Deciding between Quarry and Night Warrior...

williamkony

I've been using Quarry on my favoritest-ever character, Toolbox, since his creation. With Primary Intelligence and Ricochet Throw, it's been incredibly potent. The dodge chance and avoidance make me fairly durable when using Lead Tempest, too, despite having relatively low HP.

Honestly, Quarry is statistically perfect.

Problem is... As I said, I've had Quarry since I made the character. I've gotten a little bit bored. Having used the test server to experiment, I can see that switching to Night Warrior would ultimately be a downgrade. My damage is lower, my dodge and avoidance are lower, the 10% damage penetration is just barely higher than what Audacity and Detect Weakness give me, and the charge speed increase isn't terribly noticeable when I'm just tapping Ricochet Throw most of the time. To top it off, the Intelligence from Audacity is the tipping point for my energy management; without it, I just barely run out of energy as I'm spamming Ricochet Throw, and have to move in to use my Energy Builder.

It seems like the choice should be clear, but I reeeally want to shake things up a little bit. Having looked through the Specialization trees, it seems I really can't make any changes there to sate my virtual mid-life crisis.

One thing I've been wondering about Night Warrior that I think might push me into getting it is that the guild I've joined dabbles a bit in PvP. Currently, I am pretty exclusively PvM-built; My damage and support roles have low HP, and my tank role has poor damage and no excessively huge healing capability. Thus, I'm wondering how effective Night Warrior is against other players. How easily can they see through it? Do PvP-obsessors tend to pile on Intelligence and Perception gear to combat stealth? Does Night Warrior pair well with the Ninja Vanish travel power?

I don't expect to become some sort of super-amazing PvPer just from my choice in passive, but I'd like to be able to participate in guild duel-fests instead of being stuck on revival duty due to being one-shot-kill fodder.

thebuckeye

as long as they don't have the Warden Spec Retaliation Shadow Strike should be good against just about anybody...Retaliation takes any single target damage and redirects a percentage of it back at the target as penetrating damage...and if they're a tanky build with a lot of HP and block it the Night Warrior just took himself out...

keikomyst

Quarry is perfect! The only thing Night Warrior has over it is the universal damage buff and Sneak.

Sneak has several really cool interactions with the boomerang powers and Nighthawk gadgets in general. Those that I know off the top of my head:
- Strafing Run does not break Sneak.
- Gas Pellets does not break Sneak.
- A charged Ricochet Throw will split and bounce around to twice as many bad guys from Sneak.
- Boomerang Toss will straight-up do double damage from Sneak, with more Crit Severity to boot.
- SHADOW STRIKE!!!!!111111two (overrated, compare to Boomerang Toss, full charge, you'll kill tons of baddies)

Night Warrior is hard to get working as a true PvP passive. Usually requires 'cheap' tricks like Ego Sleep -> Shadow Strike or Strafing Run, since Ego Sleep does no damage. Not to mention Night Warrior is a very squishy passive, even compared to Quarry! Night Warrior's benefits shine through in PvE but become muddled in PvP where everyone has prepared for every situation with devices and crazy buildin'.

Quarry is all around great, Night Warrior is good but lets you do crazy things from stealth. AoPM's the passive you want if you're interested in true PvP.

Of course, you can always casually PvP with Night Warrior... but my circle of PvPin' friends despises my Night Warrior character, even when I don't utilize Sneak... or Strafing Run... :S

williamkony

Heh, I do have Aura of Primal Majesty as well, but no other real PvP powers. No Force Geyser, no ranged Crippling Challenge (have it on Devour Essence, though), no super-spike damage (just Ricochet Throw as far as that goes), no spike heal (just Bountiful Chi Resurgence)... So I don't know that just having a stat boost would help much. X) Not that Stealth would help a heck of a lot, either, but I figured it'd at least let me get a couple hits in and then disappear with Ninja Vanish to start it over.