U45 Preview 2: Ranged Combat Changes

[Cocomajobo]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the preview server, Lamannia, is not final and is subject to change or removal before live release.

Hey, all! During Preview 1 of U45 you all provided a lot of feedback. The single largest area of concern was clearly those worried about the changes to Improved Precise Shot and how that alters the ranged combat ecosystem. While we feel strongly that the change to Improved Precise Shot is needed we also recognize that we failed to make up for this reduction in AOE capability in two key areas:

• The Archers Focus single target stance revamp was not nearly good enough.
• Longbows and Shortbows, which were already significantly behind the curve in terms of damage options, were being pushed further behind other styles.

We redesigned Archer's Focus for preview 1 under the faulty notion that the current implementation was not desirable. We had been working under the impression that Archer's Focus was viewed as a niche situational ability that had negatives (standing still) that far outweighed the positives (Ranged Power Increase). Your feedback in preview 1 made it clear that the forgiving nature of the toggle (referring to the fact that the stacks slowly remove one at a time after moving or turning off the toggle) meant that it's current implementation was desirable and useful already. As such, we have returned Archer's Focus to the same design as is currently live but have increased the Ranged Power granted per stack from 3 up to 5.

Longbows and Shortbows as a style had been left untouched partially because we had plans to address them on a larger scale later in the year. Feedback from preview 1 has made it very clear that we could not wait to make adjustments to bows as a style if we were moving forward with the Improved Precise Shot changes. As such, we have frontloaded a portion of the changes we had planned to make later in the year to Bows to this update. You can find those changes in the release notes below but the gist is that we are increasing the base attack speed of Longbows and Shortbows and peppering in a few sources of further increased attack speed exclusive to Bows that can be selected via feats/enhancements. We still have some more changes planned for later in the year but we believe that these should bring Bows up to a place where they are no longer woefully behind other ranged styles (though we recognize they will remain behind the front of the pack in terms of DPS).

We believe that the above will go a long way to ensuring that ranged combatants of all types will remain competitive in an environment when the passive AOE damage available from Improved Precise Shot has been reduced. We recognize that certain builds within the Ranged Combat Style category will still be capable of more damage than others (even after all of these changes Dual Crossbow builds are still showing impressive, but not preposterous, single target damage numbers in our internal tests) but with the release of U45 the gap between the highest and lowest DPS ranged combat styles will be drastically reduced and we will be in a good position to move forward finding the small places to tweak instead of needing large overhauls within the combat style.

Listed below is the full list of changes to Ranged Combat currently intended to go live with U45:



Individual Changes

• General
  
  • Improved Precise Shot now reduces Ranged Damage by 20% while active.
  • Archer's Focus has returned to the design functionality that is currently in Live.
  • Archer's Focus has had it's range power boost increased from 3 to 5 per stack.
  • Base animation speed for Shortbow and Longbow attacks have been increased by 13%.
  • The Feat "Shot on the Run" now grants a 10% Alacrity bonus to Shortbows and Longbows
  • Rapid Reload now increases the reload speed of Great Crossbows, Dual Light Crossbows, and Dual Light Crossbows by less than before.
  • Endless Fusillade and No Holds Barred now require a Crossbow to be equipped in order to activate.
  • 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).
• New Feats
  
  • Simple Thrown Weapon Expertise: Requires 13 Dexterity: You are skilled with the use of Simple Thrown Weapons (Throwing Daggers and Darts) and while using one, you gain Doubleshot equal to your Dexterity.
  • Multitude of Missiles: Requires Point Blank Shot and +6 Base Attack Bonus: For the next 20 seconds, while wielding a Simple Thrown Weapon add 100 to your Doubleshot and 2x your Base Attack Bonus to Ranged Power. Shares a cooldown with Manyshot.
• Ranger
  
  • Ranger: Deepwood Stalker's Heavy Draw no longer reduces Attack by 5 when toggled on, and now also grants a +1 Competence Bonus to Critical Multiplier to Longbows and Shortbows while toggled on.
  • 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.
• 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).
• Artificer
  
  • Artificer Battle Engineer Weapon Training now only gives +1 damage to crossbows while firing Dual Crossbows (effectively treating them as repeaters).
• Rogue
  
  • Rogue Mechanic likewise treats dual crossbows like repeaters for purposes of damage bonuses

Known Issues

• N/A

Bugs Fixed Since Preview 1

• Dual Crossbows now properly use their newly-reduced Rapid Reload values.

[Thar]

Archer's Focus has returned to the design functionality that is currently in Live.
Archer's Focus has had it's range power boost increased from 3 to 5 per stack.

do you still have to be standing still? if so, this isn't useful. If you stand still you become a soul stone and zero dps.

Base animation speed for Shortbow and Longbow attacks have been increased by 13%.
The Feat "Shot on the Run" now grants a 10% Alacrity bonus to Shortbows and Longbows

good start, but not sure without more testing this is enough to make bows comparable.

[Stoner81]

You nerfed Dual Crossbows Doubleshot even further or did I miss a memo?

Stoner81.

[Captain_Wizbang]

I like it, BUT..........................

I feel the changes to long & short bow users AND ranger's focus are still about 5% (or more ) shy of where they should be.

Coco, you keep it up, give rangers, long & short bow users just a little more of a bump, and I'll come back.

[SerPounce]

You nerfed Dual Crossbows Doubleshot even further or did I miss a memo?

Stoner81.

Yeah from 66% to 50%. And I guess the reload penalties hadn’t been applied yet...

Starting to look like a sledgehammer nerf, but I’d like to see dps test comparisons.


Bow buffs are interesting, though I’m not sure about hiding much of it in DS T5...


I know a bunch of people were giving the opposite feedback, but I hate standing still. I’d much rather have the lamania 1 implement of archer focus.

[ThomasHunter]

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!!!

[J-mann]

You nerfed Dual Crossbows Doubleshot even further or did I miss a memo?

Stoner81.

Yep they did. I thought they went a little overboard in the first set of nerfs, but I guess one nuke from orbit wasnt enough to be sure, have another.

[J-mann]

Yeah from 66% to 50%. And I guess the reload penalties hadn’t been applied yet...

Starting to look like a sledgehammer nerf, but I’d like to see dps test comparisons.


Bow buffs are interesting, though I’m not sure about hiding much of it in DS T5...


I know a bunch of people were giving the opposite feedback, but I hate standing still. I’d much rather have the lamania 1 implement of archer focus.

Not sure where the dev's got the we like standing still feedback, the issue players had was the instant clear of af because mobs died too fast to make it useful. Only time I used af is if there was a boss mob I can stand still against that was by himself.

[rabidfox]

[*][*]The Feat "Shot on the Run" now grants a 10% Alacrity bonus to Shortbows and Longbows[/COLOR]
[*][*]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.

What type source is the 10% from shot on the run? Does it stack with the DWS enhancement? Does it stack with alacrity items? Even if they do stack, the pre-req feats for shot on the run are silly expensive just to bring bows up to near par with other weapons; this makes bow builds need to burn an extra 3 feats beyond any other ranged build, 1 would be do-able, 3 is just meh.

[LurkingVeteran]

Yeah from 66% to 50%. And I guess the reload penalties hadn’t been applied yet...

Starting to look like a sledgehammer nerf, but I’d like to see dps test comparisons.


Bow buffs are interesting, though I’m not sure about hiding much of it in DS T5...


I know a bunch of people were giving the opposite feedback, but I hate standing still. I’d much rather have the lamania 1 implement of archer focus.

Do people actually use Archer's Focus stacks effectively? I haven't played enough ranged to know, but I've always found the mechanic super quirky. Where did this feedback come from? The only complaint I saw for the new AF was it resetting on target switch?

Maybe it becomes more useable with higher attack speed, but if it forces me to stand still most of the time to optimize my DPS, it will make the game less fun.

[Neo-Masamune]

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



Will that stack with every other feats and enchants from bows and the quiver of allacrity?


please say yes;

Please?


Another thing! 3 Feats may be too much like sayd above! make it a one way feat! just one feat! take the requirements out of the way or change them!

[Yamani]

[*][*]Multitude of Missiles: Requires Point Blank Shot and +6 Base Attack Bonus: For the next 20 seconds, while wielding a Simple Thrown Weapon add 100 to your Doubleshot and 2x your Base Attack Bonus to Ranged Power. Shares a cooldown with Manyshot.

So a 2 minute cooldown, for a 20 second buff and made it weaker. Which ensures you pretty much have to go the vistani route to pick up the 2nd doubleshot ability. What about darts, do you just not want them to be viable end game?

[JoeCamb02140]

Do people actually use Archer's Focus stacks effectively? I haven't played enough ranged to know, but I've always found the mechanic super quirky. Where did this feedback come from? The only complaint I saw for the new AF was it resetting on target switch?

Maybe it becomes more useable with higher attack speed, but if it forces me to stand still most of the time to optimize my DPS, it will make the game less fun.

It is super useful in boss fights or when you don't have aggro. You can also build stacks quickly and they don't fade that fast so you could switch back to it from IPS after thinning out the crowd.

[Loromir]

Do people actually use Archer's Focus stacks effectively? I haven't played enough ranged to know, but I've always found the mechanic super quirky. Where did this feedback come from? The only complaint I saw for the new AF was it resetting on target switch?

Maybe it becomes more useable with higher attack speed, but if it forces me to stand still most of the time to optimize my DPS, it will make the game less fun.

In it's current iteration, AF is really only useful on bosses. Trash mobs die too fast otherwise.

I wonder if changing archers focus to say on hit, gain +1 Ranged power per hit up to +5 (or what ever number is worthwhile) and one stack drops off every 5 seconds. Not dependent on standing still or moving or hitting a single mob.

Maybe even rolling a miss would remove all stacks.

[DRoark]

So they still nerfed IPS, regardless of no issue for a decade, and still think Rangers are AOE spellcasters because they shoot in a straight line.
Just steamrolling 100+ pages of player feedback on that. Time to go back to a Sorcerer, since you haven't murdered actual AOE players.

[droid327]

Feel like you're being too absolute about AF feedback - either we hated everything about it or we wanted it totally unchanged

You were right that the movement penalty was a deal breaker...standing still that much is a death wish. The problem was that the new restriction was just as much of a deal breaker because it wiped you after every mob.

I think the sweet spot is to split the diff. Current design, but just reduce the "standing still" delay to like 0.5 sec, so you can "set your feet" and start accruing stacks in a more natural way. I think that will encourage and reward the intended gameplay without forcing you to ignore basic common good sense in combat, ie "don't stand still when you're getting killed".

Basically AF should function like a "chain attack" bonus...the longer you're continuously fighting, the bigger the buff sustains. Things that break it that are in the natural flow of combat - moving, shooting different mobs - are what makes it problematic, because it's forcing you to fight *badly*.

Also please fix the buff display timer so it actually shows accurate info...

[LurkingVeteran]

Feel like you're being too absolute about AF feedback - either we hated everything about it or we wanted it totally unchanged

You were right that the movement penalty was a deal breaker...standing still that much is a death wish. The problem was that the new restriction was just as much of a deal breaker because it wiped you after every mob.

I think the sweet spot is to split the diff. Current design, but just reduce the "standing still" delay to like 0.5 sec, so you can "set your feet" and start accruing stacks in a more natural way. I think that will encourage and reward the intended gameplay without forcing you to ignore basic common good sense in combat, ie "don't stand still when you're getting killed".

Also please fix the buff display timer so it actually shows accurate info...

Something like this, sounds like a good idea.

[LurkingVeteran]

So they still nerfed IPS, regardless of no issue for a decade, and still think Rangers are AOE spellcasters because they shoot in a straight line.
Just steamrolling 100+ pages of player feedback on that. Time to go back to a Sorcerer, since you haven't murdered actual AOE players.

The net effect of the changes look like a buff to bow rangers now, so I don't see what you are complaining about unless by ranger you mean Ranger/Inq?

[CeltEireson]

Do people actually use Archer's Focus stacks effectively? I haven't played enough ranged to know, but I've always found the mechanic super quirky. Where did this feedback come from? The only complaint I saw for the new AF was it resetting on target switch?

Maybe it becomes more useable with higher attack speed, but if it forces me to stand still most of the time to optimize my DPS, it will make the game less fun.

If they got rid of the delay at the start before it seems to kick in it might be workable - they don't all get removed if you move, there's a counter involved so you can shoot some arrows move, still retain the bonus (but lose some stacks) then start building it again.

It basically comes down to how fast it kicks in, and how fast it builds up. At moment its standing still for three seconds at the start then you get max of one per 0.5 seconds, and they decay one per 3 seconds whilst moving with normal max of 15. If they drop that initial delay down to 1 - 1.5 seconds it would be far better.

Also given the increase in power if you have improved archers focus that's a total of 125 ranged power fully charged.

[CeltEireson]

What type source is the 10% from shot on the run? Does it stack with the DWS enhancement? Does it stack with alacrity items? Even if they do stack, the pre-req feats for shot on the run are silly expensive just to bring bows up to near par with other weapons; this makes bow builds need to burn an extra 3 feats beyond any other ranged build, 1 would be do-able, 3 is just meh.

And does it stack with Fatesingers primal hymn?