Fix Rain of Swords

krazydog · May 2017

On paper Rain of swords should be great for combat HR's, except mid way through the cast animation, flurry is activated, even though you haven't delivered the encounter yet. By the time you slam into the ground flurry only allows about 1.5 seconds left for flurry (instead of the full 3 seconds). So let's start a thread about fixing Rain of swords to activate flurry right when it's supposed to. Go!

rayrdan · May 2017

rain of sword damage sucks regardless

ghoulz66 · May 2017

Only real reason to use that is for rain of arrows. With high crit and 100% severity, or semi-low crit with the owlbear cub. You should be storm warden for pve, and always have throw caution on your load out. It's an 100% uptime damage buff for all your attacks.

ghoulz66 · May 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
Stormwarden pales in Comparison to Pathfinder in end game. The mobs have too much hp and bladestorm's performance is lackluster.

Who said SW is about bladestorm? Did you actually do testing, or just jumping to conclusions?

davidagaldo · May 2017

Hmmm, SW is end game.

There is a way to snap CDs on your longer powers. Recovery is apart of the equation but not your only option. You don't need a DC or OP either.

ghoulz66 · May 2017

The only actual advantage PF really gets is careful attack in a raid. Other than that it doesn't get any reliable self damage buffs to compensate. Throw Caution is a very noticeable damage buff with a permanent uptime. Less you want a PF combat spec for single target fights, and SW for trash clearing/mob infested boss fights.

Neither path really have any super you gotta use class features. In all honestly PF has more garbage ones.

kydavi · May 2017

SW and PF are almost completely interchangeable. Most of the path specific powers suck compared to the universal ones and the ones that don't are more quirky than useful.

The real question: do you prefer careful attack (for single targets) or clear the ground (for mobs)?

nirafelos · May 2017

kydavi#1678 said:
SW and PF are almost completely interchangeable. Most of the path specific powers suck compared to the universal ones and the ones that don't are more quirky than useful.

The real question: do you prefer careful attack (for single targets) or clear the ground (for mobs)?

Hmm. I agree with "most of the path specific powers suck" for PF, which has a debatably overpowered but annoyingly-long-cast-time single target melee at-will, a fun-but-hardly-powerful-daily, a useless ranged at-will, an absolutely garbage encounter power for both melee and ranged, and universally useless class features, but the SW powers are all fairly solid.

Both the ranged and melee at-wills are our best AoE options, the Daily is basically a lateral move from Seismic Shot, Throw Caution is a 100% uptime amazing self buff, Split the Sky is a totally acceptable Archer power (though its cast time is longer than it should be), and both Blade Storm and Twin Blade Storm are perfectly decent class features, held back more by the AotP artifact power making slotting that more or less mandatory, and both Archery and Trapper filling the other slot with something more potent as well. So that leaves...Stormstep Action sucking? Sure, I agree.

I'd phrase the difference as, "do you like Careful Attack enough that you are happy to ignore the entire rest of PF, because the rest of PF is awful."

mattmonroe · May 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
I was a Stormwarden for a long time. Other than being a potential AOE snow plow, careful Attack along with gushing wound are powerful single target powers. All of the ACT logs clock Careful Attack either #1 or #2 for dps output. The problem with players switching between SW and PF are SW players aren't used to Careful Attack and applying it when and where they should.

Also going to disagree here. It honestly boils down to Careful Attack and Throw Caution for me, and Throw Caution is an absolute must. CA is fine, but it's not beating my rotation of Throw Caution + GW + PG

earlgreybeard · May 2017

RoS to me should give the same damage that RoA does not less than 1/2 .. I use it mainly for doing a few dodges away from the mob if I am getting flanked.. eg. jump up come crashing down and crack the ground.. if u are lucky you might hit them for 500-1k damage, lol
hit shift a few times hit FG and zip back into the mob

also hit it before i hit TAB to go ranged and the hit RoA on the way back.. so even though its not a big hitter it does sometimes serve a purpose in the scheme of things.

mattmonroe · May 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
The last time I saw Stormwarden clearly beat out Pathfinder more ways than none was pre mod 10 when blade storm multi procced. Today in new content, the mobs have so much HP that just being AOE specced isn't enough. Basically what it comes down to is throw caution (which is a self buff) is it better than using an encounter that actually does dps. For a Pathfinder you can use two at-wills at the same time when you correctly use Careful Attack. Everything Castle Never on down, sure Stormwarden should perform well. But I haven't seen it in end game.

Are you on XBOX? Happy to show you how well it works. I'm constantly spamming split strike anyways, so the 1 second it takes to use Throw Caution (and it does do some added damage to a normal split strike) doesn't take away from the constant melee damage i'm doing.

mattmonroe · May 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
Sure I'm on Xbox, put together an MSVA or an FBI. I've our Dpsed so many stormwardens it's not even funny. But go ahead, I can use another chalk mark on the fuselage.

Haha, if you say so. My GT is 'heymonre' - shoot me a message and we'll queue up MSVA

dmcewen · May 2017

I tend to have better results from SW combat but not much of a difference. Until the fix piercing vs level 73 enemies, PF trapper is my preferred spec for end game.

deterrant · May 2017

RoS does not always hit the enemies in front of you, or apply bleeds. If you are not on level ground with your enemies it misses more often than it hits.

stefoid · June 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
The last time I saw Stormwarden clearly beat out Pathfinder more ways than none was pre mod 10 when blade storm multi procced. Today in new content, the mobs have so much HP that just being AOE specced isn't enough. Basically what it comes down to is throw caution (which is a self buff) is it better than using an encounter that actually does dps. For a Pathfinder you can use two at-wills at the same time when you correctly use Careful Attack. Everything Castle Never on down, sure Stormwarden should perform well. But I haven't seen it in end game.

Can you explain how blade storm works then and now?

cheers

earlgreybeard · June 2017

rayrdan said:
rain of sword damage sucks regardless

should also proc weapon enchants imo

nirafelos · June 2017

Can you explain how to use 2 at-wills at the same time with careful attack, and also how/when you are using it that results in it being your top damage dealer?

When I experiment with my PF-Combat build instead of my SW-Combat build, CA is fifth behind Gushing Wounds, Blade Hurricane, Plant Growth, and Split Strike on single target boss fights such as Goristro and Demogorgon. This is with maintaining it at near-100% uptime and applying/refreshing it when Brutality and Sudden Precision procs and longstrider buff are all active.

Additionally, the percentage of my damage that it equates to has never exceeded the dmg buff % from Throw Caution, never mind missing out on Blade Storm (which, yes, is less dmg vs a single target than it is in AoE, but hey, another 4% is another 4%).

Happy to be told I am doing something wrong -- i'd just like an explanation of how to do it right.

stefoid · June 2017

Is GW that much better than Aimed Strike? In my experimentation on PS4, it ticks 12 times (not 20 as advertised) and Aimed Strike ticks for 8, but puts out more damage per tick. In a party, those GW ticks will fast-forwarded in a jiffy, but the Aimed Strike ticks at 2/second so its all over in 4 seconds anyway.

I suppose there is no reason not to use both at once. AS->GW->flurry

Still think Blade Storm on the PS4 is stuffed.

nirafelos · June 2017

krazydog#1509 said:
@nirafelos do you even know what Careful Attack does? You honestly probably only played the game a couple months so you'll see soon enough especially when PS4's population becomes more experienced.

Cool story bro. Would you be willing to chill with the condescension and actually answer the gd question?

jonkoca · June 2017

What krazy means is that careful attack consumes the serpents crossed swords melee buff stacks, which you need to replenish with a ranged attack, I usually drop thornward on a big boss, to eat up all the ranged buff stacks, but with careful attack ticks, and gushing wound ticks pinging away like crazy as the rest of the party whomps on the boss... It's a bit of a futile battle. It means however thornward strikes are always fully buffed, as are seismic shot and longstriders.

Running serpents and pack, with pack feated offhand, are still the best options I believe.

My usual boss rotation is, 1xhunters teamwork, cavalrys warning, longstriders, thornward, slashers in, gushing wound, careful attack, plantgrowth, atwillx2, thornstrike, atwillx2, then continuing with melee encounters/flurry atwils if there's a D.C. buffing cooldowns, or out to repeat the whole rotation from longstriders....

The initial set up might seem protracted, but you have to give your pet a bit of time to get its bondings up for that first gushing wound.

stefoid · June 2017

Thornward ticks are ranged and consume Bow stacks of AotS, so you can give it 25% by performing constant melee attacks. But the ticks of thornward do not produce melee stacks as far as I can tell.

Do careful attack ticks cont as ranged attacks and so produce melee stacks? I guess that would be helpful to at least apply a single stack every 1.5 seconds.

As for gushing wound, I think you dont need an ongoing buff for ticks - its damage you do with the initial strike that determines how much bleed damage results per tick, am I right?

@jonkoca Lastly some questions: for PC, does gushing wound do 20 ticks? Because on PS4 it only does 10. 10!!!!!!

On PC is piercing blades added to bleed damage every time? because on PS4 it is - I see two damage values each tick

stefoid · June 2017

stefoid#1036 said:
Is GW that much better than Aimed Strike? In my experimentation on PS4, it ticks 12 times (not 20 as advertised) and Aimed Strike ticks for 8, but puts out more damage per tick. In a party, those GW ticks will fast-forwarded in a jiffy, but the Aimed Strike ticks at 2/second so its all over in 4 seconds anyway.

I suppose there is no reason not to use both at once. AS->GW->flurry

Still think Blade Storm on the PS4 is stuffed.

talking to myself!

I get it now. I assumed GW ticked once a second, and that it would generate 20 ticks. It doesnt, it ticks 10 times over 20 seconds at 2 seconds per tick, doh.

Compared to Aimed Strike which ticks (once per second? maybe a bit quicker?) for 8 times at level 4.... Aimed strike does more damage overall - it bleeds like a HAMSTER.

Against a boss, Aimed strike is the best melee 'filler' you can do while waiting for flurry cooldowns.

Not sure how the 'doesnt stack' works though. like, I think if you have critted an aimed strike, you are better off letting it bleed out before reapplying, in case you reapply with a non-crit. Whereas if you dont crit your Aimed strike, and you have nothing better to do, you might as well stick the pig again, on the chance that you will crit this time. ?

jonkoca · June 2017

@jonkoca Lastly some questions: for PC, does gushing wound do 20 ticks? Because on PS4 it only does 10. 10!!!!!!

On PC is piercing blades added to bleed damage every time? because on PS4 it is - I see two damage values each tick

@stefoid: 10 ticks, but it ticks if someone else hits the boss, or careful attack ticks (I think - I really never solo anything these days), so they blur by, and an additional tick of piercing too for 20. Then reapply for constant (and huge) damage.

Aimed strike is a decent bleed, trouble is, 1) you can only have two at wills, splitstrike hits faster and harder, to multiple targets, and careful attack is an absolute must. Watch any HR in tiamat with careful attack utterly dominate the paingiver for example. 2) it's really slow, as is aimed shot. It can also miss.

On an archery build, sure, use it, but otherwise it's a poor choice for combat, and pointless on a trapper.

Fix Rain of Swords

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