best Raiding AA

[joe2sgirl]

It's been asked before what is best AA for a pally... but has it been asked what aa is BEST for those of us who raid on a daily schedule...a little guidance would be appreciated. I personally went with agi and str ... but I am thinking I may have to go with str and wis at any rate they can be retrained and the lack of stats can be made up for in armaments. I'm mainly concerned about the last bubbles of the "talent trees" what will be most useful.

[Deevaun]

<div></div><p>This completley imo depends on the role you play in your guild and the role you desire.  A combination perhaps.  I was gonna go sta + wis.  I started down the wis line, got all the way down to the end, and decided the extra 5 seconds on Lay On hands was not sufficient enough of a change.  (5 seconds may not be an accurate number, but close to)  The bonus that it gives your group on their skills isn't evne a point,t he ony good thing is the regen and being fearless imo. B ut omg, why not just crouch or go walk if you get feared.</p><p>Wisdom would seem to be a nice utility in a raid if thats what you plan to be.</p><p>What if they want you to tank....can you hold agro?  Can you take a hit? </p><p>Are you just extra dps and heals?  Rez [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]?</p><p>There are sooo many good combos, how do you want to play the game? </p><p>As for me, i'm going sta/str now, I want the health, and i want the agro management.  Thats always been my style as one of the best agro managers around ever since day one.  Thats why I ALWAYS tank in groups.  So do I desire that for my guild if they ever so need me to play that role.  And i can rez just as well with that line if thats all they want me to do anyways. </p><p>Say you go down int line....I find that when I consecrate while i'm helping siphon some of the true DPS agro, I often get hate, if i can't take a hit but i'm doing nice dmg and helping the people i'm siphoning do dmg, how is that gonna help when I die?</p><p>Seriously, I can't even go all out when i'm allowing others to go all out, but it does have a great appeal the int line, you can at least heal very well, and it could help you hold agro better if you are critting a ton.  But for raiding as a MT or as support, int line could be to dangerous as it will give you agro when you aren't prepared or you are giving up AAs for it. </p><p>However int / sta does have a nice appeal to it as well.  If you proced that much, was able to heal that well, then the extra hate might not be necessary, if str doesn't show me some good hate benefits, I may respec into int sta</p><p>Sta just rocks, Divine Aura i've used, it acts as a Stoneskin and is ULTRA!  You would be dumb if you didn't go down that line imo, for when you are called upon to take some hits, lets hope you have some skills to. </p><p>Agi, i'm sorry but this is just POINTLESS.  There are many times when you are not desired to AE on a raid, this would just [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] up all over the place with the auto attack deal.  It definetly has an appeal.  I could see someone wanting to do int / agi for massive AE agro control, but honestly from what i've seen, the only place this would rock would be PPR, maybe it would be fun to do that zone just to get some screenshots of some nice parses.</p><p>Hell even a nice combo of agi / sta, critting off of AE auto attacks yay...but still not raid worthy.</p><p>WIsdom = useless unless they have specifically created mobs to fear players where you HAVE to have a tank who is fearless to tank, if they tied our hands where this was necessary, then its real sad, hopefully the mob also isn't uber touch and can pound the player hard or agro on other players often from the lack of agro management. </p><p>But seriously wisdoms best thing going for it is the regen, except we have group heals.....and druids have awesome group regens anyways, its not needed.</p><p>Sta is a no brainer imo, you are a tank first and foremost.  Even if you dont' tank, its always good to have hps if you joust in and take AEs. </p><p>Int could be a great line to go down, i've had lots of thoughts concerning.</p><p>Str i'm gonna test out for the hate, to see if its a considerable difference.</p><p>Agi sucks, how often do you see people raiding on horsebacks?  Hers an idea, lets all get on horses and lag eachother out ; ) </p><p> </p><p>Just my thoughts.............</p>

[Sirlutt]

the real problem in the pally AA line is the lack of stuff to enhance you as a tank.. most of it is all utility stuff to allow you to enhance the group.. where as Guards/Zerkers get a nice mit increase, and stuff for parry and defence.. you guys get what ?.. the ability to make others better, to heal more ?..nice way to unballance the tank classes again i think.<div></div>

[Anzak]

We get STA/HP in the STA line.  We get Hate gain in the STR line.  We get resist and WIS in the WIS line.  Plus Fearless could be a nitch for us as well as getting Divine Aura.  There are lots of options for tanking.  While I agree we don't get the Physical mitigation and avoidance stuff warriors do we do gain a good boost to other areas that could help in tanking.There are really 2 things I would like to see to level the playing field though.Raid mobs with auto-attack damage other than melee.Raid mobs that fear the MT.These 2 things would give us a place to shine I think.<div></div>

[Wabit]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Anzak wrote:Raid mobs with auto-attack damage other than melee.Raid mobs that fear the MT.<hr></blockquote><p>there were a few mobs that had the nantrauma autoattack in DoF...  even then it doesn't matter which class tanks, resists are easy to buff with gear different MT group...  actully thats where brawlers shined the most, same resists with alot more avoidance...</p><p>the fearing of MT, please no...  vault is bad enough on a 1 group scale (yay MT feared and runs into 4 other sets of x4 mobs), spiregaze had the charm the MT...  neither of these are fun, and mostly just annoying...</p>

[joe2sgirl]

Well I'm sure these aa's have redefined my role somewhat.. I was mainly being used to res and heal .. Pally dps? you make me laugh what alternate universes are you caught in hehe.. any way yeah I agree about the non fear option you can just crouch or walk unless you are on some island you can be feared off of .. at any rate I'll have to get more opinoins from pallys in guilds that raid as often as my guild ...

[Anzak]

<span><blockquote><hr>Wabit wrote:<div></div><blockquote><hr>Anzak wrote:Raid mobs with auto-attack damage other than melee.Raid mobs that fear the MT.<hr></blockquote><p>there were a few mobs that had the nantrauma autoattack in DoF...  even then it doesn't matter which class tanks, resists are easy to buff with gear different MT group...  actully thats where brawlers shined the most, same resists with alot more avoidance...</p><p>the fearing of MT, please no...  vault is bad enough on a 1 group scale (yay MT feared and runs into 4 other sets of x4 mobs), spiregaze had the charm the MT...  neither of these are fun, and mostly just annoying...</p><hr></blockquote>As far as I know all the mobs that where doing anything other than melee auto-attack where group/solo mobs.  I have not seen a single raid mob that does more then 50% of it's damage in a non-melee type.As for fear.  If there is not a raid mob that fears then fearless is a waste as an end point AA.  If it does not give us an edge in terms of raid tanking it is a wasted AA.  Group fear mobs are a joke IMO.  Of course it also meens there needs to be no gear that gives fear immunity so that to be successful as a raid guild you will need an SK or Pally to handle the fearing mobs.  This creates a place where no matter what gear you have a guard will never be the first choice for this type of encounter.</span><div></div>

[MeridianR]

Pretty sure a named in Lord Vymm's Lab also fears the MT....I wasn't at that raid due to a RL thing, but I am pretty sure our RL said the named feared the MT during the fight.<div></div>

[Anzak]

Good maybe there will be a nitch for us.<div></div>

[jb-]

Overall I'd say the Stamina line is the best for raiding. You gain a decent amount of hitpoints and 10 second immunity for tanking/offtanking, and then you get the huge increase to our melee crit chance which really helps our damage a lot.

[Caetrel]

<div></div><div></div>I am putting 24 points in STA and 24 in STR to get the last skill, then dropping my 50th point into health pool for 2.5% increase.Here is why:STA gives stamina (duh), at least 2% health pool, plus DA.  Even if you do not main tank, the DA/ Taunt or Rescue combo can be very useful for memwipes or loose mobs.  The AOE isnt bad and you can hotkey a hammer if needed to use it, the melee crit is a nice bonus I guess.  If you do MT or OT alot, DA is awesome.  I believe it does not work on previous dots or AOEs that do not target you, but not sure on the details yet, only raided once with it.STR gives you the 10% reduction on timers and recovery.  Assuming you don't blow your power out on raids, this makes you 10% more effective in every thing you can do on a raid.  Heal more, taunt more, etc...  The hate increase is nice although prolly unnecessary.AGI sucks except for the defense, but that isn't much of a concern tanking orange epics who will hit anyway.  INT pretty well sucks for paladins, the crit stuff is okay but the Reflect is lame because of the idol requirement.  The horseback stuff is ridiculous, even if it counts you as mounted after zone in the first time you die it's gone.  Or try not dying on a raid, ever.  Lol.WIS I /agree with previous comments, it isn't much.I filled out STA already and am building STR now.  I think the only respec I would do is if DA proves to be broken/ useless I'll use those 8 points to max health pool and hate gain.From a raid perspective the 2 most valuable things available are the 10% spell/CA reducer and the health pool boost.If you want to cry look at the guardian/ berserker AA lines.  Passive mitigation, parry, all sorts of stuff.  Pallies were close to guards as MTs after the combat changes but I think AAs are going to widen the gap once again.The one thing I would argue against with my dying breath is taking any AA for the purpose of increasing our DPS.  Our damage sucks, totally.  It would be like putting shiny new rims on an old pos car. So many paladins still try to dps and it just blows my mind.  Tank or be utility or reroll.  Trying to DPS in a raid situation is just a joke. <div></div><p>Message Edited by Caetrel on <span class="date_text">03-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:56 PM</span></p><p>Message Edited by Caetrel on <span class="date_text">03-14-2006</span><span class="time_text">10:59 PM</span></p>

[Dwergux]

Depending on your role..the int line can be handy (spell damage crits boost dps, heal crits boost healing) the reflect skill is not very interesting, but the other int skills seem interesting enough.

[Meatsicle]

<div></div><div><span><blockquote><hr>Caetrel wrote:AGI sucks except for the defense, but that isn't much of a concern tanking orange epics who will hit anyway.  INT pretty well sucks for paladins, the crit stuff is okay but the Reflect is lame because of the idol requirement.  The horseback stuff is ridiculous, even if it counts you as mounted after zone in the first time you die it's gone.  Or try not dying on a raid, ever.  Lol.The one thing I would argue against with my dying breath is taking any AA for the purpose of increasing our DPS.  Our damage sucks, totally.  It would be like putting shiny new rims on an old pos car. So many paladins still try to dps and it just blows my mind.  Tank or be utility or reroll.  Trying to DPS in a raid situation is just a joke.<hr></blockquote>On PvE I would agree 100%, but on a PvP server the AGI line is quite good, especially the snare in the final ability.EDIT: Another thing to keep in mind as far as DPS goes is that the extra damage on all of the AGI attacks is considered spell damage.  With 8 points in increased spell crit, that's quite a bit of extra damage you're dishing out.  Against epic mobs, no, but in PvP and against everything else it's not something to scoff at.</span></div><p>Message Edited by Meatsicle on <span class="date_text">03-15-2006</span><span class="time_text">07:07 AM</span></p>

[Anariale]

The invuln part of the Stam line is absolutely amazing in practice.<div></div>

[Caetrel]

I hadn't taken pvp into consideration and don't really, but if that's your thing the other lines would be more useful.  <div></div>