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TaleraRis

11-04-2006, 06:38 AM

I didn't see a thread here so I figured I would start one. We've been released from the NDA, so if there's something you're dying to know, perhaps me or one of my fellow beta rangers can help <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

krishen

11-04-2006, 06:41 AM

Achievements would be a cool start. <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <div></div>

TerriBlades

11-04-2006, 07:23 AM

You arent going to like the new Ranger achievements. Poison line seems okay. at a 2% per point increase you can rack up a total of 10% increased damage to caustics. 15 points spent in the poison line grants you access to the last one which will increase x amount of poison tics... Another line increases Focus Aim by .5s per point, and the other two, bah Im at work and cant remember them atm. The multi-shot line rewards an end ablility (15 points in the line) with a double attack of 1% per point spent... yeah 5% total is almost useless IMO. The rest of the line is used to lower casting timers on certain CAs by 0.1s per point. Another line adds to the snares and traps.. cant comment much on this cause I just thought it was plain useless as a raiding ranger.. Might be helpful for the solo ranger though. I supposed I coulda just copied and pasted, but I was just a bit excited to finally be able to share this info with someone hehehe

littleman17

11-04-2006, 10:27 AM

<DIV>As it stands, with our new AA's we only got really cool ability, and that is Befriend Animal. But, SOE has this AA being useless right now because it costs FIVE Concentration slots which means we have to give up our two buffs for a lack luster pet. (Spiders are the only animal worth charming)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>I am currently trying to get this AA reduced to only using two slots because of the crap AA we have to blow 15 points in and the limitted number of mobs it can be used on... I'm not usre if this is how other charms work, but the pets we charm do not zone with us.</DIV>

SpiralDown

11-04-2006, 11:13 AM

<blockquote><hr>littleman17 wrote:<div>As it stands, with our new AA's we only got really cool ability, and that is Befriend Animal. But, SOE has this AA being useless right now because it costs FIVE Concentration slots which means we have to give up our two buffs for a lack luster pet. (Spiders are the only animal worth charming)</div> <div> </div> <div>I am currently trying to get this AA reduced to only using two slots because of the crap AA we have to blow 15 points in and the limitted number of mobs it can be used on... I'm not usre if this is how other charms work, but the pets we charm do not zone with us.</div><hr></blockquote>Heck, they reduce it to 3 or 4 slots and its fine... only gotta give-up the hate reducer with 4 (which they'd probably want so we dont use the thing to tank) and nothing to give-up with 3. 5 does sound excessive though.<div></div>

TerriBlades

11-04-2006, 11:13 AM

<DIV> While this might be good for solo players, its going to serve aboslutely no purpose for anyone else. Who grinds in overland zones anyway? On top of that... as you mentioned 5 cons slots makes this ablility even pointless for a soloer. I should be 3 con slots at most.. either way, this wont be a line that I will even consider.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The way I see it, high end rangers will be looking at 3 lines. The poison line, the Buff line (focus, honed and I forget <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ), and the Multishot Line. And without a lot more work on some of those lines, its almost a complete and utter waste of AAs.</DIV>

sah

11-04-2006, 12:26 PM

<DIV>can any of you guys provide a more detailed list of all of the ranger aa's please?</DIV>

SpiralDown

11-04-2006, 12:53 PM

<blockquote><hr>TerriBlades wrote:<div></div> <div> While this might be good for solo players, its going to serve aboslutely no purpose for anyone else. Who grinds in overland zones anyway? On top of that... as you mentioned 5 cons slots makes this ablility even pointless for a soloer. I should be 3 con slots at most.. either way, this wont be a line that I will even consider.</div> <div> </div> <div>The way I see it, high end rangers will be looking at 3 lines. The poison line, the Buff line (focus, honed and I forget <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ), and the Multishot Line. And without a lot more work on some of those lines, its almost a complete and utter waste of AAs.</div><hr></blockquote>Who grinds in overland zones? Soloers... guess that is a good fit :smileyvery-happy:<div></div>

xandez

11-04-2006, 01:00 PM

sigh.... oh, maybe i was expecting too much anyway <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ++Xan

Gerdos

11-04-2006, 05:04 PM

Couple of posts i've copied over from Beta ... not sure if its up to date, but the following will give people who havent seen the new AA a rough guide to what is available. I intend on writing out a more detailed post (similiar to the current AA post in rangers - resources ... sometime soon ... along with the new CA's to all classes as all CA's will be changed with the coming expansion. /sigh It's kinda hard to finish writing up detailed posts on existing facts knowing they are about to change, however, once i have the template down, its just a matter of changing numbers to show any future changes. <HR> Afflicted One said (11 Oct 06): Ranger achievements as of 10-11 There have been a few changes to the achievement lines since the last post here and also I've been wanting to give my opinions of these for a while so figured I'd just add my comments using the same format as other posters. Poisoning: P1: Enhance: Caustic Poison - Actually in my opinion is the best AA in this line and possibly the best in the whole tree as they stand at this time. P2: Enhance: Fettering Poison - Well I can understand this but I don't really get the whole movement to making rangers a kiting class once again. After having almost all combat arts changed to not being able to use while on the run this just sends mixed signals in my opinion. P3: Enhance: Ancillerary Poison - Actually don't have any of these on me on beta so not sure if it works or not. I do think the melee mitigation debuff poisons need to make a return to the game which if that happened would make this way more useful. P4: Conservation - Well I guess it does what it says but I just find it to be really lacking for a final achievement. All in all I think this could be a nice line but it starts strong and gets weaker the further you go. Should keep the first one but all the others need a lot of work in my opinion. Trapping: T1: Enhance: Back Fire - Doesn't work with Culling the Weak. Not sure of earlier arts but not the L57 upgrade. T2: Enhance: Lunge - Maxed out adds 1 second to a root. Well when you consider that an average bow with 100% haste has a 3.5 second delay between attacks and that only one combat art works on the move, a 1 second increase for 5 points is very useless. T3a: Enhance: Leg Shot - Ok this works on the last upgrade. T3b: Enhance: Thorny Trap - Maxed out it takes 15 seconds off the recast of a 2 minute timer. In other words not much. Also with all the nerfs this power has seen it's pretty much a useless power that most rangers have removed from their bar. T4: Fire Trap - Well this is another trap but it doesn't root, just does damage and the damage looks to be 4-5 ticks of ~100 damage. It also reduced heat mitigation by 700 points. Well for one it has a very small location of activation. Meaning you can put this down while meleeing a mob and it won't go off. You have to run the mob around so they hit that exact 1 foot area of activation. Second the damage is horrible for a 3 minute recast art. Third 700 fire mitigation decrease is horrible and why more fire debuffing? Cause rangers have 3 fire attacks? These are the 3 of the lowest damage combat arts that rangers have... if anything it should be piercing mitigation. But even still 700 is very uninspired for a last tier achievement on a 3 min recast timer. This whole line is intended to be the soloing ranger line. I doubt very seriously that anyone will ever take any of this line. It's that bad. Focusing: F1: Enhance: Steady Aim - This is a pretty good achievement that does what it says. My only problem is that the * Aim line doesn't start it's recharge until the buff ends. So it will help spike damage but not damage over time. F2: Enhance: Feral Instinct - Again another pretty good buff that will help a bit. F3: Enhance: Honed Reflexes - Also a decent buff don't care as much for it as others tho since honed reflexes is a mediocre buff at best and since it'll never be upgraded will always be mediocre. F4: Extension - This was changed to a passive (very good move) but changed to a 1% increase per point. So maxed is a 5% increase to distance. Which equals 1.7 meters to a longbow. Which in game distance is approximately 1 step. So this needs to really be increased as in it's current state is well more than useless. A good maximum I think would be 30% so you'd give a 10 meter increase which would give some distance without being overpowered. All in all a pretty good line. The changes to the last tier need to be adjusted badly tho. Survival: S1: Enhance: Sprint - The speed increase works but the power cost doesnt seem to do anything. S2a: Enhance: Pathfinding - Doesn't work like it says. Says it increases by 4% but what it does is increase pathfinding speed by 4% so where it should make pathfinding a 36% speed buff it makes it 19.2% when maxed. Sprint adds to the sprint speed so seems like this is bugged. If it's not bugged then I can say that it's totally useless and something noone would take without having to. S2b: Enhance: Makeshift Arrows - Reduces cast time by 100 seconds. So makes these arts have a recast of 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Well first off this still isn't enough to keep an active ranger in arrows. Second it doesnt change that the next arrow summoning powers in T8 will be L66, T9 will be 80, and T10 won't have one. These powers themselves need to be fixed and not try to bandaid a very badly thought out game mechanic with an Achievement. S3a: Enhance: Escape - Shrug S3b: Enhance: Hawk Dive - Increases the duration by 2 seconds per point. Well how do you start on this. This combat art is widely held by most rangers as being completely and entirely useless. By itself it's not bad but when you consider that it breaks stealth and that 3 of the best damage ranger combat arts require stealth it's not something that gets a whole lot of use. And all this does is increase the duration that you can't use stealth so in my opinion this achievement actually makes this power worse. S4: Befriend Animal - Played around with this a bit and not sure what it's point is really I guess a little more damage cause the pet has no aggro so won't be tanking. All in all very mediocre for a end of tier power. What can I say I despise this whole line. When looking over this line of achievements it makes me feel like the intention of SOE is that rangers need to be able to get away from combat better than other classes since they are [Removed for Content]. Multishot: M1: Enhance: Double Shot - Well it speeds it up ... etc M2a: Enhance: Pounce - Same as above. M2b: Enhance: Triple Shot - Same as others M3a: Enhance: Storm of Arrows - Also the same M3b: Enhance: Stream of Arrows - This is intended to be the same as the others but in action it does nothing since the power is an instant cast. Kinda hard to speed up instant <IMG height=16 src="mhtml:file://C:Documents%20and%20SettingsOwnerDesktopRangerAchi evementChart-AchievementsSystemandProgression-EverQuestIIOfficialForums.mht!http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif" width=16 border=0>. Actually this whole combat art is beyond useless since all the nerfs to it and actually reduces the rangers dps. So maybe something could be done like added damage or speeding up the cast between shots or giving a % chance at double or triple damage from the shots. M4: Double Arrow - Ok this was changed to be passive (yay!!) but gives 1% per point. Well 1% really is kinda a joke when you consider that rogues get a 70ish% at double attack and some fighter classes get much more than 5% when maxed. Personally I think from 20-35 would be a good % when maxed without being overpowering. All in all the best line for rangers but then again that's not saying a whole lot. Basically another increase to cast times which it already done with poise from the original Achievements. Where it's nice to have faster cast times I'm not sure this will increase ranger dps at all since they have such long timers between autoattack and actually with current cast timers a ranger spamming his combat arts will have downtime due to the recast timers so spamming attacks a bit faster will just create more downtime. A nice fix in my opinion would be to do away with the improves recovery timer on these and either add small increases to damage or improvements to the recast on these combat arts. In overview: There's only one to two lines that are worth taking for any ranger whether they solo, group or raid. This makes these very boring and uninspired. All the lines should have something worth having so people could choose what fits their playstyle or have to give up something for something else. <HR> Osp (Vanez) said (23-Oct-06): The way our AA is set up now with the Multi-Shot line is - if you want double arrow 1. 3 pts in Double Shot to open it 2. 3 pts must go in Triple Shot 3. 3 pts MUST go in Stream of Arrows 4. 3 pts in Poune or Makeshift Arrows 5. 3 pts in Storm of Arrows or Hawk Dive 6. 15 pts Must be spent in Multi-Shot line to open Double Arrow AND you HAVE to have 3 pts in Storm of Arrows and Stream of Arrows. <HR>

TaleraRis

11-04-2006, 09:57 PM

<blockquote><hr>TerriBlades wrote:<div></div> <div> While this might be good for solo players, its going to serve aboslutely no purpose for anyone else. Who grinds in overland zones anyway? On top of that... as you mentioned 5 cons slots makes this ablility even pointless for a soloer. I should be 3 con slots at most.. either way, this wont be a line that I will even consider.</div> <div> </div> <div>The way I see it, high end rangers will be looking at 3 lines. The poison line, the Buff line (focus, honed and I forget <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> ), and the Multishot Line. And without a lot more work on some of those lines, its almost a complete and utter waste of AAs.</div><hr></blockquote>As a strict soloer, I can tell you that it's not even useful for us. I am not going to give up my haste and agility for a, what is it 17 minute, charm animal ability. 5 slots is way too much and just makes this ability completely useless. Not to mention the other useless crap, like faster pathfinding. Isn't that a requirement for the Befriend Animal line? Not in game so I can't look right now.<div></div>

xandez

11-04-2006, 10:09 PM

<DIV>the more and more i've looked into those EoF AA lines... the more and more depressed ive came <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>sigh. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>oh well, have to check the other classes AA trees to see if any of my alts received something worthy <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>++Xan</DIV>

Saihung23

11-05-2006, 12:35 AM

<DIV>wow....there is nothing spectacular at all about ANY of the lines we get is there?</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>This blows. They really need to work on their balancing act I think.</DIV>

Jayad

11-05-2006, 12:45 AM

The double attack, although small, is far better than what assassins get anywhere as it currently stands. And a caustic poison boost is awfully nice.

Roark

11-05-2006, 12:53 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Survival: S1: Enhance: Sprint - The speed increase works but the power cost doesnt seem to do anything. S2a: Enhance: Pathfinding - Doesn't work like it says. Says it increases by 4% but what it does is increase pathfinding speed by 4% so where it should make pathfinding a 36% speed buff it makes it 19.2% when maxed. Sprint adds to the sprint speed so seems like this is bugged. If it's not bugged then I can say that it's totally useless and something noone would take without having to. S2b: Enhance: Makeshift Arrows - Reduces cast time by 100 seconds. So makes these arts have a recast of 8 minutes and 20 seconds. Well first off this still isn't enough to keep an active ranger in arrows. Second it doesnt change that the next arrow summoning powers in T8 will be L66, T9 will be 80, and T10 won't have one. These powers themselves need to be fixed and not try to bandaid a very badly thought out game mechanic with an Achievement. S3a: Enhance: Escape - Shrug S3b: Enhance: Hawk Dive - Increases the duration by 2 seconds per point. Well how do you start on this. This combat art is widely held by most rangers as being completely and entirely useless. By itself it's not bad but when you consider that it breaks stealth and that 3 of the best damage ranger combat arts require stealth it's not something that gets a whole lot of use. And all this does is increase the duration that you can't use stealth so in my opinion this achievement actually makes this power worse. S4: Befriend Animal - Played around with this a bit and not sure what it's point is really I guess a little more damage cause the pet has no aggro so won't be tanking. All in all very mediocre for a end of tier power. What can I say I despise this whole line. When looking over this line of achievements it makes me feel like the intention of SOE is that rangers need to be able to get away from combat better than other classes since they are [Removed for Content]. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Actually this line sounds like it has more of a potential for soloers from a kiting perspective. Pathfinding upgrade and the Befriend Animal if very low aggro can be considered an added DoT spell allowing you to keep aggro with bow. Granted not worth 5 conc slots, but I could see 4 conc slots since you really wouldn't need Primal Agility line.

Wades

11-05-2006, 01:03 AM

Lol lol lol They should turn one of the path into a betraying quest to assassin... or a way to pl an alt to a usefull class...I'll pick befriend animal and retire to EL, I won't be os by bear that way..... Can't believe they are seriously giving us an AA for Sprint, an AA for Pathfinding and an AA for Escape, not speaking about the rest, I thought a moment I'll see an AA for our fun spells like Enhance: Hawk, increase hawk size by 5% per point, Enhance: Bear, increase bear size by 5% etc... Final AA: Wild Animal mounting, Target can ride his/her pet for a short duration (5 secondes per rank)...Kiting is bad, we remove your running and shooting ability... but now we give you much more snaring tools enjoy !I hate too the poison line, we have to up Str and Int for our dps, agi is so useless we are using mana poison and now a full AA lines is about a skill we don't master as ranger: Crafting poison. Of course nothing for the mana poison and a whole AA line that officialy now requires you to buy a component to use (poison).The last multishot line looks nice but the numbers are so lol 0.05 seconds!!! 0.25 seconds for 5 points !!! 5% to double attack on autoattack whoot makes like a big number with a 7 secons long bow, especially if you are only auto attacking.....Well good bye raiding rangers, have fun soloing...<div></div>

SpiralDown

11-05-2006, 11:04 AM

This is how all the new AP trees are, seeming to be underpowered, but in our case my opinion is: Poisoning: The numbers may need tweeking, but all look to be on the right track with boosting each poison how they should be boosted. Conservation looks good since it will go to reducing costs, giving more bang for the buck. Trapping: Good, it boosts the CAs they effect in the right ways. Better snares mean more shots to get in on the opening volley; the root boost (combined with reduced casting time APs) could mean getting another CA in; and thorny trap is very useful, cutting its recast will let soloers use it more often, the actual time it reduces does seem low though; the fire trap seems useless (guess it partially depends on how fast it is to cast), but if you place it in front or on top of thorny, wouldn't it just break thorny's root? and if place behind the DoT would go to waste. Focus: Good, again it boosts the buffs in the right ways. Extension does look too underpowered and I wish they included Archer's Frenzy instead of Dances with Trees. So it starts well, then goes down a bit. Survival: Just weird. Anything that gives more arrows is good, more would be better though. The pathfinding should be boosted so it tops out at 36%, if it stays as stated at 19%, that's dumb. Improving Sprint and Escape is odd, only thing to really suggest is to improve Escape's reuse timer instead. Hawk Dive is a great CA when used right, the fix really needs to be made to the bird breaking stealth, the AP here is fine. The charm needs to be reduced to 3 or at most 4 cons slots, then it'll be at least a neat DoT. Multishot: I think needs the most help actually. Change them all to reduce reuse timers, we already can increase casting speed with our current APs, we don't need more. Also, toss Stream of Arrows and find another CA to buff. For the double attack, the numbers may be too low, but remember that we aren't giving up anything to use it, we don't need to use some specific sheild or leave a slot empty, its free. <div></div>

Lev

11-06-2006, 04:14 AM

so what I wonder alot about is bows, what bows will we be seeing in EoF, some screens show of new bow models which is great and has been missing for quite some time.. any EoF bows would be interesting, but maybe in particular whats the new Sarnak?<div></div>

Sulas

11-06-2006, 06:08 AM

wow...I'm underwhelmed. But on the upside, it'll be easy to decide where to put the points since there are so few abilities worth the effort.<div></div>

Jay

11-06-2006, 10:57 PM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Sulas wrote: wow... I'm underwhelmed. But on the upside, it'll be easy to decide where to put the points since there are so few abilities worth the effort. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE> Exactly. Which is kinda sad. I want viable Achievement abilities that actually force you to make tough choices to decide how you want to customize your character. Abilities that make you go "Wow, that sounds cool, I'd love to do that" but then look at another one and say "But that sounds really sweet too, which to choose?" Instead, we get a bunch of stuff that looks useless, and we all generally pick the same things b/c they're the only viable options for our class. We may pick minor variations, but we don't have the opportunity to choose significantly different setups that will allow us to customize our characters in any meaningful way.

Shaulin Dolamite

11-06-2006, 11:18 PM

I agree totally with you Jay. There are some good ideas but they are way to underpowered to give you that wow feeling. If double attack was 15%+ even 10% would have made me want to call it double attack and not a proc, or if the charm was 3 con. to just name two I would have said wow cool.Message Edited by Shaulin Dolamite on 11-06-2006 10:20 AM

Mronin

11-06-2006, 11:20 PM

<blockquote><hr>Jay42 wrote:Exactly. Which is kinda sad. I want viable Achievement abilities that actually force you to make tough choices to decide how you want to customize your character. Abilities that make you go "Wow, that sounds cool, I'd love to do that" but then look at another one and say "But that sounds really sweet too, which to choose?"Instead, we get a bunch of stuff that looks useless, and we all generally pick the same things b/c they're the only viable options for our class. We may pick minor variations, but we don't have the opportunity to choose significantly different setups that will allow us to customize our characters in any meaningful way.<hr></blockquote>This is my point exactly. The KoS AA's at least have two solidly viable options namely AGI/INT or AGI/STR. Since there are unlimited re-specs in beta I've gone down every tree in the new line and tried them out. Poison line is nice though it's going to cost even more to play a ranger now cuz the last one isn't going to up the number of triggers enough to offset the increased proc rate. The rest are... well I can't use the words that best describe them in this forum without the next sentence being blocked out by the mods. Double shot is a joke unless it's been fixed in the last few days because the last I saw of it, it wasn't working at all.I'm trying very very hard to not be over critical since I do think that there are things in the works that even the people on beta haven't seen yet. I want to give SOE the benefit of the doubt and will wait till everything goes live to judge the over all change. However at this point it's getting very difficult to do that.

Jay

11-07-2006, 12:29 AM

<BLOCKQUOTE> <HR> Mronin wrote: I'm trying very very hard to not be over critical since I do think that there are things in the works that even the people on beta haven't seen yet. I want to give SOE the benefit of the doubt and will wait till everything goes live to judge the over all change. However at this point it's getting very difficult to do that. <HR> </BLOCKQUOTE>Yeah, same here. But I don't know if it's comforting to me to know that there may very well be significant changes in the works when we're so close to the release of EoF. This is classic SOE through and through, and you can bet your longbows that these AA abilities will continue to change significantly after EoF comes out. Remember how cool we thought Point Blank Shot was at first?

Mronin

11-07-2006, 01:26 AM

<blockquote><hr>Jay42 wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE><HR>Mronin wrote:I'm trying very very hard to not be over critical since I do think that there are things in the works that even the people on beta haven't seen yet. I want to give SOE the benefit of the doubt and will wait till everything goes live to judge the over all change. However at this point it's getting very difficult to do that.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yeah, same here. But I don't know if it's comforting to me to know that there may very well be significant changes in the works when we're so close to the release of EoF. This is classic SOE through and through, and you can bet your longbows that these AA abilities will continue to change significantly after EoF comes out. Remember how cool we thought Point Blank Shot was at first? <hr></blockquote>You've got a point there. My one source of encouragement comes from the number of devs that appear to be paying at least a little more attention on the beta forums. It tells me that at least a few are attempting to become more responsive to player concerns. LOL, yeah I thought point blank shot was all that at first. It still sees some use in group situations but rarely if ever in raid.

Teksun

11-07-2006, 03:38 AM

The good news is our poison line gives an increase to damage, the assassin poison line goves an increase in chance for poison to proc. I THINK our DPS may edge closer to theirs...<div></div>

Mronin

11-07-2006, 03:45 AM

<blockquote><hr>Teksun wrote:The good news is our poison line gives an increase to damage, the assassin poison line goves an increase in chance for poison to proc. I THINK our DPS may edge closer to theirs...<div></div><hr></blockquote>While I agree that this is a good thing I can't help but see what coin I manage to dig up being drained away at an even faster pace with this new AA line in place. Will I be using it? Without a doubt, in beta this is the first tree that I spent my buffed AA's on. Is it a more or less "solid" AA line? That is very debatable but I think it's as solid as it's gonna get at the moment. I think the upshot is that while this is a decent upgrade it's going to start costing us even more to deal out DPS than it has in the past. Alas that factor alone gives the poison AA line a rather bitter sweet feeling.