Starting a DPS discussion thread as I get tired of hearing we are on par with mages minus pets. NEWSFLASH!: Mages have pets. Their DPS counts, too. Mages also have a triggered AA boost to their DPS spells, we don't. I have nothing bad to say about mages, or any class for that matter, I would just like to see a significant increase to our DPS.

I may have you all wrong, Fenier, so maybe you could enlighten us as to what type of DPS concerns have you discussed with the devs?

I'm trying to get some feedback/discussion going for us forgotten evocation druids who still nuke/DoT between our sub-par, over discussed heals.

Well don't druids get a cute teddy bear as a pet? :P

Main issue I have with our dps is the cast time on our nukes, they are LONG. Yes lowering the cast time on our nukes would play a large role in the dps we do. Droping the cast time on the nukes would help alot.

<tulisin> There have been recent innovations in short-term damage shields on the druid side. Namely, they have a semi-"crit" mechanism, and are insta-cast. Will these innovations be extended to the older mage line of short-term damage shields?


Those changes, as well as the addition of Nature's Blazing Wrath, were aimed at closing the gap between Druid's burst dps and Mage's burst dps.

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From: Rashere (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/user/profile.m?user_id=30475) To: Barton-KB (http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/user/profile.m?user_id=152924) Date: 05/23/2007 11:22:41 Subject: Rehttp://forums.station.sony.com/eq/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gifruid Questions we need answered post in class forums

Not too hard...


We've always shot for druids to be about 75% of the healing ability of a similar level/gear cleric and about 80% of the efficiency.


On the DPS side, a druid should be similar to a mage without including the mage's pet in the equation. We had to adjust things recently to get it closer to that target, which is why the new spells were introduced.

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http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=117899

When you created Nature's Blazing Wrath you said it was designed to be a high damage / low efficiency tool. We agree with this, however compared to the similar tools of other classes which fall into this category such as Ashengate Pyre, Rampaging Servant, Sting of the Queen and Ethereal Conflagration it's innate resist modifier is to low. Would it be possible to increase the -FR check from -10 to something more in line with our other Fire DoT lines?
3: The changes to Fernspur and addition of NBW were to bring Druid DPS back in line with mages. Is it possible that Mage DPS when compared to Wizards and Necromancers is presently to low, and thus inadvertently effecting Druids?


Questions to Nodyin:

Q: Can Nature's Guardian have it's range increased to 150 to be in line with the other swarm pets such as Host of the Elements and Spirit Call?

Answer:

Nature's Guardian (all Ranks) now has range of 150 (from 100).

Q: Can Wrath of the Wild have it's range increased to 150 to be in line with our other in combat Damage Shields such as the 'Spur line?

A: Ask again after SoF launch
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From beta:

2: Replacing our Normal Fire DD to a new Dawnstike-esqe DD, having both is redundant.

Answer: Creation of Solarsliver (as in - they rejected the idea but created a spell with the proc anyway)

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Asked Prathun about removing the <20% trigger on Reaping Inferno and doubling the recast. This was rejected. He increased the min% trigger to 35%.

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Tuned Storm Strike with others to be something people would actually use. It's about 40~ manafree DPS.

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Asked for Cold Damage upgrades - no reply


-Fenier</tulisin>

Pets and pet classes got a MASSIVE overhaul with SoF.

I am hearing numbers of upwards of 100% better abilities for the pets. Most of that is in survivability, but their dps is increased significantly as well with SoF.

If mage pets are supposed to be accounting for more and more of a mage's total dps, that is just putting druids further and further behind.

Also, while the DS is a nice addition, it requires the tank to be taking damage. Caster mobs do not hit the tank when casting. Running mobs at low health do not hit the tank. Better geared tanks take fewer hits do to improved avoidance and AC. This is the similar drawbacks Reptile initially faced. The player HAS to be taking damage for us to do DPS. I would MUCH rather nuke the mob for the damage than have a DS do the damage.

Normal mobs in a group setting do not last long enough to debuff the mob (with 2 debuffs) and then have time to do more than 2-3 nukes as a druid. My guild is not in FC or Solteris, but Ashengate seems to be mostly curing and healing for druids.

Better geared tanks take fewer hits do to improved avoidance and AC.

Semi-derail, but worn AC has nothing to do with how often a player gets hit.

2 warriors. Both have all defensive aa. Both have same mods. One has about 400 ac more than the other. The higher ac tank seems to take fewer hits not just smaller hits. It may just be that perception is not accurate, but that is the easiest way to compare tanks...ac and hp (when defensive aa are all done)

You'd need to parse to be able to tell.

Pets and pet classes got a MASSIVE overhaul with SoF.

I am hearing numbers of upwards of 100% better abilities for the pets. Most of that is in survivability, but their dps is increased significantly as well with SoF.

If mage pets are supposed to be accounting for more and more of a mage's total dps, that is just putting druids further and further behind.

Also, while the DS is a nice addition, it requires the tank to be taking damage. Caster mobs do not hit the tank when casting. Running mobs at low health do not hit the tank. Better geared tanks take fewer hits do to improved avoidance and AC. This is the similar drawbacks Reptile initially faced. The player HAS to be taking damage for us to do DPS. I would MUCH rather nuke the mob for the damage than have a DS do the damage.

Normal mobs in a group setting do not last long enough to debuff the mob (with 2 debuffs) and then have time to do more than 2-3 nukes as a druid. My guild is not in FC or Solteris, but Ashengate seems to be mostly curing and healing for druids.

Good for mages and beastlords. Honestly, they are dps classes that have to manage pets and they've been penalized for it... why? What can a mage bring that a wizzie can't do better if not for dps? CoH? Gimme a break!

It's about time they got their due!

Aye Fen is right about why you will hear the equal to mages minus their pets. That is how Rashere wants us to be balanced on dps. Pets, if the things I have heard are true got a large boost in this expansion but that will not effect druid dps unless Rashere and or other developers change their mind on how druid dps should be balanced and or we can reason with them and get them to change their minds.

If the druid community feels this change to pets puts us at a dps disadvantage compared to mages and or others. I'm willing to bet its going to be a long slow uphill battle that needs lots of "proof" parses etc to get them to change their minds.

I also totally agree that mages needed a boost - a decent one and it looks like they are getting it. and if it applies to beastlords as well good for them too.

If druids need a boost I hope we get one as well.
I raid so I dont get to dps much and even in groups I usually end up healing because clerics are hard to come by sometimes on FV.
I do like being able to dps when I get the chance though
Barton FV

Main issue I have with our dps is the cast time on our nukes, they are LONG. Yes lowering the cast time on our nukes would play a large role in the dps we do. Droping the cast time on the nukes would help alot.

Precisely. It's even something Prathun has said he wanted to do, yet we're still waiting.

Also, I know some mages, exceptional players even, who view the situation with their total dps as disgusting. One has said they'll change over to a wizard and others have said they're contemplaying quitting. Having half the damage of a class that believes that about themselves doesn't put us so well off as evidenced by the extinct evocation spec druid.

The DPS side clearly got neglected in SoF, much as it did in TSS. We'll need to make a case. One big unknown, by the way, concerns the escalation in mob HPs. If it is anything like the jump from PoR to TSS our effective time-per-mob will skyrocket. There is plenty to like in other areas, however.

And I'm glad for mages and beastlords; changes to pets were very overdue.

I've yet to parse the mob HP in the new expansion, but I would hardly say that our DPS has been neglected.

We've received some significant AAs to increase DPS with both dots and nukes. Storm Strike is especially welcome. Until yesterday, my DPS AAs were maxed out. I look forward to purchasing the new ones in order to solo faster and more efficiently.

The DPS side clearly got neglected in SoF, much as it did in TSS

Can you explain this statement a tad more clearly?

I am not sure the developers have forgotten about our DPS. They do seem to aim a bit low for usefulness by tying us to Mages (who have low DPS for casters), especially now they are increasingly use the Mage pet for their DPS output. This risks leaving druids based on their nukes only too far behind to be considered for that role, or even to supplement it).

What I think would be a useful improvement is a set of three AA that each shave off half a second of the casting time of our fire nukes (after spell haste is applied), but at the cost of increasing the recast by a full second. As an activatable AA would be ideal, but I think even a permanent effect would be useful.
What it would accomplish is to give druids better -burst- DPS, but lower -sustained- DPS. Cold based direct damage already is more efficient and this would reinforce that distinction.


Eri

Present Code restrictions prevent spell haste from exceeding 50%.

We already get Quick Damage, for 10%
Cleric Buff, for 10%
Item Focus for 23%

Leaves an amazing 7% gap ;/

-Fenier

On topic: I don't foresee any changes going in to our damage spells, the DD will suck, we aren't wizard, and never will be, and a lot of us don't even want to be. Yes, I would love to see some improvements like a bit more mana efficiency, shorter cast times on DD, anything that would be an improvement, but I really think we are beating a dead horse as evidenced in the last few expansions. I'll take what we get and use it like always, but if data can't get results, I highly doubt anything else can.

My main problem with our DPS is not so much the amount (although this could do with going up) its the lack of flexibility in conjunction with our other jobs of healing and debuffing. Cast times prevent us from doing these jobs at the same time as effecively as I think we should.


What I'd like to see is

Fast casting nukes (with longer recast if necessary)
combined debuffs

Nature's Blazing Wrath + Nature's Burning Wrath looks like a nice combo along those lines (plus Reaping Inferno once the mob is below 35%).

Reaping Inferno - too situational to be memmable, IMO. Same goes for Fernxxxx.

NBW - Still has a rubbish resist mod, it resists too often on raids. A resist on a spell that costs so much mana is too risky.

Nuke - Cast times too high.

DoTs - DoTs are either too low dps (mr, immo) or resist too often (vengeance.) If we had infinite spell gems, long term dots would be great because their high damage/cast on raids, but that isn't the case. I rarely mem DoTs on raids, since I usually have room for 1 or 2 dps spells and nuke+NBW take priority.

Other problem - Mana regen. My sustained dps is lower than that of solteris geared paladins (aka lol.) Any situation where moderate healing is needed, I don't have enough extra mana to create worthwhile dps. Sure, I suppose I could make 150-200 dps on some events where I strictly heal, but that isn't enough to justify the liability.

I'll have a more comprehensive summary up later today Fenier, but I think that we should look at two issues:

1) Can we be effective in a dual role (healer/dps)? I think that it is possible, but that we need some reasonable adjustments in buff consolidation and casting time to make this reasonable. I'd also like to add higher damage DoTs into the mix; 3 lines that do the damage of the 5 that we can currently layer for example, with appropriate stacking limits for balance.

2) Is our dps scaling with content? This was a problem with TSS - compare the escalation in mob HPs from PoP onward with the escalation in dps. We should compare our dps increase against the increased difficulty of mobs, and I think that we'll come up short.

ana regen is less of a concern to me - note that there has been a substantial increase with this expansion. I count 15 more from med, 10 from AAs, 7 or so from White Wolf (time average), 8 from spells. That is quite a bit! It isn't the same as canni, etc. but we really do have to see what it does before we complain too much.

Mana regen is less of a concern to me - note that there has been a substantial increase with this expansion. I count 15 more from med, 10 from AAs, 7 or so from White Wolf (time average), 8 from spells. That is quite a bit! It isn't the same as canni, etc. but we really do have to see what it does before we complain too much.

If druids were the only class in EQ, do you think that this post would even exist? I don't.

People are unhappy with aspects of our class because they terrible relative to other classes. I don't see how you can point out things every caster got as a druid victory /shrug.

We have the worst casting-endurance of any caster class in EQ, I don't see you can consider mana regen as a lesser problem.

Absolute changes matter too. In the limit of unlimited mana regen and pools, for instance, nukes and patches would always win over DoT/HoT abilities even if all classes got them. Global regen boosts help druids to the extent that druids are less efficient (and were therefore less able to sustain their output.)

However, we did get differential adjustments - maybe not enough, but you have to acknowledge their existence. We've caught up substantially with clerics. Before they had Yaulp rk II(with an annoying every 4 tick requirement) for 16 vs. mask for 5 with us. Now they have Yaulp Rk. II for 21 vs mask for 10 with us - and we can cycle a 50/tick regen for 1:12/10:00 (extendable). e.g. I think we are now essentially equal to clerics in regen. Shaman and necro are better and always have been - ooc has been the equalizer for them. What tools do mages and chanters have that give them better regen?

If you're talking about "how quickly you go oom" cost enters into the balance too, but of course a lot of other things go into the mix. I'll note that our raid druids compare favorably with our raid clerics on mana durability; this may be a function of the druids being as a group more experienced and a more stable cast of characters.

Enchanters have Gather Mana, would be the AA Kamion refers to.

As far as Inferno goes, Harvest is a nice DPS boost - but takes practice to use well and doesn't work in all situations.

I appologise for repeating my earlier posts on this same discussion, but I wanted to clarify things a little and explain why I feel this would help Druids both with DPS and healing issues.

If druids were the only class in EQ, do you think that this post would even exist? I don't.

People are unhappy with aspects of our class because they terrible relative to other classes. I don't see how you can point out things every caster got as a druid victory /shrug.

We have the worst casting-endurance of any caster class in EQ, I don't see you can consider mana regen as a lesser problem.

I guess we are doing better (if you buy this new expansion) than we did before. The problems of druids relative to other casters have not gone away, but relative to the content they are somewhat alleviated, so that could be considered an improvement. Just a smaller one than we had hoped for.

Logically, what druids need to be more viable is the ability, by dedicating all spells, casting time and mana at DPS, to reach around the 70pct damage mark of a Wizard, assuming that the Wizard is in fact capable of a DPS role. Further, that damage should be in -burst- mode since Druids, thanks to their relative mana inefficiency, are even less able than other casters to sustain DPS. Linking Druids spell damage to that of Mages only makes sense if Mage spell damage is around that 70pct mark (with the remaining 30pct coming from their pets).

Right now Druids have no good burst ability. There are some spells that provide large amounts of damage, but these are either too situational or they do not make up an attack chain that can be used. For that the casting time must be shortened (and to prevent the druids from getting overpowered they probably need their recast time extended). E.g. all direct damage (fire) spells could have their cast time reduced by 3 seconds, and recast extended by 3 seconds. The total cast cycle (and thus DPS) per spell remains the same (actually goes down a little when spell haste is take into account), but we could cast more spells in the same time for higher DPS. The price for this would be that we use up our mana more quickly and have no good way to recover that (nor to escape aggro should we acquire it).

Actually, much the same should be done for our direct heal spells. It would allow druids to cycle through several heals more quickly for higher hitpoints healed per second at the cost of draining our mana. And it would allow us to more easily match the amount of heals and damage to the situation, thus returning Druids to their more flexible role. It would even allow them to burry the stances idea once and for all and come up with a 'fix' for Druids that I think everybody would be able to live with, without the need for complicated code changes. Just somebody going through the Druid spell list and adjusting two numbers on several spells.

But this would only work if it is done for all direct fire damage spells and all direct heals, both of which now cast at around 6 seconds unhasted, and not just for the spells found in new expansions. Otherwise it will still not be possible to set up a chain of spells for maximum burst effect.

By limiting this only to direct fire damage we have a spell line for burst damage (fire), one for more efficient and prolongued direct damage (cold), one for maximum efficiency (DoTs) and situational spells (lightnings, stuns and earthquakes).
At the healing side we have faster casting direct heals that can be chained for burst healing (but open the drain in our mana pool), and we have the special spells we have been receiving with the latest expansions.

The balancing factors on this change would be 1) the amount of mana used, by reducing our casting speed we use up much more mana and can probably burn through an average mana pool in less than 2 minutes. With no quick way to recover that mana unlike other casters.
2) The amount of spell gems. We only have 9 spells that can be loaded at any given time, and for this to work we need to have at least 3 dedicated to fire damage or heals (e.g. at level 60 that would mean alternating wildfire, scoria and starfire!), so this requires a serious commitment to burst damage or healing in terms of available spells.


Eri

I agree with you about the DPS side, but I do not think we need the changes to the heals.

First, we do not have 6 second unhasted heals. Also, with a spell haste item and a cleric buff, our spells are only slightly slower than the "remedy" lines and "desperate renewal/Adrenaline Surge lines. Also, because of the way spell haste works, lowering their cast times could actually make them slower.

This thread is about dps.

I find on many situations when I do get to dps that it appears that my dps is far below that of most other classes. Perhaps it is a different combination of spells I need to be using, but because of spell gem limitations, I am pretty sure I am using about as good as I can get.

If druids are supposed to be tuned to be the same dps as a mage without a pet, then the logical question is what is a mage's dps without a pet as a percentage of their total dps. If their total dps is comparable to where they should fall as a dps class, then it is easy to see where druids compare.

If the pet (which got substantial improvements with SoF) is now expected to account for a larger portion of the mage's total dps, then druids need to be retuned. My feeling is that a mage was accounting for at least 75% of their dps. With the improvements to pets, I suspect that number will go down. If druid total dps is supposed to be only the casting portion, this translate to a reduction in our already low dps. These are not exact numbers, and perhaps parsing of magicians with their new pets vs. old parses need to be done to prove one way or the other.

We did get some new tools for dps'ing and I like the new things, but the main methods of damage for druids, that I see, is direct damage spells and those need to be adjusted if mages were adjusted to account for the new pets (I think a fairly safe assumption).

I don't count fernspur damage in our total DPS capability as it cannot be considered in a raid encounter that burst DPS is needed since it doesn't stack. So while one druid can do it, not every one of them can.

Druid DPS - well if you take a druid as a pure caster, doing nothing else like rooting, snaring, curing, healing, debuffing - then maybe their DPS can approach the weak DPS of a mage without pets. Note mage casting DPS is recognizably low for where they should be. But, their balance is now also being measured by how much their pets are doing with the revamp. But, even that is prefaced with if we don't do anything else. What druid doesn't do anything else on a raid ?

If it turns out that their pets are adding a significant portion of damage for them and their casting DPS is stifled because of it, then should druids be held back simply because one day Rashere said "We want druids DPS to be at mage dps minus pets" ? No.

Druids are supposed to be able to do both heal and play moderate DPS in todays but, with all the situational stuff that we are given, we have to choose, a DPS line up or healing line up. If we try to go middle of the road line up, we start to lose a lot of ground.

Cast times are the key here, lower cast times on offensive spells with slightly greater reuse would allow for a druid to deal damage well in situations where they have to do other things and it would restrict a druid from loading up all offensive spells and try play quasi-wizard. The recast timer would be the limiter on DPS not the cast time.

An example:

Equinox Brand brought to a 4 second cast time but, it's reuse increased to 4 seconds. You can't chain Equinox Brand but, you can then either use another offensive spell or be freed up to heal etc. Our DPS would increase because we could get more offensive spells out quicker. When we have to heal and nuke, we can throw on a nuke and get back to healing versus thinking I can't spend time nuking this 7 second nuke, what happens if I have to heal ? (interrupt and cast but, that takes time as well)

Enchanters have Gather Mana, would be the AA Kamion refers to.

As far as Inferno goes, Harvest is a nice DPS boost - but takes practice to use well and doesn't work in all situations.


The only content where it will work well in is older content / content far below your gear level that is easy enough for you to be able to use it without risk (EG: Thalassius). You also need to be able to mem the spell to begin with, and outside of those two kinds of content, there's just too many much more useful spells that one could mem. Even then, it doesn't last long enough unless you are pulling mobs extremely fast. A theoretical DPS boost doesn't mean much if you can't actually practice it / it can only be done in older/gimp content.

I agree with you about the DPS side, but I do not think we need the changes to the heals.

We do not need the same change no, since our heal is reasonably in line as far as power is concerned, if rather limited in scope compared to Clerics. However, part of the idea was about promoting flexibility as well, and that does require a similar change to heals. Both direct fire damage and heal spells need to have similar cast and recast times, so we can replace one with the other in our casting chain as the situation requires.



First, we do not have 6 second unhasted heals.


You are right, I was careless when I wrote that. It just often feels like that when you are wating for the casting to finish and see the hitpoints go down.

Also, with a spell haste item and a cleric buff, our spells are only slightly slower than the "remedy" lines and "desperate renewal/Adrenaline Surge lines. Also, because of the way spell haste works, lowering their cast times could actually make them slower.


Exactly how it is done does not matter quite so much as well that, fully hasted, we can bring our fire (and heal) spells down to the 1 or 1.5 second casting time. That is long enough to not be instant, but short enough that we can cast a spell when it is needed. Druid vulnerability to interuptions can be slightly increased to compensate, if that is an issue with the developers.
If we end up below the level at which spell haste has effect then the casting time needs to be lowered to that 1.5 seconds (and the recase increased accordingly), otherwise we must start at the fastest casting time that is still affected by spell haste.


I find on many situations when I do get to dps that it appears that my dps is far below that of most other classes. Perhaps it is a different combination of spells I need to be using, but because of spell gem limitations, I am pretty sure I am using about as good as I can get.


Realistically and outside of special cases (like casting annihilate the unnatural or using the special fire+cold spells when both halves are likely to hit) I do not think it is possible to go much higher than what most people here have reported as their maximum. Typically players report being able to reach 1200 to 1400 (if I recall correctly). Possibly it can be increased further by using DoTs on top of that, but frankly, I do not see how to find the time for that (takes a lot of time to ramp up all those spells which has a negative effect of DPS). The old discussions of how good the SotQ spell really was had several spell chains that could be used for maximum damage both Druid and Shaman side.


If druids are supposed to be tuned to be the same dps as a mage without a pet, then the logical question is what is a mage's dps without a pet as a percentage of their total dps. If their total dps is comparable to where they should fall as a dps class, then it is easy to see where druids compare.


*nods* which is why I said that Druids should be able to reach a percentage of Wizard DPS rather than of Mages, because their method of dealing is more comparable. Mages also should have their DPS compared to Wizards and then split over direct damage and pets. Otherwise Druid and Mage spell lines will forever be held hostage by each other.



Eri

Just a little bit of insight to mage DPS that while I'm no expert on, do have a couple of years of practical experience with. The first and foremost thing you must bear in mind is, magicians are a DPS class. That's it, nothing more (well, except pet toy vending machines). In the pre-PoP days, our pets accounted for roughly 25-33% of our overall DPS. By the time TSS came around (and taking account serious pet survivability issues) that total output dropped to virtually nil in a raid, and 20-25% in groups (soloing, a thing mages were once well know for, was no longer possible against current content). Our new pets have gone a long way to bringing all of this back into balance (most importantly with pet survivability). Our pets, depending on which one is used, can now account for anywhere from about 20%(earth tank pet) to 40% situationally with one of our DPS pets (note that the higher DPS pets suffer considerably from durability issues, and so are very situational). Our staple pet (air) will account for roughly 30% of our damage. Now I can only base this information on extensive parsing done by our community, and of course SoF is still not set in stone.

Our spell upgrades this time around were the same as always, just like everyone else. In this respect, druids are right there with us more or less, which coming from a non-DPS class, is kind of mind-blowing. If you want to talk about slow cast times, take a look at Alla's sometime for the cast times on mage nukes. You'll find that your boat isn't quite as full of water as you thought. Our primary nuke line (AKA bolts) have 8 second cast time. Our "fast" nukes are 3 seconds or worse. Now let's not forget, magicians are a "DPS" class.

SoF appears on the face of things to do alot to try to "fix" the magician class, which has basically become more and more broken since GoD (or earlier depending on whom you speak to). I have no problem with druids being able to match me w/o my pet on a burst, but do not look at our new pets and say "We need our DPS balanced against a magician and his new pet" simply because our pets were finally brought into line with where they should be (note that our OoW and TSS pets are still "broken" except for fire). Druids are still right where they are supposed to be. It's just that now magicians are coming more into line with where they are supposed to be.

I guess the bottom line is, if you want to DPS well, play a DPS class. Druids and Bards are the two most flexible classes in the game, and that flexibility comes with a price. If you want more DPS, give up healing or utility. Magicians gave it all up for pet that didn't nearly begin to compensate (and to a somewhat lesser degree, this is true of beastlords as well).

Anywho, I've been longwinded enough. I hope I didn't upset too many people too much, but I kinda felt the other side of the coin wasn't being looked at fairly.

Neb

Neb:

A - We are not saying that we want the same amount of DPS that mages do (or more appropriately, *should* have). I want both classes to be compared to a "pure" dps/caster class as baseline. I.e. Mages should have (random numbers here) 65% of wiz burst, 90% sustained dps, broken up between pet and spells however; and druids should have 60% of wiz burst, and 75% sustained dps. I'm of the belief that mages don't do enough dps right now (haven't really seen what they can do post-SoF though).

B - Cast times are a big problem for both classes - hopefully Prathun will alter the cast/recast times in a manner that the community finds worthwhile soon. For us though, when we need to perform in one role, it locks us out of so much of that flexibility - cast times are too long in almost all cases for healing/debuff/dps concurrency to any reasonable degree. Spell gems are also a huge issue for us - too many lines of spells with rare/occasional/potential use, or in the case of debuffs, almost enough to fill an entire spell bar.

C - You say in the other thread that druids are second only to clerics in healing - I would disagree and say that role is enjoyed by Shammies :(. Either way, EQ is at a point where non-specialist classes are getting marginalized in many instances - if you drop Druid healing any lower, you will make us entirely ineffective in that role for all but trivial content. If you drop druid dps any lower, we will be outdps'ed and still wildly outhealed by clerics. Both need to be boosted (in one way or another), but with potential trade-offs.


So...we aren't here to try and step all over mages. We just want druids massaged into the class they they could/should/oughta be.

Just a little bit of insight to mage DPS that while I'm no expert on, do have a couple of years of practical experience with. The first and foremost thing you must bear in mind is, magicians are a DPS class. That's it, nothing more (well, except pet toy vending machines). In the pre-PoP days, our pets accounted for roughly 25-33% of our overall DPS. By the time TSS came around (and taking account serious pet survivability issues) that total output dropped to virtually nil in a raid, and 20-25% in groups (soloing, a thing mages were once well know for, was no longer possible against current content). Our new pets have gone a long way to bringing all of this back into balance (most importantly with pet survivability). Our pets, depending on which one is used, can now account for anywhere from about 20%(earth tank pet) to 40% situationally with one of our DPS pets (note that the higher DPS pets suffer considerably from durability issues, and so are very situational). Our staple pet (air) will account for roughly 30% of our damage. Now I can only base this information on extensive parsing done by our community, and of course SoF is still not set in stone.


This actually is why we would very much like the developers to balance Druid DPS against Wizards and not Mages. That way Mages are not held hostage against where the developers feel that Druids should be DPS-wise, and Druids can not fall far behind when the Mage focus shifts more towards pets.
The example you give is that Mages can make as much as 40pct of their DPS through pets. If the developers use that as a baseline that means that Druid DPS is 60pct of that of a Mage, except that they can not improve on that. And of course this assumes that Mage DPS (nukes plus pets) totals to the same kind of figures as a Wizard. If that is not the case then Druids get even farther behind.


Our spell upgrades this time around were the same as always, just like everyone else. In this respect, druids are right there with us more or less, which coming from a non-DPS class, is kind of mind-blowing.


Actually, if you look at things historically, Druids always were a DPS class with the ability to heal and have a variety of utility spells (harmony, snare, root, travel, etc). Druid heals capped pretty much at superior heal which I think is 300 points or so. At the same time Druids had extensive spell lines for direct damage (fire and cold), AoE (lightning, cold), PBAoE (earthquakes), DoTs (initially magic based only), plus the support (debuff) spells to make them more effective.

When the game changed towards needing massive amounts of healers the developers realised there were not enough clerics around and changed the focus of the Druid class towards being a Cleric-light. At the same time the value of all the utility spells had been steadily eroding.
In today's game Druids still have 5 times as much damage spells as they have heals. The only things that changed was that the heal spell line was extended and adjusted for modern DPS ratios (and shuffled around a bit to fill a couple of huge gaps in Druid spell development where they were basically incapable of contributing).
I think that saying that Druids are NOT a DPS class is a bit too strong. I, and most others here, will certainly agree with you that they are not a PURE DPS class. As such it is entirely reasonable that Druids will not be able to match a Wizard or Mage for their total DPS. Most here agree that a 70, maybe 75pct, DPS of a Wizard figure (same as is used for comparison to Cleric healing) is fair, but right now they fall way behind this target.
The reason for this relatively high number is that a Druid who is doing DPS is not doing anything else, and as such has to compete with pure DPS classes for the group spot. When inviting a Druid the group must balance the lower DPS against the increased safety of having somebody around who can switch to other roles should the need arise. But if a Druid can not reasonably measure up to the DPS task then no matter the safety net they provide, they will not be invited over another class that is more capable. And if Druids are not wanted for their ability to deal damage, why in the name of Tunare do they get all those nukes and dots every new expansion?

If you want to talk about slow cast times, take a look at Alla's sometime for the cast times on mage nukes. You'll find that your boat isn't quite as full of water as you thought. Our primary nuke line (AKA bolts) have 8 second cast time. Our "fast" nukes are 3 seconds or worse. Now let's not forget, magicians are a "DPS" class.


This may sound a little harsh, but Druids are not in the business to fix the Mage class. That is up to the Mages themselves.

This discussion is about the Druid class and its perceived DPS problems.
Also, one of the suggestions was not to simply reduce cast times, but at the same time to increase the recast time. The total cycle time for a spell would stay the same (or might even go up slightly) and the DPS per spell would therefor also stay the same. What it would change is that it would give Druids better burst damage (they can unload their nukes a little faster), but mostly they simply get better flexibility which has always been presented as a class defining ability of Druids but at the moment due to a combination of limited spell slots and cast times is theoretical only.


I have no problem with druids being able to match me w/o my pet on a burst, but do not look at our new pets and say "We need our DPS balanced against a magician and his new pet" simply because our pets were finally brought into line with where they should be (note that our OoW and TSS pets are still "broken" except for fire).


Rest assured then that nobody asked for that. Everybody is happy to compare Druid DPS to Mage nuke DPS. The two have historically always been pretty much the same anyway (initially with the Druids actually leading by a small margin).
The only thing that we would like the Developers to do is not to set up a link of Wizard DPS defining Mage DPS defining Druid DPS, but derive both Mage and Druid DPS directly from the Wizard figures. That way they can tune both classes individually to new content without running a real risk of breaking one class because of this needlessly complicated setup. Suppose that in two expansions the developers want to give Mages a second pet, to increase their survivability in the new hard and fast hitting zones. Of course this second pet also gives Mages a nukeless 30pct DPS boots. A boost that the Druids will not see in the current scheme because they can not get better nukes unless Mages also get them. So, just because Druid DPS is linked to Mage nukes, the developers lock themselves out of a lot of creative options to give the Mages some much needed improvements.
A much better solution would be to have a 'caster DPS' baseline that compares to a 'melee DPS' baseline, with the caster being able to have a higher burst damage to compensate for the greater downtime for mana regen. Then each caster class is tuned to that caster baseline to where the developers feel it needs to be, and for melee classes they do the same for their baseline.


Druids are still right where they are supposed to be. It's just that now magicians are coming more into line with where they are supposed to be.

I guess the bottom line is, if you want to DPS well, play a DPS class. Druids and Bards are the two most flexible classes in the game, and that flexibility comes with a price. If you want more DPS, give up healing or utility. Magicians gave it all up for pet that didn't nearly begin to compensate (and to a somewhat lesser degree, this is true of beastlords as well).

Obviously not everybody agrees with your assertion that Druids are exactly where they need to be DPS wise. Otherwise we would not have this discussion, would we?

And the much vaunted flexibility of Druids is much diminished by the need to have all spell gems dedicated to one task only. It is kind of hard to be flexible when you first have to reload all your spells before you can change roles.



Anywho, I've been longwinded enough. I hope I didn't upset too many people too much, but I kinda felt the other side of the coin wasn't being looked at fairly.

Neb

You did not upset me at least. I do think you missed some of the points that people here have been trying to make, but I do hope you managed to separate my meaning from my own longwinded rambling.

In summary, most Druids contributing to this discussion feel that right now Druid DPS is lagging too far behind. I am inclined to say that the same is true for Mage DPS, but I will leave that discussion to the Mages.
Druids here also feel that while we have a great variety of spells and abilities, in practice not much remains of that flexibility because of a combination of circumstances (most notably the lack of spell gems to cater for the situational spells, the relatively long casting time and the relatively high mana costs combined with lower efficiency). This means that in most cases Druids can not easily 'change gears' so to speak. (It means swapping out all spells, possibly in the middle of combat, and at worst it means having to change armour to get focii for the new task).
Finally, some people here have voiced their concern that by linking Druid DPS to Mage nukes, the developers are setting themselves up for a balancing nightmare a few expansions down the road, and that they would make themselves and everybody else, much happier by tuning each class to a generic baseline for their role.
Some suggestions for how these problems may be adressed have been presented, with everybody trying to stay within the target range of ability that the developers have stated.


Eri

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but believe it or not I have never seen any indication at all that mage DPS is in any way balanced against wizzies. In fact, since the dawn of the game it pretty much it has worked out more or less like this:

Wizzy = Necro
age w/o pet = Druid
Cleric = Chanter

This is just baseline DPS of course, and while I don't recall where I read it exactly, this comparison was put forth by the devs back at the dawn of time. To the best of my knowledge, this has never changed. I have never been able to figure out why a DPS class was balanced against a utility class, other than back in the beginning magicians did offer a remarkable ammount of utility for a DPS class. It's simply that over the evolution of the game, magician utility has been reduced to more or less modrods and pet toys. The game has far outgrown most of the rest.

I am not at all upset about how things have come down for mages in SoF. I am somewhat miffed that they did nothing to repair the pre-SoF pets, which basically still leaves mages in pretty bad shape from 61-75. However, pointy hats off to our remarkable CC and beta mages for the salvage efforts on what had become a shipwreck of a class (and sadly, chanters had it even worse).

And as a last little note, until SoF mages w/ pets rarely approached 70% of wizzy damage. 55-60% was a far more realistic number, if that. With our new DPS pets (read no tank ability whatsoever), gargoyle pets, and full burn that 70% may just be attainable now (provided that our nukes w/ no resist mods aren't resisted too much). The twofold advantage we do have is our pets which both allow us to continue to output damage when OoM, and in turn gives us a better sustained output (though nowhere close to what a necro can do). In the ideal world it would be something like this:

Burst DPS Wizzy>Mage>Necro
Sustained DPS Necro>Mage>Wizzy

Of course, we don't live in an ideal world, but things are looking better. Now I'm not posting all of this to knock down Druids at all. Anytime one class is hurting, the rest of us suffer as well. I read several of the class boards because I feel it is my best interests to know my neighbors, if you take my meaning. I just thought it might be of some interest to you to see a little on the other side of the fence.

Cheers,
Neb

p.s. Not one for idle flattery, and I'm sure you already know this, but Druids are fortunate to have a great CC and community in comparison to most of the rest (though obviously inferior to Magicians :P)

Nebakanezzer, if magicians without pets are equal to druids and magicians just gained a substantial boost to their dps from pets to put them back in the same category as other "dps" classes, that means that druids and mages without pets were BEHIND where they needed to be. That means mages (as a whole) are back where they need to be but druids are still left behind from where they should be dps wise.

I am not arguing that druids are a dps class. I look at the druid as a dual style. I am not looking to nuke as well as a wizard or to do the dps of a mage+pet. I am saying that a mage was behind where they should have been dps wise both with and without their pet. SoE decided to boost the power of the pet to bring them back in line. If they had gone with more nuking power, then druids would have also seen a boost. They chose the pet, so druids remain where they were.

Lets say nuking a Mage with a pet is 90% of a Wizard's dps. Wizards being the pure casting dps baseline. Also, you said that mages were mostly all pet. So that 90% of a wizard was coming from 90% nukes by the mage and 10% from the pet. (not sure on these 2 numbers, but seem accurate for what you describe). That means the nuking portion of a wizard's dps you did was 81%. That would mean druids were 81% of a wizard. Now, mages are 70/30. That means 70% of your dps is nuking so of the wizards, that is 63% of a wizard's dps for nuking which means druids went FURTHER down in terms of total dps of the pure dps casting class.

I do not think that druids were that high to begin with which means either mages were not 90% of a wizard's dps or less than 90% of a mage's dps was their nukes prior to SoF. Either way, the change from pre-SoF to current balance amongst casting classes, druids have fallen further behind the dps classes.

I think you misunderstand a great many of the things I said. First of all, and believe me this was a tough pill to swallow when it was brought to my attention, but it is completely pointless to compare Mage DPS against Wizzy DPS at all. They aren't even in the same ballpark. I think you missed that when I stated it earlier. A mage + DPS pet + gargoyle pet <MIGHT>conceivably account for 70% of a Wizzy's DPS and it's going to have to be a fairly long fight (at least 3 to 4 mins or so) before that is achieved. Of course by then the necros have eclipsed both of us.

What I am trying to say is that Druid DPS is exactly where it should be. It is balanced very well against Mage DPS w/o our pets. You have us beat in burst actually and unlike some of my brethren, I have no problem with that at all.

Everyone is looking at our new pets and say "DAMN!!! That's impressive". They are and they should be. A long time ago, pre-PoP, our pets were equally as impressive against the current content of the time. The easiest way to explain what happened to our pets would be to have level increases, but never introduce new focus for the level. Do this once, and you have spells that will never be "completely" effective. Now imagine doing it 3 times and that's what happened to the Magician's pet (actually all of the pets suffered to one degree or another, but Magicians were most profoundly affected). What has finally happened is that our pets were scaled appropriately to content and that has not happened in so long that people are kind of freaking out. We sacrifice alot to have that pet, primarily in the fact that our spell DPS is balanced out against a priest class.

In any case, what you have to realize is that no matter how pitiful our pet in the past was, or how good it is for the moment, it has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on your arguments for more DPS. Actually, I agree with you that our spell DPS is not where it should be, and in truth you could say that spells throughout the new expansion seem pretty out of whack. Of course this one was rolled out incomplete and it may take several months before we finally start to see where we all really are.

The bottom line as I see it is that Druids and Mages will always be balanced against each other because we always have been. For better or worse, we row the same boat (at least in the spell DPS arena). We both receive compensation in other areas for the less than spectacular DPS we put out. The biggest difference is that in the case of Magicians, all our eggs are in one basket (read pet). If you look at it in that light, I think you'll see that your position really isn't that bad, and that my new pets really aren't THAT uber.

Cheers,
Neb

I think you misunderstand a great many of the things I said. First of all, and believe me this was a tough pill to swallow when it was brought to my attention, but it is completely pointless to compare Mage DPS against Wizzy DPS at all. They aren't even in the same ballpark.<might>

We aren't saying that mages are close to wizards, though! We are not describing current reality - but a way that SoE could alter their design parameters to smooth out current problems.

Think about it this way:
Each class should add up to a mythic 100% of a worthwhile class - here's one way it could be made to happen.

Wizards - 100% dps (100% from spell), nominally 0% utility
ages - 75% of wizard dps (66% spell, 33% pet), supposedly 25% utility
Druids - 50% of wizard dps (100% spell), 50% heals/utility (this coincidentally would keep us in the same place currently for our nukes, as identical to mages, but would probably help mages greatly being considered a %age of wiz dps).

You may not like the percentages that I have here...but, the point is, I'd like to see Sony consider wizards as the baseline for dps potential, and mages and druids both being compared directly to wizards - rather than the current wizards far above everybody else, mages somewhere else, with druids based off of mages.

age pet upgrades - I haven't heard a single person bitch about them, personally. Heck, if they made the pet 2/3rds of mage dps (and 1/2 of bst dps), I think it'd rock, and I'd probably roll up a mage again one of these days.

</might>What I am trying to say is that Druid DPS is exactly where it should be. It is balanced very well against Mage DPS w/o our pets.
So...unless I read your arguments wrong, you're saying mage dps shouldn't be improved, since druid dps shouldn't get any better. No?

We have no problem with SoE throwing more of a bone to mages...we just want some basic fixes tossed our way too. Druids aren't in the most horrible situation yet...but I can see w/in an expansion or two us being worse than mages were in TSS/etc,....

So here:

Druid DPS == Mage Nuke DPS

But Fenier, More Mage DPS is coming from Pets!

I know. There are presently to my knowledge no plans to rework that formula. I asked, and I was told pets are not considered in our nuke balancing.

-Fenier

So here:

Druid DPS == Mage Nuke DPS



Shouldn't it be non-petDPS? I'm thinking specifically of rampaging servant, which surely can't be counted as 'pet' dps. It's effectively a burst dps tool that doesn't take nuke form.

Afaik, it counts as a pet since it can be killed.

The balance is whacked any way you look at it. Warriors, as a tank, out DPS us. By a large margin. SKs out DPS us. Mage nukes are woefully underpar to a wizard's, druids' even more so.

We have wizards that can easily hit 3k DPS, CONSISTENTLY. Hell, it used to be we were kind of 70% of a wizard. At this point, I'd be happy to hit 50%, CONSISTENTLY. Yes, if the planets and stars align just right, I can hit 1500 DPS on a fairly short fight, but you can't balance our once-in-a-blue-moon theoretical DPS to what a wizard can do consistently. This is why I despise "What is your max crit/dps?" type threads. People march out best-case numbers and we are sposed to think we are ok.

On average, my parsing shows me in the 600-750 DPS range on most raid fights. Much lower on trash because I can realistically only get one nuke off before the mob is dead (the rogues/monks/zerkers/rangers/wars/wizards destroy trash faster than I can cast). In groups, as DPS, it is actually lower, 450-700 or so, based again on melee destroying the mob before i can cast much, debuffing and generally trying to be efficient. Yes, if I push it, i can average 800-950 BUT I have to ooc med every 10 mobs or so, for 1-2 mobs (so really, the 800-950 is lowered based on the mobs I have to med through). Soloing, I can all out and do somewhere between 800-1100 DPS but it only lasts 3-4 mobs in SoF before needing to med.

Fenier, and others with a similar mindset, no offense intended BUT: I don't give a damn if we are a PRIEST class. I do not believe priest has to mean HEALING ONLY, crap DPS. No, I do not believe I should be able to heal AND nuke effectively in a given fight. However, if I am in a DPS role, the DPS should be effective. Druids from the start were the priest that could DPS. The druid dual role is limited by mana. I can't keep a group up AND do significant DPS. That is how it should be. Right now, I can heal through most content if there is no cleric available. MF and BK for sure in SoF, uncertain about Steam Factory - they hit like trucks. However, I can't compete at all in a DPS role. Yes, I said COMPETE, not excel. If the wizard can hit 2-3k+ in that content (and wars doing 1.2-2k+!) I'd like to think I should be able to do 900-1500 or so consistently and somewhat efficiently.

And you can excuse it all you want with statements like "the game has changed, it needs more healers because there are not enough clerics." Well, duh! That's because people don't like the cleric role. If I like the cleric role, I would have rolled a cleric, not a druid. If the druid class continues to become "Cleric Light", there will be fewer druids. It's not what a lot of us signed up for. It's even worse because they expect us to fill the cleric role without decent tools. If cleric burn out is an issue, wait and see what druid burn-out becomes as our role becomes more and more tedious.

On a tangent, let me also note part of the issue is lack of glory. Perhaps due to lack of heal parse ability. Everyone can parse DPS and go WOW! LOOK AT THAT WIZARD/ZERKER/ETC DPS!!! Due to limitations in the way Sony handles heals and logging, healers cannot point and say OMGWTFBBQ INSANE HPS! Perhaps all priest CCs can gang up on the devs and get logging of heals improved.

My question was:

Pets are becoming a higher percentage of Mage DPS, is it possible we will see a DPS increase due to this new factor?

Answer: Druid DPS == Mage Spell DPS

Now, I am having extensive difficutly coming up with a counter-agruement to that. The best I can hope for is for someone who is near a mage (and this isn't me) consisently to do extensive parsing and show that their spell damage is > then ours.

I realize what you are saying, trust me, I do - but I really don't know what folks expect me to do about it when I keep getting answers like that when I question stuff.

-Fenier

My question was:

Pets are becoming a higher percentage of Mage DPS, is it possible we will see a DPS increase due to this new factor?

Answer: Druid DPS == Mage Spell DPS

Now, I am having extensive difficutly coming up with a counter-agruement to that. The best I can hope for is for someone who is near a mage (and this isn't me) consisently to do extensive parsing and show that their spell damage is > then ours.

I realize what you are saying, trust me, I do - but I really don't know what folks expect me to do about it when I keep getting answers like that when I question stuff.


I know you can not do anything other than bring our, and your, concerns to the attention of the developers.

I guess the best thing we can say is that realistic Druid DPS is currently about 40pct of Wizard DPS, and falling further behind every expansion.

As this number is so low, it means that there really is no point to bring a Druid along for anything other than heals. It may still happen out of habit, but increasingly groups will only want us to heal them.

So, if the developers already broke the dual role of Druids, they might as well make it official and give us 30 spells worth of missing heal tools from the next expansion on.


Eri

Fenier - I will try and remember to ask some of my friends and guildies for some high-end Mage/Druid parses. Do you prefer long-term-sustained DPS, or short-term burst dps parses?

----
So...I would like to present the "Netura Theory of Indirect DPS"

Druids have been falling further and further behind in direct DPS since Post Planes of Power. What we have gained since then however, are multiple means of increasing the DPS of OTHERS. Resist Debuffs, damage shields and our epic 1.5/2.0 click fall into this category.

By lowering a raid mobs fire resist, a druid DECREASES the resist rate of mage, wizard, and necromancer spells. This essentially leads to an increase in the DPS of others. The only effective way to parse this, would be to take a sampling of wizard/mage DPS over non-burst fights, where no druids use any debuffs whatsoever...then compare the wiz/mage DPS on that fight, to the wiz/mage AND druid DPS on a fight where debuffs WERE used. I don't know if it will make a drastic difference or not, but my assumption is that it does. A resisted nuke for a wizard can be over 20k damage.

Obviously our epic 1.5/2.0 click is no longer as effective as it once was, but it still increases DPS. With the introduction of instant-cast nukes wizards are able to cast more frequently during the duration of the epic than they were able to before (before TSS, at least). Again, the only way I can think of parsing this difference is to do the same parse, in identical conditions, with and without the druid 2.0.

I maintain the optimistic view that between debuffs, epic effects, damage shield spells (and wrath of the wild. its free, make a hotkey, cast it!~) our actual relative damage output isn't so bad, when the amount we increase others DPS is considered.

In a similar type of situation, back when Panther was released in DoN, some guildies of mine parsed shaman DPS, and assigned all the panther procs to the shaman who had panthered the melee. Sure, the melee were the ones actually doing the damage, but it wouldn't have been possible without the shaman. Bards are the same - their individual DPS is OK, but throw them in a group with a shaman and 4 rog/zerk/mnk and watch the insane DPS increase. Is that increase attributed to the bard, or the melee dps?

Parsing wise, the answer is that it is attributed to the person actually doing the damage. Personally, I think that if the increase is due to something that another 'toon did, then the increase should be associated with that toon.

However, unlike bards/shaman, druids have one issue with this indirect DPS...and that is that a single druid is able to do a full round of debuffs which effect the whole raids resist rate, whereas a shaman/bard really only increase the DPS of those in their group.

This means that 1 druid leads to the increase in all other DPS to nearly the same extent of 2+. Sure, you get a couple more 2.0 clicks, but thats about it.

I just thought of a pretty cool spell Idea while thinking about a way to help increase druid group/raid desirability. Possibly create two new auras, "Aura of the Sun" and "Aura of the Arctic". Aura of the Sun would add a resist modifier to all Fire spells cast by those within the aura's range. Aura of the Arctic would add a resist modifier to all cold-based spells within range. Add in another little bonus, like a minor increase to dps (+5-10%, stackable with focii, but not 2.0 click) or, possibly even a chance to proc an unresistable DD (same resist mod as panther) when casting the same type of spell (fire/cold) as the aura that is currently availible, and our group desirability would be increased pretty dramatically.

Would SoE ever do that? I don't know. Would that help bring druid DPS more in line with other classes? Most likely not. However, there would be a clear increase in the druids indirect DPS.

/ramble_off

Both are fine.

I realize what you are saying, trust me, I do - but I really don't know what folks expect me to do about it when I keep getting answers like that when I question stuff.

I think there is only one solution that would solve this once and for all...





and that....





is an ice dot

When I think of druid dps, that is it. Druid dps. Not indirect dps druids can help others with. When I solo, how is that going to help me kill mobs? When I am in a group I have just enough time to hand of ro and get a couple shots off, unless we have very sucky dps in the first place. If it doesn't land I usually don't bother trying again, otherwise I won't have time to really do much damage at all. You also have to have a class that our debuffs can help with in the group in order for that to make a difference, and with the cast/refresh times more dps would be attained if we just cast damage spells than adding an extra 3-5% to that mage or wizard nukes, or necro dots, etc.

Fernspur/spike I have never considered non druid dps... it is just a nuke/dot we cast through the tank. Our actual ds... not all that helpful dps wise.

Raiding isn't what should be considered for druid dps, especially with the vast majority of druids either not raiding or casual raiding. I know a lot of hardcore raiders that group/solo WAY more than they raid as well. Actual pure raiding druids are by far the small majority, but they do tend to be more vocal.

Any way you cut it, I *never* want my dps to be based off what I can help others do.


*EDIT* I agree with Tenielle... ice dot

Any way you cut it, I *never* want my dps to be based off what I can help others do.

Well, I would rather do something beneficial to dps all around, than not at all. Something like that would also increase the druids DPS or whatever, as well.

Unless the dev's have drastically changed their minds, an Ice DoT is out of the question, completely. At least thats the word I got last year.

And if you are gonna criticize an idea, please make a suggestion of what would be better. I'm not saying that my idea is the best, or only thing that can be done, nor that it would even be done...but creative thinking creates new spells. And yes, the Dev's do take time to look at player ideas and criticism on spells and abilities on occasion, especially when they are presented in a simple and drama free manner! :p

Any way you cut it, I *never* want my dps to be based off what I can help others do.

It is, Fernspur for example is considered part of our DPS, even tho it's a buff cast upon someone else.

Our dps should be stackable - if it's not stackable, it's not really that helpful in a raid unless I'm the only druid (I actually do depend on the unstackable-ness only because there are times I'll do a fern chain on the MT, knowing all the other druids on the raid didn't bother buying it or stashed it at the back of their spellbooks).

Ok, that I can live with, stackable fern would be insane, but you're also a proponent of NBW yet, please correct me if I'm wrong, this still doesn't stack for druids and with the long recast delays I'm at a loss as to understand why since this can only be by "design".

So again, I am not keen to count that as part of our DPS. You might say "not everyone raids, there are people who group too" - sure, but I often group with a 2nd druid, and I don't see either of us wanting to re-roll class right now, so that means one of us gets our DPS relegated significantly.

P.s. Don't forget DS-banned encounters, or tanks with full buff slots. I'm not willing to count the full DPS benefit of fern due to those factors as well, and we shouldn't be asked to accept it as such.

Ok, that I can live with, stackable fern would be insane, but you're also a proponent of NBW yet, please correct me if I'm wrong, this still doesn't stack for druids and with the long recast delays I'm at a loss as to understand why since this can only be by "design".


NBW line stacks with others', that was changed back in May. Fernspur should not be counted as our DPS at all, because unlike Panther, Fernspur is a terrible spell and is pretty much worthless. If we ever get another retarded DS spell, I want one like Hungry Flames, sans retarded recast.

NBW line stacks with others', that was changed back in May. I missed that memo and then some..! Glad it was fixed, guess I need to re-jig a couple of spell memsets again - you too, Mavis!

NBW line stacks with others', that was changed back in May. Fernspur should not be counted as our DPS at all, because unlike Panther, Fernspur is a terrible spell and is pretty much worthless. If we ever get another retarded DS spell, I want one like Hungry Flames, sans retarded recast.
Fernspur is a useful soloing tool for mobs that summon.

Our standard DD spell this expansion - Equinox Brand once again, is just too slow. They should have added another set of Quick Damage AA's for another 15-20% even if they made it very expensive in terms of amount of AA's to purchase.

Reaping Inferno was a nice idea, but way too situational. On many ocassions when the group is single pulling the buff ould have already worn off by the time the next mob gets into camp and attempting to get a kill shot is even more difficult especially in higher end zones where mobs have like a ton of hp the nuke would barely register on their hp even casting at like 2-3%. Maybe they can change it to a set amount of nukes with potential to crit like "Your next 5 direct damage spells will have a increased chance of being a critical blast or something".

Fernspur is a useful soloing tool for mobs that summon.

Our standard DD spell this expansion - Equinox Brand once again, is just too slow. They should have added another set of Quick Damage AA's for another 15-20% even if they made it very expensive in terms of amount of AA's to purchase.

Reaping Inferno was a nice idea, but way too situational. On many ocassions when the group is single pulling the buff ould have already worn off by the time the next mob gets into camp and attempting to get a kill shot is even more difficult especially in higher end zones where mobs have like a ton of hp the nuke would barely register on their hp even casting at like 2-3%. Maybe they can change it to a set amount of nukes with potential to crit like "Your next 5 direct damage spells will have a increased chance of being a critical blast or something".

Fernspur being good against summoning mobs while soloing means jack for groups and raiding. I wouldn't have minded more QD AAs, but I'd rather see nukes fixed for all classes via reducing cast times than relying on more AAs to fix stupid problems.

But why you say 'Nox Brand is the standard I don't know, if anything the Winter's Line should have replaced it for almost every situation. I've yet to come across something in SoF that resists one of the hits to the degree to justify memming anything else, not that I did before either other than in AG/FC/Native Solteris mobs.

And yes, RI is pretty much worthless, it should have been made to just proc an effect similar to what it does now in the same manner that Dawnstrike procs (with no hit limit though), which was suggested during beta.

I missed that memo and then some..! Glad it was fixed, guess I need to re-jig a couple of spell memsets again - you too, Mavis!

Well EXCELLENT!! I can't wait to try that out! That will significantly increase my DPS during our groupage :)

I don't understand why Mages are held back. What do they have that justify that they do so much less dps than necros and wizards? They need a 50-75% overall dps boost, if our raid parses are any indication, to bring them in line with necros.

age=druid seems to be fairly true though. Yesterday on Ur-floxiz I did 201k damage (@ 1544 dps) and the two mages we have did 211k and 180k. (Necros 392k and 375k)

So what I think we need is mage dps to get fixed or we won't see any boost to our own.

Tell your mages to pick up the slack, here's what one in my guild does to be consistant #1:

<table><tr><table cellpadding="3" bgcolor="DimGray"> <tr bgcolor="MidnightBlue"><td align="left" colspan="12"> <b> <font size="3" color="white">Veldyn`s Shade on 1/2/2008 </font> </b> </td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="black"> <td> </td> <td> <b> <font size="2" color="white"> Damage by </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue"> Total </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="white"> Duration </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue"> DPS </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="white"> Scaled </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue"> Hits </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="white"> Max hit </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue"> Avg hit </font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <b> <font size="2" color="white"> Dmg to PC </font> </b> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="Midnightblue"> <td> </td> <td> <b> <font size="2" color="white">Total</font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">640163</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">189</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">3388</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">3387</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">1867</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">16163</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">342</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">0</font> </td> <td> </td> </tr><tr bgcolor="black"> <td> </td> <td> <b> <font size="2" color="white">Lonartik</font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">248260</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">189</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">1314</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">1313</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">665</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">3014</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">373</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">0</font> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="Midnightblue"> <td> </td> <td> <b> <font size="2" color="white">X`s pet</font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">201861</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">183</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">1104</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">1068</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">1120</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">1410</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">180</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">0</font> </td> <td> </td> </tr><tr bgcolor="black"> <td> </td> <td> <b> <font size="2" color="white">X</font> </b> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">190042</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">176</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">1080</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">1005</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">82</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">16163</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="LightSkyBlue">2317</font> </td> <td align="right"> <font size="2" color="white">0</font> </td> <td> </td> </tr> <tr bgcolor="darkgreen"> <td colspan="11" align="right"> <a href="http://gambosoft.com/forum/"> <i> <font size="1" color="gold"> Produced by GamParse v0.9.9 </font> </i> </a> </td> </tr> </table>

IMO a well played mage is where they should be. The sort of premise that druid = mage without pet, when aprox. one third of a mages damage isn't from pets.. that seems flawed.

Versatility is great, but at some point it's not worth the cost.

edit: stupid html

Mage damage has become crazy with pet changes in SoF. I am seeing on our raids similar to what Noken posted more than half the mage damage comes from pets.

Rancourous is 2k mana but, is meant to be a GoRM type spell - on raids with GoRMs or not enough time to use all their mana - they can pump out some serious damage using this spell. So while they may be doing equilavent as a druid in casting damage - since they are spending time/mana with things like servant, they aren't at their full blown nuke capability, which means we are equilavent to mages that aren't all out nuking. Which isn't good.

a few of the mages in DT are regularly in top 10 damage, and vdaen is consistantly our #1 apparently. Mages have not fallen behind, people are just stupid and don't add in pet dps.