Yeah ik, im not worried, im just curious lol
Fletcher with optimal 4 supports will outdamage all comps, vs bosses which do not move around a lot.
SR with optimal supports will be 2nd, if you manage to use Retreat shot well. Depends too on which SR build you use, for QS3SR builds it is all about whether the Running shot + retreat shot combination will be removed after the patch.
Edit: If you have a dedicated anti-magic circlc/magic arrow 2nd party (or more) with a lot of Thaumaturge 2 or Sapper to reversi the fletcher magic arrows or Detonate traps the magic arrows then you will win easily.
How do you deal with manadrain and removal of ground effects on a fletcher? )
Kabbalist Ein Sof as emergency mana pot. There is not a lot you are able to do vs removal of ground effects, however more ways exist to bring the WB battle into your favour. For example try to get several psychokinos to swap and move the boss to another location to reduce other party dps if they rely on specific locations (retreat shot against the wall, krivis melstis cannot move).
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Demon lords aren’t competitive. Survivability and having multiple DPS across all parties to kill it in a timely fashion is all that matters. Only 1~3 parties show up to them at most, so usually everyone knows each other and will arrange it so that everyone gets a cube. This might only apply to the less populated servers such as orsha/klaipeda.
-You want multiple Fletchers across all parties, as they are the highest DPS by far. The strongest ones will likely be the one to tank the boss and keep it still for the duration of the fight, even if there are swordsmen present. Their survivability is most important for a smooth kill.
-Cleric 2 Priest 3 Krivis Kabbalist is the ideal healer, but as long as every party has at least one cleric 2 it should be fine.
-Chronomancer 3 is all you really need for a secondary support.
-It’s good if at least one party has a swordsman that can keep the boss still in case the present DPS have a low survival rate (low dex or no priest in party) or don’t have damage high enough to be able outdo swordsman’s provoke attribute.
All other spots should be filled with DPS. In case the main DPS disconnects or crashes, you want multiple people capable of securing the cube. Other fletchers, SR or elementalists are the common choices, but depending on how many DPS are actually present anything that can deal damage is welcome.
All the above is for semi-private demon lords fights however. Public demon lord fights such as those that are shouted and visited by lots of random/inexperienced people will generally take 4x longer because a random QS3 will likely get aggro immediately and then run all around the map like a headless chicken and none of the other DPS classes will be able to do any damage or get the aggro back.
Removal of ground effects doesn’t really matter for a fletcher. You just drop another magic arrow as soon as it’s up and you’re good. In the case of Rexipher, the ground spell removal is actually a good thing because it’s always casted before Reflect Shield so you will never kill yourself to a magic arrow.
Mana drain is only present for Rexipher. You deal with it by bringing 100 SP potions, chronomancer’s pass to use SP potions sooner, campfire if you are not the one with aggro, and kabbalists if there are any.
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Wow do you really just kill it with pots? I mean, I’m a swordie and even lvl 5 condensed will restore full sp almost instantly and I have no problem with buying those en masse, but mana’s being drained so fast (is it percentage drain or not?) on Rexi… I also thought it was even worse for fletchers.
Fletchers don’t have it that bad.
Most of the DPS comes from magic arrow, which is a deployed skill. You only need enough SP to cast it, and then you’re good for 5 seconds.
With well timed SP pot use/ein sof/pass, you can unleash full rotations for even greater DPS, but a lot of the time you can just use natural sp regen/campfire/sitting, etc to get off just magic arrow and buffs.
Fletchers that don’t hold the boss aggro have it easier and can just stay outside of the SP drain range, drop a magic arrow, run out and repeat for the whole fight. It’s the advantage of having most of your damage come from a deployed skill.
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An SR2 with a proper party will out-damage a Fletcher with absolute certainty. It requires the SR2 to have Melstis along with someone actively casting either Lethargy or High Kick on the boss. With those conditions met, there is no chance for a Fletcher to compete (though they will likely still cube, since not that many DPS characters go to Demon Lord fights at the moment).
This is the case in all content in the game. Whereas SR2 gains benefits from High Kick and Lethargy for massive strike bonuses, there is nothing in the game that will allow Magic Arrow to do more damage than it does inherently with the exception of Decay, which also affects Retreat Shot (this is actually false, and corrected later on in the topic discussion).
When neither conditions are met (Lethargy or High Kick) Fletcher will out-damage SR2. Melstis is mandatory to do it as well in all scenarios, due to the downtime of Retreat Shot.
In the case of Rexipher, the match-up depends on the boss’ position. If they can set up Melstis outside the SP drain range, SR2 will win again. If it’s not feasible to set up Melstis outside the SP drain range, Fletcher will likely out-damage.
For arbitrary numbers, a strong Fletcher will probably hit 10-20K damage per tick on Magic Arrow vs. flying. A strong SR2 with mentioned supports should hit from upwards of 35K per tick vs. flying Demon Lord
For arbitrary numbers, a strong Fletcher will probably hit 10-20K damage per tick on Magic Arrow. A strong SR2 with mentioned supports should hit from 20-40K per tick.
I’ve never seen the melstis strategy in action at a demon boss since there are very few players who play krivis 3, but have to keep in mind that at least 2/4 of the bosses are both flying and cloth, which is a deadly combination for fletcher and it means you’re non-stop getting 30~40k barbed shots on top of those very fast magic arrow tics and other dots.
This is true, yes. Mirtis and Helgasercle allow for a fairly strong Barbed Arrow. Rexipher is ghost, and therefore cannot be affected by Barbed Arrow. Marnox is leather, so you get a noticeably weaker Barbed Arrow since the third hit is twice as strong as the second hit as far as bonus damage goes.
The issue is that in the case of all Fletcher skills, there’s a bit of a start-up animation that adds up over a long period of time whereas there is no delay with a Melstis Retreat Shot interaction. It’s just non-stop damage.
so you get a noticeably weaker Barbed Arrow since the third hit is twice as strong as the second hit as far as bonus damage goes.
This is false, barbed is just visually divided. It’s actually 1 single hit that can do either 300%, 200% or 100% damage (or miss) depending on armor type. Barbed on leather is still very good.
And while there are animation delays to each action, after the initial 5 seconds when magic arrows, broadhead dots, flare shot, barbed, and dma explosions start stacking up on each other the DPS spikes up and keeps up constantly as long as the boss is not being moved.
Rexipher is rexipher, and very situational in party setups/location and can go either way. Ultimately, demon lords are not competitive in the slightest (currently) and so really all that matters is which kind of DPS can deal the most consistent uninterrupted damage while keeping the chaos to a minimum for the rest of the DPS in all the parties involved.
Is this certain? Every time I have ever seen Barbed Arrow operate, I’ve seen the first hit deal 100%, the second hit deal around 33% of the first, and the third hit around 55% of the first. This was also how it operated the last I personally played Fletcher in kTOS. Unless the initial hit itself is what’s being modified by the armor type. I’d be happy to be corrected on this, since the unusual visual for the damage always threw me off.
I count the animation time too much against Fletcher in a long term fight like these as well as the need to maintain Magic Arrow’s damage every few seconds in light of it. I’m biased against SR2’s damage in the capacity that I’ve seen it, I suppose. 70’000-105’000 (2-3 hits per second) DPS for an hour straight with nearly no pause is feasible with a proper SR2 comp, sans Decay.
Edit: I had to change a few numbers here and there, after confirming with my SR2 teammate. He hits between 20-25K against enemies that are afflicted by both Lethargy (+100%) and Frozen (+50%) in ET with Retreat Shot, grounded mobs. I figure it’s not far-fetched to believe that the number would climb to upwards of 35K on flying with the +100% flying attribute as well as +100% additional damage from High Kick but minus the 50% from Frozen since world bosses cannot be Frozen.
I’ve seen the first hit deal 100%, the second hit deal around 33% of the first, and the third hit around 55% of the first.
The distribution is fairly random, but it’s mostly visual. If you actually add up the three lines that you deal on a cloth target, you’ll get ~3x the damage that you would deal on a plate target.
For example, if you do ~15k on a plate infroroctor:
You will do ~3x as much on a cloth hanaming:
If I went to quickly do a barbed or two on a leather enemy I would get around 2x as much as I did on the plate enemy as well, and the lines would just visually distribute randomly to add up to it.
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I see, that’s a bit odd how it distributes the damage. Thanks for the correction!
No problem!
Also, I forgot but:
there is nothing in the game that will allow Magic Arrow to do more damage than it does inherently
Actually, all Fletcher skills are considered pierce damage just like some SR skills are considered strike. For example, Spear Lunge will massively boost magic arrow and other fletcher skill damage as well as other pierce debuffs.
Ah, you are correct. I did not bother to check the hidden modifier for Fletcher skills. That does change things up a bit. I’m still unsure what will win out long term in terms of skill delay and Magic Arrow maintenance vs. non-stop Retreat Shot, but that surely does even things up a lot.
I question how R8 will affect this in light of R8 classes for a Fletcher build vs. SR3. But that remains to be seen.
Edit: We’re talking about this in the guild now. I had forgotten about Slithering (+50% strike bonus, 50% upkeep) and Double Punch (30% strike bonus, 100% upkeep). Strike just has so many modifiers in the game at the moment, it’s unwieldy.
I figure it’s not far-fetched to believe that the number would climb to upwards of 35K on flying with the +100% flying attribute
As of today’s patch, I am told that you can no longer use auto-swap trick to get the 2h bow attribute damage for Retreat Shot.
Any debuff upkeep shouldn’t be a problem if you bring a Pardoner to Discern Evil extend the debuffs on the boss, unless someone decides to overwrite.
All missile attacks are Missile + Pierce, except Schwarzer Reiter Concentrated Fire, Caracole, Limacon, and Retreat Shot. Those are Missile + Strike. I haven’t seen Missile + Slash yet.
Since you guys WB a lot, I wonder if they removed the Decay effect being applicable on Marnox. Decay HP decrease + extra missile damage was very interesting.
Edit: Vs a flying boss, have a Hunter use Snatching with the attribute on it. It will drop to the ground and receive +100% Slash and Strike damage.
Edit2: even on non-flying bosses, have a rogue capture Psychokino Raise. Then use it on the boss since captured raise works on bosses. Apply snatching.
A lot about fletcher vs Black rider here.
Anyone considered gimmick capture rogue for worldbosses?(disregarding your skills being destroyed or reversed).
Related thread: The most broken combo in the entire game
The thread shows stacking broom traps (Strike damage). However I would suggest Cure (preferably lvl 16 Cure) stack since capturing Cure and using it will turn it into physical damage (and it can crit).