Update 49 - is it yet another round of nerfs ?

[Rykka]

something more direct about the procs that are being lost. I.e.:

"we recognize that light armored melee builds often rely on the knockdown from balanced attacks." and either "we are working on a fix" or "we are allowing that build to die and you should reroll."

"we recognize that crossbow users are taking a 17% cut in attack speed and coupled with the proc nerfs that are so very prevalent in shiradi champion..." and either "we are working on a fix" or "we are allowing that build to die and you should reroll."

now, i believe in both cases, whether due to time constraints, engine limitations, design goals, whatever, that their intent is the latter in both cases. So i want them to say it. I want them you put it here on the forums for all to see that they know they are killing a playstyle that includes several builds. Be honest and say it!

this

[Artos_Fabril]

I thought they specifically said that ONLY base damage and sneak was doubled. All other on weapon effects and procs were not.

Did they come in and change some of that?

Yes. All damage is multiplied, no non-damage effects are multiplied or in any other way increased. Neither in proc chance (because that would be "counter productive") nor in potency or DC.

[barecm]

You're getting a smaller amount of always on Ranged Power and Doubleshot through passive components of Point Blank Shot and Manyshot respectively. It's 37 of each with 100% uptime, versus approximately 100 of each with 33% uptime. That should just about balance out.

That was for Manyshot. 10k stars was simply changed to not work with bows and killed the Moncher builds that folks had been playing well over a decade. it still remains unchanged and functions with thrown weapons. Here are two goals stated by SSG pre u49 rollout:

-Don't significantly shift the role or strength of individual Enhancement Trees - Let the pass' other features bring all of them up together.
We have a number of trees that support Bows, and we don't plan on using this pass to shift their relative strengths or focuses. (Arcane Archer is listed as one of those Trees)

-Diversify the number of viable builds that can use Longbows and Shortbows.

Both are failures big time.

To start off with, elemental damage procs can't crit so that's not a problem. The damage that they do gets multiplied when you multishot (x2 for 2 arrows, x3 for 3 arrows, etc). They also asked for feedback about what could be done to make non-damage procs feel better. The one caveat was that the proc rate couldn't be increased, since that puts them back into the same trouble they were trying to solve.

This is just wrong. Elemental arrows gain on 'on-crit' damage at T5 Improved Elemental Arrows. Also, force arrows also have an 'on-crit' damage chance. Both are now nerfed. I also was going to add all the damage effects from Shiradi that proc on 7% specifically, but I thought I was getting the point across. Also, there was countless suggestions to aid procs, they chose to not answer nor reply and forge ahead with breaking a lot of builds with no remediation.[/QUOTE]

I thought this feat was already mostly useless because of the Falconry tree?

No, it is made useless because without 10k Stars, Moncher is useless. Falconry tree did not give you the ability to make a bow a Ki weapon. It would be a good place maybe to help the Moncher out, but they just left Moncher broken and useless with no reason to take Zen Archery.[/QUOTE]

This isn't an issue that's specific to archers. Casters have seen their spells not happen but be placed on cooldown for years.

It was always an issue for archers as well. It is worse now. I am thinking maybe you do not play archer.

Why? I could see making Fred free for a weekend, but not a +20.

This is the one thing they did answer. I should have removed. They just said flatly "no".

They went from being the only usable bows at their level to simply being just a little bit better. They're fine.

Because they were always +1 crit range better than other bows and the reason why you went out of your way to get. I am not upset by this change with the changes to PBS, but understand other's concerns.

Welcome to 3rd edition pnp feats in general.

Except they don't follow 3rd edition very much since like 2008.

[Ausdoerrt]

Make Smite, Banish, PK active shots with same cooldown as the spell. If they're okay with casters spamming spells, then they should be okay with archers using active abilities.

I dunno how many times I've made similar suggestions both here and on Lammania. But I guess it's never happening.

[Kebtid]

Not to derail the thread but Ki Shout has been fixed internally and will be in an upcoming patch.

(if you want a detailed explanation as to how it was fixed, let me know, because this was a very exciting Friday night!)

Dear god, yes yes yes.
If that and the weapon swap delay are in same patch, i wont have any complaints about the update.

[Dark_Helmet]

We have a skill-replacement system in the game that allows you to make an ability that runs a Skill base package with a different set of skill properties.

Skill changes... is that why even a barbarian can't bash in doors that you used to be able to (e.g. The Bookbinder Rescue)?

[Redtalktree]

That was for Manyshot. 10k stars was simply changed to not work with bows and killed the Moncher builds that folks had been playing well over a decade. it still remains unchanged and functions with thrown weapons. Here are two goals stated by SSG pre u49 rollout:

-Don't significantly shift the role or strength of individual Enhancement Trees - Let the pass' other features bring all of them up together.
We have a number of trees that support Bows, and we don't plan on using this pass to shift their relative strengths or focuses. (Arcane Archer is listed as one of those Trees)

-Diversify the number of viable builds that can use Longbows and Shortbows.

Both are failures big time.



This is just wrong. Elemental arrows gain on 'on-crit' damage at T5 Improved Elemental Arrows. Also, force arrows also have an 'on-crit' damage chance. Both are now nerfed. I also was going to add all the damage effects from Shiradi that proc on 7% specifically, but I thought I was getting the point across. Also, there was countless suggestions to aid procs, they chose to not answer nor reply and forge ahead with breaking a lot of builds with no remediation.

No, it is made useless because without 10k Stars, Moncher is useless. Falconry tree did not give you the ability to make a bow a Ki weapon. It would be a good place maybe to help the Moncher out, but they just left Moncher broken and useless with no reason to take Zen Archery.[/QUOTE]


It was always an issue for archers as well. It is worse now. I am thinking maybe you do not play archer.



This is the one thing they did answer. I should have removed. They just said flatly "no".



Because they were always +1 crit range better than other bows and the reason why you went out of your way to get. I am not upset by this change with the changes to PBS, but understand other's concerns.

Except they don't follow 3rd edition very much since like 2008.[/QUOTE]

Not that it make much difference, crowd control on ranged is now meh... Give me crowd control instead of extra damage anyday, rather have the CC/sleep/nerve venom/slow/paralyse on a few mobs under IPS then just the freaking one in the crowd and that 7% is only on the **** 1st mob (if and when it procs) by then you surrounded and hounded and dead so if you only interested in hard and elite mode sure its o.k but in the hitbag inflation of reapers... meh...............................

[Zoveride]

That damage should already be multiplied when you multishot, so you're not missing out on anything. If it's not, then it's probably bugged.

Incorrect. What is missing here is that crit chance. With the changes to doubleshot/doublestrike (nerf) there are now less chances to crit which directly affects these abilities. Same with any effects that only proc on "vorpals" or "on crit".
To make it simple: not landing a crit: 0x2=0 (Multiplier does not help here)

There are two errors in your math:
1. If you take the core 12 AA ability, the +4 enhancement bonus from the AA cores will overwrite Unwavering Ardency's native +3 bonus.
2. You miscalculated a portion of Unwavering Ardency's fire damage. On a crit, it still deals the d6 fire as normal AND some additional d10's from the Flaming Burst. You just used 6 for the fire damage on a crit.

By your method of calculation, those two changes should increase it's damage to 181 even, putting it in second place behind only the higher level Syranian Longbow. Also, isn't your choice to do the comparison at 16 instead of 15 a little disingenuous, as it's specifically the additional d6 elemental damage from the slotted ruby that pulls the Syranian bow ahead?

Thank you. I did not factor in AA core and I was unaware that the d10 stacked with the d6, interesting.
I have updated the post and given credit with updated calculations in green.

While your initial calculation is correct of 181 damage, your conclusion and subsequent calculation is incorrect.

Nerfed ML:14 Unwavering Ardency is behind ML:15 Syranian Longbow by ~3%
If you choose to use "higher level" to express 1 level gap that is your prerogative.

You jumped the gun on saying I'm being disingenuous. You seemed to have missed the math.
A ML:16 ruby would be 5d6 whereas I used ML:12 ruby (4d6). This is clear in the calculations.
Furthermore, by doing the comparison at level 16 it adds 1 Dexterity which should actually boost UA damage more than the others. (This is also clearly stated).
If you wish to calculate at level 15 it will only adjust UA's damage DOWNWARDS.
All rubys are ML appropriate.
Barovian uses ML:8 (3d6)
Syranian & Willow both use ML:12 (4d6)
NO BOWS use ML:16 (5d6)

[barecm]

Not that it make much difference, crowd control on ranged is now meh... Give me crowd control instead of extra damage anyday, rather have the CC/sleep/nerve venom/slow/paralyse on a few mobs under IPS then just the freaking one in the crowd and that 7% is only on the **** 1st mob (if and when it procs) by then you surrounded and hounded and dead so if you only interested in hard and elite mode sure its o.k but in the hitbag inflation of reapers... meh...............................

It affects both / all. Anything that is based on a DC on hit, on hit chance, vorpal chance, crit chance... all of it is nerfed simply because instead of 2 or 3 hits with doubleshot, you get one only 1 regardless of doubleshot score. Same for melee but out of the scope of what we are discussing. We cannot get SSG to even comment on the matter let alone offer any relief. Many suggestions made, nothing back from SSG.

[Anuulified]

Meh.

[Anuulified]

Okay, so, here's what happened, and please take this with a grain of salt because I applied a lot of guesswork to this and it may not be completely accurate.

We have a skill-replacement system in the game that allows you to make an ability that runs a Skill base package with a different set of skill properties. This wasn't functioning for a reason I do not know (if I did know I would have fixed the system). Rather than fix the skill replacement which I don't really know how to do, I simply made a completely new Ki Shout skill that does an Intimidate but uses your Concentration stats, duplicated some Intimidate scripting, and told the ability to use the new Ki Shout skill instead of the Intim skill using the replacement stuff to run the Intimidate check with your Concentration skill. As you can see in the following screenshot, Ki Shout is making a Ki Shout check, not an Intimidate or a Concentration skill check.



This is, for lack of a better phrase, a hack. It's generally best practice to fix a broken system, rather than build a work around on an instance-by-instance-basis and leave the broken system in place. But, it works, and sometimes in a project that's really the best you can hope for. I hope this explanation made sense!

5 years from now this will be identified as what causes "new" lag.

[kanordog]

5 years from now...

ok

[Zretch]

This is just wrong. Elemental arrows gain on 'on-crit' damage at T5 Improved Elemental Arrows. Also, force arrows also have an 'on-crit' damage chance. Both are now nerfed. I also was going to add all the damage effects from Shiradi that proc on 7% specifically, but I thought I was getting the point across. Also, there was countless suggestions to aid procs, they chose to not answer nor reply and forge ahead with breaking a lot of builds with no remediation.

If the "on crit" damage isn't being doubled when you do crit on a doubleshot, then that's a bug and you should report it. Damage procs, even if they only happen on crit, should be mulitplied by the number of arrows shot, according to the patch notes. Basically you crit half as often, but when you do crit, you hit twice as hard.

Pre-patch, if your "on crit" damage was 40, and you had 100% doubleshot, and you had a 35% chance to crit, you'd have the following scenarios:

First arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40 "on crit damage".
Second arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40 "on crit damage".

So, Arrow 1: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 = 14
So, Arrow 2: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 = 14

average "on crit" damage = 28 per volley

Post-patch, same stats.
First arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40x2 (the doubleshot multiplier) "on crit damage".

So, Arrow 1: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 * 2= 28

average "on crit" damage = 28 per volley

That aspect hasn't been nerfed, it's subject to the increased "damage volatility" caused because you no longer have a situation where one hit crits and the other doesn't. The hit either won't crit, or it will crit twice as hard.

Again, if those on crit damage effects aren't being doubled, that's a bug, not a nerf, and it should be fixed ASAP.

[Black_Ninja]

Make Smite, Banish, PK active shots with same cooldown as the spell. If they're okay with casters spamming spells, then they should be okay with archers using active abilities.

Absolutely. Yes! PnP Arcane Archer is all about amping up arrows with both dps AND putting your spells on them. If they made those actives rather than a stance mutually exclusive with the elemental arrows, it would fix the issue where AA is effectively disjointed. I've always hated that if you go CC in the tree, the T5 is useless, and if you go dps, half the tree from T1-T4 is useless.

[DjangoKeys]

5 years from now this will be identified as what causes "new" lag.

I’m gonna bet they figure it out internally within 6 months…but they won’t publicly admit to it for years (if they’re still around past 2021).

[barecm]

If the "on crit" damage isn't being doubled when you do crit on a doubleshot, then that's a bug and you should report it. Damage procs, even if they only happen on crit, should be mulitplied by the number of arrows shot, according to the patch notes. Basically you crit half as often, but when you do crit, you hit twice as hard.

Pre-patch, if your "on crit" damage was 40, and you had 100% doubleshot, and you had a 35% chance to crit, you'd have the following scenarios:

First arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40 "on crit damage".
Second arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40 "on crit damage".

So, Arrow 1: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 = 14
So, Arrow 2: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 = 14

average "on crit" damage = 28 per volley

Post-patch, same stats.
First arrow: 1-13, No Crit, 0 "on crit" damage. 14-20, Crit, 40x2 (the doubleshot multiplier) "on crit damage".

So, Arrow 1: .65 * 0 + .35 * 40 * 2= 28

average "on crit" damage = 28 per volley

That aspect hasn't been nerfed, it's subject to the increased "damage volatility" caused because you no longer have a situation where one hit crits and the other doesn't. The hit either won't crit, or it will crit twice as hard.

Again, if those on crit damage effects aren't being doubled, that's a bug, not a nerf, and it should be fixed ASAP.

You are talking about damage, I am talking about chances of procs. Yes, doubling or tripling the damage will be the same, but what I am trying to say, and maybe poorly, is that you have less chances to apply effects that are a result of a DC check, a vorpal, or a crit chance. For my build in particular, I went from 2x-3x chance to land a successful DC for paralyze to now just 1.

[niknight]

You are talking about damage, I am talking about chances of procs. Yes, doubling or tripling the damage will be the same, but what I am trying to say, and maybe poorly, is that you have less chances to apply effects that are a result of a DC check, a vorpal, or a crit chance. For my build in particular, I went from 2x-3x chance to land a successful DC for paralyze to now just 1.

And as it was previously pointed out, they asked for feedback on that specific issue during Lamannia. The only constraint was that they couldn't just increase the proc rate, because that would effectively undo the change they were trying to make. One of the most popular suggestions that I saw was increasing the durations of those effects to compensate, but even that doesn't really do anything since the mobs usually die before the original duration ends anyway. Instead of constantly complaining, why not suggest possible actions? If ranged is your preferred playstyle, what things can they do with those procs (again, aside from increasing the rate) to make them feel good to you?

[Redtalktree]

And as it was previously pointed out, they asked for feedback on that specific issue during Lamannia. The only constraint was that they couldn't just increase the proc rate, because that would effectively undo the change they were trying to make. One of the most popular suggestions that I saw was increasing the durations of those effects to compensate, but even that doesn't really do anything since the mobs usually die before the original duration ends anyway. Instead of constantly complaining, why not suggest possible actions? If ranged is your preferred playstyle, what things can they do with those procs (again, aside from increasing the rate) to make them feel good to you?

Perhaps not putting a gillion trash mobs in hall ways, that instantly goes zero to red DA when you shoot 1 arrow? yes am looking at you sharn quests (ish)
Also rather have intelligent play style like sneaking thru a dungeon with out having to murder every single mobs on the way

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

Heroics get nerfed. Epics stay or get buffed. Of course. End game folks always get what they want while everyone else gets nerfed.

The critical threat range of the Collapsible Shortbow has been fixed, with its Heroic version back to 20x3 and the Epic version properly at 19-20x3.

[Lynnabel]

Heroics get nerfed. Epics stay or get buffed. Of course. End game folks always get what they want while everyone else gets nerfed.

Just so you are aware, this is actually a buff to the Heroic version of the longbow, which before this patch was at 20x2 :)