Does it worth Light armor fox form?

Repeatedly venos fail to make a case for LA here. (LA is fail for veno, wiz, cleric, etc)

If you truly want to focus on fox form, then you are much better off going HA/AA. Because of all the points you need to put into dex for LA you lost a LOT of str points. When I switched from LA to HA/AA at level 80 my physical attack in fox form doubled, and I even have might rings that I can interchange with my magic rings if I so choose without any loss of flexibility in what armor I want to wear. I'm lvl 90 now, and am able to use both at lvl armor and weapons.

Oh, and even though my dex is low compared to LA, with the accuracy boost form fox form, I really don't miss much at all. If you want the additional crit rate, all you really need to do is find +crit ornaments and go demon for the extra crit from that. Just look through AH religiously, and something is bound to show up.

I can't recall my physical attack off hand, but I think in fox form it is somewhere around 2K-2.5K without any buffs other then fox form. I'm feeling too lazy to go and actually check at the moment, and I think it may actually be higher. And, yes, that's with a +5'd saph sharded tt90 sword. I'm sure that if I really wanted make another one and garnet shard it, my attack would go up. But, frankly, that is very low on my to do list with my money atm.

sleepcat wrote: »

Is your gear much more invested than that Veno's? It's a little hard to believe that at equally invested gears that there's like only 1 advantage that the LA has over AA. 1% crit rate is too minute to count.

That gear set was slightly over invested, but not by much. I had slightly higher refines on some pieces (although offset by 0 refines on others). Our capes and helms were both event gear. Her chest, legs, boots, and sleeves were a mix of TT90 gold and TT99. My chest was rank 8, legs were undeveloped nirvana stage 1, boots and sleeves were TT99. She had decent ornaments, while mine were abysmal for defense (still using a Dawdlers Belt :S ). Shards were also comparable. Some of mine were higher grade, but I had less of them. I had 3 vit stones, she had either 4 or 5. I did lean towards garnets with that set, while she had cits and a couple questionable ones (2 perfect sapphires and 2 perfect cits in the sleeves alone).

For refines, it's probably prudent to point out that she refined the lower grade gear more than the higher grade gear, where I put priority to higher grade gear first. Although this should be offset by the higher return that LA has when refining.

The monetary value was comparable. I had a slight advantage with armor, but it was compensated by her ornaments. When I swapped to my p.def gear, yes, that was considerably more involved, but I didn't expect to have as comparable stats as I did in my channel gear.

I'm a little skeptical about the pieces she chose though. I'll conceed that she may not have picked the best LA available.

But as far as advantages go, I've yet to hear a reason beyond p.def or crit rate. Crit rate most people have agreed is negligible. As for p.def, being AA doesn't mean you have to be squishy.

Technically, a demon LA veno using interval claws can hit the highest DPS possible for a veno against a stationary target. But if you're going to do that, just roll a BM or assassin. Most people play venos for reasons other than high DPS.

tweakz wrote: »

-Source? Venos have great dps. A pure mag has a good balance of 1-1 and AoE.

With a decent squad, a veno can contribute more DPS with a single Amp than she can all-out nuking or interval meleeing. That's all I meant by "most people play venos for reasons other than DPS." Yes you can do decent direct DPS. It's just not your primary contribution to a squad, so maximizing it isn't the priority it is for BMs, assassins, etc.

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

With a decent squad, a veno can contribute more DPS with a single Amp than she can all-out nuking or interval meleeing. That's all I meant by "most people play venos for reasons other than DPS." Yes you can do decent direct DPS. It's just not your primary contribution to a squad, so maximizing it isn't the priority it is for BMs, assassins, etc.

Ignoring BM's HF timed with sparks, Cleric's Seals, Assassin's Subsea Strike, etc, sure. -lol Veno is also billed as a solo class, we get extra def (not HP) when going into fox form to amp. In squads we function mostly as DD's. Where else should our priority be? b:chuckle

Solandri - Heavens Tear wrote: »

All those augment everyone's damage, so boost the effectiveness of Amp just as much as they do the veno's DPS. Thus they have no effect on the comparison.

lol, so they do the same thing amp does, but a veno contributes more?

Circular reasoning for having poor dps.

Lol, you still ignore that the debuffs they're doing are doing the same thing (your own point) when you try to justify your false assertion. By your reasoning; everyone in squad can contribute more dps than the whole squad.

-keep going in circles.

tweakz wrote: »

Lol, you still ignore that the debuffs they're doing are doing the same thing (your own point) when you try to justify your false assertion. By your reasoning; everyone in squad can contribute more dps than the whole squad.

Well there's your problem. I never said the veno could contribute more DPS than the whole squad. I said "With a decent squad, a veno can contribute more DPS with a single Amp than she can all-out nuking or interval meleeing."

tweakz wrote: »

What is the point in stating that if it can be said for nearly any class and their respective debuffs? A decent squad will have more than just a veno doing debuffs. You can't get 55% of the dmg +55% of the dmg. It's a very heavy *can* and relies on specific circumstances. It's a bad attempt to downplay the importance of Veno's role and benefit as DD.

Because if the BM uses HF in a no-Amp scenario, then in your comparison Amp scenario you have to assume the BM also uses HF. You cannot assume he uses HF in the straight DPS case, but assume he doesn't use it in the Amp case. If he thinks his best strategy is to use HF, he's going to use it regardless of whether you decide to DD or use Amp. So from each individual player's perspective, the debuffs the other squad members can add doesn't really matter. (Except for synchronizing effects. e.g. Stack on every debuff you can, then everyone sparks and concentrates on DD.)

So circular logic. Other DDs have their debuffs. What if we all just ignored dps and focused on that? -Would make a "decent" squad huh?

As a matter of fact, yes it would. Say you have 5 squad members each normally contributing 1 DPS each for a squad total of 5 DPS. Each member can use a skill which lets them add a % to squad DPS, or increases their own DPS. Since my original statement was that you may be better off Amping instead of worrying about DPS, say the % skill is just slightly better. 20% Amp skill vs an extra 0.9 DPS skill. The Amp is just slightly more effective.

Individually, if you choose to use the 20% skill, it adds 1 DPS to the squad. Squad total = 6 DPS.
If you choose to use the 0.9 DPS skill, it bumps your DPS to 1.9. Squad total = 5.9 DPS.

If everyone uses the 20% skill:
Squad DPS = (1.2^5)*5 = 12.44 DPS

If everyone uses the extra 0.9 DPS skill:
Squad DPS = 5*(1 + 0.9) = 9.5 DPS

So yes, if the biggest contribution each individual can make is a damage multiplier, then the group is better off if everyone focuses on the multipliers instead of improving their individual DPS.*

You're making a common mistake of comparing to a zero baseline (ignoring opportunity costs). That if my choices are to Amp or to do extra DD, it means if I choose to Amp I cannot do any DD. That type of comparison is nearly always wrong. You have to start with a normal baseline state (1 DPS in the example above), and compare both options to that baseline (20% Amp, vs extra 0.9 DPS).

*Proof follows:
n group members.
Individual baseline damage is x DPS.
Choices are y extra DPS, or a multiplier m, where m = (nx+y)/nx = 1 + y/nx.
That is, the individual's multiplier applied to the group exactly matches the extra damage y.

Group's damage with y choice is n(x+y) = nx + ny
Divide by nx to get 1 + y/x

Group's damage with multiplier is nx * m^n
Divide by nx to get m^n
Since m = (1 + y/nx), we get (1 + y/nx)^n
The binomial approximation of this for the range of y/nx and n we've chosen is:
(1 + y/nx)^n >= 1 + n*(y/nx)
(1 + y/nx)^n >= 1 + y/x

The y option above also worked out to 1 + y/x. So if the multiplier is a better choice than y for each individual, it's also the best choice for all members of the group for all values of x>0, y>0, and all squad sizes larger than 1. In other words, if the multiplier is the better option like I've stated, then yes, contrary to what you think, it is better for the group to prioritize their multiplier skills over their DPS skills.