[Chosen] 2h Chosen?

[Genisaurus]

Hmmm, so if I am weighing a +20 STR tali or +20 Toughness tali, the net impact is going to essentially be a positive for me vs negative for them in a 1:1 ratio? meaning the +20 STR for me is the same "ratio" I could mitigate for them by going 20 toughness?

Funny you say this, because 500 has been my target # to hit before STR.... lol!

That would be correct.

True, however when comparing two weapons.... If weapon A has 5 more DPS than weapon B, but 20 less STR... Which is better.... Stuff like that is good to know how these things work... Ive generally favored STR since it reduces their chance to parry and gets multiplied on abilities... But now I dont know how to weight those...

Az told me in the past that ~1 weapon DPS is worth about 10STR...

10 Str will give 1 Autoattack damage, but otherwise it takes about 5 Str to equal about 1 weapon DPS. But keep in mind too, that abilities can scale differently between weapon DPS and abilities.

For example, Heavy Blow has about a 1x Strength modifier on the initial damage, but a 4x modifier for the DPS component. Meanwhile the initial damage also scales 1x with weapon DPS, but the DoT portion receives no contribution at all.

[roadkillrobin]

Have to add that from what i've been told by the DEVS is that moast AoE's use this formula
Base DMG + (DPS x 1.5 x 0.5) if instant cast
Base DMG + (Dps x Casttime x 0.5) If build up time
Base DMG + (Dps x dot duration x 0.5) if DoT
So toughness only have 50% dps effectiveness on AoE's from my understanding

[th3gatekeeper]

Have to add that from what i've been told by the DEVS is that moast AoE's use this formula
Base DMG + (DPS x 1.5 x 0.5) if instant cast
Base DMG + (Dps x Casttime x 0.5) If build up time
Base DMG + (Dps x dot duration x 0.5) if DoT
So toughness only have 50% dps effectiveness on AoE's from my understanding

So the "damage" on the tool tip really means nothing then? If I am on say my Bright Wizard casting a fireball, thats a 3 sec build up.... Even though TT says 1 thing, the cast time adds a multiplier?

I dont know if Chosen have any cast timers (that I know of) so should all be insta-cast....

[Annaise16]

Have to add that from what i've been told by the DEVS is that moast AoE's use this formula
Base DMG + (DPS x 1.5 x 0.5) if instant cast
Base DMG + (Dps x Casttime x 0.5) If build up time
Base DMG + (Dps x dot duration x 0.5) if DoT
So toughness only have 50% dps effectiveness on AoE's from my understanding

So the "damage" on the tool tip really means nothing then? If I am on say my Bright Wizard casting a fireball, thats a 3 sec build up.... Even though TT says 1 thing, the cast time adds a multiplier?

I dont know if Chosen have any cast timers (that I know of) so should all be insta-cast....

The damage on the tooltip includes the cast-time component.

However, the damage on the tooltip is inaccurate in that it doesn't include the damage component added by melee/ranged/magic power. So it is better to use the values from the combat log if you want to know what an ability does.

It is easy to check what the cast-time multiplier is for an ability.
1. Use the ability against a mob and record the damage + mitigation for a non-crit hit.
2. Now use a pot to increase your offensive stat by a given amount.
3. Find the new damage + mitigation amount.
4. Calculate the difference that the pot made.
5. Divide the difference by the increase in damage bonus due to the pot.

This value is the effective cast-time. It is the amount of extra damage provided by each point of damage bonus or each 5 points of offensive stat. It is also the amount of damage mitigated by 5 points of toughness.

For example, on WH:

1. Torment hits for 400 damage with 60 mitigated. Total damage = 460
2. WH uses a +60 strength pot to increase their damage bonus by 60/5 = 12 points.
3. Now Torment hits for 418 damage with 60 points mitigated. Total damage = 478
4. Difference = 478 - 460 = 18
5. effective cast-time = Difference divided by change in damage bonus = 18/12 = 1.5

So each 5 points of strength (one point of damage bonus) will increase the damage of Torment by 1.5 points. Also, each 5 points of the target's toughness will mitigate 1.5 points of Torment's damage.

Note, make sure the offensive stat is below the soft cap when performing the tests. When testing this on a slayer or choppa, do all the testing when the mechanic is in the green.

[roadkillrobin]

At some point on live there were a bunch of modiefiers added to all abillties.
There were alot of complains on that AoE did way to much dmg and one of the ways they adressed it was by changing how dps stats were contributing to abillties.

The old formula looked something like this for moast abillties.
Base DMG + (DPS bonus x 1,5)
1.5 in this case is the count for global cooldown. But this was pretty universal on moast abillties unless it had a cast time or was a dot. then you added cast time or dot duration instead 1.5.

I can't remember exactly when this new modfier was added but
it made formulas for AoE look like this instead.

Base DMG + (DPS bonus x 1.5 x 0.5) The dps bonus was pretty much halfed.

While other abilltirs got this formula
Base DMG + (DPS bonus x 1.5 x 4)

It varries from 0.5 - 4.

Whats relevant about toughness for this is that Toughness lowers the dps bonus. pre contribution adjuster.
Example: 900 STR vs 600 Toughness in this case will give you a dps bonus of 60.
Lets say we got an abillity that does 150 base dmg. This wiill bring the attack down from
420 to 240 dmg. Almoast 43%
If we add the AoE contribution adjustment. 285 to 195 about, 31% reduction.
The dps adjustment does more work lowering dmg then toughness does. So when it comes to situations were alot of AoE is happening. It might be better getting other stats like wounds or initive.

[Wintersun666]

Hey guys,i'm enjoying my 2h Chosen for the most.

I went full parry for renown,any advice how to spend the rest of the points ?

ty

[spikespiegel84]

Crit Crit is love, crit is life.

I have a question:

A skill like ravage does full spirit damage.

So no weapon skill needed, right? And it's base damage is dictated by the STR value only or the weapon dps influence it anyhow?

Same thing for Rending Blades?

[roadkillrobin]

auto attack are still a big chunk of dmg for all melee classes. Espeiclaly in fights that takes long.

Base dmg of melee abillties are the following:
1: Abillity Base dmg, increases with lvls and mastery points
2: Weapon dps of main hand by 100%, offhand dps by 40%

Then you have something called dps bonus.
On a skill like Ravage you get dps bonus from the Sttrenght. 5 points of str adds 1.5 dmg.
But 5 points of toughness reduces 1.5 aswell. The only way to get anything from STR is by having more STR then the Defender Toughness.

The main stats of dps classes like STR/BS/INT in general doesn't add that much dmg to abillties. Moast comes from Base DMG, Weapn DPS and any other dmg modfiers like crit for example.

When it comes to if dps Chosen needs weaponskill or not. I'd say probobly not.
But i havn't really tested it out. When i ran dps meters on my Swordmaster Autoattack + some other non Spirit dmg abillties was around 40% of the dmg. So still quit a big chunk of it.

[th3gatekeeper]

Well with Tier 4 Here... Thought I would post a few thoughts as I have been heavily debating a few items.

Epic Weapon Quest: Seems pretty unanimous that the best weapon (hands down) is the one that has a 25% on defense to increase your parry/dodge/disrupt by 10% for 10 seconds. The Axe (10% chance to taunt) is pretty solid however has no strength on it and its proc doesnt stack with taunt itself. Considering a Chosen's primary roll isnt to "pseudo-DPS" I think the Sword wins hands down.

For gear choice? A 2H Chosen needs to get crit for crip strikes. Thats the focus of the build. We dont want to waste renown on crit since we NEED renown for Maxed Parry, Dodge, Disrupt and I even throw 10 into cleansing Winds as its saved my life a handful of times (and its funny to see 3 boiling bloods disappear, I can just picture the nerd rage). Thus, the Merc (SC set) wins as it does have the highest STR stat allocation, as well as Wounds (over Anni) and gives us reduced chance to be parried AND 5% crit as the set bonus.

For Tactics: +160 toughness is almost a MUST IMO. Power from the Gods - for 15 AP/Sec (although I have been testing the 75 AP after a parry tactic and its good too). Crip strikes + 15% crit tactic (duh).

For Auras - I have been debating these. Strength/Resists are a MUST have. For the third? I am torn between Toughness (its still 75 @ 40), versus the 25% reduces healing versus the AP drain/gain aura... Any thoughts?

My build looks like this (5/5 Merc): waronlinebuilder.org - Chosen build

However that (again) depends on what to use for auras.....


A few Questions:
1) What is the appropriate STR/Toughness/Armor ratio - looking at Talis/Jewelry here to min.max.
2) I am thinking I will want to get the Sc weapon (4% crit) and with this, I gain AP/Sec but lose the sword proc... To counter this, I THINK the 9AP/sec we can get from Sc Sword + Merc Chest will allow us to run another defensive tactic (like Flawless armor). Also, if needed we could further do the AP/Sec aura to get more AP and drain AP from enemies...
3) Instead of slotting for AP, possibly instead doing Super Punt as its amazing... However Rugged is really necessary atm for added toughness. Without it, I would then need to drop 100+ STR to make up that in toughness...

So AP wont be an issue at all. Thoughts? Comments?

I think for a good 2H Chosen, its not about "maxing deeps" but the ability to guard a MDPS (or DoK) and assist him with DECENT damage, while not dying is key. I assume anyone posting here understands the roll of the 2H chosen.

[unowien]

I mostly agree with Gatekeeper. Just some thoughts on that. Flawess Armor is OK but you will probably get more help from the health buffer tactic (Warped Flesh? I think that was it). As a Chosen, chances are you aren't going to be taking damage directly until the mdps and/or healers are dead. The ablative mixed with your parry will help you much more as a Guard bot than the decreased crit really will. It will soak way more damage than the potential at being crit less. If you drop PftG for something else, it should probably be that.

As far as dropping Toughness aura, I'm not sure. I really kinda depends. Yea it's still just 75 toughness at 40 but it's not just for you. It's you and whatever mdps are next to you as well as dropping the targets toughness further helping the mdps. I would only ever drop this if there is a Corruption spec Chosen running with you guys. At that point, yea you don't really need it. There are a lot of good replacements. The only time I would ever really use the heal debuff aura is when you are hitting a WP. Any kind of dps or healer is probably going to be melted with a couple mdps on them anyway, regardless of debuff. Or they are going to be getting focus healed so much that the aura really doesn't change anything. Honesty, I would probably run Fluctuation on everything else. Yea it doesn't sound like much, but a BW being fed back roughly 300 damage per spell cast, on a BW, on top of the 30% chance spell feedback (I think it's 30%) at 100 Combustion is pretty significant. It will force them to slow down as well as make life a bit more shitty for the healer. Forcing them to spread out their healing more and making it way harder to keep up. They can't just focus heal so much. What I have found is that 1 wasted healer global cooldown's length of time will determine if your target dies A LOT. I find a lot of the time the target dances between 10% and 50% for quite a while and will live because of all the focussed healing. But forcing the healer to make the choice of continuing focus heal or swapping to the BW changes a lot. Either the target dies because the healer dropped focus for the BW and wasting the cooldown or the target continues to live but the BW is forced to leave combat for a length of time which saves your team a lot of incoming damage. I would even argue that Tainted Wounds slows down healing more than he heal debuff aura probably does since that will force a healer to waste cooldowns on himself rather than everyone else. But I haven't really done any real testing on that. In which case, you can drop PftG for Tainted Wounds. I've just never actually noticed the heal debuff aura having any sort of impact. So many healers focus healing the target just make it a wasted aura slot. Especially when Tainted Wounds or Fluctuation can result in healers being pulled off the train entirely. Again, this is based on minimal testing. Yea you could run AP aura to help keep the mdps going. But at 40, with AP pots and other regens they probably have from armor/weapons, is AP really an issue? At least enough to take an aura slot? Hell, if anything the AP drains only real big impact could be that it can stop a WP or other healer from healing while being focussed by your train. In which case, even that has a larger impact than the heal debuff probably does. Yea, 25% reduced healing sounds great but I have never seen it make a difference because there are just too many healers for it to matter. It's better to just find a way to take a healer out of the equation entirely.

To answer your questions:
1. Toughness you probably still want as close to 1k soft cap as you can get. On a 2h Chosen in Merc gear that will be tough. Best you can probably do right now with what's available is probably around 700. I'd have to look at it and do the math. Strength you probably want around that area, too. Strength isn't that big of a priority as much as toughness and crit are but if you don't have more Str than the enemy does toughness, you aren't getting any benefit from it at all. So you need to keep it at least higher than that. As far as Armor, honestly, don't worry about it. Everything in this game either has attacks that do magic forms of damage or ignores your armor stat anyway. And again, you aren't going to be getting focussed by melee over the Marauder or Choppa anyway. Armor stat in PvP is pretty negligible. Most of the damage you take is going to be magic damage through Guard anyway. Armor talismans are just spots wasted that could better be used for toughness (mitigates all damages) or strength (need to be at least higher than the target's toughness).

2. I already covered this.

3. Honestly, I would never take Super Punt over toughness or Warped Flesh. You already have Quake and Petrify for CC and super punt you have to hope that your Repel doesn't get defended. Which it probably will. On top of that, your role is to assist the mdps. Why in the world would you EVER punt the mdps' target away? I can't even count how many times my target was saved because some moron decided to punt it away. That pisses me off more than anything. The punt is nice for peeling off of your back line. But you should be with the mdps, anyway. And if your mdps is hitting things that are attacking your back line, chances are you NEVER want to punt it away. Just swap guard onto the caster, snare the enemy, and kill it. Punting it away will only result in pissing off the mdps and he will just come back. And if you have to do it snare->small punt has the exact same impact as snare->big punt for peeling and doesn't waste a tactic slot from something better used in it. I don't know if I would ever waste a tactic slot on that. Super punt is just a wasted slot and so incredibly situational.

And yea, 2h chosen is more about Guarding the mdps than it is about your own DPS. You will be taking the tanks group slot. Not a mdps slot. So you still need to Guard. Spreading Crippling Strikes is the other part. Your DPS will never be that of a Choppa or Marauder, so you will never take their spot. So you still need to be tanky enough to Guard decently and just assist with your increased damage to make killing easier. Unless we are talking about solo play. Then you can throw all of this out the window.