Why DPS?

[Mr_Fuzzle]

The reason why most people go DPS is simple. Responsibility.

 

Let's look at what a tank's responsibilities are in a group setting:

1) Hold threat on the big enemy.

2) Grab and hold threat on the little enemies that join the fight.

3) Watch your positioning (avoid the hurty stuff).

4) Manage the positioning of the enemies (keep them from spitting hurty stuff on the party).

5) Survive within the limits of the healer.

6) Manage your cooldowns to counter the big hits.

7) Deal with any additional problems as they come up (disconnects, enemy evading, random enemies joining the fight, etc).

 

As a side note, if something goes wrong, there's a decent chance it's your fault. Something kills a party member? Completely your fault!

 

Now, let's check a healer's responsibilities:

1) Keep the tank alive.

2) Watch your positioning (avoid the hurty stuff).

3) Heal the idiots who don't know how to get out of the hurty stuff.

4) Avoid dying to the swarms of adds.

5) Get rid of any nasty debuffs on the group.

6) Deal with any additional problems as they come up (disconnects, line of sight, random enemies joining the fight, etc.)

 

Also, if something goes wrong, it's almost definititely your fault. Big boss enemy enrages? Your fault for not healing through the enrage. Adds jump on you, chew you up, and spit out little bits of you on the other party members to kill them? Your fault for not healing when your bits land on the other party members! I mean, you're right there!

 

Finally, let's compare a damage dealers responsibilities:

1) Pew.

2) Pew pew.

3) Pew pew pew.

4) Pew pew pew pew pew!

5) (optional) avoid the hurty stuff, but only if it doesn't drop your dps.

 

Also, if something goes wrong, it's NEVER the fault of the dps. I mean, they only have one thing they need to do, so how could they screw up, right? Boss enrages after a certain time? That's a test for the tank, not a problem with the damage dealers! Stuff on the floor killing the party? That's a test of the healer, not the damage dealers!

 

 

Yes, this was a mostly silly post. The basic point is true. Damage dealing is less responsibility, and so if you want to just play an easy mode style of grouping, damage is the way to go. Now, as a counter point, if you want to be the best, then the damage dealing role can be about as challenging as tanking or healing. I certainly have more trouble with it than with the other two. (Might be a practice issue, though. All my characters tank and dps or heal and dps, yet for some reason I almost never get chosen for the dps role. Mysterious, isn't it?)

 

Lol? I would completely revise your healer section to be 1. Keep the group alive. 2. Avoid the purple/red circles of not healing. The tank section is surprisingly well done.

 

Any DPS worth their salt in a competitive environment needs to manage their positioning, their damage output. any sort of mob that comes up in the middle of a fight (wow I stole that from the tank section) and their actual aggro. Not doing so will lead to a wipe in current content (I'm not talking about Story Mode). At this time, every fight is simply a dps race, plain and simple. Someone who is not doing optimal damage will cause a wipe simply because the group cannot kill the boss fast enough. Your laughable rant at the healers and tanks not being able to manage an enrage is moronic. That is entirely on the dps. Their job is to kill the boss before it has a chance to kill the raid. To actually clear current content you cannot have just any dps, or tank, or healer. Smashing your face against the keyboard does not work for this. Doing this is a group effort and it is the work of the group to outperform the boss, not just the healers and tanks. For serious DPS there is an immense amount of responsibility that cannot be described as simply as "pew pew things." There's a reason there is an 8 or 16 (wo)man group and it's because you need all of them to perform their best.

[space_mechanic]

Actually enrage is dps fault. Never a healer's fault. Good healer can sometimes save you but don't take this for granted.

Qualities of a GOOD dps are not just pew-pew-pew.

1. Mind target priority. Kill weak to strong usually.

1.1. Do not pull. It's a tank's job.

1.2. Kill/CC mobs attacking healer.

2. Avoid hurty stuff.

3. Deal big damage. Kill bosses fast to avoid enrage.

4. Know and exploit boss-specific mechanics (Kephess TFB, Sav-Rak LI, etc).

5. Keep learning.

And yes, most dps suck at this.

Edited May 17, 2013 by space_mechanic

[Snarkasms]

I feel like people whooshed on the sarcasm in Stormskimmer's post around DPS, heh.

[space_mechanic]

I feel like people whooshed on the sarcasm in Stormskimmer's post around DPS, heh.

Nah, sarcasm was pretty clear. Still... This thread just inspired me to write a bit.

[Stormskimmer]

Actually enrage is dps fault. Never a healer's fault. Good healer can sometimes save you but don't take this for granted.

Qualities of a GOOD dps are not just pew-pew-pew.

1. Mind target priority. Kill weak to strong usually.

1.1. Do not pull. It's a tank's job.

1.2. Kill/CC mobs attacking healer.

2. Avoid hurty stuff.

3. Deal big damage. Kill bosses fast to avoid enrage.

4. Know and exploit boss-specific mechanics (Kephess TFB, Sav-Rak LI, etc).

5. Keep learning.

And yes, most dps suck at this.

 

I think you forgot a step.

 

6. Don't be the tank.

 

 

Got my first chance to play a pure damage dealer in an operation today. Was a lot more relaxing than tanking or healing. Definitely can see why a lot of players might choose it. Of course, I'd say anybody who plays a damage dealer exclusively should try to level up a healer and a tank, and at least run one full operation with them. Gives you a whole new appreciation for your job, and for the good tanks and healers who put up with you! Likewise, if you can manage it, tanks and healers should go a round as a damage dealer. Gives an interesting perspective, including how hard it can be to get push your dps up another 100 points. Or just how easy it can be to pull threat, when you're going all out and not minding your threat drops.

[Lexmaark]

I know why I play dps -- I was good at it. Most people here seem to think dpsing is an easy nobrain thing, and although I am new to this game In the other game I played a bad dps was just as bad as a bad healer or a bad tank, you were just lucky that the other DPS could pickup his slack.

 

However, I really liked being able to tank when needed. Although I geared and played a DPS I had side gear and a sidespec for tanking, and did that quite well. Usually I did it to get groups faster.

 

All that being said, being a DPS is more fun for me. Being a tank is me managing cooldowns and making sure the boss position is good etc. I did healing once and A. Sucked / B. Hated it. And as for DPS whenever I'm solo playing I like killing things as fast as possible! Also, there's kind of a competition when you dps. I suppose it's same for healers, but not really tank. As a dps you are paired with so many other DPS and whoever does the most damage gets the personal satisfaction of knowing they did the most damage, and being the big egotistical arrogant person I am I thoroughly enjoy, more than anything, being #1.

[Le_Spiff]

I find that in PVE the DPS is best kept out of the way and just to be a good pew pew. There are situations that if your AC can tank a little bit it helps if your tank wipes i.e. Assassin, PT and Juggs. I'm not saying that it's brilliant, in fact, it's not but if you've got the boss down to a quarter health switching stances is better than starting all over again.

 

For PVP I find that having good DPS is far more important than having brilliant healers. 'Cos there's only so much one can do to heal a warzone if the DPS hasn't a clue.

 

That being said, I prefer DPS, the better you get at it, the more meaningful the result.

[arkitip]

There's been 1 good suggestion in this thread, and that suggestion was that people try every role so they understand how difficult or not it actually is.

 

People have their preferences, and make gigantic lists to prove just how much more difficult their preference is. There's one common theme among the good players of any role - a desire to learn and improve. I assure you the guys that are topping TorParse DPS leaderboards are putting in a lot of practice time in order to squeeze out even 50 more DPS if they can.

[Synavix]

There's been 1 good suggestion in this thread, and that suggestion was that people try every role so they understand how difficult or not it actually is.

 

People have their preferences, and make gigantic lists to prove just how much more difficult their preference is. There's one common theme among the good players of any role - a desire to learn and improve. I assure you the guys that are topping TorParse DPS leaderboards are putting in a lot of practice time in order to squeeze out even 50 more DPS if they can.

 

Pretty much this. Not only does playing (or at least trying) every role in an endgame situation give you a better understanding of what is required by each role or class, but it makes you better at other ones because it gives you more knowledge and experience.

 

Saying that DPS roles are easy is the same as saying that tanking or healing is simple because you only need to be "good enough" to hold threat or keep people alive. Your average player who sucks at healing or tanking will still suck at DPS, people just don't realize it as frequently in this game because it lacks a common DPS parser that everyone can see without having to synch, and in more casual content people expect DPS to stand in AoE's or fall off ledges...but these are the same things that tanks and healers do that make people facepalm or rage quit groups.

 

I mained a healer in WoW, and had several endgame raiding tank alts. However, I feel that tanking in this game is rather dull and doesn't quite have the "art form" that you could achieve in WoW. It felt clunky and only present because it was mandatory. I found healing to be equally boring in PvE and lacked the type of challenges that you face in other games. There seemed to be relatively little need to assign healers to groups or tanks, there were no necessary utility spells like Pain Suppression or Guardian Angel, and until more recently there weren't even situations where cleansing was beneficial, it was often more efficient to simply heal through small DoTs or trinket out of slows.

 

I found that with DPS I had a lot more control over how quickly or slowly I could progress...and no matter how well you do, someone will always be able to do it better. There are always very visible ways to show that you are improving yourself, whether you're stuck on a progression boss or have been farming everything since week 1.

 

None of this is to say that I feel DPS requires more skill or has better players than the Healer or Tank role, far from it. A good healer or tank can single-handedly turn a failed ops group into a successful one, but it's certainly a matter of preference, and in my experience this game approaches the different roles in a way that I've not been used to coming from games like WoW or Rift.

 

edit; typing is hard

Edited May 21, 2013 by Synavix

[JamieKirby]

My opinion about this is that I find DPS'ing more fun, since it doesn't have the pressure and responsibility of tanking or healing, but unless its a 'kill before rage timer' type of fight, a dps dying is no big deal, but a tank or healer dying is the difference between a full wipe and a meh death.

 

Also, I personally find tanking and healing quite boring, I prefer to do the damage, I find it infinitely more fun,

[Kaisernick]

I know why I play dps -- I was good at it. Most people here seem to think dpsing is an easy nobrain thing, .

its not that we think it is Lex, its that many others believe that if they role a DPS their only goal is to deal damage and nothing else.

[Mannam]

My opinion about this is that I find DPS'ing more fun, since it doesn't have the pressure and responsibility of tanking or healing, but unless its a 'kill before rage timer' type of fight, a dps dying is no big deal, but a tank or healer dying is the difference between a full wipe and a meh death.

 

Also, I personally find tanking and healing quite boring, I prefer to do the damage, I find it infinitely more fun,

 

I have done tanking all the way to 55 HM FP, but I am dreading doing any operations as one. Optimizing the defensive stats, is just a pain.

 

I find as a ranged dps, it is easier to gear up. Though the frustrating part is the very long queues for flashpoints. Trying to find a decent active guild on my server as well. So I can do more than just pug Ops runs.

[Slicksteezin]

and yet the SWTOR forums have 169 DPS threads, 380 tank threads and 539 healing threads.

 

very interesting

 

That has nothing to do with there being more tanks/healers. I wouldn't neccessarily say DPS is "easier" than tanking/healing, but it is definately more lenient for mistakes in operations. That may be your answer to why there is more talk about healing/tanking on forums.

Edited August 23, 2013 by Slicksteezin

[Cidanel]

Tanking is strategy. You need to research OPs and FPs before jumping in. You are expected to know what to do before your first time running. You are expected to be the person everyone leans on when they aren't sure what to do.

 

Healing is art. There is no great guide to write to make a good healer. Some people are just innately better than others.

 

DPS is science. You memorize a rotation and knock it out.

 

Not saying one is better than the other, but that is how I see the three classes. Great DPS is very hard to come by, and 95% of PUGs are not good DPS. The best players IMO are ones who have played all three pretty extensively.

[Brxaadambombz]

Tanking is strategy. You need to research OPs and FPs before jumping in. You are expected to know what to do before your first time running. You are expected to be the person everyone leans on when they aren't sure what to do.

 

Healing is art. There is no great guide to write to make a good healer. Some people are just innately better than others.

 

DPS is science. You memorize a rotation and knock it out.

 

Not saying one is better than the other, but that is how I see the three classes. Great DPS is very hard to come by, and 95% of PUGs are not good DPS. The best players IMO are ones who have played all three pretty extensively.

 

DPS is FAR from "memorize a rotation and knock it out". That is why many of the people fail to achieve numbers others find easy.

 

Each role is just as difficult to master as another just in different ways. Being bad is easy to accomplish no matter the role. Being good takes time and experience.

[Kawabonga]

DPS is FAR from "memorize a rotation and knock it out". That is why many of the people fail to achieve numbers others find easy.

 

Each role is just as difficult to master as another just in different ways. Being bad is easy to accomplish no matter the role. Being good takes time and experience.

 

Dps memorize their rotation and knock it out. Good dps add into that environmental awareness.

A dps without environmental awareness dies, a tank or a healer without it will make the whole group die. That's the difference. A bad dps will impact the raid a whole lot less than a bad tank or a bad healer, or to put in another way, a bad dps is a lot easier to carry than a bad healer/tank. A lot of people don't want to have the burden of being a key player, so they opt for dps, because it's easier to be carried. (This of course applies less for harder content)

[Cidanel]

DPS is FAR from "memorize a rotation and knock it out". That is why many of the people fail to achieve numbers others find easy.

 

Each role is just as difficult to master as another just in different ways. Being bad is easy to accomplish no matter the role. Being good takes time and experience.

 

I know what you are saying, but healing and tanking are more difficult than DPS. It is very easy to be OK at DPS. It isn't easy to be great. It isn't easy to even be OK at tanking or healing. That isn't a knock on DPS, but it is the easier of the three roles in this game. The floor to be average is the lowest. Average tanks are expected to study youtube videos of runs before even starting them. DPS can jump right into a run.

Edited January 28, 2014 by Cidanel

[JMadFour]

you guys are overthinking this.

 

it is fairly simple.

 

there are, always, in every MMO, far more DPS Options than healing/tank options. thus, more DPS.

 

and this is pretty universal to all MMOs, it is a basic MMO design mechanic. healing and tanking are very limited in their gameplay options, whereas there are always a vast plethora of different interesting ways to DPS.

 

let's take this game for example.

 

per side, there are 8 classes. each class has 3 spec trees.

 

in total, per side, there are 3 heal spec trees. 3 tank spec trees. if you want to heal you are stuck with those three choices. if you want to tank, you are stuck with those three choices.

 

there are 18 DPS spec trees. you have far more options for how you do DPS.

[Sarafain]

Bad DPS are why I DPS.

 

If you're tanking and you have Low/Bad DPS and hit enrage mechanics, you as the tank will try to do more DPS but if you miss a CD when one is needed and die it's on you. If you're the healer in the same scenario, pushing out some DPS and someone goes down again it's on you.

 

I've been in both of those situations. Bronte and Council HM, and Skyrak before had good DPS checks. Tanks and Heals can be amazing players but they won't be able to carry bad DPS.

 

Good DPS can control there threat, Bad DPS can't or doesn't do enough dmg to have to

Good DPS will use the classes utility to help the raid, not themselves

Good DPS don't tunnel vision, Bad DPS fail mechanics

And last off good DPS can do all of the above and still pull 2.5k on HM fights

[Ottoattack]

From PvE prospective:

 

I played all three roles, and contrary to most people think I found healing is the easiest of all three roles. You do not have to know mechanics in most boss fights. Heal the tank and dps as they get hit, avoid purple/red circles, and cleanse if needed. Tank of course need to know mechanics very well. As a tank I never found getting and holding agro any challenge, and my first toon ever in SWTOR was a jugg tank, which is my first MMO. Good tank and heals can carry bad dps, but progression groups to advance need good dps who can improvise, off tank or off heal. Also, it is easy to put dps, it is hard to put high dps numbers, which in most progression raids is highly needed.

 

I would rate the difficulty:

 

- Tanking.

- Dps.

- Healing.

 

From PvP prospective:

 

This is a completely different ball game, as survivability, mobility and awareness go from complimentary skills for dps to a must. There is no rotations in PvP, it is all on needed basis. Tanking in PvP is all about pealing for allies. Enemies will rarely target you directly and you, not to mention you are expected to be putting a large amount of dps, which is typically not a requirement in PvE. Then as a healer every enemy dps will be on you, and it is always a challenge to keep yourself and allies alive. And the roles easily commingle in PvP, as you can and will tank as dps and dps as healer or tank.

 

All roles in PvP are equally difficult. But in PvP dps makes or breaks games, were in PvE, the pressure is more on tanks and healers. In PvE bad dps can be very easily carried. In PvP, there is no room for bad PvP and there is no one to carry you in competitive situations, thus why many player are shun from it.

[jaytdasme]

it all comes down to pretty much why do most of us play MMOs/RPGs at all.

 

to start off from humble beginnings as a pathetic lvl one, and morph said toon into a Bada.ss.

 

Most healers and tanks don't feel like a badda.ss.

[JouerTue]

50% because they are lazy ****s, and those are bad dps, not knowing a thing about the game in general and they just crawl behind the raid being carried all the time, even if they do l33t critz.

50% because it's one of three roles, and maybe they don't like healing, or tanking, or they are not as good as when dpsing.

 

personally when i dps,it's because i don't trust the other dps..like pugging DP..better if I do kite raptus, better if i do kill those adds..obviously all those 16sm pugs allow a huge amount of bad dps to succed compared to a 8hm run..one in 4 they wouldn't have so much room to be bad and will end in a lot of ignore lists in a short time.

 

i liked the post about pvp..well there like 90% are bads :-D

[Prototypemind]

Cause it's fun to let go and kick some tail. I have two geared tanks and one on the way up, one healer, and all the rest are DPS. I will be rolling one more tank, but even my Sin I've started to run a DPS set with recently and I love the change of pace. I wanted to level my Shadow as a DPS but I'm also tanking as I go to keep the queue times down--and yes I make sure I have the gear for it.

 

Regardless, it's fun to be able to focus on nothing but putting out damage during runs. The attacks are fun to watch, and there's a lot of enjoyment trying to out parse other DPS in the raid, especially if you're slightly undergeared in comparison.

 

There's also the fact that being a ****** is a lot more fun. If you're overgeared as a tank and take no damage, it's not a challenge. If you're overgeared as a healer, you end up giving into the urge and start throwing out DPS. If you're overgeared as DPS you can have fun seeing how fast you can burn the hell out of mobs, champions, and bosses. You get to compete against yourself and the other DPS in the group, and that had better be reward enough because you know praise for good DPS is not given too often =p I'll be damned if I can recall seeing a DPS about his or her business ever getting MVP in a warzone either.

[HBCentaurion]

My main has always been a tank (started with a hybrid Juggernaut pre 1.2 and switched to a Powertech after 2.0), but I also have a geared (DF) healer and DPS that I play occasionally. My view is that Tanks are the hardest class to master (I'm not talking about SM operations here, but DF / DP HM, TfB / SV NiM). As a tank you need to:

- Keep aggro / position the boss correctly at all times

- Know all the mechanics of the fight for everyone so you know how to place to boss / execute tactics (tank swap, taunting adds, switching guard etc)

- Be able to think on the fly and make decisions that can wipe the raid if done wrong

- Have good raid awareness (special important in top tier content)

- Know your class extremely well (what are it's capabilities, respecc to certain fights, ie on add duty on Titan; intercede a player AOE taunt adds and jump to boss, or jump -> push -> jump. Small things like that make a big impact in top tier content etc)

- Know your DCDs and when to use them

 

 

As mentioned a bad tank is more visible than a bad dps.

[Garik-Tru]

This is my first MMO. When I chose my class, advanced class, and then specialization I had no idea about this idea of the Holy Trinity of Tank, Healer, and DPS. Naturally, I chose a Jedi Knight Guardian Defense Specialization. When I started looking here to find out how to play my class well, I discovered that my role was actually going to be quite a challenge. I had no idea what aggro or threat was. What is a proc? There is a whole new language surrounding these games. I was stunned.

 

I played a number of flashpoints and I did ok, but I know I'm not great. I'm still leveling my Guardian right now. At least I'm trying and learning. And then I start my alt: Telekinetics Sage. Wow! What a totally different flashpoint experience! When I'm uncertain of what to do, I don't get people typing in chat, "Ummm....go ahead. Start it." Instead I just go bash on the weakest enemy or smash whatever is hitting the healer until it stops moving.

 

I know I'm not a top end DPS. I've done my homework on my rotation/priorities and on the mechanics of the various flashpoint fights I have access to. I hit pretty hard, judging by the fact that I can relatively regularly pull aggro from tanks in flashpoints. Sure, that's probably also a reflection of the fact that tanks in PuGs aren't always top end. But it is satisfying to be part of a flashpoint run where things die quickly and in order, with the healer able to focus their efforts on healing the tank rather than dodging mobs.

 

So "Why DPS?" It's satisfying to be part of a team that plays well. And, as a beginner to MMOs, DPS is a great way to learn the fights and the role without having the responsibility of leadership. It has helped my tanking a lot, as well.

 

Cheers,

Garik

Edited March 6, 2014 by Garik-Tru