Revive The Arcane Archer -->

[krud]

I suggest that you should be able to choose between a set selection of 1st level spells with the first level of this enhancement - then you can take higher levels of the enhancements which unlock higher level spells, but require more caster levels.

For instance, Arcane Archer Imbue Spells 1 requires Wiz1 or Sor1, Arcane Archer, and allows you to fire Magic Missile or Charm Person arrows. Arcane Archer Imbue Spells 2 requires Wiz5 or Sor6 and Arcane Archer, and lets you fire Fireball arrows, Lightning Bolt arrows and Melf's Acid Arrow arrows. Arcane Archer Imbue Spells 3 requires Wiz11 or Sor12, and allows Chain Lightning arrows, Oitluke's Freezing Sphere arrows, and Charm Monster arrows.

I like it too, would be perfect for neato (elf, 1rgr/15wiz), and it fits well with the original concept I had for him. It would give me a good reason to continue speccing for bows.

[GrayOldDruid]

I can't wait to see what kind of carpet bombing builds this will create Arcane Archer builds rejoice!

Manyshot Fireball arrows!! Now that is Cover-fire.

[Aesop]

What would you modify/add/delete?

well these are the abilities listed in Deepwoods sniper (that I could find). Though this is the 3.0 version I believe and someone said there is a 3.5 version I just don't recall the source... but anyway

Keen Arrows (Ex) : At 1st level, all projectiles the deepwood sniper fires behave as if they were keen weapons in addition to any other properties they might possess. Thus, a normal arrow fired by a deepwood sniper has a threat range of 19-20 instead of 20. This effect does not stack with any other keen effect .

Range Increment Bonus (Ex) : With each level the deepwood sniper gains, the range increments of her projectile weapons increase by +10 feet (added after all multipliers) . Thus, a 10th-level deepwood sniper who has the Far Shot feat would have a 280-foot range increment with a heavy crossbow (120 feet x 1 .5 + 100 feet).

Concealment Reduction (Ex) : When the deepwood sniper reaches 2nd level, her miss chance against opponents with concealment drops by 10%. Thus, she has a miss chance of 10% rather than 20% against an opponent with one-half concealment . Her miss chance drops by an additional 10% per four deepwood sniper levels she gains thereafter, but this ability never reduces her miss chance against any opponent below 0%.

Magic Weapon (Sp): At 2nd level, the character can produce an effect identical to that of a magic weapon spell cast by a cleric of her deepwood sniper level. This ability is usable once per day on projectile weapons only.

Projectile Improved Critical (Ex) : When the deepwood sniper reaches 2nd level, the critical damage multipliers of all her projectile weapons increase by +1. Thus, an arrow that normally deals damage x3 on a critical hit instead does damage x4 in her hands. When she reaches 7th level, these critical multipliers increase by an additional +1 .

Safe Poison Use (Ex): At 3rd level, a deepwood sniper can use poison without any chance of poisoning herself (see Perils of Using Poison in Chapter 3 of the DUNGEON MASTER's Guide).

Take Aim (Ex) : A 4th-level deepwood sniper can gain a +2 bonus on her attack rolls against a stationary target by aiming carefully.Taking aim is a full-round action, and if the target moves more than 5 feet during that period, the bonus is lost. No additional benefit exists for spending more than 1 round aiming. This bonus increases to +4 at 8th level.

Consistent Aim (Su) : Once per day, a 5th-level deepwood sniper can reroll one attack roll that she has just made with a projectile weapon. She must keep that result, even if it is worse than the original roll. She can use this ability twice per day at 7th level and three times per day at l0th level, though each use must relate to a different attack roll.

True Strike (Sp): At 10th level, the deepwood sniper can produce an effect identical to that of a true strike spell cast by a cleric of her deepwood sniper level. This ability is usable once per day on projectile weapons only.


so just to get a general feeling of this that would be easy to do...


Deepwoods Sniper I

Static:+1 crit multiplier
Activate: Poison Shot (select from 4 poison types)


Deepwoods Sniper II

Static: +1 Crit Multiplier (total +2)
Activate: Take Aim +4 to hit


honestly the Activate powers are a bit weak...maybe instead

tier 1 could be +2 to hit (or maybe Seeker) and Poison

tier 2 could be +4 to hit (or Seeker) and poison with a higher DC



if someone has the source on 3.5 Deepwoods Sniper let me know

[Kulothar]

First off I think the +1 arrows are useless since a bow will be at least +1.
You need to start at least with +2 arrows or make the + stack with a bow. THAT would make it worth while.
Next with each step there should be a 2 - 5 % boost in bow speed. 2% is reasonable if other abilities are boosted.
Summoning "elemental" arrow is fine but it would be nice is at stage 2 you could summon a choice of which element.
At step 3 maybe the ability to summon special arrows such as transmuting, cold iron, silver, etc
At step 4 holy/unholy/chaos etc.
At step 5 a 5% slaying or special ability would be nice.

That would put a pure range archer on par with his melee counterparts.

[Coldin]

The simple fact is that even 100% returning +5 arrows are pretty much useless to most bow users. With quivers, you don't even need to bother taking up inventory slots with arrows, and eventually most players will have +3-5 bows at cap. True Strike is a little help, but it's cool-down makes it cumbersome to use, plus it's another clicky ability to keep track of.

Adding force damage might help the enhancement a little, but I think it's going to need a bit more than that to be truly worth the feat and AP investment.

[Jay203]

First off I think the +1 arrows are useless since a bow will be at least +1.
You need to start at least with +2 arrows or make the + stack with a bow. THAT would make it worth while.
Next with each step there should be a 2 - 5 % boost in bow speed. 2% is reasonable if other abilities are boosted.
Summoning "elemental" arrow is fine but it would be nice is at stage 2 you could summon a choice of which element.
At step 3 maybe the ability to summon special arrows such as transmuting, cold iron, silver, etc
At step 4 holy/unholy/chaos etc.
At step 5 a 5% slaying or special ability would be nice.

That would put a pure range archer on par with his melee counterparts.

the first set of arcane arrows are only meant to substitute the need to have 100000000000 arrows in your pack
the second set is when it starts to add bonus

[Kulothar]

the first set of arcane arrows are only meant to substitute the need to have 100000000000 arrows in your pack
the second set is when it starts to add bonus

I am on my third set and since I use +5 bows...
Set 2 - 5 do not add any value to a greensteel bow which is what this discussion should address.
it still only replaces 100000000000 arrows which I could carry in multiple quivers or make daily trips back to the +3 merchant. As it is my rogue, bard, Wiz and Sorc carry summon arrow wands. Making a greensteel arrow would render this completely useless which is why they haven't added one. Right now a greensteel throwing dagger or star makes this marginal. As it is when I go against the pit fiend or other special mobs I use Silver, X-bane or slayer arrows.

The +1 - +5 by themselves is useless by the times you get them so all you get is endless arrows in exchange for the Enhancement points. Lets see the Devs make this skill useful past 1 enhancement point.

[~Jules921]

We've got an additional sub-enhancement coming that will allow the Arcane Archer to imbue their arrow with a Magic Missile effect, granting additional force damage. More are planned in the future, including things like "Fireball arrow".

Very Nice! I have 2 that use Arcane Archer already and thinking of changing a 3rd for it.

Jules

[The10man]

I have a capped "Ranged rogue" (15 ranger Deepwoods sniper/1 Rogue with maxed out skills) Maybe I don't realize the benefits that I get from deepwoods that are passive but when i click my "sniper shot" active I notice little effect most of the time and sometimes I even miss with it.(That'll twist your knickers let me tell ya!) I built this character to be ranged all the time when I started her and now at end game am about 80% ranged. I do awesome damage to the pit fiend with my greensteel bow and silver arrows from house D, but I am wondering should I have went tempest for the 20% that I'm not ranged due to quest or party makeup. It seems like I am missing out on damage there and it wouldn't change my ranged damage at least during the "active sniper shot" time. Can anyone CONSTRUCTIVLY comment on that? Am I missing the passive benefits? Is arcane archer better for this or does it just give you the arrows? Should I switch when this mod gets put in if I want to stay ranged most of the time?

[muffinlad]

I have a capped "Ranged rogue" (15 ranger Deepwoods sniper/1 Rogue with maxed out skills) Maybe I don't realize the benefits that I get from deepwoods that are passive but when i click my "sniper shot" active I notice little effect most of the time and sometimes I even miss with it.(That'll twist your knickers let me tell ya!) I built this character to be ranged all the time when I started her and now at end game am about 80% ranged. I do awesome damage to the pit fiend with my greensteel bow and silver arrows from house D, but I am wondering should I have went tempest for the 20% that I'm not ranged due to quest or party makeup. It seems like I am missing out on damage there and it wouldn't change my ranged damage at least during the "active sniper shot" time. Can anyone CONSTRUCTIVLY comment on that? Am I missing the passive benefits? Is arcane archer better for this or does it just give you the arrows? Should I switch when this mod gets put in if I want to stay ranged most of the time?

Personally, I feel that the Sniper Shot should be always on for the DwS. Tempest Rangers are far more powerful, and this would even it up a bit.

muffinarcher

[Aesop]

Personally, I feel that the Sniper Shot should be always on for the DwS. Tempest Rangers are far more powerful, and this would even it up a bit.

muffinarcher

Another Possibility for the DWS is something like this ... maybe a Toggle ability but have it slow down shooting by 10%... of course this would be after a massive increase to Ranged Rate of Fire

Aesop

[Turial]

So Eladrin any chances of a more structured idea as to what the boosts to arcane archer maybe? Maybe tier 1 does this and just let us speculate from there. Pretty please.

[drac317]

i agree that ranged combat as a whole needs to be fixed, but both AA and DWS are considerabley weaker than tempest and the problem should be adressed for both. though i do like my DWS it could be better balanced.

[Turial]

i agree that ranged combat as a whole needs to be fixed, but both AA and DWS are considerabley weaker than tempest and the problem should be adressed for both. though i do like my DWS it could be better balanced.

One would hope that the additions to AA would also include an addition like DWS II. Otherwise AA would become the dominate archer form simply because it has its next form.

Also yes to looking at fixes for ranged combat.

[Geonis]

The sad thing about bow combat, is I would put my repeater Ranger (Rgr 13/Ftr 2/Rog 1) up against any build of the Ranged Specialties, and out dps them.

[SqtYork]

I have a holy bow of gtr bane, with my ranger str damage bonus, and my favor att/dam bonus I can wander thru GH and kite kill most of the giant class mobs without taking too much damage. If it was transmuting / or +4 / elemental now that would make it even more fun

I love seeing the multishot damage flash and see them drop in one to three salvos. 100% returning would certainly be nice. I am building a pure Arcane based ranger just to check it out. But it's only 4th level now. Way to early to tell. Kiting is the way to kill stuff and not have to spend a bunch of pp on repairs, pots, and SPs.

[barecm]

We've got an additional sub-enhancement coming that will allow the Arcane Archer to imbue their arrow with a Magic Missile effect, granting additional force damage. More are planned in the future, including things like "Fireball arrow".

Is there any news on the development front on this topic? I know information on the Tempest line has been released, but nothing on Arcane that I have seen. Can anyone confirm the rumors of fireball arrows or something better than lvl 1 magic missle arrows that we have now?

Sincerely,
Ranged Combat (aka the "other" combat)

[negative]

Meh. My AA spec'd ranger makes a pretty good TWF. I don't see a need to change anything.

[barecm]

It's pretty much par for the course that the most over-used or populated build, the tempest ranger, gets an enhancement increase while the most under-developed, under-powered build, the ranged combatant, gets zero. I just wish Turbine would come out and say "hey, we don't like ranged combat... quit asking us to develop for it" and be done with it so I can quit keeping my hopes up.

[Uska]

That's a good start that ties to the imbue arrows power in the Prestige Class.

Of the other powers I think

• Seeker Arrow and Phase Arrow aren't that useful in DDO. Perhaps give the archer an active use Precise shot in place of these?
• Hail of Arrows would be possible in game - an AoE piercing attack clicky.
• Arrow of death seems like a good possibility for crafting.. the effect is easy enough (a DC 20 FoD). The question would be whether to make it a single use clicky that consumes the crafted item, or to make it a returning arrow, or consume it when it hits, or what. PnP doesn't indicate anything special about the arrow in this regard, but then, in PnP the victor can search tha battlefield for intact arrows.

what about pure ranger AA we already have this so something else more overal useful would be better