The best news is that Hawk will work (after 7 years ) (though it remains to be seen if our groups will appreciate it) The most desirable End Line for Predator's FINALLY favors the Ranger over the Assassin!! Yeah FC!! In beta they did another good thing. They extended Melee Autoattack to match melee ca's So now ALL melee weapons can hit from Zero meters to 5 meters! Instead of staying <2 meters for melee autoattack. That's right they have effectively increased the melee hit box on mobs by 150%!!! Cool stuff ..... except .... They did NOTHING for Ranged Autoattack, all bows (save one) retain the 2 meter minimum, Rangers still have a 3 meter sweet spot where they can throw ranged and melee CA's and trigger autoattack with thier bow. They have corrected an obvious mechanical mismatch between melee autoattack and melee ca's. It makes sense. The reason given was that it was a descrepancy between the autoattack and the ca's. As melee you can get right on the mob and stay there. That has not changed but now as melee you have 150% more room to stay there as the mob wiggles, turns or moves. For some reason they supended that logic with Rangers. It was important to match two disparate ranges FOR EVERY OTHER MELEE but not to work to mitigate the THREE disparate ranges in our mechanics!!! Some may say 'You get the same extension on melee weapons' right but we don't use those weapons for auttoattack. We do have to use those melee CA's though. This means we need to stay within 5 meters of the mob. Exactly like melee. BUT, if the mob moves or turns or wiggles and we get within 2 meters OUR PRIMARY ATTACK will not fire! This is by design (not our wish) the largest percentage of our DPS. To autoattack we have to stay >2 meters so we have a much smaller hit box that other melee now. It was already a bit dicey before, now it is truly a disadvantage compared to other melee ie; scouts and fighters. We are still stuck to trying to maintain a constant 2 to 5 meter range CA's are still underpowered RANGER CA's are still mismatched on ranges versus primary weapon We still have inordnitately long casting times to be interrupted. We still have inordnately long resue We still cannot move and fire most of our ranged Combat Arts unlike the HUGE bulk of other Melee CA's We still cannot Autoattack at less than 2 meters with anything other than our oudated, underpowered Mythical Mob's still have inconsistent unpredictable hit boxes Virtually no Ranger mechanic issues were addressed.
The easiest fix would be to put the zero range on out Eagle's talon buff. That would not however fix the mismatched CA's for level 1-79 Ranger's They could extend all of our Melee CA's by 2 meters giving us the same 5 meter box that EVERY other melee gets. This though is a problem because we share CA's with the Assassins. They could change our Extension AA to add 5 meters to ALL CA's, instead of 15% to only Ranged CA's They could allow us to be ranged experts (RANGErs) and be able to fire Ranged CA's on the move. This would allows us to maintain position without being punitively impacted while trying to maintain out 3 meter vs. thier 5 meter hit box. But PvP and BG peeps will howl!! (that would be nice) Or..... they can totally ignore it as they have for such a long time.
While I understand what you're saying, and wouldn't mind having our melee CA's having a longer range especially recalling fyreflyte's comments about making us more of an actual ranged class, I don't think they necessarily needed to increase the range for our melee CA's just because they increased the range on the other scouts auto attack. There are other issues that you brought up which I'd like more emphasis on then this one though, such as basic CA problems with casting speed, reuse, along with just their damage in general, though I do recall that they did at least increase the damage on sniper shot. If they can manage to keep the hit boxes in control, where we can get close enough to a mob so that we're able to be in range of our healers and buffs, but still have access to the full array of combat arts available to us, I'll be okay with it. I only got in on the last wave of invites, so I never found out if any of the raids had issues with the hitbox being incredibly screwed up. The other part of the melee range extension that does benefit us to a point, is with regards to what happens when a mob attacks us. Instead of closing in to 2m or closer since that's the melee auto attack, the mobs will stop at 5m allowing us to continue to auto attack, and use ranged CAs. The only times this didn't really seem to be the case was when I myself tried to move in closer.
Them stopping 5 meters is fine but it does not address the obvious inconsistencies in 3 distinct ranging requirements, auto attack that is 2-35, melee 0-5 and a 50/50 mix of ca's 50% 0-5 and 50% 2-35. It was changed to match melee ca's 0-5, which is great majority of other melee attacks but only 1/3 of our attacks. And those attacks DO NOT match our primary melee weapon! They left the other 66% un-addressed. When I play my assassin I run up to the back of the mob and stay there, moving right or left and staying on top and in back of it. Small movements were not a huge negative because I can cast almost all of my assassin ca's on the move. When the mob moved it was a challenge to stay behind and within 2 meters. Now the autoattack (hit box) on my Assassin and Zerker has been increased 150%, a huge improvement in maintaining that position. And remember as an assassin almost all of my ca's can be cast while moving, repositioning. A Ranger cannot move or reposition without affecting a large portion of thier attacks and has a tighter hit box range. When I play my Ranger I can't cast half of my CA's while moving. This means delays while I reposition, that my assassin, and other melee classes do not have to deal with. On top of that they have a hit box that is 66% larger than ours, they are certainly not worried about the mob moving to close. They only have to worry about the mob moving away (and in the assassins case turining). The Ranger has to adjust for too close, too far and turning.
trust me I understand what you're saying, I'd just say focus more on the other issues, rather then just how the melee range increase didn't really give us anything, yet will be a significant change for the melee classes. I'm not saying it shouldn't be addressed, but this post and your post in beta makes it seem like this particular change regarding melee range being increased is the biggest we have.. While it's an issue, some of the other problems you've brought up should be emphasized more then just this one.
I agree it is not the biggest change we have or need. I had little or no hope that they would fix our mechanics but I did not anticipate they would introduce a brand new inequity. Our ranged CA's are treated as if we were spell casters without nearly the damage, our melee range is nerfed because of the minimum range. That was acceptable to me before because melee had to stay within 2 meters. The reasoning they use infuriates me a bit, matching melee to CA's. Primarily because they eliminated ours matching up in the SF beta and subsequently SF in spite of our feedback then. They could and should quickly address this since it is an inequity they created in DoV, one that did not exist before. So before we get the other issues addressed we should try make the point and get them to avoid creating new ones or making wide spread changes that exacerbate old issues.
Beta showed me the lack of quality in the devs and their ability to create fun content and refusal to enact changes that have little impact on balance and a big improvement on fun factor. It's a video game. It sickens me when they refuse to make changes that would have little to no negative impact on anything for the sake of making the game more fun.
Neiloch@Kithicor wrote: The bell has tolled for me. 6 years of playtime and I will call it quits with DoV. I still don't, to this day, understand the problem devs have with our class. it ain't that hard.
Gaige wrote: Maybe on an assassin. On a ranger FC is better by a considerable amount. It's poison based, so the mob gets debuffed more for it, and it's predictable.
Gaige wrote: I was talking about at least having a RANGED parameter attached to an endline we both share I have always be of the opinion that a Predator AA's should NOT be better for one or the other of us. Clearly not the case, except for the new heroic which for once I see as balanced. And the 5 meter emlee range has been a long time in coming and I think it is appropriate but it has been applied, again, unequally.
Carpediem@Antonia Bayle wrote: None of which matter zonewide. I've had EW hit for upper 400s. The predictability thing matters mob to mob but not zonewide.
