Olihin wrote: This the supposed ranged flurry and auto AE? Seems kind of soon for 57 some how, even though we have been waiting forever heh. Just looks like in context with the player quote they are referring to GU 57, but I guess 'soon' could be any time in the future. Was just gonna wait and see but since the patch got pushed back a day I suppose some random conversation about it will provide a distraction.
Pretty sure he didn't mean the bow changes will come with 57. Saying they're coming could be this week, in a few weeks, in a few months, next year... Although, I would imagine he was simply referring to what others have echoed from Fan Faire, some bow and 2-hander changes coming "hopefully" with the guardian changes or to be worked on after. (Depending on whether you refer to only the mechanics panel or what a dude posted in the guardian thread, saying he talked to Xelgad.)
Anyone know what the bow changes are? I know they're doing flurry and AE auto attack but I've heard people say they're removing the attack rating penalty and increasing damaging rating on bows as well. Just haven't seen anything yet other than rumors on the last two.
akaglty wrote: I know a dev has said they will be bringing ranged flurry, but can anyone confirm that a dev said AE autoattack will be coming to ranged as well?
They're going to make ranger an absolutely skilless class to play that simply requires turning on auto attack. I'm going to lol @ ACT breakdowns showing 75%+ of your damage from auto attack.
These changes were hinted at with the guard changes or shortly after (between gu57 and gu58) if things remain on schedule. Which I'd be shocked it they did. While I agree with Gaige's gibe about % of auto attack, I'm not sure what other changes you can make to allow rangers to get similar benefit from utility buffs without the net result being a bump to auto damage.
Gaige wrote: Either flurry and auto AE aren't going to boost our damage much or they are going to make our auto attack insanely higher. You make posts of flurry and ae auto not being a big deal if added and then this post, so I hope your joking heh. I still think the only reason they are really getting on top of it now is because Velious is going to have a lot more of these stats available for scouts, one way or another. As for if they are putting in AE Auto as well: Q:Any intention of applying flurry or ae auto attack to ranged attacks? Or if that's just too rediculous? A: Actually there is and we intend to do that very soon. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTeM3bMiVl4 Very last question in the video. Suppose it could have gotten mixed in with since they confirmed flurry but he also asked about ae auto.
Atan@Unrest wrote: I don't care if they fix ae auto and flurry, the amounts a ranger can get will be next to meaningless. I meant removing the bow damage penalty and increasing their spread. Instead of doing that they need to address ranger CAs, so the class will at least require a conscious to play.
Wasn't aware that's what they were going to do to bows (and 2handers too I suppose). Where did they talk about this? And I do agree I think we should be getting more damage from CA's (ranged CA's) instead of auto attack. I just wanted the same mechanics to apply to bows so its more of a level playing field, and frankly easier to balance things out.
Neiloch@Kithicor wrote: It was mentioned at one of the mechanics panels that 2handers and bows would be looked at after guardian tweaks. Gaige wrote: I agree CA's are a disporportionate amount of the class dps, fixing CA's alone doesn't address what I think is the bigger issue of the class not able to take advantage of the same buffs to the same benefit as their counterpart. As far as a conscious to play, neither predator to me feels very complicated, but yeah, I need to make fewer decisions on my ranger over assasin. That being said, for whatever reason I enjoy the ranger more. I'm probably a masochist.
Assassins rely on stealth and a huge portion of our DPS relies on about 9 CAs, 8 of which require stealth. If you use concealment at the wrong time and its interrupted, you're screwed. Ranger is far, far easier to play.
I'd agree with that, compared to one another ranger is easier, but I wouldn't call playing an assassin difficult in general. I wouldn't be completely opposed to some mechanic being the way for more ranger DPS if its not ridiculously hard or just a stupid PITA. Wouldn't even mind the way they play now if the DPS was upped. What annoys me most is no matter what you do on a ranger, there's an assassin some where who can outparse you. The mathematical potential for ranger DPS just lower than assassin's and even some other classes. I'll probably catch some grief for this but how difficult a class is to play shouldn't factor in on balance. If a class is harder to play than another and its of large concern the devs should be working to balance the difficulty out. Not reward the harder one or penalize the easier one. No one else is gonna give a crap if a class is easier to play when they're not the one playing it. "his DPS is lower than the others don't invite him." "Yeah but his class easier to play. "Oh ok then invite him." No, that won't happen.
Fixing the underlying mechanics, including removing that stupid invisible damage nerf and bringing bow ratings in line with other two handers (and fixing two handers in general), is exactly the first step they need to make. Even if it somehow ends up putting too much of our damage percentage back into auto attack, the underlying mechanics need to be fixed before they can start tweaking our CAs, or we're going to run face-first into this problem again down the road even if the CA tweaks were enough to get us back into T1 DPS. I really really really don't care which class is 'easier' to play, unless the difference becomes 'playground swings' and 'piloting a one winged plane to safety'. I want the classes to be balanced. The danger of putting too much DPS into auto attack is the class being made or broken by a good bow, which was most of our problem in T7, where rangers with the absolute top end bows did great and rangers without those bows fell so far behind the DPS curve in their raid force--getting steady DPS upgrades the whole while--that holding onto a raid slot until they could get a shot at the mobs dropping the good bows was ridiculously difficult to justify. The danger is in autoattack being less controllable than CA damage, and the devs being terrified to make any tweaks lest the rangers at the very high end have their DPS fly off the charts. But I much prefer fixing these underlying mechanics issues and then making adjustments than letting the mechanics issues just sit forever. A class being 'easymode' is mostly a bragging thing, and I reeeeally don't care who is getting digital internet fulfillment out of their class being zomg more difficult than some other class. No class in this game is what I'd consider terribly hard to play or learn. It's an MMO, not chess.
kartikeya wrote: While I generally agree and I think it is a huge step forward that the devs are willing to admit that Ranger's need a boost in DPS, I am a little concerned by one thing. When I group without good aggro transer (love them pally's) I have problems on trash pulls with aggro. The issue is the auto attack damage. Even when I wait until the mob is turned if I lead off with an auto attack or a short cast CA which is followed immediately by an auto attack, I will grab aggro very often. The options I figured out were: * Wait even longer before attacking * Cast a debuf first (not really that useful on trash) to slow down the auto attack * Lead off with a long cast CA like miracle shot or crippling arrow. I have chose to do the last option but again it lowers my overall DPS. I am a bit concerned that with even more damage coming from auto attack that this problem with just get worse. I do have a master of my deaggro buff (dont' remember the name) plus I run with 2 deaggro adornments. By the way, this is not an issue at all solo or in raid for me.
kartikeya wrote: I never implied that assassin was omg hard needs a college degree, I said timing your stealth CAs so as to ensure stealth isn't interrupted is in fact harder than turning auto attack on. Do you disagree?
Gaige wrote: This is probably one of the main reasons why assassins are far ahead in parses. Assassins require (a little work...not much really once you figured it out) to time their stealth/chain attacks to achieve massive parses (assuming they don't get stun/stifle/whatever). I do disagree (to a degree) with you that rangers are such ez mode. It makes me want to work harder in achieving better parses and find some ways that are not often thought of. Sure, everything evolves around autoattack with rangers, but ask yourself how many rangers actually do decent parsing these days? Not many really (out of the thousands of players).
Gaige wrote: To an extent, I agree that Assassins are a more technical class. But then again, they're also overloaded with so many innate bonuses that it's bordering on ludicrous. So, yeah. Concealment chains take a bit of skill. But parsing high on an Assassin (due to aforementioned innate abilities) isn't anything particularly special. That said, I'd prefer they tweak us based on combat arts to deter this sort of nonsensical ****-stroking, but I'm not going to complain if they fix core mechanics first. Really, I'll take whatever I can get to be competitive at this point. When you're the squeaky wheel, you're not going to hold out specifically for WD-40 when someone's offering something that'll still make you squeak less.
I've grouped with alot more fail rangers than I have assassins. One consistant thing with them it seems like is, they seem to rely to much on auto attack and don't put enough effort into trying to get as many of their CA's off in between autos as they can. I've looked at their parses and seeing 40-50% of their dps being auto attack right now is a very bad thing. We're not horrible at AE dps either and I see to many blow stuff like Arrow Barrage on a single mob instead of waiting a bit to use it on a group of mobs. That's all part of learning a zone though to know when they're coming. But I've seen them do it one fight before a encounter pull is coming.
Boise wrote: No no, my comparison is talking about how it will become after the bow changes are implemented, now how it currently is on live.
I don't see why its such a huge problem to just up the damage on ranged CA's. Is it some sort of image problem? They don't want to give JUST rangers a boost so if they do it to bows it creates the idea that lots of scouts and fighters will benefit greatly? Yeah maybe in BG's a little... As for bow changes, kind of depends on the increase. If it's like the increase they did a while back to all weapons, don't see it becoming some huge increase in ezmode. Would rather see a damage boost and reuse reduction in ranged CA's, but apparently that is a horrible idea when just about every ranger wants it and the devs won't even respond to it directly. Maybe they can slap some potency buffs on focus aim/nature's focus. Decent one on focus aim, another probably smaller one nature's focus for group, and they stack for the ranger so even better.
