Damage meters are killing my guild.

First off, Shhhhhh, I'm posting this post from my college computer, I’m bored and bogging is a good distraction from work, but I've had this planned for sometime, something that is annoying me greatly.

Damage meters, I used to love them, in fact I still do, they are an excellent source of information for a dps class to know if he is getting the most out of his character, and since I’m usually in the top 3 you might think that I would absolutely love them. However. (This has been building up for a while, can you feel the tension?)People and aggro, more specifically their aggro control, people seem to see the damage meters as a race rather than a meter and seem to pay more attention to them rather than omen and KTM or whatever threat meter your guild happens to prefer. (If anyone mentions the Morogrim video, ill kill ya, how’s that for dps :P). But I don’t blame this purely on the damage meters, oh no, as the horde I have noticed a distinct lack of regard for aggro since we gained the blessing of salvation. We now seem to be dependent on this buff, without it we have about as much control as an enraged cleft hoof, myself included (see Morogrim video), This is something we as the horde need to sort out, we used to be so good at controlling our aggro pre-tbc, how much can possibly have changed?

That’s not the end though.

This again is something I'm guilty of, but marking raid skill, or personal progression on the damage meters alone is possibly the most stupid thing I have ever heard, and yet I often catch myself doing it, this is the main reason that spamming the damage meters has been banned in PL raids. it causes too much in house competition, witch again leads to aggro ( I'm not mentioning any names here *coughobliviocough* and why once I have written this post I'm going to suggest to our raid leader that we ban having them showing mid boss fights at all.

The positives, Lets face it, damage and raid meters were not made for us, the general raiding public, they were created for guild leaders to gauge how each member is progressing and to help weed out and help anybody who is slacking in a particular role, and in this aspect they do their job amazingly, wow web stats gives comprehensive reports that allows raid leaders to know exactly what everyone was doing the whole raid, helping spot those undeserving, unworthy or in need of help members.

*****EDIT******

The following is a rather excellent post, by one of my guildies (<3 you adagar :D), its relevant, so i figure ill post it up :D

"Since i've noticed this weird trend lately on raids, where people pull aggro and wear it like a badge of badass, i thought i'd put in a note about aggro. If you're perfectly aware of how aggro works, and how to manage yours, read this post anyways, if nothing else just to agree / disagree with something i write.

Kenco did extensive research on threat, and although the research is old, it is still very much valid:

http://www.wowwiki.com/Formulas:Kencos_Research

If you can't be bothered to read it, i'll sum up the most important stuff.

When someone (a tank, preferably) has aggro, it takes more than just passing him on the amount of threat to actually get aggro yourself. You must pass him by a certain amount.
- For melee distance, you must pass 110% of the tank's aggro
- For out-of-melee distance, you must pass 130% of the tank's aggro

A common misconception is that if you use ranged attacks, the 130% applies to you no matter what. It doesn't. What matters is your distance relative to the the mob you're attacking. The important thing to note here is:

If the mob moves, so does the melee range of the mob.

This can cause horrible problems if people are pushing the dps, which in some
cases are necessary to get a mob down.

Let's say that all the ranged are around 120%, and then suddenly Mr. Badass the ranged dpser gains aggro. Now, if Mr. Badass is not very fast at responding with whatever aggro reducing abilities he has available or very very quickly move towards the tank, the mob is coming for him... and it's taking it's melee range with it. If the mob has a large hitbox, it also has a large melee range, and if the casters stand together, you now have Mr. Badass standing in a group where everyone has 120% aggro, and they're all within melee range... so they're above 110% and they are going to die. Fast. Sure the tank can taunt, and the other dpsers can use their aggro reducing abilities if they have any, but still.

It's up for debate what to do in the situation where mob gets to the ranged group and starts oneshotting people. However, it should never come to this, not even on trash mobs.

To sum it up:
- Be mindful of your threat (this should be a given) - Be mindful of your distance to the mob (this apparently is not a given) - Remember that the size of the hitbox, and subsequently the melee range, can be different from mob to mob
- If you take aggro from the tank on a straightforward mob (like VR for example, or the bog thingies in SSC), you might have high dps, but you're still a very poor raid member"
Adagar - on the Phoenix Legion forums