MELEE: STR vs WS - Haven't seen this in a while

[freshour]

Okay so yes, I play a melee DoK as well as a backline healing DoK. I particularly like melee healing in that you get to play the role of support, get to be up close and personal, and generally melee DoK/WP are some of the most non-RvR fun I've had in the entire game.

Now damage is a factor of so many things. When you start throwing in possible debuffs I realize that the clear cut answer can be pretty difficult to come up with but I'm trying to get this sorted for my future reference.

In General. At Rank 40 lets say with Dominator sets for everyone. Where do you guys usually draw the line as far as str/ws goes if you were trying to reach maximum output of damage? I know other classes have mechanics that boost crit damage, or tactics that increase str/ws but for the discussion lets exclude anything other than an increase to str/ws.

I am also going to exclude the mega extremes. For instance gaining 30 str at the expense of like 80-90 ws and so on. But in general around 450-500 ws and 900-920 str is where I am at. I can play with those numbers back and forth but cannot increase the sum of either of them more than 30-40 while maintaining decent hp/cleansing winds/dodge/disrupt/parry.

So I'm just curious what are general numbers that people go for. Like what % armor pen, do you guys hit 900 str and then go all defense after that? Or do you push to 1k? Any and all information/advice on this matter would be great. I do understand that maximum dps is not just ability dps but takes into consideration dots, but as I play a lifetap healer... white numbers and dots don't increase my ability dps only my sustain hence why I am asking. Again, I realize other factors play a role, guarded, non guarded, squishie vs tank and so on, so try and keep that in mind for your replies.

[Merrillian]

I'm no where near any of the caps, only at 700 str as a wp.

But I threw these rough numbers together to help me itemize.
They are flat in regards to offense and defense.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... AQ/pubhtml

[freshour]

Can you explain them a little bit lol. Sorry, it's been a long day

[Merrillian]

Follow the stat to the last column to find out how many points of strength it is worth.
For example 3 points of weapon skill roughly equates to 1 point of strength (.384 per point)

[Osred]

For My IB i have around 966 STR and 450 WS (575 buffed) but I never really notice any difference in damage with or without it buffed. I wish we had target dummies like I suggested so we could actually test these things on whether its even worthwhile.

Certainly dont notice WS changes on my WL and SM.

[roadkillrobin]

You can't really do a point for point comparison.
In general get more WS if you 1, use AoE attacks. Dps bonus have demenishing effect on moast AoE attacks and you will usually only get 50% of the dps bonus vallue. 2, You end up hitting classes of a variation of armor types. If your hunting light armor classes and medium armor classes that doesn't slot armor talismans, then str have a better ressault. If attaking frontline or armor stackers WS have a better one. 3 You don't have ane means of armor debuffing. Self explanitory.

Imo WS on melee healer DoK is slightly wasted. Moast of the healing comes from the base heal of the abillity + tactic. Rend Soul doesn't use WS and Parry Reduction is by far more important then armor pen.

WS are in general better vallue for AoE specs coz of the way dps bonus are affected by AoE spells. But it also increase your survival slightly with the Parry increase.

[Lileldys]

While Armour is still low its better to go STR.

With WS you'll probs hit better on Tank classes and WP/DOK healers but everything else will be squishy enough with any armour debuff.

[Osred]

WS are in general better vallue for AoE specs coz of the way dps bonus are affected by AoE spells. But it also increase your survival slightly with the Parry increase.

This is new to me, thanks for that. I'll be sure to keep this in mind if I ever get back into bomb warband fighting.

[roadkillrobin]

While Armour is still low its better to go STR.

With WS you'll probs hit better on Tank classes and WP/DOK healers but everything else will be squishy enough with any armour debuff.

And Dwarfs. So basicly 50% of Order (in classes not Meta)

[Karast]

For My IB i have around 966 STR and 450 WS (575 buffed) but I never really notice any difference in damage with or without it buffed. I wish we had target dummies like I suggested so we could actually test these things on whether its even worthwhile.

Certainly dont notice WS changes on my WL and SM.

I spent a lot of time working the numbers and 40 WS is about 1.2% increased damage. This was with testing abilities on 3 careers on both players and PvE mobs.

The key point to remember is for players it is not hard for tanks and medium armor to get above 75%. Even if you max out your WS around 900-1000 if you are fighting a tank with 110% they will still rock 65-75% after debuffs. That's the way the math seems to be working as far as I can make sense. Effective stacking is around 1000 WS which with my math works to around 30% penetration. But 1000WS is a lot to stack. You simply can't do it on most careers without giving up your main stat / crit, for what is over a minor improvement in damage.

WS is a really junk stat to stack. You will usually get more from over-stacking your main-stat. I am not saying to not stack it, but it should be way low on your priority list. The difference from 200 and 500 is minimal and hardly noticeable and you may even do better damage using that renown or tali's for other stats.