If you never pull aggro from your tank, then you aren't challenging them enough :). It is sad that DPS charts are such a misused and misunderstood tool though. If there were metrics of success that were just as easy to make for tanks, healers, and ccers, then those metrics would probably be misused just as often though.
Just remember to push yourself to improve your ability to play the game. Everyone has their own path.
As a long time raid leader, I always felt the enchanters/bards never got enough credit. There is nothing wrong with showing parses after a good fight but they're usually dominated by the guy/gal getting the most love from the support classes. On paper, their DPS might only be 30% of a true DPS class ... but when you factor how much of a difference their buffs/debuffs make on overall raid performance, I would argue any day of the week that support classes are capable of achieving a higher "true DPS" when all things are considered. Tanks/healers/CC are all important as well, of course ... but if we're talking specifically about the parser, it's the bards/enchanters who make a way bigger contribution than what they actually get credit for.
Topping the DPS chart just makes you the most damaging. It's just 1 single facet of a fight. Was there a guy kiting 15 things around? Was there an off tank and a seperate little group taking out adds out? Was there a brave enchanter who charmed an insane thing to attempt to charm to add damage to -1 +1 to a fight? Was there simply a perfect healing rotation set up that was followed to a T? Did the tanks have their own set rotation and used various things to keep agro switching between them to utilize their defensive cooldown abilities to the best?
Overall, there are too many reasons that fights are won, damage is the easiest one to pull off successfully.
Think one of the most desired roles was a good puller. Required mostly solo work of spoon feeding the group experience.
Pulling the right amount of mobs, at the right pace, while keeping track of respawn timers, roamers, and named spawns. If you had a great puller the group felt so smooth. Granted that required a well geared tank, with a mana efficient healer, DPS to make sure the mobs die before the next one arrives, along with good utility to make sure everyone was functioning at pinnacle levels.
Ainadak said:If you never pull aggro from your tank, then you aren't challenging them enough :). It is sad that DPS charts are such a misused and misunderstood tool though. If there were metrics of success that were just as easy to make for tanks, healers, and ccers, then those metrics would probably be misused just as often though.
Just remember to push yourself to improve your ability to play the game. Everyone has their own path.
You pull agro from the tank youre a terrible player, Agro control is a group effort. Thats the problem with most MMO games and players...Its all just DPS all the time, no thought about how to control the mobs or your agro.
akahdrin said:Well said my friend! All great points that lead to the success of an encounterTopping the DPS chart just makes you the most damaging. It's just 1 single facet of a fight. Was there a guy kiting 15 things around? Was there an off tank and a seperate little group taking out adds out? Was there a brave enchanter who charmed an insane thing to attempt to charm to add damage to -1 +1 to a fight? Was there simply a perfect healing rotation set up that was followed to a T? Did the tanks have their own set rotation and used various things to keep agro switching between them to utilize their defensive cooldown abilities to the best?
Overall, there are too many reasons that fights are won, damage is the easiest one to pull off successfully.
Kilsin said:Does topping the DPS charts necessarily make you a better player, or do the other members of the group/raid (Tanks, Healers, Crowd Control) deserve more love? #PRF
DPS means absolutely nothing if you are fighting the mechanic the way it is suppose to be fought, which i think a ton of dpsers, well casual dpsers forget, but to be honest they are all important, tanks love healers, but not dpsers who cant control their aggro, healers love dpsers, not not tanks who die to fast and are extrmely harsh on their mana, dpsers love both the healers for keeping them alive and the tanks, and love tanks so they dont become the tanks the healers hate :)
Edit: and than of course you got the Support classes which everyone loves and they love everyone, for basically every reason you can think of.
Honestly its all about who is most efficient at their job. A tank that holds agro well but takes too much damage due to not paying attention is not as good as one who watches the cues and handles agro well. Total healing is cool and all but if you are at 70% over healing you need to learn the battle better to anticipate when healing is needed and the best tool for it. Max dps is nice but if you are costing your healers mana because you stay in for just one more hit you are risking the raid, not to mention DPS classes are usually the most gear dependent. Support classes are and will always be the hardest to calculate and give credit for their effect as they often make the DPS what they are but by the same token its easy to just look and see if you have the buff or debuff so keeping track of your effects and timers is the primary metric for support classes.
I'd like to claim pullers don't get enough credit but as raid monk puller I cannot pretend that. Being the puller you have the freedom to see and experience the zone in a way that other classes can't as they hide in the back crammed against the wall. The puller sets the raid pacing and is always in the spotlight. Pulling is also thrilling as one false move can literally kill you and monks live for that ****.
Trasak
Since a 'How much damage' metric is the easiest to see, the DPS classes tend to get to the top of any chart ....
... however:
As a few above have mentioned,
it isn't about topping the DPS chart in a standard meat-and-potatoes pull...
... it is when the chips are down and everything goes to Hell in a hand-cart!
Does the CC spot them and nail down as many as he can ....
Does the utility player switch to off-tank or off-CC to hold the others ....
Does the buffer check hp/RR/mana levels and switch spells appropriately...
Does the pet class player burn his pet to save the healer/CC'er ...
Contribution to the group relies on you knowing how to play your class and how it helps the group!
Evoras, imagines most support players are often undervalued until a crisis hits!
As many others already pointed, ADPS offered at the right time and in the right sequence can really highlight a DPS classes capability to shine. To say any one player is self-reliant to top charts is a bold overstatement.
Heal parses can be provided by the individual tank and I also think cast counts offer details as well to a given role for a character to establish benchmarks for, but it doesn't have the prestige that DPS charts offer.
A little friendly competition for top DPS is great, but has little to do with how good a player you are. A dps who constantly pulls agro, is on the wrong target, or simply isn't group friendly can ruin a raid whereas a knowledgable tank or healer can overcome small deficiencies in a group's damage. Focus DPS fights are core encounters, but I feel PRF is going to require more thought and attention from all classes to successfully run a dungeon.
Warben said:As many others already pointed, ADPS offered at the right time and in the right sequence can really highlight a DPS classes capability to shine. To say any one player is self-reliant to top charts is a bold overstatement.
Heal parses can be provided by the individual tank and I also think cast counts offer details as well to a given role for a character to establish benchmarks for, but it doesn't have the prestige that DPS charts offer.
I have to agree there needs to be better parses like a claculated measure of who actually preformed the best, like DPS, than Healed most/over healing, Tanks he aggro build up/ damage taken/migated and supporters showing what they buffs did and such so we get a full picture of why things either worked or didn't work, a complete picture of everything is so much more than a DPS parse. Also i think they DPS pase should tell how many time aggroed was taking from the tank, and who it was so we know what happening, granted this could be use to place blame and should but at the same time people need to know to control their aggro and if we can't tell who is doing it they might not try to change, and therefore will always be hurting the grp.
Plus imo, in EQ if you had 60 ppl in a raid and it was split 30 tanks/30 you could kill a ton of raid targets, but if you have 30dps/30tanks, or 30dps/30healers, you probably could't kill any raid targets, meaning by defualt tanks/healers are and will always be the most important role in a raid force, and honestly i would even say supporters are more important than dps, dps is just somethign that has a chance to show fancy numbers, but all in all they couldn't do it without relying on all the other aspects of the other roles.
Support roles rarely get any credit, saying that every member has a job to do and is just as important. Thankfully I won't have to see recount spammed in chat every few minutes with Pantheon. In WoW it seems DPS think they are the group. As most recount s[ammers do it for ego when it should be used to assess your rotation.
This kind of debate is one of the biggest reasons I became an alto-holic... By playing every class and exploring every role I gathered an understanding of what each class/role requiered to perfrom their best. This was indeed a large time investment that was always having to be modified and adjusted due to game balance/mechanic changes, expansions always being the worst times as I would be the last to have a top lv character to go into raiding with as I leveld up every class uniformly to understand their changes.
This is why I have donned the title 'Jack of all trades, master of none' as I had always supported my parties/raids nomatter what role/class I chose to allow them to perfrom better. While I had a broad scope of information and experiance, I had trouble pushing my limits as I always tried to cover for everyone else. Around 2 or 3 years ago I met someone that in a matter of words told me: "No matter what you play you play it as a support, so why not specialize in support?"
- They were absolutely right...no matter what I played, nomatter the genre of game I played a heavy support role, I even have ticked peopel off by doing as such, complaining "you are a 'Z' don't play like an 'X' or a 'Y' you are making us lose!" From my point of view I always felt "if I didn't have to cover for you all constantly I could do what my dictated role was!" It has been a sore spot for the longest time, I eventually get fed up and leave the game or group, and 90% of the time I came across people who were in those groups or happened to come across me in another game or pug grouping come out and say I was the lynchpin, wether or not it was a friendly or hostile aknowledgement around 50/50, the other 10% I ran into would just trash talk me and either leave themselves or throw the run/game and blame it on me.
All in all I have to believe that supports always get the short end of the stick, in my case I myself am a support that is able to accel at other roles, but can never bring out their potential...like DPS and Tanks are always my sub-class. The biggest issue I find with players like myself, is I stunt the growth of others, support classes/roles generally aren't needed if players are adequtely geared and play well, they just give a buffer, the problem comes when that buffer makes them lazy and they can't play without it.
-- I had always been the most reliable person in a group or guild, filling where needed, always making every run/raid, always prepared with my own consumables, that said on the 2 or 3 times I missed a run over the past 10 years or so they failed miserably, even on dubbed 'farm content'. I don't say this just to toot my own horn, I have faced this kind of lynchpinning countless times, even more recently in my past game of FF XIV, relic 'light' farming once I'd leave or try to change class to fill to a differnt role, the group would crumble. There may be no 'I' in team, but there are those who make and break them.
TL: DR - Its not cut and dry, individual playstyles are the greater influence, trying everything to find what you enjoy best over what you have been told or directed to choose will bolster personal enjoyment causing you to perfrom better, games are entertainment NOT jobs, anyone and everyone is replaceable so if you are going to be replaced at least have the fallback of what you enjoy doing.
It largely depends on the game developers, innit? :)
I've played games where you can do stuff like "burn" a boss and you won't need tank, CC or healing. Just be fast enough and you can ignore every mechanic and just wipe the floor with the boss. It's obvious that this game will reward min-maxing and super high DPS. This is especially true when some race/class combinations were able to off-tank or off-heal while dealing huge amounts of damage.
What I'm hoping to see in Pantheon is mechanics that force the group to consider the mechanics and are demanding (but also rewarding) of groups where each role is played well. Have adds come assist bosses at specific hp points so that if you are TOO fast you'll be swarmed. You only brought a tank and 5 DPS? Good luck on your corpse run. The healer is doubling as an off-DPS, throwing away mana like it's nobody's business? Good luck keeping the group alive when the boss jumps and stirs up a poison cloud.
I hope VR can avoid pitfalls such as not being on top of the game's current meta to spot situations where certain classes are being ignored because they aren't needed. If you spend the resources developing different classes, I hope you make it rewarding for every single one of them. So in reply to the question in the OP, ultimately every role should have to be played effectively to truly succeed, and every role should receive about the same amount of love.
Any time you reduce to numbers the contribution anyone makes to any team, you're trivializing their work and probably not even getting an accurate picture. I don't care whether you are talking about lines of code written by programmers or stabby stabs in game.
The statisticians like beans to count. DPS numbers are easy to collect and easy for ogres to understand who barshed the goodest.
DPS stats should be used only for what they tell you - who did the most damage. Your DPS during corpse retrieval isn't so impressive, so credit must be given to the players who are buffing, healing and controlling the pulls - even if you can't measure their performance. I don't think there's going to be any Pantheon class that is just 100% DPS, so even for traditional DPS classes, those stats are still only showing you part of the picture. e.g. Rogues have mez now. I'd rather have a lower DPS rogue in my group who was extremely skilled in all aspects of his class, than one who ignored adds and exclusively focused on stabbing.
A good raid or group leader knows who the rock stars are and let's them know how much their work is appreciated.
Now if the melee classes want to pulll out their swords and compare length that's a different conversation. DPS figures are invaluable factors for deciding roles, positioning, loot assignment... DPS is also a great way to see your personal growth and to assist with min-maxing, comparing gear and determining who needs some extra help with gear or technique in your guild.
Topping DPS charts doesn't mean everything. Situational awareness, knowing your class, knowing when to not dps, listening to your raid leader... those things make you a better player. DPS comes with gear. Knowing your class and what to do when will up that a bit, but in most games if you have the gear and aren't brain dead you'll top the charts. It's not hard.
Damage is meaningless if all the other roles arent fulfilled. I'm not sure why any one type of role should be given "credit" over any other.
I remember playing my necro in LDON runs in EQ. I would regularly do damage, feed mana, snare and CC (in undead dungeons), as well as maintain my own health more often than not. I'd also regularly get flack from people who expected me to do nothing but damage, so I'd let them know that I was stopping everything else I was doing, focusing on dmg, and ask them to tell me when to switch back. It usually didnt take long for people to realize that things were not running nearly as smoothly as they had previously even though the overall group damage had gone up.
Most of this is just player ignorance. They can understand a nice little damage meter just fine, but nuance is mostly lost on them. And I don't know how you fix that other than demonstrating the importance of it. In newer MMO's this is largely irrelevent. Fights last a matter of a few seconds, no one ever talks because they are racing for the next fight before the first is even wholly concluded, and there's no strategy really needed other than dogpile anything that agros. Longer fights, need for more careful deliberation; these things help with the issue, but ultimately "You can't fix stupid.".
It totally depends on the encounter and class balance at the moment. DPS output is extremely dependent on what one's role for a particular raid is. If a Mage class is assigned the role of kiting adds, while a Ranger class is assigned the role of staying on the boss/burning adds, we can all assume that the ranger's DPS output will be higher... Does that make the ranger a better player? Absolutely not. From my experience, Guild's tend to give the "better players" the more complex and vital tasks. I would go as far as saying that in this scenario, it would not be outlandish to assume that the Mage is the better player. Also, at any given moment in any MMO, certain classes/specs/builds have higher raw dps output capability. It's just how MMO's are.
As far as Tanks/Healers gettng more love. I think anyone with experience in MMO's knows that a good Tank and a good Healer are well known and loved by most. Personally, there is nothing I admire more than an extremely talented Healer or Tank. I am a coward, so I play DPS... If I die, I will not be missed like them, lol. Tanks/Healers are MUCH less expendable. Just my two cents.
Kilsin said:Does topping the DPS charts necessarily make you a better player, or do the other members of the group/raid (Tanks, Healers, Crowd Control) deserve more love? #PRF
I think that the best group is a selfless group - and the answer is... nobody is the better player.
- Tanks should be doing everything they can to hold agro so that DPS can do as much damage as possible and so that healers have to worry less about healing the group
- DPS should be doing the most DPS they can while trying to NOT take agro from the tank. Each group is different, and DPS have to find the fine line in each one.
- Healers should be striving to keep people alive and in the fight in the most mana efficient way possible
- CC should be focused on making sure that locked down mobs stay locked down
- Pullers should be making sure they don't flood the group, but keep the group constantly killing
When everyone is doing their job in a good group, nobody is the hero. (or perhaps more positively stated, everybody is the hero)