Pure Ranger Archer Healing VS DPS

[xberto]

Clearly a play style question but would anyone argue value in Healing (primarily with Cure serious wounds but I'm not sure what other heal abilities might apply) over DPS for a pure ranger archer? Compare the feat sets. Other feats are the same (PBS,Completionist,Precision,IC:ranged,Combat Archery,OC,Doubleshot,Scion).



Set1:

Empower Healing Spell

Quicken Spell

Toughness-

Epic Reflexes

Epic Spell Power Positive

Fount of Life

Epic Toughness

_____________
+105 positive spell power
2x cast speed
82 HP
20 heal amp
No fail on 1 reflex save

VS


Set2:

Dodge

Mobility

Shot on the Run

Pierce: Silver

Harbinger of Chaos

Weapon Focus Ranged

Sneak of Shadows

_______________
5% dodge
+2 max dex
+1 bonus on to-hit rolls ranged
+8 ranged power
Silver
deal 1d20 Bane damage
2d20 Chaos damage against Lawful targets
+1 to all skills
three times per rest:hide and move silently bonus, +1 bonus to sneak attack damage for every two character levels, and a +1 bonus to hit with sneak attacks for every four levels. Note: 1 Minute per use.

[Carpone]

You don't need feats to provide effective healing. When U49 went live, I ran 50 R10s at cap as a 20 Ranger w/ bow with no dedicated healer where either I or my buddy were in Shiradi. Swapping to devotion gear, my Healing Spring was sufficient to keep everyone up as long as they weren't completely reckless. Healing Spring snapshots your positive spell power, so you don't need to continue wearing the gear after you cast Healing Spring. With swaps, I was getting to 757 positive spell power without a Quality Devotion item which would add another 53. Two Healing Springs is plenty to get you to the next shrine.

Also, Toughness feats aren't useful unless you're getting one-shot.

[Carpone]

Here's the breakdown of the Positive Spell Power for Healing Spring on a 20 Ranger:

070 DWS Cores 1-6
012 DWS Increased Empathy 3
033 Heal Skill base (heroic + epic)
024 Heal Skill 59 WIS modifier
005 Heal Skill tome
019 Heal Skill Augment in Devotion item
001 Heal Skill Aasimar racial past life
002 Heal Skill House Jorasco Favor
005 Scion of Ethereal
004 Skills Morale Greater Heroisim
002 Skills Completionist
002 Skills Racial Completionist
003 Skills Epic Past Life: Martial Skill Mastery x3
009 Morninglord PL x3
214 Devotion item
107 Insightful Devotion item
053 Quality Devotion item
002 Good Luck aug - offhand
030 Positive Spellpower Epic Past Life: Divine Power Over Life and Death x3
015 Positive Spellpower Ship Crusader’s Chapel
025 USP Commendation of Valor Potion of Spellpower
029 USP Spell Implement
004 USP Mysterious Remnant Tome
060 USP Epic levels
001 USP Harper Core 1
006 USP Reaper’s Arcana I
006 USP Reaper’s Arcana II
006 USP Reaper’s Arcana III
012 USP Reaper’s Arcana IV
012 USP Reaper’s Arcana V
002 USP Reaper’s Arcanum V
004 USP Reaper’s Arcanum VI
099 Filigree (7 slot sentient gem)
010 Shiradi core 2+4
TBD USP Mythic/Reaper Gear
--
888
010 Almond-coated Shadow Apple
020 Filigree 8 and 9
003 Competence WIS skills LGS (net over healing aug)
011 Insightful WIS skills LGS
006 Quality WIS skills LGS

If you want to farm out Solid Sound from Soul Survivor, you can get a bit more by swapping in String of Ears:

011 Exceptional - String of Ears
002 Quality WIS 5 - String of Ears

--
951 positive spellpower total w/o mythic and reaper gear

[xberto]

Thanks Carpone for breaking that down and especially for your U49 Bow max DPS guide. Its been very useful for me seeing the numbers that I haven't taken the time to understand.

[Ganak]

Helpful discussion.

I've had the same quandary, but on my pure ranger TWF, so a bit different angle.


I used to love, love having quicken and maximize for my healing on my ranger (thinking endgame/epic/reaper questing). But these days for reaper content and raids, Epic Defensive Fighting feels a must enable and kills my ability to heal others on the fly and I really hate that.


I've been running racial lives as a ranger TWF, and just love healing people when they need it during the leveling journey. At end game reaper, I have to get real close to people (or turn off EDF) and I miss alot of heals and it sucks.

[slarden]

It mostly depends on what you will be doing with your character, what you are running and who you are running with.

If you are solo leveling up the healing is super helpful and the dps will hardly be noticeable from a few feats. I am running 18 ranger / 1 barbarian/ 1 fvs shifter lifes right now and am taking empower healing and quicken soloing R4.

If you are building for 30 high skull reaper and end-game raiding empower healing and quicken aren't really needed so you either max out dps or get very close to max dps with a little more survivability splashed in depending on past lifes, reaper points and such. Nothing negatively impacts your dps worse than death with timers so you need to find that right balance with dps/hp/prr. On one of my main characters I would max out dps but on an alt with fewer reaper pts I would usually accept 95% of max dps and splash in more hp/prr.