Solving the Archery Dilemma - PVE Close Range Archery-Combat Hybrid Build

pitshade

All three bosses in Castle Ravenloft have 100% DR, and probably hunt mobs do as well if you play the Donjon card.

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 Just preparation for Mod 14 final boss. Can't wait for Barovia! All done with Omu and just doing hunts and summer fest mostly.

Ah I see

I do the same and put my Arm Pen where it should be before a Mod drops... I usually do it a day or 2 before though lol so your numbers threw me a little

Anyhoo I am not saying your Build is poo or anything, I always try things out for myself. I just did and for me it runs a little slow as I am so used to Trapper PvE or Archer PvP. But I only have 5k Recovery so I will add some more and test a bit again. I already have 8 Loadouts all fully working so may as well add another and tweak it

typo

@wdj40 I'm working on a 2nd edition of the build and will be adding a little more emphasis to bottomless quiver. I do already note that as an option if recovery is an issue, but I think I will be flipping the green highlight onto Bottomless Quiver (for majority of people) and Yellow onto Rising Focus (for those who have off the charts recovery). As far as armpen, I probably could get away with just 90%, or even 85%. It wasn't much effort to bump it up that extra bit though.

About power again, I will just add that any player who doesn't have the Crit for Skirmisher's Gambit could actually consider a Power build vs. a Crit build, especially if they take Lucky Blades. Crit is nice, but a Power focus can be effective as a kind of brut force approach.

wdj40

This whole Skirmishers Gambit thing really does depend on how much Crit Severity + Combat Advantage you already have... as they fall under the same calculation.

If you are at 150% combined CS+CA then 50% extra severity would net you 20% DPS increase (assuming you are at 100% Crit Chance). If you are sat at 200% combined CS+CA then its 16.7% extra DPS. Basically the more combined CS+CA you have the less overall DPS you will get by adding another 50% Crit Severity.

I for instance am at 159% Crit Severity which is 84% + Dread's 75%... I dont even know how much Combat Advantage I have but combined would probably push on at 200% or maybe more.

At that level of CS+CA adding another 50% Crit Severity is roughly the same as Lucky Blades 15% extra damage anyway lol. Skirmishers Gambit is better taken if you have lower levels of CS+CA combined.

typo

@wdj40 I generally recommend absolutely no more than 180% combined Crit Sev + CA. Really, 160% is a good stopping point. Mine at 140%-ish (not logged in and so not sure exactly) could be bumped up a little, but really this is pretty good as is. Since I run FeyTouch, I'm not going over the limit. But if someone were running Dread or Vorpal, then they would just need to watch this carefully and some points into Lucky Blades might be a good choice in that situation.

patcherrkm

anyone that thinks dread is a good enchantment on a combat hr should uninstall...

wdj40

patcherrkm said:

anyone that thinks dread is a good enchantment on a combat hr should uninstall...

You should uninstall if you think that... not everyone can afford multiple Enchants and it takes a huge heap of grinding for more than 1 Trans etc.

Dread is BiS for Trapper PvE + PvP, almost BiS for Archer PvP and good in PvE.... It is also very effective on Combat when you have very very low cooldowns, usually due to group composition even a Combat can spam Encounters. In end-game content with such low cooldowns a Combat spec then gets most of its DPS from Encounter rotating instead of At-Wills.

Come back to this forum when you have 1-2k posts and actually post something meaningful and/or backed up with information and proof. Yes there are generally better Enchants for a Combat spec, but for all round game-play Dread is one of the best.

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 I generally recommend absolutely no more than 180% combined Crit Sev + CA. Really, 160% is a good stopping point. Mine at 140%-ish (not logged in and so not sure exactly) could be bumped up a little, but really this is pretty good as is. Since I run FeyTouch, I'm not going over the limit. But if someone were running Dread or Vorpal, then they would just need to watch this carefully and some points into Lucky Blades might be a good choice in that situation.

Cool

You should really add into your Guide at some point that if you are hitting 200% combined Crit + CA then you should really drop Skirmishers Gambit for Lucky Blades. Dont forget that even though SG and LB come out as roughly the same amount of DPS at that point... by dropping SG you get back that 4000 Crit to dump elsewhere, like power, in addition you can drop some Wisdom for Charisma for more CA if your Crit is way above 100% etc.

I have not worked out my Combat Advantage as there are hidden stats in the game and I have forgotten what they are ha ha

The maths is so complicated I cant even read it... you are on Reddit too. Have you looked at the sub-forum yet? If you have not then have a look at info by Janne... its incredible and how she and others have worked out all the calculations is beyond my comprehension

typo

@wdj40 I plan on definitely saying more about lucky blades. I am indeed on Reddit and will take a look at the stuff you just suggested there. Thanks for the tip!

wdj40

Another item you might like to try with an Archer Spec, or even Combat, is the Armour of Quick Recovery... I actually have it equipped for my PvP Archer and even my Trapper.

It is only IL 165 and comes from farming those hourly drops in Chult. But it has fairly high recovery attached to it and the Item Bonus is actually pretty decent. It lowers your cool-downs by a second when you Crit and has a cool down of 5 seconds.

It allows my Trapper to put 15 points into the Combat Tree, for Lucky Blades, without sacrificing any cool downs etc.

typo

@wdj40 The bonus on the armor of quick recovery is bugged and doesn't work right. If it did, it would be pretty neat.

Also, sadly, Lucky Blades does not work with Thorned Roots.

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 The bonus on the armor of quick recovery is bugged and doesn't work right. If it did, it would be pretty neat.



Also, sadly, Lucky Blades does not work with Thorned Roots.

Where on Earth are you getting Armour of Quick Recovery is bugged?

There is no information I can find about this, whilst people on Reddit have tested and confirmed its working. I just tested it again and I can visible see the numbers take a small jerk forward. Whether its exactly 1 second off or not is impossible to tell without it being in decimals.

Anyhoo its is almost BiS... it has around 1.5k Crit, Recovery and Defence, along with that nice item bonus.

Dont worry about Thorned Roots, that is a thing of the past. It still does nice damage per tick but people do not spec around them much anymore... Most things are control resistant these Mods anyway so its the damage boost that is good. Most damage comes from Encounters in a Trapper Build not from root damage. My Plant Growth was hitting 400-500k in the last run I just did, so 20k Thorned Root ticks from Constricting Arrow are just small bumps in extra damage.

You certainly dont need to put points in to make Thorned Roots last longer any more, even with 1 power applying roots (and master trapper) you can keep pretty much 100% uptime with them.

Lastly you are running an Archer Build... Thorned Roots should not even be in your thoughts

typo

Haha @wdj40, yeah, we are indeed focused on Archery here. But I wanted to mention the issue with Lucky Blades to you since you said you were using it on your Trapper. Oddly enough, my good friend Elven Archer performed a test just yesterday showing that this power does not work with Roots. I had asked a broader question about Lucky Blades (you were my inspiration!) and, during the course of helping to investigate that, he did some other testing too.

About the Armor of Quick Recovery, there is a small reduction in cooldown and, at a glance, this armor might seem to be working. But if you look very closely (slow motion on a video), you can see the encounter timers (which unfortunately round off and do not show decimals!) all moving at the same consistent pace. Nothing changes upon a critical strike. The net effect is just a tiny amount and not anywhere as good as advertised in the tooltip. There is actually a reddit post on this issue from 4 months ago, but my data really comes from Toros (aka Voodoo: https://cylernwo.wixsite.com/voodoo). Extensive information about the issue has been shared in Toro's FB group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ControlWizard). The issue is considered a bug since the tooltip is very clear about the intended role of critical strikes for this item. Reason I am in that group is I have an alt CW. I know Toros personally and he is very thorough. His investigation into this armor has been confirmed by multiple other reliable sources in that group, which is in my opinion one of the very most knowledgeable groups you will find anywhere in Neverwinter. If you are interested in seeing the information, you don't really have to be a CW to join that group.

I do hope the developers fix the Armor of Quick Recovery. But for my HR, I am currently using the Fured Kiuno of the Bear for my armor, which works well for me because I use melee powers for all of my HR loadouts. So it might not be the best choice for any Archers who prefer to stay in Ranged stance only. But as I have said before, Combat HRs use ranged powers (notably LSS, StS, and sometimes TW) and there is really no reason why can't Archers cannot likewise use melee powers too, especially with this build which incorporates Skirmisher's Gambit (currently with Lucky Blades as a noted option) to enhance damage for all powers.

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

Haha @wdj40, yeah, we are indeed focused on Archery here. But I wanted to mention the issue with Lucky Blades to you since you said you were using it on your Trapper. Oddly enough, my good friend Elven Archer performed a test just yesterday showing that this power does not work with Roots. I had asked a broader question about Lucky Blades (you were my inspiration!) and, during the course of helping to investigate that, he did some other testing too.

About the Armor of Quick Recovery, there is a small reduction in cooldown and, at a glance, this armor might seem to be working. But if you look very closely (slow motion on a video), you can see the encounter timers (which unfortunately round off and do not show decimals!) all moving at the same consistent pace. Nothing changes upon a critical strike. The net effect is just a tiny amount and not anywhere as good as advertised in the tooltip. There is actually a reddit post on this issue from 4 months ago, but my data really comes from Toros (aka Voodoo: https://cylernwo.wixsite.com/voodoo). Extensive information about the issue has been shared in Toro's FB group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/ControlWizard). The issue is considered a bug since the tooltip is very clear about the intended role of critical strikes for this item. Reason I am in that group is I have an alt CW. I know Toros personally and he is very thorough. His investigation into this armor has been confirmed by multiple other reliable sources in that group, which is in my opinion one of the very most knowledgeable groups you will find anywhere in Neverwinter. If you are interested in seeing the information, you don't really have to be a CW to join that group.

I do hope the developers fix the Armor of Quick Recovery. But for my HR, I am currently using the Fured Kiuno of the Bear for my armor, which works well for me because I use melee powers for all of my HR loadouts. So it might not be the best choice for any Archers who prefer to stay in Ranged stance only. But as I have said before, Combat HRs use ranged powers (notably LSS, StS, and sometimes TW) and there is really no reason why can't Archers cannot likewise use melee powers too, especially with this build which incorporates Skirmisher's Gambit (currently with Lucky Blades as a noted option) to enhance damage for all powers.

Yeah as I mentioned I dont use Lucky Blades for the Roots anyway, I use it in conjunction with a Trans Dread Enchant etc to boost Encounter damage for my Trapper. Dread is awsome in PvP too on an Archer, I only run around with 5k Arm Pen in there and can still smash out the damage... well that was until PvP was completely ruined with broken items.

Weird, I will have a look at that Armour again when play in a mo, I never thought to try a slo-mo video clip.

teucer

patcherrkm said:

anyone that thinks dread is a good enchantment on a combat hr should uninstall...

Hahaha. You would be right, Combat should be using a Fey or Vorpal.

typo

@wdj40 About weapon enchantments, if you are mostly soloing that is one thing, but when in a party, I believe Dread will only do about half the damage of Fey based on the presence of solid party buffs. Fey is really the one to beat for DPS and nothing else can touch it right now. This remains true in Mod 14 too. That said I do understand the hybrid concept you are using, but still Fey is just so good right now.

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 About weapon enchantments, if you are mostly soloing that is one thing, but when in a party, I believe Dread will only do about half the damage of Fey based on the presence of solid party buffs. Fey is really the one to beat for DPS and nothing else can touch it right now. This remains true in Mod 14 too. That said I do understand the hybrid concept you are using, but still Fey is just so good right now.

Yes Fey and Vorpal are BiS for a Combat build... other Enchants are good but just not up there with those 2. The break-even point in deciding which one of those to use is 175% combined CS+CA... Before 175% Vorpal is better whilst after 175% Fey is better.

All I was trying to say earlier is that Dread is as good universally (over our 3 paths) as the other 2 and perfectly viable to use.

typo

Dread is certainly still a popular choice for pure Trapper. And I do understand weapon enchantments are expensive. Would be great if we could all have multiple weapon enchantments to optimize different loadouts, but most of us just don't have that kind of AD on hand, so we make do with what we have. In my case, I do find Fey can be universal too, depending on your builds.

wdj40

Sume did an awsome video of weapon enchantment comparisons... very much worth a watch even though its a year old

https://www.clipzui.com/video/t2h40514v2q45334359424.html

patcherrkm

wdj40 said:

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 That is a fair concern and it is also an issue for Combat HRs too. Skirmisher's Gambit is worthless if you do not Crit. For me, even with Skirmisher's Gambit, I have 100% Crit. A less developed player doesn't necessarily have to have 100% Crit, but they should be working toward that. At a minimum, with Skirmisher's Gambit, a player should not be dipping below 50% Crit. And really, I'd strongly urge Crit to be even higher. In the build, I do recommend for anyone who can't quite absorb the loss of Crit from Skirmisher's Gambit, then Lucky Blades is indeed an excellent alternative for some or all of those five feat points. It is really up each person how they balance their stats. But ultimately, if like me, you have got the Crit, then Skirmisher's will be the superior feat because of the added Crit Severity. Crit Severity is quite valuable and is the reason so many players like to use Vorpal and Dread enchantments. In my case, I currently use a Trans Feytouched so that my damage gets buffed by the party but the +50% Crit Severity is still very nice!

Quick note on achieving 100% Crit: Standard assumption in the game is that this includes companion stats when bonding stones are proc'd. If you stack crit on your companion, getting to 100% Crit is much easier than you might think (because the stats are amplified), though there is still some work needed to get there and you will need to have a base Crit on your character too. The exact balance of Crit between toon and companion will depend on the rank of your bonding stones. Higher rank bondings make life much easier.

That is exactly my point, you are pumping your Companion for Crit and sending that over via Bonding Stones. What is your Companions Crit? It must be crazy high. Anyhoo you have to stack a lot of Crit to offset the 10% loss from SG.

Instead of doing that I opt for higher Encounter damage and pump power off my Companion... in fact I dont have to put a lot of Crit on my Companion at all to hit almost 100%. I also use Dread rather than Vorpal for higher Encounter Crit + Enemy DR lowered... Dread is also incredibly effective for Archer, Combat and Trapper paths.

If you have around 12-13k Crit... you would need around 5-6k on your Companion with 3 R13 Bondings just to hit 100%, so with SG equipped a lot more Crit is needed to be stacked.

Maxing out crit to 100% should be a priority over power. We gain power from just about everywhere in groups. Heck I end up with like 300k power sometimes. But crit only comes from you and your companion and it more than doubles your damage depending on how you are specd. If you seriously belieive running less crit and more power as a tradeoff is beneficial then you are clueless i hope you are restricted from posting. cause you lose all credibility. ohh i see you are playing on Xbox and dont have access to ACT. that makes sense. without ACT you are just guessing.

wdj40

patcherrkm said:

wdj40 said:

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 That is a fair concern and it is also an issue for Combat HRs too. Skirmisher's Gambit is worthless if you do not Crit. For me, even with Skirmisher's Gambit, I have 100% Crit. A less developed player doesn't necessarily have to have 100% Crit, but they should be working toward that. At a minimum, with Skirmisher's Gambit, a player should not be dipping below 50% Crit. And really, I'd strongly urge Crit to be even higher. In the build, I do recommend for anyone who can't quite absorb the loss of Crit from Skirmisher's Gambit, then Lucky Blades is indeed an excellent alternative for some or all of those five feat points. It is really up each person how they balance their stats. But ultimately, if like me, you have got the Crit, then Skirmisher's will be the superior feat because of the added Crit Severity. Crit Severity is quite valuable and is the reason so many players like to use Vorpal and Dread enchantments. In my case, I currently use a Trans Feytouched so that my damage gets buffed by the party but the +50% Crit Severity is still very nice!

Quick note on achieving 100% Crit: Standard assumption in the game is that this includes companion stats when bonding stones are proc'd. If you stack crit on your companion, getting to 100% Crit is much easier than you might think (because the stats are amplified), though there is still some work needed to get there and you will need to have a base Crit on your character too. The exact balance of Crit between toon and companion will depend on the rank of your bonding stones. Higher rank bondings make life much easier.

That is exactly my point, you are pumping your Companion for Crit and sending that over via Bonding Stones. What is your Companions Crit? It must be crazy high. Anyhoo you have to stack a lot of Crit to offset the 10% loss from SG.

Instead of doing that I opt for higher Encounter damage and pump power off my Companion... in fact I dont have to put a lot of Crit on my Companion at all to hit almost 100%. I also use Dread rather than Vorpal for higher Encounter Crit + Enemy DR lowered... Dread is also incredibly effective for Archer, Combat and Trapper paths.

If you have around 12-13k Crit... you would need around 5-6k on your Companion with 3 R13 Bondings just to hit 100%, so with SG equipped a lot more Crit is needed to be stacked.

Maxing out crit to 100% should be a priority over power. We gain power from just about everywhere in groups. Heck I end up with like 300k power sometimes. But crit only comes from you and your companion and it more than doubles your damage depending on how you are specd. If you seriously belieive running less crit and more power as a tradeoff is beneficial then you are clueless i hope you are restricted from posting. cause you lose all credibility. ohh i see you are playing on Xbox and dont have access to ACT. that makes sense. without ACT you are just guessing.

You have lost all credibility as you cannot read and you just completely make things up. I never once said you should not max out Crit, I never once said you should run more Power over Crit etc etc. We are also talking of dropping Crit when it is over 100% which should be pretty obvious. Then we spoke about dropping Wisdom for Charisma when over 100% etc. Please actually read the thread properly!

We are talking about Crit Severity in most cases in this thread as well as Crit Chance, maybe you mis-read one of the posts. It is common knowledge these days that you should get up to 100%. I personally go to 90% after Companions Gift procs... then the last 10% comes from buffs and possibly a potion and/or food.

typo

@patcherrkm I really envy those ACT logs. Back when I started on Xbox, I had no idea. But I usually can get the help of PC players to run them for me. The Neverwinter HR community is often very willing to help if one but asks.

As far as Power goes, I once had a much higher IL HR ask me how in the heck I had outperformed him during a run of Tuern. I told him the answer was quite simple. While he was off chasing strays on the other side of the field, I was staying with my tank. So I got the buffs and he didn't. And that is the essence of this archery build too. Get those buffs!

wdj40

typo#6563 said:

@wdj40 The bonus on the armor of quick recovery is bugged and doesn't work right. If it did, it would be pretty neat.



Also, sadly, Lucky Blades does not work with Thorned Roots.

Hey Typo... I have done some more testing and the Armour does indeed seem to not be working. Its annoying as the numbers are jerky and gives the impression it does work. I dont actually have a chest piece that is better yet so I will drop it when I do. It still has good Crit, Recovery and Defence which is handy. Weird as the cool-downs feel like they are quicker but that is probably due to the high level of Recovery in the Armour amongst other things.

More annoyingly is no-one seems to have done a bug report or posted much information about it

typo

Thanks @WDJ40 for the follow-up. I agree this kind of thing can be rather annoying. Players can often only trust that tooltips are accurate. Would be great if there was a master list of broken gear or gear with confusing tooltips to help players select gear that will actually be effective for their class.

strathkin

Well my Archer recently tried a pure Combat Build and I'm not entirely sure I like. Power's take a lot longer to come off cooldown so you still have to switch to Ranged for some Damage...

Now previously my 2nd loadout was exclusively an all Archery build for the longest time in game... then I tried Trapper the last year or two and mostly been fairly happy there. But Ranger's have sadly had some adjusting to do the last 6-8 months as Careful Attack has a BUG so it's not helping Pathfinder's right now and seen most respect back to Storm Warden.

When I did that rather than simply go back to Archery I was strongly encouraged to try a pure combat build. While I admit Archery has drawbacks as well simply because your a bit farther away, so sometimes you won't always get BUFFs from other classes. You can go in closer but to do that I previously had experimented myself with 2 or 3 full feat's in Combat. I find a pure Archer build a little too one sided; and now I find the pure Combat in a similar light.

Now perhaps if you use some of the 2 or 3 encounters that allow you to rush in and flee out quickly it could be effective. Still I think I'm going back to trying my Archer Capstone and 3 in Combat. I'll have to check and compare what feat's you think work best so looking forward to referencing the builds you've suggested above.

typo

@strathkin I play all paths of HR and each has unique strengths and drawbacks. I really enjoy playing the Hybrid Archery though because it is so different. Stay tuned! A second edition of the build is coming out soon for Mod 14.

typo

Updated for Module 14! The second edition of this archery guide is now available. Enjoy!

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zYW7uzzwIVGEURjWZZ8G67hNXrIaXPhz

I will continue to make refinements and clarifications after the release on console, but for this version I was able to get some great help from the folks on PC that enabled me to include a lot of key details from Ravenloft. No changes to the core concept, but there have been some nice adjustments. If you previously read the first edition, I'd recommend re-reading the second edition because there have been enough changes that the guide now has six pages instead of five.

typo

I've been receiving a lot of great feedback and encouragement about the Hybrid Archery-Combat Build, especially today with the publication of the second edition.

So I thought I would now share a couple more videos, this time from Unforgotten HR who recently chatted with me on Reddit. He is really stoked about hybrid archery and here he attempts to show the potential of this type of build by demonstrating hybrid archery in a couple of FBI boss fights. I'm just glad to see more people are starting take an interest! Enjoy!

Drufi VS Unforgotten HR (Hybrid - Archery/Combat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYelf_cL9Jk


Dragon Turtle VS Unforgotten HR (Hybrid - Archery/Combat)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpB96jZVS4I

patcherrkm

wdj40 said:

patcherrkm said:

anyone that thinks dread is a good enchantment on a combat hr should uninstall...

You should uninstall if you think that... not everyone can afford multiple Enchants and it takes a huge heap of grinding for more than 1 Trans etc.

Dread is BiS for Trapper PvE + PvP, almost BiS for Archer PvP and good in PvE.... It is also very effective on Combat when you have very very low cooldowns, usually due to group composition even a Combat can spam Encounters. In end-game content with such low cooldowns a Combat spec then gets most of its DPS from Encounter rotating instead of At-Wills.

Come back to this forum when you have 1-2k posts and actually post something meaningful and/or backed up with information and proof. Yes there are generally better Enchants for a Combat spec, but for all round game-play Dread is one of the best.

It's not the quantity of posts that matters, it's the quality. I stand by my statement, you recommending a dread on a combat HR disqualifies you. And while I cant stop you from posting 1-2k times, everyone should take what you say with a grain of salt.

wizardlvl80

Heya there.

While I really like you guys are trying to look for alternative ways of building HR, I think that these videos prove nothing.

This is a full buff party (2x DC, OP and GF) in a dungeon from few mods. We have better gear, enchantments and this kind of party can make a 10k GWF beat it so I don't see any "proof" that this build works. I do although see educational value in it if anyone wants to see how other people are utilizing this type of play.

Anyway, good luck with trying this way of playing. Glad you guys are having fun. I still think it's some kind of "Don Kichote" type of play but not bashing