AA lines.

[ArcticBlue182]

Hi ive tried the link in the FAQ sticky but the page will not load for the AA lines section, well in fact none of the links work, i just get try back in 30mins or something and no matter what time of day i try i can enver access them.. so my question is what are the better AA choices i was going to go down the wis line but after reading 1 or 2 threads regarding raid defilers noone has used this tree... any help would be great..

[Ashmoria]

I've been playing with the STR/WIS lines for the last few weeks, and I'll be switching to another achievment build when it's cheap again. The limited Jester's Cap you get at the end of the WIS line hasn't proved very useful (our raid force usually has two troubadors), and the pet's slashing attack doesn't bring much dps to the party. The heal crits in the AGI line are far more useful. I  stand by Ritual, though, mostly for the ability to boost the power regen of Forced Cannibalize, Maelstrom, the Doomseer Leggings, etc. Using Ritual + Maelstrom (especially with the EoF Maelstrom achievment upgrade) has proved its worth several times on fights like The Segmented Rumbler where you're fighting for a while against mobs with ae power drain. And in my opinion every Defiler should have the STR line, even though the pet dies more often than it should.  The ward proc goes off enough to be useful, and the occasional ae avoidance has saved my life a few times.

[TuHideous]

I personally am staying witht he STR/ WIS lines. The STR is a must I agree the wards are crazy, and with the AoE avoidance I have found lately works 9 out of 10 times, as long as you are in the small range. So, for me the safest place in the fight is right up on the mob. The Wis line for me is used mainly for my pet attack increase, and the Ritual of Alacrity, which even tho I rarely use it - it has made the difference in several fights helping the tank regain a little lost agro. As far as the EoF lines, Soul Ward rocks!

Heal crits would be more of a kinda nice to have thing, but completely unnecessary for a defiler IMO. I am always top heals by far, and I'll only have like 3-4 heal crits, whereas the other healers are hitting like 200-500 crits zonewide. Since in raids my wards will ussually never see the full length in order to turn into a heal, and I rarely need to actually cast my healing spells- that's what the healers are for. I will cast them if its needed, but that is rare and in most cases my wards will do the situation better then a heal. If you want heal crits - there are items you can get to help you there rather then lose all that is gained in the WIS line. Mainly the big bonus you get to your resists from the added wis.

[maxpower8]

Innocence@Kithicor wrote:

Heal crits would be more of a kinda nice to have thing, but completely unnecessary for a defiler IMO. I am always top heals by far, and I'll only have like 3-4 heal crits, whereas the other healers are hitting like 200-500 crits zonewide. Since in raids my wards will ussually never see the full length in order to turn into a heal, and I rarely need to actually cast my healing spells- that's what the healers are for. I will cast them if its needed, but that is rare and in most cases my wards will do the situation better then a heal. If you want heal crits - there are items you can get to help you there rather then lose all that is gained in the WIS line. Mainly the big bonus you get to your resists from the added wis.

I believe increasing heal crit chance will increase the ward crit chance, the same way that getting items and adornments that increase healing amount also increase ward amount.

[Owlbe]

Crit heals do indeed increase ward amounts by 15%. This makes the sta line attractive + all the melee crits are quite fun

[Macross_JR]

Owlbear wrote:

Crit heals do indeed increase ward amounts by 15%. This makes the sta line attractive + all the melee crits are quite fun

I'm sure you meant the agi line, because that is the line with the crits in it.

[TuHideous]

Githil@Permafrost wrote:

Owlbear wrote:

Crit heals do indeed increase ward amounts by 15%. This makes the sta line attractive + all the melee crits are quite fun

I'm sure you meant the agi line, because that is the line with the crits in it.

Owlbear- I'm not gonna argua about the + % heal crit adding to the ammount of a ward, because I honestly don't know either way. And I highly doubt that the % heal crit increase from the items counts towards a ward crit chance. Only reason I say that is because if it did I would have more then 3 crit heals on my ACT parser after clearing a zone like Labs/ HoS/ or DT. I have a few items that are + % heal crit adorn, and 3 pieces of Ykesha's, yet still only a few actually ever register on parse. And I am always top heal parse on raids, but being a Defiler, I'm sure that would be assumed anyhow.

But, maybe I'm looking at it from a raiding standpoint. My wards are never on the 30 seconds it takes for them to become heals.

[Owlbe]

Yes, agi.  My mistake. The size of the ward is 15% bigger on a crit heal and therefore the heal is bigger once the ward's duration expires.  The way you are wording it it seems you think the ward hits for a flat amount (whether crit or not) then the heal the happens later is where you get the crit heal.  That is not so.  There is no way to tell if you get a crit ward (there wasn't a way last time I checked that a parser can pick this up other then when the ward expires for a crit heal). Scenerio (random #'s): -Cast ward for 1000 points of warding. -Cast ward... get crit.... ward is 1150 points of warding If you don't need crits fine, just trying to get some accurate info out there.

[Thatdumbg]

ACT does not properly track ward crits, because the only time the game will alert you as to whether a ward was a crit or not is if it times out and converts to a heal. Not to say I am a supporter of the AGI line.

[Thatdumbg]

Ya, what owlbear said (sorry can't edit for some reason).

[Darkwolf_72]

Personally I really like the %Heal Crit.  Without our Coercer in group I am between 20-25% Heal Crit chance which means my big ward hits for 3850 instead of 3350.  But with the Coercer in the MT group with me I automatically get a 15% larger ward, so instead of warding for 3850 I see my ward crit for over 4400.  Very nice! 

I keep trying different lines to see what will work best for me, I am currently AGI 4 4 4 8  STA 4 6 4 8 2  WIS 4 1.  Specced without the dog.  So far the best combo with the Dog in my opinion seems to be STR 4 4 8 8 2  WIS 8 8 8, but I am sure that could be debated .  I have trouble knowing that when my dog dies most of my AA line becomes worthless.  I may go back to him, but for now I am happy without having to depend on the dog.

Rthlas  The Golden Rose of Qeynos Oasis

[ArcticBlue182]

interesting! the AA line that boosts the dog, is this more useful for soloing i would think ? it does sound interesting though as as the poster above said i dont want to be reliant upon the pet and should that die my other AA's not be all that good.. so agi 4-4-8-8 is a given by the looks of it!

[Ashmoria]

Which AA line for the dog are you talking about? STR? That's valuable for soloing and for raids. The ward proc goes off enough to get the pet on the heal parse every now and then, and the ae avoid will keep him alive through most fights. It's also incredibly useful for soloing. Combined with Spiritual Circle and Bane of Protection I've solo'd 67^^^  named without having to cast any more wards after a group and single target ward before the pull.

[ArcticBlue182]

hi well i should really have worded what i said better.. what i meant to say was i don't/didn't  want to spend my AA points if it left them not so good if/when the pet dies having not played a healer class before i felt after over 2 years on EQ2 it was high time i did and i em enjoying the defiler class it must be said. so if i go down the STR/AGI lines should i goto the end abilities or 4-4-8-8 or something ? im really looking for the best group settings with some solo in as well i dont think i will be raiding to much when i get to that stage with my defiler as at the moment my 70 troubadour  is needed a lot

[Ashmoria]

Try STR 4-4-6-8-1 and AGI 4-4-6-8-1 and see how that works for you. If you want more melee crit over heal crit go AGI 4-4-8-6-1 instead. You can definitely play a Defiler without the pet, but in my experience it makes a big a difference. As long as aggro stays off the pet it should live through most encounters (although it does have some trouble in Castle Mistmoore. The Vampires' ae seem to hit the dog for some reason).

[ArcticBlue182]

ok thx i'll give that a go!

[RustyB]

Went  STR 4-4-8-8-1  WIS 4-3  INT 4-4-8

 am pretty happy with this setup.   I use to have Ritual  maxed out  but found it rarely hit the max end of the heal, so knocked 5 points off ritual and through them in my INT line.  now not only dos my dog ward and haste, but now he debuffs for 12% of attributes as well.

[Ashmoria]

The pet debuff% is the only reason I'm thinking of going back to the INT line. I'm going to spend a month with the AGI line to see what difference the crit heals make, and when the achievment respec is cheap again I'll compare it to the INT line.

[Azeda]

Heal crit % does indeed affect your wards, as does item +heal crit%.  Mouse over you wards  every once in awhile you will catch that 4K+ group ward crit ... it's very nice.  As stated above ACT doesn't currently track ward crits.  I've seen the parse state I had 3 crits in a fight where I know I have over 20 ward crits.  Luckily I don't care that much about the parse (unless another healer starts talking trash ... then I put down the smackdown).  Heal parses fail to take into account the other 2/3s of our job ... cures & debuffs.  I can effectively own everyone on the heal parse while in MT group ... but that requires me to slack on curing &debuffing and to block the other MT group healers heals wasting their power and decreasing their effectiveness.  I prefer a more logical approach ... the mob dies ... we live ... my job is done.

 A dps parse is a much purer thing ... it shows who is actually doing damage ... but it also doesn't show the debuffing the dps classes are doing.  A heal parse ... if you follow it strictly will cause healers to lose focus on everything they should be doing.  It will make them focus on upping their parses ... which is not always the best thing to do ... healers also cure. debuff, and dps.  Think about it ... every little bit helps and some healers can beat melee classes on the dps parse.

On that note ...the other defilers and I try to out dps each other on trash mobs ... kinda just a smack talking thing for us ... hehehe.  I can beat one of the defilers consistently but the other one is tougher ... he's specced different than I am.  I hate to say it but I can't touch our mystic in the dps parse ... hes a machine.

Almost forgot ... I've tried more than a dozen different setups.  I've settled on this one

 STR 4/4/7/8/2 - for haste, dog ward, AE avoidance proc & dog survivability

AGI 4/4/6/8/2 - for mele crits/maxed heal crits/Tribal rage (very cool proc)

EOF I went Cannabalize (I effectively have unlimited power now) and Curseweaving (fast debuffs & power savings is nice)

I tried soul ward ... not very effective on pre-warding ... that plus other wards and I got aggro pretty much every pull.  Not much a tank can do when I ward over 10k damage on pull.  I really only used it in emergency situations kinda like death prevent.  It was nice ... but I realized it was too situational ... same as ritual ... nice ... but very situational.  I'm more into passive or constant benefits that I use ALL the time.

 I