U58 Preview 3: Dark Hunter Ranger Archetype

[KookieKobold]

Dark Hunter is a new Ranger Archetype with themes of Assassination, sneaking, hunting, trapmaking, scavenging, and throwing weapons.

Changes from last preview are listed in Blue!

Feats and Features This Archetype Gets (that base Ranger does not):


Trapfinding (1)
Trap Making (3)
Trap Sense +1 (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18) (same as rogue and barbarian)
Sneak Attack 1d6 (1, 5, 10, 15, 20) (every 5 levels instead of every 2, means they get half of the sneak attack dice as Rogue does, 5d6 instead of 10d6)
Medium Armor Proficiency (1)


Feats and Features This Archetype DOES NOT Get (that base Ranger does):


All Favored Enemy feats that are not: Vermin, Elf, Aberration, Animal, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid
Evasion


Spellbook:
While Base Ranger has Cure spells, Dark Hunter does not - Instead, they get Curative Admixture spells. Otherwise, their spellbook resembles the Ranger one.


Skills:
Dark Hunters get Open Lock and Disable Device as Class Skills, and otherwise have the same Class Skills as Base Rangers.

Past Life:
Dark Hunter: +1 Sneak Attack and +1 Sneak Attack Damage per stack of this Past Life.

Enhancement Trees:
This archetype gets the new Dark Hunter tree in place of Arcane Archer! It retains the Tempest and Deepwood Stalker Trees.


(It's worth noting that if you have another source of the Arcane Archer, such as the Elven version, you may use that tree with the Dark Hunter Archetype).


Dark Hunter Enhancement Tree:


Core 1: Underdark Stalker: You gain +5 HP, +1 reflex saving throw, and -1 Medium Armor Check Penalty per core ability you take in this tree.
Core 3: Smoke Trap: Throw a smoke grenade at a target, if they fail a fortitude save (DC20 + Dex Mod + Assassinate + Trap DCs) they lose their immunity to sneak attack and 25% of their fortification for 25 seconds. (Cooldown: 12 seconds)
Core 6: Underdark Defenses: While wearing Medium Armor, gain Exceptional bonus to Armor Class +10% and you take 50% trap damage.
Core 12: Escape Through the Dark: Whenever you become Invisible, you gain a Primal bonus to Sneak Attack Dice equal to your Wilderness Lore. This lingers for 5 seconds after you become Invisible and may only trigger once every 60 seconds.
Core 18: Death Stalker: +25% Sneak Speed. While you are sneaking, you gain a 5% enhancement damage bonus to your melee, ranged and unarmed attacks. This lingers for 10 seconds after you leave Stealth. (note: this does not stack with the Relentless Fury item affix)
Core 20: Hunter in the Dark: +2 Dex, Int, and Wis. +10% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. +10 Melee and Ranged Power. Your Cull the Weak bonus now applies against enemies that are Snared or Entangled.


Tier 1:


Dark Wolf: You gain a Black Wolf as an Animal Companion. Each rank also gives you +5 HP.
Wolf Hide: (req Dark Wolf) +2/4/6 PRR
Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks
Bleed the Weak: Imbue Toggle: 1d8 Bleed damage, scaling with Melee Power. Increases to 1d10 vs enemies below 50%, and increases again to 1d12 against enemies below 25%. While toggled on, your Dark Wolf also uses this Imbue using the same number of Imbue Dice you have.
Awareness: +1/2/3 Listen, Search, Spot, and to-hit.



Tier 2:


Furor of the Hunter: Your Black Wolf gains +3/6/10 to hit and damage, +2/4/6 Primal Bonus to AC, and its attacks bypass 10%/20%/50% of enemy Fortification.
Assassin's Training: +1/2/3 Assassinate DCs.
Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks
Improved Traps: +1/2/3 to the save DC's of Alchemical Trap Attacks and Magical Traps. Elemental Traps that you place now have a DC equal to 65/80/100% of your Disable Device Skill instead of 50%. (copied from Mechanic)
Action Boost: Skills or Sprint


Tier 3:


Primal Energy: Your Black Wolf gains a +2/+4/+6 Primal Bonus to all Ability Scores. You gain +1/2/3 Imbue Dice.
Snap Trap: Toss a snapping trap at the targeted enemy. If they don't make a Fortitude Save (DC 20 + Dex Mod + Assassinate + Bonus Trap DCs) they are rooted in place by the trap's jaws.
Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks
Use Magical Device: +1/2/3 Use Magic Device
Ability Score: Multiselector: +1 Dex / Int / Wis


Tier 4:


Lupine Instincts: Your Black Wolf inherits your Search and Spot scores, and will automatically find traps and secret doors for you assuming you meet the statistical threshold. You gain a bonus to Search and Disable Device equal to your Wilderness Lore feats.
Slayer in the Dark: Killing an enemy grants you a +5 Morale bonus to Melee and Ranged Power, stacking 2/3/4 times. Duration: 20s
Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks
Smoke Bomb: Smoke Bomb SLA
Ability Score: Multiselector: +1 Dex / Int / Wis

Tier 5:


Ferocity: You gain +10% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Your Black Wolf gains 25% Attack Speed and 100% Fortification Bypass.
Stone's Hue: Your Camouflage spell also grants the target +1 PRR per 2 caster levels, max caster level 20.
Death Attack: Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Attempt to Assassinate a foe before you. If it is an enemy type that a Dark Hunter could have as a Favored Enemy (Vermin, Elves, Aberrations, Animals, Humanoids, and Monstrous Humanoids) then you attempt to snuff out its life, killing it instantly unless it makes a Fortitude save vs Death (DC 10 + Ranger Level + highest of Dex, Int, or Wis Mod + Assassinate bonuses). If it is a different enemy type, or it makes its Fortitude save, you instead mortally wound it, lowering its Physical and Magical Resistance rating by 10 and dealing an extra 1d20 Bleed damage per character level.
Blade Specialization: Multiselector: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier or Threat Range with your weapons.
Dark Sight: You have True Seeing and +25% Competence bonus to HP. You may also toggle this on to gain Underdark Sight while within the Underdark.






Known Issues:


N/A

[Seph1roth5]

Did we ever get an answer to if cull the weak was bleed the weak? And if it is, what bonus is applied? the one for <50% or <25% ?

[Firebreed]

Edit: This has been fixed.

(Smoke Trap & Snap Trap should also have "highest of DEX/INT/WIS" in their DC.)

[spifflove]

https://youtu.be/M5QGkOGZubQ
Druid gets everything Ranger gets nothing. Well I’m glad I’m no longer young and idealistic.

=[

[Xgya]

Any chance to have the Armor Check Penalty core also increase Max Dex Bonus?
This IS supposed to be a dex-based tree after all.

I also can't for the life of me figure out why you'd give a saving throw to the Smoke Trap. It mirrors an existing ability that doesn't have one, and already has the flaw of requiring a throw to keep them apart.

[R1ncewind]

I tried I really tried to give feedback, but I feel like in the end it wasn't just me that wasn't heard, it was 90% of the feedback.
This tree manages to end up worse than preview 2 and the T5 worse than the first preview (and second)
**** I miss Lich

Can you at least remove the light armor requirement of the Capstone of tempest plz? so we can still use this as a 3° tree for medium armor tempest build?

[Assassination]

Still really like this archetype's features. Still confused why evasion was removed from a character that is more sneaky than a regular ranger.

Still mystified at this tree that has been created. Way to triple down on this bad tree, impressive, most impressive.

[Aelonwy]

You didn't listen to feedback from preview 2, if a more rogue-like ranger looses evasion for medium armor prof that goes UNSUPPORTED for most of the class and enhancements... what is the point? Seriously, what is the point of the archetype? And what is the point of giving feedback that's being ignored?

This tree and rogue skills are not worth loosing evasion, and definitely not worth loosing most of my Favored Enemy feats in addition to loosing evasion.

As far as I can tell its worse than a traditional rogue/ranger multi-class... and if you have to multi-class the archetype to get evasion then it doesn't even have the ability to stay pure going for it.

Typically Ranger's get evasion at 9th level, right? How about instead of auto-granting evasion at 9th make the archetype DH choose between Evasion or Med Prof at 9th level like a class feat selection.

Then most of us can play this archetype like a ranger and those that want some tougher? barbarian-esque version of ranger can choose what you guys seem to prefer.

[Duhboy]

What the hell is "Cull the Weak"?

[Firebreed]

What the hell is "Cull the Weak"?

We've been asking that question for 3 previews now.

[Deivonte]

Dark Hunter is a new Ranger Archetype with themes of Assassination, sneaking, hunting, trapmaking, scavenging, and throwing weapons.

Feats and Features This Archetype Gets (that base Ranger does not):


Trapfinding (1)
Trap Making (3)
Trap Sense +1 (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18) (same as rogue and barbarian)
Sneak Attack 1d6 (1, 5, 10, 15, 20) (every 5 levels instead of every 2, means they get half of the sneak attack dice as Rogue does, 5d6 instead of 10d6)
Medium Armor Proficiency (1)



[/LIST]

Looks like accelerate is an auto-granted feat that is not listed in notes.
https://i.imgur.com/ExtoUu9.png

[Aelonwy]

We've been asking that question for 3 previews now.

Yep and the fact it hasn't been answered yet isn't a good indication that they are reading.

[Xgya]

You didn't listen to feedback from preview 2, if a more rogue-like ranger looses evasion for medium armor prof that goes UNSUPPORTED for most of the class and enhancements... what is the point? Seriously, what is the point of the archetype? And what is the point of giving feedback that's being ignored?

This tree and rogue skills are not worth loosing evasion, and definitely not worth loosing most of my Favored Enemy feats in addition to loosing evasion.

As far as I can tell its worse than a traditional rogue/ranger multi-class... and if you have to multi-class the archetype to get evasion then it doesn't even have the ability to stay pure going for it.


The silly part about losing Evasion is their specific Enhancement tree gives more bonuses to Reflex saves than any other heroic tree on the market. (the second best is Bombardier)
Pick a lane already!

That Ranger keeps the melee-centered tree that has 3 Enhancements specifying Light Armor. The other tree this archetype has access to mentions Light Armor in three of its own.
This one mentions Medium Armor twice. The Medium Armor Archetype has 6 abilities keyed to Light Armor, and two to Medium.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

[lain5246]

You didn't listen to feedback from preview 2, if a more rogue-like ranger looses evasion for medium armor prof that goes UNSUPPORTED for most of the class and enhancements... what is the point? Seriously, what is the point of the archetype? And what is the point of giving feedback that's being ignored?

This tree and rogue skills are not worth loosing evasion, and definitely not worth loosing most of my Favored Enemy feats in addition to loosing evasion.

As far as I can tell its worse than a traditional rogue/ranger multi-class... and if you have to multi-class the archetype to get evasion then it doesn't even have the ability to stay pure going for it.

Typically Ranger's get evasion at 9th level, right? How about instead of auto-granting evasion at 9th make the archetype DH choose between Evasion or Med Prof at 9th level like a class feat selection.

Then most of us can play this archetype like a ranger and those that want some tougher? barbarian-esque version of ranger can choose what you guys seem to prefer.
I would disagree. Evasion is not everything and to be honest having medium armor makes tempest more attractive. The fact that developers are making improvements to medium armor users is refreshing. Though you want to say medium armor is not supported than aside from this Archetype you have barbarian, enlighten spirit, eldrich knight, artificer, and war chanter. If you need Evasion so bad don't play this Archetype or join the furry club.

[Dandonk]

I still don't see any way I'd ever use this tree over the tempest + DWS combo for a melee ranger. If you want a TWF DH to use this tree, put the crit range in core at 12.

The "I'm very sneaky but I run in medium armor and don't have evasion" is pretty strange.

Until the AI gets better, the pet is still a waste of AP.

Using bottles to throw healing seems to be done just to be different. I don't really see what it adds to the identity of the class.

I like the idea of a dark hunter, but this is all over the place. Decide if it's sneaky or not, and make the DH tree actually worth taking.

Edit: I'm not opposed to this being medium armor. Medium armor is fine. But then support it somehow, and have less focus on the sneaky parts that seems at odds with the heavier armor.

[lain5246]

The silly part about losing Evasion is their specific Enhancement tree gives more bonuses to Reflex saves than any other heroic tree on the market. (the second best is Bombardier)
Pick a lane already!

That Ranger keeps the melee-centered tree that has 3 Enhancements specifying Light Armor. The other tree this archetype has access to mentions Light Armor in three of its own.
This one mentions Medium Armor twice. The Medium Armor Archetype has 6 abilities keyed to Light Armor, and two to Medium.
It'd be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Hey you will still not hate your evasion build when you take 2 rogue

[Firebreed]

Yep and the fact it hasn't been answered yet isn't a good indication that they are reading.

I think most of us are pretty disillusioned to the fact that most feedback goes unread/ignored by whoever has the power to use said feedback constructively. For my part, the reason I comment on bugs/issues that I feel should be addressed is just so that the ball leaves my court and enters theirs. But make no mistake, I don't actually expect them to throw the ball back.

[spifflove]

If you need Evasion so bad don't play this Archetype.
Basically this unless you are a 6 split or a hair ball.


https://youtu.be/T5C4meGkNyc

[Aelonwy]

I would disagree. Evasion is not everything and to be honest having medium armor makes tempest more attractive. The fact that developers are making improvements to medium armor users is refreshing. Though you want to say medium armor is not supported than aside from this Archetype you have barbarian, enlighten spirit, eldrich knight, artificer, and war chanter. If you need Evasion so bad don't play this Archetype or join the furry club.

I'm saying medium prof is NOT well supported in DH tree or by this class... if you need to multiclass to get support for a class/archetype feature because it is not well supported in and of itself that is an issue.

Evasion is not everything but for a sneaky, dodgy, high-ref, mostly dex focused class evasion is superior to med armor furthermore, light armor prof is far more supported by the other enhancements available to rangers including DH.

You want med? fine. I want evasion. Both should be fine, if they take the suggestion to force a class feat choice at level 9. It does NOT have to be that only one of us can be satisfied.

[WiseFreelancer]

I am not going to be as defeatist as other posters.

I like the concept of the tree. I agree Medium Armour is interesting and different (if a little a-thematic). And I think some feedback has been listened to (very happy to see AP reduced in some Tier 5s).

So my feedback on the latest round:

-Multi-selector on Blade Specialisation at least lets you go DH/Temp rather than requiring DH/DW (or VKF) to get anywhere. Would prefer both in DH given it requires Tier 5, but still a big improvement to build options.

-Dropping Blind for Entangle/Snare is thematic and welcome. But practically, not sure how we use that effectively in higher content? Entangle and Snare DCs will be laughable on a Ranger (max caster DC 14 + Wis mod?), so you're using the one trap in the tree. What would be interesting is letting us use Assassinate DCs in place of spell DCs on these spells, or giving us an Entangle SLA with the tree's Assassinate DC instead? That would give the tree a unique identity as a CC melee tree, and potentially benefit the survivability of a dog.

-Still think the assassinate ability could afford to let you hit any FE, rather than just the tree's FEs, so it plays nice with enhancements and destinies. But failing that, PLEASE give us just a couple more options so there's some level of choice in your FEs. Last time I checked there were a lot of dwarves in the underdark, can we at least have dwarf FE?

[TPICKRELL]

This is a useless indicator for some of us who are colorblind.

In order to see whats changed, I have to manually copy and paste your forum posts into a word processor and change the color to one with some contrast.

Please change to something with more contrast than light blue.

[Firebreed]

I am not going to be as defeatist as other posters.

I like the concept of the tree. I agree Medium Armour is interesting and different (if a little a-thematic). And I think some feedback has been listened to (very happy to see AP reduced in some Tier 5s).

So my feedback on the latest round:

-Multi-selector on Blade Specialisation at least lets you go DH/Temp rather than requiring DH/DW (or VKF) to get anywhere. Would prefer both in DH given it requires Tier 5, but still a big improvement to build options.

-Dropping Blind for Entangle/Snare is thematic and welcome. But practically, not sure how we use that effectively in higher content? Entangle and Snare DCs will be laughable on a Ranger (max caster DC 14 + Wis mod?), so you're using the one trap in the tree. What would be interesting is letting us use Assassinate DCs in place of spell DCs on these spells, or giving us an Entangle SLA with the tree's Assassinate DC instead? That would give the tree a unique identity as a CC melee tree, and potentially benefit the survivability of a dog.

-Still think the assassinate ability could afford to let you hit any FE, rather than just the tree's FEs, so it plays nice with enhancements and destinies. But failing that, PLEASE give us just a couple more options so there's some level of choice in your FEs. Last time I checked there were a lot of dwarves in the underdark, can we at least have dwarf FE?

Good post, specifically for the Lamannia v3 changes. But there's tons more good feedback in regards to the rest of the tree in the Lam 1 & 2 threads.

[Deivonte]

From the testing I have done, the following enhancements work with medium armor:

DWS:

Survivalist 1
Survivalist 2
Survivalist 3


Tempest:

Improved Dodge


The following abilities do not work with medium armor:

Tempest:

Improved Mobility
Elaborate Parry
Tempest Capstone

[lain5246]

I'm saying medium prof is NOT well supported in DH tree or by this class... if you need to multiclass to get support for a class/archetype feature because it is not well supported in and of itself that is an issue.

Evasion is not everything but for a sneaky, dodgy, high-ref, mostly dex focused class evasion is superior to med armor furthermore, light armor prof is far more supported by the other enhancements available to rangers including DH.

You want med? fine. I want evasion. Both should be fine, if they take the suggestion to force a class feat choice at level 9. It does NOT have to be that only one of us can be satisfied.

i am not in favor of anything other than more undead. that being said the archetype is meant to be beefier than normal ranger. if we are being honest evasion is to over used and needs to be spread out a lot thinner.

[Aelonwy]

i am not in favor of anything other than more undead. that being said the archetype is meant to be beefier than normal ranger. if we are being honest evasion is to over used and needs to be spread out a lot thinner.

If we are being honest it is still a ranger, a class that canonically gets evasion. If you want to argue about evasion being watered down perhaps it shouldn't have been given to a race? But of course it was a P2P race part of an expensive expansion so all sins forgiven.

Nothing in the original Dark Hunter prestige class would force or encourage this Medium Armor direction either.
https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/prestigeCwar/darkHunter.htmlv

[Deivonte]

Did we ever get an answer to if cull the weak was bleed the weak? And if it is, what bonus is applied? the one for <50% or <25% ?

The description in-game is clear but not the notes.
https://i.imgur.com/cHsBawI.png

[Scrag]

Ok, so this seems pretty good with some of the changes.

I like getting +12 dice at core 12 when invisible. If you load up on invisibility scrolls (which are cheap and umd 24), mixed with 7 rogue (+4d6 dice, 4 dice from enh, 3 imbue dice) and 12 DH (4 sneak dice from enh, 3 from levels, plus bleed the weak imbue), you get 14 sneak dice, and from invisibility 12 more, for 26 sneak dice at 19. But, you don't have to take the rogue levels up front; you can go medium armor with no sneak penalty, 19 sneak dice _at level 13_ from invisibility, and just 7 casual. 19 sneak dice at 12 should obliterate hard targets from invisibility, at range. No matter how you cut it, thats a lot of dice.

I think looking at the changes, I would definitely like 1 ftr/7 rogue/12 dh, wisdom focus through falconry, falconry/dws/dh with splash in assassin.

edit: also, faster sneaking in medium armor without penalty sounds delish.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

So far, I am really enjoying how this class plays. I spent a little time at level 4 and level 12, just to get a feel of it for leveling. At level 4, the 3 bonus imbue dice for the pet wolf, along with the other enhancements for the pet, make it very strong (along with augmented summoning). Walk into Searing Heights at level 4 in stealh and watch it kill groups of 3 level 6 monsters easily. All you need to do is heal it after battles.

I know, it is just level 4, but it gives a completely different way to play low to mid level rangers. I get all the issues with the pet at level cap, but adding in the imbue dice is really nice at lower levels.

At level 12, I wanted to try the new opportune moment. Smoke bomb works fine for turning it on, and at level 12, with only points in Dark Hunter, I got 19d6 sneak attack. It only lasts 5 seconds, but can be combined with the death attack. So against a non favored enemy, it is 19d6 sneak +12d20 bleed, + another 4d(8-12) bleed. Maybe not that great at cap, but it felt pretty good for level 12. Death attack also works with strikethough, so the starter axe was hitting two enemies at once for 250+ per hit. Not earth shattering, but nice for something you can do fairly often.

Overall, I like the feel of it as being different from rogue, artificer, and other rangers. I get the concern about losing evasion, but I think going in a different direction here helps. It is a ranger with a pet and all the rogue skills. It seems like there should be something taken away to even things out. It still gets all the free bonus feats, spells, and the higher HP. There are also already a couple variants of ranger in D&D that have no evasion for the ranger, so this is not completely out of left field. This is kind of a commando character.

Issues: I hate to call attention to this, but opportune moment may be giving the bonus too often. My character sheet was at least showing 19d6 sneak attack dice more often than once every 60 seconds.

Bleed damage may sometimes not be using all the imbue dice. My wolf seemed to do 4d8 bleed damage all the time, but I had a lot of attacks that seemed to be low (8-10) damage - so I wasn]t sure it was always firing or using enough dice against things like kobolds. This was when both my character and my wolf were attacking the same target.


Other: I love all the suggestions everyone has, and there are some great ideas out there. That said, and apologies for sounding preachy, I do think there is a big difference between the developers not listening and the developers deciding not to use an idea. Even when 4 or 5 people all chime in that they love a change, the developers may have a completely different idea of how this character is supposed to play, and there may even be another archtype coming that uses the ideas. Over the last build I see a lot of changes and bug fixes that people asked for that were implemented for Dark Hunter. When so many changes are being implemented, it doesn't seem that fair or conducive to collaboration to claim they are ignoring everything here. The fact that they don't agree on things like evasion doesn't mean they aren't listening. Sometimes people have different visions for how something should play.

OK, end preaching...

Last comment. Can we officially change the archtype name. Dark Hunter is ok, but this would be so much better as... Night Ranger.

[Elfishski]

My main feedback on Dark Hunter as an archetype is that whether or not you use the new tree, the base class is just strictly better than a base ranger and nobody has a reason to ever be a base ranger any more unless they really want arcane archer and don't want to be an elf.

By all means add the cool perks to make this stand out but to make it a choice they should be giving up something more than evasion [which is easy to add in for epics now if you'd prefer it to medium armor]. Tradeoffs are what makes it interesting to keep trying new things.

[Splunge]

having medium armor makes tempest more attractive

You lose 10 MP, 10 PRR, and 10 MRR from your capstone. It also kills six other enhancements the tempest and DWS trees. And you lose evasion. Doesn't seem that great to me.

[Deivonte]

You lose 10 MP, 10 PRR, and 10 MRR from your capstone. It also kills six other enhancements the tempest and DWS trees. And you lose evasion. Doesn't seem that great to me.

Read this (https://forums.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/537114-U58-Preview-3-Dark-Hunter-Ranger-Archetype?p=6569855&viewfull=1#post6569855)

[spifflove]

Other: I love all the suggestions everyone has, and there are some great ideas out there. That said, and apologies for sounding preachy, I do think there is a big difference between the developers not listening and the developers deciding not to use an idea. Even when 4 or 5 people all chime in that they love a change, the developers may have a completely different idea of how this character is supposed to play, and there may even be another archtype coming that uses the ideas. Over the last build I see a lot of changes and bug fixes that people asked for that were implemented for Dark Hunter. When so many changes are being implemented, it doesn't seem that fair or conducive to collaboration to claim they are ignoring everything here. The fact that they don't agree on things like evasion doesn't mean they aren't listening. Sometimes people have different visions for how something should play.

Instead of a logical balance like restriction to rogue weapons they created their own logic and once a decision was made they clung to it not only in the face of a hostile crowd but in the face of the irreparable conflict with the tempest tree. That is tone deaf.

https://youtu.be/phj-e-OtYUI

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.

On a side note: I don't think limiting things to rogue weapons is much of a limit.
If the main concern is the loss of enhancements that use light armor, adding in a higher level feat in the tree like Sacred Fist, which allows the ranger to count as wearing light armor for Tempest and DWS feats might help. But again, I really am not seeing a problem with the power level of the Dark Hunter not having evasion. There are ways to get it, and part of the whole point of archetypes is they are supposed to be more different than just a new enhancement tree. I get that people got very excited at a ranger who traps, and are now frustrated that some builds they wanted to make don't work - but the disagreement seems more over what the overall concept of the archetype is, not about balance.

If the idea was to focus on medium armor, the archetype could just as easily have an enhancement that lets evasion work with medium armor, but if that isn't want the designer envisioned the archetype as being, I'm not sure he is tone deaf just for not changing this character to match what some people hoped it would be... especially when a new rogue or artificer may soon fill that role anyway. At least for leveling, it seems very playable as is: a stealthy, medium armored trapper, that can sneak attack like crazy under the right conditions. Combining the DWS and DH trees gives a character that can hit for 22 or 23 sneak attack dice by level 12... If you want that, I don't think not having evasion or a few of the other enhancements in Tempest or DWS is an automatic deal breaker. But that is just my opinion, I can see how adding in the other enhancements and evasion would be much more powerful in a lot of builds.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

On a different note, the level 12 core ability is really interesting in that it uses Wilderness Lore, not Ranger levels for sneak attack dice. Seems like there is some interesting multi-class synergy with Barbarian and Druid.

[Seph1roth5]

I don't get the point of -1 dex penalty for medium armor per core. Was that really what they got out of the feedback from the other 2 lams? Jump/tumble/etc. were why people didn't like medium?

I don't see the point of this archetype at all, it's like the devs have no idea what's usable, much less good, based on going all in on the pet. Someone mentioned it doing well in searing heights, but wilderness is basically normal difficulty. They're going to be garbage in elite+, and probably only decent on hard.

Giving pets auto search and imbue dice and big stats means nothing because their AI is utter trash. For auto search to be any good we need a button on their hotbar that says "Go THERE!" And for their attacks to be usable we need them to just constantly be attacking, as if their left-click was held down. Always attacking, even when on standby.

Might as well just turn into the skid at this point. Give pets str damage on hit and a guard that does 1d6 of a few elemental types.

[Diracorvus]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.


Just give it up. It's always the same people that jump on everything that comes out on lamannia, demand everything to be changed to their liking, and then once it comes to preview 3 it's all "why didn't you listen to us!"
Some people think their ideas are so great only a fool could not like them. There is no way to convince them otherwise. I'm glad the developers still follow their own ideas a bit, many a game has been ruined by listening to these types of players too much.
That said, I think it would be interesting if for this archetype medium armor would count as light for enhancements, similar to how it works for sacred fists. It might also be a bit too powerful.

[Pandjed]

On a different note, the level 12 core ability is really interesting in that it uses Wilderness Lore, not Ranger levels for sneak attack dice. Seems like there is some interesting multi-class synergy with Barbarian and Druid.

I guess you could use this archetype for a 12DH/8DRU split to make a big sneak attacking winter wolf build. Or the new Blight wolf (though not as many SA dice). This way, you could also get evasion or just go out in medium armor for more PRR/MRR and DH t5 for the better crit profile. You also gain Greatsword Proficiency due to ranger, so Sword of Shadow and eSoS will make leveling easier despite not being the best balanced crit build (but I guess you can somehow fit 21 DWS in).

It would just not be a META-build, but probably fun and I may try it someday. Still have so many builds waiting for me... -_-'

[Scrag]

I guess you could use this archetype for a 12DH/8DRU split to make a big sneak attacking winter wolf build. Or the new Blight wolf (though not as many SA dice). This way, you could also get evasion or just go out in medium armor for more PRR/MRR and DH t5 for the better crit profile.

Ok, so I am all about the blightcaster/blight wolf. This intrigues me. How do druid forms work? Would it be 20 sneak dice bonus at 20 in blight wolf form from invis? This would kill two birds with one stone for me :D

Actually, this works amazingly well with a _fast_ sneaking/moving medium armor dh 12/b 8 with huge search/disable bonuses from wilderness lore!

edit: I see OS and Ravager are not thf focused. What is a good way to blend a barb and a dh?

[Igrovin]

Ah and the archetype still has the mostly useless +3 to UMD enhancement.

[spifflove]

Just give it up. It's always the same people that jump on everything that comes out on lamannia, demand everything to be changed to their liking, and then once it comes to preview 3 it's all "why didn't you listen to us!"
Some people think their ideas are so great only a fool could not like them. There is no way to convince them otherwise. I'm glad the developers still follow their own ideas a bit, many a game has been ruined by listening to these types of players too much.
That said, I think it would be interesting if for this archetype medium armor would count as light for enhancements, similar to how it works for sacred fists. It might also be a bit too powerful.


https://youtu.be/HaoySOGlZ_U

[Wahnsinnig]

Dark Hunter is a new Ranger Archetype with themes of Assassination, sneaking, hunting, trapmaking, scavenging, and throwing weapons.

And then you remove evasion and make it wear medium armour, so a lot of important abilities in tempest and deepwood stalker become inaccesible for it.

This is just ridiculous.

[SWCarter]

Dark Hunter is a new Ranger Archetype with themes of... throwing weapons.

Where does this tree shine for throwers above and beyond other trees?

[xaxaeb]

Where does this tree shine for throwers above and beyond other trees?

Well it's easy.... you make a DH, use DWS as your primary tree with VKF as secondary. And TA-DA you have more SA damage than a regular ranger..... maybe put a couple points into DH tree for more SA


That or by "throwing weapons" Kookie means "throwing bottles". So probably just a typo there....

[koriolis]

Where does this tree shine for throwers above and beyond other trees?

Especially when The Tier 5 Death Attack was moved from Stealth Ranged Assassinate Attack to Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack.
For a class that has obvious ranged perks, this would be a good differentiator for this archetype vs Rogue (and vs Arcane Archer).
With the limitations already on this - Favored Enemies only, less Sneak Attack Dice than a Rogue, no Evasion, etc. - this would be a cool thing going for this archetype.
And if you're hiding and shooting from afar, you don't really need Evasion, you really need to blend in and invisible.

Maybe it was a technical issue or maybe and there's still some Rogue/Monk Archetype being worked upon that clashes with this, but would like to know the rationale behind this change which arguably makes the whole Archetype more mundane.

[spifflove]

Ok my last stab at this (pun intended)
DH keeps evasion (or choice)
DH confined to rogue weapons or sneak attack does not apply
DH gets +1 crit threat and crit range to either puncturing or thrown weapons (or both)
DH gets a flask that has a no save disintegrate chance equal to 1% per ranger level and 100% against favored enemies.

[droid327]

Where does this tree shine for throwers above and beyond other trees?

It doesnt. It was apparently originally intended to, but they never figured out how to implement that, and they seem to have abandoned the idea now.

But just like "Cull the Weak" has been there since the first preview, the devs just dont have attention to even the most basic details like correcting outdated information in their patch notes. Its really disconcerting, even though I want to give the devs every benefit of the doubt, that they put out such a sloppy and unprofessional product, even after it was pointed out to them multiple times in both earlier previews.

[Elfshire]

As a current ranger with a splash of rogue, I look forward to taking this Archetype. I think the sneak attack dice make up for the lack of good Favored Enemy options, even if medium armor doesn't really cater to a trapsmith's party role. It's not ideal, but I'll still use it. But probably not without getting Evasion from elsewhere; there's just too many places in the game where the trapper has to bite the bullet and charge through hell to access a trap-box on the other side of no-mans-land.

The tree that the archetype comes with... ugh. So many problems. I'm sure a lot of this has been pointed out already, but I wanted to add my voice in case it makes it even a tiny bit more likely that the devs will take some of this criticism to heart.

Has a Core feature that relies on Invisibility, but rangers have no access to the spell or any effect that grants it. Dark Hunter doesn't even offer UMD as a class skill.
The mission statement of the archetype lists SIX different items. That's too many things to try to be good at. Of those, it's only mediocre at three (assassination, sneaking, trapmaking), and has no support at all for the others (hunting, scavenging, throwing weapons). I'm not even sure what "hunting" and "scavenging" look like in game terms, but it's definitely not represented here.
Shoehorns in a companion that should really have its own tree. Beastmaster rangers are a thing in many editions of the game, but thematically it makes no sense with sneaky trapper. It's also a huge feature of the tree, despite NOT being one of the items in the list of prominent Archetype features above.


Deepwood Stalker seems like a much more natural fit for the Dark Hunter class than the new tree, honestly. The Dark Wolf should be reserved for a Beastmaster Archetype later.

[Mamalian]

This archetype is a trash fire.

[salmag]

Positives in this v3:

- Tying in Wilderness Lore.

That's about it.

Negatives:

- Too many to list. Please refer to v1 & v2 comments.

What I would change:

- Make Death Attack a Melee OR Range option.
- Make Evasion OR Medium Armor an option.
- Remove the UMD in Tier 3. It is of no use here since DH does not have UMD as a class skill. Make it something USEFUL.

Question:

Does Snap trap count as a Snare or Entangle so there is synergy with Core 20? If not, you can probably get rid of that in Tier 3 as well. Or make a Snare/Entangle SLA for tier 3.

That's about it for now. I know you'll not make any changes this late into it. This sucks because I was hoping to utilize this tree. Maybe I'll try it out if I have a Heart of Wood available. I doubt it though.

[HailBlazR]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.

This is an overly verbose - and awfully convenient - way of handwaving any valid criticism that people level at the devs. If you think that losing evasion is such a good thing, then by all means, argue your points.

But I could just as easily say "Look at these SSG apologists, they think the devs' farts smell like rainbows and sunshine; the devs shouldn't listen to these 5-10 people who agree with them on the internet." There's no real argument or discussion to be had there.


Especially when The Tier 5 Death Attack was moved from Stealth Ranged Assassinate Attack to Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack.
For a class that has obvious ranged perks, this would be a good differentiator for this archetype vs Rogue (and vs Arcane Archer).
With the limitations already on this - Favored Enemies only, less Sneak Attack Dice than a Rogue, no Evasion, etc. - this would be a cool thing going for this archetype.
And if you're hiding and shooting from afar, you don't really need Evasion, you really need to blend in and invisible.

Maybe it was a technical issue or maybe and there's still some Rogue/Monk Archetype being worked upon that clashes with this, but would like to know the rationale behind this change which arguably makes the whole Archetype more mundane.

The removal of ranged assassinate completely killed my interest in the tree. Even with ranged assassinate, it's a mostly uninteresting, and niche (at best) tree. Now, it's pretty much useless, just like Sacred Fist.

It might not bother me as much if SSG actually bothered to provide a reason for removing ranged assassinate. But it's their MO to never communicate with us on these things. They just make changes, don't listen to feedback, and expect us to accept it all. There are many reasons DDO why isn't bigger than it currently is; this is one of them. The business model certainly doesn't attract new players, and their implementation model certainly doesn't retain a lot of the veterans. Most of the good players I've met have long since quit.

[Azarak]

The pet should not be a wolf but rather Guenhwyvar's model or something like it because obviously the ranger needs a panther. Also the wolf is just not good anyways for a lot of reasons, if your going to have a pet you need a way to control it like with falconry for instance... although if it's slow like it was with falconry before that's not good either.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

As a current ranger with a splash of rogue, I look forward to taking this Archetype. I think the sneak attack dice make up for the lack of good Favored Enemy options, even if medium armor doesn't really cater to a trapsmith's party role. It's not ideal, but I'll still use it. But probably not without getting Evasion from elsewhere; there's just too many places in the game where the trapper has to bite the bullet and charge through hell to access a trap-box on the other side of no-mans-land.

The tree that the archetype comes with... ugh. So many problems. I'm sure a lot of this has been pointed out already, but I wanted to add my voice in case it makes it even a tiny bit more likely that the devs will take some of this criticism to heart.

Has a Core feature that relies on Invisibility, but rangers have no access to the spell or any effect that grants it. Dark Hunter doesn't even offer UMD as a class skill.
The mission statement of the archetype lists SIX different items. That's too many things to try to be good at. Of those, it's only mediocre at three (assassination, sneaking, trapmaking), and has no support at all for the others (hunting, scavenging, throwing weapons). I'm not even sure what "hunting" and "scavenging" look like in game terms, but it's definitely not represented here.
Shoehorns in a companion that should really have its own tree. Beastmaster rangers are a thing in many editions of the game, but thematically it makes no sense with sneaky trapper. It's also a huge feature of the tree, despite NOT being one of the items in the list of prominent Archetype features above.


Deepwood Stalker seems like a much more natural fit for the Dark Hunter class than the new tree, honestly. The Dark Wolf should be reserved for a Beastmaster Archetype later.

I think you missed an enhancement. The tree has smoke bomb, which gives invisibility, as an SLA. It works with the enhancement that requires invisibility very easily.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

This is an overly verbose - and awfully convenient - way of handwaving any valid criticism that people level at the devs. If you think that losing evasion is such a good thing, then by all means, argue your points.

But I could just as easily say "Look at these SSG apologists, they think the devs' farts smell like rainbows and sunshine; the devs shouldn't listen to these 5-10 people who agree with them on the internet." There's no real argument or discussion to be had there.
.

In the chance that you really missed the context of my reply to a previous post, and this isn’t just trying to divide the world into people who have valid criticism on one side and biased fanboys on the other. My earlier post was a reply to a reply about whether the devs are ignoring all our feedback, and then to whether it is tone def to not make a change because as described by someone else “an angry mob was demanding it”

I am all for criticism. I would do a lot of characters differently. Personally, I would happily play a dark ranger with evasion. But I don’t think it shows the devs disrespecting all the players if they don’t change it. I just rather people would focus their criticism on the game rather than painting differences of opinion with how the devs are doing something as not listening to them and being tone def. By that definition , everyone posting here, myself included is ignoring feedback and tone def, because there are always times where people just disagree rather than one side is clearly right.

I totally respect someone even now posting - I really think the class needs evasion.
I think it is detrimental to the whole feedback progress though when people start saying that the devs not putting in evasion means they are ignoring everyone’s feedback, and there is not a point in giving feedback - that is not criticism, it is sour grapes. But if you think it smells like rainbows, more power to you.

[xaxaeb]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.


What else are they going to do, if they don't know their own game? Plus they aren't listening at all to any sort of criticism.
I mean "critical chance OR critical multi"? Sure it'll be plenty in slayer areas or up to maybe hard difficulty. But it automatically disqualifies the tree in higher difficulties.
Pet? Same thing, worthless above hard.
"Assassinate"? Thanks, I'll just play assassin to get a proper assassinate ability, not a gimped one.


On a different note, the level 12 core ability is really interesting in that it uses Wilderness Lore, not Ranger levels for sneak attack dice. Seems like there is some interesting multi-class synergy with Barbarian and Druid.

Seems like they took a decent ability and made it trash.... with a pure primal build (any mix of ranger, druid, barbarian) you get 20 wilderness lore feats. So that's 20 SA dice. Preview 2 had "double your SA dice". I've had 20+ SA dice on non-SA focused builds before. A good SA build is more around 40. So it's more like they screwed over multiclass synergy.
They've continuously made the class worse from preview to preview. At this point i'm expecting it to be even worse by the time it hits live.

[Xgya]

The removal of ranged assassinate completely killed my interest in the tree. Even with ranged assassinate, it's a mostly uninteresting, and niche (at best) tree. Now, it's pretty much useless, just like Sacred Fist.


I have to disagree about Fist. While it's not the flashiest build around, it came with a theme and kept to it.
The theme is simple: "Punchy Paladin make Ki spells gooder". It works. It's not astounding, but it does the thing it wants to do.

Meanwhile, here is Dark Hunter's supposed theme


Dark Hunter is a new Ranger Archetype with themes of Assassination, sneaking, hunting, trapmaking, scavenging, and throwing weapons.


Assassination: It has it, to some lesser extent.
Sneaking: It wears medium armor.
Hunting: It can hunt animals. You can forget dragon hunting, it's just not on the list. Maybe having the dog kinda counts?
Trapmaking: It has the feat and a few enhancements. This is one of the few themes it has it actively sticks to, congrats.
Scavenging: I don't know what that would mean in DDO. Maybe the old chest blessing thing would count? Mark of Finding + Scavenging do seem to go hand in hand.
Throwing Weapons: Erm, no. It throws a smoke bomb, but elemental grenades are part of trapmaking.

In fact, if it DID hold to throwing weapons, it'd be interesting.
You'd have a good reason to remove Arcane Archer, since that's a Bow thing.
Remove Tempest too while you're there.

Want the Assassinate? Keep it ranged, make it work like Falconry, but with a big scary black wolf pouncing from the enemy's shadow, biting its head off and waiting to find a new opening and a new throat. So it's a Ranged Assassinate, but with a small delay between the attack and the target's death. Pet wolf still there, but no longer a target or potential liability.

I read the tree. I tried it out. I STILL don't know what it's meant to do besides extra sneak die for my Ranger/Rogue splits.
I went in and asked myself what this build does better or even different from a current Ranger/Rogue split.
It has a pet. It saves on a few skill points. I somehow don't think this is what we should expect from an Archetype.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

I have to disagree about Fist. While it's not the flashiest build around, it came with a theme and kept to it.
The theme is simple: "Punchy Paladin make Ki spells gooder". It works. It's not astounding, but it does the thing it wants to do.

Meanwhile, here is Dark Hunter's supposed theme


Assassination: It has it, to some lesser extent.
Sneaking: It wears medium armor.
Hunting: It can hunt animals. You can forget dragon hunting, it's just not on the list. Maybe having the dog kinda counts?
Trapmaking: It has the feat and a few enhancements. This is one of the few themes it has it actively sticks to, congrats.
Scavenging: I don't know what that would mean in DDO. Maybe the old chest blessing thing would count? Mark of Finding + Scavenging do seem to go hand in hand.
Throwing Weapons: Erm, no. It throws a smoke bomb, but elemental grenades are part of trapmaking.

In fact, if it DID hold to throwing weapons, it'd be interesting.
You'd have a good reason to remove Arcane Archer, since that's a Bow thing.
Remove Tempest too while you're there.

Want the Assassinate? Keep it ranged, make it work like Falconry, but with a big scary black wolf pouncing from the enemy's shadow, biting its head off and waiting to find a new opening and a new throat. So it's a Ranged Assassinate, but with a small delay between the attack and the target's death. Pet wolf still there, but no longer a target or potential liability.

I read the tree. I tried it out. I STILL don't know what it's meant to do besides extra sneak die for my Ranger/Rogue splits.
I went in and asked myself what this build does better or even different from a current Ranger/Rogue split.
It has a pet. It saves on a few skill points. I somehow don't think this is what we should expect from an Archetype.

Removing tempest as well is really interesting. What about replacing Tempest with Vile Chemist? It builds on both imbue dice and thrown weapons. Maybe allow reactions, but do not give additional alchemist spells - just the SLAs in the tree, the SLA in DH, and the curative admixture spells already there. It would be a good dagger/dart thrower, with a lot of sneak, imbue, and doubleshot.

[spifflove]

In the chance that you really missed the context of my reply to a previous post, and this isn’t just trying to divide the world into people who have valid criticism on one side and biased fanboys on the other. My earlier post was a reply to a reply about whether the devs are ignoring all our feedback, and then to whether it is tone def to not make a change because as described by someone else “an angry mob was demanding it”

I am all for criticism. I would do a lot of characters differently. Personally, I would happily play a dark ranger with evasion. But I don’t think it shows the devs disrespecting all the players if they don’t change it. I just rather people would focus their criticism on the game rather than painting differences of opinion with how the devs are doing something as not listening to them and being tone def. By that definition , everyone posting here, myself included is ignoring feedback and tone def, because there are always times where people just disagree rather than one side is clearly right.

I totally respect someone even now posting - I really think the class needs evasion.
I think it is detrimental to the whole feedback progress though when people start saying that the devs not putting in evasion means they are ignoring everyone’s feedback, and there is not a point in giving feedback - that is not criticism, it is sour grapes. But if you think it smells like rainbows, more power to you.

Actually you missed not only the previous post but the previous thread. If you had read iteration 2 you would not have even questioned that there was (and by the responses to your posts still is) an angry mob.

Apparently you cannot read the room.

Finally, ad hominem attacks are not argument. And that’s all you did was make ad hominem attacks and chose to ignore the solutions that I offered in a prior post. You authored discord I authored solutions.

[amessi1]

Death Attack: Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Attempt to Assassinate a foe before you. If it is an enemy type that a Dark Hunter could have as a Favored Enemy (Vermin, Elves, Aberrations, Animals, Humanoids, and Monstrous Humanoids) then you attempt to snuff out its life, killing it instantly unless it makes a Fortitude save vs Death (DC 10 + Ranger Level + highest of Dex, Int, or Wis Mod + Assassinate bonuses). If it is a different enemy type, or it makes its Fortitude save, you instead mortally wound it, lowering its Physical and Magical Resistance rating by 10 and dealing an extra 1d20 Bleed damage per character level.


I think what is confusing folks is the first use of the word Assassinate in the sentence above. Plus in kind buries the debuff...maybe:

Stealth Melee Attack: On Sneak Attack attempt to Assassinate a foe if it is an enemy type that a Dark Hunter could have as a Favored Enemy (Vermin, Elves, Aberrations, Animals, Humanoids, and Monstrous Humanoids), killing it instantly unless it makes a Fortitude save vs Death (DC 10 + Ranger Level + highest of Dex, Int, or Wis Mod + Assassinate bonuses). If it is a different enemy type or it makes its Fortitude save, you instead mortally wound it, lowering its Physical and Magical Resistance rating by 10 and dealing an extra 1d20 Bleed damage per character level.

And maybe Death Attack could be Vermin Slayer, Pest Control, Cootie Cutter, Wrath of Darkness, Black Death, Hunter's Prey

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

Actually you missed not only the previous post but the previous thread. If you had read iteration 2 you would not have even questioned that there was (and by the responses to your posts still is) an angry mob.

Apparently you cannot read the room.

Finally, ad hominem attacks are not argument. And that’s all you did was make ad hominem attacks and chose to ignore the solutions that I offered in a prior post. You authored discord I authored solutions.

Thanks for the response, and I respect your point of view. We are talking at cross purposes. Both of us have now spoken out as what we believe are ad hominem attacks, and I don't see this going anywhere but in circles. If you don't agree with me that there is a significant component of ad hominem attacks against the devs in and around the posts I responded to, I can see how anything I would say about it would appear to be trying to undermine those both arguing for change and exposing that the devs are doing something wrong (ignoring, tone deaf) by not making the change.

I could very well be wrong and what I see as ad hominem attacks against the devs are justified, so I won't continue the loop of rebuttal, with each of us seeing progressive attacks and misrepresentations in the explanations. Right or wrong, you don't need the acrimony and neither do I.

Enjoy the game and keep pushing for what you think will make it better.

[Drinkfist]

I love this. I love that dog with nothing is hidden. I love trapfinding. I love everything about this archetype. New favorite class gonna be going right out the door with it in the next HC. You have no idea how much I wanted a ranger with a leveling pet. I have so many build ideas. Every one of these weaknesses are so easy to fix. I am super excited. Lay it on me.

[Kermon]

I think I have to agree with the community consensus that the ranger should get a choice between evasion or medium armor proficiency.

[Pandjed]

Alright, devs seems to stick to this. I have no idea what the vision is supposed to be, but either there is one, or there won't be time and opportunity to go back to the drawing board, so let's make the best out of it, instead of whining about we think about missed opportunities. We can always say "we've told you" later and let's see if our expectations of ppl not going beyond trapper splits and PLs goes true.

After looking and trying some builds with this tree as a main, here are some thoughts:

* Not having evasion or medium armor is not a deal breaker, though artificer is easier, because it has better heals.
* Entangle mechanic is really hard to pull of yourself, as you lack the DCs and I can't imagine druids using entangle as a spell, even with some blightcaster synergy. Because whatever they can entangle, they can also tsunami to death instead. The own entangle is just way too low in DC with no way to boost it reasonably. This tree would need a +5 to entangle DC to make it work or have an entangle that works off your assassinate DC to be self-sufficient. Does it work with evard's black tentacles or the web spell?
* Snap Trap does work, but feels much worth than having a AoE option, especially with the wolf going into constant danger
* Managing web traps is super annoying with wolf, as the AI is just so stupid. Even on defensive, it sometimes charge into the enemy and parking it somewhere and thenc all it to you is super, duper, mega annoying
* Could you delete "Use Magic Device" until you find something better? I take that being a tier 3 still as an insult. Seriously, even for new trees there is no need to have all of it filled. I take an open spot over a bad enhancement!
* Death Attack is also very hard to use. You got your pet, which aggroes the enemies, which then move away, so you move to it, then it dies, then they move away once again, and then you may finally successfully using it. Being a stealth attack while having a pet is a big downturner.
* It sorely lacks any threat reduction, which would be really important for a DPS without any panic button, as elaborate parry and medium armor doesn't work with each other.


Here some ideas:
* Like some summons, make the pet hide automatically all the time it's out of combat. Don't reduce its running speed. Or make an enhancement, which gives it this strategy, using your own move silently and hide values. Like in the spot of Use Magic Device.
* Give an option for ranged combat instead death attack, as to be honest: It felt better to use a bow with this tree than a pair of melee weapons. It does synergize with the ranged part of DWS somewhat, as you double down on things. Maybe something like a beast attack, which makes the pet wolf chgarge to a target, use intimidate and get a 95% damage absorption for some seconds, followed by a diplomacy right before the absorption runs off. This would be cool and would run with the fact, that this tree has a lot of pet support (for whatever reason).
* Plase change the tooltips of the Survivalist line in DWS and Improved Dodge in Tempest, as they do function with medium armor.


I won't say it's good, but you can do some PLs with it. Primal Avatar as ED does work somewhat, mostly due to the good epic strikes and the strong mantle, in addition to having enough feats left for metamagics. I guess, casting ranger it is! Use those spellpoints for once!

But it's a disappointment, that this tree opens the can of bad pets without any changes to their mechanic, despite archetypes being advertised as a chance for devs to overhaul some older mechanics and trees. Instead, we got more druid spells. Why pushing out this archetype then (or the warlock's, which also needed much more attention)?
Devs, these aren't the first archetypes you put out. You can do one at a time. Seriously, nobody will blame you for taking time to do more, you don't need to vomit them. Make it wholesome. This (and warlock) sadly only earned a sad smiley. :(

[Firebreed]

I still think regular Ranger should get Cure Critical Wounds while we're at it, since this archetype gets Cure Critical Admixture.

[newmart]

Another problem with archetypes in general is the lack of EPIC DESTINES to support these ideas.

An artificer/mechanic tree focused on traps could improve this ranger 10x. Better trap placement, better trap damage, new alchemy traps and admixtures... Without epic destines many classes and archetypes end playing in same way.

[DaviMOC]

To be honest i dont miss evasion at all. Barbarians ignores traps all the time . I already see beefy melee rangers walking around so With high reflexes and reduced damage from traps(50%) I feel the hunter will do the same but better.

Besides the assassination abilities on the tree dark hunter looks to me more like the tough thug. The duregar hunting on the underdark.

Said that the tree dosent look very Archethic. Seems like the wolf and the imbue would be its mark but lets be honest Pets cant be the main feature of any class on the current DDO. As much extra dices you can get MP based imbues still fall short to the SP ones. Having pets as main feature also kills alot of multiclassing. Could make good use from Primal avatar mantles if it can manage to survive.

Blade specialization is begging for a 6lvls fighter splash or to ignore it completly and go t5 on a barbarian tree.

Assassination here I guess is less about sneaking and more about backstabing while eligible.

What I found nice is that its not fully locking on dual-wielding or ranged on a ranger tree besides not being optimal its nice to have more freedom on the class and its splashses. Hope to see such freedoms on future for rogues too.

[spifflove]

Thanks for the response, and I respect your point of view. We are talking at cross purposes. Both of us have now spoken out as what we believe are ad hominem attacks, and I don't see this going anywhere but in circles. If you don't agree with me that there is a significant component of ad hominem attacks against the devs in and around the posts I responded to, I can see how anything I would say about it would appear to be trying to undermine those both arguing for change and exposing that the devs are doing something wrong (ignoring, tone deaf) by not making the change.

I could very well be wrong and what I see as ad hominem attacks against the devs are justified, so I won't continue the loop of rebuttal, with each of us seeing progressive attacks and misrepresentations in the explanations. Right or wrong, you don't need the acrimony and neither do I.

Enjoy the game and keep pushing for what you think will make it better.

It’s true I became defeatist after seeing iteration 3 and that I got too caught up in all this when there are more important things in this world and maybe even stretched the limits of decorum but at least I was funny about it.

I would like to make one last point: the solution of only allowing sa damage with rogue weapons preserves the original ranger as the martial weapon king (and makes thematic sense) while removing evasion does not necessarily preserve the old ranger as there are ways to work around it and medium armor might even be better for end game min maxers. (and is anti-thematic)

[Mamalian]

I think I have to agree with the community consensus that the ranger should get a choice between evasion or medium armor proficiency.

That would make this suck less.

[elvesunited]

One of the big pitfalls of Dark Hunter was that if you didn't go intelligence based harper splash, you would be a fairly poor trapper. But with the wilderness feats now adding to skill scores. That expands the Dark Hunter's options and perhaps you could switch out intelligence for strength for the enhancement tree attribute bonuses and checks. A medium armor ranger could choose to max strength rather than a dexterity as ....

Looking at my dex based ranger I noted that I'm actually better off with light armor than medium regardless of evasion or tempest/deepwood enhancements. The loss of AC and dodge from the lower max dexterity bonus by themselves make medium armor a worse option.

Perhaps I'm an odd duck but I think that a musclebound ranger in medium armor throwing a smoke bomb and then charging in and getting sneak attack damage with his two handed great sword would be an interestingly twisted build idea.

[spifflove]

Perhaps I'm an odd duck but I think that a musclebound ranger in medium armor throwing a smoke bomb and then charging in and getting sneak attack damage with his two handed great sword would be an interestingly twisted build idea.

That makes two odd ducks because that’s definitely what I am going to do if this is the final iteration. Nice job :)

[Scrag]

That makes two odd ducks because that’s definitely what I am going to do if this is the final iteration. Nice job :)

Ok, so I _also_ was going to do this, but with some barbarian in the mix (natures lore!!). It feels like a waste of the free twf feats, and I am not sure if I could get mileage out of ranged attacks, but yeah a smash-trap mentality is exciting to me.

What stats would you dump into? Int? Str?

edit: lupine instincts is THE BOMB.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

One of the big pitfalls of Dark Hunter was that if you didn't go intelligence based harper splash, you would be a fairly poor trapper. But with the wilderness feats now adding to skill scores. That expands the Dark Hunter's options and perhaps you could switch out intelligence for strength for the enhancement tree attribute bonuses and checks. A medium armor ranger could choose to max strength rather than a dexterity as ....

Looking at my dex based ranger I noted that I'm actually better off with light armor than medium regardless of evasion or tempest/deepwood enhancements. The loss of AC and dodge from the lower max dexterity bonus by themselves make medium armor a worse option.

Perhaps I'm an odd duck but I think that a musclebound ranger in medium armor throwing a smoke bomb and then charging in and getting sneak attack damage with his two handed great sword would be an interestingly twisted build idea.

Very good catch on the wilderness feats. As is, that is how I want to play the character too... edit: though maybe with a dash of bearbarian.

[spifflove]

Ok, so I _also_ was going to do this, but with some barbarian in the mix (natures lore!!). It feels like a waste of the free twf feats, and I am not sure if I could get mileage out of ranged attacks, but yeah a smash-trap mentality is exciting to me.

What stats would you dump into? Int? Str?

edit: lupine instincts is THE BOMB.

16 points into str and 6 points into intelligence. May need two past lives to get enough dex. I would like to play wood elf but there is an intelligence penalty. I have to admit dwarf, wf and horc the best choices.

[painkiller3]

I see one big problem with dark hunter tree…it is a melee tree but no competence bonus to hit points. This alone makes it worse than tempest

[elvesunited]

I see one big problem with dark hunter tree…it is a melee tree but no competence bonus to hit points. This alone makes it worse than tempest

what is:

"Dark Sight: You have True Seeing and +25% Competence bonus to HP. You may also toggle this on to gain Underdark Sight while within the Underdark."

?

[painkiller3]

what is:

"Dark Sight: You have True Seeing and +25% Competence bonus to HP. You may also toggle this on to gain Underdark Sight while within the Underdark."

?

My bad I was looking at DDO builder which wasn’t updated as recently as lammania :). Thanks for correction

[sjbb87]

It's better than the second version, but it still lacks synergy with Ranger and his other two trees.

Once again I ask, Exchange Core lvl 12 Escape Through the Dark with Blade Specialization.

Return with evasion (anyway evasion doesn't work with medium armor so anyone who runs with this build doesn't change anything)

without these changes, this class/tree is not viable

[Scrag]

It's better than the second version, but it still lacks synergy with Ranger and his other two trees.

Once again I ask, Exchange Core lvl 12 Escape Through the Dark with Blade Specialization.

Return with evasion (anyway evasion doesn't work with medium armor so anyone who runs with this build doesn't change anything)

without these changes, this class/tree is not viable

Core 12 is something extremely valuable to work towards that doesnt require a massive outlay in AP to get. Giving up escape sneak dice is a really bad move.

[SocratesBastardSon]

The build is a little schizophrenic: it pushes DEX as a class focus, but then includes aspects that are anti-DEX, like no evasion and Medium Armor focus. I'd like to see the Devs provide a tighter focus in what they're trying to do here, or increase the options just a bit more. As it is, it looks a somewhat awkward and contradictory.

I actually love the whole Ranger tank idea. I played one in the past, and liked it, but that isn't the Rangers' strength (pun intended). DH seems to be trying to open up a tank build and make it a more attractive play style.

Some posters like elvesunited have mentioned adding a STR stat option, and I agree wholeheartedly. Given that Rangers get TWF without the DEX reqs, it almost begs for a STR focus. (If you really want to go nuts, give DH the option to choose the THF line instead of TWF; after all, if you're throwing heal pots, it's difficult to do with two weapons. :D) If that means replacing INT with STR for the Stat selector, so be it. The Wilderness Lore-to-trapping from Lupine Instincts easily makes up for it (and what a cool enhancement!). I know Harper fans would prefer to keep INT, and so would I, so I hope a STR/DEX/INT/WIS selector is possible.

To sum up:



Make Underdark Defenses a Medium Armor buff/Evasion selector for DEX builds.
Add some MDB bonus along with ACP for DEX builds if you don't want to offer Evasion.
Add STR as a stat option.


That will make this class far more coherent and a Ranger Tank play style really sing. Or hunt. Or really something good.

Thanks for reading!

[Tilomere]

* Entangle mechanic is really hard to pull of yourself, as you lack the DCs and I can't imagine druids using entangle as a spell, even with some blightcaster synergy. Because whatever they can entangle, they can also tsunami to death instead.

Technically speaking, since Tsunami clears spell effects no druids have entangle synergy, even blight casters will be using Tsunami over entangle or earthquake. And since this patch means tons of druids will be running around casting Tsunami, that means no one else in the game has entangle (or persistent spell) synergy as well.

Well, maybe a sleetstorm Cut the Strings user, but outside of sleet storm which doesn't get blown away I can't think of any persistent spell user that will be effective until blight caster lives are complete.

[R1ncewind]

I miss the times when Devs used to actually replay posts in the Lamannia forums =(, there are almost no conversations this the past 3 preview

[Seph1roth5]

Most of these archetypes remind me of newbies (particularly in the discord) asking people if they should multiclass wizard with cleric because they want some offensive spells, and maybe throw in druid for a pet. Everyone tries to tell them it's a super bad idea. Not un-meta, not sub-optimal, but BAD, and they go "Well I'm going to do it anyway because I like the theme."

I liked stormsinger, and blightcaster looks interesting (tentatively), but all the others look like hot messes.

[Firebreed]

I miss the times when Devs used to actually replay posts in the Lamannia forums =(, there are almost no conversations this the past 3 preview

We are too hostile, myself included. The problem is, we are like that because the devs don't communicate - it's all ouroboric. The real problem behind this and similar issues is simple: time & money. They need more time & money, and I honestly wish they eventually find both.

[Bjond]

I would disagree. Evasion is not everything and to be honest having medium armor makes tempest more attractive

I kinda agree about evasion, but only "kinda". I just ran a trapper without evasion and it was rather annoying until L26 when I could get it via SD:3. It wasn't exactly impossible to trap, but the VON corridor was particularly irritating when I'm used to just strolling through and instead had to have someone come heal me.

I liked seeing the various changes made to help support a trapper in medium armor, but really it's flavor at a cost. Anyone that checks the math will use Light over Medium. Access to Evasion isn't the draw. It's that Light has more mitigation. Evasion is just the cherry on top.

IMHO, I would like to see Light, Medium, & Plate acquire "equal" mitigation in all respects for all damage types. That's how D&D worked. The mitigation imbalance in DDO is not a D&D thing, though Light needing more stats to "max" it's mitigation is very similar. That kind of change is hard to creep up on though. Much of DDO's game balance is tied to armor weight imbalance.

[Talan]

As has been mentioned, removing evasion seems odd for this archtype. On the new trapper archtype, do we dip Rogue 2 to take Evasion?... seems counter-intuitive to the purpose of the class.

However, if removal of evasion and pushing Medium Armour is maintained can we please ask for the class trees which are intended to work with this archtype to also function with Medium Armour.

I believe these are:

In Deepwood Stalker - Survivalist I, II and III - not sure if this is an actual issue or just a tool tip issue?

In Tempest - Tier 2: Improved Dodge, Tier 3: Improved Mobility, Tier 4: Elaborate Parry, Capstone: Dervish

Also, please carefully consider wolf survivability at least during Elite/ R1 play; which will primarily come down to the ease of healing it during combat whilst not nerfing the Ranger's own DPS or survivability (which will be an issue if seeking to target healing flasks on the wolf).

I'm very interested in the flavour of this archtype, but the mechanics ranger class need to be their to support it.

[kiaoto]

Postered wrote"The removal of ranged assassinate completely killed my interest in the tree. " Very well said. I rather go assassin than this tree.

[xaxaeb]

We are too hostile, myself included. The problem is, we are like that because the devs don't communicate - it's all ouroboric. The real problem behind this and similar issues is simple: time & money. They need more time & money, and I honestly wish they eventually find both.

Well..... they did consciously decide to reduce their income by screwing over VIPs. And time is also their decision. I don't think anyone would've complained if we were getting archetypes in packs of 2, rather than 3. Or even 1 + base class rework, if the class is overdue.
I wish the devs all the best, but these are self-inflicted wounds.

[SocratesBastardSon]

Well..... they did consciously decide to reduce their income by screwing over VIPs. [ ...] but these are self-inflicted wounds.

It is remarkable how little the devs have interacted with the player base compared to the past. I haven't confirmed this for myself, but I read someone point out that Lynabel hasn't posted anything since November, and he was the most prolific respondent among the devs. It looks like a pattern.

I have no proof, but it's not hard to conclude that there was a conscious decision behind what looks like a deliberate absence. I quote xaxaeb not because I'm criticizing, the post is merely illustrative, namely, that the devs have made mistakes to which players are responding. Fair. I agree with his criticism. But isn't it also fair to remember that no one is perfect (I do not doubt that xaxaeb is aware of that basic fact; again, I'm not criticizing xaxaeb). More, it may be that devs have to make decisions for reasons they don't always, and for various reasons believe they cannot, share with the players. I like transparency, but having worked in public relations businesses I know that isn't always possible.

But really, I feel that may be beside the point. What I think is that the question oughtn't be whether the devs have made mistakes, but what we do in response to perceived mistakes. Anger? Abuse? Immediately accusing them of bad faith? Rudeness? THAT'S the right response? Someone making a mistake (as we view it) and that gives us license to lose our s&!t on the forum?

My guess, and I have no evidence for this other than my own interpretation, is that getting involved on the forums has become distracting, it unavoidably antagonizes a lot of people no matter what they say, and it therefore becomes a distraction from doing the actual work of a developer. Frankly, I couldn't understand why they didn't do this sooner, given the way many people (not all, obviously) appear to have decided that the way they want to react when the devs do explain what they're doing is, well, to be obnoxious. This time around the devs have just dropped the material, presumably read (all? some?) what people write, but then keep exchanges with forum commenters to an absolute minimum.

I think it's too bad, I wish it were otherwise and I liked it when they were more engaged, but I gotta say, it strikes me as entirely rational.

[newmart]

Also, please carefully consider wolf survivability at least during Elite/ R1 play; which will primarily come down to the ease of healing it during combat whilst not nerfing the Ranger's own DPS or survivability (which will be an issue if seeking to target healing flasks on the wolf).



When using pets with all feats they are quite tanky. Primal avatar mantle gives them respectable damage (My skelly is able to tank and KILL the boss in Break in the ice Epic R1 completely alone). If a pet can kill a boss in r1 alone they are working.

I see 2 problems tough. Using primal is viable for all 3 casters that have pets, but to this ranger it's impossible. While it's ok u spend points getting stuff from primal, not using the lv30 pet discourages taking so many feats to improve summons, if u are only using a pet and a summon maybe. Then if u are not taking pet stuff, they really die too fast.

The second problem, while we can squeezy augment summoning and improved augmented summoning in the build, The legendary feat demands too much from all builds (lose dc and a lot of damage with spells from other legendary feats, imbue dices...) to make pets just a little tougher. This feat must be severely improved to justify this, at least giving some on hit dmg like primal mantle or imbue dices (that have synergy with this ranger pet.)

[Lotoc]

Well..... they did consciously decide to reduce their income by screwing over VIPs.

They screwed over VIPs by doing what exactly?
If your argument is the free quests code that was at least a time limited promotion, that currently makes people feel bad about starting the game without VIP subbing because buying quest packs that may be given away free again feels like a bad investment.
If your argument is by making the majority of classes and races free to play; that's why we had daily gold dice for the majority of 2023 as a time limited promotion.
If your argument is daily gold dice as a time limited promotion being a time limited promotion and ending after the limited time the promotion WE WERE TOLD the promotion would be going on for? Seriously they shouldn't have done the gold dice in the first place at this point, people are angrier that it ended than happy it was a thing for the most part of a year to begin with.

Overall the things VIP has lost have been a net gain for the playerbase, personally as someone who VIP subs and still VIP subbed that's fine with me, it means less instances of "Oh don't have that quest" or buying people guest passes.
Sure VIP could do with more value, at this point I mostly use it for elite+ opening on first life characters and the experience boost, personally I was expecting these archetypes to be paid but free to VIP. But I do not begrudge improvements for everyone as an expense to me.

[Dandonk]

They screwed over VIPs by doing what exactly?

VIP used to be access to all quests.

This year we will get:

U58 - quests FTP.

"Mini"-expansion - VIP will have to buy.

Droaam and raid update - free to those who have the content, I imagine.

An adventure pack in Q4.

So, 1/4 of the content will be something new that VIPs get for free. The rest* will be either free to all, or buy for all. That's not what VIP was. So yeah, VIP needs some value back since we now have gone a looooong way from being a general access pass to DDO.

*Depending on how you view Droaam and Raid update. Still less than half of this year's content, in any case.

[xaxaeb]

It is remarkable how little the devs have interacted with the player base compared to the past. I haven't confirmed this for myself, but I read someone point out that Lynabel hasn't posted anything since November, and he was the most prolific respondent among the devs. It looks like a pattern.

I have no proof, but it's not hard to conclude that there was a conscious decision behind what looks like a deliberate absence. I quote xaxaeb not because I'm criticizing, the post is merely illustrative, namely, that the devs have made mistakes to which players are responding. Fair. I agree with his criticism. But isn't it also fair to remember that no one is perfect (I do not doubt that xaxaeb is aware of that basic fact; again, I'm not criticizing xaxaeb). More, it may be that devs have to make decisions for reasons they don't always, and for various reasons believe they cannot, share with the players. I like transparency, but having worked in public relations businesses I know that isn't always possible.

But really, I feel that may be beside the point. What I think is that the question oughtn't be whether the devs have made mistakes, but what we do in response to perceived mistakes. Anger? Abuse? Immediately accusing them of bad faith? Rudeness? THAT'S the right response? Someone making a mistake (as we view it) and that gives us license to lose our s&!t on the forum?

My guess, and I have no evidence for this other than my own interpretation, is that getting involved on the forums has become distracting, it unavoidably antagonizes a lot of people no matter what they say, and it therefore becomes a distraction from doing the actual work of a developer. Frankly, I couldn't understand why they didn't do this sooner, given the way many people (not all, obviously) appear to have decided that the way they want to react when the devs do explain what they're doing is, well, to be obnoxious. This time around the devs have just dropped the material, presumably read (all? some?) what people write, but then keep exchanges with forum commenters to an absolute minimum.

I think it's too bad, I wish it were otherwise and I liked it when they were more engaged, but I gotta say, it strikes me as entirely rational.

It doesn't go to immediate anger and abuse. Most of the time people just roll with the ups and downs of the game. People usually start with trying to provide criticism in a polite manner. But that gets ignored.
The problem is when the overall trend is negative. So the "upset about X" slowly turns into "upset about X and Y" etc. And at some point the cup of negative emotions overflows. When they decided to go through stat squish at cap - I've grumbled about it w/o raising a storm on the forums. And took it as is. Even though it was unnecessary, not thought-through and poorly executed. Looking at you, +2 profane dc helmet at level 7, and +2 profane dc gear at level 29.
But after that we get hit with items that have a +0 bonus..... Great that they listened to criticism there and changed that bonus. But why do we even have to say anything about things like that? It should never cross anyone's mind to create a named item that has something like +0 enchantment DC (or whatever it was). It was one thing when we had +0 items from lootgen. That was a mistake. But a named item with +0 bonus is just spitting in our face.
Even more so, when they've clearly recognized the loss of value of VIPs a long time ago. And just kept ignoring the issue. I'm not going to bash too hard on something i get for free.... it's free. But when I'm paying for VIP, which lost its value - I have every right to be upset about it.

As I've said before here and in other threads, I do want the devs to succeed. I enjoy the game, I want to keep playing and enjoying it. But sometimes it just becomes too much.


They screwed over VIPs by doing what exactly?
If your argument is the free quests code that was at least a time limited promotion, that currently makes people feel bad about starting the game without VIP subbing because buying quest packs that may be given away free again feels like a bad investment.
If your argument is by making the majority of classes and races free to play; that's why we had daily gold dice for the majority of 2023 as a time limited promotion.
If your argument is daily gold dice as a time limited promotion being a time limited promotion and ending after the limited time the promotion WE WERE TOLD the promotion would be going on for? Seriously they shouldn't have done the gold dice in the first place at this point, people are angrier that it ended than happy it was a thing for the most part of a year to begin with.

Overall the things VIP has lost have been a net gain for the playerbase, personally as someone who VIP subs and still VIP subbed that's fine with me, it means less instances of "Oh don't have that quest" or buying people guest passes.
Sure VIP could do with more value, at this point I mostly use it for elite+ opening on first life characters and the experience boost, personally I was expecting these archetypes to be paid but free to VIP. But I do not begrudge improvements for everyone as an expense to me.

Love the free quests code.
Love majority of classes and races being free to play. Even though this dropped a couple weeks after I purchased some missing races/classes.
Love the massive sale they had for older expansions during covid.
All 3 were brilliant moves to try and get new blood into the game. A lot of people have friends who might be curious about the game, but are afraid to start, since they'd have to buy a lot of stuff to keep up.

The argument is that they stopped releasing "free for vip" content. Instead they switched to mini-expansions, which everyone has to pay for. I'm not saying that it's a bad business model. But then they need to either reduce the price of vip in proportion to the lost value, or give vips some other value.
And people aren't upset that gold rolls stopped. People are upset that we lost value from VIP and after an entire year all we get is "we've been talking last couple weeks". Why haven't they been trying to figure that out for the entire year that the issue has been known? We're not talking about technical stuff like lag. But just flesh out an idea. Talk to the players. The fact that Tolero acknowledged the loss of VIP bonuses was a good thing. The fact that they ignored the issue since then is the problem.
People are upset that there's a complete lack of communication. I mean just compare lammania gear threads from Lynnabel with what we got from Tolero. "Here's a thread, you guys figure out what the gear is"? It's tiny things like this that bring us to a boiling point.

I mean there's overall just so many things that people have been asking for. Reworks on some older enhancement trees, more wings colors, etc. But instead they seem to be rushing out new archetypes. They don't have to release them 3 at a time. Drop 1 or 2, but properly thought out and implemented. And this isn't even an SSG ailment, it's an overall IT problem. It's not always about "new features". Quite often what the consumer wants is a fix to all the tiny (and not so tiny) issues and inconveniences.


Either way, I think we're getting way off topic for the DH comments.

[SocratesBastardSon]

xaxaeb, I agree with 90+% of what you're saying. My point was pretty simple though. If some critical mass of players (whatever that may prove to be) feels authorized to abuse devs, whatever the reasons, then they shouldn't be surprised when the devs decide to longer make themselves available to be abused. That's all I'm saying. There are numerous benefits to a polite society, even if one of the costs is foregoing the pleasures of letting off steam in public.

[clagor]

I like playing Ranger18/Rouge1/Barbarian1 combo.

The replacement of evasion with medium armor seems also odd to me.
The whole class focusses/supports light armor with evasion, but not medium armor.
Please add at least a choice of evasion or medium armor!
(I know ED Shadow Dancer 3 has also evasion)

I always take 1 level of barbarian for the 10% run speed.
And still feeling always running behind the others (also with haste feat).
Especially when casters clear out mobs before i can reach melee range.
Please also add in the new enhancement tree somewhere a 10% speed bonus!
(I think someone in light armor should have more speed as in medium or even heavy armor)

The black wolf is nice, but not so though like the skelly from pale master in an auto heal aura.
Can you add also a regeneration ability to the black wolf for some auto heal in between?

With the new enhancement tree, I am currently not clear if and how I want to change my current Tempest 46 / Deepwood 24 / Horizon Walker 12 combo...

[Oliphant]

Forcing cloth armor and keeping evasion would make more sense.

[Saekee]

i would bring back the stealth ranged assassinate.

It is not OP considering that is does not work on red names and many mob types, and for game balance, sorcs just blow everything up quickly and easily, right? And look at swash coup de grace DCs for example.

If you wish to reduce its effectiveness, make it on mobs that do not have aggro on you. So you need to bluff them or lose it somehow. That was the old assassinate rule that was broken for assassins--just use it here. It forces a slower playstyle over zerging and would be incredibly fun TBH.

An assassin can crouch down and then assassinate a charging armored opponent with a shield in front of them, alert to shenanigans.

[Voxreal]

This is the example of they are going to do what ever they want with out looking at the changes they brought to the game that make this almost unplayable. This will never be fun or viable in endgame content and it is because they have always forgone the rangers specialization in every way possible. The way to change it would require almost a complete rewrite of the class but they should do it and make DWS and this enhancement tree with multi selectors to allow for ranged or melee specialization. It would make the ranger class and these enhancements so much better in that it would at 1st level choose between ranged, melee and pet let them choose then add the proper feats at set levels just let them pick two at 1st. you can then make the enhancement trees with the mutli selectors where needed, this would prevent a lot of what you are trying to prevent i assume.

In closing please do not release this hold off and make it something better.

[Mamalian]

[QUOTE=Saekee;6570857]i would bring back the stealth ranged assassinate./QUOTE]

Hunt's end + Sniper shot. What else you need?

[Saekee]

[QUOTE=Saekee;6570857]i would bring back the stealth ranged assassinate./QUOTE]

Hunt's end + Sniper shot. What else you need?
ranged assassinate

[Dreppo]

Death Attack: Stealth Melee Assassinate Attack: On Sneak Attack: Attempt to Assassinate a foe before you. If it is an enemy type that a Dark Hunter could have as a Favored Enemy (Vermin, Elves, Aberrations, Animals, Humanoids, and Monstrous Humanoids) then you attempt to snuff out its life, killing it instantly unless it makes a Fortitude save vs Death (DC 10 + Ranger Level + highest of Dex, Int, or Wis Mod + Assassinate bonuses). If it is a different enemy type, or it makes its Fortitude save, you instead mortally wound it, lowering its Physical and Magical Resistance rating by 10 and dealing an extra 1d20 Bleed damage per character level.

Please add the red part (mortally wound on failed assassinate attempt) for regular assassins too!

[xaxaeb]

[QUOTE=Saekee;6570857]i would bring back the stealth ranged assassinate./QUOTE]

Hunt's end + Sniper shot. What else you need?

Oh yeah.... because the 10k dmg it's gonna do on R10 will insta-kill everything.....
Don't just balance everything for Epic Hard like devs do.

[Fisto_Mk_I]

i would bring back the stealth ranged assassinate.

Hunt's end + Sniper shot. What else you need?

Ranged assassinate? ;)

[Tilomere]

Can you consolidate transmutation DCs to land entangle with assassinate DCs?

Otherwise gearing an assassinate + transmutation + wisdom + melee build requires too many cross stats and enhancements.

Wisdom to MRR in medium armor to c5 as well, or some spell damage protection scattered through tree. Otherwise low reflex, non-evasion,-non-tanky melee is going to get eaten by AoE spell damage.

Due to needing falconry for 2ndary tree like HeM, this tree will operate without a crit range, which means it is basically going to suck.

However, the higher base trapping/sneak/imbue die means it is going to make a fantastic inquisitor splash.

[Mamalian]

[QUOTE=Mamalian;6570899]

Oh yeah.... because the 10k dmg it's gonna do on R10 will insta-kill everything.....
Don't just balance everything for Epic Hard like devs do.

I'm close to killing anything in R10 now and my archer is not the most ubber build out there.

[elvesunited]

If your ranger archer .....

Gets evasion from splashing rogue or monk or is willing to tough it out until level 26 and get it through Shadowdancer
Does not use arcane archer ( common for horizons and deepwoods )
And does not mind the restricted favored enemy list too much.

Then Dark Hunter is free sneak attack dice, trap saves and the ability to pick locks.
( technically disarm traps but I think your skill won't be high enough for most endgame traps )
So I suspect many archers will be tempted to go Dark Hunter.

[Xgya]

"Update 58: Unlikely Heroes arrives this week! We'll have downtime information on Tuesday for our Wednesday release."

Guess any hope anyone else had to see this tree fit its own theme better are out the window.

[Oliphant]

If you were 13 rogue - 6 Ranger - 1 Barb or something DWS HW before, will this be better or worse? Maybe a year ago I was able to put that together and squeeze every possible AP without a possible point to spare to snag the AA T4 elemental +dice without losing any other dps goodies. Now I guess I'd skip the AA booster if it costs 4 AP out of a Wood Elf tree. Feels more conventional to spend on other stuff anyway when doing DWS HW. A few extra sneak dice are intriguing. I wonder how these sneak attack builds are stacking up against imbue builds. I've been done with ranged lives on my main for a while, will be fun to try ranged dps again. Don't know if the lore semantics make perfect sense but the idea of a Medium Armor or Evasion trade-off is pretty classic thing I deal with; fairly equal but a little different.

[unbongwah]

If you were 13 rogue - 6 Ranger - 1 Barb or something DWS HW before, will this be better or worse?
Probably better: you get +2d6 sneak attacks free from Dark Hunter levels; and since Disable & Open Lock are DH class skills, it's easier to maintain them. Plus not getting Evasion from Dark Hunter doesn't matter when you can get Improved Evasion from rogue 10+. You miss out on AA imbues unless you go elf, obviously, but do you really have the APs to spare for it?

41 APs Horizon Walker (tier-5s + capstone)
23 APs Deepwood Stalker (Sniper Shot + Killer)
11 APs Vistani Knife Fighter (FE Undead, Haste Boost, +5% Doubleshot)
3 APs Acrobat (Fast Movement)
2 APs Falconry (FE Animal)

Plus whatever extra racial APs you have.

You can drop DWS down to 11 APs to keep Sniper Shot and shift them into Dark Hunter (extra sneak attacks, Bleed the Weak) and/or Assassin (Venomed Blades, +3 Imbue dice, Assassin's Trick).

[tsotate]

You can drop DWS down to 11 APs to keep Sniper Shot and shift them into Dark Hunter (extra sneak attacks, Bleed the Weak) and/or Assassin (Venomed Blades, +3 Imbue dice, Assassin's Trick).

This sort of feels like the theme of a lot of the new archetypes -- the best way to build them is to either completely ignore their trees, or grab only the lowest-hanging fruit.

[Saekee]

so this is a done deal now?

[Aelonwy]

This sort of feels like the theme of a lot of the new archetypes -- the best way to build them is to either completely ignore their trees, or grab only the lowest-hanging fruit.

Noticed this myself. Seems like such a waste of time and effort.

[SilentRunning]

Aelonwy

Noticed this myself. Seems like such a waste of time and effort.

Nobody is forcing you to play these archetypes.

[HailBlazR]

Nobody is forcing you to play these archetypes.

And we probably won't, but we still have a right to criticize bad ideas where we see them. Not sure what your point is here.

[Qeistalan]

And we probably won't, but we still have a right to criticize bad ideas where we see them. Not sure what your point is here.

+1

Yet another dev short-sighted decision to entirely eliminate Evasion from DH archetype; should have selector for Evasion or Medium armor (L9 or whatever lvl works best).

[SilentRunning]

https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/prestigeCwar/darkHunter.html

Oh my, what an oversight, NO EVASION in the list.

@HailBlazr

I thought my point was quite clear, or are you having a problem understanding what I wrote?

[Xgya]

https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes/prestigeCwar/darkHunter.html

Oh my, what an oversight, NO EVASION in the list.


That's such a sad argument.
Do notice that this class cannot wield weapons or armor. At all.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Dark hunters gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Yet this archetype somehow can use bows and swords just fine, and even wield medium armor!
Is THAT an oversight?
Or could it just be that the class as designed assumes people entering it will already have a few class features from elsewhere that aren't on that table? (such as evasion, or weapon proficiencies?)

[donblas]

That's such a sad argument.
Do notice that this class cannot wield weapons or armor. At all.


Yet this archetype somehow can use bows and swords just fine, and even wield medium armor!
Is THAT an oversight?
Or could it just be that the class as designed assumes people entering it will already have a few class features from elsewhere that aren't on that table? (such as evasion, or weapon proficiencies?)

It could be that DHs don't get any extra proficiencies over and above those that all Rangers get.

[Xgya]

It could be that DHs don't get any extra proficiencies over and above those that all Rangers get.

That's mostly the point people are bringing up.

In DDO, a "Knight of the Chalice" is a base Paladin, that has everything the base Paladin has, but then also gets the quirks unique to KotC.

If Dark Hunters were in the "doesn't get anything beyond what Rangers normally get" category, they'd get Evasion. They wouldn't get MORE Evasion than Rangers normally get any more than, as you said, they don't get any extra proficiencies beyond what all Rangers get.

When somebody comes over and says "that table represents all that this character should have", I felt obliged to point out this isn't a base class, that it should have abilities of the base class somewhere in there. I tried to make it obvious by pointing at the proficiencies line.

[SilentRunning]

Xgya

That's such a sad argument.
Do notice that this class cannot wield weapons or armor. At all.

Quote Originally Posted by SRD
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Dark hunters gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Yet this archetype somehow can use bows and swords just fine, and even wield medium armor!

Is THAT an oversight?
Or could it just be that the class as designed assumes people entering it will already have a few class features from elsewhere that aren't on that table? (such as evasion, or weapon proficiencies?)


Did you also read or are you only seeing those things YOU want to see like usual.

From that link: Rangers are the most likely characters to become dark hunters. Druids, rogues, and fighters are also common, in other words they don't get many OTHER special proficiencies other than what the base class usually gets, but they get some differences, or did you not happen understand that?

Yet here you are telling others that what they say is a sad argument when you don't even do your own research, that what is sad here.

[Elfshire]

Now that I can actually build a Lv 1 Dark Hunter in the Builder, I'm rather cheesed to realize that for all 3 previews, the notes have said ranger is losing:


All Favored Enemy feats that are not: Vermin, Elf, Aberration, Animal, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid

When really they meant to say HUMANS. Not humanoids. That means there's only six choices, period. What?? I can hunt Beholders, but not kobolds or goblins?

[Krelar]

Did you also read or are you only seeing those things YOU want to see like usual.

From that link: Rangers are the most likely characters to become dark hunters. Druids, rogues, and fighters are also common, in other words they don't get many OTHER special proficiencies other than what the base class usually gets, but they get some differences, or did you not happen understand that?

Yet here you are telling others that what they say is a sad argument when you don't even do your own research, that what is sad here.

So what part of the description says that when a ranger decides to become one they suddenly lose evasion?

[cru121]

So what part of the description says that when a ranger decides to become one they suddenly lose evasion?

In PnP, a level 5 Ranger can qualify for that prestige class. I.e., at level 10, you could have a Ranger 5 / Dark Hunter 5 character. This character would not have evasion.
Rangers get Evasion at level 9. I.e., if the player decided to take more Ranger levels, the character would receive Evasion at level 14 (Rgr 9 / DH5).
If the player decided to pursue other base or prestige classes after level 10, for example Barbarian, such character would not have evasion.

[salmag]

In PnP, a level 5 Ranger can qualify for that prestige class. I.e., at level 10, you could have a Ranger 5 / Dark Hunter 5 character. This character would not have evasion.
Rangers get Evasion at level 9. I.e., if the player decided to take more Ranger levels, the character would receive Evasion at level 14 (Rgr 9 / DH5).
If the player decided to pursue other base or prestige classes after level 10, for example Barbarian, such character would not have evasion.

So what you're saying is that a Ranger can level up to 9 before taking Dark Hunter levels. Hence, still have evasion.

I don't recall anything stating Rangers HAVE to make the switch to Dark Hunter at level 6.

[Xgya]

From that link: Rangers are the most likely characters to become dark hunters. Druids, rogues, and fighters are also common, in other words they don't get many OTHER special proficiencies other than what the base class usually gets, but they get some differences, or did you not happen understand that?


You based your own argument on the fact that the prestige class doesn't say it should have evasion.
I just pointed out that the prestige class doesn't say it should be able to use swords and bows.

The prestige class doesn't say it should be able to wield longbows - like you said, it assumes it should have some abilities from its base class.

Your own argument says that the prestige class doesn't say it should have evasion. I just use the same logic and say it should have this ability from its base class.

[SilentRunning]

Xgya

You based your own argument on the fact that the prestige class doesn't say it should have evasion.
I just pointed out that the prestige class doesn't say it should be able to use swords and bows.

The prestige class doesn't say it should be able to wield longbows - like you said, it assumes it should have some abilities from its base class.

Your own argument says that the prestige class doesn't say it should have evasion. I just use the same logic and say it should have this ability from its base class.

You'll notice how Cru121 has bothered to look stuff up while you continue to criticize me for your lack of comprehension, and you could still pick up evasion as a feat if you wanted to, but no you want to tear down other people because you didn't want to bother to read anything.

[Onyxia2019]

The way I see it, all archetypes loose something from there base class. To not do this would just be adding a fourth class tree.
I see the DH as a tanker ranger, yes you get medium armor and in so doing you loose evasion. Can't have evasion unless you are in light armor or robes and if you want to wear those then play a standard ranger. The DH is a more up close and personal style. Unload with a deviating sneak attack and finish at close range.

The tempest ranger has the sword whiling agile style were as the DH is the stab you in the back and slit your throat. Nothing fancy.

Just my thoughts on it.

[Drinkfist]

The way I see it, all archetypes loose something from there base class. To not do this would just be adding a fourth class tree.
I see the DH as a tanker ranger, yes you get medium armor and in so doing you loose evasion. Can't have evasion unless you are in light armor or robes and if you want to wear those then play a standard ranger. The DH is a more up close and personal style. Unload with a deviating sneak attack and finish at close range.

The tempest ranger has the sword whiling agile style were as the DH is the stab you in the back and slit your throat. Nothing fancy.

Just my thoughts on it.

You forgot to feed them to your dog for the early levels. My baby boy.

[SilentRunning]

I've said it elsewhere before this should have been a Universal tree instead of an archetype, unless they plan other "Dark Hunter" variants to other classes.