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DPS threat control: Does it defeat the purpose?
Darkalloy
Member UncommonPosts: 26
Recently I had a bit of a scrap with some friends during a game session that lead to them not wanting to group up with me anymore. It had to do with threat control silly thing for people to get bent out of shape for in my opinion, but none the less lead to us no longer playing together. See I play mostly Dps classes in mmo's more specifically ones that don't rely on long casting times to deal their damage. I tend to think that if I don't die/come close to dying or at the very least majorly tick off that which I am currently trying to disembowel I'm not doing my part. This is what lead to the scrap, as according to them I absolutely have to take a Dps break or I'm not effective. Don't get me wrong I use things to drop my threat when I can and always let the tank have a head start but focus mostly on the hurting of the target.
To make a long story short... I know too late. It got me to thinking about the Damage per second side of Dps'ing and how the control breaks change them. To me taking a break of say 5 seconds so the Tank can up his threat by dealing damage and using what threat build skills he has seems to defeat the purpose of Dps. The breaks may come frequently depending on how you play and/or what class. It seems to me that in the longer fights a Dps would simply be doing exactly what the tank is doing damage wise possibly just a little more. In the shorter fight sure the Dps could still possibly be a Dps.
Am I just crazy or... Ok bad question I know I'm crazy. So is it just the way I perceive it or does the threat control really just make Dps less Dps'y? Am I doing it wrong by trying to shred the enemy as fast as possible and possibly getting myself killed or should I be drawing the fight out and taking my time?
Comments
Your doing it wrong. You have tunnel vision on your personal DPS. Look at the bigger picture.
You're not being a team player. In an mmo (and in a party setting especially for hard content), team play is paramount over personal performance. If you have to hold back for the better of the group, then you should hold back. A strong dps'er is one that is smart enough to know when it is time to go "balls to the walls" and when it is time to withhold their considerable power.
If you feel you should give it maximum gas all the time, even if it means coming close to death (ie: stressing out the healers and causing them to lose time on other tasks), and causing the tank to lose threat (ie: stressing out the tank and causing him to be unable to deal with other important tasks at hand), then you are a detriment to the group and doing more harm than good.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
this and with a lot of games all you have to do is pause at the start of a fight for the tank to actually hit the mob. Now if that isnt the case.. like you have either a bad or new tank(not always the same thing) or you have a game like Neverwinter where threat is an issue of the game then there isn't much you can do. Honestly though it sounds to me like you could give a rat's ass about those around you and only care about your numbers... so I wouldn't group with you either.
You're not crazy. It is a retarded mechanic but that is how the game was designed: Your tank's ability to generate threat caps your maximum DPS. I've found several trinity games suffer from this and it's amazing how many people accept it.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
curious which.. I know for wow this occurred a few times in the past but hasnt in quite a while. I could answer about a few games but most I dont have the in depth knowledge of. I know Neverwinter has huge issues but threat is an overall problem with that game.. i.e. healer tanking every mob via heal threat and the tank cant do anything to stop it except one mob on a longish CD(no idea if this has been fixed recently as I stopped playing.. got tired of tanking =P)
The entire point is so that DPS is capped by threat - to force the group to work together.
If threat is infinite, it totally negates that entire mechanic and oversimplifies the entire trinity concept.
Not saying that trinity is the only way to go, but if your going to go with trinity, you need to tie tank threat to DD DPS, otherwise it just becomes a zergfest.
A DD's job isn't to DPS indiscriminately, it's to DPS to their maximum extent, which can and should be constrained by things other than just how fast you can push some optimal rotation.
if you are hitting the same target as your tank, and you are ripping the agro off your tank constantly and he cant hold it, or get it back. then
a. your tank dousnt know what he is doing.
b. the games numbers are off,
c. shit happens.
for real though, if you have to slow down dps, then something is wrong a DPS should be putting out as much damage at any given time slowing down for the sake of letting the tank hold agro means there is a issue somewhere ether in the game or the players.
now if you are not letting the tank get agro or you are using a lot of AoEs or targeting a different target from the tasnk that is a different issue.
and a last bit some games are odd, like agro caps, or other odd things, if you are playing a game where you now the agro is odd, then you need to adjust you cant just blame the tank for odd game mechanics you need to adjust your play style to the game, this is annoying but it is what it is, I suggest paying attention to your position so you can be ready to make a hasty escape in games like this or simple, hold off on the DPS a little (although this drives me nuts as well)
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Unless you are a professional player than forget about the advice below.
Go to Youtube and look at tutorial by a few players on how to DPS in the game that you are playing.
And also you need to Youtube on the boss fights before you go into the dungeon so that you wouldn't fk up everyone night.
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
I hate u tubeing dungeons before running them, I enjoy learning them I enjoy playing them, and I ahte the eliteist attitude of if you don't know how to run a dungeon even though you have never run it before you should not be on the team.
screw that that attitude is what turned games into jobs instead of what you do to relax after real jobs.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
Think about it: In a generic trinity game, tank tries to maximize their build, healers try to maximize their build ("over-heals" don't generally matter), but DPS builds are "good enough" if they can reach the DPS ceiling the tank sets. Now ask yourself, is that a good design philosophy for builds? Where is the incentive to develop better DPS builds?
If DPS stays within limit, there shouldn't be any problems, right? Aggro-based tanking already makes combat easy! Why shouldn't you go all the way?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Haha I know, that is why I stop playing these MMOes :P.
Pardon my English as it is not my 1st language
You know Conan is barbarian etc ,theres wizards and warriors,thiefs and musicians in fantasy worlds,its their job.
Then theres these peeps in this world who wants to control them but dont want to do their job.
Why not roleplay like that,roll a bard for example and relax under the tree play lute and sing battle songs,roll a dwarf and go to tavern and drink some ale,find more mates and drink some more.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Took me a little while to respond as I passed out earlier due to being the harbinger of the plague currently.
Anywho, back to the topic at hand. I know that I get tunnel vision, in fact I have met a single person who doesn't get it now and again. I also know that I am playing a team game and that I need to be thinking about what benefits the team. Here's the thing, what's on my mind when I'm trying to flatten what's in front of me isn't my damage compared to everyone else or even the amount of kills I get. What is on my mind is, "If this thing dies faster that means less time taking its possibly devastating attacks, fewer consumables used, and a greater chance of the party surviving further in." I personally can't sit still for too long in a party, If I do I feel like I'm not contributing. I simply find it odd that your damage as a DPS is limited to roughly the damage of the tank give or take a few % depending on the tank. There are other factors to the threat build up I know. It still seems to defeat the purpose of it to me. If your damage dealer is going to be constrained by the amount of threat your tank can generate aren't you just better off having something other than a damage dealer?
Now as for YouTube, I don't want to spoil a dungeon by finding out that, "Oh in the middle of this fight he becomes invulnerable until you do the hokey pokey while singing The Banana Boat Song." If someone else knows that fine by me they can tell me when we get there. Watching videos about how to play ones class seems even less fun. The entire point to me is to develop you own way of handling your class that is both fun for you and effective. Conforming to someone else's vision of how you should be playing doesn't seem right. I play the game to have fun not to work as it were.
Now if you will excuse me I think I shall sputter and die until tomorrow.
I don't know if im being trolled, this is sarcasm, or someone thinks they are being clever, I really just don't know what to make of this.
F2P may be the way of the future, but ya know they dont make them like they used to
Proper Grammer & spelling are extra, corrections will be LOL at.
?
Like ,man this race game feels like a work it feels like driving a race car,thats why i stopped playing racing games.
You just dont seem to understand how these peeps sounds like.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Congratulations. You have found one of the many reasons why Trinity combat is awful.
On the one hand, you were fighting badly for the game you were playing. On the other, maybe the real problem is that you were playing the wrong game. There are better games out there.