I'll see your Level 53 AV and raise you a Level 54 AV

I know you don't mean anything by it but I think it's necessary to reiterate for anyone who views this thread but doesn't frequent the Kheld board/etc: Human Form only, on a High-End budget and with the right playstyle, will be more survivable, do more ST damage, have higher survivability, and do more steady AoE damage than Tri Form. That does not equate to 'superior' overall, though.

The thing is that on any budget besides the bottomless pit, The MFing Warshade will out-perform a human only Warshade (assuming the same skill level/familiarity with the AT.) It just so happens that with maximum investment, Human Form out performs Tri Form.

AIB is a champion for Tri Form Warshades, a good friend of mine, and even if I wasn't friends with him there would be no disputing the fact that his Warshade can do incredible things on a Tri Form build. (It might also be noted that his build is on the same budget as my Human Only Build.)

I don't wish to imply with any of my posts that Tri Form Warshades can't do awesome stuff-- Quite the opposite. They can do awesome stuff, they excel past Human Only on almost every budget except the highest end.

Even then, AIB or Dechs won't dispute that Human Only has an overall performance edge- But considering that Tri Form, for most players and on most budgets is the best way to get the most out of a Warshade, and the fact that it is still capable of doing amazing things as AIB has demonstrated with this thread, I hope that no one draws the conclusion that human form is "better, period" for Warshades.

...And that was my rant. Enjoy.

In order...

1. You should.

2. BTW you I discovered that you CAN put GMs on large outdoor AE missions . Scrappy GM fight ftw!

Hmmm...so much here...in order...

1. Budget, Build and Playstyle/ability are all important factors.

2. Human forms can have a higher level of defense without inspirations or buffs. Additionally, they can use powers that heal without having to shift forms (which saves time)...Dwarf has one heal attack but human can have one of those too. Their resistance numbers (given enough enemies) can be, because of Eclipse, identical.

3. Human form does not ALWAYS have a higher Single Target (ST) attack chain than Dwarf or Nova. It is build dependent. But, you say, "We are looking at max ST damage!" Well, here is the thing about which I would like to know more.

Is the optimal human attack chain with ONLY fully saturated Sunless Mire still dishing out more damage than Dwarf ST attack chain with fully saturated Sunless Mire and fully saturated Dwarf Mire. You see, in large groups I can stay at 300% damage (damage cap) without inspirs. Whereas a human form typically stays at around 150%ish without inspirs.

4. Regarding AOE damage Triforms can be at the damage cap using Dwarf Mire (a PbAOE attack) additionally they have 2 fast charging (on nice builds) AOE attacks...one that hits 10 targets and one that hits 16. That is a whole lotta hurt that (when at 300% damage cap) I think puts out more damage than Human AOE attacks (including orbiting death) at 150%ish.

(I could be wrong. I am basing this upon my "feel" for things.) But even if the numbers are higher with Human builds...I'm going to stick with Tri-Form. In my book, Tri-Forms get "style points."

Now, apart from all that stuff, regarding this particular Level 54 AV fight...

I tried it 6 or 7 times and failed...Then my Global buddy, Apolinus, signed in, I borrowed a billion influence from him. Got my Fury of the Gladiator -res proc, put it in Dwarf Mire (got rid of the Damage enh I had in there)....and defeated it...check this...the first time. I don't know if it was the previous practice, or if the proc is THAT good, or if it was a psychological thing or what...but that is what happened and it was glorious.

The thing about this fight is that I did it on +4x8. And because of Dwarf Taunt (and frankly..skill (though some might prefer the word luck)) I was able to keep out three Extracted Essences regularly thereby slowly beating down the AV. I was also buffing off of groups (damage at 300%) and Dwarf Meleeing her.

Human forms will have a lot more trouble keeping the enemies off of the EEs (Provoke...??? Antagonize...???), which is certainly essetial for a Tri-Forms ability to overcome the AVs massive regen. I think EEs would also be necessary for a Human form to overcome the AV's regen rate...

At anyrate, my thoughts on the matter.

Absolute best builds I can muster for both, the human (actually still a triform, only with forms for set bonuses) with only sunless mire saturated still does better than the dwarf with both mires saturated, though it's not huge, especially because the Dwarf will see approx twice as many chances for the -res proc. That's not counting the extra time it takes to pop down to human and back to dwarf every ~30 seconds for mire, however.

I'd bet triforms have better AoE damage with Nova's attacks as you say, though I haven't calculated.

What you say about Dwarf keeping the pets alive is likely true (though I know THB's build has provoke for that, so it should be the same). Keep in mind that every time you stop to use a taunt, however, you are lowering your average dps as well. For the record, you can have your cake and eat it too: a build can be human centric enough to maximize survival and single target damage, while retaining one or both of the forms. Slots just become even more precious in that scenario.

By the way, very nice job You have just proven what many people thought was impossible for a long, long time. Now go kill some other AV's.

Gah, how does that work? Doesn't it always have the same amount of chance to go off every time it hits a target? Running constantly in Orbiting Death seems like it would land a higher likelihood than putting it in Dwarf Mire, especially considering that no one is always in dwarf.
I'm noticing a 10-15 second difference on my human build vs. my previous tri form build's 52x8 farming times, tri form being slightly faster. Human form has been much faster on 54x8, as tri form would get stuck in dwarf very often due to the fact that's impossible to build truly good defense on a tri form build... So it had to sacrifice aoe potential for staying alive. Human form in that sense, "has its' cake and eats it too." Constant aoe damage and constant survivability.
Yea, and I also feel that inky aspect running almost all the time actually makes human form better at keeping fluffies alive than Dwarf- Though no matter what, they're still going to be squishy and often I feel it's not even worth it to try to keep them from dying... Soloing AV's is one of those situations.

In toggles it has a chance to fire every 10 seconds. In dwarf mire, on a high enough recharge build, it will have a chance every time the mire is fired, so a touch more than 5 seconds.


Hm, my current "human" build retains 28% s/l defense when it switches to nova. Even up to 54x8 that should be fine with capped Eclipse +Stygian circle. It is only against incarnate stuff that it becomes more dicey than the human form. I usually don't switch to nova in that build though, just because its such a pain to retoggle 9 powers when I want to revert to human. My pb is much more likely to, as it only retoggles three powers.

Hm, even so Tri Form is such an active playstyle (at least for me it was) that in 90% of situations I would be shifting so often it would be next to impossible to hit dwarf mire every 5 seconds. It just doesn't seem practical to me, if nothing else but dropping to use stygian circle due to Dwarf's endurance consumption, utility powers, and sunless mire. In theory I'm not disagreeing with you though but it just wouldn't seem practical to me. (Not that I don't think putting -res in dwarf mire is a bad idea, far from it- Just I feel having it in orbiting Death has much more mileage.)
The Tri Form build I was running had s/l defense in the mid 20's, human form was used exclusively for buffs/controls, and the only other defense present was melee (aside from 6% to all from steadfast/glad armor globals.) Even on s/l farms I would find myself 'stuck' in Dwarf without a sufficient supply of Vengeance/Purple inspirations. Human form, my defense significantly higher to everything, I can run inky aspect constantly to help with mitigation, and my HP is just slightly lower than Brute's base.

I'm able to constantly pump out maximum damage without feeling 'trapped,' and it just feels more powerful to me- Not only that but like I said performance has been either on par or much better in all situations. I do miss the Nova aoe's but Orbiting Death/Unchain Essence/Judgement still provide me with essentially the same aoe fire power.

my statement was from the perspective of AIBs apparent style: soloing the hard target almost exclusively in dwarf. A true triform style will certainly get fewer proc chances than a human.

I'll have to check that out, since, as you know, I had to sacrifice unchain, gravitic, and inky in my build.