Is this insane?

[Spydaer]

<p>I have just started a Troubador, now lvl 21.  (Yeah, a baby!!)</p><p>Anyway, my forward 'vision' for this guy, is to just use a bow, and play my 'spells'.  I don't have many aa's right now, but am heading down the Don't Kill Msg, and picked up a AA skill that actually complements this 'strategy'.  </p><p>My reason for this, is I am seeing on occasion our current guild Troub get smached via AoE's, and his/her awesome buffs don't do much when dirtnapping, so was wondering if the ranged attacking Troub would fare.   I know it seems everyone else has DPS on the brain, but I don't mind doing less DPS, if it helped others do more, and especially more on a more consistent basis.</p><p>This seem crazy?</p>

[Tri]

staying alive is more important than DPS as a troub, you will have a few ranged abilities allowing you to dish some damage from a safe position but you will be losing a nice chunk of your DPS potential. But if you have issues jousting AEs and your resists aren't high enough to take them then yes stay back and shoot arrows  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[aelder~]

<p>As the other troub gets better at jousting, gets or uses his AE immunity options more effectively, and/or gets better gear/resists, he should spend less time face down in the mud and more time buffing the group <i>and</i> dps'ing.  </p><p>Initially, as you (and your guild, perhaps) learn to raid and don't have the gear / hang of your class & role, ranged may be a reasonable approach.  See the sword and board discussion of another poster where I note that if you are dying to AEs, you might consider shield while you figure out your class and playstyle.  I suspect, however, that you will be putting out about 300 dps.  Unless this is a boxed troub, you will want to do more, eventually, and your gear and ability will get better allowing you to be more actively involved.</p><p>Further, a number of our debuffs are tied to melee attacks (the magic debuff on backstab, lore's decrease of defense, the INT reducer on stealth attack) and, therefore, require you to be in melee range, at least periodically.  With that in mind, you are hurting the total raid dps if you don't get in there and mix it up at least occassionally.</p><p>Happy trails,</p>

[Thrashercat]

Level had become king in this game. If you begin raiding and notice that you are dying, just wait a few levels, and it truly will make a big difference. As the other posters have suggested, ranged dps is possible and sometimes needed for some mobs on raids or for when your gear isn't quite up to snuff to handle the AE's. We can do a good amount of damage from afar as we do not rely on combat arts and auto-attack for all of our damage. Get yourself a decent bow and work up your ranged skill. Good luck and keep it up with your troub!

[Naud]

<cite>Spydaer wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I have just started a Troubador, now lvl 21.  (Yeah, a baby!!)</p><p>Anyway, my forward 'vision' for this guy, is to just use a bow, and play my 'spells'.  I don't have many aa's right now, but am heading down the Don't Kill Msg, and picked up a AA skill that actually complements this 'strategy'.  </p><p>My reason for this, is I am seeing on occasion our current guild Troub get smached via AoE's, and his/her awesome buffs don't do much when dirtnapping, so was wondering if the ranged attacking Troub would fare.   I know it seems everyone else has DPS on the brain, but I don't mind doing less DPS, if it helped others do more, and especially more on a more consistent basis.</p><p>This seem crazy?</p></blockquote><p> Well, I use a bow right now but I hardly depend on it for much DPS these days but I relied heavily on it before I was geared up enough to fend off hard hitting ae's.  Alot of our spells have a decent range on them, but my job is to Debuff, Debuff, oh and Debuff.  Our debuff int can really help alot on raid mobs so I try to joust it in every chance I get.  </p><p>If you go down the aa line for Bladedance you will also get a personal aoe avoidance called Turnstrike that is on a relatively short recast timer.   So if thats up, I try to time my "INS" before an aoe and use turnstrike then POM to get maximum dps with maximum safety while in on an "IN".  When I'm out I use jesters on comrades and range with bow and spells.  However, turnstrike seems to be broken on certain high end content and sometimes does'nt land as often as you like it to, it also requires you to have a sword in main hand.  So if your wanting to be a DPS troub, the new handy macros for swapping weapons can help if your not wanting to use sword as a primary.</p>