Increase my raid dps?

[Hatr]

All, I'm currently in a burgeoning guild, hitting T7 x2's multiple times a week as we recruit up to handle x4's.  That said, on any given raid I am pushing around 1100-1400 dps, with 80% or so masters.  I'm trying to determine if there is anything I can do to increase my dps. I run MC Ignorant Bliss, Hemotoxin, and Gracelessness 24/7.  STR/Int & Excessive bleeding - currently at 88AA.  Unbuffed STR is 381, INT is 127.  I am working to finish out adorns, right now I have about half of them.  For weapons I use grizzfazzle's and dark linger, dark linger in mainhand.  I am always in the MT group with a coercer, bard (we don't have a regular dirge, so troub most of the time), Guard, Inquisitor, and Warden.  We typically do not have a brigand on our raids, and as I play on a PvP server, only have evil classes on the raid. So... without acquiring x4 raid loot, and without changing around classes, the only thing I could think of is questioning my CA order. My typical CA order: Preload intoxication and get stealthed pre-pull. On pull - Puncture blade Constriction Crippling Strike Poison Combination Exacting Malignant Mark Flowing Wound Scraping Blow Deadly Wound Masked Attack Jugular Honed Reflexes -- At this point I autoattack dps for ~10-15 seconds as abilities pop Malignant Mark Flowing Wound Scraping Blow Deadly Wound Concealment Chain - hitting any backstabs that are up, in order of most dmg to least From that point on, I hit masked attack/puncture blade every time they pop, and hit DoT's as they come available.  Throw in Finishing Blow sub 20%, obviously. It seems to me, given that out of those abilities only 2-3 of them aren't M1, I should be pushing 1400-1800dps.  Given better weapons and more STR/INT I would imagine I should push to 1800+ consistently, which make sense. Any pointers, or am I pushing appropriate dps? Thanks!

[Jayad]

Hard to say but it sounds okay. You need a lot more STR. It sounds like you don't have STR on all your gear?

[khufure]

Jayad wrote:

Hard to say but it sounds okay. You need a lot more STR. It sounds like you don't have STR on all your gear?

Agreed 381 is horrible.  I think I had more in xegonite.  Put treasured gear on or anything else until you get 500 self buffed str, or preferably more.  Do you have the rallos deity pet up & hidden?  (/pet hide)

[Hatr]

Actually I'm running EoF legendary, collection jewelry, etc.  Rallos pet always up & hidden. That said, I may be able to raise my STR another 50-60pts fairly easily, and have not STR adorned everything, which will add another 20-30STR on top of that.  Is raising my STR another 100-130pts (with potion) going to make that substantial of a difference?

[Jayad]

Yes it will make a substantial difference. Get rid of everything that doesn't have STR on it until you're a lot higher, except for the Planar Orb earring.

[Vydar]

Hatred@Venekor wrote:

All, I'm currently in a burgeoning guild, hitting T7 x2's multiple times a week as we recruit up to handle x4's.  That said, on any given raid I am pushing around 1100-1400 dps, with 80% or so masters.  I'm trying to determine if there is anything I can do to increase my dps. I run MC Ignorant Bliss, Hemotoxin, and Gracelessness 24/7.  STR/Int & Excessive bleeding - currently at 88AA.  Unbuffed STR is 381, INT is 127.  I am working to finish out adorns, right now I have about half of them.  For weapons I use grizzfazzle's and dark linger, dark linger in mainhand.  I am always in the MT group with a coercer, bard (we don't have a regular dirge, so troub most of the time), Guard, Inquisitor, and Warden.  We typically do not have a brigand on our raids, and as I play on a PvP server, only have evil classes on the raid. So... without acquiring x4 raid loot, and without changing around classes, the only thing I could think of is questioning my CA order. My typical CA order: Preload intoxication and get stealthed pre-pull. On pull - Puncture blade Constriction Crippling Strike Poison Combination Exacting Malignant Mark Flowing Wound Scraping Blow Deadly Wound Masked Attack Jugular Honed Reflexes -- At this point I autoattack dps for ~10-15 seconds as abilities pop Malignant Mark Flowing Wound Scraping Blow Deadly Wound Concealment Chain - hitting any backstabs that are up, in order of most dmg to least From that point on, I hit masked attack/puncture blade every time they pop, and hit DoT's as they come available.  Throw in Finishing Blow sub 20%, obviously. It seems to me, given that out of those abilities only 2-3 of them aren't M1, I should be pushing 1400-1800dps.  Given better weapons and more STR/INT I would imagine I should push to 1800+ consistently, which make sense. Any pointers, or am I pushing appropriate dps? Thanks!

TBH... your ca order is all off.  You need to know a few things... your number 1 parsing ability is Cloaked Assault, followed by Malignant Mark, followed by Hemotoxin.  Do you have a dirge in your group? I'll give ya my rundown, then I'll explain it... here's a screenie of my Hotbars. Ok... First button is my /target macro, either with the name of the MT, or for the times I'm MA for the target I'm directly going for, or for in PvP when I'm picking out a healer and I am planning on being taunted.  First thing to know, your top 5 highest parsing abilities that should be used whenever and as fast as they come up.  Number 1, Cloaked Assault.  Number 2, Malignant Mark.  Number 3, Hemotoxin.  Number 4 and 5 depend on the assassin, for me it's auto attack Piercing (Dirk of Nightfall, haven't gotten a GDoH yet) followed by one of my many proc's.  For raid dps, you should be spec'd Str/Int, Repeated Stabbing, Bleed, or Poisons (not a big fan of Physicality) depending on what you like.  If you're on a PvP server, almost every single end line AA ability is broken or useless for Assassins, so you don't have as many choices. Your str needs to be over 500 (mine is not due to being on a PvP server, I got my HP up to 8200, so I'm 3rd or 4th worldwide for Assassin HP, something that is not that important in other servers)  For raids, I switch out some gear and dolls and such and get my Str up where it should be.  Now, the 4th and 5th box are my combo bars.  The 5th is for raids. BEFORE YOU DO ANY OF THIS COMBO, A DIRGE SHOULD POP COB.  If you have a dirge in your group, they should pop CoB as soon as the assist call is given, and then as fast as it comes up.  Have Intoxicate up and ready to go as fast as it comes up.  It is a 2 min self buff, NOT a 2 min reuse, so if you turn it on, and then you use it 1min 45 seconds later, you get to use it again quickly.  As soon as the dirge pops CoB, Pop Exacting (30% damage bonus plus reuse timer shortened, and since a few of your backstabs in your combo are under 1m reuse, as are all the other CA's you will spam directly after, you should pop it immediately.)  then concealment, then Opening Blade.  Sometimes the mob dodges/parries opening blade, so I slide down and hit Deadly Wound instead.  Then, hit cloaked assault, killing blade, eviscerate, jugular, Slaughtersault, puncture blade.  This order is for a few reasons... Cloaked Assault is your top parsing ability.  Use it as often as you can, and firstly.  Plus, exacting makes it do 30% more damage, which is amazing.  The other abilities are in that order because of their casting times/position requirements.  You can't always get DIRECTLY behind on incoming, might take a second to find the mob's back.  So give yourself another CA worth of time to find it before eviscerate.  Slaughtersault is a frontal cone aoe, so again, you must position yourself.  After this combo, use the backstab and surveillance to use any stealthed hits that might not have gotten crammed into your concealment combo.  You should still have CoB AND Exacting running, so spam all your CA's as fast as you can.  I'm STA line spec'd, so I use the STA aoe to proc CoB again an every single mob in the radius (it has a HUGE radius btw). Once my 5th box of raid combos is done, I use all the CA's in my first box by pressing 1,2,3,4,5, etc.  I use this order because Opening Blade needs to be in while mob is still over 80%, constriction for poison resist debuff, Malig Mark because it is amazing and it proc's so often and so much you should spam it as often as it comes up.  Scraping Blow and Constriction should probably be switched... use every single CA you have.  Then, when they're all down, pop Honed Reflexes and Deadly Focus and auto attack until they come back up.  If you have a 4 second delay weapon, you should be timing your CA's and your auto attack so that you get the full usage out of your proc's.  I use Frontload before I use exacting, so that my poisons have a higher chance to proc off of EVERY CA + AOE for the next 24 seconds, combined with Exacting's bonus, CoB, your Concealment combo, etc.  It is critical that you do all of this as burst dps during your Concealment Combo, since you have a 35% less hate gain while it is on.  If you have Murderous Design on your dirge, you should NEVER have to worry about drawing aggro doing this, and I parse very highly with this setup.  Then there's the basics... don't use Stealth to go stealth, only use surveillance, concealment, and the backstab.  It's too slow and you stop swinging while casting it.  If the fight is a LONG one, use Finishing Blow on incoming, then again as SOON as the mob hits 19%, then again as soon as it comes up.  You usually don't want to use any ranged attacks because you hurt your dps by jumping out and using them, unless you learn to time your hops.  You can hop backwards, cast Spitting Asp, then cast Neck Shot as you run back in.  For poisons I use Gracelessness, Hemotoxin, and then it depends... Fettering if you are in MT group (even though it doesn't slow the mobs much, Frontload does an additional 200 damage or so for EVERY poison proc, including debuff non damage dealing ones), Ignorant Bliss if you are not.  Always remember... your proc's are absolutely crucial.  They're easy to forget about, but they are important.  Put Phantom Handle's on your weapons so you never have to use mental breach. That hurts your dps quite a bit.  Get a +10 DPS put on your bow and necklace, and a +2 haste adorn on your belt.  There are lots of non raid gear items you can get to get your stats up... Torn Ligament is an excellent bow from Unrest.  +28 str, +28 Int, dehate proc, very nice Damage Rating.  Sour Song Choker, 28 str, 28 int, +2% to melee crit and spell damage crit (spell damage crit = poisons and procs) is also from Unrest.  The Rallos Zek deity cloak proc's ALL THE TIME and is a very nice dps booster.  If you can't get Sour Song Choker, Necklace of Shadowy Strikes drops almost every time you go into OOB and is a nice melee crit bonus.  For your primary hand, the longer the delay the weapon the better (4 seconds is ideal, either Grinning Dirk of Horror from the Essence of Fear in Lyceum or Soulfire Rapier from SoD timeline).  Rallos Zek is an excellent Deity to have, and you can get very nice god abilities to use on those tough names that will also boost your DPS quite a bit. Final thing to remember, your DPS is highly reliant on your raidmates.  Make sure all Brigand's are calling out their dispatch's either in macro or on vent/teamspeak.  A dirge with CoB, an inquis with a DPS modifer, a Fury with Agitate, etc all boost your DPS quite a bit.  Usually, you should not have to worry about all that because your raid leader should know how to set it up, and because your groupmates should know who and how to apply their buffs.  Different people like different timing's on CoB, so let your dirge know you'd like it immediately after the assist call and then again as fast it comes up. 

[Hatr]

Yeah, that's the thing, unfortunately -- No brigand, no dirge, no fury, no warlock.... so we don't AE, everything gets mezzed and taken down 1 at a time so we can handle it.  We are only fielding x2's, so it's okay thus far, and obviously will change when we can field a x4... that will take a little more time, though  :] Subsequently I don't ever hit slaughtersault or cloaked assault, as their casting time is far too large to spend on a single mob. Otherwise it seems we're thinking along the same lines... I don't hit exacting pre-pull, although I'll try.  I throw puncture blade in on incoming since it will pop again by the time I hit my concealment combo, and get constriction and crippling strike in to debuff as much as possible as soon as possible.

[Vydar]

Cloaked Assault isn't too long of a casting time for the HUGE DoT it gives.  Use it anyway

[Catseyes]

due to the long recast of eviscerate , killing blade  and jugulate,  why not casting those as soon as possible to have them pop possibly again in the fight ?  I must admit  i havent parsed the AEs , is cloaked assault  that high dps ?

[Lariu]

Considering your weapons and no dirge/brigand your dps isn't too bad. One thing I noticed though, where's Enmesh? That should be one of the first things you use, and poison combination. If you use intoxication you can use poison combination immediately after the first hit. You'll see ticks on hemo go from say 450 to 700 or more.

My advice would be to aim for getting grinning dirk and the lucanic rapier. Having 2 4.0s delay weapons is a massive boost as you get to time your CA's between the swings so you don't lose melee dps.

2 groups is plenty for Lyceum (at least most of it) and the SoD updates in CMM.

[Hatr]

Actually I haven't been hitting enmesh... I'll start to toss it in right off the bat tonight.  I also upped my STR another 30pts or so (still working on the rest) and will use a STR potion. The reason I've been waiting on jugular and eviscerate is due to trying to maximize concealment, while not popped decap/killing blade right off the bat... in general I wait for the reinforcement call before hitting them. Although that does beg to question - given that I am in the MT group to pump aggro to our guard, should I ditch the ignorant bliss, go with turgurs/fettering, and pop bigger hits sooner to increase hate?  I seldomly pull aggro, but once the tank is down I'm typically either the next or immediately after that to get popped.

[Jayad]

I use IB in the MT group if I'm peeling a lot. Otherwise, turgur is a good option.

[whytakemine]

Vydar@Vox wrote:

First thing to know, your top 5 highest parsing abilities that should be used whenever and as fast as they come up.  Number 1, Cloaked Assault.  Number 2, Malignant Mark.  Number 3, Hemotoxin.  Number 4 and 5 depend on the assassin, for me it's auto attack Piercing (Dirk of Nightfall, haven't gotten a GDoH yet) followed by one of my many proc's. 

PVP is that different than PVE?  Piercing is by far my highest damage, usually followed by malignant mark, with hemo usually 3rd.  Cloaked is up there, but doesn't always even make the top 5 (depends on the zone).

[Norrsken]

whytakemine wrote:

Vydar@Vox wrote:

First thing to know, your top 5 highest parsing abilities that should be used whenever and as fast as they come up.  Number 1, Cloaked Assault.  Number 2, Malignant Mark.  Number 3, Hemotoxin.  Number 4 and 5 depend on the assassin, for me it's auto attack Piercing (Dirk of Nightfall, haven't gotten a GDoH yet) followed by one of my many proc's. 

PVP is that different than PVE?  Piercing is by far my highest damage, usually followed by malignant mark, with hemo usually 3rd.  Cloaked is up there, but doesn't always even make the top 5 (depends on the zone).

oh yeah, its that different. Players act in very unmoblike ways, such as try and take your advantages away from you, and as an assassin, my advantages can be fairly easily stripped. Mobs just wail on with autoattack and pop a skill every 6ish seconds.

[Hatr]

Well, I am now at 496 STR with RZ pet up. Last night we hit zones that didn't allow me to fully unload (jousting, etc.) however, I was able to maintain 1k dps without much effort.  When I was able to unload I was pushing 1400-1500. What I changed: Load up intoxication, on pull call hit exacting and slip away.  When they arrive, hit cloaked assault, followed by enmesh, poison combo, and opening blade.  From there load in all our DoTs, concealment combo, DoTs again as they pop, melee buffs followed by autoattack for a while, then refresh DoTs & backstabs as they pop. My parse came out to 29% pierce dmg, 14% cloaked assault, 11% hemotoxin, 11% agonizing pain, at as I mentioned around 1k dps. I must say I am surprised at how much dmg cloaked assault really does push out.  Unfortunately it's one of my few Ad3's, and I have yet to see the M1 for sale.

[Siclone]

You got some good advice, I would just add these comments   As far as Dirges go and CoB, you can’t always be in a group with a dirge, and if you are, you can’t tell him when to cast CoB or control that, or how he plays,  so don’t factor that in your strategy.   Also, as you said your in the MT group,, don’t put MD on the dirge, your there for hate  to the MT.     If you have RS…you can chain all your stealth abilities, though I don’t think one should use slaughter till the end and only if there are multiple mobs.  The cast time is to long.  I would use masked attack and puncture always together, so your chain should start with masked attack then puncture, they are on the same timer so then you know every time masked is up PB is up and you can give it the one two.      Sometimes and AE screws up your Chain, sometimes killing blade pops after you did your chain, and cloaked assault pops before concealment.   Some times your chain gets interrupted right away and you have a chain of abilities you cant get off cause you need to be stealth,,,for all these reasons I took getaway.  Instant stealth.  It allows me to get cloaked and killing blade in allot more without that casting time of surveillance, and when I have to I can use both getaway and surveillance to get attacks in.  besides what else is there to take? Front load….with hemotoxin?.. that does not make scenes.    It does not really matter how your hot bars are set up.  As long as you know where the ability is, and stay in a good pattern that’s all that matters on that topic.     I don’t recommend timing CA’s with auto attack.  We are not rangers, Auto attack hits during recovery time.  If you got damage CA’s up, hit them.   Make sure you have at least 23 self haste.   Many will go into great detail on gear.  You got what you got.  You can’t summon GDoH, if you don’t got it you don’t got it.  The good news is, gear is the least important when talking dps   Skill (which is basically timing positioning, hitting ca’s in the right order)----group set up----then way at the bottom gear.  You can do around 2k in just group gear in the right set up.   One topic I never once hear anyone talk about that effects dps allot, is the rate of speed the raid moves though a zone.  If your killing  a mob and run to the next encounter and kill, your Ca’s are going to be down…CA’s down your not doing dps.  I do the least dps in zones like labs, cause the raid sprints though it, and the mobs die so fast and my ca’s are always down   My point is…..you hear people talk about doing 2.3k ZW, ect,,,, just because you do 1.6 ZW in that same zone with a different raid, does not mean he has the ability to do more damage, each raid stands alone there are far to many factors.  Speed and timing of the raid to me being one of the biggest. 

[Bobbubski]

Siclone wrote:

My point is…..you hear people talk about doing 2.3k ZW, ect,,,, just because you do 1.6 ZW in that same zone with a different raid, does not mean he has the ability to do more damage, each raid stands alone there are far to many factors.  Speed and timing of the raid to me being one of the biggest. 

This is an excellent point.  Too many variables in a raid force.              .....The good news is, gear is the least important when talking dps... Although I would agree on the point of you have what you have, I have to disagree on gear upgrades being near the bottom of the list.  The reason being is I consistently parse over 20% of my dmg from  weapons.  This puts weapons as my biggest dmg dealing art.  I assume everyone would consider it silly not to upgraded cloaked assault or mark which are # 2 & 3 on parse respectively, so I would consider it just as silly not to try your hardest to upgrade weapons. This being said, you can still parse quite well w/ decent legendary weapons, but wouldn't we all want the GDoH or equally nice type fabled gear...  The more raids you attend the better your chance of winning one of these babies... I know i'm patiently waiting =) good post, siclone.

[Jayad]

Gear is important, but not as important as skill and all your masters. Don't kid yourselves, better weapons have a large effect on DPS, especially if you have good buffs. Auto-attack buffs are cumulative with better gear and other buffs. i.e. getting 2 great weapons, 900 str, 150 dps, 100 haste, and 25 % auto-attack is way better if you have all of those things than any individually because they re-inforce each other. Cloaked Assault is one of our best CAs, period. It's worth using on single mobs.