Furiyen – The Stormbringer

[Furiyen]

Ok, I’m off on a training course with VMware for the next week so won’t be around. I thought instead it might be a good idea to start a thread on my main character and get some feedback. Azraiyel and Quistris are both Built and Geared, so I can finally move on to my main Character, Furiyen.

A 5 minute history of Furiyen – he began when Lit2 Khopeshes and Epic Charged Gauntlets were end game gear, and his ‘fun’ element was in generating as many graphical, speaker-pounding Lightning Strike effects as possible. To this end, he was created as a Ranger, in order to get as much attacks per second as possible in order to generate these Lightning Strikes.

Then something else happened – Ranger became my favourite class in the entire game (Paladin being an ever so close 2nd place). Back in the day, its mix of TWF and Ranged versatility thanks to all its feats, it bonus DPS from favoured Enemies, its decent amount of HP and Evasion made it in short the Hybrid’s dream character to play. I enjoyed crunching DPS in Melee with Khopeshes as much as showering a field of enemy mobs with a Manyshot.

Fast forward through time, and Furiyen has been the benefit of much, much investment. As an overview:
– He has a full set of +7 Tomes
– He’s not Heroic completionist, but he has 3x Fighter, Monk, Paladin, Barbarian, Ranger, Rogue and is working on 3x Warlock lives.
– He’s Epic Completionist with 3x Martial, Arcane, Primal and 6x Divine Epic PLs. These are Doublestrike, Brace, PoL&D, Enchant Weapon and Colours of the Queen.
– He’s no where near Iconic completionist, but does have 3x PDK and is working on 3x Deep Gnome lives.
– I have every possible Khopesh bar the Strahd Khopesh for him, often multiple version of crafted ones from all the recent Raids and a completed Energized ToEE Khopesh as well.
– The same for Longbows, including an Epic Sapphire Sting
– I have a incredible array of Armor, including a crafted ToEE Energized Armor for the Quality MP/RP/SP bonus.

My current Plan is finish off his Warlock/Deep Gnome lives, then move into a ‘Final Build’ situation as I’m done with all constant reincarnation. I have no plans to do Racial Reincarnations. Best case scenario is I do 3x Primal for Doubleshot and more HP, and I *may* consider the Aasimar Iconic when its available on general release, primarily for the offhand Doublestrike.

So what do I want to achieve?

– A Melee Ranger with a valid, viable Ranged Option
– As many attacks per second, as possible.
– Survivable in Reaper
– Lightning Strikes. Gear always advances, but I do have a set of Ruby Eye of the Tempests as a minimum to add Lightning strikes to any weapon.

That’s the essence of what I want to achieve on my final build.

How would you do it? Comment away!

[Dragavon]

Thought about multiclassing with rogue for even more versatility?

These days with harper tree it is very easy to pull of with max int, 12 points in harper tree and insightful reflexes. I think Thambar has 18 or 19 skillpoints at lvl 20.

My plan for Thambar when I am done with his reincarnations is 1 rogue for rogue skills, 1 arti or wizard for lots of spellpoints and some small spells, then 18 ranger, using around 40 points in tempest.

Legend posted his build for Najra here on the forums a while ago, you might want to look at that.

[Furiyen]

Interesting thought around using Int, reducing needed stats to just two from four with a STR based Khopesh build. Very interesting.

I’ll have to review the current RL gear and see if aunt fits into a SA or AM gear setup, but it might be key.

I would like to stay pure if it’s worth it, depends on any eventual AP breakdown as the Tempest Capstone is huge, really, as are the DWS and AA if I end up in those directions.

That said Rogue 8 for Imp Uncanny Dodge is a big survival boost used properly.

Lots to contemplate.

[Furiyen]

Right, back from training, and some further thoughts.

I think I’m missing an obvious trick by utilising the Deepwood Stalker tree as the primary tree. This would involve taking DWS T5/Capstone over Tempest T5/Capstone, since the DWS enhancements are far more friendly towards a Hybrid playstyle and the active abilities often come with both a Melee and a Range version for the same price.

Now, before you all go hang me from the rafters for such contrary thinking against the conventional meta, its a lot closer than you think if you take into account you would still significantly invest into the other tree any way i.e, I could invest 41AP DWS and still put 31AP into Tempest. The Tempest cores are just too important to pass up on with +20% chance to make offhand attacks, +5% Incorporeal chance and of course the +1 Critical Modifier on Melee Weapons.

With this in mind, these are the differences:

TempCp: +4 Dex
TempCp: 25% Offhand Dstrike
TempT5: 5% Dstrike
TempCp: 10 Melee Power
TempT5: 5 Melee Power
TempT5: Full Offhand Damage
TempT5: Dance of Death

vs.

DwsT5: 10% Dstrike
DwsCp: 20 Melee Power
DwsT5: 5 Melee Power
DwsT5: Headstrike
DwsCp: +3D6 Sneak Damage
DwsT5: +1 Favoured Enemy

DWS therefore loses significantly on Doublestrike, but then has a significant Melee Power advantage. The difference in Offhand ability score damage from Tempest is made up for from a significant bonus to Sneak Damage, especially with the Melee Power advantage.

The real loss, especially from my thematic point of view, is Dance of Death. Suddenly magnifying your attacks from 1 to 4 mobs, with the Doublestrike advantage, is tremendous.

Still, what do I get in return for my Archery?

DwsT5: 20% Dshot
DwsCp: 20 Ranged Power
DwsT5: 5 Ranged Power
DwsT5: 25x Archers Focus
DwsT5: Ranged PA
DwsT5: Headshot
DwsCp: +3 Sneak Damage DWS Capstone
DwsT5: +1 Favoured Enemy
DwsCp: Always Sneak Range

That’s huge compared to the big fat zero bonus to Archery that I get from Tempest. The doubleshot bonus alone, along with Killer stacks and proper gear / EPL / feats means I should get to around 51% Static Doubleshot, along with consistently getting my ranged Sneak Damage through Exposing Shot, all at +25% Ranged Power.

With a 41 AP DWS / 31AP Tempest spread, I can still fit in 8AP into AA for Elemental Arrows bonus, getting 3D8 * Spellpower Electric Arrows top help ramp the Arrow Damage up.

Speaking of which, I’m thinking Scion of Air is a no brainer. Another 2D10 damage scaling with spellpower to both Melee & Ranged attacks, as well as a further 4% Dodge and +4% Dodge Cap.

Alternatively, Scion of Ethereal, since I’m already packing a lot of Sneak Damage on the build, and raising up the base damage of it makes the 1.5 Melee/Range Power multiplier on it even more valuable.

But all this leaves yet another choice to agonise over – which Epic Destiny? Legendary Dreadnought? Divine Crusader? Primal Avatar ?!

[Furiyen]

What am I thinking?

*Sigh*

Dance of Death is the best attack multiplier in the game, bar none. With Tempests closing in on 3.5 Attacks per swing with 100% Offhand attacks, 100% Doublestrike regularly and close to 50% Offhand doublestrikes with the correct feats, enhancements and Past lives, no other ability in the game suddenly then goes and inflicts on upto 4 mobs for the next 10 seconds. TEN seconds.

So what the hell was I thinking if I want to proc lightning strikes? *Self-Slap*

[Lisa]

*Pretends to have read everything and slaps Matt too* 😀

[Legend]

Too much analysis, just prioritise melee tempest, build and gear accordingly, you will need to go into DWS a little for exposing strike.
Ranged should just be an afterthought, max it as best you can if you can be bothered after you have the melee build right.
Forget rogue, the capstone in tempest is too good.

[Furiyen]

But over analysis is fun! And exciting! Or that could just be me…

Onto simpler questions – if I have two sources of haste boost, do you get desperate stocks of charges or do they both go down with each use? I think it was changed recently…

[Furiyen]

Took advantage of SSGs anniversary store offerings to give myself a little bump, today. Hello lvl 25.

I tested out for myself stacking Haste Boosts, and the annoyance with not being able to take say Haste Boost from Tempest and LD and get 10 charges is still present.

Why Am I harping on about Haste boosts? Well, if my number of attacks per swing is sufficient then the next stop is to make those attacks as fast as possible.

Especially since LD efficiently makes Prowess MP boost 50% uptime in fights instead of 33% uptime…

[Pirogen]

I wonder is Vistani stuff counts as “boost”. Vistani has 2 with 10 sec duration and 10 sec cooldown. One is double strike, probably doesnt work, but the other one (T5) is +10 damage. Maybe that one could give perma-Prowess

[Furiyen]

The Blessed Blades enhancement – that’s actually a sound idea, I have VKF unlocked on Azraiyel who also has 5-Peice Prowess, so I can test that out.

For Furiyen though …. taking Blessed Blades means I lose all the T5 Tempest goodness!

[Furiyen]

Ok, after much too-ing and fro-ing over the build, testing of some ideas and playing gear-Tetris for a FULL DAY instead of adventuring I’ve decided upon course for Furiyen.

The core idea is to get out of my comfort Zone and go Legendary Dreadnought, with a view to using the Action Hero ability to reduce my Action Boost cooldown to 20s, the same lifetime as a regular Action Boost.

I’m then going to take every source of Extra Action boost available to a pure Ranger, with a view to keeping up Haste Boost in Fights 100% of the time, Shrine to Shrine. By my calculation, I’ll have 14 Haste Boosts to use per rest, and also I’ll gear a TF Khopesh so I can get Draconic Reinvigoration. This will also mean I get the best usage out of Prowess, so at minimum a 75MP boost with 50% Uptime in fights.

Of course, I’ll have Master’s Blitz, but frankly with my careless/reckless approach to DPS play I expect to lose ‘occasionally’. My appraoch to Action Boosts (I’ll be able to tote around 14 Damage Boosts, and also another super secret boost) means I can heavily rely on pumping Prowess as often as possible.

Off to work, but a lot more to co me later.

[Author]

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