Gear: Spell or Melee Crit?

Gabrianna · 12-01-2008, 05:50 AM

Greetings fellow troubs!

I have been doing my darndest to whip my recently level 80 troub into shape for raiding. All things considered, I think I'm doing fairly well after 4 years of being a templar.

I've gotten a lot of advice on gear and the biggest point of contention is whether I should be wearing melee crit, spell crit, or a balance of the two. Right now, wearing my present gear, I am parsing around 1500 on the training dummy. Please take a look at my gear if you'd like:
EverQuest II Players - Profile for Serenede

Some items have not been updated on that page:
Neck - Talisman of Thuga
Ears - Earring of Icicles
Primary - Rapier of the Flame Dancer
Secondary - Sebilis Croaking Dirk

Considering that I am in a raid guild that is currently doing tier 1-2 kunark, I would appreciate any sage bard's advice on which way is best for parsing at this level.

Thanks so much!

Chix · 12-01-2008, 11:11 AM

Some really easy and good upgrades would be getting an crafted STR ring, crafted haste cloak (you have no haste item as far as I can see), as well as crafted melodic in shoulder and forearm slot.

Of course I cant see your adornments, but you should have STR or INT in all slots you can, as well as +12 DPS on neck and whatever +DPS you can afford on ranged slot.

Whether you should focus on melee or spell crit depends a bit on your playstyle and usual raidbuffs. Take a look at your DPS breakdown in ACT (pie chart) from a raid, and add up melee damage vs spell damage, that should give you an idea what balance you are looking for. For most troubs I think the priority goes Dbl attack > Melee crit > spell crit, though.

Kild · 12-01-2008, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chix

For most troubs I think the priority goes Dbl attack > Melee crit > spell crit, though.

I agree with your post, except for the part i quoted. Since troubs only do about 30-40% of our dps from autoattacks, DA is a lower priority. The order I would put it in is Melee crit > Spell crit > DA > DPS mod > Haste. I dont wear a haste item in raids anymore since my haste in mage group is over 200 most the time. +CA and +Spell dmg mods should come on gear without you having to concentrate on getting it.

General rule of thumb is if your assassins want an item, you probably want it too.

Chix · 12-01-2008, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kild

I agree with your post, except for the part i quoted. Since troubs only do about 30-40% of our dps from autoattacks, DA is a lower priority. The order I would put it in is Melee crit > Spell crit > DA > DPS mod > Haste. I dont wear a haste item in raids anymore since my haste in mage group is over 200 most the time. +CA and +Spell dmg mods should come on gear without you having to concentrate on getting it.

General rule of thumb is if your assassins want an item, you probably want it too.

A bit simplified, the thing that determines whether you want DA or MC is your autoattack / CA ratio. An assassin that does 40% AA and 50% CA will benefit more from crits. A troub that does 35% AA and 15% CA will benefit more from double attack.

Poofe · 12-01-2008, 10:34 PM

People want DA rather than melee crit because your DA isn't going to be reduced by the mob you're fighting, but melee crit will be. Thus if you fight an orange mob, your dps will be reduced.

Rigo · 12-02-2008, 12:49 AM

correct DA does not scale on the mob's lvl, crit does....making it better for troubs...
da>mc> dps mod>spell crit is what i would rank it at

Kild · 12-02-2008, 02:56 AM

That makes more sense then. Thank you.

Guess that means I need to replace Marrow's Song with a good slasher and get some DA.

Chix · 12-02-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Poofe

People want DA rather than melee crit because your DA isn't going to be reduced by the mob you're fighting, but melee crit will be. Thus if you fight an orange mob, your dps will be reduced.

That is a factor, but unless you only ever fight orange/red mobs the main factor remains your Autoattack / CA ratio. Which is very high for troubs, making DA the easy choice.

Gosta Dirk · 12-03-2008, 02:51 AM

I don't agree on this..

I was going for DA aswell, and my stats was about 55 % DA and 41 % MC..
Then I swapped it arround to 57 % MC and 45 % DA and it did increase my damage with about 800..
Spell crit is very low, not even notisable, and ca/spell modifier the same..
Ofc I dont have acces to Avatar, Trak, Byzola or Maestro lewt, so this it what I get from what I can get..
Maybe it will change a little with TSO, but I am not sure I will try to put DA above MC again..

@Kild
There are lots of very nice slashing weapons to get, and even more now they changed the delay on our epic to 4.0

Uyaem · 12-03-2008, 06:50 AM

I'd value DPS mod the most, because it's not as easy to get for a Troub. Depending on group setup, unless you have access to the best gear in game you'll always be low on that - even when using temporary adornments.