in the groups i was in tonight i was out damaged by both brigands and swashy on nearly every encounter. The mobs were lvl 61-62^^^ and we were lvl 61-62. i would be doing around 250-300 DPS and they were around 400-450 DPS and dont forget these are probably the best debuff classes around so they make our DPS a lot better. When i was top this was due to quick fire and poison proccing more than usual and probably their bigger hits not being up. Even the tanks were around the same DPS and they are using their defensive stances. Tanks were a pally and monk Only way i can see to improve our DPS is by increasing the damage of our CA's a little and maybe lower the cool down time.
Hi there, Raided court of Al'Afaz last night with my guild. I didn't have time to to do much with the parses after but the bottom line was: DPS between 310 and 480 DPS same time last week was 800 to 1k on the same mobs and virtually the same set-up (I used rare poison this week instead of the treasured because I guessed I wouldn't be pulling agro - so my potetnial DPS was actually higher than last week) In many fights the Necro pets were achieveing higher DPS. I didn't get a chance to add in the necro damage for a true figure. Now we aren't an uber raid guild and I'm no super geared expert raider but I like to think I'm an average player at least. Are we really meant to be doing so much less damage after the change? I honestly can't believe the Necro pets are meant to out DPS me. Our guild wizzy (yep we have just one) wasn't there last night so I don't have any data for a true T1 class. The only real DPS was provided by the Necro's and pets last night - I could have been replaced by a tank. I tried to keep as much the same as the previous week. I didn't try a high dot poison and didn't try any extensive melee fighting. It has been posted that more melee might push up DPS a little if brutal instinct is invoked. Well, if I have to do significant amounts of melee in raids with my ranger to achieve the correct DPS then time for another character for me. Playing this guy since Nov. '04 and it's always been about the bow. I have no solo and group data yet so can't comment on those areas. Right now, as far as I'm concerned, we are broken DPS for raids. Mirdo.
I commented about that in another thread on the forum and got no reply. We all know the reasons why (PVP), it's just that SoE simply wont admit it. File this with the statement about PvP not effecting PvE made by Scott Hartsman, along with the statement made by Blackguard that rangers had been throughly tested on beta after the changes were made.
In regards to Afflictedone's reply, most of the fights were fights that involve AE's so the Swashbucklers had to joust. In that type of raid, Swashbucklers only out damage Brigands if there is no AE from the mob as then they can constantly be in the mix without worrying about damage. Also, tkae 2 groups Tank, Healer and Rogue (both equal in terms of gear and skill tiers ie. adepts or masters), the Brigand will do much more damage as the Brigand's group will have a lot more mitigation on the mobs debuffed. A lvl 60 Brigand can debuff up to 5k to all physical mitigation for 13 secs (Dispatch alone is 3-3.6k), and their other miti debuffs (2k Spell and 1600 Physical) can be kept up permanently. If both classes are in the same group, yeah the Swashbuckler will do more damage as they have a higher base damage. You also gotta keeo in mind that the Swashbuckler would only be doing so much more damage because the Brigand is debuffing the mob's mitigation for the group by so much.
Its hard being contructive when i can't solo a even con single arrow up mob with full legendary and adept 3 spells at lvl 60. When snare means so little in this game...i can't get more then 1 shot off before a mob gets to me with or without a snare on it. Snares don't last long enough, and arn't powerful enough, when they do stick. I can't melee 60-80% of a mobs health....rangers arn't designed that way.
IS this post for real? Put all of these together and u have the 5 best dps classes in game combined...
keep normal procs how they hit now, put poison and stream of arrows back, give the punk mages an aggro dump
While I agree with your list of suggestions I think it's more than we're likely to get. I would be happy with the upgrade to ranged combat arts, the addition of new melee arts you suggested, and upgrading our stun to work on ^ mobs (with a shorter recast timer so we had more chance to use our positional attacks when meleeing). I think things would have worked out better if they'd just removed stun poisons and reduced the percent chance for our procs to go off. We, along with our assassin brothers, are supposed to be tier 1 dps just behind wizzies and warlocks. That tier 1 damage ability should never have been based off of procs. If 40-50% of our dps comes from procs then were we ever really tier 1 dps? Being tier 1 dps means that you can crank out that level of damage on a consistant basis THRU YOUR COMBAT ARTS...not thru a proc, or series of procs, that works off of a % chance to work. Tier1 ranged dps is our class defining skill/attribute. Being able to cause damage with procs is not and should never be a class defining attribute. I think this was the root of SOEs error. They looked at our dps and said "they're tier 1 where they belong" without bothering to check where that dps was coming from. Then the proc bug reared it's ugly head and SOE decided it had to be fixed. Again...without bothering to see how that would affect our dps. They "fixed" the problem and created a whole new issue that is potentially more game breaking (in that it adversly affects more players). The only solution that I see is to make us a tier 1 dps class again (as they've stated we're supposed to be) but make that dps come solely from our combat arts. If a proc occurs once in a blue moon then it's a bonus. Rangers and assassins are supposed to be tier 1 dps behind wizzies and warlocks. To me that says that if they can crank out (these are arbitrary numbers) 400 dps at level 30 and 800 dps at level 60 then a ranger or assassin should be able to crank out 350 dps at 30 and 750 at 60. Right now we're supposed to be tier 1 dps (I know I'm using that phrase a lot...I'm trying to drive home a point) but if your dps is only 50 above a plate tank then that's not it (and it looks like there are numerous parses on this board showing just that). I really hope SOE has plans to fix this because right now soloing my ranger is becoming uncomfortably like soloing my guardian.
I agree with you except that we're supposed to be tier 1 DPS EVEN with wizards/warlocks not behind. The point of the tiers is that depending on circumstances we should all be able to outdamage eachother at different times. None of us should ALWAYS be ahead of the other. We were always ahead of wizards and warlocks before LU20 and that was fixed. But now they're always ahead of us and that's not right either.
I agree that predators should be even dps with sorcerors and who comes out on top depends on the situation. I was basing my statement that we were supposed to be behind sorcerors on a half remembered post I read quite a while ago where a dev stated that sorcerors were supposed to be the highest dps followed by predators. That could have been revoked or changed depending on what SOE felt needed balancing at the moment. Also...for those who've been commenting about sorceror utility vs. predator utility: I've got a warlock as well as a ranger. If you compare a socerors utility to the utility of other casters you will see that they give up most of that utility for a dps advantage. The same as we predators give up most of our utility (compared to that of other scouts) for added dps. Preds and Sorcs both are willing to sacrifice added utility for the ability to kill faster so I don't think a contest over whose utility is better is warranted here. It's situational for the most part just as who is better at tier 1 dps should be. Really I could care less at this point about poisons and procs. We shouldn't have been having to rely on what is, after all, a side effect to bring our dps up where it should be. If they want to balance rangers with other tier 1 dps classes then: 1. Raise the damage on our combat arts (melee and ranged) so that our damage is equal to that of other tier 1 classes. 2. Give us one ranged combat art with a stun component (that always stuns - not has a % chance to) so hopefully we can get off more than 1 or 2 bow arts before the mob is on us. 3. Make our stuns last at least 4 seconds.
And the rogue has much less avoidance than the ranger...so again why do you think you need even more defense? When you can already reach brawler level avoidance by yourself and be able to wear chainmail I don't see a problem. Seems like you were 'balanced' by having your melee DPS cut way down and your defense raised way up already. They should allow rangers to use Ranged CA's in melee with cast times that can be interrupted like a caster. Raise base damage if you raise cast time (like the Fury). There is really no reason to not allow ranged CA's in melee nor auto bow attacks. Message Edited by Fromingo on 02-24-200612:02 PM
they need to put the parry rate of mobs against bows back where it used to be. Im 99% sure it was stealth nerfed pre-LU20 as 2 days back to back in PP i was hitting fine, zone in the next day and suddenly half of my bow attacks were being parried. Having higher parry rates PLUS lower poison proc rates is too much. One or the other would be sufficient to curb our DPS while not overdoing it. Also, the stun poison proc rate could be just a little higher, 15% is pretty low all things considered with how low the hit rate is overall now and that it can only proc on the first arrow of an attack...just my 2 cents...all constructive
I've said it several times now, I'm [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] sure parry rates are higher for ranged CAs than melee CAs. The strekiness of Ranger soloing experience is for a large part down to whether or not the mob parries your opening volley. I really think Rangers should get the devs to look at parry rates.
I plan on checking this when I get home, but does our "Attack Rating" in the persona window still drop when switching to ranged combat? I know it used to. It never seemed to matter before, but all of a sudden I'm getting a sneaking suspision that maybe they fixed another "bug" that's been around for a long time....
Parries are definitely very odd right now. Noticeably higher for ranged attacks, which makes the opposite of sense, for two reasons: 1. We're rangers. Supposedly masters of the bow. We should be more effective with a bow than with knives. 2. It's easier to block an incoming arrow or five than it is to block a sword or stick coming at your head? C'mon, Devs. The reduction in DPS was necessary, but you've increased our recast times without telling us, nerfed way more procs than you said you were, made poisons more of a novelty than anything else, and now you make it so our primary form of attack is ridiculously ineffective. We have FOUR frontal melee CAs and what, a dozen ranged CAs? Insult to injury ain't in it.
Live Update #16 said the following: I wonder if that riposte mechanic has somehow crept in to archery as well? Maybe we didn't notice it before. Or maybe it used to consider ripostes impossible against ranged attacks before, and SOE just recently changed them to be counted as parries instead. (Just speculation - I don't have any data on this issue.)
I'm glad to see us being weaned from the poison teat. I never agreed with having to have the majority of my tier of DPS coming from procs and items I had to buy. Since procs have been adjusted and since procs were most of the point of poisons in general, we need to stop being required to rely on them so much. My suggestions lie along the same lines as others. 1. Upgrade our ranged CAs. 2. Give us roots, stuns and effective snares tied to our ranged CAs. 3. Significantly reduce the casting time on ranged CAs and significantly lower the recast timer. 4. Point blank shot would be nice, but I would be happy with being allowed to finish a CA rather than getting "Too close!" messages. I have been soloing the same solo mobs I was before just fine. But I can see room for improvement. If we're supposed to be Tier 1 DPS, then we need to be raised to that level and it really does need to come from our own abilities. We've had to rely on paying for our damage for too long. Poisons and procs should be icing on the cake, not something factored into a baseline of our abilities.
The only reason why I noticed it is because I took a level 28 Swashie and Ranger to Zek just before the patch so I could compare before and after. Although they were too low to get a view of the clases in general because I was literally playing one for 30min then swapping back and forth I was able to get a very clear comparison of the two in my mind... the number one thing that stuck in my mind was the number of Ranged CAs that got parried. Given the patch note you highight, if parry rate is normalised against weapon delay as it would appear from the note reposte is, then guess what's going to happen to a delay 7 weapon compared to a delay 1.5 weapon?... aye it's get parried over 4 times as much..... I don't know that is what is happening. I'm speculating now.
I agree. I wasn't saying we needed more defense, I was saying that we don't have the defense to do what they're making us do. Rogues are the off-tank scout class, and I don't want to be that. Predators are meant to kill with pure DPS, not offtank/debuff/DPS. Rogues are good at what they do (at least, I know Brigands rock). I just want rangers to be good at what we do--kill stuff a lot. Letting us use ranged CAs at point blank would be very helpful for soloing, but it doesn't resolve the fundamental problem that they've reduced our damage too far.
