Welcome to Wowhead’s Ranged DPS Advanced guide. In this guide, we will discuss some relevant topics for all range DPS to get new range DPS players up and running and go beyond for the more experienced players. We will be looking at the range DPS ABCs and going into essential concepts that will help players get the most out of their characters.
About the Author
This guide is written by Kib, who raids in Strawberry Puppy Kisses. You can catch him online on his Stream.
Advanced Role Guides
Always be casting
As a range DPS your primary goal will be to do as much damage as possible while staying alive and executing the fight mechanics correctly. One of the easiest ways to increase your DPS is to fill up more GCDs. The following sections will cover some tips and tricks to be more efficient as a ranged DPS.
Positioning as Ranged
Positioning as ranged is not as self-evident as melee and is often not something most range players will think about. While as range you don’t have to be at a specific location to DPS you can still think ahead of time and position yourself in anticipation for future abilities requiring movement or to reduce future movement.
To give you a concrete example of this, we can use the Mythic Ghuun encounter from Uldir.
In phase 2 when the Gibbering Horror spawn it is a common strategy to drag it to the back of the room before killing it to better position the pool he leaves behind and to better funnel the Spawn of G'huunies into the raid. If we keep this in mind a proper way to position yourself to be in range of both targets would look something like this:
You can see me use the windows where casting would get me silenced to slowly move into a position to be able to hit not only the add but the boss also as well as the adds when the Gibbering Horror dies.
Movement Tools
Most range specs have access to some form of movement tool, be it passive, active, baseline or talents. Managing these are important to successfully dealing with an encounter. Knowing when you can aggressively make use of these tools, and when they need to be saved is part of approaching an encounter, and is a key part of preparation.
Planning your positioning is something you want to study before progression starts and confirm / test either on the PTR if your guild does that or during the first couple weeks of a new raid zone opening. Trying to go into an encounter with a general gameplan for when you use your movement tools can make a big difference in your success and help increase your damage in the same process.
Downtime mitigation
The points we covered previously ultimately result in downtime mitigation. Your goal is to do DPS, to do DPS you need to cast, the more you cast, the better. Not casting enough is the biggest issue players will run into when changing role from melee to range as well. The movement tax is costly for most ranged specs, but with proper planning and knowledge of the encounter at hand, downtime can be reduced to a minimum. It is also important to plan around natural downtime; there are only very few encounters that don't have some downtime present. With this in mind, plan the use of your cooldowns accordingly. Make sure to use your cooldowns at moments where the risk of downtime is at a minimum to get the most out of those 2-3 minutes powerful buffs.
Repositioning
Most encounters will have mechanics forcing you to move or to reposition in another area of the room completely. Again, knowledge of when these moments will occur will drastically improve your gameplay and efficiency at doing damage during these encounters. Make sure you have the tools at your disposal not only to move efficiently but to also predict when the movement will occur. Add-ons like BigWigs, DBM and Weak Auras will help with these type of mechanics. Remember that you are not alone either, mechanics that will force you to reposition will also most likely cause other players to do the same. Communication is key here to let everyone optimize around each other.
Ability Management
You need to be able to know what is happening with your spell throughout the fight. Not only the cooldown on your spells but also the remaining time on your dots or ranged CCs. A good WeakAura for your class will help with this.
Ranged players, especially, need a good nameplate addon to feed you quick information about any mobs in your radius, like dots or CC timers. ElvUI is what I use and an addon I suggest not only for the nameplates but the whole UI suite. If you do not like ElvUI, other nameplate addon options are Plater or Kui nameplates.
Downtime Prediction and Resource Balance
Downtime is something everyone will have to deal with while raiding or doing dungeons. Mechanics will target you forcing you out of range, or stopping you from attacking completely. Pre-planning your ability usage based on this fact is something important to keep in mind at all time. You will achieve this mostly by being knowledgeable o