When I started out I loved being able to dual wield, and figured that tanking wouldn't really be my thing. When I started again recently I respec'd with the STA line, and quite like it. * Round bash is quite good for interrupts * Fortissimo is I believe a good double attack buff I am starting to wonder if the benefits are purely for soloing and simple grouping. * Round bash is not supposed to affect Epic targets, so is it any use on raids. I suppose not. * Will Lend shielding help out a MT for certain encounters. Given Epic and T2 shard armor, am I better off going back to dual wield? Is it better to go all the way down to either Heroic Storytelling or DKTM, in which case which?
I think a lot of Dirges go through this question at some time. I use the Round Shield for soloing only. I am a MT Dirge and my opinion is the defense in the MT group is not dependant upon the Dirge (unless your group max's out dps and attack speed mods, then you can visit the str line at least part of the way). The best defense you can do for your raid is help your tank keep aggro. That means maximizing your hate to the MT. In my mind, other than the standard hate buff that means adding to his offensive capabilities. So then, those double attacks become much more important than provising any shielding. That being said I am sure you will find a mob or two where someone will want you to use Bladedance or where that extra shielding may be valuable. In that case get an AA mirror and have that spec saved for those occasions.
IMO... Lending shield is very weak. It effectively increases the tanks parry for a single hit to the cap (which I believe is 70% - but may be wrong). It is not a 100% block like the description implies. Round Bash is useless on raids for the reason you have mentioned. But it is nice to have an additional stun attack for grouping. To use this you can hotkey an instant switch between your shield and secondary weapon, with another hotkey to change back once the bash has taken place. There is nothing wrong with going sword and board, particularly whilst levelling. I sometimes also switch to a shield if solo kiting heroics for the additional parry when they get the odd hit in. However, for the vast majority of people dual weilding will do more DPS. Fortissimo is good for boosting melee DPS and is worth taking whether you sword and board or dual weild. For this reason taking the Sta line until you can max out Fortissimo is a decent option. DKTM is by far the best end-line ability in Bard tree. Useful to the entire group in all circumstances.
i would have to say no on this. The extra dps and abilities you can get from a good offhand has alot more weight that avoiding a few extra attacks. We are buffbots first and dps second. A dirge should never pull agro off a decent tank as well as a smart dirge should be able to work his way around aoes.but of corse this all applies to a group setting.
From http://orani.100webspace.net/ (Guide to the Dirge): For DPS application, to determine whether to choose Sword+Shield for the +DA bonus from the Skald's Defense AA or to dual-wield, utilize the following double attack DPS equation: 1) DPS for single wielding = DA% * DR; 2) DPS for dual wielding = DA% * [ { DR1 - (.33 * DR1) } + { DR2 - (.33 * DR2) } ] . DR is damage rating, DR1 is weapon 1 damage rating, DR2 is weapon 2 damage rating, .33 is incurred from dual wielding
Basically, the only end line in the bard tree worth getting is DKTM. Points are spent much better elsewhere. As far as sword and board vs dw, basically unless your secondary weapon is simply pathetic in comparison to your primary, dw will always beat sword and board (you can run the numbers using what was already posted if you want). As others have said it is nice for soloing stuff since it doesn't **** you out too much thanks to the bonus to DA and the equip shiled/shield bash macro is a must (along with the hotkey to get your secondary back). Personally I run wis 44681, sta 4448, int 4448, and agi 41 Some people would swap int and agi - I go int simply because it helps the whole group (and especially the tank since dps isn't found on much of thier gear). If I was doing a lot of soloing though I might move the points to agi and add some points to the DA with shield (and of course I would use a mirror for speccing back to this when grouping).
always been a sword and board even before they made AAs. timing your stuns to chain them with the tank is main reason. I never raid so that is never a factor though the fortissimo line seems to popular with the knowledgable MTs. Admittion to using a shield gets me flamed on server chats. My biggest beef is there is not shard round shields and very few options in upper lvls for round shields. SOE has left them with stock graphics nothing fancy like the bucklers. and mostly treasured merchant fodder. check out the sheild adornments also.
As a top end dirge. I feel that DPS is not a secondary Goal... there is other ways to survive then rely on something as a shield spec..... the only thing we can do besides running the right buffs at the right time... which IMO should seldom be changed from. DPS, DMG Proc, Skill+, Parry(aa +mit), and either hate if the tank needs it or Power and on the rare occasion Nox song with ward enhance.... is to DPS the best we can. rule one in this game is the faster something dies the less will go wrong. there is nothing wrong with wanting to max out your dps. i will even be honest and say i am not the best dirge on my server as far as straight dps goes... but i hold my own in the top 5 to 7. so if no one is dead... and you have nothing else to do then why not try to DPS as hard as you can... i am not saying that each to his own... if you like to use a shield thats your thing. but honestly i think if you want to truly find out how you can max out your style. you need to be willing to try somethings out on your own and see what works for you...
Now that melee double attack and ranged double attack have been consolidated, has anyone tried using a shield and auto-attacking with a bow?
Did beta and since then I have been sword and board the whole time. At work so I dont have any screenies to share but on live after launch I was able to DA with the bow and even saw a flurry once. Right now Im sitting at 114% DA. with a round shield up.
Krooner wrote: Ranged attacks can't Flurry. Also, Going sword and board will totally **** your dps and kill speed while soloing, don't do it.
Buffrat@Mistmoore wrote: 1) Dual wield two weapons and auto-attack with those weapons (my current DA is around 69%) 2) Sword and board, auto-attack with bow (my DA would be around 91%) Before when the double-attack buffs only applied to melee, dual wielding was the only way to go. Now that double-attack buffs apply to ranged, is that still the case? Any numbers to back up claims from either side?
Buffrat@Mistmoore wrote: I can parse 7K with sword and board on live without much problem. Killing solo with a round sheild isnt a problem even with heroics from the Hole. As for the flurry on ranged. My parse did show that but it was the day after launch so I dont know if that was a bug or intended. I know I did get flurries on ranged during beta. But it doesnt matter when you ranged double attack for 6-7K.
I've never seen a round shield worth using to replace DWing... if one exists that would be nice, but since most melee dps classes and tanks will likely be self-capped on DA with typical 90 gear I rethought going down the line at all as Fortissimo suddenly seems a bit pointless. As a result I saved a lot of wasted AA (8 points in buckler stuff I never used, the points in Fortissimo, the Fortissimo enhancer in the TSO tree) and applied those points elsewhere. Sentinel's Fate is the first time since AA was implemented in the game that I've significantly changed my AA lines at all, as was part of the dev plan I suspect... shake things up a bit and force people to logically re-evaluate their choices instead of just saying "Well it's this way because that's how everyone's always done it!" That said, I had hoped for a change to the INT line since it remains utterly worthless. I know exactly ONE dirge who uses it for some reason, and I suspect he's a hydroencephalytic chimpanzee abortion that is strapped to a keyboard and monitor in some bizarre black-ops animal-testing facility.
