My pet peeve is people who join PUGs, blast the hell out of the mobs, pull aggro left and right, and then ask in party chat, “Anyone have damage meters?” Those people are clearly only looking to have their e-peen stroked, and I never, ever post meters for them. If they really cared about their performance and not their e-peen, they’d be running their own damn meters.

The bad experiences I have had with people using damage meters happens in PuGs, where all too frequently we get a dps class (usually a mage, but yesterday it was a boomkin) who loves to spam those meters after every trash pull, kill every critter in the game and of course, get aggro on just about every pull. Interestingly enough, these idiots fail to reset their meters so they’ll spam some ridiculously high number (”zomg i did 80k damage after first pull I r l33t!!!”). Obviously you need enough dps so that dungeons don’t take ten hours to finish, but you also can’t finish if the entire party is dead.

I use this Damage Meter, but it is so much more. I use it to track CC breakers, whispering them and tell em to watch their , and to determine how much tps i can gen to give dps ample time to burn the mob to the ground. Even had a “huntard” pull aggro from me in heroic SP tonight, as he was focuses intently on his meter, throwing out massive aggro shots before I even attacked a mob. -.-

Let the morons show their damage meters with pride, as long as they do not mistake the threat meter for the damage meter. I will give them one warning, then stop taunting a mob until it oneshots them, then go back to burning it down.

This being said, I am a decently geared feral tank, 32k armor, Over 50% combat dodge, and constantly score 3-5 on damage meter, which shows, hell, I can gen threat like a mofo

Good Hunting and Good Luck.

Back to teh value of teh tool. (couldn’t help myself) I am glad to see people talking about using the tool for evaluation. I myself am a class leader and regularly use the tool to guage the performance, shot rotations, miss rates, and general effectiveness of my co-huntards. I have been trying to teach them to “stay the hell off the treat meter.” By the light L2FD, L2MD, L2pot early, learn when to slow dps, learn when to blow everything and go all out. These are valuable raid abilities to maximize your effectiveness and value to the raid. The hunters in our guild are some of the best geared members I expect them to be high on the damage done chart for boses, but on trash I would much rather see effective CC.

At the end of the day, much evil can come. But so much good can too. Use the tools wisely and have fun, don’t wory about how big your epeen is. If you have to go do some arenas and get it out of your system.

As for heals, as long as they are not overhealing till they OOM, I would much rather have a overhealed raid than a dead one. Let them whisper among themselves about effective healing and gross heals.

I stumbled upon your site by accident and found myself here for Hours… Thanks, it’s awesome! but I have to put my 2cp’s in on this topic.

[quote]Damage meters aren’t just the ignorant redneck stepchild of Threatmeters… they are the tools of epeening. They are the spawn of the demons if used improperly and should be used only by people that know what the frack they’re doing. [/quote]

Absolutely!

I quit relying upon others to post RECOUNT after a Raid/Boss fight and D/L it myself. I am a Hunter Class Leader for my Guild and this is a great evaluation tool like somebody else said ^ there. I silently watch the recount meters and evaluate what each person on the chart is doing. I also used it to evaluate my own performance. In the 10-25 man’s I am “Supposed” to be 3rd-5th… I am “Supposed” to be behind the Rogues, Warlocks, Mages and Shammy’s. When I am higher… we have Problems. I Compare it to my Fellow Hunters, Each of our DPS varies from out Talent Tree and Raid responsibilities. A Surv Hunter will consistently pull 150-200 DPS LESS than me (Marks) but he is an invaluable raid asset. He has longer trap durations and “Expose Weakness”. While he leads trapping duties, I’m throwing MD on the Tank and burning off DPS! But without his 33 Sec trap vs my 20 Sec trap and without his Expose Weakness the raid wouldn’t run as smoothly!

I don’t see the Damage meter as being Flawed when applied with the type of Fight that just occurred. It’s up to the “Responsible User” to evaluate the Data to make a Determination.

Examples:
HKM Fight… Another Hunter and I have to bounce Kiggler back and forth until he comes up on the Kill Order… When you are Poly’d your DPS = 0. My “Normal” Avg DPS runs between 775-825… the HKM Fight DPS is usually about 400. When we get to Gruul if I exceed 825 i’m the one that is face first eating dirt with 0 DPS.
Kara.. Attuneman Fight… Basic “Tank&Spank” Rogues are usually #1 and they Should be, They get the oppurtunity to stand behind him and Slice & Dice thier way to #1… Now compare that to the rest of the Kara Fights, Rogues can’t stand in Maiden’s Holy Fire or Prince’s Shadow Nova and dish out damage and they do a lot of “Running DPS” on Curator’s Balls. So when the epeen Rogue is gloating over his 1100 DPS Attuneman Fight…. Ask him what his DPS was when he stood in Maiden’s Holy Fire too long and was drooling on the Marble Floor.

Recount is a great Evaluation Tool, just like WWS. When used Responsibly it really helps better yourself and your own Raid contribution. If you track the individual fights and the History and look at the “Big Picture” of everything else that is happening you will know where your DPS should be with individual battles. Use it to compare yourself to same Class/Spec and Geared companions, not against the whole raid group. That is the Pride Checker when you see what the other person is doing that you are not. Raids are cooperative battles, not an epeen contest! Otherwise you would have raid groups consisting of only 1 class! Hmm.. What’s the Defense rating of Rogue Leather? it’s about as high as the Defense Rating of Hunter’s Mail!

I have used it long enough to find out by Trial and Error (and repair bills) How/When I can Blow all my trinkets without pulling aggro. Experience (and Omen/KTM) will let you know how much you can dish out without pulling aggro.

Recount was created to be an EVALUATION tool… not an EPEENer tool! But it does make for some good razzing amongst friends & guildies!

I did learn that Drums of Battle & Rapid Fire combined gives me 1175 DPS against Nolarakk and it’s a BAAAD thing when I had a 3 Crit Combo and was already had 70% of the TPS and Feign was on CD

In this case, he was right. I consider myself a pretty decent rogue and I’ve tried many times to take the adds in BM. It’s damn near impossible as a melee dps’er to handle them all. As a hunter you can keep them off that shield and keep moving while killing them and they’re not killing you. I have to stand their and eat their damage after I chase them all over hell’s creation while I kill them, which makes the healer waste mana healing me. OR I could be beating the hell out of that elite and not taking any damage at all that my own bandages can take care of. While you can pull those mobs off the shield from range AND stay out of range of the meanest ones with your pet. It just makes sense.

I use DPS meters was a way of monitoring myself. If I’m not up there, then it’s one of two things: 1: the people ahead of me are out-gearing me or 2: I’m off my game. (With the caveat of situational DPS — the last boss in ZA for instance has an entire phase where magic can’t really be used, etc.)

However, I also have tanks and I know how frustrating it is to be running after mobs, especially because this usually means that once the over-eager-DPS is dead, the healer is targetted next, for having tried to keep the stupid-head alive. And as a tank, I don’t have good hold on aggro, due to rage issues. You know how it is.

So, I actually have a game I play with myself. I run both Omen and a Damage Meter. My game is to do AS MUCH damage as I possibly can while NOT pulling aggro off of the tank. What this means, is that my omen is consistently flashing ‘You have passed 90% aggro’, but I’m not pulling aggro from the tank.

I also tend to have my damage meter set on DPS, not Damage. The DPS output I do to me is far more important than my overall damage. If my DPS is low, my overall damage will be low.

I tend to run with the same people on a regular basis, so I typically know how much damage I can put out there before I risk yanking it off of my tank. BUT, my regular tank has also told me that running with me has improved his tanking ability, because I force him to DO better and be more than he would have been if I wasn’t pushing myself, too.

So.. it can be a curse, but more often, I’d say it’s a bonus and a tool. Provided you don’t have a ‘tool’ using it.