Aye, their change to parry nerfs two of our skills.. in exchange for fixing scaling on two useless skills, and making evade possibly be more useful than just an HO progresser. Started another thread stating more of my concerns. meh. At least I won't need to worry about switching out my bone razor anymore as I'll be able to re-equip it now if unequipped. ~Spacek 47 Dirge of Kithicor
Yeah, looks like we are going to get a little worse after the patch. And it seems like they are not going to do any other class balancing (i.e. give help to the poor downtrodden) until after the combat changes -- which might not go out with the next live update -- so we can probably scratch any thought that they'll look into our low dps for a good month or so.
If SOE is true to form, don't expect any combat balances for another year or more. Next thing ya know Froglok's are going to take priority and they will push all their efforts into it just like they did with Jedi.
remember with this upcoming str against agi damage avoidance check, that we dirges can self buff our agi out the wazoo. Harls give us 46 agi, lithe disbelief gives 30ish, death scent 20ish, and performers talent 10ish, we can buff our agi by over 100 near the end of the game. (and yes those self agi buffs share the same timer but they stack)
Last time I tried stacking performer's talent, it didn't actually stack. Will try again.. ~Spacek 47 Dirge of Kithicor
just read about this and treid stacking .. they are up at the same time, but again, just the highest value gets into calculation
Yeah... you can have them all running, but only the non-identical parts stack. So for example, if you have Performer's Talent running, and Death's Scent, then you get the arcane mitigation of the former, and the agility buff of the latter (as well as the disease mitigation buff). 46 from Harl's +30ish from Lithe Disbelief is still significant though.
I hadn't tried stacking them in a while. Possibly the agility no longer stacks as I thought it did? It's been over 2 months since I tried it :/
level 43 dirge here, and I have to say, I do a crapton of damage... basically, as 40 started to approach and I'd be buying endgame stuff, I focussed my effort on making money... lots of it. Now, at 43, I use a sword and shield (both fabled master drops I bought). I have adept III of afflicted blade, bereavement, fiendesh howl, daros dull blade, claras, and lanets. I have master I grave's peace and tarvens (both of these add fair dps at master I. tarvens inparticular is ~120 hit but only a .5 cast time and 10 sec retimer). My sword has an AE proc that doesnt break mez, and I have a pristine cedar bow, for jaels. Now, I know this isn't standard for most dirges, but with a little effort (mining and making money is significantly easier with run speed) it is achievable. My point? I personally average 100-120 dps in groups, at lvl 43, using a 1h weapon and a shield. (plus I dont yet have my fbss, which, with an uber weapon, helps significantly) I usually tie or beat out pretty much every class I group with, less casters. This is BEFORE you take into account the extra damage buffs are contributing. On top of this, an interesting note: when you do our arrow attacks, it uses the proc from the weapon in your main hand for some reason. Plus it also uses graves peace and a proc you have on your bow. Plus through parsing it SEEMS to have a chance to proc for each arrow..... my point? load up on procs for chances at 1k+ incoming hits, add lanets and ludas, I can do 2k on incoming sometimes we have so many skills, upgrade the hell out of them all. save and invest in really nice equipment. you'll never complain again, I don't. edit: to the posters above, the +agi from deaths scent and lithe stack. Message Edited by domoresayless on 04-15-2005 07:23 AM
The question woudl be whether or not you would be outdamaging someone with similar equipment and upgrades. What you mentioend is by far above average for a lvl 43 dirge. But its kinda irrelevent to say that you can outdamage others in your party you have all adept iii and master level skills and great weapons unless you are analysing your party members and they all have adept iii's, masters, and great weapons. The fact is that we really don't outdamage tanks in straight dps. In effective dps we do -- effective meaning what we actually add to the group through buffs. In my opinion, though, the bard classes should outdamage the highest damage fighter classes in straight-out dps but be the lowest straight-out dps in the scout family. Adding our buffs/debuffs we should be the highest effective dps in the scout family under the right circumstances (melee heavy parties). That should be our balance in my opinion, and we aren't there yet. Were we to have a boost to our melee skills I think we could be there.
Could I get a link to the AE proccing weap?, I've currently a 20% haste spear, and two fabled 12% chance 200+ dmg proc weaps.
From the groups I've occasionally been in where some wizard (of course) is using a parser to post everyone's damage each fight: If I debuff the mobs as they're pulled to the group, I tend to show up last on the list above the healer. This doesn't take into account the added DPS from two buffs, and one debuff. If I fill my conc. slots with buffs, and melee asap - I tend to show up either 1st on the list, or 2nd behind the wizard. Not bad if you ask me, and no I have no abilities higher than adept I. Since I'm not interested in proving anything on an irrelevant list, I choose to save a conc. slot to debuff the mobs as I believe this actually adds more overall DPS to the group as a whole than just what little added DPS I add alone by just stabbing/slashing away immediately.
Sorry man, but I'm gonna have to call complete BS on this statement. There is no way in hell that even buffed to the hilt you can outdamage any class other than a cleric that is not just auto-attacking.
I'm sorry, did you just call him a liar for relaying his experience to you? You just made an awful big assumption about what qualifies for "no way in hell". I'm also willing to bet you dollars to doughnuts that other people in here will (and HAVE!) back him up in terms of ability to provide some output.
Sorry man, but I'm gonna have to call complete BS on this statement. There is no way in hell that even buffed to the hilt you can outdamage any class other than a cleric that is not just auto-attacking. A bit of a naive statement. I
If something has a lot of hitpoints than I generally end up in the top 3 slots on dps. If we are killing masses of mobs with small amount of hit points I end up just above the healer. This has to do with having enough time to get off my more powerful attacks. As a result, in shorter battles, I just can't get the spells/skills off to show the bigger numbers and in reality; I don't need to. Dirge's job isn't to output large amounts of dps. But for kicks, me and my assassin friend will occasionly pull out the parser. For long sustained dps, dirge can even beat an assassin (sometimes =P). However, we usually have a good laugh at the dps parsing cause while it is useful for figuring out how some combinations work, there is a lot that it doesn't take into account. Such as heals, buffs or debuffs. Anyrate, regardless of what my dps is I'd still play a dirge. They are the most interesting to play.
I'm actually really good at playing my dirge, people love playing with me. I start all HOs and really get people participating in completing huge ones. I've been playing EQ since EQ1 release day and have had EQ2 since release day. Pretty big assumption that I don't play a dirge "right". At any rate, I do about 90-100 dps on a typical sustained group fight. Solo fights I do about 85. In groups wizzies are doing close to 200 and fighters I group with are doing 150. Ranger I grouped with is doing 140. That, my friends, is not balanced.
Shhh hey guys, want to give the dirge a thrill? I am going to pull those mobs... everyone just autoattack. I do love the "play your dirge right" statements, they are always a chuckle. At level 50, fighting fire giants, single mob, double up, level 48 to 51, over the course of several hours... A dirge is going to pull down sub 100 dps when flanking, sub 50 with aggro. A swashbuckler is going to pull down 120-150. A tanking guardian is going pull down 100 average with a two handed weapon. An enchanter or templar are going to be in the 60 range, along with their other duties. A full DPS priest or enchanter will closely match your DPS score. Another mage is going to pull down in the 150-200 range. Now, this does not take into account the oddities where you double your usual DPS... it also does not count the times where you miss 10 straight times... these are your real world averages, using legendary weapons and adept 1 skills. It seems to be quite common for people to use their best ever score and try to pass it off as the norm. 60-80 standard DPS on a standard mob using standard gear and standard skills, and no different array of button massing is going to affect this in any signifigant way. Yes, you get some 102s and some 120s... you get 40s too that you don't talk about. Your standard is 60-80. Now, for giggles, turn off your buffs, all of them, and fight 20 or so mobs. In RoV, and RE, and RV... yeah, your buffs and debuffs rocked *$%#&!. You make weak groups tight, made everything good, and your group contributions were noticed, needed, and effective. Now look. At 50, after turning off all your buffs, making no debuffs, and attacking as normal... The damage taken to the group is roughly the same. Your group mates DPS is down about a point, maybe two. Your personal dps is in the 40-50 range. Now you scream and say nuh uh. You remember when your buffs dropping made it obvious they were down. Numbers changed, big time. This is what you remember, it must be the same way. But it's not. Do you know what the single biggest group buff a dirge can perform at 50? /disband and let the monk join. But don't worry, they still NEED you in the guild. Not everyone's alt has finished the JBoots yet. I want my buffs and debuffs to mean something again.
Not that I don't acknowledge that there are problems with the dirge sub-class at the end game, from the posts to this forum indications seem that there there definately are, but I get tired of blanket comments defining the entire sub-class by how "good" the dirge is at level 50. Eventually I'll get to 50 and yeah it may become a problem then, but that doesn't mean I can't or shouldn't enjoy being a dirge on the way there. While I'm sure that it isn't intended that way, I get the general impression from a lot of the posts that they think 'You can't have fun playing a dirge cause at level 50 they suck.' While being level 50 is the highest levl you can get to at this point, no one has convinced me that playing at level 50 is the be all and end all of the game. There are just too many other fun and interesting things to do along the way. So, while I might be labeled ignorant, I just don't get why some people are so determined to convince others they can't have fun playing their dirges or that their dirges suck.
