I did a lot more soloing today, now that the servers were (somewhat) more stable. The bottom line seems to be we are now absolutely reliant on the Random Number Generator. In a fight, if I procced one or two times, things were fine (especially if it was poison that went off.) If I didn't proc, I was being beaten into the red rather consistently, and I lost more than a few fights against mobs that shouldn't be putting up such a struggle (solo tagged mobs two, three levels under me even.) All of my fights were against mobs that were tagged as solo, most of which being at most only one level higher than I was. Casters and other scouts (not rangers) fighting near me were mowing through the mobs, while I generally had to stop and heal up between each and every fight (again, unless I procc'd.) Any solo tagged mob that also has a single ^ arrow was beating me, and beating me soundly, right into the ground. I simply couldn't put out enough damage fast enough to take them down, and trying to kite usually resulted in adds and a swift death. Level 60 ranger, legendary crafted armor and weapons, mostly adept 1 CAs, legendary rare poisons, have soloed most of my leveling career. Twas very, very frustrating. Thank you for looking into this, BG.
It's rather annoying for other classes to come to the Ranger boards and ask BG to go look at their classes, it derails the thread. My DPS has been cut back drastically. Almost to the point of being pre LU13 <shudder>. As a ranger, I rely on being able to keep the mob away from me so I can use my ranged attacks, with my stun poison not procing very often now, that's extremely difficult. It's a toss up on whether I will survive a blue con ^ mob. For the record, I don't believe stun poisons were overpowered, they were a useful tool if you could afford them, or had an alchemist tradeskiller alt or friend. They also ran out quickly and didn't guarantee a win over any heroic mob. My archers frenzy isn't much of a frenzy anymore. I think that in all honesty our procs need to be restored to where they were. If you need to reduce any dmg, reduce dmg slightly on poisons or reduce the dmg amount on the arrow frenzy proc. Many other classes don't see that rangers are your friend in groups and in raids. We work together with wizards to do top DPS, wizards giving us that nice STR buff, Illusionists giving us that nice dynamism. We bring the mob down quickly and in sticky situations on heroic mobs we can keep the mob stunned for some of the time therefore reducing the dmg on the tank. Another constructive suggestion regarding rangers, please give us a summon arrows spell for tier 6 that summons indium arrows.
BWAHAHAHA!!!! Omg, that killed me... thanks Lilae. BTW welcome to the server, hope to see you in-game sometime soon.
Sirs; It seems to me that the fundamental problem lies in the fact that changes were made for this class, based almost exclusively on the performance of the highest level Rangers in legendary gear, with (at least) Master level 1 CA's, in a raid or group setting. There is a world of difference in what THAT Ranger can do, and what my 41st level Ranger in second hand gear, with Adept 1 Ca's, fighting solo can do. Your changes may bring that top end Ranger into line with what you think he should be, but what about the rest of us? Message Edited by Mary the Prophetess on 02-22-200604:35 PM
its so simple to fix.. remove the min range on our ranged CA's. Keep the positional requirements, and leave SoA having a min range. This would only affect solo, no one gets up close in raids anyhow..
Just wanted to add something to my above list 7. Give us a stun that lasts longer than 1 sec. Didn't see those changed till I logged in just now and this is really gonna kill soloing since we have 2 melee attacks that aren't either positional or dots. It's impossible to stun and do ranged attack or get into positional attack with only 1 second stuns.
I've been very supportive of Ranger before and through this nerf in the interest of some sort of Scout solidarity, but I take issue with the above comment. Rangers should be a tier above Rogues, not in a different place entirely. Insofar as the tiers adjoin, yes some Rogues will be close to some Predators in the same way that some Brawlers will be close to some Rogues as they are a tier under them. The nerf was outrageous, horribly executed and needs to be fixed asap; but some Rangers need to adjust their expectations as to where they fit in the order of things... Tier 1 with viable soloability and group contribution, not Tier 0 with a game mechanic all their own... Swashbucklers and Brigands are primarily a dps class also. They're simply a tier bellow you in the same way that Brawlers are merely a tier bellow them.
I don't think he meant that as an attack against swashbucklers. It's nice to have support from other classes so devs know it's not just rangers who this this is extreme. You're right you can be close to us in damage but if similarly equipped with similar skill you shouldn't outdamage us. I think that's what he was getting at.
Here's my info overthe last few days, I'm a 60 Ranger with Most Bow skills master 1 and all other skills Adept 3. The day before KoS was launched (monday) I was groups with a Berserker and Inquisitor killing Cyclops' in PoF to remove some debt. My STR was at 355, 64 below max. My parse was on average about 900-1100 dps, all bow skills master 1 except for amazing shot, and sniper's (which I didn't use at all), everything else was adept 3. Yesterday I went there again in a full group this time, with a Mystic, Guardian, Berserker, Warden and Dirge. My parse was on average 400-600 dps (max str btw). Non-stop pulling would often use up a charge of poison within 10 minutes before the nerf, now it takes around 2 hours for a charge to wear off in the same setup. With Archer's Frenzy Master 1, and Adeste's procs used to be about 45-55% of my damage. Losing 90% of the procs has reduced my damage by around half. If you also haven't noticed, the stun on sniper's was reduced to 1 sec when it was previously 4, cheap shot has been reduced to 1 sec as well. I also grouped in a 4 man group with a guard, brig, warden and myself. On average I was getting out DPS'd by the brig by about 50-100dps, which is total BS as the brig only had 2 master 1's and the majority of his skills being adept1. and a handful of adept 3's. WIth that info, here are the major issues that I feel need to be addressed: 1. Bow atk rating is extremely lower to any other weap, except when using 1 dual wielder. My normal attack rating is 1100-1200, if I go into ranged auto-attack then it drops to 500-600, which is equal to having 1 dual wield equiped. This should explain why our ranged attacks get avoided a lot more than our melee. 2. As mentioned before Bows are considered as 2 handers but have the damage rating of a 1-hander and the atk rating of 1 dual wield (as stated above). 3. Now that we don't have the procs, out combat art damage needs to be increased by abour 30-50% in order to be able to hold a candle to our assassin counter parts as they are still parsing over 700-900 dps (good assassins at least). 4. Our ranged combat arts need reduced casting times so that we may actually get more auto attacks in, they is also in correlation to #3 as the lower the ranged combat art casting time, the lower the need for a heavy damage increase in them. ie. If you reduced the ranged combat art casting time by 1/3 then the adjustment to their damge would need to be around 25-35% instead. 5. If you want us to depend more on ranged auto-attack, then make the better arrows more affordable or make a major increase in our makeshift arrow line. Indium arrows are costing me over 1p after grinding for 8+ hours and that's after all the coin I make from adventuring and using backup quiver master 1 (60 arrows every 10 mins) as much as possible. Meaning that I lose a large amount of coin on arrows from just grinding. 6. Fix it so that we may be able to use our bow more often while soloing. Now that sniper's shot and cheap shot stuns are 1 sec only and Debilitating Arrow no longer able to be used while moving, it makes it near impossible to use our bow solo. Even with the trap, we might only get 1 to 3 ranged combat arts in before we have to go full melee. We can no longer cheap shot, take a step back and precise shot due to the fact that cheap shot is now 1 sec. Also, the point blank shot aa is now useless since its stun was reduced to 1 sec when it was previously 4. It's just another melee combat art that wastes an arrow now.
My comment certainly wasn't meant as an attack on Swashbucklers. One of my group members is a swashbuckler and a very good one. Based on information provided by SOE, it is reasonable for me to expect a higher DPS total than a swashbuckler. Last night, that wasn't the case. In spite of me doing everything I could, he was ahead of me in DPS in most fights. Blackguard indicated that if the changes moved us from the T1 DPS position, they would take a look at it. I'm telling them that I am no longer in T1 and asking that they look at it quickly. I don't have to do twice the DPS of anyone else to be happy. But I would expect to consistently see 100-150 above that of the swashi. Call me crazy. I certainly didn't mean to insult the swashbuckler community. Fredethel
i dont see why rangers are so intend on having 1/2 their dmg coming from poisons procs(queynos class baseing their damage on poisons???) the poison procs should be seen as icing on the cake for this class. raw dps should be upped for CA and auto attacks....especially the long recast nuke spells str affects theyre dps. but preds are an agility based class... why not make agility affect theyre crittical strikes? ex: high agi, avg str= moderate reg damage but massively high critticals when they accur or: avg agi, high str= high susttained CA/auto attack dps, avg/low critticals (offensive stances should also affect crittical strikes) dont rangers have roots? if theyre broken, fix em....rangers have slightly better one-on-one mage like melee skills which is pretty sad... point blank shot sounds like a great idea, although there should be a slight penalty on the damage a CA can do point blank on a side note, i would like to welcome all you rangers back to the **** club, car pool stickers are limited so first come first serve. Also, please wear a name tag for the first few weeks. :smileyhappy: Message Edited by Kamon211 on 02-22-200607:09 PM Message Edited by Kamon211 on 02-22-200607:10 PM
I tend to agree. I have never been happy with how much of our performance depends entirely on random procs. Especially now, when it really is random and the outcome of a fight varies so drastically depending on whether I proc or not. (I don't have a problem with the poison thing, rangers aren't paladins, after all. Fair play isn't something we have the luxury of depending on.) As for roots...not really. We do have one, but it's a trap. We have to lay it beforehand, it has a three minute recast, and while it is nice, I certainly don't want to have to wait three minutes between every fight. Also, root breaks on damage quite often, which means we might get in one extra bowshot, but then we're right back to where we were. Some mobs just mow through it without slowing too.
"i dont see why rangers are so intend on having 1/2 their dmg coming from poisons procs(queynos class baseing their damage on poisons???) the poison procs should be seen as icing on the cake for this class." Perhaps the most profound thing said in the last few days. I really wouldn't give a [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] if they got rid of poisons completely and upped scout CA damage. Not sure most rangers would know what to do with the extra cash.
Kamon211 wrote: i dont see why rangers are so intend on having 1/2 their dmg coming from poisons procs(queynos class baseing their damage on poisons???) the poison procs should be seen as icing on the cake for this class. It's not that we necessarily want 1/2 our damage to be coming from procs. In fact, we'd like an opportunity for other things to come into play more. It's that several times our class has been balanced (albeit not too precisely) around these mechanics. We have relied on them, not just to do the over-the-top damage that we used to do, but to fulfil the role of damage dealer at all. Many rangers would have welcomed the concept of a change to proc mechanics, if it had been handled well. But it was NOT handled well. The devs called it a bug and called us exploiters. They were dismissive in the face of our concerns and demonstrated an ignorance of the repercussions of the change. They allowed only a few days to test a major change to the heart of the game, in an environment that was set up only to test end-game raid-focused content, and told us that according to their data rangers were performing just fine. A change to the proc mechanics *is* important for the health of the game. But it's something that should have been done slowly and carefully. And it should have been done in collaboration with the ranger community (and the player community in general). It should have been done with an understanding that other changes would need to happen to compensate. The changes are now in place, and there's no point in asking the devs to put it back the way it was. The only constructive thing to do now is communicate to the devs what the situation is, what we feel needs to be changed, and most importantly, what we want from our class. When reevaluating the ranger class, here are the things we want out of our class, apart from the basic scout qualities: 1. We want our combat to mostly be done through archery. (There are some who argue that rangers and archery aren't necessarily synonymous, but I dare say it's the central quality that drew most of us to the class.) 2. We want to be a viable part of groups and raids, principally as damage dealers; we want to do similar damage to the other top damage dealers, and noticeably - but not overwhelmingly - more than other classes who offer more utility. Note that this implies that the other top damage dealers need to be in balance already. (Some rangers, myself included, wouldn't mind seeing a reduction in our damage role if it meant an increase in the utility we offer. But I think most rangers prefer being damage oriented. And that's certainly the way the class has been geared up until now.) 3. We want to be highly self sufficient: able to explore, harvest, quest, etc., pretty well solo. And when we do fight solo, we want archery to be our main way of doing it. (Suggestions on how to accomplish that are: give us a root; make our snares more effective and less likely to break; give us an archery stun that can be used fairly often; and/or removing the minimum range requirement on archery. Some have suggesting making us into a tank class, too, but I think the majority of rangers are against the idea.) 4. We don't want to have to pay large amounts of money for expendables in order to keep up with other classes who have no such expenses.
Its good to be positive, but if they do accept any proposed changes when will they actually implement them? My guess is after its too late. Good luck.
Heh my Dirge could use this too? :smileywink: Hell I'll just take a self only buff that doesn't use concentration. :smileysad: Seriously if you're going to even consider giving Rangers the ability to tank mobs more than they already have(seen non grouped Rangers with 70+ avoidance) then kick some of that same love down to the rest of us scouts. I think Predators are a bit spoiled when they are the only scout I know who can get 70+% avoidance solo and still complain they need more to be able to "melee with mobs" i.e. tank. And believe my I feel your DPS/proc pains rangers I have a high lvl bruiser who got incidental damage from your recent nerf bat.
I think that an easy way to fix our dps problem would not be to increase our CA dmg but to add 1 or 2 more bow CA's and take away 1 or 2 of the melee ones. This would increase dps also making us proc a little more, keeping poisons usefull the way that they are procing now. I am only a lvl 40 ranger but i know that i run out of bow CA's in alot of fights and run in to melee until they pop back up again. Also i see alot of wiz/warlocks complaining about them running out of power faster then us( which i have to say does seem to happen) adding more bow CA's would make us go through our power faster. As for soloing being able to use our bows at close range would i think work best since our bow CA's are our primary source of dmg however since that might make us overpowered at close range some, decrease the chance of being able to land a hit with a bow when the mob is within melee range, would i think take care of that plus it makes sense realistically as well. These 2 changes i think would bring us to the same lvl as wizzies and warlocks and stifle alot of their complaints if they see us going oop as much as they seem to do. I know i am only lvl 40 and not sure if this goes the same for end game as a ranger but just my hopefull helpful info. later
Point being that many of our attacks cannot even be used except from range. Since we can't frontload our damage with the opening barrage like before, we have to tank the mob much longer with our comparatively feeble melee skills. Consequently, we're spending a lot more time toe to toe with the mob, but without any compensating defense. Basically, whilst soloing, we're now a rogue class--except with fewer useable attacks, doing less damage, with fewer melee buffs and far fewer debuffs. Not a recipe for success.
how do you think i feel? my archers frenzy i just bought the master 1 lol. And i dont understand how they are balancing us by our poisons damage ffs. We pay for that, it hsould put us above and beyond. they are now Forcing everyone to use poison. Which we all kno0w isnt cheap. So if we have to buy our dps, shouldnt we be better at it than most? I wonder how the soe train of thought works... sriously..
It's my belief that the changes made to the ranger class were in large part due to the need to balance PvP combat. My suggestion is that the changes be applicable to PvP servers only, if possible. Damage is the only thing I bring to a group or raid in PvE. Thanks for looking at our posts. Laand 55 ranger
