Crossbows - Any reason to use over bows?

[elyssaria]

There are possibly multiple reasons for that, but a major one is that DDO's ranged combat is broken, so spending effort to give specific classes a bonus to ranged fighting is a waste of time. Once the existing ranged combat system is fixed they could consider building special features onto it; but until that happens, any additions will just get in the way of the real fix.

In what way is the ranged combat broken?

/E

[elyssaria]

The Repeating Crossbow (RC) requires the use of a feat.

DEX is importnat here both for TO HIT and for DAMAGE

Hmmm this got me curious... you say DEX are important for damage. Would you mind explaining that a bit more?

/Ely

[honkuimushi]

I've often wondered why ddo hasn't taken a bite out of 4e and given Rogues some sort of synergy with crossbows.

Well, in 3.5 there is the Crossbow Sniper feat that allowed you to make sneak attacks with a crossbow from 60' and add half your dex bonus to damage.

I think the main reason this hasn't been implemented is because Repeaters were so dominant for the first year and a half or 2 years. I do think it would be good to add, after all, a repeater build is already feat starved and the bonus to damage (especially being Dex based) might be enough to make them more viable at higher levels, especially with the nerf to stat damage.

[gamblerjoe]

the reason things like xbows exist is because there have to be substandard weapons. in fact the way loot works in dnd compared to conventional MMOs makes it necessary for 1/4-1/3 of the weapon types to be useless. the reason for this is that everyone is going to want rapiers, khopeshes, d-axes and greataxes. in order to prevent everyone from being able to get what they want too quickly and easily they have to water down the loot tables with junk.

[Zooloo]

I have a question:

In Eve-Online, they have Autocannons(dps, short range, fast tracking) and Artillery(alpha, long range, slow tracking).

One idea with alpha damage is to bring a few friends to be able to one shot a target. Do bow and crossbow have a similar relationship in DDO?

[Aranticus]

Hmmm this got me curious... you say DEX are important for damage. Would you mind explaining that a bit more?

/Ely

if you miss you dun do damage

[Aranticus]

I have a question:

In Eve-Online, they have Autocannons(dps, short range, fast tracking) and Artillery(alpha, long range, slow tracking).

One idea with alpha damage is to bring a few friends to be able to one shot a target. Do bow and crossbow have a similar relationship in DDO?

at lower levels yeah you could 1 shot a mob coz some have like 5-20 hp. at the higher levels, you need alot of shot. a shroud orthon has like 5000 hp and your damage at best hit 200 on a bow (without counting the high end effect like lightning strike which does about 600 damage)

[Angelus_dead]

In what way is the ranged combat broken?

Because it doesn't make an acceptable contribution to combat success, meaning that to use a ranged weapon is not as viable a choice as it should be. If you're going through a regular dungeon and one member is walking around with a bow or crossbow, that's a sign that he's not going to be helpful in battle. (There are rare situations where melee is unusable and ranged is your only choice, but that's still broken)

It would require a fairly lengthy writeup to explain all the details of why that is, and why the devs have no easy way to fix it. You should be able to mostly figure it out if you load the game and give bows and crossbows a try. But here's something to watch out for which isn't entirely obvious:
1. Ranged and melee don't stack, which is a problem.
2. Increasing the DPS of ranged so it's no longer underpowered wouldn't fix that problem.

One idea with alpha damage is to bring a few friends to be able to one shot a target. Do bow and crossbow have a similar relationship in DDO?

Technically that is possible, but in reality the answer is no: ranged weapons in DDO should not be considered analogous to those in a game where ranged combat is a standard effective tactic. The only enemies who can be OSOKed by coordinated fire are ones that were too weak to bother with anyway.

[Angelus_dead]

Well, in 3.5 there is the Crossbow Sniper feat that allowed you to make sneak attacks with a crossbow from 60' and add half your dex bonus to damage.

If they add Crossbow Sniper, it should give less of a bonus to the rapid shots from a repeater, so as to be more balanced, both compared to melee and to other kinds of crossbows.

[Zenako]

Because it doesn't make an acceptable contribution to combat success, meaning that to use a ranged weapon is not as viable a choice as it should be. If you're going through a regular dungeon and one member is walking around with a bow or crossbow, that's a sign that he's not going to be helpful in battle. (There are rare situations where melee is unusable and ranged is your only choice, but that's still broken)

It would require a fairly lengthy writeup to explain all the details of why that is, and why the devs have no easy way to fix it. You should be able to mostly figure it out if you load the game and give bows and crossbows a try. But here's something to watch out for which isn't entirely obvious:
1. Ranged and melee don't stack, which is a problem.
2. Increasing the DPS of ranged so it's no longer underpowered wouldn't fix that problem.

Technically that is possible, but in reality the answer is no: ranged weapons in DDO should not be considered analogous to those in a game where ranged combat is a standard effective tactic. The only enemies who can be OSOKed by coordinated fire are ones that were too weak to bother with anyway.

Ok A_D I understand where you are coming from, but for a new player, many of the points you make are way too obscure to mean anything and anyway most only truely apply at end game where the mob HP are vastly greater, meaning that ALL DPS whether it be ranged or melee or DPS Spells is gimped.

The utility of ranged is also heavily dependant on the play style of the group, and the skill of the players. In point #1 above about not stacking, it is a fairly subtle issue that is driven by how monsters in the game choose whom to be aggrovating on and seek to attack. In general terms, if you are doing the most damage to the monster it will choose you, BUT, the first person to hurt the monster gets the attention first and to take it away you have to do enough to make it change its mind about choice of enemy. So in a typical group, that means if the archer has hit a monster, it will seek out the archer. Many archers try to avoid getting into melee and will run around while continuing to shoot the monster. (Typical kiting tactic from many games, especially some single player games. Often can kill the monster without ever getting hit.) However, due to how the game dynamics work (or don't) it is almost impossible to get a hit on a monster you are running behind, meaning that someone choosing to stay with their melee weapon ends up just swinging and missing.

On the other hand, most melees will pack together and gather mobs into a clump and just swing away and kill the monsters before they themselves get killed, but in general take a bunch of damage along the way, which they either heal themselves, or expect the skilled healer in the party to cure. For most groups, the melee mobbing the monsters and healing up the damage is a quicker solution, and there is a substantial portion of the player base for whom qetting each quest over as quick as possible is the most important thing. So if it takes 15 seconds to defeat a group of monsters, instead of 25 or 30 seconds, that is important to them and their enjoyment of the game.

Now as for ranged being "broken", that is not a universally held opinion. As it is, most groups have no patience for it, just like many groups have no patience to wait for a rogue to disable traps, they just run thru them. Ranged combat does not mesh with the preferred playstyles of some, no question about it. However, it is not hard to show examples of ranged combat groups blowing thru quests as well. In fact get in a group with a bunch of skilled archer players and if you are a healer, you probably better make sure you know where your nonhealing spells are on your hot bars, since you might not need to use very many along the way. There are certain quests and raids where superior ranged firepower renders the quest very easy, while simple melee would be a pain in the butt and likely end up with numerous deaths.

[Angelus_dead]

Ok A_D I understand where you are coming from, but for a new player, many of the points you make are way too obscure to mean anything and anyway most only truely apply at end game where the mob HP are vastly greater, meaning that ALL DPS whether it be ranged or melee or DPS Spells is gimped.

Untrue:
1. Even at level 1, ranged combat is visibly inferior. To compare, go try Misery's Peak first with a bow and then with a rapier.
2. At high level, try running Shroud or VOD without DPS and then tell me it's still "gimped".

Now as for ranged being "broken", that is not a universally held opinion.

True, there are probably some people who disagree. Those people are wrong.

Ranged combat does not fulfill the gameplay role it should. Therefore, it is broken.

[Zenako]

Untrue:
1. Even at level 1, ranged combat is visibly inferior. To compare, go try Misery's Peak first with a bow and then with a rapier..

By what metric? surviving the quest, time to completion? Resources used? I would state pretty solidly that one can complete MP with almost no resources used (other than arrows) with a ranged attacker, while a melee attacker will need to use a number of pots to maintain their health.

2. At high level, try running Shroud or VOD without DPS and then tell me it's still "gimped"..

Umm, the recently posted all RANGED attack only Shroud completion not withstanding of course (if a time pretty comparable to most runs).

True, there are probably some people who disagree. Those people are wrong.

Ranged combat does not fulfill the gameplay role it should. Therefore, it is broken.

And what role is that? Being the Superior method of killing things over all else? Right now it suffers in some ways but more than makes up for it in other ways. The almost complete discounting of resources being used to survive ignores the painful reality of many players. Not everyone can just grab stacks of HEAL scrolls for 130,000 gold and not blink an eye. (some can, myself included, but quite a few cannot.) Ranged attacking tends to be less resource intensive, but trades that off with possibly slower kill times, and potentially longer quest times. (again that will really depend on the skill and gear of the archers, but in most quests the time difference will be miniscule.)

I understand that for many players, the ONLY thing that matters to them is optimized utilty and speed of completion in end game RAIDS. In that context small differences in DPS matter a lot to those types of players.

Many of those players come across as considering any build with less than 95% of the optimized potential to be gimped and useless, regardless of anything else they bring to the table. Frankly that is pretty narrow thinking in my opinion.

In any case, this is straying away from the OP's question quite a bit, and we have had this discussion before.

[Zaal]

Uh, maybe if you had a higher DPS in the first place, the Pit Fiend would die before their spellpoints ran out.

Here we go... someone always seems to wants to chime in on the build decision to go HRC rather than pure meele - however I did expect that you of all people would be more open to different play styles and not a cookie cutter approach.

Your personal attack is unwanted. Troll someone else.

[MrCow]

True, there are probably some people who disagree. Those people are wrong.

Ranged combat does not fulfill the gameplay role it should. Therefore, it is broken.

*Raises a curious eyebrow*

It fulfills the roll it has. It allows one to attack a target physically with generally higher levels of safety as well as negating the need to be next to the target to do so.

The other role given by DDO is area of effect damage (utilizing Improved Precise Shot). While situational, it has its uses, such as sniping chasing critters in a zerg-style run or to hit two Shroud portals at the same time.

[Zaal]

Hmmm this got me curious... you say DEX are important for damage. Would you mind explaining that a bit more?

/Ely

A bow's damamge comes from your strength , your ability to pull the bow string back. You'd think once you reached the breaking point of the bow that you'd no longer be able to do more damage but that law of physics doesn't apply here.

For a crossbow, you instead crank a handle to add tension to the string and eventually you lock the string in place - so I suppose it goes that since the sting will always have the same tension, strength doesn't come into play.

In a roundabout way it's like weapons finesse where your effectiveness is based on how well you essentially aim your shots - I guess!

Zaal, you might want to be picking up the Improved Crit: Ranged feat as well, since the IMP Crit Pierce only affects melee. (I learned this the hard way a long long time ago.)

Sorry - misspoke - yes I have crit Ranged and not Pierce

[Zaal]

Untrue:
1. Even at level 1, ranged combat is visibly inferior. To compare, go try Misery's Peak first with a bow and then with a rapier.
2. At high level, try running Shroud or VOD without DPS and then tell me it's still "gimped".


True, there are probably some people who disagree. Those people are wrong.

Ranged combat does not fulfill the gameplay role it should. Therefore, it is broken.

A facet not discussed here is the utility, in shroud/vod for example, to switch ammo to suit the situation. In shroud / vod and with the right repeater, one can do in the neighborhood of 100 damage on every bolt , up close and personal and - still getting sneak damage.

[Angelus_dead]

I would state pretty solidly that one can complete MP with almost no resources used (other than arrows) with a ranged attacker, while a melee attacker will need to use a number of pots to maintain their health.

Lol, you think that? Have you done it?

There are so many shrines that melee can refill a lot of hp, but there are SO many required zombies that ranged takes forever to win. The additional time spent slowly waiting for mobs to die could've been used to farm 10 more Curative Cloaks and Bracers of Aid. (And if the melee test uses a slashing weapon instead of just a rapier, he speeds up even more)

Umm, the recently posted all RANGED attack only Shroud completion not withstanding of course (if a time pretty comparable to most runs).

Yes, of course that doesn't matter. We went over why above.

And what role is that? Being the Superior method of killing things over all else?

It should be an acceptable choice for a combat character. As I already explained, if a normal party is going through a normal dungeon and one member is walking around with a ranged weapon out, it shouldn't be a dead giveaway that his character is a poor contributor. But unfortunately, it is.

Right now it suffers in some ways but more than makes up for it in other ways.

No, it does not.

Ranged attacking tends to be less resource intensive, but trades that off with possibly slower kill times, and potentially longer quest times.

No, it does not require enough fewer resources to be a fair tradeoff. If a ranged character is in a situation where he needs noticeably lower resource expenditure, one of two things is happening:
1. He would be more productive using a melee attack with more DPS than his bow, but less than normal melee.
2. He is using some kind of perching exploit, which should not be used as the basis for gameplay evaluation, and which the devs will remove if they notice it becoming prominent.

[Angelus_dead]

Here we go... someone always seems to wants to chime in on the build decision to go HRC rather than pure meele

This thread is from a newbie who is unfamiliar with how DDO gameplay works. It would be dishonest to conceal the fact that DDO's ranged combat style is brokenly weak. In many games, ranged is a viable choice that has a bit less DPS in exchange for safety and reaction time. Some of the DDO documentation is written as if ranged combat were an alternative on par with melee, but that's just not true.

- however I did expect that you of all people would be more open to different play styles and not a cookie cutter approach.

I would like it if ranged combat were a balanced choice so that more play styles were viable. But that would require fixes from the devs, and that's less likely to happen when people are denying that there's even a problem.

Your personal attack is unwanted. Troll someone else.

I should be saying that to you.

*Raises a curious eyebrow*

It fulfills the roll it has. It allows one to attack a target physically with generally higher levels of safety as well as negating the need to be next to the target to do so.

Uh, that is what ranged does, but is not everything it should do. "It does what it does" is a low standard of performance.

As I explained, the role that ranged combat should be performing is to be a viable choice for a combat character to use for most battles in a regular dungeon with a regular party. But what happens right now is that the guy walking around with a longbow or repeater is putting up a sign that he'll be only moderately more useful than being AFK.

If Turbine didn't want ranged to fill that kind of role, they would have to start signaling it by removing (or at least heavily modifying) the "Ranged Combatant" choices in the character creation menu, because it makes a promise they don't deliver.

A facet not discussed here is the utility, in shroud/vod for example, to switch ammo to suit the situation. In shroud / vod and with the right repeater, one can do in the neighborhood of 100 damage on every bolt , up close and personal and - still getting sneak damage.

Yes, you could do that. Or you skip all the effort of collecting them and use a rapier for a little less per-hit damage and attack faster. And of course, Arraetriko's melee reach is longer than the Sneak Attack distance limit.

But since using Bane bolts on devil bosses is being nerfed next patch, it's not much worth talking about.

[Zaal]

This thread is from a newbie who is unfamiliar with how DDO gameplay works. It would be dishonest to conceal the fact that DDO's ranged combat style is brokenly weak. In many games, ranged is a viable choice that has a bit less DPS in exchange for safety and reaction time. Some of the DDO documentation is written as if ranged combat were an alternative on par with melee, but that's just not true.

There was never an attempt from anyone in this tread to conceal anything - and you didn't address my concern of your unsolicited critique.

I would like it if ranged combat were a balanced choice so that more play styles were viable. But that would require fixes from the devs, and that's less likely to happen when people are denying that there's even a problem.

Again who is denying or concealing that there are problems?

But with respect to honesty, perhaps you should share positive aspects that a pure ranger can benefit from, like many shot, (improved) precise shot, the 25% bonus rangers get @ lvl 20 capstone. True, the OP is considering a ranged option for a rogue (I think… Not sure he really said that or implied it!), but it seems your position is more focused on ranged attack in general rather than "rogue" ranged attack.

I should be saying that to you.

Why?

Yes, you could do that. Or you skip all the effort of collecting them and use a rapier for a little less per-hit damage and attack faster. And of course, Arraetriko's melee reach is longer than the Sneak Attack distance limit.

I don't collect bolts - I do buy them - and per Mod 9, that literally make every one of HRC's transmuting. And yes there is a cost but I suspect the cost is dwarfed by the repair cost of those who do straight melee - and death damage from say Shroud blade lag, lag in general, mana-less clerics, etc...

I therefore DO NOT depend on others as often and I do NOT die as often as others and my costs are signifigantly lower than pure melee toons.

Interesting you point out that I'll do a little less damage with a rapier than say a HRC while the rapier has a faster attack (perhaps it's just me but, seem you just had a realization like up close with a HRC i can still get sneak attack damage??). Can you quantify that? What's the ratio? And if there’s a tangible DPS benefit towards melee, what do you consider enough of a percentage to swing either way?

The damage Arraetriko does in part five is an issue but again, when things look bad I can pull out AND CONTINUE TO DO DAMAGE - pretty good damage in fact.

But since using Bane bolts on devil bosses is being nerfed next patch, it's not much worth talking about.

Please be so kind as to provide a link to this.

[Angelus_dead]

There was never an attempt from anyone in this tread to conceal anything - and you didn't address my concern of your unsolicited critique.

By making an inaccurate claim that ranged combat is effective in DDO, you attempted to conceal the fact that it is brokenly weak. You created a false impression that ranged is a reasonably useful choice:

I have a build running around with a base 8 STR and wields an array of Heavy RC's and as far as I am concerned is quite effective - especially with IMPROVED CRIT PIECE feat and an array of BURST / BANE repeaters. I have this HOLY BURST of EVIL OUTSIDER BANE hrc that tears our shroud pit fiend to bitz.

But with respect to honesty, perhaps you should share positive aspects that a pure ranger can benefit from, like many shot, (improved) precise shot, the 25% bonus

It wouldn't make sense for me to post a list of off-topic facts. The relative advantages of Rangers compared to Rogues is irrelevant to my point, which was to remind everyone that ranged combat in DDO is broken.

I don't collect bolts - I do buy them - and per Mod 9, that literally make every one of HRC's transmuting. And yes there is a cost but I suspect the cost is dwarfed by the repair cost of those who do straight melee - and death damage from say Shroud blade lag, lag in general, mana-less clerics, etc...

Lol, repair costs, lol. That's plat. Plat isn't a real cost... time spent searching around for bane ammo and grouping it into stacks- that is a cost.

I therefore DO NOT depend on others as often

That is false. Particularly at high levels, a ranged character is more dependant than a melee guy. That's because for high level progress and profit, you must win raids. For a melee guy to come into a raid means to contribute to the victory, but a ranged character is relying on the generosity of others to let him loot.

Note that in mod3 this was reversed, and melee characters were dependent on Rangers to beat the Laliat raid for them. But that is long passed, and it wasn't good game design at the time either.

Can you quantify that? What's the ratio?

The attack speed ratio is +40%. There's an additional percentage advantage from critical power, although that matters more to Rangers than to Rogues.