AA lines?

[Kyuub]

Decided to play my 'zerker a bit, and was looking, see the end of the AA line seems fairly useless, but the ~9% avoidance buff from the power before it doesn't.. and looking at the new EBBC, 2h weapon  for soloing in the 40's is fairly /droolworthy, so Int line looks VERY good.So question, would a AA setup like say..sta 4-4-8-8, str 4-4-8 int: 4-4-2 then of course taking str all the way to the bottom when I hit 70be too horridly gimped? way I see it, balances the good points of the sta line for SnB tanking, adds the big point of the str line (crit), and gives a decent amount of haste from for those levels when I get a good 2h for soloingcomments are welcome.. char is 17 at the moment, and.. not really a twink, probably betray to guard when I get high enough to raid, but.. who knows, bridge to be crossed when I get there.

[Elanjar]

sta 4-4-8-8, str 4-4-8 int: 4-4-2<p>then of course taking str all the way to the bottom when I hit 70</p>Um unless you plan on rollin with the most badass druid I've ever seen you probably wont get much use out of finishing the str line. I didn't notice a difference from getting the additional hate gain. On the other hand i was STA spec'd for awhile (4-8-8-8-2 pre 70) and when i respeced to wisdom i instantly noticed a difference from the end ability of the STA line. If you're soloing/tanking I'd either leave it as you've got it or move 2 points from STA 4 and finish the sta line (4-4-8-6-2). If you are primarily grouping and are not the tank then for max dps I'd go:str 4-4-8 sta 4-4-8 int 4-5-8at 70 i'd just finish the sta and int lines (leave str 4-4-<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> or if you get tired of using a pizza box as a shield like me, go (str 4-4-8 wis 4-4-8-8-2 int 4-5-8-8-2). You will have less dps, but my surviviability is higher. I'll respec once i get harbringer of malcontent.

[Nembutal]

<p>Even if you get Virtue's guard I would respec to use STA... its' got high enough points on it to make a solid case for the switch.</p><p>I am a big fan of the wisdom line end for tanking... but I don't tank on raids and I mostly raid so you rarely see me in that spec anymore.</p>

[Elanjar]

oh i'll respec once i get any decent buckler. And if i got virtues guard i'd just tank with a buckler. since i'd mainly be OT anyway. we've got more than enough guards and zerks and pallys in my guild. maybe i'll just end up in the dps group. who knows.

[Kyuub]

<cite>Skoshi@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Even if you get Virtue's guard I would respec to use STA... its' got high enough points on it to make a solid case for the switch.</p><p>I am a big fan of the wisdom line end for tanking... but I don't tank on raids and I mostly raid so you rarely see me in that spec anymore.</p></blockquote>That's an interesting quote there, I rolled a zerker because it seemed fun, but was considering betraying to guard because I -do- wanna raid endgame, and was told 'zerkers were generally not wanted in raids, was I told wrong?and also, switch 2 points of str to cap off sta? works -- as far as asthetics go, i'd prefer a 2h build, but sta/buckler is more efficient, and hell, efficiency wins over asthetics in the grind game <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Nembutal]

<cite>Kyuubil wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Skoshi@Guk wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Even if you get Virtue's guard I would respec to use STA... its' got high enough points on it to make a solid case for the switch.</p><p>I am a big fan of the wisdom line end for tanking... but I don't tank on raids and I mostly raid so you rarely see me in that spec anymore.</p></blockquote>That's an interesting quote there, I rolled a zerker because it seemed fun, but was considering betraying to guard because I -do- wanna raid endgame, and was told 'zerkers were generally not wanted in raids, was I told wrong?and also, switch 2 points of str to cap off sta? works -- as far as asthetics go, i'd prefer a 2h build, but sta/buckler is more efficient, and hell, efficiency wins over asthetics in the grind game <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote><p>You were told correctly.... I mostly raid and my main is a zerker... but.... look down at my sig ;-p  I don't get to raid AS the zerker much... but I keep him spec'd that way most of the time in case they let me.  I pick up the bulk of my loot on the zerker since it is and always will be my main... my sig file has links if you want to look at my profile... never know if you will end up seeing my DPS gear or my defensive gear since I don't need to go back to my house to switch.  I'm pretty well equipped.</p><p>the 2 hander build's DPS is less than fantastic.... the buckler can almost match it I have had some nice 2 handers from KoS, EoF, and RoK and never seen much use for them... nor has dual wield seemed appealing.... I tinkered with them though.</p><p>The issue is this... you get 140 AA's... 70 of which go in a decent tree and 70 of which you might as well flush down the toilet.</p><p>the 70 AA's in thw warrior tree are the ones you care about and they go like this.</p><p>1.) STR - Crits2.) WIS - DPS3.) INT - Haste4.) STA - 60% DOUBLE ATTACK + BUCKLER5.) AGI - 40% AE auto attacks.</p><p>now... in the end game there are few things that are REALLY easy to get to diminishing returns caps... haste and DPS are 2 of them.</p><p>Then you have the fact that most of the time if you have more than 1 mob and you are not mezzing someone did something wrong... which rules out the usefulness of AoE auto attacks.</p><p>This leaves you with 2 solid lines.  CRIT and DOUBLE ATTACK.... trick is... you can get a good chunk of 3 of them... or a mediocre chunk of FOUR.</p><p>Our mythical makes the AGI line pretty much worthless in terms of DPS.. so if you can take 4 out of 5 for DPS and one is useless tada! you have STA line.... I mean seriously what else are you going to do?</p><p>Our mythical is 1 handed.... so that's a pretty good indication there also.. and harbringer of malcontent... well it only modifes our offensive stance... that shield was made for US.</p><p>If you have 100% double attack (I usually do when in my offensive build for AA's stance, gear and group members) then how does it stack up against a 2 hander or dual wield?  dual wielding causes your delays to function as higher than the weaps read.... so 100% double vs dual wield with 0% double... well the buckler build wins hands down... same with the 2 hander.  But say if you ended up with 40% double attack from gear... it's still going to be close... real close... and you will have a much higher avoidence.</p><p>Now... to get 2 good weapons you have to compete against every single scout out there TWICE (guild usually give scouts the good weaps)... for a 2 hander you have like no competition... so that's in the 2 hander's favor.  But at the same time... you don't have much competition for bucklers either... brawlers and crusaders don't want anything to do with them (towers).. and scouts use round shields.... priests use bucklers but not ones with melee stats (well maybe an occasional Inq might)</p><p>So having a 2 hander toy around is pretty easy to achieve... but so is getting a buckler... so the question is can you get your hand on 1 nice 1 hander?  and if you can is a loss of like 5% dps or less worth the gain of like 20% avoidence?  Last I tested it I lost nothing... and if I tested it now with zerker mythical and marbringer of malcontent it would be... well... I wouldn't be discussing this with you I would be laughing and pointing... but those 2 items are not something everyone can get and they don't have equivalents at the lower levels so it's not quite fair to compare them.... you can adorn a shield with + crit... or +block. and the STA line gives you riposte... if you really want to tank you can make your shield compensate somewhat for not being a tower via the last STA AA's and the shield adorn... but if you want DPS you can also scrap those AA's and add them to another line to increase dmg and get a crit adorn.</p><p>When I Three box I am usually capped on double attack, crit, AoE auto attacks, and at like 175 haste and dps (almost capped well into diminishing returns.) true I planned my group that way... but if you form the groups you can do it also.... alot of it is from procs... but they are up alot and I have more procs than I need to help make sure I hit the cap and stay there on raid mobs.</p><p>P.S. there are zerkers that do more DPS than me... but I will say in some raid zones I can raid wide as #1 damage dealer.... like SoH... not always... but it has been done and is repeatable... it depends on how many double or triple pulls we accidentally get and how close they stage the sisters together when we pull them.... I THRIVE on those mistakes... unfortunately as I said... they are considered mistakes ;-p</p>