Stat Priority

[Nuada]

Curious as to what everyone's thoughts were on your stats priorities?

I was thinking for my build of K/H In descending order
Strength>Weapon>Toughness>Wounds>Initiative

HERE (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/articles/showentry.php?e=3) is the link to the stats in case you forgot.

[Deshiva]

Weapon>Strength>Toughness>Wounds>Initiative

Will be trying to get a mixture of all three paths, going to look into it more once I can play.

[Mournblade]

Toughness > Weapon > Inititive > Wounds > Strength

After all, we are a tank class.

[Vimes]

Wounds - Weapon - Toughness - Initiative - Strength

The gaps are not big, however.

[Ashuran]

Hoeth spec Swordmaster:

Toughness > Wounds > Initiative > Intelligence > Strength

We are tanks and we make up the front lines, first and foremost, so the damage reducing stats are the most important.

I go with intelligence after the damage reducing stats because I will be mainly Hoeth spec and will be doing a lot of magical damage with my sword. I don't need Weapon because Weapon is for bypassing armor, and my magical damage bypasses all armor by nature. Weapon is also for parrying attacks, but I can receive some of that from Strength. Intelligence and Strength also increase my block chance, which is great when I need to use a shield for tanking PvE bosses or choking a PvP strategic point.

[GavinGoblin]

Balance is the key to glory.

[Elwyndas Ellorian]

Strength/Strength/Strength/Toughness/Wounds

May be toss in some weaponskill on the side.

[Mournblade]

Hoeth spec Swordmaster:

Toughness > Wounds > Initiative > Intelligence > Strength

We are tanks and we make up the front lines, first and foremost, so the damage reducing stats are the most important.


Might wanna throw some weapon skill in there, it increases parry rate.

[Bahn]

Toughness, Toughness, and some more toughness. Wounds if you are feeling froggy.

As the first one to engage the front lines (i.e. the one most likely to be tab targetted by the assist train) the more toughness and wounds you have, the longer you can stay up while your buddies lay'm low.

[Delolith]

Strength/Strength/Strength/Toughness/Wounds

May be toss in some weaponskill on the side.

I would say Strength = Toughness > Wounds > WS > the rest. This is what I will try to achieve.

Delolith

[Freddeh]

I'd actually go WS = Toughness > Wounds > Strength...Better parry chance helps a lot for tanking imho...and the magical damage will be decent...maybe speccing int a bit higher than strength or wounds since im planning to throw some Hoeth in too...

[Doodardle]

Weapon - Toughness - Strength - Wounds - Willpower - Initiative - Ballistic - Int

Khaine/Vaul

[Delolith]

I'd actually go WS = Toughness > Wounds > Strength...Better parry chance helps a lot for tanking imho...and the magical damage will be decent...maybe speccing int a bit higher than strength or wounds since im planning to throw some Hoeth in too...

You have to remember that the magical damage you are refering to it is not just a spell cast on your enemy. It is a melee attack that delivers the magical energy through your blow. I would wait and see if strength or intelligence benefits those attacks. I would be very disappointed if intelligence is the stat that benefits these attacks because that means even more spread out stats for the swordmaster that seems to need so many already. So in this I would probably think that strength is the stat that benefits the melee magically hitting attacks as well;)

Delolith

[Enelysios]

I will be:
Weaponskill > Initiative > Strength > Toughness > Wounds.

Maybe:
Weaponskill > Initiative > Strength > Wounds > Toughness.

Hit hard and evade their attacks. Khaine/Hoeth

[EasymodeX]

Broad analysis based on public stat information:

1. Swordmasters are tanks. This means they have naturally high armor and high Wounds -- there is no likelihood of getting instagibbed in RvR. Also, there is an assumption that you will get some heals in RvR. Therefore, stats to improve mitigation will be superior to +Wounds. Therefore, Wounds is obsolete (IMO). No Wounds.

2. Assumption: Hoeth-based magical damage attacks are ?? based. Needs testing. I presume that they are likely Str-based for various reasons I won't share. But, need more concrete testing and such ... Conclusion -- No Int.

3. Weapon Skill improves parry and armor penetration ... who are we attacking again using what sort of damage? If you're using physical damage, then this may be important. If you're using magic damage, then not so much. Furthermore, are you attacking their tanks, their light melee DPS, or their clothies? This is a playstyle question. For me, I will be intercepting light melee and attacking healers and , and using mostly non-physical damage ... No WSkill.

Furthermore, who needs parry when we have heavy armor levels (and optionally shields)? Our armor is OVER 9000 already, no need to parry melee DPS classes tbh.

4. Initiative is for range physical DPS? And some anti-crit on the side. Sounds good, but crits will not phase us, as we already have heavy mitigation in general -- we can afford to be crit, and we will not die before a healer can compensate, if it's even necessary. Furthermore, what archer would target us when we, again, have armor OVER 9000? No Initiative.

5. Int. Hopefully magic-type sword attacks are Str-based. 'Nuff said.

6. Will. Chance to wtfignore spell damage? That would be neat. Unfortunately we do not get the primary benefit (+heal value).


This leaves us with ...

1. Str. In my role of intercepting light melee skirmishers (es with WSkill and Str), I will need to bypass their parry to execute my role (including debuffs, etc). Sign me up.

2. Toughness. If my base heavy armor already reduces physical dps by a lot, then Toughness makes me very, very hard to kill by any melee that wants to mess with me. Also, it reduces the damage from magic attacks. That's key. Along with general magic resists available, a strong Toughness rating will make me a to kill, allowing me to debuff and protect for a long time.

Under a tanking paradigm / interception / protection playstyle, a Swordmaster would want high Str followed by Toughness. Str increases all damage, and most importantly reduces opponent mitigation -- and our likely targets would have medium to low armor (relatively speaking -- we have base WSkill as well). STR is first in order to successfully be effective.

However, standing in the middle of a battle, debuffing the enemy and buffing your team would make the enemy very mad and likely to attack you. Not to mention, you have a lot of mitigation and you want to do everything in your power to make the enemy attack YOU and not your team. Toughness wins as second, here. Toughness in order to sustain your effectiveness that is bought by STR.

Thinking over the whole thing again, I'll add WSkill and Wounds as tied for distant 3rd place, when you want to take your tanking skills and run in front of 30 baddies that want you dead -- the extra HP will help you hold against the burst DPS of 10 enemies, and the WSkill to fend off high DPS light melee.

Summary: STR, Toughness ..... WSkill/Wounds


Under an offensive DPS paradigm (Path of Khaine perhaps), a Swordmaster would need more WSkill and purchase some spell resists via other means. Diving into the enemy lines to their support / softies means you're running through their melee (wtb Parry), archers (wtb a little Initiative), all their spellcast DPS both offensive and defensive based (wtb spell resists or something ? and Toughness).

But ... hold it, first effectiveness, THEN sustainment. To be effective, a diving Swordmaster first needs to unload DPS on the enemy softy. This means STR first, along with WSkill (fewer magic-based attacks, we're not talking Hoeth here, for the most part -- need the armor penetration for max DPS). On the aside, the WSkill will help us fend off enemy tanks and so on. So STR, WSkill, Toughness.

Summary: STR, WSkill, Toughness ..... Wounds.

[Enelysios]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I believe that swordmasters are based more heavily on parrying and debuffing melee and dismissing magic than on toughness and wounds. That style of tanking is the ironbreaker. Axe+shield and heavy armor. Swordmasters can use shields, but we are also designed to be able to tank shieldless. Less heavy-armored rambo and more skillful martial master.

I quote:

"Although Swordmasters are well-armored (http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Armor) by Elven standards, they are different from the other defensive careers in that they focus not so much on absorbing damage as avoiding damage, using both combination attacks and magic to deflect and misdirect attacks, while performing the traditional duties of the tank - protecting allies from harm and redirecting attacks from enemies from their allies to themselves."

http://warhammeronline.wikia.com/wiki/Swordmaster

EDIT: Also, please never use the term "OVER 9000" again. It pains me.

I forgot that initiative is very different from TT though (I keep thinking it sppeds up attacking O.o ) so I will change to: Weaponskill>Strength>Toughness>Initiative>Wounds

[EasymodeX]

Sorry to burst your bubble, but I believe that swordmasters are based more heavily on parrying and debuffing melee and dismissing magic than on toughness and wounds.

I think you missed the analysis part.

I'm repeating a lot of what I posted above, but here it goes:

1. You need to be effective. Effective means you land your debuffs. In order to land your debuffs and other general effects, one of the key things you'll need is STR in order to get through the WSkill-buffed Parry rates of the light melee that are running past you to facerape your support / dps.

If you try to snare someone and they parry, you're being that much less effective.


2. You need to survive.

How much WSkill (for Parry) do you think you'll need before melee opponents are not much of a threat? You already have huge physical damage mitigation from heavy armor, AND a shield (depends on gear and spec, but it's a likely option). Do you really need parry to further reduce a melee opponent's DPS? You do not parry arrows or spells.

Furthermore, how will WSkill (primarily boosts armor penetration, with Parry as a secondary effect) help you penetrate the armor of Witch Elves? They have so much armor right?

How much WSkill and +Parry will allow you to survive against 3 enemy Sorcs that don't like you?

Are you going to stack Willpower in order to resist spells?

Can you use a skill and Disrupt the five people nuking you at once?

[Enelysios]

I think you missed the analysis part.

I'm repeating a lot of what I posted above, but here it goes:

1. You need to be effective. Effective means you land your debuffs. In order to land your debuffs and other general effects, one of the key things you'll need is STR in order to get through the WSkill-buffed Parry rates of the light melee that are running past you to facerape your support / dps.

If you try to snare someone and they parry, you're being that much less effective.


2. You need to survive.

How much WSkill (for Parry) do you think you'll need before melee opponents are not much of a threat? You already have huge physical damage mitigation from heavy armor, AND a shield (depends on gear and spec, but it's a likely option). Do you really need parry to further reduce a melee opponent's DPS? You do not parry arrows or spells.

Furthermore, how will WSkill (primarily boosts armor penetration, with Parry as a secondary effect) help you penetrate the armor of Witch Elves? They have so much armor right?

How much WSkill and +Parry will allow you to survive against 3 enemy Sorcs that don't like you?

Are you going to stack Willpower in order to resist spells?

Can you use a skill and Disrupt the five people nuking you at once?

I did not miss the analysis. First of all, I have strength as my second most important skill. I can easily see why someone would make it No. 1.

The point of my post is not to argue about stat choices at all, but to merely remind you that the swordmaster is designed to be able to tank with a greatweapon, and his armor is not that great. You can go with a shield, but that is just one mastery path. The swordmaster relies on parry and dismissal, and has abilities that aid him here. It is not just my parry chance, it is also all the abilities and enhancements that allow me to do that better than anyone else. We have abilities to help us nullify offensive magic as well as to avoid melee attacks.

The traditional super heavy armor approach is the realm of the ironbreaker, he is designed as a sword-and-board heavy armor tank who is great at physical attacks. We are a more anti-magic tank focused around actively debuffing enemies and dodging attacks. (In retrospect, I should probably add willpower to my stats.) Once more, I am not arguing your stat choices, but your reasoning behind them.

This is all public knowledge. I cannot say anymore.

[EasymodeX]

The point of my post is not to argue about stat choices at all, but to merely remind you that the swordmaster is designed to be able to tank with a greatweapon, and his armor is not that great. You can go with a shield, but that is just one mastery path.

That is correct, which is why I listed more than one setup. The second one was STR-WSkill-Toughness (for a 2h skirmisher).

I thought I made it relatively clear that the first one was more focused on RvR tanking and group defense, whereas the second was more focused on DPS and skirmishing.
Even for a 2h Swordmaster, you still have a lot of armor.

Once more, I am not arguing your stat choices, but your reasoning behind them.

My reasoning is from a technical perspective of optimization for RvR combat, not from a stylistic perspective. As a general note, Swordmaster skills that are designed to disrupt casters do not result in the ability to tank magic. To survive in RvR, you will need to tank a lot of spell damage from angry Sorcs among other things.

Disrupting a single spellcaster, or even multiple, will not obviate the need to stack magical resists. The question is whether you want to stack Willpower (disrupts), WSkill (parry), and Initiative (dodge ranged attacks) .... or just get Toughness to mitigate all of the above.

The problem is that Will, WSkill, and Init are all hybrid effects. How much +healing are you getting from Will? How much armor pen matters for WSkill? How much -crit% matters from Initiative (and how much dodge matters at all for Swordmasters, lol).

A healer, for example, would take the Will to improve their healing and gain a natural spell resistance at the same time. They would also take Init as they can gain good benefit from both.

WSkill? A Swordmaster would gain minor benefit from the Parry, and minor benefit from the armor penetration. Minor * minor = minor benefit.

[lasmrah]

TL;DR version: Str >> Tou > (Wep) > Wou > Init > Will

So I tend to play a very offensive Swordmaster, always using a greatsword unless I'm tanking a PQ boss or keep lord. I find that in RvR, Swordmasters can play the role of heavy infantry. Not to harass and pick off targets like a MDPS can, but to place pressure on enemy lines until they break, or pressure offensive enemies and force them to retreat or stop attacking the healer or the like. We can also guard allies and protect them well, of course, we are a tank.

I read a couple people claiming Swordmaster armor is not that great, but that isn't true. Without trying to get large amounts of armor, I got 66% mitigation or so, with Aethyric Armor on going up to 79% mitigation. The reason we can supposedly 'tank with a greatsword' is that rather than having abilities that increase armor or block chance, we have Eagle's Flight which gives us more parry (still useful with a greatsword) and dragon's talon (reduce THEIR damage instead). Unfortunately a shield is still all but necessary to tank PQ bosses or keep lords or the like, at least in my experience.

Now, on to the original topic, stat priority. As I said before, this is for offensive tanks; I'm not sure how viable a sword and board high toughness/defense spec is, I haven't tried it. But swordmasters can very easily perform in the role I outlined above under one condition: we stack strength.

Why? Because the defenses you will get on gear just because you are a tank is high enough that one healer can keep you alive without your bar dropping while being focused fired by 3 tanks, or 2 RDPS/MDPS. This, I find, is enough in most situations. So by stacking strength I improve my damage to the point where I can pressure opponents with serious danger, especially after I taunt them (+30% damage until they damage me three times). I know a lot of people aren't going to be happy about this, and to them I say that I have not actually tried stacking tons of defenses, so maybe it does work, but this does too. In this role my Swordmaster will do about 80% of the damage of a MDPS/RDPS, certainly enough that opponents cannot ignore me, while still being able to defend other players with Guard or Challenge. As I said before, a heavy infantry sort of role.

A couple things make an offensive tank better than MDPS at defending our allies. First, guard is still huge; recently I guarded an archmage while a marauder beat on her, with guard and her heals she stayed over 90% health the entire time it took me to kill the marauder. A MDPS on the other hand wouldn't have been able to protect a healer as well, unless they could kill the enemy before the enemy could kill the healer, which isn't something you want to rely upon. Secondly, since we come with heavier armor and more survivability even when not going for it, once I do get enemies off of a healer I can survive while the healer heals themselves and then me, whereas a Witch Hunter *might* die. On the other hand, MDPS have much better burst and better DPS and so are better than us at quickly taking out healers and the like. As I said, we just apply serious pressure.

Anyway, after strength, it depends a little on spec. Intelligence and Ballistics are, of course, useless to us, so nevermind those. If you are Hoeth spec, you can also ignore weapon skill as you mostly deal spirit damage, which ignores armor anyway. Next I would go for Toughness, as it works against everything. If you aren't Hoeth I'd then go for weapon skill next, as it increases parry (defense against half the careers) and gives weapon penetration (important vs. other tanks). Next I would go for Wounds. It is fairly low here as tanks have a huge amount of health just from leveling, enough that healers have time to react. Still, it is higher than Initiative or Willpower as those stats only help against a relatively small number of classes. So that is how I arrive at the top ranking, with skipping Weapon skill if you are Hoeth.

[therealdecoy]

I'm using the stat descriptions found here (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54306) because they reflect what I've seen in-game. This post is for PoV Swordmasters.

Swordmasters are a "utility melee" class. Direct damage isn't as high of a priority as, say, a pure MDPS class. This is especially true in group-based PvE because of the powerful +hate abilities Swordmasters get. PoV Swordmasters in PvP aren't about killing quickly, or even at all. They're about outlasting. "I bet I can outlast you solo, and I bet I can help my team outlast your team more than you can do likewise." Mitigating/avoiding opponent DPS is the main role of PoV Swordmasters.

First off, Block rating is the most important avoidance stat. It works on all types of damage, and PoV Swordmasters need a high block rating if they plan to use Redirected Force (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9032) with any frequency.

Weapon Skill is more important than Strength. Weapon Skill increases your damage and your melee mitigation. Strength only increases damage. However, you'll already have a high melee avoidance with Eagle's Flight (http://www.wardb.com/spell.aspx?id=9007) and your Block chance, and because of this neither of these skills are high priorities until you find yourself needing to generate additional hate against monsters. However, I'm curious as to if Parry is calculated before Block in the equation that determines if a melee attack is avoided or not.

10 Toughness will reduce DPS against you by two, and 10 Wounds will increase your HP by 100. Toughness will always mitigate a certain percent of incoming DPS, but Wounds make the unreduced DPS a smaller percent of your total life. The two stats are equally important.

Willpower and Initiative are both situational stats. Toughness and Wounds are important in all situations. The more you expect to go up against magical and/or ranged DPS the more important Willpower and Initiative become. The same goes with the Spell Resistance stats and Armor for magic damage and physical damage, respectively. Initiative is slightly more important because of the incoming critical reduction.

In conclusion: Block Rating, Toughness, and Wounds are the three most important attributes. Weapon Skill comes in 4th place, followed by Initiative. The Situational attributes come next. Strength is only important if you have problems generating hate in PvE.

Sword and Board for life.

[lasmrah]

Just thought I'd put it here, thanks for giving the other perspective on Swordmasters here and in the other threads, therealdecoy! I didn't want to talk about Vaul swordmasters as I'm not familiar enough to talk about it, and I'm very glad someone else can give that stat priority for that form of swordmaster. Kudos!

[therealdecoy]

Not a problem. With the servers down it's nice to take a look at the Swordmaster forum and add my two cents into things. Hopefully I'll have more to say the more I play the class! :)

[Delolith]

Ok I will try to post my thoughts on this after testing a SM for over 6 months now. I usually do not tend to do this because I do not like being copycated. Anyway, here it goes. For me it is Str=Toughness, Wounds, WS, the rest...

Strength is your major damage stat. It increases the effectivity of all your attacks...even your spiritual ones since they are melee hits and it also makes your attacks more tough to be defended against.

Toughness should be as good as your strength if not more in case you are prefering battles with huge number. It is better than wounds because you have a big health pool already and probably the highest armour rating for a tank in the case you are using Aethyric armour. That means you take very little damage. In the end it pans out more effective than wounds.

Wounds are also very important.

Weaponskill is good in theory....what is bad is in actual fighting. Why? Because it reduces the physical mitigation of your enemy. But that is exactly the point....in my spec I am doing 90% spiritual damage...that means it is useless there. But you say it gives also parry chance.....yes which is reduced insanely with tactics and high strength profiles. That means Toughness > Weaponskill as primary defenssive stat.

At the moment I have a 40 ranked Swordmaster with 7300 health 480 Toughness and 340 Strength. Needless to say to take down any two people that are a couple of ranks below me is not a major feat...

Delolith

[therealdecoy]

Delo, what spec/role do you normally play in? I'm guessing that's RvR DPS with either PoK or PoH? If you've done any tanking is strength really that important?

I'm not trying to be critical. Just curious. Also, where does it say that Strength reduces your opponent's chance to defend against you're attacks. I swear I never saw that stated anywhere in-game.

[Delolith]

Delo, what spec/role do you normally play in? I'm guessing that's RvR DPS with either PoK or PoH? If you've done any tanking is strength really that important?

I'm not trying to be critical. Just curious.

I would not say that my role is RvR DPS. I still tank...and protect my fellow mates...but I do it through Khaine/Hoeth spec. It pans out for me that if I kill a marauder on my healer faster then I am doing my job as good. Yes strength is very important even on Vaul speced SM which I tried once.

Delolith

[therealdecoy]

I'm looking at the basic stat functions (http://www.warhammeralliance.com/forums/showthread.php?t=54306) and I don't see anything about Strength making your attacks harder to defend against. I also remember the Strength tooltip for Swordmasters on their character screen, and there was nothing that mentioned Strength doing such as well. Either Mythic is doing a really good job of hiding how Strength reduces opponents chances to defend, or that mechanic has been removed from the game.

[SKYeXile]

Delo, what spec/role do you normally play in? I'm guessing that's RvR DPS with either PoK or PoH? If you've done any tanking is strength really that important?

I'm not trying to be critical. Just curious. Also, where does it say that Strength reduces your opponent's chance to defend against you're attacks. I swear I never saw that stated anywhere in-game.

it says it when you mouse over strength on your character page, how much it reduces your opponents chance to defend by is unknown.

But when you saying tanking, are you refering to PvE tanking or PvP? I have played a swordmaster for many months nows and even specced fully into khaine i have no problems tanking, thats holding agro, damage reduction etc.

I have found for battlegrounds you would generally want to be specced more offensive based, you dont really get focused fire in bgs much and your generally chosen last as a target so speccing khaine means while they ignore you, you DPS their faces in while still using your AP drains, taunts and damage reduction abilities to essential "tank" your target, even if hes not targeting you.

In a zerg, well yea, i think you would want to be using a sword and board, running into a zerg means your generally going to get focused fired by the range on your approach and all the melee when you get to the zerg, but same thing again, speced khaine all i needed to do was change to using a board and my survivability went way up.

I do may stats in this order:

Strength, toughness, wounds/initiative and if i get weapon skill its a bonus, i don't worry about it since if i want to get through armor, ill use spirit attacks.

[radionstorm]

Im not in beta though if all things go accordingly I'll be playing tomorrow :grin:
anyway what no one in this thread has taken into account is how mythic values stats on their items. Id also like to refer people to http://disquette.wordpress.com/warhammer-online-melee-combat-mechanics/
as the information will prove very useful in helping to determine your stats. (just relinking it someone else discovered it)

Having said that I plan on rolling a Hoeth swordmaster valuing primarily strength and wounds and to a lesser extent toughness. Strength is obvious its our best damage stat. As for wounds over toughness, were going to be running around in heavy armor and as Hoeth there will be extra protection available to me, having a larger hp pool to take damage (and be healed to) seems like a better investment.
To me 100 hp > 1dps mitigation on auto attacks and 2dps mitigation on spells and abilities.

[faeral]

1. Str/Toughness.

2. Wounds.

3. Ini/WS/WP.

[faeral]

As for wounds over toughness, were going to be running around in heavy armor and as Hoeth there will be extra protection available to me, having a larger hp pool to take damage (and be healed to) seems like a better investment.
To me 100 hp > 1dps mitigation on auto attacks and 2dps mitigation on spells and abilities.

You might change your tune when you see how much damage a Sorc can unload. ;)

I think that there is an ideal threshold for Wounds that you should reach so that your healers can support you properly, but once you reach that threshold, boosting your mitigation will prove more beneficial in the long run to reduce burst.

[Delolith]

You might change your tune when you see how much damage a Sorc can unload. ;)

I think that there is an ideal threshold for Wounds that you should reach so that your healers can support you properly, but once you reach that threshold, boosting your mitigation will prove more beneficial in the long run to reduce burst.

I agree totally with this statement. Wounds will end up trivialising your healer's efforts because of the big heath pool. By increasing your survivability through mitigation (toughness, armour, resistances) your healer's heals gain in power compared to your opponent's damage. Of course wounds are very important...but for me Toughness > Wounds.

Delolith

[lasmrah]

Besides the advantage of Toughness making heals count for more over wounds, there is a really simple way of choosing which is better.

Consider 10 toughness = -1 dps auto attacks, -2 dps specials vs. 10 wounds = 100 health. With a greatsword, Swordmaster auto attack damage is 15-20% of total damage dealt, but let's be generous and underestimate how powerful toughness is and say auto attack is 25%. This means on average 10 toughness is worth -1.75 dps.

So, with that rough but safe guess, in order for 10 toughness to mitigate over 100 health against a single attacker you have to survive for 57 seconds or so. Let's round it up to a minute, over which -1.75dps mitigates 1.75 * 60 = 105 damage.

Against a single attacker, therefore, 10 toughness is absolutely better than 10 wounds if you fight for at least 1 minute. Against spellcasters you only have to survive 50 seconds, as they have no auto attack so it mitigates a full -2 dps.

For every additional person attacking you, you can divide the time by the number of people you are fighting, so against two people you need to survive 30 seconds, against 3 only 20 seconds, etc.

Now with heals, I think those numbers are reasonable to reach in RvR and most definitely always reached when tanking Heroes, so I'm definitely going for Toughness over Wounds.

[Risingashes]

...
For every additional person attacking you, you can divide the time by the number of people you are fighting, so against two people you need to survive 30 seconds, against 3 only 20 seconds, etc.
...

That actually doesn't make sense.

You'd be better off looking at it from this perspective:

Wounds benefit = 10 / (current max hp)

Toughness benefit = [ (DPS reduction) / (Average dps of enemies) ] * (proportion of enemy dps that is effected by toughness)

The toughness would be a bit hard to work out. But the number of people attacking you has absolutely nothing to do with either stats effectiveness.

[lasmrah]

That actually doesn't make sense.

You'd be better off looking at it from this perspective:

Wounds benefit = 10 / (current max hp)

Toughness benefit = [ (DPS reduction) / (Average dps of enemies) ] * (proportion of enemy dps that is effected by toughness)

The toughness would be a bit hard to work out. But the number of people attacking you has absolutely nothing to do with either stats effectiveness.

I still think my point was valid, let me try to explain it a little differently, if it still doesn't make sense could you point out why it doesn't matter?

From what I said earlier, I can safely say that Toughness reduces incoming damage from any career by some number more than -1.75 dps. For casters, it'll reduce by a full -2 dps as they have no auto attack, for classes heavily based on autoattack closer to -1.8 dps, but in any case less than -1.75, so I'm just playing it safe with underestimating toughness.

Wounds is easy; it extends your life by 100 health. What I was calculating was at what point has toughness caused you to take 100 less damage than you otherwise would have. Once toughness has removed more than 100 damage that you would have taken in a single fight, it has benefited you more than the wounds would have. If you die before it mitigates 100 damage, then toughness was less effective.

Toughness however applies to *every* opponent that is attacking you. So, against one opponent, it takes 58 seconds for the -1.75 damage per second to exceed 100 (at that point toughness has caused your opponent to deal 101.5 damage less to you). That is how I arrived at my 1 minute figure. By the time 1 minute has passed, toughness will have definitely mitigated more than 100 damage. So if you can survive more than 1 minute against a single opponent, toughness is a better choice.

Now, consider fighting two people. Both are outputting whatever dps against you, doesn't really matter. What matters is toughness reduces *both* of their damage rates by 1.75 damage per second. So, for every second you fight the pair of them, you take 3.5 less damage than you would have if you went with 10 wounds instead. Toughness is mitigating at twice the rate, as it functions against both enemies. In this situation, if you survive for 58 / 2 = 29 seconds, toughness will have mitigated 29 * 3.5 = 101.5 damage as before. In a fight against two enemies, toughness mitigates more than 100 health if you can survive roughly 30 seconds, and so extends your life more than 10 wounds would have.

The above scales evenly with the number of enemies you fight. Toughness scales with the number of enemies you fight because it reduces the dps of *every* person attacking you by a flat, static number. That number does not increase if a single source deals more damage, but it does apply again to every additional source of damage.

Does that make more sense?

[Trennet]

Thoughts on Corp Resistance? That's a Sorc's main school of magic. Does Sorc dmg, nailing you from afar while you are working over someone else, tend to be one of the major dangers of SM RvR?

[Aeri]

Thoughts on Corp Resistance? That's a Sorc's main school of magic. Does Sorc dmg, nailing you from afar while you are working over someone else, tend to be one of the major dangers of SM RvR?


Bumping resistances is basically the same as bumping your armor - the more you have, the more you mitigate. 1v1, even starting from max range, a single sorc would have a very hard time killing a well-played SM, even with low resistance. Between toughness (which reduces damage from all sources), disrupt chance (which is usually not exceptionally high, though things such as Aethyric Armor can boost it), and possibly a shield (blocking negates damage from all sources), as well as a naturally high HP pool, we can survive for a fair amount of time.

Unless you're getting focus fired, you shouldn't have too much trouble with RDPS. If you can catch them, they're basically dead unless you're very low on HP.

A lot of stat choice also has to do with the situation. If you're defending a keep, for example, you could swap out resistance gear if you're going to use a siege weapon. Then, if you plan on making a charge with other people, swap back to DPS or some other gear before you head into battle. You can't change while you're in combat, but being prepared can save your life.

[Wrongel]

Bumping resistances is basically the same as bumping your armor - the more you have, the more you mitigate. 1v1, even starting from max range, a single sorc would have a very hard time killing a well-played SM, even with low resistance. Between toughness (which reduces damage from all sources), disrupt chance (which is usually not exceptionally high, though things such as Aethyric Armor can boost it), and possibly a shield (blocking negates damage from all sources), as well as a naturally high HP pool, we can survive for a fair amount of time.

You can block spell attacks? Do you need a shield for that? Is it for real? Please confirm.

[lasmrah]

You can block spell attacks? Do you need a shield for that? Is it for real? Please confirm.

You can only block with a shield, but yes, you can block spells. You can block everything!

[Sanjo]

You can only block with a shield, but yes, you can block spells. You can block everything!

Which is why I will always be with one, hehe. Yes, yes, 2handing and leet dps and all that is fun and all, but I will let dps classes dps and move the living keep walls that we should be further up on the battlefield.

[Elwyndas Ellorian]

Thoughts on Corp Resistance? That's a Sorc's main school of magic. Does Sorc dmg, nailing you from afar while you are working over someone else, tend to be one of the major dangers of SM RvR?

Bolstering Enchantments is your friend! It is is a VERY significant Spirit/Corporeal buff/debuff. When there are 2,391 Sorcerers in the 18 on 18 scenario, it is very handy to have high Spirit and Corporeal resists. Bolstering Enchantments not only gives you that buff on 25% of your attacks and lasts for 10 seconds (meaning it is always up), but it is also debuffing our primary damage type (Spirit) and buffing not only us, but our whole group!!

Stat priority from me hasn't changed. I've tried all three mastery lines at level 40 and pretty much settled on 15 Khaine/7 Hoeth as my favorite. To me it's all about strength and damage (and I just love swinging the Big Dog! :) ). A very close second is Toughness, I equip the Rugged Tactic. Followed by Wounds/Initiative, and lastly Wepskill.

[SKYeXile]

yea, you dont need weaponskill when your attacking with spirit damage :)

[Ashuran]

For me, I am just going to stack strength and toughness, with wounds being the thrid priority.

[Quecken]

Alright. I have a question for all the "experienced" Swordmasterso ut there.

My mate would like some help with what stats he's supposed to concentrate on as a PoVaul/PoHoeth Swordmaster.

Thanks!

[Delolith]

Alright. I have a question for all the "experienced" Swordmasterso ut there.

My mate would like some help with what stats he's supposed to concentrate on as a PoVaul/PoHoeth Swordmaster.

Thanks!

Depends what his role will be....I would say toughness/strength/wounds...maybe a bit of weaponskill and initiative as well. We are one of the classes that pretty much could use all stats....

Delolith

[Quecken]

Depends what his role will be....I would say toughness/strength/wounds...maybe a bit of weaponskill and initiative as well. We are one of the classes that pretty much could use all stats....

Delolith

Thank you for your answer!
His role is mainly going to be support/tank

[Gisborne]

It depends on the specific values. Personally, since I plan to be offensive spec in PvP I'll be getting either str/wskill > toughness.

[Ashuran]

What about things like crit chance, block chance, parry chance, ...etc.

I know these are not exactly stats, but you can increase these from the 3rd tier of the renown training tree by spending renown points in them. And if we spend renown points to increase these chances, then we sacrifice our stats by not spending renown points to get stats boost instead. So in this way, these chances are comparable to stats because they can be increased by sacrificing stats.

Anyway, to my questions, do you guys think sacrificing stats for crit chance, or block chance, or any other chance is a good idea? Crit chance translates into burst damage, do you guys think the Swordmaster can utilize crit chance well like MDPS classes to bring out some decent burst damage? Or is it better for the Swordmaster to max out his strength as much as possible instead to get high sustain DPS?

Same for block chance; do you guys think block chance is worth getting by sacrificing toughness if the swordmaster goes Vaul spec?

[faeral]

percentages scale with your character. they always end up giving a greater benefit in the long run over static gains.

compare +42 str (+8.4dps, 14 renown points) to +6% crit (1.06multiplier, 15 renown points). your combined weapon dps & strength bonus will be 150-200 @r40. even on the low end, crit will give you more bang for the buck. crits also negate 50% armor, i hear? burst is always nice.

+% to block also scales against incoming DPS & will give greater benefit than toughness (presuming proper positioning).

(all theory though, i never earned enough ranks to crack the 3rd tier.)

[Ashuran]

percentages scale with your character. they always end up giving a greater benefit in the long run over static gains.

compare +42 str (+8.4dps, 14 renown points) to +6% crit (1.06multiplier, 15 renown points). your combined weapon dps & strength bonus will be 150-200 @r40. even on the low end, crit will give you more bang for the buck. crits also negate 50% armor, i hear? burst is always nice.

+% to block also scales against incoming DPS & will give greater benefit than toughness (presuming proper positioning).

(all theory though, i never earned enough ranks to crack the 3rd tier.)

I thought of it that way too at first, and it did seem to me that the percentages scale better with the character at higher stat values. However, when I started to look at all the stats as a whole picture, I realized +crit% and +block% come short in comparison to other +% chances. What I realized was that, +crit% and +block% have no basic stats to boost them, but there are basic stats to counter them.

Disrupt% has a boost stat, Wisdom, and a counter stat, Intelligence.
Dodge% has a boost stat, Initiative, and a counter stat, Ballistic.
Parry% has a boost stat, Weapon Skill, and a counter stat, Strength.

However,

Crit% has no boost stat, but there is a counter stat for it, Initiative.
Block% has no boost stat, but there are counter stats for it, Intelligence and Ballistic and Strength.

So here are what I am pondering upon: How much total Initiative do end game characters have on average? 300? 400? 500? And how much crit% reduction would those numbers give? If 500 Initiative would give like 17% crit reduction, then the +crit% renown skill becomes obsolete even if I max it at +12% crit. Because +12% crit and my default 10% crit get a total of 22% crit, but if the average characters have 17% crit reduction, then my actual average crit would be just 5%, which is too weak to be significant. And since there are no basic stats I can get to boost my crit% to counter my targets' Initiative, giving up stats to get crit% boost in renown training could mean a lot more sacrifice than it first seems.

The above applies to block% chance all the same, or maybe even worse. Unlike Initiative, Intelligence and Ballistic and Strength are main damage stats, which most players will likely stack in big numbers. Since there are no basic stats to boost block%, it can be very easy to reduce it to a negligible % in the face of high value damage stats.

What do you guys think? Do you guys think crit% and block% are still useful in the setup of this game mechanic? Are they still worth getting in the 3rd tier renown tree even they have no basic stats to back them up aganst their counter stats?

[Aeri]

I thought of it that way too at first, and it did seem to me that the percentages scale better with the character at higher stat values. However, when I started to look at all the stats as a whole picture, I realized +crit% and +block% come short in comparison to other +% chances. What I realized was that, +crit% and +block% have no basic stats to boost them, but there are basic stats to counter them.

Disrupt% has a boost stat, Wisdom, and a counter stat, Intelligence.
Dodge% has a boost stat, Initiative, and a counter stat, Ballistic.
Parry% has a boost stat, Weapon Skill, and a counter stat, Strength.

However,

Crit% has no boost stat, but there is a counter stat for it, Initiative.
Block% has no boost stat, but there are counter stats for it, Intelligence and Ballistic and Strength.

So here are what I am pondering upon: How much total Initiative do end game characters have on average? 300? 400? 500? And how much crit% reduction would those numbers give? If 500 Initiative would give like 17% crit reduction, then the +crit% renown skill becomes obsolete even if I max it at +12% crit. Because +12% crit and my default 10% crit get a total of 22% crit, but if the average characters have 17% crit reduction, then my actual average crit would be just 5%, which is too weak to be significant. And since there are no basic stats I can get to boost my crit% to counter my targets' Initiative, giving up stats to get crit% boost in renown training could mean a lot more sacrifice than it first seems.

The above applies to block% chance all the same, or maybe even worse. Unlike Initiative, Intelligence and Ballistic and Strength are main damage stats, which most players will likely stack in big numbers. Since there are no basic stats to boost block%, it can be very easy to reduce it to a negligible % in the face of high value damage stats.

What do you guys think? Do you guys think crit% and block% are still useful in the setup of this game mechanic? Are they still worth getting in the 3rd tier renown tree even they have no basic stats to back them up aganst their counter stats?

Block% "boost" stat would be the block rating on the shield. Nothing to really modify it, but...

Total initiative depends on the career. Some have a lot more than others. We aren't really given any numbers dealing with the actual crit% either, so it will be somewhat hard to test. To test it well, you would need to have 3 characters: an attacker (static gear/stats), a training dummy (preferably high RR so you could keep pumping +initiative while keeping gear static), and a healer (keep the dummy alive over the course of a couple hundred/thousand auto-attacks. We'll probably get the numbers eventually, since people will always try and min/max.

As for reducing Block% to a negligible amount, I don't think that will happen. At rank 40, a tank with a decent shield should have ~20-30% base block%. Add to that a possible +12% from renown training, +5-10% from Perfect Defenses, and +5% from Crushing Advance, and you have quite a bit of block. The tooltips also don't state an exact number - it's based upon an average number for your level. In other words, if your character sheet lists 20% block rate, it might be using a figure of 400 strength - if a character with 600 strength is attacking you, you will block less than 20% of the time.

[Tenel]

+block% is probably the *best* mitigation a shield tank can get in this game. Each % of block is a direct % reduction in total damage received, regardless of the time. No other mitigations can even remotely compare.

(increased something like parry by 1% vs block by 1%.. The block is a definite 1% mitigation. However, the 1% parry equates to roughly .33% mitigation, assuming an equal spread of damage between magic, ranged, and melee attacks)

[Ero Elohim]

If 500 Initiative would give like 17% crit reduction, then the +crit% renown skill becomes obsolete even if I max it at +12% crit. Because +12% crit and my default 10% crit get a total of 22% crit, but if the average characters have 17% crit reduction, then my actual average crit would be just 5%, which is too weak to be significant. And since there are no basic stats I can get to boost my crit% to counter my targets' Initiative, giving up stats to get crit% boost in renown training could mean a lot more sacrifice than it first seems.

There *are* +crit% items, though. We'll have to see how it plays out in retail, since WarDB is woefully lacking on gear at the moment. However, tactics and gear adding in a significant amount of crit (a single piece of R40 gear I saw on WarDB increased crit by 3%) seems to tell me that Initiative won't be the "Resilience of WAR." i.e. Everyone stacks it to the point where Crit is negligible.

[Tenel]

It is nearly impossible to stack a single stat to the extreme without totally gimping the rest of your character.

IF you stacked initiative that high, there is no way you would have any resists, any toughness, any strength/weaponskill etc etc.

Just not possible.


What it comes down to is this.. all gear has a secret behind the scenes "meta level". All gear of that same "meta level" have roughly (not saying exact, or identical. Just roughly) stats. If an item has high initiative, it will have little to no other stats, compared to another piece of gear that has a bit of each.

Again, its "rough". It isn't 100% 1 to 1 ratio of stats. But you wont have 1 item that is supposed to be on par with another have 100 initiative, and then the other have 75x 75y 75z. It will be "roughly" 33x 33y 34z. Or some other combination. again. ALL GEAR ISN"T IDENTICAL IN STATS GIVEN.

(10$ says someone flames me saying I said all items are the same.. ;) )