Outcome

[Tyler]

OK true, exchanged Wiz with Necro in my list.

[Mortbise]

Not specifically on-topic, but am I the only one finding ironic that all those class balance topic always actually want to establish a hierarchy between classes ?

Gonna try some parsing while you meditate on this.

[Expletus]

This is broken down into a dps side of the classes. I mean you could say there are several branches of classes including, healing, tanking, dps, and utilities. So far everything has been addressed, it's just this is for the dps branch that is getting a tune up.

[Lola]

agreed & agreed

Btw, this balance is done self buff + Sun buffs so it is perfect to balance "melee vs melee" & "casters vs casters". Those 2 different categories will have their own benefits from raid buffs.

In the other hand, casters do not have the same benefits from raid buffs than melees. (We started with a panther adjustment & proc review on melee side, and gave some interesting debuff/buff for casters).

I would be curious to see high end Monk/Rog/ranger raid buffed parses,
I could offer bard/shamy assistance for thus who want.

Let's keep that for the second round of class balancing, we all need rest

Ps: I also have melee toons (I fear the "nerf melee answer"), what I try to do is getting a whole & fine class balance for both Solo & Raid situation. Maybe buffs could be adjusted once we make some studies about Raid buffs parses.

[Nagash]

No one will ague that wizards are supposed to be the king of burst DPS (although in my mind 2 min is already gone beyond the "burst" point but that's not the topic, if everyone agrees with these definitions let's stick to it). But please consider the following:

When I look at the state of necro (again, from what I've seen at my level (I start to raid ToV so I'm still a baby)), put all my DoTs together, factor in my pet and AAs and I don't come close to a wizard with just crit AAs. The example I have is my best friend whom I've managed to drag on the server (welcome Beunch!):

We went to raid last Friday and his blast (he hasn't got the LDoN one yet nor his Ancient spells so he was using Ether Flame AFAIK) was doing 18k on standard casts and 40k on crits. So that is 18k-40k every 8 second (that's 2250 dps, excluding crits). When he'll have the LDoN spell, he will probably do between 22k and 50k every 8 seconds (2750 dps, excl. crit). Now please note that my geezer only had the crit AA at the time (not even sure he had finished them nor has he the familiar AA), wasn't using mana flare and has a +60% dmg item (like I do).

When I look at the figures I have for my necro (300+AA, epic 1.5 pet (parsed at 980dps by Valsavis)), I realize I need 1270 dps, that is 7600 damage every 6 sec. This might happen once in a while when my several DoTs crit (or my big DoT, can't remember the name, the one that does 2500 per tick). If I don't factor in my crits, there is no chance for this to happen. None whatsoever (now remember that I compare this with the DPS of a wiz excluding any form of crit).
The spells that have been changed recently are just fluff (I know, it was introduced as "part I" and I'm quite anxious to see the "Part II"): one spell has had his duration increase (I'll save mana yoohoo although I will be able to add one DoT in my rotation) but most of the spell changed were low level (60-63) and the change has brought them in line with the other spells I have at high level (68-70) which are not worth using (their DPS is laughable already) (so even that DoT that I will add to my rotation won't do much).
Factor in the fact that all the bosses I've fought are almost immune to curses (after full debuff, I needed to cast my ancient curse on average 5 times (I counted) for it to land, this is a cruel shot in the foot of my DPS as in the meantime I don't cast anything else (and have nothing else worth casting except the 1 min LDoN spell and my 2500 dmg/tick spell which are already included in my rotation)).
Factor in that my pet can die from a rampage (if that happens in ToV, I don't even want to know in higher tiers), that is about 1k dps vanished (brothers magicians and beastlords, I feel for you although you have pet avoidance you b...eep...rd ).

Now I know what most will say (the major argument that keeps coming back): wizards suffer from mana problems on the long run and this is their limiting factor. Obviously, where I am in ToV, this doesn't happen as the fights are short. However, factor in LGuk Orb (recast 5 min) and the manastone which are readily available for everyone and their mum on the server, factor in the raid environment where heals are available when you need them and the mana problem completely vanishes into oblivion. How do you intend to factor this in the equation?

My suggestion is if you want to let the necro spells do poor damage per tick (except one or two) and/or have a crazy resist level, at least make them last longer. Not longer as in 24 sec but longer as in 3, 4 or even 5 minutes; even if you want to increase their casting time. This will mean that necro DPS will be crap at the beginning of the fight (therefore on short duration fights as well), but as the fight goes on, he will put more and more on the target taking his rightfull place or Lord of Doom and Gloom. Think about it, the longer someone/something fights a necro, the more curses the necro will put on him and his descendant, the more diseases the necro will have time to spread, the more poisons he can injects to his victim or the warmer he can heat his blood, that makes sense to me.

Coming to the order of DPS for the classes, I think this should depend on a lot of factors, not only on the fight duration. I now know you can't curse a boss (well, you can but there's no point trying to do it at the moment) but I hope some boss after ToV won't be that resistant. Now what if a boss is immune to ice or fire instead? What if he is immune to spells altogether? Or to melee? What if a boss regularly casts a dispell on himself (to get rid of DoTs) or a "damage feedback" shield returning 150% of the damage he receives? What if the fight means that my raid needs to burn down some adds regularly? What if the mobs resets aggro every 10% of his HP? What if...the list goes on and on.

[Expletus]

The only way to bring necros up to par is increase the base dmg of dots. If the dots could function the same way "splurt" used to (weak to start like 60hps, then works its way to 900 or so) it would work for necros. Imagine a base of 5k dot first tick and ending with 20k (not including crit) in 60 seconds.

[ChaosSlayer]

2 notes:

-unfortunately Splurt is one of the kind, and its damage base cannot be modified to create stronger or even weaker versions

-even if you do give necro Dot that do INSANE dmg over 5 min, this leads to a different problem, where necro casts say 3 dots at the beginning of a fight (which will last say 5 min), and can very well afk, since he will have absolutely nothing else to do...

[Tyler]

Nagesh,

do you have any of these Spells yet:

Soul Theft I-III
Dread Pyre
Chaotic Funeral
Chaos Venom

[Harney]

2 notes:

-unfortunately Splurt is one of the kind, and its damage base cannot be modified to create stronger or even weaker versions

-even if you do give necro Dot that do INSANE dmg over 5 min, this leads to a different problem, where necro casts say 3 dots at the beginning of a fight (which will last say 5 min), and can very well afk, since he will have absolutely nothing else to do...

He can still tap or use DD spells, or pump peoples mana, it's really no different than setting a ranger to autoattack and afking..

I also think Necro's need quite a bit of love, you've brought wizards and enchanters up to par and I've seen some changes made to mages, but imo mages and necro's are still way behind in dps.

[Tyler]

Mages are fine really now. Just waitng for a parse with Mage having Ldon Nuke and Mana Flare 3. Combined with working Pet Focii and updated Swarm pets, i see no reason they shouldnt put out some respecatble DPS.

They also can summon the Rod of Force now which also do some nice extra DPS for EVERYONE in the raid.

Necros will receive a major boost today, im working on it in the background as you read this.