HPS and DPS and TPS

They are all acronyms we are well versed in and sometimes they are completely over used.  They can be useful at times but they can also hurt the over all sometimes.  I look to address some of the common things I hear.  Usually they come from people tooting their own horn.  Sad part is that the people that do that apparently do not know the whole story.

"Woot! I had over 14K DPS on that fight."
- This is something you usually hear from a Mage I have noticed from my experience.  They seem to open up with some huge numbers and then settle down.  The one with the 14K DPS is very quick to say how awesome he was doing... before he died.  Something they always seem to neglect to point out when they point out their awesome DPS.

"Man, I toasted you on DPS."
- I hear this one all the time because I am top DPS or at worst top three.  Some times people seem to think is that because they racked up 16K DPS on the trash before Marrowgar means they are killing me on DPS.  Sure, I might only have 12K DPS on that trash but I am single targeting the mobs that are supposed to die first before going AoE crazy.  Add to that the fact that once we go on, me sitting at 8th with my 12K DPS will look a lot different.  I might only have 12K there but after 6 bosses in I am still sitting at an over all of 11K and they are now sitting at 9K over all.  To me that means you are getting all your big numbers on the useless kills and the important kills you are slacking at.

"Well, it was enough to get the boss down."
- All things being equal that might be true.  But lets say you have two warlocks in your group.  Warlock A just did 9K on the boss and warlock B just did 5K on the fight.  It was enough to get the boss down but really is that all that matter?  If they are in the same gear they should be doing near the same damage (in most cases, some fights someone can get unlucky and it lowers DPS).  Just because 5K was enough to get the boss down does not mean that 5K was good.

"My threat generation is awesome, no one can pull off me."
- Yeah sure, nice threat generation mr hit me him me center of monster attention.  It should be.  Do you really think that because you are on top of the threat meter means you are actually doing good?  Maybe yes, maybe no.  I can not tell you the number of runs I opened with a MD, had to FD shortly after, went back to fighting and had to MD again almost instantly and then within a few seconds was getting up on aggro again before my FD was off cooldown so I used my readiness and MDed again only to have to FD a few seconds later.  Mr hit me hit me might brag about his treat generation but he did not realize that I was the one generating it for him.  He sucked.  Just because no one pulls threat off you does not means your TPS is so awesome.  That just means you have DPS behind you doing their job right.  It is not a joke when I say I can pull of any tank in less then 10 second no matter how good he is.  It is a fact.  No tank can hold threat from a Hunter, a Mage or a Warlock, at least not a good one.  Keep working on threat generation please.  It helps me DPS more and worry less about saving your ass because I have to waste one of my biggest cooldowns because you can not hold aggro without me MDing you a 5th time 1 minute into a fight.

"Your HPS suck." or "Your HPS rule."
- You do not hear this as often in the open unless you are a healer.  Healers seem to, in public at least, not worry as much about number and they worry more about if everyone survived.  Sometimes however you see something like this when something went completely wrong.  Usually the target of your HPS suck is a disc priest because most people in the game have no clue how Disc works and do not realize that absorbs are not counted by recount. 
-The HPS rule line usually comes after someone did huge numbers.  However, they always seem to forget to look at the over healing done.  This is about equal to the DPS saying he did 14K DPS for one minute in a 5 minute fight.  Doing 8K HPS when 5K HPS was over heals as really useless.  Sure, in this day and age of ICC when you never run out of mana it is no big deal but you need to look deeper into that.  What happens in a mana intense fight later on?  Just because you have endless mana does not mean you use it like endless mana.  Someone with high over heals is not a good healer.  I would rather have someone with 4K HPS and 1K over heal then someone with 8K HPS and 5K over heal.  When the time comes to heal when it is needed to conserve mana the one that does not over heal is the better healer.  Even on fights that mana does not matter the one that does not over heal is the one that is better.

Over all this is about doing your job right.

A healer should never over heal even if he can.
A DPS should never die from avoidable damage even if he is pulling uber DPS.
A tank should never stop building on his threat lead just because no one is close to him.

Meters seem to make people forget those little things.  It makes people want to top meters for whatever they are doing even if topping does not mean they are actually doing the right thing.

I wish more people would forget about the meters and start looking at how well they did their job.  Just because the boss died does not mean you did a good job.  The boss can easily die with 5 people in a 25 man doing a horrible job.  Even if the boss did die why should you ever have 5 people around that are doing a horrible job.

The last thing I ever want to see is someone doing 9K DPS and not worrying about trying to get 9.5K DPS.  A healer that is over healing at a 60% clip and not trying to over heal less.  A tank that figures, I have others to MD so I do not need to stress about threat.

Being good is not about doing good.  It is about doing the best you can do.  Everyone one of us has room to get better.  Forget about the meters and worry about doing your job more effectively.