Pretty sad looking in other class threads and seeing all the back and forth with the devs - and in this thread, absolutely nothing. I guess we've been declared 'overbalanced', nothing more to do, deal with it. Just like mod 6.
Ikr. At least he bothered to fix the worst, obvious bugs.
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feanor70118Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,170Arc User
Do we have a list of current, unaddressed bugs?
It's obvious that mod 16 is not even close to ready, but we have less than a week until it's pushed on us anyway. As usual, our class takes a huge nerf and is nowhere near balanced as a DPS class. Who saw that coming and warned against it repeatedly? Hmmmmm.......
Instead of ignoring us, they could just globally multiply our damage by 3 to bring us in line with barbarians...
The Ranger offhand damage bug seems to have been fixed, but I'm surprised this update wasn't documented in any of the patch notes. It was perhaps the single biggest Ranger-class issue, especially since so many of the Mod 15 Combat HRs love melee. Given the HR community's general feelings that there hasn't been much communication or attention for Rangers, one would think a major fix like this would have been announced. Anyway, very happy to hear that this was fixed, apparently at around the same time as the stance change bug was fixed. At least the stance change damage bug was documented. I'm grateful for both fixes! We now have two playable paragons, but please keep the fixes coming and please please include them in the patch notes too!
I don't know about the other classes but after pretty much doing nothing in the game and then coming back to this and seeing what the changes were for Rangers, tremendous disappointment is an understatement.
Hunter Ranger is doing about half damage of other classes. The supposed AOE variant Warden Ranger is even worse! I'm talking range Archery.
The More than Disruptive feat is utterly useless. It needs to be replaced. I've never used
that Daily ever (+5% damage bonus for a useless Daily?). It needs to be replaced. Just peruse other classes' lvl 80 feats and this
one is a doggone anemic by comparison.
I think the problem lies with the Developers' misconception that we're Ranged therefore were severely advantaged. The mobs close in the distance within a second or two and we dont' have any mobility modifiers. The calculus is simply not there.
Meanwhile the Barbarian has insanely powerful and superior Ranged attacks like Axestorm (the straightline AOE width of a ROAD. Meanwhile our straightline equivalent is Hawkshot with the width of squirrel to hit and of a human body when splitting) or Avalanche of Steel daily with every Christmas tree effects hung in for display.
A Seismic Shock Daily equivalent(!) of Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel would be:
5 second casttime (NO PROBLEM, this is no downside at all) Straightline AOE Width of (Axestorm) Push ( since the AOS uses Range which they never should have access to in the first place) Slow for 5 seconds ( since the AOS has damage and control immunity for 5 seconds ) Knockdown ( since the AOS has AOE knockdown ) Magnitude of 700 ( since the AOS has magnitude of 700 and not our measly 550 )
So cast 5 seconds. Mobs get pushed. After which they get knocked down, after which they get slow for a Magnitude of 700 That is the Hunter Ranger fair equivalent of Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel.
Aimed Shot now has 1.65s cast 200 magnitude. This means that DPS = 200/1.65*coefficient = 121,21*coefficient. Rapid Shot now has 0.4s cast 50 magnitude. This means that DPS = 50/0.4*coefficient = 125*coefficient.
This means that Aimed Shot is completely unusable. Rapid Shot has more dps. Rapid Shot has less caste speed, this means faster stack bonuses, more stable probability of crit chance, easier to deal damage and dodge danger.
Storm Strike's tooltip is misleading; it states that the half splash damage on the third hit is lightning, implying that the rest of the damage is physical.
All of Storm Strike's damage is lightning, which creates antisynergy with the rest of the ranger powers, which predominantly do physical damage. If you want to allocate attributes to improve the damage of Storm Strike and the two other lightning powers, you essentially have "dead" attribute points until the relatively high level at which you start doing magical damage.
Simplest solution would just be to make all of Storm Strike's damage _except_ for the lightning AoE be physical, like the majority of the ranger powers (and there's certainly nothing about the power's animation to suggest that the two cuts and double-stab would be doing electrical damage instead of slashing/piercing)
Archer Ranger Feedbacks. Hopefully, the developers haven't completely forgotten Archers.
ARCHER HUNTER Rain of Arrows(encounter): Low damage, damage-over-time with an easily interrupted long cast. And it's hard to hit all the mobs in the same area. Increae the damage or increase the duration or increase area or lower the cast time or give it bonus damage vs. rooted mobs so we can combo it with Cordon of Arrows. Improve at least two aspects of this skill Rapid Volley (encounter): Weak damage with no synergy nor any effect. Just use Split Shot or Electric Shot At-will.
Commander In Chief (feat): Commanding Shot (single target encounter reduces encounter cooldown by 2 seconds. Meanwhile WARDEN tree feat has Storm's Recovery which lowers cooldown by 3 second with use of ANY encounter.
More Than Disruptive (feat): Extremely useless. Single target interrupt with low damage gives +5% damage over 5 seconds. What can we possibly fit 5 seconds, since we have no burst synergy combos. Please check other classes' level 80 Feats. Primal Instinct (class feature): Melee only. No benefit to Archers.
Aspect of the Falcon (class feature): Why limit the bonus to within 25'? Counterintuitive to our class Companion Hunting Hawk which increases damages at range. It's one thing to have no synergy. It's another to negate the bonus of our Hunting Hawk if we go over 25'.
Seismic Shock (Daily; Hunter+Warden): Again, compare this to the Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel. Please give us that 5 second cast time "downside" but also give us the Christmas tree of effect, larger damage and the width of Barbarian's Axestorm. Read my last Ranger feedback to see the Ranger equivalent Avalanche of Steel. They got higher damage, better area positioning, Ranged attack (for a melee class that's already most mobile), a wonderful Christmas-tree-of-effects that seague way into Barbarian's perfect synergy combos. All for a cheap price of a 5 second cast time "downside".
ARCHER WARDEN
Storm Conduit (feat): I see the design logic for Archery is predicated on the notion that mobs do no move, do not attack and stay in one small area. Eighty percent of the content is solo.
Even on dungeons, mobs don't just stick on one area. I just carried Master of the Hunt skirmish with 3 bots and 1 Fighter who can't hold mobs at all. I died-respawned 4 times even with soulforged, with no res (bots don't res). Mobs were chasing me nonstop, disrupting my attacks and keeping my hp well below 50% almost at all times.
So, If I were to use a Storm Conduit build under these situation, I would have died a dozens of times. Because if I were to cast Split the Cast to the prime the damage, I can't use Marauder's Escape. I have to stick below the clouds or else they move out of the area to follow me. Storm Conduit is supposed to be the ranged alternative to Blade Hurricane feat (Melee only).
It is very hard to set up a combo of Electricshot (long final combo shot) + Split The Sky (very long cast) + while staying within the confines of the electric storm and at the same time evade mobs. Not possible or reasonable (we have no self heal).
Either modify Storm Conduit to benefit Archers or give us the ranged equivalent of melee Flurry from within the Blade Hurricane (feat), currently melee flavor only.
Otherwise, neither Storm Conduit or Blade Hurricane has utility for Archery.
Penetrating Arrow (at-will): Mobs don't line up in a straight line. What is the utility of this?
Top DPS class such as Barbarian Blademaster, Rogue Assassin and Melee Ranger are doubling Archery damage.
Our synergy or lackthereof is bad. Our damage is bad. Our cooldown is a wreck and our feats are useless.
I'll give just one example skill comparison:
Rogue Assassin
Assassinate (Encounter): 650 Magnitude, 13.9 sec cooldown, +25% damage from behind, +25 damage from stealth (any direction) Lashing Blade (Encounter): 550 Magnitude, 11.1sec cooldown, +50% crit severity stealthed. Can hit multiple targets if in the same spot.
Hunter Archer
Longstrider's Shot (Encounter): 480 Magnitude, 17.3 sec cooldown. Single Target. No effects. And it's much harder to hit the back of mobs with range vs melee because we have long arcs.
They got higher magnitudes, much lower cooldowns, and the effects are in full synergy with their abilities/feats and combat advantage is easy to achieve.
Archery Feats Suggestions:
Remove the utterly pointless Commander-in-Chief + More Than Disruptive and replace with:
Faster Archer (feat): Your Ranged attacks have 2 second less cooldown, your Melee attack have 2 second more cooldown.
Master Archer (feat): Everytime you use Ranged encounter, your other ranged encounter loses 2 seconds from cooldown. Tab switching to melee disabled
It's very difficult to compete with fast cast bursters. We have long cast, long animations, dot damages with low damage. Heck how can we even use Bloodtheft enchantment? It discriminates againsts non bursters and long casters. How can slow casting, AOE dot damagers benefit from Bloodtheft?
I just ran CTA with my 12.5 alt archer yesterday.
A lvl 26 barbarian had 800k damage, I had 900k+ damage. A lvl 10k barbarian hit 1.5m damage, I had 600k damage. A lvl 15k barbarian hit 2.2m damage, I had 300k damage.
And I'm using rank 13 weapon enchantment with built up blue mount insignias. Just compare their At-wills to ours. It's not even close. Then go through the encounters, feats and dailies and synergies.
The lvl 26 and 10k are running bare gear with absolutely nothing.
And the barbarians are begging for buffs at their thread. If the Barbarians easily double our damage and they are crying for buffs, then Archery need it far worse.
Whoever works on this character has no idea about it. Lack of interesting mechanics, long times of casting skills, skills strengthening the pseudo role of the bufer for a short time. Where buffs and debuffs of their era have been completed. Which dev is working on the hunter? He played at least once this character or does he just do it? Only 4 skills are really playable and useful. Everything in the cryptic style.
Whoever works on this character has no idea about it. Lack of interesting mechanics, long times of casting skills, skills strengthening the pseudo role of the bufer for a short time. Where buffs and debuffs of their era have been completed. Which dev is working on the hunter? He played at least once this character or does he just do it? Only 4 skills are really playable and useful. Everything in the cryptic style.
They change Developers for class balance very often, that's we just throw whatever suggestions so they understand older combos and synergy.
At least I finally found the only viable pure Archery build for Mod16. It's the completely novel Warden Storm Recovery and Storm Conduit build. After so many configurations of weapon enchantments, companions and combos, I figured something decent that's not extremely pathetic like in the Hunter tree.
However as of now, Hunter Archery is pretty much dead. I've tried every configuration and combos possible that would make any sense.
- There's no synergy ( hence no viable combos ). Combos give low damage + high cooldown. Finishing off mobs with slow and low damage at-wills (Aimed Shot/Split Shot) isnt' viable. You end up with a 2nd rotation! - Casting+Animations are way too long. - Marauder's escape has no immunity window. If you cast while mob is animating, you get hit regardless. And hit registration is poor is you don't angle it correctly. - Our dodge is half length of other classes. - Rain of Arrow is dead. It's hitting very low with no disrupt effect like of old. The old ROA disrupts targets within the circle with every hit. They used to get disrupted and they pinned on the spot. - It's impossible to build Action Points at a reasonable rate. - At-wills are excessively slow and damage anemic. Barbarians and Rogues easily double our at-will DPS. - Our cooldowns are way too high with our Encounters mostly single targets. - Weak and useless Paragon AOE (Hawkshot is a narrow straight line; mobs don't line up )x(Rapid Volley is essentially Split Shot at-will so why bother?). - Useless feats: Commander in Chief and More than Disruptive have no utility. - Critical Action feat is useless when it's impossible to build up Action Points with such low rate attack and nonsensical AOEs. - Predator is single target with 5% bonus damage. They ought to check out the bonuses on the Rogue feats and synergies.
For Warden Archery:
They need to replace Penetrating Arrow with a Single Target imbued with Lightning that doesn't arc but can be added to Storm Conduit damage.
I discovered many synergy from Storm Conduit build but so far the hardest is priming the ability. Imo, the first hit should be initial target not the third hit.
Split the Sky takes at least 2 seconds to cast + animate. If you try to cancel after casting, it won't go through as you try to beat the mobs from disrupting your casting+animation before dodging. One has to pick: Get hit= lose HP or cancel attack = zero dps.
Then I have to fire 3 consecutive Electric shots to mark the target. That wastes a lot of time from Split the sky to add to the total. And it only adds 10% of accrued damage to the target.
If I prime first, Split Sky is easily disrupted and the Storm Conduit is already ticking down. So either:
- Increase Storm Conduit duration by at least 5 seconds - Or make the first hit from the Electric shot the marking attack for Storm Conduit.
my archer is fine. 2 shotted the big crab in master expedition. find what works for you, experiment,redo feats. talk about what works. snipe,binding,hinder,constricting,electric shot,cordon of arrows and more.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
Anyone playing an Trapper-esque Hunter with Constrictive, Hindering and Longstrider? I seem to be fine so far, even if root damage is probably too low. An improvement of root damage would make it a long way to make this build viable. Rotation is not entirely seamles but I can fill the the gaps with mount+artifact activations.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I tried that for a while. I switched out Longstrider in the end, but it feels smooth in general. Comparison kills more than ever, tho. Combat is far better than both ranged and trapper, at least for all builds I tried so far.. I'm still trying things for combat but its already noticably better.
It seems that the build and feats chosen are critical if you want to be performing this module. I didn"t try my ranger reroll yet, but the rangers damage I see around vary from extremely good to below average. It looks like there are some traps when you choose the feats and powers, and the good combination is difficult.
Another look how twistedly skewed balance is againts Archers (Warden and far worse, Hunter). Developers, please read carefully. This time we look at AOE.
I'll show another reason why Rogues ( and I only pick them because I don't play Melee Ranger or Barbarians, who also double our dps) are doubling our damage (this one is hilariously bad):
ROGUE
Path of Blade Magnitude: 330 Duration: 10 seconds Attack Pattern: Hits EVERY single mob every tick. Has the disrupt effect of the old Rain of Arrow on certain mobs. Cast time: 0.8 seconds Cooldown: 15.4 seconds Area: Large Stealth Effect: Ticks twice faster at half the duration.
Smoke Bomb Magnitude: 275 Duration: 6 seconds Attack Pattern: Dazes EVERY mob. Hits EVERY mob every tick. Cast time: 0.5 second Cooldown: 20.2 seconds Area: Medium Stealth effect: Combat Advantage to every ally against mobs affected by the smoke bomb.
RANGER
Rain of Arrows Magnitude: 200 Duration: unlisted but 4-5 seconds Attack Pattern: Hits 1 SINGLE random mob per tick Cast time: 1 second Cooldown: 15.4 seconds Area: Small
Split the Sky Magnitude: 100 Duration: 10 seconds Attack Pattern: Hits 1 SINGLE random mob per (2 seconds?). Every mob hit slowed for 3 seconds Cast time: 1.5 seconds Cooldown: 17.3 seconds Area: Large
So the Rogue has much higher magnitudes. Hits EVERY mob every tick! Has amazing effects like Daze, Combat advantage, disrupt on all mobs. They have much better cast times. Better area coverage than Rain of Arrow.
Rain of Arrow has about 4-5 second duration, hits a very low 200 magnitude, hits 1 random mob per tick, has a very small area of coverage and ZERO effects!
Split The Sky has a pitiful damage of 100 (120 on Owlbear preview, wow). Hits 1 SINGLE random mob every (oh, 2 seconds?) and the mob hit slow down for 3 seconds. Has a ridiculously long cast time of 1.5 seconds ( it was 'buffed' from 1.6 second a week ago) and still double the cast time of Smoke Bomb.
Why?
The core powers of Archery have been eviscerated and replaced with unfinished Conduit synergy (for Warden; Hunter tree has ZERO synergy). Meanwhile the Rogue powers are literally cut and paste from Mod 15. Even the prime powerful Rogue feats are cut and paste from Mod 15. They kept all their stealth effects and then some new ones. Their powers have much higher magnitudes with full synergy to their feats and actives.
Meanwhile, powers like Split the Sky lost its defensive ability. Every player hit under the area used to be hit by lightning! Giving us +20 magnitude on Owlbear as a 'buff' doesn't nearly cut it. Give Split the Sky its defensive ability or make it function like Path of Blades or Smoke Bomb ( hit every mob every tick ).
Split the sky hits 1 mob per 2 seconds at 100 Magnitude. Rain of Arrow hits 1 mob per tick at the crazy duration of 4 or 5 seconds within a tiny area at a magnitude of 200.
Smoke Bomb hits EVERY mob for 6 seconds for a magnitude of 275. It has Daze AND even Combat Advantage with stealth. Path of the Blade hits EVERY mob for 10 seconds for a magnitude of 330. It has the disrupt effect of the old Rain of Arrow on weaker mobs.
What kind of obvious evidence do the developers need to effect significant changes to Archery?
Give our powers electric effect when we pick the Conduit feat so we can actually stack damage.
It seems that the build and feats chosen are critical if you want to be performing this module. I didn"t try my ranger reroll yet, but the rangers damage I see around vary from extremely good to below average. It looks like there are some traps when you choose the feats and powers, and the good combination is difficult.
Don't conflate Archery and Melee Ranger. Melee is beast. I'm speaking Archery with no melee. The Rangers you see performing like monster are Melee.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
Aimed Shot now has 1.65s cast 200 magnitude. This means that DPS = 200/1.65*coefficient = 121,21*coefficient. Rapid Shot now has 0.4s cast 50 magnitude. This means that DPS = 50/0.4*coefficient = 125*coefficient.
This means that Aimed Shot is completely unusable. Rapid Shot has more dps. Rapid Shot has less caste speed, this means faster stack bonuses, more stable probability of crit chance, easier to deal damage and dodge danger.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
If its me, I would have make rapid shot damage an inconsistent one. The magnitude would swing between 35 to 60 magnitude. That would make rapid shot benefit comes with a price of unpredictable damage. So it might be better dps than aimshot or it might be lesser. From my opinion, I think its fair that way and to distinguish between the 2.
I did a little test. Fixed damage weapon was used.
Rapid Shot Aimed Shot Hunters Teamwork To get the total time, you need to divide all the damage on the DPS. To get the casting speed of a skill, you need to divide the total time by the number of hits. => Rapid Shot: 39257/135.90/469 = 0.6159 s. Aimed Shot: 67652/199.2/200 = 1.6981 s. Hunters Teamwork: 27182/105.6/318 = 0.8095 s.
This means that the casting speed in the tooltips is incorrect. Or there is a slight delay between casting. Looks like DPS of Aimed about 1.5 higher than DPS of Rapid.
Feedback <font color=cyan> And question x3 <font color = Blue> Feedback: Excellent youtube video, you are superb, you are experienced, and you are humble. Keep it up.
Question 1: I noticed that at will Aimed shot takes 4 times longer to cast than Rapid shot and does 4 times the damage. Why does it even exist? The moment a cast is interrupted (for avoiding stuff etc) it falls behind Rapid shot in dps.
Question 2: Forest Ghost Daily. What does it even do? Does it add 75 magnitude to each hit for approx 5 secs? Or is it just a restealth effect that adds 75 to your next hit? Also it appears to cost 500 AP not 50. So confused.
Question 3: Is Level 40 Feat Longshot supposed to say 5% instead of 50%, since its rate of change counterpart offers a 5% conditional buff as well?
I'm new, but I like to know my mechanics fully. I'd like to know all the spec variations before I choose which two I like best.
I'm new, but I like to know my mechanics fully. I'd like to know all the spec variations before I choose which two I like best.
As of the patch 2 weeks ago, Warden Archery is viable as long as you built it right. Meaning you have to use high Lightning Weapon enchantment. Meaning the build is strong vs mobs but weak vs single targets.
Any other enchantment smacks of generic (really). They still have to lower the cast of Split the Sky. The reason why it had a high cast time is due to the Defensive effect. Now that they removed it, there's no reason to have a high cast time.
Hunter Archery on the other hand has zero viable build. It has no synergy. It has no combos, or any discernibly useful theme.
You'll be short shrifted by the senselessly long cast+animation, long cooldown, low damage and mostly single target skills. The last two ranged feats are totally useless. Aimed shot and Rapid shot have half the damage potential of other top classes. Read my long posts up there if you want to.
Currently class balance (amongst those who know what they are doing ) is divided into two subsections: The 4 kings/queens (the best dps) + the rest.
Although I have been seeing weird Fighter DPS lately, having no gear and dealing big burst damage which seem just off. We'll see if that build becomes prevalent. Then we'll know what's going on there.
(ps. yeah the Forest Ghost is typo. It costs 500 ap since it doesn't light up below 500 ap meter).
Question 1: I noticed that at will Aimed shot takes 4 times longer to cast than Rapid shot and does 4 times the damage.
Why does it even exist? The moment a cast is interrupted (for avoiding stuff etc) it falls behind Rapid shot in dps.
My guess is its risk vs reward. If u are able to pull it off, you are rewarded with a higher dps. In my opinion, that's good. It let u think when to add in aimed shot damage according to the situation permitted.
Question 1: I noticed that at will Aimed shot takes 4 times longer to cast than Rapid shot and does 4 times the damage.
Why does it even exist? The moment a cast is interrupted (for avoiding stuff etc) it falls behind Rapid shot in dps.
My guess is its risk vs reward. If u are able to pull it off, you are rewarded with a higher dps. In my opinion, that's good. It let u think when to add in aimed shot damage according to the situation permitted.
But it's not higher DPS. Rapid Shot only does 1/4 of the damage, but fires 4 times in the time it takes Aimed Shot to fire once.
So: Assuming you're not interrupted, it's the SAME DPS. If you're interrupted, Rapid Shot will have gotten off 1-3 shots for 25%-75% of uninterrupted DPS, but Aimed Shot will do 0.
Comments
I guess we've been declared 'overbalanced', nothing more to do, deal with it. Just like mod 6.
It's obvious that mod 16 is not even close to ready, but we have less than a week until it's pushed on us anyway. As usual, our class takes a huge nerf and is nowhere near balanced as a DPS class. Who saw that coming and warned against it repeatedly? Hmmmmm.......
Instead of ignoring us, they could just globally multiply our damage by 3 to bring us in line with barbarians...
Bug - Hunter Ranger off hand artifact power (top box in artifact modification management screen)
Unlock random power not working - have the cubes of augmentation and can press 'unlock random' but screen remains faded out and cannot unlock.
The More than Disruptive feat is utterly useless. It needs to be replaced. I've never used
that Daily ever (+5% damage bonus for a useless Daily?). It needs to be replaced. Just peruse other classes' lvl 80 feats and this
one is a doggone anemic by comparison.
I think the problem lies with the Developers' misconception that we're Ranged therefore were severely advantaged. The mobs close in the distance within a second or two and we dont' have any mobility modifiers. The calculus is simply not there.
Meanwhile the Barbarian has insanely powerful and superior Ranged attacks like Axestorm (the straightline AOE width of a ROAD. Meanwhile our straightline equivalent is Hawkshot with the width of squirrel to hit and of a human body when splitting) or Avalanche of Steel daily with every Christmas tree effects hung in for display.
A Seismic Shock Daily equivalent(!) of Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel would be:
5 second casttime (NO PROBLEM, this is no downside at all)
Straightline AOE Width of (Axestorm)
Push ( since the AOS uses Range which they never should have access to in the first place)
Slow for 5 seconds ( since the AOS has damage and control immunity for 5 seconds )
Knockdown ( since the AOS has AOE knockdown )
Magnitude of 700 ( since the AOS has magnitude of 700 and not our measly 550 )
So cast 5 seconds. Mobs get pushed. After which they get knocked down, after which they get slow for a Magnitude of 700
That is the Hunter Ranger fair equivalent of Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel.
Serious buffs also needed for:
Rain of Arrows
Cordon of Arrow
Rapid Shot now has 0.4s cast 50 magnitude. This means that DPS = 50/0.4*coefficient = 125*coefficient.
This means that Aimed Shot is completely unusable. Rapid Shot has more dps. Rapid Shot has less caste speed, this means faster stack bonuses, more stable probability of crit chance, easier to deal damage and dodge danger.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
All of Storm Strike's damage is lightning, which creates antisynergy with the rest of the ranger powers, which predominantly do physical damage. If you want to allocate attributes to improve the damage of Storm Strike and the two other lightning powers, you essentially have "dead" attribute points until the relatively high level at which you start doing magical damage.
Simplest solution would just be to make all of Storm Strike's damage _except_ for the lightning AoE be physical, like the majority of the ranger powers (and there's certainly nothing about the power's animation to suggest that the two cuts and double-stab would be doing electrical damage instead of slashing/piercing)
ARCHER HUNTER
Rain of Arrows(encounter): Low damage, damage-over-time with an easily interrupted long cast. And it's hard to hit all the mobs in the same area.
Increae the damage or increase the duration or increase area or lower the cast time or give it bonus damage vs. rooted mobs so we can combo it with Cordon of Arrows. Improve at least two aspects of this skill
Rapid Volley (encounter): Weak damage with no synergy nor any effect. Just use Split Shot or Electric Shot At-will.
Commander In Chief (feat): Commanding Shot (single target encounter reduces encounter cooldown by 2 seconds. Meanwhile WARDEN tree feat has Storm's Recovery which lowers cooldown by 3 second with use of ANY encounter.
More Than Disruptive (feat): Extremely useless. Single target interrupt with low damage gives +5% damage over 5 seconds. What can we possibly fit 5 seconds, since we have no burst synergy combos. Please check other classes' level 80 Feats.
Primal Instinct (class feature): Melee only. No benefit to Archers.
Aspect of the Falcon (class feature): Why limit the bonus to within 25'? Counterintuitive to our class Companion Hunting Hawk which increases damages at range. It's one thing to have no synergy. It's another to negate the bonus of our Hunting Hawk if we go over 25'.
Seismic Shock (Daily; Hunter+Warden): Again, compare this to the Barbarian's Avalanche of Steel. Please give us that 5 second cast time "downside" but also give us the Christmas tree of effect, larger damage and the width of Barbarian's Axestorm. Read my last Ranger feedback to see the Ranger equivalent Avalanche of Steel. They got higher damage, better area positioning, Ranged attack (for a melee class that's already most mobile), a wonderful Christmas-tree-of-effects that seague way into Barbarian's perfect synergy combos. All for a cheap price of a 5 second cast time "downside".
ARCHER WARDEN
Storm Conduit (feat): I see the design logic for Archery is predicated on the notion that mobs do no move, do not attack and stay in one small area. Eighty percent of the content is solo.
Even on dungeons, mobs don't just stick on one area. I just carried Master of the Hunt skirmish with 3 bots and 1 Fighter who can't hold mobs at all. I died-respawned 4 times even with soulforged, with no res (bots don't res). Mobs were chasing me nonstop, disrupting my attacks and keeping my hp well below 50% almost at all times.
So, If I were to use a Storm Conduit build under these situation, I would have died a dozens of times. Because if I were to cast Split the Cast to the prime the damage, I can't use Marauder's Escape. I have to stick below the clouds or else they move out of
the area to follow me. Storm Conduit is supposed to be the ranged alternative to Blade Hurricane feat (Melee only).
It is very hard to set up a combo of Electricshot (long final combo shot) + Split The Sky (very long cast) + while staying within the confines of the electric storm and at the same time evade mobs. Not possible or reasonable (we have no self heal).
Either modify Storm Conduit to benefit Archers or give us the ranged equivalent of melee Flurry from within the Blade Hurricane (feat), currently melee flavor only.
Otherwise, neither Storm Conduit or Blade Hurricane has utility for Archery.
Penetrating Arrow (at-will): Mobs don't line up in a straight line. What is the utility of this?
Top DPS class such as Barbarian Blademaster, Rogue Assassin and Melee Ranger are doubling Archery damage.
Our synergy or lackthereof is bad. Our damage is bad. Our cooldown is a wreck and our feats are useless.
I'll give just one example skill comparison:
Rogue Assassin
Assassinate (Encounter): 650 Magnitude, 13.9 sec cooldown, +25% damage from behind, +25 damage from stealth (any direction)
Lashing Blade (Encounter): 550 Magnitude, 11.1sec cooldown, +50% crit severity stealthed. Can hit multiple targets if in the same spot.
Hunter Archer
Longstrider's Shot (Encounter): 480 Magnitude, 17.3 sec cooldown. Single Target. No effects. And it's much harder to hit the back of mobs with range vs melee because we have long arcs.
They got higher magnitudes, much lower cooldowns, and the effects are in full synergy with their abilities/feats and combat advantage is easy to achieve.
Archery Feats Suggestions:
Remove the utterly pointless Commander-in-Chief + More Than Disruptive and replace with:
Faster Archer (feat): Your Ranged attacks have 2 second less cooldown, your Melee attack have 2 second more cooldown.
Master Archer (feat): Everytime you use Ranged encounter, your other ranged encounter loses 2 seconds from cooldown. Tab switching to melee disabled
It's very difficult to compete with fast cast bursters. We have long cast, long animations, dot damages with low damage. Heck how can we even use Bloodtheft enchantment? It discriminates againsts non bursters and long casters. How can slow casting, AOE dot damagers benefit from Bloodtheft?
I just ran CTA with my 12.5 alt archer yesterday.
A lvl 26 barbarian had 800k damage, I had 900k+ damage.
A lvl 10k barbarian hit 1.5m damage, I had 600k damage.
A lvl 15k barbarian hit 2.2m damage, I had 300k damage.
And I'm using rank 13 weapon enchantment with built up blue mount insignias. Just compare their At-wills to ours. It's not even close. Then go through the encounters, feats and dailies and synergies.
The lvl 26 and 10k are running bare gear with absolutely nothing.
And the barbarians are begging for buffs at their thread. If the Barbarians easily double our damage and they are crying for buffs, then Archery need it far worse.
At least I finally found the only viable pure Archery build for Mod16. It's the completely novel Warden Storm Recovery and Storm Conduit build. After so many configurations of weapon enchantments, companions and combos, I figured something decent that's not extremely pathetic like in the Hunter tree.
However as of now, Hunter Archery is pretty much dead. I've tried every configuration and combos possible that would make any sense.
- There's no synergy ( hence no viable combos ). Combos give low damage + high cooldown. Finishing off mobs with slow and low damage at-wills (Aimed Shot/Split Shot) isnt' viable. You end up with a 2nd rotation!
- Casting+Animations are way too long.
- Marauder's escape has no immunity window. If you cast while mob is animating, you get hit regardless. And hit registration is poor is you don't angle it correctly.
- Our dodge is half length of other classes.
- Rain of Arrow is dead. It's hitting very low with no disrupt effect like of old. The old ROA disrupts targets within the circle with every hit. They used to get disrupted and they pinned on the spot.
- It's impossible to build Action Points at a reasonable rate.
- At-wills are excessively slow and damage anemic. Barbarians and Rogues easily double our at-will DPS.
- Our cooldowns are way too high with our Encounters mostly single targets.
- Weak and useless Paragon AOE (Hawkshot is a narrow straight line; mobs don't line up )x(Rapid Volley is essentially Split Shot at-will so why bother?).
- Useless feats: Commander in Chief and More than Disruptive have no utility.
- Critical Action feat is useless when it's impossible to build up Action Points with such low rate attack and nonsensical AOEs.
- Predator is single target with 5% bonus damage. They ought to check out the bonuses on the Rogue feats and synergies.
For Warden Archery:
They need to replace Penetrating Arrow with a Single Target imbued with Lightning that doesn't arc but can be added to Storm Conduit damage.
I discovered many synergy from Storm Conduit build but so far the hardest is priming the ability. Imo, the first hit should be initial target not the third hit.
Split the Sky takes at least 2 seconds to cast + animate. If you try to cancel after casting, it won't go through as you try to beat the mobs from disrupting your casting+animation before dodging. One has to pick: Get hit= lose HP or cancel attack = zero dps.
Then I have to fire 3 consecutive Electric shots to mark the target. That wastes a lot of time from Split the sky to add to the total. And it only adds 10% of accrued damage to the target.
If I prime first, Split Sky is easily disrupted and the Storm Conduit is already ticking down. So either:
- Increase Storm Conduit duration by at least 5 seconds
- Or make the first hit from the Electric shot the marking attack for Storm Conduit.
But finally, some decent Archery in Mod16!
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Comparison kills more than ever, tho. Combat is far better than both ranged and trapper, at least for all builds I tried so far..
I'm still trying things for combat but its already noticably better.
It looks like there are some traps when you choose the feats and powers, and the good combination is difficult.
I'll show another reason why Rogues ( and I only pick them because I don't play Melee Ranger or Barbarians, who also double our dps) are doubling our damage (this one is hilariously bad):
ROGUE
Path of Blade
Magnitude: 330
Duration: 10 seconds
Attack Pattern: Hits EVERY single mob every tick. Has the disrupt effect of the old Rain of Arrow on certain mobs.
Cast time: 0.8 seconds
Cooldown: 15.4 seconds
Area: Large
Stealth Effect: Ticks twice faster at half the duration.
Smoke Bomb
Magnitude: 275
Duration: 6 seconds
Attack Pattern: Dazes EVERY mob. Hits EVERY mob every tick.
Cast time: 0.5 second
Cooldown: 20.2 seconds
Area: Medium
Stealth effect: Combat Advantage to every ally against mobs affected by the smoke bomb.
RANGER
Rain of Arrows
Magnitude: 200
Duration: unlisted but 4-5 seconds
Attack Pattern: Hits 1 SINGLE random mob per tick
Cast time: 1 second
Cooldown: 15.4 seconds
Area: Small
Split the Sky
Magnitude: 100
Duration: 10 seconds
Attack Pattern: Hits 1 SINGLE random mob per (2 seconds?). Every mob hit slowed for 3 seconds
Cast time: 1.5 seconds
Cooldown: 17.3 seconds
Area: Large
So the Rogue has much higher magnitudes. Hits EVERY mob every tick! Has amazing effects like Daze, Combat advantage, disrupt on all mobs. They have much better cast times. Better area coverage than Rain of Arrow.
Rain of Arrow has about 4-5 second duration, hits a very low 200 magnitude, hits 1 random mob per tick, has a very small area of coverage and ZERO effects!
Split The Sky has a pitiful damage of 100 (120 on Owlbear preview, wow). Hits 1 SINGLE random mob every (oh, 2 seconds?) and the mob hit slow down for 3 seconds. Has a ridiculously long cast time of 1.5 seconds ( it was 'buffed' from 1.6 second a week ago) and still double the cast time of Smoke Bomb.
Why?
The core powers of Archery have been eviscerated and replaced with unfinished Conduit synergy (for Warden; Hunter tree has ZERO synergy). Meanwhile the Rogue powers are literally cut and paste from Mod 15. Even the prime powerful Rogue feats are cut and paste from Mod 15. They kept all their stealth effects and then some new ones. Their powers have much higher magnitudes with full synergy to their feats and actives.
Meanwhile, powers like Split the Sky lost its defensive ability. Every player hit under the area used to be hit by lightning!
Giving us +20 magnitude on Owlbear as a 'buff' doesn't nearly cut it. Give Split the Sky its defensive ability or make it function like Path of Blades or Smoke Bomb ( hit every mob every tick ).
Split the sky hits 1 mob per 2 seconds at 100 Magnitude.
Rain of Arrow hits 1 mob per tick at the crazy duration of 4 or 5 seconds within a tiny area at a magnitude of 200.
Smoke Bomb hits EVERY mob for 6 seconds for a magnitude of 275. It has Daze AND even Combat Advantage with stealth.
Path of the Blade hits EVERY mob for 10 seconds for a magnitude of 330. It has the disrupt effect of the old Rain of Arrow on weaker mobs.
What kind of obvious evidence do the developers need to effect significant changes to Archery?
Give our powers electric effect when we pick the Conduit feat so we can actually stack damage.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Rapid Shot
Aimed Shot
Hunters Teamwork
To get the total time, you need to divide all the damage on the DPS. To get the casting speed of a skill, you need to divide the total time by the number of hits.
=>
Rapid Shot: 39257/135.90/469 = 0.6159 s.
Aimed Shot: 67652/199.2/200 = 1.6981 s.
Hunters Teamwork: 27182/105.6/318 = 0.8095 s.
This means that the casting speed in the tooltips is incorrect. Or there is a slight delay between casting.
Looks like DPS of Aimed about 1.5 higher than DPS of Rapid.
And question x3 <font color = Blue>
Feedback: Excellent youtube video, you are superb, you are experienced, and you are humble. Keep it up.
Question 1: I noticed that at will Aimed shot takes 4 times longer to cast than Rapid shot and does 4 times the damage.
Why does it even exist? The moment a cast is interrupted (for avoiding stuff etc) it falls behind Rapid shot in dps.
Question 2: Forest Ghost Daily. What does it even do? Does it add 75 magnitude to each hit for approx 5 secs? Or is it just a restealth effect that adds 75 to your next hit? Also it appears to cost 500 AP not 50. So confused.
Question 3: Is Level 40 Feat Longshot supposed to say 5% instead of 50%, since its rate of change counterpart offers a 5% conditional buff as well?
I'm new, but I like to know my mechanics fully. I'd like to know all the spec variations before I choose which two I like best.
Any other enchantment smacks of generic (really). They still have to lower the cast of Split the Sky. The reason why it had a high cast time is due to the Defensive effect. Now that they removed it, there's no reason to have a high cast time.
Hunter Archery on the other hand has zero viable build. It has no synergy. It has no combos, or any discernibly useful theme.
You'll be short shrifted by the senselessly long cast+animation, long cooldown, low damage and mostly single target skills. The last two ranged feats are totally useless. Aimed shot and Rapid shot have half the damage potential of other top classes. Read my long posts up there if you want to.
Currently class balance (amongst those who know what they are doing ) is divided into two subsections: The 4 kings/queens (the best dps) + the rest.
Melee Warden + Rogue Assassin + Wizard Thaumathurge + Barbarian Blademaster
and the rest.
Although I have been seeing weird Fighter DPS lately, having no gear and dealing big burst damage which seem just off. We'll see if that build becomes prevalent. Then we'll know what's going on there.
(ps. yeah the Forest Ghost is typo. It costs 500 ap since it doesn't light up below 500 ap meter).
So: Assuming you're not interrupted, it's the SAME DPS. If you're interrupted, Rapid Shot will have gotten off 1-3 shots for 25%-75% of uninterrupted DPS, but Aimed Shot will do 0.