U45 Preview 2: Ranged Combat Changes

[rabidfox]

I'm seeing a lot of "I have to take three feats to get it" where Shot on the Run is concerned, but the feat listed that one has to take is Mobility, which requires Dodge. Not two feats normally in my list, but far from killing a build. The requirements are exactly the same as they are for Spring Attack, and seems like a nice bonus if one wants the feat. There is a built in 5% dodge bonus, assuming Dodge and Mobility's bonuses stack, which would alleviate the issues with standing still for AF to some extent, prior to actually acquiring the feat, and IPS, where it doesn't matter if you move or not.

The problem is that its 3 feats for bow to almost catch up to other ranged builds that don't have burn 3 feats to do their stuff. Sure, the pre-req feats are nice stuff, but it's still burning 3 feat slots that other ranged weapons don't need to burn. I'd say spring attack needs its pre-req feats removed too but that's a whole other thread.

[Ashlayna]

^This. My FvS bow setup can't get the feats need to be viable if the DPS is based off needing dodge>mobility>shot on the run. FvS Inq becomes the viable ranged options because of feat starvation. The 10% should be shoved into rapid shot as a bonus for bows to bring them to par; or even in IPS as a passive extra for bow users.

Or, you do what I did about 6 years ago with FvS AA, and you take the feats you need, take some metamagics, and hybrid it up. The only issue I have with Elven non-fighter type AAs is that I can't take the final core in the AA tree until 25. This is true with Bards, FvS, Druid, Wizard, etc. It's the tradeoff I made on these builds, all of which I have run, or am still running. My final build on my main is FvS AA, and it's been at least 6 years since I concepted it out to how I wanted it play, and what it was going to do.

[Vorachtin]

doesnt work anyway, the attack speed from Shot on the Run is not working. Well it isn't stacking with existing speed bonuses on end game bows, so it isn't working or is designed poorly I cannot state for sure.

So we have chaos bow ranged alacrity which does not appear to stack with Shot on the Run and also does not appear to stack with Primal Hymn

hard capped at 25% it seems

screen shot of my toon with chaos bow, shot on the run feat and primal hymn. Attack bonuses section lists
Ranged Attack Speed bonus as 25%

If i remove the bow it stays at 10%, Shot on the run alacrity is not stacking with Primal hymn alacrity either. All 3 must be the same type I guess? or bugged.

Edit-----Toggling off IPS does ad 10% speed boost upping ranged attack speed bonus to 35%, unclear whether the 10% is coming from primal hymn or shot on the run. It does appear that one of those has a IPS not be turned on flag

[Ashlayna]

The problem is that its 3 feats for bow to almost catch up to other ranged builds that don't have burn 3 feats to do their stuff. Sure, the pre-req feats are nice stuff, but it's still burning 3 feat slots that other ranged weapons don't need to burn. I'd say spring attack needs its pre-req feats removed too but that's a whole other thread.

I don't see it the same way. There are ways to up ranged alacrity w/out Shot on the Run, and frankly, I've never been big on DDO's definition of "kiting". If I'm planning to make a run and gun archer, I'd go Ranger, because it frees up a lot feats, even if it's the most boring way to play an AA. What I like about the Elven AA option is that it gives me a lot more utility. I don't have to be 100% reliant on my SPs for DPS on a normally caster type class, such as Wiz or even FvS to some extent. This allows me to save those SPs for other things, like strategic Blade Barriers, or Implosion fields if things go pear shaped in a quest/raid. Initially, the FvS variant also left SPs free to heal, if/when needed. When I started conceptualizing the FvS AA, the cap was 20, I ran it for 3 lives, building up my FvS past lives, and am now doing ranger lives before finally going back. I'm not thrilled about IPS, but what's presented here is superior to what we had, because it's likely that I won't be taking SotR on a FvS anyway, because it does interfere with other feats I want to have that support what casting I will be doing.

[Loholt-UK]

I did a test on Live, Preview 1 and just did the same test on Preview 2 using my current Inquisitive build.

I went into White Plume Mountain and killed the Crab on Reaper 1 difficulty. I used IPS in each test and all boosts initially and when they came off cooldown. Boosts used were No Holds Barred, Shoot Later, Know The Angles, Reaper's Deadly Strikes, and Hunt's End. Here are my results:

Live: 35 seconds
Preview 1: 55 seconds
Preview 2: 63 seconds

I thought the changes in Preview 1 were heavy-handed but it seems you did not think so. Can I ask, was it your intention to reduce my DPS by about 45%?

This cannot stand.

[Krell]

I like the change to Archer’s Focus. The old play style and the 5 per stack. I would still like to know what the balance target is for ranged dps and melee dps. Is the target for top ranged and melee dps builds to be roughly equal dps, or is the target for ranged dps to be less than melee dps? My experience on the last Lamannia build and the new changes listed here made be question assumptions I had regarding ranged and melee dps balance.

[0ldschool]

Lastly a prediction:
With all your changes I predict that great xbows will become the top ranged damage (aside from alchemists witch im still figuring out).

So back to where we were a year ago perhaps (pre-Inquis), except that my pure rogue mechanic now does 20% less damage in IPS than he did then. The funny thing is that this change is going to push me harder toward the META, which I have so far avoided. Since the nerf is to overall IPS, and not the interaction of IPS and boosts like EF, the change incentivizes us to cram into ever more confined builds to keep up with power creep. The net result of this change for my mechanic will just be 20% less damage, or I can give up IPS. Or keep IPS and go Arti to get EF to make up the difference in DPS? Yeah, that is probably the answer, as much as I detest the idea of machine gun crossbows. Arti, here I come I guess. Discouraging build variety = bad business decision for SSG, imho.

I'm not a bow user, so I can't comment on the changes to bow, but I am happy to see that they've been given some love along with the dreaded IPS nerf. This clearly needed to happen. I hope that it is a big step in the right direction for bows.

EDIT: Archer's focus with +5 RP per stack is perhaps going to be better than I am giving it credit for. Standing still is of course not a good idea in general, but having it reset on each mob was a much worse solution, so I am glad to see them back away from that.

[DRoark]

It's entirely possible we still haven't found the correct balance on the risk/reward spectrum.

Artificers get nothing but DPS loss due to the IPS hammer. After a decade, why change it, instead of just going with the Inquisitor and Bow-user fix?

Melee artificers? Melee buff and sharn melee/caster armor options, plus Strikethrough options.

Ranged artificers? Huge DPS nerf, and no medium-armor ranged piece (so Shield core is useless).

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

You yourself, stated in an earlier letter, that Inquisitor was too strong, but the solution for this was sideswipe the other classes as collateral damage?

[Thrudh]

I’m sad that you have to stand still on this. I actually liked the change. Is there a compromise that allows movement? As a previous poster stated, standing still is a harbinger of death!!!

Note that you can build up some stacks, then move, and STILL get the bonus from the stacks as you move, since they slowly bleed off, 1 stack at a time.

[Xgya]

[*]Rogue

• Rogue Mechanic likewise treats dual crossbows like repeaters for purposes of damage bonuses

Question: Does that include the sneak attack die or just the base damage part?

[0ldschool]

Note that you can build up some stacks, then move, and STILL get the bonus from the stacks as you move, since they slowly bleed off, 1 stack at a time.

Thanks, this is a really important point that I just overlooked.

[Elearim]

Individual Changes

• Improved Precise Shot now reduces Ranged Damage by 20% while active.

To bad you dind´t listen to all the feedback given on preview 1. Maybe just make it 10% as some sort of compromise?

• Base animation speed for Shortbow and Longbow attacks have been increased by 13%.

Thats a good start, but only makes up for 13% of 20% net loss from the IPS nerf, so we have a net dps loss of 7% for Bows.

• The Feat "Shot on the Run" now grants a 10% Alacrity bonus to Shortbows and Longbows

It´s very expensive (three feats), so many builds can´t/won´t fit it in, with the need for PBS, PS, RS, IPS in the ranged feat line. So, were still on 7% loss on dps for most builds except maybe some fighter splits who have more feats to spare.

• Ranger: Deepwood Stalker's Improved Archer's Focus now also adds 10% Insight Bonus to Ranged Alacrity with Longbows and Shortbows when you have Archer's Focus active.

This is a good move, so now we are on a net of +3% dps for DWS builds, still -7% dps on AA builds tho. Maybe bring in a new Tier 5 Enhancement in AA (Ranger and Elf) with the same +10% Ranged Alacrity Bonus there is even a spot for it left clear in T5

But its still only a +3% dps for most bow builds, and +13% for a few rare builds, thats a smal step towards the bow balancing imo

• 
  Endless Fusillade and No Holds Barred now play a Reload animation on activation before the effect starts. (This is shorter than the previous activation animation this skill had, though it now plays consistently).

Thats OK, as long as its not glitching as often as it did before, often EF went on timer, used a charge, but dindt go off, hopefully that bug is gone, else i´d pretty much prefer a non animation version like NBH was and then cut the duration to 15sec instead.

• Inquisitive
  
  • Dual Crossbow combat style now only uses 50% of your Doubleshot.
  • Inquisitive Law Dice now scale with 150% Ranged Power (was 200%)
  • "Improved Law" and "Greater Law" in Inquisitive now grant +1 Law Die (previously +2).

well, with this you decrease Inquisitive total dps by more than 70% im not sure it did about 390% more dps than other builds. Here are my numbers:
20% nerf with IPS,
16,7% with the Law dice decrease (10/12 dice)
12,5% with the Law dice Ranged Power decrease (about 50% dmg were done by law dice, so its 50% times 25%, for 200 to 150 is a quarter)
25% with 50% Doubleshot nerf (something close to 100% is normal for endgame/endgear, so 2 bolts become 1.5 bolts which means about one quarter nerf)
_____
74,2 % nerf of total dps!

That seems very excessive to me (unless i made a mistake in my calculations since it was rushed while busy)

And you still did nothing to increase the surviveability of melee, so still almost every player will play some sort of ranged toon, but now, most will probably go for sorc, since its by far the highest dps build in endgame now, they did have the highest dps before anyways, but inquisitives were a nice alternativ.
Therefore i think, you fixed nothing of the balance problems the game has.

so long...

[Elearim]

Im gonna repeat my very late response to Preview 1 as a basis for new discussions:

after reading most of this thread i think we can summ it up to this:
1. Inquisitiv is OP and neds some nerf.
2. Bows are way back behind crossbows
2. Balance between Ranged (including Arcane) and Melee is off
3. Surviveability of Melee is a bigger problem than dps (although dps is lacking as well)

Here is my personal solution:

concerning ranged:
1. Keep IPS and PS/AF as is (to safe the Bows)
2. Make Bows work as two handed weapons in all regards (including dice boost, dps calculations from stats, applicable enhancements from epic destinys etc.) since you cant combine them with rune arms as you can with crossbows or/and make the changes to ranged alacrity available exclusivly to Bows as i commented in the upper post and make it stack with existing alacrity enhancements, else its just empty words (see post above)
3. Decrease doubleshot from double crossbows by 33% (as proposed by devs)
4. Decrease Law dice from improved and greater law to +1[W] (as proposed by devs)
5. Decrease law ranged power multiplier to 150% (as proposed by devs)
6. Make NHB and EF either instant active (to avoid the glitches) and cut duration to 15sec or make it as Manyshot a feat instead of an action bost with 20sec duration and 120 sec cooldown (same prerequires as Manyshot with the option of giving it for free with the enhancement trees) and make them turn off IPS.

concerning balance:
7. Make Cleave/Greatcleave/Whirlwind attacks apply Doublestrike
8. Make Cleave hitting all enemys in 180° and keep the +1[W]
8. Change Greatcleave to doublehit all enemys in 270° and drop the +2[W]
9. Change Whirlwind Attak to tripplestrike all enemys in 360° and drop the +4[W]
10. Keep the changes to Spring Attack to have an active part that closes distance to mobs
11. Make dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack give +3%/+3%+3% Dodge and Dodge Cap and keep the 95% max Dodge Cap (and maybe change the armor class bonus from Mobility to 10%?)
12. Make Epic Defensive Fighting an circumstance Bonus to HP (so it stacks with defense stance etc.) but make it not free, but need to take
13. Bring in two new need to take feats in that epic line like:
"Epic Evasive Fighting": Increases Dodge by 10% + 5% per Dodge, Mobility, Spring Attack Feat (ignoring Dodge Cap) and lowers your Spellpower and ranged dps by 50%. (Dodge Cap of 95% still applies)
"Epic Durable Fighting": Increases PRR and MRR by 50 + 20 per Toughness, Shield Mastery, Heavy Armor, Two weapon Block etc. Feats and lowers your spell crit Rate by 50% and decreases your ranged crit multiplier by 2.

concerning arcane:
I dont have any good ideas to bring them down to the balancing point, but ive seen single sorcs running reach for the sky on R7 to quick farm items (the onyx ring) in about 10 min each run, granted they where prolly triple everything with reaper wings, but still.... there is no Inquisitive that can do that right now, before the nerf.

so long....

[Deathmaster35]

This is precisely why we had redesigned Archer's Focus for preview 1. We believed this to be true internally and thus threw out the idea of standing still being the negative and replaced it with needing to focus down each enemy individually.

We got player feedback indicating that a large chunk of people were using the stand still implementation of Archer's Focus already and that the focus down a single target restriction was worse thus us going back to the old version and increasing it's damage.

It's entirely possible we still haven't found the correct balance on the risk/reward spectrum. We'll be reviewing feedback as it comes in, as we did with preview 1. Just know that we won't be replacing Archer's Focus with an ability with no risk associated with large dps reward.

It would help if the stacks started building faster, like within 1 second of stopping. With the layout of a lot of fights in the game you have to adjust to get line of sight or not stand in mechanics, or step aside from a mob attacking someone else due to the game's "we hate melees" mechanic of having mobs melee attacks hit everything in a small(sometimes 360 degree) area around them when they attack. This will let normal combat benefit from archers focus more while still not having it apply to the ranged people that run in circles around everything not getting hit while doing damage without issues somehow since clearly reloading two crossbows with no free hand is something done easily while running backwards at full speed while jumping constantly and doesnt interfere with the ability to aim at all(since seriously, the tiny attack penalty for moving is insignificant)

[Neo-Masamune]

This is a good move, so now we are on a net of +3% dps for DWS builds, still -7% dps on AA builds tho. Maybe bring in a new Tier 5 Enhancement in AA (Ranger and Elf) with the same +10% Ranged Alacrity Bonus there is even a spot for it left clear in T5

Please! Arcane Archer needs that!

I dont realy care about deepwood! take of the final strike enchantment(which is not so good to be honest) and replace for a similar enchantment on all AA trees, elf and ranger! that idea is awesome! Arcane Archer is suposed to be the best archer anyway! make it happen! please!

[CeltEireson]

doesnt work anyway, the attack speed from Shot on the Run is not working. Well it isn't stacking with existing speed bonuses on end game bows, so it isn't working or is designed poorly I cannot state for sure.

So we have chaos bow ranged alacrity which does not appear to stack with Shot on the Run and also does not appear to stack with Primal Hymn

hard capped at 25% it seems

screen shot of my toon with chaos bow, shot on the run feat and primal hymn. Attack bonuses section lists
Ranged Attack Speed bonus as 25%

If i remove the bow it stays at 10%, Shot on the run alacrity is not stacking with Primal hymn alacrity either. All 3 must be the same type I guess? or bugged.

Edit-----Toggling off IPS does ad 10% speed boost upping ranged attack speed bonus to 35%, unclear whether the 10% is coming from primal hymn or shot on the run. It does appear that one of those has a IPS not be turned on flag

Check the + tab on the character page. Ranged only seems to show general ranged bonuses and there's a section on the new tab which gives bow/xbow/throwing specific bonuses, and hymn is a bow/throwing specific bonus

[salmag]

To bad you dind´t listen to all the feedback given on preview 1. Maybe just make it 10% as some sort of compromise?



Thats a good start, but only makes up for 13% of 20% net loss from the IPS nerf, so we have a net dps loss of 7% for Bows.



It´s very expensive (three feats), so many builds can´t/won´t fit it in, with the need for PBS, PS, RS, IPS in the ranged feat line. So, were still on 7% loss on dps for most builds except maybe some fighter splits who have more feats to spare.



This is a good move, so now we are on a net of +3% dps for DWS builds, still -7% dps on AA builds tho. Maybe bring in a new Tier 5 Enhancement in AA (Ranger and Elf) with the same +10% Ranged Alacrity Bonus there is even a spot for it left clear in T5

But its still only a +3% dps for most bow builds, and +13% for a few rare builds, thats a smal step towards the bow balancing imo



Thats OK, as long as its not glitching as often as it did before, often EF went on timer, used a charge, but dindt go off, hopefully that bug is gone, else i´d pretty much prefer a non animation version like NBH was and then cut the duration to 15sec instead.



well, with this you decrease Inquisitive total dps by more than 70% im not sure it did about 390% more dps than other builds. Here are my numbers:
20% nerf with IPS,
16,7% with the Law dice decrease (10/12 dice)
12,5% with the Law dice Ranged Power decrease (about 50% dmg were done by law dice, so its 50% times 25%, for 200 to 150 is a quarter)
25% with 50% Doubleshot nerf (something close to 100% is normal for endgame/endgear, so 2 bolts become 1.5 bolts which means about one quarter nerf)
_____
74,2 % nerf of total dps!

That seems very excessive to me (unless i made a mistake in my calculations since it was rushed while busy)

And you still did nothing to increase the surviveability of melee, so still almost every player will play some sort of ranged toon, but now, most will probably go for sorc, since its by far the highest dps build in endgame now, they did have the highest dps before anyways, but inquisitives were a nice alternativ.
Therefore i think, you fixed nothing of the balance problems the game has.

so long...

I think the math still doesn't add up...

Normal
Let's say you shoot 100 arrows in one minute doing 100 damage each = 10,000 damage

IPS Nerf means the same 100 arrows does 80 damage each = 8,000 damage

add in 13% alacrity means 113 arrows doing 80 damage each = 9040 damage

add in SOTR 10% alacrity means 123 arrows doing 80 damage each = 9,840 damage

So there is still a net loss of 10% just to use a Bow - with SOTR it is a 1% loss.

add in feat requirements, etc, Bow users are still in a worse place than they started.

[Deathmaster35]

In both cases, it was not useful for single-target trash chaining (which is what it needs to support to be a viable alternative to IPS and a full-fledged combat style of its own). U45P1 because it wiped after each kill, Live because it forced you to stop moving for longer than it takes to actually kill most mobs, and then bled stacks while you were running between encounters.

I think they intend archers to "stance dance" between archers focus and IPS, hence the damage penalty on IPS to make people turn it off for single targets. So you use IPS for the very limited time you can shoot multiple targets that happen to be in the straight line and then switch to archer's focus for the rest of combat and if you happen to be able to stand still you get a damage boost(beyond the removal of the 20% penalty from IPS) so kiters still do the same damage to one target and those that can stand still will do more

Overall it is a nerf to ranged combat for non-casters. With this nerf and the two handed fighting nerf, it seems like they really just want a majority of the players to be casters.

The IPS change and the two handed weapon change seem to be to force casters in for doing area damage by removing other options. two handed didnt do close to the area damage of damage casters, but gave something to let you get by. IPS didnt do close to the damage of a damage caster, but let you do a little extra damage when you could line up shots(and added a strategy mechanic to moving around in combat to try to line the shots up). I just dont get it damage casters already did it best, had more utility and often did close to or better single target damage as well

[HuneyMunster]

I’m sad that you have to stand still on this. I actually liked the change. Is there a compromise that allows movement? As a previous poster stated, standing still is a harbinger of death!!!

The stacks don't expire till after 3 seconds of moving so can always stop for a few seconds. Or range will now have to consider reducing their threat more than just kiting which melee have had to always think about otherwise they tend to get one shotted from agro or cleaves etc. It'd not like that Archer Focus was not buffed as it now gives up to 75 range power compared to 45 before and it takes 10.5 seconds to gain the full effect.

[TDarkchylde]

All I can see with these changes is that my Silver Flame AA Cleric and FvS will end up with an overall DPS nerf from all of this. They can't afford three extra feats for Shot on the Run, and have no access to Deepwood.

The alacrity boost in Deepwood should really reside in Arcane Archer instead/also.

Seriously, ranged as a whole needs a scalpel at best, and y'all are using a hecking jackhammer.