***RAWR!!: A Comprehensive Analysis of Strength Sets: AO3 to Humania***

[CrimsonTider]

You know I understand where you are coming from. I am glad you brought it up because your point adds validity to the thread. While we are focusing on damage, should we also discuss the use, or uselessness, of taunt? Because of the "elixir-gen", a bear keeping agro is near impossible. I have to have a thrasher with a dex set and still have a hard time maintaining aggro. The added dodge is a plus, but since Nuri's, that is all taunt is: a dodge booster.

[Energizeric]

Whether or not range is useful, in the end it's all about dmg and skill dmg when you're talking about an attack bear. As shown in the calculations above, bow set is superior to 2H sword set. Range is just a simple extra, and allows you to grab agro from stray enemies (13m range).

I wonder how the shanks match up vs a bow set though. Maybe you could do the same calculation as I did a couple of posts back. I'd be really curious to see the results. I have tried all (crafted and uncrafted) sets on my bear, except for the shanks set, and bow set did not only seem the most destructive, the numbers confirmed it.

If you want, you can post screenshots of stats (crit) and skill dmg for stomp (without rings or vanities), then I'll calculate it myself. I somehow doubt the numbers are going to be better for shanks as compared to the bow set, but I hope I'm proven wrong so I could finally find a reason to get me some crafted shanks

Unfortunately I don't yet have the crafted shanks, but I intend to get it at some point, so I will do this when I do. Keep in mind a couple of things....

I'm not sure about crafted, but with the non-crafted Tiki Set, the bow and shanks give the same exact stats except for damage and dps. Crit is 51 for both sets.

The other thing which is hard to quantify is speed. You are calculating 100 stomps as if that is the true measure of damage caused by a bear.

If we take a boss fight as an example, a bear is going to run through all of his skills in a hurry, and then there is a couple of moments when you are just on auto-attack waiting for your attack skills to "cool-down" so you can use them again. For me I usually start with beckon, stomp, then crushing blow, and then the slashes. When I am done with the slashes, I cannot yet use beckon/stomp again and have to wait a few moments. During that waiting time I am on auto-attack, and it is during that time when DPS does matter when considering which set causes the most damage. During this cool-down period, the shanks can hit 3 times for every 2 times the bow can hit.

I suggest you just buy a cheap lvl70 tiki helm, armor & shanks set (cost of less than 200k) and try it out. Go fight in Nuri or the Sewers against a boss that will not kill you with the low armor this set provides. Just keep auto-attack on and spam your skills. You will see the boss will die in a hurry compared to when you use other weapons. I'll also add that the shanks set is the only set I've ever used that makes me capable of soloing the Bandit Queen. With any other weapon set, she heals herself faster than I can cause damage and the net result is a stalemate.

[Energizeric]

If the majority of bow bears auto mobs and bosses (which most do), then the extra crit for skill damage is null. Make sense?

Actually, Crit does indeed affect auto-attack as well. When I use shanks set, Crit is 51. When I further use Rage, Crit jumps up to 91, which means 9 out of 10 attacks will be critical hits. If at that point I just put my bear on auto-attack and don't use a single skill, the hits are for 500-600 each, meaning that Crit clearly does affect auto-attack as well as skill damage. I didn't actually know this until I started using this set.

This is another reason why shanks set causes high damage. Even on auto-attack you are getting 3 hits every 2 seconds, and when buffed these hits average 500-600 damage each. Add in some slashes here and there, and you can take down the average 10-12k health boss in about 10 seconds.

I now use this set whenever I am farming any lower levels where having high armor is not a big concern. It simply makes running through each dungeon much faster.

[JaytB]

Unfortunately I don't yet have the crafted shanks, but I intend to get it at some point, so I will do this when I do. Keep in mind a couple of things....

I'm not sure about crafted, but with the non-crafted Tiki Set, the bow and shanks give the same exact stats except for damage and dps. Crit is 51 for both sets.

The other thing which is hard to quantify is speed. You are calculating 100 stomps as if that is the true measure of damage caused by a bear.

If we take a boss fight as an example, a bear is going to run through all of his skills in a hurry, and then there is a couple of moments when you are just on auto-attack waiting for your attack skills to "cool-down" so you can use them again. For me I usually start with beckon, stomp, then crushing blow, and then the slashes. When I am done with the slashes, I cannot yet use beckon/stomp again and have to wait a few moments. During that waiting time I am on auto-attack, and it is during that time when DPS does matter when considering which set causes the most damage. During this cool-down period, the shanks can hit 3 times for every 2 times the bow can hit.

I suggest you just buy a cheap lvl70 tiki helm, armor & shanks set (cost of less than 200k) and try it out. Go fight in Nuri or the Sewers against a boss that will not kill you with the low armor this set provides. Just keep auto-attack on and spam your skills. You will see the boss will die in a hurry compared to when you use other weapons. I'll also add that the shanks set is the only set I've ever used that makes me capable of soloing the Bandit Queen. With any other weapon set, she heals herself faster than I can cause damage and the net result is a stalemate.

Sewers and humanity will be far apart in therms of enemy armor, so the results would be skewed IMO. Higher enemy armor would mean less 'real' dps or 'real' dmg caused when your base dmg is low, as is the case with shanks. So, although you might hit an enemy more times, your total dmg caused could very well be lower. Or in other words, dps doesn't mean a thing.

Better would be to attack one of those mini bosses in devil's coast IMO. Auto-attack with shanks as compared to bow. Although, even then, results could be skewed because end bosses would most likely even have more armor to begin with.

The reason I'm doubting that shanks will mean faster boss kills, is that I tested that in the past with bow vs dagger sets, because many people told me how much faster a dagger would kill a boss. I can't say I tested it super extensively, but I did my fair share of runs, and the bow always came out on top in timed runs vs tough bosses.

But yeah, I might do these tests again with shanks, and record it on video. But somehow I got the feeling it's dagger vs bow all over again.

[Nick41324]

Off topic..
What tablet is that?

[Otukura]

I'll also add that the shanks set is the only set I've ever used that makes me capable of soloing the Bandit Queen. With any other weapon set, she heals herself faster than I can cause damage and the net result is a stalemate.

It's perfectly possible on my 56 bear with SK recurve.

[Nihiliste]

Oh please^.

[JaytB]

You know I understand where you are coming from. I am glad you brought it up because your point adds validity to the thread. While we are focusing on damage, should we also discuss the use, or uselessness, of taunt? Because of the "elixir-gen", a bear keeping agro is near impossible. I have to have a thrasher with a dex set and still have a hard time maintaining aggro. The added dodge is a plus, but since Nuri's, that is all taunt is: a dodge booster.

Actually, I think you have a very good point here.

Taunt should allow a bear to get and keep agro. And, as you said, that just isn't possible in a group full of trashers. Even in a non trashered group, it's hard to hold agro when more dmg oriented classes/builds start unloading their skills a bit too soon. I definitely feel sometimes like my taunt doesn't do much when I keep spamming it and my team starts to die around me.

So yeah, allowing taunt to actually grab and hold agro should be something independend of you teams' dmg IMO.

[CrimsonTider]

Actually, Crit does indeed affect auto-attack as well. When I use shanks set, Crit is 51. When I further use Rage, Crit jumps up to 91, which means 9 out of 10 attacks will be critical hits. If at that point I just put my bear on auto-attack and don't use a single skill, the hits are for 500-600 each, meaning that Crit clearly does affect auto-attack as well as skill damage. I didn't actually know this until I started using this set.

This is another reason why shanks set causes high damage. Even on auto-attack you are getting 3 hits every 2 seconds, and when buffed these hits average 500-600 damage each. Add in some slashes here and there, and you can take down the average 10-12k health boss in about 10 seconds.

I now use this set whenever I am farming any lower levels where having high armor is not a big concern. It simply makes running through each dungeon much faster.

You missed the point of my post. Daggers/Shanks are onr thing, but using a bow as a bear to just autoattack is meaningless. At 5m, slashes and cb are meaningless. At 11m, stomp and hs are meaning less. At max bow range, even beckon cannot hit. So crit and hit for a bow bear who maintains distance is useless.

Off topic..
What tablet is that?

If you are referring to my pics, I use a Samsung Nexus phone to play on.

Actually, I think you have a very good point here.

Taunt should allow a bear to get and keep agro. And, as you said, that just isn't possible in a group full of trashers. Even in a non trashered group, it's hard to hold agro when more dmg oriented classes/builds start unloading their skills a bit too soon. I definitely feel sometimes like my taunt doesn't do much when I keep spamming it and my team starts to die around me.

So yeah, allowing taunt to actually grab and hold agro should be something independend of you teams' dmg IMO.

Nothing gets under my skin like being yelled at for not maintaining aggro when all I do is spam taunt.

[JaytB]

@Energizeric

Just curious... How long does it take you to kill the bandit queen with shanks, from the moment of your first attack, until she goes down? I know I've asked you almosy the same thing when you issued that 'sewer challenge' in another thread, but you never responded. I just recorded a random run with crafted bow bear, and although armor is probably a lot lower than Humania bosses, I'd like to hear how shanks stack up to it.

Since you've been testing shanks on queen, maybe you could save me the trouble of having to buy a shank set, by posting your time it took to kill the queen with them

[Energizeric]

Regarding dagger vs. shanks, the shanks hit quite a bit harder and are 50% slower, so they are much closer to a regular str weapon than a dagger even though dps is similar.

[Otukura]

Oh please^.

Even you could :3

[Ellyidol]

I didn't have the time to read through the entire thread, but I did skim through the replies and the OP.

First, thanks for reaching out Crim, been awhile.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned or pointed out, but I remember back when I was a strong advocate for bears/strength/strength sets, it ultimately showed that future changes have to made to the bear class alone, not the strength sets. Due to the hybrid-ness of the PL classes, buffing up the strength sets (even if it's just Hit %) would buff the other two classes at well, even if bears are "supposed" to use these strength sets.

In the end, all I can chime in is that the benefits of stats for bears should be improved (if it still hasn't been, I would have no idea since I'm no longer playing). Otherwise, a full strength bear would never be a more viable build versus a dual-spec.

Apologies if I've missed the point completely or repeated anything. Glad to see there are still people passionate about the class though

[CrimsonTider]

Good to hear from you buddy!

It has been briefly mentioned here (and more extensively by Tankkaar in another thread), of possibly changing how attribute points effect stats.

Something I just thought of, why can we not make changes to the stat requirements to equip gear? What I mean is currently, we see many strength set users applying the minimal strength points to equip the gear and using the remainder for dex (to raise hit and damage.) By raising the minimal equipping requirements, it will maximize set value for the intended class and allow for this raise in hit%. Yes, pallies and warbirds would be less seen because with a higher strength requirement, dex will not aid them in increasing damge as it does now. I am not saying strength should be increased where it is only effective for bears (like class specificity in SL), but we could see a more balancing of classes to make bears more relavent.

Thoughts?

[Energizeric]

@Energizeric

Just curious... How long does it take you to kill the bandit queen with shanks, from the moment of your first attack, until she goes down? I know I've asked you almosy the same thing when you issued that 'sewer challenge' in another thread, but you never responded. I just recorded a random run with crafted bow bear, and although armor is probably a lot lower than Humania bosses, I'd like to hear how shanks stack up to it.

Since you've been testing shanks on queen, maybe you could save me the trouble of having to buy a shank set, by posting your time it took to kill the queen with them

The shanks set I use is lvl66 Tiki Set, but there's not too much of a difference between that and lvl70 (I think about 10 damage points difference). I'll time myself tonight and post the results.

[FluffNStuff]

Good to hear from you buddy!

It has been briefly mentioned here (and more extensively by Tankkaar in another thread), of possibly changing how attribute points effect stats.

Something I just thought of, why can we not make changes to the stat requirements to equip gear? What I mean is currently, we see many strength set users applying the minimal strength points to equip the gear and using the remainder for dex (to raise hit and damage.) By raising the minimal equipping requirements, it will maximize set value for the intended class and allow for this raise in hit%. Yes, pallies and warbirds would be less seen because with a higher strength requirement, dex will not aid them in increasing damge as it does now. I am not saying strength should be increased where it is only effective for bears (like class specificity in SL), but we could see a more balancing of classes to make bears more relavent.

Thoughts?

Considering the bear is the only class ~forced~ to use stats other then their own to be even viable, I think this would hurt them the most. You could raise the requirements to 100% and Int Mages and Dex birds would not be affected at all.

I wonder if we are going in the wrong direction with this. Is the problem that bears have too little hit, or is it that they have too little armor / dodge. A tank really should be a tank. I can totally understand a pure bear having half the hit of the other classes if it's armor was twice as strong and it had a much higher dodge percentage. And what solution is there? You can't put the armor on the gear because of paladins. You can't put the armor on base stats because of twinks. I really think the only thing they could do here is to make Iron Armor scale massively to strength, and that would cause a serious return to a true tank bear.

[JaytB]

The shanks set I use is lvl66 Tiki Set, but there's not too much of a difference between that and lvl70 (I think about 10 damage points difference). I'll time myself tonight and post the results.

I decided to test it myself and crafted the shanks.





On average it took me around 20 seconds more to kill bandit queen with shanks as compared to Bow. And this is in a lv55 dungeon. Boss kills in higher lvl dungeons would even make more difference considering they probably have way more armor.

So yeah, shanks definitely deal a considerate amount LESS real dmg to tough bosses as compared to bow.

As I already said earlier, it's dagger vs bow all over again.

[Energizeric]

I decided to test it myself and crafted the shanks.





On average it took me around 20 seconds more to kill bandit queen with shanks as compared to Bow. And this is in a lv55 dungeon. Boss kills in higher lvl dungeons would even make more difference considering they probably have way more armor.

So yeah, shanks definitely deal a considerate amount LESS real dmg to tough bosses as compared to bow.

As I already said earlier, it's dagger vs bow all over again.

I'm thinking that perhaps I am not using the bow correctly. I have the lvl66 Tiki Set with both the bow and the shanks. Compared to your crafted set, the Tiki set appears to have slightly more crit & damage, and considerably less armor. Yet I am not even able to kill Bandit Queen with the bow as she heals herself faster than I can inflict damage.

When you use the bow, how exactly do you do it? I stand a bit back, keep auto attack on, and whenever she comes towards me I stomp her back into the wall. With the Shanks I also keep it on auto, but instead spam the slash skills and stomp. Should I be fighting with the bow in the same exact manner as I do with the shanks? Should I instead be fighting with the bow the same as I do with a melee weapon?

I'm a bit confused.

[JaytB]

I'm thinking that perhaps I am not using the bow correctly. I have the lvl66 Tiki Set with both the bow and the shanks. Compared to your crafted set, the Tiki set appears to have slightly more crit & damage, and considerably less armor. Yet I am not even able to kill Bandit Queen with the bow as she heals herself faster than I can inflict damage.

When you use the bow, how exactly do you do it? I stand a bit back, keep auto attack on, and whenever she comes towards me I stomp her back into the wall. With the Shanks I also keep it on auto, but instead spam the slash skills and stomp. Should I be fighting with the bow in the same exact manner as I do with the shanks? Should I instead be fighting with the bow the same as I do with a melee weapon?

I'm a bit confused.

Yes, you should fight exactly in the same way as with shanks. Basically, stand on top of her to make sure your slashes land, beckon-stomp and auto-attack all the way until she goes down. I basically use all my skills when fighting her.

I recorded a random run for both shanks and bow on video. I'll upload it to YouTube and PM you the link in a bit. Note that those where definitely not the best runs, but you'll get the picture

Edit: I haven't really watched the video's myself in detail yet, they're uploading as I'm typing this. But what I think we'll see, is that skill dmg takes off a large chunk of her health as compared to auto-attack dmg. And skill dmg of a bow is considerably higher as compared to shanks. That was what I noticed with similar bow/dagger tests in the past.

Edit2: links to videos sent

[CrimsonTider]

I'm thinking that perhaps I am not using the bow correctly. I have the lvl66 Tiki Set with both the bow and the shanks. Compared to your crafted set, the Tiki set appears to have slightly more crit & damage, and considerably less armor. Yet I am not even able to kill Bandit Queen with the bow as she heals herself faster than I can inflict damage.

When you use the bow, how exactly do you do it? I stand a bit back, keep auto attack on, and whenever she comes towards me I stomp her back into the wall. With the Shanks I also keep it on auto, but instead spam the slash skills and stomp. Should I be fighting with the bow in the same exact manner as I do with the shanks? Should I instead be fighting with the bow the same as I do with a melee weapon?

I'm a bit confused.

That was precisely my point a few posts ago about the bow-bear argument. A bow bear who JUST auto-attacks is worthless. Whether using str/dex/int, using slashes and SMASH (beckon+stomp), as well as debuffs, are essential. Otherwise bears are useless.