U49 Preview 2: Bow Combat Style Revamp

[droid327]

Have you tried R1 as well?

It sounds like clearing time will be pretty slow if you can mostly just kill one mob every 6 seconds on Elite - considering other builds are clearing 3+ mobs within that time frame (or faster) on R1 [melee, nukers, insta killers, inquisitives].

Not testing R1, as its not what I usually play so I have less context to test it against. Plus just doing a first-life Iconic Scourge.

With full stacks of AF, you kinda alternate Sniper and Manyshot on each trash mob, so its about every 3 seconds you get a kill. But yes on Reaper that'd go down a lot. IPS is a lot harder to work with the slow ROF compared to DXB, which I'm used to. Things are weaving in and out between attack cycles pretty easily, and its kind of a carp shoot if you actually line up a multi hit at all, let alone manage to tag multiple mobs with a Sniper or Many. Feels like my old Repeater Arti, though not quite that bad.

I kinda think that IPS will be worthless for Bows, because of that. At least in Heroic, where RP is more impactful. You're doing like 3x as much damage with full AF stacks as each hit on IPS, and there's no way you can consistently hit 3+ mobs at once to make up for that.

[mikarddo]

Not testing R1, as its not what I usually play so I have less context to test it against. Plus just doing a first-life Iconic Scourge.

With full stacks of AF, you kinda alternate Sniper and Manyshot on each trash mob, so its about every 3 seconds you get a kill. But yes on Reaper that'd go down a lot. IPS is a lot harder to work with the slow ROF compared to DXB, which I'm used to. Things are weaving in and out between attack cycles pretty easily, and its kind of a carp shoot if you actually line up a multi hit at all, let alone manage to tag multiple mobs with a Sniper or Many. Feels like my old Repeater Arti, though not quite that bad.

I kinda think that IPS will be worthless for Bows, because of that. At least in Heroic, where RP is more impactful. You're doing like 3x as much damage with full AF stacks as each hit on IPS, and there's no way you can consistently hit 3+ mobs at once to make up for that.

Thank you for the reply and the quality testing. Its appreciated.

At level 15 - how would you say the bow build you have tested does compared to your Inq build on Live?

[mikarddo]

Itemized List of total Bow Changes

• [COLOR="#008080"]Manyshot is now "Ranged Bow Attack: Expend one charge to fire three arrows in quick succession. You have +1 Critical Threat Range and Critical Multiplier with these shots. Each of these shots can Doubleshot. 2 second cooldown. This feat gives 3 charges, you regain 1 charge every 12 seconds you don't use Manyshot (Requires a Longbow or Shortbow to use). Passive: You gain Doubleshot equal to 1.5x your Base Attack Bonus with Longbows and Shortbows."

Why not change this to 3x damage rather than 3 arrows? That would reduce lag even further and retain some of the burst damage output of Adrenaline / Hunts End for Bow users.

[droid327]

Thank you for the reply and the quality testing. Its appreciated.

At level 15 - how would you say the bow build you have tested does compared to your Inq build on Live?

With the caveat it was not exceptionally well geared (low spellpower for Force Arrows, etc.)...it wasnt great for soloing. Lack of playable AOE was the main issue, even with IPS. Maybe if I took it up to Elite and got Para Arrow going, I could line up IPS better. Trash was a chore. My Inqui can just spray and pray into packs with IPS a lot more effectively.

Base damage is far far too low, probably because no LoYS imbue to some degree. Without 25 stacks of AF, non-crit/Dhit shots were bare tickles. Crits feel nice, but then they often become overkill - talking like 2000+ damage at L15. Feels extra spiky because crit+dhit now means both dhits always crit, so there's a wider gap between a basic hit and a lucky hit, which can make it feel fishier. My Inqui puts out steady damage-per-hit and isnt quite as spiky.

I think group play will be a lot more aligned with how bows play right now. You can stand back in AF and pick off high-value targets while others handle trash. Short-term burst damage is really what defines it, being able to throw out palpable spikes on 6-12 second cycles. So when you have targets that warrant burst (champs, Reapers, bosses, annoying casters, etc.), it feels great. When you need to whack a bunch of moles, it feels laborious. I think Inqui has a better distribution of burst, though...NHB to annihiliate bosses, higher base damage for steady trash kills with IPS reliably multi-hitting, and Shoot Later + whatever class skills you have for quicker bursts against champs and reapers.

[mikarddo]

With the caveat it was not exceptionally well geared (low spellpower for Force Arrows, etc.)...it wasnt great for soloing. Lack of playable AOE was the main issue, even with IPS. Maybe if I took it up to Elite and got Para Arrow going, I could line up IPS better. Trash was a chore.

Base damage is far far too low, probably because no LoYS imbue to some degree. Without 25 stacks of AF, non-crit/Dhit shots were bare tickles. Crits feel nice, but then they often become overkill - talking like 2000+ damage at L15. Feels extra spiky because crit+dhit now means both dhits always crit, so there's a wider gap between a basic hit and a lucky hit, which can make it feel fishier.

I think group play will be a lot more aligned with how bows play right now. You can stand back in AF and pick off high-value targets while others handle trash. Short-term burst damage is really what defines it, being able to throw out palpable spikes on 6-12 second cycles. So when you have targets that warrant burst (champs, Reapers, bosses, annoying casters, etc.), it feels great. When you need to whack a bunch of moles, it feels laborious.

Thanks again thats what I was fearing. Very good point that overkilling means the more spiky damage even with the numerically same mean effectively comes out with a (in some cases significantly) lower actual mean. Basically, the non-crit damage needs to go up as well, not just the specials w/crits.

If grouping was ensured it might be ok - but often you need to solo or duo if you want to play heroics at all.

So, more damage is definitely needed in heroics, in particular as the changes to non-damage proc chance makes non-damage effects less worthwhile
AND
Something needs to be done about Adrenaline recharges as well as multiple arrows actually hitting the target on the same use of Hunts End / Adrenaline.

Definitely more work to be done is this pass is to be an actual much needed boost to Bows rather than a nerf.

[Carpone]

While the Preview 2 bow changes are an improvement compared to Preview 1, there's still a large gap in auto-attack damage between throwing daggers and bows thanks to the doubleshot disparity from Simple Thrown Weapon Expertise.

Throwing Dagger: Halfling 11 Rogue/6 Ranger/3 Bard = 6193 DPS + 3210 SA DPS = 9403 Total DPS

Bow: Halfling 20 Ranger (DEX based with +18 KtA) = 6812 + 2217 SA = 9029 total DPS

[Zeleron]

While the Preview 2 bow changes are an improvement compared to Preview 1, there's still a large gap in auto-attack damage between throwing daggers and bows thanks to the doubleshot disparity from Simple Thrown Weapon Expertise.

Throwing Dagger: Halfling 11 Rogue/6 Ranger/3 Bard (INT based) = 5821 base DPS + 3210 Sneak Attack DPS = 9031 Total DPS

Bow: Halfling 20 Ranger (DEX based with +18 KtA) = 6117 base DPS + 2217 sneak attack DPS = 8334 Total DPS

Did you fix your formula or are you still pulling 0 dps, if you have 0 ranged power/doubleshot.

[Noircere]

• The passive Ranged Power with Bows from Rapid Shot is now 1.5x your BAB (was 1.0x)

There were a lot of complaints about poor archery performance in heroics last preview. May I recommend 15 + BAB instead of 1.5x BAB? Works out the same at 30 BAB, but is a 10-15% buff at low levels.

[Noircere]

Also, I generally like the direction of these changes, compared to the last preview.

[KielbasaBeta]

Before improved precise shot bows are so far behind other types of combat in terms of wave clear its as if you are playing a completely different game. We need a quiver or an enhancement or better itemization to give bow users some area of effect between levels 1-10. It is much more important to have some wave clear through out the whole heroic process than it used to be. Strike through and casters currently have amazing wave clear compared to a bow user right now. Throwers can use an offhand to get an aoe proc on a 20 starting at level 7 and I believe xbow users have some aoe rune arms before level 10?

[Zoveride]

Itemized List of total Bow Changes


[/COLOR][*]The following Longbows and Shortbows have had their Critical Threat Ranges reduced from 18-20 to 19-20:[*]

• Pinion, Cloud-Piercer
• Sapphire Sting
• Epic Sapphire Sting
• Bow of the Elements (Air)
• Silver Longbow
• Epic Thornlord
• Unwavering Ardency
• Bow of Sinew
• Collapsible Shortbow

[/LIST]

I still don't see what is being done to remake/redo these bows. It seems you are adamant about nerfing the crit threat ranges on these bows, but what is being done to give them something to make up for it?
One of the stated goals was to "make bows more accessible to other builds". However, this is pushing it towards certain builds instead of opening it up.
Case in point: My tempest ranger with NO BOW FEATS, using TWF feats. I ran the Abbot Raid 20 times to get the bow "Unwavering Ardency" so I could switch to it when range was needed and not have to use the feat Improved Critical: Ranged.
As this character is a TWF Tempest, I do NOT take the feats Point Blank Shot OR Combat Archery.
So this is a net nerf to the bow and the build.
If the crit threat range must be nerfed, something should be added to make up for it.
Examples: Extra enhancement, on-hit proc, augment slot, +1 crit multiplier, etc...
Something needs to be added to these bows, or please just state that this "BOW PASS" is indeed a "BOW NERF".

I hope I can still look forward to playing with bows and arcane archer as the idea has a nice appeal to it, I just hope the implementation does it justice.

Thank you for your honesty in advance.

[Steelstar]

I still don't see what is being done to remake/redo these bows. It seems you are adamant about nerfing the crit threat ranges on these bows, but what is being done to give them something to make up for it?
One of the stated goals was to "make bows more accessible to other builds". However, this is pushing it towards certain builds instead of opening it up.
Case in point: My tempest ranger with NO BOW FEATS, using TWF feats. I ran the Abbot Raid 20 times to get the bow "Unwavering Ardency" so I could switch to it when range was needed and not have to use the feat Improved Critical: Ranged.
As this character is a TWF Tempest, I do NOT take the feats Point Blank Shot OR Combat Archery.
So this is a net nerf to the bow and the build.
If the crit threat range must be nerfed, something should be added to make up for it.
Examples: Extra enhancement, on-hit proc, augment slot, +1 crit multiplier, etc...
Something needs to be added to these bows, or please just state that this "BOW PASS" is indeed a "BOW NERF".

I hope I can still look forward to playing with bows and arcane archer as the idea has a nice appeal to it, I just hope the implementation does it justice.

Thank you for your honesty in advance.

We do not have plans to make further changes to these Bows in this update. That would be counterproductive to the intended point of the change.

We are not concerned that builds not investing in a particular combat style may see their damage go down with that combat style. That is intended. It sounds like your build is a TWF Melee build that occasionally uses Bows; if so, you may want to change your build to invest somewhat further in Bows. We do not guarantee that changes like this will preserve every single possible build. In this case, especially as the build in question isn't a Bow-specific build, but a Melee that happens to also use a Bow with relatively little investment, we feel fine saying it may go down without more investment.

[Coffey]

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: Ranged Bow Attack: Expend one charge to fire three arrows in quick succession. You have +1 Critical Threat Range and Critical Multiplier with these shots. Each of these shots can Doubleshot. 2 second cooldown. This feat gives 3 charges, you regain 1 charge every 12 seconds you don't use Manyshot (Requires a Longbow or Shortbow to use). Passive: You gain Doubleshot equal to 1.5x your Base Attack Bonus 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 1.5x 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 and have the option of bursting more of it upfront than in preview 1 (but still less than on live).

Combine AF and IPS for bows only feat and that would seal the deal. No more stance dancing. Or at least some balance of the two.
Edit: AF stay the same but add AF to IPS as a separate Feat. Or simply allow both stances to be activated at the same time.


I thought about 20-30 Dshot tacked to Manyshot before BaB adds would aleviate the loss burst damage early on as well.

[Saekee]

are you making thrown weapons all dex to damage too? Seems it would follow
logic

[GoldyGopher]

This post was edited and re-written to reflect a better understanding on my part the changes to the multi-hit mechanics that are explained out in another topic. I had not read that topic before running my tests.

I took my level 17 Ranged build (R14, M2, R1) through Sharn1 solo on HE. This character is reliant on sneak attack damage, upwards of 300 points of damage per attack, and is not necessarily the highest true DPS ranged build.

I attempted each quest once, completing 3 of the 5 and failing on 2, IE my character died.
The three quests that I completed took approximately 25 to 30% longer to complete on Lamannia than on live. There will be more on this topic as I progress through this review.

Approximately 1 in 8 attack attempts resulted in dry firings. The animation goes off, but there is nothing in the combat log, no other indication that attack occurred. I have verified this with the Kobolds but it pretty consistent in the actual quests. When I reran the testing this evening I had dry fires about once every 14 attacks.

There is a bug occurring where the floating damage numbers do not match the numbers in the log. The floaty numbers may say 135 (double swords) but the number in the log say 170. For the purposes of this discussion I am using the number in the combat log. I have no idea which one is correct and which one is in correct.

I had a much wider range of base damage from a low of 48 to 64 for a single attack with a high of 170 for "double shot". This is with Archer's Focus turned on. I am little concerned about the low end of 47. On live this damage was 55, and preview 1 it was 57. I was expecting to see damage numbers in the low 60s, 63 or 64 as the low, not 47. I was expecting to see high in the 80s for single shot non-crit attacks. Mathematical I had expected a high somewhere in the range of 88 to 100 based upon rounding. So getting a high of 64 was pretty shockingly low.

On live my damage range is 57 to 77 which seems to a shift in the base damage lower both the upper and lower bounds by roughly 10 points. Considering my ranged power is 30 points higher on Lamannia I find this very concerning.

The high end of the attack marks damage of "double shot" where all damage is "doubled". The high end of the double shot attacks I was able to see was 170 (85 doubled) I never saw single attacks that high, however based upon an increase of 30 I was expecting to see single attack as high 100 for the base pierce damage.

Based upon my experience in both quests and against the kobold test dummies I believe the damage is being miscalculated for "single" attacks. Double attacks appear to be more in line with the expected results. I don't think the double shot attacks in general are high enough, but they are defiantly more than double the single shot attacks.

Today I was critting on attack rolls of 18-20. I am not sure where the 18 comes from. On live I am only 20, I pickup +1 critical threat range from Point Blank Shot. I don't think anything else is currently supposed to give my character the expanded critical threat range so I am thinking something is bugged and giving out an extra +1 critical threat range.
Interestingly my critical damage were either fairly low 140 to 190 or fairly high 425-525, nothing in the middle. The nothing in the middle is due to the double shot; however I would expect a larger range from 150 to 250 at least. Again when I look at the expected numbers the single shot attacks appear to be low. The double shot attacks numbers to be closer to the expected numbers.

New Many shot.... For me it was worthless in my tests. That worthlessness is directly attributed to the high number of dry fires with the new Many Shot. It really hard to say it's useful or more useful when it only works as intended 1 in 4 tries. I want to point I saw lots of dry fires when using specialized attacks. This was more common when Lamannia first came up than my second round of testing this evening. While I still had dry fires and more common with specialized active attacks, it was less frequent than this afternoon.

In my earlier testing about once or twice a quest you would see the traditional double shot response. IE two sets of numbers stacked on top of one another. While I am unsure of the specific cause I wonder if it is a "resolved" dry fire moments later.

There was lots of lagged moments during testing. Interact with a door, lag for 10 seconds. Mobs spawn, 10 seconds freeze lag.

At this point I cannot say it was better than preview 1 because there were so many bugs and issues. The dry firing itself makes it difficult to judge and it is worse when the dry firing happened more frequently on special attacks, including the new many shot.

Animation. Please go find a professional or expert bowman (person) and film them. After watching even the adjustments made to the human bow animation I have no idea why the model was chosen, it doesn't look anything at all like someone properly using a bow. It may because I have been a bow hunter most of my life that makes this animation so cringy.

[amessi1]

On live my thrower can go through a stack of 500 knives in 2 min 10 seconds, consistently. I transferred the character over to Lamannia and the same 500 knives took 6 min 4. (No boosts/multitude of missiles, just auto attack and stop watch) Is this due to the changes to Blinding Speed &/or the changes to double-shot (multi-attack) for performance? Is this expected?

Another reference point, on live I ran "A Sharn Welcome" in 3 min 15 seconds, no boosts or multitude of missiles. Same toon on Lamannia took 4:14. Aside from the time delta it felt that on live this toon was one-shot (animation) killing most mob_type_villains, but two-shot on Lamannia.

[Zoveride]

We do not have plans to make further changes to these Bows in this update. That would be counterproductive to the intended point of the change.

We are not concerned that builds not investing in a particular combat style may see their damage go down with that combat style. That is intended. It sounds like your build is a TWF Melee build that occasionally uses Bows; if so, you may want to change your build to invest somewhat further in Bows. We do not guarantee that changes like this will preserve every single possible build. In this case, especially as the build in question isn't a Bow-specific build, but a Melee that happens to also use a Bow with relatively little investment, we feel fine saying it may go down without more investment.

Thank you for your honesty that these bows are just getting plain nerfed. As you suggested, I had planned to change my build to an arcane archer with deepwood stalker enhancements like an ALT I already have as AA. However, seeing the bows I had previously worked hard and invested in to get are just getting flat out nerfed this doesn't seem appealing anymore. Especially a RAID BOW, I thought it would have some meaning and worth. Oh well. Time to move on, thanks anyways.

[Yamani]

Disclaimer

Everything seen on the pr

To get from the new endgame baseline speed to an attack speed of 0.69sec per shot, you only need 25% attack speed boost. We're planning for that to come from two sources at the moment:

• Enhancement Bonus: 15%
  
  • This is the most common bonus type for attack speed, found on the Haste spell, Speed items, and the Blinding Speed feat. In most cases, it caps at 15%, but there's a significant outlier that we're fixing in this patch; the Blinding Speed feat, which currently grants 22%.
  
  
• Feat Bonus: 10%
  
  • The remaining 10% needed for Bows to reach 25% could have come from a number of sources, but we decided to keep it in place on one of the earliest sources available to most Bow users - the Rapid Shot feat.

So after wasting several minutes trying, here is the APM"s I came up with. Assuming some outliers could be due to lag. All builds have Rapid shot for the 10% feat bonus.

Wood Elf: 76 - 76 (Aerania 20%)

Everything else: blinding speed 15%
Wood Elf 2: 69 - 76 - 76 - 76 - 76
Gnome: 76 - 76 -76 -76
Warforged: 76 - 76 -76 -76 -76
Half orc: 86 - 94 - 98 - 100 -100 - 100 - 96 - 96
Human 76 - 76 - 76

76 APM is not .69 sec/attack but rather closer to .785 sec/attack
Half orc had a mind of it's own and varied, no clue why. For the blinding speed builds they all followed the same path: Deepwood stalker, no AP where spent on these either. Only gear equipped was starter bow/arrows/rags.

[rabidfox]

On live my thrower can go through a stack of 500 knives in 2 min 10 seconds, consistently. I transferred the character over to Lamannia and the same 500 knives took 6 min 4. (No boosts/multitude of missiles, just auto attack and stop watch) Is this due to the changes to Blinding Speed &/or the changes to double-shot (multi-attack) for performance? Is this expected?

I'm guessing doubleshot no longer consumes ammo with the new way it works but I'd have to test that myself to see for sure.

[elvesunited]

Well with my testing, I copied over my wood elf 6 ranger / 7 monk. I can give the following observations.

1) I can't speak for the animation of other races, but Wood elf firing animation seems fine. ( as in not ugly )

2) *Removed after further reading on performance changes to doubleshot.*

3) Running with final strike, sniper shot, arrow of slaying, and manyshot as active attacks. If these attacks are used while I am in the process of firing my bow ( holding down my attack button ) there is a chance they won't do anything. Other times they just seem delayed. And sometimes they seem to work fine.

4) Criticals are doing a lot of damage and normal attacks are stronger so I don't think I'm losing that much DPS from loss of manyshot(live) though it's more spread out making large trash mobs more dangerous. Instead of killing some of them quickly and then taking longer to mop up. I'm killing them less quickly at first but taking less time to mop up. This would probably be less of a problem if active attacks worked better.

5) I get why Ten Thousand Stars doesn't gel well with the new system but it's effectively rendered this character a borked build. Wouldn't it be possible to give Zen Archery an upgrade?

6) During this testing time I didn't experience any lag.

Conclusion:

If everything was working good, I could see this holding up with enough bonuses to counteract the loss of manyshot(live). But with special attacks sometimes failing to go off it feels buggy. It's like playing a melee and cleave / great cleave sometimes failing to go off when you use them.