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Mod 15 pvp Archer - The Archer Strikes Back. (Final gear update).
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1237285/hr-pvp-mod-14-how-to-archer-updated-tl-dr-version/p1
New mod, new tweaks, new thread. See the above link for the old build upon which this is based, and the strategy involved.
Basically losing stillness of the forest left a huge hole in our crit. And tbh. last mod, dunno what changed, but I wasn't hitting as hard as I did in mod 13. Archer capstone is better now however, a dmg buff rather than a defence debuff. I put the 5 points from stillness into longshot. Movement makes a huge difference to survival. Believe me, the runspeed with this build is insane. With 2k from boots, 4k mount, and 3k from alacrity for a 9k boost, plus guile, the mainhand bonus to aimed shot and the archer feats... I pretty much don't need a mount anymore, and run fast enough to get out of everybody's range if need be. Move fast enough and basically no-one can target you.
Class features are still aspect of the falcon, with that feated on offhand, and I waver between seekers and aspect of the lone wolf these days for the other. Tbh. unless the other team are all tanks, I slot wolf, otherwise I spend half the match in spawn.
Finally dumped shadowclad in favour of Elven, just too much cc flying around in pvp.
Dropped the dex belt and neck for SH gear, and the DC sigil for a Wheel. Note: with feats/boons, as long as your arpen is maxed , and your deflect is about 15-16%, focus AP gain. You need somewhere around 25% to have enough action points to constantly fuel your dailies without the DC sigil to rely on. Most of your stamima gain comes from one of the first the archer feats and 30% from Elven.
Final gear and stats. The changes in gear primarily focussed crit to get back the 25% from stillness. The woodlord hat, and the beaded amulet go a long way, and the bronzewood raid ring with 2 azure 13s completes the job. To make dread work you need a good solid 80% or so critchance. Next on the list was recovery and hitpoints, the boots and the magic lord's chest cover those, not to mention the alacrity set bonus. Wheel boost more than makes up for the damage loss from losing 4 points of dex and extra action point gain makes up the loss from the artifact change.
Gear: (Manticore mane did finally get nerfed and fell to 2% of my damage so I went back to CR).
Woodlords raid hood. (Drag. glyph/slayer glyph).
Magic Lord's Surcoat. (T. Elven battle).
Jawripper's gloves. (Drag. glyph/slayer glyph).
Ex.Bronzewood Tlahuitolli (U.Dread).
Ex.Obsidian Itztopilli.
Woodlords assault boots.
Beaded assault ring.
Bronzewood raid ring.
Celeste's shirt and Makos's spare pants.
Neck/waist : Beaded amulet+bronzewood sash.
Enchants: a mix of radiant/dark/azure 13s and the 2 freebie rnk 14s. (No more tenebrous, because it was rubbish).
Artifacts: Main - Soul seer or Wheel. Giants eye. Tiamat's orb. Gwf sigil. (Better AP gain means I could finally dump the DC sigil).
Insignia switched to brutality/initiative for a little more recovery/deflect.
Mount bonuses, assassins, artificers, shepherds, cavalrys, guile. (+4k movement from leg. Strider).
Pots: wildstorm, squash soup, crit SH food, enhanced accuracy.
Stats:
Pow 33k+
Crit 22k
Arpen 17k-ish
Recov 9-10k+
HP 250k +
Crit-chance 80% +
Def. Ignored 130%-ish
I know the arpen looks insanely high, esp. since U.dread also boosts penetration, but testing showed this combo to be the best, better than U.feytouched with the same arpen. Looks like the defence debuff on dread doesn't really make much of a difference, it's the 80% extra critsev it provides that really makes it fly.
Defensive stats... you are joking right..? Well ok, I do have about 40% deflect.
Conclusion.
Pros.
This build is fast, varying between pretty fast, to ridiculous, depending on what's procced. This makes rotating between nodes, or running to suppprt teamates very easy.
This build can oneshot a lot of things. Basically any pugs are toast. DCs, GFs, GWFs, OPs, unless they're well built, are also toast. At the moment I'm a solid third place on the board for kills, averaging somewhere around 8 kills per match this mod. Top spot is a an exploiter TR, and second is a CW who has built his toon even more insanely glass cannon than I ever could. (He has even more deaths than me lol). So screw it, I'm gonna award myself top killer, tied.
Hawkeye and longshot also buff your teamates, which is nice.
Cons.
Verrry squishy. Matches with no deaths are rare. There is just no way to build this way without sacrificing defence for offence. Get used to spawncamp.
Despite T.Elven, I'm still very weak against cc. The enemy team composition pretty much dictates what kind of match I'll have. Too many SWs, CWs, I'm boned.
Gank magnet, be assured, the enemy team will come after you, right from the start. You have to think about where you'll be, hit and run. Who to kite.
Finally, and maybe just my opinion, but this build is also the most fun a HR can have in pvp. You are constantly under threat, but also very much feared. Always on the move. When this build works, it works astoundingly well.
As a caveat to the above opinion however, when this build doesn't work, it fails spectacularly. 😃 It gives you a chance at greatness either way.
New mod, new tweaks, new thread. See the above link for the old build upon which this is based, and the strategy involved.
Basically losing stillness of the forest left a huge hole in our crit. And tbh. last mod, dunno what changed, but I wasn't hitting as hard as I did in mod 13. Archer capstone is better now however, a dmg buff rather than a defence debuff. I put the 5 points from stillness into longshot. Movement makes a huge difference to survival. Believe me, the runspeed with this build is insane. With 2k from boots, 4k mount, and 3k from alacrity for a 9k boost, plus guile, the mainhand bonus to aimed shot and the archer feats... I pretty much don't need a mount anymore, and run fast enough to get out of everybody's range if need be. Move fast enough and basically no-one can target you.
Class features are still aspect of the falcon, with that feated on offhand, and I waver between seekers and aspect of the lone wolf these days for the other. Tbh. unless the other team are all tanks, I slot wolf, otherwise I spend half the match in spawn.
Finally dumped shadowclad in favour of Elven, just too much cc flying around in pvp.
Dropped the dex belt and neck for SH gear, and the DC sigil for a Wheel. Note: with feats/boons, as long as your arpen is maxed , and your deflect is about 15-16%, focus AP gain. You need somewhere around 25% to have enough action points to constantly fuel your dailies without the DC sigil to rely on. Most of your stamima gain comes from one of the first the archer feats and 30% from Elven.
Final gear and stats. The changes in gear primarily focussed crit to get back the 25% from stillness. The woodlord hat, and the beaded amulet go a long way, and the bronzewood raid ring with 2 azure 13s completes the job. To make dread work you need a good solid 80% or so critchance. Next on the list was recovery and hitpoints, the boots and the magic lord's chest cover those, not to mention the alacrity set bonus. Wheel boost more than makes up for the damage loss from losing 4 points of dex and extra action point gain makes up the loss from the artifact change.
Gear: (Manticore mane did finally get nerfed and fell to 2% of my damage so I went back to CR).
Woodlords raid hood. (Drag. glyph/slayer glyph).
Magic Lord's Surcoat. (T. Elven battle).
Jawripper's gloves. (Drag. glyph/slayer glyph).
Ex.Bronzewood Tlahuitolli (U.Dread).
Ex.Obsidian Itztopilli.
Woodlords assault boots.
Beaded assault ring.
Bronzewood raid ring.
Celeste's shirt and Makos's spare pants.
Neck/waist : Beaded amulet+bronzewood sash.
Enchants: a mix of radiant/dark/azure 13s and the 2 freebie rnk 14s. (No more tenebrous, because it was rubbish).
Artifacts: Main - Soul seer or Wheel. Giants eye. Tiamat's orb. Gwf sigil. (Better AP gain means I could finally dump the DC sigil).
Insignia switched to brutality/initiative for a little more recovery/deflect.
Mount bonuses, assassins, artificers, shepherds, cavalrys, guile. (+4k movement from leg. Strider).
Pots: wildstorm, squash soup, crit SH food, enhanced accuracy.
Stats:
Pow 33k+
Crit 22k
Arpen 17k-ish
Recov 9-10k+
HP 250k +
Crit-chance 80% +
Def. Ignored 130%-ish
I know the arpen looks insanely high, esp. since U.dread also boosts penetration, but testing showed this combo to be the best, better than U.feytouched with the same arpen. Looks like the defence debuff on dread doesn't really make much of a difference, it's the 80% extra critsev it provides that really makes it fly.
Defensive stats... you are joking right..? Well ok, I do have about 40% deflect.
Conclusion.
Pros.
This build is fast, varying between pretty fast, to ridiculous, depending on what's procced. This makes rotating between nodes, or running to suppprt teamates very easy.
This build can oneshot a lot of things. Basically any pugs are toast. DCs, GFs, GWFs, OPs, unless they're well built, are also toast. At the moment I'm a solid third place on the board for kills, averaging somewhere around 8 kills per match this mod. Top spot is a an exploiter TR, and second is a CW who has built his toon even more insanely glass cannon than I ever could. (He has even more deaths than me lol). So screw it, I'm gonna award myself top killer, tied.
Hawkeye and longshot also buff your teamates, which is nice.
Cons.
Verrry squishy. Matches with no deaths are rare. There is just no way to build this way without sacrificing defence for offence. Get used to spawncamp.
Despite T.Elven, I'm still very weak against cc. The enemy team composition pretty much dictates what kind of match I'll have. Too many SWs, CWs, I'm boned.
Gank magnet, be assured, the enemy team will come after you, right from the start. You have to think about where you'll be, hit and run. Who to kite.
Finally, and maybe just my opinion, but this build is also the most fun a HR can have in pvp. You are constantly under threat, but also very much feared. Always on the move. When this build works, it works astoundingly well.
As a caveat to the above opinion however, when this build doesn't work, it fails spectacularly. 😃 It gives you a chance at greatness either way.
No idea what my toon is now.
Post edited by jonkoca on
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Comments
Tbh. I think I mainly keep on playing with my HR just to HAMSTER off the GFs and screw up their kill/death ratios.
I was looking at it whilst hitting training dummies and could see Commanding was hitting harder with Ambush even though Ambush wasnt showing in the combat log. LSS seems to have some weird effect there.
You are in a different Mod from me now, but you can play around with training dummies
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
Overall:
60% damage comes from aimed and commanding.
10% from LSS.
10% from longshot passive.
10% from manticore mane.
The rest is a fairly equal spread between ambush, tenebrous, beartrap, dread procs, overloads etc. Either way at best ambush is about 2% of my dps so no biggie really.
Testing specifically on dummies beforehand, ambush did proc, but only if I left a slight gap between casting ambush and another encounter. I've a feeling that the damage boost only becomes active *after* the casting animation has finished. Which is pants but eh, par for the course with HR powers. I'll leave ambush as a utility stealth option for the end of a rotation.
General note: the damage reduction in pvp is amazing, on dummies I average around 250-300k hits both with commanding and aimed, spiking at 400k with aimed once in a blue moon. Average hits with aimed shot in pvp... 20-30k. You do get the odd "OMG - boom dead" hits, but only when the enemy's DR is already shredded, and they aren't facing you or proned.
Just my imagination perhaps but it seems the pvp population has shrunken once more, the same faces again and again. And equally, the gank is again strong this mod.
Happy days.
Also what's the best rank of shadowclad? Pure? Trans? Unp?
Hence, for Transcendent, it provides a 14% increase on your base deflect stat per stack. It does not multiply by itself each stack. I find that anywhere between 4000 Deflection Stat to 6000 Deflection Stat (plus deflection from other sources e.g. Ability Points, Boons, Feats, Potions, Food etc), provides a reliable way to proc stealth.
I'd go for either Transcendent or Unparalleled, nothing below.
Summary (from personal experience): I would aim for about 14-18% deflect for Transcendent, and 13-17% for Unparalleled.
I think the sweet spot is around 15-17% deflect (with about 75-80% of that coming from your base deflect stat) for Transcendent, and 14-16% for Unparalleled. The gives about a 4-5% cumulative chance for proccing stealth. Considering you can go through stacks quite quickly during a fight, you will likely reach 8 Stacks quite reliably, at which point it is about a 1/3 to 1/4 chance of proccing stealth.
Addit: Interestingly, the lower the Deflect you go, the cumulative % does not change much. At around 10% deflect, like Jon's, he had a 6% cumulative chance to proc stealth (i.e. Shadowclad got up to 8 Stacks and then successfully deflected). With 10% deflect however, at Transcendent, one has about a 14.5% chance to deflect at 8 Stacks, so it will take about 1/7 shots at Max stacks to proc stealth. By increasing his base deflect to 12%, this will be closer to a 1/5 shot, and 14% deflect, this will be closer to a 1/4 shot.
Trouble with archer, especially this mod for some reason, is that we are so paper thin. I used to have a t.bark many moons ago - great for pve - but in pvp there are so many little hits flying around that bark just never gets it's stacks up, ever. That aside, nothing saves you if an enemy toon (or toons - nobody gets ganked more than an archer) gets a hold of you. End of story. I've a feeling I could just not bother with an armor enchant and it wouldn't affect my k/d ratio at all. The amount of damage flying around, even deflect won't save you. An armor enchant that increased footspeed with each hit would be one I'd buy in a second.
The only thing that saves you is a quick clean kill, or a hasty retreat and doubling back in stealth.
The second class feature is also a problem. Aspect of the falcon is a must sure, but the second..? Argh. I almost always have seekers on, but looking at matches, esp 1v1, you're almost always head on to the enemy, so I'd say seekers is useless approx. 75% of the time. When it works, it works amazingly well "boom, goodbye" well, but situational.
Pathfinders action sounds good, but in practice it never really seems to make you quick enough to make a difference. Pack... so many times you are out of range, unless you come across a rare teamate who understands that keeping the archer alive might actually be a good thing - I know one Pvp OP who understands this and together we have wiped nodes even at 4vs2 against good toons - but usually everyone is just running around like headless chickens. Lonewolf, again, deflect won't save you. 50% of certain death is still death lol.
Crushing roots, no roots in my rotation... the others aren't worth mentioning.
So we're back to seekers. Or maybe pack intitially for the rush on mid, and seekers after your first inevitable death lol.
Atwills are also a problem, with dread this mod, aimed shot doesn't account for as much damage as it used to, not to mention SLOW ATWILL IS SLOW. Rapid and hunters just don't do enough damage, split is slow and clunky. Putting careful attack on a TR is no longer the death sentence it used to be, and again, clunky. So we're back to aimed, and 'whatever'.
This mod and the preceeding mods too to be honest, I been feeling like as a class we've been forced into cobbling builds together combining all the best of a bad lot into something that works... just ok-ish, on a good day. And that's at BiS levels for god's sake.
Better base movement and a cc-breaker, devs, if you're listening. That's all I want.
Also I would argue that the best in slot build includes loadouts 4 a quick switch to trapper maybe even combat at the campfire. I played with you this weekend, both against and with you you saw both my loadouts they were quick switches at the campfire and it was definitely necessary for me to beat rapper that one match we want.
the trick is making the loadouts in a way that doesn't cost a f****** arm and leg. So you can easily switch between them.
For me I focus on making my trapper bestinslot. And my Archer loadout retain some of my trapper gear but still has the stats and some of the armor that I want but not nearly all the best in slot choices for a true min maxed PVP Archer spec. I don't think I could afford alternate enchantments for all the alternate gear just on my armor hag's rags to Furred kunio. Each armor has its own armor enchant and I just happen to have an extra rank 13 after getting that free heart of the fire enchant and also switching to the new electrum neck on my companion.
Going to give it a look-see this weekend.
So at lower levels (and within your suggested range 4000-6000) of deflect stats, I should have higher sources of deflect from elsewhere but only up to 8% for trans or 7% for unp?
I sit at 4.1 k deflect stat and as an HR Dex is important for damage so I can't go any lower than an additional 12% from other sources...
And so ( if i understand your explanation correctly) to use shadowclad more effectively I need to drop deflection stat more because it is too high (10% from stat + 12% from Dex).
Currently, my overall deflect is 25% ( because of also boons)...
Am I understanding this all correctly? What would your advice for me be?
See this worksheet I made to work out the probability:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ckUPS-EA5KdMziUfhbr5b_n00jCMZ5OOw-sItuJzh-Q/edit?usp=sharing
With regards to the spreadsheet, fill in your values in the boxes marked green. I used Transcendent Shadowclad as an example, but if you are using Unparalleled, change the Deflect Per Stack from 14% to 16%. The red box should indicate your deflect % on your character sheet. The yellow box indicates the probability you will proc stealth at 8 stacks of Shadowclad. The blue box indicates the probability you will be able to get to 8 stacks without deflecting, and then deflect successfully (i.e. the total chance of being able to proc stealth when you are hit 9 times in a row). I've prefilled the green areas for you which I think has a good chance of proccing stealth (4.1% cumulative total, and a 20.8% chance at 8 stacks or a 1/5 chance to proc stealth with max stacks).
If you have high deflect from other sources (dexterity +12%), then that changes things a bit. You probably only need 1000-2000 deflect as a stat, none from boons, and not using caprese for you to get a more reliable stealth proc. I view a "reliable stealth proc" as a cumulative chance of about 4-5%, and then a deflect chance at 8 stacks of about 20-30%. The higher your percentage deflection from other sources, the more likely you will proc a deflect before getting to 8 stacks (hence a lower cumulative chance to proc stealth). The higher your base deflection stat, the more that Shadowclad can work to getting your deflect higher at 8 stacks, hence a greater chance to proc stealth at 8 stacks.
NB: If you use Unparalleled instead of Transcendent, it will increase your Deflect % at 8 stacks, but not change your cumulative % chance to proc stealth as much, so I view it as a (slightly) better option if you can afford it or want to spend that money for it. The delta chance is minimal however.
@Aunty I did try crushing and hindering for a match or two. Needless to say lol, back to ambush again. Having another stealth source is just too useful for the way I play. Maybe it'll work better for you.
On the plus side, just passed BrutalSmash for kills this mod. I'm sure he'll be as happy about that as I am. A lot of really great matches last night, good toons, teamwork, dead GFs... what more can you ask.
I did use to have a trapper stunbot loadout, but converted it to a buff-HR pve loadout this mod. I never used it anyway, after years of playing a trapper I just can't bring myself to do it any more, not to mention the whole abhorrent "permastun" thing. I get the utility aspect, but argh, just too evil.
Unless .... perhaps there are some shots which cannot be deflected and thus automatically add a Shadowclad stack, hence increasing the probability to get to 8 stacks, and then once a normal shot is deflected at 8 stacks, it procs stealth?
I used to run Shadowclad on my DC with about 40% deflect. I would notice that it would cycle between 1-8 stacks fairly rapidly, but each time it deflected it would reset. It would still proc stealth occasionally, but I still wouldn't be able to rely on it in battle. Building to 8 stacks is easier with a lower deflect. I am considering trying this out with a super low-deflect/high-defense build, therefore it would keep near at 8 stacks of Shadowclad (adding to DR) and then proc stealth every so often. This build would require about 2800 base deflect stat and no other %bonuses. I do wonder if it would pop stealth more reliably ... (if only I had unlimited AD lol then I would try this build).
Still, I do wonder about shots (or maybe effects) which could possibly add to a Shadowclad stack and are not able to be deflected ... That could explain why a high deflect build like Tery's can still pop stealth. Truth to be told, I've fought Tery a number of times, but stealth is not something that I notice that often from him.
P.S i tested vow with negation and it doesnt proc it, so it must be something else.