SB vs PS, cycles

[Davout]

Pre Moria the old cycles to maximise DPS used to be base around the following:

PS, QS, PS, QS, repeat

Though now with improved SB is this still the case? The following seems more economical with damage output, focus balance and power consumption.

SB, PS, QS, PS, QS, repeat

If AoE damage is useful then this may change to,

SB, RoA, QS, PS, QS, repeat

What are your views?

[OMWiener]

ISB (imo) was *the* skill to use in Moria, especially when you traited for faster inductions/needfull haste. If i wasn't using it every time it was off cooldown, i was gimping my dps.

But this will probably change again post book 7. The skill gets a severe cut in damage. The third is supposedly worse then an auto-attack, so not actually any better the old SB+auto-attack. I'll off course have to test it myself, but i will definitely use it less often. back to focus burn^^

[Scatha the Worm]

ISB (imo) was *the* skill to use in Moria, especially when you traited for faster inductions/needfull haste. If i wasn't using it every time it was off cooldown, i was gimping my dps.

But this will probably change again post book 7. The skill gets a severe cut in damage. The third is supposedly worse then an auto-attack, so not actually any better the old SB+auto-attack. I'll off course have to test it myself, but i will definitely use it less often. back to focus burn^^

Same here, probably going back to QS+PS and PS+RoA+PS to burst when full focus

[Lenin_]

Same here, probably going back to QS+PS and PS+RoA+PS to burst when full focus

I was just thinking, if it would be better to swap the +% dmg swift bow trait for the one reducing RoA focus cost....

Atm I'm using 4HM/3BM because I really like how fast i can shoot swift bow, but if it this will be nerfed to such oblivion I will need to do some retraiting..

[Silmahad]

ISB (imo) was *the* skill to use in Moria, especially when you traited for faster inductions/needfull haste. If i wasn't using it every time it was off cooldown, i was gimping my dps.

But this will probably change again post book 7. The skill gets a severe cut in damage. The third is supposedly worse then an auto-attack, so not actually any better the old SB+auto-attack. I'll off course have to test it myself, but i will definitely use it less often. back to focus burn^^

Same opinion, maybe I will use SB exclusively as an opener, but if we find out that the time/damage comparison for SB will be worse again than the good old QS/PS rotation, we are again there, where we were preMoM, the typical focusburn build and the SB and BA keys gather dust...as it ever was.

The +8% SB damage trait will then be an absolute no go, take the armor reduction trait for PS or the RoA trait instead.

The best is, as far as I got that right from the US Forums, the animation bug with SB is still not fixed. A faster animation might have helped...

[Scatha the Worm]

The +8% SB damage trait will then be an absolute no go, take the armor reduction trait for PS or the RoA trait instead.

Concerning the trait for RoA: Hail of Arrows... It is only half a trait (another one bites the dust...)

I conducted my own test last night on the REAL crit chance with the trait, and the results were:

124 Rain of Arrows hits.
19 criticals.
9 devastates.

That equates to aprox 15% critical chance and aprox 7% devastate critical chance. The sample is small, I'm still gathering data to make a more appropiate statistical treatment of the results to reduce the error margins.

My critical rating currently is 3864, which results in 14.0% critical chance and 4.6% devastate critical chance.

Hail of Arrows provides +3600 critical rating for Rain of Arrows which should end up around 25%-27% critical chance and 8%-9% devastate critical chance. So, the trait has almost no effect on half of its benefits, and the really sad part is it will still be better than ISB +8% damage.

Likewise I suspect the Shot Through the Heart trait suffers the same horrible design problems, but testing crits on a 5 min cd skill on a meager 6% critical chance increase... OMG, not going to do it.

More results to come....

[European]

Concerning the animation problem; I'm not so sure it makes much difference. Why? I notice when I use the rain of thorns, that the enemies are trapped instantly, when the animation starts, long before the arrows reach them. I wouldn't be so sure that the damage reaches the opponents earlier just because it LOOKS like it does.

[OMWiener]

Concerning the animation problem; I'm not so sure it makes much difference. Why? I notice when I use the rain of thorns, that the enemies are trapped instantly, when the animation starts, long before the arrows reach them. I wouldn't be so sure that the damage reaches the opponents earlier just because it LOOKS like it does.

It doesn't matter when the damage hits, it matters when you can start another attack. the longer (or more bugged) the animation, the longer we have to wait to do more damage through other skills.

[Scatha the Worm]

The focus burn (group play of course) strategy pre-Book 7 was to fire off IC+NH and ISB every time they were off cd (and timing empty focus bar moments to chain with IC+NH). The skill rotation varies from player to player, but that was pretty much about it after putting some thought into it. ISB was that good because it was the most power efficient skill in the toolset, followed by QS. The trait Swift and True deepened the result.

Post-nerfing, ISB will loose about 17% pure skill damage (as of tooltip). That puts it behind QS in the power efficiency department (assuming no QS nerf tho, tooltip screens from Book 7 remain the same for the skill, clarification would be needed in the patch notes on the nature of the adjustment, which seems to actually be in place). Still, that difference in power efficiency should be really thin if using traited ISB. It is also to be noted than ISB has a 3rd crit chance for a possible focus pip (Deadly Precision equipped of course, a must in my build).

So... from that perspective, and considering the fact that we can reduce Needful Haste cd to half its usual duration, and lengthen the buff to 40s (3rd age legacy), I would assume ISB is still pretty much worthy of getting into the skill rotation as something else than focus builder, and into burst DPS considerations. I will still be conducting tests, but I suspect (and hope) it just confirms this. If that is not the case, all the NH and induction reduction bonuses loose A LOT of their appeal.

Overall... it looks to me that the nerf has really dulled out some of the shine in the builds. Swift and True will no longer be that good, nor Needful Haste. Induction Reductions will no longer have such an impact on gameplay. Strength Stance will no longer be an instant aggro generator, but a power drainer. Feels like our gameplay is getting dumbed down. I hope Stance: Precision is viable in the power department, makes our little CC more realiable, should be a considerable bump in DPS through B/E+M reductions and the possibility of traiting it, and just feels better...

BTW... Not that this will ever be read by a dev, even if it got to US Hunter forums, but why don't we have an induction reduction legacy? Crafted bows have it... Seems unfair. The only use of that bonus in crafted bows is for champs and guardians Let Fly as the system goes currently. And unless Barbed Arrow ever gets any upgrade, shift that Needful Haste bonus to something like MS costing 4/5 focus or anything a bit useful.

[Imbavince]

concerning builds and so forth there is a nice one in the US-Forums where people toy around with quite a lot of builds in order to get the best out of it.

Nevertheless all these builds require a huge amount of adjustment to a different playstyle, than the usual BM or even Huntsman trait setup.
Take a look! The information given is quite useful...

There is also the big argument going on about whether ISB is useful or not...I guess it's still worth its 250s if moving about in a Huntsman build. Although I dare say that hitting with another auto-attack (the third shot of ISB), that would have gone off anyway is not a huge improvement on any skill. I'll probably still use it in my rotation while the mob is still not in melee range, whether I would use it again when closer, I cannot say.

Oh and the completely odd anomation that nobody seems to care about fixing is really buggering me as well of course. At least I can use functional crossbows...

[Calladan]

With the traits that reduce focus for RoA and PS always slotted my circle goes like that, assuming that I have time to prepare (full focus etc...):
Focus--> Needful Haste--> QS--> ISB--> PS--> RoA--> PS-->QS (or ISB depends of the distance of the mob)--> Blindside--> MS. If a regular mob is still alive can use ISB easily due to Needful Haste attack speed buff. If mob is elite then LC , kite etc, etc (4BM-3HM trait build). Oh and I really want to try Resolute Aim trait, in HM path it can really speed things up. Especially at b7,cause our DPS nerf will force us to move more and use more skirmish tactics.

[Scatha the Worm]

Book 7 is here and I have been messing around...

I can definitely say ISB is back to "emergency focus generating skill". Trying to stay on QS->PS and PS->RoA->PS is definitely better. Consequently, "Swift and True" and "Fast Draw" have just become very questionable traits.