Best Ascendancy Classes for Mage and Ranger?

[BustedHipGaming]

Wondering which are the best to pick and why :)

[Heathy]

well there are 9 in total so you can basically have 3 parties and you'll have all the combos.

I went with barbarian/archmage/renegade with my first party and warden/vizier/marksmen with my second party. I probably won't get a 3rd party until i'm nearer 150 (since it costs 200m for the 7th member) but I don't think it matters too much, I just focused on types of damage, I made both my warriors use taunting blow so they hold aggro for their respective group and I have one frost mage and one arcane. one of my rangers does fire damage the other is just physical with no element. with this in mind I have just been stacking gems with +% damage. my arcane mage for example gets all the +% arcane damage gems. my frost mage gets all the +%cold. there were some breakpoints where my gear just wasn't quite good enough to progress but once you have two parties going the first party should be able to feed higher ilvl gear to the lower level party at least until they catch up to each other (my second party actually took over my first party in levels they must have more fate %). I think the way to go will be to get talent points that reduce the enemies resistances to that characters damage type (once you've taken the flat percentage increases and cooldown reductions).

ultimately it just comes down to getting good drops with good stat rolls that synergise with what you want your dudes to do damage wise (reroll mythic gear to get better stats). after 104 or so you probably want to start upgrading gear and actually putting sockets onto stuff to help you maintain progress or to have it so that your party can just farm continually without dying (be able to keep up with auto levelling enabled).

[BustedHipGaming]

Originally posted by Heathy:

well there are 9 in total so you can basically have 3 parties and you'll have all the combos.

I went with barbarian/archmage/renegade with my first party and warden/vizier/marksmen with my second party. I probably won't get a 3rd party until i'm nearer 150 (since it costs 200m for the 7th member) but I don't think it matters too much, I just focused on types of damage, I made both my warriors use taunting blow so they hold aggro for their respective group and I have one frost mage and one arcane. one of my rangers does fire damage the other is just physical with no element. with this in mind I have just been stacking gems with +% damage. my arcane mage for example gets all the +% arcane damage gems. my frost mage gets all the +%cold. there were some breakpoints where my gear just wasn't quite good enough to progress but once you have two parties going the first party should be able to feed higher ilvl gear to the lower level party at least until they catch up to each other (my second party actually took over my first party in levels they must have more fate %). I think the way to go will be to get talent points that reduce the enemies resistances to that characters damage type (once you've taken the flat percentage increases and cooldown reductions).

ultimately it just comes down to getting good drops with good stat rolls that synergise with what you want your dudes to do damage wise (reroll mythic gear to get better stats). after 104 or so you probably want to start upgrading gear and actually putting sockets onto stuff to help you maintain progress or to have it so that your party can just farm continually without dying (be able to keep up with auto levelling enabled).

So is the assassin subclass trash or what?

[Heathy]

they are all good assuming you've got the gear and gems to back them up. they likely all perform well, the worst case scenario is that you have to farm with auto levelling turned off for a bit to catch up on drops or to enhance gear that only has base rolled stats. 1/10s and such. its entirely down to what you think will work well together. the abilities rank up so it kinda pays to pick something and stick with it although I don't think this counts for ascendant abilities they don't get a mastery bonus. eventually you can have all 9 classes and mix and match however you want. right now I can tell you that i'm not having trouble maintaining forward momentum but i've only got to 113-114. it starts to take hours to level, even if you put all map expertise into inspired learning while doing the ascendancy progression. after say, 110 or so it takes a couple hours or so to level. at that point you just want to be able to clear the zones without losing anyone and ofc maintain the slayers boon while you grind out each level.

I didn't check the assassin's cooldown ability but I'm guessing that its more of a melee focused ranger subclass, but they can all be that, the defining factor is getting a difficult to replace mythic weapon. or two if dual wielding. personally I just had my rangers using ranged weapons the whole time and didn't bother saving any good melee weapons for them. maybe ill hang on to any mythic one handed weapons from now on. ill try a melee ranger in my 3rd party. you just want to pick a type of damage for that character and maximize on it. the class isn't going to matter as much as just having the right gear and gems. at a certain point you get better gear more often than you level up so it matters more that the upgrades you get are inline with the scaling of each level increase. basically I want to get several relevant upgrades between level ups to make sure my damage is increasing relative to the health of the mobs. what class you are is less important than maintaining a flow of upgrades. both gear, the stats on the gear and gems and sockets to put the gems in. if you replace gear with sockets then you need to rebuy those sockets.

114 to 115 is actually a little brutal I think you want some elemental or just pure fire resist from gems or talents, the fire dot in the smouldering ruins is actually kinda melty. i've had certain levels be a bit slow or wipey until the party had the gear to overcome it, but 114 to 115 or just the 115 ascendancy is one map i'm finding my parties get destroyed by fire damage. i'm beating it at 114 but its not consistent yet. at 115 i might need more fire resist to actually survive the boss. there are things you might need to change to overcome certain maps at certain levels but I don't think the actual classes you pick first/second/third. matters more than just optimising what you already have.

[tankanidis]

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

Originally posted by Heathy:

well there are 9 in total so you can basically have 3 parties and you'll have all the combos.

I went with barbarian/archmage/renegade with my first party and warden/vizier/marksmen with my second party. I probably won't get a 3rd party until i'm nearer 150 (since it costs 200m for the 7th member) but I don't think it matters too much, I just focused on types of damage, I made both my warriors use taunting blow so they hold aggro for their respective group and I have one frost mage and one arcane. one of my rangers does fire damage the other is just physical with no element. with this in mind I have just been stacking gems with +% damage. my arcane mage for example gets all the +% arcane damage gems. my frost mage gets all the +%cold. there were some breakpoints where my gear just wasn't quite good enough to progress but once you have two parties going the first party should be able to feed higher ilvl gear to the lower level party at least until they catch up to each other (my second party actually took over my first party in levels they must have more fate %). I think the way to go will be to get talent points that reduce the enemies resistances to that characters damage type (once you've taken the flat percentage increases and cooldown reductions).

ultimately it just comes down to getting good drops with good stat rolls that synergise with what you want your dudes to do damage wise (reroll mythic gear to get better stats). after 104 or so you probably want to start upgrading gear and actually putting sockets onto stuff to help you maintain progress or to have it so that your party can just farm continually without dying (be able to keep up with auto levelling enabled).

So is the assassin subclass trash or what?

Assassin is highest dps if played right with everything based around keeping full hp while using ultimate skill for the damage boost

I have 2 assassins out of my 4 rogues

1 is a snipe assassin who has 1 mage tank for aggro and 1 off tank warrior for -armor/physical reduction with 25% taunt on sunder

That assassin does the damage for the entire team while they hold aggro (mage strongest target, warrior and assassin weakest)

2nd Assassin is my lonestar Tavern Wonder, Bruce

As he's solo until the 15 party cap is introduced, i had him go melee Defiance Assassin with cooldown reduction/attack speed and Vanish

With current set up Bruce can handle 2 Nemesis Bosses solo in Demon's Lair (they summon adds that he kills so he keeps more uptime on Preparation)

If you don't get the build right and the Assassin gets below 100% hp and stays below 100% hp for longer than 0.5 seconds than the build just wont work as prep is the bulk of the damage and that requires full hp to do

[tankanidis]

team assassin uses snipe build on range

Bruce uses Vigilance dodge build on melee


Other 2 rogues are Barrage (1 fire dot / 1 physical)

Barrage is an easy set and forget skill to use since it hits everything

[tankanidis]

My battlemage clearly wins with Fire Meteor out of my 2 dps mages (3rd is melee tank)

I need to change the Vizier from frost over to fire meteor to see if they can compete (the -attack speed due to chill and stun was nice in the early game though, but at late game they are falling behind hard)

[BustedHipGaming]

Originally posted by tankanidis:

team assassin uses snipe build on range

Bruce uses Vigilance dodge build on melee


Other 2 rogues are Barrage (1 fire dot / 1 physical)

Barrage is an easy set and forget skill to use since it hits everything

What's all this stuff about "Bruce" that I keep hearing?

[tankanidis]

Originally posted by BustedHipGaming:

Originally posted by tankanidis:

team assassin uses snipe build on range

Bruce uses Vigilance dodge build on melee


Other 2 rogues are Barrage (1 fire dot / 1 physical)

Barrage is an easy set and forget skill to use since it hits everything

What's all this stuff about "Bruce" that I keep hearing?

The one and only, i give you....


...Bruce!


https://imgur.com/a/R3s4Cmk