Dirge abilities need looking into

Discussion in 'Dirge' started by ARCHIVED-Xanusus, Feb 10, 2005.

  1. ARCHIVED-Xanusus Guest

    Noxious chorus and its upgrades - This song and its upgrades is supposed to increase noxious mitigation i.e. your poison and disease resists. Well, graphically it does this when you check your persona screen. However, in real situations this song gives little to no benefit in helping resist or take less damage on disease and poison casting mobs. It may not be the song's fault but rather how Sony has chosen to give little to no benefit from resists in this game. The way resists work have made this particular song weak. solution: Fix the way resists work and this song should function properly, OR add an element to the song that places a ward on the group against specifically poison and disease attacks. The return you get from having this song up really amounts to a VERY and I mean VERY slight reduction in damage taken from disease poison attacks and I'm talking about the highest upgrade to this line at adept or better.

    Discouraging discante and its upgrades - This is the spell line that is supposed to lower the encounter's agility and str. I have parsed and parsed until I'm blue in the face using this song line and it does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. The mobs coninue to hit just as hard with or without it up. It doesn't seem to affect their agility/str much at all. Both components to this song are broken or either they are so negligible and insignificant that it is a pointless waste of concentration and yes I have adept or better of this song line. You really need to look into this song line to see if in fact it is functioning as intended. Dirges are supposed to be able to debuff mobs and frankly all but one of our debuff songs are **** including this one.

    Misfortunes kiss and its upgrades(this is our attack that must be used from stealth) - Well the attacks do decent damage taking into account that they are being performed by a lesser damage scout such as the dirge. If we didn't have to stop all combat to get them off it would be a good addition to a Dirge's arsenal for DPS. The problem lies in the fact that in order to use it in our groups we have to a) stop attacking(losing out on precious DPS in the process) b) cast the only stealth that will work in combat which is our lowbie sneak which takes another 3 seconds to cast c) once stealthed with our lowbie sneak we can now perform the attack. So basically with all our stealth attacks we are losing out on tons of DPS if we choose to use them in combat. Frankly, dirges have other abilities that do more damage than these and don't require us to stop attacking for prolonged periods of time just to get them off. That fact makes this line of abilities worthless. Oh and using this ability to start off a fight is pointless also because my flanking attack does more damage than it does and provides better benefits than the stealth attack components do. I'd rather get that off than the **** stealth attack. I don't think it's very practical to have to cast stealth at the end of every battle just so I can perform this attack at the start of the next battle only to see the mob run away from the group after I've done that. As I said my flank attack provides better mobs and generally hits as hard/harder.

    Lanet's Excruciating scream - Cudos to Sony. Thank you for this one ability. It is awesome. I just wished we got upgrades to this ability. Since the skill has now been unnerfed it's great and even this lvl 20ish ability is still used by lvl 50 Dirges. It is THAT good. How about an upgrade to this? We get none to it.

    Crypt's quiet and its upgrades - This song line adds a proc to all members that does disease damage every now and then. From multiple parsings this song will roughly add about 2-5% DPS total to groups. I don't use it that often because of the low return on it. I have other songs in my arsenal that will increase DPS much more for our limited concentration pools. Maybe adjust the proc rate on this song up a bit or add something to it like a random lifetap.

    Tarven's Crippling Crescendo and its ugrades - This ability is a defense debuff which when you get the upgrades to it will also act as a small DD spell. It casts in .5 secs. I use this ability quite often and think it is great. I use it as my HO progressor. Works great and I have no problems with how this ability functions.

    Verlien's Enimatic Falsetto and its upgrades - This ability acts as a snare and seems to be working as intended. I do notice the mob's movement speed is slowed pretty good when this is placed on them. No problems here. Honestly though I hardly ever use this but the few times I have it did work.

    Clara's Chaotic Cacophany and it's upgrades - nicely done Sony. This ability works as intended and does decrease mob slashing, piercing, crushing mitigation. It can greatly increase a melee heavy group DPS output.

    Harl's quikening euphony and it's upgrades - It increases your str/stam/agi and the upgrades will add minor elements like poison resist and damage increase. With the recent changes to how stats work these songs are becoming more and more **** and less productive in groups. AGI/STR are currently/have being/been nerfed so these songs no longer provide the benefit to groups they once did. With the way stats have been affected lately this song line's one redeeming quality will be helping someone get over 200 stam which may increase HP a bit more. How about looking into this song's effectiveness for groups with the recent changes and make adjustments accordingly so that this once bread and butter song can be restored to it former usefulness.

    Darksong blade and its upgrades - It's one of our DPS attacks that adds a small DoT to boot. It's working as intended so no problems here.

    Garsin's funeral march and its upgrades - This song causes a single target to flee the battle. Unfortunately alot of times when used it will cause mobs to goto unaccesible areas like in walls never to return to the group. Or, heck, they just wander off somewhere never to return. The problem with that? well groups get stuck in combat mode indefinitely when this happens and usually end up having to camp out to clear it or try to get far enough away to clear it. Other than that the ability does work.

    Luda's wicked warble and its upgrades - This is our single target scream nuke. It does decent damage but I do have something to add about this ability. It takes 3 seconds to cast. 3 seconds is a long time in combat especially when you consider we have 3 melee arts that all can be excecuted in 1 second time each. During that 3 seconds you completely stop attacking. My DPS actually will get lowered in parsings when trying to use this because of this. For the damage output that you get from the scream, it's not worth wasting 3 seconds of time where you could use other abilities that could do more damage in that time period. I don't even find it useful for pulling as Lanet's gets the job done and for less mana at that. solution: since it is not a normal nuke like other casters get but rather a scream it should be instantanious or at least cast much faster. An easy way to fix this ability would be to significantly lower the cast time on it AND at the same time increase the reuse timer on it to prevent it from being overpowered. At least that way I could use it without worrying about it actually lowering my damage output during a battle.

    Performer's talent and its upgrades - This song line increases AGI and the upgrades will add minor things like disease resist. With the recent changes to how AGI works this song lost alot of its previous usefulness. Perhaps to restore it to its formal usefulness you could add an element to it that increases damage mitigation( like an element that adds to crushing, slashing, pierce resist) or something. I don't know what to say but this song's usefulness really went down the tubes. About the only good thing about it now is it increases your power pool slightly because of the agi increase. It defintely doesn't help in avoiding damage anymore. On a side note, Lithe Disbelief, the last upgrade to this line is NOT granting the arcane resists it is supposed to according to the description. It is also consuming mana every time the proc atk spd portion of this song goes off. It can get real bad at times when you're running low on mana and this proc effect decides to go off like 5-6 times in a row effectively draining you of all mana.

    Cry of the departed and its upgrades - Working. I just wish the lifetap portion of it healed for a bit more but otherwise I can say at least it's working. Heck, I'd even be happy if you lowered the damage on this ability but increased the lifesteal portion of it. The last upgrade to this at adept1 and me being a lvl 50 dirge only heals you for 98 points. LOL! I've got about 4k hitpoints 100 health doesn't even move my health bar. It also takes 3 seconds to cast. It sure would be nice if it actually healed around the area of 150. I might find myself using it a bit more just for that effect even if it did take me 3 seconds to get it off.

    Merciless Melody and it's upgrades - this song line's main component is that it increases atk spd. the upgrades will add some minor elements. At first glance that sounds fantastic. Mechanically though the song really is pointless. In fact any haste in this game is pointless( except for maybe the iquisitor haste which affects cast time for casters) The majority of DPS in groups/solo comes from weapons skills/spells/etc NOT from hitting auto atk which is what haste affects. Haste has no affect on weapon skills and thus is not necessary for DPS. That fact makes our haste songs pointless. Why again do they cost 2 conc slots when I can play other songs which will increase group DPS more so than the haste song line? Haste is only important when all people are doing is hitting the auto atk button and not using skills. Who does that? Here's a suggestion on how you could fix this. Make it so that our haste line not only affects the auto atk weapon delay but ALSO lowers the reuse/cast time on abilities. I don't see that as a huge balance issue as our best haste song is only 18% haste. We're not talking earth shattering cast times and reuse times here on a reduction like that. Now that may just get me to play the song and the nice thing about that is it would also benefit everyone in the group including the casters and healers. Right now it's only good for lazy melees who don't use their combat arts.

    Thuris doleful thrust and it's upgrades - working as intended. No problems here.

    Dissonant rythym and it's upgrades and like spells - This is our AE spell line. I lumped them all in one area here. ALL of these spells are completely and utterly useless. They do subpar damage, cost tons of power to cast, and to make it even worse they have a recovery period attached to them which means you can't immediately use another ability following the use of these or attack either. Their damage output even on grouped encounters is easily matched and surpassed by other abilities for LESS mana. Not to mention you have to stop attacking to even cast these because the cast time on them for the most part is 3 seconds. These really need looking into badly. I'm not trying to whine at all here but these abilities really are bad. I know some of these AE attacks have special utility in that they can interrupt casting. That really does no good from a mechanical standpoint either. Basically that means that you have to guess when a mob may cast and you have to make that guess 3 seconds ahead of time and then the spell has to hit at the exact moment they are casting for the interupt to happen. Raise your hand if you think that's going to happen.

    Daro's doleful Dirge and its upgrades - This is the song line that it supposed to lower atk spd and snare the target. Well, it does neither or either it's soooo negligible that it's not worth wasting a precious concentration slot over.(EDIT) Actually since I originally wrote this spells have actually been given thru the recent patch more accurate descriptions. When you first get this line of songs the slow on it at adept1 which is what I had is 10% slow atk spd and 18% snare. The last upgrade to this at adept1 is ALSO 10% slow atk spd and 20% snare at adept1. So bascially when you first get this song line at lvl 30 until your next upgrade to it which is 14 lvls later at 44 you get 2% more snare. WOW! So you're telling me, I waited 14 lvls for an increase in effectiveness of only 2% at adept1? Why bother giving us an upgrade to this song in the first place? The first one costs less mana to cast and provides pretty much the exact same benefit. And the 10% slow? Give me a break. Most fights don't last more than a minute except large raid encounters. That 10% slow will be lucky to maybe just maybe stop 1 extra swing for a normal encounter's duration. Also, slow effects do not affect the specials that mob's use in much the same way that atk spd does not affect melee arts/spells of player characters. How about this sony. Why don't you make it to where slow also affects the rate at which mobs can cast their combat arts/spells. Have it increase their reuse timer on their abilities as well as slow their normal attack rate down. Secondly, and I know your stance on slows not being as good as eqlive slows were but you could you at least throw us a bone here and give us more than 2% extra snare on the upgrade for our last song in this line? How about giving us 15% slow atk spd on that at least!

    Thuris's sapping shot and its upgrades - This is our ranged bowish attack. It's working fine.

    Stealth and its upgrades- Yes they do in fact stealth you like the description says, but the extra components that get added to the upgrades are NOT working. For example the description says on the higher version of this line that if the dirge gets hit while stealthed that the mob will be DoTted and the dirge will be granted increased INT. Well that part is broken. These little extra benefits of the stealth never take place when a mob hits you while stealthed.

    Lucky Break/songster's luck, discordant Boon line of spells - They are working great. Thanks for this line of songs. By playing these songs I can make the entire group play as if they were more than 1 lvl higher than they currently are. The concentration cost on them is justified. The benefits they provide to a group far out weigh the majority of our other songs. I better not catch you guys taking the nerf bat to this line of songs! hehe

    Hyran's angry sonata and its upgrades - Pointless. Almost every dirge I talk to wants to know what the heck this spell does. You can't cast it on group members such as the main tank. You can't cast it on yourself. It's only castable on mobs. The description says it increases hate on the target. Which target? the Mob? me? what the mob has targeted? Frankly I've tried to use this song several times and it doesn't seem to offer any benefit at all to my groups. The most logical explanation of what the song would do according to its description is increase hate on whatever the mob currently has targeted. So with that in mind, I informed our guardian well in advance that I was going to use the song on the next mob after he had worked up some good aggro. I made sure the mob had the tank targeted during the next encounter and cast the song on the mob. I then proceeded to tell the tank to work up as much aggro as he could with his adept taunts while this song was going on my maintained window. The mob still had the tank targeted during this entire ordeal. Then just to see if the song worked I dropped one of my songs and recast it. BAM instant aggro on me just like always.(EDIT) Actually since spells were given more informative descriptions, I think I know what this song does now. It uses my mana for nothing and costs me a concentration slot for nothing! The description says increases hate by a factor 52 or something. I'm assuming now that that is the DIRGE's hate not anyone elses. First, I can get a hate factor much larger than this song provides without having to waste a concentration slot to do it. Drop ONE song(Discordant Boon) and recast it and I can taunt EVERYTHING in the encounter, outside the encounter onto me. So exactly what is the point of this song? With the direction you've taken about scouts not tanking it further makes this song pointless. Why would I want to generate hate of any kind? I can barely handle 40+ aggro. It would definitely be a bad idea for me to grab hate off the tank now because of the recent nerfs. This song is pointless.

    Jael's mysterious Mettle and its upgrades - This is our short duration parry buff. It's working great and good for a quick cast when we bards grab aggro which is quite often. I do however have a question about this ability as well. When we use all of our other abilities the reuse timer on them begins to count down as soon as the ability lands. However, with this ability the reuse timer on it does not start counting down until the short duration buff it provides actually disappears off your maintained window. Maybe this is how you intended it to be and if so that's cool. But if it's a bug we would like that fixed as well to have the reuse timer on it start after it has first been cast like all of our other abilities.

    Daro's dull blade and its upgrades - This is our flanking attack line. It does farely good damage for a dirge ability. The only question I have about it is some of the upgrades to it state that on a successful hit it increases atk spd and lowers mob damage. I have not yet determined if it does or not. It's too hard to tell so this also may or may not be broken. On /show_window mainhud.Character it does not show an increase in atk spd when you use this ability. If that portion of the attack is not working that leads me to believe that the lowering damage portion of this ability may also be broken.(EDIT- I checked the new description for this ability but I'm still in doubt as to if that is in fact working)

    Elegy at death's door - That's our resurrect ability. It is working as intended. One minor issue here to as well though. We get NO other abilities or skills which use ministration which is the skill needed to use this ability. Therefore when you get it it is VERY difficult to raise your skill up since you can only get practice by waiting on people to die and then hope you get to be the one to res them. Basically this spell is fizzle heaven for alot of dirges unless they can have a friend just die for them so they can get practice in ministration.

    Wail of the Banshee - This is our lvl 50 *special* ability. I was expecting this ability to be uber but was disappointed in its potency. It's an AE DoT that ticks 4 times. At adept1 it's currently only ticking for 79 dam/tic and it costs a TON of mana to use and a while to cast. Since it's really only a situational ability at most, it's best used against larger grouped encounters. I see no problem with increasing it's damage or maybe the number of ticks it does. You could easily balance such a change like that by upping the reuse timer on this ability. But please! This is our lvl 50 uber abiltity it should smoke and it just doesn't. On a side note it has been brought up to me that some Dirges would even forego this ability if instead you replaced it with a nice upgrade to Lanet's Excruciating scream( we get none). I personally would be all for a change like that. You wouldn't hear me complain and I don't think any other Dirges would complain either.

    Bria's power song line - I have the last version of this song line and adept3 of it. To be that high lvl of a spell and adept3, the effect blows majorly. It's only regening 17mana/tic during combat. That's ridiculous considering most people have well over 2k power at that point. No, I don't want it to be a good as a chanters breeze line. That would encroach on them too much. But, could you at least make this more potent. Enchanters are getting anywhere from 50-100 a tic off their breeze lines. I think it is completely reasonable that our last mana song should at least get in the neighborhood of 30-35ish a tic. For a lvl 40+ power regen it should be better than this.

    Fluff spells - Could really care less about these. I just want you guys to fix all our broken stuff then you can worry about cosmetic type things. but in case you do happen to get around to fluff abilities then how about changing our lvl 20 fluff spell to a different emote. My group members NEVER notice when I use my fluff on them. A better fluff would be the song you have to sing to the orcs if from freeport to be come a dirge. Now, I can guarantee I'd have some fun with my group members with that fluff. I think it may be the /cry emote. Some other dirges who chose to go dark elf probably would like an alternate fluff choice as well instead of Dark elf illusion one we get. Maybe you could do something about that as well.


    I'm sure I may have missed something. I tried to be as thorough as possible in going down the list of our abilities and naming problems with them. I hope the devs take notice of these issues.
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-10-2005 09:46 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-10-2005 10:02 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-11-2005 02:56 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-11-2005 03:19 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-11-2005 03:53 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-11-2005 10:13 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-11-2005 10:43 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-12-2005 12:19 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-13-2005 03:58 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-15-2005 03:49 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-16-2005 02:50 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-16-2005 07:53 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-17-2005 11:28 PM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-18-2005 07:23 AM
    Message Edited by Xanusus on 02-23-2005 03:30 AM
  2. ARCHIVED-Quiern13 Guest

    You are dead on all of these, I really hope the Dev team takes a look at these. A fix would be very nice, that way it puts us back into the game with other class's. I have faith that they will take alook at these and give us a answer to these and the effectivness of them.
  3. ARCHIVED-FatAggression Guest

    great post i think you pretty much summed up everything about a Dirge's abilities

    on a side note i'm dissappointed to hear about Wail of the Banshee, been lookin around to see the power of it and oop surprise turns out its pretty worthless (the whole situational usage thing). Besides to me "Wail of the Banshee" sounds like it would be an upgrade to "Lanet's Excruciating Scream" =P
  4. ARCHIVED-Jziad Guest

    having wail as an upgrade to lanets would be nice.

    I think our flank attacks do increase atk speed, even from the bard one, it adds a 15 second or so buff, and there seems to be a noticeable increase in swings just from looking at the spam in the hits window, that portion of the art is useless though if you follow up the stealth attack with another art, especially a long cast time one.


    Most are your other points seem good. I liek fear, just need to fix it so it doesn't have the pathing and breaking encounter issues. As for our AE line, undecided on this, I still use the level 20 trait version which does better damage and is only a 1.5 sec cast, has an interupt too, so I will use it on encounters with several casters, however the 3 second recovery time on all these spells severly hurt them.
  5. ARCHIVED-Xanusus Guest

    Jziad,
    Trust me the AE spells are ****. I also notice you are using an UPGRADED special training AE as reference with a significantly reduced cast time on it(that may not be too bad) but as you stated the 3 second recovery just shoots it all to hell. I think you'll find out later that all of our regular AE spells are ****. Let me give you an example. Our final AE spell at adept1 does roughly 100 damage to every mob in the encounter and takes 3 seconds to get off and uses a ton of mana and then makes you wait through a recovery period before you can use another ability. Lanet's a lvl 20ish ability will do depending on your version of it(as in app1 or adept3 etc.)roughly 300-700 damage to a single mob. Most of your combat arts will do 200-500 damage in one second time to mobs. Now, in order for those AE spells to even be worth while you'd have to use them against a group of more than 5 mobs to even get close to the DPS output of some of the skills I just mentioned. There just aren't that many 5 group or more encounters. Furthermore, there's the issue of mana usage. Those AE spells use tons of mana. The skills I just listed for comparison use little to no mana in comparison. Then if that weren't enough there's the recovery issue as well. Then if that weren't enough you have the cast time issue also. When you add all that up the AE spells are even **** against the big group encounters too! I would much rather kill one mob in the big group faster and have him out of the battle and not doing damage to the group than wittle away at the other mobs and burn most of my mana in process. The fact that some of the AE have the interrupt appendage to them is also pointless. Basically that means that you have to time that AE JUST right in order for it to land right when the mobs are casting. Ain't gonna happen to often. You happened to get one one of the *specialty training* AE's which may not be too bad but our regular AE's are indeed ****.
  6. ARCHIVED-Gond Guest

    Beautiful post! We really needed someone to go through each spell and point out what was right or wrong about it. It's pretty sad that so much is wrong =( Please SOE, pretty please, fix our bugs!!!
  7. ARCHIVED-Lasario Guest

    Very Nice Post Indeed. Keep it at the top.
  8. ARCHIVED-GomFedj Guest

    This post should be copied over onto the combat abilities section of the forums also.. the dev's don't look in these sub folders very often saddly.

    But i think you covered all the major points except one small one the AOE's though they SUCK.. if they ever don't suck, use skills that are so rarely used (cuz the aoe's suck) they are a pain to level up, i think the one called wail of woe or something like that is the worest.. it resists non-stop cuz i get it at like level 40 on a new skill that starts at like 100... so it never hits ANYTING my level (never once seen it do ANYT damage.. only just a mass of "'Resisted" messages floating over mobs heads..

    i do use the AOE's sometimes but only when it is like a group of 10-15 double down arrow mobs.. hehe

    also.. out of everything i beg for them to change the way haste works, i couldn't figure out why when parsing i didn't see a damage increase, i used to think the spell DIDN'T increase speed, but now thjat i have found out that specials - 65-80% of the damage a group does, and haste does NOT affect how fast a special goes off, it expalins why are haste buff seems to NOT work.

    oh well.. we all love being *****(dirges) don't we? heh

    the 2 bard classes both need some tweaking after the nerfage to "stats"
  9. ARCHIVED-Priestbane Guest

    I would have one objection to the original post, and that's about the efficacy of the Luda's DD line. While I would *love* to see the casting time on this go down (I think in general, all of our a bilities are a mite slow), it is an increase in DPS. I usually chain it with Lanet's (Lanets, Darksong for debuff of mental resist, then Luda's) and at 32, this song is the equivalent of 12 maximum weapon hits (with Clara's running, more without). I can't get off that many average hits in 3 seconds, so Luda's is definitely a nice little punch.
  10. ARCHIVED-Xanusus Guest

    Godstalk, I think you will find differently once you turn 50 and use your last DD scream. It will in fact lower your DPS output on parsings. I'm not just pulling that out of my butt. It does lower your DPS in the parsings. The problem isn't the damage it does, that's fine. It's the time it takes for you to get that damage return. 3 Seconds is a LONG time in combat. when you consider that you basically have 3 other main attacks that can be done in 1 second time each all averaging 200-500 or better damage. when you add your defense debuff to that that makes 4 attacks and the defense debuff can be done in .5 sec and hits at adept1 for 150+ damage. At app4 my last DD will hit against a non green for roughly 300-400 damage. Now if you divide that by 3 seconds that's about 100 or so DPS. Frankly I average over 130-180 DPS without it. so if you do try to use it in a DPS parsing it will drop your overall DPS. Lower the cast time on it and it would be great. Heck, I don't care if they upped the reuse timer on it to compensate for a change like that. Just make it so I don't actually get my overall DPS lowered when I do decide to use it.
  11. ARCHIVED-rivethead23 Guest

    Funny thing is if I don't use the haste song I from time to time get asked why I am not using it hehe apparently people think it's something huge but personally I'd rather throw up Crypt's Quiet and save a slot for debuffs.

    Speaking of which I need to go post a message about Crypt's Quiet.
  12. ARCHIVED-XxaraxX Guest

    I agree... I solo a lot and would like to see some improvements to certain songs.

    I find soloing is very very questionable depending on the mobs and certain spells.

    For example... When soloing "Group" (^^) mob, Daro's Doleful Dirge seems to effectively add enough snare to prevent getting swamped with hits. BUT, when soloing "Group" (3 mobs), I notice no snare at all. I either have to die or yell and run. Doesnt make much sense to me.

    Dissonant Rhythm and Alin's Keening Lamentation are just completely useless. The main problems with them are extremely low dmg vs. the mana used for the spells, the casting time is terrible, and come on... when done casting you are totally useless for about 5 seconds. In need of a serious change.

    Cry of the Departed is nice and all... but when soloing, either i get interrupted or i get dmged way more then this would effectively heal. If you could cast while moving, this spells would be much much more useful... or make it harder to interrupt. I could even be happy with the cast being instant and refresh being 1 minute. Or **** the dmg and increase the hp-tap. So many things could be done to make this spell even remotely useable.

    Luda's Wicked Warble... now here is a spell i used to think was worth using! After discovering Lanet's Excrutiating Scream, Luda's is just worthless. The problems with this spells were already stated above. Please work with this spell.

    Kudos to Sony on most of the other Dirge spells. Just please make some of the above mentioned more worth using. They currently seem like uneeded fillers.
  13. ARCHIVED-XxaraxX Guest

    Sorry, double post
    Message Edited by XxaraxX on 02-11-2005 07:10 PM
  14. ARCHIVED-CerraWhisperwind Guest

    "Misfortunes kiss and its upgrades(this is our attack that must be used from stealth) - Well the attacks do decent damage taking into account that they are being performed by a lesser damage scout such as the dirge. If we didn't have to stop all combat to get them off it would be a good addition to a Dirge's arsenal for DPS. The problem lies in the fact that in order to use it in our groups we have to a) stop attacking(losing out on precious DPS in the process) b) cast the only stealth that will work in combat which is our lowbie sneak which takes another 3 seconds to cast c) once stealthed with our lowbie sneak we can now perform the attack. So basically with all our stealth attacks we are losing out on tons of DPS if we choose to use them in combat. Frankly, dirges have other abilities that do more damage than these and don't require us to stop attacking for prolonged periods of time just to get them off. That fact makes this line of abilities worthless. Oh and using this ability to start off a fight is pointless also because my flanking attack does more damage than it does and provides better benefits than the steal attack components do. I'd rather get that off than the **** stealth attack. Frankly I don't like the idea of having the mob get feared and then me having to chase it down."

    The way you work this is to start sneak while still attacking, then when it is about to finish cancel auto attack and hit your backstab attack. The same method can be used to pull off flanking attacks when soloing using your stun instead of stealth... when stun is almost finished cancel auto attack and run around the mob and hit your flanking attack.
  15. ARCHIVED-OkusSuko Guest

    This is a fantasic thread and should be pushed into direct "eye-sight" of the Devs. You hit the hammer on the nail on so many dirge issues -- It's sad to see how many issues there is.

    Please put this thread into direct view of the Devs, otherwise it may be years before we see any changes.

    Cerdinak
    AB - 49th Ratonga Dirge
  16. ARCHIVED-Quizno Guest

    Thank You for this very well written post. Not being 50 yet I can't comment on many of these issues, but I certainly chime in on Crypt's Quiet. It's not worth the concentration slot it takes up. I can count on one hand the number of times it has gone off for me or a group member. And as far as Bria's goes - why not have it as good as breeze? Just dont have it stack with breeze. You should be able to count on your dirge for mana/power enhancement, not just your illusionist.

    Andante - level 25 dirge GUK
  17. ARCHIVED-Xanusus Guest

    CerraWhisperwind,

    While I appreciate your response as I honestly think you were trying to add something meaningful to the discussion I need to point out something to you. And again don't take this wrong way as a personal shot at you and me trying to get a flame war started. Your point about waiting until sneak is almost done casting to stop attacking is mute. Did you know or are you aware that when you cast sneak, you know the one that takes 3 seconds to actually cast, you STOP all attacking anyways. so it DOES NOT matter if you turn off auto attack before or during this particular casting of sneak. You're not attacking anyways. don't believe me? Go find a a grey auto attack it and use your method. guess what? you still stop attacking during the cast of your sneak even if you keep auto atk on as long as possible right up until your sneak is about to complete its cast. That's 3 seconds of just standing there waiting on sneak to land. I can pull off 4 abilities in that time and more than triple the damage I'd get from my sneak attack. 3seconds + the other second it takes for you to cast your stealth attack = 4seconds of sitting there doing NOTHING. Do you honestly think the damage return on your sneak attack is worth wasting 4 seconds of precious combat time? Do you think it's fun when you actually do attempt to do this only to see the mob run away from your group and go into a wall? Our stealth attacks blow and are DPS ineffecient and provide the worst utility mods ever.

    By the way great info on using the stun to position yourself for the flanking attack. That's is indeed viable and I do use that method quite often:) The stealth attacks blow though and there's no way around it.
  18. ARCHIVED-Priestbane Guest

    Well, not 50 yet. On that, I'll take your word for it! =)
  19. ARCHIVED-Cloudeq2 Guest

  20. ARCHIVED-CerraWhisperwind Guest

    I thought you did still attack while doing combat arts, which stealth is one. I will have to try it again and look.