Ability Rotation?

[Bladezil]

Hey all, I've recently started playing EQ2 again after awhile and I have a 44 monk. I'm wondering if there is a certain rotation of abilities that maximizes our DPS and if we should have a break between abilities for auto attack or not. Not really sure if auto attack continues to work through abilities or if it goes around abilities and there's a pause. Looking for any kind of input. Thanks for your time.

[Gladiia]

<p>Auto attacks are on a timer based on your weapon(s) delay(s).  Once it is time for you weapon(s) to strike, it/they will as soon as you have finished the current CA and recovery.  Timing your attacks will net better DPS if you do it well.  In the process of practicing you might expect your DPS to drop a lot until you get the hang of it.</p><p>There isn't a certain rotation per se.  Different rotations will indeed work better, but some rotations work better in one situation where another will work better in a different.  There are lots of tips on this page alone for portions of a rotation for monks. </p>

[Khandor]

I'm still having trouble understanding the whole 'timing' aspects of the auto attack.But when I fight, I actually do all my dots first, then swap between an attack, and a stun/stifle every other or every 2 attacks to kinda keep the mob from retaliating. If it's a really hard mob I'll use tsunami, storming palm and then crane flock with dev fist if needed, when it's over, heal, then go down my abilities agian. usually the mob is done before I use my CA's a second time.

[Bladezil]

<cite>Gladiia@The Bazaar wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Auto attacks are on a timer based on your weapon(s) delay(s).  Once it is time for you weapon(s) to strike, it/they will as soon as you have finished the current CA and recovery.  Timing your attacks will net better DPS if you do it well.</p></blockquote><p>In general what should I look for before doing my next CA? Should I wait 2 seconds in between or look for an attack animation or look for the auto attack damage? The reason I'm asking is because we have so much haste that I figure auto attack accounts for a great deal of our main damage and I feel like I'm short changing myself.</p><p>I'm a pure soloist and INT/WIS spec if that helps at all.</p>

[Khandor]

nono, do not go by animation. The animation is MUCH slower than your actual attacks. Cuz when I hit crane flock, numbers start spraying out of the mobs head, I'll get like 4-6 attacks while it looks like I'm only doing one attack. Your best bet is just to get the timing down. Cuz what I do is I basically wait 1 second or so and then hit my next CA. Cuz my weapons have a 2.0 delay, but I have 48% haste.. so I just wait for about 1 sec or so then hit the next.I dunno, it's kinda confusing to me cuz like you I'm not sure how to track it. I'd use my combat log but it goes through so damned fast.

[Gladiia]

<p>type /weaponstat.</p><p>This will give you your actual weapon delay after haste (you will have to scroll up as it will list all of your weapons, and the last one listed - the only one you will be able to see initially - is going to be your ranged weapon).  And yeah, like the person above said DON'T go by the animation to time your attacks.  I tried that on a raid once, and my DPS was cut in half :/</p><p>I'm still not very good at timing attacks.  I would love it if some people gave tips on it.  The best thing I can think of is going directly off of the combat log - but I don't see that working unless you are solo.  </p>

[x0rtrun]

I just get into the rhythm of it. I don't really pay attention to it, I just start attacking. I wait about a 1/4 of a second between CAs. Just long enough for the icons to rebrighten after the last one was cast. My delays after haste are 1 and 2 sec. respectively, so with a casting time of less than half a second, I can get 1 or 2 CAs before I swing. You get used to it if you start to pay attention, and before long you don't even worry about it.

[Siatfallen]

... and then your haste changes, and you have to learn it all over again.Honestly, I would recommend seriously worrying about this once you get to max level, because otherwise your haste is going to move up a bit every 5-7 levels, which makes your old timing wrong.

[Gladiia]

<cite>x0rtrunks wrote:</cite><blockquote>I just get into the rhythm of it. I don't really pay attention to it, I just start attacking. I wait about a 1/4 of a second between CAs. Just long enough for the icons to rebrighten after the last one was cast. My delays after haste are 1 and 2 sec. respectively, so with a casting time of less than half a second, I can get 1 or 2 CAs before I swing.You get used to it if you start to pay attention, and before long you don't even worry about it.</blockquote><p>O, well if your auto attacks are pretty well exactly 1 and 2 seconds, then you shouldn't really have any timing on your hands with 0.95 seconds per CA (cast + recovery).  I think it's 0.88 seconds with the agi line?  Can't remember for sure on that one.</p><p><cite>Siatfallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>... and then your haste changes, and you have to learn it all over again.Honestly, I would recommend seriously worrying about this once you get to max level, because otherwise your haste is going to move up a bit every 5-7 levels, which makes your old timing wrong.</blockquote><p>That part slipped my mind - yeah, wouldn't worry about it probably at all if you arent doing the end game stuff.</p>

[Junaru]

2.5s delay weapons are 1.6s delay self hasted (except some who can get really high self haste) and 1.5s delay max haste.Self hasted I sit at 138 haste and my /weapon is 1.6s delay.Raid buffed I sit at 206 haste and my /weapon is 1.5s delay.Now knowing this I normally wont have the illusionist cast their haste on me to free up and con spot for someone else if I get one in my group.Now with our spell haste and  Baton Flurry at the right level I can spam CA's and fit in 2 CA's between and auto attack and never miss and attack while self buffed. While raid buffed I only lose 0.1s delay while spamming so I don't worry too much about timing.Getting Baton Flurry to 6 points and having our spell haste (T7 M1) will get your cast timer to 0.44 and your recovery timer to 0.36 which gives you a timing of 0.8s. Now times that by two CA's per auto attack you get a 1.6s meaning you can spam CA's and not miss a auto attack.Now if you want/need to start timing your CA's go download ACT (Advanced Combat Tracker) and get the plugin that beeps on each attack. At first it will drive you up a wall but after a while you wont need it and it will be comes habit of timing your CA's.

[mattmandude]

I too use the combat tracker, and it enjoy it immensely when DPSing. You can change the sound that's played, btw, to something much less annoying <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I didn't download a plug-in to make mine beep. You just enter these lines of code one at a time in the trigger section:.*?YOU try to slash.*.*?YOU try to crush.*.*?YOU try to pierce.*Something that I also do, when I don't feel like using ACT, is I have a combat chat window. The only channels I have on are under damage, "when you hit target", "when you critically hit target", "warnings". With this, I know that Auto Attack went off (and not some proc), because my combat chat window will say "YOU hit target for X Damage". Everything else that does damage will say something indirect like, "Your FAEY FIRE damages target for X Damage."Anyways, once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy. As far as CA rotations, I have different rotations for when it's a regular epic fight, and a rotation for when it's a loooong epic fight (and I also have one for tanking that I won't go over). The regular rotation is usually the defense debuff, baton flurry, five ring, the dot (dragon something), arctic talon (or whatever it's called), combination, arctic palm (whatever it's called), the kick knockback, and then the rest of my CA (this is for fights that I won't be conserving power on).  For loong fights I use the same rotation, except I don't use the punch knockback, rumbling worm (forgot most of the T8 names, sorry), the stifle, dragon breath, the regular kick, and of course crescent strike (pretty much never use that thing unless tanking).But in all honesty, my CA damage is about 12% of my DPS, and 66% auto attack (the rest being procs and such). So I don't ever see a huge difference in DPS between the two rotations, except that one saves a lot of power.