
Originally Posted by
stoney530
P.S. - Has anyone had any success with dropping Shadow damage? I've talked to a few high-ranked reavers who no longer trait fire damage and seem to be doing quite well. The theory is that freeps in the Moors max out their tactical mitigations while leaving their physical mitigations untouched. So they actually have higher mitigation against Shadow/Fire damage compared to common damage. I haven't tested it yet on my warg, but it would be nice to free up an additional class trait if it works.
Reavers have sundering blow, which is a 1 minute armour debuff on a 10s cooldown, so they are easily able to maintain it all the time on their target. Since we don't get this important debuff, especially solo the general rule of thumb is you will do more damage to a light armour class with common damage, a medium armour class will depend on gear and virtue choices, with some targets taking more or less with each damage type (glass cannon type mediums will usually take more damage with tactical, but not always). Heavies will always take more damage from tactical without the -armour debuff. Also, you'll find against many 'glass cannon' type heavy armour classes you will do absolutely abysmal damage compared to shadow.
I personally stay with shadow damage unless I know I will only be fighting tactical classes as the negatives of trying to fight a heavy class with common damage far outweight the positives you gain from common on a tactical.
If you will be running with a reaver who is always on the same target as you, definitely drop shadow damage though.
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