Poison Arrow

Very often, whenever I hear this skill mentioned, it is immediately dismissed. It is as if there was some big discussion that I missed, that determined that PA is automatically worse than other ranger elites.

I searched the forum and didn’t come up with anything promising.

Here is the build I usually run (in RA and sometimes Tombs):

R/E:

Fire: 6
Beast: 3+1
Exp: 9+4
Wild: 11+1
Marks: 9+1

Dual Shot
Poison Arrow
Dist Shot
Tiger's Fury
Kindle Arrows
Conjure Flame
Troll Unguent
Res Sig

I've been playing this game a while, and tried most alternatives, I've always come back to Poison Arrow as my favorite fireslinger elite. I like to be able to use poison on runners, multiple targets, and tanks. Also, this allows me to take a damage prep, instead of apply poison.

Now, I don't want to debate Kindle vs RtW or any of that, I just want to stick to the elite. Is there any reason why I shouldn't take poison arrow in this build? What should I take instead?

Or, in lieu of responding directly to this question, I would appreciate a link to a topic where this has already been discussed.

Now, just to make this clear, I don't really care about optimizing my build. I just put it up there to use as an example. What I'm really looking for is the argument that allows people to dismiss Poison Arrow without even considering it.

I think poison arrow is a great elite, it just isn't the elite to use if you're trying for spike damage. Since ranger spike gets the publicity, PA doesn't. It does everything I could ask of it, and I take it with me whenever I'm looking for sustained dps and not spike.

btw spreading points out into 5 att is not a good idea at all...

Well, i've been using poison arrow in PvE for some time now, and if you build your char around it (read wear a Poisoner's Bow), I find it to be quite effective. I just divide Poison Arrow among the enemy mobs and keep everyone poisoned. You're not gonna kill the enemies fast, but you become an awesome aid for any party

Quote: Originally Posted by entropy

In pve, monsters don't have condition removal. That makes the quick application of poison wonderful, since it kills monsters reliably.

However in pvp, teams have condition removal, so PA is useful only if you're using it as a cover for something similarly indirect. So it's a waste of an elite to cover up dazed or whatever the point is. Not that it's a bad skill, it's just not worth an elite. In CA it kills monkless teams, but that's about the extent of the use in pvp.

Greater Conflagration is the only ranger elite I can think of with less going for it overall, since it's a sucky skill in pve and a niche skill that still sucks in pvp.

I'd rather have a monk spend 5 energy removing my poison than healing his teammate. And if you mean to say that it will lose it's effectiveness because the poison wont be on very long, that is not the case, as I am easily able to reapply it.

Quote: Originally Posted by Manfred

Quote: Originally Posted by Morty

I wasn't trying to tell you how to play a ranger, I was merely dispelling the idea that it's always bad to have 5 atts.


with R/W I would lose conjure flame. The extra damage is only marginal, but I think it makes a difference. Also, I think taking double damage is worse of a drawback than having non-attack skills deactivated when I dont need them. Furthermore, I dont need to keep tiger's fury up, even to kill a monk, and I cant afford it. And if I switched to frenzy, I wouldn't be able to afford keeping that up either.

I prefer poison over quickshot because poison is more effective against warriors (i can poison them and move to another target) and against some monks who have good resistance to attacks, but not to degen. Quickshot really only becomes worth it if you devote all your time to raining down arrows on a single target. As I often target multiple targets or kite warriors, poison is much more effective for my style of play. Furthermore, I dont think quickshot is that much more effective than TF at increasing attack speed. Obviously, it is faster, but is it enough of an increase to take up my elite slot? I don't really believe so.

Running Tiger's Fury on a Ranger is just dandy. Expertise can make TF cheaper than Frenzy and /W isn't very good when you could be running lots of other useful secondaries.

Poison Arrow just doesn't do enough in PvP. Having a monk spend 5e removing poison doesn't mean anything since the removal will likely heal as well (mend ailment/restore conditions/mend condition). In the end, 4 dps just has no real effect on the battle.

cripple shot ftw

poison is too obvious of a condition and is usually removed right away. with most condition removal you give them healing to work off while they remove your poison. keeping it rotated can work well but only against a team not prepared for conditions (which most are).

cripple shot on the other hand isn't as noticable by the monks and is less likely to be removed and would stay on longer. while this may not deal loads of dmg it increases your warriors DPS and prevents dmg while your softies kite the warriors.

I still think that any method they use to remove the condition wouldn't heal as much as if they had used a real heal. That's a plus in my book, as I can just put the condition back on.


Although I realize this isn't an argument against your point, White Designs, poison is 8dps. Pips are 2dps each. Maybe it was a mistake, I just want to make sure you knew.

As far as 8dps being relevant... well, i'd say that a bow does about that much, at full marks. Do you play rangers with zero marks, because they don't do enough damage to warrant the attribute points? If you dont agree with me on bow damage, here's how I got that:

Shortbow hit's the target a little more than once every 2.65 seconds. Since I can't prove there's time in between attacks, however, I'll use that number.

Max damage on a bow is 15-28. The average of that is 21.5. Let's say it's a couple points higher, due to critical hits, say 24. That's 24 damage every 2.65 seconds, if you do nothing but attack, and hit with every attack. Poison does 21.2 damage in that time. Poison, however, does not require you to be attacking constantly, and it also disregards armor (I was assuming the target had 60 armor), also, it ignores things like aegis and guardian. If I was way off on those calculations, anyone please feel free to correct me.



On the point about cripple being less easy to see, the whole point is that poison is obvious, that's why they remove it, and waste precious energy. Also, I think a good team would call out when they were crippled, if it was hampering their play.

Obviously, if we need to help the warriors, then crippling shot is the way to go. That's just a bit too circumstantial for me though.

Let's say, just for the hell of it, that it doesn't matter which elite we choose, as far as fitting in with the rest of the build is concerned. If we needed to be a spiker, maybe we would use quickshot or punishing shot, if we needed to prevent kiting, then we'd use crippling shot. I'm sure one could also give arguments where poison would be needed, and apply poison wouldn't suffice.

What I'm looking for is, in a situation where you actually have a choice in an elite, is there any reason not to even consider Poison Arrow?

Rangers look for a purpose in the elites they choose. (Spike trap/Oath shot for trappers, Inc Arrows/Punishing for interrupt, Quickshot for single target damage). Poison arrow is not chosen over those common ones because it does have no purpose other than to degen a whole PvE mob, or a whole team. In PvE I'm sure its taken, but most people don't like to cycle over many monsters at once. They either want to take out a single target, or target a single target while doing damage to nearby targets (AoE).

Mend ailment > Poison arrow. The healing counteracts the initial degen + shot, and even if you do reapply it, it doesn't really matter (atleast in 8v8), as condition removal is common in 8v8, and usually damage is not done through degen unless its the whole team getting atleast -8 degen simultaneously. In 4v4 situations, it may prove to have substantial damage, but in 8v8 there are too many block/evade enchants, heavy condition removal, and heavy hexes/removal that make Poison arrow not worth something that does not have a specific purpose.

I hope that helps you understand why most players do not take poison arrow.

I suppose I can see where you are coming from. I guess I'll have to actually try this guy in tombs. I haven't played him there in a while. s

Frankly in terms of conditions on rangers, I remember the debate being whether to use poison arrow/pindown, or crippling shot/apply poison. Option 1 is obviously less hassle for poisoners, since you dont have to reapply the prep, but option 2 gives more cripple for not a whole lot less poison. So personally, i use crippling/apply, as from what ive heard do most people. Combine with hunters shot for lots of degen. The other point on cripple is it cannot be blocked or evaded, so in a lot of cases as knives said, where guardian is rife, you actually deliver more poison than an arrower.

Oh i certainly agree that cripple/apply poison is the way to go, if you need both of those conditions. I don't really need cripple very often, however. I was thinking more along the lines of damage than utility. (not spike damage, just sustained damage)

Poison is poison no matter what.... the 2s casting time on 24s prep doesnt make much difference, so in terms of sustained damage there is no difference. If you want damage, get qs or something. All your doing by using arrow is wasting your elite on something that can be done just as effectively non-elite.

Either way relying on conditions for sustained damage isnt really a great idea. A hard line debilitating shot regime combined with condition speading could pressure their monks into choosing between removing conditions and sparing the energy for a rof in case of spike. Your obvious hope is that combined with say a couple of quickshot rangers they choose remove conditions and the killing gets a bit easier.

But if you want to pressure the monks, as i said save the elite for something like applypoison/echo-debilitating-serpents/hunters and watch the health and energy bars drop.

People dont use arrow because it isnt required.

apply poison prevents me from using a better prep, that adds more to damage. If you look at it strictly from the damage perspective, I think kindle does more damage than poison. Therefore I dont want to replace kindle with poison.

The same thing can't be said, as far as I can see, for the other ranger elites. None of them do more damage than poison.


The point of this isn't to do poison. If it was, then I'd use apply poison. The point is to get as much damage as possible to annoy the monks. I think quickshot does a little more damage, but not enough for me to switch to it, as it has more counters. (quickshot relies on hitting to do damage, if they remove my poison, i can put it back on). Even if they dont use a block or evade, it is quite easy to take cover from a ranger. During the period where I'm repositioning, the poison is doing damage, but the quickshot wouldn't be.

Ummm... You're goal is to "annoy monks" by using PA? ok......

Pssst! I'll let you in on a little secret. Monks love it when you use poison, trust me, I play a PvP monk from time to time. Pretty much any monk / team worth a grain of salt will have condition removal. Stacking conditions on them (especially weak conditions like poison) will only make the monk's heals more efficient. That's why everyone is telling you that it is a sub-par elite. If you think it's a good skill go ahead and keep using it, the enemy monks will love you.

It's cool that you're trying to challenge the norm, but in the current metagame, PA is really not a good PvP skill, sry