It would seem the best way to compare all melee dps classes would be with max adps buffs received in the Guild Hall and go against the combat dummy. Load everything on you in an ideal group, and take an hour long parse? Then compare other classes for the same duration with all the perfect adps buffs running on them as well. Seems logical anyway as the best way to get an idea across the board in a perfect situation what the ranks are?
Dunno about monks, but rangers have been stagnating for a very long time. If devs want to give some special love to any DPS class - rangers should be at the top of that list. We are pretty much using rangers just for buffs these days. P.S. don't nerf other classes. Buff ranger DPS instead.
I wish we could get honest true testing and people to post it, but I think that people would feel it would lead to nerfs and that makes sure it will never be posted.
No, Rangers shouldnt be at the top of that list. Yours are just bad if you only use them for buffs. Our Rangers have come in the top 10 on several TDS events. Zerkers are hurting much worse in TDS events.
Although there is something to be said about some classes stagnating, we also seem to be dancing around the issue that casters are in a league of their own in the longer duration fights in Arx. There are some rare exceptions, but its not uncommon at all to see slots 1-8 on a parse all go to Wizards, Mages, and Necromancers. I honestly can't say mages need a boost - they are consistently bunched in the top-ten and hold some incredible staying power. Posting CoTF parses is somewhat off for a current discussion, in my opinion - we've hit a new expansion in which power shifts have happened dramatically towards sustain classes. While a thirty second parse is novel and nice, the truth is the current content shows dramatically different class ranking. Behelit is correct in saying it is going to be a very long year for Berserkers and they are now ranking substantially lower given the lessened impact of burst when given a long fight - that fits perfectly from what i observe, and i sincerely doubt the Realm of Insanity zerkers, such as he, are lacking substantially in a skill category. They're now struggling to hold on at all. Parsing averaging five minutes would be a good starting point for TDS, if not longer. Monk are in a similar state of needing a boost. I feel that need may be even more pressing, given Zerkers at least have an aura and Cry Havoc to augment aDPS. Monks aren't so fortunate to even have a way to help augment the dps of others.
Which is in a large part due to the design of Arx Mentis raids. What did you expect, for example, in AM3? The boss has a slow+snare+dot aura, and does a short range 145k dd AE on top of that. And dying causes extra adds. Good luck, melee dps classes! The other 4 events aren't exactly melee-friendly either. The ideal raid composition for all AM raids except the Ghost is 2-3 tank/healer groups and 6-7 caster dps groups. Melee classes are pretty much pushed to the sidelines. But this is not a class balance issue. It's a raid design issue.
I wish people would look at more to each class then comparing their ideal dps. Many classes have value outside of their dps... FD, self healing, pulling, CC with root, range dps not related to spell dps, pets or just their line of buffs. What do zerkers have outside of melee dps? What do rogues have outside of melee dps? The usefulness of sneak/hide has very limited use in game, let alone in raids. yes, the monk need in raids has dropped off, but I think everyone would accept the trade off considering SoE has taken out the miles of trash clearing before the target raid mob. I would agree more with these posts if they were talking more about limiting the special abilities like decap/assassinate/HS and/or make their damage value calculate similar to slay undead (which was the original unique ability). People seem to forget Slay was given to a bad dps class... not to a class which had good dps. Im sure that will get lots of feedback, so the other idea would be to limit each of those abilities to a more defined/limited mob type.. like slay only works on undead mobs. HS could work only on animals (fish, birds, monkeys, dinos, drakes), assassinate would only work on the main race type mobs (elves, human, ect), and then decap would work on anything living with a head excluding animals, main race types, and undead... (bixie, goblins, shissar). The idea would be to ensure only 1 of the 4 unique abilities would work on any 1 mob type. The idea would cover about 85% of mobs... things like plants, robots, animated objects like brooms/books would not be covered but could be weaker to fire damage. Monks have the abiltiy to pull making their value more apparent in groups then in raids. I dont play a monk, but maybe they would benefit from a large dps click that rivals the decap/assinate/HS. But instead of making it a random proc type, they would have a long refresh click like once per min on ANY mob using 2 legs (call it leg sweep). This would be a cross-mob-type ability so it could fire on humanoid, some animals, some non-humanoid, and then some undead like zombies & ghouls, but not ghosts, and shades.
It's a balance issue that Wizards and Necromancers win every single event for the last two expansions.
...and DH2, and BW1, and WK1. It wasn't anywhere near 'every single event' until TDS. Absor may have gone > just a tad bit < overboard with anti-melee mechanics in TDS raids.
TDS1: Necromancers TDS2: Necromancers TDS3: Necromancers TDS4: Wizards TDS5: Not sure, actually. One-Off 1: Wizards One-Off 2: Wizards WK1: Mages WK2: Necromancers Bixie 1: Wizards Bixie 2: Whoever died the least DH1: Wizards DH2: Wizards Neriak1: Wizard usually Neriak2: Necromancer ToRot: Necro Void: Probably wizard? Argin Hiz: Zerker. Plane of War: Wizards (by virtue of most banes)
The problem is rangers get very little increases after hitting 105 and maxing offensive aa with T1 CotF daggers and/or efreeti standards. As guilds progress deeper into the expansion and gear out their players, rangers are going to fall even further behind since there primary burn damage with Cops is using outdated weapons. No one is asking to make rangers more powerful in CotF, but having them stagnated in TDS while already being low on the dps scale for a dps class is discouraging. As the original poster posted, give some bones to monks, they need it too. For the HS, Assassinate, and Decapitate are of no use on even con and above mobs, thus not a game changer in current content, and CotF isn't current content. Ruven
Your necromancers seem to be much better than your wizards. Or perhaps you just lack enchanters. And your 'one-off 1' parse is probably better off left unmentioned. But yeah, casters completely dominate in TDS raids, because Absor doesn't like melee dps. You didn't let your zerkers AE BW1, or even DH2? The latter is basically the same as Argin-Hiz. Wizards cannot possibly compete with zerker AE.
# of runs? Target? Adps? AA/Buffs? Specific conditions would provide better insight. Also - no test runs using 19 dly + efreeti std? Although I haven't done super long parses, that combo seems to yield upwards to 20% more dps than dual 19 pokers... which would pull you ahead of that beastlord. In general, I still don't get why a lot of my fellow rangers get so bent out of shape over single-mob, short burn dps. So many different factors come into play from one burn to another. Surely most will agree that hybrids shouldn't be able to put the same burst horsepower to the ground as pure dps classes. But am I really alone in thinking that total damage output over the course of an event is far more important/impressive? Because as far as I'm concerned, that's where a more level playing field exists. Combined event damage has less to do with one's class and more to do with the player, his tenacity and resilience. That said... I certainly wouldn't kick a ranger dps upgrade out of bed.
Zerkers didnt top Argin Hiz until lvl 105 when all the adds became decap'able. We did occasionally top DH2, Neriak1, and Neriak2 Prince phase (and that's being cheesy ignoring all the dmg Necros do outside on Lichs so really they top the entire event combined but most ppl seemed to only link parses of Prince phase). As to Casters dominating TDS being a raid design issue, thats partially true. However the much bigger issue is how much ADPS casters have received in the past two expansions. IoG, Fierce Eye hastened to match Bard Epic, Chromatic Haze change, Auspice continually getting better. All of these things lead to Casters being able "burn" for a ridiculous % of time they are fighting. Casters with smart, well-time Bard/Ench/Druid in group will have some form of DD Crit Chance + DD Crit Dmg mod running at all times. I think your mis-remembering but if you're Zerkers actually topped any Bixie combineds than you're Mages needed to try harder. Zerkers were allowed to AE on all CotF events but given the duration of alot of them that doesnt matter on the combined. As I mentioned above, DH2 + Neriak1 were both good events for Zerkers to top the combined. Possibly WK1 if your Wiz/Druid/Mage's were all asleep through add-waves. Caster AE's arent time limited like Melee AE is, so as long as adds are alive for more than 60sec pretty much any Caster with unlimited-target AE's can/will beat Melee AE on a combined.
Our zerkers did pretty well in BW1 for the whole duration and AE'd some of the first 2 waves, but on the final wave they just destroyed everybody by AEing the General's adds, and thus topped the combined parse. Yeah, that's parse padding because those add despawn anyway. But so is Argin-Hiz. In DH2 the boss burn was just a little longer than the duration of Furious, all adds were insta-destroyed by zerkers while casters had to deal with the mega resists for about half of that burn, so that was not even a competition. I don't remember what our mages did before their beams got nerfed and ours got extended to more targets. Mages still do pretty well. But they don't cast as many spells per minute as wizards, and thus don't get as much ADPS from enchanters.
