DPS Strategies - Some parsing results

Roxxanne · 09-20-2005, 02:48 AM

I did some parsing last night with Statalyzer to figure out some dps strategies with all the new spells. I am 48 Illusionist with Master 2 celerity and

prismatic strife, Adept 3 personae, construct, wither hope, lobotomize, scorching beam, aneurysm, and Adept 1 Intensity (waiting for next level to scribe

adept 3 Dynamism). Spent a couple hours in The Living Tomb, and parsed about 20 fights against the same mob--a level 51^^ heroic "a market enforcer." These

fights lasted about 1 min each. Group was guardian, templar, fury, ranger and myself, mostly level 50.

My own dps from dots, nukes, prismatic strife on the MT (my best source of damage) and intensity on myself was 130 to 185 dps. This will go up significantly when I upgrade from Intensity to Dynamism next level. The proc rate of Dynamism should be the same as Intensity, so this parse has some value in predicting what would happen with Dynamism.

Plus my construct did another 45 to 50 dps, during the time it was up. Did a lot more absolute damage when I got it up early in the fight, so this is good to prioritize.

Plus my personae, when used, did another 45 to 50 dps. This is without haste or intensity on the personae.

Plus my haste on the tank, which I could use with the personae up and intensity on myself, did about 15 dps I figure. The tank was doing about 3000 in

autoattack melee damage per 1 min fight, which would have been 2110 without my 42% haste, so the haste added around 890 damage per minute, or about 15 dps.

So overall I was getting about 235 to 300 dps, including direct and indirect, with the personae up, construct up, intensity on myself, and haste on the MT.

Earlier I was using haste on the ranger, but the parses show he was doing only 300 damage or so in autoattack damage per fight. Mostly he was chaining

combat arts. My haste was wasted on him.

Earlier I had Intensity on the fury, but was only getting 1 or 2 procs of dynamism (the proc of Intensity is also called dynamism) per fight. The parses

show that the fury was nuking, but only enough to get maybe 6 to 10 spell hits per fight. By comparison, I was layering on dots to max out Intensity, and

was getting 25 or 30 spell hits per fight. As expected with a 33% proc rate on Intensity, the Fury only got 1 or 2 procs per fight and I got 8 to 10 procs

per fight, for an average of 135 damage per proc.

The Personae was consistently getting in around 21 spell hits per one minute fight, off Gloom, Phantasmal Ray and Ego shock, plus about 14 successful melee

hits. This level of melee seems perfectly matched to using Prismatic Strife on the personae, so he will hit at least 3 times during the 15 sec duration. My

melee dps on the Personae was around 20 to 25 dps out of its 45 to 50 dps total, with maxxed crushing skill of 240 and a legendary cedar wand equipped at the time I summoned the personae. If I had used Intensity on the Personae, I would have expected around 7 procs of dynamism per minute fight.

In this group, it appears I was better off using the personae in group. I had no other nuker running up large numbers of spell hits per fight, to benefit

greatly from dynamism procs. I only had one melee using significant amounts of autoattack to benefit from my haste. So in this situation, the best setup

was to use the personae, dynamism on myself and either haste on the MT or dynamism on the personae. 7 procs/min x 135 damage = 945 damage per min estimated if I used dynamism on the personae, compared to 890 estimated autoattack boost on the MT from my haste. Pretty close call now, but after I get Dynamism that would be clearly better on the personae than using the 5th conc slot for hasting this MT. Haste on the Personae instead would have given about 0.42 times 20 to 25 dps, or roughly 10 dps, which is less than the 15 dps I got from hasting the MT.

Your mileage may vary.

Message Edited by Roxxanne on 09-19-2005 04:49 PM

Mirdo · 09-20-2005, 10:40 AM

Thanks for a well constructed post about your DPS experiences and some thoughts and numbers on the DPS strategies now available in a group situation.

It was an interesting read and has given me some food for thought. As you say, mileage may vary, but I think a few tweaks to my group buffing strategy based on your observations will bring some improvements to my regular XP grp.

I might even break out the parser and study my own situation more closely SMILEY

Mirdo.

Zebsen · 09-20-2005, 06:13 PM

Nice post, Blert. It's interesting to know how a personae does in a fight. If you don't have a lot of candidates for Dynamism/Intensity, it might be worthwhile keeping the personae up, especially in my case where I'm using Intensity and not dynamism. I always debate hasting my pet while soloing, but usually keep my self INT buff up instead. Based on this, I'm probably further ahead with my int buff - or intensity on both of us.

One thing I will add. I'm sure others have probably noted it, but if you cast your 30 second int buff and then cast Dynamism/Intensity, it increases the damage if your int isn't at the cap yet. I use an INT ring, equip my best int gear, and then cast my 30 second int buff before casting intensity. The effects do appear to last after swapping gear and the int buff wears off. It doesn't make a huge difference, but with unlimited duration, it doesn't take long to maximize your int for a long term gain.

Zebsen

Level 41 Illusionist

Level 52 Sage

Lavastorm

Roxxanne · 09-20-2005, 10:22 PM

Ok, another night of parsing a group exp grind. Group is 52 Swash, 49 ranger (same guy as above parse), 51 guardian (same guy), 50 templar (same guy), and myself. This time we are doing single pull level 57-58^^^ heroic giants "a Kromtorr Soldier" and "a Kromtorr Magi" in the Giant Fields area of Pillar of Flames. I have dinged 49 and scribed Adept 3 Dynamism, increasing the average proc from 135 to 235 or so.

This is a different scenario because we are a higher dps group and the fights typically last 30 secs, half the length of my first parse.

The feel is also different because these mobs are orange con, and the single healer needs some help from me in damage mitigation mode. The tank is often getting down around 25% health, so I am starting off with the long stifle, and hitting my long stun as that wears off, to help the healer. Also using my dismay type debuff to lower mobs melee output.

The shorter fights and need to help the healer hurt my own dps, as expected. I cant get the dots up early enough or let them run long enough to carry off the dps strategy of maximizing my own Dynamism damage. I am getting maybe 2 to 5 procs of Dynamism per fight. My dps from dots, nukes, prismatic strife on the MT and dynamism on self drops to 80 to 140 dps, typically. I made the mistake of worrying too much about dots and not enough about Giant Master Strike, which is huge in a 30 sec fight. One of the lessons for myself is to assess how long the fights are and dont get too focused on my own dynamism procs in short fights, especially if you are helping the healer. Focus on prismatic strife, construct, master strike, and a little scorching beam as time permits, in fast fights.

Good news is that the construct is still kicking [Removed for Content] on these high level mobs. Ranges from 40 to 60 dps while up, and I made an effort to keep it up longer. Make a priority out of getting the construct up early in fights, this is a long and potent dot, in effect.

I tried the Personae and he averaged 1000 to 1400 damage per 30 sec fight, 35 to 45 dps, without haste or dynamism on him. He can still hit these high level mobs. Personae got 10 to 12 spell hits per fight, proportional to last night. So Dynamism would yield 3 or 4 procs x 235 damage = 700 to 950 damage per fight if I used on Personae.

The 52 swash was doing 250 to 300 dps, typically 1000 damage from straight melee out of 8000 damage total. 49 ranger was also doing 350 to 300 dps, typically 600 damage from straight melee out of 8000 damage total. 51 guardian was doing 80 to 90 dps, typically 800 damage (with haste) out of 2500 damage total. If you do the math, a rough estimate is that my haste would have yielded about 250 additional straight melee damage from each of these three melee. So if I had to choose between haste x3 for est 750 damage per fight, or using my personae for 1000 to 1400 per fight, the personae wins.

I am not too excited about haste so far, because melee dont seem to get that much of their damage from autoattack. Part if this may be that I am there using Insight and Devitalizing Stare to keep power up, so they dont need to conserve. Also, in the 30 sec fights, folks dont need to conserve as much as in the 1 min fights. The same Guardian used a greater proportion of straight melee damage in the longer fights of last night.

In this particular group and situation, with the benefit of hindsight from parsing, I conclude the best setup was probably to have the Personae up and use Dynamism on myself and the Personae. Even at 4 procs per fight x 235 = 940 damage for dynamism on my distracted self, or 700 to 940 damage from dynamism on the Personae, this beats 250 damage from haste on one of the melee.

I am looking forward to testing Dynamism on some wizards and conjurers, to see how many spell hits they land in a typical fight. Even if I am distracted helping the healer, they wont be. It may be that dynamism on them is better than dynamism on myself, in situations where I need to help the healer.

What is cool about this whole thing is that there is a lot of room for "good chanters" to develop a sophisticated feel for what works best in a given situation. We have some flexible and fun tools, we just need to develop our chops for knowing how to use them.

Azamien-Dermorate · 09-21-2005, 05:37 PM

good stuff Blert, You seem to be reaching similar conclusions that I have in that Dynamism is a great buff to have up all the time. Its also good to remember that its chance to proc will go off on stuns/debuffs/roots/mezes ect. If you succesfully land a spell on a mob it can go off. So you can still garner some dps while doing these otherwise non damageing activities. (and it doesnt break mez either!)

Once you get to level 50 you will get Psychotic Spectrum which is like the short duration melee equalivent of Dynamism, with liberal use of PS your dps will take another huge jump up. (cast it on yourself or your persona if your soloing)

I rarely use my dots espcially on shorter fights it seems (unless no other spells are refreshed) because they just arent worth the hastle for the dps they output ... I still think that our dots, Wither Hope and Lobotomize, should recieve a 50% boost to thier damage and then I would say we were preaty close to be being balanced vs other mages

Neverborn · 09-21-2005, 07:19 PM

The only spell that really bothers me is lobotomize. The design just sort of sucks. I don't want to have to watch my spell bar to see if its terminated yet, and I hardly ever have fights that last long enough for it to terminate. Plus the damage is pitiful considering it doesnt have any other side effects.

Great info from the parses, keep um comin if you have time.

-Myrid

Message Edited by Neverborne2 on 09-21-2005 08:29 AM

SunT · 09-21-2005, 11:01 PM

Neverborne2 wrote:

The only spell that really bothers me is lobotomize. The design just sort of sucks. I don't want to have to watch my spell bar to see if its terminated yet, and I hardly ever have fights that last long enough for it to terminate. Plus the damage is pitiful considering it doesnt have any other side effects.

Great info from the parses, keep um comin if you have time.

-Myrid

Message Edited by Neverborne2 on 09-21-2005 08:29 AM

This drives me crazy. I am so used to recasting it as my primary source of DPS that I almost never get the pop at the end.

Impetus · 09-21-2005, 11:13 PM

One thing I've done is put it on a secondary hotbar instead of my primary. So now it takes a bit more thought and effort before I cast it, which means usually I remember not to click or alt-key it. And excellent posts, Blert. Much appreciated. (invisible 5 stars to you)

Message Edited by Impetus on 09-21-2005 03:14 PM

MillsFairchild · 09-22-2005, 12:23 AM

For anyone curious, here's some random parses from a few days ago. I chose these because they seemed to be pretty standard representations of what was going on at the time... The first three are me soloing with the pet. Click the link to see the parse. Fight 1 Notes: I didn't appear to have Dynamism on myself and I used DoTs. The encounter was a single blue ^. Total Damage: 7,130 Total Time: 00:24 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 297 Fight 2 Notes: No Dynamism on self. Used Wither Hope and missed with the Construct. The encounter was a single blue no-arrow mob. Total Damage: 5,263 Total Time: 00:24 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 219 Fight 3 Notes: Again, no Dynamism on self (don't ask). Used DoTs. The encounter was the same as Fight 2. Total Damage: 5,006 Total Time: 00:20 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 250 Fight 4 Notes: This was in a group fighting yellow Epic x2 encounters in the Clefts of Rujark. With all the temporary pets/aids, it's difficult to get actual DPS numbers. In my opinion, your best bet is to look at total damage outputs. I was not using the pet. Instead, I had Dynamism up on myself and the Conjuror, Celerity (Master II) on the Monk and a Paladin (Broadaxe), and Signet of Intuition. I was also performing crowd control during these fights, since they likely would have been unmanageable without it. Total Damage: 12,837 Total Time: 01:19 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 162 Total Damage from the rest of the group: Monk: 9,721 Paladin 1: 9,459 Conjuror and pet: 9,337 Paladin 2: 8,250 Take note that I outdamaged everyone in this fight. There's a few things to take away from these parses. 1. Prismatic Strife is our most damaging spell. I took the Master II of it and keep it up as often as I can. 2. Dynamism is an awesome source of 'free' DPS... put it on your mages. 3. Scorching Beam is next on the list for sources of DPS. It's actually not too bad if you feel like chain casting it. SMILEY

4. Both of our DoTs together put out around 35 DPS. Booooo.

Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-22-2005 08:12 AM

Roxxanne · 09-22-2005, 07:24 AM

Nice parses Faylen. Looking at Fight 4, it is interesting that you got 12 Dynamism procs off the dynamism on yourself, while the Conjuror only got 5 dynamism procs. This is the flip side of using our kinda weak DOTS, you get a lot of spell hits to proc dynamism even when you are pretty busy with crowd control. The Conjuror got 21 spell hits in a fight over a minute long, a little less than what I saw from the Personae, in terms of who best to get Dynamism.

Other interesting thing is your Paladin did so much slashing damage as a percentage of his total, indicating haste not such a bad choice for him.

Message Edited by Roxxanne on 09-21-2005 08:24 PM

zit · 09-22-2005, 05:16 PM

MillsFairchild wrote:

Total Damage: 12,837
Total Time: 01:19
---------------------------
Overall DPS: 162

Total Damage from the rest of the group:

Monk: 9,721
Paladin 1: 9,459
Conjuror and pet: 9,337
Paladin 2: 8,250

Take note that I outdamaged everyone in this fight.

Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-21-2005 04:23 PM

Some notes here:

i am surprised the conjuror parses that low. the groups with summoners i have been in, the pet alone usually does more dps than your conjuror + pet combined. conjuror themselves report they doing 300-500 dps now consistantly. sorcerer report the same and are very [Removed for Content] cause conjuror beat them in over all dps, although summoner were said to be one tier lower in the damage pyramid. my guess is that the conjuror in your parse had still serious troubles with figuring out what spells to use after combat change.

my monk with average gear and nothing above adept 1 is doing considerably more damage at lvl 44 now than the lvl 51 monk in your parse. my guess is that the monk was tanking ?

i have not grouped with paladins yet so cannot comment on them. for their counterparts the shadowknights i get results of average dps while tanking ~110. When in offense mode 200+ dps.

the reason why i wanted to mention this is, cause i dont think this one fight is very representative.

but from my experience its very hard to get representative results in general. the variables differ too much. a warlock can get outdamaged by half the group if they only fighting single mobs, but will stay unbeaten against group encounter. a brigand can do 500+ if his high damage arts are all up and hit for full. the next fight he may hardly break 200 dps though and the illusionist will be higher.

what my parsing shows till now is that all mage and all scout classes (hadnt the chance to group with a bard yet) are doing more damage in average than my illusionist - if they are not lazy. if they are, i can tell them... haha you just got outdamaged by a chanter :smileytongue: which makes them try harder the next fight.

Darmash · 09-22-2005, 06:03 PM

Where did you get EQ II Companion ? the link on itself goes to the old EQ Companion site, with no news about the EQ2 version. The EQ1 version was my favorite at this time.

MillsFairchild · 09-22-2005, 06:48 PM

Well... like I said, we were fighting Epic x2 encounters. I'm sure a lot of discrepency is due to the overall difficulty of the encounter and the fact that we didn't want to blow through power. I agree that this fight isn't particularly representitive of the overall game... but it was representitive of the particular situation we were in. In another scenario, things would be different. Which is why parses such as these are generally useless for looking at the big picture.

MillsFairchild · 09-22-2005, 06:49 PM

Darmash wrote:Where did you get EQ II Companion ? the link on itself goes to the old EQ Companion site, with no news about the EQ2 version. The EQ1 version was my favorite at this time.

Just download the latest version of EQ companion. When you open it, you can set it to EQ2 mode in one of the drop down menus.

Kazora · 09-23-2005, 03:15 PM

at lvl 56 with a troubadour in group i averaged over 420 dps over 2 hours of parsing at groupx2s in rujark. This is direct dps only, it does not include dmg from haste or dynamism on other groupmembers or anything like that. Nearly 180,000 of the damage was from aria's. Aria's just adds an incredible amount of dmg, i was spamming every ae i had even if it did no dmg (including low lvl ae mez's etc) because i could easily proc 500+ dmg per mob from an aria's proc, along with my 300ish from dynamism. I could have easily churned out higher dps in fact but was held back by aggro a few times.

Message Edited by rozakk on 09-23-2005 04:16 AM

Message Edited by rozakk on 09-23-2005 04:18 AM

MillsFairchild · 09-23-2005, 07:43 PM

After some more experimentation, I've found my quickest (so far) combination for taking down single blue -> yellow mobs. It's by no means the most mana efficient, but it does consistently produce the highest DPS that I've been able to put out. The fights vary ever so slightly, but the concept is the same. The listed spells were chain casted, with the next one in que as soon as one finishes casting. Dynamism is up on myself and the pet. DPS was figured by dividing Total Damage output (me + pet + construct) by the Length of the fight. 361 DPS - 15 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Terrifying Visions to root 4. Color Shower 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam 313 DPS - 17 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Terrifying Visions to root 4. Color Shower 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam 9. Scorching Beam 328 DPS - 13 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Color Shower 4. Terrifying Visions to root 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam

Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-23-2005 01:58 PM

zit · 09-24-2005, 12:53 AM

so we can reach a "burst dps" of 350 dps, dishing out ~5k damage within 15 seconds.

and casting 9 spells.

dunno if i should laugh or cry.

MillsFairchild · 09-24-2005, 02:07 AM

I'm not sure what you should do either. But I know that I consider 350 pretty respectable considering the other powers we have. A good ranger can put out 450-550 'burst' DPS against a single mob... and their entire focus is damage. Fighters usually sit between 100-250 (depending on class).

Padi · 09-24-2005, 04:26 AM

Anyways, we can burst for at least 500 on AE fights SMILEY

Message Edited by Padien on 09-23-2005 10:52 PM

MillsFairchild · 09-25-2005, 11:36 AM

Tonight, I used the same techniques I presented above in a group fighting yellow ^^^ mobs in the Hidden Cache with great effectiveness. I consistently put out between 350-380 DPS with some fights as high as 475 DPS (yes, against a single mob). I was matching damage with the Ranger in our group (who for the record can push 500+ DPS when he's trying), but I was using more power to do it. No issue there though - the regen was enough to allow me to keep it up with constant pulls. I attribute the higher grouped results (compared to my solo parses) to not having to waste time rooting and the fights being longer. Now... how anyone can still think our DPS is aweful is beyond me.

Dystr · 09-25-2005, 08:39 PM

wow you guys are doing great! vs. heroic mobs i am lucky to put out 200-250 DPS consistently, including indirect dps, but i am HAPPY!! cant wait to parse epic encounters because some of our biggest damage potential spells are virtually useless on heroics. over all, i am pleased with my damage, and really psyched for yours!

Padi · 09-26-2005, 09:37 AM

Dystrax wrote:
wow you guys are doing great! vs. heroic mobs i am lucky to put out 200-250 DPS consistently, including indirect dps, but i am HAPPY!! cant wait to parse epic encounters because some of our biggest damage potential spells are virtually useless on heroics.

over all, i am pleased with my damage, and really psyched for yours!

Just so you don't feel bad. Those high numbers are on fights with no regard to power and adding up procs and pets. Not counting anything but what combatstats would show, your numbers are closer to what most will see on a single mob fight.

Where our numbers get insane are on AE fights with the right tank. In AE fights in general, our DPS is quite good at 50+ (color shower is good DPS and the stifle that goes with it is awesome).

Message Edited by Padien on 09-25-2005 10:38 PM

Tanatus · 11-03-2005, 05:32 AM

Dude I hate to brake it but good ranger do 700DPS while sleeping pressing 1 buttom and spending zero power while doing it... skill called Storm of Arrows

Padi · 11-03-2005, 01:06 PM

Tanatus wrote:
Dude I hate to brake it but good ranger do 700DPS while sleeping pressing 1 buttom and spending zero power while doing it... skill called Storm of Arrows

Enchanters aren't supposed to compete against the rangers. It's also not good to rate your value based off of a comparison with a single class.

Besides, put me in a group with a bruiser, and I'm competing for top spot on quite a few raids.

09-20-2005, 02:48 AM	#1
Roxxanne Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 38	I did some parsing last night with Statalyzer to figure out some dps strategies with all the new spells. I am 48 Illusionist with Master 2 celerity and prismatic strife, Adept 3 personae, construct, wither hope, lobotomize, scorching beam, aneurysm, and Adept 1 Intensity (waiting for next level to scribe adept 3 Dynamism). Spent a couple hours in The Living Tomb, and parsed about 20 fights against the same mob--a level 51^^ heroic "a market enforcer." These fights lasted about 1 min each. Group was guardian, templar, fury, ranger and myself, mostly level 50. My own dps from dots, nukes, prismatic strife on the MT (my best source of damage) and intensity on myself was 130 to 185 dps. This will go up significantly when I upgrade from Intensity to Dynamism next level. The proc rate of Dynamism should be the same as Intensity, so this parse has some value in predicting what would happen with Dynamism. Plus my construct did another 45 to 50 dps, during the time it was up. Did a lot more absolute damage when I got it up early in the fight, so this is good to prioritize. Plus my personae, when used, did another 45 to 50 dps. This is without haste or intensity on the personae. Plus my haste on the tank, which I could use with the personae up and intensity on myself, did about 15 dps I figure. The tank was doing about 3000 in autoattack melee damage per 1 min fight, which would have been 2110 without my 42% haste, so the haste added around 890 damage per minute, or about 15 dps. So overall I was getting about 235 to 300 dps, including direct and indirect, with the personae up, construct up, intensity on myself, and haste on the MT. Earlier I was using haste on the ranger, but the parses show he was doing only 300 damage or so in autoattack damage per fight. Mostly he was chaining combat arts. My haste was wasted on him. Earlier I had Intensity on the fury, but was only getting 1 or 2 procs of dynamism (the proc of Intensity is also called dynamism) per fight. The parses show that the fury was nuking, but only enough to get maybe 6 to 10 spell hits per fight. By comparison, I was layering on dots to max out Intensity, and was getting 25 or 30 spell hits per fight. As expected with a 33% proc rate on Intensity, the Fury only got 1 or 2 procs per fight and I got 8 to 10 procs per fight, for an average of 135 damage per proc. The Personae was consistently getting in around 21 spell hits per one minute fight, off Gloom, Phantasmal Ray and Ego shock, plus about 14 successful melee hits. This level of melee seems perfectly matched to using Prismatic Strife on the personae, so he will hit at least 3 times during the 15 sec duration. My melee dps on the Personae was around 20 to 25 dps out of its 45 to 50 dps total, with maxxed crushing skill of 240 and a legendary cedar wand equipped at the time I summoned the personae. If I had used Intensity on the Personae, I would have expected around 7 procs of dynamism per minute fight. In this group, it appears I was better off using the personae in group. I had no other nuker running up large numbers of spell hits per fight, to benefit greatly from dynamism procs. I only had one melee using significant amounts of autoattack to benefit from my haste. So in this situation, the best setup was to use the personae, dynamism on myself and either haste on the MT or dynamism on the personae. 7 procs/min x 135 damage = 945 damage per min estimated if I used dynamism on the personae, compared to 890 estimated autoattack boost on the MT from my haste. Pretty close call now, but after I get Dynamism that would be clearly better on the personae than using the 5th conc slot for hasting this MT. Haste on the Personae instead would have given about 0.42 times 20 to 25 dps, or roughly 10 dps, which is less than the 15 dps I got from hasting the MT. Your mileage may vary. Message Edited by Roxxanne on 09-19-2005 04:49 PM __________________ Blert - 58 Illusionist / 60 Sage -- Nektulos Zing - 25 Assassin / 29 Jeweler -- Venekor

09-20-2005, 10:40 AM	#2
Mirdo Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: UK Posts: 395	Thanks for a well constructed post about your DPS experiences and some thoughts and numbers on the DPS strategies now available in a group situation. It was an interesting read and has given me some food for thought. As you say, mileage may vary, but I think a few tweaks to my group buffing strategy based on your observations will bring some improvements to my regular XP grp. I might even break out the parser and study my own situation more closely Mirdo.

09-20-2005, 10:22 PM	#4
Roxxanne Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 38	Ok, another night of parsing a group exp grind. Group is 52 Swash, 49 ranger (same guy as above parse), 51 guardian (same guy), 50 templar (same guy), and myself. This time we are doing single pull level 57-58^^^ heroic giants "a Kromtorr Soldier" and "a Kromtorr Magi" in the Giant Fields area of Pillar of Flames. I have dinged 49 and scribed Adept 3 Dynamism, increasing the average proc from 135 to 235 or so. This is a different scenario because we are a higher dps group and the fights typically last 30 secs, half the length of my first parse. The feel is also different because these mobs are orange con, and the single healer needs some help from me in damage mitigation mode. The tank is often getting down around 25% health, so I am starting off with the long stifle, and hitting my long stun as that wears off, to help the healer. Also using my dismay type debuff to lower mobs melee output. The shorter fights and need to help the healer hurt my own dps, as expected. I cant get the dots up early enough or let them run long enough to carry off the dps strategy of maximizing my own Dynamism damage. I am getting maybe 2 to 5 procs of Dynamism per fight. My dps from dots, nukes, prismatic strife on the MT and dynamism on self drops to 80 to 140 dps, typically. I made the mistake of worrying too much about dots and not enough about Giant Master Strike, which is huge in a 30 sec fight. One of the lessons for myself is to assess how long the fights are and dont get too focused on my own dynamism procs in short fights, especially if you are helping the healer. Focus on prismatic strife, construct, master strike, and a little scorching beam as time permits, in fast fights. Good news is that the construct is still kicking [Removed for Content] on these high level mobs. Ranges from 40 to 60 dps while up, and I made an effort to keep it up longer. Make a priority out of getting the construct up early in fights, this is a long and potent dot, in effect. I tried the Personae and he averaged 1000 to 1400 damage per 30 sec fight, 35 to 45 dps, without haste or dynamism on him. He can still hit these high level mobs. Personae got 10 to 12 spell hits per fight, proportional to last night. So Dynamism would yield 3 or 4 procs x 235 damage = 700 to 950 damage per fight if I used on Personae. The 52 swash was doing 250 to 300 dps, typically 1000 damage from straight melee out of 8000 damage total. 49 ranger was also doing 350 to 300 dps, typically 600 damage from straight melee out of 8000 damage total. 51 guardian was doing 80 to 90 dps, typically 800 damage (with haste) out of 2500 damage total. If you do the math, a rough estimate is that my haste would have yielded about 250 additional straight melee damage from each of these three melee. So if I had to choose between haste x3 for est 750 damage per fight, or using my personae for 1000 to 1400 per fight, the personae wins. I am not too excited about haste so far, because melee dont seem to get that much of their damage from autoattack. Part if this may be that I am there using Insight and Devitalizing Stare to keep power up, so they dont need to conserve. Also, in the 30 sec fights, folks dont need to conserve as much as in the 1 min fights. The same Guardian used a greater proportion of straight melee damage in the longer fights of last night. In this particular group and situation, with the benefit of hindsight from parsing, I conclude the best setup was probably to have the Personae up and use Dynamism on myself and the Personae. Even at 4 procs per fight x 235 = 940 damage for dynamism on my distracted self, or 700 to 940 damage from dynamism on the Personae, this beats 250 damage from haste on one of the melee. I am looking forward to testing Dynamism on some wizards and conjurers, to see how many spell hits they land in a typical fight. Even if I am distracted helping the healer, they wont be. It may be that dynamism on them is better than dynamism on myself, in situations where I need to help the healer. What is cool about this whole thing is that there is a lot of room for "good chanters" to develop a sophisticated feel for what works best in a given situation. We have some flexible and fun tools, we just need to develop our chops for knowing how to use them. __________________ Blert - 58 Illusionist / 60 Sage -- Nektulos Zing - 25 Assassin / 29 Jeweler -- Venekor

09-21-2005, 05:37 PM	#5
Azamien-Dermorate Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 276	good stuff Blert, You seem to be reaching similar conclusions that I have in that Dynamism is a great buff to have up all the time. Its also good to remember that its chance to proc will go off on stuns/debuffs/roots/mezes ect. If you succesfully land a spell on a mob it can go off. So you can still garner some dps while doing these otherwise non damageing activities. (and it doesnt break mez either!) Once you get to level 50 you will get Psychotic Spectrum which is like the short duration melee equalivent of Dynamism, with liberal use of PS your dps will take another huge jump up. (cast it on yourself or your persona if your soloing) I rarely use my dots espcially on shorter fights it seems (unless no other spells are refreshed) because they just arent worth the hastle for the dps they output ... I still think that our dots, Wither Hope and Lobotomize, should recieve a 50% boost to thier damage and then I would say we were preaty close to be being balanced vs other mages __________________

09-21-2005, 11:01 PM	#7
SunT Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 821	Neverborne2 wrote: The only spell that really bothers me is lobotomize. The design just sort of sucks. I don't want to have to watch my spell bar to see if its terminated yet, and I hardly ever have fights that last long enough for it to terminate. Plus the damage is pitiful considering it doesnt have any other side effects. Great info from the parses, keep um comin if you have time. -Myrid Message Edited by Neverborne2 on 09-21-2005 08:29 AM This drives me crazy. I am so used to recasting it as my primary source of DPS that I almost never get the pop at the end. __________________ Retired Roamin Nome, 70 Illusionist/60Jeweler Crack Bot, Nektulos Argyll, 60 Paladin / Heresy, 62 Defiler

09-20-2005, 06:13 PM	#3
Zebsen Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 185	Nice post, Blert. It's interesting to know how a personae does in a fight. If you don't have a lot of candidates for Dynamism/Intensity, it might be worthwhile keeping the personae up, especially in my case where I'm using Intensity and not dynamism. I always debate hasting my pet while soloing, but usually keep my self INT buff up instead. Based on this, I'm probably further ahead with my int buff - or intensity on both of us. One thing I will add. I'm sure others have probably noted it, but if you cast your 30 second int buff and then cast Dynamism/Intensity, it increases the damage if your int isn't at the cap yet. I use an INT ring, equip my best int gear, and then cast my 30 second int buff before casting intensity. The effects do appear to last after swapping gear and the int buff wears off. It doesn't make a huge difference, but with unlimited duration, it doesn't take long to maximize your int for a long term gain. Zebsen Level 41 Illusionist Level 52 Sage Lavastorm

09-21-2005, 07:19 PM	#6
Neverborn General Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 117	The only spell that really bothers me is lobotomize. The design just sort of sucks. I don't want to have to watch my spell bar to see if its terminated yet, and I hardly ever have fights that last long enough for it to terminate. Plus the damage is pitiful considering it doesnt have any other side effects. Great info from the parses, keep um comin if you have time. -Myrid Message Edited by Neverborne2 on 09-21-2005 08:29 AM

09-21-2005, 11:13 PM	#8
Impetus Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 340	One thing I've done is put it on a secondary hotbar instead of my primary. So now it takes a bit more thought and effort before I cast it, which means usually I remember not to click or alt-key it. And excellent posts, Blert. Much appreciated. (invisible 5 stars to you) Message Edited by Impetus on 09-21-2005 03:14 PM __________________ ------------------------------------------------------ Aylowan, 70 Illusionist, Blackburrow

09-22-2005, 12:23 AM	#9
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	For anyone curious, here's some random parses from a few days ago. I chose these because they seemed to be pretty standard representations of what was going on at the time... The first three are me soloing with the pet. Click the link to see the parse. Fight 1 Notes: I didn't appear to have Dynamism on myself and I used DoTs. The encounter was a single blue ^. Total Damage: 7,130 Total Time: 00:24 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 297 Fight 2 Notes: No Dynamism on self. Used Wither Hope and missed with the Construct. The encounter was a single blue no-arrow mob. Total Damage: 5,263 Total Time: 00:24 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 219 Fight 3 Notes: Again, no Dynamism on self (don't ask). Used DoTs. The encounter was the same as Fight 2. Total Damage: 5,006 Total Time: 00:20 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 250 Fight 4 Notes: This was in a group fighting yellow Epic x2 encounters in the Clefts of Rujark. With all the temporary pets/aids, it's difficult to get actual DPS numbers. In my opinion, your best bet is to look at total damage outputs. I was not using the pet. Instead, I had Dynamism up on myself and the Conjuror, Celerity (Master II) on the Monk and a Paladin (Broadaxe), and Signet of Intuition. I was also performing crowd control during these fights, since they likely would have been unmanageable without it. Total Damage: 12,837 Total Time: 01:19 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 162 Total Damage from the rest of the group: Monk: 9,721 Paladin 1: 9,459 Conjuror and pet: 9,337 Paladin 2: 8,250 Take note that I outdamaged everyone in this fight. There's a few things to take away from these parses. 1. Prismatic Strife is our most damaging spell. I took the Master II of it and keep it up as often as I can. 2. Dynamism is an awesome source of 'free' DPS... put it on your mages. 3. Scorching Beam is next on the list for sources of DPS. It's actually not too bad if you feel like chain casting it. 4. Both of our DoTs together put out around 35 DPS. Booooo. Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-22-2005 08:12 AM __________________

09-22-2005, 07:24 AM	#10
Roxxanne Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 38	Nice parses Faylen. Looking at Fight 4, it is interesting that you got 12 Dynamism procs off the dynamism on yourself, while the Conjuror only got 5 dynamism procs. This is the flip side of using our kinda weak DOTS, you get a lot of spell hits to proc dynamism even when you are pretty busy with crowd control. The Conjuror got 21 spell hits in a fight over a minute long, a little less than what I saw from the Personae, in terms of who best to get Dynamism. Other interesting thing is your Paladin did so much slashing damage as a percentage of his total, indicating haste not such a bad choice for him. Message Edited by Roxxanne on 09-21-2005 08:24 PM __________________ Blert - 58 Illusionist / 60 Sage -- Nektulos Zing - 25 Assassin / 29 Jeweler -- Venekor

09-22-2005, 05:16 PM	#11
zit General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 573	MillsFairchild wrote: Total Damage: 12,837 Total Time: 01:19 --------------------------- Overall DPS: 162 Total Damage from the rest of the group: Monk: 9,721 Paladin 1: 9,459 Conjuror and pet: 9,337 Paladin 2: 8,250 Take note that I outdamaged everyone in this fight. Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-21-2005 04:23 PM Some notes here: i am surprised the conjuror parses that low. the groups with summoners i have been in, the pet alone usually does more dps than your conjuror + pet combined. conjuror themselves report they doing 300-500 dps now consistantly. sorcerer report the same and are very [Removed for Content] cause conjuror beat them in over all dps, although summoner were said to be one tier lower in the damage pyramid. my guess is that the conjuror in your parse had still serious troubles with figuring out what spells to use after combat change. my monk with average gear and nothing above adept 1 is doing considerably more damage at lvl 44 now than the lvl 51 monk in your parse. my guess is that the monk was tanking ? i have not grouped with paladins yet so cannot comment on them. for their counterparts the shadowknights i get results of average dps while tanking ~110. When in offense mode 200+ dps. the reason why i wanted to mention this is, cause i dont think this one fight is very representative. but from my experience its very hard to get representative results in general. the variables differ too much. a warlock can get outdamaged by half the group if they only fighting single mobs, but will stay unbeaten against group encounter. a brigand can do 500+ if his high damage arts are all up and hit for full. the next fight he may hardly break 200 dps though and the illusionist will be higher. what my parsing shows till now is that all mage and all scout classes (hadnt the chance to group with a bard yet) are doing more damage in average than my illusionist - if they are not lazy. if they are, i can tell them... haha you just got outdamaged by a chanter :smileytongue: which makes them try harder the next fight.

09-22-2005, 06:03 PM	#12
Darmash Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 138	Where did you get EQ II Companion ? the link on itself goes to the old EQ Companion site, with no news about the EQ2 version. The EQ1 version was my favorite at this time.

09-22-2005, 06:48 PM	#13
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	Well... like I said, we were fighting Epic x2 encounters. I'm sure a lot of discrepency is due to the overall difficulty of the encounter and the fact that we didn't want to blow through power. I agree that this fight isn't particularly representitive of the overall game... but it was representitive of the particular situation we were in. In another scenario, things would be different. Which is why parses such as these are generally useless for looking at the big picture. __________________

09-22-2005, 06:49 PM	#14
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	Darmash wrote:Where did you get EQ II Companion ? the link on itself goes to the old EQ Companion site, with no news about the EQ2 version. The EQ1 version was my favorite at this time. Just download the latest version of EQ companion. When you open it, you can set it to EQ2 mode in one of the drop down menus. __________________

09-23-2005, 03:15 PM	#15
Kazora Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: South Florida Posts: 174	at lvl 56 with a troubadour in group i averaged over 420 dps over 2 hours of parsing at groupx2s in rujark. This is direct dps only, it does not include dmg from haste or dynamism on other groupmembers or anything like that. Nearly 180,000 of the damage was from aria's. Aria's just adds an incredible amount of dmg, i was spamming every ae i had even if it did no dmg (including low lvl ae mez's etc) because i could easily proc 500+ dmg per mob from an aria's proc, along with my 300ish from dynamism. I could have easily churned out higher dps in fact but was held back by aggro a few times. Message Edited by rozakk on 09-23-2005 04:16 AM Message Edited by rozakk on 09-23-2005 04:18 AM __________________

09-23-2005, 07:43 PM	#16
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	After some more experimentation, I've found my quickest (so far) combination for taking down single blue -> yellow mobs. It's by no means the most mana efficient, but it does consistently produce the highest DPS that I've been able to put out. The fights vary ever so slightly, but the concept is the same. The listed spells were chain casted, with the next one in que as soon as one finishes casting. Dynamism is up on myself and the pet. DPS was figured by dividing Total Damage output (me + pet + construct) by the Length of the fight. 361 DPS - 15 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Terrifying Visions to root 4. Color Shower 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam 313 DPS - 17 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Terrifying Visions to root 4. Color Shower 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam 9. Scorching Beam 328 DPS - 13 seconds Link to the parse 1. Sent in pet 2. Prismatic Strife on him while he's running 3. Color Shower 4. Terrifying Visions to root 5. Construct of Logic 6. Scorching Beam 7. Aneurysm 8. Scorching Beam Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 09-23-2005 01:58 PM __________________

09-24-2005, 12:53 AM	#17
zit General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 573	so we can reach a "burst dps" of 350 dps, dishing out ~5k damage within 15 seconds. and casting 9 spells. dunno if i should laugh or cry.

09-24-2005, 02:07 AM	#18
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	I'm not sure what you should do either. But I know that I consider 350 pretty respectable considering the other powers we have. A good ranger can put out 450-550 'burst' DPS against a single mob... and their entire focus is damage. Fighters usually sit between 100-250 (depending on class). __________________

09-24-2005, 04:26 AM	#19
Padi Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 392	Anyways, we can burst for at least 500 on AE fights Message Edited by Padien on 09-23-2005 10:52 PM

09-25-2005, 11:36 AM	#20
MillsFairchild Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 381	Tonight, I used the same techniques I presented above in a group fighting yellow ^^^ mobs in the Hidden Cache with great effectiveness. I consistently put out between 350-380 DPS with some fights as high as 475 DPS (yes, against a single mob). I was matching damage with the Ranger in our group (who for the record can push 500+ DPS when he's trying), but I was using more power to do it. No issue there though - the regen was enough to allow me to keep it up with constant pulls. I attribute the higher grouped results (compared to my solo parses) to not having to waste time rooting and the fights being longer. Now... how anyone can still think our DPS is aweful is beyond me. __________________

09-25-2005, 08:39 PM	#21
Dystr General Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 339	wow you guys are doing great! vs. heroic mobs i am lucky to put out 200-250 DPS consistently, including indirect dps, but i am HAPPY!! cant wait to parse epic encounters because some of our biggest damage potential spells are virtually useless on heroics. over all, i am pleased with my damage, and really psyched for yours! __________________ ------------------------------------------- "The poison of which weaker natures perish strengthens the strong -- nor do they call it poison." --Nietzsche Dystrax Dysenchanted - 60 Coercer The Tribunal - Butcherblock Could I have a more appropriate last name?

09-26-2005, 09:37 AM	#22
Padi Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 392	Dystrax wrote: wow you guys are doing great! vs. heroic mobs i am lucky to put out 200-250 DPS consistently, including indirect dps, but i am HAPPY!! cant wait to parse epic encounters because some of our biggest damage potential spells are virtually useless on heroics. over all, i am pleased with my damage, and really psyched for yours! Just so you don't feel bad. Those high numbers are on fights with no regard to power and adding up procs and pets. Not counting anything but what combatstats would show, your numbers are closer to what most will see on a single mob fight. Where our numbers get insane are on AE fights with the right tank. In AE fights in general, our DPS is quite good at 50+ (color shower is good DPS and the stifle that goes with it is awesome). Message Edited by Padien on 09-25-2005 10:38 PM

11-03-2005, 05:32 AM	#23
Tanatus Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 2,003	Dude I hate to brake it but good ranger do 700DPS while sleeping pressing 1 buttom and spending zero power while doing it... skill called Storm of Arrows

11-03-2005, 01:06 PM	#24
Padi Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 392	Tanatus wrote: Dude I hate to brake it but good ranger do 700DPS while sleeping pressing 1 buttom and spending zero power while doing it... skill called Storm of Arrows Enchanters aren't supposed to compete against the rangers. It's also not good to rate your value based off of a comparison with a single class. Besides, put me in a group with a bruiser, and I'm competing for top spot on quite a few raids.