Two rare skills to compare

Dream_Kiss - Sanctuary

Hey!

If you would compare Reflect with Claw in a herc, my questions are:

Which has the best DPS?
Which has the best agro?

Were talking here about a fictional herc, ofcourse, for instance on a private server. We are not talking about how rare skills are, how much money we need, if its worth it money wise, etc.

The herc has: Mdef + pdef buff + blessing.

Also I am talking about doing instances, like TT or high fb's. Not grinding.

Thanks in advance!!

DreamKiss

Vitenka - Dreamweaver

Most of the time, the reflect herc will have the edge, I think - the herc hits slowly and claw doesn't increase those hits a huge amount.

Whereas reflects are often over double the hercs attack, and can come as fast as the monsters hit the herc.

Against some weak and weedy thing that hits slowly and for not much, claw will win out. But most places you'd actually use a herc the reflect will win out.

Aniella - Harshlands

Never replace Reflect. Reflect save hercs alot.. it will die alot fast w/o it. Better put claw on Hige patk pets. as DD pet. <.<

Dream_Kiss - Sanctuary

Vitenka - Dreamweaver wrote: »

Most of the time, the reflect herc will have the edge, I think - the herc hits slowly and claw doesn't increase those hits a huge amount.

Whereas reflects are often over double the hercs attack, and can come as fast as the monsters hit the herc.

Against some weak and weedy thing that hits slowly and for not much, claw will win out. But most places you'd actually use a herc the reflect will win out.

Thanks alot for that!

Aniella - Harshlands wrote: »

Never replace claw w Reflect. Reflect save hercs alot.. it will die alot fast w/o it. Better put claw on Hige patk pets. as DD pet. <.<

Why would a herc die fast without reflect? It doesnt reduce damage.

Aniella - Harshlands

Dream_Kiss - Sanctuary wrote: »

Thanks alot for that!



Why would a herc die fast without reflect? It doesnt reduce damage.

lReflect, help herc hold agro + its also take dg. w boss atk hercs, it reffects 1- 2k dg that boss hit. so Its more powerfull on mobs then claw is.(herc kills faster w reflect buff XD)

Sarrafeline - Sanctuary

Aniella - Harshlands wrote: »

Never replace claw w Reflect. Reflect save hercs alot.. it will die alot fast w/o it. Better put claw on Hige patk pets. as DD pet. <.<

Do you even know what Reflect does?

It means your pet takes 100% of the damage dealt to your pet, and reflects however much the skill is leveled to back to the attacker. There is no reduction in the incoming damage... just like Bramble Guard. So reflect would never 'save' a herc, just help it keep aggro.

Protect and Bless help it by increasing it's PDef and MDef.

you could take Pounce off and put Claw on as the fourth attack, which maxed, gives a 30% bonus to base attack damage. That would REALLY help it hold aggro. WHICH IS WHAT THE THREAD STARTER WAS ASKING. Caps for emphasis, not yelling. >_>

Aniella - Harshlands wrote: »

lReflect, help herc hold agro + its also take dg. w boss atk hercs, it reffects 1- 2k dg that boss hit. so Its more powerfull on mobs then claw is.(herc kills faster w reflect buff XD)

This might be true to a point... A 100 herc sitting still letting Rankar wail on it in BH51 with reflect on takes 30 minutes to have Rankar suicide on it. It would take several hours for any boss in TT or higher do the same from full health. Considering that it only takes minutes to do it with a party, that reflected damage is... insignificant.

The PURPOSE of Reflect is to generate AGGRO. Aggro doesn't care if the damage dealt is high or low per hit, the aggro value has to be high. Reflect happens to have a decent aggro value. The other way to generate aggro is to deal massive damage really fast, which is why 5.0 is capable of taking aggro from Barbs so easily.

Since Reflect is, more or less, the only means a herc has of keeping aggro on a boss, it means that once aggro is taken by someone else, it's likely to be impossible to get it back. Since bosses are stun immune, the short APS bonus Pounce gives, combined with the long cooldown, makes Pounce useless to getting it back, if someone else in party takes aggro from your Herc. Claw gives a decent attack bonus when Maxed. You should be able to pull aggro easier onto a herc if you have Reflect, Protect, Bless, and Claw on your herc, compared to reflect, Protect, Bless, and Bash, that lots of people tend to run (or Flesh Ream for PVP).

If you are out of instance, just use a Nix. It should be able to pull aggro pretty easily and tank it as well on single mobs.

Vorken - Archosaur

Another thing to consider is that reflect damages every mob that attacks the pet, but claw only increases the damage that the pet does on the specific mob that the pet attacks.

So if trying to hold agro against a multiple mobs, wouldn't reflect do a better job?

LShattered - Heavens Tear

Never replace reflect. Ever. If you solo TTs that is basically 2\3s of the damage that the boss takes. Replacing it would be not the wisest idea.

Bridigan - Sanctuary

What Vorken said. Reflect is what enables AoE grinding, which is one of the perks of the Herc. Mobs hit the Herc and get damaged (and thus aggroed) by the Reflect, whether the Herc is attacking that particular mob or not.

Phoenix_Eye - Heavens Tear

Reflect is what makes a Herc an excellent pet to AoE grind + extra dmg when tanking.
Delete Pounce and learn him Bash ( get it to lvl 5 ) , the the best way for ur herc to keep aggro

skyliciouz

Claw vs Reflect...

It depends on what kind of tanking scenario you are looking at.

To answer your question:

Claw has higher DPS as well as Aggro on a SINGLE mob.
Reflect has Higher DPS as well as Aggro on a GROUP of mobs.

The reason for not(or NEVER EVER) replacing reflect is that it helps keep aggro on mobs that your Herc is not attacking, leaving you with the ability to heal it. All (aggressive) mobs have an aggro range and the moment your herc falls within the range, it will be aggroed. However, a single heal is enough to take aggro of a mob off your herc which your herc did not attack. Unless you are fast enough to click and attack on every mob which your herc aggroed.... -.-" else, stay with reflect.

For the most balanced herc, stay with Bash (single mob aggro skill), Strong, Protect & Reflect... b:pleased

Mauntille - Heavens Tear

skyliciouz wrote: »

Claw vs Reflect...

It depends on what kind of tanking scenario you are looking at.

To answer your question:

Claw has higher DPS as well as Aggro on a SINGLE mob.
Reflect has Higher DPS as well as Aggro on a GROUP of mobs.

The reason for not(or NEVER EVER) replacing reflect is that it helps keep aggro on mobs that your Herc is not attacking, leaving you with the ability to heal it. All (aggressive) mobs have an aggro range and the moment your herc falls within the range, it will be aggroed. However, a single heal is enough to take aggro of a mob off your herc which your herc did not attack. Unless you are fast enough to click and attack on every mob which your herc aggroed.... -.-" else, stay with reflect.

For the most balanced herc, stay with Bash (single mob aggro skill), Strong, Protect & Reflect... b:pleased

What are you basing this off of? I'm not convinced.

Since the OP said this was for TT/FB's I'll only do the comparison for bosses. (Others have already shown that reflect does more for mobs because of the aoe capabilities.)

Reflect at level 5 - returns 70% of damage.
Claw at level 5 - increases damage by 30%.

Herc's base damage at 100 - 3210
Claw'd herc's damage at 100 - 4173

Gain for herc: 963/hit.

In my experience, bosses have about the same APS as a herc, excluding the ones on steroids. So, the question comes down to: does reflect hit for more than 963 damage each hit? In my experience, yes, it does. TT bosses hit hard.

There are very very few places where you'd want to fight without reflect, specifically Astralwalker in 2-2/2-3 depending on how you fight him/adds.

I vote reflect for DPS. Claw is better suited for a strong DD pet that can benefit more from a %-based increase in damage.

For aggro, it would be similar. You'll be generating slightly more aggro with reflect than with Claw (hitting more and doing more damage). If you loose aggro, claw would be better suited to getting it back, since reflect isn't doing anything at that point (unless there's a phys aoe, but that damage tends to be pitiful.) So you're really at the mercy of whomever stole aggro. It's hard to put aggro back onto a herc once it's been stolen (easier for [?] bosses, but sometimes still a challenge).

--

For the green part, do you mean that reflect also hasn't hit? I've been able to AOE grind with reflect keeping aggro off of heals.

MystiMonk - Sanctuary

It has been said in the guide not to replace reflect but only pounce although some replace it with roar why I why don't know.

skyliciouz

Mauntille - Heavens Tear wrote: »

For the green part, do you mean that reflect also hasn't hit? I've been able to AOE grind with reflect keeping aggro off of heals.

For the green part... I am saying a scenario if reflect is removed from a herc... b:victory

tweakz

I don't think AoE grinding is an argument. Killing 1-1 tends to be quicker OR even a non reflected pet can perform as well at it.

Vorken - Archosaur

MystiMonk - Sanctuary wrote: »

It has been said in the guide not to replace reflect but only pounce although some replace it with roar why I why don't know.

The advantage of roar is that it immediately retakes aggro -- so it is great for getting a mob off of you (or off a squad mate) . It doesn't do a thing to keep aggro (since roar also resets aggro, it can make it easier for someone to steal agro).