Pew Pew Pew

Cecily · #1 06-13-2016, 05:15 PM

So lately I've been pretty mean to Rosen (Ivory) for saying archery is practical to level up / dps with. My reason for that is I sincerely didn't want to see someone waste their time on a build which experience has taught me is bad. But I also don't like giving an uninformed opinion, so I needed to go out and see if anything had changed. And after grouping with Rosen in TT on the forager cycle for the better part of an evening, I'd like to offer her an apology and give some thoughts on why archery might be alot... better now than it was in the past.

There's 2 reasons why archery was bad in Kunark:

Itemization - This the vast majority of the bows available to anyone during our 10 trip year trip to Kunark. Raincaller is probably what most rangers used during this time. It's a great pulling bow, but the DPS is seriously lacking. For damage, there's 2 good bows in the entire expansion... Bow of the Underfoot and Windstriker. Both were extremely difficult to obtain and both featured a brutally slow 6 second base refresh timer. If you missed a few shots in a row, you probably forgot about archery for awhile. It just wasn't fun to use.

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Haste - Worn haste was not effecting bow shots or skills timers during all or most of Kunark*. And also pre-patch fleeting quivers were nothing but an annoying bag to carry (which I did anyway). Spell haste was the only way to increase your firing speed. So if you were solo and not lucky enough to own a sky cloak, you were stuck with, depending on your bow, a base 4 to 6 second firing speed (10 to 15 shots per minute) which missed quite often. Better than nothing, but not by much.

So in summary, good bows in Kunark were rare, slow, and suffered severely from a lack of item-based haste. I would guess most people took a Raincaller they dropped 6k on out, excited to bow kite, and were pissed off 10 - 15 mins later. Raincallers probably formed most of the negative opinions people have on archery. Those 350 range pulls are incredible though.

*I put in a bug report about this issue a long, long time ago. We suggested that the removal of haste % from item tags broken something and was the reason for the bug.
Whether or not that was the case, the haste % is shown now and, barring epics, worn haste is speeding up timers like it should.

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Why Archery maybe might not be so horrible:

Itemization - Bow of the Huntsman / Velium bows. Nice ratios are MUCH easier to quest / purchase now.

Haste - Worn item (besides Swiftwind) / fleeting quiver haste functioning. This is absolutely huge for soloers.

Put those together and it's pretty ok.

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Zalea: 60 ranger. Earthcaller / Swiftblade of Zek Main & Swiftwind offhand. Sky cloak. 90% hasted. 26 DS.
Rosen: 55 ranger. 36% worn haste (velium swiftblade) + fleeting quiver. Various bows (Skydarkener, Ex Velium Bow, Bow of the Huntsman)

This about 2 hours worth of hunting foragers together in TT with almost zero downtime. I was tanking and Rosen was sniping 2x hits. Rosen was mainly using Skydarkener, so there's of bunch of procs not being shown. Parser counted "has been struck by lightning" 56 times so add another 14k damage to her total. Quite honestly, I'm impressed to see that much damage. Regardless of the bow we chose to test, the damage always ended up being around 25% of my melee damage. I had her test her melee once (mid range ratio dd proc weapons) and funny enough was also 25% of the kill.

So anyways.. this enough to make me stop dismissing archery completely. Considering that I was using much better haste, Rosen put out a ton damage.
Very curious how a level 60 w/ a nicer bow would do.

Tenlaar · #2 06-14-2016, 11:10 AM

That's pretty interesting. I'd really like to see a full 60 top geared melee vs. 60 top geared archery breakdown too. I have always shared the assumption that archery would never be fore more than pulling, gimmicky kills, or "if I get close to that merb I'll gate" situations during these eras. From reading those threads, the idea of using a bow to quad mobs...kind of makes me want to play a ranger...

#ifeeldirty

And kudos to you for being capable of re-examining a firmly held belief, even if it is about something as silly as elf bow DPS.

Ivory · #3 06-14-2016, 11:49 AM

Hooray! I have converted a non believer to the cult of the bendy branch!!

Soon, the entire world will recognize the power of archery and there will be a swelling of young archers as they rediscover the ancient art of the elves!!!

I can't wait till I'm 60 and find a sky cloak so I can really see how it stacks up.

What surprised me most when I had been tracking my damage before was that my melee ended up about the same as my bow. I had always figured "if raw DPS is really important, switch into melee mode".....but so far from the numbers, the bow actually keeps up.

I still suspect melee might be a better DPS option if you are using some really really nice weapons and self hasted better (though skydarkener procs are nothing to sneeze at...I've gotten 6 procs in 6 shots before).

Though, there are still some pretty good advantages to a bow with higher end raiding even with slightly less DPS (when using trueshot, it is no contest btw, bow wins...but BFG is pretty killer too). Such as being able to stay out of range of AE's and being able to duck behind caster shield walls between shots to avoid AE's (saves on heals / avoiding long AE stuns / and even death).

And remember, this is pure bow....not counting the other advantage of archery being able to weave in spells between shots (call of flame is a fast cast 206 damage...or at 59, we get Calefaction, which is a 450 DD....definitely worth casting! In melee you might lose more swings, but with bows you won't lose too much to throw it in...along with the advantage of being able to med between shots to make that much more frequent than a melee ranger could sustain).

But all of this is more high end crunching for efficiency and min/maxing DPS. For leveling up, a trueshot longbow and sow in oasis will have you out-soloing basically everyone. Level 30-40, a bow of the hunstman and you are the king of Firiona Vie along the cliffs. 40-50, still, you are pretty powerful with a good bow and a nice quiver and a velium swiftblade (one of the cheapest and best haste items, but only really good for archery since it takes a weapon slot).

Like I've been saying....for anyone playing a ranger (or someone who wants to solo) ....don't ignore your bow. It really is a strong tool. Even if you group a lot, being able to pull out your bow and take a mob down to 70-80 percent life for free before it gets back to the group is pretty nice. Or being able to root something off to the side and kill it while people med (costing everyone else nothing and not getting in the way of you medding) is also pretty impressive.

I've gotten to 55 now mostly with the bow and mostly soloing....and it has been a lot of fun. It becomes even crazier if you get your hands on a skydarkener around level 50 and show up to AE camps claiming them. Oh, and since you are only limited by your quiver size, you can overpull and eventually wear whatever is after you down. "Wait....is that ranger...AE kiting 12 wyverns? :|"

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Erati · #4 06-14-2016, 11:49 AM

Bow of the Huntsman is stupid rare

I have killed Grand Huntsman what feels like close to 30 times in the past month and never once have seen anything other than crappy Boots of the Huntsman

Heebo · #5 06-14-2016, 11:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erati [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bow of the Huntsman is stupid rare

I have killed Grand Huntsman what feels like close to 30 times in the past month and never once have seen anything other than crappy Boots of the Huntsman

Grand huntsman doesn't drop the bow, Gleed Dragonhunter in Kael does. I suggest you quest it. No faction required with sneak.

http://wiki.project1999.com/Gleed%27s_Bow

Llandris · #6 06-14-2016, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Erati [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Bow of the Huntsman is stupid rare

I have killed Grand Huntsman what feels like close to 30 times in the past month and never once have seen anything other than crappy Boots of the Huntsman

You're killing the wrong NPC [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Erati · #7 06-14-2016, 12:08 PM

well derpa derpa

I just assumed "Bow of the Huntsman" was from the Grand Huntsman, especially since he drops Boots of the Huntsman !

ty Heebo <3

koros · #8 06-14-2016, 01:08 PM

This isn't even close to reasonable dps. 2x jade maces will significantly outdamage this for 1500pp and way less effort.

Ivory · #9 06-14-2016, 01:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by koros [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

This isn't even close to reasonable dps. 2x jade maces will significantly outdamage this for 1500pp and way less effort.

Non-believer! Don't take that 10 dps as the real dps I was doing -_-

koros · #10 06-14-2016, 01:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivory [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Non-believer! Don't take that 10 dps as the real dps I was doing -_-

What was your real dps? I have a ranger with maxed archery and it was never that impressive.