Kiting was always the primary play style for rangers in pvp. Is a departure from this intended, or is this being looked at? That class in particular is already benefiting from the hybrid buff of being able to cast spells on the run. As I recall there was a minimum distance required to use a bow / bow skills. Rangers when placed inside a closet tight space should be limited in their abilities to inflict damage. The same way a Berzerker isn't going to take you down from outside of melee range.
To be dead honest I would love to see the "no minimum range on ranged/bow combat arts" removed... it would bring back some skill to the class it lacks... despite how much I still love to play it. I have two requests if we are going to lose 0 range combat arts though. #1 - Leave us our 0 range auto attack ability #2 - Change Snaring Shot from 10% chance to dispel when ANY damage is taken... to 5% when any damage is taken. The duration is only 2 seconds as well... and it would be nice if it was actually useful again with a 3-5 second duration and 5% dispel not 10%. Hell, I would love to see move and cast on ranged combat arts for ALL Predators removed AND Crusader abilities move and cast removed as well. To do this fairly you have to remove them for the Predators and the Crusaders as both classes gained hugely from it. If these changes were removed, I would want to see the nerfs to our one root and other snares reverted back to how we were so we are still capable of kiting. Here is a list of the changes that were made then that are relevant. https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2...y-april-30-2013-scars-of-the-awakened.534718/ Crusader Crusader abilities can now be cast while moving. Predator Ranged Combat Arts can now be cast while moving. Ranger Rangers no longer have a minimum range on bows and combat arts. Inquisitor Inquisition now radiates from the inquisitor and uses the inquisitor's stats. The duration is now 15 seconds and it only has two distances that it checks. It can now be cast while moving. It now only heals the inquisitor's group. Summoners Summon Pet spells can now be cast while moving.
Crusader combat arts could always be used while moving. It was just the spells that required you to stop movement.
You are fundamentally changing mechanics there and probably making the whole idea a lot harder. What do you do when the expansions finally get unlocked, apply the changes then?
It was done mainly for PVE reasons, you have a lot of issues in raids with LARGE mobs when youre a Ranger. Since the mob is so large, you have to stand back so far that youre literally out of heal range to be in your prime DPS spot. It really is bogus and should have been fixed another way, but I suppose something about the size of the mob made it difficult to do. Pallies were given move and cast because they were MT's and they were having to move mobs around during raids, but had to stop to cast things... and it was "difficult" not impossible... but difficult... so they gave them move and cast as well. Atleast this is my take on why it was done. FYI I was there during the beta testing of Cobalt Scar... I worked with Caith testing some of these changes, mainly the ranger ones. I really tried to prevent move and cast from ever happening to rangers and crusaders but at the time there was nothing that I could to do stop it. Once I was told Rangers and Crusaders were 100% for sure getting move and cast and there was nothing we could do to prevent it... I tried to come up with some compromises that would even things out. The biggest two off the top of my head were... Make all classes forced to face their target to cast spells/CAs. You cant cast or shoot a bow at something you physically cant see. Make ranged damage vary based on distance from target... if youre point blank and you cast a ranged CA... make it do 25% less damage (or something like that).
Yep and those spells shouldnt be move and cast if predators lose move and cast... its only fair. Youre talking about Crusaders kiting around Predators with ranged spells but forcing the Predators to stop and cast Ranged CAs.
The ruleset for "how" to play the class... or fundamental way of playing the class should stay consistent through the entire game from lvl 1 to lvl 100. This was something that was mentioned to me back in the the beta testing. You cant have a class that requires a completely different strategy/play style etc from one level/tier to the next. You want to make sure that the class is played the same throughout the progression of the class.
Just to show the true state of Ranger CC... I compared live to beta. Unbiased before/after here... Cheap shot is 2 sec duration still - same base reuse - Stun Hilt Strike is 2.5 sec duration VS 2.0 on live - same base reuse - Stun Ensnare is 5.0 duration still - same base reuse - Melee Snare Immobilizing Lunge 4.0 duration VS 3.3 on live - same base reuse - Melee Root Rear Shot 5.0 duration still - same base reuse - Ranged Backshot Snare Snaring Shot 12.0 duration vs 2.0 duration on live, 10% chance to dispel when any damage is received. - Ranged Snare So as you can see there were very slight buffs to the CC a Ranger has... as all classes have received buffs to their CCs. I would say we received probably the least amount of change vs other classes in terms of how it impacts PVP. Our ranged snare that you gain only at 44+ has had the duration increased to counter the 10% chance to dispel. So you can snare someone, but you cant hit them with it on or it breaks easily. To me this is an acceptable change. I would also be fine with a 4-6 sec duration, and 5% chance to dispel. Also as the levels progress and Rangers have more procs from gear etc... youre going to find that the 10% seems like 100% chance because if you hit auto attack and proc 4 other thigns... thats 50% chance... hit another spell or two in that duration and it can easily get up to 100% chance to dispel within a few seconds. THIS is why I would rather see lower duration on the snare, so you cant tie them down as long... but also lower chance of dispel, so I can atleast hit them a little bit when its on without fear of it breaking 100% of the time. Dont go all "nerf rangers on me either" all classes received increases to CCs. What I am saying though is I would love to see 0 range CAs and move/cast changes if they are willing to buff some of the CC we do have that didnt get changed at all. Specifically increasing our snare durations.... from 5 sec to full strength or even 50% of PVE duration like most other snares in the game right now that were reverted back.
Could just add the minimum range to the PVP tab so there was no impact on PVE version. That said, the range of the CAs isn't a huge issue for me... at least in the relative terms of other things going on in Beta.
My only real issue is the zero range requirement for RANGERS. on the flip side I wouldn't mind resetting melee range to whatever it was originally. Currently it's 5 meter range. Group pvp when clustered you can't see who's attacking who with melee whatsoever.Taking away valuable preventative maintenance time from healers. "Oh that brigand 3 character models away was on you the entire time?" My bad couldn't physically tell with the character models. You normally would have time to start throwing up a death save or a reactive if you saw a pure melee rushing in on someone. This is a feel bad. Can't wait for when Swashbucklers get their Reach AA for +80% range for a 9 meter range, how stupid is that. (The spells while on the move thing is balanced, although I could just as easily go without. Might make Paladins really hard to kill / burst down if knockbacks no longer have any effect.)
It was easier to go through set the melee range to 5 meters than to go through and change all the scout CAs to have a minimum range of 0 meters.
