EVSoH vs. EVSoW

I am a Ranger who uses the Barrage build. So I have two choices in one of the Ebon Vanguard Standard of skills.

If I use EVSoH, I would buff my own attacks.

However, if I use EVSoW, I would buff my 7 spellcaster heroes.

Which one should I use?

My Ranger uses a Barrage Build.

My Spellcasters are the Discord/Mes/spiritway. probably need more physical damage to justify EBSoH, in my opinion. I love that skill though... why not take both? Go R/E with glyph of lesser energy, all points in marksmanship and expertise. let the ritualists put Splinter Weapon on you. If you are so inclined you could even load up Conjure.

+damage ftw. Besides, it's more fun to see big yellow numbers from your own barrages. this.

i couldnt care less about how my heroes are doing damagewise.

i want to see big yellow numbers coming from me. thus, on my physical characters, i always have:
orders, strength of honor, judges insight, splinter weapon, etc.

Doesn't EVSoH buff spell damage as well? Although I suppose it isn't as significant. Although I have to agree EVSoH is far more worthwhile than EVSoW, perhaps to make it seem more cost effective, you could switch out one spell caster for another Barrage or IA ranger.

Minions also benefit from the buff so if you've got them as meat shields, that makes EVSoH much more beneficial. It buffs physical and elemental damage, it does not buff armor ignoring damage like RoJ, VoR, Spiteful Spirit, Discord. Minions won't stay in the EBSoH so it probably won't do much for them unless you're talking about bone fiends (ranged attacks).

EBSOH is better IMO. Why? Because buffing barrage is better than getting 1 less recharge on Discord or 6 less recharge on Putrid Bile. Death Nova is on 0 recharge. Mesmer stuff is on 5-8 recharge each after Fast casting and the limiting factor is energy. If you're running Keystone mesmer, then EBSOW will be useless.

Spirits' recharge isn't going to be changed by EBSOW after all. +15 damage vs. 600 damage every two second. The 1 second less recharge on discord sounds appealing.

Yes, gimmick builds like that.

1. lol tank n spank.
2. lol not 7 heroes is it?
3. You massively overestimate its effectiveness because you forget it only stacks multiplicatively with 40/40 mods. Its actually only a 40% increase in HSR rate, equal to a 20% decrease in skill recharge time on average. Also, I would normally not mention this, but since you linked to a shitty build that requires consumables it becomes even weaker since it (again...) doesn't stack well. Now its a 10% recharge time decrease. I'm sure that 14s recharge instead of 16s recharge on RoJ is really damn awesome, right? Oh wait, its tank n spank so if you failed to kill the enemy on the first salvo you fail horribly at guilds wars anyways. The power of arcane echo and echo is that you can use the spell again IMMEDIATELY, not later when the battle is already over.

Of course, when you have 8 or even 12 players you can bring as many shitty PvE skills as you want in your build if they marginally improve your performance by a few %. That doesn't make them good PvE skills, it just means that when you have 96 skill options and 36 PvE skill options any party wide buff, no matter how weak, is usable because there is literally nothing else to bring. I have never seen so much fail in one post before. No point in trying to explain this to you since you've clearly already made up your mind.

For everyone else in this thread, EBSOW gives 60% chance of HSR for everyone on every single spell at no charge. Staffs give 20% chance of HSR for all spells, but this stacks multiplicatively, so it is 60% + (0.2 x 40) = 68%. I like to use staves because the 20% chance applies to all spells, even PvE skills that are spells, e.g. EVAS, Snow Storm, etc. It also applies to spells from a different attribute or from a secondary profession.

If you Arcane Echo something like Ray of Judgment you can cast two of them in 20 seconds at a cost of 15 additional energy for Arcane Echo. EBSoW gives a 68% chance of getting the same result for every spell on every character, and the only cost is 10 energy from the player... everyone else gets the benefit for free. If you still think that is worthless then I don't know what to say.

p.s. in addition to the energy cost for arcane echo, it has 50% downtime... it works for 20 seconds, then recharges for 20 seconds. EBSoW can be kept up 100%.

I have never seen so much fail in one post before. No point in trying to explain this to you since you've clearly already made up your mind.

For everyone else in this thread, EBSOW gives 60% chance of HSR for everyone on every single spell at no charge. Staffs give 20% chance of HSR for all spells, but this stacks multiplicatively, so it is 60% + (0.2 x 40) = 68%. I like to use staves because the 20% chance applies to all spells, even PvE skills that are spells, e.g. EVAS, Snow Storm, etc. It also applies to spells from a different attribute or from a secondary profession.

If you Arcane Echo something like Ray of Judgment you can cast two of them in 20 seconds at a cost of 15 additional energy for Arcane Echo. EBSoW gives a 68% chance of getting the same result for every spell on every character, and the only cost is 10 energy from the player... everyone else gets the benefit for free. If you still think that is worthless then I don't know what to say.

p.s. in addition to the energy cost for arcane echo, it has 50% downtime... it works for 20 seconds, then recharges for 20 seconds. EBSoW can be kept up 100%. You have me sold.