Cleric DPS falling behind

[Bluelightt]

Post I quoted talked about being 1k DPS behind other classes in entry level HK gear. Now perhaps he meant entry level ID gear, which I wouldn't know about because I'm not there yet. But if you're talking enough gear to do HK (which is what I assumed), then as I said it's an exaggeration to the point of fallacy given - as you rightly say above - the way we scale.

Entry level ID gear yes we are about 1k behind mages, at least Defilemancer played properly. I don't think it gets any better with more ID gear either, seems to be about the same behind from the parses i've seen. Entry level HK you might not be as far behind...maybe only 500 or so, you could probably get by with Druid fairly well actually at lower end so its not very reliant on gear at all.

[Bowler Hat]

Post I quoted talked about being 1k DPS behind other classes in entry level HK gear. Now perhaps he meant entry level ID gear, which I wouldn't know about because I'm not there yet. But if you're talking enough gear to do HK (which is what I assumed), then as I said it's an exaggeration to the point of fallacy given - as you rightly say above - the way we scale.

It would make things a lot easier to thread if you quoted correctly and didn't strip the attribution and corresponding link to the snippet in question.

My response was to your claim that the below was an "exaggeration-and-a-half" when patently it is not. If your intention was to focus solely on the 1k DPS claim then you really should have made that much clearer. As it stands, it's a nice round number that serves to illustrate the point. It is not wildly inaccurate. Perhaps you would prefer a percentage based comparison instead?

The thrust of the argument below is that you aren't going to be picked up as a cleric DPS raider unless you significantly outgear the raid.

The only way a cleric can get DPS slots in a raiding guild is if they are at the top of gear list. A new cleric with entry lvl HK gear is an easy 1k less DPS than an entry war or rog so yah good luck. At best you might get a spot as a icar dps/raid heal.

If your lucky enough to find a guild that is willing to carry you then yes you could dps.

[Shieldy]

am i the only person that thinks that inquisitor is fine? its a ranged spec thats easy as heck to play that has some pretty high hitting spells that has a purge and a huge raid buff in clinging spirits as well as other nice utility skills. it can also parse fairly well if it gets lucky with crits, bod procs and SH crystal procs.

personally i think inquisitor is right on, i mean you dont see warriors complaining that beastmaster is lower dps than pyrolocks or bloodstalkers. beastmasters provide the raid with a 7% damage buff btw as well as other nice buffs for smaller groups just like inquisitor.

the real problem is that we lack a premeir dps spec, at least one thats viable to use. pyrolock, champ, bloodstalker, ranger, paragon, these are the top specs in the game and none of them provide much in the way of utility or buffs. they are pure dps specs that put out top tier dps and if you have a pure dps slot, you want one of them in it.

inquisitor will always get a slot even if it is 500-1k dps off what tohers can do, and thats because its valuable to the raid. shaman is the soul that needs to be fixed, it lacks the buffs of inquis or druid and the utility and aoe of cab. its a pure dps soul and needs to be made into a premeir dps soul.

[Iri]

am i the only person that thinks that inquisitor is fine? its a ranged spec thats easy as heck to play that has some pretty high hitting spells that has a purge and a huge raid buff in clinging spirits as well as other nice utility skills. it can also parse fairly well if it gets lucky with crits, bod procs and SH crystal procs.

personally i think inquisitor is right on, i mean you dont see warriors complaining that beastmaster is lower dps than pyrolocks or bloodstalkers. beastmasters provide the raid with a 7% damage buff btw as well as other nice buffs for smaller groups just like inquisitor.

the real problem is that we lack a premeir dps spec, at least one thats viable to use. pyrolock, champ, bloodstalker, ranger, paragon, these are the top specs in the game and none of them provide much in the way of utility or buffs. they are pure dps specs that put out top tier dps and if you have a pure dps slot, you want one of them in it.

inquisitor will always get a slot even if it is 500-1k dps off what tohers can do, and thats because its valuable to the raid. shaman is the soul that needs to be fixed, it lacks the buffs of inquis or druid and the utility and aoe of cab. its a pure dps soul and needs to be made into a premeir dps soul.

See, here's the thing: while the existence of inquisicar hybrid healers means you're wrong about the value of inquisitor dps, you're right about the need for a premier dps spec. That's exactly what people are talking about... but they're ignoring the fact that we already have one. But people struggle to pull off BnJ successfully, so they like to pretend it doesn't exist.

My own problem is that I hate the concept of BnJ. It's a caster rotation played at melee to abuse a melee oGCD ability. That's... awful. But you can't argue with the fact that BnJ is, in fact, a premier dps spec, with limited use, no utility, and the ability to pull numbers competitive with almost anything else in the game on specific fights. If there is actually a complaint regarding the functional use of BnJ, it has nothing to do with BnJ... it's a complaint about how the premier dps specs for certain other callings are much more universally functional. (*cough*defilemancer*cough*) But as far as dps ceilings, we're right there with everyone else... if you took a twenty-man raid and stood them around the Sanctum dummy for a five minute parse, BnJ would be competitive with anything else in the game for top dps.

[Ivengar]

am i the only person that thinks that inquisitor is fine? its a ranged spec thats easy as heck to play that has some pretty high hitting spells that has a purge and a huge raid buff in clinging spirits as well as other nice utility skills. it can also parse fairly well if it gets lucky with crits, bod procs and SH crystal procs.

personally i think inquisitor is right on, i mean you dont see warriors complaining that beastmaster is lower dps than pyrolocks or bloodstalkers. beastmasters provide the raid with a 7% damage buff btw as well as other nice buffs for smaller groups just like inquisitor.

the real problem is that we lack a premeir dps spec, at least one thats viable to use. pyrolock, champ, bloodstalker, ranger, paragon, these are the top specs in the game and none of them provide much in the way of utility or buffs. they are pure dps specs that put out top tier dps and if you have a pure dps slot, you want one of them in it.

inquisitor will always get a slot even if it is 500-1k dps off what tohers can do, and thats because its valuable to the raid. shaman is the soul that needs to be fixed, it lacks the buffs of inquis or druid and the utility and aoe of cab. its a pure dps soul and needs to be made into a premeir dps soul.

You are right as for how useful Inquisitor is and it should always have a raid spot as either stright up DPS or as an ICAR but the problem is as you already said is that we dont have a good DPS spec. All of our mele ones suck and AOE one has so poor ST dps that it can only be used on some trash in HK and 1 fight in HK.

Our best DPS spec is limited to fights where you dont switch targets often and dont move much, which are more than half the boss fights in the game. So right now our BEST DPS spec is Inquisitor and even that is miles behind other classes.

So yes, if they were to fix Cab and fix all our mele dps specs then they would not need to up Inq damage too much but even that said it could still use a bit of a boost because it is that far behind.

[Ivengar]

we're right there with everyone else... if you took a twenty-man raid and stood them around the Sanctum dummy for a five minute parse, BnJ would be competitive with anything else in the game for top dps.

Yah but raids don't happen on the dummies all that often, they happen in HK/ID/GSP/ROS ect.

Once you start putting up raid buffs/debuffs our DPS falls off (even JnB) due to the poor scaleing of our class. THEN as you pointed out, you add in raid mechanics and we drop even more.

[The Witchking]

I'll chime in and agree what while i think Inquisitor is fine, i'm in the camp that believes that just because we have an option to hybrid, heal or tank, doesnt mean our pure dps should be lower. If i spend 66 points into a DPS spec - i should be on par with other classes with the same gear level - just as Warriors can hybrid as well as Mages. Trion did a great job by implementing the Meins which help to alleviate this problem to an extent and have come pretty close to where they need to be.

I feel like, in a vaccuum, Inquisitor DPS is an excellent spec (save for having to spend 10pts in a healing soul to get it). It's engaging to play, albeit easy as well, but the rewards are pretty high. Inquisitor is perfectly suited to a raid environment where you can worry less about your rotation and more about doing the fight correctly.

I'll close by saying that i did not expect changes in 1.9 and i sincerely believe that Clerics are fine as they are until Storm Legion. We have a choice in playstyle, complicated high risk/high reward specs, solid healing and tanking abilities and one of the best support heal options in the game with multiple specs to provide it (shamicar, cabicar, inquisicar, senticar etc etc). Cleric, believe it or not, is one of those classes where it's easy to learn but difficult to master. Maybe it's the simplicity and people are just over thinking it... or perhaps it's just how well the abilities scale with Spell Power. Either way, if you're a good player you can definitely make a Cleric work.

[Iri]

Yah but raids don't happen on the dummies all that often, they happen in HK/ID/GSP/ROS ect.

Once you start putting up raid buffs/debuffs our DPS falls off (even JnB) due to the poor scaleing of our class. THEN as you pointed out, you add in raid mechanics and we drop even more.

You kind of missed the point of a dummy raid... the purest possible dps test is a 20-man raid, with full raid consumables and all buffs and debuffs, hitting the dummy. That's why Murd and Sicaron were the dps comparison bosses in HK and why Ituziel is the dps comparison boss in ID... they're the closest thing to standing shooting a dummy.

And you've actually got the raid buffs/debuffs scenario completely backwards... JnB has huge scaling, to the point that you can't pull much better dps in a solo parse with JnB than you can with 51 Inq, but JnB pulls much stronger dps in a raid if properly executed.

[Lalothen]

It would make things a lot easier to thread if you quoted correctly and didn't strip the attribution and corresponding link to the snippet in question.

What is incorrect about that quote? What attribution has been stripped? Go read the actual post for yourself - it's Ivengar responding to a newer player worried about his chances of getting into raiding as a DPS. Ivengar's post implies strongly he's going to be SoL from day one, which is a gross exaggeration.

My response was to your claim that the below was an "exaggeration-and-a-half" when patently it is not. If your intention was to focus solely on the 1k DPS claim then you really should have made that much clearer. As it stands, it's a nice round number that serves to illustrate the point. It is not wildly inaccurate. Perhaps you would prefer a percentage based comparison instead?

It's a wild exaggeration unless you're an ID-level progression raider - refer back to the above.

The thrust of the argument below is that you aren't going to be picked up as a cleric DPS raider unless you significantly outgear the raid.

I'm well aware of the thrust of the general argument in this thread and agree with the fact that - at end level in progression raiding, Cleric DPS is clearly behind. I also agree that progression raiders should be viewed as the benchmark for determining class balance, because they attempt to operate their characters at maximum potential and at such a level all callings should be similar. But as you clearly demonstrate, progression raiders as ever seem to forget that the other 95% of the playerbase even exists. My point is that you WILL be picked up as a Cleric DPS in more or less any guild that's not a pushy progression raiding guild, BECAUSE Cleric DPS outside of said guilds and at lower raiding levels, is rarely perceived to be far behind the other classes at all. Hence his statement to that newer player is an "exaggeration-and-a-half".

Does anything about what I'm saying as yet remain even remotely unclear?

[Bowler Hat]

What is incorrect about that quote? What attribution has been stripped? Go read the actual post for yourself - it's Ivengar responding to a newer player worried about his chances of getting into raiding as a DPS. Ivengar's post implies strongly he's going to be SoL from day one, which is a gross exaggeration.

Look at your post. Look at the white quote block in your post. Now look at any other post, do you see that atribution line at the top of the quote box? If you click the icon to the right of the attribution you'll jump straight to the post being quoted.

You are stripping the attribution making it impossible to determine who you are quoting.

lrn2forumpost

[vpyr]

To be honest, imo, we have two dps specs which can be good.

Top -> Jolt'n'Bolt
2nd -> Fae Jolt

Both are Melee, but you can get good dps from them.

[Idriveadodgestratus]

Cleric deeps are still ok. I think it's more about the player on this one. I enjoy Druid and Shaman more than Inq but, I do Inq to pay the bills, so to speak. Hybrid Clerics all suck. Let's not kid ourselves, raids would rather have a Bard or Archon or even a "BuffMaster" than our lame offheals.

I think you may just be noticing the mean truth about classes in Rift: One spec for each class will *consistently* top the relative charts, regardless of skill, gear or theo~rift~y - everything else settles for improved utility....real or imagined.

I would like to see something like the warrior that increases per point in tree in order to give the souls more definition. You can put 32 points in a tree and be gimped to hell as a cleric if you spec em slightly wrong. As a warrior, as long as you have your +3% per point covered, your derps are pretty much guaranteed regardless of how you spec your other points.

[Lalothen]

You are stripping the attribution making it impossible to determine who you are quoting.

lrn2forumpost

You found and regurgitated the quote easily enough.

Lrn2stopnitpickingforthesakeofscoringamorphousforu mpoints.

[wayne62682]

So what I'm gathering is that yes Inquisitor is lower DPS than a Mage, but it doesn't really matter unless perhaps you're pushing ID progression; so for a newbie like me that hasn't even done a T1 raid (just a few raid rifts so far) it's not a big deal. I've tried BnJ very briefly, and I do have a "Fae Jolt" spec that I use from time to time, but I don't like either of them that much and I like the simplicity of 51 Inquisitor (and the Inquisicar variant which I also have just in case).

[Ahov]

Yah but raids don't happen on the dummies all that often, they happen in HK/ID/GSP/ROS ect.

Once you start putting up raid buffs/debuffs our DPS falls off (even JnB) due to the poor scaleing of our class. THEN as you pointed out, you add in raid mechanics and we drop even more.

Do you not realize JnB has a 210% crit modifier? No other class even comes close, so how can you possibly say we don't scale well with raid buffs?

The only spec that doesn't scale properly with raid buffs is Druid, due to the pet not picking up the buffs at all.

JnB's limitations are based on it being a melee caster spec. It's suitable for more fights than people give credit, though. When learning a fight, yes, you may want to just go 51inq and be a bit "safer" but if you gave it a chance on any given ID fight, you'd probably parse higher.