Curse

zachattack82 · May 21, 2012, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Just been running this in regular PvE on my ranger. Just let me know what you guys think, thanks!

HigherMinion · May 22, 2012, 12:40 AM // 00:40

Overkill Barrage with that number of Splinters. Take one or two with Glass Arrows for some single-target spiking. Screw taking a spirit/summon spirits on your own bar; take EBSoH and give Winnowing/Favoured Winds to a hero. Melandru's Assault may be better than Call of Protection if you take an ST rit instead of prots, also. One copy of "GftE!" would be fine with barrage, too. It will recharge in an instant. D-Shot is largely pointless in PvE, so you might aswell take another damage attack or a rupt that deals +dmg.

Kunder · May 22, 2012, 12:58 AM // 00:58

Go R/W yourself with SY + (optional) FGJ. Slot yourself EBSoH because +15 damage to all those arrows is ridiculous. Either drop pet stuff or interrupts to make room. Winnowing is better than FW unless you are afraid of it boosting enemy damage, since it buffs bows, pets, minions, spirits, and SW damage. You can bring both though if you squeeze your build enough.

Take Dark Fury to mega-charge the SY spam and support the other shouters. Swap OotV for OoB because it won't work otherwise. Elite is up to you.

Might want to replace the Anthem of Envy ranger with a P/R spear/pet build using it and GftE. Higher attributes and faster adrenaline charging make it good, and it adds to the single target damage. AoE will charge mega fast with Dark Fury and spear attack rate.

Probably better off with a Rt SW-spamming than the Ranger, if it's an area where SW is useful. SoS has decent synergy with Anthem of Envy too, and can provide some extra healing as well.

Remove Chorus of Restoration from the one ranger. Its just a bad idea. You want to help heal your weak casters, but they aren't the ones shouting. Rangers with bows don't need that extra healing. Replace with whatever as you see fit. Not sure if a 3rd GftE helps at all, give it a shot and watch your heroes.

Better off with a real MM than a pissy MB, especially when you bring EBSoH yourself. That's your call though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Overkill Barrage with that number of Splinters. Take one or two with Glass Arrows for some single-target spiking. Screw taking a spirit/summon spirits on your own bar; take EBSoH and give Winnowing/Favoured Winds to a hero. Melandru's Assault may be better than Call of Protection if you take an ST rit instead of prots, also. One copy of "GftE!" would be fine with barrage, too. It will recharge in an instant. D-Shot is largely pointless in PvE, so you might aswell take another damage attack or a rupt that deals +dmg.

Single Target spike builds aren't that great without Triple Shot, which heroes can't use. Besides that, anyone doing spike should be using Ignite Arrows. Not a bad idea to use for the player though, but you'll have to drop some other important things I'm suggesting. Tradeoff between invincible mode and 200 damage spikes from a single character.

The point of winnowing/FW on yourself is that you don't have to waste time before every mod to set it up or wait for it to recharge, obviously. +10 damage for every arrow is not something to be taken lightly. Altogether each ranger will be hitting for over +60 armor ignoring damage per hit, along with the bow/AoE/GftE gravy on top.

HigherMinion · May 22, 2012, 01:25 AM // 01:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kunder

Single Target spike builds aren't that great without Triple Shot, which heroes can't use. Besides that, anyone doing spike should be using Ignite Arrows. Not a bad idea to use for the player though, but you'll have to drop some other important things I'm suggesting. Tradeoff between invincible mode and 200 damage spikes from a single character.

The point of winnowing/FW on yourself is that you don't have to waste time before every mod to set it up or wait for it to recharge, obviously. +10 damage for every arrow is not something to be taken lightly. Altogether each ranger will be hitting for over +60 armor ignoring damage per hit, along with the bow/AoE/GftE gravy on top.

He can at least run it himself, but Dual Shot/1/2 attacks still makes it viable for heroes. As you say, taking SY and Ebsoh has more benefit than Summon Spirits for favorable winds. Winnowing is +4 phys damage per packet, so infinitely better in this setup but NOT necessary for every mob. It's not necessary to make it's uptime infinite so as to waste a PvE skill and lock your secondary as a human. Too valuable. Winnowing with Minions, human with Glass Arrows and heroes with Barrage would be pro, though. If the +4 were in a separate packet, it would trigger ebsoh twice, but not sure if that happens.

Also... Incendiary Arrows is pretty meh. The AoE spike comes from Splinter-Barrage, and Kunder is right about removing it from the ranger. But Glass Arrows spike is the best for single-target and Barrage with Splinter is the best AoE.

Kunder · May 22, 2012, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Derp. I forget that you need to be /rt to take summon spirits. So yeah, only bring it on yourself if you really don't need SY.

Winnowing has to be dealing something like 50 DPS with all the sources of physical damage present. Staying Rt is certainly not a wholly foolish option if SY isn't needed. It's not a second packet though, that would be ridiculously imba.

Ignite Arrows is best for both Single Target and AoE damage. Keep in mind that its AoE is a second packet that benefits from EBSoH, so it's more powerful than Glass Arrows and also works as a half-strength Splinter Weapon that doesn't run out after 1 barrage. In optimal conditions it will be a cool +150ish damage to all enemies in a full barrage, as opposed to Glass Arrows only doing +20. Quite delicious.

zachattack82 · May 23, 2012, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Wow, thanks for the quick responses all! I definitely will have to try those changes and get back to ya!

Volcoms Shadow · May 23, 2012, 01:31 AM // 01:31

Ive been messing with something similar as well.
I run 2 or 3 copies of GftE, 1 on a P/R with AoE as well. Then all R/x have Keen Arrow for single target. 4 copies of Keen arrow at ~100 damage under GftE. + orders/EbsH/Winnow/etc..
Splinter on a rit primary, 14 channeling. The initial barrage usually wipes the ai clump, then they scatter under aggro anyways. So i only run 1 copy of splinter and micro myself.
I dont find tank n spank or any sort of aggro control to speed things up in nm.
I also havent found room for enough defense to run this in HM(I hate SY).

Only tip i have is make sure all your heroes have the same distance bow. I had heroes so spread out with different bows that they didnt all fit in my ebon ward.

Wenspire · May 27, 2012, 09:52 AM // 09:52

Heroes don't seem to use GftE upon recharge. That's one reason why I dropped that skill off mine. Easier to to use it on your own character, as you would get the most benefit from that skill.