U49 Preview 1: Bow Combat Style Revamp

[ZeebaNeighba]

I think most of these ideas are decent but I'm not sure because the godawful manyshot change is too distracting.

First you are making bad assumptions when you say that DPS will stay the same but more consistent. Unless you're just cheesing a boss with too many HP from a safe spot, you're not going to have manyshot on 1/6 of the time and off 5/6 of the time. You're going to use it when you have a tough fight, and save it when you don't need it. You also don't spend every second of every quest firing your bow, sometimes you are running, sometimes have to help heal up the group, sometimes doing a puzzle, etc. When these situations are coming up, it is a great opportunity to use manyshot and then let the cooldown tick off afterwards, leading to manyshot being used during more than 1/6 of combat situations. Some builds actually use multiple weapons: bows when manyshot is ready, and throwing or 2wf when it's on cooldown. Obviously that whole build idea is now dead.

Archers are extra nerfed in heroics as well. Right now, the ranged power you get from manyshot scales with BAB so it's pretty low in heroics, but at least you always got 120 doubleshot. After the change, both stats scale with BAB so you'll get basically nothing at low levels. Arcane archer builds also rely on a lot of secondary effects. You can't just take away a ton of doubleshot from manyshot, give crit range/multiplier in return and expect things to stay the same. You've lost elemental imbue damage, which makes up a huge portion of damage in heroics, or you lose proc chances on paralyzing / instakill arrows and you're just not going to get that back from any crit modifiers. You have to consider how your changes affect more than just raw DPS.

But the worst part is archers are so much less interesting now. Rather than actually having to think about the best situations to use manyshot, just tape down your attack button and go do your laundry or something. Oh I guess you can also set up a macro to click your new manyshot button every 12 seconds too. It's one thing to mess with stats, when all that changes is numbers on a screen, but the manyshot change makes the game more mindless and boring too.

[Tsutti]

the attack speed at end game is not feeling faster, but it's hard to say without a side by side comparison.

dex to damage- already had in a tree. nice freebie but not all bow builds are dex. what about zen archery getting wis to hit/damage for free since your spending a feat?

burst dps is garbage now. I'm be lucky to hit 1/3 of what i am currently on live. no killing reapers or orange names with fury shot.

Attack speed isn't SUPPOSED to be faster without using temporary boosts for it.

Dex to damage wasn't intended to help rangers, it was intended to help less pure dps things like pally, wizard, or cleric/favored soul.

You should still be able to oneshot reapers just fine, and orange names depending on skulls, with furyshot + manyshot.

AND you take away the ability to combine Manyshot + Fury/Hunts End + Arrow of Slaying/Sniper Shot and effektively nerf the dmg done during this Burst massivly that was about 200+k (will now prolly be around 70k) dmg and then 20s of good dmg and 100s of lower dmg.

No, you should be getting burst around 200-300k I'd guess (without having tested, this is based on now having an attack that hits 4-6 times with +1 multiplier)

As someone who's tested it on Lamannia said, it looks like an overall drop in DPS unless you're beating on a boss 24/7. On live you can oneshot high priority targets or add big burst in important moments, now you won't be able to do that anymore.

I sincerely hope I'm wrong about this, I'm aware I had very high expectations for this pass but if your premise is that MS is active 1/6th of the time...

And on lama you can still oneshot high priority targets with 10k stars + manyshot (no need for 10k if it's not super high hp, like a normal reaper).

I assume manyshot is actually active less than 1/6th of the time on live due to the fact that you won't usually use it the second it's off cooldown, where you often may use the new manyshot attack this way.

Currently I can shoot 75-90k x 3 times per adrenaline / manyshot / slaying arrow (I know better builds can do 100k+ for sure).
After the changes, you can't combine manyshot + slaying arrows, BIG NERF for damage.
As others already wrote it, using furyshot on live now is fun, you know where to use it, and you destroy mobs with it, even bosses.

In terms of burst damage, what people here seem to not be paying any attention to (in the theoretical part anyway) is that manyshot will shoot at least 4 shots without any boosts active.

... so if you have 10k stars, you should be able to hit 5-6 arrows in one manyshot... so while each arrow will do less damage than an arrow of slaying or sniper shot, it will overall do at LEAST as much with your boost active

I understand that this is supposed to make bows viable, not specifically monkchers, but as is, what people talking about how bows already are viable are assuming is also either pure ranger or monkcher. Or maybe elf. Basically still requiring slaying arrow.

[gravisrs]

You also need to at least look at the functionality of Eldritch Knight and Wizard with a bow

Since so many extra damage comes now from a BAB (Doubleshot, Ranged Power) along with animation (attack) speed - such builds won't be much of a top.

You will loose alot from that 0.5 BAB progress on EK levels. If you'd want to compensate that you'd have to invest Tier 5 in EK for a full BAB - and then cannot put that many points in AA or other trees.

[Tsutti]

Archers are extra nerfed in heroics as well. Right now, the ranged power you get from manyshot scales with BAB so it's pretty low in heroics, but at least you always got 120 doubleshot. After the change, both stats scale with BAB so you'll get basically nothing at low levels. Arcane archer builds also rely on a lot of secondary effects. You can't just take away a ton of doubleshot from manyshot, give crit range/multiplier in return and expect things to stay the same. You've lost elemental imbue damage, which makes up a huge portion of damage in heroics, or you lose proc chances on paralyzing / instakill arrows and you're just not going to get that back from any crit modifiers. You have to consider how your changes affect more than just raw DPS.

It's a nerf to temporary burst damage, but don't forget that manyshot isn't just extra crit range and multiplier, it's a free extra 2 arrows. With 1/10th the cooldown of live manyshot. So less burst for specific encounters, more burst over extended period of time for specific enemies/lines of enemies if you end up using IPS for some situation.

[scut207]

What I see in this revamp is that some xbow/repeating-xbow/throwing builds with Ranger splits, are going to be nerfed. Since the Sniper Shots no longer give double crit threat range.

I really hope you don't touch other things in other builds during this change, just buffing the poor Bow Combat.

BTW, I think the cooldown of new Manyshot is too long, because you can shoot at least 10 arrows (based on BAB1) during CD, but what you get is only a similar result of old Manyshot (4 arrows). Although you compensating for Manyshot with +1 crit range/multi, and a passive portion of roughly 20-30% DS. I still doubt it is overall decrease of DPS but not increase.

And I don't think you need to remove the crit range on these old items. It's not a big deal at all! More importantly, some of these items are heroic weapon, are you saying that players need to level to at least 21 to get back the loss? That's unfair.

I'm not a bow user except on a first lifer i first started playing ddo on using strimtoms acid build and left it at 20 b/c it was so painfully boring to play. I think it was choose toggles and hit one of 4 active buttons occasionsally. Sniper shot | shattermantle |Arrow of slaying | Final Strike.

Seems like they could have added the new version of Manyshot as a new feat or something and kept Manyshot as is, would keep the much needed burst in heroics and also give us a button to hit occasionally to improve the poor dps.

on a side note I have farmed almost every single bow including abbot bow on the nerf list waiting for a bow revamp and this is kind of a kick to the netherparts. Maybe the on the Horizon Stalker ? Universal tree will have some real goodies that will make me want to try one. but this seems like low to mid heroics are just as painful as before as I would literally have to buy back crit profile via a feat at 21 that you took away in heroic on item I own.

[Kaboom2112]

Is 10,00 stars getting nerfed like Manyshot?

[Tsutti]

Since so many extra damage comes now from a BAB (Doubleshot, Ranged Power) along with animation (attack) speed - such builds won't be much of a top.

You will loose alot from that 0.5 BAB progress on EK levels. If you'd want to compensate that you'd have to invest Tier 5 in EK for a full BAB - and then cannot put that many points in AA or other trees.

Yeah tying stuff to BAB does potentially hurt some builds, but just remember to use tenser's for full BAB need to do it on non-xbow ranged currently anyway when using Multitude of Missiles/Manyshot to maximize ranged power gains, and if you really want to maximize thrower dps you need to use it all the time when about to enter combat for the extra 4 dex (except on alch int based thrower). Wizzy and Sorc can take tenser's, so you actually have the advantage in that regard because you can quicken it so you don't need to slowly swap weapon to scroll, cast tenser's, and swap back--instead, you can just hit a button and super fast cast it for the full 30 ranged power and doubleshot.

What I see in this revamp is that some xbow/repeating-xbow/throwing builds with Ranger splits, are going to be nerfed. Since the Sniper Shots no longer give double crit threat range.

I really hope you don't touch other things in other builds during this change, just buffing the poor Bow Combat.

BTW, I think the cooldown of new Manyshot is too long, because you can shoot at least 10 arrows (based on BAB1) during CD, but what you get is only a similar result of old Manyshot (4 arrows). Although you compensating for Manyshot with +1 crit range/multi, and a passive portion of roughly 20-30% DS. I still doubt it is overall decrease of DPS but not increase.

But.... but... as I read it, nothing says that sniper shot will have its crit range and mult reduced, it says that certain attacks (Exalted Smite in particular) are being FIXED to not ERRONEOUSLY give TWICE THE STATED crit range and multiplier (actually lemme go back and read it, don't remember if it mentioned multiplier)
i.e. this attack was INCORRECTLY giving +4 crit range for bows, there is literally nothing in this thread directly affecting ranged weapons besides bows that I can see (indirectly may be affected by bows being better in comparison)

The thing about new manyshot is it is a very strong attack to use as a furyshot and it gives you an attack that you can continuously use throughout the time that the current manyshot would be on cooldown.

EDIT: checked the post coco had it in, it was only crit range and not mult and it was all ranged weapons incorrectly getting double the stated range not just bows, but it was also something that few builds probably used (and probably most if not all of them were bow builds anyway) so basically won't affect other ranged

Finally caught the ranged power from rapid shot but where are bows getting bab to doubleshot with these changes? Please someone point it out.

found it, manyshot passive and rapid shot new effect

Disclaimer

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

Removing and Compensating for Manyshot
As we said in Goal #4, we want to take Manyshot's power and distribute it back into passive damage. If you don't use the current Manyshot, you break about even on sustained damage with ~20% Doubleshot and ~20 Ranged Power, depending on how much of each of those stats you have already. However, we also wanted to keep the idea of a "Manyshot" around. So, we've made the following changes:

• The existing Manyshot ability is gone.
• The Manyshot feat changes to:
  
  • Manyshot: Bow Attack: Fire three arrows in quick succession. +1 Critical Threat Range and Multiplier on each of these shots. (Note: This attack only rolls for Doubleshot once.) 12 second cooldown. Passive: You gain Doubleshot equal to your BAB with longbows and shortbows. (All prerequisites for it remain the same. Rangers still get it at level 6 automatically.)
• Rapid Shot now also adds " You gain Ranged Power equal to your BAB with longbows and shortbows".

Between those two sets of changes and the attack speed you're getting back, you should end up with around the same amount of overall DPS in upper Heroics and Epics, just distributed a lot more evenly across your attacks instead of bursting the majority of it upfront.

[droid327]

OK so I played a while on Lama now, here's my overall impressions. Not all these are specific to the new Bow changes, but this gives a sense of the overall play experience for me right now.


15 Rgr Scourge, DEX based, first life. T5 DWS/AA. That seems to be what the devs have in mind as an "example" of a bow build pre-HW. Sharn gear, Twisted Willow. Usual ranged feats after Ranger autogrants. My main is an Inqui so that's the experience I come in comparing that to.

Played on Heroic Elite: Sharn Welcome, Ruinous Schemes, Red Rain, Grimm and Barrett...so I think I got a feel for different combat geometries and densities. I feel L15 is a good bellwether for Heroic, and I wanted to test something other than just endgame, since I dont feel that's really representative of the general experience while leveling and TRing. I also wanted to see how the new bow combat mechanics felt without being crutched up too much by EDs and/or Sentience.

First off - its extraordinarily hard to test things effectively with this much lag. I constantly had skills delaying or misfiring (Sniper Shot + Manyshot) so it was really hard to tell what they were actually doing or how they played together.

Overall, bow is doable. I was able to get through everything fairly steadily. My main takeaway is it just felt slow. Talking like 13 minute G&B.

I felt too crit dependent, especially since it was 19-20/+2 with Elasticity and PBS. It felt a little like fishing, because I'd either tickle them, or I'd IK them completely. This is probably more pronounced in Sharn since those mobs are higher fort...but that's probably a warning sign that bows might be too penalized vs high-fort mobs (ie anything in Legendary). Maybe some more Fort Bypass needs to be baked in. Undead quests are going to be a nightmare. It wasnt really fun plinking them till I stuck a crit, felt very RNG. Lots of overkill too...seeing a ~900 crit against a mob with just a sliver of life left is frustrating in a way all its own. This might be another argument against reducing the 18-20 bows, too - at least then you'd see crits more reliably.

I felt way too reliant on Archers Focus stacks to get decent damage. I was at 120 RP (at L15) and at full stacks it felt like I was just doing "decent" damage. 72% Doubleshot, with full Killer stacks, for comparison, which you'd think should really kick your DPS up more. That meant a lot more stance-dancing than I'd care to do, or just kiting around packs with 0 AF stacks and -20% damage in IPS just spraying arrows at them and slowly whittling them down. The need to park for 3s and wait for AF to kick in was a big part of why the play style felt so slow and plodding, I think. It also meant you had to gradually build up to full speed before a lot of fights (AF+Killer stacks), instead of just coming in with all guns blazing.

The fire rate is faster than I remember for bows, but it still feels a little plodding. That's probably what its supposed to feel like. If this is the intended fire rate, then I think we need more base damage so it feels like each shot is connecting for more (and not just when it mega-crits). And I run into a problem that I remember from my RXB Repeater days...the slow fire rate makes it more difficult to properly time skillshots for your special attacks, trying to line up multi hits with IPS. The extra quarter-second of delay between shots is often enough for mobs to completely scatter from your line of fire. I had the best results using my "blind fire" IPS technique of just circle kiting packs and constantly tab-targeting after every shot so I multi-hit at some statistical rate over time, or "manual fire" where I target myself and just spray towards the swarm.

Manyshot is pretty decent in this new iteration. It worked especially nice as Sniper+Manyshot, because you can spit out a nice burst of Sneak procs. Sniper+Manyshot+Merciful was an especially nice sequence against bosses when they get down close to half life. But, like I said above, trying to use your special attacks effectively with IPS was problematic. And since those are both crit-boosted skills, it just exacerbated the issue of being crit-dependent....a Sniper+Many combo could be anything from a series of tickles to a Super Saiyan death barrage.

Survival was OK, even though I had to spend a lot more time than I'd like in "tank mode" to try and build up AF stacks to get decent damage. Moonbow+CSW is effective, with high DShot and Manyshot spam you see those 10 SP proc pretty often to keep your health up. And, again, lag often made my heals misfire, which was disconcerting.

Overall summary: decent, but feels slow and unresponsive, too crit-fishy, and requires too much micromanagement for the mediocre DPS you get.

[BornDragon]

..

[Slominator]

I tried out a pure Dex based Ranger. Base damage is rather mediocre (roughly 1k base, 2300 helpless). I don't have anything currently like it on live to compare base damage to but I have a feeling it is better. The new manyshot kinda changes the way the build feels but it seems about the same total damage as on live from past builds I've played. With these changes burst damage is still the primary way to get damage out of bows.

[Mindos]

The fun part of bow builds was the amazing burst damage from Manyshot + Slayer Arrow + Adrenaline with IPS.

Distributing the damage for totally larger sustained at the cost of having a super strong burst does not make bows fun.

Also, having a larger sustained damage with 100% uptime means nothing if your uptime is only 60% - so the sustained power has to be much increased to compensate.

I would think the sustained damage with 100% uptime needs to be at the very least doubled from what it is now to be even remotely viable, and likely more than that.

I like to replace the word DPS with the word FUN, then read the dev comments that way.

Your FUN will no longer be a burst you control 1/6 of the time, but your FUN will now be spread out over time. The high FUN you had with manyshot slayer and adenaline is no more. That FUN will now occur on crits randomly. Your average FUN will be equal or greater to the total FUN you had before.

It just sounds rediculous, doesn't it? Oh, also: Your herioc UNFUN complaints have been heard and now the crit range of herioc bows is less. Making the herioc bow slog a more random, boring, slow and steady pew pew pew.

Someone needs to get their head out of the math cloud, stop equivocating DPS burst reduction and therefore FUN reduction with DPS averages over time. Did anyone stop and ask "is this more fun for the players?" "Is removing crit range from herioc leveling bows just to even out with the other changes a fun thing?" Everyone loves the burst at endgame, so... let's take it away? Everyone complains how hard the herioc leveling is, so lets remove player control and decision making and enforce monotonous...

For how long have bow users stood by and watched all manner of others do "ranged" better? All these years, all these suggestions, and this is what we get? You know what would be fun? Maybe I could take some of those Alchemist Vials, and shoot them with my bow? Maybe i could get a BASE dps equal to the 3 bolts of a repeater has ALL THE TIME? As others have said, this is less. Less then we suggested over the years, less add on damage since its less arrows, less fun.

Listen to me, cause I think this part is important: Khyber help you if you make the horizon walker tree the solution here. After everything, all the insults, the neglect, the outright afterthought that bow users have become, if you make this free pass meh and try to sell us on Horizon Walker, people will be furious. I think right now, Sev, the gang, you all should state that Horizon walker will be completely free- no purchase necessary.

Another thing, I think this bow pass should have been brought to the public at large instead of the council. These changes are a long time coming, there's so many ideas and passion about bows that I think doing all this lamannia work before having the full public debate was a mistake.

[Singular]

It just sounds rediculous, doesn't it? Oh, also: Your herioc UNFUN complaints have been heard and now the crit range of herioc bows is less. Making the herioc bow slog a more random, boring, slow and steady pew pew pew.

Someone needs to get their head out of the math cloud, stop equivocating DPS burst reduction and therefore FUN reduction with DPS averages over time. Did anyone stop and ask "is this more fun for the players?" "Is removing crit range from herioc leveling bows just to even out with the other changes a fun thing?" Everyone loves the burst at endgame, so... let's take it away? Everyone complains how hard the herioc leveling is, so lets remove player control and decision making and enforce monotonous...

For how long have bow users stood by and watched all manner of others do "ranged" better? All these years, all these suggestions, and this is what we get? You know what would be fun? Maybe I could take some of those Alchemist Vials, and shoot them with my bow? Maybe i could get a BASE dps equal to the 3 bolts of a repeater has ALL THE TIME? As others have said, this is less. Less then we suggested over the years, less add on damage since its less arrows, less fun.

Listen to me, cause I think this part is important: Khyber help you if you make the horizon walker tree the solution here. After everything, all the insults, the neglect, the outright afterthought that bow users have become, if you make this free pass meh and try to sell us on Horizon Walker, people will be furious. I think right now, Sev, the gang, you all should state that Horizon walker will be completely free- no purchase necessary.

Another thing, I think this bow pass should have been brought to the public at large instead of the council. These changes are a long time coming, there's so many ideas and passion about bows that I think doing all this lamannia work before having the full public debate was a mistake.

Well said.

[Gloomfall]

Disclaimer

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

Better Scaling Damage
Classically, these Bows have had Dexterity to hit but no Damage modifier; this caused a lot of Bow users to feel like they had to spend points in Universal trees or splash 2 Ranger (spending points in Deepwood Stalker), or their damage would just trail behind viable levels. To help Bows have better damage that scales closer to other weapons, and in service of Goal #5 (making a wider variety of Bow builds viable), we've added Dexterity to Damage by default on Longbows and Shortbows.

• It's worth noting that Crossbows do not have an ability score modifier to damage by default either; however, they have bigger damage dice, better crit range and multiplier, and other considerations to the point where we don't feel such a change is necessary for them at this time.

You mentioned that Crossbows don't need an attribute to damage by base... because they have bigger damage dice, better crit range, and better multiplier...

But then you proceed to buff the Crit Threat Range and Crit Multiplier for Bows heavily in the next reply on this post.

By default, Crossbow's have a crit profile of 19-20 x 2 while Bows have a 20 x 3.

It's not that big of a difference to account for losing out on a potentially LARGE source of multiplying damage such as Dex to Damage.

Especially since you can push some attributes over 90-100 without "too much" difficulty.

I think it might be worth adding Dex to Damage on Crossbows by default.

[SkyJ89]

[*]Primal Hymn (in Fatesinger) no longer gives 10% Attack Speed with Longbows and Shortbows. (It still gives it for Thrown Weapons, though most of the time Throwers are running into the same animation cap issue that Bows were before these changes...)[/LIST]

So u took Att Speed out of primal hymn. What do u add back at primal hymn to make up for it? I mean there is no incentive to use primal hymn for bow anymore does it?

[Singular]

[*][*]We do understand that this affects other Ranged builds that do not use Bows, and are comfortable with that change; if they need buffing after this, we'll do it in ways that are better than having them rely on a single misaligned ability.

I'm a touch worried that this nerfs x-bows. Repeater damage seems pretty weak already.

[droid327]

I'm a touch worried that this nerfs x-bows. Repeater damage seems pretty weak already.

You young pup...

Repeaters already dont benefit from Attack Speed. Its part of the reason they're complete trash compared to every other ranged option past L7 now. This doesnt change anything for them because they have literally nothing left to nerf

- Low base attack speed
- Arbitrary 66% Doubleshot penalty
- Alacrity only modifies 10% of their animation cycle
- Disallowed from vast majority of ranged enhancement trees

So other than getting 1.5 INT to dmg with Harper, theres literally no meaningful way to scale their damage up.

[Xgya]

[*]It's worth noting that Crossbows do not have an ability score modifier to damage by default either; however, they have bigger damage dice, better crit range and multiplier, and other considerations to the point where we don't feel such a change is necessary for them at this time.

?
Did someone lose their ability to do math somewhere along the way?

*bigger damage dice*
On Legendary weapons, the baseline is 5[D8+2] vs 5[D10+2]. Alright, point made, they get +1 damage per extra weapon die.

*Better crit range* Bows are 20, Crossbows are 19-20.
*Better crit multiplier* Bows are x3, Crossbows are x2.

Baseline bows and crossbows have identically balanced crit profiles. 10% extra damage from crits. (+200%, 5% of the time, vs +100%, 10% of the time)

You COULD mention Great Crossbows in this, but by then you'd be comparing an Exotic Weapon to a Martial one.
There's a reason Bastard Swords are better than Longswords at just about everything they do despite being used for the same purpose.

[SpardaX]

DEX to dmg is a good start, but Bows are still going to be systemically behind other weapons as long as there's no DEX trance. Bows are all 1.0 stat mod (cf. SWF or THF), so that extra 0.5 is a huge component of your damage.

Not that I simply want every stat to have a homogeneous trance, but there needs to be some kind of corresponding extra scaling on DEX (Bow Expertise?) or else that gap is still going to force everyone into WIS or INT or CHA builds with uni trees.

As someone else said though, as the "free / default - no uni tree required" option, it's better than not having it. And not having to take Bow Strength to get -Something- added on. Something which is probably not even the core stat you WANT added, but you took it anyway because you had no other choice.

Along the same lines...I'm not sure scaling things by BAB is the best way to achieve parity for Bows. For one, it kinda forces you into Tensers if you're not a 1.0 BAB class, because that's the only way to increase your BAB. For two, you cant increase your BAB above 1.0, so that puts a hard ceiling on your bonus, meaning you cant scale it as well as attribute-scaling damage on other builds.

Why not make it equal to your DEX mod? That kinda solves both problems. DEX mod will be something around 20 at L20 (~50 DEX score), so that would be about the same scaling through Heroic as by BAB, but that will scale better to endgame (~100 DEX score for 45 DEX mod ) where things like Throwers would otherwise totally outcompete it.

I think putting a hard cap (BaB) on it is by design. It's a buff but without being a potentially run away power creeping buff. And looking at stats, and the fact that you just plainly stated "Oh yea 100 Dex thats what people have at cap" already proves to me that stat power creep is definitely still happening, and doesn't look like it'll stop any time soon. Because thats about 25 stat points higher than any stat on any character I have without doing some stacking rage strength silliness on a barbarian.

And besides, who's using a bow that can't get access to 1.0? Let me go through the full class list, and this is just my opinion, but I'll state 1: whether the class should use a bow, and then 2: if Yes, does that class have an easy way to get access to 1.0.

Alchemist - If you're doing a ranged build, they're built for throwing. No go on bow.
Artificer - If you're doing a ranged build, they're built for crossbows. No go on bow.
Barbarian - Could do bow. But is 1.0 already. So does it have access to 1.0 easily? Yes. Check.
Bard - Only remotely ranged tree is Swash. Swash is built for throwing. No go on bow.

Cleric + FvS - Bowable? Yes. But has access to Divine Power. Permanent in a tree in fact. So do they have access to 1.0 easily? Yes. Check.
Druid - ...I guess you could make a bow build if you forced one. I would not.
Fighter - Yes. Yes.
Monk - Yes bow build. I assume the "Flurry of Blows" you have 1.0 Bab while centered for attacking would also work for stuff like this so tentative Yes.

Paladin - Yes. Yes.
Ranger - Yes. Yes.
Rogue - ...Same answer as druid. Maybe slightly better than a druid bow user but still, more suited to Crossbows. I would not take them for bows. At least not more than a splash.
Sorcerer + Wizard - EK yes. But EK has permanent BaB = 1.0 at tier 5 as well. So Yes. Check.
Warlock - God I hope not. Please dont use a bow on a warlock. - But....They can get 1.0 as well through ES. So....yea even they can do it.


So yea, again, this is my opinion, but as far as I can tell, every class that has any right to be holding a bow, either already is a 1.0 class, or has an easy way to get 1.0. The only class I can see that would have any contention on that, is rogue. If you wanted to make a Bow Rogue.

SotR is a nice feat, I guess, but not especially must-have...its just +6 RP and +4 to hit, essentially, and Bow Paladins are already going to have lots and lots of RP between the new feats and Blessed Purpose stacks. Good that it circumvents the high prereq of Dodge+Mob, but I doubt most Paladins are taking it anyway, so its not actually "saving" them a feat.

I'd much more want to see IPS autogranted in T5. That would be a much more practical way to relieve both the feat burden and the MAD burden on Bow Paladin. Plus, the beauty of KotC for melee Paladins is how much AOE it provides, through three Cleaves, Smite, and Strikethrough bonuses. Autogrant IPS would extend that same philosophy to ranged Paladins.

Thats the point though. Any bow user is taking IPS, that's basically a given. And I agree that giving that in T5 would "Save a feat". But your premise that people are not taking SotR because of it's high prereq cost of Dodge + Mobility, so therefore giving people SotR is bad, is just backwards. That's why they're doing that. Because IPS would be "1 feat saved", but SotR is "3 feats saved". 3 > 1 you see. Which is why people dont have it. It's like saying "I see you want that house, but I get it, it's expensive so you went with the car. What if I give you the car for free?" Like, sure that'd be nice, but if you can give me the more expensive thing for free instead, that'd be much more helpful because then I could have both.

It seems completely contradictory to take the Crit Range off those bows, though. You're trying to increase the efficacy of bows by granting more crit range in the feats...then you just take it back in the base bows. Every decent bow build right now is going to be using an 18-20 bow, so that's already included in the "baseline" you're trying to improve things from. Its not like Ratcatcher was before, where it was 17-20/x3...there are plenty, plenty of other weapons that have 18-20/x3 ranges and arent unbalanceable.

You're basically just neutering your own improvements even as you're trying to make them. The crit range on Combat Archery becomes essentially a sideways move, not actually an improvement.

Once again, I think you're looking at it backwards. You're looking at it through the eyes of someone using one of these bows already, and saying "Oh you're taking my crit threat away, but then giving it back to me. Cool. Thanks. Big help. Why bother."
But you've failed to see that's actually a massive buff.

Why do people use the Silver Longbow. It's trash. It has nothing on it. But all the bow guides say it's great. Why? Because 18-20 threat.
You have the choice of the Silver Longbow with 18-20 threat, and 2d6 Good damage, and a red slot.
Or
The Barovian Longbow, 3d6 good damage, 3d6 fire damage, 3d10 Undead damage, and a red slot. Which do you choose?

Ok.
Now lets take the crit threat OFF the silver longbow. And lets just give it to everyone in a feat they were going to take anyway.
Suddenly the Silver Longbow that belonged in the trash CAN BE THROWN IN THE TRASH, and hey, you get to use an actually GOOD bow now!
And keep your threat!
See how it's actually really good?

Don't look at it from someone using one of those bows.
Look at it from someone using an actually good bow (as far as it's effects go) but without the crit threat.
Now we can all have both a good bow AND a good threat.

[Tsutti]

So u took Att Speed out of primal hymn. What do u add back at primal hymn to make up for it? I mean there is no incentive to use primal hymn for bow anymore does it?

The attack speed in primal hymn never affected bows anyway so if you took it for that, hate to tell you but it didn't even give that to you so there is no need to add anything to primal hymn to make up for this. Besides, if you're gonna use a hymn use martial for sneak attack and ranged power.

[iba]

This seems like a buff to how lower PL/equipment players would set up bow builds, and a titanic nerf to how they're actually setup especially at endgame at the moment especially with the semi-recent changes happening prior to these. I really hope you don't intend to mess it up even further then sandpaper over the cracks with the new bow tree just to sell more of it...