Build talk:R/D VoS Archer

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/R/D VoS Archer Archive 1

/R/D VoS Archer Archive 2

/R/D VoS Archer Archive 3

Contents 1 Rate-a-build 2 Discussion 3 Changes 4 Runes 5 PvE?

[edit] Rate-a-build

Please test and vote on new builds. Please do not vote on a build until you have actually tested it.

Favoured:

1. Great use of synergy between Heket's Ramage and VoS, I've been using this as a general PvE build and it's been doing very good damage. I'm also using Signet of Pious Light instead of Antidote Sig, just to help the monk out with healing when my enchantment is about to end anyway. --waywrong 08:44, 27 December 2006 (CST)
2. I actully use a similar build in RA. I don't know how it works anyware else, but it is good in RA (I don't use favorable winds or any spirit though).--TheDrifter 16:59, 27 December 2006 (CST)
3. I was very skeptical when I first tried this build out but its effectiveness quickly caused me to reconsider my initial impression. Good job. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Defiant Elements (contribs) 01:34, 28 December 2006.
4. Tried it out for a day. Too messy with trying to make sure all your buffs are up for my tastes, but it does work. Shame that you can't put an interrupt somewhere--Akmdw 17:01, 29 December 2006 (CST)

   you could have an interrupt if you used a pet, get some extra DPS too. All at the cost of having no self heal or condition removal however, which is one of the good things about this build.--Windjammer 00:24, 30 December 2006 (CST)

5. Tried this, works, but has some energy problems w/o any Expertise. Great use of VoS and Heket's. Good job. Cheese Slaya 4:18, 30 December 2006 (CST)
6. Nice to see VoS put to good use. Steady autodamage is groosly underrated by spike wheenies IMO.--Siemens 05:23, 3 February 2007 (CST)
7. A great idea with the correct skills. This can be used for nearly anything. Seb2net 06:02, 14 February 2007 (CST)
8. Reasons already stated above. My only problem is energy management. --NYC Elite 11:03, 17 February 2007 (CST)
9. good spike and heal. E-Management is a problem however. -X H K
10. i've been playing this build in pve for a long time and do very nice dps and usually am the famous "last man standing" due to the high health regen. energy management is no problem at all, although i don't use the ideal bow (imo: zealous flatbow, ench +20%, 15^50 / 15 (stance)), you just have to make sure you only cast the health buff/regen skills when needed. great job
11. A fun as hell build, the fact that it comes equipped with a strong healing (290 hp for 5 mana is not bad at all O_o) It is certainly one of the better builds. Seika Gensou 20:59, 28 February 2007 (CST)

Unfavoured:

1. See below--Silk Weaker 03:23, 4 January 2007 (CST)
2. ... --LightningHell
3. This is bad for the same reasons an IW mesmer is bad.. — Skuld 09:05, 5 January 2007 (CST)

   IW mesmers ain' bad, you just can play with em. and so you think they are bad. actyalle they are quite good in combat with 42 damage and IAS and a pet does nice DPS. --Sigm@ (talk|contribs) 14:27, 15 January 2007 (CST)

   And Dragon Slash-ers do better, and they're harder to shut down. Owait — Skuld 10:42, 31 January 2007 (CST)

4. I'm sorry. I tried this and I really didn't like it. The 'raw' damage output isn't really impressive from what you can get from say, a regular elementalist. No ranger utilities or anything. And it really is cumbersome to manage.Isis In De Nile 13:38, 20 January 2007 (CST)
5. Spike damage? nope, just slow raw damage that's fairly easily manageable and avoidable by getting behind cover, running away etc. Rangers are a utility build... and lack of it makes this rather bad.--Lania Elderfire 00:02, 31 January 2007 (CST)

   By running away you can avoid any damage from anyone. By hiding behind cover you can avoid any projectiles. It's not a spike so why compare it to one? It's DPS. Your vote after it's been vetted mystifies me even further as well.-- Vallen Frostweaver 07:35, 31 January 2007 (CST)

   260 damage over 5 seconds isn't impressive. Most pvp characters have at least 520 health, so even a squishy will take at least 10 seconds to kill... assuming they do absolutely nothing... any competent monks can easily deal with the damage, air eles can spam blind on it etc... I just feel this is a bad build that shouldn't be vetted, along with many other builds on GWiki. --Lania Elderfire 10:34, 31 January 2007 (CST)

   Ok. Sounds decent. Forgot it was PVP too so my bad. Thanks for explaining.-- Vallen Frostweaver 13:20, 31 January 2007 (CST)

   It's DPS is comparable to any other damage build. It also has healing and cripples (cripples making its damage that much more unavoidalbe). Further, the DPS I listed does not include crits, which will be multiplied by VoS, or any weapon mods. In practice, DPS against 60AL will be around 300+ over 5 seconds. This build matches any other DPS build in damage and versatility. Just because it isn't all utility or spikes, like other ranger bow builds, doesn't mean it isn't good. I think your vote is biased based on what people stereotype bow ranger's roles to be.--Windjammer 15:53, 1 February 2007 (CST)

   Unlike other games, Pure DPS doesn't mean a whole lot. High DPS that can be mitigated isn't as good as something that can apply deep wound for example, that inhibit healing. That's why shadow prison assasins are so popular in PvP because they can apply deep wound, bleeding, and poison with over 450 effective damage in less than 3 seconds... and this also includes one KD, which really decreases the chances that the monk can heal himself in time. Still 300 DPS w/o conditions or KD is still rather meh. --Lania Elderfire 16:00, 1 February 2007 (CST)

   How right you are. Still I am ambivelant about its placement. I beleive that, for what it is, it is good. I still support it, even though I don't play it anymore (basically this was my first original build). I basically was just trying to find the best use of VoS, and this is it. Maybe a team could use it better, but for a single build I really don't think there is a better VoS build. Even a dervish prime using VoS with scythes and the IAS from Heket's does less damage. VoS pumps up the damage from RtW and Fave Winds, making their damage contributions a lot higher. That's why I think VoS is meant for a team. Orders, Judge's Insight, and other spells will be magnified by VoS's multipliers.--Windjammer 04:57, 3 February 2007 (CST)

6. Energy Maintenance --SigmA 10:16, 23 February 2007 (CST)

A D/R has the same statistical output as an R/D, but better energy management and faster energy regen. (Dubby 13:59, 3 April 2007 (CDT))

1. Raw dmg is useless if you don't follow up with a spike, monks can easily manage this. UnexistNL

[edit] Discussion

[edit] Changes

This or the Ebon Duster's purpose or at least style are worlds apart from a cripshot, though that in itself does not make it necessarily impossible

I mention the Ebon Duster because Harrier's Grasp is used there with the same thing in mind. It Used Ebon Dust, Apply Poison, and Harrier's Grasp to spread those 3 conditions around quite quickly.

That said, that build is closer as it realizes that the advantage of the bow is range, not damage, as speed is too slow, so I am still slightly against this. As you might as well use D/R Scythe if what you wanted was simply synergy with Heket's rampage.

Anyway. I prefer Mystic Regeneration more as, with high enough earth, you need only 2, or, with Harrier's Grasp, 3 enchnatments to keep +12 regen up. Vital Boon, imo, is a waste of a slot. Though it heals decently... it takes far too much off. What bar would I propose?

Vow of Strength

Heket's Rampage

Harrier's Grasp

Mystic Regeneration

Read the Wind

Comfort Animal

Charm Animal

Resurrection Signet

Using a Scythe ^^

You might think that the pet is a stupid choice, without high enough investment (I'd raise it a bit), but it synergizes well as the pet provides another melee body block for your team. Remember, not using enough melee makes your whole midline more susceptible to harrassment. A pet might help with that. Also, a pet's damage is continuous and does not waste activation time. That way, it can continue to deal damage as you attack. Harrier's Grasp and Mystic Regeneration might cause some energy issues, which, by the way, makes me wonder. Why not use D/R with some mysticism? It could help if you have a prot monk too.

Not sure if that would work, but ideal choice on VoS Heket would actually be:

Vow of Strength

Heket's Rampage

Aura of Thorns

Mystic Regeneration

Call of Haste

Comfort Animal

Charm Animal

Resurrection Signet

Thorns can be traded with Harrier's Grasp.

This is just an idea, of course. Hey, I need to get my Dervish a Pet, speaking of which... --Silk Weaker 04:11, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Hmm, that top build may work very well, I will give it a whirl. I have tested VoS in every PvP application I could imagine. I just don't think there is a workable melee VoS build for PvP. Bows outdamage scythes with RtW available, melee should not have to recast enchants, plus the archer gets the huge (for my money anyway) benefit of doing damage at range. I'm not sure Ebon Duster is a good comparison (though cripshots wasn't either, I guess I was just trying to make a point that the build has utility now). You have to admit though, this build is beginning to push its bar and skills to the limit. If benchmarked against other damage builds, I think it is touching the ceiling. I will test that top bar, if its damage with the pet makes up for the loss of FaveWinds, and if Harrier's Grasp and Mystic Regen can be used together while keeping energy manageable, I may change the build to that. Thanks for the suggestion.--Windjammer 04:53, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Bows deal low damage, that is a fact Look at the DPS of the bow, compare it to the Scythe and Hammer, add in the critical advantages of either weapon, and then the fact that you can use a scythe rune. With a primary Dervish. Read the wind doesn't add barely enough damage to the bow... Bows have never been used effectively for damage with the exception of perhaps barrage.--Silk Weaker 05:00, 9 January 2007 (CST)

I just did some calcs. For adding in the prob of a crit hit, I added 20% (roughly the chance to crit) of the difference between a crit hit and a normal hit to each attack. That works out to 61 a hit for a bow with RtW only, and 54 a hit for a scythe. Bow attacks 1.33 scythe is 1.17. I used damage over 5 seconds for a benchmark. Bow = 233; Scythe =232 (I considered Armor Effect to damage = 1). I don't garuntee the correctness of my mathematical method, but it seems logically correct. If it isn't right and you can provide a better method, I welcome the correction. Since damage is equal, I would rather do it with a bow than a scythe. With the bow, you have to account for having to use RtW every 24 seconds. With a scythe, you have to account for casting enchants as a melee, and being a melee vs. a ranged in the first place. The bow can also use Harrier's Grasp to spread crip around. The pet is a great idea, and I'm going to test it out. I'm pretty sure its damage will be better than what FaveWinds was adding to the bow, so it will be worth it, it is also worth losing Vital Boon for. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier; I get in these thinking loops and cant see good ideas past my own nose. The only thing is that Harrier's and Mystic Regen both cost 10, so energy may be taxed a bit more. Not using Vital however, so the build really only has 5 more energy cost over a 20 second time period than older ones. I think using a Zealous bow may solve this, as long as you can keep attacking, which an archer generally can.--Windjammer 05:25, 9 January 2007 (CST)

EDIT: I also used the approximate, rule of thumb, crit hit damage of max damage * sqrt of 2. Since VoS magnifies crits, it may be very important to do it the correct way of max damage at +4 weapon att (I actually magnified the crits with VoS using the approximate method, but since VoS is there, it may be very important to get crit damage precisely). It is, however, very late here and I'm tired. So I will work on the calcs some more and do the testing tommorow.--Windjammer 05:29, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Oh, just thought of this as I was going to bed. Since crits raise weapon att by +4, that changes armor effect, so the sycthe crits will increase more than the bows would, and that would be magnified by VoS. Need to make a table of damage against different ALs, since VoS has different increases in vs. different armors, and this would also be effected by the damage done by the weapon. As I said, I will work on it tommorwo though.--Windjammer 05:39, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Uh, I can put all that simply by saying this: Scythe has higher average damage. (1 point to scythe), Bows have range (.5 point to bow), Scythe has AoE (.5 point to scythe). Scythe has higher maximum damage and therefore a higher critical damage (1 point to scythe).

Scythe wins. --Silk Weaker 05:57, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Your point system was a little arbitrary  :P

For PvP, the AoE of Scythe was never been that useful to me. In PvE a scythe VoS build would probably be superior as its damage may be higher and the AoE damage effect, also you don't face many of the problems meleers face in PvP. For PvP, I like the bow better because I don't think the damage increase is worth having to be melee, further with the bow you can use Harrier's Grasp very well. Anyway, still working on exact calcs. Say, I was doing some more testing with these builds on the Isle today. I noticed that the bow did better damage when I was standing on the stairs then when I was right next to the dummy. I tested it and can say for sure it does (I'm not sure of the exact amounts yet though. This may have already been known, but it was new to me). Therefore positioning is still very important with the VoS Archer, because VoS will increase that extra damage and Heket's will apply it more often.--Windjammer 16:44, 9 January 2007 (CST)

Just finished calcs. In this build, even including crits, the bow is equal to the scythe. With RtW, the bow has better damage than the scythe. Crits are better on the scythe, but not by much. Average damage of the scythe is lower than the bow with RtW, and only 3.5 points higher without it.--Windjammer 21:31, 9 January 2007 (CST)

That's because of height advantage. Note that there is also hieght disadvantage

I didn't include height advantage or disadvantage in the calcs--Windjammer 02:41, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Scythes deal more damage on crits. Even on a single foe, scythes deal more damage. Scythes also have, potentially, 1-3 more points in expertise, which is more critical hit chance, and more damage. You can use runes with scythe and earth at the same time, as well as some mysticism. Read the Wind takes too much time, and remember, with Read the Wind off, you're using a flatbow which flat out sucks (pun, oh noes). Never, use, a flatbow. To depend your ability to hit on a preperation isn't good. Even with read the wind, though, I'm afraid the damage is less due to factors such as far superior critical hit (happens more than % due to fleeing foes), faster attack speed, runes, and an additional slot to use another skill. --Silk Weaker

The VoS archer does the same damage as a VoS melee. Plus the VoS melee has to worry about kites and crips and will be barraged with conditions and hexes. Then the VoS melee has to worry about recast enchants and this and that, very bad as a melee. This build does the same damage and its biggest problem is recasting RtW. Plus using the bow you can give the build utility that the scythe build will never have (not in a viable way at least). I've included crits and attack speed and all mathematical factors in the calcs. Also, I've never read anything about crit percentage increased on fleeing foes. The wiki doesn't appear to have anything on it. The critical hit page mentions it no where. Talking about runes and this and that are null points, because the archer uses runes on its weapon att. Increasing weapon att above 14 starts taking big hits to life with little return on crit percent (1.3% raise per point). Increasing Earth Prayers would help damage a bit however (+3% multiplier), but not enough to warrant using a melee weapon when you could use a bow IMO. Mysticism and increased energy regen are the only good reasons I can see to be a D/R VoS melee. But are they worth the price of having to use a melee weapon? I've tried and tested all the VoS melee builds, none of them work. The VoS Archer was the only build that works with that elite IMO. Anyway, this debate has lost most substance now, the first one allowed me to see weaknesses and make changes. This current discussion is bringing up weaknessess as suggested changes.--Windjammer 02:41, 10 January 2007 (CST)

Mastery adds damage, and a scythe attacks faster. Also, due to the higher CRITICAL DAMAGE, scyhes deal more damage.

Another example: Axe DPS and Sword DPS. Sword's DPS without considering criticals is higher than the Axe. However, in practice, axes deals far more damage because a larder range. Critical hits instantly score max damage, therefore the higher range of the Axe means that the higher the mastery of both weapon, the more it tilts to the advantage of the Axe.

When you hit a fleeing foe, you instantly score a critical hit. Try it with an assassin using critical strike or something, or just notice the damage. If you hit someone fleeing several times, you should deal the same amount of damage.

Runes are always good. Minor or what not. Of course, that could mean an even happier spread, if you don't want to raise scythe to 12. However, most people in PvP will have nothing less than a natural 12 on their masterty (exception on rangers and PERHAPS assassins). They do this for a reason. Rune on Wind is fine, rune on Mysticism means that you can have 3 myst or some such, then you could get a little bit of energy back. Not utterly useless.--Silk Weaker 03:31, 10 January 2007 (CST)

I can not stress how much this current build sucks. Right off the bat, the attributes are laughable. Here's one that I just thought of on the fly while scanning through the discussion:

• Better VoS Ranger, D/R:

11 marksmanship, 10 +1 +2 earth prayers, 10 +2 wind prayers

As for an IAS, use a freakin' short bow. Van Wark 20:43, 25 February 2007 (CST)

The damage difference between an 11 and a 12 in a weapon mastery attribut is big, you need a 12. At any rate, each point in a weapon mastery attribute gives bigger numbers in the damage formula than VoS does. So if you are going to use a bow, you need to be Ranger primary. Also, an IAS _is_ necessary. It is needed to get the most out of VoS. A shortbow is not any faster than a flatbow, and all bows are pretty slow already. However, RtW gives such a huge damage boost, which VoS magnifies, that it makes a bow one of the most damaging VoS weapons available. The Harrier's Haste is a good idea though, its damage would be multiplied by VoS. Hard to do any exact calcs because it has a condition which is hard to factor in. I might give it a try though, most people move constantly, especially when crippled.--Windjammer 15:45, 2 March 2007 (CST)

I use a D/R, more energy management and the added health is nice. This is what I use, and I've had some success in ab with it. Works well against everything but evidently boa sins. Touch rangers can be crippled and just sniped, same for warriors. I've pasted my stats below. {Dubby 13:59, 3 April 2007 (CDT)}

• D/R Variant

• 9 Beast Mastery, 12 Marksman, 8+4 Earth Prayers, 5+2 Wind Prayers, 2+1 Mysticism, use +10 armor stance insignias (you only need 25 energy) since you will always be under a stance
• Use a sundering flatbow, enchantment boosting is optional but not recommended. Use Vital Boon as a healing, Pious Light for a heavy heal, and Pious haste to dash and to trigger vital boon on the go. Flatbows are fine to use because of Read the Wind - I haven't had someone able to dodge them by moving around yet.
• I've done comparitive damage testing and the difference between D/R and R/D is extremely minimal, if any. Really, the only difference is a taste of preference for armor mods and e-management.

{Dubby 13:59, 3 April 2007 (CDT)}

[edit] Runes

1. Beast Mastery 2. Expertise 3. Marksmanship 4. Vigor 5. Clarity 6. Attunement How did this get favoured with six runes? One out of Expertise, Attunement or Clarity needs to be dropped from the guide (although I appreciate this will be gone in a week anyway). RossMM 07:32, 25 April 2007 (CDT)

[edit] PvE?

Ive been thinking of using this in PvE, but what skills should i switch out? and btw is a vampiric bow a NEED? since im (like many others) not a big fan of vampiric.