For the first time in my guild's history, not having enough DPS is proving to be more of a problem than not having enough healing/tanking. Because of this I'm having to make a greater effort to watch DPS meters and identify weak links so that I can get them to make improvements. However, since we typically only take 1 of each class in a 10 man raid, I can't use the best of each class as a benchmark like I used to for 40 man content. So now comes my question. What classes/roles should get cut slack on the DPS meters and how much slack? I know that on any given raid, you will see someone from any class take the top spot or perform better than expected because they are really good at their class, but I'd like some input from the rest of you on what classes are typically accepted as being the low guy on the meter. Healers and Tanks excluded of course.

Tips:

1. "Overall run" dps meters aren't much use to you for this exercise since some trash/bosses favour different classes extremely. For example, if you're working on Aran and you clear the library a couple of times between attempts, between the magic-immune fish and Aran himself your physical DPS will be >> the magic DPS.

2. Use simpler fights (where nothing is immune to stuff and there's no AOE to pad mage/warlock DPS) to benchmark. On a fight like Attumen or Moroes or even Curator, and the ordinary single/double pull trash, keep an eye on the DPS meters for those specific fights. There's no reason why any DPS class should be hugely above another DPS class in those, gear and consumable usage aside.

Obviously cut slack for DPS who are doing other things; a shadow priest having to shackle stuff on Moroes, a DPS shaman who's doing some spot healing and spending time keeping totems up and giving buffs to the rest of his group, a warlock banishing or fearing something, etc. This is why I recommend "benchmarking" on a fight like Attumen.

Oh, and also allow for group setup. A rogue with a warrior and an enhancement shaman should comfortably beat a hunter who's jammed into a caster group with not even a grace of air totem or shadow priest mana regen, for example.


Edit: Sadris, giving the guy a 36 page thread which starts with about 20 pages of Patchwerk damagemeters and then about 15 pages of Gruul DMs interspersed with consumables bitching helps the poor guy not very much :/

I run an extra karazhan with these people that can only get through Curator. Basically it's my effort to get more people into our pool of possibilities for 25 man content. A lot of these people have quest blues, some lvl 70 instance blues, maybe an epic or two. We filter some alts into this group that are equally geared and they tend to blow the other people away. They are more experienced players of course and usually rogue or mage, but the difference in damage is substantial.

My problem is I just don't know how to compare a rogue or mage to say a warlock or hunter. And I'm really not sure where a shadow priest should show up in the list. I will try to get some actual print outs though.

Damage among classes is much more evenly spread I've found in TBC.

If you see a large discrepancy look and see why that could be. Is it spec? Is it gear? Is it class knowledge? etc.

Lets not forget group composition.

The other night I had a bit of a conundrum, Feral Druid, Resto Druid, Shadow Priest, Holy Priest, Elem Shaman, Resto Shaman, Mage, Warlock, Warrior, Rogue. The groups here are pretty obvious at first glance (3 melee/resto shaman/warlock, other casters) Until you consider that both the Resto Shaman and Druid were undergeared, on a Boss Fight mana becomes an big issue, as does their very low health (important on Aran, Netherspite, Nightbane).

I ended up with Priestx2, Druid, Resto Shaman, Warlock in one group and then the Elem Shaman and Mage with the Melee. Understandably, the DPS of our 4 casters suffered at the benefit of 3 healers, but it worked out in our favor with healers having more mana and health.

Any class *can* put out respectable dps numbers (with the exception of paladins, a really good/geared ret paladin can push some scary numbers, but that's an outlier not an expected case).

Basically, you don't *have* to cut anyone slack nowadays, but the three 'bads' come into play - bad spec, bad gear, bad player.

Karazhan is a weird place for checking damage, because there are so many fights that heavily favor some classes, and people get 'off-tasks' all the time. But the first fight is a nice straightforward 'beating on a dead horse' type of deal. No movement, no add control, no AOE. The only thing that could throw people off their performance is the debuff, if not dispelled.

Next time you're at attumen, get your tank to build up agro longer than usual, and tell the guildies to go all-out. Reset your meter just before the pull, and see what gives.

Now a lot also depends on how good your tank is. There are classes who can manage their agro better than others, and if your tank generates relatively low threat, they have an advantage.

Gear causing low dps is in my opinion a poor reason to cut someone slack. There is a lot of blue stuff and crafted gear out there that blows kara epics out of the water, especially early kara stuff. Lag on the other hand can't be helped, and can really hurt especially caster dps; either live with it or get rid of those people, depending on how anti-social your guild is.

I agree. If you're only up to the Curator, Midnight is your best DPS test. If you really want to be fair for it, have the MT give DPS calls for when people are allowed to start (initially, and after the "combine").

Send the raid Dr.Boom and start gkicking

Something tells me that the rogues would object :P