Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

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Originally Posted by barecm

This is starting to sound like manyshot should be a stance.... hmmmm... now where have I heard that before....

I am in favor of what is proposed here as long as 100% is reasonably attained. Not saying easily obtained, but if I Have 3 PLs of doubleshot, a +8 item, and take the available enhancements to doubleshot, I should not have to rely on being Divine Crusader to see a standing 100% doubleshot. Being forced into a particular ED just to make a style of combat viable is not a fix to me.

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I am very much a fan of this idea. I'm guessing a lot of players haven't grinded all the exp and taken epic past lives for the doubleshot, especially since Rangers haven't been all that good in the past, and starting on a first life pure Ranger would make it a pain to get more than 100% doubleshot if you have to gain the exp to grab Divine Crusader all the way from the Primal Sphere.

I wonder if an update to some epic destinies is in order? With these Ranger updates, it would be nice to see Shiradi Champion updated, maybe with more doubleshot.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Those suggestions don't provide solutions for what we are trying to change.

~ Doubleshot should be worth taking for bow users.
~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.
~ Still allow for Monk/Ranger hybrids; a shared cooldown just removes this build.

Moving some of the power of bow builds out of Manyshot and into other areas such as enhancements would be a bonus.


As an aside, having 10K Stars work only with shuriken will not take away the build; it will just require a weapon swap to shuriken as part of the attack chain. We don't want to encourage constant weapon swaps as part of ongoing attack chains.

Sev~

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Ok, so from what I am reading you want to keep build viable and yet make sure that 10k vs non 10k builds are on par?
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Well, the idea would be to completely un-nerf manyshot so that it is equal for both. Then, give a penalty to bow users for 10k stars via the zen archery feat: -Selecting Zen Archery give a -50% damage penalty or RP penalty to 10k stars. This way you keep ranger levels in tact with manyshot, still have a benefit of having 10k stars for shuriken builds and, and you still have folks using 10k stars build but they are not outshining other ranged builds.

As far as reducing the number of arrows, you simply have to increase the damage of base damage and reduce all the multiple arrow feats. However, this idea kind of clashes with trying to balance out 10k stars and manyshot.

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Originally Posted by N-0cturn

The only competitive Arcane Archer build that could get such a high Wisdom is a Monkcher, because they get a DPS Boost from WIS with 10k stars and have a bonus from the Stance. So the only Build with high CC DCs would be Monkchers. I really hope that this is not what you intend.

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Not really, because Rangers get most of their needed feats for free and aren't forced to invest in Dex to get the base required for Improved Precise. Monkchers are always tight on feats and must invest in Dex.

Investing in DC's is almost always a better choice than investing in getting an extra +5ish damage per hit because DC abilities are defensive as well as offensive, and staying alive consistently means more overall game effectiveness.

I actually did a wis-based ranger build way back in the day when they first made Spike Growth actually deal damage. I had Maximize and Empower and something like 1800 sp. Granted that this was before the new style epics existed, but it was actually very effective (albeit extremely weird).

One request I'd make is that paralyzing arrows SHOULD RENDER THE TARGET HELPLESS. That right there becomes a massive reason to invest and opens up an optional build focus that makes DC archers comparable to the more damage-focused types. And it also means that those getting AA through elf or half elf won't necessarily feel constrained to pick up half a dozen archery feats. It can actually function as an adjunct style that brings something to the table for mixed builds.

Additionally, I'd suggest that the DC bonus should also apply to Transmutation spells, because the 3 offensive SPELLS that rangers get are Transmutation. This would mean that a wis-based ranger would actually be able to get some use out of Entangle/Snare/Spike Growth, all of which have movement-debilitating effects. Transmutation is a weird enough school that this wouldn't be a huge boostie for anyone BUT a ranger.

And I very strongly recommend adding an AOE version of Snare to this tree as an SLA. (Perhaps a color-swapped version of EBT). Since it's a strength check, the effective DC is much lower. The ranger version, however, shouldn't have spell resistance.

Those changes would make a substantial difference to how this tree PLAYS. It would be focused on CC, DC's, spellpower damage, and bonus damage vs. helpless rather than just raw "I churn out all teh arrows teh fastest" which is what all archery is in the game currently. Because of the CC capability it'd be able to get more usefulness from Archer's Focus and other stuff that's effective only when you stand still, further boosting the effectiveness and changing the style difference.

I certainly agree with the suggestion to make shiradi procs on bows use spellpower. Also, it'd be quite cool if they made it so that all the abilities on this tree that induce effects count as "spells" for the purposes of potentially triggering a Shiradi proc. That would put a Shiradi bow user in almost the same territory as a magic-missle-spam caster. That would probably make Shiradi a really superior option for Arcane Archer. It would mean that there would be multiple different *types* of archer. It'd make things weird for Monkchers because the manyshot/10k stars build would synergize okay with DWS or Kensai but not nearly so well with AA (although if you WANTED to build that way you could get some interesting synergy with Ninja Spy due to the Damage Vs. Helpless thing with paralyzing arrows--if you cranked your DC, that is).

I don't think every possible build needs to be exactly comparable in damage output over time. There aren't any DPS checks in this game. It's not like taking a little longer to kill something safely makes it impossible to complete any content--in fact, it's often the SUPERIOR option. If it does enough damage and brings enough other stuff to the table that people enjoy playing it, it's all good.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Those suggestions don't provide solutions for what we are trying to change.

~ Doubleshot should be worth taking for bow users.
~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.
~ Still allow for Monk/Ranger hybrids; a shared cooldown just removes this build.

Moving some of the power of bow builds out of Manyshot and into other areas such as enhancements would be a bonus.


As an aside, having 10K Stars work only with shuriken will not take away the build; it will just require a weapon swap to shuriken as part of the attack chain. We don't want to encourage constant weapon swaps as part of ongoing attack chains.

Sev~

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Your proposed solutions do not fix anything either, everything stays the same except less shots are fired.
What needs to happen is a separation of the playstyle of pure bow ranger and monk bow user, and as long as manyshot and 10k stars are both doing the same thing on separate cooldowns, this will never happen, it will always stil be better to take 6 monk and have 2x ways to fire multiple arrows.This is further aggravated by the fact that AA is a racial tree so elf users can take 6 monk and use the enhancements fully.

Personaly i think 10k stars should be removed from the game entirely, i think monk archer, in its current state,is an abomination that uses a tree from a class and plays with a ki bar from another while regenearting ki passively wich is not what regular monks do.Why not allow ki on hit regeneration for ranged and allow ki strikes for ranged.Why not rework ki strikes so they actualy do something nowadays...
If the monk trees or natural abilities provide suport for bow users then theres no need for 10k stars.it can jsut go away, and people that want to do monk can do manyshot instead, same for rangers.Reduce the manyshot cooldown.There you go, 2 playstyles.

Why not postpone those changes for when monk revamp comes and THEN theres time to actualy rework monk wich is the issue here, not ranger.The issue is a monk ability, not ranger or a feat.

Here is the problem I have in a nutshell:

1. Archers lag far behind all other dps sources, due to:
a) low base damage per arrow
b) slow rate of fire

The response to this (as proposed so far by the dev team) is to:
a) fire even fewer arrows
b) ignore completely rate of fire

If someone can explain to me how we are all even on the same page, I would like that, because it really feels like a conversation where we say, "Hey, can I have a burger?" and the response is, "Twelve pigeons just yesterday."

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Originally Posted by Failedlegend

This is ARCANE archer having g it be wisdom based makes no sense...if your worried about monks than utilize zen archer for that. Honestly ARCANE archer has never fit in ranger (a PRIMAL class) DWS already has ranged covered AA should have been unique to elves or a wizard pre (or a Arcane/Martial multi-class prestige of some sort)

Side note: Elven AA should likely be Dex based since elves and their racial bow stuff is...possible have elven grace change it from Int to Dex, also dont forgrt that due to elves any class can be an AA so dont forget about them.

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Sun Elves also get AA in their Racial tree but they get INT instead of DEX.

Having said that, DC-based arrow damage stuff should be based on a caster stat (INT, WIS, CHA) and certainly NOT on DEX.

Since we are talking ARCANE Archer, the DCs should probably based in either INT or CHA (whichever is higher). But many people are insisting that AA DCs be based on WIS because that is the Ranger's casting stat.

I'd like to point out that other classes besides Rangers can be AA's.

To that end, I'd suggest (as I think someone else already has) a compromise. AA DCs should be based on the highest casting stat your AA toon has.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Good feedback so far. We are still digesting and discussing.

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

The biggest concern is actually Doublestrike, as we wouldn't be able to make the same change to Doublestrike and we would expect players to ask for that if we changed Doubleshot.

Sev~

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This gives me back some hope!

Maybe just change the name, keep Doublestrike but change Doubleshot to Multishot/Extrashot

Another option is to add an enhancement to AA that lets DS wrap for ranged attacks only!?

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Originally Posted by Steve_Howe

Having said that, DC-based arrow damage stuff should be based on a caster stat (INT, WIS, CHA) and certainly NOT on DEX.

Since we are talking ARCANE Archer, the DCs should probably based in either INT or CHA (whichever is higher). But many people are insisting that AA DCs be based on WIS because that is the Ranger's casting stat.

To that end, I'd suggest (as I think someone else already has) a compromise. AA DCs should be based on the highest casting stat your AA toon has.

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This is the spot on suggestion for this tricky angle. Best of Wis, Int or Cha for the AA Imbue Arrows.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.

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I just think it sucks that working feats/gameplay mechanisms are being redone because apparently the servers can't handle, what, a fifth (a tenth?) of the playerbase/load that they were able to 4 or 5 years ago. Don't understand the rationale on this point. Unless somewhere along the way from 2010 to now there was a hardware change that actually reduced compute power over all servers?

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

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Originally Posted by Severlin

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

The biggest concern is actually Doublestrike, as we wouldn't be able to make the same change to Doublestrike and we would expect players to ask for that if we changed Doubleshot.

Sev~

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What if it remain capped at 100%, but Manyshot allowed this to break the cap, just like some dodge effects can break above your dodge cap?

This way you explicitly says that Manyshot can break the cap because it is unique, and people will not ask the same from Doublestrike.

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Originally Posted by Grace_ana

Here is the problem I have in a nutshell:

1. Archers lag far behind all other dps sources, due to:
a) low base damage per arrow
b) slow rate of fire

The response to this (as proposed so far by the dev team) is to:
a) fire even fewer arrows
b) ignore completely rate of fire

If someone can explain to me how we are all even on the same page, I would like that, because it really feels like a conversation where we say, "Hey, can I have a burger?" and the response is, "Twelve pigeons just yesterday."

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Hi,

Frustrating, isn't it?

Particularly in view of the fact that both RoF and damage were raised for GXBs to produce a very effective ranged option, and that other ranged options have a higher sustained RoF over a 2 minute period. So what is good for the goose apparently isn't good for the gander.

Hilariously enough, one of the best crossbow users I've ever run with uses a GXB and runs in Fury. I have seen this person repeatedly outperform everyone in EE groups by a significant margin, including some of Khyber's best players who are currently running very strong repeater builds.

The changes to GXB weapon characteristics and rogue enhancements make it an extremely strong build in Fury, all without manyshot. If a similar pattern were used to modify how longbows work in the game, both as weapons and with enhancements, full time archery without the sticking point of manyshot would be an extremely strong playstyle. Yet for whatever reason, there is this design team unwillingness to countenance similar changes for bows.

Anyway, once again we seem to be proceeding from a series of bad premises for these changes, like in the early stages of the first part of the ranger pass.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Those suggestions don't provide solutions for what we are trying to change.

~ Doubleshot should be worth taking for bow users.
~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.
~ Still allow for Monk/Ranger hybrids; a shared cooldown just removes this build.

Moving some of the power of bow builds out of Manyshot and into other areas such as enhancements would be a bonus.


As an aside, having 10K Stars work only with shuriken will not take away the build; it will just require a weapon swap to shuriken as part of the attack chain. We don't want to encourage constant weapon swaps as part of ongoing attack chains.

Sev~

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Design goals 2 and 3 (stated above) bother me the most.

The developer has stated that they wish to lower projectile numbers. Neither here nor anywhere else has he explained why this is required, particularly in view of the fact that other high RoF ranged builds already exist and apparently will not be touched, and that the game also permits caster builds which produce high numbers of procs on large groups of monsters when using AOE spells with additional effects from ED abilities, gear, etc.

Similarly, he expresses a concern about invalidating builds (the monkcher) while not addressing that fact that the proposed changes to manyshot will invalidate other builds, like the classic ranger melee/ranged hybrid - the very class which this pass is supposed to be for, mind you, and burst damage based Fury archers.

This is particularly on the nose after claiming that one of the goals for the DWS upgrades was to encourage melee/ranged builds, but changing manyshot in the way proposed will be quite harmful to those builds and that playstyle. Throwing the class which is meant to be benefitting from these changes under the bus for the sake of supporting 10k stars builds is not the solution; there are other ways to solve this problem and this thread contains much discussion of them.

This stubborness about the basic assumptions and unwillingness to discuss them in full on the the part of the developer team is as usual making this into half a conversation which largely feels like a series of non sequiturs. The defining characteristic of the developer responses to this thread have been to claim success in reaching seemingly noble sounding design goals while ignoring the many examples to the contrary and problems with their ideas.

Thanks.

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Originally Posted by Grace_ana

1. Archers lag far behind all other dps sources, due to:

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Our DPS tests are showing some strong Deepwood Stalker Builds that can match crossbow builds in DPS tests. What are you using as the basis of your tests? I'd like to see what builds the players are testing with in case we missed anything.

Sev~

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Our DPS tests are showing some strong Deepwood Stalker Builds that can match crossbow builds in DPS tests. What are you using as the basis of your tests? I'd like to see what builds the players are testing with in case we missed anything.

Sev~

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Is there anyway we can get Million HP kobolds on Lamania? 100K isn't enough HP for an accurate measure considering some build's burst damage.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Those suggestions don't provide solutions for what we are trying to change.

~ Doubleshot should be worth taking for bow users.
~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.
~ Still allow for Monk/Ranger hybrids; a shared cooldown just removes this build.

Moving some of the power of bow builds out of Manyshot and into other areas such as enhancements would be a bonus.


As an aside, having 10K Stars work only with shuriken will not take away the build; it will just require a weapon swap to shuriken as part of the attack chain. We don't want to encourage constant weapon swaps as part of ongoing attack chains.

Sev~

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If you want to move power out of manyshot, that's reasonable I guess. The two big problems with that are stylistic as I mentioned in my previous post: you disincentivize the manyshot/adrenaline/slayer arrow combo mechanics (which are unique in DDO), and also eliminate melee/ranged hybrids. I don't like the loss of character diversity, but I do understand that such a large spike as manyshot is difficult to balance around.
But why on earth is decrease projectile count a goal? I've been playing this game a long time, and I have never ever noticed any correlation with ranged combat (even whole raids manyshotting at one time, when everyone played monkchers like 2 years ago) and lag. Why is that a concern? Chain missles absolutely induce lag, but even with IPS and manyshotting whole hallways I've never seen an effect. I question the validity of that goal. If you want to decrease the manyshot spike, just add a small -ranged power tag to it. By eliminating doubleshot penalty you've already made manyshot less bursty: as sustained doubleshot approaches 100%, manyshot becomes a 2x damage boost rather than the 4x it has been till now. 2x is manageable for 20secs.

Further, you just massively increased the rate of fire of crossbows. Wongar's testing, quoted below, is very useful. Base rate of fire for a repeater at 28 BAB is 86% (!!!!) higher than that of a bow, according to his data. That's beyond huge. For better or worse, you're balancing against mechanics xbows with the AA pass, and I don't see how a design goal of 'fewer projectiles' is compatible with an already enormous gap. I actually like the idea of bow presenting a slower-sustained damage but much burstier damage flow than xbow, and it should be possible to balance the two that way.

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Originally Posted by Wongar

I did some simple tests on rate of fire for a heavy repeater and a longbow. These were done on live 7 Oct 15 so are as current as can be.

The raw data is presented so everyone can draw their own conclusions. They make no attempt to represent DPS as that will depend heavily on other factors.

My opinion - this is the biggest reason bows are so far behind repeaters - you would need to get about 50% more damage per shot from the Longbow for it to catch up to the heavy repeater and I don't see how to do this.
I think these numbers also show that the proposed changes to manyshot will put bows even further behind in rate of fire - don't know if the RP boost will make up the difference or not. Notice with the proposed changes (1/2 Manyshot ROF) Bows will not even keep up with Repeaters when Manyshot is active.

Level 28
DC Destiny (Full BAB)
Feats: Blinding Speed, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot, Longbow, Heavy Repeater

Weapons from Hammer & Chain

Method of test: Conjer a stack of 500 ammo with Flame Arrow Scroll
Run keyboard macro that holds the attack button for given time
For test with Manyshot, macro hits Manyshot then holds attack button for time
Subtract arrows left from 500 to get arrows shot
Shooting into air off ship
3 Runs of each setup were done
Results are xx/xx/xx where xx is one run

2 Minute duration was chosen to match Manyshot cool down
20 Sec duration was chosen to match Manyshot uptime


Double Shot 49%, Heavy Repeater: 2 Minutes
(No Double Shot Penalty)
421 / 406 / 395
Average: 3.39/sec

Double Shot 49%, NO manyshot Longbow: 2 Minutes
(No Double Shot Penalty)
216 / 217 / 221
Average: 1.82/sec

Double Shot 49%, WITH manyshot Longbow: 2 Minutes
(With Double Shot Penalty)
251 / 255 / 256
Average: 2.12/sec



Double Shot 49%, Heavy Repeater: 20 Seconds
71 / 74 / 68
Average: 3.55/sec

Double Shot 49%, NO manyshot Longbow: 20 Seconds
36 / 31 / 34
Average: 1.68/sec

Double Shot 49%, WITH manyshot Longbow: 20 Seconds
104 / 100 / 104
Average: 5.13/sec


Would be great if someone could do similar tests with a 10k/Manyshot build...

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Originally Posted by blerkington

The developer has stated that they wish to lower projectile numbers. Neither here nor anywhere else has he explained why this is required, particularly in view of the fact that other high RoF ranged builds already exist and apparently will not be touched, and that the game also permits caster builds which produce high numbers of procs on large groups of monsters when using AOE spells with additional effects from ED abilities, gear, etc.

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Lag. Projectile burst is harder on the server than constant rate of fire. You'll also see us looking at auras come next year to reduce lag that way as well. We are looking at lots of way to reduce lag, from a new datacenter, to individual character abilities to monster spawns to AI pathfinding to perhaps even go so far as to reduce raid maximums to 10 players.

Lag is something we've told the players we are constantly working on.

Sev~

The real problem is that you can throw a shuriken as far as you can fire a longbow. You can fire a xbow as far as a longbow. Since range of fire is not an issue, higher rates of fire from shuriken and xbows / repeaters will always do better. The weapon mods and damage extras that are procing more often will tilt the scales towards xbow/repeater or shuriken and away from longbows. Longbows should be the max range weapon to compensate for slower rof.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Those suggestions don't provide solutions for what we are trying to change.

~ Doubleshot should be worth taking for bow users.
~ Reducing the total number of projectiles fired.

Sev~

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Aren't these two objectives a little contrary? I'm still a tad confused on why number of projectiles needs to be reduced (unless by that you mean higher damage so mobs die faster ;) mainly because I've never noticed lag after years of playing archer builds

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Originally Posted by Steve_Howe

Sun Elves also get AA in their Racial tree but they get INT instead of DEX.

Having said that, DC-based arrow damage stuff should be based on a caster stat (INT, WIS, CHA) and certainly NOT on DEX.

Since we are talking ARCANE Archer, the DCs should probably based in either INT or CHA (whichever is higher). But many people are insisting that AA DCs be based on WIS because that is the Ranger's casting stat.

I'd like to point out that other classes besides Rangers can be AA's.

To that end, I'd suggest (as I think someone else already has) a compromise. AA DCs should be based on the highest casting stat your AA toon has.

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Well Vanguard has abilities that work with whatever your highest stat is so I'd say AA should say "Highest Mental Stat" for it's DCs than. (which yeah is Int, Wis or Cha, just seems less tacky in the tooltip)

@Devs: I'm glad you guys addressed the fact that Manyshot was MORE useful to melee builds that abused it than the actual ranged builds that are built to use it (due to the -100% DS debuff), that said can we please try to pull away from the action boosts, I know some people like it but I Loathe super short buffs. Even stuff like Divine Might & Death Aura are a bit short but that's at least manageable any chance we can lengthen MS and 10k to about that long...maybe with a smaller effect to compensate.

Also Goal:Reducing the total number of projectiles fired...why Bow combat is already agonizingly slow compared to melee styles and you want to slow it down more?!? f it's the burst dps of manyshot change it into a stat that increased your overall RoF by your DEX mod...no need for another annoying action boost and no more lag inducing bursty MS.

Noe on monks: Can we PLEASE have bows generate ki if this hasnt alreeady been fixed

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Our DPS tests are showing some strong Deepwood Stalker Builds that can match crossbow builds in DPS tests. What are you using as the basis of your tests? I'd like to see what builds the players are testing with in case we missed anything.

Sev~

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I have to answer your question with a question: What do you mean by "some"?

The reason I ask is that when it is phrased that way, it makes me wonder if this is being balanced around certain types of builds at the expense of others. So for example, a 20 mechanic will blow a 20 ranger out of the water any day, providing they have about the same gear, etc. Of course, mechanics are getting more doubleshot than they are supposed to, but that brings up the problem that when that is fixed, they will probably need a rebalance again, leaving behind archers once again.

I would strongly suggest peeking back a couple pages to the rate of fire tests. A heavy repeater fires about twice as fast as a longbow. When you calculate all the procs on attack, etc., this adds up to a significant damage difference. This is why the alacrity and doubleshot is so vital. And that testing (I believe) didn't include alacrity from the mechanic tree, which would widen the gulf even more.

I'm also not sure if when you talk about the DWS build you are testing, if you are talking about a dedicated archer or a hybrid. A hybrid will often deal more DPS because melee is far more damage than longbows.

Are the builds performing well in your testing including monk levels? Or, really any levels of anything but ranger? If so, that will also mess up your calculations. One of the things we are all trying to emphasize is that things shouldn't be balanced around "certain" builds. There should be many viable builds. I understand perfectly that there are choices, and I'm fine with some builds emphasizing DCs, some sustained DPS, some burst DPS. But all should be viable. Right now, the proposals in play don't support non-monk rangers in any of these categories.

If you would tell us more about your testing, we could have a more substantial discussion. But right now, what you are seeing is not what we are seeing just by virtue of playing archers regularly.

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Originally Posted by Severlin

Lag. Projectile burst is harder on the server than constant rate of fire. You'll also see us looking at auras come next year to reduce lag that way as well. We are looking at lots of way to reduce lag, from a new datacenter, to individual character abilities to monster spawns to AI pathfinding to perhaps even go so far as to reduce raid maximums to 10 players.

Lag is something we've told the players we are constantly working on.

Sev~

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Hi,

So the claim is that manyshot causes lag. That disagrees with my own experience, and according to what some of the other people posting in this thread have said, theirs as well. If manyshot is a source of lag, why do I not see any change in game performance the vast majority of the time I use that ability?

Are you prepared to state, categorically, that manyshot is a significant source of lag for the game and that changing it will result in noticeable improvements for the whole community? This is a very strong claim and one which I think will be hard to support in view of the player experience.

On the other hand, a far more plausible claim is that manyshot does consume some additional resource when used, much like many other character abilities. Perhaps when several of these resource intensive abilities are used at once, lag will sometimes occur, but most of the time it isn't a problem. As well as a far more likely scenario, that seems like a far less pressing reason to change how one of the ranger's core abilities works.

Thanks.