FVS archer -- last feat spot: precision, imprv.crit or Zen Archery ?

[drathdragon]

As the title said i am in a critical decision to take.

what of those three feats i should get ?

precision

improved critical (ranged weapons)

Zen Archery ?

my toon is a lvl 17 FVS Beloved of the Silver Flame.

Or may be you have another one to suggests instead of those listed up here ?

pls help ! thanks in advance

[Jaid314]

what other feats do you have?

(i'm presuming you don't have enough monk levels splashed in for 10k stars, otherwise zen archery would be obvious)...

[drathdragon]

what other feats do you have?

(i'm presuming you don't have enough monk levels splashed in for 10k stars, otherwise zen archery would be obvious)...

Character Plan by DDO Character Planner Version 03.11.02
DDO Character Planner Home Page


Level 1 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Deity) Favored by the Silver Flame
Feat: (Selected) Spell Focus: Evocation
Level 3 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Selected) Greater Spell Focus: Evocation
Level 5 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Favored Soul Bonus) Energy Resistance: Electricity
Level 6 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Selected) Point Blank Shot
Level 9 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Selected) Maximize Spell
Level 10 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Favored Soul Bonus) Energy Resistance: Fire
Level 12 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Selected) Precise Shot
Level 15 (Favored Soul)
Feat: (Favored Soul Bonus) Energy Resistance: Acid
Feat: (Selected) Toughness

that's it

the toon has 29 in wisdom and 23 in dex in case you want to know it.

help !!

[CaptainSpacePony]

Of those three on your toon, I'd take improved crit. Personally I'd rather have maximize spell or empower healing though.

Furthermore, I recommend your post this under the classes forum http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21 rather than here (suggestions & ideas). This is forum is about suggestions and ideas to change the game etc.

[drathdragon]

Of those three on your toon, I'd take improved crit. Personally I'd rather have maximize spell or empower healing though.

Furthermore, I recommend your post this under the classes forum http://forums.ddo.com/forumdisplay.php?f=21 rather than here (suggestions & ideas). This is forum is about suggestions and ideas to change the game etc.

ty and sorry for the wrong place of this thread.

[ZeebaNeighba]

First, you have 2 more feats at levels 21 and 24, in addition to the one at 18, right?

Next, Zen Archery gives +3 to hit for you. Precision gives +5% to hit (and a little fort bypass), which I believe is equivalent to a bonus to attack equal to your opponent's armor class. Meaning that when you fight anything with 31 or higher AC, then Precision is better than Zen Archery. And that's almost everything at high levels. And of course Zen Archery gives no fortification bypass.

Next, assume, for a moment, that you just fired off 20 attacks from your bow. And let's say you rolled the most average 20 attacks you could make (that is, on your attack roll, you rolled one 1, one 2, one 3, and so on, up to one roll of 20 or vorpal shot). You get triple damage, probably, on criticals, and without improved crit, you probably only get those crits on a roll of a 20, or on one of those 20 attacks. Essentially, doing triple damage on one shot is about the same as doing normal damage, but getting two extra shots.

If you have improved critical, you get to crit on a 19 as well, which is like getting a total of four more shots. If you have precision instead, you get one more shot (on a low attack roll, where you get a real hit instead of a miss), and even if we say that you're bypassing fortification, that's getting 1/4 of your ciriticals back that were blocked by fortification, which is equal to getting 1/2 of an extra shot in that set of 20 shots. That's a total of, at most 1.5 extra shots in your set of 20, instead of improved critical's 2.

tl dr, or if you got confused by my explanations, Improved Critical > Precision > Zen Archery. I believe there are still better options for your feat layout, but I will put those in another post if I get time.

Edit: Until then, it would be nice to know a couple other things about the build, meaning your multiclass split and race.

[drathdragon]

Ty Zeeba....

....but as usual i am insane ... i begin to think another possibility...

what about to swap a feat and get weapon specialization : ranged weapons..

...and suddently : Bow Strength ?

the toon has also high strenght..
that should increase dramatically the damage bonus ... or not ?

[ZeebaNeighba]

First, I'll point out that your spell focus feats are not all that important. You won't have godly wisdom if you're trying to shoot a bow well, in fact, you already say you have 29 wisdom. Think about what it will give you. It's nice for implosion, but eventually, you'll find implosion will fail so often, even with the spell foci, that you probably won't use it much. Blade barrier and comet fall each get a 10% additional chance to not do half damage. Really, that just averages out to about 15-20 damage per cast. Both spells are still decently strong even when the opponent does save nearly all the time.

But there are so many archery feats that are so useful there instead.

Manyshot allows you to shoot 2-4 arrows at once depending on base attack bonus (remember to cast divine power before you activate it; it will increase your base attack bonus which may give you more arrows, you'll also get 4 arrows for sure this way by level 16), for 20 seconds, with a cooldown of 2 minutes. And those 20 seconds are going to be the main time you'll have worthwhile damage from that bow, especially when you're lacking in many other archery feats. It has a prerequisite of Rapid Shot, which gives a nice boost to your attack speed. You'll also need to keep Point Blank Shot (you already have it). Take these feats if you can, they are much better than the other options you're speculating.

Bow strength, like you said, is useful. For prerequisites, you'll need to keep point blank shot, and add in weapon focus ranged and one of: Zen Archery, Power Attack, Combat Expertise or Weapons Specialization Ranged (the last one is only available if you have at least 4 fighter levels). Zen Archery is the most useful of all those, so it should be the one you select out of those four feats, so yes, due to the different prerequisites Zen Archery fulfills, it can in some cases be better than other feats.

If you do decide to meet the prerequisites for bow strength, then, if you take mental toughness and are an elf or half elf, you can take the arcane archer enhancements for an average of 25 more damage per arrow. If you can fit in Weapon Focus ranged, but you're torn between Zen Archery to get bow strength and Mental Toughness for arcane archer, take mental toughness and arcane archer (again, assuming you are an elf or half elf). It will end up being 150 spell points and 25 damage per arrow, while I'm pretty sure bow strength will add less damage per arrow and even more sure it adds less spell points

Another feat to consider is quicken spell. Without it, your heals may fail if you cast them while taking damage, and as a favored soul, you can't really rely on anyone else in the party to toss you a heal should that happen. Quickening your heals will make them that much more reliable. Don't worry too much about having to spend 10 more SP to quicken your heals, since you'll probably lose as many SP having heals fail due to concentration checks. (You can right click on your strongest heal spell on your hotbar to turn quicken on for that spell only, so you aren't wasting SP on quickened buffs and stuff)

There are also multiclassing options you can look at.

1 Ranger gives you bow strength for free without having to meet any prerequisites. This saves you at least 2 feats, more if you're not going for arcane archer.
2 Ranger, then you can add on free Rapid Shot as well (remember this is something you better take, since you need it for Manyshot, and Manyshot is just...awesome with a bow). You also get the first 2 weapon fighting feat free, but I don't expect you'll be meleeing all that often. This saves you one more feat, assuming you won't go 2WF.

Also,
1 Wizard gives a bonus metamagic feat (you can put maximize here, or take another metamagic feat like Quicken Spell), and you can take an enhancement for 40 more force spell power (or fire, electric, acid, cold, or repair spell power if you want them for some reason). If you are pure elf (not half elf), you can take elven arcanum, a wizard enhancement, instead of Mental toughness to qualify for the arcane archer enhancements. You get three spell slots for first level wizard spells. You can also use any wizard wand. Overall, 1 wizard level is worth 2 feats (if you're a pure elf going for arcane archer, otherwise 1 feat), 40 force spell power and wizard wand use without umd.

[drathdragon]

Infinite thanks Zeeba, now i have the full map of the possibilties and fully explained.

i can't ask more than this.

i will think on it and i will take, surely, a good decision.

[toaf]

improved crit. all the way.. i made a AA cleric once.. bad idea timing wise at least. never fails the second i hit manyshot ill have to heal someone, and the timing of heal spells and arrows is very very odd

dont let the "wrong place for post" people get you down.

[CaptainSpacePony]

dont let the "wrong place for post" people get you down.

IMO all input on this thread has been insightful and constructive (Go Go Zeeba!). I pointed out the "wrong place for post" not as a cry of "Get out of my house!" but rather in the spirit of, "If you're hungry, you might want to try the food court. That's where the food vendors tend to be."

[drathdragon]

ok, i made the decision:

improved critical .

then next lvl (lvl18) ranger: bow strenght automatically added is a great thing for this toon

then i will decide for lvl20 if i should get a wiz lvl or to get a fvs lvl to have the implosion spell.