When I first started making the transition from “n00b” to something that was slightly less n00b-ish, a good meter seemed like the way to go. Most of these addons measure a variety of stats besides how much punch is packed by each party member, but when the phrase “at the top of the meters” was uttered, damage was usually what they meant.
Then … I started raiding Karazhan.
That 10-player proving ground taught me a lot about how to play not only my own class, but also how other classes and roles should interract. Oh, I’d known a lot already, but leveling to 70 was to college as end game raiding was to “entering the real world.” You learn and learn and learn and then you find out just how much you didn’t know.
So… I scrapped my damage meter. Here’s why:
Damage meters ignore other abilities. Sure, some will measure healing, but will they also measure damage absorbed by a priest’s bubble? Attacks that just don’t happen because of a polymorph or sap? Even on a good day, almost everything you do that doesn’t make your opponent’s health bar go down will make your ranking on the damage meter go down.
More damage means more threat. Pretty simple, right? There are ways to lower and raise your threat, of course, but I’ve seen more than one instance where a couple of players were so determined to top each other in damage done that the tank (a good tank, mind you) had a hard time keeping the mobs off of either of them.
There’s an addage I’ve heard a couple times playing WoW, and there’s truth in it. “If the tank dies, it’s the healer’s fault. If the healer dies, it’s the tank’s fault. If the DPS dies, it’s their own fault.” The role of DPS is to do as much damage as possible without pulling mobs away from the tank. The moment they do that they make the healer’s job that much harder (since most DPS don’t wear plate or have 16k+ hit points).
The additional heals needed force the healer to generate more threat, which makes the tank’s job harder as well. This ends up being bad for everyone and has lead to more than one party wipe – but hey, at least you were “1st place” on the damage meter, right? So what if you never downed the first boss in the instance?
With these problems, I feel obligated to point out one time when a damage meter actually came in handy. It was a normal Kara run with a random druid brought in to help fill out our otherwise regularly scheduled members. This balance spec druid seemed to have the idea that if he just coasted through he’d have a chance at some good drops with minimal effort. Even unequipped his gear so it wouldn’t lose durability, which we didn’t catch right away since he was in moonkin form.
He was, in effect, a boomkin without the boom. When we eventually caught on to his strategy his incredibly low rank in the damage meter (for a DPS spec) helped support our assertion that he should put some pants on or leave. He left, we found a replacement, and moved on.
But I’m still not installing another damage meter.
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