Best Marksmanship skill ?

[XAmsterdamX]

Just want to hear some opinions. Here are the choices:
- Ricochet
- Frost Pilum
- Seeking Shot
- Explosive Shot
- Arrow Hail

Personally I like Ricochet and Arrow Hail. And they work well together. Ric has a low mana cost and gives a decent boost to weapon dmg. AH is mana-intensive but does very high damage.

[Xinox]

Favourite: Ricochet

Most OP: Exploding.

[purplet]

Exploding is not only most OP (every class has a best skill...) its the most fun skill as well, cleaing rooms with some shots is fun.
Imo the only attack skill a marksman needs and should have^^

[Akron]

Enter a room.
Hold down right mouse button.
Realese when room is empty.

Thats exploding shot for you...

[Bissrok]

Favourite: Ricochet

Most OP: Exploding.

Ricochet is a lot of fun to play with. It feels like you're playing pool sometimes, when you line up a shot at just the right angle.

[Akimbo]

I like ricochet the most so far. It "pierces" enemies and it can hit multiple times, especially in small rooms.

[Muse]

My whole build is just Rico, Explosive and a lot passives
So, I would say Ricochet and Explosive Shot!

[Empyrean]

Max Explosive Shot. Put one point in Arrow Hail for dropping AoEs on guys on different levels or behind walls.

[SantaPenguin]

I love using Riochet too . Line up and bring` em down!

i think Seeking shot is also very good since it fires 4 bullets and each has 40+% so if there's only one target it actually gets out more damage than richocet(i think) AND there's 4 shots = 4 X the chance of a Critical Strike.

I only used frost pilum when i kept getting Glancing shots from Ricochet and Seeking shot on the Dragonskins before Ordrak.

p.s. off topic but I keep thinking Gust of Wind is my lifesaver most of the time(esp against those little green buggers - enslaved).

[Magister]

i'm doing well with Explosive shot (8) and Arrow hail (2) it's a good mix of Aoe that hurts

[kormgar]

Level 10 Explosive Shot almost feels like cheating...

But playing VH hardcore...it's almost necessary.

[soptik]

Ricochet = fun but for faster room cleaning I preffer Expl shot
Frost Pilum = it freezes only 1 target so for me its a waste of time
Seeking Shot = I use it for alone boss fights (e.g. troll bosses with high amount of life or nasty casters 'cos you can kill them out of your screen), first I clean area with Expl shot and then finish boss with Seek shot
Explosive Shot = perfect AoE, I use it all the time
Arrow Hail = totaly waste of time and skill points, better to use Expl shot instead

[Animation]

What happens if you use pistols but have Arrow Hail? Does it still launch arrows, or do you get a barrage of missiles?

Also, what stats are you guys using with your Marskman builds? All dex? 4 dex/1 def? 3/2? Something else?

Thanks!

[liquid]

Arrow Hail - no contest. Rains hell on those poor monsters, especially if you cast it more than once and you've got a Poison Elemental keeping them in range. It's awesome to cast it on areas that aren't directly accessible- second floors, etc. A great combo with Exploding Arrow, which I tend not to use anymore. I don't like the sound it makes. But if you have a really good, powerful weapon - that would be the skill to use.

[Dunpeal]

The problem with Arrow Hail is it only gains dmg as you place skill points onto your character (gain fame/lvl), and from placing skill points into it of course, so it scales terribly compared to the "% DPS" skills

As for Ricochet vs Explosive shot, I'd have to put points in them to see, correct me if im wrong but explosive shot gains 8% weapon dps per lvl where ricochet gains 12%? So ricochet -might- do more in the end... maybe >.>

[Blinkwing]

I'm not really a fan of ricochet anymore because whenever I need to use it, there's no walls or anything to bounce off :[

At the moment, just using expl shot & normal arrows.

If there's one monster in the room, does seeking shot's arrows all go for that one?

[archpsi]

I havent tried seeking shot myself. If it does hit the same target, fires fast enough and the scaling is per arrow and not for all arrows combined it will be overall the best single target dps skill. However explosive shot hitting 2-3 targets will result in more actual damage than seeking hitting 1 to 3 targets.

For now unless you are really really good with ricochet and always get it to bounce through multiple mobs then explosive shot is vastly superior.

just for people who are interested
ricochet 10/10
196% scaling
explosive 10/10
164% scaling (much more likely to hit multiple targets just out of your line of sight than rico)
seeking arrow 10/10
72%, which might be per arrow or in total.

[purplet]

GS is the Shot you should have on your lmb.
Its awesome again single targets as well as agains 2or3targets left and you can shoot around corners (not 90dregree though).
The damage is 72%weapon dps per arrow of course:)
Another interesting point is, that knockback is stronger with this skill, i think that knockback you got ads to each arrow making it more on a full impact of all missiles.
Thats the skill you can push a boss on the wall against you sight and kill it

It fires as fast as you have faster cast speed.


rmb exploding shot because its the mass killer.

Riccochet sucks, especially (and isnt that the most important?) on the last tileset with many stairs and between big rooms:)

[RizzRustbolt]

For kiting champions and groups... Frost Pilum. They like to line up nice and neat behind you as you run. And it has less of a tendency to hit the odd pebble or piece of rubble than Explosive or Ricochet.

[MellyMe]

Explosive Shot. Basically the best skill if you just want stuff dead without having to line up for bounces (IF the terrain even allows it). Ricochet could be more useful for harder difficulties if it had more damage or something like it gaining more damage with every enemy it hits, encouraging shooting it in ways that get the most out of it, but as it is it's too circunstancial and doesn't clear rooms nearly as well as ES. With ES, you can stand at the doorway of a room and just spam it through the massage and walk in to see 30 enemies dead.