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[PS4] The Noob/poor/lazy Player's Guide to Hunter Ranger
stefoid
Member Posts: 74 Arc User
THE NOOB/POOR/LAZY PLAYER's GUIDE TO HUNTER RANGERS
PART I: < LEVEL 60
There are lots of elite BiS (best in slot) guides out there that will tell you the pinacle of the gear and other stuff to get for your HR. This is fine for those players with the ADs or time to get that stuff. It would take many months of constant grinding and/or millions of AD, however.
This is a guide for the noobs and lazy/poor players who want to get good enough to play the master level dungeons and so on, ASAP, with the minimum cost.
CHARACTER CREATION.
As with any other HR guide, go for min-maxing DEX and WIS and increase these two primary stats wherever possible. Your top 3 rolls will be 18/13/13 and then you add +2 to DEX and something else from a racial boost. So probably WIS by being an elf.
However, for a 3rd stat (your other 13) you should choose CHA as it adds to Combat Adv bonus which is a source of damage that lazy/poor players will come to appreciate (read later). In fact your probably not worse off choosing a Halfling and going for +2 DEX, +2 CHA as opposed to an elf, really. Companion bonus from CHA is also nice.
no powers and feats? There are plenty of guides for these. All I will say is try to get your stats right, because you cant reroll those cheaply. But you will get a free chance to re-pick your powers and feats by purchasing a token with 'Symbols of Savras'. Only one freebie though, so use it wisely. Resist the urge to use it pre-Level 70 until you have access to, and experimented with, all your pwoers and feats.
HOW TO GET MONEY (Astral Diamonds)
You get it by invoking as frequently as you can and then running dungeons and skirmishes. Experiment with learning how to queue for these, and do so as soon as you can, becaues only then can you buy the stuff listed below on the AH. One of the best Dungeons to run when you reach that level is Temple of the Spider. Because it is quick, particualrly with some shortcuts off cliffs and bridges. Stick close behind other players to learn the shortcuts.
As for skirmishes, these generally involve some well known tactics. Inexperienced players will run around like headless chickens, attacking everything that moves - dont be that player. You generally do NOT get gold level for killing the biggest number of things the fastest, but for achieving certain goals such as keeping monsters away from certain areas, or performing certain actions. Think about what the intro to the skirmish is telling you to do, watch the players that seem to know what they are doing, stick with them and copy what they do. OH, and you can cancel intros and cutscenes prematurely - you dont have to suffer viewing them every time.
GEAR IN THE EARLY STAGES
Most of your L1 to L60 gear is going to be terrible, and its a constant hassle to keep upgrading it each time when the numbers involved really are only very marginal improvements on the crappy gear you already have. Be lazy and upgrade items only occasionally. Advancing your level is a better use of your time than sifting through almost identical pieces of rubbish gear. But if you find gear with an enchantment slot that you didnt already have, use that.
ENCHANTMENTS Lazy players dont refine stuff, they buy it from the AH, and poor players dont pay huge sums of AH for anything, which means Rank 7s are your sweet spot. These give a fair return for a few 1000AD each. I would hardly bother slotting anything less than a rank 5 early on - its not worth the time and gold investment of switching lower levels of enchantments in and out. Just straight up buy rank 5s from the AH as soon as you can, as these are common as muck for high level characters to sell, and then upgrade to 7s later (after you have invested in mounts and companions.)
MOUNTS : So if we aernt paying much attention to gear? One thing you can do early on that will make a significant difference is pay attention to Mounts because once you have access to these, there is no level-related restriction on the the benefits they give, and those benefits are BiS. For instance if you have a relatively small amount of AH to spend on blue mounts, you can get decent insignia-related active bonuses for a low level character that are the same ones that hardened elite L70 players get. That is rare, so take advantage of it ASAP. Whatever is dropping from the most recent lockbox will be cheapest mounts to get.
Regardless of bonsues, you need at least one +80% blue mount as soon as you can get it, (and remember to activate the +80% speed when you do!) travelling around is so laborius - the lazy player wants a fast mount ASAP. Dont waste time with green mounts - you want blue mounts with 3 insignias to get access to the BiS bonuses.
Initially, Champions Return and Gladiators Guile will be very good returns on investment for low level players, enhancing movement speed and survivability significantly. Buy the cheapest blue mounts that have the right insignia for these - doesnt matter which, you dont have to ride them if you dont want to - you just want the bonuses for owning them.
And the insignias themselves also offer stat bonuses just by slotting them. Barbed Insignias of Aggression are cheap - you can probably afford the blue ones early on- they give good bonuses to your armor Penetration. Each such insignia is probably giving better stat bonuses than most of your early stage gear! For other shapes of insignia, you will probably have to settle for green.. - get 'of aggression' when you can, and if there are none of those availabale, then 'of skill' is a good 2nd option because it gives some of our beloved CA bonus (via the CA stat). You can probably build another 1-2% CA bonus just from slotting Skill insignia on a few mounts that dont accomodate Aggression Insignia
COMPANIONS. These also give active bonuses even if they are not your currently summoned companion. Dont even think about upgrading companions with tokens or AD. Buy the tier of companion you want striaght up - its so much cheaper.
A lot of the starting (green) companion active bonuses are rubbish, but there are some cheap companions that offer decent ROI. Specifically those that give CA bonuses - blink dog, intellect devourer and staldorf. Just getting very cheap green ones of these from the Auction house will give you +2%CA each, for a total of +6%CA That might not sound like much, but this is an early game strategy that you can pursue to give you a significant damage boost - utilizing and maxing your CA.
Aspect of the pack: This class feature gives you pretty much 100% uptime for Combat Advantage. If you have taken a +2 CHA race then your CHA at L30 should be 16 which is +6% CA. Add that to the 6%CA from these suggested companions and the base 15%, and you are already at +27% CA damage for very little investment. Very nice for the poor and lazy player!
Remember - the point is that you get 'active' bonuses just for owning these companions and mounts, not for actually using them. So you should take the time to fill empty companion and mount slots!
ARTIFACT: early you will get a choice of artifacts from a quest. The healing and catalog ones sound useful, and they are, but you will want the lantern eventually, so just take that one. If you like the idea of the Catalog, for instance, just buy a green one on the AH so you can sell your junk and buy injury kits in dungeons - just by unequipping your active artifact for a minute or two.
MORE ON COMPANIONS
There is a thing called bonding runestones that are essentially mandatory. These give you a percentage of your Companions stats. You can buy these, then when you have enough AD to upgrade, you can re-sell them, so its a wise investment to get the cheaper ones you can as soon as you can. Three bonding runestones will give 105% of your companions stats, so get those ASAP. (bonding runestones @ 35% each seem a much better deal than lesser bondings which are not much cheaper)
These work for the currently summoned companion, so you want at least one companion that has stats that are useful for a HR to borrow. This means a striker companion - a companion that will get more power and crit etc... as it levels up, and ideally one that has 3 offensive runestone slots (bonding runestones give power bonuses as well, if equipped to offensive slots). Because you want your summoned companion to have the best stats available, you will want to go for a purple companion at some stage to maximise its stats and to help it stay alive to actually provide the bonding bonus. And you want to give it the best gear and enchants you can. I went for a purple Swashbuckler which is not BiS (has 2 offensive slots and one defensive, and her gear is harder to get) but she was cheap and she stuff like "I dont go looking for trouble - I just get lucky" and 'How about a drink, Sailor?' and which makes me laugh, so...swings and roundabouts.
SUMMARY OF EARLY GAME PRIORITIES FOR YOUR CASH
1) buy enchants. Rank 5s as early as you get slots to put them in.
2) buy at least one blue mount for the active bonuses and of course the extra movement speed. Getting both Champions return and Gladiators guile will help you out a lot.
3) buy green companions with CA bonuses, because its an insanely cheap source of extra damage
4) replace your rank 5s with rank 7s
5) get one purple mount, rage drake.
6) get those bonding runestones. I wouldnt waste any AD on anything less than a purple striker as you can slot those bondings runestones on a green sellsword that you can buy for 2 gold - it will do you OK for quite a while.
If you can get all that done by L60, it will really help you fly thru L70.
PART I: < LEVEL 60
There are lots of elite BiS (best in slot) guides out there that will tell you the pinacle of the gear and other stuff to get for your HR. This is fine for those players with the ADs or time to get that stuff. It would take many months of constant grinding and/or millions of AD, however.
This is a guide for the noobs and lazy/poor players who want to get good enough to play the master level dungeons and so on, ASAP, with the minimum cost.
CHARACTER CREATION.
As with any other HR guide, go for min-maxing DEX and WIS and increase these two primary stats wherever possible. Your top 3 rolls will be 18/13/13 and then you add +2 to DEX and something else from a racial boost. So probably WIS by being an elf.
However, for a 3rd stat (your other 13) you should choose CHA as it adds to Combat Adv bonus which is a source of damage that lazy/poor players will come to appreciate (read later). In fact your probably not worse off choosing a Halfling and going for +2 DEX, +2 CHA as opposed to an elf, really. Companion bonus from CHA is also nice.
no powers and feats? There are plenty of guides for these. All I will say is try to get your stats right, because you cant reroll those cheaply. But you will get a free chance to re-pick your powers and feats by purchasing a token with 'Symbols of Savras'. Only one freebie though, so use it wisely. Resist the urge to use it pre-Level 70 until you have access to, and experimented with, all your pwoers and feats.
HOW TO GET MONEY (Astral Diamonds)
You get it by invoking as frequently as you can and then running dungeons and skirmishes. Experiment with learning how to queue for these, and do so as soon as you can, becaues only then can you buy the stuff listed below on the AH. One of the best Dungeons to run when you reach that level is Temple of the Spider. Because it is quick, particualrly with some shortcuts off cliffs and bridges. Stick close behind other players to learn the shortcuts.
As for skirmishes, these generally involve some well known tactics. Inexperienced players will run around like headless chickens, attacking everything that moves - dont be that player. You generally do NOT get gold level for killing the biggest number of things the fastest, but for achieving certain goals such as keeping monsters away from certain areas, or performing certain actions. Think about what the intro to the skirmish is telling you to do, watch the players that seem to know what they are doing, stick with them and copy what they do. OH, and you can cancel intros and cutscenes prematurely - you dont have to suffer viewing them every time.
GEAR IN THE EARLY STAGES
Most of your L1 to L60 gear is going to be terrible, and its a constant hassle to keep upgrading it each time when the numbers involved really are only very marginal improvements on the crappy gear you already have. Be lazy and upgrade items only occasionally. Advancing your level is a better use of your time than sifting through almost identical pieces of rubbish gear. But if you find gear with an enchantment slot that you didnt already have, use that.
ENCHANTMENTS Lazy players dont refine stuff, they buy it from the AH, and poor players dont pay huge sums of AH for anything, which means Rank 7s are your sweet spot. These give a fair return for a few 1000AD each. I would hardly bother slotting anything less than a rank 5 early on - its not worth the time and gold investment of switching lower levels of enchantments in and out. Just straight up buy rank 5s from the AH as soon as you can, as these are common as muck for high level characters to sell, and then upgrade to 7s later (after you have invested in mounts and companions.)
MOUNTS : So if we aernt paying much attention to gear? One thing you can do early on that will make a significant difference is pay attention to Mounts because once you have access to these, there is no level-related restriction on the the benefits they give, and those benefits are BiS. For instance if you have a relatively small amount of AH to spend on blue mounts, you can get decent insignia-related active bonuses for a low level character that are the same ones that hardened elite L70 players get. That is rare, so take advantage of it ASAP. Whatever is dropping from the most recent lockbox will be cheapest mounts to get.
Regardless of bonsues, you need at least one +80% blue mount as soon as you can get it, (and remember to activate the +80% speed when you do!) travelling around is so laborius - the lazy player wants a fast mount ASAP. Dont waste time with green mounts - you want blue mounts with 3 insignias to get access to the BiS bonuses.
Initially, Champions Return and Gladiators Guile will be very good returns on investment for low level players, enhancing movement speed and survivability significantly. Buy the cheapest blue mounts that have the right insignia for these - doesnt matter which, you dont have to ride them if you dont want to - you just want the bonuses for owning them.
And the insignias themselves also offer stat bonuses just by slotting them. Barbed Insignias of Aggression are cheap - you can probably afford the blue ones early on- they give good bonuses to your armor Penetration. Each such insignia is probably giving better stat bonuses than most of your early stage gear! For other shapes of insignia, you will probably have to settle for green.. - get 'of aggression' when you can, and if there are none of those availabale, then 'of skill' is a good 2nd option because it gives some of our beloved CA bonus (via the CA stat). You can probably build another 1-2% CA bonus just from slotting Skill insignia on a few mounts that dont accomodate Aggression Insignia
COMPANIONS. These also give active bonuses even if they are not your currently summoned companion. Dont even think about upgrading companions with tokens or AD. Buy the tier of companion you want striaght up - its so much cheaper.
A lot of the starting (green) companion active bonuses are rubbish, but there are some cheap companions that offer decent ROI. Specifically those that give CA bonuses - blink dog, intellect devourer and staldorf. Just getting very cheap green ones of these from the Auction house will give you +2%CA each, for a total of +6%CA That might not sound like much, but this is an early game strategy that you can pursue to give you a significant damage boost - utilizing and maxing your CA.
Aspect of the pack: This class feature gives you pretty much 100% uptime for Combat Advantage. If you have taken a +2 CHA race then your CHA at L30 should be 16 which is +6% CA. Add that to the 6%CA from these suggested companions and the base 15%, and you are already at +27% CA damage for very little investment. Very nice for the poor and lazy player!
Remember - the point is that you get 'active' bonuses just for owning these companions and mounts, not for actually using them. So you should take the time to fill empty companion and mount slots!
ARTIFACT: early you will get a choice of artifacts from a quest. The healing and catalog ones sound useful, and they are, but you will want the lantern eventually, so just take that one. If you like the idea of the Catalog, for instance, just buy a green one on the AH so you can sell your junk and buy injury kits in dungeons - just by unequipping your active artifact for a minute or two.
MORE ON COMPANIONS
There is a thing called bonding runestones that are essentially mandatory. These give you a percentage of your Companions stats. You can buy these, then when you have enough AD to upgrade, you can re-sell them, so its a wise investment to get the cheaper ones you can as soon as you can. Three bonding runestones will give 105% of your companions stats, so get those ASAP. (bonding runestones @ 35% each seem a much better deal than lesser bondings which are not much cheaper)
These work for the currently summoned companion, so you want at least one companion that has stats that are useful for a HR to borrow. This means a striker companion - a companion that will get more power and crit etc... as it levels up, and ideally one that has 3 offensive runestone slots (bonding runestones give power bonuses as well, if equipped to offensive slots). Because you want your summoned companion to have the best stats available, you will want to go for a purple companion at some stage to maximise its stats and to help it stay alive to actually provide the bonding bonus. And you want to give it the best gear and enchants you can. I went for a purple Swashbuckler which is not BiS (has 2 offensive slots and one defensive, and her gear is harder to get) but she was cheap and she stuff like "I dont go looking for trouble - I just get lucky" and 'How about a drink, Sailor?' and which makes me laugh, so...swings and roundabouts.
SUMMARY OF EARLY GAME PRIORITIES FOR YOUR CASH
1) buy enchants. Rank 5s as early as you get slots to put them in.
2) buy at least one blue mount for the active bonuses and of course the extra movement speed. Getting both Champions return and Gladiators guile will help you out a lot.
3) buy green companions with CA bonuses, because its an insanely cheap source of extra damage
4) replace your rank 5s with rank 7s
5) get one purple mount, rage drake.
6) get those bonding runestones. I wouldnt waste any AD on anything less than a purple striker as you can slot those bondings runestones on a green sellsword that you can buy for 2 gold - it will do you OK for quite a while.
If you can get all that done by L60, it will really help you fly thru L70.
Post edited by stefoid#1036 on
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ARTIFACT WEAPONS
You will want artifact weapons. Everything else is essentailly junk. You will get your offhand once you reach L70 from Lord Nevemember, and a decent cloak too from him as well at some stage. You will get your main hand from completing the spinward rise part of the Elemental Evil campaign. This should happen more or less around the same time. Two important things about doing the EE campaign. 1st is that you DO NOT want to spend your entire life completing all the earth/water/fire parts before completing the air part. You only have to complete as much of each one as it takes to get to the next one, and only THEN complete the entire Air part to get your weapon. 2nd is that before you embark on the EE campaign at all, if you dont have a +110% speed purple mount, then now is the time to get it. Spinward rise is almost nothing but running from one end of the map to the other, on repeat. Time spent grinding for the AD to buy a purple mount will be paid back via less time taken running spinward rise errands, just by itself.
As you are shelling out for a purple mount, you are going to want a decent active bonus, and its going to take some expense, so lets make it a good, cost effective one. One of the cheapest purple mounts you can get at the AH that is also relevant to HRs is the rage drake. +2000 crit active bonus. Get that one. Again remember to actually turn on the +110% movement speed (why this isnt automatic I do not know). Note that you still get the 110% movement speed and active bonuses regardless of which you ride - its a cosmetic decision. My halfling rides around on a huge abberant cat thing because he looks cool doing it.
BOONS:
These are worth it, and free, but now comes the grind. The lazy player wants to find the best boons for the least amount of grind. 1st thing is Tyrany of dragons. All of these boons are great, but the grind is painfully long. Do yourself a favour - if you dont do anything else at all to do with this campaign, just go to Harper Boward once a week and take the 'killing a dragon' quest and go to neverdeath and kill the dragon. Once a week. As soon as it becomes an option (around Lvl 23?) It takes only a short amount of time and sooner or later you will have enough currency to get the first couple of ToD boons without even thinking about it too much.
What other boons are good and cheap? The first 2 boons of the Sharandar campaign are achievable without too much fuss, and its an easy area to play for new characters.
BUT the entire dread ring campaign has good boons (endless consumption is great for HRs who love the lifesteal), and is one of the less painful campaigns to complete. Do ALL of those boons (just the boons). It just takes 2 easy dailys and one weekly, for about 2-3 weeks. Demonic Heroic encounters - you will be doing a lot of these completing the Dread Ring campaign for boons, and thats a good efficiency because you get ForEasys (progression in underdark campaign, and keys for chests) and Demonic ichor at the same time. Ichor is great for buying early purple gear (read later). So Dread Ring is the best campaign for lazy players.
One useful tip is using the map to find out where the demonic heroic encounters are currently at. There is one in the far corner that nobody does. When this is about to run out, be ready to sprint to one of the two closer ones and when that finishes, race to the other closest one. The heroic encounters just keep cycling around. This is the same for any campaign map (WOD for instance). Make use of the map to save yourself from wandering aimlessly.
Note there are also two fairly easy to get CA-related boons - MazeEngine (2nd boon), and Icewind Dale (1st boon). This is interesting because of our lazy CA strategy. these two boons combined give another +8% CA damage - its really starting to stack up now! CA stat bonus is 1% = 100 pts, so its cost effective. HOWEVER, once it gets to 900pts or so, your CA stat investment starts to taper dramatically. i.e. 800pts from boons = almost +8%, but another 800pts of CA stat from artifacts would probably only get you to around +10%CA. Not really worth pushing it past 1200pts.
I wouldnt worry about the IceWind Dale campaign too much after the 1st boon, nor particularly the Maze Engine after the 2nd. We dont want to be too un-lazy.
Other Boons? its up to you. How much grind can you stand?
SALVAGE
Salvaging stuff for AD starts to become an option. The Illusionists Gambit is a good skirmish because you can get good gear for your companion if you are lucky, and if not you can salvage what you do get. Plus Seals of the Elements are useful for buying gear from the Seal Trader, even just you just plan to salvage that as well. So at this stage, concentrating mainly on Spinward rise and advancing to L70, I would just grind Temple of the Spider and the Gambit for cash and prizes.
SUMMARY PRIORITIES FOR L 60 -70
1) complete Spinward rise for artifact main hand
2) grind daily dungeons and skirmishes for AD
3) if you havent got a rage drake or purple striker yet, get them.
4) buy more blue mounts for active bonuses, and keep upgrading to the best Bonding Runestones you can get.
Now you are Level 70 with no Level-related restrictions on content or gear, and you have some artifact weapons.
Up until this point, the focus has been on investing in Mounts, Companions and Bonding Runestones. This is where you get the best bang for your AD. We havent worried about less than L70 gear, nor artifacts.
GEAR
Now you are allowed to wear decent gear, where to get it from? The easiest way is as a side-effect of the grinding for AD you have been doing in Illusionists Gambit (seals of the elements) and the boons from the Dread Ring campaign (Demonic Ichor). Seals of the elements will let you buy some pretty meh gear from the Seal Vendor in the Bazaar. Its nothing special, but better than what you will find on the ground. Ichor lets you buy drowcraft gear from the underdark vendor, and that is actually half decent. Not BiS by any means, but since you have the ichor from Dread Ring, its a no brainer to use it to improve your gear score.
Your aim should be to get completely decked out in drowcraft gear, including undergarments, with two exceptions - you can buy Dusk Boots and FrostBorn Gloves the minute you hit L70 from the AH, really cheap. These two items will give you a nice headstart, allowing you to save your ichor for a decent drowcraft hat and coat.
Your ForEasys that you have acquired should be used mainly to churn out lesser demonic keys, which you should use in gold result skirmishes only. This will help you get rings and salvage yet more AD.
AUGMENTATION CUBES
Used to set your artifact weapon abilities. Im pretty sure this game is rigged, and you will need a LOT of cubes. Rather than buy 4, then fail to get what you want, and repeat - exercise a bit of patience - buy a job lot of 60 cubes or so which will be a significant saving per cube, and if you are lucky enough not to have to use them all, you can resell.
ARTIFACTS
Its now time to start to think about expanding your artifact collection with spare AD. You will want Power, ArmorPenetration and Crit. If you can afford it, its better to buy purple artifacts than level up green ones yourself. Lazy, remember? While grinding for AD to buy the purples, you can also pick up some underdark rings that you might want to use yourself, or gear for your companion, so its not only less painful, but more efficient. lazy!
An example of cheap artifacts that are useful are Kessels Spheres and Symbol of Water. Seach for anything with a primary boost of crit/power and take it from there. You already have your lantern, which is BiS (no really!)
Your choice of last artifact depends on what 'artifact set' you want to go for. A set is three pieces of gear that reward you for using all of them at once. One such set is the LostMauth set, comprising Golden belt of Pusiance, Lostmauths horde necklace and LostMauths Horn of Blasting. They have HR-useful stats and you can collect the entire set cheap, particularly the green belt and neck, although lazy players should probably just save up for the purple versions. The horn is the the expensive piece. Together the set gives you an extra hit for weapon damage on a critical, which for HRs that like to do small hits, rapidly, and with an AoE, is a pretty good synergy. Its not BiS, but its certainly a decent effect that you can achieve relatively cheaply, and thats the point.
Im assuming that anything that adds a fixed amount to each strike is going to synergise with small rapid/aoe type of abilities and anything that multiplies damage is going to synergise with large hit abilities. So something like the Orcus set will give good results for Aimed Shot/Plant Growth/Gushing Wound whereas LostMauth goes well with Electric Shot/Clear the ground/Split strike, etc... You could have different loadouts with different sets, designed to tackle hordes or single gigantic bosses.... As HRs we are lucky to have such options - ranged or melee, AoE or Boss. We can do it all with different loadouts.
DUNGEONS AND SKIRMISHES (AND RAIDS)
L70 characters can get increasing levels of salvage to help with purchases. Heres where to get them from, when you get your gear score high enough. NOTE: the level of stats on your companion and the bonding runestones have a large effect on your gear score (only when companion is summoned!) as does the colour of your artifacts, which is another reason to buy purples, straight up, when you can.
Illusionists Gambit: You can always get gold if your team sticks around. You are mining for AD, salvage, and +4 companion gear here.
Throne of the Dwarven Gods: This isnt the best for HRs, in terms of gear you want to keep, but its probably your best chance of a Gold Skirmish in the shortest amount of time, and grabbing good salvage from that result.
Prophecy: hard to get gold if your team doesnt know what it is doing, but here you have the chance to get rising rings of precision / psions shroud, which are totally worth it for a HR.
Temple of the Spider (normal): Still worth doing if you are only after quick AD for a snap purchase. Best time spent vs AD payback
Castle Never. This is a tough one for a noob or low gear HR, with plenty of opportunities to get one shotted. But worth it for the rewards. Hordes then a big boss.
Other Tier 1 dungeons: Run each of these other dungeons a couple of times, for fun. Their rewards aernt that great compared to the length of time it takes - although you can rush through a couple of them fairly quickly with a good group, namely shores of tueren and kessels - these actually count as skirmishes, so if you are lucky with a good group you can blitz through these if you are just after the daily AD)
Tiamat (RAID): not great for low geared players because the rewards are scaled to reflect your participation. I would use a loadout that is designed specifically to hurt static bosses for this (focussing more on ranged and careful attack maybe?) Otherwise skip it.
Demogorgon (RAID): You will get good salvage and the chance of some better gear from this. This tends to be a bit of a binary result - either gold because you have some elite players smashing it while you tag along, or failure because you are all underpowered noobs. I think a loadout for bosses is best for this raid.
ARMOR AND WEAPON ENCHANTMENTS
The best stuff to use for weapons enchantments will be the most expensive - the sweet spot is to avoid the lesser which, as usual, is overpriced compared to the next step up.
Vorpal, Lightning, Bilethorn, Fey and Dread are all favoured for various reasons, so are probably best avoided by the poor player. Flaming is a good all-round performer at a reasonable price, because its universally considered NOT to be BiS.
For defence, the revamped Barkshield suits the HR. HRs are OK with taking rapid small hits (as long as they keep lifestealing it back), but are susceptible to occasional oneshot hits from bosses, which is exactly what Barkshield helps defend against. As opposed to Shadowclad, for instance, that only ramps up after taking many non-deflected hits, so is only useful to characters with low deflect. But for that reason, Barkshield has been rising in price.
An alternative strategy for the poor player is seeking an unloved enchantment such as Lifedrinker on the basis that a weapon enchantment that you can afford is infinitely better than one you cant, and Lifedrinker gives a mix of offensive and defensive qualities. You could slot a cheap Lifedrinker in your weapon ASAP while saving for something better.
Like runetones, enchantments can be re-sold so buying low rank stuff early with an eye for upgrading later is viable.
*** IMPORTANT: On the PS4, I just found that having a weapon enchantment equipped PREVENTS LostMauth set bonus damage AND Magistrates Patience damage bonus. SO I have unequipped it. I cant tell if it is just Flaming (the one I bought) or all WEs.
1st of all, as far as being lazy is concerned, the mirage set is the easiest set to get, and the difference in damage output between that and the aboleth, for instance, is marginal. One does +4% damage plus some special effects, and the mirage does 3% + some special effects. And this is only for 20s every minute. So for all intents, the excellent stats and base weapon damage improvement is identical, and the overall difference is marginal for anyone less than elite BiS players.
go for the mirage!
The laziest way to get the mirage is to do
clear the docks
restore commerce
and thats it. you dont have to investigate or confront gyrion (or whoever). to get the mirage set.
HOWEVER, doing the weekly portal quest gets you 5 arcane focus extra per week, so it may be worth it, because Evidence of evil is not hard to get. To get access to the weekly, you ONLY have to investigate someone, you do NOT have to confront.
Since EoE is pretty easy, you will find that Arcane Focus and particularly Arcane Writings are the real bottle necks. You can BUY the writings, but they are expensive. like hundreds of thousands expensive to buy enough for a set.
The other benefit to the mirage weapons is you get the fleece you need for every Illusionist Gambit skirmish you run, so you will have to do that 35 times (I think). its a yawn fest, but no worse than the portal quests, with the added bonus of the chance at +4 companion gear.
Obviously to get the EoE, arcane focus, and arcane writings, you need to do the daily quest (and probably the weekly).
You can do this a number of ways, but you want to do it the way that produces all of the things you need most efficiently. The EoE and focus is the same no matter which way you do it - its the arcane writings that are the stumbling block.
You get 1 arcane writing guaranteed whenever you do the 'secure the district' campaign task. This can be accomplished by donating mostly weapons to the guard posts, donating stuff to the treasure ship, and defending guard posts when they are attacked.
So for most efficiency (arcane writings) you need to:
1) fulfil your daily by defending and upgrading guard posts as much as possible
2) fight in areas that reward you with weapons as much as possible (vs Nashers in the open, and in Sewers) so that you have the means to upgrade guard posts. (heirloom weapons daily task if you are short on weapons for upgrading)
3) keep clicking on that 'secure the district' campaign task when filled, to get your guaranteed Arcane writing.
4) Dig sites further out give better rewards, so try to tackle Sewers at the edges of the map
5) you do get arcane writings from heroic quests, roughly 1 out of every 3.
If you get 3 arcane writings a day, you wont have t buy that many,
Lastly, if you are a melee based HR, get your offhand restored first, obviously. It does make a noticeable difference as soon as you equip it, over the elemental axes you probably already have.
Most of it can be useful for any class, not just HR.
Also, anything for poor/lazy players that have been L70 for a while?
also added section on cash holes otherwise known as augmentation cubes.
Barkshield is starting to get too expensive to be a viable 'economic' choice; lesser soulforged is cheap to either create or purchase and there is no real need to ever upgrade it as higher levels provide very little benefit (probably the worst return on investment for refining of any enchantment in the game).
Also, you mentioned Sets as the way to go, but the greater dex belt + company duelist cloak are a very popular alternative that are also very cheap to purchase (you can get a greater dex belt for about 1000 AD).
Additionally, the Lostmauth set is broken on Xbox as well. Yet another reason to steer clear of it.
As long as a player is in a guild, they can get the new (as of date written) guild hall gear which has a 420 IL (same as dragon flight) that can be purchased for simple guild marks and outperforms the drow gear.
Main: Nidara Devilspawn- Ranger
Alt: Aradin Coldblood- Fighter
Alt: Lucrezia Vileborn- Warlock
Good point about barkshield, it has at least doubled in price since I bought it, but on the flipside, Flaming seems to have halved and is now very affordable, but then again, damage dealing WEs are broken. Because its not the lostMauth set that is a problem, but the weapon enchantment. With one fitted, various things dont work, including lostMauth, and also insignia-related damage abilities and probably other stuff we dont know about.
Also switched out my magistrates patience for beserkers rage due to the weapon enchant issue.
Main: Nidara Devilspawn- Ranger
Alt: Aradin Coldblood- Fighter
Alt: Lucrezia Vileborn- Warlock
If thats the case, then theoretically, if you jump into a pack and each hits you for 20K in the first second, you will take no damage? because the stack absorbs up to 32K from each hit individually within that second, and then disappears. But if you take hits staggered across 3 seconds then your barkshield is entirely gone.
So good to go nuts in a pack at first contact, then back off, or good for single bosses that hit occasionally, but poor for absorbing frequent punishment over a long period.
random thought - buy a crappy armor with a defence enchant slot and a lesser barkshield just to use when you want to go on a long ride
I have a question. with mod 12 out on pc and coming soon on console. what is considered the best weapon to get for archers
Well, in that case its a no brainer - then they are absolutely BiS as far as poor and lazy players and concerned.