Avast Ye: Agilty AA Level 4

[tawek]

A thread to give quick access to info about the AA skill Avast Ye.

For more general posts about the Agility branch, please use:

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=33&message.id=10192&jump=true#M10192

If I have time, I'll try to update this post with comments people post below.

 

Level 4 in the Pirates/Agility branch for scouts (swashbucklers/brigands).At Rank 3:Power       None - never cast, always onCasting:    NoneRecovery: NoneRecast     : NoneDuration  : NoneRange       : SelfOn a successful melee attack this spell has a 6% (rank 4:8% rank 5:10%) chance to cast Pirate Stab on target of attack.* Inflicts 102-169 piercing damage on target (same damage at all ranks)* Must be flanking or behind

 

Comments:

102-169=average of about 136 damage.  At 8% from rank 4, an average bonus to flank/rear attacks of 10.8 damage.

A nice passive bonus to dps, but it's not going to make a massive difference.

 

One very exceptional situation where it may be unhelpful: if an epic mob has an enormous damage shield, smaller proc attacks like this may make things worse not better: we'll want to land specific debuffs like Lung Puncture and avoid other melee attacks.  (But then, maybe we just equip a non-rapier for such mobs)

 

Questions:

• Do we need a Rapier equipped in Primary?  Answer: confirmed that rapier not needed.
• How does damage scale per level?  (115-192 for a level 63 swashie, can a lower level give their stats?)
• Is this per attack, or is it a normal proc, and is as likely to proc with slow as with fast weapons?

(Thanks MaestroX for feedback)

Message Edited by tawek21 on 03-23-200607:33 AM

[MaestroX]

Rapier is only required for Walk the Plank.

[tawek]

On a successful melee attack this spell has an 8% chance (at rank 4) to cast Pirate Stab on target of attack.* Inflicts 115-192 piercing damage on target (damage scales up as you level)* Must be flanking or behind

 

I seem to have overestimated the extra damage done by Avast Ye.

 

I just did an analysis of my log file, and found, over an extended period of play, I had the following count for different types of attacks:

128 Pirate Stab (the proc from Avast Ye)

237 Lung Puncture

373 Dazzling Steel

322 Guile

594 Interrupt (proc from using offensive stance)

223 Pillage

142 Razor Point

 90 Devious Blade

3490 YOU hit (ie number of times I hit with a melee attack)

 

I'm pretty disappointed with Avast ye.

 

It may be because I don't flank mobs as much as I'd like:

For some of that fighting, the tank wasn't turning the mob; with risk of adds so I often couldn't get its back, or even flank.  Even when I could get the back, I sometimes run a little in front to use Razor Point, and maybe too far to be properly flanking.  When fighting multiple mobs with the tank switching targets to hold aggro, the fight is too confused to reliably flank the mobs.  I also spam skills (partly to keep debuffs up, partly because the damage skills like Razor Point are greater than from autoattack, and if Pirate Stab procs better off autoattack than skills, that spamming won't help.

 

Perhaps the proc rate makes sense regardless of my style.  If Avast ye were procing for 8% of melee hits, it would have proced just under 400 times, rather than 128.  Instead, I think its like other procs, with an 8% chance to proc for every 3 seconds of attacking, regardless how many hits happen in those 3 seconds.  This would mean about 37.5 seconds of melee for each proc, and with fights lasting less than 37.5 seconds, less than one proc per fight.

 

Or to think of it another way ...  it proced less than 4% of the times I hit in melee, which if the weapon speed were about 1.3 would make sense.

 

 

If I were to sink 8 points into Avast Ye, the proc rate would double.  But it still wouldn't do that much damage, doesn't work when soloing, tanking, or doing to dps from the front, so I don't think it's worth it.

 

I'll stick with agility till I get another point and can test out Sailwind.  But with in-combat run-speed of little use out of PvP, and Avast Ye not adding much to dps, I doubt very much that Sailwind and Walk the Plank are enough to stick with the branch.

Message Edited by tawek21 on 04-01-200610:16 AM

[Laomie]

At rank 8 its a 16 percent chance to proc 645 - 860 damage on target at lvl 70