Trying to create an effective ranger pawn

[Guts]

So i'm at level 75 in post-grigori gransys and just grinded out dragonforged equipment for my pawn. I think she's ready for BBI once I decide to go there. Right now i'm trying to iron out her setup, and would appreciate any input.

Currently:

Hundred Kisses
Cutting Wind
Instant Reset

Tenfold Flurry
Great Gamble
Fearful Din

Challenger / Utilitarian / Pioneer

I took the time to dragonforge a pair of rusted daggers, following the theory that if she does decide to use them they might as well do something useful like inflict torpor. I'm not sure about GG though. When it hits where it's supposed to hit, it evaporates entire cells of the boss' HP but if it whiffs or is interrupted that's a whole lot of time wasted.

[zadymek]

If you aren't certain about Gamble give Deathly Arrow a try.

Also, I wouldn't equip Hundred Kisses on a Ranger. This skill probably won't make the Pawn think more often of something climbing related but you never know - if your bet is Rusted Daggers give her Dazzle Blast instead and you may be pleasantly surprised...

I see your pawn has Utilitarian secondary. And only one CC skill in her setup. Ever considered swapping the good ol' Tenfold to Invasive Arrow? Without Gamble it won't limit her offensive power. And if not CC in place of Tenfold how about Endecad?

[Guts]

Dazzle Blast inflicts the debilitations on her daggers. I don't know why I didn't think of that, thank you! Is utilitarian not a good secondary if I want her to be focusing on dealing damage?

Observing her in combat with multiple mobs she will default to trying to use GG at all times, even if an enemy repeatedly approaches her she'll roll away and try to use GG ad nauseam. My feeling is that giving your pawn this ability designates them for boss fights and they just won't contribute terribly much to general combat.

Even when surrounded by enemies, with dazzle blast slotted, she would roll away and charge GG.
(this is after replacing tenfold with endecad, she actually seems more receptive to swapping to tenfold versus endecad when GG is being interrupted)

[zadymek]

Utilitarian, should, technically, make her exploit her skills to win tactical advantage for the party. I understand this as Crowd Control and debuffs in case of the Ranger. Since it is secondary it will be active whenever there are no ranged attackers around.

You are yet to test to what degree. I used to use similar kind of Ranger (Utilitarian/Challenger) but it didn't spam CC at satisfactory rate. Maybe it's the matter of training, idk, but this is what I'm expecting.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

I think there are a lot of people who just have Tenfold Furry and nothing else. Great Gamble is somewhat problematic as they have the tendency to blow it on weak targets and then not letting their stamina rebuild before using it again for negligible effects.

Pawns don't really use Instant Reset either. I have my Ranger pawn set up with Dazzle Blast(Rusted Daggers) and Cutting Wind. Bow skill is only Tenfold fury. Tenfold is really Strength dependent. Its very possible to not be able to break enemies defenses with it, so you may want to consider other skills until you get geared up. I would say that around 2000 strength on the bow is kind of minimal for doing BBI. Best max level Ranger pawns are in the 2700+.

Blast Arrows and Periapts are pretty good at making up deficiency in your Ranger pawn too. Sinew means they can carry more, so its directly related to their damage capabilities as well as do some of the BBI leg armors.

[Guts]

I think you're right. I've ended up with

Cutting Wind
Dazzle Blast

Tenfold Flurry

Utilitarian/Challenger/Mitigator

I like her behavior with this setup, for the most part. The abilities with a wind-up just don't seem worthwhile right now compared to tenfold flurry spam.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Beware with dazzle blast on pawns. They tend to start spamming it endlessly on a single ennemy (which wont die since the damages are trivial) from time to time, especially utilitarian ones (dazzle blast is a crowd control skill).

On ranger the main weapon is the longbow, their main use of the daggers is to get access to instant reset, dodge roll and double jump. Giving them damaging dagger skills is useless and it even become counter productive when they actually use them (instead of their bow).

Cutting wind is a very bad skill. It should only be used early on, against gobelins.... or to speed up your travelings on speedrun mode.

When talking about damaging skills, for any vocation, your best picks for skills are skills that are locked to that vocation only.
Damaging skills that are available to all vocations of the same color are early skills that you use because you got nothing better yet.
Only exception being scarlet/hundred/thousand kisses, since it's very versatile and can benefit from the climbing bonus on some type of monsters.

Primary utilitarian on a ranger pawn is all about making it use debilitations/crowd controls. Tenfold flurry has a terrible knockdown power and very inefficient use of stamina, it only shine when you spam blast arrows with it.
If you want good skills for your utilitarian ranger pawn, give it skills with high KD power or a debilitating effect, my favorite being reaper and corckscrew (and some special arrows), there's also a few others that have some unique debilitating properties (binder, invasive).

TL;DR:
- Utilitarian/challenger/mitigator is a set-up for a sorcerer, on a ranger utilitarian wont have the effect you seem to expect from it... (your pawn wil throw barrels, spam dazzle blast and try to debilitate ennemies instead of trying to deal damage).
- For the daggers, the mandatory skills are instant reset and hundred kisses. The third one is not too important but I'd rather give advanced trigger over cutting wind to a ranger pawn.
- For the longbow avoid inefficient skills (tenfold) or skills that pawns dont know how to use properly (endecad).
For a ranger pawn I'd go with reaper arrow (very high KD, very high damage, pawn are perfect aimbots with perfect timing when using that skill), corckscrew arrow (even without debilitating effect, this skill have the capability of piercing trough targets along with an effect similar to lassitude freezing the target with every hits, and it deals a lot of hits) and either secure binder (for small fry CC) or invasive arrow (for defense debuff).
Though the last 2 (binder and invasive) will be erratic and trivial in the hands of a pawn.

[Guts]

Hmm. I did notice that with scarlet kisses she seemed to do more actual attacking when climbing versus climbing and falling. My reasoning for taking cutting wind is just that it's a more mobile ability, whereas she'll enter melee with scarlet kisses and be stationary.

For dazzle blast, she's actually using it sparingly and never against bosses or elite enemies. I haven't noticed a spamming behavior against powerful enemies. My reasoning for using tenfold flurry versus gamble and deathly are that she actually kills things versus charging, being interrupted, and charging again. As for instant reset - I always had it slotted just because it might be doing something but never actually noticed it doing anything.

I do like whirling arrow and will give that another go.

[zadymek]

Originally posted by crueldamoiselle:

As for instant reset - I always had it slotted just because it might be doing something but never actually noticed it doing anything.

Pawns use Instant Reset reliably to counter knockdown. I also read that they use it sparingly to cancel gathering early etc, but I'm yet to notice it.

The actual downside of the skill is that they don't use it the way is was intended: to cancel skills early, or at least I haven't notice anything like this.

[Guts]

Thank you everyone for the recommendations! I have settled on:

Dazzle Blast
Instant Reset

Tenfold Flurry
Comet Shot

I didn't think to try comet shot at all, but it's really nice! I have to disagree about tenfold being 'inefficient' as a ranger should have tons of stamina and tenfold will kill in one or two goes whereas comet will knock an enemy about while doing paltry damage to elites, and I just can't get behind the charge-up abilities. I hate to see them getting interrupted. I feel that tenfold is just more consistent. I do like comet for the decent damage and CC, she seems to use it reliably against weak enemies instead of tenfold.

I've been going through the everfall with the same inclination setup

Utilitarian / Challenger / Mitigator

and I have noticed her throwing barrels but it seems to me that all util pawns get a hard on for throwing barrels at fire-weak enemies, but she also reliably uses dazzle blast which I have to think util is contributing to. She does what I wanted her to, torpors in melee and moves away to spam tenfold, or comet shot if there's weak enemies about.

One thing I can't get her to do is use the blast arrows that are constantly in her inventory. I read that pawns will only use blast arrows if they're facing an enemy they deem a high enough threat level. Anyone can shine a light on that for me?

[zadymek]

Originally posted by crueldamoiselle:

One thing I can't get her to do is use the blast arrows that are constantly in her inventory. I read that pawns will only use blast arrows if they're facing an enemy they deem a high enough threat level. Anyone can shine a light on that for me?

I've been recently researching this subject. I had offline Ranger Pawn, level 20, with just Mitigator and Challenger, and it wouldn't use special arrows at all (Orges, Cyclopes, Chimeras, Golems, nothing) till it met Drake. I thought it's the lack of utilitarian, but since your Pawn has it primary and still doesn't use special arrows I'd guess it's a threat level indeed.
So, if level 20 Pawn (in a full party of level 27-25) only considers Drake a high level threat... I wonder what level your Pawn has ;)

[Guts]

85.. ;) though i'm not sure if it matters at all

She won't use them on drakes, and didn't use them against the archydra.

I'm beginning to think she won't use them for anything but death and daimon.

[zadymek]

Originally posted by crueldamoiselle:

85.. ;) though i'm not sure if it matters at all

She won't use them on drakes, and didn't use them against the archydra.

I'm beginning to think she won't use them for anything but death and daimon.

Interesting. What BBI enemies is she "dissing"? Prisoner Gorecyclopes, Necrophages, Living Armors, Eliminators, upgraded dragons?
I recall other Pawn, my Main Pawn using Blast arrows on Gorecyclops, at level 75.

BTW From experience I know that party, the presence of hired Pawns, influences threat level greatly.

[Guts]

I haven't travelled to bitterblack yet, perhaps she will change her tune there.

I'll experiment with removing the other pawns as well, thanks!

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Shining a light on blast arrows: pawns only use special arrows with core skill.


Inefficient skill: a skill that have a very low damage boost, zero damage/knock down multiplier and a too high stamina consumption.

That's what all the Xfold flurry shots are.

They still do the job against small fry, but against small fry core shots also do the job, and for zero stamina.

Only point of those skills is to deal lot of hits quickly with your bow, to apply debilations with a rusted bow and/or special arrows. They are best used by casting the skill and then spamming several volley. Pawns use neither and they never spam skills.

[Fredericks of Cursewood]

What? Pawns only use special arrows with core skills? LoL. Don't tell that to my pawn or she might stop blowing up CGCs in a matter of seconds.