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What needs to be done to put the HR in line with other classes.
arcmoon99
Member Posts: 499 Arc User
Many people who play HR and many people who don't play HR can clearly see there are some very big problems with the Hunter Ranger. This isn't just a nerf everything nor a buff everything thread. This is an adjustment thread to make the HR more useful, more balanced, and more fair.
I will be suggesting what I believe to be necessary buffs and nerfs from my experience playing as an HR and, playing with and against an HR from the point of view of my other characters.
PvP
Another problem that exist is in PvP rangers may get a lot of kills but that's because of a crutch. The crutch that everyone dreads ever since the release of the HR, The "Unavoidable" Grasping roots. Without this crutch HRs would be almost helpless in scenarios where another class, such as a GWF, would be coming straight for them 1 v 1. Of course this isn't fair though because it completely discredits the entire point of "Unstoppable" and "Impossible to catch". I can assure you that grasping roots makes "Unstoppable" very stoppable and, you can very much so catch a rouge that is suppose to be "Impossible to Catch". This makes the abilities not live up to there name. Even dodging is suppose to be dodging the entire attack. How can I be hindered by a hindering shot that didn't even touch me?
Another problem with this is that without the "crutch" ranged based HRs would be trampled on in PvP. Which I think needs to be a total readjustment. Ranged HRs don't deal enough damage to kill a class that is running to them, to the point where they're always on top of them and, attacking and CCing them. They would die in almost every single time 1 v 1 with someone equally geared. Now I have two suggestions for this.
1. Increase the HRs overall damage or all-around range attack speed so, the HR can put in more damage before being confronted face to face.
2. Increase the HRs overall movement speed, and/or enhance the HRs shifting ability so, the HR can keep their distance without the use of Grasping roots.
At-Wills
Electric Shot:
This ability doesn't deal nearly much damage,has a more limited range, and isn't much faster at all compared to Split-Shot. Split-Shot is clearly the more dominant AoE at-will. Pretty much making Electric Shot a waste of points unless you wanted to use Clear the Ground as a melee HR. Electric Shot should do increased damage because of the limited range compared to Split-Shot.
Encounters
Thorn Strike:
The most pathetic melee encounter ability in the game. I can do as much damage as this does to an enemy at full and low HP as 2 hits from rapid strike. I can also deal those 2 hits from rapid strike faster than the animation of Thorn Strike can play through. This melee encounter desperately needs a revisit from the devs. The only reason I slot it is because of how awesome Thorn Ward is. It needs a severe DPS increase or needs to add something like a Poison or Bleeding DoT debuff.
Hawk Eye:
The extra damage from this ability is so small it's almost useless. Just a moderate increase in the damage from this buff should do the trick.
Boar Hide:
Now this buff is just hilarious, 2% increase of damage resistance for 5(10 feated) hits. 2%... really? It absorbs the amount of damage it would take to swat a fly. If I get it for 500 damage, I'll save 10 HP. That's Right, 10 HP for up to 5 hits unfeated = 50 HP saved. You wouldn't catch me dead with this power slotted. It needs a severe increase in Damage Resistance per stack maybe between 5%-10% would make this skill worth it. 5 Stacks of 10% damage would be 5 times the amount of HP saved. 5 stacks would equal 250HP saved total; if feated for 10 stacks it would equal 500HP saved for the total buff. (These numbers are based on a level 60 damage and HP)
Oak Skin:
This Power just doesn't heal for much or add much defense. I'm not saying HRs should be healing and buffing as strong as a DC. I'm just saying this power should heal and provide a defensive buff enough for it to be noticed. A moderate increase in both would do the trick.
Dailies
Cold Steel Hurricane:
The small size,low damage,brief snare and difficulty directing this daily makes it remarkably weak. For a weak daily it also consumes all of your action points. Every aspect of this daily needs to be buffed.
I will be suggesting what I believe to be necessary buffs and nerfs from my experience playing as an HR and, playing with and against an HR from the point of view of my other characters.
PvP
Another problem that exist is in PvP rangers may get a lot of kills but that's because of a crutch. The crutch that everyone dreads ever since the release of the HR, The "Unavoidable" Grasping roots. Without this crutch HRs would be almost helpless in scenarios where another class, such as a GWF, would be coming straight for them 1 v 1. Of course this isn't fair though because it completely discredits the entire point of "Unstoppable" and "Impossible to catch". I can assure you that grasping roots makes "Unstoppable" very stoppable and, you can very much so catch a rouge that is suppose to be "Impossible to Catch". This makes the abilities not live up to there name. Even dodging is suppose to be dodging the entire attack. How can I be hindered by a hindering shot that didn't even touch me?
Another problem with this is that without the "crutch" ranged based HRs would be trampled on in PvP. Which I think needs to be a total readjustment. Ranged HRs don't deal enough damage to kill a class that is running to them, to the point where they're always on top of them and, attacking and CCing them. They would die in almost every single time 1 v 1 with someone equally geared. Now I have two suggestions for this.
1. Increase the HRs overall damage or all-around range attack speed so, the HR can put in more damage before being confronted face to face.
2. Increase the HRs overall movement speed, and/or enhance the HRs shifting ability so, the HR can keep their distance without the use of Grasping roots.
At-Wills
Electric Shot:
This ability doesn't deal nearly much damage,has a more limited range, and isn't much faster at all compared to Split-Shot. Split-Shot is clearly the more dominant AoE at-will. Pretty much making Electric Shot a waste of points unless you wanted to use Clear the Ground as a melee HR. Electric Shot should do increased damage because of the limited range compared to Split-Shot.
Encounters
Thorn Strike:
The most pathetic melee encounter ability in the game. I can do as much damage as this does to an enemy at full and low HP as 2 hits from rapid strike. I can also deal those 2 hits from rapid strike faster than the animation of Thorn Strike can play through. This melee encounter desperately needs a revisit from the devs. The only reason I slot it is because of how awesome Thorn Ward is. It needs a severe DPS increase or needs to add something like a Poison or Bleeding DoT debuff.
Hawk Eye:
The extra damage from this ability is so small it's almost useless. Just a moderate increase in the damage from this buff should do the trick.
Boar Hide:
Now this buff is just hilarious, 2% increase of damage resistance for 5(10 feated) hits. 2%... really? It absorbs the amount of damage it would take to swat a fly. If I get it for 500 damage, I'll save 10 HP. That's Right, 10 HP for up to 5 hits unfeated = 50 HP saved. You wouldn't catch me dead with this power slotted. It needs a severe increase in Damage Resistance per stack maybe between 5%-10% would make this skill worth it. 5 Stacks of 10% damage would be 5 times the amount of HP saved. 5 stacks would equal 250HP saved total; if feated for 10 stacks it would equal 500HP saved for the total buff. (These numbers are based on a level 60 damage and HP)
Oak Skin:
This Power just doesn't heal for much or add much defense. I'm not saying HRs should be healing and buffing as strong as a DC. I'm just saying this power should heal and provide a defensive buff enough for it to be noticed. A moderate increase in both would do the trick.
Dailies
Cold Steel Hurricane:
The small size,low damage,brief snare and difficulty directing this daily makes it remarkably weak. For a weak daily it also consumes all of your action points. Every aspect of this daily needs to be buffed.
Arc, proud officer of Novus Ordo
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Post edited by arcmoon99 on
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Comments
Electric shot is pathetic, I agree completely.
Thorn Strike is also very bad, agreed.
Oak Skin I am unsure of. I like it, but it does feel underwhelming, a slight buff could be useful.
Cold Steel Hurricane is the worst daily of any class and needs a serious buff.
They should make the tool tip a lot less confusing than lol
1. Hawk Eye only lasts for one attack and takes an incredible amount of precision and timing to use in a party situation
2. Allies only get half the benefit making it useless if it isn't feated to grant 100% of its power to allies (in other words, nature build only)
If it gave something like a 40% damage bonus it would be a significant asset to you (Especially mixed with aimed shot) and a significant asset to allies. Basically still requiring strategy but not being a total washout if your team doesn't notice they have hawk eye.
Oak Skin I'd agree needs a buff. It's tiny defense bonus and low regeneration ability makes it all but worthless unless mixed with stag heart (it takes the two combined to reach a level of decency). It either needs to last longer or provide more buff because right now it's all but unnoticeable.
I'm not so sure about thorn strike, I like to use it after I've procced Master Archer (and gathered up 5 stacks of aspect of the viper). It can do considerable damage over time given crits and the Serpent damage buff. Having said that, outside of that one specific scenario it's very weak, totaling less than half the damage most other encounters bring in (and some at wills).
Electric Shot...I don't even need to explain why it's horrible. It should've been more thoroughly tested by the developers before they put it in. It either needs a significant damage buff or a significant reworking.
Cold Steel Hurricane...lol...no...no amount of buffing could fix this...
As for the HR in general (not just PvP) shifting needs to be fixed so that the dodging window is longer. I often find myself unable to dodge in PvP and PvE even while in the middle of a shift due to what I can only describe as magic or a really bad idea.
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The funny thing about Oak skin is that you and your allies could deflect the heal ticks.
Santa Claus --GF
Gargamel --CW
Than again you could use that 5 stacks of aspect of the viper and use the Master Archer proc on another more heavy hitting encounter.
It ratios up basically. A buffed thorn strike that has 5 stacks of aspect of the viper and Master Archer is not as strong as a buffed Marauders Rush with Master Archer. Even in that sense it's very weak in comparison to the other encounters you could have used in that scenario.
this is the worst thread of the year. I wasn't expecting this at all lol. I thought this was a serious thread about how over powered HRs are in pvp and how they need to be in line with the other classes
Instead its some dude begging Devs to buff his HR so that he does significantly more damage on many different at-wills, encounters, and dailies as well as add more movement and ultility
wtf
Yeah if their 3 encounters all crit and you have 20k hp. A GWF, TR, or CW can also kill you just as fast and do the same amount of burst more often. Fox Shift is what does the majority of this damage and it has a decently long cooldown. While it's recharging their at-will damage is pretty darn weak.
HRs aren't OP they just have bugs. Everyone knows the roots are bugged so you can't ask for nerfs because of that. Everyone knows Stormstep Action is bugged so you can't ask for nerfs to their melee damage because of that either. People need to understand the real issues and stop blindly asking for nerfs.
Tell me trapublican when was that last time you saw "LFM HR for ______ dungeon."
The first part of this thread talked about how OP grasping roots are in PvP and, a compromise to make it so that they could be avoided while keeping the HR from being Roflstomped on by everyone. Basically I said Remove the Grasping roots and improve the ranged aspect so HRs have a chance of fighting without using Grasping roots 100% of the time. But I'm sure you skipped the entire first part of this thread and came down here to complain about how HRs always kill you.
Also you've clearly forgotten this is not just a PvP game and that HRs may be good in PvP they are extremely unused in the PvE aspect because many people say, "I'm not taking you, HRs suck."
Who cares? I have two GFs and you don't see me making ridiculous threads asking for crazy boosts because they're not wanted in groups.
They're not wanted because they can't contribute as much to the groups like the other classes can. I can tell you obviously haven't experimented with the HRs abilities. I wasn't talking about passively making the HRs a god mode class.
I'm asking for the Devs to fix the abilities that are severely broken or just were overlooked. Nobody uses the abilities I talk about in this post. I'm 99% sure you haven't seen most of these in either PvE or PvP. Buffing these powers won't make the HR stronger as a whole but, increase the variety of abilities the HR uses.
PS: GFs are wanted for many dungeons such as FH, ToS, and especially Spell Plague. I get accepted into dungeons all the time on my GF. All you have to do is look for "LFM Tank" they don't care if you're a GWF or GF as long as you're decently geared.
Rooting won't work on bosses in dungeons and won't work in a lot of situations in PvP which cuts its use by about half. No point taking rooting into a boss battle since it won't do anything (and since CC can be done far better by a CW rooting in PvP would be nearly pointless).
If the Forest Ghost bug is gone then Rangers won't be able to shoot off all those encounter powers so quickly which severely cuts their DPS.
So keeping those two points in mind all that's left is a class that has less than half the DPS of a GWF or even a GF in melee, way less than half the DPS potential of a CW in range (especially eye of the storm builds...I mean sheesh), and party buffs that are subpar at best. Which means that they aren't fulfilling their role. If the buffs are increased and the bugs are fixed then the HR will not be overpowered or over the top it will be the same as the other classes, it will have a role and fill it (well excluding GF who's role can be done by a GWF...bad cryptic!).
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A Comprehensive Review of Neverwinter <-- Read it!
That is rich coming from someone who made such ridiculous suggestions about changes for the class. I play a melee ranger (no point hiding behind a bow and running like a sissy imo) and do very well so I'd suggest you learn to use more than just the archery side of the HR if you're having problems.
Your OP showed you have no clue about class balance and just want to have a ridiculously easy experience playing as a ranger.
Hooray three of the most boring dungeons.
They only want a GF for FH if they want to be lazy and glitch the adds on the last boss otherwise a DC, GWF, HR or CW can kite the adds just as well if not better than a GF.
Pretty much everyone glitches the last boss in ToS so again you're not needed
I don't even waste my time running SC
Anyways I found out that the community moderator, Ambisinister, has a similar post and a similar point of veiw. Except he goes more into depth on the weaknesses of the HR.
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?572781-Comprehensive-Hunter-Ranger-Feedback
Feel free to check it out. It's very informative and well put together.
I also found a post about HRs and how they are in dungeons
http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?564261-Rangers-don-t-seem-very-useful-in-dungeons
Exactly my point. Fix the broken powers, get rid of the unavoidable part of grasping roots, and the remaining exploits.