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Originally Posted by Morphy
Yes, and Volley SoS does both roles at the same time. You're getting (nearly, you get one less splinter triggered) the same amount of AoE damage splinter barrage does
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A single extra activation of splinter weapon is worth 150 damage. Further, that's not taking into account all of the other buffs that you SHOULD be stacking on yourself if you're running a proper splinter-barrage, all of which will trigger off of as many arrows as you can, and you will certainly be able to get bigger groups than the 4 that Volley will hit.
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while retaining single target pressure and body-blocking spirits, which is in itself a very powerful mechanic worth spending your emtire skill bar on instead of just your elite.
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Except that, as already pointed out, AoE spike damage >> single target "pressure" in this quest. Further, if you're in the back barraging, how the heck are you going to be body blocking with your spirits? Run forward every 30 seconds or so to refresh them? Hey look, there goes your DPS down the tubes. Even further, melee foes aren't terribly much trouble in this quest, it's the large balls of casters that are trouble (and the melee foes that ARE problems - the jades - will kill a few spirits in 2 seconds because of Spectral Agony auto-applied on hit).
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The argument that spirit spamming is boring doesn't apply for the simple fact that you're now also splinter volleying. If that's boring, then so is Splinter Barrage. In other words, it's a more versatile (=more effective) build that is equally fun (as far as anything in PvE can be called that) as Splinter Barrage and he doesn't want to use it, why? Because SoS is a meta skill.
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Juggling all of your personal buffs and finding the right targets to barrage are far more engaging than pooping out your spirits and running around shadow stepping them away from AoE and melee foes. As for versatility = effectiveness: not if the most effective thing you can do is to get the giant mobs of Jade Cloaks down as fast as possible.
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My problem with this guy is not that he uses poor skill bars but that he uses poor skill bars because he wants to be cool and different (see lolcat above) and QQs on this forum because people in his party (rightfully) call him out on it and tell him what proper skill bars he could use instead, even calling them stupid in the process. Other than that, his stance towards people that use meta bars (IF YOU PLAY META, YOU CAN'T DO ANYThING ElSE and other such statements) is really annoying. Nice try, though.
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My problem with you is that you're exactly the kind of close-minded "META IS GOD" kind of player that doesn't even think if the build they're advocating is, in fact, the best build for the situation. In most situations, SoS IS the right choice. Here, in this quest, it is not, and you're continuing to insist that it is, JUST because it's the meta build.
I'm not a "everyone is a perfect snowflake" kind of guy. I use the most effective builds, and I tell people who use trash builds to change them. My problem here is that a rit running splinter barrage is NOT a trash build, particularly in this situation. It is, at the absolute worst, a viable build that works in the situation; my opinion is that it's the BEST build for the situation, but at the very least you cannot deny that it works and it works damn well. Putting SoS in there for him to poop out will do next to nothing for his team; if he's not babysitting spirits, they'll get caught in some AoE (and there is plenty) and killed before they ever do significant damage. Spirit spamming is a useful build because of it's massive single-target damage potential, a potential that is completely wasted if you're not hexing your targets and saving your spirits from harm. What extra damage he loses by not bringing them will be more than compensated by an extra 3 arrows (plus a +10 damage boost on all of his arrows from Barrage itself) triggering stuff like Favorable Winds, EBSoH, Splinter Weapon, IaTS!, and BUH!
His "if you can't play meta, you can't play anything else," stance is absurd. Your "if you're not playing meta, you're an idiot, regardless of what content you're doing," stance is equally absurd. Splinter-barrage is perfectly viable in this situation, it's not a shit build, and saying that Volley does "just as good" a job as Barrage is false. Are we quite clear yet?
. Course with how I am now, I run all sorts of random, funny builds with all of my characters. Splinter Barrage Rit, 100b Rit, just random stuff, its fun! Sure, not as effective as their counterparts usually, but they're fun.
. In those teams, everyone splits up and does their own quest, I don't like that, because then only certain individuals only learn certain areas of the UW and what not. Basically, sure, the way I do things may be different, but at least in my opinion, I am playing it the way it was intended. By that I mean in the sense of taking the proper amount of time to complete an elite area, while sure there are no "proper" times, but I always felt UW was an area that was supposed to take at least 2 hours, perhaps 3. Maybe I am wrong, but those are my feelings 
