Introduction

I was very bored during a raid and I decided to start making a new swashbuckler guide/overview for new players. This post will outline information important to the swashbuckler class to help new players. I cannot cover all things so if anyone has suggestions feel free to add them.

A terminology reference:

DPS = Damage Per Second
Buff = A spell/ability that increases ones power or strength
Debuff = A spell/ability that cripples your targets ability to cause damage or resist damage.
NPC = Non Player Characters
Agro = Aggression or hate towards you/another by an NPC
Stats = This covers things like strength, agility, intelligence, anything that boost your abilities.
Avoidance = the ability to avoid income attacks: defense, parry and riposte skills fall in this category.
Mitigation = the ability to mitigate melee damage dealt to you by your attacker.
Raid = More then 1 group of players get together in order to take on a boss mob who's consider shows Epic.
Proc = A triggered effect that is triggered by the execution of a combat attack (for us).

Things to know about the Swashbuckler class:

We are a rogue class, we are a Tier 2 DPS class equipped with a variety of offensive debuffs to cripple our targets damage capability. As we progress in levels we gain more Area of Effect damage abilities making us a strong AE damage class. Our primary concern is DPS in groups and raids. With the aforementioned we have a respectable amount of utility we bring to groups, raids and that make our soloing life easier.

Swashbucklers are proficient soloers as long as you know how to play the class. Gear, poisons and AA choices play a powerful role in our solo ability and of course our group ability for DPS. We have a few stun abilities, a mesmerize and evac (teleport away) ability all of which make soloing easier and safer.

Our utility:

Hate:

We have the ability to manipulate a targets hate to us and others by use of agro transfers and agro reducers. We also have taunts which increase our agro to our target (or target encounter depending on the taunt).

• There is a hate, or agro, meter in the game now that will tell you how far away you are from drawing your targets attention to you. Once you reach 100% your target will change his focus to you and begin attacking you.

Debuffs:

We have some crippling offensive debuff abilities at our disposal. These abilities will decrease our target's ability to cause damage to whoever they are engaged in combat with.

• As you progress in levels you will gain more of these abilities, our staple ability (Lung Puncture) is granted at level 58.

We have a decent amount of defense debuffing capability. We can decrease our targets defense, parry and mitigation as well as several stat debuffs (wisdom, intelligence, strength (later)).

We are granted one of the most know Alternate Achievement abilities, Traumatic Swipe, from our rogue AA line.

• This ability decreases our targets ability reuse speed by 50%, this means that each time they use an ability with this effect on them that ability will take 50% longer to refresh to reuse.
• This is used on raids to give more time in between a boss NPC's Area of Effect abilities, that said not all AoE abilities are affected by this ability anymore.

Scout abilities:

We have stealth which makes us invisible to many NPCs and other players (if on PVP), if the NPC is KOS (kill on sight, hostile) to you they will have a red border around their name when you target them. If this border goes away when you stealth they cannot see you.

• Engaging in combat and interacting with objects can drop your stealth and make you visible so use caution.
• In PVP if you get too close to a hostile player they will be able to see you to an extent so use caution. If the player has see stealth, granted from totems or spells, they can also see you.
• We are also able to stealth our entire group.

We have the Tracking ability as a scout. This ability allows you to locate any person or NPC within your area and will lead you to them.

• Tracking is equipped with many filters to help with locating your target. These include filters by a NPC's strength compared to you, filters by name and filters by PC and NPC.

We have the Escape ability which is granted at level 25. This ability will teleport you and your group (if grouped) to the nearest designated safe point within your current zone.

Understanding your Stats.

Stats:

Overview of what the basic stats do for swashbucklers (strength, agility, stamina, intelligence , wisdom). All these stats can be viewed in your Persona window (press 'P' in game to see)

• STR (strength) = this boosts our weapon(s) autoattack and combat art damage, increases our power pool (secondary power pool increasing stat) and also allows us to carry more weight. This is your most important basic stat.
• AGI (agility) = this boosts our avoidance, increases our power pool (our primary power pool increasing stat) and also determines our innate critical mitigation. This is our second most important basic stat.
• STA (stamina) = this boosts our maximum health.
• INT (intelligence) = this boosts our poison's damage.
• WIS (wisdom) = this boosts our resistance to spell damage, you wont get much of this.

An order of importance for these stats is: STR>AGI>STA>INT>WIS. AGI/STA/INT can be switched depending on personal preference or playstyle (solo, group, tank, etc). You will generally end up with more STR/AGI then most by default because the majority of the gear we can wear gives those stats (until the higher raid tiers when it shifts to STR/STA/INT). Since INT boosts poison damage it will help your DPS if you group a lot more then AGI or STA. AGI/STA boosts survivability so soloers or tankers would probably give focus to those.

To determine hardcap (maximum) for each of these stats its 15 * Level + 20, so at level 80 it would be 1220. Once you reach the hardcap the stat stops giving benefits. All the above stats are on a dimenishing returns system, as you increase them they will give less improvement until you reach the maximum. Once you get around 900 in any given stat your pretty well off.

Overview of what the advanced melee stats do for swashbucklers (DPS mod, haste, critical hit, damage amount, double attack, melee AE, accuracy, hate mod). These can be viewed in the persona window and change the drop down list under 'Stats' to 'Melee Stats'.

• DPS mod = increases your weapon(s) damage potential.
  • At 200 in this stat you will get a 125% increase to your weapons damage potential.
• Haste = lowers your weapon(s) swing delay.
  • At 200 in this stat you will swing 125% faster with your weapons, just over twice as fast.
• Critical hit = gives you increased chances to perform a critical attack with either your weapon(s) or your combat arts.
  • Since this stat affects both combat arts and weapon damage this is a very important advanced stat.
  • If you get 100% in this stat it will only give you a 100% chance to perform a critical hit against of target that is the same level or lower then you. You will have to obtain higher then 100% to get 100% critical hit against mobs higher level then you.
• Damage amount = increases the maximum damage your combat arts can do.
  • The maximum any combat art can be increased is by 50% of the base (unmodified) damage.
• Double Attack = grants you the chance to perform 2 attacks for each swing of your weapon(s), at 100% you will perform a double attack with each swing of your weapon(s).
  • Right around 50% of our damage output comes from our weapon(s) so this stat is important.
• Melee AE = grants you the ability to hit multiple targets that you are facing with your weapon(s) auto attack.
• Accuracy = increases the chance that you will hit your target in combat with melee attacks.
• Hate mod = shows you what % increase or decrease you have to hate gained while in combat.

Spell stats (viewable in the persona window under 'Stats' set the drop down list to 'Spell Stats'. The ones listed below apply to our combat arts as well.

• Casting = improves casting speed of your abilities
• Reuse = improves reuse speed of your abilities (how long before you can use them again)
• Recovery = improves recovery speed of your abilities (how long before you can execute another ability)

You want to get as much DPS mod, Haste, Critical Hit, Damage Amount and Doubleattack as possible to their caps. All of these are important to our damage potential, that said Critical hit is the only one that affects both your combat arts and weapons auto attacks. A generally accepted order of importance is Critical Hit>Double Attack>DPS Mod>Damage Amount>Haste. We are granted Melee AE from one of our abilities (hurricane at lvl 52) and that stat is very hard to come by otherwise. Haste is low on the priority list because we get it from our Spurious Bravado line.

Understanding your combat abilities:

A list of swashbuckler abilities is available here

Keep your abilities at least at Adept, it will make your life much easier when leveling up especially when soloing. I would recommend keeping your AoEs, Back stabs and double/triple attack abilities as high as possible in ranks. Once you get to max level make sure you are working to upgrade your abilities to Master.

Positioning:

Unlike other rogues we only have 4 abilities (6 if you count AAs) that have positional requirements to execute them. Beakdown: 2 (4 including AAs) of them are flanking or behind, 1 of them is flanking or front and 1 of them is behind only. This gives us more flexibility in encounters BUT you want to always be behind/flanking your target in combat to maximize your damage potential and prevent/lower your targets chance at avoiding your attacks.

We have Cheap Shot, Walk the Plank (AA ability), AoE Stun, a Mesmerize and stun poisons at our disposale. These all make it easier to continue to use our positional attacks when soloing.

Autoattack Timing

AutoAttack timing can get complicated and takes time to get the hang of, it really comes into play at higher levels. What it is is timing your autoattack swings with your combat art executions. If you spam combat arts you are losing DPS because you are possible delaying your autoattack from triggering.

Being able to time effectively comes down to: A) If you are using 2 weapons, B) The delay of the weapons, C) Your haste percentage, D) Your casting and recovery speed.

If you are dual wielding your weapons delay is increased by 33%, so if you have 2 4.0 delay weapons equipped they have an actual delay of 5.33 without any haste. (to see actual delay you can type in /we, this will give you weapon information) At higher levels you will generally get 2 combat arts between auto attack swings when grouped and raiding.

Advanced Combat Tracker (ACT) can be used to help with timing autoattacks, there are also custom UI's that you can install to help with this. See 'Useful tools and references' at the end of this guide.

Combat Art Execution Order

The generally accepted execution order for our combat arts is to use our abilities that debuff defense/avoidance first, followed by offense debuff abilities then everything else. By debuffing defense first you increase the chance your other abilities will hit. One thing some swashbucklers do is group their abilities by the above order and also by recast time.

Special Abilities

Abilities in this category usually have a long recast timer or are not upgraded, they include:

• Ruthless Cunning: Increases your Damage Per Second, lvl 35 non-upgrade.
• Perfect Finesse: Increases your Damage Per Second and Haste, upgrades stop at lvl 67.
• En Garde: Gives you another attack if your attacker avoids your attack, if you avoid an attack from your attacker or a chance to perform another attack on successful execution of a combat art. First obtained at lvl 65.
• Inspired Daring: Gives you additional piercing damage on all successful attacks. First obtained at lvl 50.
• Hurricane: Gives you a percent chance to hit up to 4 targets you are facing with your primary weapons auto attack, lvl 52 non-upgrade.
• Disarming Grin: Single target Mesmerize ability, prevents a target from continuing to engage in combat. This ability is useful when soloing.

Area of Effect Abilities

Swashbucklers have 2 AoE abilities while leveling up and 1 more granted through Achievements at higher levels (shadow line). We also have the ability Hurricane which gives our primary weapons auto attack the ability to hit multiple targets we are facing (up to 4).

Things to note about our AoEs.

1. They cannot break Mesmerized effects unless we are targeting the mesmerized target directly.
   1. This includes our Hurricane ability.
2. All our AoE abilities are classified as "Blue" AoEs, this means they are out of encounter so they can strike any attackable NPC (or hostile PC if on PVP) within their designated range.
3. AoEs can be enhanced with our Achievement lines to increase range and damage potential.

Gear:

Overview of what swashbucklers can wear and the weapons we can wield.

• Swashbucklers are primarily a chain wearing class, we are able to wear leather and cloth as well.
  
  • While chain is generally all that you will wear you will find equipment that is leather that can boost your DPS more then another chain piece you may have, this is rare though.
  • You want to wear as much chain as possible because it will give you the greatest boost to your melee mitigation.

• Swashbucklers are able to wield piercing and slashing weapon types. We are also able to use bows and throwing weapons.

  • It is a good idea to keep all these skills as high as possible as you level up. You will find that you may wield one of each as you level up.

Keep your weapons and gear as current with your level as possible. Doing this will make your life easier as you level up especially when soloing. Keeping your weapons current is very important and you should always do this.

Poisons:

Swashbucklers are able to use poisons starting from level 1. Poisons coat your weapon and grant you a variate of added effects to your attacks. You can have 3 different poison types active at any given time, you cannot have 2 of the same poison types active. You have the ability to auto consume poisons, I would recommend this because poisons have a limit trigger number before they will fade away. Auto consuming poisons keeps them up all the time.

1. Turn auto-consume on:
   1. Right click on the poison you wish to auto consume and select "Turn auto-consume on"
   2. If you wish to auto consume a different poison of the same type you must turn auto-consume off on whichever poison you are already auto-consuming (of the same type) and then you can turn auto-consume on for the other poison (assuming you havent consumed all of the poison you were auto consuming first)

Poison types are:

• Damage: these have a red icon when you examine them, red icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 100 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 4.9 times per minute.
  • You want to at least always use this type of poison as you level. Starting after level 50 you will get access to Vitality breach poison which is a life tap (takes health from your target and gives it to you, healing you).
• Debuff: these have a blue icon when you examine them, blue icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute.
• Utility: these have a purple con when you examine them, yellow icon in your maintained spells window when you use them. These have 60 triggers before fading and will trigger an average of 2.9 times per minute.

Poisons to use:

• The standard poison combination used, especially at the higher level game, is as follows:

  • Caustics Poison: Direct Damage poison (damage)
    • When soloing you can substitute Vitality Breach poison for this poison (available after lvl 50), which is a lifetap poison.
  • Enfeebling Poison: Debuff's offensive capability (debuff)
  • Ignorant Bliss Poison: This is a threat decreasing poison (utility)
    • When soloing you can substitute Stupefying Poison for this poison, which will stun your combat target.

• There are many other poisons in each of the above types but you will find the aforementioned combination the best in most cases.

Where to get Poisons:

• The best poisons you can get are player made by Alchemists. Each Tier of levels has 2 types of poison, a handcrafted and mastercrafted for each type.
  • Mastercrafted is the top of the line and is most expensive but gives the greatest benefit.
• As you gain level you will get access to new poisons and the poison quality will increase. Keep this in mind as you level, make sure you use poisons appropriate for your level.
• You can purchase poisons from merchants but they are of a lesser quality and you cannot find the above poisons on them.

Skills:

As scouts swashbucklers get a number of skills that are very useful and should be worked on as much as possible. List below are the primary skills that you should maintain as much as possible.

Combat skills:

• Slashing: This determines how well we use slashing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a slashing weapon (swords, axes).
• Piercing: This determines how well we use piercing weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a piercing weapon (daggers, rapiers, spears, etc).
• Ranged: This determines how well we use ranged weapons, the higher the skill the better chance you have at hitting a target in combat with a ranged weapon (bows, throwing weapons)

The hardcap for all above skills is: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 80 it is 520.

Defensive skills:

• Defense: This is avoidance, if this skill isn't maxed you will have low avoidance and will get hit more often in combat.
• Parry: This skill also contributes to your avoidance, the higher the skill the better chance you have at warding off an incoming attack.
  • Up both these skills by engaging in combat and taking hits from the attacker.
• The hardcap for Defense/Parry skills are: 6.5 * Level; so at lvl 80 it is 520.
• Riposte: This is an innate ability scouts have, it allows you to block an incoming melee attack and then perform a counter attack with your weapon.

Utility:

• Disarm Trap: The higher this skill the better chance you have at disarming a chest.
  • The only way to up this skill is to use it on every chest that drops.
  • Recent changes have made it so if you open a chest you will automatically attempt to disarm it.
• Safe Fall: The higher this skill is the less damage you will take from falling.
  • To up this skill you must jump off high places, over and over again...

Swashbuckler Alternate Advancement Abilities:

Notes about AAs:

1. You begin gaining AA XP starting at level 10.
   1. You can control the amount of AAXP you are gaining by using the AAXP slider in the AA window)
      
2. AAXP is gained from quests, killing "named" NPCs and once your level capped your combat XP is diverted to AAXP until you are capped on AA.
   1. If you want to know if an NPC will grant AAXP it will have a star in the upper right corner of the target window when you target it.
3. I suggest not neglecting your AA's as you level up, it becomes difficult to gain AAXP once you get higher in level (often times it requires mentoring to do lower level zones to get named kills).

Your AA builds can change as you level up, it all depends on your play style. I will offer an overview of the AA lines to help you choose what works best for you. I suggest searching the swashbuckler section for AA information, the builds I outline below are optimal DPS builds for higher levels.

Rogue:

1. Strength Line

• This line boosts offensive ability. It grants 2 additional combat arts along with boosts to your Critical Hit chance. As a side addition it also boosts your defense some.
• Traumatic Swipe is granted in this AA tree.

1. Agility Line

• This line boosts offensive ability. It grants an addition combat art, this CA forces your target to face away from you so you can backstab them, and it grants an additional innate proc when you are behind/flanking your target.
• The final choice in this line increases your casting and recovery speed by 25%.
  • Recovery time is the time it takes before you can execute another combat art.

1. Stamina Line

• This line boosts your tanking ability. It grants additional taunts, increases hitpoints and defensive abilities (boosts to shield effectiveness as well).

1. Wisdom Line

• This line boost offensive ability, only when you are not wielding a weapon in your offhand. It will increase your doubleattack chance and grant a boost to your offensive/defensive skills.

1. Intelligence Line

• This line boosts your ability to avoid aggression from your target while in combat. It grants the boot dagger combat art (takes you into stealth when you execute it, so you can use our stealth back attack).
• This line's final ability grants you the ability to Feign death (fake death) once a minute and it has a 30 second duration.

Below are the most optimal build options for increasing DPS and survivability for the Rogue line. One of these 2 will be your build once you are maxed in levels and AAs.

Option A (DPS and HP Spec)

• Pick Pocket 1
• STR 4-6-4-8-1
• AGI 4-6-4-8-1
• INT 4-1
• STA 4-4-8

Option B (Max Dps Spec)

• Pick Pocket 1
• STR 8-8-4-8-1
• AGI 4-8-4-8-1
• INT 5-8

Swashbuckler:

1. Potency Line

• This line improves the effectiveness of our mitigation debuffs and several poisons.
• The final choice in this line increases the trigger chance of ALL poisons by 6%.

1. Reach Line

• This line increases the range of our Area of Effect abilities and improves the trigger chance of Hurricane.
• The final choice in this line increases the range of our melee and ranged weapons.

1. Style Line

• This line gives improvements to the reuse speed, duration and trigger chance of several of our special abilities.
• This is one of the best DPS improving lines and will generally be your first choice.
• The final choice in this line gives us a 13 second duration immunity to AoE effects to us and our group (5minute recast).

1. Debuffs Line

• The line improves the effectiveness of our debuffs (offensive and defensive).
• The final choice in this line adds an effect to our Snap of the Wrist CA that increases the chance our targets spells will be resisted.

Below is the most optimal build options for increasing DPS for the Swashbuckler line. This assumes max level and AAs

• Potency

  • Kidney Stab - 5
  • Offensive Poisons - 5
  • Turgur Poison - 5
  • Flurry of Blades - 5
  • Potency - 1

• Reach

  • Lucky Gambit - 5
  • Dashing Swathe - 5
  • Arctic Blast - 5
  • Hurricane - 5
  • Reach - 1

• Style

  • Sneak - 3
  • Avoid Blame - 5
  • Perfect Finesse - 5
  • Inspired Daring -5
  • En Garde - 5

• Debuffs

  • Flash of Steel - 5

Shadows:

Everything in the shadows tree is going to be geared towards improving your DPS, because of that I will just list the best choices in each tree. This assumes max level and AAs.

1. General

• These are just general abilities, you will most likely choose 'Hearty Constitution' and 'Enhance Mind' since they increase your health and power pools.

1. Scout

• Quick Strike - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Flash of Steel)
  
• Sinister Strike - 5 (Improves reuse speed of Sinister Strike (master strike))
  
• Evasive Maneuvers - 1 (High damage CA that lowers your thread position by 1)

1. Rogue

• Rogue's Flurry - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Snap of the Wrist)
  
• Circle of Blades - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Lucky Gambit)
  
• Poison Mastery - 5 (increases poison damage)
  
• Thieving Essence - 1 (Medium damage CA that takes spell and melee damage of target and gives it to your group)

1. Swashbuckler

• Pirate Swipe - 4 (improves damage, reuse speed and increases hit chance of Traumatic swipe)
  
• Flamboyant Swashbuckling - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Dashing Swathe)
  
• Kidney Slice - 5 (increases base damage and critical damage of Kidney Stab)
  
• Countering Blow - 5 (Improves trigger chance when using a combat art and damage of En Garde)
  
• Precision Striking - 1 (Improves base damage of all combat arts with a 30 second or higher reuse timer by 10%
  
• and increases their critical damage by 5%)
  
• Enfeebling Whirl - 1 (Blue AoE attack that does high damage and decreases INT and STR of all targets struck by 66, 1 minue reuse)

Useful references and tools

1. http://eq2.zam.com/ - Linked with SoE's database, great resource for items, ability lists, current broker listings, quests etc.
   
2. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/EverQuest..._Wiki:Main_Page - Player maintained Everquest 2 wiki, good resource for quest and level information.
3. http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Solo_Timelines - Solo Questing Timeline
4. http://advancedcombattracker.com/ - Parsing tool to track DPS, Raid mob AoE timers and help with autoattack timing.
5. http://www.eq2interface.com/index.php - Downloads for custom in-game UI's
   
6. http://maps.eq2interface.com/ - Downloads for in-game maps.
   
7. http://www.eq2flames.com - Another Everquest 2 forum.
8. Swashbuckler skill list

One final note: FORUM SEARCH IS YOUR FRIEND!!

Place holder post.

Place holder post.

I think its a nice post for the beginners, but there are minor correction to make

It would be good to spend 72 points into the Swashbuckler-line (or 61 Shadow-line), but i asume the game has something against it

I disagree to the importance order of the stats, as it depends mostly of the level from the player and the point if he raids or not. Maybe you should refer the soft and hard caps of the stats too.

Ps: Sorry for the worst english

Sarka wrote:

I think its a nice post for the beginners, but there are minor correction to make

It would be good to spend 72 points into the Swashbuckler-line (or 61 Shadow-line), but i asume the game has something against it

I disagree to the importance order of the stats, as it depends mostly of the level from the player and the point if he raids or not. Maybe you should refer the soft and hard caps of the stats too.

 

Ps: Sorry for the worst english

I made the corrections.

What do you take issue with for the order of stat importance? The more viewpoints we can have the better it will be for new players . My stat importance is based on raiding, but my opinion is the order applies to all swashbucklers regardless of level or raid based on the benefits granted from each stat.

I also added information on hardcaps and deminishing returns for the basic stats.

Very nice.

hi,

good job on the great guide, but would be possible to get a little deeper into the actual CA casting order, like which CAs would you link together to cast and best practice for TSO group vs Raid situation.

If there are any Swash on PvP server that can throw in some casting order of what you use normally when PvPing that would be nice too.

thanks.

Is it really conventional wisdom that Agi. is better than int.?  At 69 I solo some but group as much and neither survivability, aggro or power has ever been an issue.  Add to that every parse Ive seen has poison damage doing about 20'ish percent of my total damage and I just don't see it.  For me Str.>Int>Everything else (except wis)>Wis.

Hoaboseim wrote:

Is it really conventional wisdom that Agi. is better than int.?  At 69 I solo some but group as much and neither survivability, aggro or power has ever been an issue.  Add to that every parse Ive seen has poison damage doing about 20'ish percent of my total damage and I just don't see it.  For me Str.>Int>Everything else (except wis)>Wis.

Agi, early on, I think is a wise choice.  But as you level, focus more on int, sacrificing agi for int when decent items come along.

Reasoning on this:  As you level, you're more likely to group, and eventually explore raiding.  Agi's usefulness in these situations is less than the damage boost to 'red' poisons from a higher int.  While soloing, the additional damage you can do from upgrading spells, and AA abilities, and buffs, shortens fights considerably.  Again, the additional damage is nice to have.  On really tough fights, use a defensive stance, if survivability is an issue.

Hoaboseim wrote:

Is it really conventional wisdom that Agi. is better than int.?  At 69 I solo some but group as much and neither survivability, aggro or power has ever been an issue.  Add to that every parse Ive seen has poison damage doing about 20'ish percent of my total damage and I just don't see it.  For me Str.>Int>Everything else (except wis)>Wis.

For a raider AGI is pretty important these days since it boosts avoidance, power and innate critical mitigation (increasing survivability). For someone who groups a lot its less important and in reality you will end up with more of it by default anyway. You can focus on INT more then AGI in that case, it really does come down to what you see that improves your DPS for your situation. I added more to explain this in the thread.

Thats my opinion though, from what I have seen our raid gear gives a lot of INT now adays so you dont have to try as hard to get it.

I personally wouldn't spend 4 points on Pirate Swipe since the usefulness of Traumatic Swipe has decreased with TSO and the damage has always been craptastic. Too many raid mobs now have AoE that can't be modified, others constantly dispell debuffs. I'd rather spend those points on the Offstance since I'm not always grouped with a dirge, but that's a matter of preference.

Morinehtar@Valor wrote:

I personally wouldn't spend 4 points on Pirate Swipe since the usefulness of Traumatic Swipe has decreased with TSO and the damage has always been craptastic. Too many raid mobs now have AoE that can't be modified, others constantly dispell debuffs. I'd rather spend those points on the Offstance since I'm not always grouped with a dirge, but that's a matter of preference.

As much as I hate the position we are put into with having so much to boost TS, it is still useful to have it. While a good number of raid mobs have AEs that arent modifiable there are more that can be modified. Even for your average soloer being able to decrease a targets chance to reuse any ability is useful.

The other thing to keep in mind is the skill cap for offensive skills is 520 at lvl 80, most raiders can really hit that (or close) solo with just swindlers luck. A soloer can get to around 500 with minimal +skill gear at lvl 80 with swindlers luck.

I would probably take Battle Endurance if I didnt take Pirate Swipe personally, get around 200HP from the STA increase it gives.

Odeius@Guk wrote:

While a good number of raid mobs have AEs that arent modifiable there are more that can be modified.

True, but some of the more difficult mobs have AEs that can't be modified, and for the easy mobs it's not really that important since you just ignore the AEs.

Odeius@Guk wrote:

Even for your average soloer being able to decrease a targets chance to reuse any ability is useful.

I don't necessarily agree with that, but for the lack of better options in the rogue AA even soloers might just as well take TS.

Odeius@Guk wrote:

I would probably take Battle Endurance if I didnt take Pirate Swipe personally, get around 200HP from the STA increase it gives.

Got that as well, but then I skipped the Master strike. I think this really comes down to preference.

Nice Post Odeius!!

.....but ya forgot to tell'em about the really cooool hat!