I don’t care how UBER your DPS is…
DEAD DPS DO NO DAMAGE!
Ok, so Gnomeaggedon has been on the wrong end of that statement before.
More than a few times.
But you know what, I know whose fault it is when I’m lying dead on the floor 30 seconds into an encounter.
As much as I would like to blame Mr. Tree’s weak-arsed “One DoT will last Gnomer all night” healing, the reality is I brought the death upon myself.
- Not the Healer!
- Not the Tank!
- Me and only me!
Just cause I can pump it out at times doesn’t mean I should. Yes it’s a shame when the 3rd moon of Venus is aligned with Pluto, the planet of personal transformation, and the libido in the air is just ripe, but if the mother-in-laws of all aggro are also there…
I have two options…
- Super-nova or
- Slow-roast
Slow roast it generally more fulfilling for everyone involved.
- I don’t have to watch the end of the fight (or the wipe) through the grey ghost haze.
- The healer doesn’t slash up in misplaced guilt.
- The Tank doesn’t swear while bashing his head against the desk.
- The rest of the group gets that nice warm feeling as we all sit around the bosses corpse and divvy up the loot.
Here’s the thing…
- It’s irrelevant if I am doing 20%, 30% or even 40% of the DPS…
- It’s irrelevant if I am doing 20%, 30% or even 40% of the overall damage…
If I am dead 30 seconds into the important fight.
HDick
I was doing HToC the other night… The 5 man version, nothing high falluting for me yet.
Everyone’s DPS was, well below average is being generous, even Squidly beats 1,500 DPS as Elemental… and that’s his offspec, in his pre-raid one-day-I-will-play-with-the-big-Gnomes gear.
Everyone but one.
A Pally.
He was uber.
He was hitting 3,000 DPS.
He was also hitting the floor after 30 seconds.
Followed by a bit of WTF!
- The kind of WTF that is directed at the tank for not holding aggro.
- The kind of WTF that is directed at the healer for not keeping him alive.
- The kind of WTF that suggests there is only one person in the instance that know how to play.
After the 3rd wipe he started ripping strips. Maybe he was smart enough not to slag me off, but he wasn’t smart enough to shut up when it came to Viking.
Viking quickly solved the guys problem
/kick
A moment later one of the weak DPS asked what happened. Viking told him why the guy got kicked, which was more about his attitude than anything else.
At this point I was already typing… I anticipated the next words that came to chat.
Pugger says: But he had awesome DPS!
I say: But he had crap damage!
Pugger says: Damage doesn’t matter, DPS does.
Viking and I shook out heads (OK, I have no way of knowing that for sure, but let’s call it my Spidey-Squid-Sense).
We called it. Replacing the one DPS wasn’t going to change the outcome.
Admittedly it was a difficult fight. Undoubtedly we could have done something different.
Still there are ways of suggesting these things…
There are also ways to stay out of the green…
Remember:
- Dead DPS do no damage…
- DPS doesn’t matter…
- It’s not my problem if you stand in the green… That’s yours!
Gnomer and Out, Squidly and Stout!
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Thank you sir! How many times have I see a dps initiate the pull and blast all cds so they can DIE with over 5k dps!
So THEY can look uber and awesome.
They just look dead and dumb to me.
Had a bit of that last night… I only lost the Mage once but it changed the fight from 20 seconds to 2 minutes.
He was forgiven tho. He was an awesome Mage that made one mistake and the Tank was working well with him
i love it when you toss a cold glassful of reality into the face of the accepted mindset.
It would have been a bucket including ice cubes, but we have a drought down under
Well Said!
There are 2 players that can afford to be OP in a (5 man) group, and TRY to go all out:
The healer & the tank.
They can go hog wild and be as uber as they want.
If any of the DPS “outclasses” EITHER of those players, people end up dead. (usually the uber dude/ette)
We 4-manned H Gundrak last night. Most of us were in the “just sorta barely into raiding ” gear. We had a Disc priest(ess) that was better geared than any of the rest, and she died a fair number of times (and went for a ride on the Rhino’s horn a few times as well rofl)
BUT, she was aware WHY it happened, but just lost track of aggro a few times. No blame, just a shrug and a laugh.
(I also died to bad aggro management once, as well as slow reflexes/HP inattention as well on 2 other occasions *blush*)
Reminds me of one might in Kara while taking Attuman down.
One of my mates says:
“I wonder if Gnomer can pull aggro” (the tanking was good and Attuman was at 10%).
Of course I tried and succeeded…
Then they mentioned it wasn’t a challenge, they just wanted to know if I could noob it up under optimum conditions.
Don’t challenge a Mage to pull aggro… We invest about 20 points in aggro generation!
A-freaking-men to this. If I may vent for a moment: One of the things I hate most while I’m tanking is when a dpser unloads everything they have before I have even thought about starting the pull. And then the mobs go straight for them. And then they die. And then they blame me. And then the spend the next 5 pulls complain about how I can’t hold aggro and that they can’t do their ‘phat deeps’ because I’m a bad tank. And then I tank-rage a little and the aneurysm growing behind my left eye gets a little bigger, while I wish them slow painful deaths.
Ok, I feel better now.
You may vent…
I am developing a more healthy (for me) healing strategy.
Pull shit once – I try to save you.
Pull shit repeatedly – I concentrate on those more deserving.
I usually point out that relying on the spirit healer isn’t a very effective healing & dps strategy, assuming they can’t work that out themselves.
At the end of the day, it’s not my repair bill and most instances cam be 4 manned