Race Tips

Can anyone point me to some good intermediate race tips or guides? The furthest I am able to get currently is to the Prisoner's Gate on 50 min and 1 hour races or to Merveil (then killed) on the longer ones. The highest level I can get on Endless Ledge (or any approximately 1 hour race) is level 12. I have read a few guides and watched a few videos. I am practicing trying to switch gear and assign passives on the fly but it seems that those are fine tuning skills.

I have tried to go with the idea of do what you know/are comfortable with so my first bunch in Emberwake were Rangers, Split Arrow and Ice Shot, and that got me to level 12. This season, after watching a couple guides I have tried a Fire Trap/Ethereal Knives Shadow. Almost level 11 on 50 minute (but got 12 on a practice run). I was thinking to try a Fire Trap/Poison Arrow Ranger but I have the feeling that I'll get to around level 11 or 12.

I can't figure out how when I get level 3 someone else is already level 8. There is obviously something that I am missing. I have been trying to lead the mobs, kiting them along while dropping Fire Traps and Using EK to finish them off but I still get locked up. I try to get just enough xp to be under leveled by one level per zone. It generally feels like RNG is at a 40/60% against but I don't really believe that drops are what are holding me back this much.

What do I need to do to up my game?



Wolf

I would recommend looking at vods or highlight videos of top racers who stream.

Given your mention of racing as ranger I am going to quote unsame from a different thread:

"

unsane wrote:

Nugiyen is one of the best Rangers, only played Ranger last season, and he streams everything. Check his Past Broadcasts for streams between July23 - Aug19 then ffwd through the vods to find races. A couple recent examples:

Event 110: 40m Descent Champions [Solo]
Event 118: 1 Hour Immolation [Party]


GreatOnePoE plays Ranger in party races, could be useful:

1 Hour Immolation [Party] (EWC068)
1 Hour Inferno [Party] (EWC088)
1 Hour Eternal Torment Race [Party] (EWC102)

GreatOnePoE also plays all Descent: Champions races as a Bow Scion afaik, so there's lots to learn there. Check his Past Broadcasts for any D:C. He trims and titles his streams so the races are easy to find.

If you want to get an idea at just the early progression watch videos of the burst races or the brute/merv kill events. The planning used will be different because they are sprints, but some of the skill/knowledge is transferable to the longer evetns.

Hopefully this helps getting you more of the information you are looking for.

1) Never stop moving forward. It might seem like it's just "fine tuning" and doesn't have much effect, but it adds up tremendously. Make sure you do everything on the fly. If your character isn't moving forward, you're usually doing it wrong. Identifying an item? Equipping something? Comparing gear? Assigning a passive skill? Click to keep moving, then hover/equip/assign with Ctrl+click. This is by far the most important thing to move from beginner to intermediate. You can cut your times in half with this alone. A related tip is to very, very rarely go to town. If you do, have a very good reason, and spend the absolute minimum time in there.

2) 3 levels underlevelled is the sweet spot, not 1. When you get to Level 16, you want 4 levels underlevelled. And so on.

3) Be far, far more selective about what you kill. Kill big clustered packs. Kill champions. Don't kill stragglers. Ignore packs of 3 mobs. Etc. The king of pack selection and skill gem precision is Helman. Watch a few of his videos and be amazed at how easy he makes it look. Every time he fires off a skill, it is targeted exactly at the most optimal location to kill everything he wants to damage/kill. Every pack he targets is for a reason, it's efficient.

4) Be far more aggressive/take more risks. The best racers typically die far more often than less skilled ones. Their results will look like this: 1st, 2nd, Dead. Say 70% survival. Whereas an intermediate player will survive 80-90% of the time. This is because the lesser player isn't taking enough risks. Let your life bulb get lower to optimize flask usage; don't be afraid to put yourself in dangerous situations if it will be more efficient.