Curse

Bristlebane · Jul 31, 2011, 10:25 AM // 10:25

If you got 7-8 Barrage rangers together, which weapon skill would you prefer to use on them? With possibly 1 other player to effectively ball up mobs first.
This would obviously work best on mobs primary consisting of melees.

Great Dwarf Weapon for partically knocklock an entire group,
or Splinter for a massive AE damage?

In case of GDW, I guess the person balling them up would benefit from skills like Grasping Earth, for Perma AE snares, to ensure mobs will not flee too quickly.
"On Your Knees!", to keep refreshing stances.
Aftershock for AE damage.

Gimmicky? Yes indeed.
Practical? Probably not, but that's beside the point.
Fun? I bet it would be hilarious if you got it to work.

paranon · Jul 31, 2011, 10:40 AM // 10:40

This could work in areas like fow, but i think you only need 3-4 splinter barrage rangers to make it work.

halfies · Jul 31, 2011, 11:50 AM // 11:50

if you really wanted to run rangers, maybe triple shot dual shot and mop, then use barrage for clean up? i think that it would end up being alot more damage that way, and you would be able to use more proffesions in the other slots, which is always nice. glyph of energy and earthquake for KD or a hammer war maybe.
i think gdw wouldnt provide enough snare, since the targets that get KD would be the dead targets anyway, so in big groups youd have alot of splitting

Random Namos · Jul 31, 2011, 11:54 AM // 11:54

if ya got 7-8 rangers, why dont you use splinter on 4-5 of them, and take GDW on the others?
Both massive damage + knocklock

Kunder · Jul 31, 2011, 01:23 PM // 13:23

With that many rangers you have no hope of being able to keep up SW because it runs out after 1 or 2 Barrages. Therefore keep the GDW up on the others.

SW is definitely better, but as you get past 2 or 3 people the payoff drops dramatically as you can't kill mobs faster than instantly. +55 damage per arrow total with GDW is pretty nice for cleanup.

jackinthe · Jul 31, 2011, 02:35 PM // 14:35

barrage spam i would go with gdw
triple shot, dual shot take splinter wep

Pugs Not Drugs · Jul 31, 2011, 08:00 PM // 20:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackinthe

barrage spam i would go with gdw
triple shot, dual shot take splinter wep

its the other way around imo. splinter is probably better with barrage, and gdw with triple shot becuase it procs three times, meaning like +120 damage

ori · Jul 31, 2011, 09:18 PM // 21:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pugs Not Drugs

its the other way around imo. splinter is probably better with barrage, and gdw with triple shot becuase it procs three times, meaning like +120 damage

I would agree with Pugs here. Splinter deals dmg to 3 adjacent foes so with barrage you will deal a large packet of aoe dmg to the entire mob. Gdw with triple shot is useful to spike and shutdown high priority targets, the chance for KD is applied to each of the 3 arrows which pretty much guarantees a KD while dealing decent dmg.

Kunder · Jul 31, 2011, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Both are better with Barrage.

Lets assume 3 enemies nearby, for the sake of conciseness.

SW on triple shot= 150 damage on two enemies. When the enemies die from AoE, you have a useless SW on a lone target

SW on barrage = 100 damage on 3 enemies. Same damage output, but now you distribute damage better so that the enemies die quicker as a whole.

GDW on triple shot = 78.4% chance of knockdown.

GDW on Barrage = 43.2% chance of 1 knockdown, 28.8% chance of 2 knockdowns, 6.4% chance of 3 knockdowns. Average of 1.2 enemies knocked down.

And of course, Barrage spams constantly while Triple Shot has a long recharge.

That said, if you have 7 rangers in a group there is no reason not to have both Barrage and Triple Shot on most rangers, and obviously the player using the build can figure out whether Barrage or Triple Shot is better for the situation. Ranger builds have tons of space after at least one player has slotted EBSoH and SY and there aren't a huge amount of other viable PvE skills to throw into a ranger build.

Wenspire · Jul 31, 2011, 10:30 PM // 22:30

IMO, they both are best on a barrager for the larger-spread AoE damage and potential AoE KD.

Going back to the original question in which to use in multiple ranger parties, I'd say you only really would want one ranger running GDW and the rest on Splinter. Splinter doesn't cause enemy scatter so there is plenty of time to get the KD effect for that one person while dishing out extra damage. Enemy "groups" will die faster via Splinter vs using GDW anyway.