Bow MA PvM

[Marinegent]

yo dudes, i was just wondering, has anyone tried a Chaos of the Xan or something in pvm?

Damage: 375-600(650)
fling shot
Modifier:
On User:
Modify Max Health 600
Modify Add All Off. 30
Modify Psycho Modi 30

looks like you need 2670 fist skill to achieve a weapon template of 376-1145(721) in order to beat the minimum damage. with a crit scope in on my MA with most endgame gear i can probably reach 2700~ before moonmist. Not sure if the xan damage is high enough to make it worth considering.

So - Would it ever be worth using the chaos of the xan in pvm?

the only reason I ask is because its hard to find teams as a melee prof in some instances like PoH and I was wondering if a ranged MA would work in some instances where it sucks to be melee. I think I have the IP to do it if I wanted. also curious if this has been extensively researched somewhere.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

Hey mate

If you want teams for PoH you'll have to try to leverage hard on a certain ability to boost efficiency in some way that either lightens the load on the other carries.

Some profs are very much core, and it's very difficult to make a run without those.

Needed:

1. Engineer (top floor), but can do without for the first 6.
2. Doctor - you could swap to zazen to keep the team alive if the doc died
3. keeper - I just wouldn't do poH without a keeper, especially phobettor, since a keepers damage mitigation toolset is just so key here
4. Tank - can't really do much here. I wouldn't want an MA tanking
5. debuffs (doc/agent/crat) - can't really out-debuff but you could add incapacitate and red dusk... hard to sell that though
6. DPS - which is kinda best served by soldier because he can jump in to tank if main tank falls

The obvious problem is that there's very little wiggle room.

But to be fair, I've beat phobettor with some pretty diverse mixes that I didn't think would be as effective as they ended up being.

Lets look at it differently.

Any ratbag team can beat the first boss, so that's not a consideration. The LotV boss is trickier, but from my experience there's no way a team couldn't slot in an MA. You need good burst damage, but you could alternately opt for excellent secondary healing. I'd say a team with:
1. Doc
2. tank
3. keeper
4. engi
5. DD/MA or support
6. DD/MA

Is totally reasonable. Don't forget that you add 7% crit to everyone on the team. That's kinda like adding 50k DPM to the team without even doing anything, so basically you have to stress that you're going to add utility and damage, even if you're not taking a damage role.

The next floor is easy, and then the next boss, isn't very difficult, so then you only need to consider the phobettor, and I think you can get an MA in that team pretty easily.

I've seen Phobettor in two rift debuffs, that's a crap tonne of DPS dropped on him as rapidly as you can imagine with everyone going as hard as they can. In both of those teams ranged DD wasn't a big selling point, in fact, ranged DD isn't needed on phobettor. As soon as Phobetor is debuffed, the tank should facetank him if no flames have popped. A facetanked phobettor will lose half his HP in 2 minutes with a good team.

Lets put it this way. If you're in a team where ranged DD is a factor I.e. you're planning on running.. running.. running, turn and shoot+fling, run, run ,run repeat... man, that is a fail team; and I'd say you probably won't end up killing phobettor.

You'll do 99.5% of your DD on phobettor unleashing high fury with triple wield + controlled dmg buff+FoB swap+moonmist and dropping every chained perk you have including AC debuffs to get the most out of your fist damage during that 30 second warp to mid/ laser show while he's debuffed. Hell, ya, I think there's absolutely no need to equip a bow.

If you equip a bow on Phobettor, or if the people you're teaming with are asking for ranged DPS, they are not aware of Phobettors weakness. His SERIOUS weakness, is that his laser show is very predictable, and he almost always warps to mid to start his laser show right after he gets rifted. Pop moonmist, autumn leaves, get your beatsticks and go to town.

Phobettor doesn't die to kiting.
Phobettor dies to hard DPS.

You LIVE while kiting, waiting for the next chance to beat his ass.

I'd go as far as to say that it's not even worth trying to swap from trip wield to fist to bow and back again. I'd just go all out trip wield, because like I said, 99.5% of your DPS will come during the hard alpha.

[Marinegent]

hey knuck, thanks for the post i wasnt just worried about PoH also some places like DB3 where I also struggle to find teams.

beyond all of that, is there basically no benefit to using the bow in pvm? i was looking at the ranger perkline and it seems decent, with maxed bow skill could those perks be helpful in an alpha? not really sure, they seem like mostly average perks but check bow vs 100% dodge so im not entirely sure how useful it'd be over something like say CoNC or a genome.

[McKnuckleSamwich]

No it's really gross tbh.

Ranger perkline sucks ass, completely. You saw my MA, I was full out ranged for a couple years and it was great as zazen in PVP, but that's it. Nothing else. Seriously. I'd reckon I could hit 150k DPM on a good day (non zazen)

MA's got a few kinda serious problems using bow.

1. can't cap fling recharge (we're talking like 10-11s for recharge)
2. we have no OTHER source of damage (notably, MP's got this megachicken eating everything in sight)
3. Crits are OK, but really don't make a significantly underpowered weapon into a viable choice (consider other profs/weapons which only have a fling/AS combo - either you get a big hefty beast to hit hard (MP), or you get a crap tonne of procs/crit/perk damage (agent), or you get drains (notice how crappy shotgun traders DPS is)

[Iaitoo]

I do more dmg with S7 bow than I do with fists at 201, so bow ma can be nice. Guessing that will wear off soon though.

[Oliveerz]

Currently using bow setup on my 150 ma. I like it, it's fun, challenging, different and you get a lot of static defense from it. However, I feel the lack of GOOD bows to be very frustrating. The only really viable bow at that level is either Superior Sapphistic bow or Ofab tiger, no matter how hard you try, you won't reach antyhing near a decent AS recharge, unfortunately.
With ql 225 ofab tiger, I crit about 3,4k on aliens in s10. Still got a few more items to get though.