Best secondary class for s&b soldier in AoM: Tactician, commando, witchblade, or death knight?

[cam_robert]

Since the expansion has been out for a little while now, does any one have a case for which soldier build offers the most in terms of combined offense and defense? For me these are the tier1 builds in no particular order:

• Tactician: can be build as either cadence user or forcewave with octavius set. great damage and survivability.
  -Witch blade: CoF for physical rr, as well as a couple other goodies for added tankiness
• Commando: lots of physical damage from temper/vindictive flame, plus blast shield
• Death knight: aether death knights looks beastly but are very gear dependent. huge upside with the right gear though.

which soldier build do you think has the potential to be the strongest? My pure soldier has yet to select his second mastery but am currently leaning towards forcewave tactician as the most powerful of these builds.

what do ya think? :rolleyes:

[LastMaxStanding]

Depends entirely on what you want.

Personal opinions:
Tactician has the best resist pool allowing easier capping, and high potential crit damage. You don’t even need to push base OA that high, you can rely on Markovian’s Advantage Debuff then fighting spirit proc to proc Deadly aim and suddenly you’re critting like gangbusters in bursts of 5 seconds out of 16. An extra source of flat damage absorb can be amazing, or used instead of menhir’s bastion and take conviction or olerons. It also has pretty solid itemization support. Since you mentioned forcewave tactician you’d really want to try to go oleron’s for the extra flat trauma, since stacking trauma and the octavius set is pretty obviously going to be sweet.

Witchblade, however, has, in my opinion, the best offensive potential if you’re ignoring non-soldier itemization. Zero extra skill ranks and CoF is still a great force multiplier. (okay, it’s a x1.27 multiplier, but that’s still surprisingly good, especially combined with rank 12 or so Break Morale giving another 30 reduction). Likewise bang for your buck Blood of Dreeg even with no extra ranks is an excellent buff that synergises well. Health regen, OA, phys resist. All things a heavily defensive build can always use more of, with the CoF providing the extra punch that sort of build can be lacking in.

Commando: Blast shield. That’s really it. The flat damage and damage bonuses don’t really matter much, unless/even if you’re gearing heavily into demo +levels. Vindictive Flames damage proc by itself is okay but not particularly amazing unless you’re intentionally trying to gear for it. Flashbang if you’re doing some kind of glass cannon maybe?

Aether DK is basically exactly one set of gear. It looks great, with a dedicated full set support and a couple of weapons/shields options depending on if you want to chase blue text or aether damage. Great resist reduction options. However, the exact same gear that makes it at all possible also means you aren’t taking the soldier gear that usually turns a soldier mastery class into an unkillable killing machine. Necro has some pretty nice defensive skills, but it’s going to be way more offense oriented in my opinion. Probably more than sturdy enough, even a couple of back to back stuns/freezes will pop menhir and then you panic pound the mark of torment button so it goes off soon as you break free of cc. That should give you enough time to get siphon soul back up (if relying on it) or just smack something enough to life leech back up.

Retaliation Warder, ala the Avenger of Cairn build that has a thread here is probably the strongest, though. Other than retaliation, though, no one needs to be THAT unkillable, and the other combos synergize better for offense, imo. Especially S&B.

Battlemage: Same gear as the Aether DK, trades resist reduction for another nuke or two in callidors/devestation (subbing spellscourge shield). Sometimes you just want stuff to blow up. Also with a second source of %damage absorb I feel like it gives a less spiky defensive curve than the DK version.

[cam_robert]

Depends entirely on what you want.

Personal opinions:
Tactician has the best resist pool allowing easier capping, and high potential crit damage. You don’t even need to push base OA that high, you can rely on Markovian’s Advantage Debuff then fighting spirit proc to proc Deadly aim and suddenly you’re critting like gangbusters in bursts of 5 seconds out of 16. An extra source of flat damage absorb can be amazing, or used instead of menhir’s bastion and take conviction or olerons. It also has pretty solid itemization support. Since you mentioned forcewave tactician you’d really want to try to go oleron’s for the extra flat trauma, since stacking trauma and the octavius set is pretty obviously going to be sweet.

Witchblade, however, has, in my opinion, the best offensive potential if you’re ignoring non-soldier itemization. Zero extra skill ranks and CoF is still a great force multiplier. (okay, it’s a x1.27 multiplier, but that’s still surprisingly good, especially combined with rank 12 or so Break Morale giving another 30 reduction). Likewise bang for your buck Blood of Dreeg even with no extra ranks is an excellent buff that synergises well. Health regen, OA, phys resist. All things a heavily defensive build can always use more of, with the CoF providing the extra punch that sort of build can be lacking in.

Commando: Blast shield. That’s really it. The flat damage and damage bonuses don’t really matter much, unless/even if you’re gearing heavily into demo +levels. Vindictive Flames damage proc by itself is okay but not particularly amazing unless you’re intentionally trying to gear for it. Flashbang if you’re doing some kind of glass cannon maybe?

Aether DK is basically exactly one set of gear. It looks great, with a dedicated full set support and a couple of weapons/shields options depending on if you want to chase blue text or aether damage. Great resist reduction options. However, the exact same gear that makes it at all possible also means you aren’t taking the soldier gear that usually turns a soldier mastery class into an unkillable killing machine. Necro has some pretty nice defensive skills, but it’s going to be way more offense oriented in my opinion. Probably more than sturdy enough, even a couple of back to back stuns/freezes will pop menhir and then you panic pound the mark of torment button so it goes off soon as you break free of cc. That should give you enough time to get siphon soul back up (if relying on it) or just smack something enough to life leech back up.

Retaliation Warder, ala the Avenger of Cairn build that has a thread here is probably the strongest, though. Other than retaliation, though, no one needs to be THAT unkillable, and the other combos synergize better for offense, imo. Especially S&B.

Battlemage: Same gear as the Aether DK, trades resist reduction for another nuke or two in callidors/devestation (subbing spellscourge shield). Sometimes you just want stuff to blow up. Also with a second source of %damage absorb I feel like it gives a less spiky defensive curve than the DK version.

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, max.
I’m going to take some time to ponder your words.

[Shayd]

Depends entirely on what you want.

Personal opinions:
Tactician has the best resist pool allowing easier capping, and high potential crit damage. You don’t even need to push base OA that high, you can rely on Markovian’s Advantage Debuff then fighting spirit proc to proc Deadly aim and suddenly you’re critting like gangbusters in bursts of 5 seconds out of 16. An extra source of flat damage absorb can be amazing, or used instead of menhir’s bastion and take conviction or olerons. It also has pretty solid itemization support. Since you mentioned forcewave tactician you’d really want to try to go oleron’s for the extra flat trauma, since stacking trauma and the octavius set is pretty obviously going to be sweet.

Witchblade, however, has, in my opinion, the best offensive potential if you’re ignoring non-soldier itemization. Zero extra skill ranks and CoF is still a great force multiplier. (okay, it’s a x1.27 multiplier, but that’s still surprisingly good, especially combined with rank 12 or so Break Morale giving another 30 reduction). Likewise bang for your buck Blood of Dreeg even with no extra ranks is an excellent buff that synergises well. Health regen, OA, phys resist. All things a heavily defensive build can always use more of, with the CoF providing the extra punch that sort of build can be lacking in.

Commando: Blast shield. That’s really it. The flat damage and damage bonuses don’t really matter much, unless/even if you’re gearing heavily into demo +levels. Vindictive Flames damage proc by itself is okay but not particularly amazing unless you’re intentionally trying to gear for it. Flashbang if you’re doing some kind of glass cannon maybe?

Aether DK is basically exactly one set of gear. It looks great, with a dedicated full set support and a couple of weapons/shields options depending on if you want to chase blue text or aether damage. Great resist reduction options. However, the exact same gear that makes it at all possible also means you aren’t taking the soldier gear that usually turns a soldier mastery class into an unkillable killing machine. Necro has some pretty nice defensive skills, but it’s going to be way more offense oriented in my opinion. Probably more than sturdy enough, even a couple of back to back stuns/freezes will pop menhir and then you panic pound the mark of torment button so it goes off soon as you break free of cc. That should give you enough time to get siphon soul back up (if relying on it) or just smack something enough to life leech back up.

Retaliation Warder, ala the Avenger of Cairn build that has a thread here is probably the strongest, though. Other than retaliation, though, no one needs to be THAT unkillable, and the other combos synergize better for offense, imo. Especially S&B.

Battlemage: Same gear as the Aether DK, trades resist reduction for another nuke or two in callidors/devestation (subbing spellscourge shield). Sometimes you just want stuff to blow up. Also with a second source of %damage absorb I feel like it gives a less spiky defensive curve than the DK version.

Is Witchblade really that much better than Commando? I thought Temper, alongside a few + Temper items, bridged the gap between the two, especially after the CoF nerf? I’m actually trying to decide between the two for my S/B Build, but I was told that Commando was more offensively oriented.

[the_dead_pig]

Since the expansion has been out for a little while now, does any one have a case for which soldier build offers the most in terms of combined offense and defense? For me these are the tier1 builds in no particular order:

• Tactician: can be build as either cadence user or forcewave with octavius set. great damage and survivability.
  -Witch blade: CoF for physical rr, as well as a couple other goodies for added tankiness
• Commando: lots of physical damage from temper/vindictive flame, plus blast shield
• Death knight: aether death knights looks beastly but are very gear dependent. huge upside with the right gear though.

which soldier build do you think has the potential to be the strongest? My pure soldier has yet to select his second mastery but am currently leaning towards forcewave tactician as the most powerful of these builds.

what do ya think? :rolleyes:

did run a DK 1h cadence with farming the kreigs set.
feels tanky and dish dmg pretty good.
Feels really good IMO.

going to try one in hardcore next.

[LastMaxStanding]

Is Witchblade really that much better than Commando? I thought Temper, alongside a few + Temper items, bridged the gap between the two, especially after the CoF nerf? I’m actually trying to decide between the two for my S/B Build, but I was told that Commando was more offensively oriented.

the flat damage component of Temper is always nice/great. Another 100% physical damage when you can get 2000% in full gear and devotions, though, is 5%. -25% resist at rank 10 with no ranks from gears is, well, 25%. Temper at rank 12 is 22-30 flat damage, which isn’t bad at all and always worth getting more of, but let’s look at an example gearing:

mythical warborn plus siegebreaker shield, without figuring out the rest of the slots:

198 from weapon, 53 from the shield, 16 on the chest. Assume mace devo and olerons for now since we’re talking about offensive potential, 12 + 12, total physical damage close to 300. 30 more would be a 10% gain. meanwhile even if you take other sources of RR, -25% resist is still 25%.

Speed is a good force multiplier, too, though. Total speed from vindictive flame, 15% for 16 points, or 15% attack speed for 12 from soleal’s. If going with forcewave, since it’s cast speed vindictive is a gain, though.

So now that I consider that, if you’re going with Forcewave…eh…hmm. Actually given the octavius set I might lean Tactician. Not sure it’s ‘better’ damage, but it’s hard for me to resist making use of +skills. And depending on your OA and crit rate it has some nice multipliers in the +crit damage from deadly aim and seal. (also at that point since octavius forcewave is a trauma build we’d want to look at the actual trauma support, and critting with dots is always a plus. individual hits, crits come and go, dots (actual damage over time, shown as X damage over Y seconds, not X damage every 1 second) if they crit continue to crit for their whole duration.

[x1x1x1x2]

the flat damage component of Temper is always nice/great. Another 100% physical damage when you can get 2000% in full gear and devotions, though, is 5%. -25% resist at rank 10 with no ranks from gears is, well, 25%. Temper at rank 12 is 22-30 flat damage, which isn’t bad at all and always worth getting more of, but let’s look at an example gearing:

mythical warborn plus siegebreaker shield, without figuring out the rest of the slots:

198 from weapon, 53 from the shield, 16 on the chest. Assume mace devo and olerons for now since we’re talking about offensive potential, 12 + 12, total physical damage close to 300. 30 more would be a 10% gain. meanwhile even if you take other sources of RR, -25% resist is still 25%.

I remember Superfluff saying in his Commando build thread that Commando and Witchblade are pretty much even now. You can now get maximum overcapped Temper in Commando now so it’s more than 200% physical damage bonus and that’s big

[LastMaxStanding]

I remember Superfluff saying in his Commando build thread that Commando and Witchblade are pretty much even now. You can now get maximum overcapped Temper in Commando now so it’s more than 200% physical damage bonus and that’s big

Depends on what else you’re getting from the gearing to get there. If you want to use specific gear sets maybe not, but in general I’d agree that if you go commando and gear appropriately to it/build to it’s strengths it’s on par.

ETA: Basically, I’m saying Witchblade is great with very minimal investment in occultist from both skill and gear. If you have a soldier build and just want to mix it with something without changing anything else, occultist provides a lot of value.

[cctobias]

Here is one possibility I think isn’t being heavily considered:

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zbv8a2

That references a green amulet that is unlikely to get but there are plenty of 4% CD amulets around to get so close it may be academic.

I don’t claim that is optimal or even the best way to slot the idea but basically it is the following:
-Death Knight
-Use retaliation
-Use Aeon + extra duration to make Mark of Torment(10 sec duration) permanent at 60% absorb*bullwaark abosrob and make non-transmuted overguard close to permanent

There is probably a better way to get more damage out that and or better sustain. But suspect a build along those lines can kill Mind Ravager similar to supperfluff’s commando/witchblade versions.

66% absorb is incredibly powerful and with 28% phys resist you may not even need much armor and maybe able to swap that around in some way for more damage.

I dunno really anyway its just a suggestion of a direction to look into.

This is one of the only ways to get perma Mark of Torment super absorb without playing a spellbinder with star pact.

Edit: I have left a good amount of points in there on purpose because I am playing with it. Other thigns to conadier: the haunt relic may allow life steal even on bosses (WPS steal and siphon souls) for sustain possibilities. CD is mostly for over guard, MoT is perma with just the shield, 15% is 1 sec downtime on OG. I have no idea if retlaiation is the best way to go on this, but shield/rings/head slots are required. Oh right i slotted twinfangs, this procs at max rate on RE so that is extra life steal but its terribly unoptimzed on this build so i dunno.

[LastMaxStanding]

Here is one possibility I think isn’t being heavily considered:

http://www.grimtools.com/calc/Q2zbv8a2

That references a green amulet that is unlikely to get but there are plenty of 4% CD amulets around to get so close it may be academic.

I don’t claim that is optimal or even the best way to slot the idea but basically it is the following:
-Death Knight
-Use retaliation
-Use Aeon + extra duration to make Mark of Torment(10 sec duration) permanent at 60% absorb*bullwaark abosrob and make non-transmuted overguard close to permanent

There is probably a better way to get more damage out that and or better sustain. But suspect a build along those lines can kill Mind Ravager similar to supperfluff’s commando/witchblade versions.

66% absorb is incredibly powerful and with 28% phys resist you may not even need much armor and maybe able to swap that around in some way for more damage.

I dunno really anyway its just a suggestion of a direction to look into.

This is one of the only ways to get perma Mark of Torment super absorb without playing a spellbinder with star pact.

spellscourge neck is a +1 soldier and has 5% CDR.

[cctobias]

spellscourge neck is a +1 soldier and has 5% CDR.

Yeah that could work, you get I think 2 sec downtime on OG with that. Or alternatively you transmute OG and never need extra CD at all, but if you want to try non retaliation damage I wouold try to go for non-transmute.

[Superfluff]

All of them. Literally all of them No joking You just need the gear

[Ksajal]

[…] -25% resist at rank 10 with no ranks from gears is, well, 25%. […]

Only if the enemy has 0% physical resistance. The more physical resistance an enemy has, the more actual damage that -25% is.