Curse

Marus Varrus · Jul 18, 2005, 03:00 PM // 15:00

I like barrage in conjunction with the no elite poisoner and also choking gas being able to place conditions on multiple targets at once always seems handy

Enigmatics · Jul 18, 2005, 03:04 PM // 15:04

Are you just making this up for the sake of furthering yourself in this conversation? Or was that just a mistake? Either way, barrage *removes all preparations*. This includes apply poison.

ComMan · Jul 18, 2005, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enigmatics

It's 14 expertise to get quick shot to cost 2 energy; when used with a zealous bowstring the energy cost drops to 1. Don't forget a secondary profession buff, if you conjure an element your dps rises to around 75 on casters, and you can kill them in around 7 hits, translating to less than 7 seconds due to quick shot.

Conjure is +13 damage, bows by themselves do 15-28, right? Ignite is about +20. That's only 61 on a max damage hit, if you have 12 marks, 12 WS, and 12 Fire Magic. Care to explain how you get 75 damage with only Quick Shot and Conjure?

I disagree with Spike Trap being 4 stars. It costs 5 less mana than Barbed Trap, sure, but it has the same recharge and damage (minus the bleeding). It's effectivily an alterate (weaker, IMO) Barbed Trap. I seriously wonder if they made a mistake, and Barbed wasn't supossed to be the elite one. Knockdown on a trap isn't worth the elite slot.

Marus: you can't use Barrage and Apply Poison. Maybe you should read Barrages description again, because it removes all preperations.

I do agree that Practiced Stance is a little underrated, but that's mainly because Choking Gas is only real combo with it.

Enigmatics · Jul 18, 2005, 05:38 PM // 17:38

Let's see. Favorable Winds, Quickening Zypher, Conjure Flame, Kindle Arrows. Buff of about 42 damage. Normal bow damage of 21.5, rounded to 22, which adds to 64. Quick shot is like half of dual shot, and you'll be using Tiger's Fury with quick shot every time, so that's 3 arrows in 2 seconds. Imagine that, and factor in defence, so you're damage isn't as high. You still put out quite some damage. My ranger doesn't use zypher and he has around 75 dps towards mesmers and elementalists.

Archaeus · Jul 18, 2005, 05:39 PM // 17:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enigmatics

It's 14 expertise to get quick shot to cost 2 energy; when used with a zealous bowstring the energy cost drops to 1. Don't forget a secondary profession buff, if you conjure an element your dps rises to around 75 on casters, and you can kill them in around 7 hits, translating to less than 7 seconds due to quick shot.

I have 13 expertise (11+1+1) and barrage, which is also 5 energy, costs me 2 energy. Thus, you only need 13 expertise to have a 2 energy cost Quick Shot. There's even an expertise table on this very site that confirms this. Also, you can't use a Zealous bow string and conjure an element at the same time, since Conjure requires you to have a string of that element in order to function.

R/E's can try a flaming bow string, 13 expertise, a prep or Conjure Flame, Quick Shot, and Mark of Rodgort for some nice damage (on paper, at least). I'd suggest 11+1+1 expertise, 10+2 marksmanship, 8 in fire magic, and 1+1 in beast mastery if you want to use tiger's fury. Although spamming Mark is very difficult energy-wise, it makes for some nice burst damage when needed, and you can always have a flame artifact on switch if need be.

My personal favorite elite for PvE: Barrage, because it stacks with Conjure, and because it looks friggin awesome when my ranger is spazzing out on his shortbow with tiger's fury, shooting usually around 3 but up to 6 arrows at a time.

Enigmatics · Jul 18, 2005, 05:49 PM // 17:49

My bad, the break point of expertise is for 10+ energy cost spells, which cost 4 energy with 14 expertise.

Epinephrine · Jul 18, 2005, 06:03 PM // 18:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archaeus

Also, you can't use a Zealous bow string and conjure an element at the same time, since Conjure requires you to have a string of that element in order to function.

I believe you could use a zealous sring and use conjure provided you had another way to make your weapon deal fire damage - Greater Conflagration would work for example.

Jul 18, 2005, 08:20 PM // 20:20

Kindle Arrows also.

Scaphism · Jul 18, 2005, 11:10 PM // 23:10

Spike Trap is an AOE knockdown that doesn't cause exhaustion. Non-warrior knockdowns are tightly regulated, so making it an elite skill isn't out of line with that in mind.

As for Practiced Stance:
I couldn't give this anything higher than a 1. The skill itself does nothing- it forces you to pick up another skill just to get anything out of it, and even then it prevents you from using other stances.
In combination with Choking Gas it appears to be pretty good, but you're confusing the effect from choking gas (which is awesome) with the benefit of practiced stance. Why not just make Choking Gas elite and have it last from 5-17 seconds? You'd save a skill slot and allow people to use a stance as well. Granted, I'd look for a way to abuse that pretty quickly, but that's really the effect you're after, but you're sacrificing two skill slots to make one skill do what you want.

Practiced Stance is a nothing skill, and there really aren't enough preparations worth comboing beyond Choking Gas.

Melandru's Arrows would be much better without Nature's Renewal sitting right next to it.

Eder · Jul 19, 2005, 12:00 AM // 00:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

I couldn't give this anything higher than a 1. The skill itself does nothing- it forces you to pick up another skill just to get anything out of it, and even then it prevents you from using other stances.

Saying that Practiced Stance does nothing is like saying that Oath Shot does nothing. Oath Shot also "forces you to pick up another skill just to get anything out of it". What good is recharging all your skills if you don't have skills that need recharging?

You're analyzing a skill individually, but there's no reason why anyone should only care about what a skill does individually. You're supposed to group skills together to get maximum benefit from them.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Why not just make Choking Gas elite and have it last from 5-17 seconds? You'd save a skill slot and allow people to use a stance as well.

Uh, balancing? Semi-constant Choking Gas would just be an inferior version of Incendiary Arrows with less damage output, so it wouldn't justify being elite. And if you allow constant choking gas to be used with and an attack speed buff (tiger's fury, etc) you would be interrupting spells every 1.5 seconds or so, all the time. And you'd still have 6 skill slots to fill.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

Granted, I'd look for a way to abuse that pretty quickly, but that's really the effect you're after, but you're sacrificing two skill slots to make one skill do what you want.

What you're saying is that if Choking Gas was better, you wouldn't need Practiced Stance. That's true, but given that Choking Gas isn't better, how would you suggest I go about getting the same effect (one interrupt every 2 seconds, all the time, can't be dispelled except by one warrior skill which people never bring)?

You can't get the same effect with one skill. So you use two. The effect you get doesn't become any less powerful because you had to use two skills to get it - the fact that you've sacrificed a skill slot and the use of another stance is simply a balancing issue... same reason why you can't use barrage with Ignite Arrows or Tiger's Fury with Serpernt's Quickness.

Tellani Artini · Jul 19, 2005, 01:18 AM // 01:18

If you use practiced stance, choking gas, and tiger's fury/frenzy, practiced stance will be recharged by the time choking gas ends. The only downtime is applying the preparation.

Using incendiary arrows under quickening zephyr, you can keep the incendiary preparation on for around 8 seconds out of 14.

Scaphism · Jul 19, 2005, 02:02 AM // 02:02

Oath Shot doesn't do nothing- it breaks the mechanics of the game. You sacrifice 1 skill on your bar to make the other 7 better. It opens so many possibilities it's staggering.

Practiced stance improves one skill, and one skill only- Choking Gas. Comparing the two really isn't fair.

Any other preparation benefits more from an attack speed boost than a duration boost. With Choking Gas, the duration is the relevant number.

As for constant choking gas being inferior to Incendiary Arrows: in some ways it would, but 15ish seconds of lockdown is really all you need. Don't forget that Choking Gas is an AOE interrupt, so even if your target dodges, they still get the affect of the Gas. Granted, Choking Gas wouldn't be as universally useful as Incendiary Arrows (no effect vs rangers and warriors) but it would be superior vs casters (the other 4 professions). It'd be a choice to make.

I'm saying Practiced Stance is subpar because it only combos well with one skill, and the effect of that combo isn't a game breaker. On top of that you're sacrificing:
A) Your elite slot
B) 2 skill slots to get one effect
C) Using any other stances

And you have an elite that never makes its way onto my bar.

Jul 19, 2005, 02:46 AM // 02:46

Remeber Choking Gas arrows dont have to hit. They'll spread CG regardless as long as the arrow gets there from what I've seen, which is very different from Incendiary Arrows.

And Practiced Stance does nothing as Scaph said. It's a 2 slot skill as it requires another skill to become active, and the effect isn't really worth it.

Oath Shot is a different beast all together. Oath Shot "forces" you to take any 7 skills you please for an effect-oh my, what to do?

Kishin · Jul 19, 2005, 05:53 AM // 05:53

I pretty much agree with what Scaphism said about Practiced Stance. I'd much rather be in Tiger's Fury while using Choking Gas to keep up a constant stream of interrupts, rather than having it up, slower, for an extended period of time. If you know when to kick Choking Gas up, 8-9 seconds of steady interrupts is more than adequate (as was said).

Tetra · Jul 19, 2005, 06:24 AM // 06:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enigmatics

Let's see. Favorable Winds, Quickening Zypher, Conjure Flame, Kindle Arrows. Buff of about 42 damage. Normal bow damage of 21.5, rounded to 22, which adds to 64. Quick shot is like half of dual shot, and you'll be using Tiger's Fury with quick shot every time, so that's 3 arrows in 2 seconds. Imagine that, and factor in defence, so you're damage isn't as high. You still put out quite some damage. My ranger doesn't use zypher and he has around 75 dps towards mesmers and elementalists.

Wouldn't that spread out all your attribute points? You will need fire magic, expertise, marksmanship, wilderness, Beastmastery?

And resulting in a reduce of damage from marksmanship, kindle arrows?

roselan · Jul 19, 2005, 08:31 AM // 08:31

concerning my "marks" they come from personnal experience. We all know the basics, the skills description. However, on the battlefield, it is very different, constraints are seldom what you expected. It never clicks in as you planned.

by example, most people will run when incend arrow hits, by the time you catch up it is finished, and they spared some energy... and your fragility is lost too. Of course you can use a long bow, run next to target, prep so that he does not flee. But then you loose time running, and you have to go thru the other team...

Spike trap is a 4* in trapper build, a 1* in a sniper one.

Practiced stance was usefull too me overall in hoh where my task was to disable monk #2 while the monk #1 was grilled like a mosquito. (it is very nice with scourge healing or backfire)

Concerning the Quick Shoot combo, I prefer Judge's insight (it is an enchentment) to conjure flame. 20% armor penetration and holy dmg often do more than 25 xtra dmg... build here

But again, the best elite is the one that suits you the best...

Neo-LD · Jul 19, 2005, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tellani Artini

If you use practiced stance, choking gas, and tiger's fury/frenzy, practiced stance will be recharged by the time choking gas ends. The only downtime is applying the preparation.

Using incendiary arrows under quickening zephyr, you can keep the incendiary preparation on for around 8 seconds out of 14.

Practiced Stance is a "stance" and cant be used with TF or frenzy.

ComMan · Jul 19, 2005, 02:37 PM // 14:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by roselan

concerning my "marks" they come from personnal experience. We all know the basics, the skills description. However, on the battlefield, it is very different, constraints are seldom what you expected. It never clicks in as you planned.

by example, most people will run when incend arrow hits, by the time you catch up it is finished, and they spared some energy... and your fragility is lost too. Of course you can use a long bow, run next to target, prep so that he does not flee. But then you loose time running, and you have to go thru the other team...

This is why you always carry Pin Down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by roselan

Spike trap is a 4* in trapper build, a 1* in a sniper one.

Is it? It might be the least dangerous trap in the game. All it does is 50 damage and slows you down. Barbed Trap does 50 damage, slows you down, and makes you bleed. Dust Trap does 40 damage and blinds you. The only thing that's as bad as Spike Trap is Flame Trap, with it's pitiful 60 damage and that's it.

You can "interrupt" with Spike Trap if you're one of the nuts who runs next to the enemy and plants your trap, but seriously...it's not even worth using traps that way. If you use it as a trap, and let them walk into it, then it really is just a weaker Barbed Trap.

roselan · Jul 19, 2005, 04:11 PM // 16:11

You see, I'm afraid to degrade it's rating, as the trapper who invented it may as well plant one under my chair in retaliation, so that I understand it is a 4 :P

you are surely right! I played as a trapper 7 or 8 time, no more. So I'm not the best trappist, trappor? trappatator??? anyway...

more seriously, these rating are subjective, in UW or HoH, in trappers teams, I FELT it was spike trap that was "making the difference", more than barbed or flame, due to it's knowkdown effect.

But again, my analysis may as well be wrong... I'm here to learn too

Enigmatics · Jul 19, 2005, 04:18 PM // 16:18

In the UW most rangers had a copy of each others' skillsets. These included all non-elite traps (dust trap optional), and Oath Shot to reset all of these traps, along with Whirling Defence when they tanked.