M15: Hunter Ranger Class Changes

wdj40 · September 2018

wdj40 said:

balanced#2849 said:
Hey Hunter Rangers,

Hunter Ranger has had some adjustments in the past and, while they are in a fairly good state, there are still some improvements that we wanted to make. In this update, we primarily focused on creating a more viable Archery build as well as some minor buffs to encounter powers that we expect to be used in that build.

We also focused on the buffs that are applied through the various animal-based powers, such as Boar Hide and Stag Heart. A lot of these buffs were lackluster, unclear in what they did, and scaled in a weird way with power ranks. All of these things have been addressed and a new class feature has replaced Battlehoned that will hopefully allow these to see more use. We actually did tune down Hawkeye a bit because even though we want these to be used more, we want them to be more utility focused instead of damage focused.

Aspect of the Serpent is something that we’re experimenting with as well. It stacking up to 3 times adds a couple of different gameplay elements. It means that the first stack consumed makes your attack hit very hard and it means that you can do all 3 encounters and then 1 at-will rotation and have your full stacks back. We are hoping that this gives trapper a slight damage boost as well as other builds that switch stances often.

Finally, we wanted to touch up some class features in Pathfinder as most of them weren’t being used, or were being used in very specific situations. Two of them have been slightly revamped so that they can be stronger in end-game content, but probably won’t end up replacing your heavy hitting features. The other will increase the effectiveness of your animal-based buffs and should offer a more unique build to help your team.

Actually, we were able to get one more fix in and that would be for the shift power. We saw that it was consistently breaking when trying to dodge things so we adjusted the immunity frames to start more near the beginning of the animation.

Baseline:

Shift: There should no longer be a delay before the “Dodge” effect kicks in

Weak Grasping Roots: Duration increased to 1.5 seconds (up from 1)

Strong Grasping Roots: Duration increased to 3 seconds (up from 2)

Encounters:

Constricting Arrow: Grasping Root range increased to 12’ (up from 10’)

Hawkshot: Base damage reduced by 50%

Hawkshot: Damage dealt based on range has been adjusted / reworked

Now grants between 1.33-2.00x damage based on range (up from 0.5-1.5x)
Hawkshot: Should no longer keep you locked into the animation for a small period of time after being used

Plant Growth: Root duration reduced to 10 seconds (down from 20 seconds)

Plant Growth: Root duration reduced to 5 seconds against players (down from 10 seconds)

Buff revamp for HR:

All Buffs: Companions can no longer benefit from these powers

All Buffs: Now affects up to 5 targets, (excluding yourself) at rank 1

All Buffs: No longer increases the amount of allies affected per rank

All Buffs: No longer requires allies to be in your party

All Buffs: No longer half as effective for allies

Boar Hide (Revamped): Grants you, and nearby allies, 5 stacks of “Thick Skin” which increases your damage resistance by 4% per stack. Taking damage removes a single stack.

Boar Hide: Now reduces the cooldown of Boar Hide by 1 sec / rank

Hawkeye (Revamped): Grants you, and nearby allies, “Hawkeye” for 5 seconds. “Hawkeye” increases the damage you deal with encounter powers by 5% (down from 15%).

Hawkeye: Now increases the effectiveness of the buff by 2.5% per rank

Oak Skin (Revamped): Enhances yourself, as well as nearby allies, with “Oaken Skin” for 9 seconds. “Oaken Skin” heals you for 9% of your maximum hit points over its duration and increases your incoming healing by 10% while active.

Oak Skin: Increases the percent of hit points healed by 3% per rank

Stag Heart (Revamped): Grants you, and nearby allies, “Stag Heart” for 5 seconds. “Stag Heart” grants you 7.5% of your maximum hit points as temporary health

Stag Heart: Now increases the amount of Temp Health gained by 2.5% per rank

Fox's Cunning (Revamped): Duration reduced to 8 seconds (down from 12 seconds)

Fox's Cunning: Base Cooldown increased to 22 seconds (up from 20)

Fox's Cunning: Now reduces the cooldown of Fox's Cunning by 2 second per rank (rather than 3 seconds at rank 4

Aspect of the Serpent (Revamped): Damage reduced to 2.5% per stack (down from 3%)

Aspect of the Serpent: Damage per rank reduced to 2.5% per stack (down from 3%)

Aspect of the Serpent: Maximum Stacks increased to 3 (up from 2)

Stormwarden:

Bladestorm (Revamp): Chance reduced to 20% (down from 25%)

Bladestorm: Damage increased to 16% at rank 1 (up from 5%)

Bladestorm: Damage increased to 8% at each rank (up from 5%)

Bladestorm: Artifact off-hand bonus: Now states that it increases the total damage done by Bladestorm by 10%

Bladestorm: This class feature should no longer be double mitigated by level 73 enemies

Twin Blade Storm: Damage increased to 5% at rank 1 (up from 4%)

Twin Blade Storm: Damage increased to 5% per rank (up from 4%)

Stormstep Action (Revamp): Now reduces the cooldown of encounters based on AP spent

Up to 2 seconds off at 100% AP spent
Stormstep Action: Cooldown Reduction increased to 2 seconds at rank 1 (up from 1 second)

Stormstep Action: Cooldown Reduction increased to 1 second for each rank-up (up from 0.5 seconds)

Stormstep Action: No longer has reduced value if triggered multiple times within 10 seconds.

Pathfinder:

Pathfinder's Action: Run Speed increased to 10% at rank 1 (up from 6%)

Pathfinder's Action: Deflection chance increased to 10% at rank 1 (up from 5%)

Pathfinder's Action: Run speed per rank-up reduced to 5% (down from 6%)

Battlehoned (Completely Reworked): Replaced with “Primal Instincts"

Primal Instincts: Now increases the effectiveness of Boar Hide, Hawkeye, Oak Skin, and Stag Heart by 20% (+10% per rank). and Fox's Cunning's duration by the same amount

Primal Instincts (Artifact Power): Now increases Regen rating by 500 (up from 100)

Cruel Recovery (Reworked): Duration changed to 10 seconds at all ranks (from +4 seconds per rank)

Cruel Recovery: No longer increases effect duration at each rank

Cruel Recovery: Now stacks up to 4 times

Cruel Recovery: Maximum Stack Count increased by 2 at each rank

Feats:

Archery:

Bottomless Quiver: Tooltip changed to state “Your Ranged powers recharge X% faster” (functionality unchanged)

Bottomless Quiver: Recharge speed increased to 8/16/24/32/40% (up from 6/12/18/24/30%)

Stillness of the Forest (Reworked): Now increases your damage dealt and crit chance by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% for each second that you stand still, stacking up to 6 times. You will lose 1 stack per second while moving. Stacks are not lost while out of combat.

Predator (Reworked): Using a ranged encounter power applies "Prey" to the first target hit for 10 seconds. You deal 20% increased damage to the first target hit by your powers and this bonus is doubled for targets affected by Prey. Prey may only be active on one target at a time and cannot be reapplied until it expires.

Predator: Now correctly increases the damage you deal to an enemy (Rather than decrease the enemy's damage resistance for your attacks)

Predator: This feat is no longer half as effective on players

Trapper:

Ancient Roots: Weak Grasping Roots duration lowered to .4/.8/1.2/1.6/2 (from .5/1/1.5/2/2.5)

Ancient Roots: Strong Grasping Roots duration lowered to .8/1.6/2.4/3.2/4 (from 1/2/3/4/5)

Ok I dont think you guys even play your own game now... How on Earth do you think if you have 3 stacks of Ranged Aspect of the Serpent, you use 3 Encounters and 1 At-Will to have your stacks back?
That exact scenario would leave you at Neutral stacks or just 1 stack of the opposite AotS.

To go from 3 stacks of Ranged AotS to 3 stacks of Melee... you would need to use 1 ranged attack at 3 stacks, 1 ranged attack at 2 stacks, 1 ranged attack at 1 stack, 1 ranged attack at neutral, 1 ranged attack at 1 stack of Melee, 1 ranged attack at 2 stacks of Melee.

This would then leave you at 3 stacks of the opposite in order to switch... that is just too many attacks to make a Trapper any use and you obliterate Longstrider builds.

Then dont forget that Buff Powers were changed a while back so they dont even use a stack of Aspect of the Serpent up... so builds with 1 or 2 buffs are going to lose so much DPS by having to add in even more low attack damage hits just to gain stacks. All of which is time consuming and that is something the Trapper does not have in order to be effective.

@kreatyve
@nitocris83

Sorry to tag you guys... but can you just make sure my comment here is passed back to the Dev's asap... As their idea of how Aspect of the Serpent works or should work, is not how it actually works in reality. There is potential here to destroy the trappers DPS completely unless it is tweaked.

Same as how Aspect of the Fox was almost ruined but was changed at the last moment in order for the Trapper to continue to exist.

artifleur · September 2018

Shift: I tested it and it actually works perfectly. This is lovely!

Stormstep Action: I love what you did here. I believe that 5 seconds for 100% AP won't be enough to make it worthwhile but it's a lot better than before at least.

Hawkeye: 5 seconds is way too short. Why does it have to be encounter damage only? If you want to make HR's viable supports we'll need some serious damage buffs and +12.5% from encounters only for 5 seconds isn't one.

Aspect of the Serpent: I'm no trapper expert but to go from 3 melee stacks to 3 ranged stacks you need 6 melee attacks, not 4.

Careful Attack: No fix yet? Seriously?

wizardlvl80 · September 2018

@artifleur

I belive you can combo Hawkeye with the new Primal Instintcs and it will give you +50% which will be +18.75% damage in total. My suggestion would be to include Longstriders in the Primal Instincts buff.

wizardlvl80 · September 2018

Tested Blade Storm. It accurately calculates to be 40% buff.

Please consider changing how AotS works. It will kill the trapper path since we now have to perform 6 attacks to build stacks. It's completely ruining trapper rotation. W cannot rely on spamming atwills since we not getting damage out of them, cause we only can use Dread enchantment. It is impossible to shoot LSS and build 3 stacks of AotS to hit with PG while LSS buff is still up.

BUG: Twin Blade Storm doesn't proc when hitting 2+ enemies.

isssssho · September 2018

I have finally finished checking the changes made to archery and impact of those to the build and style of play. It is still unclear to me where does 40% buff from capstone lands because that part never proced whatever I tried. Second, the changes made do not change the nature of this build much. Self buff value increases therefore it is possible to achieve larger numbers dps wise but that is not the main problem of archery and never was. If we exclude missing party buffs due to range talk because it was mentioned so many times before there are few other things to note that need attention if you really want to make this path viable.
Nature of gameplay is fast paced and archers feel slow and underwhelming + companion needs way longer time to proc bondings. All powers feel sloppy and isolated from the action as you were not in the same fight as your allies.
Early game sure this is viable - mid game not so much but people can get some value from it, but end game it is a ridiculous path to try to play and get some value out of it (PVE). I did not try it in PVP but from what I have read it might have some viability there acting as some sort of ambush glass cannon.
The changes you have made sure are for the better but are still far from what is needed to put this path into serious consideration for choosing to play it. Having hawkeye buffed with primal instincts feels almost innovating, but again - underwhelming to use.
If i wanted to make it competitive with other builds I would suggest (one) of the following changes :
- Longstrider's shot is now also affected by primal instincts
- Prey now buffs the hunters damage against the target for 40%, and 20% for your allies.
First suggestion would resurrect trappers, making them viable again while second one would make archery semi - viable. Both would make trapper viable, but would risk archery being overbuffed and used the way DO DC was used in the past few mods after TI changes.

Now as I saw above you wanted to give back some life to trappers and stance changer builds - so let me just introduce you to the core problem there. It is not amount of self buff that is the problem, it is the nature of current meta where dot damage is weak and burst is much more appreciated since it is more responsive to the buffs from the party.

I probably could continue writing but I'm lazy and not even sure that anyone reads this.

kangkeok · September 2018

patcherrkm said:
> @kangkeok said:

> I've got a point blank archer build that is now hitting aimed shots for over half a mill back to back. that's self buffed with nobody around. #holysh*t

>

> Time to go grab another set of Hags Rags.

>

> Yeah.. stay half a million when u are outside of party buff range while the melee are hitting 10mill +.

I’m not trying be a HAMSTER, but I did say “point blank”. Meaning I’m not far away. I’m basically umm point blank away from mobs. Lol. I do use seekers vengeance so I would typically be right behind a boss.

That means it does not solve the problem archery is facing for being a viable range class, apart from playing like a melee. And fighting at melee range totally defeat the whole purpose of being an archer and for what, just to be in buff range so archer can be viable? This whole point blank archer thing are just player looking for loophole to make something which are broken to work. If point blank archer still exist, it proves that archery are still broken.

Edit : Well, don't say I didn't point this out in the rework feedback forum. So developer, please fix the real issue.

kreatyve · September 2018

wdj40 said:
SNIP!

@kreatyve
@nitocris83

Sorry to tag you guys... but can you just make sure my comment here is passed back to the Dev's asap... As their idea of how Aspect of the Serpent works or should work, is not how it actually works in reality. There is potential here to destroy the trappers DPS completely unless it is tweaked.

Same as how Aspect of the Fox was almost ruined but was changed at the last moment in order for the Trapper to continue to exist.

No need to tag anyone extra in these feedback threads - I can 100% promise you that the devs are reading.

wizardlvl80 · September 2018

Some suggestions on how to revive trapper:

Make the next attack of the opposite stance to clear all of the AotS stacks. I.e. - if you have builded 3 melee stacks with ranged powers, you next melee power will be buffed by all three stacks. In this manner we might be able to keep up with the dynamic of trapper playstyle.

Make Lonstrider buff longer to 7 seconds so people can sqeeze the rotation and build proper stacks.

FIX CAREFUL ATTACK!!!!!!!!!!!!1111oneone

We are limited as trappers to encounter usage, so we the only, and let me repeat - ONLY viable enchantment for us is Dread. We are stuck with the same enchantment for so many mods now. Mod11 update to enchantments never actually worked for us. There were some Bilethorn experiments but at the end it was considered bad. Either change something with how weapon enchantments works on HR, or don't touch AotS, cause building stacks with atwills is really bad idea for trapper.

Like @rjc9000 stated - make roots work with other buffs. Why piercing blades can scale with buffs but roots cannot? Trapper is crippled at this point, cause (correct me if I'm wrong) roots are not being affected by almost any kinds of buffs. Are there even some artifacts which are boosting roots damage besides the Atropal one?

hercules125 · September 2018

For archers to be viable, they need to be able to do the same damage at any range. Animation times and recharge times need to be reduced across the board, and they actually need some kind of encounter(s) with decent damage. Just spamming at-wills doesn't cut it, especially with the at-wills archers have.

evemj · September 2018

Instead of having Predator increase the target's damage by 1.2 (1.4 if Prey is on), how about:
1.10 to all other enemies instead of 1.00
1.20 to all controlled enemies (1.15 if control immune)
1.40 to single/main target or to target that is closest to center of AoE
(none stack)

Or whatever numbers, since I'm HAMSTER with them and how they'd work with buffs.
Otherwise, if just one target is the plan, make it 1.25-1.50.

wdj40 · September 2018

You should have just doubled the range that Archers can get and give group buffs. That would have made it better than changing the way Stillness of the Forest works etc. There are already mechanics in place to change the range of things and as we can clearly see that in some of the patch notes.
Standing still is a terrible idea and I couldnt think of anything worse than just standing there spamming a button to get stacks of damage and/or crit up. In PvP for instance, you stand still for a second or 2 and you are dead simple as that... pretty much the same in PvE when a big red blob lands under you etc.

You should also think about being able to build both stacks of Aspect of the Serpent up at the same time instead of 1 at a time. You may be able to work around the problem of having to make too many attacks in the opposite stance as a Trapper. Otherwise buffs like Longstriders, Agile Combatant and Aspect of the Serpent Off-Hand Weapon buff... these are all timed buffs and would need extending (along with other timed buffs) as the would not work with the amount of time a Trapper would have to stay in one stance to build the opposite stacks of AotS.

Careful Attack is badly broken and has been for some time, I have logged bug reports in the forums and you still have not aknowledged the problem.

fluffy6977 · September 2018

balanced#2849 said:
Hey Hunter Rangers,

Hunter Ranger has had some adjustments in the past and, while they are in a fairly good state, there are still some improvements that we wanted to make. In this update, we primarily focused on creating a more viable Archery build as well as some minor buffs to encounter powers that we expect to be used in that build.

Snip

Feats:

Archery:

Bottomless Quiver: Tooltip changed to state “Your Ranged powers recharge X% faster” (functionality unchanged)

Bottomless Quiver: Recharge speed increased to 8/16/24/32/40% (up from 6/12/18/24/30%)

Stillness of the Forest (Reworked): Now increases your damage dealt and crit chance by 0.5/1/1.5/2/2.5% for each second that you stand still, stacking up to 6 times. You will lose 1 stack per second while moving. Stacks are not lost while out of combat.

Predator (Reworked): Using a ranged encounter power applies "Prey" to the first target hit for 10 seconds. You deal 20% increased damage to the first target hit by your powers and this bonus is doubled for targets affected by Prey. Prey may only be active on one target at a time and cannot be reapplied until it expires.

Predator: Now correctly increases the damage you deal to an enemy (Rather than decrease the enemy's damage resistance for your attacks)

Predator: This feat is no longer half as effective on players

Snip

As anyone who has played an archery spec at IL for content can tell you, these changes don't do anything to change Archery viability. Movement is key to survival as an archer, standing still as a means to generate more damage is antithetical to the archery path.

Another way to rework this path to actually be viable AND different than the trapper/combat spazzoid gameplay would be:

Rework Stillness of the Forest to award the damage and crit increases based on not taking damage for x amount of time, stacks not lost outside of combat.

Rework Aspect of the Falcon to increase damage dealt based on time spent in Ranged stance. buff the amount of damage total slightly, give it a two minute timer, timer does not reset when combat ends. Gives us a reason to stay in one stance, making up for lost Damage Per Second by only using half the encounter powers and eliminating the need to be outside of the radius of group buffs.

Rework Hawk Shot to deal bonus damage to enemies not targeting you instead of more damage at X range.

Bottom line is the +damage for increased range is a bad mechanic in a group buff driven game with buff AoE range limits. It needs to be replaced with rewards for staying in ranged stance and giving up the melee attacks. Current rework plan changes nothing in that equation.

Cheers

deterrant · September 2018

Revert Aspect of The Serpent back to 2 stacks, and buff the damage of stacks. The rotaion on trapper is awful. Very difficult to maintain constant dps.

Trapper relies on the LSS+GW/PG combo, this is not gonna roll well with the current 3 stack method, we have to shoot 6 times now to gain melee stacks to full 3.

Ex. now trapper uses LSS+CA+RS+DS (4 shots) switch to melee PG+SB+RS+RS(back to full 2 ranged stacks), with little variations depending on target count.

the 6 hits on every stance is gonna be a nightmare, just boost the stack damage and strip the 3rd away.

deterrant · September 2018

Also trappers shift still "lags" sometimes, the shift animations mix together, resulting in half shifts, The toon goes halfway thru the animation and stops. Tho its more constant now when pressing down the action key, and not tapping it comparing to live.

Hunter Ranger is a mobile class, dont make archery a scarecrow on a field. Try to make it benefit from mobility like the rest of the HR classes. In most fights u cant stand still for more than a few seconds, so making Archers benefit from being a totem pole isnt gonna help them.

patcherrkm · September 2018

To repeat what many have already stated in this thread, the problem with range (archery) is that it puts you outside of buff range.

If whoever the current "Prey" from Archery's Predator capstone can instead be considered the archers current location for buff calculations, that would likely solve many peoples frustrations. is that doable?

-Sleek Pepper ME

sandfox · September 2018

Reposted from another thread:

Re: Stillness of the Forest in Mod 15 (PvP/PvE)

Right now we can get into position at range and fire off a rotation with +25% Crit and +10% Dmg.

Let's look at what happens in Mod 15 if we stand still and don't move, in comparison to what we have already:

0 stacks / 0 seconds: -25% Crit, -10% dmg

4 stacks / 4 seconds: -15% Crit, +0% dmg

5 stacks / 5 seconds: -12.5% Crit, +2.5% dmg

6 stacks / 6 seconds: -10% Crit, +5% dmg

Even at 6 stacks, -10% Crit offsets the +5% dmg increase significantly. Anything lower than 5 stacks is a significant decrease in DPS with no buffs whatsoever to offset those losses.

In PvP, between dodging attacks and evasion/stealth/repositioning during combat, we'll rarely see those stacks hit 5-6. Also, rotating between caps is going to reset any stacks built.

In PvE, moving is essential for avoiding AoEs, targeting, positioning for Seeker's Vengeance and CA, dungeon mechanics like the hands at Ras Nsi, and so on...a buff based on standing still works against all of this.

The only "advantage" to this change in PvP is that you can gain stacks while sitting on a cap. But this requires you to stay still, so no dodging or moving, which is not a viable option in a close range PvP scenario.

If we wanted to play a melee class in PvE, we'd spec into Combat. The whole point of an Archer is to be at range, which this change doesn't allow for--it solves one problem (party buffs) by causing another (Archers are played as a melee class).

Archery is currently viable in PvP. This is effectively a nerf to PvP Archers, while not effectively addressing the situation around the viability of Archery in PvE. I urge the devs to reconsider this change.

Alternative options:

- Keep Stillness the way it is
- Make the feat work differently in PvP/PvE
- Make it a standing, flat Crit/dmg buff not dependent on movement/range
- Have the stacks build automatically over time during combat, regardless of movement/range
- Give Archers a feat to get party buffs while at range
- Increase Archers self-buff capacity at range to make up for lost party buffs

rjc9000 · September 2018

patcherrkm said:
To repeat what many have already stated in this thread, the problem with range (archery) is that it puts you outside of buff range.

If whoever the current "Prey" from Archery's Predator capstone can instead be considered the archers current location for buff calculations, that would likely solve many peoples frustrations. is that doable?

-Sleek Pepper ME

I fear this could be very buggy.

Imagine if it caused a return of the prepatch "boss damage scales with player buffs/debuffs" thing that prepatch Mod13 Atropal had.

qwertyuiop · September 2018

i vote for aspect of the serpent with one stack but same dmg and crit, so combat build will be a lil more brilliant

azraelh1984 · September 2018

qwertyuiop#2517 said:
i vote for aspect of the serpent with one stack but same dmg and crit, so combat build will be a lil more brilliant

sounds nice but some kind of overpowered. I hope for three stacks without the need to build them up, like "range 3-2-1 switch stance to melee 3-2-1 …" this would be useful

seveninchblade · September 2018

After some calculations and trialing some stuff on preview I've found that you can scrape out about a 6-7% DPS increase with the new AotS. That said, it's less forgiving of mistakes, the trick being to never have more than one ranged stack built up. I would much rather see Thorned Roots improved/fixed.

thatsmeaswell · September 2018

Please dear devs,

1. Stillnes of the forest:
as many others have stated before, the idea of having to stand still to gain any advantage is highly debatable. In pve as well as in pvp moving more or less constantly to avoid damage or maintain an advantagious position is necessary so please drop this idea.

If there really is a need at all to change the feat to avoid the dependancy on distance how about:

When dealing damage you gain stacks, when taking damage you lose them

Or

When critting you gain stacks, not critting lets you lose them, although we have already a feat working like this the difference would be that the stacks remain outside of combat and there is no countdown when to lose stacks.

Whatever you do, please dont make it dependant on not moving, if there is no better way to manage it leave it as it is now.

2. Careful attack:
Please fix it.
This fix alone would improve the standing of the hr probably more than the whole bunch of changes you are about to introduce. (But dont get me wrong, i highly appreciate the effort you make to improve the class as a whole)

3. Aspect of the serpent:
Please clarify how to get the stacks.
If stacks for one stance are generated without the need to remove the previously in the former stance generated stacks first, meaning the one stance stack is removed while simultaneously generating the stack for the other stance, your change would be awesome but if you really have to do 7 or more consecutive actions to gain from full ranged to full melee and vice versa the intended change is indeed very disadvantageous for the trapper play style

4. Movement:
Please increase the movement speed for the whole class.
It is so annoying and immersion breaking to be outrunned by literally every other class when the underlying idea is to be an agile fast moving combatant.
Maybe you could give us a heroic feat that increases movement speed, e.g. you change Predatory action from increasing daily damage to increasing movement speed.
I think it would be particularly important to place the change in the heroic feat tree to enable every paragon to benefit from those.
In addition, making it a feat lets the player have to make a careful choice

So much for my two cents, keep up the good work, it is well appreciated

kangkeok · September 2018

My suggestion to solve archer issue is to make archer gain whatever buff his party member has as long as they are within the archer max range. For example, If a party member has Aura of courage & AA buff on him and he is within the archer max range (which are 80' without aspect of falcon), the archer gets Aura of courage & AA buff.

wdj40 · September 2018

kangkeok said:
My suggestion to solve archer issue is to make archer gain whatever buff his party member has as long as they are within the archer max range. For example, If a party member has Aura of courage & AA buff on him and he is within the archer max range (which are 80' without aspect of falcon), the archer gets Aura of courage & AA buff.

Yep something like this is much better than the Stillness of the Forest suggested changes... if those proposed changes by the Devs go through I doubt anyone will use it.

Longstrider is already a buff that goes to a crazy range, they should have just specced the Archer Capstone to make all group buffs do the same thing. Then tweak it from there if overpowered or underpowered. Then only the Archer path can use it anyway so the tweaking wouldnt have to be too bad.

Stillness of the Forest as it is, is absolutely class for the Archer... why change something that is good, works and no-one has ever complained about? (That question is to the Dev's).

Here is a bug report I made for the Careful Attack bug waaaaaay back on May 9th, including a video clip.

https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1239948/careful-attack-bugged

clericalist · September 2018

I need to repeat what others are saying here (and hope that with enough voices some developer notices), the biggest problem by far for the archery class is not getting party buffs. The difference of buffs is on an orders of magnitude scale, there really no point of tweaking a percentage here and there when the rest of party is getting 100k power boosts, hallowed grounds, etc. Obviously granting archery all the party buffs standing at range is also not the correct solution as that would make it too strong suddenly, perhaps granting it a partial gain from the buffs is a solution.

thatsmeaswell · September 2018

clericalist said:
I need to repeat what others are saying here (and hope that with enough voices some developer notices), the biggest problem by far for the archery class is not getting party buffs. The difference of buffs is on an orders of magnitude scale, there really no point of tweaking a percentage here and there when the rest of party is getting 100k power boosts, hallowed grounds, etc. Obviously granting archery all the party buffs standing at range is also not the correct solution as that would make it too strong suddenly, perhaps granting it a partial gain from the buffs is a solution.

Yeah would be awesome if they could manage it to decrease the effectiveness of buffs while your distance increases, e.g. 100% buff at point blank up to the usuall buff range and then decreasing down to idk, 20% at max distance but this change should affect every class then

quelmiran · September 2018

About AotS why not make it time based? Like generate 1 stack of the opposite stance every .75 sec or 1 sec as long as you remain in combat (stacks are preserved outside of combat). That way it wont be based on the encounters you use while on a stance to generate the stacks of the opposite stance but on the time you stay on a stance.

kangkeok · September 2018

clericalist said:
Obviously granting archery all the party buffs standing at range is also not the correct solution as that would make it too strong suddenly, perhaps granting it a partial gain from the buffs is a solution.

Do u have proof that archer will be overpowered if granting archer party buff standing at range will make them overpowered? Or its just your speculation? U cant decide if partial buffs is necessary before this idea is tested because archer has other flaws such as slow animation encounter and etc that need to be considered.

thatsmeaswell said:

Yeah would be awesome if they could manage it to decrease the effectiveness of buffs while your distance increases, e.g. 100% buff at point blank up to the usuall buff range and then decreasing down to idk, 20% at max distance but this change should affect every class then

Decreasing the effectiveness of buff while your distance increases defeat the whole purpose of this idea to revive archer as a range class. Archer fall behind because they are not getting party buff when at distance. That is why people start making build so archer is played in melee. The original idea of stillness of forest is to encourage archer to stay at range. This is to retain the originality of their playstyle and their function as a range class. 100% buff at melee range is exactly what is happening now. So really don't get your idea here.

thatsmeaswell · September 2018

@kangkeok

Decreasing the effectiveness of buff while your distance increases defeat the whole purpose of this idea to revive archer as a range class. Archer fall behind because they are not getting party buff when at distance. That is why people start making build so archer is played in melee. The original idea of stillness of forest is to encourage archer to stay at range. This is to retain the originality of their playstyle and their function as a range class. 100% buff at melee range is exactly what is happening now. So really don't get your idea here.

It was meant in a way that the with range increasing self buffs somehow compensate the decreasing effectiveness of group buffs and you could play a little with how you adjust your distance to the group but you are right, the idea is not well thought out, and probably not achievable at all, so forget about it.

azraelh1984 · September 2018

why don't get a new feat to archer which increase the range of buffs the hole party gives by 10' per stack. so we could get the party buffs, stay at range and could be a range buffer with AotP, Fox Cunning, …

or maybe give CoA an additional feat in Archer tree, like "while standing in a trap of CoA, you will get the party buffs for 2/4/6/8/10 seconds, leaving the area of the trap or a hostile creature steps in, will end this buff

kangkeok · September 2018

thatsmeaswell said:

It was meant in a way that the with range increasing self buffs somehow compensate the decreasing effectiveness of group buffs and you could play a little with how you adjust your distance to the group but you are right, the idea is not well thought out, and probably not achievable at all, so forget about it.

Range increasing self buff are part of the core for archery much like the 30% damage boost from trapper capstone. It should not be compensated or archery will lose its dps potential. Looking at archery single target capstone and the slow animation to cast an encounter, is more than enough to compensate that.

M15: Hunter Ranger Class Changes

Comments

Baseline:

Encounters:

Buff revamp for HR:

Stormwarden:

Pathfinder:

Feats:

Archery:

Trapper:

Feats:

Archery: