Damage (role)
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Damage dealers, as the name implies, are players who are responsible for dealing damage in the group. The term is almost always abbreviated as DPS (damage per second) or DPSer in-game. Each class can play as DPS with the right spec in the right gear.
The role of DPS is perhaps the most obvious of all; they focus on dealing damage to the party's targets. While the tank holds the attention of the enemy and healers keep everyone alive, it is up to the DPS to actually deal the damage which will result in victory for the party. Compared to players in other roles and specs, DPS can deal damage very quickly and sustainably.
However, good DPS must learn not only how to deal damage, but how to do as much damage as possible, as consistently as possible. DPS often have additional responsibilities within the group, such as interrupting critical abilities and applying crowd control, and may also be called upon to assist with healing or off-tanking.
DPS tends to be the most numerous role in any group, with at least half of the group typically being DPS, and is usually also the least critically responsible. A tank who fails to taunt quickly enough, or a healer who fails to notice a target taking damage can quickly lead to the death of members of the group; the DPS usually have a greater degree of latitude in performing their role.
However, the DPS must still pay close attention to the fight; not only are they often responsible for critical interrupts and other situational mechanics, but should the DPS fail to deal sufficient damage in a period of time, the group will usually wipe, whether because of a boss's enrage timer or the healers simply running out of mana. It is therefore the responsibility of the DPS to deal damage quickly enough for the group to triumph.
DPS specs
As mentioned above, all classes can be DPS. Among these, four classes are exclusively pure damage dealers no matter which specs they choose: hunter, mage, rogue, and warlock.
Each of the remaining classes can opt into a DPS role: shadow priest, balance/feral druid, elemental/enhancement shaman, fury/arms warrior, retribution paladin, windwalker monk, and frost/unholy death knight, and destruction/augmentation evokers.
Types of DPS
- Ranged: Most of their damage is spell damage: mage, warlock, shadow priest, balance druid, hunters, and elemental shaman.
- Melee: Most of their damage is physical damage dealt within melee range: rogue, fury/arms warrior, retribution paladin, enhancement shaman, feral druid, windwalker monk and frost/unholy death knight.
Group function
Primary function of DPS
The primary function of DPS is dealing damage to the mobs and interrupting enemy casters, the latter of which is a consequence of game balance where most of the class interrupts are exclusive to DPS specializations. A good DPS will significantly increase the clear time of a group by both killing mobs and interrupting disruptive mechanics. Running instances with a group full of bad DPS means prolonged time will be needed for the fighting and completing the instances. The risk of the need to deal with respawn will also be higher. Besides, prolonged fighting increases the risk of the healers running out of mana, resulting in a wipe of the party.
Furthermore, almost all boss encounters in modern expansions have an enrage mechanic, either a "hard" enrage where the boss will wipe the raid after a set period of time (e.g. Ultraxion), or a "soft" enrage mechanic making the fight more and more difficult as it goes on (e.g. Spine of Deathwing). If the rate of damage output is too low in these situations, the party is going to wipe when the bosses enrage or the bosses/adds are too difficult to handle eventually.
DPS utility
Many DPS classes can bring other utility to their group;
- Crowd Control: Some of the DPS classes have crowd control abilities, such as
[Polymorph], 
[Freezing Trap], 
[Sap], 
[Fear], 
[Hibernate], etc.
- Off tanking: Ideally, the tank should be tanking the mobs that need to be killed first and everything else are crowd-controlled. However, sometimes the CC'ed mobs break free prematurely, or someone aggros adds. Those mobs should be CC'ed or picked up by the tank immediately but if that is not possible, DPS with high armor or avoidance should try to get aggro from them, so that they will not kill the healers in two hits.
- Healing: Normally, healing is exclusively the job of the healers. However, if the healers are killed, or the healers cannot keep up with all the healing job due to exceptionally high damage or AOE damage from the mobs, the DPS classes that can heal should help healing in order to save the party from a wipe.
- Dispelling: There are numerous mobs in the game that can cast debuff on the players. Some of them can be fatal if not removed immediately (e.g. Maiden of Virtue's Holy Fire). De-cursing becomes the top priority for the healers and DPS in such encounters, before healing and dealing damage respectively.
- Buff/debuffing: Alongside those longer buffs such as
[Power Word: Fortitude] or 
[Blessing of Kings] that should be casted before the fight, some DPS classes have beneficial buffs to the party during fight, such as shamans' various totems, beast mastery hunters' 
[Ferocious Inspiration], etc. Some classes can cast debuffs on mobs to weaken them or increase the damage they receive. Warlocks' various curses, warriors' 
[Thunder Clap] and 
[Demoralizing Shout], and retribution paladins' 
[Heart of the Crusader] are some examples.
- Mana Regeneration: shadow priests are famous for their mana regeneration ability
[Vampiric Touch] to mana users in the party. Having a shadow priest in the group means there will be less down time for drinking. Survival hunters' 
[Hunting Party] is another group mana regeneration talent added in WotLK. Paladins' 
[Judgement of Wisdom] and shamans' 
[Mana Spring Totem] also help the group's mana regeneration but to a much lower extent.
- Pulling: Hunters'
[Misdirection] is a great skill in raid. It gives a good initial preload of threat to the tanks. Furthermore, in some encounters, it allows the tanks to stay at their desired tanking position and the hunters can misdirect the mobs straight to them. This makes some difficult pulling, like that of the Majordomo Staghelm encounter, become much easier.
Dealing damage is unquestionably the primary job of DPS in group, especially with the advent of recent expansions, where almost all bosses have hard or soft enrage mechanics and a DPS race component. However, their utility functions should not be forgotten. No matter how good their damage output is, a hunter who does not know how to trap or misdirect, or a mage who always attacks their polymorphed target, bringing themself and their group down.
Improving damage output
By default, it's difficult to tell the damage output of an individual. For this purpose, damage meter addons are commonly recommended for each player to keep an eye on their personal performance, especially in raids.
There are many things a DPS can do to increase damage output:
Talent
Hybrid classes need to focus their talent points on talents that helps their job as damage dealers. Even for the four pure DPS classes, some talents are good for PvP but useless in PvE. You can refer to the individual class guides for optimized talent builds. Inspecting the talent builds of more experienced players, or asking for the others' criticism of your build on the class forums are also useful.
Itemization
By itemization, it does not mean trying your best to get yourselves more epic gear. It means the way you gear up yourselves. For example, I have two chest pieces of the same quality and similar item level. Which one will give me more damage improvement? What should I enchant/gem it with to give the best outcome? Such questions are frequently ignored by new players, but separate "good" from "great" DPS players.
Rotation
- Main article: Rotation
DPS specializations are equipped with a plethora of damage-dealing options, each that are optimally used in a specific order, or rotation. If one only uses those skills randomly or in a suboptimal order, they are probably doing lower overall damage than their full potential.
Positioning
Please add any available information to this section.
Positioning is very important for melee classes but unfortunately many new players do not know this.
For caster/ranged DPS, usually staying out of melee range is advised. This not only helps to reduce the chance of being affected by the mobs' AOE abilities, but also potentially improves damage output. The reason is a player in melee range will pull aggro from tank when his threat is greater than 110% of the tank, while one outside melee range will need more than 130% of the tank's threat to pull the boss.
Stay alive!
A dead DPS produces zero damage. To maximize your total damage output, the importance of staying alive cannot be emphasized enough.
First of all, make sure you top up your health during the fight using a potion or a 
[Healthstone]. This is especially important for fights that everyone is certain to receive some damage (e.g. Shade of Aran fight).
Second, walk out of danger ASAP. Many bosses have AOE abilities that do high damage (e.g. Keli'dan the Breaker) or cause instant death (e.g. Prince Malchezaar's Enfeeble and the AOE that follows). Melee (and sometimes caster/ranged) DPS need to learn what debuff to look for and run out immediately. There are also many fights that circles of damaging zone forms under the feet of random players regularly (e.g. Grand Warlock Nethekurse, Nightbane). Make sure you run out of it right away, even if this means canceling a spell you are casting.
Group synergy
Please add any available information to this section.
- Main article: Raid buffs
Although not much can be done for a 5-man instance group, synergy between different classes in raid can produce significant improvement in performance.
Other tips
- Although not strictly necessary for DPS, it is better for you to have read something about the fight before you attempt it. This gives you some idea of what to expect as well as tips to handle them.