Quick Shot, and other similar skills.

I don't know if this is the right forum, but most of the gameplay things seem to be posted here so....

The question is, what is the purpose of quick shot and skills similar to it. I know there are a couple of skills that just enhance your arrows speed. But I do not seem to understand it's significance.

Quick Shot recently has been made elite. I can't seem to understand why. It doesn't add damage. It only makes the arrow go faster, and it requires mana. I believe it can't be evaded or something like that, but that is still not a great move. I don't think these types of arrow moves where your arrow goes faster but doesn't do more damage has ever been given the right to sit in the 8-skill bar.

In fact, I haven't seen any mention of them anywhere. The only thing I can see is if you somehow daze them, then use quick shot as a guaranteed screw up. But even then, daze triples the casting time anyways, so arrows probably will land.

I just want to know what use these skills have. Do they have some sort of secret tactic I have not yet figured out? Or are they just novelty moves?

Arrows moving faster has a benefit in that your opponent has less opportunity to dodge them. However, this is not what Quick Shot does at all - instead your attack animation is faster, in fact, almost instant. So you get a "free" shot, so to speak.

If you want your arrows to move faster, I recommend read the wind. The bonus damage justifies it, and you'll miss less as a side benefit.

Oh I see, must've misread it the whole time. Then perhaps is Quick Shot worth being elite? You basically said it's a "free shot" so to speak, which is somewhat good, but how good is that free shot? Does it truely belong with the Elite tag?

I also seem to have mixed up Quick Shot and Called Shot. Called Shot is the one that moves faster. So rephrasing the original question, does Called Shot have any real use? I don't mean to ask what it does, since I'm pretty sure that I know from reading the skill description, but if somethings missing feel free.

I guess the point is me asking, do these other skills have any use in PVP or even PVE? I just want to know if their worthwhile.

Since arrows and other projectiles can be physically dodged (i.e. not by the game's 'dodge' chance parameter but by running sideways in respect to the source), increased arrow speed reduces the chance someone manages to dodge your arrows in this fashion, which helps in those cases where you need your arrows to connect, such as when finishing off a fleeing target, hampering a rushing target or one of the many other bow-related skills that trigger depending on whether or not you manage to hit your target.

I had a similar questions here is the answer

So it's basically not good enough to contend with barrage or perhaps even punishing shot(?) yet is theoritically too good to not stay elite...ok.......

Called Shot doesn't seem to do much either.

The reason for me saying this is because read the wind and favourable winds are already decent, and pretty much replace the skills. Who would pay 10 mana for 1 arrow that travels 3x faster? Or 5 mana for a free shot? It's technically not a free shot since it's 5 mana, which is basically worst then barrage.

Actually, to put it to simpler terms, is barrages shotgun spread worth not having an extra power shot (punishing shot) with interrupt?

Quick shot being elite also prevents abuse with Flourish.

Flourish {Elite}
Originally Published by THX

Description All of your attack skills become recharged. You gain 5 Energy for each skill recharged by Flourish.
Energy Cost 5
Casting Time 0
Recharge Time 10 seconds
Skill Type Skill
Linked Attribute None

Quickshot, then flourish, then Quickshot. Wait 5 seconds, then repeat combo. I don't see the power in this, other then basically using the combo to have a free shot, which is still considerably weak even with conjure or read the wind.

Quick Shot is less then 5 seconds recharge, there isn't much of a benefit from flourish anyways. That combo has nothing over barrage or power shot.

Power Shot? It's an over-rated shot.There are plenty of other ranger skills that are a lot better than this. I'd take Quick Shot over power shot, personally... well, Quick Shot IS elite, so that's hard to say... basically, I'd have to hear a very convincing argument for me to take it along...

Your saying Quick Shot > Power Shot. I can somewhat imagine how that works, but I'd like your own reasons just to be sure. Plus, I'd also like your reason on how is it effective as a elite. Right now, it's like those other elites like midnight signet.

Called Shot does more than make arrows move faster, it also can't be dodged or deflected, which can be a nasty surprise to people trying to rely on dodging stances/skills to avoid harm.

The combination of faster moving, undodgeable and undeflectable means you get a guaranteed hit in, so I guess it could be moderately interesting for PvP as a counter to dodging opponents, especially with some preparations and other buffs stacked onto that one arrow. The 10 energy seems a little costly for low expertise rangers though, but perhaps there's some golden combo involving Called Shot that warrants this cost.

I don't think this skill can weigh in significantly enough for PvE, since AI lacks the sort of organisation needed for this counter to become useful. But as a non-elite skill, it seems decent - typical specialistic skill I guess. I'm not sure Read the Wind replaces it, although it claims your arrows 'move faster' it makes no indication of the factor by which the speed is increased, and those arrows can still be dodged or deflected, so as a specialistic skill it might still hold its own.

As far as Power Shot is concerned, I think the issue is with the constant damage it adds as opposed to Quick Shot, which basically gives you an extra arrow. Considering DPS measurements, shooting one extra arrow fully laden with buffs is a lot more interesting than replacing one arrow with one doing a set amount of extra damage; the higher your regular arrow hits the more interesting Quick Shot (and something like Dual Shot, for that matter) becomes.

Compared to Dual Shot, Quick Shot lets you fire at two seperate targets and with a slight interval between the shots, both handy for condition-inflicting preparations I imagine, and at full strength. This as an argument why the elite might be deserved other than preventing abuse in combination with other elites, as noted.

Favourable Winds, Read the Wind, and Quick Shot are all things that will make your arrows move faster. What does that do? First of all, it helps eliminate the arc. If you hadn't noticed, arrows have different sorts of trajectories. Flat Bows shoot over huge wide arcs and miss a moving opponent very often. Dead Bows, on the other hand, fire slowly, but the arrow moves strait as... well... an arrow. This is extremely important to a ranger. What the good firing all those shots if you're not going to hit anyone? If you are using something like chocking gas then you want to be able to nail your opponent right in the middle of his spell, not 3 seconds after he casts it. So getting your arrow off quicker and then helping it find it's target faster is a great bonus. I personally like Favourable Winds the best because I don't want to waist my elite on Quick Shot, and while Read the Wind is great, it's a preperation which means it's the only prep I can have at one time.

Quick shot has no effect on the flight time of your arrow- what it does is reduce the firing time. Bows have 2+ seconds between shots, depending on what type of bow you're using- Quick Shot reduces that 2+ seconds that it takes you to fire a shot. If you want to reduce flight time, there's read the wind/favorable winds. If you're using choking gas for interruption, it can be great to interrupt spells that your opponent is trying to cast, but a smart opponent will just wait and cast between shots, at least after you've hit them with choking gas once. Quick shot combines well with this, allowing you to hit them almost instantly, allowing choking gas to interrupt their spell, when a normal attack would not.

In addition, Quick Shot is useful for boosting your overall damage output. You get an extra shot in every 10 seconds or so, basically increasing your damage output by 10%. It's not as great as Barrage, but if you're wanting to use preparations, Barrage is not a good choice since it ends any preparations you have on.

Quick Shot {Elite}

Bow Attack, 5en - 1cast - 3recharge

Shoot an arrow 3 times faster than normal. All your attack skills are disabled for 2 seconds.

I'm confused, is 1 second cast a bad thing? Since most shots have no second cast. The regular shots are 2.0 seconds, and power shots and other moves are probably longer, but this doesn't sound 3x faster, since it still requires a 1 second cast I believe. I'm just confused how it works.

As for spammability, despite the 1 second cast, with only 3 second recharge, I believe it is quite spammable.

I guess the question I'm really asking is, is quick shot worth getting for being a sniper? Like a killing machine. Choking Gas builds obviously makes good use of called shot and quick shot, but I want to try and see if this is all it can do.

I'll most likely give it a go during the beta, but I'm really confused about it's effectiveness. Has anyone ever tried to use this in GvG for killing? Or Tombs? I'm just trying to decide if this is worth using, or at least try for using. Seems to me, since it comes at such a early level, it's like the best PVE elite a marksmanship ranger can get early on, yet I'm curious to see if it even matches the use of barrage or punishing shot.