DPS, Dummies, Evade & Block

[WhifOfDespair]

I'm a long time player (lifer since the game first came out) and while I used to group a lot in the first few years have gone nearly entirely solo for several years now, not by any aversion to group content, but just because of real life constraints.

As such, my gear, traits & rotations have leaned heavily towards solo questing.

Kinda interested in resuming some group work and am wondering about my gear and setup. So I've been reading the various threads talking about DPS and skill rotations and legacies and I've just got a couple of questions.

1) I don't have a DPS parsing plugin - I see a couple of options out there are the recommended plugins to use to measure DPS? Any tips towards how to properly measure DPS are appreciated.
2) Which dummies actually can be used to measure high-end DPS? I know that the low-level dummies quit too soon.
3) Do dummies have an evade or block chance? If not, how realistic is this as a measure?

To expand on the last question, on one of my bows, I have both the neg Evade Chance and neg Block chance LI's and it's really nice to almost never see Evade or Block by my target in combat. My other bow only has Evade on it and I still see Blocked occasionally. When I see posts by folks of DPS parses and they show their bows, it seems an awful lot of them have neither of these.

Am I wasting LI slots by slotting these legacies? Or are some people relying on the DPS parses overlooking evade/block chance in real combat?

[theultimatekyle]

The most common dps parsing plugin that people in game use is combat analysis (if you use the lotro plugin compendium its relatively easy to find and install) but its not necessary. If you dont want to use a plugin, there is a dummy that is specifically for raid dps parsing in game, and will post your results to your 'say' chat channel. Its not in towns though, and any dummy you find in say bree or galtrev will do a soft reset every so many seconds, wiping bleeds and DoTs so you wont get a true picture for your parse. The raid dps dummy is available as a housing decoration from the traveling figment trader that they put in game every now and then. Its not around right now, so just ask in world chat if anyone has it and would be willing to let you use it (they would have to add your toon to their housing permissions for allowing the use of decorations), and then just watch out for the next time they put the trader in. It costs like 8k figments though so save up.

Dummies do have a small bpe chance, but they also seem to have a 'front' and a 'back' as well, and its important to remember that mobs/bosses/dummies/pvp characters can not block or parry attacks from behind, only evade. Thats also important to remember for group settings as well, so you should try to remain behind the bosses in runs when possible.

To your last question though, the legacies for evade rating and block rating on bows are fairly useless. If you're attacking from behind and have at least 20% finesse, you'll be fine for t1-t2 content. My hunter runs about 250k finesse at level cap and I'm only BPE'd about 1% of the time for the t3-t5 content. Even if being blocked and parried was a real worry, the rating legacies on bows are so low at max (-8700 rating) that they don't actually matter. BPE and mit ratings are in the hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands, so rating legacies and bow chants are all non-starters as is.

[WhifOfDespair]

The most common dps parsing plugin that people in game use is combat analysis (if you use the lotro plugin compendium its relatively easy to find and install) but its not necessary. If you dont want to use a plugin, there is a dummy that is specifically for raid dps parsing in game, and will post your results to your 'say' chat channel. Its not in towns though, and any dummy you find in say bree or galtrev will do a soft reset every so many seconds, wiping bleeds and DoTs so you wont get a true picture for your parse. The raid dps dummy is available as a housing decoration from the traveling figment trader that they put in game every now and then. Its not around right now, so just ask in world chat if anyone has it and would be willing to let you use it (they would have to add your toon to their housing permissions for allowing the use of decorations), and then just watch out for the next time they put the trader in. It costs like 8k figments though so save up.

Dummies do have a small bpe chance, but they also seem to have a 'front' and a 'back' as well, and its important to remember that mobs/bosses/dummies/pvp characters can not block or parry attacks from behind, only evade. Thats also important to remember for group settings as well, so you should try to remain behind the bosses in runs when possible.

To your last question though, the legacies for evade rating and block rating on bows are fairly useless. If you're attacking from behind and have at least 20% finesse, you'll be fine for t1-t2 content. My hunter runs about 250k finesse at level cap and I'm only BPE'd about 1% of the time for the t3-t5 content. Even if being blocked and parried was a real worry, the rating legacies on bows are so low at max (-8700 rating) that they don't actually matter. BPE and mit ratings are in the hundreds of thousands, not tens of thousands, so rating legacies and bow chants are all non-starters as is.

Thanks, Kyle. This is exactly the sort of info I was looking for.

I guess with solo, as a Hunter, I spend most of my time facing the front of mobs, burning them down as they approach. Good point that in groups I'm more likely to try to setup behind mobs, as drawn by the tank. Time to redo the legacies of one of my bows!

[Schattenhand]

If you go for normal dummy+combat analysis, the Moors dummies in GV are always max level. The timer is still ok for testing burst/opening rotations.