Elvitz wrote: Never cast Netherlord, it sucks. Try to pre-cast Netherous Realm+Wicked Gift right before the pull, not during the fight. Most trash fights are so short 15-20 seconds, spending 3-4 seconds on those two buffs will eat out of your dps. This is my rotation on single target: Maelstrom, Catalyst Apocalypse (About when Dispatch Hits), Void Distortion, Dark Infestation, Torment of Shadows, War Pyre, Thwart, Soul Blister, then Void Distortion again, and by that time, mob is dead. Multi-Mob: (FC+Rift if encounter is 3 or more), Maelstrom, Catalyst Apocalypse, Void Absolution, Nebula and/or Chaos Storm, Void Distortion. By this time, any heroic crap is dead, if there's at least two epic encounters, go to Dark Infestation, Torment of Shadows, War Pyre, Void Absolution, Void Distortion, Thwart, and Soul Blister. Rinse and repeat. Aggro is so dependant on your raid as a whole, aggro control, what group you're in, and how much dps your raids putting out, but I'll say this much: unless you excplitcly are asked to hold off on damage for a reason, ALWAYS go balls to wall. Never worry about aggro, it's all about damage, damage, damage. There should NEVER be a pause in between spells. You can't stop casting, or you'll never top the parse, especially on single target.
Yes netherlord is overrated on the eq2bm site. Reason? It has a horrible %hit ratio on anything white or above. On a grey/green mob (which they did their calculations) - netherlord will hit 100% of the time and even get in a few crits. At that point, on a long fight, it is useful. However, on a yellow raid mob, it will barely hit 50%, if that. Considering it also uses a nil crystal, it has limited use even on KoS raids. Orange mobs is even worse. I pretty much only cast it on: 1) TnT Mayong when reflect is up (reflects all spells back to caster, but it doesn't reflect netherlord) 2) Wuoshi since I have to completely joust out of range anyways and when netherlord bites it its just added confirmation that Wuoshi's AOEs have gone off. Otherwise, its pretty much when I click the button by mistake. If it had extra usefulness like AOE damage when it dies (like the Wizard dumbfire) I'd use it all the time. agressiv
Deathspell wrote: First off you should realize about 9.5 out of 10 people that relay parses are either complete full of it, or not giving all the appropriate information. Think about it like a fisherman telling you how big the fish he caught was. Rule of thumb, take any DPS claim you see in these forums and divide it by two. That's likely what they really parsed. Edit: As a footnote, there are so many factors that effect how the parse turns out .. it's impossible to really guage how well your doing vs people in forums based on numbers. How do they end each parse? How many seconds before the parse ends? All of these things are important and can greatly change the numbers your seeing at the end of each fight. Heck, what happens if the person ends each parse when the end-fight confirmation text is displayed? Then they don't capture the *entire* parse. What happens if they end it 5 seconds after all combat ends? How about 3? Either way, you get the point. The best way to guage your DPS VS other Warlocks is to simply run a parser while your raiding with them. Beyond that, there's too many factors.
The varying DPS posted on boards have more to do with your group/raid than anything else. Consider that low-end raids are hitting 10-15K DPS whereas higher-end raids hit 30K+. A more useful thing to look at would be what % of the total raid dps are you doing? 10%+ means you're doing ok imo. If your raid is doing 15K DPS there ain't no way you're going to do 3K DPS and not bite it instantly, since your MT probably can't hold aggro vs. that yet, etc. Do you have a troub? Do you have Vim? Do you have synergism or TC? Do you have wiz casting frigid gift? Do you have 1-2 brigs raking/dispatching? Do you have a monk with raid-wide spell haste? This can affect DPS as much as/more than proc gear, BOE/INT/crit gear, and cast order.
Yup, raid buffs and debuffs along with rw dps will affect your dps heavily. I raided without any freeport classes much longer than I raided with. In qeynos we were lucky to break 20k. Grab some freeport classes and 40k is within reach(encounter not zw). I raided without troubs or wizards almost every raid but could still maintain 2nd place on the parse. Then if you do finally get troubs and wizards do they use their proc spells in a timely matter or jc you at the appropriate time and not 15 seconds too late every fricken time. I built my casting order around that spreadsheet and doubled my dps. Seems my intuition wasnt anywhere close. Precasting procs is huge and getting the dark infestation out there early always helps too. I used to have all procs up and rift inc as soon as the mob was in camp(hastenings line ftw). Then they changed rift and I had to adjust. If you have a crappy group your going to do crappy dps.
I don't know, for awhile there I was buying into the whole "netherlord sucks" thing, but I've really had a turnaround with it. Even in FTH I see it doing 3-5% of my parse, which is phenomenal considering the quick casting time. Of course, if the mobs AE at all, it's toast. AE heavy zones such as DT and HoS aren't very good playing grounds for Netherlord, but it still gets lots of use in Labs, Lyceum, and FTH. I precasted my Realm/Gift for a long time, and just recently I changed it so I cast them in-battle. I'm definitely sticking with the casting them inside battle now, because pretty much 1/2 of the gift and realm is wasted by the time DPS in is called, and you get to your spells that will trigger them. (TM, Netherlord, and Aura don't trigger it, DI is single target, and Apoc is slow casting...and these are our 5 most efficient spells) Purely by changing from precast to inbattle, I've increased my DPS by about 2% on all fights that last longer than 30s. Of course if its going to be shorter you might as well precast. As an added bonus, the process of casting them in battle gives the MT a nice buffer to get his reactive taunts working before all of our DoTs start blossoming. And yeah, I'm one of those 10% of raid DPSers. It's true that %age of DPS is a better indicator than actual numbers, I will dip as low as 1k on the alt nights where we have only 10k avg, but on the nights we go upwards 18k I'll pull 2k+
Single Target: TM Netherlord Aura Netherrealm Gift DI Freehand+Apoc Void Distort War Pyre Scourge Thwart (If tons of spell haste, toss in Glacialflame and then Soul Blister and then Chaostorm) Loop AE: TM Netherlord Aura Netherrealm Gift DI Chaostorm Freehand+Apoc Void Abs Chaostorm VulNull NullCaress Rift Chaostorm Concussive Aura Nebula (if more than 2 mobs, otherwise forget it) Void Distortion Chaostorm Loop
The only way to consistently break into the really high numbers on single targets is to basically have a proc item in every slot possible, and every buff you can get to increase proc chance. It's simpler than it sounds, because things like 2x rings of supremacy and a breath of the destroyer will take countless Deathtoll visits; and in general you need both rare KoS and EoF loot. Unlike scouts, who really just need a good weapon and masters to hit 3k, every single slot on your character matters. At least the masters are cheap :/
knightofround wrote: So, here are the numbers for netherlord. Taken from here: I'm not in the game now but according to the chart Netherlord is our most expensive single target spell to cast - the most power *and* it uses a nil crystal. Images from eq2idb disagree though, so I'd have to check it in game. However, the damage estimates are correct. In order for netherlord to land all 18 ticks for 4.1k damage: 1) The mob must be green or below 2) It must not get hit by an AE (I think it has about 2k hitpoints) 3) It must last 45 seconds. #2, sure, not a problem, but satisfying #1 and #3 is rare. It will hit 50% on almost anything except for entrance labs trash, which it will do about 70% assuming it doesn't bite it. As for encounter duration, 45 seconds is rather long except for EH trash and some in MMIS. So, assume it will hit for about 2k damage, maybe 3k with debuffs - if you can make it last the whole encounter. A single War Pyre which uses less power will probably near that damage *guaranteed*, especially if you have +spell damage adding to that, which doesn't help netherlord. Netherlord may be 3-5% of your dps but it could be split into 6% of your DPS better put in other abilities - casting Netherlord means you aren't casting more efficient spells. I'd rather use brock's thermal shocker. Zero power, quick cast time. If they fixed the %/hit ratio (he is a master I netherlord afterall) I would change my tune in a heartbeat. Or, if they added an AE component or AE on death component, sure. I have an open mind though, so I'll cast it every fight tonight and see if it helps numbers. Heck, maybe I'll precast it since it generates almost zero hate. agressiv
Netherlord may not be as good as the spreadsheet's efficiency makes it out to be. But you, sir, are incorrect to assume its worthlessness. I sympathize with your cause; I, too, used to be an abandon-netherlord-to-the-pits fanatic. =) But real numbers don't lie. Parse it yourself. I believe that you will find that on a per-cast basis, it is slightly better war-pyre, slightly worse than distortion. Assuming that it isn't killed by an AE, of course. I disagree that 3% of netherlord could be split into other, more efficient abilities. The strength of netherlord is its long duration; if I casted apocalypse a little earlier instead of casting netherlord, I would steal add aggro in hurry. But with netherlord I don't have to pay any aggro "cost" until it gets killed.
