Why Bucklers?

[Munyo]

<DIV>was looking for posts about DW vs. 2H vs. 1H w/ Shield and i came across alot of posts about bucklers. tried searching for why they were soo good and came across even more posts, but no answers. so why does every1 care about bucklers when they dont have the higher protection of a tower shield? can you equip a dual wield or 2H weapon AND have a buckler? please enlighten me</DIV><p>Message Edited by Munyoki on <span class=date_text>11-28-2006</span> <span class=time_text>05:20 PM</span>

[Zaknafiend]

The sta line of AA's require a buckler.

[Gortesh]

First of all, we start out the STA line with well...more stamina! that means more health...Second we move onto buckler reversal, once every 30 seconds we can attack back if we block/riposte/dodge and attack, or if our enemy does it as well, this can go form a range of 200ish-400ish, up to 500ish-800ish(i believe)Third we move tot he bucklers GREATEST ability, we gte a double attack, at rank 8 were double attacking 76% of the time, its basically JUST like dual weilding, and if you have a weapon that procs, it can proc 2 times as well as to what I have seen.Fourth and final for most dual line speccers(such as STR/STA) we get +avoidance, its a +9% frontal avoidance and 4.5% everywhere else at rank 8, when you get this far on the STA line towersheilds seem almost useless, with the new grizzlefazzles sheild, I only get 2.5% more avoidance, so I would rather just use my buckler and spit out more dps.<div></div>

[Nembutal]

<div></div><div><blockquote><hr>Gortesh wrote:First of all, we start out the STA line with well...more stamina! that means more health...Second we move onto buckler reversal, once every 30 seconds we can attack back if we block/riposte/dodge and attack, or if our enemy does it as well, this can go form a range of 200ish-400ish, up to 500ish-800ish(i believe)Third we move tot he bucklers GREATEST ability, we gte a double attack, at rank 8 were double attacking 76% of the time, its basically JUST like dual weilding, and if you have a weapon that procs, it can proc 2 times as well as to what I have seen.Fourth and final for most dual line speccers(such as STR/STA) we get +avoidance, its a +9% frontal avoidance and 4.5% everywhere else at rank 8, when you get this far on the STA line towersheilds seem almost useless, with the new grizzlefazzles sheild, I only get 2.5% more avoidance, so I would rather just use my buckler and spit out more dps.<div></div><hr></blockquote>Yup...But here is the bestest part evah!  the MATH!DW fabled = 55 dmg rating x2 = 110 total. (errored on te side of caution)2 hander fabled = 110 dmg rating x1 = 110 total (but easy to aquire just 1 fabled that scouts don't want instead of 2 scouts do want...) (errored on the side of caution)1 hander fabled  = 74 dmg rating x 1.76 (buckler line) = 130.25 (I think mine is like 74.6.. and I have seen 76 etc... so this is a low estimate)Now... 130 is about 20% more than 110... and most AA lines have like 20% crit, 20% haste, 20% DPS, etc...  But I also hit for a buckler reversal on occasion for 500 free dmg... so it's actually better than 20% overall...But wait... there's more!I have a shield... and the block rate and stats that it gives while the 2 hander and dual wield people DO NOT.BTW there is a shield adornment at lvl 70 that gives +67 vs crushing slashing piercing... and there are only lifetap weaps as far as defense stuff goes... so chalk that up to the win bucket also.Now here is the issue... with the new EoF changes... it's handy to have a tower shield again.... So if you want to be specialized in just tanking... and you plan on having people around that can buff your hate gain to compensate for the loss of some DPS... well... STA line and the double attack it gives may not be for you.  In those cases I would say you are safer going with WIS + STR... because you could boost your melee crits (harder to boost to 100) and your hate gain... but now you have a new issue...See you need WIS line for the stance mastery and the + MIT as well as +DPS... and to do that you run low on points... you can go up the STR line while getting all the good stuff from WIS... but you will dead-end after only 1 point of hate gain boost unless you sacrifice some of the melee crit boost... just like in the STA most people run out of points after 1 point of shield boost... I mean you can drop some DPS to pick up for defense... but most opt not to.INT like is also a decent swap out for STA because it gives alot of haste... but haste is easy to get high... and +parry right now although nice is probably less important than hate gain.Who knows what will happen when SOE finally admits they screwed the game up and fixes stuff though... probably back to WIS + STA.Now a WIS + STR line zerker using a nice 2 hander would probably top the server leaderboards for biggest hit... they won't have the most DPS... but SOE doesn't measure that.For some reason they also don't compare mitigation or avoidence.. just HPs.</div><p>Message Edited by Nembutal on <span class=date_text>11-29-2006</span> <span class=time_text>10:24 AM</span>

[Ni]

<DIV>While the WIS ultimate is nice, you have to put 4 points in the mitigation line first. This is probably wasted since absolute mitigation bonuses are now a lot less helpful with the mitigation curve.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I am STA 4/4/8 and WIS 4/4 right now but I am re-thinking taking WIS to the end which means rethinking WIS altogether. I do like Bellysmash, though. It just isn't helpful against epics, but I don't do a lot of epics anyway.</DIV>

[Nembutal]

<blockquote><hr>Shiznitz wrote:<div></div> <div>While the WIS ultimate is nice, you have to put 4 points in the mitigation line first. This is probably wasted since absolute mitigation bonuses are now a lot less helpful with the mitigation curve.</div> <div> </div> <div>I am STA 4/4/8 and WIS 4/4 right now but I am re-thinking taking WIS to the end which means rethinking WIS altogether. I do like Bellysmash, though. It just isn't helpful against epics, but I don't do a lot of epics anyway.</div><hr></blockquote>Actually... bellysmash may have become more viable in EoF... my shield bash seemed be be knocking down more stuff in the EoF raid I attended.... we got owned... but I saw the mob dropping to the floor and it was timed to match my shield bash button.... so if it was a coincidence it was a pretty big one... it happened alot more than normal.Putting 4 points into mitigation yields about 160 MIT... on a normal player at say 4k mit (non uber) that is about 4%.. now defensive mode yields 15%.. so in offensive you would avoid the -DEF (stance mastery)... get the +OFF and lose 11% MIT... so essentially going wisdom line could be looked at very minor returns on tanking... or very good returns on minor exchange of tanking to excellent DPS and aggro...<div></div>