Raid DPS - How can we fix it?

[Voragath]

My idea for the MS line pet was basically as a raid only pet and very situational at that. They can create the pet to ignore focus which should be pretty easy since they only have to make one version of it and duplicate if they even need to do that.

The focus just tells the spell to summon a different template. No need for it to ignore focus, just don't make more than one template or just don't make the spell be effected by focus lol

[Piemastaj]

Nahs, you just described the exact thing burst is. The amount of DMG you can to do a mob in a short amount of time, when mana means nothing. Sustained is taking a 2 hour group experience and seeing how much DPS you can hold for it. The known deffinition of Sustained DPS/DMG is the amount of DMG/DPS you can do in a large amount of time. I believe you have those 2 things messed up in your head, and in grouping mobs normally last 15 to 30 seconds.

Adding raw nuke DMG effects burst a lot more then sustained because when this gets added they add in more mana per cast aswell which hurts our sustained more then it hurts our burst.

[svenalo]

Yep - simple mathematics there. Mana is not the limiting factor, usually, in a burst scenario which lasts roughly one to two minutes max. Raw damage (more dmg = higher output ) and cast times effect burst (shorter cast = more casts = higher output).

In addition to some kind of damage booster what WOULD help burst would be an AA that significantly reduced our cast times for 2 minutes. If such an AA allowed us to cast 4 or 5 extra spells per minute during that period that might push our burst a significant amount... Because you likely are twincasting on burst (spell followed by aa should make it last most of a burst fight duration), lets say you get one extra round of your weave. That would be, with some luck, say 300k extra damage in the 50sec we take for the SS3 fight, or 6k DPS.

[nahseev]

My idea for the MS line pet was basically as a raid only pet and very situational at that. They can create the pet to ignore focus which should be pretty easy since they only have to make one version of it and duplicate if they even need to do that.

The focus just tells the spell to summon a different template. No need for it to ignore focus, just don't make more than one template or just don't make the spell be effected by focus lol

Yes. That's exactly what I said in the line you quoted if you read it. Ignore the focus or duplicate the pet and use the same pet across all focuses if you can't ignore it.


http://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/viewt ... 130#p18409

You all need to stop working against the developers and try to figure this out working with them. Burst is something you can only do for a short period of time and not very often, everything else falls under sustained. Improved nukes or shorter casts falls under sustained because you can do it time after time as long as you have mana. In events you need burst but it's not always about burning down bosses. It's shouldn't be about competing on parses but winning events and sometimes you just need to burst so you don't fall behind on adds or to catch up when balancing or for various other reasons. Unless you only group with guild members or those players raiding T4 as well group mobs do not last 15-30 seconds, try more like 1-2min. Maybe group with those people shouting lfg sometime and you'll realize this.

Adding a proc on to spells or melee (I still prefer the later) gives you extra hits without affecting the weave at all and it's a lot more controllable from the developers side vs a % based modifier. It adds those extra casts that keeps getting brought up without having to actually cast it. I'm all for adding extra casts but not by reducing the cast time of normal spells because like I said that increases sustained as well. If you want it to affect mana as well so you can burn your mana down and look like you gave it your all I'm sure they could add some mana drain recourse when you activate the procs too. I'm not married to my ideas and am all for others coming up with new and better ones but some people insist on trying to fight for the same kind of upgrades that we haven't gotten because they don't want to give it to us.

The other problem I've been noticing is a lot of players, not only mages, are complaining about dps only according to current design. This tells me there is actually another route that developers should consider when addressing all these issues and that is the design mechanics of the actual events. There shouldn't be any optimal raid setup for any event. I really wish more dynamic mechanics would get implemented to prevent guilds from only attempting certain events with the "right" setup. Random hp locks should occur at various intervals to prevent burns and bypassing mechanics. Other mobs could have locks on how much dmg they take per second with high regen so that cap is maintained and necros can stop crying about becoming useless. Stop making so much stunnable or mezzable adds so you'll need offtanks and dps on adds. Make certain mobs charmable and necessary on events so chanters can do something else beside crowd control like babysitting npc's. Dps is going to continually improve and all the issues about dps now aren't going to be or theoretically shouldn't be problems for guilds not fighting current content. There are a lot of different things that could be done to work around dps issues if devs want and maybe that is the solution instead of actually doing quick fixes for current content. When we test beta maybe instead of asking for this or that to adjust to current design maybe we should be giving more suggestions for the design of the game instead. Just another way to look at this.

[svenalo]

Shorter casts as triggered by an AA for a limited period of 2 min or less DOES NOT fall under sustained. It is limited to the duration of a burst event. If an event is a sustained fight, then that extra 6k or whatever DPS in the first 2 min is going to get frittered away by the end of the event and barely register as an increase. Again simple mathematics.

HP locks and the like are a pain in the butt when you come with so much more DPS than the event "needs" that you sit around wiating for an eternity for the event to go to the next part. They make things boring and not fun.

[Voragath]

http://www.eqmagetower.com/forums/viewt ... 130#p18409

You all need to stop working against the developers and try to figure this out working with them. Burst is something you can only do for a short period of time and not very often, everything else falls under sustained. Improved nukes or shorter casts falls under sustained because you can do it time after time as long as you have mana. In events you need burst but it's not always about burning down bosses. It's shouldn't be about competing on parses but winning events and sometimes you just need to burst so you don't fall behind on adds or to catch up when balancing or for various other reasons. Unless you only group with guild members or those players raiding T4 as well group mobs do not last 15-30 seconds, try more like 1-2min. Maybe group with those people shouting lfg sometime and you'll realize this.

You are looking at Eli's definition of burst "abilities". He sees burst abilities as a once in a while "oh smurf" button. Don't confuse his definition of abilities with our definition of situation. We are looking for something we can use each boss for about 2 minutes. In this scenario, as has been pointed out, mana is not a limiting factor and most rarely chew completely through it. And, are you even raiding current content? There just aren't any non-burn mobs anymore. That has been gone for a very, very long time. The closest event to that recently was the next to last event in tower; or you can count badgers I guess. That's ONE event an expansion. It is all burn these days and you can't count trash clears because those, by dev admission, are just plain old time sinks and have no real value or impact on the raid.

Your definition for bursting and sustaining is messed up and I can't see why you don't get it. Under burst scenario, you need to do more damage faster. Under sustained, you just need to be able to maintain a level of damage. If you increase dmg and decrease cast time then you are doing more damage faster and after awhile you will go oom trying to keep that going and sustained will start to go down. If you were to look at a graph, a mage bursting at the beginning of the fight will show a sharp curve going up but then eventually, when abilities get used up and timers run out, the curve starts to go down and then levels off. Perhaps that's your issue, you are only thinking of spells and no abilities that modify those (TC, ITC, FC, etc.).

Adding a proc on to spells or melee (I still prefer the later) gives you extra hits without affecting the weave at all and it's a lot more controllable from the developers side vs a % based modifier. It adds those extra casts that keeps getting brought up without having to actually cast it. I'm all for adding extra casts but not by reducing the cast time of normal spells because like I said that increases sustained as well. If you want it to affect mana as well so you can burn your mana down and look like you gave it your all I'm sure they could add some mana drain recourse when you activate the procs too. I'm not married to my ideas and am all for others coming up with new and better ones but some people insist on trying to fight for the same kind of upgrades that we haven't gotten because they don't want to give it to us.

They are only focused on long-term percent based effects. An ability that lasts 1-2 mins every half hour is easy to balance and such things are usually made one time and not really changed much later. FC is definitely not a limiting factor to our nukes.

The other problem I've been noticing is a lot of players, not only mages, are complaining about dps only according to current design. This tells me there is actually another route that developers should consider when addressing all these issues and that is the design mechanics of the actual events. There shouldn't be any optimal raid setup for any event. I really wish more dynamic mechanics would get implemented to prevent guilds from only attempting certain events with the "right" setup. Random hp locks should occur at various intervals to prevent burns and bypassing mechanics. Other mobs could have locks on how much dmg they take per second with high regen so that cap is maintained and necros can stop crying about becoming useless. Stop making so much stunnable or mezzable adds so you'll need offtanks and dps on adds. Make certain mobs charmable and necessary on events so chanters can do something else beside crowd control like babysitting npc's. Dps is going to continually improve and all the issues about dps now aren't going to be or theoretically shouldn't be problems for guilds not fighting current content. There are a lot of different things that could be done to work around dps issues if devs want and maybe that is the solution instead of actually doing quick fixes for current content. When we test beta maybe instead of asking for this or that to adjust to current design maybe we should be giving more suggestions for the design of the game instead. Just another way to look at this.

There are LOTS of charmable mobs and deft enchanters will use these on raids while still doing cc. Charmed pets are great dps, and under the right circumstances more dps than mage pets, and smart to use at raid because then you are using two raid mobs to kill each other. Stunnable mobs and mezzable mobs exist for a reason and are sometimes the best method of dealing with those mobs. And not all guilds have the deeps to bypass mechanics which makes stunnable and mezzable mobs a great benefit to easing the raid difficulty. Lots of events make use of adds and that's where your offtanks come in handy and offtanks become great for managing a boss when your warrior crew wiped and are getting rezzed.

Raids for the mid-tier guilds looks okay, it's the guilds at the top that are making raids look broken and the disparity between their skill, which causes the insane dps to bypass mechanics, and the lesser guilds is what needs to be fixed. This skill is where the issue shows up for the mage. Mages are falling farther and farther down the dps list and have extreme difficulty getting good parses in the top end guild. When maxing your character out in a guild that has all the other classes maxing out their characters, it is easy to see where everyone lines up and it is clear the mages are now out of line during burst scenarios. The mechanics aren't making mages fall behind, it's our lack of abilities to boost our burst.

[Piemastaj]

Ok Nahs, I am going to say what I said in my first post. Your idea of burst and sustained is wrong with the way the game is currently. If you add overall DMG to a nuke it is going to increase your burst ability. By doing this the devs will also increase the mana cost which will drastically change your sustainability. Burst is how much dmg you can put out in generally 40 to 120 seconds, where you do not have to rely on conserving your mana at all. Which when you add overall DMG to a nuke it will increase that part a lot more then the 400 mana cost they add to it also.

As to the group part, I can kill mobs solo not burning at all faster then 2minutes. Mobs have like 500k HP, that really isn't much for a group of 6 people killing. I do group with PUs when I feel like it, and again mobs do not take my groups 2minutes. Nice try to go all your a meanypants on me though, or step off your high-horse. If your group is taking 2minutes to kill any mob at all you need a new setup plain and simple.

And HP locked events, guilds still burn through them. It just adds to their parse, and the event doesn't get beaten much faster. But HP locks is not an answer. Unless the mobs HP is locked behind killing the adds in a certain amount of time to get the lock off the mob.

There are plenty of other routes to take, but DPS trumps them all. Unless your doing a balance fight (even to an extent DPs works here), more DPS makes the event 10 times easier. Less incoming DMG on tanks, less heals required, less add ctrl required, lower amount of kite time, less AE/DD Dmg taken ect.

[JerusEQ]

I wish they would just fix the code and make RS pets twincastable, that alone IMO would push mages to where i'd like to see them.