Mage DPS - looking to improve

Discussion in 'Casters' started by Brie, Mar 7, 2017.

  1. Sheex Goodnight, Springton. There will be no encores.

    [IMG]

    Everything’s coming up Milhouse.
    Belexes, fransisco, Sancus and 2 others like this.
  2. Aurastrider Augur

    I must say boxing multiple mages I feel like an idiot for not utilizing my alliance spells better before hand. This has seriously just increased my dps and in turn also keeps me above the mana curve better since I am clearing the camp faster so I have more med time between respawns. Thanks to everyone on these forums for the suggestions. These are helping me evolve and become better all the time.
  3. shruggz Elder

    this has been most informative, and helped me a great deal. Thanks
  4. Zalamyr Augur


    It does worse based on what? Setting Kizant's tool to 20 seconds? It's been discussed, multiple times (including by Kizant himself), why that's not a good idea. That's basically my only issue with what's being said here. You claimed your rotation was optimal based on that lone data point, and there's numerous issues with doing so. I'm not concerned with where I did or didn't agree with Sancus.

    If we're just going by what his tool says at 20 seconds, I'm pretty sure Rain > Rain > RS > Spear is the highest dps weave there is outside of burns. But again, there's tons of real world issues with that. For example, the tool (as best I can tell) estimates rain damage done over three waves but applies it immediately. When you use his tool for longer parses, that caveat is largely irrelevant. On this particular example, you land one rain at the very end of the 20 seconds, which in game would only land for one wave, not three, overestimating the damage this weave would do over 20 seconds.
  5. Zalamyr Augur


    I actually did write a paragraph about rains and deleted it because it seemed like it'd just derail this already derailed thread, lol.

    When I'm out moloing on my crappy mage I typically end up using RS > Rains > Chaotic priority. It seems to work out the best for me overall. The dps each fight is a bit lower, but I use so much less mana and have far fewer issues with the pet's aggro.

    Prioritizing RS seems necessary for no reason other than being aggro free damage. Rains seems to be largely better outside of anything other than spire/union. Heart of flames I'm a bit more unsure on. Spears do a bit more damage during it, but the efficiency is still so much lower that I'm not sure they outpace the added pet sacing time. Chaotic gets dropped in priority because twincast procs are often wasted a bit while I'm moving from mob to mob, or because they generate too much aggro for my pet anyway.
  6. mmats Augur

    Explained 3 pages ago.

    I know man, I was there. The tool is still useful outside of dps, to get an idea of casts per spell.

    Actually no, I gave the underlying reason why I thought it would do better 3 pages ago.
  7. Zalamyr Augur

    And I disagree with you for reasons already stated, but I digress. We're clearly not going to convince each other otherwise.
  8. Dreadmore Augur

    So... this thread is officially hijacked and questions about improving mage DPS should go elsewhere now, right?
  9. Piemastaj Augur

    Should go to tells or asked in serverwide.magicians:fluffy tbh.
    Cicelee, Sancus and kizant like this.
  10. IblisTheMage Augur

    I think it is fair to ask dps questions on the board, as long as one does not expect consensus.

    It makes for interesting reading :).

    My experience as I leveled was that it depended also heavily on what the group, # of aa, and location; when I was 90, casting RS and spears would have drained me in no time if chain pulling. Later I had a period where i liked Fickle a lot for its low mana cost, then a period with spears and Orb, then of many came in to the picture, and then Orb went out. A long period my main issue that my pet could not generate enough aggro for me to nuke fully.

    My point is I guess that it depends, especially on mana and context, but sometimes also on what the bottleneck is in the party. Now it is another toon in my box who runs out of mana first, so mana is no longer a concern on my main, etc etc.

    If you want some meta-advice, listen to Sancus. He is likely the best mage in game, or at least the best mage that communicates wrt mage know-how. And listen to me, because I am such a nice guy, and I carry a kazoo in my work clothes :-D
  11. Aurastrider Augur

    I am curious if casting RS before chaotic has a huge downside. I have always cast RS as part of my assist hotkey (assist/pet attack/swarmpet attack/RS/Some fast use AA I cant recall the name of) and then I follow this with my actual spell lineup which is chaotic/spear/spear/many/chaotic.

    I rotate alliance in the mix with my four mages also (this is new and has been a wonderful addition) I also try to rotate my swarm AA's (for the sake of where I am farming currently respawn times are roughly 5 mins so I use one on at the start of the first clear and then the other one at the start of the second clear and just repeat over and over).

    I then also have 3 burns which I am trying to keep in rotation.

    The one thing that is interesting doing a combine parse of nearly 1k mobs is one mage's dps is 83k and the other 3 are all nearly equal in the 50-60k range. My pets have their own names so it does not combine their dps to their owners but they are adding about 8k each. The mage that is doing the 83k is at the end of the alliance cycle. What's even more interesting is his dps is higher yet I have one mage who's average hit is nearly 3 times more (this toon starts the alliance cycle) and another mage's average hit is nearly double (this toon is second in the alliance cycle) yet my top dps mage average hit is almost equal to the mage just before him in the alliance cycle. The mage with the highest dps is also getting off nearly 4x the amount of hits vs the two mages who start the cycle and about 1/3 more hits than the third mage. I am still really new at using parsing tools but this seem rather odd to me since all 4 are setup exactly the same and I use ISB so they all cast at the same time minus the mage who is casting alliance. Still being a newb to the software I cant figure out how to just copy and paste the parse over to show the visual of what I am trying to explain. To make things worse the two mages that are doing the most dps are usually ftp and only have non prestige gear and augs equipped while the other two mages are usually all access and have a mix of prestige and non prestige gear combined with more AA's (although for the sake of combat they all have the same useful AA's).

    Maybe I am reading to much into the parse due to the top mage maybe getting credit for more of the big nukes due to alliance for what ever reason? These fights for the most part are only lasting about 15-20 seconds tops so maybe this is not even relevant even though I am comparing a lot of encounters?
  12. Cicelee Augur

    RS makes your next fire spell do 50% more damage. Since 110 Spear on its own does significantly more damage than Chaotic, you would be gaining more overall damage with spear than chaotic. Assuming, of course, you are 11/11 on synergy.

    I can see the benefit of casting chaotic and hoping for a twincasts or rejuvenation, so that you can cast another RS in that scenario. I just personally feel 110 Spear should always follow RS with the exception that if you have 15 pets on the mob then you go with volley. I prefer my chaotic, RS, 110 Spear, chaotic, 105 Spear rotation.

    Although I have been experimenting lately with replacing 105 Spear with Rain. I get the 106-110 GOM proc, it looks like both spells do similar damage (No actual data to support either way yet), and it is just a different change of pace. Plus having 2 mobs equals four rain hits instead of three hits on one mob...
  13. Aurastrider Augur



    Awesome this is the kind of logic that helps me a ton. I am running 4 mages plus I have my sk pet so the pets do add up very fast but I think I will try switching them in my rotation tonight and see my results. I am starting to wonder if in my situation having many (just dinged 107 last night) would make more sense after RS. So maybe chaotic/RS/many/spear/spear and repeat or it looks like maybe chaotic/RS/Many/spear/chaotic? Thank you in advance for any input. This thread has been rather useful and I wish for it to remain a productive one for others.
  14. Cicelee Augur

    I am not Sancus, but I feel I am among the top 783,210,448 magicians in the game. My advice is-

    Running four magicians, Volley makes perfect sense provided you can keep 15 pets on the mob you are fighting. Or is it 12? Whatever it is, get the minimum max to maximize the damage of Volley.

    One thought is using a magician Host of Elements rotation. Mage 1 does Host, runs 90 or 120 seconds or whatever (provided they don't die), then Mage 2 goes, rinse/repeat. You will have a 2-4 minute window after Mage 4 where you do not have 15 plus pets on the mob, so Volley loses some significance . But for a 6-8 out of every 10 minute time frame, Volley after RS is the way to go provided 12/15 pets on the mob...
  15. Cicelee Augur

    Also unless you are burning a named or whatever, you want as many Chaotic casts as you can for the benefits it provides like twincasts, rejuvenation, flames proc, etc...
  16. Aurastrider Augur



    now you are making me step up my game but I love the idea. I am going to have to figure out how to key this into my rotation to make it work but I think you are right. I am probably losing out on potential dps having all my mages cast it at the same time since volley/many loses benefits after 15 pets and at any given time I might have dozens upon dozens up. Again thank you for this advise as this keeps me actively thinking about the class and trying to maximize it based on my current setup.
  17. IblisTheMage Augur

    Guys, you need 6 pets for of many to break even with Spear, I am pretty sure Sancus confirmed :)

    So rs->many if you on average have 6+ pets :)
  18. Brohg Augur

    Sancus confirmed? I like the guy, but he doesn't have a monopoly on the spell data file :p

    Volley of Many Rk. II107 2138 0.75s 9s T6 0s Fire Line of Sight
    1: Decrease Current HP by 4737 (If Between 1 To 2 Pets On Hatelist)
    2: Decrease Current HP by 10208 (If Between 3 To 5 Pets On Hatelist)
    3: Decrease Current HP by 17210 (If Between 6 To 9 Pets On Hatelist)
    4: Decrease Current HP by 28172 (If Between 10 To 14 Pets On Hatelist)
    5: Decrease Current HP by 44429 (If More Than 14 Pets On Hatelist)

    Spear of Molten Arcronite Rk. II110 5633 3.5s 9s 0s Fire Line of Sight
    1: Decrease Current HP by 34339

    With 6 pets, it's a touch over 50% the size, for under 40% the mana cost.

    There you go, YOU just "confirmed"… whatever
    Sancus and IblisTheMage like this.
  19. Aurastrider Augur

    Did not have a lot of playing time to test the new lineup (was able to parse 100 mobs). Looking at the log files I am not seeing a huge difference based on dps its just to hard to determine their dps unless I am looking at things wrong so I am using parse times right now to determine things. This might be flawed but every mob one mage will have huge dps, two will have ok and one will have low. It fluctuates with each mob where each mage falls on the parse.

    My current test spot is the goblins at the south end of FM since they are rarely contested and I can do the same loop without much randomness (there is one roamer that some times makes it into the mix).

    Doing chaotic/RS/Spear/many/chaotic I am killing between 12-20 seconds per mob. Looking at my log files from my previous lineup I was rarely getting down to 12 seconds so I think this lineup is probably better for my crew. I also changed my keys to I can spread out my AA swarm pets for each mage instead of having all four mages just dump them out at once.

    I am going to try doing chaotic/RS/many/spear/chaotic tomorrow and see if this is an improvement. Mana is becoming a bit of an issue though so I need to take this into consideration. I am able to go for about 20 mins before I have to stop and actually med. I am rotating my horn of unity, mod rods when ever up, and both my AA and spell mana recovery tools.

    I also moved my sk swarm pets to its own keybind to use at the tail end of my mages to get more use out of many. Certainly a work in progress but this is rather fun. Thanks again to everyone for their input its always appreciated.
    Tucoh likes this.
  20. IblisTheMage Augur

    Heresy! :-D

    Hehe, well I think it is the cast time that really does the trick, it is so super fast to cast that it drives the dps up.

    I did the math once in a crappy excel sheel, but used Kizant’s not long time ago, it looked like dps broke even at 6 pets