Curse

JR · Mar 21, 2006, 01:47 PM // 13:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

I'm interested to know how crippling shot makes your short list but pin down doesn't. Do you really find the "cannot be blocked or evaded" to be so important? Currently that's the only solid advantage crippling shot has over pin down without running a ridiculous amount of energy management. Long term cripshot can't be used much (if any) more than pin down, and on the short time it can only be used slightly more often, while pin down cripple lasts longer.

This may be the case, but for flexibility you really need the short recharge on Crippling Shot. To reliably snare all of your targets, Crippling Shot is key; 15 seconds is just a little too long to make Pin Down truly usefull. The cripple does last longer, but that is of little consequence. When you snare a target, they should be adren spiked very soon afterwards. Not to mention the cripple will eventually be removed anyway.

It does cost a fair amount to keep up, yes. However it is feasible.

Greedy Gus · Mar 21, 2006, 04:14 PM // 16:14

Yes, cripshot is more flexible. However, to make enough use of it to make it good enough to warrant use over pin down, you'd have to use it a lot more than 4 times a minute (longterm), a lot more than once per 15 seconds (shortterm), and/or get a lot of mileage out of the "block/evade" bonus.

In my opinion, if you're hitting either of the first two points, then the character is really not going to be very useful to the team other than those snares (which is still limited to about 6 per minute max if used along with apply poison unless you bring energy management skills). He just doesn't have the energy to do anything else. At that point, you basically just have a snaring character (rather than the old cripshotter that packed in a lot of useful utility skills and could actually use them), and would be outshined by a water ele in many regards.

Which brings me to my orginial question to Warskull, do you get much mileage out of the "block/evade" bonus on cripshot?

Patrograd · Mar 21, 2006, 05:22 PM // 17:22

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

Yes, cripshot is more flexible. However, to make enough use of it to make it good enough to warrant use over pin down, you'd have to use it a lot more than 4 times a minute (longterm), a lot more than once per 15 seconds (shortterm), and/or get a lot of mileage out of the "block/evade" bonus.

I think that there are some times when having the ability to snare two or three enemies in very quick succession is vital. Imagine your base is getting ganked by two or three warriors, you can catch and kill all of them this way, instead of the one you would get with pin down. Even if you only need this extra utility once or twice per match, or even once or twice per session, its worth having over pin down IMHO

Parkerbsb · Mar 21, 2006, 05:26 PM // 17:26

Also if you are trying to cripple their monks (which is fairly frequent) they are likley to have distortion, guardian or ageis up so it's a more reliable skill.

Greedy Gus · Mar 21, 2006, 05:44 PM // 17:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Patrograd

I think that there are some times when having the ability to snare two or three enemies in very quick succession is vital. Imagine your base is getting ganked by two or three warriors, you can catch and kill all of them this way, instead of the one you would get with pin down. Even if you only need this extra utility once or twice per match, or even once or twice per session, its worth having over pin down IMHO

That is the type of scenario where the doubled length of the cripple from pin down comes into play importantly. The length of cripple between the two skills is non-trivial (especially at higher marksmanship that you have to run with the new crippling shot), though many write it off.

If, for example, you're running 12 marksmanship, your crippling shot is 7 seconds and pin down is 13. So for one pin down, it would take over 1.85 crippling shots to get the same amount of sheer seconds of the cripple condition. You're right that the low recharge allows you theoretically to keep 2-3 people snared (I'm not quite sure on the game mechanics on how bow refire rates are affected by skill recharges), but it's unrealistic due to the massive amount of energy required and the low max energy on the ranger, which doesn't allow him to really power out a bunch of skills and surpass his 3 pips of energy for long.

Scenario: you can do a crippling shot every 3 seconds, you have 32 max energy, you start at that amount, you don't use any energy for a prep, and you have 13/14 expertise and 12 marksmanship. You can do 6 crippling shots over 15 seconds before running out of energy, for 42 seconds of cripple (average 1.9 guys at once over 22 seconds). With pin down, you would have only been able to get two off, for 26 seconds of cripple (average .9 guys at once over 28 seconds). So with pin down, you're looking at about 50% of the same snaring ability, for 33% of the cost, without the elite tag (with my few assumptions).

So that's extreme short term, burning through your entire "buffer" of 32 energy and what you gain from your 3 pips in that time. Over the extreme long term (ignoring your energy buffer and just working with pips), if you're only using crippling shot with no other skills, at 13/14 expertise and 12 marksmanship, you can use a crippling shot every 7 seconds. That's 60 seconds of cripple output every minute that costs 3 pips of energy. Pin down would be limited by recharge and would only be able to be used 4 times per minute, for a total of 52 seconds of cripple costing you 1.4 pips of energy.

So long term, cripshot has about 16% more crippling power than pin down for 214% of the cost. Depending on how much you want to go past your natural regen and burn into your buffer energy, you can bump the crippling power of cripshot to about twice that of pin down's best while costing 3 times more. It should be noted that you can only burn through your buffer once per 'engagement' and can only get that level of power for about 10-15 seconds.

Again, IMO it still comes down to whether you really get enough use out of the "block/evade" tag to deserve its elite status and spot on your bar.

Hunter Killer · Mar 22, 2006, 04:36 AM // 04:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Greedy Gus

I'm interested to know how crippling shot makes your short list but pin down doesn't. Do you really find the "cannot be blocked or evaded" to be so important? Currently that's the only solid advantage crippling shot has over pin down without running a ridiculous amount of energy management. Long term cripshot can't be used much (if any) more than pin down, and on the short time it can only be used slightly more often, while pin down cripple lasts longer.

Then obviously you haven't tried using Cripple shot much. With decent/high expertise, Cripple shot is quite spammable to a certain extent. And yes, "cannot be blocked or evaded" is one of the best features of this skill, it can go through distortion/stance runners, and the short recharge ensures that even if they dodge it through movement, you can apply it again.

Pin down, on the other hand, has a long recharge which means if its blocked, evaded, or dodged, there goes your snare. Also, it can only be applied to one target (in a short period of time), and often times it will be blocked. Finally, the duration isn't a huge deal when you are able to reapply it when necessary. The upside of pindown is that it does not occupy an elite slot.