The break even may come from the cast time, mana efficiency, and the fact that it can keep up Theft on pet?
Yeah I definitely wouldn't use "Sancus said" as supporting evidence, as big as my ego is I'm not infrequently wrong . That said, yeah, I think you do break even around 6 pets. I say "break even" in a bit of a loose sense, though. I think one thing lost on people is there are a lot of lineups within 5-10% of each other DPS-wise. While you definitely want to shoot for highest DPS lineup, when things are within 5-10% of each other, there are other benefits (e.g. mana efficiency) that need to be taken into account. That having been said, for this purpose I'm comparing RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear to Chaotic -> RS -> Spear -> Spear. That means you're losing the 105 Spear for Volley, not the 110 Spear. You can verify the comparison in a few ways, which is usually a good idea: The simplest way is to compare the raw damage accounting for Focus AAs. This isn't the whole story, but IMO is always a good place to start (if this doesn't agree with your other answers, it's helpful to know that and to then figure out why): Spear of Molten Shieldstone: (29,731 * 1.16) = 34,487. 34,487 / (1.75 + 1.6) = 10,295 DPS Volley of Many (6 Pets): (18,071 * 1.40) = 25,299. 25,299 / (0.6 + 1.6) = 11,500 DPS Spear of Molten Arcronite: (36,056 * 1.16) = 41824. 41824 / (1.75 + 1.6) = 12,484 DPS Now before anyone gets their panties in a twist, yes, that leaves out procs, Spell Damage, the disproportionate gap in Type 3 damage, etc. That said, it gives a rough idea that the 110 Spear > Volley (6 pets) > 105 Spear. Now on my spell damage calculation spreadsheet with basic group variables plugged in (no ADPS, 3-5% focus, 2000 SD, no Eyes of Life and Decay, etc), here's the DPS I have: Spear of Molten Shieldstone: 54248 DPS Volley of Many (6 Pets): 58712 DPS Spear of Molten Arcronite: 64941 DPS So here you see their relative values are slightly different, but pretty much the same results. This won't account for procs, synergy, chaotic benefits, etc, but it does factor in quite a few more things. Now finally, take a look at the web app: RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear: https://goo.gl/CQiZTR Chaotic -> RS -> Spear -> Spear: https://goo.gl/cEKb2U You'll see they basically do the same damage. It's worth noting I set RS DPS to 18,000, which is way higher than the web app's default. If you're keeping up theft of essence it probably should be higher than that in a lot of group content, unless you're wasting time between pulls. Increasing RS's DPS will put the Volley lineup slightly farther ahead, and decreasing it will put the Spear lineup slightly farther ahead. It's pretty much a wash though. So a few things to consider now: RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear uses the Synergy proc on Volley. That's not awesome since its base damage is low with only 6 pets. That said, my general assumption is that, in actual play, the number of pets ranges from 6 to 10+, since this is a lineup for at least 6 pets. In my mind, therefore, it probably isn't worth trying to find a different lineup in most situations. If you frequently find yourself with 6-9 pets, though, perhaps there's a better lineup that gives Spear the Synergy proc. The lineup with Volley gets more overall casts out. That's because Volley is faster casting than Spear, so the total time it takes to complete the weave is lower. You can see in the links it's not huge, but you are getting a few more casts of RS/110 Spear/Chaotic, which is a good thing since those are better spells. RS -> Volley -> Chaotic -> Spear is going to be a lot more mana efficient. Obviously Volley uses less than 1/2 the mana of 105 Spear. Casting more spells overall is going to use a little bit more mana, but that's more than offset by the mana savings from Volley. The Volley lineup is going to proc Theft of Essence more consistently. That's pretty big, since RS contributes so much damage. You can definitely proc it without including volley in your weave, but that can mess with your weave a bit and doesn't have perfect uptime. This is a much simpler/cleaner solution. I didn't address rains at all here. This is just comparing a lineup with Volley to one with Spears. Rains are great too, but they have their own benefits, issues, considerations, etc. Discussing that would take its own post. But in short, if you can use rains for sustained DPS, especially on 2+ mobs, it can yield better damage and mana efficiency. So, overall, yeah. I think Volley breaks even at 6 pets. If you consistently have 6+ pets, I would use the lineup with Volley. If you sometimes have 6 pets and sometimes 4 or 5 or w/e and aren't totally sure, I think sticking with the Spear lineup is safer. Definitely swap to a lineup with Volley during Host, but otherwise you aren't missing out on much.
So, are you unsure about the frequency of you being incorrect? That would be different than saying frequently wrong...
Perhaps? I thought saying "frequently wrong" was a bit hard on myself, but it would probably be incorrect to say I was "infrequently wrong" (or maybe that's true depending on your definition of "infrequently"). In hindsight yeah, "not infrequently wrong" was not a good way to phrase it, but I was going for something in between the two. Kinda proves my intended point in a way tbh.
I'm as surprised as anyone those DPS app links work. I did the easiest thing as a test and just went with it..
Ok I did not have much test time this afternoon so I will have to play with this some more but for my group of 4 mages I tested two new lineups out. First test chaotic/RS/Many/chaotic/many (no spears). Based on time of encounters I am still in the 12-20 second ballpark for almost all mobs. I am alternating my swarm AA's per round so one mage fires off swarm pets on first mob. I decided to not use any mana recovery tools since mana was starting to become an issue and I wanted to see what % I would be at after each round. I am holding solid around 70%. Next I tested chaotic/RS/many/spear/chaotic/many. I am still in the 12-20 ballpark and doing the same thing as above. The one difference I am noticing is when I get to mob #5 alliance is not up on my first mage at the start of the encounter while it is up using the above weave so I am assuming this is providing me with a little more dps even though the times between the two lineups are not significantly different. As far as mana goes though this lineup is consuming more with end mana between 50-60%. I will test them again tonight when I have more time and more mobs to compare against and try to add my mana recovery tools to the mix. If I can sustain lineup two without a med break I think this might still be the better way to go. If I cant sustain this lineup due to mana but I can sustain lineup 1 I think I might stick with it. Any potential downside to basically only casting the same 2 nukes over and over again?
Both Many and Spear have 9 sec cooldown times, meaning two other spells fit between casts. If your first weave is being slower, that's almost certainly due to a gap waiting for Many to come back up.
I think I am liking my spell lineup now doing chaotic/RS/Volley/spear/chaotic. Encounters are still lasting in the range of 12-20 seconds. Using my mana recovery tools I was able to sustain for a full lesson burn without having to med but just barely. I also upgraded storm of many to volley of many which I instantly noted a 50k increase in group dps. Not sure if that will hold true going forward but its a nice upgrade. After the bonus xp is over I want to try some longer encounters. Any suggestions where I can go at 107/108 to test out mobs with higher HP. I am not sure how reliable this is with such short encounters but there are very few variables so its a nice spot to test out a marathon run without much risks of adds. My groups average dps is only 300k before upgrading spells and is now 350k. I have no clue if this is good, bad or somewhere in the middle and if it really is meaningful due to such short encounters. At some point I would like to link my burn lineups for critique to see if there is a more logical order for things or stacking issues that I am not seeing. Lastly I need to work on my sk dps but that will be in the tank section. Again thanks to everyone for their input. You guys are making playing EQ more engaging and making me think about things that I never put a whole lot of thought into. It certainly makes the game much more interesting.
Aura, i don’t understand: is your spell lineup a macro or a multibind? The reason that I ask is because I don’t understand how to have the same spell twice in a multibind. Maybe I am just tired Edit: are you using lower level chaotic and many as well? Edit: hmm no they are on the same timer, I think
I always read not infrequently wrong to be a way of admitting that you may be wrong but not wanting to commit to admitting that it happens often.
Well both in a sense. I don't use pauses but I still have the same spell on the lineup twice just to account for any possible fizzles or interruptions in casting. I know I still have to play around with it more on the combat dummy where I can actually switch over to my mages and focus on their screens a bit more not worrying about getting killed but with the anniversary xp running right now I would rather test this in an experience environment. This is not how I usually test to see if things are all firing as intended btw but I don't want to miss out on xp atm. Next week I will take my lineups to the dummy and make sure things are actually working as I would like them to work. This might require me to change up some things or maybe add even more keys to my lineup. Currently I am getting full use out of 1 through = and F1 through F8 on my mages. For the most part my sk uses all of the numberpad keys and the ones surrounding it plus the ins,del, home, end, pgup and pgdown keys. I could start to add shift plus 1 through = also but this is a lot of new muscle memory to apply in a short time period so I am trying to avoid that for the moment.
Anyone doing macros or really unless you're spamming a multibind as fast as possible you'll want to increase the GOD value when comparing to the app. Even the default 1.6 probably isn't high enough. It wouldn't surprise me if some people are hitting 2.0 or higher than you can even specify. For me using a test dummy and having zero lag with my 80ms ping I need to use a multibind and a key autorepeat set to 200ms or less to be similar to 1.6. I dont think this is mentioned enough but it's quite possible that different rotations are going to be the best for different people.
This is one of those newb moments but in case someone else did not realize you can use both your AA mod rod and spell mod rod. Now I see how mages are keeping ahead of the mana curve. Such a significant difference utilizing both.
modrod recast ~= symbiosis recast , and may as well put Munificence back up for a while at the same time = a 3 gem spellset for me I also cast Gather. Chaotic refreshes make it much more a "real" spell (at least in group content where there's frequently loose 2-tick gaps to cast it) than it was in years past.
I totally overlooked symbiosis some how also. I think I need to just go back and reread every spell description. I started utilizing the elemental form water I believe to get the added mana regen. back to the drawing board to figure out how to add this into my lineup as well. By the time this is over half of my keys are going to be designated to mana recovery tools.
With enchanter, bard, and using rs-many-chaotic-spear, my mana-bottleneck is not mage, but enchanter in my box group.
I wait until I see the mages mana at roughly 80% then start incorporating my mod rod/symbiosis macro into spam. I don't use Of Many because right now I've only got the one mage and unless SK is burning I don't really have enough swarm pets out to make it worthwhile, but I am using two spears and not really running into mana issues. Like Iblis said, the mana problem really doesn't come from my mage but rather cleric/enc (I really need to figure out a better spam lineup on the cleric).
