Rating DPS powers

In reference to the IB loadout you're talking about, 23k unbuffed completely Ice?

Actually, that's a question I have for everyone on this thread.....What are you parsing completely unbuffed for 10 and 30 seconds and can you prove it with a video?

You can look up "TheKeefMasta" on YouTube and find a bunch of my videos, some have parses, most are just of playing though. I can make a video tomorrow for parses buffed and unbuffed too.

Honestly I don't think it is. I am also the type to spend 2 hours in front of a dummy or 3. I just spent an hour on my ice tank testing whether over the course of a 3 minute boss fight would it be more beneficial to have an extra dot up the entire fight or have blizzard available for use once. (blizz won lol) Sure theres single target loadouts or aoe loadouts that will out perform the other based on the situation. Or even ranged loadouts vs melee ranged loadouts. For instance if you are melee range frost slam parses better than ice boulder. However if you need to be at range theres a top loadout and rotation. I know I don't need to tell you what it is.

Side note ice boulder parses way different on a dummy than it performs in actual game content. Its damage misses pretty often at range in my experience.

I have 3 ranged loadouts so far. All parse around the same number. And all 3 use only 3 of the same powers. Frost Blast is your go to power. After that, its just a filler here and a filler there until WT and FB are off cooldown.

Also, who said I threw it?

Jk lol, I do throw it at mid range, but its hit every time for me so far. Will test it out later to see if its more viable.

They parse the same but do they perform the same in live content? After I parse out a couple loadouts that seem even I always grab my buddy and see if one beats him by more than others. Plus each loadout will perform differently in different content. For instance I know what I'm about to say is blasphemy lol but I take fb out for duos or alerts where I know I'm likely to be the top dps by a decent amount. It gets interrupted almost half the time in that content.

If I run wt-reflect-ibs-ava-ibs-artic gust rotation I'll out dps my friend by half a million more than I would in the same content with frost blast. This has been tested and proven a several times. However in a raid with a tank the same loadout but sub artic gust for frost blast is just king man.

So, some notes about Ice since you guys are kind of talking about relevant things.

Ice has a lot of spells that another powerset can negate. For example, if another ice player freezes targets in blocks of ice, arctic gust won't hit. If ice boulder strike is cast for a 2nd time in a rotation and followed immediately by frost blast, it sometimes won't hit, the targets will either be immune or evade it. Any spell that any powerset has that can trap enemies in a bubble will completely negate arctic gust. Another ice player running a rotation with anything that freezes a target, a munitions or fire player with explosive like powers in their rotation to make enemies explode, a gadgets player with a freezing spell, the list goes on and on.......those are the kinds of players and things you want to look out for in a raid/alert. If you don't hit with a power, which is what these kind of players will make happen unknowingly, your power back will suffer and your DPS output will suffer. If you're getting outscored and can't figure out why, those may be the reasons.

Ice is sort of power hungry unless you're running with an OC so having robot sidekick active isn't a good idea for a pftt build.

Snowball is actually OP AF. You can use it in place of IBS or Arctic Gust and keep up with anyone really, it's just a LOT of button pushing, which is very boring.

For raids and most alerts run WT - Ref - IBS - Ava - IBS - FB - IBS - Ava - FB repeat as needed, Ice Elemental as SC, Blizzard as the SC in Ice Elemental form (Ice Elemental form should have the exact same loadout with Blizzard as the SC)

For alerts, duos, dailies, whatever - just replace IBS with Arctic Gust and play closer to the enemies

Empowered Channeling or Max Damage in your hands slot is really personal preference, I've tested both but in the end, they're the same.

Considering your friend is more skilled than most and has a fully optimized Ice loadout, and that others have vouched for him on this thread, based on our TTBE run today (iMemoriezz, Keef, and I), I believe Ice is rated more properly by both iMemoriezz and myself. This is not a knock on your friend at all. It may be a bit better than what we originally stated, but it isn't as close as an "S" and an "A" as you believe. More like an "S" and a "B+". If you have a skilled Gadgets player with a fully optimized loadout and a skilled Ice player with an optimized loadout under good conditions (minimal deaths, mechanics taken care of), the damage output isn't going to be very close.

How did the run go? If the damage wasnt close at the end I cant argue.

Memoriezz and I do a lot of parsing together and have been Gadgets for years, so that accounts for some of the disparity. However, the rest is just Ice not measuring up in my opinion.

Well I'm not at a high enough level to compete having just come back to the game so I'll have to defer to the test you guys ran. Great job to you guys.

This test isn't definitive, and by that measure neither are the ratings done by multiple people in this thread. That said, I think it does support Memoriezz's argument over the other individuals' regarding Ice.

There could always be someone who plays Ice better and thus show that we are wrong in saying it isn't very good without weapons. It may even be the other two who were in the conversation with Memoriezz, since they confidently stated they parse just as high as we do. However, the burden of proof is on them.

The difference is very big (17mil vs 10mil, 6mil vs 4mil), I've never seen anything like that, something is wrong here?

Nope. Your damage seems right on point. Something is either wrong with his loadout/rotation, or he doesnt have the accountable skill points/gen mods/equipment mods/league buffs ect ect.

Anytime I do TTBe I always average around the 17m to 18m mark.

But let me tell you, I ran with a Gadgets dps the other day and boy let me tell you I had a run for my money lol. Only won by like 200k. Around the same skill points, same CR (240) , and the gen/equipment mods maxed out with the correct mods in them.

So yeah, that was fun lol

That's the same loadout I always run in raids. Nothing was wrong with the loadout or anything else anyone has said to account for it, though I do appreciate "the thought" = )

I'll admit I've never, in 7 years, seen damage done like that, by anyone with any power. I expected for Gadgets to beat Ice, I never said it wouldn't seeing as it and Muni is ranked above Ice by myself, but that much of a difference is a little disturbing.

So, are you gonna post the video and explain the loadout?

No offense, but I don't think you really play at the same caliber as some of the very hardcore DPS do, it kind of showed in your damage potential ratings. That run you guys did went exactly as I expected and why I gave ice the rating I did.

Judging by the numbers it looks like you guys were in TTBE, where there's plenty of single target, AKA gadgets speciality

No offense Fatal, but I play at a very high caliber.

As I said before in 7 years I've never seen that kind of damage and I've played with a LOT of people. I also never said Ice would beat Gadgets, but I did say it could keep up, and 99.9% of the time it does, what Memz and his boy did was....mindblowing and I still can't see how it's even possible. In my opinion if only a handful of Gadgets players knew how to do what he did the devs would nerf the **** out of Gadgets.

Look at it this way, I run so many instances and know so many people in this game and out of all of that, I know probably 3 or 4 people who I'd say are elite class players, and I keep up with those players pretty easily. Now, take 7 years worth of playing, of which you're used to seeing high damage output sometimes from some players once in a blue moon or so, and what am I supposed to think?

I still say that Ice can keep up with any power in the right hands 99% of the time. And I'll still play with anyone who believes they'll prove me wrong, Memz had the balls to do it, where's everyone else?

What Memz did was amazing, yes, but it doesn't change my mind about how I rank powers. Until I get beat like that on the regular from ANY other power, I'm sticking to my guns.

It does however make me want to switch to Gadgets and have Memz be my Yoda.

I would like to see another run with apollo or balistical if for no other reason than to confirm what we saw here. Especially if Ballistical is saying he hits those same numbers.

It's not just Gadgets. I can do nearly as well with a very underrated Celestial, which wasn't even in your top 8. The only issue is I won't ever be able to get OP pieces for my Celestial DPS. Theoretically, I could probably do the same with Hard Light if I had a few hours to get the rotation perfected since I know the cookie cutter loadout. The same goes for Memoriezz, and for a few people on the Villain side that are Hard Light or some other power right now. Nature (pre-nerf), Electric (pre-nerf), Earth, Rage, and now Hard Light have all been competitive with Gadgets on the Villain side since revamp. When raids become more add dominant again, Earth will easily be rated as the best power in my opinion, and that's another power you did not even mention. I firmly believe Earth has the best AOE in game right now. If someone had the resources, pairing that with a precision armory for single target would probably have the best damage potential by far in DC.

I'd like to preface this by saying I am not intending to brag or anything, and these are simply my honest observations. Part of the reason the damage difference was so large, aside from might-based Ice not being nearly as good as Gadgets (or any of the powers I listed), is because we were much quicker to every set of adds and to Aquaman after tentacles in that run. That's just lunging and positioning, doesn't matter what the power is. It's the same skills during AM days that separated Memz and I as well as a few other people on the Villain side from everyone else who was Mental/Gadgets, even though everyone was the same CR and using the same exact rotation. A lot of people switched to Gadgets after Earth 3 came out, and a few of them have gotten pretty close to putting out similar damage, but I don't believe any of them have yet to reach the damage potential we do, because there is more to it than just the loadout. Of course I haven't played with everyone, but I have or Memz has with most of the people that have come out and talked ****. This is the same for most powers. Timing, lunging, and positioning are very important, it's not just the power. That said, in the absence of these skills, Gadgets, Munitions, Rage, and Earth are definitely still very good, which is why people hold them on a pedestal.

I watched most of the video of your run. I noted a few things. For one keef is running exactly the loadout and rotation I would have. There was absolutely nothing wrong with what he was doing in that regard. The one spot where I would fault him was on his aggressiveness. You guys did get to every set of adds first. It seemed like he was playing pretty casually and while that may sound like I'm making an excuse for him I'm actually faulting him for it. ( Sorry Keef!). Maybe he wasnt taking it that seriously. I also noted on MORE THAN A COUPLE OCCASIONS he stopped what he was doing to go pick up one of your downed teammates. I was screaming in my head why Keef?! This is not the time to be a good teammate! lol. This is the time to be that scoreboard chasing, objective ignoring jerk that everyone complains about haha. So after watching the video I'm sticking to my guns that keef is a great player and teammate who played to casually and tried to be a good teammate to a team full of strangers. I would have been a hyper aggressive jerk and so probably would have scored better. I think Ice is fine but agree gadgets is in a league of its own.

The point of my previous post, and staying true to the point of this thread, was that I don't believe Gadgets is in a league of its own. I believe there are other powers just as, or nearly as good. If I went Celestial on that toon, I would probably be not too far behind Memoriezz based on our past runs, leading to a similar result between the three of us. I just believe Ice has better potential precision based until proven otherwise. And there were only 2 downs in that entire run, so I can't see that really contributed too much to the difference in damage. You're right about the aggressiveness part, but knowing the limit to how aggressive you can be without having a negative impact on your group is important because it's also possible if he was too aggressive he could have gotten knocked out.

I don't think that being more aggressive and not going for pick ups would have made up for 7m in damage. I was just pointing out that for whatever reason he wasnt playing like a scoreboard chaser the one time you should ever play like a scoreboard chaser. Also while I'm aware that these tests may become increasingly hard to do I would be very interested in seeing a precision based ice dps out do a might based. I don't think your assertion is correct in that regard. I could be wrong I suppose. But I'd really like to see that.