Crossbows - Any reason to use over bows?

[Fenrisulven6]

Ranged combat is still broken when considered outside that context. I already provided an example, which hasn't been replied to. Here it is again:

Suppose we have a normal party of 4 characters: Cleric, Wizard, Paladin, and Rogue. Then you join as a Ranger, with equal training and gear to fight with ranged or melee weapons. Your party is doing a level-appropriate quest like Shan-To-Kor, Tangleroot, Tear of Dhakan, or Cabal for One, and you come around a corner to see five enemy hobgoblins. Your party launches into a courageous attack.

What weapon style should your Ranger use to join in the combat?

The answer is that you should use melee, unless the 120 second Manyshot cooldown was finished. If you pull rapiers and run into battle you will greatly contribute to the team, but if you draw a bow and start shooting you won't. That is the truth, and that is why ranged combat in DDO can be labelled "broken".

For the last few months, I've been fighting against your model above. With zero success.

My 8th has a rr holy burst pg longbow [so its normally 10th lvl item?] and as much as I want it to work better than melee, I still find that dropping the bow and jumping into melee with 8th lvl weaps is more effective.

The only more effective use I've found for bow attacks is to deliver cursespew/destruction/para before the critter gets into melee range.

So yes, ranged is broken.

[Aranticus]

It is obvious for your passion on this topic that you actually care about ranged topic which I why I have never question that.

The key point in your statement above, in which I would guess 95% of the differences of opinion lie, is your opinion on "...as effective as it should be,..." point. You and many others are consistent in your opinion that it falls short of where you would like to see it. Others consider, that in their opnion the current balance acceptable. (and in your defense, since hardly anyone posts about considering it too powerful (at least currently) the net balance would lean towards the opinion of being less effective than most desire.) The core of that difference often lies in how the player views the overall effectiveness of the style, including: dealing damage, flexibility, resource useage, etc. When some of those factors (which weigh heavily in favor of ranged styles) are completely discounted in the tradeoff, due to things like resources being considered a non-factor, then sure, the balance appears off.

Personally I see far more hand to hand melees who never pull out a ranged attack than I ever see ranged attackers never pull out melee weapons. This discussion gets easily clouded with overlays of emotion based on bad players, and had been readily admited, a bad ranged player is more obvious than a bad melee player. It would be harder to discern the gimped bad melee player, while the bad ranged player tends to change the encounter dynamics so all can see. This is accentuated by all the Legolas wannabes, who try to mimic that fictional character in game, and fall woefully short.

(as a side comment, mea culpa, I missed that you choose a X3 crit melee weapon in the comparion, since the ranged weapon was a 2X and was directly comparing the two. Still not sure the miss on 1's was accounted for by either side however, but it somewhat balances out and obviously does not change the math significantly in your example.)

there is a range thread in the khyber forums with which i challenged a range proponent to duo a quest with me. we went into BAM and had alot of fun. there were areas where ranged works really well, ie getting the casters on the ledges but the ranging is less useful when facing the blackguards. there were a few times that i had to go to his aid

the main drawback of range is the inability to put out sustained dps. this is further excabated by the huge hp of some mobs. it is unfair to say how ranged is more flexible or resource effective but how one can combine range into the build. just yesterday i was running ritual with 2 other rangers and 3 casters. all 3 rangers were built differently

my ranger is 15rgr/1mnk with 60+ self buffed AC. my guildies ranger is a L13 dwarf ranger and the last ranger was a regular dex ranger (no raiments). all our playstyles were different. with my high AC i was confident of not getting hit much and went melee most of the times with min II and lightning II, and ranged air elementals with a w/p. my guildie opened combat with paralysing bow with precise shot and the closed with a dps axe paired with a para. the other ranger use MS w/p whenever possible and when cooldown is over, vorpaled stuff

the reason we could do this is because we were rangers and had free ranged feats. my fighter otoh is unable to be that flexible. a fighter has 15 feats, 3 focus, 2 spec, 3 wpn style, 1 IC, 1 PA, 1 toughness and is left with 4 feats. invest in ranged feats and the fighter suffers melee combat inefficiencies which can actually lead to more resource usage

there is no doubt that range is useful. but it is not so overwhelming useful that it replaces melee

ps: all my melees carry a returner, all my rangers carry a full complement of bows

[Zenako]

there is no doubt that range is useful. but it is not so overwhelming useful that it replaces melee

ps: all my melees carry a returner, all my rangers carry a full complement of bows

Mine too. One can always run out of ammo (although that was made a LOT harder with the good quivers we can get now! My ranger stocks two full thin ones (100 deep with 1000 Sturdy, 1000 Silver and 1000 Cold Iron in each) and a partially full wide one with 200 of each plus 200 Byshek..just in case.)

That being said, some returners can be very nice if you get one with special effects on it.

I actually prefer to carry a nice returner on some non melees since it simplifies things if nothing else is left to try....no arrows, no bolts no bow or crossbows to stock or equip...

[barecm]

My first paralyzer was an xbow, rr elf lvl 8! The cap was lvl 10, before the first loot weekend, before the DQ, before a lot of stuff. Back then, that was an uber drop. Got it off the non-raid loot chest of VoN, when that was the only real raid. So, yeah, back then it was pretty cool.

[Ginetti]

My basidc opinion is this:

Ranged combat is slower than melee.
There for ranged combat is inferior DPS.

Manyshot and certain angles with Improved Precise Shot greatly increase ranged DPS.
My chars with manyshot do more damage with manyshot than melee. But your build may vary.

With special arrows ranged combat can do more damage per attack roll than melee.
But is still too slow to be equal to melee, all other things being equal.
(this does not count slaying arrows that are definately superior, but are few and far between)

Tactically however, ranged combat is far superior to melee in most situations.
But not in all situations.

Individual players and parties can greatly improve or hinder the tactical advantages of ranged combat.

Most parties hinder it unfortunately.
But good players can stillmake it work to the benefit of most parties in most quests.

One trick ponies of any style are limited and not a good choice IMO.
Good players can make their one trick ponies perfom well in many situations though.

This thread is win. I really enjoy my 20 barb - but I'm also enjoying my young AA. Different playstyle, but I am finding I can already solo much more content that I could with my barb at this level.

My barb dishes out more damage once combat starts, but I am relyant on heals. When my barb starts combat, my barb starts to also take damage.

When my AA starts combat, mobs have to run to him, or try to hit with ranged (easily avoided with strafe).

By the time groups get to me, they are half dead or worse. I run back to give myself more time before they engage - tap sprint boost or pop my haste clicky to enhance my maneouvers.

Sometimes I need to take out my 2 melee weapons. Closed in areas for example - othertimes my bow is superior.

I have many shot and it decimates groups (at this level, i know later on HP gets exponentialy bigger). I can't wait to handle groups with improved precise shot. Target the back line, hit multishot and watch it go.

Sure, I have to water 1 min 40 secs to multishot again, but after a burst of multishot, I usualy have to find the next group of mobs to kill. This can be anywhere between .01 seconds to much more away.

In the shroud I'll probably use 2 weapons for the most part, until the end boss, where I'll range, as my HP pool will be half that of my barb roughly.

Overall, loved playing my barb and leveling him up - and am loving AA. It does come down to the skill of the player tho, for any class/toon, not just ranged centric.

Now, if only there was twitch ranging :P