Why DPS when Damage Done is all what matters ?

[Amajed 3]

Hi , I've been asking my self that quastion , DPS is the highest Damage u deal per sec, it does not mean that u r the highest damage of all the time for the whole fight.

I'm an Aff Warlock , Normally I'm 3rd to 4th in DPS till the last 25% of the boss I get to deal higher damage that I can be 1st or 2nd in DPS. but when we see who actully dealt most of the damage it will not be me for sure.

what makes the DPS so important and not Damage Done ?

IMO I think its easier to track how much damage can some1 deal , but that is not accurate.

in another case, I was my warlock to get sustaind dps from the start to the end. which spec is most suited for this ?

thanks :)

[Vlad 411]

DPS is mostly a theoretical concept. It's what "you are capable of doing with your gear/talents/latency/skill" etc. It's a nice way to measure potential, but it's not very practical.

The thing that matters for any raid leader and the thing that should matter for any raider is damage done. I know, certainly, that whenever I was leading raids, I only ever looked at damage done, not really minding DPS very much.

To get high damage done, you need more than just the abiliity to do a lot of DPS, but you also need to be active for 100% of the fight (don't let any time go by without casting something), not to die (very important) and to know how to make use of certain situations in the encounter (when to abandon your normal rotation to just spam one ability on an add that will die soon, for example). It's also extremely important to do that damage to the right targets. For example, someone who did 500,000 more damage than you but completely ignored the adds, while you did 2,000,000 to the adds probably contributed far less.

Of course... someone who is doing very low DPS in the first place probably won't have very much damage done, either.

Regarding your question about Warlocks, the spec with the least fluctuation in DPS throughout the fight is Destruction.

[Alierya 94]

I agree that when RL you should always track damage done during a raid. Yes I would think it is way more important in the overall fight. One of the things that I like so much about recount is when a fight is going badly you can look at who has done what dmg to what target - again showing who is just trying to play the meters.

Some classes have nice burst dps (like myself, I think I drop about 10k dps after my initial burst phase) where as others (like yourself, spreist etc) have lots of dots which will increase dps as the fight goes on.

I would use dps to see how you are performing against others of your class or for your gear (you can use a sim to give you an aprox of what you could be pulling) but then how you are ranked in terms of max damage has got to be by far the most important to the group.

Also some classes just perform better than others - have a look at something like world of logs to see the best/average for your class. Some fights are not all about damage either and there is nothing more anoying than someone who can pull mega dps but not manage to avoid, lets say, GIANT ice walls.

Sadly I don't have a lock and it's something we don't have the raid group at the moment, so I can't help you with that!

[Peelyon 416]

Dps is one of those mythical things like gear score ilevel and achievements, it doesn't really prove anything. The problem is so many dps players feel like it is the only thing that matters. I have had people boasting / comparing dps meters after a wipe whee they have been doing literally zero damage on adds or failing at mechanics because they wanted to be top.

I really wouldn't worry about it, it's just a tool to give you a quick idea of where you are. Players that get too hung up on meters arent really players I want to play with!

[Zagam 1,982]

DPS meters are a double-edged blade. They can show skill at one time and ignorance to mechanics at another time. Melee players who cry about ranged getting to do more damage when Morchok does his Black Blood ability will never cease to amaze me. Does it fail to cross these melee players' minds that the ranged people ARE ON THEIR TEAM WITH THE SAME GOAL OF KILLING ANY SAID BAD GUY?

How about melee players linking charts on Heroic Zon'ozz while the ranged players spent time killing the tentacle adds around the room who didn't have a 'take more damage' debuff? Too often do raiders forget they are part of a team, and everyone is meant to do their part. Linking meters is only acceptable on a fight where all classes and specializations have the same opportunity to shine. See Ultraxion.

Recount also does a fun thing where it only calculates damage over time you are casting spells. If players are truly interested in how they are performing, I suggest you use World of Logs and upload battle details so you can see your Arcane Mage not casting any spells until his mana has regenerated so that his '60k DPS' looks better when in reality, he did less overall damage than your off-tank.

Damage overall done isn't the end all analysis either...it is important to see who promptly and effectively killed the Burning Tentacles that healers loathe so much on Madness. How about effective damage done during the only important part of the Heroic Spine encounter...the Tendon burn phase? Who is mastering their rotation to do the most damage in the 18 seconds you have? I actually had a wipe on Heroic Spine before because when there were 40 bloods out, our DK decided to 'pad the meters' by Howling Blasting the bloods instead of hitting the Tendon. Result? Tendon survived with 1% life and we wiped.

TL;DR version: Recount only shows you player contributions on Ultraxion. For the rest, remember you are part of a team and doing your part means more than being on top of the meters. Being on top of the meters means that you got the easy job on the encounter.

[LCSscallywag 57]

I want to double like your post Zagam.

Also, I am of the mentality same with you. Recount is a tool, not the end all be all. World of Logs is the better tool to determine performance. Looking at my numbers in recount when in Arcane for Spine, they seem low. But looking at the WoL, i'm average with the rest of my team. Thus, we are doing enough DPS to get that tendon down in time with minimal damage done by those bloods. Those...god...forsaken....bloods.

I would have kicked that DK right off of Deathwing's ass if he did that in my raid. And then not rez him. But I'm a jerk.

[Zagam 1,982]

It's nearly impossible to find 10 or 25 like minded individuals who truly understand the depth of each encounter and how to separate your class from the rest. It's why I love raid leading and theorycrafting. Why do I send myself and a Hunter to the left on Heroic Zon'ozz? Because we have the burst and ability to DPS while moving the best out of our raid group to deal with a higher amount of adds. We also can apply DoTs while running to Zon'ozz to increase our overall impact. My Frost DK (different one now for obvious reasons =D) sits on the boss because sending him to kill tentacles is lame. Of course the Hunter and Boomkin WANT to stay on the boss, but I give them tasks and reward them with loot. Seems fair, right? =)