[Slayer] Guide - How to take lickin' and keep on skippin'

[Elio]

@Shaggy - Thanks for your input.

@Darosh - Going to go through your response piece. Thanks for the well reasoned and thoughtful post. Before diving too deep, we clearly are coming from some different camps when it comes to how much we value certain stat allocations, but I agree with your core premise. That a slayer should exist on that fine line between too tanky (doesn't do enough damage) and too "glassy" as you put it.

The build I've outlined performs exactly that role for me and the group/WBs I run in. Many of your recommendations assume that I'm dying too much or am currently too glassy, and I don't really find that to be the case. I'm not hearing any complaints or comments about my survivability in comms from tanks or healers, and I don't feel too squishy in the lakes. I'm assuming, many of your recommendations come from building a slayer to perform optimally in a serious 6v6 environment which then flows out into the rest of gameplay. And, as I mentioned early in the guide, I have no experience with that. For what I do in the game and the way I/my group plays this works perfectly. If you want to make a guide addressing that I would happily read it!

Many of the choices, like running PfM, are done under the assumption that, since I'm currently tanky enough, I don't need a defensive tactic and that's the best available offensive option. From the math I've seen on the forums that seems to be the case, but I haven't tested every offensive tactic so I could be wrong.

Gear wise I'm all for trying out Dominator and Redeye once I have access to them. I should listen to my own advice about the usefulness of melee crit in this build. Quick question though: where exactly is it decided that 50% is enough armor strikethrough? If I'm tanky enough and at strength cap pumping WS looks like the best way to boost damage. Any tradeoff made here lowers damage output for survivability, and I'm not feeling nearly as glassy as you seem to believe.

Your tips, however, on AP pooling, and the rest of the addendum, are things that, though internalized, I hadn't included yet in the guide. With your permission, I'll roll those into what I've been working on for the next update - rotation/abilities/tips sections.

[szejoza]

Quick question though: where exactly is it decided that 50% is enough armor strikethrough?

It's a realistic value that can be achieved without sacrificing too much of the other stats. You need to assume that your every enemy will have an armor pot on him so it works against pretty much every class (and more WS=more parry so enjoy extra little bit of survivability)
On my slayer I had stats balanced at 900STR and 400-450 WS which was nice, there is no point in going for skill cap with items alone, always use pots or/and use your party buffs, running 1050 str with 300 WS would be quite useless

[shaggyboomboom]

Tbh 450 WS seems quite low, most of the slayer/choppa players i play with seem to sit around 700 WS. Gotta keep in mind that 90% of groups run a zealot or RP that give 1k extra armor and - 15% armor pen thru hots.

[szejoza]

Tbh 450 WS seems quite low, most of the slayer/choppa players i play with seem to sit around 700 WS. Gotta keep in mind that 90% of groups run a zealot or RP that give 1k extra armor and - 15% armor pen thru hots.

I never said I was good with him xD

But tbh, its okayish for pug environment, you will melt through squishies and it is easy to get. I never had the patience to even get beastlord set (damn this PvE) so I was always focusing on mixing 2 sets at most. Not the best, not the worst.

[Fallenkezef]

Tbh 450 WS seems quite low, most of the slayer/choppa players i play with seem to sit around 700 WS. Gotta keep in mind that 90% of groups run a zealot or RP that give 1k extra armor and - 15% armor pen thru hots.

I never got to conq/dom but had full genesis and subjugator hitty stick on my Slayer, was able to hit the Str softcap (was hovering around 1100 iirc) and run just under 700 WS. It's doable

[Elio]

@Szejoza I'm getting that. I believe that it was brought up in reference to my armor strikethrough being too high. W/ the perfect liniment (60 WS/-5% chance to be crit) I'm sitting at 1054, 920 WS (~65% strikethrough), and 0% chance to be crit. Is the meta really to stack -Crit% beyond that?

[Fallenkezef]

@Szejoza I'm getting that. I believe that it was brought up in reference to my armor strikethrough being too high. W/ the perfect liniment (60 WS/-5% chance to be crit) I'm sitting at 1054, 65% strikethrough and 0% chance to be crit. Is the meta really to stack -Crit% beyond that?

Destro side definitely, init-stacking is the new black, order-side? Not sure

[szejoza]

Ask premades I was always a pug on my slayer and so I had to spec defensively so at least healers had that extra second to heal me.

But as I said before, you don't really need to sit at softcap all the time, there is a high chance you will get some sort of str buff (be it kotbs aura or IB buff) or worst case scenario you can use potions. So if you have over 1050 str already Id swap it for additional 100 WS (as probably it will translate into higher dmg output that going over the softcap in STR). I'm not active on slayer anymore so a lot of my info is outdated (especially about initiative stuff)

[Fallenkezef]

Ask premades I was always a pug on my slayer and so I had to spec defensively so at least healers had that extra second to heal me.

But as I said before, you don't really need to sit at softcap all the time, there is a high chance you will get some sort of str buff (be it kotbs aura or IB buff) or worst case scenario you can use potions. So if you have over 1050 str already Id swap it for additional 100 WS (as probably it will translate into higher dmg output that going over the softcap in STR). I'm not active on slayer anymore so a lot of my info is outdated (especially about initiative stuff)

True, if I was to do it all over again I'd only worruly about getting str to 800-900 and focus on other stats a bit more

[Toldavf]

Ask premades I was always a pug on my slayer and so I had to spec defensively so at least healers had that extra second to heal me.

But as I said before, you don't really need to sit at softcap all the time, there is a high chance you will get some sort of str buff (be it kotbs aura or IB buff) or worst case scenario you can use potions. So if you have over 1050 str already Id swap it for additional 100 WS (as probably it will translate into higher dmg output that going over the softcap in STR). I'm not active on slayer anymore so a lot of my info is outdated (especially about initiative stuff)

Don forget for each knight/sm buff to strength there will be a chosen or blorc debuting it.