Another Sad Ranger Thread

I've put off making a post because I know development takes time. But I'm at a point where making a persona is really the best option to remain viable in raids.

I've talked to a handful of long-time Rangers and one theme has been very consistent--as a class, raid Rangers are not in a good place. We bring Auspice to the raid and that's about it.

We burn through too much mana to rely on spells for DPS. We use spells but even focusing on Dusksage, Arrow Spells, and DoTs I can hit Staunch, spam mana potions, spam mod rods, buy mage-potions, use my Kiss of Erollisi Marr, ask clerics for QM 2 or 3 times, use my feathers, use my horns, and still be constantly out of mana.

After all of this, with raid weapons & raid gear & all of the AAs & 3 DPS glyphs & a DPS group--I might randomly get out DPSed by a Bard or an Enchanter.

Sure I hear the voices "rangers aren't a real DPS class" but if I can headshot a mob--I shouldn't still get out DPSed by Monks, Wizards, Mages, (and random Warriors?!?) who aren't even burning. Last expansion if a monk/berserker/rogue/etc. weren't on their A-game I could catch up. Now a monk or rogue with group gear will do so much more damage than a fully raid geared ranger there's no sense in playing a ranger. (I volunteer my cleric on raids now because Rangers feel useless. I've made a Shaman because Rangers feel useless.)

Lately every improvement slated for Rangers has been pulled before the production release. I'm sure there's some reason--but I have to ask. What's the plan for Rangers?

Should we just make new classes and give up the class some of us have played for years?

**NOTE** I don't know how we'd "fix" Rangers without opening some sort of loophole that could be overpowered. I'm not suggesting that I do. But I'd be happy to give feedback or have conversations about what a Ranger can or cannot do.

Realistically, nothing will be fixed until upper management takes an interest and decides to finally fix the massive degradation and stagnation of the class. It's been over a decade since anything was tuned vs content in our toolkit. The toolkit is good and once upon a time it was fairly desirable. There has only been radio silence and 0 acknowledgement, we even got nerfed in beta before moving to live. Said nerf being reverted would still leave us needing actual adjustments but it would feel a lot less bad than it does right now.

I have a spreadsheet for everything whenever they want to do the bare minimum and copy/paste values into things to fix them. Till then your best bets are Persona/Alts or embracing the suck for the foreseeable future.

Internal class trubs are real trubs, but Auspice is a very big thing to bring to raids. The first several rangers are the highest dps additions to a raid force of any class. It feels definitely best to concentrate on how the class feels to play, or how particular imbalances manifest, rather than attempt complaining of an overall raid contribution deficit that probably isn't real.

Lots of classes bring amazing dps contributions. Rangers should be happy with a single ability? Do we need to get into all those wonderful things almost every other class also brings to raids? Yet they are all in much better places than rangers are?

I'm confused. This makes me think you don't know Auspice can be mass buffed, but that can't be right.

You're suggesting I show up for 1minute and 40 seconds. If any class is reduced to casting one spell it's a pretty terrible place to be.

Welcome to the world of the beastlord. We are in the same boat mana wise.

Well, you could play five different rangers and have them rotated through. Only a nutter would have five rangers, though.

Similarly every berserker should be forced to have 5 berserkers, to only ever play with Mangling active, right? Raid leader has audio trigger for "Soandso activates Mangling Discipline Rk. III" & the trigger pastes in "/dzswap Soandso Altandso" for them?

That's not how gamers game, that's not how players play. Auspice is arguably a too-substantial part of the ranger class' contribution to raids, but it's the wholeass ranger that participates. Truly problematic cases, raid wise, are those like pre-Underfoot beastlords where the whole package isn't remotely good enough.

Why would you say I don't know that? I'm also aware of the VAST array of other buffs other classes bring as well. Yet you're saying rangers should be happy being the garbage dps class because they have auspice?

Can we derail this into a sad Paladin thread? Our vast array of buffs consists of brells.

And for the OP --
Last expansion if a monk/berserker/rogue/etc. weren't on their A-game I could catch up.

Just my opinion here, but I would hope pure melee dps classes could out dps a hybrid (ranger) who has a unique skillset (bow dps).

Last expansion there were several events that we could headshot mobs along the way. Now even with headshot we're not even close.

This is an excellent point, there should never have been gimmick able (HS/Assa/Decap) mobs on raids in current content in the first place!

Whole-heartedly agree. Gimmicks should not define a class. On some level I think those raids were balanced specifically with Headshot, Assassinate, and Decap in mind--but that could easily be balanced with it not working too.

You running Hotaria swarm or Bloodbeetle + restless ice aug?

I am ALL about the gimmick!!

Duplicate

I know some pretty good rangers that wouldn't classify their dps as garbage.

I've run both. It didn't make much of a difference on the mana drain and certainly didn't help the relatively low DPS issue.

At the risk of this divulging into a "get good" thread--they may be good DPS for Rangers but Rangers are not good DPS anymore.

Bards, Clerics, Enchanters and potentially Shamans are currently the only classes that do less sustained DPS than Rangers. There are 6 classes currently doing roughly 44-55% more DPS and 5 classes after that doing roughly between 23-31% more DPS than Rangers. (These are based off an "optimal" group makeup for DPS)

When you compare the effort required by classes to achieve max/top DPS there is a gigantic problem. Our DPS is trash for the effort put in to get it as high as it can be, even when you reach it you are a mile+ away from all other DPS classes and Tanks.

There are 6 classes beating us from auto attack alone. Literally pressing Q with adps/burns with no mashing of any spells/skills is beating an entire class kit by a decent margin.

Only severe class tuning is going to fix this unless they just do the monk method. Which quite frankly I do not want as it fixes absolutely nothing.