Rain of Arrows needs buff

[bartwart]

I've run a Arch blaster up to 50 and now I'm leveling an nrg/ up to 50, and the differences in their nuke couldn't be more stark.  Back on live, Rain of Arrows had a longer cast time, but no crash, which was thought to balance it considering other nukes crashed.  Now that no nukes crash, Rain of Arrows' long cast time needs to be shortened...a lot, to bring it in line with the other nuke powers that don't crash.

[Hedgefund]

ROA's animation time was halved in a recent patch.

 

 

Specifically:

Rain of Arrows animation has been reduced from 4 to 2 seconds. Base recharge time has been increased 5 seconds to compensate.

[Neogumbercules]

Hijacking this a bit to suggest Full Auto receive the same treatment. 

[TheAdjustor]

I agree and disagree. You are absolutely right the whole set was balanced around that one power and the idea it was one of two non crashing nukes in the game.  The set has very poor single target damage, the most resisted type of damage in the game and a secondary effect that might as well not be there.  Rain of arrows however have multiple problems that aren't just the cast.

 

The nuke has no seconday effects of its own and doesn't properly benefit from procs because it's a reticle power without an actual target and a pseudopet. I am not even certain that it properly gives you credit in terms of contributing to kills. The cast time isn't so bad, but it has a delay after casting before it starts to tic which is also a problem. 

 

Just an example if you have eagle eye active, only the first tick if any will get the accuracy buff.

[Razor Cure]

The whole set is pretty meh. It needs something..maybe bleed (lethal) dot's on teh attacks? It is just so weak on anything but a blaster. And totally agree about RoA. Its sooooooooooooo slow. Sure, the range is nice, but it takes forever!

[ZorkNemesis]

My only real issue with RoA is simply that the act of "placing" RoA aggros the enemies before the first tic of damage if they're not already engaged.  Since I use RoA as an alpha strike, i'd prefer this not be the case as many enemies are capable of getting out of the way and avoiding one or all of the damage tics, especially if they are fast and lacking in ranged attacks or are out of range since I also run Boost Range at all times (claw Vanguard Rangers in Gaussian's story arc are a particularly bad offender).

[Mr. Vee]

Using it as alpha with explosive arrow (with kb to kd IO) following it up will help that as the explosive arrow will actually hit first and knock them on their butts for the rain. I've also not noticed anyone running out when I use it from out of line of sight, but me not noticing doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

[Rathulfr]

4 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

My only real issue with RoA is simply that the act of "placing" RoA aggros the enemies before the first tic of damage if they're not already engaged.  Since I use RoA as an alpha strike, i'd prefer this not be the case as many enemies are capable of getting out of the way and avoiding one or all of the damage tics, especially if they are fast and lacking in ranged attacks or are out of range since I also run Boost Range at all times (claw Vanguard Rangers in Gaussian's story arc are a particularly bad offender).

/macro RoA powexec_location target Rain of Arrows

[MunkiLord]

What does this macro do exactly?

[TheAdjustor]

9 minutes ago, MunkiLord said:

What does this macro do exactly?

It turns RoA from a ground targeted AoE to a targeted AoE. Pick your enemy click the macro and RoA drops on top of him.

[MunkiLord]

Interesting, I'm going to check this out!

[ZorkNemesis]

4 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

Using it as alpha with explosive arrow (with kb to kd IO) following it up will help that as the explosive arrow will actually hit first and knock them on their butts for the rain. 

 

I already do this, but I also don't like to do this as with the recent snipe changes, you can use Ranged Shot and get the slow snipe bonus just after dropping RoA.  If there's a boss in the group I generally follow up my RoA with a snipe on the boss for the full 4.5x damage.

[Mr. Vee]

Neat trick, definitely situations I'll use that.

 

also re the macro - if you bind the command to the slot location of your RoA you get the targeted AoE without having to monitor the original's recharge elsewhere like you do with the macro. So mine, e.g. is /bind alt+3 powexec_location target rain of arrows