Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[blerkington]

Slaying Arrows are so ridiculously powerful that we're pretty sure there's range somewhere between for "pulling back" and "meh". We also don't have any specific plans for Slaying Arrow right now - any changes to it are going to be dependent on DPS testing. Part of the reason for this is because we feel having so much of the power of AA in this one ability isn't healthy and also makes it harder to balance the tree. We would not want to have to nerf everything else in the tree just to make Slayer Arrow extra super powerful. (For instance, if we find we have to drop 250 to 200... it's still going to be incredibly awesome.)

Hi,

You say this like it's a fact, but it just isn't.

Slayer arrows only allow massive damage to be generated in combination with FoTW. At upper heroic levels and when running in epic destinies other than Fury, it is not a particularly powerful ability.

Please, show us the Shiradi Champion, Primal Avatar, Shadowdancer, Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, GMoF and even LD builds which make slayer arrow as powerful as you claim. Making changes to how slayer arrow works will affects other builds apart from Fury archers too.

What makes this discussion so frustrating is the extent to which the developer team is ignoring any points raised which conflict with their narrow and problematic vision of how bow combat should work. It is, like some other posters have observed, like having half a conversation.

Your current approach to dealing with manyshot is going to do more to break certain ranger builds than fix them. It will do very little to address the core problems of archery, equalise 10k and non 10k stars builds, and equalise archery with other ranged styles. Interesting choices my backside.

Thanks.

[Captain_Wizbang]

.

THIS has to be one of the biggest and most difficult of all the changes to the classes.

Hats off for posting and discussing the changes. And a BIG vote of encouragement from long-time ranger fan.

If you people pull this off without stepping on too many toes, AND bring about a vast improvement, then I will renew my one year sub.

Either way, you all have done a great job on everything so far, and Im sure this will be the same.

[Anaximandroz]

We've had a lot of discussions about DC, and we're currently inclined to keep them scaling with Wisdom and Enchantment.

• We know there are lore reasons for CHA and INT (or just INT, if you go way back). We're sympathetic to this. There are further ramifications to choosing or allowing INT or CHA that we're currently not looking for (interactions with Harper and Mechanic, for instance.)
• We know Dexterity would probably be the most (easily) powerful. Power does not the same thing as good or interesting builds.
• We know players are mostly not building for max Wisdom right now. That doesn't mean it should be bad to allow it to strengthen an existing ability.
• Yes, we know monks often build a lot of Wisdom (though it may or may not be a primary stat for each build). We don't expect that this particular change is going to be responsible for monkchers being overpowered. We are trying to balance monkchers and there could be further changes relating to them and AA, but we don't think this is the place to do it. (Amongst other things, DPS is probably a bigger consideration and this wouldn't greatly affect that.)

The 20 + Wisdom + Enchantment proposal remains an improvement for nearly all Arcane Archers, and with only moderate build consideration is quite a lot stronger (equipping a single strong Wisdom item somewhere, for instance). Full dedication to these DCs rivals the DCs of full caster classes, and we don't want them to exceed those caster DCs.

I would like to ask for DCs be Character level + other bonus, so don't are Overpower in heroics; like stunning shield working in giants near all the time.

[Vargouille]

So you are choosing to ignore the fact that the only "Class" that benefits from this change is the Monkcher

All Arcane Archer builds benefit from the proposed changes to Paralyzing Arrows etc., compared to what is on live today. We'll have to disagree on that point.

We explicitly acknowledge that Wisdom based classes benefit more if DCs scale with Wisdom (instead of nothing). No one has denied it. This of course is not only monks. We only bring up monks specifically re: DCs because player feedback has asked about it.

Player feedback asked for it NOT be Wisdom because "monks would be overpowered". We disagree that this would make monks overpowered, or that this would be the right way to balance monks if we're wrong and they need balancing. There are other places for that.

Apologies for any confusion. Monks aren't a reason to make Arcane Archer DCs scale with Wisdom.

You want to build a thematic class that has unique tools and abilities and is capable of getting through the content of your game.

Absolutely!

Which is why monks are not a reason to NOT make it Wisdom. We agree with this philosophy.

Monks are not a key, overriding factor for the choice of Arcane Archer DC. That is what we are saying. If they were, we'd be less likely to choose Wisdom.

You say this like it's a fact, but it just isn't.

Slayer arrows only allow massive damage to be generated in combination with FoTW. At upper heroic levels and when running in epic destinies other than Fury, it is not a particularly powerful ability.

Please, show us the Shiradi Champion, Primal Avatar, Shadowdancer, Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, GMoF and even LD builds which make slayer arrow as powerful as you claim. Making changes to how slayer arrow works will affects other builds apart from Fury archers too.

What makes this discussion so frustrating is the extent to which the developer team is ignoring any points raised which conflict with their narrow and problematic vision of how bow combat should work. It is, like some other posters have observed, like having half a conversation.

Your current approach to dealing with manyshot is going to do more to break certain ranger builds than fix them. It will do very little to address the core problems of archery, equalise 10k and non 10k stars builds, and equalise archery with other ranged styles. Interesting choices my backside.

I don't understand the content of this feedback, but see the frustration.

Please, show us the Shiradi Champion, Primal Avatar, Shadowdancer, Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, GMoF and even LD builds which make slayer arrow as powerful as you claim. Making changes to how slayer arrow works will affects other builds apart from Fury archers too.

This is the key statement. Either changing Slayer Arrows affects those other builds because it's an important part of the power, or it is not that important to those other builds (so they wouldn't be as affected by any changes).

Either Slaying arrows is powerful for many builds, or it isn't. The argument here seems to be "don't nerf Slaying Arrows because it's only powerful with Fury of the Wild and nerfing Slaying Arrows will hurt other builds too much". If other builds don't get much power out of Slaying Arrows, then they won't be hurt by any changes to it. If they are getting much power out of it, then of course we're concerned about it. The fact that it's a fairly granular ability that we can fine tune helps. Adding +1 Critical Damage multiplier is not at all granular. +/- 1 is a huge difference. Being able to change the current 250 to 240 or 510 or 184 or 286 makes Slaying Arrow a finer-grained tool we can use it to try to hit the target.

Perhaps more useful: Compared to Swashbuckler, what kind of DPS do you feel an Arcane Archer should have? Are there non-DPS aspects you think should be changed about either one?

Reminder that we don't even have any changes for Slaying Arrow planned. We're just trying to be up front with what we're thinking about.

[CrackedIce]

Hi,

You say this like it's a fact, but it just isn't.

Slayer arrows only allow massive damage to be generated in combination with FoTW. At upper heroic levels and when running in epic destinies other than Fury, it is not a particularly powerful ability.

Please, show us the Shiradi Champion, Primal Avatar, Shadowdancer, Divine Crusader, Unyielding Sentinel, GMoF and even LD builds which make slayer arrow as powerful as you claim. Making changes to how slayer arrow works will affects other builds apart from Fury archers too.

Thanks.

This is pretty true. A build that wants AA but wants to play other destiny is probably better spending 11 points in Deepwood for sniper shot and foregoing AA completely.

AA pass looks to solve this problem, but slayer arrows are only good when critted and as far as I'm aware only in fury can you not only ensure crits but also magnify the damage.

[mikarddo]

Varg

Please answer this. Do you consider a monkcher in FoTW an "A+" build wrt power right now? (we are ofcourse talking about using the synergy from Manyshot + IPS + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline). Do you see this build competing favorably against warlocks, rogue mechs, barbs, paladins etc? I generally dont and point to the fact that there are very, very few monkchers left in the game with each of locks, mechs, barbs and pallies outnumbering monkchers by a factor 10 easily.

Also, do you acknowledge that this build actually plays differently from many other builds in that you need to line up a string of targets for IPS before you hit that furyshot? Do you also acknowledge that flatlining the dps of archers even if its at a sustainable much higher level would kill of that type of play thus removing a build that actually differs in playstyle from the game?

Finally, are you really dead set on making that happen as it would seem from just about every post you and Sev makes? Right now it seems to be the case as you appear to ignore every suggestion to keep that playstyle viable but focus only on things that flatten the dps making it boring instead of fun for those of you that thrive on that IPS instakilling 5 trash mobs even if we come in well below the top sustained dps classes. Will such a playstyle be discontinued now?

Manyshot + IPS + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline should not be seen as a problem - but rather as a very positive thing exactly because it allows for a playstyle that actually differs! So, sure solve the lag issues claimed but stop seeing the burst damage playstyle as bad - anyway, if you really want to see burst damage look towards tree builds... Kindly dont nerf a fun playstyle thats at best a "B" build as right now.

[Vargouille]

Do you also acknowledge that flatlining the dps of archers even if its at a sustainable much higher level would kill of that type of play thus removing a build that actually differs in playstyle from the game?

This isn't a goal.

Manyshot + IPS + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline should not be seen as a problem - but rather as a very positive thing exactly because it allows for a playstyle that actually differs! So, sure solve the lag issues claimed but stop seeing the burst damage playstyle as bad

There's some kind of confusion here. Perhaps there's some issues with shades of grey here, but we expect that this build will still exist and be viable and supported. There's no goal of nerfing this playstyle per se.

Yes, we do want to bring up the sustain and therefore want to be careful to not also up the burst or overdo DPS overall (but we're not there yet). Unique play styles are basically one of the best things in DDO. That doesn't inherently grant them immunity to changes or (gasp) nerfs.

Some players have suggested that Manyshot should just be something like X% Doubleshot, purely passive, end of story. We're specifically not looking in this direction, specifically because we don't want to "flatline the dps" (nice spin of phrase there, implying death!), even if it would increase sustain, which is a goal.

Many players have pointed out that a problem with Manyshot is that the balance is feeling ineffective while it's not active. That feeling is a problem. Getting 80 seconds of DPS over 20 seconds, and then 100 seconds of DPS over the next 100 seconds, is interesting but possibly extreme.

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer. There are surely some players who would love to do five minutes worth of damage in 1 second and then do nothing for five minutes, as well as players who just want steady constant damage output and wouldn't even want dice being rolled. Those different styles even have strategic uses.

[blerkington]

...

Hi

I am quite stupefied by your arguments. I've made my concerns about your proposed changes very clear in the numerous other posts I've already made on this topic, as have others. Very few of them have been addressed.

Now while I don't care AT ALL if you don't respond to me personally, I do care very much whether this part of the game is made worse after you start tinkering with it. In particular, with your proposed changes to manyshot, the game seems about to become much, much worse for people playing the classic ranger melee and manyshot build, and for burst damage archers.

'Either slayer arrows is powerful for many builds, or it isn't' What? What?! There was a day where the developers tried to nerf how adrenaline interacted with manyshot and slayer arrows because there were concerns about how powerful it was when all used together. The game was in a different stage then, and melee damage output was nowhere near as high as it is now, but it has certainly been identified as an outlier before.

Are you really claiming an equivalence between the amount of damage put out by an archer in Shiradi with Fury? Do you really consider them similarly powerful? The amount of power available from the enhancement is one case massively increased by the damage multipliers it gains from adrenaline, but doesn't in the other.

Do you believe that slayer arrow is so powerful, archers who obtain it go on to dominate all heroic content, as much or even more so than any other build, after gaining that key ability? Compared to which other Tier 5 enhancements? Outside of FoTW, it produces less damage to fewer targets (taking into account that it's significantly more difficult to line numerous targets up than pull them into a clump) than many lower level spells do, costs a fair amount of SP considering the smaller pool available to archers, and has a longer cooldown.

Do you not see, that by reducing how the ability works on builds which are already weaker, it makes them even weaker still? This does not seem like the thinking of a team which wants to promote build diversity despite its frequent claims that it does. What it sounds like is you saying you are aware that the vast majority of archery builds possible are terrible and it doesn't really matter that they remain terrible or become even more terrible.

What your response tells me is that your team has absorbed next to none of the concerns raised in this thread, and also that you are in fact quite close to finalising your changes despite the feedback being provided here.

So I recommend you go back through all of this thread again, locate all the cases there criticism is being made of your proposals, formulate a response to those concerns, then publish it all here. There is really no point in asking for feedback from the community if you don't consider it and cannot provide a coherent and fair response to all criticism.

Thanks.

[Angelic-council]

This is the key statement. Either changing Slayer Arrows affects those other builds because it's an important part of the power, or it is not that important to those other builds (so they wouldn't be as affected by any changes).

Either Slaying arrows is powerful for many builds, or it isn't. The argument here seems to be "don't nerf Slaying Arrows because it's only powerful with Fury of the Wild and nerfing Slaying Arrows will hurt other builds too much". If other builds don't get much power out of Slaying Arrows, then they won't be hurt by any changes to it. If they are getting much power out of it, then of course we're concerned about it. The fact that it's a fairly granular ability that we can fine tune helps. Adding +1 Critical Damage multiplier is not at all granular. +/- 1 is a huge difference. Being able to change the current 250 to 240 or 510 or 184 or 286 makes Slaying Arrow a finer-grained tool we can use it to try to hit the target.

Perhaps more useful: Compared to Swashbuckler, what kind of DPS do you feel an Arcane Archer should have? Are there non-DPS aspects you think should be changed about either one?

Reminder that we don't even have any changes for Slaying Arrow planned. We're just trying to be up front with what we're thinking about.

I think it's obvious that if you nerf slaying arrow in any way, it's going to be a nerf to every single builds. Slaying arrow outside of the fury does so so damage. Majority of people use slaying arrow combined with abilities like Manyshots, just to bring highest DPS possible. But because of the long CD, it can be used only once as most powerful ranged attack. If you planning to buff this ability or change it , why not give slaying arrow multi selector?. 1) 250 damage (as it is). 2) low damage + scaled with spell power to suit other builds, EDs?

I think, considering the fact that arcane archer is arcane + archer build. It would be very effective if you could allow players to choose whatever slaying arrow they like to give them more freedom in their builds. Instead of just buff or nerf it as single ability then listen to people complain.

[blerkington]

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer. There are surely some players who would love to do five minutes worth of damage in 1 second and then do nothing for five minutes, as well as players who just want steady constant damage output and wouldn't even want dice being rolled. Those different styles even have strategic uses.

Hi,

It should be very obvious by now from these discussions that one size does not fit all.

Your challenge is to find a solution which does not unduly favour builds needing a more even delivery of damage or builds which rely on bursts (whether melee/ranged hybrids or full-time burst archers).

If you cannot do that, the change to manyshot is going to be an abject failure and very harmful to our enjoyment of the game.

Thanks.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Edit: You've already been presented with a number of suggestions about how to do this.

One of which is to leave manyshot as it is, then make slayer arrow a choice of two enhancements.

Slayer arrow 1: Classic slayer arrow, 250 pts, no change to doubleshot penalty after manyshot. Good for burst damage types.

Slayer arrow 2: Reduced damage slayer arrow, 100 pts, doubleshot penalty after manyshot is reduced or removed completely. Manyshot is less powerful than before, still provides some burst ability, damage output during manyshot downtime is improved.

Doing the maths will fill in the blanks for how much slayer arrow 2 should do and how to handle the reduction/removal of the doubleshot penalty.

There are likely to be problems with this suggestion, but this TYPE of solution is how to solve the issue of helping all bow users, not just full-time archers.

[nibel]

This is the key statement. Either changing Slayer Arrows affects those other builds because it's an important part of the power, or it is not that important to those other builds (so they wouldn't be as affected by any changes).

It is more like: Slayer Arrow is the most powerful attack of any ranged character that is not linked to any conditionals. The main problem is that it is part of a very specific combo that make it seems overpowered: Adrenaline + Manyshot + Slayer Arrow. This combo raises the power of the attack by at least 16 times because it is a multiplier (4 hits) on another multiplier (+400% damage). And that is not even counting the autocrit part of Adrenaline, that can raise it even more.

If your intention is to bring this combo more on line with what other active combos can handle (Eg, Mass Hold + Energy Burst/Hellball), adjusting specifically the Slaying Arrow attack will hit unintended targets, like every archer that have it for burst damage but don't use this specific combo.

IMO, this discussion is too linked with the Manyshot revamp to be taken as two separated issues. Changing how manyshot works affect this combo in many ways. If it stay as an action boost-y activation, but no longer shot 4 arrows at a time, it will hit this combo. If it becomes a cleave-like active attack that shoot 2/3/4 arrows at once, you can't use any other active attacks in conjunction with it, removing it from that combo.

I like that you are open and discussing options. Just stay aware that if the real goal is to fight the FotW combo, Slayer Arrow adjustment should wait until Manyshot changes are done.

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer.

I would prefer that Manyshot would be changed to one of those options:

• Active attack, cleave-like. You hit the feat, you shoot more arrows in a single attack, it enter a 6 seconds cooldown.
• Ranged Offensive Stance (competing with Archer's Focus and Improved Precise Shot): Always shoot 2 arrows (Doubleshot chances for a third). Get it as an alternative to raise single-target DPS against AF, but while keeping your mobility.
• Action Boost: Give us 5 20-seconds use per rest, with a 30 seconds cooldown between each use. Categorize it as an Action Boost, so anything that gives extra action boost uses, give extra Manyshot uses as well. Keeping track of your resources is on the player. (Optional) Add on Arcane Archer an enhancement that allow them to regenerate at a rate of one every X minutes (like Radiant Servant allow recharge of turns).
• As today, but giving attack speed instead of extra arrows. Attach a huge boost on it. Think like Endless Fusilade is awesome just by raising RoF on crossbows. Damage output might be somewhat like it is today, but kills the interaction with activated attacks that would otherwise be multiplied by 4 during Manyshot.

[Artagon]

If you really want to reduce the power of Slayer arrow + Adrenaline, you would just make the arrow damage be spell damage, scaling with spell power instead of ranged power. The dev team has not proposed that, since it would likely kill the fury build entirely.. but it would make the up front damage more scalable. Is that something which we would want?

[PsychoBlonde]

Dear Varg

Thank you for clearing that up. It very clearly shows that adding alot of doubleshot is very bad idea and since that is at the core of the official ideas for changing manyshot and 10k stars it very clearly means that those ideas are not very usefull.

The "staring in the eyes" obvious solution is to simply change 4 arrows (MS) for 1 arrow that does 4 times as much of everything associated with hitting with an arrow. That means normal damage, crits, vorpals, procs, DC effects, imbues etc, etc. I point to post #371 in this thread where I posted the details on how I could see that done though the specifics are much less important than the core idea. So, consider the idea more than the details first.

In short - swap 4 "smaller" arrows for 1 "huge" arrow that does 4 times as much of everything.

Make Manyshot a mode that adds +2/4/6/8[W] to bows. Make it so you can leave it on all the time. Done. Fewer projectiles, much better damage distribution. Sanity restored.

Yeah, it won't have the insane burst damage currently available with existing manyshot/arrow of slaying/adrenaline. Aaaand I don't care.

[PsychoBlonde]

If you really want to reduce the power of Slayer arrow + Adrenaline, you would just make the arrow damage be spell damage, scaling with spell power instead of ranged power. The dev team has not proposed that, since it would likely kill the fury build entirely.. but it would make the up front damage more scalable. Is that something which we would want?

You mean, "make arrow of slaying work like Merciful Shot in DWS" (although Merciful Shot scales with ranged power).

Basically, old school Slayer Arrows, when it was a proc-on-20 thing that added extra damage instead of an activated effect.

Heck, just making the EXISTING version proc on 20 would make it completely impossible to combine it effectively with adrenaline--you'd have to get lucky, basically.

[Artagon]

You mean, "make arrow of slaying work like Merciful Shot in DWS" (although Merciful Shot scales with ranged power).

Basically, old school Arrow of Slaying, when it was a proc-on-20 thing instead of an activated effect.

Heck, just making the EXISTING version proc on 20 would make it completely impossible to combine it effectively with adrenaline--you'd have to get lucky, basically.

I didn't say make it only proc on 20, I meant what I said.. you hit, it does 200ish dmg, scaled with spell power.. meaning you could scale it up pretty well since spell power goes up more than ranged power. Adrenaline wouldn't work to boost that portion of damage, nor would crit profile... other than maybe spell crits?

[CelticTrojan]

We've had a lot of discussions about DC, and we're currently inclined to keep them scaling with Wisdom and Enchantment.

• We know there are lore reasons for CHA and INT (or just INT, if you go way back). We're sympathetic to this. There are further ramifications to choosing or allowing INT or CHA that we're currently not looking for (interactions with Harper and Mechanic, for instance.)
• We know Dexterity would probably be the most (easily) powerful. Power does not the same thing as good or interesting builds.
• We know players are mostly not building for max Wisdom right now. That doesn't mean it should be bad to allow it to strengthen an existing ability.
• Yes, we know monks often build a lot of Wisdom (though it may or may not be a primary stat for each build). We don't expect that this particular change is going to be responsible for monkchers being overpowered. We are trying to balance monkchers and there could be further changes relating to them and AA, but we don't think this is the place to do it. (Amongst other things, DPS is probably a bigger consideration and this wouldn't greatly affect that.)

The 20 + Wisdom + Enchantment proposal remains an improvement for nearly all Arcane Archers, and with only moderate build consideration is quite a lot stronger (equipping a single strong Wisdom item somewhere, for instance). Full dedication to these DCs rivals the DCs of full caster classes, and we don't want them to exceed those caster DCs.

I am mostly a forum lurker. I watch I read I take in all thats here and am very grateful to the devs for your time spent communicating with us. However this post prompted me to post in a way no other post has recently. I hope you find this constructive as I am trying to be fair and balanced.

I understand my way of playing is my way. I understand there are many other ways and the great strength of DDO is the variety it allows.
I know you have a vision, a plan for all classes and that is good in itself.
But .... and you knew there was a but .... this is not something I can support or even agree with. You have lost me from most of AA tree with this vision.
Let me explain ...

We know there are lore reasons for CHA and INT (or just INT, if you go way back). We're sympathetic to this. There are further ramifications to choosing or allowing INT or CHA that we're currently not looking for (interactions with Harper and Mechanic, for instance.) - So thats a No then.

We know Dexterity would probably be the most (easily) powerful. Power does not the same thing as good or interesting builds. - So thats also a No then.

We know players are mostly not building for max Wisdom right now. - Other than Monkcher who would ? This is no gain or benefit from WIS for a Ranger. Other builds with racial AA certainly options there but also other issues.

That doesn't mean it should be bad to allow it to strengthen an existing ability. - This is very confusing to me. What do you mean by this? "Strengthen an existing ability" ? What ability? WIS? for a ranger? Other than the requirement to have WIS 14 (ie. WIS base 8 + WIS +6 item or tome) there is no overall use for WIS in Ranger, maybe there should be if they had better or new spells but thats not part of this discussion so I am at a loss as to what you mean here? Can you please explain or elaborate what is in the devs minds for a WIS based Ranger? What build or vision is prompting this direction? We have some of the best min/maxer's and crazy out there builders on this forum and I have yet to see anyone propose a strong new Ranger only WIS build. We are collectively scratching our heads here and looking at each other going, what are we missing here? What do the devs see in the quantum flux that we don't?

"Yes, we know monks often build a lot of Wisdom ...." - I'm actually one of the few that are not worried about this build synergy, I'm happy for someone to have this, but unhappy that this is perhaps the primary benificiary of the choice of WIS DC.

The 20 + Wisdom + Enchantment proposal remains an improvement for nearly all Arcane Archers, and with only moderate build consideration is quite a lot stronger (equipping a single strong Wisdom item somewhere, for instance).

This is the core of my dislike and dismay.
Currently for any non monkcher ranger I have seen this is something like : 20 + 2 (WIS 14) + 0 for most of the 1 - 20 levels. Tomes and random boni will improve this so the DC22 will improve over time without any active input. At levels above 10, is DC 22 useful? It will trigger to be sure, but is it worth taking for the 10% 20% 30% ? time it might happen when used? rather than the excellent elemental or force damage changes proposed that trigger 100% ? You can only have one active. And loot bows can replace the DC enhancements in some cases.
I really don't think so and if I put resources into higher WIS the gains/losses equation currently looks unfavourable. You can only wear so many items and have some many char build/enhancement points.

I think that for me the Ranger AA tree will simply be the chocolate sauce over my Ranger DWS ice cream. 41 points DWS, 31 points AA for elemental/force and crit at 18, rest in Harpers or Racial tree and my Ranger archer is done. Shrug. Thats life. Thats still a fun build and thanks for the improvements I will use.

For the racial tree I will need to wait until Lammania is up to see how Druid, Fvs, Cleric builds can work out. There is hope there but without WIS to dam for these I think they will just be interesting but not worth following into epic. Something to try for a change of pace.

Oh well.

Trojan.

[blerkington]

Make Manyshot a mode that adds +2/4/6/8[W] to bows. Make it so you can leave it on all the time. Done. Fewer projectiles, much better damage distribution. Sanity restored.

Yeah, it won't have the insane burst damage currently available with existing manyshot/arrow of slaying/adrenaline. Aaaand I don't care.

Hi,

This is far too simple to be useful. You will need to read more of this thread before you can make a useful contribution or else we will just keep going around in circles on this.

For example, adding [w] damage to a smaller number of projectiles greatly reduces the amount of damage available from sneak attack. At least the developers' proposal compensates for that loss of damage by adding more ranged power so SA damage scales too. So in that respect, your solution is even worse than theirs.

Then there is also the loss of on hit effects which benefit from larger projectile numbers like mortal fear, additional damage from imbues, on hit ED abilities. All these other things which make a high RoF so desirable for ranged builds. And don't forget, other ranged builds like throwers can maintain a constant RoF which is almost as high as manyshot, so why the same thing shouldn't be available to archers is quite beyond me.

There is something to be said for changing bows to be more like the way great crossbows now work for mechanics, but it's going to take a lot more than a bit of +[w] to make them even vaguely comparable, even putting aside the big SA damage advantage rogues have already. And that doesn't even take into account the existing legitimate builds which would be needlessly ruined by turning archery into a constant RoF style only.

At this point we still don't have a developer confirmation that manyshot is either a reliable or significant source of lag. For reasons already discussed in this thread, this seems quite doubtful to me, and lag is only being floated as a rather shady justification for their preferred solution to the manyshot 'problem'. Playing the game where we negotiate against ourselves by finding ways to ruin manyshot seems really counterproductive to me.

Thanks.

[maddong]

I think the changes look great except I am guessing the dps of a pure bow ranged ranger will be too low.
The whole problem with a bow is the picking your butt damage wise when manyshot is off timer (which encourages you to switch to different weapons) unless you are a monkcher.

[Vorthian]

This isn't a goal.

...

4/9 of your damage comes in 20s, and then 5/9 over 100s (just accounting for Manyshot). In a perfect world, what would those ratios be (including the times)? This is not rhetorical, and we can expect that players won't generally agree on one answer. There are surely some players who would love to do five minutes worth of damage in 1 second and then do nothing for five minutes, as well as players who just want steady constant damage output and wouldn't even want dice being rolled. Those different styles even have strategic uses.

The devs seem to have a level headed approach, as opposed to the very large amount of hyperbole and irrational hatred in this thread. Kudos to them for that.

Your stated goals, that pure rangers, monkchers, and other multi-class builds, will be top-tier dps when this enhancement pass is finished, is exactly what I am hoping for. You have confirmed this will be done in stages, with not all the changes will be put into effect in one fell swoop. Personally I think that is a good idea, allowing for incremental testing/reporting from actual game play. It will allow for changed abilities/enhancements to be adjusted and fine tuned, again a good thing.

This AA tree update is a difficult pass, as it is both an Elven and Ranger enhancement tree, belonging solely to neither. Keep up the good work devs.

[barecm]

To me it is obvious manyshot needs to be a stance. Like minded folks have been saying this for years. So, for arguments sake, let's say we want to reduce the number of arrows deal... ok. So 4 arrows is what, 400% and is achievable at lvl 16. So, lets use the same step process when adding double shot % as a stance. If the going theory is to make manysot a stance granting a double shot bonus of 100%, I would sugest that it should be 33% at BAB 6, 67% at BAB 11 and 100% at BAB 16. Then you can make the 10k stars feat not function while the manyshot stance is active.

Now to go step further for rangers as a class, make higher level rangers more the masters of archery then they are at lvl 12. Grant a 150% double shot feat at level 16 or 18, or, a triple shot feat at level 18 or something like that. Something that gives folks a reason to go beyond 12 levels of ranger. Nothing crazy inho, but I think that would help. I would stay away from adding it to the AA tree because Elf AA mucks it up.

At this point, you can leave slayer arrow alone if you make manyshot as you would not be hitting 4x every single shot. It keeps the burst damage the same, just not 4x with manyshot, and allows for monchers to keep the 10k stars as the burst damage (not a guaranteed 4x) build and give the rangers more dps to off set the lower burst amounts, but still remain viable and very good over all.