5 Steps to Increase your Damage, without Upgrades  

There's more to topping the damage meters than just class, spec, and gear. It's also about developing good play habits to increase you effectiveness and in doing so your DPS.


1) Stay Alive



It should go without saying that if you're dead, you can't do damage. What seems to be missed by most DPS is that it is not the healer's job to keep you alive, it is yours. The tank is always the first priority for healing, if it comes down to a tough choice btween who to heal, you will lose every time. So you should minimize the damage you take.

That means watch you threat, if you pull, the tank should rightfully let you die. On fghts with an AOE damage component you should know that strategy and exactly where to position yourself to avoid the AOE. If you end up taking a signifigant amount of damage, bandage yourself up. In dire circumstances use your healthstone, and a health potion as a last resort.


2) Never be OOM


Never run out of mana. The dreaded 1% boss enrage/wipe is usually a result of not having the final burst of damage to burn the boss as the secnds tick down.

You should always have a final reserve of mana, energy, ror rage for this scenario. You should be shifting from your DPS phase to regeneration phase at 20%. This will keep your regen phase short, and ensure you're never OOM.


3) Get the right buffs

Know the right buffs for your class and spec, and don't be afraid to ask for them. Unless you outgear your tank by a full tier, you should not be concerned with pulling threat. For hunter's this is especially true as you should be misdirecting at the start of fights and feigning death every time you reach 95% of the tank's threat. So why would you want blessing of salvation?

Ask for what you want. Bring flasks, scrolls and consumables to the raid. People who complain about the cost fail to understand that the price you pay is for the priveledge of rolling on drops. You may have spent 100g the last three raids in a row, and only now gotten some loot. But would you have batted an eye at paying 300g to get that epic piece of the Auction House?


4) Optimize your rotations


Take the time to stop over at the Elitist Jerks forums and look up some of the most effective damage rotations. There's no need to re-invent the wheel. But that's only half of it.

Now you have to practice them in a safe and scientific environment. Enter the target dummy. You should be practising your rotation until it's second nature. Include regen phases so you know how to transition smoothly, and without gimping your DPS.


5) Maintain a high % of DPS-out time


This is the biggest secret. Start hitting the boss as soon as you can, and keep it up for as long as you can. This means using tageting macros to switch from boss to adds and back again without having to tabs through all targets.

Most DPS need to hold still in order to do the maximum damage possible. This means staying in range at all times, only moving to avoid AOE effects at the last second, and rushing back to the fight as soon as it's safe.

Keep these things in mind, and know that you're doing your part to down bosses and get the gear you need to push your game to the limit.