Curse

Arturo02 · Aug 24, 2006, 08:48 AM // 08:48

@op:

why wish for only moderate success when you can have complete success? Don't limit yourself unless you actually feel you can't have complete success. The fact that you posted here asking how to get better shows you want more then a mediocre performance in pve.

Experiment with the skills, get everything unlocked so you can. Once you have lots of stuff to choose from in your build and have your 200 att points to spend you can really have some fun.

See what works and what doesn't but don't limit yourself to moderate success. Go for the gusto my friend.

daky · Aug 24, 2006, 09:59 AM // 09:59

All i have to say is wow..spreading out atts like that scares me lol. If i'm doing a Beast master build, I max it out at 16. If i feel like doing a bit of dmg with my bow i'll put just enough in marks to meet the req of my weapon. Other then that its all going towards beast and expertise. From their its all about the skill choice and whats effective for you.

SnipiousMax · Aug 24, 2006, 01:58 PM // 13:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Kindle, for example, adds 20 damage at WS 12, I gave that example.

But Kindle does not just add 20 damage.

Against a 60 AL target, yes you'll deal 20 damage at 12 WS
Against a 80 AL target, you'll deal 14 damage
Against a 100 AL target, you'll deal 10

Thus I said the +20 damage is misleading.

Poison can be tricky, because durations don't always last their duration, especially in a good group. While you are tabbing through your targets, it's entirely possible the first one(few) is(are) dead by the time you've made it through them all. That's why it's hard to observe what difference those two seconds could make. Another thing to consider, is that you will be using other skills (regardles of what you brought) during any mob engagement WHILE you are cycling through the targets. So the additional duration could be more important... or less depending on what else you were doing.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy

Lowering one stat a few to increase another by many may (or may not) increase that effectiveness (damage or otherwise) but you can not really say much about that in general without examining the skills and their use.

I agree here. We would've missed out on a whole long discussion if this is what you had said in the beginning.

HalPlantagenet · Aug 24, 2006, 04:23 PM // 16:23

Mahdi, what have you done? Look at what you’ve started. I love it when people take the time to post with such passion and in many cases, well-reasoned insight. And you just wanted some general advice about how to create a build so you could play your pet with some friends in PVE. Wicked cool.

In that specific context, I appreciated daky’s simple, practical algorithm and Arturo’s general call for striving for excellence.

You said you were somewhat new to Guild Wars and it’s possible you may find the comments of SnipiousMax and Amy Awien a bit daunting and technical. Trust me, they’re worth reading carefully. The portions of the SnipiousMax/Amy Awien sub-thread about kindle, for example, is particularly useful and alludes to a larger point which is how damage is calculated and applied. There was a recent guide posted on the Guild Wars web site,

http://www.guildwars.com/competitive...damagecalc.php

which, although not as comprehensive as I would have liked, covers that important point. When evaluating competitive approaches it’s important to be able to understand how and when armor is ignored and when not. As for expertise, it is definitely worth understanding the breakpoints and there’s a nice chart on guildwiki

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Expertise

One of the areas that hasn’t be mentioned in this thread is interruption. It is something a ranger excels at and can be effective with very low expenditure of attribute points to marksmanship or expertise. In a melee, both sides are doing and taking damage over time; reducing the damage your enemies deliver can be more important than the amount your team inflicts. Distracting Shot and Savage Shot, neither of which are elites, can be very powerful even at lower levels of the game. An interesting strategy, perhaps, would be to have your pet do damage whilst you use your bow primarily for interruption and damage support.

Doing the numbers and correlating that to what you observe in combat, which Amy Awien excels at, is the only way to really understand what’s going on. Guild Wars is “emergent,” which is to say a compelling and strategic game, not because of the large number of skills each profession possesses, nor the ability to vary the relative strengths of attribute classes, nor the combination of different professions that may constitute a team. Rather, it is the combination of all three of those aspects and how they’re combined in the enemies you face. I’d recommend considering that as you develop your builds. In other words, how can you select skills and vary attribute points to catalyze the strengths of your companions whilst weakening those of your opponents. In that context, the Crystal Desert missions and bonuses in Prophesies can be a wonderful teacher, particularly if you do it only with henchies or a small number of human players.

For me, one of the aspects of the game which remains the most interesting and demanding, is how to develop and tune a build. The more I play the more challenging and complex it becomes and that is a very good thing.

Amy Awien · Aug 24, 2006, 06:33 PM // 18:33

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

But Kindle does not just add 20 damage.
Against a 60 AL ... {etc}
Thus I said the +20 damage is misleading.

I do not think it is misleading as AL60 is the reference AL against wich statements regarding damage are commonly made - besides lower AL means more damage and you didn't mention that.
On the other side, AL also affects basedamage.

Quote:

Poison can be tricky, because durations don't always last their duration ... it's hard to observe what difference those two seconds could make

That is true, but one usually doesn't count the time not firing when kiting or when switching either, there is not really a standard method that I know of that takes thes into account.

We'll just have to guess at those and find out if one thing or another works for each of us.

HalPlantagenet · Aug 24, 2006, 07:11 PM // 19:11

One can make a similar observation about the cost of preparations. As appealing (and useful) as kindle or read the wind or poison are, the inactivity overhead isn't worth the cost in some situations, particularly when soloing. The absence of that cost is one of the unmentioned benefits of a pet/Enraged Lunge build.

SnipiousMax · Aug 24, 2006, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

On the other side, AL also affects basedamage.

Might as well drop the other shoe.

Damage vs. AL comparison

Using this formula:

RD * 2^((DL-AL)/40) * (20% customized bow) = Damage

We get that the advantage (crits included) 16 marks has is:

+6 damage vs a 60 AL target
+5 damage vs a 70 AL target
+4 damage vs a 80 AL target
+3 damage vs a 100 AL target

Comparing 12 Marks with 16 Marks I came up with an average advantage of +5 for attack skills. Considering a conservative estimate of attack skill use (1.2 attack skills/3 attacks), I assigned a +2 damage per attack advantage for 16 marks considering the use of attack skills. (very arbitrary number... feel free to interject a comment/concern here)

So the numbers are now:

+8, +7, +6, +5

Against a 60 AL target:

Kindle @ 12 WS = +20
Kindle @ 10 WS = +17

While using kindle Marks 16/WS 10 deals +5 more damage despite the reduction in kindle damage.

Against a 60 AL target:
RtW @ 12 Marks = +9
RtW @ 16 Marks = +10

While using RtW Marks 16 deals +9 more damage (no suprise there).

As Amy noted:

VS 60 AL
RtW @ 16 marks = +10
Kindle @ 12 WS = +20

Which means a +2 damage advantage for using 12/12 rather than 16 Marks. It should be noted however, that the estimate was conservative for the attack skill bonus, and it does require TWO attributes to deal roughly the same amount of damage as ONE attribute. This is really the spear head of Amy's arguement, and a fine point indeed. It should also be noted that the damage is equal against a 70 AL target, and Marks 16 has the advantage against Higher AL foes. Leaves alot to be considered.

Everything now on the table (I belive, this is my second time writing this, and I may have missed something I included in the post I was originally going to leave...).

*NOTE*

Things purposefully left out of the comparison in the intrest of simplicity:

Tiger's Fury
Physical/Elemental Armor
Barrage
Dual Shot
Needle Shot
Quick Shot
ETC

The calculations can get pretty involving and I'm not willing to invest that much time into it.

SnipiousMax · Aug 24, 2006, 08:31 PM // 20:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by HalPlantagenet

One can make a similar observation about the cost of preparations. As appealing (and useful) as kindle or read the wind or poison are, the inactivity overhead isn't worth the cost in some situations, particularly when soloing. The absence of that cost is one of the unmentioned benefits of a pet/Enraged Lunge build.

It is very liberating to not be tied down to a preperation... But, it is also a defining element in playing a Ranger. The cost itself isn't difficult to get by, but having to stop and cast it can get restrictive, and it's entirely possible to miss something important (like an interrupt). Enraged Lunge is about as beastly as a damage dealer as you can get on a Ranger... but cost is easily justified in using perparations (at least... most preps. I'm still doubting the advantage of using Kindle over RtW in a straight comparison).

Dyon Adell · Aug 25, 2006, 08:47 AM // 08:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amy Awien

Maximizing any one stat is frequently not a good idea, since the cost increases when there are more ranks in a stat, while the benefits grow slower.

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Attribute
http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Attribute_point_spending

I agree with Max. To elaborate his point, basically why you want to max out an attribute is because you won't be using more than 2 attributes in battle. Expertise is a must, reasons and arguments obvious. I havn't come across any successful WS Marksman before. Nor have I seen a marksman with a gnashing pet. People who know what they're doing focus on what they're doing. 115% marksman damage is better than 80% pet damage and 85% pet damage. Further more, after using 2-3 skills you find yourself attacking normally instead of using skills, as your Expertise is too low to support your Energy.

With that being said, now I know why I win more than 50% of the time of 1v1with another ranger. Seen quite a few people posting very unfocused and overly-general builds(examples will be like those Migrane Ranger and pure Ranger xD ).

Amy Awien · Aug 25, 2006, 03:39 PM // 15:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by SnipiousMax

Might as well drop the other shoe.
...
Everything now on the table

And well done, thank you for going one step further and adding in an estimate on the bowattack damage - and this through the frequent timeouts GWGuru seems to be having lately. As HalPlantagenet noted there should be some usable advice in this thread.

Dyon, we've just been through some debate on all of this, why don't you read it through ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyon Adell

I havn't come across any successful WS Marksman before. Nor have I seen a marksman with a gnashing pet.

Maybe you've only been looking in the wrong places, but I do see Cripshot Rangers and Bunny Thumpers in GvG a lot more then I see marksmanship-only rangers in GvG.

Quote:

People who know what they're doing focus on what they're doing.

Mhh, so you're saying I don't know what I am doing when I add in WS, thanks for the insult.

SnipiousMax · Aug 25, 2006, 07:37 PM // 19:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dyon Adell

as your Expertise is too low to support your Energy.

I appreciate that you agree with me... But alot of these points have been covered. Particularly the one I quoted. Expertise was a point I conceded, because it was 1.) Something common to most of the situations both Amy and I presented. 2.) just as easy to Max your expertsie using a reduced Marks + Wilderness survival build.

I'd also second the point Amy made about Crippers, and Thumpers. My arguement wasn't so much that you should never ever run Wilderness over marks (else we'd never have trappers!), it was more defending the Dogma of using 16 marks ever. And truth be told, I think that there are few situations where you would bring a pet, that would help my point a bit. If you were planning on Marks being your primary sorce of damage, and wanted to bring a pet along as kind of a 'constant, free conjure phantom.' Then of course having to split your points in FOUR attributes wouldn't be the way to go. You could easily have your Marks at 16, your Beast Mastery at 11, and your expertise at 9. You'd have to depend on careful skill selection so you wouldn't run out of energy too quickly, but it's easily managable. And you'd deal more sutainable damage than depending on Marks alone. Where you planning on bringing several attack skills, and planned on using them more often then you attack normally... then yes, that'd require a bit of focus, and a MUCH different style of play.

As part of Amy's opening arguements, she stated that damage wasn't a Ranger's territory anway... Which I believe is only true in the fact that Ranger's don't need to be a primary damage dealer to be efffective. And there are MANY MANY builds that fall into that line of thinking, and play style. Things like Choking Gas can be incrediblly effective in the right settings, are very solid builds, and the damage output isn't that bad either.

I do agree with you that if you are building for damage, and are planning on using a few WS skills as support, rather than an integral part of a build, that you would be better off staying with Marks rather than using Kindle as a substitute... But that's been debated already, and comes down to a question of style really.

Sha Noran · Aug 25, 2006, 09:14 PM // 21:14

Amy: You certainly are bitchy for being so ignorant. Doing the math doesn't make you an expert; x damage and y damage =/= understanding how the damage works.

All this math is baby steps towards the truth, being that there are benefits in both lines of thinking. Spreading your points can offer significant advantages, as can maxing out one attribute and rolling straight Mark/whatever. Saying that either sucks is just... not correct. It depends entirely upon your skillbar, which depends entirely upon what you're doing. Try to not be so close minded regarding things that you've "proven" with your math mumbo-jumbo to be true/false.

SnipiousMax · Aug 25, 2006, 09:24 PM // 21:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Amy: You certainly are bitchy for being so ignorant.

Amy's only responding to attacks. It was a good discussion, and a strong understanding of game mechanics is hardly ignorant. Where we disagreed was what we took from the numbers posted. I don't question Amy's experience in the slightest.

And truth be told, what you just said is what we ended up agreeing on.

Amy Awien · Aug 25, 2006, 09:34 PM // 21:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sha Noran

Amy: You certainly are bitchy for being so ignorant.

Edit: Whatever, it's better that I don't spoil this thread and simply drop you in ignore.

HalPlantagenet · Aug 26, 2006, 08:34 PM // 20:34

I want to second SnipiousMax's previous comments. I also want to thank him for his precis on damage v. armor comparison which I found insightful and helpful.

After more than a year, Guild Wars continues to surprise me. Inuition and experience are useful tools but sometimes they are insufficient. Even the best of us can be fooled.

Math also is a tool that can be used poorly or well. I find Amy's and Snipious's mathematical modeling to be pertinent, useful and enjoyable. It helps me to be a better player which is perhaps the most important thing.

There are other issues for which insight could be gained by creating a few pertinent equations. The answers might be surprising.