Hello, Rookz here ( Also known as my GWF ( Welcome Home) ), PC player of NW and former Hunter Ranger Specialist since Module 3. Ever since HRs came out i have been amazed by them. I played HR until the end of module 8 or until I heard about the insignia bonuses that we have now on the PC version. It completely ruins HRs for many reasons. The insignia bonus that grants hp while being stunned, deflected makes people actually MORE tanky because it procs those bonuses basically 100% of the time on the HR class, and to me that's where the downfall to HR began. Buffing All the HR trees is most definitely a start. I love what you have done so far with the changes. It honestly boggles my mind to see all of these changes within a couple of weeks. i have never in 3 years of playing this game seen this much motivation and commitment towards a class/class balancing.
Anyways, I love the trapper reworking but this swiftness buff is too much. You are pushing more towards the trapper FOTM ( Favor of The Month ) still and it has been for 4 modules straight. It's boring and I would love to see changes to archery the most. Archery pushes more towards a different playstyle meta game and burst damage which is needed on a HR. I would honestly suggest making the capstone NOT halved by pvp players because let's face it...even IF it wasn't halved on pvp players at the moment then it still wouldn't do as much damage on Best In Slot ( BiS ) players ( Especially a GWF or on a GF ( but that doesn't matter because GF has shield up 24/7 ) ). 50% and NOT halved would be a good change, which you already half way there from buffing it by 10%, just need to half damage reduction gone.
I would also consider making archery tree have better cooldowns as ever since HRs came out that's what they have always been about, reducing cooldowns on crits/roots/encounters/ etc...then I would say change "Bottomless Quiver" feat to 30% cooldown reduction to both ranged and melee encounters. It's useless if it's just ranged stance powers because what makes use of the HR mechanic if you can't even use the other stance as efficient as the other stance and balanced at the same time? Another thought would be changing the other feat "Longshot" and buff that by how thorned roots ( the damage not the duration of the roots ) is, because this tree is about burst damage not so much infinite cooldowns like trapper...so buffing that by atleast 200% would be very nice but if you do that then change, fix on how it works with various encounters that proc crit a lot on their duration...for example thorn ward...each crit tick of thorn ward will proc longshot and i don't think it's suppose to work that way as usual you devs always make things on the 'intial hit'.
There's still a lot of work to do until module 10 comes, I never post on forums...this is my first time posting on the forums for something that actual is worth while and committing to. So i as well will be trying to buff the archery tree as long as the other people that want to change the meta game on HRs. This is just my entry so i hope you enjoy
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
On paper this SoTF "fix" sounds fantastic, but while you're busy shooting At-wills to remedy your 5s cooldowns that remain after all encounters have been used for a mere 8k (If you're lucky lol), GWFs are using their At-wills hitting 3x as hard, just as fast.
I don't think it will play out as well as it sounds, but I'm leaving the rest up to the real HR's who aren't screaming "NERF THIS" left-right and center to convey how this change affects the trapper path.
Edit: Careful attack: every 1.5 seconds a 15% cooldown reduction will be applied, no? This will make the StormWardens useless as everyone is going to jump on that train.
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patcherrkmMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 127Arc User
edited July 2016
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
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patcherrkmMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 127Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
The increase could only apply to the initial hit. We just need some burst potential. Let trappers do consistent damage. Let combat and archery have damage come out a little more bursty. Even with my proposed change we wouldnt have the burst of a GF, nor the tankiness of one. Just might be more fun and diverse to play. And that's the goal. Competitive options.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
The increase could only apply to the initial hit. We just need some burst potential. Let trappers do consistent damage. Let combat and archery have damage come out a little more bursty. Even with my proposed change we wouldnt have the burst of a GF, nor the tankiness of one. Just might be more fun and diverse to play. And that's the goal. Competitive options.
Uhhh, 100% piercing buffed powers..... I'm sure the GWF would enjoy being annihilated by that.
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patcherrkmMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 127Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
The increase could only apply to the initial hit. We just need some burst potential. Let trappers do consistent damage. Let combat and archery have damage come out a little more bursty. Even with my proposed change we wouldnt have the burst of a GF, nor the tankiness of one. Just might be more fun and diverse to play. And that's the goal. Competitive options.
Uhhh, 100% piercing buffed powers..... I'm sure the GWF would enjoy being annihilated by that.
I'm not really worried about BiS GWF's. They currently melt an HR in seconds. Why are you on this thread worried about GWF's. Go troll elsewhere.
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ghoulz66Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,748Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
The increase could only apply to the initial hit. We just need some burst potential. Let trappers do consistent damage. Let combat and archery have damage come out a little more bursty. Even with my proposed change we wouldnt have the burst of a GF, nor the tankiness of one. Just might be more fun and diverse to play. And that's the goal. Competitive options.
Uhhh, 100% piercing buffed powers..... I'm sure the GWF would enjoy being annihilated by that.
I'm not really worried about BiS GWF's. They currently melt an HR in seconds. Why are you on this thread worried about GWF's. Go troll elsewhere.
Why don't you give some reasonable suggestions then while you're trolling here yourself?
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patcherrkmMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 127Arc User
These changes should pretty much square up the trappers. Good work. Maybe a little tweaking, but damage should be decent and the playstyle preserved. A little tweaking maybe necessary but it looks great on paper. Bugs fixed, seems balanced as far as I can tell.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper Midnight Express
A 100% piercing 300% buffed tactical plant growth nuke in PVE and PVE is making the top scientists quake in their boots.
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
The increase could only apply to the initial hit. We just need some burst potential. Let trappers do consistent damage. Let combat and archery have damage come out a little more bursty. Even with my proposed change we wouldnt have the burst of a GF, nor the tankiness of one. Just might be more fun and diverse to play. And that's the goal. Competitive options.
Uhhh, 100% piercing buffed powers..... I'm sure the GWF would enjoy being annihilated by that.
I'm not really worried about BiS GWF's. They currently melt an HR in seconds. Why are you on this thread worried about GWF's. Go troll elsewhere.
Why don't you give some reasonable suggestions then while you're trolling here yourself?
Seriously, go play your GWF. Get out of this thread. What fun is it to keep HR's weak? You think HR's doing laughable damage is good for this game? I maurader rush someone for 10k, meanwhile a GF bull charges me for 130k followed up by a 250k anvil and you think I'm making unreasonable suggestions? What game are you playing? A GWF with at-wills melts the best geared HR in seconds. Just a few at wills. And he can gap close instantly. And if by some miracle you get him remotely low (he is probably letting you to build false hope), he can just hit his zoom button and run away and heal.
A rogue approaches you in stealth and hits you for 150k with one attack. Piercing damage. You are dead. Respawn. I'm not suggesting that we have a single "I win button". Hitting that hard would be stupid! I'm suggesting that it takes three abilities to do that much damage if they aren't deflected.
My suggestions are absolutely sincere. Combat already has 50% piercing as a noncapstone. I think double it and make it the capstone would be fantastic. And I'm not suggestions all powers be buffed, just the melee encounters for the combat and the ranged for archery.
If you're not interested in buffing those two feat trees to be competitive to the trapper, which comes with massive control via roots and damage via capstone, thorned roots and serpents etc, then why post in this thread?
Let me clarify by some numbers why I think it's pretty balanced. Let's take mauraders rush in PvP to be a clear example.
Currently - 10k damage against a geared foe. after proposed 200% increase + 100% piercing. - That's now hitting for 60k! It stills hit for half a Bull charge that is on a 10 second cooldown and it doesn't prone our opponent. But it does have longer range. If 200% is too much, then 150% or 100%. Play with the numbers to find the balance. That's fine. But my idea is simple. And it would play completely different than a trapper. It wouldnt be constant rotations. It would come out in big bursts depending on spec, melee for combat, ranged for archery. Welcome to diversity depending on preference.
patcherrkmMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 127Arc User
null I understand your point. I don't want HR to be broken OP. That won't be fun either. I want them to be unique and competitive. And best case scenario I want the three trees to be viable and unique. And fun!
I understand your point. I don't want HR to be broken OP. That won't be fun either. I want them to be unique and competitive. And best case scenario I want the three trees to be viable and unique. And fun!
thats a good attitude and i agree. archery needs more burst and combat more piercing while trapper is ok right now would be nice to see better control. i would like to see more changes to all 3 trees since this is about hr class balance and not just about certain trees. only time can tell if the hr will end up being good or not but we as a community of hr's can do that, so lets keep giving out feedback to amenar so we can get the hr's on par with other classes and on par with each other on the hr trees.
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vinceent1Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,264Arc User
edited July 2016
i like gazzilions of players now suggesting changes for high end combat and archery feats and pvp damage for class overall. hope @amenar will FINALLY place a word about it here ...
Hello, Rookz here ( Also known as my GWF ( Welcome Home) ), PC player of NW and former Hunter Ranger Specialist since Module 3. Ever since HRs came out i have been amazed by them. I played HR until the end of module 8 or until I heard about the insignia bonuses that we have now on the PC version. It completely ruins HRs for many reasons. The insignia bonus that grants hp while being stunned, deflected makes people actually MORE tanky because it procs those bonuses basically 100% of the time on the HR class, and to me that's where the downfall to HR began. Buffing All the HR trees is most definitely a start. I love what you have done so far with the changes. It honestly boggles my mind to see all of these changes within a couple of weeks. i have never in 3 years of playing this game seen this much motivation and commitment towards a class/class balancing.
Anyways, I love the trapper reworking but this swiftness buff is too much. You are pushing more towards the trapper FOTM ( Favor of The Month ) still and it has been for 4 modules straight. It's boring and I would love to see changes to archery the most. Archery pushes more towards a different playstyle meta game and burst damage which is needed on a HR. I would honestly suggest making the capstone NOT halved by pvp players because let's face it...even IF it wasn't halved on pvp players at the moment then it still wouldn't do as much damage on Best In Slot ( BiS ) players ( Especially a GWF or on a GF ( but that doesn't matter because GF has shield up 24/7 ) ). 50% and NOT halved would be a good change, which you already half way there from buffing it by 10%, just need to half damage reduction gone.
I would also consider making archery tree have better cooldowns as ever since HRs came out that's what they have always been about, reducing cooldowns on crits/roots/encounters/ etc...then I would say change "Bottomless Quiver" feat to 30% cooldown reduction to both ranged and melee encounters. It's useless if it's just ranged stance powers because what makes use of the HR mechanic if you can't even use the other stance as efficient as the other stance and balanced at the same time? Another thought would be changing the other feat "Longshot" and buff that by how thorned roots ( the damage not the duration of the roots ) is, because this tree is about burst damage not so much infinite cooldowns like trapper...so buffing that by atleast 200% would be very nice but if you do that then change, fix on how it works with various encounters that proc crit a lot on their duration...for example thorn ward...each crit tick of thorn ward will proc longshot and i don't think it's suppose to work that way as usual you devs always make things on the 'intial hit'.
There's still a lot of work to do until module 10 comes, I never post on forums...this is my first time posting on the forums for something that actual is worth while and committing to. So i as well will be trying to buff the archery tree as long as the other people that want to change the meta game on HRs. This is just my entry so i hope you enjoy
...its nice to see people amazed in closed beta like i was when we got our first hr day one. ...i don't agree with you on how mount insignias ruin hr's that is your opinion o the matter and it is noted so if others agree with you that would be nice to know if this really happens and though i don't pvp my insignias really help me. ...since hr was the weakest of the classes apparently they started with hr, though a lot of changes has happened every week or couple of days their all minor and we as a community are planning on doing more for hr's so your comments will surely help.
...the only reason why SOTF was being addressed so much is because they fixed it and that ruined the trapper then they had to fix the trapper without giving us back that same bug and now that its been fixed we are trying to focus on fixing hr as a hole again, well hopefully.
...archery doesn't need better cooldowns but better at wills. ...if your talking about archery using bottomless quiver to affect both range and melee then that is straying from archery builds. if archery gets any cooldowd feat or paragon skill it should only affect archery as archery is meant fore pure range not using any melee, it shouldn't benefit at all from using melee but it still can. ...devs rarely make things on the initial hit
...i hope you post more cause i like some of the ideas you had but it seems as though you didn't try helping trappers as their not done being fixed yet and their still sup par to other classes, but at least their in somewhat working order again.
Nice. But what's the update on Swiftness of the Fox?
Good question! Here is the current patch note for some upcoming changes for it:
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Swiftness of the Fox: Now triggers from more powers. Ranged Encounter and At-Will powers reduce the cooldown of your Melee Encounter powers, and vice versa. Daily powers reduce the cooldown of all of your Encounter powers.
And for clarification, here is the updated tooltip:
Your Melee Encounter & At-Will powers shorten the cooldown of your Ranged Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%. Your Ranged Encounter & At-Will powers shorten the cooldown of your Melee Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%. Your Daily powers shorten the cooldown of all your Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%.
What this has done in practice - alongside the other changes to recharge times, Swiftness of the Fox no longer multi-proccing on group fights, etc. - is that every couple of rotations, where I get "messed up" and don't have my CDs lined up properly, is I use a Daily or AW once or twice and all of the appropriate Encounters are off CD. The Daily change, in particular, feels nice because if I swap into melee stance and go "****, they all have 2s left" I can cast a Daily without the need to swap back to ranged stance. It's also nice that I feel like whenever my rotation gets messed up, casting a Daily or AW feels like it is contributing toward my goal of "cast Encounters all day long" instead of just filling time.
I look forward to getting this into the hands of our dedicated HRs and seeing how this works out for you guys.
@amenar thank you for this latest update on Swiftness. It sounds like you guys have taken on board what some of us want to preserve, which is a unique, fast and furious play style. I am looking forward to seeing/testing these new changes in action now. I wish I had a PC so I could offer better feedback from the Preview Server.
I am already figuring out in my head which rotations are going to work and which are not
Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only Alts : Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
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treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
On paper this SoTF "fix" sounds fantastic, but while you're busy shooting At-wills to remedy your 5s cooldowns that remain after all encounters have been used for a mere 8k (If you're lucky lol), GWFs are using their At-wills hitting 3x as hard, just as fast.
I don't think it will play out as well as it sounds, but I'm leaving the rest up to the real HR's who aren't screaming "NERF THIS" left-right and center to convey how this change affects the trapper path.
Edit: Careful attack: every 1.5 seconds a 15% cooldown reduction will be applied, no? This will make the StormWardens useless as everyone is going to jump on that train.
Stop comparing HR's to GWF, start comparing HR to SW's, GWF had almost nothing rework yet.
To me i feel archery needs dex/int more then wisdom due to u can get insane crit values from talents alone
Also iv noticed.....how come constricting arrows and binding arrows does the same thing? But the onky difference is the upgrades... Constricting arrow gives more damage per rank..... And binding arrows gives improve range to bind.... But other then this these 2 skills are identical!
I think im going to redo my wood elf and just try the dex/int route and stack recovery, armor pen, power and see what happens
I think the problem is we all trying to obtain the 100% crit rate i mean with 60% crit rate as archery i feel like i crit enough times as it is but maybe im the minority
But we will see what happens :D
I really think that with enough cooldown reduction we could chain up these skills
Cordon of arrows Rain of arrows Binding/constricting arrow Disruptive shot Stormstep action
To me i feel like these skills are the key to play archery with enough cooldown reduction we be able to chain these skills indefinately together but it requires testing now only if we had a paragon that effects grasping roots in the archery tree...
Problem i see that split shot is too good to pass up.... And my god its annoying to use cause it hard locks onto 1 target which is frustrating at times
Aimed shot needs to go through targets but reduce damage for each target it hits after the first target
Electro shot should be shot on the floor and last 6-8 seconds any targets in the area will take lightning damage for the duration
Rain of arrows... Need bigger range.... Its hard to see where ur placing it when everyone is in a pack... I have often missed landing this encounter multiple of times ... Change it so it barrage enemies near ur current or make it the same range of thorn ward
Aspect of the falcon... Hmm we dont need more range swap this out with aspect of the lone wolf and change aspect of the lone wolf to give deflection chance and give life steal per rank.... This will help low level HR to have some decent defense whilst leveling
Storm step action.... Whilst the CD reduction is ok with distruptive arrow i feel like this should change to allow electro shot and split the sky to daze/stun targets who are hit by lightning bolts or cause them to take additional damage from any source of damage lets say 10% increase damage taken?
Just need to look at the skills and passives seperate and see how they benefit each spec and rework it that way instead
We all know that most of our skills and passives benefits trapper the most... However i feel that the encounters and passive fall flat when picking either archery or combat u are very very very limited with options to choose from
To me i feel archery needs dex/int more then wisdom due to u can get insane crit values from talents alone
Also iv noticed.....how come constricting arrows and binding arrows does the same thing? But the onky difference is the upgrades... Constricting arrow gives more damage per rank..... And binding arrows gives improve range to bind.... But other then this these 2 skills are identical!
I think im going to redo my wood elf and just try the dex/int route and stack recovery, armor pen, power and see what happens
I think the problem is we all trying to obtain the 100% crit rate i mean with 60% crit rate as archery i feel like i crit enough times as it is but maybe im the minority
But we will see what happens
They are not the same at all. Constricting Arrow hits and then does a small AoE which applies Thorned Roots (if taken) to up to 5 enemies. Also the root can Crit even if the Arrow does not or vice versa.
Binding Arrow hits 1 enemy and a 2nd enemy if it is in line of sight, behind the 1st enemy you hit. It will Crit if the initial hit Crits. But this power can only ever hit 2 enemies. Binding Arrow is also supposed to apply Thorned Roots (if taken), people mentioned this was broken but is being fixed.
So in places where there are groups of enemies Constricting Arrow works out better. But against single enemies I found Binding Arrow hits harder but not by much.
Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only Alts : Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Nice. But what's the update on Swiftness of the Fox?
Good question! Here is the current patch note for some upcoming changes for it:
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Swiftness of the Fox: Now triggers from more powers. Ranged Encounter and At-Will powers reduce the cooldown of your Melee Encounter powers, and vice versa. Daily powers reduce the cooldown of all of your Encounter powers.
And for clarification, here is the updated tooltip:
Your Melee Encounter & At-Will powers shorten the cooldown of your Ranged Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%. Your Ranged Encounter & At-Will powers shorten the cooldown of your Melee Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%. Your Daily powers shorten the cooldown of all your Encounter powers by 3/6/9/12/15%.
What this has done in practice - alongside the other changes to recharge times, Swiftness of the Fox no longer multi-proccing on group fights, etc. - is that every couple of rotations, where I get "messed up" and don't have my CDs lined up properly, is I use a Daily or AW once or twice and all of the appropriate Encounters are off CD. The Daily change, in particular, feels nice because if I swap into melee stance and go "****, they all have 2s left" I can cast a Daily without the need to swap back to ranged stance. It's also nice that I feel like whenever my rotation gets messed up, casting a Daily or AW feels like it is contributing toward my goal of "cast Encounters all day long" instead of just filling time.
I look forward to getting this into the hands of our dedicated HRs and seeing how this works out for you guys.
@amenar thank you for this latest update on Swiftness. It sounds like you guys have taken on board what some of us want to preserve, which is a unique, fast and furious play style. I am looking forward to seeing/testing these new changes in action now. I wish I had a PC so I could offer better feedback from the Preview Server.
I am already figuring out in my head which rotations are going to work and which are not
@amenar Now we have Swiftness back on track and it sounds like it is going to be usable again (for its playstyle) I think there needs to be amendments the Archery and Combat Capstones.
I suggest put something in them that puts them on par with the Trapper Capstone. With the 2 Capstones massively improved we could then see what would need buffing etc with regards to Archery and Combat Trees. Big boosts to damage and survivability would help with their respective Encounters etc.
For instance Ranged gets a 300% boost to all Ranged Powers for 10 seconds, increased Crit chance & Severity, 20% reduction on Ranged cool downs per Ranged Encounter used, bonus Piercing damage, Stealth when hit for 2 seconds (once per activation) and AP regen. This could activate when you apply a Prey or something. Maybe a cool down of 20 seconds or something (so 10 seconds on 10 seconds off). Tactical application of this to improve DPS.
Combat capstone gets 500% damage increase to Melee At-Wills for 10 seconds (would say Encounters but Plant Growth is way too powerful), increased Life Steal & Severity, 20% reduction on Melee cool downs per Melee Encounter used, 20% increased Deflect & Deflect Severity and redirect a % of the damage back at the attacker whilst healing for 2% of it. This could activate like I mentioned above for Ranged.
Anyhoo as I don't have access to ACT or Preview or anything like that I am just spouting random numbers and ideas rather than thinking about pure hard maths... I leave that to the experts. What I am trying to get at is if the Capstones were improved massively for their respective trees we could see where they stand.
The Feat Battlehoned should also be changed to be a Passive that would appeal to Archery and Combat only. Trapper already has a number of Passives which are really good. No-one uses this Passive so might as well use one of the ideas on this thread to change it... But to appeal more to Archery and Combat some how.
Main - Rydia (HR70) - Xbox One Player only Alts : Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
@amenar Thank you for the great work you have done on HR.
Here are a few suggestions.
Giving Archery spec Burst damage boost would be a viable option. Survival boost towards Combat would be a viable option with melee damage boost (not very high burst, but piercing damage like it was or close to in module 3 when Combat spec actually meant something).
One of the main reasons why everyone loves trapper besides the DoT damage from Thorned Roots, is the Cooldown reduction seen from 2 particular feats. I am not here to get them reworked or removed or nerfed. I enjoyed the Trapper spec and probably will ALWAYS enjoy it, but this is what trapper should be. A fun spec, not the Flavor of the Month Spec to be used. Atleast a hybrid class like HR must have all specs viable and suitable for both PvP and PvE.
Plus a rework of Thorned Roots must be done to prioritize damage on Archery (for ranged) and Combat (for Melee).
General Solution: One way to tackle the problem of making Archery or Combat spec viable is to provide a similar form of recovery. As we all know that Archery spec has a Cooldown reduction mechanic for Ranged encounters which is dependent on Recovery. This feat can be completely removed and be replaced with more damage. Please let it be more damage rather than any other form of Percentage Damage which could be piercing (this is a replacement for Bottomless Quiver). Something similar to Trapper's Thorned Roots would make it Viable. The capstone could be reworked as "For next 10 seconds 50% of all Ranged damage taken by your opponent will be Piercing damage". The possibilities are endless. For combat, removing Healing depression on Wild's Medicine would help bring back combat but its not enough. Combat lacks damage too. What's the point of having At-will Piercing damage, which would benefit only Pathfinder because of the Bugged Careful Attack as it has been reported multiple times of having cooldown dependent on attackers and etc etc etc. So, if Careful attack was fixed, then this would make the Combat spec lackluster, to tackle this, the easiest way would be to do something similar as proposed for Archery, including Stamina regeneration which could be taken from Archery spec to allow Shift Cooldown and replacing At-will piercing damage with all melee skill's being taken into consideration for Piercing damage with the capstone acting as "For next 5 Seconds 50% all melee damage is Piercing damage, this effect lasts 10 seconds" (this is a minimum threshold and can be increased depending on how dangerous this can be).
But the question is, how do we tackle the problem of longer cooldowns, right? Aren't the folks playing trapper for it. Well the answer was posted here before. Move the Swiftness of the Fox feat to Tier 2 to allow flexibility. This would help combat too.
But what if this shifting of SotF from T4 to T2 is literally not possible in every sense of the word, what if the Developers here have a different approach, then there is a way. But a rework of Stormstep Action is needed. This Class Feature would then need a rework to be allowed flexibility with HR cooldown Reduction builds. Yes this would bring back Stormwarden, and with the rework proposed for the damage bonuses for Combat and Archery, could make Stormwarden Archery and Combat specs viable.
So the next question, what should Stormstep Action do?
Well the 10 second Limit must be definitely reduced to 5 seconds to allow flexibility in using this Class Feature. The offhand bonus should be able to reduce this limit by 1 more second. on Each rank up a Cooldown Reduction of 0.75s or 1s must be done rather than 0.5s, which is too less.
But the outcome can be magnificent if these ideas or suggestions can be implemented.
Please note, make only one the necessary changes regarding cooldown reduction, i.e. either move Swiftness of the Fox to T2 instead of leaving it at T4 OR Rework Stormstep Action.
The damage boosts (or changes) suggested must be enforced regardless of whether Cooldown Reduction changes.
Please note, these are rough ideas and I haven't worked them out systematically on Paper. But on a general scale, these values would never make a Trapper overpowered, and could bring Archery and Combat as more of Burst damage variations focusing on 1 stance more than the other. This would help in making use of skills like "Hawk Shot, Split the Sky, Commanding Shot, etc" viable again. With utility buffs being good replacements for use in melee stance for Archery spec and making "Fox Cunning, Boar, Marauder's, etc" viable against for Combat spec.
@genjundead I don't know how you can't see insignias ruined HRs...but this thread isn't about PvP and insignias, it's about Buffing this class. I only put it out there to just say that it what made our class very weak in the new meta game.
Also, before archery affected both ranged and melee stances in module 2-3. It was reducing all the encounters by i think 0.5% every time you crit or something like that i don't remember. I'm not pushing for it to be melee but HRs are about both stances to be used and to go with archery tree you need some survivability with the melee stance powers for example Marauders Rush, Oakskin ( for the heals - which is still completely useless ), Steel breeze's stamina regain, and even if you wanna run Cordon in the archery rotation Plant Growth root is a very good power to hold someone in place when you are being chased down by other melee classes.
I thought about Bottomless Quiver cooldown increased to 50% instead of 30% as well. And Unflinching Aim increased to 50% from 20%
You don't want to buff the tree to the point where it's broken. Adding piercing damage to the tree is a no-no. This is HR we are talking about, pushing it towards a TR - Shocking Execution build would just be absurd.
I think it would be well balanced by increasing the damage on Unflinching Aim to 50% and on top of the capstone 50% ~ which leads to 100% damage bonus on one target and 50% passively, because if you look at how tanky classes are these days which high deflect, high tenacity, high damage resistance then keeping the way as it is would still make it a useless tree. With that damage buff you can atleast get some good burst damage on the target regardless the class we fight.
I'm not saying to make it completely broken with the buffs, but, 100% damage bonus, in my opinion, would be balanced and still with the deflect people have these days wouldn't make something one shot but still very consistent damage and still be able to kill somebody while they are still able to kill you.
I haven't seen any notes in this thread regarding this so does anyone know if Fox Shift will still consume two melee stacks of AotS and leave one ranged stack?
Also the most recent suggested changes to cooldowns to provide a fix for the swiftness fix sounds like you are investing some real time to get the class right. Thanks to the dev's devotion to our class.
I think you need to disable at wills and dailies reducing cooldowns for pvp at least, and also by doing this you're putting combat and archery ages away from trapper again.
By doing this you're introducing the permadaze meta back into pvp again especially with the fixes to dazes and roots.
Additionally, if you're going ahead with this, please consider toning down the damage of Thorned Roots or you'll have too much imbalance between paths again. Buff the base damage of the hr class so the trapper tree doesn't see any net changes, but swiftness of the fox and thorned roots will set the path well and above archery and combat unless you give them a 100-200% damage bonus.
For a person that no longer plays the game several of your suggestions were instituted. Let's let the PC guys and gals test out the changes before you want to NERF the trapper in PvP. The Dev restored my faith in his work and now I am confident he will do this correctly.
So please relax and make more suggestions on how to improve the other trees, thanks!
@amenar Also, my apologies for not acknowledging your work. You have greatly inspired me to actually post on the forums about this class for out the 3 years I have played this game. These changes you are making are absolutely incredible, keep up the good work and i'd be glad to hear from what you have to say
Okay, as I said before the buff to Unflinching Aim is a must and the capstone change is also a must as well. Through out the years of experience i have played in this game and knowing mainly all the mechanics towards every class and their feats and builds I can say that the base damage buffs you increase are stuff not enough. However, the commanding shot buff is very nice and needs to be done towards mostly every other encounter power we have.
HRs have one of the worst base damage for at-wills ( Not Aim Shot ), encounters and dailies in the game. I wouldn't consider increasing the damage by encounters like you did with Commanding Shot, because 300% buff to all the other encounters like Constricting Arrow, Binding Arrow, Hindering Strike/Shot would make Trapper absolutely ridiculous.
I would suggest buffing them by maybe at least 50 - 100%.
I'm also in love with the Aim Shot buffing as well, but changing the Unflinching Aim to reduce cooldowns by 0.5s ( In the addition to the feat buff it still gives ) is still basically useless. If you still want to look into that then make it like 2 seconds or about 3 seconds, then that would be good and i'm sure a lot of people would agree too. Aim Shot is a very hard hitting At-will, so pushing more to that would make it decently viable.
Another big change would be the first T1 top feat in the Archery Tree ( which i am sure you are aware of ) currently recovers 25% faster stamina while in ranged stance is not working. I have tested this feat every module since the changes to the shift bar we got in module 4 or 5 I believe it was. That needs to get fixed or atleast look into it and rework it.
Another important Archery feat that I forgot to mention is the Stillness Of The Forest feat. Rework or reverse it completely. For example - Make it 10% critical chance with no foes within 25 feet of you and 25% damage buff the further you are to the target. Still, in my opinion, wouldn't be enough. I would buff the damage by 10-15% and so the final feat would say this...
Stillness Of The Forest: Increases damage further away from your target by 35%. Additionally, increases critical chance when there are no foes within 25 feet of you by 10%.
One more feat I have to mention is Rising Focus. Currently increases power and critical severity by 5% by each time you do a critical hit with a ranged power and lasts 6 seconds and stacks up to 3 times. The only problem to this feat is that it lasts 6 seconds...it's too short in PvP. I would consider increasing it's duration by an additional 4 seconds making it 10 seconds. An increase to the stacks would be good as well, making it stack up to 5 times instead of 3.
Comments
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
I found this video of a combat HR. Seems to be from mod 7. He seems to do OK damage then.
Anyways, I love the trapper reworking but this swiftness buff is too much. You are pushing more towards the trapper FOTM ( Favor of The Month ) still and it has been for 4 modules straight. It's boring and I would love to see changes to archery the most. Archery pushes more towards a different playstyle meta game and burst damage which is needed on a HR. I would honestly suggest making the capstone NOT halved by pvp players because let's face it...even IF it wasn't halved on pvp players at the moment then it still wouldn't do as much damage on Best In Slot ( BiS ) players ( Especially a GWF or on a GF ( but that doesn't matter because GF has shield up 24/7 ) ). 50% and NOT halved would be a good change, which you already half way there from buffing it by 10%, just need to half damage reduction gone.
I would also consider making archery tree have better cooldowns as ever since HRs came out that's what they have always been about, reducing cooldowns on crits/roots/encounters/ etc...then I would say change "Bottomless Quiver" feat to 30% cooldown reduction to both ranged and melee encounters. It's useless if it's just ranged stance powers because what makes use of the HR mechanic if you can't even use the other stance as efficient as the other stance and balanced at the same time? Another thought would be changing the other feat "Longshot" and buff that by how thorned roots ( the damage not the duration of the roots ) is, because this tree is about burst damage not so much infinite cooldowns like trapper...so buffing that by atleast 200% would be very nice but if you do that then change, fix on how it works with various encounters that proc crit a lot on their duration...for example thorn ward...each crit tick of thorn ward will proc longshot and i don't think it's suppose to work that way as usual you devs always make things on the 'intial hit'.
There's still a lot of work to do until module 10 comes, I never post on forums...this is my first time posting on the forums for something that actual is worth while and committing to. So i as well will be trying to buff the archery tree as long as the other people that want to change the meta game on HRs. This is just my entry so i hope you enjoy
I don't think it will play out as well as it sounds, but I'm leaving the rest up to the real HR's who aren't screaming "NERF THIS" left-right and center to convey how this change affects the trapper path.
Edit: Careful attack: every 1.5 seconds a 15% cooldown reduction will be applied, no? This will make the StormWardens useless as everyone is going to jump on that train.
Let's get to the crux of the issue here though.
Combat needs love - better capstone, more useful feats. My suggestions is move the piercing damage to the capstone and make it 100% piercing for all melee attacks. Make a feat increase melee encounter damage by damage by 2-300%. This should give combat HR's some big burst damage.
Archery - needs love too. change the capstone - 100% piercing damage for all ranged attacks. ranged at wills can be fired on the run. make a feat increase ranged encounter damage by 2-300%.
This will help those trees compete with the very desirable quick rotations, aspect of serpent, throrned roots, HAMSTER capstone of the trapper.
Sleek Pepper
Midnight Express
This just isn't going to work. Plant growth does NOT need any further buffs to it. It's damage more than performs well. Gushing wound with the same treatment is just begging for trouble to happen. They do not need any buffs. It's the at-wills that are underperforming at an extreme.
A rogue approaches you in stealth and hits you for 150k with one attack. Piercing damage. You are dead. Respawn. I'm not suggesting that we have a single "I win button". Hitting that hard would be stupid! I'm suggesting that it takes three abilities to do that much damage if they aren't deflected.
My suggestions are absolutely sincere. Combat already has 50% piercing as a noncapstone. I think double it and make it the capstone would be fantastic. And I'm not suggestions all powers be buffed, just the melee encounters for the combat and the ranged for archery.
If you're not interested in buffing those two feat trees to be competitive to the trapper, which comes with massive control via roots and damage via capstone, thorned roots and serpents etc, then why post in this thread?
Let me clarify by some numbers why I think it's pretty balanced. Let's take mauraders rush in PvP to be a clear example.
Currently - 10k damage against a geared foe.
after proposed 200% increase + 100% piercing. - That's now hitting for 60k! It stills hit for half a Bull charge that is on a 10 second cooldown and it doesn't prone our opponent. But it does have longer range.
If 200% is too much, then 150% or 100%. Play with the numbers to find the balance. That's fine. But my idea is simple. And it would play completely different than a trapper. It wouldnt be constant rotations. It would come out in big bursts depending on spec, melee for combat, ranged for archery. Welcome to diversity depending on preference.
I understand your point. I don't want HR to be broken OP. That won't be fun either. I want them to be unique and competitive. And best case scenario I want the three trees to be viable and unique. And fun!
archery needs more burst and combat more piercing while trapper is ok right now would be nice to see better control. i would like to see more changes to all 3 trees since this is about hr class balance and not just about certain trees. only time can tell if the hr will end up being good or not but we as a community of hr's can do that, so lets keep giving out feedback to amenar so we can get the hr's on par with other classes and on par with each other on the hr trees.
...i don't agree with you on how mount insignias ruin hr's that is your opinion o the matter and it is noted so if others agree with you that would be nice to know if this really happens and though i don't pvp my insignias really help me.
...since hr was the weakest of the classes apparently they started with hr, though a lot of changes has happened every week or couple of days their all minor and we as a community are planning on doing more for hr's so your comments will surely help.
...the only reason why SOTF was being addressed so much is because they fixed it and that ruined the trapper then they had to fix the trapper without giving us back that same bug and now that its been fixed we are trying to focus on fixing hr as a hole again, well hopefully.
...archery doesn't need better cooldowns but better at wills.
...if your talking about archery using bottomless quiver to affect both range and melee then that is straying from archery builds. if archery gets any cooldowd feat or paragon skill it should only affect archery as archery is meant fore pure range not using any melee, it shouldn't benefit at all from using melee but it still can.
...devs rarely make things on the initial hit
...i hope you post more cause i like some of the ideas you had but it seems as though you didn't try helping trappers as their not done being fixed yet and their still sup par to other classes, but at least their in somewhat working order again.
I am already figuring out in my head which rotations are going to work and which are not
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
To me i feel archery needs dex/int more then wisdom due to u can get insane crit values from talents alone
Also iv noticed.....how come constricting arrows and binding arrows does the same thing? But the onky difference is the upgrades... Constricting arrow gives more damage per rank..... And binding arrows gives improve range to bind.... But other then this these 2 skills are identical!
I think im going to redo my wood elf and just try the dex/int route and stack recovery, armor pen, power and see what happens
I think the problem is we all trying to obtain the 100% crit rate i mean with 60% crit rate as archery i feel like i crit enough times as it is but maybe im the minority
But we will see what happens :D
I really think that with enough cooldown reduction we could chain up these skills
Cordon of arrows
Rain of arrows
Binding/constricting arrow
Disruptive shot
Stormstep action
To me i feel like these skills are the key to play archery with enough cooldown reduction we be able to chain these skills indefinately together but it requires testing now only if we had a paragon that effects grasping roots in the archery tree...
Problem i see that split shot is too good to pass up.... And my god its annoying to use cause it hard locks onto 1 target which is frustrating at times
Aimed shot needs to go through targets but reduce damage for each target it hits after the first target
Electro shot should be shot on the floor and last 6-8 seconds any targets in the area will take lightning damage for the duration
Rain of arrows... Need bigger range.... Its hard to see where ur placing it when everyone is in a pack... I have often missed landing this encounter multiple of times ... Change it so it barrage enemies near ur current or make it the same range of thorn ward
Aspect of the falcon... Hmm we dont need more range swap this out with aspect of the lone wolf and change aspect of the lone wolf to give deflection chance and give life steal per rank.... This will help low level HR to have some decent defense whilst leveling
Storm step action.... Whilst the CD reduction is ok with distruptive arrow i feel like this should change to allow electro shot and split the sky to daze/stun targets who are hit by lightning bolts or cause them to take additional damage from any source of damage lets say 10% increase damage taken?
Just need to look at the skills and passives seperate and see how they benefit each spec and rework it that way instead
We all know that most of our skills and passives benefits trapper the most... However i feel that the encounters and passive fall flat when picking either archery or combat u are very very very limited with options to choose from
Binding Arrow hits 1 enemy and a 2nd enemy if it is in line of sight, behind the 1st enemy you hit. It will Crit if the initial hit Crits. But this power can only ever hit 2 enemies. Binding Arrow is also supposed to apply Thorned Roots (if taken), people mentioned this was broken but is being fixed.
So in places where there are groups of enemies Constricting Arrow works out better. But against single enemies I found Binding Arrow hits harder but not by much.
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
I suggest put something in them that puts them on par with the Trapper Capstone. With the 2 Capstones massively improved we could then see what would need buffing etc with regards to Archery and Combat Trees. Big boosts to damage and survivability would help with their respective Encounters etc.
For instance Ranged gets a 300% boost to all Ranged Powers for 10 seconds, increased Crit chance & Severity, 20% reduction on Ranged cool downs per Ranged Encounter used, bonus Piercing damage, Stealth when hit for 2 seconds (once per activation) and AP regen. This could activate when you apply a Prey or something. Maybe a cool down of 20 seconds or something (so 10 seconds on 10 seconds off). Tactical application of this to improve DPS.
Combat capstone gets 500% damage increase to Melee At-Wills for 10 seconds (would say Encounters but Plant Growth is way too powerful), increased Life Steal & Severity, 20% reduction on Melee cool downs per Melee Encounter used, 20% increased Deflect & Deflect Severity and redirect a % of the damage back at the attacker whilst healing for 2% of it. This could activate like I mentioned above for Ranged.
Anyhoo as I don't have access to ACT or Preview or anything like that I am just spouting random numbers and ideas rather than thinking about pure hard maths... I leave that to the experts. What I am trying to get at is if the Capstones were improved massively for their respective trees we could see where they stand.
The Feat Battlehoned should also be changed to be a Passive that would appeal to Archery and Combat only. Trapper already has a number of Passives which are really good. No-one uses this Passive so might as well use one of the ideas on this thread to change it... But to appeal more to Archery and Combat some how.
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
Here are a few suggestions.
Giving Archery spec Burst damage boost would be a viable option. Survival boost towards Combat would be a viable option with melee damage boost (not very high burst, but piercing damage like it was or close to in module 3 when Combat spec actually meant something).
One of the main reasons why everyone loves trapper besides the DoT damage from Thorned Roots, is the Cooldown reduction seen from 2 particular feats. I am not here to get them reworked or removed or nerfed. I enjoyed the Trapper spec and probably will ALWAYS enjoy it, but this is what trapper should be. A fun spec, not the Flavor of the Month Spec to be used. Atleast a hybrid class like HR must have all specs viable and suitable for both PvP and PvE.
Plus a rework of Thorned Roots must be done to prioritize damage on Archery (for ranged) and Combat (for Melee).
General Solution:
One way to tackle the problem of making Archery or Combat spec viable is to provide a similar form of recovery. As we all know that Archery spec has a Cooldown reduction mechanic for Ranged encounters which is dependent on Recovery. This feat can be completely removed and be replaced with more damage. Please let it be more damage rather than any other form of Percentage Damage which could be piercing (this is a replacement for Bottomless Quiver). Something similar to Trapper's Thorned Roots would make it Viable. The capstone could be reworked as "For next 10 seconds 50% of all Ranged damage taken by your opponent will be Piercing damage". The possibilities are endless. For combat, removing Healing depression on Wild's Medicine would help bring back combat but its not enough. Combat lacks damage too. What's the point of having At-will Piercing damage, which would benefit only Pathfinder because of the Bugged Careful Attack as it has been reported multiple times of having cooldown dependent on attackers and etc etc etc. So, if Careful attack was fixed, then this would make the Combat spec lackluster, to tackle this, the easiest way would be to do something similar as proposed for Archery, including Stamina regeneration which could be taken from Archery spec to allow Shift Cooldown and replacing At-will piercing damage with all melee skill's being taken into consideration for Piercing damage with the capstone acting as "For next 5 Seconds 50% all melee damage is Piercing damage, this effect lasts 10 seconds" (this is a minimum threshold and can be increased depending on how dangerous this can be).
But the question is, how do we tackle the problem of longer cooldowns, right? Aren't the folks playing trapper for it. Well the answer was posted here before. Move the Swiftness of the Fox feat to Tier 2 to allow flexibility. This would help combat too.
But what if this shifting of SotF from T4 to T2 is literally not possible in every sense of the word, what if the Developers here have a different approach, then there is a way. But a rework of Stormstep Action is needed. This Class Feature would then need a rework to be allowed flexibility with HR cooldown Reduction builds. Yes this would bring back Stormwarden, and with the rework proposed for the damage bonuses for Combat and Archery, could make Stormwarden Archery and Combat specs viable.
So the next question, what should Stormstep Action do?
Well the 10 second Limit must be definitely reduced to 5 seconds to allow flexibility in using this Class Feature. The offhand bonus should be able to reduce this limit by 1 more second. on Each rank up a Cooldown Reduction of 0.75s or 1s must be done rather than 0.5s, which is too less.
But the outcome can be magnificent if these ideas or suggestions can be implemented.
Please note, make only one the necessary changes regarding cooldown reduction, i.e. either move Swiftness of the Fox to T2 instead of leaving it at T4
OR
Rework Stormstep Action.
The damage boosts (or changes) suggested must be enforced regardless of whether Cooldown Reduction changes.
Please note, these are rough ideas and I haven't worked them out systematically on Paper. But on a general scale, these values would never make a Trapper overpowered, and could bring Archery and Combat as more of Burst damage variations focusing on 1 stance more than the other. This would help in making use of skills like "Hawk Shot, Split the Sky, Commanding Shot, etc" viable again. With utility buffs being good replacements for use in melee stance for Archery spec and making "Fox Cunning, Boar, Marauder's, etc" viable against for Combat spec.
TR + HR + OP + SW
Nikostratos
Also, before archery affected both ranged and melee stances in module 2-3. It was reducing all the encounters by i think 0.5% every time you crit or something like that i don't remember. I'm not pushing for it to be melee but HRs are about both stances to be used and to go with archery tree you need some survivability with the melee stance powers for example Marauders Rush, Oakskin ( for the heals - which is still completely useless ), Steel breeze's stamina regain, and even if you wanna run Cordon in the archery rotation Plant Growth root is a very good power to hold someone in place when you are being chased down by other melee classes.
I thought about Bottomless Quiver cooldown increased to 50% instead of 30% as well.
And Unflinching Aim increased to 50% from 20%
You don't want to buff the tree to the point where it's broken. Adding piercing damage to the tree is a no-no. This is HR we are talking about, pushing it towards a TR - Shocking Execution build would just be absurd.
I think it would be well balanced by increasing the damage on Unflinching Aim to 50% and on top of the capstone 50% ~ which leads to 100% damage bonus on one target and 50% passively, because if you look at how tanky classes are these days which high deflect, high tenacity, high damage resistance then keeping the way as it is would still make it a useless tree. With that damage buff you can atleast get some good burst damage on the target regardless the class we fight.
I'm not saying to make it completely broken with the buffs, but, 100% damage bonus, in my opinion, would be balanced and still with the deflect people have these days wouldn't make something one shot but still very consistent damage and still be able to kill somebody while they are still able to kill you.
Also the most recent suggested changes to cooldowns to provide a fix for the swiftness fix sounds like you are investing some real time to get the class right. Thanks to the dev's devotion to our class.
Let's let the PC guys and gals test out the changes before you want to NERF the trapper in PvP. The Dev restored my faith in his work and now I am confident he will do this correctly.
So please relax and make more suggestions on how to improve the other trees, thanks!
Okay, as I said before the buff to Unflinching Aim is a must and the capstone change is also a must as well. Through out the years of experience i have played in this game and knowing mainly all the mechanics towards every class and their feats and builds I can say that the base damage buffs you increase are stuff not enough. However, the commanding shot buff is very nice and needs to be done towards mostly every other encounter power we have.
HRs have one of the worst base damage for at-wills ( Not Aim Shot ), encounters and dailies in the game. I wouldn't consider increasing the damage by encounters like you did with Commanding Shot, because 300% buff to all the other encounters like Constricting Arrow, Binding Arrow, Hindering Strike/Shot would make Trapper absolutely ridiculous.
I would suggest buffing them by maybe at least 50 - 100%.
I'm also in love with the Aim Shot buffing as well, but changing the Unflinching Aim to reduce cooldowns by 0.5s ( In the addition to the feat buff it still gives ) is still basically useless. If you still want to look into that then make it like 2 seconds or about 3 seconds, then that would be good and i'm sure a lot of people would agree too. Aim Shot is a very hard hitting At-will, so pushing more to that would make it decently viable.
Another big change would be the first T1 top feat in the Archery Tree ( which i am sure you are aware of ) currently recovers 25% faster stamina while in ranged stance is not working. I have tested this feat every module since the changes to the shift bar we got in module 4 or 5 I believe it was. That needs to get fixed or atleast look into it and rework it.
Another important Archery feat that I forgot to mention is the Stillness Of The Forest feat.
Rework or reverse it completely.
For example - Make it 10% critical chance with no foes within 25 feet of you and 25% damage buff the further you are to the target. Still, in my opinion, wouldn't be enough. I would buff the damage by 10-15% and so the final feat would say this...
Stillness Of The Forest: Increases damage further away from your target by 35%. Additionally, increases critical chance when there are no foes within 25 feet of you by 10%.
One more feat I have to mention is Rising Focus. Currently increases power and critical severity by 5% by each time you do a critical hit with a ranged power and lasts 6 seconds and stacks up to 3 times. The only problem to this feat is that it lasts 6 seconds...it's too short in PvP.
I would consider increasing it's duration by an additional 4 seconds making it 10 seconds. An increase to the stacks would be good as well, making it stack up to 5 times instead of 3.