Ok, here's my quandry...

[Fluxion13]

Imma L70 SK, with 70 AA.  I just got Reaver last night (though that really doesn't pertain to this post, well sorta, you'll see).  Not sure if I like it or not though.  Anywho.I'm currently speced with 4/4/8 STA/WIS/INT (surprisingly really like this build... originally wanted AGI line, then wanted STR line, but ended up with this one).Well, soon I'm going back to the Cav line.  Gonna go 448 AGI/INT/???  THAT'S the big question!??I need somehelp advice on what to keep.. do I keep STA or WIS... I've really found myself liking both... melee crits are nice, but also the WIS line bumps (leadership) are nice... ARGH!Also currently using Reaver, so that can be a consideration for what it's worth *shrug*.Thanks in advance for the advice!

[Xanoth]

depends how you play and what you do. if you raid and your targets are mainly yellow and orange, WIS is pretty useful...otherwise you'd probably get more benefit from STA.

[Margen]

As a raider, I went 4/4/8 in Wis/INT/STA I found I like this build because it gives me an increase in dps (which equals agro), plus with the combat changes I think the battle leadership line is much more benifical, plus it also helps everyone in my group also.

[Danimal24]

Melee crits > battle leadership

[Norrsken]

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Danimal24 wrote:

Melee crits > battle leadership

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Depends on what you are going to do.

[ReficulFonwaps]

I raid a lot, always killing level 70-75 mobs and I am 4/4/8 in Wis/INT/STA and it works great for me, only people who beat me on parse is a conj and a couple of necros, unless I'm using 1 hander and shield in def stance to off tank something.

[Eluzay]

i am currently 848int 4488 wis that in combat regen cancels reaver's losses ... battle leadership is a group buff cancels our negatives to def stance and helps the group, the +64 in combat health regen below it cancles reaver and helps the group... canceling your negatives and giving everyone else positive is a good thing

[Margen]

While I agree that the battle leadership is very useful now, for me personally, spending 8 points to get 64 regen is to expensive for limited effect.  The regen might help on rever line, but realisticly it won't make much difference at higher level mobs.  When you get hit by 6k melee and you are healing yourselve by 64, it really means nothing.

Just my opinion, welcome to disagree.  Just don't see it being worth 8 points on regen.

[Eluzay]

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Margen wrote:

While I agree that the battle leadership is very useful now, for me personally, spending 8 points to get 64 regen is to expensive for limited effect.  The regen might help on rever line, but realisticly it won't make much difference at higher level mobs.  When you get hit by 6k melee and you are healing yourselve by 64, it really means nothing.

Just my opinion, welcome to disagree.  Just don't see it being worth 8 points on regen.

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well a couple of pointsfirstly because i am on a pvp server i have to dual play, tank and pvp (which i do in defensive stance) and the reaver + regen is very nice in pvp.secondly you can add up the numbers and see i am a bit away from 50 points, hence the 8 in int vs 4... I am sure I will be back when i have all 50 points in that tree and try to work out something new...just wanted to say that for a transitional build it is pretty amazing,

[MrDiz]

Ive often wondered bout the wisdom line for soloing. The regen sounds nice, but 64 per tick probably works out to about 640 heal per minute which is about the limit of most fights solo (even nameds). So the question is how much does this affect the fight when you are 6k hp or more? The ammount you heal with reaver line and tap viens etc so absolutely dwarfs this.

[Eluzay]

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MrDizzi wrote:Ive often wondered bout the wisdom line for soloing. The regen sounds nice, but 64 per tick probably works out to about 640 heal per minute which is about the limit of most fights solo (even nameds). So the question is how much does this affect the fight when you are 6k hp or more? The ammount you heal with reaver line and tap viens etc so absolutely dwarfs this.

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well it is less than one blessing in heals but costs no mana and uses no time to cast, with reaver it basically takes the negatives away from reaver. all "spells" now heal me for 178ish and spells that heal (vatae) heal twice.  Survivability goes way up and I can stand in combat as long as I want and my health bar does not go town 1% a tick due to reaver.I have reaver running 100% of the time now.

[MrDiz]

Me too, but i think ill go Sta for DA. The regen of wis doesnt sound impressive next to reaver

[MeridianR]

I could never see anyone going 448 Wisdom for solo play.   Paladin wise, the majority of our dps comes from Melee crits.  Not sure if this is the same for SK's (I tend to think it might be, but would defer to more experienced SK's), but from a solo standpoint I can't see a reason to ever go in defensive mode.If you never go in defensive mode, there is no reason what so ever to take Battle Leadership.  The only reason BL is of any use is to negate the negative stats from your defensive stance.  It doesn't benefit the group as much as you might think either, since a couple Rogues from my guild have done extensive testing and noticed no big improvement with BL being ran.For my alt SK (just playing around with him for fun...lol) I am going to go:448 for Melee crits in Stamina448 int for spell crits (cause it's by far the best KoS Crusader AA)Reaver line in the SK treeTo sum it up:Battle Leadership = good to negate - stats from Defensive stance against yellow and orange con mobsBattle Leadership =! good any other time

[Anselan]

I disagree on that Meridian. I've played around with most of the KoS AA lines and have finally settled on 448/STA&WIs and 4481INT (apparantly the crity heal can affect reaver sometimes so stuck extra point there). The only thing I miss is the STR line end ability of 10% reduction in casting times, but the Battle Leadership ability is +34 to all combat skills. This amounts to a 9.7% increase on our base skill of 350. I don't know how that affects dps but I sould suspect it's a multiplier of the skills and a 10% increase on skills is matched by an equivalent increase in damage generated.

As 1 damage = 1 heal = 1 hate, that means an aggro increase of 9.7% which stands up well to the 10% hate gain from STR line Hate AA.

That 10% skill increase across the group is very welcome, but more importantly I find myself hitting the yellow and orange cons more regularly than before.

If I'm completely wrong on the way our skills effect damage, someone please let me know as I am trying to understand the mechanics.

[MeridianR]

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Anselan wrote:

I disagree on that Meridian. I've played around with most of the KoS AA lines and have finally settled on 448/STA&WIs and 4481INT (apparantly the crity heal can affect reaver sometimes so stuck extra point there). The only thing I miss is the STR line end ability of 10% reduction in casting times, but the Battle Leadership ability is +34 to all combat skills. This amounts to a 9.7% increase on our base skill of 350. I don't know how that affects dps but I sould suspect it's a multiplier of the skills and a 10% increase on skills is matched by an equivalent increase in damage generated.

As 1 damage = 1 heal = 1 hate, that means an aggro increase of 9.7% which stands up well to the 10% hate gain from STR line Hate AA.

That 10% skill increase across the group is very welcome, but more importantly I find myself hitting the yellow and orange cons more regularly than before.

If I'm completely wrong on the way our skills effect damage, someone please let me know as I am trying to understand the mechanics.

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Well from testing done with both a Brigand and Swashie with different amounts of skill numbers (with BL and without) there was no difference in the amount of to hits.The only thing the +skills gives is a greater chance to hit higher level mobs.  It doesnt add direct damage.  You can make a case for saying it adds damage because a miss doesn't equate to any damage, where a hit does....but it doesn't work this way, at least in the testing done by rogues in my guild.

[Nocifer Deathblade]

The testing by scouts are not same as testing for tanks like us btw for +skill adjustment cuz their attack power is higher than us which results in less return per +skill than we do. Scouts have naturally higher hit rate than we do so they would notice less effect per skill point than we do.

Same thing.. The testing on our mitigation is not same as the testing of mage's mitigation. The return of each mitigation on mage will show much much bigger than return for a tank like us..

We naturally have lower attack rating than scouts do.  Battle leadership will help us more in defensive stance than in offensive stance for example and where we hunt..  I would believe that Battle Leadership +skill will help 1h/shield defensive tank more than it does to 2h offensive tank.  2h itself adds bonus to our attack rating that 1h doesnt provide.

So, what we really need to do is testing by a real tank for more reliable information on battle leadership..

 

Message Edited by Nocifer Deathblade on 01-10-2007 11:11 AM

[Anselan]

You may be right there mate - it could be that damage comes purely from STR and the DPS weapon rating, though this seems a strange mechanic for me.

 

I would say though that the raid benefit on tough mobs is noticeable, and in places like Castle Msitmoore with highlevel mobs it could be useful.

It's a healthy sign for SKs that we have so many options and debates on the AA lines; nothing is worse than a cookie cut class (Guardians and bucklers )

[Xanoth]

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MeridianR wrote:Well from testing done with both a Brigand and Swashie with different amounts of skill numbers (with BL and without) there was no difference in the amount of to hits.The only thing the +skills gives is a greater chance to hit higher level mobs.  It doesnt add direct damage.  You can make a case for saying it adds damage because a miss doesn't equate to any damage, where a hit does....but it doesn't work this way, at least in the testing done by rogues in my guild.

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... i thought you quit anyway Battle Leadership isn't that useful, but like you said its good for negating penalities and certain orange con mobs can also be a pain to get a good hit rate depending on other buffs available in the group. I've not fully tested it to see if i'd be better off switching from WIS to STA with my SK, or mebies even going back to spell haste again.. which i'd probably prefer unles i can find something good to use with STA and i've seen nothing in EoF so far that could fill that.my main line of thought was early EoF i'd stick with WIS to help the group while people got geared up and adorned, at a later date i'd change to something more useful.

[MeridianR]

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Xanoth wrote:

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MeridianR wrote:Well from testing done with both a Brigand and Swashie with different amounts of skill numbers (with BL and without) there was no difference in the amount of to hits.The only thing the +skills gives is a greater chance to hit higher level mobs.  It doesnt add direct damage.  You can make a case for saying it adds damage because a miss doesn't equate to any damage, where a hit does....but it doesn't work this way, at least in the testing done by rogues in my guild.

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... i thought you quit anyway Battle Leadership isn't that useful, but like you said its good for negating penalities and certain orange con mobs can also be a pain to get a good hit rate depending on other buffs available in the group. I've not fully tested it to see if i'd be better off switching from WIS to STA with my SK, or mebies even going back to spell haste again.. which i'd probably prefer unles i can find something good to use with STA and i've seen nothing in EoF so far that could fill that.my main line of thought was early EoF i'd stick with WIS to help the group while people got geared up and adorned, at a later date i'd change to something more useful.

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I am back, but I did quit for a couple months   Well I at least quit raiding...but back to that scene as well.From a Paladins' standpoint Sta >>> Wisdom, because the melee crits make up the higher majority of our dps.  (Even more so then Spell crits, but this is paladin specific as stated above)  Add in DKTM from a Dirge, MoA, etc...and we are critting 33% of the time....with a high dps mod, that is hella damage there.I could make a case for BL if you were in the Main Tank group (and I guess that would be maybe because you don't have a Warden to put in there for there +skill buffs), or MT'ing yourself....but I just can't see getting it beyond that, when the Sta / Int and Str line is just better overall. 

[Anselan]

In all honest I am strongly tempted to go back to the the Str line and spec 4/4/4/5 there, especially now that I have ascendant - the Swiftaxe AA would be a nice bonus when tanking and the haste/hate gain would help a lot.

 

Bah this has got me thinking seriously now on respec and Iit would cost me a plat to do it - bugger :/

 

[Xanoth]

ascendant has too low an attack speed tbh, so when hasted and swiftaxed you either have to really limit what you cast, or your guna loose out a lot of swing time.

[Nocifer Deathblade]

One thing I could see that BL is more useful in PVP than in PVE where opponents seem to love to debuff your offensive skills and +34 can help to negate that disadvantage so you can still hit your opponent just fine even debuffed.. Mobs don't debuff you compared to players debuffing you first thing..

[MeridianR]

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Nocifer Deathblade wrote:

One thing I could see that BL is more useful in PVP than in PVE where opponents seem to love to debuff your offensive skills and +34 can help to negate that disadvantage so you can still hit your opponent just fine even debuffed.. Mobs don't debuff you compared to players debuffing you first thing..

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I can agree with that, BL might benefit the PvP spec'd Crusader due to debuffs a lot more then the PvE Crusader.

[MrDiz]

AM i the only SK who uses def stance for soloing too? Ive found I switch between the stances fairly often. If its a big bad named ive noticed I do better in def stance. Or if I accidentally pull half the zone (which i 'accidentally' do lots *grin*). Just found tha when a fight is tough I can match my heals to the damag i take a little easier.I have NO science on this btw. Just a kinda gut feeling. When I duo with my dirge def stance is even better because my dps is so much higher anyway, and i still never use the skill enhance song because if its heroic mob its green/blue so i dont miss, and if its a solo mob, its dead unless I accidentally pulled something 10 levels higher than me

Message Edited by MrDizzi on 01-11-2007 01:16 AM

[MeridianR]

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MrDizzi wrote:AM i the only SK who uses def stance for soloing too? Ive found I switch between the stances fairly often. If its a big bad named ive noticed I do better in def stance. Or if I accidentally pull half the zone (which i 'accidentally' do lots *grin*). Just found tha when a fight is tough I can match my heals to the damag i take a little easier.I have NO science on this btw. Just a kinda gut feeling. When I duo with my dirge def stance is even better because my dps is so much higher anyway, and i still never use the skill enhance song because if its heroic mob its green/blue so i dont miss, and if its a solo mob, its dead unless I accidentally pulled something 10 levels higher than me

Message Edited by MrDizzi on 01-11-2007 01:16 AM

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As a SK, not sure what others do...but as a Paladin I always normally solo with Offensive and a 2H.....the reason being the faster I can kill the mob the less of a problem power is.  Sure I might need to heal a little more, but with the Int and Str boost my DPS goes up a lot more then in defensive stance.On harder mobs I will go 1h/shield, but normally stay in offensive stance.On mobs I am iffy on, I might start out with 1h/Shield and in defensive.The majority of the time though it's 2h and Offensive....

[MrDiz]

Im always 1h + shield, and i switch in symbol for the legionaires strike and then back to shield for my shield attack. I think the dps that way is pretty much equal to my dps with 2her because its too hard to switch to 1hweapon AND symbol, then cast legionaires strike But then again my 1her is significantly better than my 2her. Got a bixie sword pretty much for free. Perhaps once i hit high 60s ill have to relook at my setup.But I stay offensive on normal soloing, just for hard hard things ive found offensive nice. But again I still dont think i need the leadership skill boosts as hard for me is a blue/green named, which lets face it i wont miss even in def stance.

Message Edited by MrDizzi on 01-11-2007 06:21 AM

[Naelael]

I only switch into def on a bad pull when soloing. The interesting thing is this. I keep reading about people wanting their weapon to hit more often etc. But when going down the reaver line, you almost want to cast as much as possible. I am "only" level 65, but right now soloing lvl 70 mobs I can, if I so choose to do it this way, end the fight at about 90% HP and 40-50% power. With 4/4/8 in INT, reaver almost maxed, and a few + heal/damage spell items, the return you see on heals is incredible. Yesterday I was duoing with another SK friend in bonemire and he was watching me solo a mob. I tend to not pay too much attention to my HP when I am fighting, I happened to look up and see that I was fairly low. I fired off (I believe) Loathsome anger, dire smite, absorb vitae, putrid coil hitting, and am fairly sure I had blessing up at the same time. This was towards the end of the fight. He says to me "Harm Touch with heal... nice" which I found sort of amusing because I find that to be the least useful of the reaver abilities, that and the fact that I didnt use it. Hunger may have hit as well in that time period. Thats hundreds of HP per tick with that line maxed when you are casting, add in the fact that you are doing damage as well... Mmmm... Its a beautiful thing. Maybe focusing more on casting is rare for SKs, I don't know. But I find it helps me a great deal. It does not hurt my ability to tank in any way. Maybe its just my play style, i'm honestly not sure. But I find I very rarely ever have issues in a fight when soloing mobs 5 levels higher than me. I kjeep seeing people say that "the wis line is nothing compared to reaver line for heals", yes thats true. But so what? Each ability in the reaver line is not much at all when on its own, but when put together, its a ton of healing. Why not add in the WIS line (if you so desire) to enhance that even more? Its not like someone has to pick WIS over reaver since you can only put 50 points into each tree. I have not taken any WIS aa yet, but this thread has me rethinking that decision. Right now I sit at 4/4/8 in STA and INT and have been debating on which to go with for my last stat. I just may go WIS...I guess I would say this. Choose where you want your DPS to come from, and stick with that. If you are going to try for melee DPS, then go down the STA and STR lines. If casting is more your thing, then INT and STA. Either way the wisdom is not going to hurt you, if you were going for melee, then it would be a help for negating stances, if you were going for casting it would be a help in maintaing HP that you may not have in your max pool due to the fact that you are focusing on bringing your casting stats up instead of just melee ones. Honestly WIS seems useful with either template to me. Though the melee dps template is a bit bland to me personaly. I have no clue what to think of the AGI aa line for a sk so I am in no position to say anything about it, hence it being left out of this post. Nocifer is a wealth of knowledge on that though.

Message Edited by Naelael on 01-11-2007 09:28 AM

[hellskitten]

A lot of the AA arguements center around people that use 2handers or a axe.  After the int line I put point into str for the haste (was doing it temp till got EOF.. didnt know I couldnt yank them out to use in SK AAs :/ )

My issue comes from.. fact I prefer to use 1hander and shield. I also do not want to use a axe, sword use is just what I envision.  Im currently not seeing much of a return from 4 pts into haste.  Most our damage is spell/ca anyway; I very very seldom use auto attack unless Im at the end of a fight and ran out power.  While haste might help then.. Im feeling its limited use is a waste.

 

For a SK that doesnt use 2handers or axe.. do ya guys think str still a prefered line to go down?  

[Nocifer Deathblade]

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hellskitten wrote:

For a SK that doesnt use 2handers or axe.. do ya guys think str still a prefered line to go down?  

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Rule of thumb for str line is to use SLOW delay weapons.. Fast 1h attacking weapon like1.3 sec delay with str line for increased haste will start to cripple your melee dps.. It'll even cripple you even more if you do str line+fast weapon+reaver.  With reaver, you'll find that you'll want to cast spells more often than normally that will slow your melee dps down more with fast weapons.  2h is well known for slow attacking but high damage weapons that goes pretty well with reaver line and increased haste..