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**** Hunter Ranger Archery Paragon Needs Serious Buff ****
My first and main toon is the HR. I chose it due to the main hand weapon being a bow. I didn't know when I made the toon that it had 3 different builds via paragon features (still somewhat new to the game, been playing for about 3 months). I hope it is widely known, that the HR is always at the low end of the dps scoreboard when playing with other dps's at similar gear score. I understand some may have specs, mods, and boon differences...but being out dps'd 10x and higher my damage is overly ridiculous. My HR is a 3100gs with avg boons (dread and sharandar complete plus various others in other campaigns - and i have guild boons), and rocking a pure vorpal.
The biggest problems with HR archery is this....all casting times are too long, by the time cast executes adds are either dead or half way dead by other dps toons (and now paladins). I'm referring to split the sky, thorn ward, rain of swords, hawk shot, commander shot, aimed shot, and electric shot. Removing these cast times/long animations decreases our ttk (time to kill) to allow us to be on the same track with other classes. Also, HR needs more AoE attacks for multiple adds and mobs. We do most of our damage with single targeted attacks, applying some form of an "entanglement" or "voltage" to our single target powers hitting adds in a certain radius will allow us to be more formiddable compared to other dps. Truthfully, I could even deal with the single target powers (w/o casting and animations) if electric shot had a huge buff (200 or 300 percent) since alot of HR powers are buffs and at wills do the most damage. Aimed shot being for single targets and electric shot being for multiple adds and mobs. I know GWF and CW have huge buffs for their at-wills (or power interactions) allowing them to do max damage. Adding in an at-will buff to a couple of powers would be great. I would do Hawk Eye since it already buffs encounters. While we are on Hawk eye/Hawk Shot, it would be a perfect attack used for adds and bosses if (along with the animation removal) the hawks wings had a lot larger spread to hit more adds, and removing the HUGE nerf if adds are close. Adds are sooooo fast and can close the gap so quick with the long animation of hawk shot that the power becomes useless soooooooo quick. Also, remove the 30ft requirement for longshot damage buff....again, adds are so fast and can close the gap too quick that it sometimes becomes useless. To give an example of good casting times....constricted arrow, binding arrow, longstriders shot, and cordon of arrows.
In the archery paragon, some of the feats need a tad bit of rework. Ghostwalker should be increased to 100% max to allow for excess shifting. HRs can be the slowest toon too many times and need the extra stamina. Broadhead Arrows has a bug where the 5% crit chance is NOT always applied. It seems to be on a timer and I have to constantly shift stances to apply the perk. I would like to see Hasty Retreat bumped up to 50% and last up to 10 seconds (might be a bit too much), again thinking about how fast adds and other players are and how they can close the gap or chase us down so easily. For Unflinching Aim, I actually like as is....if anything, I would bump the buff to 30% from 20% and the cool down up to 2sec from 1sec. I would like to see Rising Focus be a perm buff perk and not an increasing buff perk....again, thinking how other dps toons ttk is so much lower compared to HR. Making the buff permanent helps reduce the ttk for HR toons. Longshot should also be a perm buff stat and not based off of critical hits (like piercing blades in the combat tree). Bottomless Quiver is fine as is. I love the Stillness of the Forest perk, it just needs one small adjustment. You should not lost the entire crit chance buff when foes/players are w/i 25 feet, it should decrease down to about 10% chance at the lowest. Again, thinking about how much faster adds/players are than the HR. And finally Predator, i'm not sure why the perk is only applied to one target for 20 seconds. This is a complete waste when fighting adds. Every other toon has buffs at this stage in the paragon that applies to their toon and not an add. Where they get an overall damage buff and not a single target damage buff. This significantly lowers our possible dps to other toons like CWs who apply chaos magic buff giving a 30% damage buff, and GWF who have a stacking buff up to 50%...then their is HR with a single target buff (doesn't make sense or add up).
I hope this finds someone who can analyze this and give good feedback. Also, on a side note. An idea for the Paragon feats....allow players to spec in any tree in any perk, giving them the final paragon buff to the tree that has the most points. This would create a lot of different builds players can use instead of just "using the meta." And a purchasable mechanic that allows us to make multiple builds and switch for different scenarios (certain dungeons, pvp vs pve, solo/team runs), when I say purchaseble I mean a one time purchase and not a repeated cost like changing artifact weapon abilities. And the switch should not have a cool down. I recommend all of these changes WITHOUT nerfing any current stats or damage. This will put the HR Archery toon up to par with other dps toons (even out doppleganger the combat HR)
Thanks,
Nova Secondus - PS4 HR
The biggest problems with HR archery is this....all casting times are too long, by the time cast executes adds are either dead or half way dead by other dps toons (and now paladins). I'm referring to split the sky, thorn ward, rain of swords, hawk shot, commander shot, aimed shot, and electric shot. Removing these cast times/long animations decreases our ttk (time to kill) to allow us to be on the same track with other classes. Also, HR needs more AoE attacks for multiple adds and mobs. We do most of our damage with single targeted attacks, applying some form of an "entanglement" or "voltage" to our single target powers hitting adds in a certain radius will allow us to be more formiddable compared to other dps. Truthfully, I could even deal with the single target powers (w/o casting and animations) if electric shot had a huge buff (200 or 300 percent) since alot of HR powers are buffs and at wills do the most damage. Aimed shot being for single targets and electric shot being for multiple adds and mobs. I know GWF and CW have huge buffs for their at-wills (or power interactions) allowing them to do max damage. Adding in an at-will buff to a couple of powers would be great. I would do Hawk Eye since it already buffs encounters. While we are on Hawk eye/Hawk Shot, it would be a perfect attack used for adds and bosses if (along with the animation removal) the hawks wings had a lot larger spread to hit more adds, and removing the HUGE nerf if adds are close. Adds are sooooo fast and can close the gap so quick with the long animation of hawk shot that the power becomes useless soooooooo quick. Also, remove the 30ft requirement for longshot damage buff....again, adds are so fast and can close the gap too quick that it sometimes becomes useless. To give an example of good casting times....constricted arrow, binding arrow, longstriders shot, and cordon of arrows.
In the archery paragon, some of the feats need a tad bit of rework. Ghostwalker should be increased to 100% max to allow for excess shifting. HRs can be the slowest toon too many times and need the extra stamina. Broadhead Arrows has a bug where the 5% crit chance is NOT always applied. It seems to be on a timer and I have to constantly shift stances to apply the perk. I would like to see Hasty Retreat bumped up to 50% and last up to 10 seconds (might be a bit too much), again thinking about how fast adds and other players are and how they can close the gap or chase us down so easily. For Unflinching Aim, I actually like as is....if anything, I would bump the buff to 30% from 20% and the cool down up to 2sec from 1sec. I would like to see Rising Focus be a perm buff perk and not an increasing buff perk....again, thinking how other dps toons ttk is so much lower compared to HR. Making the buff permanent helps reduce the ttk for HR toons. Longshot should also be a perm buff stat and not based off of critical hits (like piercing blades in the combat tree). Bottomless Quiver is fine as is. I love the Stillness of the Forest perk, it just needs one small adjustment. You should not lost the entire crit chance buff when foes/players are w/i 25 feet, it should decrease down to about 10% chance at the lowest. Again, thinking about how much faster adds/players are than the HR. And finally Predator, i'm not sure why the perk is only applied to one target for 20 seconds. This is a complete waste when fighting adds. Every other toon has buffs at this stage in the paragon that applies to their toon and not an add. Where they get an overall damage buff and not a single target damage buff. This significantly lowers our possible dps to other toons like CWs who apply chaos magic buff giving a 30% damage buff, and GWF who have a stacking buff up to 50%...then their is HR with a single target buff (doesn't make sense or add up).
I hope this finds someone who can analyze this and give good feedback. Also, on a side note. An idea for the Paragon feats....allow players to spec in any tree in any perk, giving them the final paragon buff to the tree that has the most points. This would create a lot of different builds players can use instead of just "using the meta." And a purchasable mechanic that allows us to make multiple builds and switch for different scenarios (certain dungeons, pvp vs pve, solo/team runs), when I say purchaseble I mean a one time purchase and not a repeated cost like changing artifact weapon abilities. And the switch should not have a cool down. I recommend all of these changes WITHOUT nerfing any current stats or damage. This will put the HR Archery toon up to par with other dps toons (even out doppleganger the combat HR)
Thanks,
Nova Secondus - PS4 HR
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Comments
Archery is the weakest and most niche out of the three build trees but it is not useless. It is effective for single target damage and support and its obvious that it won't perform well in multi target fights as it's not supposed to.
The casting times are not much of a problem in my opinion, the reason for why those are fairly long is so you can't utilize them as effectively on Trapper builds. Burst damage on a class without Cooldowns is always dangerous and hard to balance. With the cast times being a bit longer burst damage gets unattracive to Trappers without making them useless for Archery HRs, Commanding Shot for example you only need to use every 14 seconds so the Debuff stays up.
Also, I do not think HRs are too slow, especially Archery. If you feel like you are to slow, get more Movement speed, get Howling weapons or maybe grab Fleet Stance from the Trapper tree. Nothing in this game can outrun an Archery HR, its simply not possible. But as you noticed yourself Movement speed is really important so you should just make sure to stack it a little higher, that way the entire Archery gameplay will feel a lot smoother, especially if you jump-cast your powers while on the run.
For the feats I completely disagree. Buffing Ghostwalker and Hasty Reatreat like you suggested would completely brake the HR, 50% movement speed from a single feat is too much and keeping your Stamina up with an Archery HR really isn't too hard if you stack enough Movement speed anyways. The other feats are actually fairly strong as well and definitely don't need to get changed. The main problem is that receiving teammate buffs is heavily dependant on being close to your teammates and enemies. However the Archery kit wants you to stay far away. Arranging both can be really hard and sometimes impossible without either missing out on personal or teammate buffs. A rework to how buffs work in this game seems like a better option to solve this problem, mainly because a rework on how buffs and debuffs work is long overdue anyways.
To sum it up, I feel like the Archery HR itself isn't necessarily bad, it simply doesn't fit the meta. I also really enjoy Archery Gameplay so I really hope they don't screw it up again. If you want to up your Archery game I would recommend focuing on Movement speed a lot more and also focusing on supporting your teammates as well. With about 7k Recovery you should be able to maintain a fairly decent Longstrider uptime.
Archery simply isn't a Combat or Trapper v2. If you want to do stuff you can only do with Combat or Trapper builds, just play Combat or Trapper. For the most part, Archery is Single target focused and that will probably never change.
And I don't see how you think Archery is the fastest. GWF are by far the fastest class with their L3 boost run. GF have a built in incredible speed boost (which is completely one sided in PvP as well). I have had the elemental weapons and dark enchantments in utility spots...but now i'm using my twisted set and dragonhoards. Why should I have to again lower my damage output and use howling longbow for a 2 second speed boost, or not get refining stones for a small increase in speed when no other class has to do this. It's called "balance." Other classes do not have to compromise their loadouts, stats, mods, damage, or anything else that the HR has to do. It really seems like that you are misunderstood on the HR archery role. When they buffed it last time (i forget which mod), it was defined as a dps build, not a support role. Now, lets say it was a support role build though. Look at the CW support role build with Chaos Magic. They can stun, freeze, choke, and still output 3 to 5x more damage than a HR archery build while buffing the entire team with nice damage buff, crit chance and arm pen buff, or damage based healing constantly. Look at the GWF who buffs himself tremendously who crushes every other class in damage by atleast 5x's output.
These changes I listed do not break the HR class at all. They don't redefine any "meta." They simply put the HR archery build in the same lane as literally every other dps class. They allow optimal damage without sacrifice to speed or other options like refining stones, enchantments, or play preference. The HR archery paragon does not do no where enough damage. The only time the speed is not an issue is when longstriders shot is active and aimed shot at the same time. Other than that, HR archery is currently the weakest link. I know this by making 20 plus builds (by respecin) and trying out various runs with various diff teammates and solo runs. I know this because I also have a CW, a GWF, a cleric, a TR and am making other toons as well. HR archery (currently and unfortunately is my fav play style) is by far the weakest link in the dps class subclass pool. So much to the point where even tanks are starting to out burn or almost out burn archery builds. Combat doesn't really have this problem (though I would like to see flurry last more than 2 quick seconds). And trapper does not have this issue if used correctly with a good combo of grasping roots (since they don't stack but refresh) and at will damage.
Please read these topics:
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1224841/hr-archery-spec-big-problem/p1
http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1226436/pve-damage-resistance-debuffs-effectiveness/p1
Archery spec does not need buff. He needs to rework some things.
1. Predator - DR debuff 50% - capped. This Feat is obviously for bosses, but for bosses it does literally nothing.
2. Quarry - 5% debuff - capped. The same.
3. Longshot - piercing damage and not scaling. When I take a shot at 500k-2000к damage, then 1000 piercing damage is just ridiculous. (besides, it is activated not all skills)
4. Stillness of the Forest - in the current system buffs the Archer needs to be close to the boss. Feat simply does not work in this position.
@terramak @asterdahl
The official patchnote said:
"Commanding Shot
...
Reworked the debuff this power applies, and reduced its duration. Reduced the damage debuff component to 10%, down from 15%. Changed the defense component from lowering their defenses by 15% to increasing the damage they take by 10%. This changes where in the formula the damage increase takes place, and this power can cause the target to take increased damage even if you have enough Armor Penetration to completely ignore their Damage Resistance.
..."
But now it is DR debuff 15% and it capped. Useless ability.
Also if you look at the Links @Chemodan007 has posted you can see what i meant with "it doesn't fit the meta".
When I solo the last boss on ECC it currently takes about 7 minutes with a Trapper build and a little bit more than 10 with Archery. Both times are optimized for the current patch and I doubt you will consistently get faster runs. Looking at those run times you can tell that Archery is not much worse than the Trapper. However, you can only see this potential whithout having teammates that buff everyone like crazy. That clearly tells you, its not entirely Archery itself, its the way buffs and debuffs currently work. If you looked at TRs for example, I am sure they would have a hard time soloing ECCs last boss in under 10 minutes as well (not sure on this one, you rarely get TRs soloing stuff). However since their kit actually fits the meta you can do significant damage in both single- and multi-target, especially single-target.
About the powers you said you were running. With those powers it is obvious you aren't doing any multi-target damage. You should definitely use Cordon of Arrows and Longstrider and Split Shot over Electric Shot, if you actually wanted to increase your multi-target damage. You can switch Cordon out for something else in single target but I would not recommend Hawk Shot. It is definitely underperforming in PvE and not VERY effective. Another thing you are forgetting is, simply because your Paingiver number isn't very high, doesn't mean you are not useful for your team. If you have 2 damage dealing classes in your group, you really only need one to clear the adds along the way, since the trash basically dies in one hit anyways it doesn't matter AT ALL if there are two guys "fighting" for that damage or if there is just one guy doing it by himself. It is much more important for your team to have a high Movement speed to move through the dungeon quicker, and LSS helps a lot here. I think, like many, you are way too focused on the Paingiver leaderboard. It is very inaccurate in determining how valuable you are too your team and it isn't even a good judge for how high your potential damage is. If you look at the Trapper for example: with the last patch that hit Xbox and PS4 Trappers will have seriously lower numbers on the Paingiver if running with highly buffed groups because Plant Growth is now delayed by an additional second. The Trappers damage out-put is still the same though. You simply can't show it if other classes kill enemies so quick that your DoTs won't even start ticking. If you played in groups without as many buffs your Paingiver number will LITERALLY be the same as before.
I hope this explains some of the things I have mentioned in more detail and I hope you can look at the Archery HR from a different perspective now. Anyways, if you have fun with your Archery HR, don't let numbers bother your too much, just keep on doing what you like to do!
Example: I suggested 10% bonus speed feat, he put 5% and kept the old bonus. Also, many of the feats were never tweaked properly and many feat requests were pigeonholed and not tested/explored. Not to mention the bevy of bugs.
The casting/animation problem was acknowledged, but then again he left. Many were left with the impression that the Archery revamp will resume after Mod 10 was officially released.
Still waiting for his replacement, b/c Archery is definitely not complete yet. There are many issues to be fulfilled.
Lastly, the Lead Developer, Foss (@Mimicking), has indicated during a stream that he himself is not pleased with Rangers as it was. But I assume he's using low level alts. Many of the good encounters unlock at higher levels and the archery in particular playstyle is idiosyncratic. One can't simply glean through the motions with little experience of the class.
Go find the the Hunter Ranger Revamp thread and read what transpired.
Neverwinter Toons:
Archael 70 HR
Stajans 70 GF
Member of Timed Out
Archery build has so much potential. There are many different "possible" loadouts if certain mechanics were worked on. The single target does massive damage, but under performs due to casting times and, well being single target...lol. The AoE attacks under perform due to casting time and "DoT." AoE's have a difficult time holding up to burst attacks with no casting time. Not to mention archery buffs are mostly situational and are not granted most of the time during combat. I hear what people are saying about LSS, I use to use it like crazy (and still do)...problem is with the follow up moves casting time whether they are AoE or STA (single target attacks), it's hard to get off enough attacks to make the buff useful for the caster. Most of my suggestions aren't necessarily "buffs" so we can hit harder, they are buffs and fixes to decrease our TTK. Could you imagine Hawkshot with a longer wingspread and no casting time? It would be a great move on mobs and bosses. And keep in mind, i'm not asking for a reduction in cool down to spam powers...mostly just a fix to remove casting and animations so we can attack just as quick as other dps classes and subclasses.
2. See 1.
3. Have a look at the wording. It's max 50% of *weapon damage*, not overall *damage*. As a result, you're going to do half of whatever weapon damage you have. A max rank relic weapon is what, about 2k damage? so yeah, that's why you're doing 1k damage. I noted this issue a LONG time ago and it's never been upped. 1k damage is pitiful and very much not worth the points.
4. Was also brought up during the pass. Having a bonus to max rank is fantastic *IF* you could (1) stay at max distance and not have enemies that charge you (which 99% of mobs do); and (2) not be subjecting yourself to potentially missing out on party buffs and/or heals, which again, you would.
All told, Archery is semi-fun with the artifact power for Aimed Shot (movement boost). Very quick shoot and run with high single-target dps, especially combined with Longstrider's and various other class buffs. But yeah, bit of a one-trick pony, and struggles against groups of mobs....which a vast majority of dungeons and other encounters are.