Alright, so for a while on my dirge, I had not really reforged out of DPS mod, tending to keep it high, around 810 (900 in raid with coercer EV). My ability mod was around 5,700. With this setup, I was parsing 3.4mil zonewide in Labratory of Lord Vyemm (I choose this zone cause everyone knows it). On the AoE namer, Uustalastus Xiterrax, I was hitting over 5mil VCs, usually between 5.3-5.9mil. And so now I switched things up a bit. I reforged out of my over cap DPS mod into some more Ability mod. I now have 650 DPS mod and 12,000 Ability mod. I haven't really had a chance to try this out yet in raid, but should I expect a higher parse? Will my VCs go up but my overall DPS down? Or the other way around? Or instead of reforging out of DPS mod, should I reforge out of attack speed and lose some bonus flurry chance? Just as a reference, my solo potency is 402, but when I charge up a VC in raid, I'm usually over 1,000 potency and critical bonus.
I've heard 10k AB mod is the sweet spot. Not sure what potency that is. But reforging out of dps mod which, from memory is our prestige conversion, may not be a good idea.
I would think by reforging out the DPS overcap, you will see a drop in DPS overall. Mainly for the reason Regolas stated, via prestige. You are losing 10 potency and the harder hits (at 900 DPS i think its 75% of the time gaining a harder attack), for essentially 6,300 more ability mod. I'm not sure if i would give up 10 potency by itself for that. Since its already done though, I would be interested in seeing how it parses out though. Are you using the WDB armor or the crit bonus/potency armor out of curiosity?
One of our dirges specs, gears, aa's and reforges completely for auto attack damage and the results are outstanding. He did 10 mil dps on commanders in Guardians Edifice last night and often does 7-10 mil VCs on AoE fights. He goes for DPS mod, Haste, CB, WDB and flurry. Granted he is in the stack group with various group/raid effect items including an ear that gives the group up to 102 WDB (takes a while to reach that) but the numbers are evidence enough that auto attack is what to focus on for dirge. In addition he does not spec for potency or ability mod since dirge combat arts and spells do next to nothing.
I agree. Our abilities do not do enough to warrant AM. Glassjaw, what is the name of the dirge you are referring to? I would love to check out that earring as well as the spec.
Since our guild is not raiding very far into ToV yet, I normally run 3 pieces of Overcharged Dreadlord gear, head, hands and feet (though I have a swap-in set with stamina), and the rest WDB/CB gear. And we have raid tonight, so I will be comparing my parse to how it was beforehand.
Please post a before and after on similiar same mobs if you can. It would be interesting to see the comparisons.
\aITEM 1107879317 -1916415220:Vulak'Aerr's Crystallized Heartstone\/a That one is from Vulak and there is a craftable one from DT I think.
I just checked my dirge, I have zero AB mod! Not through choice, just not got any items with it on. I use a mixture of WDB and potency gear, but guess the potency gear I have doesn't have any AB mod on it. Haven't bothered with dreadlord gear due to my ranger getting preferences on the sparkling gems.
Dirge combat arts are never going to amount to much. Overcap DPS mod and Haste instead. Adorn for crit bonus, and ignore potancy entirely. Stack item procs that either do damage, increase crit bonus, or debuff mitigation.
Even though I started this thread based on not knowing the answer to this question, I would not entirely agree with that. Potency, though not as important as CB, Haste and DPS mod, still has importance. I would say that the Casalen's Stud of Power probably does more to help overall DPS for most fights than some of the other ears with just straight damage procs. CB, Haste and DPS mod should take priority, but potency definetly helps.
Potency will never even come remotely close to crit bonus, dps mod or haste when it comes to a dirge simply because the base level of damage of any and all of their combat arts are spells are so low that even with potency and ability mod they wont amount to anything noticeable. The main reason being that crit bonus affects auto attack and combat arts / spells then factor in DPS mod, attack speed and weapon damage bonus and you can literally throw potency out the window on a dirge. One of our current raid dirges has under 300 ability mod Three Hundred! and his potency is likely lower than that if I remember correctly. His auto attacks do 75% - 85% of his parse and factoring in the crap load of WDB, CB, Haste, DPS mod and Flurry that does anywhere from 5 to 7.5 million damage per second from auto attacks alone. Then take into account sizeable damage proc effect items and you have a dirge competing with various t2 dps classes and far out damaging other utility. Then of course you get outstanding VCs because of the high auto attack damage.
This is sort of true. The damage from auto-attacks on this would be outstanding. However, while the dirge in question is probably parsing very well, he is losing potential VC damage. All that WDB, CB, AE, and DPS mod is terrific for RO/VC. And if the dirge in question is who I think it is, the double conversion prestige is...an odd choice. Sure, you get the crit bonus from the MA conversion, but you loose 22.5% groupwide CB so that you can gain roughly 30% personal CB. Yes, you have to maintain the buff, but that is the easiest thing in the world, especially on AE fights where it procs a stack per target hit (which off the top of my head, I think maxes at 8 or 10 targets). Also, giving up 8% CB to reforge that MA into something else will likely make no difference since CB values get so high with proc'd items. But here is the problem: flurry, damage procs, and MA have ZERO meaning for an RO charge. This was made clear by Xelgad in an old forum post back from SF when they changed how RO worked because it could do absurd damage. This has never changed. So instead of doing double conversion, you can take right side and instead reforge all that MA into more DPS mod and some ability mod. Yes, dirge CAs are weak, but not having at least 5k ability mod since it is laughably easy to get is a mistake. And you don't have to give up the WDB, CB, AE, or DPS mod to do it either. So I get where this idea comes from, but it is wrong.
Think I looked at the wrong bard, so you can ignore the double conversion prestige comment, but I still stand by the fact that even a little ability mod is worth giving up some MA or Haste.
