ChodeNode1 wrote: /agree When I won Coverage M1 on a raid, my guild acted as if I should be elated and overjoyed to take it. Yeah, ok.. I'm so thrilled to spend DKP on a CA that makes me be 25 meters, or whatever, away from the mob when I should be within FIVE. Oh, and god forbid if the mob starts to move right as I go to hit Coverage. Right. What a waste of a hotkey. I tried to use it at least twenty times, and it only went off successfully two or three times. So I then proceeded to removed it from my bar. And when it did go off my DPS went... DOWN. How does that make sense? One thing I'd like to add about Sniper Arrow.. It can be used at point blank range. As can Fittest Survival. But Sniper Arrow definitely needs a boost.. Less cast time and/or higher damge. I would prefer AND on that one. Btw, I hate the DKP system, but that's for another message board =p
I'd preffer to have coverage become actually usable wrather than just having an extra bonus to increas our next damage CA. I would wrather have coverage to be more of a temp buff with the same duration but affect ALL of our CA's and AA, but the % reduced to a number which it would be "balanced." But thats my suggestion, but anything is better than what we have now with coverage -.-
OuTTerRange wrote: First off Assassins do not get "crazy better" dps than rangers, unless you consider 10% more zone wide to be "crazy better". Second yes "back in the day" rangers were uber dps, but that was because of the poison proc mechanic that proced your poison every attack you made including attacks that were themselves procs. So for instance the triple arrow CA would check three times for the poison proc, plus the aa plus the quick strick. then for each poison proc that went off it would check for the poison to proc off of that. So one shot could, and did cause poison to proc 10 times. You could go through an entire vial of poison in one fight. Third we are the "cream of the crop" when it comes to ranged attacks. We have 12 ranged attacks, all but one of which can be used 51.7 meters away from the mob. Assassins have 3 none of which can be used more than 34.5 meters away. As for how the three assassin ranged cas compare with ours, allow me to compare the correct Ranger CA with each of the Assassin CAs: Assassin: Deadly Blast - lvl 71 - 20 sec reuse - 0.74 cast - 0-34.5 range - 891-1242 + 445-742 damage Ranger: Searing Shot - lvl 71 - 20 sec reuse - 0.37 cast - 2-51.7 range - 1026-1377 + 526-877 damage Ranger CA is better in every way, cast time, range and damage. Assassin: Spin Shot - lvl 71 - 60 sec reuse - 1.11 cast - 0-34.5 range - 2340-3567 damage must be behind Ranger: Rear Shot - lvl 71 - 60 sec reuse - 1.11 cast - 2-51.7 range - 2172 - 3287 damage must be behind or flanking Ranger CA has better range and is easier to use, assassin ca does about 8% more damage, hardly what I would call being "pwned" Assassin: Ear Shot - lvl 78 - 60 sec reuse - 1.48 cast - 0-34.5 range - 2581-3969 damage must be behind or flanking Ranger: Stealth Fire - lvl 78 - 90 sec reuse - 2.22 cast - 2-51.7 range - 3746-5910 damage must be stealthed This one is a trade off. The Ranger ca takes 50% longer to cast and it's reuse time is 50% longer, however it does about 47% more damage, so the total damage per second (cast or reuse time) is within 5%, again hardly what I would call being "pwned". Rangers and Assassins are different. We excell at the true ranged fight. Put me and the assassin 40 meters away from the mob and I will totally own him. Put us both 2 meters away and he will NOT totally own me. He might out dps me by a whole 10%. I don't know about you but I can live with that. We do NOT need to be the best DPS in every situation. We don't need to be the best DPS vs the quick kill running fight on trash mobs. Where we shine is the ranged fight vs the tough named mobs. I can stand at 40 meters an put out 80-85% off my total maximum DPS. Up close and personal, yes assassins win. But more than 10 meters away, and especialy up to 50, we own them big time. If you want to fight up close and personal all of the time, then play an assassin. If you want to be able to fight from 40 meters away, expecialy against those tough named mobs with the nasty aoes, then enjoy your ranger, because that is the fight he was designed to rule.
Added a bug I found with the Ranged Mastery not upping the damage of the aoe component of explosive arrow.
Zizzu wrote: Nothing, since it was just an update to the old T6 spell, that was one of the highest parsing arts, ranger had back in these days, if you even remember.
stream was so over powered back in the day, just yank a named and hold on for dear life...even used it while tanking from time to time as a good aggro generator
Huntress Jellica wrote: Hey Jell, I agree with you on Coverage, not to mention you probably miss an aa in the process of getting coverage and sniper off. At least with SoA you can cast it and go take a piss.... Rangers need something other than pathfinding to make them useful in a raid. We still do decent DPS from the scout/mage group. Give us some utility and put us in a group with a dirge and we will light the place up. Could care less if we are at top of parse with the assassins. Just want to be needed in the raid. We don't get the same opportunities, imo, because we give nothing back. All the other scout classes have something that makes them unique and is needed in a raid/group setup.
My main has been a ranger for the longest now, I have several other toons at 80, and played just about ever class out there. Rangers are reasonable class to play, except when you get to end-game, raid level. Most serious raid guilds will only allow one (1) ranger to join; only if they are very good (needing little to no help with class issues) and if they can show up. More importantly, is the "showing up" part, cause ranger DPS is easily replaced if real life kicks in and you miss a raid. Its who you know, not what you know when it comes to us rangers!!! Of course this is a bit eccentric, and over generalized statement. But wouldn't it be great, if rangers had some very unique ability that would help debuff mobs, where the whole raid would notice!!! And, I'm not forgetting any of the Shadow AA lines abilities when I say this. If we had some debuff/buff of actual value to compliment our main function of DPS'ing, it might turn heads a bit. Our cousin predetors (assassins) have hate transfers, and the gift of posion DPS to another, which is very useful to tanks. Several mage classes can come near or match or surpass our average DPS, and each of those classes still have several other very useful abilities. SK's can AoE mobs and really give use run for our money on any parser and they get to tank too!!! The point is, what can rangers do? Other than stun a mob for a few seconds, grab a little aggro for a few secs, use all our wealth to buy or make arrows, unlock a chest or two (which is another topic all together, if you have a healer paying attention, no point in unlocking a chest at all! For gods sakes, make opening a chest deadly at least!), and, of course, our DPS function. Rangers have nothing to contribute to the raid. Focus Aim is not needed, so don't even mention it! Monks have the same problem with their Raid buff, at least theirs is "Until Cancelled", instead of our 15 sec of in-combat (while nobody is looking) of glorious use! Let us make our own uber arrows! Comparable to crafted ones, if not better! And give use some raid/group buff, so people at least notice us, and not be refered to as "Oh-That-Ranger-Over-There"!! PS - SoE, you can revamp the Fighters.... better balance out Mages and Scouts too! Each class should have a chance to see end-game content fairly(we pay for this), without having to schmooze it up with others, while a few other classes get a free ride!
Blazenhawk@Blackburrow wrote: If you're losing to SKs in raids you have issues. Focus Aim is amazingly utility considering the horrendous hit rates on lvl 88s.
for a bit of usefullness how about making our off stance a group wide ranged increase as well or having another spell as a conc slot. Seeing as a lot of raid fights are jousting having extra ranged for the other scouty classes would be better than nothing.
Gage wrote: My second most widely played toon is, ironically, a Shadowknight! Nope, your right, mostly SKs do not out DPS rangers; but taking a few comical points out of a larger syntatical structure, is just twisting words, sadly. Focus Aim is awesome for rangers and those around, but let me clarify: it goes mainly unnoticed! Unless of course you create a cheesy macro and scream for attention... Some classes sell themselves, others have to truelly work at it. That is the point. Plain and simple.
Let's compare on equipment, just as evidence of how we take a hit. Out mythical is Ranged, it is what we use for DPS. It is our primary weapon. It is NOT recognized as a primary weapon for procs in most ( I know of none) on primary or secondary hand weapons. Most if not all adorns placed on the bow will affect and proc off of thier primary judicious gear etc.... For rangers nada. I have Skygazer's tooth, Lifespike, Nox Noctis, Betrayal's Song they give me stats but no procs off of my primary, Eagle's Talon. I have heard the argument about the difference between 'any successful' and 'a successful', neither works off of our primary. For other's they will dual wield and get the benefits of thier mythical and any of the ones a ranger has. What fabled melee weapon can 'we' use that will proc anything from our primary attack as it does for every other melee for every other class dps or non dps? Even our predator aa lines are lined up for melee not ranged melee. There are two predator's one ranged and one melee. How many predator aa's have a ranged focus? One of four lines has one ranged specific benefit. AA CA's are all melee not a single ranged. 1 out of 25 for ranged, why not 50/50? An argument could be made for the stamina line in TSO except Surrounding attacks will not trigger off a ranged for instance. I remember when Stream of Arrows was useful, it is not even on my hotbar any more, 30 seconds without an AutoAttack? We were nerfed and we have basically stayed nerfed. My predator brother the assassin, can easily out DPS me in a group setting I do 10K he does 15K. I do compete on high end raid mobs and particulary mobs that need to be ranged like taskmaster. But day today dps in any setting we are a different tier than our brother predator, a lower tier. If you raid and you are not outparsed by your assassin ZW by a significant amount then your assassin sucks. Then let's talk about what it takes for us to compete in the way of support classes. Unsupported with an Illy and a dirge you are going to struggle to stay up DPS wise with even a swashy let alone and assassin. Tough to get into an instance group? No Kidding all the other classes know a Ranger is not going to be great DPS unless they can find an Illy and a Dirge to go with the ranger. I have kept thinking that the cycle would work it's way through and the ranger would get to equal footing again. I like that getting a ranger to produce good DPS is not easy. I think it is the most involving class and the toughest melee based DPS to master. It has been my main toon since starting, but my assassin is getting more and more play time. And it is much easier to get invites playing him.
Gage wrote: I would agree, but the application leaves something to be desired. When a top ranger in a top guild gets a group built around them, how much room is left for melee chars who might benefit from the group buff? Those melee chars are off in other groups doing other stuff and in several cases maybe being a bit more indispensable to the conduct of the raid. Not that I am saying that utility is our salvation. I think that is flawed thinking. The game can only have so many buffs. The main problem is making us either more self sufficient in buffing our own dps or making other buffing classes' buffs (who are normally in a raid setup), apply to us more advantageously. It should not require so many classes to put single target buffs on us, in order to get us to range of DPS that puts us on par with assassins who are only buffed in a more general way... If Illy's could use more conc slots for IA (just as Inquisitors have single target DPS buffs), you would see more than 1 ranger again. I think more than 1 ranger is not a bad thing, as it fits with taking less tanks.... haha... I am just throwing this idea out... but it proves my point that small changes could have serious affects on which classes get in raids. Rangers, like it or not, are one of the most liked classes in the game (from a purely emotional point of view). people are willing to subscribe to EQ2, and enjoy playing a ranger, but SOE is not allowing raid guilds to be flexible enough to incorporate more than 1. One extra ranger on a raid (as an option) would go a long way to keeping some subscribers happy. Options are a good thing. Again, this could be done by merely looking at the way Raids are set up in the real world, and seeing where certain classes are getting to be underutilized. my two cp Canul Ranger 80 Renegades AB
Walford wrote: Dirges with BC make two ranger groups fine. Our guild uses two rangers for almost every raid.
I never see you on anymore Canul. *( I wrote Aerilik a pm today. It may fall upon deaf ears but I had to try. Maybe we will get some ranger love someday if he gets enough ranger spam in his box. Where to begin. I AM EFFIN TIRED OF WATCHING WIZARDS SOLO TRIPLE UP 83 HEROIC NAMED! WHY CANT WE? All of you have outlined in detail whats wrong with the class. And as I play more and more, I see it more and more. The raiding ranger is the only ranger in the raid. It wasnt always like this, and SOMEONE (cough hey mechanics guy you reading this) needs to bring us back in line so we are desired more in raids. I ah, ah crap, I have an assassin alt thats 18, at 18 I was a powerful ranger. But that was lu9ish. My 18 assassin is more powerful then THAT ranger that I was. So its even more "unbalanced" between the two classes now. We want specific issues? -GIVE US A CLASS SPECIFIC ARROW THAT IS BETTER THEN PLAYER MADE. WE ARE MASTERS OF RANGED WEAPONS DAMAGE. GIVE US THE TOOLS WE NEED TO GET THE JOB DONE! -GIVE US A CLASS DEFINING POISON THAT MAKES US MORE ON PAR DPS WISE WITH OUR ASSASSIN COUSINS! HELL GIVE ASSSASSINS A CLASS SPECIFIC POISON TOO! -FIX REPEATING ARROWS LINE, AUTOATTACK DOES BETTER DAMAGE THEN THIS WASTED CA (WHY DID I UPGRADE IT TO AD3? I WASTED A SILICATE LOAM< ARRGH). -SWASHIES/BARDS/ETC DO MORE DMG THEN A RANGER IN PARSES! WTF! ASSASSIN AND RANGER ARE SUPPOSED TO BE THE TOP DAWG SCOUTS FOR DPS. WTFWTFWTF OMGWTFGGBBQSAUCE -BETTER GEAR! (Why cant we get a special quiver that holds more arrows then say the AVERAGE arrow consuming player?) RANGER QUIVER 4TW! (STATS?) -CONC SLOTS. GIVE US AN AOE PROC SO WE ARE MORE DESIRABLE AS AOE DPS IN TSO! -CA's. Bring sniper arrow more in line with decapitate and assassinate! Wait ASSASSINS GET 2! Where is OURS? PLease revamp ca's and bring them more on par with our counterparts (or if I must say it, NERF assassin ca's) to bring balance back to the class. -Rangers should have the ability to summon a mount better then anything in game. WE ARE WOODSMEN, WE KNOW FOREST CREATURES! WE DONT NEED SADDLES! *) -ARROWS consumption....not an issue increase it if you like. I had no problem with arrow consumption, ever. -GEAR. Shard armor is nice, BUT WE DONT WANT TO BE TRON! Please correct the tronified look of our armor in TSO. DISNEY WANTS THEIR COPYRIGHT BACK! Cant tell you how many times Ive heard rangers in t2 shard armor called tron rangers. This disgusts meh. -RACIAL TRAITS. Dark elves make excellent assassins. Wood elves should make excellent rangers. Bring our racial traits more in balance with those of the dark elf assassin! -STANCE: Defensive is fine. But offensive is underpowered when compared with other classes. FIX THIS. -Personal thought-You know how sk/pally gets squires/etc? Other classes get knights/etc? WHAT ABOUT THE RANGER APPRENTICE? -Appearances-Where is our facial hair? We are rough, tough, hunters. But yet my wood elf looks like a babe. All clean shaven and young looking in his 80th season. -Adornments- Consider increasing the +dps +rda +rc factors to increase our dps to be on par with our cousins class. /rant-issues_off
I am pretty much in complete agreement with the original post, been raiding with my ranger since Kunark released. I would have to say problems 2(sniper arrow cast time), 3(repeating arrows), 4(CA Range), and 7(coverage) bug me the most. 2. Someone mentioned earlier the cast time on sniper arrow needs to be at most equal to the delay of the mythical bow at max haste. Very good idea in my opinion. 3. Repeating Arrows, useless. Something needs to done to this. Anything. Right now it does nothing for me, any ranger who uses it would be called a fool. 4. CA Range really bugs me. The problem doesn't come up a lot but when it does a lot of rangers just don't even expect to do very good DPS compared to instances where they could be in the right spot. Considering how more and more fights are position sensitive I don't see why this restriction is still here. 7. Coverage. The biggest detriment to my DPS. Why? because there have been so many times when I set up focus aim, used rear shot while moving back, then hit coverage.....only to find out that somewhere is a mob thats too close, thus wasting focus aim time as well as making it so i'm no longer in the 'sweet spot.' Sometimes mezzed, sometimes behind a wall, maybe even above or below for the time I could nt spot any enemies anywhere else at all. Could you at least make it so it only checks for enemies that have aggro on you?
Updated the bug for the aoe portion of exploding arrow. This should be ranged damage.. not melee. Along with that it needs to be changed to work with the ranged mastery shadow aa, it only makes sense.. it's a ranged CA.
