Arcane Archers Rejoice!!

[ProdigalGuru]

The requirements state pretty clearly that they need Arcane Archer II-V.

The conjure ability is: Arcane Archer: Conjure +1 - +5 arrows.

How is that fulfilling the requirement?

I am thinking this is a bug, as there MUST be an Arcane Archer II-V, right?

[Voxreal]

The Arcane Archer imbue arrow abilities are intended to function only with bows. (Currently on Lammania that's not the case, but we've already changed that internally.) While it wasn't too big a deal when all they had was Imbue Force Arrows, Slaying is too unbalancing with Repeaters.

Deepwood Sniper is planned to be a weapon-agnostic ranged attack PrE line.

–noun 1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.
2. a person who denies or doubts the possibility of ultimate knowledge in some area of study.

–adjective 3. of or pertaining to agnostics or agnosticism.
4. asserting the uncertainty of all claims to knowledge.

So Deepwood Snipers are getting.......
A little info would be good.

[ProdigalGuru]

I am pretty sure that means Deepwood Snipers are not going to be restricted to just bows, but ANY ranged attacks, such as Repeating X-Bows and even thrown weapons.

[Turial]

Agreed... something a little more in those tiers would be nice.

even if it was just 10 SP extra per level

Yeah I was always a bit disappointed with the sp gain from AA 1. 20 SP...spell singers get 100. Granted AA are not true casters but all of the good abilities for AA cost additional AP and SP to use. Its not like my SP pool is representative of all rangers...or even 75% of them.

[barecm]

ditch some lowlevel arrow stances

think that might be the intend, to create veraity (sp?)

I guess I can ditch the two tiers of +1 to hit (6 APs). Or if I happen to get a +4 dex tome, I can ditch 1 lvl of dex enhancement.

[Aesop]

Yeah I was always a bit disappointed with the sp gain from AA 1. 20 SP...spell singers get 100. Granted AA are not true casters but all of the good abilities for AA cost additional AP and SP to use. Its not like my SP pool is representative of all rangers...or even 75% of them.

yeah and my SP pool is based on Charisma and 2 levels of Bard

So My SP pool will probably be a little lower than that

Aesop

[Turial]

.....

* Arcane Archer: Imbue Terror Arrows
o Cost: 1 Action Point
o Prerequisite: Elf or Ranger Arcane Archer IV, 54 (or 62 for Elves) Action Points Spent
o Effect: Imbues all missiles that you fire with negative energy, granting them the Fearsome ability. This ability costs 40 spell points to activate, and triggers a lengthy cooldown of the Fear spell. Only one Arcane Archer Imbue ability may be active at any time.
...

I'm assuming this triggers when you hit your target rather than when they hit you. Does it apply fear on every hit or is there a save involved?

[xberto]

On arcane ranger/deepwood sniper, your twf is gimped anyway since you took the ranged enhancements, so it's nearly useless. There's no valid reason for a ranged focused ranger to have these feats at all, provided a ranged ranger could get the attack speed increases with the ranged fighting feats.

I don't think archers should be pigeonholed into ranged combat exclusively. I personally like the balance of ranged-twf with my AA. A ranged focused Arcane Archer doesn't have the raw DPS of a Tempest but where so much of the game it's better to use vorpal and stat damage, the twf fighting enhancements can't be considered useless. So often in the forums, it's suggested that if X is not max, it is useless. Certainly a ranged focused AA even doing 50% twf DPS of a tempest is something.

I do however agree that some kind of ranged speed progressing via feats or enhancement would a nice addition on top of the capstone already in place.

In regards to the new Arcane Archer PrE's...it all looks good. I can't wait to play them and test in real game situations.

Question for the devs: There are a couple of technical aspects to ranged combat that come to mind when I think of ranged combat being broken. I remember them being acknowledged in the past.
The first and biggest issue is the inability to hitting targets moving horizontally across the screen. The other is the invisible pixels around an object that obstruct a target from ranged attack.
How are these issues being addressed?

[Coldin]

I'm assuming this triggers when you hit your target rather than when they hit you. Does it apply fear on every hit or is there a save involved?

Right, it works every time you hit a monster. It does have a save, and seems pretty much like the current form of fearsome that we can get on armor.

[Aesop]

Certainly a ranged focused AA even doing 50% twf DPS of a tempest is something.

Now that would be something... sadly they don't.

Under the old system (cause I can't find the data on post Mod9)

maxed out TWF (without Tempest) attacked about ... 190 per minute... roughly

a maxed out Archer with Ranger Capstone fired at about 65 per minute


so about 1/3 of the base TWF.

so yeah an RoA upgrade would be nice.. and some other things

Aesop

[xberto]

Aesop, I was responding to a comment about twf feats for arcane archers being useless. My comparison was Tempest TWF vs an Arcane Archer using TWF and my point was not to take TWF feats away from Archers, as hermespan suggested. Certainly an Arcane archer dual wielding would get at least 50% DPS output compared to a Tempest, if not closer to 70%

Perhaps I could have worded it differently. Read my post again.

[rimble]

The Arcane Archer imbue arrow abilities are intended to function only with bows. (Currently on Lammania that's not the case, but we've already changed that internally.) While it wasn't too big a deal when all they had was Imbue Force Arrows, Slaying is too unbalancing with Repeaters.

Deepwood Sniper is planned to be a weapon-agnostic ranged attack PrE line.

The more I think about it, the more this bugs me. Please consider fiddling with the numbers somehow to make AA continue working with repeaters. Perhaps Slaying can do 250 damage on a 19-20 for bows, and only a 20 for repeaters, or repeaters just do 250 with this ability, something...But entirely excluding the weapon from the Arcane Archer PrE doesn't sit well with me. There's just no good reason to exclude it.

[Visty]

The more I think about it, the more this bugs me. Please consider fiddling with the numbers somehow to make AA continue working with repeaters. Perhaps Slaying can do 250 damage on a 19-20 for bows, and only a 20 for repeaters, or repeaters just do 250 with this ability, something...But entirely excluding the weapon from the Arcane Archer PrE doesn't sit well with me. There's just no good reason to exclude it.

well, theres always the argument: look at the name and in your DMG

[AylinIsAwesome]

yeah and my SP pool is based on Charisma and 2 levels of Bard

So My SP pool will probably be a little lower than that

Same here (18 levels of Fighter, not even a level of Ranger anywhere in the build).

Aesop

I'm assuming this triggers when you hit your target rather than when they hit you. Does it apply fear on every hit or is there a save involved?

Does anyone know what the DC check is, and if it's useful towards end-game? I've never used a Fearsome item past level 10 before, so I don't know if it'll be good to use in later levels of not.



And Eladrin, if you're watching this thread, I'd also like to voice that I would really like to see an increase in ranged attack speed like a couple others have said. It's just sad, that when Hasted with Fighter Haste Boost 2 that I attack slower with ranged than I do without either buff on in melee. Just saying... >_>

[Aesop]

Aesop, I was responding to a comment about twf feats for arcane archers being useless. My comparison was Tempest TWF vs an Arcane Archer using TWF and my point was not to take TWF feats away from Archers, as hermespan suggested. Certainly an Arcane archer dual wielding would get at least 50% DPS output compared to a Tempest, if not closer to 70%

Perhaps I could have worded it differently. Read my post again.

ah my mistake

yeah TWF is pretty decent DPS with the TWF feats ... even without tempest


Aesop

[Coldin]

Does anyone know what the DC check is, and if it's useful towards end-game? I've never used a Fearsome item past level 10 before, so I don't know if it'll be good to use in later levels of not.



And Eladrin, if you're watching this thread, I'd also like to voice that I would really like to see an increase in ranged attack speed like a couple others have said. It's just sad, that when Hasted with Fighter Haste Boost 2 that I attack slower with ranged than I do without either buff on in melee. Just saying... >_>

Don't know what the DC is off hand. Near end game, you are looking close to that 5% chance since monsters need to roll a one...but the arrows seemed to be working often enough out in the Vale.

[Therigar]

gotta love that i can finally play a ranged ranger again

I'm concerned that the glee over the vorpal nature of arcane archer will horribly screw the game. It will increase the number of idiots playing range focused builds. I'm also concerned that the current slaying arrows will suddenly stop dropping.

This is just a vorpal effect. It really is not that big of a deal. It really does not do anything to address the inherent problems with range builds.

It looks cool and tons of people are going to build arcane archers -- no doubt about it.

Too bad for the game though. It will make it even more difficult to get a competent group together and run most quests in anything approaching an efficient manner.

[poonce]

I think the Fearsome Arrows are going to be pretty cool for some CC conditions, Fearsome Arrows and Wild Empathy? Would be pretty cool if your in an area fighting animals such as them pesky dogs that trip everyone, A CC type Ranged Rgr would be pretty cool in a situation like this, even though they are few and far between.

[rimble]

well, theres always the argument: look at the name and in your DMG

Sure, but since they've already deviated from the core PrC to fit an MMORPG environment they could entertain making further changes.

Restricting AA to Elves only, and requiring a 1 level Arcane caster splash isn't particularly fun. Nor is continuing to restrict it to bows, though I fully realize it'd have to work differently on Repeaters.

[Visty]

I'm concerned that the glee over the vorpal nature of arcane archer will horribly screw the game. It will increase the number of idiots playing range focused builds. I'm also concerned that the current slaying arrows will suddenly stop dropping.

This is just a vorpal effect. It really is not that big of a deal. It really does not do anything to address the inherent problems with range builds.

It looks cool and tons of people are going to build arcane archers -- no doubt about it.

Too bad for the game though. It will make it even more difficult to get a competent group together and run most quests in anything approaching an efficient manner.

it is NOT a vorpal effect

its 500dmg on a natural 20 but NOT an instakill



if ppl would read, the world would be better