Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[Hipparan]

Just a thought.
Bow strength is a very nice bonus feat for Rangers, that means Str is a must have stat for Rangers (unless they take Improved Weapon Finesse).
So Dex Rangers have a solution.
The problem is for Wis Rangers. It doesn't look like the DC things will work in epics.

So, I came up with this idea about a new feat (a free feat to lvl 8 Rangers):
Wise Bows
At lvl 8 can use (Wis-10)/4 bonus to damage for ranged attacks (if it's higher than Str mod bonus, or Dex mod bonus if you have Improved Weapon Finesse)
At lvl 13 can use (Wis-10)/3 bonus
At lvl 18 can use (Wis-10)/2 bonus (= Wis mod bonus)
Bonus to attack is still Dex (as in Bow Strength case). Also this feat doesn't grant proficiency with bows.

There could be also a new Ranger spell that adds +2 size bonus to Wisdom and damage (similar to Ram's Might).

This feat could be useful to other classes, like Clerics (actually I've seen a Clr playing with bow, I mean it was his main dmg).

Right now ranger wisdom is useless. It looks like you want people to invest on wisdom, but I don't think that is the way to go. You should add useful ranger spells.

Once again, I would like to point out that these issues could be worked out if there was an enhancement added too the Arcane Archer tree that allowed for using wisdom for damage with bows, similarly to Improved Finesse from the Deepwood Stalker tree. Also, this would allow for better splashes for people who want to be Warpriests of the Silver Flame (Clerics or Favored Souls, or even Paladins for that matter), but have to use bows as their favored weapon. Wis-based Rangers could be pretty awesome if this was added, and the magic aspect of the tree would be much more promising.

Edit: Is there any reason that this would be problematic? Also, Zen Archery allows for wisdom bonus to attack.

[Aletys]

Lag. Projectile burst is harder on the server than constant rate of fire. You'll also see us looking at auras come next year to reduce lag that way as well. We are looking at lots of way to reduce lag, from a new datacenter, to individual character abilities to monster spawns to AI pathfinding to perhaps even go so far as to reduce raid maximums to 10 players.

Lag is something we've told the players we are constantly working on.

Sev~

No to reducing raid maximums to 10 players. That will make it way more difficult to complete some raids for many players.

[Boneshank]

Just to cover some potential confusion: Doublestrike and shot do not produce extra effort because it is an on attack proc that repeats the last value.

So if you swing, crit, do 300 total damage, and your double(shot or strike) procs, it repeats the same combat values (hit, crit, and damage). This sometimes double procs effects, like lit2 from GS.

So the load on both traffic in and out as well as server load are far less than rolling separate everything for extra shots from MS and 10k.

This is just flat out wrong, unless I'm completely misunderstanding your meaning...

I just did a whole bunch of testing with my crossbow user, and doubleshot hits were not simply duplicates of the initial hits at all (insofar as hit+damage+crit). Or rarely were, at best.
Watching the damage numbers in realtime I can see the doubleshot hits are varying greatly (from each other & their initial parent shot).
Looking back through the combat log, I confirm the different damage numbers, as well as the to-hit numbers, and the crit-confirmation numbers.

So in summary, at least in my testing, doubleshot does appear to add just as much server load (per bolt/arrow) as would each individual shot from, say, Manyshot.

Carry on.

[Aletys]

Those are the "cruddy +1 returners" I repeatedly referenced.

Sure they can. Rogues get UMD natively, and can buy both Conjure Bolts (+1) and Flame Arrow (Flaming) scrolls from vendors to create 1000 and 500 bolts repectively.

A +1 arrow with a +7 bow is +7. A +5 arrow with the same +7 bow is still +7. Since the arrow bonuses don't stack with bow enhancement bonuses, it's really irrelevant except at very low levels.

[GeoffWatson]

The main problem with reducing attack rate and adding RP to make up for it, is that a lot of stuff isn't affected by RP.

There's a lot of on-hit, on-critical, on-vorpal, and tiny (2/5/7/etc%) chance on hit, etc, abilities.
Even if they were all affected by RP, the crowd control effects (blinding, freezing, paralysis, etc) wouldn't be.
This will make ranged characters a lot weaker, even if they do the same damage by the DPS calculations.

[J-mann]

A +1 arrow with a +7 bow is +7. A +5 arrow with the same +7 bow is still +7. Since the arrow bonuses don't stack with bow enhancement bonuses, it's really irrelevant except at very low levels.

No, if ddo follows the rules of dnd in this regard *and I THINK it does* the bows enhancement bonus determines TO HIT and the arrows determines the DAMAGE. I am not 100% this is the case but if it follows dnd rules that is how it works. If anyone knows for sure other wise and can cite it let me know.

[redoubt]

Lag. Projectile burst is harder on the server than constant rate of fire. You'll also see us looking at auras come next year to reduce lag that way as well. We are looking at lots of way to reduce lag, from a new datacenter, to individual character abilities to monster spawns to AI pathfinding to perhaps even go so far as to reduce raid maximums to 10 players.

Lag is something we've told the players we are constantly working on.

Sev~

TWF was nerfed years ago in the name of fixing lag. It didn't. Then to make up for the huge lack of dps things like alacrity and doublestrike were added. It feels like we are chasing our tail here.

Next, I still have not heard anything back about the loss of procs of add-on effects and damage with the loss of arrows fired. This is fewer paralyzing arrows, fewer hits of fury shot, fewer hits of sneak damage, fewer hits of nerve venom... etc... how is this being accounted for? The ranged power I've see so far seems to be less than half of what is being taken away.

[J-mann]

No, if ddo follows the rules of dnd in this regard *and I THINK it does* the bows enhancement bonus determines TO HIT and the arrows determines the DAMAGE. I am not 100% this is the case but if it follows dnd rules that is how it works. If anyone knows for sure other wise and can cite it let me know.

I guess I might be wrong according to this: http://support.turbine.com/link/port...s-stack-in-DDO guess I should test it in game to be sure.

[GeoffWatson]

No, if ddo follows the rules of dnd in this regard *and I THINK it does* the bows enhancement bonus determines TO HIT and the arrows determines the DAMAGE. I am not 100% this is the case but if it follows dnd rules that is how it works. If anyone knows for sure other wise and can cite it let me know.

That was only in first edition.
In third, which DDO is based on, enhancement bonuses on bows and arrows are redundant.

[mikarddo]

Sev: Too many projectiles may be causing lag.
Sev: Doubleshot should matter.

Me: Please continue the tradition that archers are excellent burst dps (so dont even out their dps but keep Manyshot really bursty).
Me: Note that rangers can get significantly higher Doubleshot than Monkchers and use that to balance against Monkchers having 10k stars.

Solution:
Make doubleshot apply always and fire just one arrow rather than many but make all kinds of damage and effects scale up during MS and 10k to achieve roughly the same effect. This means base damage, on-hit effects, on-crit damage and effects, on vorpal damage and effects etc.

Details:
1) Make doubleshot apply always also during MS and 10k.
2) Change Manyshot so it only fires 1 arrow (doubleshot may apply) but with the following bonuses to keep it really bursty:
- add 4 to crit range (stacks with everything else but isnt doubled by IC feat)
- add 1 to crit multiplier (stacks with everything else)
- add 2 to vorpal range (to ensure getting about the same vorpals as with 4 arrows in particular for adrenaline)
- add 200 ranged power (so non-crits also go up during Manyshot)
- add 200 universal spell power (to make imbues and other effects that are based on spell power scale)
- tripple the proc chance for on-hit effects with a percentage chance to occur.
- For DC based on-hit effects give a +5 bonus to the DC roll and make mobs autofail on 1-3 rather than just 1.
3) Change 10k stars so it only fires 1 arrow (doubleshot may apply) but with the following bonuses to keep it somewhat bursty:
- add 2 to crit range (stacks with everything else but isnt doubled by IC feat)
- add 1 to vorpal range
- add Wis*2 ranged power
- add Wis*2 universal spell power
- double the proc chance for on-hit effects with a percentage chance to occur.
- For DC based on-hit effects give a +2 bonus to the DC roll and make mobs autofail on 1-2 rather than just 1.
The actual numbers may need tweaking based on tests.

I consider this to be far superior to the official ideas posted sofar because it does not break
- Mixed melee/ranged characters
- Burst FotW archers
It simply keeps the game fun unlike the proposals made that make it dull by flatlining dps at a higher level rather than keeping it bursty. Remember FUN!

[EllisDee37]

A +1 arrow with a +7 bow is +7. A +5 arrow with the same +7 bow is still +7. Since the arrow bonuses don't stack with bow enhancement bonuses, it's really irrelevant except at very low levels.

That's irrelevant, though. The original point is that there is a ton of interesting ammo to be used in this game, but nobody ever does because the logistics of switching ammo types is prohibitively awkward.

One simple way to make it work is to have inventory sizes stack higher than 100, and offer fletching to make all ammo into returners. This was my suggestion. Somebody replied that no, AAs shouldn't get fletching, only mechanics should and mechanics only got it because they have no way to conjure their own ammo, unlike artificers and rangers.

I was replying to that specific point (which I quoted in my reply) to point out that mechanics didn't need fletching for that reason at all. They can freely summon all the ammo they want by UMDing low level scrolls that are sold by vendors.

Whether or not the enhancement bonus from conjured bolts stacks with the weapon itself (they do not, nor do the actual effects if identical) is wholly irrelevant to why I brought those scrolls up in the first place.

[Enguebert]

It seems that adding alot of doubleshot goes against the goal of reducing number of projectiles though. Making doubleshot work above 100% to give 3 projectiles seem very counterintuitive if the goal is to reduce the number of projectiles...

I think there is a big difference between manyshoot and doubleshoot

Manyshot = multiple attacks. That means multiple to hit calculation AND multiple "line of fire" calculation (ie : does the projectile hit an obstacle (wall), hit a target and continue (IPS),...)
Doubleshot = ONE attacke, but damage can be applied twice

I guess that calculating the "line of fire" is rather CPU intensive and must be handled on the server (if it is done on client, it can be hacked and changed for cheats programs)

So changing manyshot from mulitple attack to doubleshot (multiple damage) could reduce server lag
But that means less procs on "to hit" for players

[EllisDee37]

This is just flat out wrong, unless I'm completely misunderstanding your meaning...

I just did a whole bunch of testing with my crossbow user, and doubleshot hits were not simply duplicates of the initial hits at all (insofar as hit+damage+crit). Or rarely were, at best.
Watching the damage numbers in realtime I can see the doubleshot hits are varying greatly (from each other & their initial parent shot).
Looking back through the combat log, I confirm the different damage numbers, as well as the to-hit numbers, and the crit-confirmation numbers.

So in summary, at least in my testing, doubleshot does appear to add just as much server load (per bolt/arrow) as would each individual shot from, say, Manyshot.

Doubtful. The secondary shots (and strikes when considering melee doublestrike) can skip hit collision testing, which is likely much more expensive than all the dice rolls combined. That's the whole reason that doublestrike causes less lag than alacrity.

[mikarddo]

I think there is a big difference between manyshoot and doubleshoot

Manyshot = multiple attacks. That means multiple to hit calculation AND multiple "line of fire" calculation (ie : does the projectile hit an obstacle (wall), hit a target and continue (IPS),...)
Doubleshot = ONE attacke, but damage can be applied twice

I guess that calculating the "line of fire" is rather CPU intensive and must be handled on the server (if it is done on client, it can be hacked and changed for cheats programs)

So changing manyshot from mulitple attack to doubleshot (multiple damage) could reduce server lag
But that means less procs on "to hit" for players

If thats the case the solution is very simple. Just change Manyshot from 4 arrows to +250% doubleshot and 10k stars to +(100+wis)% doubleshot and let doubleshot from all sources apply always including during MS and 10k. Obviously dont cap doubleshot at 1 extra arrow.

That makes doubleshot matter for all builds and lowers the number of projectiles assuming you are correct.

[UurlockYgmeov]

If thats the case the solution is very simple. Just change Manyshot from 4 arrows to +250% doubleshot and 10k stars to +(wis*2.5)% doubleshot and let doubleshot from all sources apply always including during MS and 10k.

That makes doubleshot matter for all builds and lowers the number of projectiles assuming you are correct.

this is a rather out of the box idea, but providing the Dev's can back up why this change is better (for DPS AND for server side lag / load) - I'm all for it. In the end, DPS is DPS. :P

[UurlockYgmeov]

That's irrelevant, though. The original point is that there is a ton of interesting ammo to be used in this game, but nobody ever does because the logistics of switching ammo types is prohibitively awkward.

One simple way to make it work is to have inventory sizes stack higher than 100, and offer fletching to make all ammo into returners. This was my suggestion. Somebody replied that no, AAs shouldn't get fletching, only mechanics should and mechanics only got it because they have no way to conjure their own ammo, unlike artificers and rangers.

I was replying to that specific point (which I quoted in my reply) to point out that mechanics didn't need fletching for that reason at all. They can freely summon all the ammo they want by UMDing low level scrolls that are sold by vendors.

Whether or not the enhancement bonus from conjured bolts stacks with the weapon itself (they do not, nor do the actual effects if identical) is wholly irrelevant to why I brought those scrolls up in the first place.

In essence I agree with ElisDee37's point. I remember running Uurlock through MANY lives as a ranged toon, in fact probably 1/3 of all his total lives have been ranged.

I have STACKS of specialty arrows, and can crank out so many more, but switching between them is a PITA, and only would do it if was a overwhelming compelling reason.

Would switch bows constantly for the best tactical advantage - have a very extensive collection in my ranged Toolbox. You name it - have, GtoPG, WoP, Para, Smit, Banish, GtoD, HoPG, 3Pos, MinII, Lit, Rad, Ooze....

But only every used specialty ammunition occasionally.

If I did - the stacking benefits would be devastating. The reason I didn't? PITA. Simply put, PITA.

I agree would like to see all arrows stack to 1K, and the corresponding quivers be increased in size by 10x as well, with store purchased (and rare named) recording only 1/10 the weight (they are magical you know), and a way to hotbar quivers (to switch).

EllisDee37's original suggestion of changing the default behavior of quivers is novel, but it just switches the issues to opening quivers rather than equipping quivers.

I suggest rather than changing the default behavior of quivers, allow the quivers to be put on the weapons bar (with a bow or without a bow), which would allow you to swap quivers easily. Yes, this doesn't solve all the issues (like switching immediately between the 100 arrows equipped (just have to run through them)) (or have it unequip and store arrows into quiver being swapped out via hotbar), but it does get us more than halfway there.

EllisDee37, you should make this into its own thread.

[Boneshank]

Doubtful. The secondary shots (and strikes when considering melee doublestrike) can skip hit collision testing, which is likely much more expensive than all the dice rolls combined. That's the whole reason that doublestrike causes less lag than alacrity.

I'll certainly grant you that possibility, regarding lack of hit collision, rebutting my assertion about server load per shot.
I stand by my stated testing results though, otherwise.

[mikarddo]

Solution is very simple. All double shot over 100% rolls over to ranged power at a 1:X ratio. This causes double shot over 100% to actually be worth up to ~2x as much as prior double shot (depending on ranged power) which allows for epic scaling.

Ranged power does not give more vorpals though and hence does not recharge Adrenaline which is an important issue for anyone in FoTW.

[Requiro]

(...)
I see some major improvements. Especially with damage.
(...)

Seriously? I mean RoF improvement, I marked it on red in Sev quote...

BTW: where do you see that MAJOR improvements?

Are +6d6 elemental damage and +1 critical multiplier is MAJOR? Are you serious?
Especially when they nerf Slaying Arrow and Manyshoot?

[mikarddo]

So use the improved melee abilities of a ranger or a different ED. This also opens up DC as a viable ED as well, so ED selection improves overall. DC and LD can both serves as no-recharge EDs, and fury can work well with melee hybrids.

Melee Critzilla 5 barb 12 ranger 3 bard SWF swashbuckling + manyshot ranger will annihilate in FoTW, for example.

I have no real interest in a mixed melee/ranged build though - I want to retain FoTW as a viable archer destiny and that means vorpals need to keep happening. If your suggestion simply added +1 or maybe +2 to vorpal range during MS / 10k it might work out. If you make FoTW weak for monkchers for example that certainly has not improved ED selection.