doubts

[Aull]

<DIV>I am using the agility aa lineup 4,4,and 4 atm. I am not seeing any benefits to this set up.I felt that the reuse timer refreshing quicker on my ca's would be a bonus but not seeing it.  I am wanting dps if possible and would like some suggestions. Would keeping this lineup and going with strgth and Int line benefit what i am trying to do. I need suggestions plz from others who are using there aa's.    Thanks</DIV>

[J4k]

<DIV>Agility Line is crap. I would go with Stam - 4/4/8... Wis - 4/4/8... Int 4/4/8 and throw the last point where ever. I put it into hp on wis line. Now I 100% hate STR line and think its a extremly stupid thing for us to have but if your weapons absolutly suck meaning you dont even have rare crafted weapons or anything like that id go with str - 4/5/8... int 4/4/8 and then 4/4/8 in either stam or wis up to you.</DIV>

[Thoral]

I'd encourage you to read the several threads already here that give advice on this topic.  A lot of people say that 4/4/8 STR is the way to go until you get fabled T7 weapons.  As far as I know, noone has posted a parse to prove this since the combat revamp, so you won't know for sure until you try it and see for yourself.  I haven't found anyone yet that doesn't agree that the INT line at 4/4/8 is great for DPS.  I like the WIS line as my third line at 4/4/8 for the crowd control for when I'm tanking and for the added DPS when fighting groups.<div></div>

[Aull]

Thanks for the input! Ok now where can I reset my abilities or can I do that?...

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

I am currently spec'd in Str 4,5,8  Sta 4, 4, 8  Int 4, 4, 8.I have the higher DR Calamity and the Katar of Four Winds for weapons... and in the short parses I've done, it's close to the same DPS on average. Hard to tell the difference between the two depending on the specifics from fight to fight. That's without switching to Sta/Wis/Int.As soon as I can lay my hands on a second Fabled dual wield, I'm going to do my test. I'm thinking of fighting blue solo mobs, one set solo, and another set as groups of them at a time. Also, I'll start first with unarmed and Strength line, then switch to weapons and Sta/Wis/Int.Would be nice to see how much more DPS we'll end up getting in Solo, as well as Groups since Wisdom proc IS an AE afterall.<div></div>

[heelena]

<P>reset your aa´s at the magetower in northfreeport - cellar <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P> </P> <P> </P>

[Zelkova]

<div><blockquote><hr>J4kik wrote:<div>Agility Line is crap. I would go with Stam - 4/4/8... Wis - 4/4/8... Int 4/4/8 and throw the last point where ever. I put it into hp on wis line. Now I 100% hate STR line and think its a extremly stupid thing for us to have but if your weapons absolutly suck meaning you dont even have rare crafted weapons or anything like that id go with str - 4/5/8... int 4/4/8 and then 4/4/8 in either stam or wis up to you.</div><hr></blockquote>Have to disagree, our only line that is "crap" is STR, and that is only when we have weapons that are so good that the whole line is redundant (and even then.. Chi is still good and useable). AGI happens to be one of the better ones, IMO. Though the end ability is obviously not for everyone... since it does nothing for the caster directly.Baton Flurry - Okay so this ability isn't that great, I think it could use a little boost... then again so could a lot of the weapon-specific skills. I truly think 20% recovery time is some kind of joke. Would even 50% be overpowered?Ambidexterity works on absolutely everything. All combat arts, heals, buffs, AA abilities, potions, you name it... I use ring of four winds too, they stack (though ring doesn't affect AA granted abilities for some reason).  It's very good.Defense is defense.. can get it if you want / need, there's nothing wrong with it. And as a prereq for altruism the 4 points here aren't "wasted" because defense is always useful.Altruism - I duoed with a shaman for months and this was pure awesomeness. In raids I always have it on the MT... to be honest I've thought about speccing out of this many many times (would free up 12 points, given that I probably wouldn't bother keeping 4 in defense either) but then I remember how many times it's saved someone's butt, including my raids. I wouldn't really recommend this, however... it suits my playstyle very well but I can see how many wouldn't find much use for it.*end of shameless AGI line praise*Anyway, I second 4/4/8 in INT as I think that is our "must-have" AA... everything else depends on your playstyle.As far as DPS goes I think the combination of 4/4/8 INT and 4/4/8 AGI is the best bet, we get a lot of damage from combat arts and a flat 8% reduction in recasts on them is big. Put extra points where you want. This is my opinions on the other trees:STR - avoid. Even if you make use of it, it'll eventually become useless to you. And losing stats and weapon procs sucks, the very few items we get that proc from being bare-fisted are not enough to make this tree worth using over two good weapons. Restricted to crushing damage.AGI - see start of post.I would suggest against the STA tree because even rank 8 Mantis Bolt puts out puny damage over time, to the tune of 1-2% of our overall damage, unless all you do is autoattack... and the end ability is superfluous for a bruiser. Mantis Star is actually a nice ability, though, so if you have 12 "extra" points this isn't a bad place to put them (this is what keeps making me want to spec out of altruism <span>:smileytongue:</span>).WIS is a nice tree and tuned around fighting multiple mobs. Rumble can proc off Crane Twirl and it already procs often so it's pretty good. Extra HPs is wonderful, expecially since it's a percentage, but it's a bit far down the tree and not worth all the prerequisites if this is all you're going for.INT tree is great if only for the melee crits, there's no good reason to not max that ability. Even after the nerf it's still awesome. This is our only tree with more than 1 AA that helps us tank, though the end ability is useless most of the time.The 4th abilities of each tree are self-explanatory, and those are all our tanking AAs. Which is totally stupid, god forbid we have more than 1 AA for tanking in a single tree (except for INT). I wouldn't bother trying to specialize your AAs for tanking because they are simply too spread out and too far down the trees to make this a viable option.All of our end-tier abilities are very situation except for crane flock... and IMO that's a much better skill for monks, as they have all the haste and we already have knockout combination for burst DPS. In other words, none are really "worth it" for us, unless you really think you can put it to good use.If you care my build is 4/4/8/4/1(<img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> AGI + 4/4/8/5 INT. I would suggest 4/4/8 AGI + 4/4/8 INT above all else, possibly going with 4/4/8 WIS if you do a lot of  tanking, it'll help a lot to hold agro on multiple mobs which is our weak point.Well good luck and have fun. (and sorry for all the words)</div>

[Raidi Sovin'faile]

The Agility line is pointless for pure DPS. I'm sorry, but it is.8% reuse reduction is a drop in the bucket. Even on longer recast spells, it'll net you barely 1% extra damage.For example... on a 1k avg damage ability that refreshes in 60s, you'll recast at 55.2s instead. That's averaging around 1.4 more DPS on that 1k ability. You are looking at less than 20 DPS more even if you spam all your combat arts.Maxed out Mantis proc does about 5%+ of my DPS on zonewide parses. Since I average on the low end parses of 800, that's already 40 DPS, mana-free too. And Mantis proc is one of the weaker options for DPS.For pure DPS... Agility is not the way to go.As far as defensive or utility, it has options to it. Your build isn't bad overall... but it's simply NOT a pure DPS build, like the OP was asking about.<div></div>

[Aull]

Ok I am now 4,4, and 5 in strgth and I hit way harder than before just slower to attack. While duel wielding I swing much faster but damage is not near as high of a hit, but I have procs on my weapons too, so not sure really if this will be a better setup or not. I may clear it again and go all out in int, I feel that having the procs and stats on the weapons is hard to loose, but I am just playing around atm. I really need to get more aa's to feel this out better so I should wait till I get some more of them. I really like the hard hits though, but I really need to get the FBSS and see if the haste helps on the quicker swings. If I could swing as fast as I duel wield, but hit this hard it would be awesome.

[Zelkova]

<blockquote><hr>Raidi Sovin'faile wrote:The Agility line is pointless for pure DPS. I'm sorry, but it is.8% reuse reduction is a drop in the bucket. Even on longer recast spells, it'll net you barely 1% extra damage.For example... on a 1k avg damage ability that refreshes in 60s, you'll recast at 55.2s instead. That's averaging around 1.4 more DPS on that 1k ability. You are looking at less than 20 DPS more even if you spam all your combat arts.Maxed out Mantis proc does about 5%+ of my DPS on zonewide parses. Since I average on the low end parses of 800, that's already 40 DPS, mana-free too. And Mantis proc is one of the weaker options for DPS.For pure DPS... Agility is not the way to go.As far as defensive or utility, it has options to it. Your build isn't bad overall... but it's simply NOT a pure DPS build, like the OP was asking about.<hr></blockquote>Your example is noted. But let's look at real high-end combat art damage, since you want to tout your own high-end DPS. Here are some actual comparisons. Steel Fist 30 base recast 524.5 average damage 17.5 dps Mine 26.5 recast 19.8 dps Meteor Fist 40 base recast 956.5 average damage 24 dps Mine 35.4 recast 27 dps Dropkick 10 base recast 434.5 average damage 43.5 dps Mine 8.8 recast 49.4 dps What you see here is that I'm getting about 12% more DPS out of my combat arts from my recast reductions, and you can be sure I get a lot more than 160 DPS from combat arts (which would be accurate per your example). I was personally getting 430 pre-EoF, so your example was a bit unfair. I won't bother with my average total DPS count since it varies from raid to raid, group to group, etc. But one thing remains constant: combat art damage accounts for the vast majority of it. I did all of these number pre-EOF with maxed str using the median damage for each spell (I'm not able to max STR anymore), all Master 1. The outcome is relatively the same now, except that our combat arts add considerably more to our overall DPS thanks to the knockouts line. My build wasn't amazing DPS previous to EOF, but that was it's original intent and I get a lot more out of it now... that is, my combat arts are contributing to 85% of my DPS even with the high damage Calamity and the Hand of Destruction wielded, with M1 offensive stance. Around 12% of that comes from recasts alone and averages out to 10% of my total DPS. My math might be slightly off, but I took the numbers directly from the spell descriptions. My average parses with Mantis Bolt were less than impressive, over full raids. My last one before I respecced is in one of the other topics... less than 2% of total damage with only Impetus outside of my own buffs. It was almost 20% less damage than Calamity Thrash, for comparison, and I wasn't even using Calamity the entire raid. Anyway, I made my build mostly for DPS originally, and given my observations, I don't see how it wouldn't be viable as "pure DPS" given a few tweaks like taking away parry/def/altruism and tacking on crane twirl. The only problem with it is the power costs, which are irrelevant in short encounters or with any power regen class in group. When I'm out of power, I do miss those melee procs but that's fairly rare these days. And since I never need to wait for melee procs, I have a controllable and predictable damage output. At least you agree that mantis bolt is weak for DPS.. but that makes me curious about what you consider to be a better "option"? Only thing I can think of would be going all the way down WIS tree, which to me seems to not be beneficial for us, and more of a thing for monks to do.<div></div>

[Zelkova]

<div></div><div></div><blockquote><hr>Aull wrote:Ok I am now 4,4, and 5 in strgth and I hit way harder than before just slower to attack. While duel wielding I swing much faster but damage is not near as high of a hit, but I have procs on my weapons too, so not sure really if this will be a better setup or not. I may clear it again and go all out in int, I feel that having the procs and stats on the weapons is hard to loose, but I am just playing around atm. I really need to get more aa's to feel this out better so I should wait till I get some more of them. I really like the hard hits though, but I really need to get the FBSS and see if the haste helps on the quicker swings. If I could swing as fast as I duel wield, but hit this hard it would be awesome.<hr></blockquote>What level are you? I should have guessed you were low with only 12 AAs but it's hard to tell...If you want to swing fast AND hit hard, you could try playing a Monk. <span>:smileyvery-happy:</span>But, seriously... we don't get much in the way of haste or "big damage" from AAs, that comes from our spells and gear. Don't change your AAs too much or it'll start costing a LOT of money.Also, are you PvPing?<b>edit: </b>oops, forgot the quote<div></div><p>Message Edited by brekehan on <span class="date_text">01-03-2007</span> <span class="time_text">09:48 AM</span></p><p>Message Edited by brekehan on <span class=date_text>01-03-2007</span> <span class=time_text>09:49 AM</span>

[Aull]

<P>Sorry bout me not giving my level. I am lvl 40. I love playing this toon don't get me wrong and I really appreciate all of who are posting/replying on this issue. Hearing from better/more exp. players just makes my play time worth while. Thanks to all of you!!</P> <P>Btw no monk for me! Also, no pvp.</P> <P>Message Edited by Aull on <SPAN class=date_text>01-03-2007</SPAN><SPAN class=time_text>11:22 AM</SPAN></P> <P>Message Edited by Aull on <SPAN class=date_text>01-03-2007</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>11:23 AM</SPAN></P><p>Message Edited by Aull on <span class=date_text>01-03-2007</span> <span class=time_text>11:23 AM</span>

[Aull]

<DIV>Ok checked my dps at lvl 40 on a parse last night. I was in group 42 templar, 38 wizard, 42 assassin, and myself. Barefisted my dps was 120-128 while with a pristine imbued baton and pristine imbued fist weapons ( can't remember the real names btw, and lvl 32 weapons) my dps was 120-126. For me that isn't enough damage margin to loose the stats and procs of my weapons. I understand that if I was hasted these numbers would go up. So I have decided that the strength line up is not for me. I am thinking that if my fists (which should be lvl 40 weapons) can't do more damage than lvl 32 weapons my dps should come up some once I get some lvl 42 weaps. This is just my opinion and this doesn't mean that the strength lineup aa's doesn't work, it just doesn't fit my play style. Thanks for all out there that replied to my post here. Have a good one!</DIV>

[Thoral]

Are you still at only 4,4,5 strength?<div></div>

[Aull]

Yes, that would be correct. 4,4, & 5 in the strgth line.

[J4k]

<DIV>Agility line is crappy. You can disagree all you want but it is junk. First of all speaking for lvl 70's if you are useing a duelwield of 1hand staff there is your first issue because at lvl 70 there are no good staffs that would allow you to use baton flurry. Not to mention that 20% increase recovery speed crap turns out to be like .1 second or something dumb. The increased Reuse speed is also dumb when you could be getting crits and procs. The majority of bruisers dps doesnt come from our CA's it comes from our auto attack. When raiding nearly 50% of my dps is auto attack the other percent is CA's and all of my procs from buffs and equipment. In grouping situations that increased reuse speed will be even more useless because a high percent of the time your going to kill the heroic mobs before you have time to even use your CA's more then once. Deflection, Parry, and even health are much more important to get then defense ( especially parry as you will probably find this to be much lower then the other 2 once your 70 ) The end ability in the agi line is EXTREMLY situational and if you find yourself having to use that often then your raid has serious issues anyways. Get intercede AA's in EoF if you want some utility.</DIV>

[Greavous]

<DIV>  <P>J4kik you sound like most of the tanks running around who like playing with one mob at a time. Your a brawler. If your only dealing to 1 heroic mob then I suppose thats the best line for you. When I solo or single group I tank and I like having as many mobs on me as the room will allow. The AGI line is a great line to use if your a Raid OT or into Mob management.</P> <P>My Set up is AGI 4,4,4,8 and INT 4,4,5,8,and the last one Eagle shriek.</P> <P>At the mo Im siting on EF docks self buffed at 53,2% Mit and 71.1% Avoid with Attack at 1507. Trouble is I hardly ever have to tank in defensive and 90% of the time I will be pure offensive while tanking.</P> <P>In offensive Im 50.5% Mit 62.7% avoid and attack is ay 1606. Kinda happy with this set up.</P> <P>Ive been running parsers on this toon for years to see the results. Yes I can get a small bit more dps on another line but only on single mobs. Because I can take the hits I engage a lot more mobs thus <SPAN>upping</SPAN> my dps considerably. This also makes me a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] fine OT in a raid situation. Horses for courses.</P></DIV>

[DarkMirrax]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Greavous wrote:<BR> <DIV>  <P>J4kik you sound like most of the tanks running around who like playing with one mob at a time. Your a brawler. If your only dealing to 1 heroic mob then I suppose thats the best line for you. When I solo or single group I tank and I like having as many mobs on me as the room will allow. The AGI line is a great line to use if your a Raid OT or into Mob management.</P> <P>My Set up is AGI 4,4,4,8 and INT 4,4,5,8,and the last one Eagle shriek.</P> <P>At the mo Im siting on EF docks self buffed at 53,2% Mit and 71.1% Avoid with Attack at 1507. Trouble is I hardly ever have to tank in defensive and 90% of the time I will be pure offensive while tanking.</P> <P>In offensive Im 50.5% Mit 62.7% avoid and attack is ay 1606. Kinda happy with this set up.</P> <P>Ive been running parsers on this toon for years to see the results. Yes I can get a small bit more dps on another line but only on single mobs. Because I can take the hits I engage a lot more mobs thus <SPAN>upping</SPAN> my dps considerably. This also makes me a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] fine OT in a raid situation. Horses for courses.</P></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P><BR>uh oh you insulted dragon your in trouble now oO</P> <P>Whatever works for you works for you , agi for me sucks [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] tried it to death but simply put it sucks</P> <P>Most brawlers tank in offensive for the hate gain through dps ofc</P> <P>/shrug just my 2cp just cos the setup works for one persons playstyle it doesnt mean it will work for others , some ppl will love brusiers and others will hate them .. to each there own i say</P>

[Thoral]

<div><blockquote><hr>Greavous wrote:<div></div> <div>  <p>J4kik you sound like most of the tanks running around who like playing with one mob at a time. Your a brawler. If your only dealing to 1 heroic mob then I suppose thats the best line for you. When I solo or single group I tank and I like having as many mobs on me as the room will allow. The AGI line is a great line to use if your a Raid OT or into Mob management.</p> <p>My Set up is AGI 4,4,4,8 and INT 4,4,5,8,and the last one Eagle shriek.</p> <p>At the mo Im siting on EF docks self buffed at 53,2% Mit and 71.1% Avoid with Attack at 1507. Trouble is I hardly ever have to tank in defensive and 90% of the time I will be pure offensive while tanking.</p> <p>In offensive Im 50.5% Mit 62.7% avoid and attack is ay 1606. Kinda happy with this set up.</p> <p>Ive been running parsers on this toon for years to see the results. Yes I can get a small bit more dps on another line but only on single mobs. Because I can take the hits I engage a lot more mobs thus <span>upping</span> my dps considerably. This also makes me a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] fine OT in a raid situation. Horses for courses.</p></div><hr></blockquote>Greavous, how do you keep aggro on the mobs you don't have directly targetted (in groups not raids)?  Warlocks keep peeling them off me, even when I'm switching targets and using my WIS line AE's.</div>

[Greavous]

<DIV>  <P>OK this seems the be the biggest problem most Bruisers face when tanking. The multi mob encounter.</P> <P>Firstly lets break this into 2 <SPAN>separate</SPAN> groups</P> <P>A multi mob group and numerous single mobs. 2 very different encounters with 2 slightly different <SPAN>techniques.</SPAN></P> <P>We have the ability to create huge agro very quickly. Lets look at a multi mob group.</P> <P>At this stage I have to go over a coupla things. Peeps have been saying that the Ambidexterity ability is useless for dps. Not useless but not the best for dps. But great for <SPAN>re timers</SPAN> on your taunts. I have also maxed those <SPAN>re timers</SPAN> on my Bruiser tree so my single taunt can now be recast every 4.2 secs which gives 1,126 – 1,377 threat per taunt and my group taunt every 14.2 secs giving 971 – 1,187 threat per mob in the encounter. So if I was to only use my taunts, in a 30 second period I would do a minimum of 9,824 hate on a single mob which works out to be around 327.5 hps even with out even breaking out the pain bringers. Remember thats minimum. Add the extra 85 per second u gain from Rumble (average) and your smoking.</P> <P><BR></P> <P>Ok the mob that comes to mind first is the second encounter in trials 4 for the MOA. This zone is made for a Bruiser and will destroy this place faster than any. Yes its an easy zone but its all about speed and if you don't get everyone moving it can get messy.</P> <P>From memory the bunch down the first flight of stairs is made up of 6 mobs (could be <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</P> <P>Savage bruising does a ton of damage on all the encounter so if you run in and drop that the <SPAN>initial</SPAN> part of the encounter is yours. With most tanks you need to give them 5 secs to grab agro before you start pounding in your self because a lot of their hate is generated from being hit. We generate all ours from a coupla taunts and hitting the mob ( a few <SPAN>choice</SPAN> your <SPAN>momma</SPAN> jokes seem to help too). So the MA can engage the encounter almost instantly on your first target. After you have got the mobs in the right place and u throw up Oppress and some hard core damage on the mob thats going down (OHHP,Eye Gash combo) you can then start tabbing through each mob and give it some loving. Each time you land back on the mob being taken down you spend some extra time there making sure its stuck to you. Have never lost a mob in that encounter, even with the whole raid going nuts because I tell them they can't get agro and their all [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. Ok a Zerka could pull them off me but not all of them.</P> <P><BR></P> <P>The second situation is the multi single groups. A lot harder and needs more work. DON'T TAB, unless you want to add a few more to the encounter. Same deal but the only difference is I scroll fully out and look directly down on the fight. That way I am able to pick out each mob seperatly with my mouse. The only way I loose them is power issues. The beauty is we are able to hold most mobs with just auto attack and a taunt or 2 so power can be over rated.</P> <P><BR></P> <P>Hope this helps. I know some of you will look at this and say yawn. Just remember that there are a lot of new players and those who may be new to tanking that don't have a clue about this. Maybe you do it a different way. This works very well for me. I am continually hounded all day to go tank this or that so it seems it works for a lot of others as well.</P></DIV>

[ganjookie]

We can tank more then 1 mob at a time??! [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] when did that happen?<div></div>

[Thoral]

<div><blockquote><hr>ganjookie wrote:We can tank more then 1 mob at a time??! [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] when did that happen?<div></div><hr></blockquote>Thanks, Juda.  Have you found that tab sometimes gets stuck cycling between the same two mobs even though there's 4 or 5 around you?  Is tab directional the way your toon is facing, or the way our 3rd person view is facing?Ganjookie, you have to go to the gift giver in frostfell and ask to be able to tank multiple mobs.  Sheesh.  Noob.</div>

[Kaedi]

<P>I had gone 448 in wis, int and sta for a while but switched to 4488 int and 4588 sta after EoF for the increased parry and deflection.  I have both Twin Calamities and will have WS following a succcessful slapping of Harla Dar.  I only have one piece of fabled armor (relic hat) though so I'm really on the fence wether to go back and drop 16 points back into wis for the ae proc.  For my guild I do very well in parses, but nothing to compare here with the fully fabled fully aa'd crowd.</P>

[ganjookie]

Ive sworn off Frostfell, its a sacraligoues holiday that detracts from the true meaning of <a href="http://www.pvponline.com/article/3062/tue-dec-02" target=_blank>Pixmas.</a><div></div>

[Greavous]

<P>It's a curse and a blessing ekopocka.</P> <P>If you have more than 1 encounter it kinda sux that you can't tab between everything that is currently engaged. Means you have to directly mouse target to hook them.</P> <P>The other side is when you only have 1 group you can tab freely knowing you will only be bashing the mobs you want. If you have a mob behind you sometime you won't automaticaly swing around to target it. As I said when situations arise like that a look down view will take care of it. Usually the rule is if u can't see it on screen you wont target it.</P> <P>Trouble if your a random tabber, the swashy/assassin who is giving u hate is gonna pick up some mob across the other side of the room and add a world of hurt. Sometimes when I'm running out of mobs I'll target something else out of the encounter and my hate generators with grab it for me.</P> <P>It is alot harder for us to tank multi mobs than a Zerka or even a Guard. Just because it's harder doesn't mean we can't do it as well if not better.<BR></P> <P>Get your self a dirge, defiler<SPAN>/mystic,</SPAN> fury, coercer, swashy/assassin and you have a great hard core tanking team that can tear apart a zone very quickly</P><p>Message Edited by Greavous on <span class=date_text>01-09-2007</span> <span class=time_text>09:26 PM</span>

[Madmoon]

<P>STR is the only way to go, unless you are 70th with a couple Fableds.  I took a couple Legendaries out (DR 45) and watched my DPS drop almost in half.  For Bruisers moving up the charts, it makes even more sense.  It is basically a set of constantly upgrading Fableds.  Someone somewhere on these boards did the whole test - STR WIS INT bare and I think STA WIS INT with Fabled DWs.  Even <EM>then</EM>, the difference was small.  I am sure someone could go back and say, "Well, if you had 484 in each, instead of 448, well, then the difference would be...."  But for me, now you are approaching min/max exercises, and that way lies dullness.  Fabled T7s run between 30 and 60 plat on AB - too rich for my blood.  I'll stick with STR.</P> <P>Test it yourself.  The first three respecs are pretty cheap.  You don't even need a parser, though that will back you up with numbers. Go somewhere with a regular supply of same-con fodder (Ravasect Isle is nice for me for that at 66.)  Bring along a healer friend, and have him only heal you.  Time yourself - how many can you kill in ten minutes?  Do that three times.  Now, respec.  Do that again.  You should see the difference, and determine for yourself if it is worth going one line over another.</P> <P>Now, there are better builds, depending on what role you often take - solo, group, raid, and the role you play in group or raid.  And some few people like AGI, so I wouldn't say ignore that line, though there are only a few adherents.</P> <P>But you want to know the real dirty little secret about AAs?  No spec will make you a god and none will break you.  Heck, go 8 8 8 8 1 in AGI, and put the rest into gnome bonds.  You will still have success.  After all, at the end of the day, you're still a bruiser, right?</P>

[Illustrious]

<P>For pure dps:</P> <P> </P> <P>Non fabled brawler = 4,4,8 in str/int/wis</P> <P>fabled brawler = 4,4,8 in sta/int/wis</P> <P> </P> <P>as someone that has paid the 10pp+ fee 3 times so far by re-jigging builds that is my opinion for best zone wide DPS.</P> <P> </P> <P>I have actually not gone for that but have 4,4,8 in Int and 4,5,8,8,1 in wis. I like this build for the extra HP and also because the Crane Flock DPS burst rocks with a Vraksakin Claw Club. </P>

[Greavous]

<P>For pure dps Illustrious is right on the money.</P> <P>End of story</P>