People who want big DPS should choose another class

Post revamp, at least at high level, our DPS is awesome. I was in a full group fighting level 52-55'ish heroic mobs, and I was regularly getting the highest DPS. The only other contender... the wizard when he could cast Ice Comet.

High level hints for achieving great DPS:
-- Prismatic Shock is a very efficient spell with a great damage output. Always have it on the main tank.
-- Construct of Logic contributes a decent amount to DPS, especially when cast early in a fight.
-- Buff any mages with Dynamism... even if you do without your Personae.
-- If you really want to up the DPS, cast your nuke every other spell (giving it time to refresh)
-- Although it's listed as AE, color spray does excellent damage to a single mob and has the added bonus of stifling.

The typical combat went like this:
-- Prismatic Shock on tank as he announces pull (no aggro until he actually hits).
-- Construct of Logic or Color Spray (depending on which was up and whether or not the stifle was required)
-- Wither Hope
-- Scorching Beam
-- Lobotomize
-- Scorching Beam
-- Prismatic Shock on tank (if up)
-- Scorching Beam
-- by now , the combat is usually over

Using this strategy, I was doing 300-400 DPS per fight, plus the DPS of the construct. The monk couldn't maintain aggro; I'd usually get aggro when the second scorching beam went off. The paladin could maintain aggro with his 'get 50% of the aggro of a single group member' spell.

You'll notice I'm fulfilling a pure DPS role here. Little or no stifling, mezzing, or debuffing. Depending on the circumstances, I'll change my style from pure crowd control with a little DPS (usually Prismatic Shock or Construct of Logic) to pure DPS. Just be sure to let your party know what you're doing.

Sadari
Level 52 Illusionist
Mistmoore

I would like to point out to any wouldbe 'nerf illusionist' screamers, that though we can now put out respectable DPS, we are still horribly power inefficient in comparison.
Also, our best spell requires a catalyst.
Not complaining just clarifying.

The different groups i have been in usually show that i have no chance to constantly outdamage other classes (besides healer and some tanks). From time to time i will be #1 or #2 in dps, but only if ppl are chatting or semi-afk. IF i am in a guild group. When we fill up our group with pick up member occasionally, these fall behind more often.
And like SunTsu pointed out, i will cost me a lot more power than any other class to put out respectable dps.
My experience so far is, if an illusionist outdamages any other mage, scout (dunno about bards), bruiser or zerker constantly, then its not cause chanter are so uber dps, but its cause the other player either have not upgraded their gear and skills or simply dont know how to play their class or are plain lazy.
We still do nice damage though, i dont want to complain. To rank behind all other scouts and mages is where we should be anyways, so it doesnt really bother me. That we can compete with them if they dont focus is very nice already. In long raid fights i would expect to fall further behind though due to high power cost, but there i have usually different duties anyways.

Good point. When I did my DPS parsing, I had mostly Adept III or Master II spells, and I was definitely using more mana. I'm not sure if the wizard and scouts had everything upgraded.

Also, I was going pure DPS, which meant no mezzing or stunning, very little stilfing, etc.

Does anyone have good stats on which buffs to keep up? I'd really like to see DPS contributions for:
- Dynamism
- Alacrity
- our int buf
- Personae

I know someone did some work with Personae and Dynamism, but I haven't seen anything on our INT buff.

Sadari

It would be nearly impossible to put a meaningful number on how much DPS our Int buff adds. There are way too many variables involved:

• How many mages are in the group?
• How close is their int to hitting the cap before our buff? (remember: diminishing returns)
• How often is everyone casting offensive spells that are influenced by int?

It's like trying to say how much DPS our power regen provides. There's too many factors in the 'conversion' process to give a straight answer.

But we can make generalizations. The buff's usefulness multiplies with each mage added to your group. Using up 1 concentration to up Int and subsequently add 25 damage to one mage's spells isn't so great. But adding 25 damage to every spell cast by 3 or 4 mages is much more worth it.

The short answer: it's usefulness varies greatly depending on group makeup. Use your judgement.

Are there still diminishing returns? I was under the impression that the damage modifier scales evenly between 0 and your Int cap of level x 7, at which point you get nothing (but power?) for each additional point of int.

Cap is 7xlevel+20, not just 7x. But as for the damage scaling, don't think anybody has actually looked at this, but my guess is it's just a straight line increase, and not a curvy line.

Hmm... I know about the cap, but I didn't realize they had changed the way it scales since the time you posted the Int vs. Dmg observations from beta. Will be something to check out tonight, I suppose.

If it was changed to a linear progression, does anyone have numbers on it? Liiiike... how much % increase per 10 int?
Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 10-05-2005 03:23 PM

The way int cap works now is that every spell seems to have hardcoded max damage it can do and you achieve this damage at int cap. Any int that is over the cap doesnt seem to make any difference in damage.

The problem with this system is that if you at int cap at lvl 50 and spell does 500 damage its hardcoded max damage, when you hit lvl 51 your int cap rises a bit and your int isnt at cap anymore so with the same int as at lvl 50 the spell damage falls to say 490(numbers are just a example).

Really??? So you're essentially getting weaker by leveling? Great! (assuming this is true, I'll have to test it out somehow)

Either way...hard caps are stupid.

unfortunately its true. Its been tested and pointed out several times. there are a lot of threads going on already on different forums regarding this issue.

In a way, yes. Overall? Probably not.

If by 'weaker' you mean we do less damage, then I might agree. But keep in mind that our other skills go up as well. Our resist rates against the same level mobs go down. We get new +int buffs to compensate for the cap increase. And as the theory goes, you should also be upgrading your gear as you level anyway.

I did some int/dmg tests last night. The damage increase did appear to be linear. Using Scorching Beam as the constant, I was getting an increase of roughly 1 dmg for every 3 int increase. This increase was of course much lower on other spells (lobotomize, wither hope...), but I have yet to work it out as a percentage. But the point is this: If you were to level and 'lose' 7 Int from the cap, you would essentially be losing 2 dmg or less from each spell.

Now, what do you consider a bigger measure of our strength? An improved resist rate or 2 dmg to each spell?
Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 10-06-2005 10:56 AM
Message Edited by MillsFairchild on 10-06-2005 10:57 AM

Ok, 'weaker' was probably not the best word to use in this case.

I actually meant, as you pointed out, that our spells would be doing less damage and not that we were weaker on the whole. I totally agree with you that 1 level is better than a few points of damage.

The gist of my argument should have been that this is just another reason why hard caps are bad

Back to the first subject I would add that in challenging encounters (yellow heroic ones), our damage mitigation is prominent, along with our CC abilities on adds. Before CU a group would just mow into a field and AE anything that would come, the more the better, now every add is a bad news, potentially deadly, and we are welcome for those abilities. Of course, our damage is not too bad in small group situations, prismatic strife works just like a good sized nuke that does not seem to be mitigated or resisted.