Help a noam out

[GnekroeGnomicon]

http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=992851

General:
Innate Run Speed 3
Innate Regeneration 3

Arch:
Spell Casting Mastery 3
Combat Agility 3
Natural Durability 3

Class:
Life Burn 1

PoP Abilities:
Lightning Reflexes 5
Theft of Life 3

GoD:
Swift Journey 2
Critical Affliction 3

Omens:
Death Peace 1
Mnemonic Retention 1
Improved Critical Affliction 1
Tailoring Mastery 1
Salvage 3
Arcane Tongues 3

What aa's next?
My next 15 aa's will be to get Improved Critical Affliction 2 and 3... but after that I am kind of at a loss. I am not sure if I want to do the DoDh crit line for a while as the return seems pretty low. GoM looks good but I am still missing all of my 69-70 spells so I am not casting a huge amount of >65 spells (or is it >=65??). I would like to get suspend minion for ease of pet pulling and pet discipline, but I have lived without them for a long time they could still be put a ways out. I don't raid much, I just got Lifeburn instead of moving towards ICA just so I have a bit of burst damage. Wake the Dead and Army of the Dead sound like a lot of fun, but I don't often find myself surrounded by a lot of corpses to use this with, though I suppose I could make a habit of it.

Where would you go next as a mostly non-raider?

[Dranul]

Gift of Mana procs on >=65 spells, so it's a lovely, lovely AA. /end Clockwork Orange impression

If your plan is to increase dps, just finish out the dot crit line. I know it feels like going uphill in mud, but it's the single best way to increase dps.

Pet Hold and Suspend Minion, and I'll throw in Feign Minion too, are just great utility. It's surprising the number of bone chips I save with Feign Minion + Suspend Minion, and they are all fairly cheap.

If you want to have some fun, WTD, AotD, and Swarm of Decay are good ones too, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you're really put off with the passive AAs and really want to get some fun ones. They just plain suck except for eye candy.

And speaking of sucky eye candy, pet flurries and crits are half decent ways to improve your pet and you get to have fun counting the "Boner performs a FLURRY of attacks on something with too much AC and HP for it to matter anyway" messages.

But, honestly, if I were a non-raider, I'd go with Gift of Mana. It's a nice break from passive AAs, since you get to have fun watching for it proc, and it's still a great addition to your AA arsenal. Then fill out the DoDH crits, then work on something from there. If you have some spare AAs, Flesh to Bone so you can turn Scorpion Meat from the Shadowheaven vendor into cheap chips is also good.

[Felicite]

GoM is >= 65.. but..

You kite/solo alot, right? So, your damage is DoTs > Pets > DDs/Taps.

So.. I would spend the AA into Pet Flurries.. and maybe even Pet Crits.

Finish your Tailoring Mastery and get to work on DoN Cultural, slacker.

Finish the Theft of Life lines.

Pet Heals (both lines.. at least two rank 2 on the 2nd one) and the Quicken. This is a handy "oops" every 9 minutes that I use, a lot.

Suspend 2 is handy, but even though I always have a spare pet in the can.. I usually die before I get to use it these days. Death comes swiftly.. when it comes (complete with a successful FD at bind).

Buy Pet Affinity.

Maybe start piling on the nuke crits at this point. I have totally finished mine and I would rate it as my least used AA on a night by night basis.

So.. there's a 200-300 AA plan for you.

[Dranul]

Feli > me

[Xelgadis]

Originally posted by Felicite@Dec 6 2005, 02:47 PM
Pet Heals (both lines.. at least two rank 2 on the 2nd one) and the Quicken. This is a handy "oops" every 9 minutes that I use, a lot.
Also comes in handy when I let my pet offtank half the train (10-15) I pulled in Ssra mines. Crap like that makes me wish I had a slow stick for Shackle of Spirit, or at the very least... Channeling Mastery... *cough*hint*cough*. As it was, I was already pulling too many to keep enough mezzed to make a difference, and the little shits buff the crap out of each other. Slow them or dispell them and they're more of a joke than they already are, but channeling either with that many mobs on you is luck at best.

[Rijak]

your path looks a lot like mine so far... though i'm about 50 aas short

i'm eyeing to wrap up my crit dot line first, then probably avoidance defensives... but on the way i plan to grab the two invis aas (live and undead)... nice if you don't have the pre-nerf CoS option for pulling and just all-around convenience

[BlackHeart]

I actually put off the defensive AAs for a long time. My thinking was that I wanted to avoiding getting hit at all, so they wouldn't be as beneficial to me as other things. I have taken every AA that helps DPS that I can, including pet crits and flurries and all the pet summoning ones and pet and self heals, and even a few fun AAs and am just now over 400 AA and finaly started on the defensive AA track.

May not be the smartest course to take but it has worked well enough for me.

[Felicite]

Originally posted by Dranul@Dec 6 2005, 12:52 PM
Feli > me
I had not read what you wrote.. we were writing at the same time.

I love Gift of Mana.. and you might be right to do that first.

[Xislaben]

Definitely GoM.
Improved Critical Affliction3
Affliction Mastery3 (really the cost/benefit here slows way down though)

Planar Power
Innate Enlightenment
Soul Thief
Fury of Magic
Fury of Magic Mastery

iirc the pet dps aa's were kinda low on the dps scale of cost/benefit, but still something to go for. I just passed 412aa's and I'm starting to look at them, having gotten persisten minion and pet afinity (both of which I love).

[Dranul]

Originally posted by Felicite+Dec 6 2005, 09:04 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Felicite @ Dec 6 2005, 09:04 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Dranul@Dec 6 2005, 12:52 PM
Feli > me
I had not read what you wrote.. we were writing at the same time.

I love Gift of Mana.. and you might be right to do that first. [/b][/quote]
Doesn't change that you're > me.

[Raidjin]

Although everyone else has essentially pointed out every AA I have taken (I'm at 370ish)....here is how *I* use GoM:

I solo a lot of OOW/DoN/DoDh content, hence, almost every mob is MWable. I keep MW memmed when soloing. When I get a GoM proc, I MW for *free* mana. I started doing this because with my typical EQ luck, I would get the GoM proc AFTER I had cast my last DoT in a series.

I've found this has helped with efficiency a lot.

If I'm kiting especially high HP mobs, I still have the choice to use GoM proc to cast another DoT for free mana too.

Works for me.

[BlackHeart]

I keep MW memmed when soloing. When I get a GoM proc, I MW for *free* mana.

Interesting use. I think I might give it a try. My luck seems to give me GoM on the last dot in my line a lot too.

[Brantes]

Finish both Crit Affliction and Critical Nuke lines. Get theft of life. and GoM.

I before wasting AAs on Planar power and Enlightenment, since the returns are small, get the Avoiodance AAs in Class and PoP, then get Defensive in those same 2 tabs. You will be amazed at how much longer you live now.

[Felicite]

I like Direct Damage Crits. People see you are doing something. Much like critical heals while Aumnyder is spam healing, people can see I am healing.

But.. last night I did two Lost Notebook: Hard missions solo. I got hit 3 times. I cast 5 Lifetaps. In approx 4 hours. That's a lot of AA invested for 5 lifetaps a day.

On the other hand, my Pet DPS AA's were working on every pull.

YMMV. Aeriform did a really good analysis of DPS per AA invested with contrasting play styles which is here to be found.

Edit: Xheng started, Aeriform is in there too: http://www.necrotalk.com/index.php?showtopic=4033

[Xislaben]

The dd and heal crits AAs may not be all that useful when soloing (except on named though), but when raiding they are very very useful, especially with encounters where mobs have nasty ae's. In fact in some of them I need to actually rely on tapping just to stay alive until I can get a cure.

[flishtaco]

Heh if the flight goes long enough I at some point end up hitting Blood magic and I dont really dare do anything but Tap with that on =P

But ya they got you covered on suggestions for what next.

[Nannasuen]

Defensive AA's are one of those things you wish you had at those 'oh crap' moments... for soloing they are very nice to have. Dot crits are $$$ get them at least thru ICA3 - you will notice the difference. GoM also very useful - save those for the 'well this will probably resist and cost me a buttload of mana dots' ie DNightmare/Horror and cast em' when it procs. Though my Gom3 procs the most on my FD splits :blink:

Pet dps aa's are mostly eye candy imo.. tap/heal crits are as stated, extremely useful for the raider - ae's & trash clearing - not so much for the solo Nec.

Army / SoD are situational but really nice if you want to say.. rune farm NC etc. they make named hunting there child's play if you don't have the gear/aa level to just tank/tap tank them. And for raiding.. just can't beat the freak out factor.

If I were still primarily soloing.. and had to choose just a handful of AA's to have.. SCM, DoT crits, Run Speed and GoM all maxxed would be the ones to have. The mind wrack idea is a great one.. hadn't thought of that - must give that a go.