@satomitakashi For 3:1 Str/Dex planning to go F3, I think for sure A2 instead of A3 would be more reasonable. Going A3 for Twin Arrows when A2 already provides Heavy Shot, lvl 10 Swift Step for 25% crit chance/full up-time, and lvl 5 KS, is a waste of a circle since Fletcher skills far out-damage Twin Arrows. The difference between lvl 5 KS and lvl 10 KS is negligible as well since it stacks additively rather than multiplicatively. Rank 5 KS formula comes out to Phys+(15+Dex), whereas lvl 10 comes out to Phys+(52+Dex). Assuming 250 Dex and 900 phys for arbitrary numbers, the difference between lvl 5 and lvl 10 is only 37 total dmg, with +23 range and +292 attack speed. Though since we’re assuming F3 rank 7, skill spamming is your forte rather than auto attacking, so again we’ll ignore the range and attack speed for now.
TL;DR A2 with a 3:1 Str/Dex distribution planning for F3 is for lvl 10 Swift Step with the 25% crit rate to make up for low crit rate, lvl 10 Multi, and lvl 5 Heavy. Going A3 is a waste. Since I had already gone 3:1 Str/Dex R3, re-speccing to full Dex made more sense.
As for R3, I feel it was worth it for me because lvl 15 Barrage with lvl 50 attribute dmg is still one of my go-to’s. It hits in a wide cone, drawing bigger aggro and doing lots of dmg for a relatively low SP cost with 3 overheat, whereas Xfire only hits in that cross, and Magic Arrow is a tiny AoE. Don’t get me wrong, MA is still my highest dmging spell, but for solo mobbing, the rotation is Bounce/Oblique to draw aggro, Steady Aim, put down an MA where the melee mobs will be grouped once they reach you, then 3x Barrage. That takes care of most groups of 8+ in 4 dmg spells. In a dungeon/party setting where you have Pelts and Linkers to group mobs into a tiny circle, MA will be your bread and butter, but Barrage afterwards is less SP intensive than maxed Xfire that has 0 cd, and is easily spammable to blow your whole SP bar. Don’t get me wrong, Xfire it still great, just easy to burn out on.
The other notable skill from R3, Spiral Arrow, is immensely useful for single target with 6 hits, the potential crit dmg can go up to 60k+ for me right now at 226. Ghosts that are immmune to Barbed, and mobs with plate armor, which only take 1 shot instead of 2-3 with leather/cloth mobs, go down to Spiral Shot almost immediately. As for lvl 15 Steady Aim, the nerf we got to it in iToS is heavy, reducing it’s duration to 10 seconds from 20, but is incredibly useful for high burst when I do have it available. Because I have low base dmg with no str and full dex, +20% total attack is more useful to me than the 25% crit from A2, whereas the opposite is true of more str prioritized builds.
@Reilet I guess I came off as defensive since I perceived your comment as condescending, as if I didn’t know any better. But I get what you mean when people don’t think critically for themselves and take anything they see in a spreadsheet as law.