If you want to dissuade someone from playing DDO, just have them play an archer. Really, it will take less than an hour to get them to quit.
Even with 3 trees dedicated to them and so many other 'if using bows' changes to abilities and feats, they are still terrible to use.
Level 20 pure ranger, 35% attack speed, the rate of fire is abysmal. Which makes natural 1s seem so punitive. They probably don't happen any more often than other attack forms but when you shoot arrows at around 1 per second, they are so much more noticeable. Especially since archers have so many active attacks.
Out of sync shots. Really, this is the big bane of this attack style. And it is not hard to see! Just hold down auto attack and tab to different targets. You will be out of sync within 2 switches. This makes archers that use things like Paralyzing Arrows scream at the screen, at least I do. You fire, paralyze, tab, shoot, expect it to hit and paralyze, tab, shoot, oh wait, your last shot never showed up on the target, and the shot you just took at your 3rd target registers 2 seconds after it looked like you shot it.
--This happens with all ranged attacks but seems so much worse with bows right now.
Even the changes to Manyshot are not enough to make this feel good. And don't get me started on the completely idiotic stance you are in while you run with a bow in combat.
Finally, something that plagues all ranged attacks, the shot angle of the projectile. If you are not a small race, you might as well run around in Archer's Focus. You cannot count how many enemies your shots just float over trying to use Improved Precise Shot.
Long rant, but I just dusted off my Ranger and wow was it bad. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick to my repeater.
