Why do people say DPS instead of DD in OW?

I just had the discussion over there in our german boards where a few people claimed, it would be a more european term and that people from the US would never have used the term DD (Damage Dealer) in the past in Mmorpgs and Mobas.

From my personal experience in WoW, the original Dota 1 and many games following in those genres, a Damage Dealer was always referred to as DD. To call it DPS doesn’t make any sense.

Just like…

Hello I am a tank
Hello I am a healer
Hello I am a damage per second

It’s not that we call healers HPS (heal per second) or tanks DTPS (Damage tanked per second), so why do people actually call DDs suddenly DPS in Overwatch?

If some of you played WoW, Dota 1 and such games in the past, from the US, I’d like to know which term you’re more familiar with.

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Why do you put a period in the word “Dealer”?

I call them offense hero’s mostly

It gets censored in the german forums because it’s rated as bad word lol. We still have the old forums, not the new ones that you have. Good to know I can write it out here, gonna edit that right away

I dunno, it’s just kinda what stuck I guess.

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I think it’s because a lot of OW players come from TF2.

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It rolls off the tongue more

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Because most players are adults, and DD to them means designated driver?

Otherwise, it’s just a linguistic drift. It’s like asking why people say LOL now, instead of haha or laugh.

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I’m asking myself this question every single day.

That cracked me up.

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Considering some of the drunk people I’ve run in to, they could use a DD to help them get their way to the objective.

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Cause of MMOS and DPS charts.

“Guys we need more DPS for this raid”
“LF1M need DPS”
“Oh yeah number 1 on the DPS chart”

so people started calling them DPS then the term just got so popular it was used for every game.

Also to me DD means Direct Damage. Which is a type of damage

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Dps just means you’re the offense/defense hero

Calling widow or Genji damage dealer is odd because a road or Zarya can do more damage than them

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Because there are different kinds of Damage dealers. There’s people like bastion who puke out damage, then there’s widow with the burst. So in my community we call certain hero’s dps and certain bursters.

Originally it’s not about who deals more damage, the classic class names like Damage Dealer, Healer and Tank are just making clear who takes primarily what role. Of course a tank can deal damage too and Soldier can heal, but those terms are there to understand the team setup.

There are then more increments if you go deeper because there are different ways of dealing damage, but it’s in first instance to make clear everyones main role.

No it’s confusing too

Off tanks beat many heroes on damage so damage is not their only primary job unless you’re playing junkrat or bastion

I think the guy who said the thing about MMOs and DPS charts has it pretty much right. I’ve seen Damage Dealer tossed around in some communities but I think DPS got the most traction because of meters.

There is no good logic to back it up, it just kinda happened. “We need more DPS” referring to the numbers just kinda turned in to referring to the role.

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I’ve played WoW since WotLK and I’ve never heard of DD until today. WoW is also what introduced me to the terms Tank, Heals, and DPS. I’ve never played Dota either.

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DD = Direct Damage kinda like DoT = Damage over Time.

Odd, I’ve never known them as being called DD in all my years of playing WoW or any mmo. The only game I’ve ever seen DD used is World of Warships where it referrers to Destroyers.

Its always been dps, from my experience.

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DD is Damage Dealer not direct damage, but yes we used to call a lot of spells of the Warlock in WoW DoTs because they ticked every second and made damage over time. But he still would’ve queued up as Damage Dealer for a raid.