Arcane Archer

[TFerguson]

So both Deepwood and Horizon walker are great with the highest damage being some combination of the two.

Arcane Archer is the red-headed step-child of the archer trees.

Do the devs have any plans to take a look at this?

[Carpone]

I wouldn't hold my breath considering bows got a recent pass. It's an ok tree for heroics, but definitely drops off at end game. I recently did the calcs to see if Tier 3 Elemental Arrows could keep up with DWS (simply shifting all 15 AP from DWS into AA). Even with 600 Fire Spellpower on a Rogue 12/Ranger 6/Warlock 2, it wasn't close.

If you want bow power projection, it's all about Horizon Walker T5 and the capstone.

[TFerguson]

I wouldn't hold my breath considering bows got a recent pass. It's an ok tree for heroics, but definitely drops off at end game. I recently did the calcs to see if Tier 3 Elemental Arrows could keep up with DWS (simply shifting all 15 AP from DWS into AA). Even with 600 Fire Spellpower on a Rogue 12/Ranger 6/Warlock 2, it wasn't close.

If you want bow power projection, it's all about Horizon Walker T5 and the capstone.

Are your calcs available to see? Just out of curiosity.

[Enderoc]

Dudes like...I went to Tier 3 lol
Then goes braggart on a T5 ability
I will have everyone know level 1 spells are subpar to level 3...this is a public service announcement
Lol

[Carpone]

I'll post numbers when I summarize bows in a few days, similar to what I've done with repeaters and shuriken.

Dudes like...I went to Tier 3 lol
Then goes braggart on a T5 ability
I will have everyone know level 1 spells are subpar to level 3...this is a public service announcement
Lol

It's called an apples-to-apples comparison based on AP spent, but keep on trolling since you have nothing quantitative to share.

I've modeled out AA T5. It still falls behind Horizon Walker as it should. The fundamental problem with AA is that it's been around for more than a decade and has been largely untouched since release. The last time AA was relevant was 2016-ish when the imbues worked on shuriken. The tree has some abilities based on Ranger levels, rather than character levels. It's an important detail since AA is available to non-Ranger classes through racial enhancements. It also pigeon holes players into making really bad choices like going WIS for hit and damage, to try to have a functional DC for the various specialty shots. Those DCs don't come anywhere close to the 100 DC effects you get on end-game weapons.

[TFerguson]

I'll post numbers when I summarize bows in a few days, similar to what I've done with repeaters and shuriken.

Sweet, thank you!

[FixBows]

I'll post numbers when I summarize bows in a few days, similar to what I've done with repeaters and shuriken.


It's called an apples-to-apples comparison based on AP spent, but keep on trolling since you have nothing quantitative to share.

I've modeled out AA T5. It still falls behind Horizon Walker as it should. The fundamental problem with AA is that it's been around for more than a decade and has been largely untouched since release. The last time AA was relevant was 2016-ish when the imbues worked on shuriken. The tree has some abilities based on Ranger levels, rather than character levels. It's an important detail since AA is available to non-Ranger classes through racial enhancements. It also pigeon holes players into making really bad choices like going WIS for hit and damage, to try to have a functional DC for the various specialty shots. Those DCs don't come anywhere close to the 100 DC effects you get on end-game weapons.

I have to chime in here. I have both a paralyze and a HW archer. HW I did model after your build and the damage is very nice. Higher than I can get on my paralyze archer. However, I will say also that AA is not useless. I am not advocating taking 41 pts in the tree or anything or banking on the weak damage from the elemental arrows, but I can get over 100 paralyze DC (in reaper) and see no drop off between r1 - r10 with paralyze hitting (or fear). My HW build (modeled after yours) is great for raids and I really enjoy playing it. It plays much differently. I run faster, hit harder, can do traps, and love having the legendary red dragon armor fire damage (I was using that pre your last update En lieu of the Shadow Armor). However, I do find it much easier for solo play in reaper with my paralyze archer as I can run solo easily into mid reapers where it is harder on the HW to do the same simply because the cc is not reliable.

Bottom line it is a different build with different goals. HW is clearly the DPS winner, along with higher mobility and trapping. AA is better at cc and solo play. If built correctly, you still get some decent DPS, just not on par with HW.

Before you ask (again) my build is on my guild website. It is available in the public forums section of that site, but I refuse to post any build on this site anymore as they get directly targeted by the dev team to break. If you want the build, either you know where to look or you don't.