Thoughts on Many Shot.

[Brieana]

I have a character well several actually that are rangers. I have the feat "Many Shot" I really like this ability. Many shot has a 20 second timer with a 2 minute cool down. My question is...

Would it be possible for the Devs to consider changing the cool down to 1 minute? I have no problem with only having many shot for 20 seconds but the fast pace of many of the higher end quests or exceedingly large combats a 2 minute cool down seems an excessive amount of time.

With enhancement clickies being able to spammed nearly as fast as you finish using them I am not quite sure why there is such a huge difference.

Now before those reading this come on to state about the enhancements clickies only being 5 times per rest, with the prevelance of shrines with in quests you can get many more uses out of these clickies then many shot.

For example in the Reaver Pre-raid there are I believe 9 rest shrines. This would equal 45 uses of an enhancement clickie. To use the same amount of uses of many shot that quest would have to last an hour and a half. This seems a bit skewed and this is only one quest I am referencing.

Any thoughts or considerations on the subject would be welcome.

Thank you
Brieana

[Muravi]

I still think they shoulf just make it a stance. And no, I don't think that would overpower rangers. I think it would compensate for the broken ranged mechanics.

[jaitee]

just like a pallys ability which is 20 mins cool down, but then again the pallys would be over powered with this ability down to 1 mins as well

[Geonis]

This is somewhat similar to Pally's Smite Evil. Originally you could just throw a smite into the middle of a combo. They changed it to where you have to stop then hit the smite button. So, a few 4-6 times per rest was to powerful. I think changing this back and dropping Manyshot to 1min timer would go a long way to evening things out a bit amongst the "fighters".

[Fura]

I think this should be a feat "improved manyshot" and you should need a couple of range feats to be able to get it .

[negative]

This is somewhat similar to Pally's Smite Evil. Originally you could just throw a smite into the middle of a combo. They changed it to where you have to stop then hit the smite button. So, a few 4-6 times per rest was to powerful. I think changing this back and dropping Manyshot to 1min timer would go a long way to evening things out a bit amongst the "fighters".

Well, this is a little off-topic, but what you're saying about Smite Evil isn't correct. Smite Evil used to *not* chain into your attack sequence, but recieved your best BAB bonus. Now, you *can* chain it into your attack sequence.

The major change was that the cooldown timer was change from 1 second to 6. And we can still get 4-6 smites per rest, if not more.

I am all for more love for ranged combat, and manyshot as well. I'm not sure if that means the cooldown should be reduced, or it should be changed to a stance as per PnP, but, something should be done.

[Mad_Bombardier]

I came to a realization about Manyshot when considering DDO attacks/BAB versus D&D attacks/BAB.

As we all know, in D&D:
BAB +0-5 = 1 attack
BAB +6-10 = 2 attacks
BAB +11-15 = 3 attacks
BAB +16-20 = 4 attacks

And in DDO:
BAB +0 = 1 attack
BAB +1-4 = 2 attacks
BAB +5-9 = 3 attacks
BAB +10-14* = 4 attacks
*unknown implementation of BAB +15-20

But for Manyshot, DDO uses the attacks per BAB scale from D&D. We didn't get our 3rd arrow until BAB+11 and won't get our 4th arrow until BAB+16. At least archery in D&D has a chance to be equal to melee. We are again at the crossroads where further increases to melee will ensure that archery will never catch up and all other forms of attack will become obsolete.

[Sojourner]

I wouldn't mind seeing an enhancement chain that lets you shorten the cooldown timers on some of your feats, or extend the duration of them.

New Enhancement: Improved Manyshot Cooldown
IM I = Reduce cooldown by 10% (1min, 48sec)
IM II = Reduce cooldown by 30% (1min, 24sec)
IM III = Reduce cooldown by 50% (1min, 0sec)
IM IV = Reduce cooldown by 70% (0min, 36sec)

You could also do something like this:

New Enhancement: Improved Manyshot Duration
IM I = Increase duration by 25% (25sec)
IM II = Increase duration by 50% (30sec)
IM III = Increase duration by 75% (40sec)
IM IV = Increase duration by 100% (45sec)

Want to be a manyshot master -- 20 APs, but you'd have a duration of 45sec, followed by a cooldown of 36 sec before you get another 45.

I'm sure the numbers are all kinds of odd and you'd have to play around to get a good balance.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Manyshot enhancements are what is needed .. Rangers get so few combat related enhancements as it is. One almost is led to believe that the development team at DDO doesn't think Rangers are meant to fight!

[Fura]

I wouldn't mind seeing an enhancement chain that lets you shorten the cooldown timers on some of your feats, or extend the duration of them.

New Enhancement: Improved Manyshot Cooldown
IM I = Reduce cooldown by 10% (1min, 48sec)
IM II = Reduce cooldown by 30% (1min, 24sec)
IM III = Reduce cooldown by 50% (1min, 0sec)
IM IV = Reduce cooldown by 70% (0min, 36sec)

You could also do something like this:

New Enhancement: Improved Manyshot Duration
IM I = Increase duration by 25% (25sec)
IM II = Increase duration by 50% (30sec)
IM III = Increase duration by 75% (40sec)
IM IV = Increase duration by 100% (45sec)

Want to be a manyshot master -- 20 APs, but you'd have a duration of 45sec, followed by a cooldown of 36 sec before you get another 45.

I'm sure the numbers are all kinds of odd and you'd have to play around to get a good balance.

Agree on that 8)

[EinarMal]

I think the devs have it in their heads that it is "cheating" to kill things in any way that does not invovle pummeling them to death without some penalty involved.

For casters the "penalty" is high mob saves, long spell cool downs, and immunities. I would bet money the amount of mobs with "deathblock" goes up and up to the point of FOD and other death spells being useless.

For ranged your stuck with slow firing rate, which manyshot helps alleviate for a brief time at which point you go back to plink,plink... I see no desire on their parts to make the game more like PnP where spells, archers, and melee characters can all be effective.

It isn't fair, but how many manyshot threads is it going to take to realize they just don't care about improving ranged combat?

[Cassiline]

I have a character well several actually that are rangers. I have the feat "Many Shot" I really like this ability. Many shot has a 20 second timer with a 2 minute cool down. My question is...

Would it be possible for the Devs to consider changing the cool down to 1 minute? I have no problem with only having many shot for 20 seconds but the fast pace of many of the higher end quests or exceedingly large combats a 2 minute cool down seems an excessive amount of time.

First off... I love rangers, I think they're the most fun of any class. That said, I think manyshot is fine. 2 minutes gives the potential to do around 60% of melee damage from a range, with no chance of them firing back. Throw in the fact that it's burst DPS, and so more useful, and it's already insanely good. Now... 60%... lets toss precise shot in there shall we? line up 2 guys and you're at 120%, throw in a third for 180%, and of course the potential damage is near infinite. If we had a 1 minute cooldown we'd be doing the same damage or more than melee, and from a range. THAT would be overpowered.

[Brieana]

First off... I love rangers, I think they're the most fun of any class. That said, I think manyshot is fine. 2 minutes gives the potential to do around 60% of melee damage from a range, with no chance of them firing back. Throw in the fact that it's burst DPS, and so more useful, and it's already insanely good. Now... 60%... lets toss precise shot in there shall we? line up 2 guys and you're at 120%, throw in a third for 180%, and of course the potential damage is near infinite. If we had a 1 minute cooldown we'd be doing the same damage or more than melee, and from a range. THAT would be overpowered.

I am unsure where you are coming from with the 2 minutes equals 60% melee damage, when you only have 20 seconds of many shot and nearly a 2 minute cool down.

Why is it that Rangers should not be doing as much ranged damage as the fighters do in melee? We are usually too squishy to go in hand to hand and survive, especially in the higher level quests.

I would hope the Devs are not leaning towards DDO being a fighter only game for if they make the other characters less effective won't they eventially have everyone wanting to be fighters and thus there won't be many of the other type characters.

If the Devs are looking at this thread would you please consider re-evaluating many shot to make it better.

Thank you
Bri

[Shrazkil]

I am unsure where you are coming from with the 2 minutes equals 60% melee damage, when you only have 20 seconds of many shot and nearly a 2 minute cool down.

Why is it that Rangers should not be doing as much ranged damage as the fighters do in melee? We are usually too squishy to go in hand to hand and survive, especially in the higher level quests.

I would hope the Devs are not leaning towards DDO being a fighter only game for if they make the other characters less effective won't they eventially have everyone wanting to be fighters and thus there won't be many of the other type characters.

If the Devs are looking at this thread would you please consider re-evaluating many shot to make it better.

Thank you
Bri

Well saying rangers are too squishy to go into melee at end content is just furthering negative stereotypes. YOU didnt make your ranger able to melee at high levels, thats not true for all.

More to point however, I think a fix to this would be to use the enhancement system, rangers get a typically poor choice of enhancements i feel. Why not make something like this:

Rangers extended manyshot 1:Increase duration of manyshot feat by 5 seconds. AP1

Rangers extended manyshot 2:Increase duration of manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds. AP2

Rangers extended manyshot 3:Increase duration of manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds. AP3

Rangers extended manyshot 4:Increase duration or manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds: AP4

Or could easily see making this a 2/4/6 AP progression feat.

[Mercules]

Well saying rangers are too squishy to go into melee at end content is just furthering negative stereotypes. YOU didnt make your ranger able to melee at high levels, thats not true for all.

More to point however, I think a fix to this would be to use the enhancement system, rangers get a typically poor choice of enhancements i feel. Why not make something like this:

Rangers extended manyshot 1:Increase duration of manyshot feat by 5 seconds. AP1

Rangers extended manyshot 2:Increase duration of manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds. AP2

Rangers extended manyshot 3:Increase duration of manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds. AP3

Rangers extended manyshot 4:Increase duration or manyshot feat by additional 5 seconds: AP4

Or could easily see making this a 2/4/6 AP progression feat.

While that is somewhat interesting, not everyone makes their ranged combat person a Ranger and not all Rangers use bows. Manyshot is a feat that Rangers get for free, but it is not a class feature like Sneak Attack, Rage, Smite Evil, Turn Undead so I don't believe it should get special treatment for one class.

The easiest solution is to make Many Shot a stance. Ranged combat already does less damage per second than melee combat by a significant amount. If you are concerned about Improved Precise Shot and this stacked together make them BOTH stances and someone with both can decide to do a bunch of damage to ONE target or less damage to all targets in a line.

[Cassiline]

I am unsure where you are coming from with the 2 minutes equals 60% melee damage, when you only have 20 seconds of many shot and nearly a 2 minute cool down.

The ranger forums have calculations on it. Basically it's because you have 3 arrows for 20 seconds, and 1 for 100, it comes out to roughly 66% of melee attack rate.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=108628

firing without manyshot gives 50% attack rate, manyshot boosts that to 66% if you use it every opportunity.

EDIT: oh and don't forget improved precise shot which, as I said, boosts it WAAY over melee if you have multiple enemies.

[Shrazkil]

While that is somewhat interesting, not everyone makes their ranged combat person a Ranger and not all Rangers use bows. Manyshot is a feat that Rangers get for free, but it is not a class feature like Sneak Attack, Rage, Smite Evil, Turn Undead so I don't believe it should get special treatment for one class.

The easiest solution is to make Many Shot a stance. Ranged combat already does less damage per second than melee combat by a significant amount. If you are concerned about Improved Precise Shot and this stacked together make them BOTH stances and someone with both can decide to do a bunch of damage to ONE target or less damage to all targets in a line.

Yes but as an enhancement this would benefit the rangers that do use ranged, and does not have to work across the board, everyone gets item damage, yet fighters get enhancements to reduce it, anyone can get power attack, yet barbs get an enhancement to effect it.

[Ringlord]

Well remember the big draw back to Improved Precise shot is that a Ranger becomes the instant aggro magnet when using this so if they can't take out the mobs or seriously reduce their numbers before the close to melee they will be swarmed under. Also don't forget we are encountering more and more ranged enemies and generally their to hit and damage are higher than player Rangers and we give up more AC to use a ranged weapon ( not counting throwing weapons where you can still use a shield in your off hand ) and mobs do not.

[Solik]

No reason not to let Fighters who take the Manyshot feat have enhancements for it, though. Archery fighter builds should be as viable in DDO as they are in PNP. Fighter builds get better focus with the bow due to being able to take the feats earlier than the class feature grants them (and having more room for other bow feats), but they have to do without ranger spells that synergize well with it (longstrider) or, in DDO, also being good close-range with free TWF.

[GeneralDiomedes]

Bladestorm/Arrowstorm (or whatever they are called) would help too. Even LOTRO rangers get a version of arrow storm