UPDATE 58 PREVIEW 1 - Dark Hunter Ranger

[wenjiang33601]

New Archtype for Ranger

New Tree: Dark Hunter
Replaces Arcane Archer

Themes: Assassination, sneaking, hunting, trapmaking, scavenging, throwing weapons


Changes from Base Class

Feats and Features Added:

• Trapfinding (1)
• Trap Making (3)
• Trap Sense +1 (3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18) (same as rogue and barbarian)
• Sneak Attack 1d6 (1, 5, 10, 15, 20) (every 5 levels instead of every 2, means they get half of the sneak attack dice as Rogue does, 5d6 instead of 10d6)

Ranger Features Removed:

• All Favored Enemy feats that are not: Vermin, Elf, Aberration, Animal, Humanoid, Monstrous Humanoid

Spellbook:



Added:

• Curative Admixtures

Removed:

• Cure spells (they get admixtures)

Skills:

• Dark Hunters gain Open Lock and Disable Device as Class Skills

Past Life

• Dark Hunter: +1 Sneak Attack and +1 Sneak Attack Damage per stack

Core 1:

Underdark Stalker: You gain +5 HP and +1 reflex saving throw per core ability you take in this tree.

Core 3:

On The Hunt: When you strike someone with weapons you gain +1% dodge for 6 seconds, stacking 3 times.

Core 6:

Smoke Trap: Throw a smoke grenade at a target, if they fail a fortitude save (DC20 + Dex Mod + Assassinate + Trap DCs) they lose their immunity to sneak attack and 25% of their fortification for 25 seconds. (Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Core 12:

Escape Through the Dark: Whenever you become Invisible, your Sneak Attack Dice are briefly doubled. This lingers for 5 seconds after you become Invisible and may only trigger once every 60 seconds.

Core 18:

Death Stalker: +25% Sneak Speed. While you are sneaking, you gain a 5% enhancement damage bonus to your melee, ranged and unarmed attacks. This lingers for 10 seconds after you leave Stealth. (note: this does not stack with the Relentless Fury item affix)

Core 20:

Hunter in the Dark: +2 Dex, Int, and Wis. +10% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. +10 Melee and Ranged Power. Your Cull the Weak bonus now applies against enemies that are Blind.

Tier 1:

Dark Wolf: You gain a Black Wolf as an Animal Companion. Each rank also gives you +5 HP.

Wolf Hide: (req Dark Wolf) +2/4/6 PRR

Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks

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%.

Awareness: +1/2/3 Listen, Search, Spot, and to-hit.

Tier 2:

Furor of the Hunter: Your Black Wolf gains +3/6/10 to hit and damage, +2/4/6 Primal Bonus to AC, and its attacks bypass 10%/20%/50% of enemy Fortification.

Assassin's Training: +1/2/3 Assassinate DCs.

Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks

Improved Traps: +1/2/3 to the save DC's of Alchemical Trap Attacks and Magical Traps. Elemental Traps that you place now have a DC equal to 65/80/100% of your Disable Device Skill instead of 50%.

Action Boost: Skills or Sprint

Tier 3:

Primal Energy: Your Black Wolf gains a +2/+4/+6 Primal Bonus to all Ability Scores.

Snap Trap: Toss a snapping trap at the targeted enemy. If they don't make a Fortitude Save (DC 20 + Dex Mod + Assassinate + Bonus Trap DCs) they are rooted in place by the trap's jaws.

Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks

Use Magical Device: +1/2/3 Use Magic Device

+1 Dex / Int / Wis

Tier 4:

Lupine Instincts: Your Black Wolf inherits your Search and Spot scores, and will automatically find traps and secret doors for you assuming you meet the statistical threshold.

Slayer in the Dark: Killing an enemy grants you a +5 Morale bonus to Melee and Ranged Power, stacking 2/3/4 times. Duration: 20s
Sneak Attack Training: +1 Sneak Attack die and +1 to hit when performing sneak attacks

Smoke Bomb: Smoke Bomb SLA

+1 Dex / Int / Wis

Tier 5:

Ferocity: You gain +10% Doublestrike and Doubleshot. Your Black Wolf gains 25% Attack Speed and 100% Fortification Bypass.

Stone's Hue: Your Camouflage spell also grants the target +1 PRR per 2 caster levels, max caster level 20.

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!

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.

Dark Sight: You have True Seeing. You may also toggle this on to gain Underdark Sight while within the Underdark.

Known Issues:

• Several icons have not been finalized.
• All visual effects have not been finalized.
• The Tier 5 Death Attack is not complete, see tree for details.
• Open Lock and Disable Device skill trains have some issues

Make it like dance of wind but it’s for 10sec add triple sneak dice

[VinoeWhines]

Yes or the rogue,

Save the rogue, bring down the timer on assasinate, up the crit multiplier range of daggers, up the Dex bonus to dodge, so many mobs are immune to the sneak attack it’s mostly useless. Make reapers blind to the sneak of rogues and be able to assasinate. Perhaps then you can keep the assasin build viable.

Hopefully the rogue archetypeS will really outshine.

DDO dev's don't play/tolerate Rogues.
1. They took away Cheat Death from Rogues(Monks have Rise of Phoenix).
2. Mechanic Rogues had pet dog, now gone to Artificers and boosted every Mechanic feat away from Mechanical Rogue.
3. Rogues had flasks and vials to throw at targets, now they made Alchemists do the same but 20 times better.
4. Assassinate should be Prestigious and end game powerful(at touch distance), now Dark Ranger can do it from their couch and not have any liability from accessing it.
5. Oh yah, that trap thing Rogues do....well Rangers can now do it better, they can send a lupine canid and spot it, but here's the kicker, you know those traps Rogues can disable and get jack squat nothing for? Well Rangers can one up that and throw those stupid traps from a distance at a target and use it against them(Flying Bear trap).
How youlike dem apples?(ShamWow guy face)

Don't mention Shadow Dancer E Disfunction(Executioner Strike/Shot, Shadow Manipulation, Consume, separate Meld clicky[could of Tier V'd it to end Dodge% version of it], Tumble through enemies ALL OF IT, gone?) Locked out of Weird, but your buddy Artificer strolls on by to pick it up.
Horroic, Waahhaund and Scroll Mastery thrown in there as place holder to no avail.

On a positive note, the other add on's are pretty cool/neat for Ranger, the pet wolf should be able to Trip/attack mob or maybe disable the trap, like in the arcade game SEGA's Shadow Dancer pet wolf(you send it forth to draw aggro and have to engage the enemy before your wolf dies, so the wolf at least can sustain 5 seconds of damage and give yourself the ability to call your wolf back before it dies, to heal over time.)
Do that instead of throwing bear traps, and send the wolf to attempt to assassinate target on a two plus minute cooldown(wolf will be able to climb ladder[at half character climb speed] in stealth to go for the kill. So point and click it to attack. If wolf dies you need to take it to a rez shrine, then you can attempt the instakill again.(death-timers/neg-levels timers?)

While we're at it: make characters that are by the Rest Shrine not get the self heal penalty/debuff in Reapers, that way if you want to heal faster, you have to make yourself run to the Shrines(also giving a healing aura AOE buff) if you want to heal faster, or buy a Rest Shrine from ddo store.
The Lost Soul should give back SP AND HP, now it does nothing for melees.

[Malusny]

Please fix the stacking Sneak Attack Damage die in the ranger archetype as people bragging to get 3000+ SA die easily.
Cheers.

[ideal_insomnia]

Really excited about this archetype. Ranger is one of my favourite DDO classes and this archetype seems to mesh perfectly with the way I play both Tempest and Archer lives. Now I won't have to do a Rogue splash and might, for once, get the level 20 capstone! Will definitely try it out once it's released.

I guess my only concern is the pet. Thematically, it rocks. But with pet AI being what it is, a pet would absolutely ruin any chance of successfully sneaking around. It might get aggro for enabling sneak attacks though. Still, I kinda hope that pet AI will be improved further (maybe with better ways to control pets?), it still needs work.

Also, this archetype would've been absolutely amazing with a Drow Iconic - Umbragen!

[FuzzyDuck81]

Certainly looks interesting overall, though a few things that stand out to me;

On the hunt - pretty weak for a core, especially since many people will likely be maxing out their dodge later.. maybe let it stack so it can go above the normal dodge cap? at only 3% maximum it'll become a nice boost later on but not overpowered considering other feats & abilities.

dark wolf - ok, an animal companion for a ranger at last is pretty nice & obviously you can't use a panther for licensing reasons, gonna assume this works like the pale master skelly, but if it can be equipped with gear like the druid/artificer ones then that definitely adds some interesting possibilities including the chance for PM skelly to be adjusted which would be really nice.

wolf hide - needs to be for both you and the wolf

use magic device - unusual since dark hunter doesn't get it as a class skill, i'd say either make it a class skill or maybe replace it in favour of borrowing another feature from alchemist/artificer by having it give a boost to the caster level of potions & clickies, maybe even call it "utility belt" as a nod to the classic "batman" build.

ferocity - add a competence bonus to HP here... since the tree is a hybrid of melee & ranged, maybe just a 15% boost like eldritch knight rather than the full 25% of "proper" full melee types. It'd also be better than adding the HP boost as a multiselector with the ranged assassinate since that'd defeat the purpose of having the situational adaptability.

hunter in the dark - what is the "cull the weak" bonus?

blade specialisation - wording is ambiguous/typo? needs clarification

I also think quick draw needs to be added somewhere as this tree is clearly meant to switch between melee & ranged styles on the fly so make it easier to do so. Maybe even incentivise it for a tactical approach by adding something like "improved quick draw, if you possess the quick draw feat then on switching weapons you gain a bonus to your melee & ranged power equal to your BAB for 12 seconds" (or something along those lines).

For the death attack, add a debuff named something like "hounded" or "target of the hunt" to whatever you hit with it then give the wolf a separate buff that lets them get a significant damage boost (like 100% plus ignores fortification) on anything effected by that debuff - it'd give the wolf a bit of extra utility & have a nice extra flavour of having the wolf be a useful companion for taking on bosses/instakill immune enemies. For extra funsies, have that buff be an added benefit of the boosts granted by augment summoning so if you have multiple party members with a companion, they can all throw in.

The idea of a "if it bleeds, we can kill it" kind of ability to strip bleed immunity to let the imbue work is a nice one too, maybe add it as an on-vorpal effect to blade specialisation.

[Seph1roth5]

I don't get why devs acknowledge things are useless/pointless, such as wands, stat damage, and pets, but KEEP PUTTING THEM IN. At least with wands there was a halfhearted "maybe we'll update those someday."

But please stop wasting space in the game on systems and effects that are universally known as trash

[Diracorvus]

I don't get why devs acknowledge things are useless/pointless, such as wands, stat damage, and pets, but KEEP PUTTING THEM IN. At least with wands there was a halfhearted "maybe we'll update those someday."

But please stop wasting space in the game on systems and effects that are universally known as trash

Except that you are wrong, these things are not trash and you saying so does not make it a universal fact. Maybe you are just not the target audience for this archetype. That's not a problem though, this game has lots to offer for everyone. That doesn't make anything "wasted space".

[Haphazarduk]

How will ranged assassinate work with IPS? If it only hits one target that’s an immediate difference between Rogue and Ranger.

I agree Rogue assassinate should have a lower CD - 8 or even 6 seconds. If the concern is that’s too good for reaper then maybe make it single target only or increase the CD by 5% for each skull. Could probably do that for all insta-kill effects rather than pumping saves so much.

Hap

[Dazednconfused]

So you made a tree that focuses on a useless pet in anything harder than Hard difficulty and trapmaking which I have not seen used in ever.


Slow clap....

I think you are missing the point. It's a ranger with disable traps. This is great for multiclassing. Who cares about the tree? with 6 levels i have multi shot, and improved two weapon fighting, and now I can trap. I will probably still splash 2 rogue for evade and the imbue weapons, but not necessarily. with only 2 classes, I can use a 20 respec for any class reincarnation. This is a great option for melee caster. I like a 12/6/2 combo. Having traps makes this a better overall combo. with new imbue rules, assassin tree is better than a/a (unless you have lots of points available)

[kiaoto]

Dark Hunter:

My View on the tree:

Blade Specialization:
change Blade to weapon specialization and add improved critical: Ranged.

NOTE ON Death Attack: seen many casters aoe 1 shot groups of monsters. having a range assassinate will not be overpowered. Having it not work on some red bosses seems like a legit ability. killing 1 versus rogue who can assassinate 2 or 3 close mobs still give rogues melee assassinate a +. Keep the CD for around 15 seconds.

An assassin without backstab? somewhere there it needs a backstab attack. Doesn't necessarily have to be an instant kill shot like assassinate is.

Core 3: On The Hunt: Lame - do away with.

Core 6:smoke Trap: Lame - change it to while in stealth your attacks have a chance to remove immunity to sneak attacks. Don't want to come out visible just debuff them while I get more deadly sneak attacks such as assassinate.

The rest of it seems good: I just like to see more of evil aspect to it. Dark hunter assassin isn't your friendly neighborhood paladin. Seems like poisons and stunning effects are missing here.

Oh Core 3: TRACKING! every 3 levels you get 1 point to spot search listen - something more hunter-like.

In regards to:

Core 3:

On The Hunt: When you strike someone with weapons you gain +1% dodge for 6 seconds, stacking 3 times.

Core 6:

Smoke Trap: Throw a smoke grenade at a target, if they fail a fortitude save (DC20 + Dex Mod + Assassinate + Trap DCs) they lose their immunity to sneak attack and 25% of their fortification for 25 seconds. (Cooldown: 12 seconds)

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!

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.

[Kalapurka]

@torc

taking advantage of the fact that you are working on alchemical traps

Can you please update (dc + damage) the alchemical traps from the mechanic anhancement so they viable in epic content


Tanglefoot
Thunderstone
Ooze Flask
Time Bomb

[Assassination]

I don't get why devs acknowledge things are useless/pointless, such as wands, stat damage, and pets, but KEEP PUTTING THEM IN. At least with wands there was a halfhearted "maybe we'll update those someday."

But please stop wasting space in the game on systems and effects that are universally known as trash

The more I look at this enhancement tree, the more useless I realize it is. It's basically 4 sneak attack dice, a morale bonus to melee power in tier 4, and maybe??? a double bonus to damage multi with piercing weapons in tier 5. Rest of the tree needs a rework, cores are about the weakest most useless I've seen. I like the class, the trapping and curative add mixtures are cool. How about some damage bonuses to piercing weapons, a real stun and trip using DEX??? I think this tree needs to tie in better with the
tempest tree. I don't understand putting a ranged assassinate in tier 5 when it makes no sense for a ranged character to use this tree.

[Ereshkigal]

Trapmaking: Does anyone other than new-ish soloists would make any kind of regular use of trapmaking? I've never used trapmaking nor seen its use. I want to be sensitive to all parts of the population.

There's a video on youtube with a group of first-life characters completing an R10 quest and they use traps, but mostly no, I never see folks using traps. I think one time in the past year of questing I have personally seen someone use a trap.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7F3Bny3c5EI

[Tlorrd]

i guess if this is the way DDO is going ... Sayonara Rogue.

Mechanic was dead ... only now you're just beating on the dead horse.

Literally you all are recycling rogue tree into the archetype same as you did with Inquisitive from Mechanic of the major xbow stuff.

Is there no originality left in your repertoire?

[amessi1]

I spun up a tempest in anticipation of Dark Hunter b/c it's been a while since I played a melee style ranger. After playing through a few dungeons it was clear run speed is missing from ranger as an offensive usage this was no big deal, but defensively running away from a caster shooting force magic killed me a couple times and just felt sluggish overall.

[Scrag]

Completely out of left field:

What if you took the class, but didnt use much of/any of the dark hunter enhancement tree? You know, just for all the feats, trapping, class skills.. and just live entirely off of say falconry and dws? Falconry has some +helpless and some +blind action going on, which renders you vuln to sneak attack right?

I could see taking up to tier 3 dark hunter for the sneak dice, assassins training, and only core 2. Between falconry and dh, you get +6 to assassinate. Rogue 2 assassin tree gets you 3 imbue dice, 3 sneak dice, and a whole lot of class skills at 1 that stay class skills as dark hunter.

[boogeiyman]

Coordinated Kill - You throw a net or mark the target with a scent and your wolf goes for the throat and instakills the target.

[spifflove]

Coordinated Kill - You throw a net or mark the target with a scent and your wolf goes for the throat and instakills the target.

I like that idea. That would force you to invest in your pet so it is alive to use the ability.

[salmag]

Instead of +1/+2/+3 UMD, add +1/+2/+3 Imbues. Especially since Rangers are losing the only imbues they get from AA. This will help the Bleed the Weak toggle.

[SWCarter]

Instead of +1/+2/+3 UMD, add +1/+2/+3 Imbues. Especially since Rangers are losing the only imbues they get from AA. This will help the Bleed the Weak toggle.

Agreed with this. Also, unless this tree is intended to be used for ranged combat only (which it doesn't seem to be, given the Melee Power and Doublestrike bonuses), there needs to be a Competence HP bonus in the T5s.