Ranger: Deepwood Stalker Changes

[Steelstar]

Hey, everyone. SteelStar here to talk about upcoming changes to the Ranger's Deepwood Stalker tree currently slated for Update 28. When looking at this tree, we looked to raise their mitigation and provide more Melee options while strengthening many of the existing Ranged options. The list below is a list of changes, if an ability is not mentioned, we don't have plans to change it at the moment.


(Note on the Archer's Focus Feat: This now adds 3 Ranged Power per stack instead of 2% damage to missile damage.)


Core Abilities
~ Sneak Attack (4th core): Passive: You also gain +10 Melee Power and Ranged Power (in addition to the things this ability currently does)
~ Mark of the Hunted: The Fortification debuff has been raised from 10% to 25%. It now reads: "Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your target gains -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes."
~ Horizon Shot: Passive: You also gain +20 Melee Power and Ranged Power (in addition to the things this ability currently does)


Tier One
~ Favored Defense: AP cost reduced to 1/1/1 AP. Is no longer a multi-selector, but instead gives the following benefits against Favored Enemies: +2/+4/+6 to Armor Class, +1/+2/+3 Saving Throws
~ Tendon Cut: Bonus damage increased to +1/+2/+3[W]


Tier Two
~ Favored Defense is removed. (It was combined into the Tier 1 Favored Defense.)
~ Survivalist I: (2 AP) You gain 10 hit points. While wearing Light Armor you gain 3 Physical Resistance Rating. (This is in Favored Defense's old spot).
~ Faster Sneaking: Now costs 1/1/1 AP.
~ Improved Weapon Finesse: This now also applies to Bows.
~ Action Boost: Now costs 1/1/1 AP. Multiselector

* Melee+Ranged Power Boost: (identical to the Knight of the Chalice version)
* Skill Boost: (As per current enhancement)

Tier Three
~ Survivalist II: (2 AP) You gain 20 hit points. While wearing Light Armor you gain 4 Physical Resistance Rating. (Requires Survivalist I)
~ Favored Accuracy is removed and replaced with:
~ Favored Hunter: (1/1/1 AP) You gain +1/+2/+3 to hit and damage against favored enemies. (This moved horizontally to the middle of Tier 3)
~ Thrill of the Hunt: AP Cost is reduced to 1/1/1 AP. "You gain +1/+2/+3 damage for 6 seconds after damaging an opponent under 50% health." (% is now the same across all three ranks).


Tier Four
~ Favored Damage is removed. (It was combined with tier three Favored Hunter)
~ Survivalist III: (2 AP) You gain 30 hit points. While wearing Light Armor you gain 5 Physical Resistance Rating. (Requires Survivalist II)
~ Hunter's Mercy
* Merciful Shot now works if the target is below 50% health (was 20%). The bane damage scales with 100% Ranged Power.
* Merciful Strike now works if the target is below 50% health (was 20%). The bane damage scales with 100% Melee Power.
~ Leg Shot is now identical to the Mechanic version of the same ability (+2[W] damage)


Tier Five
~ Extra Favored Enemy: (No longer requires Favored Damage, since that no longer exists)
~ Head Shot: Multiselector (No longer requires Leg Shot)

* Head Shot: Ranged Attack. +5(W) attack that is automatically considered a critical threat and blinds the opponent for 6 seconds. (Fort DC 14 + Ranger Level + the Dexterity bonus). Cooldown 15 seconds.
* Head Strike: Melee Attack. +5(W) attack that is automatically considered a critical threat and blinds the opponent for 6 seconds. (Fort DC 14 + Ranger Level + the Dexterity bonus). Cooldown 15 seconds.

~ Stalker Training: Multiselector

* Improved Archer's Focus: (as per current enhancement)
* With Bow and Sword: +10 Ranged Power and +10 Melee Power

~ Strikes Like Lightning: You gain 10% Double Strike and 20% Double Shot.

[Zzevel]

It's alive!

The Ranger pass is going to happen Soon!-ish-ster


~ Improved Weapon Finesse: This now also applies to Bows....
- And throwing Weapons?

[Qhualor]

It's a mix of melee and ranged. Hmmm.. depending on what Tempest looks like, this might be good to put extra points into. I see the trend continues with adding bonuses to light and medium armor.

[Saekee]

interesting. I notice the difference between mechanic and this in that mechanic loads up on range power in the fourth and fifth tiers whereas this only gets it on tier 5 but in the fourth core. I predict new ranged throwers possibly aiming for fourth core of ranger and fifth tier of mechanic.

Questions:
Improved Weapon Finesse: This now also applies to Bows.
very powerful and interesting for dex builds, no longer stuck going up elf tree for grace but needs extra feat.


~ Survivalist II: (2 AP) You gain 20 hit points. While wearing Light Armor you gain 4 Physical Resistance Rating. (Requires Survivalist I)
Do these work in cloth armor? I am assuming it is intentional as is?

[btolson]

Is Manyshot going to see a change with the ranger pass? Important to know one way or the other, wrt double shot bonuses and more.

[Gratch]

Tier Five
~ Head Shot: Multiselector (No longer requires Leg Shot)

* Head Shot: As per current enhancement
* Head Strike: A new Melee version of the same ability

Head Shot and Head Strike are not very defining and I think they should be. Bonus 500 on vorpal (5%)? auto-crit... hmmm. Pretty lame Milhouse. I'd suggest more damage add but that's already in arcane archer. It IS a head shot. Maybe add, "target that has a head must make a Fortitude save versus (10 + dex or wis + ranger + epic level + tendon slice bonus) or die instantly." (also 20 second cooldown instead of 60).
[The bard's instadeath tier 5 is 15 seconds though it does require a pre-spelled enemy, the rogue's is 12 seconds, so 20 isn't game breaking]
[Arrow of slaying is 20s cooldown. Bonus 250 base damage 95% of the time and often on 4 arrows with manyshot]

P.S. I only checked the wiki for this enhancement's current benefit. Maybe that is out of date. It really sucks when comparing it to everything else.

[HatsuharuZ]

I think that you miiigghht be giving us a bit too much ranged and melee power. But that's just me.

[ValariusK]

Do you realize that the change to precise shot is actually a nerf? 30% increased damage is 30% of (100%+RP%)* total damage whereas 30 ranged power is (100%+RP%+30)* total damage. With 30 ranged power vs 30% increased damage you're losing effectively 30% * your original ranged power *total damage in damage.

My suggestion, since I'm confident you DON'T want to nerf rangers in this pass is to make precise shot's bonus scale upwards in epics to compensate, or just don't change precise shot.

[mikarddo]

Do you realize that the change to precise shot is actually a nerf? 30% increased damage is 30% of (100%+RP%)* total damage whereas 30 ranged power is (100%+RP%+30)* total damage. With 30 ranged power vs 30% increased damage you're losing effectively 30% * your original ranged power *total damage in damage.

My suggestion, since I'm confident you DON'T want to nerf rangers in this pass is to make precise shot's bonus scale upwards in epics to compensate, or just don't change precise shot.

The change to action boost suffers from the same issue.

[CeltEireson]

Seems reasonable at first glance except head shot - given how frequently you tend to get criticals anyways Im not entirely sure why you consider a guaranteed critical so powerful that it needs to have a one minute cooldown. Its not as if the enhancement has any bonus to critical damage, and in terms of working with epic abilities such as fury shot - youre practically guaranteed a critical with fury shot as is.

As for the 500 damage on a vorpal - I always took this to mean a vorpal on the head shot - which given the cooldown is 1 minute and a vorpal is a 1 in 20 chance means that on average you will see that damage appear after 20 shots or 19 minutes i.e. you'll be lucky to see it fire off more than once or twice in the average quest. Basically average over a quest its pretty much next to no increase in DPS and on higher level quests its next to nothing. Its also doesn't get multiplied up the same way that Arrow of Slaying damage does as far as I'm aware.

If you're keeping the main benefit as it is the cooldown needs to come down to maybe 20-30 seconds - work out how many times you'll fire a bow over a one minute period and how much damage one extra critical represents - the extra DPS from this is negligible. That's fine for shots that have some other effect like slow etc but for something that is straight up damage its not that useful.

Why not change it to an effect of some sort - how about a percentage chance to stun given that you're hitting their head or DC based off a skill or attribute, or even a 100% chance to daze. Something a bit more interesting and of benefit than a miniscule increase in damage.

[CeltEireson]

Oh and regards Archers Focus - given that the basic archers focus is of the same damage type as the Deadly attribute on items we pretty much lose most of the benefit of this as it is. We' currently up to +12 damage from deadly items, basic archers focus is only 15 - so at best we get an extra 3 damage and we have to get the stacks that high in the first place. Think it should be changed to a different type that stacks with deadly.

Again may be wrong about this and I'm basing it on old posts.

[lain5246]

I am loving that we are getting buffs to use correct armor. I feel that it make a large difference when I have to think twice before slapping on heavy armor/ cloth as I will not max out my buffs using aforementioned.
please keep this trend going

[HatsuharuZ]

Empathic Healing should be changed. Instead of allowing the use of the weakest of the Vigor spells up to 6 times per rest, it should add single target Vigor spells to the ranger's spell list. Rangers currently don't get any healing spells until they get *Cure Light Wounds* at level 8. Please let them cast vigor spells, starting at level 4.

[CeltEireson]

Went online to check out my old ranger - still a few things that would likely need changed:

Rogue version of move silently / faster sneaking: Stealthy: +1/+2/+3 Hide and Move Silently. +25/50/75% movement speed while sneaking.

They get it all for 1 point per level, and 75% bonus to sneak speed as opposed to 50% on the current deepwood stalker.

Empathic healing is still rather weak for 2 points per level - given that rangers already have better forms of healing. Even with tier 3 of increased empathy that's still only 8 uses of a very minor form of healing, especially as youd probably be saving the animal empathy for mark of the hunted. Maybe think about having animal empathy regenerate slowly over time the same way smite or turn undead, say if tier 3 of animal increased empathy is taken, or if tier 2 of empathetic healing is taken.

[Grailhawk]

~ Mark of the Hunted: The Fortification debuff has been raised from 10% to 25%. It now reads: "Activate: Expend a use of Animal Empathy. Your target gains -25% Fortification, -10 Armor Class, -10 Spell Resistance, and suffers a -4 penalty to all ability scores for 3 minutes."

Can this get the same animation/delay as Assassin's Trick. Last time I used this (2 years+ ago) it had a very long animation/delay I cant remember the specifics but its was an issue.

~ Head Shot: Multiselector (No longer requires Leg Shot)

* Head Shot: As per current enhancement
* Head Strike: A new Melee version of the same ability

~ Stalker Training: Multiselector

* Improved Archer's Focus: (as per current enhancement)
* With Bow and Sword: +10 Ranged Power and +10 Melee Power

I really think you should consider removing the melee option and adding an insta-kill to the ranged version.

[Ralmeth]

Seems reasonable at first glance except head shot - given how frequently you tend to get criticals anyways Im not entirely sure why you consider a guaranteed critical so powerful that it needs to have a one minute cooldown. Its not as if the enhancement has any bonus to critical damage, and in terms of working with epic abilities such as fury shot - youre practically guaranteed a critical with fury shot as is.

As for the 500 damage on a vorpal - I always took this to mean a vorpal on the head shot - which given the cooldown is 1 minute and a vorpal is a 1 in 20 chance means that on average you will see that damage appear after 20 shots or 19 minutes i.e. you'll be lucky to see it fire off more than once or twice in the average quest. Basically average over a quest its pretty much next to no increase in DPS and on higher level quests its next to nothing. Its also doesn't get multiplied up the same way that Arrow of Slaying damage does as far as I'm aware.

If you're keeping the main benefit as it is the cooldown needs to come down to maybe 20-30 seconds - work out how many times you'll fire a bow over a one minute period and how much damage one extra critical represents - the extra DPS from this is negligible. That's fine for shots that have some other effect like slow etc but for something that is straight up damage its not that useful.

Why not change it to an effect of some sort - how about a percentage chance to stun given that you're hitting their head or DC based off a skill or attribute, or even a 100% chance to daze. Something a bit more interesting and of benefit than a miniscule increase in damage.

/Agreed. The cooldown should be reduced to 20 seconds.

Other than that, I like the sound of the changes!

[Grailhawk]

Oh and regards Archers Focus - given that the basic archers focus is of the same damage type as the Deadly attribute on items ...

That's not what Archers Focus does. Archers focus is not +damage is +damage% there is a big difference.

[Steve_Howe]

I really think you should consider removing the melee option and adding an insta-kill to the ranged version.

No. No one ever said Deepwood Stalker was a Ranged-only PrE. You might be thinking of Deepwood Sniper which is a D&D 3.5 PrC.

[CeltEireson]

That's not what Archers Focus does. Archers focus is not +damage is +damage% there is a big difference.

I stand corrected! forgot about that.

[Grailhawk]

No. No one ever said Deepwood Stalker was a Ranged-only PrE. You might be thinking of Deepwood Sniper which is a D&D 3.5 PrC.

I agree its not ranged only tree Stalker should be the hybrid tree and offer multi-selectors for most things. That said I think Deepwood should have an insta-kill, I also think Rangers should not be Assassinate things like a Rogue does hence why if Deepwood gets an insta-kill it should be Ranged only.