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  1. #1
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    Default Horizon Walker First Impressions

    After TR'ing to try the Saltmarsh expansion in heroic, I figured I'd try a build: A Favored Soul Longbow Horizon Walker. It's, admittedly, not an optimal build, so I'm not going to be looking too closely at balance, especially since I'm not familiar with Saltmarsh on other builds, but here are my first impressions (up to T4 in the tree solo, without other trees)

    1. Mark Target feels bad. I don't mean the abilities that it provides, but rather that the activated ability of Mark Target feels frustrating to use, especially in Saltmarsh. Because it triggers the GCD, it means that I have to wait about half a second before doing anything, making it awkward to fit into combat when switching targets and it delays engaging enemies. If I was trying to mark targets in a party in order to, say, take advantage of Opening Shot with a mark, I would have to constantly run ahead and aggro things so my abilities actually do damage. It also can't be used on "inactive" enemies, so going through the Saltmarsh expansion and wilderness areas, where many enemies need to be shot or approached first to become active, made the ability next to worthless since working it into my rotation would result in losing at least one attack (since it interrupts attack animations). As is, against weak enemies it's not great, and even against tougher enemies it doesn't seem to be particularly effective unless you're going to be doing at least a dozen attacks, since even with all the mark boosting abilities focused it probably only adds about 10-20% damage at lower levels without proper exploitation (which is extremely difficult because of the animation interrupt- you basically need to apply it before combat, which requires enemies to be spawned, targetable, and standing about to not interrupt attacking). Since marking targets is essential for some of the later and stronger abilities, this ability performing poorly and being frustrating to move is extremely detrimental to the tree as a whole.

    How would I fix this? Either have the first shot on a target apply mark and benefit from the effects, or at the very least have mark target not interrupt basic attacks.

    2. Conjure Arrow is 2 AP. This is, admittedly, not the end of the world for a 0 SP spell equivalent, but why is it there? It burns so many of your early spell points and it's just not competitive with conjure bolts in Inquisitive (which, while it maintains its SP cost, can, like Conjure Arrow, be cast outside of combat in town). I would much rather have the 3 AP progression than the 2 AP minimum. I have the same complaint with the AA version too- it's too expensive given the current enhancement economy, especially in some of the newer/updated trees.

    How would I fix this? Either make it a three rank 1/1/1 AP enhancement and keep the SP cost in line with conjure bolts from inquisitive or just make it 1 AP in general.

    3. There is a lot of maintenance of abilities. That's not a bad thing, but maintaining those abilities shows how poorly this tree performs. No Step Missed is great until you have an adventure that lasts longer than 10 minutes because the recharge rate is incredibly low- I would usually only recover maybe 1/2 charges by the time I had used five, and while my BAB is low as a FvS, it still seems really slow. Mark Target is a reasonably powerful ability at higher levels (though perhaps a bit underwhelming for a core) but it has the problems mentioned in my first point. Two Places at Once has no overlap with the recharge from manyshot/scattershot making it somewhat unforgiving (though, for a displacement effect from a regenerating resource, I can't be too salty). The SLA Haste (even if you were at level 20 and should theoretically be able to have 100% uptime), and Walker's Guidance all have to be constantly managed, cluttering hotbars and interrupting animations. Misty Step's ranged power boost also falls into this category, especially since forced movement can be extremely bad for a build that has, as some of its benefits, bonuses for STANDING STILL. You're basically pitting Archer's Focus against Misty Step instead of synergizing the two- Misty Step to get away so you can establish a position, Archer's Focus to reward not just kiting everything.

    How would I fix this? Make some of these passive effects. Fix Mark Target per my first point. Increase the regeneration rage for NSM charges. Mark Target changes proposed above. Perhaps (and this is a perhaps for balance reasons, because this is really strong) make the core 3 haste into core 4 and make it passive while moving core 4 dodge cap boost down to core 3. It back loads the benefits a bit, but makes them much less tedious. I don't know how I feel about Walker's Guidance. It's very strong, but I almost think it would be better replaced with something else or modified significantly. Traps are pretty predictable, and while having evasion can help with some of the more mandatory ones, having twelve seconds, by the time you've coordinated with an ally, with a one minute cooldown, makes it difficult to use usefully. If you want to make it useful for, say, ferrying a party without a trapper past mandatory traps, it eats several minutes of cooldown. If you want to make it useful for a Horizon Walker, the ally target requirement makes it less useful. I just don't think the ability works well in play, and I could be entirely wrong on that so I'm not going to get too up in arms about it, but it seems like more micro for something that most players either won't use much or would use if it wasn't so tedious to upkeep. Misty Step's ranged power bonus should be passive (which can be reduced if necessary) to make it so you don't have to constantly dash around like a possessed gremlin to optimize damage.

    4. Scattershot doesn't target foes. I can't seem to get it to do anything other than shoot straight ahead. While this does mean that it is more effective against single targets than expected, if you can line up straight at them, it's also, uh, bad if you can't. Manyshot, to my knowledge (I haven't used it since the rework) does not have this behavior. Additionally, the concept of Scattershot (an AoEish Manyshot variant) is contradictory to the Mark Target feature focusing on single target DPS. I do not like this ability fundamentally. Manyshot is a better fit here, and it already shares cooldowns and charges and only targets one creature (you know, like Mark Target), so why does this even exist? It's literally less thematic for Horizon Walker and less effective for their role than an existing feature. Either it should grant vanilla Manyshot or it should be changed to something useful for a single target.

    How would I fix this? Make it Manyshot instead of making it something unique and separate- that allows builds that already take Manyshot to bypass it (which they will do already) and builds that don't have Manyshot don't get a less effective, buggy version of the feature that was clearly intended to be used instead. Or, alternatively, make it a distinct and different styled bow attack that uses the same charges. But, in any circumstance, if there are no other changes, the ability needs to properly target foes.

    5. Point Blank Shot/Sneak Attack range. I know, this is infringing on Deep Wood Stalker a bit, but this is very valuable for ranged builds, especially since PBS is a prerequisite for Rapid Shot, a must get for any bow build. If you're not playing ranger or rogue, you have no other way to get this boost. I get that this could make HW seem a bit pay-to-win since this feature would be very useful, but even just with my rogue past lives I'm losing out on a good 3-7 damage per hit at low levels because I'm not getting sneak attack and about that again for missing out on PBS damage. I don't think this is that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but it definitely feels bad if you don't have access to that and you're losing out on some bonus damage, especially since PBS is basically a required feat because of its prerequisite status and the crit threshold increase.

    How would I fix this? Just add improved range to the cores, perhaps at a lower rate if there are balance concerns- two meters instead of five per core, per example, or ignore PBS/SA range limits on your marked target, or anything to make it not so frustratingly mandatory to take a feat that often only gives half its benefits unless you run up to enemies.

    6. Passive benefit availability. I'm playing a FvS HW build, which is sub-optimal (flame me in the comments below, I get it, I even built Charisma instead of Wisdom because I'm dumb and I don't want to LR just for that, so it's a bad build), but that does encourage me to compare things. If I look at War Soul, I can get, in my cores, 12 AC, 30 Fire/Light spell power, crit threat range with my favored weapon, DR 5/-, +4 CHA/WIS/STR and some active abilities. Horizon walker gives me... mark target benefits, some extra manyshot charges, +2 to all ability scores. Now, Mark Target can be very good, but debuffing one target is pretty meh compared to having huge defensive boosts. I can get, in my tree, +7 hit/damage with longbows, compared to HW's 3 (9 against marked targets, which would be good if marking wasn't tedious). I can get +2 AC, but it's a deflection bonus and only applies to Evil/Good (though the mind warding effect is pretty good). I can get BAB with all favored weapons while in HW I can get BAB with Longbow/Shortbow. Now, the active abilities of HW do more damage, but they're going to be at most maybe half of my attacks. There are also some extremely good passive abilities that focus around hunter's mark or improving your attacks- 1d10 force per character level scaling with your ranged power is good, but unfortunately it's so situational (or late in the tree) that I think it falls behind. I'm doing well with my HW because of my Ranger past lives- outside of marked targets, I actually get less benefit to my non-special ranged attacks from HW than from my three ranger past lives, my single enchant weapon (I don't play epic casters, don't sue me), and my fighter past life. A tree's passives that can generally be outperformed with a few stacks of past lives seems really bad to me, even if the actives (haste, displacement, etc.) can be really good since, as mentioned above, resource management and ability uptime is a huge chore on HW.

    Horizon Walker just doesn't have the oomph to be something compelling if I'm seriously considering my FvS tree for bows over the supposed bow universal tree. It doesn't have the "I can do something interesting with this" that Feydark Illusionist, Harper, and Falconry have. It doesn't even have the "definitive tree for a weapon type" that Vistani and Inquisitive have. This has solid "Well, it's handy if you have X, Y, Z, and a few spare AP" vibes. That's not a great impression. It doesn't get attributes to hit/damage (which, since its attribute is dex, makes some sense, except that bows generally don't add dex- that would be a good core 3/4 passive) unlike every other universal tree except Vistani, which is loaded with useful passive features. It gets active abilities, but unless you synergize them (usually involving the awkward process of marking a target) they aren't generally that amazing compared to other active abilities- the most interesting ones have nothing to do with bows, which, admittedly, is fine, but it does make me ask why this tree exists if it doesn't synergize with either a specific weapon or a generalist playstyle.

    How would I fix this? HW should have a full damage progression tree, or at least a mostly full one. Inquisitive has one. Vistani has one. More importantly, DWS and AA both lack them, which would make this work nicely alongside those trees. This would require some restructuring, and I can guess which features I would cut- Take the Opening is too situational for a two AP enhancement. The damage is good, but its second benefit is the only one worth having. I would roll the double force against marked targets into the third upgrade for Opening Shot and drop the 1d10 per character level, freeing up a spot in the tree for weapon progression enhancement (moving No Step Missed to that current spot would be fine- War Soul gets a very similar trance in T1). Two Places at Once is awkward for a 2 AP enhancement because of its duration. I would make it 6/12/18 seconds on three ranks and merge Protection from Evil and Good's mental ward into its third tier as a passive to free up a spot in progression (even if that meant the third rank would cost 2 AP). Eye for Accuracy can simply become the first rank of the damage progression.

    Additionally, a lot of the abilities seem very AP thirsty for what they give. Protection from Evil and Good is terrible value wise- it's basically 4 AP for for magical mind control and compulsion immunity, since it uses deflection and resistance which don't stack (unless this is listed inaccurately and it does stack) with some very basic must have defensive bonuses. Two Places at Once basically is a 4 AP investment if you count in the gimped and poorly themed Scattershot for builds that don't take Manyshot. Moving it to ranks per my previous suggestion would help uptime management and fix the price proposition for PfE+G's only good feature. 2 AP for conjure arrows is a lot for a low level character to spend or for someone who might just splash to get arrows without having to stop by a vendor. (Fix this in AA too please.) Take the Opening is just seriously underperforming given that you can only hit a creature at 100% HP once and you're unlikely to get it all the time in a party. Unless it has a grace period (say, 90%+ HP) it is simply too rare to use outside of cheesy first shots to pull (which sometimes can't be marked per the issues with Mark Target). It could be worth two AP if the ability is upgraded to be a little more flexible on that 100% number, but I think my previous suggestion is better.

    Now, I understand that I've offered a lot of feedback, and I don't want to say that I think that HW isn't a salvageable tree, nor that it's not useful in some circumstances. It's just clearly not a particularly impressive tree, and given that I would prefer completely weapon agnostic trees for archery (and their passive benefits) I don't think that HW is in a place that it should be. I know people are always going to jump on the "It's P2W!!@22!!11!" bandwagon if universal trees are too good, but this just doesn't compete on investment most of the time, unfortunately. At the point where a spellcasting class's weapon tree offers me more consistent damage and benefits, I have to wonder how things can be fixed. I think HW has a few damage abilities that are very powerful, but because of their power, the average damage has been undermined making the tree so situational that it doesn't benefit players most of the time. At higher levels, the mark benefits do begin to approach the tradeoff, but since the core mechanic is, at least in my experience, not fun to interact with as a player, I think it has some issues to be addressed still. I admittedly could tinker more with some of the high end features, give it some more time, but there's just too much that is so niche, so situational, so tedious compared to other trees. There are opportunities here, but most of those mean that I'm spending time to mark a trash mob so it dies in one fewer hit, but eating an attack to do it resulting in no practical benefit. It works alright against bosses, where it would actually help other bow trees, but unfortunately most of DDO is not spent shooting bosses a dozen times and I'm not convinced that it's more effective against bosses in terms of damage (though, again, the debuff is very good, it's just a matter of not being worth the time investment on trash mobs to apply constantly). If there was one change, and only one, it would be finding a way to make Mark Target not so tedious to move. Let players attack while using it. Let players mark automatically. Make it not an interruption to DPS and it would be fine. But as is, I only use it when I see a red name or a champion, and that's a shame for a core mechanic. If that was fixed, maybe, maybe the other problems could be overlooked, but for now, I'm afraid it's going to be languishing as a "I get free arrows for my archers" tree for me.
    I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
    Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)

  2. #2
    Community Member Sylveny's Avatar
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    I agree with most of this feedback, I don't know why this tree was release with so little changing based on the feedback players gave, most of the changes were internally discussed and done in spite of general community feedback, I don't know why that's how this universal tree was dealt with this way, but it's a bummer, Feydark Illusionist thread had so many good insights and player advice that were actually implemented, it's kind of frustating that this one was so frozen from that start that almost nothing changed, there is so many good feedback on the lamannia thread that was just ignored to make this class feel better ;/

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    Many of your thoughts were already addressed directly by Devs in the preview notes. I'm doing a running HW analysis in the ranger section if you want to hear my notes on the abilities. Briefly:

    Mark Target - I cover this extensively since this is the primary ability. This ability combined with all attached to it (including favored enemy) is incredibly powerful on reapers, champions, and red-names. HW is not an AOE trash killing tree as you've experienced.

    Conjure Arrows - a non-issue. You cast it once upon logging in and never have to cast it again. I like it being on T1 in HW because you don't have to waste points on something you won't use.

    Ability maintenance - yes there is. Like Monk, HW is an active playstyle. Great rewards for skilled gameplay. If a player doesn't want this activity then this tree isn't for them.

    Scattershot/Manyshot - They have different tactical applications. I use both. Proper use requires understanding the current combat situation not mashing buttons.

    PBS - covered in DWS tree. One tree can't have everything. That would be the pay to win mechanic you talk about.

    People who maximize HW are going to reap extraordinary benefits. Those who don't will feel meh about it.


    I am Awesomesauce!

  4. #4
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marshal_Lannes View Post
    Many of your thoughts were already addressed directly by Devs in the preview notes. I'm doing a running HW analysis in the ranger section if you want to hear my notes on the abilities. Briefly:

    Mark Target - I cover this extensively since this is the primary ability. This ability combined with all attached to it (including favored enemy) is incredibly powerful on reapers, champions, and red-names. HW is not an AOE trash killing tree as you've experienced.

    Conjure Arrows - a non-issue. You cast it once upon logging in and never have to cast it again. I like it being on T1 in HW because you don't have to waste points on something you won't use.

    Scattershot/Manyshot - They have different tactical applications. I use both. Proper use requires understanding the current combat situation not mashing buttons.

    PBS - covered in DWS tree. One tree can't have everything. That would be the pay to win mechanic you talk about.
    I agree with your feedback on maintenance- it's certainly not necessarily the end of the world to have to juggle things, and if that's WAI, it just means cluttering up hotbars.

    However, I don't think you necessarily grasped the crux of my feedback here, especially since you're doing an analysis in the ranger section. I'm not concerned about how this class synergizes with other Ranger trees necessarily (though I would like to see a damage progression tree in it)- it's a universal tree, and so it needs to (ideally) be somewhat class agnostic.

    Mark Target - I agree that it works well on reapers, champions, and red names, but that doesn't mean the points of friction can't be alleviated some. If your core ability doesn't work on trash at all, or is detrimental to your ability to kill trash if you use it on them, then you're basically binning it for a huge portion of gameplay.
    Conjure Arrows - How it works isn't a problem, it's an economy problem. HW is extremely demanding on AP, even compared to other universal trees, and it could be modified to avoid front loading so many costs without providing strong benefits.
    Scattershot - My primary complaint is that Scattershot seems to not work for me. I don't know if it works well for others, but *not aiming based on the target I have selected even though it lists foe as a targeting option* is probably not working intended, and the "you need to understand X/Y/Z" is forum shorthand for being elitist. I've played DDO for 13 years, I know that you can't just mash buttons and perform optimally, but I expect pressing a button to do what the tooltip says.
    PBS - Again, this is a universal tree- having to take a class to use a universal tree optimally is not ideal for a universal tree.

    I'm not trying to ignore your feedback, I'm just saying that as a universal tree this tree is still extremely situational and does not perform in line with other universal trees. It might work well with ranger, who can really leverage its features, but without passive bonuses to ranged power and doubleshot, and some basic utility to make ranged weapons more effective, this tree falls behind class based weapon agnostic trees (such as War Soul, which I switched over to and have been performing significantly better with while using a longbow) in its favored field, to the point where it's not worth the point investment differential. If HW offered a better return on AP investment, I think it could be very good. Unfortunately, it does not at the moment, and while some classes may be able to utilize this effectively, it really is pretty mediocre. Most of the other universal trees have a pretty clear niche- even Vistani, which I don't think necessarily competes with dagger related trees in specific classes, still offers a lot of utility. I don't think the same is true for HW at the moment- some very generalized trees offer pretty similar damage output without requiring hurdles, or awkwardness, or resource management. I'm all for requiring resource management to be effective- I've played a bunch of classes in games that had full rotations and required you to basically memorize and perform inputs to optimize and that's fine. But it should be rewarded, and I don't think HW does a good job of it- it's resource management to break even (with a few powerful exceptions, such as displacement from Manyshot or maxed out mark target bonuses) and that's just tedious in my opinion. If there are other options, that require no work, that do just as well or better, that's probably not rewarding skilled gameplay, that's adding unnecessary micro.
    I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
    Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)

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    You're playing a character you've admitted isn't properly built to take advantage of the tree, you admit the target marking works well against the enemies it's supposed to kill and your complaint remains...too hard to kill trash? Power gamers will tell you trash killing is irrelevant. Everyone can kill trash once you reach a certain power threshold. I don't fully subscribe to this, I think trash clearing is important unless you're a raiding character that only fills one role, but I get their point.

    If I were playing a favored soul that used a bow why would I care about trash killing? Holy Smite is going to blow up all trash. HW would target exactly what all casters have difficulty with - red names.

    We are going to run through a period where people keep getting frustrated with HW not mowing down waves of zombies until they realize they are wielding a rapier, not a chainsaw.

    HW offers a ridiculous amount of power in the first 24 points. There is also a ton of cross-class usefulness in Tier One. If you're going to keep beating this Conjure Arrows drum then don't take it. Opening Shot is something you'll want 3 points in any way. Dodge is useful to anyone in light armor. Search/Spot/Listen is useful to anyone with MC trapping. Everyone is going to take Taking the Opening, Walker Training, and FVE Evil Outside in T2 so that's 4 prime points. Everyone is taking No Step Missed 3 and Two Places at Once from T3 for 5 points. You also have Haste at this point. What exactly do you think is weak or filler from this?

    Finally, I suggest you keep practicing with Scattershot. It's a wonderful ability. Works almost exactly like Kevin Costner's gimmick in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves when he shoots two arrows - although here you get three! Since this also puts Displacement on you this is the primary trash killer/rush mob killer while giving you an excellent defensive benefit against those left alive. I mean you should be using Holy Smite here also and I don't see how anything in heroics is going to survive a Holy Smite/Scattershot combo attack.


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  6. #6
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marshal_Lannes View Post
    You're playing a character you've admitted isn't properly built to take advantage of the tree, you admit the target marking works well against the enemies it's supposed to kill and your complaint remains...too hard to kill trash? Power gamers will tell you trash killing is irrelevant. Everyone can kill trash once you reach a certain power threshold. I don't fully subscribe to this, I think trash clearing is important unless you're a raiding character that only fills one role, but I get their point.

    If I were playing a favored soul that used a bow why would I care about trash killing? Holy Smite is going to blow up all trash. HW would target exactly what all casters have difficulty with - red names.

    We are going to run through a period where people keep getting frustrated with HW not mowing down waves of zombies until they realize they are wielding a rapier, not a chainsaw.

    HW offers a ridiculous amount of power in the first 24 points. There is also a ton of cross-class usefulness in Tier One. If you're going to keep beating this Conjure Arrows drum then don't take it. Opening Shot is something you'll want 3 points in any way. Dodge is useful to anyone in light armor. Search/Spot/Listen is useful to anyone with MC trapping. Everyone is going to take Taking the Opening, Walker Training, and FVE Evil Outside in T2 so that's 4 prime points. Everyone is taking No Step Missed 3 and Two Places at Once from T3 for 5 points. You also have Haste at this point. What exactly do you think is weak or filler from this?

    Finally, I suggest you keep practicing with Scattershot. It's a wonderful ability. Works almost exactly like Kevin Costner's gimmick in Robin Hood Prince of Thieves when he shoots two arrows - although here you get three! Since this also puts Displacement on you this is the primary trash killer/rush mob killer while giving you an excellent defensive benefit against those left alive. I mean you should be using Holy Smite here also and I don't see how anything in heroics is going to survive a Holy Smite/Scattershot combo attack.
    My critique remains that Mark Target is clunky to use since it interrupts rotations on a tree that already offers about a half dozen resources to manage passively. Why doesn't it automatically apply on my first shot on an enemy and move on a subsequent shot? Probably problems with improved precise shot, since that would probably mess up applying it, but triggering the GCD is unnecessary and makes it feel uncomfortable to use in conjunction with other abilities. There are plenty of abilities that do not interrupt attack animations, do not mess with rotations, do not require to be put on first thing in combat to optimize your rotations that compete with Mark Target. Making it feel nicer would be something to improve player experience. I don't care if Mark Target is mechanically going to squeeze out 5% more damage than optimizing other bow trees. I care that it's not fun to use, especially if I'm soloing quests with lots of trash. Now, it is *extremely* useful once you get to high levels, and I'm not trying to say it's a bad ability, it's just a head scratcher to me why it has to feel bad to use, especially since its current implementation does a terrible job of synergizing with Taking the Opening if you're in a party since zerging encounters has mostly been the norm for years.

    It's not that I think HW needs to be an AoE DPS tree to be effective- though I do think that's why it is a problem that Scattershot does the *exact opposite* of everything you're working towards. I still don't have a good feel for the range and effect of Scattershot, and maybe I just don't like getting close enough, on an archery tree with very limited defensive buffs other than the displacement that doesn't activate until *after* I use the ability, to a bunch of mobs to benefit from a shotgun. I think, in particular, Scattershot is just a poorly implemented ability. Here's this tree The problem is that you're absolutely right about Holy Smite being effective. It's completely effective in heroics. It's so effective that it blows a lot of HW out of the water, and even into mid heroics I haven't seen a reason to prefer HW for using bows. It doesn't offer me much compared to the oodles of benefits in War Soul- all the bonuses to spell power, hit and damage, AC, etc. that are barely matched by the benefits of HW for soloing heroic. There are a few very strong abilities in HW- but it feels like the rest of the tree is garbage to compensate.

    Also, the conjure arrows bit is just an economy thing. Why is it 2 AP? Is there any mechanical purpose for what is basically a utility feature (since no one past level 2 is going to actually benefit from +1 arrows compared to just buying thousands of arrows other than to save on inventory space) to be 2 AP? Why would you give a tree a basically mandatory (in terms of player convenience) ability but then price it such that it competes, when you're starting to invest in the tree, with actually useful combat abilities? No one has ever been like "Oh, yeah, 2 AP is balanced." Saying don't get hung up on it is basically an excuse to not respond to my argument, which is that this does not need to be 2 AP. It's just an AP sink. It is only 2 AP to arbitrarily make the tree require an extra AP if you're not going to just buy arrows every other quest. Again, why does this need to be 2 AP? It's a hold over of older balance where enhancement trees were generally more expensive and back loaded. There's no reason for it to be there. And just because it doesn't have an SP cost doesn't justify it being 2 AP- if the SP cost matters, then it should be more expensive than the AA version which is also 2 AP. As a side note, I have said this about the AA tree specifically before too, so it's not just me being frustrated with HW economy, it's that I don't think Conjure Arrows has any gameplay reason to be 2 AP instead of 1 AP. If you're hellbent that it *should* cost 2 AP, I would love to hear a good reason for it. It feels like people only attack that opinion because it seems like a place where they can make it seem like I'm obsessing over something trivial, but even if it *is* trivial, there's no reason to have a trivial inconvenience if you could not have an inconvenience at all. I would love to free up that point to invest three in Opening Shot at T1 and not have to spend 5 points in T1 to maximize my T1 efficiency. I might grab the dodge and skills later, but for a universal tree I don't want to be stuck there for any longer than necessary. My points might go further in my own class trees, so why am I dumping extra into a universal tree just to optimize a basic convenience? Is there any improvement here to gameplay balance or benefit for other players?

    No, Conjure Arrows being 2 AP just delays investing in the parts of the tree that matter, which already cost quite a bit. Just because people are taking the 2 AP features like Take the Opening and Two Places at Once doesn't mean that HW is in a good place economically- it's just that if you're going to be investing in the tree, you might as well splurge for the really good abilities. These abilities being 2 AP might be balanced because of their power, but I can get a much better investment on a low AP Inquisitive build than I can on a low AP HW build. Even a low AP FI build could potentially snag me some pretty unique and powerful benefits that are fairly agnostic. The only low AP bonuses that I think are worth snagging from HW are the skill boosts and maybe the dodge for light armor builds. But HW is a tree for a martial weapon focus. It already has much heavier entry requirements than Vistani (with daggers) or Inquisitive (with non-repeating crossbows) which both utilize simple weapons. Having a high enhancement point cost overall to be "viable", combined with harder to reach prerequisites (though the feat pick cost is pretty similar to Inquisitive), makes me think that HW is economically disadvantaged compared to other trees. The incredible strength of two or three core abilities does not make up for the fact that the majority of the passive benefits are either extremely back loaded, not competitive, reliant on Mark Target (which is only particularly useful on its own with a relatively large investment), or simply lacking. Where is ranged power here? Where is doubleshot? I know it's supposed to synergize with other ranged trees, but none of the other universal trees need you to play an "optimal" class to be competitive. You could roll a barbarian, or an alchemist, or even a sorcerer Inquisitive and be fine (since your only SP cost is conjure bolts, you are almost certain to have access unless you're a first life character with no guild even if your class has no SP, and even then you can buy bolts if you're that hellbent on playing it that way). Unless you have a ranged damage tree and a martial weapon proficiency HW is dead in the water. Admittedly, that isn't as terrible as it sounds- most classes could always go elf to get proficiency and even the AA tree to synergize somewhat if they wanted. But that's still a whole lot more prep work than goes into grabbing most of the other universal trees.

    Looking at the cost of individual abilities simply provides a way to look at points where you might free up a couple AP to make the investment more competitive, or to smooth out progression in the tree at low levels when your AP does matter a lot. It's something that has been done in a lot of the overhauls for class specific trees in the past. Considering that bows are (at least according to many people on the forums) in a pretty bad place compared to other playstyles at the moment (which, to be fair, I am not entirely convinced of, since I've been having a pretty good time with my War Soul/HW archer build) I think there's some room to clean up a little bit of the rough patches to make it feel better for players. I'm not saying that HW is worthless, just that I don't think it's competitive to other build options. It's very backloaded for the mark target ability, which means that it is hard to fit into builds that already rely on two trees. It lacks buffs to ranged power and doubleshot, even though its abilities scale with ranged power. It, once again, has no ranged power. None. 0 points. No passive ranged power. It has ten percent doubleshot in a T5. That's it. You cannot fit this on anyone without ranged power sources from other things without being extremely reliant on Mark Target, and even then it cannot make up for the fact that you won't be gaining much if any damage. You get 1d10 force damage, on two abilities (one of which is going to be nerfed because of a cooldown oopsie and one which is limited to once per target maximum, so it doesn't even work more than once on huge bags of hitpoints, which is what the tree is supposedly good for dealing with), per character level, 3d6 force damage on a +3[W] attack, a +4[W] attack that doesn't even have any bonus damage other than a potential immobilize (which is trash compared to AA's paralyzing arrows in my opinion, though you can certainly argue that). Mark Target, at it's T5, reduces AC by 10, bypasses 25% fortitude (one of the strongest abilities in the tree in my opinion, though bow crit nerfs have made this less exciting), and reduces saving throws by 4 (which, without other saving throw abilities, you can only exploit on a 20 second cooldown once the bugged cooldown is fixed).
    In a 20 second rotation, starting and ending with Corner the Quarry, without other trees impacting things, +17[W] damage, and 60d10+9d6 force damage (being charitable and adding the opening shot 20d10 damage which technically shouldn't apply in this rotation). That's quite a bit of damage- assuming you're using a 5[W] longbow with standard damage dice and the ranged attacks scale that manipulatively (I can't remember if they scale off only the base damage or the modified value, so let's be charitable), that's 85d8 from your special bow weapon attacks for a total of 744 on average, with an additional 10% from doubleshot if you take T5, which gives ~818 total. You would also make, at maximum attack speed, 26 additional normal attacks for a total of 130d8 (585 on average)- but this damage is only impacted by the doubleshot boost from the T5, so that's an additional 58.5 damage from HW. We'll ignore ability score modifiers since HW doesn't impact those at all- presumably, with a different tree, you'd be using the same ability modifier. From the tree, on marked targets, you do an additional 9 points of damage per shot- 261 in the rotation of 29 shots, which becomes ~287 after doubleshot. That's a total of 1164 damage from HW's abilities and passive damage benefits, which can technically be modified by an additional 50% ranged power because of the increase to ranged power by increasing maximum stacks of archer's focus. That would double the first damage figures (because 200% scaling) and increase the rest of your damage by 50%, meaning that you get ~1636 from your active attacks and increase your normal damage rotation by 50% (which I won't calculate because that depends on weapon enhancement modifier, attribute damage bonus, etc.) but only in the ideal situation of being able to stand still the whole time. I'm not factoring in Scattershot, and I might get flak for this, but in single target DPS **MANYSHOT IS BETTER**. I don't get why a single target DPS tree gets an inferior ability. I should mention that if you hit all three arrows from scattershot or manyshot, that would technically add 2 additional shots to your attack rotation (though, actually, with the animation length, it might only add 1) but generally this has a negligible (less than 5%) impact on damage. Since the cooldown on charges is 12 seconds, you would only get one (be gentle to me here- I gave it opening shot damage too so I'm trying to help, I just don't want to figure two or three extra basic attacks per rotation). These get slightly improved critical, but unfortunately my math isn't good enough to factor all of this in with a few regular attacks having bonus criticals.

    In general, because I'm already doing too much math, I'm going to ignore criticals- the only bonus to critical hits that HW provides is the fairly standard 1x threshold and 1x multiplier that other weapon trees add, and calculating criticals makes this complicated. I know that this slightly disadvantages the fortitude bypass but I'm not good enough to make that math work right, so if someone else wants to do it, go ahead. It doesn't matter because I'm going to, for fun, compare to Inquisitive, who also gets 25% fortification bypass. Technically, since Mark debuffs enemies, these two could stack, but in a vacuum, you probably won't be using both on a single character.

    Inquisitive, on the other hand, fires about 44 bolts in the same time with their builds (based on https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...-speed-and-NHB and going with the benefit from Jaded not being impacted by U49's nerf to ranged alacrity- otherwise, these numbers would be inaccurate). With AHB, this would be about 77. Now, going for the target agnostic build, that's 12d8 to any target of law damage per hit. That scales with 150% ranged power. That's a total, with AHB, of 924d8!!! of law damage in 20 seconds and 528d8 without AHB. Let's say you're too lazy to push buttons other than AHB. That works out to ~4150 damage from AHB or ~2376 without. You have 35 ranged power from your tree, 15% doubleshot from the tree (effectively 7.5% for double crossbows though). This law damage is scaled by 150% of your ranged power, so that's about 6225 damage with AHB or 3564 before doubleshot. This is already close to double the damage of an optimized HW rotation, even before factoring in Shoot First/Later. We haven't even talked about the +6 damage per shot from the tree. There's just so much raw damage (which, mind you, works with IPS while your active attacks from HW don't, unless Inquisitive got nerfed since I last played it) so I don't get it.

    There are some additional differences in damage potential- Heavy Crossbows use d10s instead of d8s, and have a different crit profile, so obviously there's some screwiness there, and I'm also assuming you're using both trees in a complete vacuum without class, race, or feat synergy, which is perhaps a bit indirect, but at the same time, these are universal trees, and assuming you're using them in the optimal class/race/feat/meme compatibility mode is perhaps a bit unfair to begin with. Generally, I think my numbers are accurate at establishing a power differential between the two trees, and while I wouldn't say that the two need to be exactly balanced, seeing such a huge differential (about 4000 between AHB and HW and 1500 between brain off Inquisitive and HW just on one core feature) I hope you understand where my critiques come from. It's not that I don't think, independent of everything else, HW is bad. I just think it doesn't live up to the competition. That's why I think it should be more affordable, in order to better support other trees instead of trying to compete with them. Even if your Inquisitive build is truly head empty and you're not using action boosts or any other bonuses, that's still going to be better damage than HW on average I'm pretty sure (though you can always count on someone to do amazingly bad damage somehow). Meanwhile, HW has other things to manage and juggle and still can't even approach the same damage.

    Ultimately, HW is presented as a single target DPS tree. If it's supposed to perform in that role, I would expect it to be competitive with damage, but I don't see how it even comes close. So that's why I say it's not worth the investment. Sure, it offers some (very good, even) defensive bonuses, but archers generally just kite in DDO (which removes that 50% ranged power boost). I get that it helps, but it's just not worth investing in the role that it allegedly offers. If people have information from live that contradicts this and shows HW doing better damage than Inquisitive on single targets, I would love to be proven wrong, but I think my point stands.
    I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
    Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)

  7. #7
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    As a much shorter addendum to my previous post, HW also has a problem with actually being universal. Only a handful of classes get access to proficiency with Longbows or Shortbows by default (Barbarian, Bard*, Cleric**, Favored Soul**, Fighter, Monk***, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue*) compared to every class being able to use daggers for Vistani (though Monks require an enhancement to treat them as ki weapons) and every class except druid being able to use crossbows for Inquisitive (though Monks cannot use crossbows as ki weapons). Now, Universal doesn't necessarily need to be applicable for every class, but given that it is much more heavily restricted, I think a deep approach to analysis of the universal trees for balance does need to remember that you can't use HW in the same way people use, say, Inquisitive (to slot in on any class because you just don't want to play that class). Needing to synergize with existing class enhancements and features should reflect in performance benefits or AP discounts relative to other, more universal trees that do not need to do so. If you're going to need to splash another tree, at least make HW synergize with that tree (such as by having a full damage progression, for example, which no other bow specific trees have to my knowledge) instead of just being a worse universal tree than taking the lazy way out and going Inquisitive.

    *Only shortbow.
    **As favored weapons of their deity only.
    ***Requires Zen Archery to use as a Ki Weapon, and I don't believe that grants proficiency unless I'm missing something.
    I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
    Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)

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    I disagree.


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  9. #9
    Community Member CSQ's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Marshal_Lannes View Post
    I disagree.
    Ah, yes, the classic forum elitist contrarian. First you always have to accuse people of being bad at the game. Then you insist it works fine for you, so it's a personal problem. Then, someone does the math to prove the problem, and instead of conceding that maybe, just maybe there's a problem with something, and that there might be reasons to make a positive change based on feedback you just always have to disagree because "it works for me lol git gud".
    I primarily play Zunzyne Siegemaker, and am the guild master of Ares Macrotechnology on Ghallanda.
    Reaper Experience Calculator: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...ewE/edit#gid=0 (out of date as of U42.4, needs testing for new values)

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    Quote Originally Posted by CSQ View Post
    Ah, yes, the classic forum elitist contrarian. First you always have to accuse people of being bad at the game. Then you insist it works fine for you, so it's a personal problem. Then, someone does the math to prove the problem, and instead of conceding that maybe, just maybe there's a problem with something, and that there might be reasons to make a positive change based on feedback you just always have to disagree because "it works for me lol git gud".
    There is nothing more for me to elaborate on. I don't agree with your assessment. I don't find marking a target difficult. It's actually rather seamless. Perhaps try mapping your keys differently. I don't agree about conjure arrows. I don't agree that inquisitive is better vs red named. I don't agree with your view on Scattershot and have explained why. HW is a single target tree, it's not optimized for clearing trash. We both agree with that, don't we? You seem to feel this is a drawback and that's fine. If you want a trash killing class there are plenty of them in the game. I've even pointed out in your build that Holy Smite is a far more effective way to deal with trash. Holy Smite in heroics is going to be a superior choice to a lot of things. I've not played it in epics yet so I'll have to see how it does there but in heroics HW has a specific feel and has plenty of power although, of course, optimized trash killing classes will outperform it in kill count.


    I am Awesomesauce!

  11. #11
    Community Member wax_on_wax_off's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by CSQ View Post
    As a much shorter addendum to my previous post, HW also has a problem with actually being universal. Only a handful of classes get access to proficiency with Longbows or Shortbows by default (Barbarian, Bard*, Cleric**, Favored Soul**, Fighter, Monk***, Paladin, Ranger, and Rogue*) compared to every class being able to use daggers for Vistani (though Monks require an enhancement to treat them as ki weapons) and every class except druid being able to use crossbows for Inquisitive (though Monks cannot use crossbows as ki weapons). Now, Universal doesn't necessarily need to be applicable for every class, but given that it is much more heavily restricted, I think a deep approach to analysis of the universal trees for balance does need to remember that you can't use HW in the same way people use, say, Inquisitive (to slot in on any class because you just don't want to play that class). Needing to synergize with existing class enhancements and features should reflect in performance benefits or AP discounts relative to other, more universal trees that do not need to do so. If you're going to need to splash another tree, at least make HW synergize with that tree (such as by having a full damage progression, for example, which no other bow specific trees have to my knowledge) instead of just being a worse universal tree than taking the lazy way out and going Inquisitive.

    *Only shortbow.
    **As favored weapons of their deity only.
    ***Requires Zen Archery to use as a Ki Weapon, and I don't believe that grants proficiency unless I'm missing something.
    Go Elf.
    Or even better, Wood Elf.
    Or Half-elf (Ranger Dilettante).
    Or Sun Elf.
    Quote Originally Posted by Feather_of_Sun View Post
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