My merc discussion xD

[Sycho]

Since i been playing my zerk lately on excal i noticed dual swinging often is very very nice and a huge improvement to several things:

-More prevent flight proccs.
-More crits.
-More faster swings.
-More damage.

Now i have always argued with others about dualist reflexes realm ability being better than mastery of pain and i still think it is, here is the main reason.As you know 90% or so mercs will use a 3.5 or slower offhand in ToA when their sc is complete, my offhand caps at 180 with a 3.5 spd weap and 220 with a 4.1 weap(i think, or around that)

Average crit in rvr with mainhand(not including the style before crit, this is just the crits) is 50-100 damage and about 30-50 offhand, if a 4.1 offhand caps at 220(i think it even goes higher with the more dr you have i may be wrong) it's definetly better to get dr 4/5 and pain 2/3 since the offhand WILL outhit crits nearly all the time and resulting in the advantages i said above.You think will think pain 2/3 is not much crits, it is if you dual swing very often and will hurt with an offhand that slow

At rr10 it's possible for a merc to have a DW rate of 87% which is very nice indeed with a battler or axe of malice offhand, even a croc dagger

Also one more thing, any mercs noticed PF is nerfed?i swear it's not proccing like it used to, me and two other guild mercs had this problem, like half the chance to procc than before ;/

By the way do not reply with haste effect comments since this aimed at artifacts in sc and the best use you will get from them.One thing though, someone on excal told me dualist reflexes is bugged for a merc(although i do not think it is, i dual swing often with dr3 even), anyone tested lv5 and noticed more dual swings?think fadeh has i can't remember.

 

[Fadeh]

Highest i have had is dr4. But its kinda hard to count the dw hits. Or well, i have never really took the energy to do so.

 

[Garok]

Intresting post but im still abit confused to why you think DR is more usefull than MoP. Mercs have three avanues of doing damage Mainhand (+style), Offhand (unstyled damage) and criticals (off both Main Hand and Offhand).

DR gives = to 6 points in DW or = to 3% extra chance of Dw attack.

MoP gives 5% extra chance of critical hit from base % of 10%.

So surely it makes more sence to increase your third source of damage Critical hits due to

a) Criticals can come from both Mainhand styled and offhand styled.
b) The % increase is greater with MoP than DR
c) It increases the chance of an extra damage source crits.

 

[Vae]

Bear in mind DR give +3% chance to DW for 100% of the offhand damage i.e. 3% of 220 with a 4.1 dps mainhand = 6.6 damage.

Mop gives +5% chance of a crit of max 50% of the mainhand damage and the DW% x max 50% of offhand damage. So assuming a 25% average crit value it would be 5% Mop x 25% average crit x say 400 mainhand + 5% x 25% x say 75% DW% x 220 = 7.0625 damage.

So using these assumptions they are pretty even in the extra damage caused.

I'll wait for someone to spot a hole in my assumptions and prove my figures totally wrong now

 

[old.windforce]

do NOT forget about the haste effect on dual wielding with slow main and fast offhand which, together with offhand damage increases damage way more then a crit

haste effect adds to damage over time a lot

plus off hand procs