The Official Ranger Enhancements Discussion Thread!

[maximus123123]

Sucking that you can't take Sprint Boost under Arcane Archer.
Sprint Boost is only under Tempest. Why?
Does an Arcane Archer need to take the prerequisites for Tempest in order to use Sprint Boost?
Not liking this...

[maximus123123]

There should not be separate points spent in tree prereq for each tree. Instead there should be a global one so that once you've met the bottom requirements in one tree, you can take higher level enhancements in another without first having to start out at the bottom again.

Using a global minimum spent requirement would allow more flexible character creation.

As it is, a lot of builds will need to remain in one tree to get the full benefits and will hardly be able to take advantage of other trees.

The prerequisite points spent minimum in each tree will hurt character diversity in my opinion.

[BOgre]

No idea if it's been asked, but how will the new PrEs affect ToD rings?

[maximus123123]

Slaying arrows suck in the new model but can live with it so long as Fury of the Wild continues to work with ranged.

The rest can be made up by using appropriate stances.

Slaying arrows simply cost too much SP to justify their use. That SP is better saved for healing IMO.

[Auran82]

There should not be separate points spent in tree prereq for each tree. Instead there should be a global one so that once you've met the bottom requirements in one tree, you can take higher level enhancements in another without first having to start out at the bottom again.

Using a global minimum spent requirement would allow more flexible character creation.

As it is, a lot of builds will need to remain in one tree to get the full benefits and will hardly be able to take advantage of other trees.

The prerequisite points spent minimum in each tree will hurt character diversity in my opinion.

I agree with this totally, only the bottom row of enhancements (where the 'innate' ones normally are) should care about how many points are spent in a specific tree, put capstones etc in there.

These new enhancements feel as though they would be better treated like a 4 tree customizable, ED. With each row across the board unlocked by total points spent. If you need to, make the top row unlocked in such a way that you can only take a few things over your 4 trees for balance reasons.

[blerkington]

Slaying arrows suck in the new model but can live with it so long as Fury of the Wild continues to work with ranged.

The rest can be made up by using appropriate stances.

Slaying arrows simply cost too much SP to justify their use. That SP is better saved for healing IMO.

Hi,

Slaying arrows in the new model aren't good, both because of spell point cost and cooldown, and because the ability no longer works with manyshot in the same way as before.

If the intent is to charge SP per slaying arrow, then their damage should be lifted, not decreased, because slayer arrows are no longer an infinite resource.

They are more like a spell with a spell point cost and/or a cooldown, not something that an archer can do all day long after paying the initial cost of activating the ability. And in the scheme of things, 250 points is a very low amount of damage for a single target spell that can't be cast very many times due to SP pool restrictions.

Instead of a manyshot burst which might contain 3-5 slayer arrows it looks like what you do will do now is either use a slayer arrow or use manyshot. For an AA, a manyshot burst will be considerably wimpier than it is now.

I don't agree that decent ranged burst damage should be the sole province of epic level characters in one particular destiny. I like the shiradi destiny quite a bit, but it becomes a less useful choice when the ability to do decent, non random burst damage is taken away from it.

I've spent a fair chunk of the day reading about these changes to the ranger enhancements, and my conclusion is that these changes are really screwing things up. There are a lot of poorly thought out, arbitrary changes which will make this class considerably less of a pleasure to play, if they go through to live in the proposed form.

Thanks.

[BOgre]

Dance of Death is a 3 level ability, but its prereq (whirling steel) is a single level ability (despite there being 4 separate tiers of it). So, one can not take the 2nd and 3rd levels of DoD due to the "cannot invest more points than prerequisite) limitation. Obviously that'll be fixed, but bears mentioning.

Ranger Devotion is missing. Having to spend points in Human is not a very good alternative.

Human Versatility. WHY was this enhancement changed from granting all 5 abilities (per tier invested) to having to choose 1 ability? I don't think I'm a fan. The addition of spell power is nice though.

Overall, AP costs are too high.

Overall, Points Spent in Tree are too high, some credit should be given to points spent in other trees (as in prereq: 10 points spent in tree OR 15 points spent in total).

Decrease the number of "arrow" prereqs. "Arrow" prereqs in addition to all the other restrictions are severely limiting character customization. Cross-Tree "Arrows" should be available. For example, buy 2 Tier 3 abilities in your main tree, and an "Arrow" is enabled into a Tier 3 of another Tree.

Overall, Cooldowns are too high, Durations are too low.

I like the Tempest Tree in principle, but right now it doesn't feel like an improvement to the existing Tempest line. It feels like a lot more hotbar clicking without a lot more benefit. I like the variety of abilities and effects, but it feels like either a)I can't focus on a specific skillset without wasting AP on junk prereqs, or b)I can't be as versatile as I used to be due to overly restrictive 'points spent in tree' requirements. I'm lucky to be Human as well, so I can at least take SOME devotion, I pity the non-human Rangers who have lost Devotion all together.

I like the UI in principle, but right now it's not very user friendly, and several abilities do not highlight properly, increment properly, etc. Various bugs regarding removing a selected ability (cannot remove until dependant ability is removed, even when there are NO dependant abilities selected). A tree area with no tree selected remains transparent; very distracting and lacking polish. Overall polish issues. Let's not release this to live until it's working properly and polished to perfection.

edit: just noticed the loss of Toughness enhancements. Why?

[UurlockYgmeov]

face#

just saw that force imbue specifically states 'ghost touch'

like the 2ndary imbue.

[Alundaar]

I like the changes, being a ranged char the thing i liked about 10k/manyshot builds was that there was something coming off timer every few seconds that was an increase to damage now with dipping into deepwood and arcane archer trees i'm able to gain 5 or so ranged attacks that have me playing my pure ranger like i'm playing a monk or a sorc and between moonbow and soul magic i'm able to keep my mana cost for those attacks from spiraling out of control till i'm on 'E' so all in all a boon for ranged even tho 10k stars is MIA (the rumor is it's going to be a feat)


but there are a few things that could get better like:
having the dc's of para/fear imbue scale with your wis mod
or let meta's apply to the elemental damage or attacks
or give the dice damage to banish/smiting

[BOgre]

Don't forget to submit a Ranger Enhancement Survey!

why are we being asked for a parature login to complete this survey? Stumbling block number 1, and I'm not likely to create an account on some random unknown site just to give you feedback. Your survey needs to be in-house, I'm not interested in giving parature my email addy.

edit: clicked again, and the login screen went away... strange.
edit2: after filling out the surver I got a msg saying 'you have been logged out due to inactivity' AND a msg saying 'thank you for filling out the survey'. I now have zero idea if my feedback was processed or not.

[barecm]

My initial thoughts:

Slayer arrow sp cost is too high. Since it was once an imbuement, it is hard to get over having to use sp for that attack.
Paralyze imbuement needs to be tied to char lvl and not a flat save. This will keep it relevant as we progress upwards in Epic Levels.
Heavy Draw needs to have all the Epic Destinies that use Power Attack to also include heavy draw as the description notes.
Improved Archer's focus only stacks to 20 not 25 as per description.
Need to give Epic lvls action points too. I think that would help the overwhelming concern of not enough APs to go around.
In general, I am finding the ranger enhancements way too clickie based. I don't want to have to map a bunch of keys with attacks and cool downs to track. If there is a way to convert some of the abilities to passive, I am sure it would make things more palatable.

[LightBear]

and slaying is not an imbue any longer? is an attack? with a cooldown? nerf.

edit: ok - now after some thought - it is possible to have an imbue and slay shot... so not a nerf - a change.

Are randomly generated slayer arrows still in the game?

[CarpeNoctu]

I have not yet taken the time to check out Tempest or Deepwood Stalker yet, so I can only speak to my current understanding of AAs.

This is, as I said, a first impression on an Alpha build. I'm not getting all freaked out because A) I can't claim to understand everything fully just yet and B) it's an Alpha build.

My Half Orc, Pure Ranger AA is loving you guys right now... I'm talking, kidnap the entire staff and move to Utah and just marry each and every one of you. Not extremely pleased with the healing amp (but since I generally focus more on killing things than healing amp I'm not quite as bothered as many of the others) or the change to slaying arrows, but I'm seriously loving everything else, tbh... The addition of fire, ice and electricity imbues, the paralyzing, smiting and banishing imbues and the morphic, metalline and alignment secondary imbues are all fantastic. I'm really loving this...

My Half Elf Pure Fighter AA (Sorcerer Past Life) is NOT loving this at all. In fact, he's of the opinion that you guys specifically nerfed the slaying arrows just so we can't grab our best bows and come looking for you. See, as I said, he's currently a Pure Fighter, Longbow Kensei with the Half Elven Arcane Archer PrE. The cost of the enhancements is kind of outrageous at it currently stands. How am I supposed to build something like this when I can't get everything I need from either of the three trees I have access to? I had to completely skip a massive amount of stuff from the Racial tree and Fighter tree just to be able to be the AA, but if I'm going to do that, I may as well just stay a ranger since the whole Kensei thing is pretty well impossible.

My first character on Argo (which is where all of my primary characters are) was the poor man's version of the Exploiter. I didn't have access to Monk at the time, so I went 1 level fighter instead and built it up from there. That was a fun character, but I'd had my eye on a Pure Fighter AA from day on in DDO and couldn't wait for it to be possible. As soon as I discovered that it was possible with the Sorc Past Life Feat, I TR'd. On live, he's a level 17 Sorcerer now and I'm so excited about his third life that I don't even plan to level him up to 25, but to TR him as soon as he hits 20. That is, assuming this AP issue gets changed in such a way that that's actually possible...

[maddmatt70]

I have not yet taken the time to check out Tempest or Deepwood Stalker yet, so I can only speak to my current understanding of AAs.

This is, as I said, a first impression on an Alpha build. I'm not getting all freaked out because A) I can't claim to understand everything fully just yet and B) it's an Alpha build.

My Half Orc, Pure Ranger AA is loving you guys right now... I'm talking, kidnap the entire staff and move to Utah and just marry each and every one of you. Not extremely pleased with the healing amp (but since I generally focus more on killing things than healing amp I'm not quite as bothered as many of the others) or the change to slaying arrows, but I'm seriously loving everything else, tbh... The addition of fire, ice and electricity imbues, the paralyzing, smiting and banishing imbues and the morphic, metalline and alignment secondary imbues are all fantastic. I'm really loving this...

My Half Elf Pure Fighter AA (Sorcerer Past Life) is NOT loving this at all. In fact, he's of the opinion that you guys specifically nerfed the slaying arrows just so we can't grab our best bows and come looking for you. See, as I said, he's currently a Pure Fighter, Longbow Kensei with the Half Elven Arcane Archer PrE. The cost of the enhancements is kind of outrageous at it currently stands. How am I supposed to build something like this when I can't get everything I need from either of the three trees I have access to? I had to completely skip a massive amount of stuff from the Racial tree and Fighter tree just to be able to be the AA, but if I'm going to do that, I may as well just stay a ranger since the whole Kensei thing is pretty well impossible.

My first character on Argo (which is where all of my primary characters are) was the poor man's version of the Exploiter. I didn't have access to Monk at the time, so I went 1 level fighter instead and built it up from there. That was a fun character, but I'd had my eye on a Pure Fighter AA from day on in DDO and couldn't wait for it to be possible. As soon as I discovered that it was possible with the Sorc Past Life Feat, I TR'd. On live, he's a level 17 Sorcerer now and I'm so excited about his third life that I don't even plan to level him up to 25, but to TR him as soon as he hits 20. That is, assuming this AP issue gets changed in such a way that that's actually possible...

What about not getting slayer arrows on your AA and just getting some of the dps tiers, but instead going with more of a Kensai oriented range character. I was thinking of an elven pure fighter with dragonmarks and of course a sorc past life. Then I also like deepwood sniper so much that I was thinking of a pure halfling ranger deepwood sniper.

[Ape_Man]

What about not getting slayer arrows on your AA and just getting some of the dps tiers, but instead going with more of a Kensai oriented range character. I was thinking of an elven pure fighter with dragonmarks and of course a sorc past life. Then I also like deepwood sniper so much that I was thinking of a pure halfling ranger deepwood sniper.

It's looking like going "full ******" in any of this trees is nothing but a waste of AP and generally a bad idea.

But Slayer arrow was/is the pinnacle ability of the PRE . . . now it's a big bucket of meh.

[maddmatt70]

It's looking like going "full ******" in any of this trees is nothing but a waste of AP and generally a bad idea.

But Slayer arrow was/is the pinnacle ability of the PRE . . . now it's a big bucket of meh.

Well the person that put up Kensai stuff in the martial did a terrible job and did not include any of the ranged options for kensai in the write up. I think Kensai is decent I think for ranged so I was thinking that imbue force in tier 2 for AA with maybe a few other AA goodies and Kensai fairly far into it with elf I think because I really like the elven dragonmarks and some of the other things with elf. This all assumes they do something about monkchers which I kind of hope they do.

[Ape_Man]

Well the person that put up Kensai stuff in the martial did a terrible job and did not include any of the ranged options for kensai in the write up. I think Kensai is decent I think for ranged so I was thinking that imbue force in tier 2 for AA with maybe a few other AA goodies and Kensai fairly far into it with elf I think because I really like the elven dragonmarks and some of the other things with elf. This all assumes they do something about monkchers which I kind of hope they do.

You're really trying to make lemonade out of a giant pile of lemons aren't you?

[maddmatt70]

You're really trying to make lemonade out of a giant pile of lemons aren't you?

Well if they nerf all the class's in a sense then that is not a bad thing. I would kind of like them to scale back the destinies as well - they have such a difficult time with balancing things. The big picture is bloated uninteresting mobs that the playerbase says they do not like to attack or epic hard is generally too easy or etc. Though I do not think that is exactly true that these are all a slight nerf because some of these class's did not have tier 3 prestige enhancements. I still think there is a lot of power to be gained from the base class and several different builds that can be made. The one tree that I really dislike is the cleric protection domain.

What is really key is how the different class's compare with one another. Are FVS far better then clerics, Wizards far better then Sorcs, Fighters far better then Barbarians, etc. We will see.

[HAL]

Dance of Death is a 3 level ability, but its prereq (whirling steel) is a single level ability (despite there being 4 separate tiers of it). So, one can not take the 2nd and 3rd levels of DoD due to the "cannot invest more points than prerequisite) limitation. Obviously that'll be fixed, but bears mentioning.

Ranger Devotion is missing. Having to spend points in Human is not a very good alternative.

Human Versatility. WHY was this enhancement changed from granting all 5 abilities (per tier invested) to having to choose 1 ability? I don't think I'm a fan. The addition of spell power is nice though.

Overall, AP costs are too high.

Overall, Points Spent in Tree are too high, some credit should be given to points spent in other trees (as in prereq: 10 points spent in tree OR 15 points spent in total).

Decrease the number of "arrow" prereqs. "Arrow" prereqs in addition to all the other restrictions are severely limiting character customization. Cross-Tree "Arrows" should be available. For example, buy 2 Tier 3 abilities in your main tree, and an "Arrow" is enabled into a Tier 3 of another Tree.

Overall, Cooldowns are too high, Durations are too low.

I like the Tempest Tree in principle, but right now it doesn't feel like an improvement to the existing Tempest line. It feels like a lot more hotbar clicking without a lot more benefit. I like the variety of abilities and effects, but it feels like either a)I can't focus on a specific skillset without wasting AP on junk prereqs, or b)I can't be as versatile as I used to be due to overly restrictive 'points spent in tree' requirements. I'm lucky to be Human as well, so I can at least take SOME devotion, I pity the non-human Rangers who have lost Devotion all together.

I like the UI in principle, but right now it's not very user friendly, and several abilities do not highlight properly, increment properly, etc. Various bugs regarding removing a selected ability (cannot remove until dependant ability is removed, even when there are NO dependant abilities selected). A tree area with no tree selected remains transparent; very distracting and lacking polish. Overall polish issues. Let's not release this to live until it's working properly and polished to perfection.

edit: just noticed the loss of Toughness enhancements. Why?

Very good suggestions - /signed

[Alundaar]

for fury archers the slaying arrows are a must it adds 3000 base damage
if you have moon bow you get a free 20 sp every 30 secs
if you have a good crit profile and mod the slayers are much better in the new system


if you want a bland archer that you just have to hold down the mouse then i'd say go pure fighter