Class Balance in PvE

MurkyWetWolf198

So, as far as I know, Nightblades and Necromancers are the best Damage classes, Dragonknights are high tier, Sorcerers and Templars are mediocre and Wardens are absolutely laughable. (This is in a high-end PvE environment with consistent Raid Buffs)
Why is this? Like, obviously Nightblade's have the +10% damage done while in Path, Necromancers have Blastbones and pair well with Ele Cat, Dragonknights have Whip, Standard and are nice for Zen's and possible Martial Knowledge (maybe, idk the second one for sure). But that can't be it right? What else do these classes have that make them so much stronger? Or what is the other classes are missing?

Tannus15

Nightblades are very flavour of the month at the moment, however if I look at the top 20 dps rankings in esologs for vDSR HM Last boss I see 10 necros, 9 dks and 1 nightblade

rankings

looking at last boss of vRG HM we have 18 dks, a templar and a nightblade.
vKA HM we start seeing more variety, but not a lot.

it's pretty simple. dots and cleave matter.

here is a quick look at a high scoring dk on xalvakka hm


here is a mag sorc from the same group


it's pretty easy to spot the problem

ZoS has been balancing PvE by dummy for a long time now and it shows. Sorcs look great on youtube doing dummy parses, but in real content, not so much.

if your class relies heavily on a spammable or single target ability for it's dps you won't be in the top tier in endgame PvE. If your class has strong AOE dots then you will be higher in the ranks.

then their "balance by excel" approach also shows huge problems. just look at lightning flood. it is terrible. They need to double it's damage per tick. straight up, there are no shock damage buffs like engulfing or encratis, concussion sucks as a status effect. side by side eruption and lightning flood look about the same. in any other scenario it becomes very obvious why no one uses it, not even on the dummy.

on paper and on youtube sorc looks great. in content though ...

Treeshka

The thing is groups who tend to pursue hardest achievements related to raids like trifectas, are going to use the most efficient classes and sets in their group to make the process more easy and bearable.

So lets examine Dreadsail Reef where area of effect damage is so important for the first two bosses. Due to this reason people tend to choose Necromancer and Dragonknight and in some instances Templar class as damage dealers. So people just do not use other classes because aforementioned classes are better for this raid. I can blame a few things for this mentality.

Firstly this specific raid seems to be designed in a way that only the most efficient setups can clear its hard mode smoothly and get the hardest achievements. They can lower the difficulty a bit more so the player mentality can change a bit so they bring other classes to and just say, this class also performing well enough to clear this content too.

For the older raids like Kyne's Aegis or Halls of Fabrication, in my opinion you can just use any class and still do a smooth trifecta run without requiring insane player performance.

Second is hybridization because you can just get one Dragonknight tank along with a Nightblade healer and you have all the group buffs for maximum damage. Because players do not need to stack both weapon and spell damage or both weapon and spell critical, stacking one is enough. Then you can easily stack one class for damage dealers and be done with it. Why need another Nightblade damage dealer for Minor Savagery when you can just get a Necromancer for more area damage.

Firstmep

Treeshka wrote: »

The thing is groups who tend to pursue hardest achievements related to raids like trifectas, are going to use the most efficient classes and sets in their group to make the process more easy and bearable.

So lets examine Dreadsail Reef where area of effect damage is so important for the first two bosses. Due to this reason people tend to choose Necromancer and Dragonknight and in some instances Templar class as damage dealers. So people just do not use other classes because aforementioned classes are better for this raid. I can blame a few things for this mentality.

Firstly this specific raid seems to be designed in a way that only the most efficient setups can clear its hard mode smoothly and get the hardest achievements. They can lower the difficulty a bit more so the player mentality can change a bit so they bring other classes to and just say, this class also performing well enough to clear this content too.

For the older raids like Kyne's Aegis or Halls of Fabrication, in my opinion you can just use any class and still do a smooth trifecta run without requiring insane player performance.

Second is hybridization because you can just get one Dragonknight tank along with a Nightblade healer and you have all the group buffs for maximum damage. Because players do not need to stack both weapon and spell damage or both weapon and spell critical, stacking one is enough. Then you can easily stack one class for damage dealers and be done with it. Why need another Nightblade damage dealer for Minor Savagery when you can just get a Necromancer for more area damage.

Thing is the meta from top groups does trickle down, to progressing groups as well.
If you are struggling to clear a specific piece of content, you are more likely to want to take the best performing specs, even if the group is not absolutely top tier.

Zezin

MurkyWetWolf198 wrote: »

So, as far as I know, Nightblades and Necromancers are the best Damage classes, Dragonknights are high tier, Sorcerers and Templars are mediocre and Wardens are absolutely laughable. (This is in a high-end PvE environment with consistent Raid Buffs)
Why is this? Like, obviously Nightblade's have the +10% damage done while in Path, Necromancers have Blastbones and pair well with Ele Cat, Dragonknights have Whip, Standard and are nice for Zen's and possible Martial Knowledge (maybe, idk the second one for sure). But that can't be it right? What else do these classes have that make them so much stronger? Or what is the other classes are missing?

Necromancer main here, necro fells bad this patch, so much so I'm currently bringing up a NB and DK so I don't have to play it anymore, Necro is probably the worst dps class for 4man content and with the damage overtime nerfs all skills feel terrible.

While the class can do well in some places lie KA and some DSR bosses it's not enough for me to maintain it as my main anymore.