Mr.WoW Gold - WoW Professions Guides - The DPS Guide to Instances and Raids
The DPS Guide to Instances and Raids
Welcome to our Ultimate DPS Guide for World of Warcraft. This guide applies to all classes as each of them has one or more specs focused specifically on fulfilling a DPS role, so if you want to learn how to be better at dealing damage then this is the guide for you. We’re going to go into every detail you need to know which will help you outperform everyone else even if your gear isn’t nearly as good.
Chapter I: Movement & You
The first rule of doing damage is that movement is everything. Movement can affect your DPS both positively and negatively and it’s one of the biggest game mechanics that players mess up on. For melee DPS you have to be within melee range (i.e. close) while ranged need to remain within the maximum reach of their skills. If you’re out of range then you will automatically do 0 DPS.
Chapter II: Activity
Being inactive in some fights hurts everyone, especially in high level content.Being active is the most important thing you can do while in combat. More often than not a lot of players who are properly geared but not doing very good damage are just not being active. You’ll see seconds between the time one ability finishes and they start casting/using the next one. The most important thing is to have the next skill in your rotation ready to be mashed as soon as the current skill is used. You should never worry about your resources, unless you need to save some for key interrupts.
Chapter III: Positioning & Death
Even at lower levels you should never be below the tank in DPS. As you can see in this example, using these tips I was able to get #1 at level 72 while others were lagging far behind the tank.How much DPS does a dead person do? Zero. (the impending zombie apocalypse not withstanding) That’s another key rule to doing DPS. You need to be alive in order to beat something with your stick (or axe or hammer or fiery magic or whatever). How can you stay alive? By not standing in damaging environmental effects, or in front of bosses – in other words, being constantly aware of your surroundings.
Many bosses will place down void zones (glowing circles of death), fire, or things like desecration. Standing in these will hit you for a ton of damage and can easily be avoided by moving out of them. You need to be aware and alert of your surroundings and be ready to move, even if it DOES cost you DPS (as we learned earlier). You have to weigh the lost DPS of moving vs. the lost DPS of you being dead. Melee classes have to be extra careful not to stand in front of bosses because they will often have a cleave or some kind of AoE frontal cone attack that’s designed to be absorbed only by the tank.
However, you shouldn’t fret if you’re taking residual AoE damage from the fight. A lot of times bosses will just AoE everyone or throw around various ranged attacks designed to do damage to DPS classes. If it’s unavoidable then it’s the healer’s job to deal with it, not yours. Unless you’re about to die in which case it’s time to utilize your survival cooldowns like Ice Block, Fade, Feign Death, Survival Instincts, or whatever you have available to you.
Chapter IV: Hotkeys & Reaction Time
In heroics the bar is set much lower, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't do your best.
I’m going to be honest to you; a lot of DPS can be lost to reaction time. Let’s say you need to mash Ice Block within the next 2 seconds or you’re dead. You’re pretty much going to die on the next hit and the tank isn’t going to make it to save you in time. If you take too long to hit your survival button then you’re going to die, even if you make the commitment to hit it but get tangled in searching for it or moving your mouse around to click it.
Chapter V: Rotations
Rotations are a complicated subject, but also the most important thing for every damage dealer out there. If you don’t use your skills in a proper combo with one another then you’re going to be really ineffective in combat. Everything we’ve learned so far has led us to this key point.
It’s equally important that you also learn how to become flexible with your rotation once you’re comfortable and familiar with the basics. Some players will lose their rhythm the second they have to move and all of their debuff/buff timers become unaligned. You need to learn why hitting those buttons in that order is what produces the most damage. If you can understand what each of the skills do then you can understand how to become flexible with them.
For instance, if you’re a Feral Druid and your Savage Roar and Rip expire then you might not know which one to use first. Well, if you know that Savage Roar increases the damage of Rip when it’s applied then you’d know to gain 2 combo points, Savage Roar, and then gain 5 combos points to Rip. Then gain 5 combo points and do a proper Savage Roar. Flexibility at its finest.
