Frost. High DPS, low Damage done..

[wedidntdoit1]

I know its probably pointless to make a thread like this without posting logs but I'd like to just ask it as a general sort of question. Recently I've started raiding with Frost, and as my guild progresses on Heroic Desolate Host I'm nearly always the top DPS at over 1 million, but when I go over to the Damage Done tab I'm middle of the pack and nearly at the bottom. The other Mage in our guild is Fire and I am far ahead of him in DPS but he does quite a bit more sustained damage than me.

I was wondering if this is a common problem I will face as a mage, specifically frost. Or if any other frost mages have or had this issue and what you did to improve. Its very disheartening because damage done is what almost everyone looks at.

[mrgreenthump]

Frost has no dots and your damage meter probably does total damage divided by active time for your dps, rather than active dps and overall dps. So what has happened, you've spent a lot of time without doing damage.

[Deleted]

It is a problem if you die a lot. Some addons calculate dps as (damage done)/(time spent damaging), so if you die just when your CD's run out, you should see ridiculous dps and almost no damage done.

If you both stay alive for the entire fight there should be no way that your relative position changes massively by looking at DPS instead of Damage done.

[Zenfoldor]

To be clear, your "DPS" should actually reflect your total damage divided by the number of seconds in the fight. If instead it is dividing by the number of seconds you were attacking, then this is not the correct figure for your dps. People like to look at it because they are dps whores who ignore mechanics and die a lot, but still like to say they were "beating" other dps when they were alive.

Like your character has secondary stats, so do you

Survivability(aka doing mechanics, popping personals, situational awareness, adaptation, making sure you are the last one alive)
Confidence
Knowledge

Honestly, if you need to ask this question then you need to learn more about the game's systems. Moreso than anything, that will increase your dps.

[Ambereldus]

I would recommend using Skada instead of Recount, and only ever look at the Damage Done tab. DPS means nothing if the boss doesn't die, and damage dealt is what causes a bosses health to drop to 0. Also, remember your ABC's; Always Be Casting!

Note, I haven't done the fight on heroic, only norm, so I may be missing something crucial.
To be a little more helpful, on that fight specifically, try to find ways to cleave. Fire has effectively uncontrollable cleave, so that may inflate his damage done over yours. If you aren't already, use Blizzard to AoE on the adds. If your strat doesn't involve focusing them down right away, you can get a lot of extra damage on-boss because of them. The longer they stay alive, the longer you can get the cooldown reduction on FO and the more IL's you can get. This should allow you to take advantage of your set bonus more often.

Other than that, we'll need videos or logs to tell you anything specific.

[Tyrioslol]

If both of you are alive at the end of the fight, your dps should scale proportionally with your dmg done. If you're dead halfway through the fight, your dps may be higher, but your dmg done will be low low low low. Low.

[Zenfoldor]

Found the unhelpful guy who only answers because he gets off on getting smug.

Not imho. I wasn't intending to be smug. The question being asked is basic. Understanding the basics is the first step to solid dps. My suggestion that the OP go over the basics of dps, including simc, including working out damage meters, ect, is the optimal step to long term success in the department. Simply answering the question(which I did clearly and concisely) but not addressing the elephant in the room is doing the OP a disservice.

Looking back I should have given more examples. OP should:

1. Learn simcraft, thoroughly and completely, then use it
2. Read some guides on icy veins and altered time
3. Spend an hour at the training dummy
4. Spend an hour researching the specific fights his guild is doing or is about to be doing, including tips and tricks
5. Spend an hour working on macros and UI
6. Spend many hours practicing while lego farming
7. Learn to navigate Warcraft Logs, view top and similar parses, and examine those parses himself in order to derive said tips and tricks from their analytical and static data

Nothing we can tell him here will replace these chores and their immense value they would have on the dps he so aspires towards. Nothing we can tell him here will have the value of 1/10th of one of those things.

smug
sməɡ/Submit
adjective
having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one's achievements.
"he was feeling smug after his win"

That's not me. I'm trying to help, not diss.