Rubbinns wrote on Aug 6
th, 2015 at 5:15pm:
I dont think it's wrong at all. I could solo ranks with 5 other players standing at the gate. Do I make it easier for them? Sure. But by what measure? Im positive you could beat my time if you tried. But I dont think you have ever tried. Not that I have practiced many times. This was my actual first time trying to. I did it to show that while I may be good, Im not as good as the best. If you think you are, then go and set the record.
There are tons of quests times to measure up against. For me, I can tell how much better someone is just by watching a video of them. I guessed I would take over 12 mins without joy and estimate that with joy and everything going perfectly it would take me around 10 at my best time. That is a quantitative measure. Something tangible with the least amount of variables.
I used duo Titan with a buddy and solo Demon Queen back when the cap was 14 (Between Sands and OG GH). I didn't take videos or post screenshots then either. 8-12 Minutes of me running in backwards circles drinking Cure Pots, Lesser Resto Pots, Haste Pots, and Plinking away on my lvl 14 Ranger trying not to die. It's because I wasn't doing it to be the best or showoff, I did it because there were 2 raid items per run (with warding glyphs), and it was more efficient than running with 12 people and rolling for loot. And I wanted a fucking Chaos Blade and a Mari Chain, BAD.
I make my throwers for the same reason today: they are some of the most well-rounded, well-tuned, and pleasurable ways to play DDO I've ever experienced in 9 years of DDO altoholism and leet-bro play. I don't say this to be a hero or get your adoration, I say this because I KNOW it's true, and I hope you have the pleasure of seeing for yourself how much better they are than almost anything else you can play in DDO. That's why I post my builds, and my calculations to justify my choices. When I say better it's in terms of fun, speed, survivability, adaptability and play-style. If you like ranged combat, you should have a heavy rogue splash thrower build at end game. If you don't have one, you don't understand what I'm saying. My speed record in breaking the ranks wont help you understand that very well. A stream or recorded video of my play? That would help. But I've already told I can't seem to get that to work. If anyone has Mac specific suggestions, I'm all ears.
Every single quest and raid I step into on my Throwers are speed runs. And my sample size is the last 2.5 years of playing throwers. Over thousands of quests I have tuned, adjusted, and experimented to make the absolute best possible thrower build I can come up with. I have alts, with PL's and good gear but I've slowly abandoned them to the point of them basically being mules now. I just play my main. I've done Shiradi builds, Bards, Trees, whatever in the past. But the last year and half has been basically 100% focused on my Thrower. When I rolled my main (who then a bank alt) 2.5 years ago into my first thrower build (a pure 20 Monk Shuricannon), I didn't have a single PL. He is now a triple Epic Completionist and a Heroic Completionist with 3 PL's in about half of the heroic lives that aren't meaningless to throwing.
Instead of poo pooing and giving me a bunch of shit for not running some subjective speed test, why don't you just roll and cap one (if you like ranged combat) and see for yourself? If you flat out suck at ranged combat, newsflash: you won't like my thrower builds. When I say suck, I mean bad at ALWAYS moving and still attacking, buffing, scrolling, potting, whatever, and sucking at moving enemies and yourself to be always hitting as many mobs as possible with every throw animation. And maximizing active attacks like Whislte, Pin, Legshot, and Sniper Shot. If you like doing that, you WILL like my builds at 28. Unlike a Monkcher who is largely useless between Slayer shots and semi useless between Manyshots, my thrower builds (and to a slightly lesser extent Pure Monk throwers b/c of 10k) are ALWAYS ON. It's more like a Shiradi caster and less like a Monkcher.
So far, every single person I personally have communicated with who has rolled any of my builds have been really happy at end game. And most recently, with the 13Rog and 11Rog builds, they have been largely ecstatic. And it's because they're the best builds I have ever played, personally. And when people roll them, level them, gear them, and then play them, they see if for themselves. That's the test I'm interested in passing.