Best Ranged DPS

What's types of builds have the best ranged DPS now that we have imbues?

Should I be going all-in on imbues? Taking some but not trying too hard to fit them in? Not worrying about them at all and if I get some, it's just a bonus?

Should I be using a bow, dual xbows, throwing dagger, something else?

I'm thinking of building a ranged toon for the first time in a while. I'm going to choose something that I think is fun and don't need the absolute top DPS, but I want to make sure I'm not too far behind. It has been so long since I've built a ranged toon that I'm not sure what is good these days and what is useless, and I haven't tried out imbues at all yet. Thanks.

I really like the character I am running! It is an Arcane Archer with Slaying Arrows, so high burst and can backup CC too with Paralyze and Bird attacks. Check my link in sig for some inspiration to bow archer, but it takes alot of gear and is prob not first life friendly :)

The simple answer is a ranged build around Inquisitive with Horizon Walker at some level even though Horizon Walker doesn't generally help Xbow builds.

For top end damage you still want to lean towards base weapon damage over imbue stacking. Imbues stack nicely, but there's still more multipliers and scalers you can apply to your base damage. Imbues, all you can really do is boost spell/ranged power and imbue dice.

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Originally Posted by IlmerSilverhilt

I really like the character I am running! It is an Arcane Archer with Slaying Arrows, so high burst and can backup CC too with Paralyze and Bird attacks. Check my link in sig for some inspiration to bow archer, but it takes alot of gear and is prob not first life friendly :)

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Crazy number on that dino crit! Dang :D

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Originally Posted by Oliphant

Crazy number on that dino crit! Dang :D

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Thanks!

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Originally Posted by droid327

For top end damage you still want to lean towards base weapon damage over imbue stacking. Imbues stack nicely, but there's still more multipliers and scalers you can apply to your base damage. Imbues, all you can really do is boost spell/ranged power and imbue dice.

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Yep. Carpone's rundown is still the best resource for ranged DPS. Imbues didn't really shake up the general rankings because most base imbues are rather worthless; ie. it's difficult to put a useful imbue on a ranged build and increase the imbue's dps without sacrificing more primary physical damage than you gain by increasing the imbues.

Gotta remember to always consider Hunt's End + Sniper Shot. It's pretty easy to generate more sustained/auto damage via imbues, but those builds reduce the giant SMACK from HE+Sniper so much that they don't compare on overall dps. Besides, burst is arguably more useful in DDO than sustained.

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Originally Posted by KoobTheProud

The simple answer is a ranged build around Inquisitive with Horizon Walker at some level even though Horizon Walker doesn't generally help Xbow builds.

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Hmm, I don't think so. HW gets it's big gains from improving PS. T5 HW competes with T5 INQ. HW's trance is DEX based. You can't get DEX to-damage on Xbow. So, going into HW at all for Xbow builds is going to result in significantly lower DPS. You'll have to give up on things that actually do increase INQ's DPS.

INQ is low DPS no matter what you do for it at cap. INQ gained far more than others from the imbue changes, but a 10~20% improvement to a style that did at best 50% of a top ranged build before the change still doesn't compete.

Heroics: INQ >>> Bow >> Throw. Epics: INQ >> Bow >> Throw. Cap: Bow > Throw >>>>> INQ. My thrower, for instance, levels as INQ before swapping to a real ranged build at cap. It only takes a couple feat swaps to do that, but it's really not worth it unless you're going to raid-park the character.

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Originally Posted by Bjond

Yep. Carpone's rundown is still the best resource for ranged DPS. Imbues didn't really shake up the general rankings because most base imbues are rather worthless; ie. it's difficult to put a useful imbue on a ranged build and increase the imbue's dps without sacrificing more primary physical damage than you gain by increasing the imbues.

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Carpone hasn't really posted since the imbue pass so we don't really have his assessment of imbues yet. There is the 15 alch 3 ranger 2 rogue build that's been going around as an imbue thrower since the imbue pass and shiradi mantle procs have been rescaled to factor your imbue dice.
Now initially it was broken and getting 1d77 per imbue dice rather than per seven dice and throwers were hugely outperforming bows - it has since been fixed but I imagine some imbue dice and imbue builds are definitely in the running right now for top performers.

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Originally Posted by Lotoc

15 alch 3 ranger 2 rogue build

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You sure it's not 3 bard or 3 DH? A 3 ranger dip does nothing. Bard gives 10 DS, CR+1, and 5 D. DH gives 3 imbue dice. IMHO, Bard > DH there.

I used to play a build like that (3 monk 2 rogue 15 wizard) before the imbue pass. I still have the set of CC kamas with various elemental powers. It would be much nicer now, but there's just no way you can make up for HE+Sniper with imbues. Sustain is higher, but not 12k/s higher. Also, it's uh, boring. It's like playing with an auto-attack firehose. You just kinda aim and yawn.

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Originally Posted by Bjond

You sure it's not 3 bard or 3 DH? A 3 ranger dip does nothing. Bard gives 10 DS, CR+1, and 5 D. DH gives 3 imbue dice. IMHO, Bard > DH there.

I used to play a build like that (3 monk 2 rogue 15 wizard) before the imbue pass. I still have the set of CC kamas with various elemental powers. It would be much nicer now, but there's just no way you can make up for HE+Sniper with imbues. Sustain is higher, but not 12k/s higher. Also, it's uh, boring. It's like playing with an auto-attack firehose. You just kinda aim and yawn.

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the 3 ranger gives 4 imbue dice from arcane archer

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Originally Posted by Lotoc

the 3 ranger gives 4 imbue dice from arcane archer

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LOL! AA has been so bad for so long I literally forgot it existed. (btw, that LOL is me laughing at me, not you .. thanks for the heads up)

I still think a sustain build like that won't be anywhere near a top physical build, though -- maybe 50~60% or about as good as a really good INQ build.

Played a LOT of inquisitive builds and they are absolutely rock solid DPS. I did something like 8 lives in a row though and it burnt me out so I am doing a warlock build to get my 3rd drow life.

It's more survivable but overall slower DPS in groups, it shines solo though where I can gather up a ton of trash, web/tentacles them and then blast them down.

haven't played too much with the bows since the bow pass but I did do 5 levels into it and still said "screw it" and respecced for an inquisitive build. I fully admit I didn't probably give it a fair shake but those first 5 levels with a bow were just SO bad it made more sense for me to melee it.

Keeping in mind that I have only played a warlock and a barb since the inbue pass but I believe the inquisitive counts as dual wielding so you are more or less doubling up on the imbue dice for them compared to any other ranged build. Someone let me know if I am wrong there though please.

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Originally Posted by Bjond

Cap: Bow > Throw >>>>> INQ.

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If i remember data correctly from Carpones researches, best ranged DD still pure Monk shuri-thrower, so Shuri>Bow>>other throwers>>>INQ.

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Originally Posted by Fisto_Mk_I

If i remember data correctly from Carpones researches, best ranged DD still pure Monk shuri-thrower, so Shuri>Bow>>other throwers>>>INQ.

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Weapon Type	Max Damage per second
bow	59415
tdagger	54810
shuri	51773
greatxbow	47269
repeater	46005
inquisitive	29216

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Originally Posted by Bjond

LOL! AA has been so bad for so long I literally forgot it existed. (btw, that LOL is me laughing at me, not you .. thanks for the heads up)

I still think a sustain build like that won't be anywhere near a top physical build, though -- maybe 50~60% or about as good as a really good INQ build.

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IlmerSilverhilt posted a video criting IoD wilderness purple Dino for 700k using AA slayer arrows. Top crits is only one aspect of dps but lets not be sophists here, that kind of number moves the needle on that calculation.

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Originally Posted by Fisto_Mk_I

If i remember data correctly from Carpones researches, best ranged DD still pure Monk shuri-thrower, so Shuri>Bow>>other throwers>>>INQ.

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What does DD mean in this context?

Thanks for all the advice, everyone! I've been wanting to play a bow build for a long time, but every time I tried in the past, it was so abysmally bad that I had to give up. It sounds like this is a good time to try it out. It also sounds like imbues are good but not worth building around, so I won't try too hard to pick them up unless there is some low hanging fruit.

Have fun with bow, especially near the endgame! My subjective experience is bow is relatively better and better the higher your level, worse and worse the lower your level. The worst part of being low level bow is the bow animation speed, effectively slow, but just feels slow too. Manyshot mostly is what gets you through it. Once you get Hunts End and animation speed starts maxing out bow feels very nice.

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Originally Posted by Caarb

Weapon Type	Max Damage per second
bow	59415
tdagger	54810
shuri	51773
greatxbow	47269
repeater	46005
inquisitive	29216

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Your data from previous 53.0.1 spreadsheet, check 53.0.2. ;)

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Originally Posted by Fisto_Mk_I

Your data from previous 53.0.1 spreadsheet, check 53.0.2. ;)

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Well if we want to rely on irrelevant out of date data might as well make it really out of date :p