The proposed Shared Topic over at Blog Azeroth caught my eye this week. I must say I've been lazy with these, always saying I wanted to write something up but never getting around to it. Well this topic marks my triumphant return to the Shared Topic! Let's all pause while the choir of angels rejoices.
Ok then! Now on to the purpose. As a DPS, I find that I have two main jobs in a raid. The first is what I would consider the most obvious. I bring damage . . . per second, as it were. Hence the name DPS. But what I would consider the most important is the second job. I should be minimizing the damage that I take. Many casters possess powerful defensive cooldowns. Damn you, mages, I'd love an iceblock. It's easy to learn a rotation or read up on maximizing gear and damage potential. It's much harder to stay aware in the raid setting and minimize the damage that is being taken.
In the end, we're not brought to the raid because of our ability to press buttons. We can all press buttons and like I said, that's the easy part. What is it that makes a DPS worth taking? Raid awareness and the ability to avoid or reduce incoming damage. That said, I'm about to spin a very grim picture of when a healer ought to let a DPS die.
In most fights, there is some incidental damage. This damage is usually either very focused or some type of aura. Healers should be expected to handle this type of damage. But a DPS should be left on their own if they aren't doing what they need to in order to minimize that incoming damage. If there's a firebomb, you might get hit with it. But if you're still standing in the fire 1 second later, finishing that cast or scratching your bum, the healer should cut the cord on you. If there's a cleave and the boss gets turned but you're too lazy to reposition, the healer should cut the cord. If it's a dragon and you're getting smacked by the tail, the healer should cut the cord. If there's a big wave of fire, some deadly poison, ice raining from the sky, rocks falling down, or otherwise unhealthy beams of light, and you, as DPS, don't get out of the way, you deserve to take that death. And don't even breathe angrily at the healer because you were failing at your job.
Unfortunately, in today's world of splash healing, DPS have been encouraged to form bad habits. AoE healing tends to slip into a healer's rotation and keep up poor players. But a little birdie tells me that in Cataclysm, AoE healing will be reserved for AoE healing situations. Additionally, mana management will be a concern again, so spam healing the DPS dipstick who isn't doing his part to minimize damage taken won't be viable.
When it comes down too it, if the healer in the raid/group is keeping everyone else alive and the same DPS keeps dying, the blame doesn't lie with with healer. Most encounters are designed so that gross incompetence is rewarded with death. Healers should not have to try very hard to prevent that from occurring. So like the great Eric Clapton says: "Before you accuse the healer, take a look at yourself!" . . . leastways I think it goes somethin' like that . . .
3 comments:
Thank you for responding to my topic!
I'm surprised that I keep finding dps who are so firmly on the side of healers. Though even before I was healing, when I was flailing around on my first character - a very squishy mage... I never really *expected* to be healed out of mistakes. I appreciated healers who would do so, and showered them with love and affection...but I didn't think they failed when they couldn't or chose not to.
To be honest I am fairly generous in giving people the benefit of the doubt. After all, all of us do make mistakes or get hit my latency sometimes. In terms of performance issues, I generally only let someone die if they are a) repeatedly making the same mistake after I have whispered them about it, b) standing in goop for so long that a single heal/HoT is used up and their life slowly trickles down to nothing and they still don't move, or c) performing in such a way that it is a clear impediment to the group's progress (i.e. liftapping down to a third of their health and then pulling aggro, while doing the dps of a wet sock). Let's just say I don't have a moral obligation to prevent a dps from deliberately committing suicide.
I think you make an excellent point about Cataclysm. Normal dungeons and heroics will be getting difficult again, and charging through ignoring fight mechanics and fire because you just *can* is not going to be a good strategy. But Blizzards new idea that it's okay to let someone sit at half life while triage dictates someone else needs speedy assistance is likely going to force more dps to pay attention to their health bars. There's simply not going to be an opportunity to make that same mistake twice without dying. Survivability (and the inherent ability to actually hit the boss) could easily provide a reinforcing mechanism. I sure like that part...and I hadn't thought of the changes in that context.
That said, I think us healers are going to get a heck of a lot more criticism in PuGs for letting someone die, even if it was their own fault.
And of course Blizzard is giving me FailGrip...which is not exactly an inspiring trend towards the personal responsibility of dps.
As a range DPS and knowing that the healers' main concern is probably the tank, I do try to minimize damage taken. Fortunately, I keep extra flasks for myself and I can throw a quick heal on myself if necessary. I think this comes under being prepared for the fight.
I agree that DPS (and others) should do whatever they can for the benefit of the group and the healer. Coming fully prepared is perhaps the biggest help one can give to the healer.
You are certainly right that dps are forming bad habits and, in some cases, it isn't even due to laziness or inattention.
Since healing has become so splashy and mana pools are functionally infinite a dps can often better serve his/her raid by standing in the fire and maximizing damage output. The healer has the time and mana to spare, so better that the pesky Mage keep his rotation rolling than lose the cast time needed to move out of a hazard. It will be interesting to see how people adjust to limited mana pools. The old days of instances are coming back and many people are decidedly not prepared.
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