The fallacy in the belief that Utility (and healing) should cost DPS Potential

tinythinker

magnusnet wrote: »

Not all classes can be equal

DKs are awesome DPS and Tanks.
Templars are awesome Healers and Tanks.
NBs are overall good at healing, tanking and DPSing
Sorcs are good tanks and good suports.

You can expect all classes to be at the same point.

If you picked a templar and hoped to DPS, you made a mistake. A mistake when you believed that "play as you want" could ever be achieved in an MMOG governed by math, mistake not to read carefully enough your class skills to realize "There's a [snip] toon of Healing/Damage mitigation /buff/debuff spells in there".

Even if templars can pull as much DPS as DKS, they will still be preferred as healers and a player who will come and say "I exclusively DPS with my templar" will be asked to learn to heal just in case

I've written similar things. I like having strengths and weaknesses unique to each class. While Templar damage could use some attention, I don't play my Templar for super high DPS. I like the healing, counter-magick, buff/debuffs, etc. I just think a bit more damage and/or making the existing abilities a bit more powerful (greater chances for effect, more power to/greater range to effect, cast time/cost reductions, adding minor effects, etc, would be nice. I like the sun/light/blinding theme, so anything to play that up and make what Templars can do a bit more effective would be very welcome.

xaraan

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

There is a lot of bias and misleading information in your post, but I don't disagree that sorcs need some love. The ulti's you say are incredibly cheap are some of the more expensive in the game - but they are extremely useful and the same can't be said for any of the sorc ultimates. Some of your information on what you know of the other classes sounds like it comes from watching them play and not playing them yourself. Not trying to sound like I'm coming down hard on you, but when you use examples that are a bit exaggerated or inflated, people can often ignore your point.

I also disagree that healing power should take away from dps is a "fallacy." I, in fact, believe very much just that. Does that mean dps should be so terrible as to not be useful? No - we have both a stamina templar DPS and magicka templar DPS that have some of the top dps in our guild - it can be done, though with magicka it's a little trickier (ie has to be built and played right). But, healing is different than utility IMO and if you give the best healing class in the game (by far) an easy equal DPS capability then you have to give the other classes the same healing power as well.

As for sorcs, they too have some of the top dps if played right, the main problem that I think people run into is that you can have a sloppy DK, and to a lesser extent magicka NB, build that do well. Stamina had this problem before the buffs - the ability to squeeze out good dps was there, but things had to be done perfectly and there wasn't as much room for error or variation. Sorcs don't have any class abilities they can rely on to pump out amazing dps, they have to rely on the destro staff. This isn't horrible, but really limits variety in sorc builds. I think if they buffed one or two skills (made the curse dot better and the lightning pool a bit stronger and bigger) it would add a bit. Other than that a good improvement to stormy would go a long way - every class has the "nova/standard/veil" to throw down except sorc. Negate is awesome in the right situations, stormy is ok, but should be on par with the big three IMO.

Can I get some insight on this top DPS magicka caster build for a Templar? Because if he's breaking 1K he may have found the grail for Templars.

With that said, I agree. Because the healing utility is literally breath of life and it's ridiculous that everybody can heal but are tied to "zergball" healing mechanics. This is easy to fix and needs to be done.

However, in reality, there's a ton more DPS slots available than tank or healing slots for trials teams and for trials PUGs. If you want some tradeoff, 10% is fine.

But we're talking 20-40% discrepancies. It's insane. Especially considering Dragon Knights. The entire toolkit and raid buffs are brutally powerful.

It's not my templar, so I don't know for sure. I know he was also obsessed with doing it using mainly templar skills and not relying on the destro staff. I'm not saying he has the best dps of all, but he can hang with any of our dps'rs IMO. We've run with a lot of different players here and there, usually filling in the DPS role and I've never felt like he was being carried when doing dps at all. I'll mention this thread when I see him tonight on TS and see if he'll pop in here.

I do think that there is A LOT more to templar healing power than breath of life, BUT that is the big one that they can slot and heal up quickly, especially if magicka built. That's why I kind of like that you have to be a stamina dps as a templar for the easier 'good dps' build, which will keep the power of breath or other healing powers down a bit.

Pmarsico9

xaraan wrote: »

Pmarsico9 wrote: »

xaraan wrote: »

There is a lot of bias and misleading information in your post, but I don't disagree that sorcs need some love. The ulti's you say are incredibly cheap are some of the more expensive in the game - but they are extremely useful and the same can't be said for any of the sorc ultimates. Some of your information on what you know of the other classes sounds like it comes from watching them play and not playing them yourself. Not trying to sound like I'm coming down hard on you, but when you use examples that are a bit exaggerated or inflated, people can often ignore your point.

I also disagree that healing power should take away from dps is a "fallacy." I, in fact, believe very much just that. Does that mean dps should be so terrible as to not be useful? No - we have both a stamina templar DPS and magicka templar DPS that have some of the top dps in our guild - it can be done, though with magicka it's a little trickier (ie has to be built and played right). But, healing is different than utility IMO and if you give the best healing class in the game (by far) an easy equal DPS capability then you have to give the other classes the same healing power as well.

As for sorcs, they too have some of the top dps if played right, the main problem that I think people run into is that you can have a sloppy DK, and to a lesser extent magicka NB, build that do well. Stamina had this problem before the buffs - the ability to squeeze out good dps was there, but things had to be done perfectly and there wasn't as much room for error or variation. Sorcs don't have any class abilities they can rely on to pump out amazing dps, they have to rely on the destro staff. This isn't horrible, but really limits variety in sorc builds. I think if they buffed one or two skills (made the curse dot better and the lightning pool a bit stronger and bigger) it would add a bit. Other than that a good improvement to stormy would go a long way - every class has the "nova/standard/veil" to throw down except sorc. Negate is awesome in the right situations, stormy is ok, but should be on par with the big three IMO.

Can I get some insight on this top DPS magicka caster build for a Templar? Because if he's breaking 1K he may have found the grail for Templars.

With that said, I agree. Because the healing utility is literally breath of life and it's ridiculous that everybody can heal but are tied to "zergball" healing mechanics. This is easy to fix and needs to be done.

However, in reality, there's a ton more DPS slots available than tank or healing slots for trials teams and for trials PUGs. If you want some tradeoff, 10% is fine.

But we're talking 20-40% discrepancies. It's insane. Especially considering Dragon Knights. The entire toolkit and raid buffs are brutally powerful.

It's not my templar, so I don't know for sure. I know he was also obsessed with doing it using mainly templar skills and not relying on the destro staff. I'm not saying he has the best dps of all, but he can hang with any of our dps'rs IMO. We've run with a lot of different players here and there, usually filling in the DPS role and I've never felt like he was being carried when doing dps at all. I'll mention this thread when I see him tonight on TS and see if he'll pop in here.

I do think that there is A LOT more to templar healing power than breath of life, BUT that is the big one that they can slot and heal up quickly, especially if magicka built. That's why I kind of like that you have to be a stamina dps as a templar for the easier 'good dps' build, which will keep the power of breath or other healing powers down a bit.

I can get to about 550 using class skills (Vamp's Bane, Biting Jabs, Blazing Spear.) I tried using Backlash (Power of Light) but it's a DPS loss. I would figure a mix of Biting jabs over Puncturing Sweep would benefit in execute range. The problem I kept having was with magicka. You essentially have to stack regen or use a Warlock's 5 piece which limits the ability to bolster actual DPS stats.

So I really am at a loss in that regard. Because the DPM of every one of those abilities other than Vamp's Bane is pretty terrible.

As for the healing portion of your statement:

The passives in Restoring Light are powerful. Particularly Mending and Focused Healing. So yeah, you'd need to keep Purifying Ritual down, too. Because the Buff directly correlates to the magicka efficiency of Breath of Life, aka, it's 30% stronger.

Lingering Ritual can be strong, too, but it's cast time can tie you up when you could be spamming GH or tossing out a BoL that can save a life. At least in my experience.