Open Letter to DPS

Dear DPS,

I am a tank, I get hit hard and I do it so that you can continue to kick the crap out of whatever is hitting me. I thank you for hitting it harder and faster than anyone else can.

I do wish, however, that you could all learn the basics of your role. For melee dps there is a great list on DPS Plate that you should read, but I want to focus on macros. Gimme a sec, I'll get to the good stuff.

When I am hitting something and I am focusing its attention on me -- there is a purpose to this. The purpose is to allow you to melt the face of THAT mob. The one that I am hitting. Not the one next to the one that I am hitting.

More often than not, when in a group (mostly PUGs), when pulling more than one mob, I find that I need to keep on eye on what the dps are doing because they are not hitting that which I am. How often is it that a hunter will be targeted on a mob only to pull them off me? Way too often. And why does this happen? No, it is not because I'm not uber enough -- or that hunter is too uber. It is because that hunter (sorry I'm picking on hunters) has targeted a mob mistakenly. You heard me. You are dpsing down something that you should not. Yet.



You should only and always be targeted on what I, the tank, have targeted. Now, some people mark every single mob and have a set and established kill order -- and that can work great, but, as we all know, things are not always working as intended. Things get out of hand -- pats are added, someone dies or there is a runaway with low health -- yeah go ahead and one shot that sonofa .... but what I'm talking about is MOSTLY dps just being sloppy.

What I'm about to show you can make EVERYONE's lives easier -- even yours, you dps machine.

First let me give credit where it is due -- these both came from BRK, a hunter blogger. The original article is here, at WOWInsider.

Ok so macro one. This is the simplest really doesn't need to be put on your hotkeys. Its something that you'll use every time you engage a new tank. You are using this macro to make your tank your "focus."

Are you ready? Here it is:

/focus target

That's it. That's the full extent of your macro.

What this means is that even though you manually target something else, you can always come back easily and re-target your tank. Because that's what this is meant to do. You click on your tank, hit this macro and that character is saved.

Why would you want to target your tank? Well that's where this next little gem comes in.

/assist focus

That's it -- that's all for the second macro. Pretty easy huh? Hotkey this one -- you will use it alot. What this does is automatically set your target to be the same as the target of the tank (if the tank is your focus -- which they would be if you used the previous macro in the beginning of your instance run). So if you fire off that Frostfire blast -- it will hit the same thing that the tank is hitting.

At the end of the day, all the above is about not pulling aggro off the tank -- because what they are hitting hardest, and therefore aggroing hardest on, is also what you are dpsing on, so there should be no way that you pull aggro off of them. Then, when that one dies, it only takes a split second, most likely faster than tab targeting the next mob, to hit the assist macro and BOOM you are slamming that which your tank is tanking.

I have heard alot about Wrath content and how easy it is, and also how easy it is to AOE tank all of those trash mobs. While this is true, especially when you get to slightly higher end content, when (and I say "when" intentionally) you, as a dpser, pull aggro off the tank and you don't have a Feign Death, or some kind of other aggro wipe, that mob will come at you and if your tank is AFK tanking, or doesn't like you much, it come over to you, not say nice things to you, and not leave you alive to help kill other mobs. You will be dead, and it will definitely be your fault.

So, what have we learned here? Hopefully you've learned one important lesson in HOW to play a dps character (dps what the tank has aggro on) and a few lessons in how to make THAT easier (use those macros or something like them).

Have a good day.

Yours truly,

Tank.