Is there a point to Shield Ally with the Stat Nurf ?

[BetaTester]

<p>it sounded like a great AA , but now that AGI no longer buffs my level 45 Inq avoidance ,</p><p>10 points in Shield Ally will grant a 60% chance of the target using my Inquistors 5% avoidance after their own</p><p>what am I missing ?</p>

[tomdykins]

<p>I think Shield Ally doesn't actually use your character's 'avoidance'. The additional chance to 'avoid' an attack that you provide, I believe, is based on your Block/Parry/Riposte/Dodge<strong>. </strong></p><p>Aside from Shield Ally though, the former AGI line (I don't think the line has given you +AGI since before SF) also provides other benefits - an AOE blocker that prevents indirect damage, and some double attack chance.</p>

[BetaTester]

<p>so it's even more useless than I thought .</p><p>even with 10 AAs in Battle Fervor , my chance to block is a pitiful 2% ,  and SOE thinks its worth 10 more AAs to give an ally a 60% chance of using that ?</p><p>the legendary buckler I just bought is more useful as an appearance item</p>

[imnotdisco]

<p>I to asked this question a while back. The answers i recieved were yes its worth it. However i found it less useful under level 70 and under around 130 aa. Through aa you can enhance your block chance to around 25-30% without armor or adornments. I use shield ally religiously. My zonewide parses show that i block or avoid between 400k and 500k worth of damage in your average heroic instances. Now at lv 90 that may not be all that huge with the way damage has scaled with the xpacs, but if you think about it, 400-500k worth of blocked damage is damage that i didnt have to heal.</p><p>It may not be as useful to you at your current level due to the fact that there are very little items with block chance on them, and you may not have a whole bunch of aa. My personal opinion you are better off focusing on the casting speed and crit chance aa until you are around lv 70 and have a good bit of aa to spend.</p><p>I personally have speced into this line at lv 80 and use it in my healling aa spec. I curretnly only have 28% block chance.</p><p>Any adornments that add +parry, +riposte,+block chance will effect this buff, also the infusion food and drink stuff that has parry and ripost work to. As far as i can tell your personal avoidance has nothing to do with the damage the ability blocks/avoids.</p><p>Hope this helps, pm me if you have any more questions ill be glad to try and help you sort them out.</p>

[BetaTester]

<p>thanks . this is as much a gripe post as anything . The orginal AA tree was supposed to be useful when level cap was 50 ?I just hit 50/50 and respec'ed as you suggested , into crit and casting , and immediately pulled all but 2 out and moved them into Inq/Battle .which is really the last place I wanted to put them . I have a 90 fury and wanted to build a powerhouse healer , but most of these AAs suck in comparison ,and they're almost all damage / melee enhancements too</p><p> I'm not giving up , but this Inquisitor has given me a real appreciation of my furies utility abilitys too . I'm just disappointed the damage intercept didn't turn out to be anywhere close to as nice as it sounded</p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong><span style="font-family: courier new,courier;">" </span></strong></span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: courier new,courier;">Grants the Protector a chance to shield an ally from melee attacks , by allowing the target a chance to use the Protector's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">avoidance check</span> after their own avoidance check </span><strong><span style="font-family: courier new,courier;"><span style="font-size: small;">" </span></span></strong></p><p><strong><span style="font-family: courier new,courier;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #00ccff;">( avoidance ? I have avoidance ?? hah !!! )</span></span></span></strong></p><p>and to hear you need to be close to endgame to appreciate some of these AAs  , when I know how little the 16% crit and cast speed improvement AAs are worth there .</p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong></strong></span><strong><span style="font-family: courier new,courier;"></span></strong></p>

[thegriss]

<p>And inq at lvl 90 with max AA is a far more impressive healer/dpser than a fury.  Just tough it out till then and you will see.</p>

[gatrm]

<p><cite>BetaTester wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>thanks . this is as much a gripe post as anything . The orginal AA tree was supposed to be useful when level cap was 50 ?I just hit 50/50 and respec'ed as you suggested , into crit and casting , and immediately pulled all but 2 out and moved them into Inq/Battle .which is really the last place I wanted to put them . I have a 90 fury and wanted to build a powerhouse healer , but most of these AAs suck in comparison ,and they're almost all damage / melee enhancements too</p><p> I'm not giving up , but this Inquisitor has given me a real appreciation of my furies utility abilitys too . I'm just disappointed the damage intercept didn't turn out to be anywhere close to as nice as it sounded</p></blockquote><p>Well, AAs did not exist until the level cap was 70.  They were introduced with the Kingdom of Sky expansion.  Frankly I would not recommend shield ally until max level- my inquisitor is not quite at max level, and I have no points in shield ally.  When I hit 90 on him I will put shield ally on my heal spec.  Your block chance that the AA gives you scales with level, so at 90, with a decent shield and some %parry, dodge, or block food/drink along with the neck addornment, you can provide a decent amount of damage avoidance to a tank. </p><p>Also consider that if you do want a powerhouse healer and you are not interested in being a battlecleric, you may want to look into betraying to templar.  Templars have significantly more defensive and healing tools- Inquisitor has always been a more offensive cleric, so going inquisitor and being completely disinterested in doing damage is a bit of a contradiction in my opinion. </p>

[Urgol]

First off, there were none aa's when the level cap was 50. Or 60. Because the kos tree us called KOS for a dam reason. Then, judging anything at lvl 45 is a waste of breath and time. The game has undergone 6 or 7 complete combat revamps since the level cap was 50, got all the aa system intoduced since then, got mythicals etc. Nowadays, nobody cares about the balance in low levels, since you are lvl90 in 10 hours of gameplay. At high levels, this ability may give the tank up to 10% avoidance. Do you even realize what is 10% less damage taken for the tank? More then all the druid 'utility' combined. >>>I have a 90 fury and wanted to build a powerhouse healer Why did you not roll a templar then if you want to 'powerhouse' heal the tank? It is like the only healing class in game focused on healing a single target, and they are so much better then everybody else at it.