WillyWonka

Shoot me for making another "Dirge Parse" thread later. I am only curious about a few things.

My Dirge recently hit 70 and has some moderate gear. I am generally the MT Dirge since I'm on just about every raid. We have started posting Zonewide Parses for the Raid night in our officer forums to discuss. Here's my questions.

Zonewide parse for me in Throne Room was just under 600. It looks low to me, but that could be I use to play a raiding Ranger that averaged 1.5-2k parses with KoS bow. Is it really as low as it seems? I did do a lot of Rezing as we were just learning the Zone as well as spot healing with Oration.
My gear isn't the greatest but it's not too bad I don't think.
Dark Linger, Blade of Sharpness; both have over 100max damage and 2.0delay. PvP Boots (2% Melee Crit), Dhampyre's Chest (2% melee crit), Necklace of Shadowy Strikes (2% Melee Crit), Planar orb of the Wanderer (Melee Proc), and other gear that focus on Str & Int.
Selfbuffed with Pots I have around 550str and 400int I believe.

In a Fight I generally open with Messenger's Letter for a little extra hate for the MT followed with stealth and SoD. then the Debuffs and CoB with Lanet's just before CoB. From there it's Grievance / Luda's / Infected Blade / and the positional one (forgot the name). when CoB is down I stealth and hit Garsin's whenever I can, i've had it criting for nearly 3k in EoF zones so I like using it.
I also use Banshee and i'm trying to not use Wail of the Dead, but keep finding myself clicking it.

So guess my question is, is my setup and ordering good? is my parse about average or should it be way better?
We're a Raid guild in Qeynos on a PvP server so keep in mind only have access to Qeynos classes as well.
And Any advice as far as loot to look for (other than EoF Set pieces, Avatar loot, end-game stuff) or a change in CA / Spell order is appreciated.

Kall

It's kind of on the low side, but you have to remember that Throne Room is a horrible parse zone because of the stuns and terrible hit rate on trash. I would use FTH, MMIS, or EH as a good measure of where your DPS is at.

Your ordering isn't too bad. Make sure your getting Swindler's though.

Drop Messenger's Letter out of your rotation and replace it with Jael's. Your tank really shouldn't need it and it lowers your DPS.

See my loot thread for gear choices!

kyros

banshee is usually good to get off as early as possible.

Dirge of Death

Agreed. I would try to get Banshee, Scream of Death and Infected Blade into you're cycle as early as you can, they are all dots, so you're going to get more out of them if they tic their full cycles.

Banshee on the pull isn't the worst if you're starting at ranged as you described with Messenger's Letter. It's a low damage hit so shouldn't cause agro issues, it gives 16 seconds til it actually does much real damage.

HO's are also good things to cycle- with Verlien's and Tarven's being good DPS increasing debuffs on their own, it's generally worth Lucky Breaking into them, into a damage CA- they add free damage, keep Swindlers up, and Bravo's is pimp!

__________________

Kytar

I would not use TTR as a meaningful indicator of your DPS at all. Those golems stun you every couple of hits.

I normally parse around 600 in TTR. Each golem you fight bitchslaps your ZW parse due to the stuns. If you are just learning the zone, healing and rezzing will also make your DPS take a dive. Every time you raid wipes, that is another kick to the balls for your parsing.

My DPS in TTR is roughly half of my DPS in other zones.

I just turn off my parser in that zone. Looking at it just makes an infuriating zone even worse.

I just try to get Banshee and SoD off early, then grind my teeth while the golem dies slowly. Against the large elf groups, I am busy enough healing and rezzing that I don't worry about DPS much there either.

Dirge of Death

I haven't been in TR in a while, so things may be different, but I was having much better luck by going to ~5m ranged and using Luda's, Garsin's, Cacophony and Bow Auto Attack. At the time anyway the golems seemed to have a chance to proc the stun off of every tic from the dots so Banshee and SOD were like perma-stun. With the ranged approach my dps wasn't what it normally is, but as I remember I was closer to 800-1000ish per encounter, rather than like 500-600 when I was trying to melee.

If the stun has changed that it doesn't trigger per tic, then throw this suggestion out the window. By all means dots will yield the majority of our non-auto attack dps as usual.

__________________

pagansaint

That isn't too bad at all for the zone going through to completion, killing Mayong. If only up to the Harbinger I would say it is, but gearing up better will solve that more than anything else will at this point looking at the below.

Str/Int look good, all of the crit gear is a plus, I would strongly suggest getting a Sol Ro cloak now that BoE works well. And any other BoE gear you can lay hands on. Remember: +effects and dmg procs are much better than stats. The only two stats that I generally actually pay attention two are Strength and HPs.

Your primary problem area are your weapons. While both are at a ~2.7s delay when DW'ed, after typical raid buffs they only allow you to time in your CAs and Luda's effectively. Any stealth/SoD, stealth/Garsin's, Banshee casting, Jarol's casting will make you miss one to two auto attacks, per hand. Weapons in the 3.0s to 4.0s delay range would be ideal, but you can get away with 2.4/2.5s delay weapons with minimal missed auto attacks.

Your CA cycle seems solid enough, I typically find myself using our snare, then banshee, then CoB. Another thing you may consider is, if you have a solid bow like one of the EH ones, Matron's, or Sarnak is to ranged when you are not meleeing for CoB. Stand just close enough that you can use CAs, but far enough that you are just inside ranged distance. The delays on the bows are conducive to casting all of your shrieks and you can have an extra hotbar setup with all of your CAs, but with a macro on each that turns ranged attack on so you don't try to melee auto attack.

Tried to answer this up there, hope I helped.

__________________

kyros

not mentioned in the original post, but i think this is relevant for the thread discussion. pardon my ignorance, since i've been semi-retired for a while, but what did they change with BoE? i've still been reading patch notes and been pretty keen on changes, but i've only seen it referred to by players, and never explained or mentioned in the notes.

what exactly did they change to make it worthwhile now?

WillyWonka

Thanks for the advice all :D
Yeah i forgot to mention i am a HO addict. I gotta have my Swindler's up constantly or I get cranky :p Gotten lucky on Bravo's a few times and seeing a steady 100% dps / haste makes me happy in the pants!

The best Bow I have is Ghostly Bow of Bylze from the SoS Part of the QC line.. it's decent, crits hard and I use it for fights where I can't melee or have to Joust. When I'm not using it I have the Splitscar Longbow equipped, not great damage but has like +10-15 to all stats iirc plus I have the +10DPS adorn on it now which I can't put on the Ghostly Bow (Lv.59 gah!).

I'm looking to soon have Legendary part of SoD finished so I'll have the Lucanic Sabre soon enough. Also just got Mynthi's Tunic out of Mistmoore Castle yesterday so it's +15str +21int and +50all Disease Damage should help a lot (Though I noticed they missed it when fixing the Normalization. still says Adds up to 50 to all Disease spells instead of the +## Spell Damage as all the other items have).

Got all my stuff adorned yesterday as well so should help my DPS out a lot. +10dps neck, +10dps bow, power-tap adorns on my Dark Linger and Blade of Sharpness, +6all stats on chest, +int on earrings, +str on wrists, +str on leggings, +sta on feet, +power on helm, +str on shoulders, +mit on bracers, +spell damage on gloves, +disruption/subjugation on belt. Also have the Darkened Bracers for the +25haste and decent stats, using them now over my Bloodsoaked gauntlets. Should also have League done soon as well so there's another 4% melee crit and extra DPS for FTH/MMIS.


To answer the question about the BoE fix. Items that use to have BoE type effects would read "Adds up to ## spell damage" which meant it would, based on each spell cast, add from 1 to ## damage. Now it is a straight +## damage add. so like BoE +25 will be exactly +25 Spell damage to all relevent Spells.
However I believe for DoTs it only adds damage to the initial hit / first Tick right? And doesn't Add damage to any type of Life Tap spells correct?

I also got to looking and despite many things saying deals Disease Damage, my new Mynthi's Tunic doesn't affect their Damage.. only Strength does since they're considered CAs.. like Infect Blade. Says Deals Disease Damage but it's not considered a Spell so neither Mynthi's Tunic or my +25 Spell Damage adorn affects it, just my strength.. kinda weird imo.

Pinski

Instead of having it add the amount based on cast time, it now adds the amount period, except for AEs/triggered effects. So for all of your spells that are single-target, you'd gain the amount straight up with it being front loaded onto any DoTs.

__________________
Calaglin, Former Illusionist/Guild Leader of Dissolution on Nektulos
Calaglin, Former Illusionist/Guild Leader of Confirmed on Unrest