Curse

Enigmatics · Jul 19, 2005, 04:40 PM // 16:40

You can't combine 2 elites, and you can't stack preparations. Therefore you'll never get poison and bleeding on a target without wasting a large amount of energy.

Eder · Jul 19, 2005, 04:58 PM // 16:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scaphism

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.

Not necessarily. It only makes the other 7 better if they will ever need a forced recharge in the first place. Why would I want to recharge something which is still active, which I have no energy to re-cast, or which is already spammable?

Sure, Oath Shot goes with more skills than Practiced Stance... but that's where the differences end. They do exactly as much on their own - nothing. I'm just trying to say that according to your "you waste an elite and need 2 slots to get one effect" argument, half of the elites in the game are crap. What makes them good or bad is the effect they allow for, now what you use to get it.

Elemental Attunement, Ether Renewal, Glyph of Energy, Mantra of Recovery, Echo, Oath Shot, Melandru's Resilience, just to name a few... some of them fit in more builds than others, but they're all useless elites on their own and require the use of at least one other skill - sometimes a specific set of skills (or, in Practiced Stance's extreme case, one skill

) - to actually do anything.

Shwitz · Jul 19, 2005, 05:03 PM // 17:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by Enigmatics

You can't combine 2 elites, and you can't stack preparations. Therefore you'll never get poison and bleeding on a target without wasting a large amount of energy.

You can't? Poison arrow and Hunter's shot can be used on the same skill bar, and that makes a creature poisoned and bleeding.

EDIT: "You can't" meaning you can't make someone bleed and poison them? And just an addition - poison arrow and hunter's shot are both 5 energy bow shots, and relatively low recharge. Hunter's shot makes 'em bleed only when they're moving though...

Enigmatics · Jul 19, 2005, 05:08 PM // 17:08

If you'd like to be a hypocrite, then by all means -do it. Dooo it. Your argument is that practiced stance works exceptionally well with a select skill (or two). But so do all the elites you've listed as sucking. Even though I have yet to find a use for Glyph of Energy, you can make several builds revolve around those other elites.

Moskel · Jul 19, 2005, 05:16 PM // 17:16

On the Oath Shot / Practiced Stance blather, I'd like to suggest that Oath Shot is superior to Practiced Stance even for a Choking Gas ranger. Hint: Oath Shot resets Choking Gas too!

You have to recast more frequently but you can be in Tiger's Fury while firing for 8 seconds making it a lot stronger, fire in an Oath Shot during that time to reset Choking Gas. You can then continue to use whatever else you want in the 5 remaining slots.

mamluk · Jul 19, 2005, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Here is another thought- Echo and yes I know it is not a ranger elite, but it does create some very nasty combos with ranger skills.
Because of ranger's expertise, they can usually get away with spamming skills, thus echo works really well with skills that have 10s or under recharge times.

Echo + debilitating shot = -20 energy for your target every 5 or 6 seconds. And with 14 expertise, that is for a cost to you of 8 energy. You could most likely get 5 of these shots in around 20 seconds, that is -50 energy to your target. That would shut down most casters except the rare elementalist with crazy amounts of energy storage (let's assume they are casting spells while you are shooting them)

Oath shot won't let you keep up the rate of fire you would get with echo.

Echo + distracting shot = evil

Echo + barbed trap at a beginning of a round, or really echo and any trap. Echo and healing spring would be really fun!

BrokenSymmetry · Jul 19, 2005, 07:18 PM // 19:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shwitz

You can't? Poison arrow and Hunter's shot can be used on the same skill bar, and that makes a creature poisoned and bleeding.

EDIT: "You can't" meaning you can't make someone bleed and poison them? And just an addition - poison arrow and hunter's shot are both 5 energy bow shots, and relatively low recharge. Hunter's shot makes 'em bleed only when they're moving though...

By far the easiest and cheapest way to get someone to bleed (next to being poisoned) is by using the pet's Feral Lunge (which costs 5 energy), which makes the enemy bleed when he's attacking. In my experience this works in many more situations than Hunter's shot.

Shwitz · Jul 19, 2005, 07:27 PM // 19:27

Feral Lunge is much better than Hunter's Shot for applying bleeding... providing you have points in Beast Mastery and a pet that can survive. I personally don't have any points in BM, so using Feral Lunge just isn't feasible for me... which is why I use Hunter's Shot.

Shwitz · Jul 19, 2005, 07:32 PM // 19:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by mvpberto

Apply Posion+Barrage
Poison up to 5 foes

Read Barrage's description again mvpberto. It says "lose all preparations" or something to that effect. When you activate the bow skill Barrage, all preparations are stripped, which means those barrage arrows won't be poison-tipped. Besides that, Barrage requires those enemies to be fairly close together for maximum effect. It's very hard to convince an enemy group in PvP to stay close together, especially after the first Barrage salvo.

"Uh, guys? I'm trying to use barrage here, could you get a little bit closer together? Perfect, thanks!"

Scaphism · Jul 19, 2005, 07:34 PM // 19:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eder

Sure, Oath Shot goes with more skills than Practiced Stance... but that's where the differences end. They do exactly as much on their own - nothing. I'm just trying to say that according to your "you waste an elite and need 2 slots to get one effect" argument, half of the elites in the game are crap. What makes them good or bad is the effect they allow for, now what you use to get it.

Elemental Attunement, Ether Renewal, Glyph of Energy, Mantra of Recovery, Echo, Oath Shot, Melandru's Resilience, just to name a few... some of them fit in more builds than others, but they're all useless elites on their own and require the use of at least one other skill - sometimes a specific set of skills (or, in Practiced Stance's extreme case, one skill

) - to actually do anything.

If you're going to try and pick on me for my use of language- stop. I have neither the interest nor the time.

Practiced Stance combos well with one and only one skill in the game, at the same time preventing you from using other stances to heighten its effect.
Every other skill you listed increases your skill versatility by varying degrees. Practiced Stance doesn't improve your versatility- it locks you into one combination, while admittedly decent, is not game-breaking in any way. If you devise a strategy that absolutely demands Practiced Stance + Choking Gas, please come back and tell us about it.

Until then. I'll continue to view it as useless.
Skills like oath shot, echo, elemental attunement should play well with the rest of the skills on your bar. True, you could play an El/Mo with Elemental attunement and cast only monk spells, but you'd be an idiot and that's your fault- in no way does that reflect upon the utility of the skill.
You could echo a skill then not use it again while you have two copies- again, that would be your fault, not the available utility of the skill.

There are too many good ranger elites that form the basis of your build- leave garbage like Practiced Stance at home.

MSecorsky · Jul 19, 2005, 07:40 PM // 19:40

Out of curiosity, does choking gas gain effectiveness at all with Dual Shot?

Scaphism · Jul 19, 2005, 07:50 PM // 19:50

You'd get twice the bonus damage from Choking Gas. I have no idea if the AOE effect of Choking Gas would increase from Dual Shot- and it would probably be maddening to test.

The bonus damage is hardly the point of Choking Gas though, so while it would "benefit" from Dual Shot, it hardly seems worthwhile IMO.

MSecorsky · Jul 19, 2005, 07:58 PM // 19:58

Thanks, appreciate it. Trying to break into the PvP world with my ranger... I tell ya, it's tough to just wander in and be effective. I suppose I'll start as a bow spammer, a bit on the disruptive side perhaps with my mez secondary...

I need to keep reading.

Tellani Artini · Jul 19, 2005, 08:17 PM // 20:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

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

Yes it can. Practiced stance only has to be active when you finish applying the preparation for it to take effect for the duration. It has a 15 second recharge. Choking gas with practiced stance lasts around 15 seconds. Your tiger's fury will end practiced stance, so you just put it up again right as you're applying choking gas again. You can get 2 TF's in before reapplying. I wouldn't suggest it worked unless I actually tried it, and I have many times.

Regarding hunter's shot vs. feral lunge. Many monks and other casters never attack, especially not with a pet nibbling on them. They might run from your pet, though.. for PvP, I use hunter's shot because the "condition" (target is moving) is much more likely for all targets than the feral lunge condition.