Curse

Lil Miss Muffet · Aug 07, 2005, 06:08 AM // 06:08

I have been working on this build for roughly a week or two now and ive been tweaking the build around with everything class possible, and ive found out what i believe is the most effective quickshot class which is - ranger/warrior. I will explain problems other builds face when using quickshot.

R/E - okay, great build damage wise but very costly in mana when you are using QZ, QS, TF and conjure... it simply costs too much mana to sustain through anymore then one fight. also having to dump some skills in fire magic isnt always that good

R/Mes - this build works great against monks if you plan on using blackout or backfire, but against anything else it seems somewhat weak. Also, spending skills into domination magic to render a monk useless for 5 or 10 seconds doesnt even seem worth it to me.

R/Mo - Judges insight... now this skill is tough.. It adds the armor penetration and holy dmg, but when you think about it, while using quickshot, shooting a warrior is the least of your worries, you should be focusing on the necros, rangers monks and mesmers.

R/W - Some may just skip past being a warrior as a secondary because it looks like it may have no benefit whatsoever, although the use of frenzy instead of TF can help your mana a lot in the long run. From experimenting all sorts of different quickshot builds i have found that warrior is the best secondary to use for many reasons - you dont need to split your points 4 ways, you can spam quickshot more and without wasting as much mana, spending your points 3 ways (WS, expertise and marksmanship) enables you to put a few more into wilderness survival and marksmanship, beefing up your arrows damage a little bit more.

so here is exactly what i use on my ranger

1. kindle arrow
2. frenzy
3. quickshot
4. distracting shot
5. storm chaser
6. quickening zephyr
7. troll unguent
8. res signet

expertise - 10 + hat + major = 13
wilderness survival - 11 + major = 13
marksmanship - 10 + major = 12

armor - full druids - add a sup vigor
weapon - recurve bow with 15% over 50 with zealous and +30 health

Done. Have fun with the build, and dont complain if u cant kill a warrior so good, you can kill everything else just fine and if worse comes to worse you can sup in storm chaser for penetrating shot.

White Designs · Aug 07, 2005, 05:36 PM // 17:36

Tiger's Fury only needs 3+1 to be effective, which is hardly spreading your attributes out. It costs 1 less energy than Frenzy with or without Zephyr, and lasts one second less. With Frenzy also doubling your damage, Tiger's Fury is still better. A Quickshot Ranger can easily just go with pure ranger skills.

cdepue79 · Aug 07, 2005, 06:44 PM // 18:44

Even with Zealous String don't run out of energy after your first fight? I would use Whirl def instead of storm chaser so that you don't take that double damage from frenzy and to help you vs warriors.

ZD_kusanagi · Aug 07, 2005, 06:49 PM // 18:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lil Miss Muffet

R/Mo - Judges insight... now this skill is tough.. It adds the armor penetration and holy dmg, but when you think about it, while using quickshot, shooting a warrior is the least of your worries, you should be focusing on the necros, rangers monks and mesmers.

I don't understand why you dismissed this so easily. Do you only think armor penetration is effective against warriors? sure they have more armor, but armor penetration is universal in adding more damage... unless the guy is naked...you can do alot more damage with this on all the time. especially if your using a sundering bow string.

Ender Ward · Aug 07, 2005, 07:02 PM // 19:02

Warrior secondary means only half way buff stacked arrows (unlike Monk or Elementalist secondary). So you're giving up atleast 33% more damage for ... saving attribute points?
Using runes you can get Tiger's Fury to 9 seconds easily enough, while stil maxing out Marksmanship (16) and keeping Expertise at 13.

And if you become a target, you're either going to be attacking bloody slowly, or taking double damage (and lately Rangers *are* becoming targets).

Judge's Insight is instrumental if you wish to be able to kill other Rangers and Warriors almost as well as casters. JI turns your damage into holy damage. This means the your target Ranger's armor class is 70, and your target Warrior's is 80. Instead of 100 if you were using an elemental weapon with conjure, and 100 if you were using a physical weapon, respectively.

Liquidus · Aug 07, 2005, 07:35 PM // 19:35

I believe that if you use a elemental weapon with conjure, a warriors armor class will still be 80. They have +20 against physical.

Ender Ward · Aug 07, 2005, 07:47 PM // 19:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquidus

I believe that if you use a elemental weapon with conjure, a warriors armor class will still be 80. They have +20 against physical.

Yes, this is correct. But when firing at Rangers, the armor type vs your elemental weapon becomes 100 instead of 70.

Judges Insight, on the other hand, is effective against both Rangers and Warriors, more so even, because of the armor penetration.

cdepue79 · Aug 07, 2005, 10:53 PM // 22:53

Indeed the damage using Judges Insight is very nice, but with you having to cast it every 10-18 seconds along with kindle arrow, that's a lot of energy used not to mention the fact that using Quickshot alone, rapidly will drain your energy.

AtomicMew · Aug 08, 2005, 12:48 AM // 00:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

Warrior secondary means only half way buff stacked arrows (unlike Monk or Elementalist secondary). So you're giving up atleast 33% more damage for ... saving attribute points?
Using runes you can get Tiger's Fury to 9 seconds easily enough, while stil maxing out Marksmanship (16) and keeping Expertise at 13.

You're forgetting about wilderness survival, which is a must for this build. Point for point, kindle arrows is a much stronger buff than conjure and is also enchantment slim, which counts for a lot considering the current meta game. Overall, you gain about ~5 DPS by spreading your points with R/E to an element, even less if you invest in BM for TF.

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And if you become a target, you're either going to be attacking bloody slowly, or taking double damage (and lately Rangers *are* becoming targets).

You won't be doing EITHER. You'll be running and casting defensive buffs. Which brings up another point to taking W as secondary - adrenal based defensive buffs, which in general are better than the ranger counterparts.

Overall, W secondary is the way to go.

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 01:23 AM // 01:23

TF > Frenzy, even if it costs you a few attribute points. QS rangers usually dont use their secondary. QZ lets you fire QS more often - until you run dry on energy.

I myself play a QS ranger in arena (I consider myself a kind of expert) and I get ANNOYED when a random teammate puts QZ down. I actually go out of my way to KILL it if the enemy puts it down! You can get way more damage over time by just going normal/quick/normal/quick forever instead of going QS/QS/QS/QS until you're out of energy.

Favorable WInds will grant nearly as much damage bonus as conjure element without haveing to spend 10 in fire or get an elemental bowstring. Winnowing is almost as good. Putting both down is kinda funny, though usually infeasable due to 10 second combined cast time. Id put at least one of those in there, though.

Horn Bows are the usually the best type of weapon for QS builds since QS makes all bows fire about the same, and Horn Bows have passive 10% armor penetration. QS makes up for the Horn's usually atrocious firing rate.

Liquidus · Aug 08, 2005, 01:29 AM // 01:29

Are you sure that using a horn bow would be better than a short bow? I imagine that would be very hard to test..

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 01:37 AM // 01:37

The difference is fairly minute, it wouldnt hurt or help alot either way. If someone WOULD like to test to know for sure, go ahead. I was repeating what had been told to me, and it made sense so I didnt argue

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 01:37 AM // 01:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

You're forgetting about wilderness survival, which is a must for this build.

+

Quote:

Point for point, kindle arrows is a much stronger buff than conjure and is also enchantment slim, which counts for a lot considering the current meta game.

Except that the good Quickshot builds, ones that don't run dry and lose most of their effectiveness after the first dead target, don't use Kindle Arrows, and therefore don't waste 8-14 attribute levels into Wilderness Survival.

I'm getting the feeling that like the original poster of the thread, you run the Quickening Zephyr version of the QS Ranger. Frankly, in my not so humble opinion, the QZ builds are crap. So you killed one target fast. Congratulations, you've just blown all of your energy (even with zealous). How much time will it take you to be able to repeat that performance?

A good QS Ranger build, on the other hand, does not rely on QZ for insanely fast and insanely inefficient rate of fire with weak individual arrows.
A good QS build outputs a very respectable 2 arrows every 1.5 seconds, each packing a wallop (~80 damage an arrow on a caster, ~45 an arrow on a Warrior). Is able to kill target after target with little downtime. With no points wasted on Wilderness Survival.

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Overall, you gain about ~5 DPS by spreading your points with R/E to an element, even less if you invest in BM for TF.

I'll agree that using Conjure is quite inferior to using Judge's Insight, and should only be used without access to a Zealous bow.
I've played a QS Ranger for about two months, and I abandoned the use of Conjure a while ago (also in part due to Nature's Renewal prevalence).

Speaking of Nature's Renewal, it's easier to take 4 seconds to recast Judge's Insight under it, than to wait some 30-50 seconds to be able to use Conjure again. With a zealous bow, energy is not a concern.

As for spreading points, the QS Ranger I've settled on about a month ago has:

16 Marksmanship (12 + 1 + 3)
13 Expertise (10 + 3)
09 Beast Mastery (8 + 1)
02 Smiting Prayers.

And uses a Zealous Flatbow with a 20% longer enchantment duration bow grip.

I'm not wasting 12 ranks into Wilderness Survival to use a preparation that:

1) Doesn't help me hit moving/running targets any better.

2) Only adds 10 more damage over my choice of a preparation (assuming 12 in WS).

3) Requires a huge investment into a 4th attribute.

4) Is particularly crappy vs armor buffs (and the less imporant ranger and warrior armors).

The only good thing about Kindle/Ignite Arrows, is the 24 second duration and ability to hit through a stance, blindness, Aegis and Guardian. But that stil doesn't justify the attribute point investment.

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You won't be doing EITHER. You'll be running and casting defensive buffs. Which brings up another point to taking W as secondary - adrenal based defensive buffs, which in general are better than the ranger counterparts.

Huh? What defensive buffs? If you're wasting skill slots on defensive skills as a Ranger, you're making as much of a mistake as doing same on a Warrior. Let your monk heal you, ignore the damage you're taking, and kill your bloody target.

And under Tiger's Fury, as opposed to Frenzy, I can do that without taking double damage.

And as for running, if you do that, you concede the fight to the enemy, as you are no longer doing your character's primary purpose (damage).

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Overall, W secondary is the way to go.

Only if you're willing to give up damage output. And potentially find yourself in a position of making a choice, between reducing your damage output even further (no frenzy), or creating more work for your team's monks (continue to frenzy).

Whenever I dabble in the arena and see these QS Ranger/Warriors, I can't help but smile as I force them to take double damage from my own arrows or become remarkably ineffective (unless ofcourse OpFor has a monk, then he dies first).

There are Ranger builds for which a Warrior secondary makes sense. A QS Ranger is not one of those builds.

Liquidus · Aug 08, 2005, 01:44 AM // 01:44

I believe that I could calculate whether a horn bow is worth it or not, but I need to know something. Does the game use fractions of a second for arrow speed like 1.33? Since a quickshot takes 1 second, using it with tf would take .66 seconds right? If so, why does Ensign say serpent's quickness dones't work with quickshot? Wouldn't it reduce qs's 1 sec recharge time to .66 seconds? Unless recharge times are always rounded to the nearest second and weapon speeds are not?

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 01:45 AM // 01:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

I get ANNOYED when a random teammate puts QZ down. I actually go out of my way to KILL it if the enemy puts it down! You can get way more damage over time by just going normal/quick/normal/quick forever instead of going QS/QS/QS/QS until you're out of energy.

Aha. This man sees the light

.

Quote:

Favorable WInds will grant nearly as much damage bonus as conjure element without haveing to spend 10 in fire or get an elemental bowstring. Winnowing is almost as good. Putting both down is kinda funny, though usually infeasable due to 10 second combined cast time. Id put at least one of those in there, though.

I'll agree on Favourable Winds, as its always present on my skill bar. Most people also only look at the damage added, and forget how much more accurate it makes your arrows, so you're not losing damage to misses on moving targets.

I strongly disagree on Winnowing, though. Using a skil slot on a 4 damage boost, that does nothing to improve accuracy? It's horribly inefficient IMO. Not to mention that it helps all physical damage, instead of only helping arrows. Enemy Warriors will be thankful.

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Horn Bows are the usually the best type of weapon for QS builds since QS makes all bows fire about the same, and Horn Bows have passive 10% armor penetration. QS makes up for the Horn's usually atrocious firing rate.

I'm afraid I'll have to disagree again. I've experienced very noticeable differences in drawing animation between different bow types under TF + QS.
QS doesn't ignore the drawing animation particular to the bow type, it only speeds it up by 2x (and TF speeds it up yet again more). Using a Longbow, for example, and then switching to a Flatbow, the difference in speed is immidiately apparent.

I suspect that when people said that the bow type didn't matter, they refered to operating QS under Quickning Zephyr, where indeed it would not matter all that much, as all bows under QZ and TF will fire pretty much non stop.

Under the Normal/QS/Normal/QS/Repeat firing mode, the 10% constant armor penetration may outweigh the increase in speed, though. I'll have to think it over ...

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 02:05 AM // 02:05

Ah that makes sense. Short bow then?

btw to get ~80 damage per shot, do you go and get conjure element anyways? Or is it all arrow damage + kindle + fav winds? You pumping marksmanship past 12? I get pretty good damage out of my QS ranger, but I dont think I get 80 damage regularly. You figure 30 for the shot + 6 (fav winds) + 17 (kindle) and your doing like 50.

Where does the other 30 come from?

Liquidus · Aug 08, 2005, 02:11 AM // 02:11

I've done a few calculations about whether a horn bow or shortbow is better. Please correct me if this seems wrong

Assume a non customized 6-28 shortbow, it has an attack speed of 1 arrow every two seconds. Assume I activate tigers fury and shoot one arrow followed by a quickshot against a monk with 60 armor.

The normal shot should take 1.33 secs and the qs should take .66 of a second. A shortbow does an average of 17 damage with each hit, which means 34 damage in 2 seconds with a shortbow. Thats 17 damage per second.

A horn bow has an attack speed of 1 arrow ever 2.7 seconds. A normal shot takes 1.81 seconds and a qs takes .9 of a second. Each hit does 17 * 1.189 = 20.21 because of the 10% armor penetration. Thats 40.42 damage in 2.71 seconds. Thats 14.92 damage per second.

I didn't take critcals into account, but I bet with the shortbow's faster attack speed one would get critcals more often plus make more use of the bonus from kindle/favorable.

edit: I believe Ender is using Judges Insight, but I wonder, do you not run out of energy casting it every 10 seconds? Also, in the 2 secs you spend casting it, wouldn't you be able to shoot 2 arrows?

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 02:29 AM // 02:29

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Ah that makes sense. Short bow then?

Actually I use a Flatbow. Same rate of fire, best possible range (shortbow would require me to enter spell range, which I prefer to stay out of).

Quote:

btw to get ~80 damage per shot, do you go and get conjure element anyways? Or is it all arrow damage + kindle + fav winds? You pumping marksmanship past 12? I get pretty good damage out of my QS ranger, but I dont think I get 80 damage regularly. You figure 30 for the shot + 6 (fav winds) + 17 (kindle) and your doing like 50.

Where does the other 30 come from?

I use:

Judge's Insight
Favourable Winds
16 Marksmanship
--preparation--
Bow with +15% damage while in a stance.

As I said in previous posts, I don't waste points on Wilderness Survival. My stats are: 16 Marksmanship, 13 Expertise, 9 Beast Mastery and 2 Smiting Prayers.

I'm sorry that I'm being purposefully vague (although not really, if one looks over the skills list ...), but I'd like people to figure things out themselves through experience. Perhaps coming to the same conclusions as I have over my time playing a QS Ranger.

A hint, though, my Flatbow, that most inaccurate of bows, is actually as accurate as a Composite/Recurve (while retaining maximum possible range) because of the skills I use ...

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquidus

edit: I believe Ender is using Judges Insight, but I wonder, do you not run out of energy casting it every 10 seconds?

Nope, because using a zealous bow, there is 0 net energy loss from using QS. At 13 expertise, QS costs you 2 energy to fire, you make up 1 energy through zealous. But that QS is preceded by a normal shot, which gains you 1 energy as well. Therefore, 2 energy used, 2 energy gained.
During this you have 2 pips of regen working in the background.

I only need to stop casting JI after about 5 uses, at which point I spend ~10 seconds under Tiger's Fury filling up my energy pool back to full thanks to the Zealous bow. At which point one can go back to using JI again.

JI is only problematic under Nature's Renewal, but even there I learned to deal with the 4 sec cast time. The damage increase during JI's duration outweighs the time lost.

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Also, in the 2 secs you spend casting it, wouldn't you be able to shoot 2 arrows?

Which would not, unfortunately, make up the damage lost from firing significantly weaker arrows without Judge's Insight.

Although some people will jump up and down claiming that spending 2 seconds to cast in the middle of a fight is a travesty, in reality, it's nothing. A very small price to pay for the benefits of JI or say a preparation.

For some reason people require a choice between using JI and using a preparation. Why not both? And when you decide to use both, wouldn't it make sense to use a preparation that would actually benefit from JI? Hint, hint

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 02:48 AM // 02:48

Hmm, out of curiosity, I just put my build through the calculators here. According to which I should be doing 65.25 damage per arrow to caster armor.
Not sure why I experience slightly higher values. I'm guessing it's because I don't fully understand the interaction between JI and my preparation, and can't input it right into the 'damage vs armor' calculator ...

EDIT:
Oops, just realised where the missing damage went. I forgot to include 20% weapon customisation