U58 Preview 3: Dark Hunter Ranger Archetype

[TPICKRELL]

This is a useless indicator for some of us who are colorblind.

In order to see whats changed, I have to manually copy and paste your forum posts into a word processor and change the color to one with some contrast.

Please change to something with more contrast than light blue.

[Firebreed]

I am not going to be as defeatist as other posters.

I like the concept of the tree. I agree Medium Armour is interesting and different (if a little a-thematic). And I think some feedback has been listened to (very happy to see AP reduced in some Tier 5s).

So my feedback on the latest round:

-Multi-selector on Blade Specialisation at least lets you go DH/Temp rather than requiring DH/DW (or VKF) to get anywhere. Would prefer both in DH given it requires Tier 5, but still a big improvement to build options.

-Dropping Blind for Entangle/Snare is thematic and welcome. But practically, not sure how we use that effectively in higher content? Entangle and Snare DCs will be laughable on a Ranger (max caster DC 14 + Wis mod?), so you're using the one trap in the tree. What would be interesting is letting us use Assassinate DCs in place of spell DCs on these spells, or giving us an Entangle SLA with the tree's Assassinate DC instead? That would give the tree a unique identity as a CC melee tree, and potentially benefit the survivability of a dog.

-Still think the assassinate ability could afford to let you hit any FE, rather than just the tree's FEs, so it plays nice with enhancements and destinies. But failing that, PLEASE give us just a couple more options so there's some level of choice in your FEs. Last time I checked there were a lot of dwarves in the underdark, can we at least have dwarf FE?

Good post, specifically for the Lamannia v3 changes. But there's tons more good feedback in regards to the rest of the tree in the Lam 1 & 2 threads.

[Deivonte]

From the testing I have done, the following enhancements work with medium armor:

DWS:

• Survivalist 1
• Survivalist 2
• Survivalist 3

Tempest:

• Improved Dodge

The following abilities do not work with medium armor:

Tempest:

• Improved Mobility
• Elaborate Parry
• Tempest Capstone

[lain5246]

I'm saying medium prof is NOT well supported in DH tree or by this class... if you need to multiclass to get support for a class/archetype feature because it is not well supported in and of itself that is an issue.

Evasion is not everything but for a sneaky, dodgy, high-ref, mostly dex focused class evasion is superior to med armor furthermore, light armor prof is far more supported by the other enhancements available to rangers including DH.

You want med? fine. I want evasion. Both should be fine, if they take the suggestion to force a class feat choice at level 9. It does NOT have to be that only one of us can be satisfied.

i am not in favor of anything other than more undead. that being said the archetype is meant to be beefier than normal ranger. if we are being honest evasion is to over used and needs to be spread out a lot thinner.

[Aelonwy]

i am not in favor of anything other than more undead. that being said the archetype is meant to be beefier than normal ranger. if we are being honest evasion is to over used and needs to be spread out a lot thinner.

If we are being honest it is still a ranger, a class that canonically gets evasion. If you want to argue about evasion being watered down perhaps it shouldn't have been given to a race? But of course it was a P2P race part of an expensive expansion so all sins forgiven.

Nothing in the original Dark Hunter prestige class would force or encourage this Medium Armor direction either.
https://srd.dndtools.org/srd/classes...rkHunter.htmlv

[Deivonte]

Did we ever get an answer to if cull the weak was bleed the weak? And if it is, what bonus is applied? the one for <50% or <25% ?

The description in-game is clear but not the notes.

[Scrag]

Ok, so this seems pretty good with some of the changes.

I like getting +12 dice at core 12 when invisible. If you load up on invisibility scrolls (which are cheap and umd 24), mixed with 7 rogue (+4d6 dice, 4 dice from enh, 3 imbue dice) and 12 DH (4 sneak dice from enh, 3 from levels, plus bleed the weak imbue), you get 14 sneak dice, and from invisibility 12 more, for 26 sneak dice at 19. But, you don't have to take the rogue levels up front; you can go medium armor with no sneak penalty, 19 sneak dice _at level 13_ from invisibility, and just 7 casual. 19 sneak dice at 12 should obliterate hard targets from invisibility, at range. No matter how you cut it, thats a lot of dice.

I think looking at the changes, I would definitely like 1 ftr/7 rogue/12 dh, wisdom focus through falconry, falconry/dws/dh with splash in assassin.

edit: also, faster sneaking in medium armor without penalty sounds delish.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

So far, I am really enjoying how this class plays. I spent a little time at level 4 and level 12, just to get a feel of it for leveling. At level 4, the 3 bonus imbue dice for the pet wolf, along with the other enhancements for the pet, make it very strong (along with augmented summoning). Walk into Searing Heights at level 4 in stealh and watch it kill groups of 3 level 6 monsters easily. All you need to do is heal it after battles.

I know, it is just level 4, but it gives a completely different way to play low to mid level rangers. I get all the issues with the pet at level cap, but adding in the imbue dice is really nice at lower levels.

At level 12, I wanted to try the new opportune moment. Smoke bomb works fine for turning it on, and at level 12, with only points in Dark Hunter, I got 19d6 sneak attack. It only lasts 5 seconds, but can be combined with the death attack. So against a non favored enemy, it is 19d6 sneak +12d20 bleed, + another 4d(8-12) bleed. Maybe not that great at cap, but it felt pretty good for level 12. Death attack also works with strikethough, so the starter axe was hitting two enemies at once for 250+ per hit. Not earth shattering, but nice for something you can do fairly often.

Overall, I like the feel of it as being different from rogue, artificer, and other rangers. I get the concern about losing evasion, but I think going in a different direction here helps. It is a ranger with a pet and all the rogue skills. It seems like there should be something taken away to even things out. It still gets all the free bonus feats, spells, and the higher HP. There are also already a couple variants of ranger in D&D that have no evasion for the ranger, so this is not completely out of left field. This is kind of a commando character.

Issues: I hate to call attention to this, but opportune moment may be giving the bonus too often. My character sheet was at least showing 19d6 sneak attack dice more often than once every 60 seconds.

Bleed damage may sometimes not be using all the imbue dice. My wolf seemed to do 4d8 bleed damage all the time, but I had a lot of attacks that seemed to be low (8-10) damage - so I wasn]t sure it was always firing or using enough dice against things like kobolds. This was when both my character and my wolf were attacking the same target.


Other: I love all the suggestions everyone has, and there are some great ideas out there. That said, and apologies for sounding preachy, I do think there is a big difference between the developers not listening and the developers deciding not to use an idea. Even when 4 or 5 people all chime in that they love a change, the developers may have a completely different idea of how this character is supposed to play, and there may even be another archtype coming that uses the ideas. Over the last build I see a lot of changes and bug fixes that people asked for that were implemented for Dark Hunter. When so many changes are being implemented, it doesn't seem that fair or conducive to collaboration to claim they are ignoring everything here. The fact that they don't agree on things like evasion doesn't mean they aren't listening. Sometimes people have different visions for how something should play.

OK, end preaching...

Last comment. Can we officially change the archtype name. Dark Hunter is ok, but this would be so much better as... Night Ranger.

[Elfishski]

My main feedback on Dark Hunter as an archetype is that whether or not you use the new tree, the base class is just strictly better than a base ranger and nobody has a reason to ever be a base ranger any more unless they really want arcane archer and don't want to be an elf.

By all means add the cool perks to make this stand out but to make it a choice they should be giving up something more than evasion [which is easy to add in for epics now if you'd prefer it to medium armor]. Tradeoffs are what makes it interesting to keep trying new things.

[Splunge]

having medium armor makes tempest more attractive

You lose 10 MP, 10 PRR, and 10 MRR from your capstone. It also kills six other enhancements the tempest and DWS trees. And you lose evasion. Doesn't seem that great to me.

[Deivonte]

You lose 10 MP, 10 PRR, and 10 MRR from your capstone. It also kills six other enhancements the tempest and DWS trees. And you lose evasion. Doesn't seem that great to me.

Read this

[spifflove]

Other: I love all the suggestions everyone has, and there are some great ideas out there. That said, and apologies for sounding preachy, I do think there is a big difference between the developers not listening and the developers deciding not to use an idea. Even when 4 or 5 people all chime in that they love a change, the developers may have a completely different idea of how this character is supposed to play, and there may even be another archtype coming that uses the ideas. Over the last build I see a lot of changes and bug fixes that people asked for that were implemented for Dark Hunter. When so many changes are being implemented, it doesn't seem that fair or conducive to collaboration to claim they are ignoring everything here. The fact that they don't agree on things like evasion doesn't mean they aren't listening. Sometimes people have different visions for how something should play.

Instead of a logical balance like restriction to rogue weapons they created their own logic and once a decision was made they clung to it not only in the face of a hostile crowd but in the face of the irreparable conflict with the tempest tree. That is tone deaf.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.

On a side note: I don't think limiting things to rogue weapons is much of a limit.
If the main concern is the loss of enhancements that use light armor, adding in a higher level feat in the tree like Sacred Fist, which allows the ranger to count as wearing light armor for Tempest and DWS feats might help. But again, I really am not seeing a problem with the power level of the Dark Hunter not having evasion. There are ways to get it, and part of the whole point of archetypes is they are supposed to be more different than just a new enhancement tree. I get that people got very excited at a ranger who traps, and are now frustrated that some builds they wanted to make don't work - but the disagreement seems more over what the overall concept of the archetype is, not about balance.

If the idea was to focus on medium armor, the archetype could just as easily have an enhancement that lets evasion work with medium armor, but if that isn't want the designer envisioned the archetype as being, I'm not sure he is tone deaf just for not changing this character to match what some people hoped it would be... especially when a new rogue or artificer may soon fill that role anyway. At least for leveling, it seems very playable as is: a stealthy, medium armored trapper, that can sneak attack like crazy under the right conditions. Combining the DWS and DH trees gives a character that can hit for 22 or 23 sneak attack dice by level 12... If you want that, I don't think not having evasion or a few of the other enhancements in Tempest or DWS is an automatic deal breaker. But that is just my opinion, I can see how adding in the other enhancements and evasion would be much more powerful in a lot of builds.

[Pretty_Good_Old_One]

On a different note, the level 12 core ability is really interesting in that it uses Wilderness Lore, not Ranger levels for sneak attack dice. Seems like there is some interesting multi-class synergy with Barbarian and Druid.

[Seph1roth5]

I don't get the point of -1 dex penalty for medium armor per core. Was that really what they got out of the feedback from the other 2 lams? Jump/tumble/etc. were why people didn't like medium?

I don't see the point of this archetype at all, it's like the devs have no idea what's usable, much less good, based on going all in on the pet. Someone mentioned it doing well in searing heights, but wilderness is basically normal difficulty. They're going to be garbage in elite+, and probably only decent on hard.

Giving pets auto search and imbue dice and big stats means nothing because their AI is utter trash. For auto search to be any good we need a button on their hotbar that says "Go THERE!" And for their attacks to be usable we need them to just constantly be attacking, as if their left-click was held down. Always attacking, even when on standby.

Might as well just turn into the skid at this point. Give pets str damage on hit and a guard that does 1d6 of a few elemental types.

[Diracorvus]

How many people are in this hostile crowd? There are definitely a few who like the archetype, and the total number who don't like losing evasion seems a little larger, but how many total people actually said they thought it was a big mistake to take out evasion. I don't think the devs should change their design every time 5-10 people disagree on the internet. Sometimes they do, and other times they have a different plan.

Just give it up. It's always the same people that jump on everything that comes out on lamannia, demand everything to be changed to their liking, and then once it comes to preview 3 it's all "why didn't you listen to us!"
Some people think their ideas are so great only a fool could not like them. There is no way to convince them otherwise. I'm glad the developers still follow their own ideas a bit, many a game has been ruined by listening to these types of players too much.
That said, I think it would be interesting if for this archetype medium armor would count as light for enhancements, similar to how it works for sacred fists. It might also be a bit too powerful.

[Pandjed]

On a different note, the level 12 core ability is really interesting in that it uses Wilderness Lore, not Ranger levels for sneak attack dice. Seems like there is some interesting multi-class synergy with Barbarian and Druid.

I guess you could use this archetype for a 12DH/8DRU split to make a big sneak attacking winter wolf build. Or the new Blight wolf (though not as many SA dice). This way, you could also get evasion or just go out in medium armor for more PRR/MRR and DH t5 for the better crit profile. You also gain Greatsword Proficiency due to ranger, so Sword of Shadow and eSoS will make leveling easier despite not being the best balanced crit build (but I guess you can somehow fit 21 DWS in).

It would just not be a META-build, but probably fun and I may try it someday. Still have so many builds waiting for me... -_-'

[Scrag]

I guess you could use this archetype for a 12DH/8DRU split to make a big sneak attacking winter wolf build. Or the new Blight wolf (though not as many SA dice). This way, you could also get evasion or just go out in medium armor for more PRR/MRR and DH t5 for the better crit profile.

Ok, so I am all about the blightcaster/blight wolf. This intrigues me. How do druid forms work? Would it be 20 sneak dice bonus at 20 in blight wolf form from invis? This would kill two birds with one stone for me

Actually, this works amazingly well with a _fast_ sneaking/moving medium armor dh 12/b 8 with huge search/disable bonuses from wilderness lore!

edit: I see OS and Ravager are not thf focused. What is a good way to blend a barb and a dh?

[Igrovin]

Ah and the archetype still has the mostly useless +3 to UMD enhancement.

[spifflove]

Just give it up. It's always the same people that jump on everything that comes out on lamannia, demand everything to be changed to their liking, and then once it comes to preview 3 it's all "why didn't you listen to us!"
Some people think their ideas are so great only a fool could not like them. There is no way to convince them otherwise. I'm glad the developers still follow their own ideas a bit, many a game has been ruined by listening to these types of players too much.
That said, I think it would be interesting if for this archetype medium armor would count as light for enhancements, similar to how it works for sacred fists. It might also be a bit too powerful.