New vision of Arcane Archer

[Requiro]

First of all I what say, that this PrC isn’t so bad. All know that ranged combat in DDO is not primarily DPS. Without AA, Bowmasters are only support in few quest. With AA PrC, they promoted to support in half quest (before Slaying Arrow) and in most quest (with Slaying Arrow). And if Turbine is OK with that, then well… We must accept this.

So what I what to change? Just redesign this PrC to be more effective in lower levels. And add more magic (just like it should be in Arcane Archer)

My proposal:

Arcane Archer(core)

• Level 6: Arcane Archer I (4 AP):
  
  • Ability: Conjure Returning +1 Arrows
  • Ability: (active) True Strike
  • Spell Book: You have additional Spell in your spell book: Gust of Wind (1 level spell)
  • Grant: 20 more SP

• Level 9: Arcane Archer II (1 AP):
  
  • Ability: Conjure Returning +2 Arrows
  • SL-a: Fireball, Uses: Arcane Archer level/rest
  • Spell Book: You have additional Spell in your spell book: Flame Arrow (2 level spell)
  • Grant: 5 more SP

• Level 12: Arcane Archer III (1 AP):
  
  • Ability: Conjure Returning +3 Arrows
  • Spell Book: You have additional Spell in your spell book: Shield (3 level spell)
  • Grant: 5 more SP

• Level 15: Arcane Archer IV (1 AP):
  
  • Ability: Conjure Returning +4 Arrows
  • Ability: (active) Hail of arrows
  • Spell Book: You have additional Spell in your spell book: Web (4 level spell)
  • Grant: 5 more SP

• Level 18: Arcane Archer V (1 AP):
  
  • Ability: Conjure Returning +5 Arrows
  • Ability: (passive) You can Imbue Arrows with second Power.
  • Grant: 5 more SP

Imbues

• Level 6: Imbues Force Arrow (1 AP):
  
  • Imbues arrow with Force of choice (Force, Sonic) which deal 1d6 damage on every shoot
  • Cost of SP: 10

• Level 9: Imbues Elemental Arrow (1 AP):
  
  • Imbues arrow with Elemental of choice (Fire, Ice, Acid, Electric) which deal 1d6 damage on every shoot and additional effect on Vorpal strike (All: CL:3, Fire: Fireball, Ice: Snowball Swarm, Acid: Acid Blast, Electric: Electric Loop)
  • Cost of SP: 20

• Level 12: Imbues Explode Arrow (1 AP):
  
  • Imbues arrow with Power of choice (Fire, Ice, Acid, Electric, Sonic, Force) which deal 1d6 damage on every shoot, additional damage with critical shoots (1d10 x (multiplier –1)) and additional effect with vorpal shoots (We have 2 choice: +6d6 additional damage or Spell effect: All: CL:5, Fire: Fireball, Ice: Otiluke's Freezing Sphere, Acid: Acid Blast, Electric: Ball Lightning, Sonic: Soundburst, Force: Chain Missiles (CL:6)).
  • Cost of SP: 30

• Level 15: Imbues Terror Arrow (1 AP):
  
  • Imbues arrows with negative energy, granting the Fearsome ability and producing a Phantasmal Killer effect on critical shoots. On Vorpal Phantasmal Killer effect is replace by Finger of Death Effect.
  • Cost of SP: 40

• Level 18: Imbues Slaying Arrow (1 AP):
  
  • Imbues arrows with Slaying ability, which deals 30d12 + 200 untyped damage to a living target on vorpal attack.
  • Cost of SP: 50

Abilities

True Strike – Shoot arrow with +20 to hit bonus, and can't roll 1. Colddown: 15 sec. Can be used in Manyshoot stance.

Hail of arrows – Shoot 1 + 1 per Arcane Archer level arrows to one target. Colddown: 45 sec. Can’t be used in Manyshoot stance.

---Special Note: With any Force Imbues, arrows gain also Ghost Touch ability.---
---Special Note: Spell Effect from Elemental and Explode arrow is cast on place when arrow hit.---

Comments are welcome.

[Requiro]

60 views and comment? So bad or nobody cares about Arcane Archer?

[Requiro]

...................................

[Ravoc-DDO]

I think you played to much Diablo II...

[Requiro]

I think you played to much Diablo II...

Well… Very constructive opinion

[Requiro]

Some changes in my proposal. Maybe this time someone will comment

[Urjak]

i would change it so that Arcane Archer I means level 1 spell, 2 level 2 spell and so on and also add some damage improvement (else those abilities would be quite underpowered imo)
Arcane Archer 2: Scorching Ray, 10% more damage from spa, 1,5% chance to crit for 1,5 times damage
Arcane Archer 3: Fireball, 20% more damage from spa, 1,5% chance to crit for 2 times damage
Arcane Archer 4: Force Missile 30% more damage from spa, 3% chance to crit for 2 times damage
Arcane Archer 5: Cyclonic Blast 40% more damage from spa, 3% chance to crit for 2,5 times damage

maybe drop that second imbue on tier 5 ... seems a bit tooo usefull^^

[bree22]

A simpler solution would be to improve crit range. Crit only on 20 seems crazy on a bow especially on first strike. Logic would be 1st strike should do more damage being that u should be hitting them before they even know it. There defenses should be the weakest at this moment. Kinda like sneak attack. A bows crit range should be 17-20 or at least that for a dedicated archer where they can improve the crit range even further. EG. Improve crit would make a bow with a crit of 20 to 19-20. Then via enhancements improve crit range 2 more time at a cost of 2 then 4 enhancement pts. Your crit range would then be 17-20 on first enhancement then 15-20 on 2nd enhancement. This would at least close the gap for bows but not over power them.

[doubledge]

change slayer arrow to + 600 and it's golden

[Requiro]

Thanks for respond.

Urjak and bree22 - your suggestion has nothing to do with original D&D PrE Arcane Archer

Urjak: Giving spells was mine first idea. But that will be overpowered (espacialy with your list of spells). In oryginal D&D you have only 3x Fireball.

And 2nd Imbue (on level 18) is in purpose. I made Slaying Arrow weaker (500 -> 1d100 + 300) but give option to 2nd Imbue. With Terror arrow it is great for solo, with Explode Arrow we can choice elemental that moobs are vulnerable (or just neutral). This way we don’t need have much luck to shoot only vorpals (with only Slaying Arrows)

bree22 - what you propose it supposed to be in Deepwood Sniper.

doubledge - changing SA to 600 won't help much for this PrC on level before 18. It will be even more irritating that, good Imbues are so late in game.

[doubledge]

or at leaset cause greater bane damage to everything we hit. the main opposer of arcane archers is now non existant, so why is this not working?

[bree22]

Thanks for respond.

Urjak and bree22 - your suggestion has nothing to do with original D&D PrE Arcane Archer

Urjak: Giving spells was mine first idea. But that will be overpowered (espacialy with your list of spells). In oryginal D&D you have only 3x Fireball.

And 2nd Imbue (on level 18) is in purpose. I made Slaying Arrow weaker (500 -> 1d100 + 300) but give option to 2nd Imbue. With Terror arrow it is great for solo, with Explode Arrow we can choice elemental that moobs are vulnerable (or just neutral). This way we don’t need have much luck to shoot only vorpals (with only Slaying Arrows)

bree22 - what you propose it supposed to be in Deepwood Sniper.

doubledge - changing SA to 600 won't help much for this PrC on level before 18. It will be even more irritating that, good Imbues are so late in game.

Yea but 1 tier and it is weak at best. It should be combined with AA and have at least 2 tiers. not very hard to do and nowhere near overpowering

[Requiro]

I posted suggestion, some time ago, about Deepwood Sniper, but noone answer.

(here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300776)

I hope that Turbine implement something like this.

[Arsont]

Personally, I'm rather fond of AA as it is now. To boost it, I'd rather see a tier II and possibly a tier III (Or as you suggest, a I-V, similar to archmage), with one of them granting improved crit range (Say, base 19-20 instead of just 20, stacks with feat but not keen), and/or another giving improved crit multiplier. I also like your idea of being able to add on a second imbue at level 18/20 (Ranger/elven). To be specific, I do like your options for the imbues (Force/Sonic, elemental, and especially your idea of changes to Terror arrows (I feel they're often too weak even when solo running for s/r/e). I'd like to see some sort of combination of the arrows and actual spells; That is, on a crit with your lv 12 imbues, a sonic arrows would do either Soundburst (The spell has an AoE stun) or a Shout/Greater shout effect (AoE sonic damage).

However, I don't like the idea of a nerf to slayer arrows. 500 is still pretty low on the damage scale, considering they only proc on a 20 and that ranged RoF is so low. Slayers need to stay at 500. 300 Would be unimaginibly worse than the Touch of Death nerf; at least ToD can proc multiple times, every fifteen seconds, and usually ends up doing 300+ on a single hit in wind stance. But again, I do like the idea of a second imbue.

I'm also somewhat biased against the SLA's; Not that it's not in the flavor, I just can't see myself using them for the most part. Additional imbues would be nice though (Charm arrows, anyone?).

However, I'd be fine with them just giving us either an extra level of crit range or multiplier in a tier II. And possibly more imbues

My 2cp.

PS: The current "exploding arrows" are only flaming burst, despite the fireball symbol. These should be changed to act more like the actual spell (Instead of flaming burst, fireball. Meaning, an AoE "explosion".

[Requiro]

Turbine never add improved crit range to AA, because this is a part of Deepwood Sniper (hope they implement this PrC this year)

About Slaying Arrow. Maybe you are right. But I just don't like static damage. That why I change it to little dynamic damage. I will change this part of proposal. But leave dynamic damage + static damage.

Thanks for good advise.

And BTW: ToD was always overpowered, every monk know that. After nerf it is still powered strike. But in ranged combat we must suggest very small changes because fight from distance is very powerful fight style.

Glad that you like my vision about Imbues.

[salmag]

<snip>

PS: The current "exploding arrows" are only flaming burst, despite the fireball symbol. These should be changed to act more like the actual spell (Instead of flaming burst, fireball. Meaning, an AoE "explosion".

This change is needed for Arcane Archers in my opinion. Make the Bursts act like they're supposed to, an AOE explosions...

After this, AAs would be finished, time to move onto DeepWood Snipers.

[Raodin-bel-iori]

Pretty cool ideas. I already like my AA but find that it can't compare at all in damage to my rogue or monk. It could use a little love.

[Requiro]

Pretty cool ideas. I already like my AA but find that it can't compare at all in damage to my rogue or monk. It could use a little love.

I'm glad you like it

I'm also made some cool proposal for Deepwood Sniper here: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=300776

(I still have hope, that Developers sometimes watch suggestion subfroum and take inspiration from there... )

[Maldavenous]

My favorite part of this idea is adding a few clicky spells for AAs. It gives the AA an extra chance to make use of metamagics they may have purchased and has a very static power increase. There may be a better selection of spells depending on where they want to go with it.

My suggestion for spells on an AA is that, like Archmage, there would be a variety of different selections the player could make. This would allow them to select if they want Offense, Defense or Buffs. The level of the spell should be roughly equal to the level of AA the player has reached. The number of times you can use the clicky abilities should equal to 1 plus the number of tiers of AA you have beyond that one. At AA 1 you would have 1 use of the level 1, at AA 5 you would have 6 uses of the level 1 and 1 use of the level 5.

Example:
Offense:
AA 1 - Niac's Cold Ray
AA 2 - Melf's Acid Arrow
AA 3 - Chain Missiles
AA 4 - Force Missiles
AA 5 - Prismatic Ray

Defense:
AA 1 - Shield
AA 2 - Blur
AA 3 - Displacement
AA 4 - Stoneskin
AA 5 - Teleport

Buffs:
AA 1 - Expeditious Retreat
AA 2 - Resist Energy
AA 3 - Haste
AA 4 - Fire Shield
AA 5 - Protection from Elements

I also believe that the second stacking AA ability at AA5 with a reduced average damage to slaying arrows through 20d12+300 instead of direct 500 helps the PRE. It gives those earlier abilities a reason for existing other than being what you use until you get slaying arrows. However, on those lines these abilities should all be useful as your secondary at level 20. I think Ghost Touch/Force is good because it always has a use against ethereal creature. Other than that the other abilities the AA currently has are a little lackluster.

[Requiro]

My favorite part of this idea is adding a few clicky spells for AAs. (...)
Glad to hear that

My suggestion for spells on an AA is that, like Archmage, there would be a variety of different selections the player could make. This would allow them to select if they want Offense, Defense or Buffs. Great idea The level of the spell should be roughly equal to the level of AA the player has reached. Hmm... A little overpowered to me The number of times you can use the clicky abilities should equal to 1 plus the number of tiers of AA you have beyond that one. At AA 1 you would have 1 use of the level 1, at AA 5 you would have 6 uses of the level 1 and 1 use of the level 5.

Nice progression - I like it But in my opinion your spell selection is too much. You gave AA some of the most powerful spells in the game like Haste, Stoneskin, Fireshield ect. Also you give some useless like Shield, Resist Energy (lvl1 ranger spell). If AA need some spells, that should be some less game balancing spells - that's why my choice of spells.

(...)

I also believe that the second stacking AA ability at AA5 with a reduced average damage to slaying arrows through 20d12+300 instead of direct 500 helps the PRE. It gives those earlier abilities a reason for existing other than being what you use until you get slaying arrows. That was exactly my point of view, when I design this PrE proposal However, on those lines these abilities should all be useful as your secondary at level 20. I think Ghost Touch Uh... I'm completely forgot about this ability... /Force is good because it always has a use against ethereal creature. Other than that the other abilities the AA currently has are a little lackluster. Agreed

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