Necro efficiency/utility/damage/lvl50 concerns revisited

For those in the know, I've been posting about those topics for the last five months or so, hoping to get some resolution to these problems... so, what's really changing in the combat revamp and how do we compare to other mages?

These are the original threads:
Necro efficiency: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/...rd.id=30&message.id=5205&query.id=22299#M5205
Necro utility/damage: http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/...ellart&message.id=48724&query.id=22358#M48724

I would have thrown this into Deson's thread though I'm going to go beyond just utility and into direct comparisons of some of the classes main abilities.

Necromancer efficiency pre-combat change:

Skinrot: 2.2 Damage Per Power (DPP from now on)
Siphon Life: 2.4 DPP
Ghastly Stench: 4.5 DPP
Deaths Coil: 3.2 DPP
Pet: Approximately 4.6 DPP (Yes, pet buffs used to use power, alot of it!)
Average: 3.4 DPP

Necromancer efficiency post-combat change:

Skinrot: 8.2 DPP
Siphon Life: 8.8 DPP
Ghastly Stench: ? DPP
Deaths Coil: 19.8 DPP
Pet: No power really required
Average: 12.3 DPP

So, what's this mean to us?

Necro efficiency has been fixed, our DPP (total damage/power=DPP) is now at a reasonable level when compared to the other mages. Our pet tap is going down but it should be reasonable when compared to the improved efficiency of the class.

Necromancer damage:

This is just a chain I threw together to exploit recast timers whenever I could. Chaining is a little tougher now due to those long recast/duration spells we have now. The five second DoT of skinrot makes it a little rough, too.

• +1 Horrific Mark
• +3.5 Swarm of Bats
• +6 Plague of Rats
• +9.5 Stench of the Grave
• +11 Death's Coil
• +13.5 Skinrot
• +16 Siphon Life
• +18.5 Skinrot
• +22 Torrential Plague
• +24.5 Skinrot
• +27 Siphon Life
• +29.5 Swarm of Bats
• +32 Skinrot
• +35.5 Torrential Plague
• +38 Siphon Life
• +40.5 Skinrot
• +43 Devour Health
• +46 Skinrot
• +47.5 Death's Coil
• +50 Siphon Life
• +52.5 Plague of Rats
• +55 Stench of the Grave
• +57.5 Swarm of Bats
• +60 Skinrot

Total Damage=11,706
DPS=195
Well, that's not too great... but let's include the rats and pet damage (don't have any numbers for stench of the grave yet)!
Rats DPS=60 (total between the fetid and plague, assuming that they'll be down for 15 seconds between casts)
Warlock pet DPS=110
Total DPS=365
Ok, that's pretty impressive I guess... but wait, there's more! I sure was a busy beaver in the cast department...
Total disease based casts=24
Lich damage=296 per disease based attack
Lich total damage=7,104
Lich DPS=118
Necromancer total damage (excluding stench of the grave)=483
What's that all mean? Well, it means that by spell descriptions our damage has been fixed! This leads us into the merits of the level 50 special spells.

• Warlock Devastation:
  • 3,295 damage every 49 seconds (single target)
  • 67.2 DPS
• Conjurer Blazing Presence:
  • 7,793 damage every 48 seconds (probably a dead pet before it's run out)
  • 162 DPS (This damage assumes one successful attack every two seconds)
• Necromancer Lich:
  • 7,104 damage every 60 seconds
  • Heal necro for 3,408 every 60 seconds
  • Increased power and power regen
  • 118 DPS
• Coercer Psychic Wail:
  • 1,225 damage every 48 seconds
  • Six second stun/stifle (AoE)
  • 25.5 DPS

There are more spells to compare but that's enough for me to say we actually have an amazing level 50 spell now (once it works correctly of course).
On to utility... this one was bothering me until I looked at what happened to some other classes utility.

1. I'm still of the opinion that teachings of the dead should grant your group a lifetap proc since it doesn't do much of anything now.
2. Lost our ward spell but gained a targeted health transfer spell... I'd call that a net gain since we lifetap for so much now.
3. Gained combat rez and it's about time!
4. Lost our power drain, half our stat debuffs and a ton of our noxious debuffing utility.
5. Root has been increased to 108 seconds with a 75% chance of fear and snare at completion. 16 second recast.
6. Terror is 15 second duration 30 second recast.

I'm going to call this a net gain of utility... I didn't realize it until I started looking at the other mages nerfs. Necromancers can now neutralize two mobs for longer then any other single class. Necro root was once called ghetto mez... now I'm of the opinion the fear/root will become a viable form of crowd control. Enchanters got a pet, we got powerful crowd control.
Now, discuss!
Edit: Damage numbers and spell durations/descriptions for the necromancer class came from Rizaz's thread http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=30&message.id=8699 All damage numbers were averaged to give a median damage rating, with necro/defiler/warlock debuffs running there is certainly the potential for higher damage as will having a higher then average intelligence.
I should also note that saying we could lock two targets down by spell description is a little bit wrong, we should be able to lock three down quite easily... two with fear/root and one with the pet. If you are only doing crowd control I think you could lock down quite a bit more then this, the only choke point will be the recast timers of root and terror. Root to start the pull, send the pet on another, terror the third and root a few seconds later... it's a Christmas miracle!
Message Edited by El Chupacabras on 08-12-2005 04:25 PM

I like the idea of the new DPS it sounds like we might start becoming a powerhouse class It looks like we had a 300% (I am bad with percents) DPS upgrade personally so thats good. I am kinda miffed about not being able to debuff agi and str anymore because that really helped with the pet tanking. Also Nox resist debuffs were handy cause you did more dmg but it sounds like when you get lich that becomes less of a problem just gotta wait till you get lich

First I'd like to say thanks for the nice write up Chup, thorough as usual :smileyhappy:
I guess my initial impression is that the necro class is becoming more efficient (DPP greatly increased as you have shown) and we will have more options to choose from while in combat, making us a more dynamic class than we are at present (combat rez, heal allies, nice AE damage). This is a very good thing in my opinion and I am greatly anticipating these changes.
The DPS boost is great, and I love the methods in which our DPS was raised. More powerful lifetaps and OMG a true AE (accursed cloud M1 - 800dmg, 575heal 2sec cast) that dishes out some great damage. The faster cast and increased damage of deaths coil and other spell increases (warlock and sin pets especially) have me scouring the broker more often in hopes of finding a master or two to spend some plat on. The new lich spell has me very excited as well, makes it a truely nice present for getting to lvl 50 (too bad they are just now implementing it with the lvl cap increase hehe)
The nerfs I see most visibly are
1) the importance of concentration slots, which I think will be a nice change and add some decision making to our buff selection
2) decrease in noxious debuffs - but our overall dps should be increased as you have shown so in the end we are better off. Changing our dps in this manner instead of increasing our debuffs gives us a true dps increase, which will keep us up with the warlocks better.
3) reduce the amount of pet taps - not too bad because we will still be able to sustain power better than others, especially with the across the board mana regen nerfs
4) no more power drain on mark line - I think this will be more useful now. I rarely used it before except on raid targets because in most group/solo situations the mobs died before they were oop anyways. In raids, power drain spells draw a ton of aggro, so Id have to be careful with chain casting if I was to land this early on. Now, this will be useful in all situation - solo, group and raid. The sta and wis siphon will be good for a hundred or so extra hps and by lowering the mobs wis you are widening the int vs wis gap for everyone in the group/raid which = more dps
At work now, so thats all I have off the top of my head. I look forward to looking over your 1 min cast order some later to see if I can come up with some alterations, but it looks good.
Thanks,
Message Edited by Eirgorn on 08-12-2005 12:23 PM

A few concerns:

1) INT effects the damage you see on a spell when you inspect it. Our DPP and DPS will be relative to how much intel you have.

2) Lich is broken and the proc doesn't work at all atm. Regen works. Proc doesn't.



Our combat rez is actually even better now. It is an IN COMBAT summon-rez. It is supposed to summon their corpse to you and revive them. Currently the summon part is broken, but I was able to cast this rez from about Horrific mark cast range



Stench Pets - I was parsing these guys the other day and they seemed to be putting out about 2k damage over their 30 second lifetime vs level 44-47 mobs.

Rats- The infamous rats also seemed to get a boost on damage. They were unleashing nearly 150 dps in 1-2 minute fights against a level 45^^^ ( The goblin lookouts in LS )

It all sounds good... just one moment - Lich doesnt work ATM as it says in description

Seems we're gonna break 500 DPS pretty handily once all the bugs are worked out, hopefully there won't be too many reductions prior to being pushed to live. Thanks for putting your stuff up, Rizaz... without your posts most of us would have no clue of what's coming down the pipe.

Holy crap! That's absurd! Adding a link to this in my other thread. Still, now we'd have to figure what Sorc's do. Even though they said all dps doesnt have to be direct, I'd figure Sorc's being at the top of their damage scale would have to have something close without their utility. Still though, if Sorc's arent close in thier own personal dps I'll glady shut up about utility since our wow factor would be how fast things can die. Maybe I'm too much a pessimist but, the pet, taps, still having near infinite mana with pet tap, stones and lich...sounds abit too perfect.
Message Edited by Deson on 08-12-2005 02:20 PM

"Our combat rez is actually even better now. It is an IN COMBAT summon-rez. It is supposed to summon their corpse to you and revive them. Currently the summon part is broken, but I was able to cast this rez from about Horrific mark cast range"

i didn't see that in the description in screenshots maybe you could post an updated one if it is in the description now but that is awesome makes me want these changes even more now even though they are nerfing our group buffs i guess they made up for it in alot of other ways.

also i am wondering if the 30 second duration on stench of the grave is a mistake, ghastly stench has a 1 minute duration as do both rat swarm spells.
Message Edited by quamdar on 08-12-2005 07:21 PM

Here's a warlock paper DPS run (done by a warlock as I don't have the patience to figure out another class's timers):

SOKOLOV's AFTER:
Total Damage: 12715
Time Elapsed: 29.5
Power Consumption: 1385
Power Regened: 5 (ticks) * (25+12+5+7+7) [aww, come on, I know it's 4, but it's .5 seconds! =D]
Actual Power Loss: 1105 [1161 if 4 ticks]
DPS (damage per second): 431.1
PPS (power used per second): 1105/29.5 = 37.5 [1161/29.5 = 39.9 if 4 ticks]
DPP (damage per power): 11.5 [10.9 if 4 ticks]

In the warlock combat system testing forum at http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/...t&message.id=51&view=by_date_ascending&page=8

Seems against a single target we can outdamage a warlock (in theory).
Message Edited by El Chupacabras on 08-13-2005 12:56 AM

I'm comfortable with that-to a point. As if you couldn't tell from prior posts, I'm really afraid of becoming a flavor of the month. In EQ we were lucky we were so hard to master because it made most folks go play wizzies and when Sorc's got their boosts earlier this year that drew all those dregs away as well. Heck, the only reason I'm not posting links on other class boards for comparable damage estimates is because I dont want to log into 100 new Summoners in freeport tomorrow. But I digress...

Anyhow, factor in their procs and Warlocks still seem to do lower DPS than us unless we're talking AE fests. I get the feeling we're going to be "adjusted" or things aren't what they seem. Still this is definitely a welcome improvement but makes me wonder what mob hp's will look like.In an earlier post( the one about the warlock pets after they released the dps teirs) I mentioned going too far beyond a 400 dps (single target) high end peak would begin to make damage tables absurd and require higher mob healths and fairly close dps teirs to compensate. I'm very curious to how this plays out.

our DPS was 483 theirs was 431, i think that is pretty close especially considering that is us in our element (single target) and them out of theirs (multiple target). i think if they out did us in both areas that would be overpowering especially considering that that 431 will increase by alot against just 2 targets not to mention 4 or 5 targets. i could imagine them getting nearly 600-700 DPS in an encounter with 5 targets.

just look at the DPS of their devestation posted up further as 67.2 every 49 seconds. that alone against 5 targets becomes 336 DPS that is a huge chunk of DPS right there alone. i also think they get several other AE spells that would also increase in DPS by 5 times. i think considering that it is pretty balanced.

also this brings up a question for me, does the lich effect hit only the mob targeted when a AE is casted or all of them? if it is all of them we also would have a nice increase in AE DPS but probably not nearly as much as warlocks.

I have been testing out the combat revamp on test also and I have many spells adept 3 and master that Riz doesn't (probably because my char got copied later),. We should be doing great damage. The Grim Terror and the RT master 1 pets own on test, I'll post parses and screens of the spells early next week when I get some more time.

On the wizzie boards they've attempted to figure out the effect of intel. Looks interesting

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=23&message.id=13966&jump=true
Message Edited by Deson on 08-13-2005 09:15 AM

Off topic- I noticed when looking through other class spells that some in the descriptions say they cast the lower level spell. Some Sorc procs come to mind. Wonder if that means they made all spells in a line access the same spell in their database just change the effect as needed. Hope thats the way it works because then mentoring might not have to be so much of a pain.Also has hope for spell line improvements vice the current system of training.

Wow, great job!

Getting some good numbers through now, great job. Nice link as well Deson added it below as a clicky

Click here

Thanks. The forums dont like Firefox and I dont feel like using IE.

I should note there was an oversight in my calculations as pointed out my ILEE, the spell ToS is a long duration DoT that does not get to apply it's full damage. Considering in its entirely it only does 770 damage it isn't a huge factor.

The biggest thing to note in regards to warlock spells is that our power efficiency (DPP) has gone done significantly, whereas in Live we are capable of over 15 DPP.

Mine are a touch inflated as well since I didn't pull the final tics off of Death's Coil, Skinrot and Swarm of Bats... it wasn't really enough damage to sway the numbers all that much but it would have overcomplicated things a bit. These are just paper parses, so there can be a little fudge in the numbers... especially when trying to add in the swarm pets. I downplayed the damage done by the rats (and excluded Ghastly Stench entirely) quite a bit to take into account AoE's and those final tics, it should all come out in the wash.
I know I wasn't alone in expecting the warlocks to lose their efficiency to bring them more in line with the other mages (not to mention that efficiency also equals utility). I was kinda surprised that our DPP was increased as much as it was since it always seemed the way we were meant to pay for our pets was with terrible efficiency (by design {see pet buffs draining power} from release).

And for those that may be interested, I went ahead and ran down the efficiency of that chain:
Personal per cast efficiency = 4.9 DPP
Total efficiency = 12.2 DPP
None too shabby, as long as the pets and dumbfires stay alive.