so i just hit t8 on my dirge, and i love my dirge and he has decent gear, not shard but its not bad. i seem to get rocked all the time in PVP now though and die very quickly on mobs my level solo or group as well as not put out nearly as much dmg as other players. am i doing something wrong am i expected to do dmg as a dirge? i am level 78 have some legendary jewlery and full suit of 72 MC while i work towards shard gear. i use a shield sometimes but mostly DW any help would be great pvp pve solo group raid whatever thanks
I'll preface this by saying I've never played on a pvp server- never even duelled on my dirge, so can't help you there. The mobs in t8 if you aren't well geared hit like mack trucks. With mastercrafted gear, you will never be able to fight them toe to toe reliably. You need to kite them- if you happen to have the hq bow from EoF (Raincaller), that will help you because it procs a stun on ranged attack- allows you to keep some distance between yourself and the mobs. I had mostly legendary and some fabled when I started soloing my dirge in t8... and still had to kite a lot. Heh- even in mostly fabled with some legendary when TSO came out, I found myself kiting on occasion to survive.. Your dps will improve through a number of things. First when choosing your weapons, make sure you choose high end damage and a 4 second delay. Never select a weapon with a 1.6 second delay. Try to never use two weapons with different delays, as both a faster swing and mixed delays will lower your dps significantly. Second, pay attention to your autoattack bar on your screen- never pause your autoattack to cast a spell and if that bar is almost full- i.e, you are ready to swing, don't start casting anything. Delay the cast of your spell or CA until after you swing as the vast majority of your dps as a dirge will come from autoattack damage. Thirdly remember that you are a scout first. (I suppose this should have been first). You are not a mage, and you are not a priest- be right on your target's rearend when you are fighting if you are in a group- if you are relying on spellcasting and ranged attacks you won't be doing much dps, and I have seen a lot of dirges trying to use spells and ranged attacks almost exclusively in groups. Kall has done a better job than I can at posting what to look for in gear at eq2flames.com- as a caution if you do go there, be prepared for some rather uncivil behavior. But the gear you need to keep an eye on, you will want to pick roughly in this order: melee double attack, melee crit, +CA damage, spell crit, +spell damage. Once you have your epic, double attack will especially help you more than any other stat, but melee crit is still pretty important. If you only focus on two of those stats, they should be double attack and melee crit. Make certain you have a haste item as well, and put dps addornments on your neck and bow slot.
Yeah, added in this last update there's a bar that fills in showing the timing of your autoattacks- the default location of it was underneath my existing hotbars, so you might need to hit f10 to show all windows and move things around a bit to find it. Easier than setting up ACT to listen/time dings.
I checked the patch notes going back to LU 51. There's nothing there about adding training wheels for timing attacks, only the training wheels for aggro management.
Others may disagree, but I would sword and board til you get more used to kiting/soloing. Also, AA wise make sure you have fortissimo maxed out at 8 points. Getting that to 8 points also will get you 4 points in the sheild bash, which can be useful to stun mobs if they get too close, and 4 points in the skald's defense which will increase your double attack chances in melee (with roundshield equipped). You also want DKtM at the end of the wisdom line. There may be more ideal haste items, but I've been using the Faceless Sheild when I SnB. Has 25 haste and works well for me. Also, as suggested above, get the Raincaller. If you don't have the Raincaller yet, there is a decent bow at the end of the Everfrost solo quest series once you get to the ice island quests area outside permafrost. You can experiment with pulling strats, but I suggest leading with Jael's for the root portion and then following up with the snares. I can't help with the pvp aspects. You made a comment on dying alot with groups. I don't know if you mean you are taking on group mobs by yourself, or if you die frequently when grouped with others. If you're taking on grouped mobs solo, don't! If you are stealing aggro in groups too much....I would think the other members in your group are likely not pulling their weight. The only time I steal aggro in groups is when I'm a few levels above the MT and other dps. Of course, maybe I'm doing something wrong all those other times! I also don't understand how you are lvl 78 and just hit t8? Do you mean t9? And even still, you're lvl 78 in t9? Anyway, hope this helps!
Full_Metal_Mage wrote: Well, I could have sworn it was something soe had introduced as part of an update with the default ui, but maybe it's part of profitui that came out near gu 51. And Ginge, I didn't even think to suggest an AA build, but those could go a long way to helping you solo in addition to gear. Depending on how many AAs you have, you'll want to go sta line to max fortismo, wis line to dktm at a minimum in the bard line- agi line for the extra parry/bump/poison proc is nice for soloing and dps- don't bother with str line and don't put more than 4 points in your the primary stat (agi/sta/wis)- you only want enough so you can open up the line below. In your dirge line grab luck of the dirge, then I'd recommend working on shadow line... Sword and board is ok if you are gonna kite stuff, but dual wield for groups when your focus is dps.
now im level 80, i have gotten some better gear due to getting some shard gear and nice legendary jewelry in kunzar. my aa spec is pretty much what you guys had mentioned and thats bard tree agi 4 4 4 8 sta 4 4 4 8 wis 4 4 6 8 1 dirge tree 5 in stealth, 5 in brais, 5 in tombs and 5 in COB then got LOTD i have 5 in both life taps at the moment as well in the tso tree i have 5 to max hp 5 to run speed scout tso tree i have 5 in strengthened links and 5 in our quick strike move and 1 in the end line evasive maneuvers in the bard tree i have 5 in intoxicating notes 5 in our shriek got the end line ability dexterous sonata and have 2 points in our back/flank move. im fairly confident with my AA set up and it seems standard. i have a macro set up to equip my shield and use shield bash for the extra attack/stun while im DWing and i do switch a lot from DW to shield. i find i can solo most solo conten fairly well that was never the issue, its mostly in pvp and maybe its hard to discuss if you have not been on a pvp server but out of no where a swash, zerker, fury, whatever class you want will appear. and sometimes i put up a good fight and will win, but sometimes its as if i get one shotted so much to make me think something is really bad in my mitigation or resists. i have 3 pieces of MC gear, 3 pieces of t1 shard gear, and 1 piece thats a level 76 legendary drop off a raid that im blanking on right now. at level 80 what should our avoidance and mitigation be? how much dps should we be putting out in group/raid? and am i missing some survival technique ? i do kite often but when i get jumped i dont even have time to think before im face up in the dirt. thanks for all your replies thus far has been helpful to eliminate what i am not doing wrong or what i am doing wrong. and sorry for poor grammar and spelling, its 5 am after a LONG raid....im spent -ginge
It's hard to give specifics on what your dps should be. There's just too many factors that go into it, including the raids dps as a whole, the group you are in, and the buffs you get. I think there's a post somewhere that specifies the percentage of raid dps you should be doing, but I'm not certain on that. For a very rough estimate, pre-mythical you should be able to hit 2.5-3k pretty reliably in raids. Groups It'll probably be closer to 1.5-2k since everything other than names dies a lot faster. Once you have your mythical, and get geared up with double attack and melee crit stuff, you will find yourself hitting 4-7k ultimately depending on buffs and the dps of your raidforce. My understanding is that in high end raidforces, where the real dps classes are hitting 20k parses, the dirges are getting around 9-10k, but I haven't seen that myself. Mitigation and avoidance- I've never really paid that much attention to it on my dirge so can't really help you there. Hmm, don't know if it'll actually land on other players, but you might want to try firing off your aoe stun when you get jumped, then scampering off for some distance...I don't use it pve at all, but it must be good for something, maybe.
im sure gear is playing a big role in it as i only have 3 pieces of t1 shard gear. as far as the aoe stun for that to be of any use at all i would need to aa spec the control line... i was thinking about going off the debuff/life and death trees to get upgraded fear and then maybe the aoe stun but that means i need to give up AA points somewhere else. i listed my spec in my last post prior to this one. my bard tree is fairly straight forward and i plan on keeping it the way it is. dirge tree i did luck line for LOTD, i am working towards the debuff line to the final ability, and id like to work on life and death to max both life taps and my life transfer and get the final ability as well. in tso ive got the general and scout line done in the bard tree i wanted to get max shriek max intoxicating notes the end line the run speed (which is useful in pvp for running people down) and the upgrade to backstab. the dirge tso tree obviously both final abilities, i was gonna get 5 in the heal 5 in DA bonus, and was curious how the dmg reduction aa is? if not that then perhaps the life tap bonus there. adding on the fear bonus in the dirge control tree and the aoe stun bonus i dont even know if i have enough aa for all that? and provided i do, what should i sacrifice/what order should i get things in if i am to get the aoe stun bonus? PS thanks for all your replies they have been very helpful and the hospitality here compared to eq2 flames is astonishing. thanks
