Due to the nature of the powerful stats/grandmaster traits of the Marksmanship tree, all Rangers (save support nonsense) need to dig into this tree. The passive line giving you and your pet Opening Strikes does not work as advertised.
Opening Strikes’s Vulnerability portion only works within 900 range. You can easily test this with the longbow’s long range shot at max range, and then at 900 range (swap to an axe and stand max distance). Also, Opening Strike’s Vulnerability portion does not work with ground targetable traps or certain weapon abilities.
I also noticed that opening strike does not stack with Hunter’s Shot (#3 longbow) if used at the same time. If you use Hunter’s Shot for the 10 vulnerability stacks at the same time you have opening strike, you should apply 15 stacks of vulnerability, but you only ever get 10. On the other hand, if I allow myself to shoot off an auto-attack shot first, it applies the opening strike 5 vulnerability, and then follow it with Hunter’s Shot. I get 15 stacks.
Broken?
On top of all that. The Pet’s opening strike doesn’t proc unless the pet initiates combat before the ranger. To get all 20 stacks of vulnerability, you have to let your pet attack first, then auto-attack once, then Hunter’s Shot.
Broken moar?
Phantasmal Fate
Mesmer
Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts (MMAC)
I share the same problems. I use a shortbow and no matter what I open with (1, 4, 5) it never applies vulnerability to the target. Every once and a while I will see it but its maybe once out of 50 kills.
Whats even more odd, is that sometimes it stacks 3-4 bleeds on the target with the first hit instead of vulnerability.
All of you need to try those weapon abilities again within 900 range. Easy to test in the Mists. I know for a fact a few abilities mentioned does indeed proc the vulnerability.
As I can’t test it right now as I’m not home. Can you get your pet’s opening strike to proc with yours and hunter’s shot?
For whatever reason my pet kept on having issues landing an opening strike. Out of maybe 10 minutes of attempts, I got 20 stacks one time with a pig. Not sure if Opening Strikes has an internal cooldown that we can’t see for pets or what.
Ya… I had the exact same issue. Once in a blue moon, I would see the 5 stacks of vulnerability applied by my pet, but that was always when I hadn’t stacked my own hunter’s shot or opening strike.
I hope they look into it and make it more solid, as well as apply our vulnerabilities to our 1500 range with Longbow (traited).
Phantasmal Fate
Mesmer
Mixed Martial Arts and Crafts (MMAC)
Yeah I like to stay at max range with my Longbow traited to 1500, this explains why Opening Strike never procs for me, also have probs with Alpha strike never procing
Yeah I was very disappointed when I discovered this. I initially invested in Marksmanship to make a longbow build with a lot of damage and vulnerability. I really hope this gets fixed in a future update.
First of all it’s rly stupid that it have limited range when it affects only the first shot when we enter combat. We are rangers we shoot arrows far away hello ?
2nd even at closer range it does not apply the condition always just did some tests and once per 3-4 shots it doesn’t trigger the effect.
Not to mention, that even when it will work as (hopefully) intended, it is still weakest minor trait line ever. In any serious fight (dungeons, bosses, PvP) going out of combat does not happen to often. And when it happens we get 5 stack of vulnerability? Seriously? I can point stronger effects that happens every time character makes a dodge..
I think opening strikes is powerful when its not bugged… Especially when you take into account the tree it’s in… As for the whole it’s useless in boss fight nonsense, just take the trait where you get it refreshed on kills, because that makes it quite a bit better…
They sing dark, delicious notes about power and family.
As their mother, I have to grant them their wish. – Forever Fyonna
As for the whole it’s useless in boss fight nonsense, just take the trait where you get it refreshed on kills, because that makes it quite a bit better…
Seriously?
You say this can work, when I will invest another grandmaster trait in this?
Instead of Piercing Arrows?
Or 5% permanent Longbow damage bonus?
Well, possibly. But other master traits are much better.
For comparison, Thief minor traits in power line:
- Stealing applies 10s poison
- Every poison applies 3s weakness
- 10% damage bonus if my target have a condition. (that would be 90% of the time)
And Ranger have 5 voulnerability stacks once per fight
And another 5 voulnerability stacks once per fight
And 1 guaranteed crit once per fight. Great. I have 60% crit chance anyway, and no really strong attacks to use use guaranteed crit on it (aka eviscerate or backstab).
Those three should be combined into two traits. Spotter would make a great minor trait. It is cool, but there are too many “must have” master traits in this line to consider it.
opening strike has a higher dmg than auto attack. currently, OS does about 500 more crit dmg than my normal crits. i have also noticed OS’s vulnerability doesn’t proc if my crit’s chance to bleed goes off first.
Hey, I agree with these reports, opening strike seems to apply randomly when pets are involved, and I still have to check if the “always crits” is working.
I’d like to add another issue (I haven’t found this reported in this thread or here, when testing traits in PvP I noticed that when maxing the Markmanship and choosing “Remorseless”, opening strike does not reset when making a kill, and switching to the next target; I regained opening strike only when going out of combat and in again, as in the lower part of the trait branch.
I think that with these issues fixed opening strike is a great trait, I hope then can look into it!
It worked for me on a few mobs not too long ago for the first time. I had no clue how I was getting vulnerability on the mobs. I was trying to look through all my abilities and never could find out. Sometimes 5 stacks then sometimes 10 stacks. It stopped after a while so I figured it wasn’t anything important. It wasn’t until after I read this thread that I figured out why I got vulnerability stacks lol. Thanks for the update =D
I found this thread searching for tips as to why opening strike seemed to take effect so randomly. I would clearly see the opening strike is active icon present, throw an axe at the enemy, and it seemed like vulnerability would only be applied half the time. I see from some posts above that possibly range is the issue (900) but if that’s so, I’d propose that this be clearly listed in the trait description. Honestly though as others have noted, there really should not be a range limitation on opening strike.
Has this been fixed yet? I just finished testing Precise Strike. This is the trait that is supposed to give Opening Strike a 100% chance to crit. It does not appear to be working at any range with Shortbow or Longbow.
From my tests earlier, these traits do work now. If you don’t have remorseless, you need to get out of combat to apply opening strikes again to a new target. All in all, a decent trait vs pve trash IF you also have remorseless. At all other times, these are rather useless traits because of the limitations, and are in a dire need of an overhaul.
I made a suggestion in some other thread that you should regain opening strikes on pet swap as well, would be a nice improvement compared to current state.
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) need to dig into this tree. The passive line giving you and your pet Opening Strikes does not work as advertised.