Disclaimer: this build was worked out by both
@ralexinor and
@whitespicyrice, so it's not solely my own work. This build was also worked out from being BiS (best in slot), and I don't know how well it works at lower gear levels. I'm also not interested in playing against pugs, so this build can mostly be considered a premade and 1v1 build.
P.S: I can't be bothered to format this properly.
P.P.S: Screw the max image limit. "Images include use of smilies, the BB code [img]tag, and HTML <img> tags. The use of these is all subject to them being enabled by the administrator." ):[/img]
History of the Hunter Ranger in PvP
HR was introduced in Module 2, mostly revolving around being a counter to the strongest classes at the time, TR and GWF. In terms of builds, the BiS builds per module and the metas of each module:
Module 2 Pre-Tenacity patch: Stormwarden Combat HR with Fox Shift, Constricting Arrow/Thorn Ward/Marauders and Vorpal
Module 2 Post-Tenacity patch: Stormwarden Archery or Combat HR with Fox Shift, Constricting Arrow/Thorn Ward/Marauders and Vorpal
Module 3: Pathfinder Archery HR with Fox Shift, Constricting Arrow and Thorn Ward and Forest Meditation/PvP healing set and Plague Fire Enchant
Module 4: Pathfinder Combat HR with Fox Shift, Boar Rush and Marauders with Piercing Blade/Life Steal/Red Glyphs and Plague Fire Enchant (or the idiots using Flaming)
Module 5: Pathfinder/Stormwarden Trapper HR with Fox Shift, Hindering Shot and Constricting Arrow/Thorn Ward with Vorpal
Module 6 has brought many changes and many more bugs to the table. A lot of metas have changed. Right now the meta still revolves around damage, as it has since about Module 4/5 ish. From a premade viewpoint, HRs have always been one of the strongest 1v1 classes. Module 2 HRs were strong all around, while Module 3 HRs were the strongest class in terms of 1v1 with insane healing due to no ICD on the pvp set and forest meditation, with Module 4 HRs abusing piercing blade and red glyphs and healing up to full with life steal, and Module 5 HRs had insane damage from root tick bleeds.
Module 2 and 3 HRs were primarily node-only classes (module 2 HR less so), due to Thorn Ward being a useless POS on anything not a node. Module 4 HRs could roam due to damage coming from non-node locked skills such as Fox Shift and at-wills/feats. Module 5 HRs were probably the most versatile in terms of roaming, as they weren't forced to fight on a node only, and had high damage ranged encounters (which is what Module 4 HRs lacked).
Current Meta
Module 6, due to additional tenacity rendering crit damage bad, as well as the addition of the OP and the multitude of bugs flying around, and the lifesteal/regen changes, is a completely different ball game to the last few mods. It's hard to figure out what builds are best atm due to the lack of solid meta for classes right now, and the range of different class abilities there are now.
Right now the meta for HR is Pathfinder Trapper. Most people are running full Trapper (or 5 points in either combat lifesteal or archery stamina regen or somewhere just as useless due to serpent issues), however, there are complaints about low DPS from that build (I don't necessarily agree with that, but let's just move off that issue). Full trapper builds are mostly CC, and is very good for intercepting and holding opponents (unless elven battle...), and allows you lock a single target down fairly consistently between crit Careful Attack with Trapper's Cunning and Swiftness of the Fox/Forestbond CD reductions on Constricting Arrow and Hindering Strike. From a premade perspective, this is useful as it allows for your team to clear a node while you intercept an opponent, or your teammates to clear someone while you keep the DC or CW locked down so they can't harm your teammates.
At-wills, Class Features, Encounters and DailiesAt-Wills: Hunter's Teamwork/Careful Attack, Aimed Shot/Aimed Strike
Class Features: Aspect of the Serpent or Aspect of the Lone Wolf depending on if you want to DPS or tank, and Crushing Roots
Encounters: Constricting Arrow, Hindering Shot, Thorn Ward (swap Fox Shift in if you fight another HR or you'll get wrecked)
Dailies: Forest Meditation, Disruptive Shot (can also replace Forest Meditation with Forest Ghost if you're fighting a TR, or with Slasher's Mark if you need the stamina)
Feats
This build makes use of Longshot from the Archery tree, which is actually Piercing damage. Nowhere near as strong as Shadowy Opportunity's damage (TR piercing), and seems to not really be affected by certain damage buffs, but it's roughly 20% of your damage, with another 10% from Lostmauth set, 15% from Thorned Roots, 10% from Careful Attack and 10-15% from Thorn Ward and another asofyetunknown% from noonecares sources.
NWCalc link:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/hr?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,13k3iii:1uu0u00:1000000:1uu2kn1&h=0&p=swd
There's something like 5-10 variants of this build as well.
Variant 1:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/hr?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,13k3iii:1uu0o00:1000000:1uu2kt1&h=0&p=swd
Variant 2:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/hr?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,13k3iii:1uu0u00:1000000:1uu3en1&h=0&p=swd
Variant 3:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/hr?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,13k3iii:1uu0u00:1000000:1uu3dt1&h=0&p=swd
Variant 4:
http://nwcalc.com/index.html#/hr?b=1oa5:k6rwk5:8dep:5tb7d,13k3iii:1uu0u00:1000000:1uu0wn1&h=0&p=swd
And I can't be bothered to do the rest, but it's basically moving points between Forestbond/Trapper's Cunning/Swiftness/Ancient Roots. I like having at least 2 points in Ancient, because then you have 3 root ticks for Thorned, but having more points in Swiftness is nice. Trapper's Cunning is really good for the CC but having less recharge speed with more points in Forestbond is also nice. It just depends on what you like. Main point: damage from longshot.
Boons
Sharandar: *Note: you can swap Elven for Fey Thistle, also defense is useless atm, once arp res is fix then I would go defense over power
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17036030/mod6/sharandar1.PNG
Dread Ring:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17036030/mod6/dreadring1.PNG
Icewind Dale:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17036030/mod6/iwd1.PNG
Tyranny of Dragons:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17036030/mod6/tod1.PNG
PvP Campaign:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17036030/mod6/pvpcamp1.PNGGear
Mainhand power: Hunter's Teamwork/Careful Attack
Offhand Artifact stat: Regeneration
Offhand Artifact power (
important!): Cruel Recovery
Offense slots: Brutal (Power/Crit)
Defense slots: Savage (HP/Life Steal)
Armor Enchantment: Negation
Weapon Enchantment: Holy Avenger
Overloads: Greater Black Dragon Glyph (both slots)
Semantics
Stacking power for damage, crit for procs (longshot procs off Thorn Ward crits, as well as Lostmauth) and healing from Cruel Recovery. Cruel Recovery offhand works without needing the feature slotted, and is not affected by Incoming Healing bonuses or depressions (read: is not affected by healing depression), so with my HP (112k), it heals about 560 per crit (does not work on Thorned Roots, but does on Lostmauth and CA and TW). Life steal for healing/tankiness, to take full advantage of the Endless Consumption DR boon (note: bastion sucks). Holy Avenger for further heals and some damage (the weapon damage is about 4% of your damage in a fight). The HA heal is about 1.5k per second for 16 ticks at Transcendent (heal does not change per rank, only duration of buff does, you kinda need Pure or Transcendent at least for HA to do good).
Damage wise, from ACT logging, it goes:
Longshot: 20%
Thorned Roots: 15%
Thorn Ward: 10%
Careful Attack: 10%
Lostmauth: 10%
everything else: x%
Healing wise:
Life steal: 50%
Cruel Recovery: 20%
Holy Avenger: 15%
pots/artis/boons/etc.: x%
Playstyle
1. Drop TW on a node
2. Proc MT
3. Crit Careful Attack
4. Dodge around
5. ???
6. PROFIT
(also add in forest meditation if you get scared)
Countering other classesDC: You won't kill a good bis DC, but you can try if you swap to vorpal for more damage, and Forest Ghost/Slasher's Mark.
SM GF: Pretty sure you will win most of the time here if you slot lone wolf, just make sure you actually dodge and bait their stuff. Stay in ranged stance as much as possible for the stamina regen, and the crit from Broadhead Arrows. Crescendo is difficult to counter, but against most scrub GFs you can see when they'll use - question is whether you have enough dodges and reaction/ping to avoid it.
IV GF: Technically IV GF is easier than SM GF, but it also happens to be the best offensive GF in the game is IV, and he's just about the only GF I've actually died to with some consistency. Same as SM, but you don't need to watch for Crescendo. Watch out for Fighter's Recovery and Villain's Menace though, make sure you dodge everything they throw at you if they're in FR, and just dodge a bit through VM and then sit in Forest Meditation for the rest of the duration of it.
HR: HR 1v1s lol?
CW: Try to keep them cc'd as much as possible, crit CA is a must, don't chase around too much with TW, try to corner them into standing on TW but don't chase where they go with your TW, just pop it in the middle of the node. Unless you're not on a node. You may need Forest Ghost for CWs.
OP: Dodge Divine Judgement and you're fine. You'll heal up very quickly anyway, just the dazes are annoying as all ****.
SW: Warlock's Bargain is going to **** you up so hard. Probably will need to run Fox Shift against SWs.
GWF: Kite as much as possible, avoid stuns such as Takedown and FLS (if they use it), /try/ to dodge hidden daggers because that's 20k damage you don't want to take, and watch as TW/crit CA kills them. Meditation if you get a panic attack.
TR: TRs have been the biggest ***** of the game since module 5. This mod is even worse with +1s to ITC, Transcendent Terror BS, CoS/SO spam, Shadowy Opportunity multiprocing (this **** makes me rage). Last mod the playstyle was to kite and force TRs to make mistakes by missing dazing strike, or by interrupting Shadow Strike with Disruptive and hoping the bad ones would dodge, so you could just fire constricting arrow off after and root them just as ITC finishes. Didn't always work because of lolbbpanicbutton, but was still the best way to fight TRs 1v1 (and using binding arrow/oakskin for the heals too). This mod you can't do that or you'll get your *** kicked in. Playing against TRs this mod is all about pressuring them and forcing them not to attack you so you're taking less damage (aka mind games). You still won't consistently beat the bis TRs who kinda know how to play 1v1, but you will have a better chance and should be able to beat the worser TRs 1v1 by staying close (watch out for dazing/smoke bomb though), and forcing them to dodge instead of spamming CoS. You will need to blow dodges on CoS unfortunately, so it is a hit and miss thing, but if you don't you're going to die so fast from SO multiprocing hitting you for a total of 10-20k damage per cos. It's not even funny. Just stick close, try and make them miss dazing if they use it, kite around pillars, use terrain as much as you can, run off node if you know they have to come close to get off their refill, count ITC seconds and cooldown, and you will still die but you might live a few seconds longer, or if you get lucky, you might win!
Fighting against other classes (whether you should win or die)
TR: you die.
HR: no one cares
SW: probably a win but can be difficult (this is not taking into consideration the HOB bug, which is actually relatively easy to counter for a HR)
GWF: you win (generally at least a 50-50 chance, dependent on skill)
GF: you win if you dodge their stuff, you die if you don't
CW: you win if your RNG does suck and CA actually crits
DC: stalemate, can win with fire wheel sometimes though
OP: stalemate
Closing notes
All in all this build is probably one of the best HR builds for 1v1s against other classes, although it does lack in team usefulness which is why Rookz and I have moved off it. However, this build probably has the highest node DPS (I nearly always came out on the top of DPS charts in pvp matches in premades) and has some pretty insane healing to go with it. Overall a very strong build for 1v1s.
Enjoy.
Comments
Son....
i thought it was super secret
And why regen? Cruel recovery is temp hp and can't be stacked am i right?
without melee path it's the NRG is too harsh
how to get 50% lifesteal?
Don't have 50% lifesteal, I have about 18% in PvP, lifesteal is just about 40-50% of my total heals.
I have some questions: How often does Endless Consumption proc? Does it have any internal cool down?
thanks for sharing..
A couple of questions tho:
1. serpent... they said that they are going to fix it, but... does it actually work?
2. I got the idea about cruel recovery... but have you tried seeker off-hand feat?
3. Augumented thayan bastion... Why do you consider it's bad?
2. Seeker offhand feat does disgustingly low damage. If it crits, it's nice with Trapper's Cunning though, but the heals from CR are much better.
3. Bastion isn't too bad, I suppose, but the increase in heals from when you have Endless Consumption and when you don't is too big to ignore for an HR. Also bastion, iirc, does not shield you from any damage as it's bugged, it only deals damage, and I don't remember if it has a range or not (might have been avalanche), but you won't be close enough to your target for it (or avalanche) to deal proper damage. As it stands, with this build, avalanche is only about 2% of my damage a lot of the time, although it depends on what class I'm fighting.
Kept most of my points in the trapper cd reduction feats, enough not to notice any gaps in my rotations. Thought about putting some points in cunning for the crit based extra roots but... couldn't bring myself to do it and always live in hope of a double rng, I run with transcendant terror which covers it perhaps. I can see how in an ideal world it would help but at page 26 on the LB and the level I play, I don't think matches would last long enough for the accumulated extra stuns to amount to a game changing factor.
My crit is 40% ranged - woodelf wis build - never can face going hobbit. 4k item score. Double red glyphs. Lostmauth set. Wheel, cw sig, gwf sig, horn.
LS is now 7% with 95k HP - greater negation enchant - and 40% deflect 11% defence - and I'm a helluva lot tankier in pvp and pve. Hardly ever have to use pots in the everyday stuff.
Dps is much improved, I beat out everyone in a guild kessels run this morning by an easy 5 million. Cordon in place of TW however. Biggest difference is pvp though (I pug rather than premade) running CA/TW combos I absolutely wreck GFs, GWFs and TRs (<font color="orange">HAMSTER</font> TRs I suppose) . DCs and Pallys I can burn down but only if I use the damage boost from wheel, a good CW however is more of a problem than they were before, unless I have time to switch out TW for fox. Or go invisble.
A standard HR locks me down and kills me if I'm running TW as you said. Almost never meet SWs so can't judge.
Verdict: much improved build, both in survivability and offence. Keeping it.
Thanks for sharing.
Anyway, comparison, I guess. In terms of 1v1:
GWF: Longshot > Trapper (by far)
GF: Longshot > Trapper
CW: Trapper > Longshot (Longshot still does very well and should win, but it's harder because you can't permacc them)
DC: Longshot > Trapper (still won't kill a good DC, but you can come close and your overall DPS is higher = more pressure)
OP: Longshot > Trapper (won't kill them either, but they won't kill you)
TR: Trapper > Longshot (Longshot still works, but the CC and root damage from Trapper is better, although you can run Longshot with Vorpal and Serpent and it should work quite well too)
SW: Trapper > Longshot (both still should win though)
HR: Trapper > Longshot
So in terms of 1v1s, Longshot is still better - Trapper is better against some classes but Longshot does just as well if you know what you're doing, it's only really against HR and TR that I'd say Trapper makes a huge difference (CW too, but you still win with both builds). Longshot is by far better than Trapper against GWF/GF - you burn through both classes so fast and can tank them really well, and outheal a lot of damage due to Meditation (can also use Slasher's or FG, but I like Meditation just because, and also since you can FOV troll people on both teams :P).
As for 2v2... let's make this clear here. You're talking about DPS (Longshot) vs CC (Trapper). Both have DPS and CC, but Longshot is more DPS built while Trapper is CC built, so it will vary with class compositions. Any time you need to tank, Longshot is much better, I can say that, due to heals and DR from Forest Meditation, as well as Lone Wolf, since Trapper usually has to run Serpent to do damage. Against a GWF/GF/DC/OP, I would say Longshot is better, but HR/CW/TR, I'd say Trapper is better (in 2v2). Again it depends on who you're with and who you're fighting against, 2v2 is kind of too complex and varied to say what's better.
2v1 against a TR I would say Trapper is better.
If you're 1v2ing against other classes, Longshot does survive for a good amount of time. Of course against 2 DPS classes, especially with a CW, you're going to die really fast, but you can survive against something like DC + GWF/DC + HR for at least 30 seconds to a few minutes depending on your skill and the skill of the opponents. Longshot build is quite tanky due to the heals and deflect compared to Trapper.
I think not meeting each other is more of my timezone than that issue :P
Glad to hear it's working out for you, jonkoca. I would stack some more HP and LS if I were you, although that's probably a gear issue rather than a build issue. Also regarding CWs, yes, it's a good deal more difficult, but if you adjust your playstyle to know when they'll dodge so you can cast during that time, and then fill the gaps between your rotations with dodges, it's fairly easy still.
This build works better than Trapper does against high deflect builds - Longshot burns through them while Trapper just kind of tickles them and makes you take more damage than you're dealing because of Fey Thistle (I raged when I took Fey Thistle damage on every tick of Thorned Roots when I was testing Trapper at the start of the mod). So in that sense, Longshot can do better than Trapper against TRs - the only problem is when you get one of those coward TRs that run all around pillars because despite their broken OP class, they're too scared to fight you on the node. In that case, you need to run Fox Shift or Cordon/PG (I hate Cordon in PvP though, only PG's CC is good). I was actually trying out Ambush against TRs in mod 5 preview, it's not bad but your DPS is so shot and since TRs do so much damage now, it's pointless. One thing that never ceases to make me rage, is the fact I take 30-50% of my HP in damage while running the Forest Ghost animation. Aaaaargghhh.
Thanks for the detailed reply Sandstorm, now I only need holy avenger and a bunch of savage enchants..not happening anytime soon lol.
I'm surprised about how many people still remember Fathom heh. Timezones suck for sure.
Thank you for sharing. Ill try some part of that in a (really soon) respec. Iam far from your pvp level (Jonka as well) however, I would like to mention a similar buld based (keen eye 3/5, readied stance 5/5) on AP gain (less stamina recovery fleet stance 0/5, ghost 2/5) to be used with disruptive+slasher. I use maraud+slasher to jump on ppl as often as I can.
For cruel recovery, do you need to have some point in this power ? atm i have 0...
And Yes Fathom is a legend
Indalord
Don't need points, just the offhand feat. Readied stance is terrible, you don't need AP gain, you get a lot from trapper capstone if you spam tab when you see Biting Snares. Marauders destroys your DPS, you have better options but again, it's a playstyle thing.
you know this is scary right?
wut
I have more screenshots!
I run pretty much the same for month or so, thanks to ralexinor earlier for hints. I thought you intended to keep this one secret lol )
I also found useful for my dragonborn( can not stand that little ugly goblin) HR to go for recovery rings instead. gives small amount of coldown. And race gives 5% healing = 2k regen.
Also 4 points in long shot due to lower crit atm.
good build, glad you finally shared it.
Only problem is those new fixes by GMcrush that may fk it all.
Still so much used to run with fox that run with it 80% of time. Ward is great against GWF, GF,PF, TRs.
Also running oghma as save panic button for TRs and CWs. Still surprises them so good that you have good enough time to flee or kill
for TR it is sometime working to put Cordon as it can actually pull them out of steals. Plant is ok as well. It is situational though
just wanna ask is it LS worth to stack even we can only have 20-25% change?
i considering using full R12 dark and use trans lifedrinker..
and how about lifedrinker instead of holy avanger.. is it worthed?
Life Steal is about 50% of my total heals in a premade, and I'm running with 16.7% lifesteal chance atm, with Cruel Recovery being about 20%. I use Savage R12s, you get more stats and you need the HP for tankiness and for Cruel Recovery heals (CR is not affected by incoming healing bonus and so you can only increase it by getting more HP).
In pure maths, if you have 13 dual stat enchants vs 13 single slot enchants, dual slots total 10920 stats, while singles total 9100. That's a massive difference of 1820 stats, which is roughly 4.5% of a stat like crit chance.
If you don't want to use Holy Avenger, I would go for either Plague Fire or Vorpal.
oh i see.. thanks a lot bro..
thanks for the answer, man.
I really liked this build. When I look at it, it's all logical and cool here - great work. Really endless consumption must be better with this build, as well as serpent.
But not gonna use it. Just my personal issue. Firstly, I don't like to copy other people builds, despite the situation I'm 100% sure they suit me.:-)
Secondly, stunlocks are really pretty handy against CWs, despite dps is bad - it takes forever to kill BiS CW, but it's pretty well doable.
Thirdly, with my bad ping thorn ward is sometimes suicidal. I really liked ward in mod 4. I was using it with boar and fox on melee spec -it was giving a nice mobility=). Maybe I'm missing something though, maybe I'm just a nub who cannot use a thorn ward properly.=)
If I had full bis, I'd probably give it a shot to try this spec, though.
Thanks again for guide, man. Meet you in the game.:-)
P.S. Just a matter of interest... halfling still rocks, isn't it?;-)
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.