Viability of the Strength AA line

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<DIV>Okay, so the Strength AA line wants us to be up front and personal meleer's. I've been looking at that to see if this is a viable path with enchanters... I'd like some feedback on the info I've looked through here.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I was thinking of doing the AA's as follows: Strength (8, 4, 4, 8, <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />, Agility (4, 4) and Stamina (<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I looked at the stats on a full set of rare equipment, and a few easily purchaseable/craftable items...</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>- Full set of Dilettante's armor (the +20 Sta/Int).</DIV> <DIV>- Full set of Acrylia Jewelry (+23 Str/Agi/Sta).</DIV> <DIV>- Dagger of Icy Breath (63.1 DR and nice damage proc)</DIV> <DIV>- Enspelled Vultak Eye (ward on spell cast) and Essence Shield of Bylze (mitigation, resists and stats).</DIV> <DIV>- Strength Hexx dolls</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>With that setup (easily obtainable), and assuming adept 3 spells, we'd be looking at the following stat bonuses:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Str: +253</DIV> <DIV>Agi: +271</DIV> <DIV>Sta: +372</DIV> <DIV>Int: +274</DIV> <DIV>Wis: +0</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Assuming the +5% Double Attack and DPS scales solidly per rank, the AA's will give 40% Double Attack and DPS at max. This would end up giving us an equivalent DR:</DIV> <DIV>Base: 63.1 DR</DIV> <DIV>+40% Double Attack: 88.34 DR</DIV> <DIV>+100% DPS (with our buff): 176.7 DR</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My base stats for agility is over 40, and intelligence is over 50... so both those stats would show up as over 300 each if I put on all this equipment.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It would be pretty nice to be able to walk in and set off my own reactives while stabbing the living crap out of things. I would only need two concentration to have this effectiveness as well, so I could still grab a caster pet and have it nuke things while I stab as well. 100% magic counter one-time every 20s would be nice for fighting casters too.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Not to mention, it'd be nice to have over 1000 weight carrying capacity for a change..</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>All in all, I'm not sure how viable it is as a soloing technique... even the extra hitpoints and avoidance, we'd still have only ~12% mitigation. However, it could be a decent increase to your overall DPS. The hitpoints would give us survivability in close range, while the strength and double attack/dps makes us fairly good at autoattack damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And since most of our largest damage spells are fire-and-forget style (cast the reactive, wait for them to go off), we've got plenty of in-between time for our autoattack to do it's work. It should net more than spamming Stroke over and over anyways.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>How's this sound?</DIV><p>Message Edited by Raidi Sovin'faile on <span class=date_text>07-03-2006</span> <span class=time_text>07:47 AM</span>

[sholmes983]

I've always wanted to fiddle around with the strength line, just for the novelty of it.  Personally though, I spend most of my time in a fight (in which I'm trying to do DPS) keeping all of my damage spells active.  I think that if you really want to get more DPS out of your character then maybe you should look into the INT or AGI lines.Having said that, I think it'd be fun and your post intrigues me.  I have some money to blow and I might try it out, just to get away from the same old thing.<div></div>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>The sad thing is that Illusionists would benefit more from this than a Coercer.</P> <P>Their +haste (even at only +56% at adept 3), will increase their damage far more, as it brings up an entirely new level of multiplied damage.</P> <P>Plus, instead of reactives, their spells work off landing the hits.. which means they don't <EM>need</EM> to get hit. And their pet uses stifles and stuns too, not just DPS... so overall they have a better go at the Strength line for soloing.</P> <P> </P> <P>Ah well..</P>

[Jonaroth]

the strength line really makes no sense to me.. would anyone ever really use it? it just seems plain ol dangerous.. I like to stay way in the back in a raid.. every time i get close to do a Sonic Boom or a Thermal Shocker, I always get AOEd in the face, screw trying to get close to epics to use this AA path <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<P>I doubt it's all that useful for epic DPS. Even with fairly high resists and lots of hitpoints from the boosted stamina, I'm sure we could still get severely hurt by the AoE's. Not to mention the crushing/piercing/slashing ones that are based on mitigation... ugh.</P> <P>We've already got a heckuva lot going for us in raids, so I don't really suspect this was added for that.</P> <P> </P> <P>However, the Strength line seems like it could help a lot with groups (DPS-wise), and potentially solo depending on if we can still stay in the thick of it.</P> <P>Also, there's plenty of PvP application, with decent resists, high stamina/hp, and the whole "freak them out" factor of the melee'ing wizard that's actually doing damage... 100% magic counter has the potential to hurt those ice comet folks..<BR>Then again.. I'd still not want to get into melee range of some of those people... maybe after a stun/stifle/daze, come in, melee a bunch, then root and back off and slap on some reactives.</P> <P>It seems like Str is more about killing other mages in pvp, than anything else.</P>

[Tanatus]

<P>How it sound? well polite word would akward.....</P> <P>a) if you have around 300 int instead of 510 you suffer magic DPS penalty in 40% (aka your spells do 40% less damage then person who have 510 int)</P> <P>b) you have no wisdom thus you suffer resistance penalties </P> <P>c) your gear do not include much + physical mit thus you will get kill by any short distance spherical melee AoE that mobs posses in large assortment</P> <P>d) I am not sure how high your melee skill can go but miss/hit ratio for you will be horrible even if they maxed</P> <P>Buttom line - your mitigation horrible, your attack rating horrible</P>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<STRONG></STRONG><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Tanatus wrote:<BR> <P>How it sound? well polite word would akward.....</P> <P>a) if you have around 300 int instead of 510 you suffer magic DPS penalty in 40% (aka your spells do 40% less damage then person who have 510 int)</P> <P>b) you have no wisdom thus you suffer resistance penalties </P> <P>c) your gear do not include much + physical mit thus you will get kill by any short distance spherical melee AoE that mobs posses in large assortment</P> <P>d) I am not sure how high your melee skill can go but miss/hit ratio for you will be horrible even if they maxed</P> <P>Buttom line - your mitigation horrible, your attack rating horrible</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>a) So you suffer 40% damage loss on the 2 spells that reliably do a lot of damage: Auspex and Sonic Boom. The amount of <STRONG>power free</STRONG> damage from melee, plus the two extra attack skills they give should be making up for that.</P> <P>b) The end game is all about sets of gear. Of course the resists will be low, the entire jewelry side has none! My Bruiser has some resists as low as 200 when he's in his DPSing gear.<BR>Also, this is all rare crafted. If you get into fabled, I'm pretty sure you can get decent resists along with the stats. This is a none-issue.</P> <P>c) There's only a couple <STRONG>named</STRONG> that I run into in the end game at the moment that possess any kind of <STRONG>physical</STRONG> point blank aoe. Most of them are raid (which I've already stated, this is definately not meant for raiding). Most area effects are cone based, and you should be behind the creature, avoiding ripostes, anyways.<BR>This really only provides a case against going toe-to-toe, which I've already brought up as an issue in my original post.</P> <P>d) This is where you are wrong. Skill, level and bonuses to skill is what determines your ability to land a hit. Class has nothing to do with it, so a level 70 Coercer with nearly 400 skill in piercing (including bonus from the AA line), and who's landing his blows from behind, will hit pretty much every single time, even on orange mobs.</P> <P> </P> <P>The only problem with this setup that I can find is that if you get hit, you will still go down fast. Those things that melee for 1500 damage are still going to tear through your health, no matter how much it's pumped up.</P> <P>But as long as you don't keep aggro, this could be a decent setup. It would be something neat to try for duoing or in groups.</P>

[Tanatus]

<P>Well let me put this way ..... did Crab X2 (just an example) </P> <P>With 6.3K cold native resistance I was taking around 6K damage per hit with 7.5K cold I was barely scratched (like 2-3K cold damage a pop at most). Mitingation play huge role unless you can get yourself upward 1800-2000 I'd not even bother to come into melee range because you will get 1 shot-kill again unless you running over 5.5K HP unbuffed </P> <P>Just FYI you main damage comes not from 2 spells lol like you think - nah.... Spell damage of coercer very diversified: Breakdown, Viscous Torment, damage procing gear (yes proc damage DO depend on your Int), Spell Scrouge that goes off every time mob execute spell or CA (yep its goes off on CA as well), Ego Torrent, Stroke - no way in hell you going make up for losing 40% damage on those. Auspex and Sonic just a small peice of your spell DPS arsenal</P> <P>Anyway if you so desperate to go max DPS best set up for you will be INT 4/4/4/8 and AGI 4/6/8/4/1</P>

[Petgroup]

2 Reasons that I would go the Str line are :1. Make it so I do not have to eat food to move.2. For the final ability, if it worked correctly. Some mobs spells will hit you even when the effect is on them.I really think about going the Str AA myself but not having the 800 to all resists from the wis line thing and the spell haste from Agil would really annoy me after 5 minutes. I don't think I have melee'd a mob in about 2 years.<div></div>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<FONT color=#ffff00>did Crab X2 (just an example)</FONT> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00>Anyway if you so desperate to go max DPS</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ffff00></FONT> </DIV> <DIV>Just to let you know, I'm talking about regular, grouping coercer stuff. Not the raiding coercer.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also, I never said this would be "uber DPS". I'm talking about <STRONG>viable</STRONG>, as in "enough" to be worth doing as an alternative?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>No, it's not the min/max'd perfect combo. That's pretty much obvious with the fact that you have to go against your class's very nature to do this tactic. However, it seems like for the average person who isn't going to be running into 7k aoe's all the time, it's not half bad.</DIV>

[Tanatus]

<P>Heh you wish ....</P> <P>Ever did Nizara? Sigle group instance I mean? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Try do Keeper of the Path with less then 7.3K to fire </P> <P>Much like brigand you are far far more valuable to your group then you are alive (crack!, hate !!!, charmed pet !!!!!) - coming into melee range you are putting your group in risk of losing you, heck in places like Nizara I even trying to avoid using Sonic (because of short range of spell) unless situation cannt be remedy any other way</P> <P>As for lack of str? well dont worry to much with 13str base my coercer can easy boost it to 24 with just food which allow me carry 195 weight.... Also completing quest 6'Oflock as a reward have bracer 30 to all stats (including str) and 7 to deffence and focus.</P>