State of DPS DOK/Zealot

[Valfaros]

I enjoy hybrid classes so my mains are dps dok and single target dps zealot (left/middle tree) and I just wanted to give my opinion, suggest changes and see what others think of the state of these specs.

My dps dok is +60 and my zealot rr 83. I'd say zealot is bis equipt and dok very well for its rr. I think both specs hit like wet noodles and their hybrid aspect has either gotten worse or never was great to begin with. The dps dok does better in terms of dps and utility. Against unguarded targets you actually have an impact but being meele also requires guard and massive healing to stay alive. The dps zealot has a tactical stagger and some fluff healing here and there. It is great in kiting enemies but the dps is bad and burst is nowhere to be found anymore.

Lets start with dok and everything that bothers me with it besides a feeling of having no punch.

Spoiler:

Healdebuff got changed and is now way worse. It now requires 2 skill points, a tactic slot and the target to be cursed to be applied. It further doesn't add an additional curse as it did before. I find that kind of ridiculous. Please tell me which healdebuff has that many conditions? Was the tactic healdebuff that bad that dps doks were useful to be invited into a wb? I don't think so. Dps dok always was a smallscale spec.

I continue by saying the los patch that cancels your channels and long gcd on this server are really bad for dok. Both the slow and hd require 2 gcd so it is taking forever to apply them which sucks.

Locking of the ap based lifetap (transfer essence) to shield only. Why? Like, I know the skill was buffed into oblivion to bulldoze that odd shield spec into existence but dps dok doesn't really do more burst to compensate for further gutting it's utility. The 9pt is nice and it might bring you closer to a dps while it's up but still a "real" dps will outdps me easily even when it's up. Like if dps dok should have less utility it should be equal to regular dps specs. I don't agree with this approach as I liked my hybrid spec but that would be expected.

Changes to the aoe detaunt. I'm not sure if I was the only one running it but on aor I used to run aoe detaunt. This made group comps with 1 less tank possible. You just had to be strict by keeping your detaunt up. Now you get the 5 seconds aoe detaunt for free but the setup is still way too fragile. So you need a tank. I often get asked the same question at this point why pick a dps dok when a chopper does way more dps or a mara does way better debuffing. The utility isn't that great anymore as written in the previous points. So fair question. I guess you don't need a dps dok then.

Further I said it before but I absolutly hate the endgear for dps dok on this sever. Sov got changed to be shield dok and now you have only warlord if you want skillpoints. And I'm lacking skillpoints for several skills that would improve the spec. However to me warlord is bad for a simple reason. It has very low crit. 5% and that is it. That is just bad. Crit is something very hard to get and one of the best ways to improve your dps. Warlord is so overstacked on armor ignore but lacks one of the most potent stats. While at it; how is parry = block or armor penetration = to crit on sets. That makes 0 sense to me.

Victorious does it right with the effects it has both on items and as set boni. Like dok needs crit, initative and parry strikethrough. Warlord gives a bunch of buffs that are nice to have but not really cruicial. But hey if other dps doks want to convince me otherwise please do because I'm having troubles to work towards a set I'm not really convinced about.

Then lastly and this is only relevant for solo / duo roaming. Fist of khaine now requiring soul essense and action points. Why? So I can't use flee and slow someone down to actually catch them? It already is hard enough to not get kited till you die as a meele without any sprint why further make my life hard? Yes, the addition of Unyielding Tromentor is nice but doesn't really help if your pact needs on average 5 uses to proc and lasts for 5 seconds. Didn't it used to be 9s too? More often than not I'm out of soul essence before even reaching a sw but I guess this is just typical rock paper sissors... If you'd ask me if you want to keep the thing from perma snaring people give the slow an icd. Also I'm on the same page as order here. Perma snare as soon as you have a dok in the enemy grp sucks. Like dps dok needs something to get to the enemy range dd as any meele has but perma snare just seems like a bad experience.

Now I'm sure we'll have people saying if you want to play hybrid play the shield spec however that thing just does 0 kill dmg. It is just a meele healer with some fluff dps mostly done to pets and turrets to maximize healing. This should be really clear if you just look at the skills. Take transfer essence. This skill needs +25% healing on lifetaps + 500 flat healing on the skill to make it a worthwhile skill.

Now to single target dps zealot. My simple question here. Why kick a dead horse in the gutter? It is already decaying, please stop. Nerf to heal debuff, storm of ravens burst potential, tzeentchs cry now has a flight time, silence m3 gutted. Dps zealot with constant instant procs already suffers from the long gcd on this server. I really would love to know why changes are made broadly but then classes effected by it do not get compensated.

Spoiler:

Heal debuff absolutly needs to be changed back or compensated somehow. 30% healdebuff is realistically only good in aoe specs. Move it to the aoe tree then. Give the single tree something useful instead. Same with manipulation which doesn't work.

Mirror of Madness needs to be instant or pack a serious punch as it is in competition with stagger one of the best cc's in the game. This sill argument oh it further reduces healing and if too strong is op...yeah right. Skill does low dps, only works agaisnt direct heals not hots, has low effect against big heals, has a long cd, casts forever, can be disrupted and can be cleansed. Not sure if it still has an icd on top of it too. For a 13 pointer this is a bad skill. I rather stagger the enemy healer and kill the target in 6 seconds without it having any healing than try to outdps the heals comming in. Honestly if the enemy healer spams instant heals instead of casting big heals this skill should absolutly punish him.

Storm of ravens absolutly needs a giant dps buff. Minimum would be back to where they were before it got changed. It hits more often now but lower? This makes including it in burst rotations bad.

Scourge needs to hit harder.

I would give tranferance 15% disrupt strikethrough and finally change the tooltip to show that it actually has disrupt strikethrough.

Corp resistance debuff needs to be more reliable and somehow accessible for the st spec. The spittle is great for the aoe spec but suicide in a kiting spec. Honestly I just would give scourged warping a corp resistance debuff. The gcd change nerfed this tactic this would compensate the change somewhat.

[Stinksuit]

I made a dps zealot post not too long ago where I talked about some of the changes I would personally like to see. One of the changes I said was to actually add healing debuff to MoM so we could have st healdebuff and the aoe one and also to make the ability much more useful than what it is now. Personally I feel like dmg on abilities does not need buffing. Just some fine tuning on some of the abilities.

[Valfaros]

I remember your post. It involved adding several tactics to the Harbinger. I quite disliked the idea because it would make balancing the DPS spec impossible. If the DPS is good, you are overpowered as you can switch and heal without any drawback. If the spec is balanced, the DPS is not good enough to compete with other DPS classes. In my opinion, this would make matters worse. Adding only Transference is an option you presented as an alternative, although Transference is currently the only thing worthwhile in the middle tree. Of course, if you add something remarkable instead as a replacement, it might be an option that I would like to see.

I do not understand how you can consider the DPS of the Zealot as sufficient, especially after your post, which had many people saying it lacks DPS. I found it odd enough that I checked your statistics, and you have never played DPS in any SC in the last 2 years. Is that because you value playing the healing spec over DPS in a small-scale group setting or did you find that it doesn't work? Because that was my finding; you are holding back your group by playing a spec that lacks burst, is squishy when caught, and just performs worse.

From what I can tell, you seem to play DPS in ORvR, but it is difficult to judge from those scoreboards. I would assume you play the AoE spec in ORvR or roam around and gank solo/duo. Both playstyles were not what I was addressing here. On that note, I think the AoE spec also lacks DPS, while the roaming/ganking somewhat works. The Zealot is mobile, and with stagger, you can kite your targets to death. Solo play does not truly reflect how good a class is for groups, especially a class that can kite and heal. Take a Shaman with Run Away; even a heal-specced Shaman can kill most enemy Order players if they are foolish enough to chase. Does this make it a good DPS?

Don't take this the wrong way, but your very low kill count tells me that either you are playing as a healer for 60-70% of your time or you do not deal enough damage to secure a kill, or you only duo roam or focus on PvDoor. Each option would mean you cannot accurately judge if your class competes with a DPS in a group setting.

Adding a heal debuff to MoM is an option however it still would be a nerf to the overall class compared to the previous tactic. It would also mean to get the healdebuff you cannot take stagger hence is it really better than stagger? I wouldn't pick it over stagger. Maybe in a spec that uses both stagger and MoM. You would have to sacrifice SoR which with the dmg it does now might be an option I would try out. So I guess maybe?

[Stinksuit]

The changes I had for harbinger were mainly towards hybrid spec and it was either/or since like I said having both would make the class most likely just overpowered. And yes I do not play scenarios (pretty much not at all since I dont enjoy them) but i also do not play aoe wb leech or wb's in general. My dps zeal mainly focuses on solo play and sometimes I'm duo if I happen to have some guildie online who wants to duo but thats about it. (Hence I don't have insane amount of kills but around 1.8k for solo play i find to be quite alright) also kinda proves my point that its not really lacking dmg (granted its low) but its enough to kill pretty much anything other than healers or regen tanks. I do agree with you fully that dps zeal is not on par to bring it to any 6man to take away dps spot but it can definitely do alright dmg. I suppose its a little bit better for wb play than small scale, which is also why I wanted to have some hybrid changes so we could hopefully see that being an option for small scale roaming. Also with the changes to mastery trees that I proposed having both mom and stagger is also an option.

[akisnaakkeli]

Everything you say about Dps Dok is true and i think most would agree that locking Transfer essence to shield, Fok using resourses instead ap and returning resourses is very counter intuitive and feels like whoever is responsible for those changes is not dps dok its shield dok at mostly and imo shield is most OP thing to give melee dok/wp and they are just super easy to play but not enough dmg really but too much healing. Just remove shield and make shield only skills work with dualwield.

and ofc aoe Hd removed + now it requiores 2 career points and its indeed ridicilous, just make the SE be HD and Give Old Guilty Soul tactic which heals you for dmg done but doesnt increase your dps path dmg.

DPS ZEALOT 1.3.5. was the highlight of their career https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPw6K_MGEXY