Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[Thar]

Many players have pointed out that a problem with Manyshot is that the balance is feeling ineffective while it's not active. That feeling is a problem. Getting 80 seconds of DPS over 20 seconds, and then 100 seconds of DPS over the next 100 seconds, is interesting but possibly extreme.


the problem is that 100 seconds of dps (ranged) = 10 secs of dps melee. Not saying they should be equal by any means but ranged needs more of a bump. ranged gets boring as it's all toggle on arrow and wait for slayer arrow. nerf slayer arrow and we won't even have that excitement to look forward too.

it's a hard questions to resolve. you almost have to bring up that burst dps somehow. an insta kill arrow? (based off ranger level?) what if AA could scribe arrows from scrolls? (one scroll to stack of 100 plz...)

[Mindos]

Based on the replies and direction of the changes to the Ranger class, here is my take:

1. The ranger is a splash class.
2. The Monk class is free for VIP accounts but Free-To-Play and Premium accounts must purchase the class in the DDO Store for 995 Turbine Points.

Despite all the retort "you're free to play whatever you like" contrasted with the word use of "balance pass", I just don't see any other result. Quite frankly, this is NOT a balance pass, but instead a ranking, a heirarchy of classes- based soley on imho a preconcieved notion.

3. We, the players, know that a 'survey' is being used to guide Dev direction, one so old now that it was done when Monkchers ruled the land.
4. We, the players, know that Monkchers are no longer the everywhere dominate flavor of the month.

Yet, despite the calls from the playerbase for nerfing the synergy from Manyshot and 10Kstars, mind you these calls where loudest when this survey was complied, instead we have an outright opposite approach: The devs wish to strengthen and reaffirm the Monkcher. Almost obstinately so!

Money makes thje world go round, and DDO is no exception. Making money is not a bad thing, per se. But not being forthwith, asking for feedback and then ignoring it? That's bad. and wrong. That's ba- wait someone already made this joke. :)

Rogue's were weak, mostly a 2 level splash, so they were buffed!
Paladin's were weak, almost no one played one pure, so they were buffed!
Ranger's shoot slower, do less damage, and are almost always just a splash, so the dev's said "Working as Intended"

Yeah. That's my take on all these pages of feedback. WAI

[Thar]

This is the key statement. Either changing Slayer Arrows affects those other builds because it's an important part of the power, or it is not that important to those other builds (so they wouldn't be as affected by any changes).

Either Slaying arrows is powerful for many builds, or it isn't. The argument here seems to be "don't nerf Slaying Arrows because it's only powerful with Fury of the Wild and nerfing Slaying Arrows will hurt other builds too much". If other builds don't get much power out of Slaying Arrows, then they won't be hurt by any changes to it. If they are getting much power out of it, then of course we're concerned about it. The fact that it's a fairly granular ability that we can fine tune helps. Adding +1 Critical Damage multiplier is not at all granular. +/- 1 is a huge difference. Being able to change the current 250 to 240 or 510 or 184 or 286 makes Slaying Arrow a finer-grained tool we can use it to try to hit the target.

Perhaps more useful: Compared to Swashbuckler, what kind of DPS do you feel an Arcane Archer should have? Are there non-DPS aspects you think should be changed about either one?

Reminder that we don't even have any changes for Slaying Arrow planned. We're just trying to be up front with what we're thinking about.

I think what the op was trying to say is that Slayer arrow makes one epic ability awesome. and used otherwise makes others nothing special. now taking that away would still hurt those builds as there is nothing special there for archery so if you must nerf, it seems to nerf the ED where is it super awesome while bringing slayer arrow up a notch in the other ed's. IE make it 1000 pts damage but only works on first hit per 5 sec in adrenaline. (not saying this is a good suggestion just throwing it out there). make it worthwhile on epic to at least be able to smack down a trash mob in a non Adrenaline situation.

[oraness]

So you are choosing to ignore the fact that the only "Class" that benefits from this change is the Monkcher.:rolleyes:

This is why I uninstalled this game. You developers all have the worst track record for listening to common sense, and I am sick of it. Players have given you MANY GOOD AND VALID REASONS to make it something else but you choose to ignore them, and not just with this.. time and time again it happens. You just don't even care.

This is supposed to be the "Ranger" pass, this is supposed to be making the "Ranger" good. But you are more concerned about multi-class builds then making a proper pass for ranger. It should NOT matter if you break a multi-class build! Guess what. Players WILL MAKE A NEW BUILD USING THE NEW TREES. THAT IS WHAT MAKES DDO FUN! Finding a "Build" that is good. Its what breaths life bank into a stale game, a build being broke and needing to be redone to be competitive again.

"Ranger" pass should be done in a vacuum where you assume NO OTHER CLASS EXISTS. You want to build a thematic class that has unique tools and abilities and is capable of getting through the content of your game. Once that is done, let the "Builders" make the crazy combinations that make it OP. Who cares! This isn't a PvP game.

RIOT does it with LoL - One build is "good" they go around and change the champions making others better
Blizzard does with WoW - Class's and systems get changed all the time to keep the game interesting
so on and so forth.

Why are you guys so against making a change for the BETTER for the "Ranger" class because you are worried its going to break a "Build" that a small portion of the players currently use. Why is this suddenly a thing? Why wasn't it a thing years ago?

Explain why I still cant be a "Batman Build" then? I want to have Full Plate + Improved Evasion + Full BaB Bonus + Amazing Saves + Top Tier AC.. You need to go back in time and reverse the changes you made that broke the "Batman Build" since apparently its now your policy to not break multi-class builds.

I am hitting my breaking point here... DDO has had many opportunities over the past year to make changes for the better but it seems like whoever is in charge has no clue on how to do that and refuses to listen to the community. Its not JUST about ranger at this point. DDO has potential, but its being driven by a bunch of fools.

The thing about claiming that you need to balance with the thought that 'no other class exists' is that Dungeons and Dragons is literally a game based on multiclassing. Zen archery is in fact an archetype of players, in PnP as well as in DDO. And your argument for the 'batman build' is based on something that didn't work in PnP either. The thing that broke batman builds was making evasion only apply in light/no armor - something that was, in fact a rule in PnP. What they are doing with ranger is fine, monks haven't had their pass yet and I'm sure that when it comes around, THEN the monkcher will be given a close look at. Right now we are playing a game where 5 classes are updated for the current vision of the developers and the rest are lagging in the past. Just give it a while. They are doing something that other games don't do, and that is fix an entire class at once rather than piece everybody together simultaneously patch by patch. (that being said, LoL is a bad example in this case because LoL is a game based solely on PvP and DDO is a game based solely on PvE) Like i said, just let it pan out as it does. Eventually they will get around to wizards, and monks, and favored souls, and whatever else, and once EVERY class gets the enhancement pass, THEN pass your judgement on whether or not they did it right. Because from which classes have received their passes, those classes seem to all be pretty on par in power level.

[Gabrion]

Either changing Slayer Arrows affects those other builds because it's an important part of the power, or it is not that important to those other builds (so they wouldn't be as affected by any changes).

Either Slaying arrows is powerful for many builds, or it isn't. The argument here seems to be "don't nerf Slaying Arrows because it's only powerful with Fury of the Wild and nerfing Slaying Arrows will hurt other builds too much". If other builds don't get much power out of Slaying Arrows, then they won't be hurt by any changes to it. If they are getting much power out of it, then of course we're concerned about it. The fact that it's a fairly granular ability that we can fine tune helps. Adding +1 Critical Damage multiplier is not at all granular. +/- 1 is a huge difference. Being able to change the current 250 to 240 or 510 or 184 or 286 makes Slaying Arrow a finer-grained tool we can use it to try to hit the target.

All due respect, I think you're looking at this the wrong way. The reason it isn't used by a lot of builds is because the flat damage component of an active attack is something of an anomaly. Obviously as a mechanic it works very well with one style...namely using adrenaline to ensure that damage is multiplied by a set amount, plus (virtually) making sure it crits, since the damage can be multiplied.

My version of the complaint you're reply to would not be "nerfing arrow of slaying hurts all the builds that don't use it!" Rather I would point out that it does nerf one particular style (which I agree with others...is not an OP style), while not doing anything to change the fact that a T5 enhancement isn't very good for other types of builds.

I would much prefer you put other options on the table that really take a fresh look at Arrow of Slaying. If you manage to reinvent it in such a way that it's an attractive option for many different builds, but in the process we lose the Arrow of Slaying/Adrenaline interaction we currently have, that would at least be a much more attractive option than just nerfing that particular interaction while still failing to make it a compelling enhancement for other builds.


Perhaps more useful: Compared to Swashbuckler, what kind of DPS do you feel an Arcane Archer should have? Are there non-DPS aspects you think should be changed about either one?

Well the first thing I think of when you ask this question is that Swashbucklers were not only built to have very solid DPS (some of the changes you've proposed for AAs should help with this), but tons of noise has been made about CDG. I'll avoid rehashing balance with that particular ability, instead using it to circle back to AA. Why, exactly, should swashbucklers have one of the strongest instakill abilities in the game, when Arcane Archers have a T5 enhancement named "Arrow of Slaying," which is based on an instakill ability (hence the name), that isn't an instakill ability?

I have to assume devs who originally build AA at least looked at the source material. They must have noticed the capstone ability was an instakill arrow and said "ya we can't just have ppl instakilling enemies with weapon attacks...lets change this to something else." Well fast forward and, for better or worse, the game has taken a turn toward some major power creep. Now our bards are running around killing anything they want every 15 seconds with insane DCs.

Not saying the answer is to give everyone a T5 instakill enhancement, but in the case of "Arrow of SLAYING," well would it be crazy?


Reminder that we don't even have any changes for Slaying Arrow planned. We're just trying to be up front with what we're thinking about.

I think it's great you're having a discussion about it, ESPECIALLY if you don't have a 100% planned solution. So here's my dream revision of that ability - replace it with something totally different:

Spell Storing Arrow

Ranged Attack: The first time you use this ability after resting, select a spell you are able to cast. Subsequent uses of this ability until your next rest fire an arrow that casts the chosen spell when it strikes a target. All aspects of the spell are calculated as though you had cast it normally (if you had metamagic feats active when selecting the spell, they are applied). The spell itself costs no mana when cast through a spell storing arrow, but each use of the arrow costs 20 spell points. Cooldown: 20 seconds.

****

Yes this is just me dreaming big, and no I haven't crunched all the numbers. I know folks might say it would require too much time to implement, but it seems like at least a portion of the groundwork is done if you think about weapons that already cast spells under certain conditions.

Anyway, the huge point in favor of this would be that it actually enhances the idea of an "arcane" (or at least spell casting) archer, while simultaneously opening up a lot of potentially interesting ways to use the ability.

Thanks for reading.

[EllisDee37]

There's some kind of confusion here. Perhaps there's some issues with shades of grey here, but we expect that this build will still exist and be viable and supported. There's no goal of nerfing this playstyle per se. Keep in mind that game changes can make a build objectively stronger and still murder it with extreme prejudice.

Consider the Armor Up update, which also included the paladin pass. That update clearly and objectively improved the 12/6/2 fighter/monk/paladin cetus build -- more dps, better mitigation with the more favorable PRR formula plus adding MRR -- and yet it immediately drove the cetus build into extinction. Like, that very day, they were all gone.

So while you guys on the dev team might say to yourself "this update makes pure ranger clearly and objectively better", that may be irrelevant. This update may have the same effect as Armor Up did on cetus builds, with pure rangers being the obsolete cetus and monkcher being the pure paladin that replaces it.

EDIT: To clarify, I recognize that you aren't talking about wisdom-based DCs in that quote. I took your out of context as a jumping off point to try and illustrate the concern some of us have regarding wisdom-based DCs for rangers. Pure ranger may be great, but when a monkcher joins the group and leaves you in the dust much like a heavy-armor paladin left the cetus build in the dust, that usually signals the death knell for the weaker build.

[murf201]

Why not just make it to where Doubleshot could scale up to 400% while never giving us the ability to reach past 230% or w.e .

Then you can make it where every 120 seconds you can hit Manyshot which would just be an automatic doubleshot at 400% for 20 seconds then back to whatever your static Doubleshot is .

Doubleshot penalty would only apply to 10k stars since they still would have the ability to manyshot as well !




And if you wanted to balance Slayer arrows for rangers and other classes i would revert slayer arrows back to on 20's and give 20 lvl rangers improved slayers which would crit on what ever your crit profile would be

Or just give 18 rngr lvls or so a version of improved slayer arrows !! maybe a use every ten seconds instead of 20 or whatevs !


Rangers should of never suffered from doubleshot penalty it should of only been applied to other classes who had more ranged features then the ranger class had !

[murf201]

I wanted to come back multiple times but it seems like im coming back to the same expletive !!

I read the forums all the time , I have been waiting for this for years . I'm a little nervous for the outcome but atleast if its bad i will continue not to play !



Im a purist by heart , but i played a monkcher for a year when it first started blowing up , fully geared all past lives .


to me it was Barb = all out melee dps
paladin = a mix of divine melee great at fighting demons and devils and stuff
fighter = great melee with tactical advantages
cleric = best at healing .



You get the theme so why is it thet when you got to ranger it was best at nothing , are spells are wack we dont have dc's are melee is garbage we wouldnt even touch unarmed . And were like 3rd best with ranged dmg output !!

[Seikojin]

So when will we see these initial changes on Lamannia to actually test with? I feel the debate on numbers and performance are at a peak and no new progression will be outlined without some testing with the initial changes.

[mikarddo]

This isn't a goal.



There's some kind of confusion here. Perhaps there's some issues with shades of grey here, but we expect that this build will still exist and be viable and supported. There's no goal of nerfing this playstyle per se.

Yes, we do want to bring up the sustain and therefore want to be careful to not also up the burst or overdo DPS overall (but we're not there yet). Unique play styles are basically one of the best things in DDO. That doesn't inherently grant them immunity to changes or (gasp) nerfs.

Some players have suggested that Manyshot should just be something like X% Doubleshot, purely passive, end of story. We're specifically not looking in this direction, specifically because we don't want to "flatline the dps" (nice spin of phrase there, implying death!), even if it would increase sustain, which is a goal.

Many players have pointed out that a problem with Manyshot is that the balance is feeling ineffective while it's not active. That feeling is a problem. Getting 80 seconds of DPS over 20 seconds, and then 100 seconds of DPS over the next 100 seconds, is interesting but possibly extreme.

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer. There are surely some players who would love to do five minutes worth of damage in 1 second and then do nothing for five minutes, as well as players who just want steady constant damage output and wouldn't even want dice being rolled. Those different styles even have strategic uses.

Thank you for the reply Varg.

In that case I dont think its all that hard though I acknowledge you have to balance alot of things.

a) Keep burst dps exactly the way it is now. Dont change at all how Manyshot + IPS + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline works. If you nerf that even just 20% you very much risk making it a too small effect as it wont (nearly) always autokill the string of trash lined up by IPS. If it leaves the mobs alive after hitting that super shot the bursty feeling is gone. So, any nerf to the burst damage make very easily make the build "not viable". Infact, its already starting to be borderline viable as mob hp goes up and the burst doesnt scale up fast enough to cover that increase in mob hp.
b) Up the sustained dps by removing the doubleshot penalty and adding the extra damage from imbues as suggested. Note that the extra damage from imbues is of no practical relevans for shots with Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline so the addition to burst dps isnt important and warrents no other nerf.
c) Add more doubleshot if the sustained dps still isnt up to par (if you dont let doubleshot work during MS and 10k stars) or add something else that doesnt scale with MS/10k stars.
d) If lag from multiple projectiles is an issue you need to adress then change Manyshot and 10k stars from 4 (2-3) normal arrows to 1 huge arrows in all respects (details in #371 in this very thread).

In short. If burst dps is acceptable but sustained isnt - then adress exactly that in a KISS style rather than go through all sorts of hoops that have sideeffects that may be counter to the actual goal. As it is now your suggestions seem to only serve to complicate matters without actually solving anything exactly because you dont keep it simple.

[SirValentine]

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer. There are surely some players who would love to do five minutes worth of damage in 1 second and then do nothing for five minutes, as well as players who just want steady constant damage output and wouldn't even want dice being rolled. Those different styles even have strategic uses.


They won't do nothing for 5 minutes...they'll happily do very high burst DPS with ranged, and won't care how low the steady constant ranged damage is, because they'll swap to melee when they're not burst-ranging. The more it's tilted towards the higher burst, the less competitive full-time ranged becomes, because the non-burst-ranged will be out-done by swapping to melee.

I don't generally play either archers or melees, so I don't care much personally, but I'm not sure it really makes sense, thematically, that shoving several feet of steel in someone should be sustained "whittle down" DPS while standing back and shooting arrows is "kill in a hurry" burst DPS. <shrug>

I think "almost always ranging", "almost always melee", and "swapping back & forth" should all be reasonable choices in their own ways.

But, personally, I'd like to see characters swapping between melee & ranged for more situational tactical reasons than just to work it for MOAR UBER DEEPS!!!1

[dunklezhan]

Hmm. Manyshot. Chai posted something yesterday that I quite liked, which was manyshot just shoot one arrow but grant a multiplier to bring it up close to current levels per 'shot', reducing the #arrows and collision detections. I guess this is quite close to just adding [W] which of course has other side effects (maybe MS would set your crit to 20x1 for the duration to stop the really big spikes?), but it seemed reasonably neat to me. But then... I don't actually have a problem with the manyshot proposals as they are.

Hmm slaying arrows. I wish I had something to contribute but all these crazy ED synergies and playstyles just confuse me. I don't know what all the acronyms are (I simply cannot remember what FoTW is for instance. Flame of the Week?), and Epic is not the space in the game in which I play anyway. But... if the concern is how these abilities interact with EDs, then as far as I'm concerned change the EDs.

I can say that my heroic archer never bothered with Slaying Arrows, ever, because it's an active clickie with a long cooldown that costs SP yet still requires a to hit roll (so can miss). My hotbars are busy enough that I only take active abilities if I'm going to be able to use them a lot or they're really spectacular - and in heroic slaying arrows just don't seem to be that spectacular. No better than getting a lightning strike proc anyway and I've always found those pretty useless in general questing (I never take true strike either for the same reasons - can still roll a 1 and it's going to cost me SP? No thanks). I don't play a ranged character to take risks like that, that's kinda the point of being at range.

I played an AA before they were cool (and a virtuoso, and a bunch of other less popular enhancement lines back in the day). I truly know what it is to do terrible damage on an archer. Things are so much better now I'm mostly just grateful not to be sent back to bad old days.

So I'm clearly not the target market when it comes to AA balancing - I don't get the frightening burst damage everyone else seems to use habitually, except for manyshot. I just get the penalties when MS is off cooldown.

I guess that's why I'm less upset by these MS changes - I see the removal of the doublestrike penalty and I'm willing to put up with the minor loss of manyshot DPS, and would not really care if slaying arrows got a nerf. I am actually very happy about the general DPS boost for AA. A minor reduction in burst seems like a perfectly fine trade off so long as there is still noticeable burst, because that's a really enjoyable quirk of the playstyle.

Where I am having an issue is with the Wis for DCs - I still dislike that this would effectively mean that a multiclass or straight up elf with a wis class (not just monk, any wis based class) would more easily get better DCs in the AA tree than a pure class ranger AA. I say again, for clarity - I don't expect pure class rangers to be automatically better... but they should certainly have an easier time reaching effective DCs than someone without the full stack of 20 ranger levels. Please adjust the DCs somehow to reflect that - whether it be a direct tie in to Ranger levels, or linked somehow to the number of AP or core abilities picked up in the AA tree.

[dunklezhan]

Where I am having an issue is with the Wis for DCs - I still dislike that this would effectively mean that a multiclass or straight up elf with a wis class (not just monk, any wis based class) would more easily get better DCs in the AA tree than a pure class ranger AA. I say again, for clarity - I don't expect pure class rangers to be automatically better... but they should certainly have an easier time reaching effective DCs than someone without the full stack of 20 ranger levels. Please adjust the DCs somehow to reflect that - whether it be a direct tie in to Ranger levels, or linked somehow to the number of AP or core abilities picked up in the AA tree.

Quoting my own post just to add: I absolutely understand that when it comes to DCs, Rangers are a Wis based class and the fact that people simply haven't been building for it because up to now it hasn't been useful is not lost on me. Perhaps if AA's somehow got more use from Wis in other areas that would be better, but I can't think of a way to do that which doesn't also add yet more power to monkchers or other wis based multiclasses.

On the other hand, if you're a wis based class mixing with another wis based class, I guess the argument would be why shouldn't you get great synergy, I mean that is the essence of multiclassing really, synergies and tradeoffs. But a monk ranger has synergy options from three core stats - str, dex and wis, and I think that is throwing a spanner in the works. Monks have always been multistat dependent whereas rangers tend to be one (Str) or maybe two (dex), depending on whether they're melee or ranged - and in fact its usually just the str even for ranged, because of bow str.

By making Wis so important to an AA, you're making pure rangers split their stat investment again, which they aren't really designed for as a class, possibly weakening them overall, because rangers were never really supposed to be multistat dependent - that's why they get all those lovely free feats that don't care about prerequisite stats.

So yeah - I don't know what the answer is, but this wis issue is a killer. Thematically it makes perfect sense - wis based caster therefore enhancement DCs being based on Wis is intuitive and consistent with other classes. But throw something like a monk into the mix and you're not just continuing to support monkchers (which is fine), you're basically encouraging them. I'm not sure there's enough in that tree that you would ever not take enough monk levels to get 10K stars in somehow.

I worry that the outcome of this will basically be that:

-Pure Rangers: you build for straight sustainable elemental DPS unless you want to sacrifice being able to hit stuff for having DCs that work even though those DCs won't matter anyway if you can't hit. Current game means To Hit is often a non issue, if I'm being absolutely fair, but it also means the ranger AA is now potentially down on reflex and dodge too as they had to split their dex out. Most AAs I know build primarily for Str actually, due to Bow Str and the need to switch to melee, which in many ways is a worse thing to dilute because now you really are starting to impact that improved sustained DPS that you're introducing. either way, tough times and choices ahead for the pure AA.
-Monkchers: won't get the sustained dps as high probably, but get to double down on the burstiness AND get DCs that work as a side effect of needing to build for wis anyway. Since To Hit is often a non issue in the current game, and since monks in particular also often build for Dex, Str and Wis already meaning the class is designed to work by compensating for this dilution of stats, they are not really making tough choices here.
-non wis multiclasses: probably behind on both sustained DPS, burstiness and DCs.

But it should go something like:

Pure AA Ranger: improved sustainable DPS, some burstiness and reliable DCs on their special attacks. They should be able to achieve this much without giving up the core of their build (which should really be Str or Dex). Pumping Wis (if Wis is the DC stat for special arrows) and losing out in other areas should actually make those DCs awesome compared to more or less any multiclass build, because DCs are an unusual choice for a ranger, and should be. They aren't a class that's meant to have DCs. Similarly, the AA should have the choice of pumping that sustainable DPS significantly, but at the cost of their DCs. But if they choose to build reasonably evenly, a pure class should, on average still do sustainable DPS, some burstiness and have reliable DCs.

Monkcher (or cleric-cher etc I guess): slightly improved sustainable DPS, great burstiness, /meh DCs. Again, they should be able to achieve this much pretty easily, but in this case be able to pump burstiness or their sustainable DPS somewhat. The DCs however should really be very tough for these characters to pump.

Non Wis multiclasses: improved sustainable DPS, some burstiness, /meh DCs. Again DCs hard to pump, sustainable DPS should be relatively easy to pump and burstiness should be about as easy/hard to pump as an AA would find it.

As it is I think the sustainable DPS element you've got about right. The burstiness similarly seems to be about right (arguments about the precise nature of MS and 10K stars aside). But the planned DCs at the moment are way off if the idea is provide reasonably tough choices for all.

I think if you wanted actual tough choices I wonder if a little out of the box thinking is required: perhaps you should actually have the DC arrows run off dex - not a selector for dex/wis/cha/int/whatever, just straight dex - whilst many new players build for dex for archery because it seems intuitively the right thing to do, the absence of a Dex to damage for bows, and the free Bow Str feat means many pure class Rangers regardless of flavour I know build only for minimal Dex, and rely on Str for all damage both ranged and melee. Monks and monkchers often do the same because of earth stance (though I still love my wind monk) - meaning Dex is often high but not pumped in both cases. At this point, non Wis multiclasses get a chance at a certain amount of boost.

/meh its a thought. I don't like to leave a massively long rambly post without at least putting some kind of suggestion in there :)

[Doctorivil]

From my pov something like the wraping in manyshot is in fact needed.
Since the only ones getting beneffits from over 100% DS would other wise be repeater crossbows as i assume that:
Since they divide DS by 3, having 150% DS would give them 50% of an extra arrow in each shot.
(This may not be the case tho, since repeaters can't MS, just make sure that they still can't with MS as a DS bonus)

Anyway my suggestion is:
Instead of making MS give a DS bonus, make it add 1 extra arrow only, that can produce a DS.
With that you'd get something like:
Players with 0% DS > Manyshot gives 2 arrows/shot
Players with 50% DS > Manyshot gives ~3 arrows/shot
Players with 100% DS > Manyshot gives 4 arrows/shot

This way:
You'd be able to keep the DS cap at 100%
You'd reduce the number of shots w/o arming the 4x factor of MS
You'd be rewarding equaliy players with and without investiment in DS.

[Requiro]

(...) Perhaps if AA's somehow got more use from Wis in other areas that would be better, but I can't think of a way to do that which doesn't also add yet more power to monkchers or other wis based multiclasses. (...)

Some fast thoughts:
- New pool of useful spells (could be even existing already in game spells)
- Some new abilities on high Ranger levels that grant some kind of power based on Wisdom.

Maybe even some connection with Favored Enemy?
- On level 9 free feat: Favored defenses - grants +1 AC equal to half Wisdom Modifier against Favored Enemy
- On level 15 free feat: Favored resistance - grants +1 MMR and PRR equal to half Wisdom Modifier against Favored Enemy

Or flavor one:
- On level 13 free feat: Animal Empathy regeneration on rate 1 every 120 second minus Wisdom score

Overall some great thoughts dunklezhan :)


(...)

Anyway my suggestion is:
Instead of making MS give a DS bonus, make it add 1 extra arrow only, that can produce a DS.
With that you'd get something like:
Players with 0% DS > Manyshot gives 2 arrows/shot
Players with 50% DS > Manyshot gives ~3 arrows/shot
Players with 100% DS > Manyshot gives 4 arrows/shot

This way:
You'd be able to keep the DS cap at 100%
You'd reduce the number of shots w/o arming the 4x factor of MS
You'd be rewarding equaliy players with and without investiment in DS.

Very good idea, of course with removing DS penalty from MS.

But what about 10K stars?

[EllisDee37]

If doubleshot will be wrapping, I would think manyshot solves itself. Right now on live:

BAB 6-10: 2 arrows per attack
BAB 11-15: three arrows per attack
BAB 16+: four arrows per attack

Isn't this easily recreated by just using doubleshot?

BAB 6-10: +100% doubleshot
BAB 11-15: +200% doubleshot
BAB 16+: +300% doubleshot

You could even make it a smoother curve:

Manyshot: Gain BAB * 15% doubleshot for the next 20 seconds.

[hit_fido]

If doubleshot will be wrapping, I would think manyshot solves itself. Right now on live:

BAB 6-10: 2 arrows per attack
BAB 11-15: three arrows per attack
BAB 16+: four arrows per attack

Isn't this easily recreated by just using doubleshot?

BAB 6-10: +100% doubleshot
BAB 11-15: +200% doubleshot
BAB 16+: +300% doubleshot

You could even make it a smoother curve:

Manyshot: Gain BAB * 15% doubleshot for the next 20 seconds.

This is more or less what I was thinking the simplest solution that retains the "ranged burst" feel would be if they really need to do away with "multiple projectiles":


I guess doubleshot accomplishes the illusion of multiple projectiles hitting the target, but it should be capable of wrapping up to 4x over that 20 seconds, then at least it stays more or less in line with the 2x/3x/4x hit/proc of today's feat.

I like the suggestion of a smoother curve though. It would also have to still work with improved precise shot as far as applying the doubleshot to every applicable target (is that true of doubleshot now?).

Anyway this seems to be the most direct way to translate real multiple projectiles into fake multiple projectiles, retaining the on hit effects by way of existing doubleshot mechanics. If Turbine wants to add in a temporary ranged power increase as well then I guess no one will complain. But to me any change that doesn't give players an opportunity for at least faking up to four projectile hits per volley is a very poor direction.

[Thar]

If you really want to reduce the power of Slayer arrow + Adrenaline, you would just make the arrow damage be spell damage, scaling with spell power instead of ranged power. The dev team has not proposed that, since it would likely kill the fury build entirely.. but it would make the up front damage more scalable. Is that something which we would want?

seriously we're discussing a once in 2 min ability with manyshot that does damage comparable to a cleave for melees?

yes adrenaline is an issue but that's because it works on all arrows vs only one melee attack.

the answer really is to buff ranged combat and make it only work on 1 arrow.

making this work with spell power is just a nerf to the abililty since how many ranged builds look to increase spell power?

[Thar]

If doubleshot will be wrapping, I would think manyshot solves itself. Right now on live:

BAB 6-10: 2 arrows per attack
BAB 11-15: three arrows per attack
BAB 16+: four arrows per attack

Isn't this easily recreated by just using doubleshot?

BAB 6-10: +100% doubleshot
BAB 11-15: +200% doubleshot
BAB 16+: +300% doubleshot

You could even make it a smoother curve:

Manyshot: Gain BAB * 15% doubleshot for the next 20 seconds.

doesn't doubleshot cap at 100% ie one extra arrow, not more.

[hit_fido]

doesn't doubleshot cap at 100% ie one extra arrow, not more.

Earlier developer post suggested that could change:



We are considering a change to let Doubleshot wrap; that is once Doubleshot exceeds 100% it would start to have a chance to produce a third attack. Then Doubleshot wouldn't be wasted during high buffs.


But reading back I also noticed this statement:



Doubleshot and Manyshot both create additional real arrows in the world, each making their own separate, constant collision checks as they fly through the air.


Which as far as I am reading says there's no difference between the "server performance" of doubleshot vs manyshot. I had assumed doubleshot was a chance at an additional "hit" whenever the current attack (projectile) landed - that is to say an additional "unit of damage" added on with the first hit, without having to compute an entirely new set of physics results. But this quote seems to indicate that it is an additional chance for a completely new projectile to be fired subject to all the same calculations as any other projectile.

If that's the case then given their desire to reduce projectiles I suppose the kind of doubleshot solution me and EllisDee are thinking wont fly. And therefore no solution that still offers up to four projectiles per volley will be making it live.

So that really sucks. Why even call it "manyshot" if you don't actually shoot "many"?

[dunklezhan]

So that really sucks. Why even call it "manyshot" if you don't actually shoot "many"?

True. Even trolls (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Discworld))think 'many' is more than 2.

[redoubt]

This isn't a goal.


There's no goal of nerfing this playstyle per se.


You keep saying that like it means it is not happening or did not happen. My kids constantly try to use the "it was an accident" or "I didn't mean to" as a way to say it is not their fault. I'm constantly working on teaching them that you can be at fault regardless of motive. Just as Turbine can be at fault for what we are discussing with manyshot even if your intent is otherwise or your motive is elsewhere, you are still greatly affecting specific builds and play styles.

With respect to DCs:

A ranged ranger will most likely dump WIS and start with 8. To that you add a moderate +4 tome (because you had it anyway) and a +6 item at level 11 and later a +8 or 10 item. Assuming the +10 you get up to 22 WIS. This is more than enough to cast the highest level ranger spells.

By comparison, a moncher will max out wisdom, getting well over 50 and having a 10+ point advantage in DC. (This is in addition to already having the advantage of stacking 10k stars on top of the new increased "flat line" damage.)

With respect to manyshot:

Lots of good ideas have been posted over several years and mostly fallen on deaf ears. I realize that you don't want to make manyshot a "ranger thing", but with this change that is exactly what you are doing. Manyshot is already one of the hardest feats to justify without ranger levels. It requires two feats (only one of which would likely be taken on a non-ranger). It requires 17 DEX without counting items or enhancements, so this is a large commitment at creation for any non-DEX build.

Who do you see taking all of that just for 20 seconds of 2 arrows? Manyshot was good enough that people would use it when it was off timer and switch back to melee when it was on timer. I don't see manyshot being an improvement over melee DPS anymore, which will drive it even further into the "only on a ranger" position.


Finally, I still recommend you look at expanding on the differences in the two AA trees and build ranged functionality into the fighter trees. With just the two AA trees you could do at lease a couple things:
1. Use different stats for DC.
2. Put bonuses to things like manyshot into the cores of the ranger version of the AA tree. This would provide a place where a non-monk archer could catch up to a monk-archer.

[FestusHood]

Earlier developer post suggested that could change:



But reading back I also noticed this statement:



Which as far as I am reading says there's no difference between the "server performance" of doubleshot vs manyshot. I had assumed doubleshot was a chance at an additional "hit" whenever the current attack (projectile) landed - that is to say an additional "unit of damage" added on with the first hit, without having to compute an entirely new set of physics results. But this quote seems to indicate that it is an additional chance for a completely new projectile to be fired subject to all the same calculations as any other projectile.

If that's the case then given their desire to reduce projectiles I suppose the kind of doubleshot solution me and EllisDee are thinking wont fly. And therefore no solution that still offers up to four projectiles per volley will be making it live.

So that really sucks. Why even call it "manyshot" if you don't actually shoot "many"?

You can pretty easily see the extra arrows firing out from the bow. Half the time that's how i can tell how many i shot rather than watching the numbers. So it works differently than doublestrike, which is like a proc effect that generates after a hit takes place, rather than a separate attack, even though it may have a separate attack roll. Maybe they could rework doubleshot to work the same way. So you only ever actually fired one arrow, but then additional arrows would generate after the target is hit.

Then there are glancing blows, and i don't know how those are different. It is possible to land a glancing blow even if the main attack misses because of rolling a one. Is it possible to proc a doublestrike when the original hit rolls a one?

[Thar]

how about giving ranger another tier 4 or 5 that gives a cone shot effect on a cleave cooldown?

something to help multi mob dps.

[dunklezhan]

bunch of certainly valid stuff about Morninglord

I did forget to include where I see racials fitting in, and I do see where you're coming from - 14AP just to get AA is quite a hefty investment (3+ levels worth of AP) and you want to get some benefit from pumping wis on your iconic... except you aren't actually sacrificing much in terms of big choices (i.e. taking some ranger class levels, reducing your clericy sun elf goodness), those other elf racials you 'had' to take are by no means bad, and you're picking up a tree which is going to hugely boost the ranged attack damage you would have just from the minimum investments you need to be able to get the specialist arrows with DC on them.

This is whilst potentially divine nuking away happily anyway assuming cleric for sun elf.

That's quite a powerful racial the elves have got access to quite honestly. Imagine Horcs getting access to a barb tree or something like that (not that they have any DCs to worry about particularly anyway)?

Having said that, unless you've built for it, being an elf of any flavour does not grant manyshot etc. i.e. little to no burstiness. So I guess I should add the racial scenario to my list. I think the racial scenario should be

Improved sustainable DPS, acheivable DCs, /meh burstiness. burstiness hard to pump (requires class levels of some kind, presumably monk, since you wouldn't be taking ranger), sustainable DPS relatively easy to pump and DCs should be about as easy/hard to pump as an pure ranger AA would find it.


But how on earth you achieve that without linking the DCs to ranger level in some way or character level if routed through Elf I really don't know. And even then that would just mean every monkcher would suddenly be an elf, and they'll find a way to spread 14AP to not get hit with a lower DC by not having enough ranger levels.

So I still don't know the answer. I just know I can't think of another class where DCs are better if you are not a pure class.

[CrackedIce]

With respect to DCs:

A ranged ranger will most likely dump WIS and start with 8. To that you add a moderate +4 tome (because you had it anyway) and a +6 item at level 11 and later a +8 or 10 item. Assuming the +10 you get up to 22 WIS. This is more than enough to cast the highest level ranger spells.

By comparison, a moncher will max out wisdom, getting well over 50 and having a 10+ point advantage in DC. (This is in addition to already having the advantage of stacking 10k stars on top of the new increased "flat line" damage.)

With respect to manyshot:

I realize that you don't want to make manyshot a "ranger thing", but with this change that is exactly what you are doing. Manyshot is already one of the hardest feats to justify without ranger levels. It requires two feats (only one of which would likely be taken on a non-ranger). It requires 17 DEX without counting items or enhancements, so this is a large commitment at creation for any non-DEX build.

Who do you see taking all of that just for 20 seconds of 2 arrows? Manyshot was good enough that people would use it when it was off timer and switch back to melee when it was on timer. I don't see manyshot being an improvement over melee DPS anymore, which will drive it even further into the "only on a ranger" position.


Finally, I still recommend you look at expanding on the differences in the two AA trees and build ranged functionality into the fighter trees. With just the two AA trees you could do at lease a couple things:
1. Use different stats for DC.
2. Put bonuses to things like manyshot into the cores of the ranger version of the AA tree. This would provide a place where a non-monk archer could catch up to a monk-archer.

I really get the initial "huh" of wisdom stat for DC. but see very clearly that Rangers and non monk AA can obtain good DC.

I will come at this from two separate ways:

One - I have already proven that a dex based Character or Strength based ranger with average starting Dex can obtain ~50 standing DC. Check my prior posts for breakdown, but I did not account for all options. Banking all options available in game without maxing wisdom (16 starting and 1 level-up), one can obtain ~60 standing DC. this is not including on hit debuffs such as Dazing or frost improved elemental arrows (which I believe don't expire per description?)...or other such debuffs available in game...

Second - there are no other stats available for Devs to use for AA DC: intelligence is already used as main stat by repeater builds, KTA, Charisma already drives DM, and Dex and strength are generally the main stats for damage for ranged. there is too much synergy without the correct balance of opportunity cost.

Second point is more personal - I hate monks, but dislike going pure; why should I be debarred from taking racial AA on my Ranger for Core 5 and capstone? Designing Racial around the assumption that it will be taken in conjunction with Monk is false and limits player's ability to build AA outside of monk. Putting more power in the Ranger cores (assuming that that power will be picked up by monk splashes) that are not found in the racial AA tree is crippling all non-monk AA builds that want to go Ranged.

[Thrudh]

Manyshot + IPS + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline should not be seen as a problem - but rather as a very positive thing exactly because it allows for a playstyle that actually differs! So, sure solve the lag issues claimed but stop seeing the burst damage playstyle as bad - anyway, if you really want to see burst damage look towards tree builds... Kindly dont nerf a fun playstyle thats at best a "B" build as right now.

I agree 100%... I love the burst DPS of most ranged builds... If they put out a flat (even if high) DPS all the time, I think ranged combat will be much more boring.

[redoubt]

Dex based archer can obtain 51 standing DC without sacrificing main stat. I think the goal for Dex based archer is to shoot for ~50 DC.

20 base starting

3 enchantment feats

1 elf DC

18 DC from Wisdom, 16 wisdom base + 4 tome + 3 enhancements (2 from AA tree) + 1 (level up spending) + 2 (fury destiny) + 3 insightful + 12 gear + 1 exceptional + 2 spooky bonus + 2 guild bonus= 46 wisdom

5 enchantment DC from sages cloak or 7 from ring from recent update

4 DC from AA tree

Okay, so you are building wisdom as if you were a primary caster and I don't think that is a fair comparison. If you are truly a dex or str based archer it would be more like:

10 DC from Wisdom, 8 wisdom base + 4 tome + 3 enhancements (2 from AA tree) + 3 insightful + 10 gear + 1 exceptional + 2 guild bonus= 31 wisdom
no bonus from feats because an actual archer doesn't have 3 feats (one in epic) to spend on DCs.
If you are not an elf, that's another -1.

This is 14 less than your contention.

Then consider a moncher who does actually max out wisdom due to how wisdom works with 10k stars.

18 start + 6 tome + 11 item + 3 insight + 1 exception +2 ship + 2 (AA enhance) + 7 level ups = 50

This is a +20 to DC versus a + 10.

I think wisdom makes sense for the ranger version of the AA tree (since it is the ranger casting stat) and INT/CHA should be used for the Elf version of the tree (since those are the arcane casting stats.).

[Aletys]

Dex based archer can obtain 51 standing DC without sacrificing main stat. I think the goal for Dex based archer is to shoot for ~50 DC.

20 base starting

3 enchantment feats

1 elf DC

18 DC from Wisdom, 16 wisdom base + 4 tome + 3 enhancements (2 from AA tree) + 1 (level up spending) + 2 (fury destiny) + 3 insightful + 12 gear + 1 exceptional + 2 spooky bonus + 2 guild bonus= 46 wisdom

5 enchantment DC from sages cloak or 7 from ring from recent update

4 DC from AA tree


I really get the initial "huh" of wisdom stat for DC. but see very clearly that Rangers and non monk AA can obtain good DC.

I will come at this from two separate ways:

One - I have already proven that a dex based Character or Strength based ranger with average starting Dex can obtain ~50 standing DC. Check my prior posts for breakdown, but I did not account for all options. Banking all options available in game without maxing wisdom (16 starting and 1 level-up), one can obtain ~60 standing DC. this is not including on hit debuffs such as Dazing or frost improved elemental arrows (which I believe don't expire per description?)...or other such debuffs available in game...

Second - there are no other stats available for Devs to use for AA DC: intelligence is already used as main stat by repeater builds, KTA, Charisma already drives DM, and Dex and strength are generally the main stats for damage for ranged. there is too much synergy without the correct balance of opportunity cost.

Second point is more personal - I hate monks, but dislike going pure; why should I be debarred from taking racial AA on my Ranger for Core 5 and capstone? Designing Racial around the assumption that it will be taken in conjunction with Monk is false and limits player's ability to build AA outside of monk. Putting more power in the Ranger cores (assuming that that power will be picked up by monk splashes) that are not found in the racial AA tree is crippling all non-monk AA builds that want to go Ranged.
Sorry, but you did not "prove" any such thing. Several of your assumptions are flawed and they assume the absolutely best case scenario, which is unrealistic:

At best I can see finding space for 2 enchantment feats (and that's with some serious nerfing), not 3, so -1 DC's to your total

Not sure what you mean by "1 elf DC", but I don't see anything in the elf tree that would add 1 DC. However not everyone runs an elf, so -1 for other races.

"18 from Wisdom" should be more like 15 from Wisdom (total 40 Wisdom), so -3 DC's to your total:

Without seeing what the AA tree is actually going to look like, I don't see having room to take 3 wisdom in enhancements (so make it -1 to allow that one might actually be able to take 2)
one does not always have the luxury of running only in fury, so -2 Wisdom for the rest of the time
+12 gear is hard to come by, and only available at level 28. At level 28 the best my AA currently has is +11 (Epic Deific Diadem), so that's another -1
Considering we have no idea what the final results for the "spooky" items are going to be, nor do we know how difficult they will be to obtain, I don't think this is a safe assumption. So, another -2


Sages Cloak is probably reasonable, though I'd have to give up my Mysterious Cloak, so I'd be trading survivability for DC's, but at least it's viable. The 7 from the ring is not for most players at this point in time, and again, requires level 28.

So, even a pure level 28 toon will likely only have DC's of 46, which is not enough assuming monster DC's of ~50. Anyone below that need not even bother. And, oh, to achieve that I'll be gimping my build in other areas, something a Wisdom based toon will not need to do.

That is certainly an improvement for AA rangers. ./sarcasm

[dunklezhan]

I think wisdom makes sense for the ranger version of the AA tree (since it is the ranger casting stat) and INT/CHA should be used for the Elf version of the tree (since those are the arcane casting stats.).

Interesting.

[dunklezhan]

I did forget to include where I see racials fitting in, and I do see where you're coming from - 14AP just to get AA is quite a hefty investment (3+ levels worth of AP) and you want to get some benefit from pumping wis on your iconic... except you aren't actually sacrificing much in terms of big choices (i.e. taking some ranger class levels, reducing your clericy sun elf goodness), those other elf racials you 'had' to take are by no means bad, and you're picking up a tree which is going to hugely boost the ranged attack damage you would have just from the minimum investments you need to be able to get the specialist arrows with DC on them.

This is whilst potentially divine nuking away happily anyway assuming cleric for sun elf.

That's quite a powerful racial the elves have got access to quite honestly. Imagine Horcs getting access to a barb tree or something like that (not that they have any DCs to worry about particularly anyway)?



When I wrote the above I had not realised that Elf Arcane archer suffered from a much slower core advancement in addition to it's up front 14AP cost. Can we tie the DCs to the core abilities somehow instead/also? That would give more ranger levels more direct benefit, and ultimately making racials equal if enough AP are invested, whilst lessening the benefit for monkchers and the like. Monkcher build would still be king of burst, which I think it probably should be, and Elves and pure rangers in general would be king of bow DCs and everyone else who gets access to the tree via multiclass gets to boost their sustained DPS to varying degrees regardless, which I think is also probably right.

No doubt I've missed some obvious problem.

[Faltout]

Sorry, but you did not "prove" any such thing. Several of your assumptions are flawed and they assume the absolutely best case scenario, which is unrealistic:

At best I can see finding space for 2 enchantment feats (and that's with some serious nerfing), not 3, so -1 DC's to your total

Not sure what you mean by "1 elf DC", but I don't see anything in the elf tree that would add 1 DC. However not everyone runs an elf, so -1 for other races.

"18 from Wisdom" should be more like 15 from Wisdom (total 40 Wisdom), so -3 DC's to your total:

Without seeing what the AA tree is actually going to look like, I don't see having room to take 3 wisdom in enhancements (so make it -1 to allow that one might actually be able to take 2)
one does not always have the luxury of running only in fury, so -2 Wisdom for the rest of the time
+12 gear is hard to come by, and only available at level 28. At level 28 the best my AA currently has is +11 (Epic Deific Diadem), so that's another -1
Considering we have no idea what the final results for the "spooky" items are going to be, nor do we know how difficult they will be to obtain, I don't think this is a safe assumption. So, another -2


Sages Cloak is probably reasonable, though I'd have to give up my Mysterious Cloak, so I'd be trading survivability for DC's, but at least it's viable. The 7 from the ring is not for most players at this point in time, and again, requires level 28.

So, even a pure level 28 toon will likely only have DC's of 46, which is not enough assuming monster DC's of ~50. Anyone below that need not even bother. And, oh, to achieve that I'll be gimping my build in other areas, something a Wisdom based toon will not need to do.

That is certainly an improvement for AA rangers. ./sarcasm
If noy in fury or not taking any WIS upgrades, then upgrade that +4 tome to +7.
Spooky is a go and already said to be EXTREMELY easy to obtain by design (one of the player complaints actually. The "challenges" are too easy and too boring and all it takes to get the augment is 2-3 runs of each challenge).
Also, +2 DC from augment.

Also, remember that you are not sacrificing anything to get those. You still have max DEX. Lower your DEX and lose some points of damage to get some more DC. Noone said you should have all. If you don't like that DC, go with elemental arrows instead.

[CrackedIce]

Okay, so you are building wisdom as if you were a primary caster and I don't think that is a fair comparison. If you are truly a dex or str based archer it would be more like:

10 DC from Wisdom, 8 wisdom base + 4 tome + 3 enhancements (2 from AA tree) + 3 insightful + 10 gear + 1 exceptional + 2 guild bonus= 31 wisdom
no bonus from feats because an actual archer doesn't have 3 feats (one in epic) to spend on DCs.
If you are not an elf, that's another -1.

This is 14 less than your contention.



After the pass, DC focued AA's will need to use wisdom as their secondary stat. 11+ Ranger levels allows a lower dex if going strength based. Dex based Archers can forgo strength completely since they, 1 - can either go for dex for damage in melee, or 2 - forgo melee completely in favor of a better archer/utility with caster splash/build.

In todays game, you can find builds that does not need both strength and dex and there should be no reason an AA cannot start with at least 14 wisdom. If you feel that you cannot start with that, then you are choosing to focus on other strengths/opportunities (and that's fine).

Splash one level of wizard in addition to Ranger levels and you will have feats available for enchantment focus - even more so should you only be focused on Ranged (not melee).

i.e. You are correct, you need to build your class mix based on going DC based - but this is a matter of course concerning DC's - You always need to build with DCs in mind even if you are a pure caster. And with that in mind, you can mix classes to allow for less sacrifice to pick up the extra DC you want. Case in point, an elf has to spend 10 points any to get to AA, why not spend some of them to get an extra 1 DC?

As far as the comparison to Monkcher and them already utilizing wisdom as a stat - The devs have already remarked that they are trying to create a way in which there is a reasonable reason to opt for AA without attaching it to 10k stars.

I think this discussion really is theoretical until Lam opens up where we can actually see the utility of a 35, 45, 50, 55 DC against mobs at varying levels.

[merkovah]

... All these thoughts are provided as a player who was playing arcane archers before enhancement trees and when raid groups would toss you if the words 'arcane archer' were uttered. There are many years of experience in my comments, all from playing my favorite character, the elven arcane archer ... currently a 12 cleric / 6 monk / 2 pal.

I really like flavor builds and having options to do something more than pew pew pew pew DPS. Also having the option to heal is very nice, and has saved more than one quest and raid.

Please open up the arcane archer to the more ARCANE aspects of its name. :)

With respect,

*** AHYMSA CELESTIAL***

*** The arcane arrows need to go up in enchantment value so at level 20 they are +5.

*** It seems odd for an arcane archer to have no way to deal with undead. If anything, disruption seems like a very plausible skill for an arcane archer ... right along line with smiting and banishment.

Perhaps give the option via a multiselector, where one can disrupt and is unable to smite.

*** Also, please make the elven arcane archer the same as the ranger arcane archer.

It's an ARCANE ARCHER, and the additional steps taken to be one by an elf (spending APs) to make a flavor build needs to be respected.

If arcane archer skills rely on ranger levels, then elven arcane archers are relatively pointless.

*** Also, some of the skills have been listed as requiring WIS for a DC.

As many others are expressing, we believe using the casters primary casting stat is clutch ... cha / int / or wis

*** OR perhaps make an ARCANE ARCHER STANCE

similar to swashbuckling, and there are a couple of tiers to it. A level 3 multi-selector that limits the choices its second tier.

*** Currently, the only real dps an arcane archer has is multi-shot/arrow of slaying/blah blah .... its really boring, honestly. As the only option to have high DPS as an arcane archer, its very limiting.

losing it as the ONLY option for DPS is a great thing ... give us MORE options!

Yet, those options needs to be interesting and actually playable.

Some ideas :

*** Elemental arrows have a lot of potential to be good if they add spellpower and have spell critical multipliers. It might bring the dps back.

*** Area of effect arrows make sense. like fireball / web.

*** Spell DCs and being able to choose spells would be nice.

*** Having a favored enemy feat can grant additional DC to DISRUPT, smite, paralyze, etc ... when targeting that enemy.

*** Being able to choose spells from my spellbook would be an awesome thing to do with arcane archers ... maybe have a 1% or 2% chance to proc a real spell.

So, an arcane archer who has fireball could enchant his arrows to once and a while have a fireball, or firewall.

An arcane archer who has heal spells might have arrows that trigger a mass cure light wound once in a while.

An elven arcane proccing an otto's dance sphere!

It might be extreme to make finger of death arrows.... yet it WOULD balance out the arrow of slaying for more caster type ARCANE archers.

[Aletys]

If noy in fury or not taking any WIS upgrades, then upgrade that +4 tome to +7.
Spooky is a go and already said to be EXTREMELY easy to obtain by design (one of the player complaints actually. The "challenges" are too easy and too boring and all it takes to get the augment is 2-3 runs of each challenge).
Also, +2 DC from augment.

Also, remember that you are not sacrificing anything to get those. You still have max DEX. Lower your DEX and lose some points of damage to get some more DC. Noone said you should have all. If you don't like that DC, go with elemental arrows instead.

Excuse me? A +7 tome? Not all of us have tons of cash lying around. This is a non-starter. If it requires a +7 tome to make it work, then it is nothing more than a cash grab by Turbine.

Further, I could achieve all the requirements on my monk with far less sacrifice, even allowing for the DEX requirement. I wouldn't need 3 levels of enchantment focus. I wouldn't need the new ring. Etc, etc, etc. And, I'd get the benefit of 10K stars to boot. The only ones this benefits are Monkchers. Sorry, this does not fly.

And, btw, I personally have nothing against monkchers. I just object to having to multi-class to be competent in the AA class.

[Aletys]

After the pass, DC focued AA's will need to use wisdom as their secondary stat. 11+ Ranger levels allows a lower dex if going strength based. Dex based Archers can forgo strength completely since they, 1 - can either go for dex for damage in melee, or 2 - forgo melee completely in favor of a better archer/utility with caster splash/build.

In todays game, you can find builds that does not need both strength and dex and there should be no reason an AA cannot start with at least 14 wisdom. If you feel that you cannot start with that, then you are choosing to focus on other strengths/opportunities (and that's fine).

Splash one level of wizard in addition to Ranger levels and you will have feats available for enchantment focus - even more so should you only be focused on Ranged (not melee).

i.e. You are correct, you need to build your class mix based on going DC based - but this is a matter of course concerning DC's - You always need to build with DCs in mind even if you are a pure caster. And with that in mind, you can mix classes to allow for less sacrifice to pick up the extra DC you want. Case in point, an elf has to spend 10 points any to get to AA, why not spend some of them to get an extra 1 DC?

As far as the comparison to Monkcher and them already utilizing wisdom as a stat - The devs have already remarked that they are trying to create a way in which there is a reasonable reason to opt for AA without attaching it to 10k stars.

I think this discussion really is theoretical until Lam opens up where we can actually see the utility of a 35, 45, 50, 55 DC against mobs at varying levels.

You are missing the point: It should NOT be NECESSARY to multi-class to be able to use a core enhancement. With these proposals it will be. The alternative will be to gimp the rest of the build. Not acceptable.

I can build a ranger with 14 wisdom with not too much sacrifice. I might even be able to get to 16 Wisdom, though there would definitely be sacrifices. I would be willing to do that if that allowed me to achieve the necessary DC's. Right now it simply won't.

[archerforever]

While you are all crying about DC based on wisdom, manyshot and 10k star gonna be "reworked" to not say ultra nerfed... https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466433-The-Balance-Change-post

Originally Posted by Severlin:
- Manyshot
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 20 seconds you add your (base attack bonus * 4) to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. This ability puts Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 2 minutes.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)
- Ten Thousand Stars
This ability is being redesigned.
For the next 30 seconds you add your Wisdom ability score to your Ranged Power and you add your monk level * 5 to your Doubleshot. This ability puts Manyshot on a 30 second cooldown. Cooldown 1 minute.
(This ability no longer gives a doubleshot penalty when activated.)


My opinon :

Even if it does theoretically the "same" amount of damage, it s loosing A LOT synergies with the adrenaline regeneration. Why ? Because to regen adrenaline, you have to land a Vorpal Strike, and ONLY 33% chance to regain 1 Adrenaline use on your vorpal. With your new manyshot, you only can shot 2 arrows and "maybe" a 3rd arrow if you have a max BAB with max doubleshot to have more than 100% doubleshot... That means, it s the end of fury shooter, they ll never be able to regen adrenaline. Dont forget that attack speed with bows is the worst in all the game from lvl 1 to lvl 28 (even with pinion and arcane archer set from Tower of despair !!!!). When you shoot 1 arrow, a fighter has already hit 2 times (maybe more) and can have doublestrike also.
Additionaly slaying arrow gonna be nerfed, archers gonna be really useless in high EE quests, no more utility on boss or champions to kill them fast, it s the end of burst damage literally.
With your new manyshot, a lvl 6 ranger gains .... 24% doubleshot for 20 seconds?!!!! hahahahahaha what a joke .... especially with 1 shot every 2 seconds... he gains 2 extra arrows over all the duration....
That s all the difference between manyshot and doubleshot. Even if you have doubleshot, this doubleshot bonus is a chance to proc an extra arrow. When you are using manyshot, that means that you need burst damage right now !!! you need to have 4x arrows for 20 seconds, you dont have to rely on your luck !! You have to be sure on your burst damage !!! imagine this in fight when you have to kill a champion running on you : "ho please god, proc an extra arrow, please, i need some extra damage now, please ..."

Fury shooters are dead... definitively... and maybe all epic archers...

**why not use blitz ? cause blitz is totally bugged, each time you pass through a door, your are loosing all stacks of your blitz. and 10% chance to get a stack of blitz is not good, especially with this amazing manyshot nerf... it should be every 10 or 15 successful attacks, but it is another story.

[blerkington]

Yup. Very disappointing. I was hoping I would get pulled back into playing with epic Shroud and Tempest Spine release but not if the build I played for the past two years will get hit by a nerf bat. I will give it a shot but from what I have seen so far, it will suck. So I guess I will get around uninstalling the game finally which is at this moment only taking place on my PC.

Hi,

What particularly gets on my nerves about this change is that it seems like after 28 pages the developers still don't even recognise it as an issue.

The importance of that short period of a high rate of fire to burst builds and melee/ranged hybrids has been brought up again and again, all to no avail.

All we have is some hints dropped about lag; once again, without anyone actually confirming that manyshot is a reliable and significant cause of it. The fact that this alleged lag is any sort of reason to make this change is even more puzzling given recent developer admissions about how projectile creation works with doubleshot.

It's pretty disappointing that the ranger pass is actually going to be harmful to a couple of staple ranger builds, when with a little more effort we could have a solution which was useful to everyone. Instead, we are going to see those builds downgraded without even so much as an explanation. Good job.

Thanks.

[Aletys]

A reminder that we don't expect this to be the last time we touch the Arcane Archer tree. We are sad we can't get to everything we'd like to right now, but realistically we're looking at a lot of work for update 29 coming soon, and we didn't want to push Arcane Archer entirely out of 2015. We do appreciate the many ideas here, though (some of which mirror ideas we've been thinking of anyway, or which are better than ideas we'd been thinking).

~snip~

Doubleshot and Manyshot both create additional real arrows in the world, each making their own separate, constant collision checks as they fly through the air.

It's not ideal. It's also deep in the code and risky to touch.

Additionally, it's not merely the collision checks that cause issues. Adding all of the extra on-hit effects (including damage effects) is not insignificant, and something we try to cut down on when we can. (For instance, in designing new items and abilities, etc.)

Frankly, I think most players would prefer that you let it slip past 2015, rather than doing only part of the job. The way it's going right now, between the wisdom to DC issue, and Manyshot, a lot of us are simply going to get rid of our arcane archers and play something else. It will become simply a splash tree for other classes. You keep saying that this is not your intention, but keep ignoring the player feedback. Just because you don't intend something, won't keep it from happening. I certainly hope you plan to pass out +20 hearts of wood to all the rangers, because this is going to be a massive mess. Even assuming we are willing to try to make it work, it will require completely re-spec'ing our AA's. We should not be expected to bear the cost of your changes.

Further, most players who run AA's don't believe that manyshot is a major contributor to lag. We don't see it in-game, and many believe this is just a lame excuse to make changes that much of the player base is very strongly against. Whatever math you're using, it's not translating into the game for the vast majority of players, based on both the forum posts & our own in-game experience.

My last comment echoes what a few other poster have mentioned. The test periods on Lamannia seem to keep getting shorter & shorter. There should be at least 2 testing periods, each a minimum of 2 weeks long, to give players adequate time to test the new enhancements. Otherwise, you're not allowing for adequate evaluation by the players, especially when we're dealing with such massive changes.

[Bennum]

Hi,

What particularly gets on my nerves about this change is that it seems like after 28 pages the developers still don't even recognise it as an issue.

The importance of that short period of a high rate of fire to burst builds and melee/ranged hybrids has been brought up again and again, all to no avail.

All we have is some hints dropped about lag; once again, without anyone actually confirming that manyshot is a reliable and significant cause of it. The fact that this alleged lag is any sort of reason to make this change is even more puzzling given recent developer admissions about how projectile creation works with doubleshot.

It's pretty disappointing that the ranger pass is actually going to be harmful to a couple of staple ranger builds, when with a little more effort we could have a solution which was useful to everyone. Instead, we are going to see those builds downgraded without even so much as an explanation. Good job.

Thanks.
Yup no consideration at all for Melee Rangers or Hybrids. I may as well trash my bows

[AbyssalMage]

Frankly, I think most players would prefer that you let it slip past 2015, rather than doing only part of the job. The way it's going right now, between the wisdom to DC issue, and Manyshot, a lot of us are simply going to get rid of our arcane archers and play something else. It will become simply a splash tree for other classes. You keep saying that this is not your intention, but keep ignoring the player feedback. Just because you don't intend something, won't keep it from happening. I certainly hope you plan to pass out +20 hearts of wood to all the rangers, because this is going to be a massive mess. Even assuming we are willing to try to make it work, it will require completely re-spec'ing our AA's. We should not be expected to bear the cost of your changes.
With the seriously horrendous changes coming to DDO (who honestly thinks Turbine will actually listen to constructive feedback?) I am beginning to believe a +20 HoW needs to also be apart of this update. AA's/Ranged builds (non-mechanic) are all getting shafted. If you are anything other than an evading class you are getting shafted.

It's not DooOOmmM, but it is a serious, smack you in the mouth, knock you into last decade kinda nerf.


Further, most players who run AA's don't believe that manyshot is a major contributor to lag. We don't see it in-game, and many believe this is just a lame excuse to make changes that much of the player base is very strongly against. Whatever math you're using, it's not translating into the game for the vast majority of players, based on both the forum posts & our own in-game experience.
First I have heard (well from reading this thread) that MS was linked to lag. I find this amusing because I haven't used MS in months and most players don't either (everyone switched to mechanic). So I am laughing if this is even a theory.


My last comment echoes what a few other poster have mentioned. The test periods on Lamannia seem to keep getting shorter & shorter. There should be at least 2 testing periods, each a minimum of 2 weeks long, to give players adequate time to test the new enhancements. Otherwise, you're not allowing for adequate evaluation by the players, especially when we're dealing with such massive changes.
Oh, I am on record as stating that they need to make Lama-land permanent and not like it is now.

[Santras]

First things first, I’d like to say that I’m excited about these changes. I agree with most of them and think they would make AA builds better even with no additional changes. That being said, no one is perfect and there can always be room for improvement. I don’t like people just whining about things they would like to have, or things they have being changed, so I’ll try to make a list of things that I think would benefit this enhancement tree. You as developers have to carefully balance things players want and things players need. I’d ask you that you disregard everything I say that you think is not needed for archers.

1.) Manyshot / 10k stars. I like your proposed fix, particularly that you have decided to dump the doubleshot penalty. It now scales with BAB and with BAB of 20, for example, you’d get almost the same value as before. Unfortunately, there are two problems I can think of:

a) There are no benefits to elemental stances. You could argue that their proc rate is half as often as on live while manyshot is on so what I suggest is adding a BAB * 4 to spell power of elemental stances to manyshot. This wouldn't double the elemental damage (it isn't doubling spell power but adding to it) but add the basic elemental damage before adding spell power. If you would add only spell power without applying it only to elemental stances then casters could misuse it for spells. On the other hand, maybe that is not a bad thing. AA builds will get benefits for taking caster levels to improve the effect of their elemental stances and it would only be logical that the improvement goes both ways. This is something that just came to me. You do the numbers and see if that would be overpowering.

b) The second problem is with effect generation and that leads us to my suggestion number two.

2.) True, by redesigning manyshot and 10k stars we benefit from the lack of doubleshot penalties because of which rate of fire is almost unchanged but the real problem with this is proc rate. Let us take, for example, something that has a 50 % proc rate. With current mechanics of doubleshot the second arrow copies the effects granted by the first. That leaves us with a 25 % proc rate per arrow if the effect is non stacking and 50 % if it is when having 100 % doubleshot. While manyshot is active, at the moment, when you fire two arrows at once with that imaginary 50 % proc rate both stacking and non stacking effects have the same, true, proc rate.

As you can see the problem lies solely in non stacking effect. What I suggest is that you rework them in a way that gives an extra roll per doubleshot chance and copy the result for the other arrows (not that the copying is needed in this case because we are talking of non stacking effects) or an extra roll when doubleshot occurs rolled individually. I don’t know which of them is easier to implement but both would solve the problem. This can also be a problem for stacking effects which have a low proc rate and/or disappear after a short time period if not renewed by the end of timer. Current mechanics with 100 % doubleshot would give those effects two stacks by proc where they would benefit more by one stack with double proc rate. If my second suggestion can be implemented it would solve both of the problems I have mentioned.

3.) Slayer arrow is good as it is and you have said that its change wasn’t a part of this AA changes. If I may make a suggestion I would make a slayer arrow a choice between a slayer arrow as it is now and elemental slayer arrow which would give X damage in currently toggled elemental stance scaling with spell power and subject to spell critical. The value would have to be determined after testing but what I would like to see here are similar numbers to those of slayer arrow + adrenaline on average. That way archers could choose other epic destinies and still be close to maximum possible DPS.

4.) Bows vs. crossbows. This is a huge mistake. I have no problem with something being better than something what I like, but what I find irritating here is logical and historical flaws that are currently in place. Historically speaking, crossbows first appeared as a way regular solders could replace archers with years of practice. Crossbow was made popular because you could draft simple peasants, give it to them and after a short training with instructions they were battle ready. This didn’t make them better than professional archers; this just made them more useful at shorter notice than they were before. Prior to that drafted solders had to pass rigorous training to become battle ready.

When you compare the two you see that crossbow is immensely heavier and shots two to five times SLOWER. What crossbows lack in rate of fire they make up with precision and ease of use which made them so popular in the first place. I understand this is a game and I will continue to play it whether or not you make it make sense.

5.) Rangers don’t have spellcraft as a class skill. Is it possible to either make it a ranger class skill or to put an enhancement in the AA tree (let’s say in place of true strike which no one in their right mind uses) which would add heal skill points to spellcraft?

I see that this list is getting too long so I’ll better stop now. As I said before nobody’s perfect and I also don’t think that this list is. If you find something useful please change it in a way that is needed to better all AA builds. Make archers again relevant in the two worlds of DDO and please remember that this is arcane ARCHER tree. Thanks for listening and sorry for a long post.

[Starla70]

Frankly, I think most players would prefer that you let it slip past 2015, rather than doing only part of the job. The way it's going right now, between the wisdom to DC issue, and Manyshot, a lot of us are simply going to get rid of our arcane archers and play something else. It will become simply a splash tree for other classes. You keep saying that this is not your intention, but keep ignoring the player feedback. Just because you don't intend something, won't keep it from happening. I certainly hope you plan to pass out +20 hearts of wood to all the rangers, because this is going to be a massive mess. Even assuming we are willing to try to make it work, it will require completely re-spec'ing our AA's. We should not be expected to bear the cost of your changes.

Further, most players who run AA's don't believe that manyshot is a major contributor to lag. We don't see it in-game, and many believe this is just a lame excuse to make changes that much of the player base is very strongly against. Whatever math you're using, it's not translating into the game for the vast majority of players, based on both the forum posts & our own in-game experience.

My last comment echoes what a few other poster have mentioned. The test periods on Lamannia seem to keep getting shorter & shorter. There should be at least 2 testing periods, each a minimum of 2 weeks long, to give players adequate time to test the new enhancements. Otherwise, you're not allowing for adequate evaluation by the players, especially when we're dealing with such massive changes.



I agree about the test time. It also is pretty impossible to take builds we have now into Lamannia as the transfer option is broken. I do not like the changes to manyshot, Not really sure why the need to change to wisdom base on AA. Not being able to test it with a toon I have been working on for 4 years, makes this all harder to deal with. This is going to need more then a couple of days testing.

It does seem like this change will kill most AA builds including the straight AA ranger builds. Sounds like the DC's in epics will be nearly impossible unless you mutli class. Even then not sure it will help. I also agree with I can not afford +7 tomes for all my toons.

[Guardian13]

You are missing the point: It should NOT be NECESSARY to multi-class to be able to use a core enhancement. With these proposals it will be. The alternative will be to gimp the rest of the build. Not acceptable.

I can build a ranger with 14 wisdom with not too much sacrifice. I might even be able to get to 16 Wisdom, though there would definitely be sacrifices. I would be willing to do that if that allowed me to achieve the necessary DC's. Right now it simply won't.

I have read through the proposed changes and am trying to make sense of the changes. I have a pure AA Ranger. He is a Half-elf Ranger with 23 AP in Race tree for Half-elf Dilettante Cleric and 57 AP in AA.

Base Stats:
Str: 12
Dex: 24
Con: 14
Int: 8
Wis: 14
Cha: 8

This toon was built for running with party as back-up healer. I only get to add to dps to the party with MS and in Epic, in Fury Destiny. I didn't build this toon for dps, but to work as back up healer.

My question is with the proposed changes, am I now going to have to reroll and drop the Dilettante to be a competant AA Ranger since so much is now going to be dependant on DC's to be effective? Serious Question, no Bashing please?

[Requiro]

I can say again: I'm very happy from Manyshot and 10K Star NEW changes.

Good work Devs, best solution so far.
Don't care about whinnies, they will find other bugs and exploit them.

Now, let’s concentrate on AA, and bring more improvements, especially on Capstone :)

[CrackedIce]

With the change to Manyshot, double shot will be king. Why use any other destiny than divine crusader? It is the only destiny that adds to rate of fire due to its first core, celestial champion, and zeal of righteous.. It adds to spell power and defensive abilities.

Bows have worst rate of fire, poor threat range even with deepwood under pending changes to improved crit feat. Slayer arrows will not be worthwhile outside fury destiny because of this. And in fury destiny no way to obtain adrenaline at rate needed to put out damage that's required to not just pew pew while others take out monsters under 4 seconds.

What am I missing here? AA look to be able to solely spec for DCs..

[rohmer]

Ok, I have played many lives of ranger through the years (I took of the day DDO launched a gazillion years ago).

I like rangers with a bow. AAs only real claims to fame were:
1. Crowd control with paralyzing arrows (Not exciting, but super useful in a group). Soloability is good, but slow
2. Selective DPS. Once in a while you can hit the DPS button fire a many shot/slayer arrow + maybe fury @ epic levels. Nice! But.. You can do this once ever 90s or 2 min, or whatever the cooldown is.

Now we throw in warlocks. 2 lives ago I blew thru Warlock, and was honestly bored. It was so easy. With the nuke they have (Endless, no cooldown, no mana requirement, just blast away) and the root of evards. Geezh, how can you not kill everything.

I am not saying we need to make AAs into Warlocks, but good lord look at the delta between the two.

[Andu_Indorin]

...I am not saying we need to make AAs into Warlocks, but good lord look at the delta between the two.

The same can be said of Mechanic/Great Bow Users and AAs. It is absolutely preposterous that a weapon slightly smaller than a ballista should have a rate of fire greater than bows; and that you can reload while on the move, with no movement penalty. This is almost as outrageous as those 88mm FLAK guns with the radar-proximity fused ammo they installed out on Mystral Island.

But, back to the issue, I feel the most important improvement needed is increased rate of fire/ranged alacrity. Ranger and Elf AAs should not be left sucking the dust of some two-bit Rogue Mechanic with the supercharged great bow.

[rohmer]

The same can be said of Mechanic/Great Bow Users and AAs. It is absolutely preposterous that a weapon slightly smaller than a ballista should have a rate of fire greater than bows; and that you can reload while on the move, with no movement penalty. This is almost as outrageous as those 88mm FLAK guns with the radar-proximity fused ammo they installed out on Mystral Island.

But, back to the issue, I feel the most important improvement needed is increased rate of fire/ranged alacrity. Ranger and Elf AAs should not be left sucking the dust of some two-bit Rogue Mechanic with the supercharged great bow.

It all smacks of endless Monty Hall for nearly every other class, and the AA (Which few play anyway) get totally gimped. Very annoying.

[CrackedIce]

I really think Deepwood tier five comes out stronger than tier five for AA.

Runebow vs heavy draw - deepwood

Improved elemental arrows vs strike like lightening - deepwood

Moonbow vs extra favored enemy - deepwood

Slayer arrows vs headshot - depends. Do you crit? Then slayer. But headshot will ensure a crit on every shot with +5w. Outside of fury, I will always choose deepwood tier five over AA. Especially since can still take AA core five for better crits. Now with no way to replenish adrenaline effectively while in fury, slayer really loses its luster. Going into melee to replenish is not the answer - getting into tier five AA really puts damper on melee damage. Because whose going to give up deepwood totally in favor of tempest. If I want to build Archer I should be able to. But where is the benefit of tier five AA??

[CrackedIce]

I think the cores need some e tra oomph.

AA has its own flavor and uniqueness that I think still needs to be made more apparent and brought out in its own way when compared to the obvious advantages deepwood has over it throughout its cores.

The cores add versatility to AA but choosing one excludes the bo us of the other. Say in core 4 there was a passive ability that provides spellsinger flicker ability this would help AA on the defensive end of things. And add to its flavor.

I agree with the general consensus that DC on pure ranger cannot be maxed effectively. I also know that the elemental imbues are good, but do not shore up the damage that is required in epic play. AA capstone, if allowed for third imbue ( allow elemtal arrows with one of the dc Imbues) will give pure rangers chance of those DC going off without giving up much needed extra damage that comes with elementals.

Together with 10 spell power and 10 ranger power for capstone would really put it in competition with deepwood capstone.

[Walking_Ride]

I think the cores need some e tra oomph.

AA has its own flavor and uniqueness that I think still needs to be made more apparent and brought out in its own way when compared to the obvious advantages deepwood has over it throughout its cores.

The cores add versatility to AA but choosing one excludes the bo us of the other. Say in core 4 there was a passive ability that provides spellsinger flicker ability this would help AA on the defensive end of things. And add to its flavor.

I agree with the general consensus that DC on pure ranger cannot be maxed effectively. I also know that the elemental imbues are good, but do not shore up the damage that is required in epic play. AA capstone, if allowed for third imbue ( allow elemtal arrows with one of the dc Imbues) will give pure rangers chance of those DC going off without giving up much needed extra damage that comes with elementals.

Together with 10 spell power and 10 ranger power for capstone would really put it in competition with deepwood capstone.

Moar power for rangers.

[CrackedIce]

Moar power for rangers.

AA is available to anyone through racials.....this discussion is about AA and in no way affects your crusade against twf rangers vs. Paladin. Kindly please provide feedback when appropriate.

Thanks.

[Walking_Ride]

AA is available to anyone through racials.....this discussion is about AA and in no way affects your crusade against twf rangers vs. Paladin. Kindly please provide feedback when appropriate.

Thanks.

Nop. The dvelopers want everyone to go pure ranger. It doesn't ever matter anymore what combat style.

[mikarddo]

Does maximize add to the damage from elemental arrows?

[eachna_gislin]

I did forget to include where I see racials fitting in, and I do see where you're coming from - 14AP just to get AA is quite a hefty investment (3+ levels worth of AP) and you want to get some benefit from pumping wis on your iconic... except you aren't actually sacrificing much in terms of big choices (i.e. taking some ranger class levels, reducing your clericy sun elf goodness), those other elf racials you 'had' to take are by no means bad, and you're picking up a tree which is going to hugely boost the ranged attack damage you would have just from the minimum investments you need to be able to get the specialist arrows with DC on them.

It's not just 14+ ap. It's 14+ ap and at least six heroic feats.


This is whilst potentially divine nuking away happily anyway assuming cleric for sun elf.

It's not likely a sun elf is _happily_ nuking away if they're a racial AA cleric. They may be nuking, but they can barely afford any metamagic feats. They'll probably be doing anemic bow damage and anemic nuking damage. They're in the worst position for a racial build as they get neither faux bow strength (or sneak damage) from helf dilly, nor the elvish aerenal grace.

Kudos to any sun elf builds that manage higher than average damage. I don't mean the previous paragraph to be a slight against anyone who enjoys playing the build.


That's quite a powerful racial the elves have got access to quite honestly. Imagine Horcs getting access to a barb tree or something like that (not that they have any DCs to worry about particularly anyway)?

It would have been awesome if the devs had done racial trees for everyone, as they initially stated. Unfortunately AA was the test case, and the enhancement pass was never completed.


Having said that, unless you've built for it, being an elf of any flavour does not grant manyshot etc. i.e. little to no burstiness. So I guess I should add the racial scenario to my list. I think the racial scenario should be

Improved sustainable DPS, acheivable DCs, /meh burstiness. burstiness hard to pump (requires class levels of some kind, presumably monk, since you wouldn't be taking ranger), sustainable DPS relatively easy to pump and DCs should be about as easy/hard to pump as an pure ranger AA would find it.

No, the racial builds should not require monk. It's not the elvish monkcher build. Monks aren't arcanes, they're not even any sort of caster. Racial builds pay a tax in getting their cores later than Rangers, and that covers playing whatever class they want. It should continue to count level numbers regardless of class on a Racial build, just as it does now.



[/COLOR]But how on [I]earth you achieve that without linking the DCs to ranger level in some way or character level if routed through Elf I really don't know. And even then that would just mean every monkcher would suddenly be an elf, and they'll find a way to spread 14AP to not get hit with a lower DC by not having enough ranger levels.

So I still don't know the answer. I just know I can't think of another class where DCs are better if you are not a pure class.

That's because no class enhancement tree is based entirely on your race like racial AA.

Wanting to !@#$ over monkchers is not a reason to !@#$ over racial AA's as a whole. I don't really like monkchers that much, either. I mean...I'm not a big fan of playing them, personally. I'd love for the devs to fix monks so they're not the most splash-able class in the game. But I also know it's not going to happen. And I'm really REALLY tired of bows being penalized because the assumption has to be that you have Many Shot and 10k Stars and so anything less much be entirely gimp. So...whatever. Let them have Wisdom to do "everything". Just let me build a reasonable racial archer in other classes as well.

[eachna_gislin]

I had trouble posting this earlier, so I sent it to Vargouille in PMs. Posting it here for the community to pick apart at their leisure :D.


AA *NEEDS* steady, sustained damage in the tree (which I guess means ranged power, or bow animations being redone the way repeaters were to function in the new higher-damage environment). You keep forgetting that Arcane Archer is a racial tree for elves and half-elves and that means any class can be an AA. Sticking all the steady damage in Deepwood Sniper and presuming AA's can afford to take extra feats for ranged power (because rangers get the core archery feats for free) cripples racial builds.


Please read about the Elemental damage increase. It's pretty massive. Plus critical damage multiplier. Most of the changes increase damage. If there is something you are seeing here that isn't what you are looking for, or something you aren't seeing that you want, please be very specific.

I want to understand your feedback, but I just don't get what you are trying to say.

The critical damage multiplier won't apply until racial AA's are in epic levels. The enhancement trees are a heroic system and can only be evaluated based on the elements that are available in heroic levels. When players ask for enhancements to scale into epic levels, this is not what they mean.

***

Re: Archers have no steady DPS.

Let's use an exaggerated math example, since you don't understand steady in this context.

If a DDO archer does one point of damage per second for a thousand seconds, and then a thousand points of damage for one second, and then goes back to doing one point of damage per second for the next thousand seconds, their steady damage is pitifully low and their burst damage is high.

DDO archers don't have steady DPS because bows are a weak, slow weapon with poorly designed feats, that haven't been updated to work with the new game systems.

DDO archers need a way to output a baseline, steady amount of DPS that's roughly equivalent to base damage of other classes/trees that went through a pass. This would be basic piercing arrow damage. As part of this adjustment, there ought to be some Ranged Power available to racial AA's to boost the new improved archery damage. Once bows are balanced compared to other weapons, then you stack elemental damage above that, and then cool tricks like Many Shot and Slayer Arrows on top of all of the rest of the damage.

If this is still unclear, maybe a food analogy will work. You're putting too much gravy on the plate when people are asking for more meat and potatoes.

The above comments are not limited to Arcane Archers, but bows as a weapon in general.

***

Re: Updating bow animations or Ranged Power available to the tree

Bows are slow to fire. This is because of the animation speed. Bow animation should to be sped up to compensate for the changes made to crossbows. It doesn't really matter that crossbow animations were buggy as that was a long-term issue. When comparisons were made between bow speed and crossbow speed, they were based on those buggy animations. This isn't an Arcane Archer fix, but fixing crossbow animations wasn't a Rogue fix either.

Racial AA's don't get their archery feats for free, they pay for them with feat slots, just like melees pay for their weapons styles. Melees get Melee Power when they buy their various weapon styles (Single/Two Weapon/Two Handed/Shield Mastery feats) for a total of +6 Melee Power in each style. Racial AA's do not get Ranged Power when they buy the Many Shot line (PBS/RF/Many Shot), which is the DDO archery line roughly equivalent to a melee combat style. Rangers don't get Ranged Power for these feats either, but they get five archery feats for free, so they have other feat slots available to buy feats that do give them Ranged Power if they want. Most Racial AA classes can't afford three additional feat slots for feats that give Ranged Power. Racial AA's therefore ought to get +6 Ranged Power that makes up for the lack of weapon style Ranged Power.

Maybe you could put 6 points of Ranged Power into the 4 point AA racial enhancement? Right now there's nothing in there but the unlock for the tree. I realize that's a lot to give out at once, but I don't really know where else to put it so Sun Elves, Half Elves, and Aeranal Elves can all get it as AA's, but don't get it if they're not an AA. You could make sure it didn't stack with the Ranged Power Rangers get in their tree so Elven Rangers wouldn't benefit from it.

I think both ought to be done, but I said "or" here because I don't have any expectation of both happening.

***

Re: Ignoring that Racial AA's are not Rangers.

The rest of my comments presume I'm talking about *racial* AA's, not Ranger AA's, just in case I forget the word "racial" at some point.

Every change and balance element being made to the tree is being discussed in the context of how it impacts Rangers. I do understand that AA is a Ranger tree, but by opening it up to all half elves and elves, the dev team has a responsibility to balance it for racial AA's as well, not just racial monks and Rangers. I know you understand this in principle, you specifically mention it as a goal. However, you're failing to put it into practice.

The dev team is treating racial AAs as if they'res just a matter of tossing 4 ap into the racial tree and AA magically unlocks, rather than it having a hefty build tax of both feats and ap. For now, the bare minimum for racial AA is 55 ap (to get the capstone) plus six feats (minimul function archery feats) It's almost 60 ap if you take the top of the aeranal elvish or half-elvish dilettante line.

The only way to make racial AA viable for the different classes is to make sure most of what you need to be an archer is in the tree and the most fundamental archery feats. Instead, you're literally doing the opposite. What little is in the tree is being split up so that players have to limit their focus to a small part of the tree. This is a reflection of the devs once again assuming all AA's have a pile of free feats and two weapon styles (archery and two weapon fighting) to choose between. Only Ranger AA's get those feats, not racial builds.

People interested in Racial AA's are not asking to "be good at ranged physical, ranged magical, crowd control, and healing." They're not asking to be "king of everything". They're struggling to build a character that isn't a Ranger but is viable with a bow. The dev team as a whole (and you in particular) are overlooking this when making flippant comments about how players need to be given hard choices once they've invested in the tree. When I put 60-ish ap and six of my seven heroic feats into a play style, I don't expect to be told by the devs that now I should expect to have to go outside the tree for basic functionality. I already made the hard choices by deciding to play a racial AA, and I expect that my remaining character building should go into my character's class, not their prestige.

Rangers need more hard choices, but racial AA's need someone to soften some of the choices they're already making to allow them to enjoy their actual _class_. Easing up on the archery feats a little would _REALLY_ help.

I'd suggest giving Racial AA's two faux feats (similar to the way Paladins got fake Cleave feats) to simulate Precise Shot, and Improved Precise Shot. Those feats are vital to archery builds, and yet there are several classes that only get seven feat slots. If we could pare the basic 'package' of archery feats down to four for racial AA's (PBS/RF/Manyshot/IC:R), that leaves three heroic feats for 7-feat classes (which will allow for some metamagic feats or varied offensive/defensive choices). This gives players more build choice, including allowing feat-starved racial archers the choice between taking more archery feats, or taking something else. Right now, there is no *choice* for feat-starved classes, other than to not play a racial AA build.

Also, not allowing the assorted casting stats to be used for AA DC's is once again ignoring that AA is a racial tree as well as a Ranger tree. Yes, for Rangers it makes sense to force it to be Wisdom, if you want to force a split between stats. For Racial AA's, it should be a choice (either highest stat or a toggle you set) between the three in-game caster DC stats: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This means every class (except Monks) will have to split their attribute points between one Caster Stat and Dexterity To-Hit (and Strength if they have the feats for Bow Strength). Again, this is something you could actually set in the 4 ap AA enhancement (have three versions of the enhancement, one for each caster stat), so it doesn't need to clutter up the tree, itself.

***

[Requiro]

I really think Deepwood tier five comes out stronger than tier five for AA.

Runebow vs heavy draw - deepwood

Improved elemental arrows vs strike like lightening - deepwood

Moonbow vs extra favored enemy - deepwood

Slayer arrows vs headshot - depends. Do you crit? Then slayer. But headshot will ensure a crit on every shot with +5w. Outside of fury, I will always choose deepwood tier five over AA. Especially since can still take AA core five for better crits. Now with no way to replenish adrenaline effectively while in fury, slayer really loses its luster. Going into melee to replenish is not the answer - getting into tier five AA really puts damper on melee damage. Because whose going to give up deepwood totally in favor of tempest. If I want to build Archer I should be able to. But where is the benefit of tier five AA??

Agreed.

The T5 and Capstone are the most needed for improvements. IMO Core 1 should also be reworked. Something like this:

Runebow, 3 Tiers (1 AP each): Each add +1 stacking enhancement bonus, and 50/65/80% returning ability to arrows.
Moonbow: Replace Temp sp by SP regeneration, and add +1 DC with Enchantment Spells
Improved elemental arrows - should not be multiselector but combine in one.
Capstone: Add 3rd imbue stance OR other improvement to balance with DWS.
Core 1: One of: Multiselector (+1 per Core non stacking OR +1 on Core 1/12/20 stacking OR +1 per core transferred to Arrows and stacking OR Conjure Arrows combine to Core 1 OR other anything useful)

[archerforever]

Suggestion : Could be interresting to get special effects as tier 5 or as core for elemental arrows : DC = 20 + Wisdom Modifier + Evocation or conjuration Spell focus (dunno which could be the best)
Something like : Each time you hit a target with elemental arrows, it apply a stack. When the target reach 5~10 stacks, it s doing an AoE of the elemental for a special effect.
Flaming Arrows = AoE damages / Corrosive Arrows = AoE Earth Grab (Reflex DC) / Frost Arrows = AoE Freezing Ice ( Fortitude DC) / Shock Arrows = AoE Hold (Will DC)

Why ?

- 10k star and manyshot are reworked so monkchers are not the best anymore. That means Wisdom builds need some boost to keep it interesting for AA. Like this we can imagine some good cleric and druid AA builds.
- Wisdom will never give you extra damage when intelligence and dexterity can. Let s have something special and different for wisdom and spell focus builds.
- We need a real arcane archer, getting stronger with spell power/lore and spell focus (for more variety, the DwS is already the physical power for bow users)
- Elemental Arrows and Paralyzing arrows are the same kind of imbue, that means you can only have one activate at once. Could be nice to have some AoE (damage/CC) on Core or Tier 5 for elemental arrows.
- Paralyzing, smiting and banishing arrows are scaling with enchantement and Elemental arrows are more like evocation or conjuration in some way. Could be interresting to have effect for elementl arrows scaling with theses spell focus.

[archerforever]

Elemental arrows scaling with spell power :

- Does Metamagic Feats can improve damage of elemental arrows ???

- Does elemental arrows can do critical damage based on the spell critical ??? ---> working with spell lore ??? (could be a really good thing for variety and interesting builds because if you are working to get some specific stuff to get elemental damages with your AA, most of stuff with spell power got also spell lore. It could be great to get the FULL interest to get spell power/lore stuff).

- Does Elemental Arrows will be considered as spells for items like http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Robe_of_Dissonance ??? If I shot with force Arrows, will it work to get the bonus from this item working "only" on spells ????

- Does Rangers will now have "Spellcraft" as class skills ???

Hope we ll have answers :)

[archerforever]

The only way to make racial AA viable for the different classes is to make sure most of what you need to be an archer is in the tree and the most fundamental archery feats.

It is a good idea, even if the fact to be able to play arcane archer regardless of the class is already very good and unique, the cost in AP make it really restrictive and ultra focused. As core enhancements have levels requierements, I think it could work like this:

Racial Arcane Archer ( all core cost increased to 2 AP)
-Core 1: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Bow Strength" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 1 (ranger got this feat lvl 1)
-Core 2: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Rapid Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 4 (ranger got this feat lvl 2)
-Core 3: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Precise Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 8 (ranger got this feat lvl 4)
-Core 4: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Manyshot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 15 (ranger got this feat lvl 6)
-Core 5: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Improved Precise Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 22 (ranger got this feat lvl 11)

Like this, you can have an avaible AA racial tree, opening lot of interesting builds possibilities. The fact to get similar feats at higher levels make it in my opinion balanced for a cost of 24 AP minimum.

Even if I really like this idea and think it s a good thing to have AA as a racial enhancement if you want, it s still an opened door for all other race to get a class enhancement tree as racial. (Half orc --> Frenzied Berserker, Dwarf --> Stalwart Defender, ect....)


Also, not allowing the assorted casting stats to be used for AA DC's is once again ignoring that AA is a racial tree as well as a Ranger tree. Yes, for Rangers it makes sense to force it to be Wisdom, if you want to force a split between stats. For Racial AA's, it should be a choice (either highest stat or a toggle you set) between the three in-game caster DC stats: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.

Yes, I must agree with this but not 100%. Ranger AA DC based on Wisdom only is logical but for the Racial AA, it should be Wisdom or Intelligence only. No reason to be able to get charisma as DC for an AA.

[eachna_gislin]

Duplicate

[eachna_gislin]

It is a good idea, even if the fact to be able to play arcane archer regardless of the class is already very good and unique, the cost in AP make it really restrictive and ultra focused. As core enhancements have levels requierements, I think it could work like this:

Racial Arcane Archer ( all core cost increased to 2 AP)
-Core 1: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Bow Strength" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 1 (ranger got this feat lvl 1)
-Core 2: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Rapid Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 4 (ranger got this feat lvl 2)
-Core 3: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Precise Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 8 (ranger got this feat lvl 4)
-Core 4: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Manyshot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 15 (ranger got this feat lvl 6)
-Core 5: cost 2 AP ---> Same as ranger AA AND you also gain the feat "Improved Precise Shot" ---> Avaible at Character lvl 22 (ranger got this feat lvl 11)

Like this, you can have an avaible AA racial tree, opening lot of interesting builds possibilities. The fact to get similar feats at higher levels make it in my opinion balanced for a cost of 24 AP minimum.

When I said "The only way to make racial AA viable for the different classes is to make sure most of what you need to be an archer is in the tree and the most fundamental archery feats." I wasn't saying AA's should get five free feats in the tree.

I was saying the fundamental feats every archer takes, combined with the enhancements in the AA tree, should be enough to make a viable archery build.

But re-read my suggestion. I suggest the devs give Racial AA's *two* feats for free: Precise Shot and Improved Precise shot. That's in line with other changes they've made to other weak classes/trees (paladins getting the two Cleave enhancement-feats).

It's in no way reasonable to claim giving Racial AA's five feats for free is balanced for a cost of 24 ap.


Even if I really like this idea and think it s a good thing to have AA as a racial enhancement if you want, it s still an opened door for all other race to get a class enhancement tree as racial. (Half orc --> Frenzied Berserker, Dwarf --> Stalwart Defender, ect....)

I would like to see the devs give every race their racial tree, but I highly doubt they're willing to put in the work. They'd rather turn out recycled content they can charge the player base for than give anything significant for "free".


Yes, I must agree with this but not 100%. Ranger AA DC based on Wisdom only is logical but for the Racial AA, it should be Wisdom or Intelligence only. No reason to be able to get charisma as DC for an AA.

Bards, Sorcerers, and Warlocks are casters with Charisma-based DCs.

As usual, Varg ignored all the useful feedback in this thread and insisted on pushing through the original changes. So, instead of fixing archery, the devs re-designed the trees to make it *harder* to be an archer. Now you have to scratch around to try to get Enchantment DC increases and/or spellpower, while still having no ranged power, and trying to boost a casting stat that's only useful for Monks and divines.

I want to know where my Heart of Wood is, because my toon just became unplayable.

Edit: it appears I can swap all my feats for free. Time to go rebuild my toon.

[Holleyz]

Cant we have anything SACRED in this game anymore? I am BEGGING you to please put the AA Ranger back to the way it was before. But with my old Arrow of Slaying.

[eachna_gislin]

Can I ask the Community --

What are your ideas about how these broad principles should vary between Ranger AA and Elf AA ?

Should focus and abilities be very different between the two, identical, or simply variant ?

I feel they should be close to identical. I will say I'm looking at it from the perspective of a Racial AA player. I'm not a big fan of Rangers (I just happen to prefer divines like clerics and paladins).

I'm ok with the varying levels of cores between Ranger and Racial. It helps "pay" for the cost of Racial AA's counting their race as "pure" for the prestige (and thus being able to multiclass at no extra cost).

I think Racial archers should get two enhancement-based feats (either in cores or in tree tiers) to simulate Precise Shot and Improved Precise shot. Rangers get their archery feats for free, and there are too many feat-starved classes with blue bars that can't afford feats for their actual class if they are bow users to not ease up the pressure on bow feats at least a little. Two kinda-free feats feels like a good balance: it really *helps* seven feat classes, but doesn't overpower classes with bonus feats.

I think Racial AA's should be able to choose between casting stats rather than force using Wisdom for DC checks (select between Intelligence, Charisma, Wisdom). I'm aware this will still preferentially benefit monks, but the devs won's consider any changes that won't benefit monks, so I'm resigned to it. I don't want to see Racial AA bards, wizards, sorcerers, and warlocks forced to build for Wisdom, Dexterity, _and_ their casting stat (plus Con). That's a huge tax on top of feats and enhancements for Racial builds.

I did think Racial AA's should get +6 Ranged Power to make up for buying their ranged feats, but apparently the +6 Melee Power has been dropped from the melee feat lines so that's a moot point. If that +6 melee power gets restored I will go back to advocating Ranged Power for Racial AA's.

I finally think the devs need to decide what the "purpose" is in-game for archers and re-work bows to be functional in that role. Repeaters are fast-hitting ranged weapons, and great crossbows are heavy hitting ranged weapons, so bows need to be something other than either of those. My personal thoughts would be something very steady and not dependent on burst damage, _or_ having AoE effects attached to arrows, but it's obviously not up to me :D.

That bow work is something that would need to be done outside of the tree (in the same way re-working crossbow reloads benefited mechanics, but was meant for all crossbow users in game and not just rogues).

[Arkai]

Repeaters are fast-hitting ranged weapons, and great crossbows are heavy hitting ranged weapons, so bows need to be something other than either of those.

Bows used to be better than repeaters just for the old manyshot and 10k. Now, I have to admit I'm hating all the archer builds I tried in Lammania and just gave up on playing an archer.

My hopes are now in the arti pass (:

[unbongwah]

Disclaimer: I haven't had a chance to test AA changes thoroughly. These are just my impressions based on the releases notes, other posters, etc.

tl;dr summary: I think AA DPS has gotten even more backloaded than it already was, unfortunately. The good news is full-time archers should see DPS improvements in epics, but only after significant gear changes / build investment. People who only "dabbled" with Manyshot will also lose out, because they won't have the Doubleshot investment necessary to improve it.

Manyshot changes makes this a much more back-loaded DPS buff:

BAB 6: old - 2x dmg; new - 1.24 (doubleshot) * 1.24 (Ranged Power) = 1.54x dmg
BAB 11: old - 3x dmg; new - 1.44 * 1.44 = 2.07x dmg
BAB 16: old - 4x dmg; new - 1.64 * 1.64 = 2.67x dmg


Some of that lost DPS will be offset by increased dmg from imbues - and Doubleshot bonuses in later levels - but in low-to-mid-heroics I expect most AAs to feel weaker than they were, unfortunately. The good news is that MS continues to provide DPS improvements as BAB rises, whereas old MS was capped at 4 arrows. Also the elimination of the Doubleshot penalty means once you have a decent set of DS bonuses - let's say 25% AA cores + 10% gear & guild buff + 20% Killer - your DPS continues to improve.


BAB 20: 2.35 * 1.8 = 4.23x dmg
BAB 24: 2.51 * 1.96 = 4.92x dmg
BAB 28: 2.77 * 2.12 = 5.87x dmg <- assumes Doubleshot ED feat and Div Power or Tensers for max BAB


Combined with the extra dmg from elemental arrows, endgames AAs should see a significant DPS increase...once they build to exploit the new mechanics. Grailhawk raised good points about AA vs DWS tier-5s (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466941-Stalker-vs-AA-Tier-5-s); I suspect for FotW builds, Slaying Arrow is still best, but for other EDs, DWS might be better for sustained DPS. For the "casual" Manyshotters without Doubleshot bonuses, I'd expect dmg at cap to be ~4.5x, which is actually better than it was; but at lower levels it'll be a lot weaker.

Speaking of Doubleshot (http://ddowiki.com/page/Doubleshot), the good news is it's actually useful now to AAs. The bad news is most DS bonuses aren't available until fairly late, which again will make AA DPS feel more backloaded. Since it is useful, though, I would recommend replacing one of the AA action boosts with Doubleshot boost; this will help folks cross the 200% Doubleshot threshold in epics for guaranteed double-procs during Manyshot.

Likewise, Spellpower is now useful to boosting imbues and rgrs have plenty of skill pts to spare for Spellcraft. The downside, ofc, is figuring out where to slot Spellpower. Wind bracers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Bracers_of_Wind) are a nice option for heroic leveling, since they not only boost Magnetism / Shock arrows, but also grant Blurry, Dodge, and (at higher lvls) Air Guard. No clue what to go for in epics, unless you should just slot the relevant Spellpower in your bow?

I still think there should've been some Ranged Alacrity bonuses: maybe +3% in the cores so you have +15% with capstone? But maybe it's not necessary; I'd have to see some endgame DPS tests.

Finally, I'm a little disappointed Turbine didn't do more to improve pure rgr AAs - beyond DWS bonuses, I mean, which are nothing to sneer at - so they could compete better with monkchers. Like my Hail of Arrows idea (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466230-Ranger-Arcane-Archer-Changes-(Early-Autumn-Edition)?p=5700275&viewfull=1#post5700275): why doesn't anybody just do what I tell them to do? :p So I expect monkchers will continue to rule the roost, unless I'm overlooking something; 10K Stars + higher DCs on imbues is tough to overcome. It'll mostly be a matter of how much multiclassing they do. Pure or almost-pure monk will get the most out of 10K Stars; but I think the DWS bonuses also make rgr 4-6 worth considering. Monk 12 / rgr 6 / <splash> 2 may make a comeback.

[EllisDee37]

Likewise, Spellpower is now useful to boosting imbues and rgrs have plenty of skill pts to spare for Spellcraft. The downside, ofc, is figuring out where to slot Spellpower. Wind bracers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Bracers_of_Wind) are a nice option for heroic leveling, since they not only boost Magnetism / Shock arrows, but also grant Blurry, Dodge, and (at higher lvls) Air Guard. No clue what to go for in epics, unless you should just slot the relevant Spellpower in your bow?Slotting it in a weapon is probably ideal, except that you have to choose just one if you go that route. (But you get implement.)

Thunderforge tier 1 with potency +100 is probably the way to go if you use various elements, or tier 1 spell power +150 for a given element.

Another option if you do a lot of ETRing would be an Epic Ring of Elemental Essence. (+90 acid/cold/electric/fire)

But you're right about wind bracers. If you just use electrical, and can craft masterful, you can get +90 electric spell power from the bracers at ML13.

[eachna_gislin]

Disclaimer: I haven't had a chance to test AA changes thoroughly. These are just my impressions based on the releases notes, other posters, etc.

tl;dr summary: I think AA DPS has gotten even more backloaded than it already was, unfortunately. The good news is full-time archers should see DPS improvements in epics, but only after significant gear changes / build investment. People who only "dabbled" with Manyshot will also lose out, because they won't have the Doubleshot investment necessary to improve it.

Thanks for all the number breakdowns, it's always helpful when someone takes the time to do this.


Speaking of Doubleshot (http://ddowiki.com/page/Doubleshot), the good news is it's actually useful now to AAs. The bad news is most DS bonuses aren't available until fairly late, which again will make AA DPS feel more backloaded. Since it is useful, though, I would recommend replacing one of the AA action boosts with Doubleshot boost; this will help folks cross the 200% Doubleshot threshold in epics for guaranteed double-procs during Manyshot.

As a heroic, racial player, I've seen a small increase in my average DPS, but a big drop from Manyshot (which I didn't expect given that I had thought most of the impact to Manyshot was epic).


Likewise, Spellpower is now useful to boosting imbues and rgrs have plenty of skill pts to spare for Spellcraft. The downside, ofc, is figuring out where to slot Spellpower. Wind bracers (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Bracers_of_Wind) are a nice option for heroic leveling, since they not only boost Magnetism / Shock arrows, but also grant Blurry, Dodge, and (at higher lvls) Air Guard. No clue what to go for in epics, unless you should just slot the relevant Spellpower in your bow?

For heroics I'm using BTA Bracers of Wind + a cannith crafted ring of Corrosion spellpower + an Impulse augment in my Silver Longbow.

This gives me three arrows (shock, force, acid) to use. The other two elemental spots will be spent on the spellpower boosts instead of arrow imbues. I'm toying with only using force plus one element when I hit epics, but for heroics I have enough gear slots that this is fine.

[unbongwah]

Slotting it in a weapon is probably ideal, except that you have to choose just one if you go that route. (But you get implement.)
True, but the AA tree is clearly geared towards maxing out one imbue element; having two or more imbues waters down each one.

Thunderforge tier 1 with potency +100 is probably the way to go if you use various elements, or tier 1 spell power +150 for a given element.
It seems unfortunate to have to give up one of the T1 DPS options for Spellpower, though, if that can be slotted elsewhere.

Another option if you do a lot of ETRing would be an Epic Ring of Elemental Essence. (+90 acid/cold/electric/fire)
I like this idea since it lets you respec the AA tree to whatever element is best for the quests you're running without needing to regear. Enhancement swaps are easy; farming new gear, not so much. :)

Thinking about it some more, if you're lucky enough to run with a Warchanter, you can just barely hit sustainable 100% Doubleshot:

25% AA cores
20% DWS tier-5
20% Killer
10% Doubleshot ED feat
+9% Doubleshot EPL x3
+8% enhancement (quiver)
+6% Reckless Chant
+2% guild buff
100% Doubleshot

Which is great since when you use a special ranged atk like Sniper Shot (while MS/10K are on CD), you want to know you'll get a guaranteed extra proc.

[Failedlegend]

I've unfortunately only been able to contribute a little to this discussion as I've been very busy but I am NOT impressed to see that despite complaints for obvious reasons (including my own) AA remains so ONLY wisdom based characters can be AAs now...it's called ARCANE archer it should be Int if only one stat otherwise highest mental stat.

Oh well Bows have always kind of felt super slow anyways, i have even more reason to ignore them now...its a shame though I actually found my Bardcher and Wizard AA to be quite enjoyable despite that.

[Vargouille]

I'm a little disappointed Turbine didn't do more to improve pure rgr AAs - beyond DWS bonuses, I mean, which are nothing to sneer at - so they could compete better with monkchers.

As previously stated, we didn't expect these changes to fix Arcane Archers completely, and it was not "the Arcane Archer pass" per se.

We're pretty confident nearly every idea for 'pure ranger AAs vs. monckhers' fix has both its proponents and detractors. We know a lot of players have ideas they really like, and often we really like, but the tradeoffs between the different builds are fairly complicated, especially since it's not a binary thing. Even just between "pure ranger" and "pure monk Elven AA" and "some monk and some ranger levels" which is of course multiple builds in of itself -- and that's really only likely touching on Elven AA options. There's some balance in all of those options right now, though that doesn't mean one won't prove more popular or just more often "mathematically" right. At least now there is meaningful gain and loss for monk and ranger levels up to 12 (taking class feats and Core enhancements into account), plus AP considerations for Elven AA, which is otherwise quite good for some builds.


Cant we have anything SACRED in this game anymore? I am BEGGING you to please put the AA Ranger back to the way it was before. But with my old Arrow of Slaying. IF you do not then you have just lost this customer for good.
Which old Arrow of Slaying? It didn't change (itself) in Update 28.1. Do you mean the version from Update 18?

[FranOhmsford]

As previously stated, we didn't expect these changes to fix Arcane Archers completely, and it was not "the Arcane Archer pass" per se.

We're pretty confident nearly every idea for 'pure ranger AAs vs. monckhers' fix has both its proponents and detractors. We know a lot of players have ideas they really like, and often we really like, but the tradeoffs between the different builds are fairly complicated, especially since it's not a binary thing. Even just between "pure ranger" and "pure monk Elven AA" and "some monk and some ranger levels" which is of course multiple builds in of itself -- and that's really only likely touching on Elven AA options. There's some balance in all of those options right now, though that doesn't mean one won't prove more popular or just more often "mathematically" right. At least now there is meaningful gain and loss for monk and ranger levels up to 12 (taking class feats and Core enhancements into account), plus AP considerations for Elven AA, which is otherwise quite good for some builds.


Can you at least answer this question:

Why won't you make Manyshot and 10k Mutually Exclusive?

Then you could buff them both without worrying about the OPness of players utilising both!

[Spekdah_NZ]

Can you at least answer this question:

Why won't you make Manyshot and 10k Mutually Exclusive?

Then you could buff them both without worrying about the OPness of players utilising both!

Because that would make the build obsolete and a previously stated goal was not to go down that path. It's in the dev tracker somewhere.

[Failedlegend]

Because that would make the build obsolete and a previously stated goal was not to go down that path. It's in the dev tracker somewhere.

but killing every non-Wis based AA is totally ok for ARCANE archer?

[Ykt]

but killing every non-Wis based AA is totally ok for ARCANE archer?

This.

Either fix the language or allow Intelligence to be used in the AA enhancements.

Same goes for 10k STARS. Since when are arrows called STARS (except maybe in Sagittarius)?

[barecm]

I have to disagree with a lot of folks here and trust me when I say I am a ranged combat (bow) proponent. I agree that AA needs a little more, not a whole lot actually, but a little more. My suggestion is to add some additional doubleshot if that is the way we are doing things. To me, it appears that the devs either want you to be specced deep into ranged power or doubleshot. So, with DWS having +20 RP as the capstone, I think we need to boost the capstone for AA to 35%. Each level of core that the AA takes should add 2% Spell power for a total of 12%. I think those two changes should help.

The bigger issue for me is not AA, but rangers as a class. That is what needs the rework, not the enhancements. Enhancement buffs are fine, but it has the potential to make already powerful builds over the top. The bigger issue is the class of ranger being weak. They need more spells and ones that actually do something productive. The spells rangers have were basically developed when the game was lvl cap 10 and do not scale. There are a ton of useful spells that are in DnD that can be tapped into to help. Heck, you can even borrow some of the Druid spells to help. There needs to be something as a 4th lvl spell to help with damage. It does not need to be a ranger version of holy sword, but something that affects bows and finessed weapons only.

Now that the balance has passed, crit ranges have been reigned in, it should be easier to address rangers, their spells, and the damage they current do with bows vs monchers and other ranged toons that outclass them at virtually every turn. We can finally break the one thing folks come back to when arguing against improving rangers... break the line of specialization. The free feats given to rangers should be either ranged feats or twf feats, but not both. Then, we can really see some thought put into some higher level feats to make that specialized toon the master of either, but not mediocre at both.

[unbongwah]

As previously stated, we didn't expect these changes to fix Arcane Archers completely, and it was not "the Arcane Archer pass" per se.
Well, good to know the job's only half-done, at least... :)

Why won't you make Manyshot and 10k Mutually Exclusive?
Probably because they're trying to avoid "breaking" any builds as much as possible. Witness how they walked back the Holy Sword nerf to ranged weapons. Changing 10K / MS interaction would definitely qualify as build-breaking for monkchers who rely on both.

but killing every non-Wis based AA is totally ok for ARCANE archer?
They haven't "killed" non-monkcher AA builds - or at least, no worse than they were before U28.1. Monkchers have always had one major advantage over non-monkchers, namely 10K Stars; now they have two - higher DCs on AA imbues. But if you were playing a WIS-dumped AA, your Paralyzing DC was capped at 26, which is abysmal for epics; if you're playing a WIS-dumped AA post-U28.1, your DCs are...still abysmal, so you've lost nothing. :p In which case, you focus on the DPS imbues and ignore Paralyzing et al.

I'm disappointed they haven't yet added more goodies for non-monkchers; but since we now know they haven't finished with the AA pass, we might as well wait until they're done.

[barecm]

1
They haven't "killed" non-monkcher AA builds - or at least, no worse than they were before U28.1. Monkchers have always had one major advantage over non-monkchers, namely 10K Stars; now they have two - higher DCs on AA imbues. But if you were playing a WIS-dumped AA, your Paralyzing DC was capped at 26, which is abysmal for epics; if you're playing a WIS-dumped AA post-U28.1, your DCs are...still abysmal, so you've lost nothing. :p In which case, you focus on the DPS imbues and ignore Paralyzing et al.

I'm disappointed they haven't yet added more goodies for non-monkchers; but since we now know they haven't finished with the AA pass, we might as well wait until they're done.

Get elemental arrows and spec that spell power. It adds quite a bit of damage. Take all tiers for the same element.

[FranOhmsford]

Probably because they're trying to avoid "breaking" any builds as much as possible. Witness how they walked back the Holy Sword nerf to ranged weapons. Changing 10K / MS interaction would definitely qualify as build-breaking for monkchers who rely on both.

Replying to only half my post?

1) Making 10k and Manyshot mutually exclusive would only "break" those builds in as much as they'd need to go to Fred and swap out one of those feats!

2) Once those two feats are made mutually exclusive the Devs can work out the exact power level they want each feat to reach {and yes it should be higher than current for only one} and balance them properly!

Monks get to use 10k
Rangers get to use Manyshot
Ranger 11/Monk 9 or 18/2 or 14/6 etc. probably chooses to use Manyshot.
Monk 11/Ranger 9 or any other Monk mainline build probably chooses to use 10K
The two feats could be level based with each having a base, going up at Class Lvl 8 and Class Lvl 11 and have extra bonuses in Core AA and Ninja-Spy Enhancements.
So a Monk 11/Ranger 6/Paladin 3 could go full Ninja-Spy and get the full benefit of 10K Stars
OR
A Ranger 11/Monk 6/Rogue 3 could go full AA and get the full benefit of Manyshot.
OR
An Elf Fighter 20 could go full AA and get a weaker Manyshot because he wouldn't have the Class Lvl 8+11 Ranger Buffs.

BUT
No-one would be able to take BOTH!
Removing the single biggest Multiclass-Pure discrepancy in the game!

[Failedlegend]

I think Ranger AA remaininf Wis-based would be ok (not ideal) if Elven AA was treated differently and it used either Int or Cha...maybe even seperate it further by giving Ranger "Primal Archer" (or Primal Hunter) and have it be very favored enemy focused...make rangers the king of hunting their favored enemies make it a really huge deal...or you know remove AA from ranger entirely and make DWS their primary ranged tree insteasd of just a crappy melee/ranged mix tree. Leaves room for a third tree for rangers that actually suit the class. (since ARCANE archer doesn't suit it whether ranger is divine or primal)

This could be the start of races getting uniques prestiges to themselves...I'd also say move the PrE access to Racial Tier 1....Actually I'd say you should gain racial stuff (current racial stuff NOT the unique prestige) as you level up automatically (or with enough Racial exclusive AP to max it by Lvl 20) instead of wasting precious Class Enhancement points.

[Paladin20]

Does maximize add to the damage from elemental arrows?

I tried using Maximize and it does not seem to affect the damage from elemental arrows (I am inclined to believe that this is WAI, or else a low level character with Maximize would just do godly damage)

[Paladin20]

Has anyone else tried to run some numbers/tests as to determine how much Elemental Arrows are currently scaling with Spell Power?
I am running a Favored Soul AA build at mid-level and seem to have hit a cap as to how much Spell Power is affecting damage from Elemental Arrows. I picked Acid as the element, currently have 2 enhancements (should be +5d8) and have around 96 Acid Spell Power using a +15 Alchemical Potion. After shooting a bunch of mobs that take 100%/regular acid damage in GH, I noticed that I couldn't get a number higher than 65 and sometimes the bad rolls as low as 12.

1) Does the Alchemical boost from the potion affect the damage?
2) If I am doing the math correctly, shouldn't I be seeing numbers in the 70s once in a blue moon? Maybe just bad dice?

[EllisDee37]

Does maximize add to the damage from elemental arrows?No. Metamagics only apply to spells and spell-like abilities. Any non-spell that gets scaled by spell power ignores metamagics, only using the spell power number you can see in your character sheet.

Same deal with Ameliorating Strike, for example.

[Failedlegend]

Hmm. I double checked and thats not how universal Spellpower works for me...guess I should submit a bug report than.

[unbongwah]

So a brief summary of the AA changes for those just tuning in:

Pre-U28.1: "The AA capstone sucks! Doubleshot penalties make DS useless! The imbues are too weak! DC 26 Paralyzing Arrow is pointless in epics!"

Turbine: Okay, Spellpower now boosts imbues, you can either specialize in a single imbue to max its dmg or spread APs for more variety, Doubleshot bonuses are useful 100% of the time, Manyshot scales with BAB so it's more powerful in epics with no downsides, WIS-based AAs get DC bonuses while everyone else can just focus on DPS, and Shadow Arrows also adds +1 crit multiplier.

Post-U28.1: "Now the AA capstone is mandatory! All our builds based on the assumption that the higher-level AA abilities would remain useless forever are gimped! And now we need to farm for Doubleshot and Spellpower gear too?! Thanks for nothing, Turbine!"

Turbine: ...hello, Mr. Vodka, how are you today?

[Grailhawk]

Doubleshot bonuses are useful 100% of the time, Manyshot scales with BAB so it's more powerful in epics with no downsides,

I agree with your premises that people are reacting to the AA changes badly and not seeing how much they were buffed. But Manyshot changes do have downsides

1) It caps at 80% double shot in heroics old manyshot capped at 300% doubleshot at level 16 this is a really big nerf to build that used it in heroic I'm pretty sure (no math done could be wrong) that even removal of the ds penalty doesn't make up for the DPS loss in heroic by late epic sure but don't think so in heroic. (I'm aware they are addressing this issue so its only a downside for now)

2) Hybrid 20 seconds of bow 100 second melee ranger builds took a hit at 28 its only like ~20% reduction but its probably enough to just leave the bow in the bank now, since melee has been buffed so much over the year or two.

3) The Arrow of Slaying Fury shot Manysot burst volley is likely down 25% of its damage doubt you can get enough DS to always get four shot? (hmm could be wrong maybe there's an interesting build with a doublshot boost)

3) Manyshot with less shots just isn't as fun as it was with a lot of shots.

[unbongwah]

1) It caps at 80% double shot in heroics old manyshot capped at 300% doubleshot at level 16 this is a really big nerf to build that used it in heroic I'm pretty sure (no math done could be wrong) that even removal of the ds penalty doesn't make up for the DPS loss in heroic by late epic sure but don't think so in heroic. (I'm aware they are addressing this issue so its only a downside for now)
Yes, as I said last week (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466230-Ranger-Arcane-Archer-Changes-(Early-Autumn-Edition)?p=5711539&viewfull=1#post5711539), I agree that MS has been nerfed in heroic levels, particularly for those who only "dabbled" with MS as a burst DPS option. :( But fortunately by lvl 20 it's a lot better than that: +80 Ranged Power from new MS; if we're talking pure rgr, you should have +25% Doubleshot from AA cores, ideally +20% DS from Killer, and possibly another +20% DS +5 Ranged Power from DWS T5.

So at lvl 20 on a pure rgr:
Old Manyshot: effective 300% double shot with 0 extra ranged power = 4x dmg
New Manyshot (AA T5): 125% double shot (MS+AA+Killer) with +80 Ranged Power = 2.25 * 1.8 = 4.05x dmg
New Manyshot (DWS T5): 145% DS with +85 Ranged Power = 2.45 * 1.85 = 4.53x dmg

And those numbers ignore the extra dmg from the improved imbues as well as crit bonuses from AA & DWS; once you factor those in, the difference is even more pronounced. So if you're someone who's stuck with pure AA rgr all along, the bad news is heroic leveling got worse; but the good news is with a few gear tweaks and some Enhancement swapping, your epic DPS will improve significantly.

2) Hybrid 20 seconds of bow 100 second melee ranger builds took a hit at 28 its only like ~20% reduction but its probably enough to just leave the bow in the bank now, since melee has been buffed so much over the year or two.
TBH, though, Manyshot has been lagging behind melee since U23. Again, MS changes make it worse in heroics and better in epics for "casual" Manyshotters. The biggest downside is those builds skipped out on any Doubleshot bonuses, because it used to be useless during MS; and they only have a few options for adding it now.

3) Manyshot with less shots just isn't as fun as it was with a lot of shots.
For me the issue with doubleshot/doublestrike has always been I hate the randomness of them. I would prefer a static dmg bonus over a % chance of an extra attack, because it's easier to predict the effects, particularly on a short-duration ability like Manyshot. I.e., I wish doubleshot/-strike had worked the way Ranged / Melee Power do now. But that's water long since under the bridge now, so... *shrug*

[CrackedIce]

So a brief summary of the AA changes for those just tuning in:

Pre-U28.1: "The AA capstone sucks! Doubleshot penalties make DS useless! The imbues are too weak! DC 26 Paralyzing Arrow is pointless in epics!"

Turbine: Okay, Spellpower now boosts imbues, you can either specialize in a single imbue to max its dmg or spread APs for more variety, Doubleshot bonuses are useful 100% of the time, Manyshot scales with BAB so it's more powerful in epics with no downsides, WIS-based AAs get DC bonuses while everyone else can just focus on DPS, and Shadow Arrows also adds +1 crit multiplier.

Post-U28.1: "Now the AA capstone is mandatory! All our builds based on the assumption that the higher-level AA abilities would remain useless forever are gimped! And now we need to farm for Doubleshot and Spellpower gear too?! Thanks for nothing, Turbine!"

Turbine: ...hello, Mr. Vodka, how are you today?

lol.

I have had a very positive experience that I shared in the Manyshot is nerfed thread in General Discussion:

Just want to share my experience. Before 18.1 pass my AA ranger was abandoned. He is level 25 15 ranger 4 fighter 1 wizard. I built him previously as strength based with enough dex to get combat archery and had feats split between melee and ranged. Which at the time, fit the theme of a switch-hitter. With the power increase since the enhancement pass, and just having the feats for specific combat style and some dabbling in enhancements to further boost that style was no longer an option. As our builds get more powerful, the ability to do well in both became significantly more difficult. In short, he was plain bad; both in ranged and in melee. My best bet was furyshot. Outside furyshot, had to take every advantage of IPS but even then, soloing was a real bear on EH. It would take forever to kill things. Example, in the dwarven halls I was taking minutes to get past first room of skelies. He was no longer the Helves Angel he had been originally (+20 heart moved him from eleven AA dragon-marked 12 kensei 7 Ranger 1 wizard to 15 Ranger 4 fighter 1 wizard).

Now I rezzed him with only ranged feats dex based build. Dumped strength in favor of wisdom. Took spell focus feats as well as ranged power feats. Slotted iron heads. 16 ap in elf for extended displacement, 41 AA, 23 deepwood. My damage is soo much improved. Double shot is very noticeable especially in areas with many monsters where I can keep killer up. Combined with Killer and capstone, Manyshot does indeed feel like Manyshot even without furyshot which it had not done so before. This is with killer up so 50 doubleshot before I use Manyshot. I can switch between force and lightening arrows. My paralyzing imbues work on EH consistently (Gianthold), as for EE, depends on quest level - It does fine in EE for Menace of Underdark pack quests, not so well on EE Gianthold - but I have more DC to grow into. I do notice huge drop in dps though when using para imbues (lose about 100-250 per hit). So I focus on being more aggressive with lining up adrenaline sniper slaying arrows. I figure I am being more party friendly with using the dc arrows.

Been having blast - can't wait for crit damage for elf racial to be fixed to see difference as I am using Pinion so I am critting often and hard.

Still think that AA is weaker option than deepwood especially outside Fury destiny, though and would like to see some added benefit to capstone/tier 5s.

[Grace_ana]

I like that they made doubleshot relevant. I don't like that they made it mandatory. By removing the penalties alone and allowing doubleshot to wrap, it would have made it a relevant playstyle. But the nerf to manyshot, as well as making the damage of manyshot in large part dependent on doubleshot, actually severely limited archer builds. Essentially now, there is no real way to make a decent archer without piling on the doubleshot. This means 41 points in AA and at least 32 in DWS, and basically ignoring melee.

I don't think limiting was the intent, but I think it's a situation that very seriously needs to be addressed. I want there to be as many viable ways to make an archer as there are to make a toon of any other weapon fighting style. That doesn't mean "you can build whatever you want and play whatever you want so why are you complaining." That's not reasonable. Damage, utility, and survivability, considered together, should be approximately equivalent for all classes. Rangers don't have much utility and have relatively low damage mitigation (though not nonexistent). Archers can sometimes use distance for damage mitigation but often not, depending on the dungeon. They are like mechanics with less utility, actually. If they were slightly better than them at damage or even equivalent, I'd be happy. And when I say "they," I mean all versions of an archer, not just the doubleshot-to-the-max kind.

[Paladin20]

I like that they made doubleshot relevant. I don't like that they made it mandatory. By removing the penalties alone and allowing doubleshot to wrap, it would have made it a relevant playstyle. But the nerf to manyshot, as well as making the damage of manyshot in large part dependent on doubleshot, actually severely limited archer builds. Essentially now, there is no real way to make a decent archer without piling on the doubleshot. This means 41 points in AA and at least 32 in DWS, and basically ignoring melee.

I don't think limiting was the intent, but I think it's a situation that very seriously needs to be addressed. I want there to be as many viable ways to make an archer as there are to make a toon of any other weapon fighting style.

Yep, I agree 100%. It's great that they made it relevant but almost like a tragic unintended consequence it is now pretty much mandatory. For a Ranger at least you still have nice bonuses in the DWS, but for other non-ranger AA builds this is severely limiting as 41 points in AA often doesn't even allow you to take Core 4 on main class.

{Post edit: or at least they need to include some other sources of relevant (more than 5%) Doubleshot in the game that don't involve Epic TR/taking up feat slots}

[eachna_gislin]

So a brief summary of the AA changes for those just tuning in:

Pre-U28.1: "The AA capstone sucks! Doubleshot penalties make DS useless! The imbues are too weak! DC 26 Paralyzing Arrow is pointless in epics!"

Turbine: Okay, Spellpower now boosts imbues, you can either specialize in a single imbue to max its dmg or spread APs for more variety, Doubleshot bonuses are useful 100% of the time, Manyshot scales with BAB so it's more powerful in epics with no downsides, WIS-based AAs get DC bonuses while everyone else can just focus on DPS, and Shadow Arrows also adds +1 crit multiplier.

Post-U28.1: "Now the AA capstone is mandatory! All our builds based on the assumption that the higher-level AA abilities would remain useless forever are gimped! And now we need to farm for Doubleshot and Spellpower gear too?! Thanks for nothing, Turbine!"

Turbine: ...hello, Mr. Vodka, how are you today?

Keeping in mind for a moment that the latest EE pack is _not_ the entire game, and that the AA tree is used by Racial builds as well as Rangers...

Having a racial prestige that depends on two cores that are only available in epic levels and that depends on Doubleshot (that can't really be built up in heroic levels), and losing my DC's on my paralyze arrows mid-life, and not really being that much faster at killing stuff than before the changes is not actually an improvement to someone playing _heroic_ racial AA's and then TRing.

Also, believe it or not, it's not a perk to "get to" focus on damage if I don't have a wisdom build. AA's need CC in order to slow down mobs that are running at them trying to kill them. Not being able to CC means having to run around, which breaks Archer's Focus (if you use it) or getting running penalties while shooting and moving (if you can't afford Shot on the Run) or facing issues....

Some of us play heroics. Some of us don't play AA's as yet another way to machine-gun elemental damage. Some of us are trying to have a positive game experience.

[Failedlegend]

Doubleshot penalties make DS useless!

My complaint was more that Manyshot was a BETTER ability for Melee's who carry a bow just for Manyshot due to the penalty as opposed to actual archers im glad they removed I to thay said I. Not happy that all archers NEED to rely on an action boost to be at all effective I would have like to have seen a lesser passive version. For now I still prefer the more natural feel of repeaters...I prefer the rogue version since its power comes recommends attack instead of endless fusilade.



Problem: The imbues are too weak!
Solution: Okay, Spellpower now boosts imbues, you can either specialize in a single imbue to max its dmg or spread APs for more variety


I see no issue with this, in fact my EK would love to get this fix as well



Manyshot scales with BAB so it's more powerful in epics with no downsides

Anyone with less than full BAB begs to differ.



WIS-based AAs get DC bonuses while everyone else can just focus on DPS

Considering it's called ARCANE archer wisdom is a stupid choice...it should either be highest of Int/Cha or just highest mental stat, you of course might argue that rangers casting stat is Wisdom and my retort is that Rangers don't actually need more than 14 Wisdom since they have no good CC spells and of course it's called ARCANE archer should have never been a ranger prestige anyways they already have DWS. I'd rather see it become exclusive to Elves.

[CrackedIce]

Aside for the fact that I feel that the AA capstone should allow you to use both elemental imbues together with DC imbues since dps damage goes way down when using DC imbues, I think that it should be a matter of course that the fifth tier improved elemental imbues should be a constant and work while using DC imbues. It is a fifth tier which is a waste when you are using DC imbues.

This becomes much clearer when the deepwood tier five builds use DC arrows and have access to all of their tier fives simultaneously. Why should an AA who specializes to tier five be penalized to not make use of their tier five abilities just because they want to use DC arrows?

[unbongwah]

Aside for the fact that I feel that the AA capstone should allow you to use both elemental imbues together with DC imbues since dps damage goes way down when using DC imbues, I think that it should be a matter of course that the fifth tier improved elemental imbues should be a constant and work while using DC imbues.
My suggestion in another thread was to make the DC-based imbues (i.e., Terror / Paralyzing / Smiting / Banishing) into secondary imbues rather than primary. So you always have your primary DPS imbue active (Force or one of the elemental arrows); then it's a question of whether you want DR-breaking (Metalline / Morphic / Aligned), a DC-based proc, or Shadow Arrows for +5% Doubleshot.

[CrackedIce]

My suggestion in another thread was to make the DC-based imbues (i.e., Terror / Paralyzing / Smiting / Banishing) into secondary imbues rather than primary. So you always have your primary DPS imbue active (Force or one of the elemental arrows); then it's a question of whether you want DR-breaking (Metalline / Morphic / Aligned), a DC-based proc, or Shadow Arrows for +5% Doubleshot.

I could definitely get on board with this.

Its really seems such a silly waste to have improved elemental arrows as one of two (other being slaying arrow) as the only reasons to go for this fifth tier when the reality is, if you are using DC arrows, you are not getting any benefit from that enhancement. (And if you had to choose between slaying arrows tier five and the other tier fives in Deepwood, its is not even a hard choice - hands down Deepwood is the better tier five, especially if you are speccing for DC arrows)

[Sanader]

1) Making 10k and Manyshot mutually exclusive would only "break" those builds in as much as they'd need to go to Fred and swap out one of those feats!

2) Once those two feats are made mutually exclusive the Devs can work out the exact power level they want each feat to reach {and yes it should be higher than current for only one} and balance them properly!

Monks get to use 10k
Rangers get to use Manyshot
Ranger 11/Monk 9 or 18/2 or 14/6 etc. probably chooses to use Manyshot.
Monk 11/Ranger 9 or any other Monk mainline build probably chooses to use 10K
The two feats could be level based with each having a base, going up at Class Lvl 8 and Class Lvl 11 and have extra bonuses in Core AA and Ninja-Spy Enhancements.
So a Monk 11/Ranger 6/Paladin 3 could go full Ninja-Spy and get the full benefit of 10K Stars
OR
A Ranger 11/Monk 6/Rogue 3 could go full AA and get the full benefit of Manyshot.
OR
An Elf Fighter 20 could go full AA and get a weaker Manyshot because he wouldn't have the Class Lvl 8+11 Ranger Buffs.

BUT
No-one would be able to take BOTH!
Removing the single biggest Multiclass-Pure discrepancy in the game!

This makes no sense. You can't do that with feats. You can do that with enhancments.
Make lvl 18 and lvl 20 ranger cores easy to compete with monk 10kstars. Problem solved if you wanna solve the 6monk multiclass. You can't have a class scaling feat. Those are called enhancments.
Same story for monk. Give them lvl 18 and 20 cores so that going for manyshot would have serious drawbacks.