Yeah stam has a penetration problem atm, use caltrops for solo content.

Regarding your Snipe morph, and assuming you're talking primarily boss killing: Defile reduces healing taken & health regen and I think is not very beneficial except for a few unique bosses (like the troll WB in Deeshan with obscene health regen). Minor Breach reduces resistances by nearly 3k though and that weakens all bosses as long as your penetration and resistance debuffs don't exceed 18k. I prefer the extra opening range (40m vs 35m) of Focused Aim as well.

I really like starting trash fights from way out. Focused Aim + Poison Injection is a great combo. Fun for taking out individuals while questing. Versus bosses, I use that combo with a 10 second frequency as part of my rotation.

To me, Caltrops is the weak link in trying to bust boss resists. Sure, it gives Major Breach but its damage is so darn poor. I'm going to wait to see what kind of damage buff Caltrops gets from Update 30 before deciding whether to swap Caltrops out for Volley and wear Night Mother's Gaze (which does a good job of applying Major Breach and has given me very good uptimes).

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

Regarding your Snipe morph, and assuming you're talking primarily boss killing: Defile reduces healing taken & health regen and I think is not very beneficial except for a few unique bosses (like the troll WB in Deeshan with obscene health regen). Minor Breach reduces resistances by nearly 3k though and that weakens all bosses as long as your penetration and resistance debuffs don't exceed 18k. I prefer the extra opening range (40m vs 35m) of Focused Aim as well.

I really like starting trash fights from way out. Focused Aim + Poison Injection is a great combo. Fun for taking out individuals while questing. Versus bosses, I use that combo with a 10 second frequency as part of my rotation.

To me, Caltrops is the weak link in trying to bust boss resists. Sure, it gives Major Breach but its damage is so darn poor. I'm going to wait to see what kind of damage buff Caltrops gets from Update 30 before deciding whether to swap Caltrops out for Volley and wear Night Mother's Gaze (which does a good job of applying Major Breach and has given me very good uptimes).

Agreed. Caltrops is really weak compared to for example Ele Drain or Class based abilities with that debuff. Not necessarily because of damage, but the short duration. It was really annoying when the took Major Breach from Sub Assault.

I would totally go for Night Mother's Gaze.

And try out another front bar Bow. Magnum Shot is costly compared to Focused Aim as a spammable.

Anti Calvary Caltrops when combined with Endless Hail and Winters Revenge gives Stam Warden an easy peasy back bar rotation of 14s while providing a good amount of aoe dps and the +10% crit damage passive for chilled enemies.

Razor Caltrops does about the same damage, but aoe, as something like Poison Injection or Twin Slashes this patch, obviously less dps because it doesn't have PI's execute or Twin Slashes DW Execute, but it has Major Breach for +4s to anyone damaged by it. This means you can line it up with Endless Hails 14s duration and have constant uptime of the debuff while also doing average damage (instead of less just for casting it) vs other dots.

On live, Razor Caltrops would barely do more damage than 1 cast of a spammable, now it follows the same rules so it does about 1.5x damage over 10s.

Anti Calvary Caltrops on the other hand, lasts 15s for a nice lineup with Endless Hails 14s so technically, the 1 cast of the skill is about 2x as strong as casting 2 spammables, making it an actually good skill to cast in your rotation. Obviously this morph has no Major Breach, but it is technically the better dps option for situations where someone else could provide the debuff for you.

Point is, both morphs are much more friendly for your dps, rather than being a hinderance by having it on your bar since it did so little.

He's probably not using Magnum Shot as a spammable, it's an incredibly strong dot and most likely the best 2 piece bow you can use for dps, but frankly I find it's use case limited, especially in solo content since it requires a fair distance to get the dot to last long enough that it outpaces regular skills. In solo stuff, you will be swarmed instantly so it's just not worth it.

Due to that, if you're looking for a 2 piece bow, the Vateshran is probably better since you're using snipe anyway. I dropped it though.. I got really annoyed by being interupted or casting your shot just for a mob to die before you can hit them, especially in 4 man content.

Cliff Racer is instant (although slight delay for travel time) and now does direct bleed damage so that adds chances for the new Hemorphaging status effect for minor mangle (-10% max hp) and a small 4s dot. The heal every cast of Cliff Racer is a nice + seeing as Warden doesn't really have a good passive heal like Crit Surge, Lotus Flower is way too short imo for a 1300 heal you can get from Cliff Racer. That + aoe vigor every once in awhile is enough to keep me alive for some solo stuff and sustain myself a little in group content instead of completely relying on the healer.

If off balance is procced, Cliff Racer will beat out Snipe. So there is pro's and con's to both, I just find Cliff Racer to be more versatile, the loss of dps on a dummy is more than made up for in actual content.

And of course, it does offset things with the 2% damage done for all your other skills.

This also frees up your 2 piece for something else like 2 pieces of monster sets providing spell/weapon crit, giving a little bit of a buff to Winters Revenge with the main focus just increasing crit. You could also add Kragh as 1 of the pieces and Ring of the Pale order for solo content if you want to get a better pen total.