The stats/proc on the crossbow make it one of the strongest items in game for basically all classes. Major problem, through? Rangers are negatively effected by it. Its skill is “Aim” instead of “Ranged,” so temp buffs that Ranger has are severely hurt. Assassins on the other hand can use this item with minimal penalty. Also, they won’t end up spending a ton of gold/plat each week on bolts alone. At first glance I thought this item would be something that would help Rangers be more competitive, but it seems that it further marginalizes and hurts them. Thoughts? Perhaps we could get a Bow equivalent for Rangers. Also possibly adding a bolts recipe for woodworkers.
I'm not sure if this is possible, but is it possible to use the weapon delay changer on this item? They weren't available on nagafen unfortunately so I wasn't able to test it. In terms of focus aim: your hit rates are already high as is, you're not missing much except a little extra damage, which isn't going to outweigh the reuse/damage proc. It sucks, but it's still an upgrade. If only predators had a place on TLE's....
It just feels (and is) more punishing for Rangers than other classes, seems unfair for them to lose out on that +damage and +hit%, where other scouts won't be facing the same penalty at all (since the crossbow is just being used for its proc/reuse speed for them, whereas the Ranger has to actually use the weapon consistently). Another possible fix besides implementing a bow version for Rangers would be to amend Focus Aim and their offensive stance to include +Aim. There are also other buffs from bards I believe that have +ranged but not +aim, so those could be amended as well.
The only thing marginalizing rangers is that they don't bring any good group/raid buffs, and their DPS output at this point in the game is not high enough to cause raid leaders to carry a ranger anyway if other scouts are available. Note that this can change. Paladins and SKs were awful 14 years ago and look at them now. Wait an expansion or two and rangers may get better.
There unfortunately isn't really a single time on a TLE that bringing a predator is more beneficial than brining a rogue. Even buffing one up; the damage difference just isn't there to justify losing out on debuffs. The only time I would say a ranger could be useful is during EoF/RoK on the super easy stuff you only need two healers for, then you can bring in ranger/brig. Swash is a fairly weak class in general comparatively to brigands later on, and assassin's don't really grow into a strong class until RoK, then it's less damage to buff a equal skilled sorcerer with jcap/CF than an assassin in terms of raidwide. I say this as someone who always runs two mage groups, with an SK/necro in one of the mage group's and four sorcs. Then a three healer MT, and brig in the offtank group. There really isn't a more efficient raid setup to run unfortunately.
