79 réponses à ce sujet

[Wavebend]

LOL Proto, the question framed the answer. It asked for 'strongest' and 'weakest' not in between. I like the keeper, but it is not the 'strongest' since it cannot solo. Anyone that that argues solo isn't important is in denial or is being carried all the time, because pugs will die more often than not (just look at all the L2P / your last pug threads) and private teams can do whatever they like.

 

Its not that I wouldn't want a keeper around or keepers (or legos or other team based build kits) aren't nice to have, its that the question demands a certain answer and I must answer accordingly.

 

As I said, team builds don't apply to this question, and keeper falls under the team build category (same with lego). Some people have trouble understanding this.

 

OP's question was too vague. I agree that the keeper isn't a strong class on its own, but isn't a weak link with the right team composition. The lego one is imo subjective depending on how you interpret the question. Basically another worthless thread and I have no idea why I'm even replying to this

[Yallegro]

Drasca, no point arguing whether the Keeper is a good class for NM. Quite obvious its fantastic when you have enough DPS around you. Not so great if you don't. 

 

Simple as that. 

 

Keeper is in the "great" tier for me. HB viable forsure.

 

P.S. I'll take the crickets from Yallegro about L&S as a victory. Didn't even have to Thunderdome. Threatening...c'mooon.

 

Meh, if you want to take berserk on a lego in nightmare

 

If Wintersbreath even works like that on lastgen

 

If ya want to forfeit a lifedrain ring

 

If ya can get around the imperfect tracking and the misses/blocks

 

sure it might work

[Drasca]

OP's question was too vague. I agree that the keeper isn't a strong class on its own, but isn't a weak link with the right team composition. The lego one is imo subjective depending on how you interpret the question. Basically another worthless thread and I have no idea why I'm even replying to this

 

Note I didn't say it was weak, it was only not 'strongest'. People have comprehension problems.

 

You're defintely right that it is a worthless thread though. It is pure opinion from most people, and some people's opinion is outright butthurt that I dare rate their favorites as 'not strongest'. Oh Drasca is so mean, how dare he not rate my favorite classes as not the strongest when the question is directed as opinion based. Boo hoo hoo. That doesn't stop anyone from playing any class. Some people are upset because I rate their class as weaker than others. Those people are ill informed what is even asked or even stated.

[TheThirdRace]

Oh no you're not getting off that easily
 
Give me ONE, the worst build I have and tell me why it is bad (the build not the class)
 
(not the duelist, still working on improving that one)
 
I have nothing to do with your friend stating that the avvar has the defenses of the templar or the lego, because he doesn't.
What I have a problem with is that you state that his defenses are worse than that of the squishiest rogues.
I don't care how many times you and your friend have died, that simply isn't true.
 
Here are some vids. My con is around 110, my cunning way lower at 90 or so, willpower is high at 180 or so
 
Don't tell me he's not good

You think I owe you anything? I'm getting off however I freaking want, lol you're not my supervisor!

But in the interest of pointing out something to you before you attack anyone else...

This is what the OP is asking:
 

In a world where having high stats didnt make everything a cakewalk, what would you guys say are the weakest and strongest classes in NM? In your OWN opinion. I'm curious to hear the weakest links and why, =P

This is what I wrote at the top of my post:
 

To rate characters for Nightmare, you have to take into account a couple things.

Considering:

• Great equipment
• Promotions around 50/50/50 (not including +10 base)
• Moderately skilled players

Then I'd classify the characters like this: (Off: Offense, Def: Defense, CC: Crowd Control)

• Meh Tier
  • Avvar (Off: 6/10, Def: 4/10, CC: 7/10)
    • Does have a couple good options for crowd control
    • His damage being Elemental is not really well suited for Nightmare with all the immunities around
    • His defenses are horrible, but I've seen great players being able to manage with that...

Remember, this is all based on my personal experience on Nightmare, what I've seen playing with good player that are or aren't on the leaderboard. Your mileage can vary as skills, equipment, play style and teammates can influence the results. Anyhow, I think my ratings are mostly accurate if you don't focus too much on the numbers, but on the idea behind the ratings.

 

And then you state your promotions:
 

My con is around 110, my cunning way lower at 90 or so, willpower is high at 180 or so

/thread

[Wavebend]

Note I didn't say it was weak, it was only not 'strongest'. People have comprehension problems.

 

That wasn't even meant for you, lol. I was just stating my opinion for OP's question

[ottffsse]

Lol a well played keeper will keep pugs alive maybe or at least give the a way better chance of acing the run ? It is definately one if the "stronger" links in a party same as Lego. It never hurts to bring one and she is especially good against venetori due to dispel. It is not just about the damage.

[MagicalMaster]

Someone with for eg.10 promotions will never be able to run NM with a reaver or an archer.

 

I did NM with a Reaver with less than 20 in all stats (so less than 10 promotions per stat).  I could have done it with an Archer as well if I had Barrier support (or avoided Longshot).

 

Look, people have to stop making these statements that only apply to high cunning characters

 

I have to agree with this.  Getting more HP/damage resistance can change the way you have to handle certain enemies (don't have to dodge attacks for more DPS uptime or won't get one-shot by something bad or whatever), but it still comes down to "How much damage can I take?"  Getting more attack just means you do more damage and, again, doesn't fundamentally change things in most cases.

 

But Cunning?  Try playing an Elementalist with low crit chance and see how often you can use Firestorm.  I literally just said "screw it" and used a non-flashpoint Firestorm at times because I couldn't get a proc and we needed the CC *now.*  On Nightmare.

 

Quite. I have a 3 second rule. If it isn't dead within three seconds, then you're killing too slow and something's wrong....Most likely your build/gear setup is poorly optimized or insufficient. However something is definitely wrong if you're not killing an enemy faster than 3 seconds.  Enemies should be dead within 1-2 ability casts hence the 3 second rule of thumb. Twin Fangs / Deathblow , Wrath of Heaven / Spell Purge, Rampage / Dragon Rage are classic examples.

 

Um...yeah.

 

So, it currently takes me at least 6 Dragon Rage casts to kill a Terror Demon (with Rampage up).  That's 8 individual hits, to be clear: 1, 1, 2, 1, 1, 2.  You're saying I shouldn't get past the 1, 1 in that chain, right (or, being generous, 1, 2 for three hits total)?  Promotes are only 28/22/28 (including base 10)...but you mentioned build/gear set-up so we can discard the promotes, right?  So let's look at build/gear.

 

Well, I have a Maul of the Dragon with 327 damage (better than average damage apparently which is 326 according to spreadsheet).  The two slots are filled with 5% crit/18% crit damage (tier 3 materials for both) and 10% attack/5% crit (tier 3 materials for both).  Yes, having the tier 2 pommel with 6 leather offense would be better for the second slot with a Hakkon weapon or higher promotes.  Right now, though, losing 10% attack for 5% more crit seems to favor the attack -- even if the 10% attack only translated into 4% more damage the 5% crit only translates into 3% more damage.  And while the cooldown reduction is nice we're ignoring that for the moment because Rampage is already up for all of those attacks anyway.

 

Rings are 10% crit and 20% crit damage.  Only other purple rings are Guard Pen, Life Steal, and Armor Pen (and 5% crit won't be 20% crit damage nor will 10% crit damage beat 10% crit at the moment).  Also, switching 10% crit for 20% more crit damage or 20% crit damage for 10% more crit (if we assume I actually had two of each available)...would both lower my average damage.  Neck is 10 Constitution (don't have 10 Cunning or 10 Willpower yet)...though 5% more crit from a 10 Cunning neck would only be about 3% more overall damage right now.  Armor is 17% Healing and 11 Con...but there's no offensive Heavy Armor upgrades anyway.

 

Overall crit chance is currently 47% crit with 38% extra crit damage (1.78 times normal damage), which is an average of 36.66% more damage.  The crit damage/crit chance ratio is also balanced to give nearly the most damage (I favored crit chance slightly for on-crit passives at the cost of like 1-2% damage overall as I recall).

 

Short of a Hakkon weapon, I don't think I can significantly upgrade my gear anymore solely in terms of gear except for the neck (which, again, is less than a 5% increase).  If considering promotions, eventually I could swap Crit for Crit Damage with Cunning promotions.

 

So let's look at builds.  There are only 4 ways I see that I could increase damage in my build:

 

1, pick up the passive for 3% attack.  Not going to change anything significantly.

 

2, pick up the sunder talent.  Not going to change anything significantly (in your ideal case they'd only be affected by 1 Sunder at most since they'd be dead after the second "hit).

 

3, pick up Deathblow.  Catch is that I need to crit to have a chance to cause fear which means lowering crit in favor of crit damage backfires a bit.  But even if we assumed I crit 100% of the time at the moment that's only a 30% increase over my current set-up.

 

4, use Warhorn as an active ability.  This is the biggest thing potentially.  I'm still using Devour as I think I need/want the extra survivability at the moment.  With more promotions I'd feel more comfortable dropping Devour (larger effective health pool and lower cooldown on War Horn).  If we assumed I used War Horn on every single enemy (which, y'know, is impossible due to the 24 second cooldown unless I'm literally surrounded by like half a dozen or more mobs continuously and/or waited between single mobs), had Deathblow, and moved all of my crit chance to crit damage (so weapon gets 45% crit bonus from 15 leather slots, both rings are 20% crit damage, and neck is Dexterity for 10% crit damage) we'd get 100% crit chance times 1.4 + 0.45 + 0.2 + 0.2 + 0.1 = 2.35 times normal damage, which would be a 72% overall increase over my current status.

 

Since I currently need 8 hits at 1.366 average damage for 10.928 total, dividing that by 2.35 yields 4.65 hits needed.  Which is still four casts of Dragon Rage: 1, 1, 2, 1 or 2, 1, 1, 2 or whatever.

 

But that's assuming War Horn and gear supporting it...and if I have to get close, War Horn, and THEN Dragon Rage four times still we're nowhere near the "1-2 ability casts" idea you mentioned (especially since War Horn is a longer animation).

 

So, do tell me: what am I doing so wrong with my gear/build?

 

To judge the strongest kits, I have to assume solo'ing for judging individual kits, and / or solo-conditions because of the need for spawn camping where you defend a spot solo, or weaker teams, or pugs who die.

 

I don't need to bring the strongest kit, but it has to be able to solo for me to consider it the strongest.

 

So if Bioware introduced a class that made all enemies take triple damage and made all teammates take half damage and heal for 20% life per hit but literally could not do damage itself (no auto attacks, no damaging abilities, etc)...you wouldn't consider it to be one of the strongest kits?

 

Yes, that's a completely ridiculous and overpowered class.  The point is that while taking solo-ability (or whatever term you want to use) into consideration can certainly make sense at times...saying that a class unable to solo cannot be one of the strongest kits seems incredibly wrong.

 

Note that I'm not even arguing about the Keeper specifically, I just can't believe your process here.

 

Oh, and to be clear: I don't know Yallegro outside of seeing him being socially inept at times and seeing people take shots at him on the forums.  I'm not "on his side" or something -- nor am I "against him."  I'm just calling the shots as I see them in this thread.

 

Keeper is in the "great" tier for me. HB viable forsure.

 

That was my suspicion due to Barrier/Static Cage alone, really, but don't really have much experience playing Keeper on Nightmare yet to judge for myself.  And, like you said, needs a good team.

 

Anyone that that argues solo isn't important is in denial or is being carried all the time, because pugs will die more often than not (just look at all the L2P / your last pug threads) and private teams can do whatever they like.

 

Of course, a Keeper could keep some of those PUGs from dying in the first place in many cases (can't save them from complete stupidity but a lot more margin for error).  So if I played Keeper and kept 2 out of the 3 PUGs alive by doing nothing but Barriering/Static Caging stuff...that seems far better than playing a better "solo" class which would result in all three PUGs dying and having to solo the thrice-buffed enemies.

 

I mean, sure, that isn't always the case -- if my choices are playing a Reaver with Hakkon weapon and 200+ in each stat vs playing Keeper and supporting three PUGs who have level 20 blue weapons, non-top tier armor, and 15 in each stat then the Reaver probably makes more sense.

[Drasca]

I did NM with a Reaver with less than 20 in all stats (so less than 10 promotions per stat).  I could have done it with an Archer as well if I had Barrier support (or avoided Longshot).

So, do tell me: what am I doing so wrong with my gear/build?

 

You need to completely rework your playstyle, gear and build. You're doing so much wrong it isn't worth explaining how wrong it is, and when it is far more important to explain what's right. You need to do all of the below.

 

If you want some answers to why your combat estimations are wrong, read here:

http://forum.bioware...mbat-mechanics/

 

Play with the Excel Spreadsheet here:

http://forum.bioware...heet-by-drasca/

 

The above are only estimates, truncating some parts of the damage formula inputs, and do not perfectly reflect damage calculation in-game, but do so much better than hand calculations and misunderstood mechanics of players that don't / haven't explored the formula at all. i.e. it's the best we have so far.

 

Here's an example of how to play conservatively as Reaver using worse equipment than you have yet still doing sufficient damage:

 

For a more recent video using the Dragon Maul:

 

Here's a guideline for the build:

 

http://forum.bioware...rite-mp-builds/

 

ThirdRace has explained more in depth about the Rampage Warhorn synergy here:

http://forum.bioware...using-war-horn/

 

Gear: You need to focus on Critical damage on Reaver specifically using

 

Amulet: Dexterity or Stamina amulet

Maul Weapon upgrades: All offense leather on Maul, specifically Bound Two Handed Haft and Firm Pommel, using Craggy Skin

Rings: One Heal on Kill for safety is OK, but otherwise Critical Damage Bonus rings x2 or a Dragon Rage Ring

Armor Upgrades: Constitution & Heal bonus

Belt: Health

Potions:

Rock Armor, then Resist tonics. Cold and Electric for FC or swap out one for Pitch Grenade. Ideally the party all has different resist tonics available for the match since they can often affect the entire party for one player using a resist tonic.

 

You should be doing at least 2k damage per strike of Dragon Rage, with the third hit being a double hit of 4k damage total, for 8k damage on NM, which kills most enemies, which is three Dragon Rage presses total.

 

If you cannot do at least that much, you need a stronger team or to bump it down to Perilous until you're high enough level to do so. You're missing damage passives (fervor/coup de grace/dragon rage upgrades, etc) that do so.

 

If you are actually doing all the things I've told you, and still cannot roflstomp NM, you are having issues with strategic choices on the map. Since you are genuine, I really doubt you wouldn't at the very least improve your damage if you actually follow through with my build and gear choices. If you follow through with the playstyle choices as observed in the video, you'll also vastly increase both damage and surviveability.
 

 

Of course, a Keeper could keep some of those PUGs from dying in the first place in many cases (can't save them from complete stupidity but a lot more margin for error).  So if I played Keeper and kept 2 out of the 3 PUGs alive

 

if my choices are playing a Reaver with . . . probably makes more sense.[

 

 

You have Dragon Maul. That's plenty of NM.. As you say, you can't save them from complete stupidity and that's what I fight against most of the time. However, I make the arguement that you'll save them more often as a Surviveable/Tanky DPS class with CC than you would with a Squishy class with low dps and CC. Keeper's are inconsistent about their survival sustainability, and tend to die because they don't have that DPS. Reaver would just kill and continue killing, feeding into the process of heal (rampage), CC (warhorn), attack (dragon rage / basic attack shield guys) & cooldown reduction (flow of battle), repeat.

 

Eles are similar in that everything they do feeds back into their abilities, and they get stronger as the battle goes on. Death siphon feeds health and mana. Firestorm feeds criticals for flashpoint, into more firestorm. Firewall keeps the majority of enemies away, and FM/Fstorm keeps almost everything else. Static Charge paralyzes so many enemies while casting.

 

SS should be obvious too.

 

Legos if they did more damage would rank higher, but they don't.

 

Templar just eats giant groups of enemies at once, and all her attacks cool down signifigantly via Flow of Battle / Shield Wall Attack Cancel.

 

 

Try playing an Elementalist with low crit chance and see how often you can use Firestorm.  I literally just said "screw it" and used a non-flashpoint Firestorm at times because I couldn't get a proc and we needed the CC *now.*  On Nightmare.

 

You can get up to 51% critical chance at zero promotions from gear alone on a mage from offense leather weapon upgrades and accessories (more with very specific staves). You can also greatly reduce firestorm cd from winter's stillness and gathering storm, reducing to half or less by choosing your fighting positions carefully and letting the enemy come to you.

[Gutz]

Learn to play Avvar

 

You give him 2 points less defense than the alchemist and 3 less than the hunter. He does easily get 60% dmg resistance or higher ya know

 

If you can hit the right enemies with the right elemental attacks you'll see that a 6 in offense is just wrong

 

 

 

Can you record a gameplay vs. darkspawn with avvar?

[Yallegro]

You think I owe you anything? I'm getting off however I freaking want, lol you're not my supervisor!

But in the interest of pointing out something to you before you attack anyone else...

This is what the OP is asking:
 

This is what I wrote at the top of my post:
 

And then you state your promotions:
 

/thread

 

 

Willpower has nothing to do with the validity of the build

 

Unlike your suggestions for builds where you are painfully blind to the fact that your statements make no sense without your very high cunning

 

Reminds me of rich people who can't grasp that opportunity or money may be hard to come by

 

 

I'm just going to keep coming back to this and how you're trying to weasel out of backing up your underhanded accusations 

 

[MagicalMaster]

You're doing so much wrong it isn't worth explaining how wrong it is

 

I see.  Are you trying to win the "biggest jerk" on the internet award or something?  Because prior to this statement I had thought you seemed to be a fairly decent guy, but I'm now thinking I made quite an error in judgment.  Feel free to apologize for that statement, though, and I'll accept it.

 

If you want some answers to why your combat estimations are wrong, read here:

http://forum.bioware...mbat-mechanics/

 

Awesome, math!  First, let's note I'm not factoring in Scenting Blood (10% more crit chance if a nearby enemy is under 35%) as you seem to be claiming we should be 1-2 shotting everything anyway, right?  Let's see...

 

final_damage = (base_damage * rand(0.95 to 1.05) - armor * (1 - armor_penetration))
    * (ability_multiplier)
    * (1 + critical_damage_bonus + flanking_bonus)
    * (1 + attack_bonus + damage_multiplier + type_bonus)
    * (1 - magic_resistance)

 

Well, ability multiplier is easy to factor in later -- just multiply by the proper amount (so if an ability is 300% weapon damage just multiply by 3).

 

final_damage = (base_damage * rand(0.95 to 1.05) - armor * (1 - armor_penetration))
    * (1 + critical_damage_bonus + flanking_bonus)
    * (1 + attack_bonus + damage_multiplier + type_bonus)
    * (1 - magic_resistance)

 

We're talking about a physical attack here, so magic resistance doesn't apply.

 

final_damage = (base_damage * rand(0.95 to 1.05) - armor * (1 - armor_penetration))
    * (1 + critical_damage_bonus + flanking_bonus)
    * (1 + attack_bonus + damage_multiplier + type_bonus)

 

Type bonus is single player only, so get rid of that.  Let's also just use the average weapon damage as the overall result is the same (on average).

 

final_damage = (base_damage  - armor * (1 - armor_penetration))
    * (1 + critical_damage_bonus + flanking_bonus)
    * (1 + attack_bonus + damage_multiplier)

 

We're attacking from the front here so can ignore flanking bonus.  Let's also remove the attack bonus and damage bonus for now -- like ability multiplier, can factor it in later (if you have 50% attack and 50% damage bonus then just multiply the final result by 2).

 

final_damage = (base_damage  - armor * (1 - armor_penetration)) * (1 + critical_damage_bonus)

 

Great.  Now, since we're not using any weapon or talent that could reduce enemy armor and we're trying to find out what the benefit of critical hits are overall, let's combine the first part as it's effectively a constant.

 

final_damage = (damage_after_armor) * (1 + critical_damage_bonus)

 

Okay, that's easier to work with for now.  So what is the critical_damage_bonus?  Well, according to this thread, this thread, and personal testing...it's 40%.

 

So let's look at an example of how wrong my combat estimations are:

 

"Overall crit chance is currently 47% crit with 38% extra crit damage (1.78 times normal damage), which is an average of 36.66% more damage."

 

47% of the time I'll do a critical hit for 1.78 times the normal damage (40% base + 20% ring + 18% on weapon).  So 0.47 * 1.78 = 0.8366.  The other 53% of the time I'll land a normal hit for 1.00 times the normal damage.  0.8366 + 0.53 = 1.3666.

 

Which, of course, is 36.66% more damage than a normal hit.  It doesn't matter what the armor of the enemy is, what the ability modifier is, or attack bonus + damage bonus is...critical hits specifically are increasing my average damage per hit by 33.66% (remember, multiplicative with everything else).

 

Hmm.  I'll be darned, looks like my original math was correct, wasn't it?

 

OH I KNOW!  Maybe you meant my comment of the benefit of crit versus attack.  The question was whether 10.5% attack was worth more than 5.25% crit (I rounded earlier since the precision wasn't (and still isn't) important).  Well, let's see.  5.25% more crit changes our earlier math to 0.5225 * 1.78 + 0.4775 = 1.40755 benefit from crit and crit damage overall.  1.40755/1.3666= 2.996% increase overall.  So my 3% estimate?  Pretty accurate.

 

How about attack?  Well, Reaver gets 18 Strength from leveling (from both of our builds), I don't know if there's hidden increase as well but let's assume there's not for now (but easy enough to factor in if so).  Maul has 18% attack, armor/rings/neck/belt won't effect attack % specifically.  So we're at 27% attack overall.  I have 22 willpower so that's 5.5% more attack, 32.5% total.  Damage % is trickier because Reaver gets more damage with lower health.  So we'll run two calculations, one at 50% health and one at 100% health.  In this case we're figuring Reaver will always have the following: 20% from Rampage, 50% from Dragon Rage upgrade, and 30% from one stack of Fervor.  So at full health that's 132.5% overall.  At 50% health it's 75% more so 207.5% overall.

 

At full health we'd be going from 2.325 multiplier to 2.43.  2.43/2.325 = 4.5% bonus.  At 50% health we'd be going from 3.075 multiplier to 3.18.  3.18/3.075 = 3.4% increase.  My 4% estimate overall seems pretty on the mark.

 

So let's put all of this together.  Let's assume a 0 armor enemy, 100 damage weapon, non-flanking, 38% crit damage bonus from gear, 32.5% attack bonus, 150% of weapon damage, and 100% damage bonus (full health Reaver).  We should get 100 * (1 + 0.325 + 1) * 1.5 = 348.75 damage on hit, and 100 + (1 + 0.325 + 1) * (1.4 + 0.38) * 1.5 = 620.775 damage on a crit.

 

Play with the Excel Spreadsheet here:

http://forum.bioware...heet-by-drasca/

 

Even better, a spreadsheet *that agrees with my math.*

 

Gives 348 and 619.44 respectively due to having to enter attack % as a whole number (so 32% versus 32.5%).

 

Go ahead, I'm eagerly awaiting you backing up your statement of "If you want some answers to why your combat estimations are wrong."

 

ThirdRace has explained more in depth about the Rampage Warhorn synergy here:

http://forum.bioware...using-war-horn/

 

Yes, I'm aware.  That doesn't change my statement of "I'm still using Devour as I think I need/want the extra survivability at the moment."  Even if I crit *16* times in an 8 second window, I could only use War Horn every 8 seconds.  I can use Devour like every 2-3 seconds.  Which leads to my line about "With more promotions I'd feel more comfortable dropping Devour (larger effective health pool and lower cooldown on War Horn)."

 

Amulet: Dexterity or Stamina amulet

Maul Weapon upgrades: All offense leather on Maul, specifically Bound Two Handed Haft and Firm Pommel, using Craggy Skin

Rings: One Heal on Kill for safety is OK, but otherwise Critical Damage Bonus rings x2 or a Dragon Rage Ring

Armor Upgrades: Constitution & Heal bonus

Belt: Health

Potions:

Rock Armor, then Resist tonics. Cold and Electric for FC or swap out one for Pitch Grenade. Ideally the party all has different resist tonics available for the match since they can often affect the entire party for one player using a resist tonic.

 

Let's see...

 

Amulet: sorry, want the survivability at the moment on Nightmare (note that if I have 60%+ crit damage from gear that's less than a 5% increase overall assuming I crit every time.  Won't change anything from 1-2 shots to needing two full cycles of Dragon Rage).

Maul: DPS loss (again, this was literally about walking up to a Terror demon and slamming it with Dragon Rage.  Crits only have a 25% chance to cause panic and using War Horn wasn't even mentioned -- also, that's not 1-2 shotting something using Dragon Rage/Rampage if you're bringing in War Horn)

Rings: Got one Crit Damage bonus ring.  Other is Crit Chance, see above.

Armor Upgrades: yep.

Belt: yep
Potions: irrelevant for your claim (but yep).

 

You should be doing at least 2k damage per strike of Dragon Rage, with the third hit being a double hit of 4k damage total, for 8k damage on NM, which kills most enemies, which is three Dragon Rage presses total.

 

Yeah, except I mentioned Terror Demons *specifically* as that's what I went and tested against.  Which have 14552 HP according to this.  So using your math...

 

1: 2k

2: 4k

3: 8k

4: 10k

5: 12k

6: 16k (overkill by 1.5kish)

 

HEY THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I SAID IT TOOK ME.  Eight individual hits through six actual uses of Dragon Rage.  In order to kill it in six individual hits/five uses I'd have to do 2426 damage per crit (which is over 20% more than the figures you gave)...PLUS I'm needing to use War Horn.  Good thing I'm

 

doing so much wrong it isn't worth explaining how wrong it is, and when it is far more important to explain what's right.

 

So let's summarize so far:

 

A. your spreadsheet agrees with my math

B. my original claim is backed up by your math

C. I'm using Devour over War Horn due to survivability concerns at my (low) promotion level, which you disagree with

D. my current set-up is actually killing that Terror Demon *faster* (compared to your hypothetical minimum numbers) -- because I'm not needing to spend the time on War Horn first

 

If you cannot do at least that much, you need a stronger team or to bump it down to Perilous until you're high enough level to do so. You're missing damage passives (fervor/coup de grace/dragon rage upgrades, etc) that do so.

 

Or...you might consider that as someone still fairly new to Nightmare that I *might* be doing it at level 20.  Hint, I am.

 

If you are actually doing all the things I've told you, and still cannot roflstomp NM, you are having issues with strategic choices on the map.

 

I didn't say I was having trouble in Nightmare.  I was disputing your claim of

 

"I have a 3 second rule. If it isn't dead within three seconds, then you're killing too slow and something's wrong. Usually they're dead even before that. Maybe you got trolled by a dragon. Maybe the red archer fog of friendly fire doom occurred. Most likely your build/gear setup is poorly optimized or insufficient. However something is definitely wrong if you're not killing an enemy faster than 3 seconds. Enemies should be dead within 1-2 ability casts hence the 3 second rule of thumb. Twin Fangs / Deathblow , Wrath of Heaven / Spell Purge, Rampage / Dragon Rage are classic examples. After the 2 second mark, enemies become incredibly more dangerous, as they can react by then and counter your attacks and/or troll you."

 

Now your own numbers that you provided indicate your claim is wrong.  A Terror Demon (which has the second lowest HP of demons (and also low armor), only Wraith appears lower) according to you is taking 6 ability casts of Dragon Rage (eight hits total) plus 1 ability cast of War Horn.  1-2 does not remotely equal 7.

[MagicalMaster]

You have Dragon Maul. That's plenty of NM..

 

Yes, I'm aware Dragon Maul is plenty for NM.  My point is that you'd need an insane gear/promotion/skill gap for one alive Reaver to outweigh two alive PUGs AND one alive Keeper AND less buffed enemies.

 

However, I make the arguement that you'll save them more often as a Surviveable/Tanky DPS class with CC than you would with a Squishy class with low dps and CC. Keeper's are inconsistent about their survival sustainability, and tend to die because they don't have that DPS. Reaver would just kill and continue killing, feeding into the process of heal (rampage), CC (warhorn), attack (dragon rage / basic attack shield guys) & cooldown reduction (flow of battle), repeat.

 

Then that's a different statement than you made earlier where you said: "To judge the strongest kits, I have to assume solo'ing for judging individual kits, and / or solo-conditions because of....pugs who die" and "I don't need to bring the strongest kit, but it has to be able to solo for me to consider it the strongest" and "Anyone that that argues solo isn't important is in denial or is being carried all the time, because pugs will die more often than not."

You earlier: Being able to help the PUGs is irrelevant, all that matters is whether the class can solo

You now: Survivable DPS classes can help the PUGs survive better than the Keeper in practice for various reasons

The way you came across with your previous statements indicated you thought "Unless I can easily solo the wave after the three idiot PUGs charge in and die because they can't survive without me, the class can't be one of the strongest."
 

You can get up to 51% critical chance at zero promotions from gear alone on a mage from offense leather weapon upgrades and accessories (more with very specific staves).

Well, let's see...

5% base crit
21% crit from 12 Great Bear Hides (hint, I didn't have enough for that)
20% crit from two 10% crit rings (hint, I only had one 5% crit ring, period)
5% from 10 Cunning neck (hint, I only had a 5 Cunning neck, still don't have a 10 Cunning neck)

So let's revise that...

5% base crit
15% crit from six Druffalo Hides and six Bear Hides (note, I didn't even have that available but let's pretend we do)
5% crit from a 5% crit ring
2.5% crit from a 5 cunning neck

27.5% crit, for me at the time it was more like 21.5% crit I think.  In theory could even throw in 2% crit from passive.  Far cry from 51% though.  I know you live in a magical world with plenty of the best materials and most/all of the best gear and high promotes...but try to think in terms of us mere mortals at times.
 

You can also greatly reduce firestorm cd from winter's stillness and gathering storm, reducing to half or less by choosing your fighting positions carefully and letting the enemy come to you.

 

Yes, I'm aware.  I did all of that.  Throw in Clean Burn as well.  But that's a hell of a lot different from Bearform's claim of

"Just the fact that one can cast firestorm indefinablely [sic] (20% of the time i got 2 going) makes it a superior crowd control skill, along with reasons kal listed."

I'm not saying I think Firestorm is bad.  I'm saying that a lot of veteran players have a very distorted view of the game due to their gear/promotions.

[Yallegro]

Drasca, on 23 Aug 2015 - 06:58 AM, said:

You're doing so much wrong it isn't worth explaining how wrong it is

 

I see.  Are you trying to win the "biggest jerk" on the internet award or something?  Because prior to this statement I had thought you seemed to be a fairly decent guy, but I'm now thinking I made quite an error in judgment.  Feel free to apologize for that statement, though, and I'll accept it.

 

Sad ain't it, 

 

Drasca can't decide if he wants to be a contributor or a belligerent child

 

 

Question: Are you Magickkaster from the ps3 leaderboards?

[MagicalMaster]

Question: Are you Magickkaster from the ps3 leaderboards?

 

Nope, sorry.  MagicalMaster on Bioware/EA related stuff, Balkoth most other places.  Never touched a PS3 in my life actually.

[Spin-Orbit]

 

Credible much

Witness says otherwise...

[Drasca]

Yes, I'm aware Dragon Maul is plenty for NM.  My point is that you'd need an insane gear/promotion/skill gap for one alive Reaver to outweigh two alive PUGs AND one alive Keeper AND less buffed enemies.

 

You're failing on a lot of levels, dexterity not being critical chance to begin with is just the beginning. Reread the combat mechanic guide in the entirety. If you actually want help, we're done here, because you're just wrong all over the place.

 

I mistook you for someone who genuinely sought out correct information and was willing to get better. I was wrong. I'm sorry I wasted my time trying to help you. I hope others can benefit, but I'm done here trying to help you.

[Yallegro]

You're failing on a lot of levels, dexterity not being critical chance to begin with is just the beginning. Reread the combat mechanic guide in the entirety. If you actually want help, we're done here, because you're just wrong all over the place.

 

I mistook you for someone who genuinely sought out correct information and was willing to get better. I was wrong. I'm sorry I wasted my time trying to help you. I hope others can benefit, but I'm done here trying to help you.

 

[MagicalMaster]

You're failing on a lot of levels, dexterity not being critical chance to begin with is just the beginning.

 

I mistook you for someone who genuinely sought out correct information and was willing to get better. I was wrong. I'm sorry I wasted my time trying to help you. I hope others can benefit, but I'm done here trying to help you.

 

and neck is Dexterity for 10% crit damage

 

And I'm the one failing here?

 

You were correct in your assessment on both me genuinely seeking out correct information and me being willing to get better.  But the part about wasting time to help someone?  That's how I'm feeling right now -- I laid out the exact math for you to look at using *your* numbers.  But not only can't you be bothered to actually check the figures (which, y'know, agree with *your* spreadsheet), you can't be bothered to read what I wrote as you think I'm under the impression that Dexterity affects crit chance when I explicitly said otherwise.

[Carbon_Bishop]

Well, if there is one thing this thread has taught me it's that Yallegro is a troll and Drasca is a sociopath.  Although, I suppose those two terms are interchangeable.

[Jay P]

Well, if there is one thing this thread has taught me it's that Yallegro is a troll and Drasca is a sociopath. Although, I suppose those two terms are interchangeable.

Dat epeen tho

[Yallegro]

Well, if there is one thing this thread has taught me it's that Yallegro is a troll and Drasca is a sociopath.  Although, I suppose those two terms are interchangeable.

 

http://www.sociopath...opathic-traits/

 

I am sarcastic, I suppose that makes me a low-tier troll given the right context

[Proto]

LOLz, this thread...got interesting.

[kmeeg]

LOLz, this thread...got interesting.

 

Yah sure did. Hahaha

 

[Jay P]

Yah sure did. Hahaha

 

 

that gif is awesome

[Carbon_Bishop]

http://www.sociopath...opathic-traits/

 

I am sarcastic, I suppose that makes me a low-tier troll given the right context

Yeah, you're right, lumping you in with Drasca was a low blow.  Sorry.