Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Ragnarok Online 2 The AV/DS Ranger Rotation

Hi, I've been roaming around the forums for awhile and like to share some of my personal gameplay experiences with everybody.
I'd like to begin by saying that I am in no way a hardcore RO2 gamer nor have i cleared more than half of end game contents.
My 'knowledge'( for the lack of a better word ) comes from being a seasoned WoW player and i've found the mechanics for Ranger/Hunter to be somewhat similar.

Cut to the chase, i believe this should be the one of the better PVE dps rotations for any rangers that have gotten some points into AV/DS.
The rationale behind this rotation is to a)minimize the downtime caused by GCD (Global Cooldown), b)keeping 5x fear breeze up the entire fight c) casting as many AVs as possible without losing FB for too long. Remember that in DPS, every second counts.

1) Wind Walk - preferably 0.5s-1s before combat starts. The idea is to not having to cast this during combat itself, other wise you would incur one GCD. You want to be shooting as much as possible.
2) Sharpshooting - the reason I cast this first before Poison Arrow is because of the idea of 'Snapshotting', this refers to poison arrow receiving the bonus % damage from the sharpshooting debuff. What happens is that this 'buffed' poison arrow can be rolled on for the entire fight as long as poison arrow is kept up using Arrow vulcan. Some players may even try to eat a STR potion to snapshot an even stronger version of poison arrow to be rolled the entire fight. Frankly, I am not too sure if snapshotting is even applicable to RO2, but even if it is not, there is nothing to lose casting SS first :P.
3) Poison Arrow - DoT, should only be casted once and kept up the entire fight by AV and AV only, i will elaborate further on how this is done.
4) Charged Arrow + Double Strafing - After apply the SS and PA debuff, Cast Charged Arrow until you have either 30 concentration or ranger main comes up(procs), when either happens, use Double Strafing to stack up 5x Fear Breeze ASAP. Once you have attained 5x fear breeze, DO NOT DOUBLE STRATE ANYMORE BUT USE ONLY CHARGED ARROW. why?read the next part
5) Arrow Vulcan - THIS IS PROBABLY THE MOST IMPORTANT PART, some rangers argue that AV should only be casted 2s-4s before your 5x Fear breeze is about to end. While i completely understand the point of that(keeping FBx5 up as much as possible and dishing out that extra damage using AV), i have tested it out and i find that there is two main problems in doing this. Firstly, you would be casting AV at best, once every ~30 seconds, doesnt sound right if AV is our highest damage shot. Secondly, If AV is only casted at nearing the end of fear breeze, you will not likely keep up poison arrow's duration FOR THE ENTIRE FIGHT due to human error/latency/or just the duration itself, the room for error is just too small. 
And thus this is what i do instead, cast AV WHENEVER these 2 criterias are met, >90 concentration and ranger main procs. In doing so, you would be able to cast AV, lose all your fear breeze stacks, and instant cast 5x DS and instantly get 5 stacks of FB up again,while refreshing your PA. After which, continue to cast charged arrows until the 2 criterias are met again(this happens really often), then repeat step 5.
6)Renew Sharpshooting/WW whenever cooldown is up - maybe this is even optional.

To summarize my rotation looks like this: WW prefight -> SS -> PA(snapshot) -> Charged arrow till 30 conc or Ranger main comes up -> DS till 5x Fear breeze -> *Charged Arrow till >90 conc + ranger main procs -> AV -> 5x instant DS -> charged arrow till >90 conc + ranger main procs -> AV -> 5x instant DS -> renew sharpshooting/WW whenever if deem fit and repeat * for the rest of fight.

This rotation achieves these advantages that most rangers might not have:
1) AV, your highest damage skill, is casted WAY more times.
2) Poison Arrow only needs to be casted ONCE and should never drop, there is no need to waste a global cooldown to cast it again instead of using a DPS shot.
3) 5x Fear breeze is kept up the entire fight, and for the short time that it is not, you are casting 5x instant shots(DS).

I hope this small sharing his been helpful to you guys. Once again this rotation is only derived from my personal experiments and i have zero intent of putting down any other popular rotations out there. I am happy to hear from the other better rangers on your thoughts and opinions. Cheers

IGN: Novacell 

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