What are the top 5 things wrong with Ranger than you feel need to be addressed ? Please provide your idea to address the issue. The cost associated with maintaining our DPS. To fix this I would like to see us get a skill each tier for 3/4/5 to create a reasonable amount of arrows. I think makeshift arrows gives too much (I have app IV of it and get 30) and I think Rip gives too little. I think we need a skills to work like rip except that the amount given each time is relevant to the power of the spell. For isntance app1 = 1 app2 = 2 app3= 4 app4=6 adept1=10 adept III = 20 and master = 30. I think the skills should be on the same timer so that you can only stock up on one tier of arrows at a time. Basically when you get a new skill it replaces the old one. we could also have suc hthings as endless quivers to quest for ? Or use rare items to have PC crafters craft us a magical quiver from a rare book. Make it quested, or dropped. Skill upgrades Some of our skill upgrades are not actually upgrades. The description and effect is exactly the same as the skill it replaces. This is especially bad when its things like an adept1 of a skill that doesnt increase anything except the power used. Poisons. Being masters of the wilderness I think we should be able to scrounge up some nasty berries that makes a rudimentary posion, much like we do with makeshift arrows. Poisons are also a major cost for rangers to maintain their DPS. Arrow Damage. This needs to be raised a little to allow us to outdamage the classes we are supposed to out damage. Heritage bow. I think their needs to be a heritage quest for a very nice bow. Now this is just my list folks. The purpose of this thread isnt for anyone to flame anyone elses ideas or suggestions. Its for us to share with each other things that need to be addressed. I'd like to be able to compile a list of the top 5 issues faced by rangers. Thanks Ironhide Thunderchild of Oasis. Ogre Ranger of the Wandering Souls.
1.) DPS/Utility - Rangers should be just as good as assassins which should be be the highest total dps since we don't get the utility that rogues have (snare is useless). At level 50 with 2 of the top scout weapons in the game I should have to worry about pulling aggro, increasing dps means less power used which solves everything. 2.) Archery - If SoE wants us to be an archery class then go all out in the next expansion to make us archers. Sucky skills + having to stealth and move around doesn't fit well with raids. 3.) Skills - This is a problem for every class, adept 3's and master 1's are almost worthless for how rare/expensive they are. 4.) Buffs - every other class gets powerful buffs or debuffs, this would atleast give us more utility on raids since we're the bottom priority. 5.) Equipment - Poison system is just a money sink. Same goes with arrows. We need class specific loot badly and more raid loot.
Not sure my issues rate in the top 5 or not but... Bow range - I think bow range needs to be more dynamic. I think short bows should have a point blank range and long bow's max range should move according to the Archery skill. 'Take Aim' indeed. Makeshift/Rip Arrows - I think makeshift arrows should be removed from the game. I think arrows should be recoverable from corpses. If I fire 6 shots into the bear, I want the opportunity to recover 4-6 of them. I do not want to pretend that the bear already had been shot by some other lazy ranger and I have to rip out their arrows. Armor - I want increased AC so I can be a tank/dps juggernaut. lol - just checking to see if anyone is reading this Makeshift/Rip Arrows - If makeshift arrows cannot be removed from the game or putting arrows used on corpses is too complex then I would prefer that the makeshift arrows be Ranger only tradeskill recipes, requiring the appropriate ingredients and yielding decent quantities of arrows which can be sold to players or npc at cost. Tracking - npc names need to be more consistent and the tracking window interface needs some enhancement. Resetting the window to be by proximity, adding columns for creature type or range to name a few. Combat Arts - When I am solo, I get more or less one chance to hit an opponent from stealth, from behind or from range. So it doesn't really help me to have several 'openers'. I know there are a few tricks to getting more than one backshot/stealth hit/ranged shot in a fight but it depends a bit too much on luck, imo. Stealth - I hate slowed stealth movement. I also don;t like being asked by groups to smuggle the group. Because I think I should be able to but I can't. Am I a guide or not? Apparently not. Just a few notes from my journal...
These "openers" are used in groups/raids, and are not meant for soloing. When grouping you should be able to use your stalk and shrouded strike to get plenty of stealth attacks in. The only problem I see here is ranged attacks for soloing, which a good solution would be point blank attacks. If we could use all our stealth attacks like normal attacks it wouldn't be balanced. I like the idea of short bow point blank and long bow range. I have a short and long cedar bow and wouldn't mind switching them out depending on the mob.
a group sneak - allow a couple of our only rear or flanking hits to be able to be used from the front to make soloing more viable - Poisons. I spend 1g a time on my poisons as that seems to be the server going rate- yet another instance of us having to pay for the DPS. Either increase the damage the player made poisons do or have more ranges for NPC poisons so there arnt such big gaps in the skill range. Allow us to do pathfinding on the run Change tracking, maybe a seperate tab for named mobs or a filter to filter by monster class. if im trying to track skeletons i dont care about the 30 other monsters in my list as im tracking a certain thing. Ask me in another 10 levels and I'll probably say DPS but im only 35 so hoping for some ranger tweaking before i get there 35 Halfling Ranger of Splitpaw
How would you keep other people in your group from taking the arrows? I have to be quick just to diarm chests let alone get my arrows back. It's a good idea, I'm just trying to figure out how to do it. What if multiple archers are in the group? The MT in my groups almost always uses a bow to pull. I remember in AC and AC2 running around picking up arrows and arrows on corpses.
Better solution than that... Give us back endless quiver once you hit 40 or 45 (take our bear away if you have to.) That solves casual rangers' problems of keeping dps up since they'd only have to buy 1 indium arrow and 1 crafted crushing and slashing arrow. Balances archery and gives lower end players something to push for. I think summoning arrows all the time is stupid and endless quiver in eq1 was a huge turning point in rangers paths. This gives higher end rangers to turn rares into crazy uber arrows. Maybe 1 rare mining harvest + 1 rare wood harvest = 1 extremely high damage or situational arrow. This put rangers back into the top dps slow with assassins and solves our problems and crafters problems with higher end gear.
1. Cost: I disagree. If you decrease the cost, then you do less damage. Would you prefer to do worse damage than you are already doing? I wouldn't. (I use T5 PC arrows... I shot 450 arrows at venekor) However, I do agree RIP needs to change. Maybe App gives it 1 arrow, Adept gives it 2 arrows, Master gives it 3, while each lvl in between reduces the power or delay for using the skill. No magic quivers. Paying for our damage is like a class defining trait. 2. Skill upgrades: I agree. Master slow, should slow more than adept slow. Master rip should rip more arrows or should be on a shorter timer than adept rip. 3. Poisons: I disagree. I don't want to kill the alchemists. They have already been killed since the last patch. 4. Arrow damage: I agree. But not by a little, but by around 300%. 5. Heritage bow: Of course. =p I don't think rangers should get extra utility. The predator line was created to do damage. I don't want a duplicated ability of another class. This includes us never getting group buffs. Equipment, in general I think every class should get class-only equipment. Bow range, no we should not be able to use bows point blank. It is the downside to being able to do good damage. Arrow recovery, not a bad idea, probably like 60% of the arrows being recovered would be a cool thing. Problem is you won't get your arrows back in a raid because of loot settings... Tracking ... it does reset by proximity... But tracking by type would be cool... Combat Arts ... I think they are fine... =.= Stealth... this is kinda bad. Especially for rogues. Group invis defeats the purpose of group sneak. Rangers should NOT get group sneak, that is a rogue trait. Anyway, http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=spellart&message.id=36019 please post some feedback. =) Message Edited by CyberEva on 03-17-2005 05:13 PM
Just my 2p worth at L27: 1) Archery Skills: a) Short bows - (i) Give a point blank shot skill. (ii) Either remove the stealth/positional limits from one or two of the existing attacks or give us some new attacks that don't require stealth / position. b) Long Bows - (i) Give a skill that increases probability of a critical hit not only with PC level but with app/adept/master status. c)I'd prefer to have the option to switch from one bow to the other depending on situation so maybe two, non-exclusive, heritage bow quests? d) Arrows - (i) Fix the rip and tear skills (haven't got there yet but i live in hope - virtually speaking). (ii) Increase the numbers ripped or torn. PS: Arrow crafting - Is it still the case that arrows are crafted in threes if it is I'm not surprised no one makes them when it's possible to buy in stacks of 99. Let fletchers make a decent amount in one go maybe 20 or 30 would be enough. e) Increase bow range by about 1.5 to 2x. f) Increase arrow damage again by about 1.5 to 2x. g) Mounted bow skills - Ability to move facing forwards (i.e. see what's coming, avoid it) whilst maintaining a bead on a following enemy, then shoot at it by turning in the saddle without any effect on forward movement. h) Hidden Shots: Make the target test to break the stealth mode. Why do any of the stealthed shots instantly betray the firers position, have rangers never heard of camouflage, hiding, use of terrain? Perhaps the target has radar, IR, or a very powerful searchlight on its head? If the target fails, stealth mode should stay on and we shoot again, if they succeed we deserve what we get. 2) Soloability / Tanking: a) Pets - (i) Give us full control of the pets we get through spells like phyn's hunting hawk. (ii) Give us some variety i.e. wolves, lions, bears, owls, etc. (iii) depending on what's chosen give them different properties i.e. toughness, attack speed etc. (iv) Give us a heal spell for our pets. (v) Increase the time between calls - take care of your pet. b) Alternatively just make Rangers a little tougher to kill. 3) Poisons - I'd like a skill that allows us to make our own poisons in the wild, but I can see the previous point about alchies so not sure. Maybe there's a mid point between shop bought and player made that our skill made poisons could occupy. 4) Movementi) Increase pathfind speed a little. (ii) Increase the back pedal speed a little - I prefer not to be hit on a regular basis by bears, perhaps throwing empty honey pots while I'm shooting them a little 5) Group Buffs: Well apart from Pathfind I haven't got any... unfortunately can't think of anything that someone else hasn't already got. Message Edited by Leskoi on 03-18-2005 08:25 AM
Good points all around, but this will never work. If I wanted to be a pet class I would have picked conjurer or necro or would have played WoW. I can understand getting buffs from them, but letting them act like normal pets is a joke.
Hadn't thought of pets purely as a source of buffs but its an idea and a variety of calls with different buff combinations could be interesting especially if each call had one buff that was for a group.
I'd like to see quivers that we could put in our poison slots. They should perhaps be Ranger/Assasin only, and give a bow haste buff and room to hold arrows so that I don't have to fill up a backpack. It would also give us a little more umph with a bow. I'm still not sure why assassins use bows and not crossbows though. Come to think of that, what happened to crossbows, they used to be on the old equipment list page.
I'll chime in with a few comments On arrows: What I think would work, instead of making arrows cheaper or being able to recover from corpse after combat, we should get a new ability. Make it to where we automatically recover a % of the arrows we shot. This could increase with the ranking say 10% at app1 to 75% at Master1. I also would like to see a quiver, placed in the ranged slot and all arrows gained (makeshift, rip, etc) would go HERE first. Better tracking filters: I am a little dissapointed that we can't track REDs (what, they levitate?) but I can live with that. We need better filters. Named, solo, maybe even a drop down so we can filter a particular type on the screen. IE hunting griffawns: I see griffawns on track, I toggle the drop down, highlight giffawns, now I ONLY see griffawns on the tracking screen. I'm in full agreement on Heritage Bow quest (of course all classes need a Heritage quest) and better soloability, AT LEAST against ANIMALs. Give us a bonus for animals, we're rangers, we know how they think/react, we should be able to kill/solo them better than anyone
Not sure if I can limit this to 5 top issues or not, but here's a shot...ordered in importance to me. 1. Define the class and stick to the definition. There's a lot of things I'd like our class to be, based on my own vision of a Ranger which may differ from other people's ideas. Sony needs to tell us their official vision of Rangers and make the class fit the vision. The SOE official description portrays the Ranger as "natural outdoorsmen and trackers, masters of stealthy movement in the undergrowth. They use perception and cunning to gain the advantage over their adversaries." Their Predator description says "Predators are relentless hunters who use stealth and cunning to stalk their prey. At home in the shadows, predators use the element of surprise to give their allies the upper hand." The 'official' Prima guide has a lengthy description of the class, which I don't want to quote in it's entirety, but some key highlights are: "Rangers have the highest movement rate in the game", "Destroy the enemy from afar. Not only do Rangers have the longest range attacks, but they also deal the greatest damage of the scout classes" Prima also says Rip allows the Ranger to pull the arrow he just used from the enemy, touts the value of our debuffs to the group, our abilities to slow and root enemies and our above-average melee damage when not ranged. That's the information I had available to me when I made my character selection, and formed my expections for this class. I've been disappointed, to say the least. As natural outdoorsmen and trackers, our tracking skills need to be differentiated from the other scouts and provide a real and perceptible value in a group. Combined with our 'perception and cunning' this mastery should give us the ability to track and predict the movement of any mob in the outdoors (even named within an XP range) and have more information about those mobs available to us (levels, agro, grouped, distance), with assassins being the indoor tracking version. If a group wants to find or camp a rare mob, they should go out of their way to find a Ranger or Assassin to help track it down. At the very least, we should be better than the others in the group at locating a specific mob...as it stands now, my guardian friend is more effective sometimes running around in circles spamming the TAB key...lol. Our familiarity with the outdoors should make us better at finding harvesting nodes, as well (dare I hope for a rare tracker? hehe, didn't think so). Masters of stealthy movement in the undergrowth? Well up until I got the master level stealth upgrade with the movement speed buff (can't rememeber the name right now) in the 30's, I hardly felt like I was the master of stealth in any evironment. Most of the other scouts and some casters were just as good or better at stealth/invis and most were faster. In the outdoors, Rangers should rule at sneakiness and this ability should rub off somewhat on the group...maybe reduced agro range from nearby mobs, lowered hate levels from mobs....? And again, I think Assassins should have the same capability indoors. Movement speed? Please. Pathfinding is nice and all, but hardy unique to Rangers and SoW is far better (and up until recently so was the Pallies' horse). Now, I can stack an SoW totem and heritage JBoots and get a better movement buff than the highest level horse in the game (as can every other class). I only use Pathfinding in groups now, or when I don't feel like using up a totem. As for ranged attacks, I just don't feel that much differentiated from other classes other than the fact that I have more ranged specials. I use a Prist. Cedar Longbow and Iridium/Fulginate arrows...just like every other (it seems) 40+ scout or fighter I meet up with. The fighters actually do higher damage (non CA attack) with the bow than I do, and the range is the same for all. Assassins get a long refresh extreme damage stalth back attack...seems like we should get a nuke of our own. Maybe some unique ranged weapon, arrow type, quiver....something to make us stand out as masters of the bow. 2. Broken spells, traits and upgrades. Fix what's broke before balancing/nerfing/tweaking anything else! When I ding a level, I want my new spell to be BETTER than the one I got 14 levels ago. Is that too much to ask? When I spend a plat on an upgrade to app3 or master....I WANT TO BE BLOWN AWAY by the difference, and look for more things to kill just so I can see it again. lol. As it stands, we still have several broken spells and the two high level upgrades I've purchased have been a literal waste of platinum. Also, we should be able to see specifically what the differences are in upgrade levels before making the adept/master purchase. And why do I master all available poisons at level 40 when I have 10 more levels to play? 3. Damage/Cost per DPS. It sounds like Sony is making an attempt to balance the class hierarchies, so I'm assuming the amount of damage we do will be appropriately addressed soon. I'm ok being second to some mages, but not a distant second...we have costs associated with our dps that other classes don't have and more limitations (positional attacks, piercing resistance, poison resistance, slashing resistance, etc.) against certain mobs than the casters have. That needs to be taken into consideration when balancing. Also, if we're supposed to have 'above-average' melee damage then we shouldn't need to spend several gold in iridium/fulginate arrows and player crafted poisons to out-dps the fighter classes. I'm not sure how to balance the costs associated with arrows and poisons with the need for crafters to be able to make a living. It's clear that we need to be able to be more efficient in both gold expeditures and power expenditures when doing damage. I don't mind spending a few gold now and then to get one of those 'whoa dude....' reactions, but to spend a gold killing a few blue mobs is just ridiculous. I think our ranged attacks need to be higher damage and lower power cost, and maybe even a little longer range. 4. Class differentiation. Well, I know balance is important and all but.... Can you tell one medium armor wearer from another without 'inspecting' the character? After the mid-30's or so, they all look and act the same to me. All the medium armor (including rare player crafted armor and quested pieces) look the same. Assassins and Swashies use the same bow and arrows as me. Seems like everyone (including tanks) is using two of: PGT YSS or SBD with a few ebon pieces mixed in every once in a while for good measure. How many classes have sneak/invis/evac/poisons/dual-wield, again?? What skill is it that sets me apart as a 'master outdoorsmen', and what does my 'perception and cunning' do exactly to give me an advantage over my adversaries? I'd like to see a heritage bow, some unique ranger-only ranged ammo, some ranger looking armor and a skillset that fits my class description. If you've got a group heading out to the woods or field to hunt down a rare mob or complete a quest, a Ranger should be one of your top priorities (same for Assassins if heading inside an enemy stronhold for a mob hit), and you should recognize me right away as I approach the group. If debuffs are one of our group utilities (as stated in the Prima guide), then they should be more meaningful and recognizable...does anyone even know how long our debuffs stick on a mob? Or if they've stuck at all? 5. Hehe...I cheated on the first four by stacking issues, so we'll make this one simple. Put the FUN back in the game, Sony. Sorry that was so long winded, I don't expect more than one or two of you got through the whole thing. lol. See ya in game :smileyhappy: Dohmyr Farseeker Level 45 Human Ranger from Blackburrow Leader Nihility Guild of Qeynos Message Edited by Domyr Farseeker on 03-22-2005 08:06 AM
A few more issues I now have at 37 i agree about the class defination problem - if we're ment to be the best at stealth then why the hell cant i sneak around rivervale at lvl 37 in stealth without 3/4 of its inhabitants spotting me. A level 37 coercer can invis himself and run around free as a bird - with my huntsman trap i can sneak around easier but takes me 10 minutes to crawl up a hill - hardly master of stealth and outdoors if you ask me!! we need a full speed invis thats as good or if not better to huntsmans trap if we are to understand the ranger class description Fix take aim like you fixed steady aim Endless quiver, this is a great idea. Makeshift carbonite dont do the damage anymore and rip is just too slow, i had 200 hundred feyiron iron last night and run out very quickly. Buy an endless quiver for a few gold and a magic arrow dependant on level for a few gold and never run out. That'll do for now :smileywink:
OK, a lot of good ideas & comment here but ... how do we get a dev to take note of this thread or how do we bring this thread to a dev's attention?
Just hope they happen to stumble in one day thats about it. Message Edited by GoNomar on 03-21-2005 02:16 AM
Sorry, there is absolutely no argument why every single (normal and of my tier) arrow I shoot should not be free to me, a ranger with mostly bow specials. None. Realism can shove itself. I shouldn't have to pay more than any other class to do my primary job. Unless you think tanks should pay for every so many points of damage they take... or healers should pay for every so many points of damage they heal. Until this single issue is fixed I consider Rangers THE most broken class in the game, by far. Nothing compares to the insult of having to scale back your damage not because of agro reasons, but because of your pocketbook.
