Just wondering... I've recently joined a guild that raids somewhat, and am taking my hotkey setups a bit more seriously. To this end, I've already set up popular burn lines as detailed in Goberserker's "Feel The Burn" thread, but I could use some added input... Now that we can click items in a macro, what items would be good to add where in existing macros? I click my 2.0 whenever it's up, but I'm wondering when would be best to use my BP click (RoF BP), and other tools. Also, should I be using First Spire on the raid mob, or Third Spire on my party, generally? I have Third Spire added to my War Cry macro, but am wondering whether I should pop 1st Spire before using it. Is there any real use to magic-damage-based discs? Vicious Spiral, Blood Brand and Brutal Axe Throw seem... lackluster... for the Endurance they use, since they inflict magical damage instead of weapon- or skill-based damage, and our AAs don't really support boosting direct magical damage. And just what all requires being damaged below 90% to activate in the top-end? i.e. that I should be concerned with. I'm debating making a macro to fire Bloodfury and pop each one, but I want to gather the list in one spot. I just recently came back (less than a month ago) after six months away and I've lost track. Thanks!
Sadly i'm at work (workin' hard right? ) and can't rattle off all the skills at the moment. Augmented Frenzy and Advanced Retaliation come to mind as the two most common 90% hp required abilitys that i use often. Hope this helps!
This isn't true for raid targets, by the way. Solo or grouping sure, go for it. But if you've got a full raid blasting a single mob, and your zerker dot is eating up a spell slot on the mob that could've been, say, a necro dot... then you're doing more harm than good.
I think I'm meaning something else when I say war cry. Battle Cry of the Mastruq and the like. MGB'd when used with Cry of Battle, hastened by Hastened War Cry? As for Blood Brand, yes, I avoid using dots on raids. It's damage is lousy and the self-injure effect can be gotten elsewhere without requiring a target or Endurance. I ask about magic damage discs because they eat up my Endurance. Even with Communion of Blood, I'm finding myself needing to manage my END as the raid goes on sometimes. I'm considering eliminating them (especially BAT, when has been on my mash key a while) to conserve END because I feel I can get better overall impact for that END elsewhere. One of our casters joked Monday that nowadays the casters get impatient and the melee need to med. Thanks for the input, though!
Personally i think it's foolish to hamstring your Damage Per Second in an effort to conserve your endurance. Go all out, your job is to DPS, why not do it to your potential? Endurance is only an issue, if you cannot manage it. You can Fade-Rest every 10 minutes You can Feign-Rest every 3 minutes (with feign pots... brewing finally has a benefit!) You can get 10% with Comm of blood (I usually blow this after my first 10% endurance used and it's back up well before i need it again) every 10 minutes. (the only fight i don't blow comm after the first 10% is plane of war... cause i'm prolly gunna die at some point) You can clicky your CoTF breatplate every 10 minutes (this one i hate, but sometimes it's necessary to sacrifice the dps gains of your RoF BP clicky to sustain your overall) Once you learn to juggle your endurance gain options, you will be much more effective. Endurance should always be at the forefront of your mind, but you shouldn't be playing around it, you should be playing into it. Also, nearly every raid encounter has several places where you can flat out click rest during transition phases (even if that window of time is very small) Bixie 1 - when the bosses are killed, click rest before/as the next round spawns Bixie 2 - Once you're on the final round of Bzz's you can click rest between each bee pop/split WK2 - between each captain pull you can rest WK1 - between waves you can click rest Neriak 2 - This one is a given, you can actually sit and med to full before the final encounter Tower of Rot, between phases you can click rest (after the 3 goons drop and bayle respawns) AH - Between each phase (flamedudes/imps/freeti/twins) you can click rest Void - Once the 4 isles are down you can click rest (depending on how you juggle lanys) Neriak 1, DH 1 and 2 are short encounters you shouldn't be having endurance issues that comm and fade/rest can't compensate for. To Phrett's point, it's very valid. I generally play it by ear depending on the buff slots/attendance. More often that not, i have the DoT up on the mob.
Just how much dps are you doing with these discs? They inflict magic damage, so they benefit from almost nothing zerks have to boost damage whatsoever. I can't even think of something we have that boosts them off the top of my head. I said that my guild raids somewhat. We join forces with another guild twice a week to take down various CToV dragons. BUT, probably due to power increases in group gear, we tend to kind-of crush some of them, although we struggle with others. However, even with CoB and yeah... I did think to try fade+rest... I can blow through my endurance by the end of a fight just keeping up what I should keep up and using my mash key. It looks to me like I can convert this endurance spent on extremely low-dps discs into end-fight high dps continued maintenance and do better overall.
I'm not sure why you're so worried about doing damage that's boosted with skills and ability's. (saw you mention that twice now) Your job is to do as much damage as you can, it doesn't really matter how, or with what . "It looks to me like I can convert this endurance spend on extremely low dps discs into end-fight high dps continued maintenance to do better overall." Think about that for a second, low damage per second discs added to your regular dps will only raise your damage per second man. In reality what you're doing is less damage per second by not using these skills, making the fights longer, and your output less during your time in the fight. Here are a couple random parses from last week, the first is an RoF t3 event, the second is in CoTF t1 event. Parse: Shadow of Luclin in 124s, 197010k @1588789sdps -- Me(Zerk) 21394k@172536sdps (176814dps in 121s) [10.86%] -- Zerk 19768k@159419sdps (164733dps in 120s) [10.03%] -- Monk 19144k@154388sdps (156919dps in 122s) [9.72%] -- Wiz 14432k@116389sdps (122307dps in 118s) [7.33%] -- Beastlord 13813k@111398sdps (112304dps in 123s) [7.01%] -- Ranger 10544k@85029sdps (87864dps in 120s) [5.35%] -- Wizard 8782k@70820sdps (78407dps in 112s) [4.46%] -- Mage 8707k@70214sdps (8884 .. Breakdown of DPS: Me -vs- Shadow of Luclin: -- DMG: 21385958 -- DPS: 176743 -- Scaled: 172467 -- Slash: 19017207 -- DirDmg: 1172287 -- Hit: 671449 -- Frenzy: 519027 -- DoT: 5988 -- % dmg as normal: 9.5% -- % dmg as critical: 90.5% -- Non-crit rate: 36.6% -- crit rate: 63.4% -- Attempts: 1251 -- Hits: 1192 -- Missed: 59 -- Accuracy: 95.3% -- Avg Hit: 17941 -- Max hit: 93990 -- . Parse: Deathmaster Sarenth in 149s, 311481k @2090476sdps -- Rogue 21579k@144828sdps (146798dps in 147s) [6.93%] -- Me(zerk) 18945k@127150sdps (132485dps in 143s) [6.08%] -- Zerk 18630k@125031sdps (134997dps in 138s) [5.98%] -- Wiz 18485k@124059sdps (131098dps in 141s) [5.93%] -- Zerk 16694k@112040sdps (120970dps in 138s) [5.36%] -- Zerk 15692k@105319sdps (112089dps in 140s) [5.04%] -- Beastlord 14386k@96547sdps (100598dps in 143s) [4.62%] -- Monk 14059k@94359sdps (997 ... Breakdown of DPS: Me -vs- Deathmaster Sarenth: -- DMG: 18927239 -- DPS: 132358 -- Scaled: 127028 -- Slash: 16364954 -- DirDmg: 1343321 -- Hit: 685049 -- Frenzy: 521747 -- DoT: 12168 -- % dmg as normal: 8.5% -- % dmg as critical: 86.4% -- Non-crit rate: 32.5% -- crit rate: 60.3% -- crippling rate: 7.1% -- Attempts: 1217 -- Hits: 1165 -- Missed: 52 -- Accuracy: 95.7% -- Avg Hit: 16246 -- Max hit: 90341 -- I'm not sure if these abilitys are filtered under Hit or DirDmg, so I highlighted them both. But the damage isn't trivial, both those 2-ish minutes fights there was over a million magic damage I dealt, (or about 700k hit) These weren't even great parses, just what i happened to see already loaded in my parser. 1.5m and 2m dps as a raid is mediocre on a burn for a raid target, not exceptional. Like i said earlier, you shouldn't have to hamstring your dps to sustain endurance. They give us enough utility to stay in endurance indefinitely. (yes, even after being rezzed) You just need to stay aware, and proactive about using them at the right time.
Nah, I'd like to see some breakdown of DPS from each disc and DPS per Endurance spent. I'm not the best mathematician, but you espouse using these discs without providing specifics on just HOW GOOD they are for our DPS. My argument is that the End I spend on them could be better used making sure I'm able to put out higher DPS for longer at the far end of a fight, when my End is fading even despite CoB and Rest. The idea is to save it for continued high DPS later rather than blow it on crappy DPS extras earlier. Out of the DPS parses you provide above, just how much of that is from Brutal Axe Throw, Blood Brand and Vicious Spiral?
The reason I ask is because, unfocused, those three discs combined are ~706 DPS total at rank 3. Now, I imagine Bard songs could boost them, but you have to remember that Decapitate also shows up as magical damage... so if you've Decapped during a parse, I imagine it'd get blended into the numbers unless you filtered the parse to show specifically VS, BB and BAT. But with a base DPS of 706 (most of that being BAT at 566.25, with BB at a continuous 78 and VS at 61.73... assuming you can use BB due to the self-damage and VS due to it hitting multiple targets. I know there are times where one can't afford to do one or the other or both), I just can't see these three, even boosted by other class' abilities, contributing any real percentage of your DPS. We raided Nagafen last night and I ran out of Endurance without any of these three discs, just doing what I do. We also killed Lord Koi'Doken and I got below 40%. Yes, I used CoB whenever it popped. Yes, I used SP + Rest when I was below 25% and kept going so I was burning End as Rest was giving it to me. I tend to come in top 10 on our parses. BUT there's a big jump, usually, between me and the next person, because the folks are already raid-geared, while I'm still in baz gear. Not that our parses are great, I'm sure they pale compared to yours, but... hey... I'm trying to zerk the best zerking I can zerk, here.
the DD dps on those parses aren't from Decap, its from AF mostly. you didnt mention AF specifically but since your mentioning DD dmg skills I'm wondering if you're using it. Brutal Axe Throw is more like 1-1.5k sustained on average if you have a bard cycling FE and you're working in glyphs, without any support its still closer to 1k than the 500 you're suggesting. Vicious Spiral shouldn't be used that often as it shares a timer with Arcblade and unless you're fighting more than 5 mobs while not under disc than Arcblade is superior damage and should always be used instead. the DoT is useless and should never be used on raids as mentioned above because of debuff space.
I am using Augmented Frenzy. That's a bit different, as it not only has a continuous effect with a single expenditure, but it also directly impacts one of my abilities that I DO have tons of AAs to further augment in reducing Frenzy's recast timer. However, yes, I did forget that AFS would also show up in there. Ultimately, I guess my sticking point is deciding what to do with BAT. It's completely pointless unless I spam it in my mash key, but I also feel the damage isn't worth the End cost. Even if it's DPS were closer to 1k (say, 900) with a Bard going, that's still only about .68% of his total DPS. Less than 1%. But it costs almost 25 End per second if used continuously. That's almost all the Heightened Endurance AA benefit. Even with Granitebark 3, Bst crack 3 and a Bard singing Pulse of Salarra 3 using a Veiled seal, BAT alone would consume roughly 16% of my in-combat End regeneration (before CoB, Rest and such) to maintain. One-sixth of my End regen gone to maintain less than 1% of my DPS. Given that I'm running out of Endurance, which severely hamstrings my overall DPS late in the fight, I feel like I'd rather have the extra 25 End per second throughout the fight to fuel later AFs, VFs, Volleys, Axes of Zurel and so forth and continue to enjoy the higher sustained DPS of weapon/skill-based attacks boosted by the many AAs we have to boost them. DoT damage, BTW, constitutes about .06% of your DPS up there, Syrup. I must be tired. I can only do math when I'm exhausted.
How long are your fights in tov? When I do alt raids on my berserker sometimes the fights take so long I'd be out of endurance the last few percent of the boss. If people are slacking and the fight takes 20 minutes, it's not really your fault if you run out of endurance. IMO applying more dps almost always wins over trying to conserve endurance (or mana), the entire raid force should have this mindset for most events imo. Makes the fight shorter, makes it easier on healing and tank cooldowns. Something that may help anyone reading: Get rank3 rest Remove open wounds from spam button, I see alot of people putting this on main spam and it's a mega waste of endurance
Open Wounds has it's own key, because it's only useful if I'm tanking. It's FANTASTIC for soloing/moloing, useless for raiding, for me. I ended up swapping BAT for Arcblade. We get a TON more AAs to augment Arcblade's DPS, and as yet our raid force isn't dealing with anything where Arcblade can be a problem. Either way, though, our fights aren't that long, but again either way I'm blowing through Endurance FAST. Even with popping Communion after using the first ~15%, even with the fade + rest combo. CToV dragons might take 5-10 minutes-ish, but I can be at critical Endurance levels by 50% or so if I push hard. And no, I'm not spamming any discs that have no recast but last a time, it's almost all spent on attacking effects, except for my once a minute Cry/Havoc key. My mash key, right now, consists of: Vanquishing Frenzy Frenzy Volley Axe of Zurel Arcblade
