Couple of interesting things going on with vanguard on lama right now. And tactics dcs.
momentum swing is proccing 3-6 hits on vanguard. mom swing is then proc'ing a shield bash and doublestrike.
lay waste will proc shiled bash.
shattering strike is doublestriking and shield bash procs giving up to 2-4 hits total.
dire charge procs shield bash. -does not doublestrike
stunning shield and stunning blow procs shield bash. - does not doublestrike
insightful combat mastery and stunning are stacking with combat mastery 14 on legendary animated rope(belt). But the belt is only giving +8 and not the listed 14.
Stun shield dc at 128 pictured. With only +12 stunning item(necro boots). 3 fighter lives + 15 stun item raises the dc to 134. Dire Charge is always 10 points lower.
If you wanted to go even higher dc then Knight Training and Charisma based with KtA and Surge easily gets the dcs to over 140 for stun shield 130 for dire charge.
I will test another set up with the AP where I drop some of the Vanguard abilities to pick up kensei tier 5 and kensei cap. Or kensei tier 5 and vanguard cap. Not sure yet what will be better dps. I wanted to keep the vanguard cap due to how frequent the shield bash proc is on almost every click type attack--not true for cleave/grt clv.
The version pictured has dismal red kobold beatdown time of 156 seconds.
I think madstone aegis is the better shield, and here is why. the haunted halls shield reads : on melee hit 20%. Madstone reads : on attack 20% that stacks. Might be that shield bash is coded as off hand doublestrike. Also might be that haunted halls shield is stacking multiplicatively while Aegis is additive.
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