Boeroer

Yes - works really well. Reason for rogue is that Deathblows doubles spell's base damage and that Deep Wounds works with spells that do crush/Pierce/slash damage. But this works as well with a fighter: more accuracy and sturdiness, less damage.

Man... I guess I'll let Kaylon answer this...

In this game monks are different. They don't need to be unarmed and they can wear any armor. Heavy armor is even better in the early game. Also using weapons instead of fists is better in the long run. And any offensive char who operates in the front gets damaged. In this case you will get something out of it. Lovely! I think there are some people here who agree with me that monks are the no.1 dedicated melee class. They just require more micro than the other melees because you put out "casts" all the time. So they play like a mixture of fighter and caster - somewhat comparable to melee cipher.

Stalker's Link doesn't need flank and stuff - as Jerrek already said. It was changed pretty early after release. Nowadays it gives you +10 ACC as soon as the pet attacks the same enemy. The wiki (where you seem to get your info) is severely outdated on some pages. Stalker's Torc adds +20% damage to this. If Stalker's Link should be taken out then Minor Threat (Hearth Orlan racial) of the rogue has also to be removed because it triggers on exactly the same conditions. Twinned Arrows have no reduced damage. Kaylon's calcs included everything you just said. Please read more thoroughly! It's debatable if 15 MIG will result in numbers that justify the statement that the dual wielding rogue will severely outdamage a ranger. We still haven't taken into account that Driving Flight will add even more damage. Sadly, I don't know the exact dmg malus of it so I can't calculate it's damage with Kaylon's numbers.

Monk can do it as well with Torment's Reach. And if you have high INT the cone size is huge. The cone of Torment's Reach is independent from weapon damage and has its own base damage (crush), but it works with all spell chances (x% to trigger spell on hit or crit) and also prone or stun on crit. A great weapon combo for monks is Starcaller + Badgradr's Barricade. Since the low base damage of both doesn't matter for Torment's Reach but the high speed is beneficial, you can proc the stun and the Thrust of TV even more often, dealing tons of AoE crush damage in the process. In general bashing shields make sense with a monk with Torment's Reach - because of its unique properties. Low base damage doesn't matter as I said and bash gets +1 ACC per level. Of course a second weapon would cause more damage, but the combo of higher survivability with nearly the same damage output is great. A monk with shield can also get away with thinner armor, making up for the speed loss when auto-attacking a bit.

Sounds like he knows what he wants and how to get it.

Well - you'll have higher chances that stun because both swings have the chance to do it. So if you miss the first swing you'll still have the second. So yes, it will increase the chance to stun. But I can't say how this compares to the -5 to deflection and fortitude. I guess it's better than disorienting - and the +2 MIG instead of +1 is also nice. I don't know if those small advantages justify the use of the Helwax Mold.

He will be as hard as on normal. Dragons don't change from normal to hard diff. Yes, most of the late game is too easy with a full party - even at PotD.

Yes, since FoD has +20 ACC and gets +1 ACC per level it will lead to stuns more easily than auto-attacks.

Not strictly an affliction, but Strike Hard (war hammer) causes Disorienting which lowers all enemies' defenses by 5 and works well with stunning. It also has speed - which is neat. An that's a rhyme - which is no crime... *mic drop*

Stun will suppress prone. So the stun/prone combo isn't very effective. You might want to consider Shatterstar (=double crit damage) and Godanysthunyr in the offhand. With FoD you will crit with the offhand first, stunning the target and then follow up with a crit with enhanced damage. Shatterstar also has Guarding which is not bad for a paladin.

Yes, if you can hit a dragon properly it's usually easy to kill him with the right spells. If you are a priest you should cast Devotions and Inspiring Radiance after Minor Avatar so that you can get additional +30 stackable accuracy. Else you might graze a lot. A good approach against the Alpine Dragon is to use Confusion Scrolls and then do the damaging part. For all others paralyze works well.

There's no question that chars with strong offensive AoE abilites like Dragon Thrashed or Sacred Immolation will cause more dps than any single target char. It's because they hit so many foes at once. However, it can be of great use to quickly kill that one annoying enemy asap. Like the xaurip priest, the ogre druid, the adragan, the battery siren, the broodmother or whatever. Usually a good mixture is the best: take out high priority targets asap with a paladin, rogue, ranger, druid, monk or fighter and use AoE stuff to quickly get rid of the rest at the same time. Actually an offensive paladin can do both at the same time from lvl 13 on.

Yes, sure. Without doubt the Persistence guy would catch up once he gets superb or legendary (is legendary possible on Persistance? not sure atm). And wounding does a lot of additional damage. But on the other hand the Persistence guy had his bow very early (no surprise here) while the Stormcaller dude got his bow a lot later. Let's now move away from the superoptimized last 2% in the game for a second and look at the whole playthrough. Stormcaller can be upgraded fairly quickly and easily to superb - while superb and even legendary via enchantment comes pretty late. Don't you think that Stormcaller might be the better pick overall - I mean if you look at the whole picture, not just the last part of the game when everything is enchanted to the max? I always thought those two bows, while quite different, where equally good. Now I looked at those numbers and I was quite surprised. While Stormcaller (in the end) is slower, has lower crit damage, no lash and also lacks wounding - it has dual damage, +20% dmg, -6 DR and 20-30 base shock damage via Returning Storm every fifth to third shot. Edit: I just realized that without wounding Persistence's logged damage wil be the same like that of an ordinary hunting bow (with graze-to-hit conversion). So maybe it doesn't matter at all how early he got it.

Hehe. By the way: I just loaded up a savegame where I had two similar lvl 12 rangers. One with Persistence and one with Stormcaller. The latter got Stormcaller a lot later obviously but still did 40% more damage overall (char sheet - so without wounding damage(?) and pet damage). I didn't play them that differently and they almost have the same talents and abilites. Items are also not that spectacularly different. Surly Persistence does the highest single target dps with a high MIG ranger on paper, but maybe Stormcaller is not that far off and the better dps weapon overall? The damage of Relentless Storm and the -6 shock DR as well as the dual damage type seems to be as good as wounding, if not better (pet's Predator's Sense aside for now). You can have a proc chance of 19 (Twinned Arrows) up to 35% (+Driving Flight) with every shot. What do you guys think? Or how do you explain those numbers? Edit: oh wait - Stormcaller is already superb while Persistence only has exceptional, oops. But still...?

Thanks a lot. Very thoroughly done. We could add Driving Flight as well. In that case the ranger will outdamage the rogue all the time if there are enemies behind the initial target (20° arc). Stunning shots also works on them by the way. But of course that's not single target damage - but damage nonetheless. As I said, the rogue gains most of his awesome stuff earlier and that's an advantage. I only wanted to oppose the genral statement that a dw rogue will severely outdamage a ranger. This comparison doesn't take into account the movement that has to be done. Even if the pet has to move as well - the ranger doesn't. I think we can assume that the ranger can place one shot while melees are running from foe to foe.

High MIG, PER and INT. Disciplined Barrage works very well with all sorts of spells. I guess Confident Aim works as well. Spell-like abilities of the fighter are Into the Fray and Clear Out. Both don't actually use your weapon(s) and don't profit from Weapon Focus, Specialisation or Mastery. Equipment: - Sun-Touched Mail of Hyran Rath: 3 Sunbeams per rest or The White Crest Armor: 1 Overbearing Wave and 1 Dancing Bolts per rest - Amulet of Summer Solstice: 3 Sunbeams per rest or Shimmering Cloak: 3 Minoletta's Minor Missiles per rest - The Flames of Faîr Rhian: 3 Fireballs per rest (maybe duplicate that with the Helwax Mold) or Scath Gwannek: 3 Winter Winds per rest or Bittercut: 2 Vile Thorns and 1 Infestation of Maggots per rest or Badgradr's Barricade: unlimited Thrust of Tattered Veils on critical hit - Taluntain's Staff: 3 Fireballs per rest - Animancer's Boots: 3 Jolting Touch per rest - Munacra Arret: 3 Whisper of Treason per rest - Spirit Spiral: 3 Whisper of Treason per rest - Ring of Searing Flames: 3 Combusting Wounds per rest - Ring of Changing Heart: 2 Dominates per rest - Sentinel's Girdle: 1 Watchful Presence per Rest That way you will have a ton of spells. Some of those items you can get pretty early. As I said Disciplined Barrage works really well with all sorts of spells that do an attack roll. It's a fun concept and viable. Maybe don't take Acolyte's Radiance and Enigma's Charm: they are not that great. Just pick talents the fighter part can make good use of: Weapon Focus and stuff. Aspirant's Mark and Prestidigitator's Missiles are good. Although you might need Penetrating Shot to make the Missiles worthwhile after early game.

Sure. That would be better. Sadly crits only add a base damage bonus which in this case is 13,5 (sabre base) * 0.9 (with all the crit talents unlocked) = 12 more damage per hit. If we assume only 15% more crits via conversion (which is very generous to assume I think) that's only an increase of 13.5% base damage - equivalent of roughly 2 points of damage per hit without DR through conversion. Meh... Better bring Deep Wounds into the discussion.

What you personally do and don't do with a ranger is not important if you want to discuss max dps ranger vs. max dps rogue. I also don't argue that I never take Reckless Assault because it sounds funny and makes the rogue die more quickly und thus it shouldn't be part of this comparison. Because it's not expedient. The rogue also needs to pick talents like Two Weapon Style and such to develop his dps. There is no point in complaining about the ranger taking more talents - every char can pick the same amount of talents as abilities. ACC difference is not huge, it's only 10: Distant Advantage + Marksman + Stalker's Link - Twinned Arrows = +10 ACC (stacks with every ACC buff) Perma-stunned target: -30 deflection or the equivalent of +30 ACC Reckless Assault = +20 ACC (doesn't stack with general ACC buffs) Hit-to crit conversion of 30% (via Minor Threat and Dirty/Vicious Fighting) more than the ranger. With no misses, no grazes, 50% hits and 50% crits that's 15% more crits at maximum. This conversion doesn't crank up your crit rate by 30%.

Yes, while you played high lvl rangers and rogues a couple of times - and then provide us with some calculations, statistics and good examples... Sure - the enemies will have higher deflection. But your accuracy will grow, too. At the end of the game the difference between ACC to deflection gets bigger and bigger towards ACC. Crits are more common in the late game than in he early game. Grazes and misses are less likely. If the ranger can stun once it's perma-stun (no talk about dragons please). I would also argue that the pet will hold out longer than the "glass cannon" melee rogue you advertised. In case both go down the ranger still does decent damage on his own while the rogue does 0. But as I said: we should leave dying aside (which the rogue is an expert in) because it makes things even more complicated. So - as others also pointed out the accuracy and crit rate (Dirty/Vicious Fighting vs Stunning Shots) will be roughly the same. Damage of bow and dual wielding melee is comparable as my example above shows. The rogue is a bit better - if he's facing double-afflicted targets all the time and doesn't have to move a lot. Now the pet's damage and Driving Flight get added to the damage comparison - and you still want to stick to the statement that a melee dw rogue will severely outdamage a ranger? How does he do it?

Did you understand what I was posting above? Conversion gets less and less effective the higher your accuracy and therefore your natural crit rate is. Besides that: rangers start with 30 as do rogues. Rangers get Stalker's Link, rogues get Reckless Assault. The difference is 10 accuracy. Now the rogue gets conversion while the ranger and his pet will attack a perma-stunned target. Do you really think that the crit rate of both will be so much different? And that this will let the rogue severely outdamage the ranger and his pet?

Yes, neat.

It's hard to miss for the pet once the target is stunned and you have Stalker's Link... And if you take Persistence it's 100% Predator's Sense. Concerning "getting killed": let's leave this out of the discussion because then we'd also have to guesstimate how often the rogue gets knocked out. Furthermore we assume that there's two afflictions all the time so that the rogue can have his Deathblows for 100% of the fight. If this is the case for the ranger, too then it's very hard to miss even for a blind rascal as pet. Let's not forget that firkraag888 stated that a dual wielding rogue will "severely outdamage" a ranger. We first would have to convince him that Tidefall is the no. 1 dps choice... Dirty Fighting + Vicious Fighting do +20% hit to crit by the way, not 25%. Once you have a very high crit rate they are less powerful. If you have a hit/crit ratio of 50:50 and do 100 attacks (no misses, no grazes) then only 10 of your attacks will get converted. The more you crit the less this conversion will get triggered.

I would pick Skyrim. I don't like the limitations the Witcher has in terms of character development. The only thing I don't like about Skyrim is the stupid leveling system (you automatically get better at what you do). If you despise that then hands off!

I have. But it's hard to tell. As I said, rangers and rogues usually end up with the same hit/crit ratio in the end - mainly because of Stunning Shots I guess. You might not know that Stunning Shots causes stun on hit(!) and crit. This leads to perma-stun (with ok INT and attack speed) as soon as the pet engages and that leads to a lot of crits from ranger and pet alike. Rangers start with the same ACC as rogues by the way. But yeah, hard to tell. I would need to dig out several old saves with high level rangers and rogues and compare the hits and crits. I don't think this can outweigh the pet's damage, Driving Flight's damage and the dps loss from movement though.