Question - Maximizing Group

[geEQ]

I have a couple of different groups whose effectiveness I would like to evaluate. These are two different 105 groups and i want to maximize each of the groups' various abilities with the other members of the group. How can I start collecting data? What plugins help me measure their effectiveness best?

If you have some suggestions for KA inis/shits etc., they could be helpful too. The current groupings are:
#1 SK, Ench, Clr, Mag, Wiz, Wiz
Solid group. They survive and perform well, but wondering if I can crank things up.

#2 Pal, Brd, Clr, Sham, Wiz, Mag
The dps boost I had hoped for from the bard and shaman on the mage pets just has not materialized. I keep trying to replace the wiz with another mag, but travel becomes a chore. Perhaps swap tanks, so #2 has a tank with a pet. Perhaps replace clr with a mag and keep wiz.

I know, I know, replace the mages and shaman with wizards, but that means a lot more work.

So back to the point, how can I truly measure their effectiveness?

 

[drcrimzon]

Parse them after killing for an extended period? Find an area with the same type mobs, and kill them over and over and over. Replace a character, or make some config changes, and rinse and repeat. In between analyze the log with a parser, and see what each change does to the overall parse.

 

[Dretski]

Scrap the shaman (which I find to be a slow and quite terrible class for botting unfortunately, unless you grind content trivial enough for not needing a cleric) and put a beastlord or another wizard in. Or actually, put the beastlord in group 1 and move another wiz to the bard group.

 

[drcrimzon]

Scrap the shaman (which I find to be a slow and quite terrible class for botting unfortunately, unless you grind content trivial enough for not needing a cleric) and put a beastlord or another wizard in. Or actually, put the beastlord in group 1 and move another wiz to the bard group.

I do agree with this. the best thing I have ever done was kick my shaman out of the group. Content went from being challenging to trivial.

 

[da Man]

I can speak from my experience, i keep my shm he is a requirement, and i never have a problem with anything groupable. I 1 group judicator, gonna try rolfren next, cant replace the buffs/ slow/ patch heals when grouping. This being said i play my war tank, ka and ac and razs nuke handles the rest of my toons. And pretty much all groupable content is not challenging anymore, almost like i have 5 other competent players in a group with me. Of course minus the group chat. My core group is war, shm, bard, cle, mage, wiz. War max aas, shm brd 10k aas, cleric 9k, mage & wiz 6k aas. All at 105 lvl. War prolly close to max gear (groupable).

 

[drcrimzon]

I can speak from my experience, i keep my shm he is a requirement, and i never have a problem with anything groupable. I 1 group judicator, gonna try rolfren next, cant replace the buffs/ slow/ patch heals when grouping. This being said i play my war tank, ka and ac and razs nuke handles the rest of my toons. And pretty much all groupable content is not challenging anymore, almost like i have 5 other competent players in a group with me. Of course minus the group chat. My core group is war, shm, bard, cle, mage, wiz. War max aas, shm brd 10k aas, cleric 9k, mage & wiz 6k aas. All at 105 lvl. War prolly close to max gear (groupable).

I'm not saying you can't do group content. I'm saying that slot is MUCH better suited to something else. A bard/enc can slow if you really want it. I dont even bother anymore because with SK/BRD/CLR/WIZ/WIZ/WIZ everything dies in 12 seconds or less. Everyone should play whatever they want, but this thread was geared toward most effectiveness.

 

[da Man]

It is effective, try judicator. See if he dies in 12 seconds, effective is in my case well rounded, roughly 20 sec kills and no problems with any namer ive faced. Quick is not always effective.

 

[Rustycat]

I thought the point of the thread was he wanted to tweak the groups he had so they were more effective, not to have to roll up a new toon and level it to replace one he already has? That's how I read it.

To that assumption, one thing I would do is swap the shaman from the one group to the mage of the other. This is regarding making the more effective in combat that is. Since a good portion of mage damage is from their pets, having them in the group with the bard will make the dmg increase. Your BRD should be spamming his buffs and group DS in this format and possibly the BRD slow only (so DS gets more dmg overtime). Also, with your tank in that group having a PAL with a CLR for heals, let your PAL do group patch heals which is a great way for him to control agro. You don't need a sham to patch as back up to the CLR. The output sum of the two groups would increase as long as your tanks are strong enough to not have mutliple patch heals on them just to keep up. This of course all goes back to balance of your moving about etc without a mage in the other group. I currently don't have a mage in any of my groups (although I'm working to change that currently) and don't feel like it's a problem with wiz or drd ports.

 

[Incognito]

I thought the point of the thread was he wanted to tweak the groups he had so they were more effective, not to have to roll up a new toon and level it to replace one he already has? That's how I read it.

MQ2 has ALWAYS been about lvling up new toons. Can you have enough? Of every class? On every server?

I currently don't have a mage in any of my groups (although I'm working to change that currently)

Case in point...

- - - Updated - - -

Aint patch day great?

 

[Jax]

Thoughts on adding a mage versus another wiz to this group:

SK, cleric, bard, wiz

Seems like the mage might bring enough utility to be worth the (minimal?) loss in DPS?

I've noticed my maxxed out J5 caster merc often times does DPS similar (not quite as much) as my wiz in group.

 

[Sum1]

I've been running with a 105 mage lately (shit gear) in my group. I've enjoyed having CoTH available to get my toons to the camp locations, and then wizzy exodus to get myself back to zone in. I think I'll stick with this setup and them swap people in and out as necessary. I actually moved from pulling with my bard to pulling with a chanter and just training the group lol.... it's been super fun to pull multiples and just lock them down as soon as they hit camp.

 

[geEQ]

I have a followup question on measuring DPS. Does the /timestamp mess up calculating the damage done. My sk appears to be topping the dps chart on a lot of fights. I am looking at gameparse and the mq2dpsadv plugin as my tools here. Is there something better to use?

 

[Wink-]

SK's can often do the most damage done if your other toons start a bit later.