Build talk:R/A Together as One Daggers

Main bar
The pet build has been merged into this page. Which one shall we have as the main bar? --Krschkr (talk) 20:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Assuming the pet AI doesn't go fully stupid, the damage output of the beast mastery variant is decently higher. Also filling the bar isn't nearly as awkward as the non-pet bar, which appears to have skills mainbar'd just for lack of something better to put there due to losing a pve-only slot on top of the elite slot.  However, saying all of that, the focus is on the elite and dagger spamming, so pets should by no means be forcibly mainbar'd. I'm ok with leaving pets as a variant. --Tfossdq (talk) 21:02, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitely the beast mastery build. I would even consider mainbaring Scavenger Strike. The optional slots look mostly good, but Great Dwarf Weapon and Brutal Strike are too expensive to be used, while Call of Haste does the same thing as NRA + Run as One.
 * Having played the build a bit, it's quite difficult to position yourself so that you buff your entire team. Buffing a spirit spammer is especially tedious, because the spirits aren't there until the fight begins, and even then they're summoned in the backline. Bringing a pet makes it a lot easier to keep as many allies as possible within the shout AoE. Not only does your pet grant the effect of the shout around it & to itself, it runs behind you in the stack where your heroes are.
 * I've been half-heartedly trying to come up with a decent ranged build just because it means you can position on your backline, while your pet positions in the frontline. -- DANDY ^_^ -- 21:14, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Well, we do have the . It's ranged, it's decent, it just doesn't deal damage. --Krschkr (talk) 21:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The pet build is definitely superior, so if that's the consensus in the end it's not a bad one. Also I wouldn't necessarily mainbar Scavenger Strike.  The only way I've managed to completely gimp my energy is to brutal strike spam without focus on 50% below hp just to see if I could, and even then it took like 30-40 seconds of hammering on master of damage for my energy to finally drop below 2.  In reality you'll be swapping targets and running around frequently, and timing brutal strike for weakened enemies.  GDW not getting reduction from Expertise kidna sucks yeah, it probably should have a note that scavenger strike is recommended to be brought with it.  You are right on call of haste, the only real main benefit is faster movement speed because of NRA.
 * Just to note I did test main bar scavenger strike, and I didn't drop below 15 energy before shooting back up to max using it off cooldown. The dagger chain along with the autos waiting on it to recharge has positive energy efficiency at this level of Expertise.  I definitely do say it should be brought along if you're going to brutal strike spam off cooldown for some reason.
 * On note to ally buffing, you pretty much just get the initial buff on them before running in. This build is more personal DPS focused since physway shouldn't be a thing with the wonky AI.  If the focus needs to be on minion/spirit buffing, then some kind of ranged BM page would need to be written up, unless you really like bow builds. --Tfossdq (talk) 12:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Minion buffing should be a goal imo, but it doesn't have to be Bone Fiends. Do meta hero builds still contain minion bombers?-- DANDY ^_^ -- 12:36, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No because ST is standard everywhere, and I wouldn't run this with minion bombers anyway since the +7 HP regen is counter-intuitive to wanting minions to die and explode quickly. --Tfossdq (talk) 12:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Due to the bug fixes I now favour the non-pet build as the main bar. --Krschkr (talk) 12:46, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * That's 2 votes on pet version as the main bar (dandybot and Tfossdq) vs. 2 votes on non-pet version (ZStepmother and Krschkr) with Toraen being kind of neutral. More opinions? --Krschkr (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Merge
Now that the standard dagger spam ranger page has been switched to the new elite this page serevs no purpose imo. --DefinitelyNotHanz (talk) 08:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Imo it would make more sense to archive the older R/A pages with their pre-update bars and replace them with this. TaO is powerful enough a buff that I feel a revote should happen because that may push this into Great. The other builds have enough old votes that they'll be stuck in Good unless votes are removed. Also we don't need separate pet and non-pet pages if the mainbar elite for both would be TaO (and variantbar exists now, it didn't when those pages were created). -Toraen (talk) 17:53, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes the merging of the two TaO bars was in progress. If we're going to combine everything into one page, I don't want to lose ED as a solid variant option, since the whole point was bar compression allowing complete flexibility with no forced pve-only slots at the cost of the superior damage of the beast build.  It sucked going to the old R/A non-pet page and seeing that mainbar kicked down for some bonus damage, since if damage is the only focus the beast variant is vastly superior. --Tfossdq (talk) 20:16, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It seems like a new user edited that page not having seen that this one was posted. I've reverted the other page for now and placed a merge suggestion on it. For Archive:R/A Pet Dagger Spam I've placed archive-pending, since it seems none of the suggested elites on that page really measure up to TaO (I could be wrong though). -Toraen (talk) 20:52, 28 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm a fan of leaving ED as a variant. Merging the pages makes sense yeah. How is the energy with the current bar btw? I can imagine it gets quite low when you have to use AScan a lot. ZStepmother (talk) 11:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Let's face it, the old builds are obsolete. I'm in favour of archiving both old pages and keep the non-pet one as this page's main bar. Not sure about keeping expert's dexterity as a build variant though. What's it worth? --Krschkr (talk) 14:40, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Bugfix
Losing the ability to buff minions/spirits hurts, but the elite is still just as effective for boosting its own DPS. Hard to say no to an unconditional flat bonus. This build tends to be away from the spirit/fiend blob anyway. -Toraen (talk) 13:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Never affected the spirit blob anyways i thought. Regardless, trying to use this elite to buff minions was a meme anyways. that's what ebsoh is for. As you said, it's true strength is in its ability to buff the player with damage and great regen, evenmoreso if you bring a pet. Has great synergy in physway builds. I'm also glad that recently I've been seeing more and more builds using Drunken Master, as its simply the best all-round IMS/IAS for a large amount of builds. It's much better than the mainbared elite on the current R/A. Just archive the other one, and let this one live. I'm assuming this elite is also better than enraged lunge too? It could always be listed as an optional. You can then leave the pet version as a variant on this page, and archive the other one too.Willarddog (talk) 13:58, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Moved to testing and refined the article a bit. Should we switch the pet version to mainbar or leave it as-is though? Kinda partial to switching them since the pet version is higher DPS and also has more content in the variantbar section than the main section right now. -Toraen (talk) 14:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think pet should be mainbar. Pet AI is terrible, if you want your pet to be effective you have to babysit the Pet window. Makes sense to have it as a variant. ZStepmother (talk) 15:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Beast mastery attribute spread
I don't see why you would bring a pet if invest this little in Beast Mastery. The attribute spread should look like this: 10+1+3 Expertise, and either 12 Dagger 8+1 (or 2) Beast Mastery, or 11 Dagger and 10+1 (or 2) Beast Mastery. It doesn't make sense to drop dagger mastery, you'll lose more damage compared to dropping 1 Expertise. 14 Expertise means you lose +1 damage, but the increase in pet damage more than makes up for that tiny damage loss (except maybe when running tons of melee minions / other melee players). ZStepmother (talk) 09:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC)


 * Isn't the shout applied around both the user and around the pet? - Chieftain Alex (talk) 10:09, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, but you are both constantly in melee range. I just read that it doesn't affect minions anymore, so I very much doubt that having high Beast Mastery (more pet damage) is inferior to losing +1 damage (15-->14 expertise) ZStepmother (talk) 10:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Your pet follows you near your heroes when you run around, so it'll affect them at least at the start of combat. -- DANDY ^_^ -- 10:36, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Most teambuilds are filled with caster heroes. TaO only affects attacks, so you won't get any boost there. Most weird teambuilds I see on gw discord / reddit have at most 1 ranger, unless it's a gimmick team. If the only argument in favor of 15 expertise is that 1 second in which the heroes get their damage boosted, it's safe to say that there is no reason not to run 14 expertise. The player keeps high dagger mastery (which gives you a higher damage output than that +1 from TaO), and the pet deals increased damage (much higher than that +1). ZStepmother (talk) 11:24, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * If you use a Rollerbeetle won't it be closer to the heroes? If the question is really "why beast mastery" it's so NRA (easy IAS) doesn't look weird :P - Chieftain Alex (talk) 11:49, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * My question: why only 6+1 beast mastery on the main bar, since having higher beast mastery has a higher impact than having 15 expertise. If the consensus is that high beast mastery should not be main bar, we still shouldn't suggest to drop dagger mastery in favor of beast mastery, we should suggest dropping expertise to 14 instead. ZStepmother (talk) 12:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with ZStepmother. 11-10-10 and 11-11-8 (with major expertise) or 10-11-10 and 10-12-8 (superior expertise) are preferable over 12-11-6 and 12-12-3. I personally lean towards 10-11-10 with 10+1+3-11-10+1. --Krschkr (talk) 12:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Changed the page accordingly. Any objections? --Krschkr (talk) 14:47, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Nope, I agree with the changes. Now, lets archive the other ranger dagger spam builds. I think it makes sense to list the ED dagger spam as a variant though, because that build has all 3 pve skill slots free, while with this build you kinda have to choose between taking IAU or AScan. In some areas, you're performance will be crippled if you don't have both these skills on your bar. This variant (ED) should only be used in those casesZStepmother (talk) 16:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * But you can have scan + IAU + TaO + 3x attack skills + 1x lotus strike (for asuran scan) + lightning reflexes. It's not a great uptime, but won't >33% IAS uptime and permanent + 16dmg/hit be stronger than 100% IAS uptime without +16dmg/hit? It's a dagger bar after all, it doesn't really need the IAS. --Krschkr (talk) 17:19, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The original attributes were just something I dropped on the page since 15 Expertise is the minimum value for 100% elite uptime as a personal preference. If the consensus is that the full up time of the elite is less beneficial than the extra points in beast mastery, then I'm on board with having that as the main spread as well. --Tfossdq (talk) 20:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * To tack on to that, just got done derping around on the master of damage, which is not a test of actual gameplay obviously but I just wanted to get an idea of output. Any stat variant that used a utility skill + scavenger's strike hovered around 128-131 dps consistently and I did not have a lot of variation, likely because scavenger strike doesn't scale as hard with beast mastery as say brutal strike.  Testing with brutal strike + scavenger's strike, there was a noticeable disparity with the lower beast mastery allocations hovering around 128-132 DPS depending on how accurately I hit brutal strikes and the upper levels of beast mastery like the one currently main bar'd I was hovering around 137-140 DPS depending.  Scavenger strike was used in both because energy wouldn't survive otherwise having to keep up two buff skills on top of an extra attack/utility skill.  If I had to form a hypothesis based on that, beast mastery only seems to matter a lot if you stack skills that scale well off it on your bar which isn't really an option if you require AS or IAU.  The real star is still TaO while attacking as rapidly as possible, the pet just being a vessel for more TaO flat damage and potential spiking/energy. --Tfossdq (talk) 21:21, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * And what's the (meaningless) DPS of either attribute spread if your pet is passive and you bring lotus strike for energy management purposes? --Krschkr (talk) 21:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Assuming the pet goes full retard and either can't make it to enemies or the AI gets stuck somewhere, the 10+1+3-10+1-11 spread was hovering around 80-83 DPS and the 11+1+3-6+1-12 spread was hovering around 91-94 DPS. So there's a notable pet contribution at any attribute spread.  Ofc that assumes the pet is spending the same amount of time as the player attacking, which isn't realistic. --Tfossdq (talk) 22:47, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
 * It might be better to run 10+1+3 Expertise, 8+1 beast and 12 dagger mastery. That way you keep the same dagger mastery, and also have increased damage on pet, while losing +1 on ToA, which would definitely be worth it ZStepmother (talk) 13:10, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Expertise breakpoint for 2 energy dagger attacks is at 14, so that seems like a nobrainer. The few more points in beast mastery definitely aren't worth it over maxing dagger. -- DANDY ^_^ -- 13:49, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I've done some testing on mastery of damage, and I had very similar results for the 3 different attributes spreads + scavengers strike (I didn't want to go and craft a new armorpiece tho). This was done with a rollerbeetle, which has to deal with the slow movementspeed in real PvE. With this in mind, I'd probably go back to the 11+1+3 Exp, 6 BM for the pet bar, and maybe suggest to invest more into BM if they want to take more BM skills (other than scavengers strike) ZStepmother (talk) 16:14, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Unless people here disagree with the test, I'm going to change the attribute spread again. If higher BM doesn't at least give higher DPS in ideal situations (stationary target, 100% uptime of pet), it's not worth investing much into it. ZStepmother (talk) 16:14, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Too many runes
Current build lists six runes: +3 Expertise, +1 Beast Mastery, Superior Vigor, Vitae, Restoration, and Clarity. Guessing Restoration makes the most sense to drop? Konman001 (talk) 13:07, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
 * I made the rune of vitae petless-only. --Krschkr (talk) 14:19, 13 May 2020 (UTC)