180 degree flip in the last 2 years? (re: heavy repeaters)

[KillingGameshow]

I played this game back at launch (2 years flies by), but could never get any of my friends to play with me, and in a group heavy game, you can see why I shelved it for a while. Now my friends are all sick of wow and ready for some real dungeon crawling. Now back in the day everyone raved about how great bards were with the heavy repeater, and all the other classes cried foul it was so nifty. Now i never made one myself, but now it appears that everyone is against the repeater for bards. What happened? Was everyone nuts in the beginning? Or was the level 10 cap keeping it useful? Let me know!

[Justan]

Not so much as a 180 degree flip - it is more of a type of build now. Depends what you personally want to spend your 'feats' on. With Dragonshards fairly easy to get ahold of, play it however you want and switch it a little and respec your enhancements (wait 3 days and change it back if you immediately don't like).

[Pellegro]

I have a lvl 9 character (7 bard / 2 rogue) that uses hvy repeaters. I have the rapid reload feat, and a relatively high dex.

I use a +3 Flaming Burst Hvy Rptr of Deception. Its a quite nice repeater.

In my opinion, the ability to "keep up" in DPS drops out in quests lvl 9-10 or so. Even with my sneak attack bonuses.

Up to now, however, its been a wonderful little toy. I will continue using it but I anticipate in a level or 2 switching those 2 feats out and picking up finesse instead (and meleeing with a keen rapier of puncturing or such).

[Talon_Moonshadow]

For awhile it seemed it was a good low lvl build.
But recent changes have made it a better build at higher lvls now. The changes might not last though....some people think repeaters are overpowered now.

My repeater builds are very low lvl, so I can't comment for sure......but I still think it is a good build. Some very powerful weapons are now in the game that can be even better when rapid fired from a distance.

[Arianrhod]

Repeaters can still be nice at lower levels. I think the reason people disdain them at the higher levels is that ranged attack rates fall behind melee, and the extra damage from a high strength (and high crit ranges/crit multipliers) far outpaces anything a repeater can do. On the other hand, bards can get quite wealthy at higher levels, so respeccing from repeaters at lower levels to something else at higher levels is a valid option. The hard part is getting enough strength to be effective in melee at those higher levels....maybe repesccing from a repeater to a spellcaster (replacing repeater feats with things like heighten spell, spell penetration, etc.) would make more sense.

[edit - and, of course, as is the nature of MMOs, the rules are constantly changing, so any build that can be effective in theory has some chance of becomeing the FOTM eventually ]

[Blind_Skwerl]

Back in the day, repeaters offered impressive damage per second (dps), especially at lower levels. As we have leveled up, melee dps has scaled with it, growing higher and higher. Numbers into the 200's are readily available to barbarians, and even some melee bards under ideal conditions. Repeaters have not scaled with the levels. Your dps is essentially determined by the repeater you are using, and that's about it. The damage you were doing at level 8 is probably within a couple points of what you are doing at 16. I'm not saying a repeater build isn't viable in the long run, but looking to a repeater build for end-game dps is futile. If you have a collection of special repeaters (banishing, paralyzing, disruption, etc.) you can easily do great things in high level content. On elite or raid scenarios, expect your repeaters to be of far lesser cosequence than your buffs/cc/etc. for the party.

[maddmatt70]

I don't know what to think about repeaters. Ranged combat in general doesn't make a ton of sense in game because of rate of fire, but especially for alot of bard builds that only dabble a little bit in the repeater. What I have heard is some rumors about the rate of fire for repeaters being stealth upped this mod. I think almost nobody uses repeaters anymore so I don't know if this is verifiable or not. Even if they were upped I don't know if it is going to make enough of a difference to overcome dps issues (yes I know special effects such as banishing is helped). I just have never felt that repeaters make alot of sense for a bard as they don't really fit in with many of a bard's abilities other then the hold monster spell which is single targeted and inefficient in my mind - better to be a ranged specced ranger/char and group with a mass holding wizard...

[Mad_Bombardier]

Repeaters can still be nice at lower levels. I think the reason people disdain them at the higher levels is that ranged attack rates fall behind melee, and the extra damage from a high strength (and high crit ranges/crit multipliers) far outpaces anything a repeater can do.

Incorrect about Repeater RoF. Starting at BAB+8, with Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload, repeaters actually attack faster than 1H melee (but, still slower than TWF). And you are correct in that crossbows do not benefit from STR for damage. They are capable, however, of laying down a lot of cover fire in the form of special effects (Cursespewing/Paralyzing/etc.).

[Strakeln]

A smiting repeater does wonders in Rainbow.

[Naturelaughslast]

Simply put, ranged still lags behind melee and many casters hate having a reload time in between bursts where, if they need to cast a spell, they are in trouble.

[Arianrhod]

Incorrect about Repeater RoF. Starting at BAB+8, with Rapid Shot and Rapid Reload, repeaters actually attack faster than 1H melee (but, still slower than TWF). And you are correct in that crossbows do not benefit from STR for damage. They are capable, however, of laying down a lot of cover fire in the form of special effects (Cursespewing/Paralyzing/etc.).

Thanks for the correction. The rules keep changing, and it's hard to keep up with the latest version

[Roman]

As said by others repeaters lag far behind melee and even bows after lvl 10 in regards to damage output. Where they do shine is with their base crit of 19 with nice effects. For example a Wounding Puncturing Repeater on a lvl 14 barb with Crit range 2 will crit on a 15 (Same as a keen rapier) and while attack speed is slower than a TWF it is pretty darn respectable considering you can spray down some serious stat damage from range. Banishing and smiting also beneift the same way.

If you have the feat slots available repeaters are a nice compliment to a solid melee build. But not very satisfying for a primary weapon, in my opinion. I use hvy repeaters for ranged attacks on my barb and I very much enjoy having the versatility of effective ranged combat. For the 10% of the time I use them, they are very effective and fun to use.

[GeneralDiomedes]

For example a Wounding Puncturing Repeater on a lvl 14 barb with Crit range 2 will crit on a 15 (Same as a keen rapier)

I wish a Dev could explain to me why Crit Rage applies to Repeaters/Crossbows.

[ShadowFox1978]

I wish a Dev could explain to me why Crit Rage applies to Repeaters/Crossbows.

While they are at it, they can explain how an enraged barbarian becomes more skillful at weilding a weapon and finding weaks spots in the enemies defenses. Crit rage is silly to begin with. Now you want them to justify it applying to a paticular weapon type.

[Roman]

I wish a Dev could explain to me why Crit Rage applies to Repeaters/Crossbows.

Ranged is so utterly inferior to melee that having crit rage apply is really just a kiss after a slap in the face. And the enhancement is meaningful to a very small number of hard to obtain weapons and the build needs to be tailored to accomodate the appropriate feats. You will see very very few ever benefiting from it. And even when they do, it is a small portion of game play as melee will almost always be more efficient. So I suppose the answer is, why not? It looks good on paper but in all practicality it has very limited and situational application because ranged is just too darn slow to be a primary attack.

[geoffhanna]

I played this game back at launch (2 years flies by), but could never get any of my friends to play with me, and in a group heavy game, you can see why I shelved it for a while. Now my friends are all sick of wow and ready for some real dungeon crawling. Now back in the day everyone raved about how great bards were with the heavy repeater, and all the other classes cried foul it was so nifty. Now i never made one myself, but now it appears that everyone is against the repeater for bards. What happened? Was everyone nuts in the beginning? Or was the level 10 cap keeping it useful? Let me know!

It was the level 10 cap thing.

[Strakeln]

While they are at it, they can explain how an enraged barbarian becomes more skillful at weilding a weapon and finding weaks spots in the enemies defenses. Crit rage is silly to begin with. Now you want them to justify it applying to a paticular weapon type.

They're hitting so hard that they bash through armor and create new weak spots?

[sigtrent]

It's a little complicated.....

A. A build focused on using a repeater will do no where near the damage of a build fucused on a melee fighting style

B. A repeating crossbow is a strong weapon in terms of damge, crit range and rate of fire. So if you take some "average" character wtih no feats and average sorts of stats, they will probably do more damage with the repeater than any other weapon. The problem is it has very little you can do to make it do more damage.

C. People wern't very good at making builds in the early days of DDO so a repeater seemd pretty awesome because on a so/so build a repeater was pretty sweet.

D. They are a good bard weapon becasue they don't require much build commitment to do decent damage. Other weapons need an investment in many feats (see bows, two weapon fighting style etc) or stat investments in strength and con for melee fighting. all you really need to use a repeater decently is the repeater feat and a tolerable dex score.

So basicaly if you are comparing all weapons and all builds... repeater builds are pretty weak damage wise.
If you are comparing what weapon to take for a character not focused on combat, repeaters are pretty awesome.

And finaly bards are the best class for adding extra damage to repeaters. Anything wtih high rate of fire is good for getting the most from inspire coruage bonuses. Most other classes do extra damage via strength, or some special attack that works poorly or not at all with ranged weapons.


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My bard uses a heavy repeater but only has spent the feat for proficeincy. It is quite a handy weapon for kiting monsters and throwing out status effects on targets. (curse is great for solo play as it makes spells stick better etc...) In group play I use it as a way to add some damage without actualy getting into the thick of a big fight (since my bard is very fragile HP wise). For pure DPS I use a Kopesh and Improved Crit Slash as it just kills much faster than a repeater ever could.

[Westerner]

Ranged needs an across-the-board RoF boost. The beta thinking of "ranged is too powerful" is now obsolete with casters killing mobs at a distance via FoD and PK.

[sigtrent]

Ranged needs an across-the-board RoF boost. The beta thinking of "ranged is too powerful" is now obsolete with casters killing mobs at a distance via FoD and PK.

It did get one in, Mod 5? I forget which one but they tied ROF to your BAB and it increased ranged combat speeds by at least 30% for high level characters. I find ranged very effective when playing solo or in a group where multiple people have good ranged characters.