Neiloch@Kithicor wrote: Rangers were as good in RoK and TSO so this "years" straight is complete BS. I betrayed from assassin to ranger in RoK and was immediately competitive on the parse and stayed that way throughout TSO. Also its not "easy" - ranger is a lot easier in comparison in raid settings, as I've said numerous times. Ballzz wrote: Ranger is a popular class and there are tons of crappy ones out there who have no idea how to setup their character. That happens in SF because the mechanics are skewed so in favor of assassins that even if you're terrible you'll be better than you were as a ranger. The reason I'm talking about betraying back already is because SOE can't do shifts in balance without screwing it up. Guardian/SK for example? One goes from best tank in the game to meaningless and the other becomes extremely overpowered and it has been that way for months and is just starting to get addressed. What about illy/coercer? Illy used to be omg amazing and then poof all the sudden they suck lol. Its pretty obvious that doing sweeping changes like this all at once will so crazily overpower ranger auto attack that they will have the ability to compete just buy pressing their ranged auto attack button.
Gaige wrote: Rangers were not competive with Assassins in RoK because we had to use the RSB while melee dps kept getting upgrades. Melee could use there fabled myth / any new offhand. We didnt start to compete untill you were geared up and after another arrow/bow change, then you had to have Vol'drath or your full blown mythical, because if you used any bow besides the RSB you lost auto attack damage.EDIT: And this was not a short duration, iirc we had to wait almost the whole xpac before they fixed it. And in TSO we (Defiance) didnt have a assassin, we actually havent had one since half thru RoK, so I cant compare versus our sin. All I can compare is the parse differance on flames and in chat channels, and those showed High End Assassins ahead of High End Rangers on almost every parse except most Avatars, and ahead by a fair amount, not a competitive amount.Even the parses you posted show you behind sins in TSO. And now in SF it even further due to lots of things that have happened in the last 3 xpacs. And im not talking average sins vs rangers, strictly high end raiding. And yes there are alot of very bad Rangers out there. But a average Assassin has outparsed a average Ranger for 3yrs now(if both are equally geared and mastered), and every parse post shows this to be true.
Gaige wrote: Ranger may be a popular class but only if you include non-raiding Rangers. You can't really include Rangers that only solo or do group or PVP content because Rangers are fine in those settings so who cares how many of them there are? I seriously doubt there are more raiding Rangers than raiding Assassins. As for crappy Rangers..sure there are plenty but there are crappy Assassins as well and the fact that a poorly played Assassin or a freshly betrayed Ranger can not only equal but far surpass Ranger DPS without having a firm grasp of the class sort of discredits the idea that Rangers are so easy to play. You said it yourself. The mechanics so skewed in favor of Assassins. It doesn't matter if it's from skewed mechanics or something else. It's easier to put up higher parses as an Assassin whether they are played well or not. If only well played Assassins parsed well then I might agree but that is not the case and a poorly played Ranger isn't going to parse well... at all. If getting a higher percentage of DPS from AA makes playing a Ranger somewhat easier it will only put them on par with Assassins in the difficulty department IMO but they will still need to go above and beyond AA dmg to maximize DPS so I don't think anyone will be able to sit there with only AA dmg and be competitive unless they are surrounded by seriously sub-par players.
There's just no way, unless your playing with crappy DPS in your raids, these changes alone will not have rangers beating other T1 DPS performing classes. It's just groundwork to even stuff out for Velious. With both ae auto and flurry going in I can almost guarantee we are going to see A LOT more items and possibly skills with AE auto and flurry on them. Honestly I was surprised at the 10% bump in ranged weapons they talked about. But the removal of the penalty and the long over due inclusion of AE auto and flurry need to be put in one way or another. will be nice not having to work under these ridiculous restrictions.
Neiloch@Kithicor wrote: I can guarantee you that smart assassins will be using ranged auto attack and standing at 10m if they're smart.
I'm calling complete BS on that bit about competitive rangers in TSO. Maybe if you were Avatar geared in RoK, I don't know, I rejoined the raiding game late in that expansion, but TSO? BS, or your other DPS classes weren't pulling their own weight/weren't as well geared. SF compounded the problems and added a few new ones, but it didn't suddenly make them all appear out of thin air. It's kind've cute how you've gone from 'oh, flurry and AE auto-attack aren't really that much of the parse, rangers will need more fixes than that' to 'zomg, rangers will be super easymode and will dominate so hard that all assassins are going to sit in the sweet-spot and macro their combat arts to ranged auto-attack' the moment these fixes are actually announced as coming. Save the complaining until if and when we get more adjustments. You said yourself that having bow mechanics fixed isn't going to threaten your precious parse. This is coming off as complaining for the sheer sake of whining about something.
lol I still love that before when it wasn't confirmed I read posts and comments by multiple people that rangers wanting flurry and auto AE was stupid and wouldn't be much DPS. But now apparently its the end all, be all to auto attack DPS by people who don't even know how much the increase would actually be on paper and haven't played it on test. I thought rangers were the whiniest but apparently being pampered makes people cry a river when ranger's might possibly have the chance to get a better performing auto attack. Yes I know they didn't announce it with these damage increases either, but our auto attack DPS was already better than most, so if they will truly be op'd it would have been OP'd even without the damage increase. Maybe rangers will get the bonus end of a special exception this time. That exception being only rangers can make Auto AE and flurry work off a bow. Know whats even greater about that? It makes PERFECT sense, why would anyone else be able to use a bow to its fullest extent like a ranger? People whining about it being ranger only wouldn't have a leg to stand on, would be like a 8 year old pouting and saying 'but but but its not FAIR!' Xelgad did say their coming 'for bows' so its also likely it will work for everyone. Plus I'm not sure if they are willing or even able to make the stats work like that. Also can people who were rangers the day of these changes get a special title so we can be identified from the turncoats and fair weather players? lol
Well I was talking single target since we have no practical data for ranged AE auto comparison yet (wasn't possible). Obviously when people can AE with theirs and we can't with lots of adds, ours is gonna end up being less. Like on Maalus Imbued in Palace I tend to beat or at least match out everyone elses auto attack.
I like lemongrass chicken. I also like bow fixes. What does this have to do with this thread? Not a clue. Except lemongrass chicken + bow fixes = double tasty. Also? As much as certain people post about how rangers are inferior to assassins? It's pretty funny when ranger fixes are incoming and certain posters instantly jump from the not enough crowd to the lolzomgisbad crowd. In summary. Lemongrass chicken is tasty.
Gaige wrote: And why is that? Most assassins I know disregard AA, I do. CA's create much more damage. Chain is much more important along with the procs off melee weapons and buffs. I only concentrate on AA timing whilst my CA's come back up (much more quickly than my Ranger) No need to worry though Assassins will still get much better groups than a Ranger. Just do what I did, it does not take long. Run an Assassin and a Ranger. For me it is tough to change my rhythm regarding timing, position and jousting on a Ranger to an assassin ca spam and position. I admit stealth timing and trying to avoid interrupts on cancealment change can be a challenge. AA for my ranger is ~20-25% of my DPS ~10-15% on my Sin. I fail to see how a max of 5% increase in damage (25%*20%) and flurry+AoE is going to make a dramatic difference. They are still not talking about getting Ranged procs across the board that are the same as melee. Hopefully our Melee Ca range will change form 2 to 5 to 5 to 10 or something along those lines. That would help minimize DPS loss while constantly trying to get close enough and at the same time far enough for Ranged AA and CA's when they are up. A lot of mobs waste a few AutoAttacks because the box is not indicative of a 2-5 meter distance. Or the mob moves and you lose an AutoAttack and some CA's because they move too close. On my assassin I just run up on the back of the mob and stay there, I try to make sure I trigger my concealment in between any aoe that may interrupt me. On my Assassin most of the CA's are quick enough I don't worry about them being interrupted. In fact Slip Away being instant cast and recast with a .25 Recovery mean I am much quicker to recover on stealth Assassin attacks than I can on stealth Ranger attacks. My highest hitting Ranger attacks are stealth based and slow casting and if interrupted I am going to have to wait MUCH loner to re-stealth and try it again. Unless of course I am running PFT which my assassin has also. I would expect to get ~10% increase and I am often 10-20% and sometimes as much as 40% behind and equally equipped assassin (admittedly the groups we are in are much different.) I don't expect this to change dramatically, particularly if we are still without grouping logic. Grouping logic that Rangers don't have and that Assassin's and Swashy's still maintain.
Gaige wrote: And assassins need more dps? lol Thought this was suppose to help rangers and not help both classes (if not more).
Melee classes still excel with dirge/coercer buffs - often that means being in the main tank group if you don't have many dirges. Unlike an assassin or swashbuckler, a ranger has absolutely no business being in the main tank group, so that often means we get shunted in to "that group". The developers can't seem to grasp this concept.
The problem here is that the bow increase will help not only rangers, but assassins and other bow-weilding classes. Top end assassins will see an dps increase because they will start using bow auto attack instead of melee. Why? Simply put, bows will have a higher damage rating. Add in AE Auto-attack and flurry and assassins will be just the new rangers now since they will be auto-attacking with there bows. Makes no sense.
These changes are intended to balance the damage from dual wielding, two handers and bows. As part of that, off-hand weapons will no longer be restricted from Flurry and AE auto-attack, so that dual wielding will scale at the same rate as two handed weapon and bow damage. Bows will see the greatest benefit from these changes as they gave less auto-attack damage than both dual wield and two handed weaponry prior to this change. Following this change, they will give approximately the same Auto-Attack damage. Anyone who is Auto-Attacking with more than just a one-handed weapon will see their damage increase with this change, but those who use bows as their primary means of attack will see the greatest increase.
Xelgad wrote: And assassins just became the top parsing class in the game. /sigh Might as well just delete the ranger class from the game.
Xelgad wrote: Ahh wasn't aware the off hand was getting its restrictions removed as well. So again, just more groundwork to even things out. Kind of confused by your reply Boise, we get a huge increase in damage and mechanics and others don't get even half of that increase.
Boise wrote: So let me get this straight. Now offhand weapons will flurry and aoe auto atk. Which means dual wielding zerks got a massive dps boost. 1 hand/shield zerks see no change. Swashies see a big dps boost. Assassins will see a big dps boost. Brawlers get a decent dps boost. Rangers see a big dps boost. Brigands will see a small dps boost. Now here comes the dilemma for assassins either they will end up using a bow and finding that "sweet spot" rangers use to sit at n raids and autoatk with a bow and use melee CA's, like old rangers Or they will do more dps dual wielding and just do more dps then they currently do on live.
Neiloch@Kithicor wrote: I think boise is getting to this point. Dual wield receives a small boost from offhand flurry and aoe auto atk. Bows receive a massive boost from basically a 20-30% auto atk damage increase and flurry and aoe auto atk. So an assassin will have 1 of 2 choices, either they will end up using a bow and finding that "sweet spot" rangers use to sit at in raids and autoatk with a bow and use melee CA's, like old rangers Or they will do more dps dual wielding and end up doing more dps then they currently do on live. while rangers and assassins will be alot closer in terms of dps output assassins will gain alot from these changes eitherway and should in thoery be the top dps class in game by a decent margin. I do think these changes are needed but the devs do have to pay attention to how this change will effect other classes.
