Frankly, how it is done is irrelevant. It needs to be discussed and addressed. If the developers find that Dirges are inappropriately high in the DPS food chain, then they'll have to address that. There are really only two potential situations here. A) Troubadors are too low, and need to be built up. This brings with it the corollary that there could potentially be other classes who also are sitting inappropriately low and will also need to be adjusted. B) Dirges are too high, and need to be reined in. It's really just another exercise in attempting to understand the development vision of all the classes and where they feel each needs to be. Lacking the promised "manifesto" on the ongoing development vision for the game, we are left to speculate and compare the existing dynamics and point out irregularities as we see them. That's exactly what is happening in this thread.
Kunaak wrote: I went ahead and found a sample parse (Melee only) from some of my guilds scouts to highlight the issue. For some reason my guilds troubs seem to have a much higher miss rate than other scouts (lack of accuracy maybe?) additionally since they are in caster groups their dps mod is a lot lower than other scouts. But even with those two problems fixed the dps of a troubs auto attack would probably fall a little short of the Swashbucklers (Auto attack increasing AA). With that said I don't think the troub's auto attack is that much worse off, other than the fact that due to group set up they aren't getting the same melee stats the dirges are getting (accuracy, and dps). The only number here that seems alarming to me is the Dirge's compared to the other scouts. Also in this parse the dirge is using 6 second delays while I believe the rest of the scouts are using 4 second delays (the 6 second rarely drop for us).
I guess I don't feel that dirges are parsing too high. I'm a dirge, and comparatively geared, my Raidwide DPS % is the same as its always been, between 5 and 6%. I could scale that up to say 8% but while the number has increased, my overall Raid DPS has not. I raid most of the content offered thus far in DoV. I *DO* feel that the troub mythical needs to be addressed. I'm a former longtime troub, and really its effectiveness was deteriorated when the proc damage nerf was implemented. That really hurt Ayonic Hymn's damage, and made it a lot less effective than originally implemented. I feel that the previous posters have it right, and it would enable a uniqueness between dirges and troubs to allow for their spells to hit for max damage just like dirge melee dps. I feel that their current abilities on the Mythical should stay in-tact too.
Untill we come up with a parse with a similar group setup, we cannot compare the scout classes melee Auto Attack. Because the Dirges are in groups that complement their abilities and Troubadors not so much. Group setup makes a big difference in my DPS. The problem isn't with Troubadors myth buff as much as it's that they are almost always in mage groups which buff spells and not melee. Dirges really shine in melee groups because they are melee based. Place a Dirge in a spell based group and IMO the are in the same boat as the Troubador. BTW - How about we compare the non-Melee damage between the scout classes? I suspect that Dirges would be low man on the totem pole. Again - I have no problems with the Troubadors getting some love.
See, I disagree with that, almost totally. What is brought to a group by someone OTHER than a Dirge that improves the Dirge melee DPS? Typically, Dirges are MT / OT players. Probably having a Templar, Plate Tank, Shaman (usually Defiler), Coercer and some other melee DPS like an Assassin or Swashy. So, yea, the Coercer brings DPS mod . . . but Dirges already have that as one of their buffs and given the current itemization, it's not really all that valuable. Templars bring a little bit of weapon skill . . . but simply completing a couple solo HO's makes that totally irrelevant for any Scout. Where Troubs buff casting skill, Dirges buff melee skill. Where Dirges get a focus to add 10% accuracy to their group, Troubadors get . . . uh . . . 9% trigger chance to Aria? When you think about it, most of the melee buffs a Dirge uses are his own! This is sort of what everyone is saying. A Dirge simply buffs himself better to do damage. Troubadors buff others just fine, thank you very much. The problem is, their damage doesn't benefit from their own buffs the way Dirges do.
Again, boosting Troubador melee dps probably is the wrong way to go. The class simply is not built to do massive amounts of melee dps and it never has been. Even if you gave it more accuracy, troubadors hit like a wet noodle so I don't even see why that would help matters much. On the other hand, increasing its buff effectiveness, giving a ton more *active* buffs rather than being almost exclusively passive, and boosting the Mythical proc to do something useful beyond the horribly nerfed proc damage would greatly increase the fun that people have playing the class. EDIT: The reason why they hit so soft with melee dmg, is typically they are not in a group that grants a great deal of +dps rather than anything inherently wrong with the class.
Banditman wrote: Inquisitors and other melee scouts/tanks also have some buffs for melee. Haste is one big example, self buffed I'm ~60-70%. In a raid group I'm >200. This is huge in making my attacks faster. Troubadors benefit from their own buffs, They cast spells don't they? Perhaps it would be better to buff the spell casting ablilities of the Troubador than buff the melee ones?
Base auto attack modifiers was a bad thing to mess with, for any class. Scaling issues abound, but again, I've been saying that since before last expansion. The troub crit chance should be translated to something game relevant, just as many other abilities and aa's spread accross many, many classes. The dirge ability is too large with MA and Flurry chances constantly rising. It would make more since to me for both classes to get a critbonus proc and be done with it.
erratic wrote: In case some of you missed the data. This is one sampling but all of the scouts have 1000+ swings. Post your own data if you care to dispute this. Data is what proves the situation.
Wasuna wrote: First I think that this needs looked at a lot more. But before a parce like this is taken out of context gear and AA set ups need to be taken into acount, as well of group setup. A testing stander needs to be created so all 4 of the classes are ether gettingthe same set of buffs or are dpsing solo. also they need to be using the same or equal gear. 1 using a 6 sec weapon and the others using 4s and just looking at Auto attach DMG isnt even. Just my thoughts.
Raahl wrote: I am well aware of what Inquisitors bring, but Dirges rarely find themselves in these groups. The point here is that the benefits a Dirge receives from other classes in his GROUP are minor in comparison to the benefits he receives from the buffs he himself provides for his own melee DPS. When you look now at a Dirge parse, what you see is that approximately 50% of his damage is melee auto attack. That is immense. His melee attacks hit significantly harder even when using weapons identical to a control parse. Sure, perhaps Troubs do need some additional benefit to their spell abilities which improves the performance of same. However, that is not where the greatest disparity currently resides. The problem is not in the abilities, it is in the auto attack. I do agree with what Atan said, messing with auto attack multipliers is bad juju. Unfortunately, that is EXACTLY what is happening already with the current Dirge buff. Troubs need to be fixed, for real. I don't want to see Dirges get whacked in the process. However, there is no where else to look for a valid comparison, and right now, the comparison is grossly slanted in the Dirges favor. The same sort of thing applies to Illusionists tbh. They (still) don't compare very favorably to Coercers, and it needs to be addressed.
Silzin wrote: The dirge and swashbuckler were in the same group, the dirge had bc (there is no doubt that it benefits the dirge more than traditional scout classes now a day). They were in the mt group with a coercer. I'd say gear is roughly equal, and while the 6 second weapons hit harder, the 4 second weapons have lots of MA that the 6 seconds don't. The assassin was in the OT group with an illy and a bruiser I believe. The troub was in a caster group. I encourage others to parse data, I went through my ACT and looked at numerous fights and the results were similiar. I tried to find a solo target fight (so that ae auto didn't screw the numbers too much). This is a hardmode fight, with what I consider a traditional setup. Personally I feel comparing classes in a sandbox doesn't help much, its their real world performance that matters. If you give the troub a dirge, coercer, illy, inquis and bruiser he'll parse awesome, but how often does that happen? I'd be in agreement to changing the troub myth to something like accuracy or dps instead of crit. With their traditional setups I believe it would be more useful to them. Honestly I'd like to see all myths be given a second look, many classes have myths that are marginal or useless, while a few have myths that are insanely powerful. I do believe however that the dirge myth will have to be changed one day, maybe not today but remember right now we're at roughly 350 MA, the benefits are only growing as we get more and more MA in an expansion or two I don't think seeing 800MA will be unreasonable given the current growth rate. Personally I don't feel bards should not have a stronger auto attack tham assassins. I also understand that this is an ability dirge's have had a long time and nerfing it will upset a lot of their player base.
Seriously, what is wrong with while the proc is up giving troubs max spell damage plus a 20% multiplier (potency)? It's equivalent to what dirges get on melee. It won't be nearly as good as the dirge proc since no matter how much anyone argues, troubs are still scouts. However, it will level the playing field significantly.
tfetterman wrote: The arguement is the dirge ability is most likely overpowered, so the answer isn't to give another overpowered ability out to compensate for the first one. If we do that then if/when the day comes that they fix the dirge ability the troub ability will just need to be fix with it. I agree the troubs could use something (due mainly to the fact that they don't get many buffs to help their dps in the groups they most common run in) I'm more inclined to say accuracy/dps mod or something of a similiar ilk. Also keep in mind when looking at other myths, the swashbuckler myth adds 10 potency and some debuff improvements, so asking for 20 potency and a max damage proc seems overkill in comparison. Myth buffs are several expansions old, many of them are marginalized already, they shouldn't remain game changing forever, or if they do they should be that way for everyone.
The issue isn't specific to the dirge. Other classes that get a base autoattack buff will demonstrate the same issues when they're able to stack on the same amounts of MA and Flurry chance (late this expansion or next). Base auto attack modifiers scale to strongly as we up swing chance / min. A flat damage proc, or CB bonus is a more manageable buff in terms of scaling.
I strongly disagree. All that does is provide an outdated buff that we'll have the same post on in one xpac, thus putting bards in the same boat they're in already.
Celuin wrote: What your saying in this comment is that the Troubador buff is wrong and the Dirge buff is OK. In general I agree but bards bring to much to the table to even be in the same playing field as T1 DPS. I don't like nerfs at all but Dirges do WAY to much DPS for all the buffs and benefits they bring to a group/raid. As Atan said, flat multiplers always end up failing becasue players are smart and figure out how to maximize it. Then you have exactly what you have now, classes that enjoy the benefits and classes that don't get the benefit and get upset. Also understand that they get upset for perfectly valid reasons.
I've not seen bards be in T1 dps range. I've seen high numbers, I post them myself. I'm pretty sure that if you look at the Raidwide dps, they're probably right at where they've always been. If I was in T1 dps I'd totally agree with you. Bards are pretty much T2 dps, and have been since RoK.
erratic wrote: I can't possibly say "NO" enough time to that so I won't bother. An accuracy buff would be almost totally useless and a DPS buff would be an insult as bad as the +riposte damage on scout gear. I think crit bonus might be a good substitute for the crit chance although that wouldn't nearly make up that DPS difference between the two. As for what the dirge myth buff does exactly... I was never too clear on that. I know it increases their auto attack damage a heck of a lot but what exactly does it do? IMO (and probably 95% of people would say "hell no" to this), all auto attack modifiers of any sort should be removed from the game other than the AA specs for melee healers. Adding these was an absolutely terrible idea that has caused nothing but imbalances and a further reliance on automatic DPS.
