All right I'm thinking about mixing it up a bit for the next expansion and switching from melee-centric (war/brd/sha/ber/bst/pal) to caster-centric. Here's what I'm thinking about the group: Shd Cle (maybe switching to dru when the shd is geared) Mag (But maybe ranger?) Mag Mag I'm undecided on slot 6. I can put an enchanter in there or a bard. I'm pretty well versed in the bard's abilities and they serve as a core enabler of my melee group, but despite having driven my 4x mage team a few years ago with an enchanter I don't know how they really compare in terms of ADPS offered to a mage vs a bard. You can assume all the characters are played with modest skill. Basically /following the shadowknight and spamming a simple multibind. What is the relative ADPS offered to a mage / dru / shd for a bard vs an enchanter? Is the higher ADPS that bards provide to the main and swarm pets enough to outweigh all of the benefits provided by Beguiler's Synergy, Dichotomic Reinforcement, Illusions of Grandeur, Twincast, etc? How will the bard's ability to boost heal crit and a few other defensive measures stack up against the enchanter's rune options? Which choice will more solidly get the group to a point where I can swap the cleric for the druid? Any other group comp thoughts are welcome.
You're a much better boxer than that easy mode set-up suggests. Replace one the mages with a necro. Will add a new dimension to how you play your group, and give you a better burn for named / missions if you can maximize your castings.
I would definitely go enchanter. Mages go through mana really quickly and the enchanter offers the best sustain and burn for the group. Super easy to sync spell rotations with IzzyBoxer. I’m really fond of my Pal, Ench, Mage (4) group. Pally has enough healing to cover the group.
Bard DD crit chance, mana regen songs *laughs in reclaim energy* QuickTime, base spell damage increases is going to crush enchanter adps into the ground in terms of sustained I imagine. Chanter would just be a bit more dps on the occasional burn I'd think. Plus all the other cool stuff bard does.
Did you have a lot of issues with The Crusaders ( https://cov.eqresource.com/thecrusaders.php ) when it was current? The AE in that mission was still really challenging for me with a shaman and a paladin.
I'm old and really set in my ways, so I box both a Bard and an Enchanter. But from purely a QOL standpoint, it's always a PITA having to switch to the bard and face the mob. All casters and you can be really lazy and never switch away from the SK.
Hopefully some of this is helpful. Having boxed a mage and cleric since January 2001 with lots of years away and still not having enough time to experience each expansions content... I'm running easy mode with 5x mages, 1x cleric. Pets are tanks/offtanks (air pets for stuns and the occasional crippling slicer belt proc from mage that drives the group) Full buffed group on start of any outing aside from mage/cleric buffs and auras: Enchanter Voice of Perception / Hastening of Jharin. Shaman Talisman of the Usurper. I have experimented with swapping 5th mage for a bard with the help of a friend who bards way better than I. The short answer is, expect the bard ADPS to be ~25% for each mage. For my scenario I opted to keep the 5th mage instead of the bard. Group DPS was the same (excludes bard dps) Preferred the 5th tank/offtank. Bard generally cannot melee engage certain mobs (Shei Vintras group for instance) Some take aways Enchanter / Shaman dont need to be in group to benefit from their 1-2 hour buffs, some Bard buffs are overlapping there. Mages can haste their own pet to 100% between Burnout (spell) and having an EM item. Frenzied Burnout (AA) is 25% overhaste every 10 minutes and lasts 3:12 seconds so Bard 25% overhaste is effective on main pet for the 6:48 seconds in-between and possibly always on swarm pets. Tests were done in Shei Vintras group, best time with both group compositions was ~175 seconds ~400Mill-Total ~2.3Mill-DPS. During one of the tests with the Bard doing direct DPS - time came down to ~137 seconds but this was DPS+ADPS and we were just focused on finding what the ADPS increase was. 5x mage pet tanks and cleric generally means walking up to ToL Rumblecrush and his 7 stone buddies and full tanking/burning them all down. Other thoughts I'm really happy with the cleric, more so now that I'm using the AA Summon Modulation Shard - always on cooldown and mages generally never run out of mana even when not on a mount - That being said, I still try not to move them as much as possible. have not compared this method to reclaim energy. I have thought about adding swapping 5th mage for a ranger but that's as far as the thought went - maybe when I get caught up on all expansions. I've also thought about swapping 5th mage for a necro, went as far as creating one but never played em. Given driving group with SK, the Bard would be able to melee and group overall DPS would increase.
Interesting, thanks for the breakdown! I'm disappointed in the ~25% per mage figure. I had hoped it would be closer to 50%. I'm assuming your buddy playing the bard played with high proficiency (and certainly more proficiency than I would) and used insults (which would confer an inordinate benefit because they'd hit 5 mages and 5 pets, that's 1.8 million damage per cast!), quicktime, fierce eye, had aura up etc, in addition to a normal melody.
The bard would be the best choice as an addition. In sum it would own an additional mage, ranger or enchanter. Pulling ADPS + DPS Tracking (ranger not rly needed) HP + MP regen (can place a firm independent regen song into the camp) Charm CC
Agreed - we were hoping for more than 25% also due to other tests (that I was not part of) with Shaman and Beastlord pets getting up to 47% increases. The conclusion we came to is the ability of the mage to fully haste and overhaste their own pet as previously mentioned, overlaps the potential increase. There are likely other factors too (having the enchanter and shaman buffs) (pets equipped with Overlord's conflagrant legs and arms) If you were able to stagger the burns/discs on fights that were longer than 2-3 minutes so that things like quicktime, fierce eye were triggered when mages "spire of the elements" and "frenzied burnout" were on cooldown that might provide a greater benefit. Note I've not researched the possible buff caps that might exist even though there are no stacking issues. (e.g. quicktime is ATK +1080 and frenzied burnout is ATK +1000) For these tests we were casting everything at the beginning of the fight. I will also say even though I can almost keep mage firebound alliance/coalition spells on rotation for the 3Mil damage, it's a tossup if I ever use it anymore. Having to stop casting the multibind to verify it lands on the mob decreases spell DPS because Spear/Chaotic/Many spells may have done more than 3Mil in that time. If I had a player tank, I would go for the Bard for all of the benefits Ivan's mentioned. I've not played an Enchanter though so cannot specifically attest how they compare.
Yeah for my 4xmag group I tried to coordinate alliance and also casting of swarm pets for Conjurer's Synergy I found it was maybe more hassle than it was worth. Just spamming chaotic/spear/many is soooo powerful as a mage. The 1: Increase Spell Damage by 90% (v302, Before Crit) from Conjurer's Synergy seems so juicy but it was tough to notice. Did you and your bard buddy ever try some of the longer missions like Oubliette of Light ? It might present a different result because your burns won't conflict as much.
One thing to consider unless it was already said, shaman aura hastes swarm pets and dramatically increased their dps. Big ol deal with mages of course. Might be the best choice for healer unless you're dead set on clr or druid.
I had planned to use a cleric to overheal my shadowknight until it reached adulthood, but the cleric I planned on using is level 81 so I'm using the maxed out shaman instead I normally roll with instead. I hadn't thought about the shaman aura haste boosting swarm pets until Randell pointed it out to me last night. I had planned to have an enchanter/druid in my group, which would provide minimal ADPS to a warrior, but now with a bard/sha I'm reconsidering the merit of switching from a warrior to a shadowknight!! There is some movement on theft of essence on the beta server, I don't really understand Theft of Essence, how it's currently bugged or how the new version works (or what the rebalancing means), so I wonder how it'll interact with shaman aura (Group Pact of the Wolf) https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/nos-aa-feedback-thread.285974/ Completed:Bug: Magician: Theft of Essence (1040): Ranks 7-12 can't refresh spell effect The Magician Class AA, Theft of Essence has been updated to use a new targeting type that lets it apply to all group pets, including swarms, within a radius of the caster's closest pet As a result, the following changes have been made to Theft of Essence Theft of Essence no longer triggers a non-refreshable aura The swarm-specific Enhanced Theft of Essence effect has been removed Theft of Essence has been rebalanced at all ranks A new NoS specific rank has been added Theft of Essence has such a massive disparity between swarm and non-swarm ATK, I wonder what the new value is. https://www.raidloot.com/aa?name=theft of essence&effect=&class=&level=&tab=&exp=All Max Rank Theft of Essence XIII - - 0s Target: Pet 1: Aura Effect: Theft of Essence Effect XIII (Pet) - Enhanced Theft of Essence Effect XIII (Swarm Pet) (IOTheftOfEssence13 240) Empowers all standard pets within a $2 foot radius of your pet with Theft of Essence Effect XIII for #2 seconds and all swarm pets with Enhanced Theft of Essence Effect XIII for 4 minutes. This empowerment increases avoidance by 28%, current and maximum health by 30000 points, attack power by 1400 (3400 for swarm pets) points, and attack speed by 25%. Theft of Essence Effect XIII - - 0s Target: Single 5: Increase Chance to Avoid Melee by 28% 6: Increase Max HP by 30000 8: Increase Current HP by 30000 10: Increase ATK by 1400 11: Increase Melee Haste by 25% Increases avoidance by 28%, current and maximum health by 30000 points, attack power by 1400 points, and attack speed by 25%. Enhanced Theft of Essence Effect XIII - - 0s Target: Single Duration: 4m (40 ticks) 5: Increase Chance to Avoid Melee by 28% 6: Increase Max HP by 30000 8: Increase Current HP by 30000 10: Increase ATK by 3400 11: Increase Melee Haste by 25% Increases avoidance by 28%, current and maximum health by 30000 points, attack power by 3400 points, and attack speed by 25%.
According to logs, Conjurer's Synergy triggered 57 times (on one mage) on last Shei fight (~3 minutes) with 5x mages in group - never tried coordinating or looking for it myself but it seems to be working! Unfortunately we have not tried longer fights. The parsing/testing with other classes pets was done with test dummies in the 5-10 minute sample time (something about procs and rng evening out after 5 minutes) - I was more focused on a real world fight vs test dummies.
Generally speaking, the enchanter class is in a poor place right now, because its main advantage over the bard - mass crowd control - is just not very useful and hasn't been for many expansions. Not that we should ever return to a world where enchanters are 100% required for content, but the class's lack of any advantage else where is becoming especially detrimental: Enchanters used to do a lot more personal damage (via charm) compared to bards. No longer (since they improved bard personal damage and also nerfed charm both directly and separately because monster health >>> monster damage these days). Enchanters used to be able to tank damage a lot better than a bard. No longer (since they nerfed runes). Enchanters used to be able to permanently stun monsters. No longer (since they nerfed single-target suns). Like wizards vs. magicians currently, I have no idea why anyone would take an enchanter over a bard. Indeed, I thought about this myself, and my conclusion is that only in an all wizard or all druid group would you take an enchanter and even then I'm not sure it's worth it. Enchanters just require too much work for too little gain.
This is fairly common run of Shei on my team, but I am focused on rooting and curing rather than dps. The root click ring from VT on shaman is $$$ for this event. 2 second cast but lands during global cooldown. Shei Vinitras in 88s, 337.75M Damage @3.84M 1. Beastlord1 +Pets = 65.38M@769.21K in 85s 2. Beastlord2 +Pets = 65.03M@765.01K in 85s 3. Beastlord3 +Pets = 64.68M@752.12K in 86s 4. Beastlord4 +Pets = 64.26M@747.19K in 86s 5. Shadowknight +Pets = 55.67M@632.59K in 88s {H} 6. Shaman +Pets = 22.73M@267.39K in 85s My bard is only 119, but bard + 4 BLs + shaman is rather insane... I plan to experiment with 1. druid rather than shaman 2. ench rather than bard 3. healer + 5 BLs to expedite alliance and add another synergy. My bard is singing 24 song melody but I wanted to redo to 22 songs to minimize aria drops. Yea, Fyras was my original mage when I started 3 boxing back in DoD 69.1h missions.
Nice grouping on those beastlords. Only like 5% delta between the top/bottom. How similar is their gear? What's the distribution of damage source between pet, bst melee, bst dot, bst DD, bst alliance etc on them?
Yeah a caster group built around an enc/rng could outright delete Shei Vinitras. The Oubliette of Light is a more interesting group fight to build around, in my opinion. It has a combination of adds, long boss fights, interruptions, movement etc that make it a good litmus test for a boxed group.
