Anyone else feel guilty playing a DPS?

ifandbut

Does anyone else feel guilty playing a DPS in MMOs? 



I know I do. I mean, I had fun healing Ice Crown Citadel on my Priest in WoW but it was not the most fun leveling experience I have ever had. I have attempted to tank in WoW and a few other games but I always have a problem targeting the mob I need to taunt (I tend to mouse target everything).



Against my better judgment, I purchased Rift on Tuesday. As with all new MMOs I try to give each class a fair shot (or in the case of Rift, each calling). And, once again, I find the rogue-hunter type the most fun so far. Yet, when doing rifts or PvP arenas I feel I could be contributing more to the group if I were a healer or tank. 



I guess it starts with Final Fantasy 11. I loved the concept of Red Mage, being a spell wielding fighter just sounded so cool. Instead, I was relegated to a pure support position, and boy was that boring. When I later switched to Warrior I found it 10x more fun to level. 



When I switched games to WoW I played a Hunter for 3 years before trying out Priest, then falling back toward DPS with Warlock for Cataclysm. When I tried Lord of the Rings, I leveled both Hunter and Champion to the 40s. I tried out interesting classes like Rune Keeper and Lore Master but they always felt slower to level. 

In Aion I first started leveling a Chanter. The times I was in a group were full of fun. Debuffing the mob, DPSing, and throwing out backup heals. I was able to adapt what I was doing to the needs of the group. However, solo grinding was slow as hell compared to my Gladiator or Assassin.

Hell, even in single player games (Mass Effect and Dragon Age) I find myself leaning towards the "DPS" classes (Vanguard instead of Adept, Rogue instead of Mage). 



When I first loaded up Rift I made a Mage. Went with Chloromancer/Elementalist/Archon. I liked the idea of dealing damage and healing at the same time, but once again the leveling felt slow. After a few hours I rolled a rogue with Marksman/Ranger/Assassin and all the sudden I was killing mobs after 4 abilities and progressing through quests like crazy. 



I know MMOs are games, and I should play them to have fun. But part of that fun involves grouping with people, and if I dont feel I am helping the group out I find my self having less and less fun. I try to be the best DPS I can be, but all that is in vane if the healer cant keep the tank alive or the tank cant keep aggro off me. 

Quizzical

If a game is designed such that pure DPS characters are useful and pure support characters are necessary, then the simple fix is to quit and play a different game.  Having everyone do some damage, but also some other things at the same time, makes for far more interesting gameplay.

Irish

Respec Bard into your DPS set up, you'll be contributing to a group as a DPSer that way. Not to mention respeccing/changing specs is so simple in RIft, you may as well do what you like when solo, do what makes you feel not guilty in groups.

You can even spec Tank as a Rogue, and you can have four different specs ready to go at one time, so there is no need to feel guilty with that kind of versatility at your disposal.

Me, on the otherhand, I am perfectly happy being useless to a group other than damage output. I was in Gloamwood today during a Rift invasion, and a mob began to fly. I realized, I had no ranged attacks, so I stood around until she dropped back down. It was nice to get a breather from all that damage spamming and positioning!

Wolfenpride

I don't necessarily feel guilty, but in a lot of games DPS classes are just basically filler and not vital, I usually end up switching over to a tank in those games.

Certain games like CoH and STO however I felt DPS roles were very much desired in any group, I enjoyed playing as a Scrapper back in CoH and the Escort in STO.

 

Irish

Originally posted by Wolfenpride

I don't necessarily feel guilty, but in a lot of games DPS classes are just basically filler and not vital, I usually end up switching over to a tank in those games.

Certain games like CoH and STO however I felt DPS roles were very much desired in any group, I enjoyed playing as a Scrapper back in CoH and the Escort in STO.

 

I'll definitely agree with that. It can suck to feel completely replacable/interchangeable with another class, where you become just a damage number.

I liked vanilla WoW, where speccing improved sap on a rogue contributed to the groups advancement outside the realm of just damaging things. (Only bringing up the dreaded WoW because it's popular, and people can relate)

Currently, I'm liking Rift for the same reasons I mentioned above. I don't have that 'class regret' where I feel I have wasted my time on some forgettable, one-dimensional class.

Sid_Vicious

The only thing that I kind of feel guilty for is killing the same person over and over and over and voer andd ooverr annd evoer dna erove andna evoerore andan everooeo . ...

 

To be honest I do not think that you should feel guilty . ... afterall, all you are really doing is pressing a couple (about a dozen if pro?) buttons in a continuous sequence.

 

I do not consider that much of a priviledge. In fact, I might rather just watch your health and click a few buttons to keep it up. I feel bad for you. I'll let you kill stuff for me while I eat my sandwich . ... and maybe playing another game on a 2nd monitor on the side since the one we are playing probably sucks.

djazzy

I don't feel guilty in the least.

Vaen

Even though I'm huge fan of hybrids, tanks, healers and any form of utility, and never liked playing pure damage dealer, I think the number dealers are regradless the most valuable asset in anything. Healing is like reverse DPS, you'll still be still kind of competing with the numbers, although of course healing is usually a reactive role as obbosed to damage dealer's predictive role. You can bring 40 healers, 8 damage dealers and two tanks in a 50 man raid. Would that make you feel more useful and unique within the raid? It's more of a question of tactic, do you go for offensive or defensive tactic, when you are choosing between damage dealers and healers. Only difference is, that in most games there are noticeably less healers, than damage dealers in any encounter by default design. It's also pointless to think of healing as some kind of altruistic, holy role, as they are doing nothing else, than keeping the damage dealers alive... which are keeping the healers alive in one way or another and are absolute necessity to bring any encounter to end. 50 damage dealers would get a lot more shit done, compared to 50 healers. Depends on the game design, though, of course. From most games you can take all threat generating and healing abilities and still you could do pretty damn well with only damage. With only threat or healing you don't do much. See how it all revolves around the damage dealing; tanks keep the big, bad monsters away from killing you and healers keep the tank and you alive. Most buffs are there to directly increase DPS; do you do it by yourself or make someone else do it? Difference is not really that big.

 

Regardless I definitely recommend playing different roles. Damage dealing could often be made more interesting and involving. There should be more decision making involved. Tank role is a lot of fun often times, you are likely to be leading, you need to be the control freak, there's often cooldown survival abilties, that require decision making, and you are also mostly just competing with yourself, so there no stress in that sense.

 

What is the ultimate role, that I love, is the one, that does damage every time there's nothing else to do, or squeezes DoT's between what ever else it is doing, or has abilities with both damage and healing component, that also is a healer in group or secondary in bigger groups, provides decent buffs as well as debuffs and finally is capable of some CC and off-tanking. Better known as jack-of-all-trades. It's truly the most engaging and creative role, WHEN it's designed well, but more often than not the jack-of-all-trades is useless in many things, or perhaps over powered in some, and in raid environment, where people specialize to small, niché roles, jack-of-all-trades classes can be boring to play or just simply useless. Nothing is as fun, as healing, damage dealing, CC'ing, off-tanking all over the place, constantly adapting to the needs of the group, and of course when well played, no other role gains as much appreciation from other players.

 

So I recommend to test these roles more, it's quite boring to stay pure damage dealer all the time. The thing is, if you want class, that feels more useful in groups, you can expect it not to be so good soloer. That's no issue, though, as then you can focus on grouping, the thing you wanted in the first place. Still I remind though that not even nearly all games have good, balanced class design. By balanced I don't mean the WoW style of making everything homogenous, and basically boring and predictable as hell.

 

About the taunting thing, I think taunting by mouse clicking is the best way to pick single mobs in bigger groups in WoW, if I remember right. I used mouseover macro, so that I moved mouse over the mob and pressed mouseover taunt macro key, or something like that. Other is to tab target, when there's not so many mobs.

Sid_Vicious

It seems like with many games I usually end up being the healer trying to save someone's ass or having tunnel vision trying to finish that guy off with a sliver of health left . .... hehehe

ruonim

LVL design is reason becosue many ppl play dps. In these lvl mmos supports and tanks lvl 2-3x slower.

SuperXero89

It seems to me like DPS classes always carried a certain stigma of being classes easier classes to play because they weren't as integral to a group's success as a skilled healer or tank, and there wasn't really any way to tell when a DPS player was simply doing a bad job. With the advent of parse programs and DPS meters, DPS classes must always be on their toes because they're competing with other DPS classes for the top spot like a tank holds aggro or the healer keeps the group alive. Most everyone will have a DPS program of some kind installed, and if one character is pulling his or her weight, the group will start wondering why.

Emergence

Originally posted by Quizzical

If a game is designed such that pure DPS characters are useful and pure support characters are necessary, then the simple fix is to quit and play a different game.  Having everyone do some damage, but also some other things at the same time, makes for far more interesting gameplay.

The system I'm developing for Emergence Online is based on four roles: Protection, Support, Range, Mobility. Each player has 5 "Focus Levels" which each focus on skill sets which fulfill one of the four roles.

As you can see, there is no such a role as "Damage" nor a "Healer". In the game, there is no healing, only regen (which is capped as players have "Wound Levels" and cannot regen past a Wound Level. So once a player loses 20% chunk of health, they cannot regain it via "healing" which is actually just regen like a Bard's heal song.) So players can do damage via melee or a variety of range levels. Whether that is with a sword, bow, or spell.

 

Inevitably, I erased the Healer and DPS from the Holy Trinity, and replaced them with Support (Buffs, Resupply, Regen, & Crowd Control), Range, and Mobility (CC, Anti-Crowd Control, Debuffs, Stealth, Objective Offense) while keeping Protection (Armor, Shield, Guard/Protecing Allies, Defensive Skills, Anti-Debuff). Yes, there still are offensive roles and abilities, but not so much of a difference to be considered an entirely different role, as any role can be offensive in a variety of ways.

It isn't Rock Paper Scissors either, as each of the four roles has skill sets which do different things. (Protection includes anti-dps anti-knockdown heavier armor, supporting allies via blocking with shield or absorbing damage, anti-range via shield, anti-melee with parry, etc.)

Emergence

Originally posted by ruonim

LVL design is reason becosue many ppl play dps. In these lvl mmos supports and tanks lvl 2-3x slower.

Hopefully this will change in Emergence Online.

Although we are far from playtesting these features and the combat system, out of our design come different level designs than traditional "Kill Everything" dungeon runs. Inside of an adventure (a long, hourly string of quests) there are different types of quests, which players may or may not have to perform all or multiple.

 

Survival Quests- Although some types (Gather Survival Quests) are faster/easier for mobility (faster) classes, other types (Defensive vs Hordes) prefer the Tank above all other roles, and the Support-- with the offensive roles being less important than normal. These are quests such as an endless horde of zombies which the group simply cannot beat. They must instead hold up in a house for [time] until [event] (such as sunrise, reinforcements, etc.) and so survival is much more important.

A DPS role play a much less important role than a Tank role would because a Tank role can hold back multiple mobs from entering the house, making for a massacre if they break through. It's more about holding them off than it is about killing them, as burning them with masses of AoE fire will do next to nothing because the moment mana is gone-- the team would otherwise die by the horde.

 

Stealth Quests- Adventures designed around AVOIDING the enemy to accomplish an objective, as opposed to killing everything in the dungeon singlehandedly.

 

These are just two of many, where DPS is not as useful or is actually entirely useless.

SonikFlash

Look at EQ1 DPS races were serious business, if you didn't pop the exactly correct ability during a raid boss burn the ability that didn't stack with the aoe ability the other classes cast, and then proceed to furiously hit the correct spell sequence for a minute straight with a 0 margin for error, you didn't top that chart.  

It also helps that it was an auto-attack based game not a hey look at my flashy ability game.   So in short no I didn't used to feel guilty.  Now with the current themepark MMO's you should be ashamed lol, monky with a missing leg could dps nowadays (

Emergence

Originally posted by SonikFlash

Now with the current themepark MMO's you should be ashamed lol, monky with a missing leg could dps nowadays (

If this is true, why do damage levels in MMORPG's differ among players?

 

Take WARHAMMER for example. Whenever I would play, at level 6 I outdamaged some level >9's, and by level 8 I could outdamage even level 10's. By level 10, I would deal twice as much damage and capture the majority of objectives as any other level 10.

Heck...by level 4 as a healer, I would out heal any healer I would ever encounter (even level 10 healers) unless they were the rare, extremely uncommon exception.

When I played on my Chosen (Tank) I would guard an objective and it would never be claimed as long as I was there. Yet the moment I change objectives, die, or go elsewhere-- the objective is capped. A single player being the sole deciding factor against a flag being captured or not. In WoW one player can be the sole reason Warsong Gulch flags are taken or kept. It's because of EZ mode?

I just don't understand. If MMO's are so easy that a monkey could top the DPS charts, why would I always reach #1 on my Witch Hunter even against higher level DPS allies? Why would some players be extremely low on healing or dps at high levels?

Short-Straw

There is absolutely no reason for feeling guilty about doing what you enjoy when you play a game. It's your time/money to spend it how you want to, it's called freedom. I'm not a big fan of healing myself, but others really seem to enjoy it, more power to them! As far as tanking goes, like most things, you really got to want to do it in order to enjoy it and get good at it. I like tanking because I enjoy annoying the hell out of mobs. I take a childish delight in getting things to beat on me, to their own detriment.

 

I have a silly theory that the best tanks are those who were annoying younger siblings while growing up. They would just pester their older siblings to no end. When they got older, they became offensive lineman/strikers/catchers/crease defense on their sport teams. I know it's silly and biased but, I think my theory has a nugget of truth in it too!

DarthMooska

I don't see why playing a vital part of the team would make someone feel guilty unless they were bad at it. Should the tank feel guilty for being a pally, while warrior tanks mash as many buttons to keep aggro as he can? (If I knew more about healing in WoW I'd put a similar analogy here)

Turdinator

Dps is the perfect role to play for people that don't have the attention span or motivation to tank or heal, yet want to give pointers on what tanks/healers are doing wrong  throughout an entire dungeon run.

Kyleran

Most newer MMO's continue to break down the trinity model, though they keep hanging on the tanking role more often than not.

Last night I wanted to run a low level instance as a healer in Rift and was told no thanks, we already have enough of them, mind doing DPS?  I said no problem and flipped over to my Druid/Shaman build and completed the instance.

If there's anything I 've seen in Rift is that Clerics can be too plentiful at times.

gobla

I'm mostly on the opposite side of things.

I generally hate how squishy and single-minded most DPS classes are.

If I accidentaly pull some adds I have to run because I can't take too much damage.

If I level up I get, what a surprise!, another damage abiliy. I'll put it right there with the other 50 damage abilities.

As a DPS you generally have multiple pure damage abilities. A few damage + stun/slow abilities and possibly some buffs or debuffs.

As a healer you generally get heals, damage, buffs, shields, rezzes, some crowd control, some debuffs and more.

As a tank you generally get damage, taunts, buffs, debuffs, crowd control and some abilities to protect allies.

Generally you have so much more options as a tank/healer and much fewer overlapping abilities ( abilities that do more or less the same with some minor secondary effect that differs. )

Ofcourse there are exceptions. Some DPS classes, most notably those based on pets and debuffs ( probably some others as well ) do provide a large variety of skills that are usefull in a large variety of situations.

elistrange

There is difference between playing DPS and being good at playing DPS. Just like there is a difference at being a healer, and being a good healer, and being a tank and being good tank.  Skill is involved. I don't care if it is the easiest mmo you have ever played. 

Next, be careful of charts. Just because someone hit top of the charts doesn't mean they are the "best." There are plenty of examples in MMOs where if DPS simply focused on the BOSS and didn't take care of the mobs also...well that is when you want to yell at your DPS.

ifandbut

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Originally posted by gobla
I generally hate how squishy and single-minded most DPS classes are.

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I think this sums up my guilt when playing a DPS perfectly. I always feel like I should be doing something else in an encounter beyond spamming my rotation. Yet, at the same time, I know if I do try and do something else, the mob will not die as fast.

I think I'm going to change my spec in Rift today to be Marksman/Bard and run an instance again to see if I feel less guilty.

zylon0

I do not often play a pure DPS class, but when I do I do not feel guilty.

 

I prefer the system Diablo 2 had.. healing and replenishing mana by drinking potions.

With those 2 needs out of the way everyone could DPS. It worked fine in that game not?

Mikeha

I play DPS because I dont want to be a character that the group is depending on like a Healer or Tank. The reason is because I can join a group and 5 minutes later have to leave because I may have some real life stuff to take care. I know what its like to spend time making a group only to get to where we want to go then the healer up and says I have to go.

cadaml

Dont really feal guilty, just hate dps queue times. Usually end up logging off my rogue and logging on pally : /. Its why i mostly pvp on rogue.

Disdena

OP, like you I played RDM in FFXI and Chanter in Aion. I love that role, though. I think there's no need for you to feel guilted into playing another archtype. For the most part, those of us who play support classes do so because we like that kind of character, not because somebody has to play them and we feel obligated to sacrifice ourselves.