TheWeaver

My most recent game (started after 4.0.1) is not showing the issue (yea!) so maybe this is at least somewhat fixed. In fact I got a random encounter I had never seen before (not that I've seen many TBH), so that was refreshing. FWIW, in this game I haven't progressed beyond just doing the palace and some the standard fetch/sneak stuff in Nekataka. So random .

Honestly I like the Acc buffs, but that's not why I want Ranger... I want Ranger because no other class is actually geared towards ranged attacking. Fighter is generically good for basically anything. Rogue is okay as ranged attackers, but only if you're okay with letting the majority of the stealth/backstab/invisiblity stuff go to the wayside. Ranger is THE class for ranged attacking... And for some reason it has that random melee attacker linked with it, that it has to keep alive, while also attacking. When you put it that way... It really doesn't make as much sense does it? Or... you could view it as it comes with this random melee attacker that you can use as a bodyguard to help your ranged attacker do its thing. You don't have to put your pet on the front line and you can use it to engage anyone who comes to hassle you. Again, I'm not saying that the pet, in its current form, on high difficulty settings fully achieves this goal. But I also don't view playing a Ranger as having to endure a game long "escort mission". I get that this is not everyone's cup of tea. However, I think it would be very hard to design the class both with and without the pet. As soon as you tried folks would be up in arms about the fact that there are 15+ powers that only make sense when you have a pet and how unfair that is. Ghost Heart is about as far as you can go without really breaking things IMO (and even that gets folks mumbling about the summons overlap with Chanters). I think it would be easier to create a Rogue sub-class that had ranged versions of Backstab, Riposte, and Persistent Distraction (which I think are the non-ranged powers of note) than it would be to create a pet-less Ranger.

One of the reasons I think I like AA a bit more than the rest of the sub-classes (apart from just loving the concept) is that the "extra toys" (imbues in this case) are given as free picks in the levels they appear. This gives you a lot more flexibility in how you build. If there was one change I would make to the other sub-classes it would be to do something similar for them. Wouldn't necessarily have to be new powers either, could adapt existing ones. That and I'd take a hard look at scaling for the pet (as has been mentioned repeatedly). I understand this is challenging since the pet cannot be as good as an actual character or the Ranger becomes unbalanced. For example, it would not be reasonable (IMO) to allow you to create a pet which could be used as a door stop with no micro (even if it did no damage). Maybe the answer lies in downward adjustment of the debuff. Perhaps it could start out as it does and then wane over time as the Ranger gets over their grief and soldiers on, not sure.

Question (that I honestly don't know the answer to) -- how is Wounding Shot's damage calculation/application different from that of Deep Wounds? I always assumed that they were the same (in terms of how the damage is calculated/applied). Is that untrue? Note -- I understand that one power is active and the other is passive, but it is also the case that one power is PL 1 and the other is PL 4 (IIRC). Does Wounding Shot benefit from PL scaling at all (might be answered in the PL thread, but I'm too lazy right now to go digging through that)? Personally I see no point in a Ranger without the pet (which is not the same as saying I think the pet is perfectly fine/balanced/etc...). Basically what I think a lot of folks want is a way to multi in Ranger to pick up the ACC bonus and not hassle with anything else -- accommodating that doesn't seem like it should be the primary design concern for any class. Besides, you can use Ghost Heart for that if you want.

I played around with this and your assessment is correct. Really fun and easy early game but then yeah as enemy stats get bloated it gets quite hard. I'm talking about bosses and megabosses is where you'll struggle. That's too bad because single target, boss lock down seems like exactly what this combo was meant to do.

I have been running just such a build (Fury/Fury Shaper) modeled somewhat on this build -- https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/102529-class-build-the-fate-testarossa/?hl=fate -- and I can say that it is quite a lot of fun.

Quite possibly. It is still a combo I want to try once FF is fixed to not double apply the first curse (I think with some HoT items and stacking minus duration as discussed in the Darcozzi Purifier build it might be quite potent). Add in Willbreaker and the modal and it might even work past the early levels.

Done -- sorry about that -- I tried earlier, but missed that you could do the rename in the full editor. Also, it looks like Simon caught it in his latest pass -- so thanks much for the help. Now here's hoping it gets fixed -- because I so want to play a single class AA.

Thanks much

FWIW, my testing (https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107559-question-arcane-archer-scaling/?p=2127856) seems to show that other than missile count no other scaling is being applied (though I can't really confirm the damage scaling since that isn't shown directly). The ACC being missing is annoying, but not fatal since Rangers in general have ACC to burn and you get the Arcana bonus (though on PotD it can be noticed). The lack of PEN is noticeable even on Veteran. The most recent test is interesting -- if you empower the Imbue then suddenly you get all the scaling you should (both from the empower and from your own PL). Furthermore it is shown as "Imube:XX Power Level" which differs from the spells (which show Wizard PL). That could just be a tooltip issue or it could be significant -- obviously I can't tell. I hope you are right about a fix -- I've received exactly 0 response from Obs on my posts in Tech Support (Simon has done 2 "I've logged something and we're looking into it" passes over new posts since I created this and declined to comment both times, so I'm not holding my breath). EDIT: clarified that the Arcana bonus ACC is there, it is just the ACC from PL scaling that is missing

TBH at +1 PL per phrase the bump is nice even if it is only for a single invocation -- not sure it is worth the trade of both the reduced chant radius *and* dumping all phrases, but it isn't horrible. I actually see what they were going for with the later disad since you basically put all your power behind each invocation. Maybe if instead of the useless +PL linger it briefly increased chant radius after an invocation. I agree that in its current incarnation, it is just confusing (my guess is that the designer thought the PL increase would benefit chants in some way that it simply doesn't).

You aren't alone. It's been mentioned in: https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107379-no-recovery-time-after-using-flames-of-devotion-with-whispers-of-endless-paths/ https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107250-citzals-spirit-lance-not-working-with-monk-abilities-since-forgotten-sanctum/ In the second thread there is a response from Obs saying that they are "looking into it".

One more test which I think confirms that this is bugged in some fashion. If I empower Imbue:Missiles or Imbue:Fireball then I get the expected result. Not only do I see the increased PEN and ACC from the empower (+5 PL), I also see the "missing" PL from my own PL (so the net result acts as +10 PL on Imbue:Missiles). This means that when empowered the Imbue variants act just like the empowered versions of the spells. The odd thing is that that increased PEN and ACC from the empower are reported as "Imbue:Missiles" (or FB) and *not* as "Ranger Power Level". OTOH when empowering a spell the increased PEN and ACC are just folded into "Wizard Power Level". This makes me suspect that somehow the Imbue powers have their own category and that the Ranger's PL isn't being counted when not empowered. I've attached screen shots of both cases. Out of curiosity I also tested with a Nature Godlike -- the +1 PL from Wellspring of Life again only impacts the missile count and nothing else. Anyway, this definitely seems like a bug -- Obsidian??

Bellower is getting 1PL per phrase which seems fine (even good) from a magnitude perspective (looking at how they treat PL bonuses it is actually on the high end). The thing that makes no sense is its duration -- as in why does it even have one? The fact that it does implies it might help abilities used after the invocation, but unless you have a way to get more phrases back in 6 seconds it really can't (no chant benefits from PL and the bonus doesn't impact non-Chanter abilities). The "problem" I see is if they fix that (say let the bonus impact non-chanter stuff), then they are going to reduce the bonus and I'm not sure that's a trade you'd want to make (it would essentially force multi-classing). It also would be better if the impacts of PL were more obvious/documented/understood. As we've seen folks assume it will benefit summons (a reasonable assumption on paper), but as we know, it doesn't. So it's easy to choose invocations on a Bellower that don't benefit from its perk.

Actually I assume he just means "Herald!" or "Monk!". But on paper it would seem that Bellower might work well with Tactician. Bellowers big advantage is that its invocations will be more powerful. Its disadvantages are reduced Chant range and the fact that every invocation will leave you at 0 phrases. To mitigate the first issue you'll want to be front or at least 2nd line, which argues for pairing with a martial class. To mitigate the second issue you need something that accelerates phrase acquisition. Outside of items (Shasha's and Blightheart) that means Brilliant and Tacticians get that earliest. You'd need help to set up Flanked more easily (a Cipher, a Wizard, Tekehu), but once you proc Brilliant you can use your more powerful invocations more often. You also have tools to prevent yourself from being flanked in the form of stuns/paralyze. So it could work. Of that topic I've been playing around with a Steel Garrote/Forbidden Fist combo. The theory being that the enfeeble helps keep Garrote going longer meaning more DoT and keeping an enemy off the board longer. Combine with Willbreaker and the modal and you might have a decent single target DD/disabler. I also hoped that the self heal might help to mitigate the curse damage somewhat. FF plays more like shattered pillar in that you won't ever have very many wounds. Also if you pump INT to further increase Garrote and Enfeeble times it will also increase the curse duration. Similarly pumping MIG to increase the heal also increases the curse (which already outpaces the heal by a noticeable amount). So I'm not sure it really works (I may run it for a bit anyway, until AA gets fixed). It has been previously mentioned, but Furyshaper combines well with any caster or ranged character. I tried out a Fury/Furyshaper which was a lot of fun. I was running an AA/Furyshaper until I noticed the Imbue issues and put it on the shelf.

I assume it is completely intended. Just makes it even more valuable to an AA and therefore has to be part of the overall balance for the sub-class (which isn't to say that it makes up for the scaling issues, it doesn't, but as of now I'm assuming that's a bug).

Note that there are still other advantages -- such as the fact that the Imbues work with Driving Flight and can take advantage of bouncing weapons like Watershaper's focus. I think the sub-class will be fine once the scaling issue is fixed (which it sounds like it should be).

Imbue Fireball isn't scaling either. And Imbue Web is getting the -5 Arcane Archer ACC penalty on each "tick" (haven't checked Imbue: Eora yet). I think they still have something to work out with this one (here's hoping they will before they turn off the lights).

When looking at the to hit rolls for each "tick" of the web from Imbue Web it appears to be getting the -5 Arcane Archer ACC penalty. The odd thing is that the penalty in the tooltip doesn't have a description, it just says -5. I've attached a screen shot.

Here are screen shots for Minor Missiles and Imbue Missiles.

I thought the question was "Monks?" (or was that the answer). In all seriousness though the trade-offs between vanilla, skald, and bellower seem pretty reasonable -- until you've played a Troubadour. And then they all feel slow .

Good to know -- I actually posted this thread more as a question 2 days ago -- https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107559-question-arcane-archer-scaling/?p=2127098. No response yet, but then again it is the holidays. Just updated it with a quick test I did comparing Fireball vs. Imbue: FB from the same character -- FB scales and its imbue variant does not. Really too bad, I very much want to make an AA, but as it stands right now the Imbue powers are pretty much sub-par (they get a little extra ACC if you dump everything into Arcana, but that's not enough to overcome the PEN issues, not even on the new Veteran and certainly not on PotD).

The same thing is true with Imbue Fireball BTW. It gets no benefit from scaling that I can see. As a test I created a lvl 16 Geomancer (AA/No-sub). Casting Fireball I see: PEN = 9.8 (7 base, 1 Ability Level, .8 PL, +1 Scion of Flame) ACC = 76 (20 base, 4 Per, 45 Level, 4 Ability Level, 3 PL) Now if I use Imbue FB, I see: PEN = 8 (7 base, 1 SoF) ACC = 83 (20 base, 4 Per, 45 Level, 14 AA) So no scaling whatsoever. Based on the fact that Imbue:FB is a PL 4 power I would have expected at least .5 PEN and 2 ACC -- (aka just the PL scaling -- I have never known what the "ability level" scaling is, though the imbues never get that either). I assume that the base damage scaling isn't occurring, though I don't know how to check that. I've attached screen shots from the 2 attacks with the information I know how to get from the UI.

Just noticed another oddity. The "ticks" on Binding Web are suffering from a -5 ACC penalty that isn't labeled. In the tooltip it just says -5 with no text after it. I assume this is the AA malus, but that seems unintended. They are also getting the Arcana bonus, so that's somewhat of a counter balance. Oh and the spells don't seem to be scaling the same way that the equivalent Wizard spell does. In particular they don't get PEN scaling of any kind which will obviously be problematic on PotD (honestly with a PEN of 7 on both missile and fireball I think it is a problem on lower difficulty levels too).

Unfortunately no. Lashes like this (even ones that are part of the base weapon) don't negate the malus. See https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/107387-arcane-archer-weapons/ for a list of those that have been tested. Generally speaking you need a weapon that has a permanent, elemental damage type (such as Essence Interrupter which does pierce/shock). There are exceptions of course (because there are always exceptions in any complex system).