Player Character Balance

[blerkington]

You are way off base here.

Some players asked for something. I did not see ANYONE ask for a way to stack slayer arrow and adrenaline. Turbine did that, not the players.

Measure twice, cut once is the saying. There are TONS of abilities in the game which were ill conceived from being massively overpowered (compared to similar costing abilities) to being massively underpowered. It is frankly amazing when you look at a single enhancement tree across a row (let alone different trees) how widely different the power of abilities there are.

Turbine if serious about addressing these things would not be looking for yet another easy way out (ie lets nuke something from orbit), but would be doing careful adjustments to equalize these trees/EDs/classes/races/combat styles. This would NOT look like the painful to even look at survey which is completely meaningless to anything relevant to character balance ingame.

Show me serious and have the one system developer working on these issues walk away from doing the easy thing and instead make a serious effort to balance the BAD JUNK that exists to be on par with more valued stuff of the same build investment.

Hi,

Two very good points here.

The enhancement pass was just a huge bribe to the community to accept the idea of an unpopular change. From what I remember, a UI overhaul, a little tweaking to some abilities, and finishing off the PREs, was what most of the community wanted.

From a balancing point of view, the enhancement pass was actually much worse than the EDs. Instead of offering little enhancements to existing classes, and a reason to play those classes, it's become the main consideration when building a character.

The game is so little about its classes now, and so much about finding clever ways to work the enhancement system. It's almost unrecognisable.

And for that reason we now have a game which is pretty broken, because instead of avoiding power creep and trying to work within certain constraints necessary to keep a d20 based system functional, the game went down this other road instead.

My prediction for how this all ends is a couple of very selective nerfs to certain EDs (shiradi, fury, dreadnought), then the rebalancing exercise will be called good and left alone. All the stuff that doesn't work or there is no point choosing will just be completely ignored.

Thanks.

[Singular]

• Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per second. (This remove multi-procs from magic missiles and such)
• Make Nerve Venom procs only on ranged attacks (you poison your arrows, not your fingertips to fly with your spell)
• Make Adrenaline and Slayer Arrows only affect the first arrow in a Manyshot/10k/Doubleshot hit.
  
  • If the engine can't work out to make it only hit on the first arrow, turn it into bane damage, and NOT multiplied on crits.
• Make Fury Eternal only works on melee vorpals.
• Make Blitz starts at full power, but only lasting 20~60 seconds, to match every other Epic Moment. (What makes Blitz so powerful is not the bonus, but how you can keep it up the whole quest)
• Move the monk extra crit multiplier from Earth Stance to Fire Stance. Earth is supposed to be the tanking stance. Fire is supposed to be the offensive one. Make it so.
• Remove the Reconstruction SLA from Bladeforged tree. Paladin Bladeforgeds can survive having access to only Repair Critical Wounds, just like non-Bladeforged paladins.

I think that properly nerf everything people are afraid of being nerfed. Make it so.

No to your first four suggestions. Prism has already been nerfed twice - it barely adds to damage now. And with the current 'buff the enemy' most Shiradi aren't even bothering to turn it on anymore. One Shiradi said to me "it barely adds to damage, so having it off doesn't make a difference to me." I turned mine off, turned 'stay frosty' on, haven't noticed much of a change.

2. Nerve venom has been nerfed, too. It doesn't proc as often as it used to.

3. Doesn't it only affect, at best, one volley of arrows anyways?

4. No. That would ruin ranged dps.

[FlaviusMaximus]

You personally may not like the enhancement update, but please don't pretend to speak for the majority of players.

*Ahem* By making this statement, you have have just made the same journalistic error. omg

I can see how it could be taken that way, but I didn't make any claims about what popular opinion is. I simply said that it would be disingenuous to claim that one knows what most people think about the enhancement update. Although I must admit, there was a tinge of something more in those words...

Stop reading between the lines, **** it! :P

[Captain_Wizbang]

I can see how it could be taken that way, but I didn't make any claims about what popular opinion is. I simply said that it would be disingenuous to claim that one knows what most people think about the enhancement update. Although there was a tinge of something else in there...

Stop reading between the lines!

And I speak for no one really, but the enhancement update is a good design that has mediocre, restrictive, content that made true class builds undesirable. ergo it sucked for me.

[bls904c2]

there will always be people that, it is there goal to build the biggest and strongest build they can. no matter what you change weather its a buff or nerf a new type of master build will come about. I play pure toons, i have a 14 th life across 8 classes. i am usually one of the weaker toons because i play pure. it is my choice.

the imbalance that is created in the game is because of multi classing. i don't mind playing with with stronger players but i have a problem being a lvl 20 thief and having a lvl 12 monk 6 archer 2 thief having the same search-disable as me.

the biggest monkey wrench that can be thrown in the works is also probably the biggest balancer of all. for class granted feats, the second class, all the benefits are divided in half, and third class divide by 4.

so in the 12/6/2 monk-archer-theif the manyshot feat has the feat cut in half meaning they get half as much extra shots as a first class archer. and for the thief part they get a quarter amount of ability to search and disable as a first class thief.

now IMHO this would severly anger your fan base and should not be done. but what makes some very overpowered toons is having such strong abilities from many classes so you don't need a balanced party.

[Holleyz]

Nerf Monks. Or the Monkchers. NOT ARCHERS! I have both a pure build AA Ranger and a Monkcher and I will be the first to tell you that a monk should not be able to do more damage with a bow than a pure build AA Ranger that specializes in that one weapon. Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it. For example your a human sorcerer can you pick up a dwarven axe and do more damage with it than a pure build dwarf? No you cant. So how is it that a monk can pick up a bow and out dps a pure build Archer?? Makes no sense
You guys have already nerfed the Archer class to the point that its almost unplayable and I for one no longer enjoy even playing that class. Thanks a lot. So I was FORCED to splash her with a Monk just to keep her viable. And you've gone and nerfed shiradi for the 2nd time now just because every one cried and whined about it. So why hasn't there been anything done to the monk class? Seriously people You are forcing everyone that plays this game to splash their favorite classes with the monk just so they can play the game.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.
Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

[Delacroix21]

Pure classes don't just devote themselves to one weapon, YOU DID. Saying it over and over doesn't make it true.



While I agree capstones should be buffed, multi classing should be (and IS) ENCOURGED as it promotes player creativity. Don't turn ddo into another cookie cutter class MMO, there are enough already out there.



Even the amazing ESO does not hold a candle to the freedom in DDO to character building and combat. You remove that advantage and why play ddo over eso?

[blerkington]

Nerf Monks. Or the Monkchers. NOT ARCHERS! I have both a pure build AA Ranger and a Monkcher and I will be the first to tell you that a monk should not be able to do more damage with a bow than a pure build AA Ranger that specializes in that one weapon. Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it. For example your a human sorcerer can you pick up a dwarven axe and do more damage with it than a pure build dwarf? No you cant. So how is it that a monk can pick up a bow and out dps a pure build Archer?? Makes no sense
You guys have already nerfed the Archer class to the point that its almost unplayable and I for one no longer enjoy even playing that class. Thanks a lot. So I was FORCED to splash her with a Monk just to keep her viable. And you've gone and nerfed shiradi for the 2nd time now just because every one cried and whined about it. So why hasn't there been anything done to the monk class? Seriously people You are forcing everyone that plays this game to splash their favorite classes with the monk just so they can play the game.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.
Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Hi,

I am no fan of monkchers, and I think some changes need to be made to the way archery works. Other builds apart from 10k stars ones need to be made competitive.

However, you are completely wrong here are about what rangers are. They are not bow specialists. They are a melee/ranged hybrid, as is indicated by the feats they receive automatically.

If any build at all is a true bow specialist, it's the kensai fighter. And appropriately, they receive the extra abilities with their weapons that a weapon specialist should.

Thanks.

[Chaios]

The more I read the more I see posts that relate the idea of balance directly and exclusively to combat. Well, if we're talking about combat balance between spell casting, melee and archery. If you have the ultimate spell casting dps and the ultimate melee dps and you put each one separate arenas facing the same type and number of mobs, the Sorc should run out of spell points at about the same time as the Barb runs out of hit points. Then they should both die, and they should both have killed about same number of mobs. That is what combat style balance between melee and spell casting dps would look like to me.

The ultimate archer would just keep running around in circles until so many monsters spawn that it crashes the server.

But that's not the end of combat style balancing, because "casting dps" and "melee dps" and "archer dps" aren't the only character classes in ddo. In fact, they're not classes at all, they're descriptions of roles. The question is, if those are the only roles that need to be filled, why do we need thirteen classes?

[Gizeh]

Nerf Monks. Or the Monkchers. NOT ARCHERS! I have both a pure build AA Ranger and a Monkcher and I will be the first to tell you that a monk should not be able to do more damage with a bow than a pure build AA Ranger that specializes in that one weapon. Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it. For example your a human sorcerer can you pick up a dwarven axe and do more damage with it than a pure build dwarf? No you cant. So how is it that a monk can pick up a bow and out dps a pure build Archer?? Makes no sense
You guys have already nerfed the Archer class to the point that its almost unplayable and I for one no longer enjoy even playing that class. Thanks a lot. So I was FORCED to splash her with a Monk just to keep her viable. And you've gone and nerfed shiradi for the 2nd time now just because every one cried and whined about it. So why hasn't there been anything done to the monk class? Seriously people You are forcing everyone that plays this game to splash their favorite classes with the monk just so they can play the game.

[...]

Pure rangers do not specialize in one weapon. On the contrary, they get lots of free bonus feats which improve both ranged combat and two weapon fighting. Artificers and rogue mechanics probably come closer to being "pure ranged" characters than rangers do.

[Gizeh]

The more I read the more I see posts that relate the idea of balance directly and exclusively to combat. Well, if we're talking about combat balance between spell casting, melee and archery. If you have the ultimate spell casting dps and the ultimate melee dps and you put each one separate arenas facing the same type and number of mobs, the Sorc should run out of spell points at about the same time as the Barb runs out of hit points. Then they should both die, and they should both have killed about same number of mobs. That is what combat style balance between melee and spell casting dps would look like to me.

The ultimate archer would just keep running around in circles until so many monsters spawn that it crashes the server.

But that's not the end of combat style balancing, because "casting dps" and "melee dps" and "archer dps" aren't the only character classes in ddo. In fact, they're not classes at all, they're descriptions of roles. The question is, if those are the only roles that need to be filled, why do we need thirteen classes?

Unfortunately that's where Turbine seems to be heading. I haven't played the newest content yet, but Shadowfell was all about combat and nothing else.

For example, I ran one of the Wheloon quests (I don't remember the name) on my rogue. At some point I came to a wooden gate. I could not jump over it, and there was no lock that could be picked. The only way to open that gate was to kill a bunch of nearby mobs.

Same with one of the Stormhorn quests; there were several places that had magical barriers which would only drop after all mobs in the area were killed. There was no other way to bypass those barriers.

So as long as Turbine does not allow any solutions other than combat in order to proceed in a quest, class balance has to be discussed in terms of combat ability.

[Alfhild]

Ok, going to propose a nerf and am prepared for the backlash/criticism/etc.

Revert Arrow of Slaying back to it's pre-pass status where it made arrows vorpal.
Giving vorpal is not nothing game breaking since L20 Monks get it and it can be selected as a Monk feat.
Making Slaying Arrows vorpal removes the possibility of synergizing it with Adrenaline since the vorpal damage is RNG dependent.
Vorpal still however gives decent damage.
Furyshotters can still make use of Snipershot in the Ranger DWS tree as their adrenalined shot.
If they do not have access to the DWS tree, then they have lower DPS by virtue of lacking Ranger training even if it is a 6 Lvl splash.
Then as a bone to L20 pure rangers, have the T5 Core upgrade slayer arrows to Improved Vorpal.

Vorpal coding is not something new.
There will be no need to recode Manyshot/10Kstars to only proc specials on the 1st shot.
You will be giving back something that Arcane Archers already had, which may be better than giving them something they may not like at all.


As for the individual saying that pure AA Rangers only specialize in one weapon, the autogranted TWF line sort of defeats that argument.
In reality, the only build that can truly be said to specialize in bows to the exclusion of everything else is the Fighter Kensai Archer.
Pre-pass there were a number of people playing such a build. Post-pass I have only seen a 2Rng/6Mnk/12Ftr Kensai hybrid.

edit: Sorry missed Blerkington's post while writing this

[LorentzRP]

Maybe it´s not so much a question of overpowered classes. Everyone knows a delayed blast fireball on pen and paper was something not to be around. Yet, I can drop maximized/etc fireballs/scorch, delayed fireball, meteor strike while standing next to both friend and foe and get no penalty.

If a great wyrm decides to release his fiery doom, friends, foes and treasure, best not be in the immediate area.

High dc wizards leaving trails of aoe death like some undead god´s avatar, make most any mission a 1 man effort, with a fast barbarian getting off a few cleaves before everything turns to dust.

Perhaps the option for AOE friendly fire for those who want to approach levels with a different mindset and strategy where the differences amongst the classes are reflected not so much in their constant dps, but in what situations their skills can be used?

Assuming the game mechanics could manage such an AI and gameplay change, although I imagine it would be more interesting to most players.

[sirgog]

The state of balance in the game is terrible.

At the 20 cap, there were several 'best' archetypes for character builds and many more that were good. To list a few, ALL of which were viable in speedruns of the harder content:

- Primarily healing divine (viable but mediocre)
- Offensive casting divine (top-notch)
- Melee divine, monk splash (solid)
- Melee divine, no splash (mediocre)
- Evasion melee warchanter (solid)
- No evasion melee warchanter (solid)
- Spellsinger with Enchantment DC casting (fringe viable)
- Spellsinger with personal melee capability (fringe)
- Rogue, TWF Khopesh all-out DPS (solid)
- Barbarian melee DPS (solid)
- 'Wall of HP' Stalwart fighter (top-notch in some raids, meh in 6 person content)
- AC/HP Stalwart fighter (solid in some raids, absolutely incredible in others)
- Barbarian 'wall of HP' tank/DPS hybrid (fringe)
- Paladin self-healing tank with or without AC (fringe)
- Enchantment WF wizard with DoTs (top-notch)
- Necro WF wizard with DoTs (top-notch)
- Necro Pale Master with Torc (the best build)

That's just a few archetypes that come to mind.

Now we have Monkchers if you want to do physical damage, and Shiradis if you want to cast spells as the ONLY top-notch builds, and Master's Blitz and Fury of the Wild as the ONLY other viable builds. Everything else is so far behind that it is ridiculous. And now content has been designed that (at least on EE) assumes all players have one of these broken builds.



The solution is simple but a lot of work.

First, nerf the hell out of Furyshot and Blitz and Shiradi, with the goal of reducing their effectiveness to at most 105% of the effectiveness of other characters.
Secondly, rebalance all of the quests that were designed under the assumption that players are using broken builds. If optimal group DPS falls from 50000 party-wide to 20000, then mobs need to lose 60% of their HP.
Third, there'll be a couple of people that whine over the nerf (despite the fact that their characters are still capable of completing quests in about the same amount of time and with the same overall difficulty). Grease the door, so that it DOES hit them on the way out. Hard. These people are poison - let them go and ruin a competing MMO.
Finally, offer some form of respec options to players whose characters are significantly broken by the change, ideally including the option to 'respec' now-useless Ranger past lives into different passive past life feats.



Edit: Perfect balance is unattainable. That is no excuse for having a situation that is so unbalanced that only 2-3 builds are even remotely viable. In Heroic levels, Sorcerers are significantly overpowered compared to every other class, but the Fighter doesn't feel totally useless in most content.

[Vorthian]

Something that doesn't utilize both 10k stars and Manyshot since there would no longer be a point having both. Possibly a Ranger/Rogue if they take the doubleshot penalty off Manyshot or a Monk that doesn't have Ranger splashed into it. Either way, "fixes" that cause characters to TR and rebuild are a touch inconvenient for people who utilize such builds.

The other option other than TRing into another character build is to cease playing the game. Without knowing what changes may or may not be coming to any build, I can't say I would leave the game, but it is an option. The primary issue for me is one of having set expectations, and later finding the bar has been moved only after spending a large amount of time and money to achieve a particular build. In the case of a monkcher, the developers gave tacit approval of the build and its various components by not stating they were working incorrectly or that they needed to be "fixed". I searched a number of different builds, played through a few past lives to build up for a strong character, and am now thoroughly enjoying the end game content. This took a fairly significant investment both in time and money, which I spent without concern. Should I find the wool was pulled over my eyes, there will be no reason to continue to invest money for certain, and perhaps not time, in DDO.

Perhaps the most important part of the survey is how quickly parts of the game that are not working as intended should be fixed. Changes to mechanics so they work as intended should be accomplished immediately. Adjustments can later be made, but do not let your customers operate under a reasonable expectation that the game is functioning correctly, and spend their resources under a false understanding. If you do so, things will go badly for you.

I can accept a full balance pass will result in adjustments made to all classes, enhancements, EDs, feats, and so on, and will raise some builds up and lower others. If this comes to pass however, and should my investment into a high performance sports car result in an every man's sedan, fare well and thanks for all the fish. On the other hand if it maintains my relative place in the game as a prime build, where my investments are not wasted, but others are brought up to where they can participate in end game content, that might work out.

One final thought is that not every character build should do well in EE content, or even manage it at all for that matter. Not all of mine will, but I'll still enjoy playing those builds with friends in EN and EH.

Cheers!

[murf201]

For one pure ranged rangers are mediocre , mediocre with there healing , spells , ranged dps !!

Same for a bow user in shiradi , there's a reason why the bow user picks fotw or dreadnought over it !!

A pure ranged ranger in shiradi is average !!

I've tried both builds for a while with best gear in slots for both builds and the monkcher comes out miles ahead !!

I don't need my now average guy screwed . They will try and scale down fotm builds and other 10k builds and screw pures who might actually need a boost atm to oblivion !!

Same with shiradi they won't look at the disparity between the classes using it !!

And by the way Rangers in pen and paper have to choose a line to specialize in !

[Alfhild]

If optimal group DPS falls from 50000 party-wide to 20000, then mobs need to lose 60% of their HP.

Thought experiment here.
If party-wide DPS drops from 50000 to 20000, but 18000 of that DPS is still being performed by the newly nerfed builds, has the problem been solved?

[elvesunited]

Think about it a Pure Build dedicates all his time and his life to specialize in that ONE weapon and that ONE class. So how is it that a Monk who is a Monk using handwraps can pick up a bow and do more damage? The Monk has to DEVIDE his time and training to be able to use more than one weapon. That's all cool but in reality theres no way someone who devotes HALF of their time to a career is going to do it better than someone who devotes ALL of their time to it.

Monkchers don't divide their time and training beween handwraps and bows. Every single chosen feat and every single enhancement is dedicated toward ranged combat. They're 100% bow. If they carry handwraps at all it's only to knock down the ocassional door.

As for the individual saying that pure AA Rangers only specialize in one weapon, the autogranted TWF line sort of defeats that argument.
In reality, the only build that can truly be said to specialize in bows to the exclusion of everything else is the Fighter Kensai Archer.
Pre-pass there were a number of people playing such a build. Post-pass I have only seen a 2Rng/6Mnk/12Ftr Kensai hybrid.

Yes the arcane archer gets two weapon fighting feats automatically. But since the character dedicates no chosen feats or enhancements to melee fighting those feats go completely unused and it would be suicide to try to go melee against any epic content. It would be like saying that the Kensai archer fighter should be less good at range because he has Tower Shield Proficiency.

My thoughts for improvement
You should't penalize builds unless there is an obvious unintended results. ( of which slay arrow combining with adrenaline might qualify ) But really I think other character types need to be strengthened. At least one suggestion has been made to limit ten thousand starts to shuriken only. That wouldn't just nerf monkchers. It would completely destroy an entire build concept.

I get what the developers were trying to accomplish by changing AC so it's important for every class. But they need increase AC effectiveness. Particularly at higher levels.

Double effectiveness of elemental absorption items and abilities.

Double the AC bonuses for tempests and other class enhancements. This could also be done with PPR.

Re-evaluate all cooldowns. If it's not an epic moment than the cooldown should not be one minute or more.

Improve the capstone ( level 20 ) enhancements to encourage pure builds while not penalizing multi-class ones.

Give spellcasters some spells that allow them to protect themselves from damage. Can you imagine a "deflect arrows" spell? Or a "blink" spell? or "mirror image" spell?

Give dedicated spellcasters an option for restoring spellpoints in battle. The big advantage range DPS has over spellcaster isn't damage, but that ranged DPS is not dependent on spellpoints can keep going indefintely. ( they don't even suffer much equipment wear ) Spellcasters run out of power. And with 100,000 hp bosses spellcasters simply can't compete. Spellcasters need some way to restore their usefulness once they've run out of power.

[Deamus]

• Make Prism/Rainbow/Double Rainbow only procs once per second. (This remove multi-procs from magic missiles and such)
• Make Nerve Venom procs only on ranged attacks (you poison your arrows, not your fingertips to fly with your spell)
• Make Adrenaline and Slayer Arrows only affect the first arrow in a Manyshot/10k/Doubleshot hit.
  
  • If the engine can't work out to make it only hit on the first arrow, turn it into bane damage, and NOT multiplied on crits.
  
  
• Make Fury Eternal only works on melee vorpals.
• Make Blitz starts at full power, but only lasting 20~60 seconds, to match every other Epic Moment. (What makes Blitz so powerful is not the bonus, but how you can keep it up the whole quest)
• Move the monk extra crit multiplier from Earth Stance to Fire Stance. Earth is supposed to be the tanking stance. Fire is supposed to be the offensive one. Make it so.
• Remove the Reconstruction SLA from Bladeforged tree. Paladin Bladeforgeds can survive having access to only Repair Critical Wounds, just like non-Bladeforged paladins.

I think that properly nerf everything people are afraid of being nerfed. Make it so.

+1 /signed agreed!

I will add also : Make monk stances to be available on monk levels not character levels.

[blerkington]

Yes the arcane archer gets two weapon fighting feats automatically. But since the character dedicates no chosen feats or enhancements to melee fighting those feats go completely unused and it would be suicide to try to go melee against any epic content.

Hi,

The ranger gets twf feats, not the arcane archer. The AA is a PRE which is also available to elves and half elves. AAs can be any class.

Whether or not you dedicate any additional feats to melee combat is completely up to you. There is no feat shortage with rangers, that is one of the great things about the class. You can do both: melee and ranged. But repeat after me, you are not a specialist in either.

I am always very interested to hear from people building rangers who think that with all of the feat choices available to them there is no room for one or two basic melee feats. What are these other feats that are more important to you?

There is already room for worthwhile archery feats (PBS, IC:ranged and Combat Archery), some metamagic feats for self healing, AND melee feats like IC: pierce or slash and power attack, or even precision. With some basic melee feats your DPS and contribution to killing the party's enemies will go way up while manyshot is on cooldown.

As for what you've said about meleeing in epic content being suicide, you must be joking if you think you can get that past anyone with any experience of the epic levels of the game. It is just completely ridiculous, particularly for EN and EH content.

Here is a very simple recipe for an AA ranger who is running in shiradi to safely melee even in EE content; use Pin, or Otto's Whistler, then go nuts on your helpless victim with your melee weapons for the duration of the CC effect.

On top of that manage your aggro, invest in damage mitigation effects like blur, ghostly, displacement, and a deception item. Even paralysing weapons can work surprisingly well in EE if your attack speed is high enough. There is a very low hanging attack speed boost in the Tempest line to help with this.

I don't know whether it's just me, but there seems to be an absolute flood of people on the forums with no idea how to play the ranger class, who rather than learning how to do it, have engaged in this epic session of whining about how weak their class is. It is just incredible.

Have some pride, stop asking for the rules to be bent in your favour, put down your bows, and discover what you can do with this great class.

Thanks.