Why are casters supposedly bad from OOW until TSS?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Kalipto, Feb 25, 2022.

  1. Kalipto Augur

    I'm told wizards (and casters in general) are out paced by melee from OOW until TSS. The reasoning I heard is that melee weapon ratios "get so good" and that spells don't catch up until TSS.

    That reasoning doesn't make sense to me though because the epic 2.0's are the best weapons from OOW until TSS (for most melee classes). So melee aren't getting better and better ratios.

    What am I missing? Or am I misinformed and wizards can actually still compete in these expansions?
  2. Tweakfour17 Augur

    I guess that depends on how you define "best"? Using the weapon ratio most epics pretty far down the list when looking at pre-TSS.

    Also spell resists.
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    2.0 for melee during OoW are good & did give them a sizeable edge in-era, a lot has changed since then though.

    By TSS a solid wizard was blowing up parses on much of frostcrypt, however on the fire-themed Ashengate they were not doing well at all - just as one example.

    I think it is hard to generalise caster v melee during that period, it's more a fight by fight comparison.
    Doranur_Aleguzzler likes this.
  4. Kalipto Augur

    "Best" meaning they do the most dps.

    And yeah, I think you're right - resists seem to be a common complaint as I read more and more of this TLP forum.
  5. Ishbu Augur

    Its not supposedly, its just fact.

    TSS is when things change, but in OOW, DoN, DoDH, and PoR, casters are just inconsequential compared to an equally skilled melee character.

    Weapons generally always outpace spells, a lot of procs and effects become readily available for the melee that enhance their DPS while pretty much nothing happens for casters.

    But the single biggest issue is resist rate. It is absolutely absurd through this era for caster dps. You need every possible debuff on the mob(Im not talking the main ones, I mean ALL), and even then most raid targets will resist or partially resist your spells more often than not. You simply rarely ever get to do your full damage potential, and just waste time and mana trying and trying and trying. Since resists in this game are heavily RNG based in the first place, there is really no rhyme or reason to when your damage will land or not. Critting a spell with a base damage of a couple thousand, with a 50% focus modifier, and the bard song playing, while the mob is debuffed, for 700 total damage feels exceptionally bad.

    Then speaking from a mage perspective, for whatever reason, every additional damage tool the game gives us in this era is fire based, while many mobs have an even higher fire resistance than the other types, so these "damage enhancements" become useless in many situations.

    If you want to be a DPS that matters during the level 70 era expansions, just put your caster on the side until TSS and make a monk/zerker/rogue.
    Ileasa and Kalipto like this.
  6. Tweakfour17 Augur

    So which classes 2.0 is BiS until TSS then?
  7. Mrjon3s Augur

    Berserker still ranks like 3rd best 2hander in TSS with 2.5 aug.
    Kalipto likes this.
  8. Machen New Member


    Rogue and Zerker, hands down. (Rogue you could argue the dagger from anguish is a better dps main hand with higher backstab, until you get the epic 2.5 upgrade in dodh. Either way you are still using an oow era weapon til tss.)

    Monk in situations where you use 1h.

    Since those are the three classes crushing the casters the worst in that stretch, that's probably sufficient.
    Kalipto likes this.
  9. Triconix Augur

    And the odds of getting two TSS weps slot in era...You're gonna be paying a pretty penny.

    Most will use 2.0 as offhand.
  10. a_librarian Augur

    Let me add onto this with something I discovered: almost nobody in the raid gives one single sht about resist debuffs. I don't think there's a class of debuffs the average EQ player cares less about. They don't think about them, they don't use them, and if they're instructed to use them they will do so for 10 minutes and then stop and need to be hounded constantly. Very few raid leaders are going to dedicate energy to reminding people constantly for the sake of already struggling caster DPS, so the reality is you won't have ro's (either of them), and you'll have like 30% uptime on HoS and chaos chant if you're lucky.

    The moral here is be prepared to box a bard and druid if for some reason you really care about your performance as a wiz/mage in the 70s.
    Ishbu likes this.
  11. Xhartor Augur

    Another points that hasn't been mentioned is that pets for Bst, Mages, and Necs aren't as strong when compared to content as they were in previous eras.
    If you go into MPG or RSS you will find that those pets can't tank those mobs. The pets also aren't great dps. This only get worse with the inflation that comes with DoDh and PoR in NPC difficulty.

    Most of the "charmable" npc aren't available in the top end zones. If an enchanter is in a group in MPG or RSS, nothing is low enough level for the in era charm spells.
  12. Rcbauer Augur

    You've been in the wrong guilds then.
    Corydon, Doze and Kazint like this.
  13. Ishbu Augur

    Dumb comment is dumb.
    Kalipto likes this.
  14. error Augur

    A lot of reasons. Spell damage scaling falling way behind, poorly tuned resists, the introduction of multiple sources of massive melee-focused adps, a lot of fight mechanics/durations favoring melee burns, etc... That said it's not like a good caster with the right support is going to get completely obliterated by melee on every fight. Also around SoF/SoD it does a 180 and casters pull way ahead of melee for a while. Balance being all over the place is just part of the game at this point.
  15. Machen New Member


    Why do you assume you are missing anything? Anyone who has played through the 70 eras in the last 5-10 years know that casters fall way behind melees for that stretch. There's really no reason to doubt or argue against it. You are not misinformed.
  16. Rcbauer Augur

    The raids I attend each boss mob has resist debuffs on almost immediately.

    Sorry that your guilds performance is lesser.
  17. HoodenShuklak Augur

    The elephant in the room is the number of players, as a whole, that actually care to min max drops off precipitously on TLP post-pop. This is compounded with the fact that synergies play more of a role than they did prior. Not only do you need better group make ups as EQ progresses, but you need better players. Getting one of these is not something that tends to improve, getting both is wishful thinking.

    This isn't even taking into account players doing appropriate debuffs on raid targets. Having been on some of the beardiest of neck raids I can assure you debuffs do not get the attention they deserve, and this impacts casters far more.
    Kalipto likes this.
  18. Magician9001 Augur

    Bad for caster in the 70 era is an understatement. DPS caster struggle to beat tanks in DPS.

    Between Between GoD and TSS Wizards nukes increase by about 50% dmg and they get 5-15% more ID from focuses depending on which expansion.

    Between GoD and TSS Monk Weapon ratios go up about 70%. They get Fero/Cleave, better AAs for damage, Enchanters get a buff that increases melee crit, Shamans get 2.0 click, champion and puma. Ranger buff starts increasing double attack and they get auspice, Zerkers get a group haste disc, bards 2.0 click.

    You're left with a situation were unbuffed melee do a fairly small amount more dps. But fully raid buffed melee DPS do 3x the damage casters do, melee also have better burns and don't run out of mana.
  19. Corydon Augur

    Just like yours. The dude you quoted is right. The other guy has been in guilds with bad raid leaders apparently and worse debuffers. Also, how can he say "most guilds don't care"? To make such a statement he would have needed to be a member of "most guilds" to evaluate their behaviours. He is just projecting his experience onto "most guilds" out there. My personal experience in "the few guilds" I've been a member of was very different: raid leader calls out for debffing and the debuffers just do it and keep their debuffs on the targets. It might be a different story if your raid consists of 85% boxes being "played" by bad drivers.
  20. TLP Addict Augur

    ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

    That's EQ Baby