Marksmanship trait line question
Predators affects both ranged and melee damage. The longbow is used only as a part of the rotation, as in you will use barrage and rapid fire and then swap to the sword. There are very few fights where you would use ranged only. And then you can swap to LtW if you like.
A bonus to Predators is that it also increases your pets damage, so it comes out on top even in ranged fights.
The vast majority of damage from longbow comes from rapid fire and barrage. The auto attack damage is incredibly low when you are stacking and you want to minimize the amount of time spent camping longbow for that reason. The 10% increased attack speed does not allow you to cast anymore rapid fires or barrages between weapon swap, so it only increases the damage of your auto attacks, whereas Predator’s Onslaught is a damage modifier for all the longbow skills, plus it also works for S/A.
I rarely play ranged only (certain bosses) and try to minimize usage with LB auto attack, but still being able to cast even one Rapid Fire when team is stacking on 5 mobs instead of 1 will average on 60k~ total damage instead of 12k~ per skill usage.. doesn’t the Rapid Fire insane damage addition cover for the lost 10% on melee/pet?
Lead the Wind also reduces LB recharges, meaning you can spike (switch to lb → rapid fire → barrage → rapid fire → switch to sword) more frequently when calculating the cd of barrage. I prefer LdW, just not because of this and the pierce, but also because I often realize that enemies aren’t always affected by movement impairing effects, even less in random groups.
So use it if you think it works.
Justine, I am using it when I think it works, I came here to ask this question because I thought I was missing on something, and I was because I didn’t take pet damage and the fact that I use melee more than range in stack situations into the calculation. So now ill start changing traits according to the encounter…
Anyway, I got my answer, thanks for the help everyone!
If you intend to camp longbow then LtW is definitely much better. 20% cooldown means you have access to skills more frequently which translates to higher dps.
LtW is vastly superior, even if you significantly weapons swap, and it’s not even close. It’s nice to hear that most rangers have finally learned the value of S/A as the premium alt power set to LB though; I’ve been running that ever since I first made a pure power ranger a few years ago, and it’s only been the last few months that I’ve seen a significant number of players use axe offhand. Vulnerability stacks, reflection, and the biggest single attack (Path of Scars) available to the Ranger. Great stuff.
against trash you mainly do barrage then cleave with sword (sword cleave is much more reliable then piercing). Trash also dies very quickly to meta comps, minor increases in dps are unnoticable. Most dungeon/fractal bosses are single target, piercing is useless. Dmg modifiers are awesome, pet get it too and condition is easily met – sword AA and barrage from ranger alone. Some other builds will help too. In general PO will do more dmg against single target bosses. But its easy to swap out if you plan to range the boss more or encounters with 2 or more boss targets or boss+veteran trash or boss+structures. Its 2-clicks, no reason not to make use of it.
(edited by Stilgar.6437)