Discriminatory Game Mechanics

[glowsintheda]

<p>Flurry and AOE auto attack are both currently descriminatory against rangers as neither of these abilities works with ranged autoattack.  With the increase in the availability of both of these effects in SF Rangers will continue to fall further and further behind the other scout classes in DPS.  Make Ranged Flurry and Ranged AOE auto attack a reality before the ranger class is further harmed.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>What exact distance are you suggesting you can range aoe autoattack?  180 degree conal arc out to max arrow range? </p><p>When I envision the number of mobs possible to be in range of an aoe autoattack, I can't fathom that attack being balanced for rangers if they had it.</p>

[Geothe]

<p>Isee no reason why flurry shouldn't apply to rangers.AE autoattack doesn't quite make sense though honestly.</p>

[glowsintheda]

<p>honestly I would be fine if ranged AE auto was just 5m radius around the mob you currently have targeted, as long as it is something, or failing a true aoe auto attack, maybe a proc that does some decent amount of damage on mobs around your target, could limit number of targets and damage that way, but at least it would be something.  Rangers don't offer anything besided DPS and to with hold these abilities from rangers is detremintal to the class.</p>

[jjlo69]

<p>not only will it put us behind but when rangers in beta pushed the subject we got brushed off as it was a coding issue yet gear has modifiers for this machanic</p><p>UNcle</p>

[Sydares]

<p>With the introduction of AE attack and Flurry on to more and more pieces of gear and buffs in Sentinel's Fate, it's becoming the worst time ever to be a Ranger.</p><p>People, I'm sure, will be tempted to say that we can already do both of these things if we decide to pull out our sword and just get up in the monster's grill - the fact of the matter is, we have to be up in the mob's grill already in order to use all of our melee CAs or our parses fall to the utterly abysmal due to the high recast timers on our ranged combat arts. In addition, when using swords, two of our major damage contributors (Makeshift Arrows and our offensive stance buff) do not function. Using melee is out of the question.</p><p>So, that boils down to the fact that using it on our swords is out of the question, so let's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">move past that argument before it starts.</span></p>

[Sydares]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What exact distance are you suggesting you can range aoe autoattack?  180 degree conal arc out to max arrow range? </p><p>When I envision the number of mobs possible to be in range of an aoe autoattack, I can't fathom that attack being balanced for rangers if they had it.</p></blockquote><p>In order to prevent rangers from pulling the entire room with every auto-attack, it would be fine to just limit us to the same distance that your average scout can attain.</p><p>As for Flurry, there's literally no reason why it can't function for ranged attacks. The mere fact that double-attack and procs all function correctly from ranged means that Flurry can be toggled on for Ranged attacks... they're just choosing <em>not to.</em> What ends up happening because of this is that:</p><ul><li>We lose out on Battlecry and other buffs because we can't use certain components of it, </li></ul><ul><li>We lose all chances at gear with it as an effect lest we be seen as loot [Removed for Content] for wanting an item with an effect we can't use</li></ul><ul><li>We can't benefit from any of the new adornments with the ability, and we can't benefit from any of the items with the ability innately attached.</li></ul><p>This is every bit as true for Ranged AE Attack, and with rangers already historically undesired in raids due to their complete and utter lack of utility, this really feels like being kicked while you're already down.</p>

[Azrael_888]

<p><cite>Sydares wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>With the introduction of AE attack and Flurry on to more and more pieces of gear and buffs in Sentinel's Fate, it's becoming the worst time ever to be a Ranger.</p><p>People, I'm sure, will be tempted to say that we can already do both of these things if we decide to pull out our sword and just get up in the monster's grill - the fact of the matter is, we have to be up in the mob's grill already in order to use all of our melee CAs or our parses fall to the utterly abysmal due to the high recast timers on our ranged combat arts. In addition, when using swords, two of our major damage contributors (Makeshift Arrows and our offensive stance buff) do not function. Using melee is out of the question.</p><p>So, that boils down to the fact that using it on our swords is out of the question, so let's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">move past that argument before it starts.</span></p></blockquote><p>^^^This</p><p>If I wanted to bust out a sword and get all melee on a mob they already have a class for that ..o wait in fact they already have 3 classes for that...Assasin, Brigand, Swashbuckler...</p><p>hell are dirges/troubs gonna be getting flurry too?  I swear to god if I get outparsed by a dirge I am done.</p>

[jjlo69]

<p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Sydares wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>With the introduction of AE attack and Flurry on to more and more pieces of gear and buffs in Sentinel's Fate, it's becoming the worst time ever to be a Ranger.</p><p>People, I'm sure, will be tempted to say that we can already do both of these things if we decide to pull out our sword and just get up in the monster's grill - the fact of the matter is, we have to be up in the mob's grill already in order to use all of our melee CAs or our parses fall to the utterly abysmal due to the high recast timers on our ranged combat arts. In addition, when using swords, two of our major damage contributors (Makeshift Arrows and our offensive stance buff) do not function. Using melee is out of the question.</p><p>So, that boils down to the fact that using it on our swords is out of the question, so let's <span style="text-decoration: underline;">move past that argument before it starts.</span></p></blockquote><p>^^^This</p><p>If I wanted to bust out a sword and get all melee on a mob they already have a class for that ..o wait in fact they already have 3 classes for that...Assasin, Brigand, Swashbuckler...</p><p>hell are dirges/troubs gonna be getting flurry too?  I swear to god if I get outparsed by a dirge I am done.</p></blockquote><p>dirges will be able to battle cry  themselves next exp thus they can flurry now as well</p><p>Uncle </p>

[Sydares]

<p>Any class that uses melee autoattack (instead of ranged autoattack) is capable of flurrying.</p>

[kartikeya]

<p>I've been pretty noisy on the beta boards, but I'll repeat myself in short here:</p><p>It is desperately important, essential in fact, that these issues are looked at and addressed ASAP. If this goes live as it is currently, rangers will not even have a pity slot in raids. They won't be second choice, they will simply not be a choice at all. <strong>Any other class whatsoever</strong> will be able to fill that slot with more benefit toward the raid if rangers fall as far as they seem to have in the DPS ranks on beta, and that was before all this itemization stuff started being pushed to the servers. Please, please, please take a look at this.</p>

[Azrael_888]

<p>YAY moved to ranger forum...now the dev's will be all over this as they ALWAYS COME HERE to post replies on what we think about our class!</p><p>THANKS KIARA!</p><p>/sarcasm off</p><p>edited so that enlish language readers can understand it better.</p>

[glowsintheda]

<p>This either needs to be fixed to work for rangers or all of the aoe aa and flurry effects on items and spells need to be removed (those few that are already in the game can be grandfathered in I guess) </p>

[FearDiadh]

<p>I didn't participate in beta but checked the changes out on test yesterday. For me, ranged auto attack was considerably lower than melee auto attack.  As a ranger my melee auto did about 35% more damage than my bow. That was a mythical vs two lower end t8 fabled weapons.  I posted it elsewhere but it has thus far been ignored.  So, it appears to me that our ranged auto attack will do 30-50% less than melee auto attacks, our combat arts do considerably less than assassins, and we will lack flurries and aoe attacks that other scouts get.  Even if we quit using ranged and begin using melee weapons, out offensive procs won't trigger on melee like those other classes.</p><p>I've been playing since launch and I think I have a fairly solid idea of the class.  To me, it looks like we will be a total joke at 90. </p>

[Striikor]

<p>Wait till you see the proc gear that does us no good!</p>

[kcirrot]

<p>Discriminatory not Desciminatory</p><p>Sorry to be a spelling fascist, but it was bothering me.</p>

[glowsintheda]

<p>didn't think it looked right</p>

[kartikeya]

<p><cite>Jack@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I didn't participate in beta but checked the changes out on test yesterday. For me, ranged auto attack was considerably lower than melee auto attack.  As a ranger my melee auto did about 35% more damage than my bow. That was a mythical vs two lower end t8 fabled weapons.  I posted it elsewhere but it has thus far been ignored.  So, it appears to me that our ranged auto attack will do 30-50% less than melee auto attacks, our combat arts do considerably less than assassins, and we will lack flurries and aoe attacks that other scouts get.  Even if we quit using ranged and begin using melee weapons, out offensive procs won't trigger on melee like those other classes.</p><p>I've been playing since launch and I think I have a fairly solid idea of the class.  To me, it looks like we will be a total joke at 90. </p></blockquote><p>Many, many, many posts referencing and proving that ranged auto attack with our mythical now does equal or less DPS than melee auto attack with perfectly ordinary fabled/legendy weapons were done on beta. This was never addressed. <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[FearDiadh]

<p><cite>kartikeya wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jack@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I didn't participate in beta but checked the changes out on test yesterday. For me, ranged auto attack was considerably lower than melee auto attack.  As a ranger my melee auto did about 35% more damage than my bow. That was a mythical vs two lower end t8 fabled weapons.  I posted it elsewhere but it has thus far been ignored.  So, it appears to me that our ranged auto attack will do 30-50% less than melee auto attacks, our combat arts do considerably less than assassins, and we will lack flurries and aoe attacks that other scouts get.  Even if we quit using ranged and begin using melee weapons, out offensive procs won't trigger on melee like those other classes.</p><p>I've been playing since launch and I think I have a fairly solid idea of the class.  To me, it looks like we will be a total joke at 90. </p></blockquote><p>Many, many, many posts referencing and proving that ranged auto attack with our mythical now does equal or less DPS than melee auto attack with perfectly ordinary fabled/legendy weapons were done on beta. This was never addressed. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>That is messed up.</p>

[Sydares]

<p><cite>Jack@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>That is messed up.</p></blockquote><p>Yes. Yes, it is. We racked up more than 4 times as many posts than any other scout, and nearly 9 times as many as assassins, and really all we got out of it was a change to makeshift arrows. Certainly an appreciated one, but nowhere near the overhaul we were hoping for.</p>

[Toughone]

<p>Yah if things dont get fixed im probably gonna quit the game too, sick of nothing being done to fix us.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p>The problem is right now, we dont know how many have these foci and how much % AA EE and flurry rogues and assasins getting which means sometime in the middle of teh expansion those classes getting 20,30,40% and than parses start to look different than now.</p><p>I cant see devs adjust that, look like a completetly broken expansion for rangers thanks to xelgad, timetraveller (items) and co.</p>

[kartikeya]

<p><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem is right now, we dont know how many have these foci and how much % AA EE and flurry rogues and assasins getting which means sometime in the middle of teh expansion those classes getting 20,30,40% and than parses start to look different than now.</p><p>I cant see devs adjust that, look like a completetly broken expansion for rangers thanks to xelgad, timetraveller (items) and co.</p></blockquote><p>In Xelgad's defense, he really has been working the best he can, given he just had an extremely behind schedule expansion dropped into his lap during the ninth inning. I don't blame Xelgad for the current state of rangers on beta, I blame a certain departed predecessor of his, coupled with a general team-wide lack of understanding of the ranger class and current state. The groundwork for ranger issues on beta was laid quite some time ago, in some instances <em>years </em>back. Remember, we were due for an overhaul back during RoK, and instead we got the 'fix' that fixed mechanics and then nerfed us so that we couldn't benefit from the change. And Xelgad hasn't been in his current position long enough to have truly influenced the design of T9 class content.</p><p>The itemization really pisses me off, of course. But again, surrounding attacks has never worked for rangers, and that's from KoS, and flurry not working for rangers is over a year old. It's just now the development team has decided to slap flurry and AE auto attack on a considerable number of items.</p><p>Rangers need an overhaul along the lines that were given to coercers and SKs. Sadly, a complete class overhaul is somewhat out of the question when you're also trying to push out an expansion that is considerably behind schedule. And unfortunately that means T9 is looking to be extremely frustrating and painful for us.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p><cite>kartikeya wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The problem is right now, we dont know how many have these foci and how much % AA EE and flurry rogues and assasins getting which means sometime in the middle of teh expansion those classes getting 20,30,40% and than parses start to look different than now.</p><p>I cant see devs adjust that, look like a completetly broken expansion for rangers thanks to xelgad, timetraveller (items) and co.</p></blockquote><p>In Xelgad's defense, he really has been working the best he can, given he just had an extremely behind schedule expansion dropped into his lap during the ninth inning. I don't blame Xelgad for the current state of rangers on beta, I blame a certain departed predecessor of his, coupled with a general team-wide lack of understanding of the ranger class and current state. The groundwork for ranger issues on beta was laid quite some time ago, in some instances <em>years </em>back. Remember, we were due for an overhaul back during RoK, and instead we got the 'fix' that fixed mechanics and then nerfed us so that we couldn't benefit from the change. And Xelgad hasn't been in his current position long enough to have truly influenced the design of T9 class content.</p><p>The itemization really pisses me off, of course. But again, surrounding attacks has never worked for rangers, and that's from KoS, and flurry not working for rangers is over a year old. It's just now the development team has decided to slap flurry and AE auto attack on a considerable number of items.</p><p>Rangers need an overhaul along the lines that were given to coercers and SKs. Sadly, a complete class overhaul is somewhat out of the question when you're also trying to push out an expansion that is considerably behind schedule. And unfortunately that means T9 is looking to be extremely frustrating and painful for us.</p></blockquote><p>         Thats whyi advocate, knowing its not the best option marketing wise, take off such items and adorments untill they come up with something for ranger .</p>

[Striikor]

<p><cite>kartikeya wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In Xelgad's defense, he really has been working the best he can, given he just had an extremely behind schedule expansion dropped into his lap during the ninth inning. I don't blame Xelgad for the current state of rangers on beta, I blame a certain departed predecessor of his, coupled with a general team-wide lack of understanding of the ranger class and current state. The groundwork for ranger issues on beta was laid quite some time ago, in some instances <em>years </em>back. Remember, we were due for an overhaul back during RoK, and instead we got the 'fix' that fixed mechanics and then nerfed us so that we couldn't benefit from the change. And Xelgad hasn't been in his current position long enough to have truly influenced the design of T9 class content.</p></blockquote><p>Sorry I don't buy this. First some of the corrections are easy. Second we have been complaining for 2 years .... more. Alll this was pointed out. As soon as I saw the predator tree I knew that all that effort fell on deaf ears. And opening volley? Holy crap. They rarely listen and when they do they fail to understand. Take our wonderful Makeshift Arrows, quickly done and totally ignored our input. Or look at the fix for attack hawk, take our lame group buff and change it to a positional drop for us! That will get us into groups! Gave workable AoE's they turned around and gave it to every other melee through itemization.</p><p>Fail</p>

[Rothgar]

<p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>          Rothgar with all the respect...... as much as im happy about this statement im concerned.... main reason is you asking us for time ,meaning buying and xpansion and monthly subs in hope something will be done.</p><p>Let me make something clear we had to wait between T7 to T8 5months into expansion till the " arrow" issue was fixed.</p><p>Now you come again ask for time ? How often do we as a ranger community have to wait till things are being done on time time.?</p><p>For me this is not acceptable......</p>

[Rothgar]

<p><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>          Rothgar with all the respect...... as much as im happy about this statement im concerned.... main reason is you asking us for time ,meaning buying and xpansion and monthly subs in hope something will be done.</p><p>Let me make something clear we had to wait between T7 to T8 5months into expansion till the " arrow" issue was fixed.</p><p>Now you come again ask for time ? How often do we as a ranger community have to wait till things are being done on time time.?</p><p>For me this is not acceptable......</p></blockquote><p>I'm not asking you for anything.  Xelgad and I discussed this today so I'm merely trying to communicate with you guys about it.  Take it for what it's worth and in the end you decide where you want to put your dollars.</p>

[Striikor]

<p>Thank you, sincerely it is so good to hear a direct statement from you.</p><p>But that just keeps us from falling further behind.</p><p>It does not fix grouping logic or put us back in the T1 bracket. We have held on by our fingernails for a long time now. There is a better class for everything we can provide in group or raid. We have lost our role and function with what little utility we did have given better elswhere and what DPS we brought overshadowed. Likely the gap is to large to bridge and the perfect opportunity lost.  </p><p>If you put a group together to take on a tough mob at range you take a mage for DPS. If it is melee you take an assasin or a Swashy or even a tank. You don't take a Ranger. DPS was already a problem and inspite of the complaints the gap was made even wider. Find a single post in beta where a group was looking for a ranger. Find one guild looking for a Ranger. Accuracy is is going to help classes we already fall behind on and many times redundant in the groups we will get. We need too much (re;buff [Removed for Content]) to justify our inclusion for DPS anymore, and even then we will not be the top parsers.</p><p>Ranger is a fail class.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>          Rothgar with all the respect...... as much as im happy about this statement im concerned.... main reason is you asking us for time ,meaning buying and xpansion and monthly subs in hope something will be done.</p><p>Let me make something clear we had to wait between T7 to T8 5months into expansion till the " arrow" issue was fixed.</p><p>Now you come again ask for time ? How often do we as a ranger community have to wait till things are being done on time time.?</p><p>For me this is not acceptable......</p></blockquote><p>I'm not asking you for anything.  Xelgad and I discussed this today so I'm merely trying to communicate with you guys about it.  Take it for what it's worth and in the end you decide where you want to put your dollars.</p></blockquote><p>         It may sounds strange to you but your response to my response showed that there maybe some hope at the horizon and you try your best.</p><p>The only thing i want to do you have  is sort of schedule that you guys have in mind, not to pressurize you.</p><p>But some ranger are looking for raidforces and it would be good to know for them.</p>

[Carpediem]

I understand that coding takes time but there are a few changes that could happen before launch and wouldn't be hard to do such as: Fixing our cast times and reuse on some of the slower casting spells. There is no reason spells like Miracle Shot should have such a slow cast speed with really low damage, especially since the utility portion of it is pretty much gone now. Casting spells like these are less dps than just skipping them all together and using the faster melee spells. It would be a really nice bump in dps to just look at these two things to get us by for the time being, until the coding can get fixed.

[Striikor]

<p>A quicker improvement would be adding improved casting and recast to Hunter's Instinct as proposed in beta, changing opening volley to something that works, have hawk raise the fighters 3 positions instead of lowering the ranger three positions and make makeshift arrows work along Gungos idea.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p>cchap, nevao and Neiloch alrerady made suggestions stuff that can be implementted faster.</p><p>Arrow Barrage 1min ruese timer, Natrual Selection 10-15 secs reuse timer and stealth requirements taken away.</p><p>SF Archers fury endline ability dmg increase by 50%,  makeshift arrow reuse timer to 3 minutes .</p><p>I think if you could look into this things before expansion launch that would be great.</p>

[Striikor]

<p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>Though all good suggestions, none of that addresses current inequity, nor the equipment differential on the way to 90 and 250AA. Adding cast and recast improvement to Hunter's Instinct does and the mechanics are already in place. Tough to imagine not being able to get it in place by release.</strong></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>Not sure what the optimum improvement would be. Start at like 5% to 20% improved cast and recast in an apprentice to master spread</strong></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>As an added benefit it would be easily adjustable if it were overpowered or under powered and could easily put us back on level with the other DPS if our Autoattack were also the best again.</strong></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>The small difference in our melee vs ranged damage is something else that needs corrected asap.</strong></span></p><p><strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">But then again I am probably much too excited by Rothgar's direct communication with us.</span></strong></p>

[Neiloch]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>As a long time ranger I would like this to be top priority. Flurry and Ae Auto are the last stats in alienating rangers in terms of itemization and balance. Even making 'ranged flurry' and 'ranged AE Autoattack chance' would be a step in the right direction but ideally I would like it to be 'consolidated' just like every stat so we can finally move on. Its a serious sticking point when it comes to balance, in the ranger communities view.</p><p>I can understand why they would want to wait for these changes to go in before they start overhauling other things like AE's and cast times. Changing recast, and casting times now to have us 'caught up' would mean these same things would have to be nerfed when Ae Auto and flurry are finally coded to work with ranged weapons.</p><p>I never understood the 'cautious' nature of upping ranger DPS. We are supposed to be top DPS. Worst case scenario you up it too much and we become one of the best if not THE best DPS. So? Not like we also have a bunch of utility and would thus make it so people want 4-6 rangers on every raid. And it wouldn't be nearly as OP'd as a rogue, summoner, or enchanter topping the parse regularly since they do have significantly more utility (in SF). Sorcerers AND Assassins have more utility than us (not as much as the previously mentioned classes) and they can easily match/beat our DPS.</p><p><strong>So in a nutshell</strong>, if you could fast track giving rangers flurry and auto AE, that would be great.</p>

[Noob1974]

<p>Not sure if its abug but Potency and ability modifier does not affect our offstance... Another Nerf inc ?</p><p>It gets frustrating now.......................</p>

[Cchap]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>This is great news!!!  Come guys, I share your frustration, but give Xelgad and team a break.  What I see are 24 classes that all need some degree of tweeking (before xpac) and that is prolly just the tip of the iceberg of their workload.  Interim "fixes" like shorting Natural selection (w/o stealth requirement) reuse timer would be nice, but we've waited this long... what's another month or two (I hope) gonna hurt.  At least we didn't get a categorical NO to AE and flurry. </p><p>I look forward to the permanent changes in the near future and thanks for the communication.</p>

[Azrael_888]

<p>Gaige said it best on flames in response to this:</p><div><div><span style="color: #ffffff;">Quote:</span></div> <table cellspacing="0" cellpadding="6" width="100%"><tbody><tr><td><div><span style="color: #ffffff;">Originally Posted by <strong>feldon30</strong> <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.eq2flames.com/general-gameplay/58426-eq2-no-more-free-content-2.html#post1228264"><img title="View Post" src="http://www.eq2flames.com/images/styles/eq2/buttons/viewpost.gif" border="0" /></a></span></div> <div><span style="color: #ffffff;">From the web event on UStream (What a cluster for the first hour) Brenlo said that more x2 and x4 raids are coming this year as content updates.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>Brenlo also said Shader 3.0 would go live in 09, he also said GUs would be on time, he also said the team would communicate more, he also said the expansion being delayed 3 months would mean a bigger, more polished experience, he also said 3 month GUs would be bigger and more polished, he also said Halas would go live with GU55... Need I go on about the promises he can't keep?</p>

[Striikor]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I can understand why they would want to wait for these changes to go in before they start overhauling other things like AE's and cast times. <strong>Changing recast, and casting times now to have us 'caught up' would mean these same things would have to be nerfed</strong> when Ae Auto and flurry are finally coded to work with ranged weapons.</p></blockquote><p>My point was that if this were the case it would be a quick, easy and needed adjustment AND easily adjustable IF it were overpowered. The effects could be easily measured and would be across the board on CA's which while not the only thing, are a large portion of our problems.</p><p>Many including yourself have stated that itemization equality on AoE/Flurry should be close to equal. Now you think it will cause us to be overpowered or that it will give us an advantage over other melee? I thought we all agreed we needed it just to stay abreast.</p>

[Sydares]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>Rothgar - Thank you, thank you, thank you, THANK YOU.</p>

[Calthine]

<p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Brenlo also said Shader 3.0 would go live in 09, he also said GUs would be on time, he also said the team would communicate more, he also said the expansion being delayed 3 months would mean a bigger, more polished experience, he also said 3 month GUs would be bigger and more polished, he also said Halas would go live with GU55...<p> Need I go on about the promises he can't keep?</p></blockquote><p>Devs giving us their current timeline is not a "promise".  It's communication.  Stuff happens, things change, schedules have to be adjusted.  And they've been communicating that too.</p><p>And IMO Sentinel's Fate is bigger and more polished.  10 days to go!</p>

[jjlo69]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>i thank you for your swift replay and hope this can be something that gets fixed early in to the next exp to say the least</p><p>Uncle</p>

[glowsintheda]

<p>When this post got moved to the ranger forums I despaired of it ever being read or addressed.  The very fact that it got a dev response at all makes my day, and the fact that its a "we're working on it" is just icing on the cake, hopefully it will be sooner rather then later.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p><cite>Striikor@Nektulos wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I can understand why they would want to wait for these changes to go in before they start overhauling other things like AE's and cast times. <strong>Changing recast, and casting times now to have us 'caught up' would mean these same things would have to be nerfed</strong> when Ae Auto and flurry are finally coded to work with ranged weapons.</p></blockquote><p>My point was that if this were the case it would be a quick, easy and needed adjustment AND easily adjustable IF it were overpowered. The effects could be easily measured and would be across the board on CA's which while not the only thing, are a large portion of our problems.</p><p>Many including yourself have stated that itemization equality on AoE/Flurry should be close to equal. Now you think it will cause us to be overpowered or that it will give us an advantage over other melee? I thought we all agreed we needed it just to stay abreast.</p></blockquote><p>Still not hot on advocating something that would almost certainly be nerfed later. They could put something in small enough where it wouldn't get nerfed but it would be more or less ineffectual if our DPS problems are so dire. Although if they put in aoe auto/flurry in the same day they nerf casting and recast on 'Hunter's Instinct' I imagine many rangers wouldn't care heh.</p><p>As for Azraels reply, unless the devs say 'I promise', its not a promise.</p>

[Andu]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not asking you for anything.  Xelgad and I discussed this today so I'm merely trying to communicate with you guys about it.  Take it for what it's worth and in the end you decide where you want to put your dollars.</p></blockquote><p>Good answer. Finally a Dev that not only communicates but does it honestly and makes sense.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Thank you both Rothgar and Xelgad.</span></p>

[Rixan]

<p><cite>Calthine wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Brenlo also said Shader 3.0 would go live in 09, he also said GUs would be on time, he also said the team would communicate more, he also said the expansion being delayed 3 months would mean a bigger, more polished experience, he also said 3 month GUs would be bigger and more polished, he also said Halas would go live with GU55...<p> Need I go on about the promises he can't keep?</p></blockquote><p>Devs giving us their current timeline is not a "promise".  It's communication.  Stuff happens, things change, schedules have to be adjusted.  And they've been communicating that too.</p><p>And IMO Sentinel's Fate is bigger and more polished.  10 days to go!</p></blockquote><p>That is your "casual" mentality. In my "hardcore" mentality, Sentinel's Fate is currently bugged and is in unfinished state. There are a lot of things that needs to be done in 10 days that the developers have had so many <strong>months</strong> to do so. I'm sorry to break your hope but it is certainly not polished as well.</p>

[Gaige]

<p><cite>Calthine wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Devs giving us their current timeline is not a "promise".  It's communication.  Stuff happens, things change, schedules have to be adjusted.  And they've been communicating that too.</p><p>And IMO Sentinel's Fate is bigger and more polished.  10 days to go!</p></blockquote><p>I wish you weren't paid to say that, because I'd like to believe it.</p><p>However I look at the state of the game under Gallenite and now, and its not even comparable.  Gallenite was able to do an expansion every six months and still get GUs out on time, and then when they moved expansions to a year , he was able to do them on time and get out 10 or 11 GUs as well.</p><p>Sure the game had issues back then, and so did the expansions - but they were doing them on time.  All the preamble around these huge delays in 09 (almost everything that went live in 09 was delayed) and with SF were supposedly to guarantee polish and more content, neither of which have been delivered.</p><p>Also, saying SF is bigger and more polished isn't very honest Calthine, at least imo.  However I guess we play for different things and maybe Domino's part of the expansion is done, and that is what you're commenting on since its your main concern?</p><p>I'm sure this post violates one of Kiara's many rules and I'm sure I'll get suspended from these forums <em>again</em> if not worse but someone chose to bring my words here and you chose to comment on them and as such I feel the need to defend myself as non-confrontational as I can.</p><p>Comparing 09 to now to the game under Gallenite isn't even possible.  The only players I see staunchly defending this current team and this current state of the game either have extremely casual attitudes or whose livings are padded by reporting on SOE in some way.</p>

[kartikeya]

<p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I talked with Xelgad about these mechanics for Rangers and he agreed that something would need to be done.  He already had some ideas for them as well.  The biggest challenge we're facing is not enough time to do everything we'd like to do before the expansion.  For changes such as these, to allow flurry and/or ae auto-attack to work with ranged attacks, it's going to require some code changes and testing.  So we won't be able to make it before the expansion, but its definitely something we want to do.</p></blockquote><p>I cannot express my gratitude for this reply. <em>Thank </em>you. Please let it be as soon as possible, because as soon as SF releases, rangers are going to be in a terrible way. They really and truly need a serious overhaul.</p>

[FearDiadh]

<p>I appreciate the reply, and understand the trouble with the mechanics of aoe and flurry.  However, the extremely low ranged dps compared to melee dps is not a new mechanic that has to be fixed.  It should be a simple matter of adjusting ranged damage components.  At the bare minimum, you could boost the mythical damage rating.  It is rediculous that 2 low end melee weapons can out dps the auto of the mythical in the hand of a ranger.  And by a large percentage.</p>

[sandwarrior]

<p><cite>Calthine wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Brenlo also said Shader 3.0 would go live in 09, he also said GUs would be on time, he also said the team would communicate more, he also said the expansion being delayed 3 months would mean a bigger, more polished experience, he also said 3 month GUs would be bigger and more polished, he also said Halas would go live with GU55...<p> Need I go on about the promises he can't keep?</p></blockquote><p>Devs giving us their current timeline is not a "promise".  It's communication.  Stuff happens, things change, schedules have to be adjusted.  And they've been communicating that too.</p><p>And IMO Sentinel's Fate is bigger and more polished.  10 days to go!</p></blockquote><p>Ok. So devs giving us a timeline isn't a promise, but when they do it over and over, at what point do you realise what's happening around you instead of just nodding your head and going with it? Yes, stuff happens and things change, but that's no excuse for things to be pushed back longer and longer.</p><p>To hear a dev say that they do not have enough time is what I find to be the most interesting. Not only did they have a whole 15 months to work on this, but they pretty much should have been working on this and only this, since the last GU pretty much had no content and Halas is being pushed back. BG's are not even on beta yet, and they have been one of SOE's biggest marketing points to the xpac/GU.</p><p>And to say that SF is bigger and more polished is funny as well. Things are still buggy and not tweaked, content still hasn't been implemented, and here we are 10 days from the pre-order launch! I have a feeling that week will be pre-order beta testing and then the first 3 or 4 months of the xpac is going to be "live testing"</p><p>Again, I'm not trying to offend anyone or put anyone down, but when I see people saying things like this, I have to wonder if they even log into the game.</p>

[Venez]

<p>AE ranged auto attack and Flurry or Flurry type effects will NOT fix rangers, nor will they bring a ranger inline to a equally geared/mastered Assassin,Swash.Brigands are equal to Rangers in some cases, and this is just the melee end.</p><p>Ranged auto attack is currently lower than melee auto attack.</p><p>Our CAs ext dps compared to a swashbuckler or assassin are much lower. Why ? Because the have iniate higher base damage / lower reuse / lower casting speeds than rangers.</p><p>Before Aeralik took over we were balanced for high auto attack damage, and high proc rates. Its part of why we had lower damage / higher reuse / higher casting speeds CAs. He changed the melee auto attack mechanic in the last LU of EoF (bards rejoyiced), our assassin took over the parse the day of that LU. Before that we were always battleing it out, after - he won unless he died. RoK it got worse due to the arrow fix, and melee getting better weapons.</p><p>We got the arrow "fix" which was nothing more than him lowering the damage modifier on bows to match the arrow damage. For those that were not here: When you took off your quiver your bow would display for example 1000-4000, you would put a current tier arrow in  your quiver and your bow would display (example) 700-3000. So you lost damage by equipping your arrows. When Aeralik "fixed" the arrows, after the LU your bow displayed the 700-3000 instead of the 1000-4000 that should have happened. So he nerfed the bow modifier to match the arrow damage, and its been that way ever since.</p><p>After the melee auto attack buff, cant proc off melee weapons and we got the normalized proc rate fix, and then the cant be modified proc fix. So we no longer proced at higher % due to haveing a bow or off melee weapons.</p><p>So you see, flurry and ae ranged auto will NOT fix this class. The modifier on the bow has to be upped or the bows have to have much higher DR than melee weapons. Our CAs MUST be tweaked to be inline with assassins / swashys since they are out of date due to the mechanic changes listed above.</p><p>Basically we have to be rebalanced due to the reasons above, we dont need more CAs, or special items. The devs fixed DA, Crit,Crit bonus to all be the same so thats a good start, dont mess it up by adding "special" things/items that are going to get replaced, just rebalance the CAs we already have and fix the bow modifier (or arrow modifier) to where it was before Aeralik nerfed it.</p>

[Venez]

<p><cite>Wuladien@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Calthine wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Brenlo also said Shader 3.0 would go live in 09, he also said GUs would be on time, he also said the team would communicate more, he also said the expansion being delayed 3 months would mean a bigger, more polished experience, he also said 3 month GUs would be bigger and more polished, he also said Halas would go live with GU55...<p>Need I go on about the promises he can't keep?</p></blockquote><p>Devs giving us their current timeline is not a "promise".  It's communication.  Stuff happens, things change, schedules have to be adjusted.  And they've been communicating that too.</p><p>And IMO Sentinel's Fate is bigger and more polished.  10 days to go!</p></blockquote><p>Ok. So devs giving us a timeline isn't a promise, but when they do it over and over, at what point do you realise what's happening around you instead of just nodding your head and going with it? Yes, stuff happens and things change, but that's no excuse for things to be pushed back longer and longer. <span style="color: #ff0000;">Better than the answer Aeralik gave us.</span></p><p>To hear a dev say that they do not have enough time is what I find to be the most interesting. Not only did they have a whole 15 months to work on this, but they pretty much should have been working on this and only this, since the last GU pretty much had no content and Halas is being pushed back. BG's are not even on beta yet, and they have been one of SOE's biggest marketing points to the xpac/GU. <span style="color: #ff0000;">Its what happens when you fire old devs and bring in brand new devs in the middle of xpac, trying to get them up to speed /chuckle.</span></p><p>And to say that SF is bigger and more polished is funny as well. Things are still buggy and not tweaked, content still hasn't been implemented, and here we are 10 days from the pre-order launch! I have a feeling that week will be pre-order beta testing and then the first 3 or 4 months of the xpac is going to be "live testing" <span style="color: #ff0000;">EVERY xpac eq2 has had has been live testing the first 3-4 months after release, EVERY xpac they have released has never been finished and has always had things added afterwards that were supposed to be in from the start.</span></p><p>Again, I'm not trying to offend anyone or put anyone down, but when I see people saying things like this, I have to wonder if they even log into the game.</p></blockquote>

[Upir]

<p>Getting responses from Rothgar is nice, but like people have pointed out already, unless you hear "I promise", there's no promises.  Sometimes, when you hear "I promise", it doesn't turn out to be the case, anyway. I get that the devs have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in so what the rangers want done doesn't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things...</p><p>You know, it's interesting if you take a stroll around the class boards what you find.  I checked all the other classes to see just who else was making noise like the rangers about issues with their respective classes and I was surprised.  Everybody knows the stereotypes, those things that there's always exceptions to, but it's widely regarded to be fact... summoners suck, brawlers are wanted on a raid for their buffs, but no one wants them in their group, no one ever wants a fury for anything... rangers.  The funny thing is, (and Rothgar or whatever other devs who may read this, go see for yourself, don't take my word for it) it's not there like I expected it to be.  None of the other classes seem nearly as concerned with the state of their class going into this expansion as the rangers are...  What does that say?  Where does that land us on the priority list?  Where should it? </p><p>It's a bad state of affairs when top-end raid guilds are either asking, telling, of having their rangers (the few there are left) decide on their own to betray or reroll.  When you can sit and spam 70-79, "80 ranger lfg for pof/outer SH, pst" and unless people know who you are, you won't get picked up.  People have no problems taking a ranger to DF because the zones a farm run and a well trained monkey could pull it off on any class, but try to get a pickup spot for a zone that isn't a total pushover, and see how long you're left sitting there waiting.</p><p>Why is it there's more complaining going on here than any of the other class forums?  Maybe there's not enough of some of those other classes left out there to even bother to have a voice.  Maybe they're genuinely getting their problems addressed and there's no need for them to complain.  Maybe people who play rangers as their mains are predisposed to complain a lot in general.  Maybe it really is that there's just that much stuff that's jacked up with our class.  I haven't traditionally complained about the class (as much) as a lot of people have because despite all the stuff in the past that's been less than ideal, I've usually managed to personally do rather well, all things considered.  But after taking a look around at a bit more of the big picture, things really do look pretty bad for the class going into this expansion. </p><p>So to wrap this up, Rothgar, Xelgad, whoever pulls the trigger on the changes...  If you're saying it's going to get addressed, but time's not going to allow it to be before the expansion lands, ok.  Fine.  Given what I've seen and heard on beta, I believe it when you guys say there's bigger fish to fry in the next couple of weeks.  That being said, after all those things settle down and you stop to take the time to say "what's next?", and you have to prioritize whether the ranger class changes and respective potential changes to some of the relevant buffs/stats are gonna come in a month or two, or more like four or five months...  Remember that as things stand right now, as far as your player feedback is concerned people are complaining a lot more about the ranger class than any other.  In the beta forums, as well as the public.  That may change, maybe something big will blow up and need addressed that no one could foresee at this point, but just remember how things are shaping up at this point in time before were 6 months down the road...</p><p><cite>Rothgar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Take it for what it's worth and in the end you decide where you want to put your dollars.</p></blockquote>

[Noob1974]

<p>@ Upirus  Exactly !!!</p><p>After thinking over it. It is good to hear that you want to look into it. But my concern is WHEN !!!! Many of us,  including me, hoping of a timely manner from you guys within 2,3,4 weeks after expansion.</p><p>But for all we know the "Arrow fixes" in ROK took 5 months into expansion, so how long will it be a couple of weeks, 3months,6 months,9 months just before next expansion beta ?</p><p>Atm Devs disadvantage  the ranger class as a raiding class by not  having not really important things changed.</p><p>I was thinking about what neiloch said not giving us something now that would neeed to be removed in a revamp.</p><p>How about some meaningful utility giving us now ? I know most ranger want dps but thats not an option right now.</p><p>Why not giving ranger a temp debuff, like noxious enfeeblement (duration and reuse timer wise), that dispelled damage shields of raid mobs ?</p>

[Striikor]

<p>For godsakes fix the title! Here is some help:</p><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span ><span style="font-size: 8.5pt;"><strong><span style="color: #ff9900; font-size: large;">Discriminatory</span></strong></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"></span></p>

[Venez]

<p><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>@ Upirus  Exactly !!!</p><p>After thinking over it. It is good to hear that you want to look into it. But my concern is WHEN !!!! Many of us,  including me, hoping of a timely manner from you guys within 2,3,4 weeks after expansion. <span style="color: #ff0000;">They will look into it - AFTER they get done fixing the bugs in SF after its release, after Halas, after the first LU to put in Halas,class raid gear and a few other things that dont make it in at release. While we are waiting the complaining will stop or slow down due to haveing to level your Ranger or new main and it will be 4-6 months imo.</span></p><p>But for all we know the "Arrow fixes" in ROK took 5 months into expansion, so how long will it be a couple of weeks, 3months,6 months,9 months just before next expansion beta ? <span style="color: #ff0000;">Arrow fix? Lets just start calling it what it really was - a bow nerf.</span></p><p>Atm Devs disadvantage  the ranger class as a raiding class by not  having not really important things changed. <span style="color: #ff0000;">Which I didnt think would happen because they are so far behind on SF and not enuff Devs to keep up with the xpac,LoN,SC. Glad to see that we actually got some of our useless CAs changed to a positive.</span></p><p>I was thinking about what neiloch said not giving us something now that would neeed to be removed in a revamp.</p><p>How about some meaningful utility giving us now ? I know most ranger want dps but thats not an option right now.</p><p>Why not giving ranger a temp debuff, like noxious enfeeblement (duration and reuse timer wise), that dispelled damage shields of raid mobs ? <span style="color: #ff0000;">How about they just fix our current CAs and tweak the bows so they actually hit like they used to ? Why keep asking to add new things, JUST FIX THE CURRENT ONES. If they do that we wouldnt need "extras".</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"> </span></p></blockquote>

[Jemoo]

Thanks for the response to this, I'm glad the devs see there is a problem and are working to fix it. As for the responses... Wow.... Some one actually comes on to the ranger forums and gives us a straight answer and most of you still complain. I haven't played a ranger for long and from my understanding things have been off for a long time, but when someone comes and actually gives you some information all you do is complain? Maybe this is why ranger don't get looked at more often? Maybe past devs haven't spent time on this board because all you do is insult them and tell them the fixes they are doing aren't good enough. These guys have 24 classes to work on plus more duties, give them a break. Some of you act like rangers are the only class that have issues and the devs should only be working on them. Bugs are going to be rampant in the new expac, just like they are in every expac or MMO when launched. The fact that they are going to try to do anything with ranger issues while the entire team will be working to make the game itself work as intended is wonderful news. /rant off Again, thank you so much Rothgar for the information and pass the thank you on to Xelgad as well.

[Azrael_888]

<p><cite>Venez@Permafrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>AE ranged auto attack and Flurry or Flurry type effects will NOT fix rangers, nor will they bring a ranger inline to a equally geared/mastered Assassin,Swash.Brigands are equal to Rangers in some cases, and this is just the melee end.</p><p>Ranged auto attack is currently lower than melee auto attack.</p><p>Our CAs ext dps compared to a swashbuckler or assassin are much lower. Why ? Because the have iniate higher base damage / lower reuse / lower casting speeds than rangers.</p><p>Before Aeralik took over we were balanced for high auto attack damage, and high proc rates. Its part of why we had lower damage / higher reuse / higher casting speeds CAs. He changed the melee auto attack mechanic in the last LU of EoF (bards rejoyiced), our assassin took over the parse the day of that LU. Before that we were always battleing it out, after - he won unless he died. RoK it got worse due to the arrow fix, and melee getting better weapons.</p><p>We got the arrow "fix" which was nothing more than him lowering the damage modifier on bows to match the arrow damage. For those that were not here: When you took off your quiver your bow would display for example 1000-4000, you would put a current tier arrow in  your quiver and your bow would display (example) 700-3000. So you lost damage by equipping your arrows. When Aeralik "fixed" the arrows, after the LU your bow displayed the 700-3000 instead of the 1000-4000 that should have happened. So he nerfed the bow modifier to match the arrow damage, and its been that way ever since.</p><p>After the melee auto attack buff, cant proc off melee weapons and we got the normalized proc rate fix, and then the cant be modified proc fix. So we no longer proced at higher % due to haveing a bow or off melee weapons.</p><p>So you see, flurry and ae ranged auto will NOT fix this class. The modifier on the bow has to be upped or the bows have to have much higher DR than melee weapons. Our CAs MUST be tweaked to be inline with assassins / swashys since they are out of date due to the mechanic changes listed above.</p><p>Basically we have to be rebalanced due to the reasons above, we dont need more CAs, or special items. The devs fixed DA, Crit,Crit bonus to all be the same so thats a good start, dont mess it up by adding "special" things/items that are going to get replaced, just rebalance the CAs we already have and fix the bow modifier (or arrow modifier) to where it was before Aeralik nerfed it.</p></blockquote><p>^^^ This</p><p>Aeralik SCREWED OUR CLASS OVER and we have not seen a proper fix since he took over and has since left/been fired.</p><p>Until these EXTREMELY VALID points that Venez has pointed out have been addressed this class will always be broken. </p><p>I would also throw in some sort of hate transfer as well.  I don't care how you put it.  Hate Transfer > Decrease hate generated ANY DAY!</p>

[Azrael_888]

<p><cite>Pattywak@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Thanks for the response to this, I'm glad the devs see there is a problem and are working to fix it. As for the responses... Wow.... Some one actually comes on to the ranger forums and gives <strong>us a straight answer and most of you still complain</strong>. I haven't played a ranger for long and from my understanding things have been off for a long time, but when someone comes and actually gives you some information all you do is complain? Maybe this is why ranger don't get looked at more often? Maybe past devs haven't spent time on this board because all you do is insult them and tell them the fixes they are doing aren't good enough. These guys have 24 classes to work on plus more duties, give them a break. Some of you act like rangers are the only class that have issues and the devs should only be working on them. Bugs are going to be rampant in the new expac, just like they are in every expac or MMO when launched. The fact that they are going to try to do anything with ranger issues while the entire team will be working to make the game itself work as intended is wonderful news. /rant off Again, thank you so much Rothgar for the information and pass the thank you on to Xelgad as well.</blockquote><p>For <strong>TWO YEARS</strong> we have been shown the door from our "t1" DPS to be shoved off to the table at the restaurant right next to the bathrooms. Everyone and their brother came up with excuses as to why we were over powered. One of the more popular reasons was:</p><p>We don't have to joust cause we are ranged DPS so we can continue to attack when other scout classes can't - BS we have to joust with everyone as if we want to DPS we have to be in close proximity to the mob due to the fact that we have a proc on our myth that allows us more DPS if we are closer. O and don't forget the fact that we have our melee CA's which DO MORE DMG than 80% of our ranged CA's.</p><p>Fact of the matter is we were shafted back I think it was sometime around EoF.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  And since then we have only received an arrow "fix" and that was the end of it.  If you look at gear in this game 95% of scout gear is for melee classes.  How many rings/cloaks/wrist items have +dbl attack and + mellee crit compared to + rngd dbl attack and + rngd crit?  I can almost gurantee you that it's around that number when compared.</p><p>So many people are tired of the "ranger argument" (I'm seriously not surprised that there is no wikipedia article on it yet) that they just completely ignore us.  I mean it's like brawlers.  No one gives a rats behind about brawlers.  In fact if a brawler sends me a tell to join a grp I'm 95% of the time going to ignore it. </p><p>So excuse us for being all mad at the devs when they come on a board and say, "HEY, we're going to take a strong look at it for you guys."  because we know how these devs work.  They come in trying to quiet us down with a few words and then people like you come out of the woodwork stating that, "all you guys are dumb for complaining. give these Devs a break! don't you know they have 23 other classes/expansions/GU's/their lifes to be working on atm?"</p><p>I can gurantee you (scrolls up for the this /random players station name) ...Pattywak@kithicor... that this "fix" won't come earlier than 6 months from now.  They still have WAY bigger problems to fix than rangers atm.  BG's and itemization plus raid zones to name a few.  So calm down with your higher than thou attitude and realize that we've been playing this class a lot longer than you and I guarantee that we care about it a whole lot more than you too.</p>

[Venez]

<p><cite>Pattywak@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Thanks for the response to this, I'm glad the devs see there is a problem and are working to fix it. As for the responses... Wow.... Some one actually comes on to the ranger forums and gives us a straight answer and most of you still complain. I haven't played a ranger for long and from my understanding things have been off for a long time, but when someone comes and actually gives you some information all you do is complain? Maybe this is why ranger don't get looked at more often? Maybe past devs haven't spent time on this board because all you do is insult them and tell them the fixes they are doing aren't good enough. These guys have 24 classes to work on plus more duties, give them a break. Some of you act like rangers are the only class that have issues and the devs should only be working on them. Bugs are going to be rampant in the new expac, just like they are in every expac or MMO when launched. The fact that they are going to try to do anything with ranger issues while the entire team will be working to make the game itself work as intended is wonderful news. /rant off Again, thank you so much Rothgar for the information and pass the thank you on to Xelgad as well.</blockquote><p>We are all glad that they replied, and aknowledged that there is a  problem with our class and they have some ideas.</p><p>They did NOT say they were working on fixing it - they said they will look into it when they have time, there is a major differance. I think they will look into after they get the SF release bugs fixed and content that wont make it in - in. Which will be at least 2 months, after they look into it, they will change some things and then test them for at least 2 months. Which If they do any fixing will be 4-6 months after SF release, and we still have a legitimate complaint after haveing to deal with some of the things for 3yrs.</p>

[Jemoo]

You have a point that this is a long time coming and that they never said they are GOING to fix it, just that it was being looked into. But I see no talking and reasoning from many rangers, I see complaining and whining. Yes be upset that rangers are right now bottom of the barrel, red headed step children, I'm upset too. I love rangers, in EQ and in other games, I play them whenever I can and they are usually much better than this. But we need to talk, reason and not act like 8 year olds who had their toy taken away. The two responses to my original post show the difference. Azreal whined about problems, showed little evidence and then insulted me while Venez gave solid proof and reason for what he is saying and never said that I was stupid or dumb or that I didn't know what I was talking about. There is a big difference in the way a dev will respond to this. When you tell a dev that they aren't doing their job ad insult them every other post like many people did with a former dev, they tend not to listen. On the beta forums I saw a lot of solid proof and the like to back up problems that ranger have. The "new" devs have taken the first step in responding to this by communicating with us. The first response was someone telling him that it wasn't good enough... How would you respond?

[glowsintheda]

<p>The old dev did nothing for rangers because he raided as an assassin and didn't want the competition.  You have to understand that most of the people that seem the most irrational were the ones that tried the hardest to be civil and get things done.  After so long trying with nothing happening can you really blame them for it now?</p>

[Noob1974]

<p>@ Pattywak  </p><p>One of the latest things rangers made very upset was when one dev , timetraveller, createt items and raid adorments with stats (AE AA and flurry)  that ranger cant use ,which means another imbalance.</p><p>He probably wasnt even aware of those things, atleast thats i how interprete his words later on without knowing what and how to change those things !!!</p><p>We are raidwise the bottom of the barrel in compared to other dps classes.Which means alot of ranger, like me , who have no raidforce will be left out. Now imagine when they are fix us it can take months,  meaning ranger who like to raid pay for subs and  cant raid.</p><p>As Venez pointet out there has been since 2-3 years not much love coming in from the devs due to their opinion our AA would be so much harder than melee. On Top of that during this Beta alot of ppl like Neiloch, cchap, Nevao provided data that both AAs are roughly the same but nothing has benn done.</p><p>Thats why  ranger appreciate rothgars words but are very sceptical or lets say distanced is not a surprise.</p>

[Azrael_888]

<p>you know what I really thought about responding to the whole Azrael insulted me comment but I REALLY don't want this thread to get locked for derailment.</p><p>I expressed valid points in my post and even agreed with an earlier post about the curent state of our class. </p><p>Please re-read what I stated.  Even though it is very argumentative and standoffish on my side it's not entirely wrong.  If it was I'd be having people calling me out on it.</p><p>All rangers with feed back as to the current state of our class are imperative to the continued success of our class. </p><p>Please feel free to post other things that would be nice to see in the future for our class.</p>

[Venez]

<p><cite>glowsinthedark wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The old dev did nothing for rangers because he raided as an assassin and didn't want the competition.  You have to understand that most of the people that seem the most irrational were the ones that tried the hardest to be civil and get things done.  After so long trying with nothing happening can you really blame them for it now?</p></blockquote><p>Naa alot of the ones being irrational are the ones that were not dealing with Aeralik in the past betas, LUs or in anyway and are the ones that really do not understand the mechanics that are in now or the ones that where changed, starting at the end of EoF..imo</p><p>I do give kudos to Xelgad that he is aleast acknowledging something is wrong. But on the other side Xelgad has absolutly no clue where we stood in EoF or the way were balanced at that time before Aeralik broke out with the nerf bat and the mechanic changes where all this started (unless he has done alot of homework), he has alot of research to do inable to even sorta understand whats going on with the Ranger class, hopefully he will save the beta posts and take some notes on how and why we are where we are now.</p>

[duranvaer]

<p>Until I see the day where "so and so Raid Guild" is actively seeking a Ranger to join their ranks, then the Ranger class is broken. I have never seen that call for Rangers ever since I have been playing (2005), or did I miss something? or did a Ranger just happened to be in a guild that decided to raid. This is becoming game breaking for me, I love playing with my friends, and that is why I haven't quit yet! But come on, how hard is this really to fix?</p><p>Happy Hunting!</p>

[Striikor]

<p><cite>Azrael_888 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We don't have to joust cause we are ranged DPS so we can continue to attack when other scout classes can't - BS we have to joust with everyone as if we want to DPS we have to be in close proximity to the mob due to the fact that we have a proc on our myth that allows us more DPS if we are closer.</p></blockquote><p>I do not disagree with the rest of your post, but to be accurate the myth has been changed in SF to give the +20% 5 meter or less damage regardless of the range now. We do however still need to joust to trigger our melee ca's, a significant portion of our DPS though lower than our counterparts.</p><p><cite>Pattywak@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>You have a point that this is a long time coming and that they never said they are GOING to fix it, just that it was being looked into. But I see no talking and reasoning from many rangers, I see complaining and whining. Yes be upset that rangers are right now bottom of the barrel, red headed step children, I'm upset too. I love rangers, in EQ and in other games, I play them whenever I can and they are usually much better than this. But we need to talk, reason and not act like 8 year olds who had their toy taken away. The two responses to my original post show the difference. Azreal whined about problems, showed little evidence and then insulted me while Venez gave solid proof and reason for what he is saying and never said that I was stupid or dumb or that I didn't know what I was talking about. There is a big difference in the way a dev will respond to this. When you tell a dev that they aren't doing their job ad insult them every other post like many people did with a former dev, they tend not to listen. On the beta forums I saw a lot of solid proof and the like to back up problems that ranger have. The "new" devs have taken the first step in responding to this by communicating with us. The first response was someone telling him that it wasn't good enough... How would you respond?</blockquote><p>What you do not understand or are not seeing is all the posting, facts and suggestions provided by many of the peeps in this thread. It is tough to try and get your mind around the myriad suggestions comments and data that has been provided over the years. Many of us do not feel we should have to repost all that for this one thread.</p><p>All the data is available to the developers elsewhere. The tone was set in official comments for the direction they would take for balance in SF. The only thing we officially saw was that they would look into Stream of Arrows and the the RDbl coefficient would be maintained. They were going to concentrate on Brawlers adn Summoners which indeed needed help. Going in they did not recognize the imbalance with rangers inspite of years and thousands of postings and data provided. Nearly 1000 posts were made in beta detailing the problems and challeges for rangers.</p><p>Towards the end of beta it looked like at most the status quo would be maintained, we would get some of our most irritating CA's addressed, no adjustments to get us back to compelling T1 DPS, but at least we would not fall further behind. Quite a let down since we all hoped to be able to make up some ground and become viable again.</p><p>And then we saw the new procs that were being made available to EVERY melee class but us.</p><p>So instead of making up ground or having seriously outdated nerfs removed we lost ground in the final push to get SF out. Can you realistically thinkk the response is unreasonable or ungrateful? Most of those posting are actually trying to limit the vitriol we would like to lay out.</p><p>To sum it up most value result over intent. We don't care what is intended, intent has never solved anything.</p>

[Dollin]

<p>A DPS increase still isn't going to help us. We bring absolutly no utility to a raid. Assassins are virtually the same and wizards are and warlocks.. Chanters / Bards are still a primary focus for raids and with chanters bringing a heck of a lot more utility as well as some pretty good DPS theres little need for pure DPS class's with the current state of most encounter.</p><p>So reguardless of increasing our dps we're still not going to gain a raid slot without having some other use. Our guild raids without an assassin and rarely with a ranger. Theres no point when class's with more utility are able to punch out slightly lower DPS. Crit changes are going to amplify this even more i believe.</p>

[Tobann]

<p>Ive go to thank Rothgar for a reply,since he didnt have to. That said, I also thanked every other Dev who has replied, and this seems to be one in a long line of responces saying ...We understand Rangers have problems..the fixes are hard...we will look into it when we have time. Ive been following these boards for the last 2 years . There have been small tweaks, but so far there has not been time to really address  the base problems. </p><p>I dont see there being any more time in the future for unique problems for one of 24 classes. If I were a programmer and had extra time,Id make a change that affects 23/24 classes first.</p><p>Buaf</p><p>Befallen</p>

[Jemoo]

I don't disagree with anything that's been posted here or on the beta forums... I, in fact, agree that all these changes need to be addressed and that not enough was done for ranger to be competitive as T1 DPS. What I am saying is that if we want the issues to be addressed, people (not all, but a very large percentage) need to stop whining about it and telling the devs they aren't doing things good enough. The new devs got thrown into this position just before the beta was released and immediately tried to keep communication with the ranger community. They have not done as much as we've all hope, but they have done more in the past few months to at least keep us in the loop about things than I ever saw out of the old dev in the year+ that I have been playing the game. I have not been here long, but I have followed all the threads I could, past and present, in an attempt to understand what I need to do to be a decent ranger and know the issues facing the class. I agree that the facts and evidence that we have out there already are sufficient to make our point, but when you come to a new thread to post about issues at least bring some sort of "hey this is where my facts are from" attitude not the "do I really have to say this all over again" one that some have brought here. The new issues coming from new scout gear are very concerning. Having one class left out of gear attributes in the new expansion is as bad as what summoners faced with gear not applying to their pet's damage etc. Rangers either need to be included in these new attributes or need something that can be comparable that applies only to rangers and not the other scouts. The later seems very improbable but at least the devs recognize that this needs to be addressed asap.

[duddwin]

<p><cite>Pattywak@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I don't disagree with anything that's been posted here or on the beta forums... I, in fact, agree that all these changes need to be addressed and that not enough was done for ranger to be competitive as T1 DPS. What I am saying is that if we want the issues to be addressed, people (not all, but a very large percentage) need to stop whining about it and telling the devs they aren't doing things good enough. The new devs got thrown into this position just before the beta was released and immediately tried to keep communication with the ranger community. They have not done as much as we've all hope, but they have done more in the past few months to at least keep us in the loop about things than I ever saw out of the old dev in the year+ that I have been playing the game. I have not been here long, but I have followed all the threads I could, past and present, in an attempt to understand what I need to do to be a decent ranger and know the issues facing the class. I agree that the facts and evidence that we have out there already are sufficient to make our point, but when you come to a new thread to post about issues at least bring some sort of "hey this is where my facts are from" attitude not the "do I really have to say this all over again" one that some have brought here. The new issues coming from new scout gear are very concerning. Having one class left out of gear attributes in the new expansion is as bad as what summoners faced with gear not applying to their pet's damage etc. Rangers either need to be included in these new attributes or need something that can be comparable that applies only to rangers and not the other scouts. The later seems very improbable but at least the devs recognize that this needs to be addressed asap.</blockquote><p>Very well put i agree, and hopfully the devs can see the issues rangers are facing and fix them like we have been waiting for.</p>

[Donilla]

<p>At least the new dev responded to the post. This is far more than generally happens, s ty for that.  In order to keep them responding, we need to recognize that people don't respond well when attacked.  So while continued complaints about the state of rangers is warrented, it's almost surely best to keep those complaints focused on the class issues, and off the develpers.  </p><p>I would personally rather see a fix to the re class, turning rangers into the ranged dps machines they ought to be. Rather see a fully realized, well thought out fix, then a flurry (usage intentional /ugh) of small changes that in the end don't address the end problem. This may be realistic, it may not be, but it's the only way anything will truely be addressed.</p><p>SO lets keep up the specific, fully documented concerns and complaints, lets not attack players or developers. Let's establilsh ourselves as a vocal, passionate and learned group. Let's keep at it, and maybe we will get the love we deserve.</p>

[jjlo69]

<p>id like to see an update on this .. and get this stickyed until it is fixed please</p><p>UNcle</p>

[kartikeya]

<p>A belated response, but I would argue we weren't even balanced in EoF. Remember what was required to be able to compete in EoF: a top end raid bow, IE. either one off of Mistmoore or the crafted one from Woushi, OR, at bare minimum, the ridiculously rare sarnak bow from Venekor in Halls of the Seeing, AND one of the two T8 ammo bows from Deathtoll (also ridiculously rare).</p><p>If you had those, then yes, you could compete. If you weren't lucky enough to get those drops before your raidforce moved on from KoS zones, or if you didn't have a raidforce willing to keep you on when your DPS fell abysmally short as soon as you hit upper KoS zones or EoF zones? Yeeeah, sucks to be you. We've never had any kind of decent bow progression, which makes the middle area of raid progression utterly painful for rangers, because while everyone else is receiving decent upgrades all the way along, rangers won't see any real upgrades until you're already downing the top bosses of the expansion (which I assume is how SF is...or at least I would HOPE that the bows we've already seen aren't the only ones available, because they're a meager upgrade from the mythical at best, and many of them are a step down). Kind've sucks when you'd like to be able to actually help your raidforce conquer this content in the first place.</p><p>I'd argue rangers have never been balanced. We were ridiculously overpowered thanks to procs in DoF, KoS saw us nerfed into the ground, EoF I've described above, RoK had the arrow mechanics 'fix' which pretty much kept us only just above EoF damage (and invalidated the summoned ammo), TSO introduced flurry and left us falling further and further behind, and now SF has both flurry and AE auto attack in greater numbers and actual equipment stats, so far absolutely abysmal bow itemization, and melee auto attack actually outdamaging ranged auto attack...and while Rothgar and Xelgad have made noises as to fixes (and I hope all these little hints we get of things going on behind the scenes to fix rangers end up resulting in something), most of the official responses to ranger complaints have been 'coding issues, sorry!' and 'we believe rangers should be more ranged, so no we're not doing anything to address the minimum range issues'.</p><p>Is it any wonder that longtime ranger players are frustrated? I know I've been somewhat less civil than I have in the past lately, because I'm just so extremely tired of saying the same things over and over and over again, having them be ignored, and all the while ingame I fall further and further behind classes that all things being equal should not be able to overtake predator DPS, and yet you have them easily topping the parse (*coughcough* Swashies *cough*), let alone the disparities between us and our sister class.</p>

[Kroonerr]

<p>What's odd is rangers in eq1 are treated the same way.  I really don't understand why the dev's have such a bug up their butts about making rangers a desired class. </p><p>They use the same argument of risk vs reward to push ranged dps down while allowing casters to create mushroom clouds all over the place which has no intellectual consistency.  If they truly believed in risk vs reward in regards to proximity, they would change all offensive spells to hit for less and less damage the further away from the mob you get so squishies had to belly cast on mobs to get maximum dps.</p>

[Myrrhia]

<p> It feels as if our class always gets placed on the backburner when it comes to fixes/balances/etc.  While I appreciate Rothgar's response and hope he and the other devs will continue to post in the Ranger forum; it remains to be seen if anything will be done from the developer's end.  There have been posts stating that all we are doing is whining and complaining, etc and to be patient, remain civil, the good things are coming down the pipe for you guys/gals.  Well, after a time it becomes frustrating to deal with the aloofness and blatant oversight from the devs. </p><p> Are there bigger issues to fix in the game?  Maybe-but after 2+ years of being imbalanced from the rest of the classes out there, roll up your sleeves, hunker down and do what is right.  Rangers are and can be an outstanding class given the right fixes/repairs to bring us on par with the rest of the scout classes. </p>