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Nature Build for PvE: *a* perspective from a GF
Hello guys!
I've been around for a bit and recently asked about a decent nature build (if it existed). Some people were very clear that it wasn't worth my time. I gave up on it and don't regret it, because I'm really enjoying my current set up.
Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to bring this one experience to you. Today I pugged Karrundax with my GF alt (I run an Iron Maiden build, typically taking from 2 to 3 times the second place in dmg). I find that dungeon usually quite hard to tank - not impossible, but hard - but today it was simply.... very easy. I soon noticed all the green icons in my buff list and asked the ranger in the group if he was running a Nature build, and he confirmed it. Man, between the Healer, the Ranger and my own buffs/debuffs, hits didn't seem to go beyond 300 dmg on me - even the big ones - not to mention the all but nonstop healing I kept getting. Even the dodge kept popping on my screen so often I could hardly believe it (it actually saved from quite a few big control powers that might've gotten me into trouble). It was SO so easy. We didn't wipe once and I asked to play again with him. We did Frozen Heart, and for the first time I didn't have to kite the adds in the boss - I literally just held them 80% of the time!
The ranger wasn't top dmg in either run, but he was third, close up to a CW in the first run, and surpassed a TR by a bit in the second one (both were topped by a CW).
What I am saying is: I don't think it's an AMAZING build, but from my experience today, it **SEEMS** to be a very possible build if you're ok with not splashing so much dmg. I mean, would he have helped more dealing more damage? Maybe, but for me at least it really *felt* much easier like this.
Anyway, just reporting an experience, nothing else
I've been around for a bit and recently asked about a decent nature build (if it existed). Some people were very clear that it wasn't worth my time. I gave up on it and don't regret it, because I'm really enjoying my current set up.
Anyway, I thought it'd be interesting to bring this one experience to you. Today I pugged Karrundax with my GF alt (I run an Iron Maiden build, typically taking from 2 to 3 times the second place in dmg). I find that dungeon usually quite hard to tank - not impossible, but hard - but today it was simply.... very easy. I soon noticed all the green icons in my buff list and asked the ranger in the group if he was running a Nature build, and he confirmed it. Man, between the Healer, the Ranger and my own buffs/debuffs, hits didn't seem to go beyond 300 dmg on me - even the big ones - not to mention the all but nonstop healing I kept getting. Even the dodge kept popping on my screen so often I could hardly believe it (it actually saved from quite a few big control powers that might've gotten me into trouble). It was SO so easy. We didn't wipe once and I asked to play again with him. We did Frozen Heart, and for the first time I didn't have to kite the adds in the boss - I literally just held them 80% of the time!
The ranger wasn't top dmg in either run, but he was third, close up to a CW in the first run, and surpassed a TR by a bit in the second one (both were topped by a CW).
What I am saying is: I don't think it's an AMAZING build, but from my experience today, it **SEEMS** to be a very possible build if you're ok with not splashing so much dmg. I mean, would he have helped more dealing more damage? Maybe, but for me at least it really *felt* much easier like this.
Anyway, just reporting an experience, nothing else
Post edited by fmulti on
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btw, My mains are GWF and TR, I'd really like to see some new PVE builds put in the forums and MMOminds. Most of them are PvP.
Anyway if someone has a new build or can link to a newer Mod 3 PVE HR build Id really appreciate it. Maybe your HR friend can post his build, He seems to know how to play it well.
Thanks for the post fmulti
One thing to keep in mind, though, is how the build is perceived: you might not get too much love out there, or be just outright kicked away from groups if people think you won't be much help. I wouldn't run it as of now unless you have some friends or a chilled out guild you can play with. I'm saying this because of my own experience with some other builds with some alts.
Most groups really don't need to be supported.
snip snip
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?689771-Healer-Ranger-PvE-Build-by-Not-A-Salad&p=8175011#post8175011
I wasn't too lazy after all.
I see your point. I have been recently reading a lot that a CW/GWF/debuff DC is the perfect / fast way to go, the DPSers having very high lifesteal. I guess a team like that just avalanches through T2 dungeons, a stroll in the park. I don't know if that's true or not, but my point here was just say that there seem to be altarnate styles of play that also work, even if not as fast or "effective" - HR Nature build being one of them.
Also, those top notch teams probably roll with top notch gear / companions / artifacts / enchants, which is definately not always the case for everyone else. I'd say that people who actually bother coming to forums don't represent the gaming community very well, and maybe in a common pug, a Nature build might actually help a whole lot more than having very high dps.
Again, just tokens of my humble opinion.
Regardless, it doesn't steal the fun of playing an off-build. As a TR I have sympathy for ignored classes, not enough patience to play a DC, and HR being my next-best go-to just happens to turn out wonderfully.
But if you are going to CN with a not so High GS party it could help to not die so many times, or to make it possible, HIGH DPS + Life Steal is good for your own survival, but not for the group, now, if everybody in your party is a +15K GS full DPS/LS then yes, as a Nature HR you could feel bad for not bringing nothing to the party...
problem is that most people obsess over dps and so it took this long to even realise Nature rangers potential in a group.
it saddens me that most people dont even realise or care how much these three classes can work together.
My nhr can give a whopping +50% damage mitigation + 500 or so heals per second and 3k+ Thp; to the entire party without even trying but most dont even care because thier head is stuck in the meta.
Bringing a GF, a DC, and a Nature HR means that you only have two members of your group who can deal any damage. (One of whom should be a CW. And also, you could easily replace the GF with a GWF and instantly the team is better.)
Basically, Mateo hit it directly on the head.
When you realize that any combination can clear content it becomes a question of efficiency, which clearly at the upper range of the game it is simply not efficient to bring more than one support (if that, given that lifesteal is patently over performing for every class that does damage) and sadly DC blows any other support class out of the water with their AoE debuffs and spike healing. (Keep in mind that mitigation debuffs might as well be extra healing in Neverwinter's Metagame as it increases lifesteal healing.)
These are things a HR simply can not bring to the group. (Outside of enchants that are readily available to DC's as well.)
On paper, Boar's Hide, Stag Heart, and Oak Skin all look like they add up to decent healing with decent extra mitigation (or dodge if you throw in Fox) but in practice they simply fall far short of what a usual group usually wants (or can even take advantage of.)
This is why I tell everyone not to roll Nature HR. It's basically a DC with all the good and useful stuff torn out and replaces it with half-hearted situational garbage. It's a class designed for a different game than Neverwinter.
Hmmmmm Unless I see real numbers, I wouldn't assume that as a matter of fact. Five other real life friends started playing this game about the same time as I did. Today, about three months later, I'm the only one who still plays it regularly, and only another one made it past 12k GS. Many of very high GS'ed guildmates also all but stopped playing the game in the last few weeks (they didn't move guild, because they are in my friends list and I don't see them around anymore, except for the occasional Profession work). What may happen, is that you get to know more and more specific players who have very high GS, but as far as PUGing or LFGing, I am not sure it gets much easier to find high GS folks today compared to, say, a month ago. It may be so, I just don't think it's a 100% safe assumption.
There's also the matter of PvP vs. PvE - I am under the impression that many players switch to PvP soon after they complete all T2s, meaning truely high end GSed people may not be readily available for PvE.
Finally, there's elitism, which means that very high GS players usually won't take anything "beneath them", which again limits the number of high GS players readily available.
This is DEFINATELY the point I disagree the most with you. As I see the world of games, your sentence there should have been: "When you realize that any combination can clear content it becomes a question of WHAT'S MORE FUN". Granted, for a whole lot of people, higher efficiency equals more fun. But not always. When you have 3h in your hands to play the game, you will ALWAYS do what's more fun to you. For some people, it may be grinding for specific items. For others, doing dailies. For others, doing safe dungeons with mates in order to relax. Or you may want to sprint through as many dungeons as possible. Hell, I've seen people who actually play foundry content (heheheh!). Myself as an example, I don't care if I finish CN in 1h or 1h30 min, I care about how much fun I have in the ride. (I'm one of those annoying people who hates glitches and shortcuts) And for me, fun equals trying to play different styles with a degree of success. I have three alts, a CW and a HR for DPS and a GF. I love playing my GF, if nothing else, just because it's so different from the other two. My next alt will be a healer, for the same reason. That's what brings me fun, and taking the replies to Not-a-salad Nature's build guide, I don't think I'm alone here (though we're certainly the vast minority).
Last but not least, as not-a-salad states somewhere, I fully agree that on non-optimal groups (GWF+CW+DC) / rainbow parties, the nature ranger may add a lot to the group. Yesteday night I went on CN with CW+GWF+HR+DC+GF (me). We wiped and wiped and finally gave up at the final boss. I was always just that close to managing to keep the adds 100% busy, letting the others do their thing, but one bad timing sent me to the ground every time. On THAT group (and I'm talking about THAT group), I wish so much more the HR had Oak Skin on, because I was just that close to managing all the group needed me too. It didn't matter if the Dracolich would take 5, 10 min more to kill, but whether I could tank for the team or not. Again, granted, if I was replaced by a GWF it might've been much better, or still another combination, but I'm saying that nature HR CAN have its place even in late T2s, depending on what you find fun and the party configuration.
Every class, by the time they reach 10k GS, should have more than enough mitigation to handle anything up to the hardest T2's.
This means that, effectively, a Nature HR has a life-span of T1 dungeons after which it becomes far more profitable both for themselves and their team to become a damage dealer. (If you don't care about in-game profit, then clearly this doesn't concern you or your premade.)
This isn't to say a HR can't be support, it's just to say that the upper range of support that a HR is capable of is far, far below a DC.
It should concern any potential 'healer' or 'support' minded players that a decently geared (I.E. 10k GS) CW will beat out a HR with 15k GS in both healing and damage done.
I'm not saying any of this to HAMSTER on someone elses favorite build. If you love it and have a premade of friends you could play a ranged GF for all I care. Anything will clear content, but CN becomes an all day proposition instead of a 15 minute romp. That's why most groups care about what spec you are and what class you are. They want to be done soon, not tomorrow.
If all you want to be is training wheels for low GS groups Nature HR is probably the 2nd best class to play under a DC, but don't ever forget that DC is going to still be useful once they gear up. Nature will not. (Although on the plus side, since most of Nature's abilities don't get any better what-so-ever with higher GS at least you will suck less on the bottom end of the spectrum.)
This was my experience and ultimate conclusion from playing the Nature HR for roughly 50-80 hours of testing in every dungeon up to CN. You can believe me or spend the AD to respec yourself; but please take my advice and have the AD ready to respec back into a useful build after you reach your conclusions. It's for your own good.
We are talking about AD grinding here aren't we? Or do you just play dungeon's once or twice a week for fun? If you fall into the latter category, we don't have much to say to one another. You will need to either pull out your wallet or play for half a century to get any equipment of note in Neverwinter.
Neverwinter, at it's core, rewards efficiency so much that it is almost impossible to not care about your clear speed. It saves people real world cash that they can use to buy food so it's hardly surprising that most people actually care about what build you are. Nature means it's going to take longer and there isn't much debate about that.
Yes, DPS oriented HR will clear dungeons A LOT faster than suport HRs. All else is up for debate - or rather, isn't, because it's highly up to your own goals in the game, personal taste, interpretation and what's considered fun by each person. I personally couldn't care less about clear speed, and I have met a few people (mind you, a few, not a lot) that think like me.
Again, I do think that the opinion of people who think like you do (which is perfectly fine and justifiable) weighs a great deal in choosing to go for the Nature build. I myself almost gave up my master of the flame CW build in a time where it was considered HAMSTER (it much more widely accepted now) and that annoyed me to no end (especially the flaming I got during dungeons, even though I was still topping the dmg charts - but even if I weren't, what of it!?). That is the main reason why I do not run a Nature build myself now.
Finally, as for "anything will clear content", that's clearly not the case in PUGs. Queueing, I find tons of torn apart groups in all sorts of dungeons that got to the final boss and gave up on it. LFGing, you can be really picky and guarantee a clear, or not so much and not have the same odds. I personally (*personally*) believe that a Nature build can do a lot for groups like those (underperformers? maybe, but still very common, independently of GS). After all, there are tons of TRs and GFs wanting to play end-of-game content, and wanting to play it with THOSE classes, rather than going for a CW or a GWF alt.
Final disclaimer: I do not invalidate your point of view in any moment, I respect your experience, which is undoubtedly broader than mine. Just trying to show you where I come from, and that there may be other people at similar places.
EDIT
Just one remark I failed to make: I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying here, but as far as I know (I got this from The Library), Mitigation differs from Armor Penetration. Mitigation basically translates into "enemies will take that much extra damage" and has absolutely no relation to ArP. ArP ignores a portion of the enemy's armor, which also translates into the sentence above, but has a hard cap (people say around 24% for bosses). That means that a char with 24% ArP would still fully benefit from any and all Mitigation given by Thaumaturges, Commanding Shot, Thron Ward, etc. Correct me if I'm wrong ar if you meant something else completely (like that ArP of around 20% is *enough* to clear all content).
Ironically this is one of the major reasons I say that Nature HR isn't something people should play. It's also why I have no issue with people playing a Nature HR in their premade group. With enough GS, even a x5 GF group can clear T2 content with enough time and effort. This is what I mean by 'efficiency'. It's the comparable amount of time a dungeon takes to clear with a given party makeup. (And clearly the x5 GF would be towards the bottom end of that scale.)
A well played GF and TR are still valued added for dungeon content even though they are not ideal picks. Sadly, even the most skilled Nature HR I've run with are not terribly useful in any measurable way. A well played GF or TR are almost impossible to find as well, but I have played with people that know how to make those classes less of a handicap.
Not sure what you mean here. Mitigation itself simply means damage resistance. This means that the higher your mitigation is, the less damage from a given hit you will take. Mitigation debuffs, such as those offered by the DC, can indeed stack on top of ArP and in fact take a given add or bosses mitigation into the negatives, which directly translates into increased damage. (So you're right on that part, and this might help you understand how mitigation debuffs translate into massive spike healing from lifesteal every DPS class worth their salt stacks. Keep in mind lifesteal is based on the damage the attack does, which mitigation debuffs raise the damage each attack does.)
Nature HR buff's straight mitigation for the team through Boar's Hide stacks and Stag Heart, depending on your feats, and that is most of what they concentrate on. Fox Cunning could be said to be mitigation through it's autododge, but it depends how loose you want to be with that definition.
There's also a heal-over-time in Oak Skin, a single target debuff (largely useless) and a few other nice things but they just aren't useful in PvE. Even Thorn Ward is single-target, and it's probably the best debuff HR gets. In a game where dozens of add's spawn, and they build up quickly, single-target is simply not useful unless you can consistently keep it on the most important target which is the boss. Commanding Shot isn't an issue, but stacking it with Thorn Ward isn't reliable.
The issue is that mitigation buffs are less effective for clearing Neverwinter content because a skilled player will be able to dodge attacks that matter making mitigation buffs less valuable. Especially since 10k GS characters will be bringing their own mitigation that presumably they built without Nature HR's in mind. These mitigation values overlap, but the buffs provided by the HR directly are actually less effective in most cases than what a character builds for independently.
The other issue is that a DC also brings mitigation buffs but also brings mitigation debuffs and damage buffs which stack. This effectively means that everyone's individual mitigation tools work better, which has better synergy compared to simply more damage resistance.
On top of all of this, the buffs themselves that Nature brings have their own issues that make them less effective than they should be.
Oak Skin: Low flat healing per tick, no increase the lower your health as per regen, small if any mitigation buff. (5% perhaps)
Stag Heart: Temp. HP gone in one medium hit, which makes it a one-shot mitigation buff.
Boar Hide: DoT eats stacks at a rate of one stack per second, with a max stack size of ten, that takes two casts to max. It's average mitigation is about 50% of it's stated max because of this. (And isn't terribly useful unless you eat attacks all the time.)
Fox Cunning: One dodge per cast, impossible to ensure it's the big attack that kills a person that gets dodged and not a minion swing.
The above are basically all the buffs you will ever use as Nature. If you're a Pathfinder you'll find that holding down the Hunter's Teamwork button on minions will give ok healing and smallish AP gain but it relies on things dying to provide your biggest healing. (Not to mention you will do garbage damage this way.)
So in essence the Nature HR does a lot of things halfway but nothing exceptional. In a game that currently has exceptional character classes, Nature HR will simply be unplayed and unwanted 95% of the time by groups who are competent. This relegates you to only playing with groups who don't know better or who are kind enough to castrate their dungeon clear times to include you.
I would not bank on the community being that kind without a serious premade. As mean as I'm sure the forums think I am, I'm a saint compared to the Dungeon Queue. That's a fact. (At least I won't autokick an HR just because they are Nature.)
I constantly hope someone will manage to prove the viability of Nature HR. I have so far neither experienced it myself or seen anyone make it so. Even the few 16k+ HR I've seen spec'ced into Nature do far, far worse than they could as a DPS.
(And for comparison's sake, it would take a whole hell of a lot of buffing to equal the lost ten million plus damage a DPS HR can contribute. DC's probably can. Nature HR can not.)
Following, as I see it you have two main points on why Nature HR is undesireble: 1) Most parties don't need an extra support and benefit more from extra dps (or don't need support at all); 2) Nature cannot provide meaningful support to the party even if it does need supporting of some kind.
As for 1), I come under the impression you have been high gear scored for a very long time. My personal reality is that my groups always need as much support as possible. I have two - and only two - clear memories of moments where the party wiped for lack of dps (one in FH and one in ToS). But I have dozens of experiences where we were wiped for lacking tankyness. As soon as the GF or GWF falls, the whole group goes soon after. If the DC falls, GFs/GWFs go in sequence and then the rest of the party. Yesteday I played three dungeons, two ToS with my CW in which we didn't manage both times - exactly because no one could tank well enough. And a third using my GF in which we succeeded, mainly because me and the DC worked very well together and we managed to keep the others free to work their magic. Naturally, DPS avalanchers with high lifesteal would not require me or the DC to do what we did. If you have Perfect Enchants, full T2 armor and weapon sets, ancient rings/cloaks/belts, three purple artifacts, an array of purple pets and level 8+ enchants slotted, then "we have little to say to each other" ^^
[and I'll take this opportunity to state that I too think that Nature HRs are all but useless once you get anywhere close to that point]
As for 2), I'm well more inclined to concede, if nothing else, because of my lack of experience. My sole experience comes from those TWO (and only two) dungeons which motivated me to start this post. But again, as for those particular experiences, I did find clearing those dungeons (which I usually find hard) particularly easy. But I need to try it more (I added the guy so it might happen this weekend).
Some other considerations: when you say you need proving (and I respect that request in itself), I think that would be hard because most of Nature's benefits come from enemy armor mitigation and allies armor buffing - and neither show up anywhere in the final charts. But think of it like this: if the party takes a total of 10 mil damage throughout a dungeon and a Nature HR manages to keep an avarage of 10% armor buff, it is as if he had healed them for 1 mil - but THAT won't show up. The best way of proving it would be by experience, and the experience of lower geared parties (I don't mean 6k, I mean between 10k and 14k).
You also say that Nature HRs need to be carried. Well, support roles always do, depending on how you look at it. DCs are carried. Fact is, if the group needs the support, you could also look at it as "the support carried the group", and if the party didn't need the support, then "the group definately carried the support". And then we go back to 1) and 2).
Finally, I hope you're taking this discussion with a light heart. I'm not trying to "be right" - if you look through my posts, you'll see I often concede when I feel I am not right. Hell, I changed the build I wanted to make with my HR because of your very own arguments (and I still thank you for that, honestly). The MAIN issue here, as I see it, is that we are talking about very different realities. If you can clear CN in 20 min, than you're on the Caribeans and I'm in Siberia (all my chars are between 13 and 14k GS, enchants lvl 6 to 7, minor or normal weapon/armor enchants and about two blue and one green artifacts, full T2 armor sets but no weapon sets) - and we have "very very little to say to each other" ^^
Besides the content of your discussion... are you sure you have understood "mitigation"? It is not a defense debuff but a defense buff.
For example, boar hide grants five stacks of 2% mitigation (means 2% damage reduction) to your all party members. Same for "Aspect of the lone wolf" which on Rank 3 gives your HR instantly 10% and up to 25% damage mitigation depending on distance.
Just want to make sure you understand it right