Slash/Pierce Skill Increases - Any Tangible Benefit

[coldasice]

<DIV>I am considering respecing to take advantage to the Coule skill in the Rogue AA line, but what it stopping me is that I dont understand if there is any tangible benefit to increasing these skills.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Swindlers Luck for example, an increase of about 23 to those skills.. what benefit does that actually bring? Do i hit harder? Do I miss less?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyone got the definitive explanation of what benefit increasing these skills brings?</DIV>

[Syrano]

You, arguably, should hit more often.  It doesn't increase the damage per attack, just the number of attacks that hit.  This is most noteable on mobs that are your level or higher, less so on Greens/blues where you already get a bonus.Coule is often also taken for a solo swash because it helps to counter the skill point losses from defensive stance (if you use defensive while solo'ing anyway).It's good for solo'ing tougher mobs, but generally it's best on things like group instances or raids where the named mobs have boosted skills or are higher level than you are, in order to keep your hit % up.<div></div>

[Cocytus]

<DIV>You hit a LOT more often. Before EOF, my accuracy was 100%, except for against some 74s (never fought any 75s <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) where it was about 98%.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now, post EOF, people are missing quite a bit more than they used to, and the usefullness of this skill has really increased. Additionally it increases defensive skills, so you evade more (which means if you are swatted at, you have a higher chance of procing lunge reversal or En Garde if you're burning it.)</DIV>

[SmCaudata]

Yes it is huge now. I grouped with another swashy in my guild. Normally on raids before EoF we had similar hit rates of around 90% on the level 74 epics and 75% or so on Tarinax.  The other day I ran an instance with her. My piercing was at 406 and her slashing was 429 (she had coule and another item).  My hit rate was 75-80% against yellow cons and hers was 95-100.  Coule is incredibly powerful now for raiders if you don't have a lot of +skill gear or +skill buffs in your group.  I wish they had more +skill on gear.  There is a lot more +skill gear for casters than for melee folks.<div></div>

[standupwookie]

I notice a pretty big difference when soloing.  I have adept III in offensive and defensive stance.  When I use defensive stance I dont really see any benefits in terms of the mitigation or avoidance.  Maybe my level is too low (31), but there is no real reason to fight in defensive stance unless you are fighting a group of solo yellow encounters.Usually you can get Swindlers Luck to pop for a tough fight as its the uncommon HO.I think a better use would be to load up on parry gear and fight in offensive stance.  That way if you have lunge reversal, it will be even better.  I guess you could also load up on weapon skills though...Bottom line is it does not effect damage, so you hit or you dont.  It is actually a pretty good idea to fight in defensive stance going against blues and greens that you know you can hit no matter what.

[Cocytus]

<DIV>Better to fight in defensive when you have lunge reversal. You'll be evaded more, so it will trigger more, and you'll also evade more, so it will trigger more.</DIV>

[SmCaudata]

<div><blockquote><hr>Cocytus wrote:<div>Better to fight in defensive when you have lunge reversal. You'll be evaded more, so it will trigger more, and you'll also evade more, so it will trigger more.</div><hr></blockquote>TBH against weak mobs where lunge reversal really isn't needed I would rather just kill faster in offensive and against the tougher mobs I find that I am evaded/parried often enough that it only takes a couple seconds more for a lunge reversal, meaning after a REALLY long fight it may proc one more time in defensive. Not worth it IMO.  When duoing/small group tanking pre-EoF I stayed in Offensive for nearly everything except maybe one or two tough named.  Post EoF, I am less certain of my tanking abilities and haven't had much time to test it out.  I have a feeling though that since avoidance has generally been increased lunge reversal should not be a reason to chose either stance.</div>

[Cocytus]

<DIV>Well I solo/duo in defensive unless fighting grays/greens for whatever reason.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I rarely miss and the lunge reversal proc allows me to move from mob to mob without losing more than 5HP and very little power.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To each his own <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I just like the whole parry/riposte/etc aspect when soloing.</DIV>

[coldasice]

<DIV>Thanks for the input folks. I have taken Coule and see how it goes over the next few days while the combat revamp is still settling in.</DIV>

[coldasice]

<P>Raided Labs last night, and in was in the MT group for aggro transfer. Had slashing buffed to 439 and had a To Hit % of anything between 75% and 98% depending on mob and whether or not the tanks was having to switch mobs alot.</P> <P>Is this the percentage I should be monitoring? I ask, as I noticed that the ACT has numbers for Swings, Hits, Missed, and Hits Failed. If I swing and miss because the mob is out of range does that count against my To Hit %?</P> <P> </P> <P>Also, does this percentage sound about right in comparison to other swashies following the combat changes?</P>

[SmCaudata]

Yeah, you look at hit percentage. The best way is to click on your outgoing damage and see what your melee swings and hits are and calculate it yourself.  If you look at the overall parse, the hits and misses there counts poison, CAs, and all the other ways you do damage as swings, which will skew your % higher.  If you are out of range it does not register as a swing so it won't affect anything.You were buffed to 439 and had hit rates at or below what I used to see at 400.  Seems I need to go collect +skill gear now. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[MrDiz]

I respecced last night too, will see how it is. I think I was hitting more often, but its hard to guage as we ran out of EoF zones to do and went and did HoS for AA exp. As you all know parsing HoS is useless half the time cos you spend your life flying around from knockbacks <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But my GUT feeling is I didnt miss as much.

[coldasice]

<P>Ok... now Im getting confused....</P> <P>Raided last night against 73/74 epics. I was monitoring the stats on ACT and noticed that the two assassins in the raid we're getting roughly 5-8% higher accuracy on their hits while dual wielding. I was hitting accuracy of around 85-88% for most of the raid. </P> <P>My slashing skill was 441 with a Dirge buff.</P> <P>The assassins was in the 360 -380 zone.</P> <P>So my calculator says thats a 61-81 points advantage to me, but they are getting a higher accuracy rate?</P> <P>I don't get it... does the fact that I've gone one-handed to get the most out the the rogue AA line making a difference?</P> <P>I can't help thinking I would be better off maxing out my Double Attack chance rather than taking the Coule?</P>

[Quilia]

<div></div>Lately I have noticed my dps has gone down a nice bit, have been doing the same thing I always do.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Quilia on <span class=date_text>11-24-2006</span> <span class=time_text>03:25 PM</span>

[MrDiz]

<blockquote><hr>KingKobra74 wrote:<P>Ok... now Im getting confused....</P><P>Raided last night against 73/74 epics. I was monitoring the stats on ACT and noticed that the two assassins in the raid we're getting roughly 5-8% higher accuracy on their hits while dual wielding. I was hitting accuracy of around 85-88% for most of the raid. </P><P>My slashing skill was 441 with a Dirge buff.</P><P>The assassins was in the 360 -380 zone.</P><P>So my calculator says thats a 61-81 points advantage to me, but they are getting a higher accuracy rate?</P><P>I don't get it... does the fact that I've gone one-handed to get the most out the the rogue AA line making a difference?</P><P>I can't help thinking I would be better off maxing out my Double Attack chance rather than taking the Coule?</P><hr></blockquote>Dont even bother taking wisdom AA line unless you intend to max the double attack! But Coule is now actually quite useful and im now 99% sure im parsing quite a bit higher than before with it. This means however im relying on our brigands to provide traumatic for us <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[coldasice]

Dropped Coule, and no major difference in my accuracy, but now maxed out on double attack and melee critical chance.

[SmCaudata]

<div><blockquote><hr>KingKobra74 wrote:<div></div>Dropped Coule, and no major difference in my accuracy, but now maxed out on double attack and melee critical chance.<hr></blockquote>Curiously enough I find my accuracy to be more affected on heroics than epics.  On heroics the 17 point boost makes the difference between 100% accuracy and missing sometimes.  On the epics now, getting 100% accuracy seems extremely difficult, then again I haven't maxed it. I would assume that with coule, crusader buff, swindler's luck, and a dirge you would be as close to 100% as you can get, then again in that situation you wouldn't need coule.Also, in DT last night, I noticed my hit rate to be much higher than in MM Inner Sanctum.  It is probably part of the raid zone progression thing.  In EoF zones my DPS seems down compared to pre EoF numbers but in KoS zones my DPS seems up compared to pre EoF numbers.So I will equip my relic hat and +slashing cloak when fighting in those zones for the boost to piercing instead of scallywags and my super cheap +2% crit cloak when I have a good group setup or am in places where my hit rate is really high.  I actually like making gear choices now. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></div>

[MrDiz]

On oranges I notice it helps a lot. But I would say its not worth losing 4 ranks in double attack and 4 ranks in crits. Coule might be worth it if you are raiding in a guild with 2 brigands who both have traumatic and you can drop it from your AAs.But you are going to see arguments back and forth and realistically all I can tell you is this: Come back in 4 months when we have figured out all the new content or when Sony decide to totally change everything again. It is currently too early to be sure what the new "best build" is. For all we know in a months time +20 pierce wpns will drop and the price of skill enhancing adornments might plummet making it very easy to hit the point of "diminishing returns" on skills. Or it might be shown that anything that boosts combat skills (or debuffs enemy skills) is suddenly the new MUST-HAVE tag to add to gear.