Curse

Weezer_Blue · Aug 08, 2005, 02:53 AM // 02:53

There's really no point to this build. Kindle Arrows and a few speed buffs isn't going to give you great damage at all. Especially considering Quick Shot has an aftercast. I can garauntee that you won't do 65.25 damage per arrow, as the only buff you have for damage is kindle. Distracting Shot is a nice skill, but seems out of place since this was intended to be a damage dealer.

loc87 · Aug 08, 2005, 03:02 AM // 03:02

Well, using the damage formula ...
Received Damage = {(Damage Enhancement) x (Base Damage) x (Armor Modifier)} + (Bonus Damage)

since i'm not sure whether the prep and favorable winds counts as bonus damage, i'll do it twice ...
You end up with either:
1) 1.2*1.15*21.5*2^((68-48)/40)+21=58.9597 Avg Damage; or
2) 1.2*1.15*38.5*2^((68-48)/40)=75.1372 Avg Damage
This is vs. casters .... Ender's numbers seem reasonable enough to me ...

EDIT: Calculations done with +17 damage buffs, 16 Marksmanship, and 20% AP from Judge's

Liquidus · Aug 08, 2005, 03:19 AM // 03:19

I believe the bonus from favorable and preps is bonus damage. Why do you have 68 in the equation? 5*16=80

edit: never mind, this is incorrect because i didnt' realize it scales down after 12

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 03:40 AM // 03:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue

Especially considering Quick Shot has an aftercast.

Attack skills don't have "aftercast". Only spells do.

If you've ever used QS under Quickening Zephyr and Tiger's Fury, you'd immidiately notice how you're outputting one arrow right after another. No aftercast.

Quote:

I can garauntee that you won't do 65.25 damage per arrow, as the only buff you have for damage is kindle.

Umm ... are you perhaps confusing the thread originator's posts with mine? I believe I stated several times I did not use Kindle Arrows as my preparation.

My build actually has 3 "buffs" to the arrows.

And if one is to believe the calculators, this is what my character is doing (though I get slightly more ingame):

"Perfect +35% bow" does 37.8 max damage.

At 16 Marksmanship, that becomes 43.42 damage.

Add 6 from Favourable Winds, 49.42 damage.

Add 10 from Preparation, 59.42 damage.

Which against 60 armor class, is exactly that, 59 damage.

Add 20% armor penetration from Judge's Insight, and the damage becomes 73.15.

And that is why one should buff stack arrows and use Judge's Insight in a QS build

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43

No wilderness, gotta be Read the Wind! But with 2 seconds to cast JI and 2 seconds to prep RtW, how much are you actually firing?

Liquidus · Aug 08, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Ender, I don't understand how you can get 80 damage per shot. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you had a customized 15% in stance bow, with ji, favorable, and the secret preparation, the equation is like this. (If your prepartion is the one i'm thinking of, it should be adding 9 damage at 12 marks, I can't check so I'll say 13 damage at 16 marks.)

1.35*21.5*2^((68-48)/40) +19= 60.05

edit: I think when you said 80 per shot, that was assuming your bow hit for 28, but the max you could really do would be 72-73. On average, you would be doing about 60 damage per shot.

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 03:55 AM // 03:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

No wilderness, gotta be Read the Wind! But with 2 seconds to cast JI and 2 seconds to prep RtW, how much are you actually firing?

That's the one.

I fire for the entire duration of Tiger's Fury (9 seconds). At which point there's a decision to make:

If the target's almost dead, just finish it off (recast Tiger's Fury as it becomes available 1 second later).

If the target is at about half of it's hitpoints, take the time to recast JI and RtW and finish him off.

Usually I'd have the target at 1/3 of it's hitpoints after Tiger's Fury wears off (people also tend to start running at this point). So I usually choose to just hit TF again and finish it off while I stil have RtW on.

The strength of the build is that in these 9 seconds of TF duration you're doing massive damage with each arrow. It would ofcourse be preferable to have JI last longer, but that requires too much investment into smiting for a few seconds longer.

Mind Wallaby · Aug 08, 2005, 03:58 AM // 03:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

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).

No, there is no difference in speed between bows either with or without QZ when using Quick Shot. Normal attacks and Bow Attacks without a cast time are affected by bow speed, though, so if you're interspersing QS with other attacks a short/halfmoon is probably best.

Quote:

And if one is to believe the calculators, this is what my character is doing (though I get slightly more ingame): ...

That's for a maximum hit, but it won't be your expected damage per arrow...

With 16 Marks, you have (I believe) 20% chance of criticals and about a 15% bonus to damage. So:

Normal hit: average 21.5
Critical: 39.6

So the expected base damage will be 0.8 * 21.5 + 0.2 * 39.6 = 25.12 damage.

Now add 15% from 16 Marks, 15% from damage mod, and 20% from customization:

25.12 * 1.15 * 1.15 * 1.2 = 39.86

Take this and add your +16 from prep and Favorable:

39.86 + 16 = 55.86

Finally throw in 20% AP from JI, and against a 60AL target you should be doing an expected 68.78 damage per arrow, which is pretty good.

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 04:04 AM // 04:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Liquidus

Ender, I don't understand how you can get 80 damage per shot. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you had a customized 15% in stance bow, with ji, favorable, and the secret preparation, the equation is like this. (If your prepartion is the one i'm thinking of, it should be adding 9 damage at 12 marks, I can't check so I'll say 13 damage at 16 marks.)

1.35*21.5*2^((68-48)/40) +19= 60.05

edit: I think when you said 80 per shot, that was assuming your bow hit for 28, but the max you could really do would be 72-73. On average, you would be doing about 60 damage per shot.

Actually the highest damage I've recorded on a caster was 87 (don't ask me how, and no, it wasn't a Necromancer).
So yes, I meant max damage to be around 80 (~80). Ofcourse average damage would be lower. But people rarely give average damage, do we

?

Also, Read The Wind maxes out at +10 damage at 14 Marksmanship. The reasons to use RtW as opposed to a Wilderness Survival preparation are:

1) No points to invest in another attribute. You already have Marksmanship at 14 or higher to get the max benefit from RtW.

2) It benefits from Judge's Insight, as it's added to the standard bow damage (as opposed to Kindle, which arrives on target in a seperate "packet").

3) It improves arrow accuracy by stacking with Favourable Winds. Your Flatbow becomes as accurate as a Composite.

~~~

The calculators on the site agree with you, in that I should be doing 73 max damage per arrow. I stil record hits higher than that. I can offer no explanation, however.

Thing is, when casters start losing hitpoints alarmingly quickly, they run. And when they run every hit is max damage

.

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 04:10 AM // 04:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mind Wallaby

No, there is no difference in speed between bows either with or without QZ when using Quick Shot. Normal attacks and Bow Attacks without a cast time are affected by bow speed, though, so if you're interspersing QS with other attacks a short/halfmoon is probably best.

I'm just using the normal + quickshot sequence.

And either I'm deluding myself, or there is a difference in the bow types. I can see the Longbow firing noticeably slower than the Flatbow under that sequence.

The drawing animation on the bow types differs. Quickshot does not make it universal, it merely speeds it up.

Quote:

Finally throw in 20% AP from JI, and against a 60AL target you should be doing an expected 68.78 damage per arrow, which is pretty good.

Your calculations aren't very far from that of the guru calculators, which indicate a max of 73 damage.

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 04:22 AM // 04:22

By the way, I'd take the stated in game "cast times" for attack skills with a massive grain of salt.

Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.

Meanwhile, Quickshot has a stated 1 second cast time, but behaves exactly like Distracting/Concussion ingame.

All of this is totally inconsistent with the skill claims.

Those 'standard' Ranger attacks skills are nowhere close 0 second "cast time". QS, Distracting and Concussion fire off immidiately, while you can visibly see the Ranger "drawing" much more slowly for those standard attacks.

Don't take my word for it, though. See for yourselves ...

Mind Wallaby · Aug 08, 2005, 04:26 AM // 04:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

And either I'm deluding myself, or there is a difference in the bow types. I can see the Longbow firing noticeably slower than the Flatbow under that sequence.

Well I just recorded myself doing the normal->Quick Shot sequence with both a short bow and a horn bow and there is no difference in how fast the Quick Shot comes out, using the start of the glimmering animation (when you cast a skill) and the start of the recharge timer as endpoints.

Quote:

The drawing animation on the bow types differs. Quickshot does not make it universal, it merely speeds it up.

Bow speed is backloaded; the drawing animation is actually the same speed (about 1.2s) for all bows, and the extra time is made up after the draw as far as I can determine.

Quote:

Your calculations aren't very far from that of the guru calculators, which indicate a max of 73 damage.

Then that's good news, it means your expected damage is close to your max

Although by my calculations, a critical hit should do 97 damage vs 60AL.

Quote:

Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.

Attacks skill with no cast time listed use your normal attack speed for their cast time. Otherwise the Warrior profession would be horribly overpowered.

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 05:00 AM // 05:00

I just tested this again, comparing a Horn Bow to a Flatbow. The difference in speed is the time it takes a character to "recover" after the quickshot. It's very noticeable.

When you make the normal + quickshot sequence, the character "rests" for half a second after it, before beginning the next normal attack. This "rest" period is longer when using a Horn Bow rather than a Flatbow.

So we are once again back to figuring out whether the 10% constant armor penetration is better than the faster rate of fire.
I just recorded hitting a level 20 Elementalist for 90 damage, firing uphill, using the Hornbow. And I only had 14 in Marksmanship (experimenting with longer duration JI) ...
More peculiar, that caster was stationary (he was casting Lightning Orb).
That 10% armor penetration maybe worth the slowdown ...

EDIT:
After more tests, I hit for 93 damage at 15 Marksmanship twice on a moving Elementalist. Once with a normal attack immidiately followed by a QS. This demonstrates that the 93 damage figure is a critical hit. This was done with the Horn Bow.

Rajamic · Aug 08, 2005, 08:33 AM // 08:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ender Ward

By the way, I'd take the stated in game "cast times" for attack skills with a massive grain of salt.

Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.

Meanwhile, Quickshot has a stated 1 second cast time, but behaves exactly like Distracting/Concussion ingame.

All of this is totally inconsistent with the skill claims.

Those 'standard' Ranger attacks skills are nowhere close 0 second "cast time". QS, Distracting and Concussion fire off immidiately, while you can visibly see the Ranger "drawing" much more slowly for those standard attacks.

Don't take my word for it, though. See for yourselves ...

As I understand it, if an attack skill is listed with a 0 second cast time, it does it when the next attack normally would be. If there is some other cast time listed, it takes it that long from when you hit the skill for it to unload, overriding the animation of the previous attack (at least if it is not another skill).

AtomicMew · Aug 08, 2005, 10:21 AM // 10:21

Quick shot without QZ is completely and utterly laughable. And since QZ is a WS skill, you probably need points in WS. With QZ, your RoF is once every 2/3 seconds. Without it, alternating between QS and normal shot, its twice everyone 2 seconds (? correct me if I'm wrong please, but, but it's noticeably slower).
Sure if you alternate you would be "more sustainable", but if you think that's a good thing, you're missing the entire point of spike damage. And yes, a R/W beats out a R/M in DPS, although DP hit is very close, since I can have a +20 prep instead of a +10 AND have 10% innate AP from horn bow, while you'd only have 20% AP in all, since you'd be forced to use a short or flat for decent RoF.
AND you're probably not even that much more sustainable than a R/W combination, considering the MUCH higher cost of your buffs. During MY downtime, I can still be hitting a monk with distracting shot, or buffing my team with healing spring or "Watch yourself!" Something your build cannot.

And I laugh whenever anyone say things like "leave all the defense to the monk and concentrate on killing the target." Well guess what: that statement is wrong twofold. 1) Warrior shouts are instant cast, meaning it won't affect my killing rate in the least, and 2) Specialization doesn't mean to completely ignore other areas, especially if you can do well in them for cheap. But 2) is more theoretical, so let's forget about that for now.

Also, frenzy's double damage is not as not as big a downside as you make it out to be. If you did decide to target call me, I'd laugh that you werent concentrating on my monk or mes, and then I'd laugh again because your attacks would have to go through higher AL than your build has, +7 from bow grip and +20 from "Watch Yourself!" which reduces damage by about 40%. All in all, the ability to give your monk +20 AL and take VERY LITTLE more damage yourself is very worth it.

And lastly, Prep time. Your build spends about 6 TIMES longer than mine prepping with the current NR metagame. I spend 2 of 24 seconds, while you spend 6-7 of 12 or so. That gives me, in 24 seconds, about 11 more seconds than you to do anything. 10 seconds is more than enough time for a QS build to SINGLE-HANDEDLY take down a good monk build even backed by a good monk player.

I don't know, overall I still think W secondary is better.

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 11:11 AM // 11:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by traversc

Quick shot without QZ is completely and utterly laughable. And since QZ is a WS skill, you probably need points in WS. With QZ, your RoF is once every 2/3 seconds. Without it, alternating between QS and normal shot, its twice everyone 2 seconds (? correct me if I'm wrong please, but, but it's noticeably slower).
Sure if you alternate you would be "more sustainable", but if you think that's a good thing, you're missing the entire point of spike damage. And yes, a R/W beats out a R/M in DPS, although DP hit is very close, since I can have a +20 prep instead of a +10 AND have 10% innate AP from horn bow, while you'd only have 20% AP in all, since you'd be forced to use a short or flat for decent RoF.
AND you're probably not even that much more sustainable than a R/W combination, considering the MUCH higher cost of your buffs. During MY downtime, I can still be hitting a monk with distracting shot, or buffing my team with healing spring or "Watch yourself!" Something your build cannot.

And I laugh whenever anyone say things like "leave all the defense to the monk and concentrate on killing the target." Well guess what: that statement is wrong twofold. 1) Warrior shouts are instant cast, meaning it won't affect my killing rate in the least, and 2) Specialization doesn't mean to completely ignore other areas, especially if you can do well in them for cheap. But 2) is more theoretical, so let's forget about that for now.

Also, frenzy's double damage is not as not as big a downside as you make it out to be. If you did decide to target call me, I'd laugh that you werent concentrating on my monk or mes, and then I'd laugh again because your attacks would have to go through higher AL than your build has, +7 from bow grip and +20 from "Watch Yourself!" which reduces damage by about 40%. All in all, the ability to give your monk +20 AL and take VERY LITTLE more damage yourself is very worth it.

And lastly, Prep time. Your build spends about 6 TIMES longer than mine prepping with the current NR metagame. I spend 2 of 24 seconds, while you spend 6-7 of 12 or so. That gives me, in 24 seconds, about 11 more seconds than you to do anything. 10 seconds is more than enough time for a QS build to SINGLE-HANDEDLY take down a good monk build even backed by a good monk player.

I don't know, overall I still think W secondary is better.

We've already been through this, QZ makes QS WORSE. Go look on the 1st page for why, I dont feel like explaining it all AGAIN. I will say that helping out with defense is great, but its not something that a QS ranger is good at. QS rangers are already strapped for attribute points, theres no way you can go waste a whole bunch in tactics just so you can shout watch yourelf every couple seconds. Frenzy is 10x worse than TF. If you want to use it, go ahead. I saw a war use that on while beating me while I ws monking the other day. Know what? He died in less than a second as soon as I let my buddies know. Dont use frenzy. Especially not when there are necros or smiters around. People who deal shadow or holy damage can attack whoever the heck they want.

Ender a while ago you said you have 16 marks 13 expertise 9 Beast and 2 smiting. But theres no way you can get that without using 2 superior runes! To get 16 you must have a sup and a hat, along with a maxed 12 attribute. That measn the best you can get the other attributes is 10 and 8. 8 can get to 9 with a minor, but 10 cant get to 13 without a sup =/

I think you meant 11+3 Marks, 11+2 Expertise, 8+1 Beast, 3 Smiting? Either that you or you are one crazy cookie for giving up that much hp.

Also, RtW lasts 1/2 as long, and doesnt even give as good a damage bonus as Kindle. Is it really worth it?

You got

Higher Markmanship by 2 = passive bonus damage, No wilderness points wasted = more points for longer tigers fury, bonus stacks better with JI, arrows fly twice as fast (though they already fly twice as fast cus of favorable winds), armor penetration from JI.

vs

Much shorter prep/re-prep time, more prep damage, much less costly energy-wise to prep.

Id say the BEST way to run a QS build is to go with the RtW approach but get your buddy smiter to take JI for you. GW is a teamwork game after all. JI from a dedicated smiter will last much longer than one self-casted. It will save the QS ranger time and energy, and its not like the smiter is doing anything that important after he casts Balths Aura.

AtomicMew · Aug 08, 2005, 01:46 PM // 13:46

LOL, QZ making a QS build worse? QZ is the heart of a QS build, and if you don't realize that, then you don't understand why QS is useful. QS + QZ is noticeably faster than QS -> normal shot. That translates into much higher DPS.

Also, I think you're underestimating the staying power of QS with QZ - which is about 12 seconds of continuous QS spam. Even most elementalists can't match that kinda DoT, especially with QZ down. Yet, take along distracting shot and "Watch Yourself!" You can now provide a constant 20 AL for your monk, and interrupt your opponent's monk every 5 seconds with zero loss in staying power.

And you DON'T need to have ANY points in tactics to make "Watch yourself" useful. At 0, it lasts 5 seconds. A QS with QZ will be attacking every 2/3 a second. You do the math.

Lastly, good idea about bringing a smiter friend to the table. That blows out any reason why a QS build should go R/Mo.

Neo-LD · Aug 08, 2005, 02:19 PM // 14:19

I understand why QS is useful. It c`has the potential to nearly double your rate of fire by using it after every NORMAL shot. Do you understand why QZ is not useful?

I am dead serious, QZ makes a QS build worse. No doubt in my mind. Did you actually go back and read the first page like I suggested? Word for word what I said earlier, I get ANNOYED when a random teammate throws this down. If the enemy casts it, I KILL it. QZ+QS is a combo that was discovered and everyone thought, "Hey, a combo! Must be good!" Everyone wants to believe its good, and are willing to overlook its massive drawbacks just because "its a combo, it must be good". But QZ makes QS cost a minimum of 4 energy, no matter your expertise. 33 energy, 4 per shot, 1 back from a zealous string. that gives you 11 shots until you're dry, more like 13 counting the rangers energy regen. No doubt whatever you fired at is dead. But its last blood that counts, not first blood. You are dry and will not contribute much of ANYTHING the rest of the match. The enemy you killed will get sigged, and instead of 4v3 for you (cus one of theirs is dead) its 4v3 the other way (cus you cant do anything). Normal/QS/Normal/QS can be maintained basically forever. You get almost as much damage per second as going QS/QS/QS. The difference is 1 per second vs 3 per 2 seconds. Except that you can maintain that the entire match. Meaning its more like 1 per second for infinite seconds, vs 3 per 2 seconds for < 10 seconds.

I do, however, now understand and like your idea of bringing watch yourself. I usually have a redundant 8th skill, and I dont use my secondary. Might as well

loc87 · Aug 08, 2005, 04:39 PM // 16:39

do read the wind and favorable winds stack?

Ender Ward · Aug 08, 2005, 04:48 PM // 16:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Neo-LD

Ender a while ago you said you have 16 marks 13 expertise 9 Beast and 2 smiting. But theres no way you can get that without using 2 superior runes!

That's correct. You can only get that with 2 Superior runes (Marksmanship and Expertise in my case). You do ofcourse need a Superior Vigour in this case.
On a Ranger, 2 superiors is not as crazy as it seems. Aspecially one that doesn't take double damage, in order to maintain 33% faster attack speed

.

Quote:

Also, RtW lasts 1/2 as long, and doesnt even give as good a damage bonus as Kindle. Is it really worth it?

Yes.

Kindle doesn't benefit from Judge's Insight conversion to holy damage, nor does it benefit from the armor penetration. RtW does.

Kindle does nothing to improve arrow accuracy, which you want to be as accurate as possible, to never miss moving targets (and you want them moving, for the criticals).

Kindle requires massive investment into Wilderness Survival, while Read The Wind already is maxed simply because you brought Marksmanship to 14 or higher.

Quote:

You got

Higher Markmanship by 2 = passive bonus damage, No wilderness points wasted = more points for longer tigers fury, bonus stacks better with JI, arrows fly twice as fast (though they already fly twice as fast cus of favorable winds), armor penetration from JI.

vs

Much shorter prep/re-prep time, more prep damage, much less costly energy-wise to prep.

All true, but as demonstrated, when you do 80-90 damage per arrow instead of some 35-40 damage, it's worth it.

Also, Read the Wind and Favourable Winds' arrow speed up stacks. Your arrows are 4 times as fast as normal. You get to keep the range of a Longbow and the rate of fire of a Flatbow but with the accuracy of a Composite.

Quote:

Id say the BEST way to run a QS build is to go with the RtW approach but get your buddy smiter to take JI for you. GW is a teamwork game after all. JI from a dedicated smiter will last much longer than one self-casted.

And when I have a dedicated smiter on the team (not that often, our guild is not a fan of these), that's exactly what I do.