When does an archer put down his bow and grab a sword?

[Saekee]

Not to go too far off-topic, but now that DWS Imp Weapon Finesse will also apply to bows, I've been wondering about DEX-based halfling rgr 6+ / monk 3+ builds after the new update: Manyshot w/bow, then switch to shuriken while MS on cooldown. DEX for dmg to shuriken & bows as well as extra shuriken proc chance, INT w/KtA secondary for those w/Harper.

yes, am running one now by accident, am really hoping for next update to come through (mine is dragonmarked halfling 9 monk for improved evasion and kite speed/6 ranger/5 rogue).

I suppose the max ranged power would be 12 ranger so as to grab the 4th core of deepwood. But as always, ap is stretched. Mechanic still seems the strongest for tier 5 but will need to crunch the numbers.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

smh

[Talon_Moonshadow]

If your concern is just DPS... (one of these days someone will see the bigger picture....)
Then it really depends on your build.

I've tested my pure (Elf) Ranger on a training dummy, and I see very little difference between the time I can take it down ranged to the time I can take it down with melee.
This is because of the large doubleshot percentage I get ranged, and other things about my toons stats.

Yes, melee is faster than ranged. But there are many variables.


If you are beating on a stationary target (rare....very rare....) Then... usually.... melee does more DPS. (let's forget many shot for the time being...)

But damaging something at a distance is extremely powerful.
Add in two or more ranged toons to the group... and wow!


Also, those days of ranged toons not doing much DPS are really long past.
Yeah, it depends.
Many variables to builds.

Generally one can choose to make a melee toon to do more DPS than a ranged toon....because melee "is" faster.
But if you build for ranged, you may not do more DPS when meleeing.

And even the most powerful melee guy, still has to be able to get his weapons on target.... (and when playing with some ranged toons I know, that can be very difficult at times. )

But sticking with the ops question, it really depends.

Go test your toon on a training dummy and see.
Mine came out real close to each other last time I tested her.

For me, it comes down to what style benefits the party right now...
or just which style do I feel like doing right now... (a lot easier to play ranged with one hand when the other hand is holding a slice of pizza.... )

Do I have agro?
Will he kick my butt if he gets his mitts on me?
Is he running from me?

Stuff like that.

[Saekee]

it will also be a different question if someone builds around the new deepwood tree. You will have all the feats for both ranged and TWF anyway if you are at least 11 ranger and the tree awards hybrid approaches.

I was serious earlier in that dex throwers combined with bow and improved finesse make shurikens the logical choice in-between manyshot. TBH On my thrower I do not even need manyshot and I suspect that at endgame I will have nearly 4 shurikens going all the time anyway, manyshot almost feels like a drop in DPS.

[Basura_Grande]

When you played a different class and finally realise how terribly bad the damage output of a pure ranger that never puts down the bow actually is.

This.

[Basura_Grande]

smh

How is he wrong?

[Basura_Grande]

If your concern is just DPS... (one of these days someone will see the bigger picture....)
Then it really depends on your build.

I've tested my pure (Elf) Ranger on a training dummy, and I see very little difference between the time I can take it down ranged to the time I can take it down with melee.
This is because of the large doubleshot percentage I get ranged, and other things about my toons stats.

Yes, melee is faster than ranged. But there are many variables.


If you are beating on a stationary target (rare....very rare....) Then... usually.... melee does more DPS. (let's forget many shot for the time being...)

But damaging something at a distance is extremely powerful.
Add in two or more ranged toons to the group... and wow!


Also, those days of ranged toons not doing much DPS are really long past.
Yeah, it depends.
Many variables to builds.

Generally one can choose to make a melee toon to do more DPS than a ranged toon....because melee "is" faster.
But if you build for ranged, you may not do more DPS when meleeing.

And even the most powerful melee guy, still has to be able to get his weapons on target.... (and when playing with some ranged toons I know, that can be very difficult at times. )

But sticking with the ops question, it really depends.

Go test your toon on a training dummy and see.
Mine came out real close to each other last time I tested her.

For me, it comes down to what style benefits the party right now...
or just which style do I feel like doing right now... (a lot easier to play ranged with one hand when the other hand is holding a slice of pizza.... )

Do I have agro?
Will he kick my butt if he gets his mitts on me?
Is he running from me?

Stuff like that.

What's your Tier 5 on your hybrid? Slayer arrow or Dance of Death?

[Kawai]

How is he wrong?

well, since ima living breathing contradiction to claims such as his?
pretty much that's how. yw

[blerkington]

Hi,

I play a hybrid melee/archery ranger, so I melee fairly frequently. The bow is useful for distant enemies, for manyshot, and for applying pin or whistler, but using it all the time really gimps my contribution.

If you go out of your way to take no feats, enhancements and don't have any decent melee weapons I can see melee seeming ineffective, but it actually requires only a modest investment to become quite useful. And if squishiness is what's keeping some rangers out of combat, letting other people pick up aggro before you engage does wonders for your survivability and damage output.

There are two things I'd really like to see added to the game. One is a 'damage done' statistic added into the XP window. That would put to bed a lot of the confusion about how effective or ineffective certain playstyles are at contributing in that way. One thing I noticed while playing another game with this information is that the relationship between kill count and damage done is not perfectly correlated.

Apart from the huge DPS spike available through one ED, archery damage overall seems low. Both compared to melee AND now also to crossbow and thrower builds. It's better than it used to be, but it's still way down on other styles.

While you don't need top DPS or even anything near it to succeed in the vast majority of the game, I think the people who are claiming it's fine are shooting themselves (and other ranged players, who would like to make really strong bow builds) in the foot. Curiously, some of the people claiming archery is fine have also asked for throwers to be nerfed, but go figure.

A configurable DPS test dummy would be a second great addition to the game. To be really useful, the instance would have to allow all combat effects (including spells) to apply, and let us make changes to our enhancements and ED set-up while in it.

Thanks.

[Kawai]

Hi,
I play a hybrid melee/archery ranger, so I melee fairly frequently. The bow is useful for distant enemies, for manyshot, and for applying pin or whistler, but using it all the time really gimps my contribution.

you answered your own statement below.
building hybird will limit ur output.
mix in playstle & it further limits it.
since i've never seen u play, can offer no valid tips towards that.
& besides, u cant really teach playstyle. it comes naturally, & can only b changed, internally, through practice.

Apart from the huge DPS spike available through one ED, archery damage overall seems low.

indeed, it does.
That's why it's considered "gimp" by the masses, & re-enforced by Forum-Wranglers over & over again.
That's why there is a pass coming, after all these years.
oh, & that's also why viewpoints r hard to change. Monkey read Monkey write. been going on since i started playing this game. people keep on simply reenforcing others viewpoints without actually trying to learn things for themselves.

While you don't need top DPS or even anything near it to succeed in the vast majority of the game, I think the people who are claiming it's fine are shooting themselves (and other ranged players, who would like to make really strong bow builds) in the foot. Curiously, some of the people claiming archery is fine have also asked for throwers to be nerfed, but go figure.

wellll, no secret there whom u r tryin ta bait, again...
no worries.
never asked for any thrower to b nerfed. i do hwvr think it's ridiculous when they ask for it to b more powerful than.. say... a Greatbow.... makes no sense, period.
--a little star, thown by hand, with absolutely no accelerated velocity. it's a silly comparison.
a Masterwork Shortbow should b all one needs to outDPS any Throwing Star.

A configurable DPS test dummy would be a second great addition to the game. To be really useful, the instance would have to allow all combat effects (including spells) to apply, and let us make changes to our enhancements and ED set-up while in it.
Thanks.

no problem with any addition they wanna make. tho they won't.
but if u can't tell in-game, or by simply using a regular training dummy (or in meh case, 12 of them :P then there's even more work to b done.

[Lonnbeimnech]

The thing I don't get about thrower builds.

So you make a character that has the ability to throw 3 ninja stars at once.

And you give him a magical ninja star that returns to his hand when he throws it, so that he can immediately throw it again.

But how exactly is he throwing that one ninja star 3 times at the same time? I could under stand if he had 3 different returning stars.

[Grailhawk]

The thing I don't get about thrower builds.

So you make a character that has the ability to throw 3 ninja stars at once.

And you give him a magical ninja star that returns to his hand when he throws it, so that he can immediately throw it again.

But how exactly is he throwing that one ninja star 3 times at the same time? I could under stand if he had 3 different returning stars.

Its a video game not real life.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

What's your Tier 5 on your hybrid? Slayer arrow or Dance of Death?

Slayer Arrows.

Like I said, it really depends on how you build them as to whether they do more DPS ranged than melee.

I do think that all things being equal. you can build a higher DPS melee than ranged.
But as to what is better for each build, that depends on many things.


And I know that all things are never equal..
Monsters do not stand still and just let you beat on them.
And even if they did, there is time spent on closing distance.

This is really my main reason for liking Rangers so much; I can do both.

But do I need to do both?
Not really....
Most of the time, those ranged only guys can just keep on ranging if they want to.

(might be a more meaningful question to ask is when does a melee guy put down his sword and pick up a bow? IMO, those situations occur often enough too....)
(But yeah, I get it.. most players just don't try to kill anything they can't melee, or bring a healer for those that hit back too hard....)

[blerkington]

you answered your own statement below.
building hybird will limit ur output.
mix in playstle & it further limits it.
since i've never seen u play, can offer no valid tips towards that.
& besides, u cant really teach playstyle. it comes naturally, & can only b changed, internally, through practice.

indeed, it does.
That's why it's considered "gimp" by the masses, & re-enforced by Forum-Wranglers over & over again.
That's why there is a pass coming, after all these years.
oh, & that's also why viewpoints r hard to change. Monkey read Monkey write.


wellll, no secret there whom u r tryin ta bait, again...
no worries.
never asked for any thrower to b nerfed. i do hwvr think it's ridiculous when they ask for it to b more powerful than.. say... a Greatbow.... makes no sense, period.
--a little star, thown by hand, with absolutely no accelerated velocity. it's a silly comparison.
a Masterwork Shortbow should b all one needs to outDPS any Throwing Star.


no problem with any addition they wanna make. tho they won't.
but if u can't tell in-game, or by simply using a regular training dummy (or in meh case, 12 of them :P then there's even more work to b done.

Hi,

Yes, your ranged damage will be lower on a hybrid than it is on a specialist. The point is that even pure archers lag behind crossbow and thrower builds.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that there are very few build options for archers because they pretty much have to include 10k stars and use the Fury destiny to be as good as they can be at producing damage.

The argument that a good ranged player can somehow equalise archery with crossbows and throwing is one you've mentioned before, many times in fact, but it's not a good one. That is because there are very good ranged players in all three styles.

If skill is equivalent between players, and gearing is too, then the differences we see in results stem from build strength. All of the stronger ranged players I know on Khyber who have made the switch from full time archery to throwers or crossbow users have said the difference is like night and day.

Now, I already said that I think archery is adequately strong for most content. You can make some sort of a contribution on an archer in group, but the way the game works now pretty much dooms you to making less of a contribution, damage wise, unless there's a big difference in skill level, gearing, or you're running easy content.

For me, the problem is why the game won't allow archers some build variety and to become as strong as the other ranged styles are. I don't have a horse in the thrower race, but I don't begrudge people the option of making a good one, nor do I think what you consider to be realistic a good basis for ruling it out in a fantasy game.

Thanks.

[Kawai]

Hi,

Yes, your ranged damage will be lower on a hybrid than it is on a specialist. The point is that even pure archers lag behind crossbow and thrower builds.

The situation isn't helped by the fact that there are very few build options for archers because they pretty much have to include 10k stars and use the Fury destiny to be as good as they can be at producing damage.

The argument that a good ranged player can somehow equalise archery with crossbows and throwing is one you've mentioned before, many times in fact, but it's not a good one. That is because there are very good ranged players in all three styles.

If skill is equivalent between players, and gearing is too, then the differences we see in results stem from build strength. All of the stronger ranged players I know on Khyber who have made the switch from full time archery to throwers or crossbow users have said the difference is like night and day.

Now, I already said that I think archery is adequately strong for most content. You can make some sort of a contribution on an archer in group, but the way the game works now pretty much dooms you to making less of a contribution, damage wise, unless there's a big difference in skill level, gearing, or you're running easy content.

For me, the problem is why the game won't allow archers some build variety and to become as strong as the other ranged styles are. I don't have a horse in the thrower race, but I don't begrudge people the option of making a good one, nor do I think what you consider to be realistic a good basis for ruling it out in a fantasy game.

Thanks.

1. i dont lag behind. *shrug, its that simple. not stoopid enuff to know that others aren't capable, ive had plenty of mentors & others whom i doubt i'll ever outplay. but they are out there.
putting up blinders and making blanket statements like those above is where u r simply wrong.

2. me main is various lives (11th now) of Monkcher. love it & it can't compare, simply bcoz of gear. me alts r just fine as well... which INCLUDES a Pure RangerDanger of whom i mostly speak when it comes to pure. and yep, i'll put her up against anyone. lol she barely uses manyshot. but i digress

3. very good point, as well as the previous poster, about begrudging fantasy.
on that, i'll concede. maybe. only problem i honestly have with it outside of previous realistics is the wranglers who claim its the ONLY way to go, thus reenforcing the non-need for BOOSTING it. its already ridiculous, & asking for even more is beyond that...but sure.. for the sake of people having fun with whatever they choose... so b it.

channel awaits... time ta go :P

[Braegan]

In my experience playing ranged type builds (pure 20 AA and 12 monk/6ranger/2 pally and 12 fighter/6 ranger/2 monk) they perform differently.

Honestly, I have found the damage when M/S or 10k stars was on CD to be lower than melee on the same character. But, to me that's a fair trade off. I can hit a mob from a great distance long before it closes in on me (teleporting mobs excluded ) so I do feel like it should be less for balance sake.

Really, I prefer a pure 20 ranger. But that is more built for utility and the ability to switch it up when needed. I like being able to range and when I need to switch to melee weapons.

Although I am of the belief it's more a personal choice in playstyle. Some builds can keep on the bow full time and do well (usually those with both M/S and 10k) others do good burst DPS in both areas. For that, you just need to decide what you want to do and then build accordingly to it to maximize your fun!

[Saekee]

The thing I don't get about thrower builds.

So you make a character that has the ability to throw 3 ninja stars at once.

And you give him a magical ninja star that returns to his hand when he throws it, so that he can immediately throw it again.

But how exactly is he throwing that one ninja star 3 times at the same time? I could under stand if he had 3 different returning stars.

ancient ninja secret

[Basura_Grande]

well, since ima living breathing contradiction to claims such as his?
pretty much that's how. yw

Eth may be the greatest player in DDO, what's your YouTube channel name so I can compare your exploits and see who's word I should take more seriously?

[Basura_Grande]

Slayer Arrows.

Got it.

Have you tried Dance of Death yet? On Lamania with 1000 Cuts at the same time it's pretty hysterical.

[Grailhawk]

Eth may be the greatest player in DDO, what's your YouTube channel name so I can compare your exploits and see who's word I should take more seriously?

YouTube channel hell i just want a video of him/her beating down the new Kobold's or Bruntsmash, to prove his/her claims.