Iksar said:I have never played a game in which managing DoT rotations is at all difficult, especially since it would be ridiculous to have to stack more than three or four of them. Even in FFXIV where the summoner has to maintain three to four dots, on top of managing a pet's abilities, and keeping track of a separate resource called aetherflow. DoTs are easy, they are probably the easiest form of damage in MMORPGs especially because even if you are a terrible player but can hit 1-3/4 on your keyboard you are typically pulling decent enough numbers. For all we know wizards will be able to just hit 1 over and over again (unlikely but for sake of argument), is it really that much more difficult to hit 1,2,3,4 then do whatever for 20 seconds or more? Not to mention if there is any movement required in a fight, non-DoT classes all suffer comparatively, another edge they have.
So are you saying that the difficulty in which order, sequence, and speed a class has to hit their keys should equate to how much damage they're able to do? Doesn't every class have to hit their keys one at a time in appropriate orders to maximize their efficiency and potential?.. Saying that sometimes if a class has to hit 3 BEFORE they hit 2 instead of 2 before 3 seems like a strange rubric in limiting potential to me. We're all pushing buttons here afterall. I feel balance should transcend hotkey ordering.
You're point about mobility hurting direct damage more than DoT's is quite true though, and I'll also throw in classes like rogue being positional in nature to effect their highest DPS should also play a part, but again that's mixing in mechanics / utility into the conversation, and we can only guess as to what VR has in store for us. Will wizards get a blink/teleport-like spell decreasing the amount of time needed to run from danger zones during a fight, where necros will have to run?.. Who knows!
All I'm debating for is if fights take more -time-, then -damage over time- seems like it should be a high contender for desirability to have with you, *utility notwithstanding*
Iksar said:I have never played a game in which managing DoT rotations is at all difficult, especially since it would be ridiculous to have to stack more than three or four of them. Even in FFXIV where the summoner has to maintain three to four dots, on top of managing a pet's abilities, and keeping track of a separate resource called aetherflow. DoTs are easy, they are probably the easiest form of damage in MMORPGs especially because even if you are a terrible player but can hit 1-3/4 on your keyboard you are typically pulling decent enough numbers. For all we know wizards will be able to just hit 1 over and over again (unlikely but for sake of argument), is it really that much more difficult to hit 1,2,3,4 then do whatever for 20 seconds or more? Not to mention if there is any movement required in a fight, non-DoT classes all suffer comparatively, another edge they have.
Here is how it played out in EQ, quoted from my response in an old Necromancer thread:
...In classic EQ they were an amazing solo class, that was their specialty. But even solo you would not really be taking on things above even or maybe low yellow con because a resist or two could spell certain death, and killing/mana efficiency suffered.
Necromancers did tend to have poor damage in GROUPS but otherwise had hands down the best from a damage per mana (DPM) standpoint. In practical application in the fast-paced group or raid atmosphere, the necromancer was often a failure as a DPS in terms of DPM. As a group becomes more effective, the necromancer ends up using less mana efficient, but faster spells, sacrificing DPM for the sake of getting the DPS out before the enemy dies. Only during solo activities and the more lengthier (raid) fights can the necromancer generally get their efficiency as advertised.
In EQ1 there were like 8 different DoT spell lines, granted did yo have to lose all of them no i guess not but if you didnt you obviously throwing part of your dps out the window now could they make it easier and have it to where they have less dots to worry about yeah they could quite easily make them a simplair class to play.
Lokispawn said:All I'm debating for is if fights take more -time-, then -damage over time- seems like it should be a high contender for desirability to have with you, *utility notwithstanding*
I'm totally cool with them doing more damage than other casters in the long run, but more through attrition as the other casters run low on mana rather than DoTs just being incredibly strong. I just think they should be efficient from a damage per mana standpoint. It could be the added bonus that your group can get an extra pull in as the necro/dot class still has the mana to keep pushing while the wiz/summ meditates.
Riahuf22 said:In EQ1 there were like 8 different DoT spell lines, granted did yo have to lose all of them no i guess not but if you didnt you obviously throwing part of your dps out the window now could they make it easier and have it to where they have less dots to worry about yeah they could quite easily make them a simplair class to play.
Yes, they had 7 different DoTs (at least Velious era). But you rarely used more than a few when grouping and definitely didn't when soloing efficiently. It was too strenuous on their mana pool most of the time and you only used the DoTs that were best suited for the situation. I think three was about the limit for most activities aside from raiding, if memory serves correctly.
Iksar said:Lokispawn said:I'm totally cool with them doing more damage than other casters in the long run, but more through attrition as the other casters run low on mana rather than DoTs just being incredibly strong. I just think they should be efficient from a damage per mana standpoint. It could be the added bonus that your group can get an extra pull in as the necro/dot class still has the mana to keep pushing while the wiz/summ meditates.
This is why i brought out the scaling factor to make it more even not just straight up more damage than the other class so at the beginning of it the DD spell casters are basically making the necro spells seem weaker than theirs but as the fight goes on the nerco is catching up and surpassing them due to the target getting weaker and so their for the spells taking for effect.and it does even have to be anything major it could simply be like a scenario like this.
Necro dot does 100 dmg a tick and the wizard does 113 rounding up, but when the target a say hits 25% health and max's out the necto dmg output on the scaling factor he start doing 125 dmg a tick so over the course of the fight he obvisously does 100-125 slightly increasing in dmg throughout until is get to 25% increased dmg, compared to the wizzard always doing 112-113 dmg throughout the entire fight, and obviously there will be different spells and everything else to think about as well, but i think with this scaling factor depending on the fight the necro has a chance to win in only the bigger of fights but obviously still get out dpsed in basically every other fight due to it not being long enough to have the necro a chance to catch up.
Venjenz said:In every MMO that allows it, I play a death caster, preferably centered around the EQ1 necromancer model of DoT stacks. My DoT stacking career began 2 years before EQ1 allowed actual DoT stacking (before Luclin, same DoT from two different casters did not stack), so this topic is near and dear to me.
DoT stacking should provide the highest caster DPS over any period of time longer than 1 minute. Period, the end. That's the point of the DoT stack...sustained DPS, so DoT casters should rule DPS meters on any long fight.
DoTs should stack. Period. If 4 necros are in the group, then 4 different applications of the same DoT will be stacked on that mob.
As far as DoT spell lines go, the bare necessities would be poison, disease, lifedrain, fire and cold. I am also a fan of hate/fear/darkness/plague based DoTs that reflect the diety choice. Like any other caster school, DoTs should have low and high aggro spells, low and high resist, short/long timers, etc.
I accept that average groups will want more bursty casting DPS, but anyone who ever did serious grouping with a skilled necromancer who knew their class, especially clerics, understands why the DoT casters kicked ass. That's the tradeoff you accept as a DoT caster. The majority of players won't get it where "sustained efficiency" is concerned, so groups will end up harder to come by for a DoT caster. And that tradeoff is totally worth it imho.
Yes, this makes perfect sense. Let's take EQ for example, Necro could:
Heal others
Heal self
Siphon mana back to group(and a lot)
FD
Summon corpses
Fear kite
And im sure there are others im missing
Now lets take a Rogue:
Can pick lock
Can sneak
Yes i agree, necro's should be top DPS PERIOD. I think you have a serious bias that needs to be reigned in a bit. If they are anything like EQ necro's then they certainly shouldn't be top DPS. When making claims like that you should step back and look at other classes as a whole. A rogues entire job is DPS, when necro's can do 18 other things i fail to see the logic they should be top DPS on any fight.
Mt 2 cents. I think DOT spells were just fine after EQ let them stack. Necros where what? Top third DPS?
beautifully said:Venjenz said:In every MMO that allows it, I play a death caster, preferably centered around the EQ1 necromancer model of DoT stacks. My DoT stacking career began 2 years before EQ1 allowed actual DoT stacking (before Luclin, same DoT from two different casters did not stack), so this topic is near and dear to me.
DoT stacking should provide the highest caster DPS over any period of time longer than 1 minute. Period, the end. That's the point of the DoT stack...sustained DPS, so DoT casters should rule DPS meters on any long fight.
DoTs should stack. Period. If 4 necros are in the group, then 4 different applications of the same DoT will be stacked on that mob.
As far as DoT spell lines go, the bare necessities would be poison, disease, lifedrain, fire and cold. I am also a fan of hate/fear/darkness/plague based DoTs that reflect the diety choice. Like any other caster school, DoTs should have low and high aggro spells, low and high resist, short/long timers, etc.
I accept that average groups will want more bursty casting DPS, but anyone who ever did serious grouping with a skilled necromancer who knew their class, especially clerics, understands why the DoT casters kicked ass. That's the tradeoff you accept as a DoT caster. The majority of players won't get it where "sustained efficiency" is concerned, so groups will end up harder to come by for a DoT caster. And that tradeoff is totally worth it imho.
Yes, this makes perfect sense. Let's take EQ for example, Necro could:
Heal others
Heal self
Siphon mana back to group(and a lot)
FD
Summon corpses
Fear kite
And im sure there are others im missing
Now lets take a Rogue:
Can pick lock
Can sneak
Yes i agree, necro's should be top DPS PERIOD. I think you have a serious bias that needs to be reigned in a bit. If they are anything like EQ necro's then they certainly shouldn't be top DPS. When making claims like that you should step back and look at other classes as a whole. A rogues entire job is DPS, when necro's can do 18 other things i fail to see the logic they should be top DPS on any fight.
Mt 2 cents. I think DOT spells were just fine after EQ let them stack. Necros where what? Top third DPS?
Okay again we know for one this isn't EQ1 or 2, and another necros back around Velious were not even close to the top of the dps charts which is where we need to be looking at since for one that is when Brad still had the reigns not this new EQ1 we have today where basically every class has an ability to solo stuff cept for Warriors. So most of what you said honestly has no value to what i was saying, so from Velious lets say what they have in that list of yours, Fear kiting still exsisted, Summon corpses they had to kill another player to imbue a gem that was an instant exp to the other player so that wasnt free. FD, the mana give was okay if you had more than one necro and completed drain the necro in no time which led to basically 0 dps to the necro if he was using it on the clerics. he only was giving the ability to heal himself due to the hp/mana conversion buff he got or wouldn't of gotten it. And one final point i have to point out again is this EQ1? No it isnt so assuming that he's even going to have 1/2 of those abilities is premature yet again. I would mind losing some of those abilities and give it to other classes to increase the necros and decrease the other classes so everyone has their utilty in a grp/raid setting and have they're dps still viable to them as well. and btw i don't play a necro, i played a paladin, so if i was going to try and be completely bias i'd say that they were simply crapped on from the start and made them extincted on probably half the servers due to the lack of doing anything like any other class could.
Riahuf22 said:So most of what you said honestly has no value to what i was saying
You ignored the entire point of beautifully's post. He/She? illustrated the exact reason WHY necro's didn't have the greatest DPS in EQ that being the extent of their utility. He even forgot to mention the whole dps'ing Pet that could take hits for you, darkness snare, screaming terror, invis to undead + normal, root, etc. You seemed to agree about the utility thing, but then why the rebuke?
It's obvious to me that if a class gains higher utility over other classes which necro definitely had over wizards / mages (not chanters), the balancing act would all but require their DPS to be inferior. What would be fair about having not only higher damage capability but also more tools at your disposal?
In this regard, some like to point to the EQ necro when debating against the idea that DoT'ers should be heavy hitters.
I'm in 100% agreement that if necros in Pantheon have as much utility as they did in EQ, then of course their damage should be run of the mill. Versatility must have a price.
But I am also saying that I can imagine a Pantheon world where necros can specialize their casting to forgo utility in search for ultimate power. A true DoT specialist caster that has no pet, maybe no fear, maybe even no snare, who knows.. all in exchange for being able to rot the faces off their enemies like a champion.
Sigh.. I know it's probably pipe dreaming, but I've often imagined DoT purists like this, hence my participation in this thread :)
edit: Also, to be clear, the "DoT specialist" I talk about doesn't necessarily have to be the necro.
Iksar said:I have never played a game in which managing DoT rotations is at all difficult, especially since it would be ridiculous to have to stack more than three or four of them. Even in FFXIV where the summoner has to maintain three to four dots, on top of managing a pet's abilities, and keeping track of a separate resource called aetherflow. DoTs are easy, they are probably the easiest form of damage in MMORPGs especially because even if you are a terrible player but can hit 1-3/4 on your keyboard you are typically pulling decent enough numbers. For all we know wizards will be able to just hit 1 over and over again (unlikely but for sake of argument), is it really that much more difficult to hit 1,2,3,4 then do whatever for 20 seconds or more? Not to mention if there is any movement required in a fight, non-DoT classes all suffer comparatively, another edge they have.
It played out that way in old EQ. The TSS expansion in 2006 changed everything when they unlinked all dots within the same line. Current EQ necros don't use 4-7 dots and tap/nuke/twitch in between, they use 18-24 dots on raid mobs depending on how they good they are (and yeah you have to be pretty good to keep 20-24 dots going, it's not easy) and whether or not the debuff cap is hit. They aren't easy to play, they are incredibly nuanced at this point with twincast procs, etc. This is something i do not want to see happen in Pantheon.
Lokispawn said:Riahuf22 said:So most of what you said honestly has no value to what i was saying
You ignored the entire point of beautifully's post. He/She? illustrated the exact reason WHY necro's didn't have the greatest DPS in EQ that being the extent of their utility. He even forgot to mention the whole dps'ing Pet that could take hits for you, darkness snare, screaming terror, invis to undead + normal, root, etc. You seemed to agree about the utility thing, but then why the rebuke?
It's obvious to me that if a class gains higher utility over other classes which necro definitely had over wizards / mages (not chanters), the balancing act would all but require their DPS to be inferior. What would be fair about having not only higher damage capability but also more tools at your disposal?
In this regard, some like to point to the EQ necro when debating against the idea that DoT'ers should be heavy hitters.
I'm in 100% agreement that if necros in Pantheon have as much utility as they did in EQ, then of course their damage should be run of the mill. Versatility must have a price.
But I am also saying that I can imagine a Pantheon world where necros can specialize their casting to forgo utility in search for ultimate power. A true DoT specialist caster that has no pet, maybe no fear, maybe even no snare, who knows.. all in exchange for being able to rot the faces off their enemies like a champion.
Sigh.. I know it's probably pipe dreaming, but I've often imagined DoT purists like this, hence my participation in this thread :)
edit: Also, to be clear, the "DoT specialist" I talk about doesn't necessarily have to be the necro.
Okay i understand bt i did say if they lost some of their utitly and gave it to other classes, for one you have to agree that the mana giving lover ability should of been an enchnater ability for sure.
Ive been following this thread with interest.
As I have described I was an early days EQ player, so I never saw what seems to have been the major changes in EQ around the TSS expansion.
I like the idea of being a DOT debuffer, this would provide utility both in Groups and Raids (eg -10%STR for the Mob), how this would stack would be difficult, maybe have something like the 50% depreciation per stacked debuff, so its still useful but will never reach 100%
Looking at the examples of locations of play - A DOT that makes a MOB glow, good if in a dark zone , dungeon or the mob is invisible
Different DOT's that scale depending on target eg a Fire DOT doing 125% on a cold based MOB. A cold DOT doing 75% on the same MOB. Snare DOT's, Scaled Dots that cast fast, start as low damage and scale per tick to high damage. AOE DOts
INT debuffs that lower the damage of a caster mob, dex debuffs that make a mob take longer to swing or longer to cast their spells
Ive always thought the way DOT's have been used in the games I have played, have just been as poor cousins of the DD caater, there are so many more ways to make them useful/fun.
I like the idea of being a DOT'r with utlity, but all damage being through DOTs. I like the idea of utility vs being at the top of the damage table. In a fight longer than 2-3 minutes Necros were usually somewhere at the middle top of the damage table and I was OK with that, as genarlly I got to do a lot more than a typical rogue.
One of the things I enjoyed in EQ as a Necro (now I look back on it - I HATED it at the time) was the huge amount of aggro that various Necro spells generated. You had to know what aggro was going to stack and when it was going to tick, sometimes you had to be aware of particular types of aggro stacking more heavily on partiuclar mobs (Eg Disease). I could take aggro off a raid equipped tank in a group if I wasnt paying attention to what I was doing. Dumb Necro's were generally quickly dead Necros and you could always tell a bought high level Necro. This challenge of balancing your gameplay is fun to me.
I liked that Necros were useful and provided utility in most situations. I may not have been the best at any one thing but I could usually be useful somewhere, I always felt kind of sorry for Wizzies. They generally had 3 spells loaded. Nuke, Root, Gate usually in that order. As a Necro I was always juggling lists of spells and would change them out for different fights and groups. I was a puller for some fights, a snare for others, I was always DOTing and we were generally expected to be the raid saviours, utilising FD and Resurrect to bring entire raids back to life.
You had to consider the situation you were in and the type of engagement, the equipment and skills of your colleagues before you used your spells. I dont want to play a "press one button" and you are done game. I dont want to, as someone said above "Press Buttons 1,2,3" and my role is complete. I want it to be complex to play a class, I want a defined role within the group/raid. If that role is Debuff/DOT/utility then so be it.