Tactical Arrow

[Aisynia]

So, what are the must take powers? Are there any that are mediocre or that are normally skipped? what's the general consensus on the set?

 

Please feel free to answer these questions or just wax on about anything Tactical Arrow related.

 

There aren't a lot of modern discussions on the set, they're all like 3 years old, so I figured I would get one started.

[Mezmera]

Electrified Net Arrow, Upshot, Eagle Eye, Gymnastics are the must have powers in the set. 

 

ESD Arrow is a real great sapping arrow and does a little proc damage from hold sets.  Oil Slick Arrow is nice additional aoe damage, if you can set up a bind to place it 30ft in front of you its a great fire and forget dps uptick.  

 

Maybe Glue Arrow to keep enemies at bay.  Ice Arrow would be a real nice proc power if your primary powers lack ST oomph, which they shouldn't.  These are skippable if you find yourself needing to trim powers.  

 

Tactical Arrow is a very ranged play style with nice movement.  I'd pair it with something you see yourself wanting to blast from range with.  I like to hop onto my Arch/TA blaster at times to mix up my play a bit.  It's a fun set just accept it for what it is and maximize your ranged play.  

Edited August 31, 2022 by Mezmera

[SeraphimKensai]

glue arrow is a must have especially if your primary is a nuke like blizzard. Additionally OSA is always a must have, which pairs well with glue arrow as you want everyone stuck under the full magnitude of all the dots. Honestly even Flash Arrow has its uses especially if you want to be more tactical with how you draw mobs in.

 

Personally though as I think about it an Ice/TA blaster with Fold Space to bring mobs into a burning oil slick+blizzard sounds pretty epic.
 

[FUBARczar]

I would say that these are the absolutely necessary: Electrified Net Arrow, Upshot, Eagle Eye, & Gymnastics.

 

Oil Slick Arrow's potential damage would be a shame to miss.

 

Glue arrow is meh and only useful if soloing perhaps for control purposes, or similar reason.

 

Everything else is unnecessary.

[Bertg58]

I agree that those 4 are indispensable.

I have to add that Flash Arrow's debuff has saved me more than once when I get piled on by mobs, and it also helps when trying to sneak past groups as it doesn't trigger aggro. Situational I admit, but useful.

[BrandX]

Took everything in Tactical on my Archery/Tactical Blaster EXCEPT ESD Arrow.

 

Glue Arrow I use regularly with Explosive Arrow for my AOE (and of course Rain of Arrows), what I didn't take was Fist Full Of Arrows in the Primary.  There is of course Oil Slick Arrow.

 

Flash Arrow I don't use to often, but it's there for the set bonuses.

 

Ice Arrow for when I need a hold.

 

 

[Frozen Burn]

Archery/TA and I took them all and use them all.  Glue Arrow is one of my "must-haves" - slotted for damage/procs, it does pretty well and it helps keep mobs in your burning oil slick too.  ESD Arrow + plus Stunning Shot and bosses are out of the fight.  Ice Arrow for pesky Lts... so much good control and damage with TA.  😄 

 

Flash Arrow is a great debuff and you can click glowies right in front of a mob!

 

TA is not like some other blaster secondaries where there are obvious skippable powers.  All the powers in TA are useful and you can't go wrong picking any or all of them.  If you feel you must skip some for your specific build, then skip whatever doesn't fit your playstyle.  What's "must-have" for some doesn't necessarily match the "must-have" for others - case in point, glue arrow as discussed above.  🙂  

[FUBARczar]

Clarification:

What I was meaning, is outside of Electrified Net Arrow, Upshot, Eagle Eye, & Gymnastics, all others are up to prayer preferences.

 

my personal preference is just those 4 + Oil Slick.

[pawstruck]

Outsider question: What's so great about electrified net arrow?

[Uun]

19 minutes ago, pawstruck said:

Outsider question: What's so great about electrified net arrow?

It ignites Oil Slick. Other than that it's a pretty standard T1 immobilize. If you've got a primary that does fire or energy damage, you can skip it, but Glue Arrow is nothing to write home about.

[Frozen Burn]

On 10/14/2023 at 7:50 AM, pawstruck said:

Outsider question: What's so great about electrified net arrow?

 

In addition to igniting oil slick, it has -fly and slow to it.  So it can be handy to get those pesky fliers on the ground into your glue arrow and oil slick.  

 

And unlike Uun, I like Glue Arrow and slot it up for damage now that it does toxic damage.  It also helps keep foes in your burning oil patch and adds on extra damage.

[Uun]

14 hours ago, Frozen Burn said:

And unlike Uun, I like Glue Arrow and slot it up for damage now that it does toxic damage.  It also helps keep foes in your burning oil patch and adds on extra damage.

I have no problem with Glue Arrow. I was just saying that if you're looking to skip one of the T1 options, Glue Arrow isn't obviously superior to Electrified Net Arrow.

 

Glue Arrow does 2.78 points of damage every 1 second for 30 seconds, the same as Caltrops. (The slow is autohit but the damage is not.) The power is a 1-slot wonder as a slow, but I feel like most blasters have more efficient options for AoE damage. If you have the slots to spare and want to slot for damage, your best bet is slotting it with %dmg procs (and acc).

[Onlyasandwich]

3 hours ago, Uun said:

slotting it with %dmg procs (and acc).

Definitely the way to go!

 

Procced out it's a beast, and even out DPAs a lot of standard blaster aoes.

 

5 procs for 409 Damage on average and 1.16 second cast time is pretty outstanding. This leaves room for 1 Acc as well (or a handy Acc/end IO from Impeded Swiftness).

 

The aoe control is just extra sauce, though I find it extremely useful. The proccability definitely puts it above electrified net arrow in my book, though I will often take both for the reasons you noted, @Uun.

Edited October 16, 2023 by Onlyasandwich

[Frozen Burn]

4 hours ago, Uun said:

I have no problem with Glue Arrow. I was just saying that if you're looking to skip one of the T1 options, Glue Arrow isn't obviously superior to Electrified Net Arrow.

 

Glue Arrow does 2.78 points of damage every 1 second for 30 seconds, the same as Caltrops. (The slow is autohit but the damage is not.) The power is a 1-slot wonder as a slow, but I feel like most blasters have more efficient options for AoE damage. If you have the slots to spare and want to slot for damage, your best bet is slotting it with %dmg procs (and acc).

 

Yes, procs in glue arrow is great (as @Onlyasandwich mentions too.  And yes, there are more efficient AOE damage powers for blasters, but.... the primary benefit is the control to help keep mobs away from you and also keep them in your burning oil slick.  Oil slick provides control (knocking down), but once ignited, mobs, can flee - glue arrow on top of it holds them into the fire so it is more efficient, and the extra damage from glue certainly helps too.  

 

That's fine if you think it's skippable.  I find it extremely useful and not skippable.  Most abilities in Tactical Arrow can be skippable for one reason or another, but it's the stacking of all/most of them together that make the set shine, imo. 

[carroto]

On 10/14/2023 at 6:50 AM, pawstruck said:

What's so great about electrified net arrow?

 

Aside from the great slow and -fly, it's one of the better T1 secondary Blaster powers in terms of DPSA (tied for 3rd place).  Better than some T1 and T2 primary powers, so may be worth slotting for damage.  Not only that but it's energy damage too, so depending on your primary it may actually be a welcome attack.

[ChetManly]

This thread is musty and old.

 

Electrified net arrow does some solid damage. I procc'd it and it's fairly reliable on how often it fires.

 

I also procc'd glue arrow, which you can't really do as well with the trick arrow version. Or rather, it isn't the same. I get a large chunk of damage off that, it just seems to apply to target only and whatever else is in AoE range isn't affected.

 

Chet

[tidge]

On my Archery/Tactical Arrow build (posted in its own thread) I only skipped Ice Arrow. The single-target hold was an easy skip for me: I didn't need a ST attack to do damage (especially via %damage) and I would need (personal feels) to slot it for Accuracy/Hold/Recharge simply to make it useful enough for the limited number of circumstances that I'd want to use it for... which would be some Boss/AV/GM I can't quickly defeat that I want to stack a Hold with teammates.

 

I found that Tactical Arrow's other attacks satisfied a few things for my build:

• It leaned into the "range only" behavior, with more attacks and more controls
• It allowed for %proc slotting, while letting me slot set bonuses in the primary attacks
• The secondary's attacks fill in nicely with attack chains across all levels... that is: global Recharge is far less important than on other builds
• It requires neither "level 50 slotting" nor a large number of slots in each power to be effective... I found Tactical Arrow to be a very smooth secondary for "regular leveling".

I did make an effort to bring the shorter-range powers up to a similar range as the rest of the powers. Briefly, my slotting was:

 

Glue Arrow: Frankenslot with Acc/Range, %damage, %-res

Electrified Net Arrow: 3xHO/Dsyncs for Accuracy/Range/Immob/Damage

Upshot: 6xGaussian's

Flash Arrow: Single IO ToHit Debuff

Eagle Eye: 3 slots, %Absorb, 2xSynapse Shock (because Infiltration is the travel power on this build)

ESD Arrow: 4x Absolute Amazement, 2x%Damage

Oil Slick Arrow:  4x%damage, with 2 slots boosting Acc/End/Recharge

 

The choice between a T1 ST immob and T2 AoE slow typically has me skipping the immob... but there were too many factors in play that made me want both:

• Glue Arrow is a reliable %damage attack, %-Res AND Slow is gravy
• Electrified Net can target enemies with DoT,
• Electrified Net targets runners/chargers... a slightly bigger deal for me on a ranged only build
• Electrified Net conveniently can ignite the Oil Slick

Flash Arrow is one of those powers that once you get used to it, it become second nature to use. I don't entirely trust it to make up for running with lower defenses, but I won't argue that it doesn't help. It needs no extra slots to do its thing!

 

ESD Arrow is a power I can see skipping, but I like AoE Stuns on 'soft' characters.... I especially like them if I can add some decent %damage! If I felt like I needed it, I would replace one of the %damage pieces with the Superior Entomb's Recharge/%Absorb piece. For me, this was a no-brainer "add some control" to the build power.

 

I consider Oil Slick Arrow to be a bit of an odd duck. I had originally planned for some different slotting in this power, but looking at the logs I convinced myself that %damage was the way to go. The Acc/End/Recharge pieces are from Javelin Volley (boosted) and Bombardment (attuned) as these pair nicely with some %damage and offer both enhancement values and reasonable set bonuses with only 2 pieces.

 

One final note: as a practical matter, I don't see the various powers (slows, immobilizes, knockdowns) as doing that good of a job of keeping enemies in a specific area (for area based Damage or DoT). Obviously this does happen, it just that I find spawns are often spread out enough to not be guaranteed to be controlled in this way... or they ignore/resist the control (soft or hard)... or RNG is simply unfavorable. I don't write this to be contrarian! It's more that as a Blaster, i believe is is the direct application of damage that brings more survivability to the character, and the indirect application (via control mechanisms) often has more things working against them in actual play.

[ChetManly]

On 12/22/2023 at 9:20 AM, tidge said:

  It's more that as a Blaster, i believe is is the direct application of damage that brings more survivability to the character, and the indirect application (via control mechanisms) often has more things working against them in actual play.

I like the whole answer by @tidge, and it's very thorough.

But the above quotes section is really key here.

I hadn't thought about it before as I am an Archery fan and even bigger Trick Arrow fan so my head defaults to that thinking. 

Damage really is the key here. I'm going to review my build and shift to more damage in the secondary.

 

That said, and with that line of thinking in mind, Ice Arrow has always been a solid pick and favorite as it is a great hold and i always proc it, so it becomes another great damage power with utility bonus. I always take it.

 

Chet