Orani

Yeah, I think the purpose of the group song buffs in STR and INT line is to help the group that is not geared well to be a bit better. Case in point, if your raid has 30k raidwide DPS parse fighting SoH sisters, then I think the STR and INT line will definitely help the group more than the unfortunately low parsing AGI poison proc.

Orani

Heads up,

\aITEM 497770695 -1440028330 1625078538:[Ring of the Flamecaller]\/a

Flamecaller does 20% more DPS than ...

\aITEM -1793979714 -499229159:[pristine imbued tynnonium band of strength]\/a

... when fighting mobs yellow con and lower.

Metrognome

I'll preface and state that I'm a contrarian and hate cookiecutter mode, without empirical evidence to state that the cookiecutter is better. As such I recently respec'd to max the INT line (with the end ability...) as an experiment, INT 4-8-4-6-2. My personal dps went up a bit, but what surprised me was that mutliple members of groups since have hit personal dps bests as well. The ones that consistently hit the high dps numbers were the ones that worked at completing HOs. This is hard to verify, but I'm guessing there are some pretty hefty debuffs associated with the HO effects that get put on the mobs. The group I was in last night (all high-end raiders, ass/swash/inq/sk/coercer) pulled me into a Guk:OS instance to /afk buff their swash, assassin, sk. I parse poorly (t2 shard armor, myth+Lifespike, 2 masters, 170aas) and pulled 4.8k (pb), the assassin hit 29.8k, swash 22k, SK 15k, coercer 13k on the first named. Yes, it could be the rng blessing us with a wild string of good luck, but this isn't the only time I've had folks crowing about personal bests while in this spec. When I was cookiecutter, I can't remember a single time folks hit PBs that weren't attributable to gear or AA changes. As such, I'll keep INT for a while and see if it continues. :-)

Ramathorne

That group looked pretty stacked. The right group can add a whole lot of dps. I don't think basing your aa spec off of a stacked grp in one fight in an instance is the right way to analyze your dps. I specced INT one night in VP last xpac and everyone was in deminishing returns. (mt group) DPS dropped

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Sneaks

Much of what is discussed in the post is about raid set-up. With most people having their myths and all the cross-raid buffs, AGI is the better set-up for raids because of hitting the hard cap with INT.

In group set-ups, its hard to argue against INT, unless your group is stacked with DPS mods (i.e. coercer and such). Unfortunately, I have to keep a MT STR spec on my mirror and can't have a raid-only AGI and group-only INT spec.

Ramathorne

What is the increase in DPS mod from INT line?

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Kall

Heroic Storytelling is complete garbage. 90% of the HOs are pure trash.

Also, I'm pretty sure there are no HOs that have any kind of debuffs attached to them.

Edit - What's kind of amusing, too, about how bad Heroic Storytelling is that the buff to Swindler's would be pretty useful except for the fact that you dumped 4 points in Rhythm Blade and 6-8 points in Boon and are now at the c/s/p soft cap so the buffed Swindler's is adding nothing for you.

jingizu

depending on mob level my hit rates vary from 80 to about 96%. I use HO's alot and swindlers is up enough I do not miss Rythym Blade at all

Orani

The AA layout vs attribute allocation is not an issue of being cookiecutter or good luck. This is an issue whether you believe there are logarithmic curve equations determining the amount of benefit per attribute point vs the attribute point pool, or called diminishing returns. For whatever reason, some players seem to want to think this concept was not implemented into the game. Update Notes: 14Nov2006 is the only official post I could find at this moment supporting the existence of diminishing returns. Eventually, attirbute numbers can become so high that extra points have very little noticeable impact.

Completely agree with Sneaks here.

Raiding and one group adventuring are not the same critter. In raiding, raid wide buffs and specially built groups such as MT group, OT group, mage group, melee DPS group exist that can raise combat skill, haste, and DPS attributes much higher when compared to regular grouping scenarios. In regular one grouping adventuring, the characters are much more restricted to the group's character classes and the character's build. With the correct group build, a raiding AA layout can be better due to the diminishing returns. With a different group build, a raiding AA layout can not be helpful.

Players should always be completing quick HOs. This is true especially for Dirges so we can get Swindler Luck and Bravo's Dance.

Sticking with the INT line regardless of the group build is just as cookiecutter as sticking with a particular raid layout regardless of the environment.

Heck, in the correct group build, a Dirge's combat skills will still be at the combat skill diminishing returns without Rhythm Blade. In regards to combat skills, read Weapon Boon thread to possibly gain a better perspective. Amazing how quick character's combat skills can become tremendously high. I bet this would be true for other attributes as well according to particular raiding or one group adventuring environments.

Sneaks

8 in int4 gives 56% increase (7%/point)

Assuming you have M1 Riana's: 35 * .56 = 19.6 -> 20

I'm not sure if int4 modifies the VP leggings +5 Riana's bonus.
If so, you would have 40 * .56 = 22.4 -> 22