I guess my DPS is ok after all

Slinging around required DPS is very much a child of the rampant grouping of modern WoW. Back in the day, you either raided and had raid epics, or you were horrible -- not much talk of what your actual DPS was.

Today people group a lot more, and there are more sources for gear, so raid leaders often have a minimum DPS to be admitted into the raid -- 3k DPS, 4k DPS, etc. Sort of a "you must be this tall to enter this ride" thing, except you can lie.

I've been wanting to do Vault of Archavon but was worried about my DPS -- I've often heard 3k DPS tossed around but in heroic dungeons I have a hard time hitting that number. And in dungeons I'm wearing better gear than I would be in raids, since raid requires a lot of a stat called hit (or else you miss).

A guildie was putting together a VoA 10 group Saturday morning so I hopped in and was surprised to see a 20% boost in my own damage. I felt pretty confident so I tried a VoA 25 man group that afternoon -- and saw another 20% damage boost.

Part of this was the fights in VoA (mostly standing still) but mostly it was all the great buffs (and mob debuffs) you get in a raid but don't get in a 5-man group.

Yet -- I follow the game pretty closely and I'd never heard about seeing a big DPS boost in VoA (or other raids) before. I wonder how many people like me are needlessly sitting out?