Difference between STA and STR line

NoNameChosen · 10-16-2006, 06:22 PM

Allmost since the start of tier 7, I've had the STA line. Allmost all warriors have it, purely to increase their DPS. Main reason is offcourse, DPS = Hate. However, why use the STA line and go for a buckler when you can do STR and get more hate?

DPS and STR line

Being in the MT group with the STA line, I could do 750ish DPS fairly easy and around 900ish when I tried and over 1k when I really wanted it and the setup was right. This was good enough hate to keep agro from everyone in the raid who wasn't overnuking. A little more damage then normal was still easy to hold agro from. People truly going all out and activly trying to get agro, could get it if I was slacking a little bit.

Not to long ago I switched to the STR line, just to check it out. The melee critchance and passive 10% hate-gain isn't bad either. Even though the DPS is average about 100-200 lower, the amount of agro I get is still the same. With the same MT group, DPS was a little lower, but the 10% extra hate-gain makes up for the lost DPS as I could still hold agro. Only when people activly started trying to get agro, they could get it a little easier.

Avoidance

There are a some differences between the STA and STR line other then DPS and hategain. This is avoidance.

With a buckler you normally have a lot less avoidance, this is because the 'Protection' counts towards 'Block' (part of avoidance). Therefor you will have about 5% less avoidance. With the correct AA spec you can get about 3.5% back by the avoidance buffs. Eventually you will have about 1.5% lower avoidance. That doesn't seem much, but it's something. Another factor playing a big role at the moment, is the bucklers to chose from. There are no fabled bucklers usable by warriors (only for the stupid because of de-agro procs, and 1 from the Direvine Matron).

Attacks and Ripostes

Besides avoidance, there is another big danger with the STA line. All the double attacks you do and the counter attacks from Bucklers Reversal, all have a chance to be riposted. This increases the damage you take as a tank, for short fights this isn't an issue, but for longer and/or more difficult encounters such as Tarinax, Chel'Drak and the Direvine Matron, this will exhaust the healers power faster. Less avoidance, so you take more hits, you do more swings, so more riposts. And there is no way to get this undone.

Examples of items

`Vilucidae's Ethereal Guard` and the `Archaic Buckler`

Both of these are easily obtainable and you can probably see the difference in hitpoints as well. The main important thing for a tank are Mitigation, Hitpoints, Stamina (and some say Agility for avoidance). With the STR line you are not limited to having only a few selected bucklers. Having the STR line will increase your avoidance, it will increase your amount of HP, depending on the shield also Mitigation and stats. So far I've been only positive about the STR line because of the advantages it brings compared to the STA line.

Final say

So besides raising your avoidance (clearly) you are also raising your hitpoints and mostlikely also other stats. This only by losing the STA line. Agro is still no issue for a good tank. In both AA specs I was using 5/8/8/8 (both STA and STR)

Which of these 2 lines did you choose, and why did you choose that one?

Message Edited by NoNameChosen on 10-16-200607:24 AM

Message Edited by NoNameChosen on 10-16-2006 07:25 AM

Domiuk · 10-16-2006, 07:01 PM

To be honest i think you sum it up pretty well.

With Str instead of Sta you do a little less dps but are slightly better vs the absolute top end of encounters.

However i find as long as i have a good hate gain group (eg dirge + coercer or assasin) that I have no agro issues if i need to switch to a tower shield (and i still do if things get tough) and that for normal trash killing my hate gain is very good when using the buckler keeping our overall raid dps nice and high.

However i will happily admit I am not absolute top end , Tarinax still whips my butt once a week (getting nearer each time) but i feel the fact we are not winning is more down to strategy than any particular problem we are having as tanks.

Snorm · 10-18-2006, 06:33 AM

I'm currently on the Sta line, and I hate it just a little more each day. I didn't roll a guard to do DPS, and I only switched from Str to Sta for the added hate gain.

It's hard to get any kind of hard facts, but I did generally feel right after I switched that the healers had to work a bit more (poor healers) and aggro was better. In unrelated news, I also went from the ancient velium warhammer to ascendant right when I switched AA lines. That couldn't have possibly skiewed aggo generation.... With the buckler, a good assassin hate transfer and coercer in the MT group, aggro is very solid. With no hate trans or coercer it blows, so it's not the cure to all aggro problems.

The main thing I do like with the buckler line is the aggro generation with little power. 40-50% of my DPS comes from auto attack, meaning if I'm continuously power drained and can only use my primary taunt and cheap CA's, I'm still putting out fair aggro.

I intend to drop the buckler here shortly and see how much aggo changes.

Snorm -- 70 Guard

Docimodo · 10-18-2006, 04:02 PM

True that about the powerless aggro. Its about the only advantage i see other than boosting raid dps by a couple of hundred. But then again with a decent tower shield the healers could relax a bit and start adding their own dps?

I think strength line along with the usual wisdom line is my favourite so far.

combos tried so far:

wis4588 agi 44448 <--- for when u want to raid with no healers SMILEY

aggro is a LOT of work with this baby

sta4888 wis 4458 <--- seems to be the most popular and cant go wrong really

str4588 sta 4488 <--- single target sexiness especially with a decent axe (not critical tho) but loss of miti

str458 agi448 sta448 <--- ae godliness but loss of miti and avoid (this was my highest total dps combo but there are only a few named encounters with more than one true boss)

str4488 sta448 int 45 <--- single target godliness but loss of miti and avoid and need decent sword (you will never lose aggro even if slack and can choose to drop haste on mobs to reduce unlucky riposte chance)

str4588 wis 4488 <--- current and i think my most favourite (no double attacks to reduce unlucky ripostes but hit harder with dps mod and crits, mitigation boost, threat generation boost 10% on every thing including taunts is super, very nice guaranteed crit CA good for boosting Besiege or Flay and only need 5 points to get 100% chance (I use ascendant as it rocks in general) and can use the, imo, much better fabled tower shields with their massive variety of miti and resist boosts (vilucidaes is my fav) along with quicker casting of ToS if its needed)

Message Edited by Docimodo on 10-18-2006 05:03 AM

Rorrak · 10-18-2006, 05:11 PM

The amount of aggro generated between the STA line and the STR line isn't even close, and you missed the STR line's greatest asset. STA you'll have much higher single target aggro generation, but the STR line gives you 10% better AE aggro generation (from inflaming defense, besiege, protect and goading assault mostly). If you already have a dirge + coercer in your MT group though for 91% additional hate gain, it'd only be about 5% more effective hate gain AE (191% vs 201% is a gain of around 5%). The STA line yields around 250 extra DPS for me consistently. With 91% hate gain, 250 DPS = 478 hate/second, which is a hate gain of at least 30-40% vs. single targets, if not more (most top end tanks lose aggro around 1200-1400 DPS if the DPSer is using no aggro reduction at all...proper group setups and utilizing deaggro skills/items allow them to go higher of course).

As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block.

I had the STR line for a long time, then reluctantly switched. There's no reluctance anymore, the STA line is far superior if you have a fabled T7 one hander. I suppose if you were using a legendary weapon the STR line would be stronger by comparison. I have all Master Is so I was seeing the maximum benefit of the STR line when I had it, but as soon as I made the jump every damage dealer on the raid who had a chance at grabbing aggro normally noticed the difference.

But if you're not into min/maxing and hate bucklers that's cool too, the STR line isn't bad by any means, and having 33% melee crits is fun for the crits popping all the time (don't kill the messenger + MoA + 22% crits from STR line). If you're going to go that route you'd want a fabled one hander with a big damage spread (typical is about 1:3 min:max ratio, you'd want to find a weapon that is more like 1:4 or even 1:5 if you're lucky, since crits are at least max+1, weapons with higher damage spreads yield more DPS when spec'd for crits).

- Rorrak

NoNameChosen · 10-18-2006, 05:51 PM

Rorrak wrote:

The amount of aggro generated between the STA line and the STR line isn't even close, and you missed the STR line's greatest asset. STA you'll have much higher single target aggro generation, but the STR line gives you 10% better AE aggro generation (from inflaming defense, besiege, protect and goading assault mostly). If you already have a dirge + coercer in your MT group though for 91% additional hate gain, it'd only be about 5% more effective hate gain AE (191% vs 201% is a gain of around 5%).
This could be at this moment, but the upcoming mechanic changes will allow you to cap at 200% extra buffage instead of 100% (which is limit now). With Coercer/Dirge and STR line, you can get 100%, but soon that will go over the cap. Since I can still hold agro just find, the amount of agro generated is nearly the same.

The STA line yields around 250 extra DPS for me consistently. With 91% hate gain, 250 DPS = 478 hate/second, which is a hate gain of at least 30-40% vs. single targets, if not more (most top end tanks lose aggro around 1200-1400 DPS if the DPSer is using no aggro reduction at all...proper group setups and utilizing deaggro skills/items allow them to go higher of course).
If you have a 250 DPS difference, means you have extreme high DPS with STA, or extremely low DPS with STR. I am holding agro against people doing 1200-1400 without breaking a sweat. 1800-ish is where is gets a little tougher. Believe it or not, but with the strength line my single target agro is maybe even double as solid as with STA and AoE agro is about the same (which is also solid).

As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block.
Again here, hate gain isn't that much of a difference, and so switching to a buckler will just decrease your attributes, wether the mob is debuffed or not, you will get hit more ofter and also harder.

I had the STR line for a long time, then reluctantly switched. There's no reluctance anymore, the STA line is far superior if you have a fabled T7 one hander. I suppose if you were using a legendary weapon the STR line would be stronger by comparison. I have all Master Is so I was seeing the maximum benefit of the STR line when I had it, but as soon as I made the jump every damage dealer on the raid who had a chance at grabbing aggro normally noticed the difference.
If high-dps classes pulled agro from you when you had STR line and a Coercer/Dirge in your group, you did something Seriously wrong ... Nothing more I can say about this.

But if you're not into min/maxing and hate bucklers that's cool too, the STR line isn't bad by any means, and having 33% melee crits is fun for the crits popping all the time (don't kill the messenger + MoA + 22% crits from STR line). If you're going to go that route you'd want a fabled one hander with a big damage spread (typical is about 1:3 min:max ratio, you'd want to find a weapon that is more like 1:4 or even 1:5 if you're lucky, since crits are at least max+1, weapons with higher damage spreads yield more DPS when spec'd for crits).

- Rorrak

Snorm · 10-18-2006, 06:17 PM

NoNameChosen wrote:

Rorrak wrote:

As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block.
Again here, hate gain isn't that much of a difference, and so switching to a buckler will just decrease your attributes, wether the mob is debuffed or not, you will get hit more ofter and also harder.

I believe he's talking about the use of the buckler's avoid in quadrants other than the frontal, resulting in a net avoid GAIN for mobs behind you vs. a tower. I'm too lasy to look up the details right now, but it's something along those lines. That's the other rather spiffy advantage when fighting huge groups of mobs that just will not get in a clump in front of you. They still hit you a bit more often than if they were in front of you, but the difference is not as bad as with a tower.

Snorm -- 70 Guard

10-18-2006, 04:02 PM	#4
Docimodo Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 246	True that about the powerless aggro. Its about the only advantage i see other than boosting raid dps by a couple of hundred. But then again with a decent tower shield the healers could relax a bit and start adding their own dps? I think strength line along with the usual wisdom line is my favourite so far. combos tried so far: wis4588 agi 44448 <--- for when u want to raid with no healers aggro is a LOT of work with this baby sta4888 wis 4458 <--- seems to be the most popular and cant go wrong really str4588 sta 4488 <--- single target sexiness especially with a decent axe (not critical tho) but loss of miti str458 agi448 sta448 <--- ae godliness but loss of miti and avoid (this was my highest total dps combo but there are only a few named encounters with more than one true boss) str4488 sta448 int 45 <--- single target godliness but loss of miti and avoid and need decent sword (you will never lose aggro even if slack and can choose to drop haste on mobs to reduce unlucky riposte chance) str4588 wis 4488 <--- current and i think my most favourite (no double attacks to reduce unlucky ripostes but hit harder with dps mod and crits, mitigation boost, threat generation boost 10% on every thing including taunts is super, very nice guaranteed crit CA good for boosting Besiege or Flay and only need 5 points to get 100% chance (I use ascendant as it rocks in general) and can use the, imo, much better fabled tower shields with their massive variety of miti and resist boosts (vilucidaes is my fav) along with quicker casting of ToS if its needed) Message Edited by Docimodo on 10-18-2006 05:03 AM __________________

10-18-2006, 05:11 PM	#5
Rorrak Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 103	The amount of aggro generated between the STA line and the STR line isn't even close, and you missed the STR line's greatest asset. STA you'll have much higher single target aggro generation, but the STR line gives you 10% better AE aggro generation (from inflaming defense, besiege, protect and goading assault mostly). If you already have a dirge + coercer in your MT group though for 91% additional hate gain, it'd only be about 5% more effective hate gain AE (191% vs 201% is a gain of around 5%). The STA line yields around 250 extra DPS for me consistently. With 91% hate gain, 250 DPS = 478 hate/second, which is a hate gain of at least 30-40% vs. single targets, if not more (most top end tanks lose aggro around 1200-1400 DPS if the DPSer is using no aggro reduction at all...proper group setups and utilizing deaggro skills/items allow them to go higher of course). As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block. I had the STR line for a long time, then reluctantly switched. There's no reluctance anymore, the STA line is far superior if you have a fabled T7 one hander. I suppose if you were using a legendary weapon the STR line would be stronger by comparison. I have all Master Is so I was seeing the maximum benefit of the STR line when I had it, but as soon as I made the jump every damage dealer on the raid who had a chance at grabbing aggro normally noticed the difference. But if you're not into min/maxing and hate bucklers that's cool too, the STR line isn't bad by any means, and having 33% melee crits is fun for the crits popping all the time (don't kill the messenger + MoA + 22% crits from STR line). If you're going to go that route you'd want a fabled one hander with a big damage spread (typical is about 1:3 min:max ratio, you'd want to find a weapon that is more like 1:4 or even 1:5 if you're lucky, since crits are at least max+1, weapons with higher damage spreads yield more DPS when spec'd for crits). - Rorrak __________________

10-18-2006, 05:51 PM	#6
NoNameChosen Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 116	Rorrak wrote: The amount of aggro generated between the STA line and the STR line isn't even close, and you missed the STR line's greatest asset. STA you'll have much higher single target aggro generation, but the STR line gives you 10% better AE aggro generation (from inflaming defense, besiege, protect and goading assault mostly). If you already have a dirge + coercer in your MT group though for 91% additional hate gain, it'd only be about 5% more effective hate gain AE (191% vs 201% is a gain of around 5%). This could be at this moment, but the upcoming mechanic changes will allow you to cap at 200% extra buffage instead of 100% (which is limit now). With Coercer/Dirge and STR line, you can get 100%, but soon that will go over the cap. Since I can still hold agro just find, the amount of agro generated is nearly the same. The STA line yields around 250 extra DPS for me consistently. With 91% hate gain, 250 DPS = 478 hate/second, which is a hate gain of at least 30-40% vs. single targets, if not more (most top end tanks lose aggro around 1200-1400 DPS if the DPSer is using no aggro reduction at all...proper group setups and utilizing deaggro skills/items allow them to go higher of course). If you have a 250 DPS difference, means you have extreme high DPS with STA, or extremely low DPS with STR. I am holding agro against people doing 1200-1400 without breaking a sweat. 1800-ish is where is gets a little tougher. Believe it or not, but with the strength line my single target agro is maybe even double as solid as with STA and AoE agro is about the same (which is also solid). As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block. Again here, hate gain isn't that much of a difference, and so switching to a buckler will just decrease your attributes, wether the mob is debuffed or not, you will get hit more ofter and also harder. I had the STR line for a long time, then reluctantly switched. There's no reluctance anymore, the STA line is far superior if you have a fabled T7 one hander. I suppose if you were using a legendary weapon the STR line would be stronger by comparison. I have all Master Is so I was seeing the maximum benefit of the STR line when I had it, but as soon as I made the jump every damage dealer on the raid who had a chance at grabbing aggro normally noticed the difference. If high-dps classes pulled agro from you when you had STR line and a Coercer/Dirge in your group, you did something Seriously wrong ... Nothing more I can say about this. But if you're not into min/maxing and hate bucklers that's cool too, the STR line isn't bad by any means, and having 33% melee crits is fun for the crits popping all the time (don't kill the messenger + MoA + 22% crits from STR line). If you're going to go that route you'd want a fabled one hander with a big damage spread (typical is about 1:3 min:max ratio, you'd want to find a weapon that is more like 1:4 or even 1:5 if you're lucky, since crits are at least max+1, weapons with higher damage spreads yield more DPS when spec'd for crits). - Rorrak

10-18-2006, 06:17 PM	#7
Snorm Loremaster Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 125	NoNameChosen wrote: Rorrak wrote: As for avoidance? Pull with a tower shield and tower of stone, once the debuffs have stabilized switch to your buckler for the increased hate gain. The buckler avoidance gain is also 360 degrees which actually provides more avoidance in situations where you're fighting large groups and some will not be in the frontal cone from which you can block. Again here, hate gain isn't that much of a difference, and so switching to a buckler will just decrease your attributes, wether the mob is debuffed or not, you will get hit more ofter and also harder. I believe he's talking about the use of the buckler's avoid in quadrants other than the frontal, resulting in a net avoid GAIN for mobs behind you vs. a tower. I'm too lasy to look up the details right now, but it's something along those lines. That's the other rather spiffy advantage when fighting huge groups of mobs that just will not get in a clump in front of you. They still hit you a bit more often than if they were in front of you, but the difference is not as bad as with a tower. Snorm -- 70 Guard

10-16-2006, 06:22 PM	#1
NoNameChosen Loremaster Join Date: Apr 2005 Posts: 116	Allmost since the start of tier 7, I've had the STA line. Allmost all warriors have it, purely to increase their DPS. Main reason is offcourse, DPS = Hate. However, why use the STA line and go for a buckler when you can do STR and get more hate? DPS and STR line Being in the MT group with the STA line, I could do 750ish DPS fairly easy and around 900ish when I tried and over 1k when I really wanted it and the setup was right. This was good enough hate to keep agro from everyone in the raid who wasn't overnuking. A little more damage then normal was still easy to hold agro from. People truly going all out and activly trying to get agro, could get it if I was slacking a little bit. Not to long ago I switched to the STR line, just to check it out. The melee critchance and passive 10% hate-gain isn't bad either. Even though the DPS is average about 100-200 lower, the amount of agro I get is still the same. With the same MT group, DPS was a little lower, but the 10% extra hate-gain makes up for the lost DPS as I could still hold agro. Only when people activly started trying to get agro, they could get it a little easier. Avoidance There are a some differences between the STA and STR line other then DPS and hategain. This is avoidance. With a buckler you normally have a lot less avoidance, this is because the 'Protection' counts towards 'Block' (part of avoidance). Therefor you will have about 5% less avoidance. With the correct AA spec you can get about 3.5% back by the avoidance buffs. Eventually you will have about 1.5% lower avoidance. That doesn't seem much, but it's something. Another factor playing a big role at the moment, is the bucklers to chose from. There are no fabled bucklers usable by warriors (only for the stupid because of de-agro procs, and 1 from the Direvine Matron). Attacks and Ripostes Besides avoidance, there is another big danger with the STA line. All the double attacks you do and the counter attacks from Bucklers Reversal, all have a chance to be riposted. This increases the damage you take as a tank, for short fights this isn't an issue, but for longer and/or more difficult encounters such as Tarinax, Chel'Drak and the Direvine Matron, this will exhaust the healers power faster. Less avoidance, so you take more hits, you do more swings, so more riposts. And there is no way to get this undone. Examples of items `Vilucidae's Ethereal Guard` and the `Archaic Buckler` Both of these are easily obtainable and you can probably see the difference in hitpoints as well. The main important thing for a tank are Mitigation, Hitpoints, Stamina (and some say Agility for avoidance). With the STR line you are not limited to having only a few selected bucklers. Having the STR line will increase your avoidance, it will increase your amount of HP, depending on the shield also Mitigation and stats. So far I've been only positive about the STR line because of the advantages it brings compared to the STA line. Final say So besides raising your avoidance (clearly) you are also raising your hitpoints and mostlikely also other stats. This only by losing the STA line. Agro is still no issue for a good tank. In both AA specs I was using 5/8/8/8 (both STA and STR) Which of these 2 lines did you choose, and why did you choose that one? Message Edited by NoNameChosen on 10-16-200607:24 AM Message Edited by NoNameChosen on 10-16-2006 07:25 AM

10-16-2006, 07:01 PM	#2
Domiuk Loremaster Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 177	To be honest i think you sum it up pretty well. With Str instead of Sta you do a little less dps but are slightly better vs the absolute top end of encounters. However i find as long as i have a good hate gain group (eg dirge + coercer or assasin) that I have no agro issues if i need to switch to a tower shield (and i still do if things get tough) and that for normal trash killing my hate gain is very good when using the buckler keeping our overall raid dps nice and high. However i will happily admit I am not absolute top end , Tarinax still whips my butt once a week (getting nearer each time) but i feel the fact we are not winning is more down to strategy than any particular problem we are having as tanks.

10-18-2006, 06:33 AM	#3
Snorm Loremaster Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 125	I'm currently on the Sta line, and I hate it just a little more each day. I didn't roll a guard to do DPS, and I only switched from Str to Sta for the added hate gain. It's hard to get any kind of hard facts, but I did generally feel right after I switched that the healers had to work a bit more (poor healers) and aggro was better. In unrelated news, I also went from the ancient velium warhammer to ascendant right when I switched AA lines. That couldn't have possibly skiewed aggo generation.... With the buckler, a good assassin hate transfer and coercer in the MT group, aggro is very solid. With no hate trans or coercer it blows, so it's not the cure to all aggro problems. The main thing I do like with the buckler line is the aggro generation with little power. 40-50% of my DPS comes from auto attack, meaning if I'm continuously power drained and can only use my primary taunt and cheap CA's, I'm still putting out fair aggro. I intend to drop the buckler here shortly and see how much aggo changes. Snorm -- 70 Guard