Ranger: Arcane Archer Changes (Early Autumn Edition)

[AbyssalMage]

Frankly, I think most players would prefer that you let it slip past 2015, rather than doing only part of the job. The way it's going right now, between the wisdom to DC issue, and Manyshot, a lot of us are simply going to get rid of our arcane archers and play something else. It will become simply a splash tree for other classes. You keep saying that this is not your intention, but keep ignoring the player feedback. Just because you don't intend something, won't keep it from happening. I certainly hope you plan to pass out +20 hearts of wood to all the rangers, because this is going to be a massive mess. Even assuming we are willing to try to make it work, it will require completely re-spec'ing our AA's. We should not be expected to bear the cost of your changes.

With the seriously horrendous changes coming to DDO (who honestly thinks Turbine will actually listen to constructive feedback?) I am beginning to believe a +20 HoW needs to also be apart of this update. AA's/Ranged builds (non-mechanic) are all getting shafted. If you are anything other than an evading class you are getting shafted.

It's not DooOOmmM, but it is a serious, smack you in the mouth, knock you into last decade kinda nerf.

Further, most players who run AA's don't believe that manyshot is a major contributor to lag. We don't see it in-game, and many believe this is just a lame excuse to make changes that much of the player base is very strongly against. Whatever math you're using, it's not translating into the game for the vast majority of players, based on both the forum posts & our own in-game experience.

First I have heard (well from reading this thread) that MS was linked to lag. I find this amusing because I haven't used MS in months and most players don't either (everyone switched to mechanic). So I am laughing if this is even a theory.

My last comment echoes what a few other poster have mentioned. The test periods on Lamannia seem to keep getting shorter & shorter. There should be at least 2 testing periods, each a minimum of 2 weeks long, to give players adequate time to test the new enhancements. Otherwise, you're not allowing for adequate evaluation by the players, especially when we're dealing with such massive changes.

Oh, I am on record as stating that they need to make Lama-land permanent and not like it is now.

[Santras]

First things first, I’d like to say that I’m excited about these changes. I agree with most of them and think they would make AA builds better even with no additional changes. That being said, no one is perfect and there can always be room for improvement. I don’t like people just whining about things they would like to have, or things they have being changed, so I’ll try to make a list of things that I think would benefit this enhancement tree. You as developers have to carefully balance things players want and things players need. I’d ask you that you disregard everything I say that you think is not needed for archers.

1.) Manyshot / 10k stars. I like your proposed fix, particularly that you have decided to dump the doubleshot penalty. It now scales with BAB and with BAB of 20, for example, you’d get almost the same value as before. Unfortunately, there are two problems I can think of:

a) There are no benefits to elemental stances. You could argue that their proc rate is half as often as on live while manyshot is on so what I suggest is adding a BAB * 4 to spell power of elemental stances to manyshot. This wouldn't double the elemental damage (it isn't doubling spell power but adding to it) but add the basic elemental damage before adding spell power. If you would add only spell power without applying it only to elemental stances then casters could misuse it for spells. On the other hand, maybe that is not a bad thing. AA builds will get benefits for taking caster levels to improve the effect of their elemental stances and it would only be logical that the improvement goes both ways. This is something that just came to me. You do the numbers and see if that would be overpowering.

b) The second problem is with effect generation and that leads us to my suggestion number two.

2.) True, by redesigning manyshot and 10k stars we benefit from the lack of doubleshot penalties because of which rate of fire is almost unchanged but the real problem with this is proc rate. Let us take, for example, something that has a 50 % proc rate. With current mechanics of doubleshot the second arrow copies the effects granted by the first. That leaves us with a 25 % proc rate per arrow if the effect is non stacking and 50 % if it is when having 100 % doubleshot. While manyshot is active, at the moment, when you fire two arrows at once with that imaginary 50 % proc rate both stacking and non stacking effects have the same, true, proc rate.

As you can see the problem lies solely in non stacking effect. What I suggest is that you rework them in a way that gives an extra roll per doubleshot chance and copy the result for the other arrows (not that the copying is needed in this case because we are talking of non stacking effects) or an extra roll when doubleshot occurs rolled individually. I don’t know which of them is easier to implement but both would solve the problem. This can also be a problem for stacking effects which have a low proc rate and/or disappear after a short time period if not renewed by the end of timer. Current mechanics with 100 % doubleshot would give those effects two stacks by proc where they would benefit more by one stack with double proc rate. If my second suggestion can be implemented it would solve both of the problems I have mentioned.

3.) Slayer arrow is good as it is and you have said that its change wasn’t a part of this AA changes. If I may make a suggestion I would make a slayer arrow a choice between a slayer arrow as it is now and elemental slayer arrow which would give X damage in currently toggled elemental stance scaling with spell power and subject to spell critical. The value would have to be determined after testing but what I would like to see here are similar numbers to those of slayer arrow + adrenaline on average. That way archers could choose other epic destinies and still be close to maximum possible DPS.

4.) Bows vs. crossbows. This is a huge mistake. I have no problem with something being better than something what I like, but what I find irritating here is logical and historical flaws that are currently in place. Historically speaking, crossbows first appeared as a way regular solders could replace archers with years of practice. Crossbow was made popular because you could draft simple peasants, give it to them and after a short training with instructions they were battle ready. This didn’t make them better than professional archers; this just made them more useful at shorter notice than they were before. Prior to that drafted solders had to pass rigorous training to become battle ready.

When you compare the two you see that crossbow is immensely heavier and shots two to five times SLOWER. What crossbows lack in rate of fire they make up with precision and ease of use which made them so popular in the first place. I understand this is a game and I will continue to play it whether or not you make it make sense.

5.) Rangers don’t have spellcraft as a class skill. Is it possible to either make it a ranger class skill or to put an enhancement in the AA tree (let’s say in place of true strike which no one in their right mind uses) which would add heal skill points to spellcraft?

I see that this list is getting too long so I’ll better stop now. As I said before nobody’s perfect and I also don’t think that this list is. If you find something useful please change it in a way that is needed to better all AA builds. Make archers again relevant in the two worlds of DDO and please remember that this is arcane ARCHER tree. Thanks for listening and sorry for a long post.

[Starla70]

Frankly, I think most players would prefer that you let it slip past 2015, rather than doing only part of the job. The way it's going right now, between the wisdom to DC issue, and Manyshot, a lot of us are simply going to get rid of our arcane archers and play something else. It will become simply a splash tree for other classes. You keep saying that this is not your intention, but keep ignoring the player feedback. Just because you don't intend something, won't keep it from happening. I certainly hope you plan to pass out +20 hearts of wood to all the rangers, because this is going to be a massive mess. Even assuming we are willing to try to make it work, it will require completely re-spec'ing our AA's. We should not be expected to bear the cost of your changes.

Further, most players who run AA's don't believe that manyshot is a major contributor to lag. We don't see it in-game, and many believe this is just a lame excuse to make changes that much of the player base is very strongly against. Whatever math you're using, it's not translating into the game for the vast majority of players, based on both the forum posts & our own in-game experience.

My last comment echoes what a few other poster have mentioned. The test periods on Lamannia seem to keep getting shorter & shorter. There should be at least 2 testing periods, each a minimum of 2 weeks long, to give players adequate time to test the new enhancements. Otherwise, you're not allowing for adequate evaluation by the players, especially when we're dealing with such massive changes.

I agree about the test time. It also is pretty impossible to take builds we have now into Lamannia as the transfer option is broken. I do not like the changes to manyshot, Not really sure why the need to change to wisdom base on AA. Not being able to test it with a toon I have been working on for 4 years, makes this all harder to deal with. This is going to need more then a couple of days testing.

It does seem like this change will kill most AA builds including the straight AA ranger builds. Sounds like the DC's in epics will be nearly impossible unless you mutli class. Even then not sure it will help. I also agree with I can not afford +7 tomes for all my toons.

[Guardian13]

You are missing the point: It should NOT be NECESSARY to multi-class to be able to use a core enhancement. With these proposals it will be. The alternative will be to gimp the rest of the build. Not acceptable.

I can build a ranger with 14 wisdom with not too much sacrifice. I might even be able to get to 16 Wisdom, though there would definitely be sacrifices. I would be willing to do that if that allowed me to achieve the necessary DC's. Right now it simply won't.

I have read through the proposed changes and am trying to make sense of the changes. I have a pure AA Ranger. He is a Half-elf Ranger with 23 AP in Race tree for Half-elf Dilettante Cleric and 57 AP in AA.

Base Stats:
Str: 12
Dex: 24
Con: 14
Int: 8
Wis: 14
Cha: 8

This toon was built for running with party as back-up healer. I only get to add to dps to the party with MS and in Epic, in Fury Destiny. I didn't build this toon for dps, but to work as back up healer.

My question is with the proposed changes, am I now going to have to reroll and drop the Dilettante to be a competant AA Ranger since so much is now going to be dependant on DC's to be effective? Serious Question, no Bashing please?

[Requiro]

I can say again: I'm very happy from Manyshot and 10K Star NEW changes.

Good work Devs, best solution so far.
Don't care about whinnies, they will find other bugs and exploit them.

Now, let’s concentrate on AA, and bring more improvements, especially on Capstone

[CrackedIce]

With the change to Manyshot, double shot will be king. Why use any other destiny than divine crusader? It is the only destiny that adds to rate of fire due to its first core, celestial champion, and zeal of righteous.. It adds to spell power and defensive abilities.

Bows have worst rate of fire, poor threat range even with deepwood under pending changes to improved crit feat. Slayer arrows will not be worthwhile outside fury destiny because of this. And in fury destiny no way to obtain adrenaline at rate needed to put out damage that's required to not just pew pew while others take out monsters under 4 seconds.

What am I missing here? AA look to be able to solely spec for DCs..

[rohmer]

Ok, I have played many lives of ranger through the years (I took of the day DDO launched a gazillion years ago).

I like rangers with a bow. AAs only real claims to fame were:
1. Crowd control with paralyzing arrows (Not exciting, but super useful in a group). Soloability is good, but slow
2. Selective DPS. Once in a while you can hit the DPS button fire a many shot/slayer arrow + maybe fury @ epic levels. Nice! But.. You can do this once ever 90s or 2 min, or whatever the cooldown is.

Now we throw in warlocks. 2 lives ago I blew thru Warlock, and was honestly bored. It was so easy. With the nuke they have (Endless, no cooldown, no mana requirement, just blast away) and the root of evards. Geezh, how can you not kill everything.

I am not saying we need to make AAs into Warlocks, but good lord look at the delta between the two.

[Andu_Indorin]

...I am not saying we need to make AAs into Warlocks, but good lord look at the delta between the two.

The same can be said of Mechanic/Great Bow Users and AAs. It is absolutely preposterous that a weapon slightly smaller than a ballista should have a rate of fire greater than bows; and that you can reload while on the move, with no movement penalty. This is almost as outrageous as those 88mm FLAK guns with the radar-proximity fused ammo they installed out on Mystral Island.

But, back to the issue, I feel the most important improvement needed is increased rate of fire/ranged alacrity. Ranger and Elf AAs should not be left sucking the dust of some two-bit Rogue Mechanic with the supercharged great bow.

[rohmer]

The same can be said of Mechanic/Great Bow Users and AAs. It is absolutely preposterous that a weapon slightly smaller than a ballista should have a rate of fire greater than bows; and that you can reload while on the move, with no movement penalty. This is almost as outrageous as those 88mm FLAK guns with the radar-proximity fused ammo they installed out on Mystral Island.

But, back to the issue, I feel the most important improvement needed is increased rate of fire/ranged alacrity. Ranger and Elf AAs should not be left sucking the dust of some two-bit Rogue Mechanic with the supercharged great bow.

It all smacks of endless Monty Hall for nearly every other class, and the AA (Which few play anyway) get totally gimped. Very annoying.

[CrackedIce]

I really think Deepwood tier five comes out stronger than tier five for AA.

Runebow vs heavy draw - deepwood

Improved elemental arrows vs strike like lightening - deepwood

Moonbow vs extra favored enemy - deepwood

Slayer arrows vs headshot - depends. Do you crit? Then slayer. But headshot will ensure a crit on every shot with +5w. Outside of fury, I will always choose deepwood tier five over AA. Especially since can still take AA core five for better crits. Now with no way to replenish adrenaline effectively while in fury, slayer really loses its luster. Going into melee to replenish is not the answer - getting into tier five AA really puts damper on melee damage. Because whose going to give up deepwood totally in favor of tempest. If I want to build Archer I should be able to. But where is the benefit of tier five AA??

[CrackedIce]

I think the cores need some e tra oomph.

AA has its own flavor and uniqueness that I think still needs to be made more apparent and brought out in its own way when compared to the obvious advantages deepwood has over it throughout its cores.

The cores add versatility to AA but choosing one excludes the bo us of the other. Say in core 4 there was a passive ability that provides spellsinger flicker ability this would help AA on the defensive end of things. And add to its flavor.

I agree with the general consensus that DC on pure ranger cannot be maxed effectively. I also know that the elemental imbues are good, but do not shore up the damage that is required in epic play. AA capstone, if allowed for third imbue ( allow elemtal arrows with one of the dc Imbues) will give pure rangers chance of those DC going off without giving up much needed extra damage that comes with elementals.

Together with 10 spell power and 10 ranger power for capstone would really put it in competition with deepwood capstone.

[Walking_Ride]

I think the cores need some e tra oomph.

AA has its own flavor and uniqueness that I think still needs to be made more apparent and brought out in its own way when compared to the obvious advantages deepwood has over it throughout its cores.

The cores add versatility to AA but choosing one excludes the bo us of the other. Say in core 4 there was a passive ability that provides spellsinger flicker ability this would help AA on the defensive end of things. And add to its flavor.

I agree with the general consensus that DC on pure ranger cannot be maxed effectively. I also know that the elemental imbues are good, but do not shore up the damage that is required in epic play. AA capstone, if allowed for third imbue ( allow elemtal arrows with one of the dc Imbues) will give pure rangers chance of those DC going off without giving up much needed extra damage that comes with elementals.

Together with 10 spell power and 10 ranger power for capstone would really put it in competition with deepwood capstone.

Moar power for rangers.

[CrackedIce]

Moar power for rangers.

AA is available to anyone through racials.....this discussion is about AA and in no way affects your crusade against twf rangers vs. Paladin. Kindly please provide feedback when appropriate.

Thanks.

[Walking_Ride]

AA is available to anyone through racials.....this discussion is about AA and in no way affects your crusade against twf rangers vs. Paladin. Kindly please provide feedback when appropriate.

Thanks.

Nop. The dvelopers want everyone to go pure ranger. It doesn't ever matter anymore what combat style.

[mikarddo]

Does maximize add to the damage from elemental arrows?

[eachna_gislin]

I did forget to include where I see racials fitting in, and I do see where you're coming from - 14AP just to get AA is quite a hefty investment (3+ levels worth of AP) and you want to get some benefit from pumping wis on your iconic... except you aren't actually sacrificing much in terms of big choices (i.e. taking some ranger class levels, reducing your clericy sun elf goodness), those other elf racials you 'had' to take are by no means bad, and you're picking up a tree which is going to hugely boost the ranged attack damage you would have just from the minimum investments you need to be able to get the specialist arrows with DC on them[I].

It's not just 14+ ap. It's 14+ ap and at least six heroic feats.

This is whilst potentially divine nuking away happily anyway assuming cleric for sun elf.

It's not likely a sun elf is _happily_ nuking away if they're a racial AA cleric. They may be nuking, but they can barely afford any metamagic feats. They'll probably be doing anemic bow damage and anemic nuking damage. They're in the worst position for a racial build as they get neither faux bow strength (or sneak damage) from helf dilly, nor the elvish aerenal grace.

Kudos to any sun elf builds that manage higher than average damage. I don't mean the previous paragraph to be a slight against anyone who enjoys playing the build.

That's quite a powerful racial the elves have got access to quite honestly. Imagine Horcs getting access to a barb tree or something like that (not that they have any DCs to worry about particularly anyway)?

It would have been awesome if the devs had done racial trees for everyone, as they initially stated. Unfortunately AA was the test case, and the enhancement pass was never completed.

Having said that, unless you've built for it, being an elf of any flavour does not grant manyshot etc. i.e. little to no burstiness. So I guess I should add the racial scenario to my list. I think the racial scenario should be

Improved sustainable DPS, acheivable DCs, /meh burstiness. burstiness hard to pump (requires class levels of some kind, presumably monk, since you wouldn't be taking ranger), sustainable DPS relatively easy to pump and DCs should be about as easy/hard to pump as an pure ranger AA would find it.

No, the racial builds should not require monk. It's not the elvish monkcher build. Monks aren't arcanes, they're not even any sort of caster. Racial builds pay a tax in getting their cores later than Rangers, and that covers playing whatever class they want. It should continue to count level numbers regardless of class on a Racial build, just as it does now.

[/COLOR]But how on earth you achieve that without linking the DCs to ranger level in some way or character level if routed through Elf I really don't know. And even then that would just mean every monkcher would suddenly be an elf, and they'll find a way to spread 14AP to not get hit with a lower DC by not having enough ranger levels.

So I still don't know the answer. I just know I can't think of another class where DCs are better if you are not a pure class.

That's because no class enhancement tree is based entirely on your race like racial AA.

Wanting to !@#$ over monkchers is not a reason to !@#$ over racial AA's as a whole. I don't really like monkchers that much, either. I mean...I'm not a big fan of playing them, personally. I'd love for the devs to fix monks so they're not the most splash-able class in the game. But I also know it's not going to happen. And I'm really REALLY tired of bows being penalized because the assumption has to be that you have Many Shot and 10k Stars and so anything less much be entirely gimp. So...whatever. Let them have Wisdom to do "everything". Just let me build a reasonable racial archer in other classes as well.

[eachna_gislin]

I had trouble posting this earlier, so I sent it to Vargouille in PMs. Posting it here for the community to pick apart at their leisure .

AA *NEEDS* steady, sustained damage in the tree (which I guess means ranged power, or bow animations being redone the way repeaters were to function in the new higher-damage environment). You keep forgetting that Arcane Archer is a racial tree for elves and half-elves and that means any class can be an AA. Sticking all the steady damage in Deepwood Sniper and presuming AA's can afford to take extra feats for ranged power (because rangers get the core archery feats for free) cripples racial builds.

Please read about the Elemental damage increase. It's pretty massive. Plus critical damage multiplier. Most of the changes increase damage. If there is something you are seeing here that isn't what you are looking for, or something you aren't seeing that you want, please be very specific.

I want to understand your feedback, but I just don't get what you are trying to say.

The critical damage multiplier won't apply until racial AA's are in epic levels. The enhancement trees are a heroic system and can only be evaluated based on the elements that are available in heroic levels. When players ask for enhancements to scale into epic levels, this is not what they mean.

***

Re: Archers have no steady DPS.

Let's use an exaggerated math example, since you don't understand steady in this context.

If a DDO archer does one point of damage per second for a thousand seconds, and then a thousand points of damage for one second, and then goes back to doing one point of damage per second for the next thousand seconds, their steady damage is pitifully low and their burst damage is high.

DDO archers don't have steady DPS because bows are a weak, slow weapon with poorly designed feats, that haven't been updated to work with the new game systems.

DDO archers need a way to output a baseline, steady amount of DPS that's roughly equivalent to base damage of other classes/trees that went through a pass. This would be basic piercing arrow damage. As part of this adjustment, there ought to be some Ranged Power available to racial AA's to boost the new improved archery damage. Once bows are balanced compared to other weapons, then you stack elemental damage above that, and then cool tricks like Many Shot and Slayer Arrows on top of all of the rest of the damage.

If this is still unclear, maybe a food analogy will work. You're putting too much gravy on the plate when people are asking for more meat and potatoes.

The above comments are not limited to Arcane Archers, but bows as a weapon in general.

***

Re: Updating bow animations or Ranged Power available to the tree

Bows are slow to fire. This is because of the animation speed. Bow animation should to be sped up to compensate for the changes made to crossbows. It doesn't really matter that crossbow animations were buggy as that was a long-term issue. When comparisons were made between bow speed and crossbow speed, they were based on those buggy animations. This isn't an Arcane Archer fix, but fixing crossbow animations wasn't a Rogue fix either.

Racial AA's don't get their archery feats for free, they pay for them with feat slots, just like melees pay for their weapons styles. Melees get Melee Power when they buy their various weapon styles (Single/Two Weapon/Two Handed/Shield Mastery feats) for a total of +6 Melee Power in each style. Racial AA's do not get Ranged Power when they buy the Many Shot line (PBS/RF/Many Shot), which is the DDO archery line roughly equivalent to a melee combat style. Rangers don't get Ranged Power for these feats either, but they get five archery feats for free, so they have other feat slots available to buy feats that do give them Ranged Power if they want. Most Racial AA classes can't afford three additional feat slots for feats that give Ranged Power. Racial AA's therefore ought to get +6 Ranged Power that makes up for the lack of weapon style Ranged Power.

Maybe you could put 6 points of Ranged Power into the 4 point AA racial enhancement? Right now there's nothing in there but the unlock for the tree. I realize that's a lot to give out at once, but I don't really know where else to put it so Sun Elves, Half Elves, and Aeranal Elves can all get it as AA's, but don't get it if they're not an AA. You could make sure it didn't stack with the Ranged Power Rangers get in their tree so Elven Rangers wouldn't benefit from it.

I think both ought to be done, but I said "or" here because I don't have any expectation of both happening.

***

Re: Ignoring that Racial AA's are not Rangers.

The rest of my comments presume I'm talking about *racial* AA's, not Ranger AA's, just in case I forget the word "racial" at some point.

Every change and balance element being made to the tree is being discussed in the context of how it impacts Rangers. I do understand that AA is a Ranger tree, but by opening it up to all half elves and elves, the dev team has a responsibility to balance it for racial AA's as well, not just racial monks and Rangers. I know you understand this in principle, you specifically mention it as a goal. However, you're failing to put it into practice.

The dev team is treating racial AAs as if they'res just a matter of tossing 4 ap into the racial tree and AA magically unlocks, rather than it having a hefty build tax of both feats and ap. For now, the bare minimum for racial AA is 55 ap (to get the capstone) plus six feats (minimul function archery feats) It's almost 60 ap if you take the top of the aeranal elvish or half-elvish dilettante line.

The only way to make racial AA viable for the different classes is to make sure most of what you need to be an archer is in the tree and the most fundamental archery feats. Instead, you're literally doing the opposite. What little is in the tree is being split up so that players have to limit their focus to a small part of the tree. This is a reflection of the devs once again assuming all AA's have a pile of free feats and two weapon styles (archery and two weapon fighting) to choose between. Only Ranger AA's get those feats, not racial builds.

People interested in Racial AA's are not asking to "be good at ranged physical, ranged magical, crowd control, and healing." They're not asking to be "king of everything". They're struggling to build a character that isn't a Ranger but is viable with a bow. The dev team as a whole (and you in particular) are overlooking this when making flippant comments about how players need to be given hard choices once they've invested in the tree. When I put 60-ish ap and six of my seven heroic feats into a play style, I don't expect to be told by the devs that now I should expect to have to go outside the tree for basic functionality. I already made the hard choices by deciding to play a racial AA, and I expect that my remaining character building should go into my character's class, not their prestige.

Rangers need more hard choices, but racial AA's need someone to soften some of the choices they're already making to allow them to enjoy their actual _class_. Easing up on the archery feats a little would _REALLY_ help.

I'd suggest giving Racial AA's two faux feats (similar to the way Paladins got fake Cleave feats) to simulate Precise Shot, and Improved Precise Shot. Those feats are vital to archery builds, and yet there are several classes that only get seven feat slots. If we could pare the basic 'package' of archery feats down to four for racial AA's (PBS/RF/Manyshot/IC:R), that leaves three heroic feats for 7-feat classes (which will allow for some metamagic feats or varied offensive/defensive choices). This gives players more build choice, including allowing feat-starved racial archers the choice between taking more archery feats, or taking something else. Right now, there is no *choice* for feat-starved classes, other than to not play a racial AA build.

Also, not allowing the assorted casting stats to be used for AA DC's is once again ignoring that AA is a racial tree as well as a Ranger tree. Yes, for Rangers it makes sense to force it to be Wisdom, if you want to force a split between stats. For Racial AA's, it should be a choice (either highest stat or a toggle you set) between the three in-game caster DC stats: Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. This means every class (except Monks) will have to split their attribute points between one Caster Stat and Dexterity To-Hit (and Strength if they have the feats for Bow Strength). Again, this is something you could actually set in the 4 ap AA enhancement (have three versions of the enhancement, one for each caster stat), so it doesn't need to clutter up the tree, itself.

***

[Requiro]

I really think Deepwood tier five comes out stronger than tier five for AA.

Runebow vs heavy draw - deepwood

Improved elemental arrows vs strike like lightening - deepwood

Moonbow vs extra favored enemy - deepwood

Slayer arrows vs headshot - depends. Do you crit? Then slayer. But headshot will ensure a crit on every shot with +5w. Outside of fury, I will always choose deepwood tier five over AA. Especially since can still take AA core five for better crits. Now with no way to replenish adrenaline effectively while in fury, slayer really loses its luster. Going into melee to replenish is not the answer - getting into tier five AA really puts damper on melee damage. Because whose going to give up deepwood totally in favor of tempest. If I want to build Archer I should be able to. But where is the benefit of tier five AA??

Agreed.

The T5 and Capstone are the most needed for improvements. IMO Core 1 should also be reworked. Something like this:

• Runebow, 3 Tiers (1 AP each): Each add +1 stacking enhancement bonus, and 50/65/80% returning ability to arrows.
• Moonbow: Replace Temp sp by SP regeneration, and add +1 DC with Enchantment Spells
• Improved elemental arrows - should not be multiselector but combine in one.
• Capstone: Add 3rd imbue stance OR other improvement to balance with DWS.
• Core 1: One of: Multiselector (+1 per Core non stacking OR +1 on Core 1/12/20 stacking OR +1 per core transferred to Arrows and stacking OR Conjure Arrows combine to Core 1 OR other anything useful)

[archerforever]

Suggestion : Could be interresting to get special effects as tier 5 or as core for elemental arrows : DC = 20 + Wisdom Modifier + Evocation or conjuration Spell focus (dunno which could be the best)
Something like : Each time you hit a target with elemental arrows, it apply a stack. When the target reach 5~10 stacks, it s doing an AoE of the elemental for a special effect.
Flaming Arrows = AoE damages / Corrosive Arrows = AoE Earth Grab (Reflex DC) / Frost Arrows = AoE Freezing Ice ( Fortitude DC) / Shock Arrows = AoE Hold (Will DC)

Why ?

- 10k star and manyshot are reworked so monkchers are not the best anymore. That means Wisdom builds need some boost to keep it interesting for AA. Like this we can imagine some good cleric and druid AA builds.
- Wisdom will never give you extra damage when intelligence and dexterity can. Let s have something special and different for wisdom and spell focus builds.
- We need a real arcane archer, getting stronger with spell power/lore and spell focus (for more variety, the DwS is already the physical power for bow users)
- Elemental Arrows and Paralyzing arrows are the same kind of imbue, that means you can only have one activate at once. Could be nice to have some AoE (damage/CC) on Core or Tier 5 for elemental arrows.
- Paralyzing, smiting and banishing arrows are scaling with enchantement and Elemental arrows are more like evocation or conjuration in some way. Could be interresting to have effect for elementl arrows scaling with theses spell focus.

[archerforever]

Elemental arrows scaling with spell power :

- Does Metamagic Feats can improve damage of elemental arrows ???

- Does elemental arrows can do critical damage based on the spell critical ??? ---> working with spell lore ??? (could be a really good thing for variety and interesting builds because if you are working to get some specific stuff to get elemental damages with your AA, most of stuff with spell power got also spell lore. It could be great to get the FULL interest to get spell power/lore stuff).

- Does Elemental Arrows will be considered as spells for items like http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Epic_Robe_of_Dissonance ??? If I shot with force Arrows, will it work to get the bonus from this item working "only" on spells ????

- Does Rangers will now have "Spellcraft" as class skills ???

Hope we ll have answers