The Daily Grind: What was your favorite experience as a damage dealer?

Out of the three roles of the holy trinity, damage dealers (or DPS, depending on personal preference) are usually seen as the most superfluous. After all, you just have to pound something into the ground, right? But that's neglecting all of the work that damage dealers actually do, and it's neglecting the fact that you notice when your resident monster-pounder isn't up to snuff. Just because there are an awful lot of damage-dealing players in certain games (World of Warcraft springs to mind) doesn't mean there aren't some noteworthy members of the role.

From EverQuest to RIFT, pretty much every game has some way of allowing players to just rack up huge numbers and lay waste to the opposition. So what has your favorite experience been when piling on the damage? Was there a time that you broke numbers you didn't even think you were capable of hitting? A time when you showed your entire party just how good you were at what you did? Or was it a game where you got to combine your love of breaking things with a more party-oriented utility approach?

Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!

Reader Comments (42)

the best time I had as a damage dealer was when I wasn't actually playing a class suited to it.

I was playing the warrior priest in Warhammer Online along side almost a whole warband of other healers... we kept taking keep after keep, spaming heals and low-mid dmg across the faces of anyone that go in our way.

the sheer comical value of rolling pure dmg dealers with a bunch of healers was just too much fun.. X3

Back in the early, early days of Guild Wars when people hadn't quite realized that Fire Storm isn't a good spell and clumping up will get you killed, there were many a PvP match where my ele was able to make the entire enemy team die at near the same time with Meteor, Fire Storm, Meteor Storm, and Rodgort's.

Actually now that I think about it, it's still not uncommon to hit 3-4 people at once with Invoke Lightning on my air ele :P

Fighting Crey Paragon Protectors with my MA/SR scrapper, my first ever character and first to 50. Party of Eight. They all were down, no wakies between us once again so they hospitaled it out, and it left me going toe to toe with 2 PPs. And when they fell, it was awesome.

My first bash at Faction PvP in Guild Wars. I'd rolled up a Fire Elementalist nuker, and nuker is definitely the right word. I've never seen some many numbers simultaneously leap off of characters in my life, and it was gooooood.

Mine is actually watching a friend play during a BWL raid in vanilla WoW:
The guild had wiped once or twice on Chromaggus, but the current attempt looked like it was going well until my friend (a warlock) got in a Shadow Bolt crit followed by a Death Coil crit during the shadow vulnerability. I think the 2 spells crit for a total of 14k damage combined which was a lot during those days. Needless to say my friend got aggro and wiped the raid, the guild leader went on a 10 min rant on how warlocks should be deleted from the game and both my friend and I laughed so hard it hurt :D

Being a Fire Mage during Vanilla WoW, destroying creature before they can reach me has never been so much fun.

Cleric (Shaman)@RIFT and Mage (Arcane)@WoW are my favorite. Mash 1 (ONE) button and you'll be at the top of all damage meters.

Favorite would have to be in FFXI on my thf, SATA was just too fun. Really fun when you had a baddie that liked to tell everyone how to play there class.

/tell tank Hey Im gonna SATA that DRK, he's talkin a lot of trash.
>>tank Yea man go for it i'll line it up for you.
/tell tank Awesome

Thief prepares Sneak Attack.
Thief prepares Trick Attack.
Thief uses Evisceration.
Mob takes XXXX damage

Mob attacks Dark Knight

Dark Knight: Yo what the hell!?

Dark Knight was kill by mob.

fun stuff

@Vunak

Oh god, a million times THIS ^.

Just getting my THF in a good party with people who could grasp the concept of SATA was a rarity! Ionno how many times I had to explain DO NOT MOVE IF I AM BEHIND YOU to different tanks...

My favorite damage dealer has to be the pre-tp-nerf dragoon in FFXI. That thing was insane damage. Sometimes I pulled aggro on purpose just because I could. The only problem was pentathrust couldn't really chain with anything. I left the game shortly after the tp nerf because it totally ruined most melee damage dealers.

Currently my new saboteur in Rift. I haven't gotten giddy over doing damage in a long time. Tick Tick Tick Tick Tick BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! and watch the HP drop to some beautiful sounds, fireworks and shocked faces. Love it.

The first time I used the Rain of Fire/Tar Patch combination in City of Heroes was glorious.

The first time I equipped all SO enhancements was pretty memorable too.

for me its kinda the opposite
FFXI: soloing light Skillchain with my pup and healing the boss lol
when our LS fight NM that get healed if damaged while casting/TPing
>>victorysmite >tactical switch> victorysmite
>> boss start casting
>>light SC >>Boss recovers 15% of his HP
>>everyone in LS : WTF
always fun

LotRO Champion. It was a class you had to play smartly to be brought to raids.

Playing a Shadow Priest in Burning Crusade and playing a Bard in Rift. I got to do damage while helping out my party. I gravitate towards support, whether that be utility DPS or healing. It's nice to have support DPS as an option when I'm not in the mood for the stress that comes with healing.

The second boss in Magister's Terrace (TBC WoW) as a mage was always fun for me, it was my favorite instance and Vexallus was my favorite boss because of the sheer amount of mayhem condensed in such a short fight and the (de)buffs that increase damage. Plus there's a second but important role for the mage, to get rid of the pesky adds.

AoE-ing the hell out of clustered players with my Bright Wizard (WAR) back when they were imba...

I remember this epic time in Naxxramas in World of Warcraft one time. We were running 10 man (We were a small family friends guild at the time) and we were on Heigan (the dance boss for all who know by mechanics). Well we got Heigan down to about 15% during the third dance phase, then everyone besides me and a healer got killed in the final tick of the dance wave. I was playing on my hunter, so I run up the center stage and the boss is on the ground chasing around the healer. Somehow, in the time we started taht phase till the end I burned Heigan down all the way. 15% in about a minute, which was awesome for me at the time :) Couldn't belive it happened at the end, the entire raid was shocked beyond all belief.

Taking out the Absorbacrom a few times, solo (no bots/alt accounts, for some reason some people seem to think solo means them and their 4 other accounts) with my Bonedancer.

My favorite moment as a damage dealer was our second try and first kill of Terris Thule (EQ, PoP, Lair).

My job as an ranger was to kite one of the gargoyles becoming active at 35% and everything went fine until the moment Terris Thule was at about 5% health.

People started biting the dust all over the place and with Terris Thule at 2% health only 7 Members of the raid were alive. In a rare moment of ingeniousness I no longer cared about the gargoyle but popped Trueshot instead and started firing at Terris with everything I got.

After hitting some of the most important critical hits in my 7 years in Everquest I finally killed her with only 3 players left alive of the whole raid.

There's so many really, from topping leaderboards in pvp, to pulling misdirection pranks on dungeons and raids on my hunter...it really all boils down to just the feeling I get when shooting and doing runs with friends.

I always played ranger/hunter/gunner classes in mmos and for me the feeling of taking a high vantage point and overlooking the fighting as I shoot mobs never gets old. Most classes have to be somewhat in the thick of it, the classes I play can shoot and see the whole field. Part of the enjoyment of combat for me is to see the fight too, the visual chaos is fun.

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The Daily Grind: What was your favorite experience as a damage dealer?

Reader Comments (42)

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 8:28AM Everfaust said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 8:28AM Ehra said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 8:29AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 8:36AM Floodland said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 8:58AM Faryon said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:08AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:10AM Phenomen said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:15AM Vunak said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 12:31PM Beltyra said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:19AM Yog said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:38AM MMOaddict said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:39AM rockman0 said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:43AM alzeer said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 9:54AM KDolo said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 10:02AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 10:12AM Dumac said

Posted: Aug 1st 2011 10:30AM (Unverified) said

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Posted: Aug 1st 2011 11:07AM Seldra said

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