Please make manyshot a stance

[Angelus_dead]

Here's a point at which v3.5 sacrifices a lot of realism.. the only penalty for firing using Manyshot, without the Shot on the Run feat at a dead run is another -4 to hit. I have enough trouble knocking an arrow at a walk, let alone knocking two or three while sprinting.

But in D&D if you're not running, you can just make a longbow full-attack anyhow, and get the same number of arrows-per-round without using a Manyshot feat.

The full attack is at -0, -5, -10, -15, for an average of -7.5 attack, while the Manyshot is at -8, -8, -8, -8, for an average of -8 attack. Therefore, D&D characters don't even gain DPS from manyshot unless they were planning to move while fighting.

PS. The word to rest an arrow on a bowstring and prepare to shoot is spelled "nock".

[Angelus_dead]

I have to respectfully disagree here, people tout manyshot as if it's HIGH DPS, it's not, not even close. A dual wielding tempest ranger with green steel mops the floor with an archer in manyshot, the ROF is just too **** slow.

No. The only way that's true is if you figure in the smaller crit range of the bow (especially important if Puncturing is in play) and the time wasted for the ranged guy to switch back and forth between bow and other weapons as manyshot ends.

At BAB16, manyshot has nearly double the attacks per second as tempest.

[Aspenor]

At BAB16.

That may be the sticking point....IIRC my monk/ranger has BAB 15.

And of course it brings crit range into play...I never use anything but rapiers and shortswords.

[Turial]

If by "sub-par" you mean "less than a melee weapon", then yes, in fact it is justified. Giving bows MORE DPS than THF is obviously bad for gameplay, and even giving them a similar amount is bad.

The only way a Manyshot stance could be acceptable if that means something other than allowing rangers to double their arrow rate at the cost of some penalty on attack rolls. (For example, if you get 2 arrows per shot but shoot 40% slower, that might not be overpowered)

Too often, people who want to "fix" ranged combat assume that increasing DPS is a way to do it, and they particularly tend to think doubling, tripling, or quadrupling DPS by permanent manyshot would somehow be OK.

This is why I believe manyshot is quite broken (mechanically speaking) and a major change to all of ranged combat would be needed if any change was made to manyshot.

A -8 penalty is very easy to make up in DDO, +4 Greater Heroism and Tumbleweed give you only a -2 penalty. Heck PA is -5 and people rarely miss with it on when they plan for it.

[moorewr]

For those of you who want longbow DPS to be more than doubled, you'd do well to think through what you're asking for.

A simple experiment is load your ranger and solo to some dungeon encounter, especially a boss fight, and beat him once with TWF and then (after resetting the quest) again with a bow. Count up the number of attack rolls and saving throws the monster got on you, and then divide by the number of seconds he took to fight you. See what I mean?

Oh, yes, I agree. I like to do this Kobold's New Ringleader - there's a certain obvious spot to retreat back to so you have time to study combat logs while plinking the Ogre.. which is to support your point that ranged attacks carry very little risk for the attacker.

My other top two changes I'd make - make queued ranged shots interruptible like melee swings, and drop the speed you run directly backwards. Now you know.

It's true that it would be helpful to improve ranged combat somewhat, but multiplicatively boosting DPS is not the way. (It also helps to ponder this koan: "Does ranged stack with melee?")

Your koan is surely true.. both in one character and in a group. For example, a character with manyshot (and without any form of precision...) can stand behind the shield wall in a doorway and pull aggro of the melees almost as effectively as an arcane.

[Aesop]

Increasing the Base Rate of Attack for Ranged would be a better start.

If you want MS as a Stance it would HAVE TO come with a RoA Penalty or be unbalancing.

Read the Many Shot blurb again. Note that it is a Standard Action. Meaning that you can use it ONCE per round and Move. At a BAB of 16 and the Rapid Shot Feat you fire 5 Times in PnP with Many Shot you fire ONCE and get to Fire 4 Arrows at the same time. You Are LOSING an Arrow per Round with Many Shot... but you can move in the same space of time. That's the actual benefit of Many Shot. In Fact with Many Shot if you Critically hit you only get to apply that Critical to 1 Arrow... not the whole group.

Now in an MMO that isn't nearly as useful as it should be so you tweak it to fire a bit more ... but not so that it dominates combat.



Assume they do improve RoA for Ranged Combat so that at base it attacks roughly 80% the speed of single handed Melee.

With Rapid Shot adding an improvement that would bring Ranged to 90% of Single Handed Melee.

Manyshot would have to reduce the RoA back down to 80% base (because you can't Rapd Shot while using Many Shot) and then apply a Penalty to RoA on top of that in order to be remotely balanced. I mean if the Penalty dropped the first extra Arrow RoA down to 60% the RoA of Melee the Archer would still have more Attacks over the same time. Each after that would have a cumulatve effect. 3 Arrows would bring ya to 45% of melee and 4 Arrows to 30% of Melee... and ya know what ... you'd still get more Attacks per Minute than Melee would at that point...

However you'd be shooting awefully slow at this point.

Now another option that was put forth is a CLICKY option. I know everyone hates clickies but it may be the better option in the long run.

10 or so second cooldown (like Cleave, Great Cleave etc) and you fire your full compliment of Many Shot arrows.... ONCE. you keep shooting and when the Cooldown comes back around plink.

Alternately you could combine the two ideas. A Stance with a Cooldown between each Volley of Many Shot. Fire Normally but every 10 sec or so once of your Attacks is a Volley of multiple arrows.


Many Shot as a Stance with the way it works now would not be balanced. Far better to improve RoA first and tone down Many SHot than to just up the power of Many Shot.

Aesop

[Angelus_dead]

It's true that it would be helpful to improve ranged combat somewhat, but multiplicatively boosting DPS is not the way. (It also helps to ponder this koan: "Does ranged stack with melee?")

By the way, here's how to improve ranged combat:

1. Give a way to trade attack bonus for damage, but limited and not raising attack speed. Ranged Power Attack would be perfect.

2. Increase the ability of monsters to fight back while being kited. The rough AI priorities should be
a. Chase the kiter and use melee.
b. If (a) fails, then stop chasing and use ranged.
c. If (b) fails to produce a reasonable number of attack rolls (or spell strikes), then deaggro the kiter so that other, more accessible enemies are attacked first.
d. If (c) fails by lack of accessible enemies, go defensive and run away to a room less exposed to ranged attack.

3. Allow ranged characters to moderately reduce the movement speed of their targets, with abilities like Ranged Trip and Ranged Hamstring.

The key insight is to see that the problem with ranged combat isn't a lack of DPS: the problem is poor cooperation between ranged and melee attacks. You could say that "Melee and ranged don't stack", although that's hyperbole: in reality, they stack some but give diminishing returns.

That is, if we start with a solo melee guy and give him a helper also fighting melee, their DPS is doubled and combat success is more than doubled. If we take a solo archer and give him another archer player, then DPS and success also about double. But adding an archer to a solo melee doesn't improve the result that much: either the melee gets aggro first, and then is beat up while the archer inflicts low DPS, or the archer pulls aggro first, kiting the mob around so the melee can hardly get a hit in.

You see, if two melees are fighting a monster and trading aggro, they both can continue making attack rolls at the same rate regardless of who has aggro at the moment. If one shield-blocks until he loses aggro, then as soon as he does he can resume swinging. And if two archers a fighting a monster, they can also basically keep hitting the mob regardless of who in the room he's aggroed on (pillars occasionally interrupt it). But that doesn't work with mixed ranged and melee: the archers can still shoot wherever the monster goes, but the melees cannot necessarily catch someone who's being kited.

[moorewr]

PS. The word to rest an arrow on a bowstring and prepare to shoot is spelled "nock".

My head knows that.. now just tell my fingers...

[Angelus_dead]

Your koan is surely true.. both in one character and in a group. For example, a character with manyshot (and without any form of precision...) can stand behind the shield wall in a doorway and pull aggro of the melees almost as effectively as an arcane.

No, it's not true: or at least not true in a simplistic sense. (I called it a koan because it disguises a complex answer as if it were a binary yes-or-no)

A shield wall, btw, is not a melee. It's any warm body who can plug up space, regardless of if he can fight with a weapon, or even owns one.

[moorewr]

A shield wall, btw, is not a melee. It's any warm body who can plug up space, regardless of if he can fight with a weapon, or even owns one.

Inexact semantics on my part - they are IN melee, even if their contribution is limited to holding down the shift key.

[Aesop]

By the way, here's how to improve ranged combat:

1. Give a way to trade attack bonus for damage, but limited and not raising attack speed. Ranged Power Attack would be perfect.


I've never like the idea of an Overdraw... and RoA should be improved (imo)



2. Increase the ability of monsters to fight back while being kited. The rough AI priorities should be
a. Chase the kiter and use melee.
b. If (a) fails, then stop chasing and use ranged.
c. If (b) fails to produce a reasonable number of attack rolls (or spell strikes), then deaggro the kiter so that other, more accessible enemies are attacked first.
d. If (c) fails by lack of accessible enemies, go defensive and run away to a room less exposed to ranged attack.


I'd perfer.
a. Chase the kiter while firing ranged attacks
b. If you achieve melee range use melee
c. If (a) fails to produce a reasonable number of attack rolls (or spell strikes), then deaggro the kiter so that other, more accessible enemies are attacked first.
d. If (c) fails by lack of accessible enemies, go defensive and run away to a room less exposed to ranged attack


3. Allow ranged characters to moderately reduce the movement speed of their targets, with abilities like Ranged Trip and Ranged Hamstring.


Ok I can see this one

Aesop

[Angelus_dead]

stuff

Yes, helping mobs to make ranged attacks as they move could partly fix it. For better results, the mob would be at -4 attack for running and shooting, and if he gets attack rolls but they miss, he'd stop running and try shooting in place a little.

[cappuccino]

Increasing the Base Rate of Attack for Ranged would be a better start.

If you want MS as a Stance it would HAVE TO come with a RoA Penalty or be unbalancing.

Read the Many Shot blurb again. Note that it is a Standard Action. Meaning that you can use it ONCE per round and Move. At a BAB of 16 and the Rapid Shot Feat you fire 5 Times in PnP with Many Shot you fire ONCE and get to Fire 4 Arrows at the same time. You Are LOSING an Arrow per Round with Many Shot... but you can move in the same space of time. That's the actual benefit of Many Shot. In Fact with Many Shot if you Critically hit you only get to apply that Critical to 1 Arrow... not the whole group.

Now in an MMO that isn't nearly as useful as it should be so you tweak it to fire a bit more ... but not so that it dominates combat.



Assume they do improve RoA for Ranged Combat so that at base it attacks roughly 80% the speed of single handed Melee.

With Rapid Shot adding an improvement that would bring Ranged to 90% of Single Handed Melee.

Manyshot would have to reduce the RoA back down to 80% base (because you can't Rapd Shot while using Many Shot) and then apply a Penalty to RoA on top of that in order to be remotely balanced. I mean if the Penalty dropped the first extra Arrow RoA down to 60% the RoA of Melee the Archer would still have more Attacks over the same time. Each after that would have a cumulatve effect. 3 Arrows would bring ya to 45% of melee and 4 Arrows to 30% of Melee... and ya know what ... you'd still get more Attacks per Minute than Melee would at that point...

However you'd be shooting awefully slow at this point.

Now another option that was put forth is a CLICKY option. I know everyone hates clickies but it may be the better option in the long run.

10 or so second cooldown (like Cleave, Great Cleave etc) and you fire your full compliment of Many Shot arrows.... ONCE. you keep shooting and when the Cooldown comes back around plink.

Alternately you could combine the two ideas. A Stance with a Cooldown between each Volley of Many Shot. Fire Normally but every 10 sec or so once of your Attacks is a Volley of multiple arrows.


Many Shot as a Stance with the way it works now would not be balanced. Far better to improve RoA first and tone down Many SHot than to just up the power of Many Shot.

Aesop

now that!

/Signed!


Though I also like to leave manyshot the way it is, but as suggested in here, lower the cooldown based on # ranger levels above 6 (same way the extra arrows increases by BAB)

But something has to give. I've been playing a ranged ranger since this game launched and unless I am "manyshotting" I am no where even close to a melee, and my manyshot over 2 minutes only just comes close to a TWFer.

The original OP I also like.


Just give me something! LOL

[Aesop]

Yes, helping mobs to make ranged attacks as they move could partly fix it. For better results, the mob would be at -4 attack for running and shooting, and if he gets attack rolls but they miss, he'd stop running and try shooting in place a little.

Yeah that makes sense.

For the cost in Feat Ranged should havethe ability to do decent straight up damage though and not just be relegated to a support role. THeir Feat investment over time is as great and actually greater than TWF.

I'm not saying the Damage output should equal that of TWF (given the positioning advantage) however beign at roughly 1/3 the damage output of TWF for more feat cost is a little ... crazy.

imo of course

Aesop

[binnsr]

Though I also like to leave manyshot the way it is, but as suggested in here, lower the cooldown based on # ranger levels above 6 (same way the extra arrows increases by BAB)

Non-ranger manyshotters would take offense at this implementation. Make the cooldown based on BAB, not on ranger levels and I'd be ok with this one.

[moorewr]

My full prescription:

• Make Manyshot a stance
• Fix extra arrows so they do not crit or get sneak attack bonuses
• Drop your rate of movement during the firing animation unless you have Shot on the Run
• Reduce the straight-back run speed (you know, the "over the shoulder" animation) - voila, you can't just kite and shoot forever...
• Bring in Rapid Fire for stationary fire

[maddmatt70]

/not signed. Although I am a bow user and in general want improvements in ranged combat, this would suddenly make bow user the best dps in ddo by a significant amount which is too much for ddo. The only thing worse then having bow usage be irrelevant is to make melee combat irrelevant.

[maddmatt70]

I have to respectfully disagree here, people tout manyshot as if it's HIGH DPS, it's not, not even close. A dual wielding tempest ranger with green steel mops the floor with an archer in manyshot, the ROF is just too **** slow.

Incorrect, manyshot beats a ranger with twf... Get a real archer (strength based fully specced archer) and compare that archer with twf.

[Angelus_dead]

Incorrect, manyshot beats a ranger with twf...

As long as Manyshot lasts, the Tempest gets ~76 attacks and the archer gets ~115. The archer doesn't get khopesh crits, but he doesn't have 50% str damage on half his attacks either.

[binnsr]

Incorrect, manyshot beats a ranger with twf... Get a real archer (strength based fully specced archer) and compare that archer with twf.

/disagree .. I do a whole lot more damage on my tempest barby (10brb/6rgr) with a pair of rapiers than I do with a bow on her. Even with a +15 str bonus and a Silver bow, a pair of non-shroud rapiers at +10% attack speed (and the same +15 str bonus) severely out damage the bow.

Change manyshot to a stance and that would probably change .. I'd probably switch Spring Attack for Point Blank and gTWF for Shot on the run, which with mod9 will give me a frenzy II archer with all-the-time manyshot.

Of course, then I'd have to grind out some greensteel bows for her and, frankly, I'm getting tired of that game (but that's off topic)