Where do we go from here? [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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Ixtril

02-07-2010, 11:05 PM

I hate to fall to the pessimism, but I'd say my hoped for change in the xpac are dashed. I wanted to see for myself, but wan't selected for BETA to try and help, and for some strange reason my copy requests to test aren't going through.I'd sworn if Rangers weren't fixed, I'm canceling. Not sure I can bring myself to take the high road and do just that. I love the game and my friends, and guess that's what SOE's counting on.That leaves betray, new main (ugh in both cases) or... see if its REALLY that hopeless.For those of you in Beta or Test, have you tried "adapting" at all yet. I imagine you have, but I've read little suggesting its been tried. It seems a small hope, but is it possible if we hang up are bows, and adjust our tactics we can still knock out passable DPS.I know some folks equate the bow to the ranger, but I'm less attached personally. In fact I resisted the bow for a long time while leveling, and finally caved in to the obvious DPS maximizer over time. Maybe its time to pick up the sword and dagger again. We will no longer suffer from the crit/da handicap we suffered on our melee. Will the situational advantage of our archery combined with hopefully being not TOO far behind in the melee realm add up to usable DPS again?You might say why not betray then anyways? Must be a bit of the roleplayer in me, I love being a Ranger for the sake of it, not for what I'm supposed to be able to bring to the table (and don't anymore). Also I'm a goodie-two shoes. Freeport sux.If this doesn't work out, rather than betray I'll probably roll a Swash. They seem fun too.

ElsaRat

02-09-2010, 02:06 PM

Speaking purely selfishly, I hope you stick with the class a little longer. We need people to chart solutions, or failing that, to document the damage.I have the same rp preferences as you, and I do enjoy playing my swashie, even if my ranger is my favorite. Actually, funnily enough, I switched from my ranger to a swashie early on because I was frustrated with the bow. I came back to the ranger when I could play with some experienced players and learn the class better.

kartikeya

02-09-2010, 06:53 PM

The issues of just switching from ranged auto attack to melee:1. Our offensive stance does not proc on melee.2. We would effectively have no mythical, and no benefits from the mythical. Remember, the mythical is going to remain a benefit for other classes, as you're getting a quest to switch the benefits to a spell ability.3. Our combat art damage is so low in comparison to every other DPS class, we still wouldn't be able to compete.At that point, there truly is no reason not to simply betray to assassin. I think the only reason why I'm not planning on it is because I would have to leave my current guild, and because when I'm not raiding, I'm a big soloer, and I prefer ranger soloing.

Ixtril

02-09-2010, 10:16 PM

you're absolutely right kartikeya: PLUS4. Temp Buffs: Focus Aim boosts ranged and HINDERS melee, and killing instincts boosts ranged as well.I performed an experiment with surprising results today however. One of the fellas in Beta (maybe Striikor) mentioned that his auto attack damage was actually higher dual wielding legendary swords than with his Myth. I still can't get in Test, so I tried to emulate those consitions in live as best I could. I switched around equipment I had in the bank with what I had on until I equalized Melee to Ranged Crit, DA to RDA and Ranged to Slashing and Piercing skills. The best melee weapons I have are the Seb Croaking Dirk and Void Tainted Short Sword of Culling.With everything equaled out like this I tried parsing the dummy first using only melee attacks, then stepping back and only using ranged attacks with my myth.MY DPS WAS ALMOST EQUAL BOTH WAYSThis shocked me. There's no way two legendary weapons should equal my Myth in auto attack damage, but they did. At least they didn't surpass it as ?Striikor? had noted, but maybe he had better weapons.CA Damage was also equal. This leads me to believe our melee CAS aren't really so weak, we've always just lagged far behind in Melee Crit and DA as compared to our RC and RDA.I'm not saying we arent in trouble. Obviously we are. If our damage with the bow was lagging pre expanse (which it certainly was) we can't expect switching to melee to fix things. We'll still be secondrate to the other scouts at best.Now MAYBE if they remove the min distance on ALL our CAs instead of just our AOEs and tweaked our Temp Buffs to benefit us while meleeing we'd be talking about layin' down some hurt.

EQ2Magroo

02-10-2010, 01:56 PM

<cite>Ixtril wrote:</cite><blockquote>you're absolutely right kartikeya: PLUS4. Temp Buffs: Focus Aim boosts ranged and HINDERS melee, and killing instincts boosts ranged as well.I performed an experiment with surprising results today however. One of the fellas in Beta (maybe Striikor) mentioned that his auto attack damage was actually higher dual wielding legendary swords than with his Myth. I still can't get in Test, so I tried to emulate those consitions in live as best I could. I switched around equipment I had in the bank with what I had on until I equalized Melee to Ranged Crit, DA to RDA and Ranged to Slashing and Piercing skills. The best melee weapons I have are the Seb Croaking Dirk and Void Tainted Short Sword of Culling.With everything equaled out like this I tried parsing the dummy first using only melee attacks, then stepping back and only using ranged attacks with my myth.MY DPS WAS ALMOST EQUAL BOTH WAYSThis shocked me. There's no way two legendary weapons should equal my Myth in auto attack damage, but they did. At least they didn't surpass it as ?Striikor? had noted, but maybe he had better weapons.CA Damage was also equal. This leads me to believe our melee CAS aren't really so weak, we've always just lagged far behind in Melee Crit and DA as compared to our RC and RDA.I'm not saying we arent in trouble. Obviously we are. If our damage with the bow was lagging pre expanse (which it certainly was) we can't expect switching to melee to fix things. We'll still be secondrate to the other scouts at best.Now MAYBE if they remove the min distance on ALL our CAs instead of just our AOEs and tweaked our Temp Buffs to benefit us while meleeing we'd be talking about layin' down some hurt.</blockquote>Unfortunately all this proves is that you don't know how to maximize your DPS as a Ranger either through equipment, buffs and timing.Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. There is no way a Ranger on live should be getting DPS figures from melee that are the same as using ranged with their *myth* :-OHowever there's no need to feel too bad. In the past the SoE devs themselves have said things like "ranged auto-attack damage is not significant" when talking about Rangers. It seems there are a lot of people who struggle with knowing how Rangers work.I'm in the same position as you. No invite to Beta, whereas friends have been invited on multiple accounts. I guess they have their fill of Rangers already (apparently the Ranger forums on the beta boards is the most active)

Noob1974

02-10-2010, 02:43 PM

<cite>Adeyia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ixtril wrote:</cite><blockquote>you're absolutely right kartikeya: PLUS4. Temp Buffs: Focus Aim boosts ranged and HINDERS melee, and killing instincts boosts ranged as well.I performed an experiment with surprising results today however. One of the fellas in Beta (maybe Striikor) mentioned that his auto attack damage was actually higher dual wielding legendary swords than with his Myth. I still can't get in Test, so I tried to emulate those consitions in live as best I could. I switched around equipment I had in the bank with what I had on until I equalized Melee to Ranged Crit, DA to RDA and Ranged to Slashing and Piercing skills. The best melee weapons I have are the Seb Croaking Dirk and Void Tainted Short Sword of Culling.With everything equaled out like this I tried parsing the dummy first using only melee attacks, then stepping back and only using ranged attacks with my myth.MY DPS WAS ALMOST EQUAL BOTH WAYSThis shocked me. There's no way two legendary weapons should equal my Myth in auto attack damage, but they did. At least they didn't surpass it as ?Striikor? had noted, but maybe he had better weapons.CA Damage was also equal. This leads me to believe our melee CAS aren't really so weak, we've always just lagged far behind in Melee Crit and DA as compared to our RC and RDA.I'm not saying we arent in trouble. Obviously we are. If our damage with the bow was lagging pre expanse (which it certainly was) we can't expect switching to melee to fix things. We'll still be secondrate to the other scouts at best.Now MAYBE if they remove the min distance on ALL our CAs instead of just our AOEs and tweaked our Temp Buffs to benefit us while meleeing we'd be talking about layin' down some hurt.</blockquote>Unfortunately all this proves is that you don't know how to maximize your DPS as a Ranger either through equipment, buffs and timing.Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's true. There is no way a Ranger on live should be getting DPS figures from melee that are the same as using ranged with their *myth* :-OHowever there's no need to feel too bad. In the past the SoE devs themselves have said things like "ranged auto-attack damage is not significant" when talking about Rangers. It seems there are a lot of people who struggle with knowing how Rangers work.I'm in the same position as you. No invite to Beta, whereas friends have been invited on multiple accounts. I guess they have their fill of Rangers already (apparently the Ranger forums on the beta boards is the most active)</blockquote> Your statement is incorrect, there are High end fabled melee weaposn than can easily match the damage/dps of our myth......Btw thats has been proven in the beta by quite a few ranger.

EQ2Magroo

02-10-2010, 03:48 PM

<cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Your statement is incorrect, there are High end fabled melee weaposn than can easily match the damage/dps of our myth......Btw thats has been proven in the beta by quite a few ranger.</blockquote>I was talking about live, not beta. Neither myself or the OP are in beta.If there's a Ranger on live using Legendary weapons who can out DPS a Ranger using his myth, then that tells me the one using the bow doesn't know how to play.If it's true on beta, that just proves how much Rangers will now suck...which I think is what we all agree on <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

Ixtril

02-11-2010, 08:01 PM

EQ2Magroo

02-12-2010, 09:15 AM

<cite>Ixtril wrote:</cite><blockquote>Actually, you may have missed the point of that post. I switched around my gear on live to EQUALIZE my stats as to melee vs ranged to emulate conditions on test/beta and what we'll be seeing in under a week.Yes a LIVE ranger who has equal melee to ranged dps with optimum gear would be a POOR ranger (unless they had some absolutley phenominal gear, like some of the POTAO gear that's out of my reach, with equally massive melee and RC).By swapping things around like this, yes my ranged crit, da and skills were WAY down from normal, greatly reducing my ranged DPS. I did this on purpose to equal them out for apples to apples comparison.In further testing I was able to spread the difference a little more in favor of ranged, but not much. It was actually somewhat challenging an exercise to break the old rotation habits and effectively use only melee or ranged arts.The next trials involved dps'ing standard in this configuration (standing in the sweetspot and running my standard dps rotation) compared to dps'ing more like I used to do pre-epic, wherein I start off with ranged arts and joust in to melee. Both yielded similiar results, not really a surprise considering the earlier experiments.</blockquote>Yep, I stil don't get what this test is proving.By switching to melee gear and focusing on melee attacks instead of ranged (in live), you should be seeing a substantial DPS drop. If you're not, then you're not playing a Ranger properly. Therefore any conclusions you come to about the usefulness of this setup in live are moot - those Rangers who know how to max their DPS will see very different results.You then propose to take this setup and try it on beta/test and see if you will get comparable results to those on live. I'm pretty sure you will, but so what ?This does not mean that the results are good. All you are actually proving is that if you [Removed for Content] yourself on live, then beta/test will not be any worse for you.The difference is that on live you can learn to play and increase your DPS substantially. On beta/test there is nothing you can do - you are now T3 DPS. All Rangers regardless of skill become teh suck.of course, there are a lot of Rangers out there who won't care about this, we've all met them, the sort that pulls less that 2k DPS in a PUG, aggros nearby mobs, runs out of arrows, forgets to bring poisons. doesn't know what an adornment does etc. These guys have never been T1 DPS, and don't even realise that is their role in a group.The ones who are up in arms about this are those that do know about all of the above, and rightly complain that their primary reason to be invited to groups/raids just got removed, not through any fault of their own, but through (yet another) failure of the devs to understand the basics of the combat system they have implemented.

FearDiadh

02-12-2010, 10:08 AM

I wonder where the other melee classes would be on this issue if their mythical auto attack damage was suddenly changed to be less than the auto attack damage they could do with a legendary bow.This is just the surface of the issue. The mythical is supposed to be the best ranged weapon around for a ranger in tso. It is above fabled. The real issue (on top of all the other real issues we are going to have to deal with) is how will our fabled replacement stack up against equivalent melee weapons. It seems obvious to me that if t8 legendary melee weapons can out auto attack the t8 mythical bow, then t9 fabled melee weapons will just destroy t9 fabled bow damage.So...1) ranged auto damage is going to be very substandard2) rangers will not get the benefits of aoe auto and flurry (along with the fact that much of our aa is geared to assassins)3) combat art damage is much lower than counterparts (assassins)4) reduction in crit from live (day of start anyway)5) no utility, no hate transfer to mitigate the lower dps6) no increase in overall dps during the previous expansionRothgar said: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.I read that as "we are looking at 1 of 6 of your problems and will do something about it when we have some free time, but that isn't now"To answer the op question: I do not know, but unless you have a sympathetic guild and/or friends I doubt you are going to raid or group much... They certainly aren't going to bring you along for any benefits it might bring them. My guess is my guild will ask me to start raiding with an alt soon after the expansion starts unless something drastic happens soon. It has already been suggested that I betray.

Venez

02-12-2010, 07:59 PM

<cite>Adeyia@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Noob1974 wrote:</cite><blockquote> Your statement is incorrect, there are High end fabled melee weaposn than can easily match the damage/dps of our myth......Btw thats has been proven in the beta by quite a few ranger.</blockquote>I was talking about live, not beta. Neither myself or the OP are in beta.If there's a Ranger on live using Legendary weapons who can out DPS a Ranger using his myth, then that tells me the one using the bow doesn't know how to play. I dont think its possible with Legendary weapons, It is possible with top end fabled weapons.If it's true on beta, that just proves how much Rangers will now suck...which I think is what we all agree on <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> Its true on beta, and its true on live - just not many botherd to test it untill beta and someone pointed it out.Yep, I stil don't get what this test is proving. The test was meant to prove that melee AUTO ATTACK was out parsing ranged AUTO ATTACK, our Mytical vs 2 Fabled melee weapons, or 1 melee myth and 1 fabled weapon. Even with the stat consildation Rangers still do more with 2 Fabled melee weapons AUTO ATTACK vs our Mythical on beta. And I personally do more melee auto attack damage than my Mythical on live.By switching to melee gear and focusing on melee attacks instead of ranged (in live), you should be seeing a substantial DPS drop. If you're not, then you're not playing a Ranger properly. Therefore any conclusions you come to about the usefulness of this setup in live are moot - those Rangers who know how to max their DPS will see very different results.You then propose to take this setup and try it on beta/test and see if you will get comparable results to those on live. I'm pretty sure you will, but so what ?This does not mean that the results are good. All you are actually proving is that if you [Removed for Content] yourself on live, then beta/test will not be any worse for you.The difference is that on live you can learn to play and increase your DPS substantially. On beta/test there is nothing you can do - you are now T3 DPS. All Rangers regardless of skill become teh suck.of course, there are a lot of Rangers out there who won't care about this, we've all met them, the sort that pulls less that 2k DPS in a PUG, aggros nearby mobs, runs out of arrows, forgets to bring poisons. doesn't know what an adornment does etc. These guys have never been T1 DPS, and don't even realise that is their role in a group.The ones who are up in arms about this are those that do know about all of the above, and rightly complain that their primary reason to be invited to groups/raids just got removed, not through any fault of their own, but through (yet another) failure of the devs to understand the basics of the combat system they have implemented.This has nothing to do with gimping yourself or knowing how to play your class, any idiot can turn auto attack on. It was meant to show that Rangers no longer do more damage with our "big" hits and in fact do less auto attack damage than other DPS scouts, and needs to be fixed. Key point on this one was / is auto attack damage.</blockquote>

Ixtril

02-12-2010, 09:53 PM

Exactly,Adeiya, it has NOTHING to do with how to get top DPS on live or Beta. Its a comparison of rangers melee damage versus ranged when placed on equal footing.In case you're not aware of it yet, as of the 16th there will be no more Ranged Crit or Ranged Double Attack. POOF gone.Once melee and ranged bonuses are equal, it sheds a new light on ranger abilities.Its not that our bow was all that powerful before, it was just alot more powerful than swords with the kinda of gear we used/were steered towards.Its a little disheartening, almost like living a lie or having been duped. Our bow damage needs to be increased if we are to remain archers, otherwise we will NOT be dpsing to our full potential.