SW or BW for Ranged AOE?

[georgehabadasher]

I’ve played lion, choppa, slayer, mSH and SW extensively in warbands (tanks and healers too, but we’re comparing dps). In my experience SW is by far the easiest to pug farm on, but the hardest to play vs organized competition. It’s trivially easy to get top kill damage on SW because your range gives 100% uptime on your damage—you’re never running between targets—so SW cleans up better than any other class.

The problems arise because you just don’t have the burst options of other classes like channel-> m2, or ID/FS into channel. The sustained damage is good, and the burst is good vs pugs with Ww and LA->barrage, but the burst just isn’t there vs orgs. You also don’t have the ability to sustain during fights that the mdps classes do because your parry and armor are so low.

[gersy]

I’ve played lion, choppa, slayer, mSH and SW extensively in warbands (tanks and healers too, but we’re comparing dps). In my experience SW is by far the easiest to pug farm on, but the hardest to play vs organized competition. It’s trivially easy to get top kill damage on SW because your range gives 100% uptime on your damage—you’re never running between targets—so SW cleans up better than any other class.

The problems arise because you just don’t have the burst options of other classes like channel-> m2, or ID/FS into channel. The sustained damage is good, and the burst is good vs pugs with Ww and LA->barrage, but the burst just isn’t there vs orgs. You also don’t have the ability to sustain during fights that the mdps classes do because your parry and armor are so low.

for me i think the 'burst' is fine, against org wbs or otherwise, providing you have winds in the channel/morale drop window of your allies which you should if you are playing in a competent setting.

your 1-2 dots + ambush on the push + VoN LA (or barrage) spam is dealing quite substantial damage for 5-10 seconds and isn't realistically interruptible provided you have good positioning. unlike if a conventional "aoe dps" who loses a massive portion of their damage if they are CC'd or interrupted during their burst. especially SL for example, who gets hit by 1 of the gorillion aoe interrupts the millisecond his retribution channel begins and loses almost all of his damage. skirm SW is out of range of any of that and pounding huge LAs away 1 after another, taking next to 0 damage in the process.

the only trouble you face is in equal number skirmishes against hyper competent enemies, like in city siege or a closed zone GvG, where a ST party can more easily victimize you by taking advantage of your squishiness. however this skill level and type of content is almost entirely gone from the game so i think it's a moot point.