Elite skill question

roperratt

roperratt

Academy Page

Join Date: Feb 2007

Oregon

Light Infantry Brigade

R/

I've been playing GW for about a year and a half, all PVE. I have a question about the nightfall elite skill "Expert's Dexterity". I cannot think of a use for this skill. Is it usable in PVP? What is the purpose of a skill that burns energy faster? I used "serpents quickness for awhile and was constantly out of energy, so it seems the ability to recharge skills faster would cause you to burn energy faster. Am I just not seeing something? If anyone knows a good use for this skill, please let me know. Whether PVE or PVP.

Reinfire

Reinfire

Lion's Arch Merchant

Join Date: May 2006

Amsterdam, NL

The Guild of Cunning Artificiers [ANKH]

W/

Indeed its not a great elite if you look at the alternatives.

[skill]Echo[/skill] cuts recharge in half and doesnt increase energy cost, also with Echo you have room for a prep. Disadvantage is that this only works on one skill

[skill]Serpent's Quickness[/skill] has only a 33% increase, but doesnt cost an elite slot, with side-effects that you cant have a 75% stance next to it and its unusable when ur health is below 50%

The only possible build I can think this can have any use is when u have a teammate with [skill]Archer's Signet[/skill] and by using [skill]Arcane Mimicry[/skill] to get this combo: [skill]Archer's Signet[/skill][skill]Expert's Dexterity[/skill], along with a few attack skills and a stance/self-heal

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

Its absolutely useless. With 13 Expertise you get a 1/3rd recharge of all skills, which looks quite good, Keen Arrow recharges in 2s. Problem is it still costs 6 energy.......

Its ridiculous. Its like trying to spam a 10e skill at 9 expertise... you just wouldn't do it. You'd have to wait at least a little while to get the energy to spam it... by which point you wouldn't actually need the elite in the first place.

HalPlantagenet

HalPlantagenet

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Aug 2005

too far from Conwy

The Chained Swan

R/

I concur but am perplexed. Expert's Dexterity was added with Nightfall, late enough that the game designers should have had something interesting in mind for it, wouldn't you think?

I can't come up with a sensible use for it in PVP or PVE.

Skuld

Skuld

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2005

Thousend Tigers Apund Ur Head [Ttgr]

A/

Spam [skill]Debilitating Shot[/skill] and [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill].

Better elites available though.

Shuuda

Shuuda

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

Guildless

Me/

Expert's Dexterity + Distracting shot, using a zealous bow, as long with some 5e bow attacks.

SnipiousMax

SnipiousMax

Perfectly Elocuted

Join Date: Sep 2005

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skuld
Spam [skill]Debilitating Shot[/skill] and [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill].

Better elites available though. I don't know how well you can spam them when they cost 9 energy each. You definately won't be able to do it every 2 seconds for very long. If you wanted to do a very concentrated E-Denial/Skill-denial burst, then maybe... but then you could argue that Oath Shot would serve the same purpose and do more besides. I think this skill falls into the same trap as Archer's Signet. Bland concept and a very bad execution with no consideration for context or comparable skills/builds.

Amy Awien

Amy Awien

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

R/

There are some applications around [wiki]Expert's Dexterity[/wiki] on the wiki's talk page of this skil. But it doesn't look like a skill with much use, at 250% of their original cost, attack skills just become to expensive.

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Skuld
Spam [skill]Debilitating Shot[/skill] and [skill]Distracting Shot[/skill].

Better elites available though. Theres no comparison, if you wanted to spam Debilitating Shot, which you would NEVER be able to do under Experts Dexterity because the energy cost is so ridiculously high (without dropping Marksmanship... thus making Debilitating Shot less useful in the first place...). If you wanted to spam these skills for maybe 15-20 seconds before you completely drained yourself (Maybe we should go with Heros and use a BiP?).

Echo would be a much, MUCH better choice, you couldn't spam a variety of skills, chances are you'd aim to spam a select few or even just 1.

There are some applications around Expert's Dexterity
on the wiki's talk page of this skil. But it doesn't look like a skill with much use, at 250% of their original cost, attack skills just become to expensive.

Tbh i really can't see this skill ever been useful for ranger skills. As for a second profession. It could be interesting to see what you can come up, but again the chances are the energy loss would be so ridiculously high it would become un-usable after a time and you'd be waiting on the recharge or skills as you normally would of just so you had energy to use them.

This is 1 of those skills that really wasn't thought through.



On the mention of unusable skills. Would it now be possible to use Archers Signet in a bow build letting you go R/Rt to constantly buff yourself with Rit Weapon spells with the spare energy? Firing off multiple Dual Shots or Forked Arrows, etc, for nothing while using the energy saved on something useful, it definatly sounds probable. *goes to the drawing board*

Shuuda

Shuuda

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

Guildless

Me/

With a 16 in expertise, Distracting will cost 4 energy whiles under ED, so using a zealous bow, you can spam it.

@Evilsod: ED only does 150% More, not 250%

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

I said at 250% of there original cost... not 250% more.

With 16 in Expertise leaving you 13 in Marksmanship, if your Distracting Shot *still* costs 4 energy, you still can't use it effectively... You can spam an interrupt once every 2 or 3 seconds if need be, but your still doing much less damage and hastling people alot more than you would be with a normal ranger build in PvP. As PvE goes, you just won't be doing that much damage, even spamming Keen Arrow has its limits on use... specially atm while its bugged.

Shuuda

Shuuda

Forge Runner

Join Date: Jul 2006

Guildless

Me/

fair enough. Well, it worth testing, but it seemed to turn out to be better than Mark wager + Con shot + Needle shot (using this seemed to piss my monk of, dispite the fact he could even stay alive on a team of 2 monks)

ArKaiN

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Jan 2007

Lotus Branca[Lbr]

Mo/Me

Quote:
Originally Posted by Shuuda
With a 16 in expertise, Distracting will cost 4 energy whiles under ED, so using a zealous bow, you can spam it.

@Evilsod: ED only does 150% More, not 250% Looks like someone failed math.

16 expertise to spam Distracting seems like a pretty bad idea. Want to spam interrupts? Needling shot+Incendiary Arrows.

Skuld

Skuld

Furnace Stoker

Join Date: Sep 2005

Thousend Tigers Apund Ur Head [Ttgr]

A/

It was just an idea guys, don't bite my head off

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

I attempted to make a build from it...

Didn't really work, lol. But then again i tend to just use Razah if i want weapon spells. If anyone does actually use weapon spells more often...

[skill]Dual Shot[/skill][skill]Screaming Shot[/skill][skill]Savage Shot[/skill][skill]Read the Wind[/skill][skill]Archer's Signet[/skill][skill]Nightmare Weapon[/skill][skill]Splinter Weapon[/skill][skill]Warmonger's Weapon[/skill]

With 12 (+1) Expertise, 14 (+4) Marksmanship 10 Communing

If anyone who uses weapon spells often seems to think it might be worthy of using Archers Signet for... be my guest

On the other hand you could just run Marksmans Wager and Needling Shot instead of RtW and Archers.

Falconer

Falconer

Frost Gate Guardian

Join Date: Jan 2005

I had to take a moment to try this one out on the isle. As I had also made the mistake, I thought the skill only was +50% as well, for a total of 150%. Not +150% for total of 250%.

But some quick checks showed that w/ 0 expertise, 5 energy skill was 12, 6energy @ 12 (half round up), 6 energy @ 13 (half round down), 5 @ 14. So the base cost of 5 is rounding to 12 it appears. (just under 2.5 times original... and lets face it 10 cost skills are pointless as 25 energy ones!)

If it was only 150% I'd say the skill would have a point... as you could use it to constantly spam focused shot or a selection of 5 energy spammables for example. And 15 energy for debil shot after reductions means that you're losing as much energy as you're taking off the target... (provided it's not dodging arrows, or blinding you, or running a block/evade... so even at 15 cost I don't think that's broken). But this also has to keep in mind, that a skill which only costs 5 originally can only have an effect commensurate w/ it's cheap cost. So that's self-limiting in itself...

But at 250% the skill is pointless.

At 150% it would have a point w/ 5 energy attacks as 13 expertise would still be 3 energy, enough to spam (though you'd run out of energy in about 20 seconds or so w/o any other emanagement). But you could light off a long string of 5 energy bow attacks like crossfire and the like for some respectable if not stellar DPS.

IMO: outside of concussion shot spammage, I don't believe that archers signet really has a good purpose in game yet, w/o more high cost spammable bow attacks to pair w/ it. Your only two high cost bow skill options are pin down, and concussion shot. Concussion shot is spammable and high cost, pin down fails the spammable test w/ it's 15s recharge.

Using archers signet to power out dual shots and the like is just silly, if that's what you want, bring prepared shot or melandru's shot (if you're expecting enchants). Hell, even marksmans wager seems to work better in your rit setup there Part of the problem is that archers disables the weapon enchants you want to use w/ the additional energy.

Evilsod

Evilsod

Banned

Join Date: Mar 2006

England

Lievs Death Squad [LDS]

Wiki could've told you all that in an instant I did think at first that it as 150% cost, not 150% increase... it really is ridiculous.

Yeah i began to think the moment someone reminded me of Marksmans Wager that whatever i used in that build it'd be better. The deactivation is annoying as hell. You could spec Communing instead of Channeling and use Guided Weapon and Brutal Weapon, Guided to stop you misses due to block while using Marksmans and Brutal for general damage once its worn off.

Anyway... i'm more focused on how Keen Arrow is currently bugged.

anshin

Wilds Pathfinder

Join Date: Aug 2006

R/

how is keen bugged?