If I were a Dev for a day this is what I'd do...

[Smokewolf]

I'd totally revamp the Arcane Archer enhancement tree!

My proposal rewrites the enhancenent tree to better utilize Imbues, and provides a reason to use Shortbows. While also encouraging players to shoot between spell cool-downs, and not just depend on the bow.

Core Abilities​

Arcane Archer (AP 1): Equipped bows gain +1 Ranged Power, +1% Doubleshot, and +1 Spell DC per Arcane Archer core taken. You can now conjure a stack of returning +1 arrows woven from pure magic. These arrows dissipate after an extended logout.

Imbue the Bow (AP 1): Gain access to four Imbue toggles that modify the damage of your bow attacks. (Acid, Cold, Electric, Fire) You also gain +1 bonus Imbue dice for every two Arcane Archer cores taken. Your Imbues scale with the highest of 75% Spell Power or 150% Ranged Power.

(Activation Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 10 seconds)

Penetrating Arrows (AP 1): Gain access to three secondary toggles that enhance your arrows to bypass various forms of Damage Reduction:

• Morphic: Your arrows deal bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage simultaneously.
• Metalline: Your arrows bypass all metallic-based Damage Reduction (adamantine, mithral, etc.).
• Aligned: Your arrows bypass alignment-based Damage Reduction (Good, Evil, Lawful, Chaotic).

(Activation Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 10 seconds.)

Unstable Imbues (AP 1): Your damage Imbues can now critically hit using your bows base Critical Multiplier.

Shadow Arrows (AP 1): Equipped bows gains a +1 Competence bonus to Critical Damage Multiplier. On a successful critical, gain +1 Imbue dice for 12 seconds, which can stack up to 3 times.

Mystical Archer (AP 1): +2 to all stats, +20 Doubleshot, and your damage spells have an additional 1% chance to critically hit for every two Imbue dice.

Tier One​

Awareness (AP 1, Ranks 3): +1/+2/+3 Listen, Search, Spot, and to-hit. Rank 3: While holding a Shortbow, gain +5 Ranged Power.

Arcane Trance (AP 1 / Ranks 3): Your bow gains an Insight bonus to hit, damage and spell power equal to 1/2 of your highest stat modifier for 30/60/120 seconds. Cooldown: 20 seconds, 5 Charges per rest. Each spell or SLA cast has a 5% chance to restore one charge. (ICD of 12 seconds.)

Energy of the Wild (AP 1, Ranks 3): +30/+60/+100 maximum spell points. Rank 3: You gain the Magical Training feat. If you already have the Magical Training feat, you gain +5 Universal Spell Power.

One with the Bow (AP 1, Ranks 1) Bows are considered Spellcasting Implements in your hands, while reducing your chance of Arcane Spell Failure by 15%.

True strike (AP 1, Ranks 2) : Passive: After casting a spell or SLA, your bow gains (+10/20) Insight bonus to hit, and +1 Critical Threat Range with for (15/30) seconds.

Tier Two​

Action Boost (AP 1, Ranks 3): Select Ranged Power or Imbue Boost.

• Ranged Power Boost: Activate to gain a +10/+20/+30 Action Boost bonus to Ranged Power for 20 seconds.
• Imbue Boost: Activate to gain +2/+4/+6 Imbue dice for 20 seconds.

Dispelling Shot (AP 1, Ranks 1): Performs a ranged attack that dispels 3 beneficial effects from an enemy. Enemy is magically silenced and unable to cast spells for 6 seconds, Will save vs. DC 20 + Highest of Int, Wis, Cha + Enchantment Spell Bonuses. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Elemental Arrows I (AP 2, Ranks 1): Add +2 Imbue dice. Passive: +5 Universal Spell Power

Explosive Shot (AP 2, Ranks 1): AOE Ranged Archery Attack: Fire a single shot with +20% Damage, affecting every enemy in an area around where the shot hits. Enemies hit in this manner are shaken. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Force Arrows (AP 2, Ranks 1): Imbue Toggle: You Imbue your arrows with magical force. Your arrows gain On Hit: 1d8 force damage and the Ghost Touch ability. Passive: +5 Universal Spell Power (Activation Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 10 seconds)

Tier Three​

Arcane Ability I (AP 2, Ranks 1): Choose between +1 Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom.

Elemental Arrows II (AP 2, Ranks 1): Add +2 Imbue dice and +5 Universal Spell Power.

Moonbow (AP 1, Ranks 1): While wielding a bow, gain a Base Attack Bonus equal to your Character Level. Once every 30 seconds you gain 20 temporary spell points for 10 seconds.

Shooting with Style (AP 2, Ranks 1): Choose one.

• While holding a Shortbow, you can run 1% faster for each of your heroic levels.
• You can now Swashbuckle while wielding a Shortbow. (+1 Threat Range, Requires Bard Level 3)

Terror Shot (AP 2, Ranks 1): Performs a ranged attack that attempts to kill a single target outright by turning their own fears against them. (Will Save vs. DC: 20 + Highest stat modifier + Illusion Spell Bonuses) Passive: Deals 1d8 Negative damage per Imbue dice. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Tier Four​

Arcane Ability II (AP 2, Ranks 1): Choose between +1 Charisma, Dexterity, Intelligence, or Wisdom.

Banishing Shot (AP 2, Ranks 1): Performs a ranged attack that attempts to banish a single extra-planar creature back to its home plane of existence. (Will Save vs. DC 20 + Highest stat modifier + Abjuration Spell bonuses) Passive: Deals 1d8 Bane damage vs extra-planar creature per Imbue dice. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Elemental Arrows III (AP 2, Ranks 1): Add +2 Imbue dice and + 5 Universal Spell Power.

Paralyzing Shot (Tier Four, AP 2, Ranks 1): AOE attack that attempts to paralyze every enemy in an area around where the shot hits. (Will Save vs. DC 20 + Highest stat modifier + Enchantment Spell Bonuses) Passive: -10% Movement and Attack speed. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Smiting Shot (Tier Four, AP 2, Ranks 1): Performs a ranged attack that attempts to destroy a single construct outright. (Will Save vs. DC 20 + Highest stat modifier + Evocation Spell bonuses) Passive: Deals 1d8 Bane damage vs constructs per Imbue dice. (Activation Cost: 5 SP. Cooldown: 12 seconds)

Tier Five​

Accumulation (AP 1, Ranks 3): Gain +(1/2/3) Spell power for each Imbue dice you possess. Rank 3: While holding a Shortbow, gain +5 Ranged Power.

Arrow of Slaying (AP 2, Ranks 1): Ranged Archery Attack: Performs a ranged attack with +250% Damage and +25 flat damage. This damage can be multiplied by critical hits. (Activation Cost: 20 SP. Cooldown: 20 seconds.)

Focus Mastery (AP 2, Ranks 1): Your Archer's Focus Stance can now stack up to 25 times instead of 15. Passive: Casting a spell or SLA now grants you 5 stacks of Archer's Focus. (ICD Spells / SLA's, 12 seconds)

Lingering Enchantments (AP 2, Ranks 1): After casting a spell or SLA, your bow attacks gain +1 bonus to Critical Multiplier for 30 seconds. Passive: +5 Universal Spell Power

Runebow (AP 2, Ranks 1): Your damage Imbues now deal 1d10. While holding a Shortbow, On Vorpal hit gain one Manyshot charge. (ICD 12 seconds)

So what would you do if you were Dev for a day?

-Smoke

 

[DBZ]

Fixing lag would be a noble purpose, but realistically it'd take a year, not a day.

100 years and a day it still would not get done

 

[Qrvar]

I'd totally revamp the Arcane Archer enhancement tree!

My proposal rewrites the enhancenent tree to better utilize Imbues, and provides a reason to use Shortbows. While also encouraging players to shoot between spell cool-downs, and not just depend on the bow.


So what would you do if you were Dev for a day?

-Smoke

Arcane Archer is definitely due for a rebalancing pass, however, in DDO it was implemented wrong from the very start, so it's destined to either lose all flavor or languish as a suboptimal option. Rangers are not great casters in tabletop, they're piss poor casters in DDO, so giving a caster-adjacent tree to rangers is just a bad decision overall. Rangers don't use much Wisdom or Spellpower, so having a tree whose imbues scale of spellpower and whose DCs scale of Wisdom is just bad. So if you wanna bring it up to speed, you'd have to change the scaling to Range Power and Highest of DEX / WIS - but then you'll lose all flavor of the class. Hinda like post-update Henshin - it's a lot of fun and it can be powerful, but it does not feel like a caster.

Frankly, AA should never have been a ranger subclass / tree. In 3e, AA is a prestige class for arcane casters that pretty much uses arrows to deliver spells. Think Eldritch Knight but with a bow instead of a sword. In 5e, it's a fighter with additional arcane options - which fits because Eldritch Knight is a fighter subclass in 5e. If anything Horizon Walker should have been a ranger tree, while AA could be a Universal tree. Unfortunately, HW was brought to mainstream by 5e while DDO got AA much earlier.

I'm not gonna comment on the multitude of issues with your proposals, but just at a quick glance it's a recipe for disaster, because a catch-all trance, at Tier 1 to boot, would mean that just about every build would now seek to somehow incorporate 1 level of ranger - not good balance.

P.S. I hate Trances with all my heart, they should never have been added to DDO and they make the game worse. Give me tons of active abilities that do something cool and make me build rotations; don't make me fumble around with multiple short-term passive buffs on different cooldowns.

P.S.2. My best Arcane Archer experience was in Neverwinter Nights (1), where by the end of the Hordes campaign the character could cast Time Stop, but also decimate weaker mob groups with Fireball arrows.

 

[Shear-buckler]

Add solar augment slots to rings.
Extend the first life xp-table to the 25 first heroic lives.
Half the xp requirement for the 25 first epic lives.
Add raid runes to quests.
Remove the rare loot mechanic.
Nerf quick cutter by removing the extra damage and dodge proc.
Remove the reaper self healing penalty and increase the global reaper healing penalty.

 

[Smokewolf]

Arcane Archer is definitely due for a rebalancing pass, however, in DDO it was implemented wrong from the very start, so it's destined to either lose all flavor or languish as a suboptimal option. Rangers are not great casters in tabletop, they're piss poor casters in DDO, so giving a caster-adjacent tree to rangers is just a bad decision overall. Rangers don't use much Wisdom or Spellpower, so having a tree whose imbues scale of spellpower and whose DCs scale of Wisdom is just bad. So if you wanna bring it up to speed, you'd have to change the scaling to Range Power and Highest of DEX / WIS - but then you'll lose all flavor of the class. Hinda like post-update Henshin - it's a lot of fun and it can be powerful, but it does not feel like a caster.

Frankly, AA should never have been a ranger subclass / tree. In 3e, AA is a prestige class for arcane casters that pretty much uses arrows to deliver spells. Think Eldritch Knight but with a bow instead of a sword. In 5e, it's a fighter with additional arcane options - which fits because Eldritch Knight is a fighter subclass in 5e. If anything Horizon Walker should have been a ranger tree, while AA could be a Universal tree. Unfortunately, HW was brought to mainstream by 5e while DDO got AA much earlier.

I'm not gonna comment on the multitude of issues with your proposals, but just at a quick glance it's a recipe for disaster, because a catch-all trance, at Tier 1 to boot, would mean that just about every build would now seek to somehow incorporate 1 level of ranger - not good balance.

P.S. I hate Trances with all my heart, they should never have been added to DDO and they make the game worse. Give me tons of active abilities that do something cool and make me build rotations; don't make me fumble around with multiple short-term passive buffs on different cooldowns.

P.S.2. My best Arcane Archer experience was in Neverwinter Nights (1), where by the end of the Hordes campaign the character could cast Time Stop, but also decimate weaker mob groups with Fireball arrows.

Rangers for their part are just fine without AA, as Rangers have far better options.

My take on AA was to rework it to be more like it's name-sake "Arcane Archer". Giving casters a valid Ranged option, while preserving their ability to cast spells between Manyshot bursts. To which I've a lot of experience playing an AA/Wizard and found it to be loads of fun till about 28th level. (Game is not kind to non-meta builds)

Edit: Stepping away from Dexterity / Wisdom was essential to be able to revamp the shot imbues for casters. Please consider that as they are now, they're unusable with the rare exception of a handful of specialty builds no one runs anymore. Quite simply, it's the difference between being able to CC mobs or kill them. Building up to use the AA para-arrows means not being able to kill anything, making the ranged player less useful, not more. Granted, this isn't the most Thematically correct choice, but it's practical with how people are currently playing the game. Besides, DDO has tons of thematically well meaning abilities, that in practice are total crap.

That being said, the single biggest technical issue with this tree is that Quick-Draw doesn't work to reduce the delay between attacking and casting. Making caster builds that use it, gimped from the start. It's such that I believe Quick-Draw was deliberately handicapped to prevent hybrid caster-ranged builds from becoming popular. Though it's not likely we'll ever know for sure as the Dev's aren't working with the playerbase to improve the game. Rather they're pushing monetization into everything possible, even if doing so cripples it's performance and playability.

 

[Qrvar]

I believe Quick-Draw was deliberately handicapped to prevent hybrid caster-ranged builds from becoming popular.

As far as I remember, it was an engine limitation that doesn't let archery get a lot of speed compared to other weapon styles. To that end, I've long argued that bows should get stronger hitting attacks that compensate for the low speed, and I've got to say, for the most part the devs have delivered and bow characters are pretty fun to play in 2025.

You're also correct that ranger has better options compared to AA, and I'd also add that other classes have pretty fun-to-play bow options, including but not limited to fighter, paladin and monk.

Another story I've heard was that at game launch (or even in beta?), there were no attack speed caps, and so just about every character ran around with a bow, because it offered superior firepower while staying at range. I wasn't around to witness that, however, so no idea how true that is.

 

[Smokewolf]

As far as I remember, it was an engine limitation that doesn't let archery get a lot of speed compared to other weapon styles. To that end, I've long argued that bows should get stronger hitting attacks that compensate for the low speed, and I've got to say, for the most part the devs have delivered and bow characters are pretty fun to play in 2025.

You're also correct that ranger has better options compared to AA, and I'd also add that other classes have pretty fun-to-play bow options, including but not limited to fighter, paladin and monk.

Another story I've heard was that at game launch (or even in beta?), there were no attack speed caps, and so just about every character ran around with a bow, because it offered superior firepower while staying at range. I wasn't around to witness that, however, so no idea how true that is.

The limitation was more about having the melee animation finish, then the other way around. Still thought this wasn't insurmountable, as there are other abilities in game that already manipulate the animations. IMHO, the Quick-Draw change was a choice. One that's hobbled EK mages to this day.

The Ranged bliss was back in the early days when Repeaters had FIVE shots! I was strongly opposed to the Dev's changing it to three, and thus received my first ban for being a dissenting voice. Flash forward almost 20 years and Repeater users have alsorts of extra attacks... Take a close look at a basic repeater and you'll see that it's "clip" holds four bolts, with another ready to fire. Five Shots! This is a throw back to that early development period, where after the Nerf, they kept the models.

Bows in the early game were slow, weak, and had tons of dry firing issues. While they were still popular with some, nothing could out DPS a repeater Rogue sneak attacking entire groups through a doorway!

 

[Guntango]

Add solar augment slots to rings.
Extend the first life xp-table to the 25 first heroic lives.
Half the xp requirement for the 25 first epic lives.
Add raid runes to quests.
Remove the rare loot mechanic.
Nerf quick cutter by removing the extra damage and dodge proc.
Remove the reaper self healing penalty and increase the global reaper healing penalty.

FTFY

 

[Crustbucket]

After much consideration, with revision i would make Sun and Moon augments craftable for pack ingredients and remove them from the drop loot pools entirely allowing for regular blues to show up more regularly. I posted a list before but i think this would be a solid one.

 

[Smokewolf]

After much consideration, with revision i would make Sun and Moon augments craftable for pack ingredients and remove them from the drop loot pools entirely allowing for regular blues to show up more regularly. I posted a list before but i think this would be a solid one.

I'd be OK with that.

 

[Lopnel]

A day as a dev? I would undo every nerf ever done so that gamers can game with excitement, next I would make the game reaper 20 capable, then I would lower the reaper fragment turn in cost down from 75 to 25 and finally I would raise the base named item drop rate up by 5%

 

[Smokewolf]

A day as a dev? I would undo every nerf ever done so that gamers can game with excitement, next I would make the game reaper 20 capable, then I would lower the reaper fragment turn in cost down from 75 to 25 and finally I would raise the base named item drop rate up by 5%

Pretty extreme but who knows, could be fun.

 

[Darpa of Orien]

• Make XP stones stack
• Allow those with open locks / disable device pull a "MacGyver" to make an attempt without tools (maybe at a penalty like -2)
• Create a "reincarnate me exactly as I was" option for ER
• Stop hirelings from healing charmed mobs unless I command them to

 

[magaiti]

Most posters grossly overestimate what a single developer can do in a single day at a large project.
Even assuming they magically get 5-years experience with the codebase (because otherwise, in one day you would be able to add a few bugs at best).
Now if the title was "If I was a Wizard for a day". Then again, that's what people think devs do, so as expected...

 

[DBZ]

Most posters grossly overestimate what a single developer can do in a single day at a large project.
Even assuming they magically get 5-years experience with the codebase (because otherwise, in one day you would be able to add a few bugs at best).
Now if the title was "If I was a Wizard for a day". Then again, that's what people think devs do, so as expected...

And yet when ever theres a shutdown immediately for there problems it gets fixed asap no problem because they care about those

Still won't fix the broken md gear or even comment if missing lamordia gear even exists

 

[Smokewolf]

• Make XP stones stack
• Allow those with open locks / disable device pull a "MacGyver" to make an attempt without tools (maybe at a penalty like -2)
• Create a "reincarnate me exactly as I was" option for ER
• Stop hirelings from healing charmed mobs unless I command them to

I love option 3.

 

[Smokewolf]

Most posters grossly overestimate what a single developer can do in a single day at a large project.
Even assuming they magically get 5-years experience with the codebase (because otherwise, in one day you would be able to add a few bugs at best).
Now if the title was "If I was a Wizard for a day". Then again, that's what people think devs do, so as expected...

Don't take it literally... It's just an exercise in "what if". Besides, it's not like the Dev's are going to listen to any of us lowly players.

 

[Wini]

• Evil energy focused Epic Destiny. Target: Dark Bargainer and Dark Apostates. (2 big spells in the ED)
• Destiny feat to remove Negative immunity after casting a spell on the mob.
• Remove MCL 20 for characters lvl 34/36, lol. It should be 34/36

 

[Smokewolf]

• Evil energy focused Epic Destiny. Target: Dark Bargainer and Dark Apostates. (2 big spells in the ED)
• Destiny feat to remove Negative immunity after casting a spell on the mob.
• Remove MCL 20 for characters lvl 34/36, lol. It should be 34/36

About point #2... PM's already have an ability to do this. However, it has no effect on Warded mobs, nor can those protections be stripped in any way.

 

[Wini]

About point #2... PM's already have an ability to do this. However, it has no effect on Warded mobs, nor can those protections be stripped in any way.

That's fair, but we need the same for Dark Apostate, Apothecary and Abyss warlock

 

[Smokewolf]

That's fair, but we need the same for Dark Apostate, Apothecary and Abyss warlock

Well it's not as nice as you'd imagine because of how it was setup for Pale Masters to use.

Case in point: When attacking Undead, which are neg - immune, I'd need to attack them twice. First to strip them and the Second to damage them. Meanwhile, the First attack heals them...Usually completely!

This has the (engineered) effect of slowing down how quickly the PM can deal with Undead, while really annoying the rest of my party. There-by making the value of neg - stripping almost pointless, for all but soloing.

In many situations I'd be better off Soul-Stoning an Individual Undead, or AoE'ing Undeath-to-Death... Assuming that they're not all Warded or running around with insane saves. In which case, Hold-Undead, Color-Spray and Prismatic-Spray are the typical fall back options. Especially when most mobs simply have far too many HP to nuke down as a Wizard. Considering how groups are currently playing the game, It's just not mana / time efficient for a Wizard to DPS anymore.

Edit: Most Wizards will use magic-missle / color-spray for the First attack to strip Undead, to avoid healing them. Though doing so is still a multi-step process, where time and mana are wasted... Meanwhile Physical-DPS don't even have to slow down to deal with Undead.