Why my Raid Illy is Depressed about Her DPS

Discussion in 'Mages' started by Vulnere, Nov 20, 2017.

  1. Vulnere Active Member

    Hello,

    First off, I've carefully studied this excellent post:
    https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...lusionist-and-you-maximizing-your-dps.578562/

    I've certainly examined this subject carefully.

    Our raid team is doing pretty well.. we are something like #5 on the server. We are coming close to the end of the KA raid progression.

    Nobody harasses me about my DPS... I think it's because I'm the only enchanter on the raid force some weeks.... so long as I feed mana well, and don't wipe the raid, nobody seems to care. But I care.

    It's embarrassing that I don't make the parse.. and it's embarrassing that most healers out-parse me in ACT.

    Now before people tear into my AA spec and all that stuff, I already know some of my main problems:

    1. Relatively low potency. I've got about 28k potency. I have every last piece of gear infused all the way...
    even the couple pieces that are just 14 res. Infuser and deity.

    2. I don't have the Illy cloak or the Illy rune. I re-started the game too late to get any ethereal coins. I don't even have the crummy Res 7 cloak from TOT. It won't drop. I'd really like that group buff to Prismatic Chaos.

    3. When I came back to the game, everyone was raving about Geomancer, so I maxed that out and mostly grandmastered it. Of course Geomancer is the worst choice of all. So I"m working on Ethereal.. but it's going to be a couple months. And I'm *not* going to open my billfold again to GM anything. I swear I spent $500 on Geomancer.

    4. My doublecast is only 74%. It's hard to increase.

    5. I may not be using Temporal Mimicry the best. I used to point it at our top dps.. (who does 1 trillion I think).. but he's a necromancer.. so pet damage isn't mimicked. I've switched to a wizard.. now every 10 fights I might hit 1% on the parse. But I'm never sure when he's going to use ascensions.. he doesn't always lead with them.

    6. I got myself a rising tide charm.. but it didn't make much difference and it's been nerfed now.. so I don't use it.

    Overall, my lowish potency, my lack of the Illy cloak and rune and my poor choice with Geomancer seem to be the main factors.

    At this point, there doesn't seem to be anything much I can do about it. I'm not going to ditch my decent health for more potency AA's... my decent health keeps me alive to feed mana.. I"m not gong to lower it. I can't get ethereal coins.. I do have my epic 2.0 ... but getting it didn't make any real difference.

    Should I just suck it up since we are so close to the expansion, where everything changes?

    Thanks.
  2. Melt Actually plays the game

    You have it figured out mostly. Main thing I can see is that you don't have the ethereal offhand from the kunark ascending timeline.
  3. Vulnere Active Member

    Thanks.. I'll look into that.
  4. Vunder Well-Known Member

    IF you are dead set on the rune, you can make a toon on IoR and trade a krono for the coins. Thats the only way you will get it.
  5. Vunder Well-Known Member

    3 kronos will get you the cloaks, rune, and belt currently.
  6. Vulnere Active Member

    If I had known this a couple months ago --- maybe... that 30 day waiting period is the real killer. But with the expansion coming out in 8 days most gear will be useless. I am hoping that the devs' bring back something like the summer ethereal again, so that I don't get left in the dirt again. Also TBH, doing that seems even more PTW than I can stomach. Now mind you, there is no "winning" in an open-ended theme park questing game. And I'm fine with some people have time and some have money..
    but that level of "gaming the system" doesn't rest well with me personally. If I did something like that once, it might become a nasty personal habit.
  7. Fairin Active Member

    your fervor is horribadly low is why your dps is disappointing you. the 8 fervor belt from tot is currently 3rd best in slot because of this.

    consider 63 to be the "baseline" of how much you should have at the bare minimum - thats 30 from HB 25 from epic and 8 from belt.
    Snikkety likes this.
  8. Vulnere Active Member

    You are telling me that 8% more fervor will do amazing things for me? Isn't that just 8% more damage?
    8% more of nothing much is still nothing much. That said, of course I'd like more fervor if I could find it,
    without giving up potency, etc.
  9. Revel Well-Known Member

    My post is a bit outdated, as it was for earlier on in this xpac. Low Potency and no rune is absolutely killing your parse right now. However, as the potency won't be an issue once you re-gear next week with new content, there's a few pieces of advice I can give you.

    1. Spend some time this week upgrading your orange PG runes in your leg slot. You definitely want that 40 overcap. If you can get the orange slot in your wrist to T4 too, that would be swell. Its a lot of tokens, so if you don't have characters/time I'd focus on the pants first.

    2. The easiest way to get double cast would be to get the book from finishing all 4 ascensions. That would almost cap you. It will still be relevant next expansion for some time, and the clicky effect is great for 1 fight a night.

    3. Purples will be going away except in your epic, I recommend keeping bolstered attributes or endurance

    4. Cloak/rune is huge. Illy class rune is easily one of the top 3 in the game. Especially being able to craft ancients in the coming xpac. Ancient level Prismatic chaos + cloak = massive damage. It will be a huge chunk of your parse. More so next expac I think. You may want to just eat the cost of a transfer to IoR to get the coins and then transfer back. I'm sure cloaks in the new expansion will have orange slots, so you may not even have to buy the class cloak, just the rune, but I am not 100% sure on this.

    If your Geomancer spells weren't all grandmastered I'd recommend switching to etherealist but its just too much to give up.
  10. Vulnere Active Member

    Thanks... I'm glad you are confirming my research for the most part.

    I guess I am probably going to break down and do the IOR gimmick for the Illy class rune only... I'ts really sad that this one item is so class-defining, that to raid and not have it seems to almost make the class broken. That really points to a design flaw in the Illy.
  11. Rubick Well-Known Member

    I feel the same way about the wizard one. I just came back to the game like 3 days ago and have to do the same. It's very unfortunate (and expensive!).
  12. Mermut Well-Known Member

    WHEN is as important as WHO for Mimic. Talk to your wizzie and ask him/her if he/she would be willing to macro 'Mimic' in raid chat before the start of the high dps chain so you know WHEN to mimic. Waiting to cast it (and hence using it a bit less often) will be more then made up by mimicing your target when they're bursting.
    Vulnere likes this.
  13. Steelviper Active Member

    Cloaks at least on Beta did all have orange slots, so I'm pretty sure you don't really need to buy the ethereal cloak, the only thing it has better than the coming expac cloaks are the casting skills (which are way lower on PoP cloaks / belts). Potency- and other stat-wise it will be outdated when the expac comes out, even by the basic starter one.

    In case you're doing the IoR thing and getting the ethereal coins, you might consider getting the Relic belt as well. It even stays better than the Solo / faction belts in PoP, but the most important thing is you get the 15 Fervor rune only through the belt, and it's a huge upgrade for the one you currently have. Like, really noticeable. Seeing as you're not wearing any Relic items anyway, replacing something for the belt won't be an issue either.
  14. Vulnere Active Member


    Well in 25 days, when I can transfer off of IOR, I will have 740 ethereal coins to spend, that is, if there is an ethereal vendor avaialble.. i noticed that in beta there isn't one in obulus. Wouldn't that be a kick in the pants... I opened up my billfold massively to get coins, and if there is no vendor, i will feel really dumb to take the advice from this thread.

    That said, I'm beginning to seriously wonder if I want to do the whole cloak/belt thing at all... that would cost 330 coins.. and the only real thing that would matter at all, would be a slightly better belt than I'd get until I"m raiding again. that class run would go nicely in even the starter cloak.

    Now as to the class rune.. i've got several toons salivating to get one... my Illy, my mystic, my wizard... so maybe just go 330 coins on my raid main...and then 4 alts (yes, I have altaholic disorder) can get class runes... though class ruins for some of them isn't that big a deal.

    will have to see how this goes... I might get left holding the bag.
  15. Revel Well-Known Member

    I hope not. Its would be enraging if they removed that vendor on live, for you, for me, and other people who are still holding lots of coins.

    That said, today's changes make the rune more important than ever.

    ILLUSIONIST
    Prismatic Chaos VIII has had its damage increased and its trigger limit increased from 3 to 9.
    Synergism VII will trigger it's effect on 100% of hostile spell hits.

    Now Prismatic will be an even larger chunk than before. The rune is completely necessary.
    Vulnere likes this.
  16. Rubick Well-Known Member

    I had the same concern and was assured by a guildmate that's always in the know that the vendor is 100% staying, confirmed by devs. I never saw it, but he had no reason to lie about it so take it at face value.
  17. Revel Well-Known Member

    I also doubt its the case because IoR is supposed to have ethereals "forever" it was one of the selling points of the server when they gave it more bonuses.
  18. Vulnere Active Member

    Well the Ethereal vendor was there after POP launch, so that's good.
    The change to Prismatic Chaos is extremely welcome...
    Perhaps the dev gods heard my whining.
  19. Revel Well-Known Member

    The good news is you can get the new PoP gear from the sig starter in a little box that is better than anything outside t4 gear from KA. It will equalize you with most others.
  20. Vulnere Active Member

    Oh I know. Other than people with ethereal runes/gear.
    One thing I've noticed is that none of the new gear has doublecast.
    The Ethereal GM cloak / belt give over 50 doublecast.
    But gear aside, without extreme tricks (rising tide,etc), for a mage, Illy have pretty wretched DPS.

    Now.. if Illy had working mesmerize like in EQ1, the lack of DPS would be "ok".

    Illy pay a very heavy price, for the privilege of filling up people's blue bars sometimes.