Make an Effective AA

[tjaysteno]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1h-27...eature=related

Once again I feel like the guys in this video, but for some reason here I am again. I want someone to convince me that AAs are anything but a waste of a raid slot. I'm still of the belief that the most effective AA builds are either pure Ranger or a 18/1/1 build (probably fighter/wiz/monk or fighter/wiz/rogue). Unfortunately, neither of these builds have enough DPS to justify them over melee (Quick Note: Burst DPS doesn't count a lick unless everything's dead at the end of the 20 seconds and once you hit Vale it rarely is), enough damage avoidance to justify them over an AC monk, or enough utility to choose them over...well anyone that can use a bow. Which unfortunately means AAs are used by only players who only play it for flavor.

I believe it's near impossible to make a toon that uses a bow that isn't squandering considerable potential to do so. And I believe one of the biggest reasons is because of the feat requirements.


- AA Prereqs -
WF: Ranged
PBS
MT (or something similar)

- Must Haves -
Many Shot
Rapid Shot [MS prereq]

- Should Haves -
Bow Strength (which requires Power Attack)
IC: Ranged
PS
IPS
Toughness (practically a must have for any toon)
Melee feats for use between Many Shot


So there we have it, 10 feats (before melee feats). Every single basic feat plus 3. Or you can skip the should haves and still have room for 2 class-related feats. So let's see where this leads us.

- DPS options -
Ranger - the most obvious choice for an AA. The only class that gives the option to use a race other than elf or half-elf. All the ranged feats AND all the TWF feats you need. Just enough room to squeeze in the other feats to have a pretty solid archer (on paper). The spells also give some depth and self-sufficiency, but in the end the DPS isn't sufficient and you'll spend most of your time either (A) kiting mobs waiting for Many Shot to recharge or (B) go into melee and give up the archer's best attribute; the ability to avoid damage.

Fighter - the second obvious choice. The abundance of feats allows the toon to have more DPS than a Ranger AA. The opportunity cost is self-heals and some important self-buffs like FOM, resists, and protects. With an 18ftr/1wiz/1mnk build you get a total of 19 feats to play with. I believe that gets you close to all you need, but in the end you still have to choose between melee and range as your primary mode of combat; you can't get all the weapon specs for both. The DPS here and HP is much higher here, but it's still lacking when compared to melee. Most combat happens at melee range and while it's good to have a plan for dealing with range, a better plan is a Tempest with a bow or a sorc with a ray spell than a fighter AA.

Rogue - Probably the highest ranged DPS you can get. If you could manage to get all the feats you needed. With only 7-9 feats (pure vs 18/1/1) to work with though, you're going to have to make cuts to ranged feats that a ranger or fighter wouldn't and nearly completely neglect melee.

Barb - See rogue

- Caster AAs -
Divine - A viable option, I'll admit it. But again, the feats get in the way. You only have room for 2-4 feats to increase your healing and survivability. Plus melee still does more damage and requires less feats to be effective. Use those feats to specialize in healing a bit more and you won't care about the extra damage you're taking from being up close and personal.

Sorc/wiz - I kind of don't see the point. Wizards get some more feats which makes it a bit easier to fit in the ranged ones, but your firewall or TOD should be your weapons. Or go WF and hop into melee if you wanna get your hands dirty.

Bard - More or less the same as sorc/wiz.

- The Others...for the sake of being thorough -
Pally - No real benefit I can see to a ranged pally.

Monk - Uncentered.





So as you can see, I don't see an convincing gameplay arguments to playing an AA. I've experienced how much fun they are, but that doesn't change the fact that they are outshined in nearly every category by some other class or build.

Is there something I'm missing? I really hope there is.

[Alabore]

Monk - Uncentered.

Zen archery feat?

[Healsavant]

I have what you would call an exploiter, 18/1/1 ranger,fighter,rogue. Drow non tr named Ratthlin on sarlona, yes he is AA, str build, his melee is equally as effective as his ranged. And to be honest, I'm rather disappointed in a Barb tr I'm.currently at 18 with, he is straight up hate tank, and my ranger hits as hard if not harder in melee than a class I thought should way outdamage a little drow. As my Barb has a LOT more str, and using min weapons shouldn't the Barb, even at 18 be doing a lot more damage? I'm talking maybe 10 base damage per swing, but ranger has fighter haste boost, giving him a lot more attacks in any given fight than my Barb. This also works with manyshot. I don't know what to tell you other than be creative, I didn't plan him out ahead, I literally kept changing him until I had him tweaked just where I was happy. My advice, roll one up, start with melee, when you get him around 18 start tweaking, don't follow anyone else's build, keep an open mind and put nothing off limits. Good luck and have fun with it.

[NexEverto]

I've got an AA, so I'm naturally bias, however, when an AA's Built right it can do a decent amount of damage (Without Manyshot going), and have a decent amount of Health. The only issue is, for an AA, is the second you pull out your bow your suddenly attacking half as slow, if not slower, than any Melee Build. Even after getting the 25% (Though I'm told its 12.5%) bonus from the Ranger Capstone, 10% bonus Ranged Alacrity bonus from the ToD set, and a 10% bonus from the Quiver of Alacrity/Black Dragonhide Armor (Which, all three stack, I've tested it myself, however I'm yet to be motivated enough to post it to the DDO Forums) you'll still end up attacking a lot slower than any melee. The issue for any well built AA isn't its damage, although not having a form of Power Attack can hurt, its not Build killing. But the simple fact that Ranged Alacrity must have evolved from a snail.

To have a half decent DPS AA, having a high Strength is a must, but at the same time you can't neglect Dexterity. Without Dex, you're going to be an AA who thinks DPS comes on a 20 roll. Unfortunately its one of those Builds you need to find a balance with, Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, and Constitution, and for most people is probably best used as a second PrE, coupled with Bard, you'd probably have the most effective AA.

Sorry, that was probably a bit of a rant and a mess... I am half asleep, and piking an Abbot Raid, but I hope my personal experience can shed some insight, and explain what the real issue is with any Ranged Build. Now... I'm waiting for the arguments to start.

[Kaiserkreuz]

Fighter 20 Kensai Arcane Archer.

Need Past life: Sorcerer then get Arcane Prodigy feat which unlocks Arcane Archer enhancement for pure Fighters. Get Kensai enhancements for increasing damage done and Fighter Weapon Alacrity capstone enhancement gives 10% bonus to range attack speed. You just need 19 DEX for the range feats needed and buff up STR to increase Damage with bow strength feat.

[NexEverto]

Fighter 20 Kensai Arcane Archer.

Need Past life: Sorcerer then get Arcane Prodigy feat which unlocks Arcane Archer enhancement for pure Fighters. Get Kensai enhancements for increasing damage done and Fighter Weapon Alacrity capstone enhancement gives 10% bonus to range attack speed.

Pure fighters won't have a Blue Bar, so, you wont be able to Imbue arrows. Unless, they've changed it.

[Carpone]

[I want someone to convince me that AAs are anything but a waste of a raid slot.

Until Turbine revamps ranged weapon combat, arcane archers a waste of a raid slot.

The most effective AA you can build right now is a character that can do something else while Manyshot refreshes, like heal. This 17 fvs/2 monk/1 wizard AA/healer is ok, but I wouldn't want a party full of them: http://my.ddo.com/character/orien/misd

[Shyver]

Took a minute to find it:

Unfortunately, you won't have any spell points to power your Arcane Archer abilities as a pure class fighter, even with Arcane Prodigy - like the Past Life, the spell points are only granted to those that actually possess a spell point pool.

The thought was that Arcane Prodigy is "Mental Toughness Plus", so if Mental Toughness was a valid prereq, it should be one too.

[NexEverto]

Until Turbine revamps ranged weapon combat, arcane archers a waste of a raid slot.

Your right, Deepwoods are better. But no, you are right. It does need a revamp to level it out slightly more, although I know a lot of people are against that.

Took a minute to find it:

It took me over an hour to not find it, so, you did a lot better than me. Mind PMing me the link? I lost it some time ago after my last Pure Fighter AA debate.

[tjaysteno]

Your right, Deepwoods are better. But no, you are right. It does need a revamp to level it out slightly more, although I know a lot of people are against that.

Which confuses me. Why would you be against another viable playstyle? It's always either "ranged is fine, your build just sucks" or "if melee and ranged do the same DPS, no one will use range". To the former, no it's not. If it were you wouldn't have to switch away from your focus for reasonable DPS. To the latter, no one's saying equal DPS; there's a huge gap between them right now. I'd be happy with maybe even half the DPS.

And change Many Shot too. Scale back the damage per shot or pull back ranged attack speed, then make Many Shot passive. That solves the animation problem of not being able to fire quickly enough.

[NexEverto]

Which confuses me. Why would you be against another viable playstyle? It's always either "ranged is fine, your build just sucks" or "if melee and ranged do the same DPS, no one will use range". To the former, no it's not. If it were you wouldn't have to switch away from your focus for reasonable DPS. To the latter, no one's saying equal DPS; there's a huge gap between them right now. I'd be happy with maybe even half the DPS.

And change Many Shot too. Scale back the damage per shot or pull back ranged attack speed, then make Many Shot passive. That solves the animation problem of not being able to fire quickly enough.

The first half of your message, honestly, confuses me. I'm not against Ranged combat in any form, my comment about Deepwood snipers was just touching on the fact that as of now, its an unloved and unfinished PrE. And I wish turbine would even up the DPS between Melee and Ranged slightly so I didn't have to 'prove' myself when I join groups on my 500 HP, 40 STR, 52 while using Manyshot, 34 DEX Arcane Archer.

What I wonder is why not make Manyshot like Power Attack? For every extra arrow you fire, you loose +2 to hit. That means you could be running around with 4 arrows, all the time, but loosing 8 to your hit bonus. For any well Built AA that wouldn't be a problem.

I feel life I've been encouraged to drag this thread off topic, so I apologize for that. Hopefully the conversations between a few of us will help you get an idea for your Build though.

[grodon9999]

The key to being an AA is knowing when to put down the ****ing bow. The Burst damage of manyshot is nuts, I don't even have an AA anymore but both my tempests have lighting II bows and they absolutely rock on stunned/held mobs that happen to all be standing in a row. It happens a lot also.

A pure ranger AA who melees when manyshot is off timer will out-damage a Tempest all things being equal (thank you U5 nerfs!). Your melee DPS is only 10% lower than that of a tempest.

The Helves Angel is good, a melee Kensai and AA on the same build.

I don't mind AAs in my groups except if they are retards and take aggro on a 350 HP squishy elf. Then you just let natural selection take it's course and stop hjealing them.

[slimkj]

I found pure ranger AA incredibly dull in off-mshot times, and combos around 12rgr/___ similarly unsatisfying.

Given my love for monks, the 12mnk/6rgr/2___ combo that a lot of people are using seemed a natural fit, I've made a variant and I have to say I'm liking it a lot. It's got exactly the kind of off-mshot keyboard mashing I was after, lovely fists attack speed with haste boost icing, and the run speed is just perfect for kiting if you fancy a bit of solo action.

I'd recommend it.

[Thrudh]

The key to being an AA is knowing when to put down the ****ing bow. The Burst damage of manyshot is nuts, I don't even have an AA anymore but both my tempests have lighting II bows and they absolutely rock on stunned/held mobs that happen to all be standing in a row. It happens a lot also.

A pure ranger AA who melees when manyshot is off timer will out-damage a Tempest all things being equal (thank you U5 nerfs!). Your melee DPS is only 10% lower than that of a tempest.

This.

Anyone who says that a good AA is a waste of a raid slot, doesn't know as much about this game as they think they do...

An AA ranger who puts down the bow between manyshot and uses TWF will still do decent damage...

And when manyshot is on, he will do more DPS than any other melee in the room, even against a single target... They are awesome for epics because they can hit 2-3 held mobs at the same time... When that is happening they are doing 300% of the DPS of any other melee...

But you have to know when to put down the freaking bow, and pull out some melee weapons.

[tjaysteno]

This.

Anyone who says that a good AA is a waste of a raid slot, doesn't know as much about this game as they think they do...

An AA ranger who puts down the bow between manyshot and uses TWF will still do decent damage...

And when manyshot is on, he will do more DPS than any other melee in the room, even against a single target... They are awesome for epics because they can hit 2-3 held mobs at the same time... When that is happening they are doing 300% of the DPS of any other melee...

But you have to know when to put down the freaking bow, and pull out some melee weapons.

But why is it that way? Why is it that archers are the only DPS class (and that's all they are) that has to switch away from their primary weapon in order to do reasonable damage?

[slimkj]

But why is it that way? Why is it that archers are the only DPS class (and that's all they are) that has to switch away from their primary weapon in order to do reasonable damage?

Indeed. The way the game is at the moment it does make it a lot simpler to switch to melee in off-mshot times. However, it would be nice if it wasn't the simplest playstyle choice and that sticking with a bow 100% of the time felt like you could always contribute.

(I know you can still put out decent dps by lining up mobs and working the environment to your advantage but that's not always possible and maintaining it over an evening's questing can be much more frustrating than just switching to melee. And this from someone who likes to play a monk like a piano virtuoso so isn't afraid of some effort to work a class.)

[Chai]

(Quick Note: Burst DPS doesn't count a lick unless everything's dead at the end of the 20 seconds and once you hit Vale it rarely is)

Wait wait....stop the train right there.

What in the vale takes 20 seconds to kill from time of engagement?

What trash mobs in amrath takes 20 seconds to kill? Inspired Quarter?

The arcane archers who are boring to play and detrimental to groups are the ones that do not put down the bow and use melee ever. They dump str and go for the highest dex possible because they never want to miss. With improved precision, this accomplishes making everything in the hallway mad without actually killing any of it. With teleporting mobs, this usually turns into a quick pile on, population you.

[Propane]

Hello-
Linked below is one of my AA builds – quite fun to play

Helps with buffing / tossing a heal scroll once and while, has enough HP to put the bow down and head in and start swinging…

I haven't updated it, ended up taking 1 Level of Fighter at end for the extra HP (swapped in an extra toughness feat and fighter toughness 1).

The link is below - should provide some good food for thought...

Enjoy!

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ight=acetylene

[Talon_Moonshadow]

OK.....

I generally agree with yout assessment on AA clases and feats. I have not been able to make an AA that I liked without a lot of Rgr or Ftr lvls.
Anything else becomes a mediocre archer (and archery is already weak) and not very good at any other task IMO.

For me personally, I will stick with at least Rgr11 from now on. (Although my Ftr18/Rgr1/Wiz1 is definately a nice archer build)

But it's important to point out (yet again) that equipment and player skill(knowledge) are much more important than build in this game any day.

Which is a partial answer to your first question.
"Why should you take an AA in your raids?"

One, while archery may be kinda gimped, gear and smart players can do quiet a lot with one.

Fair play! So they will let you in their raid next time.

Also because you don't need super DPS to complete any raid that I have seen yet!
In fact, VoD and ToD are run best whith agro control, which means too much DPS from the wrong person screws things up. Far better to just keep things under control and go steady without racing to do the most DPS you can and risk agro going somewhere you don't want it to. (although I admit ranged users can cause problems here if they are not smart about it.)

If your Talking the Shroud, burst DPS from an AA works just fine.

Reaver? who cares?

DQ2? This is one quest where ranged guys shine IMO.

Von6? Gotta be smart, but on non-epic can't you still range the pillars?

Titan? Who cares?

Chrono? Hmm....personally I think burst DPS works just fine here too.

Edit: (forgot) Hound? I think burst DPS is fine here too. And kiting is sometimes useful as well. (although if things get that bad it seldom gets turned aound anyway)
My first Hound with an AA that had slayer arrows, when we we got the DM note that now was the time to strike, I hit Sprint Boost, ran around a corner, took one shot at Ziggy, roll a 20 and one shotted her for over 600pts of damage.


So.....why not take them?




There are many schools of thought about DDO and DPS and perfect groups...certain classes ...etc.

But I have done every quest in the game. All but five on elite, two of those on hard.
All but four of the available Epics (and I should mention that an AA works great if you do Party Crashers the right way)
Two manned 90% of the quests in the game.
Even done a healerless ToD raid.

On a mutt build low DPS char.

The game ain't that hard that you need to discriminate against anyone.

I am far more concerned about chars who cannot keep themselves alive then I am about their DPS.
I've seen more quests fail because no one brought a single healing pot with them, then I have because of a lack of DPS.

[smithtj3]

OK..... *snip*

/signed

**Comments below derived from PUG experience, IDK what you big time 24/7 guild players do**

It MIGHT seem more plausible to max out raid DPS if the majority of the people who PUG play DDO were actually after a challenge. . . and even then, at some point, the next step is to intentionally handicap the group. Players need to own up to the fact that what they're really after is the equivalent of fist fighting a 4 year old (In no hypothetical variation of this comparison is the 4 year old armed with a firearm or any sort of ninja weaponry). If I have to sleep walk through one more Reaver's Reach quest on casual or explain why we aren't running it on casual or reform after someone decided to just go in on casual, I may been driven to homicide. Does the shroud even have a difficulty other than normal? My experience has been, if you're looking to do some serious work in DDO, it matters exponentially more who is playing each character, not what that character is. An AA can roll deep with the best of them.