Level 56 swashie lokking for some expert advice :)

[Wildfury77]

Hi, i'm play a lvl 56 swash/57jeweler on befallen. Firstly i'm not in a raiding guild.My usual gameplay is one of the following:<font color="#ff0000">1)Solo completing HQs, harvesting.</font><font color="#ff0000">2)6 man melee group where i play either pure dps or dps/offtank </font><i>and less commonly but not infrequently:</i><font color="#ff0000">3)3 man mini group where i am THE tank.</font><font color="#ff0000"></font><font color="#ff0000">4)Tank in groups when i'm helping lvl 46-51s finish quests. a 56 swash survives better than a 50 guard/zerker etc particularly if they are still in tier 5 equipment.</font>I have cobalt/vanadium kit and all adept III (self made) & no master 1. I use duel wield for dps or sword + ironwood roundshield when i tank or solo named.<b><i>What AA pathway would suit me best?</i></b> I would like a combo to be able to <b><i>light tank AND be a good dps dealer</i></b> in a 6 man group.Ideas please <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> thank you<b><font size="4" color="#6633ff">SHADOWSCREAM</font></b><div></div>

[Luk]

<div></div><p>If you are going a 1/2 and 1/2 pathing like this, I might look at STA and WIS lines, you can tank with the STA line with sword and shield, and you can DPS with the WIS line just by dropping you shield, also if you happen to be forced to off tank, you can have your shield on hotbar for a quick equiping and be straight in tank mode.</p><p>other combos might suit as well, but I think this is the best for the split roll you are looking at.</p>

[Syrano]

<div>I'd agree with Licit.  WIS/STA is probably one of the best approaches for a Solo/small group swashy that finds himself being tank/offtank.  WIS itself is a very extendable line once fleshed out the effects of Coule are useful anywhere.</div><div> </div><div>If you really are averse to shield use you might consider the INT line for the FD which has uses though the de-aggro skills may not be as useful to you.  STR line not bad for the debuffs.  AGI probably won't be too useful to you in this situation.</div><div> </div><div>Ultimately WIS/STA is your best bet.  It's what I would do if I was still spending a lot of time in small groups with no tanks.</div>

[tawek]

<div>Wildfury77,</div><div>Thanks for a great question.  I've been meaning to get my head round Swashie AA's, and trying to answer your question was the stimulus I needed to do some thorough analysis.  As a result I think I'm a lot closer to deciding what build *I* will go for.</div><div>I'm not sure it precisely answers your question, and besides, it's grown into such a monster post, it needed it's own thread.  But it might give you some ideas:</div><div>(If you want the detail see <a target="_blank" href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=33&message.id=9547">http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=33&message.id=9547</a>)</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><strong><u>In brief</u>:</strong></div><div>I don't agree with the others.  You can get +50% to autoattack dps from stamina anyway, so the +66% dps for wisdom doesn't give you a great deal extra, and it costs too many AA points.  Instead of combining wisdom with stamina, I'd go for either strength or agility.  That way, you'll end up with extra skills which you can use both when tanking and dps'ing.</div><div> </div><div>My preference is strength.  The boost to your defense skill will help you when tanking and soloing, and will make you more durable when off-tanking/dpsing.</div><div>But the level 5 agility skill <em>Sailwind</em>, if it's still as described in posts on the forums, looks pretty tempting.</div><div> </div><div>In my opinion, wisdom could be the best option for a max dps, when combined with agility or strength, or for a raid dps when combined with intelligence, but I don't see stamina-wisdom as a viable combination.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div><strong><u>On the other hand</u>:</strong></div><div>On re-reading your post, I'm not certain you want a stamina based build.  It entirely depends on how often you main-tank grouped mobs.</div><div> </div><div>You said you usually solo or off-tank/dps, and main-tanking is less common.</div><div> </div><div>The Stamina branch gives you much better group taunt abilities.  If holding aggro against groups has been a major headache for you, then you should go for a Stamina combo.  You'll know better than the rest of us, based on your experience so far.</div><div> </div><div>For off-tanking, you'll have less need of group taunts.  And when main tanking, if you're mostly fighting single mobs, have crowd control to help you out, or have developed an effective technique for using dps to hold aggro against groups without specialist group taunts, then extra dps may be more useful to you.  Ultimately, none of us know your playstyle, or the kinds of mobs you tend to fight.</div><div> </div><div>If you're not sure about going for Stamina, the strength branch looks a good option to start with.  The +25 defense buff from strength will help you solo and tank.  It can be combined with Wisdom, but the problem with wisdom is you need to spend a lot of points before you see any benefit, so you could start with strength, then respec to wisdom once you have enough points to benefit from it. (see Dr. Unk's post where he points this out, in</div><div><a target="_blank" href="http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=33&message.id=8448&view=by_date_ascending&page=7">http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=33&message.id=8448&view=by_date_ascending&page=7</a>)</div><div> </div>