[Alorit]

Hi,

why everyone want to go for HS build? "Agonizing Arrow" is amazing. It will poisons the target and hits very very hard.
Yes it has a really high cd like the other skills on this tree but the skill is amazing.

[Stiv]

Alorit, on 01 September 2010 - 12:41 PM, said:

Hi,

why everyone want to go for HS build? "Agonizing Arrow" is amazing. It will poisons the target and hits very very hard.
Yes it has a really high cd like the other skills on this tree but the skill is amazing.

I think the problem is the whole "burst and run from 100 people" thing is going to be much harder in the ground abyss. Flight makes that play style much easier because of all the different directions you can go, fast hide movement and everyone being capped speed all the time.

[StagG]

Alorit, on 01 September 2010 - 12:41 PM, said:

Hi,

why everyone want to go for HS build? "Agonizing Arrow" is amazing. It will poisons the target and hits very very hard.
Yes it has a really high cd like the other skills on this tree but the skill is amazing.

- Mobility
- No cooldown problems
- Speedcap with tactical retreat/mau
- Constant DPS
- HS is great coz its good for both pvp and pve
- Lethal is only for gank'n'spank, in pve u're useless with lethal
- Hybrid gotta lack of dps
- anything else?
- http://www.aionsourc...hy-go-hs-build/ <== read those 5 pages

U're right, ago arrow is amazing - instant lethal arrow and preventing sins from hide/others from logout when gliding, but overall most rangers in ground abyss will choose mobility and speed cap instead of burst.

[Hallam]

Hybrid can give you speed and burst and I'd argue it has much better DPS than HS ~

to the OP: It depends on where and who you fight. A scout classes main advantage to all others (more for sins but rangers to some extent too) is it's ability to pick the fights it wants with the use of stealth. So you only really have to burst and run from 100 people if you choose to fight near 100 people. Even so I don't see how HS tree would help vs. 100 people anyway :P

[Stiv]

Hallam, on 01 September 2010 - 02:28 PM, said:

So you only really have to burst and run from 100 people if you choose to fight near 100 people. Even so I don't see how HS tree would help vs. 100 people anyway :P

Slight exaggeration but still, if you had X people chasing you at max run speed, heartshot lets you Entangle/Heart/Gale the closest person without loosing a step while jumping autos (no loss of distance). If you try to jumpshot a skill you loose a step and they will eventually get you. If they aren't capped speed and you are, you an literally run circles aroudn them at 25m.

I'm talking ground fighting on ground. In air currently you can Burst someone down in front of 20 people and get away by throwing a FE into your rotation and just flying off or drop kiting or whatever.

[Mauste]

I'm gonna base my answer to the fact that you mentioned heart shot tree instead of Lightning arrow.

Why I take heart shot is simple: It has less "useless stigmas".

The stigmas I'm talking about:
Bow of blessing - laughable damage increase for one minute only.
Arrow deluge - Low range, low damage, breaks CC (if more than one nearby)
Sharpen arrows - Half the damage increase that bow of blessing gives and increases mana consumption also.
Lethal Arrow - damage not that high considering the 2sec cast time (=Requires to be used with Hunter's might).

vs.

Breath Of Nature - +90HP/tic doesn't matter at all in PvP.
Some might put retreating slash as one of the useless stigmas aswell, but I like the skill a lot. When I don't have it equipped, I always miss it.


I think agonizing arrow is more suitable for dredgion, because you need to take targets down really fast. However, in my opinion heart shot is better for Open PvP.

[Alorit]

Mh, ok, you're right. Wished Ago were in the other tree, too...

[Hallam]

Stiv, on 01 September 2010 - 02:37 PM, said:

Slight exaggeration but still, if you had X people chasing you at max run speed, heartshot lets you Entangle/Heart/Gale the closest person without loosing a step while jumping autos (no loss of distance). If you try to jumpshot a skill you loose a step and they will eventually get you. If they aren't capped speed and you are, you an literally run circles aroudn them at 25m.

I'm talking ground fighting on ground. In air currently you can Burst someone down in front of 20 people and get away by throwing a FE into your rotation and just flying off or drop kiting or whatever.

Again I think it's situational. At the moment if I'm rifting and I come across (for example) a cleric, sin and templar then HS tree would be worthless in my opinion. Templar has a 25m pull (edit: 25m is in 2.0), Cleric can outheal your weak burst. Sin can ambush and get a stun to slow you down. If I had a more of a burst build I could kill the cleric before he even has a chance to press a heal skill and dispatch the sin pretty quickly after that. The templar would then need to be kited or slept.

If I go against 10 people then unless they're a bunch of morons a player won't keep chasing you while taking dmg and if he stops running you have to change target and repeat the process. You actually would only have 2 skills to use against them (gale and hs) since if you used entangling shot it would slow 1 player to kite but not the other 9. You'd also be sort of hoping that you didn't get a stun/knockback for the same reason. I guess you could always just use those 2 skills but they could probably outheal the dmg with pots.

So that leaves you with 1 v 1 situations where I'd argue that burst > mobility for obvious reasons.


Mauste: If HS's main benefit is that you can use it while kiting then I'd argue that retreating slash is just as useless as breath of nature considering you should never find your position where you're close to an asmo.

Also BoB is weak on it's own but combine it with every other buff it's possible to get (especially with a hybrid) and I'd say it adds some nice DPS. Agreed though that as a single use buff it's fail.

Arrow deluge is nice if you're group vs. group just to add a little bit of DPS to a party rather than a single target and put more pressure on the other sides healer - and with a small animation time and no MP cost it's a nice little skill to weave into your burst to do some damage while you're buffed.

I wonder how decent agonizing would be if you were to duo with an assassin who used QD Quickening Doom. I could imagine it being pretty evil if you and the sin played well together.

(Sorry for the essay)

[StagG]

Quote

Hybrid can give you speed and burst and I'd argue it has much better DPS than HS ~

Tommorow is 2nd october. Go to school, and dont miss mathematics lesson
Notice than dmg increase given by BoB in pvp is laughtable.

Quote

Some might put retreating slash as one of the useless stigmas aswell, but I like the skill a lot. When I don't have it equipped, I always miss it.

This stigma is simply awesome.

[Stiv]

Hallam, I guess I should have said I'm thinking 2.0 only. I don't think heartshot is near as good in 1.9 as it will be in 2.0. The main loss of burst is Hunter's might which you can take with heartshot in 2.0 if you want to be bursty. BoB doesn't add that much damage and heartshot is just slightly less damage than explosive, but you get to throw a gale in there too. I think if you could have Hunter's Might with Heartshot in 1.9 the burst would be there.

[Hallam]

StagG, on 01 September 2010 - 03:05 PM, said:

Tommorow is 2nd october. Go to school, and dont miss mathematics lesson
Notice than dmg increase given by BoB in pvp is laughtable.

Wow, I was wondering when someone would start the trolling during a debate that was going pretty nicely.

I've yet to find a ranger who can out dps me when I'm using SoW,BoB,FS,BF,HM,Devotion in PVP or PvE with HS tree.

Stiv, on 01 September 2010 - 03:09 PM, said:

Hallam, I guess I should have said I'm thinking 2.0 only. I don't think heartshot is near as good in 1.9 as it will be in 2.0. The main loss of burst is Hunter's might which you can take with heartshot in 2.0 if you want to be bursty. BoB doesn't add that much damage and heartshot is just slightly less damage than explosive, but you get to throw a gale in there too. I think if you could have Hunter's Might with Heartshot in 1.9 the burst would be there.

My issue with using HS + HM would then be having to choose only 2 stigmas out of Sleep, Silence, Bestial Fury and Natures Resolve. To keep that burst up you'd probably want BF for the attack speed and extra dmg which would leave you with 1 slot for sleep/silence/nr. If you go that way then Gladiators would hurt a lot since they earn more ranged attacks in 2.0 and another snare.

Although (iirc) you run an MR build so it could still work nicely.

[Stiv]

Hallam, on 01 September 2010 - 03:22 PM, said:

My issue with using HS + HM would then be having to choose only 2 stigmas out of Sleep, Silence, Bestial Fury and Natures Resolve. To keep that burst up you'd probably want BF for the attack speed and extra dmg which would leave you with 1 slot for sleep/silence/nr. If you go that way then Gladiators would hurt a lot since they earn more ranged attacks in 2.0 and another snare.

Although (iirc) you run an MR build so it could still work nicely.

Yea I'll be probaly dropping BF and try to crutch Mau more. MR helps with snares/roots. Question for me is NR vs Sleep, still up for debate.

Also, for bursting just one person with no one around, Arrowflurry works fine, just cancel after 5 shots or so and even if they hit you, you can stun break.

[Hallam]

Yeh I think NR v Sleep can probably only be judged after playing 2.0. Sleep having less cd is better in some ways but it relying on macc vs. well geared opponents also makes it worse.

What's your current MR?

The most I ever stacked upto was about 1600 and I still found vulnerable vs. Sorcs and SMs although resisting anything else was np. It just meant that a glad could kill me in a few cleaves

I'd say if you're happy with you current resist rate then sleep could be used offensively and defensively which might give it the edge over NR

[Stiv]

Hallam, on 01 September 2010 - 03:45 PM, said:

Yeh I think NR v Sleep can probably only be judged after playing 2.0. Sleep having less cd is better in some ways but it relying on macc vs. well geared opponents also makes it worse.

What's your current MR?

The most I ever stacked upto was about 1600 and I still found vulnerable vs. Sorcs and SMs although resisting anything else was np. It just meant that a glad could kill me in a few cleaves

I'd say if you're happy with you current resist rate then sleep could be used offensively and defensively which might give it the edge over NR

1835 currently. I want to get double AP bow combine so I can get closer to 1900.

I resisted 7 casts in a row in dredg the other night vs a full Fenris SS sorc (using a jewl). I've also been able to beat some SM's that used to completely shut me down. Resisting a random body root or fear is so awesome.

Geared glads that cleave and bow swap are hard. Ones that don't swap to bow let pots and some lucky FE's get health back up.

I'm going to start with sleep. It's more utility but yea the MRes thing sucks.

[Hallam]

1900 is op! haha

What sort of hp does that leave you with?

At the moment (although I've jsut been hacked which I why I'm on the forums so often) I have full HP build with +10-12 40 elite. It's giving me 10k HP but I miss resisting even against classes like Cleric if you need to get away.

[Stiv]

Hallam, on 01 September 2010 - 04:03 PM, said:

1900 is op! haha

What sort of hp does that leave you with?

At the moment (although I've jsut been hacked which I why I'm on the forums so often) I have full HP build with +10-12 40 elite. It's giving me 10k HP but I miss resisting even against classes like Cleric if you need to get away.

Only like 5900 with no real enchanting (I have 300K lol). I also don't have Mira but will never have that.

My Char

I need a new combine though, Drazma gives me too much accuracy now, I need two bows with crit and 6 slots on each for over 100 more crit and 1883 Resist (with new stones). In 2.0 with Hunter's and SoTW crit issue is minimal anyway.

[Mauste]

Cleric might outheal your first burst when you are using heart shot, but most won't outheal your dps.

Another reason for me to change from burst -> mobility/pressure is the new potions.
Major life serum +1940 HP and abyss potion +3680HP gives the user +5620 HP. Not to mention higher level cap means a bit more HP aswell (probably +500ish) and new manastones
(Making it harder to burst someone from 100->0%).

There are several situations where retreating slash is valuable, even with the mobility build. For example Templar pulls you, assassin ambushes from hide, random knockdown/knockback etc. Basically it's a skill, which restores your range when something doesn't go according to your plan.

The buffs are calculated from your base patk, so it doesn't matter if you use bow of blessing with the other buffs.
The damage increase is still the same.

PS: You can't use remove shock on Arrow flurry's debuff (well you can, but it doesn't remove it).

[Stiv]

Mauste, on 01 September 2010 - 10:49 PM, said:

PS: You can't use remove shock on Arrow flurry's debuff (well you can, but it doesn't remove it).

I've used it, Maybe I didn't notice It stayed druing the time I had to click the buff off but I had the anti stun buff up after that point. It can be very good if you get it up before say a rupture arrow or someting. I've lost a fight vs another Ranger because some auto or entangle beofre stun/rupture KB'd them and the had the buff up for my rupture. I guess it all depends on the situation.

[Vurtox]

I always understood the advantage of HS build as being mobile in the air because you can shoot on the fly. I don't get why it's supposed to be any good on the ground though, because when you run away from a group of people it really doesn't matter whether you shoot at them 2-3 more attacks while running, the target could stop any time or get a heal. When someone is running away from you, jump shots and probably higher movespeed will solve any kind of problems.

I've always prefered ground pvp with my hybrid build and don't see why this should change in 2.0 - I just don't think it's worth speccing the full lethal arrow (or now agonizing) tree, because lethal with its cast time is just a joke. Most HS users are running around without silence, even if it's resisted sometimes it's still beyond me how you can play without this valuable skill ever since 1.9, it's a must have opener. Not getting BF? Holy - I couldn't even imagine that, that's why I always hated air so much, there was just hardly a way to effectively make use of this skill, but on ground jump shotting makes this look differently.

[StagG]

Quote

Templar has a 25m pull (edit: 25m is in 2.0)

Pop up anti-shock scroll when you feel, than temp may use pulling skill :>

Quote

Sin can ambush and get a stun to slow you down.

Retreating slash?