GnomeDruid

I don’t play a hunter, not even on TV.

However, this post over at wow.com has some interesting points in it.

Point the first: Aggro

Note that in all cases, if you pull aggro it is your fault. It is never the tank’s fault, no matter how incompetent they are. It is our job as DPSers to monitor our threat and adjust accordingly.

Point the Second: Intended Audience

Don’t be angry with people who are poorly geared or just learning the fights. These heroics were designed for them after all, and they’re doing exactly what they should be doing to get geared up.

Point the Third: DPS Meters Suck

(Okay, not really)

Heroics are a horrible metric for your DPS. Your DPS will vary depending on what heroic you get, what classes you’re with, and how well they perform. Generally the better the DPS of the group, the lower your individual DPS will be. Expect your DPS to vary wildly, even between runs of the same instance.

Point the Fourth: Keep a Weather Eye Out

Also, keep an eye on your healer. Both bad tanks and bad DPS can cause mobs to be on the loose (it is not always the tank’s fault). Regardless, if you see a mob loose fire a Freezing Arrow at your healer’s feet. I like to do this even if the loose mob isn’t on the healer yet, just to be safe. Your healer will love you for it, even though she probably doesn’t deserve it given how little she heals your pet.

That’s a lot of quotin’ there, Caliban

Ayup.

I’m gonna back up and say I don’t peruse wow.com that often, they’re not on my RSS feed, and I generally ignore them. Some of their articles (like this one) have some good meat in them. But others seem to brush the surface and never really dig in. If I wanted that, I’d read my own blog (BURN!).

But this article had some good points, until it delved into hunter mechanics that I could really care less about.

Items 1 & 2:

Heroics were intended for leveling and gearing up, folks still need to use them for that purpose. The Frost badges were tacked on after, and we need to not be jerkst to the folks who are still using the heroics as they were originally designed. That stupid hunter from my H-Utgarde Pinnacle this weekend needs to learn this lesson.

Not everyone hits 80 with a full set of T9.0 and knowing every facet of their class. There’s a learning/gear curve. Those of us who ARE rocking ICC gear already need to be aware of this. It may take a few more minutes to get through the instance, but we can get through.

If you want to face roll, group with similarly geared folks that you know. You’ll still get the extra badges if you choose “Random”.

Item 3:

This one is mainly for me. Cali still doesn’t have a proper Destro spec. I have this weird Demo/Destro Felguard hybrid that I normally swap to in instances so I can get a bit more burst damage. It doesn’t even have conflagrate.

But — I can still pull out 2400 DPS or so, which is plenty of DPS for 10-Man Patchwork, and is plenty of DPS for the average heroic.  A 30-second Heroic Group kill (hell, some of the BOSSES go down faster than that now…) doesn’t let a warlock “get up to speed” on their dps.

And that’s totally cool.

Item 4:

Love your healers, and they will love you. I’m not a hunter, but I still have things I can do to help the healer out, especially if the tank is a little … clueless. In Azjol-Nerub I can plant my felguard next to the healer on Aggressive to take out the little things that are gonna bee-line for her.

On my DK, I can death grip a mob going for him and drag it back to the tank (who will hopefully then pick it up…). If necessary, I can pop Icebound Fortitude and tank it for a second or two.

Just because you’re there as DPS doesn’t mean you get to ignore what’s going on around you.

Conclusion:

It is VERY easy to get tunnel vision:

• Get in, get badges, get out.
• Don’t let the bars drop too low….
• Must Max DPS!

But when you focus on one thing, you ignore the other possiblities.

Deep breaths, slow down, and have fun.

And hey … talk once in a while. If I wanted to run an instance with zombies, I’d go subject myself to Culling of Strat again. And at least they go “rawr” every now and then…

Image copied (not hotlinked) from www.biodiversityexplorer.org

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