Curse

Xenomortis · May 29, 2012, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Sorry, were we talking about utility? Because I could've sworn that the OP was concerned with bow damage. Yeah, directly comparing a ranger to a mesmer or ele is a bit lopsided, but I'm not comparing myself to them, I'm comparing myself to sins, warriors, and dervs. I don't think that 50-70 ranged sustainable DPS is anything to scoff at. It's also worth pointing out that a ranger using EBSoH is a hell of a lot more helpful to his heroes than a warrior or other melee profession using the skill, because your heroes are going to be standing next to you.

Did I really need to make it clearer that my post was in reference to the latter part of your statement?
And no, utility had nothing to do with anything at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

When making a player build, I always focus on single-target damage. Especially for a melee or ranger (any physical really) because they have the caster support of Mark of Pain and Splinter to make sure they get their slice of AoE, but also Dom mesmers are a staple to any hero team now and provide all the AoE damage you need. However, spiking priority targets is more important for a human (since you can rapid-fire and micro buffs for yourself)

The Ranger does not get the burst damage necessary for this (single target spiking) to be a strong direction. It cannot spike like the other offensive professions can. Not with a bow anyway.
Now put a pair of daggers in a Ranger's hand, and you have something you can work with. It's not going to be as reliable or strong as an Assassin, but it's better course of action that pea shooting.

You can try exploiting Mark of Pain to make Triple Shot feel like it's achieving something, or prey that Splinter Weapon doesn't make you feel worthless; but you're likely better off just pressing Barrage on recharge and filling a constant DPS role rather than spiking role, because you're not good at the latter at all.

Rhershy8 · May 30, 2012, 04:05 AM // 04:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

It's really all about your heroes. Personally I use what I know to be a sub-optimal build:

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDeco...Submit+Q uery

But I have heroes that do just about whatever they can to boost my damage (Splinter, Orders, Curses, etc....) do even in HM I really feel like the targets that I am focused on go BOOM really quickly. Personally I don't really do much "high end" Guild Wars but as far as vanquishing and most quest chains, I feel my bow ranger works just fine.

That build is fun to play but I find it causes mobs to scatter in HM. I just stick to barrage+sy with a channeling rit hero buffing me with splinter.

aspi · May 30, 2012, 08:14 AM // 08:14

Drunken master with alcohol(cheap as hell these days) will allow an uptime of faster attack. With the noob changes Anet just did it maxes out at rank 5, so very easy to get and use.

Astraeos · May 30, 2012, 03:19 PM // 15:19

Here's one that's been fun to play... may not be the greatest DPS, but it's working for me.

Marksmanship: 10 + 1 + 1
Expertise: 8 + 3
Fire Magic: 12

Expert's Dexterity
Triple Shot
Dual Shot
Needling shot
Expert Focus
I am the Strongest
Conjure Flame (Ice, Lightning)
EBSoH

Based on a previous thread, Kunder prefers an ignite arrows build because it delivers multiple packets of damage (replacing expert focus with ignite arrows and replace needling shot with Glyph of Lesser Energy). I'm sure that works fine, too. But I'm finding needling shot to be very useful with this build. After triple shot and dual shot, if the target is not below 50%, I just need to hesitate a tick or two before heroes take them below that level; and then needling shot finishes the job very quickly. Rinse and repeat with the next target.

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2012, 03:24 PM // 15:24

I'm not getting the love for Glass Arrows. It's +20 damage per arrow. Yes, your triple shot now hits for +60 but spamming barrage gives you that same +20 and even my incendiary combo gives you nearly that same bonus with the ignite arrows (+15 fire AoE damage at 12 Wilderness PLUS 42 damage from 3 seconds of burning); again all AoE. Heck if you are that concerned with single target damage, just switch to a beastmaster build and watch your pet maul the crap out of whoever they are engaged with.

Xenomortis · May 30, 2012, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Glass Arrows beats a pet. It's not even close.

Skyy High · May 30, 2012, 04:03 PM // 16:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Did I really need to make it clearer that my post was in reference to the latter part of your statement?
And no, utility had nothing to do with anything at all.

You certainly didn't make it clear that you care more about spike damage than DPS. "DPS isn't relevant in that situation" says to me "I don't just care about damage, I care about utility," not "I don't care about DPS, I care about spike." Incidentally, that's complete BS; spike is great for mowing down high-profile targets, but sustainable high DPS is just as (if not more) important in certain areas.

Anyway, how fast of a spike is sufficient for a single-target spike to be "good enough"?

Astraeos · May 30, 2012, 04:09 PM // 16:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Anyway, how fast of a spike is sufficient for a single-target spike to be "good enough"?

And why would spike be more relevant than DPS in a PvE setting?

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2012, 04:54 PM // 16:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Glass Arrows beats a pet. It's not even close.

A pet is about 70 DPS spamming Enraged Lunge and other attacks and at the same time absorbing a lot of damage and aggro. For example, you can take a pet into the Bison Tournament and mop up everyone pretty easily, including Bison. I'm not super familiar with Glass Arrows to compare so I don't doubt your claim. The obvious biggest downside of the pet is that they are really clunky and there is a lot of downtime with them running around not having a target and in high end play the pet just gets annihilated regardless of how much you buff them.

HigherMinion · May 30, 2012, 06:37 PM // 18:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

A pet is about 70 DPS spamming Enraged Lunge and other attacks and at the same time absorbing a lot of damage and aggro. For example, you can take a pet into the Bison Tournament and mop up everyone pretty easily, including Bison. I'm not super familiar with Glass Arrows to compare so I don't doubt your claim. The obvious biggest downside of the pet is that they are really clunky and there is a lot of downtime with them running around not having a target and in high end play the pet just gets annihilated regardless of how much you buff them.

I assumed you tried using Glass Arrows before saying you didn't like it...

Astraeos · May 30, 2012, 07:30 PM // 19:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Voodoo Rage

A pet is about 70 DPS spamming Enraged Lunge and other attacks and at the same time absorbing a lot of damage and aggro. For example, you can take a pet into the Bison Tournament and mop up everyone pretty easily, including Bison. I'm not super familiar with Glass Arrows to compare so I don't doubt your claim. The obvious biggest downside of the pet is that they are really clunky and there is a lot of downtime with them running around not having a target and in high end play the pet just gets annihilated regardless of how much you buff them.

This build (posted before, copied here)...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astraeos

Marksmanship: 10 + 1 + 1
Expertise: 8 + 3
Fire Magic: 12

Expert's Dexterity
Triple Shot
Dual Shot
Needling shot
Expert Focus
I am the Strongest
Conjure Flame (Ice, Lightning)
EBSoH

...puts out ~70dps according to Kunder, without accounting for the needling effect of needling shot (i.e., the immediate skill recharge and spamming when your target's health is below 50%). The ignite arrows build sustains 90dps (again, based on Kunder's test in the previous thread), not accounting for the area effect of ignite arrows. Both builds allow target switching without chase, and neither is at risk of skill shutdown due to a pet's untimely death.

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2012, 07:38 PM // 19:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

I assumed you tried using Glass Arrows before saying you didn't like it...

No, I did try it. I'm just saying I haven't spent like hours and hours comparing both builds to really give an informed opinion. Just looking at the numbers of the skill descriptions it doesn't seem like glass arrows gives anything that significantly outperforms other options. For example, the non-elite Ignite Arrows give you +15 fire damage (at 12 Wilderness) to target AND adjacent foes. That alone seems like it is a worthy competitor to Glass Arrows which gives you +20 damage (at 15 expertise) to only a single target. And of course you are freed up to bring a non-barrage (strips preps) elite. You throw in Incendiary and if you have 3 targets, you will get AoE Ignite Arrow packets generated by all 3 targets (and don't forget 3 seconds of burning which is up to another 42 damage per target). Other than the scatter problems which is a legitimate criticism, what am I missing?

Quote:

Both builds allow target switching without chase, and neither is at risk of skill shutdown due to a pet's untimely death.

Yeah, scratch what I said about the pet; other than really niche situations like the Bison Tournament or other solo type missions, pets are pretty worthless. The big problem that has been covered in many threads is the incredibly poor AI when it comes to pathing and attacking.

But before we scrap pets entirely, I just want to add that unless you are playing in a lot of high end areas where the pet is indeed getting creamed repeatedly. It's worth it for most of the game to try to bring that pet along for two key skills:

Never Rampage Alone: Cheap, long lasting IAS with an added bonus of +3 health regen for both you and your pet.

Scavenger Strike: Even if you can just spec like 6 points (+1 with the rune) into Beast Mastery, you have a source of +7 energy (assuming 13+ expertise) every 10 seconds. That is enough to fully "fund" an Ebon Standard of Honor or just about any other 10 energy PvE skill that most rangers might struggle to maintain.

And one might add that the pet auto-attacking IS not a completely insignificant source of damage (I'll check it later and see what a 7 spec'd pet actually does). He is also one more physical damage dealer to maybe active a Mark of Pain. EDIT: I checked with the Master of Damage. With the 25% IAS going, the pet deals 12 DPS while auto-attacking.

Xenomortis · May 30, 2012, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Skyy High

Anyway, how fast of a spike is sufficient for a single-target spike to be "good enough"?

When the damage done is of the same order as an enemy's total health and it can be compressed to occur within a few seconds and it can be done frequently, then you have something worthwhile.
Examples are AP builds, which do around 450 with just the PvE skills if EVAS works out, or Assassins under SoH that hit for around 240 in a single chain that takes only a second or so and is immediately ready to go again.
You can view this as spiking; in which case I require it to do a *lot* of damage before I consider it meaningful.

Now let's look at a Ranger 'spike':
We'll assume Glass Arrows, Favourable Winds, Winnowing, EBSOH and Order of Pain all at max spec (16 or rank 10(=5 now) for EBSoH).
So our bonus damage is 21+6+4+15+17 = 63

Our skills: Triple Shot, Dual Shot, Sundering Attack and Penetrating Attack. We're also under Frenzy (or some other 33% IAS that can be maintained) and have a Shortbow (or Flatbow).
So in terms of pure bonus damage, our attack does 441. That looks pretty good; factor in the base damage and the bonus from Sundering and Penetrating (+52) and we're doing well over 500, closer to 550. It also only takes ~3.5 seconds.
That seems really good! Doesn't it?

Except you have to wait 10 seconds to do it again. Perhaps you'll cycle Sundering and Penetrating on recharge, burning energy as you do so, causing your next spike to be incomplete or slow.
In effect; you can kill one target every 10 seconds. In that time, an AP spiker or a melee physical will have killed at least two and will be half way through their third.

So when I said Ranger's don't have the burst damage to make spiking worthwhile, I was misleading. It can get a lot of burst damage if it's willing to invest everything it can into it; but it's a still a weak spiker, even if its spike is good.

It is possible to 'condense' the information given above into a DPS calculation. Certainly the 70DPS figure is consistent with the '1 foe killed every 10 seconds' idea. However DPS is 1 dimensional; a number. I'll believe for a moment that a pet can reliably get 70 DPS with Enraged Lunge (I doubt it did when I used it, but I suspect circumstances were different) but I sure as hell don't believe that a pet can perform like a Glass Arrows build can. I am not convinced that a pet will contribute to kills as much as that spike. I do not think it can result in a near certain kill every 10 seconds.

More easy to see and understand examples are Invoke Lightning and Searing Flames; SF does more damage per second than Invoke. Yet before the nerf to Invoke, SF was not anywhere near as useful as Invoke, even in vacuum. If you say this is an obvious example, you'd be right! One spikes, the other doesn't. You already recognize the discrepancy.

TLDR
If you look at a Ranger as a spiker; you have something substantially weaker than the competition due to the downtime. You can kill quickly once and that's it.
If you look at the Ranger from a DPS point of view, it's essentially equivalent to Echoed Necrosis spam (under more likely conditions) and I hope I don't have to explain why that sucks.

Or you spam Barrage. Then you're closer to Searing Flames I guess.

Kunder · May 30, 2012, 08:44 PM // 20:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Astraeos

Here's one that's been fun to play... may not be the greatest DPS, but it's working for me.

Marksmanship: 10 + 1 + 1
Expertise: 8 + 3
Fire Magic: 12

Expert's Dexterity
Triple Shot
Dual Shot
Needling shot
Expert Focus
I am the Strongest
Conjure Flame (Ice, Lightning)
EBSoH

Based on a previous thread, Kunder prefers an ignite arrows build because it delivers multiple packets of damage (replacing expert focus with ignite arrows and replace needling shot with Glyph of Lesser Energy). I'm sure that works fine, too. But I'm finding needling shot to be very useful with this build. After triple shot and dual shot, if the target is not below 50%, I just need to hesitate a tick or two before heroes take them below that level; and then needling shot finishes the job very quickly. Rinse and repeat with the next target.

Needling Shot is pretty cool, and you are right that there is good synergy in the "first I spike, then I spam at .75s attack rate" tactic. I would leave out IATS for the Ignite Arrows/GoLE combination though. Given how fast you shoot arrows the enduring bonus is going to outweigh a (very) temporary one.

Either way, fix your attributes. 13 or 8 expertise is what you want to hit to minimize the cost of Needling Shot. 11 expertise doesn't even hit a breakpoint for your 10e skills. With Ignite Arrows I would go for

Marksmanship: 9 + 1 (+2 Expert's Focus)
Expertise: 9 + 3 +1 (breakpoint for 2e Needling Shot)
Wilderness Survival: 9 + 1
Fire Magic: 9

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2012, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

However DPS is 1 dimensional; a number. I'll believe for a moment that a pet can reliably get 70 DPS with Enraged Lunge (I doubt it did when I used it, but I suspect circumstances were different)

I was surprisingly close. Here is me just standing there and letting the pet do all the damage:

I bet if I timed the attacks a bit better I could get that number a little higher. Just being pedantic at this point. I still don't think the pet is really viable whatsoever in actual play but just wanted to illustrate that a pet CAN do some damage if you unleash it. (Also keep in mind that the pet is spamming deep wound which is not calculated by the master of damage).

Here's that incendiary build I posted earlier. Surprisingly higher DPS than I expected:

Keep in mind that the Master of Damage does NOT compute damage to the adjacent targets so I'm doing that DPS + fairly high damage to the adjacent targets too.

Xenomortis · May 30, 2012, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Put it under Strength of Honor.

Kunder · May 30, 2012, 09:33 PM // 21:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Xenomortis

Put it under Strength of Honor.

Kind of unfair to compare 2 builds vs 1, especially when taking an SoH just for a single pet is kind of silly. If we were talking dagger ranger + pet you would have a point though.

It's also discounting EBSoH's ability to boost your whole team as a ranger, while adding in an unrealistic additional DPS that you will never see under real PvE situations with a pet. Not that a Pet ranger can't bring EBSoH to boost their team, but it's not adding to a pet's damage.

Voodoo Rage · May 30, 2012, 10:22 PM // 22:22

Just to compare, here's the dagger version:

Not to post a 2nd screen shot but I tried it both with a vampiric and zealous sets of daggers. I found that although the vampiric did more damage that I was not able to keep my energy up and the Ebon Ward was not fully maintained. So ultimately the zealous daggers had almost identical damage number with better energy management. Again, deep wound is being spammed AND AoE damage is being done. Also remember that now we are doing melee damage so you can have a monk throw Strength of Honor on BOTH you and your pet (boosts DPS tremendously).

with Strength of Honor (maintained by a 16 spec'd monk hero who is not attacking for this test):

Xenomortis · May 30, 2012, 10:59 PM // 22:59

You know, I'm sure you'll perform better if you cut the pet entirely, took Expert's Dexterity, or something, along with Golden Fang Strike if you really want the DW. In my brief experimentation with pets on melee builds I concluded the following: "A pet makes your build worse".
I think this was highlighted by the fact that I could not decide between Rampage as One and NRA+Enraged Lunge. I really wanted the movement boost and better attack boost, just so the two attack skills I had would be better utilized, even if my energy was trashed to hell.
I was using an axe though; the situation may be better with Daggers.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Kind of unfair to compare 2 builds vs 1, especially when taking an SoH just for a single pet is kind of silly. If we were talking dagger ranger + pet you would have a point though.

If you're using a pet for damage you might as well do what you can. SoH is pretty easy to take at a decent spec and it's boosted by the pet's 33% damage increase. So is Splinter Weapon.
Although I agree, it does seem a little weird. I mention it only because I assumed a load of buffs in my earlier calculations for a bow, so I don't mind making positive assumptions for a pet right now.

Kunder · May 30, 2012, 11:08 PM // 23:08

The thing to keep in mind about buffing pets is that while +33% damage is nice it doesn't make up for attacking 50% slower than most melee. Not having multi/AoE hit abilities further widens this gap of buff-abuseability. Splinter Weapon is nice on pets though.