Looking for some AA Ideas

[Slaashz]

Hey all finally hit up level 85 and looking to work on my aa's. I need some help on figuring out what it more important for me to work on and what is least important.

I am currently the only Paladin in my Guild and i have been ask to be more of a Tank in some of our UF and SoD groups and also now have gotten the ramp tank roll on raids. So I'm looking to up my tanking ability and survival rate in the Later SoD zones and the new UF expansion.

[petain]

If your goal is to be an effective tank in group, here is what I would do if I were you.

1. My weapon setup would be a 1H and shield combo. This setup, along with the "Shield Block" AA would be better than a 2H setup in terms of survivability.

2. The gears for the rest of the slots would have the highest possible AC, Shielding, HP, Avoidance, Stun Resist, Accuracy, Combat Effect in that order of importance.

3. The AA path I'd take:

Shield Block - block the incoming attack altogether (works only if you have a shield equipped)
Combat Agility - Evade the incoming attack altogether
Combat Stability - Reduce the damage from incoming attack
Natural Durability - Increasing HP (based on your base HPs and STA stat, so make sure your STA is as high as possible)
Planar Durability - Increase HP
Physical Enhancement - mitigation boost, avoidance boost, increase durability
Steadfast Will - At the highest level, you would be immuned to melee stun (according to Hulking)
Force of Disruption - Interrupt casting/Hate generation and have a chance to heal yourself if you have Healing Light AA
General Sturdiness - Add 100HP for each rank
Shield Specialist - Increase damage with 1H weapon
Knight's Advantage - Increase chance of double attack
Mystical Attuning - Add 1 more buff slot for each rank (if you found yourself out of buff slots)
Blessing of Life - Chance to heal yourself with each swing
Weapon Affinity - Increace chance of weapon proc
Healing Light - Chance to heal yourself when you cast a stun spell

That's the basic of tanking. Once you're done you might want to work on your damage increasing and healing AAs, depending on your play style.

[Slaashz]

Awesome i have a lot of them AA's Close to being maxed or been working on them. Also been working on getting Ac augs in every slot for my gear.

Thanks for the Information will help me out alot.

[Peaky]

Get at least one rank of knight's return strike before any/all of the other things you're considering. This one aa alone will decrease damage intake significantly for a cheap aa cost (it makes you immune to riposte damage).

[Brohg]

[Silverboltt]

[Hulkling]

Rank 1 makes you immune to Mobs Riposting your swings. Ranks 2 and 3 just increase the chance to bash when you successfully riposte.

So get Rank 1 ASAP, and yes you'll be able to eat enrage

[StPauli]

Personally i would do Shield Specialist close to the top of that list, for the number of aa it costs the dps return is pretty hefty, this will get things dead faster. I would also put Force of disruption a bit higher on the list, it is a nearly instant cast free big aggro stun that you can cast while other spells are grayed out. Very nice Aggro tool and again, relatively low aa cost to max out compared to the CS/CA grind. 2 other AA I would put high on the list are Immobilizing bash and Overpowering strikes, these 2 aa make it more likely you will stun opponents with bash and such, if they are stunned they cant fight back so this is pretty big for your mitigation. Like Brohg said Armor of Wisdom is raw ac, you don't get a ton per level, maybe 7 per level, but its worth getting. Since your already at 20 ca / 20 cs I would suggest getting all the above AA before you continue on with the CA/CS grind. Shield block should be your first AA still though, that is a huge increase to tankability with a shield. Then after the CA/CS grind you can do the HP AA's like general sturdiness and Delay death.


My list would go more like this:

Physical Enhancement and CA/CS until they start getting really expensive.... which you already have
Knights Return strike lvl 1
Shield Block
Shield Specialist
Immobilizing Bash
Overpowering Strikes
Force of Disruption
Armor of Wisdom
Combat Agility
Combat Stability
Natural Durability
Planar Durability
Steadfast Will
General Sturdiness
Delay Death
other fun stuff dps /healing aa and such

This is just my personal opinion, I think the CA/CS grind takes too long with a rather minimal return to put it higher then these other, quicker to get aa's, which will make the grind a lot easier.

[Brohg]

[StPauli]

Ah... that is a good point, I was not really thinking about it as just being a damage bonus. Since it does not make you swing any faster i believe what Brohg said is correct, and it will not help you hold aggro as I initially suggested. I would still suggest getting it early on just for the dps alone. I would guestimate it to be ~20% increase to dps with a 1hander. This will probably depend on what weapon you are using, and I think the better the weapon the less of an effect it will have to your overall dps, but its a fairly sizable upgrade to dps none the less and will make farming the aa's go by that much faster.

TY for correcting me on that though, was a rather important slip.

[Brohg]

Shield Specialist is a damage multiplier. The better your weapon the more dps you'll get from it.

[StPauli]

The AA description reads that it is a "damage bonus" not a damage multiplier. To me that says that it gives you a certain amount extra damage per hit based on the delay of the weapon. 1 hand weapons however get a constant damage bonus no matter what their delay is, or if it changes it is capped at something we knights have surpassed long ago because all the weapons I've had for years have the same damage bonus. Either way, If the aa only adds to the weapons "damage bonus" as the description reads, then no matter what weapon you use, as long as your level is constant, a 1hander will get the same added dps out of shield specialist, thus a better weapon that is a higher dps would gain less % wise then a weaker weapon. If you gain 200 dps from shield specialist no matter the weapon, a 600 dps weapon gains 25% where as an 800 dps weapon gains 20%.

Now if the description of the aa is not meant to be read literally as a "damage bonus" and is indeed a damage multiplier, then yes, it may very well add more dps to a better weapon then a weaker one. I have no proof of this either way however, so I can not confirm or deny this. I'd sure like to see some parses saying that it is a damage multiplier vs a damage bonus if you can link them. I can't say as that I care all that much to bother going and parsing them myself, I was only posting to give a suggestion that the guy gets the aa to better his character. I already have shield specialist and am very happy with the returns either way so /shrug, all I can do is assume that SoE labels the AA as close to the truth as they could. Being that there is a fairly large difference between an increase to "damage bonus" and a damage multiplier I would have thought they would not use the term "damage bonus" when referring to a weapon AA since that is already a statistic, but who knows.

[Cellan]

The AA description on Slay Undead never spoke the truth either.