[CLASS BUILD] The Rifleman

[Mocker22]

Hey guys, this is my first time posting a full build here, so any advice will be welcomed. This build started out more as a roleplaying idea. I think of him as a bounty hunter/frontiersman that can track his prey anywhere with the help of his faithful wolf sidekick, and then take them down as a master with his rifle. I'd say there are other builds that could certainly do more damage, but I like this setup because it is low maintenance to play, and less of a glass cannon than a lot of top ranged dps builds. I don't like having to babysit glass cannons that can get gibbed at any time if your not careful. I also enjoyed that the build takes off very early. As soon as you leave Maje you can gather up all of the essential gear pieces. So here goes....

 

The Rifleman

 

Difficulty: PotD v. 2.01

 

Class – Hunter(Devoted/Sharpshooter) – you can go Ghost Heart for less pet management if you want, not a big loss

 

Race – Human (Hearth Orlan is better, but not my preference to play)

 

Living Lands, Hunter

 

Stats: (with Berath's Blessing)

 

Might – 22

Con – 9

Dex – 20

Per – 18

Int – 15

Res – 6

 

Abilities: mostly just designed for maximum dps, with a couple fighter abilities as Oh s*** buttons to stay alive. I find the animal companion to be a bit of a pain and many fights he just guards the backline, so most of the companion talents are very optional, and could be replaced. With good CC and engagement control the pet can add some good dps though.

 

1 – Disciplined Barrage, Marked Prey, Arquebus proficiency

2 – Wounding Shot

3 – Vicious Companion

4 – Gunner, Fighter Stances

5 – Two-Handed Style

6 – Marksman

7 – Disciplined Strikes, Marked for the Hunt

8 – Accurate Wounding Shot

9 – Evasive Roll

10 – Weapon Specialization, Predator's Sense

11 – Penetrating Strike

12 – Vigorous Defense

13 – Driving Flight, Armored Grace

14 – Unbending

15 – Conqueror Stance

16 – Improved Critical, Uncanny Luck

17 – Merciless Companion

18 – Resilient Companion

19 – Weapon Mastery, Protective Companion

20 – Stalker's Link (would like this earlier but undecided what I could give up)

 

Gear: an * shows that something is pretty essential, but there is plenty of room for personal preference.

 

Weapon: The Red Hand(Guilty Conscience)*

Armor: Sharpshooter's Garb*

Helm: Acina's Tricorn*

Gloves: Gauntlet's of Discipline

Boots: Footprints of Ahu Taka(or Boots of Stone)

Necklace: Precognition

Belt: Upright Captain's Belt*

Cloak: Nemnok's Cloak

Ring: Ring of the Marksman*

Ring: Chameleon's Touch

Pet – Cutthroat Cosmo

 

Skills: Whatever you want really, Alchemy is always strong. I ended up doing quite a bit of Mechanics and Stealth which fit with the roleplaying a bit more for me.

 

Strategy: This was meant to be a very simple ranged dps build. Keep Disciplined Strikes activated and I use Evasive Roll frequently for the Quick inspiration. If you draw agro or start to take too much damage you have Vigorous Defense and Unbending to save your butt. The build has incredibly high accuracy with +45% hit to crit conversion, and you will crit a ton. Also you have very high penetration for a ranged build in my opinion with 13 base from legendary Red Hand, +2 Devoted, +1 Ring of the Marksman, for 16. Consumables and buffs push this even higher, with the ability to use Penetrating Strike for those extremely high armor targets in PotD. On most enemies you can overpenetrate, and the frequent crits will help with this as well. Devoted + Improved Critical keeps your critical hit damage respectable, even with the malus from arquebus. Reloading is fast with your gear, high dex, and no armor penalty.

 

Hope someone finds this useful. Let me know what you think.

 

[Somnium_Meum]

Cookie cutter ranged build. Replace Ranger with Monk or Rogue and you'll be doing more damage.

Furthermore The Red Hand suffers against pierce-resistant or pierce-immune enemies so i'd suggest adding alternative weapon.

 

I personally dislike such builds because there's very little innovation and they are better suited to AI-controlled companions than to MC because they are very easy to autopilot (Hi Maia!)

[Mocker22]

Yup, all true Somnium. It really was intended as a low maintenance build. Thanks for bringing up the pierce-immune problem that I forgot to mention. You do need something to deal with this.

[Haplok]

Replace Devoted with a rogue and you'll have a much stronger striker.

Leave ranger though. The accuracy is good and so is driving flight.

Edited September 3, 2018 by Haplok

[Boeroer]

 

 

with +45% hit to crit conversion

 

Nope, you have 40.5% hit to crit conversion. Conversion chances don't add up. They go together mutiplicatively: 0.7*0.85-1 = -0.405 or 40.5%

[jww]

Cookie cutter ranged build. Replace Ranger with Monk or Rogue and you'll be doing more damage.

 

Furthermore The Red Hand suffers against pierce-resistant or pierce-immune enemies so i'd suggest adding alternative weapon.

 

I personally dislike such builds because there's very little innovation and they are better suited to AI-controlled companions than to MC because they are very easy to autopilot (Hi Maia!)

 

I don't think there's a problem with posting basic or "cookie cutter" builds, as long as it makes good decisions for that type of build. When a new player is trying to find a build that they'd like to play, a basic build is going to be more useful to them than a concept build that requires some weird interaction between a specific skill and a specific piece of equipment that they can't get until well into the game. Some of the builds that have been posted require an interaction like that, and are built entirely around it, so they don't discuss how to play that build in a general sense. And some of those builds are no longer functional because the equipment no longer functions in that way or the skill has been patched to work differently.

 

There have been a lot of builds that sounded interesting, but I ended up not trying them because they are based around something that sounds like it'll be patched soon.

 

A basic build can help a new player, or an experienced player who hasn't tried a particular class before, learn how to use that class in an effective way (e.g., by helping them not pick useless abilities), and then they can grow their knowledge from there.

[Mocker22]

 

with +45% hit to crit conversion

 

Nope, you have 40.5% hit to crit conversion. Conversion chances don't add up. They go together mutiplicatively: 0.7*0.85-1 = -0.405 or 40.5%

 

Thanks for the correction. At least 40.5% is still quite high. That does make Uncanny Luck seem quite a bit less useful though. Hmm.

 

 

Cookie cutter ranged build. Replace Ranger with Monk or Rogue and you'll be doing more damage.

 

Furthermore The Red Hand suffers against pierce-resistant or pierce-immune enemies so i'd suggest adding alternative weapon.

 

I personally dislike such builds because there's very little innovation and they are better suited to AI-controlled companions than to MC because they are very easy to autopilot (Hi Maia!)

 

I don't think there's a problem with posting basic or "cookie cutter" builds, as long as it makes good decisions for that type of build. When a new player is trying to find a build that they'd like to play, a basic build is going to be more useful to them than a concept build that requires some weird interaction between a specific skill and a specific piece of equipment that they can't get until well into the game. Some of the builds that have been posted require an interaction like that, and are built entirely around it, so they don't discuss how to play that build in a general sense. And some of those builds are no longer functional because the equipment no longer functions in that way or the skill has been patched to work differently.

 

There have been a lot of builds that sounded interesting, but I ended up not trying them because they are based around something that sounds like it'll be patched soon.

 

A basic build can help a new player, or an experienced player who hasn't tried a particular class before, learn how to use that class in an effective way (e.g., by helping them not pick useless abilities), and then they can grow their knowledge from there.

 

Thanks for the support man. I tried to make it apparent in the description that this is not the most optimized dps build ever, but I guess I could have emphasized this more. But I did enjoy it quite a bit, and I think newer players, or even experienced players that like slightly less micro-management could get some decent results from it. Or if someone just likes the concept like I did, which is what led me to optimize this particular class combination.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Mocker22

[Boeroer]

 

Cookie cutter ranged build. Replace Ranger with Monk or Rogue and you'll be doing more damage.

 

Furthermore The Red Hand suffers against pierce-resistant or pierce-immune enemies so i'd suggest adding alternative weapon.

 

I personally dislike such builds because there's very little innovation and they are better suited to AI-controlled companions than to MC because they are very easy to autopilot (Hi Maia!)

I don't think there's a problem with posting basic or "cookie cutter" builds, as long as it makes good decisions for that type of build. When a new player is trying to find a build that they'd like to play, a basic build is going to be more useful to them than a concept build that requires some weird interaction between a specific skill and a specific piece of equipment that they can't get until well into the game. Some of the builds that have been posted require an interaction like that, and are built entirely around it, so they don't discuss how to play that build in a general sense. And some of those builds are no longer functional because the equipment no longer functions in that way or the skill has been patched to work differently.

 

There have been a lot of builds that sounded interesting, but I ended up not trying them because they are based around something that sounds like it'll be patched soon.

 

A basic build can help a new player, or an experienced player who hasn't tried a particular class before, learn how to use that class in an effective way (e.g., by helping them not pick useless abilities), and then they can grow their knowledge from there.

I agree 100%

 

@Mocker22: sure, 40.5 is not that much less than 45. It's still great.

Just wanted to clear that up because it's the most common misconception in these forums. Also because the game does a bad job (again) at explaining those mechanics.

 

I agree that Uncanny Luck is pretty lucklaster.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Boeroer

[davlandrum]

I love the more "vanilla" builds!  I am not a hardcore min/max player, so these type of builds are very interesting to me.  Great job!