Ranger Class Issues

[Neiloch]

Well its not 'weird' but ranger's have outright avoided talking about it because it comes up so much and seen as 'beating a dead horse'. Basically it was well known Aeralik 'favored' assassins, our counterparts. Hopefully we will see some change now. We asked for more DPS or more utility a long time ago to balance things out and what we got was a group MELEE buff when rangers are usually in a caster group (from what I can tell) for IA. Awesome for the troubs i guess.... Rangers DON'T want more utility over more DPS, but if they outright to refuse to bring our DPS up to par to balance things, then we need more utility to balance. But to be clear, we want more DPS over more utility. Also being able to do sub par DPS out of melee range doesn't count as utility imo. unless they want to add a butt ton of fights where people MUST stay at range, like how they added more AE fights for AE oriented classes to shine. Know what the real pain of it is? We could put out the same numbers as an assassin, and STILL be behind them in terms of balance. Honestly I think looking at rangers on their own they are pretty well rounded, unfortunately when directly compared to other classes they come up short. Only time I put out numbers I think rangers should be at all times is in the off-tank group which usually includes a dirge, coercer, and a templar. Unfortunately a ranger brings nothing to the group as a OT group while assassin brings hate. Hopefully if buffs become more raid wide the problem will kind of fix itself.

[bryan4171]

Lol the last kick in the face I got was i offered to mentor to a lvl 60ish raid and they went with a Healer class in the high 50's cause they would help out more.

YAYYYYY

[Jamps]

Thats the ***** we get

[Raahl]

Not sure if this was brought up, but IMO rangers should have more ranged CA's than they currently do.

[Neiloch]

Well if they lower reuse on our current ones we won't need more to do them non-stop. But hey if they want to turn some melee CA's in ranged ones or just give us new ones outright I won't turn it down heh.

[Raahl]

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

Well if they lower reuse on our current ones we won't need more to do them non-stop. But hey if they want to turn some melee CA's in ranged ones or just give us new ones outright I won't turn it down heh.

That would probably go a long way to helping any DPS issues too.

[Hammieee]

delete this thread and quit crying about ranger having a issue... if your a good ranger you would have NO issues with ranger none the less our dps

[Neiloch]

Hammieee@Everfrost wrote:

delete this thread and quit crying about ranger having a issue... if your a good ranger you would have NO issues with ranger none the less our dps

Way to complain about a thread that is over a year old, even if it is stickied. I'm sure something will come up.

I'll still stand by my grievance that rangers are too melee centric as an aesthetic or personal preference even with their actual perforamnce being good. If I wanted to melee I would have made one of the other 11 melee classes.

Suppose my only hope is SoE gets with the time and makes rangers or some other class (archer maybe) a pure bow option in EQNext. One that doesn't have to deal with ammo or t least freely make their own unending supply of the best arrows available (Vanguard). Of course they could even screw that up by making them a pet class in the process.

[Hammieee]

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

Hammieee@Everfrost wrote:

delete this thread and quit crying about ranger having a issue... if your a good ranger you would have NO issues with ranger none the less our dps

Way to complain about a thread that is over a year old, even if it is stickied. I'm sure something will come up.

I'll still stand by my grievance that rangers are too melee centric as an aesthetic or personal preference even with their actual perforamnce being good. If I wanted to melee I would have made one of the other 11 melee classes.

Suppose my only hope is SoE gets with the time and makes rangers or some other class (archer maybe) a pure bow option in EQNext. One that doesn't have to deal with ammo or t least freely make their own unending supply of the best arrows available (Vanguard). Of course they could even screw that up by making them a pet class in the process.

arrows are cheap so thats not a issue at all. if your crying about us being to melee centric dont use your melee skills. I can put out about 30k more if i use all of them easily 

[Neiloch]

Hammieee@Everfrost wrote:

arrows are cheap so thats not a issue at all. if your crying about us being to melee centric dont use your melee skills. I can put out about 30k more if i use all of them easily 

If its not an issue why not get rid of them? Oh because it IS an issue, its just not a significant problem.

Way to over simplify on the melee point, so I'll elaborate.

I hate how melee is needed to reach any significantly high DPS. I think a min/max ranger should be able to top the parse without using any melee skills. I'll even go beyond that and say using melee CA's instead of ranged CA's as a ranger should be a detriment to DPS, not a significant boost, and only useful for when an opponent closes the distance to the point you can't use ranged CA's. Again, if I wanted to use melee to do a huge part of my DPS, I would have made one of the other multiple melee based DPS classes. Ranger's needing melee to DPS well in a performance environment is redundant.

But again I will point out this is my own personal aesthetic and even though rangers are 'fine' from a purely performance standpoint I still think there are some fun factor changes that could be made to increase enjoyment of the game. If you don't think that is at least as important as parses I'm forced to wonder why you even play video games.

Just because we don't have a bunch of problems that are 8-10's on the screwed scale doesn't mean there isn't any issues at all.

[Tokenki]

This is an old Sticky, and perhaps needs a bit of cleaning up....Current Issues I have with the class (These are what I see as issues Hammie, so I really don't care if you agree or not!)  I am going to add possible solutions to each issue that I see, so I'm not just complaining.  I LOVE the fact we can DPS now, and I see only a few minor tweaks that need to be brought to the DEVs attn.  Also, while I may mention other classes from time to time, my main focus will remain on the Ranger.  SoE says the classes are balanced, I disagree, that's all I'll say on the matter.

Here they are, in no real order...other than the first one...

1. Utility.  Utility. UTILITY!  LFG!  I need a Tank, Healer, Bard, Chanter, ASSASSIN, and one other DPS.  We are a filler class, while our sister class (last time I'll talk about class balancing, I promise) gets actual use in a group.  One possible solution?  Hawk Attack is permanent, and not affected by AoE attacks.  This gives us a similar hate transfer to the Assassin.  The Mystic has a pet that is Immune to AoE, so it has precedent.

2. Coverage.  Min. distance to the mob, and it takes way too long to cast (even though it says instant).  Maybe it is using the stealth function to invis us, rather than its own function, and that is causing the delay?  Solution: Remove the delay.

3. Ammo.  Not a huge issue here, and I like what SoE did with the broken "Makeshift Arrow" ability.  However, it still is a bit of a pain to have to buy or make the copious amounts of arrows that a Ranger will use during the course of a 3 hour raid.  (By the way, it's usually around 3000 arrows and that's with the current Ammo Conservation from the mythical and using arrow rip when it's up.)  Solution:  This is a tougher one to solve.  To eliminate Arrows from the game would affect a lot of classes and tradeskills.  There are very nice higher end arrows that could be rendered useless if Rangers don't need to use them anymore.  Maybe give Rangers the ability to summon arrows that are equal to the Spirit Blessed variety?  It would have to be something worthwhile.  By that I mean a high quantity, or a low cast time to make it useful.  I don't want to see the current Makeshift Arrow ability go away, but I would like to see something better than wasting a red adorn to save a few arrows.  Another Solution, Make the Mythical Buff Ammo Conservation much higher, around 75% or so.

4. Poison.  It doesn't crit anymore.  There is an entire AA line for poison that NOBODY I know will use, as it does not really do anything.  Most of the scouts I know will still use poisons, because it's a little bit of dps, but not what it could be.  Solution:  1. Change the poisons so they do greater damage.  2. Change the utility so they actually hurt the mobs, i.e. slow casting, major debuff, remove ability, stifle for a short time, ect. 3. LET THEM CRIT! 4. Remove them from the game and give a poison ability to all scouts, one for each "color" of poison, revamp the AA line so scouts can decide which type of poison they want each poison to use.  Example, Red poison AA can do massive damage, or can DoT, or can do damage plus health regen, Purple Poison AA can do int style debuff and affect casting speed, or can do melee style debuff and affect how hard a mob can hit, or can do a combo of both, Blue poison AA can decrease hate, or add a slowing affect, or a small bit of both. 

Please feel free to analyze, complain, tell me I'm wrong.  Fixing these things, I feel, would greatly improve our class, and in some cases, all Scouts in general.

[Kyriel]

Landacet Back after 5 years of no playing time.

So I came back to the game about 2 months ago, right after the whole hacking issue to find out that raid assasins could solo epic x4 mobs in old expansions. That first of all got me excited about what kinda dps we can punch, I am now in La cosa nostra in guk. Former Raid Tank For Keepers of the realm and highest dps for rangers in the server for 4 years in that time.

Rangers still have no utility and have to work hard for dps. Yet there have been signs of improvement, not only are there a couple of rangers that can hit over 300k and squish most assasins but I have seen it myself that i can dish out very high dps even in rygorr, Now as I am beginning to get fable gear and hopeing to get Hardmode I see my dps increase by quite a bit even with no Dirges or Illusionist in group.

Its hard to get our dps to where it should be but its all not bad especially when you know your class, you know your combos and you know your timers and group debuffs. If you have any question regarding what my aa line is or what Combinations i used. Dont hesitate to send me a tell.

[Gaige]

Kyriel wrote:

have to work hard for dps.

Not really.  70% of a rangers parse in DoV is autoattack/procs if their gear isn't totally horrible and they're buffed correctly.

[Tokenki]

Gaige wrote:

Kyriel wrote:

have to work hard for dps.

Not really.  70% of a rangers parse in DoV is autoattack/procs if their gear isn't totally horrible and they're buffed correctly.

Helpful as always Gaige.  Now go back to your assassin forums.

[LilNut]

some utility suggestions. i  know rangerse are pure dps but they arent top dps and some little throw-in utility that isnt totally game changing would be nice.

first, let me say, i dont really want any utility interfering with my rangers dps cast order. my sub-par ranged dps already singles me out for the "mechanics" guy. meaning, if something needs to be clicked, put the ranger over there he can dps from range and we want our heaviest hitters to stay dpsing. or a mechanics add that pops in at a certain time, let the ranger kite him around while, again, our heavy dpsers stay dpsing.

so, with that in mind, some "out of combat" utility i think is a really good idea, and one iv offered to soe before and was obviously ignored.

a sort of fresh water flask type item that gives a small (but still useful) heal, similar to what summoners have with hearts and shards. i know, this is mostly useless, but pre-endgame it actually might be handy for some.

a cure item of the similar vane to the above item. out of combat summon, gives group or even raid-wide a cure item, separate from other cure pots. in some expansions the dots are so overdone and sometimes dots come when pots are on reuse, and healers have other crap to worry about.  again, i dont think its game changing, but its a silly little thing that a ranger could offer to a group. both of these items, 1 and 2, are truly in the "flavor" of a ranger, sort of wilderness scout foraging for useful stuff.

most people will probably argue that these are healer things, but id argue that mana regen is a chanter thing yet necros and conjys get hearts and shards...so why not?

[Gkar]

i always wished rangers had more utility, some people dont, thats just my preference.

i wouldnt mind having 4 pets to that would group buff the archetypes based on the pet that was cast. multiple buffs(2 max perhaps). have a pet tree where you can choose what the pet does and how much. the tree doesnt have to be tied to AA. level based points im thinking. 

• Lion - fighter: + hate, dps increase, + taunt, +defense
• Bear - priest: - hate, + healing/wards. + spell reuse. + spell recast
• Wolf - Scout: - hate, + melee, +range
• Tiger - Mage: -hate, + spell range attack, + spell auto attack, + spell damage 

the options for the pets could be endless for what they could do.

[LilNut]

Gkar wrote:

i always wished rangers had more utility, some people dont, thats just my preference.

i wouldnt mind having 4 pets to that would group buff the archetypes based on the pet that was cast. multiple buffs(2 max perhaps). have a pet tree where you can choose what the pet does and how much. the tree doesnt have to be tied to AA. level based points im thinking. 

• Lion - fighter: + hate, dps increase, + taunt, +defense
• Bear - priest: - hate, + healing/wards. + spell reuse. + spell recast
• Wolf - Scout: - hate, + melee, +range
• Tiger - Mage: -hate, + spell range attack, + spell auto attack, + spell damage 

the options for the pets could be endless for what they could do.

this is an awesome idea....and they will never ever do it

[Lexing]

Gkar wrote:

i always wished rangers had more utility, some people dont, thats just my preference.

i wouldnt mind having 4 pets to that would group buff the archetypes based on the pet that was cast. multiple buffs(2 max perhaps). have a pet tree where you can choose what the pet does and how much. the tree doesnt have to be tied to AA. level based points im thinking. 

• Lion - fighter: + hate, dps increase, + taunt, +defense
• Bear - priest: - hate, + healing/wards. + spell reuse. + spell recast
• Wolf - Scout: - hate, + melee, +range
• Tiger - Mage: -hate, + spell range attack, + spell auto attack, + spell damage 

the options for the pets could be endless for what they could do.

I've answered you in a tell but I thought I would post my thoughts here as well.

There are a couple of fundamental problems with your suggestion. First off, from what little I know about World of Warcraft, this sounds like Rangers as they exist there. The EQ2 Ranger is NOT a pet class, and it shouldn't be. It is supposed to be ranged melee DPS and nothing more. Although as a Ranger, I agree that we do get the short end of the stick as far as utility goes, I don't see making us a pet class being the fix that needs to happen.

Secondly, you've described a scout dps class that provides variable utility to a group or raid based on what pet they select to use. This sounds a lot like the role I expect Beastlords to fill when they are released in just over a month.

[Neiloch]

They better not make rangers a pet class. That was my most hated thing about Hunters on WoW, they were completely screwed if they didn't have their pet. If I wanted to do that I'd play a summoner. One of the main reasons I quit rift as well. Wanted to be a good ranged scout on Rift? Better dump points in pet skills. Might be alright if the buffs were the main part and the pet actually existing in the world was more vanity than anything, but wouldn't be an hour before people started DEMANDING the pets do just as much DPS as summoner ones which is just wrong for so many reasons.

Hard enough trying to convince devs to make Ranger's true bow experts when people aren't randomly suggesting they just rip off WoW Hunters.

[Lexing]

Neiloch@Butcherblock wrote:

They better not make rangers a pet class. That was my most hated thing about Hunters on WoW, they were completely screwed if they didn't have their pet. If I wanted to do that I'd play a summoner. One of the main reasons I quit rift as well. Wanted to be a good ranged scout on Rift? Better dump points in pet skills. Might be alright if the buffs were the main part and the pet actually existing in the world was more vanity than anything, but wouldn't be an hour before people started DEMANDING the pets do just as much DPS as summoner ones which is just wrong for so many reasons.

Hard enough trying to convince devs to make Ranger's true bow experts when people aren't randomly suggesting they just rip off WoW Hunters.

Did you completely miss my post?

I highly doubt this sort of change is coming for Rangers. What Gkar is imagining is almost exactly what I expect from Beastlords.

[Neiloch]

Umm no, just so happens I was replying to another person that happens to be in this thread.

But yes I agree, sounds like what beastlords will be. From what I heard the devs say beastlords are gonna bring new meaning to 'pet class' as in 'you're absolutely nothing without your pet.'

[Daveak]

personally i like pets for ranger, but that my preference.  it wasnt meant to be a controllable pet. i was just representing the buf with a visual que.. technically it could just be a regular spell.

[Neiloch]

I've actually found the hate siphon of my Hawk Attack quite useful if I'm in a lopsided group where the tank isn't the same tier as the DPS. Plus it doesn't just help me out, helps everyone in the group that isn't a fighter. He doesn't die often either if I tell him to go passive, opposed to melee range of a mob. I put points into lowering its reuse as well, that way if he doesn't die there is only about 3 seconds every use that he isn't up. The 'natures focus' became slightly more useful since they instituted that 'over cap' stuff for weapon skill stats. Not much though, something like 4% damage increase for melee's in the group.

What I would like them to do, which I've been asking for most of the time I have been playing a EQ2 ranger, is adjust that little balance calculator they use. For whatever reason they put way too much value on something being 'ranged' while wearing chain for us thus gimping ranged CA's (compared to melee ones) and making us rely too much on melee CA's for maximum DPS potential. If they're taking requests would be nice if they made melee CA's ranged and work point blank too, except for a few select ones (arrow rip, immobilizing lunge).

And I'm still waiting to see the ammo requirement removed for all ranged weapons or an ammo requirement added for caster auto attack, lest ranged auto attack exist in a state of hypocrisy.