Archery/Ninja thoughts

[Renatos1023]

I rarely venture outside of my beloved support ATs (Defender/Corrupter/Controller) and their forums. But I wanted to try something different and decided to roll a Blaster. Wanted to do Archery and it came down to either /TA or /Ninja, and guess which one won out.

 

Just dinged 33 and so far this character has been a blast. Its...a change of pace when I only have to worry about dealing damage and keeping myself alive -- I'm used to playing team support 95% of the time.

 

I feel like the ranged damage is pretty good, especially now that I have Rain of Arrows slotted. I feel like the melee damage is on point -- I love that they left the AoE portion of Golden Dragonfly in. The fact that Shinobi lets me crit as a Blaster feels like it really helps the damage (esp. since i'm all lethal, all the time -- love seeing the "Critical" tag pop up). Anyone else run this pairing and have thoughts?

 

My main opening is Aim+RoA+Fistful, then run in and tag bosses with some melee; then jump back and shoot things that are left standing. Has been pretty good so far. 

 

Just had a few questions about powers that I wanted to get some opinions on.

 

Archery Primary:

1. Explosive Arrow -- I've always thought this was useless (even back on live). It has low damage (IMO) and huge KB. IMO it isn't useful without a KB  to KD IO. Is this usually a skipped power? Curious as to what others thinks it adds to Archery's AoE potential, because my opinion is very low. 

 

2. On top of Explosive, I've also skipped Snap Shot and Stunning Shot for usefulness and minimal damage reasons.

 

Ninja Training Secondary:

1. The stats on Immobilizing Dart and Choking Powder seem crappy. I've skipped. Has anyone found them useful?

2. I debated between Smoke Flash and Blinding Powder. I took SF and slotted with a single Acc IO. Not sure if it does much. Are these powers actually useful for minor crowd control?

3. I've taken all 3 melee attacks, Shinobi, Kuji, and Smoke Flash so far. 

 

I feel like this pairing leaves a good amounts of slots open for pool powers. I'm currently going into Leadership and Fighting because I do enjoy the Blapping powers here, so I am looking to build up defense (I also take CJ and SJ as my travel set). I will likely grab Hasten at some point.

 

Hoping to see some other opinions, especially on the Ninja Training power set!

[Onlyasandwich]

Explosive arrow is a pretty above average aoe these days. I wouldn't skip it.

 

Good dpa, damage diversity in an otherwise lethal set, and a good place for ffback. Get it and love it. Worth the kd IO tax.

 

Snap is an easy skip though. 

 

Choking powder is a pretty standard blaster secondary hold, which means it's pretty strong. Proc it out for big damage, and layer with an epic hold like char for extra fun.

 

Personally I find lotus drops a miss. With its puny 8 ft radius and nothing special to make up for it, I don't see much value. I'd swap for explosive in a heartbeat. It's a contender for worst blaster pbaoe in my book. It does the trick if you enjoy the style of course. 

 

 

[Uun]

Explosive Arrow has the same damage as most other blaster targeted AoEs and it animates very quickly. It also deals non-lethal damage, which Archery needs. I happen to like the kb for mitigation and don't bother with kb>kd IO. 

 

Even without procs, Choking Powder has better DPA than Aimed Shot. I wouldn't skip it.

 

Smoke Flash is a PBAoE placate, which can be useful if you're in over your head, however it also debuffs resistance (10.5% for 15s). I use it more for the debuff than the crowd control. 

[Renatos1023]

On 10/17/2023 at 12:05 AM, Onlyasandwich said:

 

Personally I find lotus drops a miss. With its puny 8 ft radius and nothing special to make up for it, I don't see much value. I'd swap for explosive in a heartbeat. It's a contender for worst blaster pbaoe in my book. It does the trick if you enjoy the style of course. 

 

 

Interesting, I didn't realize that Lotus Drops had such a small AoE and that Explosive didn't deal lethal damage. I think I'll swap them out at some point when I respec and give EA a try.

 

 

 

On 10/17/2023 at 8:25 AM, Uun said:

Even without procs, Choking Powder has better DPA than Aimed Shot. I wouldn't skip it.

 

Smoke Flash is a PBAoE placate, which can be useful if you're in over your head, however it also debuffs resistance (10.5% for 15s). I use it more for the debuff than the crowd control. 

I also didn't realize that CP had such good damage -- I thought single target holds were usually crap damage (outside of Freeze Ray) but I guess I have been wrong. And the debuff on SF is also what I was going for, figured I could run up to a boss drop SF, hit my single target attacks and fade back out.

 

Thank you both for the feedback!

[Ringo]

Smoke Flash gives you crit chance doesn't it?

 

And yeah, Explosive Arrow is decent AoE damage, has a better damage type, kb or kd it's still less time being shot at, and can proc Forcefeedback.  It's not incredible but it brings many assets to the table

 

Also Stunning Shot is great with a disorient power in your secondary for mez stacking.  Otherwise it's skippable

[Ringo]

2 hours ago, FupDup said:

Stunning Shot has the highest DPA in the set by a pretty big margin. Skipping it is a very, very bad idea. 

 

Are you thinking of a different AT? Most Sentinel stun blast attacks do way higher damage, except Suppressive Fire which does shit damage with default ammo (but good damage with any alternate ammo). 

This is the Blaster forum.  Blaster Stunning Shot does 15 damage (as opposed to Sentinel's 100)

[Renatos1023]

31 minutes ago, Ringo said:

This is the Blaster forum.  Blaster Stunning Shot does 15 damage (as opposed to Sentinel's 100)

Thank you for ensuring that I wasn't going crazy. The Blaster version of Stunning Shot is quite crap.

 

On a happier note, I did a respec to drop Lotus and pick up Explosive. It was a fantastic decision. Aim+RoA+EA+Fistful is a great opener -- and most things are either dead or on their butts with the KB-to-KD in Explosive. Which allows me to run in and hit bosses with my two melee attacks, mixing in Smoke Flash for the debuff. 

 

This a definitely a Blaster with survivability, IMO. Granted I am building for defense. But the ride has been very fun so far. 

 

Thanks yall!

[FupDup]

41 minutes ago, Ringo said:

This is the Blaster forum.  Blaster Stunning Shot does 15 damage (as opposed to Sentinel's 100)

Oopsie doodles. I'm going crazy because there was a Sentinel discussion about Archery recently and I was autopilot so I thought this thread was that one. 😖

[Ringo]

No worries!  You were absolutely correct about Sentinel Stunning Shot, it's mandatory

[Shred Monkey]

I split my damage dealers into 2 cataogires.  Basically, are you 1. a boss killer, or 2. a multi-target AoE killer. 

 

My theory is this; if we all did AoE damage only, the Bosses in each spawn would die last, and the team's "success rate" would essentually be only the rate that bosses die... no other factors matter since they bosses die slowest.  Therefore, if you've got a few dedicated boss killers, who do extreme Single Target damage who focus on bosses and nothing else, that speeds up the rate of the team going through a mission significantly, even though they're only hitting 1 or 2 enemies per spawn.  But if everyone is a ST specialist, then you're slowed down chasing all those individual LTs and Minions all over the map.  So a mix of both is best.  And while you don't exactly have to pick one or the other... there's value in choosing a focus and maximizing that.

 

OK.. that said, Explosive Arrow is certainly valuable is you're focusing on the AoE role.. which combined with the quick recharging cone attack of Archery, you're very capable of doing quite well.  Plus having reliable ranged AoE knockdown is a really solid soft control, which dramatically boosts survivability beyond just building for high defenses alone.

 

On the other hand... Ninja Blade has some really great ST damage.  If I was doing an Archery/Ninja build, I'd probably build for High Recharge and Max my ST damge output.  Plus, Rain of Arrows on a very a short cooldown is AMAZING, and that alone is more then enough to contribute solid AoE damage to any team.  And therefore, as a ST speciallist, explosive arrow would be a power I'd drop.

Edited October 23, 2023 by Shred Monkey