Ten Commandments for All DPS

Also posted to the Big Hit Box here.

These are the very most basic rules that you, as a WoW Player operating in Melee range, should follow. Several apply to the lesser classes, but you, oh dealer of the Smashy, Smashy, shall embrace them all.

I. Do not die. Even if you can Ankh. Using your death as an aggro wipe is an abomination.

II. Do not cause your raidmates to die. In this way, do not allow the healers or wearers-of-cloth to become squished by Lesser Nasties should the Tank ignore them. Your weapon shall be your weapon, but CC shall be your shield in a time of trouble.

III. Do not overtax your healers by taking undue raid damage. In this spirit, do not stand in front of the Big Nasty, nor should you stand in any nastiness the Big Nasty has strewn on the floor.

IV. Focus your Fire by assisting and following the kill order. ALWAYS.

V. Use your trinkets and cooldowns wisely. When in doubt, early and often. If your raid leader orders you to pop your trinkets and they are on cooldown, smile for you have done well.

VI. If the strategy calls for you to interrupt spell-casting by the Big Nasty, do so. The loss of dps is insignificant compared to violating the First, Second, or Third commandments.

VII. If you have a buff to share with melee, use it. This includes debuffs to the Big Nasty and anything that mitigates damage on the Tank. Though he is unintelligent and stands in front of the Big Nasty and probably smells a little funny, he is your melee brethren.

VIII. Do not show up to raid unprepared. Read the strategies, bring consumables, and have your items enchanted. Listen to your raid leader and class leader. Bring an offering of gold for repairs and pay it to Murphy willingly.

IX. Know what items and statistics will improve you and in what ratios. Do not stand around a dead Big Nasty and debate if his loot is good for you. This too is a violation of the Eighth commandment.

X. Do not covet your neighbor’s Recount. Do not violate the above commandments in an attempt to increase your dps at cost to the raid. This is a violation of the spirit of the law, which is teamwork.

*With my apologies to God if I have profaned His Scriptures. Oh, and Charlton Heston, who I did not recognise as a complete Bad Ass until he was dead.

Warrior Changes for 3.1 posted

Eyonix has laid down the proposed changes for warriors in the upcoming 3.1 patch.

Warrior

1. Changing stances now has a much reduced cost: you lose a maximum of 20 rage (10 with Tactical Mastery). For example, if you have 100 rage and change stances, you will have 80 rage remaining. If you have 10 rage and change stances, all of your rage is lost. In addition, we may change the penalties associated with some stances.
2. You now gain rage when damage done to you is absorbed, such as through a Power Word: Shield.
3. Blood Frenzy now causes 2/4% physical damage done.
4. Sunder Armor (and similar debuffs) now reduces armor by 4% per application, and is now a single rank. Creature armor has been globally reduced so that debuffed targets should take about the same damage from physical attacks that they did before this change. The net effect should be that this debuff is slightly less mandatory in PvE and is not disproportionately more powerful against cloth targets in PvP.
5. We are also adding increased damage to Arms, possibly through Overpower or Slam.
6. We are also looking at granting rage when the warrior blocks, dodges or parries.

Six items, some raptrous, some bland for an Arms Warrior.

1. The Stance Dance no longer a rage hog.
   (Tangent: I wish there was a specific achievment for a warrior to do The Safety Dance in all three stances.)
   – Obviously helpful in Arenas and other PvP where jumping between Battle and ‘zerker sances is necessary to combat fear-happy classes like warlocks. Also good for hopping to ‘zerker stance to pummel (like I do on Kel’thuzad.)

– Good for switching to Defensive in a hurry to try to offtank an add when shite hitteth the fan…eth. Now likely to have rage for Thunderclap and Mocking Blow as soon as you switch. (Possible Macro to equip sword’n’board, switch to defensive and mocking blow?)

2. Rage when damage is absorbed.
   – Yay for more rage when paired with a Disc Priest.
   – Yay for no longer educating newbie priests about the counterintuitive “Shielding a warrior on a pull is bad.” (Can rage-starve them. DPS pulls aggro on adds.)
   – Does this also include Earth Shield (No, it doesn’t.) or the buff from [Essence of Gossamer]? Essence is already an OP tanking trinket.
3. Blood Frenzy is more Uber. – This is an Arms talent, folks. Buffs for Arms! Hooray!
4. Sunder Armor changes & mob armor nerfs
   – Good: This seems to be aimed at groups that are using non-warrior tanks (like Fire Team Alpha, my Naxx10 group that has a Druid and Pally as OT/MT)
   – Good: I don’t have to be as concerned that I’m not working sunder into my rotation if there’s not a prot warrior around.
   – Good: Any Armor Pen that a tank has (DKs and Druids, I’m looking at you here) will be more effective.
   – Bad: There’s a slight chance this will further make Armor Pen. the red-headed stepchild of all melee dps stats. depends on how they implement it.
5. MOAR DEE-PEE-ESS FOR ARMS!! – via two of our three “musts” in our rotation; not something I’m gonna have to shoehorn in! Thank you, Devs.
6. Unimportant since I play protection like once a month. (Until Dual Specs, that is…)

Rejoice Warriors, and rush the Field of Victory to collect your spoils!

Breaking News: GC confirms changes coming for melee DPS

  As far as melee dps goes, we think rogues, cats and Arms warriors are all a little low. We haven’t announced specific changes yet but they are coming. – Ghostcrawler, 02/03/2009 09:04:04 AM PST

All I have to say is “WOOT.” After the Sudden Death nerf, I was wondering if they were going to do something to ratchet our overall DPS up a bit.

Well Played!: “DPS Matters”

Work has been crazy this week, so I haven’t had the time to finish, edit, or proof the copy in my draft for today’s post. Links and picture still undone. Instead, I’m going to give you a link to a well-written post by Kadomi of Tank Like A Girl.

In DPS Matters, Kadomi insists that getting the boss down by the skin of your teeth doesn’t mean you should stop improving yourself.  Far too often I’ve seen the lowest dps on a good raid’s damage meters grow too confident that they are great DPS based on the <Uber Guild Tag> over their head, not based on their performance.