Rangers, Rogues, Berkerers and Shadowknights

The rogue solo game hasn't changed much. The proc rate is lower, but the same mobs are affected as before the change. The only change we received was a lower proc rate, and the ability to assassinate level 99 mobs.

Again I am seeing no change in HS that would stop soloing.... I have proc rates that seem to be very similar to before... Maybe your level 79 example will have to pull slower and not pull entire C1 at a time, but it doesnt affect his ability to solo... He will still be able too he just might have to slow it down a small amount to what other classes have to do.

At 79 he has no reason to be in PoFire. he was clearing out C2 at 70 lol. Seriously try it. Level a ranger to 70 and go to PoFire. You can solo both camps easily. You can actually level off the stuff quick now. Not just get 5-6% AA per kill at 81.

The only reason to use HS before was to grind AAs or to PL. With autogrant, that need is gone and replaced by something more useful. Sorry to say, but my statement still holds true. Players need to learn to adapt.

As Tharrg said, the proc rates aren't too bad at the lower levels. I've got an 81 ranger myself who spent a good amount of time in C1 and C2. Watching my friend's ranger, the proc rate isn't too much lower than what I has. Difference being, he doesn't have vinelash yet and well doesn't really need it.

I guess you are right. A playstyle has changed. Gone are the days of soloing greens and light blues. Replaced by soloing dark blues! That is such a horrible change!

These nerfs hurt the soloer/moloer a lot more than it does the player that groups with others.

Just heard from a guildy who hasn't been on because of tax season. He said that his solo playtime is a 'lot less fun now.'

I don't believe that a level 70 ranger is solo clearing C2. The low proc rate just doesn't allow for it. And C2 was a lot more than 6% AA per kill at 81 if you were actually soloing (i.e. no merc and no afk people in group being PL'd). With lesson going, I was getting an AA every two kills and those two kills happened in less than 30 seconds.

Furthermore, (it probably goes without saying: prior to the nerf) I leveled from 95 to 100 very quickly by HSing temple lizards in feerrott. It wasn't just useful for AA xp at the higher levels. Even with the occasional friend in group helping to loot corpses, the regular xp gain was exceptional. I would have rather not xp'd in feerrott for so many levels but, you know, with the humanoid-only restriction, what options did I really have? It was just dailies and feerrott for me. Wasn't going to drop $40 on CoTF just to go LFG in dead hills. I had enough of that back when I decided to fear kite animals 12 years ago.

Headshot was not just used for AAs and PLs, at least by me. Even at max exp and AAs it helped a lot in UF for gathering tradeskill materials, and working the various tasks for progression. It takes a lot longer to clear an area now, hardly even worth it. Three chars partway thru Shawl 2.0 and I dread the final escort task . I was decidedly disappointed that the HS proc rate was normalized for RAID gear. It just sucks. (I know that is not a constructive comment - but it is true.)

heh.. I have a large guild (Leerah, knows.. she did a whirlwind tour through us a year or two ago)... zero retirements as a direct cause of these changes. I've had a dozen random people come back and are enjoying the auto grant AA feature... some of those are even attempting a raid or two.

As for me, I've headshot a few things I didn't think I could and was tired of my reign of terror in Kaesora Library. I'll have to kill things in a more normal fashion.

You serve a raiding population though. They have different goals for their solo play time.

I'm still searching for a place where I want to spend a couple of hours a night. Glowing dreadmotes would be a nice side effect but those T3 and T4 grind zones are grey, ugly and lonely.

I'm not interested in boxing HAs because I don't think I will be able to.

Maybe I'll settle someplace where faction matters until the next expansion comes out.

Why do you feel you will not be able to?

I only ask because some are incredibly easy to box. I am pretty sure a merc tank and merc healer can actually push you through at least one or two of them. Into the Hills, for instance. As long as you can single pull (being an outdoor zone means more classes can easily accomplish this) you should be fine with as little as 1 box. You may want to avoid the named if it spawns, or call in more people.

It may be time consuming, but it is possible.

Mercwars are up to it? I might try when I feel stronger. Maybe a friendly druid will hold my hand. Thanks.

Nt

As I said, try it yourself, it doesn't take long to get to 70 or whatever the minimum is for C1 and C2 these days. You can't swarm them since you don't have vinelash, but you can get them down one by one easily enough.

I know this because I logged in after the change and my buddy was already there soloing before I got there on my cleric.

You're kinda dodging what I stated. I don't raid and I don't multibox. I still have a hard time seeing how you could have so much trouble.

The only thing that made it effective was kill speed. Pre-change 81 was required to headshot C2, that was the only way that it was effective. You could go earn a few AA with a C2 clear and go on about your business, it has a 40 minute respawn. Rogue's could always do it around 79 since we get a rank faster than rangers do until 90. I've yet to have it fire on anything that justifies spending 200+ AA in it, just to get to rank 22 it requires 199 AA for rogues and 194 AA for rangers. We're talking 200+ AA for abilities that are tuned for raid geared players, no one else sees a logical failure with this?

Remember, I suck at best and since 2/12, I've been too ill to play. I had a near-breath experience and it will take me months to recover- even if my son hadn't been in patient ever since *I* got out.

But I was responding to Arwyn.

I don't, simply because I think alot of it is smoke and mirrors. Again its one of those things that should be tried out in practice and so far the only one that has given numbers has shown that there wasn't much of a decrease in proc rate, if any that they could tell.

Right now I do know this. A 75 ranger (as he's gained a few levels since this thread started) can clear C2 in PoFire in the amount of time it takes for the area to repop. This is slightly slower than what a 81 ranger used to be able to do.. but that isn't surprising because there is a bit of a gap between a 75 and 81 could do anyway. The real difference is that the ranger in question is 6 levels lower then what used to be the minimum that you could even think about doing this. In fact he's been doing it for a few levels now.

I think everyone is getting hung up on the normalized for raid gear statement and don't realize what exactly it means. But the only ones posting real numbers (in some other threads) are showing DPS increases in group content.

This is going to be a "don't knock it till you try it scenario".

Well I now think the reason they left the swarming/plvling alone was because at that point they already knew about the AA mountain and they thought these plvling mechanics somehow compensated for it and possibly had other value. This is the reason the AA mountain was largely left alone for so long and only a (small from a non-plvl perspective) increase in the curve between 1-4000 was instituted. Somehow, eventually they decided swarming/plvling was not worth it, so they nerfed it, and in so doing also had to greatly increase the rate AA's are gained. Because increasing the speed of AA gain brings with it extra challenges, by autogranting they avoided a lot of the troubles they otherwise would have had.

Leave SKs out of this please. The currentish Test changes are probably overly heavy-handed, but I think most of us are happy in general as a class that our class can no longer be ignored on the basis of "You can swarm 4k AA in a weekend". Good Shadowknights can still swarm perfectly well when we have to, but I'll trade what we had before for raid-utility upgrades of us that are now possible any day.

I'm pretty dang happy and it had the inverse effect on me. I didn't uninstall/unsub because of it, I came back to the game for the first time since October or so of last year because of it.

You're vastly underestimating a level 81 ranger pre-nerf. I could clear C2 in 15 minutes pre-nerf reliably. That's with a silver account HS bot with 600-700 AA.

When it comes right down to it, you're still dealing with ranged attacks for headshot. It's always going to be vastly more useful. No merc, not taking damage, and still able to clear all the mobs.

Actually I'm not. I have a level 81 ranger that used to HS in PoFire. Its simply a fact of I can go somewhere else now. Instead of being 81 in C2, you can be there at 69 or 70. Thats 11-12 levels sooner. At 81 you could probably do Bloody Kithicor which used to require 90.

Right now the Ranger I run with on my cleric is 75 and last night we were doing the Minotaurs in DSH. That used to require 85. The point I am making is even though there is a nerf in proc rate there is a serious buff in the level you can do it at. Meaning the exp gain is higher since you can literally HS anything that is Dark Blue or lower instead of Light Blue.

Now one thing I will concede is probably the AA gain rate. It has always been better to swarm a bunch of light blues for AAs. But with autogrant and the outright need of the game to discourage swarming (zone disruption and server stress), that was going to go away anyway. When you consider rangers and a lesser extent rogues, it was either do what they did, or make most humanoid mobs summon. Which one would you have preferred? I like the route that doesn't negate what rangers, and necros, druids, and wizards can do.