STR AA Line Question

[RPZip]

Is there any particular reason why I never see the STR AA line mentioned in terms of Defensive AA specs? The 4th Tier STR line ability looks... well, kind of amazing to me. I know that you'd have to invest 8 points into the 3rd Tier as well to make it viable, but is there any particular reason you never see people talk about it for tanking roles? Even if you can get weapons that are slightly better than the Tier 7 STR AA line's power, wouldn't the 2% Riposte per rank compensate for that in terms of pure tanking?<div></div>

[ArcticBlue182]

to use that part of the line you have to fight unarmed so it goes with out saying that you would max that section i think.. if youre fighting with weapoons then you have to look at different AA lines.. depending on that youre using.you might already know this tho <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><div></div>

[Siberia2]

Most don't want to give up their weapons for the defense when you can get other defensive lines with useful abilities in the previous AA tiers. Crit chance in the int line with parry, HP in the wisdom line with AE attacks, etc. What I find to be intertesting as I have heard from others with said Str reposte line is that the outright chance acts as a passive proc, which in turn means that if you are capped at 80% avoidance or whatnot for w/e you're fighting, then theoritically you're avoidance would be 80% + what the reposte rank 8 is. It could be wrong, but since the outright reposte ranks don't count as adding to parry/defense/deflect they won't show, but would act closely to a buff like Tranquil Vision. Where the recipient gains no direct avoidance, but the chance to avoid is always there. <div></div>

[BenYitzh]

<div><blockquote><hr>RPZip wrote:Is there any particular reason why I never see the STR AA line mentioned in terms of Defensive AA specs? The 4th Tier STR line ability looks... well, kind of amazing to me. I know that you'd have to invest 8 points into the 3rd Tier as well to make it viable, but is there any particular reason you never see people talk about it for tanking roles? Even if you can get weapons that are slightly better than the Tier 7 STR AA line's power, wouldn't the 2% Riposte per rank compensate for that in terms of pure tanking?<div></div><hr></blockquote>It would be very good if it provided 2% Riposte per rank. It would be much better than the intelligence line 1.6% per rank. However, it is not 2% per rank.It provides 1.5% for the first rank and .5% for all following ranks, thereby capping out at 5% instead of the 16% that 2% per rank would provide.So it is really the weakest defensive bonus of all the lines. (Well, maybe agility is weaker, but it's hard to say).</div>

[Sslarrga]

<DIV>Well, it's not horrible.  But neither is it worth it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It's not to difficult to find weapons with +parry, +defense, or +deflection.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>It's definitely not difficult to find weapons with +hps and +power.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And it's really easy to find weapons with +stats.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And it's only slightly difficult to find weapons that do similar damage to 8 ranks of double attack.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You basically give up an incredible amount of versatility and sacrifice DPS (once you gain access to decent weapons) to use the Strength line.  Unlike the warrior, bard, or rogue version of DA it doesn't scale with better gear and cannot take advantage of better gear.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Also, there isn't a cap on avoidance like there is on mitigation.  Mitigation has a hard cap at 80% vs whatever level of mob.  Avoidance on the other hand has 3 components that are skill caped depending on either your level (I'm not entirely convinced on this point) or the level of your opponent.  If all 3 avoidance skills are at the cap and you have maxed your agility you will reach higher than 80% avoidance.  At least vs. solo creatures your level or lower.  Due to the way avoidance works it isn't possible to just hard cap it at 80% like they can with mitigation.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now, the avoidance from the strength line maxes out at 5%.  That is NOT 5% added onto your current avoidance however.  You'd have to recalculate.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For example.  If I had 20% parry, 40% deflection, and 40% defense my overall avoidance would be 71.2%.  If you want the me to illustrate how the game does this I can do that.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Now if we add in that 5% from the Str. AA line.  That would be 5% parry (with 100% riposte if parried from the front), 20% parry, 40% deflection, and 40% defense.  Overall avoidance would be 72.7% avoidance.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Then again this makes sense from the standpoint that the Str. AA line was originally supposed to be the DPS AA line.  Yes you get some avoidance, but less than other lines.  However, you also gain a bit of DPS from it when tanking.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Because of the way avoidance works, as opposed to how mitigation works it's not easy to just "cap" it at a certain number.  I'm guessing this is part of the reason why SoE appears reluctant to do anything about the disparity between the usefulness of avoidance vs. mitigation against mobs that are significantly harder than solo even cons.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>With that in mind.  The only time I could see the avoidance from the strength line being worthwhile is if it isn't scaled in anyway vs level of mob.  IE - 5% avoidance vs solo even con.  5% avoidance vs Orange Epic Named mob.  Even then I probably still wouldn't put any points into the Strength line at this point.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Regards,</DIV> <DIV>Croaker</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[BenYitzh]

I think it would be interesting if they added defensive weapons for monks. The fighting batons for example, you can hold them as they animate now and use them offensively, or you could hold them by the handle on the side and have them run along your arms to use them defensively.So you'd have these, they'd work like shields I suppose, but half block bonus and half parry. And with the strength line you could have one equipped as a secondary.<div></div>