How to play DPS in an MMORPG: more damage, no pulling the boss, and staying alive

Damage dealer is the most popular role in any MMORPG. It seems simple: hit harder, done. But a party needs more from a damage dealer: hit fast, hit the right target, and do it without pulling the boss off the tank or dying to a party-wide hit. Let’s go through the role in Zarhold, a card MMORPG in your browser, where combat is a turn-based duel of decks and threat and targets are visible right on the board.

What a damage dealer does in a party

Dungeons are for three — a tank, a healer and a damage dealer; raids and world bosses are for five — a tank, a healer and three damage dealers. A damage dealer’s job is to take the enemy’s Health down. The faster the party does it, the fewer blows the tank takes and the less work the healer has.

Fast damage matters because long fights are lost: if a fight runs far longer than planned — about four rounds over — the enemy enrages and hits 18% harder with each of its turns. Enrage can’t be reset. A good damage dealer is the reason it never comes to that.

Who can deal damage

Any of the ten classes can play damage. Four classes are damage only:

• Ranger — poisons, traps and precise shots. Guide: Ranger.
• Rogue — poisons, bleeds and finishing blows. Guide: Rogue.
• Mage — a glass-cannon caster. Guide: Mage.
• Warlock — curses, afflictions and life drain. Guide: Warlock.

The other six — Barbarian, Lightbringer, Revenant, Druid, Stormbringer and Priest — deal damage with their attacking talent tree and tank or heal with another. How to pick a class is in Which class to choose.

Threat: how not to pull the boss

Every enemy keeps a threat count: each party member’s direct damage adds up, and the enemy hits whoever has the most. The tank holds enemies with Taunt, and the tank’s damage weighs three times as much (×3). But a damage dealer who hits hard and early can pull the boss onto themselves — with less Health and weaker armour.

How to avoid it:

1. Give the tank the first turn. At the start of a fight, while nobody has threat, the enemy hits the party’s first hero — let the tank grab the enemies.
2. Watch the “hits …” marker. You can see whom an enemy is about to hit. If it points at you, hold your strongest blow.
3. Don’t outpace the tank in Taunt’s rest turn. While Taunt holds, enemies hit only the tank; in the rest turn the threat count decides.
4. Damage over time generates no threat. Poisons, bleeds and curses that tick on their own take Health without raising threat — a real strength of damage-over-time classes.

More on how tanks hold enemies in How to tank.

Who to hit first

• Adds — if the boss summons them and they bother the healer or hit the fragile.
• Whoever heals or shields the boss — if the fight has such enemies.
• The boss — when nobody else is in the way. The whole party’s damage on one target is the fastest road to victory.

Before a hard boss, read its “How to beat” guide in the knowledge base: it says what the boss does and on which turns — How to beat.

How to survive the fight

In party fights against creatures one enemy blow takes no more than 59% of a fighter’s Health, and a whole enemy turn no more than 75%. Nobody falls from full Health in one turn — the danger is two heavy turns in a row. So:

• A hit on the whole party comes no more than once every three boss turns, and level 60 place bosses announce it with a bar above your hand. See the warning — keep a defensive card or shield ready.
• The line on your Health bar shows whether you’ll survive the next turn. Below it the bar is red with “+N”: the healer should lift you this turn, and you can help with a bandage or a defence.
• The fallen aren’t revived — they watch the rest of the fight. A dead damage dealer deals no damage at all, so surviving is sometimes worth more than one more hit.
• Consumables — one of each type per fight: take potions and a bandage before every hard boss. More in Consumables in combat.

How to deal more damage

1. A spec for the role. Your class power and talent cards come from your main tree — for damage you need the attacking one.
2. Spend every crystal. Try to use all your crystals each turn: an unplayed crystal is lost damage.
3. Your own armour type. All eight armour slots of your type give a damage dealer +5% power in PvE.
4. Item level. Higher item level means more power. How to gear up: Level 60 gear guide.
5. The damage meter. After a fight open the combat log: everyone’s damage, who healed whom, who took what. More in Combat log and damage meter.
6. The dummy. In the Training Yard you can test your deck on a dummy and compare gear sets — Training dummy.

DPS FAQ

Which class is best for damage?

There is no single best one: each has its own style. The Ranger, Rogue, Mage and Warlock are damage only and fully built around it. The Mage and Warlock in cloth hit hard but need care; the plate-wearing Barbarian and Revenant forgive more mistakes.

Why is the boss hitting me instead of the tank?

You have more threat than the tank: you hit early or too hard while Taunt was resting. Hold your big hit, let the tank win the enemy back — or use damage over time, which generates no threat.

How many damage dealers are in a party?

One in a dungeon, three in a raid or against a world boss. One of three in Mythic+.

Can I play a damage dealer solo?

Yes, it’s the most comfortable role for quests in the world: the attacking tree kills enemies fastest. From level 20 you can keep a second specialisation for groups.

The bottom line

Playing DPS is about tempo and discipline: kill the enemy before enrage, don’t pull the boss off the tank, hit the right target and survive the party-wide hit. In Zarhold threat, enemy targets and the safe-turn line are visible on the board, and the damage meter honestly shows who hit how hard. Open the game, pick a class — and try to beat the first boss faster than anyone. On the other roles: How to tank and How to heal.