Druid DoTs

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Soriano, Mar 17, 2017.

  1. Verily Tjark Augur

    Has anyone seen Teppen? Tepp for short... He was the best. I miss him.
  2. menown Augur

    I found a solution for you, perhaps. It depends on the fight duration.

    [IMG]

    Sunblaze should last 9 ticks, and 10 ticks with a potion. This also gives you even more DPS than you had before.
    moogs, S33k3r and kizant like this.
  3. moogs Augur

    Thank you. You're right. Might retire the insects and just use the one Sunflash/Sunblaze spell. I'm not sure what my mana pool is right now. I'm guessing around 130k. I'm using black wolf and the bear pet and I have my own enchanter with a mana aura, etc. The developer who did the DoT changes really messed up the mana cost for these.
    Rizzin likes this.
  4. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Actually, when they made the last adjustments earlier this year, I ran a detailed comparison of the DoTs vs our nukes, and against the DoTs before the last adjustment. They're still the most mana-efficient method we have for doing damage, by a comfortable margin. The issue is, you can dump mana SO quickly with the DoTs, that OOM can be a big issue.

    I also have a smaller mana pool (~135K), and usually molo, so no extra mana regen for me. The way I solve it is to ALWAYS make sure I'll get the full run of the DoT (otherwise, obviously, the efficiency goes out the window), or, more often, I just wait for a GoM proc, and then cast it for free.
  5. Horyuken Augur

    Or did he?!
  6. moogs Augur

    @Tatanka,

    Yeah, I'm not moloing. I'm 3 or 4 boxing and my spells are usually cast via socials so I can't really take much advantage of Gift of Mana. I definitely get the full run of the DoTs because even though my group's DPS is pretty reasonable, EoK/RoS mobs have a ridiculous amount of HP. I nuke (the big magic ones, the fire one, and remote) and dot every mob. If I only nuke more or less continuously, I don't have mana problems. When I add the new DoTs, I start to have real problems. It was never a problem before, so the mana cost vs damage efficiency just isn't right. I don't play all that often but I think one workaround that I tried was to use a lower level version of the DoTs. It felt like my cat when he came home from the vet and realized his nuts were gone.
    Rizzin likes this.
  7. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    The bolded part is where you went wrong. The efficiency (mana vs damage) is just fine, and similar to what it used to be (just slightly worse). You're confusing efficiency (the ratio) with just actually running out of mana. Those are two different things.

    The difference, you're doing a metric-f*$^-ton more damage, and so that uses a commensurate greater amount of mana. Seriously, with the DoT changes from 2 years ago, our DPS potential is WAY bigger than it used to be. Before, we didn't have a way of doing really good DPS. Now, we do, with the tradeoff being, we use our mana very quickly. But, it's still an efficient use of mana.

    Here's an apt analogy: Say you get a car which gets 80 mpg. It's VERY fuel efficient. Because it's a smaller car, let's say it has a 5 gallon fuel tank. So, you can go 400 miles on a tank of gas. Not too shabby. Now, let's also say it can go 400mph. You have to stop for gas every hour. Seems crazy. But, that doesn't make it inefficient.
  8. moogs Augur

    I'm killing even con mobs at a far slower rate than I was 2 years ago. Things used to die at around the last tick of my dots; now with a much stronger group and a more efficient and well oiled setup, the dots go run their course and I'm still nuking stuff for the last 40% of HP. And that's only in EOK. Versus enemy HP levels, the overall efficiency is not scaled correctly. If it's going to be something that eats up 8% of my mana in one cast, it had better do a lot more damage than it currently does. This was the case immediately following the big change but then the damage was nerfed drastically and the mana cost was virtually untouched (and obviously NPC HP levels also).
    Rizzin likes this.
  9. a_librarian Augur

    Are there any items like the Elder Spiritist's Vambraces in the current content on live? I always liked that dynamic of having a free lower tier dot that took some time to apply
  10. S33k3r Augur

    I'm confused... Are you saying that it takes your group 1+ min to kill a mob in EoK ?
  11. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Again, efficiency is the wrong word to use. At the current time, our DoTs are more mana efficient than our DDs (or in one case, roughly even), and do more DPS. But they use mana >faster<. There's no getting around it. If you want to do big DPS, you will use mana faster than you can regen. If you want to go long times without resting, you have to accept lower DPS (i.e. no DoTs). There isn't an in-between, that's the choice you have.

    You are correct that when the DoT consolidation was first done, the efficiency was even greater. So much so, that it was WAY more efficient than our nukes. So it was way more DPS and WAY more efficient. Not it's way more DPS, and slightly better efficiency.

    I hated the last revamp to lower damage, but after I ran the numbers, and did some testing in the GH against some dummies, and compared to the nukes, I could see, it was a reasonable change.

    One other point to consider. If you stick with DoTs (and have the commensurate increased DPS), you will go OOM faster. But then, you can med in the OOC state, which regens mana much faster, so you're probably still ahead of the game. Or, at least no worse off, and you can enjoy the occasional break.
  12. moogs Augur

    The giants and named mobs, yes.
  13. S33k3r Augur

    That is odd.

    When the DoTs were first revamped when boxing my druid I used a macro to cast the following
    1. Nature's Fiery Wrath
    2. FireStorm
    3. Argent Thornmaw
    4. Remote Sunflash
    5. Anabatic Roar

    After the DoT retune/nerf/devamp I now use the RoS equivalents
    1. Nature's Blistering Wrath
    2. Firestorm
    3. Sunflame
    4. Remote Sunblaze
    5. Cyclonic Roar

    My DoT damage is down slightly and uses more mana however this is offset by additional damage I am seeing from nukes/auras, bigger mana pool, mana preservation potions and more aggressive use of mana pet.

    My enchanter does slightly less damage than last year in EoK but my SK & Beastlord have seen a nice improvement in DPS. Overall My group is easily up 20%.

    Does your group include a shaman and enchanter as well ?
    Do you have all the focus AAs if you are using RoS spells ?
  14. moogs Augur

    I have an enchanter box that I have played for 15 years, a third account on which I usually play a magician (9 or 10 years) but I'm just starting to try to transition to a warrior, and I sometimes bring a f2p cleric on a fourth account (mostly for the aura, buffs and a bit of healing and to leech xp).

    I won't claim to be a pro. My EQ career is pretty much tailing off so I'm just a highly experienced and somewhat knowledgeable (at least with the druid class, more than 10k hours played) casual player at this point, maybe logging in for a couple of hours per week on average. I'm in a raid guild but have not raided since TDS expansion. I do use ISB and most of the fun these days comes from reworking my boxing setup. ForumQuest and theory crafting is more interesting than logging in most of the time so if I'm wrong on something so be it; the game changes continuously and that's probably a good thing overall.

    I've pretty much always had a mix of dots and nukes as my standard setup for many years. That may change. I have a fair amount of AAs including focus AAs but I stopped playing regularly a few years ago so I'm nowhere near the AA cap or any such thing.
  15. Ezbro Elder

    Ehem, okay, so; "Snare->Root->Nuke" tactic is better as a solo play tactic than DoTs?
  16. S33k3r Augur

    /back_on_track.... :oops:

    Snare->Root->Dot is still very viable especially if the DoT does not have a nuke component

    Personally if I have room I do not bother with Root and just nuke away while DoT is ticking
  17. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    Since DoTs can take a while to run their course, you can do both (DoT and nuke). Even if you don't make a specific effort to also nuke, you should still sneak in Storm Strike/Firestorm when it's up.

    Back before the last DoT revamp (where they lowered the damage), I was actually swarm dotting for solo XP. What was nice was that I could kill the mobs (Lcea yetis) with one round of DoTs. I would gather 6, use Improved Twincast, and drop the three DoTs on each, all of which were twincast, and some of which were mana-free, due to GoM procs. Then I could do the next mob using spell twincast, and get all three DoTs on in the twincast window. Then med up and do it all again! I haven't done that in a while, as I've concentrated on older content lately, moloing with a merc.

    One of the nice things about concentrating on DoTs instead of nukes, is that you get the damage with much fewer casts. Feels less grindy to me.
  18. smash Augur

    Which 3 dots were that? Now then i do mostly melee, do mobs in lce, fm, sw not summon?
  19. Tatanka Joe Schmo

    The main 3: Sunflash, Aculeids, and NFW (I was level 105-106 at the time).

    The yetis in Lcea don't summon. From what I've heard, very little in FM summons, and there are Sarnaks in Burned Woods which do not.