One Shot, One Kill (A Comprehensive Ranger Guide/Discussion)

[merchat7]

From my calculations, AIS rifle is only about 1% weaker than Austere, and 1% stronger if you use crit ring (vs Austere & P. Keeper).

This is mainly due to variance (95% damage on average, so crit gives 5% damage boost), with the AIS pot, you get 12% damage on crit + boost to crit rate.

Also, if you play Ra/Hu, you have a lot of spare skill points in Hu tree, allowing you to take fury stance critical. With it maxed, you get about ~4% more damage than Austere.

Finally, if there is a Bouncer with Critical Field, or a techer who took Shifta Crit, you can do almost ~10% higher damage than Austere.

The main question really is how noticeable the pp regen reduction is.

[Flaoc]

launcher is just get orbit (seriously just do it) but with rifle it depends if you already own austere or not.. even with those caluclations above austere is 100% consistent and austere doesnt require a silly ranger crit build

[Kole]

Ooh, Ranger PAs question - which other Rifle PAs and Launcher PAs are useful? Currently I only use:

Rifle - Sneak Shooter, One Point, Diffuse Shell, Satellite Cannon, End Attraction
Launcher - Zero Distance, Divine Launcher, Cosmo Breaker (and Sphere Eraser just because it's 17 somehow)

Also LF> good Gunslash PAs cause I wanna start using one.

[Evangelion X.XX]

Other PAs to consider:

All Rifle PAs have their usage, but I think the main ones you should also include on your weapon palette aside from the ones you mentioned are: Impact Slider, Parallel Slider, & and maybe Glory Rain.

For Launcher, you should also include Cluster Bullet.

Good Gunslash PAs for Ranger:

Additional Bullet (For SH mobs),

(シュトレツヴァイ) Shutoretsuvai (not sure of the English spelling since not using English Patch, but its the one where your character does a quick-lightning-360-atk),

Kreisenschlag (you can even use this to mob clustered packs of Goldrahs in TDs) , and maybe Thrillplosion.

Edit:

Oh yeah, if you haven't, make sure you absolutely craft Divine Launcher... it's godly.

[Selphea]

Honorable mention to Ein Raketen too. It's like a shorter Add Bullet but with crowd control and higher damage.

[Kole]

Other PAs to consider:

All Rifle PAs have their usage, but I think the main ones you should also include on your weapon palette aside from the ones you mentioned are: Impact Slider, Parallel Slider, & and maybe Glory Rain.

For Launcher, you should also include Cluster Bullet.

Good Gunslash PAs for Ranger:

Additional Bullet (For SH mobs),

(シュトレツヴァイ) Shutoretsuvai (not sure of the English spelling since not using English Patch, but its the one where your character does a quick-lightning-360-atk),

Kreisenschlag (you can even use this to mob clustered packs of Goldrahs in TDs) , and maybe Thrillplosion.

Edit:

Oh yeah, if you haven't, make sure you absolutely craft Divine Launcher... it's godly.

And how are those ones used?

[HentaiLolicon]

Add Piercing Shell, i use that as starter for EA
Flame Bullet is pretty good now 60k/tick on WB with orbit

[Evangelion X.XX]

Impact Slider: to close in on enemies, good & fast damage.

Parallel Slider: use it to evade or gain distance from enemies. Note, you can use it to travel not just backwards, but from side to side as well.

*If you use Impact Slider in conjunction with Parallel Slider, it's pretty cheap, and you can cheese many enemies, including the Banther bosses.

For Glory Rain to work, you have to spam it repeatedly, preferably when you are in the air so you don't get hit, on top of a cluster of mobs. You can an also spam it on stunned bosses, but during those times, EndAtt or SatCan works better.

I think in all probability, you're already using TPS Mode (default Z button on keyboard; the mode where you see a cross-hair in the center of the screen), but just in case you haven't already, it is essential that you get used to it for any ranged classes, including Ranger in order to hit weak points such as the head, or a shining red core.

That said, Diffuse Shell/End Attract works best in TPS Mode, and more often than not, SatCan as well.

To use Launcher effectively, you must always be in TPS Mode.

For Cluster Bullet, use TPS mode and be at mid-range to mobs, aim above enemies heads for headshots.

Crafted Divine Launcher works at an range, far, mid, close: aim at the ground for AoE and not directly at enemies.

Cosmos Break to the ground in TPS Mode if enemies are on your tail.

To use Additional Bullet effectively, you must absolutely be in TPS Mode; you may or may not do it while jumping to make it easier to get head shots.

For シュトレツヴァイ(Shutoretsuvai), just use it, you don't have to be in TPS Mode; use it when mobs are right on your tail.

For Kreisenschlag, you have the option of using it in TPS mode (it's not totally necessary), it's a close-ranged mobbing PA, same with Thrillplosion.

Here's a Caveat, though, Gunslash is relatively weak in XH/Ult so don't use it there; rather use it in SH to quickly clear Dailies, TAs. You can get away with spamming Kreisenschlag, however, in XH, but I'm sure there are better options depending on the situation.

And also, Launcher is your primary mobbing weapon, and does an excellent job at it; don't be that guy who thinks Launchers suck, and just use Rifle only.

[Kole]

Ah, I see - I mainly DON'T use TPS mode though (lazy) cept for magatsu. I usually use diffuse shell for mobbing on the move and zero distance when mobs don't move as much (and both because of their weakpoint priority) and End Attract spams when there's not enough time to use divine or sphere.

Definitely thanks for the gunslash tip though. (also, can't wait for the new PA customizes)

[Ordy]

statwise they're just below Austre, but potential-wise...it depends on your crit rate - for example if your crit rate is say...45% and you're using teh critical strike ring then on avg you'll get a 10%+[(7%+3%)X.45]=14.5% damage buff (on average) - still lower than austre + perfect keeper, but pretty damn close. (and if somehow you can get a higher crit rate, the damage goes up too)

The critical damage are multiplicative to the 10% base, not additive. So at level3 you get 10%*7% = 17.7% critical damage (without the ring). Didn't check the last comments on swiki, but I can't find any confirmation that the 7% CD performance applies to the Critical Strike Ring.

With your average 45% CR, it'd be 1.1*0.55 + 1.17*1.03*0.45 = 13.46% average damage
add the 3% Critical Strike ring: (1+0.03*0.45)*1.1346 = 14.9968% average damage

This is mainly due to variance (95% damage on average, so crit gives 5% damage boost), with the AIS pot, you get 12% damage on crit + boost to crit rate.

Also, if you play Ra/Hu, you have a lot of spare skill points in Hu tree, allowing you to take fury stance critical. With it maxed, you get about ~4% more damage than Austere.

Finally, if there is a Bouncer with Critical Field, or a techer who took Shifta Crit, you can do almost ~10% higher damage than Austere.

The main question really is how noticeable the pp regen reduction is.

I don't think you can get 10% higher damage than Austere even using a 99% CR. I did the calculation with various settings, here is what I get:

Spoiler!

63% CR is 5% base+13% AIS potential+25% Fury+20% Ring
Keep in mind that AIS Rifle +30 is like 50 less R-ATK than AIS+35, AIS+30 AVG damage are actually lower than Austere, even with Fury and CS ring.

Of course, all weapons in the calc have the same user stats/affix/elem, are hitting the same XH tier mob, using charged sat cannon power/5.

The main question really is how noticeable the pp regen reduction is.

It's like a "complete shit" kind of bad:



1. AIS PP regen
2. Regular PP regen
3. Orbit PP regen