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Drisdhaun AoE PvE Build
Updated Version: http://mmominds.com/2015/05/23/katozees-hunter-rooter/
Introduction
My GT is KatoZee; I play a Drow HR called Drisdhaun. I would like to offer the following guide in the hopes that it enlightens all those who have gathered their party before venturing forth on the true potential of the Hunter Ranger. From my viewpoint the majority of HR I have seen in the game are playing sub par creating a stigma that we are a weak class. This is because far too many people pick either the Archery or Melee paths. The strength of the HR is in its stance changes and both of those afore mentioned paths lock players into thinking they need to focus on the chosen stance. The strength of the HR is the fact that we have 6x Encounters and 4x At Wills, all of which have their own individual cool downs. Those not using the Trapper path are the equivalent of having a GF/DC trying to play as a Dps, a CW that doesn’t want to control etc.
If you look towards the official guides on the classes, it lists the HR role as Striker/Controller, in the Archery and Melee builds you will control nothing and further depreciate the image of this class. If you would like to play a class that will have you consistently have you at the Top Dps/Kills then please continue to read this guide.
Play stlye
Many people have the concept of “I have a bow, so I must stay at range” and then proceed to call themselves Legolas/Stryder etc and think that’s all it takes to be a HR. How often did you see those characters far out of combat? Do not think of the class as a sniper rifle and stealthy marksman, instead the game play should be that of a speedy ninja wielding a shotgun. You need to fully utilise both sets of encounters regularly because that’s the strength of our class. Close range melee and point blank ranged attacks, never staying still for a moment. You are there to control the battle, acting almost as a shepherd to gather the mobs into tight clusters for ease of other classes to AoE or knock off (though they will need to act quick before you kill the mobs). The game play is fast paced but surprisingly simple and not overly complicated since everyone can follow buttons in order (explained more in rotations).
Character Setup
Race Selection
Min/Max is something of little concern outside the world of PvP since the Dungeons epic or not can be played by any class/race. Though look towards races that provide a boost to Dex+Wis if you do desire to Min/Max.
Ability Points
For these you are just stacking your Dex and Wis as you level up your character.
Pathfinder vs Stormwarden.
It makes very little difference and is solely dependant on how you wish to play. In the construction of this guide I have respec’d twice in order to test the pro/con of each selection. Its very dependant on what is more appealing, Doing insane damage whilst helping your team (Pathfinder) vs Doing slightly more insane damage whilst not helping the team( Stormwarden). Insane damage is +10 mil usually on the next person at a low point. Some times you will do more damage than the entire team put together and that’s a full Dps team I will point out.
Powers
I won’t go over all of the options; I will offer up a main load out then give options dependant on which path you have chosen.
At Wills
Introduction
My GT is KatoZee; I play a Drow HR called Drisdhaun. I would like to offer the following guide in the hopes that it enlightens all those who have gathered their party before venturing forth on the true potential of the Hunter Ranger. From my viewpoint the majority of HR I have seen in the game are playing sub par creating a stigma that we are a weak class. This is because far too many people pick either the Archery or Melee paths. The strength of the HR is in its stance changes and both of those afore mentioned paths lock players into thinking they need to focus on the chosen stance. The strength of the HR is the fact that we have 6x Encounters and 4x At Wills, all of which have their own individual cool downs. Those not using the Trapper path are the equivalent of having a GF/DC trying to play as a Dps, a CW that doesn’t want to control etc.
If you look towards the official guides on the classes, it lists the HR role as Striker/Controller, in the Archery and Melee builds you will control nothing and further depreciate the image of this class. If you would like to play a class that will have you consistently have you at the Top Dps/Kills then please continue to read this guide.
Play stlye
Many people have the concept of “I have a bow, so I must stay at range” and then proceed to call themselves Legolas/Stryder etc and think that’s all it takes to be a HR. How often did you see those characters far out of combat? Do not think of the class as a sniper rifle and stealthy marksman, instead the game play should be that of a speedy ninja wielding a shotgun. You need to fully utilise both sets of encounters regularly because that’s the strength of our class. Close range melee and point blank ranged attacks, never staying still for a moment. You are there to control the battle, acting almost as a shepherd to gather the mobs into tight clusters for ease of other classes to AoE or knock off (though they will need to act quick before you kill the mobs). The game play is fast paced but surprisingly simple and not overly complicated since everyone can follow buttons in order (explained more in rotations).
Character Setup
Race Selection
Min/Max is something of little concern outside the world of PvP since the Dungeons epic or not can be played by any class/race. Though look towards races that provide a boost to Dex+Wis if you do desire to Min/Max.
Ability Points
For these you are just stacking your Dex and Wis as you level up your character.
Pathfinder vs Stormwarden.
It makes very little difference and is solely dependant on how you wish to play. In the construction of this guide I have respec’d twice in order to test the pro/con of each selection. Its very dependant on what is more appealing, Doing insane damage whilst helping your team (Pathfinder) vs Doing slightly more insane damage whilst not helping the team( Stormwarden). Insane damage is +10 mil usually on the next person at a low point. Some times you will do more damage than the entire team put together and that’s a full Dps team I will point out.
Powers
I won’t go over all of the options; I will offer up a main load out then give options dependant on which path you have chosen.
At Wills
Aimed Shot/Aimed Strike
When you have gotten down to single targets, take a well eared break and use aimed shot from a safe vantage point.
When you have gotten down to single targets, take a well eared break and use aimed shot from a safe vantage point.
Split Shot/Split Strike
With this build you will rarely use at will power, only when you are taking a finger break or feeling rather lazy. The reason why you rarely use at wills is because you can spam encounters non stop, plus the animations for at wills keep you rooted, which means enemies can surround and hit you (not good).
Pathfinder – [RT] Hunters Teamwork
Using the ranged version which applies that little goodies bag to help with heals/stamina for your team per kill. The melee option takes too long to cast for my liking so only utilise when safe to do so, though I never used it.
Stormwardern – [RT] Electric Shot/Clear the Ground
This is where you can increase the damage a little bit further; you can hold down RT and still press your encounters. The encounter will override the At Will but when the animation is finished it will continue doing the At Will. Which means you will get a few AoE shots off with Electric shot, I would recommend releasing the trigger when you switch to the melee part of the rotation due to the fact you need to move a few feet away of mobs, emphasis on the few feet. Once again though it’s a novelty and you will rarely use at wills.
Encounters
[X] Fox’s Cunning/Fox Shift
This move is the corner stone of this build; it is where your team will love you and where you will feel godly. You may think something can replace this but please don’t. Fox’s Cunning grants the entire team a 100% dodge on the next attack they receive. It lasts for 7 seconds and you will spam this encounter every 4th second you are in combat. The tanks won’t notice this much but other classes about to get hit by AoE will just see Dodged flash on their screen. It sounds amazing however it is the offensive Fox Shift that will make you feel godly, since you gain immunity frames whilst you are doing the animation. You see a boss prepping to do a big AoE and all other classes of backed out. With great timing (that will come naturally) you will just Fox Shift that mob and see the yellow Immune when the AoE goes off. The other benefit to it is that everything you hit with it receives a speed debuff whilst you gain a speed buff. I slot +movement in all my utility slots and I feel like roadrunner. I have also tested this without the +movement and still feel like roadrunner on a slow day. With this speed buff you can easily walk out of AoE areas without the need to use your dash.
WARNING: This ability can kill you as well be chucking you off ledges, be very careful when you press to use. The moment you have from my experience the encounter has already determined which mobs it will strike and then proceed to attack those mobs during its animation. So if a mob is knocked off a map you will teleport behind it and attack whilst giving it company all the way down. Or if a CW uses the singularity you will port somewhere up there with the mob and I have been stuck in ceilings, up trees all over the place. So pay attention to your group and map ledges when using it.
[Y] Constricting Arrow/Steel Breeze
This is your at range AoE root (side note when you see the term AoE, it hits five targets maximum). I will go over the strength of your roots in the Feats section but for now, remember it roots up to five targets and you can spam it every 4 seconds. Steel Breeze is the reason why you don’t need to stack any form of stamina recovery. This attack restores your stamina bar to full if you hit max cap (AoE – so 5 targets), 1 mob is enough to replen at least 2 dashes I believe though I can’t remember a scenario where I’ve needed to use 2 in a row.
Hindering Shot/Hindering Strike
The ranged attack isn’t anything of particular interest but it’s nice that it has 3x charges; the main appeal of this ability is that Hindering Strike is a good radius melee AoE root. The other thing to mention for those who enjoy PvP (not me); it does not require a target to activate. If you see an enemy rouge cloak give like a second then use it, much to the surprise of the rouge who has just been damaged and rooted whilst trying to sneak up on you (also remember fox cunning for the free dodge from his opening attack).
Pathfinder/Stormwarden – nothing, leave these encounters alone. These are the optimum encounters that have been refined and tested. I have tried all the others from both paths and found that they just don’t gel into the synergy of the rotation.
Dailies
[LB+X] Seismic Shot
This is your hardest hitting daily and is really powerful dependant on your knowledge of how to use it effectively. It’s an 80’ column that draws everything in to the centre and pushes them down its length. It does not have a long knockback effect; mobs will literally need to be standing on the edge if you want to push them off. With that in mind you know where best to fight and position yourself otherwise it has great synergy with Constricting arrow, since it groups things nicely allowing you to max cap on the encounter.
[LB+Y] Disruptive Shot
Really rapid stun shot on a target that only costs 25% of your AP, brilliant opener in PvP as all daze/stun affects are. Disruptive Shot + Constricting Arrow you will literally see players give up. Can also be used to disrupt AoE charging form some mobs to buy you enough time to save your team by getting another free dodge going.
Pathfinder [LB+Y] Slashers Mark
This move serves so little benefit to you whatsoever that it is literally there to help the team. It is considerably weaker than seismic shot it boils down to, kill something quicker (seismic shot) of weaken target Atk/Def and allow team to regain stamina plus guard when they attack it.
Stormwardern – nothing, twin blade cyclone looks rather lovely however the snare affect and damage are both outdone by fox shift, which you use more often.
Forest Meditation – slot this skill in replace of Disruptive shot when doing your solo venturing or lack of a healer to save money on potions.
Class Features
Aspect of the Serpent
This feature holds great synergy with the trapper build in the sense that it boosts the damage of the opposite stance encounter (also note a few of us believe it affects dailies as well, at least it deducts a stack upon use). It can also be boosted even further by use of one of the feats in the trapper tree. A literal must have do not replace option.
Aspect of the Pack
Give yourself and the team a permanent 15% (from the accepted figures are) damage boost derived from combat advantage. This is still viable for solo work since your companion will also trigger this effect. Though think of it as not just a single 15%, its 15% x how many in your party all gaining that boost on their attacks. It’s a good team spirit sort of approach.
Pathfinder – nothing here, at least nothing that I have found that is weighty enough to replace Aspect of the Pact.
Stowrmwarden Twin Blade Storm
Replace Aspect of the Pack for this buff, which grants 14% damage on your attack when you hit 2 or more with an attack. 4/6 of your encounters are multi target, 1 being a buff and the other just a single target. So you will see a lot of use out of this. It’s only a 1% drop for you in terms of 15% from Aspect of the Pack and -15% for the rest of the team. Though if you think about it, you can move yourself into combat advantage and gain that extra 15% naturally this can yield silly figures for the end screen.
Feats
I will go over the Heroic feats and why I have elected to forgo the others, along with the selection of trapper feats.
3/3 Toughness - Increase of maximum hit points, which is nice to have for the survivability though be warned that you are still one shot by pretty much everything.
3/3 Weapon Mastery - Increase your critical chance again something nice because if you crit with your root ability it appears to make all the dots crit as well.
5/5 Predatory Action - Increase of damage for daily powers, you will use seismic shot a lot and some times can recharge it faster than its cool down. I tend to even just use it on single targets given how quickly I can refill the AP.
3/3 Agile Combatant - Increase damage after switching stances, you will be switching stances so often that this temp buff will cause screen burn on your monitor. With the play style it’s a practically a permanent buff you will have.
3/3 Endless Assault – Increase of damage for encounters, since you will be spamming an encounter every second during combat this is of course an important choice.
3/3 Disciple of Dexterity – Increase the bonus damage granted from Dexterity, your primary stat and finishes off your remaining heroic feat points.
Human Option
3/3 Lucky Skirmisher – Given the remaining options this is the more viable option to through your points into which brings me onto the next point.
Unused Feats
Swift Footwork – you really will not need to regen stamina, hit a group with steel breeze and you are good to go.
Battlewise – reduced threat sounds like a good idea however, it will not work with the build. In fact always play in the knowledge that tanks will struggle to keep aggro from you.
Natures Enhancement – increased deflect severity in melee stance, sounds nice however it only benefits one stance and you won’t be staying in melee long enough to make use of it.
Scoundrel Training – increase at will damage for mobs not targeting you, brilliant concept however, it’s very rare that you will use an at will and even rare that you find something not targeting you.
Extra Action – increase AP gain, a completely wasted idea and you will see why when you get to Master Trapper.
Trapper Path
5/5 Fleet Stance – Increase movement speed after stance swap and speed is vital to your survival. Having that high mobility in the battle is key to your survival.
5/5 Deft Strikes – Increase the damage of the next encounter use for the opposite stance (melee encounter applies buff to range and vice versa). This is just like a mini Aspect of the Serpent except this only stacks once, where aspect can stack twice. The good news is that they both work together to boost your next encounter in the opposite stance.
5/5 Swiftness of the Fox – Using encounters reduces the cool down of the opposite stance encounter (this is where your damage comes from, the ability to use nothing but encounters constantly on a never ending loop). Each encounter reduces the cool down of the opposite encounter by 15% x3 encounters per stance resulting in a 45% cool down. This is plenty that when you switch stances you will see them all ready to go (see notes in rotations).
5/5 Ancient Roots – Increase the duration of strong roots, from constricting arrow/hindering strike etc (7 seconds PvE, 3 Seconds PvP rough times). On its own this offers great control ability since you have the option to immobilise 10 targets in total. 5 from the ranged aoe and 5 from the melee aoe. Weak roots last 2.5 seconds longer which is nice I guess.
5/5 Thorned Roots – This is the true power of the HR in this one feat, everything you rooted will take 200% of your weapons damage per second for the duration of the root. Solo play you can shoot one constricting arrow at the Dragon Cult chaps and watch them die (its funny, try it). PvP you are rooting someone for the rest of your team to close in and you are still doing damage. TR that can break CC still receive the dots for the duration of the original dot (seen it happen a few times to believe this is the case). What’s even more hilarious is that if things are CC immune, they will receive 250% of your weapons damage instantly, that’s on top of the damage of your initial encounter.
5/5 Serpents Bite – Provides additional damage and crit chance per stack for the class feature Aspect of the Serpent, taking a good thing and making it even better by further increasing the damage and throwing on crit chance as a goody.
1/1 Master trapper – After applying a root, the next time you switch stances increase damage by 30%, control durations by 60% (root/stun) and generate 20% AP instantly. Effect last for 10 seconds and can only be triggered once every 10 seconds. This buff is something you will have almost permanently only, aside from the 1-2 seconds to reapply. This is also why you do not need the AP gain and since you will be using encounters so it recharges fast anyway.
Rotations
Shorthand I have found this to be the optimum rotation in terms of stacking buffs for better damage output. So in true console fashion much like a fighting game here is your combo (start in ranged stance).
[Y] > > [X] > [RB] > [X] > [Y] > > [RB] > REPEAT
If we say each encounter takes one second, you will be able to spam an encounter every second for the duration of the combat, so long as you ensure to hit targets with the offensive encounters, not stunned or dazed and haven’t messed up on the your buttons (I do from time to time).
Kato’s Ultimate Finisher
[Y] > > [X] > [RB] > [X] > [Y] > > [RB] > [LB+X] > Then repeat previous combo.
IMPORTANT NOTE – Do not play this style looking at your cool downs. I have noticed that the CD bar struggles to keep up with the speed in which you use your encounters. Learn to recognise the animation and when it is triggered move on to the next. This is probably due to lag but sometime I have switched stances seen them all greyed out yet upon pressing they activate anyway causing the images to update, reflecting they are actually available.
Lets look into this with more detail now and see a step by step as to whets happening each second of this rotation.
Constricting Arrow:
AoE Root + Dot
Biting Snares (activate Master Trapper on stance change)
+1 Deft Strike (damage boost)
+1 Aspect of the Serpent (damage + crit boost)
Hindering Shot:
+1 Aspect of the Serpent
Fox’s Cunning:
+1 next hit dodge
Stance change:
Master Trapper (+30% damage boost, +60% control duration, +20% AP)
Agile Combatant (damage boost)
Fleet Stance (increased speed)
Fox Shift:
-1 Deft Strike
+1 Deft Strike (ranged damage boost)
-2 Aspect of the Serpent
+2 Aspect of the Serpent
+ Speed increase (even further)
Steel Breeze:
+ Stamina refilled
Hindering Strike:
AoE Root + Dot (the root effect isn’t refreshed but the dot appears to be refreshed – training dummies)
Stance Change
Agile Combattant (refreshed)
Fleet Stance (refreshed)
Seismic shot
This does use up your deft strikes and aspect of the serpent buffs from what I and other trappers have noticed, so always aim to do use it before your constricting arrow.
-1 Deft Strike
-1 Aspect of the Serpent
To make things simpler so that you don’t have to think to much, you could just spam X, Y, B, RB, X, Y, B etc. It would just mean that your rotation would result in the Fox’s Cunning, non offensive ability will use up your deft strike and one aspect of the serpent effectively wasting those boosts which are better served on constricting arrow.
This rotation I have refined to a point where I don’t need to think to much and can happily just press away. There will be occasions where something will be on a cool down but in that instance its likely going to be another second wait so you could slum it like the other classes and use an at will or just add in Disruptive shot into your play in order to build that extra bit of breather.
Gear
This is where people may think I am crazy for what I am about to say. I do not recommend any of the four piece sets for this build. I personally am running 2 Royal Guard for +450 Armour Pen and 2 Grand Warden for +450 Crit chance.
So before you have me committed let me show you the 4 piece bonuses of each set.
Royal Guard – chance on causing damage to reduce cool downs by 30%. When I switch stances everything is already ready for my use. Possible Overkill, though in the spirit of testing I found that when you did need it to proc it wouldn’t and I would still be forced to use an at will for a second or two.
Grand Warden – When you crit with an at will you have a chance to deal additional damage with an encounter. I have stated plenty of times you will rarely use your at wills and thus this benefit will be largely under used.
Forest Lord – When you buff an ally, you have a chance to grant them +500 of their highest stat, that sounds rather lovely doesn’t it however, it only procs once every 40 seconds. This is more of a novelty than anything.
That’s all the T2 we have right now, the dragon set which will be a long time till anyone gets that does something for AP gain… again a wasted thing for this build. I was asked an interesting question of which 2+2 I am using, in case there was boots a was better than boots b type of deal. At the moment from what I can see it is a futile gesture though I am still looking into it since I have both complete sets. Truth of the matter is the missing stats are novelties and everything else can be made up via enchants/augment companions.
Boons/Enchants/Runestones oh my
Sorry but I am still wrapping my head around this one to find out if there is any difference between ours and the PC though here are the stats I am working to and what I have posted in my guild for others to see.
Critical Strike 2000 – 3,200
Armour Penetration 2,200 – 2,400
Deflection 2,000 – 2,200
Defence 1,600 – 2,500
Regeneration 1,000
Life Steal 1000 - 1400
Recovery 2,200 – 2,600
Now I have placed those in order of priority from my point of view, we don’t need the recovery and with regards to life steal and regen its something I have warned a few people about. Do not spend the next couple of months farming and trying to up regen and life steal because when we get Elemental Evil, the way those things work will largely change. Regen will only increase the amount of hp you gain from heals and will only regen you out of combat. Life steal will only correlate to a % chance to trigger the effect. This way it will save you heartache in the long run from my point of view.
So as far as enchantments/runestones go, you slot to meet those stats. The only thing I can tell you for certain is slot +movement in utility. Gold/XP/Glory gains are pretty pointless. Glory gain I can understand if you are a dedicated PvP chap but I’m not and care little for it, though you will be pleased to know this build still keeps you rather zippy without the movement enchants.
Weapon Enchants I would for the build recommend Plague fire, since its stackable we can get those stacks up quickly and lowering the enemies defence to allow us to increase our damage what’s not to like?
Armour enchant is definitely soulforged, simply as a protection against the lag in this game. If we can stay mobile it feels as if nothing can touch us but when lag does happen we may not be moving but the AI get to carry on their attacks awaiting our controller inputs resulting in that dash/fox shift being a second too late to avoid the incoming damage.
Companions
Now its time to pick a companion that offers us the best in terms of active bonuses and if you PvP ignore this section since nothing here benefits you. I am still largely working on this section since we are rather limited by what companions we have available. There are a few on the PC version that would help perfect this build but until then here are the ones I recommend.
Augment Companion is a must, I went for the ioun stone from Zen market (its easy to farm AD for conversion to Zen). Once you have an augment you won’t be using anything else as the main summon.
Wererat Thief
On encounter use 3% chance to apply poison to target, even at a 3% chance it still procs so often (possibly due to the amount of times we use our encounters) but if it procs on an aoe everything gets the poison. Its an extra dot since it deals % poison damage and once again after 3-4 seconds.
Slyblade Kobold
Increase damage to targets that are rooted or stunned by 3%. My guild mates have been chuckling at the notion of me increasing my damage output any further and this active skill seems destined for trappers.
Those three are the only ones I would like to lock down at the moment and even the wererat is just there as a cheap and easy companion seat warming for something better. Galeb Dur sounds lovely on paper for tank builds or things that can take hits, as a ranger we really don’t want to be taking hits though. Fire Archon (if you can afford one) the increase in damage is rather lovely however given its expense and the amount of over the top damage we do it’s a novelty. Literally have a perusal through some of my game clips for damage scores. Many times I have done more damage than the entire team put together (with zero deaths). I have a honey badger for the defence buff if lag starts to play a factor, though once again availability of other companions doesn’t make it vital to the build. Its just there for lag support.
I do hope this guide has been of benefit to you in constructing your HR and I am willing to offer further support should you wish it or have a suggestion to further refine this build. That I will take into consideration and give appropriate credit for.
With this build you will rarely use at will power, only when you are taking a finger break or feeling rather lazy. The reason why you rarely use at wills is because you can spam encounters non stop, plus the animations for at wills keep you rooted, which means enemies can surround and hit you (not good).
Pathfinder – [RT] Hunters Teamwork
Using the ranged version which applies that little goodies bag to help with heals/stamina for your team per kill. The melee option takes too long to cast for my liking so only utilise when safe to do so, though I never used it.
Stormwardern – [RT] Electric Shot/Clear the Ground
This is where you can increase the damage a little bit further; you can hold down RT and still press your encounters. The encounter will override the At Will but when the animation is finished it will continue doing the At Will. Which means you will get a few AoE shots off with Electric shot, I would recommend releasing the trigger when you switch to the melee part of the rotation due to the fact you need to move a few feet away of mobs, emphasis on the few feet. Once again though it’s a novelty and you will rarely use at wills.
Encounters
[X] Fox’s Cunning/Fox Shift
This move is the corner stone of this build; it is where your team will love you and where you will feel godly. You may think something can replace this but please don’t. Fox’s Cunning grants the entire team a 100% dodge on the next attack they receive. It lasts for 7 seconds and you will spam this encounter every 4th second you are in combat. The tanks won’t notice this much but other classes about to get hit by AoE will just see Dodged flash on their screen. It sounds amazing however it is the offensive Fox Shift that will make you feel godly, since you gain immunity frames whilst you are doing the animation. You see a boss prepping to do a big AoE and all other classes of backed out. With great timing (that will come naturally) you will just Fox Shift that mob and see the yellow Immune when the AoE goes off. The other benefit to it is that everything you hit with it receives a speed debuff whilst you gain a speed buff. I slot +movement in all my utility slots and I feel like roadrunner. I have also tested this without the +movement and still feel like roadrunner on a slow day. With this speed buff you can easily walk out of AoE areas without the need to use your dash.
WARNING: This ability can kill you as well be chucking you off ledges, be very careful when you press to use. The moment you have from my experience the encounter has already determined which mobs it will strike and then proceed to attack those mobs during its animation. So if a mob is knocked off a map you will teleport behind it and attack whilst giving it company all the way down. Or if a CW uses the singularity you will port somewhere up there with the mob and I have been stuck in ceilings, up trees all over the place. So pay attention to your group and map ledges when using it.
[Y] Constricting Arrow/Steel Breeze
This is your at range AoE root (side note when you see the term AoE, it hits five targets maximum). I will go over the strength of your roots in the Feats section but for now, remember it roots up to five targets and you can spam it every 4 seconds. Steel Breeze is the reason why you don’t need to stack any form of stamina recovery. This attack restores your stamina bar to full if you hit max cap (AoE – so 5 targets), 1 mob is enough to replen at least 2 dashes I believe though I can’t remember a scenario where I’ve needed to use 2 in a row.
Hindering Shot/Hindering Strike
The ranged attack isn’t anything of particular interest but it’s nice that it has 3x charges; the main appeal of this ability is that Hindering Strike is a good radius melee AoE root. The other thing to mention for those who enjoy PvP (not me); it does not require a target to activate. If you see an enemy rouge cloak give like a second then use it, much to the surprise of the rouge who has just been damaged and rooted whilst trying to sneak up on you (also remember fox cunning for the free dodge from his opening attack).
Pathfinder/Stormwarden – nothing, leave these encounters alone. These are the optimum encounters that have been refined and tested. I have tried all the others from both paths and found that they just don’t gel into the synergy of the rotation.
Dailies
[LB+X] Seismic Shot
This is your hardest hitting daily and is really powerful dependant on your knowledge of how to use it effectively. It’s an 80’ column that draws everything in to the centre and pushes them down its length. It does not have a long knockback effect; mobs will literally need to be standing on the edge if you want to push them off. With that in mind you know where best to fight and position yourself otherwise it has great synergy with Constricting arrow, since it groups things nicely allowing you to max cap on the encounter.
[LB+Y] Disruptive Shot
Really rapid stun shot on a target that only costs 25% of your AP, brilliant opener in PvP as all daze/stun affects are. Disruptive Shot + Constricting Arrow you will literally see players give up. Can also be used to disrupt AoE charging form some mobs to buy you enough time to save your team by getting another free dodge going.
Pathfinder [LB+Y] Slashers Mark
This move serves so little benefit to you whatsoever that it is literally there to help the team. It is considerably weaker than seismic shot it boils down to, kill something quicker (seismic shot) of weaken target Atk/Def and allow team to regain stamina plus guard when they attack it.
Stormwardern – nothing, twin blade cyclone looks rather lovely however the snare affect and damage are both outdone by fox shift, which you use more often.
Forest Meditation – slot this skill in replace of Disruptive shot when doing your solo venturing or lack of a healer to save money on potions.
Class Features
Aspect of the Serpent
This feature holds great synergy with the trapper build in the sense that it boosts the damage of the opposite stance encounter (also note a few of us believe it affects dailies as well, at least it deducts a stack upon use). It can also be boosted even further by use of one of the feats in the trapper tree. A literal must have do not replace option.
Aspect of the Pack
Give yourself and the team a permanent 15% (from the accepted figures are) damage boost derived from combat advantage. This is still viable for solo work since your companion will also trigger this effect. Though think of it as not just a single 15%, its 15% x how many in your party all gaining that boost on their attacks. It’s a good team spirit sort of approach.
Pathfinder – nothing here, at least nothing that I have found that is weighty enough to replace Aspect of the Pact.
Stowrmwarden Twin Blade Storm
Replace Aspect of the Pack for this buff, which grants 14% damage on your attack when you hit 2 or more with an attack. 4/6 of your encounters are multi target, 1 being a buff and the other just a single target. So you will see a lot of use out of this. It’s only a 1% drop for you in terms of 15% from Aspect of the Pack and -15% for the rest of the team. Though if you think about it, you can move yourself into combat advantage and gain that extra 15% naturally this can yield silly figures for the end screen.
Feats
I will go over the Heroic feats and why I have elected to forgo the others, along with the selection of trapper feats.
3/3 Toughness - Increase of maximum hit points, which is nice to have for the survivability though be warned that you are still one shot by pretty much everything.
3/3 Weapon Mastery - Increase your critical chance again something nice because if you crit with your root ability it appears to make all the dots crit as well.
5/5 Predatory Action - Increase of damage for daily powers, you will use seismic shot a lot and some times can recharge it faster than its cool down. I tend to even just use it on single targets given how quickly I can refill the AP.
3/3 Agile Combatant - Increase damage after switching stances, you will be switching stances so often that this temp buff will cause screen burn on your monitor. With the play style it’s a practically a permanent buff you will have.
3/3 Endless Assault – Increase of damage for encounters, since you will be spamming an encounter every second during combat this is of course an important choice.
3/3 Disciple of Dexterity – Increase the bonus damage granted from Dexterity, your primary stat and finishes off your remaining heroic feat points.
Human Option
3/3 Lucky Skirmisher – Given the remaining options this is the more viable option to through your points into which brings me onto the next point.
Unused Feats
Swift Footwork – you really will not need to regen stamina, hit a group with steel breeze and you are good to go.
Battlewise – reduced threat sounds like a good idea however, it will not work with the build. In fact always play in the knowledge that tanks will struggle to keep aggro from you.
Natures Enhancement – increased deflect severity in melee stance, sounds nice however it only benefits one stance and you won’t be staying in melee long enough to make use of it.
Scoundrel Training – increase at will damage for mobs not targeting you, brilliant concept however, it’s very rare that you will use an at will and even rare that you find something not targeting you.
Extra Action – increase AP gain, a completely wasted idea and you will see why when you get to Master Trapper.
Trapper Path
5/5 Fleet Stance – Increase movement speed after stance swap and speed is vital to your survival. Having that high mobility in the battle is key to your survival.
5/5 Deft Strikes – Increase the damage of the next encounter use for the opposite stance (melee encounter applies buff to range and vice versa). This is just like a mini Aspect of the Serpent except this only stacks once, where aspect can stack twice. The good news is that they both work together to boost your next encounter in the opposite stance.
5/5 Swiftness of the Fox – Using encounters reduces the cool down of the opposite stance encounter (this is where your damage comes from, the ability to use nothing but encounters constantly on a never ending loop). Each encounter reduces the cool down of the opposite encounter by 15% x3 encounters per stance resulting in a 45% cool down. This is plenty that when you switch stances you will see them all ready to go (see notes in rotations).
5/5 Ancient Roots – Increase the duration of strong roots, from constricting arrow/hindering strike etc (7 seconds PvE, 3 Seconds PvP rough times). On its own this offers great control ability since you have the option to immobilise 10 targets in total. 5 from the ranged aoe and 5 from the melee aoe. Weak roots last 2.5 seconds longer which is nice I guess.
5/5 Thorned Roots – This is the true power of the HR in this one feat, everything you rooted will take 200% of your weapons damage per second for the duration of the root. Solo play you can shoot one constricting arrow at the Dragon Cult chaps and watch them die (its funny, try it). PvP you are rooting someone for the rest of your team to close in and you are still doing damage. TR that can break CC still receive the dots for the duration of the original dot (seen it happen a few times to believe this is the case). What’s even more hilarious is that if things are CC immune, they will receive 250% of your weapons damage instantly, that’s on top of the damage of your initial encounter.
5/5 Serpents Bite – Provides additional damage and crit chance per stack for the class feature Aspect of the Serpent, taking a good thing and making it even better by further increasing the damage and throwing on crit chance as a goody.
1/1 Master trapper – After applying a root, the next time you switch stances increase damage by 30%, control durations by 60% (root/stun) and generate 20% AP instantly. Effect last for 10 seconds and can only be triggered once every 10 seconds. This buff is something you will have almost permanently only, aside from the 1-2 seconds to reapply. This is also why you do not need the AP gain and since you will be using encounters so it recharges fast anyway.
Rotations
Shorthand I have found this to be the optimum rotation in terms of stacking buffs for better damage output. So in true console fashion much like a fighting game here is your combo (start in ranged stance).
[Y] > > [X] > [RB] > [X] > [Y] > > [RB] > REPEAT
If we say each encounter takes one second, you will be able to spam an encounter every second for the duration of the combat, so long as you ensure to hit targets with the offensive encounters, not stunned or dazed and haven’t messed up on the your buttons (I do from time to time).
Kato’s Ultimate Finisher
[Y] > > [X] > [RB] > [X] > [Y] > > [RB] > [LB+X] > Then repeat previous combo.
IMPORTANT NOTE – Do not play this style looking at your cool downs. I have noticed that the CD bar struggles to keep up with the speed in which you use your encounters. Learn to recognise the animation and when it is triggered move on to the next. This is probably due to lag but sometime I have switched stances seen them all greyed out yet upon pressing they activate anyway causing the images to update, reflecting they are actually available.
Lets look into this with more detail now and see a step by step as to whets happening each second of this rotation.
Constricting Arrow:
AoE Root + Dot
Biting Snares (activate Master Trapper on stance change)
+1 Deft Strike (damage boost)
+1 Aspect of the Serpent (damage + crit boost)
Hindering Shot:
+1 Aspect of the Serpent
Fox’s Cunning:
+1 next hit dodge
Stance change:
Master Trapper (+30% damage boost, +60% control duration, +20% AP)
Agile Combatant (damage boost)
Fleet Stance (increased speed)
Fox Shift:
-1 Deft Strike
+1 Deft Strike (ranged damage boost)
-2 Aspect of the Serpent
+2 Aspect of the Serpent
+ Speed increase (even further)
Steel Breeze:
+ Stamina refilled
Hindering Strike:
AoE Root + Dot (the root effect isn’t refreshed but the dot appears to be refreshed – training dummies)
Stance Change
Agile Combattant (refreshed)
Fleet Stance (refreshed)
Seismic shot
This does use up your deft strikes and aspect of the serpent buffs from what I and other trappers have noticed, so always aim to do use it before your constricting arrow.
-1 Deft Strike
-1 Aspect of the Serpent
To make things simpler so that you don’t have to think to much, you could just spam X, Y, B, RB, X, Y, B etc. It would just mean that your rotation would result in the Fox’s Cunning, non offensive ability will use up your deft strike and one aspect of the serpent effectively wasting those boosts which are better served on constricting arrow.
This rotation I have refined to a point where I don’t need to think to much and can happily just press away. There will be occasions where something will be on a cool down but in that instance its likely going to be another second wait so you could slum it like the other classes and use an at will or just add in Disruptive shot into your play in order to build that extra bit of breather.
Gear
This is where people may think I am crazy for what I am about to say. I do not recommend any of the four piece sets for this build. I personally am running 2 Royal Guard for +450 Armour Pen and 2 Grand Warden for +450 Crit chance.
So before you have me committed let me show you the 4 piece bonuses of each set.
Royal Guard – chance on causing damage to reduce cool downs by 30%. When I switch stances everything is already ready for my use. Possible Overkill, though in the spirit of testing I found that when you did need it to proc it wouldn’t and I would still be forced to use an at will for a second or two.
Grand Warden – When you crit with an at will you have a chance to deal additional damage with an encounter. I have stated plenty of times you will rarely use your at wills and thus this benefit will be largely under used.
Forest Lord – When you buff an ally, you have a chance to grant them +500 of their highest stat, that sounds rather lovely doesn’t it however, it only procs once every 40 seconds. This is more of a novelty than anything.
That’s all the T2 we have right now, the dragon set which will be a long time till anyone gets that does something for AP gain… again a wasted thing for this build. I was asked an interesting question of which 2+2 I am using, in case there was boots a was better than boots b type of deal. At the moment from what I can see it is a futile gesture though I am still looking into it since I have both complete sets. Truth of the matter is the missing stats are novelties and everything else can be made up via enchants/augment companions.
Boons/Enchants/Runestones oh my
Sorry but I am still wrapping my head around this one to find out if there is any difference between ours and the PC though here are the stats I am working to and what I have posted in my guild for others to see.
Critical Strike 2000 – 3,200
Armour Penetration 2,200 – 2,400
Deflection 2,000 – 2,200
Defence 1,600 – 2,500
Regeneration 1,000
Life Steal 1000 - 1400
Recovery 2,200 – 2,600
Now I have placed those in order of priority from my point of view, we don’t need the recovery and with regards to life steal and regen its something I have warned a few people about. Do not spend the next couple of months farming and trying to up regen and life steal because when we get Elemental Evil, the way those things work will largely change. Regen will only increase the amount of hp you gain from heals and will only regen you out of combat. Life steal will only correlate to a % chance to trigger the effect. This way it will save you heartache in the long run from my point of view.
So as far as enchantments/runestones go, you slot to meet those stats. The only thing I can tell you for certain is slot +movement in utility. Gold/XP/Glory gains are pretty pointless. Glory gain I can understand if you are a dedicated PvP chap but I’m not and care little for it, though you will be pleased to know this build still keeps you rather zippy without the movement enchants.
Weapon Enchants I would for the build recommend Plague fire, since its stackable we can get those stacks up quickly and lowering the enemies defence to allow us to increase our damage what’s not to like?
Armour enchant is definitely soulforged, simply as a protection against the lag in this game. If we can stay mobile it feels as if nothing can touch us but when lag does happen we may not be moving but the AI get to carry on their attacks awaiting our controller inputs resulting in that dash/fox shift being a second too late to avoid the incoming damage.
Companions
Now its time to pick a companion that offers us the best in terms of active bonuses and if you PvP ignore this section since nothing here benefits you. I am still largely working on this section since we are rather limited by what companions we have available. There are a few on the PC version that would help perfect this build but until then here are the ones I recommend.
Augment Companion is a must, I went for the ioun stone from Zen market (its easy to farm AD for conversion to Zen). Once you have an augment you won’t be using anything else as the main summon.
Wererat Thief
On encounter use 3% chance to apply poison to target, even at a 3% chance it still procs so often (possibly due to the amount of times we use our encounters) but if it procs on an aoe everything gets the poison. Its an extra dot since it deals % poison damage and once again after 3-4 seconds.
Slyblade Kobold
Increase damage to targets that are rooted or stunned by 3%. My guild mates have been chuckling at the notion of me increasing my damage output any further and this active skill seems destined for trappers.
Those three are the only ones I would like to lock down at the moment and even the wererat is just there as a cheap and easy companion seat warming for something better. Galeb Dur sounds lovely on paper for tank builds or things that can take hits, as a ranger we really don’t want to be taking hits though. Fire Archon (if you can afford one) the increase in damage is rather lovely however given its expense and the amount of over the top damage we do it’s a novelty. Literally have a perusal through some of my game clips for damage scores. Many times I have done more damage than the entire team put together (with zero deaths). I have a honey badger for the defence buff if lag starts to play a factor, though once again availability of other companions doesn’t make it vital to the build. Its just there for lag support.
I do hope this guide has been of benefit to you in constructing your HR and I am willing to offer further support should you wish it or have a suggestion to further refine this build. That I will take into consideration and give appropriate credit for.
Post edited by katozee on
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Comments
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
Rapid over Electric? Thats dropping your Dps down isn't it? Given the nature of your rooting abilities plus the 12% damage bonus from Twin Blade Storm i'm curious why you would elect for single target damage. For single targets I just use Aimed Shot.
Split the sky for damage output because whilst I am moving around the battlefield I am aware that other members of the party just tend to stay still and get hit which triggers it constantly. The Fox Shift I only really find viable for PvP since in dungeons its usually consumed by something minor just before that big red circle hits to which you activated it for.
Also as I mentioned for Twin Blade Cyclone, The damage is as you say "poooop" compared to seismic shot however comma as I mentioned, use this because its more in favour of team play. Just like we have rotations, the melee builds also have theirs and knocking something out the way will disrupt their flow and ultimately lower overall team dps (I don't want to be one of the annoying people chucking enemies all over the place upsetting people setting up aoe attacks).
Also back to your choice of rapid shot, it may come down to us having largely different play styles? How often do you use your at wills during battle? I only seem to use my at wills during quests by myself because in dungeons I am on a constant rotation between melee and ranged encounters. Did Lair of the Pirate King last night, no tank or healer, just myself 2x control wizzards, GWF and another ranger using archery paragon I believe. I switched out split the sky in favour of binding arrow so I could act as a pseudo healer of the group plus I advanced first to root and effectivley act as a tank as well (interesting observation, if you have rooted something and have all the agro, the rooted target will still face you and not attack teammates even when they are right in front of them - because otherwise I would see split the sky proc). Even acting as a Pseudo healer/tank I was at 22 mil in paingiver whilst the GWF came second with a lovely 14 mil.
I will be off work tomorrow so I will see if I can add a gameclip to help show the battlefield movement and some training dummy footage for the questing build. But its good to see a different view point and I will consider the serpent change though I am acutely aware that I get hit often because of my need to head into the ememy clusters.
I work the same way with encounters, often times not needing a tank or healer because with fox shift (immunity frames which can help with as you said "heading into enemy clutters" because its like marauders but shorter ranged still get the dash), fox's cunning, and Shifting constantly from stam regen (steel breeze) i can hold agro, keep everything rooted, and never get hit (well not never ofc :P)
N i see what you are saying with split the sky, but honestly the GF is the only guy that should be getting hit (tho u did address that with the most ppl not moving, but i don't like to plan my damage around my group being...not bad but unaware)
To the TWC vs SS, i guess its just personal preference, i view that if i can get 20-30k crit on 7-10 mobs at once and melt them faster its better than using TWC which doesn't hit to hard for me (i could also just be awful at using it lol) even if that means that my pt has to move around a bit, tho most of the time my guild is running together and we pull anywhere form 15-30 mobs at once so i think damage is more important at that time.
And for feats, this is just me, i would take serpents bite and use serpent, its a nice damage increase and idk about you but i rarely stay in ranged long enough for stam regen to matter, plus steel breeze on 10 targets fills it up nicely.
Overall i do like the build, its almost exactly what im using atm (personal preferences changing ofc), with it ive maxed at like 40mil on one dungeon and average anywhere from 20-30 on short runs. and as you said always nice to see others view points, cheers! also u pvp at all?
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
Edited: cause I shouldnt post when i first wake up
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
Keep in mind I'm completely new to the game and may not know what I'm talking about. I've been trying to better myself as an HR DPS and been practicing a lot, so these are my thoughts based on that:
- Should never start with fox shift IMO unless it's the only skill not off cooldown. Doing that misses the 30% bonus damage you'd get from Master Trapper which IMO you should always try to initiate first. Constricting Arrow or Hindering Strike should be the only two skills you ever use to start with as they initiate master trapper when you stance switch.
- This rotation is the right idea but I don't think it takes advantage of master trapper or the stacks of aspect of the serpent as much as it should. For example when I'm playing on point (not choking) I usually go something like this:
Constricting Arrow > {Melee Stance} {Ranged Stance} (double tap RB) > Hindering Shot > Disruptive Shot > {Melee Stance} > Hindering Strike > Fox Shift > Steel Breeze > {Ranged Stance} > Constricting Arrow > Hindering Shot > Fox's Cunning (Disruptive will still be on CD) > {Melee Stance} > Hindering Strike > {Ranged Stance} {Melee Stance} (double tap RB) > Fox Shift > Steel Breeze > ....
The double tap RB represents me activating Master Trapper, and I think it's important to always watch your stacks of Serpent as Hindering Strike does significantly more damage (plus the dots) when it's got a stack bonus which is why I would always choose to use it first in most situations when entering Melee Stance.
Important: I try to always spam Rapid Strike in between fights to start an encounter with 2 ranged aspect of serpent stacks. So this rotation is assuming you start with 2 ranged stacks, otherwise I wouldn't use Disruptive Shot in the beginning.
NOTE: For Dailies I've been trying Seismic + Disruptive instead of Forest Ghost because forest ghost seems to kill my DPS. It also never solves any aggro problems as the mobs just turn around after a few seconds and come after me anyway.
The way our dailies interact with our rotation is a little weird, as the ranged dailies like Seismic Shot and Disruptive Shot don't actually lower melee cooldowns like ranged encounters do. However, they do affect the Aspect of the Serpent Stacks and absorb a ranged stack when using them or add a melee stack if you're currently neutral.
Our rotation is difficult to master (at least for me) because you have to adjust it constantly based on what's going on with the current mobs and how quickly they're dying. For example, you don't want to start up another Constricting Arrow master trapper rotation when there's two mobs left at 10% hp. Because then the tank runs into the next group and you now have to run up to everything and start with an awkward hindering strike rotation. If you happen to choke somewhere along the line with Fox Shift (happens to me more than I'd like to admit) it really screws up the CD reduction and almost all your skills will be unavailable for a few seconds leaving you there not knowing what to do and either auto attacking or using careful attack on a mob that will die before the mark even procs.
It takes a lot of practice-- I'm still trying to master it myself-- to know when to mark something with careful attack during the rotation as well as when to use seismic shot most effectively. Both of them have a short charge-up time that always makes me think I'm losing dps if I don't use them perfectly and at the right times (Like making sure I used the defense-down artifact + have a ranged serpent stack before using Seismic, or having a melee stack when using careful attack).
It gets pretty complex with all the stance switching and stacks/cd reduction to keep track of as well as the overflowing AP and constant dailies available to know when/how to use everything most effectively without losing DPS. Then factor in how fast mobs are dying / what's going on in a boss fight and having to make split-second decisions in constantly changing situations and...well, it's not spelled out for me yet exactly what's correct.
I do like trying to master the class though. I consider it one of the most difficult ones to optimize damage with when you take into account all the stacks / buffs / master trapper / daily usage.
twitch.tv/xx_alucard
A little bit more explanation on my part is required for why I play it that way and open with Fox Shift is needed I suppose. From my research I have come across a number of instances where the term AoE has a limit of 5 targets, something I have seen with my own eyes through testing. The AoE root affect of hindering strike will only root 5 targets out of the 10 I had surrounded, also end level dungeons companions can count as a target and can cause aoe effects to affect them more than your player characters e.g oak skin gives the def buff + regen to 1x party member then the rest at 50%. If that companion is closer to me they get the best buff from it.
So back to why not open with constricting arrow? Its more bang for your buck and a bit more synergy with the afore mentioned master trapper effects. With constricting arrow you want to cap the max of five targets with that one shot. Dungeon placements sometimes you are lucky sometimes not with their placement. More often you will get 3 out 5 targets standing together.
So now you have rooted 3 with 2 coming at you, which splits up targets and can lower speed of which things are killed. Concept is herd everything into a tight spot for rest of the team to AoE. Running at a group then initiating FoX Shift causes them to crowd around, Steel breeze gives them extra time to close gap, hindering strike to activate root and biting snares. That’s your stacks of serpent, deft and master trapper ready.
Remember Master trapper increases the duration of your control abilities (your roots by % think it was 60% also snare from disruptive shot). So you are in the group changed stance to ranged (the fox shift has hyped your speed so you can easily walk out quickly) With 2x stacks of serpent, deft, master trapper, ready to hit with a constricting arrow that has a tightly packed group so guaranteed to hit max amount of targets rather than waste on less then cap. Then hit for the rest of the rotation to build up the serpent and deft for your most damaging encounter fox shift.
Also remember that Master Trapper can only activate once every ten seconds and if you are deliberately trying to time it for certain things you will be unconsciously reducing your damage output. Lets look at rotation.
Constricting Arrow > Hindering Shot > Fox’s Cunning > {Melee Stance} > Fox Shift* > Steel Breeze > Hindering Strike > {Ranged Stance} > (Seismic Shot) > Constricting Arrow* > Hindering Shot > Fox’s Cunning > {Melee Stance}
Factor in each ability use as taking 1 second max to use. That’s 10 seconds right there worth of encounters. Your at wills do not hit as hard as your encounters either. Master Trapper is something I did factor in on the rotation however I also wanted to ensure that each AoE attack has the highest potential of striking the max amount (5 targets) so it does not waste.
Like I mentioned in original post, if you have a tank that goes in and draws things in then you can start off with constricting cause you will hit cap, but I find it far quicker to charge ahead and heard things for the tank to come in later. The difference ultimately is 3 seconds but the other benefit from what I have noticed with playing aggressively is that targets you have rooted won’t attack people in front of them if you still have the targets agro. So melee builds to attack happily knowing they have a brief window of opportunity to attack with safety before the mob agros them.
Also remember this rotation is constant and so long as you have chaps to hit you will never stop using encounters each second. Actively using an at will lowers your damage output and should only be used if for some reason something is still on CD. I will head home for some lunch and see if I can get some footage to add to better help highlight the rotation.
Link to my GT gameclip section: (I think)
https://account.xbox.com/en-us/gameclip/b53a6f39-2dfa-4530-993a-74227aba7c5c?gamerTag=KatoZee&scid=8dd60100-6cc0-42f2-bb3e-c47b184a79f5
That is interesting, i never knew that they were effected by serpent stacks so thats good to know. As far as not lowering the cds of our dailies, "Swiftness of the Fox: Melee encounter powers shorten the cooldowns of your ranged encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15% and vice verca" our dailies wont shorten cooldowns without having stormstep action on. Also for the rotation perfecting, trapper tree uses encounters so fast that it may net you 500k damage if your lucky at the end of an instance and considereing i personally land over 20mil each time and usually do the damage of my whole party, thats not much to worry about (and 500k is a high number) Plus atm I view mine and katozee's guides as more of guide lines, gotta let other people do a bit of the leg work otherwise whats the fun in playing if your just going to do what someone else tells you right? ;D
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
I understand what you're saying here, but there's still a couple of reasons I think this style of play lowers overall dps:
- It's more difficult to set up 2 melee serpent stacks in advance with our generally agreed moveset unless you can hit fox's cunning twice in between pulls (not likely) or end your rotation with constricting arrow > hindering shot / ranged daily (in my experience also not likely; usually I end most trash pulls with melee encounters.). So most of the time you'll be starting fights without the melee damage bonus, which does make a somewhat significant difference in damage. It's a lot easier and faster IMO to set up two ranged serpent stacks by spinning around with rapid strike in between pulls (as you don't need a target and the animation is fast).
- Fox shift is an awesome attack and does a lot of damage, but it's a little uncontrollable in how it shifts you around when you use it. That's part of why I prefer using it as a second part of the rotation after most mobs initiate their red circles / cone attacks so I don't end up shifting into one of them early and get CC'd or occasionally 1-shot by stacked attacks. Being able to time it so that you shift around when the red circles are no longer active makes it a lot less risky and gives you a lot more control.
- Like you said, mobs are often slightly spread out in the beginning, so fox shift usually just gets a few semi-spread mobs and isn't as good as when they are gathered more tightly together. The same could be said for Constricting Arrow but CA can be done at a distance with the ranged stack damage buff. That's why if I had to choose I think CA is much better to open since there's no down-time (having to get into melee range to use fox shift is a short damage-less walk) and it causes the mobs to start gathering closer together anyway as you get into the melee stance phase of the rotation where it's more important that their packed tighter.
Oh as a side note, you mention Fox's Cunning in your opening rotation (CA > Hindering Shot > FC > {stance switch}). I don't think that's correct as you should start the average pull with melee abilities off CD already, so it's a small waste of time to put on the dodge buff until you go through the full rotation once (unless you start with three melee moves or actually need the buff for some specific situation). This is why I think it's better to use Disruptive Shot whenever possible instead because it gives you the melee serpent stack and does damage as an alternative move in the opener. Cunning is more useful when you need that last bit of melee cd reduction (or the actual dodge buff) only IMO.
- That's true but the earlier you activate MT the more value you gain from it. Assume I waste a second to double-tap RB after Constricting Arrow (let's say I don't mess up). In my version I then do a 30% more damaging Hindering Shot into Disruptive Shot, while in your version you do a normal hindering shot into Fox's Cunning. I believe two attacks at 30% more damage are worth the wasted second to activate MT early, plus the early AP boost towards the daily.
Ah yes, I looked at my post and realized I worded that wrong by saying any attack. In my head I meant encounters. The dailies seem a little weird in how they interact in our rotation (to me) because everything else we do is pretty much encounters which both lower the other stance's CD's as well as affect the serpent stacks (since we barely use our at-wills in our usual rotation). A little bit of mental micro-management for me to keep track of serpent stacks / how much I lowered the other stance's CD's when I use a daily in the middle of the rotation is what feels weird to me. Just a personal thing
twitch.tv/xx_alucard
I find that using it after a cd reset is best, like after my melee rotation use seismic shot to group mobs then constricting the group and continue my rotation as normal.
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
May be a little off since I posted this from work here's my build.
http://nwcalc.com/hr?b=p9o:25yuk3:1by9f4,1ck3k2i:100000:100000:1kubzp&h=0&p=pfr
Using that and focusing on kiting and snares was able to drop 40mil
I was thinking the same thing actually. One thing I wonder about though is when I should use the lantern artifact's -12% defense debuff. I tend to only use it right before seismic shot (when I remember to, that is) but I have no idea if that's right or not.
twitch.tv/xx_alucard
The dodge buff is not for my own benefit and I may have not mentioned it in my explanation. I use it to supply teammates with the free dodge. So going into the battle they start off with the free dodge. The fox shift is my immunity/dodge ability and once my rotation has started I keep an almost permanent dodge buff going for everyone every four seconds. That is the reason I spam my rotation non stop. Also as my side note i'm not saying that people have to open with fox shift, they are more than welcome to open with the meathod you listed or one they feel works for them. Now that my group of friends is all above 9k gs we have been speed running T2's in order to acquire gear/shards to distribute to other members of the guild. Last nights runs we managed to gather 8x vorpal, 4x holy avenger, 8x lifedrinker, 4x soul forged, 8x negation, 4x briatwine, and a bunch of misc shards, we are a guild of players that has played regularly together for over a year now across multiple games and in party chat every night, so the concept of gearing each other is something second nature to us (e.g one member got 2x really good artifact belts last night out of lockboxes and just freely gave them to other members). The manner in which I use my opener is because of the way we farm the dungeons together. Usually myself and the DC rush out in advance of the party and once I have hearded the ads together and rooted we advance on whilst the GF, CW and TR then act as clean up. With the GF and CW spec'd for lots of knockbacks and the TR in case something can't be knocked off. Even given this play style I rarely use any health potions as my DC friend is on the ball when it comes to figuring out (as he puts it) "where the fox shift" I have gone to. (^^,) When its Dungeon Delve hour on we can open that free chest about 4-5 times (dependant on disconnect) by speed running the Lair of the Pirate King. Which is why I play aggressive as I mentioned, since we don't really party in the normal sense. Long story short rotation setup is largely down to individual preferences because its based solely on individual play style. You say your meathod yields a higher damage output, that may be true for your playstyle so I will not argue that. For my aggresivly play style I know that my meathod works better in terms of hearding the mobs and prepping them for the rest of the party.
This part is confusing me where you are mentioning "two attacks" at 30%? From my understanding Master Trapper increases damage by 30% and increases control durations by 60% for 10 seconds. In that 10 seconds I have regularly used 9 encounters (lag dependant) and is something I am visual with on the buff bar that the damage lasts for 10 seconds because you can still see the icon. I will assume that its a slight oversight whilst putting pen to paper on your part and you are hitting more than 2x encounters in that time. The other benifit to the way I run my rotation is simplicity, I don't have to keep track of anything, I start my rotation and stop when I run out of things to hit.
This is the main reason why our speed running party splits up, also makes for hilarious gameclips too. If I am fighting next to the GF and CW near an edge I tend to not use Fox Shift for my own survivability. Did you know if either the GF/CW activates their large range knockback ability which sends the adds flying, if you are in the process of doing your fox shift the game has already picked its targets for the attack and will teleport behind said target where ever they may go for the animation. I have fox shifted over the edge of maps following adds to their doom. Gotten stuck up in the ceiling fox shifting into something that got sucked up into the singularity. Hilarious but slows down our runs which is why i'm usually 400' in front of the main party with the DC and I acting as sheperds preparing mobs for slaughter.
Either way rotations as I have elluded to earlier are really dependant on the manner in which you play through dungeons and to suit your own requirements. As j0kerspsycho mentioned in another post somewhere in these forums, these are just guides and not a mandatory you must play this way thing. We mearly impart our knowledge of how we refined our builds to suit our playstyles so that others may gain benefit and further refine their build to suit their need.
One thing I really want to do one day is see if a five man trapper team can decimate dungeons quicker, because I am rather curious if we can all root the same targets?
Is that build accurate? because a number of the feats and paragon choices are somewhat perculiar in the reason you chose them? Also I would really recomend utilising Fox Shift over Marauder's for PvE. j0kerspsycho pointed out its usefulness and I have not looked back since.
The two attacks are hindering shot and disruptive shot. When you do the rotation you said you go Constricting Arrow > Hindering Shot > Fox's Cunning before you stance switch to activate MT. That means the very first hindering shot in your rotation does not have the +30% damage from MT. I go CA > Double-tap RB > HS > Disruptive shot. So I was saying doing it my way gives me two earlier attacks (the first Hindering shot, and in my version, Disruptive Shot)with the +30% boosted damage.
However I think I've been doing it all wrong....your last question made me realize something:
This question motivated me to test a few things with the dummies. Sadly I don't think we can, since on training dummies you can't overwrite your own thorned roots as long as they still have the thorned roots debuff on them, even when using different attacks (Hindering Strike doesn't apply a new thorned roots even if you used Constricting Arrow to initiate them, and vice versa)
This makes me wonder if it might actually be better to open with Hindering Shot instead and quickly double stance-switch for MT so Constricting Arrow and the first set of thorned roots get the 30% damage bonus.
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Either way back to your rotation, to me it comes across as requiring a lot of thought on when to use each and every encounter which would give a headache for me, especially in dungeons where things stun/daze you. Mine I still prefer because of its simplicity, the synergy I find nice and all I do is:
X > Y > B > RB > Y > B > X > RB > X > Y > B > RB (see a Mortal Kombat "Finish Him") > LB+X > Y > B > X > Repeat till dead. I don't have to think, I don't have to plan I just start and carry on. If i'm dazed etc I just start where I left off.
But I think I see where you are going with the extra damage but i'll put them up side by side with targets hit a for one opener and duration of MT (10 Sec). I will make the notion of each encounter takes 1 Sec to use, inclusive of Stance change (double will count as 1).
Yours:
Constricting Arrow (5T (targets)) > RBx2 (MT (Master trapper)10) > Hindering Shot (1T MT9) > Disruptive Shot (1T MT8) > RB (MT7) > Hindering Strike (5T MT6) > Steel Breeze (5T MT5) > Fox Shift (5T MT4) > RB (MT3) > Constricting Arrow (5T MT2) > Hindering Shot (1T MT1).
For one MT run through you hit 23 Targets in ideal scenario with 30% buff, 5 targets before MT taking 2 seconds to activate.
Mine
Fox Shift (5T) > Steel Breeze (5T) > Hindering Strike (5T) > RB (MT10) > Constricting Arrow (5T MT9) > Hindering Shot (1T MT8) > Fox Cunning (0T MT7) > RB (MT6) > Fox Shift (5T MT5) > Steel Breeze (5T MT4) > Hindering Strike (5T MT3) > RB (MT2) > Constricting Arrow (5T MT1).
For one Encounter run through I hit 26 Targets in ideal scenario with 30% buff, 15 targets before MT taking 4 seconds to activate.
Please double check, since it has made me go cross eyed. I also did not include Fox Cunning in your rotation cause I think you mentioned you don't tend to use it often. The other thing I didn't include was positioning and just gave the max cap of targets for each encounter. I am aware that since I start in melee all my targets are already around me. Where as you start in range and potentially have to move towards your group to use your melee attacks which could potentially waste a second as well as having your group split up due to the opening CA causing adds to swarm your position that weren't rooted, which potentially could cause you to not hit max targets.
Once again I do not wish to suggest which is better, because it largely depends on playstyle. I hate wasting my CA on three adds which is why I always want to herd adds together before I use it.
Edit: After running castle never, fox shift is almost needed for that last boss, theres...so....much...aoe...0.0 ended with 148mil and some change damage and like 48 deaths cause i play to reckless (thats what soulforge is for!!!)
Also in regards to "maximizing damage through a proper rotation" you may gain a net total of like 50k if you are lucky, trapper has the benefit of not having cooldowns so it really doesnt matter how you start bc 4sec later you will be in the same stance again doing your encounters again, and 4sec after that and so on and so fourth, the main thing is waiting for master trapper and a charge of serpent (thanks again for the info that seismic is effected by serpent stacks) before you use seismic, i think that will be your biggest difference in damage (going from like 22k to 28-30k on 10 mobs everytime its up can make a big difference imo)
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
Hmm I'll have to test it more but I didn't notice any instant damage boost when the dummies were already thorn immune from either Hindering Strike or Constricting Arrow. I need to mess around with it to see if I can get that aspect of the instant damage to trigger on them.
Yeah, it's totally situational to when I do the exact rotation I mentioned as it depends on how close the next group of mobs are and where I left off in the rotation. But you're right though about there being a lot of thought in order to optimize the damage, it reminds me of summoner on FFXIV in that aspect.
I don't think the dummies are a good test for comparing our rotations-- part of the reason I do Master Trapper earlier is because most pulls die before I'd get all 10 seconds of it anyway. It's the same reason I double-tap RB after the first CA or Hindering Shot in PvP as well. I figure it's better to try and get the damage in sooner while they're at the highest HP to guarantee the least amount of wasted burst damage. It feels like the way I do the rotation usually allows me to keep restarting Master Trapper with CA or Hindering Shot at range and not force me to start it with hindering strike, which I consider fairly important to keep that "flow" of the rotation going without too many gaps where I'm inclined to sneak in a careful attack / daily / (worst case) rapid shot/rapid strike.
It's hard to really debate rotations since it depends on so many factors including the group you're with and the type of enemy/pull you're dealing with. But I wouldn't mind if any of us found optimal basics for the rotation (like how joker mentioned using seismic after gaining a ranged serpent stack for a significant damage boost). I think it'd be good to start there
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What I do enjoy is the surprising level of solo play you can afford yourself in dungeons. I am pretty sure if you wanted to take the lengthy route you can solo the Frozen Heart T2. This is based off the fact that yesterday during just shortly after maintence during that horrible horrible lag period I solo'd the first part of the first boss, at which time the others decided to stop spectating (they wanted to wait for a DC). Then during the final boss the team decided the best strategy was for them to all die when boss was at half health and let my complete it on my own (may have been quicker for me to wipe, but it was fun pushing the limits during lag spikes).
Also I absoloutly detest PvP in any games and as a result often shy away from such ventures. Though out of sheer boredom I suppose I did one match quickly before work. Not playing aggresively and just guarding the mid platform I top the boards with 30 Kills 4 Deaths lots of assists, 2nd place had something like 12 kills. This build for ranger is almost godly across all aspects of the game, yet I have yet to find another HR in a random group playing trapper.
There was one HR playing archery who tried to tell me that he did just as much damage as me (200k less). I kindly pointed out that I only joined the group at the final boss phase. (^^,)
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Still great to read even if I don't have a clue what your all on about, and heres me wondering what to do with my level 1 and 2 enchants!
ancojo
https://youtube.com/channel/UCHpxPsGP_kfPXaW622qSXyA
Apparently you can overwrite the DOT of the thorned roots but not the actual root effect? It's strange because even if the second thorned root attack does a less-damaging dot (lets say because you crit the first thorned roots dot) the less-damaging dot will become the new one anyway.
EX: I crit with constricting arrow and my dots are ticking for around 4700 (critical orange damage) without master trapper, then I stance switch and hit hindering strike-- now my dots are ticking for around 3k (normal yellow damage). Then I stance switch AGAIN and crit with Constricting Arrow and now my dots are ticking for 6700+ (critical orange damage).
twitch.tv/xx_alucard
My gt is KatoZee, feel free to chat with me if you would prefer a more user friendly explanation. I tried to keep the text wall down to avoid the TLDR scenario.
The notion that you can keep a dot that ticks higher than most class standard attack constantly on, regardless of the mobs being rooted is a big smile on my face. I wonder if the dot tick would stack from multiple HR?
At will maybe (im not sure bc i dont have another 60 atm working on SW), which is why we will out damage most classes, but encounters? no way. My guildies rogue has had 80-100k lashing blades and most other things crit for 50k+ and a wizard has seen 200k+ ice knifes lol, but i suppose this is why most HR's fall behind in damage when not trapper, you encounters dont measure up to other classes...bc if they did why would u play any other class? (i still dont know why ;D) But to the question about multiple hr's im not sure if the roots override each other but if things in this game work like im assuming, the dots will be separate instances of damage for each character because its not a cc its a % of your weapon damage, now having EXACTLY the same stats may mess up the numbers bc it may confuse one instance of the damage for someone else s and vice versa, but i dont see that happening ever.
Aldren Boweing - 60 HR
Now i have started explained the true hunter path to any hunter i meet.
Thx again!
Devoted Cleric: Heskan