv and letting you carry him through the place for gear, B - that dps has no idea how to play his character or about the fight and is just hitting a fireball button every now and then, C - They died extremely early that fight, and keep doing this, D - He's undergeared. Situations C and D are the only acceptable reasons. But both are only acceptable for so long. For C, you should become familiar with the fight so that you aren't dying and being a burden for everyone else to make up for (they can replace you with someone who doesn't just stand in a fire for 9 seconds until he dies rather than take two steps to get out of it) and use situational awareness.

For D, you can't ride this excuse forever - if you are playing with friends or know your character, then you should have no problem getting properly geared, especially if you understand how to gear your character correctly (don't be a warlock with mp5, for example, and strength gear). No one minds the fresh 80 that is in leveling gear. Everyone minds the level 80 that's been that for months and is still wearing level 72 greens when he can simply finish some quests in the last zones for easy gear upgrades or even do some instances (do lower level stuff to get upgrades, you don't try to jump from point A to point Q and then expect them to hand you gear that they are working for when you aren't even at the threshold to contribute in that instance).