Archer - How to get people to NOT play DDO.

[Kielbasa]

I've done 150+ past lives with a fairly even variety of ranged, caster, and melee DPS builds. I do a mix of soloing and hitting LFMs while leveling each life so I have a fairly good grasp of the pros and cons between the types.

There are three main problems with archers in the lower and mid heroics that make it a less enjoyable experience than other builds. Other ranged DPS share these problems, but to slightly lesser degrees depending on the specifics of the builds/types.

1) Uninspired dungeon design that relies far, far too heavily on large groups of low-difficulty mobs crammed into every space as the "filler".
1) Mind-numbingly slow attack speeds in mid to lower heroics and a lack of viable AoE in general.
3) Lag. Lag amplifies projectile hit registration problems. The slower the attack speed, the higher the perceived impact on each failed hit registration. Especially while facing large groups of mobs.

Individually, each of the above issues might be somewhat tolerable. However, when you combine them, they amplify/magnify each other creating a larger overall problem for archers.

What archer builds end up with until upper heroics (low epics really) is, one of (if not THE) slowest single-target attack rates while running quests built with a design paradigm that heavily favors AoE damage while also having a disproportionately higher number of hit registration problems than melee or caster DPS.

Once you get to upper heroics and epics, things get a little better as the attack rate and damage per attack ramp up enough to counter the hit registration/lag issues more.

This is a fair assessment of the current bow and most ranged character game play in general. Slow, lacks AoE options for most of heroics and due to this is very tedious to play until things ramp up with combat archery, sentience and epic destinies.

 

[ProllyDidItWrong]

Meh - Slot Conjour Arrows and hold your right clicker down on the mouse and use your striffing abilities to keep the aim circle on what you want dead - and volia! It ded... Keep your finger there and pretty soon you'll get the feel for how fast the game wants to spit out arrows. At some point your attack speed and the game speed will kinda get in sync and it won't seem too off and for Helms sake never, never stop moving, Archers Focus is a trap to get you to stay still so the mobs can hit you - bad idea. Keep kiting and moving and striffing and pew, pew pewing and everything dies, but you. Easy peasy - yeah I know, sometimes an arrow or two doesnt seem to match up with your controls or just plain doesnt fire - but with the games inconsistent targeting (like how sometimes you can target and hit a mob from half a block away and other times you have to be right on top of a mob to target and hit them - which also happens with melees and casters) and how the melees attack animation feels like it swings right through it's target most of the time - I'm sure it's something you could get used to. Archer life is one of this game's easy button to fast TR leveling. I would say "Srry you suck - git gud" but that would be inappropriate, so I won't, but I will say if this seems like a gamebreaker to you then maybe there are 100 other games out there for you to play.

Oh - and BTW, Inquisitors and repeaters have the same issues only they are spitting out bolts like a machinegun and it is less noticeable.

 

[DBZ]

Its more about the feelz not git anything between this and leveling a Tank life when the games built around murder hobo

Anyone willing to level a tank it is appreciated it feels like a slog and thats the point

 

[Teh_Troll]

There are three main problems with archers in the lower and mid heroics that make it a less enjoyable experience than other builds. Other ranged DPS share these problems, but to slightly lesser degrees depending on the specifics of the builds/types.

One thing to keep in mind is not all archer builds are created equal at all levels. Pure Ranger is arguably the easiest to level but it's behind on damage compared to the mostly rogue split builds.

I've found bows in low level (3-9) to actually be excellent. Get a spell power item and an AA imbue (which are great at low levels but scale up really badly) and you're 1-2 shotting everything in the harbor.

Mid-heroics to 20 sucks. Switch to melee, switch back to bow at 20.

 

[Teh_Troll]

Its more about the feelz not git anything between this and leveling a Tank life when the games built around murder hobo

Anyone willing to level a tank it is appreciated it feels like a slog and thats the point

Level as a DPS and then LR

 

[YeeboF]

I've done 150+ past lives with a fairly even variety of ranged, caster, and melee DPS builds. I do a mix of soloing and hitting LFMs while leveling each life so I have a fairly good grasp of the pros and cons between the types.

There are three main problems with archers in the lower and mid heroics that make it a less enjoyable experience than other builds. Other ranged DPS share these problems, but to slightly lesser degrees depending on the specifics of the builds/types.

1) Uninspired dungeon design that relies far, far too heavily on large groups of low-difficulty mobs crammed into every space as the "filler".
1) Mind-numbingly slow attack speeds in mid to lower heroics and a lack of viable AoE in general.
3) Lag. Lag amplifies projectile hit registration problems. The slower the attack speed, the higher the perceived impact on each failed hit registration. Especially while facing large groups of mobs.

Individually, each of the above issues might be somewhat tolerable. However, when you combine them, they amplify/magnify each other creating a larger overall problem for archers.

What archer builds end up with until upper heroics (low epics really) is, one of (if not THE) slowest single-target attack rates while running quests built with a design paradigm that heavily favors AoE damage while also having a disproportionately higher number of hit registration problems than melee or caster DPS.

Once you get to upper heroics and epics, things get a little better as the attack rate and damage per attack ramp up enough to counter the hit registration/lag issues more.

Good summary. They play just fine from about level 18 on, but getting there is a slog. Low rate of fire and a heavy focus on burst damage means misses due to lag or just a bad roll feel worse than almost any other class of build.

I am baffled to see so many folks in this thread saying they are just peachy from level 1 on. I think it must be experienced players that love how they play in epics so much, where they are quite strong for sure, that they are are able put up with the tedium in low to mid heroics with rose tinted goggles.

 

[Kimbere]

One thing to keep in mind is not all archer builds are created equal at all levels. Pure Ranger is arguably the easiest to level but it's behind on damage compared to the mostly rogue split builds.

I've found bows in low level (3-9) to actually be excellent. Get a spell power item and an AA imbue (which are great at low levels but scale up really badly) and you're 1-2 shotting everything in the harbor.

Mid-heroics to 20 sucks. Switch to melee, switch back to bow at 20.

I'd agree. Archer's don't have problems killing the mob they're hitting. I don't think they need an increase in per-hit damage at all.

They just don't fire fast enough or hit enough mobs at the same time to be as enjoyable as other options in the murder hobo design paradigm we're stuck with while leveling.

 

[Col Kurtz]

I'd agree. Archer's don't have problems killing the mob they're hitting. I don't think they need an increase in per-hit damage at all.

They just don't fire fast enough or hit enough mobs at the same time to be as enjoyable as other options in the murder hobo design paradigm we're stuck with while leveling.

its not horrible until you're outnumbered like 18-1... and/or stuck fighting in halls where you cant circle of death on them

 

[Mordenkainen]

Why not create a "bomb arrow" attack?

 

[Zvdegor]

Why not create a "bomb arrow" attack?

A Rambo build came to my mind

 

[Buddha5440]

So it sounds like the biggest complaint in this thread is attack speed...

I'm just not seeing it as an issue. I may hit things slower but I hit them from farther away and they rarely get close enough to hit me.

I'd argue that an AA with a dual slotted CC bow (+2d6 augments, +2d6 enchantments, ++1d6 imbue) will out perform almost anything at lv. 1. Adjust the augments as you level and add some spell power and you will do some serious damage.

As I said before, this is not a play style that works for everyone. If it doesn't work for you, don't use it; don't bash it either.

 

[kmoustakas]

Think thats bad try a first life cleric or wizard there all pretty horrible to level

I have to totally disagree. Hardcore is absolute proof of that, they had to nerf clerics MID SEASON and they still are the easiest to level. Holy smite sla kills every thing and if something survives chaos hammer sla or order's wrath sla from appropriate domain and it's all over. If you wanna be really nasty use regular holy smite too, not just sla.

 

[kmoustakas]

You mean deflect arrows and improved they hit like trucks without them

This. Deflect arrow is an actual extra life in r10. Either through vistani or swashie or monk destiny, you must grab this

 

[Archest]

archer is good for a multi class skill .
AA Tree: Requires Ranger Level 5, Character Level 12, 30 APs spent in tree
Horizon Walker Tree: Requires character level 12, 30 APs spent in tree
Deep wood stalker : Requires Ranger Level 5, Character Level 12, 30 APs spent in tree

pretty much access to all the archery trees with ranger level 5 and the extra horizon walker tree.

leaving 15 levels for another class
( eldritch knight with sword and board for when the mobs get up close and personal)
wizardry or sorcery
15th level caster complements both the ranger archer skills and caster

yes you give up 9th level caster spells.

 

[Kimbere]

I'd argue that an AA with a dual slotted CC bow (+2d6 augments, +2d6 enchantments, ++1d6 imbue) will out perform almost anything at lv. 1.

Sure, as long as you don't count a level one 2HF, 2WF, or SWF melee using a dual proc crafted weapon/s with dual aug slots...

Your statement gets worse as the respective toons level up into mid heroics.

2HF classes start gaining strikethrough and hitting 2-3 mobs per attack with said double-slotted, double-augmented weapons.

2WF start getting offhand attacks and could dual-wield double/double weapons.

SWF attack speed starts really putting bow attack speed to shame as they get the additional SWF feats.

If you really want to see something fun, roll a barbarian quarterstaff build with a rogue splash for the extra 15% attack speed in addition to all the strikethrough/cleaving and run a double/double weapon on it in mid heroics.

 

[Cheeps]

U50 killed archer for me, played if for over ten years and enjoyed it.

So, I'm not surprised to see this thread.

If you want to play an archer, the dev's want you to play some other game I guess.

 

[Zuldar]

They could fix the impact of bows a bit by differentiating short bows and long bows. Keep long bows as they are now where there slow but strong and change short bows to where every 1w (or fraction thereof) is it's own arrow kind of similar to how repeaters work. They'd fire faster to better benefit from bonus damage or imbues but less able to take advantage of things like hunt's end. Any further balancing can be done by adjusting how doubleshot or archer's focus works with shortbows.

 

[Mindos]

It is pretty annoying when I wanna break a breakable and need 6-9 projectile to destroy it with my repeater. Also same thing when switching mobs. This has to be fix asap cause it makes any ranged toon non functional.

IMHO, this should *NEVER* happen, and it should never happen ALL THE TIME.
I want a responsive, agile, quick game experience. When I have this shooting lag, I know the game doesn't have what I want.

I don't want glossy, compressed, delayed, queued, rate limited, fraction of second dynamic scheduling, etc.

If you can't allocate enough rate, bandwidth, server cycles, simultaneous multiple pipelines, then you're not really giving me the best then are you? I don't want corner cutting, I want the ability and the freedom to play how I want to play. If I wanna shoot, I want it to work right away, if I weapon switch I want it to happen right meow. Taking away nimble reactiveness makes the game boring and restrictive. Yay, I can stand there and hold the button down. What fun.

 

[Sophie The Cat Burglar]

The problem I have with many DDO classes is that the version of the class I want to play is not the version of the class that performs well in the game.

I want to play a Cleric like this. No. No. You need to play a cleric like that.

For a game boasting flexible character design, I find DDO character design extremely inflexible. Everything I want to play, thematically, is just wrong. It gets me into a lot of the trouble.

Torchlight has a character with explosive arrows that is super fun to play. Foooooom...BANG! Foooooom...BANG! In comparison, my Inquisitive, Mechanic, and Ranger are boring. For me, targeting is also super wonky in this game. That alone ruins a lot of characters. On the good side, my Inquisitive, Mechanic, and Ranger are all very mobile. That is great. I detest the stand and shoot ranged play style. Yuckies.

Ranged Warlock is kinda fun with the Zap Zap and Dancing Zap. That one reminds me of Mega Man. I should have named my WItch Roll MegaGirl. Attack speed is too slow and the wonky targeting thing sucks, though. At high levels the whole thing kinda fell apart for me.

I play magic using characters in every game except DDO. Here I play melee. I do not play melee here because I like melee. I play melee here because my attempts to create magic using characters always end up miserable failures. DDO just does not allow me to create what I want to create. In fairness, I have been making an effort to figure out what is wrong with me Level 32 Archmage Wizard. In her level 20 melee equipment, she can devastate stuff better than any of my melee characters. She bonces around, fishing for a critical, then everything falls over dead. Even so, I dislike how her spells work, how targeting works, how cooldowns work, and every spell rotation I have tried. I am not sure 'learn to play' is my problem. It is more like, the way I want to play is just not here as a choice. Oh well.

My experience with Ranger is still fairly limited. Level 12. She is definitely nothing special. A Paladin with a great sword is way more exciting at that level. I admit, part of that is learning to play the class. Rangers have a lot of special attacks, which are neat, but I rarely use them because, well, I do not need to. It is not fluid to use the special attacks. They do not do anything fun.

I think many compliants about DDO are really about expectations. How do you expect a class to play? It is not so much about building a good character. The character one builds, based on an internal desire, just does not work here.

That sort of thing does not matter to the sort of person who just cares about gaming the rules. For that sort of person, finding and exploiting loopholes is the fun. For people who want to play something very specific, DDO can be super disappointing.

 

[DBZ]

Wizards at end game are specialists usually crowd controller insta killers maybe try a different build

Like sorc, druid, alchemist for end game

The arch mage tree still needs a massive over haul to even be usable for any end game pms just a much stronger tree

And i still think cleric has the absolute worst trees in game radiant servant and battle cleric not good trees compared to

a blightcaster or fvs, or sorc or warlock