Longbow is a pretty miserable way to level, especially with Horizon Walker

[Ying]

Bow, throwing dagger, shuri, and repeater at end-game are fine. Inquis is a crapshoot depending on your class split. Great Crossbows are still the red-headed stepchildren of ranged.

Top-end bows have an itemization problem of not having Elasticity on Dino weapons, so Chaos Bow ends up being superior. Would be nice to have a new raid quiver since the last one was Mark of Death (nearly 9 years ago), which could address the scarcity of Ranged Alacrity 20%.

Ranged in the early levels can suck when you're fighting skeletons because of DR/bludgeoning and the popularity of skeletons in older content. Picking up Point Blank Shot at first level is a must. I played an Arti Heavy Repeater on hardcore this season and it slaps.

The last time I leveled a thrower through heroics I nearly quit the game. Throwers require a much longer runway to become useful.

 

[Teh_Troll]

Guess Suulomades was out sick that day.

Sorry, LOB. it's all a blur after a while.

 

[Falkor]

Though not typical this was from VOD . . . on R8. Timestop and other vulnerabilty tricks were in play. And I'm a very mediocre ranged player not playing an overly-optimized build.

That's a solid image, very shiny. Great build. And in R8 non-the-less. That's rock solid.

Perhaps I wasn't clear, my question was in regards to the math for heroic augments / crafting for it vs bows with improved critical profiles.

The numbers in your video are comparable to what I see. I've got some friends who can get much higher numbers, the benefit of tweaking for every little detail. I don't have the patience to do that knowing that whatever I get will end up being nerfed. It's happened too many times for me to not expect it again.

Looks like you are on Orien too, happy hunting.

 

[RangerOne]

Agree that Horizon Walker is a miss. Scattershot sounds great but it specifies close range so I rarely saw it go off. My main feels very powerful, although heroic leveling is a bit of slog (but then, I find heroic a slog no matter what class) using a combination of AA and Falconry. WIS based using Falconry for instant kills and crowd damage, acid imbues from AA along with the stat level and a couple of cores to get to level 4. Dark Hunter was also a disappointment for me. The addition of the wolf sounds cool but ultimately isn't very helpful. I have one level of rogue on my ranger and hit all the traps that DH can. The only thing I had to "give up" was a feat for Nimble Fingers if I wanted Trapmaking, but not even taking that this life so took a crit feat instead. Hardly groundbreaking.

 

[Buddha5440]

I would argue that for most of Heroics, where you have little access to Ranged Power, +4/8/12/18/20 d6 per hit is better than a named bow with a +1 crit profile. Even with using CC bows, I still often see crits in the thousands but sustained damage always seems higher than with named bows.

Obviously in Epics, named bows will far surpass CC but I still keep one with Vampirism for constant self-healing if I'm running low on spell points.

 

[Oliphant]

Seems like the could at least make Scattershot better a tad. Would help.

 

[Buddha5440]

Seems like the could at least make Scattershot better a tad. Would help.

I have never liked Scattershot. IPS and Manyshot is much better if you line things up.

If you solo a lot, you get a chance to see how the AI paths and can find sweet spots, and can then limit it to 1-3 mobs attacking you at once; which leads the other 4-10 coming in behind them (if you target the back one), as easy fodder for IPS and Manyshot + numerous active abilities (Sniper shot comes to mind).

 

[Falkor]

I'll try out those CC bows for grins, you've got my curiosity piqued. Though my bank space won't appreciate it.

 

[Kyrr]

I'm going to be that guy and say that just because a build is performing strong at end game, doesn't mean they are strong to level. I have played countless bow builds, and still inquisitive is easier to level than bows.

 

[Dragnilar]

Though not typical this was from VOD . . . on R8. Timestop and other vulnerabilty tricks were in play. And I'm a very mediocre ranged player not playing an overly-optimized build.

Thats the biggest crit I've ever seen. Did you have power of the forge to help hit that number?

 

[Kyrr]

Thats the biggest crit I've ever seen. Did you have power of the forge to help hit that number?

I'm not going to do the exact math. It's really not that hard to hit big numbers with a bunch of debuffs and a good die roll of 20, mixed with helpless of course.

 

[Natashaelle]

Though not typical this was from VOD . . . on R8. Timestop and other vulnerabilty tricks were in play. And I'm a very mediocre ranged player not playing an overly-optimized build.

I get ticks like that sometimes at cap -- it's still single target, though it is nice against bosses.

 

[Falkor]

That's a doubleshot crit ... not difficult to achieve at all considering its maybe ~45.5k damage.

There are two great builds in the new build forums that easily achieve these numbers.

Yings : https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/yings-reaper-bow.271/
Ilmers: https://forums.ddo.com/index.php?threads/the-kighter-an-aa-falconry-dws-archer.342/

They are both rock solid with many similarities yet enough differences for each to be unique.

 

[Drunken.dx]

Seems like the could at least make Scattershot better a tad. Would help.

Scattershot is worthless, waste of AP.

If soloing, you open a champagne when scattershot hits 2 mobs.

I still don't understand why don't they add something like fireball arrow from Neverwinter Nights Arcane Archer feat.
Make it so that you either choose Arrow imbues or AOE arrow, that would make Bow users life MUCH better.

Of course, that would mean faster leveling so it's a BIG NO for SSG.

 

[Tilomere]

A lot also depends on base class. Sorc with 11 points in a savant tree and 6 in EK is a very good heroic ranged platform. Fireball > Pew > Pew is a solid fireball arrow rotation.

Another thing that works really well is just lowering the difficulty down to hard. Hard BB will easily heroic cap a character, while also saving reaper and elite bonuses for epics/cap. Then you don't have to kite and can stand still while taking out the back line, then when melee reach you hit scattershot as a cleave attack.

 

[Dalois]

Yea, until end-game, the damage is really just not there. A large issue I have when leveling is every tool given to make you stronger in one aspect, weakens you in another.

Precise Shot: When using Precise Shot you gain Archers Focus granting +5 ranged power per stack, up to 15 stacks for a total bonus of 75 ranged power. During Heroics and the start of Epics, you don't have a lot of ranged power, so that is a massive boost to your damage. You do have to stand still which is annoying, but makes sense. The issue comes in when you are in a party with most any nuke caster regardless of their gear. The time it takes to proc Archer's Focus will likely be enough for the group to already be dead. The 3 seconds it takes to proc is a bit long just to feel good when playing, and I think it could likely be dropped down to 2 seconds without being much stronger, and it would feel a lot more consistent and good to use.

Improved Precise Shot: You immediately take a flat -20% to your ranged damage. Then when compared to the potential maximum single target damage of Precise Shot's Archers Focus stance, you are falling even further down. You do gain AoE in the form of a piercing ray, but your overall damage potential compared to a melee or caster's AoE, in the form of Cleave and Strikethroughs for melee, or sphere and cones for casters, you are hitting significantly less targets. Hitting more than 2 or 3 targets requires you to kite the enemies into a conga-line which doesn't mesh very well with group play. Switching between Precise Shot and Improved Precise Shot means you are likely to drop all your Archers Focus stacks and have to stack it back up from 0 as well.

Scattershot: Even ignoring the inconsistency on how well it targets and hit enemies, it is basically incomparable to Cleave, as it can only ever hit 3 enemies. 2 more than you would otherwise. When paired up against Multishot, you are looking at the exact same damage, just split across 3 enemies, if it hits. Even with the +1 crit range and multiplier from Scattershot, I think even the basic Cleave overshadows this.

Sure, you can get a good bit of damage from imbues, but then you aren't really dealing ranged damage. Just imbues from a range. Even with all of that though, my biggest issue is probably just the inconsistency I face when using ranged weapons. Sometimes arrows not firing despite the animation playing, and enemies being able to strafe your shots feels pretty bad.

 

[Graves]

Guess Suulomades was out sick that day.

That should definitely be the next Hardcore feature or limited event. Random Boss Dungeons, or swap out a boss mid-fight. Devs should have someone on the creative side to cook up fun ideas like this to mix up the monotony now and then.

 

[Falkor]

Better AOE and faster clear time for mobs means less lag. If the lag gets worse when mobs are having to do pathing, nothing like the pathing involved with a ranged bouncing all over while kiting having to take out one mob at a time for a few minutes. The clear time is abysmal with single target builds.

That right there is an incentive for helping ranged stop kiting so much. Other than it annoying melee to no end.

And we shouldn't be forced to play a sorcerer or other class to simply have some clear time in heroics. Or be forced to play heroic hard for Lloths sake, just to have effective ranged.

 

[Tilomere]

Reaper mode is for well-balanced parties. If you have any 1 dimensional character, be it single target dps, or a character without defenses, or without CC, or without healing, it is WAI to fail. There are DDO store purchases and grouping mechanics both available as well as above.

You could also promote XP/RXP/Drop rates to be dependent on dungeon clear time, so that slower dungeon clear builds aren't penalized.

 

[Marshal_Lannes]

While I acknowledge that leveling solo in heroics on Reaper with HW isn't a fun experience, I can assure you the tree is impressive in epics. How amazing? Well, my L23 HW ran R10s and actually contributed. Led kill count at L25 in Skeletons in the Closet. Routinely ran R8s at L26-28 including high-stress quests like ToEE. High SA, enough imbues, and eye-popping single-target DPS. And in all these cases I'm still wearing L15 Wallwatch set. When I actually put on L32 gear you're a total death dealer to the villainous denizens of the realms. HW isn't for zerging through heroic dungeons and getting fast complete times. It's a high-ceiling tree that allows skilled players to excel with longbows in Archer's Focus (you never take IPS with HW). There are plenty of high-floor trees that allow zergy play. Not everything needs to be designed that way.