Tunnel Vision

Realisation dawned on me this weekend. I've been queuing as dps and tank on my druid and I actually got into a group as dps (a group that consisted of four druids and a warrior) for the Scarlet Monastery Graveyard. As much as I love tanking it was actually good because it was the first time I've actually run graveyard apart from vanquishing the headless horseman back in the Burning Crusades. There isn't much to it so I wouldn't have had to worry. But it did mean I had to try my hand at melee dps again.

I am terrible at melee dps. According to recount I didn't do the worst but I was below the tank and the warrior. Now I did have to drop out of cat form at one point because the tank pulled the whole of the first room and the healer ran out of mana so I took over the heals. The other problem is that cats at level 30 have no AoE attacks (does that get fixed at some point?). However that isn't the real issue. It is one of a mindset.

I realised while trying to dps that I would spend too much time watching the mobs as a whole and not enough time focusing on my target. Particularly for cats  (and therefore rogues but I haven't played mine since vanilla WoW) where you have to pay attention to your combo points - I really have trouble. I can't tunnel vision myself to focus on one target and so I don't use my attacks effectively and end up either in front of the mob of not even facing it.

My situational awareness training as a tank is having a negative impact on my ability to dps! Actually I do have a problem with facing the wrong direction while tanking too. I always sit at max zoom (as you can see by the screenshot to the right - that little grey blur in the middle is my kitty druid) and so telling what direction those pesky little mobs are facing is not immediately obvious. I never play with sound on so I have to rely on the error message that pops up - which is normally above where I'm focused and I usually have the "that ability is not ready" message up as I tend to mash my attacks until they come off cooldown. I should really investigate if there is some way to move those messages into my line of sight!

The classic time I remember facing the wrong direction and not noticing was in Gundrak. I was tanking on my warrior and we were going to have a go at Less-rabi. I charged in and as sometimes happens with charge ended up behind the mob but was facing away from him. Anyway we proceeded with the fight and I couldn't understand why I kept losing aggro. When it came to my turn to interrupt I missed it even though I used shield bash at the appropriate moment. After he turned into a mammoth I noticed the "you must be facing your target" message!

As a tank the mobs follow you and so in general you control their positioning. Shockwave has set me up with some good practices in making sure the mobs are in front of me but these rules don't apply when you don't control the mob!

So I'm looking forward to getting to level 40 and getting my dual specs in which I'll probably go moonkin! Tank and ranged dps with some ability to heal (I know you can't do it in moonkin form but I tanked a lot of wrath dungeons while levelling with a healing boomkin) will work better for me.

That said, I am still keen to improve my melee dps skills but I think I'm probably better of with a dps Death Knight, ret paladin (I did alright with my ret spec when leveling) or maybe fury warrior. DKs and fury, being more a rotation based dps class, would help because I can just follow that while focusing on my target. Also the Paladin and DK are a bit more forgiving of range issues (which is also an issue you don't have as a tank)! I wouldn't mind trying my hand at Retribution again as I have an OK set of gear I've gathered as off-spec rolls, but I don't have a spare spec to drop... wtb tri-specs?


So do you have any issues when changing roles? Drop me a comment if you do! Also any tips for a fail melee dps much appreciated!