|
Post by MightyKhan on Oct 1, 2010 8:22:49 GMT
Ok thanks:) so in boss fights assassins arent that great? so what is the highest dmg dealers in the game atm for melee? dexer assassins with good AC can still tank bosses, so they aren't useless. and keep in mind that because of your assassin, the time it took to kill the mobs on the way to the boss (ie the rest of the run) is shortened quite a bit. damage output is increased with: base damage (from str or abilities such as mighty rage and divine might), additional attacks (including offhand attacks), high AB (to overcome AC), high listen (to reduce the effect of concealment), good crit props (though most bosses are immune to crits), additional damage (from special weapon buffs or other abilities). so if you want a high damage dealer, you should aim for it to have what I described above (medium/large sized doubleweapon barbarians for example)
|
|
|
Post by Yomi on Oct 1, 2010 15:43:52 GMT
Ok thanks:) so in boss fights assassins arent that great? Star and Khan answered this pretty well. They can have excellent AC so can make a decent tank for nasty bosses. Bosses tend to come with annoying retinues also, and assassins can help the party a lot by quickly thinning out the trash (some of whom have really annoying attacks -- having the para lemures and amnizus die before they create havoc is really useful). Probably a question better delved into in another thread. Here are numbers from 2009, damage output as a percentage of the entire party's output: 2009 Full Hells Runs - Damage PercentsDouble weapon CoTs, LT, Barbarians, Blackguards, WM, high end DD, Ranger. Strength assassins can do a respectable amount of damage, dex assassins generally suck at damage output. The point really is insta-killing, at which they excel. Of course there have been some pretty major changes to damage output that make all those 2009 numbers suspect. I doubt there is enormous movement, but there will be some (especially bringing CoTs down, but they were so far up on everything else that I doubt they're hurting much). They're also from Hells -- Abyss is different. For instance, I think LT's won't do as well, mostly since running into the middle of an Abyss mob tends to get you disabled or killed quickly. Elysium used to be a LT-damage-fest, not sure if anything has changed. Also there can be big variants among builds and players. I've been in parties where the single-weapon CoTs and barbarians do shockingly little damage output. Other players had CoTs and barbarians that were crazy damage beasts. Ditto with AA's. Star has a staff monk that does boatloads of damage, but most monks won't match it. A good assassin can greatly speed up most runs. If you want a bit more well-rounded character, look into a ranger.
|
|
|
Post by gandoron on Oct 1, 2010 16:28:41 GMT
Keep in mind that there is more than just pure damage output (dex assassins aren't good at) and mob killing (dex assassins are pretty amazing at, for some trash and particular mobs). Tanking bosses, tanking stat check mobs (dex, str, etc), searching, Disable trap/lockpicking, etc
I switched my assassin from this build, so a rogue assassin, so that I could do search and DT/OL, replacing a rogue in many situations.
a monk build does have the advantages of being able to pick up some nunchuka and deal reasonable damage to slagging mobs like ichors. you lose AB, but pick up monk progression. you can also use some gloves in the game to give a dexer two weapon fighting (if you didn't take the feats in your build).
-G
|
|
|
Post by Balduvard on Oct 1, 2010 16:42:57 GMT
so what is the highest dmg dealers in the game atm for melee? Moving discussion not specific to the build it was posted in to this thread. On the topic of melee damage dealers, my experience so far indicates that Staffmasters are currently at the top following the integrated damage change (though I do not have as many logs with them as I do not see them often, so my experience is solely based on Rain's staffmaster) . The pack has definitely become closer grouped following the changes, with Barbarians, Weapon Masters, CoTs, Paladins, and Lashes all capable of achieving roughly the same damage output give or take tens of thousands, depending on build and play style. There are a lot of factors that go into the damage output, as mentioned above, but the one that I believe has the greatest effect is the number of attacks that a character makes. If you have 7 or more attacks per round you can do less than stellar damage and still be an effective damage dealer. For example, my rogue is a dexer so the damage per hit it does is not great, but it makes up for that with 10 attacks per round. Similarly, my bard is often working with 7 attacks per round, coming up with damage similar to sword and board tanks limited to 5 attacks per round. Of course the most egregious example of this is my Arcane Archer, which although it is not a melee character, the sheer number of attacks it makes coupled with the high specifically targeted damage it can produce will result in it high damage numbers on any run. Of course your experience may vary. Doing a lot of damage on a character relies heavily on not just your character but on your own situational awareness, knowing what enemies take what damage types, what enemies your character can handle tanking, and what enemies currently on the field are doing to your party. Continuous damage output is the key, which you can't do if you're chugging heal pots because you're trying to tank something you can't, incapacitated because you got too close to something you can't handle, or hitting something you shouldn't because it [damages your party with kickback/isn't a hittable target because a caster will insta-kill it/is incapacitated and there are bigger threats to your party/is being healed by your weapon, so switch to a new one].
|
|
|
Post by Yomi on Oct 1, 2010 18:38:46 GMT
On the topic of melee damage dealers, my experience so far indicates that Staffmasters are currently at the top following the integrated damage change (though I do not have as many logs with them as I do not see them often, so my experience is solely based on Rain's staffmaster). I'm not surprised Rain is doing lots of damage with one of his characters -- he knows how to maximize it. Retribution would do a huge amount with his staffmaster, but most people weren't able to make it work as well. I see your point that they probably would benefit quite a bit from the recent changes -- they didn't lose anything and stood to gain more than most others. I think this gets amplified as more weapon buffs are added to the game, and as it is more an expectation in decent parties that they're all given out. Poor fist monks.... My dex bard, even with extra attacks, never did very much output. Some of that was being distracted all the time with bardly curse/song/heal-tanks/run-away-from-mobs. I do remember looking at my dex monk a long time ago and being surprised how much the damage added up -- each hit was small relative to the big crit tanks, but she got so darn many of them (adding sneak bonus from an item helps also, and multiplies with number of attacks).
|
|
|
Post by Retribution on Oct 1, 2010 23:37:21 GMT
Also don't forget that a tank has many other duties besides just dishing out damage, I'll tank the tank that rezzes, uses assist other, and is a generally good party player (which often costs them in raw damage numbers) over a tank who tops the damage list but spends the whole run bashing stoned lemures while the pit fiends run rampant. It's about effective damage, and the best tanks are the ones who maximise the damage they are doing to the most notorious mobs.
Ret.
|
|
|
Post by Balduvard on Oct 2, 2010 4:01:25 GMT
From my logs since the 7/30 update, omitting data from logs for the class I was playing (hard to get a representative sample for a class when you're playing it in almost every log, in my case 42/60 data points were from my AA, 17/42 were my rogue, and 10/14 from my melee bard). The impact of doing so was an average damage drop for each class (10% for AA, 3% for rogue, and 5% for the melee bard), among other things: I left the QS Monk and LT in for sake of completeness, but the lack of logs I have for those and other classes puts the accuracy of their numbers in question, though I don't doubt QS Monks have made a jump on the list since last year. As expected, Staffmasters are coming out on top of the melee classes, assuming the top two entries to be anomalous outliers. Other fun statistics found in the making of the above chart...these percentages, like the damage percentages above, are taken as a percentage of the party they're in: Who's scoring the most hits? Arcane Archer (26%), QS Monk (24.9%), Champion of Torm (21%), Zen Ranger (20%), Barbarian (20%) Who are the crit machines? CoT (32%), Lash of Hatred (31%), Weapon master (29%), Ranger (29%), Assassin (28%) Who keeps healing that thing? Lifethreader (54.3%), Lash of Hatred (40.6%), Barbarian (30%), Shadowdancer (26%), Staffmaster (25%) Who killed that? It was just uninjured a second ago! Pale Master (46%), Turner (35%), Zen Ranger (30%), Sorcerer (24%), Cleric (24%) Who keeps eating all the possums? Bane Knight (36.8%), Turner (23%), Bloodfire Mage (19.2%), Bard (18%), Dragon Disciple (14%)
|
|
|
Post by MightyKhan on Oct 2, 2010 10:37:57 GMT
Who keeps eating all the possums? Bane Knight (36.8%), Turner (23%), Bloodfire Mage (19.2%), Bard (18%), Dragon Disciple (14%) no, but seriously, where did you get that number from? I can't recall the last time my RDD died... (ok there are some deaths I recall - but they were all from 1s - and those don't come often)
|
|
|
Post by CataclysmicDeath on Oct 2, 2010 10:54:36 GMT
Obviously from non Gnome Dragon disciples Short Disciples are harder to hit obviously Cata
|
|
|
Post by MightyKhan on Oct 2, 2010 10:58:13 GMT
Obviously from non Gnome Dragon disciples Short Disciples are harder to hit obviously Cata I have reincarnated into salamander a long time ago. But even as a non-demi gnome with far less dexterity and crappy gear, dieing was not something I did often. on a sidenote, perhaps my response should have been: below average damage and in the top 5 of possum eaters? RDDs need help! This is evidence!
|
|
|
Post by CataclysmicDeath on Oct 2, 2010 11:48:31 GMT
Yer still short! Cata
|
|
|
Post by Rain on Oct 3, 2010 4:42:34 GMT
AA and Staffmaster are tricky classes. If they have no clue which damage the target they're hitting is vulerable to, a staffy's damage can be quite average(usually 80-90 per hit with the wrong blackstaff damage) while an aa's damage can be very low(usually 30-40 per hit with the wrong bow). I definately wouldn't recommend a new player playing them as a first tank especially staffmaster. The fun of a tank is not just doing uber damage tho. for a ranger CS can be lots of fun; for a paladin, smite/turning can be fun; for a shadowdancer, shadow rift can be fun... And yes, for my own AA, I never really plan to play him as #1 cannon fire, cuz slack behind drinking my beer without the party noticing is the fun
|
|
|
Post by CataclysmicDeath on Oct 3, 2010 13:13:07 GMT
I definately wouldn't recommend a new player playing them as a first tank especially staffmaster. If they are the sort of new player that watches the logs an AA or Staffmaster is the best type of class for them to start with. It's the easiest way to learn the damage types, it's how I learned. It's just not the best class to play for effective damage dealing if you don't already know the damage types. Doesn't take too long to learn tho. for a shadowdancer, shadow rift can be fun... Shadow Step is fun, Shadow Rift is just damn annoying Never lasts long enuf and you never see it drop till about 10 minutes after it dropped. Cata
|
|
|
Post by tomaan on Oct 3, 2010 15:46:43 GMT
Curious to see how a dual-weild DwD (dual dw waraxes) would compare with the new damage system.
I've been messing around with one in LLs and dropping a pretty good volume of big (500+) crits - fully buffed of course. A heckuva lot more than before.
Any one run one through the hells recently? ever?
|
|
|
Post by Yomi on Oct 3, 2010 16:06:51 GMT
I think I'd agree on SM, but AA's are pretty good for new players. They're not melee toons though. One nice thing about them for learning damage types is that you're generally away from the mobs, so can concentrate a little more on damage types, who you want to target, and kickback. A SM has to do all that while also worrying about positioning for the party, PT2'ing nearby tanks, not being near the wrong mobs, not getting overwhelmed by attacks, and so on. All much worse if you're trying to play a SM without good gear.
I love the stats, Balduvard. I know it takes a lot of grunt-work to work out the classes (e.g. Cleric vs. battle cleric vs. turner, bard vs. melee bard). I kept my toons in the stats -- I suppose I could remove them. Last time I checked it was similar to yours -- damage averages drop for most of the classes I play. I used to always include the caveat that this just captures the parties I'm in -- if you hang out with different groups, you might see some things differently. For example my groups tended to have high-damage CoTs, while some other groups I normally didn't party with used to have a bunch of defense-oriented CoTs.
Assassins don't make the insta-kill list? I'm a little surprised, though maybe if this is an Abyss vs. Hells difference between Zen Rangers and Assassins.
QS Monks weren't nearly as high on my list -- looks like all of them were Enrith's rather than Star's. Looks like Dragon Disciples made it a little higher in damage output on my list than yours, but still disappointing. There is still a meme that RDD's are big damage dealers and outdamage DD tanks, but it's rare in my experience. They can be pretty sturdy and useful tanks though.
I'll still vote for ranger for a relatively new player who wants a good damage output melee toon. Barbarian also seems good -- more damage output unless you screw it up, but fewer specials vs. ranger (called shot insta-kill, self-buffs, conceal, invis purge, etc.). The barbarian I made and played to level 45 or so was really unimpressive -- my DD/RDD was better IMO. On the other hand I've partied with some that do consistent huge damage output without sacrificing too much in defense.
|
|