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Archery viable at all?
Hey guys and gals, so far you have been great help with my combat hr!! So thanks for that.
I am a little interested in the archery tree though. But i can't really find any relevant info. Just calls for a buff to the talent tree.
Is it at all viable? Tried playing around with it, it seems it's best encounters are WAY to slow to cast, the long animation times are what is making the tree so weak in group content.
But what are the best encounters for the tree?
Any info is appreciated and helpful, thanks again Rangers!
I am a little interested in the archery tree though. But i can't really find any relevant info. Just calls for a buff to the talent tree.
Is it at all viable? Tried playing around with it, it seems it's best encounters are WAY to slow to cast, the long animation times are what is making the tree so weak in group content.
But what are the best encounters for the tree?
Any info is appreciated and helpful, thanks again Rangers!
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Archery relies way less on roots than trapper for obvious reasons, archer is more a support/debuffer than straight out DPS, but there are some perks that can help with the latter; Rain of arrows, Cordon, Ward Longstrider's, Hindering and (on counted occasions) Split the sky are good
There is some perks that focus on distance = damage; on the practical note will say, stay away from these, Stillness of the forest and Aspect of the Hawk seem nice on paper, but you will find yourself isolated and running behind the party or struggling to find the optimal range, often casting thiese powers (aspect of the hawk for example) at about the same time your party steamrolls through a mob; good feats instead are those that increase your ranged damage, your crit, and -of all things- critical severity. Combat Tree has this feat called Skirmisher's Gambit, which will increase your critical sev up to 50% in exchange for 10% crit chance. Since its a tier 3 in the combat tree might seem a bit excesive to invest 15 points there, but have found it more worth it than Stillness or a 5/5 endless quiver, not to mention Bloodletting is a good healer when switching to melee for a couple of seconds (my endless quiver is currently 3/5 i think, BTW)
This takes me to the second point: Archers rely way more on cooldowns and Recovery than Trapper. As a Trapper i found that getting any recovery from gear pieces was near useless, as an Archer now have to rely on things like StormstepAction, EndlessQuiver (personally not so much but others do) and/or using AimShot with UnflinchingAim.
Third, forget the notion youre going to completelly forget about melee stance. Every now and then youll find yourself with space to pop out some PlantGrowth, GushingWound or ThornStrike, not to mention some party buffs. This is where the whole distance=damage concept goes out the window. All the powers that grant these bonuses are no match for HR's ability to pop 6 encounters (including buffs) and if this isnt enough, staying in range for Aspect of the Pack alone does more for you and your team that hanging and catching up while being in the back.
In short Archery not only does DPS (though, probably less than Trapper) but also helps your party in ways the raw numbers cant show, being a buff/debuff (in truth, many of these will help others in your party higher up on the Paingiver chart) but also shines moire in drawn out battles like bosses and in single target, where Prey comes into play more.
Have to also mention that I play my archer in PVP pretty much as I used to play trapper in slotting encounters, dailies and passives (Constricting, Hindering, Disruptive, Aimshot, CrushingRoots) with the difference that its not as much as a node holder, but rather a sniper to support the team. Stay away from the main fights (Marauter's is good for this) pop dead the other team's own supports like warlocks and wizards and proceed to annoy the hell out of tanks, healers and GWFs that your team is trying to take head on with CrushingRoots. Either one of two things happen in this situation, the target gets annoyed enough to come after you (and your team gets the node or at least stops supporting their team) or stays there and gets interrupted so often your team eats him up. Remember, Archery is way more focused on single target, so if you keep discipline you can do wonders in PVP with that premise. It has gotten to a point where i have V key as a toggle for target lock. Of course if youre a 2.8 IL and your target is a 3.5 IL you cant expect miracles, but *have* won pvp battles against higher IL than me by killing TRs/other HR/casters and harrassing tanks/healers while my team complains to me why im running away and not standing on the node... with that 4k GWF chasing me away from the fight.
Aimed shot
Electric shot
Commanding shot
Longstriders
Hawk
Seismic shot
Disruptive shot
Aspect of the pack
Lone Wolf
Aspect of the pack have no use in pvp or pve, you won't find yourself that close to allies to activate this class feature, i would recommend you to exchange it for stormstep action.
For pve you want more AoE, rain of arrows it's usefull for multi and single target, cordon can deal millions if there are 5 mobs (i have done 500k each to 5 mobs even though im combat) the third encounter can be either: split the sky, longstrider's shot or hawk shot. For someone wondering, hawk shot have a cilinder-type attack so in a place like the zombies bridge in cn is a perfect power, because it can kill all the mobs in a line plus the melee buff, you can deal a lot of damage with hawk and cordon.
Split the sky have a special effect: when a enemy attack an ally, the cloud will deal an additional lightning. This mean in places like tiamat, where the heads attack constantly all the players and their companions, the cloud will deal from 10 to 40 lightning strikes every time the head attack, and every lighning in my case as a combat hr, deals from 10k damage up to 400k, so 400k x 30 = 12million damage, it's a insane damage, so 12 million damage everytime a head attacks.
But if a single enemy attacks a single ally you won't get that much damage so use it only when enemies attack most of allies multiple times.
Aimed Shot, Electric Shot
Longstrider, Binding Arrow / Hawk Shot, Commanding Shot
Disruptive Shot, Forest Ghost
Aspect of the Falcon, Aspect of the Lone Wolf / Stormstep Action
This gave me a good spread of ranged dps along with multiple types of buffs and debuffs in both stances and it effectively changes the Ranger from a striker to a leader (but an effective one). Also, resist the urge to use Split the Sky on trash mobs, they WILL be dead before you get the cast animation over with.
Main: Nidara Devilspawn- Ranger
Alt: Aradin Coldblood- Fighter
Alt: Lucrezia Vileborn- Warlock
But if you want to see 100+k crits every 1.5 seconds or so, then Archery is fantastic for that (the highest I saw was about 160ish k).
Aimed Shot + high crit build + Vorpal + Prey + Longstriders was silly good. Throw in a Wheel of the Elements for more goodness, and group buffs, and it gets downright disgusting. If you can swing the points, also go into the Combat tree for Skirmisher's Gambit to further boost this.
Combine Gladiator's Guile mount insignia power (+15% movement speed) with Hasty Retreat and the artifact power for Aimed Shot, and you're a VERY fast mover on the battlefield.
Also consider using a tank companion if solo. It will make a huge difference.
I would happily play support HR but class isn't made for this I guess. I would like do try something other than trapper but can't afford Vorpal at the moment and sticking to my trans dread.
Altough I think that archery stormwarden can do amazing single-target dps with hybrid build and the crit chance/severity feat from Combat path.
I think someone proves me wrong somewhere in the forum that skirmisher gambit build increase a fraction of dps and it get worse as ur power increase.
Thorn Ward I tend to run often in Archery / Combat; again, less so in Trapper, but still use it on occasion. Same with Fox's.
So any spec can play the B/D role, really.
The thing is, AoE is the real failing with Archery.
AoE is king in a lot of Neverwinter. Daily quests are full of mobs to AoE; dungeons are full of mobs to AoE; HEs are full of mobs to AoE. Single-target builds only shine a very small fraction of the time. And this has been quite apparent in the latest mod.
I can tackle duos of mobs (i.e. nothic eye + bulette) with 0 difficulty. I can tackle the big heavy hitters with 0 difficulty, perhaps even killing them easier than I could as a Trapper or Combat. I can tackle those irritating teleporting seers/wizards with 0 difficulty too, with just Aimed Shot crits.
But throw a pack of rogues or the other leap-at-you mobs that cling to you like....well, nevermind... and suddenly you have a serious problem. And you can very quickly find yourself with not just 3 or 4 of these stuck to you, but a dozen or so. And Archery simply has no real tools to deal with this. Trapper can root the lot, step back, and watch them die; Combat can pop a melee encounter and then blade flurry the lot in 2-3 hits; but Archery? Archery just runs around trying to buy time to AoE everything and hoping not to die in the process. The Plant Growth fix will help alleviate this somewhat.... PG + Cordon the lot, but still it's tricky, especially when things are on cooldown or you're out of Cordon charges.
The unfortunate part is that the Ranger class evaluation a while ago was on track for some amazing changes, but then the dev in charge left and things just kind of got left the way they were left.....half-finished. And who knows when they'll look at an overhaul again.
Now I see that this could make difficulties in demo/tiamat, but there are few buffs that pass over the group anyway. Most: you have to be in the group AND in range.
You might guess - I play archer since the beginning (3.2k now) and I have exactly the range issue, but I like role-playing the archer, hence it's a green-armored wood elf, a bronzewood and a barkshield enchantment, a boar companion and an owlbear in the potion slot
For info I use (Trash/Boss):
Hunter's Teamwork + Weapon Feature
Split Shot / Aimed Shot
Commanding Shot / Fox's Cunning
Cordon of Arrows / Longstriders Shot
Rain of Arrows
Disruptive Shot (people love it: "Why didn't the Ice-Troll explode?", "Because I stopped it!"
Slasher's Mark
Aspect of the Falcon
Cruel Recovery + Weapon Feature
My rotation is Cordon - Rain - Cordon - Split Shot, by then trash mob is either dead, or close, which means plant growth , getting away and starting again. Small and almost dead are killed with HT for the small bag
With the loadouts coming, I'm going to try a blue colored, lightning rooter. Means a trapper buld with lots of grasping roots but according to guildmates testing the lightning weapon enchantment isn't proccing very good on a lot of encounters (thorn ward being the best). And the thundehead might not procc often - because, when does trash mob ever crit? I don't see the point of the combat ranger, because I have a TR twink (not saying it isn't powerful - I just wouldn't have fun playing it).
Have Fun!
Btw combat 50% crit sev is a bad built for archery. The dps difference is marginal in exchange of some crucial archery feat. For reference, as Mayday pointed out in https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1214188/stormwarden-archery-crit-build/p5
Something to take into thought on this game is this.
Are you a casual player that just tinkers around or do you put some time and effort into the game?
What is your goal?
Do you play in a set group of guild mates/ friends or do you plan on doing PuG's?
I am not sure what the current Ilvl numbers equal out to but with the old system if you were not inept and had 3500+ilvl/gs the game was a utter joke with a group that knew how to play.
Anything below FBI dies without effort and face-rolling the keyboard. FBI and MSP have no dmg or time caps you need to hit so just follow mechanics and they are a win. Tiamat runs require zero effort and even in MSVA mechanics can still be ignored with a few decent healers. What I am getting at is with this game there is no current content that requires you to min/max or push builds to be VIABLE as a damage class since they have built it to cater to casual players so all of the content can be seen by everyone.
You may catch some heat from people doing pugs, who cares like their opinions matter. As long as you are running with your guild and are completing the content then over all your dmg numbers are irrelevant.
If you want to compare all the builds then you have to compare apples to apples. Companions/ BiS gear/ Boons/ Rotations etc etc etc. I have never played any of the archer builds myself. I have played Trapper, SW Combat and PF Combat. Trash packs in all dungeons die in 1/4 of a rotation so it's a matter of who gets to them first.
I built my HR way different than the mainstream has. I play a lot with eliybeats and he can attest to it
Currently I have a combat tree specialist, which means archery is virtually useless, or so I thought. Which is a little annoying because a ranger has a bow, thats the whole deal right? If you want straight up melee there are other classes and if you want to AoE and control there are other classes. The defining characteristic of a ranger should be that he can shoot things up on occasion, and smash things up on other occasions. I will definitely loadout a pure archery build when available for PS4, but that hybrid playstyle...will it work?
The way I see it is that the combat ranger -currently - is the 'trashman' Nobody takes out a group of adds like a combat ranger. Most of the feats in combat tree are geared to thrashing mobs in a small AoE with 1000 cuts, and much of your damage and defence (thru deflection) scales with the number of mobs - Scything blades, battle crazed and Blade hurricane synergise very well with Clear the Ground. Against single target DPS the combat ranger is going to struggle - that when you have to shift dance around and wear the sucker down without being one-shotted. Which you can do, and it requires skill and is not boring. But you arent going to out DPS a single target in group content - better to get your DPS by clearing the adds and letting the GWF and TR take down the big guy.
But when I got my artifact set, I randomly got the '40% speed increase for aimed shot' which is kind of like a mini-longstriders, just for you, but at-will. So I played around with it and I thought, if I could get some more damage out of this, it could open up a lot of options for the 'trashman' and bring out the latent ranger in him. Still formidable at taking out the trash, but also a stick and move ranged option.
So to more experienced players than I, how viable would this be?
Get rid of Wild medicine, lucky blades and scything blades from the combat tree. Yes, I know, sychting blades is like 10% damage against a single target and an extra 5% for each add surrounding him. It really stacks up in a crowd. Buuut, if we take twin blade storm it kind of makes up for the loss of group punch that defines the trashman. At 3+ mobs he gets some of it back.
Having lost something, we gain Longshot in the archery tree. The theory is that now that a critical aimed shot actually packs a punch, particularly if you are running skirmishers gambit from the combat tree. Any kind of critical +100% plus another 100% piercing damage? OK! Then you can run around for a few seconds at +40% movement speed while your stamina regenerates for melee. Bonus points if you can get interrupting shot to critical for +100% +500% piercing.....
Thoughts?
(really nice if you are drinking a cup of coffee and two mannequin surprise you)
So devs, how about some ability to shoot on the move. Keep an aimed shot and other heavy DP encounters as stationary shots, but give us rapid shot on the run maybe, and also maybe make rapid shot more rapid with a later feat or 3rd and 4th rank of rapid?
1) - there is not a lot of interesting terrain in fights - all mobs seem to congregate in flat areas and bosses live in sports arenas
and concert halls for the most part. If there was blocking and semi blocking low terrain that you could shoot over and rough terrain that was hard to move through? It would make things a lot more interesting than the current 'dogpile the boss in the middle of the sports arena' style that we have now.
2) related to terrain - nobody can JUMP over a jam tin except the GWF. Being able to climb and jump high and/or long would literally open a whole new dimension to fights. I found it really hard to kill the prison guard in WoD until I found a ledge 'exploit' on youtube where you stand on a ledge and range him to death without getting a scratch. that would be an interesting type of tactic to explore in general on unbroken ground with running and jumping and blocking mobs IF the mobs could also negotiate the terrain which I guess is the hard part?
I think the devs have the progression addiction down to a fine art but Id like to see some new content that is different in nature to the old content - not just the same thing re-served on a different plate.
Ill play around with this 'hybrid' using AotS to see if it makes my squishy HR more survivable soloing big mofos, but Im a bit disapointed. If you want to experiment with it, Id drop battle-crazed rather than scything blades as battlecrazed takes a few seconds to stack (is it 1 sec per stack?) and then take advantage of - something you might not be able to do if you cant stand next to an opponent for long periods. Whereas scything blades is always there for you with at least 10%
FWIW, here is my take on archery and the ranger.
1) feat trees are too exponential - they restrict choice rather than encourage it....giving up high tier feats to take on lower tier feats is not worth it, so once you commit to a tree there is no viable choice except to take all the skills in that tree.
2) archery is too static. there are two main probs with archery
a)pulling unwanted agro and
b) getting smacked while casting ranged powers because you are standing still.
both of these could be solved by increasing the shot speed - hitting more often means you arent rooted to the spot so much, and you can maintain DPS without a huge hit drawing agro...which by the way surely there is some distance component to agro? the guy in your face should be drawing more agro proportionally than some guy 50 feet away. And I think there should be something that lets you shoot on the run.
like heres an idea for rapid shot - you can shoot it on the run, and the extra power points increase the movement cap while drawing, like 25/50/75/100% of your movement speed while casting it.
And aimed shot should be like aimed strike - should be able to control the drawback for damage vs speed, mainly for the reason that you can abandon a full draw if someone is getting in your face. The maximum draw could still be a mighty hit, but make spamming aimed shot at minimum draw do 2/3rds of that in terms of DPS
this is unrelated, but controlling the target reticule on the PS4 is hard for things like aimed strike and split strike - its very easy for the reticule to flick up too high and when you want to do a power, it refuses to work. I mean, if I am spamming the button to do something, chances are I want that something to happen, particularly in melee range. If there are no mobs in range, then sure, but if there are mobs in range, how about it just choose the closest one as the target, rather than 'nope sorry, your reticule is slightly off'.
Been enjoying it though. Feels nice that they fixed split the sky, it's surprisingly damn good, especially going down into combat and getting gambit and the 5% buff for throw caution.