Sorcerer DPS

[BlueEyedKisara-DN]

Hello, so I made a sorcerer recently, now even if my sorceror has an MB of 5.1k, crit spell of 700, MA of 2.5k, I still do quite bad when I see the DPS meter compared to people that may have lower stats. I wanna improve on this. It's a fun class, and I just want to play my role effectively and not let people think I am a bad sorcerer in terms of not dpsing correctly.

I dps by weaving Freezing Wind and that DOT move (Flame cage I think), after using my other skills.  I have an FPS of around 15 to 23. Ping is at around 400.  I put the quality of my graphics to the lowest too.  My RAM is at 6gb, i3 processor, I do not have a dedicated graphics card (yet), 256kb/sec download speed.

If I wanna play my class effectively.  To any experienced player, I'd like to get your recommendations.  My hardware specs are not the best yes, however I look for any tips regarding it.

On another note, what ping reducer is best? I used noping, and my ping went down to 300 ms. What ping and fps is most suitable for this class?  Any other suggestions apart from these two options? (including hardware specs)

Thank you.

[Azzmaria-KT]

To do a good DPS you need to know your skills and practice with different rotations. But apparently you are doing that now. 

But there is another big issue. Your ping is too high!. I saw that a ping between 200 - 250 will result in like -20% to -30% of your potential DPS. even if you know the rotations and you are weaving, at that ping you have so many "lost clicks" (when you click in the skills but nothing happens) and a great delay between your clicks and the real action. That wasted time means that at the end you are doing a lot less skills in the same time than the others. I think that with 400 you are having just half of your potential DPS.

So. first at all I suggest to you to forget the idea of having a great DPS. Also try to use some software to reduce your lag and improve your conection. Even if you do not see a great reduction in your ping you will have less "lost clicks". Forget the idea of PvP. it is almost impossible to fight other players with 400 ping

And some people could suggest to try to choose games with servers closer to the place where you live. But I know that sometimes we want to play in a more internacional comunity. For that reasson I play Aion even with 200 ping. 

[Vessttemona-KT]

Basically, is all about skills rotation, you just need to find the best one for you, keep in mind always to use flame fusion on mobs as it reduces fire resistance, a lot of sorcs dont use it. and if you have at least 3 of your nukes on cd ( Glacial shard, Aethrflame/Flames of wrath, Storm Strike) its good to use Empyrian Wisdom to increase your MB for a few seconds and do more damage with low range damage skills such as flame bolt and flame harpoon.

[Azzmaria-KT]

Yes. the rotation is really important in sorcerers, but if he/she is already weaving, probably knows a good rotation. Trust me, ping is really important too. I checked that myself doing DPS with a another player in the same class. He had 10% more DPS than me. When I compared on ARM I saw that my skills did more damage (so my stats were better) but he did 20% more skills than me in the same time. I did not waste time. I just had more dead time between skills because of the ping. 

Also with a friend we saw the same. She was in Mexico for some months. When she played there her DPS became really great. But she came back to the usual 200-250 ping from our country and she lost 20% of her DPS. Same rotations, same gear or even better. Just the ping. And she played with a sorcerer. The situation is even worse in glads and sins because you have a lot of small amounts of time between each skill just to reach the server. 

[Mempo-KT]

You need a better PC. While it may seem strange, having really low FPS drastically affects your ping. ANY ping reduction server will typically do the job (Ive found about 15ms variance between the best and worst for me), but until you can achieve MUCH higher frame rates you will continue to see it impacting your ability to perform.

[Azzmaria-KT]

7 minutes ago, Mempo-KT said:

You need a better PC. While it may seem strange, having really low FPS drastically affects your ping. ANY ping reduction server will typically do the job (Ive found about 15ms variance between the best and worst for me), but until you can achieve MUCH higher frame rates you will continue to see it impacting your ability to perform.

mm. this is easier to check. Try to set your graphics setting to the lowest and see how much your DPS improves (maybe a lower resolution). I think he is right too. I saw my DPS decreasing even more on some new instances with many visual effects that increased my ping. Also some old maps have lower graphics and you have dummies to compare. Heiron is one of those. 

[Kiatra-KT]

Quite true,  even on my other pc before it died, most for my chars I had to wheel and zoom in on my chest to actually start cranking out the damage on specific classes(not a good thing on say 2nd boss CoE when you have to step 5m every 20 seconds the right way to get out of the puddle)to go from 25-30 fps to 50-60fps ....

[Mempo-KT]

Also, I know Intel/Nvidia have good multicore processors and great cards, but if you want Aion to run as best as possible I recommend going AMD.

 

The next generation of consoles is being built with AMD architecture in mind as well, so choosing AMD over Intel/Nvidia will "future proof" your PC upgrade as well.

[Sabreze-DN]

43 minutes ago, Mempo-KT said:

You need a better PC. While it may seem strange, having really low FPS drastically affects your ping. ANY ping reduction server will typically do the job (Ive found about 15ms variance between the best and worst for me), but until you can achieve MUCH higher frame rates you will continue to see it impacting your ability to perform.

Okay so a good pc will increase the frame rate, gotcha, so even if i get a ping reducer, it won't help until i get that sorted huh? I see, alright thanks for thiss o:

38 minutes ago, Azzmaria-KT said:

mm. this is easier to check. Try to set your graphics setting to the lowest and see how much your DPS improves (maybe a lower resolution). I think he is right too. I saw my DPS decreasing even more on some new instances with many visual effects that increased my ping. Also some old maps have lower graphics and you have dummies to compare. Heiron is one of those. 

Ahh Actually I have stated at the top i put my graphics of the game at lowest already^^; 

30 minutes ago, Mempo-KT said:

Also, I know Intel/Nvidia have good multicore processors and great cards, but if you want Aion to run as best as possible I recommend going AMD.

 

The next generation of consoles is being built with AMD architecture in mind as well, so choosing AMD over Intel/Nvidia will "future proof" your PC upgrade as well.

That's a really nice point you gave, I am gonna save up for an AMD graphics card thenn.

1 hour ago, Vessttemona-KT said:

Basically, is all about skills rotation, you just need to find the best one for you, keep in mind always to use flame fusion on mobs as it reduces fire resistance, a lot of sorcs dont use it. and if you have at least 3 of your nukes on cd ( Glacial shard, Aethrflame/Flames of wrath, Storm Strike) its good to use Empyrian Wisdom to increase your MB for a few seconds and do more damage with low range damage skills such as flame bolt and flame harpoon.

Yepp I do that too, I guess I am doing it righ then after all  so it's jus my ping/fps sigh.  How depressing I can't reach my full potential...I should just..play once I get a good pc then.

1 hour ago, Azzmaria-KT said:

Yes. the rotation is really important in sorcerers, but if he/she is already weaving, probably knows a good rotation. Trust me, ping is really important too. I checked that myself doing DPS with a another player in the same class. He had 10% more DPS than me. When I compared on ARM I saw that my skills did more damage (so my stats were better) but he did 20% more skills than me in the same time. I did not waste time. I just had more dead time between skills because of the ping. 

Also with a friend we saw the same. She was in Mexico for some months. When she played there her DPS became really great. But she came back to the usual 200-250 ping from our country and she lost 20% of her DPS. Same rotations, same gear or even better. Just the ping. And she played with a sorcerer. The situation is even worse in glads and sins because you have a lot of small amounts of time between each skill just to reach the server. 

This was quite informative too, Thanks for this o: 

2 hours ago, Azzmaria-KT said:

To do a good DPS you need to know your skills and practice with different rotations. But apparently you are doing that now. 

But there is another big issue. Your ping is too high!. I saw that a ping between 200 - 250 will result in like -20% to -30% of your potential DPS. even if you know the rotations and you are weaving, at that ping you have so many "lost clicks" (when you click in the skills but nothing happens) and a great delay between your clicks and the real action. That wasted time means that at the end you are doing a lot less skills in the same time than the others. I think that with 400 you are having just half of your potential DPS.

So. first at all I suggest to you to forget the idea of having a great DPS. Also try to use some software to reduce your lag and improve your conection. Even if you do not see a great reduction in your ping you will have less "lost clicks". Forget the idea of PvP. it is almost impossible to fight other players with 400 ping

And some people could suggest to try to choose games with servers closer to the place where you live. But I know that sometimes we want to play in a more internacional comunity. For that reasson I play Aion even with 200 ping. 

Yepp I am not pvping at all, infact I am not even doing siege cuz my laptop starts having a siegure (get it? siezure..seigure..o-okay anyway) ...Yep I prefer NA cuz all my friends are here  

Question, if I forget about having great DPS, won't I be seen as a 'useless sorc' for not outputting the DPS I am meant to be with the gear I would be having/stats?  

[Azzmaria-KT]

23 minutes ago, Sabreze-DN said:

Question, if I forget about having great DPS, won't I be seen as a 'useless sorc' for not outputting the DPS I am meant to be with the gear I would be having/stats?  

Well. DPS is important, but not the only thing when you play with other people. You can try more on your CC skills (like sleep, root, freeze). A lot of people avoid those cause they have no damage and they want to be on top of the list, but some of them in the right moment can save your team. So you can be a good part of a team helping them to not lose. 

You can also try to start with some other classes too and see how it goes. Being a healer cleric is in some way easier even at high ping. Sometimes that delay on your skills can be complicated, but in most of the instances if you know how to play you can still do a good job. But I´m not telling you to replace your sorcerer, just to add more options to you. That is also nice in a friendly group of players. Cause you can give them some options to do the job that is required. 

And finally to try to have the best DPS you can, try to focus on the skills that are giving you the best DPS. Do not try to do the complete rotation. Do the best ones on the chain and leave undone the smaller ones. And if your main skills ends the cd, just come back at them even if you still have some of the remaining skills undone. Of course you will need some practice to see wich ones are giving you a better damage compared with the time. Finally, high ping means that you have a dead time between each skill, so you will have more added time with many fast skills than with few skills with long casting time. Maybe it is like half a second added to each skill. For example, in my sorc I have the fire chain as my main DPS chain. But I leave the small dot undone cause it usually is casted to late and do not receive the bonus fire damage. I try to complete my time with some strong not fire based skills, some refracting shard and freezing wind, but as soon as my fire chain is fresh again I leave all the other skills and I come back. My sorcerer is not my main and I play just a little with her, but still I had some nice moments and decent DPS. (and I always carry some CC stigmas to help my team)

[Mempo-KT]

This is actually a very iffy topic, as Aion is a single core threaded game. 

See - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

A simple $200 i3 will outperform the $2000 new i9s due to the fact the Crytek engine (which Aion is built on) cannot utilize the hyperthreading technology Intel are so stupidly proud of.

EDIT: You will notice that the AMD cards seem to lag behind on this list, but if you compare that simple i3 to a similarly priced AMD card that performs (relatively slightly) worse, the AMD pulls ahead in literally every other category.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=3000&cmp[]=2941

[Unbeatable-KT]

A little outdated but you'll get the jist of the rotations.

 

[Bryos-DN]

Damn, Rancora Fortress. Right in the feels.

[Sidx-DN]

Low fps does NOT increase your ping. However, it will increase your mouse and keyboard input latency, which will result in a similar effect.

You can try Pingpapper for reducing you ping. They have a 14 day free trial.

[Mempo-KT]

5 hours ago, Sidx-DN said:

Low fps does NOT increase your ping. However, it will increase your mouse and keyboard input latency, which will result in a similar effect.

You can try Pingpapper for reducing you ping. They have a 14 day free trial.

Put your settings to max and type /ping. Then repeat with minimum settings. The reason why we say it affects your ping is because we are referring to that exact feature in game and the observed effects it has. It does not decrease latency, which you are correct in inferring, however that is not what we are referring to.

FPS also affects other things VERY slightly such as maximum jump height.
 

[Mati-DN]

From my experience on playing on 350 ms I still could be in top of sorc's dps on server, so it's only about knowing you class. Your mb is over 5k, so over most of caps in game(except BoS) so forgot about using empyrean wisdom, its useless. Insted of this use Vaizel's, cast speed buff and time it on your big skills. About wave with freezing, never wait for cd, always use some short cast skills (even 3-5) put flame fusion every 10sec and then use dot and any fire skill. Dont forget about essence in pve attack, Maybe you weap also dont have it? Look out for attack speed on weap also, it seems usless, but difference is big while you want to wave.

[BlueEyedKisara-DN]

42 minutes ago, Mati-DN said:

From my experience on playing on 350 ms I still could be in top of sorc's dps on server, so it's only about knowing you class. Your mb is over 5k, so over most of caps in game(except BoS) so forgot about using empyrean wisdom, its useless. Insted of this use Vaizel's, cast speed buff and time it on your big skills. About wave with freezing, never wait for cd, always use some short cast skills (even 3-5) put flame fusion every 10sec and then use dot and any fire skill. Dont forget about essence in pve attack, Maybe you weap also dont have it? Look out for attack speed on weap also, it seems usless, but difference is big while you want to wave.

Woah I see.  Btw, how is your fps though at 350ms? is the gameplay smooth for you? because my fps is at 15 to 20 an even lower at times.  Also do you feel like when you click a skill, it does not activate immediately? (I read it is called "dead times")

On 11/6/2017 at 10:10 PM, Mempo-KT said:

This is actually a very iffy topic, as Aion is a single core threaded game. 

See - https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html

A simple $200 i3 will outperform the $2000 new i9s due to the fact the Crytek engine (which Aion is built on) cannot utilize the hyperthreading technology Intel are so stupidly proud of.

EDIT: You will notice that the AMD cards seem to lag behind on this list, but if you compare that simple i3 to a similarly priced AMD card that performs (relatively slightly) worse, the AMD pulls ahead in literally every other category.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=3000&cmp[]=2941

Thanks mempo for the advice. I'm gonna take note of that

[Mati-DN]

I have about 15-20 fps stable on instances. This Dead times are makng by ping, i just got used to it after playing some yeara on NA servera from EU region. Good thing is to use the most spammig skills by keyboard, it's quite faster than activating everything by mouse, especially bc sorc have so many skills. Im using it like 1-5 on keyboard are skills under 10 sec cd, so i have quick access to them, and using mouse to activate longer cd skills/buffs.

[BlueEyedKisara-DN]

2 hours ago, Mati-DN said:

I have about 15-20 fps stable on instances. This Dead times are makng by ping, i just got used to it after playing some yeara on NA servera from EU region. Good thing is to use the most spammig skills by keyboard, it's quite faster than activating everything by mouse, especially bc sorc have so many skills. Im using it like 1-5 on keyboard are skills under 10 sec cd, so i have quick access to them, and using mouse to activate longer cd skills/buffs.

Thanks, I'll take note of this, gonna try to work on keybinding. Been using mouse clicks too often.

 

I appreciate everyone elses' effort to assist me too btw, this has been a really good discussion, I'm gonna make the best of what I have to be a good sorcerer as much as possible with everyone's suggestions. I shall not give up.

[Azzmaria-KT]

Sabreze and BlueEyedKisara are the same player? 

cause I saw that sabreze said he/she has a laptop. I know is harder to improve hardware on portables. 

Not sure if it helps so much, but I saw on my computer that my fps and game preformance also improves increasing my RAM memory. Even if Aion can works with only 1 or 2 GB, I saw that when I upgraded it to 4 GB the performance improved. And the same thing when I had 8 GB. Looks like Aion will work with whatever RAM you have but it will eat all the extra you put there and will be happier. 

Also, if you have a desktop computer, you can try with a cheap graphics card. Maybe you can get an old one from a friend or something so you can get some time to save money for a good one. My first graphic card was an nvidia geforce with only 512 MB ddr 1 or 2. And I had some results with it. Or you can even try with the integrated one to choose the amount of memory it uses. I´m not sure about each case, but In the time I did not have a card, I improved my games a little using more of my RAM in the integrated graphics. Maybe you can check that on your bios. It could be that your default settings put so few RAM on graphics and your 6 GB are a nice amount even if you put some there. (but again, I did that on my old computers and I´m not even sure if that is still usefull or possible. Maybe someone more skilled can correct me if I am wrong)

Also, Mati´s ideas seem to be good ones and you can try that too. Some people told me that using keyboard for your skills can be faster and better. Never tried cause I haven´t that skill level on my fingers  

[HyeRim-DN]

With your ping its important to have an attack speed weapon combined with your pve weapon. Such as Sophisticated Frigida Orb or Book + Provenance on bottom or if you can afford Harvester weapon + provenance on bottom.

The key is to use big skills with long casting times only when you have vaizels wisdom up. Also learn to spam freezing wind between skills. Do mobs and bosses in melee range ( needed for freezing wind . Theres a thing called triple weave when you pop Vaizels+ Big nuke + freezing wind + refracting shard. Normally its big nuke + freezing wind, rise and repeat. Or smaller skills ( when vaizels on CD) + freezing wind + smaller skill again. Also work on your keybinds. One way to smoothly  transition from clicking to using keybinds is by learning to use WASD keys to move around in Aion. Once you become comfortable with your keyboard you can start ulitizing keybinds.

Another thing i want to point our - Essence. Its important to boost your skills by using essence points. My daeva skills all are +4 except freezing wind which is +8. For Achdaeva skills i got Flame waltz (180p essence skill) +3 and Flames of Wrath +3.

Sorry if my suggestion is short and incomplete. I am not the best when it comes to advising other players

[Plezurenpain-DN]

On 11/6/2017 at 11:19 AM, Sabreze-DN said:

Okay so a good pc will increase the frame rate, gotcha, so even if i get a ping reducer, it won't help until i get that sorted huh? I see, alright thanks for thiss o:

Ahh Actually I have stated at the top i put my graphics of the game at lowest already^^; 

That's a really nice point you gave, I am gonna save up for an AMD graphics card thenn.

Yepp I do that too, I guess I am doing it righ then after all  so it's jus my ping/fps sigh.  How depressing I can't reach my full potential...I should just..play once I get a good pc then.

This was quite informative too, Thanks for this o: 

Yepp I am not pvping at all, infact I am not even doing siege cuz my laptop starts having a siegure (get it? siezure..seigure..o-okay anyway) ...Yep I prefer NA cuz all my friends are here  

Question, if I forget about having great DPS, won't I be seen as a 'useless sorc' for not outputting the DPS I am meant to be with the gear I would be having/stats?  

I'm currently running a nice gaming PC I had my former roommate build for me last year.  Intel i5, 16GB RAM, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 graphics card, and 64 bit system.  I am in California (not sure where the Danaria server is hosted compared to California).  I get 125-175 ping & 70+ FPS on my rig with my graphics setting on the highest setting with the exception of water effects simply because I couldn't care less about those.

My suggestion is if you can afford it, get yourself a new PC (not laptop because those are harder to upgrade than a PC is) and if you know anyone who can build it for you get it built (built ones cost less money & have better features than the ready-built ones from the store).  If you do go the route of getting a ready-built one, do so after Christmas because that's the best time of year to get one according to the guys at Best Buy.  They run sales & clearances after Christmas to get rid of what didn't sale for the holiday season & to make room for new models.  Before I got my custom built one, I bought one at Best Buy that ran WOW and most other games on mid-high graphics settings and I only paid like $350-400 for it on clearance.

[Plezurenpain-DN]

Oh yeah @Sabreze-DN I should mention the $350-400 PC I got was regular price $900 so yeah there's some really awesome deals after Christmas at the big name electronics stores.