New barbarian defiler, AA question please

[Kimmuerl]

 Im a very experianced healer, and i choose the defiler, becuase its versatility and ability to both be great in groups and solo. I mostly group, but want a defiler who can solo. My question is this, i hear that the str/wis line is best, for me, which one ALL the way down should i go down first, and why. That way i can make the right choice. Please help, thank you for your time, i love this class. Btw, how is your solo experiance when doing this? Groups?

[Sedenten]

<p>I personally ran all the way down the strength line first.  Basically, the strength line isn't much use unless to max it out entirely (the last ability does wonders to keep the pooch alive).  Having the ward procs from the dog really helped me solo and did a ton in groups early on.  I soloed all the way up to 70 using strength/wisdom spec.  Honestly, once you get strength maxed out I'd try and get the class Cannibalize line, as it is an ability I've come to rely on.</p><p>If you're looking for just pure solo spec, I'd recommend taking a look at the INT line, as it will give your DPS a big oomph.  You wouldn't necessarily need to run all the way down the INT line, but just enough to get nuke crits maxed out and possibly 5+ points in the 2nd ability for damage.  I never really messed with the AGI line, but I imagine the extra melee crits along with the INT line stuff would do a lot for a soloing defiler.</p><p>I ended up respecing from Strength/Wisdom to Strength/Stamina (ultra fast cures + Coagulation is great), and added Agility up to max heal crits post 70.  I've found my current setup to be excellent in both group and raid situations, though soloing can take forever.  I would recommend going that route if you plan on grouping a ton, though STR still has a lot of viability as well (but only if maxed out).</p><p>For class stuff, Soul Ward, Cannibalize, and Curseweaving are all three excellent choices (and it's possible to take all three to max post-70).</p>

[Kimmuerl]

  Thank you for all the advice, i like that plan. IM thinking of going down the str line, then the Int line, not all the way down like you said, just a till the crits, then when im grouping in the 50s and later laters, i can finish out the crusadeder line with the wis line. What do you think? IM thinking that way i can do good dmg, solo when i want, and group. If i went str/int, would i stil be good groups, long as i have a high wis i would right? I liked your idea of the  cannabalize, ill do that for sure, probably after the int or str line.

[firewolf]

I've a level 72 defiler that solo most of the time and group/raid once awhile. Played around with str/agi, str/int and str/agi. For soloing, str/int is the better option, especially when working on RoK quests. Str go all the way down to the end while int only need to go to 488. To solo better as defiler, work on getting a set of soloing chain gear. Focus on int and wis. The rest are optional. Int for improving damage on all your dots. Wis for power and resistant versus spells. With spell damage enhancement in the Cannibalize line and +spell damage items, my defiler can kill yellow con(2-3levels above) at reasonable speed in RoK. If you intend to solo without either int or agi line....good luck. Even with solo friendly spec, I still do very well in the group.

[arieste]

<p>someone (Was it you?) asked this on another forum, so i'll just repost my answer from there:</p><p>for soloing and small groups i would go with the following:start with WIS line, WIS2 is the quickest way to get benefit out of AAs. Once you have 25 AAs, switch to the STR line and spec it 4/4/6/8/2. STR line is our best healing line (due to doggy ward) and you might as well start learning how to control the dog early on. It also helps with soloing a great deal because now you can nuke more and heal yourself less (dog is warding you), plus the passive dps from the dog helps (even though it's really little).Once you have 24 in STR, I would start putting points in wisdom again for the reasons outlined above. Once I had enough points to max it, I would switch them out of wisdom and into th Cannibalize line on the defiler tree. It's been years since i was a low lvl defiler, but I remember there being quite a few power problems until you get into t7 or so. With canni you will never have this problem, additionaly it gives you a lot of additional dps which will be great for soloing and small groups.So now you have max STR, max Canni ( i forget line name). I'd go back to putting points in wisdom (just because wisdom yields benefit with only 5 AAs while other lines need 12+ to get anything useful). Also you'll notice that WIS2 (Ritual) works with Canni for better regen. win!After that you should know enough about defiling to know how you want to spec overall. I wouldn't touch the defiler tree again until i had my shammy tree maxed. Prevention and Curseweaving are both useful, but are IMO a lot more raid-relevant, so you can wait to get those until later.On the shammy line you want to end up with STR maxed and then a combination of 2 or more of the other lines. There are plenty of discussions as to the merits of each on this forum.Anyhow, that is how I would level my AAs if i was doing the defiler thing over again.cheers,pan.</p>

[ExtremeFaji]

<p>Just to make sure I understand you correctly, are you saying go 4-1 Wisdom, then 4/4/6/8/2 Strength, then get Wisdom to 4-8 before putting points into Cannibalize? Or did you mean to go all the way down the Wisdom line before working on Cannibalize?</p><p> So far I just went 4-1 on INT and AGI just to get the additional DPS of Phalanx and Rabies. Was going to add 4-1 on STR too for Leg Bite. I think I have 15 AAs at Level 18 now. Just seemed like I didn't have alot of offense so I went straight for those skills.</p>

[arieste]

<cite>ExtremeFajita wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Just to make sure I understand you correctly, are you saying go 4-1 Wisdom, then 4/4/6/8/2 Strength, then get Wisdom to 4-8 before putting points into Cannibalize? Or did you mean to go all the way down the Wisdom line before working on Cannibalize?</p><p> So far I just went 4-1 on INT and AGI just to get the additional DPS of Phalanx and Rabies. Was going to add 4-1 on STR too for Leg Bite. I think I have 15 AAs at Level 18 now. Just seemed like I didn't have alot of offense so I went straight for those skills.</p></blockquote><p>the dps of phalanx, rabies and leg bite is terrible.  ( I am not sure at very low level like you are, but overall it's horrid)  Rabies is not bad if properly used but only at high level when you get high INT and +spell stuff to buff it up.  Even then it's hardly worth using. </p><p>your DPS comes first and foremost from nuking.  you CAN get some DPS from melee, but you need a lot of special gear, a good weapon and +dps buffs.  none of these things are possible at low levels.  </p><p>so back to DPS (if DPS is your only goal).</p><p>Put 5 points each into the first 2 abilities on the cannibalize line of the defiler tree... these are your two dots, one is the quick dot that has the wis debuff and other is fuliginous whatever, i know you don't get fuliginous until 21 (i think), but that's only 3 levels away for you.    That's 10 points. </p><p> After that (if DPS is your ONLY concern), put points into the INT line.  in the following order... 448, 488, 888 (max crits before maxing rabies, max rabies before getting extra +INT.  If DPS is your only goal, go for gear with high INT values.   Your power is based off WIS, so choosing high INT over high WIS will make your power pool suffer.  Getting the final special on the cannibalize line (whenever you can) will offset this since it pretty much grants you unlimited power in groups (less so soloing).</p><p>Overall AAs that add DPS are:</p><p>Canni line:  increases the base damage of your damage spells.  highest DPS gain.</p><p>INT line:  gives you rabies and spells crits.  good when combined with canni line.</p><p>WIS line:  gives you 8% recast reduction.  this is good when comboed with INT and CANNI lines, because you can now chaincast your nukes / dots, without this you have to wait for them to regarge.</p><p>AGI line:  gives you melee crits and double attack proc.  requires good weapon with high max dmg.  requires +dps buffs and high STR in order to achieve good hits.  +STR gear commonly doesn't have INT or WIS, so you lose on both nukes and power by taking this.</p><p>STA line:  gives you double attack.  this is garbage because minor double attack does nothing for our weak-[Removed for Content] melee attacks.  could theoretically be comboed with AGI line for a melee build, but it would still be weaker than a nuking built unless specific buffs present. </p><p> Mystics are the meleeing shamans, defilers are the nuking shamans.  We CAN melee in addition to nuking for DPS, but work on the nuking first.  It's easier and more effective.</p>

[ExtremeFaji]

Thanks for your response...very informative. Actually, I'm not overly concerned with maxing out DPS. I group alot with an assassin in my guild so I've got the DPS covered hehe. I guess I'm looking for overall balance and utility. I solo and group about 50/50 and I'm still learning the class. Just glancing at the AA trees, sometimes an ability at the end of one of the lines might seem great and then a veteran player tells you it's actually fairly useless. Likewise, you might find out that one of the AAs you glanced over and disregarded is actually one of the more helpful ones in later levels. So my main goal is just to learn more about our class and what AA enhancements help us and our groups survive. Obviously, that would point to the Wisdom line since increasing healing effectiveness is a pretty direct way to keep yourself and others alive. I find the Defiler tree more confusing, since it's hard to know how helpful decreasing resists on a specific debuff by 6% will be over time and which abilities down the trees are best  and order your choices so you get to those (cannibalize is one most defilers hit from what I read here).

[arieste]

<cite>ExtremeFajita wrote:</cite><blockquote>Thanks for your response...very informative. Actually, I'm not overly concerned with maxing out DPS. I group alot with an assassin in my guild so I've got the DPS covered hehe. I guess I'm looking for overall balance and utility. I solo and group about 50/50 and I'm still learning the class. Just glancing at the AA trees, sometimes an ability at the end of one of the lines might seem great and then a veteran player tells you it's actually fairly useless. Likewise, you might find out that one of the AAs you glanced over and disregarded is actually one of the more helpful ones in later levels. So my main goal is just to learn more about our class and what AA enhancements help us and our groups survive. Obviously, that would point to the Wisdom line since increasing healing effectiveness is a pretty direct way to keep yourself and others alive. I find the Defiler tree more confusing, since it's hard to know how helpful decreasing resists on a specific debuff by 6% will be over time and which abilities down the trees are best  and order your choices so you get to those (cannibalize is one most defilers hit from what I read here).</blockquote><p>the short version of the defiler tree is this:</p><p>the curseaweaving line is most benefit on RAIDS.  it's not useless otherwise, but really debuffing heroic mobs - while certainly not useless - is far from needed.  they are generally easy and die too quickly for debuffs to matter.</p><p>the hexation line sucks.  just don't take it.  when you're older you'll understand (tm).  (you DO want to stick 5 points into Bane of Shielding enhancement tho, as it's one of your better spells.   this can wait until higher level, for same reasons as the curseweaving line)</p><p>the cannibalize line gives you higher damage and unlimited power.  this is good for pretty much every situation, the power (endline ability) is especially good at lower levels when you don't have high regen or access to some of the cooler regen items (points into Defile and Maelstrom would be wasted however, since you don't get those spells until higher lvl.  imo the canni end special is well worth it anyway.)</p><p>the soul ward line is definitely useful, but i wouldn't consider it a priority until raiding... i've never had it, although now that i get 70 AAs, i'll be grabbing it to add to Curseweaving and Cannibliize.  The real gems of this line are the enhancement to Shroud (increases group magic ward, again, more use at higher levels when mobs AE) and the recast increase on Voice.  You don't actually get voice until the 50s, so again, this is not needed early on.   Soul Ward itself is useful for T8 raiding where mobs hit really really hard and it's all about spike damage.  until then, your 2 emergency wards should be all you'll ever need to keep yourself and your tank alive.  not need to go down to 10% hp for it.</p>