Hey Rangers, I have been a long time Ranger (rolled 2001) and have noticed that our Melee/Archery DPS is falling behind other classes. I group regularly with a Beastlord, Berserker, and Shadow Knight. These classes constantly out DPS me full burn, partial burns, auto attack with spells, and auto attack. Also my Attack rating in lower than these classes. We are all raid geared and my attack is 500-1000 points lower. Also I miss more and don’t hit as hard normal and crits. I know that we bring utility to the group/raid but so does the Shadow Knight and Beastlord. My goal here is not to call out other classes, but to ask if other rangers have noticed our decline? Thoughts? With headshot being phased out what is the plan for the Ranger? Pindail
Nope, we all saw the decline, however there is just no point in arguing about it online right now. We're the worst dps class at the moment and you can see all the casters talking about how mana isn't an issue for them at all meanwhile the hybrid dps classes are using nothing but a glyph of lost secrets constantly to stop bleeding mana at an obscene rate all because Elidroth trusts that Aristo doesn't tune things by throwing a sledgehammer at a dartboard and then guessing where it hit.
1 thing is for sure, you dont miss more, anyone rolling a ranger should know this. Yes you are no more great DPS and great utility. now you are fine DPS and great utility, how is this bad in any way? You help raid or group with buffs and auspice + GOTF, you can patch heal and got some of the best CC in the game. Your place is being pretty good DPS and great utility - if you dont like that i suggest you reroll.
Our class has stagnated since HoT, when we were a little over powered (though it was fun running around moloing the t4 named at the time). VoA had us closer to where we probably should be, though it wasn't uncommon for us to top parses then either. Now most of the dps classes have finally seen some much needed attention which has left us a little behind the curve. We could probably use a little help at this point, but it really wouldn't take much. I wouldn't mind seeing a few new melee abilities, maybe some that stacked with our new melee burn disc. I'm thinking of things along the lines of reflexive bladespurs, minus the HoT and with a shorter reuse. Our archery dps is still decent, and it's pretty low-risk with the small amount of agro it generates. If any boost were necessary, maybe a new AA line that gave us an innate chance to proc an arrow flurry or something. Defensively we could use a little help as well, but probably not a whole lot there either. I wouldn't mind seeing a small boost in our AC softcap. And I think the dmg absorbtion cap on PotSW should be removed all together. It barely lasts more than a minute, full duration, and has a 20 min reuse. In current content it gets stripped in about 30 seconds though. There's really no good reason I can see to not let it go the full duration all the time.
We were ok on DPS, in relation to the other classes during HoT. Our best DPS disciplines were not upgraded at all for several expansions now. We did get some minor upgrades, but when other DPS classes were getting improves of about 50%, the ranger class would only get a boost of 25%. That can be ok for one expansion, but disasterous, when done consecutively over several expansions. It is even worst in RoT, when the mana cost of our spells went up dramatically, but our mana regeneration did not improve. More so, for Tier 3 of the expansion, that pattern of stagnation continued. We were given 2 new spells, ashchoud and windblast boon. Both spells are ok for situational use, but do not significantly increase DPS. Yes, we were giving a new discipline, Bosquestalker, a level 100 discipline, that was designed for DPS discipline, is as much of a joke as Warders Wrath was when it came out. Same timer as our best discipline, Bullseye, a level 90 discipline, but not as good as Bullseye. In fact, even meleeing and using forcasted and focused arrow with bullseye is better then using Bosquestaker. Quick interim fix would be to consider moving Bosquestalker of the same timer as Bullseye. Another thing to look at, is our melee DPS. Consider dramatically increasing it above and beyond what other classes are getting. Mana of our spells has to be addressed for us to be able to sustain our DPS. Right now our burn, while blowing most of our mana, and using all our big disciplines and clicks does not even beat some classes while they are quasi afk.
Our attack buffs are pretty weak go parse them, I bet it will fall somewhere around 30 to 45 dps with a 8 hour parse. Group Guardian of the Forest is also pretty weak and does not stack well with many of the other classes DPS disc (it does stack with a few things) Auspice is decent so I give you that one. As for the Accuracy thing yes I remember years ago different devs and after our Accuracy AA was added that was something that was said to be a Ranger only thing like they also said about having the Highest Attack (which thanks to your AA two hands no mercy I think it is) this is no longer the case. People seem to have forgot (Devs Included) that we were once a Strong Melee class (sustained wise). We are Great CC for NPC's that are not immune to Run Speed changes. I bet Your Aura brings more dps then Ranger's Attack buffs (though I have never parsed to see)
Well just use when the other stuff is down to sustain the burn - i know its not the best in its group of buffs but its pretty good. Auspice is awesome as you also reckon. I think rangers have alot to offer to raids and certainly also in groups, I dont know if beastlords are sustaining too high or the rest of us are too low, but i would say that you sould be atleast on par with them for sustained, given the loads of utility they have. Berserkers still use the same disc we were given in GOD, does that make the disc. bad? no it doesn't. Bullseye is still a awesome disc and especially considering you can burn well from range which has its benefits over being melee - also the duration on bullseye is nice.
Trying to discuss anything with bighitz would be like trying to have a rational discussion with battleblade aka a wall. It's best to just ignore him. Otherwise, he'll fill up our forums with his useless spam like he does any zerker thread.
arguably rangers don't bring more than any other class. We really only have auspice to contribute. Our attack buffs are not a noticeable dps increase. Auspice is nice, but its a single buff. The idea that rangers should do so much less damage because they contribute so much is rather.... empty.
been along time sense I played a ranger. But back then if I remember right rangers did more damage with a bow then with their swords. I think it should go back to that. Rangers should be able to dish out massive damage at any time burn or not burn with your bows to the point that the only time you use your melee weapons is when you have to.
That was only for a single expansion when higher tier raid quality bows were available to everyone. Other than that, melee has always been superior outside of discing. I wouldn't be a fan of bowing all the time. Some people would.
you would likely see this Bighitz.... 1min zerker...170-200k ..... ranger 70-100k 2min zerkers drop off to 100k-115k .... rangers 60-80k 3min zerkers drop off to 60-80k... rangers 40-60k that would be my best guess on average for high end raider comparison of rangers to same guild zerkers....
the 3 minutes mark seems an awful slot for a ranger. And past 3 minutes, when the mana runs out, the dps would drop off huge. I have not raided much since 95 when I lost internet for a bit, bur ranger dps used to start dropping pretty sharply after 2 minutes. Get into the 4-5 minute zone and you would be lucky to be doing a fraction of the above, with the zerker still doing 30-40K.
That hasn't ever been true though, it is when you had a bow that was raid level and melee weapons that were not, but that's an unfair comparison.
Okay, you dont seem broken then. Except for your 1 min berserker numbers you are way off. 2 min berserker is 40-60K. 3 min berserker is 30-50K.
And please dont compare yourselves to berserkers - yes we do more DPS than you do. Newsflash: You pay for utility with DPS, thats just how balancing works. It's fair enough to say you are behind but stop digressing into giving false numbers and directly comparing yourself to berserkers. From the numbers you provided, it seems that you aren't really broken compared to melee DPS. However i understand that you feel that you should be bursting and sustaining as well as beastlords.
Nobody answer that, if you ignore it long enough he might take his own advice and stop trolling ranger threads and reroll a wizard.
his 1minute numbers look about right, probably a little low... the 2min numbers are a little low, we're still at 120k+ at 2min mark and the 3min numbers are way low, we're still at 90-110k at 3min mark. the point being Qualzek was pretty on the money if anything being nice to zerkers lowballing us a bit. and Rangers need some dps help. their burst is meh and their sustained is just bad. now please leave the nice rangers alone Bighitz...
