harharharhar wrote on Dec 6
th, 2017 at 5:28pm:
the DPS fall off you are characterizing throwers having matters in your scenario against a 1m HP mob if the melee and the thrower are being compared against that thing solo. Otherwise the share of DPS they have to do to kill it is reduced a great deal by party members, thereby lessening the importance of sustained DPS versus burst DPS.
The 1m HP mob solo is really an example. It serves reasonably well to represent the performance of a given build over the course of an entire mission.
In a vacuum aka very limited test scenarior aka dojo kobold where the target can be killed in 30s or less, you get to test the max potential of a build's short-term burst DPS capability. That capability is often very different from a build's capability to sustain a given level of DPS over the course of a 30+ minute mission. That's why relying solely on dojo kobold tests to form your DDO build worldview is a bad idea. Kobold results do not accurately reflect the potential of a build across a 30-45 minute mission.
This is what reaper changed. Pre-reaper, most missions in the game could be zerged in 15 minutes or less with a skilled group. Short completion times heavily favor burst DPS over slightly lower, but more consistent sustained DPS.
With mid to high skull reaper missions, completion times on good runs often exceed 30 minutes. The longer the mission takes, the more it favors high, sustained DPS over short-duration burst spikes. This is where good DPS melee builds excel.
In 7-10 skull lvl 30+ missions, most trash has ~10-15k hps. Neg level and vorpal fishing is an okay tactic, but it's no better than sustained raw DPS done properly and it's worse when it comes to bosses. The best option is to have a somewhat balanced party where you have a caster that's CC primary, instakill secondary spec'd, 2 melee DPS, 1 ranged DPS, and a tank and healer. That's what provide the smoothest, fastest mission clears in 7-10 skull reaper in my experience across about 35 reaper points worth of end-game missions.