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DPS improvement ideas (1 Viewer)

2

2ndGoat

Level 2
Joined
Dec 29, 2022
RedCents
617¢
RG hivemind,

It’s apparent that there are a number of us who have hit a DPS wall, proven by the Heroes mission.

I’m hoping this thread will be a place to share suggestions to increase existing group DPS rather than rebuilding a group entirely. This isn’t necessarily to address the mission itself as it is meant solve the problem the mission has uncovered: general lack of DPS.

With that said, what are some of the best contributors to a group’s DPS?

How about for an individual toon?

Illusions? Mounts? Hero AA?

I’m hoping those of us behind the curve can get some actionable ideas to fill the gap :)
 
I'm no expert, but I feel that understanding and applying ADPS correctly will make a huge difference. Since I fly with an enchanter I always try to key off the chanter's AA Chromatic Haze for my other group members to cast their largest nukes. Depending on your automation this process of stacking ADPS can be a lot of work. But it's the only way to put up big numbers.

A good starting explanation for one ADPS class would be https://rexaraven.com/everquest/enchanter/enchanter-adps-guide/
 
For me specifically, SK, BST, BRD, ROG, ZERK, CLR. All the melee have T3 LS weapons, max AA, and and a mix of T3 NoS and T3 LS group gear.

All have over 4k HDex.

All of them except BRD are running CWTN.

But this thread isn’t necessarily for me specifically. I’m hoping to have a thread where general “these things will improve your DPS” ideas can go.

🤷‍♂️
 
sounds like you should easily be able to throw up the numbers needed for the mission.

my suggestions:
1. some epics still help, especially with ADPS like SHM and BRD.
2. Rk. 3 of old key discs, like take rog Knifeplay.. rk3 is super easy to get.
3. item buffs, like Jann's Veil, mount blessing ozah, Familiar striped badger, Grelleth's Royal Seal
4. all heroic AA
5. Can do things like give all melee poisons to proc rog alliance.
6. unlock haste AA(though with bard wouldn't need this)
7. Time on Target, this is just a play style but like specific to the HF mission, make sure you have lev and meshes that allow you to cross the water rather then path around. use things like assist 100% and pre-atk buttons so you can attack bosses before they even go live. for instance on Lich I usually have it to 85% before it even goes live.

good luck.
 
There are many things to grow and guide DPS. @Trapper lays out some items (forgot COP clickies!!), and then dives into the *hard* part..

MQ is a great tool, but it does what you tell it to. Controlling your team, and knowing *when and why* to do stuff will be the biggest help.

Plan your burns and your movement. If your one mage, druid, rogue is part timing during lich, or queen, thats not EQ or MQs fault. Seen lots asking about commands and team control, I have a feeling as more people do this mission, the skill level of controlling teams is gonna go way up.

Couple more tips, dont forget *bonus burn*, 7th anni AA. doesnt stack with glyphs, and only last 60 seconds, but gives you a lil omph every 4 hours. If your ending a stage with burns running (to much dps at one point, dying at others), dont do a full team burn, send direct commands to different team members to trigger burns.

MQ does what its told. I have done this mission with all kinds of box groups, good human groups, terrible human groups, if you follow the (semi busted) script, mission is very doable even with a 3m (non burn) dps group.
 
Trapper said:
I was always curious on why this happened, I banked mine a couple expansions ago thinking it was just that the cast time was more time then what it was doing in damage. what exactly is it with crit rate that causes this?
Click to expand...
your losing 2 combat rounds waiting for the effect to fire, and its providing min to no gain.
 
1704140591304.png1704140636893.png1704140683373.png
Shaman epic gets you there even if you arent already, the cast time on epic is lost swings and with 100% crit the 100str does not make up for the lost round(s) of combat
 
durango773 said:
There are many things to grow and guide DPS. @Trapper lays out some items (forgot COP clickies!!), and then dives into the *hard* part..

MQ is a great tool, but it does what you tell it to. Controlling your team, and knowing *when and why* to do stuff will be the biggest help.

Plan your burns and your movement. If your one mage, druid, rogue is part timing during lich, or queen, thats not EQ or MQs fault. Seen lots asking about commands and team control, I have a feeling as more people do this mission, the skill level of controlling teams is gonna go way up.

Couple more tips, dont forget *bonus burn*, 7th anni AA. doesnt stack with glyphs, and only last 60 seconds, but gives you a lil omph every 4 hours. If your ending a stage with burns running (to much dps at one point, dying at others), dont do a full team burn, send direct commands to different team members to trigger burns.

MQ does what its told. I have done this mission with all kinds of box groups, good human groups, terrible human groups, if you follow the (semi busted) script, mission is very doable even with a 3m (non burn) dps group.
Click to expand...
I get all that. What I'm saying is I'm not sure why, with similar gear and AA, running CWTN just like other folks, my crew is so far behind the DPS curve. My question isn't "how do I beat Heroes," it's "what are some general ideas to improve a group's DPS" so I can catch up to some of the folks who I should be pacing with, but I'm far behind. :)
 
2ndGoat said:
I get all that. What I'm saying is I'm not sure why, with similar gear and AA, running CWTN just like other folks, my crew is so far behind the DPS curve. My question isn't "how do I beat Heroes," it's "what are some general ideas to improve a group's DPS" so I can catch up to some of the folks who I should be pacing with, but I'm far behind. :)
Click to expand...
What is your time on target? Are you running EQLogParser? See when your MA attacks, and when the team gets to work. If you are working on pushing, learn whos burns need to go, dont just BURN!!!!!!!!!!, it could be anything from a slight stagger (seconds) to a min or more, depending on whats happening. I keep saying this recently, make sure your controlling your team right. Stick on, off, stickhow, what are your little detail settings (shaman only Dot if 80% or higher mana.. one mana dot hit, your under 80%, no more shaman dots..).. MQ does what you tell it to, you need to know what to tell it, there is a ton of just.. things in EQ lol :shrug:
 
DPS is about two things:

#1 - Time on target
#2 - Mashing abilities.

To get better you need to be able to measure your performance.

EQLogParser is a great tool. Use it to find out what your character is using and when. Then compare it to the various raid "best practices" for each class.

OBS is another great free program that you can use to record video of your game play. I often record mission/raids then review the video to see where things are going right/wrong.

HUDs. You want to have some form of HUD for your team so you know what they are doing at a glace. Combined with OBS this gives you a lot of good state information.

Hotkeys: Have hotkeys made up to do the basics.
- Attack my target
- Stop attacking
- Follow me ( + invis )
- Stop following me
 
We can help provide more specific dps improvement ideas if you let us know which classes/class is lacking and what your group makeup is.

A 16 toon guide would be rough.
 
dewey2461 said:
I would love to see everything brought together in one place.

Freelance has a good collection but even that is hit or miss. Some of the guides are 4-5+ years old.
Click to expand...
That's kind of what I'm getting at.

I'd like an answer to the question, "What are the main things that will increase an individual toon's raw DPS (not considering group make-up, aDPS, etc.) other than AAs and worn items?"

I understand it's sort of a "but/if" question, since group composition makes a significant impact on DPS, but what are the general "if you do this thing, your DPS will increase" things?

Jann's Veil?
Poisons for melee toons?
Pet toys?
Hero's Fort AAs?
I was hoping to create a little catch-all reference for folks to look at and go, "oh, my BER doesn't use poisons regularly" or "my MAG doesn't have XYZ spell focus buff" or whatever so we can all sort of dip our chips in the salsa and pull out what works for us.

The holistic group stuff is super helpful, but I haven't found a "here's a starting point. Build from there" type of a situation yet. /shrug
 
I'll throw in a simple question. One of my rogues is max level, max aa, all t2/t3 geared, all new hdex augs. Not top end type 7 augs, but pretty close. Only 3200ish hdex without tribute & power source. We're supposed to be 4k or above, where is the rest coming from?
 
Ferocity pants for your pets add a nice DPS boost.
Twincast clicky from ROF for casters/hybrids.
Grelleth seal for those who melee.
Melee on your casters. Casters also proc higher DMG than melee, so ench/Shm proc buffs actually do more DPS from casters than on melee.
Get your old relevant rk3 spells and discs (twincast rk3 for mag/wiz/dru, twincast aura rk3 for ench)l, tons for melee toons)
Anniversary nuke clicky on classes that can use (from the hates fury raid)
Raid gear and augs.
Circle of power clickies.
Some classes have good past BPs (EoK druid extends their wolf form when equipped, nec oow can max their crit rate, etc)
Proc poisons for melee
Cast-proc potions for casters.
Epic clicks if good
Higher rank spells/discs in general are better.
Type 3 augs.
Powersources
 
Nobody99 said:
I'll throw in a simple question. One of my rogues is max level, max aa, all t2/t3 geared, all new hdex augs. Not top end type 7 augs, but pretty close. Only 3200ish hdex without tribute & power source. We're supposed to be 4k or above, where is the rest coming from?
Click to expand...
Tribute trophies with all trophies unlocked.
Power sources and purity augs.
Artisans prize
TOL/NOS raid achievement type 5 augs.
Raid gear
Stat food/drink

Can all add a bit of hDex.
 
2ndGoat said:
That's kind of what I'm getting at.

I'd like an answer to the question, "What are the main things that will increase an individual toon's raw DPS (not considering group make-up, aDPS, etc.) other than AAs and worn items?"

Jann's Veil?
Poisons for melee toons?
Pet toys?
Hero's Fort AAs?
I was hoping to create a little catch-all reference for folks to look at and go, "oh, my BER doesn't use poisons regularly" or "my MAG doesn't have XYZ spell focus buff" or whatever so we can all sort of dip our chips in the salsa and pull out what works for us.
Click to expand...

You are trying to get into the weeds with out getting dirty.

First order effects:
- Use the correct spells, disc, aa, abilities for your class at the right time.
- Epics for the classes like: SK, Bard and Shaman.
- Make sure your characters maximize time on target.

Second order effects:
- Max out gear for your level/play style for example, hDex for melee, LS group weapons, raid focus for legs/arms,etc.
- Max out AA

Third order effects: These are very small improvements compared to the rest
- poisons for melee toons, heros fort AA, Jann's Veil.



It sounds simple, but the devil really is in the details.

No one can give you an "easy" answer, because its specific for each class.

Going back to what's been said before. You need to parse your characters, look at the casting counts to see what they are casting, look at the ADPS chart to seen when they are burning, then compare it to the raid "how to" guides.
 
Last edited:
** classes and class synergies > all.
** bard vs enchanter is 30% higher DPS in almost all circumstances - for both melee and caster groups.
** Monks ADPS is bad, zerks and rangers are good.
** All melee love BeastLords.
** if you have a shaman in your group, EVERYONE melees (don't be sitting on a mount and twiddling your fingers, swing a weapon. Casters pull about 10-15% of their DPS from melee and melee procs with a shaman in group).
** wizards like having a mage in group, if you cast fire, then find things that focus fire. they also like having both bard and enchanter, but thats really a raid thing
** if you have casters find the spells that twincast (rank II is shorter cooldown than rank I, and rank III is shorter than rank II) or proc twincast.
** crit chance, crit damage and twincast - extend the duration of 100% crit chance, increase the dmg multipliers on crit damage and be twincasting as often as possible.

** per Dewey , level, spells and AA, then gear (and gear for your gear (augs))
** you have to be REALLY careful with the interaction between spells and AA each expac. DPS goes backwards, if you upgrade your spell but you don't have the associated complementary AA rank purchased.
** I level to new cap and only upgrade my spells when i have the AAs ready to spend on Synergy Focus (especially). Same with caster Robes, until you have the new expac robe then your new bolt or ethereal will not be focussed by the previous expac robe.
** Epics and synchronising bard + shaman epic is a good thing.
** if you don't have Rk. III of all your major melee disciplines, then get going and make it happen. House of Thule, COTF and Rain of Fear mostly, faction work and some proggy required. The progression will help towards your Heroic Fort AAs.

** any melee raid armor from EOK forwards has the same focus effect for arms and legs. the rest is just stats. ignore the stats and value the foci. you can make up the needed HPs/ACs elsewhere
** get the best ratio weps you can for your melee DPS classes
** get a raid 2hander for your casters, you get 2 proc augs in them. Also, turn your casters into proc pinatas, all those evolvers, fill your 18s and 19s with proccy augs.
** if your SK is using a shield, he's gay.

** get the important items - Circle of Power (everyone in your group, 18mins of uptime in every 30mins), Spirit Drinkers Coating (self healing). Trophy of Talendor
 
2ndGoat said:
That's kind of what I'm getting at.

I'd like an answer to the question, "What are the main things that will increase an individual toon's raw DPS (not considering group make-up, aDPS, etc.) other than AAs and worn items?"

I understand it's sort of a "but/if" question, since group composition makes a significant impact on DPS, but what are the general "if you do this thing, your DPS will increase" things?

Jann's Veil?
Poisons for melee toons?
Pet toys?
Hero's Fort AAs?
I was hoping to create a little catch-all reference for folks to look at and go, "oh, my BER doesn't use poisons regularly" or "my MAG doesn't have XYZ spell focus buff" or whatever so we can all sort of dip our chips in the salsa and pull out what works for us.

The holistic group stuff is super helpful, but I haven't found a "here's a starting point. Build from there" type of a situation yet. /shrug
Click to expand...
I mean if you take away group make-up, ADPS, AAs, and Worn items, you're really only left with clickies, and Augs if you don't consider augs worn items.
This is a game of inches, there's no "one cool trick" to make it all better.
You have to work on all the little things that build up into significant changes.
For example, on melee classes accuracy is a big deal. Especially the higher your level is. If you miss one swing on a berserker then you're losing out on a lot of DPS. If you fail to crit on a swing then you again miss out on a lot of DPS. If you're using a weapon from 3 expansions ago then you're missing out on a lot of DPS. If you have abilities that last 10-15 expansions like someone else mentioned - Knifeplay on a rogue, or perhaps Frenzied Resolve on a berserker, then getting those to Rk. III would be beneficial. So really you need to consider all the features of EQ in a combined environment without removing some things as an option.

You've given us little to no information to go on so it's hard to really give you any specific guidance. Everyone is at a different state of play at any given moment, and so the advice typically needs to be catered to the individual toons that are lacking.

Levels
Gear
AAs
Augs
Clickies
Proper Rotations
Group Synergy - Such as pairing the abilities of group member A with Group Member B to maximize DPS from both at the same time.
Using abilities based on content, such as burning if there is no expectation of a specific encounter requiring you to burn them down to ensure a speedy victory, you could instead burn the trash to mow through them quickly.

At the end of the day there isn't much of a catchall and all these things combined are what make a group or groups of characters have an overall improvement.
In the group game my necros DPS could be low because other characters are dealing crazy DPS, which doesn't allow the necro time for their DoTs to take full effect and thus I appear to have Low DPS when in fact there is nothing wrong with the necro, it's just everything is now dead before they have an opportunity to fully realize their potential DPS.
Perhaps having a character that slows that also gives other debuffs like a reduction in AC or reduction to a specific resist may be the difference in dealing more damage over a shorter amount of time in a combat scenario.
Most of what I heard like pre-burning, using hotkeys, levitating over areas to get to a mob faster, etc all lead to better results, but at the end of the day getting all the characters all the tools that they need to be individually successful while also creating a sort of combo in your rotation with other class will all ultimately lead to a better overall DPS and as a by product kills per hour.
 
OK, I'll be the first to add some details to see if that adds to the discussion. In November I was 3-boxing War/Enc/Mage/3 mercs. My team was doing around 700K dps total. Thats when I came here. Now I have

125 (all) WAR max AA/Enc Max AA/Mage max AA/ Wiz(near max AA)/Shm /Rog. All but the Wiz are CWTG, Wiz is Kissassist. We all have the top end player made items with some named pieces here and there.

In group we do 2-3mill DPS. Burn I've seen as high as 6.4mill, but 5+ is typical. My Shm is new and has no epic, the Rog is new and low on AAs. I have not tried the LS missions, but do have LS hunter and most of the quests done. I would like to try the missions, but I'm new to automation and worried my DPS is not high enough.

I do have Jann's veil and lots of trophies.

Are these enough details to get more specific information?
 
TJDixon2022 said:
OK, I'll be the first to add some details to see if that adds to the discussion. In November I was 3-boxing War/Enc/Mage/3 mercs. My team was doing around 700K dps total. Thats when I came here. Now I have

125 (all) WAR max AA/Enc Max AA/Mage max AA/ Wiz(near max AA)/Shm /Rog. All but the Wiz are CWTG, Wiz is Kissassist. We all have the top end player made items with some named pieces here and there.

In group we do 2-3mill DPS. Burn I've seen as high as 6.4mill, but 5+ is typical. My Shm is new and has no epic, the Rog is new and low on AAs. I have not tried the LS missions, but do have LS hunter and most of the quests done. I would like to try the missions, but I'm new to automation and worried my DPS is not high enough.

I do have Jann's veil and lots of trophies.

Are these enough details to get more specific information?
Click to expand...
Outside of the epic being super fast and easy for the shaman to get and adding a fairly decent amount of dps
This is a run with no deaths (fairly garbage group comp with 3 of the same melee class and no bard), and getting cracked achieve
1704311880067.png
There were no mummies and no aura from the slime
1704311924394.png
*Not posting spider due to the teleports and it just being the SK and healer damaging her
1704311986078.png
Healer and caster got the emote on Shalowain
1704312026144.png

This fight can be done lower DPS, you just have to be patient and do the mechanics, the different lems that have been made are all decent for surviving the music notes, it just takes some trial and error.

Hope this helps those questioning if they can do this mission, it just takes you losing a decent chunk of exp to figure out placements and such
 
Rorn said:
Outside of the epic being super fast and easy for the shaman to get and adding a fairly decent amount of dps
This is a run with no deaths (fairly garbage group comp with 3 of the same melee class and no bard), and getting cracked achieve
View attachment 55397
There were no mummies and no aura from the slime
View attachment 55398
*Not posting spider due to the teleports and it just being the SK and healer damaging her
View attachment 55399
Healer and caster got the emote on Shalowain
View attachment 55400

This fight can be done lower DPS, you just have to be patient and do the mechanics, the different lems that have been made are all decent for surviving the music notes, it just takes some trial and error.

Hope this helps those questioning if they can do this mission, it just takes you losing a decent chunk of exp to figure out placements and such
Click to expand...
Lol this looks almost exactly like my rando caster group i tested the lua on this morning. I will post exact numbers, but none of it crazy high DPS.
 
1704321102307.png


Here's a parse from Firethorn during FF mission just now. All are using CWTN plugins except bard, who's using Sic's bard Kiss.
Almost completely max AA. Almost max LS HDex augs. Mix of T3 NoS group and T2/T3 LS group gear with all T3 LS weapons. No SHM; I use a CLR in this configuration because I don't have rez stick on SHM and I like mid-combat rezzes when needed :)

Does this seem about right or am I way off the mark DPS-wise?
 
This is the mission minus the Captain Kar, due to reasons, with the same group I posted snips of the DPS in forge mission, 3 of the same melee class and wizard for dps, shaman for the epic. (this group is now half max AA, other half like 2/3s with similar gear to what you have with the exception of one being CoV raid gear)
1704321712491.png

This is the group on Firethorn
1704321806155.png

That far into the mission it is also hard to tell what your group has available burnwise but those numbers sans-shaman do not seem bad if just running cwtn and nothing crazy
 
eqsubi15 said:
What type 5's are y'all using for your Casters and Healers?
Click to expand...
HSta
Hylander said:
** classes and class synergies > all.
** bard vs enchanter is 30% higher DPS in almost all circumstances - for both melee and caster groups.
** Monks ADPS is bad, zerks and rangers are good.
** All melee love BeastLords.
** if you have a shaman in your group, EVERYONE melees (don't be sitting on a mount and twiddling your fingers, swing a weapon. Casters pull about 10-15% of their DPS from melee and melee procs with a shaman in group).
** wizards like having a mage in group, if you cast fire, then find things that focus fire. they also like having both bard and enchanter, but thats really a raid thing
** if you have casters find the spells that twincast (rank II is shorter cooldown than rank I, and rank III is shorter than rank II) or proc twincast.
** crit chance, crit damage and twincast - extend the duration of 100% crit chance, increase the dmg multipliers on crit damage and be twincasting as often as possible.

** per Dewey , level, spells and AA, then gear (and gear for your gear (augs))
** you have to be REALLY careful with the interaction between spells and AA each expac. DPS goes backwards, if you upgrade your spell but you don't have the associated complementary AA rank purchased.
** I level to new cap and only upgrade my spells when i have the AAs ready to spend on Synergy Focus (especially). Same with caster Robes, until you have the new expac robe then your new bolt or ethereal will not be focussed by the previous expac robe.
** Epics and synchronising bard + shaman epic is a good thing.
** if you don't have Rk. III of all your major melee disciplines, then get going and make it happen. House of Thule, COTF and Rain of Fear mostly, faction work and some proggy required. The progression will help towards your Heroic Fort AAs.

** any melee raid armor from EOK forwards has the same focus effect for arms and legs. the rest is just stats. ignore the stats and value the foci. you can make up the needed HPs/ACs elsewhere
** get the best ratio weps you can for your melee DPS classes
** get a raid 2hander for your casters, you get 2 proc augs in them. Also, turn your casters into proc pinatas, all those evolvers, fill your 18s and 19s with proccy augs.
** if your SK is using a shield, he's gay.

** get the important items - Circle of Power (everyone in your group, 18mins of uptime in every 30mins), Spirit Drinkers Coating (self healing). Trophy of Talendor
Click to expand...
i agree with all the casters meleeing. But be careful. During hero’s mission if casters have meleeon on it screws up sending the pets for eggs since they want to stick to MAs previous target (aka spider).
 
Rorn said:
This is the mission minus the Captain Kar, due to reasons, with the same group I posted snips of the DPS in forge mission, 3 of the same melee class and wizard for dps, shaman for the epic. (this group is now half max AA, other half like 2/3s with similar gear to what you have with the exception of one being CoV raid gear)
View attachment 55414

This is the group on Firethorn
View attachment 55415

That far into the mission it is also hard to tell what your group has available burnwise but those numbers sans-shaman do not seem bad if just running cwtn and nothing crazy
Click to expand...
How is your wiz DPS? Word on the street is they got a pretty big lift with LS.
 
1704381413650.png
Total HAF run (using the lua).

1704381556776.png
Slime.

1704381520753.png
Queen.
1704381583849.png
Lich, Mage was on union break (stuck in wall).

1704381642718.png

Shalowain, i noticed mage here and got her back lol.

So, what this shows is doesnt take killer dps, can do with 4 actually, and even i need to pay better attention to my char.
 
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