why does 5 feats in bow do less dps than 0 in melee?

[cypan41]

I spend 5 feats to get all the archer feats, (minus shot on the run, because it needs 3 feats to get it (Ridicules)) And still, I equip any melee weapon I am proficient with, with no feats whatsoever to help specialize said weapon. And I do more dps with it than with my bows. Exactly the same type weapons, tried it with a holy bow, a holy quarterstaff, a holy rapier, a holy mace. All of which did more dps than the bow. That is horrible.

I know it's been said that bow is being looked at and will get fixed this year.. But can we please get it fixed soon? The rate of fire is just painful to play with. I remember when it wasn't broken. Years ago.. Actually I remember patch day when it got broken freaking out at how horrible it messed up my archer..
Can it really be so hard to fix? For you guys and us, I hope not.

[Brennie]

One of the biggest arguments for TWF superiority over THF is the stat and feat investment.

Archery requires higher stat investment (Split between strength for damage and dex to-hit) and more feat investment (PBS, Manyshot, Rapid Shot, Precise Shot, Improved Precise shot, and toss in Weapon Focus and often Mental Toughness if you wanna be an AA), and yet falls behind every other form of weapon-based DPS by a significant margin. This is not to say that Archery should be equal to melee dps, as it does have some advantages that melee does not (Easy DR breaking, being able to hit unmeleeable targets, easily switching targets, and Improved Precise Shot getting several enemies at once very so often, etc), but the investment needs to atleast be worth the end result.

However, an across the board increase in ranged attack speed would have unintended consequences when mixed with manyshot and slayer arrow. Although i don't have a solution for slayer arrow (and don't you dare touch my only meaningful contribution to DPS!), i think that Manyshot should impose an attack speed penalty when in use to compensate for a (hopefully) higher attack rate with ranged weapons. This also conforms to PnP standards where manyshot was a once-per-round shoot-a-bunch-of-arrows-at-once option, while normal full-attack option let you fire several arrows (Which is represented in DDO by escalating attack speeds as BaB increase). Manyshot would still be a DPS boost, just not such a significant shift from "Doing less damage than sword and board" to "outDPSing the TWF rogue who is getting sneak attacks every hit" for 20 seconds.

Also, while we're tangentially on the topic, can i also request the AA ToD set gets its Prestige bonus? AA is a complete prestige enhancement line now, and it'd be very spiffy to see some benefit for an AA with +5 arrows/slayer arrows to get some bonus benefit from their hard-earned ToD set.

Need Suggestions? Seeker Arrow: Inspired from the PnP class, when both the Necklace and Ring are worn, all projectiles fired by an AA will "Seek" their target, much like magic missiles do, making it impossible for them to physically dodge. Attack rolls, are performed normally, and intervening obstacles/concealment/other defenses still apply.

Ooor each arrow applies a 1d6 damage of *random elemental type* per hit.

Or maybe each "imbue" gains an upgrade (Flame arrows explode on vorpal strikes, giving a small 5d6-10d6 fire AoE; Fear Arrows increase the DC for PK or use Slay Living instead; Slayer Arrows also debuff fortification by 5%; Acid Arrows slow enemies al-la acid fog; Force arrows... are uh... more forceful? I dunno >_>)

No more derail, sorry

[Anneliese]

#1: Line up a lot of mobs, activate improved precise shot

#2 Activate Slaying Arrow (Arcane Archer highest tier)

#3 Use a nice bow, like a lightning 2, or just the silver bow if you are not so rich yet (you do have improved crit ranged, right?

#4 Activate Manyshot - watch everything die

[MrWizard]

ranged does way more than melee if the mob is not within swinging distance, in fact way more damage.

doesn't range allow multiple hits at once too? Melee only get some glancing blow damage.

Doesn't range + jump + running = high dps, no healing, and keystones cop running by melee trying to chase mob and not hitting them at all?

I have seen some good ranged players, they melee too. They range the heck out of the mobs til they get to us and then switch to melee. A lot of damage done before they even get to us. At lower levels i always found that an immense addition to the party.

I am sure it will all work out once they tend to it..just hold on and hope.

[furbyoats]

ranged does way more than melee if the mob is not within swinging distance, in fact way more damage.

doesn't range allow multiple hits at once too? Melee only get some glancing blow damage.

Doesn't range + jump + running = high dps, no healing, and keystones cop running by melee trying to chase mob and not hitting them at all?

I have seen some good ranged players, they melee too. They range the heck out of the mobs til they get to us and then switch to melee. A lot of damage done before they even get to us. At lower levels i always found that an immense addition to the party.

I am sure it will all work out once they tend to it..just hold on and hope.

i have seen a lot of aa's completely fail to understand the underlined concept...and dare you suggest that they change? oh no....lawd no

[Failedlegend]

i have seen a lot of aa's completely fail to understand the underlined concept...and dare you suggest that they change? oh no....lawd no

NO NO NO.. that doesn't actually make ranged a viable concept it allows you to augment your melee combatant with a little chip damage during the initial rush.

I spend 5 feats to get all the archer feats, I equip any melee weapon I am proficient with, with no feats whatsoever to help specialize said weapon. And I do more dps with it than with my bows.

I know it's been said that Ranged Combat in general (Contrary to popular belief there is more than one non-thrown ranged weapon) is being looked at and will get fixed this year.. But can we please get it fixed soon?

Made a slight change

[cypan41]

As it's been said. Spending 5 feats to get a ton less dps is just stupid. You want to make archers (which used to be very powerful in PnP, kind of like in real life archers were always considered very powerful) into just a little damage to pull mobs and then force us to switch to melee? Ok. well then get rid of the need for all these feats.

[Missing_Minds]

i have seen a lot of aa's completely fail to understand the underlined concept...and dare you suggest that they change? oh no....lawd no

In my opinion, those players are.... poor players. I have other words I'd like to use though.

The only exception I have with this is if they only need to shoot two more times to kill said creature.

[Grifarr]

Yes it is a feat heavy investment to get what you need to optimize an AA but when played right you do a ton of damage. I have only played a pure ranger AA but with the free melee and ranged feats a ranger gets and improved crit: piercing and power attack being my only melee boosting feats I took I am never disappointed with the effectiveness of my AA. Do I melee? Every time the mobs are in close and many shot is down out come the element/holy of greater bane rapiers and away I go. When stuff is bunched up and many shot is on its hot knife through butter time. I frequently out kill all the melees combined in the shroud by playing my AA smart. And I know kill count isnt a true reflection of DPS but when you see 3, 4, 5+ solid columns of damage + holy + lightning + things like slayer or the on vorpal proc from the Lordsmark bracers scrolling up at at time you know you are contributing more than your fair share. And when it returns to plink plink plink out come the blades.

Feat heavy? Sure. So are lots of good dps builds. Do you need to play smart? Absolutely, but have no doubt a well played, moderately well geared AA is not lacking.

[kaobang]

Doesn't range + jump + running = high dps, no healing, and keystones cop running by melee trying to chase mob and not hitting them at all?

Kiting can be done by TH users and they do much more damage

[bryanmeerkat]

Ranged combat needs to do less damage otherwise what would be the point in meleeing anything when you could kill it outright before it gets to you .
Most DPs will kill a trash mob in 1-3 swings . If you could do the same with a bow , nothing would get to you .

[kernal42]

why does 5 feats in bow do less dps than 0 in melee?

It's because spending 0 feats in bow use gives you better damage dealt/damage taken than spending 5 feats in melee.

-Kernal

[Orratti]

I'm beginning to wonder if having to reload bows and crossbows messes up the combat mechanics esp when using auto attack but in general terms too. You never have to reload a melee weapon. When using a repeater I usually take my finger off the attack button while it is reloading and it seems I lose fewer shots that way.

This has little to do with the op but thought I'd throw it out there to see what others may think.

[PopeJual]

I spend 5 feats to get all the archer feats, (minus shot on the run, because it needs 3 feats to get it (Ridicules)) And still, I equip any melee weapon I am proficient with, with no feats whatsoever to help specialize said weapon. And I do more dps with it than with my bows. Exactly the same type weapons, tried it with a holy bow, a holy quarterstaff, a holy rapier, a holy mace. All of which did more dps than the bow. That is horrible.

I know it's been said that bow is being looked at and will get fixed this year.. But can we please get it fixed soon? The rate of fire is just painful to play with. I remember when it wasn't broken. Years ago.. Actually I remember patch day when it got broken freaking out at how horrible it messed up my archer..
Can it really be so hard to fix? For you guys and us, I hope not.

I do think that range attacks need to be improved in DDO. It makes a lot of sense that it should be somewhat less powerful than melee, however.

If you could do as much single target damage per second with ranged attacks as you can with melee, then there would be no reason to pick up a sword ever. People would just shoot at point blank range with a bow when enemies got too close.

Also, melee combat carries more risk and consumes more resources than ranged attacks because melee combat means that your opponents can swing back at you with their slashing and bashing toys as well.


Now, it's entirely possible to just give ranged weapons to all of the enemies in DDO and to make melee weapons completely obsolete. That worked out very well for Battleground Europe and similar games, but I don't think that we want to go that direction with DDO.

[Emili]

I use bows on my rangers all the time... and they're tempest.

RoF is bout 60% of RoA for a reason... while it could probably be increased a little to maybe 65-70% the break point of 75% would most likely yield no need for melee weapons at all.

[Failedlegend]

If you could do as much single target damage per second with ranged attacks as you can with melee, then there would be no reason to pick up a sword ever. People would just shoot at point blank range with a bow when enemies got too close.

Also, melee combat carries more risk and consumes more resources than ranged attacks because melee combat means that your opponents can swing back at you with their slashing and bashing toys as well.

SO than all offensive casters should be removed as well....at least according to the above statement

[PopeJual]

SO than all offensive casters should be removed as well....at least according to the above statement

Offensive casters have the limitation that they can run out of spell points while melee types can't run out of swings.

Burst damage vs. sustained damage.

[SteeleTrueheart]

why does 5 feats in bow do less dps than 0 in melee?

Kiting and Perching is why.

[Shade]

I know it's been said that bow is being looked at and will get fixed this year.. But can we please get it fixed soon? .

Your source of information needs some checking..

As thats false. Archery is working as intended now and turbine has not announced any plans to improve it any time soon.

Related issue you may be confusing: Repeating Crossbows are suffering some problems missing shots, and thats slated to be fixed sometime soonish.

Archery is lower dps because kiting and completley avoiding all damage with ranged attack is easy to do in DDO, and would be vastly overpowered if it did the same or even near the damage of melee.

Turbine failed incredibly on their first mmo - asherons call in doing this.. Archers did MORE dmg then melee and could kite mobs resulting in faster leveling and better loot for them, almost no one played a melee in that game, was a massive mistake.

But yea this topic has exited since DDO was first launched 5 years ago, its not going to change.

[Glenalth]

I'm not aware of anything saying it will be "fixed".

Eladrin has stated that there will be a "final ranged pass" at some point. Whatever that ends up being...