Haven't played since live day, tested that day to prove melee aa out parsed ranged aa and as a result totally lost interest. Then seeing that nothing substantive was different or updated from Beta I have quit playing at all. Have there been any ninja corrections (have not seen anything regarding Rangers in the updates)? Ya'll getting calls for a ranger to group or raid now?
Though i am only 61, I do find spots in groups but I think it is more out of being a quality player over the class. I am still doing significantly more DPS via melee over range. But i am enjoying the change as i prefer to be melee focused. I enjoy the ranged CAs and i Burn them all before i go into melee combat but this is the first time i have played the game since the EoF expansion.
There's a whole mess of a thread over in Items and Equipment about the lack of 0m range on our mythical buff, where some very vague, oblique references to potential changes maybe someday were made, but other than that, nope, not a word. By the way, the reason we don't have the 0m range on our mythical buff? SOE thinks we should be more ranged. I can't help but wonder if the entire reason SOE thinks we should be more ranged is because coding something like that into a self buff was just too tricky/annoying to bother with. From what I can tell, rangers are doing slightly better in raids right now--but that's a temporary thing. That's us getting the benefit of our new AAs and the changes they made in Beta, before itemization kicks in. When it does, we're going to get a kick in the teeth. Mind you, by slightly better I don't mean we're topping the parse. I mean that on average I'm doing the kind of DPS the other DPS classes did...last tier. Now and then though I'll whip out a parse that's fairly respectable. Still haven't topped the parse, but hey, sometimes I do better than the assassin. The assassin doesn't have new gear though. And the swashy and warlock are riding insanely high so far. As far as being invited to raids and groups? I have a great raiding group that tries to let me join whenever is feasible, but yeah, I'm still generally the first class asked to sit on a hard encounter. No fault of theirs, that's just the way the raid game goes. Happily, I'm less likely to be sat for someone who can AE better. I am loving our new AE damage, even if it doesn't touch the capabilities of more AE heavy classes (swashies, warlocks). Oh yeah, and so far bow upgrades are teeeerrible. But that's not unique to bows, that seems to be a raid gear feature this expansion.
Right now with the same group make up I had in raids last expansion I normally lead zone wide and am first on most named fights were last expansion I was usually 3rd or 4th. I know this will probably change but as of right now I am actually heartened by it.
I'm still doing quite well, pushing out 15-19k parses easy even when they give me a **** group with just a warden and zerker heh. Got my first red slot helm and slapped the explosive arrow adornment on it, interested in seeing how much that helps on AE. Also, the miragul charm, totally worth it. Can use all my stuff save for one at 20 meters. One stealth attack requires 10 though, still better than having to be 2-5 90% of the time. My raid force has been burning through new content at a high rate of speed. Seems we, and most guilds, are going to blow through regular/easy mode stuff and get hung up on hard modes. Kind of a let down really.
Still it is pretty cool that you are able to keep up with people even through the changes. I am looking forward to seeing the content. My wife is now a level 40 templar so we are moving up into the content slowly.
