Kaawumba's non denominational guide to l33t dee pee zed

As we are going through a recruitment phase, I decided that it could be valuable to the guild for me to write a little guide about dps, and how to do it.  Suggestions from others are welcome as well.  Unlike tanks and healers, DPS can be measured by a single number, overall damage.  Everything you do, you do to maximize this number.  DPS is the art of a few big things, and a lot of little things.

The big things:

1)  Don't die.  No, seriously, this is the number one cause of low dps.

1a)  Don't pull aggro.  Ever.  If you do, hit fade, vanish, feign death, whatever.  Always give the tanks enough time to acquire aggro.  Attack the correct target.  Watch your threat (either with omen or the built in yellow and red rings of death).  If you pull aggro off of a noob tank, it is your fault, even if the only way you can avoid pulling aggro is by auto attacking.  Pay attention to when the aggro wipes happen and stop dps appropriately.  Spend all available talent points on threat reduction. 

1b)  Don't stand in the fire, no matter what form the fire takes.  Do anything you can to minimize damage taken without reducing your dps (except for the time it takes to step out of the fire).  Not only does this decrease your chance of dying, it also makes life easier for the healers, which increases the success of the overall raid.

2)  Learn the proper rotation and talent point allotment for your spec and class.  Elitist jerks, Rawr, and wowwiki can all be good sources for this information.  If there is someone in the guild of your class who dominates your numbers, ask them how they do it.  Gear is often not the biggest difference.  Verify what you read with your own tests on a target dummy or in live raids, as various sources can be out of date or just plain wrong.  Pay attention to make sure that you hit the right buttons when abilities proc.

3)  Always strive to be better, and be willing to experiment.

The little things:

4)  If your class is supported by Rawr, use it for all gearing decisions.  This prevents you from spending badges and EP on downgrades.  Just because an item has higher iLevel, does not mean that it is better.  Rules of thumb, such as spellpower > haste, are not good enough, because 2 haste is still worth more than 1 spellpower.  You need a detailed quantitative model, which Rawr provides.  However, make sure to study all the options in Rawr.  For example, I set it to use unlimited mana, because that is typically the case, and otherwise it wants me to slot Int gems.  I also have two sets of gear, one with the Moonkin/Shadowpriest hit buff, and one without it.  There is an option for that.  Don't throw away gear.  Every time you get a new piece, run it through the Rawr optimizer.  Sometimes some surprising solutions come out.

5)  Upgrade that gear.  Raid when you can.  If you don't have a raid that night, farm badges.  Get a group of guildies together, or use the new pug finder.  You can get ToC level gear entirely by farming heroics.  Buy crafted epics if you can afford it.  Usually this involves buying the necessary mats on the auction house, and then finding someone with the recipe.

6)  Use best in slot enchants and gems for all gear, as recommended by Rawr.  Reopitimize your gems when you get new gear.  Use buff food and flasks.

7)  Minimize downtime during fights.

7a)  There is more than one way to set up a user interface, but the way I do it is left hand on the keyboard, right hand on the mouse.  It is very rare that I move my hands, or look down at my action bars or my hands.  It is very rare that I click an action, as this slows me down.  My movement keys are w e r s d f, and every key within reach ( a q t g b v z 1 2 3 4 5 6 7) is bound to something.  I use mouse movement when appropriate (mainly quick turning), but usually use keyboard movement, and use my mouse to look around and target things.  I use CBH Viewport, Bartender, and Mik's Scrolling Battle Text.

7b)  You can cast the second spell in a rotation before the previous one completes, unless you are hitting the global cooldown.

7c)  Use macros to make your trinkets and cooldowns autofire.  I connect them to one of the spells in my rotation, so that they fire every time that they can.

8)  Install recount, to motivate yourself to get better, and to quantify how well you are doing.  Don't spam the output without being asked, as a matter of ettiquete.

9)  Roll a mage, warlock, rogue, or hunter.  A recent blue post indicated that the pure dps classes are designed to have higher dps, and I have seen this in practice.  However, note that the vast majority of your dps is you, not your class.  I include this for completeness and so that you understand that it will be difficult for a shadowpriest to catch up with a top mage, not because I seriously expect you to reroll.  Also, note that it is good for the raid to have one of each class, so that we can hit all the buffs.

10)  Pick one or two classes, and stick with it.  If you switch constanly, you will never get the necessary gear and skill before the next patch hits.