EQAditu

Currently the only modifier that exists is to not extend the duration of an encounter with recorded heals. Mostly once the mob is dead, the duration stops growing.

It's probably a general opinion that it's not enough. I'm speaking about people who engage the mob way early in order to get more damage in the few seconds before the majority of the raid engages. It certainly annoys me as a healer when idiots get themselves killed that way.

To my preposition. An option to have the Start Time of the encounter delayed until a specified number of combatants do damage. Usually on pull you have a tank, the mob, and maybe a hate transfer attacking pretty early. So lets say it waits until 4-5 combatants do damage. Maybe even more if mages use short duration damage shields on the tank. (Which can get them killed besides) It would have to be lower for groups which is a problem. Perhaps 25% of the combatants doing damage would work better.

So... I'm looking for opinions on this. If it's a good idea or something uneeded?

RogueFrequency

I like the idea, but wouldn't that potentially screw the people that hit early? For example, an assassin is the hate xfer, and on the start of the encounter he uses 2 relatively large hits to help establish agro for the tank. I'm just imagining the tank pulling and everyone standing there waiting for other people to start attacking because they don't want to waste an auto-attack when the parser isn't taking damage into effect yet.

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Firza

good idea, add bards (at least dirges) for early attackers as we a: dun get agro (errr....:P) but more important B want the mobs debuffed before the rest of the raid attacks, or before the mobs kill the tank.

RogueFrequency

ACT can't detect player class.

As for effect on Dirge DPS: I personally it would actually make our DPS better. Scream of Death does more damage the longer it runs and Banshee does a lot of damage on termination. The later the ExtDPS timer started the higher or DPS would be.

IMO, the option would help primarily dot-based DPS types (by skipping cast time) and hurt primarily dd-based DPS types.

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Firza

I was refering to this, not to getting shafted on extdps. About which I only care after my primary duties are done.

SacDaddy

I love ACT and have been using it for years, thank you Aditu

With that said, I don't like this idea. Wizards' perspective. If you get agro and wasted on the pull you'll be lucky to end up in the top 3 of the parse if you try your ass off after the res. That alone is enough incentive to control yourself in the beginning.

Dants

Doing this would take away from the true definition of EXT DPS that we go by now. It would invalidate a lot of current parse data as well and would add into more confusion when guilds compare parses. I think if you want to add this option, you should name it EDM DPS or something of that sort so it's not to be confused with what everyone refers to as EXT DPS.

I honestly don't think it's worth your time to do it since I'd bet EXT DPS would still be the standard for comparing parses.

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dakkota

Wouldn't change the fact I still do pre-pull style damage because

a) my tank can more than handle it
b) it DOES allow me to pump more damage, esp long fights. Quicker ya cast, quicker ya reuse
c) Im the shit.

Xndienx

hmm conj damage shield counts for the conj so you may wanna consider that too

It's always fun getting yelled at about attacking early because of it

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Xndienx - 80 Conjuror of Befallen

EQAditu

It would not actually remove any damage that was done before the Encounter's recalculated start time. Nothing changes but the Encounter Start time and the things that depend on it. (Enc Duration, ExtDPS)

The true definition is shaky at best, as is. Let's say that a tank is bow pulling, or the mob does a ranged attack while en-route. If the person parsing is in range to see that, you might have several seconds added to the duration. If they aren't in range, the duration will be shorter. Essentially all this proposed modification would do is not penalize the entire raid for the tank doing bow damage on the pull.

Let's take the minimalistic version of the preposed issue. If it were to ignore the first two combatant's start time's (puller and possibly pull target), would that be better? Essentially it would prevent the start time being early due to the tank and one mob... but the very next person or mob to attack it would have the Encounter's Start Time.