Tier 5 AA or DW ?

[barecm]

Arrow of slaying/Final Strike + mortal fear + helpless damage boost + Manyshot + damage boost + Fury = insane numbers not really reproducible in quests.

Yeah, I figured it was not realistic. Just the fact that you are counting mortal fear into it would make me skeptical since if you have a high enough HP mob, you can get 100K or close to it just from that.

So, let me restate this.... you can pull more reliable, realistic damage from T5 Deepwood as opposed to relying on proc damage like mortal fear.... which doesn't even work in the upper level content. I consistenly see crits of 6-14K depending on a 19-20 roll, my buffs, and the mobs helpless status, without having to do a litany of boosting and clicking and making sure I shoot fury at the right time and hope I don't roll a 1 etc... the only one thing I do is use a tensor's scroll when I am not moving and can stand in archer's focus to max damage.

Also, when you are waiting for arrow of slaying to come off timer (20s cooldown), your manyshot will be over. For me, I just keep on shooting with a decent level of doubleshot (~75%) and consistenly hitting normal damage of 1000+ and crits ranging from 6-14K. I'll take that method over arrow of slaying.

[IMG][/IMG]

[Yamani]

Yeah, I figured it was not realistic. Just the fact that you are counting mortal fear into it would make me skeptical since if you have a high enough HP mob, you can get 100K or close to it just from that.

So, let me restate this.... you can pull more reliable, realistic damage from T5 Deepwood as opposed to relying on proc damage like mortal fear.... which doesn't even work in the upper level content. I consistenly see crits of 6-14K depending on a 19-20 roll, my buffs, and the mobs helpless status, without having to do a litany of boosting and clicking and making sure I shoot fury at the right time and hope I don't roll a 1 etc... the only one thing I do is use a tensor's scroll when I am not moving and can stand in archer's focus to max damage.

Also, when you are waiting for arrow of slaying to come off timer (20s cooldown), your manyshot will be over. For me, I just keep on shooting with a decent level of doubleshot (~75%) and consistenly hitting normal damage of 1000+ and crits ranging from 6-14K. I'll take that method over arrow of slaying.

The problem I see with using Archers focus is you are exponentially decreasing your over all dps unless are just fighting a single mob like baba. It's only good for situations where you have only 1 mob to fight. As for mortal fear I was just saying thats how people can get 200-400k damage, its just not reproducible in content.

Also the difference in Archers focus between tier 5 AA/Deepwood is only 10 stacks (30 ranged power). Personally id take a 2d8 scaled to 500ish spell power, on every attack, over that but to each their own.

[barecm]

The problem I see with using Archers focus is you are exponentially decreasing your over all dps unless are just fighting a single mob like baba. It's only good for situations where you have only 1 mob to fight. As for mortal fear I was just saying thats how people can get 200-400k damage, its just not reproducible in content.

Also the difference in Archers focus between tier 5 AA/Deepwood is only 10 stacks (30 ranged power). Personally id take a 2d8 scaled to 500ish spell power, on every attack, over that but to each their own.

25 stacks actually in T5 with improved archers focus and +5 RP passive. Plus access to strikes like lightning (25% DS), Heavy Draw, and Headshot. All very useful and 3/4 essential imho. The enhancement of extra favored enemy or whatever is a waste. It all adds up in RP. I can top out at over 450. Base of 145 I think. I have it in my build.

My numbers don't lie. And, yes I was fighting stationary in that picture, I can say there is not that much difference when I am running vs regular mobs. Maybe instead of 6-14K I am doing 4.5 to 9k and have a decent enough wis/enchantment focus to still paralyze stuff. Of course, using pin and making helpless actually boosts damage numbers.... and I actually mostly run using IPS unless something like you see in the picture of standing still and fighting a boss. I posted that pic mainly because it was easy to manipulate the keyboard while not having to move. I could have used a helpless mob to inflate my numbers even higher. And, I'm talking FIRST NUMBER only damage, not all the procs on top of it.

Fury shot no longer is per arrow in IPS (not sure if it applies in DS either). My damage applies on every arrow fired; manyshot or doubleshot.

[grandeibra]

Yeah, I figured it was not realistic. Just the fact that you are counting mortal fear into it would make me skeptical since if you have a high enough HP mob, you can get 100K or close to it just from that.

Erm the poster you now responded to (Yamani) is not the same as us saying way over 100k happens all the time/possible (Wipey, me, ilmer, ascendantmadness). I for one certainly don't include Mortal Fear (would be just silly since ofc we're talking endgame). But like ascendant said: prepping arches focus, vulnerability (group, don't have to be the shooter), max ability (I have 120+strength and decent crit multiplier), max elemental damage with lots lots of spell power multiplier. Plus damage boost of course and some other stuff. Quite a bit over 100k is not rare or difficult. When soloing/zerging/not trying to max I often get the upper level hits in the 70k to 80k range instead. wipey/ascendant/others may have different mileage of course.

So, let me restate this.... you can pull more reliable, realistic damage from T5 Deepwood as opposed to relying on proc damage like mortal fear.... which doesn't even work in the upper level content. I consistenly see crits of 6-14K depending on a 19-20 roll, my buffs, and the mobs helpless status, without having to do a litany of boosting and clicking and making sure I shoot fury at the right time and hope I don't roll a 1 etc... the only one thing I do is use a tensor's scroll when I am not moving and can stand in archer's focus to max damage.

Also, when you are waiting for arrow of slaying to come off timer (20s cooldown), your manyshot will be over. For me, I just keep on shooting with a decent level of doubleshot (~75%) and consistenly hitting normal damage of 1000+ and crits ranging from 6-14K. I'll take that method over arrow of slaying

Completely agreed. (well I don't understand what realistic means and the Mortal Fear discussion is just silly imo - has no bearing on endgame). You can get more reliable (as in more frequent and with much smaller standard deviation) damage from T5 DW (or T5 Kensei or whatever else). But at least from MY personal dps testing, and I do this a lot (my fav thing of this game is the numbers and the variety of ways to affect numbers) the overall dps is quite a bit higher from AA if I focus on maxing damage. It's really not close. But I personally don't enjoy the playstyle (like you said litany of boosting, timing ****, hoping lag doesn't negate all that maxing etc).

[AbyssalMage]

People still play archers?

I thought everyone switched to throwers

Some of us refuse to allow SSG to destroy our favored play style. Although it is tough watching the Mech's and "ranged" do better.

[AbyssalMage]

On my pure Ranger I did DWS as I didn't find enough in AA worthwhile. This life I am doing a Monkcher and so am doing AA instead. I did mess up slightly on my Monkcher (which was a small oversight that has caused compounding problems as I have leveled) but overall I enjoyed DWS more.

Others have already explained what each brings to the table so finding what you like the most is all that is important. Do you want "cool numbers" every 20 seconds or "semi-cool" numbers throughout? I chose the "smoother path" instead of all the "hills."

[cave_diver]

Go T5 tempest, drop the bow......ranged rangers are seriously gimped in today's meta.....melee rangers are awesome.

If you want to be ranged go shuri thrower

[FuzzyDuck81]

I used to generally prefer tier 5 in dws, but capstone in AA, since that lets you maximise the amount of doubleshot & ranged power for sustained damage while not using manyshot, but it's very tight on AP so you can't spend many at all on any other racial or universal trees, and haven't gotten around to checking out falconer on my ranger yet.

[Kodwraith]

When in pure ranger mode, I typically run my archer with 39 in DWS for the tier 5s and 41 in AA for the capstone. This means you take essentially everything except shattermantle shot in AA and can pick 4 of the 5 T5 DWS abilities. Note I might end up with a WIS ranger falcon build next time around for better paralyzing DCs, that'd be something like 41 AA, 21 DWS, 18 falconer. The problem is this still won't give with +dmg from falconer until you hit 21-24 AP. Oh well. Might also try WIS based with AA FVS levels.

For an elf AA monkcher build (14monk/6ranger), I usually take 41 AA, 16 elf, 11 Ninja Spy and 6 DWS.


For DPS, 100k is very doable with just a pinion at cap when the stars properly align for full stacks of focus, dmg boost, multishot, etc. It usually means multiple 60k arrows, not one big 200k arrow. I think my personal record is 4 40k arrows. Note that even with 41 DWS, 31AA, Sniper shot can still do a LOT of dmg combined with Fury. I'm not super well geared (Xanxibar), but with a typical Ravenloft setup, the ranger past lives and the Epic doubleshot past lives, you can get there without too much bother. I have not run in Ethereal for the sneak dmg, just astral, but that might also help.