Ranged Hatred and Myths.

[calvinklien]

bobbryan2, are you sure this is what calvinklien was talking about? I didn't want for a ranged build prior to this...

yea creeper i was addressing the attack speed, however, i wasn't playing DDO back when the speed was faster, i just extrapolated that from reading abunchof threads. nontheless, i never felt my AA was all that gimped. i felt i was an asset to parties i joined, and that toon lvld pretty fast which is why i don't think archers "don't have a place" in DDO. that's all. and from what else i've read, all classes had a decrease in attack speed so, it's not like it was "an archer nerf" it was a global nerf to attack speed or something. but like i say, i wasn't around back then so i don't really know what i was missing. *shrug*

edit: oh yea, and in a way, they are nerfed because there's only a few quests where you come across, say, a ledge with abunchof gnoll archers firing down on you, and ranged is the only way to take 'em down. i wish there were more quests designed where ranged attacks are a must, and not just some silly throwing darts, you need a full on bow master. much in the way that some quests are designed where a rogue is a MUST. ya know?

[grodon9999]

We need some new numbers on twf, tempest, capstone ranger, with and without haste.

With the capstone, my AA ranger 20 can fire about as often as she can swing sword&board. She stil does more single-target damage with her 2 rapiers when no using manyshot. Now when you have 10 morons standing in a row and they all take damage that's a different story. IN TOR I always do a ton of damage on the dragons and giants at the same time. I'm still using my swords 90% of the time using the bow for the godlike 20 seconds that manyshot gives you.

AAs need to know when to put the bow down, at the same time Tempest who never use their bow aren't taking advantage of a major thing that makes this class great.

[Eleia]

In my opinion, I think it comes down to "bring the player, not the class." A great player, in which knows fuly his/her character's strengths is a great addition to any group.

Ranged combat in this game, is far from easy mode, and requires a great player to pull it off. It appears that the op is one of these great players, and I'm sure is a sight to watch with ranged combat.

A lot of people just don't take the time to build, equip, and learn a character to make it shine and stand out in a good way.

[Aesop]

yea creeper i was addressing the attack speed, however, i wasn't playing DDO back when the speed was faster, i just extrapolated that from reading abunchof threads. nontheless, i never felt my AA was all that gimped. i felt i was an asset to parties i joined, and that toon lvld pretty fast which is why i don't think archers "don't have a place" in DDO. that's all. and from what else i've read, all classes had a decrease in attack speed so, it's not like it was "an archer nerf" it was a global nerf to attack speed or something. but like i say, i wasn't around back then so i don't really know what i was missing. *shrug*

edit: oh yea, and in a way, they are nerfed because there's only a few quests where you come across, say, a ledge with abunchof gnoll archers firing down on you, and ranged is the only way to take 'em down. i wish there were more quests designed where ranged attacks are a must, and not just some silly throwing darts, you need a full on bow master. much in the way that some quests are designed where a rogue is a MUST. ya know?

Actually no. They changed the attack animations so we get attacks actually a little faster than we did before, butthey reduced the effectiveness of Haste (which was a good thing in my opinion)

HOWEVER. Ranged was not included in this upgrade. So not only does everyone attack a little faster than they did before and as fast as they did before with Haste up.

Ranged attacks the same speed that they did before and Haste has been reduced in effect. A net loss for ranged while no Hasted Gain or Loss for Melee. Actually that's not 100% true. THF got a bump in RoA if I recall correctly

Aesop

[wolflordnexus]

Von 6

I don't think peole actually run that quest

[Creeper]

edit: oh yea, and in a way, they are nerfed because there's only a few quests where you come across, say, a ledge with abunchof gnoll archers firing down on you, and ranged is the only way to take 'em down.

Just want to say that when ranged is the only way to take something down I would much rather have a caster. Even more so in the scenario that you describe of a bunch of archers.

[bobbryan2]

Just want to say that when ranged is the only way to take something down I would much rather have a caster. Even more so in the scenario that you describe of a bunch of archers.

Yeah, firewalls are fire and forget. No more archers.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

I'll be brief here:

It isn't that ranged characters are worthless, or even that they are bad. It's that the average ranged character is worse than the average melee character when it comes to DPS and utility. Generally speaking, they are one-trick ponies with subpar DPS.

Are there good ranged players? Absolutely. But I'd argue that there are more, better, 'good' melee players.

Many people argue that one of ranged combat's greatest strengths is the lack of incoming damage. But, 90% of the time, you have a healer in the party that is throwing mass heals anyways. Which means that your "not taking damage" is suddenly not a benefit, or your "taking small amounts of damage" might even be costing more resources (whether they are the fvs/cleric's or yours).

Or even if he isn't throwing mass heals, he can almost certainly handle one more health bar without trouble, meaning your major cut in DPS probably isn't worth it for the boost in survivability (on the other hand, monk-splash AC builds gain incredible survivability for relatively low DPS cuts).

Most of the time in a group setting, it is more valuable to have a bunch more DPS than it is to have redundant lack of incoming damage. In the end, that's what it is going to come down to--picking up a ranged character is more risky and more situational.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

It might be annoying, but it's unfair to hate him for it.

On the contrary, I'd say that being "annoying" is quite possibly the best reason you could ever have for "hating" another player in a game. But that's probably not relevant to the whole ranged vs. melee argument, since melees can be annoying too, and since kiting is so much less annoying when compared to the actions of annoying players.

[Angelus_dead]

In my opinion, I think it comes down to "bring the player, not the class." A great player, in which knows fuly his/her character's strengths is a great addition to any group.

Is that intentionally a joke? You are quoting the design principles from World of Warcraft. That's a game where frequent major changes keep the classes carefully balanced against each other and where ranged DPS is a hairs-breadth below the best melee. Obviously, those conditions don't hold in DDO even slightly.

Ranged combat in this game, is far from easy mode, and requires a great player to pull it off.

That is incorrect: the truth is that there is nothing to pull off, and ranged combat cannot be similarly effective in typical DDO situations regardless of player quality.

Propagating the myth that the problem is with the players and not with the game design helps prevent the developers from fixing the game design.

[Ninetoes]

Propagating the myth that the problem is with the players and not with the game design helps prevent the developers from fixing the game design.

I actually have to agree with this point, despite my views on your preceding comment. I really hadn't thought of it in those terms before.

[calvinklien]

Just want to say that when ranged is the only way to take something down I would much rather have a caster. Even more so in the scenario that you describe of a bunch of archers.

that's why it would be cool if the creatures are far enough away even a caster couldn't do anything about it. that way we wouldn't hear any of this "archers are useless" kind of talk. kinda silly to make a game with bows and arrows and arcane archers, and then have them be virtually useless. in fantasy stories archers are always really cool and SEXY!

[Ninetoes]

in fantasy stories archers are always really cool and SEXY!

Totally with you on THT one! Sexy, sexy squig herders. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
(Edit:Careful observers will note what type of squig that is, which makes it even SEXIER. YEAH?)

[Eradiator]

Talon...I was on one of those Shroud runs. You were AWESOME. You have an AMAZING character and you are an awesome player. Not many can do that, even if you held their hand every level increase. You KNOW when to range and when no to. Alot players think: "I'm an Arcane Archer, I'm shooting!" adding the fact range doesn't do the sustained damage that melee does, Range combat gets a bad rep, and deserving at times.

/agreed

[Eradiator]

Totally with you on THT one! Sexy, sexy squig herders. Mmmmmmmmmmm.
(Edit:Careful observers will note what type of squig that is, which makes it even SEXIER. YEAH?)

haha lol nice PIC

[Bufo_Alvarius]

Is that intentionally a joke? You are quoting the design principles from World of Warcraft. That's a game where frequent major changes keep the classes carefully balanced against each other

LOL! Carefully balanced? Have you played that game?

[Angelus_dead]

LOL! Carefully balanced? Have you played that game?

That is quite wrong, but your confusion is understandable.

The fact of the matter is that World of Warcraft is very carefully balanced, but still has balance problems. This goes to show that balance is hard, not that the WOW devs don't work at it constantly.

The imbalances that WOW players complain about are real, but they are teeny tiny differences compared to the effectively permanent imbalance in DDO.

[grodon9999]

. . . balance is hard

But not as important in DDO because PvP isn't that important. Effectiveness in a group is what matters here.

Can anyone say with a straight face that even with the new AA enhancements bows still aren't a lousy choice for your primary weapon?

Regarding "balance" for DDO, just raise the RoF for bow-users with rapid-shot (if you can't be bothered to get this feat no boost for you) to the same as a sword&board fighter. If this is unbalanced, which I highly doubt in a game where 80-strength babrs crit for 600, scale it back.

[Ninetoes]

The fact of the matter is that World of Warcraft is very carefully balanced, but still has balance problems. This goes to show that balance is hard, not that the WOW devs don't work at it constantly.

I'm going to agree with you, and expand a little.

<rant>
My personal opinion (which is, of course, never wrong) is that WoW is carefully IMbalanced, on purpose. Why? To foster dissent. They realized when they implemented a real PvP system that as soon as you put any kind of rewards on the table, people are going to flip the @#$# out when they're not winning every match of every game. Pre PvP no one cared who won ye olde crossroads/redridge brawl, because it didn't matter a whit. You went in, bashed some heads, got your res timer up to 10 minutes, and then went on to do whatever it was you were doing before.

Wow realized this and it is my belief that they capitalized on people's insecurities. A balanced game is a boring game. If a Roge=Warrior=Hunter=Mage as far as Dps and pvp-ability goes, the only mitigating factor is the person behind the keyboard. It's far easier to blame the b ad class balance, and since people were going to do it anyway, Blizz happily obliged. That's not to say that there weren't balance issues (Hunter on release day, here), but they were far inferior to the class meddling Blizz participated in in order to shift the underdog status to different playerbases every so often. Anyone who's ever played a WoW warrior knows what I'm talking about.

That being said, Grodon is *gasp* right on the money. There's not an issue with PvP-centric players in this gameworld. There's absolutely no excuse for the abysmally low damage that even a perfectly spec'd ranged character is able to produce. I appreciate that they're attempting to stay close to the PnP rule-set as possible, but Archery in particular presents a unique situation. If this were a turn-based game, Ranged might have a leg-up. As it stands, however, with hasted THF barbs twitching their way to gory-glory and TWF paladins critting every time they sneeze, Archery is left in the dust. No one's going around a table taking one action at a time. This is sad, as I really enjoy ranged characters in most PnP games. Ranged suckage has caused more than a few of my good real-life friends to decide not to play DDO, which is a shame.

I'm not making demands, but it is a sad fact. I'd like to at least see something official on the reasoning, even if it's flawed.

</rant>

[Talon_Moonshadow]

But not as important in DDO because PvP isn't that important. Effectiveness in a group is what matters here.

Can anyone say with a straight face that even with the new AA enhancements bows still aren't a lousy choice for your primary weapon?

Regarding "balance" for DDO, just raise the RoF for bow-users with rapid-shot (if you can't be bothered to get this feat no boost for you) to the same as a sword&board fighter. If this is unbalanced, which I highly doubt in a game where 80-strength babrs crit for 600, scale it back.

The funny thing is that I would rather them fix ranged combat for melee Barbarians without Rapid Shot, and fix it for the wizard who ran out of SP and pulls out his crossbow.

Than see them give any more power to Arcane Archers or Rangers.