Return of Reckoning

I've been away from RoR for 4-5 years now and it looks like a lot has change for the class so I have some questions.

For me DPS AM was kind of a last project around the time I was getting burned out to see if it could work in a 6 man environment as either a second healer in 2-2-2 or seeing if it could revive 3-2-1 setups that used to be common for a while at least in NA when most of the guilds that did 6v6 were on equal footing and 2-2-2 was an unending boring slugfest. The 6 man stuff never really panned out, but I do remember the lifetap build being pretty insane for city WBs getting respectable scoreboard damage and sometimes top healing which made for insane contribution for gold bag farming.

DPS AM was also something fun to play for me, as you were basically playing a ranged DPS that also needed to keep track of your party to cleanse, shield, and lifetap when needed and some other interesting utility options that healer morales etc. could bring and it felt like even if it ended up being extremely mid it had so much going on and things to think about all the time that it was never boring at least for me.

1. What patch introduced the new class mechanic changes? I'd like to go read the thread, search function seems to be failing me. And how do you feel about it? For me so far it seems a bit underwhelming, but I've only played a couple hours with it. My problem mostly stems from bonuses you get from 5 point casts being extremely short duration and/or low impact buffs like 5% this or that for 5 seconds etc. Which when you are spending 5 GCD at minimum to get seems clunky, though I do like the utility options explored in things like the channel gaining a snare. I'm also not sure how I feel about some damage spells building tranq and vice versa. I'd also rather see the mechanic streamlined maybe into 3 point cap, and boring % bonuses etc. removed in favor of added effects, or something to allow DPS spec to get off meaningful heals periodically or heal AM to deal damage periodically.

2. I not 100% sure but I don't remember the tactics in the Asuryan tree having -10% to outgoing healing in them, nor did the channel tactic have a reduced damage bit? Not sure why these were nerfed. I also would like to know the mechanics of the dispel tactic, does it have cooldown? Does it only proc on direct damage? Does it work on AoE abilities? And if it does have a CD is it global or per target?

3. The new lifetap tactics in Vaul seem interesting but from testing it seems like in a DPS spec running expanded control really doesn't confer any sizeable increase to healing output at least from my limited testing on dummies, maybe its superior if all you can hit is guarded or targets with high mitigation and I'm not factoring that in? Arcing power would have been nice to have the defense strikethrough apply to all Vaul abilities instead of just those 2. And speaking of lifetap heals, these are not effected by sources of -% healing output from things like divine fury? I'm guessing this however does not apply (as in it does affect them) to the additional healing portions granted from the tactics in the mastery tree?

4. What gear is generally considered BiS now? I have full sov + Genesis, and I picked up the new reverence weapon, but I'm seeing a lot of new accessories and possible off set potential if you drop a piece of sov and lose unshackled freedom. Can you run multiple RvR jewels like sov + warlord or mix them with PvE sets? I never really soloed much on my AM, however I probably will now so I guess I'm asking the best glass canon gear (playing in a group) and if it is different for soloing how does that look different? Things like toughness vs wounds, and I guess also possible solid tactic/renown choices for solo roaming?

5. Have we gotten any cool new gear for appearance besides the ToVL set (is ToVL even in the game yet?) how is this acquired? Are there any new trophy slot items that look cool? I see there are some RR80+ dyes, do these do anything special or just flat colors like normal dyes?

Appreciate any input on any of these questions, or just in general how you guys feel about the spec after years of changes from since I've been gone. I'm glad to see the class getting some love to its mechanic, but right now it seems a bit clunky.

Cant answer all since on my phone:

Here's the pts patch:
viewtopic.php?t=55469

Expanded control is increasing your heals by a lot as a dps AM. It's very useful for keeping yourself and one other ally alive, but you can't replace a party healer.

Some tactics reduce your healing output as a balance to force you into committing into dps instead of being able to do both. Hybrid spec reall isn't a thing anymore, at least i found it to be underwhelming.
That said, i don't run any of these tactics myself, because there are better options.

As for gear there's a few different bis approaches.
Crit build: https://www.returnofreckoning.com/armor ... er/1724933

Magic power build would be similar but use the lotd jewl pieces and victorious/triumphant instead.

Thanks for the link, for tactics I've been running crit+strikethrough+divine fury and then playing around with #4 leaning more into expanded control, are those first 3 generally considered mandatory? Or are there other options?

Im on my phone now too and maybe the armory doesnt work the best here I cant see the top 2 jewel pieces. So its a mix of sov+warlord, and then im reading the victorious ring are legendary talismans special items that give more than just a flat 20 or so stat? This item is new to me.

So is that 3pc warlord + 5pc sov or 6pc sov? Is the 80 int and worth +2 mastery pts the crit proc and unshackled freedom? Plus slightly lower base stats on the gear itself? Im guessing you are picking slots where you pickup crit on warlord where its not on sov?

And after reading that thread a bit did the willpower scaling stay like it was on that patch or was it reverted? And do the damage dependent portion of lifetaps still ignore heal debuffs and the additional base heal still scale with dps stats instead of healing ones?

Also has scaling for our dps spells also been adjusted in a similar way for int in the past few years? Im asking as it seems you are chasing int softcap pretty hard unless im misunderstanding.