Question on Combat HR Playstyle

jaolez

Hi all

Apologies for a very basic question. I've been away from the game and now returned (used to play a cleric). Decided to try HR (enjoying it so far) - after reading a few guides relevant to Mod 11, decided to try the combat tree. Am finding it all good, but it leaves me a bit confused re: playstyle (probably as I'm influenced by perceptions of how a hunter generally plays in these types of games)

Guessing I should be using blades 90% of the time with the bow just to pull/take out range trash mobs? Part of me worries this will just make my toon a second rate TR? Again, that perception may be because I'm focussing on the wider MMO Hunter model, and feel I should be using the bow more.

That said, I enjoy the combat HR playstyle. I don't group often and mainly PVE, but if I do group, what role do I play as a Combat HR? Obviously that's assuming I ever get a group I realise that gone are the days of instant group acceptance as DC!

Any help much appreciated!
J

jonkoca

Combat is fairly straightforward. Plantgrowth, longstriders and thornward are the usual encounters, for pf builds anyway. Splitstrike (feated mainhand) and careful attack at wills. Class features, aspect of the pack (at 3, not 4 - 4 is bugged) is a must, and feat it on offhand, 2nd choice is up to you, I use serpents, but not sure I get very much out of it.

Take gambit for an extra 50% critsev, stack crit until you are regularly approaching 90% and up when buffed by pet, weapon enchant, hmm, I use T.fey, because it's good in both pvp and pve, but there are other choices just as good imo.

Top damage comes from piercing blades, gushing wound, and flurry capstone, with plantgrowth up there to. Careful attack also supplies a huge damage boost in place like tiamat and svardbarg etc. Big bosses and lots of ppl hitting them.

My usual rotation is melee encounter, atwill,atwill, melee encounter atwill,atwill. Rinse and repeat. When all melee encounters are on CD, dash out, longstrider buff, thornward, back in. Keep careful attack up at all times, unless it's trash mobs who die quick.

Make sure you have enough hitpoints to avoid being one shot, and enough lifesteal to survive. Job done.

nirafelos

SW Combat is every bit as simple as PF Combat -- it trades away Careful Attack, Slasher's Mark, and the lowest Cooldown encounter power for a 20% dmg buff with 100% uptime. And then, because it has no real ranged abilities, it trades Aspect of the Serpent for Blade Storm, which is great for AoE and rarely less than 5% of my damage even on single targets.

AoE Rotation:
1) Longstrider on the approach
2) Plant Growth before LSS dmg buff expires
3) 3-4 At-Wills. Split Strike deals substantially more damage than Clear the Ground, so CtG (while way more satisfying to use) is only worth using if it increases the number of targets you hit. Both At-Wills have a maximum of 5 targets.
4) Apply Throw Caution
5) Repeat 3. Mobs should be dead after that, but if not, destroy the last survivor with Gushing Wounds.

Single Target rotation:
1) Longstrider on the approach
2) Gushing Wounds before LSS dmg buff expires
3) Split Strike x 3-4 (this varies with duration of fight, your recovery, and whether you have a cleric or paladin increasing your recovery rate. In large parties with lots of Paladins proccing Flash of Light, you may legitimately be able to spam Gushing Wound every 2s)
4) Apply Throw Caution
5) Repeat 3
6) Plant Growth
7) Repeat steps 2-7

Except for some very specific situations, Cordon and Split the Sky are not worth using.

Those specific situations are (very nearly an exclusive list):
• If you have to wait for mobs to spawn and know where they will spawn, and don't currently have anything else to attack, you can pre-cast Cordons first and if you still have time StS.
• StS is hilariously effective in some of the same places Careful Attack is hilariously effective, but causes way less lag. On Tiamat's heads, for example, every time she face bashes the raid she gets zapped 25 times. Each zap is pretty pitiful, but 25 of them can easily add up to 1M+ dmg every few seconds, which is worth its really stupid cast time.

Both PF and SW are wonderful for Combat. I tend to believe that you'll perform better with the one you like more, so try both. With loadouts, you can even keep both if you wish. Many people find that SW performs better for AoE content and PF better for ST content.

durugudesu

*currently 22 JUN 2017* casting cordon before mobs spawn does not trigger cordon, sadly. unless you cast cordon on where a target is, it will just stay there as a decoration until it expires.

stefoid

jaolez#7794 said:

Hi all

Guessing I should be using blades 90% of the time with the bow just to pull/take out range trash mobs? Part of me worries this will just make my toon a second rate TR? Again, that perception may be because I'm focussing on the wider MMO Hunter model, and feel I should be using the bow more.

That said, I enjoy the combat HR playstyle. I don't group often and mainly PVE, but if I do group, what role do I play as a Combat HR? Obviously that's assuming I ever get a group I realise that gone are the days of instant group acceptance as DC!

Havent played a rogue, but I think for a combat ranger you are correct. Not much shooting going on except as it relates to melee-interaction. So if what attracted you to playing a ranger was the range/melee mix, then its not going to live up to that.

The combat tree mostly seems geared towards trash mobs in groups. You can outperform in that area. Against a single target, not so much on the combat tree. For example in Validras Tower I can easily compete with much higher geared allies until the boss fight, but then the high gear GF will take over and sneak ahead. But I am weird, I fight with Clear the Ground and Aimed Strike as my at wills.

When I get around to loadouts, Ill make an archery/path finder build for single bosses and swap split strike for my combat version probably. All the plant stuff seems silly to me, so I dont use it :-P

artifleur

Second rate TR? not quite. TR's have low AoE and pretty good single target damage. The combat HR is the grandmaster of AoE damage and can deal decent single target damage with a bit of work.

I play as stormwarden most of the time because :
1 - Throw caution gives a very nice boost which you can easily keep running all the time
2 - Clear the Ground is in my opinion far superior to split strike. Yes, split strike deals more damage but it is extremely annoying to use : it only hits target in front of you in a very short range, it requires a target and when used your character turns around to face that target, so in the end unless all mobs are nicely packed together (which rarely happens) you will rarely hit more than one target with it. Try going to a cluster of dummies, in dread ring for example, and hitting more than one with split strike, it's impossible. CtG on the other hand has a much longer range, doesnt need a target and you can also move a little between hits while spamming it. So much easier to use and in the end so much more effective.

For encounters I use :

- Thorn Strike : lowest cooldown which means more blade hurricanes, decent damage, it even is a small AoE, and last but not the least it's coding is awesome and the complete opposite of split strike and throw caution's hrrible coding :
- if you dont have a target it fires in front of you
- if there is a target near (you don't even have to be targeting it) your character turns to face that target
- if the target moves around you while your character is preparing his attack you'll still turn to face it at the very instant the attack fires off meaning it is practically impossible to miss a target with it unless they move too far away from you
- if the target actually moves too far, the attack will still activate rather than failing and telling you "target is out of range" like most other skills which means you can still follow with at-wills for blade hurricanes instead of having to use the encounter again

- Throw Caution : Very nice buff you can keep up all the time. The coding however is horrible : you need a target right in the middle of your screen, if the target is moving, which happens a lot, it is very likely to fail, the damage done by the attack itself is incredibly weak.

- Plant Growth : Despite the long cooldown this is the best HR attack for both single and group damage

Other encounters :

- Gushing wound / Longstrider : I used it for a long time, the Longstrider buff is awesome but you can't really use it a lot since you want to stay in melee range as much as possible, gushing wound has a very long animation which means that against trash mobs they'll all be dead before it can activate. Gushing Wound however can be very nice for boss fights in a group (more people hitting the boss makes it tick faster) with people reseting your cooldowns (DC, OP, GF)

- Steel Breeze : I also used it for a long time. If you are leveling your HR and struggle at surviving solo fights I suggest you replace Throw caution with it till you are strong enough to make good use of the buff and can overcome the loss of damage resistance

At-wills :
- for groups : clear the ground
- for single target : The choice is a lot harder. Rapid strike looks great on paper but it is bugged and isn't really fast despite its name. Split Strike probably does more damage though I didn't make any concrete testing. Aimed Strike has a very long animation and weak damage. I went back to using rapid strike because more hits over time means more triggers of my lightning weapon enchantment but it may not be the best choice.

Class features :
1 - Aspect of the pack : best choice no doubt.
2 - Hard to choose : Blade Storm and Twin-Blade Storm can both give a decent damage boost but only when fighting groups of mobs and AoE damage already is your main strength. I prefer Aspect of the Lone Wolf because, even though defense isn't a priority, 22% deflection chance is a lot (same as 8800 deflection or 44 dexterity)

Dailies :
- Forest Ghost : very useful for jumping into packs of mobs in epic dungeons (invisibility) and not getting killed instantly by all mobs attacking at once, also is the only daily attack that counts as melee (for peircing blades and all other melee damage buffs)
- Disruptive Shot : useful for countering charged attacks, provided that the target isn't immune to control effects

Pathfinder :
I do switch to a pathfinder loadout in large group content (Demorgorgon, Tiamat, Svardborg) for Careful Attack which is totally crazy with enough people hitting the target.

Damage :
In general, my damage roughly comes from : Blade Hurricane 20%, Piercing Blade 20%, Plant Growth 15%, CtG/RS 15%, Lightning Arc 10%...

Hope it helps.

disposablehero

Learn how to cancel your animations, OP. The key is shifting, and sometimes you need to practice timing but that's what a dummy is for. Gushing Wound and Cordon of Arrows are good to practice with, you can shave a few seconds each time you use either of them and when you get good at timing your shifting, being frozen in place during power animations will no longer be an issue.

You can also proc Flurry on a very frequent basis with Gushing Wound by shifting just after your character leans back to do their lunge. You'll shift and Flurry procs, but your power isn't used, and once you make your at will attack you can proc it again immediately. Have fun shanking stuff, bro. o/

stefoid

Aimed strike does good damage. The bleed is heavier than the initial strike and you get 8 ticks.

drackonaut

If you want a more traditional HR playstyle but still want to be a decent dps I would try Trapper build.