Easy solution, make it increase directly all melee at will damage by %250. More complex one, Your melee encounters are improved and changed their effects.( so you can introduce new melee at wills that are stronger and probably debuff applier only for melee HRs).
Another suggestion for Trappper this time, Even though we havent tested them yet, I believe that Thorned Roots applying dots for longer and in a more consistent way is positive, yet it is not the right to go, or lets say it needs improvements. Thorned Roots instead have increased weapon damage, or it should be able to stacked (in damage) while a second Thorned Roots effect is applied. Otherwise there is no reason to apply anothet Thorned Roots cause it is only a reapply to Thorned Roots damage, yet many encounters right now on PC doesnt even give HRs a chance to deal the fully benefited damage over time from Thorned Roots, so it would be nice to have more damage directly coming from it or, let us stack Thorned Roots so we could find another chance to increase our damage as the battle extends.
Commanding Shot, we should probably test this first, yet Reduce animation timeeee yellings are on the way.
For a final comment, an aoe change must be applied to Predator, like a secondary effect that doesnt stay long as primary effect, yet to give archers a chance to increase aoe damage output.
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.
@amenar this was what I had proposed. The Class features seems ridiculous compared to Swiftness of the Fox and Forest Bond feats from Trapper. I had earlier proposed moving SotF to T2 which probably would break the Functionality of the Trapper tree, hence moving it to T3 would probably seem like a viable idea.
However Reworking Stormstep action and removing the 10 second Half-effect must be removed. The offhand bonus should be changed from 400 recovery to Reduce the 10 second half-effect limit or rather provide cooldown reduction of 1 second of use. On each rank up the Cooldown Reduction must be changed from 0.5s to 0.75s or 1s. Tested this on paper and would heavily rely on Daily use which would allow flexible and mobile playstyle for HR.
Just think for a min, what are most HR's wanting right now? All those in favor of Archery and Combat have the issue of Cooldown Reduction which Trapper is providing. But the question is how do you compensate for this Cooldown Reduction to make Archery and Combat Viable. At the same time making Stormwarden seem useful again for both PvE and PvP.
This is the solution that should work. Damage buffers posted by @whitespicyrice and @ralexinor and reduction of SotF on Daily use must definitely be changed.
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.
They'll probably be the last class to be rebalanced IF they even do get a rebalance.
This is supposed to bring HR's up to scale with other striker classes, so I have every right to compare the two.
What I wish the devs had done was release a preview with the updated powers, but keep SoTF the same (Broken) THEN made appropriate changes.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Battle Crazed: Now grants bonus melee damage with every stack as well. Duration increased to 6s, up from 3s.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Hasty Retreat: Now also increases your movement speed by a small amount at all times, in addition to the existing proc effect.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Unflinching Aim: Aimed Shot now reduces the CD of your currently recharging Encounter powers (no longer just Ranged powers) by 0.2/0.4/0.6/0.8/1.0s (up from 0.1/0.2/0.3/0.4/0.5s).
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Longshot: Damage dealt by this feat increased to 20/40/60/80/100% of Weapon Damage, up from 10/20/30/40/50%. In addition, this is now actually Piercing damage, instead of having an undocumented feature of behaving somewhat like Piercing damage.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Scoundrel Training: No longer affects the damage displayed on the tooltips of your At-Will powers.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Lucky Blades: When Lucky Blades is triggered, it now also increases your Encounter power damage by 3/6/9/12/15%.
Hunter Ranger: Feat: Lucky Blades: Tooltip properly reports a 6s duration, instead of listing 4s.
I also want to make a point about Stillness of the Forest. It's very clunky to use effectively, almost downright impossible in PvP as well, and counter-productive in parties because you need to be close to members for buffs.
FEEDBACK: reduce or remove the range penalty for Stillness of the Forest. Additionallty, increase the damage portion of the feat; 10% is paltry, especially for a T5 feat.
This sounds like a good idea. I hate how Stillness of the Forest works. Prime Critical was the bomb, would be nice to have something similar in Archery tree again, although a high tier feat so other specs can't leech it from us.
This whole trying to force archery into single target is a huge issue. Archery needs other options than stand still in the middle of a HE and risk being murdered trying to shoot off single target shots. Aimed shot and Hawk Shot are not useful for these kinds of situations.
Agreed. Even with the changes to Aimed Shot and Hawk Shot I still won't be using either of them. My loadout will be staying pretty much the same as it is currently.
Also what on earth are you talking about with needing a DoT? Aimed Shot does twice or thrice the damage that Rapid Shot does in the same time, and the cast time has yet to be reduced on Preview so it's still a 2.25s cast time, which is being reduced to 1.5s. Aimed Shot has always been one of the highest dps ranged at-wills we've had, but it's always been off-set by being cancelled when taking damage - i.e. drawbacks. The at-will has no drawbacks now, so it's hands down the best at-will Archery has by a long margin, at least for single target. Consistent DPS is a misnomer, all that matters is how much damage you do over a single fight, and I can guarantee you - in the same time you're poking away at a target with Rapid Shot for "consistent damage", I'll have doubled or tripled your damage with Aimed Shot.
To put this in perspective, my Rapid Shot crits on preview do about 10-15k damage, while Aimed Shot does 90-120k. And I'm pretty sure you can get in only around 2-3 Rapid Shots in on Aimed Shot, and this is also before the cast time decrease, where Rapid Shot will fall even further behind.
Aimed Shot might be better on preview atm but on live Rapid Shot wins out currently. Myself and other archers have tested this. Also you are able to weave encounters in between Rapids whereas with Aimed you cannot do so, it is far too clunky and chews up valuable time locking you into the animation.
Frankly if i were the developer, i would buff aimed shot damage by 50% so it fulfill it role as a burst damage at-will..rather that toning down the charge time and damage to make it more inline with rapid shot, which totally lost the whole initial idea of it. That makes it not rewarding enough to use it.
In pvp during mod 4, aimed shot used to burst unsuspecting foe down before finishing him off with encounter. After mod 6, its totally useless due to tenacity increase and the increased of HP of level 70. With the current change it even go further downhill.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
Bringing back Prime Critical would actually be a really nice option for the archer.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Bringing back Prime Critical would actually be a really nice option for the archer.
Yes I agree Primal Critical would actually be a viable option. But this doesn't help us getting Rework on Class Features and getting Stormstep Action and Stormwarden in General getting some fixes and Boosts.
From my understanding balancing is more of a perclass issue. Why favor 1 path (by path I mean SW and PF) over the other? Why favor one Spec (by spec I mean Trapper/Combat/Archery) over the other.
At the very least they should make it possible for Stomrwarden Spec to Fit in a viable form over the Archery and Combat Spec, don't you agree? Why have Class features which are Pointless? The issue mainly which EVERY HR (except @ralexinor and @whitespicyrice ) is that they are only opting for getting Trapper getting buffed in one form or the other.
@amenar you have already seen that every time anyone asks for Archery or Combat, they still choose combat because of Cooldown Reduction which Forestbond and Swiftness of the Fox provide. The only literal alternative would be allow Stormwarden make good use of the Class Feature Storm-step Action. This would bring Archery and Combat on Par with Trapper in terms of TOTAL cooldown reduction and dmg. The only major difference would be Archery having Ranged Burst Damage, Combat having Melee Burst Damage and Trapper not out performing by having ONLY DoT from the combined use of both Stances 100%.
No way would trapper be outperforming in PvE then, all the paths need a viable upgrade. Buffing damage by providing Piercing damage is HIGHLY appreciated, but Cooldown Reduction should be brought in closer. Is it not the CDR forcing Trapper use in PVE and PVP?
Swiftness needs a definite nerf, because if the Class feature is buffed, then the major issue would be Swiftness + Class feature would make a MAJOR issue for trapper OVERPERFORMING again.
Right now with Cooldown Reduction that Trapper has, the Damage over Time would then have to be left out. You are in need of Rearranging the Swiftness feat. It might have to be moved farther in to prevent Trapper from Over Performing.
While this was already stated before, I'd like to point out again the bugs related to encounters with charges :
- encounters with charges aren't affected by powers which reduce or reset the cooldown on currently recharging powers - encounter with charges do not produce any action point
Suggestions
These bugs affect all classes to some extent (Such as the GWF with Hidden Daggers and the OP with Bane for example) but are specially annoying for the trapper HR.
Since these bugs havent been adressed after such a long time I suspect them to be specially hard to fix, probably requiring a complete rework of the charges system.
If such is the case I'd like the charges removed from, at least, cordon of arrows and replaced by a short cooldown so we can reliably reset it over a long fight.
While you're at it please consider doing something about the OP's Bane encounter. Not getting AP from 1 out of your 3 encounters is very annoying for a paladin.
@amenar, thanx a lot for all the hard work you've been doing on these upcoming changes and for actually listening and taking into consideration the suggestions from the players.
Could we please get a statement regarding encounters with charges?
Bringing back Prime Critical would actually be a really nice option for the archer.
Yes I agree Primal Critical would actually be a viable option. But this doesn't help us getting Rework on Class Features and getting Stormstep Action and Stormwarden in General getting some fixes and Boosts.
From my understanding balancing is more of a perclass issue. Why favor 1 path (by path I mean SW and PF) over the other? Why favor one Spec (by spec I mean Trapper/Combat/Archery) over the other.
At the very least they should make it possible for Stomrwarden Spec to Fit in a viable form over the Archery and Combat Spec, don't you agree? Why have Class features which are Pointless? The issue mainly which EVERY HR (except @ralexinor and @whitespicyrice ) is that they are only opting for getting Trapper getting buffed in one form or the other.
@amenar you have already seen that every time anyone asks for Archery or Combat, they still choose combat because of Cooldown Reduction which Forestbond and Swiftness of the Fox provide. The only literal alternative would be allow Stormwarden make good use of the Class Feature Storm-step Action. This would bring Archery and Combat on Par with Trapper in terms of TOTAL cooldown reduction and dmg. The only major difference would be Archery having Ranged Burst Damage, Combat having Melee Burst Damage and Trapper not out performing by having ONLY DoT from the combined use of both Stances 100%.
No way would trapper be outperforming in PvE then, all the paths need a viable upgrade. Buffing damage by providing Piercing damage is HIGHLY appreciated, but Cooldown Reduction should be brought in closer. Is it not the CDR forcing Trapper use in PVE and PVP?
Swiftness needs a definite nerf, because if the Class feature is buffed, then the major issue would be Swiftness + Class feature would make a MAJOR issue for trapper OVERPERFORMING again.
Right now with Cooldown Reduction that Trapper has, the Damage over Time would then have to be left out. You are in need of Rearranging the Swiftness feat. It might have to be moved farther in to prevent Trapper from Over Performing.
DOT dmg is useless on pvp(thanks to insignias bonuses), and Hero, nerfing trapper won't bring anything good for archery and combat(cause they won't buff base dmg after nerfing trapper cd's).
For a final comment, an aoe change must be applied to Predator, like a secondary effect that doesnt stay long as primary effect, yet to give archers a chance to increase aoe damage output.
What about it functioning similar to the Lightfoot Thief active bonus, whereby crits deal additional damage as AoE?
Our pain is self chosen.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
FEEDBACK: Predator: remove PvP penalty from "Predator" (Archery capstone). Halving the effect is completely unnecessary and honestly, the capstone could be increased to at least 70%. Additionally, just remove the need to inflict Predator at all - make it a flat 50% damage bonus on all targets rather than 1 target at a time. Also, I suggest adding the old HR feat "Correcting Aim" from mod 2-3 to the capstone: "Every non-critical attack increases your critical chance by 5%. This effect is reset when you crit.". This is overall a 10%~ crit chance increase depending on what your chance is, and should help lower-geared HRs as well.
FEEDBACK: Rising Focus (Archery T5 feat): increase the buff duration, increase the amount of power and critical severity. The buff duration of 6s is difficult to keep up in some select cases, and the power and crit severity bonuses aren't enough for a T5 feat especially when you consider the diminishing returns on both stats.
HR AP gain outside of the Trapper feat and Careful Attack is terrible. Testing on preview as Archery on a single target, using Lostmauth neck, 3k recovery:
SW w/ 1.7k recovery and CW w/ 7.4k recovery AP takes roughly around 20 seconds to fill in comparison. While my recovery stat isn't great, the fact it takes double or more time to gain 100% AP without Careful Attack is a bit silly. Is it really necessary for the at-will to grant that much recovery, especially since it's multiplied in party by number of people hitting the target? CA also isn't available to Stormwardens.
FEEDBACK: increase AP gain on other HR at-wills while decreasing AP gain from Careful Attack.
Testing with various encounter powers and a lot of casting times are extremely long. Notably:
- Commanding Shot - 1.6~1.7s, roughly 2 seconds before movement is possible - Hawk Shot - 1.7s, roughly 1.9s before movement is possible - Cordon of Arrows - 1.2s before it lands, 1.3s before movement is possible - Rain of Arrows - 1.5s - Split the Sky: 2 seconds~ (soon to be reduced on preview to 1.5s) - Split Shot: 0.6s - 1.5s (time to reach max charge reduced by 0.25s next patch), roughly 1s before movement is possible at minimum - Cold Steel Hurricane - 1.4s
FEEDBACK: reduce casting time of Cold Steel Hurricane, Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot. Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot cast times feel just as long or longer than Aimed Shot. They shouldn't take longer to cast than Aimed Shot, which is technically a "charged" attack. Even if they still need reasonably long cast times, I feel the current cast times are far too long, especially considering you can't move for almost 2 seconds. CSH has an amazing animation but it's just not practical. Cordon of Arrows and Rain of Arrows can stay as they are, but I feel like the Cordon object should land and do damage a lot faster, especially because it activates in 3 phases (shooting the Cordon, landing the Cordon, Cordon activating and doing damage). Split Shot can stay as it is but the post-attack delay should be removed, same with Boar Charge. I will need to see the Split the Sky change before making any opinions.
I'd also like to suggest this for Split the Sky:
FEEDBACK: Split the Sky: remove the damage dealt when players take damage. Instead, when you land an attack, STS hits your target.
Additionally, as previous posters mentioned, a lot of HR Class Features are useless. Personally, my main issue is that we lack good damage feats. Aspect of the Serpent is only useful for Trappers, especially with the recent Careful Attack change, Twin-Blade Storm is only useful in AoEs, Seeker's Vengeance is impractical in PvP and also not possible in certain scenarios, such as Tiamat. I'd like to touch base on a few of the more useless feats.
FEEDBACK: Aspect of the Falcon: one of the more useless feats we have. Standing at max range in PvE is extremely useless and counterproductive because you don't get buffs from party members, for one, and there's nothing that warrants it either. I suggest either adding a damage buff feature to it (please not based on distance, it sounds good on paper but in practice it's terrible), and/or a movement speed buff. Thematically, a critical severity increase could work, although personally I think a damage bonus is better.
FEEDBACK: Seeker's Vengeance: allow it to affect targets from the front, but when damage is done from behind, the bonus is doubled.
FEEDBACK: Stormstep Action: used to be good, but was nerfed and not scaled. I suggest removing the penalty and changing the bonus to 4% per rank.
FEEDBACK: Battlehoned: as other posters have mentioned, a general stat increase like SW's Dark Prayers feat or TR's Skillful Infiltrator feat would be interesting. Perhaps 5% movement speed, 1% critical chance, 1% deflect per rank.
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treesclimberMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,161Arc User
It's already overkill. If you can't survive with the extra 20% LS you're playing really poorly.
The hounds in Dreadring for example or a big axe down from the frost giants will take you down for a lifetime, and trapper has and alway had more mobility, it's still the tree that has more survival in my opinion, just need to stack some life stea. I would rather less life steal granted by feat and damage divided in dots.
Sincerely survival is something that Combat tree excel and is better even vs. Trapper, so if you have issues soloing content like Dread Ring, then you have done some build mistake somewhere.
I did specify weak enemies, but it could be related to engame too, while HR combat would have a way to heal while stuned for example. I've soloed eLol twice, i know elol is nothing compared to orcus for example but even with the changes done to combat and even taking in consideration it would take a bit more time, i dont think i could ever do it has a combat HR, or at least not at my IL. You sai it exels but honestly little more than thorn wards is needed to keep a trapper alive, check sume's video solo of ecc, i doubt a combat HR would get anything near that surviviality.
Bringing back Prime Critical would actually be a really nice option for the archer.
Yes I agree Primal Critical would actually be a viable option. But this doesn't help us getting Rework on Class Features and getting Stormstep Action and Stormwarden in General getting some fixes and Boosts.
From my understanding balancing is more of a perclass issue. Why favor 1 path (by path I mean SW and PF) over the other? Why favor one Spec (by spec I mean Trapper/Combat/Archery) over the other.
At the very least they should make it possible for Stomrwarden Spec to Fit in a viable form over the Archery and Combat Spec, don't you agree? Why have Class features which are Pointless? The issue mainly which EVERY HR (except @ralexinor and @whitespicyrice ) is that they are only opting for getting Trapper getting buffed in one form or the other.
@amenar you have already seen that every time anyone asks for Archery or Combat, they still choose combat because of Cooldown Reduction which Forestbond and Swiftness of the Fox provide. The only literal alternative would be allow Stormwarden make good use of the Class Feature Storm-step Action. This would bring Archery and Combat on Par with Trapper in terms of TOTAL cooldown reduction and dmg. The only major difference would be Archery having Ranged Burst Damage, Combat having Melee Burst Damage and Trapper not out performing by having ONLY DoT from the combined use of both Stances 100%.
No way would trapper be outperforming in PvE then, all the paths need a viable upgrade. Buffing damage by providing Piercing damage is HIGHLY appreciated, but Cooldown Reduction should be brought in closer. Is it not the CDR forcing Trapper use in PVE and PVP?
Swiftness needs a definite nerf, because if the Class feature is buffed, then the major issue would be Swiftness + Class feature would make a MAJOR issue for trapper OVERPERFORMING again.
Right now with Cooldown Reduction that Trapper has, the Damage over Time would then have to be left out. You are in need of Rearranging the Swiftness feat. It might have to be moved farther in to prevent Trapper from Over Performing.
I do not believe you are reading half of our posts then. I don't believe any Trapper has asked for a buff (apart from maybe the PvP ones)... Trapper does not need buffing in the slightest in PvE. We just do not need the entire tree/path completely destroyed with cool downs.
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)
FEEDBACK: Predator: remove PvP penalty from "Predator" (Archery capstone). Halving the effect is completely unnecessary and honestly, the capstone could be increased to at least 70%. Additionally, just remove the need to inflict Predator at all - make it a flat 50% damage bonus on all targets rather than 1 target at a time. Also, I suggest adding the old HR feat "Correcting Aim" from mod 2-3 to the capstone: "Every non-critical attack increases your critical chance by 5%. This effect is reset when you crit.". This is overall a 10%~ crit chance increase depending on what your chance is, and should help lower-geared HRs as well.
FEEDBACK: Rising Focus (Archery T5 feat): increase the buff duration, increase the amount of power and critical severity. The buff duration of 6s is difficult to keep up in some select cases, and the power and crit severity bonuses aren't enough for a T5 feat especially when you consider the diminishing returns on both stats.
HR AP gain outside of the Trapper feat and Careful Attack is terrible. Testing on preview as Archery on a single target, using Lostmauth neck, 3k recovery:
SW w/ 1.7k recovery and CW w/ 7.4k recovery AP takes roughly around 20 seconds to fill in comparison. While my recovery stat isn't great, the fact it takes double or more time to gain 100% AP without Careful Attack is a bit silly. Is it really necessary for the at-will to grant that much recovery, especially since it's multiplied in party by number of people hitting the target? CA also isn't available to Stormwardens.
FEEDBACK: increase AP gain on other HR at-wills while decreasing AP gain from Careful Attack.
Testing with various encounter powers and a lot of casting times are extremely long. Notably:
- Commanding Shot - 1.6~1.7s, roughly 2 seconds before movement is possible - Hawk Shot - 1.7s, roughly 1.9s before movement is possible - Cordon of Arrows - 1.2s before it lands, 1.3s before movement is possible - Rain of Arrows - 1.5s - Split the Sky: 2 seconds~ (soon to be reduced on preview to 1.5s) - Split Shot: 0.6s - 1.5s (time to reach max charge reduced by 0.25s next patch), roughly 1s before movement is possible at minimum - Cold Steel Hurricane - 1.4s
FEEDBACK: reduce casting time of Cold Steel Hurricane, Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot. Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot cast times feel just as long or longer than Aimed Shot. They shouldn't take longer to cast than Aimed Shot, which is technically a "charged" attack. Even if they still need reasonably long cast times, I feel the current cast times are far too long, especially considering you can't move for almost 2 seconds. CSH has an amazing animation but it's just not practical. Cordon of Arrows and Rain of Arrows can stay as they are, but I feel like the Cordon object should land and do damage a lot faster, especially because it activates in 3 phases (shooting the Cordon, landing the Cordon, Cordon activating and doing damage). Split Shot can stay as it is but the post-attack delay should be removed, same with Boar Charge. I will need to see the Split the Sky change before making any opinions.
I'd also like to suggest this for Split the Sky:
FEEDBACK: Split the Sky: remove the damage dealt when players take damage. Instead, when you land an attack, STS hits your target.
Additionally, as previous posters mentioned, a lot of HR Class Features are useless. Personally, my main issue is that we lack good damage feats. Aspect of the Serpent is only useful for Trappers, especially with the recent Careful Attack change, Twin-Blade Storm is only useful in AoEs, Seeker's Vengeance is impractical in PvP and also not possible in certain scenarios, such as Tiamat. I'd like to touch base on a few of the more useless feats.
FEEDBACK: Aspect of the Falcon: one of the more useless feats we have. Standing at max range in PvE is extremely useless and counterproductive because you don't get buffs from party members, for one, and there's nothing that warrants it either. I suggest either adding a damage buff feature to it (please not based on distance, it sounds good on paper but in practice it's terrible), and/or a movement speed buff. Thematically, a critical severity increase could work, although personally I think a damage bonus is better.
FEEDBACK: Seeker's Vengeance: allow it to affect targets from the front, but when damage is done from behind, the bonus is doubled.
FEEDBACK: Stormstep Action: used to be good, but was nerfed and not scaled. I suggest removing the penalty and changing the bonus to 4% per rank.
FEEDBACK: Battlehoned: as other posters have mentioned, a general stat increase like SW's Dark Prayers feat or TR's Skillful Infiltrator feat would be interesting. Perhaps 5% movement speed, 1% critical chance, 1% deflect per rank.
+1
I agree with all, but I just think the high casting time of those skill and other ones, is related to what @amenar said in an early post: Also, real quick on animation speeds. Unfortunately, this is a difficult issue. Our animations are hand timed, so reducing them requires rebuilding the animation. This takes a lot more time than just simply tweaking a number. We are discussing changes here, but they certainly won’t be in for this review. So I guess some fix will be postponed and will happens after the Mod 10 goes live, the important is that amenar keep track with a to-do about this matter.
GRAVITY XGAME
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
@deathdealersera : the main issue the class has is that trapper as a concept it's much better suited to a class that is supposed to weave powers in both stances, as the core mechanic of the class is stance swapping. Fitting the current archer and combat into the overall architecture is like putting a round peg in a square hole. You can but you have to make the peg smaller. The other stance encounters are often a filler and amenar is struggling into getting a good use for half of the encounters in both cases. If they really want to keep archer and combat they'll have to look at the complete rotations and use the encounters in the "other" stance as proper set-ups for their hard hitters so that there is incentive in using them. This would probably fix the AP gain issue too.
But still it's trying to put a peg in the wrong hole. I guess Ralexinor is trying to get back a sort of PvP focused mobile heavy hitter like what the ranger has been for a certain period in the beginning (and that was a fun version even if it was Fox Shift the heavy hitter and not Aimed Shot). That would combine Archery and Combat, be low on control but high on hitting power, mobility and evasiveness. It would not be that difficult to set it up as a tree.
Trapper is a second tree that works. Control and DoT DPS.
A third tree could be nature as a healer buffer debuffer.
All the trees would then make good use of both stances and then fixing would be much easier. Creating Archer and Combat in a class based on stance shifting was a bad idea from the start.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
-Swiftness of the fox - Swap it with Trappers cunning in feat list so it can be used in Melee and Archery builds. It wont solve all problems but gives some interesting variants.
-Swiftness of the fox - Swap it with Trappers cunning in feat list so it can be used in Melee and Archery builds. It wont solve all problems but gives some interesting variants.
That won't produce variants at all, it would just mean that every single HR in the universe would take that feat, making for far less variety, not more. The feat is just too good to pass up for anyone that can select it.
Not any more with the fix to Swiftness. It will not be half as effective as before...
I think swapping it to T2 or T3 would give some diversity to the Archery and Combat Trees. A lot of Trappers actually put 15 points into the Combat Tree and the rest in Trapper.
Archery and Combat would be able to put 10 or 15 points into the Trapper Tree for the Feat and still be able to hit the Capstones in their Trees. There would be a bit of diversity as you will have players using all 3 Trees. It would also sort out the issue of long cool downs in Archery and Combat.
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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lirithielMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 2,482Arc User
@deathdealersera : the main issue the class has is that trapper as a concept it's much better suited to a class that is supposed to weave powers in both stances, as the core mechanic of the class is stance swapping.
Fitting the current archer and combat into the overall architecture is like putting a round peg in a square hole. You can but you have to make the peg smaller.
The other stance encounters are often a filler and amenar is struggling into getting a good use for half of the encounters in both cases.
If they really want to keep archer and combat they'll have to look at the complete rotations and use the encounters in the "other" stance as proper set-ups for their hard hitters so that there is incentive in using them. This would probably fix the AP gain issue too.
But still it's trying to put a peg in the wrong hole. I guess Ralexinor is trying to get back a sort of PvP focused mobile heavy hitter like what the ranger has been for a certain period in the beginning (and that was a fun version even if it was Fox Shift the heavy hitter and not Aimed Shot). That would combine Archery and Combat, be low on control but high on hitting power, mobility and evasiveness. It would not be that difficult to set it up as a tree.
Trapper is a second tree that works. Control and DoT DPS.
A third tree could be nature as a healer buffer debuffer.
All the trees would then make good use of both stances and then fixing would be much easier. Creating Archer and Combat in a class based on stance shifting was a bad idea from the start.
I sort of play my Combat HR as hybrid but without the moving in and out of combat. Most of the encounters I slot are useful in both stances (Rain of Arrows/Swords, Fox Shift/Cunning and Cordon of Arrows/Plant Growth).
The Mod 2 hybrid HR wasn't just a hard hitter as we had the old Constricting Shot (remember that?) which was possibly the best CC in the game. Those were fun times and the height of the HR.
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thefabricantMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 5,248Arc User
-Swiftness of the fox - Swap it with Trappers cunning in feat list so it can be used in Melee and Archery builds. It wont solve all problems but gives some interesting variants.
That won't produce variants at all, it would just mean that every single HR in the universe would take that feat, making for far less variety, not more. The feat is just too good to pass up for anyone that can select it.
Not any more with the fix to Swiftness. It will not be half as effective as before...
I think swapping it to T2 or T3 would give some diversity to the Archery and Combat Trees. A lot of Trappers actually put 15 points into the Combat Tree and the rest in Trapper.
Archery and Combat would be able to put 10 or 15 points into the Trapper Tree for the Feat and still be able to hit the Capstones in their Trees. There would be a bit of diversity as you will have players using all 3 Trees. It would also sort out the issue of long cool downs in Archery and Combat.
What your proposing sounds a lot like a feat called spell twisting, which is pretty much used by every single CW
gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
@lirithiel : I agree with you. That ranger was even more fun than the trapper and competitive in PvP too. If that would come back I'd probably make a new ranger and run both that one and a trapper. The only thing that was missing at that time too was a heavy hitting daily, and that was our main limit against Valindra both in MC and VT. But everything else was spot on.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
It's already overkill. If you can't survive with the extra 20% LS you're playing really poorly.
The hounds in Dreadring for example or a big axe down from the frost giants will take you down for a lifetime, and trapper has and alway had more mobility, it's still the tree that has more survival in my opinion, just need to stack some life stea. I would rather less life steal granted by feat and damage divided in dots.
Those types of CC are MEANT to punish you. If you managed to get hit by them you most certainly deserve death.
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gabrieldourdenMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 1,212Arc User
To be honest at least in PVE Trapper has more survivability. My usual solo test is Thwarting the Hoarders at the Well of Dragons. I tried yesterday all trees and Trapper is still the easiest especially if you have some lag issues as I always do. Combat is slightly better against the Rider but much more vulnerable to the others. Trapper just roots stuff down and melts it. You only have to dodge the Rider. Archer is by far the hardest.
Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
@ralexinor I agree Predator needs buffing and stated my idea, which is similar to yours, a few pages back. Predator should engage when you enter combat, perhaps by firing Aimed Shot first.
The damage benefit of Predator *NEEDS* to be between 75%-100%. Yes, 75%-100%. It needs to be that significant. It also needs to apply to all enemies, not just one. Maybe you get 100% damage buff for one enemy (the first you engage in combat) and 75% to all the rest...
Also, a cooldown benefit upon entering combat, such as a Righteous DC's Avatar, would be needed.
As a reference, the Trapper has Biting Snares, granting you AP, +30% damage to all enemies, and extends control duration (DPS) of roots, all while giving you the opportunity to constantly spam and rotate through encounters. Archery damage needs to be stepped up so it may be commensurate with Trapper.
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thatsmeaswellMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 60Arc User
"I agree with all, but I just think the high casting time of those skill and other ones, is related to what @amenar said in an early post: Also, real quick on animation speeds. Unfortunately, this is a difficult issue. Our animations are hand timed, so reducing them requires rebuilding the animation. This takes a lot more time than just simply tweaking a number. We are discussing changes here, but they certainly won’t be in for this review. So I guess some fix will be postponed and will happens after the Mod 10 goes live, the important is that amenar keep track with a to-do about this matter."
I do not really know how coding and visualizing the animations works but is it not possible to swap the visuals? I mean, the animation of gushing wound is the same as the one of aimed strike or am i wrong? So my question is this: were it possible to change the animation of the powers or are they connected in a way that this is impossible? I would be very happy with gushing wound using the animation of rapid strike or thorn strike if this would be an easy way to reduce casting time. Same goes for aimed shot using the animation of disruptive shot.
FEEDBACK: Predator: remove PvP penalty from "Predator" (Archery capstone). Halving the effect is completely unnecessary and honestly, the capstone could be increased to at least 70%. Additionally, just remove the need to inflict Predator at all - make it a flat 50% damage bonus on all targets rather than 1 target at a time. Also, I suggest adding the old HR feat "Correcting Aim" from mod 2-3 to the capstone: "Every non-critical attack increases your critical chance by 5%. This effect is reset when you crit.". This is overall a 10%~ crit chance increase depending on what your chance is, and should help lower-geared HRs as well.
FEEDBACK: Rising Focus (Archery T5 feat): increase the buff duration, increase the amount of power and critical severity. The buff duration of 6s is difficult to keep up in some select cases, and the power and crit severity bonuses aren't enough for a T5 feat especially when you consider the diminishing returns on both stats.
HR AP gain outside of the Trapper feat and Careful Attack is terrible. Testing on preview as Archery on a single target, using Lostmauth neck, 3k recovery:
SW w/ 1.7k recovery and CW w/ 7.4k recovery AP takes roughly around 20 seconds to fill in comparison. While my recovery stat isn't great, the fact it takes double or more time to gain 100% AP without Careful Attack is a bit silly. Is it really necessary for the at-will to grant that much recovery, especially since it's multiplied in party by number of people hitting the target? CA also isn't available to Stormwardens.
FEEDBACK: increase AP gain on other HR at-wills while decreasing AP gain from Careful Attack.
Testing with various encounter powers and a lot of casting times are extremely long. Notably:
- Commanding Shot - 1.6~1.7s, roughly 2 seconds before movement is possible - Hawk Shot - 1.7s, roughly 1.9s before movement is possible - Cordon of Arrows - 1.2s before it lands, 1.3s before movement is possible - Rain of Arrows - 1.5s - Split the Sky: 2 seconds~ (soon to be reduced on preview to 1.5s) - Split Shot: 0.6s - 1.5s (time to reach max charge reduced by 0.25s next patch), roughly 1s before movement is possible at minimum - Cold Steel Hurricane - 1.4s
FEEDBACK: reduce casting time of Cold Steel Hurricane, Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot. Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot cast times feel just as long or longer than Aimed Shot. They shouldn't take longer to cast than Aimed Shot, which is technically a "charged" attack. Even if they still need reasonably long cast times, I feel the current cast times are far too long, especially considering you can't move for almost 2 seconds. CSH has an amazing animation but it's just not practical. Cordon of Arrows and Rain of Arrows can stay as they are, but I feel like the Cordon object should land and do damage a lot faster, especially because it activates in 3 phases (shooting the Cordon, landing the Cordon, Cordon activating and doing damage). Split Shot can stay as it is but the post-attack delay should be removed, same with Boar Charge. I will need to see the Split the Sky change before making any opinions.
I'd also like to suggest this for Split the Sky:
FEEDBACK: Split the Sky: remove the damage dealt when players take damage. Instead, when you land an attack, STS hits your target.
Additionally, as previous posters mentioned, a lot of HR Class Features are useless. Personally, my main issue is that we lack good damage feats. Aspect of the Serpent is only useful for Trappers, especially with the recent Careful Attack change, Twin-Blade Storm is only useful in AoEs, Seeker's Vengeance is impractical in PvP and also not possible in certain scenarios, such as Tiamat. I'd like to touch base on a few of the more useless feats.
FEEDBACK: Aspect of the Falcon: one of the more useless feats we have. Standing at max range in PvE is extremely useless and counterproductive because you don't get buffs from party members, for one, and there's nothing that warrants it either. I suggest either adding a damage buff feature to it (please not based on distance, it sounds good on paper but in practice it's terrible), and/or a movement speed buff. Thematically, a critical severity increase could work, although personally I think a damage bonus is better.
FEEDBACK: Seeker's Vengeance: allow it to affect targets from the front, but when damage is done from behind, the bonus is doubled.
FEEDBACK: Stormstep Action: used to be good, but was nerfed and not scaled. I suggest removing the penalty and changing the bonus to 4% per rank.
FEEDBACK: Battlehoned: as other posters have mentioned, a general stat increase like SW's Dark Prayers feat or TR's Skillful Infiltrator feat would be interesting. Perhaps 5% movement speed, 1% critical chance, 1% deflect per rank.
+1 totally speaks whats in my mind.
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romotheoneMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 729Arc User
I think it's the time to re-quote my previous post, now that @ralexinor posted about similar things.
I couldn't help, but notice that HR doesn't have a class feats, which support the Archery tree damage-wise.
Aspect of the Falcon: This sounds good on paper. Gives you additional range, which allows you to get a few hits in before the target can approach you. Unfortunately, this only supports solo leveling play and loses it's effectiveness once you get into end-game or fight in tight places. While it supports Stillness of the Forest, it also excludes you from many of the group buffs, which require you to be within range of your team. Please consider reworking this class feat. Too much range is a faulty mechanic that works against the HR. Stillness of the Forest, Longstrider Shot's buff and Hawk Shot suffer from the exact same thing. My suggestion: If I look at the class feats icon and name I see a falcon, looking at its prey, knowing exactly where and when to strike. Critical chance/critical severity comes to mind. Maybe a "for ranged at-wills/encounters/dailies" condition added to it. I feel like Archery (and as players who play the 2 other trees have reported) and the other trees suffer from not being able to deal high spikes of damage. Laying the fundations for crit builds could be a solution to this.
Aspect of the Pack: The great dilemma of the Archery HR. This forces the HR to move within a very small radius around the action. Not too close, so you don't mess with your range-based bonuses but not too far so teammates are still affected by it. Do you use a summoned companion and stay away from your own group (due to range issues with the skills mentioned above), or do you move closer to your group and cripple yourself? Combat advantage is something that gets applied by many other classes on a regular basis. I feel like this feat is counter-productive in a group situation for the HR and if I had to describe the issue with a single phrase, I'd say this skill's name should rather be "Aspect of the Lone Wolf" when it comes to Archery. Could be useful in some rare situations for a melee focused HR, but there are far better class feats for that playstyle and this basically should never be picked outside of leveling. This empty "Class Feat" slot could be used for so much more that would open up possibilities for any HR. My suggestion: Looking at the class feats icon and name it suggests group play. For the reasons stated a few lines above, radius based skills are heavily restricting Archery's effectiveness and it's hard to find a fitting effect that represents the Icon and the skill's name without leaning towards a straight up(mechanically barely interesting) damage boost and a radius effect. I am hesitant to suggest something ground-breaking, because I am not sure how much time and effort it would take you to code. I am going to brainstorm on this one, without really thinking about the impact, but I'll try to stay within reasonable boundaries. - You and your allies in a radius around you gain 10/15/20/25% movement speed while unmounted and out of combat. - You as the pack leader, mark the first target you deal damage to in combat. You and your allies deal 3/5/7/9% more damage to that target. Lasts until target dies or you get out of combat. - Killing a foe enrages you and your allies in a radius around you, increasing movement speed(5%) and damage dealt(5%) for 4/6/8/10 seconds. //// could also simply set a really short duration and make the bonuses scale to resemble a sudden enraging effect. Movement 4/8/12/16%, damage 4/8/12/16% for 2 seconds after a foe dies.
What do you guys think about these?
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
A third tree could be nature as a healer buffer debuffer.
Nature wasn't popular, but there were people who were heartbroken at losing it because their character concept for their ranger was a healer/buffer, and not a damage-dealer at all. The big problem with that is being left in the same position as the Templock, where you're not actually good enough at healing or buffing to be an asset to a party.
@ralexinor I agree Predator needs buffing and stated my idea, which is similar to yours, a few pages back. Predator should engage when you enter combat, perhaps by firing Aimed Shot first.
The damage benefit of Predator *NEEDS* to be between 75%-100%. Yes, 75%-100%. It needs to be that significant. It also needs to apply to all enemies, not just one. Maybe you get 100% damage buff for one enemy (the first you engage in combat) and 75% to all the rest...
Also, a cooldown benefit upon entering combat, such as a Righteous DC's Avatar, would be needed.
As a reference, the Trapper has Biting Snares, granting you AP, +30% damage to all enemies, and extends control duration (DPS) of roots, all while giving you the opportunity to constantly spam and rotate through encounters. Archery damage needs to be stepped up so it may be commensurate with Trapper.
The thing is if you get your HR and your SW, same Il, best build you can get them, both under CA, and go hit a dummy, HR archery deals very close damage to SW SB fury, so increasing further the damage would create a bit of unbalance, that's the opposite of what we want, only pvp would deserve a buff but longshot was changed so lets see what come out of there, how well it will behave.
Comments
Easy solution, make it increase directly all melee at will damage by %250.
More complex one, Your melee encounters are improved and changed their effects.( so you can introduce new melee at wills that are stronger and probably debuff applier only for melee HRs).
Another suggestion for Trappper this time,
Even though we havent tested them yet, I believe that Thorned Roots applying dots for longer and in a more consistent way is positive, yet it is not the right to go, or lets say it needs improvements. Thorned Roots instead have increased weapon damage, or it should be able to stacked (in damage) while a second Thorned Roots effect is applied. Otherwise there is no reason to apply anothet Thorned Roots cause it is only a reapply to Thorned Roots damage, yet many encounters right now on PC doesnt even give HRs a chance to deal the fully benefited damage over time from Thorned Roots, so it would be nice to have more damage directly coming from it or, let us stack Thorned Roots so we could find another chance to increase our damage as the battle extends.
Commanding Shot, we should probably test this first, yet Reduce animation timeeee yellings are on the way.
For a final comment, an aoe change must be applied to Predator, like a secondary effect that doesnt stay long as primary effect, yet to give archers a chance to increase aoe damage output.
Thanks for reading.
However Reworking Stormstep action and removing the 10 second Half-effect must be removed. The offhand bonus should be changed from 400 recovery to Reduce the 10 second half-effect limit or rather provide cooldown reduction of 1 second of use. On each rank up the Cooldown Reduction must be changed from 0.5s to 0.75s or 1s. Tested this on paper and would heavily rely on Daily use which would allow flexible and mobile playstyle for HR.
Just think for a min, what are most HR's wanting right now? All those in favor of Archery and Combat have the issue of Cooldown Reduction which Trapper is providing. But the question is how do you compensate for this Cooldown Reduction to make Archery and Combat Viable. At the same time making Stormwarden seem useful again for both PvE and PvP.
This is the solution that should work. Damage buffers posted by @whitespicyrice and @ralexinor and reduction of SotF on Daily use must definitely be changed.
TR + HR + OP + SW
Nikostratos
This is supposed to bring HR's up to scale with other striker classes, so I have every right to compare the two.
What I wish the devs had done was release a preview with the updated powers, but keep SoTF the same (Broken) THEN made appropriate changes.
In pvp during mod 4, aimed shot used to burst unsuspecting foe down before finishing him off with encounter. After mod 6, its totally useless due to tenacity increase and the increased of HP of level 70. With the current change it even go further downhill.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
From my understanding balancing is more of a perclass issue. Why favor 1 path (by path I mean SW and PF) over the other? Why favor one Spec (by spec I mean Trapper/Combat/Archery) over the other.
At the very least they should make it possible for Stomrwarden Spec to Fit in a viable form over the Archery and Combat Spec, don't you agree? Why have Class features which are Pointless? The issue mainly which EVERY HR (except @ralexinor and @whitespicyrice ) is that they are only opting for getting Trapper getting buffed in one form or the other.
@amenar you have already seen that every time anyone asks for Archery or Combat, they still choose combat because of Cooldown Reduction which Forestbond and Swiftness of the Fox provide. The only literal alternative would be allow Stormwarden make good use of the Class Feature Storm-step Action. This would bring Archery and Combat on Par with Trapper in terms of TOTAL cooldown reduction and dmg. The only major difference would be Archery having Ranged Burst Damage, Combat having Melee Burst Damage and Trapper not out performing by having ONLY DoT from the combined use of both Stances 100%.
No way would trapper be outperforming in PvE then, all the paths need a viable upgrade. Buffing damage by providing Piercing damage is HIGHLY appreciated, but Cooldown Reduction should be brought in closer. Is it not the CDR forcing Trapper use in PVE and PVP?
Swiftness needs a definite nerf, because if the Class feature is buffed, then the major issue would be Swiftness + Class feature would make a MAJOR issue for trapper OVERPERFORMING again.
Right now with Cooldown Reduction that Trapper has, the Damage over Time would then have to be left out. You are in need of Rearranging the Swiftness feat. It might have to be moved farther in to prevent Trapper from Over Performing.
TR + HR + OP + SW
Nikostratos
While this was already stated before, I'd like to point out again the bugs related to encounters with charges :
- encounters with charges aren't affected by powers which reduce or reset the cooldown on currently recharging powers
- encounter with charges do not produce any action point
Suggestions
These bugs affect all classes to some extent (Such as the GWF with Hidden Daggers and the OP with Bane for example) but are specially annoying for the trapper HR.
Since these bugs havent been adressed after such a long time I suspect them to be specially hard to fix, probably requiring a complete rework of the charges system.
If such is the case I'd like the charges removed from, at least, cordon of arrows and replaced by a short cooldown so we can reliably reset it over a long fight.
While you're at it please consider doing something about the OP's Bane encounter. Not getting AP from 1 out of your 3 encounters is very annoying for a paladin.
@amenar, thanx a lot for all the hard work you've been doing on these upcoming changes and for actually listening and taking into consideration the suggestions from the players.
Could we please get a statement regarding encounters with charges?
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FEEDBACK: Rising Focus (Archery T5 feat): increase the buff duration, increase the amount of power and critical severity. The buff duration of 6s is difficult to keep up in some select cases, and the power and crit severity bonuses aren't enough for a T5 feat especially when you consider the diminishing returns on both stats.
HR AP gain outside of the Trapper feat and Careful Attack is terrible. Testing on preview as Archery on a single target, using Lostmauth neck, 3k recovery:
Thorn Ward, Longstrider's Shot, Cordon: 40-45 seconds
Thorn Ward, Rain of Arrows, Cordon: 35-40 seconds
Thorn Ward, Rain of Arrows, Cordon + Careful Attack: 25 seconds
SW w/ 1.7k recovery and CW w/ 7.4k recovery AP takes roughly around 20 seconds to fill in comparison. While my recovery stat isn't great, the fact it takes double or more time to gain 100% AP without Careful Attack is a bit silly. Is it really necessary for the at-will to grant that much recovery, especially since it's multiplied in party by number of people hitting the target? CA also isn't available to Stormwardens.
FEEDBACK: increase AP gain on other HR at-wills while decreasing AP gain from Careful Attack.
Testing with various encounter powers and a lot of casting times are extremely long. Notably:
- Commanding Shot - 1.6~1.7s, roughly 2 seconds before movement is possible
- Hawk Shot - 1.7s, roughly 1.9s before movement is possible
- Cordon of Arrows - 1.2s before it lands, 1.3s before movement is possible
- Rain of Arrows - 1.5s
- Split the Sky: 2 seconds~ (soon to be reduced on preview to 1.5s)
- Split Shot: 0.6s - 1.5s (time to reach max charge reduced by 0.25s next patch), roughly 1s before movement is possible at minimum
- Cold Steel Hurricane - 1.4s
FEEDBACK: reduce casting time of Cold Steel Hurricane, Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot. Commanding Shot and Hawk Shot cast times feel just as long or longer than Aimed Shot. They shouldn't take longer to cast than Aimed Shot, which is technically a "charged" attack. Even if they still need reasonably long cast times, I feel the current cast times are far too long, especially considering you can't move for almost 2 seconds. CSH has an amazing animation but it's just not practical. Cordon of Arrows and Rain of Arrows can stay as they are, but I feel like the Cordon object should land and do damage a lot faster, especially because it activates in 3 phases (shooting the Cordon, landing the Cordon, Cordon activating and doing damage). Split Shot can stay as it is but the post-attack delay should be removed, same with Boar Charge. I will need to see the Split the Sky change before making any opinions.
I'd also like to suggest this for Split the Sky:
FEEDBACK: Split the Sky: remove the damage dealt when players take damage. Instead, when you land an attack, STS hits your target.
Additionally, as previous posters mentioned, a lot of HR Class Features are useless. Personally, my main issue is that we lack good damage feats. Aspect of the Serpent is only useful for Trappers, especially with the recent Careful Attack change, Twin-Blade Storm is only useful in AoEs, Seeker's Vengeance is impractical in PvP and also not possible in certain scenarios, such as Tiamat. I'd like to touch base on a few of the more useless feats.
FEEDBACK: Aspect of the Falcon: one of the more useless feats we have. Standing at max range in PvE is extremely useless and counterproductive because you don't get buffs from party members, for one, and there's nothing that warrants it either. I suggest either adding a damage buff feature to it (please not based on distance, it sounds good on paper but in practice it's terrible), and/or a movement speed buff. Thematically, a critical severity increase could work, although personally I think a damage bonus is better.
FEEDBACK: Seeker's Vengeance: allow it to affect targets from the front, but when damage is done from behind, the bonus is doubled.
FEEDBACK: Stormstep Action: used to be good, but was nerfed and not scaled. I suggest removing the penalty and changing the bonus to 4% per rank.
FEEDBACK: Battlehoned: as other posters have mentioned, a general stat increase like SW's Dark Prayers feat or TR's Skillful Infiltrator feat would be interesting. Perhaps 5% movement speed, 1% critical chance, 1% deflect per rank.
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
I agree with all, but I just think the high casting time of those skill and other ones, is related to what @amenar said in an early post:
Also, real quick on animation speeds. Unfortunately, this is a difficult issue. Our animations are hand timed, so reducing them requires rebuilding the animation. This takes a lot more time than just simply tweaking a number. We are discussing changes here, but they certainly won’t be in for this review.
So I guess some fix will be postponed and will happens after the Mod 10 goes live, the important is that amenar keep track with a to-do about this matter.
Fitting the current archer and combat into the overall architecture is like putting a round peg in a square hole. You can but you have to make the peg smaller.
The other stance encounters are often a filler and amenar is struggling into getting a good use for half of the encounters in both cases.
If they really want to keep archer and combat they'll have to look at the complete rotations and use the encounters in the "other" stance as proper set-ups for their hard hitters so that there is incentive in using them. This would probably fix the AP gain issue too.
But still it's trying to put a peg in the wrong hole. I guess Ralexinor is trying to get back a sort of PvP focused mobile heavy hitter like what the ranger has been for a certain period in the beginning (and that was a fun version even if it was Fox Shift the heavy hitter and not Aimed Shot). That would combine Archery and Combat, be low on control but high on hitting power, mobility and evasiveness. It would not be that difficult to set it up as a tree.
Trapper is a second tree that works. Control and DoT DPS.
A third tree could be nature as a healer buffer debuffer.
All the trees would then make good use of both stances and then fixing would be much easier. Creating Archer and Combat in a class based on stance shifting was a bad idea from the start.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
-Swiftness of the fox - Swap it with Trappers cunning in feat list so it can be used in Melee and Archery builds. It wont solve all problems but gives some interesting variants.
I think swapping it to T2 or T3 would give some diversity to the Archery and Combat Trees. A lot of Trappers actually put 15 points into the Combat Tree and the rest in Trapper.
Archery and Combat would be able to put 10 or 15 points into the Trapper Tree for the Feat and still be able to hit the Capstones in their Trees. There would be a bit of diversity as you will have players using all 3 Trees. It would also sort out the issue of long cool downs in Archery and Combat.
Alts :
Storm (SW70), Edge (TR70), AD Farm (CW70), Grunt (GF70), Rosa (DC70), AD AD AD (GWF70), Your Mum (OP70)
Member of Q-Snipe
The Mod 2 hybrid HR wasn't just a hard hitter as we had the old Constricting Shot (remember that?) which was possibly the best CC in the game. Those were fun times and the height of the HR.
The most important thing in life is to be yourself. Unless you can be Batman. Always be Batman.
The only thing that was missing at that time too was a heavy hitting daily, and that was our main limit against Valindra both in MC and VT. But everything else was spot on.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Archer is by far the hardest.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
The damage benefit of Predator *NEEDS* to be between 75%-100%. Yes, 75%-100%. It needs to be that significant. It also needs to apply to all enemies, not just one. Maybe you get 100% damage buff for one enemy (the first you engage in combat) and 75% to all the rest...
Also, a cooldown benefit upon entering combat, such as a Righteous DC's Avatar, would be needed.
As a reference, the Trapper has Biting Snares, granting you AP, +30% damage to all enemies, and extends control duration (DPS) of roots, all while giving you the opportunity to constantly spam and rotate through encounters. Archery damage needs to be stepped up so it may be commensurate with Trapper.
Also, real quick on animation speeds. Unfortunately, this is a difficult issue. Our animations are hand timed, so reducing them requires rebuilding the animation. This takes a lot more time than just simply tweaking a number. We are discussing changes here, but they certainly won’t be in for this review.
So I guess some fix will be postponed and will happens after the Mod 10 goes live, the important is that amenar keep track with a to-do about this matter."
I do not really know how coding and visualizing the animations works but is it not possible to swap the visuals? I mean, the animation of gushing wound is the same as the one of aimed strike or am i wrong? So my question is this: were it possible to change the animation of the powers or are they connected in a way that this is impossible? I would be very happy with gushing wound using the animation of rapid strike or thorn strike if this would be an easy way to reduce casting time. Same goes for aimed shot using the animation of disruptive shot.
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