Returning - absolutely torn. Mage or necro?

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's silly to write off the endgame performance of a class.

Look man, I'm not trying to write off the end-game performance of a class. Bleeding edge single group content (Ie HoT single grouped, SG, Juggs) isn't exactly a huge part of the game. It's the end of the road for a lot of folks and many who don't commit to hardcore raiding aren't going to be spending a significant portion of their time farming Juggs, HoT with a single group, or Sirens Grotto. Many of those who do the latter (HoT/SG) are sporting raid gear. As you've already mentioned, raid gear shifts the balance in a very significant way towards melee, and those really high end areas sport mobs with nasty high resistances, which further favors any melee over every caster with the exception of a class that can charm. Nobody is denying any of that.

For most players and for most of the time, focusing in exclusively on this content isn't really relevant to the broader discussion. On that note, disparaging "mid 50's PuGs" is pretty silly as every toon will spend most of their time in at this level of play. Until players hit that end of the line group content, pet Int classes do shockingly well across the board for raw damage output.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I guess you get your guys to 60 and then are mostly finished with them? Nothing wrong with that, but most people are going to want at least basics like their epic and a set of HOT gear, or will want to farm up some platinum for a twink.

Like I said, I've been overseas for 6 years (will be back in the states in a few months). Euro and Asian time zones don't really allow for traditional raid progression as guildmates are generally asleep or at work when I have time to play. I have a professional career and a family, so I can't/won't engage in p99's preferred style of raiding which involves calls going out at odd times to mobilize. I carve out some me time to play and if something doesn't happen during that narrow window, I'm not available to participate.

I enjoy playing my 60s, but sitting around xp capped lfg for 1-3 hours before finding something productive to do (I don't need experience) isn't exactly fun - so alts enter the equation. I'll scout around for a bit and if I don't get any bites, I swap over to a character I can make progress with.

So yes, unfortunately I get to 60, get to coldainish level of content gear, and then that character has a tendency to start collecting dust.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And the endgame performance of Necromancers just isn't great in my experience.

From a raw dps standpoint, at that level of play damage potential comparatively does take a nose dive. 70-80 dps is nothing to sneeze at, but it's not going to keep up with raid geared melee. If you factor in other abilities the necromancer brings to the table, that performance is still pretty great.

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

But hey, you could always post some parses and prove us wrong!

My work day is just starting, I'll sift through logs when I get home. Want necro, mage, or both? Necro logs in particular will be more challenging to find accurate representations for dps as when I'm in a group I rarely get to focus exclusively on dps. Time spent rooting, healing, and on demand twitches group mates want all subtract time and mana from the equation. It's a rare thing to be in a group where my only job is dishing out damage, hence why I initially said I'd get new ones where I can focus on nothing but damage.

What is pretty consistent is the expected damage from the pet. In crappy/low places like KC the 53 rog pet is close to 60 sustained dps. In places like seb it's in the 50 range for standard areas and 40-45 on the very high level mobs with a tank who knows how to position. From there, it's not hard to calculate sustained dps potential with absolutely zero down time (it's just math). Every extra med tick or bit of down time shifts the balance more in favor of the caster.

[Raev]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Want necro, mage, or both?

I'd be curious to see both, really, but in a tougher area since that's what I spent most of my time doing. The crypt is actually a pretty low level area; only the named are high level.

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'd be curious to see both, really, but in a tougher area since that's what I spent most of my time doing. The crypt is actually a pretty low level area; only the named are high level.

My necromancer has been level 58 for over a year and I've got a 210MB log file. I'll dig deeper over the next few days but this was a pickup group on the bonus xp (4th July holiday extended weekend) that crawled from ABC to the bridge near NG back and forth. Not exactly high end seb, but still a higher kunark dungeon.

Group was:

-Monk:
Rukilz (pretty sure 57, though possibly 58) with Tstaff, epic, fungi, shaman 50% haste and I think 36% worn haste handling pulls/tanking

-Shaman
Donhoolio (57-58) canni-ing his ass off, slowing, buffing, and casting heals sporadically (not that often)

-Mage: (owner of Zarn an initially lowest summon level 57 earth pet and later Xonann a max summon 57 earth pet after I encouraged him to bail on the old pet). As you can see from his pet clocked in dps vs "sdps" he was generally slow to actually send pet in accounting for his pets doing less total damage despite doing more functional uptime dps than mine while in combat. His max summon pet should have parsed higher, but I assume that given his slow on the draw sending pet in that he did not actively refresh pet haste and his pet thus spent a sizable portion of the time without burnout. I proactively refresh haste when my count down timer hits 60 seconds. Some pet owners don't bother to do this, but every second your pet isn't hasted your pet is hitting 65% less frequently. I also don't know if he bothered to ask the shaman to str buff his pet either. I can't parse mage nukes or the impact of the DS.

-Necro: Me, 58. We had no mez, so I handled the cc with roots/ST. This took up more than a little bit of my time. Pet Kibobtik 53 rogue summon had the mob's ass maybe 60-70% of the time, so lots of lost backstabs. I was busy enough with CC (1-3 in camp at any given point in time) that it occupied a lot of my attention. No dots were used other than lifetap dot. At 58, most functional lifetap has a poor ratio and only hits for 330. Between that and casting tap dot at the start of fights as needed, that's where all my damage came from. Most of my time was spent handling CC and throwing heals around like crazy.


Combined: ** SEB crawl ABC to NG Bridge and Back on 7/7/2018 in 3230sec

Total
--- DMG: 449547 (100%) @ 139 dps (139 sdps)
--- DMG to PC: 46429 @15dps

Kibobtik
--- DMG: 133583 (29.72%) @ 42 dps (41 sdps)

Rukilz
--- DMG: 126371 (28.11%) @ 39 dps (39 sdps)

Xonann
--- DMG: 87040 (19.36%) @ 47 dps (27 sdps)

Zarn
--- DMG: 53337 (11.86%) @ 41 dps (17 sdps)

Daegun
--- DMG: 47232 (10.51%) @ 15 dps (15 sdps)

Donhoolio
--- DMG: 684 (0.15%) @ 0 dps (0 sdps)

---------------------------------------------------------------

Regarding the healing covered while doing this?

--- DMG to PC: 46429 @15dps

Total healing delivered from myself?

Donhoolio received 20242
Rukilz received 13125
Pets combined received: 1125
Me: A lot. I was healing back the health I was tossing around with the taps and tap dots.

Regen:

Group stuck it out 84 minutes, so the monk (iksar with fungi and regrowth is 40 passive regen a tick) regenerated somewhere less than 33600 hp (he spent some but not most of the time full health).

Between the monk's passive regen and the heals I tossed him (math the above bolded/italicized/underlined numbers), the shaman didn't have to heal much at all and was free to canni near-continuously while I healed him as well.

Discussion:

Not super high level seb, and my attention was split. Gamparse can be buggy when compiling fights and there are moments I was out of melee parse range. This accounts for why all melee (pets included) have lower parse numbers than you'd expect for the gear, level, class, and content. If I can parse a pet, though, I can parse a player. Necro 53 pet at max summon with a mage haste mask, necro haste buff, and shaman str buff (this is more important than many realize) still managed to beat out the Tstaff epic monk (granted I can't parse his procs).

For all the flaws in parsing, you at least get an idea of how a properly buffed pet stacks up against a higher level melee character with a pretty good weapon. Anything the caster does to lay on the heat above and beyond the pet is just icing on the cake.

I leveled my necro up after my monk was already 50s. I parse a lot and keep Gamparse in heads up display mode for active real-time overlay superimposed on window. The 49 necro pet was a bit of a shocker as it was putting out damage that was uncomfortably close to what my 50s monk was capable of. The 53 pet made playing the dps role on my epic monk frankly depressing. The pet properly buffed could go toe to toe with my monk. I later leveled up my Magician - those pets are rock solid sustained dps. The biggest shocker was in upgrading from 54 water to 57 earth. The earth pet is a few levels higher and had a max quad that went from 56 to 70. Even without backstab or the rare nuke, the 57 earth pet is an absolute beast.

Anywho, I'll scrub my logs over the coming days and get some more parses out there.

[Pint]

Bis rogues are about 120dps when they're trying

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Pint [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bis rogues are about 120dps when they're trying

Which is why BiS rogues are at the top of the dps charts on raids and in groups when rabid charm pets aren’t around.

[Raev]

I'm a little surprised the Necro pet outdamaged the monk, but a) tanking cuts your dps by maybe 10% due to ripostes and bash b) most leveling monks will not cap strength, which is another 10-20% depending on his gear c) the tstaff proc is 3-4 DPS depending on dexterity d) 7% off capped haste (and no +20 ATK from VoG) e) tstaff is going to get +10 dps after the 2H buff. So maybe it isn't that surprising. Of course the skeleton probably missed some backstabs but I think it's hard to keep pets behind the mob 100% even with an attentive tank.

I guess we both play Necro in a similar and reasonably close to optimal way. The difference is that I have a 60 enchanter and I'm constantly reminded of how much better he would be. Offensively, you were bringing maybe 60 dps which is not bad at all. But a (good) enchanter would be bringing 100+ with a charmed bok, better haste on the Monk, and C2/Gift on the magician. Defensively, you were healing maybe 40 hp/tick which is also not bad. But C2/Gift on the Shaman would generate nearly that much. And the Enchanter has 4 slot dispel, slow, and real mez to take the pressure off as well. So when I'm playing support dps on my Necro I miss my enchanter and when I'm pulling, even though they are surprisingly good there, I still really miss the survivability of the Monk.

I have periodically gotten strength buffs and Primal Avatar on my charmed pets before but I've never been religious about it. It's a good find. Yet another reason Shaman are the Necro's best friend.

P.S. I don't think it's that hard to farm 300K, although it isn't exactly easy. That's 6 fungi tunics, for example, or about 100 hours at the spore king while 75% AFK doing house work. It all depends what your idea of fun is.

[brokenpromise]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I'm a little surprised the Necro pet outdamaged the monk, but a) tanking cuts your dps by maybe 10% due to ripostes and bash b) most leveling monks will not cap strength, which is another 10-20% depending on his gear c) the tstaff proc is 3-4 DPS depending on dexterity d) 7% off capped haste (and no +20 ATK from VoG) e) tstaff is going to get +10 dps after the 2H buff. So maybe it isn't that surprising. Of course the skeleton probably missed some backstabs but I think it's hard to keep pets behind the mob 100% even with an attentive tank.

I guess we both play Necro in a similar and reasonably close to optimal way. The difference is that I have a 60 enchanter and I'm constantly reminded of how much better he would be. Offensively, you were bringing maybe 60 dps which is not bad at all. But a (good) enchanter would be bringing 100+ with a charmed bok, better haste on the Monk, and C2/Gift on the magician. Defensively, you were healing maybe 40 hp/tick which is also not bad. But C2/Gift on the Shaman would generate nearly that much. And the Enchanter has 4 slot dispel, slow, and real mez to take the pressure off as well. So when I'm playing support dps on my Necro I miss my enchanter and when I'm pulling, even though they are surprisingly good there, I still really miss the survivability of the Monk.

I have periodically gotten strength buffs and Primal Avatar on my charmed pets before but I've never been religious about it. It's a good find. Yet another reason Shaman are the Necro's best friend.

P.S. I don't think it's that hard to farm 300K, although it isn't exactly easy. That's 6 fungi tunics, for example, or about 100 hours at the spore king while 75% AFK doing house work. It all depends what your idea of fun is.

My wife already makes me do all the washing up and taking out the rubbish bin. The thought of doing it to kill time waiting for respawns both terrifies me and really boils my asshole. I protest nearly every time I'm asked so the thought of doing it on my own like an automaton deeply disturbs me

[Troxx]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I have periodically gotten strength buffs and Primal Avatar on my charmed pets before but I've never been religious about it. It's a good find. Yet another reason Shaman are the Necro's best friend.

Pets, being npcs get full 1:1 benefit from both attack (direct attack and str) boosting buffs. Str + focus stack on a pet will make that pet hit for max damage the vast majority of time (only exception being velious raid mobs with high ac). It's a little trick i learned on live that works in classic too. It won't make them hit higher than their max hit but it will make them hit consistently more often and severely deflected toward their upper max hit threshold. This holds true for charm pets as well. I always ask shamans to buff pets and charm pets in group (mine or otherwise).

Interestingly, unlike player characters, they also benefit 1:1 on ac (*to include agility and how it raises your visible ac). Players have soft caps etc. Tossing an ac and agility buff on a pet makes it a stupidly strong tank vs not having.

Pets are fun. NPCs that follow NPC rules controlled by PCs.

[Topgunben]

Originally Posted by Troxx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pets, being npcs get full 1:1 benefit from both attack (direct attack and str) boosting buffs. Str + focus stack on a pet will make that pet hit for max damage the vast majority of time (only exception being velious raid mobs with high ac). It's a little trick i learned on live that works in classic too. It won't make them hit higher than their max hit but it will make them hit consistently more often and severely deflected toward their upper max hit threshold. This holds true for charm pets as well. I always ask shamans to buff pets and charm pets in group (mine or otherwise).

Interestingly, unlike player characters, they also benefit 1:1 on ac (*to include agility and how it raises your visible ac). Players have soft caps etc. Tossing an ac and agility buff on a pet makes it a stupidly strong tank vs not having.

Pets are fun. NPCs that follow NPC rules controlled by PCs.

Troxx, I learned a lot from all your posts. You seem to know the mechanics of the game better than most.

[kjs86z]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

P.S. I don't think it's that hard to farm 300K, although it isn't exactly easy. That's 6 fungi tunics, for example, or about 100 hours at the spore king while 75% AFK doing house work. It all depends what your idea of fun is.

I don't want to start an argument, but I don't think your numbers are wholly realistic on that one. I would love to see a breakdown of your math though. 27 minute respawn, what is the % chance it is King instead of PH, what is the % chance it drops a fungi, and how many people in your group all rolling (guessing 3). Of course, all that is assuming King is open and you have your group the moment you log in and start playing...which in itself is unrealistic. Add clear-ins, hiccups, recoveries, and all the rest of that normal EQ stuff....you get what I'm saying.

I'm going to throw out a guestimate that the average of "decent" (not elite / pro) cash camps to be about 2k / hour. Sure, people do better....but a lot of other people out there will do worse (for a long time I was perfectly happy making 1k / hr at NG only killing 3 bugs, breaking / calming the Krup roamer pet, and going AFK for 18 minutes in the safe spot corner).

I'm on the lower end of skill / knowledge when it comes to P99 player. The server is my first and only EQ experience. I cannot imagine amassing 300k in 100 hours doing Fungi King. I'm a mediocre enchanter at best but I'd love some more options for solo plat farming myself.