Why do people do low DPS?

[Stabface]

How can we help them?

I don't mean just people who are boxing either -- although I've seen from discussions, screenshots, and movies that there are boxers here who are doing low DPS.
I have many friends & guildmates (and PuGs) who also struggle to do even "terrible" DPS. I'm talking about brand new 80's in quest greens and blues pulling ~600-800 DPS... we did this much or more back in T4 content at L70. I just can't understand how it's even possible. I think casting nothing but Lighting Bolt, NAKED, would do this much DPS. Any class should be able to pull I think 1200-1500+ if they have a decent ilvl 175+ gear set, which is trivial with some crafted, quested, or BoE drops. It's definitely not a gear problem, I have a destro warlock in my guild who will pull maybe 1300-1500 in a 5 man... in full T7+ epics including some Ulduar25 pieces. My warlock in similar gear pulls more than double that, 3500+ easily. A bear tank that pulls maybe 6-700 DPS and can't hold threat beyond the duration of a taunt. I've tried helping but they seem to get really defensive or upset about it. I'm at a loss for what to do, we're mostly a casual/family guild but we do raid and there's not enough people as it is. So we can't just not invite these people because we already have to PuG a few slots to fill the raid. Then I get the whispers from the PuGs "you need to kick that lock he's bad" which is quite true actually, but I can't. I need to get them to play better instead.

Really I think doing good DPS comes down to 3 factors:

* Knowing the right buttons to push in the correct order
* Pressing these buttons as fast as you can
* Don't stand in a fire

I need to come up with a non-confrontational way to address particularly the first two... some people are just always going to die in a fire I think.


Ideas ??

[kadaan]

I've had this same issue with a few guilds I've played with. It's incredibly frustrating, and more-so when they refuse your help. We had a resto druid who healed only with Healing Touch, and said she "did just fine, thanks" and refused to even try to use hots. DPS is similar, we'll have parses where someone is using their main ability half as much as someone else. I don't know if they just sit there, press a button, wait 5 seconds, press it again, or what they're doing.

The steps to getting people to do better are:
1. Get them to admit that they could do better
2. Get them to WANT to improve
3. Have them willing to either do some EJ reading, or find them a mentor who knows their class they can get advice from and questions.
4. GIVE THEM FEEDBACK. "Wow X, you did 200dps better on that fight than you did last week! Whatever you're doing different is working!"

As for standing in fire... not much you can do there. Call out in vent when something happens, but don't call them out in vent. "Flame wave coming" "void zone spawned" "laser barrage, get behind mimiron", etc.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

Some quick suggestions from someone who typically doesn't do "uber" dps on any of my chars.

1. Try really, really hard not to come off as condescending. Calling people "terrible" or veiled versions of "needs to l2p" pretty much shut down any effort they've been making to try to learn from you. Garbage in, garbage out. Don't be part of the problem; be part of the solution.
2. Define the measurement criteria. What you do on the 80 target dummy is not the same as the boss dummy, and neither of them tells you dick about certain bosses that are resistant to a particular damage type or skew certain results. What are you using to measure the DPS? We've discussed several times how much variation there is among damage meters. Also, are we talking about DPS against a boss that takes 5+ minutes to kill or against a heroic boss that dies in 45 seconds? (i.e.: how long should said DPS be sustainable for?) Additionally, you need to define what buffs the player is expected to have and what debuffs the target is expected to have, as both of these can drastically change the DPS with identical rotations/gear.
3. Assist with gear research. Not talking about how close something is to BIS, talking about whether the stat distribution makes sense. I.e.: should they be focusing on +hit or on +dmg or something else. This isn't as clear cut as you'd think to most folks. Might also remind people about diminishing returns and when it starts affecting things.
4. Point out tools to help with ability rotations. A good macro can make or break DPS, as can knowing what the priority is for abilities. Knowing when cooldowns are coming up is also important.
5. Find out whether, when the DPS is "sucking" whether they're experiencing system problems at the time. Certain mods and macro flubs can cause notable delays in abilities firing on time, which can reduce DPS. If the person's system is lagging in a big fight, they might not be able to tell when things happen that need attention. Low FPS means not seeing a cooldown pulse or not being able to watch a cooldown/timer bar very well, or missing a mob's cast that needs to be interrupted or a debuff that needs to be taken advantage of. This may seem minor to those of us with quad-core beast machines but everyone doesn't have that capability.
6. If you have the same class as they do, try some things out WITH them to see if you see obvious gaps in execution. Not only will you better be able to help identify things like conflicting cooldowns/GCDs, you also make them feel like someone's willing to help without just saying "OMG STOP SUCKING YOU NOOBTARD!"

Lots of things to be cognizant of, but the biggest one is being helpful and non-condescending. All it takes is one jibe or insult from you to turn off people from wanting to even deal with you, let alone accept criticism from you, no matter how valid. It's not really hard, either. You just have to get out of the mindset that everyone should be able to not suck without having done much research at all. Not everyone can just plunk down a fresh 80 in greens and zing off 1000+ dps on their first 80 instance run.

Hope that gives you some ideas.

[Velassra]

I do low DPS because I want to see the Tank sweat and to ask the Priest: "Heals?"

I also do low DPS becaue I'm too busy picking my nose or scatching my balls.

I do low DPS because "American Idol" is on the TV.

I do low DPS because I don't give a fuck.

Anyone of them could apply really.

[Normak]

trying not to sound like a eliest, i think Wow has become too medicore

people just dont really care and are happy to meander on and not willing to learn their class

back in the days of old you had dps and healing charts, if you did your job poorly you stood out and where likely to be dropped from raids

these days raiding has become akin to normal 5man pugs, hardcore gaming has left the world and blizzard has made it so inch:

[Dorffo]

i think a lot of it depends on how much attention is being spent focusing on doing DPS. This is the same reason that some multiboxers fail at DPS as well I think. in the case of someone playing multiple roles simultaneously as we do while multiboxing, especially mixed groups, it's easy to let concentration slip from maintaining an optimal DPS rotation. In the case of solo toons who don't perform I think often times you'd find that they're sitting there in /tells or watching TV/Movie or talking to people in RL or what have you...

Why DPS and not Tanks/Heals so much?
If a tank were to decide to play one handed while watching Dr Phil and texting his friends, you can bet that that tank wouldn't ever get to the point where you'd run into him in a heroic PuG (or the content has been on farm long enough that it just doesnt matter... but that's a different scenario). DPS on the otherhand can get away with that sort of behavior, and often do as far as I can tell.

Factors in DPS (IMO): player skill > Gear Level > Spec

As for what to do about said players... feedback is a good place to start, motivation to makes changes is important as well. We had a hunter join our 10-man uld crew, RL friend of the raid leader etc. He came in in a mix of T7/7.5 and struggled to break 2k. At first he was very defensive and offended that we questioned his performance. However, after pointing out that shamBot_03 who I'd been happy to replace with a real person was parsing significantly better DPS on the same encounters he changed the attitude a fair bit.

remedy:
He started reading up on how to play his toon, agreed to try a better spec and also agreed to turn off the TV during raid times.

edit: spelling and also to note that I don't pull top end DPS on any of my toons solo or multiboxing

[Ualaa]

To improve damage in general, well play actually be it a tank or healer or dps...

There is situational awareness... ie moving out of fire.
There is rotation or sequence of abilties.
There is game mechanic knowledge... ie how threat works etc.
There is gearing... going for what improves your class the most.
There is desire... beat the boss efficiently, minimal deaths etc.

If any one of them are lacking, the toon won't be close to optimal.

If the player genuinely wants to improve, see later content, not spend as much on repairs etc, addons can help. Ideally, you have the addons enabled that help you to raid, but as few as possible so your system doesn't lag too much. Healbot or Grid, can greatly help a healer toon, for example.

[heffner]

Ya, I doubt it's rocket science as to why. Specifically in an individual case, well, that's what WWS is for.

Assuming it's not so obvious as spec and/or gear, I'd say it comes down to:

1) using the correct spell rotation
2) maximizing your spell casting while managing mana
3) watching for your procs (e.g., eclipse, hotstreak) and performing the appropriate actions
4) proper use of trinkets

[alcattle]

I will take the other side. I am the one with lousy DPS. I am more casual, I dinged 70 late, I dinged 80 late. After most at finish Sunwell, I finished kara. Two things, I was trying to get in the right place and listen to everything one must do, and then try and kill stuff. I don't know the ultimate rotations, and only use half my spells, lucky to those used. My gear was poor, and talents were mixed up mess. I would listen and read, but it still takes alot of time.

[Marious]

Yeah kind of sucks when I go do some Heroic runs and the DPS stinks and the other shave to carry that said person. And as you have pointed out as well the guy could be geared up to the teeth and still suck! I seen it many time's, the healing sucks and the dps sucks and well that just kills everyone.

Now for the tank, sure its great to put out some decent DPS and all that but its also about your tank abilities not all of them are major DPS abilities but they are there for a reason and some tanks just can't figure that one out for some reason so they dont use them, hell when I started out I would skip some of my abilities or just use the wrong one and that would screw up my tankage so I screw over who ever I was PUGING with. Its unfortunate but it happens and hence its a PUG, hell I use to play with another DPS and healer, father and son that played together and any time I was on they ask me to come tank, this happen for quite a few months, it was great when we could get another 2 good DPS, but if we only got 1 we where screwed, we had a huntard(I see know why some people are called that) this guy was terrible, he was so bad that the run ended and everyone was pisteoff cause of this guy.

It really kills the game when you run into this type of people, makes it worse when you let them know that they need to improve some, of course they take it badly, cause honestly who want to be told they suck? Regardless of how tactful you are, but if more than one person talks to them and not getting bombarded by you suck by everyone, so from one person it might not sound good at all so I would say one good way to handle it would be to talk to a few people first get some ideas and see if everyone agrees that said person is just doing bad, could be that they had a bad night or something or something else is going on, can't always just chuck it up to the person being teribad could be something going on so have to try and handle it correctly.