Overall, you gain about ~5 DPS by spreading your points with R/E to an element, even less if you invest in BM for TF.
I'll agree that using Conjure is quite inferior to using Judge's Insight, and should only be used without access to a Zealous bow.
I've played a QS Ranger for about two months, and I abandoned the use of Conjure a while ago (also in part due to Nature's Renewal prevalence).
Speaking of Nature's Renewal, it's easier to take 4 seconds to recast Judge's Insight under it, than to wait some 30-50 seconds to be able to use Conjure again. With a zealous bow, energy is not a concern.
As for spreading points, the QS Ranger I've settled on about a month ago has:
16 Marksmanship (12 + 1 + 3)
13 Expertise (10 + 3)
09 Beast Mastery (8 + 1)
02 Smiting Prayers.
And uses a Zealous Flatbow with a 20% longer enchantment duration bow grip.
I'm not wasting 12 ranks into Wilderness Survival to use a preparation that:
1) Doesn't help me hit moving/running targets any better.
2) Only adds 10 more damage over my choice of a preparation (assuming 12 in WS).
3) Requires a huge investment into a 4th attribute.
4) Is particularly crappy vs armor buffs (and the less imporant ranger and warrior armors).
The only good thing about Kindle/Ignite Arrows, is the 24 second duration and ability to hit through a stance, blindness, Aegis and Guardian. But that stil doesn't justify the attribute point investment.
Quote:
You won't be doing EITHER. You'll be running and casting defensive buffs. Which brings up another point to taking W as secondary - adrenal based defensive buffs, which in general are better than the ranger counterparts.
Huh? What defensive buffs? If you're wasting skill slots on defensive skills as a Ranger, you're making as much of a mistake as doing same on a Warrior. Let your monk heal you, ignore the damage you're taking, and kill your bloody target.
And under Tiger's Fury, as opposed to Frenzy, I can do that without taking double damage.
And as for running, if you do that, you concede the fight to the enemy, as you are no longer doing your character's primary purpose (damage).
Quote:
Overall, W secondary is the way to go.
Only if you're willing to give up damage output. And potentially find yourself in a position of making a choice, between reducing your damage output even further (no frenzy), or creating more work for your team's monks (continue to frenzy).
Whenever I dabble in the arena and see these QS Ranger/Warriors, I can't help but smile as I force them to take double damage from my own arrows or become remarkably ineffective (unless ofcourse OpFor has a monk, then he dies first).
There are Ranger builds for which a Warrior secondary makes sense. A QS Ranger is not one of those builds.
08 Aug 2005 at 01:44 - 14
I believe that I could calculate whether a horn bow is worth it or not, but I need to know something. Does the game use fractions of a second for arrow speed like 1.33? Since a quickshot takes 1 second, using it with tf would take .66 seconds right? If so, why does Ensign say serpent's quickness dones't work with quickshot? Wouldn't it reduce qs's 1 sec recharge time to .66 seconds? Unless recharge times are always rounded to the nearest second and weapon speeds are not?
08 Aug 2005 at 01:45 - 15
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo-LD
I get ANNOYED when a random teammate puts QZ down. I actually go out of my way to KILL it if the enemy puts it down! You can get way more damage over time by just going normal/quick/normal/quick forever instead of going QS/QS/QS/QS until you're out of energy.
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Aha. This man sees the light  .
Quote:
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Favorable WInds will grant nearly as much damage bonus as conjure element without haveing to spend 10 in fire or get an elemental bowstring. Winnowing is almost as good. Putting both down is kinda funny, though usually infeasable due to 10 second combined cast time. Id put at least one of those in there, though.
I'll agree on Favourable Winds, as its always present on my skill bar. Most people also only look at the damage added, and forget how much more accurate it makes your arrows, so you're not losing damage to misses on moving targets.
I strongly disagree on Winnowing, though. Using a skil slot on a 4 damage boost, that does nothing to improve accuracy? It's horribly inefficient IMO. Not to mention that it helps all physical damage, instead of only helping arrows. Enemy Warriors will be thankful.
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Horn Bows are the usually the best type of weapon for QS builds since QS makes all bows fire about the same, and Horn Bows have passive 10% armor penetration. QS makes up for the Horn's usually atrocious firing rate.
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree again. I've experienced very noticeable differences in drawing animation between different bow types under TF + QS.
QS doesn't ignore the drawing animation particular to the bow type, it only speeds it up by 2x (and TF speeds it up yet again more). Using a Longbow, for example, and then switching to a Flatbow, the difference in speed is immidiately apparent.
I suspect that when people said that the bow type didn't matter, they refered to operating QS under Quickning Zephyr, where indeed it would not matter all that much, as all bows under QZ and TF will fire pretty much non stop.
Under the Normal/QS/Normal/QS/Repeat firing mode, the 10% constant armor penetration may outweigh the increase in speed, though. I'll have to think it over ...
08 Aug 2005 at 02:05 - 16
Ah that makes sense. Short bow then?
btw to get ~80 damage per shot, do you go and get conjure element anyways? Or is it all arrow damage + kindle + fav winds? You pumping marksmanship past 12? I get pretty good damage out of my QS ranger, but I dont think I get 80 damage regularly. You figure 30 for the shot + 6 (fav winds) + 17 (kindle) and your doing like 50.
Where does the other 30 come from?
08 Aug 2005 at 02:11 - 17
I've done a few calculations about whether a horn bow or shortbow is better. Please correct me if this seems wrong
Assume a non customized 6-28 shortbow, it has an attack speed of 1 arrow every two seconds. Assume I activate tigers fury and shoot one arrow followed by a quickshot against a monk with 60 armor.
The normal shot should take 1.33 secs and the qs should take .66 of a second. A shortbow does an average of 17 damage with each hit, which means 34 damage in 2 seconds with a shortbow. Thats 17 damage per second.
A horn bow has an attack speed of 1 arrow ever 2.7 seconds. A normal shot takes 1.81 seconds and a qs takes .9 of a second. Each hit does 17 * 1.189 = 20.21 because of the 10% armor penetration. Thats 40.42 damage in 2.71 seconds. Thats 14.92 damage per second.
I didn't take critcals into account, but I bet with the shortbow's faster attack speed one would get critcals more often plus make more use of the bonus from kindle/favorable.
edit: I believe Ender is using Judges Insight, but I wonder, do you not run out of energy casting it every 10 seconds? Also, in the 2 secs you spend casting it, wouldn't you be able to shoot 2 arrows?
08 Aug 2005 at 02:29 - 18
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo-LD
Ah that makes sense. Short bow then?
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Actually I use a Flatbow. Same rate of fire, best possible range (shortbow would require me to enter spell range, which I prefer to stay out of).
Quote:
btw to get ~80 damage per shot, do you go and get conjure element anyways? Or is it all arrow damage + kindle + fav winds? You pumping marksmanship past 12? I get pretty good damage out of my QS ranger, but I dont think I get 80 damage regularly. You figure 30 for the shot + 6 (fav winds) + 17 (kindle) and your doing like 50.
Where does the other 30 come from?
I use:
Judge's Insight
Favourable Winds
16 Marksmanship
--preparation--
Bow with +15% damage while in a stance.
As I said in previous posts, I don't waste points on Wilderness Survival. My stats are: 16 Marksmanship, 13 Expertise, 9 Beast Mastery and 2 Smiting Prayers.
I'm sorry that I'm being purposefully vague (although not really, if one looks over the skills list ...), but I'd like people to figure things out themselves through experience. Perhaps coming to the same conclusions as I have over my time playing a QS Ranger.
A hint, though, my Flatbow, that most inaccurate of bows, is actually as accurate as a Composite/Recurve (while retaining maximum possible range) because of the skills I use ...
08 Aug 2005 at 02:39 - 19
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liquidus
edit: I believe Ender is using Judges Insight, but I wonder, do you not run out of energy casting it every 10 seconds?
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Nope, because using a zealous bow, there is 0 net energy loss from using QS. At 13 expertise, QS costs you 2 energy to fire, you make up 1 energy through zealous. But that QS is preceded by a normal shot, which gains you 1 energy as well. Therefore, 2 energy used, 2 energy gained.
During this you have 2 pips of regen working in the background.
I only need to stop casting JI after about 5 uses, at which point I spend ~10 seconds under Tiger's Fury filling up my energy pool back to full thanks to the Zealous bow. At which point one can go back to using JI again.
JI is only problematic under Nature's Renewal, but even there I learned to deal with the 4 sec cast time. The damage increase during JI's duration outweighs the time lost.
Quote:
Also, in the 2 secs you spend casting it, wouldn't you be able to shoot 2 arrows?
Which would not, unfortunately, make up the damage lost from firing significantly weaker arrows without Judge's Insight.
Although some people will jump up and down claiming that spending 2 seconds to cast in the middle of a fight is a travesty, in reality, it's nothing. A very small price to pay for the benefits of JI or say a preparation.
For some reason people require a choice between using JI and using a preparation. Why not both? And when you decide to use both, wouldn't it make sense to use a preparation that would actually benefit from JI? Hint, hint 
08 Aug 2005 at 02:48 - 20
Hmm, out of curiosity, I just put my build through the calculators here. According to which I should be doing 65.25 damage per arrow to caster armor.
Not sure why I experience slightly higher values. I'm guessing it's because I don't fully understand the interaction between JI and my preparation, and can't input it right into the 'damage vs armor' calculator ...
EDIT:
Oops, just realised where the missing damage went. I forgot to include 20% weapon customisation 
08 Aug 2005 at 02:53 - 21
There's really no point to this build. Kindle Arrows and a few speed buffs isn't going to give you great damage at all. Especially considering Quick Shot has an aftercast. I can garauntee that you won't do 65.25 damage per arrow, as the only buff you have for damage is kindle. Distracting Shot is a nice skill, but seems out of place since this was intended to be a damage dealer.
08 Aug 2005 at 03:02 - 22
Well, using the damage formula ...
Received Damage = {(Damage Enhancement) x (Base Damage) x (Armor Modifier)} + (Bonus Damage)
since i'm not sure whether the prep and favorable winds counts as bonus damage, i'll do it twice ...
You end up with either:
1) 1.2*1.15*21.5*2^((68-48)/40)+21=58.9597 Avg Damage; or
2) 1.2*1.15*38.5*2^((68-48)/40)=75.1372 Avg Damage
This is vs. casters .... Ender's numbers seem reasonable enough to me ...
EDIT: Calculations done with +17 damage buffs, 16 Marksmanship, and 20% AP from Judge's
08 Aug 2005 at 03:19 - 23
I believe the bonus from favorable and preps is bonus damage. Why do you have 68 in the equation? 5*16=80
edit: never mind, this is incorrect because i didnt' realize it scales down after 12
08 Aug 2005 at 03:40 - 24
Quote:
Originally Posted by Weezer_Blue
Especially considering Quick Shot has an aftercast.
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Attack skills don't have "aftercast". Only spells do.
If you've ever used QS under Quickening Zephyr and Tiger's Fury, you'd immidiately notice how you're outputting one arrow right after another. No aftercast.
Quote:
I can garauntee that you won't do 65.25 damage per arrow, as the only buff you have for damage is kindle.
Umm ... are you perhaps confusing the thread originator's posts with mine? I believe I stated several times I did not use Kindle Arrows as my preparation.
My build actually has 3 "buffs" to the arrows.
And if one is to believe the calculators, this is what my character is doing (though I get slightly more ingame):
"Perfect +35% bow" does 37.8 max damage.
At 16 Marksmanship, that becomes 43.42 damage.
Add 6 from Favourable Winds, 49.42 damage.
Add 10 from Preparation, 59.42 damage.
Which against 60 armor class, is exactly that, 59 damage.
Add 20% armor penetration from Judge's Insight, and the damage becomes 73.15.
And that is why one should buff stack arrows and use Judge's Insight in a QS build
08 Aug 2005 at 03:43 - 25
No wilderness, gotta be Read the Wind! But with 2 seconds to cast JI and 2 seconds to prep RtW, how much are you actually firing?
08 Aug 2005 at 03:43 - 26
Ender, I don't understand how you can get 80 damage per shot. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you had a customized 15% in stance bow, with ji, favorable, and the secret preparation, the equation is like this. (If your prepartion is the one i'm thinking of, it should be adding 9 damage at 12 marks, I can't check so I'll say 13 damage at 16 marks.)
1.35*21.5*2^((68-48)/40) +19= 60.05
edit: I think when you said 80 per shot, that was assuming your bow hit for 28, but the max you could really do would be 72-73. On average, you would be doing about 60 damage per shot.
08 Aug 2005 at 03:55 - 27
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neo-LD
No wilderness, gotta be Read the Wind! But with 2 seconds to cast JI and 2 seconds to prep RtW, how much are you actually firing?
That's the one.
I fire for the entire duration of Tiger's Fury (9 seconds). At which point there's a decision to make:
If the target's almost dead, just finish it off (recast Tiger's Fury as it becomes available 1 second later).
If the target is at about half of it's hitpoints, take the time to recast JI and RtW and finish him off.
Usually I'd have the target at 1/3 of it's hitpoints after Tiger's Fury wears off (people also tend to start running at this point). So I usually choose to just hit TF again and finish it off while I stil have RtW on.
The strength of the build is that in these 9 seconds of TF duration you're doing massive damage with each arrow. It would ofcourse be preferable to have JI last longer, but that requires too much investment into smiting for a few seconds longer.
08 Aug 2005 at 03:58 - 28
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ender Ward
I'm afraid I'll have to disagree again. I've experienced very noticeable differences in drawing animation between different bow types under TF + QS.
QS doesn't ignore the drawing animation particular to the bow type, it only speeds it up by 2x (and TF speeds it up yet again more).
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No, there is no difference in speed between bows either with or without QZ when using Quick Shot. Normal attacks and Bow Attacks without a cast time are affected by bow speed, though, so if you're interspersing QS with other attacks a short/halfmoon is probably best.
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And if one is to believe the calculators, this is what my character is doing (though I get slightly more ingame): ...
That's for a maximum hit, but it won't be your expected damage per arrow...
With 16 Marks, you have (I believe) 20% chance of criticals and about a 15% bonus to damage. So:
Normal hit: average 21.5
Critical: 39.6
So the expected base damage will be 0.8 * 21.5 + 0.2 * 39.6 = 25.12 damage.
Now add 15% from 16 Marks, 15% from damage mod, and 20% from customization:
25.12 * 1.15 * 1.15 * 1.2 = 39.86
Take this and add your +16 from prep and Favorable:
39.86 + 16 = 55.86
Finally throw in 20% AP from JI, and against a 60AL target you should be doing an expected 68.78 damage per arrow, which is pretty good.
08 Aug 2005 at 04:04 - 29
Quote:
Originally Posted by Liquidus
Ender, I don't understand how you can get 80 damage per shot. Correct me if I'm wrong but if you had a customized 15% in stance bow, with ji, favorable, and the secret preparation, the equation is like this. (If your prepartion is the one i'm thinking of, it should be adding 9 damage at 12 marks, I can't check so I'll say 13 damage at 16 marks.)
1.35*21.5*2^((68-48)/40) +19= 60.05
edit: I think when you said 80 per shot, that was assuming your bow hit for 28, but the max you could really do would be 72-73. On average, you would be doing about 60 damage per shot.
Actually the highest damage I've recorded on a caster was 87 (don't ask me how, and no, it wasn't a Necromancer).
So yes, I meant max damage to be around 80 (~80). Ofcourse average damage would be lower. But people rarely give average damage, do we ?
Also, Read The Wind maxes out at +10 damage at 14 Marksmanship. The reasons to use RtW as opposed to a Wilderness Survival preparation are:
1) No points to invest in another attribute. You already have Marksmanship at 14 or higher to get the max benefit from RtW.
2) It benefits from Judge's Insight, as it's added to the standard bow damage (as opposed to Kindle, which arrives on target in a seperate "packet").
3) It improves arrow accuracy by stacking with Favourable Winds. Your Flatbow becomes as accurate as a Composite.
~~~
The calculators on the site agree with you, in that I should be doing 73 max damage per arrow. I stil record hits higher than that. I can offer no explanation, however.
Thing is, when casters start losing hitpoints alarmingly quickly, they run. And when they run every hit is max damage .
08 Aug 2005 at 04:10 - 30
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mind Wallaby
No, there is no difference in speed between bows either with or without QZ when using Quick Shot. Normal attacks and Bow Attacks without a cast time are affected by bow speed, though, so if you're interspersing QS with other attacks a short/halfmoon is probably best.
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I'm just using the normal + quickshot sequence.
And either I'm deluding myself, or there is a difference in the bow types. I can see the Longbow firing noticeably slower than the Flatbow under that sequence.
The drawing animation on the bow types differs. Quickshot does not make it universal, it merely speeds it up.
Quote:
Finally throw in 20% AP from JI, and against a 60AL target you should be doing an expected 68.78 damage per arrow, which is pretty good.
Your calculations aren't very far from that of the guru calculators, which indicate a max of 73 damage.
08 Aug 2005 at 04:22 - 31
By the way, I'd take the stated in game "cast times" for attack skills with a massive grain of salt.
Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.
Meanwhile, Quickshot has a stated 1 second cast time, but behaves exactly like Distracting/Concussion ingame.
All of this is totally inconsistent with the skill claims.
Those 'standard' Ranger attacks skills are nowhere close 0 second "cast time". QS, Distracting and Concussion fire off immidiately, while you can visibly see the Ranger "drawing" much more slowly for those standard attacks.
Don't take my word for it, though. See for yourselves ...
08 Aug 2005 at 04:26 - 32
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ender Ward
And either I'm deluding myself, or there is a difference in the bow types. I can see the Longbow firing noticeably slower than the Flatbow under that sequence.
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Well I just recorded myself doing the normal->Quick Shot sequence with both a short bow and a horn bow and there is no difference in how fast the Quick Shot comes out, using the start of the glimmering animation (when you cast a skill) and the start of the recharge timer as endpoints.
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The drawing animation on the bow types differs. Quickshot does not make it universal, it merely speeds it up.
Bow speed is backloaded; the drawing animation is actually the same speed (about 1.2s) for all bows, and the extra time is made up after the draw as far as I can determine.
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Your calculations aren't very far from that of the guru calculators, which indicate a max of 73 damage.
Then that's good news, it means your expected damage is close to your max  Although by my calculations, a critical hit should do 97 damage vs 60AL.
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Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.
Attacks skill with no cast time listed use your normal attack speed for their cast time. Otherwise the Warrior profession would be horribly overpowered. 
08 Aug 2005 at 05:00 - 33
I just tested this again, comparing a Horn Bow to a Flatbow. The difference in speed is the time it takes a character to "recover" after the quickshot. It's very noticeable.
When you make the normal + quickshot sequence, the character "rests" for half a second after it, before beginning the next normal attack. This "rest" period is longer when using a Horn Bow rather than a Flatbow.
So we are once again back to figuring out whether the 10% constant armor penetration is better than the faster rate of fire.
I just recorded hitting a level 20 Elementalist for 90 damage, firing uphill, using the Hornbow. And I only had 14 in Marksmanship (experimenting with longer duration JI) ...
More peculiar, that caster was stationary (he was casting Lightning Orb).
That 10% armor penetration maybe worth the slowdown ...
EDIT:
After more tests, I hit for 93 damage at 15 Marksmanship twice on a moving Elementalist. Once with a normal attack immidiately followed by a QS. This demonstrates that the 93 damage figure is a critical hit. This was done with the Horn Bow.
08 Aug 2005 at 08:33 - 34
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ender Ward
By the way, I'd take the stated in game "cast times" for attack skills with a massive grain of salt.
Take Concussion and Distracting shot, eachs tated as having 3/4 "cast time" and compare them to 0 second cast time attack skills like Power Shot, Barrage or Penetrating Attack. The former are lighthing fast compared to the latter, ingame.
Meanwhile, Quickshot has a stated 1 second cast time, but behaves exactly like Distracting/Concussion ingame.
All of this is totally inconsistent with the skill claims.
Those 'standard' Ranger attacks skills are nowhere close 0 second "cast time". QS, Distracting and Concussion fire off immidiately, while you can visibly see the Ranger "drawing" much more slowly for those standard attacks.
Don't take my word for it, though. See for yourselves ...
As I understand it, if an attack skill is listed with a 0 second cast time, it does it when the next attack normally would be. If there is some other cast time listed, it takes it that long from when you hit the skill for it to unload, overriding the animation of the previous attack (at least if it is not another skill).
08 Aug 2005 at 10:21 - 35
Quick shot without QZ is completely and utterly laughable. And since QZ is a WS skill, you probably need points in WS. With QZ, your RoF is once every 2/3 seconds. Without it, alternating between QS and normal shot, its twice everyone 2 seconds (? correct me if I'm wrong please, but, but it's noticeably slower).
Sure if you alternate you would be "more sustainable", but if you think that's a good thing, you're missing the entire point of spike damage. And yes, a R/W beats out a R/M in DPS, although DP hit is very close, since I can have a +20 prep instead of a +10 AND have 10% innate AP from horn bow, while you'd only have 20% AP in all, since you'd be forced to use a short or flat for decent RoF.
AND you're probably not even that much more sustainable than a R/W combination, considering the MUCH higher cost of your buffs. During MY downtime, I can still be hitting a monk with distracting shot, or buffing my team with healing spring or "Watch yourself!" Something your build cannot.
And I laugh whenever anyone say things like "leave all the defense to the monk and concentrate on killing the target." Well guess what: that statement is wrong twofold. 1) Warrior shouts are instant cast, meaning it won't affect my killing rate in the least, and 2) Specialization doesn't mean to completely ignore other areas, especially if you can do well in them for cheap. But 2) is more theoretical, so let's forget about that for now.
Also, frenzy's double damage is not as not as big a downside as you make it out to be. If you did decide to target call me, I'd laugh that you werent concentrating on my monk or mes, and then I'd laugh again because your attacks would have to go through higher AL than your build has, +7 from bow grip and +20 from "Watch Yourself!" which reduces damage by about 40%. All in all, the ability to give your monk +20 AL and take VERY LITTLE more damage yourself is very worth it.
And lastly, Prep time. Your build spends about 6 TIMES longer than mine prepping with the current NR metagame. I spend 2 of 24 seconds, while you spend 6-7 of 12 or so. That gives me, in 24 seconds, about 11 more seconds than you to do anything. 10 seconds is more than enough time for a QS build to SINGLE-HANDEDLY take down a good monk build even backed by a good monk player.
I don't know, overall I still think W secondary is better.
08 Aug 2005 at 11:11 - 36
Quote:
Originally Posted by traversc
Quick shot without QZ is completely and utterly laughable. And since QZ is a WS skill, you probably need points in WS. With QZ, your RoF is once every 2/3 seconds. Without it, alternating between QS and normal shot, its twice everyone 2 seconds (? correct me if I'm wrong please, but, but it's noticeably slower).
Sure if you alternate you would be "more sustainable", but if you think that's a good thing, you're missing the entire point of spike damage. And yes, a R/W beats out a R/M in DPS, although DP hit is very close, since I can have a +20 prep instead of a +10 AND have 10% innate AP from horn bow, while you'd only have 20% AP in all, since you'd be forced to use a short or flat for decent RoF.
AND you're probably not even that much more sustainable than a R/W combination, considering the MUCH higher cost of your buffs. During MY downtime, I can still be hitting a monk with distracting shot, or buffing my team with healing spring or "Watch yourself!" Something your build cannot.
And I laugh whenever anyone say things like "leave all the defense to the monk and concentrate on killing the target." Well guess what: that statement is wrong twofold. 1) Warrior shouts are instant cast, meaning it won't affect my killing rate in the least, and 2) Specialization doesn't mean to completely ignore other areas, especially if you can do well in them for cheap. But 2) is more theoretical, so let's forget about that for now.
Also, frenzy's double damage is not as not as big a downside as you make it out to be. If you did decide to target call me, I'd laugh that you werent concentrating on my monk or mes, and then I'd laugh again because your attacks would have to go through higher AL than your build has, +7 from bow grip and +20 from "Watch Yourself!" which reduces damage by about 40%. All in all, the ability to give your monk +20 AL and take VERY LITTLE more damage yourself is very worth it.
And lastly, Prep time. Your build spends about 6 TIMES longer than mine prepping with the current NR metagame. I spend 2 of 24 seconds, while you spend 6-7 of 12 or so. That gives me, in 24 seconds, about 11 more seconds than you to do anything. 10 seconds is more than enough time for a QS build to SINGLE-HANDEDLY take down a good monk build even backed by a good monk player.
I don't know, overall I still think W secondary is better.
We've already been through this, QZ makes QS WORSE. Go look on the 1st page for why, I dont feel like explaining it all AGAIN. I will say that helping out with defense is great, but its not something that a QS ranger is good at. QS rangers are already strapped for attribute points, theres no way you can go waste a whole bunch in tactics just so you can shout watch yourelf every couple seconds. Frenzy is 10x worse than TF. If you want to use it, go ahead. I saw a war use that on while beating me while I ws monking the other day. Know what? He died in less than a second as soon as I let my buddies know. Dont use frenzy. Especially not when there are necros or smiters around. People who deal shadow or holy damage can attack whoever the heck they want.
Ender a while ago you said you have 16 marks 13 expertise 9 Beast and 2 smiting. But theres no way you can get that without using 2 superior runes! To get 16 you must have a sup and a hat, along with a maxed 12 attribute. That measn the best you can get the other attributes is 10 and 8. 8 can get to 9 with a minor, but 10 cant get to 13 without a sup =/
I think you meant 11+3 Marks, 11+2 Expertise, 8+1 Beast, 3 Smiting? Either that you or you are one crazy cookie for giving up that much hp.
Also, RtW lasts 1/2 as long, and doesnt even give as good a damage bonus as Kindle. Is it really worth it?
You got
Higher Markmanship by 2 = passive bonus damage, No wilderness points wasted = more points for longer tigers fury, bonus stacks better with JI, arrows fly twice as fast (though they already fly twice as fast cus of favorable winds), armor penetration from JI.
vs
Much shorter prep/re-prep time, more prep damage, much less costly energy-wise to prep.
Id say the BEST way to run a QS build is to go with the RtW approach but get your buddy smiter to take JI for you. GW is a teamwork game after all. JI from a dedicated smiter will last much longer than one self-casted. It will save the QS ranger time and energy, and its not like the smiter is doing anything that important after he casts Balths Aura.
08 Aug 2005 at 13:46 - 37
LOL, QZ making a QS build worse? QZ is the heart of a QS build, and if you don't realize that, then you don't understand why QS is useful. QS + QZ is noticeably faster than QS -> normal shot. That translates into much higher DPS.
Also, I think you're underestimating the staying power of QS with QZ - which is about 12 seconds of continuous QS spam. Even most elementalists can't match that kinda DoT, especially with QZ down. Yet, take along distracting shot and "Watch Yourself!" You can now provide a constant 20 AL for your monk, and interrupt your opponent's monk every 5 seconds with zero loss in staying power.
And you DON'T need to have ANY points in tactics to make "Watch yourself" useful. At 0, it lasts 5 seconds. A QS with QZ will be attacking every 2/3 a second. You do the math.
Lastly, good idea about bringing a smiter friend to the table. That blows out any reason why a QS build should go R/Mo.
08 Aug 2005 at 14:19 - 38
I understand why QS is useful. It c`has the potential to nearly double your rate of fire by using it after every NORMAL shot. Do you understand why QZ is not useful?
I am dead serious, QZ makes a QS build worse. No doubt in my mind. Did you actually go back and read the first page like I suggested? Word for word what I said earlier, I get ANNOYED when a random teammate throws this down. If the enemy casts it, I KILL it. QZ+QS is a combo that was discovered and everyone thought, "Hey, a combo! Must be good!" Everyone wants to believe its good, and are willing to overlook its massive drawbacks just because "its a combo, it must be good". But QZ makes QS cost a minimum of 4 energy, no matter your expertise. 33 energy, 4 per shot, 1 back from a zealous string. that gives you 11 shots until you're dry, more like 13 counting the rangers energy regen. No doubt whatever you fired at is dead. But its last blood that counts, not first blood. You are dry and will not contribute much of ANYTHING the rest of the match. The enemy you killed will get sigged, and instead of 4v3 for you (cus one of theirs is dead) its 4v3 the other way (cus you cant do anything). Normal/QS/Normal/QS can be maintained basically forever. You get almost as much damage per second as going QS/QS/QS. The difference is 1 per second vs 3 per 2 seconds. Except that you can maintain that the entire match. Meaning its more like 1 per second for infinite seconds, vs 3 per 2 seconds for < 10 seconds.
I do, however, now understand and like your idea of bringing watch yourself. I usually have a redundant 8th skill, and I dont use my secondary. Might as well
08 Aug 2005 at 16:39 - 39
do read the wind and favorable winds stack?
08 Aug 2005 at 16:48 - 40
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Originally Posted by Neo-LD
Ender a while ago you said you have 16 marks 13 expertise 9 Beast and 2 smiting. But theres no way you can get that without using 2 superior runes!
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That's correct. You can only get that with 2 Superior runes (Marksmanship and Expertise in my case). You do ofcourse need a Superior Vigour in this case.
On a Ranger, 2 superiors is not as crazy as it seems. Aspecially one that doesn't take double damage, in order to maintain 33% faster attack speed .
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Also, RtW lasts 1/2 as long, and doesnt even give as good a damage bonus as Kindle. Is it really worth it?
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Yes.
Kindle doesn't benefit from Judge's Insight conversion to holy damage, nor does it benefit from the armor penetration. RtW does.
Kindle does nothing to improve arrow accuracy, which you want to be as accurate as possible, to never miss moving targets (and you want them moving, for the criticals).
Kindle requires massive investment into Wilderness Survival, while Read The Wind already is maxed simply because you brought Marksmanship to 14 or higher.
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You got
Higher Markmanship by 2 = passive bonus damage, No wilderness points wasted = more points for longer tigers fury, bonus stacks better with JI, arrows fly twice as fast (though they already fly twice as fast cus of favorable winds), armor penetration from JI.
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Much shorter prep/re-prep time, more prep damage, much less costly energy-wise to prep.
All true, but as demonstrated, when you do 80-90 damage per arrow instead of some 35-40 damage, it's worth it.
Also, Read the Wind and Favourable Winds' arrow speed up stacks. Your arrows are 4 times as fast as normal. You get to keep the range of a Longbow and the rate of fire of a Flatbow but with the accuracy of a Composite.
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Id say the BEST way to run a QS build is to go with the RtW approach but get your buddy smiter to take JI for you. GW is a teamwork game after all. JI from a dedicated smiter will last much longer than one self-casted.
And when I have a dedicated smiter on the team (not that often, our guild is not a fan of these), that's exactly what I do.
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