DPS is role name ?

Language evolves... there is no point in fighting it ! but I will still laugh a little inside when ppl call me or others for DPS :P

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Originally Posted by Demetirus

Some of the folks in here might benefit from this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7E-aoXLZGY

It's a section of one of Stephen Fry's talks, specifically on the use of language.

Remember: No one likes a pedant, folks.

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That video was amazing. Thank you for the post, very good indeed. You deserve all the likes.

I think some of the people in this thread need to read "The Language Instinct" by Steven Pinker. In addition to knocking some of you off your high horses, it's a good read. I would be perfectly happy to adapt and use DD instead of the DPS I'm used to, but the arrogance and xenophobic attitudes of a lot of the people on these forums made me reconsider. I decided to just use DPS and if it bothers you, good.

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Originally Posted by Snitchie

If im not wrong WoW spawned the DPS name. And im still arguing with my RL friends (they play wow). And talk can you come DPS? I shoot in, no you can not come as damage per second, but you can come as a Damage dealer.. (DD)

But words and phrases grow like time grows. Im using DD, and lol ppl using DPS. since a DD does DPS. :D Words are fun !

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You are wrong. DPS was used long before WoW. It was being used, at least, in Everquest. In fact, FFXI is one of the few MMOs that uses the term DD.

Also, to others who said DPS is what you do, not what you are: tank is what you do, heal is what you do, yet we use those to describe the role, so why wouldn't we use DPS to describe the role, as it is what you do.

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Originally Posted by Reslin

Think about it this way as a role. "DPS" means "Damage Per Second" therefore a "DPS Class" is one that specializes in doing as much "Damage Per Second" as possible either through burst or sustain.

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^ This.
And people have been calling them "dps" classes since... well the first time i saw it a lot was in 2003.

In wow it is called DPS aswell, but ppl in this game seem to be using the term DD

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Originally Posted by FrayL

Hi, I'm Japanese player. sorry to my poor English.

I have heard "attaker" or "damage dealer" as damage sauce role.
But that role is called "DPS" at FF14. "DPS" means Damage Per Second, it's a measure of attackpower, not role name, I think.
From when did it come to say so in English ?

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Hi. I think it's just laziness / slang. It came from Yoshi-P. He was the first one to say "DPS" as role name. In WoW, where the term became popularized, DD was referred to as RDD or MDD (ranged or melee)

I'm an original FFXI player and I've always heard and used DD. It's perfectly descriptive and even shorter than DPS; I see absolutely no reason to change it. Don't even get me started on how Tanks and Healers are also technically "DPS" classes by the same tenuous logic that makes the damage dealer a "DPS" (assuming your White Mage casts so much as a single Aero, and lets face it, sometimes the tank has higher DPS than the DPS does.)

I might use "deeps" or "dips" on occasion, but if I do you can be sure I'm using it in an ironic and derogatory fashion. As in, "The dips in my last party had no idea what they were doing; I ended up healing them as much as the tank through the whole boss fight."

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Originally Posted by Neptune

Hi. I think it's just laziness / slang. It came from Yoshi-P. He was the first one to say "DPS" as role name. In WoW, where the term became popularized, DD was referred to as RDD or MDD (ranged or melee)

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I've been playing WoW since Vanilla Closed Beta... I have NEVER heard anyone use RDD or MDD, I have heard rDPS and mDPS. Also, the first time I heard DPS used exclusively to describe Damage centric roles was Star Wars Galaxies, the only games where I've heard Damage Dealer or Attacker used is FFXI and FFXIV

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the CC terms that have been mentioned in this thread have some specific connotations. For instance

• Mez: A crowd control ability which completely disables the target until it is damaged.
• Root: Prevents the target from moving (but not attacking/healing).
• Stun: Completely disables the target even while it is being damaged.
• Slow: Hinders, but does not prevent, the target's movement.

Those are the generic terms used across pretty much every MMO to refer to specific abilities.

Since there are many MMOs, it's helpful to have a standard set of terms to which all players can refer so that we don't need to know the names of specific abilities, of classes we're not familiar with, in order to request or describe desired effects. We can say to the Black Mage, "Hey, can you Mez those guys?" without having to know that the name of the spell is sleep.