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Fixing the HR without totally recoding the entire class.

jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
I'm probably one of the longest playing HRs in the game. Not the best, and not the deepest theorycrafter either. However, like most HRs, and to be honest everybody else too, I've been aware that since mod6 pretty much, HRs have been seriously underperforming in pvp and to a lesser extent, given equal item levels between classes, in pve too.

I'm also aware that given the complexity of the class mechanics - multiple dots, effects and twice the usual number of encounters - it must be every coder's nightmare to unentangle.

There've been a lot of threads debating fixes, usually with long lists of requirements which would entail a huge amount of work, on the developers part, to implememt and troubleshoot. Real life practicalities become quickly prohobitive, when you compare the pressures to produce new content for the entire population of the game to the needs of what is now, a fairly small slice of the playerbase.

So, my simple, to my utterly inexperienced programmer-wise eyes anyway, suggestion is every week, along with the regular patch/maintainance, you add a 1000 base damage to every encounter and at-will HRs have. Reserve the right to stop, and back up a couple of 1000 if necessary when you feel, or more realistically the other classes screaming on the forum feel ☺, you have done enough to bring HRs back to a competitive level.

Thanks.
No idea what my toon is now.
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Comments

  • jhpnwjhpnw Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 611 Arc User
    I thought about this you are correct if its hard or takes to long it wont ever happen. So at first do simple things to the feat tree increase toughness, endless assault and scoundrel training to 5/10/15% and weapon mastery, disciple of dex and lucky skirmisher to 3/6/9% these will give damage and survivability to all 3 trees.
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    Tbh, we can build for survivability already, it's our base damage that lets the side down, can't lifesteal meaningfully if you're hitting with noodles. Other classes would complain about inequalities in the initial feat tree, but they wouldn't have any footing to complain about a damage buff, as everybody already knows how bad HR damage is.
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • lirithiellirithiel Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,482 Arc User
    Agreed. Our base damage is HAMSTER-poor. I did a DF run last night where I was second in damage done. My highest hits (crits) were 90k on TW and 135k on Disruptive Shot. I compared it to the CW above me and the TR below me and was saddened to see that the CW landed an Ice Knife for 1.3 million (anomaly perhaps) along with meaty hits (crits) for over 200k while the every power of the TR did over 200k damage (crits). Granted both their crit ratings were 100% most likely but I wasn't far behind with 94% crit.

    We need some serious buffing.
    Our pain is self chosen.

    The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
  • dfncedfnce Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 509 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    NWO is hard to balance due different rules of chain damage per class, different at-will dpm and class-specific base weapon damage with same item level. Right, class balance and "uniqueness" prevents it. In addition, there is complete mess with weapon damage based bonus which matter nothing in party content. In party content there is expectation that people do multiplied 10*N times more damage with same abilities. Party buffs don't scale "weapon" damage based skills. Thorned Roots which can make 50% of trapper damage in solo content and makes HR trapper viable in solo pve, become useless in party. I hope developers will understand all this one day.

    Many HR skills are not weapon damage based (by description), but they perform with lesser or no synergy with party buffs. That explains why Seismic Shot barely see 1M while Shocking Execution or Ice Knife 5M.

    My proposal for HR

    Chain at-will damage, for melee should be aligned with other melee classes (GWF/TR/GF) and range damage with ranger classes (SW/CW). Maybe HR ranger tree should should grant range at-wills 100% efficiency, Combat ranger 100% for melee ones. Other cases is 70-80%. If all agree that main components of self buff in HR trapper damage is Deft Strike and Serpent Stacks, HR certainly has no much opportunity to benefit these on full at-will chain.



    Post edited by dfnce on
    EX-DL-BtS / ITF-KC-KB / BF-HD-IBS / FtF-IT-ST-Dis / CA-GW-PG
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  • jaegernljaegernl Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 455 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    dfnce said:

    Thorn Roots which can make 50% of trapper damage in solo content and makes HR trapper viable in solo pve, become useless in party. I hope developers will understand all this one day.

    I'm sorry, but I can't resist calling you out on this one. Roots become 'useless' in party? Thorned Roots still make up a solid 30-35% - biggest contributor, often closely followed by Plant Growth - of my damage.

    It's this kind of hyperboly in nerf/buff threads that makes them - those threads - often so difficult to stomach, and makes serious requests for balance look suspect by association.

    -

    Concering the opening post: While I have no choice but to accept and believe - as I don't PvP - that HR damage in the Player versus Player mode is HAMSTER-poor, calling for a damage buff concerning PvE sounds counter-productive. Counter-productive when it comes to the longievity of the game. There's too much damage already. Power creep is out of control. Rather, I'd see everyone - probably including us - be toned down. I do, however, concede that less damage allround would probably make everyone nigh-immortal in PvP, but *more* damage would make the PvE side even more trivial than it already is.

    A second concern is that an increase in base damage toward encounters and at-wills would leave the other paths (Archery/Combat) even further behind Trapper. As I see it right now - and this is exclusively an PvE standpoint - Trapper is the go-to path, and others lag behind. Convinced that damage is out of whack already, I'd rather see the other Hunter Ranger paths being brought up to speed, rather than the class as a whole - including Trapper - getting a damage buff.
    Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
    Aurelius the Awkward - Level 70 Pathfinder Ranger
    We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
  • kangkeokkangkeok Member Posts: 1,123 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    jaegernl said:

    A second concern is that an increase in base damage toward encounters and at-wills would leave the other paths (Archery/Combat) even further behind Trapper. As I see it right now - and this is exclusively an PvE standpoint - Trapper is the go-to path, and others lag behind. Convinced that damage is out of whack already, I'd rather see the other Hunter Ranger paths being brought up to speed, rather than the class as a whole - including Trapper - getting a damage buff.

    I think most archery & combat dmg comes from at-will + encounter. If buffing both at the same ratio, there wont be any different compare to current state between trapper and the other tree. If they buff more on at-will, it will boost archer and combat by a little compare to trapper.

  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    I understand the concerns on the pve side, I don't want HRs to suddenly become gods anymore than anyone else would. I think HRs are pretty good pve-wise if built and geared well. That's why I didn't touch dailies or root-damage, or weapon damage values.

    Upping base damage thresholds on encounters and at-will of themselves would - at least as far as I can predict without knowing much about the coding nuts and bolts side - go a great way towards balancing the pvp side of things, without making pve damage laughabley huge, because pve bonuses - thorned root ticks etc. - are almost universally linked to weapon damage - which wouldn't change.

    I realise that increasing encounter damage would most benefit trappers, though the at-will boost would probably benefit archers more, however, the whole point of this thread is to propose a buff that is hopefully a) simple to implement on the developers side, and therefore practical, given time and work constraints, and b) acceptable to the rest of the population of the game, who are already aware of the poor state of our base encounter and atwill damage.

    I'm aiming for the no-drama solution on both ends of the equation if you like, and small, incremental increases over time will allow the developers to fine-tune the buff, without suddenly having an all-powerful, godlike class on their hands.
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • userutf8userutf8 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 270 Arc User
    Devs say they balance things around PVE, lol. What rework do you want for PVE? - HR is fine in PVE, as any other class that has only one viable path is.

    What can be done to HR that has minor impact on PVE and huge impact on PVP includes some coding tho.
    The most universal key that fixes like 1/2 of problems of HR in PVP can be longstrider/gushing complete rework:
    1. range to proc the buff should be reduced by twice
    2. buff should be changed to 80% self-buff and 40% party buff
    3. gushing wound animation time should be reduced by twice (better would be to replace it with something not HAMSTER)
    4. instant CDR and no-CDR bugs should be both fixed
    5. cooldowns on these powers should be balanced to prevent longstrider multistacking, on the other hand trapper must be able to spam it.
    All the above gives:
    - more utility, as you are able to keep up 40% damage buff for party
    - more mobility, as you are able to rotate faster between the nodes and use less dodges when it comes to fighting on the node.
    - way better personal damage (and less control).

    What also can be done is:
    1. Nature Enhancement (t3 heroic) can be buffed by 5x making it 5/10/15/20/25% Deflection Severity
    2. Slasher's mark should be a self-buff too (probably like a GF/GWF mark), or it needs way more damage
    3. Thorn Ward damage should be buffed.
    4. ...

    Speaking seriously, the class needs too much rework. I doubt they will ever fix dodges, etc. But I'd be happy to see at least the longstrider rework, as it has great potential in pvp, but is really too hard to use in competitive premades.
    ABSOLUTE
  • wdj40wdj40 Member Posts: 1,958 Arc User
    Natures Enhancement does not even work on the X1 lol.... I put 5 points into it and found it did nothing, I even requested a Retraining Token from support as I keep wasting them finding broken things... did not get my token though.

    Can you guys confirm if Natures Enhancement actually works on the PC?
    Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only
    Alts :
    Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)

    Member of Q-Snipe
  • userutf8userutf8 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 270 Arc User
    wdj40 said:

    Natures Enhancement does not even work on the X1 lol.... I put 5 points into it and found it did nothing, I even requested a Retraining Token from support as I keep wasting them finding broken things... did not get my token though.

    Can you guys confirm if Natures Enhancement actually works on the PC?

    I cannot confirm it as i never used it, and i'm lazy to test it as it's useless :-)
    Why do you think it's broken tho? If it doesn't represent itself in the severity stat, it doesn't nessesarily mean it's broken...
    ABSOLUTE
  • wdj40wdj40 Member Posts: 1,958 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    I remember reading things in the past that people tested it and found it does not work properly, all I can do on the xbox is go by what people have tested on the PC and my own limited findings (no ACT).

    I know some things are not working properly on the stats screens (personal and companions) but do work behind the scenes... For instance some split stats not showing on the companion screen but are being sent over via Companions Gift.

    Only visually can I tell if Natures Enhancement is not working. When I use a Foehammer's Elixir the stats screen shows 60% Deflect Severity so I know that works. Also putting points into Bloodletting shows on the stats screen when switching to Melee... But putting 5 points in Natures Enhancement and looking at the Deflect Severity does not show any difference at all.
    Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only
    Alts :
    Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)

    Member of Q-Snipe
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    @userutf8

    Sure, all your points are sensible. But they will never happen.

    The whole point of this thread is to dispense with blue-sky wish lists and concentrate on something that can be done, will be beneficial to the class, and won't hopefully involve a lot of workhours to accomplish.

    Ps. Okay, perhaps bluesky is too harsh an adjective. I've a feeling that back in the day, gushing was intentionally built to be too clunky for pvp.
    Post edited by jonkoca on
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • userutf8userutf8 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 270 Arc User
    @jonkoca
    well, ty :p
    I don't mind increasal of base damage (which actually you want to happen, no? :-)), but imo rework of one (broken) skill most likely can happen, whereas the base damage increase... well, my point is that hr will be a bit OP in pve. Also, increasing the base damage you don't solve the problem of "the single viable tree". I suggest you to make a poll in this thread after gathering other people's opinions'. However "the wilds" are the numb place. That's the problem.
    ABSOLUTE
  • jhpnwjhpnw Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 611 Arc User
    Jonkoca is correct you will only get a minimal adjustment that will not take a rework. This due to Devs just are not plentiful enough and don't have the time. NW is strictly profit driven and if its not making you up grade or spend money it will only get a quick something. That is why we say the one thing HR needs is a damage increase.. In dragon flight The cw Who just got nerfed still hit with 700k plus ice knifes and the GWf have 900k damages also the TRs drop 200 to 300k damage per pop but we get 135k damage from sezmic and cordon which are the top 2 damage producers for HR. In dungeon runs the damage is better for us but the other classes when played correctly are still better than us. Also for you HR who are getting 50 % damage from roots you need help this means you need to change some thing. A top tier HR should get 30% to 35% roots and other things should do the rest you are missing out on damage this was not meant as a criticism but as help. As a trapper cordon in pve should post up a good % of your dps as well as constriction Carfull attack or many others even with constr cordon and hindering which I run mostly thorned roots will still be 35% of dps 50% roots on 37mil dps is not good that ment you lost at least 10 to 15mill some where else.
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    In general everyone's suggestions, whether good, bad or ugly, get sunk in the thread they originate in because no-one ever just gets behind a single idea. Polls attract trolls, and everybodys' 2 cents, however well intentioned, amount only to a bunch of loose change.

    Anyway. Note the correct usage of "loose" as in not bound tightly together, rather than the mispelling of "lose" as in to not win. There: I feel I have accomplished something.

    Look at it like this:

    Will this change improve the class..?
    Is it practical from a developer's pov. to implement timewise..?
    If it does all go sideways, is it easily undoable..?

    If you think the answers to all the above are "yes" say so without elaboration. If you don't, then create your own thread with a better suggestion.

    No idea what my toon is now.
  • kangkeokkangkeok Member Posts: 1,123 Arc User
    userutf8 said:


    5. cooldowns on these powers should be balanced to prevent longstrider multistacking, on the other hand trapper must be able to spam it.

    I hope u dont mean by increasing the cooldown of longstrider cause that will hurt archer tree in pve.
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    @kangkeok - so flat incrememtal damage increase across the board... y/n..?
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • kangkeokkangkeok Member Posts: 1,123 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    if u look at 2nd point that userutf8 mention
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    edited May 2016
    I looked. All that does is make every HR in the game lose one encounter slot. We want more variety, not less.
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • dfncedfnce Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 509 Arc User
    jaegernl said:

    dfnce said:

    Thorn Roots which can make 50% of trapper damage in solo content and makes HR trapper viable in solo pve, become useless in party. I hope developers will understand all this one day.

    I'm sorry, but I can't resist calling you out on this one. Roots become 'useless' in party? Thorned Roots still make up a solid 30-35% - biggest contributor, often closely followed by Plant Growth - of my damage.
    Everyone can study damage strings in this video, high geared pro HR vs EGWD boss as solo. I don't see any high DPS numbers (like 200k-400k per tick) from thorn roots. He uses vorpal, wheel and has 18k more static power than mine 3.2 hr (based on gear and stats present on another edemo video), this before bondings proc.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxvolpOPAtc
    jhpnw said:

    Also for you HR who are getting 50 % damage from roots you need help this means you need to change some thing. A top tier HR should get 30% to 35% roots and other things should do the rest you are missing out on damage this was not meant as a criticism but as help.

    50% root commentary related to solo content. It likely matter of individual playstyle, but it also sufficient enough because it is very auto-aim and click-and-forget type of skill with Constructing.
    EX-DL-BtS / ITF-KC-KB / BF-HD-IBS / FtF-IT-ST-Dis / CA-GW-PG
    "When no appropriate rule applies, make one up."
    — (The unwritten rule)


  • durugudesudurugudesu Member Posts: 555 Arc User
    "in dungeon runs the damage is better for us but the other classes when played correctly are still better than us."

    NO.
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    Meh, they are actually, most of the time. Gwf/Sw
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • kangkeokkangkeok Member Posts: 1,123 Arc User
    jonkoca said:

    I looked. All that does is make every HR in the game lose one encounter slot. We want more variety, not less.

    I dont get what u meant by 'We'..u mean trapper? If u boost the self buff to 80% and party buff to 40% it certainly benefit HR of all tree...but if u increase the cooldown, that mean it further the gap between the other 2 tree with trapper...anything that increase the cooldown act in the favor of trapper over other tree..if u wanna nerf the ur cooldown, nerf your feat..dont drag the other tree down
  • jonkocajonkoca Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,586 Arc User
    No, I mean all HRs, period - self buff of 80% - no-one would ever have it off their bar. So people's rotations would always be longstrider + × +y.
    No idea what my toon is now.
  • silence1xsilence1x Member Posts: 1,503 Arc User
    I usually dust off my HR for CTAs and such (full SW Archery) but his damage has been gimped for so long that I don't run him nearly as much as I should. I would love to see some adjustments to the Archery path.
    I aim to misbehave
  • jaegernljaegernl Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 455 Arc User
    dfnce said:

    Everyone can study damage strings in this video, high geared pro HR vs EGWD boss as solo. I don't see any high DPS numbers (like 200k-400k per tick) from thorn roots. He uses vorpal, wheel and has 18k more static power than mine 3.2 hr (based on gear and stats present on another edemo video), this before bondings proc.

    If you're taking your information from watching the damage floaters, I suggest you grab Advanced Combat Tracker and then come back to us.
    Isaac the Adequate - Level 70 Oath of Protection Paladin
    Aurelius the Awkward - Level 70 Pathfinder Ranger
    We have looked into reports of players experiencing connection problems and have been unable to identify any server, data center, or client-side issues. We believe this may be ISP related.
  • kangkeokkangkeok Member Posts: 1,123 Arc User
    jonkoca said:

    No, I mean all HRs, period - self buff of 80% - no-one would ever have it off their bar. So people's rotations would always be longstrider + × +y.

    Nope. Not all HR agree with this thought. I, for one as archery player totally dont see increasing cooldown of longstrider will benefit non trapper HR. If u thought of the balance of multi stacking longstrider buff a trapper may abuse, simply suggest the buff unstackable will solve it.

    I hope this thread is about buffing up HR as a whole and not an indirect call for further nerfing other tree.
  • jhpnwjhpnw Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 611 Arc User
    We still are looking for a few simple things Devs could possible do to boost HR class. Wish full thinking is nice but original post is for suggestions that we could give Devs that might get pushed through and help the whole class such as increase to Damage base and Crit Sev. We have been nerfed enough even our roots for PVP were nerfed to non existent. So we do no Damage at all against the better players.
  • marnivalmarnival Member Posts: 1,432 Arc User
    jonkoca said:

    I'm probably one of the longest playing HRs in the game. Not the best, and not the deepest theorycrafter either. However, like most HRs, and to be honest everybody else too, I've been aware that since mod6 pretty much, HRs have been seriously underperforming in pvp and to a lesser extent, given equal item levels between classes, in pve too.

    I'm also aware that given the complexity of the class mechanics - multiple dots, effects and twice the usual number of encounters - it must be every coder's nightmare to unentangle.

    There've been a lot of threads debating fixes, usually with long lists of requirements which would entail a huge amount of work, on the developers part, to implememt and troubleshoot. Real life practicalities become quickly prohobitive, when you compare the pressures to produce new content for the entire population of the game to the needs of what is now, a fairly small slice of the playerbase.

    So, my simple, to my utterly inexperienced programmer-wise eyes anyway, suggestion is every week, along with the regular patch/maintainance, you add a 1000 base damage to every encounter and at-will HRs have. Reserve the right to stop, and back up a couple of 1000 if necessary when you feel, or more realistically the other classes screaming on the forum feel ☺, you have done enough to bring HRs back to a competitive level.

    Thanks.

    +1
  • dfncedfnce Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 509 Arc User
    jaegernl said:

    dfnce said:

    Everyone can study damage strings in this video, high geared pro HR vs EGWD boss as solo. I don't see any high DPS numbers (like 200k-400k per tick) from thorn roots. He uses vorpal, wheel and has 18k more static power than mine 3.2 hr (based on gear and stats present on another edemo video), this before bondings proc.

    If you're taking your information from watching the damage floaters, I suggest you grab Advanced Combat Tracker and then come back to us.
    I gave evidence of another very good HR which uses Thorn roots and everyone can make their own conclusion. And certainly am not in group of your "us". I don't recall anything you posted to improve HR, benefit HR community or something i don't already know about.
    EX-DL-BtS / ITF-KC-KB / BF-HD-IBS / FtF-IT-ST-Dis / CA-GW-PG
    "When no appropriate rule applies, make one up."
    — (The unwritten rule)


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