I suck!. . .Why? - Help needed

Mairae · 03-15-2008, 06:43 PM

Ok guys, here is the story.

I am a lvl 80 Warlock in a casual raiding guild and i cannot get my ZW parse higher than 1.7k no matter what i do.

I have been stood at the training wall for hours examining parses and changing cast orders, adornments, kit etc but cannot break 1.6 at the wall (tried casting upheaval once - local natives objected for some reason

)

In raids our group makup can be random as we do not have all the required classes at a high level yet. I'm normally buffed to 992 INT (902 self buffed) and i consistantly parse 8-10% of the raids damage. I am always in the top 4 in the DPS lists. We are a low parsing raid at the moment - 13-26k depending on group makeup.

I have MC'ed kit with some fabled from RoK, Epic weapon, 41% crit self buffed (45% with pot) and 49% sometimes in a raid. My INT is 902 (been as high as 1250 in a raid), SD +600 all my spells except grasp of bertox (M1) and Absolution (M2) are A3 level.

What am i doing wrong? is it that i just need to get my masters? more raid kit? higher spell damage?

Comments such as l2p n00b will be ignored but *constructive* criticism very welcome.

Kabs · 03-15-2008, 06:46 PM

your dps is relative to your guilds dps, parsing 8-10% of your raids ZW dps isn't that bad at all.

Saltaf · 03-15-2008, 09:42 PM

damn, gift of bertox is one of the few I still need...

Any rate.

There are a number of things that will affect your dps:
AA Spec
Cast Order
Gear
Group Setup
Raid Setup
Group Competancy
Raid Competancy

This is in order of your control from top to bottom.

AA SPEC

First off make sure that your AA spec is in line with what you want to do... being as we are warlocks we are concerned with two things:
DPS
DEAGGRO

There are a lot of warlocks that will completely ignore deaggro and leave that up to group setup and raid setup to control that fate... and that's what I would suggest for you.

Most will suggest the basic (non-complete) aa setup for sorc tree of:
STR 4448
AGI 44481
WIS 44481

note this is not complete... you need 2 points in each (agi/wis) line in order to get the final ability and after that you have a bonus point to put anywhere u want.

For Warlock tree I would recommend Hastenings, Prop, Explosives... if you want further detail on that, i'll post again.

CAST ORDER

You can find cast order info in the warlock channels. Not gonna go into that in this post.

GEAR

The best gear in the game is not necessarily gear that comes from the hardest raid zones... for rok this is a very sad truth.

Go for gear that gives you boosts in spell crit, cast speed, reuse speed, +spell damage, +spell dmg %, and procs that boost any of these or do pure dmg... (if I missed anything, let me know).

There are places in warlock forum where u can look for gear advice:
Here for example.

GROUP SETUP

This you can't control as much other than bugging your raid leader to give u certain things... to be as simple as possible you will want a troub at all times. If you cannot get ahold of a troub, see if u can get an illu so that you can have Time Compression... wiz is also good in your group for velium gift.

There is a lot more that goes into Group Setup... and I don't want this post to take forever so i'll leave my suggestions at that.

RAID SETUP

Strong tank groups mean you can burn your ass off w/o concern.

Assassin in raid means ur poison spells do more dmg
Brigand in raid means everything does more dmg
Troub in raid means you can get Jesters Cap from time to time
Shadow Knight in raid means your spells do more dmg
Monk in raid means you cast faster
Bruiser in raid means your deaggros are more effective
Coercer in raid means you can get extra deaggro
Illusionist in raid means you can get bonus dmg proc

remind me if i'm forgetting anything on the fly.

As far as player competency goes... your guild should be using all their group temp buffs at the best times possible. Bard should be smart enough to spec fast cast and dktm (if not... shoot them)

Raid Competency deals with making sure people use all their important debuffs and that tanks can hold against strong burns.

Your dps in a raid will almost always be your highest dps and it hinders on everyone doing the right things and the raid being built correctly. Which is why people say 8-10% raid dps is fine for a warlock... it's based on what everything is doing.

What you can do to improve obviously is

Mairae · 03-16-2008, 05:58 AM

A comprehensive answer - thankyou!

Ok lets address some of those points

AA Spec
Cast Order
Gear
Group Setup
Raid Setup
Group Competancy
Raid Competancy

AA Spec - 130 AA pts

My current spec in the Sorc tree is

STR 4448
WIS 48581
AGI 44481

So that looks good

Warlock tree spec is

Explosive
Enhance: Cataclysm 5
Enhance: Radation 0
Enhance: Nil Absolution 5
Enhance: Armageddon 5
Enhance: Upheaval 5
Aftershock 1

Propagation
Enhance: Venomous Grasp 0
Enhance: Boon of the Dark 1
Enhance: Poisonous Veil 0
Enhance: Brood Infestation 5
Enhance: Abhorent Gift 0
Enhance: Netherous Realm 0
Propogation 0

Hastenings
Enhance: Dissolve 5
Enhance: Acid 5
Enhance: Vacuum Chamber 5
Enhance: Encase 0
Enhance: Distortion 5
Focused Casting 1

Removals
Enhance: Stop Breath 0
Enhance: Dispel Magic 0
Enhance: Curse of Darkness 0
Enhance: Curse of Null 0
Volatility 0

Protection
Enhance: Magi's Shielding 10
Enhance: Concussive 3
Enhance: Nullmail 0
Enhance: Interferance 0
Vacuous 0

Cast Order

I'm happy with this i think - many experiments done and now have what appears to be the best for me.

Gear

Quote:

Go for gear that gives you boosts in spell crit, cast speed, reuse speed, +spell damage, +spell dmg %, and procs that boost any of these or do pure dmg... (if I missed anything, let me know).

If you look on my profile you can see the exact kit i'm currently using --> EverQuest II Players

my current gear gives the following stats:

Group Setup/ Competancy

Not much i can do about this atm but i will pass the comments to our RL's

Raid Setup / Competancy

Same here - we do have some very strong tanks, i hardly ever pull aggro and rarely need to deaggro.

Thanks for the help..

Any further suggestions please post here

Mezelline · 03-16-2008, 06:16 AM

Your spec and gear are fine for where you are right now in your raid's progression. What quality are your spells?

Actually it looks like you could use some more spelldamage, about 500 more or so would be good so you can start capping spells. There's alot of good gear in RoK that will last until VP. Finishing the JW questlines will give you some good situational gear, there's good mage rewards in the Jungle questline and nice mage stuff in Vaults/Chelsith/Maidens. Hitting up SoF should be a high priority too, as the Robe and Choker out of there would be the best upgrades for you.

But honestly I wouldn't stress too much about your dps. If you're already doing 8-10% you probably can't safely add much more without pulling aggro. Having a stable group setup makes a huge difference so you know when people are going to Tshell/Bladedance, how quickly you need heals, who gets what buffs, etc. Like tonight with TC/syn as my only buffs I dropped from a 3.7k zw in PR to a 2.8k. Not that I get 1k of my dps out of buffs, but because the raidwide dps dropped 13k because we were short people for that PR run.

Illuminator · 03-16-2008, 07:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kabs

your dps is relative to your guilds dps, parsing 8-10% of your raids ZW dps isn't that bad at all.

How very astute.

Kabs · 03-16-2008, 07:35 AM

sorry?

Illuminator · 03-16-2008, 08:05 AM

Don't be.

Kabs · 03-16-2008, 10:05 AM

sigh, go bug defilers or summat bud, i was just trying to make the chap feel a little better...

Zahne · 03-16-2008, 02:46 PM

It sounds like improving your raid group would be the best way to improve your damage.

With that would likely come the gear. Parsing that low I'm sure your guild isn't exactly thrashing T8.

Also, kicking out 8% - 10% of the raidwide isn't that bad. Especially considering the balance of that damage is attributed to 23 other people.