Strategies for maximizing DPS on raids

[Novusod]

Ok raiding bruisers share you strategy on maximizing your raiding DPS. If you are a top parsing bruiser then I want to hear how you did it. What separates a 600 dps bruiser from a 1500+ dps bruiser? What weapons are you using? What AA's are you using? It there a casting order that can make a difference? How much STR is needed? How much haste is needed? If there is anything I missed please feel free to add it. Thanks

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Well.. the only time I get into raids with my Bruiser is on pickup raids where Bruiser DPS is hot stuff. So I don't think I can give a really good representation... Self buffed I'm sitting at over 650 strength in offense gear. Legendary Set gear and some Excarnate/Renegade and some jewelry gear from KoS raid hand-me-downs (went on the raid with my Coercer and no other brawlers there so I could log my bruiser in). Using the higher DR Twin Calamities and Closing Time (still need to finish Claymore for Marr's Fist, but getting someone to raid that stuff is tough). My AA's have been Wis/Int down to the finals. Crane Flock is nice for zonewide parses from trash if you use it as much as possible. Honestly, I'm usually sitting at around 800-1000 DPS on short fights with no group buffs, so not sure if I'm the best person to be answering this. With a few group buffs I can get into the 1200s. Sadly, this has been top 3-5 on the raids I've been on lately. First place on Harla Dar fight with a big 600 DPS, woot! However, I think a LOT of DPS comes from group buffs.. as I recall having a dirge in group with me and the extra crits + CoB was nice. Reached 1800 in some good groups before... but those are few and far between. Maybe the difference is the one that can get a good group that buffs you well? Lol.

[Bobbette]

There's many factors to maximizing DPS, I'm not sure where your character sits as far as spells and gear so forgive me if I state some of the obvious. Skills -- all your skills at least adept 3 but preferably mastered. AAs -- EOF -- 5 points into every damage skill in the knockout line.  Get yourself the detaunt proc AA so you don't have to FD all the time (ymmv but I love this AA, FD'ed bruisers aren't dps'ing) AAs -- KoS -- Wisdom (44862) and Int (44872) ... this assumes you're using weapons. DPS Mod -- master your buff for this.  10dps adornment on your throwing weapon.  10dps adornment on your neck item.  Ivy shrouded earring of Tunare gives another 8dps and is a quest reward. Haste -- get to 25%.  DT Access wrist piece gives you 23% and the 2% belt adornment does stack with it (the other haste adornments don't). Weapons (I'm just listing them out) -- Marr's Fist, Scepter of Destruction, Fists of Destruction (this is off a contested though).  I've used Fists of Bashing, Fists of Pain, in the past too.  I've looked at Closing Time and it's pretty close to fabled in DR and if I remember right, pretty close to the FoB and FoP I've used in the past.  Adorn the weapons for dps (everyone has a different idea of what's best so I'm not going there). Gear --   Cloak -- Rallos Zek cloak for the proc.   Other gear -- get gear that procs.  (for example: Claw-bound Diadem, Clawed Basilisk Boots) Stats --   Strength, strength, strength -- the more strength the harder you're hitting.   Agility -- avoid the hits, aoes -- dead bruisers don't dps   Stamina -- withstand the hits -- dead bruisers don't dps   Wisdom -- good for resists   Int -- increases damage procs but I only ever worry about this stat if I can't get str/agi/sta (like earring adornments) Buffs --   Cacophony of Blades is our friend ... stack Crane Flock on it for amazing results (be warned it's possible to pull aggro doing this even with the detaunt proc going)   DPS Mod buffs   Haste Mod buffs   Agitate   Inquisitor buffs   Strength buffs Frankly, I love being grouped with a dirge because their buffs are group wide, Cacophony of Blades is an amazing buff for us if you time your CAs and AA skills to really take advantage of it. Knockout Combination -- run this when all your combat arts are up so you can cycle through them.  If you get a troub in your group with jester's cap or the inquisitor fast casting buff goes up you can cycle through more CAs while it's up. I work back and forth between Crane Flock and Knockout Combination. Do Crane Flock when there's groups of mobs for even more oompf on the parse (be warned, you may pull aggro from the non-targetted mobs).  Also save Crane Flock for the named fights -- especially the longer ones ... you can KO do all your CAs, Crane Flock while you wait for your CAs and KO to recycle, and then do another round of KO+CA towards the end. That's about all I have.  I hope some of this is helpful as you build your bruiser.  <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Agaxiq]

Velda@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>DPS Mod -- master your buff for this.  10dps adornment on your throwing weapon.  10dps adornment on your neck item.  Ivy shrouded earring of Tunare gives another 8dps and is a quest reward. </blockquote> I just sold the Ivy earring after i got it because the 8dps didn't stack with our M1 skill - did it stack for you ?  Do the other buffs stack? agressiv

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

Yep, I have the master in our DPS buff and it stacked. Totaling 43 atm because I haven't found a decent ranged weapon to slap a 10 DPS buff onto.

[heelena]

<p>very nice posts!</p><p>you can also use the mastercrafted 62 rings for extra str and dps and extra agi and haste... this procs realy often.. including the agitate you can boost your dps over 130. duo with a fury in nest i parse over 1100-1200 zonewide and on raids i have about 1200 - 1600 (when the mighty lag god is nice to me and the raidleader puts me in the melee grp)</p><p> ---> Shifter - Valor</p><p> edit: it helps alot if you change the weapons: since the cap of delay is 0.8 and you are in a haste buffed grp then you go for the weapon with higher dealy / dmg. i use the scepter of destruction when i am in a normal grp, i like the extra swings on the craneflock...  (check your weapon stats when you type /weapon in game)</p>

[Bobbette]

Agaxiq@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>Velda@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote>DPS Mod -- master your buff for this.  10dps adornment on your throwing weapon.  10dps adornment on your neck item.  Ivy shrouded earring of Tunare gives another 8dps and is a quest reward. </blockquote> I just sold the Ivy earring after i got it because the 8dps didn't stack with our M1 skill - did it stack for you ?  Do the other buffs stack? agressiv </blockquote>Yes, it stacks.  I have 53 dps mod currently = 25 from M1 + 10 from neck adorn + 10 from ranged adorn + 8 from the Ivy shrouded earring. And thanks Heelena, I forgot to mention the mastercrafted rings that proc haste and dps.

[PaganSaint]

Befriend  these classes: A Troub, not in your group A Dirge, in your group An Inquisitor, in your group An Assassin, in your group A Berserker in your group Get weapons with a 2.0-2.5(higher if and when they become available) delay if dual wielded, 3.5-5.0 if Two handed. Get the Rallos Cloak Get the Wanderer Earring Get any of the raid loot with melee proc's. Use either the imbued agility ring if you need more haste, or the strength ring if you have plenty of haste(80+) from your group. Time your long recast attacks, and find yourself the proper order to get as many as possible into the duration of jester's cap. (hint, get the 30s/45s timer ones off first to get to use them twice while JC is up)

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<cite>heelena wrote:</cite><blockquote><p> it helps alot if you change the weapons: since the cap of delay is 0.8 and you are in a haste buffed grp then you go for the weapon with higher dealy / dmg. i use the scepter of destruction when i am in a normal grp, i like the extra swings on the craneflock...  (check your weapon stats when you type /weapon in game)</p></blockquote> There is no haste cap, that is something from EQ1 or from LONG ago. It simply does not exist in this game, haste will ALWAYS lower your weapon speed, even below an arbitrary number like 0.8. The only thing you have to worry about is the fact that casting a CA and the recovery time will interrupt your autoattack, so if you find yourself constantly lower than 0.9s delay autoattack, you'll want to go downt he Agi line to reduce your recovery time so that autoattack gets in there.

[PaganSaint]

<p>You are halfway correct.</p><p>There is no minimum delay, but the maximum haste you can have is 125%.</p><p>The fastest weapon speed possible is 0.4s delay from a 1.0s delay weapon.</p><p>Untill that lowers or they increase the maximum haste there is in effect a cap.</p><p>Back to OP:</p><p>I forgot to mention above, take melee crit percent items of any quality despite the stats, or lack there of over items for their stats or a weak debuff on attack or like regen. Exception to this is for any items that have a proc off melee, those of course take priority. Also take any double attack you can gain, the three piece set bonus from the Wu legendary gear is good, especially when used with the SoD reward kama, the 2h hammer from TNT, the hat from PH and anything else.</p>

[Sir_Halbarad]

Hi all <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> On my Bruiser I have the Rallos Cloak and the Dedicated Wrap (2% Melee Crit) - quest in MM Catacombs. I didn't do an awful lot of comparative parsing, but I tend to lean towards the increased Melee Crit. What do you all think? Thanks in advance.

[Bobbette]

Rallos Cloak.

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<cite>PaganSaint wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>You are halfway correct.</p></blockquote> Lol, yes.. sorry. My "there is no cap" is old verbiage from eq1 days. It kicks in when people start talking about eq1 limitations like that. That's what I meant to say, of course.. there there's no minimum delay cap with regards to haste. Haste will ALWAYS modify your delay, no matter what it is and no matter how low it goes. The only issue at hand is whether it meshes well with chaining (or using at all at certain speeds) your CA's. And as for the Rallos Cloak, the proc in damage alone is enough to warrant it. Crits is +30% damage, unless you have one of those unique weapons that has a massive damage range (vraksin club I think is a good example of [Removed for Content] crits, heh). So 2% of a 30% increase is a 0.6% damage increase on your total DPS. On a normal, self buffed only DPS of around 1k, we are looking at like 6 DPS zonewide extra from parses. Personally, I've seen the Rallos proc do at least 2-4% of my damage, so it's a no brainer without even taking into account the short DPS increase.

[Prothos]

This is acually a good topic.<img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Entrari]

Yar thanks for all the good info I've found a bunch of stuff to start working on now because of this thread haha