Ranger 20 vs. Monkcher 14/6 vs Monkcher 20 vs ???

[Kodwraith]

So I haven't even gotten my Tempestadin back to 30 and I'm already planning the next life. perma-Ranged is hella fun and seems to be the way to fly for LE seeing as how getting hit is bad. I'll be going iconic (probably sunelf) no matter what. Mainly because I hate slogging from 1-15.

What seems to be the current wisdom of the endgame w.r.t. fulltime AA/DWS ranged class splits?

I thought pure ranger /elf or PDK would be the obvious choice, but looking around at the various monkcher builds with 100k arrow crits, I'm not so sure anymore. Are these stupid huge numbers mostly from slayer arrows + fury? I'm currently leaning towards 14 monk/6 ranger elf mainly so I can get the monk PL.

It seems for pure pure bow use the destiny to be in is currently Fury. It seems for maximum flexibility, elf/helf for AA access is needed on anything that isn't at least 18 ranger. But it looks to me that the only viable ranger splits are be 1, 2, 6 or 20.

So I guess the question is: 10k stars + stances + extra AP for activating AA => worth losing DWS capstone and crit mults? For everything else it looks like the basic damage math works out to:
-> how high can you get your primary stat? WIS/DEX/STR depending on which one you're using.
-> how high can you get your doubleshot?
-> are you critting all the time?
-> how squishy are you willing to be?
-> do you care about your PL (for once the nerf comes)?

10k stars seems to have a 50% duty cycle and gives you the most bang is you could go WIS as your dmg stat. Which of course does not exist as a thing so you need to split WIS + DEX or STR depending on if you ended up with bow str or not.

[Kodwraith]

And I have a pile of shuriken, but no real interest in a hybrid thrower build. I also already have a 14/5/1 xbow alt, so all longbow all the time.

[unbongwah]

There are a lot of factors to consider, including:

• Which PL feat do you want? [sounds like monk]
• Do you care more about heroic leveling, epic leveling, or endgame performance?
• Do you care more about CC (i.e., Paralyzing Arrows) or pure DPS?
• Do you care more about burst DPS or sustained DPS?
• Related to that, do you care which ED you use? [i.e., are you working on an EPL as well]
• Do you care about anything other than DPS (e.g., rog splash for trap skills)?

[mikarddo]

I realise you are asking for bow only - so feel free to ignore this entry or keep it for comparison. I used to play bow only but changed to a mixed shuriken/bow which plays just about the same except for the extra hassle of swapping to the bow during manyshot.

Helf, 18 monk / 2 ranger, dex based with 70 dex and 40ish wisdom.
Shurikens (TF T3 + LGS good as a swap in) most of the time, Bow TF T3 during Manyshot.
49% doubleshot, 42 ranged power
Acid AA and Acid Legendary Feat. (380 acid spell power)
Fury for the win.

I just parsed this build for 10 mins on the guild ship cannon (which is probably an optimal target, so real single target dps is most likely lower).
Over the full 10 mins I did 4150 dps

acid damage.     781147	 30% AA imbue + lvl 30 Leg Feat
damage.           49767	  2% lvl 29 Bane feat
force damage.     97297	  4% TF Mortal Fear force proc
fire damage.      45807	  2% TF 1st degree burn 
slash damage.   1657020	 63% Shuriken and Bow main damage

total damage.   2631038	100%

For comparison I also parsed Blitzing but its total damage came in 10-15% lower and I like Fury better for the extra fun

I know the 4150 dps might seem respectable but understand that some other builds will blow this away. It would be fun to know just how much other builds are doing though in a similarly controlled envirronment. WRU test kobold targets with 2mill hp+!

[CThruTheEgo]

Since you mentioned LE, I'll point out my own ranged build, White Feather Sniper (link in my sig), which was built specifically for LE. It's a full time ranged build with an emphasis on CC and dps. Because getting hit at all in LE pretty much means you're dead, I wanted to see what I could do with paralyzing arrows. I currently have a 62 DC and it performs quite well in LE content. There are a few types of mobs (e.g. blackguards in LE Tempest Spine) that take longer than others to paralyze, so there is room for improvement, but most mobs are immobilized quickly and stay that way until they're dead. DPS is pretty solid also. The main loss of dps that comes from using paralyzing arrows is not using electric arrows, which is a sizable chunk of damage at endgame, but well worth it to not have the entire group constantly getting one-shotted.

I can only speak to pure as I have no experience with monkchers. I take the level 18 core in AA for +1 multiplier, and tier 5s and capstone in deepwood stalker. I chose those for more persistent dps instead of burst dps. If you want to focus on burst dps, then slayer arrows in fury is still the way to go. Tier 5s in deepwood stalker are the better option for persistent dps, though, along with either dreadnaught or divine crusader. With the changes to doubleshot, divine crusader is actually a solid choice. I prefer it over dreadnaught. DPS in divine crusader goes in waves due to the slowly fading stacks of zeal. But when I've got all boosts up at once (i.e. full stacks of killer and zeal, manyshot, damage boost, and ranged power boost), I've got 275 ranged power and 235% doubleshot. That'll clear out a room pretty quickly or take out a nice chunk of a boss's hp.

I did damage calcs for my specific build comparing the deepwood stalker and AA capstones. Deepwood stalker came out ahead, only marginally with no boosts, but a lot with full boosts. I can't say if that is true for every build.

Have a look through the thread if you want some ideas. Others have talked about taking some ideas from the build and adapting them to a monkcher, as well as other builds.

[jakeelala]

I just parsed this build for 10 mins on the guild ship cannon (which is probably an optimal target, so real single target dps is most likely lower).
Over the full 10 mins I did 4150 dps

acid damage.     781147     30% AA imbue + lvl 30 Leg Feat
damage.           49767      2% lvl 29 Bane feat
force damage.     97297      4% TF Mortal Fear force proc
fire damage.      45807      2% TF 1st degree burn 
slash damage.   1657020     63% Shuriken and Bow main damage

total damage.   2631038    100%

What does this mean? How do I do this?

[Kodwraith]

Mostly it's DPS and survivability. Although I'll probably level up from 1 this time around so a single rogue splash level that I TR out of at cap is also looking like a possibility. I have a lot of rogue gear from the first life 12ranger/7monk/1rogue build back in the WSS tempest phoenix days. What I'm mostly trying to figure out is how the relative DPS tradeoffs work.

Arguably the highest figure of merit is time to completion for EE content since that's the bulk of what I spend my time doing.

CThru: I've actually been looking at your White Feather build as the benchmark. So far pure ranger with max paralyzers seems like the winner.

I wanted to see if I could make a viable 6/14 or 6/12/X ranger/monk split. Something that had comparable DPS or at least wasn't orders behind. I'm trying to figure out for said viable monkcher build what the typical level split is and about how much behind I anticipate being. 4.1k is really good for an archer.

Assuming you take DWS T5 and AA core6 (which is all your AP gone) vs 14 racial, 41 AA and 11 ninja (which is all your AP gone):
AFAICT the real difference on a monkcher is:
down: lack of viable melee option (since you don't have twf feat line) and you actually need to LR to get to melee, not just respec your AP.
down: much more squishy.
wash: All AP spoken for.
down: +1 crit range from DWS.
down: +20 ranged power from DWS core 6
down: armor-piercing loss from DWS cores
down: +20DS from DWS T5.
up: Arrow of slaying from AA
up: 30 secs of DS from 10k stars.
up: Way better WIS for paralyzing arrows
up: GMoE stance crit bonus
up: 1.5[w] from dance of flowers twist
up: 25% incorp from ninja.
down: all your feats are gone.
down: sniper shot / head shot is pretty nice.
down: SA dice.

Forgetting about all the other stuff, the big difference is the 20 ranged power from DWS and the 20 DS from T5 in exchange for slayer arrows and 10kStars. So 10k stars is WIS to ranged power and monk level *5 to doubleshot. But it's on cooldown half the time.

So naively you have a break even at 40 Wisdom and 8 monk levels with the monkcher pulling away when 10k is on and loosing ground when 10k is off. So it looks to be at least a fair fight assuming you never pull out a pair of shortswords. I would have thought the ranger would be the obvious choice but it looks like th emonkcher might actually be capable of higher DPS. Especially if you don't mind burning all your feats on archery. I'm not convinced though that the SA dice don't make the deal more weighted to pure ranger.

[Holymunchkin]

I feel like your thoughts aren't gonna steer you wrong.
18/2 gives movement speed as well---milk has a solid suggestion.

If you need a rogue PL 20 rogue is super fun. GxB is BA.

To-hit is an issue in LE though. Make sure you have some accuracy goggles.
With ~110 to hit I am still grazing on a 5.

Pierce the gloom is a big deal.

[unbongwah]

I'll add that monkcher gets more appealing as a bow/shuriken hybrid, particularly if you don't mind exploiting the imbue bug. See my monkcher thread and jakeelala's thrower thread.

[Holyavatar]

Mostly it's DPS and survivability. Although I'll probably level up from 1 this time around so a single rogue splash level that I TR out of at cap is also looking like a possibility. I have a lot of rogue gear from the first life 12ranger/7monk/1rogue build back in the WSS tempest phoenix days. What I'm mostly trying to figure out is how the relative DPS tradeoffs work.

Arguably the highest figure of merit is time to completion for EE content since that's the bulk of what I spend my time doing.

CThru: I've actually been looking at your White Feather build as the benchmark. So far pure ranger with max paralyzers seems like the winner.

I wanted to see if I could make a viable 6/14 or 6/12/X ranger/monk split. Something that had comparable DPS or at least wasn't orders behind. I'm trying to figure out for said viable monkcher build what the typical level split is and about how much behind I anticipate being. 4.1k is really good for an archer.

Assuming you take DWS T5 and AA core6 (which is all your AP gone) vs 14 racial, 41 AA and 11 ninja (which is all your AP gone):
AFAICT the real difference on a monkcher is:
down: lack of viable melee option (since you don't have twf feat line) and you actually need to LR to get to melee, not just respec your AP.
down: much more squishy.
wash: All AP spoken for.
down: +1 crit range from DWS.
down: +20 ranged power from DWS core 6
down: armor-piercing loss from DWS cores
down: +20DS from DWS T5.
up: Arrow of slaying from AA
up: 30 secs of DS from 10k stars.
up: Way better WIS for paralyzing arrows
up: GMoE stance crit bonus
up: 1.5[w] from dance of flowers twist
up: 25% incorp from ninja.
down: all your feats are gone.
down: sniper shot / head shot is pretty nice.
down: SA dice.

Forgetting about all the other stuff, the big difference is the 20 ranged power from DWS and the 20 DS from T5 in exchange for slayer arrows and 10kStars. So 10k stars is WIS to ranged power and monk level *5 to doubleshot. But it's on cooldown half the time.

So naively you have a break even at 40 Wisdom and 8 monk levels with the monkcher pulling away when 10k is on and loosing ground when 10k is off. So it looks to be at least a fair fight assuming you never pull out a pair of shortswords. I would have thought the ranger would be the obvious choice but it looks like th emonkcher might actually be capable of higher DPS. Especially if you don't mind burning all your feats on archery. I'm not convinced though that the SA dice don't make the deal more weighted to pure ranger.

You forgot the damage from favored enemies,its also a big deal..

From my experience,monkcher may have higher burst dps,but for overall DPS pure ranger is always the winner..

SA dice actually is important if you build around it:

Pure ranger in LD,scion of the ethereal plane..

31 in AA/41 in DWS/8 kta, 8 wis only,and use pin and dance arrow to cc....

8 SA dice+50 SA damage from hide+22 from items=96 SA damage, its not hard for rangers to get 200RP,could be much higher if using archer's focus...

96*3*1.5=432 SA damage per hit plus ranger's high armor-piercing and sniper shot..

[unbongwah]

8 SA dice+50 SA damage from hide+22 from items=96 SA damage, its not hard for rangers to get 200RP,could be much higher if using archer's focus...

How would you hit 150 Hide in LD? This breakout hits 150+, but that's with SD bonuses. Likewise, how would you hit 200 RP?

[Holyavatar]

How would you hit 150 Hide in LD? This breakout hits 150+, but that's with SD bonuses. Likewise, how would you hit 200 RP?

23 ranks in hide
10 Epic ranks hide
5 Skill tome
3 DWS, stealthy
3 Ship buff Danger room, +3 hide
5 Hiding in plain sight, ranger lev 17
10 Camouflage spell, circumstance
5 ghostly
4 Greater heroism
22 Competence
11 insightful
6 Quality
20 Shadow cookies
2 Completionist
3 Epic pastlife
30 dex mod
4 Scion of the ethereal plane
2 Luck bonus

170 total,could hit 200+,but its not practical


30 Epic levels
70 Blitz
12 LD
20 Horizon Shot
6 Sightless
2 Tome
5 Improved archer's focus passive
30 ranged power boost
5 Shot on the Run+Weapon focus
75 Improve archer's focus

255 total,could be much higher with toee set,mythic bonus,manyshot etc.

[Holyavatar]

I assume the 5 ghostly comes from shadowdancer's shadow form? I'm not sure where else you could get that from. If that's the case, then you can't have both ghostly and blitz.

ghostly items....

[CThruTheEgo]

ghostly items....

Yeah I followed the link to Saekee's post and got confused about where that was coming from. Realized my mistake right after posting and deleted my post.

[unbongwah]

22 Competence
11 insightful
6 Quality

These are all gear bonuses, I presume; are you using named / LGS gear or random lootgen?

5 Shot on the Run+Weapon focus
75 Improve archer's focus

I don't like counting on IAF, since I rarely hold still that long. And I don't consider SotR+WF for +5 RP worth the 4-feat cost. But I appreciate the breakout.

[Holyavatar]

These are all gear bonuses, I presume; are you using named / LGS gear or random lootgen?

I don't like counting on IAF, since I rarely hold still that long. And I don't consider SotR+WF for +5 RP worth the 4-feat cost. But I appreciate the breakout.

LGS t3 acc,it also give me 375 extra spell ponits.

I personally dont like them on most builds either,but i like the dodge+max dex bonus from dodge+mobility so i can get around 25% dodge...On the other hand,there isnt many useful choices of other feats for this particular build ..

[Kodwraith]

For the sake of argument, it looks like the best possible AP setup for a pure bow user is still either (a)T5 DWS + AA capstone or (b)T5 and Cap DWs + KtA + AA paralyzers or (c) Cap AA(41), T4 DWS(25).

The main trick is there just isn't a ton of useful stuff in the DWS tree except the cores until T4, but T5 is really where it's at. Setup (b) is pure ranger only. Setup (a) is either monkcher or pure ranger. Setup (c) is probalby monkcher but looses KtA since there's no AP left.

If you take AA through the racial tree, you lock up 14(racial) + 41 points (aa) on the cap, which leaves 25 points for DWS, which isn't quite enough to hit T5 and grab everything. T4 DWS is basically Killer and Merciful Shot, which I think is compensated by the addition of 10k stars. But you could do T4 DWS + cap AA + 10kstars + elf 14.

If you only need 4 ranger levels, it may be that ranger 4 is actually the optimal level dmg split but ranger 6 gives free manyshot and allowing SniperShot, losing 2 monk levels on 10k stars.

If you optimize around SA damage with Scion Ethereal, you would really really want sniper shot since it makes things ranged SA-able. Toss up if DWS T4 is actually better at that point than Ninja 4 with No Mercy since the synergy with paralyzing arrow would be big. But I'm not sure you have enough AP to take No Mercy.


Burst damage is a still damage and it's also nice that with only a 30 sec cooldown, you can actually pretty well time the burst to the start of the fight.

[unbongwah]

The main trick is there just isn't a ton of useful stuff in the DWS tree except the cores until T4, but T5 is really where it's at.

I disagree about the lower tiers of DWS. Your first 20 APs (presuming rgr 6+) buys you +3d6 SA dmg, +15m PBS range, Sniper Shot, Aimed Shot, +3 dmg vs FEs, +3 dmg from TotHunt, Ranged Power Boost, and up to +30 HPs +7 PRR from Survivalist. It might not be as exciting as T4/5, but there's very little filler, IMO.

If you take AA through the racial tree, you lock up 14(racial) + 41 points (aa) on the cap, which leaves 25 points for DWS, which isn't quite enough to hit T5 and grab everything. T4 DWS is basically Killer and Merciful Shot, which I think is compensated by the addition of 10k stars. But you could do T4 DWS + cap AA + 10kstars + elf 14.

The drawback to this approach on a monkcher is there's nothing left for monk PrEs; not having Shadow Veil is unfortunate and not having Contemplation or Ninja Stealthy can make ki regen an issue. So even though it's probably lower DPS, I think I would prefer 55 (AA & racial unlock) + 11 DWS (Sniper Shot) + 11 Ninja (Shadow Veil), with 3 APs left over to tweak things.

Toss up if DWS T4 is actually better at that point than Ninja 4 with No Mercy since the synergy with paralyzing arrow would be big.

Paralyzing Arrow isn't helplessness, so no bonus dmg; but Pin is.

[CThruTheEgo]

For the sake of argument, it looks like the best possible AP setup for a pure bow user is still either (a)T5 DWS + AA capstone or (b)T5 and Cap DWs + KtA + AA paralyzers or (c) Cap AA(41), T4 DWS(25).

The main trick is there just isn't a ton of useful stuff in the DWS tree except the cores until T4, but T5 is really where it's at. Setup (b) is pure ranger only. Setup (a) is either monkcher or pure ranger. Setup (c) is probalby monkcher but looses KtA since there's no AP left.

I find AA to be the tree with a lot of filler actually. That's a problem with the first setup, tier 5 deepwood stalker and AA capstone.

If you optimize around SA damage with Scion Ethereal, you would really really want sniper shot since it makes things ranged SA-able. Toss up if DWS T4 is actually better at that point than Ninja 4 with No Mercy since the synergy with paralyzing arrow would be big. But I'm not sure you have enough AP to take No Mercy.

Get a bunch of mobs paralyzed in a line, then hit them with pin to induce helplessness. Also, if you're building for sneak attack, then I think a lot of consideration needs to be given to the deepwood stalker capstone. Always being in sneak attack range can make a significant difference depending on your playstyle.

[unbongwah]

I find AA to be the tree with a lot of filler actually. That's a problem with the first setup, tier 5 deepwood stalker and AA capstone.

Getting to 31 APs (Shadow Arrows) doesn't involve too much filler, IMO, esp. if you're building for Paralyzing DCs as well as DPS. OTOH, getting to 41 APs without T5 AA is when you have to burn a bunch of APs on filler, which as you say is the main problem with 41 AA / 39 DWS split.