DPS: Why is it so dang taboo?

[DPZ2]

Why is everyone so touchy about their dps when they're told to step it up?

Because most of the game doesn't require anyone to "step it up". And because many of the people who think it's their duty to tell someone to "step it up" are not, let's put this delicately, even vaguely diplomatic in their manner of the telling.

[Averax]

Because most of the game doesn't require anyone to "step it up". And because many of the people who think it's their duty to tell someone to "step it up" are not, let's put this delicately, even vaguely diplomatic in their manner of the telling.

To be fair, there is no nice way of telling someone that they're not performing up to expectations. Every criticism is treated as a personal attack, and they will lash out at you for suggesting they could do any wrong.

I once suggested to a SMN that they should cast Ruin as a filler instead of just standing around waiting for their dots to expire, and that maybe he should cast ruin 3 when he used Dreadwyrm Trance (rather than just blowing deathflare off cd), which prompted a string of insults in my direction. They tried to tell me i was a terrible healer because everyone was not topped off all the time. Seeing how things had resorted to ad-hominem attacks, i decied to stop playing nicely and retorted, "well everyone would be nice and full if i didn't have to pick up the slack in dps."

That did it for him, he ran and facepulled the boss and bailed (and it was the fractal continuum boss so it was not possible to down it without the extra dps. Not that we were downing it before that anyway.

The moral of this story is that people hate to be criticized for their benefit.