Scouts FTW! First off I’d like to introduce myself, I play as Vexxx a 55 S/Wd (former S/W) on Artemis, currently running HoS, ZS, DL, DoD, and WA on a daily basis.
Now Scouts may be a little disadvantaged when it comes to stating as compared to a rogue or mage because we only get a 1:1:1 ratio for patk/str/dex and our arrows cost lots of $$$ (unless you have a DL weapon) BUT if you use the right skills and stat correctly you will easily out-damage rogues with similar p.atk and mages.
Skill Rotation
Now, the only way your scout will do well is with the right skill rotation (macro’s also can help here). Scouts have the advantage of having many damaging skills to choose from and so can be kind of confusing. This is the rotation I use and have found to be the best as far as focus conservation and dps:
0) Buff up – for bosses use Concentration and Blood Arrow and any elite buffs you have
a)Max food/pots stackable:
Hero Pot
Doom’s Banquet / Roast wolf leg
Caviar Sandwich
Strong Stimulant / Stimulant
1) Vampire Arrows – marginal benefit, if you use it at all
1) Combo Shot as soon as it’s up
2) Piercing Arrow as soon as it’s up
3) Shot as soon as it’s up
4) Wind Arrows when all other skills are on cool down
As for Snipe, I’ve found that snipe is one of our most disappointing skills, it’s a 4 second cast AND a 15 second cool down which means that it SHOULD do more damage than a similarly geared mage’s Flame spell but alas… it does not. And the 4 second cast all but kills its dps in comparison to any of the main 4 skills. It’s more of a utility spell than anything, good for long range pulls and getting to see a BIG number on lvl 1 mushrooms for kicks. (for S/wd and S/P snipe is actually useful because of elites)
TP assignment:
1) You will want to keep the 4 main rotation skills leveled up near your max.
2) keep speed shooting, Ranged weapon mastery, and Swiftness up if you have left over TP. they help dps a lot.
3) Blood arrow: DO NOT MAX BLOOD ARROW WHILE LEVELING start at lvl 0 and work your way up slowly AFTER you get to endgame instances, but once at endgame you MUST HAVE IT MAX’d out for serious dps
4) Don’t forget to level up elites and self buffs such as concentration as you get ready to start doing instances
Macro’s/Addons: (you can get addons from
www.curse.com)For a scout, addons and macro’s are very helpful, nearly all our skills are instant cast and need to be cast as soon as available. So it helps to use some level of automation, the level of automation depends on your preferences and knowledge of coding/LUA.
Essential Addons:
1) Uberflex Autocombat – very useful for buffing yourself and potions and it can also be used for fully automated combat… if you want the lowest dps possible
2) PBinfo – shows threat and other useful info
3) Scrutinizer – shows your dps, always good to know how you’re doing
Macro’s:
1)this is a standard rotation macro, it’s not perfect but it will do OK dps.
Gear: HIGH DURA WHENEVER POSSIBLE (adds +20% hidden bonus to all the stats on the piece of gear)
Weapon:
Crossbow? or bow?: Faster weapons (bows) get more dps from arrows, more auto shots and shots per sec which will give more dps AT ENDGAME. But in my experience crossbows come out on top while leveling up because they have much higher dps below hoto level.
So it really depends on the individual weapon but if you are really stuck as to whether or not a particular bow or xbow are better then there are formula’s on the forum that you can use to calculate the exact dps with all the factors. Another good thing to look at is this list
http://forum.runesofmagic.com/showpo…4&postcount=51 from the EU forums, posted by one of their best scouts which compares all the best endgame weapons.
Lvl 1-50) just use the best you can for your lvl, don’t tier it up past 4 (at low levels you can tier your weapons to 3 for essentially free)
Lvl 48-50) Try and get a blue crafted xbow or purple gold wing bow to get you to lvl 55. you can tier it up to T5-T6 if you have the money.
Lvl 55) if you can, start farming the naga’s in SL (near the entrance to the zone) both the elites and non-elites can drop the Killer Catapult, blue lvl 55 xbow, that will last you for a while so you can tier it up to T6-T7. Also there is a quest reward in AV that is the fastest bow in the game that is worth looking at if you have horrible luck like me hahaha. These will get you into Hoto
Hoto/Origin) to start off with the Shell breaking catapult, 55 purp, will probably be the easiest to get. it drops from origins first boss which is easy to farm if you have a tank and mage that is good enough. There is also jiasha’s bow, 55 purp, that drops in Hoto, its dps is the weakest of the endgame weapons though. These weapons should get you into HoS-easy
HoS) the next level of weapons in the game for scouts is Kesa bow and the Bloody Long bow, they drop in HoS, and are fairly cheap on the auctionhouse. If you get one of these it is very recomended to tier it up to T7 or 8. These will bring you to ZS and DL (barely)
ZS/DL) There are 2 scout weapons in ZS the piercing battle bow and the Xbow, the catapult of desolation, both have high dps. In DL there are 2 weapons as well, the rune catapult and the rune war bow. These are the best weapons in the game, and they even make thier own arrows!
DoD/WA) there is a bow in DoD (lvl 57) and an xbow in WA (lvl 58) the bow is pretty easy to get if you can do DoD. These weapons arent as good as the rune bow/xbow but if your guild is small and can’t do DL then it is a viable alternative
Armor:
Hoto/Origin and under) As far as armor goes, there really aren’t any good sets for scout in the game untill HoS and ZS/DL, the lower level rogue sets are just disappointing. your best bet is to get the 2-peice bonus of the hoto set, and the 2 peice strange bug set from origin (helm and pants). Also, if you are really hurting for HP, use cloth shoulders and boots for the stam bonus when you plus them.
HoS) there are 2 leather sets availible to scouts in hos, goddess and giant fist sets, if you want to maximize your dps i would wear giant fist, and dont forget to keep the strange bug set also (crit ftw)
!*IMPORTANT*!
YOU MUST GET THE GODDESS SET (not to wear, dura doesnt matter) in order to get the scout set skill Archers Glory! your dps will be insane with this set skill!
ZS/DL) there are 2 leather sets here, atrocity and scout’s unicorn, i’d go with the scout’s unicorn set and as usual keep your strange bug set for the crit.
Accessories: while leveling stick with vahtos (always make sure that rings and necklace are +6 at least +12 if you want to be a real beast) after that you will have to choose between dilany set and the hos memento set. dilany will give you more patk and the mento set will give you more crit. personally i went with the mento set
Stats: Dont get fooled into putting 35, 40, and 45 str/dex on your gear, its a complete waste unless you are a rogue. Scouts only get 1 point of patk per str or dex so a 50 patk stat is worth more than a 45 dex… (And a hell of a lot cheaper!)
Scouts bread n’ butter stats are yellows with +something/+patk!
Another important factor to consider once you start getting into endgame is HP, make sure that your blood arrow is not too much of a pain for healers to heal through *edit* healers are OP now, stack as much stam as you want!
lvl 1-45+) just use quest gear and maybe some cheaply modded pieces of gear you find on the AH to get you to ravenfell/weeping coast.
lvl 50-55) once you are in weeping coast you can get lots of +50 patk (Command X) and +52 patk (Attack X) stats which compliment each other nicely. You can also find +40 Stam (Physique X) and you will get lots of +35 stam (Stamina X) from quests… sounds like decent gear in the making!
A good cheap setup to get you started is using 2 stat fusion stones (~50k each) put 4 mods on your gear: command x, attack x, stam x, and physique x. This will be enough to get you going.
lvl 55-58) get some XI stats from SL/AV/thunderhoof quests: 2 stam and 4 patk stats per gear will do you well!
Hoto/origin) Cruel VII and Razor VII ARE YOUR BEST FRIENDS. Also ravage is a good backup stat BUT it is less than a barb VI, so if you need that last stat and don’t have a barb VI on your gear, dont fall into the ravage trap! Ideal setup: Cruel, Razor, Barb VI, Eruption (or some other hybrid stam+dps stat), ravage, Fang/Barb V (or stam stat, depending on what you need and have availible)
HoS) you will want to have the giant fist set or attrocity set. Stat wise, cruel and razor are still amazing. Ideal setup: anything containing +patk stat will be best. Razor/cruel, diamond/power, eruption/day, and as a last resort ravage/scale.
ZS/DL/DoD/WA) by now you should know what you are looking for: anything with +patk. for DoD and above you will need 20k+++ hp so stack up on those +stam/+patk – Day, Agility (blood/light and fire/moon as a last resort)
That’s the best advice i have to offer, hope it helped!
