U45 Preview 2: Ranged Combat Changes

[Natashaelle]

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!!!

It already does, both on live and in this new version -- it's that standing still makes it slowly stack up, whilst moving makes it slowly stack down. It does not require you to commit to suicide.

It's actually fairly intuitive on Live -- perhaps not "realistic", but it works from a gaming perspective.

[Xgya]

I think it would be better to add the ranged alacrity to manyshot as a passive. Might also be that they only want rangers and fighters to have it

What if, instead, the alacrity bonus to bows came with IPS instead?
When you earn IPS, you get an improved version of original Precise Shot (that shoots faster), and the piercing shots that deal a bit less damage.

Silver Flame Clerics/Fvs and other non-Ranger bow users will also need the help, and might not have the feats to do it.

Edit: that not being an option, please just make a new feat called Arrow Mind or something that improves Archer's Focus that way without having to take two feats the Heavy-Armor-wearing Cleric might otherwise find entirely useless (dodge and mobility).
Alternatively, remove the prereqs on Shot on the Run altogether, and keep the buffs there.

[Deathmaster35]

I do, and there are times when more can be hit. An average of 3 is not unrealistic.

How many quests are there with longer hallways with clumps of mobs running toward the aggro? Quite a few in recent design history.

Edit: If no one is hitting 3 targets or more significantly that would invalidate all of the complaints that IPS as an AOE tool is OP, as it would turn those "I cant make it to the mobs on my melee before the inquis kills them all" claims into hyperbole.

Please provide exact encounters where you are doing this. Are you talking about soloing quests where you are kiting groups of mobs in a line where you can shoot them all? that I can understand as soloing with ranged artificer or inquisitive I would just pull a group and run backwards shooting, they follow and put themselves in a line to die(which I might add means they didnt live more than a few seconds, so I was not hitting more 3+ targets more than a few seconds as I stated). When in a group things dont tend to just line up

As for the inquisitives killing encounters before melee get to them, that isnt IPS, that is broken damage output from inquisitive. On epic elite I could kill many encounters with single target attacks before people could get to them. When things take from 1 to 4 seconds to kill due to insane attack speed and damage per shot from inquisitive, hitting multiple targets wasnt needed. That wasnt an IPS issue, that was an inquisitive issue. When have people ever complained about an Arcane Archer killing encounters before the melee can get there? Or mechanic rogues? or Artificers not using fusillade doing it?

It isnt a matter of no one hitting three targets in combat with IPS, it is a matter of how often it is done. It isnt consistent as most mobs move around in combat, they dont just stand in a line for you to shoot them. The hit detection on line attacks is **** and often misses things between you and the target or behind the target(same thing happens with lightning bolt) when the mobs are moving.

[Deathmaster35]

The problem with Archer's Focus was that it's only of benefit when you stand completely still. How often does that happen? For me it's essentially zero. There's no harm in turning it on until you get IPS but it has always ever conferred nearly zero benefit. Increasing the stacks from 3 to 5 is negligible when you're moving around anyway.

Your preview 1 change was an improvement, albeit limited to certain boss scenarios where you could be relatively certain you wouldn't need to change targets for at least a few seconds. At least it was some kind of carrot for switching back to Archer's Focus to go with the stick you whacked IPS with.

Preview 2 just makes Archer's Focus mostly useless again. How many players are standing still while attacking for 10, 20, 30 seconds at a time in this game?



I don't see the logic here. Precise Shot costs a feat and grants Archer's Focus. The sacrifice is spending a feat. So of course Archer's Focus should do something positive like increase DPS. Your preview 1 version was anything but a "substantial" increase, but at least it made it something worth toggling on in certain situations.

What sort of situations are you in where you are not able to stand still in combat? Most ranged weapon users dont stand still because there is no reason to do so, IPS working while moving and the only movement penalty being an insignificant attack penalty means people had no reason to stand still. You could if you wanted to, you could stand in a spot with line of sight to the fight and shoot until the fight is over. It can be very annoying for the party to have to run back to where you were to loot remnants that drop from your kills, but aside from that and being like 5-10 seconds behind the rest of the party most of the time there isnt a need to not stand still to fight

[barecm]

Bow user perspective.... I Tested on lamannia…

IPS changes still hurt. They hurt AA more as they rely on IPS for crowd control AOE.
AF changes are decent, but not sure we are all in agreement on preview 2 way vs preview 1 way.
Heavy Draw changes - good if you plan to ditch AA and go deepwood falconry build. Otherwise, it is redundant / non stacking to shadow arrows in AA.
SoTR - complete waste of development time here imho. Does not stack with ranged alacrity on sapphire sting / Chaosbow (the popular bows).
Bow base speed increase by 13%. Weird number but ok. Could still be faster as it scales to level 30.

my suggestions:

Archers focus - make it flat ranged power boost with the 10% speed boost that stacks. Counters, standing still, decaying stacks... all equals not fun to play.
Give AA tree a boost to damage in IPS stance in the core abilities capstone or some more ways to get higher enchant DCs.
SoTR - Since this is basically useless to anyone with a good bow / 20% alacrity items, I would change it to doubleshot +10-20% instead or +30-40 ranged power. It is 3 feats for goodness sakes!!!

The way I see it playing out with this current iteration, bow users will either accept the IPS reduced damage and go AA crowd control like they do now, only do less damage but fire slightly faster. Or, ditch AA completely, try to max ranged power and go wisdom deepwood falconry build.

Overall, it is marginally better than preview 1, but let's not try to put lipstick on the pig... this change is still much more bad than good for bow users.

[oraness]

While i greatly appreciate the recent attention to bow damage, I do seem to notice that you are putting all of the bow fixes in either feats or Deepwood Stalker, and completely ignoring AA.

Elemental Arrows damage feels low, especially since it does not scale with anything besides spell power. Granted, this is shared with the Eldritch Knight and soon to be Vile Chemist, but the lack of crit scaling (or even Ranged Power Scaling) in a meta where crit builds are the way to go makes pretty much the only steady source of damage from this tree very stagnant.

The active shots from AA don't have very much oomph behind them besides slayer arrow. The Inferno shot effect rarely has the chance to tick in easy content, and doesnt scale with anything in difficult content. +24/+4 hit from True Strike has never been noticeable when i did use it (which i don't anymore because AP is better spent elsewhere). I will say i like Dispelling shot in rare situations where enemies have things such as displacement. I'm not sure how to feel about Shattermantle, it's hard to tell how effective it is when i dont do anything that utilizes SR to begin with.

Runebow doesnt work. Final Strike is basically a second, much weaker Slayer Arrow at best since the AoE doesnt scale with ranged power. The SP effect of Moonbow is barely noticeable. Improved Elemental Arrows could be good if it weren't seemingly capped at 3d10 damage despite being able to easily get your crit multiplier higher.

The only thing that is of any use in the tree is Paralyzing arrows, and that's not even a T5 so it isnt even unique to the tree.

Basically what i'm saying is i'm happy you are looking at Bows, but AA is in a really sad spot, and i don't think that the effective 23% alacrity (assuming SotR fits in one's build) is enough to bring it up to par. Maybe it is, I will not have the time this week to test on Lamma.

[Sherque]

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.

Standing still for several seconds is better than loosing stacks when switching targets - that should be kinda obvious.
Even if I use AFS mostly for bosses and in high reapers, i stand still to get stacks and then move around without losing all of them at switch target. I will have to slack at clearing trash in raids if i'll have to lose 125 r power to switch targets.

You don't need a lot of r power boost when clearing trash mobs in quest on live now. (cause sorcs do that for ya!!!)

[janave]

Ranger Stalker tree T5: Improved Archer's Focus : Passives

Live: +5 Melee and Ranged power.
Lam: +10 Melee power

An enhancement called Archer's focus adds MP, sounds off to me :P, the static RP will be missed.


Opinion:

I appreciate the design of this tree, but it doesn't really work well in difficult content where the versatility would theoretically come into play, the low reaction time (lack of melee defenses which would be stealth if it was working at all :P ), feats and gear needed to kit out a dual spec tree is pretty big for the returns.

Now that the tree is relatively self contained, and throwing a wild assumption that Stealth is going to be fixed across all content and difficulties, a Ranger + Rogue MC still is largely more capable for the same exact role the tree is designed for. Mostly due to Rogue, when people get there will soon realize they could just go all the way Rogue with a crossbow for best in all angles setup.

Similarly to KotC getting much superior against its "favored" targets, DWS could get a bump for when attacking favored enemies, like a major bump . Triple in C5, double in Favored Hunter T3, double in Extra Favored Enemy T5, might make it more attractive to kit out a Ranger vs specific content.

Edit: Since the cross stacking of stealth speed is getting fixed, would you mind standardizing the sneaking speed at rank 3 at 60-75% instead of 50%?

[TDarkchylde]

So after thinking on this a little... these changes are still boneheaded. Nerfing IPS effectively caused a Jenga to collapse, and now you're trying to rebuild it without putting that crucial piece back where it belonged.

As an Inquisitive player, I agree it needed some nerfs! On its own, 50% doubleshot and reduced law dice would have been just fine and left it in a decent place without it being leaps and bounds above all other ranged options. Maybe some reduced reload speed for the problem crossbows could have been warranted too. But what nerfing IPS does is cause a chain reaction that affects not just Inquisitive, but also a bunch of builds that are quite frankly severely underperforming, such as bow builds, as well as any throwing build that's not a shuricannon. (And y'all seriously want to duplicate that with Alchemist?)

So y'all are now trying to put the jenga tower back together without considering replacing the one piece that brought it down in the first place. Y'all add functionality to a feat that most bow users can't afford the feats to take. Y'all add bow firing speed to a tree a lot of archery builds do not even have access to. But y'all won't address the problem, that nerfing IPS caused the collapse of the entire ranged ecosystem to begin with.

If y'all are that gung-ho about nerfing IPS, you shouldn't hide the bow fixes behind long feat chains or in irrelevant trees.

• Add alacrity to Tier 5 of Arcane Archer (Elf and Ranger.) As a Tier 5, you cannot take one in AA and one in DWS, meaning the functionality cannot be duplicated.
• If an alacrity feat must be added, make a new feat that has a preresiquite that non-ranger AA builds already take, such as Point Blank Shot or Rapid Shot.
• Instead of nerfing IPS, incentivize using the Archer's Focus stance more. A higher cap on stacks while wielding a bow would be a carrot instead of the stick we're being beat with now.

But even that may not be enough if the numbers people are reporting are right. For now, drop the IPS nerf. Or drop every nerf but that. Players decried the old "Turbine Double-Nerf" for a reason and that was a philosophy I had hoped died with the ownership change. I guess it did because now we're starting down the barrel of a SSG Septuple-Nerf.

[blarhblarhblarh]

Old bow user here. Played even in the alpha when waterworks had dozens of player´s bodies. My tips:

Give doubleshoot and ranged alacrity per ranger level. Or use dungeons and dragons rules for BAB. Old developers didn´t want a good ranged combat because a group of 6 bow rangers would shred trough old content just as 2 sorcers or 3 inquisitives but it was a bad call since many people love to play with rangers and almost every videogame with them have even AOE damage. It´s not an easy class to play but it´s a great one for learning the game. So instead of fixing other people´s mistakes just do it from scratch, from the animation to the feats - rapid shot could give doubleshoot per ranger level. Ranger stance could be stacked without breaking the game. Ranger spells could be usefull and have bônus in the tree to heal or buff allies. Barkskin was a huge deal with 14 cap level but it didn´t keep up with content. How much it needs to be improved? well, in the end I have a way to calculate.

A warlock lvl 8 with chain can do more dmg and in AOE than a bow ranger in lvl 16 and don´t even have to aim so don´t even have to worry about getting blind. If the spell dmg scales with level maybe the enhancements could do something similar.

Fix the enhancements. Sometimes we shoot and don´t get the bonuses that are already low if they come from enhancements, from weapons it Works fine. In a closed quest like the borderlands caverns or even the bookshelfs in sharn makes a bow user miserable (and healing terrible also).

Inquisitive is the only class that doublés the damage of a two handed weapon and by itself would be overpower by D&D standarts. But it´s already in the game, it´s been tested before selling to the players so the only reason to nerf right now would be marketing the next great OP class. So if you guys are gonna nerf it make at least playable AND make other old classes playable and usefull to a group. Many classes are key to D&D and loved by players but we don´t see them. So to nerf precise shot for inquisitive why make the change for crossbows and repeaters only or don´t allow it to inquisitors.

Personally I would love to see a developer soloing treasure hunt and temple of evil chãos with a pure bow ranger. Than with a paladin. Both without named gear at level 26 making those quests in EE. Then the same developer would make the same quests with other classes. The time of completion would be exactly how much each class need a boost and they are fast quests that wouldn´t take too much of the team´s time. And please upload the v?*deo because I want to laugh about the diferences. I bet that in borderlands chain some chars could make quests in under 3 minutes and other would take at least 20 minutes to finish, if they can finish it. Also would be nice to see people that never played DDO do the same thing and ask about their take so I leave this for the youtubers out there.

Bow Damage is so wrong that in heroics a silver longbow Works better in most cases than a greater bane. And it got how many years? 10? 12? I used to run heroics with 40 diferent bows in order to keep up and now they are useless. Even 10 years ago most players wouldn´t want to have a bow ranger in a party and today few great players can keep up with an average group. All named bows should have d10 or d12 dice and 18-20 crit range. If I see a great bow in epics that crits on 20 I know it will never be used. So the silver longbow was and great way to make bows usable at the time with cap lvl at 14 and ever since almost nothing came. Oh, you can get quiver o alacrity for 10% and in epics it even makes you run faster. And you will need to run a lot to kite stuff until you roll 2-3 criticals per mob.

So, to me: make the bow ranger from scratch. Scale spells to epic content. Put DR, doubleshoot, alacrity were it needs in the level it needs. Make it friendly to play and scales at least with a warlock that does ranged damage without using mana, also have UMD for heals and very usefull spells. Give people easier ways to store arrows.

So just make a bow ranger like dungeons and dragons and every other game that copied it. Better than new content (and I pray for darksun someday) is to make old content work.


____
Other tips: hardcore server with vanilla season. Give the install a pre configurated working ddo with a calibrated monitor and Windows settings. Give players free inventory space or a bedroom in the ship to save enough armor sets for a 1-30 life. Double all current inventory space for everyone or let us expand it with favor and portable hole in each life. Bump up old favor rewards. Make any efort to UI scale because the player base are old and we loose a lot of well made content because of it. Make a way to a PNP group to create chars and one shot chains like ravenloft, for example like a group guest pass advertised in a board game site. Fix the fórum bugs with chrome.

And keep up the great work because we love it. It´s good to know that you guys care about the fanbase.

[janave]

Roughly the same setup fresh 20 Ranger 10 Epic, LD Blitz Auto Attack tests. (favoring DWS a little bit as i dipped low into AA too and used Wood elf tree bonuses). DWS Willow, Inquisitive Nightshade

AF stance
Red Kobold
DWS--INQ
225--155

Somewhere between 40-50% ahead while auto attacking, no boosts aside Blitz.


DWS with 2 x manyshot and hitting AB:RP30 continuously
138--

About 10-15% gain over auto attack DXB when bursting




//Is Heavy Draw +5 damage bonus bugged or just on inventory display bug?

[Fauxknight]

While i greatly appreciate the recent attention to bow damage, I do seem to notice that you are putting all of the bow fixes in either feats or Deepwood Stalker, and completely ignoring AA.

AA is already the premier archer in the game, it has become synonymous with archery. It bothers me that often times players who want archery buffs often call for AA buffs when they really should mean archery buffs in general. Other specs outside of AA, particularly DS, should be equally good at archery, we should not be pigeonholed into one spec. I'm not saying AA does not need some help, but improving archery in general is a better overall idea than just ramping up AAs alone.

Elemental Arrows damage feels low, especially since it does not scale with anything besides spell power. Granted, this is shared with the Eldritch Knight and soon to be Vile Chemist, but the lack of crit scaling (or even Ranged Power Scaling) in a meta where crit builds are the way to go makes pretty much the only steady source of damage from this tree very stagnant.

Scaling with spellpower is a good thing, spellpower goes very high. Imbue damage (with good spellpower) is definitively higher than current Inquisitive Law damage get (with good ranged power), which is being reduced twice over in this patch. The main difference is that Inquisitives attack significantly faster, which is also being reduced in this patch whilst archery attacks are being increased in speed.

[Captain_Wizbang]

You do read and respond more than ever to forum chatter. But it is selective.

For once why don't don't you take a players advice/opinion/idea and implement a solid concept that can address a lot of your problems.

I still stand behind my PnP groups Bowman Tree. It is by far and away a much better way to address this issue.

[TheMaxpower]

As usual, your nerfs, including the Inquisitive nerfs, are heavy-handed and an overreaction. Start with smaller adjustments and see how things work out. I know you are rushing to get this done before HC Season, and you rarely make adjustments after spending time on changes, but please slow down and get this right.

[Vasandralov]

Swing and a miss.

Its ok. Sometimes your best just isn't ever going to be good enough. And you have all the feedback as to why, you choose not to follow it, so don't give that crybaby pout kickback plzthxx.

Don't mind me, I'll just be sitting back with popcorn.

[scipiojedi]

Still no love for throwing axes and throwing hammers

[barecm]

I think what folks are trying to say is that they do not want to play single target burst and feel like it is being jammed down our throats. Personally, I do not like it and will not continue to support this game like I have over the last nearly 14 years if this is how we are being forced into a change that we, the customers, don't want.

[Ashlayna]

AA is already the premier archer in the game, it has become synonymous with archery. It bothers me that often times players who want archery buffs often call for AA buffs when they really should mean archery buffs in general. Other specs outside of AA, particularly DS, should be equally good at archery, we should not be pigeonholed into one spec. I'm not saying AA does not need some help, but improving archery in general is a better overall idea than just ramping up AAs alone.

No? AA is supposed to be the premier archer, just as Mech is supposed to be the premier GXbow user, or Arti with repeaters. It's a line dedicated to archery, and it should shine in that. DWS isn't an archery specific tree, why should it be as good, or better at archery than an archery specific tree? That's like saying you want to be a good caster, but would rather do it on a pure fighter.

Scaling with spellpower is a good thing, spellpower goes very high. Imbue damage (with good spellpower) is definitively higher than current Inquisitive Law damage get (with good ranged power), which is being reduced twice over in this patch. The main difference is that Inquisitives attack significantly faster, which is also being reduced in this patch whilst archery attacks are being increased in speed.

You do read and respond more than ever to forum chatter. But it is selective.

For once why don't don't you take a players advice/opinion/idea and implement a solid concept that can address a lot of your problems.

I still stand behind my PnP groups Bowman Tree. It is by far and away a much better way to address this issue.

No thanks. I don't want to be forced into either Ranger or Fighter to play an archer. One of my final builds is a FvS AA, and this suggestion does nothing to address that. Well, I guess it does, it says "you can't play that, it's no longer in the game". It does nothing to address a Bard AA, or a Druid, or any other class that one may want to take. It says "either you do this, or you find something else to play". A lot of people will find something else to play, mostly another game. But let's not base this on my preferences, Follower of the Silver Flame says hello. Couple this with the elven racial tree, and AA, and it's a really fun way to play FvS. How does this address the issue of this build losing 20% of it's base damage for simply playing the game the way it was intended to be played? The short answer is, it doesn't. In fact, if I'm reading you right here, it completely eliminates it from the game, despite feats that actually encourage it.

[capsela]

I find it hilarious you raging ranged users are disingenuously keeping IPS on during your boss DPS tests just so you can make the nerfs seem worse than they really are.

And then resorting to calling out casters AOE as needing nerfs too.

Casters are called ranged, but we really aren't. At least half of all our most damaging spells/slas are melee range or short cone range attacks. So unless we want to throw out half of our spells, we have to dance close to mobs in R10.

Ranged don't need to do that! Casters need to be about a thousand times closer than ranged needs to get. Ranged can be on the moon shooting mobs on earth. We have to be within 5 feet of a mob in many cases. 5ft vs 500ft! It's a night and day difference.

[Treok]

[*]Longbows and Shortbows, which were already significantly behind the curve in terms of damage options, were being pushed further behind other styles.

You want to balance the game, reduce AOE damage across the board. I have a lot of bows in the bank that I hope one day to bring back to life. the name ranger is always misleading because they suck at range. The one class with range in the name is mostly played as a melee toon. I won't disagree the DPS sucks, but I think most people are complaining about AOE damage from IPS points to the larger problem in the game. Single target damage, in general, is underpowered compared to AOE damage. I'm cool nerfing IMP. nerf it some more, and I play a lot of ranged toons. In fact, solve the problem by giving single target DPS significantly better damage than the AOE feats, enhancements and spells. Single damage DPS promotes team play and coordination. In almost every other MMO, AOE damage is significantly lower that single target. SSG is looking at this problem class by class and tree by tree, but not as a larger picture. Want to make bows and daggers cool, make that single target sing. Make the single target damage characters wanted in raids and make playing tactically part of the game again rather than AOEing my way through an R10. The thought of upping single target damage with Archer's Focus is a step in the right direction because it thinks about the imbalance of single target versus AOE, but it falls short because it requires taking a feat to be useful, relies on single target damage over time and requires the ranged toon to stand in place. When I switch targets or move, I lost single target DPS benefits. Give me more single target DPS for my bow, and balance AOE across the board?