Those last 8 EoF AA's

[Anariale]

<DIV>Ok, so pretty much every Paladin out there looks to be going 21 Hero, 21 Wrath.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So, I just hit 93 AA's... now what?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The lines Im thinking of doing are:</DIV> <DIV>1) 3 Points into ST Heal, 5 Points into Group Healp</DIV> <DIV>2) 3 Points into Intercede, 5 Points into Ward</DIV> <DIV>3) 5 Points into Group Proc Buff, 3 Points into ST Heal</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What are you all doing with these last 8 points?<BR>Am I missing something?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks!</DIV>

[Crib92]

<DIV>I went 3 into Call of Duty (3% additional proc)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>And working on group armorment.  Gonna put 5 into that one.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Currently at 96 aa's so hope to finish them off soon.  (BTW if you are struggling to get aa's do the steamfont quests and mentor for turn in.  I got 3 aa's doing about 25 quests and killing named in zone.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Arraza]

<DIV>Hmmm... good tip.  Gonna have to look into those quests I'm at 88 now and REALLY struggling, but then again I don't have a couple raid names in KoS, and no raid names in EoF... once we kill tnax and move into EoF should move along a little better.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>You like the group armament thing?  See this is what I was thinking... its xxx physical mitigation to non fighters.  So how often is that really useful to healers, mages and scouts?  They technically will only be getting hit by AEs, how many AE's in the game are physical based?  Most of them that I can think of are non-physical damage, so I was thinking that it may not be that useful.  But  I could be wrong and not be thinking of physical aes.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Right now I have:</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>wrath 5 brimstone, 5 holy circle, 5 relentless conviction, 5 consecrate, 3 divine debuff (only because it was the quick way to get to the +HP in hero)</DIV> <DIV>hero 5 HP buff</DIV> <DIV>support 5 CoD, 3 Group mit, 2 RD</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Once I hit 92 aa, I'm gonna respec and complete hero and wrath. Then like the OP I have some thinking to do.</DIV>

[OrcSlayer96]

<BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Anariale wrote:<BR> <DIV>Ok, so pretty much every Paladin out there looks to be going 21 Hero, 21 Wrath.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>So, I just hit 93 AA's... now what?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The lines Im thinking of doing are:</DIV> <DIV>1) 3 Points into ST Heal, 5 Points into Group Healp</DIV> <DIV>2) 3 Points into Intercede, 5 Points into Ward</DIV> <DIV>3) 5 Points into Group Proc Buff, 3 Points into ST Heal</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What are you all doing with these last 8 points?<BR>Am I missing something?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Thanks!</DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> <P>I am one of those abnormal paladins that dont quite fit the standard mold i have been seeing on the forums lately.  In the thread on this forum, my guild is labeled as a low end raiding guild.  My role in raids has become more of a raid leader than before and when not raiding i find myself stepping up to the role of healing in groups as we help our guildees on quests.  Currently i hit 98 AA points on Saturday night after we killed Talendor for the first time and achieved Deathtoll access.   Because of the tank heavy setup we have and the ton of grouping/solo questing i do i am specced with 21 hero, 21 support and eventually 8 in healing.  </P> <P>When using ACT to parse the combats, i have found the around 40-50% of my healing has come from my ward, be it soloing up to raiding.  For me the best fit is 3 in single target heal and 5 in ward, making it so that i can cast 3 wards in the time of 2 before.  Wards are the most efficent heals we have and coupled with my heal crit i am usually hitting a crit on the ward.  Now i know some higher end paladins will come up with "a shaman has better wards, why bother...", the fact is unless you are in the the top 1-2% of the raiding community on your server, you will not have a dedicated enough solid core of 24 raiders that you can guarantee what your raid force is.  For my guild, we have many excellent players, but like many who play the game, life intrudes on their play time, be it personal tradegies, work, or many other things, our raid force will shift from raid to raid.  If i had to bet my paycheck, tons more of guilds are similar to my experience than some min/maxxers i have seen lately post on the paladin forum(noone particular in this thread just everybody knows the ones i am talking about).</P> <P>Back to the Op's question tho, I would be hard pressed on that choice.  When you play Wyrd, what is your role normally?  Are you playing OT, MA, buffbot/rezbot, MT?  If you are mainly MT, i would think 3 points in ST heal and 5 in ward makes for better survival and more useful in all situations.  If you are MT then intercede recast wont help, and how often are you firing off group heals when holding mob agro on you?  3 points in the group proc in my support line has yielded a average of 3% of a groups total dps when looking at ACT parses, up to you on the worth on that, i did notice that rangers like the buff, as it is another proc on their range attacks and procs quite often.  For group armament, i love the enhancement.  700 mit to non fighters works out very nice when repops hit in castle mistmore, wandering mobs social agroing when tank is stunned, or when the dps pushes the envelope a little too far and gets the mob's attention.  It helped alot when our necromancer used lifeburn and all of a sudden tosses 100 k damage on the mob, that and a quick lay on hands heheh.<BR></P>

[Mgunner]

<DIV>Hero and Wrath here, but my Wrath line is funky. I got 5 points in Holy circle, 5 in Relentless, 3 in Doom Judgment, 2 in Brimstone, and 5 in Consecrate. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I have 3 points in Call of Duty and 5 points in Righteous Demonstration. I would have liked to put all 5 points in Brimstone, but putting 3 in DJ allowed me to put 5 points in RD without having to get the group pledge which I still say is a waste except in rare cases</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The procs can add up to a lot of extra DPS (hate). RD procing 11% of the time and criting most of the time is decent.  At the moment, I'm only playing with this setup, but after a few respecs, I find this the best for me.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[Wallzak]

<DIV>Well, it looks like I'm the odd-ball out.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My roll as of late has been supporting the raid MT/OT, I've gone down the heal line and got the extra heal... love it.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I should go down the support line... might still, but right now 2/3's down the wrath.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My extra aa's: Group Mit Buff and shorten rez times.</DIV>

[PolarBear77]

<P>Imho 3 into the fevert aid then 5 into the ward is godly being able to cast a 1300-1600 ward every 9-10 sec is godly imho gunna help with the amount of damage you take when tanking :smileywink:</P> <P>So with guards two 30 sec temp buffs they get 653 crushing, 816 peircing and slashing from command (grp) also 1104 from wall of force. Which to me sounds alot but when they are raid buffed at 6K+ like most other tanks that 1100 mit buff isn't so hot with the new returns they are only getting about 65-68% mit, so that there is good news for use compaired to our ward which doesn't get that affected by the returns.</P> <P>So in a term of 30 sec we can get 3 wards off (spec'ed as i am) for right around 4500 damage with a crit ward.  Prob is of course as most of us know they get intrrupeted etc but i can get them off useally on the second cast of them. At least it is help close the gap in the damage taking abilitys 4500 points of wards or 5-8% mit eh..... mit is prob still better but the gap is no where near what it uset to be</P> <P> /shrug idk what do i know im just an Ogre</P>

[Arraza]

<DIV>I was thinking about doing the ward as well, BUT heres my thinking.  Soloing it would be excellent, I can't tell you how many times I wished that ward was popping faster.  But grouping or raiding I am struggling with its effectiveness.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My understanding is that our ward (and other wards) cancel and replace any existing wards on the target.  So in a case where I am tanking, I always preward on pull for damage control and extra agro, BUT if I am casting a ward and cancelling a healers ward is that very effective?  I can see the argument going both ways.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>A pro agrgument would be yes you are canceling another ward, BUT that other ward has already mitigated some damage so you are effectively re-warded before the real damage is done essentially continuing to prevent damage.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The CON argument would be that you are casting a ward that absorbs less damage than the one that you just cancelled, effectively making yourself lose some mitigated health, PLUS you are wasting a lot of power because both you and your healers are casting wards and cancelling them out.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>

[MeridianR]

Wards stack, they do not overwrite each other.<div></div>

[MeridianR]

I do think I am going to go the ward route though, I always use it. Solo, group, raid....it's used almost all the time by me.<div></div>

[Anariale]

<P>Paladin Wards stack with Shaman Wards.<BR>Shaman ST Wards overwrite eachother.</P> <P>Ok, so Ward makes sense... so now Intercede vs faster heal.  Is the faster CT on the ST heal really worthwhile?</P> <P> </P> <P>W</P><p>Message Edited by Anariale on <span class=date_text>01-23-2007</span> <span class=time_text>10:53 AM</span>

[Arraza]

<DIV>Ah, awesome guys thanks for that.  I never tried it myself, but believed my healers when they told me.  I think they were thinking that their wards cancel eachother out, so mine would too... and frankly never bother checking.  Thanks for the update!</DIV>

[Arraza]

<P>Oh boy, I didn't want to show my noobish side again, but here we go... you guys actually use intercede?</P> <P>I found that using it ended up getting me killed because i was always catching a huge hit from the mobs... I'd use it when OTing, but when not geared up defensively it sucked.</P>

[MeridianR]

<div><blockquote><hr>Wintermute218 wrote:<div></div> <p>Oh boy, I didn't want to show my noobish side again, but here we go... you guys actually use intercede?</p> <p>I found that using it ended up getting me killed because i was always catching a huge hit from the mobs... I'd use it when OTing, but when not geared up defensively it sucked.</p><hr></blockquote>You have to upgrade Intercede if you want to use it a lot.  I have it at Master 1 and I believe I take only like 12% of the initial damage....but to answer the question, I use it all the time.  It's an awesome skill now that it does a mitigation check.</div>

[Arraza]

<DIV>Now wait a second, the way the master that I saw read was that the TARGET takes 12% and I still take 100%.  As far as I recall we always take 100% (mitigated of course) and the only thing that decreases as we upgrade is the amount of damage that the target takes.  Have I had this wrong the whole time?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> MeridianR wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Wintermute218 wrote:<BR> <P>Oh boy, I didn't want to show my noobish side again, but here we go... you guys actually use intercede?</P> <P>I found that using it ended up getting me killed because i was always catching a huge hit from the mobs... I'd use it when OTing, but when not geared up defensively it sucked.</P><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>You have to upgrade Intercede if you want to use it a lot.  I have it at Master 1 and I believe I take only like 12% of the initial damage.<BR><BR>...but to answer the question, I use it all the time.  It's an awesome skill now that it does a mitigation check.<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV>

[Wallzak]

<P>again, as supporting the MT/OT on raids... I use intercede on every pull (I create a macro that casts intercede and the ward... it's pretty sweet).  Intercede can be valuable in the first few seconds of a pull before the mob is debuffed.</P> <P>They fixed intercede a while back, we now mitigate the damage taken where before it was just a pure hit.  On the worse raid pulls the best... errr worse... I got was one shotted into the orange (at 10000 hp, lets say that's a 7000 pt hit on me, now the tank has more mit than I, but even then I probably saved him a hit of 3000-5000, add the ward of 1300... that is pretty significant).  Although... sunday night on tarinax... something told me not to... the SK did... and she did go down, a combination of the intercede and the AOE I think she said.</P> <P>One thing we have been experimenting with... we've been having problems with pre wards and the healers taking agro due to it.  I pre-pull intercept/ward the MT, a healer wards me... we didn't play with it too much, the once or twice it seemed to work well.</P>

[Anariale]

<P>Intercede AD3 = Target - 6%, Caster 100%<BR>Intercede M1 = Target - 0%, Caster 100%</P> <P>The thing to look at is by having Intercede, you basically give your MT double the HP.  When he hits red, 2-3 intercedes from your fighters on the raid can easily give your healers the time to bring his health back to max.</P> <P>Not to mention, Crusaders can heal themselves pretty [I cannot control my vocabulary] well, so its a no-brainer to help out the tank with intercedes.</P> <P>Granted, is it really worthwhile to drop it from 30s recast to 24s.</P> <P>W</P>

[MeridianR]

Actually my bad above, I have nfc what I was thinking of.....sorry<div></div>

[Arraza]

<P>It's probably my own stupidity when using it, but I always seemed to use it just before an AE, or right before someone grabed agro and the mob turns and cone aes the raid... then everyone stands around wondering why the plate guy just went down when all the casters are still there... lol.  It's happened to me for instance on Uncanged Alzid where I hit intercede, take a big hit, then before I can heal myself the AE goes off.  So I just got frustrated and stopped using it, that and when I died it took another players attention away to rez me, or a healer to use power or time to heal me... just stopped making sense to use.</P> <P>I should look at it again, I guess in the right circumstances without that stuff happening it can be very useful.  I don't think I would ever use it on a mob that has an encounter wide AE, or 360 AE no matter how small...</P>

[Anariale]

Interecede is very buff-based.  If you dont have 9-10K HP and 5K+ Mit, I wouldnt be interceding much on a raid.

[Crib92]

<P>I never used to use Intercede when it was unmitigated, but find it very useful now.  I use it a heck of alot more in EOF.  It is invaluable on fights like Tactician's armor.  It makes a huge difference.</P> <P> </P> <P> </P><p>Message Edited by Crib92 on <span class=date_text>01-23-2007</span> <span class=time_text>12:37 PM</span>

[khufure]

<div><blockquote><hr>Crib92 wrote:<div></div> <div></div> <p>I never used to use Intercede when it was unmitigated, but find it very useful now.  I use it a heck of alot more in EOF.  It is invaluable on fights like Tactician's armor.  It makes a huge difference.</p>Message Edited by Crib92 on <span class="date_text">01-23-2007</span> <span class="time_text">12:37 PM</span><hr></blockquote>I'd think group arm would be more useful in this fight than 6 seconds reduced cast time of intercede.  Not to mention the boost it gives your healers for survivability..</div>

[Arraza]

<P>Again, group armament gives +mit to *physical* damage.  How often are your non-fighters being hit with *physical* damage?  I can't think of many *physical* damage aes, especially those are long range which would impact non-healers which typically fight outside the range of short range physical damage aes.</P> <P>Unless someone can correct me, I think this is another useless spell in disguise. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></P> <P><BR> </P> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> khufure wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Crib92 wrote:<BR> <P>I never used to use Intercede when it was unmitigated, but find it very useful now.  I use it a heck of alot more in EOF.  It is invaluable on fights like Tactician's armor.  It makes a huge difference.</P>Message Edited by Crib92 on <SPAN class=date_text>01-23-2007</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:37 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I'd think group arm would be more useful in this fight than 6 seconds reduced cast time of intercede.  Not to mention the boost it gives your healers for survivability..<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>

[khufure]

<div><blockquote><hr>Wintermute218 wrote:<div></div> <p>Again, group armament gives +mit to *physical* damage.  How often are your non-fighters being hit with *physical* damage?  I can't think of many *physical* damage aes, especially those are long range which would impact non-healers which typically fight outside the range of short range physical damage aes.</p> <p>Unless someone can correct me, I think this is another useless spell in disguise. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p> <blockquote> <hr> khufure wrote: <div> <blockquote> <hr> Crib92 wrote: <div></div> <div></div> <p>I never used to use Intercede when it was unmitigated, but find it very useful now.  I use it a heck of alot more in EOF.  It is invaluable on fights like Tactician's armor.  It makes a huge difference.</p>Message Edited by Crib92 on <span class="date_text">01-23-2007</span> <span class="time_text">12:37 PM</span> <hr> </blockquote>I'd think group arm would be more useful in this fight than 6 seconds reduced cast time of intercede.  Not to mention the boost it gives your healers for survivability..</div> <hr> </blockquote></blockquote>Comments at bottom not at top please.  Disrupts the flow.  Tactician armor is what I was replying to, but I will respond on helping your healers.  Having physical buffs for chain (most likely) or plate/leather (sometimes) healers can help them survive one not debuffed hit.  Your defiler or templar staying up can be the difference between wipe and not.Also there's a lot of physical AEs in the game.  Not as many in EOF but still there's not a small amount.  In KOS zones, which are still worth doing, you are pulling real fast and it could be useful there.So, my point is it is an interesting AA that may or may not be useful.  I may spec to it out of wraths to it.  Sure having more dps are nice but how often are you in a group much less raid to dps?</div>

[OrcSlayer96]

<DIV>There seems to be alot of bad info being brought up on this forum thread.  As others have stated, the master 1 intecept is 100% damage to caster, 0% to the target.  With the 5 points in the AA intercept in the support line it reduces it to 20 second recast from 30 second recast normally.  Like many of our abilities, it is best used with caution and you better have the health/mit to back up the damage you sustain.  I see others toss this on the target and get one shotted because the absorbed not only the intercept but stood like dummies in the path of the mob's barrage attack or know opening aoe.  Other times i have taken one for the team, reasoning that my death was worth keeping the MT or main healer up to continue the raid.  I like to cast ward on the mt and use intercept before the pull, helps keep the mt warder from agro and i can take the hit.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On wards, over the long history of updates they have worked out the bugs on them to where we do not have to worry about them overwriting others to a greater degree.  We can cast and stack on a shadowknight damage shield, a mystic ward, without a problem.  I havent tested what happens if 2 paladins try to ward the same target with the same level of ward, so i cant say if they stack or override.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On group armament, it is a benefit if you find yourself in a group that doesnt have alot of fighters in it.  How many on this forum have seen a assassin pull agro on decapitate or a necromancer with lifeburn?  If you are like me and find yourself especially in groups where you are the only tank, 700 mit is greatly appreciated.  The nice thing on this ability, is there are no penalties associated to it other than a max aoe range of 50 meters form yourself.  I have seen it come in handy when healers have tossed a rez near a mob and all of a sudden that mob turns and plants a hit on the healer'shead for his goodwill.   Warding healers love it because like their cleric brethren they can gat agro at pull time if the tank becomes stunned on the pull or the dreaded lag spike occurs.   Sure, maybe the high end raids in EOF have little trauma based aoes, but it sure seems like instances and KOS and under mobs love their trauma based dots and aoes.   Your results may vary but i have found it requested every time i group with dps and healers lately, and being needed is always a good thing..<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On the question if 3 points into our fervant aid AA is worth it, with me having the support line already i am seriously thinking of putting those 3 points elsewhere.  9% power cost reduction and .3 sec of casting time reduction i have not been able to measure as much as the 5 sec reduction on recasting the ward.  For right now i am going to let it sit and in 120% aa i will reavaluate it as i hit 100 AA's.  </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>After talking to both Monks and Bruisers, i am really getting peeved on how our celestial touch(lay on hand is trreated).  When my Master 1 can crit up to 5,200 health or so and averages around 4,200 on a heal with the native recast of 15 mins, compared to a brawler that(going off memory so maybe wrong) can get a 45% of their health heal on their AA enhancement, with a minute and a half recast timer, something is wrong.  Not saying to change the brawlers mend ability, but we need a overhaul on our lay on hands.  If we are being penalized by a native 15 minute recast timer(8.5 min with right AA choices) the idea of a static amount of heal is a waste.  Some numbers need to be tweaked, but with one healer my health is around 11 K plus and it wont even heal half my life.  Others have posted before on this but it needs to be changed to at least 65% heal if not 75%.   That's why i wouldn't put 3 points into lay on hands reduction at this point of time, too much for too little of a gain.</DIV>

[Crib92]

<DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> khufure wrote:<BR> <DIV><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Crib92 wrote:<BR> <P>I never used to use Intercede when it was unmitigated, but find it very useful now.  I use it a heck of alot more in EOF.  It is invaluable on fights like Tactician's armor.  It makes a huge difference.</P>Message Edited by Crib92 on <SPAN class=date_text>01-23-2007</SPAN> <SPAN class=time_text>12:37 PM</SPAN><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I'd think group arm would be more useful in this fight than 6 seconds reduced cast time of intercede.  Not to mention the boost it gives your healers for survivability..<BR></DIV><BR> <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>That's why I'm going with Group Armorment and not boosting Intercede...  See my above post.  Intercede is still very useful now.  Before it was instant death.<BR></DIV>

[hawsecav19d]

<DIV>Going Wrath/Hero put the exta in our debuff to get to hps faster but going for 3 in heal and 4 in ward. I ward all the time and it makes up about 45% of my healing I do. If I am MT raid I preward myself, if I am backing up MT I preward him to save the defiler/templar, Guilds defiler loves me cause his repair bills reduced now I can take couple 5k hits he cant. Between Intercept/Ward/Cel Touch I can save a MT from going down most times when we drop a healer or two till we get them back up and I dont even have to be in his group to do it and if he goes down I can pick up the mob right away cause I am targeting him rather than the MA.</DIV>

[Arraza]

<P>I'm still not getting the group armament thing... In groups I NEVER have agro problems.. if I do its because some finger wiggler buggered me by putting his hate transfer on me and when the agro switches to a healer I know that amends has been bugged and I recast... lol.</P> <P>In groups, I always have hate transfer from the hardest hitting member so they are not going to draw agro.  Assasins have hate transfer as well, which makes them a very unlikely target for agro in groups so the example of decapitate doesn't make sense to me.  Perhaps its me, but if someone does grab agro in my group its never long enough to die from.  Deaths from agro in any group I play with is minimal and usually from something silly like casters standing so far back from the mob were fighting to get agro from another mob or someone not assisting through me.</P> <P>In raids, I also don't see the point if in an OT or MT role since your group will be a) healers or b) agro transfers / builders which are not grabbing agro for the most part.  I supposed if I were filling a spot of Utility/DPS then perhaps we would be in a group that might draw agro, but it seems like a rare use case where it would be effective.</P> <P>Examples of physical damage ae's would help, since I still don't know of any that can't be avoided by range.</P>

[Anariale]

<DIV>Group Armament is kinda a waste IMO.  Its so rarely useful if your raid understands aggro.  Yeah, crazy things happen sometimes, but the usefulness of 700 Mit on a non-fighter just doesnt seem worth the price.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I think Im going the 3-Fervent, 5-Devotion.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>W</DIV>

[Crib92]

<P>I'm trying it out and and will see what the overall benefit is.  I've seen more then a few mobs in EOF that can cause disruption if your healers go down or non fighters get aggro.  I will try it out and see what happens.  As alot of these classes are on the lower end of the curve 700 mitigation is a significant boost.  Also, with the new aa lines there are some crazy damage aa's which is automatic aggro pull (The Necro one comes to mind 6500 per tic, health drain on Necro).</P> <P> </P> <P>If I don't like it or see a real benefit I will try something else.  I was originally going down the path Wyrd is going but changed my mind.  I have a free respec so no harm no foul.</P> <P> </P>

[OrcSlayer96]

<DIV>Group Armament for me was a necessary AA to have at least 3 in to progress down to other AA's i wanted.  With it maxxed at 5 giving 700 mit, it is hard for me to see the benefit other than asking group members what they think about the buff.  When i am in a group that has no other fighter, my pledge of armament is sitting along with divine favor in the useless catagory, with this selection i have a buff that group members can use.  I run into alot of situations where i am working on quests and pickup players to help take a name down or whatever and this aa gives me some slack to work with when that player decided to do a manaburn/lifeburn or one of those lovely miracles that does insane damage.  Even in guild situations, places with fast repops like castle mistmore or tons or wandering mobs, this can help out.  For those that went the Hero/Wrath line, there is much better AA's to choose from.  For me having 21 in support, i like the AA.</DIV>