EOF AA's. Any thought about it?

[khurath]

<DIV>Having already got the 50 points for the KoS AA,s, I am now faced with the choice to how to distribute the points on the Swashbuckler tree.</DIV> <DIV>My original opinion was to go down the potency and style lines, but the recent nerf on the inspiration AA made me think about it again.</DIV> <DIV>Furthermore someone says that Reach is the best ability to have; why is that so? In what environment?</DIV> <DIV>I play in PVE server, but aside from that I enjoy nearly all the content, from soloing to grouping to occasional raiding.</DIV> <DIV>Is there anyone who has tried the AA's in depth?</DIV> <DIV>C'mon guys, I didn't yet see any serious EOF AA discussion: let's start one.</DIV>

[SmCaudata]

Personally I find it annoying how often I hurricane unwanted foes already, I can't imagine fighting with reach.  Swathe would grab through very thick walls.  That is just me though.Style line is still great.  The top tier ability can make you a makeshift bard in a raid group without one.  The reduction on inspiration is still nice to have and it could be the difference between getting to use it 2 or 3 times on a boss fight (if you have jester's cap for the first time this is more likely).  Also you get a reduction on En Garde, which is much more damage after EoF with improvement to the avoidance system, and an increase to the duration to finese.  Now I hit finese and wait until my temporary DPS/Haste buffs proc and I am done spamming my CAs again and I still have time to hit inspiration and finish it before finese wears off.  I find the finese increaser to be extremely usefull.Potency is probably the best AA line IMO.  A 25% increase to poison damage, and ingnorant bliss avoidance, is huge.If you go style and potency you can still pick up increased hurricane proc.  This means you will have all of the increased damage AAs except Hail of Steel and you will still have quite a bit of raid usefullness with the group AoE immunity and improvement to our mit debuffs and debuff poisons.Now if you want the most raid usefulness possible you may want to go down the debuff line.  And then probably the potency line or style line second depending on if you want the improved debuff poisons or the 13 sec AoE immunity.<div></div>

[SageGaspar]

I've heard reach lets you use arctic blast from melee range, and I could definitely see where it'd be useful backing up from PBAEs and probably PvPing. Personally most of the abilities in that line are duds for me though. It's very rare I find myself wishing the range on my attacks were longer in a group with a competent tank, and I don't want to center my build around raid utility.I'm going to try potency and debuff with WIS and AGI on my new swash with some dipping to get the inspiration enhancement and maybe the hurricane enhancement if I can work it in. The hurricane enhancement was the one thing I found myself really missing when I planned my AA build out. I did the WIS/STR thing before and I figure I'll try something new now. A few respecs doesn't really break the budget anyway.<div></div>

[Delow]

The final ability in the Reach line is pretty good but I don't want to get the swathe and ploy abilities. Since they increase the radius by 1 per point it would make using them harder in tighter spaces and require you to be far more aware of your surroundings. I also don't have an issue hitting all the targets I want to when I use swathe and ploy and they don't usually miss so its not that worth it to me. I wonder how helpful the increased range ability actually is, It is probably most useful when fighting mobs that use PBAoEs (slaughter for example) but that's only if it can put you outside the range of that AoE. I feel that the Style, Potency and Debuff lines are our best lines to pick from depending on your play style. I will probably go down the potency line with the style line and put the remainder into the <span class="103085608-27122006">d</span>ebuff line (I already took the +10 to dazzling steels DPS debuff). I really like the increase to the MIT debuffs on our Whirl of blades and Guile CAs from the potency line about another 332 mit decrease if you have both abilities at M1 giving a total of 1660 between the 2. I also want the Lung Puncture debuff increase but I don't care for the ones that you have to get prior to being able to get it. <div></div>

[khurath]

<DIV>I agree with the Dazzling Steel and Lung Puncture debuffs, but to obtain them I should spend at least 16 points (that is considering 5 points in Lung Puncture and 5 in Dazzling Steel).</DIV> <DIV>At that point the last skill (which seems veeery interesting: 10% more resistability on enemy's spells) only needs 4 more points which could go in the Gaudy strike debuff (really useful against wizard type classes).</DIV> <DIV>It seems a pretty good overall enhancement.</DIV> <DIV>My only doubt is if this 10% more resistability is really useful: what spells would it apply to? would it be usefule against DoTs?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then there is the problem of how to spend the other points:</DIV> <DIV>To fill up the mit debuff it means 16 points, and 16 also to fill up EnGarde and Inspiration.</DIV> <DIV>To take also Hurricane it needs 8 more points if you already have the potency line, 11 if not (too much for a single ability in my opinion).</DIV> <DIV>I think I will probably steer from my original plan and take 21 points in the debuff line, then fill up the En Garde and Inspiration with another 16 and the rest in the mit debuff.</DIV> <DIV>If the 10% resistability increase is not really useful, then I'll probably:</DIV> <DIV>- use the 4 points of Gaudy strike in Avoid Censure and take the 13 secs AoE immunity</DIV> <DIV>- or max out the mit debuff (In this case though I'll leave out the final skills, could it be an alternative approach?).</DIV>