Need Build Advice - Sun Elf Wizard Arcane Archer Harper

[Xionanx]

Title pretty much says it all, I have been away from the game for quite a while and only recently got into really looking at the new enhancements for classes/races/etc.

Anyway, after taking a look at:

Wizard Eldritch Knight - The bonus to weapon damage applies to Bows, as do the elemental effects as best as i can tell
Elf - Elves can become Arcane Archers, and Sun Elves get higher INT (though a "normal" elf may be better for bow to hit and damage, thoughts?)
Harper can use INT to Hit and Damage for weapons
Arcane Archer - Does its damage stack with Wizard Eldritch Knight imbues?

I now the flavor the month right now seems to be Monk/Paladin/Elf/Arcane Archer(when it comes to bow builds anyway), but I am wondering if what I am proposing is viable. Having both constant "good" ranged DPS from a Bow AND full access to Wizard Spells seems like it might be a good combo, but I feel like I am missing something here which would make this a bad idea....

[moriedhel]

Just some thoughts: if you are going pure wizard you might be short on feats if you want to get everything to do "decent" ranged damage and be a full caster. If you splash some other class for extra feats you are going to only be casting buffs as a wizard due to lack of caster level etc.

Also you will need a way to heal yourself if not going undead (I assume you want to go deep into EK?), enhancements points might still be spread a little too thin if you want to use the elven arcane archer tree because you will need to spend in the racial tree too. (14 elf to get AA, 12 in harper, leaves you with 54 to spread between EK and AA). I would probably drop EK since it doesn't seem to offer you much besides the imbue and maybe the barrier, would be easier to go lich or wraith.

And finally don't sun elves come with one level of cleric? Do you want to LR out of that one?

[Xionanx]

Yeah, the idea would be the LR out of that cleric level. I have been thinking on this going over how to make this work, and the more I do the more I'm thinking it wouldn't be able to hit the requirements for good ranged DPS:
Rapid Shot
Manyshot
Precise Shot
Improved Precise Shot
Improved Crit Ranged

Are the absolute minimum IMO to make a bow character work.. So, the more I have thought about it the more I am thinking taking a full 20 levels of Wizard isn't going to work too well. Sad really, since you can make a melee wizard fairly easily using the same setup and pretty much ANY race.

EDIT: The more I think about it however, the more I'm thinking its flawed from the onset. Even if i were to get all the feats, all i'm really get out of it are elemental enhancements on bows.. but with enemies having the HP they have a 20+ is an extra 4d4 "element" of damage really worth the effort? I'm thinking not..

[moriedhel]

Like I said EK doesn't have much to offer and you would be better served going PM with this. AA does have some stuff that would synergize with a caster build though including temporary spell point gains which would help with the wizzy spell point pool (just using it to cast more insta kills...)

You could get only manyshot for some flavor/burst, if you want to go all in on the feats you'll just have to multi class, this has been a problem for a while now. I've struggled with builds like this when I stopped playing a few years ago, now I'm back and this at least hasn't changed =)

[Enderoc]

2 ranger will save you a lot of headache. Elf instead of Morning Lord. Like a shadow archer going palemaster with only slight Eldritch line. In that aspect you can do like 2/ranger , 6 Cleric, 12 wiz. That way you can self heal with inflict. I posted an Eldritch Archer build that also had some melee for warforged though people were picking it apart to maximize the archer end of it. https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...ldritch-Harper Also remember if you are going ranged a good spot is nice to have. You could replace power attack with precision and replace empower with improved precise shot, that or quicken.

[mezzorco]

Note that you'll need 19 dex for Improved Precise Shot, so you'll need at least 14/16 starting dex depending on tome.
If you want it, Combat Archery requires 21 dex, that is 16/18 starting dex depending on tome availability.

To make it worse, wizards end with 10 BAB and Improved Precise Shot requires 11, so no IPS until level 21.

[Makkuroi]

Title pretty much says it all, I have been away from the game for quite a while and only recently got into really looking at the new enhancements for classes/races/etc.

Anyway, after taking a look at:

Wizard Eldritch Knight - The bonus to weapon damage applies to Bows, as do the elemental effects as best as i can tell
Elf - Elves can become Arcane Archers, and Sun Elves get higher INT (though a "normal" elf may be better for bow to hit and damage, thoughts?)
Harper can use INT to Hit and Damage for weapons
Arcane Archer - Does its damage stack with Wizard Eldritch Knight imbues?

I now the flavor the month right now seems to be Monk/Paladin/Elf/Arcane Archer(when it comes to bow builds anyway), but I am wondering if what I am proposing is viable. Having both constant "good" ranged DPS from a Bow AND full access to Wizard Spells seems like it might be a good combo, but I feel like I am missing something here which would make this a bad idea....

Imho a caster/ranged build isnt a really good idea since casting is ranged anyway. Casting a spell at range will disrupt your ranged dps and dont bring many advantages, as cc isnt that necessary if youre ranged. The only spell that comes to mind that helps ranged a lot is blade barrier, as it synergizes well with a kiting ranged style and the divine self-heals are always nice. Here youre better off with an arti or cleric/fvs archer. Arti is preferable since you can get damage and dcs from the same stat. Im not sure, but are there any arties with manyshot out there for burst DPS? Since arti trees are sub-par, they dont seem that interesting nowadays.

Arcane caster + archer doesnt synergize too well, they do basically the same things but you have to invest a lot for both of them. The only advantage of wiz levels is full-time displacement, which doesnt need more than 5-6 lvls of wizard and no offensive casting investment. Tensers transformation might be worth considering, but with harper it doesnt add to damage anymore.

For Melees, ranged damage (mainly manyshot option) is just an option to deal with situations where melee is sub-par or not applicable (very hard-hitting bosses, stuff thats not in melee range like FoT crystal).

Caster+Melee has advantages, as draconic incarnation spells are pretty close range, normal spells offer a ranged/aoe option, and melee benefits a lot from mass cc.

A pure ranged build probably needs 10k stars to make it viable, either classic monkcher or the new 14 pal/6 monk one.

[Ausdoerrt]

"Kiting ranged style", pfft.

Ranged DPS synergizes quite well with DoTs.

EK, I think, would only be useful for the self-buffs, not so much the extra elemental damage. Perma Tenser's is nice, question is, is it worth all the AP. And well, EK is good if you want to wear heavy(-ier) armor.

If I were doing this, I'd take 6 levels of ranger, focus more on the PM tree and run in either Vampire or Wraith form.