I'm the MT for my guild, and I'm almost always in the top 10 for damage done in BWL. I could probably get in the top 5 if I did some dps in the suppression room and stage one of Nef. Is this normal, or is something wrong with our dps classes?

I can understand why warlocks have to hold back in BWL, but I'd think that all of our hunters and rogues, who can shed aggro, should be able to do a lot more damage than I do.

The strange thing is that our dps is pretty good. We can get Rags below 20% before sons, and we usually get Vael below 20% before our first tank (me) dies. We're doing pretty well in BWL (we'll probably kill Nef in the next week or two), but it'd make my life much easier if we could kill bosses faster. The only fight where I tell our dps classes to be a little careful is Ebonroc, because I have to burn tons of rage keeping MS up.

When we were learning BWL, on fights like Firemaw, Ebonroc, Flamegore and Chromagus the MT always featured high in the damage tables, because he was the only player who could DPS the entire fight. Our MT also wasn't protection specced, so obviously that improved his DPs as well.

Since BWl was put on farm status however, the other DPS classes have improved their knowlegde & Ability at the fights, and the DPs charts are now far more normal, with the same rogues & mages battling it out for the top 10 spots each figth, with the cocasional lock & hunter as well. But it took them a while before feeling confident enough about aggro limits to really go all out on those fights - once they did, the MT was eclipsed extremely fast in damage output.

Why are you the one keeping MS up? Have another tank do it. As an aside...you don't have SS do you?? :p

Ebonroc is an all-out DPS fight. So that should tell you something right there. Further - it is wierd you're top 10. You should expect to be below 15 if your guild is rocking and your (the MT) primary duty is holding aggro.

Tell your DPS to stop being AFK?

But in seriousness, make sure whatever damage metering mod you're using is properly installed, synchronized, and reset. Also, if your DPS is holding back because they're afraid of pulling aggro, I'd recommend getting KLH Threat Meter so they can get a visual representation of how much room they have for threat (and push their DPS accordingly).

I wanted to laugh at this but I'm at work and the last time I did my boss gave me a funny look.

You're telling me that you somehow out DPS mages and rogues during the entire Nef fight, all from the "DPS" that you do in Phase 1 of Nef? You're joking right?
Yes, something is wrong here.

I'm pretty sure that's not what he said. He said he could move up the chart FOR THE ENTIRE RAID if he DPSed in the sup. room and during Nef phase 1.

I'm sorry but there is no way that the damage he could do on welps, overseers, and dragonkin in the suppression room, along with the 10-15 spawns in Nef phase 1, could possibly be higher than a mage/rogue for the "ENTIRE RAID." Its. Just. Not. Possible. Not as the MT, unless he's somehow tanking every encounter in zerker stance in full DPS gear, I suppose.

I'm usually top or near it on Firemaw, Chromaggus for obvious reasons and often pretty high on Nef. Abundance of rage and heals and cleave spam and no end of mobs hitting me in P1 can't hurt :) "Lucky" Warrior calls below 20% or and infinate rage help, I sometimes swap to battle stance and execute past the zerg too, helps keep the healers awake after 9 months of farm I guess :)

But to answer the real question, no. Your DPS are complete shit if you are beating them over the entire duration of BWL. You need to kick some caffeine down them and tell them to step away from their gamepads.

I didn't say he was right, I was explaining what he actually was saying.

Two other things you might want to take note: If you're controlling razorgore (some MTs do to get initial agro) and your meter syncs Pet and player damage as one, it'll count all the damage you deal with razorgore as your own.

Other than that, no idea (that hasn't already been mentioned).

Again, you need to read more carefully. I already AM out-dpssing rogues and mages WITHOUT doing any dps in the suppression room or stage 1 of Nef (where there are more than 15 spawns). I am consistently in the top 10, and it's safe to assume that there are more than 10 rogues and mages in my guild's raids.

To return to the main point, my GM seems to think it's normal that our dps is so low in BWL, but now I have evidence otherwise. I thought something was wrong, but I wasn't sure. It must be that they're holding back too much. We never do MC anymore, but I don't remember ever being in the top 20 there when I tanked the entire instance. Thanks for the helpful responses.

Raidwide DPS is not meaningful. The only thing a full raid DPS meter shows is who does not answer the phone or go to the bathroom etc. A mage can go watch a movie taking breaks only to AE the supression room and some goblin packs and they should still have a strong showing on the DM. I think in all likelihood the problem is that people are screwing off or simply not playing during trash pulls.

Also the use of the word 'tank' has little meaning in BWL. Any warrior build can tank in BWL so on trash the dps should be good if the player has the gear/spec to back it up. Nowadays the notion of a fury/MS warrior tanking is somewhat foreign but in BWL it never really mattered once they fixed the drakes.

Your damage will be noticably higher then alot of MTs as you arent specced prot either. (Unless you're prot/ms hybrid?)

Our Mt is generally below the healers on damage done in BWL. So ye, something is wrong.

Then yes, your DPS classes are horrible. I can't even begin to imagine how you kill Vael before the buff wears off if this is the case. I truly cannot.
Sidenote - Yes I know there are more than 15 spawns in Nef Phase 1. However you as a single tank are not DPSing all 30-40 of them by yourself, unless you have some super-secret-squirrel method I don't know of.

Uh oh, I think you're on to something there.

I'm specced 31/5/15. I'd like to go full prot, but then none of our warriors would have MS (all of them want to be mainly fury or mainly prot, and we don't force people to spec a certain way), so we'd be screwed for Ebonroc. We had a lot of trouble on Ebonroc until I specced MS.

I was full prot until we got to Ebonroc, and I think I did a lot more damage and had a lot more rage with 5/5 1H spec and shield slam than I currently do with 5/5 sword spec and impale. Fortunately, I don't notice any difference in threat generation. Being alliance probably helps a lot.

I dunno Ashuko, if it didn't come out in your BWL Best Practices post, I'm not sure such a strat could exist. ;)

What damage meters are you using and how many are you synchronized with?

Being alliance has nothing to do with it. Your gear is either much better (Thunderfury vs barman shanker better) or your dps classes aren't pushing themselves enough. In comparable gear, I would expect to see you have trouble holding agro off of competent fury warriors, well played Locks/Mages, and any DPSadins you may have, on fights like broodlord and the drakes. While you don't want to encourage them to pull agro, if you're not specced prot or flurrytank your agro threshold should be low enough that you notice the difference. If you're not noticing the difference, there's a fair bit of extra damage your raid could produce (although gear may prevent it).

Check the mobs for debuffs - COR/FF/Sunder make a difference, as do keeping them on (so no sign of deep wounds/serpent sting/moonfire). It could be something obvious not getting put up, but it's probably just raid not knowing how hard they can push and erring way on the side of caution. If BWL is full farm, having a night of "Pull it if you can, then once you've pulled it back off a smidge" might be good for the dps meters. Say you're trying to determine if your dps is good enough for emps if you have to =P

I'm not a big fan of full instance clearing DM charts. Too many factors like AFK, Disc, rotating people etc that will screw it up. Now if you were top 10 dps on a single boss DM, then you have a problem

Is there actually a difference between how DM and SWS work?

I can relate to that (and I suspect the tracker to be inaccurate), as using Damage Meter without increasing the combat log range, showed me second in DPS as MT with TF at Firemaw after a rogue (true the top hunter was 5th, yet still It also said reported from 14/34 sources or something...). It was my first experience with Damage Meter, Recap, etc (and even then I use them more to analyse post mortem what kind of damage I take, i.e. how much shadow vs melee and fire). I've recently installed swstats as well, the first one to do that (as a side question, does everyone have to have it? And to be synced?)

I also agree that KTM is much needed so that DPS can do their job with more confidence (i.e. my raid doesn't stopp attacking during the class call for paladins, due the aggro lead I get).

Since Damagemeters isn't being updated by the original author anymore and SWS just released v2 beta 1, there will be damn soon. Having everyone use the same tool means you get more accurate reporting.