the once and future Spangles

[Ynir]

I never liked putting points into rend, an attack I don't use, to get wounds and impale, which I thought were essential. I knew that "12.5% extra damage on the offhand" was an oversimplification but I did not know how to conduct the analysis that Concillian provided.

I was excited about specifying for the weapons Spangles uses most often, so, I pruned the arms tree to a twig:

5/5 parry
5/5 tactical mastery
2/2 improved overpower
arms total: 12

Improved heroic strike is gone. I won't use HS, or cleave, or whirlwind, except on adds because they induce downtime in what is otherwise a very fast attack. I can take a point from parry for anger management later, if necessary. The utility of overpower depends on being able to access it quickly from zerker stance, which I will discuss later.

I saw no opportunity to change the fury side except to place 5 points in the dual wield talent:

5/5 cruelty
5/5 unbridled wrath
1/1 piercing howl
5/5 improved battle shout
5/5 enrage
5/5 dual wield specification
2/2 improved execute
2/2 improved intercept
1/1 death wish
5/5 flurry
2/2 improved berserker rage
1/1 bloodthirst
fury total: 39

Improved berserker rage works with improved intercept very usefully, and improved excecute is the essential finishing move. We need all of them. I have not seen a 12 arms / 39 fury build before, but what of that.

There is more to DPS than crit, you must strike the right balance between AP, crit, and +hit.

Well, ok. After weeks of fighting to the last 100 HP, it's time to back off from the bleeding edge. Our objective now is to evaluate the dual wield spec, but with unbuffed attack power augmented from 625 towards 700, and 10% more HP, or 4400. These improvements will come at the expense of +crit.

Spangles makes the following substitutions in gear:

neck:

Will of the Martyr (Stratholme)
+10 stamina
equip: +30 attack power.

armor:
Carapace of Anub'shiah (BRD)
577 armor
+11 Strength
+11 Agility
+22 Stamina
enchant: +100 HP
comment:

Bracers of Valor (LBRS)
261 armor
+7 strength
+3 agility
+14 stamina
+2 spirit
enchant: +9 stamina
comment: hidden, so no fashion concerns

Gauntlets of Might (MC)
468 armor[
+22 strength
+17 stamina
+7 fire resistance
equip: improves your chance to hit by 1%.
equip: increased defense +5.
enchant: +7 strength
comment: this breaks the no-upper-tier rule. I have no use for builds that require equipment to which Spangles has no access. But she does have these, and it is impossible to replace the Stronghold gloves with anything else from inventory. Nice steely graphic.

Edit: after being disarmed repeatedly during a Strat/Scarlet run, we put the Strongholds back on.

rings:

Tarnished Elven ring

Band of the Ogre King
+14 strength
+13 stamina

trinkets:
Counterattack Lodestone

Mark of Tyranny
180 armor
+10 arcane resistanc
equip: increases your chance to dodge an attack by 1%.

comment: farm Angerforge for Hand of Justice

Comparing Spangles' statistics then and now, we see:

212 -> 258 strength
182 -> 196 agility
241 -> 283 stamina
4019 -> 4439 HP
3899 -> 4364 AC
27% -> 23% crit
9% -> 11% parry
622/863 -> 728/969 attack power
5% -> 4% +hit from gear

My first impression from a few hours of testing is that the time to kill is not very different: a bit faster, and and the action smoother, perhaps. Spangles finishes a series of fights in much better condition than before, however. This means that she can attack more mobs before she has to bandage, or forgets to. First impressions are usually deceptive, but in this case, they provide incentive to kill a few hundred furbolg to learn more about this configuration.

I left two points in improved overpower because it was so useful when Spangles was arms/fury and wielding the Arcanite Reaper. Overpower works fine in a swat/stare swat/stare encounter. But in a ten-second fight, the process of switching into battle stance, switching to the axe, hitting, and switching back to DW zerker is inefficient.

I have been playing with macros from the following thread:

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.a...tmp=1#post74295

in particular, a macro to change stances if necessary to access overpower:

/script texture,name,isActive,isCastable = GetShapeshiftFormInfo(1);
if isActive then CastSpellByName("Overpower(Rank 3)");
else CastSpellByName("Battle Stance()");
end;

The scheme is to place the button for this macro on the zerker hotbar in the same position as the overpower button on the battle stance hotbar. When in zerker mode, and overpower becomes available, the macro button on the zerker hotbar lights up. Press the button, the macro casts battle stance, the hotbar shifts, and a second button press activates overpower.

Spangles used a simple bag-slot location macro to 1H/2H weapon swap, but this would not fit into the macro above. I downloaded WeaponSwap and Stancesets, documented elswhere in this forum. WeaponSwap puts search-by-name weapon swap functions in the UI. Stancesets swaps weapons in a predetermined fashion whenever a swap function or a stance change is called. These mods work very well, are compatible with CTMod, and are now part of Spangles' mod set.

This code should yield quick access to overpower from zerker stance. The macro makes the right decision, calls battle stance, and the weapon swap occurs properly. The problem is that the macro button doesn't ever seem to light up. Have the furbolg stopped dodging? Is the DW attack too fast for them? I will experiment more, and report.