ND3 vs CA3

[Zilden]

What is better? Iv always been told get nd3 first, kinda like its my dutie as a warrior. then last night the main cleric in my guild was telling me CA is much better. what is better to get first? Right now I have nd2 and ca1.

[Kendolekk]

get nd3

[Haass]

Gotta love those worthless responses that don't give any information.

Here's the deal. You don't die because you run out of anything other than HP. More HP = You live longer, period.

HOWEVER.

If you primarily group with a shaman or druid, the extra HP aren't doing you any good anyway, because they can't CH you (well, some druids can depending on your HP level). ND only makes CH more efficient, it doesn't make you a better tank. CA makes you a better tank, you take damage better and you end up saving mana by virtue of taking less hits that need to be healed. If you're not a raid tank and you don't primarily group with clerics, then yes, you will get more bang for your buck by doing CA first. In the end tho, you want all 3, so the difference is really negligable. Get whatever floats your boat. Most people just get ND because they can see the difference, and because most people are sheep.

[Uukla]

Another reason for ND3 vs CA / CS is that ND helps with taking nukes (which you will as a tank) and the others dont do squat for nuke damage.

[Tiejinnie]

Alternatively, you could get all of them - CA, CS, LR, ID, ND, PE etc etc.

:D

[gulug]

eventually you will get them all, but ND3 gives a nice boost to HPs which i found makes a diff when your moving up from tanking tier 1 pop stuff to places like BoT etc.
so definitely ND3 first , then pick from CA or CS

[dugman]

Something else to consider is that Combat Agility 3 is a prereq for the PoP ability Lightning Reflexes. But Natural Durability isn't a prereq for anything; it's a dead end on the AA tree. So you may end up wanting Combat Agility 3 anyway since you'll need it eventually as a prereq.

[Kendolekk]

Gah the reason I didn't explain, is because I was at school and didn't have the time. Quite like now.

[wandor]

ND, CS, and CA are all excellent AA abilities and you will eventually max all 3 of them sooner or later. However, ND has one very large advantage over CS/CA and that is that more HP help you in ALL situations. Like Haass said, the only reason you die is because you run out of HP. Once you are out of HP, CS/CA are meaningless. ND allows you to take more nukes, AEs, and melee damage so it is more versitile than the pure melee defensive AAs.

That being said, I think that I will be better off getting many smaller incremental power gains so I am doing them in a slightly different order:

ND1 - CA1 - CS1 - ND2 - CA2 - CS2 - PE - AET - ND3 - CA3 - CS3

I figure doing it this way, the gains won't be as big, but I will get the smaller benefits sooner.

[Valeris]

Ae's and nuke durability are more important to a raid tank for CH rotations etc, avoidance (assuming relatively decent hp's for the content you face) will be imho of more use to you if you are primarily exp. tanking. Obviously the goal is to get 'em all as and when you can though.

[Flair]

Hrmmm.... as ND is an amplification AA (i.e. it adds a pct per lvl based on your base hps with sta effects) I could see an argument for doing CA first if you have a very small base HP pool. E.g. the net benefit from ND in terms of hps added will not be as great as the gain of not getting hit at all with a small base HP pool. Just food for thought....personally I like ND first and I ain't no sheep.

[Axterix EnObelix]

Got to agree that ND is typically the best way to go for warriors.

For non-melee, CA tends to be a bit better choice because getting missed helps in not getting interrupted, but warriors don't cast, so it's not a warrior issue. Hybrids, well, they have reasons to go with both.

[Azeroke]

One reason I'm finishing up ND3 before the others is cause usually people ask me for my HP, not my CA or CS.

Most warrior problems are perception based anyway unfortunately.

Just get em all heh.

[Taminy]

Originally posted by wandor
ND, CS, and CA are all excellent AA abilities and you will eventually max all 3 of them sooner or later. However, ND has one very large advantage over CS/CA and that is that more HP help you in ALL situations. Like Haass said, the only reason you die is because you run out of HP. Once you are out of HP, CS/CA are meaningless. ND allows you to take more nukes, AEs, and melee damage so it is more versitile than the pure melee defensive AAs.

That being said, I think that I will be better off getting many smaller incremental power gains so I am doing them in a slightly different order:

ND1 - CA1 - CS1 - ND2 - CA2 - CS2 - PE - AET - ND3 - CA3 - CS3

I figure doing it this way, the gains won't be as big, but I will get the smaller benefits sooner.

Simple Math INC.

Something to consider... shotgunning the points around or putting all points into one AA ability to max out may have different efficiencies.

As far as CA, CS, and ND go, level 1 is the best bang for the buck, level 3 is the second best, and level 2 is the worst.

Huh?

If I buy ND1, I'm getting 2% hps for 2 AA. This is 1% per AA spent. The same applies to CA1 and CS1.

If I buy ND2, I'm getting 3% hps for 4 AA. This is 0.75% per AA spent.

If I buy ND3, I'm getting 5% hps for 6 AA. This is 0.83% per AA spent.

So buying level 1 of all three skills and then buying level 2 and level 3 of one skill might actually be the most efficient way to go (if you assume ND = CA = CS, which probably isn't true :P). Of course, if you buy level 2 of a certain ability before buying level 3 of another ability you will get it 2 AA sooner...

Also, with PE you get 6% (2% ND, CS, and CA) for only 5 AA points. 1.2% per AA spent. I've heard PE doesn't give the max effect until you have your CA/CS/ND at level 3 though (can anyone confirm or deny this - I didn't buy PE until after I had ND3).

Just some things to consider...

[Khabok]

ND will definitely give you the most easily noticeable gain. Seeing the increase in HP as you get it is always nice. CA is a lot harder to see, but is still a great skill.

I did mine backwards from conventional wisdom, but that was because I was mainly grinding AA while duoing with my shaman pre PoP. Since the shamans best heal was only 1900 HP, more HP didnt seem to be as important as taking less damage. Therefore I did CA1, CS1, CA2, CS2, AE Taunt, PE, then ND1, 2, 3 then CA3, CS3. As stated earlier if you mainly exp with a Shaman or druid healing, and dont raid much or at all, then CA may be better, but it sure is nice seeing those HP gains when you train ND.

[Steenky]

These AA's give 2,5, and 10% respectively not 2,3 and 5%.

[Togr]

He means gains

ND1 = 2% more than your total hit points
ND2 = 5% more than your hitpoints without any ND
ND3 = 10% etc.

So to make nice numbers use a warrior with base 3000hps
After ND1 = 3060
After ND2 = 3150
After ND3 = 3300

So from ND1 you gain 60hps, then from ND1 to ND2 you gain 90hps, and from ND2 to ND3 you gain 150hps, thus 2%, 3%, and 5%.

also, when working on these don't forget the benefits of PE, if you have ND3 and PE you are gaining 12% hps instead of 10%, same for CA but its not visible.

[Taminy]

Yes, she means that ND3 gives you 5% hps. ND 1-3 gives you 10% hps.

[Varf]

nd3

[Steenky]

Ohh, I've never really looked at it that way. I've always seen it as a gain from the baseline.

[maemai]

Someone told me that if you dont get CA/CS before you get PE then they wont be affected. Is that true

[wandor]

Originally posted by maemai
Someone told me that if you dont get CA/CS before you get PE then they wont be affected. Is that true It doesn't matter what order you get them in. PE provides the same benefit regardless of when you get CA/CS or even ND.

[Haass]

Actually Wandor, PE doesn't take effect until you have at least 1 level of each. I said the exact same thing you did a few months ago, and someone ended up proving me wrong, tho I can't seem to find the thread right now.

[Brutul]

It doesn't matter what order you get them in, you want all of them as soon as you can get them. I tend to agree with Wandor. Get what gives you the most bang for your buck, but don't spend a lot of time worrying about what order to buy them in, because you want them all.

Nice thing about ND is that you can see exactly what it's doing, train it, and watch your hps go up :). CA and CS you pretty much have to parse to see the difference.

[Raiddinn]

If the mobs average swing is greater than 10% of your hit points then when tanking (and you plan on doing the tanking) CA is the better deal, this includes innate procs from mobs, like 1500 dmg innate procs from some BOT wing bosses.

For any other case ND is the better deal.

Impressario Raiddinn the Beatdropper
65/243 Maestro Rallos Zek