Curse

xanarot · Nov 23, 2008, 08:34 PM // 20:34

I've been playing the standard barrage/splinter ranger with sabway in pve for a while now, and started to notice every fight went the same.

Due to using 13 Expertise and zealous bow, all i did was spamming barrage due to high/most damage for 5E skill along with the low recharge. Start of a fight nearly always went on precasting splinter (sabway hero's) followed by Standard of Honor and then just mow down the mobs. Ofc there was the occasional d-shot interupt, but even monk bosses dont manage to counter the high damage of 8 player/hero's/hencies all benefitting from +13 damage on ever attack and skill.

So, basicly all i ever use are 2 ranger skills and pve skills. Then i started watching just how often barrage actually hits the 4+ mobs to make it more effective then volley. Result; way to few. Sure it does occasionally, but since the max for splinter weapon is 4 anyway (sabway, so 10 attribute setting) that never really matters in the outcome of a fight.

Now im asking for help, to make the other skills usefull again. I was thinking, since i spam volley anyway, to use a pet for more damage without gimping the current spam (yes, +16 and another +13 on every single hit along with the occasional splinter really hurts).
The basis would bring it to 4 ranger skills (volley/d-shot/charm/comfort). Due to the pet use, i think its more then naturally to bring GWD to highly increase the pet's damage and ofc add the occasional interupt. This would bring it to another 2 pve skills (standard of honor/great dwarf weapon).

Thus, the basic build;
Volley
D-shot
Charm animal
Comfort animal (or revive, just something to bring it back to the living)
Great Dwarf Weapon
Standard of Honor

Now, currently my main issue;
-RaO vs NrA; 33% speed and elite slot vs 25% speed and last pve slot. With the standard, GDW and spamming attack the speed boost helps loads in the total damage output. But also considering the following;

NrA allows use of another elite such as Strike as One for more damage from both pet and self. This in turn gives an even larger reason to bring another IAS, but also allows switching to BHA (not that i ever needed it before on HM monk bosses; interupt hench and d-shot is enough) or other elites.

RaO in turn allows another PvE skill such as Ural's Hammer/Asuran scan.. Just like NRA, the additional damage output makes it the more important to bring the IAS. This would allow switching of the PvE for various other damage sources (asuran pet, assassin/sniper support/lightbringer) or the like.

Basicly High IAS, less +damage pve or lower IAS, more +damage elite.

On a side note; d-shot.
With the GWD knockdown along with IAS, and having a interupt hench already, im starting to doubt wether its still worth taking. Got the feeling that going for a defensive skill (for the pet ofc) will give a larger benefit then an interupt.

Any toughts/help appreciated

P.S. yes, this is for h/h thus im not bringing any form of res.

Rhamia Darigaz · Nov 23, 2008, 09:42 PM // 21:42

if you take dshot off your bar gtfo!

snaek · Nov 23, 2008, 10:00 PM // 22:00

barrage vs volley isnt bout the # of targets really
it comes down to teh recharge and spammability of it

while u can spam barrage on every attack
volley will be used only on every other attack

so u mite want to consider another attack skill to be spammed in between volleys
perhaps needling shot which can also be used to pewpew single targets

rao vs nra
personally i'd go wit nra

i mean good luk distributin attrib pts between bow/pet/expertise
and still find the energy to upkeep rao while spamming attack skills

xanarot · Nov 24, 2008, 03:33 PM // 15:33

Rhamia, thanks for the great feedback. Really adds something to the discussion/request

.

Barrage vs volley; that 1 sec is negated by the hornbow use since the refire rate stays above 2s. Sure i can go for a faster weapon, but on a 1,8 refire rate (2.4s weapon) or 1,54 refire rate (2.0s weapon) the 1s recharge isnt worth much since you cant shoot any faster. Besides, is that 1s recharge (that you hardly/not notice) really worth an elite slot?
I went out from using a zealous bow and some attunement pieces (its pve ^^) along with spamming volley on 13Expertise. That would net me +2 energy every 6 seconds provided i only hit a single target every time. That should leave me with just enough energy to do everything; 20 for both pve's and 12 for RaO; 32 energy. Would require some testing tough.

Just to let you know, i dont use Strength of honor. Standard of Honor is the ebon vanguard PvE ward. This increases all damage (melee, ranged, spells) while you are inside the ward. Put all h/h in there and it is the highest damage per energy skill (besides PI perhaps).

Orange Milk · Nov 24, 2008, 05:26 PM // 17:26

I think Barrage > Volley

But if you must drop Barage, then take [Never Rampage Alone] over [Rampage As One] because you can then take [Ferocious Strike] for energy management. I find that GDW taxes my energy at times and the Ferocious really helps.

I'm not a fan of Zealous Bows, I mean it's a damage build your going for right? So the Vamp would eb the way to go with Ferocious managing the energy for you. IF there is a place for a Sundering String it is in a Barrage build due to the fact that the 20% cahnce will roll around more often.

Of course you can still Barrage + NRA so thats a good combo there, pretty much puts you right back where youstarted though.