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Official Feedback Thread: Hunter Ranger changes

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  • patcherrkmpatcherrkm Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 127 Arc User
    amen someone else gets it. this widdle people down in pvp meta isnt working. if we have zero burst we are completely ineffective. too many rolling heals. our damage is completely negated.
  • aderonzaderonz Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 120 Arc User
    I was expecting some base damage increase to fix overall HR dsp issues. The simplest way would be : increase base damage by overall 50%. Then reduce the damage of overperforming powers like throned roots from 450% to 300 for exemple. Reworking everysingle power for very small buff wont improve anything. HR main issue is that when level increased from 50 to 60, the damage scaled poorly compared to other classes. While HP and damage of every classe increased by 400%, most HR powers damage increased by less than 100%
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  • edited July 2016
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  • ralexinorralexinor Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 576 Arc User

    Edit. yeah ralexinor has a point a very good point BUT remove the crushing roots passive and trappers cunning, those are why we can permadaze, NOT because of swiftness of the fox.

    No it's not.

    Choose any other path besides trapper, slot Crushing Roots - can you still permadaze? Even if you take 15 points in trapper for Trapper's Cunning, you still can't. Swiftness of the Fox enables high uptime of root skills such as Constricting Arrow and Hindering Strike to name the mainstream skills, which are the main causes of the permadaze (barring elven battle). I agree that Trapper's Cunning only compounds the issue, but again, the main issue is Swiftness.

    I would echo the general comments to Steel Breeze (remove charges) and Plant Growth (no cap).

    Steel Breeze is an integral part of the Trapper rotation and provides survivability. With three charges you find yourself with a clunky rotation in a matter of seconds. It's already difficult to keep up with other DPS classes in places like CN bridge and corridors. A target cap on Plant Growth is going to make that even more difficult.



    I understand Ralexinor but don't agree. The reason I always liked the ranger is the almost seamless rotation of encounters and the frenetic button mashing you get. Before it was gained with the Royal Guard armor and now for the trapper with Swiftness of the Fox. I really have no interest in going back to a more pew pew at-will style. It will spoil the fun.



    Suggestions: for Archers make Stillness of the Forest give 20/40/60/80/100% crit chance. At 5 ranks it will be similar to what TRs have (guaranteed crit under a condition) and will open the chance to go for more power/arpen/recovery focused builds. Add a slow to Marauders escape.

    Reassess damage after the change to Stillness and apply further changes if needed.



    For Combat: make flurry last for 5 seconds (or some other duration) and greatly improve its damage. It would be interesting to add an extra hit of the at will every time you hit with an at-will during the duration (so twice for the first hit, three times for the second, etc.). Add extra deviation chanche when Flurry is active and rework some of the useless feats in the first ranks of the Combat feat tree.



    Trapper: the feat tree is pretty solid. Maybe change Readied stance as AP gain is not an issue for trappers. Make it potentially useful as a dip for the other trees like Ghostwalker and Bloodletting.

    Giving TRs permanent crit in stealth was one of the worst decisions they've ever made for the class, and it completely removes the need to stack certain stats which is pretty counterproductive and overpowered in a design sense. They should just change the condition for Stillness of the Forest because as it stands, the feat is very counterproductive in party and solo play, and you'll very rarely get full bonuses from it, especially without sacrificing the buffs other party members have that require you to be in close range.

    I don't really have much to say on Trapper being fun, because it is, but the entire reason HR has so many issues atm is because of the ability to button mash and seamless rotation of encounters. Swiftness of the Fox does give the class a unique feel, but ultimately, you can't admit it's not broken at the end of the day. Just sit back and look at the bigger perspective. How are you meant to balance a class that has 0 cooldowns on its skills? How are you going to balance this if you want the class to have burst damage in PvP and competitive damage in PvE? Admittedly the latter is a bit contradictory - HR is a DPS class first and foremost, imo, but the meta atm whether you or I like it or not, is burst and not DPS. Giving the class strong burst damage would be extremely broken with the current state of Swiftness - again, imagine a GF with no cooldown on Anvil of Doom or Bull Charge, or a GWF with no cooldown on IBS. That's what Swiftness is akin to, even if the mechanics of HR are more complex in that sense.

    In order for Archery and Combat to be viable/competitive, the base damage of the class needs a massive buff, or you need massive damage bonuses in the latter feats of those 2 trees (T4/T5). And as I said in my previous, given the current state of HR, the cumulative bonus from the tree needs to be over 100% more than the damage feats from Trapper if you don't boost the base class. It makes far more sense and is easier in a design perspective to nerf Swiftness (and possibly Thorned Roots a bit) and then buff the base damage. The easiest way to nerf Swiftness is to reduce it to a 10% bonus, and make it proc only upon use of skill rather than a per-target hit basis as it currently is.

    If you want some maths, then here you go. These are the current numbers of raw damage bonuses from each feat path:
    Archery:
    5% from Quarry (if Pathfinder)
    20% from Unflinching Aim
    10% from Stillness of the Forest
    15% from Rising Focus
    40% from Predator
    Total: 5 + 20 + 10 + 15 + 40 = 90% damage bonus

    Combat:
    40% from Piercing Blades
    5-25% from Scything Blades (I don't remember if this had a cap or not, just going to assume it's a cap of 5 for 25% damage bonus)
    Blade Hurricane - don't remember how much of a damage boost this is
    Total: 40 + 25 = 65% + blade hurricane

    Trapper:
    10% from Deft Strikes
    10% from Serpent's Bite
    30% from Biting Snares
    Total: 10 + 10 + 30 = 50%

    (this is assuming all paths are using Aspect of the Serpent; realistically only Trapper and possibly Archery would actually get much use out of it. Combat rate of melee vs ranged attacks is not high enough to maintain melee stacks 100% of the time, and even Archery would have issues, so Trapper actually ends up probably having at least 20-30% total damage boost from Serpent's compared to the other paths)

    Realistically, you're going to lose a lot of damage on Archery because Prey only affects 1 target at a time, and in a single target setting Combat loses at least 20% damage because Scything Blades... yeah. And Trapper will actually likely have another 10-20% more damage because of AotS since it synergises far better with that path than other paths. So realistically you're looking at these numbers:

    Archery
    Single Target: 90% damage bonus
    AoE: 50% damage bonus

    Combat:
    Single Target: 45% + BH
    AoE: 65% + BH

    Trapper:
    Single Target: 70%
    AoE: 70%

    I'm also not including Combat's Skimisher's Gambit feat because that's a bit more complex and not everyone uses it.

    So at base level, excluding Trapper's cooldown feats and Thorned Roots, you're still looking at Trapper being all around best path, with Archery having the highest ST damage bonuses. The numbers are obviously only theoretical, you have other things coming into play such as different stance skills, uptime of serpent stacks, and crit chance. But my point stands.

    Now, if you run ACT logs, despite Trapper's "high" damage bonuses, Thorned Roots is still the highest damage source, totalling around 50% damage, sometimes much higher. This is a relative damage boost of 100%. Add on Swiftness of the Fox, which is a bit hard to calculate especially since things like Cordon of Arrows has charges which are unaffected by Swiftness, but Trapper's damage bonus ceiling is somewhere around 200-250% compared to the other paths.

    If you want other paths to be on par, you either buff base damage (making Swiftness stronger, however), or buff the feat damage bonuses in other paths to 250%, just like Trapper. That's at minimum of an additional cumulative 100% damage bonus to the current Archery/Combat feats.

    In that case, that's just bordering on bad design; you're better off nerfing Trapper's cooldown feats, buffing the base damage of the class overall (god knows it needs it), and making slight QoL adjustments to other paths, such as Scything Blades, Predator and Stillness of the Forest.
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  • ralexinorralexinor Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 576 Arc User

    @ralexinor



    Trapper doesn't need to be nerfed at all. Again the encounters simply don't hit hard enough, notable exception of only 1 (CoA/PG) hits as hard as any other classes' encounters. A Rangers DPS comes from spamming encounters as quickly as possible. Encounters on a Hunter Ranger are our at-wills essentially. The at-wills just simply do not hit hard enough nor quickly enough. Rapid Shot on paper is horrible but is the most useful of them all. I'm a Stormwarden and while I've respeced a couple time to Pathfinder to try Careful Attack, I just simply don't like it enough. Again we have no feats that reduce incoming damage. No matter what, we have almost no survivability. Our dodge is next to useless. So what do they do? Nerf Marauder's total distance. The only ranged attack and escape that enables us not to be a stationary target.

    Please kindly read my posts more thoroughly. As I said, our base damage (read: encounters etc.) do need buffing but at the cost of nerfing Trapper.
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    @ Ralexinor: if you remove the fun is there any reason to play it anymore? We should keep fun in the game. The trapper is different, plays different. What you recommend is getting another cookie cutter class, No and no. Seriously. Balance be damned, I'd rather deal less damage (like atm) but keep the fun. If Combat and Archer need buffs give them buffs in terms of feats, capstones and at-wills, but don't ruin the feeling of the trapper.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    replaced by next one

    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • rayrdanrayrdan Member Posts: 5,410 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    what about adding the offhand damage to the mainhand and use that value as the only one source of damage for both melee and ranged?

    Battlehoned definitely can undergo some changes btw, same cruel recovery (make it stack maybe?)
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    By the way the already made the same stupid mistake in Mod6 by making the Archer and the Combat cookie cutter stuff too, with no synergy from the other stance while the base mechanic of the class is a stance shift....
    The Archer/Combat/Nature structure was much better, we have a ton of buff powers with no feat synergy but still there because the nature path is gone. Trapper would be fantastic as a mixed controller (for mobs)/buffer(for bosses) and nobody would be worried by damage because it will be a support tree. Remove Battlehoned and replace it with a heavy hitter daily everyone can use and proceed to buff damage for Combat and Archer.

    Everywhere I see a lot of number crunching but no love for different playing styles.... If the Archer is supposed to stay away from enemies and the loses group buffs give him something that replaces them and keep him away from the fray, don't reduce the range of Stillness to make him like the others again...
    You're trying to balance the class by killing the feeling.... I played my ranger as main through all modules and we've always been an underdog, in some periods a really bad one (see mod 2 in PVE when we were almost useless at Malabog's final boss due to the lack of heavy hitters). But the class still has a distinct feeling and was always different. That should be kept.

    Sorry for the rant Ralexinor, it's not really against you. it's against a pure number crunching approach....
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • treesclimbertreesclimber Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,161 Arc User
    metalldjt said:

    i dont want to break you guys all the fun, but until the HR doesn't get considerable BUFFs that can hurt players in PvP the class still has issues, even if you guys are doing great in PvE, so i would advise that somethin should be done to have the HR perform in PvP aswell as good as they do in PvE ^^ Burst damage!

    A lot of things are going to change, all classes need a rework and pve has doubtlessly far more dinamic and possible situations than pvp, i think they are going the right direction, just a little more......patience.

  • rayrdanrayrdan Member Posts: 5,410 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    BUG_ Oak skin healing is not ticking for the stated amount on tooltip. Just 1/3 of it.

    BUG_ Pathfinder action rank 1 does not grant anything. This is bugged on live too.

    feedback_ Oak skin: we should be able to use it while moving
    Binding arrow: should gain some damage with rank up
    Hawk shot: needs to be faster way faster

    Post edited by rayrdan on
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  • dheffernandheffernan Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 216 Arc User
    Arguments regarding PvP balance should go straight to /dev/null.

    No game of this type has ever produced balanced PvP. Neverwinter will not be the first. Someone is going to end up on the bottom of the PvP totem pole and it may as well be us.

    I haven't PvPed since the NCL preview (still wearing the Elemental Burning armor I got from that) but I didn't feel particularly weak or put upon. Success in PvP is a product of tactics, particularly working with your group. You don't have to be a rock star, you just have to do your part.
    @Venture-1 @Venture from City of Heroes if you remember that far back. Yes, *that* Venture. Yes, I probably trashed your MA arc. For me it was Tuesday.
  • ralexinorralexinor Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 576 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    Arguments regarding PvP balance should go straight to /dev/null.

    No game of this type has ever produced balanced PvP. Neverwinter will not be the first. Someone is going to end up on the bottom of the PvP totem pole and it may as well be us.

    I haven't PvPed since the NCL preview (still wearing the Elemental Burning armor I got from that) but I didn't feel particularly weak or put upon. Success in PvP is a product of tactics, particularly working with your group. You don't have to be a rock star, you just have to do your part.

    Arguments regarding PvE balance should go straight to /dev/null too, then. Why don't we just sit back and let the devs do all the work instead? :)

    NCL was ages ago, the meta was different, HR was still viable, there wasn't as much healing or need for burst. Success in PvP also relies on having a good class composition, unfortunately. There are instances where it's impossible to win against certain compositions if you lack certain classes regardless of skill or communication. This has always been the case, however.

    You can honestly say the same thing about PvE balance, there's always a class that's weaker than others and it may as well be us, right? My comments are directed at both PvE and PvP. I suggest tone down your PvE supremacy and look at things objectively, like I have been trying to do. Just because you don't like something doesn't mean other people don't.

    Also gabriel, I'm sorry but I'm going to say your comment about fun is selfish. I don't mean any offense, and I do agree that Trapper is fun, but there's more than one way to have fun. Again, I did suggest an alternative to nerfing trapper (buffing the other feat trees by absurd amounts), and if that's what the devs want to do, then be my guest.

    Additionally the number crunching I did was to prove a point, because there's a lot of you that don't seem to understand why Swiftness/Thorned are the crux of the problem in terms of balance with the other paths.
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    I guess we are on completely different sides of the board. To me you simply want to kill the feeling for the sake of balance...
    :smile:
    By the way roots are never ever 50% of damage. Even running with two roots powers they are always around 30-35% pretty close to Plant Growth. If you run with two roots powers and Fox it may be but then you're crippling your overall DPS in PVE and obviously roots shine more.

    And if you run Longstrider, Constrictive and Cordon which is the best group overall DPS strategy roots are even less.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
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  • vinceent1vinceent1 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,264 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    can we finally make an agreement?

    we dont want permaroot in the game. we want better dps at pvp - work towards that devs

    p.s. if you are too scared that trapper should be overpowered with better damage, then give better damage only to archery and combat feats .....

    it is that hard to figure out?.....


    aka -

    players that defend their permarooting pvp gameplay need to step down

    players that defend their pve trapper to stay as it is in everything need also step down
    Post edited by vinceent1 on
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    @metalldjt: we never had a big hitter and that's the main issue in pvp. Or actually we did have it in the beginning when Fox Shift was multi-hitting like a truck, then it was nerfed. Then the only other time when ranger was viable in PVP was due to its ability to heal while using dots to kill enemies, but now everybody can heal so that tactic is pointless.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
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  • bittynationbittynation Member Posts: 138 Arc User
    Trapper build is fine, even with swiftness/Thorned. The other two trees need a dps damage boost in the feet tree t4/t5. Combat needs capstone reworked. Then we need a daily that has burst damage. HR can't be fixed with just adding a little damage to unused powers.
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    Trapper build is fine, even with swiftness/Thorned. The other two trees need a dps damage boost in the feet tree t4/t5. Combat needs capstone reworked. Then we need a daily that has burst damage. HR can't be fixed with just adding a little damage to unused powers.

    +1. This is pretty much what we need. Plus a slow on Marauder's Escape and a return to the previous versions of Plant Growth and Steel Breeze.
    Shift change is welcome as well as some other stuff (Ambush for example, but please do something for Bear Trap...)
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • ghoulz66ghoulz66 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 3,748 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    I can't even get the combat capstone to work in any effective way other than the bloody rain of swords trick which is such a god awful encounter.

    It's pointless anyway seeing how pathetically weak the melee at-wills are.

    Seriously DEVs, I thought this was the whole point of taking a close look at the HR to improve it?
  • alexprice552alexprice552 Member Posts: 5 Arc User
    edited July 2016
    The root of the problem is not trapper roots or overperforming trapper, or underperforming archer, or whatever similar to it.
    The root of the problem is the unprofessionalism of designers:
    1. they gather data and summarize it in a wrong way, because they do not know the game
    2. they gather opinion of the wrong testers, which seem to be way less competent than players according to the set of changes, which makes those testers happy.
    3. they do not listen to community, and when community starts to rage, they ban people.

    What should be done first is:
    1. gathering representatives of HR community that can provide nessesary data. Those representatives shan't be some random HRs who started to play HR 2 weeks before changes are announced.
    2. gathering feedback from those representatives (on current problems) and making a public post of proposed changes after the discussion.
    3. making changes (coding) and posting them on preview shard
    4. balancing changes on preview shard based on the feedback of representatives from HR and other classes.
    That was told and repeated millions of times, but so far the same mistakes are repeated again and again.
    If you don't know the game, you should listen to people who know it.
    But I guess it's already late to discuss it (as always).

    The crutch that fixes damage in PVP without impacting PVE is piercing damage.
    If you make thorned roots to deal piercing damage and balance its damage you can at least provide playable HR in PVP for a period of time until you redesign HR in a proper way.
    For all people who think that roots top the dps chart in PVE, it's totally wrong:
    roots deal a huge chunk of damage on trapper, ofc, but plant growth always tops the table in PVE in 5 men runs, if HR is doing everything properly. In tiamat the best damage is provided by careful attack/blade storm. I do not have the data about Cold Steel Hurricane, but I guess it can top the charts in mass fights (heralds/tiamat) also.
    Post edited by alexprice552 on
  • jaegernljaegernl Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 455 Arc User

    Trapper HRs actually have no cooldowns at all. 6 spammable encounters. This needs to be fixed.

    Thanks for your tremendously helpful feedback. It shows great understanding of the issues the HR is dealing with. Especially the part where you explained why exactly this is a problem is insightful.
    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.
  • dmcewendmcewen Member Posts: 279 Arc User
    Again with the nerf hammers. We get it, pvp need burst and archer needs a high base damage. Combat needs alls kinds of love. Everyone just needs to stop trying to mangling the class to fix problems the devs could easily fix if they wanted it. The could add a better daily or rework archer or combat feats but the choose not to do it. You destroy one path just to fix the other will cause everyone to switch trees, clearly not the answer.
    Guild: Ruthless
    Character: Vendetta
  • edited July 2016
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  • jaegernljaegernl Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 455 Arc User
    edited July 2016

    jaegernl said:

    Trapper HRs actually have no cooldowns at all. 6 spammable encounters. This needs to be fixed.

    Thanks for your tremendously helpful feedback. It shows great understanding of the issues the HR is dealing with. Especially the part where you explained why exactly this is a problem is insightful.
    Because it is definitely a result of bugs. From an above post-3. Oak skin procs instant ranged and longstrider procs instant melee cooldowns Also you mentioned Gushing Wound bugging cooldowns. It does seem to.
    But you don't rely on those interactions to spam your six encounters. You can use three skills that don't show that behaviour at all and still keep going. This is basic knowledge. Stay away if you don't know. All you're doing is showing tremendous ignorance.
    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.
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