Stat Priority
The Stat priority for Tariq is as follows:
- Strength
- Haste
- Expertise
- Crit
- Spirit
Main stat has the greatest impact on your damage.
Haste increases the overall pace of your rotation by reducing the GCD, reducing the cooldown of rotational abilities such as Leap Smash, Face Breaker, and Culling Strike, and increasing the proc rate of PPM effects such as Ace Of Spades.
Expertise is a simple stat that directly increases damage.
Critical Strike has the chance to double the damage of your abilities.
Spirit increases the chance that using your fury spenders (Skull Crusher, Hammer Storm, and Culling Strike) results in a "spirit proc," which refunds the fury spent, generates 1 spirit point towards your spirit ability Raging Tempest, and gives you a stack of Rising Spirit, increasing your main stat by 5% for up to 20 seconds.
EAS3 DR Change: When gearing, keep in mind that the secondary stat DR was heavily reduced this season so you can more easily put more stat rating into one or two secondary stats to get them really high.
Item Modifiers
The new Loot 2.0 revamp in EAS3 adds 'Modifiers' to items, allowing each item to have up to three additional bonus effects in those slots. Those additional bonuses can be Traits (Major, Heroic & Defensive), Blessings, Bonus Stats, Set Bonuses or Bonus Gem Power (Imbued Essence).
Because each Trait category, Blessings etc all compete with each other for mod slots, they should all be evaluated relative to each other this season, instead of only evaluating a trait within its own category.
Weapons still have attunement trees, but can only grant you 1 rank in a major trait, 1 rank in each of two different heroic traits, and 1 rank in each of two different defensive traits. Some traits and blessings have different relative values at different ranks, as the scaling isn't linear increments per rank for all traits and blessings.
Modifier Importance: Modifiers will be significantly more important than base secondary stats of individual items, so gearing decisions should be based on obtaining and upgrading items with desired mods first and foremost, as opposed to prioritizing base secondary stats on items.
Below I have provided initial Tier Ratings for each Modifier, with an example "BiS" build, though this exact setup may take you the entire season to achieve through gear crafting. The rankings will be updated as we get more information on tuning during the patch and further detail can be found below.
Master Traits
The 1st rank of Visions Of Grandeur is a strong mod for getting you a flat 2.5 spirit points per 30 seconds of weapon ability cooldown, however you will need all 4 ranks for your ult Raging Tempest to fully reset your weapon's cooldown.
Martial Initiative is strong when combined with Visions Of Grandeur and an ult-focused build that also uses sapphire gem powers, the blessing The Herald, and the talent Pneuma. The rest of the master traits are mediocre to weak generic damage increases.
Heroic Traits
The heroic traits that provide secondary stat rating received a significant indirect buff this patch due to the reduction in the diminishing return effect on secondary stats. Thus traits such as Navigator's Intuition and Hunter's Focus are strong, especially at all 4 ranks, while the traits that provide multiplicative increases to your primary stat such as Hidden Power and Vengeful Soul are still respectable.
Defensive Traits
Unless you are specifically looking to increase your survivability beyond the new neck traits, defensive traits mods have less value than any other mod type as they do not increase your damage. However, you will still end up with 1 rank in two different defensive traits from your weapon tree. The best two defensive traits to have ranks in are King Of The Hill and First Man Standing.
Blessings
The tiering for the Blessings involves the most guesswork as they are completely new this season and many are multiplicative scalars of Tariq's abilities, for which we don't have tuning changes before the patch releases. As such I've made my best guess based on the talent builds, valuing damage increases to Power abilities such as The Mystic for the Schism build as Skull Crusher and Hammer Storm are Power abilities, and damage increases to Core abilities such as The Sinister for the lightning build as Chain Lightning is a Core ability. Be aware that spirit will have higher value as a secondary stat for you if you are using The Mystic and/or The Philosopher, and having multiple ranks of these Blessings can justify prioritizing spirit and using the talent Far Beyond Driven.
Bonus Stats
The amount of bonus stats that can appear in mod slots depend on the specific item slot and I have tiered them to indicate this. Be aware that bonus stats are the only kind of mod for which the value depends on item slot. For traits, Blessings, etc., they are just as good on a ring item as on a chest item. But for bonus stat mods, you want to prioritize getting desired stats on weapons, chest, and leg items, as they have almost twice as much value as bonus stat mods on lower-tiered slots like rings and cloaks.
A Note on Pneuma
Tariq's reworked talent Pneuma grants him 50 spirit points at the start of a dungeon. This can be combined with ranks in The Herald blessing, Sapphire 5 (Blessing Of The Prophet) or Sapphire 10 (Blessing Of The Prophet - II), and/or at least 1 rank in Visions Of Grandeur with a long-cooldown weapon, such as Sahril's Reckoning. Various combinations of these effects will allow Tariq to use his ult Raging Tempest very early in a dungeon.
Note that you do not need 100 spirit points exactly from combining Pneuma with 4 ranks of The Herald to benefit from this synergy. Rather, you can, for example, combine Pneuma with Sapphire 5 (Blessing Of The Prophet), 3 ranks in The Herald, and 1 rank in Visions Of Grandeur while using Sahril's Reckoning. This allows you to start a dungeon with 80 spirit points. You can then open the first pull with Thunder Call and build up a couple spirit points over its duration, and then use Sahril's Reckoning to gain 10 spirit points through Visions Of Grandeur, which should leave you at at least 95 spirit, allowing you to use Raging Tempest as soon as the first Thunder Call ends due to the spirit cost reduction from Sapphire 5 (Blessing Of The Prophet).
Necklace Traits
Neck defensive attunements offer a new set of powerful defensive bonuses, of which you can only have two at a time. Below I have provided a simple tier list for the various defensive attunements.
The Boar and The Mountain are the strongest defensive attunements as they are mishap-saviours. As a cheat death immunity, The Mountain can even be used to bypass certain high damage mechanics in a way that you couldn't with any other attunement.
The Wolf, The Gryphon, and The Lake are all in A tier because they increase your survivability outside of your default defensive Unbreakable Will. Having greater breadth of defensiveness is more valuable than being even tankier during your one defensive cooldown. If you are somehow dying through a well-timed Unbreakable Will, then that means something else has already gone horribly wrong, such as getting hit by multiple mechanics you were supposed to avoid, or the healer died.
The River is in B tier because it gives your slightly greater defensive breadth by increasing the duration of Unbreakable Will, which can be useful when dealing with some long-lasting damage events.
The Stag, The Viper, The Dune, and The Dragon are all in C tier because they all "only" make you even tankier during Unbreakable Will.
The Oak is the least valuable attunement because it only protects you from physical damage and is largely obsoleted by the attunements in A tier.
Gems & Gem Builds
The gem system has been heavily revamped for Early Access Season 3. Gem power values of both individual gems as well as gem power progression have been adjusted, and some of the gem powers have received tuning adjustments.
You can now only have four gem sockets: Cloak, Wrists, and both Rings. Items in these slots will always have a socket if they are at least Epic rarity or a Legendary. There are no empowered sockets, whether from normal items or legendaries; now all sockets grant the same gem power for the same gem tier. Outside of the four sockets, Gem Power can only come from Imbued Essence Modifiers or the Seal Of The Heskyr set bonus.
A Note On Gem Modifiers: All gem power mods give you +100 gem power of the respective gem type, regardless of item slot. This means that you should only prioritize gem power mods if that +100 gem power is helping you reach an important breakpoint in that respective gem's progression. In the second gem configuration below, I have 2x Imbued Essence mods for sapphire, which help you reach the 10th sapphire gem power in combination with two tier 4 sapphire gems and the new set bonus Seal Of The Heskyr.
This means in your endgame build, you will have a tier 4 gem in each of your four gem sockets, and each of these gems grants 500 gem power. In combination with the new set bonus Seal Of The Heskyr, this will allow for two different general gem setups:
- Four tier 4 gems of all different colors, granting you the rank 6 gem power of four different colors.
- Two tier 4 gems of different colors, and two tier 4 gems and two gem power mods of the same color, granting you the rank 6 gem power of two colors and the rank 10 gem power of a third color.
Note that this is an endgame consideration, and that throughout progression you can and should be constantly switching out gems based on the gems you acquire as well as whatever gem power mods you have from gear. Tariq's gem power priority should be getting Sapphire 6 (Ancestral Surge - II) first, then Amethyst 6 (Sealed Fate - II), and then Ruby 6 (Might Of The Minotaur - II).
Then you can choose to follow the first setup by getting Topaz 6 (Adrenaline Rush - II), as in the following build:
Seal of the Heskyr (+25% Bonus)
Or you can choose to follow the second setup by getting Sapphire 10 (Blessing Of The Prophet - II), as in this build:
Seal of the Heskyr (+25% Bonus)