ND3 or CA3?

[Atropine_BB]

Hello everyone!

I'm joining a semi-raiding guild right now that is just getting most of their members Elemental flagged.

I have around 56 aa's right now, you can see where I put them in my magelo.

I've done all the req. raiding aa's to join this guild...

Paragon
MGB
Pet Hold
Suspend Minion 2

Now I'm wondering where I should go next?

I've narrowed it down to either ND3 first... which will put me at 3950hp unbuffed.

Or I'll do CA3 first which will increase my avoidance in any situation.

Any suggestions?

[Strigori]

ND3 imo.  Its required for bsts in my guild. More hp will help survive the AEs you will run into.  CA3 while a very good aa, wont do much for you in a raid format, if you are getting hit by the target, you are most likly dead anyway.

[Tastian]

Personally I'd go CA3 without hesitating.  Solo'n, grouping. offtanking, stray aggro from slows, etc it just helps a ton more than hps.  I know some will say HP > all and since you are raiding more hps will help you, but in a spot like EPs the differeance between ND0 and ND3 is less than 1 tick from some AEs lol.  Getting ND3 won't let you mystically live through sol ro's AE, but CA3 can save you a rez in some situations hehe.  *shrugs* as always it depends how you play and what you do.  If you just never get aggro, never tank, never solo and are raiding then yeah I guess ND3, but overall I'd have to say CA3.

[Oneiromancer]

ND3 imo.  Its required for bsts in my guild.

I remember a post on this board where it was related that some Time+ guild required their beastlords to have Combat Fury and possibly even Fury of the Ages maxed.  Just goes to show that not all guilds know what's best for their members...

Game on,

[Mneumenth]

As far as raiding, you wont be getting hit on, much...if you are you'll be dead shortly anyway.  Id reccomend ND3 without reservation, as it has many more uses, than the limited application of Avoidence.

After ND3, then go for the LR5 cycle.

[Aneya]

I'd go with CA3 because I get hit all the time raid or no raid. Actualy I still only have ND 1 and don't plan on bumping it any time soon.

[Bheran]

I say ND3. Especially since you said raiding more.

For me,when I got it,  iirc, ND3 gave about a total of 400hps maxxed? (it's been so long since I've even thought about it, that may be w/ PE as well.)

While CA3 is definitely nice, and a must-have as quickly as can be, I dont see how anyone could discount so many hps for a minimum of work.

As has been stated before - a lack of hps is the leading cause of death in EQ.

[Tardar]

I don't mean to derail here, and if you are set on Def stuffs, then go for it.  But I would consider another route.  First of all, you don't have SCR maxed yet.  That will give you an extra tic on Paragon, and will let Fero and SD last a little longer, thus taking less time away from your DPS.  

Why defensive and not offensive?  Not that I care, just curious what your thinking on this is.  I see you don't have BF or Ambidexterity.  With those 2, I would think you would get more bang for your buck than ND and CA could give.

[Tastian]

Ok here is my question to everyone that has ND3 as a requirement or suggests ND3 over CA...

Do you have a MIN hp value to get into the guild?

ND adds hps.  Are you telling me that a beastlord with 3.5k hps and ND3 would be a "better app" or "meet requirements" where a 4k beastlord without ND wouldn't?  All ND gives you is hps, they can be covered via tribute, via gear, via food, etc.  How many beastlords in guilds don't have a +/- gap on the # of hps between their members?  I've seen time beastlords with barely 7k buffed hps lol.  The 400hps is nice, it's a solid #, but what are you adding that to and what is it putting you to?  No doubt more hps is good, people want as many as they can get...within reason.  Not many beastlords at 49 run around wielding a shield because it's more hps than any weapon they could offhand.  How many beastlords go with tunare or SV over brells at times?  Do you ever look at any stat besides hps when determining your item upgrades?  

If you absolutely never tanked, never got aggro, never OT'd, and every point of damage you took was from spells/AE then ND would do more...maybe.  ND adds hps to the BOTTOM of your hp pool.  Outside of binding wound, CHs (if you get CH'd you are tanking most likely! lol), and low health aggro max hps aren't doing much.  If you never get below 400hps then ND did nothing.  Unless you've eaten the last AE from blazz and then he died with you at 250 hps ND didn't do anything.  Unless you've been sitting down after arb with everyone OOM and the dot fades with you at 300hps ND didn't do anything.  With ND you always have "more" hps, but in actual play you seldom "use" the hps it grants.  in fact you try very hard not to use the hps it grants lol.  Meanwhile, everytime you get aggro, everytime you OT, everytime the mob turns to you on a tank switch, etc CA is doing something.  


Also the original poster said...

"I'm joining a semi-raiding guild right now"

And they have 56 AAs atm.  I just can't believe that they won't be doing a fair amount more of AA'n or LDoN or solo'n or whatever.  If the guild is breaking into the EPs then turning on tribute + bazaar upgrades will give them about as many extra hps as ND3 would.  Now try to cover the effects of CA using tribute and a couple upgrades hehe.

[Mneumenth]

In my experience, you will get more mileage from ND than from CA, alone.  That was the direct question.  As you say...Tribute/Bazaar will increase HP pool with the same +/- benefit as ND3, hoever...ND with these items will always add more.   It doesnt mean CA has no value, it does.  The problem with CA is you dont see a huge "benefit" until LR.  LR5 is a wonderful thing.  For an immediate goal, IMO, more value is added / AA by going ND3.

/shrug

My .02, but with inflation probably worth much less.

*EDIT*

Also, I have never personally seen a HP requirement for any but Tank classes.  AA requirements are common, as most have seen.  ND3 happens to one of the more routine requirements in my experience.

[Tastian]

Yeah ND is a very common requirement.  The point is that ND only adds hps to what you had.  Going from 2k to 2.2k doesn't mean very much and if you've got 5k already as a wizard applying to a ssra level guild unbuffed I don't really think they'd be stress'n the ND hehe.  

I guess it's like requiring means without requiring the end.  Imagine if a guild required a 41% haste item of all melee.  Here you have one app that has 41% haste and 2 ViC, well another app has 36% haste, an ED and a shinai.  Technically one person doesn't meet the req, the other person does, but the intention of the req would obviously be that of dps.  The only thing ND grants you is hps, so in that case why require someone to spend AA on ND if they already have sufficent hps instead of letting them gain 7% nuke damage or better avoidance, etc.  hehe   It's like the guilds that require Combat fury 3+ of beastlord apps.  The only purpose that servers is more dps (and spam lol), so why not require more dps or an AA that helps dps more instead?

[kitanababe]

Atm my guild requires for all melee dps classes: ND3, CF3, and amidex or pb3.  Plus for beast lords mgb and paragon. What aa would be more dps for a beast the cf3? Hate to sound so newbish but my main's a cleric not a beast =P

[Atropine_BB]

I want to add here that I exceed the requirements as an app right now.

There is no HP requirement, and all the AA requirements for consideration of my application have been met.

We have "attendance" raids twice a week.  Which means you are to attend the raids on Wed & Fri if you are online, unless you have RL circumstances that preclude you from joining.

All other raids are optional.

Basically 2 days a week I am raiding PoP flag mobs, EMP, VT, or SolRo (I'm not ELE flagged yet).  As an app I don't really get a chance at any loot and I'm totally comfortable with that.

Anyway, based on the comments above, I think CA3 will be the best bang for my AA "buck" at the moment.

When I'm not grouping with members and trying to get to know the guild more as an app, I'm 2 boxing my 55 druid in griegs farming AA xp, as well as getting my druid levels.  The xp is incredibly fast with little to no downtime whatsoever, except to refresh C5 every 2 hours or so hehe.

That means that probably 25% of my online time is spent tanking blue mobs for AA xp.

Thanks everyone for the input, I definitely have a clear course for my AA's now.

I'm thinking the best course now will be:

CA3
ND3
BF5
LR5

[Tastian]

"What aa would be more dps for a beast the cf3? "

This will vary some based upon the beastlords dmg breakdown, but if you figure ~60 melee dps (not bad), 20 nuke dps (2 frost spears a minute roughly), 10 proc dps (pretty low for most bsts with LDoN augs available now), 60 dps from pet melee (rough baseline for sorsha), and just toss in scorpion venom as a dot so it's not neglected here are the things I roughly have coming out ahead of CF3 for a beastlord in terms of damage boost for AA spent...

SCF3
Warder's Fury 1-5
Warder's alacrity 1-4
BF 1-5
Sinister strikes
Critical affliction 1
Weapon affinity 1-5
Feral swipe!!

Like I said it'll vary some based upon the beastlord, but overall combat fury is way down the list for beastlords.  The first rank is decent, the second falls off a lot and the third rank just costs far too much for the boost it gives.  Kinda funny when multiple GoD AAs out perform something isn't it? 8P

[Hereki]

Plus ambi, I assume - although she already has that.