Hiruma, if you look at the graphs you see precision edge does just as well as flurry against low ACs, this is because of the greater chance for the precision damage to double. Haste is a fair point in its favor though. So if flurry only outperforms precision in exceptional circumstances (haste, 3 actions used to attack with a longbow at level 10, weaknesses) and precision is better in way more situations then it seems like flurry is really underperforming compared to precision, and that's something people should be aware of when making a decision, because I would think people would assume flurry is better when you take 3 attacks.
I don't think we're disagreeing. As I said, I believe precision is better if you're essentially on your own, and flurry is better with buffs and more accurate attacks.
Edit: I'll clarify and say sufficiently accurate attacks. As people pointed out, if you need 20s to hit on your 3rd attack, you're not getting any benefit out of flurry. In order to hit an APL+3 or +4 boss on 16s with your third attack, you'll typically need an effective boost of +4 to +6 to hit or so. Of course, against such a boss, those types of debuffs that lower AC that much like Synethesia help everyone trying to hit so in a coordinated team, those will come out if they've got them anyways. Otherwise, I agree, flurry is definitely not better against higher level bosses.
I agree the break even point for expected extra damage is around 3 attacks, or if you want to be more general for all levels, somewhere between 3 and 3 and a half attacks.
I guess the question is, what is an exceptional circumstance, and what isn't. An exceptional circumstance in a PFS session might be modus operandi in a coordinated home campaign.
I'll note, given were discussing ranged attacks, and in a thread that is specifically asking about Hunted shot, the minimum number of attacks we should be considering is 2.
Anyways, for a non-companion ranger, I'd guess the typical turn is going to have 3 attacks. Hunt Prey + Hunted Shot + Strike. That is a simple, straight forward turn that is easy to do with a 60 to 100 foot ranged attack.
If you have an animal companion, it is a different story, but as noted in this thread, not everyone wants an animal companion, as having the possibility of being without half your feats for a week can be a turn off, or needing additional magic to make your bear fly in the mid-levels.
Precision is likely to be better for the majority of animal companion situations, simply because they'll want to be commanding the companion.
However, 4 attacks isn't going to be rare for companion-less Rangers, possibly as common as only 2 attacks. Given half the point of being a ranged striker is you don't have to move as much as the melee fighters. If you are finding yourself moving every turn in most combats, you may want to seriously consider retraining to melee or at least be a switch hitter.
So, personally, if I had to guess, I would've expected the Developers to have aimed for a balance between precision and flurry somewhere near 3 attacks. 2 attacks Precision is the clear winner, 3 attacks is a bit muddy, and 4 attack flurry is the clear winner.
At low levels, because of the coarse nature of the damage scaling (1d8, then 2d8, then 3d8), Precision comes out significantly ahead until you can get your hands on a striking rune.
But I still argue, that with buffs and teamwork, flurry scales better. Even at level 1. Whether that is exceptional situation or not depends on your allies.
At 1st level, the level when Precision is at its relative strongest, its clearly better than flurry on it own.
For typical ACs, requiring say a 10 to hit, 20 to crit, you're getting something like 3.4 expected damage for 2 attacks, 3.55 for 3 attacks, and 3.7 for 4 attacks. A little less for harder to hit targets, a bit more for easier to hit targets. i.e. (0.5 + 2*0.05)*4.5 + 0.45*(0.25 + 2*0.05)*4.5 + and so on.
For those same kinds of ACs, flurry is hitting on 2 rolls out of 20 more on the 2nd attack, 4 rolls out of 20 on the 3rd attack, and 4 rolls out of 20 on the 4th attack. These are normal hits, not criticals, so 0.1 times base damage on 2 attacks, 0.3 times base damage on 3 attacks, and 0.5 times base damage on 4 attacks.
It falls off harder against high AC enemies, which is why the teamwork and debuffs are important. Against a target you need 12s to hit instead of 10s, you're only getting 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 bonus damage. You need to be hitting on a 16 or better with 3rd and later attacks to get the full benefit. Which on a coordinated team is quite possible against APL+3 enemies.
Anyways for this hypothetical hit on 10 or higher, 2 attacks with a shortbow is a mere 0.35 extra expected damage, 3 attacks gets 1.05, and 4 gets 1.75.
But say you use a longbow, then its 0.45, 1.35 and 2.25. Now we're at a little less than half the benefit at 4 attacks. Relatively not very good.
Somewhere halfway to first you buy your composite bow.
Now we're at 0.55, 1.65, and 2.75. Over half way there. Still relatively not very good.
So at 1st level, flurry by itself is definitely not in the running.
But now its the level 3 boss fight, and the bard sings and casts magic weapon on your composite longbow. At least that is what happened at level 1 in my party in boss fights (admittedly it was cast on the Champion's longsword, but same concept).
Suddenly, flurry is providing 1, 3, or 5 extra expected damage, as your base damage roll jumps to 10. This is on top of the extra damage any ranger or other martial would have gotten from magic weapon. So if you're in the back line and just shooting away, now you're better off if you had chosen flurry for that fight. By roughly as much as Precision was beating you without it. At level 1. Is that exceptional or not? Only experience playing the game can tell you that.
So Precision looks to be balanced against roughly 3 attacks when flurry is using a striking rune.
So yeah, from 4-7, when everyone has striking runes, 3 attacks precision generally wins out, but flurry wins out at 4, but falls off hard against high ACs.
When property runes start showing up, Precision and Flurry start to tie at 3, and flurry pulls farther ahead with 4 attacks.
However, at around 9th level, Haste becomes a really good budget buff for casters, being 2 levels down from their top slot, or alternatively, you've grabbed a casting dedication to cast it yourself on big fights. 0.7 times base expected damage when using 5 shots. That definitely pulls ahead at around level 8 to 10, and just stays there.
So I still stand by my statement, that depending on build, teamwork, buffs, and party composition, flurry has lower lows and higher highs than Precision.
Whether you can reach those higher highs depends a lot on the team. If you want a sure thing that just works, I'd probably go with Precision. If you are familiar with the game, and other players are willing to work with you in a regular session, flurry has the potential, but not a guarantee, of being more rewarding.
For teamwork, if your 10th level 6 person team is constantly piling on Synethsia, Fear, bard song or heroism, Haste, and cat pet flat-footed against bosses, flurry is going to do really well.Nope. Flurry doesn't do really well, it just does average.
This is a graph with Synesthesia and Inspire Heroics + Inspire Courage on an average AC enemy. So, this is way overkill against a non boss enemy. I've cumulated 2 and 3 action sequences to get one graph. Precision is blue, Flurry is red. Flurry is like 2% better in an absolutely unrealistic situation where it is supposed to shine.
For Haste, it doesn't really come online before Haste 7. Before, you'll never Haste the Precision Ranger, you'll just Haste someone else. I've quickly compared the damage of a Flurry Ranger third attack to other Martials (Barbarian and Fighter) third attacks and it does 2 points of extra damage. So, I think we can ignore that as it's not really massive.
Linking attacks together like that won't be accurate, it looks like you're only using precision edge once, when you should be using it before the 2 action sequence and before the 3 action sequence.
N, I think it's useful information. And if I played a precision ranger I would attack at -10, it does happen, I'm disagreeing with bidi too on that
Hiruma, we are disagreeing. I was saying precision is better against low ACs/debuffed targets, not just high ACs. I was also saying that flurry being better or equal at 3 attacks is what I might have thought before analysis, but after analysis I see it's better only in very rare circumstances, not common ones like 4 attacks in round.
Linking attacks together like that won't be accurate, it looks like you're only using precision edge once, when you should be using it before the 2 action sequence and before the 3 action sequence.For teamwork, if your 10th level 6 person team is constantly piling on Synethsia, Fear, bard song or heroism, Haste, and cat pet flat-footed against bosses, flurry is going to do really well.Nope. Flurry doesn't do really well, it just does average.
This is a graph with Synesthesia and Inspire Heroics + Inspire Courage on an average AC enemy. So, this is way overkill against a non boss enemy. I've cumulated 2 and 3 action sequences to get one graph. Precision is blue, Flurry is red. Flurry is like 2% better in an absolutely unrealistic situation where it is supposed to shine.
For Haste, it doesn't really come online before Haste 7. Before, you'll never Haste the Precision Ranger, you'll just Haste someone else. I've quickly compared the damage of a Flurry Ranger third attack to other Martials (Barbarian and Fighter) third attacks and it does 2 points of extra damage. So, I think we can ignore that as it's not really massive.
You're right! So it's even worse than that for Flurry... I'll see if I post the graphs, but it looks like even in ideal conditions, Flurry is just equivalent to Precision.
In my opinion, Flurry is victim of its success. Right from the release of the game, I've seen people stating that Precision was lame and Flurry awesome without any proof, no damage calculation or whatsoever. You were the first one to show that Precision was not that bad.
I think noone ever thought that Flurry could be the weak choice for bow Rangers.
Hiruma, we are disagreeing. I was saying precision is better against low ACs/debuffed targets, not just high ACs. I was also saying that flurry being better or equal at 3 attacks is what I might have thought before analysis, but after analysis I see it's better only in very rare circumstances, not common ones like 4 attacks in round.
I'm confused. What does this graph show then?
https://imgur.com/a/vYvksol
I read it as flurry out performing precision.
Hiruma, we are disagreeing. I was saying precision is better against low ACs/debuffed targets, not just high ACs. I was also saying that flurry being better or equal at 3 attacks is what I might have thought before analysis, but after analysis I see it's better only in very rare circumstances, not common ones like 4 attacks in round.I'm confused. What does this graph show then?
https://imgur.com/a/vYvksol
I read it as flurry out performing precision.
That graph was to show that sometimes flurry does better than precision edge. So at level 10, with a longbow out if volley range, and with 4 attacks, flurry does better than precision edge. But that's just level 10, go up one level and precision is ahead, so flurry is not even ahead every level when making 4 attacks.
So 4 attacks at specific levels vs 4 attacks at every level.
Hiruma, we are disagreeing. I was saying precision is better against low ACs/debuffed targets, not just high ACs. I was also saying that flurry being better or equal at 3 attacks is what I might have thought before analysis, but after analysis I see it's better only in very rare circumstances, not common ones like 4 attacks in round.I'm confused. What does this graph show then?
https://imgur.com/a/vYvksol
I read it as flurry out performing precision.
That is specifically level 10, with a longbow, and 4 attacks (Hunted Shot + Strike + Strike). Which is a rare circumstance in his parlance, and might actually be rare, as I haven't taken a poll of all Ranger players or played a Ranger to mid-levels, so I don't have any personal evidence one way or the other.
He didn't make a simplified plot for level 11, where Precision gets its 1d8 to 2d8 bump.
For example, at AC +0, Precision is going to jump up roughly by another 1d8*(0.5 + 2*0.15) + 1d8*0.35*(0.35+2*0.05) + ... = 3.6 + 0.70875 + ... = 4.3. Which I think puts it right on top of the flurry at +0 AC.
In which case, Precision is better in all fewer attack cases, and matches flurry at level 11 in flurry's unenhanced optimal case. If haste, for example, gets thrown in the mix, flurry will move ahead again by about 5 damage points. However, as discussion in this thread shows, haste cannot be taken for granted, again potentially making it a rare circumstance.
For the vast majority of players, for a large selection of play styles and groups, precision will do better. However, there are some crazy people out there, with crazy friends, who do weird things. Like have the Ranger and cleric be pals, and worship the same deity. And the cleric emblazons the ranger's weapons because the ranger gets more out of it than the cleric, or say the barbarian of the party.
Similarly, the party hands the damaging runes to the character who gets the most effect out of them first (which will be whoever makes the most attacks with the highest accuracy, which will tend to be a flurry ranger over most other martial builds, possibly excluding a ranged fighter).
At level 11, if the usual group I played with had a ranger, it wouldn't be crazy to see a ranger dealing 2d6 P + 2 strength + 2 (expert weapon spec) +2 (point blank shot within 120 feet) + 1d6 (Emblazon, Saranrae Fire) + 1d6 (Flaming) + 1d6 (Shock) + 1 (status, bard song).
Against a non-resistant enemy, that is 5d6+7, or 24.5 average hit. On a 4 attack action sequence against a target that you need 10's to hit, flurry provides an expected average 12.25 increase in damage over baseline. In the same situation, Precision adds about 6.8 expected average damage over baseline. Even if you only need a 5 to hit on the first attack, Precision jumps to roughly 11.
If on the other hand, you need 14s to hit initially, flurry's marginal increase is only 2.45. Hence the need for debuffing bosses.
If you start throwing haste into the mix, flurry jumps to 17.15 (again assuming 10s to hit). And will continue to go higher as more weapon specialization comes along, greater striking runes start popping up at 12th, and so forth.
At low levels 1-3, it will be behind unless magic weapon is cast. At 4th, the bump up to 2d6+2+2 (point blank)+1 (status) per hit means on round 2 or later with a 4 attack sequence, the 11 average damage equates to 6 extra expected damage against targets with 10s to hit. Versus precision's 3.4, or 5.5 if you only need 5s to hit.
And if the party's can't debuff a bosses AC down to 10s, or flurry can't bypass resistances, then flurry will under perform precision. Hence the need for boss debuffs in terms of accuracy. On the other hand, properly prepared against weaknesses, flurry will completely outdo precision. So again, circumstances.
If you're only getting 3 or fewer attack rolls off typically, go precision. If you're not in a team that organizes their loot by maximum benefit (i.e. front liners get ac boosts first, character who makes the most attacks gets damaging runes first, etc), go precision. If you want an animal companion, go precision. If you're in a small group, go precision. That probably covers most players. "Its lows are lower".
However, there are groups and builds where flurry does make sense and does have a higher peak than a precision choice will. If you can reliably get 4 attack sequences off and have optimized the entire party. "Its highs are higher". That is all I'm saying.
You can't add single target buffs into the calculation because they can be cast on another party member. So, you would have to compare Flurry's last attack to a Fighter or Barbarian last attack or even to the Wizard casting a Fireball instead of Haste. It's impossible to compare.
Also, even in an ideal party, you'll make a lot of 1 action and 2 action sequence rounds. I even think the basic round is a 2 action sequence as Hunt Prey has to be used a lot. They must be taken into account and clearly cripple Flurry.
The math at this point seems pretty clear, Paizo dropped the ball when it came to Edges and there's only one real choice.
To be able to say that, you'd have to analyze flurry and precision against melee attacks as well. As those tend to do more damage with full strength, not to mention the ability to stack with agility (i.e. agile melee is -2/-4 instead of -3/-6 for non-agile ranged attacks), changes the math some.
On the other hand, melee also needs to move more at the beginning of a fight, so fewer actions to attack in general.
So it would depend on your experiences in combat about how actions you can spend on melee attacks you typically can make combined with typical melee damage per hit to make that general of a statement.
The math at this point seems pretty clear, Paizo dropped the ball when it came to Edges and there's only one real choice.To be able to say that, you'd have to analyze flurry and precision against melee attacks as well. As those tend to do more damage with full strength, not to mention the ability to stack with agility (i.e. agile melee is -2/-4 instead of -3/-6 for non-agile ranged attacks), changes the math some.
On the other hand, melee also needs to move more at the beginning of a fight, so fewer actions to attack in general.
I've been looking at melee rangers. Tried both precision and flurry, with AC. Optimally, for precision, you want the AC to attack itself, I'd think. For flurry, support might work. Depends if crits for bear support count (bear damage being additional damage).
Precision for action economy: twin takedown (d8/d6), strike d6, Command AC (strike strike, effectiveness depends on lvl). Strikes go @ 0,-4,-7. AC will attack between 0 - -4 somewhere, say -3. Second sting could help a bit
Flurry, until 17th, pick/hatchet, from 17-20 twin hatchet. AC support until 17. Or just get it one attack on its own. 4 attacks + 1 AC attack would be @ 0,-2,-3,-3, and the AC at -3. Second sting would be more effective here. @L17 that could be -2,-2,-1,-1,-1,-1 and AC @-3.
Count in runes, there is no way precision will compare at 3 actions, while at 2 they comparable.