2 Handers VS STR AA line

[Madmoon]

I know that unless you get over 55 DR DWs, you cannot beat the DPS on STR.  So, unless you can afford Fableds (and even then, maybe adorn them,) for DPS alone, STR is the best choice, in broad stokes.  But I was wondering what DR you might need to leave STR for a Two Handed Weapon?  I got a staff, it looks like a mage staff, sadly, so even if I can, I might not use it, but it has a DR of 87 or 88.  Has anyone ever looked into what the DR might need to be to forsake bare fists?

[Waung]

i wouldn't switch from str AA barefisted unless you got a 2handed minimum in the high 90's.  try to get a flapping wing if you can.  maybe velium but that might not even be high enough....

[Agaxiq]

I keep a single fist weapon (just treasured) and a mid-80's Legendary 2H staff for AA's. I'm spec'ed STR 4/4/8/1 WIS 4/4/8 and INT 4/4/8 I'm normally barefisted so I keep these on my hotbar so that I can use the fist AA (INT - causes the enemy to turn around so you can hit them in the back) and use the staff AA (WIS - AE knockdown) Works pretty well and looks pretty darn cool when i just pop out this glowing staff to knock everyone down and then put it away. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> agressiv

[Thoral]

Same here.  Well said.

[Hadanelith]

<p>If you want to switch to 2H fulltime for DPS, you basically have to examine the following:</p><ul><li>Barefist DR is ~70. 70 x 1.96 = 137.2</li><li>DR does not always directly translate due to Crit Rates. Great example is Vrak'Sakin Claw Club, DR of 101.1... but due to the long delay (4.0s) and HUGE damage spread (1-404), Criticals adjust the weapon up by an unprecedented margin. Barefisted delay is 2.5 by comparison with a standard 3:1 Max/Min ratio.</li><li>Barefists cannot be Adorned; although Adornments add relatively little to DPS, the right adornment on the right weapon can indeed make a difference in the long term.</li><li>In order to make up for damage difference, whether going 2h or DW, you almost have to take the STA Line to gain the Mantis Bolt proc. At max rank this is a 24% chance to proc, which is rather significant. This translates out to between a 7.2 PPM (procs per minute) down to a 5.4 PPM depending on definition. (PPM definitions defined in PS following sig.)</li><li>High-Delay weapons of 3.0 or greater gain the most benefit of procs, since a 3.0 delay will give the stated proc rate and anything greater will gain an upward adjustment.</li><li>Weapons with a natural proc should take priority, regardless of proc rate, due to being able to have yet another procl.</li></ul><p>As such, some good Fabled Weapons to use would be...</p><ol><li>NO-TRADE Vraksakin Claw Club: 1 - 404 Damage (101.1 DR), 4.0s Delay; 30 STR, 25 STA, 19 WIS, 8 INT, 95 Health, 45 Power,  Wrath of Broodwatcher proc @ 1.8 PPM (Has highest damage spread and long delay plus proc)</li><li>TRADABLE!! Hammer of the Dragonborn: 28 - 248 Damage (91.7 DR), 3.0s Delay; 30 STR, 30 STA, 11 AGI, 11 WIS, 11 INT, 102 Health, 98 Power, +5 Defense, +5 Parry, +5 Crushing, Velium Shards proc @ 1.8 PPM. (Has a good damage spread near 9:1 ratio and good defensive mods)</li><li>NO-TRADE Maul of the Warden's Fist: 55 - 310 Damage (91.1 DR), 4.0s Delay; 26 STR, 26 STA, 25 AGI, 110 Health, 110 Power, Flowing Thought VII (Has a moderately high damage spread around 6:1 ratio and long delay)</li><li>TRADABLE!! Mallet of the Overlord: 106 - 247 Damage (100.9 DR), 3.5s Delay; 30 STR, 30 STA, 16 AGI, 125 Health, 105 Power, +3 Parry, +5 Crushing, +5 Focus, Flowing Thought I, Startle [Encounter-wide Hate Proc] @ 1.8 PPM. (Has low spread but good DR, moderately long delay, +Parry to help in tanking situations, +Crushing to help in all situations, and an Encounter-Wide Taunt as a proc. Very very nice tanking weapon.)</li><li>TRADABLE!! Stonestaff of Striking: 106 - 247 Damage (100.9 DR), 3.5s Delay; 30 STR, 30 STA, 8 AGI, 125 Health, 102 Power, +4 Defense, +4 Parry, +5 Crushing, Flowing Thought I. (As Mallet of the Overlord above, but loss of Hate Proc. Slightly better defensive mods)</li></ol><p>These are probably the 5 best non-EoF Fableds. You'll see devastating Eagle Shriek results with the Vraksakin or Dragonborn, the rest have more consistant damage under "standard critical" conditions. Hammer of the Dragonborn is probably the best purchasable weapon of the three, though the Mallet of the Overlord is certainly a contestor due to the hate proc. If you're looking to DPS on a raid though, Dragonborn takes the cake - you would NEVER be allowed to use an Encounter-Wide Hate Proc as a DPS'er on a raid!!</p><p>-Hadanelith Raswrolski / Mossda Odis'Ossda, Kithicor Server</p><p>PS: A Note on %-to-PPM Conversion:</p><p>I noticed while adding AA's to my Paladin that an AA that added 1% chance-to-proc per level to specific buffs raised the PPM rating on the buff by 0.3. Under this definition, 24% x 0.3 = 7.2 PPM for Mantis Bolt. However, the Base% for that same proc was 8% and it translated to 1.8 PPM with the EoF descriptor change. 1.8 / 8 = 0.225; 24% x 0.225 = 5.4 PPM. Thus, the "True" PPM is probably somewhere between these two numbers. The most accurate calculation would likely be 0.225 + [(0.300 - 0.225) / 2] = 0.2625 >>> 24% x 0.2625 = 6.3 PPM.</p>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<cite>Hadanelith wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>If you want to switch to 2H fulltime for DPS, you basically have to examine the following:</p><ul><li><span style="color: #ff0000">Barefist DR is ~70</span>. 70 x 1.96 = 137.2</li><li>DR does not always directly translate due to Crit Rates. Great example is Vrak'Sakin Claw Club, DR of 101.1... but due to the long delay (4.0s) and HUGE damage spread (1-404), Criticals adjust the weapon up by an unprecedented margin. Barefisted delay is 2.5 by comparison with a standard 3:1 Max/Min ratio.</li><li>Barefists cannot be Adorned; although Adornments add relatively little to DPS, the right adornment on the right weapon can indeed make a difference in the long term.</li><li>In order to make up for damage difference, whether going 2h or DW, you almost have to take the STA Line to gain the Mantis Bolt proc. At max rank this is a 24% chance to proc, which is rather significant. This translates out to between a 7.2 PPM (procs per minute) down to a 5.4 PPM depending on definition. (PPM definitions defined in PS following sig.)</li><li><span style="color: #ff0000">High-Delay weapons of 3.0 or greater gain the most benefit of procs</span>, since a 3.0 delay will give the stated proc rate and anything greater will gain an upward adjustment.</li><li>Weapons with a natural proc should take priority, regardless of proc rate, due to being able to have yet another procl.</li></ul></blockquote> Most of what you've got is good.. there's a few details off though (the stuff I hightlighted in red). <p>- Unarmed DR is actually a base of ~54.5. Base damage is something like 33-100 at 2.5 delay, which (like the devs said originally) is similar to storebought twohanders and they show 54-ish DR. Now.. you may take the +20 DPS from the Strength line into account as being part of the unarmed damage increase. In this case, as long as you don't get into the 100+ range, it's mostly true, and you can look at unarmed being roughly 20% higher than the base compared to weapons. Which brings the DR up to ~65. With double attack, it becomes ~127.4 DR.</p><p>- Procs are adjusted for weapon delay in both directions. You proc less the faster your weapon is, and you proc more the slower your weapon is. Overall, it's designed that you will proc the same amount over time no matter what your base weapon delay is... basically, you don't get more damage out of procs until you start getting Haste.. weapon delay won't increase or decrease overall benefit of procs. It used to be that CAs would set off procs, and use the primary weapon for the rate of proc. This meant spamming 10 CAs with a slow weapon in primary could result in a ton of procs. That was why having a slow weapon helped procs. This was changed when CAs were designed to use their own casting time and recovery time to determine their rate of procs. Now a slow weapon means nothing with regards to your rate of proc'ing.</p><p> Overall though, I agree. Those are basically what you want to look at when going over to 2-handed. You bring up a nice point with regards to Crits though, one that I hadn't looked into for actual number crunching yet. Using the Crits thread in the combat forum, you can get these kinds of modified numbers:</p><p>Vrak Club, at it's massive range, brings in the full 1% extra damage per crit %. When looking at our own self buffable crit % (about 25%, 26% if you get an adornment), you can look at it's DR basically going from 101.1 to <b>~127</b>. Unarmed, by comparison with it's 1:3 ratio (0.58% extra damage per crit %), would get about 15% damage increase from our crits, and go from 127.4 to <b>~146.5 DR</b>. No procs tho...</p><p>Hammer of the Dragonborn, (1:9 ratio, so 0.88% extra damage per crit %), gets ~22.9% extra, and goes from 91.7 to <b>~112.7 DR</b>.</p><p>Warden's Fist, (1:6 ratio, so 0.79% extra per crit %), gets ~20.5% extra damage, and goes from 91.1 to <b>~109.8 DR</b>.</p><p>Mallet of the Overlord and Stonestaff of Striking both have 1:2.5 ratio, which is only ~0.515% per crit%, giving you about 13.4% extra damage, and increasing 100.9 to <b>~114.4 DR</b>. However, the Overlord procs an encounter taunt, and that's GOLD for our tanking abilities... and the taunt proc means you don't really want to use it for DPSing. The decision in this case isn't really going to be about how much DPS it does with crits or otherwise, it's gonna be the taunt proc. The stonestaff of striking is a fairly inferior choice for DPS overall in this case.. and with it's bonuses, I'd almost say it's just a poor man's defensive staff, except that it doesn't seem to be cheap on the market. I've passed it over quite a few times.</p><p>For a Legendary comparison that is easily attainable, lets look at the Staff of the Flapping Wing (x2 instance of AoA, drops off trash, sometimes on market for absurdly cheaper than most other weapons). With a 1:3 ratio, it's gonna be at 15% extra damage, just like our unarmed. This raises the DR from 106 (i think) to around <b>122 DR</b>.</p><p> Overall, Unarmed is still the highest. Which is why it's such a contender, even after crits. It's the fact that you can get some nice damage procs and better stats (with nearly no cap considerations anymore), and more AA's to get damage from, that you start to surpass them. That and specialty procs like Power/Life taps and Taunts, etc.</p>

[B-Rabb]

I got a question, I know its a bit off-topic, but why do you choose barefisted? Seriously, not that I know, but dont you miss out on a lot of Stats? I dont have any high bruiser yet, working on it.. just something I thought off..

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

<p>Well it depends on what you are looking for. Unarmed is strictly a DPS choice, since it doesn't really give any defensive bonuses (the AA only gives double attack and +DPS for using unarmed.. otherwise each other AA line gives a defensive bonus similar or greater to the rest of the Strength line).</p><p>So in the Damage Dealing department... you really have to ask yourself. Are those procs and ~40 strength going to equate to the ~20-40 more DR your unarmed is getting? Depending on your strength, probably not. From the extensive Bruiser experience we've had, the old hats of the board have basically come to the consensus that it's not better than having Fabled, especially now with adornments... but it's at least in competition with Legendary (likely stronger than non-adorned legendary/mastercrafted). The fact that it's basically better than Mastercrafted, Free for 16 AA's, and never has to be replaced, makes it the "weapon of choice" for leveling. Unless you happen to fall into two fable dual wields for your level, or a fabled twohander... and spend plat on adorning, then your unarmed with 16 AA's spent in Strength line will be better than anything you can make or buy. Yeah, Barefisted isn't a choice when you get to endgame because that's the point that you are going to get raid level fabled weapons that can blow it out of the water. But until then, Barefisted is definately an option. Even with the lack of strength/procs from weapon slot.</p>

[Junaru]

One thing overlooked with the STR line is Pressure Point. The debuff of crushing damage makes for a good amount of damage. Plus it helps out more then yourself. I'm currently using the Staff of the Flapping Wing and switched from 4,5,8 STR AA's. I would say my DPS is around the same but in a group the lack Pressure Point lowers the over groups DPS (depending on weapons they use). The nice thing about my current AA (4,4,8 STA,INT,WIS) line up is, if I do get some nice fabled DW weapons I don't need to change my AA's to switch from my 2HD to DW which frees me up to pick and choice my weapons depending on the mob I'm going against. I agree though, that if you are leveling up and aren't raiding the end game or at least KoS end game, stick with STR AA's. It will save you a lot of plat in the long run.