Hello all, I was wondering what the Dirge AoE situation is like? Do we get many AoE attacks? If not, how do you more experienced Dirge's do against groups of mobs? Thanks
We're not too hot on the AOEs. We get a total of three. One, the Wail of Woe / Hymn of Horror /Whine of Weirdness line, is easily dealt with, it's a you-get-what-you-pay-for AOE that has zero casting time and costs no power. You do the math. It's an area-effect interrupt with a low knockdown/stun chance. This one's our only 'open' AOE that affects every mob in range regardless of group status. There's a modest-damage 'closed' AOE that comes early on; it's got a long casting time and a fairly short refresh, but it's just not that much damage, it's kind of a dull-thud of a spell. On the other hand, the Banshee line, first gotten at level 50, is a long DoT with a very good damage pop at the end. Both these are 'closed' (target-group-only) AOEs. This is good in tight spaces with non-aggro mobs, but frankly there's not that much of the world that's like that. since they're closed-type spells, our AOEs are lousy when it comes to adds, which tend to be the mischief for us. One useful adjuct piece of information is that procs that work on spells proc on the Whimper of Worthlessness line and our AOE (also closed, BTW) debuffs. Whysp
Keep in mind though that our closed damage (debuffs are ok on nameds and in raids) AoEs are almost useless in T8 (70+). There are hardly any encounter groups, so our AEs only affect one target. No idea why SOE thought it a good idea to break the system by removing mob groups without adjusting spells. Considering the casttime of our two damage AEs, that makes them essentially harmful to us. During the time it takes to cast them, you could do more damage using auto attacks. Below 70 they are still useful though. Aside from rare occasions in raids, I don't use my damage AEs anymore. I've banished them to some rarely used hotbar. Except for Wail of Woe of course. That spell is completely off my hotbars. It's just not worth the effort to press its button .
Belaythien, I have to disagree slightly with the T8 content and our AOEs, there is 1 instance(space-time, not zone) where our AOEs are usefull and that is while soloing. Using Banshee to pull then if theres room running back while firing off Jarols works quite nicely. In all othere respects though you are correct, for the most part heroic groups seem to at most have 2 mobs in them, I can only think of 3 encounters in Madiens where there are more then 2 mobs in the group.
Banshee is actually a meaningful component of dirge dps in prolonged raid battles according to the parses I've seen. Even against solo mobs. The total damage from that spell is pretty hefty. Also, I use it solo as well. I pull with the root, and can get off daro's / magical debuff / clara's and banshee before the root breaks, on a good day. It's a nice sequence. Whysp
Belaythien wrote: If you dont have master T7 banshee (until you get the lvl 80 master variant) and are not using it on every fight (even single mobs) where it will go its full duration...you are hurting your dps significantly. On raids, you will be able to cast it many times in a fight and really rack up the dps. Lemme see we burned through MMIS last night...Here is my banshee stats: TYPE DAMAGE EXT DPS AVERAGE MIN HIT MAX HIT RESIST HITS CRITHITS SWINGS TO HIT % Banshee 163830 71.01 383.68 108 608 disease 427 57 430 99.30 Banshee's Scream 112457 48.75 1499.43 1008 2175 disease 75 9 75 100.00 Put those together and they were my highest, non melee spell for the night followed by apply poison from the assassin. 276,287 zone wide dmg is nothing to scoff at.
