Raid Tank: AP Builds KoS and EoF

[ReviloTX]

<DIV>I know there are a few threads discussing AA builds, but I wanted to do something a little different here and focus strictly on the raid tank perspective, and also discuss both the KoS builds and EoF builds.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My goal as a raid tank is general to soak up damage, which means I need the most defensive capabilities I can find, as well as good aggro (which may or may not mean good DPS).  I realize for group content the buckler line still works fine, and the dps boost is still nice, but I've noticed that many raid tanks have gone away from that line.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>KoS AA's:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I've seen most raid tanks switch to the following, or some close variation:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Str:  4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV>Int:  4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Old popular lines:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sta 4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV>Wis 4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So we give up 314 mit, but gain a nice boost to parry skill.  We also gain a little mit back using a tower shield and gain a boost to blocking, which currently seems to be the only way to avoid damage on epics.  My question is, does anyone have parse data proving that a tower shield is currently that much more beneficial than a buckler (if properly spec'd to use a buckler via stamina line)?  Given the current state of mitigation, if we can avoid an additional 5-10% using a tower, then it's well worth it and we'll have to get our aggro from somewhere other than the double attacking stamina line.  However, the buckler line does show added % to block and riposte, is that working as intended, because it should put the overall block% back up where a tower shield would be.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DPS:  50ish% haste from the INT line I believe?  Does that come close to making up for the loss of double attack?  I would assume the addition of the str line also helps make up for hate gain, but do we lose some overall dps while mainting about the same hate gain?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>EoF Ap Lines:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Command/Wall of Force:  These AP's look appealing as they boost the mitigation and timers such that you can always maintain an additional 1100 mitigation.  However, do the changes to mitigation warrent the 10 AP spent here?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DPS boosts:  Currently I'm considering spending a large portion of my points into the AP's that boost damage, to help with the loss of the double attack.  Do you guys feel these are well spent points?  I can't see too many other things that look more appealing than a nice dps boost.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Block:  I know it's broke now, but is it something that will be a "must have", and is it worth spending the 20 points in that tree to get it if it gets fixed?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Merciless charge and Sever:  Increases the debuff capabilities.  These do look appealing, but are mobs general debuffed to their cap already, meaning these would be pointless on raids?</DIV>

[Mjollnyr]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ReviloTX wrote:<BR> <DIV>I know there are a few threads discussing AA builds, but I wanted to do something a little different here and focus strictly on the raid tank perspective, and also discuss both the KoS builds and EoF builds.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My goal as a raid tank is general to soak up damage, which means I need the most defensive capabilities I can find, as well as good aggro (which may or may not mean good DPS).  I realize for group content the buckler line still works fine, and the dps boost is still nice, but I've noticed that many raid tanks have gone away from that line.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>KoS AA's:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I've seen most raid tanks switch to the following, or some close variation:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Str:  4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV>Int:  4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Old popular lines:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sta 4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV>Wis 4/4/8/8</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So we give up 314 mit, but gain a nice boost to parry skill.  We also gain a little mit back using a tower shield and gain a boost to blocking, which currently seems to be the only way to avoid damage on epics.  My question is, does anyone have parse data proving that a tower shield is currently that much more beneficial than a buckler (if properly spec'd to use a buckler via stamina line)?  Given the current state of mitigation, if we can avoid an additional 5-10% using a tower, then it's well worth it and we'll have to get our aggro from somewhere other than the double attacking stamina line.  However, the buckler line does show added % to block and riposte, is that working as intended, because it should put the overall block% back up where a tower shield would be.</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>I've said it many times before, but I'll say it again!:  Keep in mind your skill caps when increasing some skills, also consider your going to be raid buffed, which is really the situation you'll be raid tanking in, so consider your skill caps when raid buffed.   Personally i've never parsed the block rates of tower vs buckler,  i do notice a significant amount less damage taken when using a tower shield.  That's why i spec'd away from buckler.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DPS:  50ish% haste from the INT line I believe?  Does that come close to making up for the loss of double attack?  I would assume the addition of the str line also helps make up for hate gain, but do we lose some overall dps while mainting about the same hate gain?</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>The combination haste + Crit boost + raw hate gain from str should easily overcome the lost agro from double attack.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>EoF Ap Lines:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Command/Wall of Force:  These AP's look appealing as they boost the mitigation and timers such that you can always maintain an additional 1100 mitigation.  However, do the changes to mitigation warrent the 10 AP spent here?</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>Command upgrade to three, just to progress in the line.  In order to get to block, i'd suggest soaking five in Wall of Force and Tower of Stone.  The rest are just the minimum amount to get to Enhance ToS.  IMO, the only two wasted points are in unyielding will.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DPS boosts:  Currently I'm considering spending a large portion of my points into the AP's that boost damage, to help with the loss of the double attack.  Do you guys feel these are well spent points?  I can't see too many other things that look more appealing than a nice dps boost.</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>Since i've spec'd off STA, i lost a pile of DPS (about 300-400).  I still dont have much problems holding agro.  If anything it maybe more stable then before, thus an agro boost from my Str/agi spec.  As you said earilier,  we're here to soak damage, not nessecarily put it out.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Block:  I know it's broke now, but is it something that will be a "must have", and is it worth spending the 20 points in that tree to get it if it gets fixed?</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff9900><FONT color=#ff6600>IMO, yes.  every 60~ odd seconds you can automatically block a single melee attack.  This can be an enormous advantage if you spike low, and will provide the needed few seconds to heal you to full.  I still dont beleive the skill is broken, its simply mislabeled</FONT>.</FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Merciless charge and Sever:  Increases the debuff capabilities.  These do look appealing, but are mobs general debuffed to their cap already, meaning these would be pointless on raids?</DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>While increasing the debuff ability of two of our attacks is nice, it also reduces some of the other area's you can spec, which IMO might be more handy.  Also as you said, they are usually capped on debuffs anyways!</FONT></DIV> <DIV><FONT color=#ff6600>Having spec'd rescue-3 and reinforcement-5, i'd have to say i'm very very happy with it.  Having reinforcement on a 130s recast is awesome, and allows me to use it several times on some raid targets, and even use it rather friviously when clearing trash, since it'll be up very quickly anyways.</FONT></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

[ReviloTX]

<P>Thanks for the feedback.  After reviewing what I said, and taking a look at some raid tanks spec's again, I was actually mistaken.  I've noticed many have kept the wisdom line, at 4/4/8/8 and switched from the stamina line to the str line.  I think I got confused after reading some posts from people discussing going with the str/int lines, but instead it seems the raid tank choice at the moment is wis/str.  If your gettign away from the buckler it's an obvious choice to drop the stamina line, however why choose str over int?  Or why not dump the wisdom line, as all you really gain is the 314 mit.</P> <P>I suppose if going str/wis allows you to hold sufficient aggro, then the int line isnt' really needed, however you are costing yourself a bit of DPS.  So is the slight increase in dps from the INT, plus the additional parry = or < 314 mit?  It seems many people think so, but I have to wonder myself.  I keep hoping they are going to do something to make mitigation useful again, but I think we may be stuck with this diminishing [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] curve (oops freudian slip I guess).</P>

[ReviloTX]

<DIV>So according to the test update notes today, Block was mislabelled and not broken.  Shame, it would have been useful as a 10 second "block all".  Blocking 1 hit every 10 mins (?) isn't worth the wasted 10 or so AA's I'd have to put in that tree to get it.  I'm going to avoid block myself for this reason.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lets talk about buckler vs tower.  Many people are claiming bucklers are no longer viable for raid tanking.  I beg to differ, and so do my parses out of Freethinkers last night.  With roughly 250 incoming hits on both my buckler and my tower, I avoided exactly the same amount of damage from each, 51.5%.  The ways in which I avoided the damage did change, but that's the design of the buckler line ( I had more ripostes).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know that some have claimed parsing bucklers vs tower and the tower avoiding more, but nobody has shown any concrete evidence of this, and mostly the discussion I've seen is "oh the healers said I was easier to heal".  Sorry but that doesn't work for me, I want parse data not speculation.  In either case, it's going to be so close that healers won't notice a difference.  In fact, I asked all of my healers last night after spending a half our or so with my buckler on and another half hour or so with my tower on if they noticed any difference in healing.  The answer was, what difference?  Why do you ask?  In other words, no they couldn't tell a difference (they didn't know I changed shields.. my cloak blocks them both and nobody had noticed while we were fighting).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Of course, after reviewing the parse data I knew why they couldnt' tell a difference, my avoidance was within .01% regardless of which I used.  These were against the same type of mobs, in the same zone.  Granted, my sample size is a little small, but 250+ hits with each type is enough to get fairly accurate data.  The raid makeup did not change the entire time, so buffs and debuffs were constant (barring any given debuffers slacking for a particular fight).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My DPS dropped ~250 with the tower.  While I do prefer the stats on my tower over my buckler (well I did until we got the buckler of the howler last night <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />), I'm going to stick witht he buckler.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For those who want to claim that named will hit more against the buckler.  I don't have any parses comparing the two, but I did parse Zylphlax with a buckler on.  45%+ avoidance on him witha  buckler, within 5% of what I was getting against trash mobs.  So, until I see some concrete proof that the buckler is "broken", I'm sticking with mine.</DIV>

[Mjollnyr]

<blockquote><hr>ReviloTX wrote:<div></div> <div>So according to the test update notes today, Block was mislabelled and not broken.  Shame, it would have been useful as a 10 second "block all".  Blocking 1 hit every 10 mins (?) isn't worth the wasted 10 or so AA's I'd have to put in that tree to get it.  I'm going to avoid block myself for this reason.</div> <hr></blockquote>Reuse on Block is 1 minute.<div></div>

[ReviloTX]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Mjollnyr wrote:<BR><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ReviloTX wrote:<BR> <DIV>So according to the test update notes today, Block was mislabelled and not broken.  Shame, it would have been useful as a 10 second "block all".  Blocking 1 hit every 10 mins (?) isn't worth the wasted 10 or so AA's I'd have to put in that tree to get it.  I'm going to avoid block myself for this reason.</DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Reuse on Block is 1 minute.<BR> <BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Ahh, I guess I didn't get past the 10 second duration and description that said I would block all attacks.  Maybe it was an inference mistake on my part, but that sounded great so I didn't even check the re-use.  Then after reading it only blocks 1 attack, my thoughts were blah.. big deal.   I get by without dirge stoneskin half the time, surely I can get by without this.</P> <P>Anyhow, at 1 min re-use it does make it more appealing, thanks for correcting me.  I'm still going to avoid it though because I can't find 10 skill points that I want to put into that tree, and the 10 I already spent on my short term mit buffs I'm considering cancelling too (or maybe partially).</P>

[Mjollnyr]

<DIV>I reconsidered the 5 points in Wall of Force.  I've found myself utilizing the unbreakable root portion of plant more and more, so i instead respec'd  and brought plant to 5 and left Wall of Force at 3.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>To each their own, but if someone was to ask me for a recommendation of Block.  I'd give it two thumbs up.  I consider it my mini-ToS. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Almost at 100 AA's, woot!</DIV>

[Yimway]

<div></div>AGI / INTI've gone this route for now atleast.  Maybe its a factor of not having the high end gear yet, but I'm not picking up enough Parry / Deffense to be over the skill cap with a reasonable debuff buffer with my current gear / buffs.I expect to eventually abandon one of these lines for STR once gear allows me to.However, I am raid buffing out to 9900 avoidance (near cap), and thats pretty much kicking butt these days.  My mitigation sits at a wimpy 5800, but even using command, et all and getitng mitigation over 7k, doesn't really seem to do the same thing as raising avoidance the same ammount.  Which makes sense really, a blow avoided is far better than 3% less dammage from more blows.I also only did 3 in command and wall of force, but am loading up plant to move on.  I live and Die by plant these days.Regarding dps....  *shrug*I simply don't care if I DPS at all, I only care about staying standing and holding agro.  I'm not finding I need to be above 300dps to do either of these things.  With the addition of aggression skill, its only going to further diminish the agro rewards of upping DPS.<div></div><p>Message Edited by Yimway on <span class=date_text>12-13-2006</span> <span class=time_text>09:43 AM</span>

[MadDa]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ReviloTX wrote:<BR> <DIV>So according to the test update notes today, Block was mislabelled and not broken.  Shame, it would have been useful as a 10 second "block all".  Blocking 1 hit every 10 mins (?) isn't worth the wasted 10 or so AA's I'd have to put in that tree to get it.  I'm going to avoid block myself for this reason.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lets talk about buckler vs tower.  Many people are claiming bucklers are no longer viable for raid tanking.  I beg to differ, and so do my parses out of Freethinkers last night.  With roughly 250 incoming hits on both my buckler and my tower, I avoided exactly the same amount of damage from each, 51.5%.  The ways in which I avoided the damage did change, but that's the design of the buckler line ( I had more ripostes).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I know that some have claimed parsing bucklers vs tower and the tower avoiding more, but nobody has shown any concrete evidence of this, and mostly the discussion I've seen is "oh the healers said I was easier to heal".  Sorry but that doesn't work for me, I want parse data not speculation.  In either case, it's going to be so close that healers won't notice a difference.  In fact, I asked all of my healers last night after spending a half our or so with my buckler on and another half hour or so with my tower on if they noticed any difference in healing.  The answer was, what difference?  Why do you ask?  In other words, no they couldn't tell a difference (they didn't know I changed shields.. my cloak blocks them both and nobody had noticed while we were fighting).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Of course, after reviewing the parse data I knew why they couldnt' tell a difference, my avoidance was within .01% regardless of which I used.  These were against the same type of mobs, in the same zone.  Granted, my sample size is a little small, but 250+ hits with each type is enough to get fairly accurate data.  The raid makeup did not change the entire time, so buffs and debuffs were constant (barring any given debuffers slacking for a particular fight).</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My DPS dropped ~250 with the tower.  While I do prefer the stats on my tower over my buckler (well I did until we got the buckler of the howler last night <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />), I'm going to stick witht he buckler.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For those who want to claim that named will hit more against the buckler.  I don't have any parses comparing the two, but I did parse Zylphlax with a buckler on.  45%+ avoidance on him witha  buckler, within 5% of what I was getting against trash mobs.  So, until I see some concrete proof that the buckler is "broken", I'm sticking with mine.</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I'm curious...did you actually respec from stam line to agi or int line for this test or did you just merely switch from a buckler to a tower?  If so, your parse would not be showing the added avoidance you would pick up form raising your parry or defense.  I switched from stam/wis to str/int.  I chose Int since my defense self buffed is 442 but my parry was down in the 390 range.  Now raid buffed I am around 442 for defense and 435 for parry, with avoidance around 9500.  I noticed a large difference in survivability.   So for  <STRONG>my gear</STRONG> and <STRONG>my raid configuration</STRONG>, buckler was not cutting it anymore, although I hated to give it up since I dou with a healer alot for quests.  Bottom line is...if it works for you then that is the best AA setup.  If you are using the stam line and not having any problems with raids, then extra dps is always a good thing to have, but if you're like me, and raids wern't going so well post EOF, then a change to a more defensive AA set up might help.  With the upcoming addition of the  aggression skill, we might see AA choices changing again in the near future.

[Aandien]

<DIV>Your avoidance is essentially made up of:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>block</DIV> <DIV>base</DIV> <DIV>parry</DIV> <DIV>ripostes</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>block is uncontested.  With a tower, you can get either 22.3% or 22.9% with the appropriate adornments.</DIV> <DIV>ripostes are essentially uncontested blocks that include damage.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you take a look at how many parries you actually do, and how many misses you actually do -- you'll probably find you get about 5% misses and 3% parries.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I don't recall exactly what base typically is, but if I recall its around 35% normally -- so if your seeing an effective 5% miss rate..that means for every 1% base, you increase your actual avoid rate on epics by 0.14%.  If your defense isn't capped -- going this AA line will likely net you approximately 5% more base, which means it will increase your actual avoidance by a little less than 1%.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Parry works basically the same way -- and provides approximately the same returns in terms of real avoidance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For these two stats -- just plug in your real numbers here and go parse an epic or two to figure out how much real effective avoidance your gaining from these stats.  It should be close to whats stated above.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>With the sta line -- you will lose 4.5% block.  That means you will lose a 4.5% effective avoidance from blocks.  However, you gain 4.5% riposte.  This means you will riposte an additional 4.5% of attacks that would have otherwise succeeded.  This means you gained an effective avoidance from ripostes by 4.5% -- which is exactly what you would lose from blocks.  Thus there should be no avoidance difference at all between using a tower shield, and using a buckler if your fully specc'd in stamina.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thus, picking the stamina line and using a buckler vs not and using a tower shield will give you the same avoidance.  So comparing yourself with sta/str or wis/str should provide the exact same avoidance.  However, if, instead of sta you were to take agility or int -- you would increase your avoidance by about 1% -- unless you are capable of maxxing these stats already.  So picking one of agi or int will give you ~1% more avoid, or picking both would give you ~2% more avoid.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Given the returns on these are low - your probably better off taking neither and using your points in such a way to focus on hate -- be that the str line, int line, or even the buckler line.  Not to mention as you get better gear, these stats will very likely cap themselves anyhow...</DIV><p>Message Edited by AncientElster on <span class=date_text>12-13-2006</span> <span class=time_text>01:22 PM</span>

[Mjollnyr]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> AncientElster wrote:<BR> <DIV>block is uncontested.  With a tower, you can get either 22.3% or 22.9% with the appropriate adornments.</DIV> <DIV><STRONG>ripostes are essentially uncontested blocks that include damage.</STRONG></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>While i cant find the qoutes, i'm positive i've heard that parry and ripostes are tied together, not Block/riposte.</P> <P>What i recall hearing it was something to the tune of:  If you Parry an attack, 35% of those parried attacks turn into ripostes.  Maybe not the exact percent, but its something along those lines.</P> <P>I'll try to dig up the qoute from a dev.</P> <P> </P>

[aias]

Just to clarify what you're saying AElster, is basically the defensive options in the KoS AP tree don't provide much of a benefit for raid tanking and one is better off going for a DPS build for max. hate control?

[kagge]

<div></div><span class="title_big"><span></span></span>Yimway -AGI / INT - where did you put the last 8 points in, AGI for parry - or INT for faster recast?Seems like a good combo to me and i'm tempted to go for it since a while. But as respeccing is expensive, STR+WIS still works very fine for me. Plus, you never know what happens at hte next LU.<div></div>

[ReviloTX]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> AncientElster wrote:<BR> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>If you take a look at how many parries you actually do, and how many misses you actually do -- you'll probably find you get about 5% misses and 3% parries.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>22% misses with a buckler, 20% with a tower.  10% parry with either (didn't have a dirge).  Additional 4% riposte with buckler, and roughly 6% less block.  That's how it came equal using either.  It appears base defense and parry are not "contested" as you say, they do indeed work against epics.</P> <P>As for the one who asked if I respec'd, no I did not.  I compared buckler with sta/wis line and tower with sta/wis line.  Granted, I would gain a slight amount of additional avoidance going for the INT or AGI lines, but if I drop the stamina line I'm probably going to go str anyways (which will grant me no additional avoidance).  Like I said, the popular spec these days seems to be wis/str 4/4/8/8 from the top end raid tanks, and I just don't understand why.  I suspect that pre-revamp KoS mobs that hadn't been attuned properly were ignoring defense and parry, but in EoF zones at least they are not.<BR></P>

[Sir_Halbarad]

<div><blockquote><hr>ReviloTX wrote:<div></div> <blockquote> <hr> AncientElster wrote: <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div></div> <div> </div> <div>If you take a look at how many parries you actually do, and how many misses you actually do -- you'll probably find you get about 5% misses and 3% parries.</div> <div> </div> <hr> </blockquote> <p>22% misses with a buckler, 20% with a tower.  10% parry with either (didn't have a dirge).  Additional 4% riposte with buckler, and roughly 6% less block.  That's how it came equal using either.  It appears base defense and parry are not "contested" as you say, they do indeed work against epics.</p> <p>As for the one who asked if I respec'd, no I did not.  I compared buckler with sta/wis line and tower with sta/wis line.  Granted, I would gain a slight amount of additional avoidance going for the INT or AGI lines, but if I drop the stamina line I'm probably going to go str anyways (which will grant me no additional avoidance).  Like I said, the popular spec these days seems to be wis/str 4/4/8/8 from the top end raid tanks, and I just don't understand why.  I suspect that pre-revamp KoS mobs that hadn't been attuned properly were ignoring defense and parry, but in EoF zones at least they are not.</p><hr></blockquote>I think I remember too that ripostes are a % of parries... so no parry = no riposte.If you have 4% more ripostes with the buckler but the same %'s of parry, this should mean you had more parries with the buckler...Or it means the STA AA buckler ripostes work different... /shrugI specced from STA/WIS to STR/INT... I like it. My Damage went down (300-500) but I think my aggro control went up...</div>

[MadDa]

<P>I don't really see a valid reason to keep the WIS line anymore at all, at least not the mit increase part.  The actual % increase in mitigation seems too low to be worth it.  </P> <P> </P> <P>I thought the change in block % between a buckler and a tower was a little over 9%, even with the block increase from the stam line.  So a 4.5 % increase in riposte doesn't seem to make up for the difference, even if the riposte % increase is not tied into parry...if it's tied into parry then a 4.5 % increase in riposte would not directly make up for the loss in Block %.  Ignoring adornments, my block % with tower is 19.2% and with buckler is around 10% with the block increse AA.  </P> <P> </P> <P>I'm not trying to argue wha'ts the best AA line here, just trying to understand the numbers so I can decide.</P>

[Aandien]

<P>I'm familiar with the dev post that said ripostes are simply a percentage of parries...but then when you actually parse you get data like was posted...<BR></P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> ReviloTX wrote:<BR> <BR> <BLOCKQUOTE>10% parry with either (didn't have a dirge).  Additional 4% riposte with buckler, and roughly 6% less block. </BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>Which appears to indicate that what the dev posted is simply incorrect.  Since the buckler line doesn't increase your parries, but increases your ripostes, then what should happen (according to what the dev said) is without the line you'd have 10% parries and say 5% ripostes, but with it you should have 6.5% parries and 9.5% ripostes.  In reality though, you simply have 4.5% more ripostes, and your parries stay the same...</P> <P>Also you end up seeing that your total incoming hits -- stays the same.  This indicates that blocks and ripostes, are both uncontested in that you actually block or riposte at the % that is identified regardless of the mob your fighting.  This makes the stam line equal to using a tower shield.</P> <P>Thus, it's probably more beneficial to go with the +hate/dps builds than it is to go with any of the defensive builds.</P>

[Yimway]

I went AGI for the parry.  Too often I'm off on a named with 3 healers standing behind me while the rest of raid work on trash mobs.  I find the parry very safe to use in these situations to stay up, or just to save on power for my healers.Its not safet to use when your dps is on your target, but when they're off assisting the offtanks for adds, I think its very handy.Parsing AGI/INT vs STR/WIS, the amount of incomming dammage I'm taking is drastically reduced.  I don't really care to argue those points with anyone, but that is what is working for me and my guild, so I'm sticking to it for now.  I do expect to eventually pick up enough +defense to drop AGI and go STR, but until that time this is where I am.<blockquote><hr>kaggers wrote:<div></div><span class="title_big"><span></span></span>Yimway -AGI / INT - where did you put the last 8 points in, AGI for parry - or INT for faster recast?Seems like a good combo to me and i'm tempted to go for it since a while. But as respeccing is expensive, STR+WIS still works very fine for me. Plus, you never know what happens at hte next LU.<div></div><hr></blockquote><div></div>