AWC CHAMPION EXPLAINS THE 4 LEVELS OF RANGED DPS IN WOW

AWC CHAMPION EXPLAINS THE 4 LEVELS OF RANGED DPS IN WOW INTRO

We're going to explain one PvP concept at 4 different levels of complexity, and today is all about ranged DPS. We sat down with former AWC champion Gelubaba to figure out what it truly means to be a good ranged DPS in WoW Arena.

We will start with the very basics, explaining what playing a ranged DPS is like in the eyes of a noob, and then gradually work our way up to understand how playing a ranged DPS works in the hands of a pro. So stay tuned to test your understanding of ranged DPS in WoW PvP.

LEVEL 1 RANGED DPS: UNRANKED TO COMBATANT

Many people believe that dealing damage is the most important factor of being a caster. After all, your favorite streamers keep saying crowd control doesn't matter anymore, right?

Unfortunately, if you have fully bought into this, you are most likely a beginner. Sure, damage is important, but if you think you can just run to the middle of the map and smash your swifty one shot macro to victory, you're in for a rude awakening.

As a ranged DPS, it is your job to land crowd control on the healer, and generally, it is also your job to heal for your team. It is up to you to command the game.

Take Shadow Priest for example. Although they do huge damage free casting, the amount of cooldowns forced from using a silence, horrify, and fear combo on a healer far outweighs standing still and PVEing.

As a ranged DPS, your teammates' lives depend on you when it comes to team utility. Whether it's life swapping, polymorphing enemies off them, or even just using roar of sacrifice on a combustion, your actions can mean the difference between a win or a loss.

However, this can be a lot of responsibility for beginners. Not only do you have to learn how to use these abilities effectively, but you also have to learn how to use them quickly and efficiently.

This can be difficult, especially if you're not used to using a lot of keybinds. Beginners are also not great at predicting incoming damage.

As a result, they often use their defensives far too late or not at all. This is simply due to a lack of game knowledge of other classes' offensives, which causes them to not react in time.

This lack of game knowledge also hinders beginners offensively as they simply do not know what target to hit. Instead of basing their choices on the opposing class, they will rely on arbitrary metrics such as who is the least HP.

Finally, beginners are not aware of their positioning. This often causes them to lose games by either not kiting correctly or standing still until they meet their untimely demise.

LEVEL 2 RANGED DPS: CHALLENGER TO RIVAL

Alright, so how do rival players view the game then? What are they doing differently from a beginner that allows them to climb up to 1800, yet not quite advance to the higher levels?

Well, to begin with, a rival player understands their role, albeit a little too much. They are chronic overthinkers.

Rivals are aware that crowd controlling the healer before they burst is very important. However, they do not always understand how to do this effectively.

A classic example of some rival players' view on offensive crowd control is that they believe they cannot deal damage without it. This mindset can work against weaker players, but higher caliber opponents know how to shut down and avoid crowd control much better.

As a result, rival players who rely too heavily on crowd control can become very ineffective as they do not utilize damage globals unless the enemy healer is CC'd. The mindset that rival players have about offensive crowd control often carries over to their fake casting.

They understand the concept of fake casting, but when they put it into practice, they overthink it. They become so afraid of being interrupted that they start fake casting every spell, even when it's not necessary.

This strategy is very inefficient. By fake casting too much, rival players lose all of their pressure.

They become so focused on avoiding being interrupted that they forget to actually deal damage. As a result, they become a liability to their team.

If you are a rival player, it is important to be aware of this mindset. You need to learn how to fake cast effectively, but you also need to know when to stop.

If you fake cast too much, you will lose all of your pressure and become easy prey for your opponents. As for kiting and cooldown trading, this is where rival players really start to falter.

Rivals will use their cooldowns, and they will for sure, use their mobility. However, what they will not do is budget them according to the classes they are facing.

For example, a ranged facing a warrior will often not pair their mobility with the warrior's charges and leaps. This results in the warrior having far too much pressure, as they are able to chase down the caster without fear of being kited.

The positioning of a rival player is also generally quite poor. A common mistake is kiting enemy melees on top of their healers or other partners, allowing the enemy to easily disrupt any incoming healing or peels.

Speaking of peeling, rivals often make two distinctive mistakes when it comes to kiting. First, they often wait too long to peel.

By the time they start peeling, the damage has already been done. They need to be more proactive in shutting down enemy cooldowns before they can do damage.

Second, they often overuse their defensive cooldowns. If a rival player is being tunneled, they may panic and use their defensive cooldowns as soon as the enemy pops any sort of offensive button.

This is really detrimental, as the enemy will often just swap off them and force cooldowns from their teammates as well. Finally, the target selection of a rival player is also fairly weak and misinformed.

A rival player will often base their cooldowns on their teammates, and they will often use their cooldowns to force cooldowns from their teammates and their teammates.

This can result in plenty of losses when the opponent plays more defensive talents than in a previous match, as the rival will not change their gameplan accordingly. In conclusion, rival players often try to emulate what high-level players do, but they don't fully understand why they are doing it.

This results in mistakes and a lot of overthinking. In addition, rival players often lack game knowledge outside of their own class, causing their offense and defense to suffer.

To improve their gameplay, rival players need to focus on understanding the game as a whole. They need to learn why high-level players make their decisions, and they need to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of all of the classes in meta.

LEVEL 3 RANGED DPS: DUELIST TO GLADIATOR

Moving on, let's take a look at the next tier of player, Duelists and Gladiators. Duelists and Gladiators have perfected their rotations to the point where they can deal damage without being distracted.

However, what holds them back is that they have difficulty switching between CC mode and damage mode. This is evident in situations where players attempt to force crowd control even when they do not have the pressure to do so, resulting in their damage dropping dramatically.

Instead of creating CC from their passive sustained pressure, they rely on their setups to be the deciding factor for their kill windows. This causes their goes to be very robotic and predictable, making them take a lot of damage too in the process.

This predictability also carries over to their method of fake casting. They are able to get interrupts out of the way, but if the enemy watches closely, their fake casting patterns become very obvious.

A huge pitfall that Duelists and Gladiators players fall into is the super fast fake, which higher level players are very used to seeing.

As far as defensives go, Duelists and Gladiators are far ahead of rivals as they will generally kite at the first sight of danger, allowing them to avoid damage much better than rivals and beginners.

Duelists and Gladiators are far ahead of rivals as they will generally kite at the first sight of danger, allowing them to avoid damage much better than rivals and beginners.

These players are also much stronger at matching the mobility of the enemy through understanding the intrinsic design of their opponent's toolkit, forcing the enemy melee to play well to connect. What Duelists and Gladiators players may not do is optimize their lesser defensives such as fade and alter time.

This results in them burning their large defensives faster than needed and making them far squishier than they should be. When it comes to defensive team play, players of this caliber are able to recognize when their team needs support and will peel as and when needed.

However, they will often overpeel, which leads them to neglect their own counter pressure opportunities.

Instead of using their crowd control abilities on the enemy DPS to create a setup or deal damage while peeling, they will defensively rotate their diminishing returns in an attempt to slow the game down until their healer recovers.

This puts them on the back foot of the match as they are unable to effectively pressure the enemy team as they allow the enemy to be the aggressors for far too long. Finally, a Duelist and Gladiator will often make the correct target choice from the start of the game, very similar to that of rank 1s.

However, they will not always capitalize on the enemy's positioning and the game state to change who they attack. For example, they may not be able to control the enemy's position, but they may not swap onto a death knight who has used icebound fortitude offensively or punish a melee that is overextended.

Overall, Duelists and Gladiators are skilled players who have mastered their rotations and most of their defensives. However, they often struggle to switch between CC mode and damage mode.

They also tend to overpeel, which neglects their own counter pressure opportunities. Finally, they may not always capitalize on enemy positioning and the game state to change who they attack.

To improve, players in this tier should look to play less scripted and become more unpredictable. This will not only benefit their fake casting, but also help them to switch between their swaps and crowd controls.

Gladiators and Duelists should also focus more on surviving with their lesser defensives and take more risks as to hold onto their cooldowns for longer.

LEVEL 4 RANGED DPS: RANK 1 PRO

And now if you're ready to take your ranged gameplay to the next level, look no further than the rank 1s and professionals. These players have truly mastered their role and they can teach you everything you need to know to become a top tier ranged player yourself.

Pros are able to seamlessly blend damage and crowd control into a single fluid playstyle. This allows them to maximize their damage output while also keeping the enemy team under control.

Instead of overextending and forcing CC chains off nothing, they allow their passive damage to do the work. Crowd controlling after the enemy team's healer is already having to heal their team.

Rank 1 players are also experts at abusing their modifiers and procs, part of the reason you see so many weak auras on everyone's screen. An example of this is tracking insignia and weapon enchants and pairing them with a high damage burst ability.

This allows pros to create pressure seemingly out of thin air without needing to crowd control at all. When it comes to fake casting, pros know that it can be a double edged sword.

On the one hand it can be a fantastic tool to bait out interrupts and create openings to deal huge damage or crowd control. On the other hand, and it can also be a waste of time if the enemy doesn't fall for it.

Rank 1 players understand this well. They are very good at balancing when to fake cast and when to simply go through with the ability.

They know that sometimes it's better to not fake at all, tanking kicks to prepare for when they actually want to be finished with their spells. However, they also know that the right fake cast can be devastating to the enemy team and enable them to win the game.

Now let's cover positioning. Pro ranged players are often the hardest target to kill on melee plus caster teams.

This is because they understand how to abuse their positioning before anything else. Their positioning makes it hard for the enemy team to deal damage to them without the ranged DPS being able to reverse pressure and punish them.

For example, a pro ranged player might pull across a pillar to force a healer into the open and then go for CC on the healer. Alternatively, they will line an enemy healer on a pillar to force the enemy DPS to line their healer if they want to push in, creating a pseudo crowd control with how they stand.

When it comes to maps, pro players are masters of adaptation. Whether it's dragging melees into a corner of Tol'Varon, placing a teleport on top of a platform on a Z-axis map, or simply positioning close to the biggest pillar, they use the terrain to their advantage.

There's a reason why all tournament games start on the symmetrical map of Nagrand Arena. Pro players are also masters of using their defensives at the right time.

They know that sometimes trading their large cooldowns quickly when the enemy is doing a setup is more beneficial than waiting, such as when their healer is going to be crowd controlled for a long time. As for minor defensives, pros and rank 1s use these as frequently as possible.

They know that even a small amount of damage mitigation can make a huge difference. For example, a pro player might use their minor defensive Fade to avoid one second worth of damage and hold onto dispersion.

By using their defensives effectively, these players are able to stay alive longer, thus giving them more opportunities to win the game. This is one of the key factors that separates them from the average player.

High level players understand that peeling shouldn't be used to stall the game. Instead, they use peeling as a way to reverse pressure and set up their own kill windows.

They do this by using their crowd control abilities to disrupt the enemy team's DPS and then swapping the crowd control onto the healer or simply damaging the healer to force them away. High level players also understand the importance of using their entire toolkit to support their team.

This means using their crowd control abilities, roots, and slows to disrupt the enemy team and create opportunities for their team to engage. It also means using their healing abilities to keep their team alive and their damage abilities to deal damage to the enemy team.

For example, a boomkin might use their roots to peel for their healer, allowing their healer to get distant, or a shaman may static field totem enemies out of line of sight. Rank 1s and pros are also very efficient with their healing utility.

They often make it a to keep up abilities like earth shield or making sure to dispel curses on cooldown. This helps to keep their team alive and also allows them to win on mana more efficiently.

Rank 1s and pros are also very good at target selection. They make their target choices based on a number of factors, including the number of enemy defensives available, the enemy team's composition, the positioning of the enemy team, and the game state.

In the early game, rank 1s and pros will often focus on targets that are either easy to kill or that need to be focused to shut down their damage. An excellent example of this is focusing a feral druid to force them into bear form.

As the game progresses, target selection will often change. For example, in dampening, rank 1s and pros will often focus on targets that survive via self-healing, such as death knights due to their defensives diminishing.

Finally, they will always look to capitalize on the enemy's positioning, often swapping on targets who are overextending or who have been feared into compromising positions. In conclusion, rank 1 pros are at the top because they have mastered all aspects of the game, not just their own class.

They understand the importance of crowd control, fake casting, and defensives. They are also very good at playing with their teammates, and they are also able to predict incoming damage and make split-second decisions that can win or lose a match.

If you want to improve your own ranged DPS gameplay, you should study the habits of rank 1 pros and apply it to your own gameplay one step at a time. Remember, progress is a marathon, not a sprint.