BSbon
02-25-2006, 11:25 PM
<div></div><p>state of the ranger level 40-49</p><p>since i started reading the boards i've dropped by the ranger boards from time to time and tried to help out by answering questions and such. i wasn't until the nerf that i felt i had something serious to contribute. the nerf took away the 1 thing that too many rangers relied on. poison procs. since before the nerf i never bothered to use poisons i felt i was in a unique position of knowing what it was like to not be playing in god mode. (IDDQD for those of us in the know) my play time is divided by 75% soloing and the rest grouping with guild members and friends. after the nerf came a long i started seeing people posting that rangers can no longer solo. at first i thought it was a joke cause i just got done finishing 2 writs by killing solo mobs that were yellow to blue cons to me. so i kept reading more and more posts trying to figure out why some people could not solo. some of the reasons were obvious and some were not so obvious because they involved levels that i had not reached yet. some people started posting parse numbers of their DPS and saying it was awful. i had never used a parser before and didn't even know any names of them before the nerf. i decided to parse some stuff and post on my results. i started with solo mobs that were level appropriate. posted my results and while all the post claiming that they couldn't solo or that numbers were so bad that a templar was beating them got dozens of replies while my posts of successful soloing were quickly forgotten about. which is perferable to the attacks that some people got for posting positive results.</p><p>my thoughts on parsing:while parsing does have some uses it has serious problems. i've poured through logs of groups and solo encounters, parsing the numbers. the main problem with parsers is that it doesn't take into account the situation of the fight. 2 examples of this dramatically affected the dps numbers. the group was ranger, guardian and pally. the guardian and pally scored mid 100s. me, the ranger scored 60. if i had posted that fight alone there'd be people posting left and right about how crappy our DPS is. the situation of that encounter goes like this. the 3 of us were jumped by 2 spiders in feerott. the attacked me cause i was closest to them when they wandered by. because i was hit i targeted one of them and because it was a green i started fighting it. the pally and guardian took the other one. i killed mine first and then attacked the one they were still fighting. i hit it once and it died. the second situation was in DFC. the pally tank walked around a corner and was jumped by roaming orcs. i was brining up the rear of the group as i was looting and disarming from the previous fight. i targeted the pally and tried to cast but i couldn't see the mob so i repositioned so i could. my dps was less than 100 on that fight. now there may be settings in the parser to only parse how long you fight the mob but i dont care right now cause i've stopped using it. the only way i would ever parse again is if sony put in some kind of training dummy kind of thing into the game. something that measured dps over times of 1, 5 and 10 minutes. the second reason parses are misleading is when groups fight stuff that lasts for only a few seconds it dies too fast to let enough people hit it. i found numerous instances of this from my group of ranger pally and wizard. there were numerous times when i landed 2 arrows attacks and the mob was dead. the wizard didn't even have enough time to cast so he got a 0. there were also a few times when he landed a big attack and dropped the mob and i had no attacks land giving me a big fat 0. these zeros affect averages in a serious negative way lastly for solo dps parsing one thing that i noticed happening is that when you are low level your dps is also low and as you level up you dps starts to climb as you get newer attacks that land for more damage. eventually you get to a level where the mobs hitpoints are more than what you can knock off it in 1 round of attacks. this makes you wait for refresh timers and thus lowers your DPS.</p><p>my thoughts on soloability of rangers level 40-49:i've seen lots of posts asking if we can still solo after the nerf. while i cant speak for levels too much higher than my own i'd have to say that the answer is: yes we can at least up to level 49. i say that because before the nerf i never used poisions and only had a bow proc and offencive stance proc which is close to but slightly above where we are now after the proc nerf. there are however conditions to our effectivly soloing. the first is that we must now fight level appropriate solo mobs. oranges and higher are no longer an option. double ups and triple ups are no longer an option. single ups will now be a very difficult challenge and they should be. they should not die before they get to you. a white con no arrow modifier mob is essentially the same level as you. these fights should be difficult but not impossible.</p><p>my theories on why some rangers cannot solo:these are just my theories and they may or may not apply to anyone at all. you should not take offence by any of these especially if they dont apply to you. the first thing that i noticed is the numerous posts saying that before the nerf they never used melee and they only stuck to using the bow. that lead me to wonder if some ranger's slashing and piercing skills were significantly lower than where they should be at their level. lower skills will affect the amount of times you miss the mob making it harder to kill them. the second thing i noticed in the posts is the number of people saying things like cheap shot is broken cause they cant get behind the mob before it's unstunned and posts saying that "i have 4 melee attacks and i dont need anymore". (we have 7 melee attacks at my level by the way not including master strikes) this lead me to believe that since most rangers relied on archery attacks for all their damage they never bothered to learn about their other CAs and since they didn't know about them they might not be using them now or not using them correctly. as for soloing in KoS this is just 100% speculation as i have never been there. i think the zone might be more geared toward players with some AA abilities. and it is also a new zone that might still need some tweaking. if you look hard you will see some posts of rangers stating that they can solo. instead of posting a lot of we suck and we cant solo why not ask the people who can solo how they do it.</p><p>as for the nerf itself. i do think it was needed. i do think it was a harsh nerf. probablly the harshest i've ever seen. the only thing i think should be changed is a small increase in CA damage to get us parsing more consistantly over 300. as for the rest of the game. i think double up and triple up mobs need their HP at least doubled. these mobs die way too fast for a group. but just like before the nerf i am still able to solo and i can still play and have fun.</p><p>bongo</p><p>Message Edited by bongotez on <span class="date_text">02-26-2006</span><span class="time_text">06:58 PM</span></p>