Arcane Archer: How an eternally ranged player sees the PrE (now post U19!)

[Pwesiela]

What can I say? Now that the new enhancement system has been live for a bit, and now that I’ve had the chance to play around with it and see what’s new and what’s the same, I’ve decided to follow through with my promise and update the old thread. That having been said, the old thread had a lot of good stuff in it, so I decided to just make a new thread. Like the old thread, I figure I may help the community out a bit by offering this little manual.

Some disclaimers are still in order. First, my first and main character is now a completionist ranged ranger. On every life feasible, I made her a ranged character (pretty much all but Barbarian, Paladin, Sorcerer, and Artificer – yes, I had her as an AA druid/cleric/fvs/etc.). She’s been so for the last 7 years as I’ve played DDO. I really enjoy her, and I like playing her. That having been said, I recognize (more than many, I’m afraid) the weaknesses still inherent in the ranged combat system in DDO. This post is not about that. I heavily endorse pulling out your two weapons and fighting in melee. I’ll post on that below. Next, ranged combat is not for everyone. I heavily suggest that before you try working in ranged combat that you roll up a front line melee character first so that you get a feel for it, and for how annoying a poorly played ranged character can be.

This guide is intended for first timers/new to the AA PrE individuals who don't have the background knowledge in DDO to make a truly creative AA. It is not for min/maxing. It is for a solid core AA that helps and doesn't hinder a party.

[Pwesiela]

Classes

As this is a beginners guide, I’m going to recommend going as a ranger. You get all the feats you need automatically, you get access to the AA enhancement tree automatically, at level 1, and you can easily respect should something get messed up. Other classes are less forgiving, and may need reincarnations to fix any problems. As I said, ranger gets all the feats you’d want for free. These include bow strength, precise shot, improved precise shot, multishot, and rapid shot. You also get the two weapon fighting feats for free, allowing you to use your feat slots for other things. As a ranger, though, your first feat should be Point Blank Shot. This gives you +1[w] damage within 30 meters. This means that your longbow, which normally does 1-8 damage (before damage modifiers) on a hit, will do 2-16 points of damage on a hit within that 30 meters. More on feats later.

Like I said at the start, I have made AA clerics, fvs, monks, rogues, fighters, druids, wizards, and bards. These classes can work, but some are better than others. In my opinion, the best (non-ranger) classes for AA are monk and fighter. After those two, I’d put rogue, bard, druid, cleric and fvs in the next tier, with wizard, sorc, paladin, and barbarian bringing up the rear (in that order). Monks and Fighters get the feats that you’d want for effective ranged, while offering enhancements to boost ranged effectiveness. The second tier classes would most likely use ranged as a support for their primary casting roles (except for rogue, which I’d argue is better off going repeater crossbows if you’re wanting ranged damage). For many casters, AA can provide additional non-sp damage during combat where there is a desire to save sp. The final classes just loose too much effectiveness in other ways by deciding to go ranged (barbarian is tempting again, but most of the enhancements are melee focused, and with AA’s having to actually use spell points for most of their good abilities now, rage would cause problems you don’t want).

Races

Elf: there is an inherent synergy between the elf and the AA. This combo shouldn’t be overlooked in passing. Give it serious thought. The elf gets enhancements to their bow use which become handy in ranged combat. They receive racial bonuses to hit with the longbow when you range, and the scimitar, rapier, or longsword for your melee. They get a racial bonus to damage on longbows, longswords, rapiers, and scimitars. Elves also have the Grace enhancement, which allows you to add your dex modifier to damage, rather than your strength modifier, which allows you to (mostly) dump your strength stat and still do a chunk of bonus damage. Doubltess, a more complex build can get more DPS out of a str/dex mix ranger, it’s more complicated that this post is looking to get into. Search the forums and you can find these builds. Further, the ranger class allows direct access to the AA enhancements, rather than having to put more points into Elf than you may want to. While the other classes and races provide benefits to consider for an AA, for starting off in the AA lines, elf ranger is the simplest effective route.

Human: You do not suffer the negative to constitution that elves take, and you get bonus feats to help flesh out your other build objectives. This racial tree also lets you diversify your stat points, and you can build in for ability boosts.

Dwarf: Extra constitution is a nice bonus, while the negative to charisma really doesn’t hurt anyone (except those looking at you). Unfortunately, most of the dwarven enhancement tree is largely useless to the AA, outside of hitpoints.

Halfling: No negative to constitution, but a negative to strength. If you’re going ranger (which I suggest), this hurts your damage due to bow strength. You do get dex options in your core enhancements, as well as saves boosts, the dodge cap/dodge amount enhancements are also a potentially nice addition to your build.

Warforged: bonus to constitution, while taking a hit to charisma and wisdom. This wisdom hit, while slightly painful, is not truly detrimental. Otherwise, the race doesn’t really bring much to the AA build.

Drow: Similar to the elf, but without the enhancements to the bow. If your choice is between Drow or Elf, go elf.

Half-Orc: The h-orc is nice for tempest builds. It also helps AAs during their melee times. However, other than the str bonuses this race does not really lend itself to the AA who primarily ranges. Their melee enhancements are for two handed fighting, and the ranger class is geared toward two weapon fighting.

Half-Elf: The dilatant lines make for some interesting possibilities with the AA. The h-elf is a viable option for an AA, much like humans are. They do not receive the bonus to dex that the elf gets, but they do get a better con score, and more opportunity for hit points through the human adaptability lines. So on to the best dilatant lines: Don’t take the ranger dilatant. You get all these options anyway, and the note tells you not to regardless. The Cleric/FvS dilatants offer quite a bit in the way of self-healing, especially if you take them to their fullest, allowing 95% success on heal scrolls, without UMD. And that’s big. Add to that the fact that starting with the necessary wisdom is much more likely, and this makes a powerful reason to go h-elf. Similarly, for those interested in AC on an AA, the monk dilatant will permit up to an additional 5 AC based on your wisdom score, without the need of splashing monk, meaning that you can go pure ranger. Rogue dilatant will add significant damage while in SA range, and that synergizes well with the Deepwood Sniper enhancement tree. Finally, the arcane caster dilatants (wizard and sorcerer) will be nice for those wanting to unlock the ability to use scrolls for their benefit (like GH, stoneskin, etc.) Ultimately, one should look carefully at what dilatant lines are open to them, and what they want to invest in it. You’ll have to balance the choice with the enhancements you want to take.

A special note on Elf and H-elf: these two races permit you to access the AA enhancement tree if you choose to go classes other than ranger. However, you have to spend 10 AP in the trees to unlock it. Which is 10 points you can’t spend in another tree. (That having been said, if you’re going for the racial AA tree, rather than the ranger tree, you’re likely more familiar with the game mechanics than I’m assuming for this thread).

[Pwesiela]

Ability Point Distribution

Obviously, dexterity is a key ability. It determines how often you’re going to hit with that bow of yours. But DO NOT neglect constitution or strength. I will always recommend a starting constitution of 14. As an elf, I recommend going 14 Str, 14 Con, 10 wis, and the rest into dex. This distribution will give you a solid character regardless of whether you are a 28 point build or 32 point build. 32 point builds can afford to put more into constitution or strength, however.

Level up points at 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20 should go into dex. This will allow a character to get to a dex score in the low to mid 30s, easily, while still having a con score of over 20, and a str score in the mid to high 20s. Wisdom for spells and imbuing will come from levels, items, and enhancements. The exact numbers will vary based on your class and race.

By refusing to neglect strength, you allow yourself the melee alternative, either by increasing your to-hit and damage should you choose a non-finesse route, or by increasing your damage with rapiers or shortswords. By keeping an eye on your con score, you ensure that you can take a hit, either while using the bow or in melee combat, without crumbling at the first, second, third, or fourth hit. Hopefully even the eighth hit.

With the new enhancements, and as an elf, you can drop strength to 8 or 10 (I’d go with 10, at least) and pumping up your dex score as much as possible. The elf enhancement Grace lets you add your dex modifier to damage while using specific bow/melee weapons that you’ve previously chosen. You can also use the Tempest enhancement tree to mimic the weapon finesse feat.

Skills

You have a lot of leeway in what skills you should get. As a ranger, you’ll get a lot of skill points without ever trying, but you should consider the following abilities. Heal: no longer a wasted skill. You can easily get +30 spell power from this ability alone. That’s 30% bonus healing from your cure spells. Balance: get back up after getting knocked down. They are never gonna keep you down. Jump: at least 10 points in it. Your spell will take care of the rest. Hide/Move Silently: more useful to the soloing crowd. Spot: see what you’re wanting to hit before the rest of the party and plan accordingly.

[Pwesiela]

Feats

There are no longer any prerequisite feats for the arcane archer. Also, the ranger class gets most of the feats you’d want for ranged combat for free. The big exception to this is Point Blank Shot, which, as I said above, increased your base damage by +1[W]. So it’s a really good feat to get starting off. It also grants Archer’s Focus, which is nice to use until you get Improved Precise Shot. Mental toughness, while no longer strictly needed for the build, is still a nice feat to get, as it grants extra sp, which you need for casting and imbuing arrows now. Dodge enhancements are also very useful on a ranged character, as you have a secondary way to not get hit while being attacked. Basically, you should consider using most of your feats to flesh out your character in non-ranged ways, with only a few exceptions (point blank shot, improved critical: ranged, combat archery, and doubleshot).

My feat progression suggestion is as follows:
lvl 1: Point Blank Shot
lvl 3: Dodge
lvl 6: Mobility
lvl 9: Improved Critical: Ranged
lvl 12: Toughness
lvl 15: Weapon Finesse/Improved Critical: Slashing (for non-finesse characters or pure rangers)
lvl 18: Improved Critical: Piercing (for finesse characters)/Power Attack (non-finesse characters or pure rangers)
lvl 21: Combat Archery
lvl 24: your choice
lvl 26: Perfect Two Weapon Fighting (must cap one primal sphere epic destiny)
lvl 27: Blinding Speed
lvl 28: Doubleshot (2 capped primal sphere EDs.)

The above gets you the feats you need and the feats you’ll want for the melee you will do (IC: Slashing should you choose to rely on your strength modifier and scimitars/longsowrds, or WF and IC: Piercing should you choose to rely on your dex modifier and rapiers).

If you are a ranger, you will receive all the other feats you’ll need for free, if you choose the fighter or monk options, you’ll want to ensure that you get the feats you otherwise would have gotten for free by using your bonus feats for those you can (like IC: Ranged and Multishot) and use the regular feats for those that cannot be selected as bonus feats. If you choose the arcane path, with AA as additional non-sp damage, you’ll obviously want to drop the melee feats for meta-magic feats.

[Pwesiela]

Enhancements

And now we get to the real changes in the game post-enhancement pass.

Ranger Enhancement Trees:

This is an AA thread, are you surprised there’d be a lot on the AA Enhancement tree?

OK, so this will be your main Enhancement tree. The one you take Tier 5 enhancements in. Some recommendations are in order. First, you need to understand how imbue stances work. You have a primary and secondary imbue stance. Primary stances are focused on additional damage per shot, such as fire/cold/elec/acid/force/smiting/banishing damage. Until you get up higher in the tree, I’d recommend maxing out your force damage enhancement and keeping that as your primary imbue. Until you get the Improved Elemental Arrows enhancement, you’ll do more damage with the force stance. Secondary stances are your core enhancements at the bottom of the tree. These are useful to change the type of base damage your bow is doing, such as the metal type, the alignment type, and the damage type (slashing/piercing/bludgeoning). All are highly useful, as you get to bypass the damage reduction of pretty much every mob in the game.

You also get the opportunity to do special “one shot” effects as an AA. Dispelling and Shattermantle shot are nice in specific loactions/party makups, so I wouldn’t go too deep into them. But I like inferno shot for high hp, non-fire immune boss fights. Especially when I have Improved Elemental Arrows, fire, and can rapidly build up that stack. Couple this with IEA: electric’s vulnerability and the ability to have Master of Imbuement let you have both active at the same time for building up stacks, and you have a nice big chunk of dps for those high hp bosses. The big “one shot” you want, however, is Slayer Shot. It adds 250 points of damage to your shot, before crit multipliers, and will often end with the death of the mob you got targeted (non-boss, that is).

Moonbow and Soul Magic are nice for helping to aliviate the sp drain caused by using your “one shot” abilities, or from swapping between stances. I’ve found moonbow to be enough for the upper levels though, and so I do not have Soul Magic anymore. I also no longer have Action Boosts (which I generally dislike, and specifically don’t like in the AA tree), Awareness (plenty of spot at high levels) or True Strike (I always hit anyway). Not to say they can’t be useful at the lower levels. Just that I’d eventually respect out of them.

For your secondary trees, you have some good choices in both DWS and Tempest. The Tempest Core abilities allow you to essentially get Weapon Finesse as an enhancement, instead of the feat, freeing up a feat slot. This is what I’ve done on my main, especially since she uses longbows for ranged, but preferred scimitars for melee. Between Elvish Grace and the Tempest Core abilities, I now use my dex modifier on all my attacks as both to-hit and damage.

Tempest will boost your melee abilities and give some additional dodge, while DWS will boost your favored enemy damage, and some fun ranged options as well (of course, you have to wade through the low level empathy stuff to get the good stuff…)

Other Good Trees:

Fighter Kensei has good options for ranged (taking ranged as your focus group), and monks still can get Zen Archery, applying wisdom to attack with bows, and 10k stars for a mini-multishot effect. Ninja Spy gives the best enhancements for a ranged monk, in my opinion (since it gives bonuses to piercing attacks), and touch of death no longer requires you to be wearing handwraps (full disclosure, I have not played a ranged monk since the pass, so please correct me if I’m wrong on ToD working with bows).

But if you’re wanting to multiclass and be an AA, you’re likely more advanced than this guide is geared for, so I’ll let you go look in the forums for specific builds like that.

[Pwesiela]

Combat: or how to not get the group angry at you so that you get reinvited

I CANNOT stress this enough: the most important lesson you will ever learn as an AA is when to put the bow away!! Yes, this is coming from an AA who loves ranged action. Just because you are an AA does not mean that you can ignore melee combat. You will melee. Get used to the idea, and figure out when you need to do that. This is especially true during heroic level content, before you've acquired the gear that will help off-set the attack speed and dps penalties to ranged combat. The story changes as you become more experienced and as you unlock epic destinies with great ranged synergy (Shiradi Champion and Fury of the Wild, in particular), and you will be able to spend the vast majority of your time with a bow in hand. But you will never regret being familiar with your melee options and knowing when and how to use them.

Now, on to the ranged combat in party. As I view it, the most important role the AA has in a group is to eliminate those high-risk enemies that melee will have trouble getting to: namely casters and clerics that hang out in the back of the fight and cause problems. I say this because the ranger has a wonderful feat: Precise Shot. It allows you to hit one target, and one target only, that is behind a whole mess of other stuff that you don’t want to get angry. Add burst damage from multishot, and a party with an AA should be able to feel comfortable letting the melee beat on the melee, while knowing that the massive damage from fireballs will be focused on the character with the evasion, reflex save, resistances, and hit points to easily survive them while never draining the clerics resources.

Once these high-risk enemies have been dealt with, the feat Improved Precise Shot becomes your friend for the melee. By this time, most melee should be firmly attacking your party’s melee, and you shouldn’t be drawing aggro, allowing you to safely deal the dps. However, if multishot is on cooldown, feel free to weapon up and get into the melee. You will likely do more damage this way, and show your party that you’re not a one-trick pony.

Placement: What do I mean by placement? I mean where are you located in relation to your target/s? As an AA, either as a fighter or as a ranger, you should have the Point Blank Shot feat, which means that you get a bonus to your damage while within 30 feet. You can tell if you're within the 30 feet by paying attention to the icon next to the first damage number that appears over a mob's head when you hit it. If it looks like a target circle, you're within range. If you're not seeing it, you're not in range for PBS to work. So, if you don't see it, move forward a bit if you want the extra damage. Related to placement, you also have the Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot. So, pay attention to how your enemies are lining up in order to take advantage of the IPS. Target the furthest from you, and get as much as you can in between you and it. That way, you're doing damage to multiple enemies, not just one. Ranged damage is subpar (by far) to melee when it comes to 1-on-1 without multishot. However, you start hitting 3 or 4 targets, and you're going to start surpassing what melee can do in the same time.

Kiting: this tactic deserves special mention. When you are soloing, kite away. Feel free. Do it all you want throughout the entire dungeon. In a party, you will not earn any friends. Any kiting should be done towards the melee party members, except for one exception listed below. You kite into your melee so that any intim tank can take the aggro, and so that the melee DPS doesn’t run after you trying to kill in 2 swings what you’re running around the dungeon. As a ranged character, you are better off not having the aggro of something with a big sword while all you wield is a bow. If you do pull aggro, but do not want to kite into the party, switch weapons, get into melee, and end the threat. This allows party members to quickly get to your aid, and dispach the mob quickly.

The only time an AA in a party should kite away from the party is when they are doing so to reduce the aggro on melee who are being overwhelmed. Once the party has dealt with the reduced threat, kite into the party again.

Weapon Selection

There are few bows and weapons that I consider essential for every AA to have. They are as follows:

The Silver Bow. Until you get a GS bow, and sometimes even after, this bow is your ultimate weapon against 90% of the mobs in this game. It has an increased base damage. It has an improved crit range, and it’s available at lvl 6. There is no reason for any AA to not have this in their arsenal. It drops from the lvl 9 quest “The Church and the Cult” in House P. The questgiver is up on top of the Golden Wing Inn. It really isn’t a difficult quest. If you don’t have this bow, go get it. Now. I’m not kidding. Stop farming favor or xp and get this bow.

Epic Elemental Longbow of the Earth. Until you get the top longbow, this should be your go-to weapon for levels 20+. It has increased base damage, it has great additional effects (disintegrate, stone prison), and looks pretty slick.

Pinion. The top DPS bow currently in game. So good, that non-ranged focus characters will fight you for it when it drops in the raid chest under someone else’s name. So you’ll likely have to run the raid Caught in the Web several times to get it.

Paralyzing bow. This is one of those weapons that makes melee happy, particularly in the lower levels. With improved precise shot, you can immobilize the entire enemy army for the melee to deal with at whim. Switching targets keeps everything stationary until the death comes. You may not deal the final blow, but you’ve just saved the melee and your healer a TON of hassle.

Specialty weapons. With the change to vorpal weapons, it's a good idea to keep an eye out for the specialty weapons that got changed with them: namely banishing, smiting, and disruption. Each deals additional damage to specific types of monsters. Banishing = extraplanar, smiting = construct, disruption = undead. Bows of these varieties are normally pretty cheap to come by, as are the weapons. Keep an eye out for both.

DPS melee weapons. Keep an eye out for holy/elemental burst weapons of your particular stripe with handy effects such as pure good or destruction. When you get into the Shroud, be sure to make yourself not only a bow (Lit II is generally regarded as the best), but melee weapons as well. For melee, consider making dual Min IIs. This frees up a feat spot (IC: Slashing/Piercing depending on what you've chosen to do) which you can then exchange for something of more value, like Power Attack, Empower Healing, or more Toughness.

Gear

The following are some pieces of gear to keep an eye out for, or otherwise work for:

Dex/Wis/Con/Str items. Each will be a boon for you.

Fortification items. You will not have as much hp as a melee, so preventing critical hits on you is a must.

Wizardry robe or item. As you level up, this will become less and less of a problem, as you will get enough spell points through your class (if ranger) to cover pretty much all that you need, particularly when you start getting some temp sp enhancements (I use moonbow, but hate soul magic...too much noise). But AA abilities now take sp. So you’ll need more than you think for lower levels and longer quests. This is in addition to general spell buffing. The enhancements can help counteract this a bit (moonbow) but it will still drain your sp pool faster than you’d like. Epic destiny abilities will offer you good cheap healing at epic levels, but more self healing is never a bad thing.

Devotion or Potency. As a ranger, you get up to lvl 4 healing spells. Devotion or Potency will boost those healing abilities (making you more self-reliant and more liked by your party healer) and are rather cheap to get, especially on a weapon or shield that you can equip for healing between battles. Again, Epic Destiny self healing will start offering efficient, cheap heals at higher levels, but more self-sufficiency during heroic levels is never a bad thing.

Quiver of Poison. Drops from the Gianthold pack, and adds poison damage to your ranged attacks.

Raid Gear includes the Quiver of Alacrity and Wretched Twilight from the Abbott, Tumbleweed from the Hound (until you get a better dex item) or ToD rings. Raid gear also includes Shroud weapons/items (such as a Min II item).