U45 Preview 2: Ranged Combat Changes

[Loholt-UK]

Seriously how broke would it be if melee's ran around hitting everything in front of them out to 100 feet? Lets just think of a Barb hitting rage, targeting a monster in the distance and hitting everything between them and the distant inactive monster for full damage, crit and double strike included. All IPS does is create this solo anti-group play style where someone starts shooting at a caster mob in the pack of a pack and then runs backwards so they all line up. Everyone else is then trying to chase monsters around who are forming a conga line.

Then don't play with people who do that. This isn't true for all Inquisitives, so if this is your issue and why you're in favour of nerfing them into the ground then I've got news for you: those same people who employ, what I will call for the sake of argument, this tactic will still be doing the same thing post-nerf but it will take twice as long to kill the mob so you'll be chasing it for twice as long.

Run with a tank, let the tank get aggro, then let loose is a much better and more effective tactic.

[Loholt-UK]

All of ranged play it exactly the same way, you play it that way because of how incredibly effective it is.

Oh really? You're telling me how I play now? You have no clue.

[Loholt-UK]

what you describe, however, is exactly what happens when you get a bunch of solo players in a group, instead of party play. It doesn't matter what the devs do, they can't fix this, because they can't build player behavior.

qft +1

[Fedora1]

Disclaimer: That people won't allow me in their groups is irrelevant to me.

I hope this isn't going to sideline the thread, but I have to ask... In DDO 2020 who even "won't allow" you in their groups? Today its either semi-quasi static groups or guild runs (as you mentioned) where it's the buddy system, not the "how good are you" system, and LFMs are a bunch of solo players racing to the end of the quest, 90% of whom could run the quest alone, so your relative skill/power doesn't matter to anyone.

Honestly, since the days when people used to pull up that other site (where they could see your build and gear) went down I haven't heard of anyone denying anyone in their party.

Now if you are talking Reaper 7+ then I wouldn't have a clue what happens in those groups. lol

[Ashlayna]

I hope this isn't going to sideline the thread, but I have to ask... In DDO 2020 who even "won't allow" you in their groups? Today its either semi-quasi static groups or guild runs (as you mentioned) where it's the buddy system, not the "how good are you" system, and LFMs are a bunch of solo players racing to the end of the quest, 90% of whom could run the quest alone, so your relative skill/power doesn't matter to anyone.

Honestly, since the days when people used to pull up that other site (where they could see your build and gear) went down I haven't heard of anyone denying anyone in their party.

Now if you are talking Reaper 7+ then I wouldn't have a clue what happens in those groups. lol

I'm talking ranged going back to what it was when if you weren't a monkcher, it was "I guess we can carry you". U45 is taking big strides to reducing ranged, bows in particular, back to that. It's not an issue for me, but for those people just starting out, or just starting out as a bow user that isn't a ranger, if what's been presented in Lama goes live, then they're going to get a lot of this if they're trying to PuG. Fixes to bow that include things like T5 changes to DWS are great, if you want to play ranger, and don't want T5 in the AA tree. If you want to play a Divine AA, however, you're hosed. No access to DWS, too feat starved as it is to get SotR, along with the 20% nerf to IPS, and it's too much, and it's too much to a playstyle, bows, that is, according to the devs, already underperforming. So their solution to Inquisitive, and to keep Alchemist in check, is to revert almost 10 years worth of changes that brought bows to where they were at least tolerable to play for those that don't have a lot of the bells and whistles.

I could play around it. I could cap my FvS AA, and just run Shiradi, or whatever else I think will make up for the nerfs. The question isn't if I could, the question is "Will I?", and the answer is "Probably not". The game isn't what brought me back, my guild is. I can pass around some personal contact information to them, so we can get together and gossip elsewhere, and I can just move on, since the design choices are no longer offering me a game I want to play. I don't want to think about what it's going to be like for a new/ish player trying to roll an AA that isn't a ranger. I know what it was like to roll an AA that wasn't a monkcher when I was new, and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Why inflict that on other new players that maybe aren't as invested in playing a D&D based game as I was? It's not likely that they'll stick around. So I guess it's a "Good job, if you're trying to alienate players, you've succeeded" kind of message for SSG. Maybe they do believe they can eat the cost of losing players to bow nerfs because HCL. I don't know, but I'm not willing to stick around and find out if they can't fix their mistakes w/out a scorched earth policy on styles that are already behind the curve.

[balvix]

All of ranged play it exactly the same way, you play it that way because of how incredibly effective it is.

Shoot mob at back of pack, preferably caster who doesn't move much.
Run backwards while continuously shooting, this pulls all mobs into a conga line.
Keep running backwards until all the monsters are now dead.

Go to next room and repeat until quest finished.

This method gives safe, easy clean wins along with providing the ranged user +10,000 AC against melee attacks that are far way. I've seen Inq's solo R10's using this tactic to amazing success. All the IPS nerf does is make them take longer to use the same broken strategy of conga kiting.

I should make this my signature.

After reading through all your posts im truly convinced you have no idea how to build and play a melee toon. Unfortunately you have no idea how to build and play a ranger either. Your entire rant from beginning to end is based on how much you dislike other players playing the fotm inquis build while tossing a basic ranger in for good measure. If i am ever on a melee and there is a ranger kiting, I just move on and leave him behind to deal with his mess. Its as simple as that. Yet you stand around watching an idiot with a bow slowly kill a mob and do nothing to further the quest, then complain when their playstyle doesn't fit what you would like their playstyle to be, at that point the problem is you. If you choose to stay in a group when someone is doing this then that is your choice, but don't complain about it. Ips does not need the nerf. Unless that is you are constantly seeing too many rangers in groups just killin it. Nerfing Ips because they screwed up and made a op enhancement tree is just plain dumb. It's like they noticed they made a mistake, waited until everyone spent cash on the new enhancement tree, then decided to hide the mistake in a sweeping nerf to all ranged like we weren't already aware of where the actual problem was. Instead of cheering for nerfs to a class that is not overperforming why not demand the promised boosts to melees. I don't know how many years those were promised ago, but I really doubt that they will ever actually give the boosts. At least not while they can charge for some new op shiny that will need a nerf only after everyone has purchased it. Just fyi, I don't kite mobs unless its straight to the melees, so don't go attributing to me the faults of the bad players that you have selected to play with.

[DRoark]

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

For the most part, it's already final. Based on the minor changes between One and Two, we're fully expecting RXB Artificers, GXB Mechanics,
and every Ranger, to be hammered because of the "Inquisitor fix", in regards to hitting more than one target. I really don't expect them at this
point, to realize it's a pretty bad solution, and scrap the ranged updates (other than the INQ doublestrike thing) until they have a real plan.