State of the Ranger as of 6/05/10 - Seciton 1 Complaints and Issues [Archive]

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Mathrim

06-05-2010, 03:30 PM

****Due to the maximum text size of threads, Sections 2 and 3 will be moved to a separate post********Please keep this thread to new issues and ranking of current ones only! Use the 2nd thread for solutions****I figure it has been quite some time since we’ve had any open feedback between the developers and the ranger community. I do not want to post this in the Ranger Class Issues thread at the top of this forum as I believe that thread is completely ignored. With Smokejumper at least responding some in the General forum, perhaps if we tried laying out our complaints and issues for him and the rest of the developers to ponder, we might at least get a two-way discussion going now.I am going to lay out the main issues that I see affecting our class and some of the changes that have been placed upon us. I would like everyone else’s feedback on what needs to be added and adjusted. Perhaps we can get this stickied and replace the one at top once we come to an agreement on our priority and ranking of issues.There will be 3 sections of this series. The first section will contain a description of the issue/complaint and the second section will contain proposed solutions and options for resolving it. Hopefully the developers can look at the first section as a general debrief on how the ranger community as a whole feels regarding our flaws and then they can take the second section as a starting point on possible solutions. The third section is simply a wish list of things that we would like to see changed but aren’t major issues for the ranger class.With that said, I am going to take a moment to address a couple of issues right now before I start the lists. These lists will be generated solely based off of PvE raiding complaints and general class complaints that affect all levels of PvE. I do not want this thread to involve PvP as that environment is an entirely different subset of EQ2.Even though we use bows primarily, we are NOT a ranged dps class. Anyone making comments below saying “Oh, you can just stand with the healers/casters to dps and not have to joust, etc..,” will be ignored and your input considered invalid. All active quality rangers know that our life exists at 4 meters and anyone trying to prove otherwise has no clue about the ranger class. Section 1: Complaints & Issues Ranked by Importance1. Inferior Raid DPS Capability. Based on personal experience and numerous parse reviews, rangers have now become a low T2/upper T3 dps class. For a class that is solely viewed as a dps class, this is a serious detriment. For reference, here are the highest parses that I have found for any NAMED fight for the following classes. (I tried to exclude Russian parses since there seems to be a debate on whether their servers use the same code) Wizard 90k, Assassin 80k, Swashbuckler 76k, Warlock 75k, Shadowknight 65k, Conjuror 65k. Necromancer 61k, Brigand 60k, Paladin 60k, Bruiser 58k, Ranger 55k, Brigand 51k, Monk 51k. 2. Lack of Raid/Group Utility. Rangers are consistently finding themselves placed in the 3rd/4th raid groups due to their lack of beneficial group buffs. Spots in group 1 and 2 are reserved for assassins and swashbucklers due to their hate transfers. As such, rangers are finding themselves in the mage groups where they do not get any combat buffs and this increases the dps deficiency. Rangers have 1 group buff, Focus Aim, which is useable for 15 seconds every minute. This buff is absolutely useless to mage groups as it is a melee combat only buff. 3. Discriminatory Combat Mechanics. Bows are the ONLY weapons that are not capable of Flurry or AE Auto Attack. The justification in the past for this limitation is that it would be overpowering to have those effects on high damage weapons such as bows. Developers have now introduced 2-handed melee weapons that have higher dps ratings AND lower delays that are capable of using both of these mechanics. This also means that we miss out on combat buffs such as Battle Cry and Arms of Imagination which once again furthers the dps deficiency. 4. Excessive Reuse Timers on Ranged Combat Arts. Prior to Sentinel’s Fate, combat arts made up about 65% of our dps and auto attack made up the remaining 35%. With the changes to game mechanics, our combat arts now make up 80% of our dps and auto attack has dropped to 20%. With the long reuse on all of our quality ranged combat arts, rangers are unable to sustain higher dps levels. For reference, auto attack dps for all scouts is hovering in the 10 to 13k range whereas Assassins and Swashbucklers are able to sustain their higher levels of dps due to faster reuse combat arts. 5. Dual Wielding Out Parses Ranged. Testing based on my current weapons and further reports by rangers from both beta and this forum shows that current dps ratings on bows are inferior to dual wielding. I tested for 10 minutes with each setup on an epic training dummy. I used a 172 dps bow vs. dual wielding a 130 dps in primary and a 128 dps weapon in secondary. The bow ended up doing 16% less auto attack damage over the 10 minute test. Please note that I am also a ranger who has NO flurry adornments and no AA’s put into AE auto-attack. Other classes being able to use those adornments and AA’s further increases the dps gap between melee and ranged auto-attack. 6. AA Discrimination. Killing Fury for assassins versus Opening Volley for rangers is a major contention of complaint. Not only does Killing Fury have a 10% longer duration, it also comes at the end of the fight when aggro is typically under control and the mobs are debuffed. Also, according to the description, Killing Fury has a bonus to critical attacks during that time. Rangers are forced to use their dps increase at the start where it isn’t as effective due to less debuffs on the named and they also risk causing more aggro issues due to the high aggro nature of the ranger class. 7. Inferior Combat Arts and Excessive Cast Times. Assassinate is the most glaring difference in combat arts. Assassinate takes 20% of the time to cast versus Sniper Shot. Assassinate at Master level hits for 10k more on the minimum and 17k more on the maximum BASE of the spell. In real game parsing, the highest Sniper Shot reported is 255k while the highest assassinate is 430k. Add into that fact that Assassins also get another 200K+ combat art in Fatal Follow-up that can be reused every minute. Over 75% of a Ranger’s ranged combat arts have cast times of 1 second or greater with 2 of them having cast times greater than 2 seconds. 8. Mythical Nerf by removing 0 Range. One of the best and most desirable aspects of the ranger mythical was that it is the only bow in game to have a 0 range. This effect allowed rangers to finally deal with the insane hit boxes on some raid mobs. It also allowed us to stay within the 4 meter “sweet spot” and not have to do so much re-positioning as before. The other added benefit in my case was that trio’ing with a healer and illusionist was ten times easier as I could continue using my primary bow auto-attack while tanking for them. From my understanding, the mythical conversion was meant to allow everyone to upgrade and replace their mythical with better weapons. With this forced change back to 2 meter minimum bows, many rangers are having to hot swap and continue using their enervated mythical for large parts of the game. 9. Extra Costs Only Incurred by Rangers. Rangers are the ONLY class that is required to use consumable supplies in order to function. Poisons, stones, food, and drink are shared by all scout dps classes but arrows are a necessary component of only 1 class in game. Based on my consumption, I would spend between 5 and 15 pp a week on arrows if I bought them off the market. We are the ONLY class that is forced to pay for our basic dps ability and yet we are a sub-par dps class in exchange for that. Add into the fact that there is now a summoning pouch that provides ammunition free of charge for non-rangers is just an added insult. 10. Hawk Attack is Useless. Hawk Attack is perhaps a raiding ranger’s most useless spell. Numerous complaints have been submitted about how the hawk is unable to actually land a hit to siphon aggro on most group content mobs much less raid level mobs. Add into that the fact that the bird has pathetic hit points and dies almost immediately upon casting 90% of the time. We even have a 5 point AA selection under our Ranger tab that is completely useless right now with the current design of the ability. ****Solutions and Wish List Continued in 2nd Thread****

jjlo69

06-05-2010, 05:46 PM

<cite>Mathrin wrote:</cite><blockquote>****Due to the maximum text size of threads, Sections 2 and 3 will be moved to a separate post**** Section 1: Complaints & Issues Ranked by Importance1. Inferior Raid DPS Capability. Based on personal experience and numerous parse reviews, rangers have now become a low T2/upper T3 dps class. For a class that is solely viewed as a dps class, this is a serious detriment. For reference, here are the highest parses that I have found for any NAMED fight for the following classes. (I tried to exclude Russian parses since there seems to be a debate on whether their servers use the same code) Wizard 90k, Assassin 80k, Swashbuckler 76k, Warlock 75k, Shadowknight 65k, Conjuror 65k. Necromancer 61k, Brigand 60k, Paladin 60k, Bruiser 58k, Ranger 55k, Brigand 51k, Monk 51k. QFE 2. Lack of Raid/Group Utility. Rangers are consistently finding themselves placed in the 3rd/4th raid groups due to their lack of beneficial group buffs. Spots in group 1 and 2 are reserved for assassins and swashbucklers due to their hate transfers. As such, rangers are finding themselves in the mage groups where they do not get any combat buffs and this increases the dps deficiency. Rangers have 1 group buff, Focus Aim, which is useable for 15 seconds every minute. This buff is absolutely useless to mage groups as it is a melee combat only buff. I dont want any group/raid utility I want to see more temp buffs that will put a ranger on top of parses PERIOD. 3. Discriminatory Combat Mechanics. Bows are the ONLY weapons that are not capable of Flurry or AE Auto Attack. The justification in the past for this limitation is that it would be overpowering to have those effects on high damage weapons such as bows. Developers have now introduced 2-handed melee weapons that have higher dps ratings AND lower delays that are capable of using both of these mechanics. This also means that we miss out on combat buffs such as Battle Cry and Arms of Imagination which once again furthers the dps deficiency. Only fix i see that i would agree with here is to make it to where 2 hand weapons can no longer work off flurry ae auto attack i dont care about working or not with a 2 hander. until you can make flurry and ae auto attack work off ranged. 4. Excessive Reuse Timers on Ranged Combat Arts. Prior to Sentinel’s Fate, combat arts made up about 65% of our dps and auto attack made up the remaining 35%. With the changes to game mechanics, our combat arts now make up 80% of our dps and auto attack has dropped to 20%. With the long reuse on all of our quality ranged combat arts, rangers are unable to sustain higher dps levels. For reference, auto attack dps for all scouts is hovering in the 10 to 13k range whereas Assassins and Swashbucklers are able to sustain their higher levels of dps due to faster reuse combat arts. IMHO a Combat Art overhaul for a ranger in genreral need to happen not just reuse timers looked.. here is an example of the imbalance . assassian blue aoe attack stealth assult recast is 27 sec(im using my gear or this stat) compared to a rangers selection which is at 54 sec 5. Dual Wielding Out Parses Ranged. Testing based on my current weapons and further reports by rangers from both beta and this forum shows that current dps ratings on bows are inferior to dual wielding. I tested for 10 minutes with each setup on an epic training dummy. I used a 172 dps bow vs. dual wielding a 130 dps in primary and a 128 dps weapon in secondary. The bow ended up doing 16% less auto attack damage over the 10 minute test. Please note that I am also a ranger who has NO flurry adornments and no AA’s put into AE auto-attack. Other classes being able to use those adornments and AA’s further increases the dps gap between melee and ranged auto-attack. QFT 6. AA Discrimination. Killing Fury for assassins versus Opening Volley for rangers is a major contention of complaint. Not only does Killing Fury have a 10% longer duration, it also comes at the end of the fight when aggro is typically under control and the mobs are debuffed. Also, according to the description, Killing Fury has a bonus to critical attacks during that time. Rangers are forced to use their dps increase at the start where it isn’t as effective due to less debuffs on the named and they also risk causing more aggro issues due to the high aggro nature of the ranger class. This was address in beta by rangers were blue in the face no change ever happened. killing flurry is not the only bias aa's.. please also refer to the assassin line in the shaddow tree comapred to a rangers. as awell as going back to the brawler aa's you guy gave them like a 20% chance to flurry. 7. Inferior Combat Arts and Excessive Cast Times. Assassinate is the most glaring difference in combat arts. Assassinate takes 20% of the time to cast versus Sniper Shot. Assassinate at Master level hits for 10k more on the minimum and 17k more on the maximum BASE of the spell. In real game parsing, the highest Sniper Shot reported is 255k while the highest assassinate is 430k. Add into that fact that Assassins also get another 200K+ combat art in Fatal Follow-up that can be reused every minute. Over 75% of a Ranger’s ranged combat arts have cast times of 1 second or greater with 2 of them having cast times greater than 2 seconds. see number 4. ill also add sniper shot master one reads for me 18971-31142 compared to assassate 29209-48205 and they have the same recast but sniper arrow is on a 3 sec timer and lower damge FTL 8. Mythical Nerf by removing 0 Range. One of the best and most desirable aspects of the ranger mythical was that it is the only bow in game to have a 0 range. This effect allowed rangers to finally deal with the insane hit boxes on some raid mobs. It also allowed us to stay within the 4 meter “sweet spot” and not have to do so much re-positioning as before. The other added benefit in my case was that trio’ing with a healer and illusionist was ten times easier as I could continue using my primary bow auto-attack while tanking for them. From my understanding, the mythical conversion was meant to allow everyone to upgrade and replace their mythical with better weapons. With this forced change back to 2 meter minimum bows, many rangers are having to hot swap and continue using their enervated mythical for large parts of the game. This one i have posted in the past and will reiterate what i have said in the past 0 range imho means nothing unless your fighting a dragon ie waansu( not a ranger friendly fight or in battle grounds. therefore this one does not need to be on this list since the mythical buff fixed this. 9. Extra Costs Only Incurred by Rangers. Rangers are the ONLY class that is required to use consumable supplies in order to function. Poisons, stones, food, and drink are shared by all scout dps classes but arrows are a necessary component of only 1 class in game. Based on my consumption, I would spend between 5 and 15 pp a week on arrows if I bought them off the market. We are the ONLY class that is forced to pay for our basic dps ability and yet we are a sub-par dps class in exchange for that. Add into the fact that there is now a summoning pouch that provides ammunition free of charge for non-rangers is just an added insult. if a rangers DPS was on par i have no issue paying for arrows. 10. Hawk Attack is Useless. Hawk Attack is perhaps a raiding ranger’s most useless spell. Numerous complaints have been submitted about how the hawk is unable to actually land a hit to siphon aggro on most group content mobs much less raid level mobs. Add into that the fact that the bird has pathetic hit points and dies almost immediately upon casting 90% of the time. We even have a 5 point AA selection under our Ranger tab that is completely useless right now with the current design of the ability. hawk attack = the new stream of arrow pre fix. ****Solutions and Wish List Continued in 2nd Thread****</blockquote>

Mathrim

06-05-2010, 06:25 PM

Uncle,I appreciate the response and support, however, I really wanted this thread to be about any other issues that need to be listed and what ranking we would like assigned to these issues. I was saving the other tread for my solutions to fix our class and for other suggestions on possible fixes.Do you have any other issues that you think should be added and how do you feel about the priority of whats listed here?With that said, let me address a couple of points in your reply.#2. I do not see Sony ever making us the top dps. I wish it could happen but I don't believe it. At best we will hopefully be able to match our Assassin brothers. That still won't give a raid a reason to put us in the main/off tank group with the good buffs over an assassin or swashie hate transfer. If we are gonna be stuck in the caster groups, we should at least have our utility adjusted to have some kind of use there.#8. Many of us rangers out there do miss our mythical range. I do a lot of playing around in the contested Hole with friends. Since I'm typically tanking stuff in there, I equip my enervated for 95% of my time in there as there are so many mobs and so much in your face aggro that a regular bow just doesn't cut it. I created this list to cover all PvE ranger complaints and not just raiding. There is a very vocal and loud group of rangers who really want that 0 range back.

jjlo69

06-05-2010, 07:02 PM

<cite>Mathrin wrote:</cite><blockquote>Uncle,I appreciate the response and support, however, I really wanted this thread to be about any other issues that need to be listed and what ranking we would like assigned to these issues. I was saving the other tread for my solutions to fix our class and for other suggestions on possible fixes.Do you have any other issues that you think should be added and how do you feel about the priority of whats listed here?With that said, let me address a couple of points in your reply.#2. I do not see Sony ever making us the top dps. I wish it could happen but I don't believe it. At best we will hopefully be able to match our Assassin brothers. That still won't give a raid a reason to put us in the main/off tank group with the good buffs over an assassin or swashie hate transfer. If we are gonna be stuck in the caster groups, we should at least have our utility adjusted to have some kind of use there.if soe had our dps match a sin's or slightly better rangers would earn that spot in better groups period but i agree even with this informative post of your rangers will never be fixed like they should be.#8. Many of us rangers out there do miss our mythical range. I do a lot of playing around in the contested Hole with friends. Since I'm typically tanking stuff in there, I equip my enervated for 95% of my time in there as there are so many mobs and so much in your face aggro that a regular bow just doesn't cut it. I created this list to cover all PvE ranger complaints and not just raiding. There is a very vocal and loud group of rangers who really want that 0 range back.once again ill reiterate my stance on this a mythial with 0 ranged was only made for one encounter Trak it was never ment to be used for anything else other then that and the new bread of ranger is just not used to having to joust in and out.. and as i stated above other then BG and waansu in SF raiding 0 range is not needed any more and i personally would just get used to that part of the play style. If anything i blame itemization for this issue since soe should have made a replacement for mythical alot sooner then they did.Uncle</blockquote>

Upir

06-05-2010, 07:28 PM

<cite>Mathrin wrote:</cite><blockquote>1. Inferior Raid DPS Capability. Based on personal experience and numerous parse reviews, rangers have now become a low T2/upper T3 dps class. For a class that is solely viewed as a dps class, this is a serious detriment. For reference, here are the highest parses that I have found for any NAMED fight for the following classes. (I tried to exclude Russian parses since there seems to be a debate on whether their servers use the same code) Wizard 90k, Assassin 80k, Swashbuckler 76k, Warlock 75k, Shadowknight 65k, Conjuror 65k. Necromancer 61k, Brigand 60k, Paladin 60k, Bruiser 58k, Ranger 55k, Brigand 51k, Monk 51k. Agreed 2. Lack of Raid/Group Utility. Rangers are consistently finding themselves placed in the 3rd/4th raid groups due to their lack of beneficial group buffs. Spots in group 1 and 2 are reserved for assassins and swashbucklers due to their hate transfers. As such, rangers are finding themselves in the mage groups where they do not get any combat buffs and this increases the dps deficiency. Rangers have 1 group buff, Focus Aim, which is useable for 15 seconds every minute. This buff is absolutely useless to mage groups as it is a melee combat only buff. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if I cared about utility, I'd be playing my dirge or my illy. Up the dps. 3. Discriminatory Combat Mechanics. Bows are the ONLY weapons that are not capable of Flurry or AE Auto Attack. The justification in the past for this limitation is that it would be overpowering to have those effects on high damage weapons such as bows. Developers have now introduced 2-handed melee weapons that have higher dps ratings AND lower delays that are capable of using both of these mechanics. This also means that we miss out on combat buffs such as Battle Cry and Arms of Imagination which once again furthers the dps deficiency. There is ZERO reason why flurry doesn't work on ranged attacks. I can see a slight point in how ranged AE auto attack could get hairy if you weren't paying attention, but that's not to say the mechanic shouldn't be available to rangers. It just means that you should pay attention while you're playing. (if we had it) 4. Excessive Reuse Timers on Ranged Combat Arts. Prior to Sentinel’s Fate, combat arts made up about 65% of our dps and auto attack made up the remaining 35%. With the changes to game mechanics, our combat arts now make up 80% of our dps and auto attack has dropped to 20%. With the long reuse on all of our quality ranged combat arts, rangers are unable to sustain higher dps levels. For reference, auto attack dps for all scouts is hovering in the 10 to 13k range whereas Assassins and Swashbucklers are able to sustain their higher levels of dps due to faster reuse combat arts. Agreed 5. Dual Wielding Out Parses Ranged. Testing based on my current weapons and further reports by rangers from both beta and this forum shows that current dps ratings on bows are inferior to dual wielding. I tested for 10 minutes with each setup on an epic training dummy. I used a 172 dps bow vs. dual wielding a 130 dps in primary and a 128 dps weapon in secondary. The bow ended up doing 16% less auto attack damage over the 10 minute test. Please note that I am also a ranger who has NO flurry adornments and no AA’s put into AE auto-attack. Other classes being able to use those adornments and AA’s further increases the dps gap between melee and ranged auto-attack. This is the only thing on this list I disagree with. Yes, I've seen parses where this has shown true on dummies, but I have yet to see any actual raid mob parses to show this to be true. That's not to say it isn't, I just haven't seen it proven in a raid setting. If anyone has numbers to support this, please post them. (from a raid setting, I've seen the dummy parses) 6. AA Discrimination. Killing Fury for assassins versus Opening Volley for rangers is a major contention of complaint. Not only does Killing Fury have a 10% longer duration, it also comes at the end of the fight when aggro is typically under control and the mobs are debuffed. Also, according to the description, Killing Fury has a bonus to critical attacks during that time. Rangers are forced to use their dps increase at the start where it isn’t as effective due to less debuffs on the named and they also risk causing more aggro issues due to the high aggro nature of the ranger class. Agreed 7. Inferior Combat Arts and Excessive Cast Times. Assassinate is the most glaring difference in combat arts. Assassinate takes 20% of the time to cast versus Sniper Shot. Assassinate at Master level hits for 10k more on the minimum and 17k more on the maximum BASE of the spell. In real game parsing, the highest Sniper Shot reported is 255k while the highest assassinate is 430k. Add into that fact that Assassins also get another 200K+ combat art in Fatal Follow-up that can be reused every minute. Over 75% of a Ranger’s ranged combat arts have cast times of 1 second or greater with 2 of them having cast times greater than 2 seconds.Agreed. CA's need to be totally gone through and have damage amounts increased and some casting times and recast times decreased. Recast times may not be necessary depending on what would be changed in regards to damage amounts, but I'd personally like to see the recast times come down with slightly less given in the way of upped CA damage, as opposed to bigger gains in CA damage on the same old long recast times. This would help in getting smoked on shorter fights because you have CAs down. 8. Mythical Nerf by removing 0 Range. One of the best and most desirable aspects of the ranger mythical was that it is the only bow in game to have a 0 range. This effect allowed rangers to finally deal with the insane hit boxes on some raid mobs. It also allowed us to stay within the 4 meter “sweet spot” and not have to do so much re-positioning as before. The other added benefit in my case was that trio’ing with a healer and illusionist was ten times easier as I could continue using my primary bow auto-attack while tanking for them. From my understanding, the mythical conversion was meant to allow everyone to upgrade and replace their mythical with better weapons. With this forced change back to 2 meter minimum bows, many rangers are having to hot swap and continue using their enervated mythical for large parts of the game.This falls more under an annoyance than an absolute need in regards to raiding/grouping. It doesn't come up nearly as often in the current raid content that you CAN'T use your bow the way it used to, but it's a pretty crappy thing to do to give this ability to a class for nearly 2 years to become "the norm", only to take it away for no good reason. Even though this thread isn't supposed to be about PvP, I'll throw this in quick. Not having this in PvP/BG leaves rangers at a SEVERE DISADVANTAGE. You want a quick tip on how to kill rangers in PvP/BG? Get right in their faces, cause there's not much they can do about it... 9. Extra Costs Only Incurred by Rangers. Rangers are the ONLY class that is required to use consumable supplies in order to function. Poisons, stones, food, and drink are shared by all scout dps classes but arrows are a necessary component of only 1 class in game. Based on my consumption, I would spend between 5 and 15 pp a week on arrows if I bought them off the market. We are the ONLY class that is forced to pay for our basic dps ability and yet we are a sub-par dps class in exchange for that. Add into the fact that there is now a summoning pouch that provides ammunition free of charge for non-rangers is just an added insult. Meh. Does it suck that that's the way it is? Sure, but making money to cover arrow costs at this point in the game isn't all that difficult. Like Uncle said, if we were parsing like we should be, I couldn't care less about arrow cost. If you were to prioritize the things on this list and SoE only had the manpower/resources to get the top half done, I'd be pretty angry if this made the cut... 10. Hawk Attack is Useless. Hawk Attack is perhaps a raiding ranger’s most useless spell. Numerous complaints have been submitted about how the hawk is unable to actually land a hit to siphon aggro on most group content mobs much less raid level mobs. Add into that the fact that the bird has pathetic hit points and dies almost immediately upon casting 90% of the time. We even have a 5 point AA selection under our Ranger tab that is completely useless right now with the current design of the ability.Meh.</blockquote>

Sydares

06-06-2010, 01:24 AM

Posted to Solutions Thread

Nevao

06-06-2010, 02:03 AM

<cite>Mathrin wrote:</cite><blockquote>1. Inferior Raid DPS Capability. Based on personal experience and numerous parse reviews, rangers have now become a low T2/upper T3 dps class. For a class that is solely viewed as a dps class, this is a serious detriment. For reference, here are the highest parses that I have found for any NAMED fight for the following classes. (I tried to exclude Russian parses since there seems to be a debate on whether their servers use the same code) Wizard 90k, Assassin 80k, Swashbuckler 76k, Warlock 75k, Shadowknight 65k, Conjuror 65k. Necromancer 61k, Brigand 60k, Paladin 60k, Bruiser 58k, Ranger 55k, Brigand 51k, Monk 51k. While I don't know about those numbers I don't think anyone will disagree the point. 2. Lack of Raid/Group Utility. Rangers are consistently finding themselves placed in the 3rd/4th raid groups due to their lack of beneficial group buffs. Spots in group 1 and 2 are reserved for assassins and swashbucklers due to their hate transfers. As such, rangers are finding themselves in the mage groups where they do not get any combat buffs and this increases the dps deficiency. Rangers have 1 group buff, Focus Aim, which is useable for 15 seconds every minute. This buff is absolutely useless to mage groups as it is a melee combat only buff. We need something to get us back into the melee groups. I'm really lucky in that I'm being used as an Amends Anchor for our OT, but that's more due to choice of classes in the guild. We need something to get us in that group (or something similar) on it's own merits. 3. Discriminatory Combat Mechanics. Bows are the ONLY weapons that are not capable of Flurry or AE Auto Attack. The justification in the past for this limitation is that it would be overpowering to have those effects on high damage weapons such as bows. Developers have now introduced 2-handed melee weapons that have higher dps ratings AND lower delays that are capable of using both of these mechanics. This also means that we miss out on combat buffs such as Battle Cry and Arms of Imagination which once again furthers the dps deficiency. This alone will not close the gap, but it does need to be addresed. 4. Excessive Reuse Timers on Ranged Combat Arts. Prior to Sentinel’s Fate, combat arts made up about 65% of our dps and auto attack made up the remaining 35%. With the changes to game mechanics, our combat arts now make up 80% of our dps and auto attack has dropped to 20%. With the long reuse on all of our quality ranged combat arts, rangers are unable to sustain higher dps levels. For reference, auto attack dps for all scouts is hovering in the 10 to 13k range whereas Assassins and Swashbucklers are able to sustain their higher levels of dps due to faster reuse combat arts. I haven't looked in a long time, are Assassins recast really that much lower? I thought the difference primarily came in that they could get 3 off in the time we can get 1 off so they were just up faster. 5. Dual Wielding Out Parses Ranged. Testing based on my current weapons and further reports by rangers from both beta and this forum shows that current dps ratings on bows are inferior to dual wielding. I tested for 10 minutes with each setup on an epic training dummy. I used a 172 dps bow vs. dual wielding a 130 dps in primary and a 128 dps weapon in secondary. The bow ended up doing 16% less auto attack damage over the 10 minute test. Please note that I am also a ranger who has NO flurry adornments and no AA’s put into AE auto-attack. Other classes being able to use those adornments and AA’s further increases the dps gap between melee and ranged auto-attack.Due to our Offensive Stance, Makeshift Arrows and Wounding Shot I still think it's better to be using a bow, but yes there is an issue here. 6. AA Discrimination. Killing Fury for assassins versus Opening Volley for rangers is a major contention of complaint. Not only does Killing Fury have a 10% longer duration, it also comes at the end of the fight when aggro is typically under control and the mobs are debuffed. Also, according to the description, Killing Fury has a bonus to critical attacks during that time. Rangers are forced to use their dps increase at the start where it isn’t as effective due to less debuffs on the named and they also risk causing more aggro issues due to the high aggro nature of the ranger class. I'm still shaking my head from this one during Beta. 7. Inferior Combat Arts and Excessive Cast Times. Assassinate is the most glaring difference in combat arts. Assassinate takes 20% of the time to cast versus Sniper Shot. Assassinate at Master level hits for 10k more on the minimum and 17k more on the maximum BASE of the spell. In real game parsing, the highest Sniper Shot reported is 255k while the highest assassinate is 430k. Add into that fact that Assassins also get another 200K+ combat art in Fatal Follow-up that can be reused every minute. Over 75% of a Ranger’s ranged combat arts have cast times of 1 second or greater with 2 of them having cast times greater than 2 seconds. This wouldn't be so bad if the damage on the abilities was higher. One of those variables needs to be tweaked. 8. Mythical Nerf by removing 0 Range. One of the best and most desirable aspects of the ranger mythical was that it is the only bow in game to have a 0 range. This effect allowed rangers to finally deal with the insane hit boxes on some raid mobs. It also allowed us to stay within the 4 meter “sweet spot” and not have to do so much re-positioning as before. The other added benefit in my case was that trio’ing with a healer and illusionist was ten times easier as I could continue using my primary bow auto-attack while tanking for them. From my understanding, the mythical conversion was meant to allow everyone to upgrade and replace their mythical with better weapons. With this forced change back to 2 meter minimum bows, many rangers are having to hot swap and continue using their enervated mythical for large parts of the game. I have less of a problem with the removal of the 0 Range and more with the stand 2 to 5 meters away. Again fix one or the other though I believe the devs that addressing 0 Range is a gigantic effort. 9. Extra Costs Only Incurred by Rangers. Rangers are the ONLY class that is required to use consumable supplies in order to function. Poisons, stones, food, and drink are shared by all scout dps classes but arrows are a necessary component of only 1 class in game. Based on my consumption, I would spend between 5 and 15 pp a week on arrows if I bought them off the market. We are the ONLY class that is forced to pay for our basic dps ability and yet we are a sub-par dps class in exchange for that. Add into the fact that there is now a summoning pouch that provides ammunition free of charge for non-rangers is just an added insult. With everything they have given us to bring down the number of arrows we use, and with the Convservation AA I really don't think this is a big deal. If our DPS was equal to Assassins I don't think we'd be hearing so much noise from the community. 10. Hawk Attack is Useless. Hawk Attack is perhaps a raiding ranger’s most useless spell. Numerous complaints have been submitted about how the hawk is unable to actually land a hit to siphon aggro on most group content mobs much less raid level mobs. Add into that the fact that the bird has pathetic hit points and dies almost immediately upon casting 90% of the time. We even have a 5 point AA selection under our Ranger tab that is completely useless right now with the current design of the ability. I said it in the other thread as well. KILL IT WITH FIRE. </blockquote>

Carpediem

06-06-2010, 03:10 AM

Might want to add the issue with the selective auto attack never making it in. They were supposed to add a button in options to switch between melee or ranged auto attack full time, so we wouldn't need macros for melee CA's.

Jemoo

06-06-2010, 02:44 PM

One thing I'm surprised no one has brought up is melee and ranged procs. Right now some bows can proc on melee attacks but no melee weapons will proc on a bow attack, at least as far as I have seen. I'll post an idea of how to fix this in the other thread.

Striikor

06-07-2010, 09:51 AM

As stated all of these things have been brought up multiple times. We got one brief statement indicating it was recognized and being looked into and absolutely nothing since. It is discouraging to see updates hand out tweaks and changes to class after class while the Ranger is actually and actively ignored. One basic problem is that we have NOTHING to offer in the way of utility or DPS that gets us into the right groups. We are placed in the Mage group or in the ‘odd’ utility group 4. There is a reason for that, if we get all the buffs we can eat up (and it is more than any other class IMO) we still are not a definitive T1 DPS. Make nature’s bonus a permanent buff, take it off of focus aim and make it part of hunters instinct. Have the hawk transfer hate from non-fighter’s to fighters in the group and have it immune to aoe. These may be enough to get us a spot in the OT group and make us attractive to groups in general. And it does not change or threaten utility classes. Another is our very weird positional mechanics. We cannot be too close and we cannot be far away. We need to be behind the mob. We either have to maintain a sweet spot if we are intent on using only the bow, or we have to joust EVERYTHING. (Personally I joust as getting on top of the mob and meleeing with Brutallic Dagger 130.9 with follow though and Blade of scalpels 128.8 also with followthrough and the procs I can get off of melee, easily match my bow procs and exceed its overall damage.) On top of that odd limitation I cannot move wile casting any ranged CA’s except for three, arrow barrage, Rear Shot and Natural Selection. To me these are very odd limitations. I am sure some one will correct me if I am wrong, but melee autoattack must be less than 2 meters our new bows and our ranged combat arts need to be more than 2 meters. If a zero range buff is out of the question then it should be replaced with a melee range extension say to 5 meters as was suggested elsewhere. These items are already available in the game, just make it part of the mythic buff. IT still forces us to be 2 meters out but allows access to the mechanics that every other class who does primarily melee damage gets. IMO our largest problem is DPS we are simply not T1 anymore. Part of that is our positional mechanics and in raid settings the groups we can get into. But primarily it is CA damage, cast times and reuse. Now at one point long long ago this made sense. It made sense because we had awesome autoattack capabilities with our bows. This is no longer true. We have NO advantage in auto attack in may cases generate less autoattack damage than melee classes. I see other melee consistently out parse me in act with their straight slash, pierce and crush damage. You see peeps complaining still about our auttoattack damage being so high. They conveniently forget that our delay is 9 seconds vs their 4 seconds. Solo, self buffed on a training dummy I hit for an average of 2885 every 2.7 seconds with Brutallic Dagger and 2822 every 2.7 seconds with Blade of Scalpels. This is 5767 every 2.7 seconds with melee autoattack. If I take that damage across 4.6 seconds it develops average 9825 in melee autoattack damage. With Wyrm Tendon Longbow I hit for an average of 7201 every 4.6 seconds the same time frame. In other words I do 2624 less in autoattack damage with Wyrm Tendon Long Bow than I do with my dual wield. Reintroduce procs off ranged and increase Focus Aim Duration to 30 Seconds with a 1 minute recast. Do these simple things all of which are current in the general mechanics and see what happens. We may need more, …. we may need less (very unlikely). But these changes don’t involve anything new and it seems to me could be quickly implemented. Just my buck and a quarter worth.

Mini

06-09-2010, 07:38 AM

As I see it, here is my most basic issue with being a Ranger.Why am I FORCED to melee at all to be decent dps? I chose a Ranger to be able to range attack dps. If I WANTED to melee, I would have chosen a melee class.If anything, allow us to choose a spec (either melee or ranged) not force us to do both.

Coldel

06-13-2010, 03:21 PM

I'm not a techno-geek or a high end guild raider and I don't know the inner mechanics of this game as well as many of you might. I have however been playing a ranger since Nov 9th, 2004, I do raid end game content with a fairly decent guild, and at this point in my game I feel I make the most DPS my character is capable of making with my current gear/AA.I've tried a few other classes and I just enjoy playing the ranger more, if I wanted to be an assassin I would have betrayed long ago when I first realized how flawed the ranger class was. In all honesty I'd probably quit before I betrayed, why should I have to change the way I play entirely because the developers of a game that I pay for every month seem to have something against the character they originally created and I came to love. I continue to play this game because of habit I suppose, with the hope that the ranger will one day be remembered by the Devs, and the wrongs will be righted. The longer I play the more I doubt this will happen and the closer I come to hanging up my EQ2 hat for good.I'm not saying anything new here, nothing that hasn't been stated a hundred times by a hundred other rangers, many of whom have either betrayed to assassin or quit all together. I wholeheartedly agree with this thread, rangers need to be fixed. If we are a pure DPS class, which we have always been, we should be parsing near the top, period. I don't know how it should be fixed, it's not my job, it's yours (SOE). If you want to continue to lose players, as small of a segment as rangers may be, by all means please do nothing.