Maybe for party bossing, there could be a column on the side, saying what party skills the class is assumed to be getting. Or you could do something like:
NLs (with SE)
NLs (w/o SE)
DrKs (w/ SI)
....
Although that seems like it would get to be a pretty long table. There are considerations like, a BM who is getting Healed is better than one who has to pot on their own, because they don't have to stop/restart Hurricane as often.
Also, for party bossing, is it going to be by how helpful a class is in actually dealing damage to a boss, or how helpful the class is to others in the party, or a combination of both? Because besides the obvious Bishops, Buccaneers would have a different rating according to that difference, I think...
Or you could list the classes that are most helpful to that class when party bossing out on the side, though I think you'd have to put Bishops on just about every class for, if not Heal if a DrK is Zerking, then Dispel and Res, and to a lesser extent, Bless and Holy Shield. Most every good party skill is loved by everyone, but some more than others... HB and Smokescreen come to mind. But there are also some that are okay/good for some classes and useless/bad to others... Rage/Medi, Heal, SI. Maybe you could color code: green = extremely helpful, yellow = helpful, red = bad. (Useless would not be listed.) Anyway, this system would mean that you could (fuzzily) find the classes best at helping others by seeing how many times their skills are mentioned in this column... Or just make this all into another table, but that's starting to get pretty complicated and not as relevant to the original topic. (EDIT: Okay, apparently there was a sentence about this in the original post, but I forgot about it by the time I read to the end of the thread.)
An idea I had is two columns on the far right, say, that sum up the general pros and cons of each class during bossing. So you could say, for mages/bishops, "relies on MG", because they are vulnerable to Dispel, large hits, and 1/1, being unable to be "saved" by Heal. Or "low HP" for Bowmasters. Or, heck, "Alchemist for apples" for NLs. You could bold the ones that are most important, such as low DPS for Bishops, which is the HUGE, elephant-in-the-room reason they suck at solo bossing. (Obviously.)
I don't think there's a need to get into details with DPS in this chart... Aside from obvious factors like elemental weaknesses/resistance, it seems like most of the factors which would increase or decrease your DPS are the same factors that would make it hard to survive. (I'm thinking NLs at Bigfoot, jumping away from him and DSing to let him pass. In this case, high touch damage is the reason for both the harder play style and the lower DPS.)
Or you could just put "high DPS" or "low DPS" into the columns for general pros/cons. We aren't being exact here, so just putting "high" under, say, NLs, BMs, and Corsairs (maybe Heroes?), "low except with elemental advantage" under Archmages and Paladins, and "low" under Bishops would suffice for me. Or a "star" rating for DPS, out of, say, four stars.
Sorry for the rambling post... Just throwing around some ideas... I think that characterizing party bossing will be a lot harder than solo bossing, but I also think it's more important, since most of the bigger/more fun bosses are usually done in parties (CWKPQ, HT, and PB obviously require parties, and Zak is much faster with a party).
NLs (with SE)
NLs (w/o SE)
DrKs (w/ SI)
....
Although that seems like it would get to be a pretty long table. There are considerations like, a BM who is getting Healed is better than one who has to pot on their own, because they don't have to stop/restart Hurricane as often.
Also, for party bossing, is it going to be by how helpful a class is in actually dealing damage to a boss, or how helpful the class is to others in the party, or a combination of both? Because besides the obvious Bishops, Buccaneers would have a different rating according to that difference, I think...
Or you could list the classes that are most helpful to that class when party bossing out on the side, though I think you'd have to put Bishops on just about every class for, if not Heal if a DrK is Zerking, then Dispel and Res, and to a lesser extent, Bless and Holy Shield. Most every good party skill is loved by everyone, but some more than others... HB and Smokescreen come to mind. But there are also some that are okay/good for some classes and useless/bad to others... Rage/Medi, Heal, SI. Maybe you could color code: green = extremely helpful, yellow = helpful, red = bad. (Useless would not be listed.) Anyway, this system would mean that you could (fuzzily) find the classes best at helping others by seeing how many times their skills are mentioned in this column... Or just make this all into another table, but that's starting to get pretty complicated and not as relevant to the original topic. (EDIT: Okay, apparently there was a sentence about this in the original post, but I forgot about it by the time I read to the end of the thread.)
An idea I had is two columns on the far right, say, that sum up the general pros and cons of each class during bossing. So you could say, for mages/bishops, "relies on MG", because they are vulnerable to Dispel, large hits, and 1/1, being unable to be "saved" by Heal. Or "low HP" for Bowmasters. Or, heck, "Alchemist for apples" for NLs. You could bold the ones that are most important, such as low DPS for Bishops, which is the HUGE, elephant-in-the-room reason they suck at solo bossing. (Obviously.)
I don't think there's a need to get into details with DPS in this chart... Aside from obvious factors like elemental weaknesses/resistance, it seems like most of the factors which would increase or decrease your DPS are the same factors that would make it hard to survive. (I'm thinking NLs at Bigfoot, jumping away from him and DSing to let him pass. In this case, high touch damage is the reason for both the harder play style and the lower DPS.)
Or you could just put "high DPS" or "low DPS" into the columns for general pros/cons. We aren't being exact here, so just putting "high" under, say, NLs, BMs, and Corsairs (maybe Heroes?), "low except with elemental advantage" under Archmages and Paladins, and "low" under Bishops would suffice for me. Or a "star" rating for DPS, out of, say, four stars.
Sorry for the rambling post... Just throwing around some ideas... I think that characterizing party bossing will be a lot harder than solo bossing, but I also think it's more important, since most of the bigger/more fun bosses are usually done in parties (CWKPQ, HT, and PB obviously require parties, and Zak is much faster with a party).