Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[Apollos713]

Overall, I think this is a really good start to the tree overhaul. I especially like the update to the level 18 core (I'm fine with crit updates instead of extra ranged power in the tree). The updates to the imbues are also a great move.

The suggestions regarding fletching and doubleshot penalty are great suggestions for the final version of AA, but I'm happy with this for an early version (assuming that AA will be updated twice). Clarification about Ranger AA vs. Elf AA would be appreciated.

Personally, I'm fine with WIS as the DC stat. It is the ranger casting stat, after all. Keeping it as the DC stat might make people choose very different archer builds (some might focus on WIS with AA, others might focus on INT with DWS and Harper).



On a separate note, thanks for working late on this Varg. You've posted on evenings and weekends, and I appreciate your dedication.

[Apollos713]

I think the changes look pretty good. Some of us would like to see rangers get a bonus to run speed. Could that be put in this tree in say tier 1? Also, will rangers be getting some sort of "spell" pass? Our spells could really use a boost, revamp, redue.... Really enjoying my tempest/deepwood ranger!

Thanks

Does run speed need to be in the enhancement tree? Could it be a ranger feat, similar to Slow Fall for a Monk?

I think a spell pass needs to be larger than for just rangers. A spell pass for multiple classes (including Epic spells) is definitely needed in another update.

[Assassination]

Does run speed need to be in the enhancement tree? Could it be a ranger feat, similar to Slow Fall for a Monk?

I think a spell pass needs to be larger than for just rangers. A spell pass for multiple classes (including Epic spells) is definitely needed in another update.

Run speed could defenitely be a ranger spell, just redo longstrider....+1% run speed per level of ranger.... maybe spells are not so easy to redo.

[Basura_Grande]

Looks interesting. However: why no changes to manyshot and doubleshoot penalty? That needs to happen.

All the additions to doubleshot are meaningless without a change.

This absolutely needs to happen.

Also, is double-shot working with all shots on a repeater WAI?

[Basura_Grande]

[*]Slaying Arrow:
[*]Depending on DPS testing, this may be decreased or increased in power. Yes, if we've injected too much power into Arcane Archer, this is where we will probably pull back on some of it. We don't expect to fundamentally change the design of this ability, but it's not healthy or good design for so much of the power of one enhancement tree or build to be in a single ability like this. (And yes, we understand just how powerful and vital it is for certain builds, but that's part of the problem.)

Will this continue to work with Adrenaline?

Will Fury eternal continue to regenerate adrenalines despite this being contradictory to what the description says?

[Livmo]

Can I ask the Community --

What are your ideas about how these broad principles should vary between Ranger AA and Elf AA ?

Should focus and abilities be very different between the two, identical, or simply variant ?

I play a WIS based Sun Elf AA. We have access to the AA tree. I would like WIS included in the new AA offerings since I play Sun Elf AA (no monk).

We unlock the AA Enhancement Tree via Sun Elf Racial Enhancement Tree:

http://ddowiki.com/page/Sun_Elf

Arcane Archer: You gain access to the Arcane Archer enhancement tree. (The Elf: Arcane Archer tree uses your total character level instead of Ranger level, but advances Core Abilities at a slower rate. You cannot spend action points in both the Ranger: Arcane Archer and Elf: Arcane Archer trees.)

You need to click the Accept button before you can select the Arcane Archer (Elf) tree

Its Tier 3 and costs 4 AP to get.

[Blastyswa]

1. Paralyzing DC will be fairly weak unless playing a monkcher. If that's the design goal, then it'll work perfectly with 10k.

2. I'd say just make those chances on the different arrow types 100%. I could see wanting an AA with smiting for some fights (DoJ end fight comes to mind) to increase party DPS, however, if they have a low chance of applying it'll take a long time to reach 25 stacks (Long being more than 10-15 seconds). and 10% movement speed and attack speed isn't much at all on paralyzing, which is fine because it's only on a save anyways.

3. Good luck getting elemental damage right. If I were doing it personally, I would make it something like possible 7d6 scaling with 100% spellpower while manyshotting, 400% while not. Otherwise it'll just be more extreme burst power that makes archers useful for the first 20 seconds of a boss fight.

4. +1 crit multiplier is very boring. At core 18 you can put in other powerful bonuses without risk of holy sword splashing, I'd say something more along the lines of core 18. granting a version of 10k stars thats on all the time related to wisdom or dexterity (multiselector). For example, maybe with 60 Dexterity (A decent number that can probably expected by most builds that focus on it) there is an obvious 100% chance of firing first arrow, a 80% chance of a second arrow, a 40% chance of a third arrow, and a 10% chance of a fourth arrow (I'm pulling these numbers based on what feels right, they could obviously be tweaked). Doubleshot would apply in order of arrows, so with 40% doubleshot the above build would have 100% chance of second arrow, 60% of third, 10% of fourth. If you really wanted to get fancy, manyshot, if you have this enhancement, could be changed (Again, only on having this enhancement) to provide a flat doubleshot bonus; this would give archers more of a sustainable damage option as opposed to being very limited bursters.

5. +4 dex isn't going to cut it. If you were to use something like my above idea, then maybe 20% doublestrike and 10 ranged power would be strong enough. In the current function of manyshot/10k stars though, doubleshot is fairly useless, because
a. You can't use doubleshot for a long time after using manyshot and
b. Doubleshot can at most provide double damage (If you have a 100% doubleshot build, which is likely impossible without zeal) while manyshot provides x4 damage, and 10k stars can typically provide 2.5x-3.5x average damage.

6. I'd say change arrow of slaying drastically. In its current implementation, it's best used alongside fury as an extreme damage spiker. Make it a multiselector for something along the lines of either
+100 damage, +15% chance of instakill on DC 35+Ranger Level +Wis/Dex mod (Purposefully very high DC, with 15% chance across 4 arrows it allows for a more controlled burst) or
+5 passive damage, +10 ranged power.

If you're basing things off of spellpower, perhaps add some into the tree itself? Attaching it to things like Shattermantle and Dispelling Shot could add some passive worth to those abilities, or add multiselectors at some point that allow you to focus more into your chosen element or generalize (Like +30 spellpower acid/cold/fire/electric, or +10 spellpower).

[jakeelala]

The imbues are called ____ ARROWS for a reason. Darts and xbow bolts may be close enough to an arrow, but shuriken and the other throwers?

/Not signed

It's how the game currently works. And since you're just imbuing your ammo for most of these effects, why does it matter if it's a bow or xbow or shuriken? Slayer Arrow works with Shuriken and Xbows now.

[LordTigerDawn]

I like the DC based on Wisdom.

I like the dmg updated for elemental arrows.

I would rather seem slaying arrows add some amount of Ranged Power & spell power (for imbues, with a DC boost) as opposed to a base dmg amount. Like a mini adrenaline. Adrenaline an epic ability should not be worse than a heroic ability.

I am mixed as to whether this should work with throwers. But if they are excluded, make all the abilities not work; not some of them sometimes like they currently do.

[barecm]

I will skip the part where I describe how disappointed I am with this half-a$$ed pass. Can you really just not understand how to fix ranged combat? it has been how many years and how many different dev tems?

Anyway, back to the subject. Before the pass, I was interested only in Slayer arrow, paralyzing arrow, arcane arrows and morphic / metalline arrows.

Now, I am interested in Slayer arrow, elemental arrows and shadow arrows. Everything else drops off I am afraid. Despite the potential of the paralyze and terror arrows, the damage increase to elemental arrows may be too much to resist.

My question is for elemental arrows... will it scale with a spell power augment/item of the corresponding element, with spell power skill, with universal spell power, or all of these? Also, will Shiradi champion sonic damage scale with the perform skill version of spell power?

Will the paralyze, and terror arrows requirement for slayer arrows be removed?

[Grace_ana]

I think it's a good start, but it's really hard to tell with it being a partial pass. My concern about doing it partway instead of all together is that it's hard to see what it needs from a cohesive standpoint. So you do part of it, people build for that, then changes are made later to balance the tree as a whole and people are (rightly) ticked off. I think it's asking for trouble, and I think it's hard for you guys to get decent feedback when we only have part of the picture.

I want my new stuff now just like everyone else, but I'd be willing to wait until we have a full idea of all the proposed AA changes, plus changes to manyshot, so we can actually do a proper pass.

BAsed on what we have, though, I'd say the following:

1. I like the changes to the DC stances and the elemental arrows. Will there be a change so that metamagics can affect these stances as well? Given that they will be affected by spellpower, this seems to be something that should happen.

2. I am happy with the crit multiplier, because it makes it possible to use either DWS/tempest for melee or hybrid and get the multiplier and threat range, or use DWS/AA for the same for a ranged build. Otherwise, a ranged build wouldn't be able to do that while investing heavily in AA, and that would leave AA far behind. I was hoping you would put that multiplier in there, so thank you.

3. Again, alacrity is a serious issue. I would like to see it show up in the AA tree. The RoF for ranged fighting is just too far behind everyone else, even with doubleshot.

4. Speaking of doubleshot, we really, really need to discuss manyshot now before changes are final. Manyshot penalties are killing non-monk ranged toons, and I don't feel pigeonholing builds is good for the game.

5. I agree wholeheartedly with adding a QoL change for arrow stacking and quivers. Please make arrows stack to 1000 in inventory like you guys did with thieves' tools. Also, if you could make it so we can hotbar quivers and switch quickly between them using just a click, that would go a long way towards making us very happy.

6. Adding some sort of fletching to the AA tree would be thematic. I like the ease of the conjured arrows, but at times it would be nice to be able to use and have returned the arrows I pick up along the way.

[Seikojin]

Here's some changes we'd like to make to Arcane Archer sooner rather than later. We expect we may come back to Arcane Archer in the not-distant future to address additional issues we'd like to get to. We consider this a strong basis for improvement in some of the primary Arcane Archer features. There are some specific abilities that we consider underperforming that we want to address but may not have time to get in very soon¹.

---

Arcane Archer

• Action Boosts reduced to 1 AP per rank
• DC Based Arrow Stances: Includes Terror, Paralyzing, Banishing, and Smiting Arrows:
  
  • Each becomes one rank, 2 AP.
  • Each has a saving throw of 20 + Wisdom Modifier + Enchantment Spell Bonuses
  • Each enhancement taken grants +1 DC with Enchantment Spells.
  • Paralyze and Terror become short durations, but no additional save after the initial save. Short in this case is about 6 seconds. If you keep shooting one target, it can continue to be Paralyzed or Terrored. If you can keep a line going for Improved Precise Shot, you can keep this going on multiple enemies. To control maximum enemies, you'll need to frequently switch targets.
  • Paralyzing Arrows: On save, chance to apply 3 seconds of -10% Movement and Attack speed.
  • Smiting Arrows gains a chance to apply Deconstructed (slows attack speed, reduces fortification by 25%, and inflicts a 25% penalty to Repair healing)
  • Banishing Arrows gains chance to inflict Pull of Reality¹ on each hit.
    
    • Pull of Reality¹: -1 PRR, -1 MRR. Stacks up to 25 times. 5 stacks fade away every 3 seconds (if no new stacks were added).
  
  
• Elemental Arrows (Corrosive, Flaming, Frost, Shock)
  
  • Increase base damage to 1d8.
  • Damage scales with Spell Power. Exact amount TBD.
  • Each additional Elemental Arrows increases damage by +1 die.
  • Each enhancement tier from 2-5 has a new multiple choice option, "Elemental Damage", that increases damage by +2 dice (for a maximum of 7 dice if you select only one damage type).
  • Tier 5 Elemental Arrow damage (Improved) also scales with Spell Power.
  • Force Arrows scales number of dice with Elemental Arrows, and also scales with spellpower
  
  
• Shadow Arrows (Core, 18 levels of Ranger):
  
  • Gains: "Passive: Equipped bows gain +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier"
  
  
• Mystical Archer (Core, 20 levels of Ranger):
  
  • Dexterity bonus increased to +4
  
  
• Slaying Arrow:
  
  • Depending on DPS testing, this may be decreased or increased in power. Yes, if we've injected too much power into Arcane Archer, this is where we will probably pull back on some of it. We don't expect to fundamentally change the design of this ability, but it's not healthy or good design for so much of the power of one enhancement tree or build to be in a single ability like this. (And yes, we understand just how powerful and vital it is for certain builds, but that's part of the problem.)

---

This accomplishes a few goals:

1. DC based abilities² have long been a bane of Arcane Archers. They were often extremely strong when obtained, but had no way at all to scale up towards higher levels, which has only gotten worse over time and higher levels. Reworking these abilities was a key feature we wanted to get to sooner rather than later. This has meant we've wanted to adjust how some of those abilities work as well, and in particular wanted Smiting and Banishing Arrows to feel more impactful on attacks that were not criticals (while not simply adding damage).
2. Elemental Arrows were simply too weak, and also didn't scale into Epic levels. These changes should make them feel pretty powerful in heroic while also having some good options to scale into Epic. The addition of multiple choice options gives players some meaningful choices on how to progress.
3. Those two changes, especially focusing on Spell DCs and Spell Power, help with the lore and flavor of Arcane Archer as well. While not strictly necessary for gameplay, we like to support this when we can. It also gives us a means of differentiating Arcane Archer from other potential bow users. We know this isn't a large and fully realized group of build choices, but we certainly want that open as a development path, and hopefully they won't look all that similar when we get there. Fighters focusing on bows should be viable, for instance, and wouldn't be likely to invest heavily in Spell Power or Enchantment DCs.
4. Some of the other changes are really quality of life, keeping up with the Joneses, and things we can quickly and easily do.

Again, we want to say that we don't think this is a perfect or even a complete pass for Arcane Archer. As an example, it pains us to leave Dispelling and Shattermantle shot as-is, and we've been discussing some other possibilities with the Player's Council. Those abilities really need a larger redesign - potentially touching on things like a redesign of Dispels across DDO, for instance, which we just don't have time for right now. But some of us having been pushing to get some of this came out sooner rather than later!

This is, of course, a design-in-progress, subject to change from testing, math, deep insights of wisdom, a million kobolds with typewriters, or designers unscrupulously trying to fit a bit more improvement in when they should probably get on with Level 30 work.



Thanks for your thoughts and feedback, and may you always be fighting in the shade!

---

Footnotes, Vargouille? That's so outdated. Do you think you're in the module years?

1. (TM)

2. I'm going to recommend that when you fight in other planes, some enemy monsters should inflict Pull of Reality on player characters...

3. Developer Trivia: Some of the choices here in particular relate to technical hurdles that we've spent some time investigating working around but are probably not worth (even more) time. If you look carefully across DDO, you may note a relative lack of saving throws on most player abilities which are triggered passively. (Shiradi's Nerve Venom, for instance, was always intended to have a saving throw... it just didn't actually work, so got redesigned some at the last minute!) It's not that it's 100% impossible to do some of this kind of thing, but the amount of extra work is staggering (compared to even moderately simple abilities, can take 20-40 times as long to create). Even getting the saving throws we do have here is a bunch of extra work that doesn't really help anywhere else in the game, but at least applies to four abilities. This is also part of why they all use Enchantment Spell DC bonuses, rather than Terror Arrows using Necro... err, I mean, you are clearly enchanting your arrows in any case. So it's a lore reason! That sounds better, right? And therefore part of the flavor is that Arcane Archers specialize in Enchantment. It all comes together, somehow. (No, we're not going to base monster saves assuming you have 4 levels of Arcane Archer to get better Enchantment DCs... but if some Elf Wizard wants to go for it, well, we love somewhat crazy builds.)

---

^{P.S. I probably ramble on too much even when I don't give a Trivia warning. Maybe I shouldn't use that. Maybe I shouldn't post hours after everyone else has gone home and no one can stop me. Bwahahahaha!}

Soo, on lamannia this week?

[FestusHood]

I'm a little wary of the dc changes to the paralyzing and terror arrows. It says it includes enchantment bonuses to the dc. I'm going to assume this includes all things that would affect an enchantment spell? If so, if it were changed to use a stat like intelligence or dexterity where there is no real downside to maxing out that stat, you could reach dc's that are similar to what casters can reach with their enchantment spells. The problem is, these aren't special shots, they proc on every arrow fired. That could get pretty ridiculous.

Using wisdom for the dc does definitely favor monkchers, since they are the only archers that would have a good reason to max out their wisdom other than just trying to up the dc on these arrows. I really don't know what the right answer is. I know that the way they worked before basically left them with a 5% proc rate once monster save bands moved out of the range of the dc. That actually left them procing pretty regularly on a build with a high fire rate, like a monkcher.

The main problem with archers in general is their low rate of fire. I currently have a monkcher and a mechanic. Using the archer is just painful after using the mechanic. If it's not possible to change the way the animation works to achieve a higher rate of fire, allowing doubleshot to at least not be so heavily penalized by activating manyshot or 10k stars, could help. Not sure it should go completely away, but maybe it should.

If the doubleshot penalty goes completely away, monkchers will always be firing more arrows than any other archer. The only way this could be evened out is by putting things in that can't be reached by monkchers. This of course brings up the problem that even if you put large amounts of doubleshot in the upper cores, they can still be reached by accessing the elven version of AA.

A crazy idea i had was that they should remove the doubleshot penalty for manyshot, but leave it for 10k stars. That may sound unfair, but realistically, there are no bow users who are only using 10k and not also manyshot. Otherwise, you might just have to go so far as making the two abilities mutually exclusive, and removing all the doubleshot penalty.

When i played my monkcher which could get to the golden number of 56 wisdom, my estimate is that i was firing somewhere in the area of 2.5-2.75 arrows per shot on average. Always shot two, and shot three about half the time, and a fourth arrow occurred occasionally, but not often. It has a 30 second uptime and a 30 second cooldown. So 50% uptime. In a straight up comparison, isn't this just as good as manyshot, just spread out over time rather than concentrated in short bursts? Maybe monks and manyshotters need to go their separate ways for the sake of balance if not diversity.

[dontmater]

just giving AA a small boost would do allot, and maybe working on how to get the different arrows to work better on hot bars from within quivers.
slayer shot seems fine as is. considering AA really only have 2 destinies to use maybe something special would be neat. just please don't break it.
maybe abit more ranged power?
AA from day 1.

[Sharktopus]

Dispelling shot: x%/y%/x% Chance to cast Silence. Target cannot cast spells for n seconds.

Shattermantle shot: Reduces MRR by x/y/z for n/n/n seconds.

[UurlockYgmeov]

overall I like.

How will this work for the Elven version?

Are you going to drop the AP cost of shattermantle and dispelling shot to 1 each?

?and love the footnotes! Bwahahawahawa!

[mikarddo]

On EE AA bow builds are currently great burst dps but awful sustained dps compared to many other builds. The advantage in burst dps used to be huge but that gap has closed considerably and is no longer truly decisive. The gap in sustained dps though is positively huge.

Now, I applaud the direction taken to up the sustained dps for AA bow users. It will still be well behind many other builds including rogue mech ranged builds though but I think thats fine. However, that means that you really cannot lower the burst dps of the AA bow user because that would take the fun part out of the build as well as remove its one advantage. If you lower the burst (manyshot + slayer + adrenaline) you will be left with a build with no real advantage that has the disadvantage of lower sustained dps. Oh, and if you up the sustained dps to be competitive but lower the burst dps you are simply left with a close of the rogue mech and whats the point of making builds similar rather than different but equally powerful?

Also, the monkcher used to be hugely OP but thats certainly no longer the case so there is no reason to worry if that build gains some buffing from the AA pass as long as the ranger gets more, e.g. the level 18 core. More is needed though for the non-monk AA - in particular a removal of the doubleshot penalty for high level rangers.

So, kindly dont nerf slaying arrows or adrenaline, nor monkchers. You will be removing a build thats actually different from most other builds in how it plays yet certainly isnt top of the charts by any means overall (barb, pally, bard, tree, wolf, shuricannon, shiradi caster, warlock etc come to mind).

Finally, please acknowledge that bows are 2h weapons and add 2 augment slots that can hold red augments (TF bow, I am . In the light of the spell power change to elemental arrows that gets even more important.

[Dreppo]

Manyshot needs to be un-nerfed. The penalty was put in to try to balance monkchers who have *two* manyshots (kinda), the other one being 10k Stars. But the penalty is unfair for non-monkcher characters such as pure rangers. The penalty is so harsh that it is quite often a net loss in DPS over the course of a quest. Worse, the penalty gets harsher the higher your doubleshot is! If your doubleshot is normally 20%, then the penalty is effectively -20% to doubleshout; but if your doubleshot is normally 75%, then then penalty is effectively -75% to doubleshot; etc. The penalty also unfairly favors builds that normally melee but only switch to the bow for manyshotting. Those builds aren't really penalized at all; during the penalty period, they are meleeing. But for a full time archer the penalty really hits hard. There's just so much wrong with this.

Summary: Remove the penalty to manyshot. And make manyshot and 10k stars share a timer, like the description currently states. Monkcher problem eliminated.

This needs to be done now, not later, so that decisions about AA are balanced with the new state of manyshot in mind.

Thank you.

[Lorianus]

I like it! The idea to put some caster related things into Arcane Archer sounds great. Someday we may get some more Ranger spells and a WIS based AA with CC spells may get viable.

[Lorianus]

Manyshot needs to be un-nerfed.

My guess: There will be a game mechanics update at some point to adress Manyshot/10k stars, holy sword crit range stacking, divine grace and some others.