Class Balance: Hunter Ranger

strumslinger · July 2016

In this blog, we’ll go over the changes we made to the Hunter Ranger in the upcoming expansion.

Needless to say, please keep all discussion respectful rather than throwing around any insults. Class balance is a touchy topic, which is highly subjective, but with the data we have we try and make changes that may not be obvious, but work for the game as a whole; not just the class itself. Most players have their own thoughts on how to balance out a class among a sea of possible changes. It's also a two-sided coin in the end.

http://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/10070263-class-balance:-hunter-ranger

lirithiel · July 2016

OMFG I can't believe they increased our dodge range!!!!!! 30% more distance - not much more but I'll take it tyvm

arabatur · July 2016

Until I see some detailed patch notes and get to test them, I will not be getting excited.

kaudilho · July 2016

Are this changes defenitive?

Unknown · July 2016

This content has been removed.

zibadawa · July 2016

metalldjt said:
are there MORE changes that may come to the HR on a latter patch note ?

The review says there's a good 100+ entries for the HR alone in the full patch notes. The review is short of that by an order of magnitude.

landelmer · July 2016

I see you can look deep into the rabbit hole, nice data mining.

Since your data clearly shows what most Trappers are running do you think it is a wise move financially to shutdown the classic Trapper rotation with the 3 charge deal? I love the Ranger but I agree it is under powered. I also love the Trapper rotation, but all you did in this article was play up the buffs and you skipped the nerfs.

We are receiving reports that to appease the PVP players you destroyed the classic rotation. Are you saying that what we are seeing on the preview shard is the NOT the final word on the Classic Trapper Build?

Your firm's rebalancing destroyed, not fixed, the OP. From what I read on the preveiw shard the SW and the GF are going to be trashed and now the HR. Please give me a reason to continue playing this game. I have played a full year and I have 6 characters that are reduced to bank alts because of all the rebalancing. If you ruin the HR it will be the final nail in the casket for me.

Although you now have PS4 to generate more revenue so the loss of XB1 players will not affect your firm's bottom line in the short run but watch out for the long run numbers they may bite the CEO in the rearend.

Unknown · July 2016

This content has been removed.

scathias · July 2016

@Amenar Chris, your description of Commanding Shot is troubling.

Commanding Shot: Reworked the debuff this power applies, and reduced its duration. Reduced the damage debuff component to 10%, down from 15%. Changed the defense component from lowering their defenses by 15% to increasing the damage they take by 10%. This changes where in the formula the damage increase takes place, and this power can cause the target to take increased damage even if you have enough Armor Penetration to completely ignore their Damage Resistance.

Currently on live the DR debuff of Commanding works just like the DR debuff from plague fire (i just had this tested). This means that when a player has enough arp to ignore the DR of the target Commanding works as a 15% damage boost anyways. So based on this understanding of Commanding, what you implemented was an overall nerf to the damage boost by 5%. Now, for very low geared people who do not have enough armor pen to ignore all the DR a target has the change you made is better, but as soon as a toon has 60% RI (max needed for pve content at this time) your change to commanding shot is worse overall. HR s also get a lot of arp on their gear so they are the mostly likely to be hurt by this change in the low ilv range. In addition you reduced the duration.

So was your intention to nerf Commanding Shot? because that is what has happened here

urabask · July 2016

I don't get why they'd go through all of the trouble of talking about how Combat and Archery are underplayed and then list nothing that encourages anyone to try them again.

vinceent1 · July 2016

i am really worried if pvp gameplay was taken in mind with all these changes. we must wait till full patch notes

whats worse they plan at least one more or two big balanced patches (only 3 classes this time) so NCL is nowhere near back

cant wait to shorter uninteruptible Aimed shot, i liked use it on dragons or scorpions, if its spammable now with no problems i will definitely play archery again

rinat114 · July 2016

I don't play my HR, but reading this article you were aiming to make all 3 feat trees viable but it sounds like only Archery got sort of a revamp or am I wrong? I miss seeing combat HR's around, truly.

lirithiel · July 2016

Feat: Unflinching Aim: In addition to its current functionality of increasing your Ranged Damage, this Feat now causes your hits from Aimed Shot to reduce the recharge time of your currently recharging Ranged Powers.

Aimed Shot: Charge time reduced by 0.25s. Damage is still the same, and AP generation is still roughly the same, resulting in an increase in DPS and APS.

Aimed Shot: Charging this power is no longer interrupted by taking damage.

This means that Archery players will find that Aimed Shot will be their go-to At-Will power, instead of… a very frustrating At-Will power.

Currently on live Rapid Shot (with accompanying MH feature) does more damage than Aimed Shot on target dummies over a period a time. As an Archer I am able to fire off my encounters while Rapid Shot continues to fire without breaking. However, I cannot do the same with Aimed Shot as you have to stop completely to use an encounter before attempting another Aimed Shot. It's annoying to say the least and for these reasons I prefer Rapid Shot. I can't see Archers swapping out to Aimed Shot unless it is remarkably better. Also the CD reduction added to Unflinching Aim, while a nice idea, is too tiny to make it more desirable.

deathbeez · July 2016

urabask said:
I don't get why they'd go through all of the trouble of talking about how Combat and Archery are underplayed and then list nothing that encourages anyone to try them again.

+1

Unknown · July 2016

This content has been removed.

rhadamathys · July 2016

Awesome changes and wonderful explainations! So, so happy with these changes AND how you are presenting them to us...thanks!

Does the change to hawkshot fix the 190m damage bug? I think the issue there is it applying buffs and rebuffs two times...

Regardless, mucho thanks!

ghoulz66 · July 2016

Cough, umm, a buff to aimed shot doesn't do a whole lot to make archery competitive again.

I hope to see a buff to clear the ground and electric arrow.

Stabby mc shooty. THAT'S WHAT WE WANT.

lirithiel · July 2016

ghoulz66 said:
Stabby mc shooty. THAT'S WHAT WE WANT.

Do you think we will ever see anything like the Mod 2 Hybrid HR again? I doubt it but man, I loved that playstyle!

lazaroth666 · July 2016

@amenar

I don't know if Amenar is going to read this but it's worth a shot...

After reading his dev blog about the incoming changes for the Hunter Ranger, it's pretty clear that the team is looking for a wider class diversity. Unfortunately, there aren't too many options due to the limited number of feats/paragons, so instead of adding new mechanics/classes, your goal is to bring back to life the less played "builds" (e.g archery and melee HR or in a future Sentinel and Instigator GWF). This is actually a good idea since it is faster because the content is already in the game and it only requires some adjusments, also improves the quality of the game considering that you could theoretically play every build according to your playstile and exactly what you want, not just the less underperforming class. This means a new process of rebuilding a character, testing, theorycrafting which is always fun.

One of the main problems in this game is that once a build is solid and is clearly perfoming better than others, it's way too easy to replicate it mostly with a simple inspect to the character. Diversity is fun and it is very necessary in Neverwinter because less people playing in the same way will bring a better view to the class balance since there will be less people/classes overperforming. Instead of every player excelling, there would be a wide array of players between those squeezing the potential of the character and the most casual kind of gamers.

Would consider viable to add an option that blocks the character's sheet while being inspected? Blocking every slot except, maybe, item level. This is not about elitism, it is mostly about trying to change the mindset of the players where everyone is trying to simply imitate the gear and encourage them to test and understand the mechanics of the game which would improve a lot our community.

Everyone following the same meta is boring and unhealthy.

durugudesu · July 2016

@strumslinger hello. Is this gonna be all the changes you are planning to put thru the HR class? I hope not, and If you need more data on HRs PVE wise(I'd assume those data were mostly from PVP, i may be wrong but i want to state it here nonetheless). Do send me a mail or tell and I can login in live/preview to give some more possible insights.

@durugudesu.

tripsofthrymr · July 2016

@strumslinger @amenar Applause and accolades for the systematic approach you took to understanding issues in class balance and beginning to address them.

I have not played my HR much since module 5 but this rework gives me cause to dust him off and take him out for a spin.

Since I'm not an active HR player I can hardly comment on the specifics of the change but the methodology is fantastic.

solbergx · July 2016

I don't play HR but i think its good that they fixed so many aspects of a class. They will surely analyze the data after a while and do further changes.!!

ghoulz66 · July 2016

I used HR enough to not see these current changes bringing any good QoL to the class. Tweaks to some single target. We don't play DPS classes to kill a guy one by one as the rest take turns knocking you over the head as you bring one HP bar down.

Like the change to binding arrow. That's just silly. If you used it enough time you'd know how god awful it is so you swap to something much more useful. Since when do mobs line up perfectly for you to shoot em? The AoE cone to it is just plain awful. It was only used for a trapper in pvp. I bet even they hated it, since it didn't even proc roots at times. I still wouldn't ever consider this in my bar.

tripsofthrymr · July 2016

lazaroth666 said:

One of the main problems in this game is that once a build is solid and is clearly perfoming better than others, it's way too easy to replicate it mostly with a simple inspect to the character. Diversity is fun and it is very necessary in Neverwinter because less people playing in the same way will bring a better view to the class balance since there will be less people/classes overperforming.

Not just that. I have tried to build my characters the way they are fun for me to play, in spite of being fully aware of the current meta for each class. Even though I'm fortunate to be able to afford and/or earn really nice gear for my characters, I had to abandon those attempts to remain remotely competitive.

I build my HR initially as Nature path (remember that?), figuring it would be fun to do a little less damage but instead buff my party in a meaningful way. My damage was horribly bad and nobody really needed my buffs. Then I went Archery because I thought that would be fun. Again I lagged well behind. So, I asked about the then-meta. I was effective (in PVP, very much so), but wasn't playing the build that met my idea of fun.

More recently I took my CW full Oppressor, even going a bit over the recommended limit for control bonus, because I like the idea of a Control Wizard, you know, controlling stuff. I knew it wasn't the meta, but it was my idea of fun. There are a tiny handful of situations where it is really fun (pushing spiders and drow off of two ledges in eTOS and pushing those pesky demons that charge the portal in demonic escape waaaay across the map), but other than that control is meaningless in PVE. "Death is the Best Control" rings true, as anything you might actually want to control in order to succeed is control immune. Alas, my CW is now Renegade and I can't play the path that most interests me.

Even players that know the meta and are willing to accept sub min/max toons to enjoy their favored playstyle have been unable to do so.

This is a welcome first step and I'm thrilled that this is now part of your development process.

masterclown61 · July 2016

Alright. I don't even know where to start, yet here I go:
- If you are not a HR please don't comment things like, "It seems like they fixed a class ...", because it doesn't even make a sense to Hunter Ranger players.
- As far as I see, literally but literally NOTHİNG is implemented to Hunter Ranger class to make it stand in a better place among the other classes except Thorned Roots becoming much more useful at boss fights, and Gushing Wound becoming a killer again in a boss fight.
- So, this is still only an improvement for TRAPPER HR and nothing else.
- OMG how can you even think to rely a class to AIMED SHOT ? (Are you insane ?) At least have a pity to archers and make that feat work with Rapid Shot! (Even then it's still lame).
- Combat HR is getting a big NOTHING.
- Rework of Binding Arrow: Healing increase is nice, but disabling its Grasping Roots is just a proof that you couldn't manage to fix it becoming mysteriously buggy.
- Rain of Arrow : OK! You need to understand something. Good archers were already able to hit the skill with a nice accuracy, so making a skill's area larger doesn't mean DPS increase!
- Marauder's Escape rework and the damage it does is just a joke!
- If this is all you are planning to do, then all I'm going to say is that you really are not changing the class and it's place. If you plan to do something else then I'll stay in silence till I saw them.
- Btw, don't misunderstand me. I love HR class and all it contains, yet I can't bear to see that in order to compete with other players in dungeons, HR needs to be much more agile with buttons and general control over the gameplay screen while a stupid GWF with some stupid power boon from the Stronghold boons only needs to press at-will button.
- Last words: If you are not going to decrease other classes' DPS and let HR stay like this, then you really are not changing anything, yet if you change also their DPS and make it more reasonable, then I would be very happy with the DPS a HR provides.
- NOTE : Seriously a whooooole Class Feature gives you 400 Regenaration ? OMFG 400 Regenaration ? That's only a 1/3rd of a stupid BOON. It's been 2 freaking years for god's sake!

Edit: Dodge range increase was necessary, and a HR will be thankful for that.

steerty · July 2016

Surely, this is a full on joke right? These are considered 'buffs'? I waited a full year for this?
I just had an hour of testing on preview using my default testing method (activate wheel of elements, take fire and start rotation for full cooldown rotation on wheel on combat dummies in dread ring) and my average dps dropped from 9mil to 8.5mil. This is tested with advanced combat tracker. Not to mention the potential fluff the 3 stacks of steel breeze can do to trappers now. This is absolutely annoying and I'm really, really mad. I seriously can not understand how you guys see this as buffs.

Mod edit: please do not circumvent the swear filter.

Unknown · July 2016

This content has been removed.

alliera7311 · July 2016

Please fix our buggy Passives. Aspect of the Serpent gives 2% crit per stack for a total of 4%. Suppose to be 2.5% crit per stack for a total of 5%. Also the max dmg it is giving is 31% not 34%. Aspect of the Pack doesn't work correctly at Rank 4 and functions as Rank 1 at that Rank. Lastly Blade Storm doesn't with proc with Plant Growth. HR Dragonborns encounter powers cool downs dont function properly with the Trapper at times. Absolutely nobody is getting Action Point Gain stats added into there "Offensive and Healing" from insignias, jewel kits, and all artifacts.