Swashbucklers and DPS

[Keldo]

Saw an interesting post over on the Combat and Encounters section of the board (http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=89020, if you want to check it out), but mostly I wanted to talk about what it means for us.On these forums there is a lot of negativity about where we stand as a DPS class, and I think this long list of raid mobs really shows the true picture.  Obviously player skill and latency will play a large role, but this Swashbuckler who is in these parses (unnamed) holds their own quite well in my opinion.  Nearly every time they are in the top 5, even on heavy AE fights.  Our rogue counterpart, the Brigand, seems to parse slightly better, but generally only on AE fights.  I personally have never been outdamaged by a brigand in a fight I could stay in the entire time without worrying about an AE, and I notice they tend to draw aggro even easier than we can.  But this Brigand does, props to them (or props to better group buffs, which is the more likely case!).One of the boons for us as far as aggro is concerned is extremely short fights - which a full raid of 60s can clearly do, as you can see most of those fights are under 2 minutes, and many closer to 1 minute.  Considering one use of shadow slip will basically stop any aggro death you may take, in such a short fight, even slight aggro issues due to procs being changed every patch hardly effects us.Anyway, I just wanted to post this because I disagree with the overwhelmingly negative feeling on these boards.  In my opinion we hold our own as a T2 DPS and debuffer very well.  Are we perfect? Certianly not, but let's not become drama queens about this.  Judging from these parses our caster DPS counterparts are quite a bit worse off than we are.<div></div>

[Success]

<div></div><div></div><div></div><p>Yea, notice how the Brigand is way ahead of us most of the time. Direct result of the nerf bat that has been swinging a LOT lately. That's crappy DPS for a Swashbuckler. Total crap for supposedly a 2nd tier DPS class.</p><p>The wizard got hurt from a lot of the mobs being heat resist/immune. The ones that are not, they kicked butt. If they didn't, then they were laying low so as to not draw agro because they draw it in a heartbeat and die and then mobs AOEs the raid when it run after the wizard.</p><p>You call the brigand's DPS slightly better? I saw many times a huge difference. 20 DPS is slightly better 100-200 more is huge.</p><p><span class="time_text">This also does count the fact that we have to CONSTANTLY switch weapons in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out and in and out. In gates, I bet I switch weapons 20 times during the zone.</span></p><p>Message Edited by Successer on <span class="date_text">01-07-2006</span><span class="time_text">12:54 PM</span></p>

[Keldo]

<div></div><div></div>The brigand has a large advantage on AE mobs (not going to pretend that Brigands aren't at an advantage compared to us).  The non ae mobs, the Swashbuckler loses  slightly and other times the Swash wins.  But the numbers aren't really relevant, We don't know how groups were set up, and we don't know the gear / spell levels / latency of the 2 players involved.Tier 2 DPS, the swash is between 4th and 8th basically every time, never out of the top ten.  There is not a single instance of a T3 DPS beating us, every time it is either T1 (who should beat us every time) and other T2 (who should beat us situationally).  That is the main information you can take from this, numbers aside.  Wizards are supposed to be up there with rangers, so are warlocks, yet they are below us.   It doesn't matter how much they would do if they could avoid aggro, it is about how much they CAN do on a consistant basis, and it is obviously much lower than us.  How is our DPS "crap" again, we are always T2, often beat other T2 (conj, nec)?  It's crap because a brigand can beat us?  How do you think the other T1 feel compared to Rangers, and heck even T2 that can match them consistantly?  I'd say focusing on swashbucklers alone would be selfish of us.Every melee has to switch weapons out, if you are a caster, you don't even have that option.  If a mob is fire immune and you are a wizard, I guess you just stand there and mana feed while ice comet refreshes!  Brigands, well, they are probably overpowered, sure.  Calling for a nerf on them is a bit hypocritcal of us tho, isn't it<div></div><p>Message Edited by Keldoth on <span class="date_text">01-07-2006</span><span class="time_text">05:19 PM</span></p>

[AegisCrown]

<div></div><p>personally i find myself on single target or small encoutners where there isnt a crazy aoe (i know thats a specif example buts the only way to compare) that the only people ahead of me are rangers and the occasional assassin.  most wizards/warlocks dont touch me post the last LU, pre lu18 wasnt even a competition. Ill work on getting parses.</p><p> </p><p> </p>

[DanaDark]

<div>At times I find myself wishing I was an assassin... yet if I made an assassin, I know I would at times wish I was a swashbuckler!</div><div> </div><div>Sure swashie isnt the best DPS... but we got sweet utility skills that I love and use often!</div><div> </div><div>Oh, and for the record... swashy for teh win!</div>

[Iseabeil]

<div>Id never want to play anythin else then swashie, but on the topic of DPS tiers, I see brawlers outparse both me and our brigand quite often. Granted, the monk that most often is real high is our MA wich means he can position himself faster by knowing wich trash mob is next, wich prolly adds up during a long zone like gates.</div><div>There generally is a mile between brawlers and the rest of the fighters DPS tho, making me think SoE needs to decide what role they want them to fill someday. I highly doubt a fury goin all damage would be able to consistently rival tier1 and 2 DPS (dun know when such scenario would ever happen, but ye get the idea). The idea they tried to sell with combat revamp was that scouts and mages are DPS (varying depending on class), healers are healers and fighters are tanks. When a class can jump between those boundries in a raid setting as much as right now, it just makes my head boggle.</div><div>ps. tanks on raids need DPS, as all cant be MT, but when a raidleader needing one more DPS gets a monk over a wizard its gone too far.</div><div>bah, should go sleep, not sure im coherent.</div><div> </div><div> </div>

[Duhulk]

<div></div><div></div><div><div><div>The only reason I bring up DPS issues is because I see brigands do so much more, even in fights where AE isn't an issue.</div></div><div> </div><div><hr></div><div>Our rogue counterpart, the Brigand, seems to parse slightly better, but generally only on AE fights.</div><div><hr></div><div> </div><div>Right, but that's just one guild's raids. That's just one brigand.</div><div> </div><div>Look at another set of parses too.</div><div> </div><div><a target="_blank" href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=90215">http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=combat&message.id=90215</a> </div><div>(you need to just ignore "Ranking" in the parse outright, cuase there's far more poeple doing far more damage in this second set of parses than the first. My issue here is Brigand vs Swashy DPS)</div><div> </div><div>This second Swashbuckler (me) is doing slightly better DPS than the first set for most of the fights (I don't say this to gloat but to show that I'm not doing any LESS DPS than the first Swashy. Everyone in this thread acknowledged that the DPS of the first swashy was impressive. What I'm showing here is that while mine isn't THAT much higher, the Brigand's is, and I can promise you it's not because I can't play =p) I'm doing less total damage on the mobs than the first swashy, but that's because our mobs are dying faster.</div><div> </div><div>As you'll see, the Brigand is more than a LITTLE ahead of me most of the time.</div><div> </div><div>Bottom line, you get a Swashbuckler who can play his class at the top of his game and a Brigand who can play his class at the top of his game and the Brigand will outshine in DPS by far.</div><div>Granted, sometimes (like Sunchild) this is mostly due to the fact that the Brigand can stay in melee range the entire fight as he can just dodge the AE, but many of those fights, I assure you, both rogues are in range the whole time.</div><div> </div><div>We're the same class, on the same tier of damage. Why do they get to do so much more DPS while also getting the awesome moves like AE avoid?</div><div>I will acknowledge that this Brigand has better weapons than me and probably more masters (I have Adept III), but even given that, I don't think it explains the discrepency we're seeing.</div><div> </div><div>This isn't situational. When we both try, the Brigand does nearly a tier's worth more damage. There's a problem here.</div></div><p>Message Edited by Duhulk on <span class="date_text">01-18-2006</span><span class="time_text">01:31 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Duhulk on <span class="date_text">01-18-2006</span><span class="time_text">01:34 PM</span></p>

[Success]

<div></div><p>That's because we got hit hard with the nerfs and changes. We lost a LOT of DPS lately. Being able to stay in AOE ALL the time is a HUGE advantage no other class has or even comes close to. In our guild, we do a LOT of mobs that AOE in raids.</p><p> </p>