Lacking DPS, Suggestions Appreciated

[DthEffrum]

Ok, here's the deal. I'm spec'd 4-4-6-8-1 agility and 4-7-4-8-1 wisdom. Doing decent on DPS, but constantly being outclassed by other mages in my group and scouts in the scout group. I pull 1300-2200, averaging probably 1600. Below is a screen of my current UI setup and EoF AAs. My DPS group normally has necro, conj, wizard, troub, healer (normally fury, sometimes mystic) and last spot has a SK or maybe another necro or wizzy. <img src="http://img131.imageshack.us/img131/7541/eq2000335mu3.jpg" border="0"> I'm thinking of dropping some/all of the fire line to pick up manaburn in a couple days. Anyways, UI explanation... I have my maintained bar directly above my casting bar so it's easier for me to see when my dots are about to end. I suggest that all classes do this, it helps me out a ton. Anyways, on a fight that lasts longer than 40 seconds I cast frigid/iceshape, iceshield(not before pull, I know I should, yeah yeah), icicles, tempest, convulsions, irradiate, freehand ice nova, ball of lava, and finally incapacitate. After that, I turn on fireshape/inferno surge and keep my spells up. My priority of casting is normally iceshield, nova, irradiate, ball of lava, other dots, then incapacitate. I try to get protoferno up whenever I have nothing else to cast. At the end of the fight, I try to get a freehand fusion in (when my vine-wrapped boots proc). With fusion on a good fight i can normally break 2k, without it I'd get 1.5k. If the fight is really short, I'll keep ice nova for whenever everything else is down and probably ignore tempest, convulsions, and icicles. I do great on short fights (upwards of 3k). I NEVER cast sunstrike. That's about it, I think. I have similar gear to the other wizard in my guild (he has one more piece of proc gear; death reveler orb) but he parses about 100 dps over me constantly. Any feedback/suggestions would be appreciated.

[kingdeke]

<p>lol well your gear is broke, that may have something to do with it :p Seriously though try precasting Forge of Ro, even if its a single target fight. That alone can make up the ~100 dps zonewide the other wizzy is doing over you. Just be mindful of the mobs you're precasting it on (like croc in EH, their short melee aoe hurts) and if/or you tank is body pulling, i've had forge get me killed because i precast it not thinking and the mob ran over it and straight to me.</p><p> Edit to add :Also, if you're waiting for the boots to proc to cast fusion or ice nova, you're actually losing dps. Never break a spell chain just to get a larger hit out of either of those, and dmg increasing proc is just a bonus and shouldn't be relied upon for dps. Single target I precast ice shield, follow tank up to pull spot as much I can (mob dependant), cast forge of ro, iceshape+frigid gift on the incomming then icicles, surging tempest, freehand+fusion and cue up ice nova as fusion is casting. If fusion isnt up or I don't want to use it cause I know the next pull is multiple mobs I'll just FH+Ice nova, then irradite or BoL, incapacitate etc... until frigid gift runs out, then inferno surge, refresh ice shield and continue with a heat spell rotation, refreshing ice shield as neccessary. Avoid using sunstrike (replace it with firestorm if safe) as well, that spell sucks <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[DthEffrum]

Yeah. I knew i should have put a "In before broke gear" disclaimer in there... >_>. Never thought of using forge of ro on single target mobs... it is kinda hard to precast it, never know where the tank is gonna place the mob. I'll def give it a shot. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[kingdeke]

There read my edit too, I added something thats relavant to your situation.

[DthEffrum]

How don't you manage to steal aggro when you pretty much open up with fusion? On a crit thats a good 30k damage.

[kingdeke]

<p>Lol never said I dont take aggro, but it helps that our swashy is awesome. thats the only good thing about the cast times on fusion and ice nova, in the time it takes fusion to cast the swashy has transfered plenty of hate to the tank, in addition to the hate he's built up himself (dirge and coercer helping on that as well).</p><p>AoE encounters I'll wait a lil bit longer to cast fusion though, opening up with it on 3 mobs is a guaranteed death no matter how good your MT group is.</p>

[JohnDoe058]

<p>Lose the Fire line for sure...only helps on single targets, and doesn't help much even on them.  </p><p>Go manaburn -- sure it costs a ton of power, but the enhancers in the Power line largely mitigate that problem.</p><p>Cast Ice Nova sooner, to get it's recast ticking.  Even if it doesn't mean a 2nd cast, it will at least make it available sooner for the next fight.</p><p>On x3 fights, all of your AoEs, including Electric Flash, do better DPS by far, than any fire nuke.  Always use Freezing Winds first.</p><p>Use Iceshield not only b4 the pull, but every time it's down...especially in AoE fights, where it quickly expends all 3 charges.</p><p>In KoS lines, go with Wis and Agi...maybe u already did.</p><p>Don't bury corpses in your own back yard...wait what?</p>

[HippyKnight]

You mentioned that you had a guildy who was consistently parsing 100dps or so above you. What would probably be more useful than screenshots of your gear/aa's would be a screenie of the the act parser results for a zone for both you and your friend. You know the screen with the pie chart decomponsing your damage output by spells..

[ailees]

Listening to some advices here is good, Of course don't forget all AE that are really doing a lot of damages, and Manaburn, and the DS, all things that already have been said. but I agree that the best way you have to improve your DPS is to <u>parse with comparisons</u>. One year ago, I decided that I wanted to have a great DPS. That's what I did, and you can also : download and install ACT for each raid, parse the whole raid. go to the "all" part, and click on your name, export to HTML and put into a spreadhseet. Do same with the other wizard(s) and each time you meet another wiz, do again. Now you have all info to compare what the cast, when, how many times and so on. THIS will really help you understand where you can improve !

[DthEffrum]

Thanks for the suggestions. I don't have any of my old parses saved, but I have compared me and him in the past. Currently, his computer is on the fritz, so I'll just get a parse of what I cast at raids tonight. Stay tuned. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[kingdeke]

<cite>JohnDoe058 wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Lose the Fire line for sure...only helps on single targets, and doesn't help much even on them.  </p><p>Go manaburn -- sure it costs a ton of power, but the enhancers in the Power line largely mitigate that problem.</p><p>Cast Ice Nova sooner, to get it's recast ticking.  Even if it doesn't mean a 2nd cast, it will at least make it available sooner for the next fight.</p><p>On x3 fights, all of your AoEs, including Electric Flash, do better DPS by far, than any fire nuke.  <b>Always use Freezing Winds first</b>.</p><p>Use Iceshield not only b4 the pull, but every time it's down...especially in AoE fights, where it quickly expends all 3 charges.</p><p>In KoS lines, go with Wis and Agi...maybe u already did.</p><p>Don't bury corpses in your own back yard...wait what?</p></blockquote><p>Why would you do that when you have iceshape and 5 pts in frigid gift? </p><p> Since you should already have forge layed down and ice shield on your tank; time it so frigid gift goes off just as mobs get in range (should have cast iceshape right before this) and firestorm>glacial wind>electrifying flash>firestorm. The only thing that changes there is if I have time compression I reapply iceshield before the second firestorm (I wish time compression lowered recasts just a hair more...). This will still leave a few secs on iceshape and frigid gift to proc on what ever spell you choose to cast next. </p>

[JohnDoe058]

<cite>kingdeke wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why would you do that when you have iceshape and 5 pts in frigid gift? </blockquote><p>Why would I do what now?</p><p>If you're implying that the Frigid Gift proc is powerful enough to justify changing your cast order....well, it's just not.  I'll send you the program that I use to determine that and similar truths, with explaination, if you want.</p>

[daray]

<cite>JohnDoe058 wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kingdeke wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why would you do that when you have iceshape and 5 pts in frigid gift? </blockquote><p>Why would I do what now?</p><p>If you're implying that the Frigid Gift proc is powerful enough to justify changing your cast order....well, it's just not. </p></blockquote> Iceshape + Frigid Gift (enhanced) should be used on every incoming, and whenever it is up on extended fights. While it will also result in positive gains to your own dps, you also need to look beyond your own dps for a moment, and consider the impact it has on the other mages in your caster group (and therefore on raid dps as a whole). And as to your insistence as to why everyone should disregard the EoF heat line, and spec purely power/cold, i will just redirect you to my response to one of your previous comments in the manaburn vs cold line discussion below. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=15&topic_id=356361" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=356361</a>

[IllusiveThoughts]

<cite>kingdeke wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>AoE encounters I'll wait a lil bit longer to cast fusion though, opening up with it on 3 mobs is a guaranteed death no matter how good your MT group is.</p></blockquote><p>not entirely true.</p><p>You definately need to be set up for max hate reduction and mt for max hate gain but it can be done, iceshape+ Frigid gift + freehand + fusion + firestorm = aoe goodness.</p><p>If you can pull that off on 3 mobs after they're in position and not steal agro, you're set up for hate reduction perfectly. </p>

[kingdeke]

<cite>IllusiveThoughts wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>kingdeke wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>AoE encounters I'll wait a lil bit longer to cast fusion though, opening up with it on 3 mobs is a guaranteed death no matter how good your MT group is.</p></blockquote><p>not entirely true.</p><p>You definately need to be set up for max hate reduction and mt for max hate gain but it can be done, iceshape+ Frigid gift + freehand + fusion + firestorm = aoe goodness.</p><p>If you can pull that off on 3 mobs after they're in position and not steal agro, you're set up for hate reduction perfectly. </p></blockquote><p>Of course, I meant normally though. Because normally the only deaggro I get is a troub, aa pet, and my anomalism on MT (coercer is normally in a dps group and doesn't have the conc except for certain fights and we dont even have a pally). </p><p>I would love to get some deaggro lovin and see how far I could push it. </p>

[DthEffrum]

Ok, here's the parse from tonight's raid that I promised. I respec'd to manaburn and ice line... group make up was fury, illusionist, troub (dps spec'd), necro, conj, and me. I never had Vim and have TC for probably 1/3'd of the instance. <img src="http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/43/fthparse1632cl2.jpg" border="0"> I can already see that I need to cast manaburn more... don't know why I didn't >_> Feedback Appreciated.

[daray]

Including the EXTDPS column might make that information in that screenshot marginally more useful for comparison purposes, but as it is, that information is of very little use for reinforcing your arguement as to why a manaburn spec is more useful in place of a heat spec. There are such a huge variety of factors (many beyond your control) that will contribute either positively or negatively to any zone/encounter parse, that trying to get any sort of accurate comparison between 2 parses is almost impossible. If I was to throw up a FTH zonewide damage breakdown from one of my raids with my heat/cold spec, then it really would mean very little alongside yours. However, comparing a multitude of personal parses over extended periods, my current heat/cold spec yields a higher average dps for myself, than including a manaburn spec in place of either the heat or cold lines - and by quite a noticeale margin. And the reasons for this were pretty much sumed up in my previous post.

[JohnDoe058]

<p>Daray, why did u link me a thread that I already posted on?  Lol, u silly goose.  </p><p>Yes, I use Icshape/FG whenever it's up, and the fight isn't almost over.  But I'm sayin that once FG is up, you still "should" stick to your original cast order, since a +370 proc isn't enough to shake the prudent order.</p>

[daray]

Well with iceshape, all your spells will trigger FG, so changing your spell rotation isnt needed.

[kingdeke]

<cite>JohnDoe058 wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Daray, why did u link me a thread that I already posted on?  Lol, u silly goose.  </p><p>Yes, I use Icshape/FG whenever it's up, and the fight isn't almost over.  But I'm sayin that once FG is up, you still "should" stick to your original cast order, since a +370 proc isn't enough to shake the prudent order.</p></blockquote><p>I wasnt trying to say anyone should change casting orders when iceshape and frigid gift are up.</p><p> What I bolded in the quote was "Always cast glacial wind first" and I pointed out that casting glacial wind first isn't your best dps when you can cast firestorm first (regardless if frigid gift is running). If ice shape and frigid gift are down then use inferno surge and guess what, you now have flame surge ticking on every mob in the encounter while glacial wind is casting. Plus firestorm is back up earlier, giving you a better chance at getting it off again on more mobs. </p>

[JohnDoe058]

Tzeath@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>What I bolded in the quote was "Always cast glacial wind first" </blockquote><p>Oops he he...not showing as bolded, to me.  Dunno what's up.</p><blockquote> and I pointed out that casting glacial wind first isn't your best dps when you can cast firestorm first (regardless if frigid gift is running). If ice shape and frigid gift are down then use inferno surge and guess what, you now have flame surge ticking on every mob in the encounter while glacial wind is casting. Plus firestorm is back up earlier, giving you a better chance at getting it off again on more mobs.</blockquote><p>Yeah, I over-simplified.  It does depend on the length of the fight.  Right you are, on fights where you could most likely get in a 2nd firestorm.</p>

[IllusiveThoughts]

<p>maybe i'm getting too old but I cant see a duration on the parse posting, so I cant back into the dps you did off your total damage.</p><p>Try pasting the parse into here so we can compare, or list the duration <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>