Avoidance Beserker?

[Kolorean Yorito]

Has anyone done this build yet? I have a couple members of my guild playing Avoidance SK's and pallys and they love it, getting hit for much less in a fight. Any Zerkers here tried one? Cazn you explain your build some also.

[Aonach]

My avoidance is up around the 68 / 70% mark and I think it makes a massive difference when I'm tanking. I'd rather avoid a 4k hit than mitigate a 4K hit. Although you need to get that mitigation up also, mine is at 4800 ish.

It's a fine balance but in my opinion one worth spending some time on.

[Kolorean Yorito]

Can you give me a general idea of how you raised it that high?

[Robbpilot]

However high we might get our avoidance, it will still be frontal only right?  The brawlers have 360 degree avoidance which we can only envy.  It is pretty hard to keep all mobs frontal during big fights, so I think trying to rely on avoidance for big groups would be quite a challenge.

[infernus006]

That's why mitigation is better.  But it doesn't hurt to have some of both.

[Doodm]

There's something in the stamina AA line that gives some kind of parry 360 degrees, isn't there?

 

Don't hold me to this.. can't remember how it's worded.

 

I do play an avoidance Berserker btw.  It works very well for me

[Aonach]

I picked agility at every possible chance when getting selections when I levelled. I always try and go with a balance of agility and stamina when i use weapons and armour.

 

As for it being frontal only, I'm not so sure about that. I take very few hits even if I get adds that are at my back and refuse to be turned, you know those groups that just insist on surrounding you know matter what you do. An awful lot of "fails to inflict any damage" and "mobname(1) tries to hit you but misses".

 

I know that they say it doesn't help you hit now either but I hit mobs an awful lot, it seems a very high percentage of my hits land as opposed to get parried or I miss. Maybe thats me looking through rose tinted glasses though.

 

Also it kicks [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] when you Pvp and the other perso ncan't hit you. It totally throws their game plan right out of the window

[Pegesus]

Yeah the AA line AGI path maxing it out willl give you the abliblity for 12 secs to parry 100% of all incomming attacks from all angles.  However this line sucks.  You can't do anything when you use this ablitiy.  Nothing except either stand there or run.  No CA's or Auto attack.  I went this route found no use for it and respec'd

[infernus006]

I'm going down the agi path myself but only partially.  I am not bothering with the final ability in that path, I just want the extra defense and the perma open wounds deal.

[Erick_Stormfu]

I went agility line as well, and am now respec'ing.

currently i run about 65% avoidance, at 80% mitigation fully self buffed.

i will confirm soon, but i've finally found a very good buckler that actually gives me more avoidance then my grizzfleshield.

once i get that thing to drop again, (and actually win it, instead of one of the the priests in the group) i will respec.

by my calculations i should be some where around 80% avoidance, while maintaining my 80% mitigation.  if thats ACTUALLY the case (i haven't proved it out yet) that will be by far the best build possible i believe.  did i mention that with that buckler i'll be doing more damage then duel-wield or two-hander as well?!?!

now if what works out on paper actually works out in game.... i'll keep you posted.

 

-Erick

 

[infernus006]

I don't see how it is possible myself but if it is then I agree that is pretty darn uber.  But as soon as SOE gets wind of that it will be nerfed really hard, trust me.  There is no way that any pate tank was meant to have 80% avoidance and 80% mitigation and more DPS than if he was using a DW set or 2H weapon.  That's just insane.I'm going to keep going the way I am going for now and by the time I get to 50 AAs if it is still like that then I will try respecing to 4/4/4/4/8 WIS and 4/4/4/4/8 STA and get a buckler and see what that is like.

[Erick_Stormfu]

well started to experiment, and found an avoidance bug.. not sure if its display bug only or not.

 

normally i have 60.1% on my avoidance without being fully buffed with wall/rage(displayed), if you look at the details,(hover your curser over) i should have 78.1% on avoidance with my grizzfazzle shield right now.

my base is 37.9, block is: 16.9, parry is 24.1 i should have 78.1 normally.

with wall and rage these should go up substaintally too, they dont go up nearly what they should either.

anyone else notice this wierd bug?

 

-Erick

 

Message Edited by Erick_Stormfury on 03-31-200607:05 PM

[Erick_Stormfu]

nevermind, a coder responded to another thread i had asking about this, the displayed value is correct.

the way it works is, you have 37.9 to dodge.. (you dont) then you have 16.9 to block... (you dont) then it check the 24.9 to parry....

for an overall avoidance chance of around 60 percent.

 

-Erick

[SugarGirl]

The big problem I've always seen with avoidance zerking is that you are cutting out a lot of your procs. Where this path might help balance out some of the problems with zerkers, it really boils down to the fact that SOE didn't think our class out very well. Plate tanking we still fall behind Guardians, and avoidance tanking we still fall behind monks and bruisers. We do fall in line with the Jack of all Trades, masters of none description though.. so I suppose we are 'working as intended'

[SugarGirl]

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Pegesus11 wrote:Yeah the AA line AGI path maxing it out willl give you the abliblity for 12 secs to parry 100% of all incomming attacks from all angles.  However this line sucks.  You can't do anything when you use this ablitiy.  Nothing except either stand there or run.  No CA's or Auto attack.  I went this route found no use for it and respec'd

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You sure on this Sid? I thought is was just a stifle, but you could still AA. If you can't even AA then it's just about stupid.

[Mordicus]

Personally i love Tsunami, i tank a lot and it helps with big epic pulls, before mobs get debuffed.  In normal groups i use it when we get too many adds, gibe for 10 sec then Tsunami when im in the red, its really quite simple and ive never had aggro issues while using it. Its a 12 sec immunity, it rocks.Mordicus 70 ZerkerThe Dark Side - Butcherblock

[SugarGirl]

Does it stifle your auto attack too though? I was thinking that this would be the one way to make Juggernaut a useful spell. Cast Rampage, open wounds, Chaos, Juggernaut, Tsunami and then Just AA for 12 seconds. But if you can't AA during Tsunami then it kind of hoses my idea

 

[Bremer]

Althoug the spell description says it stiffles in fact it pacifies, except running around you can do nothing.

[Chog]

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Bremer wrote:

Althoug the spell description says it stiffles in fact it pacifies, except running around you can do nothing.

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Unless you go down the INT line as well for the reduction in recovery timers...

[SugarGirl]

Yeah I was just reading up on this. Going down the INT line would reduce the recovery by 30% ... so you'd basically get 3 seconds of auto attack. Of course, Priests have a nice group recovery time reducer in the INT line.... and my GF plays Temp. Since we normally play side by side, this might be a viable option. I could have her cast her recovery buff, I could cast all my stuff and then Tsunami. Be a good way of dealing some major damage without taking anyhits. Too bad the recast on it is 10minutes

 

[Tasi3989]

Yeah the AA line AGI path maxing it out willl give you the abliblity for 12 secs to parry 100% of all incomming attacks from all angles.  However this line sucks.  You can't do anything when you use this ablitiy.  Nothing except either stand there or run.  No CA's or Auto attack.  I went this route found no use for it and respec'd

 

I understand.  I think the purpose of this is for tanking Raids and such, where the initial damage spike is really high.  With this, at the pull, hlrs only have to heal spells and aoe's, not direct damage, which might prove extrememly useful.  If you never MT raids and such, yes, the final ability does seem a bit trivial.  The spear aoe attack is kind of nice though.

[Pegesus]

You would think in theory that the tsunami spell would be for raid tanking and pulling.  However thats a big fat NO.  Thats the whole reason i went down this path.  But you can't taunt and you can't proc Insolent Gibe cuz your not getting hit.  So if one person basically looks at the mob the wrong way you are screwed and let the raid wipe commence.  This is by far the biggest waste of a AA"s i have ever seen.  It would be better to just dump the 8 into increasing your WIS at least your dmg for ae's will go up.And yeah Sugar you can do absolutely nothing when this goes off excepet like others said stand there and run.  Only time it helped me was when i aggro'ed to many mobs it allowed me to run em off.  Wooohooo i'd rather eat the death than waste 8 aa's.

[PlasticL]

The last thing you want to do after you pull an epic mob is lose your ability to taunt.

[Tasi3989]

Wow, thanks for that extra info, pretty much makes up my mind, might just max out the entire wis line or something now.

[Gaige]

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Aonach wrote:

As for it being frontal only, I'm not so sure about that. I take very few hits even if I get adds that are at my back and refuse to be turned, you know those groups that just insist on surrounding you know matter what you do. An awful lot of "fails to inflict any damage" and "mobname(1) tries to hit you but misses".

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Warrior avoidance is frontal only.  The exception to this is if you have the cold forged bp with gives a clicky tsunami spell with does allow warriors to parry rear attacks.

I also think 70% avoidance as a zerker is insane... but ah well.