DPS Envy

About two months ago we, as a guild, were pushing into Naxx. We got past the first two bosses and were feeling great. It was a huge high. I loved getting a chance to be there on the ground floor. When we came to the third boss it all came crashing down. We tried and tried and tried and nothing was working. We decided that we simply didn't have high enough DPS and that we would take a break. Instead we would run heroics to get everyone geared.

So I started running heroics. Some worked, some didn't. Utgarde Keep or Violet Hold I can pretty much farm. Utgarde Pinnacle I still haven't been able to complete. I mentioned a couple weeks ago how frustrated I was with not being able to get through some. I mentioned that I felt like I wasn't doing enough dps. Everyone told me to wait until I was geared properly. Then I would be easily doing over 1200 dps and I would be ready for Naxx. Yet each report came back with only 800 or so dps.

Two weeks ago I went to wow-heroes and checked out my gear. Apparently I'm geared for Naxx. In fact I'm geared for 25 mans. And I came to the realization that I am geared enough to be doing big dps. I've been getting frustrated and lately haven't been playing as much. (I know, counterproductive). So this weekend Jeff and I tried an experiment. He took me to the training dummies in Darnassus and I unleased hell on the heroic dummy. I'm using a rotation of immolate, conflagrate, chaos bolt, and incinerate. (with curse of elements and corruption for dots) I ran through an entire mana bar while running combat log. I came out with 880 dps. (pretty typical for me). Then Jeff did the worst possible thing. He asked if he could try. He took my character and ran through a mana bar. He did the same spells. And when we checked the log, he had 1150 dps. So now it's official. It's not my gear, it's not my stats, it's ME.

After a 30 second tutorial, Jeff managed to pull more dps than I do on the character I've been playing for well over a year. I'm envious, I'm frustrated, and I'm not sure what to do. It almost makes me want to throw in the towel. It almost makes me want to step away from the game completely. It's really hard for me to know that I have a decent character, but my character just doesn't have a decent player. I want to be a strong dps force. Warlocks can be incredible damaging. So now I have to go back to the practice dummies. And I have to practice. I have to work on my timing and work on my finger speed. The spells are right, the stats are there, the gear is good. Now I just have to figure out me.