Highest Single Target DPS PvE Bear

[Thuull]

Okay, looking at playing around with respecs for my Bear. Been doing the dagger chikkin and loving it (pure dex) but I need a little more crowd control and want a change. So I'm sitting here thinking about how I'm going to redo my bear and looking for some feedback on the two routes I'm currently thinking about.

This is *not* a tank, repeat not a tank. I'm going out and out dps. My gear setups will obviously reflect this.

Build 1 - All dex, high crit some dodge, no benefit to skills
Helm: Thoth leather - some mana regen, some crit
Weapon: desert dagger horus - highest crit dagger, some dodge (not important)
Chest: horus leather - highest crit leather chest, some dodge (not important)
Shield: menes wing isis - just for health regen really

skills used:
beckon
vengeful slash
crippling slash
rage
super mega
iron blood/evade

or

Build 2 - all str, gains benefit from bear damage skills, very low dodge, no bonus to crits

Helm: horus plate - highest crit, some dodge
Weapon: djinn spear isis - just for regen (will upgrade to shockie when I get one)
Chest: horus plate - highest crit, some dodge
Shield: pharoah shield thoth - some crit, mana regen

skills used:
beckon
vengeful slash - gets bonus
crippling slash - gets bonus
rage
super mega - gets bonus
iron blood/evade

I have all of the gear needed. Which way would you go? Which do you think would be better dps considering the changes in 1.4? Clearly dex would be higher survivability, but I'm not worrying myself with that with this build.

Also please remember the armor break on the spear...for those who are unaware, the spear despite it's lower dps number on the char sheet greatly out-dps's many weapons with much higher dps numbers due to the armor break. I am convinced that the spear is the highest aggregate dps str weapon that I have available to me at this time.

I do want to go pure on stats. It might even be better still to split between str and dex for the str build (just go to 142 for items, rest in dex) to get some crit and the ancillary dodge that comes with it (and the hit percent I guess...damn, might actually *have* to do this), but I don't want to.

Does anyone yet know considering the changes in 1.4 whether or not the damage benefits from skills by going pure str out-weight the lower tohit percentages from not putting points in dex?

General thoughts please? Thanks in advance!

[FluffNStuff]

Just something to ponder. Dex is more important then most people know (except of course the people screaming about it). A full Dex gives you 1 crit for every 6.6 stat points. So at level, a full dex bear will have about 32 more crit then a full strength bear. The reason this is important is that crit affects skills. So 32 crit in the long run means a 32% increase in all damage, including skills, so this can mute the benefit of strength on the item damage. Though when raged, the 50% buff affects the skill difference, so it gets complicated.

[Thuull]

BTW...the skills I put here are not complete. The thread is more of a str/dex and equipment discussion with the skills thrown in as an afterthought. I will not be limiting myself only to the skills listed here.