test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
[PC] [PVE] Combat HR Guide
All of this is, obviously, completely out of date due to mod16 changes. Good luck fellow rangers.
Here's a more or less complete guide regarding the only specialization I'm familiar with : the combat HR.
I've been playing a combat HR since Mod10 (Storm King's Thunder) came out. I find it a very entertaining, easy and yet effective, class to play.
Having no knowledge of PVP, this guide will only concern PVE.
If anyone wants to catch me up in game my character's name is Corto Swift@artifleur.
Corto and Hobbes salute you.
A. What's the idea behind the combat HR?
1- Blade Hurricane
The combat capstone, Blade Hurricane, turns your otherwise weakly melee at-wills into a great source of damage. Every time you use a melee encounter, you get a short time-frame during which each hit from a melee at-will triggers two extra attacks, also called Blade Hurricane, for 150% of the original damage each. In practice, each use of a melee encounter triggers a buff called Flurry which lasts 2 seconds and enables Blade Hurricanes.
2- Melee damage buffs
Several feats of the combat skill tree buff your melee damage or give you extra boosts when dealing melee damage. Most notably, Piercing Blades triggers an extra attack every time you deal melee damage for 50% of the original damage.
3- Aspect of the Pack
The class feature Aspect of the Pack can give combat advantage to both you and your allies (players and companions) provided that you are standing close enough to each other. While soloing this can easily be achieved by picking a summoned companion which only attacks at melee range. Be wary however that it stops working while your companion is dead. In a group, this is even easier to achieve and should very rarely turn off.
4- Conclusion
The general idea therefore is to stay in melee stance at all times and follow each encounter by a few at-will attacks before using another encounter.
B. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the combat HR?
+ Extreme area of effect (AoE) damage : With the right skills and feats a combat HR can deal huge amounts of damage in a large area around him.
+ Good single target damage : Really good single target damage isn't as easy to achieve but still is perfectly possible.
+ Lots of quick attacks : This makes the combat HR very good a triggering things like lifesteal, weapon enchantments, Aura of Courage from a paladin, etc...
+ Very good at soloing : With a bit of lifesteal, solo content is a piece of cake for a combat HR even with low level equipement.
- Melee range : Melee attacks mean you want to be right in the middle of the pack most of the time and have a high risk of getting hit by your targets. The horrible HR dodge doesn't really help with avoiding incoming damage.
- Very slow movement : Despite being a melee range spec, you don't get any form of movement speed boost and will sometime spend a lot of combat time moving from one target to another.
- Not so tanky : Lifesteal works great and you can get pretty high deflection but you still stand a high chance of dying in epic content without a good DC, OP, or GF to protect you.
C. Stormwarden or Pathfinder?
Pathfinder used to be a very good choice thanks to Careful Attack but not anymore. Careful Attack was changed and now deals very little damage. Wether this change was intended or not is unclear but until the developement team decides to rework Careful Attack, Stormwarden is the one and only worthwhile paragon path for combat HR's.
Let's review the available powers. I'll only list the ones I consider meaningful.
D. At-will powers
+++ Split Strike / Split Shot : Highest damaging at-will for both single and AoE damage. Using it properly against mobs, however, requires some training. It only hits targets in front of you in a 120° arc, it requires a target and, when used, your character turns around to face that target. Another advantage of using Split Strike for both single target and AoE damage is the related weapon artifact power which gives you 10% more damage with some stamina regeneration on top.
++ Clear the Ground / Electric Shot : Awesome AoE, large area, good damage, pretty fast, very easy to use. Split Strike, however, does a lot more damage.
+ Aimed Strike / Aimed Shot : Single target damage over time (DoT). Silly long animation, if the target moves out of reach before it is struck the attack is wasted. The DoT is pretty good and each hit can trigger Blade Hurricane. It only triggers weapon enchantments once. The problem is that this isn't meant to be spammed and you only have two spots for at-wills. One possible use is to apply Aimed Strike, follow by an encounter and spam some other at-will.
- Rapid Strike / Rapid Shot : Single target, "quick" attack. The third attack deals more damage. The problem is that the animation is bugged and very often goes back to the first attack before dealing the third one. It should have been the best single target attack but Split Strike simply does more damage.
Here's a more or less complete guide regarding the only specialization I'm familiar with : the combat HR.
I've been playing a combat HR since Mod10 (Storm King's Thunder) came out. I find it a very entertaining, easy and yet effective, class to play.
Having no knowledge of PVP, this guide will only concern PVE.
If anyone wants to catch me up in game my character's name is Corto Swift@artifleur.
Corto and Hobbes salute you.
A. What's the idea behind the combat HR?
1- Blade Hurricane
The combat capstone, Blade Hurricane, turns your otherwise weakly melee at-wills into a great source of damage. Every time you use a melee encounter, you get a short time-frame during which each hit from a melee at-will triggers two extra attacks, also called Blade Hurricane, for 150% of the original damage each. In practice, each use of a melee encounter triggers a buff called Flurry which lasts 2 seconds and enables Blade Hurricanes.
2- Melee damage buffs
Several feats of the combat skill tree buff your melee damage or give you extra boosts when dealing melee damage. Most notably, Piercing Blades triggers an extra attack every time you deal melee damage for 50% of the original damage.
3- Aspect of the Pack
The class feature Aspect of the Pack can give combat advantage to both you and your allies (players and companions) provided that you are standing close enough to each other. While soloing this can easily be achieved by picking a summoned companion which only attacks at melee range. Be wary however that it stops working while your companion is dead. In a group, this is even easier to achieve and should very rarely turn off.
4- Conclusion
The general idea therefore is to stay in melee stance at all times and follow each encounter by a few at-will attacks before using another encounter.
B. What are the strengths and weaknesses of the combat HR?
+ Extreme area of effect (AoE) damage : With the right skills and feats a combat HR can deal huge amounts of damage in a large area around him.
+ Good single target damage : Really good single target damage isn't as easy to achieve but still is perfectly possible.
+ Lots of quick attacks : This makes the combat HR very good a triggering things like lifesteal, weapon enchantments, Aura of Courage from a paladin, etc...
+ Very good at soloing : With a bit of lifesteal, solo content is a piece of cake for a combat HR even with low level equipement.
- Melee range : Melee attacks mean you want to be right in the middle of the pack most of the time and have a high risk of getting hit by your targets. The horrible HR dodge doesn't really help with avoiding incoming damage.
- Very slow movement : Despite being a melee range spec, you don't get any form of movement speed boost and will sometime spend a lot of combat time moving from one target to another.
- Not so tanky : Lifesteal works great and you can get pretty high deflection but you still stand a high chance of dying in epic content without a good DC, OP, or GF to protect you.
C. Stormwarden or Pathfinder?
Pathfinder used to be a very good choice thanks to Careful Attack but not anymore. Careful Attack was changed and now deals very little damage. Wether this change was intended or not is unclear but until the developement team decides to rework Careful Attack, Stormwarden is the one and only worthwhile paragon path for combat HR's.
Let's review the available powers. I'll only list the ones I consider meaningful.
D. At-will powers
+++ Split Strike / Split Shot : Highest damaging at-will for both single and AoE damage. Using it properly against mobs, however, requires some training. It only hits targets in front of you in a 120° arc, it requires a target and, when used, your character turns around to face that target. Another advantage of using Split Strike for both single target and AoE damage is the related weapon artifact power which gives you 10% more damage with some stamina regeneration on top.
++ Clear the Ground / Electric Shot : Awesome AoE, large area, good damage, pretty fast, very easy to use. Split Strike, however, does a lot more damage.
+ Aimed Strike / Aimed Shot : Single target damage over time (DoT). Silly long animation, if the target moves out of reach before it is struck the attack is wasted. The DoT is pretty good and each hit can trigger Blade Hurricane. It only triggers weapon enchantments once. The problem is that this isn't meant to be spammed and you only have two spots for at-wills. One possible use is to apply Aimed Strike, follow by an encounter and spam some other at-will.
- Rapid Strike / Rapid Shot : Single target, "quick" attack. The third attack deals more damage. The problem is that the animation is bugged and very often goes back to the first attack before dealing the third one. It should have been the best single target attack but Split Strike simply does more damage.
Post edited by artifleur on
5
Comments
+++ Plant Growth / Cordon of Arrows : Large AoE DoT. Despite the long cooldown this is the best HR attack for both single and group damage. Its damage (including critical) is calculated once and for all at the time of its activation so timing it properly while short-lived buffs and debuffs are running can make a difference. Cordon of Arrows can be somewhat useful while waiting for monsters to spawn at a specific location but it isn't to be used in the middle of a fight.
+++ Gushing Wound / Longstrider's Shot : Single target DoT, very long animation, very good damage. Allies hitting the target make the DoT tick faster, which means that in a group you can actually spam it as fast as you can without wasting any tick. The very long animation means that against weak mobs they'll all be dead before it can even activate. Longstrider's Shot gives +40% damage and +60% movement speed buff for 4 seconds to everyone in a very large zone around you provided that the target is far enough from you. Very useful for rushing into a fight. You can't really use it a lot, however, since you want to stay in melee range as much as possible.
+++ Throw Caution / Split the Sky : Throw Caution at rank 4, with Warden's Courage at rank 5, gives you +20% damage and -5% damage resistance for 10 seconds. 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. Split the Sky can also be effective against Tiamat's heads, and probably also in other large group encounters, but it would be better used on an archery build.
++ Thorn Strike / Thorn Ward : Lowest cooldown of all your encounters which means more blade hurricanes. Its damage is pretty good, specially on targets with low health, and it even is a small AoE. Last but not the least, it's coding is awesome and the complete opposite of split strike and throw caution's horrible coding :
- if you don't 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
Thorn Ward puts a 2% Damage Resistance debuff on its target which can stack up to 10 times. This can make a difference against bosses, specially if your team doesn't already have a lot of DR debuffs.
+ Steel Breeze / Constricting Arrow : AoE attack, very large zone, mediocre damage, very fast animation. If you are leveling your HR and struggle at surviving solo fights I suggest you replace Throw caution with this one.
+ Marauder's Rush / Marauder's Escape : Very long range (83 feet!) teleport attack with a reasonably short cooldown. However, the damage done is very small and if you already were in melee range it basically doesn't do anything special. I'd love this skill to be viable but, as it stands, you have to sacrifice way too much damage to use it.
F. Daily Actions
HR daily actions are rather weak or even bad compared to what other classes get so even the best ones only really have optional or situational use.
++ Forest Ghost : For a few seconds, you become invisible, move faster and repeatedly hit all targets around you. The damage is mediocre but it counts as melee damage. I find it useful for jumping into mobs in epic dungeons and not getting killed instantly by all enemies attacking at once.
+ Disruptive Shot : Single target attack with very low damage but a short-lived daze (prevents the use of powers other than at-wills and interrupts any charging power). Can be somewhat useful for countering charged attacks, provided that the target isn't immune to control effects.
G. Class Features
+++ Aspect of the Pack : As stated above, a great boost for your whole team. The artifact off-hand bonus also gives you up to 8% extra damage as long as enough players are around you.
+++ Seeker's Vengeance : Increases your damage by 19% when striking a foe not facing you. Works on both sides and back despite the tooltip.
+++ Blade Storm : MOD15 made it a lot better. Definitely the way to go for mobs, when Seeker's Vengeance can't be used (e.g. the atropal) or if you can't be bothered with changing you class features all the time.
++ Aspect of the Lone Wolf : Gives a huge boost to deflection chance. If you struggle at surviving, this can make a difference.
+ Twin Blade Storm : A small damage boost which only works against mobs.
H. Feats
Comments:
Predatory Action : This isn't great at all but the other options aren't great either. You could put 3 points in Agile Combatant and repeatedly press tab during combat to keep the buff up but you risk messing your lifesteal, deflect and crit chances by doing so.
Serpent Weave : This looks good at first sight but 0.5s is next to nothing and dodging aimlessly to reduce your cooldowns is a bad idea. Keep your dodge for avoiding attacks and use your at-wills if everything else is on cooldown.
Wilds Medicine : You don't need this, lifesteal is a lot better and doesn't cost feat points.
I. Loadouts
1- Stormwarden for beginners
Clear the Ground / Electric Shot
Split Strike / Split Shot
Plant Growth / Cordon of Arrows
Thorn Strike / Thorn Ward
Steel Breeze / Constricting Arrow
Forest Ghost
Disruptive Shot
Aspect of the Pack
Aspect of the Lone Wolf
Forest Ghost for rushing in --> Thorn Strike for setting your buffs ---> Plant Growth ---> Steel Breeze
Add 3 at-wills (Clear the Ground for spreaded mobs, Split Strike for single targets or nicely packed mobs) between each encounter, less if you have to move/dodge/...
Using Split Strike properly takes some practice. Against mobs, try and move to side of the group. If adds are going to join make sure that you will be facing them.
Aspect of the Lone Wolf should help surviving solo content with a poorly geared HR.
Once you feel confident enough you can replace Steel Breeze by Throw Caution and later Aspect of the Lone Wolf by Seeker's Vengeance for even more damage.
2- Stormwarden for group content
Clear the Ground / Electric Shot
Split Strike / Split Shot
Plant Growth / Cordon of Arrows
Gushing Wound / Longstrider's Shot
Throw Caution / Split the Sky
Forest Ghost
Disruptive Shot
Aspect of the Pack
Seeker's Vengeance
Now is the time to learn how to use Gushing Wound. Due its long animation you have to guess whether the target is going to live long enough for :
- the animation to complete
- the DoT to deal enough damage for it to be worthwhile
Keep in mind that allies hitting that target will make the DoT tick faster.
Use Longstrider's Shot after Forest Ghost but before rushing in for some extra speed.
Against bosses, make sure you always are in their back or on their flank for Seeker's Vengeance to work.
1 - Dexterity : This is your most important attribute, giving raw damage as well as some deflection chance.
2 - Charisma : Best second choice if you can reach 100% crit chance without raising Wisdom, gives 1% combat advantage damage per point.
3 - Wisdom : Good choice if you don't have enough Critical Strike, gives 1% crit chance (same as 400 Critical Strike) for each point.
4 - Intelligence : Sub-par choice, gives 1% recharge time, which is the same as 200 recovery except that recovery also gives AP gain.
5 - Strength : Sub-par choice, only gives 1% resistance ignored (same as roughly 100 armor penetration) per point.
K. Race
1- Races with +2 DEX and +2 CHA : Dragonborn, Halfling, Drow,
2- Human : +2 DEX and +3 heroic points which means you can put one more point in Scoundrel Training giving you 3% extra damage from at-wills on foes not targeting you which isn't bad at all.
3- Races with +2 DEX only : Wood Elf (+2 WIS), Half-Orc (+2 STR), Sun/Moon Elf (+2 INT)
The effect of race is minimal and I'd definitely recommend picking a race based on its appearance and/or lore rather than its perks.
Best roll probably is (18-13-13-10-10-8) since dexterity gives a damage bonus which is multiplicative with other damage boosts. Rolling (16-16-12-10-10-10) gives more useful attribute points overall but you can get critical chance elsewhere.
L. Stats allocation
As opposed to the other two HR specs which can largely disregard Recovery, the combat HR can actually make good use of it and will, in my opinion, need a fair amount to be effective.
This is controversial, some people prefering to rely on other classes, such as a paladin or an AC/DC, to reset their encounters faster.
I'd recommend 4k Recovery as a bare minimum and 8k as a reasonable goal.
Armor Penetration :
- While leveling, 40% Resistance Ignored should be plenty enough
- Epic dungeons up to Master Spellplague Caverns require up to 60% Resistance Ignored
- Chult and Omu Dungeons require 85% Resistance Ignored
- Castle Ravenloft requires 100% Resistance Ignored
As much Critical Strike as you can. In the end, reaching 100% crit chance isn't too hard.
For defense, go for Lifesteal. Lifesteal is love. It starts being really effective around 15-20% chance. People say it's better not to go over 25% but I'd rather suggest 30%.
Once you have enough lifesteal get more HP. HP is more effective than defense and deflection but also increases the damage done by paladins' Aura of Courage. If you see a paladin not using Aura of Courage, yell at them!
M. Gear
1- Armor
Here's what I consider the best options. If you're still leveling, you can of course use any other armor as long as it gives offensive stats only (critical strike, power, armor pen, recovery) and lets you balance your stats properly.
Chest
+++ Fured Kiuno of the Bear (Polaris in Omu): 3% more damage, easy to get, what's more to ask?
- Executioner's Black Attire (Mysterious Merchant) : The extra effect looks great on paper but it doesn't do what it says. Instead of boosting your damage it adds an extra attack which only works with powers (at-will, encounter, daily). It doesn't count things like Piercing Blades or Blade Hurricane. In practice, the damage it does is insignificant (less than 1% extra damage).
Head
+++ Woodlord's Hood (Seal of the Crown Store) : The bonus is great and the stats are good, best option so far.
++ Rex Corona (King of Spines in Soshenstar) : Not specially great, and very hard to get.
++ Primal Hood (Seal of the brave Store) : A passable option if you can't get Seals of the Crown yet.
+ Guise of the Wolf Clan(Mysterious Merchant) : A mediocre choice in my opinion. 2000 power is great but the base stats aren't good at all and you basically don't get anything when you aren't in a team.
Arms
+++ Fearbrings (Rasalas in Omu) : 3% more damage from at-wills and encounters, 30% less damage from daily actions. Basically 3% more damage for us.
++ Primal Bracers (Seal of the brave Store) : The extra power is pretty good
Feet
+++ Heels of Fury (Sister of Fury in Barovia) : Another 3% more damage for you.
++ Boots of the Willed (Tyrant in Omu) : Very hard to get but 3% more damage from at-wills is nice.
++ Enduring Boots (Makos' Shop in Omu) : Very hard, or at least annoying, to get as well but another interesting choice.
++ Bonespurs (Spli-Ti in Soshenstar River) : The extra effect gives a lot of Armor Penetration and the best thing about it is that when you can't get the stacks, you propably don't need them anyway. They also are fairly easy to get.
2- Cloak and belt : 2 options
1- Demon Set (Demogorgon's Girdle, Baphomet's Talisman and Shard of Orcus's Wand)
2- Greater Belt of Dexterity + Company Cloak (Guild Marks)
There two company cloaks : Duelist (DEX / WIS) and Executioner (DEX / CHA). Duelist is better if you don't have 100% crit chance yet but ultimately you'll want to change for Executioner.
Beware of scammers selling the Belt of Dexterity (not Greater) which is an old level 60 item.
Based on other people's feedback, both options seem to be equally effective. If you already have a demon set keep it but otherwise go for the second option which is a lot cheaper and doesn't require the use of a sub-par artifact.
3- Weapons :
Melee powers are only affected by your off-hand damage so always upgrade your off-hand first if you can't yet upgrade both to the max.
Primal weapons are great, the buff doesn't work with lifesteal but you can still easily keep it running in group contents by being healed and when soloing by taking damage.
Masterwork III (Obsidian / Bronzewood) weapons are now the best possible choice but incredibly expensive. Masterwork II (Titansteel / Brightsilver) are somewhat better than Primal but not worth the expense.
4- Offense Enchantments :
Gigantic : Best choice if you can reach 100% crit with them
Azure : If you can't
I also use a few Black Ice enchantments because I already have too much Armor Penetration.
5- Defense Enchantments :
Savage (character) / Ruthless (companion) : If you can afford the lost Lifesteal
Dark : Otherwise
6- Weapon Enchantments :
+++ Feytouched : Best choice but only if transcendent quality or higher.
++ Vorpal : If you can't afford Feytouched this is a solid choice at any quality. Dread isn't an option for combat HR's since it only works with encounters and a good part of our damage comes from at-wills. The best thing about Vorpal is that you can stop refining it at perfect quality without losing much.
+ Lightning : Against large groups the damage done by the lightning arcs, combined with our fast attack speed, can be quite good but the best part is the cooldown reduction. At transcendent quality and above, you also get a rather small extra attack against single targets with no adds around.
7- Armor Enchantments :
Doesn't really matter. I like the new eclipse enchantment, but lesser soulforged also is a solid choice.
8- Primary Artifact :
+++ Soul Sight Crystal : Definitely the best choice. It actually gives 50% more damage for 10 seconds against the target you picked (the boss of course). Set "Visual fx quality" to "low" to remove the green screen visual effect.
9- Secondary Artifacts :
Most artifacts have 2 main stats (for 1000 points each) which can be any of the regular stats (power, crit, armor pen etc...) and one secondary stat (600 points) which is one the special stats (control resist/bonus, incoming healing, etc...) among which only combat advantage bonus can actually contribute to your damage. Some of the newest artifacts do not respect this trend.
1- Fragmented Key of Stars : This is the only artifact with 2 useful main stats and crit chance as its secondary stats. It is however pretty expensive / hard to get.
2- Artifacts with 2 useful main stats and combat advantage bonus : Lantern of Revelation, Heart of the Blue Dragon, Kessel's Spheres, Black Ice Beholder
Summoned Companion
To make good use of your Aspect of the Pack while soloing you want a companion which attacks in melee range so that they stay close enough from you as much as possible.
Do not use any defender companion. Most defender companions have an undocumented hard taunt skill which steals aggro regardless of threat level. When in a group with a tank this can have all kinds of annoying consequences. On top of that, defender is the only companion class which doesn't get a innate multiplier to power.
Good candidates are :
- Chultan Tiger : The one pet to rule them all and in the darkness bind them. Applies the same debuff as the sword trio (10% damage resistance debuff) with each attack, thanks to you giving him combat advantage. 3 offensive rune and 2 ring slots and pretty good active bonus on top (5% damage and run speed for 25s on entering combat).
- The sword trio (Sellsword / Con Artist / Rebel Mercenary) : three almost identical companions with weak active boni but a great debuffing skill (consumed by battle : -10% damage resistance)
- Vicious Dire Wolf (my favorite) : active bonus gives a 5% chance to interupt to all attacks and the wolf can also knockdown its target provided that they have combat advantage (which they have thanks to your aspect of the pack)
- Shadow Demon : massive damage compared to all other pets, not very useful bonus, can teleport behind some bosses and fall into a void/water/precipice dying for good (ex: dragon turtle boss in FBI)
- Boar : pretty good damage, its charge attack happens to be its main attack with a cooldown of 1s which means he stays right in the middle of the pack most of time if not always, decent active bonus
- any other melee companion with a good active bonus (Air Archon etc...)
Active Companions
- Razorwood : 25% Combat Advantage Damage and 2.5% Critical Severity. That's a lot better than any other companion.
- Earth, Air and Fire Archons : Air can be active all the time and gives 5% + 0.5% per other archon more damage, with enough lifesteal Earth should also be active constantly (it's hard to say how often in practice to be honest) and gives 6% + 0.5%, Fire archon should be active roughly half of the time (maybe less) and gives 7%+0.5%
- Siege Master : 4% more damage
- Erinyes of Belial / Cambion Magus : 10% Critical Severity, these are also nice but don't be lured by the large figure, the thing is you already have a lot of crit severity so the actual effect on your damage will be a lot smaller :
Your base crit severity is 75%, you get 50% from skimisher's gambit, when you have combat advantage (always) your combat advantage bonus is added to your crit severity, base value 15%, 2100 combat advantage stat gives 10%. With only this you already have 150% crit severity.
The impact of an Erinyes / Magus on your damage will be :
10 / 250 = 4% more damage
With a perfect vorpal enchantment (50% crit severity), it becomes :
10 / 300 = 3.33% more damage
In truth you should easily get even more crit severity. At the moment I have 168% (not counting vorpal).
Side note : The underdark boon Drow Ambush Tactics doesn't give 10% combat advantage bonus but increases it by 10%. So if you have 30% CA bonus, it gives an extra 3%.
- Wild Hunt Rider : occasional 10% damage buff, I've never used one so I can't say how good it can be, some people seem to like it
- Blink Dog / Intellect Devourer / Staldorf : 5% combat advantage damage, once your critical chance gets high enough this is just critical severity which is pretty bad compared to the ones above
- Death Slaad : our heavy use of at-wills works well with his active bonus but the damage done is very small, less than 1% total damage
Upgrading pets is expensive, do not upgrade some mediocre one because you can't afford a good one, save some AD and get a good one instead.
O. Insignias
- Gladiator's Guile : lovely speed buff, shifting once doesnt remove it
- Wanderer's Fortune : lots of RP for you, yummy, you don't even have to pick it up
- Protector's Camaraderie : lots of power coming your way
- Protector's Friendship : gives more than another Camaraderie
- Artificer's Persuasion : using your artifact gives you a mountain of recovery, movement, action point gain and stamina gain, it's pretty good even if only for the recovery
P. Thanks
- Sume ( @kikopop ) for being the first one (to the best of my knowledge) to make a guide showing you could get good results with a combat HR.
- @thefabricant, @michela123, @rjc9000 for all the knowledge and the dungeon runs.
- My guild, Imperium.
- @jonkoca, @dragonsbane3 and others for the feedback and support.
- You for reading this. I hope it helps.
Also that weapon enchant wise, vorpal, or feytouched, are your best choices.
If you have decent lifesteal, and 120k plus HP, I think you can lose aspect of the lone wolf, and slot something else, not that there is much to choose from, I've ended up using aspect of the falcon, for longer range/damage on longstriders, but if they ever fix seekers vengeance, that will be the best second choice by a couple of miles.
Don't forget mod12 pushes arpen requirements up to 85%, and that stacking crit on your pet, boons and rings will push your critchance into the high 90s for short periods of time.
Do you know what the problem is with Seeker's Vengeance. From my testing it doesn't work with melee attacks but seems to work with ranged attacks. Is the bug more specific? If it worked it would indeed be a lot better than Lone Wolf.
85%? I didn't know it would be that high. I'll still wait till mod12 comes out and we get some concrete results before changing the guide.
Something I am trying at the moment is using demonic enchants in Defense slots. That gives HP, Lifesteal and Deflect. Too busy with Summer event at the moment to run much else to test them.
And yeah, what to stack in defence slots, especially on a pet, is a toughie. Defence is pretty useless, because mobs usually have enough arpen to negate whatever you have, deflect is too easy to get from feats and lonewolf, lifesteal I get from my guilds SH boon... so I just stack HP on myself and whatever spare enchants I have on my pet. Azures at the moment, might switch back to silvery again maybe. Whatever feeds assassin's covenant I guess.
More HR coding madness, although careful attack is somehow coded as a ranged attack, it doesn't consume ranged stacks of serpents buff, however, it is buffed by aspect of the falcon, as I discovered in testing today. Not all that great for combat, as we stay almost at zero range, but might be amazing news for archery path. Especially since seekers vengeance does work for ranged.
Imagine a pathfinder archer, at extreme range, with seekers, falcon and scoundrel training all buffing careful attack... Not to mention the archery damage buffs, l ongstriders etc.
Lol, I think I'm gonna make an archer load out.
Althought it could be hard to do with some powers, its actually pretty easy on thorn strike.
nice point about Wilds medicine which I loved a while ago, but now I have at least 10% lifesteal, endless consumption and Champions return, it probably IS redundant. didnt even think about that. CtG (and electric shot) is great for low risk lifesteal. rapid fire AoE roolz for lifesteal!
WAIT, I have AotP at 4. Is it STILL broken? Actually Im on PS4, so who knows if that is even relevant. How would I find out? The PS4 log is hard to get anything out of
Q) whats this about aimed strike procing blade hurricane? I think thats wrong. I like aimedstrike when my encoutners are cooling because even though the animation is so long (you could do 3 swings of CtG instead), the total DoT ends up being worth about 6 swings of CtG. Depends on how much damage your are taking because of lifesteal I guess as to which is better in any sitch. Although now that I think about it, if you have Aimedstrike is there any situation where spamming Aimedshot from point blank wouldnt be better DPS? Probaly only if you have 2 seconds left to cool, then a single aimed strike is going to be your best use of that time.
I would like to see some discussion of combat powers and insignias which noob players like me are likely to overlook. I couldnt afford Camaeraderie which apparently is quite good, but I like Gladiators Guile for a combat HR quite a bit as the movement speed is welcome, as is the stamina when you are tapping out. Champions return is also useful. Magistrates Patience seems like it could be a worthwhile bit of damage against big targets - does it keep stacking?
I wish I had actively pursued mount powers and insignia bonuses much earlier as they are relatively easy to get and better than most boons.
While I can't say for sure, AotP rank 4 is probably bugged on PS4 too.
Aimed Strike definitely works with Blade Hurricane. It's very easy to test even without a log file. Use Aimed Strike on a dummy and watch how many hits you get. Then use it again followed by a non-damaging encounter (like Stag Heart) and watch the additional hits on your screen.
My guide is still missing a few parts including insignias. I'll try and add them soon.
nice guide, i learned few new things, thaks
Your guide prompted me to write the noob/lazy/poor mans HR guide. I will post it tomorrow
At any rate, BladeStorm procs for each target in a swing, so its damage will increase the more targets you are hitting with a swing. Something like Orcus minions in the narrow corridor, where you can CtG against 6 targets at once, its going to proc 3 times a swing.
In that respect, it HAMSTER all over Twin blade storm that gives you nothing until there are 3 targets, and then a flat rate.
* I did wonder if BladeStorm procs yet again on LostMauth set hits. Nope, looks like it gets added to the Piercing blade hit. I DID find out that equipping my weapon enchant BROKE LostMauths vengeance AND magistrates patience, though, LOLOLL. If I had, like, 30K power I wouldnt mind, but for my 10KP toon, LostMauth and Magistrates Patience combine for about 30% of my critical hit damage using CtG. That is way better than what Im getting from a normal flaming enchant, even though I apporach only 50% crit. Gotta get tht crit higher....
I recently started to get used to Split Strike and I now play as Pathfinder at all times. Updated the guide to reflect this.
Also added a few bits of information.
It is, however, still missing comments regarding companions and insignias.
On the one hand they fixed flurry to actually start at the end of all encounter's animation. So you can get more blade hurricanes from each encounter.
On the other hand they reduced blade hurricane's damage from 165% to 150%.
In any case, the bonding runestones nerf is gonna have a much bigger negative effect on everyone.
On the bright side, mod12b will also fix both aspect of the pack at rank 4 and seeker's vengeance working with melee damage which should be a nice boost for combat HR's.
I also heard that Feytouched is fixed with HR powers. If it is I think we can switch to Feytouched and ditch Vorpal.
Despite the bonding horror, I'm kinda looking forward to mod 12b.
I wonder if these changes mean that Combat will acutally be buffed when eveyone are nerfed with bommdings changes. And I guess that this change means that we will see Combat being the better path than Trapper.
PS: So is Feytouched working ok with our powers on preview?
Yes it kinda does until people start getting rnk 14s. And combat is already the best choice right now.
Nope fey is still broke with any of our powers that spawn a separate entity like TW, Roa, etc.
I'm honestly thrilled that they fixed AotP and SV, totally fine with the Hurricane change. I'm pretty okay with the Bonding changes, and mostly love the new refinement system. I wish the top Enchanting Stones were easier to obtain for R14 purposes, but I understand why they're doing what they're doing.
I would love to be looking forward to the random queue and patron tokens, but with their current implementations, I'm not. With some small changes, I'd be very happy.
RQ is going to further encourage level 70 players to run boring low level dungeons, and is going to reduce queue-based-AD gain for new level 70 characters until they unlock FBI and MSP, which is a minimum of a month after they hit 70 (and probably substantially more unless they're a well-funded alt).
Patron tokens currently look to cost 2-3 weeks worth of daily/weekly quests to obtain on your main, in order to save 50% of the campaign on your alt. For the campaigns whose weeklies grant rAD, we may have those currencies sitting around on our mains already, but Sharandar/Maze Engine/Dread Ring are already pretty quick. 3 weeks of grinding on SKT on my main to save 5 weeks of SKT on an alt isn't half off, it's 20% off.
Beyond that, I mostly enjoy or at least understand all of the changes, though I also have some economic concerns:
Marauder's Rush is a lot better than before but its damage as bad as ever and its cooldown still is far too long compared to thorn strike.
Rain of swords still is horrible. My lightning enchant does more damage than this.