Range and Vicous Aim, Penetrating Shot and a Warbow (Sagani)

[Torm51]

Does this work at all?  It just seems that Vicious Aim and Pen shot together would be a super slow attack rate especially with a Warbow that has an average speed.  Has anyone tried this?  Is the 5 armor Pen worth the slower rate of fire?  Should I have taken Swift Aim with a Warbow instead?  I find it hard to spec Vicious Aim with Bow rangers as that means taking Pen shot makes you super slow right?  Forcing you to use a hunting bow?

[dukefx]

VA doesn't work with Twinned Arrows (which you'd want to go for with bows), so I'd stay away from it. Even before TWM I had a ranger with VA and a warbow and that alone was too damn slow with max DEX, I don't wanna imagine it with Penetrating Shot. Penetrating Shot with TA on the other hand would make a lot more sense. It'd be +10 damage on armored targets instead of just +5.

[KDubya]

What I've done for testing auto attacks with different weapons and builds is to set up a fight between test mercs at an inn. Spec identical Rangers with vicious aim and penetrating shot. Have one activate the talent and have them shoot each other and watch the results. If I remember from before when I ran this I found that war bows did best with vicious aim and penetrating shot compared to swift aim or compared to vicious without the penetrating shot.

 

The methodology works well for seeing if more might is better than more dex and other stat type tests. There are some quirks in that it is considered out of combat so endurance regens constantly but health loss will show who is getting the worst of the fight. This only works for auto attacks. Be careful testing Rogues as every attack will be a sneak attack.

 

I remember at least for the melee battles that if both were in plate  then the armor penetrating talent was always better even with two handers and even with estocs.

[KDubya]

I thought about my testing and identified a few problems. I was having them shoot each other so interrupts and prone on crit were playing a part in the damage calculation and while wearing plate the armor influences bows more than arbalests, or at least that is what I read.

 

So I came up with a new plan (All was done in a tavern out of combat using level 11 mercs, so only health loss counted):

 

1.) Create two identical Rangers giving one Vicious Aim and Penetrating Shot and the other gets Swift Aim, the add on talent to swift aim and gunner. The Vicious Aim guy actually ends up one talent ahead which could be used on Vicious Animal or something similar. I gave the Rangers padded armor and a Fine version of their weapon. For stats I gave them 19 in dex and 19 perception with 10 might.

 

2.) Create two identical targets. I used Barbarians they had 1248 health. I tested in plate 18 DR and Fine robes at 5 DR.

 

3.) Have the targets stand far enough away to activate marksmen and the wood elf ability

 

4.) At the same time have each Ranger pick a target and start shooting until the target dies from health loss. Then count the number of additional shots needed for the other weapon to kill its target.

 

Results - I did not do many tests, as it takes a while to inflict enough health damage. Based on this I'd assume that individual streaks of good or bad luck would average out.

 

Targets in plate

Warbow with Penetrating and Vicious Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The War bow won by ten shots (it took ten additional shots from the Arbalest after the WarBow dropped its target)

 

Targets in Fine Robe

Warbow with penetrating and Vicious Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The War bow won by nine shots

 

Targets in Fine Robe

Warbow with Vicious (turned penetrating off) Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The war bow won by four shots

 

Made a hunting bow Vicious to test against the warbow

 

Targets in Fine Robes

Warbow Vs Hunting both with Vicious and Penetrating - Hunting bow won by ten shots

 

Targets in Plate

Warbow Vs Hunting both with Vicious and Penetrating - Warbow won by twenty-five shots

 

Then tried a warbow Vicious vs warbow swift aim with target in plate and both with Penetrating Shot - warbow vicious won by twenty-three shots

 

 

 

Conclusions -

1.) Hunting bows don't hit hard enough to get past DR

2.) Penetrating Shot does better DPS even against low DR like 5

3.) Warbow with Vicious does better than warbow with Swift Aim

4.) Warbow with Vicious and penetrating shot does better than Arbalest with Swift Aim plus has an additional talent.

 

I've got Sagani using the Hold the Wall Arbalest at the moment since it is the best ranged I have available. When I can afford Borresaine or get Cloud Piercer, I might re-spec into Vicious and war bows.

[lameover]

I've got Sagani using the Hold the Wall Arbalest at the moment since it is the best ranged I have available. When I can afford Borresaine or get Cloud Piercer, I might re-spec into Vicious and war bows.

Respec her now to Vicios Aim. Hold The Wall have +20% attack speed. With Vicious Aim she will one-shot some enemies

[Torm51]

I thought about my testing and identified a few problems. I was having them shoot each other so interrupts and prone on crit were playing a part in the damage calculation and while wearing plate the armor influences bows more than arbalests, or at least that is what I read.

 

So I came up with a new plan (All was done in a tavern out of combat using level 11 mercs, so only health loss counted):

 

1.) Create two identical Rangers giving one Vicious Aim and Penetrating Shot and the other gets Swift Aim, the add on talent to swift aim and gunner. The Vicious Aim guy actually ends up one talent ahead which could be used on Vicious Animal or something similar. I gave the Rangers padded armor and a Fine version of their weapon. For stats I gave them 19 in dex and 19 perception with 10 might.

 

2.) Create two identical targets. I used Barbarians they had 1248 health. I tested in plate 18 DR and Fine robes at 5 DR.

 

3.) Have the targets stand far enough away to activate marksmen and the wood elf ability

 

4.) At the same time have each Ranger pick a target and start shooting until the target dies from health loss. Then count the number of additional shots needed for the other weapon to kill its target.

 

Results - I did not do many tests, as it takes a while to inflict enough health damage. Based on this I'd assume that individual streaks of good or bad luck would average out.

 

Targets in plate

Warbow with Penetrating and Vicious Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The War bow won by ten shots (it took ten additional shots from the Arbalest after the WarBow dropped its target)

 

Targets in Fine Robe

Warbow with penetrating and Vicious Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The War bow won by nine shots

 

Targets in Fine Robe

Warbow with Vicious (turned penetrating off) Vs Arbalest with Swift Aim - The war bow won by four shots

 

Made a hunting bow Vicious to test against the warbow

 

Targets in Fine Robes

Warbow Vs Hunting both with Vicious and Penetrating - Hunting bow won by ten shots

 

Targets in Plate

Warbow Vs Hunting both with Vicious and Penetrating - Warbow won by twenty-five shots

 

Then tried a warbow Vicious vs warbow swift aim with target in plate and both with Penetrating Shot - warbow vicious won by twenty-three shots

 

 

 

Conclusions -

1.) Hunting bows don't hit hard enough to get past DR

2.) Penetrating Shot does better DPS even against low DR like 5

3.) Warbow with Vicious does better than warbow with Swift Aim

4.) Warbow with Vicious and penetrating shot does better than Arbalest with Swift Aim plus has an additional talent.

 

I've got Sagani using the Hold the Wall Arbalest at the moment since it is the best ranged I have available. When I can afford Borresaine or get Cloud Piercer, I might re-spec into Vicious and war bows.

I appreciate the work.  Thanks for the help.!

[lameover]

Blunderbuss is better :-P

[Ymarsakar]

KDubya's experiment reminds me of what I used to do in the Dyrford tavern, testing stuff out. I just aggroed the entire village so that I could use on combat effects, using the villagers as either test targets or the party itself if more health was needed. Those guards of the aristocracy are rated as fighters, so they regen END, and they have chainmail DR.

 

-5 DR penetration is sort of like adding 5 extra damage per hit, and it benefits faster weapons because they hit more per minute. So the dps goes up. I generally take swift aim and dr bypass together for bows and firearms. I didn't realize it before 1.03 but the reason why Sagani was doing so little dps was because I wasn't using the talent or weapons to bypass Dr per hit. So she would do like 9-12 damage per hit, against enemies with 5-15 DR. That's about 3-5 damage per shot, which is like 1 dps. With dr bypass, she loses an extra attack every 5 attacks, but she gains 8/3, as dps vs 1 dps. More than twice the impact, multiplied by .8x shots for the 20% attack speed.

 

Vicious was also pretty good with firearms as an alpha strike. Swift aim back then didn't have a reload component, if I recall. And maybe even the attack speed didn't work at all, the ranger was pretty bugged back then.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Ymarsakar