Hey guys, I am looking for an update for my HR stormwarden trapper mod 10. I would like to stay stormwarden but have only seen hunter updates yet. Thanks for help in advance.
You're in the wrong thread This is an Archery build.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
Full archery SW HR here, I've been really happy with this mod, still testing which skills are best for which sittuation, but now AotF never leaves my bar, I just swich TBS for SSA for boss fights, last night I had really good success using Hawk shot, CoA and RoA, my rotation was: CoA, Hawk eye, CoA, HS, RoA and after some Aimed Shots to low CDs, still testing to see, but in some situations (things dieing really fast) Electric Shot might be better than Split shot, mind that I'm using eLoL set, for boss fights I only use Hawk shot when there is lot of stuff to hit, if it's only the boss Comanding Shot I think it's better, Longstrider and RoA the other two, I consider using thorn ward only when I cannot keep max distance from it. After Aimed Shot changes RoA got really better, it has a low CD and we can reduce it even more, Thorn ward is in a awkward spot for me right now, it's stays longer then the CD on it, and in faster terms RoA does more damage.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I've been using Electric Shot for about a week now and I can see the damage increase it received. The (slightly) faster animation is also nice although I still think Split Shot does more damage - haven't tested yet to confirm - but ES is just smoother to use. For me Pack never leaves my bar but I alternate between Falcon and TBS for the other slot. Aimed is obviously a given now, although I do miss Rapid Shot otherwise everything else is the same as Mod 9: RoA, Longstrider's, CoA/TW.
With Aimed hitting a lot less times than Rapid during a boss fight the Lostmauth set really doesn't do much anymore. I'm so tempted to switch out the belt for Twined Rope of Dex and get another artifact to replace the Horn. I will also be adding the Wheel to my arsenal on Sept 1 in place of Sigil of the Hunter. I also upgraded my gear to Dragonflight, replacing to 2 Elemental Elven pieces but I lost over 2k Crit and only did slightly more damage in the upgraded gear so I'm keeping the former.
I am not rushing to try out FBI (haven't even started the quest-line on my Archer yet) and the new gear doesn't inspire me enough to experience the whole IWD scenario again. Those Black Ice gloves... Likely I will keep the same gear for another Mod. Even if I was lucky enough to get all 4 pieces with Power and Crit I would still have to look at changing artifacts again to make up for the lost ArP. I miss the diversity of gear in the early Mods. The stats on HR gear these are terrible.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I will probably update this thread in due time as the dust begins to settle from Mod 10.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I've been using Electric Shot for about a week now and I can see the damage increase it received. The (slightly) faster animation is also nice although I still think Split Shot does more damage - haven't tested yet to confirm - but ES is just smoother to use. For me Pack never leaves my bar but I alternate between Falcon and TBS for the other slot. Aimed is obviously a given now, although I do miss Rapid Shot otherwise everything else is the same as Mod 9: RoA, Longstrider's, CoA/TW.
With Aimed hitting a lot less times than Rapid during a boss fight the Lostmauth set really doesn't do much anymore. I'm so tempted to switch out the belt for Twined Rope of Dex and get another artifact to replace the Horn. I will also be adding the Wheel to my arsenal on Sept 1 in place of Sigil of the Hunter. I also upgraded my gear to Dragonflight, replacing to 2 Elemental Elven pieces but I lost over 2k Crit and only did slightly more damage in the upgraded gear so I'm keeping the former.
I am not rushing to try out FBI (haven't even started the quest-line on my Archer yet) and the new gear doesn't inspire me enough to experience the whole IWD scenario again. Those Black Ice gloves... Likely I will keep the same gear for another Mod. Even if I was lucky enough to get all 4 pieces with Power and Crit I would still have to look at changing artifacts again to make up for the lost ArP. I miss the diversity of gear in the early Mods. The stats on HR gear these are terrible.
What arts do you have? IMO, BiS arts are sigils of controller/huter/fighter for stats, lantern as the art with best stats ever, and wheel for best active ever. About pack, sometimes it is better to go stormstep/seekers venegance if there is a gf or gwf or reneCW in your party, flacon is a musthave for archery now.
It will be greate if you give this guide an update, as archer's playstile is a bit different now. and how about a combat guide? i respeced to combat recently, and find the dps in party just at the same level (but, sadly, with no buff from longstrinder) and much better performance in soloplay.
Combat dps for what i saw myself still pales.. I mean i like it for pvp but i lost my hopes pf making it viable for pve. Will be back to trapper as soon as i can...
I switched back to SW archer on the 1st day of this new mod. Tried Hawk Shot and really liked it but the animation was too long. I like Thorn Ward for soloing because you can just jump around the thorn ward and watch everything die, but the range is not great. Right now for solo I have been using Thorn Ward, Longstrider, and CoA. I might switch out TW for something with more range but I don't know what I'll use instead.
Keep commenting guy's. I'd like to here more of your opinions.
SonOfRob
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I've been using Electric Shot for about a week now and I can see the damage increase it received. The (slightly) faster animation is also nice although I still think Split Shot does more damage - haven't tested yet to confirm - but ES is just smoother to use. For me Pack never leaves my bar but I alternate between Falcon and TBS for the other slot. Aimed is obviously a given now, although I do miss Rapid Shot otherwise everything else is the same as Mod 9: RoA, Longstrider's, CoA/TW.
With Aimed hitting a lot less times than Rapid during a boss fight the Lostmauth set really doesn't do much anymore. I'm so tempted to switch out the belt for Twined Rope of Dex and get another artifact to replace the Horn. I will also be adding the Wheel to my arsenal on Sept 1 in place of Sigil of the Hunter. I also upgraded my gear to Dragonflight, replacing to 2 Elemental Elven pieces but I lost over 2k Crit and only did slightly more damage in the upgraded gear so I'm keeping the former.
I am not rushing to try out FBI (haven't even started the quest-line on my Archer yet) and the new gear doesn't inspire me enough to experience the whole IWD scenario again. Those Black Ice gloves... Likely I will keep the same gear for another Mod. Even if I was lucky enough to get all 4 pieces with Power and Crit I would still have to look at changing artifacts again to make up for the lost ArP. I miss the diversity of gear in the early Mods. The stats on HR gear these are terrible.
What arts do you have? IMO, BiS arts are sigils of controller/huter/fighter for stats, lantern as the art with best stats ever, and wheel for best active ever. About pack, sometimes it is better to go stormstep/seekers venegance if there is a gf or gwf or reneCW in your party, flacon is a musthave for archery now.
At the moment I have Lostmauth's Horn of Blasting (active), Lantern of Revelation, Sigil of the Controller and Sigil of the Hunter. I like using the Horn as active as the on-use ability does 27k damage in a frontal cone to all targets and knocks them back but the Control Bonus is pretty much wasted on an Archer. I have a Sigil of the Great Weapon in the bank which I might switch out for it while other options are Thayan Book of the Dead and Kessell's Spheres of Annihilation. I also have a Wheel to level up during upcoming RP event, replacing Sigil of the Hunter. Wheel will be my new active artifact.
It will be greate if you give this guide an update, as archer's playstile is a bit different now. and how about a combat guide? i respeced to combat recently, and find the dps in party just at the same level (but, sadly, with no buff from longstrinder) and much better performance in soloplay.
It's difficult to compare my Archer and Combat HRs to one another even though they have the same IL. On target dummies Archer slaughters Combat but I have managed to match or even do more damage than GWFs and SWs of similar IL as Combat whereas it was a no-contest before Mod 10. SW Combat is amazing for AoE. Until the first batch of nerfs strike I'm going to enjoy the Combat HR experience as much as I can, it's nice to do some decent damage again.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
i am using your build my current rotation is constrict arrows coa and roa, tbs and aspect of the serpent slotted working perfectly so far was using aimed shot but switching to rapid shot til my crit is higher
Combat dps for what i saw myself still pales.. I mean i like it for pvp but i lost my hopes pf making it viable for pve. Will be back to trapper as soon as i can...
Trapper is much better in PVP now with Mod 10 changes My kills are way up and deaths are down wins are meh but that's due to having to Pug and get a least 1 premade stomping per day but I still got more wins than losses and the matches are definably fun.
gear is 2 elemental Lions mane and 2 Prestige EB and Twisted set trying both dread and Fey cant seem so be a clear winner of the 2 which is rough because it keeps all my Ad tied up in the extra weapon
I will say though its hard to beat a Combat HR my level if he has any skill the rod PG thornstrike combo hits like a truck but if hes got negation I have a chance if I can dodge him I got him then if he doesnot have 165K hps
I will probably update this thread in due time as the dust begins to settle from Mod 10.
I used my free respec token recently, just to find out that there is no M10 build out there yet. I consider applying your M9 suggestions to my HR. Would that be very wrong?
I like the stormwarden as such, play purely PvE.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I will probably update this thread in due time as the dust begins to settle from Mod 10.
I used my free respec token recently, just to find out that there is no M10 build out there yet. I consider applying your M9 suggestions to my HR. Would that be very wrong?
I like the stormwarden as such, play purely PvE.
The feats are identical to the original ones I posted. Only real change is Aimed Shot, which does a tonne of damage and reduces our CDs slightly, and Electric Shot which I always preferred to Split Shot. ES still does less damage than SS but I can live with that. I also slot Falcon now unless there are loads of mobs and then I use Twin-Blade Storm. I still roll with Pack.
I'm sure others have tested but I am still using the same encounter set-up: Rain, Longstrider, Cordon/Thorn Ward. I'm still not a fan of Hawk Shot - I did try it out on a few boss fights but switching from range to melee to apply Hawk Eye and then switching back to range for fire off Hawk Shot takes too long. The Longstrider buff is enough for me. I may try Split the Sky on dragons in place of rain at some stage to see how it performs but the animation is still too long for me. Nothing else was buffed enough for me to consider changing out what I'm using now.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I have started updating the original post although it is a work in progress.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
1 - are you really sure full crit is the way to go? Is this based at the nice feeling of having crits or have you done ACT logging and proven the worth of crit over a lower power and armorpen.
2 - This is up to personal taste but I would forgo any movement / stamina / HP feats I would spend my points as follows: 5/5 predatory action - 3/3 weaponmastery - 0/3 toughness 1/5 swift - 0/3 battlewise - 3/3 agile combatant (the rest we agree on) As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP. Our defense enchants and boons should be enough to survive spike damage. If all goes well we dont need to shift much. Again our boons should be enough of a boost. Instead of the stamina and health I would take more daily damage and 3% extra damage with switching stances. You can switch stances while casting aimed shot and keep up your buff 100% of the time. Imo worth more than some HP or stamina.
With paragon powers its the same idea. I rather take keen eye for the extra AP instead of extra stamina. Instead of hasty retreat I took 5 seconds more on split the sky. This last one is unsure though as I havent tested it if split the sky works well enough after the changes
1 - are you really sure full crit is the way to go? Is this based at the nice feeling of having crits or have you done ACT logging and proven the worth of crit over a lower power and armorpen.
2 - This is up to personal taste but I would forgo any movement / stamina / HP feats I would spend my points as follows: 5/5 predatory action - 3/3 weaponmastery - 0/3 toughness 1/5 swift - 0/3 battlewise - 3/3 agile combatant (the rest we agree on) As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP. Our defense enchants and boons should be enough to survive spike damage. If all goes well we dont need to shift much. Again our boons should be enough of a boost. Instead of the stamina and health I would take more daily damage and 3% extra damage with switching stances. You can switch stances while casting aimed shot and keep up your buff 100% of the time. Imo worth more than some HP or stamina.
With paragon powers its the same idea. I rather take keen eye for the extra AP instead of extra stamina. Instead of hasty retreat I took 5 seconds more on split the sky. This last one is unsure though as I havent tested it if split the sky works well enough after the changes
I would disagree on switching stance feat..every time u switch stance u lose time on pumping extra aimed shot..probably the time use for switching stance is 0.3 to 0.5 sec..while aimshot cast time is 1 sec.. and lets say u switch with every 3 sec to maximize the feat, 3 sec = 3x aimshot. Lets take it that u are able to switch 3 stance in 1 sec, u fire 9 shot of aimed with switching and 10 shot of aimed without switching. Losing 1 aimshot in this cycle is a 10% loss of dps compare to 3% gain. Take note that this is doesn't include ping and misc factor into calculation. With high ping or u miss the timing, the disparity is even bigger as u are not able to cast 3 aimshot in 3 sec.
HP feat is always good. Despite we archer rarely take damage from mob thanks to our tank for holding aggro, we sometime need survivability just in case when the aggro is on us. Especially in PUG, HP feat really helps in a bad party.
1 - are you really sure full crit is the way to go? Is this based at the nice feeling of having crits or have you done ACT logging and proven the worth of crit over a lower power and armorpen.
2 - This is up to personal taste but I would forgo any movement / stamina / HP feats I would spend my points as follows: 5/5 predatory action - 3/3 weaponmastery - 0/3 toughness 1/5 swift - 0/3 battlewise - 3/3 agile combatant (the rest we agree on) As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP. Our defense enchants and boons should be enough to survive spike damage. If all goes well we dont need to shift much. Again our boons should be enough of a boost. Instead of the stamina and health I would take more daily damage and 3% extra damage with switching stances. You can switch stances while casting aimed shot and keep up your buff 100% of the time. Imo worth more than some HP or stamina.
With paragon powers its the same idea. I rather take keen eye for the extra AP instead of extra stamina. Instead of hasty retreat I took 5 seconds more on split the sky. This last one is unsure though as I havent tested it if split the sky works well enough after the changes
I would disagree on switching stance feat..every time u switch stance u lose time on pumping extra aimed shot..probably the time use for switching stance is 0.3 to 0.5 sec..while aimshot cast time is 1 sec.. and lets say u switch with every 3 sec to maximize the feat, 3 sec = 3x aimshot. Lets take it that u are able to switch 3 stance in 1 sec, u fire 9 shot of aimed with switching and 10 shot of aimed without switching. Losing 1 aimshot in this cycle is a 10% loss of dps compare to 3% gain. Take note that this is doesn't include ping and misc factor into calculation. With high ping or u miss the timing, the disparity is even bigger as u are not able to cast 3 aimshot in 3 sec.
HP feat is always good. Despite we archer rarely take damage from mob thanks to our tank for holding aggro, we sometime need survivability just in case when the aggro is on us. Especially in PUG, HP feat really helps in a bad party.
I think what he is getting at is that you can switch stances whilst in the animation of certain attacks
This is exactly what I do (not with Aimed Shot mind you)... you do not lose any time if you double switch stances in certain places.
Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only Alts : Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
1 - are you really sure full crit is the way to go? Is this based at the nice feeling of having crits or have you done ACT logging and proven the worth of crit over a lower power and armorpen.
2 - This is up to personal taste but I would forgo any movement / stamina / HP feats I would spend my points as follows: 5/5 predatory action - 3/3 weaponmastery - 0/3 toughness 1/5 swift - 0/3 battlewise - 3/3 agile combatant (the rest we agree on) As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP. Our defense enchants and boons should be enough to survive spike damage. If all goes well we dont need to shift much. Again our boons should be enough of a boost. Instead of the stamina and health I would take more daily damage and 3% extra damage with switching stances. You can switch stances while casting aimed shot and keep up your buff 100% of the time. Imo worth more than some HP or stamina.
With paragon powers its the same idea. I rather take keen eye for the extra AP instead of extra stamina. Instead of hasty retreat I took 5 seconds more on split the sky. This last one is unsure though as I havent tested it if split the sky works well enough after the changes
1- full crit untill you have 100% full buffed, armpen at 50-60% resist ignored, all other stats should go in Power, as well as some recovery (about 3-5k unbuffed)
2- movement stamina and hp are of gret use. movement and stamina help evadig and moving to the next pack, so you do not arrive at the moment when everything is allready dead.
Hasty retreat is better than 5 sec for StS, as with bottoless quiver and aimed shots you allready have 100% uptime for StS, also, StS is a situational skill, so you loose 5 featpoints for smthing situational - this is not good Hasty retreat is also a perma buff to your speed.
Extra AP is not needed anyway, HRs dailies are not like CWs, they do only a bit more dps than a Cordon, this is the same reason why we do not take Preadatory action. Extra HP is good anyway, just a free radiant encha in a free slot.
I agree about agile combatant.
I disagree about ”As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP” - most of the time, arhcer figts at a 25-30 feat range, that is not much, as well as dealing high damage will lead to stealing agro, so you will get hits, lots of hits.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
HR stamina gain is slow - one of the slowest I believe - so I grab all I can from boons and feats. I use dodge a lot, it helps me to get into position quicker.
I have a lot of healing through boons and insignia so bigger HP pool means more heals. The other options available are trivial increases in damage anyway. But agreed, it is about personal taste - same with boons, which is why I won't go into great detail about them.
APG on HR is already quite good because we are the only class that is able to build up AP through encounters AND doing damage. And as @kangkeok pointed out, our dailies aren't great sources of damage, not like CW or TR.
My damage comes from Aimed Shot - which is still a bit clunky - so I prefer not to interrupt it for even a split second to get 3% extra damage for 5 seconds by which time the mob is dead. Agile Combatant is a no-brainer for Trapper and Combat but not for Archery.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats HAMSTER about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
okey, 100% crit with lowe power is good only at high critsev. there is a balance betwen power and crit, and this balance can be calculated, but it is a bit hard to do just in a moment. And also, 100% crit for archer fullbuffed (bonding, full rising precision stacks, stillness, sudden precision) is not a problem, and you will get it not loosing power or other stats.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
Currently my IL is 3.2k. The only things left to upgrade are the enchants which are all R9: Brutals and Darks. I use Perfect Vorpal and see no reason to upgrade it past that. My Crit Sev is 150% and fully buffed personally my Crit Chance is almost spot-on 100%. Once my enchants are fully ranked I will be able to drop some crit from boons to keep it at 100% or thereabouts.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats **** about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
getting crit chance to 100% is easy for archer..why not cap it out then get the 50% crit serv from gambit? then only u focus on power. That gambit feat is too good for archer. Minus the absence of rising focus (edit2), u still get at least 30% confirm boost to ur dmg. 30% = 12k stat. By stacking power, u need at least 12k power + another 100% crit to achieve the same result.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
Edit2: just realize i mention the wrong feat. Should be rising focus instead of stillness. Pardon my sleepiness at that time.
Post edited by kangkeok on
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats **** about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
getting crit chance to 100% is easy for archer..why not cap it out then get the 50% crit serv from gambit? then only u focus on power. That gambit feat is too good for archer. Minus the absence of stillness, u still get at least 30% confirm boost to ur dmg. 30% = 12k stat. By stacking power, u need at least 12k power + another 100% crit to achieve the same result.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
To get Gambit you would need to put 10 more points into Combat. What are you going to spend it on? All four feats in the first two tiers are solely for melee. A lot of good that's going to do for an Archer.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
The problem is that there are other encounters that are much better at the moment. I am currently using Thorned Strike, Gushing Wound and Plant Growth, and all three do loads of damage.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats **** about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
getting crit chance to 100% is easy for archer..why not cap it out then get the 50% crit serv from gambit? then only u focus on power. That gambit feat is too good for archer. Minus the absence of stillness, u still get at least 30% confirm boost to ur dmg. 30% = 12k stat. By stacking power, u need at least 12k power + another 100% crit to achieve the same result.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
To get Gambit you would need to put 10 more points into Combat. What are you going to spend it on? All four feats in the first two tiers are solely for melee. A lot of good that's going to do for an Archer.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
The problem is that there are other encounters that are much better at the moment. I am currently using Thorned Strike, Gushing Wound and Plant Growth, and all three do loads of damage.
Going for gambit, u just need to sacrifice hasty retreat, bottomless quiver & rising focus in exchange for 50% extra punch, the life steal & melee crit feat. Why not since :
1. 10% crit is easy to recover 2. performance vs single boss vastly improve. Thanks to unfliching aim, cool down difference is a fraction. 3. despite combat feat do not benefit archer in dungeon with tank, but it does help in solo content, POM tear phase or whenever we are force to go melee.
gambit might not be a good option in mod 9 due to lost of bottomless but with unflinching change and the aimshot charge time, gap between the 2 is narrowed down by alot. Hasty retreat is only good for kiting but u need to be damage 1st in order it to work. Its a survivability tool if u are able to survive taking hit in the 1st place. The 5% bonus speed (0.6% without dark enchant in utility) is too small to be a huge fuss. For Rising focus? i mean we take it for crit serv so gambit is more superior? The only way for rising focus to surpass gambit is to able to reach power more than 87k due to the extra 15% power increment rising focus provide.
Gambit built is more to dps, sacrificing survivability & utility uptime. Not to say that pure archery is very bad, they still do pretty decent dps with lower cooldown but not enough to overcome the 30% dmg increase gambit provide. The advantage of pure archer is they are more agile and flexible when situation comes which is why i still prefer pure archery. Gambit are for those that solely seek dps.
About throw caution, i m just implying firebreath86 that it is better to go with combat than archer as we need to go up close and personal. No comment if its really the best for combat as i m no expert in combat HR.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats **** about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
getting crit chance to 100% is easy for archer..why not cap it out then get the 50% crit serv from gambit? then only u focus on power. That gambit feat is too good for archer. Minus the absence of stillness, u still get at least 30% confirm boost to ur dmg. 30% = 12k stat. By stacking power, u need at least 12k power + another 100% crit to achieve the same result.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
To get Gambit you would need to put 10 more points into Combat. What are you going to spend it on? All four feats in the first two tiers are solely for melee. A lot of good that's going to do for an Archer.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
The problem is that there are other encounters that are much better at the moment. I am currently using Thorned Strike, Gushing Wound and Plant Growth, and all three do loads of damage.
Going for gambit, u just need to sacrifice hasty retreat, bottomless quiver & rising focus in exchange for 50% extra punch, the life steal & melee crit feat. Why not since :
1. 10% crit is easy to recover 2. performance vs single boss vastly improve. Thanks to unfliching aim, cool down difference is a fraction. 3. despite combat feat do not benefit archer in dungeon with tank, but it does help in solo content, POM tear phase or whenever we are force to go melee.
gambit might not be a good option in mod 9 due to lost of bottomless but with unflinching change and the aimshot charge time, gap between the 2 is narrowed down by alot. Hasty retreat is only good for kiting but u need to be damage 1st in order it to work. Its a survivability tool if u are able to survive taking hit in the 1st place. The 5% bonus speed (0.6% without dark enchant in utility) is too small to be a huge fuss. For Rising focus? i mean we take it for crit serv so gambit is more superior? The only way for rising focus to surpass gambit is to able to reach power more than 87k due to the extra 15% power increment rising focus provide.
Gambit built is more to dps, sacrificing survivability & utility uptime. Not to say that pure archery is very bad, they still do pretty decent dps with lower cooldown but not enough to overcome the 30% dmg increase gambit provide. The advantage of pure archer is they are more agile and flexible when situation comes which is why i still prefer pure archery. Gambit are for those that solely seek dps.
About throw caution, i m just implying firebreath86 that it is better to go with combat than archer as we need to go up close and personal. No comment if its really the best for combat as i m no expert in combat HR.
you are totally wrong. Gambit is not a 30% dps. if you have a perfect vorpal + rising focus and 100% crit then you have 1(base dmg) + 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5 (vorpal) + 0,15 (rising focus) = 2,4 dps coeficient from crit severity with gambit youll have 1+ 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5(vorpal) + 0,5 (gambit) = 2,75 dps coeficient
you will get a 14% dps increase, and sacrifice some archery feats and need to compensate 10% crit.
so without gambit you have 100% crit and 4k more power (with gambit this 4k stats go into crit), and rising focus, that is 15% more power.
if you allready have 20k (+50% damage) power with gambit (and 100% crit) then without gambit you will have 24k+15% = 27.6k = +69% dmage
so your dps with gambit is: base damage *1,5 (from power) * 2,75 (from crit severity) = base damage * 4,125
without gambit you have base damage *1,69 * 2,4 = base damage * 4,056
all in all, you will have a (4,056 - 4,125)/4,056 = 0,017 (or 1.7%) damage increase.
if there is a dancing blade and an ernye and your char is an orc, and crit chance is lower then 100% then the difference is even smaller. If you have not tested with extensive ACT logs and teoretical calculations, plese, do not post such things. as you can make ppl to waste 600 zen for retraining tokens.
If you do not trust this calculations, then call for sharpedge, or ironzerg, they are good at maths and will prove what i said.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798 I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats **** about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
getting crit chance to 100% is easy for archer..why not cap it out then get the 50% crit serv from gambit? then only u focus on power. That gambit feat is too good for archer. Minus the absence of stillness, u still get at least 30% confirm boost to ur dmg. 30% = 12k stat. By stacking power, u need at least 12k power + another 100% crit to achieve the same result.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
To get Gambit you would need to put 10 more points into Combat. What are you going to spend it on? All four feats in the first two tiers are solely for melee. A lot of good that's going to do for an Archer.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
The problem is that there are other encounters that are much better at the moment. I am currently using Thorned Strike, Gushing Wound and Plant Growth, and all three do loads of damage.
Going for gambit, u just need to sacrifice hasty retreat, bottomless quiver & rising focus in exchange for 50% extra punch, the life steal & melee crit feat. Why not since :
1. 10% crit is easy to recover 2. performance vs single boss vastly improve. Thanks to unfliching aim, cool down difference is a fraction. 3. despite combat feat do not benefit archer in dungeon with tank, but it does help in solo content, POM tear phase or whenever we are force to go melee.
gambit might not be a good option in mod 9 due to lost of bottomless but with unflinching change and the aimshot charge time, gap between the 2 is narrowed down by alot. Hasty retreat is only good for kiting but u need to be damage 1st in order it to work. Its a survivability tool if u are able to survive taking hit in the 1st place. The 5% bonus speed (0.6% without dark enchant in utility) is too small to be a huge fuss. For Rising focus? i mean we take it for crit serv so gambit is more superior? The only way for rising focus to surpass gambit is to able to reach power more than 87k due to the extra 15% power increment rising focus provide.
Gambit built is more to dps, sacrificing survivability & utility uptime. Not to say that pure archery is very bad, they still do pretty decent dps with lower cooldown but not enough to overcome the 30% dmg increase gambit provide. The advantage of pure archer is they are more agile and flexible when situation comes which is why i still prefer pure archery. Gambit are for those that solely seek dps.
About throw caution, i m just implying firebreath86 that it is better to go with combat than archer as we need to go up close and personal. No comment if its really the best for combat as i m no expert in combat HR.
you are totally wrong. Gambit is not a 30% dps. if you have a perfect vorpal + rising focus and 100% crit then you have 1(base dmg) + 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5 (vorpal) + 0,15 (rising focus) = 2,4 dps coeficient from crit severity with gambit youll have 1+ 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5(vorpal) + 0,5 (gambit) = 2,75 dps coeficient
you will get a 14% dps increase, and sacrifice some archery feats and need to compensate 10% crit.
so without gambit you have 100% crit and 4k more power (with gambit this 4k stats go into crit), and rising focus, that is 15% more power.
if you allready have 20k (+50% damage) power with gambit (and 100% crit) then without gambit you will have 24k+15% = 27.6k = +69% dmage
so your dps with gambit is: base damage *1,5 (from power) * 2,75 (from crit severity) = base damage * 4,125
without gambit you have base damage *1,69 * 2,4 = base damage * 4,056
all in all, you will have a (4,056 - 4,125)/4,056 = 0,017 (or 1.7%) damage increase.
if there is a dancing blade and an ernye and your char is an orc, and crit chance is lower then 100% then the difference is even smaller. If you have not tested with extensive ACT logs and teoretical calculations, plese, do not post such things. as you can make ppl to waste 600 zen for retraining tokens.
If you do not trust this calculations, then call for sharpedge, or ironzerg, they are good at maths and will prove what i said.
Ok thanks for pointing out. After having tested in preview, your math proves right. Pure archer is still the way to go then.
Can u finish this guide please? So far works like charm.
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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
Mod 10 update continued...
Gear
This is where I made the most gains on Crit. I use the Elemental Elven Assault armor and gloves (both Crit and ArP), along with Dusk Raid helm and boots (both Power and Crit). I tried various other set-ups but I lost too much Crit which I couldn't make up elsewhere. I do have the Elemental Dragonflight helm and boots, but I consider the 2-piece set bonus from Dusk far superior. Combining the two sets cost me so much Crit in the end. If you plan to do a lot of the Demonic content in the game then feel free to look at Drowcraft gear, but the set-bonus were only useful in a few instances for me to bother with it - much like the Relic gear.
The weapon set I settled on is Twisted. I had the Earthen Elemental set beforehand but when the Twisted bow dropped in eDemo I decided to get the set. Even the Drowned set could work if you feel squishy. I took one each of the +4 Rising Power and Precision rings, while shirt/pants combo is Gemmed Exquisite Elemental shirt and pants, although Drowcraft is a perfectly good choice as you crit so much.
Despite my high Crit rate, however, the fix to the Lostmauth set bonus eventually led me to pursue other options. On a target dummy Lostmauth procs equated to just 1% of my total damage using Aimed Shot in my rotation. It was a lot more effective with Rapid Shot, where I was getting 5% on a target dummy - this would obviously be less in a fully buffed-up party or group - but Aimed Shot just does so much more damage and reduces my CDs with the Unflinching Aim feat. As such I kept the Lostmauth neck, but dropped the belt for Twined Rope of Dexterity, while I swapped out the Horn of Blasting for Sigil of the Great Weapon, which is basically a trade in Control Bonus for more HP. If the Rod of Imperial Restraint didn't also have Control Bonus as a stat I might have tried that set, but the set bonus amounts to about the same as Lostmauth. The Orcus set is the new BiS for dps classes but the stats are mostly terrible for Archery nevermind the drop-rate for the belt and artifact. So my point is you need not scratch your head over which set to pursue because it gives you a chance to balance your stats by picking whatever combo of neck, belt and artifact you feel like getting or can afford.
To sum it up: Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace (Power, Crit, ArP) for neck and Twined Rope of Dexterity (Power Crit, ArP) for belt. Wheel of Elements (Power, HP, Stam Regen) as active artifact along with Lantern of Revelation (Crit, ArP, Combat Advantage), Sigil of the Controller (Power, Crit, Control Resist) and Sigil of the Great Weapon (Power, ArP, HP).
As the gear I chose contained no Lifesteal I relied on Dark enchantments in all my defensive slots, while I used a combination of Brutal (Power/Crit) enchantments and Dark (to get to 60% Resistance Ignored) in the offensive slots. Vorpal (no need for more than Perfect) for weapon and Soulforged for armor. I finally managed all this during the last double refinement weekend so yay!
NOTE: While the Dread enchantment may look enticing, I don't see it performing better than Vorpal for Archery. Trappers make great use of Dread with their low CDs on encounters, but Archery cannot manage that. I haven't tested it to confirm my suspicions, though, it's just a gut feeling. If anyone has tested please let me know so I can make the necessary adjustments.
Boons
I'm not going to go into great detail about boons nor am I going to list mine. They are mostly situational while there are those that obviously should be ignored as they don't suit ranged. As long as you're not at 100% Crit Chance you should be taking Crit over Deflect. Also always Power over Defense and Lifesteal over Regeneration. I will add, however, that the 2 Tier 4 damage boons from Sharandar and Dread Ring have awful proc rates, therefore, I prefer the healing ones.
Companions
Companions are back in the ball game thanks to Bonding Runestones. It used to be that for end-game content you grabbed whatever Ioun Stone you fancied and rolled with the augment as your active companion, along with four others for their active bonuses. While the latter hasn't changed, Bonding Runestones have revitalised companions. Initially a companion's attack speed was vital to keeping up as many stacks as possible (Bondings could proc more than 3 times), the most recent change means that you can pretty much use any companion you want to. You'd still want one with a fast-ish attack speed (2 seconds or thereabouts) if you have the Protector's insignia mount bonus, although a Honey Badger with a 3-sec attack speed had no problems keeping up 4 stacks.
As I play a damage-dealing class I decided to use a companion with 3 offensive runestone slots. Previously I used Lightfoot Thief and Blink Dog before I settled on a Pseudodragon, but in the end I went with a Fire Archon because it stays relatively close to me so that I keep Combat Advantage up on myself with Aspect of the Pack. There aren't many options available for a ranged companion with 3 offensive slots. The active bonus only kicks in when the mob reaches 50% HP I but struggle to find a better companion that does the same job. The other companions I have as active are Air Archon, Earth Archon, Erinyes of Belial and Blink Dog. At some stage I may replace the Blink Dog with a Dancing Blade if I ever decide to upgrade it to epic.
It's a pity that companions never received an upgrade when Mod 6 changed the face of the game. Companions with stats as active bonuses are generally considered crumby even if they meet the other necessary requirements. At epic the companion doesn't even increase the stat by 1%. They should at least have been buffed it to provide 400 of a stat at epic and 200/200 for dual stats. However, if you're not a Timmy Powergamer then feel free to choose one. The Sellsword is particularly good for the debuff it provides at epic rank.
Playstyle
Basically you want to maintain a distance of between 25-30 yards to the mob for the 25% Crit boost from Stillness of the Forest (25') to come into play and for the Longstrider's buff (30') to apply. At the same time you want to stay as close to your party members as possible to give them Combat Advantage via Aspect of the Pack, while many party-wide buffs have a range of 30 yards so being further away means you miss out on those crucial buffs.
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I have been playing an archer for quite a while, and my build was 'close' to your suggestions. I finally bit the 'respec' bullet and made the last changes, and --What a HAMSTER difference!
The Mod 10 changes really seem to let me stay out on the fringes more effectively than in the last three mods. The mobs tend to die much faster, and I get to use most of my archer encounters rather than becoming a Trapper 'trapped' in an Archer spec. I have noticed that my aimed shot is very quick, and I can sometimes get three of them off before a mob can close on me. I don't know if switching stances would work, but I would definitely need to improve my 'keyboard' skills to fit that into my rotation.
I have two questions--do you have a rough idea of what your crit % is 'unbuffed'? I don't have a bonded companion on this toon, so I was wondering how much of a bump you tend to get from that situation, and if there are other buffs that I am missing. My current crit is ~70% @ 2.8 ilevel and missing a few boons.
The other question is Thorn Ward--my current rotation tends to focus on Cordon, Longstrider, and Rain of Arrows. I love Hawkshot/Hawkeye---but really, did they need another long animation archery encounter??? Can someone comment on how well Thorn Ward fits into a rotation, and if others prefer Longstrider, are they using the Gushing Wounds aspect very often now that Archers tend to be on the fringes again?
Comments
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
With Aimed hitting a lot less times than Rapid during a boss fight the Lostmauth set really doesn't do much anymore. I'm so tempted to switch out the belt for Twined Rope of Dex and get another artifact to replace the Horn. I will also be adding the Wheel to my arsenal on Sept 1 in place of Sigil of the Hunter. I also upgraded my gear to Dragonflight, replacing to 2 Elemental Elven pieces but I lost over 2k Crit and only did slightly more damage in the upgraded gear so I'm keeping the former.
I am not rushing to try out FBI (haven't even started the quest-line on my Archer yet) and the new gear doesn't inspire me enough to experience the whole IWD scenario again. Those Black Ice gloves... Likely I will keep the same gear for another Mod. Even if I was lucky enough to get all 4 pieces with Power and Crit I would still have to look at changing artifacts again to make up for the lost ArP. I miss the diversity of gear in the early Mods. The stats on HR gear these are terrible.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
IMO, BiS arts are sigils of controller/huter/fighter for stats, lantern as the art with best stats ever, and wheel for best active ever.
About pack, sometimes it is better to go stormstep/seekers venegance if there is a gf or gwf or reneCW in your party, flacon is a musthave for archery now.
It will be greate if you give this guide an update, as archer's playstile is a bit different now. and how about a combat guide? i respeced to combat recently, and find the dps in party just at the same level (but, sadly, with no buff from longstrinder) and much better performance in soloplay.
Keep commenting guy's. I'd like to here more of your opinions.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
gear is 2 elemental Lions mane and 2 Prestige EB and Twisted set trying both dread and Fey cant seem so be a clear winner of the 2 which is rough because it keeps all my Ad tied up in the extra weapon
I will say though its hard to beat a Combat HR my level if he has any skill the rod PG thornstrike combo hits like a truck but if hes got negation I have a chance if I can dodge him I got him then if he doesnot have 165K hps
I consider applying your M9 suggestions to my HR. Would that be very wrong?
I like the stormwarden as such, play purely PvE.
I'm sure others have tested but I am still using the same encounter set-up: Rain, Longstrider, Cordon/Thorn Ward. I'm still not a fan of Hawk Shot - I did try it out on a few boss fights but switching from range to melee to apply Hawk Eye and then switching back to range for fire off Hawk Shot takes too long. The Longstrider buff is enough for me. I may try Split the Sky on dragons in place of rain at some stage to see how it performs but the animation is still too long for me. Nothing else was buffed enough for me to consider changing out what I'm using now.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
1 - are you really sure full crit is the way to go? Is this based at the nice feeling of having crits or have you done ACT logging and proven the worth of crit over a lower power and armorpen.
2 - This is up to personal taste but I would forgo any movement / stamina / HP feats
I would spend my points as follows:
5/5 predatory action - 3/3 weaponmastery - 0/3 toughness
1/5 swift - 0/3 battlewise - 3/3 agile combatant
(the rest we agree on)
As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP. Our defense enchants and boons should be enough to survive spike damage. If all goes well we dont need to shift much. Again our boons should be enough of a boost. Instead of the stamina and health I would take more daily damage and 3% extra damage with switching stances. You can switch stances while casting aimed shot and keep up your buff 100% of the time. Imo worth more than some HP or stamina.
With paragon powers its the same idea.
I rather take keen eye for the extra AP instead of extra stamina. Instead of hasty retreat I took 5 seconds more on split the sky. This last one is unsure though as I havent tested it if split the sky works well enough after the changes
HP feat is always good. Despite we archer rarely take damage from mob thanks to our tank for holding aggro, we sometime need survivability just in case when the aggro is on us. Especially in PUG, HP feat really helps in a bad party.
This is exactly what I do (not with Aimed Shot mind you)... you do not lose any time if you double switch stances in certain places.
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2- movement stamina and hp are of gret use. movement and stamina help evadig and moving to the next pack, so you do not arrive at the moment when everything is allready dead.
Hasty retreat is better than 5 sec for StS, as with bottoless quiver and aimed shots you allready have 100% uptime for StS, also, StS is a situational skill, so you loose 5 featpoints for smthing situational - this is not good
Hasty retreat is also a perma buff to your speed.
Extra AP is not needed anyway, HRs dailies are not like CWs, they do only a bit more dps than a Cordon, this is the same reason why we do not take Preadatory action.
Extra HP is good anyway, just a free radiant encha in a free slot.
I agree about agile combatant.
I disagree about ”As ranged dps we won't get hit often enough to warrent spending feats for extra HP” - most of the time, arhcer figts at a 25-30 feat range, that is not much, as well as dealing high damage will lead to stealing agro, so you will get hits, lots of hits.
I have a lot of healing through boons and insignia so bigger HP pool means more heals. The other options available are trivial increases in damage anyway. But agreed, it is about personal taste - same with boons, which is why I won't go into great detail about them.
APG on HR is already quite good because we are the only class that is able to build up AP through encounters AND doing damage. And as @kangkeok pointed out, our dailies aren't great sources of damage, not like CW or TR.
My damage comes from Aimed Shot - which is still a bit clunky - so I prefer not to interrupt it for even a split second to get 3% extra damage for 5 seconds by which time the mob is dead. Agile Combatant is a no-brainer for Trapper and Combat but not for Archery.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I am indeed switching stances during the aimed shot cast. You won't lose time with it. Also I tend to use throw caution. Have never done testing if its worth it though.
I agree the damage of our dailies or even the overall usefullness isn't great but overall I feel secure enough to only use the HP from enchants and boons. This ofc provided your gearlevel is high enough (I would say over 2.3k/2.6k).
Getting damage by overaggro is indeed an issue but I never felt like being to squishy.
@mayday#2798
I was referring at the loss of other stats over crit. Instead of crit you could have gotten more power. My question was more if the 100% crit and low power was proven to be better. If you can get your armpen to 60% than there isnt an issue but you will have lower power. I'm not saying its not good, just asking if its proven or just a feeling.
In regard to movement speed. I get what you mean but I always get a bit toxic when people use movement as a way to increase damage. I don't care a rats HAMSTER about personal dps, only about team dps. I do agree it will speed up the overall runtime of a dungeon.
Your hasty retreat comment is a very valid one and most likely I will swap out the longer time on split the sky.
And also, 100% crit for archer fullbuffed (bonding, full rising precision stacks, stillness, sudden precision) is not a problem, and you will get it not loosing power or other stats.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
My personal reason for not getting gambit is cooldown reduction which affect ur survivability & party support. Otherwise 100% crit + gambit is the way to go for full dps.
Edit : Btw throw caution is 15' range. Best for combat spec.
Edit2: just realize i mention the wrong feat. Should be rising focus instead of stillness. Pardon my sleepiness at that time.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
1. 10% crit is easy to recover
2. performance vs single boss vastly improve. Thanks to unfliching aim, cool down difference is a fraction.
3. despite combat feat do not benefit archer in dungeon with tank, but it does help in solo content, POM tear phase or whenever we are force to go melee.
gambit might not be a good option in mod 9 due to lost of bottomless but with unflinching change and the aimshot charge time, gap between the 2 is narrowed down by alot. Hasty retreat is only good for kiting but u need to be damage 1st in order it to work. Its a survivability tool if u are able to survive taking hit in the 1st place. The 5% bonus speed (0.6% without dark enchant in utility) is too small to be a huge fuss. For Rising focus? i mean we take it for crit serv so gambit is more superior? The only way for rising focus to surpass gambit is to able to reach power more than 87k due to the extra 15% power increment rising focus provide.
Gambit built is more to dps, sacrificing survivability & utility uptime. Not to say that pure archery is very bad, they still do pretty decent dps with lower cooldown but not enough to overcome the 30% dmg increase gambit provide. The advantage of pure archer is they are more agile and flexible when situation comes which is why i still prefer pure archery. Gambit are for those that solely seek dps.
About throw caution, i m just implying firebreath86 that it is better to go with combat than archer as we need to go up close and personal. No comment if its really the best for combat as i m no expert in combat HR.
if you have a perfect vorpal + rising focus and 100% crit then you have 1(base dmg) + 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5 (vorpal) + 0,15 (rising focus) = 2,4 dps coeficient from crit severity
with gambit youll have 1+ 0,75 (base critsev) + 0,5(vorpal) + 0,5 (gambit) = 2,75 dps coeficient
you will get a 14% dps increase, and sacrifice some archery feats and need to compensate 10% crit.
so without gambit you have 100% crit and 4k more power (with gambit this 4k stats go into crit), and rising focus, that is 15% more power.
if you allready have 20k (+50% damage) power with gambit (and 100% crit) then without gambit you will have 24k+15% = 27.6k = +69% dmage
so your dps with gambit is:
base damage *1,5 (from power) * 2,75 (from crit severity) = base damage * 4,125
without gambit you have base damage *1,69 * 2,4 = base damage * 4,056
all in all, you will have a (4,056 - 4,125)/4,056 = 0,017 (or 1.7%) damage increase.
if there is a dancing blade and an ernye and your char is an orc, and crit chance is lower then 100% then the difference is even smaller.
If you have not tested with extensive ACT logs and teoretical calculations, plese, do not post such things. as you can make ppl to waste 600 zen for retraining tokens.
If you do not trust this calculations, then call for sharpedge, or ironzerg, they are good at maths and will prove what i said.
This is where I made the most gains on Crit. I use the Elemental Elven Assault armor and gloves (both Crit and ArP), along with Dusk Raid helm and boots (both Power and Crit). I tried various other set-ups but I lost too much Crit which I couldn't make up elsewhere. I do have the Elemental Dragonflight helm and boots, but I consider the 2-piece set bonus from Dusk far superior. Combining the two sets cost me so much Crit in the end. If you plan to do a lot of the Demonic content in the game then feel free to look at Drowcraft gear, but the set-bonus were only useful in a few instances for me to bother with it - much like the Relic gear.
The weapon set I settled on is Twisted. I had the Earthen Elemental set beforehand but when the Twisted bow dropped in eDemo I decided to get the set. Even the Drowned set could work if you feel squishy. I took one each of the +4 Rising Power and Precision rings, while shirt/pants combo is Gemmed Exquisite Elemental shirt and pants, although Drowcraft is a perfectly good choice as you crit so much.
Despite my high Crit rate, however, the fix to the Lostmauth set bonus eventually led me to pursue other options. On a target dummy Lostmauth procs equated to just 1% of my total damage using Aimed Shot in my rotation. It was a lot more effective with Rapid Shot, where I was getting 5% on a target dummy - this would obviously be less in a fully buffed-up party or group - but Aimed Shot just does so much more damage and reduces my CDs with the Unflinching Aim feat. As such I kept the Lostmauth neck, but dropped the belt for Twined Rope of Dexterity, while I swapped out the Horn of Blasting for Sigil of the Great Weapon, which is basically a trade in Control Bonus for more HP. If the Rod of Imperial Restraint didn't also have Control Bonus as a stat I might have tried that set, but the set bonus amounts to about the same as Lostmauth. The Orcus set is the new BiS for dps classes but the stats are mostly terrible for Archery nevermind the drop-rate for the belt and artifact. So my point is you need not scratch your head over which set to pursue because it gives you a chance to balance your stats by picking whatever combo of neck, belt and artifact you feel like getting or can afford.
To sum it up: Lostmauth's Hoard Necklace (Power, Crit, ArP) for neck and Twined Rope of Dexterity (Power Crit, ArP) for belt. Wheel of Elements (Power, HP, Stam Regen) as active artifact along with Lantern of Revelation (Crit, ArP, Combat Advantage), Sigil of the Controller (Power, Crit, Control Resist) and Sigil of the Great Weapon (Power, ArP, HP).
As the gear I chose contained no Lifesteal I relied on Dark enchantments in all my defensive slots, while I used a combination of Brutal (Power/Crit) enchantments and Dark (to get to 60% Resistance Ignored) in the offensive slots. Vorpal (no need for more than Perfect) for weapon and Soulforged for armor. I finally managed all this during the last double refinement weekend so yay!
NOTE: While the Dread enchantment may look enticing, I don't see it performing better than Vorpal for Archery. Trappers make great use of Dread with their low CDs on encounters, but Archery cannot manage that. I haven't tested it to confirm my suspicions, though, it's just a gut feeling. If anyone has tested please let me know so I can make the necessary adjustments.
I'm not going to go into great detail about boons nor am I going to list mine. They are mostly situational while there are those that obviously should be ignored as they don't suit ranged. As long as you're not at 100% Crit Chance you should be taking Crit over Deflect. Also always Power over Defense and Lifesteal over Regeneration. I will add, however, that the 2 Tier 4 damage boons from Sharandar and Dread Ring have awful proc rates, therefore, I prefer the healing ones.
Companions are back in the ball game thanks to Bonding Runestones. It used to be that for end-game content you grabbed whatever Ioun Stone you fancied and rolled with the augment as your active companion, along with four others for their active bonuses. While the latter hasn't changed, Bonding Runestones have revitalised companions. Initially a companion's attack speed was vital to keeping up as many stacks as possible (Bondings could proc more than 3 times), the most recent change means that you can pretty much use any companion you want to. You'd still want one with a fast-ish attack speed (2 seconds or thereabouts) if you have the Protector's insignia mount bonus, although a Honey Badger with a 3-sec attack speed had no problems keeping up 4 stacks.
As I play a damage-dealing class I decided to use a companion with 3 offensive runestone slots. Previously I used Lightfoot Thief and Blink Dog before I settled on a Pseudodragon, but in the end I went with a Fire Archon because it stays relatively close to me so that I keep Combat Advantage up on myself with Aspect of the Pack. There aren't many options available for a ranged companion with 3 offensive slots. The active bonus only kicks in when the mob reaches 50% HP I but struggle to find a better companion that does the same job. The other companions I have as active are Air Archon, Earth Archon, Erinyes of Belial and Blink Dog. At some stage I may replace the Blink Dog with a Dancing Blade if I ever decide to upgrade it to epic.
It's a pity that companions never received an upgrade when Mod 6 changed the face of the game. Companions with stats as active bonuses are generally considered crumby even if they meet the other necessary requirements. At epic the companion doesn't even increase the stat by 1%. They should at least have been buffed it to provide 400 of a stat at epic and 200/200 for dual stats. However, if you're not a Timmy Powergamer then feel free to choose one. The Sellsword is particularly good for the debuff it provides at epic rank.
Basically you want to maintain a distance of between 25-30 yards to the mob for the 25% Crit boost from Stillness of the Forest (25') to come into play and for the Longstrider's buff (30') to apply. At the same time you want to stay as close to your party members as possible to give them Combat Advantage via Aspect of the Pack, while many party-wide buffs have a range of 30 yards so being further away means you miss out on those crucial buffs.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
I have been playing an archer for quite a while, and my build was 'close' to your suggestions. I finally bit the 'respec' bullet and made the last changes, and --What a HAMSTER difference!
The Mod 10 changes really seem to let me stay out on the fringes more effectively than in the last three mods. The mobs tend to die much faster, and I get to use most of my archer encounters rather than becoming a Trapper 'trapped' in an Archer spec. I have noticed that my aimed shot is very quick, and I can sometimes get three of them off before a mob can close on me. I don't know if switching stances would work, but I would definitely need to improve my 'keyboard' skills to fit that into my rotation.
I have two questions--do you have a rough idea of what your crit % is 'unbuffed'? I don't have a bonded companion on this toon, so I was wondering how much of a bump you tend to get from that situation, and if there are other buffs that I am missing. My current crit is ~70% @ 2.8 ilevel and missing a few boons.
The other question is Thorn Ward--my current rotation tends to focus on Cordon, Longstrider, and Rain of Arrows. I love Hawkshot/Hawkeye---but really, did they need another long animation archery encounter??? Can someone comment on how well Thorn Ward fits into a rotation, and if others prefer Longstrider, are they using the Gushing Wounds aspect very often now that Archers tend to be on the fringes again?