Haha, it sucks, you say? Gawd, I agree with monkey grip. I used to think Poison Arrow was the best. Until I seriously started using Punishing Shot, the more I used it, the more I discover its potentials and threats. Maybe I'm bad at describing but I feel Punishing Shot is fantastic... beyond words.
1) As mentioned above, it's great for spiking because of its release time. Dishing 3 arrows under 1.5s is no joke with those preps and FW. Get a couple of rangers, and before he or she can press for heal, the opponent's health bar is zero.
2) You might think PS is just another average spam attack skill in your skillbar, but if you put yourself in the opponent's shoes, you'll find yourself really stressed. It's a mind game. You'd hesitate when to release your strongest move, and that decreases your effectivity alot because GW is a game on good strat and quick thinking and response.
3) Honestly you'd be irritated enough if a normal attack was interrupted, not to mention a crucial skill like a stance or prep. I've been interrupted by warrior thumpers before and I hate that feeling. I know how it feels to be interrupted by PE when sometimes you don't even see your opponent. You're about to defeat the opposing melee opponent, when suddenly an attack of yours is interrupted, and you lose instead.
You might say Savage Shot can do the job as well, you don't need PS as an elite. The thing about PS is that it's an EXTRA interrupt on top of Savage Shot, that does even more damage on general. PS can be spammed with Dual Shot, where as SS must be carefully used with hesistation and quick response as a requirement. And if you think about it, if an opposing team's ranger has 2 powerful interrupts on him, you'd be nailing or watching him the entire battle. And to put it into practical usage, if you have 2 interrupts you don't even have to worry what you're interrupting, just spam! Suppose Warrior A is meleeing Warrior B, and Warrior C is helping Warrior A. Ranger A helps Warrior B. In an intensive battle of double-team, let's say Under 10s, each warrior makes 7 moves. Warrior A and C dt Warrior B, for a total of 12 moves under 10s. Ranger A and Warrior B dt Warrior A 14 moves under 10s. Your rate of attack is already interrupted even if it isn't a crucial skill being interrupted. Unless there's a very significant in skill between the two duos, it's unlikely Warrior A and Warrior C will win the duel. I'm talking about non-thumpers here, to make calculations easier.
Wooh! Long story. Shows my passion of PS, after discovering it. I'm addicted to it in short. It's the reason why I refuse to move away from spike build. =p
For those who read through that whole chunk, thanks for the patience.
