Beastlord offensive AA skill comparison

[Coprolith]

I've compiled this list of Beastlord offensive AAs in order to give some more detail then the main AA table. Many AA skills have been parsed out/calculated in the past and i thought it'd be handy to archive them before the results of those parses are forgotten. The list is not complete; i did not include Finishing Blow, Coup de Grace, Double riposte and Flash of Steel as their benefit is negligible except in certain uncommon/extreem situations. I will use the following format: Name, levels+cost per level, melee restriction (e.g. only works when tanking/dualwielding), description, efficiency (the dps gain per pt).

I'll be the last person to tell what AAs you should pursue, that's your own decision. But if you're looking to up your dps a little bit and don't know which skill to choose, maybe this post can help a little in your choice

1) Bestial Frenzy
- 5 levels, 2 pts/level
- Melee restrictions: none, always works (passive)
- BF gives a 3% chance to perform a double-attack per level. It works on both mainhand and offhand weapons, and gives the same benefit to all weapon types. When a succesful doubleattack check is made, normal rules for hit/miss/riposte etc still apply. The increase in melee dps you get from BF is the same as the double-attack chance, i.e. 3%/level
- Efficiency: 1.5%/pt (melee dps)

2) Ambidexterity
- 1 level, 9 pts
- Melee restrictions: works only when dualwielding (passive)
- Ambidexterity adds approx 9% to the dualwield rate (at lvl 65 Ambi raises the dw rate from 82.5% to 91.5%). The increase in melee dps you get will depend on the quality of your OH weapon compared to the MH weapon, but generally it will be 4-5%
- Efficiency: ~ 0.5%/pt (melee dps)

3) Combat Fury
- 3 levels, 2/4/6 pts
- Melee restrictions: none, always works (passive)
- CF gives you a chance to score critical damage on a normal hit. In addition to the chance you get from CF itself, your dexterity also plays an important role. CF1 at 100 DEX gives a 1% chance to score a crit. Each additional level of CF adds 0.5% to the chance to crit. For every 50 pts of DEX above 100, another 0.33% is added. So for instance CF1 at 250 DEX gives 1 + 3*0.33 = 2% crit chance, the same as having CF3 at only 100 DEX (1+2*0.5). The average critical damage is about 1.75X the average normal damage for a MH weapon and 2X average normal damage for an OH weapon.
- Efficiency: CF1 (at 250 DEX) ~ 0.8%/pt, CF2 ~ 0.1%/pt, CF3 - negligible (melee dps)

4) Fury of the Ages
- 3 levels, 2 pts/level
- Melee restrictions: none, always works (passive)
- FotA gives additional improvements to the chance to score a crit hit. I haven't actually seen this skill parsed out, but from what i've been told it is very likely that FotA adds another 0.5%/level to the crit chance
- Efficiency: ~ 0.13%/pt (melee dps)

5) Frenzy of Spirit
- 1 level, 4 pts
- Melee restrictions: none, always works (activated)
- FoS gives you 99% haste and +336 to ATK (including melee ATK bonus) for 8 ticks (48s). Re-use time is 12 minutes. The duration can be extended with Spell Casting Reinforcement. The total melee dps increase you get from FoS can vary a lot depending on what haste you normally have and the level your ATK rating is usually at. If you find you're usually at max haste anyway then the haste from FoS will do nothing for you. The higher your ATK is normally at, the less dps increase you get from the additional 336 ATK (diminishing returns at high ATK). The increase in melee dps can therefore vary between 0.5% and ~2%. Fun when used together with the Bestial Fury discipline!
- Efficiency: 0.1-0.5%/pt (melee dps)

6) Spell Casting Fury
- 3 levels, 2/4/6 pts
- Restrictions: applies to direct damage only (nukes and weapon procs) (passive)
- First level gives a 2% chance to score critical hit for 33% more damage, second levels gives 4% chance at 66% more damage and 3rd level gives a 7% chance for 100% more damage. The increase in direct damage dps is 0.67%, 3.3% and 7% respectively
edit: that should be 0.67, 2.67 and 7 % resp. Efficiencies are ok
- Efficiency: SCF1 - 0.33%/pt, SCF2 - 0.67%/pt, 0.78%/pt. (direct damage dps)
To properly scale this with the melee enhancing skills 1-5, you need to know the ratio of your direct damage dps to melee dps. If, for instance, your melee dps is three times as high as your direct damage dps, then you'll have to divide the efficiency numbers by 3.

7) Mental Clarity
- 3 levels, 2/4/6 pts
- Restrictions: only when the extra mana is used for nukes/DoTs (passive)
- When the extra mana gained from MC is used for instance to cast more Scorpion Venoms (1132 damage for 360mana) then the dps gain can be estimated as follows: with an additional mana regen of 1pt/tick you get one additional cast of SV every 360 ticks (2160s), hence the dps increase is 1132/2160 ~ 0.5 dps
- Efficiency: to properly scale the efficiency of MC with the melee enhancing skills, you need to know your exact melee dps. If your melee dps is 50 dps, then the efficiency is 0.5dps/50dps/2pts = 0.5%/pt for MC1, MC2 - 0.25%/pt, MC3 - 0.17%/pt

8) Planar Power
- 5 levels, 2pts/level
- Restrictions: none (passive)
- The 25 STR you get from PP5 will raise your ATK by 23 pts. This in turn will raise your dps by ~ 1%
- Efficiency: 0.1%/pt (melee dps)


Comments/questions/criticisms?

/hugs

[Argach]

Planar Power will also raise yer dex, giving a boost to proc dps (I assume? - not 100% sure how much stats help past 255). Since I'm using Ethereal Destroyer in my main hand aug'd with 150 poison DD proc, the added dex most likely gives me (and other beastlords using the BOOMstick) higher dps boost than the added str.

Other than that an excellent post as usual Coprolith. /bow

[Ukator Iceblood]

Who knew a Troll could write so well? :) Thanks as always.

[Coprolith]

Good point Argach. DEX will also help a (tiny) bit. The point you make about stats above 255 is something i also hadn't considered. I know you get 0.9 pts of ATK per pt of STR in the entire range from 115 to 280. Above that i cant be sure. STA for instance gives less hp's per point above 280 according the paladin board.

Perhaps someone with PP5 and 305 STR can do a quick check by removing some STR gear?

/hugs

[miandaber]

Surely this is sticky worthy. Right??

[Tastian]

Glad to see you and arg here on the new boards cop.  8)  I just had a couple things to throw in (as usual 8P ).

Do your calcuations on Frenzy of spirit assume 100% up time?  I vaguely remember your post on it back on the old boards, but it's early, so I'm not quite sure.  If you actually had some downtime then instead of frenzy being on for ~1 minute(scr3) of every 12.  It would actually be active for say 1 minute out of every 8 minutes of fight time or something to that effect.  Making have a bigger impact imo.  

Also for double riposte.  It's very situational because you have to be tanking and I know not all bst tank, but I do quite a bit.  My riposte dps (with 17dmg +1poi) weapon main hand is ~2-3dps.  That will vary a lot based on time spent tanking, slows, stuns, multiple mobs, etc.  However, if you want I can throw you some of my #'s on actual riposte % based on incoming swings if you wanted to get a rough idea of how many extra swings double riposte would give or what not.  It's a very expensive skill and even if you tank 100% of the time it's still not going to be very high up the list from an effiency standpoint I don't think.

[Coprolith]

Hiya Tastian :)

yer correct, the FoS calculations are based on my previous parses where i had 100 % uptime. With good timing between FoS re-use and fight time you can indeed get more out of it, up to 50% more perhaps. In practise, that extra benefit is diminished again because you wont be casting it exactly every 12 minutes (so far i always try to time it so i can use it together with the bestial fury disc)

As for DR, its not the percentage of incoming swings that determines your dps gain, its the percentage of your own swings that are ripostes.

When im soloing using my DW combo, the number of swings that are ripostes is only ~0.6%. With DR3 that number would go up to 0.9%. So the dps gain is only 0.3% for 18 points. When im using a SoFW, the number of ripostes goes up to ~1.5%, giving a dps gain of 0.75% for 18 pts. I suppose in the extreme case when you're using a Dathor Greathammer and are fighting unslowed mobs the dps gain could go up to ~5%. But who fights unslowed mobs?

I set my personal limit at 0.1%/pt. Anything below that i consider negligible. Best case scenario for DR is DR1 using a 2HB, ~0.075%/pt

/hugs

[Argach]

Str drop from 285 to 280 reduced my atk by 4, so it seems at least str works same way past 255 as it does pre-255 - sta on the other hand seems to give half of the hp past 255 than what it does pre-255.

[Felidae]

I don't understand why CF3 rates negligable?

[Coprolith]

I set a limit at 0.1% gain per aa point. Anything less, like CF3, i deem negligible

/hugs

[Tastian]

Because CF really falls off as you train the ranks in it from an AA point efficency.  Rank 1 gives ~2% as I recall.  Rank 2 gives about 0.5% ditto for rank 3.  Rank 1 is 2 points, rank 2 is 4 more points and rank 3 is 6 more points (12 for all 3).  Look at the efficency of CF2 and realizing that for a minor gain in crit % you have to spend just as many points as you did for CF1 & CF2  it's easy to see how CF3 is rather negligable.  This is one of the main reasons you see a lot of bsts (and other classes) with CF1.  Paladins need CF3 as a pre-req for slay undead, and for archery CF seems to have a much better return so rangers max.  Lots of others things to buy though that will yield a bigger return than CF3.  *shrugs* time to eat hehe.

[DiosT]

stickkyyy as usual

[Felidae]

This is a really helpful thread....

Double Reposte, Flash of Steel?
Finishing blow, Coupe de Grace?

[Hrann]

Yeah, I just wanted to chime in to let Cop know his efforts are appreciated.  I will probably move SCF up a little in my list due to this post.

[Logato]

Is there a similar discussion about defensive AAs anywhere? Like has anyone parsed CA vs CS and we 'know' that CA is lots better? How much does 3 lvls of CA do for us. How much does 3 levels of CS do for us. Things like that?