Here's a gear/stat question for you mdps.

In the next few months, I'll have to choose between a invader/tyrant combo or a invader/conq combo. I've done the numbers using excell and the stats difference comes down to this:

I/T combo will have the following stats vs I/C (negatives are in parenthesis):
str (36)
wounds 70
toughness 62
willpower 35
armor 136
crit reduction 3
melee crit (5)

So overall, if I go with the I/T combo, I lose somewhat of an offensive edge but gain a pretty decent defensive edge. If I go with the I/C combo, I gain a fair increase in offense, but lose a large amount of defense.

In the end, for you all mdps folks, what's more important? To hit a tad harder or hit a tad softer, but gain a larger defensive side?

At the moment, since I'm sitting towards the front lines as a melee WP healing tanks and other mdps, I'm leaning towards I/T combo (especially since if I live longer, WH/WL/etc live longer and they will ALWAYS do more damage than me anyways.)

Side question: What's better? 12 hitpoints/4 seconds or 51 toughness? I'm thinking 51 toughness.

» Edited on: 2009-11-06 16:18:32

Okay so I could say strike a balance but that's the boring answer, personally for me I try to maximize my Strength since that leads to more damage dealt by all my abilities, but if I didn't have the defensive abilities that I have now (Repel Blasphemy 100% parry for 5 seconds) I would probably look into more of a defensive build since if you're dead you can't do any damage. The reason why at this RR level (58) I don't put too much stock in toughness is because in order to reach my full potential I at least need to reach the soft cap for strength, diverting too many points in other areas besides strength, melee crit, and weapon skill would water down my career potency, kind of put me into the jack of all trades master of none category. Usually I emphasize Strength, Melee crit, and Melee power and after those are good I think about the wounds and then toughness. I like the way the Invader/Tyrant set looks 70 wounds and 62 toughness is amazing, If you are losing a large amount of defense for only a marginal gain in offense I would go for the defensive route since talismans and strength pots are in abundance and should probably even things out, and if you are indeed in the front lines healing the tanks and MDPS it would definitely benefit the group being that you can stand up to the initial assault, giving tanks time to knock the uglies away and the MDPS a chance to focus on soft targets. For your side question I think toughness simply because it should let you take more damage and since you will have the option to heal yourself it should mean even if silenced for the 3 to 4 seconds on average you will mitigate more damage, making things less urgent lending you more time to heal yourself in a frantic situation. Of course this is kind of hard to answer being that I am not familiar with the abilities and tactics you're using which in my experience can alter things vastly. For instance I myself am on a pretty cookie cutter build for my Witch Hunter with one small exception I am moving away from crit gear (Dark Promise) to the Invader (5% disrupt) for 4 pieces which is usually a no no, but I'm running a tactic that essentially grants all my abilities 35% more damage if I disrupt any spell. Usually I would only be focusing on the Melee crit, strength , and melee power as stated above but because of my tactic choice and my speccing for 'Shroud of Magnus' (100% disrupt for 7 seconds) I have been focusing on the invader set which lowered my crit rate to 14% rather than the 18 to 20 I have standard. P.S. I hope I answered some of what you were looking for if not forgive me I'm tired or reply back and I'll focus on any part, I'm up for any discussion really, also if you'd like to show the tactics and abilities that you're working with I can look at wardb and maybe try to analyze it further. Believe me I have respecced my mastery and rr trainer thousands of times and looked over the armor sets much more than that trying to figure out what would be A) beneficial for my personal style and B) what would help my fellow order members the most it some times drives me crazy hehe. Grolyn

Thanks Groyln, I LOVE someone picking things apart for me. The ONLY tactic that would affect my build (one I actually don't have atm, but I probably should get) is "Guilty Soul" which "Any time you critically hit with a Path Of Wrath ability, your target will suffer an additional 555 Spirit Damage over 9 seconds. Your defensive target will also be healed for any damage dealt." So if I get a crit (in just wrath moves mind you) I get healed for 555 (8.5% of my current health). By the time I get to rr 55 I should be at about 31% melee crit (or 26% crit if I do I/T) or higher if I get a better weapon. Right now I set at about 700 str with a 114 str boost from Sigmar's fist a dmg attack with a self buff (end up at 814 str with current gear or 778 with the I/T gear (-36)). I probably won't be able to get it much higher since liniments and my self buff don't stack and I have 5/6 of my talismans are +23 str. If I do go for "Guilty Soul," I won't be able to take "Sigmar's Grace" which gives my WHOLE group 76 wounds (+760) (granted this doesn't stack with liniments, but you could then use other liniments). So there's a trade off of 555 dmg to opponent/simultaneous heal for 555 over 9 seconds -OR- 760 hp for each person in my group. I think "Sigmar's Grace" in the end might be better. Overall I think I might still go for I/T gear. But keep examining this for me, the more folks I have picking my gear options apart the stronger my character will be.

What are your total stats with your renown bonuses? I like to look at the bigger picture. If you are losing 36 points in STR but already have 1000, then meh, you are already too high in STR anyway, that's not a real lose. The lose of (5%) chance to melee crit makes me cry. As a melee DPS I would try avoid losing that stat at what cost I can. That's the WL in me. As a WP, it's kind of so so. I think I would opt for the better defense. As WP can become small tanks in certain situations. Side question: Yes, I agree toughness is better. 51 toughness is going to reduce every strike against you by 10.5DPS. 12HP every 4 seconds is only 3HPS. So though not regenative, the advantage of toughness (that always works) is much better.

Atm here's ALL my stats: ~800 str with sigmar's buff 382 toughness with greave of sigmar 649 wounds 273 weapon skill 149 initiative (23.5% chance to be crit) 405 willpower With I/T gear setup + sigmar's grace (76 wounds) + Swift Tergiversation liniment (60 weapon skill, -5% chance to be crit), I should be about: 864 str 455 toughness 808 wounds 333 weapon skill 143 initiative (15.5% chance to be crit) 366 willpower 26% chance to crit (instead of 31%) Toughness looks great, wounds is fantastic, weapon skill is where I want it to be, chance to be crit could be better, 864 str isn't bad, but I'd love to get closer to 1000 (I'm just not sure how), willpower I really don't care about (it's just a side benefit), 26% melee crit is good, but could be better. Overall it's not shabby. Here's what it would be if I did I/C gear setup instead: 904 str 398 toughness 742 wounds 333 weapon skill 149 initiative (18.5% chance to be crit) 388 willpower 31% melee crit (lose 91 armor) So I'd lose ~660 hitpoints, 57 toughness, 5% crit reduction, 91 armor, but gain 5% more melee crit and 40 str. Tough trade off.

» Edited on: 2009-11-08 12:08:02

Hey, you've probably never met me, but this is a good question so I'm going to give it a shot. When you are dead you have lost. Simple as that, but i'll explain. First you have to look at how some stats work. Wounds is a flat 10 hp per 1 wound. Wounds is a tier 2 renown rank ability with a 1 rr : 2 wounds ratio payout. Wounds is the most important stat for a soloer, someone who doesnt trust their healers, or someone who regularly fights against larger groups than their own. The reasoning is simple with more hp as a soloer you live longer, and have more time to react with running away, etc before death. Also wounds gives your healers a buffer of time to heal you before death. I'll get more into this when I talk about toughness. Toughness literally decreases the amount of damage that all enemies do to you. For every 5 toughness there is 1 less dps. So at 500 toughness you decrease dps by 100. This is considerable because this is a flat negative decrease from the chars strength / int, before the weapon and other modifiers are added. For instance. Lets say X has 1000 str, so has a 200 dps modifier to his wep / skill lvl. If you have 500 toughness then you decrease X's modifier down to 100. This means he does close to half his original damage to you. Toughness is so powerful though, because it doesnt only affect how much X is hitting you for, but also how much Y,Z, and the other 4 people assisting trying to kill you are hitting you for. Toughness makes everyone you face worse, its got a distributive power to it that carries over to everyone who tries to kill you. On the otherhand, DPS stats do not have this distributive power. It affects your single target and no more (except for AOE, but this is far less all-encompassing than EVERYONE). SO unless you are a WH who ganks soloers, defensive stats realy help. While your str going from 500 to 1000 doubles your dps from 100 to 200, this in the end is only one or two targets where you will no doubt be up against more enemies. Even though I'm saying half and double damage, its exactly that, but relatively close. Maybe some of this made sense, maybe not. Just my 2 cents and what is pretty much required from my guild. I'd highly recommend 800 wounds and 500 toughness for all, then offense / healing stats after that. Get the toughness renown ranks from the trainer. Also toughness pots go a long way. Anyways if you have any questions, feel free to ask. Gimba RR66 Irony

» Edited on: 2009-11-08 09:18:16

» Edited on: 2009-11-09 14:09:53

I definitely appreciate your input Gimba. Sounds like I want 500 toughness then. I can get close with I/T combo, but my own abilities (Sigmar's greave=114 toughness) don't stack with toughness liniments. Are there any toughness potions that will stack on my buffing abilities?

No potions stack with a buff of the same stat. Kind of an unfortunate mechanic, but its just how it is, atleast how it was when I last played alot like 2 months ago.

Well I can probably live with 450ish toughness. I don't think I can get it much higher with any other set of gear. Thanks for all three of your inputs. It sounds like I would be better off with I/T gear. I just have to get it then. :) Any idea of where Tyrant helm drops?

wow lots of useful information here ty

Every class is different but I think the Invader/darkpromise is best combo. You can go on the test server to test this making a template for your class or or others as well. You get pretty close to capping in your classes primary needs ( i.e str, bal etc..) and then can invest in oter talismans for init, WS or wounds. FYI, I made some destro toons on the PTS to see how they are setup to better defend agaist them i.e. a chosen does sp damage that by passes armor and has a crit hit tatic for 15% etc... Ravage is the best tank attack I have seen and is borderline DPS attack rather than tank attack. The one I made had and crit hit rate of 33% given he was rr80

For melee WP, Darkpromise won't help. That's our healing set. Great to use for maxing healing stats though if we so choose.

Gimba, What are your thoughts on initiative? Is is not important to get your %to be crit chance down as low as possible, like below 10%?

Arbrior, Thats a good question. My thought is that there are only so many stats that you can focus on before you're just not very good at anything. That being said I do try to focus on decreasing my % to be critted, but I do that directly thouugh -% to be crit items. There are many jewelery peices and back items that directly decrease your percentage to be crited. I've seen these type of items from city dungeons, from 5-star keeps, and many of these items are from Lost Vale (such as 3rd boss on right, and final boss of right). I'd highly recommend these items to lower your percentage to be crit. As far as initiative goes though, I find that I would rather focus on toughness because its a direct decrease to the amount of dps. On the other hand, even if initiative says you have a percent to be crit, this isn't exactly correct because there is a still a formula between your % to be crit compared to enemies percent to crit. Thus, its only half as powerful as toughness For instance. Enemy has 50% chance to crit. You have 10% chance to be crit. Therefore split the difference and 30% chance ur crit. If you have a ton of initiative and got your percent to zero, then your actual percent to be crit vs the same person would be 25%. This is only a 5% decrease actual, where stat wise it takes 10% decrease to get 5% less. Thereby, its only half as effective, but still important so that you arent constantly critted.