Best hunting bow for ranger?

[Kaylon]

Well, the Wounding Shot damage is indeed calculated after DR, however the wounding enchantment is applied like a lash before DR.

[Boeroer]

So... shouldn't it damage pierce immune foes then? Why does a sabre with a burning lash damage an earth blight which is immune to slash, but Persistence wouldn't damage a flame blight which is immune to pierce?

 

That would mean that burning lash and wounding get calculated before DR, but there was a different kind of handling when it comes to immunities. Man, I really don't want to look into that code. Sounds like a complete mess...

[Kaylon]

Well, at least it has some logic this time - if you can't damage something you can't make it bleed. (I didn't test lately, but I remember my video against the adra dragon when I had to switch my Drawn in Spring to my pistol because I wasn't able to damage some blights...)

[Boeroer]

Ok, if you look at it from a "realistic" angle, a burning sabre maybe could set a target on fire even if the target didn't get scratched, but a gruesome arrowhead wouldn't cause wounding if the arrow doesn't stick. Still very (too) complicated for a game like this. And look how long it takes for the common gamer to find this out - if he even manages to find this out at all.

 

Wounding Shot being handled differently than wounding being handled differently than Deep Wounds being handled differently than all the other DoT effects... and so on... It's a mess.

[Skie Nightfall]

Well, this resulted in renewed discussion

 

Boeroer, the main point I take from your notes, is the fact you can enchant Persistence, unlike Stormcaller. The pet appliances are nice to have too.

[Boeroer]

Yeah, basically, but it's not that easy.

 

The best thing about Persistence is wounding - because that lifts this bow to the top of the dps list of all ranged weapons. Different guys here did a lot of tests and all came to the same conclusion: when it comes to single target dps, Persistence is the best ranged weapon.

So by itself it's already great. The fact that it triggers Predator's Sense makes it even more aweseom for rangers of course.

 

Stormcaller is not the best single target dps weapon (because you can't enchant it with durgan steel and an elemental lash), but has other nice features. First of all the -6 shock DR also works for all team members, which is great. Secondly you need no resources like durgan steel or any other parts to make it superb and unlock it's aweseomeness - this can be a good thing in a party where everybody wants to have durgan steel weapons and armors. And the Returning Storm proc which stuns and damages gets triggered every third shot with a ranger.

 

It's really hard to tell which weapon is better. I like them both a lot.

 

p.s.: a few patches ago, Lenas Er wa the best bow on my opinion. It has the disorienting enchantment which used to stack. With the bow and Twinned Arrows and short recovery, you could shoot your target down to nealy 0 deflection. Then OBS nerfed disorienting so that it doesn't stack any more, making Lenas Er fall behind Persistence and Stormcaller in my opinion. Now it's a nice but not too powerful bow that you get really late...

Edited August 1, 2016 by Boeroer

[Kaylon]

Before 2.0 accuracy was very hard to boost and bosses very hard to hit... Lenas Er was superb, had rending and the stacking defense debuff which were considered all very good enchantments. It's true however that people (included myself) weren't aware about all the game mechanics and about the way wounding worked... At that time I tried to kill the adra dragon with a hatchet (and decided I had to use scrolls to be able to do it solo) and only later I discovered the power of Drawn in Spring...

[Skie Nightfall]

Of course it's not easy

 

But, I would summarize, that you can probably have a very good ranger with either Persistence or Stormcaller, even on PotD.

[Loren Tyr]

So... shouldn't it damage pierce immune foes then? Why does a sabre with a burning lash damage an earth blight which is immune to slash, but Persistence wouldn't damage a flame blight which is immune to pierce?

 

That would mean that burning lash and wounding get calculated before DR, but there was a different kind of handling when it comes to immunities. Man, I really don't want to look into that code. Sounds like a complete mess...

 

It's not *that* bad, really. The code rolls the base weapon damage, adds the relevant damage modifiers, etc., and that's your total weapon damage X. This value X then gets fed into an "AdjustForDR" function, which spits out the effective damage against target Y. Lashes and AttackPlusDOT effects compute their damage from X, PostDtAttackPlusDOT effects like Wounding Shot grab Y instead (which is of course 0 if the target is immune to the primary damage type). ApplyOnTick DOTs like Deep Wounds don't reference either, since they have a predetermined (base) damage. At this stage the damage type of the Lash or DOT isn't relevant, that only gets factored in when the Lash/DOT itself is processed; ie. a Fire Lash will still be processed when attacking a Fire-immune enemy, it just ends up not doing any damage. 

[Kaylon]

Tested again wounding vs immune enemies and it works (however I had negative duration vs them - not sure if it was because of my very low INT - and all the wounding damage was done instantly). 

 

The optimal lash damage for Persistence would be corrode (to avoid enemies with immunities to both pierce/lash dmg), while for Drawn in Spring is fire. That will ensure at least 50% of your weapon damage no matter what DR/immunities your enemies have.

[rheingold]

So is there any consensus as to whether vicious aim or swift aim is better? I'm presuming that one would be better for bows and the other for guns? Mainly for dr reasons.

[Boeroer]

They both get suppressed by Twinned Arrows and Powder Burns. So they are only useful for imolements, crossbows and arbalests. Never ran any tests which is better on average throughout the game. Obviously it depends on the DR the target has - as you already said. I have the feeling that Vicious Aim might be better for pure dps if you don't use a weapon that has a spell chance like the golden gaze. But even then: I once tested The Golden Gaze on a ranger with Vicious Aim, Stalker's Torc and Stalker's Link and Dangerous Implement and the +30 ACC and the +45% damage (+60% with Appr. Sneak) work pretty well.

Edited August 15, 2016 by Boeroer

[Loren Tyr]

I'd say Swift and Vicious Aim are certainly good options for guns as well (possibly in combination with Penetrating Shot, depending in setup), Powder Burns is hardly an automatic pick in my view. Twinned Arrows when using bows is much harder to argue with though (although I still wouldn't auto-pick that either). 

[DreamWayfarer]

Swift Aim wirks with melee. If anyone cares.

[rheingold]

I like pretty much all the ranger modals, but it's a waste to get all of them, so it really boils down to vicious aim or swift aim and twinned shots or powder burns. Might be an interesting build though to take as many modals as you can and switch between them as required. Only problem though is the delay before you can activate a replacement once you've turned it off.

While twinned arrows is great it comes really late so it's really pointless not picking up a replacement to last you till then.

So to summarize swift aim v vicious aim. No clear winner because they are so situational?

Swift aim works with melee as well while vicious aim works with scrolls as far as I know...

So I guess it's just preference then.

[Boeroer]

Oh... Vicious Aim works with spells? Never thought about that. Hmmm... *new arcane sniper build forming in swiss cheese brain*

[bescheid]

omg, is this confirmed? has anyone tested it? (I cant currently test myself) this sounds amazing for a fun build!

 

Oh... Vicious Aim works with spells? Never thought about that. Hmmm... *new arcane sniper build forming in swiss cheese brain*

[bescheid]

btw does stalkers torch enhance spel dmg as well?

[Boeroer]

Man, don't make me wet myself... with slobber!

 

I already tested a ranger with Vicious Aim + Golden Gaze (procs quickly because of Driving Flight) + Dangerous Implement and Stalker's Torc plus Pen. Shot and Ryona's Vembraces and stuff and the damage was quite nice - not comparable to Twinned Arrows but def. viable. If now spells also work with V. Aim and Stalker's Torc I'll have to resume that build idea. Some spells work with Pen. Shot, too. For example all Missile Spells and also those who have not a cone but a long line like rolling flame and mind lance and so on.

Edited August 17, 2016 by Boeroer

[rheingold]

I'm not a hundred percent sure though - but I was under the impression that it worked with scrolls...

[Loren Tyr]

I took a peek at the code this morning, going by that I think the speed penalty and accuracy bonus do apply, but the damage bonus doesn't (there was a check on whether it was an auto-attack there). Will look in more detail tonight.

[Loren Tyr]

I've investigated, the results for Vicious Aim + scrolls are somewhat mixed. The reason for this is that the three status effects have different criteria, as follows:

- Rate of Fire penalty: is AttackRanged?

- Accuracy bonus: is AttackRanged or AttackBeam?

- Damage Bonus: is AttackRanged and autoattack? (note: attack abilities, at least Wounding Shot, still qualifiies for this)

 

For comparison, Penetrating Shot has:

- RangedAttackSpeed penalty: is AttackRanged and weapon attack?

- DR reduction: when resolving non-AOE attack roll, is AttackRanged?

 

Now, AttackAOE inherits from AttackRanged, so most AOE spells count as AttackRanged as well; so does stuff like Rolling Flame. I've also tested a bit to confirm with five different scrolls: Minor Missiles, Fan of Flames, Rolling Flame, Burst of Summer Flame and Ray of Fire. All of them qualify for the Accuracy bonus. All except the Ray of Fire qualify for the speed penalty as well, however. None of the scrolls get the damage bonus, as the above already suggests. So on the whole, it's effectively a +ACC for -Speed trade-off. It's still +10 ACC though, so still potentially worth it. 

 

Quite by accident however, I stumbled on another nice perk for the Ranger-Scrollmage build: Minor Missiles works with Driving Flight. It seems to vary a bit how many of the Missiles actually bounce to another target, but it happens quite consistently for at least one, often two. Works with Stag Horn, Concussive Missiles and Missile Barrage as well (now *that's* a Barrage). I don't think it does anything for Bounding Missiles since it already bounces, doesn't seem to increase the bounce count, but it's kinda hard to tell for sure.

 

Finally, something I never actually noticed before: Minoletta's Missiles scroll has a higher base damage (14-26) than the Mage version (12-21). Not sure why, probably they changed it at some point and forgot to change the scroll. For Concussive and Bounding Missiles, damage is the same though.

[Boeroer]

I knew that Driving Flight works with missile spells. It also used to work with Thrust of Tattered Veils (most likely still does). However the damage of the second hit is really whimpy most of the time.

[bescheid]

Still is this enough for a Ranger Mage build? What u all say? Would be awsome to have a familiar as a mage

[bescheid]

Oh and ...

 

So the dmg from the ranger modul doesnt work, what about stalkers link accuracy and The dmg from stalkers torch?

 

Ranger Could possibly have +20 accuracy and +10% dmg with spells this way