In defence of Barbed Arrow.

[European]

I find it very usefull...on one condition; that you ignore the DoT part.
For one, it does do some damage (I critted for 668 yesterday), but of course not like the other ranged skills.
Second, if you use needful haste you can produce the arrows faster than most other ranged skills.
But third, and for me the most important, is the buff it gives scourging blow. Let's face it, when soloing you very often can't kill the mob before they reach you and sometimes, melee is necessary in groups too. So how do I deal with that? Atm, (this may change after book 7 is live of course) I use my quickshot to slow the mob down, use whatever other shots I can get off before they reach melee, and then, more often than not, I can give a scourging blow of around 4-600, which is just as good as any ordinary ranged shot, to finish them off with one hit.
I think of the barbed arrow as a shot that gives me an "extra bowshot" in melee that is very often enough to finish the mob off. I have traited myself to be tolerable in melee (by using all three traits that give armor, and also slotted a melee crit setting on my axe) so that I can be usefull in more than one situation and have better survival, so I enjoy both the ranged part of being a hunter, and I also train for and trait for the times when we get in melee. Atm i have 4156 armor, which is just a bit less than many champions, (not while they're wearing heavy shield of course) so I feel I can take a few punches.

Anyway, I think Barbed Arrow is looked too much down upon, by those who only look at the admittedly crappy DoT. I always use it myself and even though it's not a great skill, it's a good one, especially for soloing.

[Eiraha Wolfsong]

Also, it deal good damage when you use one of your melee skills after (forgot the name since my hunter is my alt) but it deals much better damage when used after barbed arrow.

:)

[European]

Also, it deal good damage when you use one of your melee skills after (forgot the name since my hunter is my alt) but it deals much better damage when used after barbed arrow.

:)

Yes, sorry if it was unclear. That was the part of the scourging blow I was talking about.

[Scappydog]

BA is pretty good at lower levels. If the DoT scaled as you levelled it would probably get used a good bit more often. But like many things Hunter, it all comes down to personal choice and playstyle.

I'm not a melee Hunter, I refuse to be a melee Hunter. I only have 2 melee skills on my toolbar, Swiftstroke and Blindside and all the legacies on my melee weapon have been chosen to support my bow skills and only now that I have those legacies maxed am I putting any points into its damage.

Post Book 7 I will try my current playstyle/build out and maybe make a few changes, but BA will still be my least used bow skill. For its power use and induction it doesn't do enough damage in my opinion.

[BinabikErebor]

aren't you forgetting to mention the slowing effect of Barbed arrow ? particularly when you are in a fellowship, and you play endurance stance -- where your quickshot does not slow.

Binabik

[MéLAnoR]

ok guys you have to admit it stop bull****ing and defending !
BARBED ARROW IS OVERPOWERED AND THEY SHOULD HAVE NERFED IT !
man we even have a trait doubling damage on a overpowered skill !
im surprised that they havent nerfed the skill with book 7 ; every noob and their mother will roll a hunter now :(

[European]

Sarcasm aside, I feel fortunate that I'm playing my game based on effectiveness and am not burdened by principles. If I'd rejected all thinking of melee I'd not be half as effective as I am today. The Barbed Arrow-Scourging blow combo is a very good one, and gives you an extra good damage hit when you get in melee. The part about the armor is a natural extention of doing as much damage as possible. If you want to do damage, you need to be alive to do it. Remember, after moria the armor affects all mitigations in a much better way than it used to, and armor doesn't affect only melee :)

[Scappydog]

The problem is Mel, with Barbed Fury equiped ( 10 pulses of around 25 damage per tick ) plus initial damage it could end up being our highest damage skill. So it is bound to get 'balanced'. ;)

[OMWiener]

Sarcasm aside, I feel fortunate that I'm playing my game based on effectiveness and am not burdened by principles. If I'd rejected all thinking of melee I'd not be half as effective as I am today. The Barbed Arrow-Scourging blow combo is a very good one, and gives you an extra good damage hit when you get in melee. The part about the armor is a natural extention of doing as much damage as possible. If you want to do damage, you need to be alive to do it. Remember, after moria the armor affects all mitigations in a much better way than it used to, and armor doesn't affect only melee :)

there has been enough threads here and on the US forums discussing usefulness of BA even with scourcing blow. To think we're basing ourselves upon principles is quite condescending. I'm basing myself purely on facts:

- Barbed arrow uses a lot more power then quick shot
- Barbed arrow has a longer induction quick shot
- Scourcing blow has a lower crit chance then your ranged skills
- For scourcing blow to hit relatively high, you need a heavy hitting melee weapon as well (like an axe)

Take this all together and i'd rather:

- use the time i gain from the shorter induction of quick shot to get another QS/PS in before the mob is melee
- use blindside and do penetrating shot
- use intent concentration and us PS, RoA, PS for quick finisher

All these are superior to BA+scourcing imo.

I'm sure there are remote situations where it could possibly be considered usefull( fighting multiple mobs, when you already blew a lot of CD's. But those are so rare, i don't have either on my slot bar anymore.

[Imbavince]

yep on the US-forums they were even parsing some kind of effectiveness between barbed arrow/scourging blow and the qs spamming...

well they came to the conclusion that barbed arrow is utter nonsense to use in solo play, spamming quick shot is more power efficient while doing more dmg as well. That was before MoM of course...

I don't use it, every other skill is way more powerful than barbed arrow as I believe ;-)

[BinabikErebor]

But you still have it in your sig OMWiener.. S.B. .. Scourging Blow -- admit it, it's your most favoured skill :-)

Binabik

[Calladan]

In any case Barbed Arrow is our main DoT skill and I think the only one, putting aside Fire oils. So it should accomplise it's main purpose better even without a trait, that forces u to leave out better ones that upgrade overall DPS like Critical Eye, or the ones that upgrade more common and useful skills like Swift and True trait. At the time speaking I dont count BA as a DoT skill and I almost never use it. A good DoT should be 50dmg (and not that crappy common dmg LOL but weapons current dmg) over 20s per 1-2 seconds, without a trait needed for it :) ! That's a DoT!

EDIT: Maybe the only situation that BA is useful is preventing a Warg dips and then pass to normal stealth. DoT will force him to appear.

[Scatha the Worm]

EDIT: Maybe the only situation that BA is useful is preventing a Warg dips and then pass to normal stealth. DoT will force him to appear.

Consider that Barbed Arrow bleed without trait lasts for 10s, and dissappear is unbreakable stealth for 10s so.... it won't pop a warg out of stealth, unless traited. And the trait MAJORLY SUCKS.

I haven't used Barbed Arrow for 9 months now, and I can only say I do better. It's just pointless however you see it. Too much power, too long an induction, too low damage, pointless dot. And Scourging Blow suffers similar issues independently from BA, and it also requires building a little bit for melee.

My playstyle since SoA, and one that worked even better in MoM, was that of considering I wield stats in main/off-hand, not weapons.

All things considered, I wouldn't mind at all having a nice melee finishing move. But it would have to be powerful enough to be considered such (damage like merciful shot non-crit unstanced, and critting normally but with higher crit chance, around 30%. Bleed prerequisite would still be good for balance, but if BA still sucks...). Barbed Arrow should bleed normally for 20s, and in the range of 50-70, at 3/4 the current power cost, and the snare should be a bit better, like 15%-20%, to allow some form of kiting outside strength. There we would have a nice all-around skill.

With those modifications, dreamy improved fleet stance should allow that Barbed Arrow on the move, and it would be probably OP :) But hey, after all this nerfing, I don't mind at all asking for minor OPness in one legendary capstone skill.

[European]

I will try to adress your points here.
- Barbed arrow uses a lot more power then quick shot
* I don't run out of power except sometimes in the Vile Maw. Not very worried about it.
- Barbed arrow has a longer induction quick shot
* But it doesn't give the option to get a decent damage from Scourging blow. And the induction can be reduced a lot (See further down)
- Scourcing blow has a lower crit chance then your ranged skills
* True.
- For scourcing blow to hit relatively high, you need a heavy hitting melee weapon as well (like an axe)
* I use an axe. (Two actually. as I mentioned, effectiveness Is my main focus) As I said, it does 400-600 damage per hit.

- use the time i gain from the shorter induction of quick shot to get another QS/PS in before the mob is melee
* It's not slow enough to allow both shots (Especially not buffed). The extra time gained from the 10% extra slow helps reduce the loss of induction compared to the quickshot. (When changing from ranged to melee)
- use blindside and do penetrating shot
* That's after you get in melee. You can do that in addition to the scourging blow.
- use intent concentration and us PS, RoA, PS for quick finisher
*I'd rather use one move which is not dependant on focus, but be my guest.

And in addition to this, don't forget the needfull haste buff to the speed, which i use every time i can. I also often use the huntsman trait that gives shorter induction to swiftbow and barbed arrow(sorry, forgot the name right now). All of this combined makes the barbed arrow a more than adequate skill to use. You just have to know how and when to use it.

[OMWiener]

I will try to adress your points here.
- Barbed arrow uses a lot more power then quick shot
* I don't run out of power except sometimes in the Vile Maw. Not very worried about it.


I thought this was about effectiveness..Using more power is not the most effective way of doing things.

- Barbed arrow has a longer induction quick shot
* But it doesn't give the option to get a decent damage from Scourging blow. And the induction can be reduced a lot (See further down)

The shorter induction might kill the mob in time before it gets into melee


- use the time i gain from the shorter induction of quick shot to get another QS/PS in before the mob is melee
* It's not slow enough to allow both shots (Especially not buffed). The extra time gained from the 10% extra slow helps reduce the loss of induction compared to the quickshot. (When changing from ranged to melee)

but you can get another PS in before he gets into melee ;)

And you do realise that quick shot in S:S slows the enemy 30% more then barbed arrow...

- use blindside and do penetrating shot
* That's after you get in melee. You can do that in addition to the scourging blow.[
- use intent concentration and us PS, RoA, PS for quick finisher
*I'd rather use one move which is not dependant on focus, but be my guest.


Now this is really funny. You're talking about solo play, yet you don't want to be dependent on focus... A hunter is all about focus... Killing a mob fast is all about using focus skills, especially in melee when focus shots are instant (non-interruptable). Sorry but using a focus shot beats scourcing blow any day (especially considering the higher crit and higher max damage on bows)

Anyway http://forums.lotro.com/showpost.php?p=2377724&postcount=28

[Silmahad]

Pls, shut up, they will nerf QS to make BA more attractive...that's sadly the way of Turbine to fix things...

[ValgrenDaar]

There are some mobs which have high resistance to melee and ranged damage. They often don't have resistance to bleeds. In these cases BA can actually be useful.

[Esteledain]

I can think of only one setting where BA + Scourging blow is a good option....second boss in DD, when he has -100 ranged damage. He won't take damage from the BA, but the Dot will apply, as well as the subsequent buff to Scourging.

In all other settings, BA + Scourging is rubbish.

[ZenSpider]

Scourcing blow has a lower crit chance then your ranged skills
* True.


Is it?

Am at work at the moment and haven't played my hunter much in a while (except for farming hides) but I'm sure the tooltip states that Scourging Blow has a greatly increased critical chance when used in conjunction with Barbed Arrow.

I use it as a finisher and it does crit *a lot*. Anyone know what the actual crit modifiers are for BA/SB combination?

[Scatha the Worm]

Is it?

Am at work at the moment and haven't played my hunter much in a while (except for farming hides) but I'm sure the tooltip states that Scourging Blow has a greatly increased critical chance when used in conjunction with Barbed Arrow.

I use it as a finisher and it does crit *a lot*. Anyone know what the actual crit modifiers are for BA/SB combination?

I haven't used those two for a very long time, but I remember it did crit a lot. With a sizeable parse, the numbers should come up.

[zimoo]

It does *seem* to have a very high crit chance. I use it in combination with Barbed Arrow when I'm bored of spamming the same buttons over and over, and I can't remember the last time it didn't crit.

I use all my melee skills a lot when a creep zerg comes at me and I have no focus. Rather than try to run away from ~20 creeps (which will never work), I instead start jumping in circles around my target spamming all my melee skills (or atleast try to, I'm stunned a lot of the time :p).

Effective? Absolutely not. Fun? Hell yeah :p

Fun > all, we do play this game for enjoyment after all :)

To the person who says their only melee skills on their bars are swift strike/blindside...how come you don't have low cut there? The instant 2 target -50% snare has saved me so many times.

[MéLAnoR]

..

To the person who says their only melee skills on their bars are swift strike/blindside...how come you don't have low cut there? The instant 2 target -50% snare has saved me so many times.
trait bow and blade you get 3 targets on low cut but still the dmg is not enough in my eye.

[zimoo]

I am well aware of that, but even I wouldn't slot Bow and Blade, unless I was feeling particularily mad :p

What damage are you referring to? :p

[Scappydog]

To the person who says their only melee skills on their bars are swift strike/blindside...how come you don't have low cut there? The instant 2 target -50% snare has saved me so many times.

I don't have it there because I found myself using it so rarely in PvE that I'd rather have something I use more taking up a quickslot.

[European]

Is it?

Am at work at the moment and haven't played my hunter much in a while (except for farming hides) but I'm sure the tooltip states that Scourging Blow has a greatly increased critical chance when used in conjunction with Barbed Arrow.

I use it as a finisher and it does crit *a lot*. Anyone know what the actual crit modifiers are for BA/SB combination?

It's not that the skill itself has less chance of critting, but that as a hunter we have tuned our chars so that we have a lot better chance on critting in general with ranged hits, and I don't think that the crit chance of Scourging blow, even with barbed arrow, can make up for the 1500-2500 difference in crit chances we normally have.

[Scatha the Worm]

It's not that the skill itself has less chance of critting, but that as a hunter we have tuned our chars so that we have a lot better chance on critting in general with ranged hits, and I don't think that the crit chance of Scourging blow, even with barbed arrow, can make up for the 1500-2500 difference in crit chances we normally have.

Actually it does. Scourging Blow probably has about 50% crit chance when applied on top of Barbed Arrow DoT... Of course that needs confirmation from actual testing. I'd do it, but it would really mess up my quickslot bars to include those two skills again ;)

[LAW666]

I use it, always have. Its useful to apply it to a ranged target for the extra DoT dmg when fighting mixed melee/ranged mobs...i dont use it very often but atleast its more useful than fleet stance and i certainly dont think it should be nerfed or that its OP ( im prolly missing the sarcasm there Melanor :) ) anyhoo its all moot now as i only use my hunter for crafting/gathering etc...

[Malrik]

Scourging blow crits about 75% of the time i use it. WHile i was leveling to 40s, that finisher did represent a fair chunk of my dmg.

[Calladan]

BA+Scourging Blow when critically hits (with Bow and Blade equipped) always gives me the same dmg: 250. How high u score? Mention traits (like Bow and Blade) that change melee dmg pls.

EDIT: Playing with Peerless Thains Dagger + 3rd Age Axe 59lvl, no special legacies for melee dmg except + xxx (cant remember the number) Crit Melee Rating.