Damage vs AC

[Tiri]

Would a +2-10 damage bonus or a +2 AC bonus be more useful? 2-10 in that it will increase from 2 to 10 over time.

[Flickerdart]

At what level? What's your existing AC? How much damage do you already do?

If your AC is 7, +2 AC is useless - everyone still hits you. If your AC is 70, +2 AC is useless - everyone still hits you only on a natural 20. If you hit for 1d6+2 damage, +2 damage represents a huge improvement. If you hit for 1d6+500 damage, +11 is a drop in the bucket.

[Tiri]

I'm trying to help my 7 year old cousin optimize his fighter and decided to have him take him a level or two of warblade might help. The two stances I think would help him most provide those two benefits. I was going to have him take him more but then I realized he probably didn't want to have to go through the trouble of actually CHOOSING which maneuvers to use (short attention span). The fighter is currently level two and does about 10 damage on average. His AC is 16. +4 from his chain shirt and +2 from Dex.

[Flickerdart]

I'd go for the AC, then - 10 damage is enough to kill a CR2 enemy in one or two hits, while he's still very much on the RNG scale and +2 AC is a solid 10% fewer hits to the face.