You Have No Business Being a Damage Dealer in ToT If...

I've been assessing my damage dealers in the 25 man as we are still trying to figure out who our remaining regulars will be.  We have 7 open spots and about 5 spots on the hub, where they are okay but they can easily be replaced.  That is nearly half the raid team.

Over all our tanking situation is okay for the most part as is the healing.  Only one of the healers is on my watch list as possibly being replaced and a second has their highs and lows and I am hoping they can smooth it out.  Our main issue is with the damage dealers.  With 2 tanks and 6 healers that means we have 17 damage dealers.  11 of those 12 spots I mentioned being an issue are the damage dealer ones.

There is a joke on my server that has been going around for a while this raid patch.  We are the only server were damage dealers think 50K DPS is good.  It is a joke that is not funny because it is true.

I will give those people on my "might be removed" list one little bit of a compliment however.  They all know how to move from the crap and when to stack when I say to and what to stack for.  But even if you are ace at mechanics if you are not doing your fair share in the damage dealing department you are going to be holding the group back.  While I would choose someone doing 50K that moves from stuff over someone doing 80K that doesn't move from stuff if the fight needs 80K I would rather 80K that moves from stuff over either of those options.

We are getting three deep each week easily now but if we want to get them done faster to get more attempts at the forth or even get the forth down, we will need some people to step it up.  Those people are for all the damage dealers.

So to put it simply, assuming they know mechanics and it is just a DPS issue, you have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not pull at least 80K at a 500 item level.  I feel that is being generous.

Just look at the DPS requirements for the bosses in ToT, I believe icy veins has a nice list of them for all bosses.  They look something like this, 83K, 87K, 89K.  Do you notice a trend there?  None of those numbers is under 80K.  Actually every single requirement is over 80K.  All I ask for is 80K.

I do understand that some people I drag in at a lower item level to test them out and see what they can do.  I judge them based on the gear their have.  Like seeing a lock do nearly 70K when he was at a 463 item level.  He moved from the stuff, had everything gemmed and enchanted, had the right reforges and he followed mechanics.  So while he was doing less than 80K I really don't care.  I knew when he gets gear he will be just fine if what I saw was really how he played and not some fluke.

My issue is with that joke about my server.  We are the only server where 50K is considered good.  I had a mage finish horridon last night with 56K, I point him out because he is becoming a problem and I will soon be showing him the door, more on that later.  The damn dinosaur has a 200% buff.  Even if you were horrible throughout the entire fight doing 100K on that fight over all should be simple.  That mage, well, he was not the only one that did horrible, a few did and a few did worse.  We had a boomkin at 58K, a lock at 63K, a shadow priest at 55K, another lock at 54K and someone, don't remember who because I probably blocked it out to keep myself from raging, doing 36K.  Maybe it was a healer for all I remember, in that case, that was pretty good actually.

The thing that bothers me the most was that many of the main team have alts we would like to get some gear for.  Most of us need nothing from the first three bosses so we would like to bring them along.  But we can't.  I even had someone get upset last night when I asked him to switch to his main because we needed more DPS.  He said, and rightfully so, how come I need to switch, I am doing more than half the other people here.

He was, he will doing 80K on the doors, so surely if we had got to horridon he would have been topping 160K at least.  I said, the best way I could, they need to get better and that is not going to happen in one attempt but you already have better if you switch and that can happen in one attempt.

I also had two others switch from alts to mains to help out.  But at least both of them were doing fairly bad on their alts.  One on a hunter alt doing only 29K.  It made me want to cry.  I'll have to take that boy out and teach him that hunters don't do 29K.  It is just not supposed to happen.  The other was a 50 something DPS that switched to a 90 something DPS.  But still it was a move upwards.

It is unfair to him that he was on an alt that was doing the acceptable damage needed for the raid and was forced to switch because so many other people were doing so poorly. The others offered to switch freely, but I feel bad for him.  Felt even worse when the next two bosses dropped something that he could have used and because he was forced to switch to a character that needed nothing from there he didn't get a chance to get them for the alt he was gearing up.

In the end we had 6 people over 240K DPS and 6 people under 60K DPS when we downed horridon on the next try.  I knew we just needed a little more DPS and I was right.  So does that make me a brilliant raid leader?  Nope, it makes me a frustrated one.

How the hell do you do under 60K DPS on a damage buff fight?  Heck, how do you do under 60K in a 500 item level.  And back to what this post is titled.  I would believe any damage dealing class in the game should be able to pull over 60K on the dummies unbuffed in 500 gear, as least assuming they are not running around with a 450 weapon.  If they are, sucks to be you.  I've been there.

You have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not even do 80K.

There are better players doing more in there.  Players capable of pulling at least 150K on every fight, more on the damage buff ones of course, and they do not mind covering for someone doing 80K.  Like I said, 83K or 87K is needed, so they will be glad to cover a little for people that are close, are at least 80K.  But it is unfair to make them cover for people doing 50K.  Can they do it?  Yes.  We have seen that the last few weeks.  Should they need to?  Absolutely not.

I ask for at least 80K at a 500 item level.  If you can not do that, get to a 510 item level or even a 520 item level and do your 80K.  Sure at 510 or 520 you should be doing a fair bit more, but at least be capable of doing the minimum we ask for even if your skill level means you need to over gear it to get to that minimum.  Just do it, I do not care how you do it. Meet the requirements.

We will have to continue carrying some people because we really have no option.  There are no other players out there to use.  Not in guild and not in trade.  Remember, on my server 50K is considered good.  But the added stress it puts on the other players is not fair.  As I said, we can do it, but why should we.

Gearing up someone that is worth gearing up is fine.  Carrying someone to some gear that will see that gear result in a payoff later on is how many casual guilds live.  It is what we have to do.  But carrying someone to gear that is showing no results makes the entire team weaker and make people feel used.

And on to that mage I mentioned, as the perfect example.  He was doing 50K or so when he joined the 25 man some six weeks ago at a low item level.  So he was worth some gear investment in.  He seemed to have some potential.  But 6 weeks later, 5 items won later, one of which was thunderforged, and some upgrades of his own along the way he went from his 470ish item level to a 510ish item level and he is still doing DPS in the 50s.  That is called using people.  That is called not trying.

We added new loot rules, as I mentioned in a previous post that I would be doing, to allow for more loot distribution so a few people do not win everything and we can spread the wealth.  Only downing three bosses is not horrible for a 25 man, it is still 18 possible pieces of loot.  Even if we are now to the point where some things are being disenchanted.

He won something off the first boss then rolled on the second boss for a healing trinket.  I ignored his roll.  A mage does not need a healing trinket even if it has over 1200 intellect and that would be an upgrade.  Sorry.  Not going to happen ever in my world and lets not make any mistake here, this is my raid so this is my world.

He got upset that he should have won it based on his roll but I did not give it to him.  Next up was a weapon, he rolled again, which is allowed with the new loot rules, but if someone else that did not win anything rolls, your roll gets put aside.  And someone, a few someones actually, rolled for it.  So the highest roll won it.  But his roll was higher, he should have won it.  Or so he said.  No, he should not have won it.

I explained the loot rule changes clearly before the raid, asked if there were any questions.  I explained why he could not win the healing trinket because it has an on heal proc and healers need healing trinkets, not damage dealers.  I explained that even if he had the highest roll for the weapon the reason it went to the second highest was because they had not won anything yet this week.  Then suddenly, something came up and he needed to go.  As in instantly.  The time between him typing I have to go, to leaving the raid group to logging off was nearly instant.

While it is completely possible that something did come up that is now how I perceived it.  I saw it as he was denied loot that he rightfully won, in his mind, and he got pissed and left.  I would not be surprised if he quit guild by the time I get home from work today and if he does I would be completely fine with that.  We don't need selfish players, we don't need rage quitters because things did not go their way and even more importantly, we do not need people doing 50K DPS.

Just to give you an idea how bad the lower end DPS was and why I am making such a big deal about it consider this.  We hit the enrage timer on horridon this week when we downed him.  6 people were over 240K.  Now imagine what the rest of the DPS looked like if 6 people were over 240K and we still hit the enrage timer.

Seriously, you have no business being a damage dealer in ToT if you can not pull at least 80K... on horridon, a damage buff fight.

As a side note, the person that actually won the weapon was one of the people doing over 240K.  He left because he thought he should have won it because he had the highest roll even if the loot rules were clear that if you win something you can only win a second thing if no one else needed it.  Yet he apparently thought he deserved it more because he had the highest roll, loot rules or not.  I really wonder what goes through peoples minds.