Attack Bear - which skills are most important!

[krazii]

I've always played my bear as a true tank, taking damage, taunting, crowd control, etc, and as such have had my skills setup to maximize my and my parties protections (buffs and debuffs) while not putting very many points into the slashes and none in heals.

When I respec'd to move some skill points around to take advantage of the new skill cap (6), I maxed all the same buffs/debuffs etc. Got me to thinking about how I would setup an "attack bear". A bear that does a lot of damage at the expense of the ability to take as much damage and/or protect the party.

I generally think I'd max all the slashes (since they now do good damage) but am uncertain what skills I would sacrifice. My first thought is what's listed below and is prioritized for damage and then self preservation (for a lvl 55 max), biggest dilema was where to spend final 7 points after maxing all the 6's. I'm looking for constructive input and justification.

Vengeful Slash - 6
Stomp - 6
Taunt - 1
Crippling Slash - 6
Rage - 6
Super Mega Slash - 6
Crushing Blow - 3
Restore - 0
Iron Blood - 6
Hell Scream - 3
Evade - 6
Beckon - 6

Thoughts?

Kraz

[FluffNStuff]

My bear is currently an attack bear that can tank (hax and shield for tank, HAMMER for attack). You have some good stuff there, but suggestions:
Move Hell Scream to 5/6 (Aoe Debuff). Increase Crushing Blow to 5 or 6 (huge damage debuff). Now with your slashes and the hammer, most of your damage actually comes from the weapon, so you always want AT least 1 in every slash. You want at least 2 in SMS because that has a 10 point armor break at 2 or higher. So you can shave points off the top of your slashes for you debuffs and still have massive damage out put.

[Balgreta]

1 in restore as that 18hp initial + 5h/s for a few secs could help out (not by itself ofc but in combo with h/s from gear it does speed things up)

3 in crushing and 3 in hellscream for self combo's / mage combo


even with the extra 5 points we got this update we have too few skills & ranks to make builds truely unique really

it would be nice if ranks went to 10 rather than 6, then people could make dps bears, dodge bears, armor sponge bears or balanced bears depending on what they wanted to play like!

[noobmigo]

take points of from venge.

[TheLaw]

My suggestion after reading the skills:

Max All Buffs except Taunt
All Slashes at 5 or Exceptionally 6 for SMS. Will update more.

[wolfendragon]

At lv 47 tank and attacking I have 5 in all but taunt, evade and heal which has worked extremely well in battle I will most likely max those out while lving to 56

[PhreEkGarden]

it would be nice if ranks went to 10 rather than 6, then people could make dps bears, dodge bears, armor sponge bears or balanced bears depending on what they wanted to play like!

I think this is a great, easy solution to making the game much less cookie cutter. Even going to 8 instead of 6 would make a big difference.

[Divine Don]

Hmmm, might take some of the suggestions and input it into my build.

[Xiaou]

Good info krazii, thanks!

[Famran]

restore is soooooooo bad T_T... I prefer a bear with high power for the 3 slash capacities and a good iron blood when i have problems... all the others are one or two, no more. Thank for your suggestions, i will try your ideas for my bear (he is lv 23 for the moment)

[Zeus]

Ok here, this should help you make a great PVE and PVP build.

Here is a few hints for you. Taunt stacks dodge, so the more frequently you taunt the higher your dodge gets. It only stacks twice though. What does that mean for maxed taunt? That's right... +16 dodge. Combine that with evasion maxed? What do you get? +34 dodge or so. So... On a bear you can get 70+ dodge in full fury gear? Yeah... That is over powered. Now... Iron Blood. While very important, on the contrary it does NOT need to be maxed. Let me explain why. It only lasts +12 seconds, and a major cooldown time. So... your points are better spent maxing out dodge.

Rage needs to be maxed, that is a must

Debuffs? Keep them at 4+

Slashes, now... Try not to think with the aggressive mindset. Stomp and SMS should be the only two maxed, or near max

Beckon? Maxed

Any other skill points left? Experiment. Keep in mind. In PVP you won't have time for an extremely lengthy combo. Short and Powerful is the way to go.

This will work in PVE too because, your object is to well... TANK.

Try experimenting with these hints I have given you. Let me know how you like it and tell me the results.

Thanks!