Curse

Polynikes of Sparta · Apr 06, 2007, 12:29 PM // 12:29

Needling Shot recently got buffed and now deals 10...25...32 armor-ignoring damage. Add in Read the Wind and Favorable Winds and you have 48 armor-ignoring damage. Great finisher, great spiker?

Glass Arrows + Needling Shot + Favorable Winds + Vampiric + Brutal Weapon = 80 armor-ignoring damage

12,3,1 marks
6 communing
11,1 expertise

~Polynikes

XvArchonvX · Apr 06, 2007, 02:46 PM // 14:46

First of all, Brutal Weapon doesn't work with enchantments. Second of all Ranger Spike probably won't grow too popular since the metagame will likely start moving to melee due to the recent update, which means that there will probably be more counters to physical damage.

Evilsod · Apr 06, 2007, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Yeah this has more chance has a Gimmick. Dual Shot/Needling Shot is stupidly damaging with Glass Arrows. With Brutal you'd get higher obviously but its not the easiest of skills to maintain on multiple people. Needling Shot is 31 damage max... don't know where you got 32 from.

As for counters to physical damage Archon, nothing stopping you using an elemental weapon instead if it kicks out more damage. Needling was hitting for 50 damage a hit earlier, with Brutal you could easily reach 70-75 if it came from a Rit, its not like it rqeuires you to be dealing physical damage like Orders.

Dual Shot + Needling as the spike and you get probably around 150-200 damage. Needling which is completely armour ignoring and most of the Dual Shot too. Can be spammed too aslong as the target stays below 50% health which should help finish people off.

Needs too much micromanagement though to work effectively i'd say.

lennymon · Apr 06, 2007, 04:42 PM // 16:42

If you are playing with brutal weapon, why not go with forked arrow, since you wont be having the enchants?

XvArchonvX · Apr 06, 2007, 06:13 PM // 18:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by Evilsod

As for counters to physical damage Archon, nothing stopping you using an elemental weapon instead if it kicks out more damage. Needling was hitting for 50 damage a hit earlier, with Brutal you could easily reach 70-75 if it came from a Rit, its not like it rqeuires you to be dealing physical damage like Orders.

I wasn't really clear, but I meant damage such as axes, spears, swords, bows, etc. so that counters implied would be blocking, blind, spirit of failure type hexes, etc.

Evilsod · Apr 06, 2007, 08:01 PM // 20:01

Oh, well there are ways round that. I remember seeing (i think) EW running a P/Me with Expel Hexes/Mirror of Disenchantment.

But anyway, it'd never really work, from what i saw there opponent had alot of anti-attack hexes, EW won in the end but they sure had a hard time getting there, and if you were relying on a spike...

Ruby Lightheart · Apr 06, 2007, 08:14 PM // 20:14

Well you have tofactor in the recharge times of allt hose skills you listed hun cause from my experience, big numbers but slow recharge dont necessarily mean better.

When i pvp..my ranger uses all skills with no more than a 4 second recharge and no more than 10 energy..,this combined with an energy producing bow allows her to keep continuous damage going.

I think one simple combo might be Conjure Flame with a firey string, added with either read the wind or fav winds for a constant high end damage.

on your build..if you drop brutal weapon you would have a decent ranger spike for pvp...IF you can stay in range of your Fav Winds. You would also have a pretty decent pvp setup by just using Glass Arrows, Needling Shot, and teh vamp bow if your ranger has to move around alot

Program Ftw · Apr 06, 2007, 10:47 PM // 22:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruby Lightheart

Well you have tofactor in the recharge times of allt hose skills you listed hun cause from my experience, big numbers but slow recharge dont necessarily mean better.

Wait, we are talking about a spike?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruby Lightheart

When i pvp..my ranger uses all skills with no more than a 4 second recharge and no more than 10 energy..,this combined with an energy producing bow allows her to keep continuous damage going.

No Savage? No Distracting? I hope you're not talking about PvP.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ruby Lightheart

I think one simple combo might be Conjure Flame with a firey string, added with either read the wind or fav winds for a constant high end damage.

on your build..if you drop brutal weapon you would have a decent ranger spike for pvp...IF you can stay in range of your Fav Winds. You would also have a pretty decent pvp setup by just using Glass Arrows, Needling Shot, and teh vamp bow if your ranger has to move around alot

I lol'd.

Thanks,
Pr0gram~

Parchezzi · Apr 07, 2007, 01:16 AM // 01:16

Due to the recent buffs, I decided to create a build based on this concept. I haven't tested it on anything besides ABs and CMs. I suppose it could work for RAs, but not sure about the rest.

It basically consists of needling shot, savage shot, dual shot(I don't have NF yet, so no forked), pin down(optional, but it really helps), glass arrows and brutal weapon. It works great, doing about 64 unresisted damage with needling shot(39 comes from glass arrows and brutal weapon), 100+ damage(often 160~ againist casters) from dual shot, 40~90 with normal shots, pin down and savage shot(even more if it interrupts a spell).

At first I tried favorable winds, and the added damage and accuracy was really nice, but I had to be stationary, which was only useful in CMs, so I just got a recurve bow instead.

The usage is simple, pin down to kite/stop a runner, dual shot, normal shots to get the target to less than 50% HP, savage shot for interrupting key skills, and needling shot to finish. However, I often use needling and savage shot for spiking, since they have fixed firing speeds, you can use them between attacks, and it'll feel like you got an extra shot. You can easily hit a caster 3 times simultaneously for 70~ dmg each by using dual shot and savage shot, combined with the initial damage caused by pin down, and then start spamming needling shot for a quick kill.

The build doesn't fare well againist multiple enemies, but that can be partially fixed by bringing a stance or two, and you have to ask to not be enchanted so brutal weapon works.

It's devastating in both ABs and CMs. I and a friend, who uses the same build, often manage to kill groups of 4~6 enemies without much trouble. In Fort Aspeenwood, if you're kurzick, nothing beats crippling a key member of a team in the middle of the gates, then quickly shooting him/her to death, and it can consistenly damage the turtles aswell, since the dmg is mostly unresisted. I believe a similar tactic could be used for ambushing kurzicks. One of the hardest enemies are earth elementalists, but once you interrupt their stoneflesh aura, they'll fall quickly.

I saw a R/E with conjure flames, glass arrows and favorable winds that did good too, but the fire dmg is resisted, so it didn't work very well againist certain targets, but it owned warriors.

Bloodied Blade · Apr 07, 2007, 07:15 PM // 19:15

You're actually better off spiking as R/Rt for 100% armor-ignoring vamp spikes...I've beaten rit spike in HA with it...it was pretty awesome.