I debated posting this for almost two months, for fear of being branded a “whiner” or a “bad player.”
However this situation has now grown beyond ridiculous, and the lack of any kind of attention for YEARS now, aside from a few bug fixes and some tweaks, in the face of nearly ABSURD boosts to certain other classes, has just grown to be too much to contain, at this point. So here goes.
What I post her pertains to TWO classes: wizards and warlocks, and our current total disgruntlement with where we sit on the totem pole. I’m not going to be pretentious and try to pass this off like I am really not concerned with parses. My online life revolves around the parse — I chose a PURE caster class when I rolled my toon and I expected to give up, and WANTED to give up, all utility and mitigation in favor of ultimate, total annihilation via doing pure, obscene damage.
Sadly. This is not the case with these two classes, and so much so have we fallen in the wake of other “utility” classes that most high-end raiders don’t even consider us DPS anymore.
So here goes.
Last night we went into SoH and cleared to the Sisters.
We did this and then reset the zone to see what the trash might offer.
My group, the mage group, had neither a Troubador nor an Illusionist. The melee groups had some help in the form of dirges but were also lacking an Illusionist for themselves. So I felt it was a good time to truly gauge where we stand when things are as equal as they could ever be –
On both sets of zonewide parses it looked like:
Assassin
Assassin
Assassin
Brigand
Warlock
Warlock
Wizard
Our second run through was done with the sorcerers mostly close to OOP since we chain pulled trash and we had no real power battery but the parse looked much the same, except a Ranger replaced Assassin #3, and the second Warlock flopped with the Wizard.
So from what I saw, had there been the proper support, I likely would have parsed up in the second or third spot, and the other mages would then file down. Which sounds okay (actually no it doesn’t, we should be number 1 considering what we give up, which is everything, but be that as it may, I am willing to concede the top spot once in awhile to predators — but ONLY predators – and not in the obscene difference of 2000-3000 DPS which is about what it is between Assassins and anyone else, as anyone could tell you whose gone on a raid in the past 2 years) …
Here’s the problem – and it’s not anything new. It’s been a building issue for several years and in particular in the past 9 months, and has become VERY evident in the past 3 months with the recent changes to Enchanter DPS and WIS/debuff resist rates on 82+ mobs.
Why does my class require TWO other support classes simply to perform about on par with a scout who requires, comparatively, no support whatsoever? And wears chain and has higher HP, higher avoidance, and higher mit? And comes with a built in hate transfer of anywhere between 15% and 40% ?
At this point the frustration among not just warlocks, but among wizards as well (go check the wizard forums and check the raid forums on EQ2flames if you think warlocks are the only ones who feel overlooked – wizards ain’t any better off) – the frustration is not just that we parse #4-6, behind predators and rogues, and sometimes even summoners or enchanters, and even the odd bruiser, but that on top of that, we bring comparatively little to the raid. Summoners and Enchanters are coming up on our heels with DPS and bring a ton more utility. Well screw utility — I don’t want it and never have — but if we give ALL of that up … we ought to be unquestionably at the top. Instead, we get a hate transfer of 3-4% that doesn’t stack with either other warlocks OR wizards; wizzies have Velium Gift, Iceshape, etc. which are decent procs. Warlocks bring even less — a nerfed Propagations that requires 20 points in a largely useless line (aside from NR and Nihilistics bonus) and Pillaging, which costs so much power to cast that it’s practically of no use at all when you are sitting at less than 5%. And as the kick in the gut – our DPS is not anywhere near the top except in ridiculously specific situations.
Additionally, I sat and watched all 3 of the sorcerers burn through their power at a rate which nearly TRIPLED that of any other class. Scouts sat using less than 10% of their power on the trash pulls, and rarely, if ever, ran out even on a fight like Master P. We start to fell fucking stupid in Vent having to constantly ask to wait while the rest of raid was itching to GO and sitting pretty with full power after 30 second epic x4 battles where the raid is pumping out 40k. 40k and the only ones out of power are the soercerers who don’t even parse in the top THREE!!? CAN YOU TELL ME WHAT IS WRONG THERE!?
So that leaves most raid-leaders scratching their heads thinking: “Gee … why should I bring three broke-ass classes who require so much support when I can bring 2 Illy’s that are spec’d for melee and a boatload of assassins, brigands, swashies, and even rangers?” I mean I have to admit, if I were the leader of our raids I might think long and hard about taking a sorcerer who needed two backup classes just to parse even or only slightly ahead of various scouts.
To add salt to a wound, for years we raise issue with things and yet while brigands, assassins, rangers, illusionists get attention (and lately with brigands it’s like every little thing they cry about gets an insta-fix when they are already seriously overpowered “Give us more debuffs YAY” “Give us debuffs that never miss YAY” “Give us all your DPS EVAR YAY”) — sorcerers slowly fall further and further and further away from being anywhere close to what one could consider … relevant. We are irrelevant. We don’t offer anything, we don’t BRING anything that any other class can’t bring, and bring more of, with less cost. That’s as blunt as I can be.
I have long upheld the torch for warlocks and sorcerers in general as anyone whose seen my posts could tell — I’ve even defended Aeralik on multiple occassions as well as many other developers, and constantly made excuses to justify the sad state of our two classes, which have been on a slow but constant decline in desirability since KoS — but at some point the facts simply speak for themselves … across the board sorcerers are in a bad way and it isn’t just in the warlock forum or on the wizard forum — it’s talking to any raiding sorcerer in the game, reading the same complaints on numerous forums. We feel un-needed on raids, bring comparatively equal DPS to classes which bring much more to the table than we do, we still have long-standing problems with burst DPS mechanics that cause us to die before classes who output triple our burst damage, and basically, we require support from other classes which no other class aside from tanks need, just so we can perform on a level barely even with assassins or brigs.
It’s just … enough is enough. Seriously.
My closing comment is this:
… the standard retort from several developers and mouthpieces over the years has been that parsers and parse results, and the consequential feelings they evoke in players, are formed by perceptions, perceptions which do not reflect an accurate reality.
Well, as any philosopher can tell you – at a certain point perception IS reality. So I ask you — be as it may that a perception is incorrect, so you say, how is it that hundreds of players, all perceiving the very same things, are not then grounded in a very REAL truth?
Right now there are no plans for any type of new playable races. 
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