If DPS is so easy...

.. why are so many people so horrible at it?

It is a common thing to hear that tanking and healing is hard and DPS is easy. 

I agree with that to some extent but not enough to actually support the comment as a whole.

Lets look at the evolution of the rolls and learning how to do them.

When first starting...

Tanking -
- You learn to get things mad at you.
- You learn to keep things mad at you.
- You learn to taunt off people that things are mad at instead of you.
- You learn how many mobs you can pull without dying.
- You learn how to limit the incoming damage to you.

Healing -
- You learn what each heal does.
- You learn to time those heals as needed.
- You learn how the heals interact with each other.
- You learn how to heal others while not losing the tank.
- You learn how to avoid damage, so you don't have to heal yourself too.

Damage Dealer -
- You learn to put out damage.

So far, tanking an healing seem a hell of a lot harder.

When moving into the intermediate phase...

Tanking -
- You learn when to use your cooldowns better.
- You learn how to pull better.
- You learn your AoE ranges when there are CCed targets around.
- You learn marking for AoE pulls.
- You learn how to evaluate mobs based on what they do.
- You learn all the classes CC for CC assignments.

Healing -
- You learn how to start predicting incoming damage.
- You learn which classes will need more incidental healing.
- You learn how to better manage your mana.
- You learn when is best to use mana regeneration cooldowns.
- You learn when to leave someone injured and when a heal is required.
- You learn which types of mobs will do what type of damage and what heals to use to compensate.

Damage Dealing -
- You learn how to crowd control based on tanks markings.

Looks like tanking and healing still are a lot more difficult still.  DPS has it easy, that's for sure.

When moving into the beginning dungeon phase...

Tanking -
- Learns how to perfect the use of their abilities.
- Learns how to mix extra damage and interrupts into their tanking.
- Learns how to better position things based on ground effects and abilities.
- Learns how to tie together everything they know for maximum potential.

Healing -
- Learns how to maximize their cooldowns.
- Learns the triage system and when to let someone die.
- Learns how to position themselves so they are both in range and safe from ground effects and abilities.
- Learns how to tie together everything they know for maximum potential.

Damage Dealer -
- Learns that positioning is not only for tanks and healers.
- Learns how to interrupt.
- Learns how to better implement their CC, on the fly if need be.
- Learns how to use their utility tools.

Seems that now is the time that DPS actually starts to learn.  Tanks and healers already have their job learned and now they are just working on perfecting it.

When moving to more complex encounters...

Tanks -
- They know their job already, it doesn't change.

Healers -
- They know their jobs already, it doesn't change.

Damage Dealers -
- Time to master positioning, just like healers and tanks did at the previous level of learning.
- Learns to better time their interrupts for maximum effect.
- Learns to use their cooldowns for more damage.
- Learns to manage their threat better.

Looks like tanks and healers are done learning.  DPS are just starting to get to the meat of their learning now.

When you move into more difficult content...

Tanks -
- Been doing it so long, everything is now second nature.

Healers -
- Been doing it so long, everything is now second nature.

Damage Dealers -
- Learns to tighten their rotation so they can put out more DPS.
- Learns how to interrupt and CC on the fly without it effecting their damage out put much.
- Learns how to target switch based on the needs of the fight.
- Learns how to pool resources for high impact moments later.

Okay, now it is really time for the DPS to start stepping it up.  Tanks and healers have been done with their learning for a while now and DPS are just starting to do everything they need to do.

When you step into heroic content...

Tanks -
- Same as before, just more incoming damage.

Healers -
- Same as before, just more incoming damage.

Damage Dealers -
- Learns how to minimize every bit of avoidable damage.
- Learns how to protect the healer if need be.
- Learns how to maximize the use of cooldowns for damage dealing.
- Learns how to use their own defensive cooldowns if needed.
- Continues to work on getting higher damage output without taking aggro.

Seems like there is still a lot of work to be done for the damage dealers and the tanks and healers have been done for a long time now.

When the time comes for special needs...

Tanks -
- It's still their job to tank.

Healers -
- It's still their job to heal.

Damage Dealers -
- Learns to be the interrupt whore.
- Learns to be the kiter.
- Continues to learn how to get more DPS out of what they are doing.
- Learns when to use tank and/or healer support abilities when needed.

When all is said and done, once everything has been learned from the tank and the healers, the DPS will always be learning because no matter what any one says, you can always do better as a DPS. 

If you can do 12K DPS then you can do 13K DPS, get better.
If you can kite parasites with none getting into the group, try doing it with none hitting you.
If you can do it with none hitting you, now do it getting them down faster so you have some more boss time.
If you can interrupt without even thinking about it, try doing it without your DPS going down because you are doing it.
If you can do 15K DPS then you can do 16K DPS, get better.
If you are a master of target switching, you could probably still be half a second faster.
If you can battle rez, can you do it with perfect timing so it does not totally destroy your rotation where you need to start from the get go.
If you can get four cooldowns into a fight, why not try to get five in by using it sooner.
If you can do 18K DPS then you can do 19K DPS, get better.

In the end, DPS is a harder job then tanking or healing.  This is why most people we complain about in dungeons are the DPS.  If DPS was so easy then everyone would be good at it.  Most are not. 

Remember the list where it said When moving to more complex encounters... and that is where the tanks and healers where basically done learning how to be tanks and healers.  That is only where the DPS started to learn how to do their job.  That is the way to game is designed it seems.  For the average player at least.

Up until that point, being a tank or a healer is a lot harder then being a damage dealer.  Their learning is all front loaded.  They need to learn everything right off the start to be able to do their job whereas a damage dealer just needs to deal damage and not much else.

From that point on, the damage dealers now need to learn everything.  The problem with most damage dealers is that when the tanks and healers are done learning right there, the DPS stop learning right there as well. 

Tanks and healers learn the basic concept of their roles and after they are done the only thing they can do is perfect exactly what they are doing.  Once they do that, there is nothing left for them.

For DPS there is no end game on the learning curve.  I don't care how good someone thinks they are as a damage dealer, they can still get better.

Better DPS makes fights easier.

If you are having problems with something I am willing to bet most of the time it is the DPS that is the problem.

Tanks learned to tank early on.  It is just a different mob(s) that they are doing it on.

Healers learned to heal early on.  It is just different people they are healing.

DPS does not really learn to DPS until they want to.

Who's fault is that?

Mine!  Yours!  Everybody!

Because we all say that DPS are a dime a dozen.

Because we all say that DPS is easy.

Because we do not give the DPS the respect they deserve when they kept learning past the When moving to more complex encounters... phase.

Most DPS you meet in heroics are at that exact stage in the game.  They might get a little better, but not much.  They never really started to learn how to play the role whereas a tank or a healer at that phase is now learning to perfect what they do.  They are done learning, they are now mastering.  The damage dealers then hang on to the coattails of the tanks and healers that already know everything that needs to be done and they think they can skate by as is and do not learn to get any better.

DPS might be easy, but not if you want to master it.

Doing anything bad is easy.

Brain surgery is easy for a chimp.  Doesn't mean they are going to do it right however.

Saying DPS is easy and accepting that as fact means you want a chimp to do brain surgery on you should you ever need it and you are okay with that. 

DPS is hard.  Demand more of the DPS you random with.  Explain to them that when they enter a heroic their learning has just begun.  Just because you are a tank or a healer and you learned everything already and are just working on perfection, they have not even started to learn yet.

If DPS is so easy...

... why are so many so horrible at it?

Because they stopped learning once they got into a heroic.

That is where the learning begins, not ends.

So yes, DPS is easy, if you want to be bad at it.  DPS is hard if you want to be good at it, because you will never finish learning.

DPS can always get better.

Judging from the DPS in heroics, most can get a lot better.  5K in all 346 gemmed and enchanted gear was bad enough.  Soon everyone will be in all 359 gear.  Can they make it to 6K?

DPS just seems easy because people that read this, and many other blogs, forums, etc, are not the people that stopped learning.  We are reading because we kept learning.
DPS is easy for me.  Because I am always learning.  I can always get better.

DPS is hard for the 100s if not 1000s of random DPS I have been with that could not break 5K in a heroic this expansion.

I can count the bad tanks or bad healers I have experienced on my hands and most of those are forgivable.  They are brand new tanks or healers admitting they are learning or they are DPS trying to pass themselves off as a tank or healer and they know nothing so I won't even count those as bad tanks or healers, they are just another type of bad DPS.

You rarely see real tanks and healers that are bad.  You will always see bad DPS.

Think about that a bit.  If DPS was really easy wouldn't it be the other way around?