Ranged Combat Broken?!?! plz explain

[jbolduc]

I've been tempted to make a AA style Fighter or Bard to lvl on and off when I got bored with one of my other toons. I've gone over some builds and posts reguarding this topic. The glaring thing that I keep seeing is that Ranged Combat is "broken" in some way or worthless to even attempt based on some rule of "DPS rules all."

Now I haven't attempted to see how it works in game on a dedicated toon yet, but I have ranged weapons packed on every toon I have. This is to deal with the odd mob in a place I can not get to for melee. The damage is **** poor and I miss quite a bit, but that is the nature of toon that wasn't made to do ranged.

What am I missing that seems to be so obvious to everyone else?

[AyumiAmakusa]

The answer to this,


What am I missing that seems to be so obvious to everyone else?

is this.


The damage is **** poor

[Talon_Moonshadow]

The rate of fire for ranged combat is significantly slower than the number of melee attacks you can do in the same amount of time.


Therefore, ranged DPS is inferior to melee DPS. (it does less damage over the same amount of time)(usually a lot less)


That is why people say it is broken.








But it has other advantages.

[Coldin]

There's lots of other threads that talk about this. I'm not really up to writing another post about it today, so I'll just direct you to find and read those threads.

We also had a talk about it during the latest DDOcast (http://www.ddocast.com) which should be up sometime today.

[kernal42]

The problem is that ranged combat is broken. The ability to do damage indefinitely without putting yourself at risk is hugely powerful. In DDO this is 'balanced' by reducing the dps of ranged-oriented characters. This means that in a party with some melees who are being mass healed already, a melee character is much more useful. On the other hand, in cases where "damage dealt per damage taken" is a more important consideration than "damage dealt per second" (like, Shroud part 4 if your healers managed to die), then a character who can ranged effectively is much more useful.

As you say, having both options available is great. I prefer to have the ranged option even if doing so lessens my melee dps output slightly. That sweet spot of such a tradeoff is entirely opinion and will likely depend largely upon what sort of content you like to play.

Cheers,
Kernal

[elujin]

its not realy broken its just not a bad as a primary dps ranged + multishot is good dps so feel free to make a aa but make sure you have a good meele option too

while meele dps is better most of the time unless the target is somewhere they can't come thats an good time to break out the bow again.
while mobs are far away is a good time but when there next to you breake out the swords

[jcTharin]

before in the old days ranged was equal to melee in dps. but it was overpowered because you could fight from the other side of the room and never worry about getting hit. so they nerfed it, hard.

just so you know why it sucks.

[elujin]

didn't they change the long range no aggro attacking last update .

[eonfreon]

One of the main problems with Ranged is in groups where everyone else is a melee.

For the most part this is one of the major problems:

If the Ranged character has aggro and is kiting around then it's taking a lot longer to kill the Mob because the ranged dps is lower and the melee characters have to run around and try to hit the Mob. Attacking a Mob that's chasing a kiter is a pain in the butt.

If a Ranged character doesn't have aggro, then his "benefit" of taking less damage is nil. Therefore he might as well jump in and melee with the others so that he contributes greater dps then he would with his ranged weapon.

Plus, at higher levels, healers tend to mostly use mass heals, centered around a melee character, thus largely negating the benefit of taking little damage a ranged character has. The Ranged character will usually be too far away to benefit from the mass heal and if he takes any damage will force a healer to "spot heal" him.

However, having both options and knowing how to apply them is key. If a Ranged character can do some damage to a Mob without kiting it, but instead hits it until it's within melee range and then switches to melee, his ranging actually contributes. However, this is tricky since the switching of weapons is not automatic and can take a few clicks, sometimes allowing a Mob a few extra swings at you.

[cpito]

One of the main problems with Ranged is in groups where everyone else is a melee.

For the most part this is one of the major problems:

If the Ranged character has aggro and is kiting around then it's taking a lot longer to kill the Mob because the ranged dps is lower and the melee characters have to run around and try to hit the Mob. Attacking a Mob that's chasing a kiter is a pain in the butt. This is a player issue, not a class issue. Any Archer worth her salt will know how to kite mobs to melee, bb's and fw's, not away from them.

If a Ranged character doesn't have aggro, then his "benefit" of taking less damage is nil. Therefore he might as well jump in and melee with the others so that he contributes greater dps then he would with his ranged weapon. Unless of course the Archer in question is weilding a W/P or W/E or a paralyzer. Often if the archer has the time to switch weapons then it's prob'ly not the archer who's doing things wrong.

Plus, at higher levels, healers tend to mostly use mass heals, centered around a melee character, thus largely negating the benefit of taking little damage a ranged character has. The Ranged character will usually be too far away to benefit from the mass heal and if he takes any damage will force a healer to "spot heal" him. Again, this is a player issue and not a class issue. The addition of RS aura on clerics also open up options for where an archer can shoot from while still getting healed.

However, having both options and knowing how to apply them is key. If a Ranged character can do some damage to a Mob without kiting it, but instead hits it until it's within melee range and then switches to melee, his ranging actually contributes. However, this is tricky since the switching of weapons is not automatic and can take a few clicks, sometimes allowing a Mob a few extra swings at you. I honestly can't really argue this point. Knowing when to melee is important though in a standard quest with a group with decent melee that knows how to work together, and with the right weapons, there should be few times it becomes neccesary.

Archers are not as broken as people claim. Most of the issues people complain about are player based, not class based. I find it ironic that, on one hand, people rage (with good reason) against kiters, those archers who steal agro and lead mobs on a merry chase all over the map. On the other hand, you have (often the same) people claiming that ranged DPS needs to be higher. Which leads me to ask... if ranged DPS were higher then wouldn't there be far more incidents of archers stealing agro and leading a parade of mobs and melee around the quest?


What it really comes down to is that archers are arguably the most difficult class to play effectively. As Talon said, while ranged straight DPS may not be quite on par with melee, it has quite a few other advantages including - if you know what you're doing (I know, I know, that's a HUGE qualifier)...... drumroll please..... doing less DPS than melee because it makes dumping agro easier.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Plus, at higher levels, healers tend to mostly use mass heals, centered around a melee character, thus largely negating the benefit of taking little damage a ranged character has. The Ranged character will usually be too far away to benefit from the mass heal and if he takes any damage will force a healer to "spot heal" him.
.

I believe by "spot heal" you mean, ignore him until he dies unless he heals himself.

If I'm tossing heals and you aren't in the group, I assume that means you can take care of yourself.

[Lorien_the_First_One]

Archers are not as broken as people claim. Most of the issues people complain about are player based, not class based. I find it ironic that, on one hand, people rage (with good reason) against kiters, those archers who steal agro and lead mobs on a merry chase all over the map.

They often don't "steal it" as much as they agro targets that have not yet been agro'd.

And yes, kiters are the problem. Moving should interrupt fire for ranged weapons, ending that kiting nonsense.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

One of the main problems with Ranged is in groups where everyone else is a melee.

For the most part this is one of the major problems:

If the Ranged character has aggro and is kiting around then it's taking a lot longer to kill the Mob because the ranged dps is lower and the melee characters have to run around and try to hit the Mob. Attacking a Mob that's chasing a kiter is a pain in the butt.

If a Ranged character doesn't have aggro, then his "benefit" of taking less damage is nil. Therefore he might as well jump in and melee with the others so that he contributes greater dps then he would with his ranged weapon.

Plus, at higher levels, healers tend to mostly use mass heals, centered around a melee character, thus largely negating the benefit of taking little damage a ranged character has. The Ranged character will usually be too far away to benefit from the mass heal and if he takes any damage will force a healer to "spot heal" him.

However, having both options and knowing how to apply them is key. If a Ranged character can do some damage to a Mob without kiting it, but instead hits it until it's within melee range and then switches to melee, his ranging actually contributes. However, this is tricky since the switching of weapons is not automatic and can take a few clicks, sometimes allowing a Mob a few extra swings at you.

This is great advice.

Especially this:

"If a Ranged character doesn't have aggro, then his "benefit" of taking less damage is nil. Therefore he might as well jump in and melee with the others so that he contributes greater dps then he would with his ranged weapon."

Which is something I've never thought about telling others to do...but something that I do, do when I think about it.
(depends on build though, but most Rgrs would benefit from this.)

[rezo]

Well, you see what you have done here, lol. Range combat is broken and not at the same time. Reloading and manyshot are the only things that can be said to be broken. Just remember most of your players that say range dps is low are right and wrong at the same time. How??? Range dps means you are mostly likely not getting hit by the mobs at long range while, melee dps mean you hit the mobs same time they can hit you back.

If you looking for the best range combater out there, I would say a lvl 20 ranger with tempest that uses light repeaters with the reloading feat. ( it sounds like a sub-machine gun going off) :D

[Dragavon]

Ranged combat will NEVER EVER be "fixed" as you ask for.

There is a very simple reason for this. If ranged was as powerful as melee then we would be able to kill most monsters before they reach us. Turbine does not want us to kill things from a safe distance. So they will never change ranged to become more powerful than it is now.

[AyumiAmakusa]

You might want to read this.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=279121

and

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=263907

[honkuimushi]

Now I haven't attempted to see how it works in game on a dedicated toon yet, but I have ranged weapons packed on every toon I have. This is to deal with the odd mob in a place I can not get to for melee. The damage is **** poor and I miss quite a bit, but that is the nature of toon that wasn't made to do ranged.

What am I missing that seems to be so obvious to everyone else?

The main problem is that even for a character built to be an archer, your statement is still pretty much true.

Yeah, you'll hit more than you do on a character with who dumped Dex. But except for Manyshot, a 20 second clicky with a 2 min cooldown, and Slayer arrows,the capstone of a fairly expensive PrE, ranged focued characters don't attack significantly faster or do that much more damage than a Fighter who tosses a returning throwing axe.

Add to that the fact that most non-turreted mobs are fast enough to close before you get off more than 1 or 2 arrows means that you aren't getting any of that damage avoidance that people keep talking about unless you're kiting. And kiting brings it's own set of problems.

In outdoor quests ranged is a little better because they can get off more shots before the mobs close, but there aren't all that many outdoor quests. More common are the rooms where things don't spawn or activate until you're within melee range. And because melee attack speed is so much faster than ranged, even dedicated archers will usually do more damage with melee weapons than ranged weapons in close ranged combat.