Thread: lame

so i was talkin with chily, prolly the best champ on our server (brandywine) and he told me he parses 200k damage against a training dummy in galtrev, he asked for a parse against malarick, a fairly good rk on our server with top gear and a large moors rep, and malarick got 80k. The parses were for a minute. chily said rk's weren't proper dps anymore..... i gotta say, if this is true he may have a point.

I think Chily is right. Champs are outdoing RK's by a LONG shot. Burglars too. I'll find a screenie when I get home to be sure. I have a few posted here in the forums, but they are hosted on Google+. Google+ is blocked at work.

I got just under 100k, my RK is not the best. A RK with a higher crit chance & Dev relics might me able to get 120, maybe higher.

Originally Posted by Neen_Eldar

I got just under 100k, my RK is not the best. A RK with a higher crit chance & Dev relics might me able to get 120, maybe higher...

...but nowhere near 200k.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

...but nowhere near 200k.

Just reading through this thread makes me sick. Burgs parsing 1700 on a dummy? Champs complaining if it's not over 2000? Whiny kids. I like to think I'm a fairly well-geared RK, and I can barely top 1100.

I said it here and I'll say it again. We got nerfed (I mean "evolved around") in update 6, and it hasn't gotten much better since. Any tidbits of the Rohan expansion you can give us to assuage us, Zombie? Anything I can do to help? (And before you ask, "Stop Complaining" is not what I mean by "help".)

Originally Posted by loki84

[...] he told me he parses 200k damage against a training dummy in galtrev
[...]The parses were for a minute.

3 333 DPS? I'm not buying that on his word, tbh. Not without outside help.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Just reading through this thread makes me sick. Burgs parsing 1700 on a dummy? Champs complaining if it's not over 2000? Whiny kids. I like to think I'm a fairly well-geared RK, and I can barely top 1100.

I said it here and I'll say it again. We got nerfed (I mean "evolved around") in update 6, and it hasn't gotten much better since. Any tidbits of the Rohan expansion you can give us to assuage us, Zombie? Anything I can do to help? (And before you ask, "Stop Complaining" is not what I mean by "help".)

I don't think leaving iEoF as it was would have made us very OP. Quite balanced I would call it. I'll agree that we're not the best and we struggle to keep up with other classes. We can still hold our own in raids, tho (Hmm, where have I heard that line before?).

Galtrev dummies stand pretty close to each other. Smart positioning would make AoE hit multiple dummies. I'm not saying that this is what they did but ... If that AoE also applies bleeds ...

W. regards to iEoF: Do the maths for Valars sake! The average DPS increase is NOT THAT BIG! Sure, in the sprint it made a heck of a difference as a starter but in sustained mode it gave about 80DPS I think. In fact, the 3-set ToO bonus gives more than what iEoF did.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

W. regards to iEoF: Do the maths for Valars sake! The average DPS increase is NOT THAT BIG! Sure, in the sprint it made a heck of a difference as a starter but in sustained mode it gave about 80DPS I think. In fact, the 3-set ToO bonus gives more than what iEoF did.

Of course the 3-set bonus yields more.
But when we're discussing 1-minute parses like this or DPS-races in ToO, that "sprint" or burst is particularily useful and makes up for quite a bit of your DPS. And fire-rks have never been known for their speed right of the bat, either, which makes it's removal rather detrimental to our performance.

Go take a look at some F&F challenge mode videos. 650k worth of giant morale plus a 150k bubble and 1 36k grim that must die in 59 seconds. Who the heck cares if your sustained DPS is good then?

Or better yet, show me an RK parse on a single target of over 3k DPS.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

I don't think leaving iEoF as it was would have made us very OP. Quite balanced I would call it. I'll agree that we're not the best and we struggle to keep up with other classes. We can still hold our own in raids, tho (Hmm, where have I heard that line before?).

I never liked Essay of Fire OR its improved version. Essay of Fire was originally conceived as a response to the problem of bosses frequently wiping DoT's during scripted events. Tiering WoF back up and reapplying all the other DoT's was a pain in the @ss. Those problems have since been (mostly) resolved though. Modern bosses don't wipe DoT's during scripted events. They don't do any damage while they're there, but at least they aren't immediately wiped away. Check the Orthanc Acid boss for an example. It would be nice to keep around as a "just in case" skill, but it should be relegated to situational use, i.e., reapplying DoT's that get wiped. Or for people who have a strategy that involves starting out with T3 Writ of Fire, rather than using my "tier up while attuning" method.

The OLD Improved Essay of Fire was a pathetic excuse for a skill upgrade. It turned Fire RK's into Fiery Ridicule spambots. No thanks. If I wanted to spam something, I'd play lightning and spam Ceaseless Argument. The "next skill" version instead of "5 seconds" is meh, at best. None of the inductions for the Fire skills are long enough to cry about anymore. It's another example of an "improvement" that no one asked for, was OP when implemented, and nerfed to nearly-useless status. Might as well not have even implemented it.

We DO need some DPS love, but I don't think IEoF is the reason we're in the DPS sh*thouse. What I TRULY think is going on is that there is some political issue at Turbine production. I think the dev's are having the same debates that we are: How should a RK perform next to a hunter? A Minstrel? I also think that, along with the dissention as to exactly how well a RK should perform, there aren't enough developers to keep up with 9 classes. So we have developers who are tasked with keeping several classes updated. And I think Zombie is one of those developers who is so overwhelmed with updates to all the different classes that the revamps that manage to get implemented are shoddy, buggy, and aren't really very good even when WAI.

Zombie, if you want some conceptual help, you know how to find me. In fact, you can find most of what I would tell you in these forums.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

Or better yet, show me an RK parse on a single target of over 3k DPS.

Never in my history of playing a RK have I ever hit that much DPS.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Never in my history of playing a RK have I ever hit that much DPS.

Well, in raids champions seem able to. Same with burgs.

Burst DPS fights, of course, but that's the new flavour for instance devs.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

It turned Fire RK's into Fiery Ridicule spambots. No thanks.

And how much has that changed now? FR still completely dominates the rotation, with the exception of having to refresh some dots and throw EoF now and again. You still end up using FR 5 times more than any other skill.

Well, a second way to increase our DPS: Let our the dots actually devastate. Atm, the combat log reports they aren't. And wasn't SW supposed to be able to crit now? Well, it doesn't.

given the right crits and rk's can do good dps (lightning anyways) but it is just ridiculous how insane dps champs have and STILL have seemingly 600 bubbles and self heals. gotta love being godmode

RKs want more dps?

Originally Posted by Witch0King

RKs want more dps?

Troll
There's one in every thread

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

And how much has that changed now? FR still completely dominates the rotation, with the exception of having to refresh some dots and throw EoF now and again. You still end up using FR 5 times more than any other skill.

I agree, I use it quite frequently. I squeeze it in when I don't need to use any other skill (when all DoT's are ticking and don't need to be refreshed, or when other things are on cooldown). But the old IEoF made it even MORE spammy. I hated how the Fire RK degenerated into "IEoF, FR, FR, FR, FR, FR... IEoF again, FR, FR, FR, FR...." Where is the finesse in that? Where's the skill? The RK USED to be an "advanced" class. It's been demoted to "Moderate" already, as it is now. How much lower should we let it go? How much easier do we want it?

"Spam this skill until you win." Not my cup o' tea. I want to see some challenge in this class, and I want to be rewarded with good DPS... not this 1100/1200 junk.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

I agree, I use it quite frequently. I squeeze it in when I don't need to use any other skill (when all DoT's are ticking and don't need to be refreshed, or when other things are on cooldown). But the old IEoF made it even MORE spammy. I hated how the Fire RK degenerated into "IEoF, FR, FR, FR, FR, FR... IEoF again, FR, FR, FR, FR...." Where is the finesse in that? Where's the skill? The RK USED to be an "advanced" class. It's been demoted to "Moderate" already, as it is now. How much lower should we let it go? How much easier do we want it?

"Spam this skill until you win." Not my cup o' tea. I want to see some challenge in this class, and I want to be rewarded with good DPS... not this 1100/1200 junk.

There was no skill involved in fire dps then, nor is there now.
Apart from the rather limited usage of Scathing Mockery, the fire line has only 5 useful skills:
2 of which are non-spammable and are skills you just use whenever they are up.
Another 2 you just refresh whenever it's needed.
And the last one is what you use in between to pass the time.
Fun? Challenging? No, you could seriously macro it if you wanted to, because that's how straight forward it is.
As far as I am concerned, we've just moved from a boring skill rotation to another. But knowing Turbine, we'll be stuck with this for quite some time, so I want some tweaks to at least make it perform well.

And btw, the only reason the class is labelled moderate is because it's light armour so another brain cell must be engaged to figure out how to not die.

lol at this thread, I don't know where to start.

Both of the 3k parses linked are raid groups with 4 burglars. Champ posted 1830 self-buffed, with controlled burn. Burglar posted 2044 from behind the dummy. I don't think many (?) RKs are posting 2k dummy parses self-buffed, but there is no way our DPS is being out-stripped by 2k in raid situations. Champs and burgs w/ positional, maybe hunters with dev potions, are the only classes that compare to the multiplicative dmg buffs (storm) RKs get. Fire RKs still need some love, it isn't fun or competitive. As Ruintheliel said, DoTs can't dev & SW doesn't crit... :\

The fact is, this whole thread stemmed from "my friend posted 3,333 DPS on a champ, and the RK he asked to parse for comparison did 1,333 DPS." No screenshots, no videos, no real evidence; hearsay at best. Just sayin.

There is an update coming in ~2 months. Instead of qq'n and crying that melee dps classes in raids with 4 burgs parse such crazy numbers compared to our own personal experiences in mixed-composition groups, maybe make a thread and try to identify the actual holes & flaws in RK DPS (both lines) from a first and third person perspective (ie, how we build/gear/skill rotations AND the factors that other classes present in a group setting).

Just kidding, RK forums is always doom&gloom for 2 months before an expansion. I'll find my way out of this thread and let you all have fun.

at 65 it was clearly established that hunters and rk's were the TOP dps in the game on single targets, champs were undisputed as the AoE dps class. now at 75 it is clearly known that champs and hunters both EASILY outperform rk's as well as burgs, it truly is sad. i can't say the dps is bad, but it is inferior and i mean c'mon look at our consumable.... cast scathing mockery out of attunement... wth, zombie have you even seen the DEVASTATE POTS other classes get? I refuse to let runekeeper go to the dogs, is it your plan to eventually eliminate the class by making it inferior to every other class?

and right now i'm seeing a bigger increment in the difference between squishies and non-squishies approaching with RoR, we can't full heal ourselves the way mini's can while dpsing, and lack the ability to block. so our best hope is to dps stuff before we die, except every other dps class and even some that aren't hit harder. i know we can kite, but we don't have stun immune zombie, a simple slow, stun, knockdown, silence, disarm, whatever.... and we get killed, because we are nearly dead by the time we can hit back and even then we still have to build attunement.

this is fine and all but i'd like to not have other classes smugly insulting the class i love and put years of my life into, especially when they have a point.

Originally Posted by stock

The fact is, this whole thread stemmed from "my friend posted 3,333 DPS on a champ, and the RK he asked to parse for comparison did 1,333 DPS." No screenshots, no videos, no real evidence; hearsay at best. Just sayin.

Yes, it's BS without any proof. However, the thread went on because there is some truth to it. See below.

Originally Posted by stock

Both of the 3k parses linked are raid groups with 4 burglars. Champ posted 1830 self-buffed, with controlled burn. Burglar posted 2044 from behind the dummy. I don't think many (?) RKs are posting 2k dummy parses self-buffed, but there is no way our DPS is being out-stripped by 2k in raid situations. Champs and burgs w/ positional, maybe hunters with dev potions, are the only classes that compare to the multiplicative dmg buffs (storm) RKs get. Fire RKs still need some love, it isn't fun or competitive. As Ruintheliel said, DoTs can't dev & SW doesn't crit... :\

There is an update coming in ~2 months. Instead of qq'n and crying that melee dps classes in raids with 4 burgs parse such crazy numbers compared to our own personal experiences in mixed-composition groups, maybe make a thread and try to identify the actual holes & flaws in RK DPS (both lines) from a first and third person perspective (ie, how we build/gear/skill rotations AND the factors that other classes present in a group setting).

And here's my thinking about it:
How much are RKs doing with that kind of buffs/debuffs about? Can we compare to these DPS monsters? I've never seen any evidence that we can... Show me a lightning and a fire parse that can compare to the parses I linked to and I'll shut up.

Originally Posted by stock

Just kidding, RK forums is always doom&gloom for 2 months before an expansion. I'll find my way out of this thread and let you all have fun.

Yeah, I'm back here again, just like I was last year before RoI. No coincidence, I'm afraid - stems from a little phenomena known as "talkative Palantir players". Funny thing is that, most of the QQ that was before RoI actually turned out to be reasonable in the end.
- Healing RKs were left behind in the buffing/debuffing department until update 6.
- Wardens got shafted with the mitigations changes.
- Champions are still fervour tanking bosses.
"Let's wait and see" hasn't exactly yielded great results, has it now, which is obviously because Turbine is completely out of touch with the classes and are largely unable to predict the outcome of their larger changes to the game. Remember Guardians and Moria?

Funny thing is that, ZC has on a couple of occasions stated that precisely burgs are not supposed to be able to have the same DPS as true DPS classes, because of their utility. Here's one such statement.
Yet, what happened after update 6? No class can touch the ST DPS of a burg. Unrivaled kings of damage.

So yeah, I don't have much faith in Turbine and balancing PvE. Ask creeps what they think of balancing PvMP.
Hence, I'm here QQ'ing.

The highest I have seen on those linked threads were 3.2k dps on acid (zerg tactic with 4 burglars in cbr). The highest I have parsed on that boss was 2.7k with 3 burglars in fire spec. Now I am sure a lightning RK given the limited time of 1m30s can parse about 3.5k with some lucky crits here and there, not to mention PI bonus will be active for 17% of the fight, which is epic win for a lightning RK.

My personal best on a training dummy was 2.6k over 15s with preparation. It would probably drop to about 2.2k sustained if did not reset my dots, which is actually higher than what the champs in the posted threads have managed.

They might have nerfed RKs, but it is definitely not as dramatic as the scare mongers in this thread like to frame it. If your lightning/fire dps is bad then your skills are poor or your gear is poor - simple as.

The real problem is a lot people do not see the value of a RK as DPS nor Healer so most RKs end up as 2nd alt and naturally cannot match a main champ's DPS - NO MYSTERIES THERE!

And just about the fire line being ezmode, sigh! At least if you compare it to lightning it is a billion times more interesting, 3 CA fore every 1 SS - same thing just instant cast.

Originally Posted by Nokor

The highest I have seen on those linked threads were 3.2k dps on acid (zerg tactic with 4 burglars in cbr). The highest I have parsed on that boss was 2.7k with 3 burglars in fire spec. Now I am sure a lightning RK given the limited time of 1m30s can parse about 3.5k with some lucky crits here and there, not to mention PI bonus will be active for 17% of the fight, which is epic win for a lightning RK.

My personal best on a training dummy was 2.6k over 15s with preparation. It would probably drop to about 2.2k sustained if did not reset my dots, which is actually higher than what the champs in the posted threads have managed.

Show us a screenshot then. I don't doubt 2,7k being possible, but we also have this champ claiming he does 3,3k on a dummy without any proof being shown for it, so...

Secondly, even with another burg, you'd still not pass 3k, as far as I can tell.

Originally Posted by Nokor

They might have nerfed RKs, but it is definitely not as dramatic as the scare mongers in this thread like to frame it. If your lightning/fire dps is bad then your skills are poor or your gear is poor - simple as.

The real problem is a lot people do not see the value of a RK as DPS nor Healer so most RKs end up as 2nd alt and naturally cannot match a main champ's DPS - NO MYSTERIES THERE!

Thanks for your insults, but my sustained DPS in fire is rather decent, I would say. I do beyond 2k on Shadow when I'm on the boss, depending on how many adds I have to help with. And yes, I can show a screenie if you really want to see it.

It's the burst and the initial DPS that's the problem with fire. SS from Stealth, Swift-bow/Pen-shot and Battle-frenzy takes care of that for the other classes, as well as consumables. We have... iEoF? Enamel?

Originally Posted by Nokor

And just about the fire line being ezmode, sigh! At least if you compare it to lightning it is a billion times more interesting, 3 CA fore every 1 SS - same thing just instant cast.

I really don't see how the lightning rotations being boring makes fire suddenly any more interesting. Weak argument.

I'm saying Fire is out of touch with the content. We're not fighting stationairy Rift-mobs anymore.
When Lightning becomes more suitable for sustained DPS in RoR, I say Fire should get more burst and initial damage as well.

2.47k DPS in this one.

As for lightning vs. fire in the respect of the rotation you should really read on. I go on to say "same thing just instant cast.". So I am not making any argument, well I am merely pointing out the flaw of claiming FR spam is dull as lightning is just CA spam.

With another burglar you would get 6% more crit and 0.625% more inc. dmg. Fire would not reach that high off it nor have i stated so. On the other hand I think a lightning RK easily could considering the duration of the fight and the burst dmg with and without PI buff.

Ehm? Which fight can you not stand still in most of the time or suit the fight so when you do move you tier up wof and mf?

I must admit the start point of all boss fights for a RK is really dull. I would like a skill similar to WRDs that would allow you to use skills that allows you to tier up buff ooc.

Originally Posted by Nokor

Ehm? Which fight can you not stand still in most of the time or suit the fight so when you do move you tier up wof and mf?

I must admit the start point of all boss fights for a RK is really dull. I would like a skill similar to WRDs that would allow you to use skills that allows you to tier up buff ooc.

Sorry, was being unclear there. I mean that the Rift is much closer to the old tank-and-spank idea where Fire would shine due to the length of the fight and lack of change in the fight. Newer raids are much more dynamic and fast paced. Fire seems designed to work in the former.

I like your idea on ooc preparations. That alone would increase our DPS substantially on these shorter DPS races.

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

Galtrev dummies stand pretty close to each other. Smart positioning would make AoE hit multiple dummies. I'm not saying that this is what they did but ... If that AoE also applies bleeds ....

Most Champs who post parses on the forums are very aware of how close the dummies are and position themselves to only hit one. Since they are single target parses, not much AoE is used other than possibly Blade Wall or traited Swift strike which both are very small ranges (5m & 2.5m). Champs will also use a traited Rend for the armour reduction. If the bleed from Rend gets on another dummy, it will not a difference in the DPS since the bleed is worthlessly small at this level.

TLDR: Real Champ parses do not AoE multiple dummies

Back on topic, I think with the stat caps gone, any class that uses agility as their main stat will out DPS all other classes on a single target because of the crit percentages.

Originally Posted by Thorcar

Back on topic, I think with the stat caps gone, any class that uses agility as their main stat will out DPS all other classes on a single target because of the crit percentages.

Theoretically, this is true. However, I think Hunters have been balanced to accommodate for this. Not sure about Burgs though. My understanding is that Burgs do melee damage, so Might is as important as Agi. Burgs who stack Agi might be seeing some "unexpected evolution" with respect to their DPS. Makes me wonder if stacking Fate for RK's would be viable.

Which does bring up another issue: Itemization. There simply isn't as much gear to stack Fate/Crit as there is to stack Will. Not that stacking Fate is necessarily a good idea, but if an adventurous RK WANTED to, it would be very difficult.

And that brings up yet another issue: Gear-dependent stats. I understand that gear should make for "custom" versions of different classes, but jeez, our stats are around 50% gear! I remember a time when you chose your armor for, you know, armor value. But stats have overgrown them so much that I don't even look at the armor value anymore. I don't remember the last time I actually considered armor value of armor! Stats used to be a nice bonus to what was otherwise a piece of defensive gear. Now, armor is just a stat-holder. its armor value might as well be 0; I would barely notice. Come to think of it, most of my mitigation comes from my weapons (relics), jewelry, and virtues.... O.o Does anyone else see the weirdness in that?.

Ok, back to the topic at hand: rotations, and boredom. Sure, we can all get into a steady rhythm and spam the same ol' skills over and over. But that won't result in the best DPS. Well, it SHOULDN'T result in the best DPS, which is probably why IEoF was nerfed (moreover, should never have been created). The point of Fire DPS is to maintain DoT's. So that should be the challenge: maintaining as many DoT's for as long as possible. So the cooldowns, inductions, and durations of Fire skills should complement each other. Same for lightning. Sure, you can trait Harsh Debate and then spam CA until the buff comes up, then hit EC. But that shouldn't give you the biggest bang. The biggest bang should come when you have the Charged buff, when Thunderous Words and Harsh Debate are both up, the Perfect Imagery crit buff is up, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I haven't though of because I haven't played lightning in 2 forevers. For the most part, this is actually how Lightning works, which is great. That's half the reason Kalymnor (and a few others too) are such good RK's. Fire, on the other hand, is a wreck. Nothing fits with anything else, there's no timing, no synchronization. Hodge-podge afterthought of a DPS line.

In that vein, it should be fairly difficult to maintain every Fire DoT on the target. Once Writ of Fire and Mystifying are up, they can be forgotten about for a little bit. The only things left are Essence, Smouldering, and FR. Essence and Smouldering on cooldown? FR, maybe Fall to Flame, and maybe Scathing Mockery, if AOE is appropriate. That's WHY we end up spamming FR. Maybe the duration of Writ of Fire and Mystifying Flame can be compressed: Same number of DoT ticks, just ticking faster, reaching the end faster. DPS for those skills could THEORETICALLY be doubled (resolving the RK vs. Champ DPS issue), as long as the RK was skilled enough to keep them both going.

And for the love of Eru, put the initial tick back on Mystifying Flame, and just put a 1 sec animation on it. Or change the legacy to leave a 1 sec. cooldown on it. Or several other things besides remove the initial hit. It's just silly to apply a DoT that doesn't have an initial tick. Not game breaking, and I won't harp on it much, but it's just O.o

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Theoretically, this is true. However, I think Hunters have been balanced to accommodate for this. Not sure about Burgs though. My understanding is that Burgs do melee damage, so Might is as important as Agi. Burgs who stack Agi might be seeing some "unexpected evolution" with respect to their DPS. Makes me wonder if stacking Fate for RK's would be viable.

Burgs get Physical mastery from agility, actually. Might means no more to them than it does to us RKs.

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Which does bring up another issue: Itemization. There simply isn't as much gear to stack Fate/Crit as there is to stack Will. Not that stacking Fate is necessarily a good idea, but if an adventurous RK WANTED to, it would be very difficult.

And that brings up yet another issue: Gear-dependent stats. I understand that gear should make for "custom" versions of different classes, but jeez, our stats are around 50% gear! I remember a time when you chose your armor for, you know, armor value. But stats have overgrown them so much that I don't even look at the armor value anymore. I don't remember the last time I actually considered armor value of armor! Stats used to be a nice bonus to what was otherwise a piece of defensive gear. Now, armor is just a stat-holder. its armor value might as well be 0; I would barely notice. Come to think of it, most of my mitigation comes from my weapons (relics), jewelry, and virtues.... O.o Does anyone else see the weirdness in that?.

Turbine painted themselves in a corner by attaching crit to Agility as well as mastery for hunters and burgs. If RKs got their mastery from fate instead, what kind of power pools would we end up with? Maybe RKs should get mastery for Fate as well as Will? Maybe critical rating shouldn't be dependent on any single primary stat?

Originally Posted by PerfectApproach

Ok, back to the topic at hand: rotations, and boredom. Sure, we can all get into a steady rhythm and spam the same ol' skills over and over. But that won't result in the best DPS. Well, it SHOULDN'T result in the best DPS, which is probably why IEoF was nerfed (moreover, should never have been created). The point of Fire DPS is to maintain DoT's. So that should be the challenge: maintaining as many DoT's for as long as possible. So the cooldowns, inductions, and durations of Fire skills should complement each other. Same for lightning. Sure, you can trait Harsh Debate and then spam CA until the buff comes up, then hit EC. But that shouldn't give you the biggest bang. The biggest bang should come when you have the Charged buff, when Thunderous Words and Harsh Debate are both up, the Perfect Imagery crit buff is up, and probably a bunch of other stuff that I haven't though of because I haven't played lightning in 2 forevers. For the most part, this is actually how Lightning works, which is great. That's half the reason Kalymnor (and a few others too) are such good RK's. Fire, on the other hand, is a wreck. Nothing fits with anything else, there's no timing, no synchronization. Hodge-podge afterthought of a DPS line.

In that vein, it should be fairly difficult to maintain every Fire DoT on the target. Once Writ of Fire and Mystifying are up, they can be forgotten about for a little bit. The only things left are Essence, Smouldering, and FR. Essence and Smouldering on cooldown? FR, maybe Fall to Flame, and maybe Scathing Mockery, if AOE is appropriate. That's WHY we end up spamming FR. Maybe the duration of Writ of Fire and Mystifying Flame can be compressed: Same number of DoT ticks, just ticking faster, reaching the end faster. DPS for those skills could THEORETICALLY be doubled (resolving the RK vs. Champ DPS issue), as long as the RK was skilled enough to keep them both going.

And for the love of Eru, put the initial tick back on Mystifying Flame, and just put a 1 sec animation on it. Or change the legacy to leave a 1 sec. cooldown on it. Or several other things besides remove the initial hit. It's just silly to apply a DoT that doesn't have an initial tick. Not game breaking, and I won't harp on it much, but it's just O.o

^^What I put in bold there.
Exacly as you say, we have no alternative to FR. I wish we could do away with that useless skill called... Flurry of Words (I actually had to google for it just now, cause I'd forgotten its name), and replace it with a new, low-cooldown fire skill. Something with synergies to other skills, to put a little more "advanced" into fire again. It might kill the tedium of FR spam as well.

WoF and MF having a short interval is not a bad idea either. But that would warrant some nerfs in other departments, as we're talking a pretty serious DPS increase from those skills (About 400 extra from WoF and 150 from MF @ 2s interval).

Add the two aforementioned ideas to...
- Fixing DoTs to allow devastates.
- Fixing SW to allow crits and devastates.
(- And if DoTs aren't fixed, EoF should be changed to a proper direct damage skill, as it currently functions as a DoT that only has a initial damage tick, making it unable to Dev.)

... and I think we have a nice list for ZC to work on.

From what I have found so far, I am not sure if RKs can handle an increase in DPS without better aggro management tools. Is Calming Verse or Distracting Flame going to help you if you pull a boss in Orthanc? My RK is only 66 so correct me if I am wrong on this point.

Originally Posted by Thorcar

From what I have found so far, I am not sure if RKs can handle an increase in DPS without better aggro management tools. Is Calming Verse or Distracting Flame going to help you if you pull a boss in Orthanc? My RK is only 66 so correct me if I am wrong on this point.

You are actually correct. The problem is actually with Distracting/Mystifying Flame though. The DPS on it was increased without a commensurate increase in threat reduction. So it's doing more DPS, but it's removing the same amount of threat that it removed before Rise of Isengard. Not sure if that is WAI.

Calming Verse appears to be WAI, although I don't think it works very well. If it's just perceived threat, it should be a lot more than it is. If it was REAL threat, that would be different. Between CV and Distracting Winds, that would be fairly decent real threat reduction. If you're over-dpsing by THAT much, then there's a threat management issue somewhere. The problem with CV now is that the perceived threat reduction isn't enough (and doesn't last long enough) for the tank to grab the target back. Even if CV is enough to push the target away, it will just come back when CV expires (sooner, if you continue to DPS/heal).

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

Burgs get Physical mastery from agility, actually. Might means no more to them than it does to us RKs.

Fair enough. I don't think that should be, considering they are melee attackers.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

Turbine painted themselves in a corner by attaching crit to Agility as well as mastery for hunters and burgs. If RKs got their mastery from fate instead, what kind of power pools would we end up with? Maybe RKs should get mastery for Fate as well as Will? Maybe critical rating shouldn't be dependent on any single primary stat?

We'd end up with power pools in the 1000 range, but with ICPR in the 20,000 range. Which wouldn't suck too bad.

Detaching crit from Agility and buffing the crit rating you get from Fate would likely resolve the issue:
Tactical Classes: Primary Will.
Ranged Classes: Primary Agility.
Melee Classes: Primary Might.
If you want Survivability as a secondary, stack Vit.
If you want Crit as a secondary, stack Fate.

Looks good on paper, although I'm sure there are details that I'm glossing over.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

I wish we could do away with that useless skill called... Flurry of Words (I actually had to google for it just now, cause I'd forgotten its name), and replace it with a new, low-cooldown fire skill. Something with synergies to other skills, to put a little more "advanced" into fire again. It might kill the tedium of FR spam as well.

Ehhh... no, I think Flurry of Words could do better. I think that Fire could use an extra DoT or 2, but I think Flurry of Words could be turned into a ranged skill that works a little like Scathing Mockery, only a Cold skill. The question then becomes, what to add to Fire that's a DoT that's not a copy of something we already have? How about a "Sigil of Destruction" that works like an opposite of the Sigil of Healing?

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

WoF and MF having a short interval is not a bad idea either. But that would warrant some nerfs in other departments, as we're talking a pretty serious DPS increase from those skills (About 400 extra from WoF and 150 from MF @ 2s interval).

A DPS increase is half of the point anyway. That's how this thread started. If RK's did, say, 80% of the DPS of the best champs on the server, I'd be ok with that. But from the numbers I'm seeing, it looks like we're at most 60% of the DPS Champs AND BURGLARS can put out. Not even close to tier 1.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

Add the two aforementioned ideas to...
- Fixing DoTs to allow devastates.
- Fixing SW to allow crits and devastates.

Hmmm... it would be nice, but Crits are the domain of Lightning. I'd rather see direct damage, finesse, power consumption, threat, and mitigation bonuses than crit buffs. If I had to sacrifice all Crits for these 5 things, I'd be willing to do it.

Originally Posted by Ruintheliel

(- And if DoTs aren't fixed, EoF [Essence of Flame] should be changed to a proper direct damage skill, as it currently functions as a DoT that only has a initial damage tick, making it unable to Dev.)

Or turn it back into a DoT!

trouble being, lightning relies on crits, why not just make our crits based off our will to put us on an even footing and idc what people say, we die the easiest of every dps class, so we SHOULD dps the highest or at least match hunters, i mean lets face it, a failure to crit is pathetic in an rk, and results in death, increase it somewhere. and for the love of god do something with flurry of words, no-one uses it as a damage skill, hell it's underwhelming even when it does get used, i couldn't kill a bunch of mobs on weathertop with it it's that pathetic. i love the visual but truly it needs to be replaced with something else of otherwise COMPLETELY redesigned, hell make a dps skill that changes based on attunement or traits idc DO SOMETHING with it. i would only cast it as it is if the induction component and casting animation were completely removed. (leave the effect tho)

I have a hunter and rk both maxed out to death and there is no difference in their dps,at all...Hunter maybe slightly higher because of auto attacks.If you set up your rk good,you shouldn't have any problem with dps.By good I mean 7 yellow traits,+5% lightning skill damage on class item,proper relics and full orthanc set etc...
And burgs dps is high because of all the buffs and debuffs on enemy,not higher than rk.I sparred a burg recently.We agreed on not using any cc,heals,stealth,kiting etc to see how our dps plays out.He had equal gear and weapons,and he was dead before 4 secs.
And I crit EC around usually 9-12k.When I crit 11.3k on bosses in foundry people say 'wut?!' lol

As far as Crits & Devistates go, they do happen, but I've noticed we don't always have an actual number associated with the hit. Here are two I scrolled back over the combat log to find on this morning's LL Dailys:

Jeauxrk scored a critical hit with Writ of Fire - Tier 3 on the Giant Gorge-crawler for 1,222 Fire damage to Morale.

Jeauxrk scored a devastating hit with Smouldering Wrath on the Giant Gorge-crawler. (No Number value...infact, I don't think I've ever seen a number next to that)

On the other hand, it seems like I always see a value beside a melee attack - as shown from the other day, coming out of a disarm stun:

Jeauxrk scored a devastating hit with an unarmed attack on the Orc Smith for 35 Common damage to Morale. (must be the 58 Might I'm packing)

Originally Posted by loki84

trouble being, lightning relies on crits

(don't forget the randomness of our self-buffs TW, HD, and Charged)

And that makes getting a good set of decent parses a complete pain! I've been parsing between 80k and 127k on the dummy in Stangard (stands alone, no risk of stealing damage from a 2nd dummy) over 60:ish seconds (4 cycles). All parses have been done from stand-still, i.e. no pre-mojo:ing except to get the wanted initial afinity for Fall To X, no external buffs, no store buffs etc. Only consumable used was an Enamel.

Some parses I get near 120k several times in a row. Then, suddenly, the RNG starts hating me and I have 2% proc chance on the self buffs and two non-EC hits and I land at about 80k.

Originally Posted by loki84

we die the easiest of every dps class

Hunters and burglars usually die before me. Not because they're pulling aggro and I'm not but because I stack up a healthy dose of mit/vit/morale and they're just piling up agi. A dead hunter/burglar does very little DPS...

Originally Posted by loki84

and for the love of god do something with flurry of words, no-one uses it as a damage skill, hell it's underwhelming even when it does get used, i couldn't kill a bunch of mobs on weathertop with it it's that pathetic.

Awww... but 90 damage every 3 seconds is awesomesauce damage! Surely! Or ... Maybe they can rework it into the Rune-Keeper vanity skill (like burglar's Practical Joke, Minstrel's Dance-thingy, etc); you drop a snow storm and everyone inside clacks their teeth for 10 seconds. Does about as much good as that in end-game content...

Addendum: I did manage to land a 16k EC on Draigoch while fully healing traited. Gotta love those insane buffs you get from the CJs

Originally Posted by JeauxLOTR

As far as Crits & Devistates go, they do happen, but I've noticed we don't always have an actual number associated with the hit. Here are two I scrolled back over the combat log to find on this morning's LL Dailys:

[...]
Jeauxrk scored a devastating hit with Smouldering Wrath on the Giant Gorge-crawler. (No Number value...infact, I don't think I've ever seen a number next to that)

[...]

I believe that's the application of the SW effect on the mob, and it's the same that happens to other classes' debuff. Captains, for instance, can land crits and devastates with Telling and Revealing Mark. It does nothing extra, but that's what the combat log says. One of many peculiar things you might find in Lotro's combat system.

It is also the reason why CA will sometimes say that SW has critted at some point. The actual damage, however, will never crit.

Originally Posted by choon_blaze

And I crit EC around usually 9-12k.When I crit 11.3k on bosses in foundry people say 'wut?!' lol

I love critting with EC on the Panicked Goblin in RoF 1st boss.

Leader says: Incoming goblin
RK: tam-ti-tam ***EC***
Fellow 1: Where's the goblin?
Fellow 2: Did we miss it?
RK: *giggle*

Originally Posted by Raven-EU

I love critting with EC on the Panicked Goblin in RoF 1st boss.

Leader says: Incoming goblin
RK: tam-ti-tam ***EC***
Fellow 1: Where's the goblin?
Fellow 2: Did we miss it?
RK: *giggle*

i used to trait winter storm for the goblin, no denying that's fun. RoF is the only really viable place for winter storm. but you do know you can stand near the troll area and just ignore the goblin, if nobody is too close to the door he goes into it and nothing happens. but yeah with winter storm i can keep all 3 spider down by myself as long as they are able to be targeted.

so yeah EC is a good skill, but it SHOULD be since half the lightning line revolves around maximizing it. my problem is as follows: EC fails..... ummmm sorry guys we can wait till PI comes up again i guess. so we have 1 skill that hits for 10k IF it crits and you're geared to the teeth the rest hit for 1-2k and 2-6k
Taking non crits into account that could be 200 damage repeat, repeat,repeat (crit dammit) SW woot 5k! SS 1k, Eos fails for 1.5k, SB hits for 3k WOOT, EC hits for 2.5 FAIL! CRIT SS, CRIT CA, followed by a line of 300-600ish fail while waiting for your next big chance with EC and you only have 1 buff up,...... sound familiar? how often a mob is on like 2k and you're outta hard hitters, and you're like: 1 crit is all i need, DIE! dafuq.... DIE!.... c'mon die! PLEASE DIE! followed by OMG FINALLY! sure sometimes you can be like: SW DIE! 2nd mob EC DIE! but people are programmed to remember the awesome moments, i just thought i'd make us all remember the fail too. (and yes we've all had it happen plenty so don't bother denying) when other classes go off, they go off way better than us, and when they fail, it still isn't that bad.

Raven AU you can manually put the charged buff on, cast chilling rhetoric traited, and it stacks with the random one too, better hope that EoS crits and doesn't dev, dev results in less damage cause our dev obviously doesn't work with our skills lol maybe if our dev fixed it so charged worked with a dev too it'd be ok (hope you all followed that lol)
but yes, randomness of buffs sucks it's not even a GOOD chance that they come up and when they do it's like...... meh other classes have WAY better trait benefits that don't have to be randomly activated.

Originally Posted by loki84

<lots of good stuff>

Don't remind me about how much the RNG hates Rune-Keepers Sometimes it's like plowing through a bog full of stinking non-crits and then suddenly ... BAM ... Here's a nice water-jet you can ride on for 15 seconds.

Yeah, CR is good but I tend to forget about it. Maybe we should change our crit chance buff to be something more similar to Enraged Runes or Champion's Fervour. Ok... bad analogies ... What I was thinking of goes in the lines of:

Each non-crit adds one stack of "Electrons" (Charge is already taken as buff name). Each tier of "Electrons" add 5% critical hit chance and .5% devastate hit chance. Landing a critical hit consumes 3 (up to) tiers of "Electrons" and landing a devastate consumes 5 (up to) tiers. I guess capping at 10 stacks would be a good idea. This way we get more consistent crit distributions (I think). The draw-back would be that we would need to lower our base crit chance to compensate for the buff.

Also people say when RK doesn't crit big skills like EC,it really hurts their dps and its unimpressive.Don't say it like it's specific to RK lol.Everyone's dps depends on crits.When hunter doesn't crit with heartseeker or champ doesn't crit with remorseless strike it is lamer