PvM Hotswapping Bow MA guide 0.5 beta ;)

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Contents

1. Introduction and justification
2. Skill allocation
3. Weapon choice
4. Equipment of note
5. AS Technique

Thanks To;

Zirrian for reminding me about the perception buffs and the power puller, and that the guide should probably specify it's aiming for tl5 titlecap level players fighting level 210 hecklers (or mobs of similiar difficulty, setup)

Engelen for putting up with me charging headlong to the very edge of the brink surrounded by angry hecklers and then charging back into the group, often enough trailing said angry hecklers, all in the name of experimentation

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This guide is intended to inform those of you interested in pursuing the hotswap bow option for MA's, not as the regular PvP only path, but as a supplement to already impressive damage for PvM purposes.

You'll likely not have the IP required to pursue this path and make a significant impact on your regular play until the Tl5 titlecap in all your primary MA skills and nanoskills, abilities, etc, once you have a glut of IP though, it's quite a handy thing to have as backup, and as an extra big hit on your alpha strike.

In my opinion it's nice to have a big high damage special attack to start off the fight, I think this should have been dimach, but as we all know, this special is *far* from adequate for that purpose with it's absurd cycle time, Aimed Shot on the other hand, due to many factors at current, is an ideal candidate for this position, the damage dealt by an AS is dependant upon 3 things as far as I am aware, your base damage (decent enough for bow MA) the crit chance (very good for MA, perhaps the best) and the AS Multiplier, the AS multiplier is dictated by the amount you have in the AimedShot skill, I've been told 200 AS = an extra multiplier to the skill to a maximum of 7 (I'm not sure as to the accuracy of that, but with 1056 AS, I am getting an average damage of 7k per AS, and all the way up to 13k ocasionally, 10k+ being not that rare.

There are issues with going this route however, and I guess I should outline them here, it takes quite a bit of effort to pull this off reliably without putting your team in danger, I've accidentally pulled adds a few times due to pathing issues when I hadn't yet perfected my AS technique, that said, I believe I've figured out a way to negate, or at least minimise this risk, which I will explain in the AS technique section later on.

All over then, on to the meat of the issue

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In this section I'll attempt to outline the basics of skill selection in order to maximise your chances of a high damage AS, going over the basic choices and explaining some perhaps not immediately apparent choices.

We'll start with the primary weapon skill for the AS'ing MA, Bow;

The bow skill cap for a tl5 capped opifex MA is 688, I believe this increases to 719 at level 200, two QL200 implants on top of this will bring you up to 793, or if you want to drop an eye symbiant, or are lucky enough to get a high QL support eye symbiant, 898 bow, personally I use bow in both arms and 2 x Dragon Sleeves for the extra bow skill added. Bow skill has a dual purpose for us, allowing us to equip a higher QL bow, and as extra damage for the bow we do choose to use, even a 170 pow bow has a 1533 AR cap, so MBS is not much of an issue for us, the 180 pow bow has a 1622 MBS.

Aimed Shot;

The aimed shot skill acts as a multiplier and a recharge time reduction modifier for our aimed shots, I believe it's for every 200 AS you have a guarunteed base multiplier of 1, so for 1k AS, you have a 4x guarunteed AS multiplier, with AS double implanted (which is once again fairly easy for us, right hand and right wrist) and titlecapped for a tl5 opifex MA you will have 685 AS, which is pretty unimpressive, but we can add in a 250 TSVE, which has the advantage of an 8% critical increase, further helping us out, and also a 287 AS buff, bringing us up to 972 AS, my eye symbiant also buffs AS by 61 for a total of 1033, add an expertise for 20 and we're at a guarunteed 4 x multiplier for the aimed shot without much effort.

Perception;

get 685 perception for the 250 TSVE, Perception can be buffed by 357 using the fixer buffs Karma Harvest and Blood Makes Noise, as well as the Adv buff Lupus Oculus, these all stack and add a total of 357, you can also implant Perception temporarily to equip the scope to the tune of 210 bringing you up to a total of 567 perception, meaning you'd only have to have a base of 118 in order to equip a 250 TSVE, which you'll probably have by tl5 titlecap by way of trickledown. That being said, I'd advise the ability to hotswap the 250 TSVE, the init penalty is large and will cut your fist attacks to 9 per 30 seconds at full def, I have a lower TSVE that allows me to hit 1/1 fist on full def when I'm taking a lot of agg and giving the tank a hard time.

Concealment;

Not as important as you might think, for the mobs you're going to be fighting, an MA won't be able to get their conceal skill high enough to make a difference, we don't have it as easy as agents here, so we have to be more crafty in lining up our targets for the AS, I'll explain this later in AS technique.

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The Pow Bow is a blitzable Bow requiring aimed shot and bow skill, ideal for our purposes because at the top of the line it requires only 858 Bow and 429 AS (QL 180), the other reason it is ideal for us is that it has an EquipDelay of 0.1 seconds, meaning we can lay off an AS and swap to our fists in a very short period of time, making it easy to put AS in our regular brawl / ma special / dd proc alpha line.

Another weapon of note is the Inamorata Shere Bow and perhaps the clan counterpart, they also require AS and bow, but have a *far* higher minimum damage than the Pow Bow, giving a more reliable AS in the higher numbers, the drawback is an EquipDelay of 4 seconds and a higher skill requirement than a 180 pow bow for the upper versions.

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I won't go through an exhaustive list of everything to help your AS here, just a short list of what I use to up the damage requirements.

Globe of Clarity helps your crit chance, and thus makes more of your AS' critical, I use two of these.

For the less rich, Power Puller increases your bow skill, I'd recommend the GoC in preference due to the fact that it has addalloff and def as well as a +crit chance which will improve both your regular attacks and your initial AS with your bow, but this is certainly an option for those not into tara raids or parting with large amounts of cash.

Flurry of Blows adds a 10% crit chance at the lowest available QL version, and up to 20% crit chance at the highest (if you're able to get your fast attack skill that high)

Ring of Power physics adds to minimum damage on your bow of choice (assuming chem fists) as does bloodshed armband, and certain bracers of arul saba.

Aura Magnifier, Dragon chest, the regular stuff, anything that adds to crit chance or chem damage is your friend.

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AimedShot, by design, was meant to be used by agents that could conceal directly in front of their foes and then the aimedshot would be used from a concealed position, if you try to AS a mob just like a normal special, it won't work.

Also, we cannot get our Conceal high enough to hide from mobs we'll want to be fighting, so this technique is further eroded for us, the only mobs I can conceal past with maxed conceal and implanted in the ear are grey (level 181) so for regular play, the conceal / AS option is pretty much off limits to us.

So, for those of us who cannot manage a conceal in front of the monster, there is a second method, similiar to backstab except it requires about 15 meters range between yourself and your target, if you get this range and position, you can make an AimedShot even when not concealed.

The problems this presents though are many, trying to get into such a position can often put you in proximity to mobs you don't want to be pulling for your team, if you pull off a 10k+ AS, which is not so infrequent, you *will* pull aggro, and the mob will come to where you were AS'ing from, with the pets and shots of your team in tow, if you were in the proximity of another mob, it will most likely add, this is not really an option based on the above.

So how do we get around this? There are two ways, one when you're in a cooperative team, and one when you're in a team that doesn't listen to you, or for some reason, cannot do as you're asking, or when you simply don't want to bother them with it, or they keep forgetting.

Technique 1;

Ask the team when they pull the mob to make it face away from you, hold your position in a safe place, when you see it's back, hit the AS button and run for the mob, hotswapping out of the bow as you go.

Technique 2;

Run with the puller, when they have agg, run past them as per the normal, dangerous AS discussed above, when the mob is at sufficient range, do not AS first, Run toward the mob, and as you are mobile, press the AS key, it will queue an AS which will fire when you stop, as you're preparing to stop, hit the bow hotswap key and stop immediately, the last action before the bow hotswaps out will be the AS, even if you're directly in front of the mob well within melee range, if you pull agg, it won't move out to the dangerous position to come and get you, you can then go into your regular brawl / ma special / dd proc change with your fists.

Other tips and tricks;

The poor mans Gnats Wing, as discussed previously the flurry of blows 10% to 20% crit chance addition can be activated just prior to hotswapping to your bow, for a far better chance at a 10k+ AS, hit flurry of blows, switch to your bow, hit the short term MA damage buff, then AS as described above, you'll get the benefit from the increased crit chance as well as the +add dmg from your short term damage buff applied for each multiplier in the AS roll, be prepared for agg, I advise *not* using a nanoshutdown type shortterm damage debuff for this role or you'll find yourself with an angry mob and no heals in very short order.

[DaveDread]

Stickying this, since I like hotswapping bows.

[Engelen]

Omg.

Awesome work Dread. From the moment when I met you and teamed with you I knew you were one of the "good" guys, and if it wasnt for that I dont have ANY IP to spare at 200+, I`d try this out.

Good Job

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Originally posted by Engelen
Omg.

Awesome work Dread. From the moment when I met you and teamed with you I knew you were one of the "good" guys, and if it wasnt for that I dont have ANY IP to spare at 200+, I`d try this out.

Good Job

High praise indeed coming from you, always got a spot for the engel

[Zirrian]

First off, great guide! Has a few somewhat misinforming flaws tho, so I figured I'd give my input

I'm 203 now. But as i calculate back, I had (at lvl 200) the following skills, selfbuffed:

Bow: approx 925 (Bright, Shining)
AR: approx 970 (+45 from 1k board)
Concealment: approx 850 (+140 from 1kboard, not implanted)
AS: 1k-ish (250 VE, Shining)

Oh and 35% Crit chance.

Now these skills are somewhat around yours, tho a bit higher, but I believe the part of "not being able to hide from anything we'll be fighting" isn't quite true. I can sneak all the way up in front of a lvl 190-200 Somphos Logee (inferno mob) and pop off AS. I'll do some testing later today, on hecklers though.

Now for the average non-weapon-wielding MA (which most will be going in higher shadowlvls anyway, and many under tl6 are so too), these skills I listed above can be increased even further.

- Bow shining and bright don't hurt much, faded hurts TS though so not really an option until lvl 200+.
- AS shining has no conflicts. Bright, some might want NCU or NR instead (I have NCU atm), faded conflicts only with treatment really (I'll redo this imp I just decided, as I have treatment atm :P)
- Conceal shining hurts PhysInit/EvadeClsC, but bright can be put it (gonna do so myself anyway, can afford 2 lose the psychology ). Faded conflicts with Bow/TS.

To me it seems very possible we'll be able to hide from adonis hecklers soon, if we really want to


A few other things:

Power Puller a neat shoulder item, if you don't have the expensive Globe of Clarity's. VTE are good here too for HP/Nano, but this one is nice if you're pvp'ing with bow too

Also the items you listed (D-chest, Aura mag etc. are things that are neat to have for any MA of course, but it will in no way affect your bow performance noticeably - same thing for rings of power really, wear dual IQ rings or your SL rings, they're way better).

Lastly, for those that might not know, you won't have to implant or up Perception at all to get a 250 VE on. Get Karma Harvest and Blood Makes Noise from a high lvl fixer, and Calias Form: Wolf from an adventurer, and even a lvl 1 will find himself with more than enough perception to equip it


Oh and don't bother about bow till TL5 skill cap imo. Before that, spend your IP where they are more needed


Zirrian.

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Thanks for the info about conceal, still, I can't figure out a way to get to 1300, which is what agents tell me we need to reliably conceal from hecklers (210) so I'll leave that as is, I agree about not really plausible till tl5 cap, or it could be better spent elsewhere, too.

As for Aura mag, dchest, etc, these really *do* help your bow performance, and not by a little but by quite a large amount, example of +74 add dmg

Without

5274 AS

With

5422 AS

this was a double multiplier AS roll based on what I was critting the mob in question for each way, so +74 add dmg applies to each AS multiplier, massively increasing your higher AS mods.

So I'll be sticking to the +chem dmg mods

[bobbeh]

A little more info...

My 203 opi MA had a 196 VoT, and also a 180ish pow bow. The pow is obviously nice for the short AS recharge, but the VoT will do more damage. I tried maxing conceal with implants etc, and dont remember the number I ended up with but it wasn't enough to avoid detection, at least consistently enough to keep the sneak key on my hotbar.

I ended up using the bows for pulling, I spent a lot of time in Adonis in heckler teams (from 188ish - 203) and unfortunately I was elected to pull almost all of the time. AS pulling worked fine, if the heckler had its back to me, and I didn't even have to sneak. Its a good alpha to use, as long as there aren't other hecklers standing near your target obviously. The problem for us MAs is that (at least in my case) if you aren't competing against mongo, you are going to tank, which means you aren't going to sneak, which means you aren't going to get another AS off. Of course you could purposefully gimp yourself, say drop FFK and damage buffs so that you don't get aggro but what would be the point. You wouldn't be doing what we are supposed to be doing, and that is BEAT THE LIVING HELL OUT OF WHATEVER IS HITTING YOU. Leave mid fight sniping to the agents. At max your AS would be 13K and the quickest recharge belongs of course to the Caterwaul as far as i know. At 203 i was hitting Adonis hecks for over 1K easy (and I mean never below) without AC debuffs or anything like that. Crits were 3.5K+ easy (again, never below). With a crit bonus of 34%... well run damage dumper as a ranged MA and a fist MA. BTW ive received several /tells during raids saying "omgz you do insane damage" etc. from people running damage dumper. Or they will call out the results as the raid progresses. Its pretty fun really.

The other time I used my bow is at raids. Mercs, eel or whatever. Stay up close and do your melee thing and when the AS is available - hotswap while runing back and mash the AS button. Most times I could get one off before i reached the bow's max range. Follow with fling on the VoT, or just hotswap back to fists while running back up into melee range, its a nice damage add but it only works because we dont have Ian's attention (thank god!)

Setup - near 1K bow skill (bright and shiny clusters), over 1K AS skill (maxed and Ql250 VE) UVC, x2 GoCs, 8% from scope. Maxed MA skill, tier pants, dragon body etc etc. AR almost 1.4K self buffed.

Just my 2 cents, there are a million and one ways to play the game, I've just traditionally played to cause the most damage possible. Someone with the same perspective may glean some useful info from this.

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Ok, but if you let of an AS at a heckler when you're supposed to be pulling cause it has it's back to you, if it's near another mob, that mob will add, we don't want that.

You can get past this though, of course

Start running for your pull target, when you reach the AS threshold, press the AS button, action will queue, when the mob aggs you, start running back toward your team (but do not remove your fingers from the key).

When you're ready to stand and fight, press the hotswap key and stop moving, AS and you're back to fists without a dangerous pull

As for midfight AS'ing, I haven't bothered with that, the recharge on the pow bow is 35 seconds for me, and that's typically long enough for a single heckler to die, even if AS had charged in the middle of the fight I wouldn't break fists in order to run to AS range and use it.

I am confident that this does improve damage over regular fist only MA, if only because the lowest AS I hit with now *ever* is 2k, which is more than a regular hit of mine, and more than a critical brawl, and not obscenely far from a regular crit, and if I get a 13k AS which isn't too rare, then it's *really* worth it.

I'm also very close to 1200 AS with tts, I should have it easily by 200 meaning another guarunteed multiplier, so an even better AS

[TVsXDash]

I thought this was neat, so I decided to check it out. I managed to blitz a 181 Professional Pow Bow with my martial artist. (The top QL for Pow Bows appears to be 181. I don't know if 180s and 181s make too big of a difference or if there is anything wrong with the 181.)

On a 133 Solitus MA it took 200 imps, which added 210 to AS/Bow, 1 Dragon Sleeve, A 157 power puller and about 5-6 levels of IP to just get it on. I didn't even need to titlemax bow, my abilities seemed to compensate for it nicely. Bow Expertise and Aimed Shot Expertise got me the last 20 points.

I started messing with this thing in, of all places, a level 207 Team mission. Keep in mind I have no Vision Enhancer, no concealment, no perception added at this point, I'm ignoring nanoskills at this point for the purpose of experimentation(I will fix this later, I'm just doing this for fun right now.). I found a way to aimed shot mobs in team missions.

Basically I'd run in and be hunting down a target and pressing my aimed shot hotkey as fast as possible, then I'd probably have a 75% chance of Aimed Shotting said target.

It only landed about 1K-2.5K tops at this point, but my MA is young, and probably not really ready for bow yet. But landing an AS seemed to be a nice accomplishment.

Also, I really like these bows because at such a low level it adds an extra 500 to my crits. I had four critical hits in a row right after an aimed shot for some nice damage.

Love the guide, Etherael. Hopefully I can make better use of this as my Martial Artist climbs up the ranks, and make other fellow Martial Artists not roll their eyes at me and say 'ugh' when I equip the darn thing. XD

[Internalfireh]

Certinaly when using my ql200 Joint Clans Patriot AS/FS jobby I can cancel (De)equip by jumping - Usefull when im bailing out of a gank

[frakk2k]

Hi there, I guess some have seen me in the arena using all sorts of bows, and I have been testing all the bows I can lay my hands on, and I have the following useful tips for any bow users:


If you are gonna use a bow in the first place, the skill itsself isnt that important, what you really depend on is aimedshot.

You could in theory equipp a ql181 pow bow with just 863 bow skill, and have 1200 as and still do about same dmg (AS!) as if you would have 1000 bow skill. The skill is only usable for equipping better bows, like Bang of Thunder and SL bows.

I have come to this conclution over what bows you can use in pvp:

Superior Pow Bow, QL181. (Blitzable) - Great for using against casters like Doctors(Fast equipp when you see the doc is low on hp to finish him off).

Bang of Thunder, QL200 (Dynaboss loot) - Great for starting, well, any fights. Also good for ganking, but sinking ip into fling might take up some other good skill at low levels.

Premium Light Tube-Bow, QL191 (Blizable, Tradeskill?) - Very underrated bow, as it packs a 10sec AS, just make sure you pack at least 1157 AS skill to bring it down to 10s. Difficult to equipp on and off, but useful to just as people down.

Bow of the Triple Nimbus, QL300 (Drops of random mobs in SL, Faction mobs drop em more often?) - Good for High min dmg, tho slow and requires quite some skill to pack any punch. Worth a look at higher levels.

Howling Bow of Ferocious Appetite, QL200 (Dynaboss loot) - I dont like this bow, its like a slow and unreliable shotgun, but when it crits it does fair dmg, no as, therefor not very good in pvp.

Inamorata/Sancrosanct Shere Bow, QL300 (SL weapon) - Its nice, but high equipp and only fair dmg, makes it probably a ok weapon for a MP, not a ma.

Superior Sapphistic Bow QL181, (Blitzable?) - Very much like the pow bow, lower dmg, but faster as. Fair nuff?

Those are the bows I have tested, there are also a couple of half bows, but dont waste your ip. If you wanna equipp a weapon with blue skill, ipr bow and get a cater.

I would also aquire a couple of Dragon Sleeves, a powerpuller, metallic hoop, and infantery crepsule glowes (Check aovault.ign.com for guide).

Agi/Sense rings also buff bow a lot, might wanna check out those too.

I also use a 4 slot Arul Saba Bracelet to help out on low dmg (Especially with the tube bow.)

Have fun!

[TeffaMA]

I tried one of these Tube bows and the AS is indeed 10sec but impossible to land a decent AS against someone high level with lots of add def, works ok on low lvl people tho but dont think Ive done one capped AS so far.

[Iroq]

What about using bow special attack? Some of the bow special attacks have nice abilitys and such, but is it worth adding to it to get off an extra bow attack? Say in, PvP when your rooted, or to get off one extra ranged attack on PvM?

[Bolen]

I just started playing with hotswapping a bow for pvm and
I love it. Thank you for posting.