Spell damage in LS vs NoS

Question for those who crunch the numbers.

Is it better to stick with level 116-120 rk3 spells or go with level 121-125 rank 2 spells?

Seems like it would want to go with new and shiny, but I did a quick ~ 10 minute parse and noticed that the 116-120 spells seem to be doing more damage than the 121-125 spells.

Someone posted in the bug forum that the Luminous Restless Ice aug which provides a focus effect boost of 1-10% is capped at level 120.

Is the raw increase in spell damage at 121+ being offset by the loss of the Luminous Restless Ice?

I've only looked at some fairly short 5-10 minute parses for shaman and bard dots.

Am I missing something?
Are 116-120 spells really better than "upgrading" to LS?

Bard dots are better to use the new ones when you have RK2. You dont even need a 10 minute parse, just look at several ticks on a dummy and write down the non crit number that repeats. Thats your base to compare.

I assume you have the focuses as well ... just for completeness sake. We're now at the point that until you have the first level of new focus, all new expansion spells are just worse. It's a real flaw in the system.

Thanks Svann.

I ran three 10 minute parses and use eqLogParser to pull the min hit.

#1 : Level 121-125 Rk2 dots : 171,834
#2 : Level 116-120 Rk3 dots : 162,851
#3 : Level 116-120 Rk3 dots : 162,851 ** with out restless ice aug.

Looks like the restless ice aug is not adding to the lower level bard dot damage.

Raw damage improves 5% and my initial observation was faulty based on RNG.

On Day 1 I did rudimentary math in my head, so take my "findings" with however many grains of salt you wish.

It seems like 116-120 rk3 spells w/Restless Ice and type 3 were doing more than 121-125 rk1 w/o type 3.

When type 3 were introduced, 116-120 rk3 w/Restless Ice was equal to 121-125 rk1 (both w/respective type 3)

Rk 2 121-125 is better and is a starting point for using new spells.

Another thing to keep in mind is your focus AA, which is giving xyz percent bonus to your older spells but will not work on the LS spells until you get the next rank. That could be a reason why you are finding NOS doing more damage because you have not updated your focus AA for the spells you use.

I think Sancus posted some numbers in beta forums. I'll try to find his post and link here.

On my shaman I'm still showing ~ 20K lower DPS using new dots.

Is that purely RNG? or is there something that would make me crit better on old spells?

The shaman is max AA, no type 3 augs except restless ice @ 7%



Parse from combat dummy in GH with 422s parse:

New: Malediction Rk. II ..... DPS: 96,958 .. Min: 144,131 %Crit: 52% %TC: 20.0
Old: Obeah Rk. III ............. DPS: 103,849 . Min: 139,236 %Crit: 62.5 %TC: 9.38

New: Fandrel's Curse Rk. II DPS: 70,179 Min: 114,338 %Crit: 55.71 %TC: 0
Old: Lenrel's Curse Rk. III ...DPS: 74,281 Min: 109,517 %Crit: 65.67 %TC:0

I don't think you bought the new focus AA yet, like everyone is saying. If you didn't get them yet, you get 0% increase on the new spells and 30+% increase on your old ones still. The new ranks include the new spells, without buying those new AA levels, the new spells will be much worse.

I have purchased all the new AA's.

with the type 3's the new spells are better but not by much. this is by design i assume to close the gap between melee and casters.

From a "good for the game" stand point i like what they have done thus far. increasing the melee weps. i "heard" they are fixing a few melee AAs as well to bring melee back in to the dps game. yes, as a caster the face value upgrades have been minimal but for good reason.

You have 10% higher crit rate on the old spell vs the new, which seems strange. I could see that accounting for the lower dps.

Yeah those numbers look useless tbh. Try making a test copy and reset your AAs. Don't buy Mirrored Pestilence so you're twincast rate stays at zero the entire time. Then use intensity so your crit rate is 100%. Get rid of damage procs as they just add noise.

You could also just remove your worn focus and familiar buff that add randomness and you'd only have to do 1 cast to see which does more. No need to even parse. But if you really want to parse and think extra SPA 124 needs to be included you could use bard aria as it's a fixed value. Or just re-run your previous parse but at least with the changes above it'll be clearer.

DoTs in LS generally need to be Rk2 or above to be an upgrade to rank 3 spells from TOL due to the lack of upgrade to the Luminous Restless Ice Aug.

It's pretty crappy design.

For Bards, the Rk1 dots will be a downgrade due to the instrument mod cap on the songs... which is also poor design.

True. Not totally happy about it, but what are the chances LRI gets retroactively upgraded? Remember TBM Eyes of Life and Decay aug? Did they ever upgrade that?

Yes - the item you referenced in your first sentence replaced the item you asked about in your second one.

Was there not an expansion where Eyes' focus was outleveled before LRI was introduced?

The Eyes came out in TBM in 2015. The level cap was 105. The focus worked to level 110.
ToV raised the level cap to 115 in 2019. The focus went up to level 120.
LS raised the level cap to 125 in 2023. There's no focus aug.

Was anyone else hoping this thread was a hard hitting discussion on gear spell damage in NoS vs LS?

Just me then...

My feeling is that normally when an important item gets outdated, it gets replaced.

Your new focus aug came in the form of slayer achievements and revamped banestrike. Banestrike was not supposed to stack with the focus aug but they decided not to fix that bug after it went live.