SA does like ~150 dmg (on top of main hand weapon damage) when alternating between FoD and SA on a lvl 9 pala/soulblade. It's not like you need to autoattack for a minute to get that focus.

 

It goes more like this: FoD: 120+ total dmg > SA: 200+ total dmg > FoD 120+ dmg > SA: 200+ total dmg (repeat until dead). (that's w/o any crits)

 

If you don't have full or aoe attacks to generate focus fast it would go slower. Which is why I don't see Soulblade as anything but multiclass.

Edited April 12, 20187 yr by MadDemiurg

Didn't consider Might bonus before. Assume 20 base Might, level 9....

 

Blooded berserk PL 3 (2*0.05 PL bonus): 1.35*1.45 = 1.9575x

Cipher PL 5 (4*0.05 PL bonus): 1.2*1.3 = 1.56x

 

But Blooded also triggers human's Fighting Spirit:

1.45*1.45 = 2.1025x

And with wilder hunter: 2.465x

 

And that's not counting the penetration bonus. I'd guess crit to hit conversation on the primary attack also results in crit bonus for Soul Annihilation---it crits if the primary attack crits?

 

"One Stands Alone" says "melee damage"---doesn't specify weapon damage---but sadly doesn't seem to apply to Soul Annihilation damage, even though it's a melee attack. Probably did mean to say "melee weapon damage" though....

Edited April 12, 20187 yr by SaruNi

Steel Garrote Paladin's "Lay on Hands" upgrade can be added to Paladins using the console.

 

"Choking attack that applies paralyzed to the target.

Paralyzed for 8 seconds Accuracy vs fortitude"

Psyblade lacks cheap full attacks for single target alpha and is not as tanky as Inquisitor. But it's much better at aoe.

Soul Annihilation is your alpha strike, as Boeroer said you don’t need to use SA at full focus, and every combat u start with half of max focus.

For generating focus, berserkers can use Barbaric Blow (+25% damage, +50% crit damage, +30% hit to crit, with later upgrade to get raged refunded or recovery set to 0 on kill). With Blooded that's +50% before adding +crit damage or frenzy Might bonus, and with One Stands Alone (which will apply most of the time) it's +70%. Whereas Bleak Walker FoD is +50%, with Eternal Devotion +70%. Assuming FoD accuracy bonus is balanced out by hit to crit conversion from Frenzy and Barbaric Blow, they're equal before factoring in Berserker Tenacious and +50% crit damage (not to mention additional +15% from human Fighting Spirit once blooded). 

 

OTOH Barbaric Blow is 2 rage vs. 1 zeal for FoD... so multiclass won't get that many uses at least until the level 13 upgrade that refunds the rage cost on kill. And requiring Blooded for the bonus is a major obstacle. It's ridiculous that Bleak Walker gets the best defenses and easy access to the second-best alpha strike (right after backstab), they should get a major defensive nerf (would be strategically interesting if each use of FoD dropped all their Paladin defensive bonuses---maybe do the same for Kind Wayfarer...).

Edited April 13, 20187 yr by SaruNi

Don't you guys think that Barbaric Blow with 2 Rage and FoD with only 1 Zeal is a bit unbalanced? When I use it BB doesn't feel more powerful than FoD.

 

The refund on kill is not very useful in my case and opinion. I want to use BB as a tool to bring down foes' health quickly, not as unreliable finishing blow that might overkill like crazy. Also the 0 recovery on kill upgrade might be moot when I look at higher PL where Blood Thirst waits for me...

Steel Garrote Paladin's "Lay on Hands" upgrade can be added to Paladins using the console.

 

"Choking attack that applies paralyzed to the target.

Paralyzed for 8 seconds Accuracy vs fortitude"

Hilarious! Does that mean you are choking the guy you're healing?

 

Can't test myself, writing from my phone.

 

Steel Garrote Paladin's "Lay on Hands" upgrade can be added to Paladins using the console.

 

"Choking attack that applies paralyzed to the target.

Paralyzed for 8 seconds Accuracy vs fortitude"

Hilarious! Does that mean you are choking the guy you're healing?

 

Can't test myself, writing from my phone.

Remind me of blackguard in DnD 3.5 where LoH will harm enemies instead of heal allies.

Don't you guys think that Barbaric Blow with 2 Rage and FoD with only 1 Zeal is a bit unbalanced? When I use it BB doesn't feel more powerful than FoD.

 

The refund on kill is not very useful in my case and opinion. I want to use BB as a tool to bring down foes' health quickly, not as unreliable finishing blow that might overkill like crazy. Also the 0 recovery on kill upgrade might be moot when I look at higher PL where Blood Thirst waits for me...

Well talking about ability cost problem, there are a lot more cases, wither strike of rogue cost 3 guile and do u think it is better than barbaric blow or FoD ?

Haha - nope. That one ist just too expensive. No discussion needed.

I've dabbled with the beta but I've barely touched it compared to a lot of you guys here. I was wondering, what are people's thoughts on the best way to build a ranger focused on dealing damage at range? Sharpshooter is an obvious choice, but I'm less sure about multi-classing. Scout for 50% sneak attack danage seems like a solid choice, although Seer may be better overall for a non-situational 40% damage bonus plus the option to pick a wide variety of cipher spells that can aid the party by hindering the enemy. I kinda like the idea of a Hunter in order to be more durable and wonder if bonuses like confident aim might offset the relative lack of damage bonuses compared to seer and scout. If the data-mining is correct, it looks like multi class rangers will lose out on stunning shots but will still get twin shots, which may be a worthwhile trade off, especially if so progession is more gradual and you'll only be using top power level abilities for a small fraction of the game.

 

Anyway, what do you guys think? I'd welcome advice from more experienced players

I've dabbled with the beta but I've barely touched it compared to a lot of you guys here. I was wondering, what are people's thoughts on the best way to build a ranger focused on dealing damage at range? Sharpshooter is an obvious choice, but I'm less sure about multi-classing. Scout for 50% sneak attack danage seems like a solid choice, although Seer may be better overall for a non-situational 40% damage bonus plus the option to pick a wide variety of cipher spells that can aid the party by hindering the enemy. I kinda like the idea of a Hunter in order to be more durable and wonder if bonuses like confident aim might offset the relative lack of damage bonuses compared to seer and scout. If the data-mining is correct, it looks like multi class rangers will lose out on stunning shots but will still get twin shots, which may be a worthwhile trade off, especially if so progession is more gradual and you'll only be using top power level abilities for a small fraction of the game.

 

Anyway, what do you guys think? I'd welcome advice from more experienced players

 

To have high DPS you need:

1. High accuracy
2. High basic damage
3. High attack speed
4. Lash/Wounding
5. Be able to hit multiple target at once

So for single ranger you have high accuracy from Marksman, Marked the Prey, Flanking from Pets, Stalker's Link, wounding lash from wounding shots and ability to hit multiple targets by driving flight and later twin shots. 

 

So you need to increase your basic damage, raise your attack speed and get some lash somewhere. Monk, Paladin, Rogue and Ciphers are all good choice imo. 

 

Not sure if multiclass ranger can get twin shots or not, it seems in beta4 logs it is moved to PL8 so it is not accessible to multiclass...

Edited April 13, 20187 yr by dunehunter

Don't forget Marksman (low lvl ranger passive).

Cheers! If Twin Shot is single class only that'd probably persuade me to stick with single, at least for my first playthrough. I've never considered mixing monk or paladin with ranger, I'll mess around with that combo in the beta and see what I come up with

Barbaric blow is clearly too expensive.

 

With old carnage at 66 %. Yes you can put 2 Power source.

 

Here this is not the case.

I've been wondering the same thing as Arravin. To build onto his post, what if I want to build a ranged DPS ranger who specialises in punching through armor?

 

I'm theorycrafting an all-mercenaries party playthrough, and the designated melee DPS in that part is a DW Sabres Berserker/Devoted. But this naturally means this Brute has no Piercing damage to speak of, and would find enemies in heavy armor a poor matchup; thus, the need for the Ranger to cover the armor-piercing role. It also means I don't really need to maximize DPS for this Ranger; speccing for single-target is fine, as long as he has the Penetration to deal with even plate armor.

 

Any ideas? The best I can come up with was to give the Ranger proficiency in War Bows, and multiclass with a Chanter of some sort (probably Beckoner to make him double as a minion master) for Sure-Handed Ila.

The Berserker/Devoted would have +2 PEN from Devoted and +2 from sabre modal. Even +2 from Tenacious if he's a Berserker. I can't see a lot of armor that can't be penetrated with that.

 

Anyway: a ranger with arquebus can pierce very well. Not because he has great PEN per se (also true ), but because Accurate Wounding Shot has +20 ACC and the arquebus modal has +20 ACC as well. As a Sharpshooter you can add +2 PEN from near and even more ACC from afar. Crits give you 1.5 times PEN - and it's very hard to not crit with such a setup.

 

And then there's the war bow with the modal that gives +2 PEN.

 

Another alternative is a Sharpshooter with dual scepters + modal. +4 PEN is cool. Great for woundig shots as well.

 

Add +2 with yet another Devoted multiclass part. That would also balance out the self damage from scepters with Constant Recovery.

weapon and tenacious don't stack. But yeah, already enough for the major part of the game.

Modal and Tenacious don't stack? Oops!

 

Well there you can see how often I use those +PEN/+Recovery modals.

Edited April 13, 20187 yr by Boeroer

Won't arquebus be too slow to actually matter in combat, seeing what melee can do? (and doesn't arbalest > arquebus?)

I was wondering about Ranger/(swash or fighter) in a dual pistol setup (we are in Deadfire after all!) to maintain steady DPS and some flexibility (not being stuck in reload/recovery forever).

But the recent changes to penetration put me off, I don't know if one can make a viable pistol build now.

Edited April 16, 20187 yr by Veevoir

Won't arquebus be too slow to actually matter in combat, seeing what melee can do? (and doesn't arbalest > arquebus?)

 

I was wondering about Ranger/(swash or fighter) in a dual pistol setup (we are in Deadfire after all!) to maintain steady DPS and some flexibility (not being stuck in reload/recovery forever).

 

But the recent changes to penetration put me off, I don't know if one can make a viable pistol build now.

 

If this is correct

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gsz3Hd_3HPs6RtE5YFTfSUzcPNRUY2h9yy733Jp5_50/edit#gid=0

arbalest isn't better than arquebus. But gun fanboys will cry a river anyway forcing Obsidian to nerf arbalest (again).

 

Nerd Commando did a viable pistol build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZV8i9AfOYM

Unless I'm missing something that spreadsheet has at least one error in it. It lists hunting bow as having higher damage than a war bow. Fair enough the hunting bow may have a higher dps, but I'm fairly sure they don't have higher base damage!

Unless I'm missing something that spreadsheet has at least one error in it. It lists hunting bow as having higher damage than a war bow. Fair enough the hunting bow may have a higher dps, but I'm fairly sure they don't have higher base damage!

 

 

I went through and took screenshots of everything, here's the screenshot for the hunting bow:

 

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2435760853731766319/9A6A0F42A20F8F851569B018A31A111B84B56588/

 

Here's the screenshot for war bow:

 

https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2435760853731767001/D98C513B71B708525BFE9057966FA3B14C7D3520/

 

same character, base 10 might?  Maybe it's an error in the game files, or maybe there's something I missed. More likely though it's that War Bow has higher penetration, whereas hunting bow has low pen but higher damage -- like GS vs the Estoc.

 

Won't arquebus be too slow to actually matter in combat, seeing what melee can do? (and doesn't arbalest > arquebus?)

 

I was wondering about Ranger/(swash or fighter) in a dual pistol setup (we are in Deadfire after all!) to maintain steady DPS and some flexibility (not being stuck in reload/recovery forever).

 

But the recent changes to penetration put me off, I don't know if one can make a viable pistol build now.

 

If this is correct

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gsz3Hd_3HPs6RtE5YFTfSUzcPNRUY2h9yy733Jp5_50/edit#gid=0

arbalest isn't better than arquebus. But gun fanboys will cry a river anyway forcing Obsidian to nerf arbalest (again).

 

Nerd Commando did a viable pistol build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZV8i9AfOYM

 

That video is two hours   So what class combo did he choose in the end? Pure devoted like in beginning?

 

 

Won't arquebus be too slow to actually matter in combat, seeing what melee can do? (and doesn't arbalest > arquebus?)

 

I was wondering about Ranger/(swash or fighter) in a dual pistol setup (we are in Deadfire after all!) to maintain steady DPS and some flexibility (not being stuck in reload/recovery forever).

 

But the recent changes to penetration put me off, I don't know if one can make a viable pistol build now.

 

If this is correct

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gsz3Hd_3HPs6RtE5YFTfSUzcPNRUY2h9yy733Jp5_50/edit#gid=0

arbalest isn't better than arquebus. But gun fanboys will cry a river anyway forcing Obsidian to nerf arbalest (again).

 

Nerd Commando did a viable pistol build:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZV8i9AfOYM

 

That video is two hours   So what class combo did he choose in the end? Pure devoted like in beginning?

 

 

Yes.