Returning Player, new to Melee DPS..some advice on AA direction and why.

[Larsenex]

<p>Good Morning. I am a returning player. I played at launch and I have always played Berzerker and Templar and a mage caster. I am returning to EQ2 from a break from MMOS. I left EQ2 to play WoW as all my friend went to that um, game.</p><p>Anyway, I now am back and I am having a FUN, ENJOYABLE time! I forgot how fun it was to quest in Norrath. I was told by some new friends in my new guild that I should put my 16 AA points.</p><p>I was told to go down the STR line to get the Defense and the AGI line to get Sail (something). Since I am new to this class can anyone here give advice on what lines they like and why?</p><p>I do not want to be a back up tank. I want to solo for a while (60-70) and be a stealth/dps class to the cliche of the type. I will be doing most if not all of the Heritage quests as these (to me) are perhaps the best part of the game (I come from years of original recipie EQ).</p><p>I will be holding at 22 for a few weeks to build up my AA to whatever the boards here think is good for me to have it at to continue. I currently have my slider set to 100% (into AA). </p><p>Thanks very much in Advance!</p>

[Blu]

<p>Fairly new to swashbuckling myself (53 atm). However, there's a brief AA guide included in the swashbuckler guide stickied at the top.</p><p>I took the Agi line first, then Str. However once I got Str done, I respecced to Agi and Int so I could have FD. FD is an invaluable soloing tool.</p><p>The Swashbuckler tab has unfortunately very little in the way of pure dps until later. It's all primarily debuff-related. So just figure out what will help you most from those. Things of note are the Style line for your temp buffs and the Reach line for aoe damage. Potency takes a while to realize the dps potential (basically 20 points spent to get to the end line ability, 6% increased poison trigger chance).</p><p>The Shadow line has some nice stuff, but it has AA count requirements (e.g. must have spent 70 AAs to access the rogue line).</p><p>After filling in the Rogue tab, I have tended to favor the Shadow tab over the Swashy tab. Then I just fill in the Swashy tab when I am blocked by AA count in the Shadow tab.</p><p>Once you hit level 71, the AA caps for each tab are raised (which means back to work on the Rogue tab!). Then they are raised again at 81.</p><p>I started back playing my Swashy around 22 also (not sure how many AAs, probably less than 20). I've had the AA slider at 50% the whole time since then, and I'm approaching 70 AA at level 53.</p><p>The generally-agreed-upon goal is to have 200 AAs by the time you are grouping at level 90. Some people get them along the way with the AA slider. Others power to 90 and then go back and quest everything grey and mentor for named kills.</p><p>I'll probably do all of the solo RoK and Moors quests to catch up on AA, myself. (Without the slider, these should be enough to level from 70-80 at least twice over.)</p>