Curse

Chthon · Mar 29, 2009, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Taurean

If you wanna have [frenzy] you almost have to have a energy-gaining skill.. like [Prepared shot] or co-work with your team to inflict Cracked armor and use [Body shot]

Prep Shot is elite. That means giving up BHA. And that in turn means giving up what is usually the only strong reason for the party to bring a ranger instead of another class.

[Edit: I think I spoke too soon. Prep Shot can support Concussion Shot spam, which is arguably on par with BHA, if you've got the recurve bow, connection speed, and reflex speed to reliably hit stuff.]

I'd been thinking about body shot too, so I gave it an extensive test last night. It didn't work so well. It works on paper, but, in practice, the timing doesn't work out often enough that you still come up short.

I also gave a long test to Drunken Master -- it works, tentatively the best option -- and Never Rampage Alone -- it works, but you basically waste 2 other skill slots to get it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackerduud

Scythes are awesome.

Riiiiiight..... OK then, I'm just going to say that this thread is about IAS for bow rangers only and not even address the rest of that post.

jackerduud · Mar 30, 2009, 03:02 PM // 15:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

Riiiiiight..... OK then, I'm just going to say that this thread is about IAS for bow rangers only and not even address the rest of that post.

Yeeaaaahhh.. Discard the fact that the rest of the post concerns Bow rangers just the same...

Edit: And...

When H/H vanquishing, it doesn't matter which weapon i use, i still like to pull and pile mobs up myself, instead of sending MoW to do it. Hence, in addition to the +30AL vs Elemental damage that helps, the block is useful aswell.

Chthon · Mar 31, 2009, 02:04 AM // 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackerduud

Yeeaaaahhh.. Discard the fact that the rest of the post concerns Bow rangers just the same...

I was trying to politely sidestep the fact that the entire post was idiotic and give you an easy way out of the conversation. But, since you insist...

Quote:

A normal IAS + A normal block = 2 skillslots aswell.

Rangers don't bring block. Not worth a skillslot on a mid-high-armor backline character. Your choice to convert a mid-high-armor backline character into a frontline character (a) is dumb, and (b) doesn't apply to those of us who don't make the same dumb choice.

Quote:

"Over the long haul". That is not how PvE works, you don't get a steady stream of opponents running to you all the time you're outside of an outpost.

Are you saying that you kill every mob before your 20sec IAS runs out? I find that very hard to believe. In fact, since you're running a scythe ranger with discordway, I'd hazard a guess that you're probably not killing much faster than 1foe/3sec and rarely kill a whole mob in 20sec.

If your IAS isn't maintainable for the duration of the hardest mob you expect to face, then its value needs to be discounted to account for that fact.

Quote:

While Vanquishing, it always takes me about 10+sec to move my party to the next mob, in which case i wouldn't need perma IAS.

Unless you decline to recast LR mid-battle, there's no guarantee that the inter-mob move time coincides with the downtime on LR.

Quote:

Scythes are awesome.

Oh yes, a weapon skilline that relies on oodles of near-worthless armor-sensitive damage with a collection of weak attack skills and a near-mandatory PvE skill that prevents it from working with 3 of the best damage buffs available is truly awesome. Oh wait, no it's not. Scythes stink. Even if they didn't stink, they're much, much more effective on a Warrior (strength and non-sucky strength-based attack skills), Sin (criticals), or Dervish (mastery > 12) than a Ranger.