Best Ranged DPS

[Fisto_Mk_I]

Well if we want to rely on irrelevant out of date data might as well make it really out of date

Lol, right!

[Kiera0104]

Does anyone have an updated build link that balances imbue dice with ranged?

[Tilomere]

Does anyone have an updated build link that balances imbue dice with ranged?

20 Alc
Racial Drow imbue die
41 AP Bombardier
6 Vile Chemist
10+1 Tome FI
23 Falconry

Draconic for EBurstx2 and +3 imbue, Shiradi for mantle, EA for healing SLA and wings

Take almost all caster dps feats/spell focus mastery, and battalion brew and simple thrown weapon expertise with decent dex (more hidden blades in VC is bugged, so need dex and don't worry about going past 6 in VC)

Color Spray/BoGW/Gold for helpless > Combination > Multivialx2 to strip immunity and vulnerable mobs > auto attack leftovers with ash main and ooze offhand.

[MaeveTuohy]

20 Alc
Racial Drow imbue die
41 AP Bombardier
6 Vile Chemist
10+1 Tome FI
23 Falconry

Draconic for EBurstx2 and +3 imbue, Shiradi for mantle, EA for healing SLA and wings

Take almost all caster dps feats/spell focus mastery, and battalion brew and simple thrown weapon expertise with decent dex (more hidden blades in VC is bugged, so need dex and don't worry about going past 6 in VC)

Color Spray/BoGW/Gold for helpless > Combination > Multivialx2 to strip immunity and vulnerable mobs > auto attack leftovers with ash main and ooze offhand.

This is a dagger throwing build or still just alc vial thrower?

[Tilomere]

This is a dagger throwing build or still just alc vial thrower?

Hybrid. The CC helpless doubles damage, and then multivials strip immunity and vulnerable + ooze + ash to increase dps 50% more, so think of it as prep to do triple damage per attack, that also happens to soften mobs up.

Bombardier increases throwing damage more than vile chemist, due to DCs for helpless, AoE ranged immunity strip, vulnerable+ash+ooze, spell power, and bugs in VC tree. So bombardier is the Alc ranged combat tree.

Shiradi WW will bring you close to cap animation, but you could take rapid shot until then if you wanted and augment quick draw.

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Does anyone have an updated build link that balances imbue dice with ranged?

I am only lvl12 atm, but on a build that combines my posted Kighter with some inspiration from Carpones Snipershot builds. 13rog 6DH 1mnk with 14helf 41aa 25falc 11dws, both Slaying and Sniper!

At cap I should have 27 sneak dice 14 imbues and 316 ranged power. Wisdom based to ensure helplessness/CC on trash or for boss debuffs. Thinking about a rotation with 3xsniper shots and a slaying arrow coupled with as many manyshots as possible until they run out and/or Ottos/Final Strikes and regular shots. Every 8 second can be a hunts end crit so save those for Snipershot and Slaying Arrow. This has to be best ranged dps with a bow I can think of...

[Oliphant]

I am only lvl12 atm, but on a build that combines my posted Kighter with some inspiration from Carpones Snipershot builds. 13rog 6DH 1mnk with 14helf 41aa 25falc 11dws, both Slaying and Sniper!

At cap I should have 27 sneak dice 14 imbues and 316 ranged power. Wisdom based to ensure helplessness/CC on trash or for boss debuffs. Thinking about a rotation with 3xsniper shots and a slaying arrow coupled with as many manyshots as possible until they run out and/or Ottos/Final Strikes and regular shots. Every 8 second can be a hunts end crit so save those for Snipershot and Slaying Arrow. This has to be best ranged dps with a bow I can think of...

I'm on more of a HW version with 13rog 6DH 1Fighter (fighter extra feat for Shot on the Run). Able to get 43 sneak dice, 7 imbue dice, ranged power almost 400 with archer's focus going.

Seems like not obviously comparable to other Carpone bow builds because you are doing a lot of different things than those. Not as much Archer's Focus, no Haste Boost, no marked target stuff, different dice, etc. Yours seems good, maybe better or maybe not, but up there.

[Bjond]

15 alch 3 ranger 2 rogue build that's been going around

Hunted down the original post for that one; was a great read, especially on the gearset.

IMHO, he went too far into Alch; heal + 1 imbue is not worth giving up Sniper Shot and runearm covers the imbue if you want DPS more than runspeed. Heal is nice, but back when I played a thrower alch, I only used it about 3 times in total. If your group is making your heal a staple, being on ranged DPS at all might be the wrong choice for your group.

DH beats Ranger/AA for DPS per AP and lets you take a level or two of whatever and still trap: 12~13 Alc 6 DH 1~2 Barb|Art. DH > AA if you're taking 6L (3i+4s V 4i for about same AP). 2 Art for DPS (runearm = +2 imbue). Or 1 Barb for runspeed and 13 Alc if you want more L5 spells (eg. G.Evo as well as G.EW).

I'll never play that mix myself, though. I dislike the poison imbue. Immunity break method is really only worth using on bosses. Great for raids, but with all the undead in quests, a lot of play will be versus things your imbue won't harm. Could swap sorc or wiz for alc, but that costs 3i (1 from buggy alc core-2 and 2 from GEW).

13rog 6DH 1mnk with 14helf 41aa 25falc 11dws, both Slaying and Sniper!

Class mix looks v.close to what I was pondering for my next thrower (barb where you have monk). Guessing you picked monk over barb for the feat and wisdom bonus. I wanted the runspeed.

I think you have the right focus for Bow, too. It shoots slow, but it has amazing critical multiplier. Leaning into the multiplier is the way to go there; ie. HE + Sniper/etc..

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Able to get 43 sneak dice, 7 imbue dice, ranged power almost 400 with archer's focus going.

43 sneak dice is really hot! I know yours probably take Scion of Ethereal, Ive always been a fan of Arborea, but still Im curious what else you got... I guess we could/should do some Bruntsmash tests with a tank on reaper You are right there isnt a direct comparison between mine and Carpones, other than I took the snipershots haha, but IMO Slaying is the best active shot albeit on a longer cooldown, but thats why I wanted to fit in Snipershot which (again IMO) is the second best active shot. I was always into as high of a crit with 1 arrow I could, hence the Slaying, but this time I thought about the sustain from Snipershots and tried to fit in both in a rotation:

sniper, SLAYING, manyshot, SNIPER, manyshot, SNIPER, manyshot... repeat (Capitals is Hunts End every 8 seconds). Manyshots will run out eventually, but get some back and else couple with Ottos/Final Strike or regular shots and Bird Atks for a good rotation in prolonged bossfights!

Guessing you picked monk over barb for the feat and wisdom bonus. I wanted the runspeed.

I think you have the right focus for Bow, too. It shoots slow, but it has amazing critical multiplier. Leaning into the multiplier is the way to go there; ie. HE + Sniper/etc..

Yes, I am wisdom based so the wis-tohit from Zen and the crit multiplier in Fire stance are very valuable to me. I used to take runspeed from rogue tree, but I sacrificed it to get above rotation. With more than 91AP, as I have, you can still get runspeed from Thief Acrobat (13%)

[Oliphant]

I have not tried it but it sounds like imbue thrower builds are doing very well maxing imbues with Shiradi synergy. ~42 imbue dice, which is 6 sets of 7 for 6d11 Shiradi bursts. Apparently you get your SP up past 1000 and those bursts delete mobs on R10 like a HE shot. Think like 15 Alch or 15 EK base.

[Bjond]

SP up past 1000 and those bursts delete mobs

That's odd. Prism states it scales it's bonus based on the type of the attack not the type of the imbue. Spellpower should not effect the d77 Prism hits from a ranged attack. I thought spellpower was part of those builds purely for scaling the imbue damage. Unless, of course, Prism stance doesn't work the way it says it does. This would be a surprise; DDO text is usually so precise and reliable.

[Scrag]

I am only lvl12 atm, but on a build that combines my posted Kighter with some inspiration from Carpones Snipershot builds. 13rog 6DH 1mnk with 14helf 41aa 25falc 11dws, both Slaying and Sniper!

At cap I should have 27 sneak dice 14 imbues and 316 ranged power. Wisdom based to ensure helplessness/CC on trash or for boss debuffs. Thinking about a rotation with 3xsniper shots and a slaying arrow coupled with as many manyshots as possible until they run out and/or Ottos/Final Strikes and regular shots. Every 8 second can be a hunts end crit so save those for Snipershot and Slaying Arrow. This has to be best ranged dps with a bow I can think of...

The 6 dh there for feats + trapping + skills only? I see you have zero points in it.

[Oxarhamar]

Played a LOT of inquisitive builds and they are absolutely rock solid DPS. I did something like 8 lives in a row though and it burnt me out so I am doing a warlock build to get my 3rd drow life.

It's more survivable but overall slower DPS in groups, it shines solo though where I can gather up a ton of trash, web/tentacles them and then blast them down.

haven't played too much with the bows since the bow pass but I did do 5 levels into it and still said "screw it" and respecced for an inquisitive build. I fully admit I didn't probably give it a fair shake but those first 5 levels with a bow were just SO bad it made more sense for me to melee it.

Keeping in mind that I have only played a warlock and a barb since the inbue pass but I believe the inquisitive counts as dual wielding so you are more or less doubling up on the imbue dice for them compared to any other ranged build. Someone let me know if I am wrong there though please.

It works but it’s not rock solid dps

it’s slow as you said later

[Dmitrythewizzy]

It works but it’s not rock solid dps

it’s slow as you said later

I found repeater arti to be better end game damage than inquis arti. You have to build for it but it's decent - particularly single target.

As for leveling, repeater is great to about 7 then Inquis at 8 up to cap is faster even with the 4 shot thing at 20. But both are kinda bad compared to Sorc or Alchemist levelling builds.

At cap, the sorc raid builds are gods among men.

I have found that imbue builds on both arti and inquis are meh for leveling and meh for end game. I switched out of them except for the easy to get imbue in a racial tree.

[Oxarhamar]

I found repeater arti to be better end game damage than inquis arti. You have to build for it but it's decent - particularly single target.

As for leveling, repeater is great to about 7 then Inquis at 8 up to cap is faster even with the 4 shot thing at 20. But both are kinda bad compared to Sorc or Alchemist levelling builds.

At cap, the sorc raid builds are gods among men.

I have found that imbue builds on both arti and inquis are meh for leveling and meh for end game. I switched out of them except for the easy to get imbue in a racial tree.

I agree Repeater Arti is better & imbues are weak

Leveling with a nuker is something else entirely

[Oliphant]

That's odd. Prism states it scales it's bonus based on the type of the attack not the type of the imbue. Spellpower should not effect the d77 Prism hits from a ranged attack. I thought spellpower was part of those builds purely for scaling the imbue damage. Unless, of course, Prism stance doesn't work the way it says it does. This would be a surprise; DDO text is usually so precise and reliable.

Ddowiki is out of date. Log in and check out the "Stay" family of Shiradi enhancements. Its not the type of imbue though, its per 7 imbue dice. The type of extra damage is based on which "Stay X" you pick.

[Bjond]

Ddowiki is out of date. Log in and check out the "Stay" family of Shiradi enhancements. Its not the type of imbue though, its per 7 imbue dice. The type of extra damage is based on which "Stay X" you pick.

Just checked both wiki and game -- they mostly match, but Wiki is missing the extra 1d77 per 7 for rank 3 on Stay. The scaling from ranged attacks for both Prism & Stay is stated as 2xRP (not SP) for all types of damage (game, wiki, & maetrim). I was aware of the extra i/7 dice, but that doesn't explain things.

I have two ranged characters and one just by luck happened to be a high-imbue build (it was an old HC INQ/EK/PM). The only SP scaling for ranged that I've seen in game seems to be via imbues, not on Prism or Stay. IIRC, ~550 SP and 28 dice, the SP imbues were doing ~700/hit. The law/2xRP imbues were lower (RP is only 180 on that char). Scaling that up for a maximized DPS build puts that @ ~4k/hit (1k'ish SP & 300+ DS).

IIRC, Stay's 11d77 spikes were about 1700. I kept looking for Prism's 7d77 spikes (should have been ~1k), but couldn't find any at all. Maybe Stay doesn't add another (7+i/7)d77 alongside Prism's random like it says it does and instead changes Prism's random type to a fixed type.

That char was only doing EE. Pretending it's a real ranged build (upping sp & rp, thrower, more dice, etc), only gets those spikes to 10~15k in EE. A 2K spike is pretty far from "deletes things in R10". Not saying those reporting that behavior in R10 are wrong, but only that there's obviously gaps between stated behavior and actual. A bug like Mantle damage not being reduced by skulls would cover it.

---

When I was tuning that old char up a bit, I tried both Prism and Primal Mantles. Based on kill rates for IOD Demon, Primal Mantle was more DPS (likely due to that char's SP v RP), but Stay Strong's slow effect was just too nice to skip in quests -- especially because that char could lay down sleet+ice puddles, which stacked on more slow AND also proc'd Strong's slow and spike.

It was built specifically for using those slow-puddles on HC. I hadn't played it in a long while (it was from the L30-cap era). The imbue and ED changes made it so much stronger I almost didn't recognize it. It was so dull and sedate before (as befits an HC survival build )).

[IlmerSilverhilt]

The 6 dh there for feats + trapping + skills only? I see you have zero points in it.

Yes, feats and access to DWS tree for Snipershot

[Oliphant]

With 6 DH vs 6 "Ranger" you get those two extra sneak attack dice, plus access to more sneak dice enhancements in the DH tree, but thing you miss is access to Construct FE. I've been choosing to go 6 DH over 6 Ranger (but I miss Construct FE). 6 DH seems a bit better for ranged.

[Oliphant]

People that have tested imbues and found them lacking, were you taking care to strip immunity? Sounds like its part of the 15 Alch approach, go poison imbue and strip immunity. To be clear, I saw some info that imbue throwers can do well but not that they are top. I would definitely suggest looking into completing your 7 sets on existing crit/sneak based bow builds, it helps a tad.