Deflect Arrows

[Sani_Medicor]

I just gave it the ultimate test. I went out into the desert on a level 8 character with 28ac and no buffs. What I saw pretty much proved a theory I had about it. It seems to work well against monsters of your level or below. A cr8 firebrand gnoll missed me half a dozen times, but a cr10 eternal hunter never missed. Anyway, if anyone would like to do some more testing that would be great, but basically it seems like it will probably have some use depending on the level of quest you're running in comparison to the level of your character.

[MrCow]

Just remember with these tests... CR does not equal monster level. A CR 8 Firebrand Gnoll is indeed an 8 Hit Dice critter, but a CR 10 Eternal Hunter is a 15 Hit Dice critter.

Although, there are other things in DDO which are CR related and not HD related, like weapon wear and monster caster level.

[HumanRogue]

I don't think this feat does anything at all... anyone prove me wrong? Personally, I haven't noticed any difference.

[Sani_Medicor]

I'd sure like to know for sure if it works or not. Not getting hit by some of these evil desert arrows was definitely something I had in mind when I took the feat. It would be an expensive process with several feat swap outs, but pretty sure I could be sitting on cleave and whirlwind at level 9 without it. lol

[Mhykke]

It seems to me a feat best used for a high AC monk, if the feat deflects 1 arrow per number of seconds. The high AC would prevent most arrows from hitting, and the occasional one that gets past AC would be deflected.....at least that's how I hope it'll work.

[Sani_Medicor]

I'm very attempted to swap it out for cleave, but hate to give up my lesser dragon mark of passage. It's nice running around with 25% striding all the time. lol

[Zem]

After reading enough conflicting posts regarding how or if arrow deflection works to make my head spin I think we need a dev to address it. I have done testing in the C hills, and have never seen anything in the log about deflecting an arrow. Yet, other people have posted in the test risia forums that they have seen a message about deflection. I do not really like respec'ing much, but lets get a defintive yes or know from a dev on if this works and if so how are we to track how well its working?

Aside from that if it does work, then how about an animation of a blurred hand knocking the arrow away at super speed (done like a spell effect so that it does not interupt your current fight animation).

-Z

[Ikuryo]

I did some testing on Risia. Using my level 13 ranger and a level 6 monk as a target I tried out various things and the monk tried out some of the finishers on me so we could see what they did. We determined that Deflect Arrows stops one arrow every 5 seconds. Its not a boost to your AC and the shooter does not get a counter roll you just miss completely. The message that showed up in my log was arrow deflected, it did not matter what my to hit roll was because I was not given a roll at ALL. The feat description on the PHB does say that you must have a free hand to deflect arrows so it might only work with handwraps or no weapon in one of your hands.

I don't remember if they monk reported seeing the message in his log about the arrow being deflected or not. Using manyshot he only deflected the first of the arrows in the first pull, I got "Deflected, DMG, DMG" over his head.

You might want to try testing it with handwraps on. The tendency of monks to use 2 Kama these days means that you don't have a hand free and so you can't use the feat.

[Ikuryo]

I just picked up Deflect arrows on my monk on the main servers and it does not seem to be doing anything. While on Risia the first arrow I fired at a monk with it deflected it with handwraps equiped I was hit by the archer every time. I can test it out later and see if it works with nothing equiped but I think its bugged and not working on the main servers. Oh I'll also give it a try in PVP tavern and see if it does anything there.

[Zem]

Anyone seen this working any better.. or seeing any messages that it is working since the last patch? I have not.

[query]

But to quote Han Solo and others,
"I got a bad feeling about this."

[Maegin]

It would be nice to actually hear from them on how this feat works exactly. Do you have to target an archer for this to work? do you have to be higher level than the shooter? Buged? C'mon, what gives?

[Ikuryo]

I ran some tests of the feat "Deflect Arrows" today and I found the following. Using a level 2 cleric with a normal heavy crossbow I deflected his bolts the rare times he managed to hit me, probably on a 20. It did not matter if I was facing him or if I had him targeted. I then had a higher level multi-class player shoot at me a few times. I deflected one arrow about every 5 seconds as my previous tests had shown. It did not matter if I was using handwraps or a QS or dual kamas. I did not think to try while uncentered but I don't think that would matter. I then went into "Recover the lost tome" in the lighthouse in the harbor and let the skeleton archer in there by the switch shoot at me until he hit. In a level 2 quest he hardly ever got a hit for a roll but when he did ALL of his arrows hit me, not one was deflected. I also let a gnoll in the desert shoot at me and all of his arrows hit me as well. No deflections. Curiously the pure evil effect from his arrows was stopped if I had DR from blocking or earth stance. As soon as I went back into wind stance I started taking 1d8 in evil dmg from his arrows once more.

I also had some people throw various things at me. All daggers and shuriken thrown at me regardless of the angle hit me for full with no deflections. According to the Feat description anything smaller then a boulder thrown by a giant is supposed to be deflected, this includes thrown items such as daggers and shuriken. I suppose that mobs are being treated like they are throwing everything at players, even arrows and thus getting free hits on us but that seems odd.

In any case it is obvious that the feat is currently broken and not working as it should. All projectile weapons including arrows, bolts, daggers, shuriken, hammers, and darts should be blocked by the feat at the same rate regardless of who or what is firing it at you. The only thrown item I've seen in the game that would not be blocked is the boulders thrown by the various types of giants.

Please look into this feat. Its one that should reduce our incidental dmg but is currently not worth using a feat on at all. Its one of the feats I was looking forward to when I first read through monk in the PHB.

Thank you.

As a side note I also spared with a monk while running the tests and found that I saw green numbers over his head if he used the curse of healing on me. I have never seen green numbers when I used the attack on a mob but this leads me to believe that the mob is probably seeing green numbers over me whenever I hit him. =J

[Ikuryo]

Well I've posted the results of my testing, I would really like a reply even if its just a "We will look into it."

I really don't want to drop the feat but it serves no real purpose right now.