Don't forgo splinter weap!

Too many times during pugs I run into the same SoS build. (SoS, bloodsong, pain,vampirism, AoU,summon spirits, painful bond, and either siphon or boc)

Where has Splinter Weapon gone on the human SoS?

At 15 channeling it can provide up to 750dmg for a "5e, 1sec cast, and 5 sec rc", skill. It is too strong to be forgotten on any Rit bar with spec in channeling. (ofc given there is some sort of physical to cast it on)

The only reason I can see leaving this skill behind is that ppl want to be lazy, setting their spirits and standing around till the need to cast them again.

Am I missing something...is there some reason why most SoS forgo this skill?

Don't really take out my Rit now these days but I usually slap it on my SoS hero whenever I do something like Wanted on my War or Sin

Even as a spirit spammer, if I'm speccing 15+ in channeling, I'm taking Splinter Weapon if there's any sort of physical on the team. It's too good to be ignored. I'll try to pack AR on my bars as well if possible, to be cast immediately after splinter on a frontliner.

IMO Great Dwarf Weapon is better for pugs, specially with a few points in spawning power to make it last a bit longer.

too lazy to cast splinter in pve, leave it for the heroes

if they made it 1/4 or 1/2 cast id probably bring it

A-rage and splinter should be staple on all SoS bars a rit not taking them is either bad or really lazy

Not sure what you mean, as every SoS I've ever met has carried Splinter Weapon. I carry it myself when running SoS. Mostly though, I'm running a Resto Ritual Lord build.

But if I have a Rit Hero, usually always have Splinter on them unless they are running Shelter Support. Do agree though. Every SoS Rit should always carry it, especially with a Barrage in the group. That is easy clearing there.

Quote: Originally Posted by Necromas

IMO Great Dwarf Weapon is better for pugs, specially with a few points in spawning power to make it last a bit longer. This. Pugs suck at keeping things bunched up. GDW has more utility.

Splinter & A-rage are awesome. I agree 100% that people dont know their power. On a SoS rit i bring it even if no frontliners and cast it on myself and wand it out.

Human's are better at managing and positioning spirits than heroes, so just leave A-rage and Splinter Weapon to the heroes imo.

Any support char in a pug should adapt their build to support frontliners period. GDW is superior to splinter in almost every situation, however if a Barrage shows up I would even ditch another spirit to bring Splinter as well.

Credit goes to Chthon from elsewhere (if you want me to pull this for whatever reason, I'll delete the post).

"Assume [email protected] is cast on the recharge and always scores every trigger on every hit. It's maximum possible DPS is (4*35*3)/6 = 70. [email protected] has a maximum possible DPS of (5*53*3)/6 = 132.5. Both of those figures are maximum possible values that are rather unrealistic. You're not going to get 3 adjacent foes on all 5 hits every time you cast Splinter. In fact, you're probably going to get a lot less. Each missed trigger takes ~9DPS off the r16 Splinter's maximum. By comparison, assume [email protected] is cast on the recharge, and your team has enough sins to put it on, and they are using JS+FF+DB+auto+auto. Your DPS would be (20 / 6) * 20 * 1.86267039 = 124.178026. And that is a pretty realistic number because the sins are going to keep swinging. If r16 Splinter misses a trigger or two per cast (quite likely), it's going to have less DPS than GDW. Splinter's only serious advantage is that it can be spikey when combined with multi-hit attacks. Then there's GDW's really, really powerful KD effect to consider."

tl;dr - read the bolded (emphasis mine) sections.

Splinter Weapon and Ancestor's Rage spam is for heroes.

GDW is seriously overated, aoe dmg will always outdo single target dmg (scythe would be the only time GDW might be useful but even then...) bring a PI mes and u can keep mobs KD'd allowing splinter to do its job and blow up everything in seconds....

My original intent for this was splinter>comming split. As for gdw vs splint....both have advantages.

Either way either is better on a SoS then splitting for communing.

Splinter has the advantage that it can be max damage without much effort, just rune yourself to 15 channeling. GDW to max out you have to get 160k dwarf and is double the energy.
When I play with a friend who is a war, splinter + ancestors is pretty much bye bye mob.

gdw + soh.
a must for physicals imo.

I've been taking my ranger through factions with just heroes. I ran SW/Barrage until I got far enough to cap SoS. Now run it using max channeling build, some thrown into expertise and remainder points put into communing to make Armor of Unfeeling last longer, bring Pyre Fierceshot also setup as R/Rt but speced into expertise and communing maxed with a full communing bar, setup Gwen as a panic mes, and Ogen as a UA monk.

Even in 8 man areas (NM) I'm just blowing through them with myself and these heroes. I don't even bring henchies usually. If I have any trouble, I just throw on an extra healer and/or prot hero. There are no physicals at all in this team setup. So Splinter is kind of useless.

I'd throw it on a hero though before I'd bring it myself. Unless I was running a R/Rt splinter/barrage build.

The reason is that most pugs do not think about team synergy. Everyone just does their own shit -> DPS frontlines don't receive proper buffs (often don't even receive prots gg) -> DPS frontlines just play H/H instead -> the only pug frontlines left are tanks whose idea of tanking is running to the next mob, popping dolyak/endure pain, and watching the mobs run straight past them to the backline -> I bring Vengeance instead of splinter/GDW.

On the rare occasions that I get proper DPS physicals on a general pug, I'll take splinter only on areas with large mob densities (e.g. BLA). GDW the rest of the time.

Quote: Originally Posted by MArcSinus

splinter on people with spears that are casters. It makes wanding scary.

But yeh the physicals you see are:
imbagons
100B warriors
Death blossom sins
crit scythe
Barrage rangers
and the oh so common defy pain tank with 8 or 9 in weapon