broad head arrow ?

Can anyone explain why this skill seems to be so popular as it seems to me that a domination mesmer is much better at interrupting and doing damage - or am I wrong ?

THX

You are wrong. [skill]broad head arrow[/skill] 's strength is in the dazed condition it gives, as well as interrupting any spells cast. I've run Kuunavang with 3 BHA rangers and owned him in 3 minutes. [skill]distracting shot[/skill] , [skill]savage shot[/skill] give interruption almost on demand, whereas the mesmer has god-awful recharge times, unless he uses [skill]mantra of recovery[/skill]. Slap [skill]epidemic[/skill] on the BHA bar and you create AoE dazed.

Broad head arrow induces a long-lasting dazed condition. That means that the enemy casts spells at half speed, and is interrupted every time he is hit with an attack - provided there are a couple of people pounding on him, he's effectively shut down and unable to do anything at all. As it recharges pretty quickly, the ranger can keep one target permanently dazed, and since it's a condition it can be spread to surrounding enemies with Epidemic.

A domination mesmers interrupts are by no means bad, but most require hitting the foe while he uses his skill, which is difficult especially with bosses as they have halved cast-times, and all have unfortunate side effects - long recharge, or disabling all other skills for X seconds, for instance - which makes them less effective than simply dazing the enemy.

BHA (broad head arrow) is useful for the daze. Only like 7 skills in the game apply daze, most of them are elite and several have very unusual conditions. BHA is the best way to apply it. Daze slows down cast time and makes it so that if a character gets hit with any attack while casting a spell, that spell will be interupted. After dazing somebody, you can daze them repeatedly.

Memsers are not good interupters compared to rangers. Their interupts recharge too slowly (20-30s, except for power return). Distracting and savage (and Magebane) are all better options. Mesmers shine with their shutdown hexes and energy denial, not interuption.

The only problem with Broad Head Arrow is that it can be blocked with defense stances or protection enchants. But then again mesmer hexes can be removed also.

[skill]Prepared Shot[/skill]+[skill]Concussion Shot[/skill]>[skill]Broad Head Arrow[/skill]

That requires you to be able to interrupt a spell. In HM, bosses cast much faster and it may be outright impossible for some less experienced players to hit it consistently to be of any use. I mean, people complain about rez chant being too fast to interrupt, so what makes you think they can hit a HM boss spell? :P

Yep, you apply daze to a caster and get a couple of wars pounding him, he will never get off any spells at all. Take Rotscale for example, he is nothing with a BHA ranger in the group.

Krat

so would it be a good idea to go mesmer secondary on a BHA ranger to take advantage of epidemic etc ? - Im talking about heroes here in PvE.

(I still love my mesmer hero by the way )

Thanks for ur replies guys - These forums are so cool !!

Well, to give mesmers some credit, more than half their spell/chant interrupts recharge in less than twenty seconds:
[card]power lock[/card] [card]power spike[/card] [card]Power Leak[/card] [card]cry of frustration[/card] [card]Psychic Distraction[/card] [card]Power Flux[/card] [card]Power Leech[/card] [card]Web of Disruption[/card]

But on topic, BHA is awesome if you have a cover condition.

That would really depend on where you are at.

If you know you will be in an area with a bunch of caster groups then spreading daze throughout the group is very beneficial but, if you are going to be in an area where most of your mobs are melee types then there are much better builds to take then BHA/epidemic.

That is just my opinion of course,

Krat

All of you people are also forgetting Disrupting Shot.

Disrupting Shot all be it an good skill, is by no means in the same league as BHA when it come to interrupting.

I think however the OP was just taking more about why people loved BHA so much, as opposed to having a interrupt mesmer in the group.

Of course again this is just my opinion,

Krat

Why wouldn't they in a discussion about Broad Head Arrow?

And even in terms of general interrupts, why would you take Disrupting shot over the standard Savage/Distracting Shot combo with Disrupting's longish recharge?

edit: nvm misread something

That says Distracting, not Disrupting

As much as I love mesmer heroes with interrupts, I'm going to have to say I like BHA much better, it takes 0 skill to use Just fire it, wait for it to recharge, fire again, game over.

Q, the whole thread,FT!

BHA, owns with just 2 people smacking on the target. The key is to wait for the target to get set in place before shooting or you will miss everytime.

BHA + a war or sin using an IAS will shut down just about any caster.

While I do love mesmers for some fast interupts of key spells the ranger is the better choice for single target shut down followed closely by a war or sin with Warmonger Weapon cast on them.

BHA on a hero is not very efficient use of the skill, in my experience. The downside of BHA is its enormous arc/flight time: It's easy to dodge. Time and again I've seen my heroes fire BHA at the start of a fight, while the enemies are running at us, or changing position. Of course, the first BHA misses nearly every time. A human is much better at making sure BHA hits its target.

Also, if you or another human fires the BHA, then it's easy to get your heroes/henchies to attack the dazed target, to keep them interrupted. If a hero fires BHA then unless you called the target, you may not know which enemy is dazed - and they might still get spells off because no-one else is attacking them.

Hero + BHA = Epic Failzor.

The only option is to lock the skill out and shoot it manually.