Skel@Butcherblock wrote: I don't recall DC and Open Wounds stacking either. The off target hits from DC do count as though you targetted the mob directly, and can trigger double attack. At least, last I knew it did. It's really really hard to notice a difference with the 10% hate from the STR line. I'm not sure if it's because it's passive and I can't see it in the logs to verify, or because I haven't been in a situation where I have observed a difference, yet. I'm just looking at options to see if I should spread those 8 points out somewhere else, or what. It's good to have your perspective on the AGI line. Thanks a lot.
personally i think the hate is situational, i have agro ****** in my guild so i need it. I tried a different spec then str cause i thought the same as you, the hate isnt needed but boy that night was hell to tank. If agro is an issue for you, yeah of course go for it, if not then the points would be better used somewhere else. If you can find a decent sword then 4-1 int is pretty nice. Most of the AA builds are all situational tho depending on role, gear, what you fight, playstyle. Just about every line has something viable, with the exception of the wis line IMO.
I have aggro ******, too. I was 4-1 INT, but since then I got the DT access reward and figured instead of additional haste, I'd just keep close to the same and increase another area. I also find the damage missing from the haste isn't really lost. The extra CA in the STR line seems to even it out quite nicely. Admittedly, I never did get a nice sword drop. INT would have scaled with the weapon. The way I see the extra hate is that it's always a consistent extra 10%. Trying to squeeze extra damage here and there may have a more profound effect, but from raiding I've noticed there are times damage is not reliable, or you don't even want to have autoattack on. Damage can spike low, or it can spike high. 10% is always 10%. However, I usually have a zone wide average of 1K DPS or so. Now, a developer has mentioned damage is on a 1:1 ratio with hate (or very close to). So the 10% would be as if I did 1100 DPS zone wide. 100 extra damage per second is all I would need to make up that portion of my threat. Obviously, taunts and such would get additional hate as well, but is it so profound that even more damage couldn't make up for it? I'm thinking from my own observations that the pure threat could be made up for with say another 100 extra DPS or less. This will vary from person to person. With no hate buffer, I see aggro peeling around 2K or slightly less (without Destruction or Open Wounds). So maybe 200 DPS overall will make up for the 10% loss in hate. That's actually quite a bit, but I don't think it's out of reach. I may actually be somewhat generous with those numbers as well. It's a bit of rambling, but that is what leaves me wondering if I'm not better off with points spread around to other places. I was really hoping the 10% hate would help when it comes to grabbing aggro back after a single target memwipe or something similar. It's almost silly easy with a dirge or coercer around, but when left alone it seems we're pretty bad at aggro recovery. Once I burn Rescue, it's pretty tough to get back a second time (no, it's not really a problem with two tanks being there and all). I almost feel like I'm missing something obvious.
well you just increase your hate gain by 10%, not increase your taunts by 10%. So in you gain 10% more hate from taunts and DPS and your reactive hate and casting buffs etc. Anything that you do will net you hate with an aditional 10%. So to really calculate it out you would need to calculate how many times you taunt in a zone +zone dps and add 10% on to that, its pretty huge.
Yeah. I tried to figure out total average threat per second by the point I see aggro peeling minus the average DPS I parsed at. That's not quite accurate though. I can probably figure out my average by crunching some numbers. Thanks again for the input. I think I'll keep this build for a while longer.
Enrage@Venekor wrote: highly doubt that because my 1 hander is 10 less DR then yours and i do 600 in defensive stance auto attack with max double attack too.
Enrage@Venekor wrote: That is impressive, but I for one don't like to throw numbers out there without stating other various factors. Like what your dps mod / haste was at. Were you grouped / solo. If grouped did you have mage procs, assasin procs, a dirge, and various other goodies as buffs etc.
saying what you auto attack for should mean your baseline... not fully raid buffed in a dps group on an encounter with 8 mobs etc. What you auto attack for is solo vs one mob, not situational encounters/groups. If we are talking situational, hell i can auto attack for 2k in the right group with CoB with my 1 hander. Which is why i think its BS untill i see a parse
I took the opportunity with the respec given in the last update to drop the 10% hate gain from STR. I tossed the extra points into Executioner's Wrath and Buckler Reversal (to max them out). I knew that wouldn't be enough DPS to make up for the hate loss, but I wanted to see if it was a noticeable loss. IMHO, it was quite noticeable. After two days, I'm back to 4488 STR, 4588 STA. I'll say this, too. Holding aggro wasn't an issue for me. It was picking up ("snap") aggro that was noticeable. Say you have an overnuking warlock who just AoE'd and attracted the attention of the entire next room. The warlock has initial aggro on those mobs. With the 10% hate gain, there was a world of difference getting aggro off of him than without it. It's a bit odd. I didn't notice it being easier when I first picked up that ability. I only noticed it after it was gone.
Anyone know off-hand if the STR line hate gain bonus stacks with the Dirge hate song? You're only allowed one hate modifier usually. I know that were I put in a situation where I had a weapon that surpassed the Sword of Runic Omens, I'd likely put some points into the hate bonus, it just seems futile if it doesn't stack with dirge. I rarely lose threat in groups, so not interested in it from a non-raid perspective.
If I'm not mistaken, a dirge's and a coercer's stack. I don't see why this wouldn't also. Though, I don't recall any confirmation regarding that. (yes, that also begs the question if you have that much hate already, why do you need another 10%?) Our guard likes to run with a dirge, a coercer, and the transfer from a swashbuckler in the MT group on AoE fights. I'm going to assume they all stack. Our warlocks seem to notice when one is missing.
i couldnt say 100% for sure, but i can verify that coercer, dirge, wiz/war, assasin and swash hates will all work in conjunction with eachother so i would assume that our hate works as well. I can also tell you that i have the same raid group every day, and the one day i respeced and took my hate away it was much harder to keep agro.
[p]To answer the OPs question, which I think this thread is moving away from, the AA line you choose really depends on how YOU like to play. You will always getting different points of view about each line because different players want different things from their character. [/p][p]Some people want to maximise their DPS for various reasons (hate gain, bragging rights etc). Some people play a raid MT and need extra hate gain due to the lack of agro holding abilities the zerker has compared with the Guardian. etc etc etc[/p][p]I think it would be easer for you to choose a line that is right for you if you knew exactly what you can get from each line. I will post my thoughts and maybe people can advise on any errors[/p][p]STR Line - Melee Crit chance, Hate gain and some nice DPS if you are either using an axe and/or under 50% health. This line is really only for Main Tanks. If you are an off-tank I dont see the point in building up your hate gain in this manner. I would suggest using buckler line instead[/p][p]Agi Line - +defence and loads of AOE damage. Nice if you are planning to fly through a lot of group instances with a warlock and a shaman for example. Just pull the room and burn em all down. Not really good for raiders as the encounters where you need the extra dps tend to be single target encounters and most of the time when there are adds these get mezzed or off-tanked (sometimes forcing you to trun off your buff). The Ultimate in this line works nice from the point of view of room pulling as you can bang in a 12s immunity to non-magic attacks if things going horribly wrong. [/p][p]STA Line - up to 75% extra chance to double attack, more +block to counter the loss from not using tower shield, extra dps when you are getting hit that does not use power and a way to reduce power used. This one is a MUST IMO if you are not the main tank as the extra dps helps keep you at the top of the hate table in case you need to take over when the MT goes down. It really a matter of opinion as to whether you should use it as a main tank. Of the two top raiding guilds on our server, one has a main tank with Tower Shield and one uses buckler. They both seem to be working out just fine as they take down the hardest encounters in the game with their spec. Doing DPS without having to use power is really nice for a MT expecially since a massive amount of named epic encounters use power drain. The ultimate in this line helps if you find you are having a lot of power trouble.[/p][p]Wis Line - Extra mitigation and resists. Extra DPS from belly smash if you are not fighting epics. Implied extra defence from the ultimate since it removes the penalties of your stances. This line used to be brilliant but since they changed Mitigation , once you get over 5000 you will see diminishing returns and the extra benefit you get is not really worth the points. You may still choose this line if your mitigation is low and you dont raid but most players will advise that you increase your mitigation by getting better gear and use the points elsewhere.[/p][p]Int Line - Haste , more haste if you use a sword, +parry and faster reuse timers temporarily on CAs. A lot of raiders will choose this line to comliment the STA line as +parry items are harder to come by. Also, if you are double attacking 75% of the time the haste and increased CA timers works very nice.[/p][p] [/p][p]I personally have specced Sta 4-5-8-8-2, int 4-4-6-8 . I play a Raid off/secondary tank and I group a bit too. This spec allows me to stay high on the hate table with the extra dps but still holds a certain amount of avoidance in case I end up tanking. I have a fabled buckler and fabled Slash sword.[/p][p]Hope this helps you make the right choice for you[/p][p] [/p][p]Muraha[/p]
[p]Maruha, im taking that exact build myself when i get the fable Buckler out of Freethinkers off Shredder. only differance will be i want the INT final. [/p][p]How is that build working for u? how much aviod/block do u have? Mit? what seems to be ur average DPS? has ur hate gain increased?[/p][p] [/p]
[p]Will have to come back to you on that. I only got the Freethinkers buckler on Saturday and have not been on since. I will test it properly over the coming week and let you know. You can view my stats as they stand at the moment at http://eq2players.station.sony.com/characters/character_profile.vm?characterId=228765303[/p][p] [/p][p]Muraha[/p]
[p]Ok here we go[/p][p]Before I was Specced AGI and Wisdom[/p][p]Allies: (01:01:20) 42287562 | 11491,19 [Brunzki-Decapitate-23835] Nortystormee 4925733 | 1338,51 Snacky 3742539 | 1016,99 Ooooo 3516232 | 955,50 Ratius 3067828 | 833,65 Aurus 2973519 | 808,02 Laddieramma 2837452 | 771,05 Brunzki 2630784 | 714,89 Oshabat 2445215 | 664,46 Elastar 1985329 | 539,49 Coco 1969174 | 535,10 Haelia 1862112 | 506,01 Kicea 1655973 | 449,99 Keikun 1570162 | 426,67 [size="small"][face="courier new,courier"]Muraha 1404245 | 381,59[/face][/size] Flip 1346022 | 365,77 Bellows 1120601 | 304,51 Anadin 1017306 | 276,44 Mlle 889314 | 241,66 Doom 342239 | 93,00 Indurkin 307331 | 83,51 Idolvo 236260 | 64,20 Death 129906 | 35,30 Kenny 117879 | 32,03 Eowen 74115 | 20,14 Minion of Evil 35288 | 9,59 Nelfia 35283 | 9,59 Argyle 29974 | 8,15[/p][p]Now, I specced to the posted setup earlier (STA with freethinkers buckler, Int )[/p][p]Allies: (51:08) 41806360 | 13626,58 [Brunzki-Decapitate-25226"> Brunzki 5149920 | 1678,59 Nortystormee 4446578 | 1449,34 Kallarn 4291551 | 1398,81 Ooooo 3213487 | 1047,42 Mareth 2917107 | 950,82 Aurus 2840692 | 925,91 [size="small"][face="courier new,courier"]Muraha 2679680 | 873,43[/face][/size] Laddieramma 2619046 | 853,67 Oshabat 2433114 | 793,06 Ratius 2329583 | 759,32 Xaka 1587879 | 517,56 Kicea 1468148 | 478,54 Keikun 1163994 | 379,40 Bellows 1150750 | 375,08 Coco 1071702 | 349,32 Redfury 835809 | 272,43 Doom 466552 | 152,07 Idolvo 381264 | 124,27 Kogaj 285433 | 93,04 Eowen 232668 | 75,84 Oskar 55333 | 18,04 Ragga 44091 | 14,37 Anadin 35013 | 11,41[/p][p] [/p][p]It seems to be working out [/p]
I can't resist asking you.....If you're so happy with tower shield tanking (as said in another thread), why are you going to the STA line?
[p] I have some RL things going on and i am rolling back into a more ST/OT role on our raids. We have a very nicely geared guardian who has been made more availaible recently to MT.[/p][p]The Tower w/ Agil,INT APs are my preffered defensive build for my MTing purposes. However i feel that ST/OT is better suited by a Buckler/INT AP build to float hate just under the MT cuz of the much improved DPS and the possability of only 1 HateXfer in the ST group. That lets u retain power while holding hate above most of the raid in case of a accident happens. Given the MT is up for a min on Named for debuffage or 1,2 adds peel into the raid, Buckler build can quickly pick them up.[/p][p]If my guildneeds me to step back up some time in the future i will AP back to my current build.[/p]
