How does your guild manage limited debuf slots?

I responded to Silu in a PM, but for anyone interested this is a quick (non-comprehensive) list, our formal one hasn't been updated in a while so there's no point linking it, but I'll try and edit this post as I remember more of them/people remember for me, I've trimmed out other stuff like swarm pets/troll abilities for the sake of the topic at hand;

This list is only relevant to Single Target Encounters/Phases, many of the below spells/abilities are perfectly fine being used on Adds/Multiple Mini's etc (And this is just like, my opinion, man)

Bards - Cacophony, Bladed Song, Chant of Chaos
Beastlords - Bite of the Asp, Roar of Thunder, Hobble of Spirits (Pet), The Stupid TBS BP clicky
Berserkers -
Clerics - Jorlleag's Channeled Mark/Reverse DS
Druids - Reptile on Tanks
Enchanters - Deceiving Constriction, Mental Contortion
Magicians -
Monks -
Necromancers - Cascade of Decay (3+ Necros), any old Clicky DoTs
Paladins - Audacity, Protest (If not actively tanking)
Rangers - Swarm of Hyperboreads
Rogues - Slash, Jugular Cut, Ligament Slice
Shadow Knights - All DoTs (INCLUDING BOND), Pestilent Darkness, Torrent of Anguish, Audacity/Protest (If not actively tanking)
Shamans - Ennui on Tanks, Languid Bite, Disease dots
Warriors - Call of Challenge, Throat Jab, Oppressing Shout
Wizards - Lower Element
Clickies/Items - Rot Vulnerability, Pulse of X sympathetic augs, Venom Raptor familiar

RE: Necro Nerfs... the point was that they have and continue to "nerf" Necro's so they can't stack DoT lines and such (i.e. swarms), pointing out the the original poster that Necro's can't stack -- or "hog" the DoT's as much as they used to. After all, the Dev's are far more likely to Nerf other classes in similar areas rather than increase Debuff slots for MoB's.

That was not a nerf. Calling the consolidation such just vomits your credibility out all over the dirt.

BUT MA PARSE!!!

SK dots 4LIFE!

https://www.eqinterface.com/downloads/fileinfo.php?id=6822
Target window with 97 debuff slots.
That way you can see when the debuff slots are full or close to full and stop using the weaker stuff.

I haven't seen the term Enchanter Syndrome before. As someone that has played a raid enchanter for 18 years I think it's funny. Right up front in the class descriptions they describe the class as being one of the hardest to play. Raid enchanters are hard to find. It's not a class that is designed to be the star of the show. I thought that the mind bending aspects of the class could be used on mobs or on players. Mechanics are important, but one of the things that gets lost in these discussions is that you're not playing against a computer, you're playing with people who have different ideas and ways of doing them and in EverQuest the better you are at cooperating with others the further you'll get. It's about playing the players to some extent, with finding negotiated approaches where everyone benefits in the end.

Flatchy asked an important question: Is the whole point to see who does the most damage to a mob or just to defeat the mob?

Not all of the spells and abilities work for soloing, grouping or raiding. Alliance spells add a dimension to raiding that, as you point out, isn't going to be of any benefit to someone grouping or soloing. They require coordination with others in your class and in some cases with other classes which is the point of raiding. It still amazes me that fifty or so people can all do exactly what is needed at the right time to beat something they can't do on their own. Beating the mob isn't the challenge, it's working together to reach a common goal. Teamwork is not easy and that's what this is about. Me or Us? Teamwork involves these types of discussions, and finding the solutions that work for your entire raid full of people and how to address a particular situation can be a fun puzzle to be worked out.

The idea that anyone would have to adapt to the raid environment and be allowed to do whatever they want just so they could top the parse is counterproductive and certainly not limited to the enchanter class. Raiding takes a much different mindset than soloing, moloing, boxing or grouping. If you can't ask, and be willing to look for the answers to: What can I do to improve the raid DPS, mitigate the incoming damage from mobs to reduce the healing needed in certain situations? or What kind of abilities do we have that work with other classes to develop a synergistic effect? Then you probably aren't going to find raiding fun regardless of your class.

It's a great discussion. I agree with both of those dots being of minimal value, although Mental Contortion is at least one that has to be coordinated with other enchanters or they just write over the pervious one if you do use it.

We've been discussing this in our guild for a while, with people trying out various types of buffs and making some minor adjustments. Our mages have been upset over Alliances bouncing, and some of the higher DPS necro dots not being able to land, but I really hadn't thought about it in terms of the Enchanter Alliances and dots. We do sometimes have enough enchanters to make use of the Alliance spell, but have often been too busy doing a lot of other things to really think it through. Occasionally one of us will sometimes memorize it and just hit it on a boss when it's all focused DPS since the others will be nuking or dotting at least occasionally and we might get six hits in 18 seconds from them and usually do.

So what if the enchanters stopped dotting all together in that situation and went for the fulminations? With direct damage spells we're far more likely to be procing more Gift if Hazy Thoughts, Beguiler's Synergy which stacks nicely with the mage and necro synergies in a group and Gifts of Mana. What do each of the classes have that could reduce the number of slots taken up and still do maximum damage?

The 64 bit rebuild hasn't been started yet. Sounds more wish list at this point. One dev is not going to rewrite C, C++, Java, Java Script, PHP and I forgot the SQL server side in one year no matter how aggressive. This is a mult-person effort that would take more than one year from a project management perspective.

Great that its being talked about and perhaps with three new dev resources is already in the works. A full pot of coffee and 2 plus hours of listening to all that was worth playing in the background while did my day job.

Hazy Thoughts procs off DoT casts, DD casts, and stun casts. That is not a factor.

If any approach you're considering doesn't already include maximum casts of Reinforcement (1/minute, forcerejuv to get a second run immediately during burns), and maximum casts of Mindrift (5+/minute) for Synergy, then that's a bad approach. Their huge impact on group dps is why enchanters are there instead of just more magicians & druids.

Once those are covered,
Grips & Coils are very good damage. Up to 20M with a full run under good adps. That compares fully fairly with non-Klraggek necro dots. It would take six Chromatic Resolutions inside a minute (three enchanters, twincasting nukes to fulminate each other in ~1tick not 3, each uses force rejuv to cast twice. not impossible but…let's just say an impressive feat. Call it "possible", but…show me.) to match the total damage of that same one debuff slot use. Each of those two good dots ticks for higher average damage than enchanter nukes, and at the same time Pulmonary Grip is also the highest damage nuke an enchanter can cast.

This is the same situation as other classes' good dots. Other classes' dots aren't (all) bad. "Interfering with necros" isn't intrinsically bad. It's only bad if the effects that are interfering are bad.

It's not correct to tell four enchanters to suck so that one necro can be okay.

It's not correct to tell four shaman to suck so that one more necro can be okay.

It's not correct to tell four druids to suck so that one more necro can be okay.

The Problem To Be Solved isn't "those darned kids have no respect", the problem is that well regulated correct play maximizing the contribution of each player doesn't leave room for dotters to play well and contribute to their potential. Whenever dots are mentioned, necros become the focus of attention, but it ain't "on them". This problem impacts all dotters going down the line of whose contributions are dot/debuff focused, in the proportion that their performance is dot/debuff focused - dru shm brd enchanter bst rng shd performance is all artificially constrained by the debuff limit most directly, and most other classes to some lesser degree. Classes that just care about damage are each at least "hit" for 40-50k dps on their Coalitions bouncing, but also if a class doesn't get to use its non damage debuffs then that class isn't being as strong as it could be.

Brilliant post.

I don't think we know if it has started yet or not and we are unlikely to know that it is progress until it is close to being complete or they are ready to test it on beta and need testers.

It would take a little coding work on DPG's behalf, but a solution would be for only one of each specific spell or song to take an individual debuff slot. Multiples can land and have individual timers but they are all tracked tbrough one real slot. 8 necros? No problem, still only 13 slots used. This would allow most classes that want to cast something be able to.

A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork. - John Wooden


Yes, I know you're memeing, but there's a good point to be made here.

I could be wrong but I don't see how that would be any different than just expanding the number of debuff slots and it could actually be worse. The problem they have with the number of debuff slots is tracking them all. With the current system you know exactly how many you will have to track but you don't with this suggestion. You could have 13 if there is a single necro or you could have 104 if you have 8 necros from your example. The game would still need to track all 104 dots just like it does now just that it won't know if that 104 could expand to 130 if 2 more necros start dotting.

Nah, it's basically the reverse of the Alliance counter instead of fulminating and ending the spell it just progresses in power based off unique player casts. Similarly, various raid debuffs have a counter as you stand in a mechanic, think back to ToFS1 where the longer you stood in the middle the debuff escalated in power through the tiers.

Both concepts are already in place, it would just need some refinement to work with player DoTs.

Of course they would need to be tracked from the server side individually. My solution was to solve having a window with 104 dots displaying in it and the info being so cluttered that it is meaningless. There could be a "my debuffs" window if someone wanted to track their own (if there isn't already one for that - I haven't raided EQ in a serious capacity in years).

Nah its not the same. Time based off the npc aura, versus calculating how many of each dot per player plus crit, Luck etc dmg calculations each tick. Plus timing of ticks (really lots of computation) for each added on dot, means your its so easy to do comment deserve a fresh Nah

Sure, you can make it as complicated as you want or just keep it simple.

nobody needs this level of negativity SCORNFIRE!

the answer is yes. first you beat the mob... then you beat everyone you can on the parse.