Ranged Alacrity

[Yamani]

So decided to do a basic test to see where the attack speed cap for bows is now. The test was simple, all you need is a stack of arrows, a stop watch, 2 bows(one with alacrity 25%/one without), and other sources of stacking alacrity.

Turn on epic defensive fighting, start firing arrows + stop watch for 1 minute, once time is up deduct how many arrows left to find out how many attacks done in one minute.

Well here is the results!
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/536018042077970432/751505208160419851/Bow_APM_3.png


I don't have blinding speed atm as it wasn't needed on current build, so if someone wants to do a simple test for that feel free too. But it seems the new cap for attack speed is probably between 20-25% alacrity, or in other words Shot on the run, insightful alacrity, competence alacrity(poor gilvaenors!), and hymns 10% are all useless abilities that where put in for the pretense of doing something positive for bows but do nothing. Thanks for reducing the animation though I guess, makes hitting the cap easier.

[Dreppo]

That is very sad to see.

I'm not sure about your conclusion that alacrity caps out at 20-25%. The attacks per second was 77-78 with no alacrity sources whatsoever, and topped out at 85-86 with just about any combination of alacrity. That's approximately a 10% difference. My interpretation is alacrity effectively caps out at 10%. If you did a test with just a 10% source of alacrity (not sure why you didn't?) you'd probably see it hit those same numbers. So just wearing an upgraded Quiver of Alacrity for example would seem to be enough.

[Yamani]

That is very sad to see.

I'm not sure about your conclusion that alacrity caps out at 20-25%. The attacks per second was 77-78 with no alacrity sources whatsoever, and topped out at 85-86 with just about any combination of alacrity. That's approximately a 10% difference. My interpretation is alacrity effectively caps out at 10%. If you did a test with just a 10% source of alacrity (not sure why you didn't?) you'd probably see it hit those same numbers. So just wearing an upgraded Quiver of Alacrity for example would seem to be enough.

You're right I should do the 10% as for why its 20-25% is because of how alacrity works with bows. It doesn't affect the whole attack animation, it just modifies the reloading portion which used to be about 1/3rd of the entire sequence, or 33%. So you would need more alacrity to get the 85-86 attacks.

[droid327]

Yikes that is...quite alarming if it really is that low...I'd seen estimates like 41% cap, 20 or even 10 is way worse. Especially since they nerfed IPS damage and then gave bows (useless) speed to "make up for it", when really it should've been the opposite, nerf speed with IPS and give bows % damage...

[Zeleron]

Yikes that is...quite alarming if it really is that low...I'd seen estimates like 41% cap, 20 or even 10 is way worse. Especially since they nerfed IPS damage and then gave bows (useless) speed to "make up for it", when really it should've been the opposite, nerf speed with IPS and give bows % damage...

Don't forget according to another thread, the original function of shot on the run doesn't even work anymore as well.

[Question2005]

Stuff like this should be the #1 priority to fix, not pushing out another expansion.

Sadly, SSG hates fixing stuff it seems.

Wonder what the attack speed cap is for the various forms of crossbows?

[Tsutti]

cap for attack speed is probably between 20-25% alacrity

Well with an 85% theoretical cap, I'd say all we need to make bows decent is raise the cap to accommodate that.... yikes

EDIT: and maybe add a few more sources of alacrity so haste boost isn't mandatory, and just have the cap accommodate whatever highest alacrity you could achieve

[Yamani]

Stuff like this should be the #1 priority to fix, not pushing out another expansion.

Sadly, SSG hates fixing stuff it seems.

Wonder what the attack speed cap is for the various forms of crossbows?

Yea part of the reason I did this was to bring awareness to the problem, as well as to show people that these "increases" they put in did nothing. Although I didn't expect to see that the cap was lowered though.

[Mindos]

Yea part of the reason I did this was to bring awareness to the problem, as well as to show people that these "increases" they put in did nothing. Although I didn't expect to see that the cap was lowered though.

are these numbers with or without rapid shot?

[Yamani]

are these numbers with or without rapid shot?

Pure level 30 ranger, so rapid shot being auto granted means yes.

[yfernbottom]

Bows are OP, they need to nerf them more. Rangers too.

A few ideas that might help:

-turning on IPS reduces your range to touch

-bows start at -85% alacrity. You need to max it to even get normal attack speed.

-any time you build up more than one stack of archer's focus you take damage. 1d4 per second per stack past 1.

-equipping a bow deletes your character from the server.

-when you choose ranger for your class, you are forced to use the Purple Dragon Knight for your appearance regardless of what race you are playing.

[Yamani]

-bows start at -85% alacrity. You need to max it to even get normal attack speed.

-
95, I didn't include gilvaenors here cause its an item from module 9, but ironically is the only source of competence alacrity 10%

[Weemadarthur]

when you choose ranger for your class, you are forced to use the Purple Dragon Knight for your appearance regardless of what race you are playing.

If you going to do it do it properly. Half elf or bust!

[zooble]

I just posted this video in the suggestion forum so it doesn't get buried in this thread with some so so title.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozsy1FwlDoI

It's been brought up time and time again but they haven't done anything. It's so obvious too - if you press haste boost, it will literally do nothing.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Yamini, great catch. I'd like to see more info

[RogerP1er]

So My original question, which i put in another forum question is still valid..

is playing a ranger, or any bow weilding class worthit.. if i start and finish with a heavy handicap.. what s the point?

[Weemadarthur]

So My original question, which i put in another forum question is still valid..

is playing a ranger, or any bow weilding class worthit.. if i start and finish with a heavy handicap.. what s the point?

As stated in the other thread the answer is yes if you are playing for fun and enjoy the class, no if your aiming to be a power player. The part of the equation that's missing from the OP is that hes specifically looking at end game. For heroics and even early epics bow rangers while under performing compared to the meta can still be a perfectly viable and fun choice. Just don't expect to rule kill counts with them.

As a side note the ranger past lives are very good for all ranged characters and bow ranger whilst not being the most powerful variant of ranger is arguably the easiest to play.

In short reread the thread where you asked this question and everything was explained in full there :P.

[SerPounce]

This makes me sad. I have a ranged guy I like to keep at cap (has basic ranged PLs and not much else) that I’ve hardly touched since inquis was nerfed. I was thinking about trying a bow build again (maybe a silver flame Paladin or a FVS moncher), but it seems hopeless. :(

With the thrower nerf is there any good endgame ranges builds? It’s all casters and 2HF now.

10k stars seems like it scales well, but I never see monchers anymore. Maybe time to give it a try again.

[Weemadarthur]

This makes me sad. I have a ranged guy I like to keep at cap (has basic ranged PLs and not much else) that I’ve hardly touched since inquis was nerfed. I was thinking about trying a bow build again (maybe a silver flame Paladin or a FVS moncher), but it seems hopeless. :(

With the thrower nerf is there any good endgame ranges builds? It’s all casters and 2HF now.

10k stars seems like it scales well, but I never see monchers anymore. Maybe time to give it a try again.

Inquis builds are still very powerful (just not brokenly so), monk throwers are still very effective at cap (but suck 1-20), X-bow rogues are still almost as good as they have been since mech was released and tbh rangers are no worse off now than they were pre nerf (a 20% nerf to not a lot of damage still equals not a lot of damage).

Tbh ranged as a whole isn't in too bad a place right now as the ones currently under performing are the same that were under performing pre nerf. For the ones that were powerful before the nerf they are still powerful just not as powerful.

Dont make the mistake that because something isnt brokenly OP it therefore must suck. Ranged in general is fine its just bows that need a boost.

[RogerP1er]

my question would be, why put any nerfing anyway, if they design it that way, let s use it, why complaining about something being overpowered.. if they made it that way, be happy if it s good for you!

i hate nerfing on anything, i d rather see ddo increase the ac or / and hitpoints on monsters rather than limiting characters to get to their full potential...

[jakeelala]

So decided to do a basic test to see where the attack speed cap for bows is now. The test was simple, all you need is a stack of arrows, a stop watch, 2 bows(one with alacrity 25%/one without), and other sources of stacking alacrity.
snip .

A fellow speed tester!

I love your method and triple heads up comparison video, very cool!

Thanks for the info I was about to do this myself, but now I don't have to

[Question2005]

This makes me sad. I have a ranged guy I like to keep at cap (has basic ranged PLs and not much else) that I’ve hardly touched since inquis was nerfed. I was thinking about trying a bow build again (maybe a silver flame Paladin or a FVS moncher), but it seems hopeless. :(

With the thrower nerf is there any good endgame ranges builds? It’s all casters and 2HF now.

10k stars seems like it scales well, but I never see monchers anymore. Maybe time to give it a try again.

Inquis is very strong for most of the game, especially once you get to the t5s at level 12. They are still strong at cap and definately much stronger than most SWF/TWF builds.

Throwers suck for most of the game and are only strong at cap in full legendary gear. So not something you want to play unless you have most past lives and only care about content at cap. They definately outdamage inq at cap.

Bows are fundamentally broken due to the low attack speed cap and the fact that their two main damage trees (AA and DWS) have tons of issues.

Repeaters still have the issue that they don't benefit much from ranged alacrity due to their reload animation, so they scale very badly once you hit level 12 and can unlock 30% ranged alacrity in the inq or mechanic t5s.

Great crossbows are completely obsolete compared to inquis now. Inq is basically ranged TWF, and we all know that sneak attack benefits more from a high number of attacks. So any rogue build is better off doing inq to get as many sneak attacks in as possible. And inq has law dice, which is uber sneak attack that isn't affected by sneak attack immunity, fortification or range limitations. It's also way more AP intensive to get endless fusilade compared to NHB and frankly, the inq tree is a lot more powerful than the mechanic tree.

[SerPounce]

my question would be, why put any nerfing anyway, if they design it that way, let s use it, why complaining about something being overpowered.. if they made it that way, be happy if it s good for you!

i hate nerfing on anything, i d rather see ddo increase the ac or / and hitpoints on monsters rather than limiting characters to get to their full potential...

Because then the game is balanced around one build and sucks for everything else. A multiplayer game more fun if there’s some basic balance. It’s not PvP so it doesn’t have to be exact, but it not fun when one or two builds dominate.

[timmy9999]

my question would be, why put any nerfing anyway, if they design it that way, let s use it, why complaining about something being overpowered.. if they made it that way, be happy if it s good for you!

i hate nerfing on anything, i d rather see ddo increase the ac or / and hitpoints on monsters rather than limiting characters to get to their full potential...

Problem being is, you have min/maxers with 130 plus reaper points all lives complete zerging through quests beating joe blogs with 10 reaper points playing a pally. There are so many bad melee in the game, and typically they play r1 to r6. So they can't even get to the group before every thing is dead. So they get on the forums and complain endlessly. To make matters worse u then have these uber complesionist post up videos on you tube, twitch etc showing them selfs solo r10. Don't forget the majority of the player base are average or below average players. So based on what the top 10% do ssg nerfs
Now they may have calculators or trial toons when they develop them, but let's be frank ssg are more then likey not in that top 10%. With reaper we need ranged toons to have good dps to solo, or short man. When I play at nights the server is dead, I don't want to do r6 and below. Nerfing range is just taking away the ability for people play,, this includes heriocs as well.
The servers are dead hardly anyone plays tanks or heals when froming pugs why ? How you gonna solo playing a FS healer. It would suck , or a tank with no dps. ..intimidate the mobs to death lol. Any way im kinda over the bs range nerf thing, prob gonna see how I can go with pally or barb with no heals, see what I can solo.

[Coffey]

Thanks Yamani and zooble for testing this much appreciated!

Where does the Bow Attack Speed from SorR (and other stacking bonuses) factor in to the equation with Alacrity for someone not wanting total overkill?

[Yamani]

Thanks Yamani and zooble for testing this much appreciated!

Where does the Bow Attack Speed from SorR (and other stacking bonuses) factor in to the equation with Alacrity for someone not wanting total overkill?

Truthfully I wouldn't waste the 3 feat slots to get Shot on the run. Just get blinding speed for 1 feat slot. That was the whole point of making this post, but if you are just working on a leveling build erm, the earlier the better I guess.

[Coffey]

Truthfully I wouldn't waste the 3 feat slots to get Shot on the run. Just get blinding speed for 1 feat slot. That was the whole point of making this post, but if you are just working on a leveling build erm, the earlier the better I guess.

Yea makes sense thanks but i was wondering about the difference between the two bonuses Alacrity and Bow Attack speed. I was thinking of them as one but the bow attack speed is probably BAB related which is maxed at 25.

[Coffey]

Its interesting to see what the BAB atack/min were back in 2012 compared to now.



The gains from BAB 1 and BAB 2 are non-standard on bows and thrown weapons, and give a straight boost to the attacks-per-minute base. From BAB 3 and on it is a ~2.9% multiplier per point of BAB.


Bow and Thrown BAB 0: 25 = 25.00
Bow and Thrown BAB 1: 28 = 28.00
Bow and Thrown BAB 2: 31 = 31.00
Bow and Thrown BAB 3: 31 * (1.029 ^ 1) = 31.90
Bow and Thrown BAB 4: 31 * (1.029 ^ 2) = 32.82
Bow and Thrown BAB 5: 31 * (1.029 ^ 3) = 33.78
Bow and Thrown BAB 6: 31 * (1.029 ^ 4) = 34.76
Bow and Thrown BAB 7: 31 * (1.029 ^ 5) = 35.76
Bow and Thrown BAB 8: 31 * (1.029 ^ 6) = 36.80
Bow and Thrown BAB 9: 31 * (1.029 ^ 7) = 37.87
Bow and Thrown BAB 10: 31 * (1.029 ^ 8) = 38.97
Bow and Thrown BAB 11: 31 * (1.029 ^ 9) = 40.10
Bow and Thrown BAB 12: 31 * (1.029 ^ 10) = 41.26
Bow and Thrown BAB 13: 31 * (1.029 ^ 11) = 42.46
Bow and Thrown BAB 14: 31 * (1.029 ^ 12) = 43.69
Bow and Thrown BAB 15: 31 * (1.029 ^ 13) = 44.95
Bow and Thrown BAB 16: 31 * (1.029 ^ 14) = 46.26
Bow and Thrown BAB 17: 31 * (1.029 ^ 15) = 47.60
Bow and Thrown BAB 18: 31 * (1.029 ^ 16) = 48.98
Bow and Thrown BAB 19: 31 * (1.029 ^ 17) = 50.40
Bow and Thrown BAB 20: 31 * (1.029 ^ 18) = 51.86
Bow and Thrown BAB 21: 31 * (1.029 ^ 19) = 53.36
Bow and Thrown BAB 22: 31 * (1.029 ^ 20) = 54.91
Bow and Thrown BAB 23: 31 * (1.029 ^ 21) = 56.50
Bow and Thrown BAB 24: 31 * (1.029 ^ 22) = 58.14
Bow and Thrown BAB 25: 31 * (1.029 ^ 23) = 59.83


Maybe someday we can achieve BAB 40, and bows will finally have a faster base attack speed than standard melee weaponry. :)

Anyways looks like Insightful Ranged Alacrity and Bow Attack Speed Bonus (SotR) work the same as a 10% bonus after looking a comparative setup.

Level 15 Ranger
Nothing - 70 Att/Min
SotR Bow Att Spd - 73 Att/Min
10% Insightful Ranged Alacrity - 73 Att/Min

Just wanted to be sure :)

Edit: retested 3x each and this is eyeballing with my Linux LCD clock.

[Strider1963]

Problem being is, you have min/maxers with 130 plus reaper points all lives complete zerging through quests beating joe blogs with 10 reaper points playing a pally. There are so many bad melee in the game, and typically they play r1 to r6. So they can't even get to the group before every thing is dead. So they get on the forums and complain endlessly. To make matters worse u then have these uber complesionist post up videos on you tube, twitch etc showing them selfs solo r10. Don't forget the majority of the player base are average or below average players. So based on what the top 10% do ssg nerfs
Now they may have calculators or trial toons when they develop them, but let's be frank ssg are more then likey not in that top 10%. With reaper we need ranged toons to have good dps to solo, or short man. When I play at nights the server is dead, I don't want to do r6 and below. Nerfing range is just taking away the ability for people play,, this includes heriocs as well.
The servers are dead hardly anyone plays tanks or heals when froming pugs why ? How you gonna solo playing a FS healer. It would suck , or a tank with no dps. ..intimidate the mobs to death lol. Any way im kinda over the bs range nerf thing, prob gonna see how I can go with pally or barb with no heals, see what I can solo.

I agree that the real problem is the 10% ubers that dominate the game and come up with the top builds (and are able to make them work because of all the reaper points, pl's, gear, etc). They are the reason for all the nerfs. When these people make a class, race, or enhancement tree look way op, then it gets nerfed. While the rest of the population here has the short lived fun they have taken away because of them. They demand nerfs because of endgame "balance", but there is really no endgame so whats the point? How many people actually stay at cap and raid anymore? Think about it.

[timmy9999]

I agree that the real problem is the 10% ubers that dominate the game and come up with the top builds (and are able to make them work because of all the reaper points, pl's, gear, etc). They are the reason for all the nerfs. When these people make a class, race, or enhancement tree look way op, then it gets nerfed. While the rest of the population here has the short lived fun they have taken away because of them. They demand nerfs because of endgame "balance", but there is really no endgame so whats the point? How many people actually stay at cap and raid anymore? Think about it.

Well heaps I know stay at cap, they hate heriocs. They rarely pug though so you wont see lfg. cause all lives are done. They only tr to try new builds or reset reaper first time bonus. End game is farming reaper points or getting gear for raids or doing the same raids over and over and over. Thus why groups are getting r10 raids done cause everyone has the gear and there's nothing else to to do, add to that most people have the reaper points now as well. I will be honest here, most people are just bored at the moment with the game. Where's the new content? People have got nothing better to do then complain. I mean ffs we have all done project nem, bubba to death. There is nothing to do but farm reaper xp...stacks of people are over 100 reaper points now..no mention of changes to reaper trees...or increasing the points beyond 156..who cares about elite any more?

[zooble]

Thanks Yamani and zooble for testing this much appreciated!

Where does the Bow Attack Speed from SorR (and other stacking bonuses) factor in to the equation with Alacrity for someone not wanting total overkill?

If there was no arbitrary cap, alacrity stacking would be an excellent way to increase bow dps, and this is what I was trying to achieve on my ranger when I first built her but alas, it doesn't work that way. As both of our tests show, you don't need much to cap it out making any more than 22% effectively useless (my video tests show the same 86/85 number that Yamani achieved). Haste boost, one of the best boosts to increase dps for melee, doesn't do anything for my ranger as you can see in the video. Assuming Yamani's 20% test is accurate, the threshold, for a bow ranger at least, is that 22%-25% offering roughly 1-3% more attacks per min (86/85 vs 84) than combinations that total 20%, and it effectively caps you out on alacrity.

EDIT: I'm not sure if 22% is the same as 25% since my test showed 22% was 85 attacks/min and 1 attack may or may not be within the margin of error. I can't really compare with Yamani's tests due to different methodologies - I used the video time code 1x, he used a stopwatch but did it 3x. But that's by the by, what's clear in the tests is that there is either no or very minimal improvement to attacks per second over this 22% to 25% range. +72% alacrity from blinding speed/haste boost/insightful/hymm showed an improvement of 1 attack/min (again, could possibly be 0) over +22% alacrity (the amount of alacrity added translates to a 41% theoretical attack speed increase (1.72/1.22) which if uncapped, should be roughly 120 attacks/min, or an increase of 35 attacks/min, not 0, not 1).

--------

In terms of practical advice for a bow ranger, at least as things remain as they are, aim for 22% or 25%.

Bows in epics have around 20-25% alacrity (Pinion 20%, E. Sapph. Sting 25%, Chaosbow 25%) but not all bows do, such as Leg. Twisted Willow which doesn't have any.

The easiest catch all is to simply get the Blinding Speed feat but keep in mind this is at level 27.

Another thing to consider is possibly 15% (item) + 10% from whatever source (likely T5 DWS or Hymm if you are getting Arcane karma - I'd probably never twist it in current state) to save a feat altogether, for when you're not using an alacrity bow. I can't test this since I have Blinding Speed atm. Previously I was under the impression that you needed Blinding Speed to be competitive since ranged were getting cheated on the Speed gear (22% vs 15%).

Shot on the Run seemed iffy prior to these tests due to it costing 2 feats (you would likely take Point Blank Shot anyway and Mobility is a filler). But given that the major benefit people saw in it is effectively useless, I don't see why anyone would take this now. With that said, it offers other benefits like +4 hit while moving (kiting) and 3 RP. People take Weapon Focus which is +1 hit and 2 power... so...

Maybe there is something for those without Rapid Shot, I didn't test it nor do I plan to, because let's face it, if you go bow, you're taking it one way or another.

[Weemadarthur]

I agree that the real problem is the 10% ubers that dominate the game and come up with the top builds (and are able to make them work because of all the reaper points, pl's, gear, etc). They are the reason for all the nerfs. When these people make a class, race, or enhancement tree look way op, then it gets nerfed. While the rest of the population here has the short lived fun they have taken away because of them. They demand nerfs because of endgame "balance", but there is really no endgame so whats the point? How many people actually stay at cap and raid anymore? Think about it.

The problem isn't as much the top 10% I think as much as the bottom 50% when they react to the top 10%. Although I agree the top 10% are the cause they are not responsible. Its those that play with them and the claim x build is OP because of y that are the people directly responsible. The fact is most of those 10% players have spent years honing builds, game skills, knowledge and power and imo actually deserve their top spots. Some of them are quite capable of making a G.I.M.P. build (where u roll randomly for each class at level up) and still being good. The lower 50% that are the ones calling for nerfs most of the time have no idea what has gone into making those builds work and in some cases havent even tried those classes/builds themselves to see how powerful they are for a normal player.

Just take a look through threads posted over the last few months and you will see posts claiming "ranged is OP melee suck", "melee is OP they can kill stuff before I can even start shooting on my ranged" and "casters are so powerful they trivialise all content and make all other styles obsolete". So if the forums are to be believed melee, casters and ranged are all OP? Then note that in almost all of these cases its someone stating that they played with someone else who was more powerful than them not that they were playing a class themselves that they thought was OP.

The problem then gets worse when one of these posts gets enough support that it then becomes "fact" that something is OP (look at how many of the forumites genuinely believe that casters are defacto OP when a good melee or ranged can do just as well as a good caster).

In short the only time I can think of any of the top 10% players ever asking for nerfs was with pre nerf inquis and lets be serious here, we all know that tree was insanely OP and unbalanced.

[Yamani]

Shot on the Run seemed iffy prior to these tests due to it costing 2 feats (you would likely take Point Blank Shot anyway and Mobility is a filler). But given that the major benefit people saw in it is effectively useless, I don't see why anyone would take this now. With that said, it offers other benefits like +4 hit while moving (kiting) and 3 RP. People take Weapon Focus which is +1 hit and 2 power... so...



Don't forget Mobility requires dodge. So: Point blank shot, Dodge, Mobility, Shot on the Run.

[Question2005]

I agree that the real problem is the 10% ubers that dominate the game and come up with the top builds (and are able to make them work because of all the reaper points, pl's, gear, etc). They are the reason for all the nerfs. When these people make a class, race, or enhancement tree look way op, then it gets nerfed. While the rest of the population here has the short lived fun they have taken away because of them. They demand nerfs because of endgame "balance", but there is really no endgame so whats the point? How many people actually stay at cap and raid anymore? Think about it.

No, its not really about uber. Its the fact that classes do not scale damage equally.

Casters get hundreds of spell power on gear and via enhancements in heroics.

Most melee/ranged builds get no melee/ranged power via enhancements till the higher levels, and they get zero on gear.

At ML 10, a caster can get 77 fire power, 38 insightful fire power and even more via universal spellpower.

At ML 10, everyone else is limited to +5 deadly and +2 insightful deadly (which is much harder to get, and not easily craftable).

Which scales damage more, the massive amount of spell power that the caster gets or +7 damage? One is a % multiplier, the other is a small flat damage modifier. It's obvious right?

Casters also get access to far more spellpower in their trees at lower levels. Sorcs get 10 spellpower per core, starting at level 1.

You will notice that no melee/ranged trees give you melee/ranged power starting at level 1. Tempest gets a grand total of 4 melee power in their tree for the whole of heroics.

It's a very strange scaling. You will notice that on items that give both melee/ranged power + spellpower, the devs have implemented a rough 1:2 ratio. For example, the Adherent of the mists set gives you 10 universal spellpower and 5 melee/ranged power in heroics. But they dont use this consistently through the game so you end up in a situation where a caster gets a massive amount of spellpower in heroics while everyone else gets little to none.

This is why casters can easily one shot everything with decent gear in heroics : they get tons of spellpower via gear and enhancements. Everyone else does not. It doesn't matter if you have a top THF build with 100+ reaper ap and every past life...if the caster can one shot everything before you can get into melee range, you don't get to do any damage. It's a simple equation. Even if you are a millionaire, you can't buy food on a deserted island because there's no food to buy.

Another problem is the way SP is "supposed" to work. Its supposed to serve as a balancing mechanism, caster spells are powerful, but they cant spam them constantly so they need to rely on party members to kill stuff. In theory.

The problem is that the SP limitation doesn't work in 95% of content. Unless you are fighting a boss with 4m hp or doing high skull reaper, you arent going to run out of SP till you get to a shrine. Literally the only times you see people run out of SP when leveling is when its a newbie with no gear/past lives or when its something stupid like coal chamber. So in 95% of content, casters are this awesome nuking machine that just one shots everything, then in 5% of content, they are relegated to CC roles because they don't have enough SP to kill stuff anymore.

Even my bank alts with only 12 levels of sorc can cast chain lightning 30+ times before running out of sp (with maximize and empower). Let's assume that due to targetting issues, you need two casts to clear each encounter. You can still clear 15+ encounters before you need to shrine.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Please don't derail this thread with posts about sp management and power creep in pl's.
Focus people, focus. "Ranged alacrity"

[timmy9999]

The problem isn't as much the top 10% I think as much as the bottom 50% when they react to the top 10%. Although I agree the top 10% are the cause they are not responsible. Its those that play with them and the claim x build is OP because of y that are the people directly responsible. The fact is most of those 10% players have spent years honing builds, game skills, knowledge and power and imo actually deserve their top spots. Some of them are quite capable of making a G.I.M.P. build (where u roll randomly for each class at level up) and still being good. The lower 50% that are the ones calling for nerfs most of the time have no idea what has gone into making those builds work and in some cases havent even tried those classes/builds themselves to see how powerful they are for a normal player.

Just take a look through threads posted over the last few months and you will see posts claiming "ranged is OP melee suck", "melee is OP they can kill stuff before I can even start shooting on my ranged" and "casters are so powerful they trivialise all content and make all other styles obsolete". So if the forums are to be believed melee, casters and ranged are all OP? Then note that in almost all of these cases its someone stating that they played with someone else who was more powerful than them not that they were playing a class themselves that they thought was OP.

The problem then gets worse when one of these posts gets enough support that it then becomes "fact" that something is OP (look at how many of the forumites genuinely believe that casters are defacto OP when a good melee or ranged can do just as well as a good caster).

In short the only time I can think of any of the top 10% players ever asking for nerfs was with pre nerf inquis and lets be serious here, we all know that tree was insanely OP and unbalanced.
The comment about 2h killing stuff before you can get a shot of was me, but that was true, later found out apparently between endless sentenal weapon swaps or swaps to increase stun dcs. Plus I was told confront any foe could be spammed, just lagged the **** out of everyone else in the dungeon. Stuff was instantly dead on r10, no numbers would even show up shooting. What ever they did, I haven't seen the problem since. So they must have fixed the issue...to be honest not sure. Regardless I couldn't care less what they nerf of do anymore, got heaps of gear and can play any class. What ever op I will switch to that :)

[Weemadarthur]

The comment about 2h killing stuff before you can get a shot of was me, but that was true, later found out apparently between endless sentenal weapon swaps or swaps to increase stun dcs. Plus I was told confront any foe could be spammed, just lagged the **** out of everyone else in the dungeon. Stuff was instantly dead on r10, no numbers would even show up shooting. What ever they did, I haven't seen the problem since. So they must have fixed the issue...to be honest not sure. Regardless I couldn't care less what they nerf of do anymore, got heaps of gear and can play any class. What ever op I will switch to that :)

1st up I think you will find more than 1 post over the last few months with 2hf is OP sentiments in it :).

2nd The actual Thread I was thinking of when I wrote my post I dont think was you. It was about someone in Inv to Dinner who encountered a top 1%er who killed the portrait while he was still waiting for the NHB delay to finish.

As to the weapon swapping to cause infinite stun DC's and lag thats an obvious bug and not WAI so fully agree with those being fixed (I dont think of that as nerfing).

[Tsutti]

The comment about 2h killing stuff before you can get a shot of was me, but that was true, later found out apparently between endless sentenal weapon swaps or swaps to increase stun dcs. Plus I was told confront any foe could be spammed, just lagged the **** out of everyone else in the dungeon. Stuff was instantly dead on r10, no numbers would even show up shooting. What ever they did, I haven't seen the problem since. So they must have fixed the issue...to be honest not sure. Regardless I couldn't care less what they nerf of do anymore, got heaps of gear and can play any class. What ever op I will switch to that :)

Yeah confront any foe strikes 3 times, pretty much instantly, adds extra light dmg, is supposed to have a 2 second cooldown... It did not have any cooldown at all, resulted in stupid dps, but has been fixed to have 2 second cooldown.

[Buddha5440]

And these last several posts have WHAT to do with Ranged Alacrity exactly???

[Abilbo]

So My original question, which i put in another forum question is still valid..

is playing a ranger, or any bow weilding class worthit.. if i start and finish with a heavy handicap.. what s the point?

I would say currently that playing any bow class is not worth it "right now" but with all things in DDO what was powerful once, and currently isn't, will be again. People post on the forums when the class they love to play, just isn't what it was before, but every class has gone through this, and every class has gone through a power bump where they become viable again.

Playing a Ranger as an inquisitive, is a good way to play a Ranger, if you like ranged, and need a PL Ranger. Getting most of your ranged feats for free (you need to take rapid reload) 41 points into inquistive, and 20+ points into DWS makes for a decent shooter. If your just going to 20, 1 Arti, 19 ranger gets your pretty much all ranged feats for free, allows you to trap, have evasion, and have lots of "clickie" attacks for extra damage.

Bow users, who focus on wisdom and stay in the AA tree, can be very effective CC builds, even in higher reaper content. The downside to the AA paralyzing arrows, is that much of the games content can't be paralyzed. The game is called Dungeons & Dragons, but it could just as easily be called Dungeon & Undead.

I would love to see an AA pass that changed the core abilities, to allow them to affect different races, similar to how a Spellsinger's tree works. A Spellsinger's healing song, wont effect undead, or constructs until the player has enough core abilities for it to do so. Make a change to AA to allow the cores to still grant the toggled DR breaking abilities that they currently offer, but also passive abilities that while wielding a bow, your paralyzing arrows can now effect Undead at Level Core3, Undead at Core 4, or even go all out and make the AA Capstone awesome, and grants the passive ability that your paralyzing arrows now effect all non red named enemies in game.

If you don't think that all classes in this game are cyclical, try thinking back to the last time you saw a raid with lots of good 2H builds. A year ago, almost all raiding was done with ranged/casters and a tank. I did a KT yesterday, and 1/2 of the party was 2H builds. And before people start posting about how they saw X player running his build and being very good at it, there are always going to be VERY GOOD, WELL GEARED, MANY PAST LIFE players, who find a way to work with the changes to their class, and still play them well.

[Coffey]

If there was no arbitrary cap, alacrity stacking would be an excellent way to increase bow dps, and this is what I was trying to achieve on my ranger when I first built her but alas, it doesn't work that way. As both of our tests show, you don't need much to cap it out making any more than 22% effectively useless (my video tests show the same 86/85 number that Yamani achieved). Haste boost, one of the best boosts to increase dps for melee, doesn't do anything for my ranger as you can see in the video. Assuming Yamani's 20% test is accurate, the threshold, for a bow ranger at least, is that 22%-25% offering roughly 1-3% more attacks per min (86/85 vs 84) than combinations that total 20%, and it effectively caps you out on alacrity.

EDIT: I'm not sure if 22% is the same as 25% since my test showed 22% was 85 attacks/min and 1 attack may or may not be within the margin of error. I can't really compare with Yamani's tests due to different methodologies - I used the video time code 1x, he used a stopwatch but did it 3x. But that's by the by, what's clear in the tests is that there is either no or very minimal improvement to attacks per second over this 22% to 25% range. +72% alacrity from blinding speed/haste boost/insightful/hymm showed an improvement of 1 attack/min (again, could possibly be 0) over +22% alacrity (the amount of alacrity added translates to a 41% theoretical attack speed increase (1.72/1.22) which if uncapped, should be roughly 120 attacks/min, or an increase of 35 attacks/min, not 0, not 1).

--------

In terms of practical advice for a bow ranger, at least as things remain as they are, aim for 22% or 25%.

Bows in epics have around 20-25% alacrity (Pinion 20%, E. Sapph. Sting 25%, Chaosbow 25%) but not all bows do, such as Leg. Twisted Willow which doesn't have any.

The easiest catch all is to simply get the Blinding Speed feat but keep in mind this is at level 27.

Another thing to consider is possibly 15% (item) + 10% from whatever source (likely T5 DWS or Hymm if you are getting Arcane karma - I'd probably never twist it in current state) to save a feat altogether, for when you're not using an alacrity bow. I can't test this since I have Blinding Speed atm. Previously I was under the impression that you needed Blinding Speed to be competitive since ranged were getting cheated on the Speed gear (22% vs 15%).

Shot on the Run seemed iffy prior to these tests due to it costing 2 feats (you would likely take Point Blank Shot anyway and Mobility is a filler). But given that the major benefit people saw in it is effectively useless, I don't see why anyone would take this now. With that said, it offers other benefits like +4 hit while moving (kiting) and 3 RP. People take Weapon Focus which is +1 hit and 2 power... so...

Maybe there is something for those without Rapid Shot, I didn't test it nor do I plan to, because let's face it, if you go bow, you're taking it one way or another.

So there is a lot of flexibility in getting to maximum Ranged Alacrity. Saving feats and focusing on things that help you play your character better over all depending on your individual style is a good thing.

If Paralyzing Arrows / Terror Arrows etc are your go to then the freed up feats allows for added DCs with Spell Focus Enchantment and Greater Spell Focus Enchantment. More needed survivability allows for Toughness feats for more HP. Dodge +3%, Mobility +2% Dodge and Cap and Shot on the Run offer some added damage mitigation as well as +3 RP plus 10% Bow Attack Speed which in most cases is more valuable while leveling.

Rapid Shot from the ddowiki: You can make ranged attacks about 20% faster and reload faster when using a ranged weapon.

Level 7 Human
6 Fighter /1 Rgr- Nothing (No RS) * 57 Att/Min 0%
6 Fighter /1 Rgr- SotR * 60 Att/Min 10%
6 Fighter /1 Rgr- Rapid Shot * 63 Att/Min 20%
6 Fighter /1 Rgr- Rapid Shot/SotR * 66 Att/Min 30%
(6 Fighter /1 Rgr- Rapid Shot/SotR + 10% Quiver of Alacrity im going to guess * 69 Att/Min 40%)

Rapid Shot is a prequisite for Manyshot for Bow users and is autogranted to Rangers at level 2. So you dont have to take RS if youre not a Ranger but you will probably want to.

[Coffey]

After Retesting...

Level 15 Aasimar Scourge
14 Fighter 1 Ranger Nothing no Rapid Shot * 64 Att/Min
15 Ranger Nothing but Rapid Shot * 70 Att/Min
15 Ranger SotR Bow Att Spd * 73 Att/Min
15 Ranger 10% Insightful Ranged Alacrity * 73 Att/Min
15 Ranger SotR Bow Att Spd 10% / Insightful Ranged Alacrity * 76 Att/Min

[Weemadarthur]

After Retesting...

Level 15 Aasimar Scourge
14 Fighter 1 Ranger Nothing no Rapid Shot * 64 Att/Min
15 Ranger Nothing but Rapid Shot * 70 Att/Min
15 Ranger SotR Bow Att Spd * 73 Att/Min
15 Ranger 10% Insightful Ranged Alacrity * 73 Att/Min
15 Ranger SotR Bow Att Spd 10% / Insightful Ranged Alacrity * 76 Att/Min

So working from these figures I'm guessing its possible to hit the cap by level 20 on a ranger. Don't have 1 on the go atm to test so would like confirmation if this is the case.

[Coffey]

So working from these figures I'm guessing its possible to hit the cap by level 20 on a ranger. Don't have 1 on the go atm to test so would like confirmation if this is the case.

I think it may be possible.

Alt at level 19- SotR 10%/ Insightful 10% DWS/ 13% random Alacrity item * 82 Att/Min

There are other items that stack like the level 18 Gilvaenor's Ring and Gilvaenor's Necklace for a 10% Competence bonus.

[Weemadarthur]

I think it may be possible.

Alt at level 19- SotR 10%/ Insightful 10% DWS/ 13% random Alacrity item * 82 Att/Min

There are other items that stack like the level 18 Gilvaenor's Ring and Gilvaenor's Necklace for a 10% Competence bonus.

I was halfway through leveling my ranger when the nerf hit so didnt bother with much testing (just got to 30 and rerolled) so would just like confirmation or debunking of a couple of things I remember being said at the time.

1) does SOTR bonus stack with alacrity items? I remember a lot of players saying it was the same bonus at the time and so didn't stack. Was this ever true or was it changed or is this still the case?

2) Do you need to be in AF stance to gain the 10% alacrity from DWS? The way its worded definitely makes it sound that way but never got the chance to test.

Thanks in advance

[droid327]

So there is a lot of flexibility in getting to maximum Ranged Alacrity. Saving feats and focusing on things that help you play your character better over all depending on your individual style is a good thing.

Flexibility is a good thing if there's actually something else worthwhile to spend your feats on...

But if you're saving 2 feats just to get two Weapon Focuses just because that's the only thing that's left to take for DPS because all the other bow feats are redundant...then you're still going to be significantly behind other builds that can get full value out of all their feat selections. You arent actually gaining flexibility there, you're losing the few options you should have.

[Yamani]

I was halfway through leveling my ranger when the nerf hit so didnt bother with much testing (just got to 30 and rerolled) so would just like confirmation or debunking of a couple of things I remember being said at the time.

1) does SOTR bonus stack with alacrity items? I remember a lot of players saying it was the same bonus at the time and so didn't stack. Was this ever true or was it changed or is this still the case?

2) Do you need to be in AF stance to gain the 10% alacrity from DWS? The way its worded definitely makes it sound that way but never got the chance to test.

Thanks in advance

1. It does stack, the problem that cause people to think it doesn't stack is where the bonus appears(I was one as well). Alacrity-enhancement and insightful both only appear on the front character sheet under ranged attack speed. SOTR and Hymn don't appear there, but on the extended details tab under bow attack speed bonus.

2. Yes, you have to be in AF stance for the 10% insightful from T5 DWS.

[Coffey]

I was halfway through leveling my ranger when the nerf hit so didnt bother with much testing (just got to 30 and rerolled) so would just like confirmation or debunking of a couple of things I remember being said at the time.

1) does SOTR bonus stack with alacrity items? I remember a lot of players saying it was the same bonus at the time and so didn't stack. Was this ever true or was it changed or is this still the case?

2) Do you need to be in AF stance to gain the 10% alacrity from DWS? The way its worded definitely makes it sound that way but never got the chance to test.

Thanks in advance

The early testing i did wasnt showing the Insightful Alacrity from Improved Archers Focus as stacking just the highest amount was counting. Now they show as stacking so it was fixed to read properly i guess. The Archers Focus must be on to get the 10% Alacrity bonus. They should make this passive imo.

SotR shows up as a 10% Bow Attack Speed Bonus shown inder the "+" tab bonus on the right side of the character sheet and stacks with everything.

I wanted to help out but leave the figuring to the individual to decide what works best for them. Anywhere around 80 Att/Min is going to very comparative gameplaywise imo.

[Coffey]

Flexibility is a good thing if there's actually something else worthwhile to spend your feats on...

But if you're saving 2 feats just to get two Weapon Focuses just because that's the only thing that's left to take for DPS because all the other bow feats are redundant...then you're still going to be significantly behind other builds that can get full value out of all their feat selections. You arent actually gaining flexibility there, you're losing the few options you should have.

Arent the Heroic feats mostly really just about nickeling and diming a bit more towards Epics and endgame focus really?

[Zretch]

No, its not really about uber. Its the fact that classes do not scale damage equally.

Casters get hundreds of spell power on gear and via enhancements in heroics.

Most melee/ranged builds get no melee/ranged power via enhancements till the higher levels, and they get zero on gear.

At ML 10, a caster can get 77 fire power, 38 insightful fire power and even more via universal spellpower.

At ML 10, everyone else is limited to +5 deadly and +2 insightful deadly (which is much harder to get, and not easily craftable).

Which scales damage more, the massive amount of spell power that the caster gets or +7 damage? One is a % multiplier, the other is a small flat damage modifier. It's obvious right?

Casters also get access to far more spellpower in their trees at lower levels. Sorcs get 10 spellpower per core, starting at level 1.

You will notice that no melee/ranged trees give you melee/ranged power starting at level 1. Tempest gets a grand total of 4 melee power in their tree for the whole of heroics.

It's a very strange scaling. You will notice that on items that give both melee/ranged power + spellpower, the devs have implemented a rough 1:2 ratio. For example, the Adherent of the mists set gives you 10 universal spellpower and 5 melee/ranged power in heroics. But they dont use this consistently through the game so you end up in a situation where a caster gets a massive amount of spellpower in heroics while everyone else gets little to none.

This is why casters can easily one shot everything with decent gear in heroics : they get tons of spellpower via gear and enhancements. Everyone else does not. It doesn't matter if you have a top THF build with 100+ reaper ap and every past life...if the caster can one shot everything before you can get into melee range, you don't get to do any damage. It's a simple equation. Even if you are a millionaire, you can't buy food on a deserted island because there's no food to buy.

Another problem is the way SP is "supposed" to work. Its supposed to serve as a balancing mechanism, caster spells are powerful, but they cant spam them constantly so they need to rely on party members to kill stuff. In theory.

The problem is that the SP limitation doesn't work in 95% of content. Unless you are fighting a boss with 4m hp or doing high skull reaper, you arent going to run out of SP till you get to a shrine. Literally the only times you see people run out of SP when leveling is when its a newbie with no gear/past lives or when its something stupid like coal chamber. So in 95% of content, casters are this awesome nuking machine that just one shots everything, then in 5% of content, they are relegated to CC roles because they don't have enough SP to kill stuff anymore.

Even my bank alts with only 12 levels of sorc can cast chain lightning 30+ times before running out of sp (with maximize and empower). Let's assume that due to targetting issues, you need two casts to clear each encounter. You can still clear 15+ encounters before you need to shrine.

Just stop. You can't compare melee power to spell power, if melee power were available in the abundance that spell power is available, melee would be literal gods.

Melee has doublestrike which at cap (100%) can double the effect of your melee power.
Melee has haste boost and ranged has No Holds Barred which can multiply the number of attacks (and therefore the melee power applied to them).
Melee can have a x4 or x5 crit mulitplier with a x7 to x10 crit mulitplier on a 19-20. Caster crits top out under 3x.
Melee receive stat bonuses to their damage on every swing, in addition to deadly bonuses, flat bonuses in trees, enhancement bonuses on weapons, etc. The majority of a weapons damage at cap is due to these flat bonus adders. No such thing for casters.
Edited to add, melee and ranged can also benefit from sneak attack die, spellsword die, law damage die, etc, all of which scale with melee power. Again, no such thing for casters.

And ALL of those melee bonuses to damage stack multiplicatively.

Seriously, if you don't have a good understanding of where ranged / melee damage comes from, then stop asking for nerfs.

[Weemadarthur]

The early testing i did wasnt showing the Insightful Alacrity from Improved Archers Focus as stacking just the highest amount was counting. Now they show as stacking so it was fixed to read properly i guess. The Archers Focus must be on to get the 10% Alacrity bonus. They should make this passive imo.

SotR shows up as a 10% Bow Attack Speed Bonus shown inder the "+" tab bonus on the right side of the character sheet and stacks with everything.

I wanted to help out but leave the figuring to the individual to decide what works best for them. Anywhere around 80 Att/Min is going to very comparative gameplaywise imo.

Cheers for the update and clarification. Bow ranger despite the nerfs is still one of my favorite builds to play so am thinking of doing a few racials as one soon as I do find them easy to play solo (just too far behind on dps to be worth grouping with atm). As I will more than likely only be doing 1-20 lives this info should help me get the best out of what is currently available.

[Tsutti]

Melee can have a x4 or x5 crit mulitplier with a x7 to x10 crit mulitplier on a 19-20. Caster crits top out under 3x.
Wait how would a typical melee with a x5 mult get up to x10 on a 19-20? As far as I can tell from a quick think, only monk and barb with a x5 could get to x8 on 19-20 for standard attacks.

Casters normally cap under x3 but if you want you can get x3.95 temporary pretty easily and without actually worrying about gear (and in this case without gimping your build by making dumb multiclass decisions) on a wizard with their T5 archmage thing. If you're feeling dedicated and silly, you can go for a temporary mult of x5.2 which would be a pretty bad build but you could do it :D could also make it less bad by losing the 30% from warlock and then it would just be some work and half of it would be temporary

Just need an lgs item for 35% crit dmg, wizard archmage T5 for 100%, (granted this is a temporary boost), wellspring of power 20%, scion of fire 25%, warlock lvl 12 for tainted scholar cores 30%, 25% from draconic incarnation, 60% from master of knowledge if you really wanna rack up that passive and have an actual dc with which to do so (probably hard to get dc to land with 12 wlk), 25% from https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Reveler%27s_Regalia

highest passive mult would be pure warlock, 6 cores tainted scholar for 60%, fire scion for 25%, lgs for 35% in chosen element, draconic 25% brings us to x3.45 passively on your pact dmg; could be silly again and for highest sustained mult add 8 wiz levels (hoping to have good enough dc to land sla's here) and sacrifice wlk 30% for master of knowledge 60% to get, while fighting stuff could sustain x3.75 mult and now we're back to that dumb temporary x5.2 so that extra 30% wouldn't actually be a good trade but hey, looking at mults here

I know your comment was implying "a good build doesn't have x3 mult" but this is still funny, and I could see a wizard potentially doing useful things with T5 archmage so they could sustain over x3 and warlocks can very easily sustain over x3 and still be perfectly good with TS capstone.

[Weemadarthur]

Wait how would a typical melee with a x5 mult get up to x10 on a 19-20? As far as I can tell from a quick think, only monk and barb with a x5 could get to x8 on 19-20 for standard attacks.

Sorry but I didn't read anything about a typical melee or standard attacks. The numbers are from outliers to be sure but they are definitely possible in game. For a typical melee on standard attacks its still x3-4 with x5-7 on 19-20.

[Coffey]

Cheers for the update and clarification. Bow ranger despite the nerfs is still one of my favorite builds to play so am thinking of doing a few racials as one soon as I do find them easy to play solo (just too far behind on dps to be worth grouping with atm). As I will more than likely only be doing 1-20 lives this info should help me get the best out of what is currently available.

Ranger is versatile:
Human

1 Precision
1 Point Blank Shot (You can always play DWS with a bow as a Ranger)
3 Rapid Reload (Now you can play as Inquis)
6 Knights Training
9 IC Ranged
12 IC Slashing (Play as a Melee)
15 Quicken
18 Empower Healing

AP shifting can be expensive though :D

[Tsutti]

Sorry but I didn't read anything about a typical melee or standard attacks. The numbers are from outliers to be sure but they are definitely possible in game. For a typical melee on standard attacks its still x3-4 with x5-7 on 19-20.

I know you can get x10 mults I just don't know how you can get +5 mult on 19-20

EDIT: for typical melee that is, with a weapon that gives +1 on 19-20 you could go monk fire stance for +1, destiny +1, barbarian either T5 or below 50% hp +1, overwhelming crit +1, bam +5 mult on 19-20 but this is impractical and mainly only even possible on bows since they often have elastic

EDIT AGAIN: just realized the problem with monk + barb so not even sure how getting +5 mult on 19-20 could work

[Weemadarthur]

Ranger is versatile:
Human

1 Precision
1 Point Blank Shot (You can always play DWS with a bow as a Ranger)
3 Rapid Reload (Now you can play as Inquis)
6 Knights Training
9 IC Ranged
12 IC Slashing (Play as a Melee)
15 Quicken
18 Empower Healing

AP shifting can be expensive though :D

Aye agree there. Ranger itself I dont feel is the problem, the trees they have I think are relatively good its just bows themselves that need a little tweaking in the dps dept :P.

Unfortunately I have already done my human lives as barb and lock on my main but still need 3x elf so was thinking of going elf bow ranger for a change of pace while I level my alts with a couple of guildies.

Last ranger I did got caught at lvl 12 when the nerf hit but was still more than playable to cap it just meant I went more CC based when in parties. He was still capable of contributing ok in low reapers thanks to para arrows but I did note at cap I had lost almost 50% of my dps compared to my previous life (exact same build and gear setup) when using IPS. As this one will be a just for a fun slow waltz to 20 will prolly go para specced again for slow but easy progress lol.

[Zretch]

Wait how would a typical melee with a x5 mult get up to x10 on a 19-20? As far as I can tell from a quick think, only monk and barb with a x5 could get to x8 on 19-20 for standard attacks.

Casters normally cap under x3 but if you want you can get x3.95 temporary pretty easily and without actually worrying about gear (and in this case without gimping your build by making dumb multiclass decisions) on a wizard with their T5 archmage thing. If you're feeling dedicated and silly, you can go for a temporary mult of x5.2 which would be a pretty bad build but you could do it :D could also make it less bad by losing the 30% from warlock and then it would just be some work and half of it would be temporary

Just need an lgs item for 35% crit dmg, wizard archmage T5 for 100%, (granted this is a temporary boost), wellspring of power 20%, scion of fire 25%, warlock lvl 12 for tainted scholar cores 30%, 25% from draconic incarnation, 60% from master of knowledge if you really wanna rack up that passive and have an actual dc with which to do so (probably hard to get dc to land with 12 wlk), 25% from https://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Reveler%27s_Regalia

highest passive mult would be pure warlock, 6 cores tainted scholar for 60%, fire scion for 25%, lgs for 35% in chosen element, draconic 25% brings us to x3.45 passively on your pact dmg; could be silly again and for highest sustained mult add 8 wiz levels (hoping to have good enough dc to land sla's here) and sacrifice wlk 30% for master of knowledge 60% to get, while fighting stuff could sustain x3.75 mult and now we're back to that dumb temporary x5.2 so that extra 30% wouldn't actually be a good trade but hey, looking at mults here

I know your comment was implying "a good build doesn't have x3 mult" but this is still funny, and I could see a wizard potentially doing useful things with T5 archmage so they could sustain over x3 and warlocks can very easily sustain over x3 and still be perfectly good with TS capstone.

A monk staff build (yea, really, who'd a thunk?):

Staff of Shadows x3
Henshin Competence bonus +1
Overwhelming Critical +1
Fury of the Wild +1
Grandmaster Sun Stance +1
Cauldron of Flame +1
Hit Boulder's Might +2

There's your x10 every 6 seconds, x8 for standard swings.

On a raid boss, drop a cauldron, hit adrenaline (which adds another x4), and hit boulder's might. Watch the big number. Similar to EK's Tempest, but with a lower cooldown (6 second vs 30 second).

You can't forget or discard special attacks from melee, especially in a game where bursting on trash packs can make such a difference, especially if you're going to compare melee to an archtype that can only burst (casters).

Oh, and don't forget, very, very few things in the game will take an axe to the face and shrug off much more than 20% of the damage due to DR. Any old mob with improved evasion cuts a caster's damage in half and totally zeros it out on a save, whether you have immunity breaking or not.

In the last 10 or so past lives I've done since the 2HF changes, I've played pure paladin, fighter 8/cleric 12, barbarian 8/cleric 12, druid 18/barb 2, monk 20 qstaff, wizard 20 (PM/EK spell focused), and sorcerer 20 (electric to 18, fire after). They all felt pretty good to me. The sorc was faster in some content, but between evasion mobs, archers that spread out, mobs that have DR/Immunity (always a problem for wizards, a problem for sorcs pre level 20), the sorc simply needed to cast more and shrine more to clean up stragglers. All of those build types felt good and fun to play, and isn't that what this game is supposed to be? There's a reason to each of them, to 20 or to cap. Saying one of them is OP compared to the others is, in my opinion, either splitting hairs or deliberately de-emphasizing what classes are good at.

Edited to say: I hear what you're saying on wizard and warlock crit mulits, but let's be serious, wizards and warlocks don't exactly put out enough base DPS to make those crit multis matter. No warlock is going to keep up with a melee unless they go heavy DC and insta-kill everything. Wizards and warlock are great fun with multiple FoDs (locks), PKs (wizards), circle of death, undeath to death, etc, etc and wizards are capable vs most red-named bosses with necrotic ray, but warlocks....beating down a bag of hitpoint boss is a snooze fest. And I know that I never, on any of the melee builds noted above, had to think about how the heck I was going to handle the end fight in Raven at the Door with the two red named iron golems that can't be controlled, can't be insta-killed, will be healed by fire, is immune to negative and isn't undead so can't be broken, and is highly resistant to every other type of spell damage. What I settled on was to recruit a paladin guildmate to help me out. :)

[Weemadarthur]

In the last 10 or so past lives I've done since the 2HF changes, I've played pure paladin, fighter 8/cleric 12, barbarian 8/cleric 12, druid 18/barb 2, monk 20 qstaff, wizard 20 (PM/EK spell focused), and sorcerer 20 (electric to 18, fire after). They all felt pretty good to me. The sorc was faster in some content, but between evasion mobs, archers that spread out, mobs that have DR/Immunity (always a problem for wizards, a problem for sorcs pre level 20), the sorc simply needed to cast more and shrine more to clean up stragglers. All of those build types felt good and fun to play, and isn't that what this game is supposed to be? There's a reason to each of them, to 20 or to cap. Saying one of them is OP compared to the others is, in my opinion, either splitting hairs or deliberately de-emphasizing what classes are good at.

Congratz on playing DDO rather than forum DDO lol.

Having done similar recently (4x pure Barb, 1x 18 palli/2 fighter, 2x Pure palli, 2x Alch, 1xWiz and 2x Inquis builds) I agree that all of them felt to be in a reasonable place. The only class I have run since the 2hf pass that felt under powered was my bow ranger who was at 12 when the pass hit. He went from being okish (a little low dps but could manage) to the absolute bottom of the dps foodchain. He was still fun to play but in a group it felt like go CC or go home as dps was way too low once I hit epics.

[RogerP1er]

I would say currently that playing any bow class is not worth it "right now" but with all things in DDO what was powerful once, and currently isn't, will be again. People post on the forums when the class they love to play, just isn't what it was before, but every class has gone through this, and every class has gone through a power bump where they become viable again.

Playing a Ranger as an inquisitive, is a good way to play a Ranger, if you like ranged, and need a PL Ranger. Getting most of your ranged feats for free (you need to take rapid reload) 41 points into inquistive, and 20+ points into DWS makes for a decent shooter. If your just going to 20, 1 Arti, 19 ranger gets your pretty much all ranged feats for free, allows you to trap, have evasion, and have lots of "clickie" attacks for extra damage.

Bow users, who focus on wisdom and stay in the AA tree, can be very effective CC builds, even in higher reaper content. The downside to the AA paralyzing arrows, is that much of the games content can't be paralyzed. The game is called Dungeons & Dragons, but it could just as easily be called Dungeon & Undead.

I would love to see an AA pass that changed the core abilities, to allow them to affect different races, similar to how a Spellsinger's tree works. A Spellsinger's healing song, wont effect undead, or constructs until the player has enough core abilities for it to do so. Make a change to AA to allow the cores to still grant the toggled DR breaking abilities that they currently offer, but also passive abilities that while wielding a bow, your paralyzing arrows can now effect Undead at Level Core3, Undead at Core 4, or even go all out and make the AA Capstone awesome, and grants the passive ability that your paralyzing arrows now effect all non red named enemies in game.

If you don't think that all classes in this game are cyclical, try thinking back to the last time you saw a raid with lots of good 2H builds. A year ago, almost all raiding was done with ranged/casters and a tank. I did a KT yesterday, and 1/2 of the party was 2H builds. And before people start posting about how they saw X player running his build and being very good at it, there are always going to be VERY GOOD, WELL GEARED, MANY PAST LIFE players, who find a way to work with the changes to their class, and still play them well.

Thanks for the info,
as i am usually soloing all my quests, finding a good group that work together (not trying to end it in 2 minutes flat without caring who is killed or left behind)is almost impossible. I don't care about the dps, i just want to survive the quest.. so having a bow that is so slow that i get killed in a group mobbing is not what i aim for... I want to survive my quests..

[MaDLAB]

Just stop. You can't compare melee power to spell power, if melee power were available in the abundance that spell power is available, melee would be literal gods.

Melee has doublestrike which at cap (100%) can double the effect of your melee power.
Melee has haste boost and ranged has No Holds Barred which can multiply the number of attacks (and therefore the melee power applied to them).
Melee can have a x4 or x5 crit mulitplier with a x7 to x10 crit mulitplier on a 19-20. Caster crits top out under 3x.
Melee receive stat bonuses to their damage on every swing, in addition to deadly bonuses, flat bonuses in trees, enhancement bonuses on weapons, etc. The majority of a weapons damage at cap is due to these flat bonus adders. No such thing for casters.
Edited to add, melee and ranged can also benefit from sneak attack die, spellsword die, law damage die, etc, all of which scale with melee power. Again, no such thing for casters.

And ALL of those melee bonuses to damage stack multiplicatively.

Seriously, if you don't have a good understanding of where ranged / melee damage comes from, then stop asking for nerfs.

Question2005 is a good case of a bottom 50% player / forumite asking for nerfs when they see things that are out of the scope of their intelligence.

Love these people. Always a good laugh.

[Captain_Wizbang]

2 final thoughts before I use my fav button (unsubscribe).

Rangers in particular have been a supporting role in DDO groups. Add to that the limitations of animations and such leaves SSG very little wiggle room.

If SSG is saying animations and such are limiting factors, then other alternatives need to be explored.

Taking a few highlights of my proposed Bowman Tree (still the best solution offered. )

Increase elemental damage, make paralyzing arrows miss a lot more or make the saving throw for it higher.

Add damage dice where you can, give tier 5 dedicated bow users something to offset the op please.

[Weemadarthur]

2 final thoughts before I use my fav button (unsubscribe).

Rangers in particular have been a supporting role in DDO groups. Add to that the limitations of animations and such leaves SSG very little wiggle room.

If SSG is saying animations and such are limiting factors, then other alternatives need to be explored.

Taking a few highlights of my proposed Bowman Tree (still the best solution offered. )

Increase elemental damage, make paralyzing arrows miss a lot more or make the saving throw for it higher.

Add damage dice where you can, give tier 5 dedicated bow users something to offset the op please.

Adding yet another tree that will more than likely have the same result as the inquis tree did I dont feel is the best solution tbh, especially when the problem is quite a simple one to fix in essence. The only problem with bows is DPS so as adding more speed to them wont work due to animation caps they just need to add more damage instead. By increasing the base damage by a set amount (shortbows become 1d10 and longbows become 2d6 for example) its possible to achieve the exact same result as they wanted to achieve with adding speed without having the animation limiting the effectiveness.

[Captain_Wizbang]

Adding yet another tree that will more than likely have the same result as the inquis tree did I dont feel is the best solution tbh, especially when the problem is quite a simple one to fix in essence. The only problem with bows is DPS so as adding more speed to them wont work due to animation caps they just need to add more damage instead. By increasing the base damage by a set amount (shortbows become 1d10 and longbows become 2d6 for example) its possible to achieve the exact same result as they wanted to achieve with adding speed without having the animation limiting the effectiveness.

Adding? No, replacing.

https://i.imgur.com/ybKqBnZ.png


https://i.imgur.com/iGkhDTI.png

[Yamani]

2 final thoughts before I use my fav button (unsubscribe).

Rangers in particular have been a supporting role in DDO groups. Add to that the limitations of animations and such leaves SSG very little wiggle room.

If SSG is saying animations and such are limiting factors, then other alternatives need to be explored.

Taking a few highlights of my proposed Bowman Tree (still the best solution offered. )

Increase elemental damage, make paralyzing arrows miss a lot more or make the saving throw for it higher.

Add damage dice where you can, give tier 5 dedicated bow users something to offset the op please.

The problem with adding another tree is it still doesn't fix the core issue for bow attack speed. Also another tree that does the dual split of ranged power + spell power is just as bad due to gear being highly unsupported for those type of builds. The only one that got a set was really alchemist thrower but most would still just use the ranged set for thrower builds, the set also came out before alchemist so it wasn't all to focused either.

Since attack speed can't go up, damage should. Slower attack speed = more damage!

[Captain_Wizbang]

Glad you saw the alacrity glitch Yamani, while we agree on animations and RoF (rate of fire), I must insist the only way to offset is AND generate some excitement is thru another new tree dedicated to bow users.

[Stravix]

Glad you saw the alacrity glitch Yamani, while we agree on animations and RoF (rate of fire), I must insist the only way to offset is AND generate some excitement is thru another new tree dedicated to bow users.

I disagree, not everything has to be fixed with a new enhancement tree. THF did not get a new shiny enhancement tree, yet it was invigorated significantly by reworking the mechanics of the fighting style.

[Chai]

The problem with adding another tree is it still doesn't fix the core issue for bow attack speed.

Thats basically it right there. Everything they have done to make other ranged viable had increased attack speed as a big part of it. Double-fisting crossbows, Repeaters, great crossbow alac, and the thrower feats all increase RoF.

The bow versions were nerfed directly with less RoF, then by proxy by adding cooldowns to other feats so you cant boost again after the first boost. On top of that again nerfed by proxy when the 20% DPS nerf across the board happened.

I dont think they need to necessarily ADD anything to get bows where they need to be, but just relax/redact/remove some of these other nerfs for bows only.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I disagree, not everything has to be fixed with a new enhancement tree. THF did not get a new shiny enhancement tree, yet it was invigorated significantly by reworking the mechanics of the fighting style.

In this case it does deserve a new tree. A Bow users tree. Chai's post has merit, I just don't think it's enough of a tweak.

[Weemadarthur]

Adding? No, replacing.

So your solution to fixing bows is replacing a tree that works as far as it goes atm with another tree that is just a bit more powerful that only 1 class can use? This wont fix bows at all. All the underlying problems will still be there for every other class (unless they go elf I suppose).

Adding a universal tree at least would allow use for other classes lol.

Sorry but no the problem is with bows themselves and that is what needs to be addressed. They can either fix the animation cap in which case the problem becomes moot as bows would then be able to achieve decent attack speed or they can add damage to bring up the total dps. How this can be achieved is open to debate but no replacing of current trees will fix the underlying issue.

Just a couple of examples of what would work off the top of my head:-

1) Removal of current animation cap & adding alacrity. This would allow bows to have superior attack speed over other ranged classes so base damage would not matter.

2) Increasing the base damage of bows themselves. This would allow bows to be the big hit but slow speed ranged dps that xbows should have been.

3) Add a mechanic similar to ST where bows could hit multiple targets each shot. Bow dps would be low for single target but good for AOE.

all of the above would address the actual problem for all bow users without any need for touching any trees.

[Zretch]

2) Increasing the base damage of bows themselves. This would allow bows to be the big hit but slow speed ranged dps that xbows should have been.


Be careful with MOAR BASE DAMAGES, bow users have been stacking crit multi, multi-shot, and doubleshot to produce crazy burst damage with Adrenaline. You want to fix bow sustain, but not introduce such an increase in burst that SSG feels compelled to nerf them again. I really think attack speed will help a ton. Bows, in my personal opinion, just feel "slow". So do great crossbows. Part of the inquisitive "fun factor" was the attack speed. All it should take is a re-do of the shooting animations. They changed the 2HF animations in the last pass to eliminate base attack animation cancelling for those weapons, so we know it can be done.

[Zeleron]

Be careful with MOAR BASE DAMAGES, bow users have been stacking crit multi, multi-shot, and doubleshot to produce crazy burst damage with Adrenaline. You want to fix bow sustain, but not introduce such an increase in burst that SSG feels compelled to nerf them again. I really think attack speed will help a ton. Bows, in my personal opinion, just feel "slow". So do great crossbows. Part of the inquisitive "fun factor" was the attack speed. All it should take is a re-do of the shooting animations. They changed the 2HF animations in the last pass to eliminate base attack animation cancelling for those weapons, so we know it can be done.

2handed fighting's sustained is pretty much the same as bows burst now. Problem is bows only get it every 2 min for 20 seconds.

[Weemadarthur]

Be careful with MOAR BASE DAMAGES, bow users have been stacking crit multi, multi-shot, and doubleshot to produce crazy burst damage with Adrenaline. You want to fix bow sustain, but not introduce such an increase in burst that SSG feels compelled to nerf them again. I really think attack speed will help a ton. Bows, in my personal opinion, just feel "slow". So do great crossbows. Part of the inquisitive "fun factor" was the attack speed. All it should take is a re-do of the shooting animations. They changed the 2HF animations in the last pass to eliminate base attack animation cancelling for those weapons, so we know it can be done.

Although I partially agree with the sentiment here (hence fixing the animation cap was no.1) when the burst damage of bows is only just comparable with the sustained damage of x-bows (I can get almost 50% extra single shot damage using hunts end with a g-xbow rog mech over a bow ranger using the same with many shot active) I dont think a small adjustment to base damage would be that game breaking. If adrenaline is made melee only (imo it should always have been this way) the 24 second cooldown on hunts end would stop the adrenaline spamming issue aswell.

Like I said though those were just a few ideas off the top of my head on ways to balance bows themselves without having to create and balance whole new trees. I'm sure there are plenty of other options and none should be taken as a defacto only or best option.

[ned_ellis]

A question to the more experienced and number-crunchers in this thread : do you think fixing all the currently not working ranged alacrity stacking would be enough to bring the sustained bow dmg to where it should be?
If so, it might be an easy fix, no?

The only additional alternatives I like would be increasing the importance of quivers (set bonuses), better effects on bows (why does the sharn bow have the same bonus as the set bonus' helm?!) and the introduction of range to weapons but know it will never be implemented...

[A-O]

A question to the more experienced and number-crunchers in this thread : do you think fixing all the currently not working ranged alacrity stacking would be enough to bring the sustained bow dmg to where it should be?
If so, it might be an easy fix, no?

The only additional alternatives I like would be increasing the importance of quivers (set bonuses), better effects on bows (why does the sharn bow have the same bonus as the set bonus' helm?!) and the introduction of range to weapons but know it will never be implemented...

Not even close. I calced it under the assumption that they didn't cap aspd, and bow is still less than 50% of a solid melee dps. Having only 100% stat modifier to dmg hurts them bad.

[Weemadarthur]

Not even close. I calced it under the assumption that they didn't cap aspd, and bow is still less than 50% of a solid melee dps. Having only 100% stat modifier to dmg hurts them bad.

To be honest I think your comparing apples and oranges there. Everyone should stop trying to compare ranged dps to melee and compare instead to other ranged dps. If you take g-xbow mech damage as a baseline (not best but perfectly good enough) that I feel is where any comparisons should lie. Bows dont have to be top tier to be competitive they just need to be competitive against the other ranged styles.

As to the question of would fixing the animation issues fix the problem, I think it would probably be a good start at least. It would take them from being a bad choice to being viable at end game at least.

[Stravix]

To be honest I think your comparing apples and oranges there. Everyone should stop trying to compare ranged dps to melee and compare instead to other ranged dps. If you take g-xbow mech damage as a baseline (not best but perfectly good enough) that I feel is where any comparisons should lie. Bows dont have to be top tier to be competitive they just need to be competitive against the other ranged styles.

As to the question of would fixing the animation issues fix the problem, I think it would probably be a good start at least. It would take them from being a bad choice to being viable at end game at least.

However, the question then becomes, if bows are similar to vanguard in the sense that they cannot fix the attack speed issues due to animation problems, how else do we plan on bringing them up to snuff? Other than *just* fixing the thing they said they can't fix, what can we suggest?

[Yamani]

However, the question then becomes, if bows are similar to vanguard in the sense that they cannot fix the attack speed issues due to animation problems, how else do we plan on bringing them up to snuff? Other than *just* fixing the thing they said they can't fix, what can we suggest?

Bow Strength gives 1.5x stat modifier to damage(Strength).


Improved weapon finesse changes it to dex.
Zen Archery changes it to wisdom.


Shot on the run an essentially useless end game feat for high cost is changed to stat modifier to doubleshot following the same rules above(bows only, drop the 10% alacrity). Using the highest of the 3 as long as you have the required feats.

[barecm]

I like this thread and the thought that has gone into pointing out a lot of shortcomings with Bow use. That being said, don't hold your breath on any changes despite what was promised after the IPS nerf.

[RogerP1er]

Well, i know i m just a lowly level 3 ranger (newest toon), but i can tell you this from playing other range attacking characters..

My Ranger is very slow, and even with a npc fighter bodyguard (hireling), i take a lot of damage, and attacking from a distance is

awkward at best, because my damage and attack speed is quite low..

compare to my halfling dagger thrower or my rogue crossbow mechanic, (both of which can single kill their target)

my ranger need often 3 or 4 shots to accomplish the same result in borderland.

i really did not expect this level of underperformance!

i like the proposed the new skill tree for the ranger, proposed by retired old player but if the speed of attack stay the same, would it not negate any improvement, i mean, if the problem is animation speed, if it is not correct or the nerfing not remove, there would be no real gain in damage?!

[Weemadarthur]

Well, i know i m just a lowly level 3 ranger (newest toon), but i can tell you this from playing other range attacking characters..

My Ranger is very slow, and even with a npc fighter bodyguard (hireling), i take a lot of damage, and attacking from a distance is

awkward at best, because my damage and attack speed is quite low..

compare to my halfling dagger thrower or my rogue crossbow mechanic, (both of which can single kill their target)

my ranger need often 3 or 4 shots to accomplish the same result in borderland.

i really did not expect this level of underperformance!

i like the proposed the new skill tree for the ranger, proposed by retired old player but if the speed of attack stay the same, would it not negate any improvement, i mean, if the problem is animation speed, if it is not correct or the nerfing not remove, there would be no real gain in damage?!

Sorry Piper but at level 3 no ranged class is any good except inquis. If you were 1 shotting with a thrower you should be 1 shotting with a bow at that level. The problems with bows dont really raise their head until you reach mid heroics at least. Please dont fall into the trap of believing everything you read on the forums without any context. Throwers are the absolute worst dps of any build until they hit mid heroics (where they finally catch up with bows) and only really shine at cap when on a good build that is fully geared. Bows actually start out ok (not good but ok) but currently get surpassed by almost every other ranged class by level 12 -15. This however doesnt make them terrible if playing solo. It makes them slow sure but a well built ranger with para arrows will have a much easier run through 80% of content than any other ranged class.

@ Stravix my impression is that if shot speed can't be increased then base damage can be raised to give the same result. By increasing the base damage die from 1d8 to 2d6 for example you would make up for the lack of shot speed with raw damage. Alternatively as others have said add a 1.5 stat modifier to damage and you would end up with a similar result for heroics with a slightly less powerful version in epics.

[Bjond]

if shot speed can't be increased then base damage can be raised to give the same result.

Surplus ranged alacrity driving extra double-shot would be a lot closer to what more alacrity should do than increasing base damage or ranged power (especially since many builds are NOT driven solely by base & ranged power) and it's just as easy to code -- simple scalar to current double-shot based on overflow.

BTW, it's not only Bows that suffer from an 86/m cap. Throwing does as well (tested that myself). A thrower with 30 BAB and Whirling Wrists will cap @ 86/m, making all other alacrity boosts superfluous. After this test, I punted Blinding Speed and stopped using all alacrity (including haste boost) on my thrower at cap. Power and Double-Shot are the only ways to increase DPS there.

I haven't tested it, but I suspect Xbows also suffer from an 86/m cap. From playing INQ, NHB sure sped up the sound fx for the rate of fire, but I'm now unsure if it actually sped up DPS or just fooled me into thinking it did. Could be that NHB is the only way to break the 86/m cap or maybe Xbow base ROF is so far under 86/m that it can actually make use of all alacrity and also NHB.

[Coffey]

Surplus ranged alacrity driving extra double-shot would be a lot closer to what more alacrity should do than increasing base damage or ranged power (especially since many builds are NOT driven solely by base & ranged power) and it's just as easy to code -- simple scalar to current double-shot based on overflow.

BTW, it's not only Bows that suffer from an 86/m cap. Throwing does as well (tested that myself). A thrower with 30 BAB and Whirling Wrists will cap @ 86/m, making all other alacrity boosts superfluous. After this test, I punted Blinding Speed and stopped using all alacrity (including haste boost) on my thrower at cap. Power and Double-Shot are the only ways to increase DPS there.

I haven't tested it, but I suspect Xbows also suffer from an 86/m cap. From playing INQ, NHB sure sped up the sound fx for the rate of fire, but I'm now unsure if it actually sped up DPS or just fooled me into thinking it did. Could be that NHB is the only way to break the 86/m cap or maybe Xbow base ROF is so far under 86/m that it can actually make use of all alacrity and also NHB.

Seen it said that Inquis dual crossbows are less DPS than single crossbow (inquis tree w/o dual shooter) at cap because of the lowered DS % with capped alacrity. Idk if NHB breaks the speed cap when activated. Would be interesting to see whats really what.

[Bjond]

Seen it said that Inquis dual crossbows are less DPS than single crossbow (inquis tree w/o dual shooter) at cap because of the lowered DS %

That's patently unbelievable; INQ gets +1 extra shot to non-INQ with the same xbow. Around 0.80 is where ranged builds land for "capped" DS. INQ has 2.53 shots to non-INQ 1.8. And, unless xbow is different from both bow and throwing, it has the same 86/m cap on rate-of-fire. That's a 41% win for INQ.

You'd need 300 DS for single xbow to match dual and more for it to pull ahead. DDO has a lot of power creep, but I don't think we'll ever see 300 DS.

How much dual beats single boils down to ROF, though. Is or isn't there a cap to xbow ROF? Is it the same as bow & thrown? Higher, lower, or different for each type of xbow? By how much (if any) does dual ROF differ from single? If it's the same 86/m cap for everything ranged and all types can reach it, then questions about differences only matter sub-L29 when you might not be capped. Suspect it's sub-20, though, if there's a cap. Throwing ROF caps easily @L20.

[Coffey]

That's patently unbelievable; INQ gets +1 extra shot to non-INQ with the same xbow. Around 0.80 is where ranged builds land for "capped" DS. INQ has 2.53 shots to non-INQ 1.8. And, unless xbow is different from both bow and throwing, it has the same 86/m cap on rate-of-fire. That's a 41% win for INQ.

You'd need 300 DS for single xbow to match dual and more for it to pull ahead. DDO has a lot of power creep, but I don't think we'll ever see 300 DS.

How much dual beats single boils down to ROF, though. Is or isn't there a cap to xbow ROF? Is it the same as bow & thrown? Higher, lower, or different for each type of xbow? By how much (if any) does dual ROF differ from single? If it's the same 86/m cap for everything ranged and all types can reach it, then questions about differences only matter sub-L29 when you might not be capped. Suspect it's sub-20, though, if there's a cap. Throwing ROF caps easily @L20.

Youre probably right i was merely looking for clarity about that claim :)

This test done by Ultinoob (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/513839-End-game-attack-speed-for-bow-light-repeater-light-crossbow-at-bab-21-and-30) shows some numbers on Bows, Light Crossbows, Light Repeating Crossbows at BAB 21 and BAB 25 you can check out. It includes Inquisitive with Dual Shooter. Its based on 1000 rounds fired rather than Animations/Min.

[Bjond]

test done by Ultinoob (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/513839-End-game-attack-speed-for-bow-light-repeater-light-crossbow-at-bab-21-and-30)

His numbers look very close to what you'd expect from an 86rpm universal cap for ranged "rounds per minute", but it also looks like the different styles are far from equal with how much alacrity it takes to reach that cap.

Converting your 86rpm into damage is where ranged power, double-shot, and the various other multi-shot scale-ups come into play. I really should temporarily rebuild my thrower into an inquisitive to test base & NHB RPM and to see if it can reach the (probable) RPM cap. The build that char is on now happens to work perfectly for testing INQ with just enhancement changes.

[Coffey]

Converting your 86rpm into damage is where ranged power, double-shot, and the various other multi-shot scale-ups come into play. I really should temporarily rebuild my thrower into an inquisitive to test base & NHB RPM and to see if it can reach the (probable) RPM cap. The build that char is on now happens to work perfectly for testing INQ with just enhancement changes.

That would be interesting to see! NHB delay will stop your crossbows from firing completely for around two seconds so i hope that its worth it.

[shores11]

Stuff like this should be the #1 priority to fix, not pushing out another expansion.

Sadly, SSG hates fixing stuff it seems.

Wonder what the attack speed cap is for the various forms of crossbows?

I agree that bugs should be fixed. But I disagree that new content should be stopped. New content is what keeps and brings new players to DDO not that a bow is firing at 10% alacrity instead of 25%.

[Bjond]

I agree that bugs should be fixed. But I disagree that new content should be stopped. New content is what keeps and brings new players to DDO not that a bow is firing at 10% alacrity instead of 25%.

Shiny brings 'em in, but when when they get near enough to see it's a roiling mass of legs and carapaces, they'll just run away screaming: server instability (lag), no scalable UWHD & 4K support, gross lacks in ease of buying the game on the store, missing basic UI amenities (and those are just some of the issues a brand new player has to hurdle). The more you play, the more you discover that isn't working very well. In a product with this many issues, even the smallest thing might be the last straw for someone.

The attitude you're expressing is the one a lot of devs use for "bug triage". Basically, if it doesn't kill the service, it's not critical and can be left for another day. This leads to a mountain of small bugs or in DDO's case, a complete mountain range. Worse, because they're mostly trivial to fix, it leaves the company looking incompetent or lacking basic pride in their work.

I would agree that this particular issue isn't where I'd start cleaning things up, but it's a problem and they do need to work on continually shrinking the mountain -- not adding to it.