I have never said i got a DPS benifit from the STA line. It is clear that I don't get a DPS increase from the STA unless you have a round shield equipped.. I never claimed to have.increase DPS from the STA line one bit as I know that would not be true. You gainn many things from the STA and it does NOT hurt your raiding capability at all. You still got your Debuffs and DPS which everyone agrees is what Swashbucklers are primaraly for. People saying that Raiding Swashes on and off hte forums use the STR / WIS line is complete bull[expletive haxx0red by Raijinn]. That is not true one bit. Rogues that go the STR / WIS line have a possibility to increase their DPS. You don't choose AA's just for raiding, you choose AA to better your character whether you want to believe that or not. You may say you choose it for raiding but you choose it for all aspects of hte game. You choose AA's to benifit your character all around in the adventuring part of the game not just raiding cause no AA will only benifit raiding. You increase something and you increase for Raids as well as everything. Nothing the STA offers me is more important that raiding as I love to raid along with many other tings in this game. To anyone who says that Raiding Rogues use the WIS line, that is a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] lie. I laugh at you for that.
One of the problems with character customization systems like Achievement Points or Talents (WoW) is that when you go into hard stuff, they don't become customizations anymore, they become requirements. For a casual raiding guild, a STA specced Swashy is equal to a WIS specced Swashy. For a hardcore raiding guild, a STA specced Swashy is considered inferrior to a WIS specced swashy, not because the STA Swashy has lowered their raiding ability, but because the WIS specced one has raised it, while the STA one has not. By raiding ability, I am talking raiding 'contribution'. IE: DPS, since Debuffs can't be improved outside of skill upgrades and Tramautic Swipe. What ends up happening is that unless you have the spec that maximizes your raiding contribution, you are considered to be 'losing' something, when in fact you just simply have not gained it. That is also where the confusion comes from. Backin considers that he HAS NOT lost anything, because he has gained tanking ability instead of DPS. Other people might consider that he HAS lost the extra DPS that would be gained from a different spec because they consider the tanking ability worthless in the part of the game they focus on. I personally run with an AA setup that includes Coule and only 5 points in Blackguard's Luck. Coule is quite 'worthless' in raiding as many people consider. But I play on a PvP server, and the extra skills come in quite useful. Whether I have GAINED skills instead of a bit more DPS from the 3 points of Blackguard's Luck, or LOST DPS ability for some worthless skills depends on the viewpoint of the person. Atleast be happy many guilds aren't enforcing a certain spec like in WoW.. where you weren't allowed on some raids unless you specced a certain way.
People can select their AAs anyway they like, I just find it disconcerting when someone misrepresents the result of their choices. I spec'd STR/WIS because I wanted to optimize my performance on raids and STR/WIS contributes to both my debuffing and DPS raid performance. In my case, the benefit I derive from raiding (in the way of armor and weapons) more than makes up for anything I might loose in groups or solo play with a different spec. If I wanted to optimize my ability to tank in groups or solo I would definitely choose an AA build with stamina, since it offers enhancements to both aggro control and HP. Unfortunately, this may mean I end up sitting on raids occasionally because others players offer more to the raid than I do. I'm in a casual raiding guild but we take the raiding we do seriously. We want to be able to complete all of the available raid content, which means that the people raiding must take it seriously too. If everyone in the raid sacrificed their raiding potential to maximize their solo/group performance the guilds raiding performance would suffer dramatically. One person sacrificing 100 to 300 DPS may not seem like much, 10 people doing it is a large drop in raid DPS. If you apply this to healing, debuffing and other AA enhancement skills you can really **** your raid force.
How about I put it this way. To be the best tanking swashbuckler, you need to go down the STA line, right? Well then how come I can tank every heroic instance, exluding Nizara, with just WIS spec? In fact, I don't even need the taunts to hold aggro. So if I can tank already with WIS, why should I change to STA? Why? Because if I ever want to be the best tank I can be, I have to go down the STA line. Just because I can tank already, it doesn't mean that I can't improve myself more. If I ever want to tank Nizara, then I will need to spec the STA line. But this thread isn't called ''Tanking Swash'' or ''Well Rounded Swash'' it is called ''RAIDING SWASH''. This isn't about how to improve your solo/group ability without decreasing your raid dps, it is about choosing the AA path that maximizes your raiding capabilities; DPS and DEBUFFS. So in other words, WIS and STR. By going STA instead of WIS you miss out on a huge chunk of DPS, and by choosing the final STA line ability you miss out on having Traumatic Swipe. No, you don't NEED to be specced to WIS to be a good raider, but you do if you ever want to be the best. Just like how you need STA to tank Nizara, you need WIS to parse your highest when raiding.
