With my ranger (level 56, full player made gear & imbued ironwood bow, no fableds, M1x1 and M2x1 bow CA's and rest of bow CA's at Adept 1, using stun poison and high DOT (Virulent Sting I think)) I am seeing the following now: 1) Bow Arts too slow by a LOT- whether SOE admits it or not, those are far slower than a week ago. We need faster CA's and less cool down on them. 2) WAY too many parries. This needs looked at especially hard since our bow damage is so much lower than before. This is cutting into bow damage that we simply cannot afford to lose. 3) CA damage needs a boost, and a decent one if we are to be able to solo decent experience targets. 4) Melee/defensive abilities definitely need a boost. The target is usually on me before I can get a third shot off and has a significantly large amount of its health remaining. I usually have to flee those fights since I just don't tank well enough to go toe-to-toe with a white con mob for very long. 5) Need a snare/root or something similar, or for Thorny Trap to be "improved" LOL. I am a Ranger. I use a bow. If the mob is on me, my bow makes a rotten weapon. 6) Overall, I can solo blue single down or 2-group double down mobs relatively easily, taking 30-50% damage. Blue ^ are kinda tough. White single down or no arrow are moderately difficult and I can expect 50% + damage to my health. White ^ take me into the red IF my bow procs. If it doesn't, I usually have to scram. Yellow of any con is just plain tough and not worth the time expenditure involved for the experience return. Yes, we were over powered and that is neither here nor there since it no longer applies. Now? We definitely need some boosts in both offensive and defensive capabilities. Hope this helps a little. Message Edited by Morgonn on 02-24-200610:38 PM
I noticed that to Ranged CAs seem to definately be much slower then before LU20, but I have a feeling that they upped the CA timers in that respect, because down the Agi line of AAs for rangers we can increase our CA speeds... effectively making us on par with speeds we were before, not actually better. Nesse 60 Ranger Oasis
The main problems I see right now in our ability has been with a lot of recent changes, the movement speed increase in and out of battle is one thing that has definitely killed our solo ability. You'd think yeah, but they increased it for players as well. Yet when you think about how rangers have to stand still in order to use a ranged CA, this is more than anything a hindrance because the mobs bum rush us way too fast now. Before you could get one initial bow CA and another while the mob was running to you, granted you were maximum long bow distance (35m). Now at maximum distance, I can only get one ranged CA in unless I wait for the mob to start walking away. I use the CA (usually stealthy fire) at max distance in order to hope that with the new moving mob and ranged CA distance changes there's enough distance between us to get a second shot in. They fixed knockback today and returned it back to it's 4 secs, so instead of using the cheap shot>precise shot, I now use point blank shot>debilitating arrow/triple fire. We can no longer back pedal either because of the recent nerf that was a result to nerfing the rangers on the PVP servers (yeah PVP not effecting live at all). Not only does this make the ranger in-combat movement speed useless (which it practicaly always was do to the mob speed increase and the fact that we have to be stationary to fire an bow CA's) but it nerfed all the other players as well. Tanks have a much harder time to pull since they can no longer just use a ranged auto or spell and back pedal to the group. They now have to turn 180 degrees and take off, often getting pummelled or feared right back into the mobs (as they can't get out of casting range fast enough anymore). Yes, we are getting parried by a ridiculous amount or just plain miss now. I was going over my parses and a Guardian in Defensive and the Warden attack skill buff (at Master 1, which meant the guard had probably +11 to atk skills) had a percentage of hits over 50% (with a 1 hander btw and in front of the mob) which was over 4 times what my ranged hit percentage was while at the mob's back. Some fights I missed all of my ranged auto attacks, most fights I hit only once. Against a named mob 5 levels higher than the both of us, 98 sec fight, I hit the mob 3 times out of 25 (22 misses) where the Guardian hit the mob 38 out of 73(35 misses/parry/riposte). With the Warden buff the Guardian ony had about +11 to his attack skill due to his stance, and my offensive stance which gives over 30 to my attacks skills. Of course the guardian's ripostes and such were factored in as well, but everyone knows that any player behind the mob should hit with a lot more accuracy due to positioning bonuses which should lower the mob's avoidance, not just eliminate blocks, parries and ripostes. How is it that a Ranger using his bow from behind, completely devoid of block/parry/riposte with a lot more more attack skills (piercing/slashing/ranged) hit less than a guardian of the same level with less attack skill. Yes they are in the same group and such but this is ridiculous. If most of my Bow CA's weren't master and one at adept 3, I probably wouldn't hit the mob at all as they were still missing missing about 30% of the time on the same mob. 1. Fix our accuracy, the bow bug (the fact that it has the atk rating of a single dual wield not 2) is definitely a hindrance to us. This was never such a big deal before as the Ranger's primary damage was from Bow CA's and the procs we got off of them. Now that we no longer have the procs we have to rely more on ranged auto-attack for the majority of the very few procs we now get as it is. If you're took away most of the procs from our CA's, then you should at least make it possible for us to at least hit with our ranged auto. The Quick Shot off of our offensive stance only might hit 2-3 times per encounter if we're lucky, in most cases it doesn't even go off at all (30% chance? yeah right). Even if the Quick Shots do go off, then in most cases now, it misses. So it's like woohoo ir proc'd! Oh wait it missed... This also effects Stream of Arrows, if you haven't noticed will miss almost at least 50% of the time against mobs barely 2 or 3 levels higher. Mine is at Master 1 and still misses most of it's shots. 2. Bow CA's need to have their damage increased, a scout's primary damage is supposed to be from CA's. In order to balance out our procs SoE ninja nerfed our base damage, then took away over 80% of our procs and never returned the base damage on our CA's. How is that for balancing? 3. Evidently the majority of our damage should come from CA's, but SoE has made it so that we now have started gearing all melee classes to rely more on auto attacks as well, hence the change into almost all the melee CA's casting times to .2 secs. Ever since LU13, melee combat arts became faster and the Ranger's Bow CA's were made to be like spells where we could easily be interrupted, must be stationary and had an increase in the casting times. I find it pretty sad that I can be 5m away from a melee mob (the sweet spot to be able to get melee CA's and Bow CA's) get hit by assault (a lvl 3 fighter ae) and get interrupted immediately while trying to get a bow CA off. 4. Make it less that we have to rely on the achievements in order to be able to hold a candle to anything at all. If you look at the agi line of the Predator achievemts (the only one that a ranger can really use because the other lines are too heavily aimed at benefitting assins ie. procs that go off only on melee attacks, or attacks that only work if you use melee, or just plain old melee CA attacks in general) they give us Poin Blank Shot (which is finally no longer useless since it's a 4 sec stun), an in-battle movement speed increase (useless as we have to be stationary to use bow arts and the back-peddling nerf). Ranged Crits (probably the only real decent achievement in the bunch) and the final skill which takes 8 points, a 35% decrease in Ranged CA casting times. So we would basically have to wait until we gather at least 25 points in achievment in order to be able to be a lot less gimpy compared to other classes. Oh wait, they get achievments too so we're still going to be gimped compared to other classes. 5. With the back pedalling nerf and the mob speed increase, snares no longer do the job. The original point of having our in-combat movement speed and snares was so we could snare, move back away from the mob and hopefully get a decent range from the mob to get a bow CA off. Even with a master 1 snare (64%) and turning off my auto-attack as to not break it. The mob still catches up to me while I'm back-pedalling. I now have to snare and run away with my back to the mob and blindly hope that the mob is far enough for me to get a bow CA in, which in most cases is not. With this, snares have been rendered completely useless as before they were rarely of any use. Snares break too fast and in a group situation, what good is snare? Rangers don't pull because mob nukes are often one shotting or bringing us down by over 70% of our hp when we get back to the group. Or if it's a multi-mob encounter, we snare one mob then get pummeled to death by the rest before we even get back to the group. Yes I was stupid enough to try making use of snares in a group situation and often got beat down into a lump of flesh on the floor. As for those rogues who feel that our avoidance is so uber, you have to remember with all the avoidance nerfs, we still get hit over 70% of the time with 60% avoidance to mobs our level. So in most cases, we're gonna get hit. Wouldn't you find it more useful to have more mitigation in that situation as avoidance has been proven to be almost crap for anyone except brawlers as their's seems to be a lot more effective than any scout's. The only way a ranger has lived while getting agro was by hoping to evade as much as possible on agro if they're up, switching to the defensive stance and "hope" that they don't get hit enough so the healers can keep them alive long enough for the tank to pull it back. Which in most cases, the mobs land over 2/3 shots and it only takes about 2 hits from a heroic^^^ mob around our level or higher to kill us unless we are heavily buffed defensively. Right now I would find these are the heaviest problems that I can think of regarding our class. Hopefully this will be changed soon as right now, Rangers are just a hindrance to a group and most people are realizing it. If it's not changed then the majority of the Rangers will no longer be able to find groups unless they're being pittied and will be forced to solo. Then when you think about all the nerfs we've had that have majorly killed our solo ability, Rangers aren't going to be able to really play this game at all without being frustrated over 95% of the time. Message Edited by Dayam on 02-24-200611:01 PM
As a 62 ranger that is pretty much decked out, i feel that our solo abilities, while a little lower than they should be, arent the big problem at hand.... I simply dont feel that any class should be able to take a heroic mob near their level. The fact that we could before, and now cannot while other classes still can doesnt do it for me... fix the overall problem with the con system first thing. Dps in groups is my problem. I simply cant hold a candle to where i feel i should be.. granted that rangers were grossly overpowered (at the high end of the class) prepatch, but we were the gods, and now we are meat. Prolly middle 2nd tier dps... those of u that still think we are tier one, imagine what kinda damage those classes would be doin if they worked half as hard mid fight as we now have too... My wrists start to hurt after about an hour or two of grinding. My templar, swash, bruiser and coercer never have to work as hard to accomplish 4x the work the class is supposed to handle... For those who think our group dps is still good, i challenge u to parse your damage... it was often hard to tell just how much dmg we were really doing with all those procs. the problem was simply that a ranger had too many variables to work with. People that didnt know the class as well could do the same job as other classes with the same amount of work, but u start to throw in thorny trap, stun poison, 2k in procs off of a 150 dmg CA, and things get a little out of hand. Since it seems that the only purpose of the stun poison was to make us gods at soloing (without it we couldnt accomplish NEAR the same feats; lucky when u kill a blue conned heroic 40% of the time) , and the major problem seems to be the fact that we could solo darn near anything, why didnt they just get rid of stun poison? You cant tell me that the community of alchemists is more valuable to SOE than the community of rangers... Also, instead of destroying a rangers ability to proc, why not do somethin like make the damage procs cause proportional to the CA that cast them? This seems like a great solution to me, and SOE does things like this all the time with other classes... Stylee Mc'Cutta (Nek)
Let me start off by saying I have been awake way too long to be posting, but I felt like running my mouth for a min. or so. Plus, I play a healer, and any talk of DPS always gets a chuckle from me. Just call me DPD Damage Per Day lol! Granted, while I have not personally searched the forums for any confirmation to this, a guildy told me a Dev post stated that Rangers were never intended to be T1 DPS.( at least so far as burst damage is concerned, maybe sustained, but again, I am not sure.) Yep, if you can't tell, I may just be talking out of my &## here, no sleep = no brains. I think back to the many novels I have read concerning in any part the worth of a Ranger, and to my knowledge, even there the Ranger is at best a T1 "sustained" DPS, but usually fall into a T2 "sustaind" DPS. While virtually any wizard in said novels is a T1 "burst" DPS. The game, as I understand it, WAS based upon previous president, therfore I believe the statements to be very relevant. Really, would you expect to see an ogres Int to start at 80? I am sure some of you have a legitamate coplaint conserning some of the changes, but honestly some of the things I took note of while skimming through these post are a bit ridiculous. The majority of suggestions seem to be focused on pushing you back to the top of the DPS, or at the very least, even with wizards. And concerning the moving while shooting that I saw in quite a few posts: Just once, I would love to hear how you do in RL running around at even a jog, grabbing arrows aiming shooting... the thought brings another smile to my lips sry. Throughout history, I have never heard of any true-to-life archers who could do this, maybe archers astride a horse, but definatley none hoofing it so to speak, much less running backwards or firing cross-bodied. Which brings up a suggestion, make at least some of your bow CA's mobile while mounted on a horse or similar mount,( I think carpets should be left out due to they way you are positioned while "mounted. Think someone who has never even seen a large body of water trying to walk around the deck of a small sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic.) I do believe that some of the changes that were made, were for character balancing to acomodate PvP, while others were stictly to accomodate the PvE crowd. Pre-DoF, I never met a ranger worth his/her weight, who didn't use pricey poisons, assassins also I suppose, but I rarely came upon any other class besides preds who used or relied upon potions the way preds did posion/potions. From what I remeber of some posts I saw pre-DoF, preds were raising hell about the cost to boost their DPS, then again post-DoF, even though you could kick out some very impressive numbers, that in every case I have had the oppurtunity to witness, was far out-damaging Ice Comet adept 3's and Master 1's. In fact, I can recall seeing a Ranger kicking out an almost 8k hit with an adept 3 version of i believe it was stream it may have been the other big boomer, not for sure though /shrug. I am going out on a limb here, but I would assume the Devs, A) tried to put you back into the T2 dps. B) Lower the operating cost with poisons and such, less procs = less expense.to justify the DPS nerf C) alow for different classes to be able to at least have a chance in PvP with you. The idea of a melee debuff would seem inappropriate if you are to remain a ranged type combatant. In the same token, mages should have their boomers have a min. range as well. Mobile CA's while mounted upon a steed seems a reasonale idea to me. Summoning arroows of appropriate lvl seems to be a bit of a free ride. Free ammo that can still pack a pretty good punch? Not a suggetion I ever see being implemented. Frontal CA's: You definately need more of them, if not all be frontal. Assassins are the ones who sneak up and stab someone in the back, I like to think of rangers of having more class than that. A ranged bow CA that also has a 2-3 sec. stun, provided you are using an arrow that is blunted. Blunted arrow would deal crushing damage. A point blank shot seems a fair deal, but I would suggest a high damage low hit CA that cannot be resisted or parried, on say a 15 min timer with a sort duration stun, say 2 sec. 1 min. recast on fail. I'm thinking this would help in PvP cases were someone is smart enough to get close-up and personal. It's how I take down rangers Plus it would allow you to provide some big damage against an epic or some such, although it would still be a calculated risk. I don't much care for a root/snare, maybe a slow+bleed for soloing. An increase of 20%-40% CA damage seems entirely too high. Granted, I am not sure of the numbers you are hitting since KoS, but my guess would be maybe a 5%-8% max. increase. Remeber, I still believe that you should be T2 DPS. I would like to see a nice hate transfer buff that you could throw on the tank,(or maybe that annoying dang healer in the group lol,) say maybe 50%-60%. Increased crit chance against soft skinned mobs and cloth wearing characters. I think they would need to add a deffensive type proc to cloth armour to compensate for PvP, but seems a reasonable proposition in PvE to me. I'm thinking stream of arrows damage should increase throughout the duration of the CA. not sure of actual numbers, but lets say first arrow hits for X damage, each consecutive hit would be X+5%, so X, X+5%,X+10%... maybe a little to powerful, but you get the idea. might require a longer recast, and maybe even a slightly longer recovery time /shrug To try to keep with class balancing, I would suggest a possible small increase in power costs, or a smaller power pool. This is assuming you get some some of the changes I have suggested, otherwise just leave it alone. A CA that would cast a short duration pet that instead of attacking when you send it in, would interupt and stun the mob for a very short duration, maybe .5-1.0 sec. and say a 2-3 min recast. Just my 2cp. I'm sure some of what I said may be contested and discarded as pure crap, but I do honestly believe at least some of my suggestions could be very valuble to you. Please think on these, and modify as you see fit. The goal here is improve the ranger class, but rember for every treat you get, something may be taken away. And then there is always class balancing, and the possible mob changes. I would think a possible high ranged resistance would not be far fetched. I hope that in at least a small way, I have given you something to think on, maybe even provided a few nice suggestions, either way, I do hope SOE will provide you with something to be exited about again.
Fuzzy, we *are* supposed to be Tier 1 DPS. Wherever you saw someone say they saw a dev post saying not, they are wrong. Tier 1 is assassin, ranger, wizard and warlock on EVEN footing. The problem was that rangers were in Tier 0 all on their own and the other three Tier 1 classes were behind. No class in Tier 1 is supposed to be superior in all cases. Situationally, one will be the best, but no single class is meant to have the highest DPS in all circumstances. They made these changes to bring us more in line. Now we're a Tier below where we should be. The things we're asking for will bring us back up to the Tier of damage we're supposed to be in.
Aragorn and Legolas were rangers.... (feel stupid bringin that up but rangers in books?) Smed says we were supposed to be t1 dps i beleive him yo
A little sleep, and some web hunting, and I finaly found where Moorgard stated that that Rangers were T1 DPS. My appologies. ( although I still think most rangers are just crying over spilt milk lol) T1 Wizard/Warlock Assassin/Ranger T2 Conj/Necro (Using Damage Pet) Brig/Swash T3 Coercer/Illusionist, Conj/Necro(using Tank Pet) Troubador/Dirge Bruiser/Monk T4 Berserker/Shadowknight Paladin/Guardian T5 Fury/Warden Defiler/Mystic Inquisitor/Templar But I will Qoute Moorgard on this very valuble point, "Keep in mind that these are not absolutes." While I haven't grouped with many rangers in quite some time, I would like to attempt a DPS tier breakdown for each Tier based on what I have seen since the recent changes. T1a Wiz/Warlock(warlocks seem to be here only when considering multi target encounters, against single target, I would bump them into T1b) T1b Assassin/Rangrers T2 Conj/Necro/Swash/Brig(Havent had a chance to truely compare these classes) T3a Bruiser/Monk/Coercer/Illusionist T3b Troub/Dirge T4a Berserker/Shadowknight T4b Paladin/Guardian T5a Fury/Warden T5b Defiler/Mystic T5c Inq/Temp This is only a breakdown of DPS by tier, not an overall breakdown. If it was overall, I would have to bump Furys up to T3a, and Wardens T3b. As well as a couple other minor changes. You are trying to get your DPS back up to God-like like it once was, yet all things considered, you are still in the top 4 DPS classes. That means you have better DPS than 20 other classes. You wear Chain armour, same as 5 other classes, and of those 5 other classes, only the assassin has equal damage potential. The 6 classes that wear plate armour have nowhere near the damage potential, while the leather equiped classes, (aside from bruiser/monks,) cannot take the damage you can. While the brawler class can sustain damage, they cannot deal as much damage. Cloth wearing classes cannot sustain even half of the damage that you can, but the wiz/warlock are the only ones that can out damage you. My point is that while you may no longer be top dog in DPS, you are still in T1, and fairly well balanced against the other classes. Again, just my 2cp. "Keep in mind that these are not absolutes." -Moorgard-
No, we are not Tier 1 DPS. That is why we require adjustments. I don't normally say this, because I try to be fair to people. But please learn something about this class before you go spouting off about it. All you are showing is a gross ignorance of the state of rangers in the game at this particular time.
I think you need to read the posts on this forum before you go spouting off this stuff. Most (80%+) of the rangers here would disagree with you. Most of us understood that we were overpowered. Most of us dont expect, nor want to be like we were. We want to be back in our tier again. If you had taken the time to read these posts you would have realized that but you came in here with this preconceived notion that we want to be back where we were and that is flatly untrue.
I have only been playing my ranger for about two weeks now, but I have realized how much of a pain using our bows can be. Maybe I'm learning this more since I am on the Vox server and I love my PVP, but when I have one of those wonderful Freeporter's running from me and in my window they aren't that far infront of me, why can't I use my bow. I guess what I am suggesting is: Increase the range on bows. A short bow to 40 and a longbow to like 65. This would give us a chance to utilize our bow more often. We could start with our bow from a distance and we should be able to get another attack or two off before we have to switch over to melee. This is just my 2 cents, but I would love like anyone else here to be able to use our bow more often and to actually be a Ranger.
Fixed your little tier chart for ya bud. no charge at all. We dont need your 2cp Message Edited by Arrow on 03-01-200608:32 PM
You're kidding right? The only time the T3a classes are close to me in DPS is when Im not using poisons. I cant speak on behalf of the Troub, but the Dirge I play with, is NEVER near my DPS. Im not saying we couldnt use a bump... and Summoners definately need to be brought in line (they by far have the best DSP out there currently) but in my experience over the last week, if Im using my poisons Im out DSPing just about everyone else. And yes, this is group and raid alike. Went back and forth with a Warlock during raids over the weekend, and we were both parsing with ACT... actually had quite the conversation about our numbers in between fights. :smileyhappy:
Yeah if your in a raid I'll agree with you that the dirge will never ever be close to you because they have more important things to do than dps, but i group with two very good(and well equipped) dirges in steady exp groups who can consistently keep up with my dps if they aren't afk.
Im sorry Arrow, but I disagree with you... a guildie of mine is a 64 Dirge, and we group together just about every night, and you know what? Hes never even close to me. We are the same level, and relatively equally equiped.. I cant say that he's slacking cause hes usually always in the typical scout position right behind the mob. Nesse 64 Ranger Oasis
I group with a Dirge on occasion, and always out DPS him. I also group with a conjuror on occasion and get out DPS'd by his pet. JUST his pet, thats not counting his DPS. I grouped with one assassin and got within 100 DPS every now and then...
Sounds like the 80%+ who post here need to learn how to play a ranger from the ones that do the Tier1 DPS. (Hint: those dual wield weapons on your belt, they aren't there to bring the color of your eyes out.) Kers Greenmist, 65 assassin
Hey that's fine, you can disagree with me til you are blue in the face, doesn't make me feel bad. From the sounds of it you want to argue over wether or not a dirge can keep up with us in DPS. That's fine but i'm not going to waste anymore time over it. We'll never know until SOE parse every player from every situation and compiles it all, because some people are just better players than others. Just because random dirge in your guild who you group with every night doesnt come close to you doesn't mean that they can't. Evidently I dont know how to play my class and you are a much better person than me. Even though I posted my tier based on my point of view, I'll re-do it specifically for you. T1a Conj/Necro/TerriBlades T1b Wiz/Warlock(warlocks seem to be here only when considering multi target encounters, against single target, I would bump them into T1b) T1c Assassin T2 Swash/Brig(Havent had a chance to truely compare these classes) T3a Bruiser/Monk/Coercer/Illusionist/Berserker T3b Troub/Dirge/Ranger T4a Shadowknight/Paladin/Guardian T5a Fury/Warden T5b Defiler/Mystic T5c Inq/Temp
I solo, and during solo I end up using ranged and melee both, and I'm not Tier 1 DPS by far yet. We do need adjustments. Also, I've seen mention of some force for rangers coming back using certain AP abilities. Our base DPS should be Tier 1. Poisons should be a bonus. AP abilities should be a bonus. Having an expansion shouldn't be a requirement to be able to play a class at the stated rate of ability.
