DX VS. ST!!! (in General)

Which is king? I am using a single tank right now and I am curious if anyone has looked into ratios of any sort regarding the benefits/detriments included with which ratios are most effective. One could argue that training your DX heavily may bring about triple (even quad ((possible?)) hits. This alone would be an enormous multiplier into the damage dealt per round. It would also make it easier to evade an opponents blows, also denying them the ability to get multiple blows per round. This makes DX seem very desirable to train. However in higher levels; where huge NW comes into play +100 is not that hard to maintain. How do DX gaps effect PTH multipliers?

This also makes me wonder about tank vs. mage fights. Would a mage with base DX not have evasion? How effective is evasion vs. a very high DX ratio for multiple hits (as far as exp ratios)? If evasion turns out to be very effective in denying multiple hits, wouldn't ST be a more viable option?

Which leads me to my final quandry...

If you have extremely high ST trained in relation to DX you would reduce damage done by weapons and I believe DD. This is equivalent to AC (which is almost exclusively related to NW) which would make it invaluable in it's own right. However, how effective is it against multiple blows? Which ratio would you maintain? Would you have evasion as a light tank and BL as a heavy tank? What would be your benefits if you were to switch up the two? Switching seems to make some sense, depending on what ratios you are looking at.

This leads me to a good question. Is the benefit of skills recieved on a steady/exponential/declining scale? Are skills based on the same curve as ST/DX training?

High ST = Better protection, more damage. Also, chance of missing altogether; chance of being hit multiple times per round. Evasion, or BL?

High DX = Lesser chance of being hit, multiple hits. Also, chance of being chopped to bits with huge hits (via high NW is possible).

Just a rant I suppose, but I am really trying to strategize. Which direction should I take my single tank? Which strategy seems to be most effective to you? Any figures regarding my afore mentioned questions would be much appreciated.

well i am fighting mages now with my single tank, and i get double hits on them, still...

Str damage reduction is tiny.

I used to think Str was king, as as soon as you have enough Dex to double hit people, that was enough.

Dex would obviuosly be king versus other Tanks.

But the prevalance of Evasion now has really made Dex king. It doesn't matter how big your wepaons is, nor how much Str you have, if you can't hit them.

PTH can make up for Dex, some EC opponents drop my DX below 0 and i hit them solely from PTH

Evasion will ruin your fun there Ed! ;)

You can't pump evasion with USD, GL :p

Massive pair of DB! :D

Massive DB really don't get much of a boost from Evasion due to the way it stacks. Training a huge Evasion and wearing a pair of +150s might get you 165 from PTH, but you just blew 1M+ of your levels to gain 15 off your PTH....might as well just use AoI with the DBs or train the Evasion higher and use EB/EC/EG/AoF.

I think STR is king in melee and DX in ranged, due to ranged Evasion modifiers....so if you've got a nice little wall to protect you during ranged rounds, pump some + into that weapon and focus on STR. =)

Blah OB! Train Evasion if you ain't got Dollarz, get a big pair o' DB if you have.

Bling Bling!

Massive DBs + Massive Evasion = killer combination.

It is much easier to negate PTH with the DBs because IIRC a 1 mil evasion is only ~ 125 pth reduction. Also, it is much easier to negate dex with evasion (obviously). So using both you can get a great defensive minion.

It's a mere $15m to go from +0 to +100 for DBs. How much would it cost to train Evasion that high? (You can put a dollar amount on XP based on average rewards and cost per BA).

In the first three months of my last NCB I made about 14 million CB$, but I was fighting a lot. So I could have gotten DBs quite big, but I wouldn't have been able to spend on anything else.

During that same time I could have raised an evasion on my tank of about 300k, providing I was training HP on him to the level I was. What level of evasion would that have given me?

65 - 66 (lowest recorded 66 is 302k)

So if you already had a big weapon and got hold of some DBs you could do better. But they don't give you the defensive dex that evasion does.....I think I'd rather put the money into the damage on a weapon and invest some xp into dex and evasion.....