UPDATE 58 PREVIEW 1 - Dark Hunter Ranger

[Mindos]

With Hunt's End and Sniper shot does anyone actually give a fig about a ranged assassinate?

This is a great point, thank you. If your DPS is high enough/on demand does this Archetype appeal to you?

[Ereshkigal]

There is a good chance that using the Elf Racial AA may not be allowed if the archetype prohibits it.

I bet there's zero chance of that happening tbh. I guess we'll see tho.

[Illiain]

Action Boost does not have any charges with both Skills or Sprint.

[salmag]

I like the premise of this tree.

However, I would switch the Pet stuff the core stuff.

Core 1 - Dark Wolf.
Core 3 - Furor of the Hunter
Core 6 - Primal Energy
Core 12 - Lupine Instincts
Core 18 - Ferocity

Tier 1 - On the Hunt
Tier 2 - Smoke Trap
Tier 3 - Escape through the Dark - This makes ZERO sense. If you turn invisible, you're gaining sneak attack dice. Sounds as if you are doubling down on fighting, not leaving the battlefield. add the sneak speed here.
Tier 4 - Death Stalker.
Tier 5 (new) - Bind Heart/Temptation - When you score a hit, roll a Fort save or be paralyzed. if save is made, slow target for 6 seconds. Can only effect the first Mob hit. Crowd Control should be somewhere in this tree.

Just a few suggestions at first glance.

[R1ncewind]

Most of this has probably been captured elsewhere, but here's my feeling about this (context: I love rangers, trapping, and utilize 1 or both in 60% of my builds)

This tree seems so absolutely disjointed. We have:

• a melee power scaling imbue (with zero class support for dice)
• a ranged assassinate
• a melee improved crit requirement
• a high point investment pet (already useless in most content) with no personal benefit other than Watchful Eye (which most ranged characters will get anyway)
• several slow cast combat SLAs on a non-caster
• T5's giving 15 prr to allies, a small amount of DS, and lastly a very common effect in True sight that can be had from items from low heroics. And to top it off, a questionable visual effect to make .01% of the game look slightly clearer.

The idea of Archetypes is something I love. One of my favorite things from pathfinder which I play religiously. Minor adjustments that allow me to make really cool build combinations even with the same base class composition.

The only time I see myself playing this archetype is to get a couple extra SA dice on builds that are already 100% allocated with AP. No reason to even change the build. Just extra dice, I guess.

I don't want to be a negative Nancy, but this is just too disjointed and lackluster for me to care if I forget to use the archetype on the designated build.

I agree completely, heck even the capstone is related to the imbue dice, but since its in it, you can get dices from multiclasing.. so Uh? don't forget there is no competence bonus to HP in this tree either...
maybe add something like for every 2 SA dice you get an imbue dice, you can add this in the capstone too or in the 18 core for example, or make it every 3 SA maybe? I really don't know how to help this tree without major surgery.

[spifflove]

So who would want to play a regular ranger when you get 5d6 sneak attack dice with this monstrosity with almost no downside?

[Coffey]

I use both dual Scimitars and Bow while i play my Tempest Trap Monkey. I like the ability to lean on the extra 4 dice from AA for very little investment (12 AP). This allows me a better Tempest Electric Imbue and and an AA Bow imbue. Utilizing both weapons makes this character so much more fun to me. Same with Daggers and Throwing Daggers.

I wont be able to do this effectively if i can only use Elven AA with a cost of 14 AP. This AP cost has always made me feel disappointed. AA enhancement tree even locks out the cores 5 and 6 until levels 22 and 25.

I really only want the ability to trap and Pick locks without MC with Rogue or Artificer. The Wolf would be really cool add too if i new it was tanky enough to play with in all difficulties. Just like having another hireling to look after constantly which i have accepted as a fun challenge every time i play with one. This Wolf should be as Tough as the PM Skele at least. Unique skills similar to the Druid Wolfs bluff would be really cool. And a different type of Mark Target ability the creature could do automatically on contact with an enemy.

[Mamalian]

This is a great point, thank you. If your DPS is high enough/on demand does this Archetype appeal to you?

I'm not sure yet? Need to see the finished form and have somebody smarter than me figure out the how this works all together.

I'm just wondering the point of building for a ranged-assassinate when a Hunt's End/Sniper shot pretty much one-shots anything.

[Ereshkigal]

I agree completely, heck even the capstone is related to the imbue dice, but since its in it, you can get dices from multiclasing.. so Uh? don't forget there is no competence bonus to HP in this tree either...
maybe add something like for every 2 SA dice you get an imbue dice, you can add this in the capstone too or in the 18 core for example, or make it every 3 SA maybe? I really don't know how to help this tree without major surgery.

It's like - when you can't look at the tree and instantly tell what the goal was, there's a problem.

It's as though they had different people come up with different unrelated ideas then voted on their favorite bits and threw them together, with no regard to whether or not going to tier 5 in the tree would actually be useful.

Frankly it's disappointing. Dark Apostate is the same way. Maybe they want to send a message that anything "dark" is not optimal? heh.

I mean DA is nice for a low AP splash onto another build, but that's about it.


If they're all going to be this way moving forward, ok... I guess it's a good thing they're not trying to sell them.

[Gralhota]

Each wiz enhancement is pretty much already an archetype in its own right. A bit hard to swap in a new tree that is more defining than EK or PM.

Both could go deeper, so maybe rename the current EK tree to Battlemage and PM to Undeath and add new Eldritch Knight and Pale Master trees that complement the old ones and bring them to a new level (An EK is a warrior as much as a mage, so give them Fighter bonus feats, and a new melee tree with int to hit+dmg and better BAB? PMs are known to replace body parts with undead ones (as feats so its a more permanent decision?) and the tree could do more with the undead than just summon one skeletal buddy, and give some melee abilities to make up for the loss of EK

The new Wizard types would then be:

Wizard=BM+UD+AM
Eldritch Knight=EK+BM+AM
Pale Master=PM+UD+AM

(I guess the Death Knight would be better suited as a paladin archetype.)

Archmage urgently needs a rework, that's what the vast majority of wizards want.

Pale Master ok, excellent work when it was created.

EK Was born dead.

Archmage is totally out of line.

Every Wizard is a PaleMaster in the game. Playing with Archamage as the main tree is... put the adjective you want.

[Gralhota]

This is me! I am ultra casual, most I will do is elite. I went into a R1 and died the second i stepped in hot lava in the triceratops iod. I like at least having a chance of surviving a trap or something!

Even though I am not happy about some things in this, overall i am actually pretty happy because I get to trap/secret doors AND do some ranger stuff! Win win for my noob heroic-playing self.

There's a lot of people who don't even have time to get on the hamster wheel, even if it was their will.

I have a review of the game on steam, I'm almost sure it is the most awarded evaluation and I wrote Portuguese/BR. Right now I'm using a translator, I'm Brazilian.

Even when I'm not playing, unmotivated with the game, I ALWAYS get requests for help on Steam about the game, because people read my review, feel like playing.

Most of them are players who don't know the D&D universe, have never heard of it, arrive at the DDO because they're tired of the old WoW form of MMO.

Sometimes I spend 1-2 hours talking, explaining, helping these people get into the game.

To sum up: Most are not in the mood to be the ground detonator badass of R10, they like the idea of being able to do whatever they want, create whatever they want with what is available in the game, are not worried about being the best.

[AbyssalMage]

Bleed the Weak: Imbue Toggle: 1d8 Bleed damage, scaling with Melee Power. Increases to 1d10 vs enemies below 50%, and increases again to 1d12 against enemies below 25%.

Death Attack: Ranged Assassinate. Balance TBD. From the pen and paper source, this is essentially a copy of the ability Assassinate from Assassin, so we're looking into a way to differentiate it from the Rogue ability. Open to suggestions on this front!

huh?

also the crit range (melee only?) is a bit vague

Bleed the Weak should scale with melee or range power. Hopefully it was a typo.

Death Attack isn't finished per their posting. It is a place holder and they are hoping for community feedback.

[spifflove]

After digging up an old dungeon masters guide I came up with the following solution:
1) Eliminate all 3 original ranger trees and
2) New cores
1-Wolf follower
3-Bear follower
6-Gryphon follower
12-Treant follower
18-Copper Dragon follower

[unbongwah]

Blade Specialization: You gain a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier with your weapons. If you have Improved Critical: Piercing, this bonus to Threat Range is doubled.

This currently gives +2 Competence critical multiplier bonus to any weapon (not just Piercing weapons) as long as you have Improved Critical Piercing.



I feel like this is probably not WAI but want it to be WAI.

[droid327]

This currently gives +2 Competence critical multiplier bonus to any weapon (not just Piercing weapons) as long as you have Improved Critical Piercing.

I feel like this is probably not WAI but want it to be WAI.

Well its not like Barb T5s dont give a universal +2 crit mult too...and, like Barb, there's no Comp crit range. Taking that enhancement locks you out of Tempest T5s as well, which is a big opportunity cost since that's basically the main reason to run a TWF Ranger

Its not doing anything you couldn't do right now with a Barb Swash. Maybe even better with a Barb Swash, considering how the rest of the DH tree is pretty meh...

[cru121]

A few posters noted that Dark Hunter does not give up enough and essentially gets stuff for free, compared to a standard ranger. Here are some ideas.

Dark Hunters get two new class skills. Maybe they should also lose some skills. Maybe Heal and Swim? A tiny loss there, but it's something.

Rangers get quite a lot of bonus feats. What if we took away some? For example, what if Dark Hunters had to give up: 3x TWF, Bow Strength, Die Hard, and Manyshot? Instead, they could get a fighter bonus feat at levels 6 and 11 (and all the Dark Hunter trap-related goodies).

----

Also, not sure if this has been posted; this seems to be the prestige class that served as the inspiration for this archetype: https://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/d...ter/index.html

[Mamalian]

So who would want to play a regular ranger when you get 5d6 sneak attack dice with this monstrosity with almost no downside?

The favored enemy selection is a wash.

[spifflove]

A few posters noted that Dark Hunter does not give up enough and essentially gets stuff for free, compared to a standard ranger. Here are some ideas
Rangers get quite a lot of bonus feats. What if we took away some? For example, what if Dark Hunters had to give up: 3x TWF, Bow Strength, Die Hard, and Manyshot? Instead, they could get a fighter bonus feat at levels 6 and 11 (and all the Dark Hunter trap-related goodies).

----https://dnd.arkalseif.info/classes/d...ter/index.html

Ranger ranged feats ought to remain intact even if it means no one plays the old ranger. I would be in favor of swapping twf to thf unless an archetype is on the books that would do that in the future.

That would fix my objections and fear of needing the old ranger without nerfing the new ranger.

Removing the tempest tree would also remove my objections and create a world of melee old rangers and ranged dark rangers.

[Wahnsinnig]

I can honestly not understand why they are adding trapmaking to Dark Hunter.

As it is now trapmaking is a complete waste of time in DDO, they are not useful for anything. The only thing that was ever useful was noisemakers, but after an AI change monsters stopped reacting to them.

It would be better to just delete it from the game. Less junk, less unused code.

[SpardaX]

I can honestly not understand why they are adding trapmaking to Dark Hunter.

As it is now trapmaking is a complete waste of time in DDO, they are not useful for anything. The only thing that was ever useful was noisemakers, but after an AI change monsters stopped reacting to them.

It would be better to just delete it from the game. Less junk, less unused code.

Have you actually tried to use them?

Because I can assure you, they can be excellent if you have the DC boosters out of Mechanic or now this tree. I put some web traps to incredible use last Hardcore. You can catch a whole room worth of enemies in one.

Or the Fear traps. Throw one down, watch the enemies run away from you.
Pull out your bow.

Work wonders.