Increasing DPS

[Grandma]

I'm a 73 bst currently who just returned to the game in March after a 6 year layoff, and wondering the best aa's to take to raise my overall dps.  I'm not so worried about defensive aa's as i primarily group, but i'd like to contribute more dps to the encounters.

I've completed Ambidexterity, Sinister Strikes, Combat Fury but it would be useful to know if there's any other little gems out there that folk would recommend.

I've not really pushed any aa's at my warder yet (other than pet mastery), as from all the posts i've read, warders become somewhat incidental they higher you go.  Obviously if there's some must have aa's for the pet, they would be good to know.

I know there's some sticky's further down the page, but some of those seem a little old so i thought i'd pull on the experience of those of you still playing.

:)

[Sharrien]

I'm not sure when any of these are first offered, but these are the AA that I would work toward:

Melee:
Burst of Power
Beastial Frenzy
Weapon Affinity
Feral Swipe

Get Burst and Beastial Frenzy as soon as they are available, those are going to do you the most good.  Also, take a look at crafted weapons.  They are not going to be generally for sale in the baz (since there is such a large variety), but any half-decent tradeskiller could make one.  The crafted weapons plus the type 11 aug that goes in them (which lets you choose the proc you want) compare very well with most group weapons.  They should also be very inexpensive until you get up to the top level that require vanadium/immaculate components.

Nukes:
Spell Crafting Mastery
Fury of Magic
Destructive Fury
Spell Crafting Fury

Your fast-casting nukes are going to become increasingly important for your overall dps, so AA spent to improve them would be good.  If you start ganking aggro, get some Spell Casting Subtlety too.  I'm personally also a fan of our dots, especially when they become instant-cast starting at lvl 76, so you might want to get some Critical Affliction as well.  Dots are starting to fall behind compared to mob hp at 85, but if your nukes are still refreshing you may as well stack a dot or two to help grind down the mob.

Don't neglect your warder too much.  With decent AA and focus it will not melt quite as quickly as some would have you believe.  In top zones of the most recent expansion our warders cannot offtank effectively for long once it's rune runs out, but there is a large range of content where our warders contribute a lot.  Plus, many of our abilities are tied to having a live warder, so don't leave it too vulnerable if you plan on using them.  Giving mage summoned armor and weapons to your warder will make a big difference.  Make sure you have a pet focus, some are even available from venders in PoK if you haven't seen one drop yet.  When you start using rage pets at lvl 75 your pet related dps AAs will improve it's performance.

[Khauruk]

Unless it parses differenly for bsts, Burst of Power sucks for all classes.  Very little boost for fairly high cost.  But, as I've said, I'm going off of returns for other non-bst classes.

Feral Swipe and Bestial Frenzy are assuredly our best bang for the buck melee dps lines.  Weapon Affinity isn't huge dps, but if you're at a level where lifetaps are of strong utility (i.e. where you are, when pure damage augs are hard to come across) it's a great AA.

What server are you on Grandma?

[Sharrien]

I think there is a big increase for the first rank of Burst of Power since without it we have no triple attack skill at all.  After that I think the increases per AA drop off dramatically, but at least that first rank is one I would get asap.

[Grandma]

thanks for the advice all, it's really appreciated.

I'm on Antonius Bayle Kharuruk.

[Khauruk]

I think there is a big increase for the first rank of Burst of Power since without it we have no triple attack skill at all.  After that I think the increases per AA drop off dramatically, but at least that first rank is one I would get asap.

Not necessarily.  If triple attack formulas worked like double attack ones, that would indeed be true.  But, from my understanding they are far more linear.  I, of course, may be entirely wrong here and if so I'm sure Camikazi will come along to correct me :D  Either way, I should go parse it out, and parse out how from what I'm reading, tap augs might come far closer to dmg augs for un-disced dps than I thought.

And thanks for the info Grandma...were we on the same server, I have some spells/etc I'd give you, but I guess that won't be possible.

[Camikazi]

I think there is a big increase for the first rank of Burst of Power since without it we have no triple attack skill at all.  After that I think the increases per AA drop off dramatically, but at least that first rank is one I would get asap.

We get Triple Attack at level 76, caps at 50, Burst of Power raises it to 80. From parses I have done triple is not like Double Attack, even at 80 skill our TA rate doesn't even get close to double digits. We would need a rather large increase in the skill to see a big effect on our melee DPS. I personally would like to see Double Attack cap out first, since it will affect Triple Attack as well before we get more TA, unless it's a large jump.

Like Khauruk said Beastial Frenzy and Feral Swipe are the biggest boosts at his level, at 73 Bestial would be more since I think he has access to 10 levels or 30% DA increase.

[Blarp]

1st go for pure Beastlord dps AA'S Melee 1at then casting, then i would work on warder dps, then healing i rarly heal theres really no big need also tos in a few ranks of deff aa's dont forget your planerpower id tos that under dps as it up's dex and str

[Grandma]

Thanks for the advice :)

I did notice warder flurry and crit aa's... are these good bang for your buck, or just fluff?

[nedoirah]

Those are worth geting too.

[Khauruk]

Get flurry long before you get crit AAs.  Like every rank of flurry practically before crit ones.  As of SoF, I think the crit AAs parsed out to 15dps or so for the entire line on a raid-geared pet.  It was some silly low number that shocked the heck out of me.

[Grandma]

wtb 5000 aa's  :roll:

hehe looks like i've a long career ahead of me.

[Sharrien]

Hehe, yep.  I have just about 2700 and still feel like I'm behind in many areas.

[Blarp]

well i dont know a good number i been maxed out for the past 4 x packs =-/

[Nusa]

About 5300 is when you completely run out of stuff to buy, and have nothing besides glyphs to spend it on. You should have everything that's actually useful after 4000...the rest is fluff or completely useless. Naturally those numbers will go up with the next expansion.