What's the deal

[Ranja]

<p>Are you ever going to fix rangers? Or should I cancel my sub like I am intending?</p><p>Thanks for making ther class I played for 5 years completely irrelevant in one expansion.</p><p>- You added two combat mechanics (flurry and AE auto) to SF that are exciting and cool and excluded rangers from partaking in those combat mechanics. What kind of genius move was that.</p><p>- You ignore piles and piles of feedback in beta. Nrealy 5x more than any other class.</p><p>-your public comments about our class are misinformed at best, ignorannt and insulting to the ranger community at worst.</p><p>-you could implement small fixes along the way (lower recast timers, increase CA damage) to save subs, but you instead block us with a wall of silence.</p><p>And now almost 5 months into the expansion, we have not heard a word. Do you expect us to wait around to next expansion? Basically an entire expansions wasted for people who play rangers as t heir main and are at the cap.</p><p>Tell me why I should keep my sub going when you obviously don't care about our class or keeping a base of customers happy.</p><p>It is sad, the ranger boards used to be lively and filled with discussion - now they are dead.</p><p>Thanks SOE</p>

[Boucu]

<p>The rangers ive grouped with parse very very well.. whats the problem? and no ive never played a ranger, since they seem to be sacrificed more for lootz <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Neiloch]

<p>Solo and PvP rangers are fine and some even argue overpowered. In groups I would say they are 'sub-par.' In a typical PUG a skilled ranger would probably top the parse though.Its raids where the problems really come up, and hard. Simply put our desirability is extremely low, easily the lowest of the scouts at the very least. All we bring is DPS to a raid and we don't do it as well as other DPS classes who bring more utility than us, even if only a small amount.I'm lucky and skilled enough to make up for it in my particular guild though. I'm a player they can trust will NEVER screw up fight mechanics, and often am charged with them. Such as killing eggs in Toxx or clicking tubes for Waansu for example. I also handle loot and attendance/DKP (doing the job others don't want and well basically). All this I could do on just about any other class though, and if I couldn't the class itself would easily make up for it.So it doesn't appear to be as bad to me but its just flat out impossible to have SO MANY angered rangers and there not be a problem. Hell even if rangers are fine, so many players being angry needs to be addressed one way or another. They can say and think we are fine/balanced or not that bad all they want but perception is reality, and the perception is that we are F'd.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Moved to it's own thread...</span></p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Boucuka wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The rangers ive grouped with parse very very well.. whats the problem? and no ive never played a ranger, since they seem to be sacrificed more for lootz <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>thanks for the useless input.</p><p>Neiloch, does it bother you that the 2 new combat mechanics they introduced in SF, rangers cannot take advantage of.</p>

[Neiloch]

Not sure what you are referring to. Only things I haven't been able to 'take advantage of' is auto AE and flurry which have been around before SF.

[Geothe]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Not sure what you are referring to. Only things I haven't been able to 'take advantage of' is auto AE and flurry which have been around before SF.</blockquote><p>Was going to say, yeah. hehAE autoattack since DoFFlurry since RoK.</p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Not sure what you are referring to. Only things I haven't been able to 'take advantage of' is auto AE and flurry which have been around before SF.</blockquote><p>Was going to say, yeah. hehAE autoattack since DoFFlurry since RoK.</p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Doesn't matter when they were introduced. They alone are not going to make up the DPS potential gap. However to tell us they were going to do it to shut us up in Beta and then still not see it 3 to 4 months later is getting ridiculous. But it's just Rangers, so it doesn't matter.</span></p>

[Jamps]

<p>Wasn't ranger at some point a favoured class for new players??</p><p>After 5 years SOE found out that they don't need rangers in their game. What can they do, in my country I could sue them for not giving me the service I paid for and taken away 5 years of dedicated time spent on my character.</p><p>Still I agree with most of the rest, yeah i've canceled my account, but should something honest come up I even might turn assasin. Love the game but hate myself for spending 5 years (not hard core) on a class that is going to be KILLED.</p>

[Geothe]

<p><cite>Jamps wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>After 5 years SOE found out that they don't need rangers in their game. What can they do, in my country I could sue them for not giving me the service I paid for and taken away 5 years of dedicated time spent on my character.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, I know that rangers have some issues atm but this line made me LOL.Sue them because you are unhappy with your class?That is hilarious.All that you pay for is access to the SoE servers each month, that is it. </p>

[Nevao]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Jamps wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>After 5 years SOE found out that they don't need rangers in their game. What can they do, in my country I could sue them for not giving me the service I paid for and taken away 5 years of dedicated time spent on my character.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, I know that rangers have some issues atm but this line made me LOL.Sue them because you are unhappy with your class?That is hilarious.All that you pay for is access to the SoE servers each month, that is it. </p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Unfortunately this is the kind of statements (suing, killing of classes) that I'm fairly sure completely turns off the Dev's. I know excessive hyperbole make me less likely to listen to peopel.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">With comments like this we'll never get them to take us seriously but some people just can't restrain themselves...</span></p>

[Neiloch]

<p>AE auto and flurry isn't so much for more DPS for me, even though it would help. Its that its a scout, and fighter, stat they can all take advantage of except rangers.</p><p>Rangers were pretty stoked when we got more AE power this xpac. Fact of the matter is if they didn't give us AT LEAST this we would have been getting beat down, much much harder. if they aren't going to give us true ae auto the least they could do is work in a AE bow shot with like a 8-10 second recast. I can keep up on one AE fight but if there's 2 short to medium AE fights in a row, forget it. might get 2 of my AE shots on the second fight and one will surely be explosive arrow, which isn't very good for AE. Trick Shot would be a good candidate since with the massive amounts of hate gains and transfer already its pretty useless, plus can get away with keeping the name. Recast would have to go down though. Or adjust streams damage and recast to do the same overall DPS, just with a much shorter recast.</p><p>I heard the argument of 'stop whining because you can't use every stat.' This isn't like a cleric not being able to use flurry to have heals hit multiple times or something. Would more like if illusionists were excluded from spell double attack because they cast so fast, or if an assassin couldn't use DPS stat because their CA's already do so much damage.</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Not sure what you are referring to. Only things I haven't been able to 'take advantage of' is auto AE and flurry which have been around before SF.</blockquote><p>That is exactly what I am refering too. Read my posts. They were around before SF but not to the degree they are present in SF on gear and AAs</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>I did read your posts. Should have said something like ae auto and flurry being used much more in SF, not the completely different, "the 2 new combat mechanics they introduced in SF", these statements have completely different meanings. Speaking in hyperbole isn't going to get anything done.Like I said it really only bothers me in a sense we can't use the stats at all really, while other scouts and fighters can. Because it would still bother me even if our DPS was up to par, just not nearly as much. If they want us to get our DPS by other means fine, but they need to do it over a year ago.</p>

[Striikor]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Speaking in hyperbole isn't going to get anything done.</p></blockquote><p>What will we have tried everything else at some point or another.</p>

[glowsintheda]

<p>Previously they were only available from buffs or AAs, now they are on gear, that makes it different and new</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>What will work is completely up to the devs. If they want us to be kind, courteous, helpful and patient they should have responded promptly when the majority of the ranger community was in that mood, even when our class was in a bad state. Since we stopped getting responses to that, we predictably started getting more hostile in our vocalization about the class. Now they have to dig us out of a hole and the longer they wait to respond with answers and implemented solutions the deeper that hole will get. Unfortunately I don't know if its because they don't know or don't care. Considering how long its been going on I'm leaning towards the former.In any event ignoring or giving the 'silent treatment' is pretty much the worst way to handle any situation.</p>

[kartikeya]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What will work is completely up to the devs. If they want us to be kind, courteous, helpful and patient they should have responded promptly when the majority of the ranger community was in that mood, even when our class was in a bad state. Since we stopped getting responses to that, we predictably started getting more hostile in our vocalization about the class. Now they have to dig us out of a hole and the longer they wait to respond with answers and implemented solutions the deeper that hole will get. Unfortunately I don't know if its because they don't know or don't care. Considering how long its been going on I'm leaning towards the former.In any event ignoring or giving the 'silent treatment' is pretty much the worst way to handle any situation.</p></blockquote><p>I've worked in quite a number of customer service jobs over the years. When things go wrong with your service/product, it's a simple fact of life that the customers are going to be upset. In nearly every case, in fact, whatever was upsetting them was something that was not only not my responsibility for causing, but so far beyond my responsibility for causing that I wouldn't even be able to tell you who WAS responsible for the issue. In most cases, an upset customer is the result of your service failing (there are, of course, customers in every industry that will not be happy no matter what you do, but these tend to be a small, if noisy, minority). In a service based industry, you don't get to ignore your upset customers just because you don't like dealing with upset customers. Doing that for long enough pretty much guarantees the failure of your company, as you will not only hemorrhage customers at an alarming rate, but they will go on to prevent new customers from joining you due to word of mouth.</p><p>I get the impression SOE really really wants new blood in this game, from all their emphasis on the new player experience and hyping up things like battlegrounds. They still don't seem to have realized that the best groundwork to lay for this is to improve the experience for the customers they already HAVE.</p><p>TL;DR: there's a reason people are whining and being increasingly more hostile in regards to this problem. Imagine what would happen if you put your customers on hold for six months because you simply didn't want to deal with upset customers (hint: any customers that miraculously stuck around, they'd be pretty enraged). If you are unwilling or somehow incapable of solving the customer's problem, at least <em>tell them so</em>.</p><p>This policy of utter silence is like standing in the corner with your fingers in your ears--it only makes the problem worse, and it makes you look like a child.</p>

[Striikor]

<p>We can be T1 DPS. The problem is really that we don't have anything to recommend us in a group with the buffs that we need. We don't add a thing to the caster group where many of us are put on a regular basis. Or we are in the trash group 4 where we may add something, but there is nothing in the way of buffs for us. IN the Main or OT group are the utility classes we need to do T1 DPS. But it is silly to replace a hate transfer like an Assassin or a Swashy with a Ranger who has no transfer.</p><p>We simply need too many buffs to get our full potential DPS. I have no problem getting to 100+ on Crit or DBL now. But DPS buffs are hard to come by as are procs from Bards and others in the main and OT. The difference in procs have me 10 to 20% lower in proc damage than the other scouts in main and OT groups or the mages. That seems to be the real difference.</p><p>I look at some of the top parses and see that the real difference is not on damage from my own AutoAttack or CA's but on the procs. If I compare my AutoAttack damage to our swashy's there is a significant difference in his weapon damage but it is regarding flurry and surrounding attacks and procs that do not happen off a bow.</p><p>The other day we had a strange situation where we could only get three groups together and I was put in the OT group, I topped the parse and my DPS buff was only at 52. A good deal of my parse were procs from bards and healers that I don't normally get.</p><p>IMO we either need something to recommend us for those groups or we need changes that do not require us to have so many buffs to reach our potential. At this point it is almost impossible to waste a buff on a Ranger, we eat them up we need so many that it takes a group built around us instead of around the success of the raid force or of a group. This current logic leaves many rangers out soloing unable to get slots.</p><p>It would for instance be stupid to put BC on a ranger if there is a melee dps in the group also. It is the same when procs are based off of a 'successful' attack. Because of our slow casting and long reuse we throw many less attacks than other melee DPS. As a result anything based to proc of a successful attack is better used elsewhere.</p><p>Yes Ranger's are fun to play, but when compared to melee in a group or raid situation we are the red haired step child. And that needs to be fixed. It has needed fixed for years now.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>I was at least hoping for some general fix's. Like putting in the auto attack selection option, and fixing the buggy state on Stream of Arrows.Maybe I should put this in the item section but this has been bugging me for a while. How is it they can justify 3 rune RT dropping two handed weapons with higher damage ratings and only slightly lower max damage than hard toxx bow? Considering these CAN take advantage AE auto and flurry? I mean doesn't this completely nullify any argument that flurry and ae auto on bows would be overpowered? Or do they still think that, and only want to overpower warriors and crusaders?</p><p>I'm hoping 3 rune theer or some other high end mob drops a bow with at least a 188 or more DR and no one has found it yet, I doubt it though.</p><p><img src="http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/3596/swordbow.jpg" /></p>

[Upir]

<p><cite>Striikor@Nektulos wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We can be T1 DPS. The problem is really that we don't have anything to recommend us in a group with the buffs that we need..</p></blockquote><p>In the off chance that there are some red names reading this, please know this statement does NOT speak for us all. </p><p>Striikor, in your guild with the people/classes/raid setup you're playing with, clearing the fights you guys are clearing, that may be true, but the more hard mode content you get into, the more glaringly obvious it becomes that a statement like what you made just isn't true. </p><p>Before it get's asked/stated, no, I don't suck.  I personally went from being pretty soundly on top of the zw's on our parses back when we were just getting started in the current raid content to slowly getting matched, then subsequently passed by the wizard, assassin, and warlock.  The people haven't changed.  The group makeups haven't changed.  The only things that have changed are people acquiring new aa's and gear.  Rangers don't scale up at the same rate these other classes do. Go look at the parse threads on flames for the respective classes.</p><p>For one thing, the better your raid force gets, the shorter the fights get, the less time you have to get hits in.  On a typical trash mob, 3 bow attacks and 5 or 6 ca's ends up being a parse where you may hit 32-37k which is fine and dandy until you notice the assassin hit 67k and the wizard did 54k.  Yea, its a trash mob I'm using as an example and they don't really matter but it is indicative of the point im trying to make about the class in general. </p><p>To truly fix the class they'd have to change some pretty fundamental aspects of how the game is coded, which I'm smart enough to see that at this stage in this game is never going to happen.  The problem is, there are (or at least were) enough good rangers out there that if you played smart and they made some changes within the realm of whats implemented in the game now, the gap between us and the rest of the T1's could be narrowed by a great deal... they just don't for some reason.  I'm not going to sit here and name off every little thing I can think of but here's a few for starters.  Why do our ca's do so little damage?  LONG GONE are the days of auto attacks making up 50% of your damage.  Why are the cool down times and casting speeds so long when the damage on said ca's is so out of proportion?  How much longer is it going to be before we see some type of benefit from auto attack AE or flurry?  I can maybe see a logical arguement over ranged auto attack AE being a bit hairy if you have someone not using their head and firing their arrows into bad places but there are ZERO REASONS why there's no flurry on ranged auto attacks (see Neiloch's point about 2h above).</p><p>Lastly, as was stated already, hearing nothing from the dev's is the worst possible way to deal with the legions of [Removed for Content] off people that is only getting worse with time.  If you guys don't like any of the solutions that have come from the community and can't come up with anything on your own, at least come out and say so.  "Sorry guys, we got nothin' atm.", is better (albeit, not by much) than sitting in silence while the community works themselves into a fit while you say and do nothing.</p>

[Neiloch]

That's exactly what I am seeing. I was actually reluctant to get on the ranger complaining train at first. I suspected, and now have been able to confirm that this is due to a few factors: 1. Player skill. I was able to adapt to new content and strats faster than others. 2. Better equipment. For various reasons I was able to stay ahead of the curve in equipment quality than other DPS in my raid force. Now that the raid force has gotten closer in AA's, masters, equipment and familiarity with strats I am busting my butt to keep up. Once they are actually on par with me, especially equipment wise I don't expect to be up top much.

[Striikor]

<p><cite>Striikor@Nektulos wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Yes Ranger's are fun to play, but when compared to melee in a group or raid situation we are the red haired step child. And that needs to be fixed. It has needed fixed for years now.</p></blockquote><p>Yes well hopefully I am more clear with the last part and my intent was certainly not to represent all rangers but, only a unique situation. It was actually the first time I have been in the OT group since I started to play again.</p><p>I had not intended to infer we are T1 DPS only that we can be in very odd situations.</p><p>All things being equal we are not T1 we are T2. IMO it is slow casting times, reuse and relative damage. But we we have to work hard compete with T2 in reality because we can't ask the raid to provide us with three utility just for our DPS. As far as competing with T1 equally grouped, equipped and played ...... I concur we are not in the same ballpark. </p><p>I do not compete in my normal group, I can be 3 or 4 class wise in the parse in group 4 or the mage group. I too had more DKP than others and equipped rather quickly as I had run out of things to bid on in TSO. So the experience I related may well change and rather quickly.</p><p> ... nothing to recommend us in grouping logic and new procs and equipment that will leave us further behind, and less damage potential than other T1.</p><p>So person in red please don't infer <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[kartikeya]

<p>I'm going to have to agree with Upirus: in top end fights there is simply no touching swashies, warlocks, or assassins. I can't tell you where wizard fits in, our particular group only occasionally has a wizard. Ranger is without exception always sat first whenever any fight needs more DPS/more survivability/more tanks/more anything, unless we have guests along that aren't as well geared.</p><p>The difference between the other DPS classes and rangers is <em>insane</em>. It seems like every single patch makes it worse. I can't comprehend why this has not been addressed, why we have not even had a single line of confirmation that something IS going to be done about it. They were talking about fixing Conjurors for months, why can't rangers get a straight yes or no answer as to whether this is going to be handled and in a remotely timely manner? (I feel like a broken record, repeating this question on every thread.)</p>

[suzita]

<p>I don't raid but I do group a lot.  I have noticed my dps drop and other classes have either overtaken me or are a lot closer in dps.  I would really like to see some answers about where the ranger class is heading and some fixes so we can once again do our jobs as T1 dps. um ok maybe just some communication for starters? please?</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>For me its just getting to the point where I'm sticking around to see how this plays out. Its just starting to be fascinating from a game industry point of view. Such a massive uproar of mad customers from a specific set and almost zero response. Its like a social experiment. I just imagine someone enforcing the parameters for it, "if they post in a more public section you can move the thread with supervision but you absolutely can not respond to it or the trial will be tainted"</p>