Stormwarden vs. Pathfinder

arcofortep12 · February 2016

Why you have chosen one over the other? Let's list what we likes about the Path we have chosen or how it is fitting our current build.
Let's gather and share our points of view. Let's gather all the rangers.

lirithiel · February 2016

Stormwarden

I prefer SW. I played PF for 2 Mods and the only good thing about the tree to me is Careful Attack, but that comes with it's own problems (Heralds!!!) and besides I hate the mechanic. Far too many iffy class features in PF that are useless after the stat rework. Also the content given to us still leans heavily towards AoE and PF is very much single-target. I love CtG and TBS far too much.

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

aaramis75 · February 2016

Pathfinder

For me, it's Pathfinder. As a Trapper, I have plenty of AoE power - thorned roots, Cordon, Plant Growth. PF shores up my weakness - single-target damage.

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

aaramis75 · February 2016

Pathfinder

Careful Attack, for the most part. Throw in Gushing Wound, and my AP bar fills up in about 5-6 seconds flat in a raid / demonic HE scenerio. Faster AP = faster Seismics or Slasher's.

Also, since Trappers don't use at-wills too much, it's a nice fire-and-forget to add extra dps, whereas Electric / CtG wouldn't be used often enough to add any noticeable dps.

Archery and Combat, of course, are a much different scenerio.

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

lirithiel · February 2016

Stormwarden

arcofortep12 said:

aaramis75 said:
Careful Attack, for the most part. Throw in Gushing Wound, and my AP bar fills up in about 5-6 seconds flat in a raid / demonic HE scenerio. Faster AP = faster Seismics or Slasher's.

Also, since Trappers don't use at-wills too much, it's a nice fire-and-forget to add extra dps, whereas Electric / CtG wouldn't be used often enough to add any noticeable dps.

Archery and Combat, of course, are a much different scenerio.
Oh, right you are Trapper.
Try to test Throw Caution, maybe it can be of use in a Boss fight.
Testing Trapper should be a pain.

No need. Careful Attack already does a good chunk of single-target damage. PF is very much a single-target Paragon Path, combine that with Trapper tree and overall your damage is pretty good as the roots provide plenty of AoE damage as @aaramis75 pointed out.

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

glubtal · February 2016

Pathfinder

arcofortep12 said:

I think that Stormwarden is the only path that makes sense for geared toons. It improves on DPS, definitely. Though Pathfinder can be useful for less geared toons for more (modest?) party support through Slasher's Mark and Hunter's Teamwork.

Actually think its mostly the other way around. As a 3,7 Trapper I have little trouble with mobs and therefore little use of Stormwardens AoE damage. What counts now is the boss fights where Carefull Attack really shines. Besides: I use Aspect of the pack and -serpent, I cant see myself swapping them out for anything.

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

aaramis75 said:
Careful Attack, for the most part. Throw in Gushing Wound, and my AP bar fills up in about 5-6 seconds flat in a raid / demonic HE scenerio. Faster AP = faster Seismics or Slasher's.

Also, since Trappers don't use at-wills too much, it's a nice fire-and-forget to add extra dps, whereas Electric / CtG wouldn't be used often enough to add any noticeable dps.

Archery and Combat, of course, are a much different scenerio.

Exactly this^

Also if the hits are Crits from Careful Attack and Gushing Wound your Encounters can fill up almost instantly with points in the right feats. As I am dodging backwards after the melee rotation I fire off Constricting Arrow and Hindering Arrow in-between dodges back, due to the ticks going on I am able to sometimes use Constricting Arrow again before or after a Longstriders Shot. Slasher's Mark will then jump me straight back into melee for a Hindering Strike follow up etc.

The good thing about having Careful Attack hitting and Critting that enemy, whilst I`m dodging back, is that you generally stay at 1 or 2 stacks of Ranged AotS. So all the Encounters and At-Wills I fire on the dodges back all benefit from the stacks.

Its hard to describe so I`ll just post a clip of the end of EtoS on the xbox, basically just stare at my buff bar when Careful Attack is up, all the hits on the enemy cause a stack of Ranged AotS to appear so its almost constant

Longstriders > Constricting > Hindering (not in that specific order)
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14629898

Cunning > Binding > Hindering (not in that specific order)
http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14169729

Basically with each rotation with Careful Attack up you quite literally do need to throw in At-Wills just to be able to get a stack of melee AotS for a very brief time. I time my At-Wills, mainly Hunter's Teamwork as its fires so quick if used during a Ranged Encounter animation.

My current build is still a work in progress and those vids are old now compared to my new equipment lol.

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

For anyone who has watched my above 2 clips, can you tell me which you think does the most damage over-all??

It is impossible to tell on the Xbox even if I had the combat log open. Really wish we had access to something like that ACT thing you PC guys get

jaegernl · February 2016

Pathfinder

I chose Pathfinder, but the story of why is a long one.

My HR has undergone an evolution. I started off as Stormwarden, during the era of the previous feat trees - Archery, Combat and Nature. At that stage it was common held wisdom that Stormwarden meant AoE, while Pathfinder was the PvP style. I PvP'd for a while, as a Combat build - one of the top PvP builds at the time - so I went Pathfinder. After I lost my interest in PvP the Stormwarden Combat - Clear the Ground - PvE build took off. I, personally, consider that the high point of my HR experience, although the old Master of Archery - I think this meant crit on every ranged encounter - combined with a feat the provided an encounter cooldown reduction on every ranged crit, was glorious, too.

We had an awesome set - Royal Guard - and we'd jump into the fight, spamming Clear the Ground and using Rain of Sword's DoT to trigger Flurry (Combat capstone) and Royal Guard set bonus as much as possible. Remembering that playstyle made me roll a fresh Stormwarden Combat HR.

Of course, then the HR rework and Trapper came around. At first, Swiftness of the Fox meant a 1-second cooldown reduction on our encounter powers, and no one was impressed. We still had Royal Guard, and both - Trapper or Royal Guard - was overkill. Also, Thorned Roots worked differently - they applied the damage over the duration of the roots, making longer lasting roots stupid. Finally, they made the Swiftness work differently: they made it a percentage based reduction. Thorned Roots got changed, too, and the Trapper we all know and (I) love today was born.

Of course, with the birth of the encounter spamming Trapper the, previously loved, Clear the Ground-spamming PvE Combat HR died, sadly. The loss of Royal Guard made it worse. Trapper meant we all started spamming Encounters - which I love. Trapper is awesome, but it effectively killed the other build I was running for ages: the build that made me solo CN and the Dracolich, Stormwarden Combat.

As the Trapper evolved - and we got ten more levels - Paragon-specific class features like Blade Storm - which the Combat HR used - and Twin-blade Storm became... useless. A lot of Trappers today use Aspect of the Serpent, Crushing Roots, Seeker's Vengeance or Aspect of the Pack and the offhand bonus - bonus damage for every ally in range - as their class features. None of these are Paragon-specific. None of the encounters a HR Trapper uses are Paragon-specific. We generally use Constricting Arrow, Cordon of Arrows, Binding Arrow, Hindering Shot, Fox Shift, etc., etc.

The point of all this is that the Trapper HR - if he or she is Stormwarden or Pathfinder - doesn't use much or anything Paragon-specific. However, I did go Pathfinder. Reason: Careful Attack. It might screw with our Aspect of the Serpent stacks, of which I've never found a negative result, but said Careful Attack is the only useful difference between Stormwarden and Pathfinder. It's a fire-and-forget at-will that can, potentially, do *tremendous* amounts of damage in large group situations.

Of course, all of this above is only valid for my HR who has succumbed to Trapper-mania. Some of our brethren are still Combat or Archery, and I salute them. I'll excuse myself by saying that the loss of Royal Guard has made me make the switch. I've always loved the quick recharge on encounters - through the old feats described above or Royal Guard - and I couldn't do without. I hope you - our stalwart Combat and Archery friends - soon get some love. I know we're on the radar for a rework.

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

jaegernl said:
I chose Pathfinder, but the story of why is a long one.

My HR has undergone an evolution. I started off as Stormwarden, during the era of the previous feat trees - Archery, Combat and Nature. At that stage it was common held wisdom that Stormwarden meant AoE, while Pathfinder was the PvP style. I PvP'd for a while, as a Combat build - one of the top PvP builds at the time - so I went Pathfinder. After I lost my interest in PvP the Stormwarden Combat - Clear the Ground - PvE build took off. I, personally, consider that the high point of my HR experience, although the old Master of Archery - I think this meant crit on every ranged encounter - combined with a feat the provided an encounter cooldown reduction on every ranged crit, was glorious, too.

We had an awesome set - Royal Guard - and we'd jump into the fight, spamming Clear the Ground and using Rain of Sword's DoT to trigger Flurry (Combat capstone) and Royal Guard set bonus as much as possible. Remembering that playstyle made me roll a fresh Stormwarden Combat HR.

Of course, then the HR rework and Trapper came around. At first, Swiftness of the Fox meant a 1-second cooldown reduction on our encounter powers, and no one was impressed. We still had Royal Guard, and both - Trapper or Royal Guard - was overkill. Also, Thorned Roots worked differently - they applied the damage over the duration of the roots, making longer lasting roots stupid. Finally, they made the Swiftness work differently: they made it a percentage based reduction. Thorned Roots got changed, too, and the Trapper we all know and (I) love today was born.

Of course, with the birth of the encounter spamming Trapper the, previously loved, Clear the Ground-spamming PvE Combat HR died, sadly. The loss of Royal Guard made it worse. Trapper meant we all started spamming Encounters - which I love. Trapper is awesome, but it effectively killed the other build I was running for ages: the build that made me solo CN and the Dracolich, Stormwarden Combat.

As the Trapper evolved - and we got ten more levels - Paragon-specific class features like Blade Storm - which the Combat HR used - and Twin-blade Storm became... useless. A lot of Trappers today use Aspect of the Serpent, Crushing Roots, Seeker's Vengeance or Aspect of the Pack and the offhand bonus - bonus damage for every ally in range - as their class features. None of these are Paragon-specific. None of the encounters a HR Trapper uses are Paragon-specific. We generally use Constricting Arrow, Cordon of Arrows, Binding Arrow, Hindering Shot, Fox Shift, etc., etc.

The point of all this is that the Trapper HR - if he or she is Stormwarden or Pathfinder - doesn't use much or anything Paragon-specific. However, I did go Pathfinder. Reason: Careful Attack. It might screw with our Aspect of the Serpent stacks, of which I've never found a negative result, but said Careful Attack is the only useful difference between Stormwarden and Pathfinder. It's a fire-and-forget at-will that can, potentially, do *tremendous* amounts of damage in large group situations.

Of course, all of this above is only valid for my HR who has succumbed to Trapper-mania. Some of our brethren are still Combat or Archery, and I salute them. I'll excuse myself by saying that the loss of Royal Guard has made me make the switch. I've always loved the quick recharge on encounters - through the old feats described above or Royal Guard - and I couldn't do without. I hope you - our stalwart Combat and Archery friends - soon get some love. I know we're on the radar for a rework.

Indeed

I did another short clip on the X1 (never played the PC version) in a Skirmish just to show the tick damage from combinations of Careful Attack, Gushing Wound, Strong Roots, Weak Roots, Longstriders Shot, Aspect of the Serpent, Companions Gift, Deft Strikes, Agile Combatant and Actives from Companions etc etc.

Forget the end result as UD has only just dropped on the Xbox, it was a PUG and we had to kick 2 people during it for being completely AFK and just standing there, seen a lot of trolling unfortunately lately. Just look at some of the combo's, I cannot wait until my Crit is higher as its only 40% at the moment.

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14752840

I`m still testing lots of different things as a few new companions just came out etc, I`ve never been able to get as high a DPS with Stormwarden as I do a Pathfinder, re-specced probably 50 times throughout my time on NW.

jonkoca · February 2016

Pathfinder

Pathfinder, for CA. Necessary for pvp, and syergizes with gushing in pve single targets, as has been said.

lirithiel · February 2016

Stormwarden

Noooooo. We cannot let these hyper-druids on steroids win. More votes for SW!!!

Unknown · February 2016

This content has been removed.

glubtal · February 2016

Pathfinder

jaegernl said:
Careful Attack. It might screw with our Aspect of the Serpent stacks, of which I've never found a negative result,

This come up from time to time. I use Carefull Attack and Aspect of the Serpent. Whats wrong with those two together?.
I hear if you use CA you dont get much/anything of the Serpent, true?

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

glubtal said:

jaegernl said:
Careful Attack. It might screw with our Aspect of the Serpent stacks, of which I've never found a negative result,
This come up from time to time. I use Carefull Attack and Aspect of the Serpent. Whats wrong with those two together?.
I hear if you use CA you dont get much/anything of the Serpent, true?

Not true.... Just think of it like this, when Careful Attack is up and ticking you actually make your ranged powers much stronger than your melee powers. I have done a few video's to explain this that you can find on this forum (maybe check out the Xbox HR forum though as I post on there). There are a number of threads where I try to explain it.

If you are running solo with an Aug and no other players around you will not really notice Careful Attack messing with AtoS... but if you are in a group you will notice it. Each Ally that hits an enemy with Careful Attack on will generate you 1 Stack of Ranged AtoS... You have to really adjust your rotations to get a melee version up. But a good thing about this is you can fire off 5-6 Ranged Powers in a rotation and nearly all of them will benefit from a Ranged stack (or 2) of AtoS. For more info check out my vids etc on the Xbox HR forum

Edit... actually the 2 video's in this thread I posted earlier are a good reference. Rather than concentrate on what I am doing just stare at my buff bar. You can see when Careful Attack is up I almost always have 1 or 2 ranged AtoS up.

If you watch the Spider video http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14169729 you will see on occasion I get 1 stack of Melee AtoS up whilst Careful Attack is proccing...
I do this with the following rotation : Binding Shot > Hunters Teamwork > Hindering Shot > Hunters Teamwork > Fox's Cunning and then switch and use Hindering Strike with the melee AtoS I get very very briefly. If I get a Daily off in the Ranged rotation this helps to get the melee AtoS. I actually hold the trigger for Hunters Teamwork during the animation of Binding Shot and Hindering Shot for a very quick fire off at the end of animation.

Anyhoo that rotation is quite old now and I have moved on to Longstriders > Constricting > Binding Encounters, that also has ways of throwing in quick At-Wills in order to get a melee AtoS up for a brief period whilst using Careful Attack in a group.

aaramis75 · February 2016

Pathfinder

wdj40 said:

Not true.... Just think of it like this, when Careful Attack is up and ticking you actually make your ranged powers much stronger than your melee powers. I have done a few video's to explain this that you can find on this forum (maybe check out the Xbox HR forum though as I post on there). There are a number of threads where I try to explain it.

If you are running solo with an Aug and no other players around you will not really notice Careful Attack messing with AtoS... but if you are in a group you will notice it. Each Ally that hits an enemy with Careful Attack on will generate you 1 Stack of Ranged AtoS... You have to really adjust your rotations to get a melee version up. But a good thing about this is you can fire off 5-6 Ranged Powers in a rotation and nearly all of them will benefit from a Ranged stack (or 2) of AtoS. For more info check out my vids etc on the Xbox HR forum

Yep, which I believe is how the "Longshot" build was born. I tested it for a while, and it works very well, but it meant I didn't have the spare feat points to get all of the Trapper feats I wanted, which ultimately brought me back more towards a pure Trapper build (+Bloodletting from Combat). But I digress.

Good thread - if nothing else, I think it's brought Careful Attack's benefits to light and maybe changed a few people's opinions

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

aaramis75 said:

wdj40 said:

Not true.... Just think of it like this, when Careful Attack is up and ticking you actually make your ranged powers much stronger than your melee powers. I have done a few video's to explain this that you can find on this forum (maybe check out the Xbox HR forum though as I post on there). There are a number of threads where I try to explain it.

If you are running solo with an Aug and no other players around you will not really notice Careful Attack messing with AtoS... but if you are in a group you will notice it. Each Ally that hits an enemy with Careful Attack on will generate you 1 Stack of Ranged AtoS... You have to really adjust your rotations to get a melee version up. But a good thing about this is you can fire off 5-6 Ranged Powers in a rotation and nearly all of them will benefit from a Ranged stack (or 2) of AtoS. For more info check out my vids etc on the Xbox HR forum
Yep, which I believe is how the "Longshot" build was born. I tested it for a while, and it works very well, but it meant I didn't have the spare feat points to get all of the Trapper feats I wanted, which ultimately brought me back more towards a pure Trapper build (+Bloodletting from Combat). But I digress.

Good thread - if nothing else, I think it's brought Careful Attack's benefits to light and maybe changed a few people's opinions

Yeah I tested Longshot and thought it was utter garbage lol and same as you I felt I lost too many points from Trapper & Combat (15 just to get it).

malabogpigfeeder · February 2016

Stormwarden

I see usefullness to pathfinder in pvp, pve stormwarden, twin blades is important, blade storm is important, depending on the situation.

zekethesinner · February 2016

Pathfinder

malabogpigfeeder said:
I see usefullness to pathfinder in pvp, pve stormwarden, twin blades is important, blade storm is important, depending on the situation.

That would be soo true, if, for once, any SM would get even close to my PF HR dps, not even mentioning @jaegerni HR.

Tho that polly is rly good thing, shows HRs with no dps, so handles which should be avoided. *yawns*

(Sin)cerely
Kain

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

malabogpigfeeder said:
I see usefullness to pathfinder in pvp, pve stormwarden, twin blades is important, blade storm is important, depending on the situation.

Here is another short 2min clips to show the Pathfinder Path and how good it is in PvE. When you get big groups of people you can hit some huge numbers... I`m seeing Crits of 200k-500k during rotations. If you have a look at this video, mainly against the HE boss some of the combo's give massive amounts of damage, also shows off how good Longstriders Shot is as it effects everyone in the area

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14872293

http://xboxdvr.com/gamer/wdj40/video/14878250

lirithiel · February 2016

Stormwarden

zekethesinner said:

Tho that polly is rly good thing, shows HRs with no dps, so handles which should be avoided. *yawns*

Bite me... elitist jerk

gabrieldourden · February 2016

Pathfinder

I'm playing a Psychotic Gardener as someone said in a different thread, so Pathfinder all the way for Careful Attack and Slasher's Mark.
I saw somebody asking why Careful Attack boosts ranged damage: I guess it's because you use Aspect of The Serpent. Each tick of Careful Attack counts as a melee hit and it ticks so fast in large groups that you basically have always 2 stacks of ranged Aspect of The Serpent up, so your ranged attacks always get the bonus and your melee basically never which, as it was already pointed out, is not bad at all.

wdj40 · February 2016

Pathfinder

gabrieldourden said:
I'm playing a Psychotic Gardener as someone said in a different thread, so Pathfinder all the way for Careful Attack and Slasher's Mark.
I saw somebody asking why Careful Attack boosts ranged damage: I guess it's because you use Aspect of The Serpent. Each tick of Careful Attack counts as a melee hit and it ticks so fast in large groups that you basically have always 2 stacks of ranged Aspect of The Serpent up, so your ranged attacks always get the bonus and your melee basically never which, as it was already pointed out, is not bad at all.

Yup and this is exactly why for months and months and months on every forum I could find I was bashing people who were saying good Rangers never use At-Wills. This is nonsense if you use Careful Attack in a group format. Solo yes, with an Aug and no NPC's or Allies around at all, then normal At-Wills probably are a bit pointless (or if Careful Attack is not up).

Whilst Careful Attack is up in a group format, in Ranged Stance, then you can get away with :
Daily > Encounter > At-Will > Encounter > At-Will > Encounter > At-Will
Then switch to melee (as long as its a fast At-Will like Rapid Shot or Hunters Teamwork), sometimes even with a bunch of you hitting an enemy you can get a stack or 2, very very briefly, of Melee AtoS for your heaviest melee attack... Mine is Hindering Strike. The videos in thread I posted show this rotation although its very hard to see me actually firing off Hunters Teamwork between each Ranged Encounter.

aaramis75 · February 2016

Pathfinder

^^ yep, I do similar on my HR. Teamwork is a pretty fast firing at-will, so I tend to throw it out in between ranged encounters.

And with the artifact weapon power boosting both Teamwork and CA by X %, it's not entirely horrible damage either.

zekethesinner · February 2016

Pathfinder

wdj40 said:

gabrieldourden said:
I'm playing a Psychotic Gardener as someone said in a different thread, so Pathfinder all the way for Careful Attack and Slasher's Mark.
I saw somebody asking why Careful Attack boosts ranged damage: I guess it's because you use Aspect of The Serpent. Each tick of Careful Attack counts as a melee hit and it ticks so fast in large groups that you basically have always 2 stacks of ranged Aspect of The Serpent up, so your ranged attacks always get the bonus and your melee basically never which, as it was already pointed out, is not bad at all.
Yup and this is exactly why for months and months and months on every forum I could find I was bashing people who were saying good Rangers never use At-Wills. This is nonsense if you use Careful Attack in a group format. Solo yes, with an Aug and no NPC's or Allies around at all, then normal At-Wills probably are a bit pointless (or if Careful Attack is not up).

Whilst Careful Attack is up in a group format, in Ranged Stance, then you can get away with :
Daily > Encounter > At-Will > Encounter > At-Will > Encounter > At-Will
Then switch to melee (as long as its a fast At-Will like Rapid Shot or Hunters Teamwork), sometimes even with a bunch of you hitting an enemy you can get a stack or 2, very very briefly, of Melee AtoS for your heaviest melee attack... Mine is Hindering Strike. The videos in thread I posted show this rotation although its very hard to see me actually firing off Hunters Teamwork between each Ranged Encounter.

In solo i almost never use at-wills, maybe against golems or bosses in DR mini-dungs, any other mob will just die with 3 melee or ranged encounters, if not immediately, roots will bleed them out.

In dungs from the other hand, CA is great tool, i also use aimed strike at start of boss fight and when after couple of rotations im out of stacks of hindering/cordon. I use them coz it works "passively", land CA on boss/tough mob and it will do additional dmg without any further interference, which is pretty nice. U can focus on rotation/dailies.

(Sin)cerely
Kain

ralexinor · February 2016

wdj40 said:

aaramis75 said:

wdj40 said:

Not true.... Just think of it like this, when Careful Attack is up and ticking you actually make your ranged powers much stronger than your melee powers. I have done a few video's to explain this that you can find on this forum (maybe check out the Xbox HR forum though as I post on there). There are a number of threads where I try to explain it.

If you are running solo with an Aug and no other players around you will not really notice Careful Attack messing with AtoS... but if you are in a group you will notice it. Each Ally that hits an enemy with Careful Attack on will generate you 1 Stack of Ranged AtoS... You have to really adjust your rotations to get a melee version up. But a good thing about this is you can fire off 5-6 Ranged Powers in a rotation and nearly all of them will benefit from a Ranged stack (or 2) of AtoS. For more info check out my vids etc on the Xbox HR forum
Yep, which I believe is how the "Longshot" build was born. I tested it for a while, and it works very well, but it meant I didn't have the spare feat points to get all of the Trapper feats I wanted, which ultimately brought me back more towards a pure Trapper build (+Bloodletting from Combat). But I digress.

Good thread - if nothing else, I think it's brought Careful Attack's benefits to light and maybe changed a few people's opinions
Yeah I tested Longshot and thought it was utter garbage lol and same as you I felt I lost too many points from Trapper & Combat (15 just to get it).

Longshot was not designed as a PvE build, because the feat itself is not affected directly by damage boosts (piercing damage). Why would you need points from combat lol, the only one you could take is Bloodletting and honestly if you're having that much trouble with survivability it's a playstyle issue, not a build issue.

Also in today's meta (and since mod 5-6 really), Pathfinder is much much better than Stormwarden for PvE because of all the single target fights there are. Stormwarden may be better for AoE fights (Twin-Blade Storm), even if I'm not sure if TBS actually affects Thorned Roots (never really was Stormwarden except for the start of module 5 because I always pvp'd with my hr). And @wdj40, people saying a good Trapper doesn't use at-wills aren't entirely wrong, the only at-will you will use in a mob aoe fight is Careful Attack, generally once or less per mob depending on the mob type. If you're running T2s, you generally will not have time to use at-wills in fights because you will want to burst down the trash mobs first for the damage, and in a decent party you will burn down the champion mobs fast enough so that CA/at-wills is barely any damage increase and can be detrimental to your dps anyway because of this.

The cons and pros of SW vs PF really are:

Stormwarden
AoE - Twin-Blade Storm
AoE - Clear the Ground
AoE - Split the Sky
ST/AoE - Cold Steel Hurricane

Pathfinder
ST - Careful Attack
Utility - Slasher's Mark
Bear Tra- HAHA

SW has the advantage AoE damage-wise, mostly because of TBS (assuming it works with Thorned Roots which I honestly don't know if it does). If your party does not need you to run Crushing Roots (most of the time it doesn't if you have enough damage), then you can run TBS + Serpent. However, Pathfinder isn't too far behind in this department because you have Seeker's Vengeance vs TBS. I think TBS would have a higher uptime, but Seeker's Vengeance is also really really good, just takes a bit of getting used to in order to maximise effectiveness. A good party will always have Combat Advantage and you will generally always have Combat Advantage if you run Seeker's anyway, assuming someone else has aggro (then I'm reminded of that one eCC boss fight in mod 6 where some horrible GF in my party kept losing aggro to me or the dc... >_>), so there is no real need to run Aspect of the Pack. Split the Sky has very good potential, but not sure if it's as good in the meta nowadays especially after it got the nerf bat. CtG is a good at-will but you don't really have time to fire off many at-wills generally and the damage per hit is a bit lackluster compared to the rest of your arsenal, and here is where PF's CA will outperform SW's arsenal, because you can fire and then forget. Overall, in terms of AoE/trash clearing, I think SW may have a slight advantage (mostly easier to play really), assuming TBS works with TR, but PF may outperform it if you can have consistent uptime on SV.

In terms of single target, it's basically SW's CSH vs PF's CA. CA will be more consistent I would think, however CSH should not be underestimated either. Overall, CA is probably the most effectiveness especially in large groups but CSH is still good on the condition that it's a stationary target. Lostmauth does, however, put PF at a significant advantage, because it almost doubles CA's damage, especially with its ability to multiproc. Not sure if CSH procs LM, but I don't think it's anywhere near as good anyway unless you get lucky enough to bug CSH (if you manage to bug it right on top of a stationary boss at the start of the fight, GG, SW > PF). Overall, PF will generally outperform SW by a large margin because realistically, with LM procs + large groups, CSH can't compare to CA especially if the target is mobile. CSH is largely restricted in its use because you need to aim it correctly and it has to hit for its whole duration to be effective, whereas CA is, again, fire and forget (well, crit and forget).

I will say that I do love the Stormwarden path more than Pathfinder even if it's not as good. The animations are my favourite out of any class in the game (Electric Shot is my favourite at-will, aesthetics wise), even if the skills are useless. Cold Steel Hurricane, Electric Shot/Clear the Ground, Split the Sky are all really cool looking skills.

EDIT: this is talking from a Trapper perspective, Archery and Combat generally do better with Stormwarden, although for Combat HR it is a toss-up between Clear the Ground and Careful Attack. Both of them are the best at-wills for Combat but you can't have best of both worlds, unfortunately.

Stormwarden vs. Pathfinder

Stormwarden vs. Pathfinder 60 votes

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