Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[EllisDee37]

Mr replies in red. One day i'll figure out multi-quote. (first time useing advanced editor :P )

It's better if you don't embed your replies inside quotes, as those are difficult to reply to. We have to manually copy and paste them. Like this one:

Oh boy, hjere we go again. You know we're gonna get calls for a Tier 5 Crit threat expansion. Make it cost 5 ap?

No need. Bow users can get +1 crit range by taking the ML12 core from DWS.

4. +1 crit multiplier is very boring. At core 18 you can put in other powerful bonuses without risk of holy sword splashing

Holy Sword can be used with the entire AA tree, even the capstone, thanks to the racial tree version.

[blerkington]

As an aside, Sneak Attack and many feat based on hit damage effects scale with Ranged Power. Sneak Attack, as an example, scales with 150% Ranged Power so this will actually be a buff for many Sneak Attack builds.

Sev~

Hi,

It doesn't help with imbues and on hit weapon effects. For example, the damage from imbues would be halved, and the chances of getting weapon procs like mortal fear will also be halved.

I think many of us would be grateful if you would address the RoF issue for archers rather than just talking around the edge of it. At this point I think very few people contributing to this thread believe what you're proposing would be generally beneficial.

How does the change affect melee/ranged hybrids and burst damage builds like the FoTW monkcher? What does it do to equalise RoF between 10k and non 10k builds? Will archers perform better relative to throwers and crossbow users after your changes? To my mind, your changes actually seem to be making these problems worse, not better.

Thanks.

[dng242]

Not quite caught up, but my posts already get too long...

"Spells" are not something anyone directly needs per se. What do you want these spells to do? What are you desiring but not getting?

Rangers clearly don't need "spells" more than anything else. We're pretty confident with our priorities here. Adding new Ranger spells is not more important than any DWS, Tempest, or AA changes we've looked at recently. We understand if you disagree, but in the abstract it's extremely hard to understand why you feel "spells" generically need to be added.

I agree with a lot of people on the spell subject. But then I'm a bit of a DnD homer. In PnP spells are important and make a difference. Between the enhancement system and available gear a huge number of spells (on all classes) are redundant or simply useless. With the massive exception of that one Paladin spell you used to basically rescue that class, your answer to everything tends to be enhancement based. That is one answer, but I would love for more of your answers to class balance to revolve around the core of DnD flexibility, spells and feats.

Don't get me wrong, the enhancements are cool, but don't forget spells and feats.

To give examples

• Why can't barkskin stack? All of a sudden it's useful and not overpowered
• An equivalent barkskin for dodge?
• Also, spells for your new concepts you have added (MRR, PRR, Spell Power, Melee Power, Ranged Power, Doubleshot). (Do have SLA that do this.... why not a few Spells!)
• Heck, even the stat buffs could stack. With people running around 60 - 80's... probably not going to break anything, but adds just a little.
• How about that 3.5 feat called Manyshot? What used to be the power attack of ranged. Vs the thing you made into Manyshot. Given your desire to address performance issues you could basically treat it like a [w] increase.
• A resist spell that give a percent reduction, allowing for better scaling to Epic
• Make the DC based spells more "range lvl +" DC. I doubt any would be so powerful as to be OP.
• Make Diehard actually relevant in Epic... like when you get a killing bow it only incaps you?

Just some ideas, and not all of them are perfect or should be used, but you get the point.
I know you want to re-invent everything. But you have done so much work just adding what we have. Why not just make it work in a way consistent with the state of the game?

[Propane]

As much as I'm advocating careful changes to Manyshot to make Pure Rangers who specialise in Archery competitive with other Archer builds, please for the love of all things holy don't dilute Manyshot down for the Melee Rangers.


Sad Panda

I am sadden by the thought of many shot being nerfed - it is often the best 20s of the day for my melee ranger-
I miss the old days and FUN of hitting many shot and waiting for the random slayer arrows to proc...
Now it looks like many shot itself is at risk. - very sad day..

Manyshot needs to be special and fun - dont' take that way!

Increasing standard bow DPS to keep up with some the xbow users and throwers is a good thing.
DONT do it at the cost of watering down Manyshot - it is one of the best parts of being a ranger - the fun button!


A few thoughts...

1) leave 4 arrows per many shot - reduce range power during many shot to control DPS if needed (say -30 range power during many shot), higher tiers of Ranger Level Reduces penalty (-0 at 20, -10 at 18, -20 at 12)

2) extra many shot arrow per ranger level - +1 at 12, +2 at 18, +3 at 20

3) the cold down timer for 10K stars is paused when Manyshot is active and visa versa. Leave the Core 10Kstars and Manyshot alone and tweak the interaction of them. Still allows for great Burst DPS for each and combined (can do back to back with no cooldown), but doesn't allow nearly 100% of uptime of either (the combined cool down would be needed before either could be used)

[sjbb87]

A final piece of feedback before I head to bed, but an important point I wanted to re-emphasise after stating as much in the Tempest/DWS threads.

Ranger, to me, is the one class that offers some true Versatility even when played pure.

• Even if you heavily spec into Melee, you've always had a solid Ranged option backed up with feats and of course, a good 20s burst of Manyshot.
• Even if you heavily spec into Ranged, you've always had a full line of TWF feats allowing you to get down and dirty if you need too.

As much as I'm advocating careful changes to Manyshot to make Pure Rangers who specialise in Archery competitive with other Archer builds, please for the love of all things holy don't dilute Manyshot down for the Melee Rangers.

On reflection, I think the current changes penalize Pure Ranger Archers against Monkchers, and penalize Melee Rangers who value their versatility, too much

Sad Panda

this.....
Let manyshot it should be,

maybe change this:
Metalline Arrows:
Passive : 10% Manyshot penalty reduction for each additional Arcane Archer Core Ability you acquire.

Master of Imbuement:
You gain +4 Dexterity, +20% Doubleshot chance and a 20% Manyshot penalty reduction (total 50% Manyshot penalty reduction).

35 s of Manyshot penalty

[Requiro]

To the peeps here, what if:
Manyshot and 10k provided a passive buff to doubleshot and had a shared timer clicky attack that fired 4 shots every 12 seconds? This way you have doubleshot running at all times and you could get up to 8 shots with the clicky every 12 seconds?

For me is ok. I don't like burst toons (but I know that lots of people love them)
The catch is in details: How big passive will be?

And BTW: Why these two different feats should be the same? For me it's illogical...

[Ebondevil]

Will the New Arcane Archer work with Crossbows as well, or stay only for bows?

[RD2play]

Ok quick to 28 then tr and put down my bow got it!

thanks for the heads up

[SpectreJ]

(We are still talking with the player's council about balance changes, but I wanted to give a teaser on what we are looking at for Manyshot and Ten Thousand Stars since it is relevant to this thread.)


We are considering changes to Many Shot and 10K Stars. We want a design that throws out fewer projectiles for server and client performance as missiles are actually expensive. We also want a design that doesn't require a doubleshot debuff.

Manyshot redesign: For the next 20 seconds you add your base attack bonus * 4 to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. Using this ability places Ten Thousand Stars on a 30 second cool-down. (You no longer have a Doubleshot penalty applied.)

Ten Thousand Stars redesign: For the 30 seconds you add your Wisdom to your Doubleshot and Ranged Power. Using this ability places Manyshot on a 30 second cool-down. (You no longer have a Doubleshot penalty applied.)

Our goal is to make these abilities more efficient without reducing the overall DPS of ranged characters using one or both of these abilities.

Sev~

This won't work for Manyshot, it is just to much Doubleshot. a level 20 pure ranger would get 80 Doubleshot from this while it is active, which means having anymore than 20% Doubleshot from anywhere else means losses.

An AA will already have that 20% from its capstone and a potential 5% from shadow arrows, DWS has a potential 20% from killer in T4 (also therefore available to AA) and 20% in strikes like ligtning in T5, so without looking outside the enhancments trees for ranger, we are over cap. a kensai fighter would also get 19% from its tree, pushing it to the edge as well.

Then there is the fact that epic levels give some BAB, so a level 30 Ranger (when it rolls around) would have 100% doubleshot from Manyshot by itself, assuming the epic BAB is incorporated, which I actualy kind of doubt. There isn't enough space for it to give this much Doubleshot as it is, much less for the future. the doubleshot portion needs to be at least halved and replaced with something else with space. Additionally, the amount of Ranged power also is enough to start getting heavily diminished as well. I think it should provided attack speed and Doublestrike at either 2xBAB (or just BAB to leave good growth space) and make up the difference with a percentile non-Ranged Power increase.

You are trying to change a perfectly scaling (minus the work-aroundable Doubleshot penalty) DPS boosts into dual boosts of a capped and dimishing stats. I just don't see there being enough space for the required quantity of DPS increase in the buffs duration within those two stats. You need to either adjust uptime or make it buff more things to keep it from overunning itself.


I can't really comment about 10k Stars, since I haven't ever gotten around to doing a related build, but I expect it has similar issues with it as well.

[mikarddo]

Sorry, I must be tired because I am missing your logic. I apologize. Let me lay out some math and see where we are.

Let's say you have 30% doubleshot, 70 Wisdom, and fire 2 times per second with a bow.
With that Wisdom you can expect around 2.7 shots per attack while 10K Stars is active.

Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds.
Manyshot: 20 seconds
Neither: 10 seconds
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds.
Neither: 30 seconds

<Repeat>

Old Way:
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 162 attacks
Manyshot: 20 seconds - 160 attacks
Neither: 10 seconds - 20 attacks
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 162 attacks
Neither: 30 seconds - 60 attacks
Total: 564

New Way:
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 120 attacks
Manyshot: 20 seconds - 80 attacks
Neither: 10 seconds - 26 attacks
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 120 attacks
Neither: 30 seconds - 78 attacks
Total: 424

Reduction in DPS is ~25% with no ranged power buff.

Sev~

Why assume 30% doubleshot? I have 2% doubleshot from shipbuffs as a monkcher as doubleshot is irrelevant. Building for it will cost me elsewhere so simply assuming 30% DS is not right. With a low doubleshot the gain during "neither time" becomes irrelevant.

Why ignore the fact that with a huge manyshot and a low "neither" damage you can and often do optimise the time running between fights to coincide with "neither time" - thus making the relative difference in number of shots fired greater.

Why ignore the fact that more shots means more Adrenalines recharges and those make up a very important part of the damage output from an epic level archer?

Why ignore the fact that a far less potent Manyshot very significantly lowers the all imporant (and fun) damage from Manyshot + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline, something which you cannot regain during the "neither time" even with lots of doubleshot.

You seem to have omitted anything that could potentielle show that the change to Manyshot and 10k stars is infact a pretty important nerf by including only the parts that count in favor and not those that count against. You also seem dead set on nerfing Manyshot + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline which in some ways is understandable except that it makes for a much more dull game when you remove the actually fun and different combos.

[mikarddo]

Hi,

It doesn't help with imbues and on hit weapon effects. For example, the damage from imbues would be halved, and the chances of getting weapon procs like mortal fear will also be halved.

I think many of us would be grateful if you would address the RoF issue for archers rather than just talking around the edge of it. At this point I think very few people contributing to this thread believe what you're proposing would be generally beneficial.

How does the change affect melee/ranged hybrids and burst damage builds like the FoTW monkcher? What does it do to equalise RoF between 10k and non 10k builds? Will archers perform better relative to throwers and crossbow users after your changes? To my mind, your changes actually seem to be making these problems worse, not better.

Thanks.

/signed

[FestusHood]

I personally have never noticed anything lag-like when using manyshot. The damage numbers trail behind, but that happens all the time with many builds. I've never heard anyone mention manyshot as a possible source of lag before now. It seems to me that the number of calculations during manyshot, even when using ips to hit many mobs is dwarfed by what happened any time my shiradi caster fired chain missiles into a group. That actually did cause my client to momentarily freeze every time i did it.

[Aletys]

Except there isnt, no one kept using a bow during the old penalty window at just the base rate. Either you used 10k etc to keep shooting multiple times, or you swapped back to melee and used MS just for a ranged burst (ie, the classic ranger style).

So really... its a nerf. And it counters a RELATIVE boost. Even with no penalty after MS, there is no buff. Its just the same as it would be normally.

Youre turning MS into a doubleshot action boost. Thats a nerf. Straight up.

Do not do this. Go back to the drawing board. This is lame. Thanks.

This. Exactly.

[Rendron]

R.I.P pure monk Thrower

Pure monk is probably the oldest and most widespread thrower build because - as you said in your thread about the bugged crit multiplier - they are still in the top DPS range for throwers. So all the people with a pure monk build (and i know quite a lot) should be considered when the Devs are changing a key element of their build. Especially since it costs a feat slot, action points for Tier 3 Contemplation in Henshin Mystic and a twist slot for Enlightenment in epics to maintain a high passive Ki regeneration. This is quite a high investment and should be rewarded not dismissed.

With the DPS, PRR and MRR increases of the latest melee changes and severely bugged wolf and tree builds as of late i don't think thrower builds should be nerfed even more in comparison. They don't come near any of those DPS numbers anyway. So far the most power of throwers came from the high number of attacks in combination with many damage procs. This is nerfed severely by the changes because of less attacks and procs not being buffed by ranged power. And thus pure monks take the biggest hit.

So this will be very sad if the 10k stars will be changed. Have to roll over my pure monk thrower and go for a moncher again (boring).
Sadly have farmed so much stuff for my build. will see if i still have fun in playing ddo. i hate it if my chars get always screwed up and i have to deal with it.

so how should a pure monk get his doubleshot higher?

10k stars was never supposed to be a bow feat.... its an thrower feat. bow got there manyshot

devs pls think about our thrower builds....

[Grailhawk]

You need to take into account that DPS after these abilities are finished will be increased by your Doubleshot since there is no longer a debuff.

Sev~

That only needs to be looked at if the character is using a bow after manyshot. Are you OK nerfing Rangers who only use bows when manyshot is on cooldown? My understanding was that Stalker was designed around this play style?

Distributing the damage over the two minute period isn't a bad idea and is good for a 100% bow ranger but there are other kinds of Rangers that use Manyshot.

Finally using the doubleshot penalty to justify a manyshot nerf feels kind of (I'll get over it) disingenuous to a player who's been around long enough to remember when the penalty didn't exist.

[Seikojin]

For me is ok. I don't like burst toons (but I know that lots of people love them)
The catch is in details: How big passive will be?

And BTW: Why these two different feats should be the same? For me it's illogical...

I dunno, I was thinking as an alternative that still addresses the devs concerns with existing manyshot/10k situations. Most of my proposals for this version had scaling doubleshot bonuses so its passive benefit would grow with your character. Something like +2 per character level, capping at 40%. The two feats would be the same bonus type, so wouldn't stack. 10k would be for throwers and manyshot for bow/xbow users.

[Qhualor]

There's probably no real need for additional run speed for most ranged characters, especially with the new 10% slow on Paralyzing Arrows - if that's what you need at the time.

We may look into Ranger spells at some point, but this is not that point.


"Spells" are not something anyone directly needs per se. What do you want these spells to do? What are you desiring but not getting?

Rangers clearly don't need "spells" more than anything else. We're pretty confident with our priorities here. Adding new Ranger spells is not more important than any DWS, Tempest, or AA changes we've looked at recently. We understand if you disagree, but in the abstract it's extremely hard to understand why you feel "spells" generically need to be added.

just noticed this. finally got some feedback on this. when Lama is up again, expect a video from me in a PM showing how useless ranger spells are. I would do it on Live right now if I had a ranger, but he is a level 28 warlock at the moment waiting his turn for his next past life.

I will say this though

yes. I consider improving ranger spells to be a quality of life fix. you disagree? heres what I would take for a pure ranger

level 1:

resist energy
jump
rams might
empty

level 2:

protection from elements (never use it though)
barkskin (you need extremely high AC for it to actually be useful)
empty
empty

level 3:

neutralize poison (don't use it because its a mana drain and can just drink pots)
remove disease (don't use it when I can drink pots to save sp)
cure moderate wounds (back up to the back up to the back up)
empty

level 4:

freedom of movement
cure serious wounds
empty
empty

everything else is useless, needs a DC raise to be worth slotting, doesn't stack with gear, pointless or something that makes them not worthy of a spell slot. some, as I have pointed out, I slot more for just in case. there are no hard choices and the all 3 spells that a ranger has for spell damage and/or CC are useless, even with investment.

[Grailhawk]

Actually, I do. Spellpower is Tier 1, spell focus is Tier 2. With this approach, both are going to be needed. & when soloing I want the vulnerability as well as edge.

I was commenting on Spell power vs proc effects. You say I forgot Dragons Edge I didn't because it is not a tier 1 TF effect, you counter by bringing up spell focus something I did not mention at all in the post about Elemental Arrows. Explain how that even make sense?

[mikarddo]

Old Way:
Total: 564

New Way:
Total: 424

Old Way:
Total damage in 2 minutes: 95880 (which of course is the same as the previous damage * 1.7)

New Way:
Total damage in 2 minutes: 98480

Sev~

Lets take just one but very imporant item you missed - the loss of Adrenalines regained from fewer shots fired.

140 fewer shots fired of 2ish arrows each is 140*2/20 = 14 Arenalines fewer (not counting IPS which should make this number go higher). Lets also go really low on damage and assume each Arenaline adds 3k damage (actually, its probably a good deal more). 14 * 3k = 52k damage lost from fewer Adrenalines. Where does that fit into your calculations?

Oh, and this does not even include the loss on using Adrenalines as you no longer have the superb 4 arrow shots to use them with.

Please rerun all your numbers while you add in all the relevant effects and lets see if you still dont see what most others seem to be seeing - that the changes to MS and 10k are infact significant nerfs.

[dng242]

There's at least a few different builds that we're going to be trying to balance, and no matter what we do, It's Complicated. We are trying hard to make sure 6 monk levels are not JUST better, and we think we're getting there. We're happy to hear more ideas. We disagree that the monkcher just has a huge advantage, but we need to do more testing, and will be happy to hear about player builds and tests and math.

Sorry, I must be tired because I am missing your logic. I apologize. Let me lay out some math and see where we are.

Let's say you have 30% doubleshot, 70 Wisdom, and fire 2 times per second with a bow.

With that Wisdom you can expect around 2.7 shots per attack while 10K Stars is active.

Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds.
Manyshot: 20 seconds
Neither: 10 seconds
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds.
Neither: 30 seconds

<Repeat>

Old Way:
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 162 attacks
Manyshot: 20 seconds - 160 attacks
Neither: 10 seconds - 20 attacks
Ten Thousand Stars: 30 seconds - 162 attacks
Neither: 30 seconds - 60 attacks

Total: 564

Vargouille,

If I take Severlin's post and extrapolate on the math for a pure range vs monk combo then I think the problem is larger that you seem willing to admit.

As I see it you will never fix this problem so long as you have two boosts that increase damage so much. Any build that has access to both boosts will have a huge advantage vs one that doesn't.

This leaves you with:

• Nerfing the current boosts - Everyone loves that
• Making them exclusive - Won't make you popular
• Add a feat/spell/enhancement such that the equivalent of 10k is available in output, if not in name, to non-10k wisdom builds - While not my favorite, probably the odds on favorite.
• Increasing the current base dps so these boosts are insignificant - A little boring
• Make them function different (e.g. they could work 100% of the time but only can use one at a time, one could work with thrown and one with bows, Have a cooldown on each that negates the other, etc). - Workable, but would need to balance and would annoy a lot of people (I prefer this approach, but I have no illusions that many will like this).