New ranger talent, which one?

Which one does more dps?
Precision vs Rapidity

I know play style matters but I could play either fast or slow if the dps difference is significant.
thanks

This is where you’re gonna have to test things for yourself and find out what works best.

There’s no DPS counter to provide an easy answer. Any research that provides reliable results will come from data gathered from video recordings, and with the new lvl5 talents shot timing is a critical aspect of your gameplay that can skew the numbers one way or the other.

Thanks, I expected as much, just thought that there was a suggested lean one way or another… but seems like its more thought out than a basic talent tree as I assumed originally.

At face value the speed tree seems like more dps. Definitely try both and compare though

In theory the Rapid Shot and Precision should be equal DPS if you play them both perfectly (in terms of just the Level 5 talents themselves). Full Rapid Shot bar = 110% Damage per arrow x 3 arrows/sec = 330% base damage/sec. Perfect Precision shot = 330% Damage per arrow x 1 arrow/sec = 330% base damage/sec.

That said, some people are going to find it easier to keep the Rapid Bar full than to hit a Perfect Precision Shot, and vice versa. And then the rest of the talents will further influence things of course.

But our underlying design goal is to make it such that a perfectly-played Rapid Shot Ranger is equal to a perfectly played Precision Shot Ranger given no other variables. Of course when you factor in things like the type of fight, how much movement there is, how good your aim is, etc. then that’s going to skew the numbers.

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For Precision shot, is the ideal supposed to be the arrow leaves the bow at the vibrate mark, or the arrow hits the target at the vibrate mark? Short range doesn’t matter, but out at long range I have a hard time seeing damage numbers and the flight time is significant.

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Leaves the bow from my testing. Haven’t done a ton though. @Cowboy probably has more info.

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Definitely based on when the arrow leaves the bow. Also the vibrate mark happens at 80% bar full, and 90%+ is actually a “perfect” shot, so ideally you want to release right after the vibration, not right “when” it vibrates.

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After testing I felt that the Rapidity talent is more forgiving when it comes to tempo. The sweet spot just feels bigger. If you’re a little off with Precision you’re not gonna get the full bonus. True to its name, I guess, but with Rapidity it seems easier to dwell within a rhythm that consistently provides full bonus. This combined with the fact that Rapidity was the status quo for months tells me that most Rangers will stick with Rapidity as their main talent.

Good info that it should release just after the vibration. I’ll play with it more tonight and see how it goes. Thanks Riley

@Riley_D TL:DR below
I went from precision to rapidity for testing as well, and in my testing I cannot see any damage increase with rapidity. My single shot dps w/no buff is 104 using a 199 bow. If I fire at a .3 (guessed) second rate my damage stays the same at 104 and the bar does not fill because it decrease is too fast. So I tried firing as fast as humanly possible just to fill the bar to the top. While filling the bar I expected the dps to grow from 104 upwards, however, after the first shot the subsequent “rapid” shots significantly dropped the dps to 56,12,1,60, etc… My point is that “rapidly” firing the bow to a speed capable of filling the rapidity bar, causes the dps to drop dramatically instead of increase as the definition of rapidity says.???
Am I not understanding the rapidity definition of “increases damage as the bar fills”?

LVL 13 w/ 199 bow
In testing, no talent vs precision vs rapidity … I got…

Precision 60-399 dps (usually about 80-110 in combat) the variable dps was based on timing.

Rapidity 104 constant @ .3 seconds or slower and with fast shots, 1-60 dps @ .1 second shot rate, once the bar was filled there was a random variable dps of 12-210 mostly showing 56 dps I believe the 210 were the crit hits.

No talent 150 dps @ .3 seconds or slower with random crits and faster shots would be around 12-56 dps.

the no talent option seems to be the better option because it has a higher, more consistent dps range over the talent options…WHY?

My guess is that when you are trying to fire faster you are not pulling back the bow string all the way. The talent definitely adds a bonus if you are firing full strength with vs without it.

If you are having trouble keeping the bar filled then you would probably be happier using Precision…the whole point of offering them both is to give you a choice to use the one that best fits your play style…

understood…will give them both another try and see which is more beneficial. Thanks.

Does the perfectly timed shot DPS buff stack with your cool downs? As in, if I were to fire a charged piercing arrow at the “perfect” timing, would the 3x dmg take effect on top of that and the globes buff? I unfortunately wasn’t able to get on yesterday, and have been dying to find out since I first read about the abilities

It applies to the base arrow damage only.

Thanks for the info @Riley_D. I mean, I promise I won’t mind if you decide to allow 60k charged piercing arrow crits. I swear I’ll be okay with it haha

Well there goes that idea to take fast charge and line it up with precision shot! I figured it wouldn’t work, but had to ask! Thanks for real though, because that just saved me from burning a potion

The charge timer starts at full draw anyway, so the 1 second charge is virtually impossible to line up with the shot timer the first time it comes around

…although I remember that the devs themselves argued that fast charge would fit good with precision when people argued why somedoby should switch between tiers and not stay at one tier anyway…

It’s a good fit with both tier 1 talents. It opens up a whole extra second for basic attacks, as opposed to the 2-second charge time for a 2 second slow that everyone agrees is too underpowered to care about

Oh, ok, so its common sense to chose the rapid charge in any case?
The slow effect sounded good for me for soloing but I´m not that expirienced with the ranger still

I will definitley go with the precision btw…opening up with a long, charged poison arrow, bringing in 4 to 5 normal shots and finish with a charged pircing worked for me on any red mob till now (lvl13)…
…but true waiting to get that last shot charged is always the moment that lets the mob hit me once…so rapid charge should definitely help with that :+1:

This may be different now but back when I mained RNG a few months ago, the charged shot does NOT stack with the DoT ticks of the poison shot. Charge shot does increase the damage on the initial hit though, which makes it deceiving. I did it that way for a long time before I tested it on training dummies a bunch. It’s certainly worth noting the DPS buff globes DO increase the DoT tick damage though.

So in my experience the best soloing opener is to use charged piercing arrow from max distance, land a few more, then poison arrow while at globe cap. Just keep firing away and charge your piercing arrow again as the CDs on those two things are nearly, if not, identical. So it flows very well to use those two in conjunction because piercing arrow is straight damage, so you’ll get the full benefit of the charge that way and much more DPS than what the initial hit on poison arrow will give.

You’ll have to take a hit or two because you can’t trap a mob while poison is still on them, but the moment it wears off throw down the trap, then tele towards the direction the mob came from so you don’t de-aggro. Then repeat your opener from a distance. You can take down impossible (star) level creatures all day like this with ease.

I must reiterate that I haven’t played on RNG much between the last few patches, so perhaps this information is no longer accurate. And this doesn’t take into account any of our new toys as of yesterday. But test out the poison arrow and charge shot combined effects vs. non charged shot and see what you find! Best of luck to you and enjoy it!