At the moment I'm RR5L9, but I'm not to far from RR6L0 (will probably be even higher ranking when Old RA comes). With NF RA I use IP2/Purge2/Charge2/MoPain2 and it seems to work fine for solo, but the timers aren't so bad.

When Old RAs come I've wanted to get into a more passive selection (already dislike 15min. timers I'll hate 30 lol). So I've been playing with a calculator and this RA spec seems cool:

Aug Dex II
Mastery of Pain IV
Dualist's Reflexs IV
Long Wind I
Tireless I
Purge (30min. timer I know, but at 4 RA points it seems like a steal)

How does that sound? Solo capable? Fits exactly according to calculator to RR6L0 and would plan on increasing Long Wind I to II at RR6L3.



If any extra info is needed I'll go ahead and give it:

Highlander / +15Str +10Con starting stats
50DW 42Shield 39Slash 13Parry
Cap MP template



Thanks for any imput. Also if any Mercs have any current NF RA solo knowledge I'd like to hear it.

defensive ras >>>> offensive ras for soloing

get IP and AoP3 imho

So pretty much wait 30 mins each time I want to leave apk? Sounds pretty sucky lol. I already get tired of 15minute timers. :\

Welcome to "classic".

Strictly for soloing, I'd go for dex 2> MoP 4 + DR 3, LW 1, Tireless 3, Purge 1 (just because it can come in handy every 30 minutes).
But I think it's a bad idea to run around without det 5 because no groups will take you.

AoP is on a 15min timer.

Having strong actives to kill multiple people at once every now and then beats crappy passives that make you slightly stronger. A merc should kill every other tank and all stealthers anyway and passives don´t help against classes that can kill you, like all casters.

AoP ?

Pouli wrote:AoP ?

Avoid Pain

and I just saw that mercs don´t get it (O_o)

guess more pasives then

DR sucks for dw/cd
MoA is the best dps per point by far

defensive passives > offensive passives

OF passives generally aren´t worth it over lvl3

tireless 3 is stupid as lw2 tl2 is less points and lets you permasprint with an end pot. end reg5 is also way more then enough in fight

Jarysa wrote:DR sucks for dw/cd
MoA is the best dps per point by far

Why's that? The increase in chance isn't worth the points? After all with a fast off-hand it will increase our chance to swing faster.

hardly noticable.

dr3 does pretty much nothing for average swingspeed.

Jarysa wrote:hardly noticable.

dr3 does pretty much nothing for average swingspeed.

Good to know, thx.

I thought the reason for getting Dualist's Reflexs is for increased chance at triggering an offhand strike as well as raising its damage. Not increasing its swing speed?

Zarkor wrote:

Jarysa wrote:hardly noticable.

dr3 does pretty much nothing for average swingspeed.

Good to know, thx.

DR boosts damage by giving an additional 3% chance for DW/CD user's offhand to fire. That's an additional 3% chance to do double your base damage. With style damage brought into the equation it means something like 2% more damage overall per level.

MoA obviously reducing swing speed, so for someone swinging a 4.0 speed weapon with 200 quickness and a 17% haste buff they will get a reduction of about .072 in swing speed per level of MoA. When you do the math on how many more hits that means in 30 second or a minute of attacks, it becomes clear that its basically the same DPS boost on average per level as DR was. The difference between the two RAs as far as damage is concerned is not all that great imo. Depending on what happened in the fight either one could be slightly more valuable.


The main difference between MoA and DR is the pre requisites. For DR you need aug dex 2 which is the same pre req mastery of pain has. For MoA you need aug str 3. So imo, unless you are already planning on buying aug str 3, DR is more DPS per RSP spent because at level 3, if you are already planning on aug dex 2 for MOPain, but NOT planning on aug str 3, you will spend twice as many points to get MoA3 as you will to get DR3.

If you are a peirce/thrust/H2H speccing aug str3 could be even more undesirable for you as well.


Ultimately, when you do the math either way you go you're adding about the same damage over time, so it won't matter all that much.

Nah, do the maths for higher levels of the RAs.

Assuming rr10 and both weapons the same speed.

MoA5 is a ~17.5% increase in base damage.

DR5 is a ~9% increase in base damage.

With a faster offhand the benefit from MoA won´t change while the increase in basedamage will be lower for DR ( ~5.7% for an offhand with half the mainhands speed) but styledmg/time will increase slighty due to the offhand haste effect kicking in more often.

Im too lazy to run the maths atm tho as it involves quite a lot of variables. (style GR, spec, speed of the weapons, etc)

BTW

MoP5 is a ~7.3% increase in damage. Not really a lot but crits can help killing people alot faster.

Jarysa wrote:Nah, do the maths for higher levels of the RAs.

Assuming rr10 and both weapons the same speed.

MoA5 is a ~17.5% increase in base damage.

DR5 is a ~9% increase in base damage.

With a faster offhand the benefit from MoA won´t change while the increase in basedamage will be lower for DR ( ~5.7% for an offhand with half the mainhands speed) but styledmg/time will increase slighty due to the offhand haste effect kicking in more often.

Im too lazy to run the maths atm tho as it involves quite a lot of variables. (style GR, spec, speed of the weapons, etc)

BTW

MoP5 is a ~7.3% increase in damage. Not really a lot but crits can help killing people alot faster.

well first off there's only 1 RR10 merc active on this server, and I doubt even they will be speccing MoA5 or DR5.

For most people, I think a more relevant comparison is with level 3 of each ability, though it really doesn't matter.

Can you show your math on the "17.5% increase of base damage" for MoA5? It is a 3% boost to attack speed per level, so at level 5 that's hitting 15% faster. Given that attack 1 is at time -0-, and given that style damage is a function of DPS, I don't see how that 15% could do anything but go down.

Imo, when you actually figure out the amount of damage both RAs are going to add in real combat, the difference is negligible, but until you are already planning on having aug str3, DR will be half price since youll already be buying its pre reqs for MoPain.