Originally Posted by
Annesh
"DPS who pull aggro are bad." "It's a DPS's job not to pull aggro." "Meter whoring is stupid and wrong."
I find statements like these and the associated attitude to be narrow-minded and unnecessarily restrictive. I'm not going to deny that many (probably most) DPS who go crazy with their buttons and pull aggro and die are the very embodiment of the stereotype. However, the issue is not a true/false boolean, it's more complex than that. If a DPS's job were just "Don't pull aggro" then I would sit quietly afk and watch movies. A DPS's job is better expressed, but not wholly encompassed by, "Do the most meaningful damage as possible without causing more incoming damage." However, it's still not that simple, especially when one assumes a bigger perspective for dungeons: "Make the run as fast as possible." Even a wipe or rezzing a dead DPS does not necessarily indicate the DPS has failed, though for the most part I would say death means someone has failed, and sometimes that failure is on the DPS.
But like I said, it's a complex issue. If the group outgears the instance, for example, and the healer is just standing around most of the time, maybe the run would go faster if the DPS went harder and stressed the healer a bit. I know that when I heal and I don't have much to do I spend those otherwise wasted globals nuking - it's not much damage but it's damage that wouldn't exist otherwise. But I would gladly spend those globals healing DPSers who pull aggro, knowing that they're contributing more time-saving DPS than I can with my globals. This becomes even more appropriate when the tank is bad and can only hold aggro against crappy DPSers.
Other involved factors include classes, social atmosphere, individual and group goals, and specific dungeon or fight.
Again, I don't deny that many (or most) DPS who mash buttons and pull aggro are mouthbreathing cunts and deserve their stereotype and the mountain-weight of social pressure the iceberg tip of which can be seen in this thread. All I'm saying is that the attitude, like all absolutist thinking, is dangerous and may lead to lost opportunities.
Let me explain where I'm coming from. Back in Wrath I used to love running heroics as a shadowpriest with my mage buddy, because no tank could hold aggro off us and it was very fun to challenge ourselves to do the most DPS possible without actually taking any extra damage via kiting, front nova, dispersion, CC - using the tools Blizz gave us, pretty much. The funnest was when the tank raged and stopped tanking the mobs we pulled, because then things actually went smoother. Runs were different, and more dangerous than the humdrum monotony everybody thinks is right, but many tanks and healers who raged and raged were afterwards shocked to discover we'd cleared a heroic in half the time it usually takes, and no one had actually died. Of course we messed up sometimes and either died or even caused a wipe but we had fun testing what we could get away with. And isn't the goal of having fun in this video game of higher importance than the goal of "do dungeons like everyone else does them"? We weren't malicious, we weren't bratty teenagers. Our behavior was calculated and meticulous, and frankly I find this approach to be the best and most enjoyable; I prefer my gaming experience to be challenging and rewarding, rather than merely a grind. I know it's not for everyone, but I like to think that my playstyle helps others either by just making runs faster for them whether they realize it or not, or if something goes wrong I'm shaking things up for them and making them think and learn and grow.