Adjustments to Eldritch Knight for ranged builds please

[Deathrobot]

I think its only fair to add some ranged options in Eldritch Knight since a couple months ago ranged options were added in Paladins Knight of the Chalice.
All that needs to change is making a ranged version of Eldritch Strike so ranged builds can use the capstone enhancement and be able to activate Eldritch Blade. Also add doubleshot alongside the already existing doublestrike and changed the rest of the skills that only work for meele to work with ranged as well.

[darkniteyogi]

You can toggle Eldritch Stance off and use spells. You are a wizard. It would be OP if it would support Inquisitive

[Deathrobot]

Inquisitive is dead mate. I dont know what you are on about. There are other ranged styles and pidgeonholing them to ranger/rogue/fighter is just dumb. And if i wanted to make a nuker caster i certainly wouldnt make a wizard lol. Sorcerers and alchemists have that privilege only. Do you even know what Knight of the Chalice been changed to? Every ability in there has been adjusted to work with ranged as well. And if you have the capstone you can get 7d6 light dice which scale with ranged power along side with all the ranged power from ascendancy. What is so preposterous about having an option for Eldritch Knight too?

[Enoach]

I'm not so sure I agree.

Why I don't agree
1. The point of EK was to give Arcane Casters a Melee option - S&B mostly, but it does support TWF/THF/SWF and Range - Indirectly
2. The stances for Elemental damage (which we know get all at level 3) the damage goes up with Arcane Levels as well as scales with spell power (these can be used in conjunction with AA)
3. The Arcane Archer Tree

And yes I do know what they added to KotC for range options. But did you not realize that had much more to do with deity options then it had to do with adding "ranged" to paladin.

[Deathrobot]

I'm not so sure I agree.

Why I don't agree
1. The point of EK was to give Arcane Casters a Melee option - S&B mostly, but it does support TWF/THF/SWF and Range - Indirectly
2. The stances for Elemental damage (which we know get all at level 3) the damage goes up with Arcane Levels as well as scales with spell power (these can be used in conjunction with AA)
3. The Arcane Archer Tree

And yes I do know what they added to KotC for range options. But did you not realize that had much more to do with deity options then it had to do with adding "ranged" to paladin.

Well
1. If that was exclusively the purpose they wouldnt have added anything to pair with ranged.
2. It scales with elemental spell power but in order to get the gear for it to boost it to acceptable levels you have to sacrifice physical damage.
3. If you think AA dps is top these days or even comparable by a margin, you re so far from the mark. AA can barely compete with inquisitive and inquisitive got the heavy nerfhammer.

If it had anything to do with deity options they would have actually added more ranged deity weapons other than bow.

[Discpsycho]

Well
1. If that was exclusively the purpose they wouldnt have added anything to pair with ranged.
2. It scales with elemental spell power but in order to get the gear for it to boost it to acceptable levels you have to sacrifice physical damage.
3. If you think AA dps is top these days or even comparable by a margin, you re so far from the mark. AA can barely compete with inquisitive and inquisitive got the heavy nerfhammer.

If it had anything to do with deity options they would have actually added more ranged deity weapons other than bow.

Re: 2, that's true with melee as well. In heroics it really doesn't matter, as damage stats and MP/RP can't get high enough to make EK melee damage significantly better than EK spellsword damage. Near cap the gear tetris becomes necessary and is difficult enough to make any hybrid build lackluster, not just EK

I ran an Inquisitive 18 Wizard / 2 Artificer life several months ago (pre-nerf) and it was pretty strong. Have you tried it? You don't get much bang for your buck from the EK tree beyond the second or third core, but frankly you don't need it

[Deathrobot]

Re: 2, that's true with melee as well. In heroics it really doesn't matter, as damage stats and MP/RP can't get high enough to make EK melee damage significantly better than EK spellsword damage. Near cap the gear tetris becomes necessary and is difficult enough to make any hybrid build lackluster, not just EK

I ran an Inquisitive 18 Wizard / 2 Artificer life several months ago (pre-nerf) and it was pretty strong. Have you tried it? You don't get much bang for your buck from the EK tree beyond the second or third core, but frankly you don't need it

Yeah i ve tried it. The inquisitive nerf is huge these days and doesnt offer much compared to knife throwers. My guess is you haven't seen a 20 wizard tiefling with dual wield pain and suffering have you? The capstone proc alone is 4 dice which is 4d12 scaling which is 100-200 damage per hit maybe more.
Sadly with all these nerfs the only viable endgame build with good dps on the ranged spectrum is dex knife thrower usually the 11 rogue/6 ranger/3 bard (after the zombie nerf) split which although is the highest ranged damage output is very constricting imaginatively as a build and very much pidgeonholing. Thats is if you wanna stay competitive with all the heavy hitting melees (not surpass them) .

[darkniteyogi]

I tried the inquisitive after the nerf and it was still OP. I dont know what you are on about calling it dead.

What is the end game weapon for a thrower? I thought they didn't have any good named throwing knives, and even Return to sender doesn't work with IPS

[Deathrobot]

I tried the inquisitive after the nerf and it was still OP. I dont know what you are on about calling it dead.

What is the end game weapon for a thrower? I thought they didn't have any good named throwing knives, and even Return to sender doesn't work with IPS

OP for what r1 questing?Leveling on heroics? Lol. Go try playing it on high reapers or raids and see how bad it is compared to throwing daggers. Return to sender...pfff. Wide open sky from Project Nemesis is the endgame throwing knife.

[droid327]

Yeah I'm unconvinced it'd be that much difference...and I'd be worried about making it OP specifically with Inqui, and then having to nerf something to address that particular combo.

While you do get pointless Doublestrike, I dont think the active attacks are that good, aside from the T5 - but Inqui isnt going to T5 EK anyway. Its not like a single target +1W with 1 to 2 Force per lvl on a 12s CD is an amazing attack for a ranged build anyway. Pretty much all you'd want as a ranged EK is Spellsword and the defense, and you can do that just fine as it is.

Also you get into problems with the T5 being able to Doubleshot with ranged...the melee cant Doublestrike since its a Cleave, but a ranged version would be single-target and thus could double or even triple tap with the most powerful standalone strike in the game. If you start talking about Thrower EKs with Simple Thrown Expertise, Mult of Missiles, etc. maybe even 4x or 5x tap.

If it had anything to do with deity options they would have actually added more ranged deity weapons other than bow.

It had to do more with bow already being an option, and thus needing to better support it, than specifically wanting to add ranged to Paladin.

Nothing in Wizard locks you into preferring a ranged weapon like taking Silver Flame does for Paladin, though, so the logic doesnt apply.

[Deathrobot]

Yeah I'm unconvinced it'd be that much difference...and I'd be worried about making it OP specifically with Inqui, and then having to nerf something to address that particular combo.

While you do get pointless Doublestrike, I dont think the active attacks are that good, aside from the T5 - but Inqui isnt going to T5 EK anyway. Its not like a single target +1W with 1 to 2 Force per lvl on a 12s CD is an amazing attack for a ranged build anyway. Pretty much all you'd want as a ranged EK is Spellsword and the defense, and you can do that just fine as it is.

Also you get into problems with the T5 being able to Doubleshot with ranged...the melee cant Doublestrike since its a Cleave, but a ranged version would be single-target and thus could double or even triple tap with the most powerful standalone strike in the game. If you start talking about Thrower EKs with Simple Thrown Expertise, Mult of Missiles, etc. maybe even 4x or 5x tap.



It had to do more with bow already being an option, and thus needing to better support it, than specifically wanting to add ranged to Paladin.

Nothing in Wizard locks you into preferring a ranged weapon like taking Silver Flame does for Paladin, though, so the logic doesnt apply.

My main concern is being able to use the capstone you get for being lvl 20 wizard by making a ranged version of eldritch strike. The rest are like the cherry on top. Tier 5 on EK is bad anyways for the most part. Eldritch tempest is mediocre at best with a 30 sec cooldown.

Regarding the ranged favored weapons. They could have added throwing knives to Blood of Vol or perhaps shurikens to vulkoor for drow. Repeaters to gnomes or dwarves deities. But no imagination on the part of the devs.

[Avocado]

You seem to look at dagger throwers and think that everything else is inferior because it does the most dps. This is a problem of dagger throwers being too powerful and not a pigeon hole of them into rogue/ranger/bard/arti. Inquisitive is fine, just something else is better now. This is just a poor design choice for the devs. Daggers will get nerfed. Dont like daggers? Dont play them.