U50 Preview 1: New Universal Enhancement Tree: Horizon Walker

[Carpone]

in a way, yes, but I feel that favored enemies in DDO are the domain of deepwood stalkers. that's kinda also the distinction in PnP. Rangers who become horizon walkers give up their FE progression and instead pick up terrain masteries with slightly different benefits.

PnP HW doesn't translate to DDO well at all, because terrain hasn't been built into quests from day 1. And there's no way that SSG is going to audit every single quest and add in terrain attributes just for HW, because the juice isn't worth the squeeze.

Even core pen and paper abilities like Dimension Door are neutered by the translation to digital gameplay.

A sprinkling of +2 skill bonuses based on terrain is mostly meaningless in DDO. Even if every other core provided +1 to all skills, it would still be meh.

Favored Enemy is the only existing nob the devs have to work with.

[yfernbottom]

If the intention was a new universal tree that won't be OP and break the game, success?

If the intention is something I would ever use over Inq., maybe not so much. Stacked with arcane archer this would be ok. Maybe for the trance on a dex-to-damage melee build. But that isn't 13 points I would be at all happy about.

[grudgebear]

Ill add my voice to 'can we please get the dex trance lowered' crowd.

I am in the same crowd. There's nothing compelling for melees.

Also this trance ability will allow some classes to be pure and get rid of god darned 1lvl of Favored soul meta thing....

[Saucetenuto]

Only thing I can think of for #1 would be dex stick builds, like ta rogue.
Sticks are stupid fragile, and will break often without picking up durability.

Thanks, TIL.

[Zoveride]

Ill add my voice to 'can we please get the dex trance lowered' crowd. Mainly because I don't see anything else in this tree that I want. Single target DPS is horrible for leveling with all the quests where it feels and even looks like whoever created it just grabbed a mass monster template and dropped it anywhere it fit between the walls. I will try it for a little bit and most likely drop it after a quest or two.

Kudos on making a single target tree, but unless it consistently one-shots trash targets or attacks really fast, its out of place in the current quest setup. (and throwers already have the attack fast slot)

That being said, go for it. Make one of its T5 abilities a stance (that cant be used at the same time as IPS) to attack slowly with a bow (prolly at normal bow speeds considering how slow they actualy attack) but produce an instakill effect.

Curious as to why you would purposefully reward a company for making a bad product? I mean, it's your money and your choice if you want to just light it on fire over a bonfire too. This company continues to "sell products" with less and less value. You already know it is low value but still choose to reward them with your purchase.
I don't see how this will bring about any change.

[LurkingVeteran]

Scattershot should be a point blank AoE that inflicts a Daze, followed by jumping backwards (a reverse Abundant Step) to disengage from mobs.

Why make it a straight copy of a wow ability?

Improving the AoE damage seems more useful tbh, but Daze wouldn't be bad either. Kind of impinges on AA territory though, but if they want to give AA back its fireball arrows that is fine as well.

[Coffey]

yeah, so not wanting to give away too much, but core 6 in Horizon Walker and Tier 5 in Deep Woods Sniper looks delicious.

If you like eating hot garbage then maybe. DWS is great.

[Khalibano]

I like the tree overall, but I have some concerns/comments I would like to share and suggestions I would like to make:

Steelstar, I was watching you talking about Horizon Walker in yesterday's livestream with Cordovan and just had a thought about one thing you said:

"Core 1 marks a target. Anyone else with that low hanging fruit core can mark other targets"

This means anyone with a bow and imp precise shot could do a bunch more dmg+ debuffs + cc to a group of mobs that are marked by different party members

With only one universal AP you can get that (practically free to those of us with tomes): I can see big potential for this to be exploited by groups that coordinate and mark 6-12 targets at a time, especially where combat is slightly slower and requires more planning / tactics / group work: R10s

Something doesnt feel right, at least not to me.

The 'marking' could be in tier 5, to make it available through heavy investment only.

[Khalibano]

So, one char with HW, Scattershot, IPS and good positioning + 5-11 other chars, any classes, each having spent 1AP in HW.

All (and each) marked targets get:
> -8 AC
> -20% Fortification
> -4 saves
> -10% movement speed
> +3d6x2 force damage on hit, scales RPw (opening shot)
> +6 dmg (scaling MPw, crit, doubleshot, helpless)
> Reflex save (d20+listen) or immobilize for 12 secs (corner quarry)
> Vorpals: stun with no save (same)
> 1d6 force dmg/char level (scales w RPw) when corner quarry is used
> Extraplanars: Will sv (d20+listen) or be banished (useful in many places)

If bow users only hit single targets, marking many mobs wouldnt matter. Its far from that, especially with Scattershot +IPS allowing 3 rows of multi target hits on mobs.

In order to create a new meta, some people will exploit flaws in the syatem and do the most boring, unfun and repetitive things possible. It wouldnt surprise me at all, hence my 2 cents saying this could be exploited

[Khalibano]

Further thoughts/suggestions:

Arcane archer could become a universal tree that caters to all ranged combat styles.

- In my opinion, rangers, in particular, now have easy access to 3 archery focused trees: Horizon walker created an imbalance

- Ranger already has an archery tree: Deepwood stalker. Deepwodd could get a little revamp to be ranged only, and a new ranger tree could be added for an alternstive melee style or maybe defensive bonuses

- Arcane archer always felt odd as a ranger tree: rangers dont use spellpower

- AA via elf/HElf/Sun elf takes an excessive amount of APs in the racial tree to access AA, if you want to play it with a class that uses spellpower and/or WIS as main stat to take advantage of the cc it provides

[IlmerSilverhilt]

Had an idea for an ability, now I dont know if it should be a shot or something you just activate. It could be tied to Marked creatures or even Immobilized ones :

Trading Places - Use this ability against creatures Marked/Immobilized and you both switch locations. Does not work on Bosses.

I could see this as usefull for porting a certain mob into the melee group. Or Immobilize a mob, rest of pack charges forward and as they close in you Trade Places and can effectively (depending on cooldown) port around with help of your marked mobs. Now you could maybe get into wierd perch spots or something, and we cant have it work on a raid boss to move them around :P just an idea I had that could maybe fit with the phase/planewalker theme.

[Duhboy]

Some of my gripes about this tree:
The "Mark Target" is weak that I don't see anybody seriously using it as it is right now.
This is what it does maxed out: Your Marked Target's Saving Throw penalty increases to -4, Fortification penalty increases to -20%, and AC penalty increases to -8, -10% to movement speed.

The only "good" part of mark target is the reduction to saving throws while everything else in the ability is meager at best.
I suggest adding vulnerability or just a straight reduction to prr and mrr aswell being able to stack from other HW's mark target sources to a total of 3 or something.

A one cast Dimensional Door with a 10 minute CD just spells BS for a level 18 core.

The lack of spells from the P&P HW into the DDO version is a bit of a bummer for me. Although they did "add" misty step in tier 5.
Protection from Evil and Good
Misty Step
Haste
Banishment
Teleportation Circle

Walker's Guidance: You and targeted ally gain Evasion and +5 to Saving Throws vs. Traps for 12 seconds. 60 second cooldown. (1AP)
This has to be one if not the worst tier 5 ability SSG has ever came up with it. It's a failure by design based on the fact that it's solely reliant on the armor that
your ally is currently wearing.

I suggest removing this ability all together and replacing it with a uncanny dodge ability that they get from P&P.

[Strider1963]

I havent played a longbow ranged character in a while, and this tree wont entice me to start playing one. I really dont like the fact that you have to build up charges to be able to get an insight bonus to damage, and then its a tier 3 ability too, not a tier 2. I see the build up charge mechanic in the new ED pass too, sorry, but not a fan because you basically tend to run out of charges. At least I do.

[WarDestroyer]

I havent played a longbow ranged character in a while, and this tree wont entice me to start playing one. I really dont like the fact that you have to build up charges to be able to get an insight bonus to damage, and then its a tier 3 ability too, not a tier 2. I see the build up charge mechanic in the new ED pass too, sorry, but not a fan because you basically tend to run out of charges. At least I do.

this is on par with falconry, except that instead of using birb attacks you just have to attack

[Steelstar]

So, one char with HW, Scattershot, IPS and good positioning + 5-11 other chars, any classes, each spent 1AP spent in HW.

All (and each) marked targets get:
> -8 AC
> -20% Fortification
> -4 saves
> -10% movement speed
> +3d6x2 force damage on hit, scales RPw (opening shot)
> +6 dmg (scaling MPw, crit, doubleshot, helpless)
> Reflex save (d20+listen) or immobilize for 12 secs (corner quarry)
> Vorpals: stun with no save (same)
> 1d6 force dmg/char level (scales w RPw) when corner quarry is used
> Extraplanars: Will sv (d20+listen) or be banished (useful in many places)

If bow users only hit single targets, marking many mobs wouldnt matter. Its far from that, especially with Scattershot +IPS allowing 3 rows of multi target hits on mobs.

In order to create a new meta, some people will exploit flaws in the syatem and do the most boring, unfun and repetitive things possible. It wouldnt surprise me at all, hence my 2 cents saying this could be exploited

Not quite, no. Your Mark will do all that, but anyone who has just taken the 1st Core and nothing else in the tree will have a Mark that only does -2 AC, and not the (other -6 AC, -20% Fortification, -4 Saves, -10% Movement Speed). Their Marks will open up the rest of that for you to use on those targets, but you're the only one getting the rest of those since the other party members don't have Opening Shot, Corner the Quarry, etc.

[LurkingVeteran]

Not quite, no. Your Mark will do all that, but anyone who has just taken the 1st Core and nothing else in the tree will have a Mark that only does -2 AC, and not the (other -6 AC, -20% Fortification, -4 Saves, -10% Movement Speed). Their Marks will open up the rest of that for you to use on those targets, but you're the only one getting the rest of those since the other party members don't have Opening Shot, Corner the Quarry, etc.

I want to reiterate that Mark seems both weak and rather unfun for a signature ability. It basically gives a little bit everything in terms of debuffs, but none of them are individually noticeable, it's a small statistical improvement of various types of dice rolls.

This type of randomness with small statistical improvements are just not fun because a) you cannot use them to devise strategies that you can depend on in combat, b) it has little impact on gameplay, sometimes you will just win more dice rolls.

A more fun choice from a gameplay perpective would be to give it 20 (full) stacks of vulnerable, or a 50% slow. These always do what you expect and you can plan your gameplay strategy around them. The only dependable part of the current mark is the force damage and immobilize, but you need to spend two global cooldowns for that (regardless how fast the animation is), which is quite clunky in a fast paced game like DDO. If you want to stick with the current Mark, I would have these automatically mark the target at the same time.

I also want to reiterate that the scattershot likely could use a boost vs. Manyshot that already does 2-4x damage focused on one enemy (or a line). Having 3x damage split over 3 enemies seems almost always worse, but maybe it has some non-obvious extra in-game use I haven't considered. Either decouple these (adjust numbers appropriately) or give Scattershot increased damage, a CC, or something.

[ThomasHunter]

I’m a bit concerned that the marking mechanism is too slow. I was excited to see the tree. I watched Strimtom stream it yesterday and it seemed slow. I can’t tell why though. I noticed he was playing Illusionist with Fan of Blades. That makes me think this tree is lacking in the damage and/or being able to handle ANY crowds (although I think not handling crowds is specifically written into the design).

I’m still hopeful a couple more iterations will buff the tree quite a bit. I dream of a pure FvS using this tree!

[Yamani]

I’m a bit concerned that the marking mechanism is too slow. I was excited to see the tree. I watched Strimtom stream it yesterday and it seemed slow. I can’t tell why though. I noticed he was playing Illusionist with Fan of Blades. That makes me think this tree is lacking in the damage and/or being able to handle ANY crowds (although I think not handling crowds is specifically written into the design).

I’m still hopeful a couple more iterations will buff the tree quite a bit. I dream of a pure FvS using this tree!

Check the Known issues on the OP

[Khalibano]

Not quite, no. Your Mark will do all that, but anyone who has just taken the 1st Core and nothing else in the tree will have a Mark that only does -2 AC, and not the (other -6 AC, -20% Fortification, -4 Saves, -10% Movement Speed). Their Marks will open up the rest of that for you to use on those targets, but you're the only one getting the rest of those since the other party members don't have Opening Shot, Corner the Quarry, etc.

Thank you kindly for the clarification. So this rules out the possibility of exploiting debuffs. Im very glad about that!

I suppose player testing and time itself will show whether the rest of the opportunities that can be opened up through everyone using the core 1 mark will be abused or not, and if the abuse is significant enough to merit a nerf.

[Bacon_Burger]

I'll take back my earlier comment.

HW is ok, nothing OP, and designed fairly well.

However, it does NOT belong as a UT, this should be a Ranger/Fighter/Monk tree.

D-Door does not belong as a core, it should be T4 or 5.

It plays better than it looks on paper, but lacks "oomph"

Definitely a last "choice" as a UT. weak sauce as KK would say.