Where do I put AAs now?

[Nightshade]

<p>I just hit level 50 and got my 72nd AA, and I have no idea where to put it.</p><p>So far I have a fairly basic setup:</p><p>--Crusader--</p><p>10-10-2-1 strength</p><p>4-7 agility (to be filled in later)</p><p>4-10 stamina</p><p>Capped at 50/50</p><p>--Shadowknight--</p><p>5 grim harbinger</p><p>5 enhance shadow coil</p><p>5 enhance unholy blessing</p><p>5 leech touch</p><p>1 reaver</p><p>I understand I want to work on Decay now, but I have no idea how many points to invest or where. Do I just keep filling out decay and maybe some more of reaver line until I cap at 50/50 in Shadowknight, or do I put in a few select points then move on to Shadows?</p><p>Thanks for reading.</p>

[Kain-UK]

<p>I could do with a little help on my SK's build as well... currently level 52 with only 66AA points. My build is very similar to yours...</p><p>10-10-2-1 in STR, 4-2 in AGI (will be going 4-7 to cap out the crusader tree), 4-10 STA.</p><p>Then in the SK tree i've got Grim Harbinger: 3, Unholy Blessing: 5, Leech Touch: 3. Devour Vitae: 3. Mana Sieve: 3, Tap Veins: 3, Reaver: 1</p><p>Trying to work out how else I should fill out the Reaver tree and what's recommended for getting Pools of Blood in Decay. I'm considering 5 in Cleave Flesh for the extra damage and WIS reduction, plus 5 in Siphon Strength so I can steal STA as well (more HP is always nice!) After that... no clue. Thinking of not bothering with Siphon Armament as I'm unlikely to group with another tank and unlikely to MT a raid... reuse on Feign Death is tempting, as is Doom Judgement... not so sure about Devouring Mists or Blasphemy.</p>

[Nightshade]

<p>Well I can tell you what I've done and you can make of that what you will. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>In Reaver I did <span ><p>5 grim harbinger</p><p>5 enhance shadow coil</p><p>5 enhance unholy blessing</p><p>5 leech touch</p><p>Because those are the most useful at lower levels. When I can put more than 50 into the SK tree I may go in and put points into timer reduction, but to me those seem more like a fancy addition rather than a necessity.</p><p>Due to lack of responses here I started doing my own thing with the Decay line. Here is the plan I cooked up.</p><p>5 enhance blasphemy, staple spell here and the debuff helps a lot more than a wisdom debuff, I think anyway.</p><p>5 mortal embrace (this seems like a 'really' good investment to me)</p><p>5 enhance siphon, since this is a staple spell and I either solo or MT mostly this seems like a logical choice</p><p>5 siphon armament. Since I have always been the main tank in groups (I dont raid and I have yet to meet a guardian!) this seems like an amazing choice. In my experience holding hate is extremely easy, so stealing some armor from a group member generally shouldn't be a problem in my mind.</p><p>I might do 3 enhance blasphemy and 2 cleave instead, not sure.</p><p>I will be getting Pools of Blood as well.</p></span></p>

[DwarvesR]

<p>I'm not in-game right now so this is all from memory. . . .</p><p>In Decay, I'd suggest Blasphemy from the get-go.  Increasing the debuff in it makes just about everything else you do more effective.  IMO, Blasphemy should always be in a refresh state, and anything that makes Blasphemy better is awesome <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Cleave Flesh is similar -- WIS reduction on a mob reduces its resists, making you do more damage to it.  Always a good thing!</p><p>Siphon Strength getting the STA siphon also is ok, but the HP added to you is minimal, so while this is a "nice to get eventually" one, I don't consider it to be a priority.</p><p>Siphon Armament is useless.  It's extremely rare to be in a group with another tank to steal from.  Occasionally you might grab some mit from a brawler, but that's rare too.</p><p>Doom Judgement is most excellent to get.  Shaving 40 seconds of reuse out of the recast is a big ds boon to you since it makes the CA available more often.</p><p>Feign Death is decent.  It's place in the middle of the tree mkaes it worth getting 3 points in it to go farther down, at least.  In actual practice, unless you're "feign flopping" somewhere solo, it's really not that big a deal.  If I use my feign even 1x a month it's a lot.  In a group, if you lose aggro it's the LAST resort for getting it back, not the 1st.  Or in a group you're 1st to die and can't cast it on someone else once you're dead anyway.  Solo it can save your bacon if you go after something that's a little more than you can handle, but how often does that happen?  And of course, you can feign-flop someplace with it (though slowly), but how often are you wanting/needing to do that?</p><p>Devouring mists can be nice to have if you're in a place with lots of linked mobs, but otherwise isn't that big a deal.  I cast it whenever it's up for grins, not out of necessity.  In a fight vs a named with lots of adds, though... can help.  5 points in this make it so you can have it up nearly until the recast is up, so in those named fights it's a wonderful thing to have.</p><p>I hope this helps in your decision making!</p>

[Swarfega]

<p>This is my goal by 52: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h01e1aa2147@24a119@55@235555@155@15@31120l@35@15@ 25@451" target="_blank">http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h01e1a...0l@35@15@25@451</a></p><p>I've opted against shadow coil as the lifetap return is nothing short of pathetic. Imho 5 into devour vitae for a faster turn around damage and substantial lifetap is awesome.</p><p>I've added Mana Sieve for some in combat mana. Very handy to reduce downtime w/o mana regen buffs.</p><p>Doom judgement 40s reduction is good stuff on a decent AE dispel/dmg.</p><p>Siphon Armament will be optional fillins after I get this far. No idea on devouring mists @ 50 and tap veins @ 55 plenty time to let repsec timers fade if it turns out great.</p><p>All speculative <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[DwarvesR]

<p><cite>Swarfega wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>This is my goal by 52: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h01e1aa2147@24a119@55@235555@155@15@31120l@35@15@ 25@451" target="_blank">http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h01e1a...0l@35@15@25@451</a></p></blockquote><p>From the Shadows tree -- Defensive stance?  On an SK?</p><p>I sometimes use it when tanking a tough instance, but. . . .  that's at 90.  Before that, um. . . . .wow.  I'd suggest the riposte damage one instead.  All the rest looks good.</p>

[Kain-UK]

<p>Yeah, I prolly would've gone for Riposte damage or even Swinging Strike over defensive stance...</p><p>I only know that cos Swinging strike really helped out my berserker's DPS.</p>

[Kain-UK]

<p>I've fiddled with that AA calculator, and this is what I'm considering for an SK build (tanking and DPS, obviously).</p><p><a href="http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h02p1aa214a@24a@248a1@58@18@1212i43@13@1355554535 55@15@2111@15@1555121r@35@15@6551@155@1551@152@155 11" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?h02p1a...@1551@152@15511</a></p><p>Criticism would be welcome. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Swarfega]

<p>Yeah Riposte is probably better but the swinging strike only affects painbringer ca for sk's which itself <em>seems</em> lackluster. I've not tried it to test to see if 5 aa's makes it decent.</p>

[Kain-UK]

<p>That's the part that's putting me off... I know for my conjy that increasing specific nukes is well worth it...</p><p>Just trying to work out if an increase in riposte damage is... not 100% sure how much a top-tier SK will actually riposte.</p>