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Official M19: Ranger Feedback

joebot#9387 joebot Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 15 Cryptic Developer
Good day all! This thread is for providing bug reports and feedback on the changes made to the Ranger in Module 19.

Along with the changes in the M18 Class Balance Adjustments thread, we continue to make adjustments to improve the performance of our classes. It is important to note that while we continue to tune the function and numbers of powers, what you see on preview can sometimes change before launch. However, you know your class best so we wanted to get your hands on these changes as soon as possible.

At-wills
  • Aimed Shot: Reduced charge time to 1 second down from 1.25 seconds.
Feats
  • Rate of Change: Increased initial buff to 10%, up from 5%, and reduces by 2% every second.
  • Forestbond: Increased the cooldown reduction from 5% to 10% for Strong Grasping Roots and Thorned Roots. Weak Grasping Roots remains
    5%.
  • Longstrider's Shot - cooldown reduced from 18 seconds to 16 seconds
  • Commander in Chief: Increased projectile buff damage to from 5% up to 10%.
  • Biting Snares - no longer requires a stance shift and now grants the player 1% of their Action Points when they apply grasping or thorned roots
  • Cordon of Arrows - now applies Strong Grasping Roots instead of a normal root
As always, thank you for taking the time to check things out on preview, we look forward to your feedback!

Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs

For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!

Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, asking a question, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:

<font color=cyan>This text will display in cyan.</font> <font color=red>This text will display in red.</font>

Examples:
Bug: Commander in Chief does not increase the damage of my Aimed Shot.

Feedback: I don't like the animation for Aimed Shot.
Post edited by noworries#8859 on
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Comments

  • zerappuszerappus Member Posts: 138 Arc User
    Feedback:

    The general feedback is the changes the Devs keep making is Dungeon/group centric dps. Most of NW content is SOLO.

    Level 1-80 is solo.
    Events are solo.
    Your 18 Campaigns are solo(!!!)
    Dailies and Weeklies are solo.
    Legacy Campaigns weeklies are solo.

    What am I driving at ( and I keep repeating this and devs keep ignoring this simple and obvious concept ), you need to provide changes/builds that allow players to solo. Because the newbs who can't effectively solo at their chosen class/tree will quit when they struggle and realize their damage/rotation is subpar and it taking too much time and effort.

    Which lead to the Hunter Archer (range only, no melee) feedback:

    There's still no synergy/flow/rotation. The damage is actually good. But without synergy/flow/rotation newbies will be slaughtered in mid-high level campaigns when they get overwhelmed by mobs during solo play. And low level campaigns will require extra effort and time vs. other classes.

    Some suggested changes:

    Dodge (shift+move) - we have HALF the dodge of any other class, so they need significant increase.
    Split Shot need damage increase
    Marauder's escape need cooldown significantly reduced/damage slightly reduced/extra effect: bonus damage vs. rooted targets.
    Rain of Arrows: increase the Area/extra effect: bonus damage vs rooted targets


    Hunter Warden (range only, no melee)


    Dodge: double the dodge range (half of other classes).
    Electric shot (at will): increase damage to 60 (from 40)
    Rapidshot (at will): increase damage to 75 (from 50) / bonus damage vs rooted targets
    Rain of Arrows: see above.
    Split the Sky: instant cast/increase rate of attack or targets getting hit/extra damage vs rooted target.
    Binding Arrow: peripheral splash area damage 200/slightly decrease main target damage to 400 from 550/bonus damage vs rooted targets.

    Some of these suggested changes only require changing numbers such as at-will. Look how pathetic Rapidshot is. How do you single-target dps with a woefully anemic 50 magnitude with no extra effect?


    (note: not an extensive feedback, just on the fly observations from testing preview esp. Hunter Archer)

  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    Can we get those changes to preview? There is something a bit different now...
  • djnasty93djnasty93 Member Posts: 168 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    Ranger on beginnin of mod 18 its been nerfed by 10% damage, in this mod 19 ranger melee its underperforming, its curretly last in dps, under GWF, SW, CLERIC and ovviously CW... ranger need to be buffed once more to get his damage normal, it seem like you, cryptic devs hate rangers....
    do your job and balance once for all all classes to normal rating, im thinkin you like blind or you take nubs like examples for dps increases ... i know peoples that are alot over the dps of any other (class comparison), i know rangers making alot less than me...
    ranger hunter its the worst path of all game, its under thauma cw!!! what a shame, we level up our characters and then you nerf ranger, cw remain on top dps after fake nerf and then buff Cleric (top dps atm....) you really blind guys... just cause no one its playn dc dps you buff it
    shame on you, thats not cool, thats not how a game works and lives


    hindering strike still does zero dmg and doesnt proc cooldown
  • mparcher#3106 mparcher Member Posts: 192 Arc User
    Not sure why or if it is intentionally being done, but the HR is not in a favorable position for doing damage. Since this class only has one role (dps), it should be one of the top DPS classes for the upcoming trial. It is fairly obvious it is not. Not sure why other classes with multiple roles have higher damage potential than the single-role DPS classes. Not really concerned if its ranged, melee, or trapper just as long as the HR has the potential to be competitive DPS-wise in the upcoming trial.
  • reeper#9973 reeper Member Posts: 129 Arc User
    Hindering Strike is still waiting for its fix, it still doesn't hit sometimes. This is an old issue and you are aware of it. I can't see how classes can be balanced, buffed or nerfed before the bugs are fixed. GF "feature" can cause them to cast dailies nearly 3 times a minute.
  • arsenalatxarsenalatx Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    Stop trying to push players into an archery build. It has never been good and for 19 mods you've been unwilling to bump the numbers up to where they ever could be good. Playing as an explicitly ranged Hunter is a trap and is detrimental to solo and group content.

    Keep the melee warden where it is and change the other paragon path to something very similar to the old trapper with 0 cooldowns and sizable team buffs.

    Literally every other class in the game can do what the Ranger can, but they do it better. Ranger had its niche when it could alternate melee/ranged and be of use in a team setting. Now there is no reason to invite an HR to any group over other classes.
  • zerappuszerappus Member Posts: 138 Arc User

    Stop trying to push players into an archery build. It has never been good and for 19 mods you've been unwilling to bump the numbers up to where they ever could be good. Playing as an explicitly ranged Hunter is a trap and is detrimental to solo and group content.

    Keep the melee warden where it is and change the other paragon path to something very similar to the old trapper with 0 cooldowns and sizable team buffs.

    Literally every other class in the game can do what the Ranger can, but they do it better. Ranger had its niche when it could alternate melee/ranged and be of use in a team setting. Now there is no reason to invite an HR to any group over other classes.

    Get your history straight, first and foremost.

    Melee Warden (formerly know as Combat) used to be as pathethic as Archery (Stormwardedn). When the old Neverwinter developer @amenar was rebalancing the ranger, he got taken advantage by the Combat players and it got overbuffed. This is the time when Trapper was king and literally double/triple the damage of combat/archery with very little effort.

    I on the other hand gave him MODERATE/BALANCED suggestions/advice on Archer. I'm not pushing anything broken for archery. I just want balance of the trees and classes. I didn't give the suggestions to make Combat (now called Melee Warden) overpowered.

    This all happened before the mod 16 revamp. What niche are you talking about? nobody used to play Combat because it was as weak as Archery. Players gravitate towards strong classes like Warden (Combat) because it got overbuffed.
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    My comments:

    Changes:
    Aimed Shot: it is currently at 1.4 sec (not 1) down from 1.65 (not 1.25). I checked with a stopwatch and it is actually 1.4 as the tooltip says. Going down to 1 sec like listed in the opening post would help a lot but is not yet implemented.
    Hindering Strike: it still misses all targets too often and goes to cooldown doing nothing (it doesn't trigger Flurry by the way)
    Biting Snares: there's a change (worsening it) to 1% AP generation everytime we apply roots

    Overall feeling:
    My guess is that the idea is to support two playstiles. A kind of old-style Trapper using roots and pure single-target Archer.
    Changes are in the right direction but there are still improvements to do.
    Trapper: you still go out of encounters after a while especially against single targets (the meta, considering that Zariel and Halaster are single target fights) and keeping a proper rotation is quite difficult. Plant Growth is seriously underperforming in terms of damage and long cooldown. Bringing back the old Swiftness of the Fox in place of Forestbond would definitely make everything smoother and support this kind of playstile.
    Archer: will have to test it with the 1 sec cooldown Aimed Shot but I think it will still be less performing than cookie cutter Melee Warden. The main issue here is very long cooldowns on encounters. A way to reduce those should be available or Aimed Shot dps should be brought at the right level to compensate, or Rain of Arrows should be made stronger to provide more sustained DPS against a single target, or Lonstrider should provide the old buff to beef up at-wills during cooldown of encounters. Please bring Binding Arrow to the Hunter. It's a root power and all feat support for it is on the Hunter side.

    Some other issues:
    - Ambush and Hawk Shot are dead powers. Nobody is going to use them. Rapid Volley is interesting in some places (say CotDG elevator) but useless most of the time
    - several class features are useless (Aspect of the Pack, Pathfinder's Action Cruel Recovery, Primal Instincts)
    - old Nature powers are not interesting anymore (Stag Heart, Hawk Eye,...) due to lack of feat/feature synergy. Stag Heart will also interfere with Paladins.

    The main question I would have is: what types of playstyles do you want to support? I made some examples in this thread some time ago.

    https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1253783/state-of-the-ranger

    If you tell us what your idea of playstyles is we can try to help getting there. I'm not talking of performance, that one can be easily tweaked lowering or increasing a few magnitudes, I'm talking about achieving certain playstiles.

    Hope this helps.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • hastur905hastur905 Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    Part of the issue when it comes to balancing the classes is that there are two distinct thoughts on how to place value on one versus another. On one hand some believe that the more complex the rotation/skill involved in attaining full potential dps should be the top dps. An example of this is the Cleric, it is clunky and awkward, but when done right it is currently the top single target dps in the game, but few can achieve its full potential. The people that subscribe to this would say about Rangers that the Trapper and the Melee should be one of the top dps because of the level of complexity and timing involved to attain full potential. They also describe Archer builds as inactive point and shoot, not level of skill involved, and players that take less risk as they stand away from combat.
    The second group of theorycrafters believe that Archers should be higher burst damage that melee and trappers because they must remain in place for longer times and actually use their main hand which thematically should to less hits but greater damage than offhands.

    When mod 16 came out most other classes removed one of their feet trees mostly/completely out of existance, Rangers rather than just having one Melee and one Ranged essentially got 4, 1 melee, 1 trapper, 1 single target Archer, one Aoe Archer. When you look at the Wizard it basically became just 2, a single target or and aoe. Warden is a Melee, we can pretend that the Archer sie is aoe but it is at a severe disadvantage even to the melee, the go to atwill for melee is 140 magnitude (70x2 for flurry). That at will is very poor from the archery side, it misses with elevation changes, u have to always be standing below the targets elevation to even hit. the next best is 50 mag? I am sorry 50 mag with longer versus 140 mag it is never in doubt. Which brings us to Hunter or should we say trapper or single target Archer. Top of the list, 30% less Critical severity as base, yes you can achieve 24% after using four disruptive shots for 10 sec, or a climbing scale of severity over 40 seconds, still not equal to 30% sev from Warden and I am not even going to get started on that.

    If you really want to start a serious adjustment to Hunter the first thing I would do is change the first feat "Longshot" from "just encounter powers" to "ranged powers" then monitor its performance and reduce magnitudes, the reductions in cast times for Aim Shot are appreciated it has been an issue for a long time, but since it can be interupted or cancelled it will not have a significant increase in dps output in real time battle situations.<\font>
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    Consider removing the charging aspect from Split Shot. Hunters have it as the only viable AoE at-will and while charging it is in most cases downright counter-productive, the sole possibility makes the power clunky.

    Hindering Strike really needs a fix about its reliability in hitting targets within range.

    Change to Biting Snares on preview will get it removed at least from our boss set-ups - was that your intention? (for mob fights there is no benefit in having bonus AP, and the new version is sub-par on bosses)

    Stag Heart should give yellow bars instead of blue - pally shields are pillars of your trial balancing and we should not have a power with unspoken tooltip "make the trial run fail".
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User
    As a side note, when Hindering Strike fails to hit I sometimes get the message that an enemy is "out of range". Maybe it can help in understanding what the issue is.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • bombz530#5253 bombz530 Member Posts: 1 Arc User
    I'd like to start by saying that I highly consider myself one of the best rangers on console... When I compare classes, I don't compare the average, I compare each class's best and HR is seriously being left behind. As one of the best, it is possible to beat each classes average player. However if we start talking ceilings(absolute best-case scenario dps) we are seriously lacking. We used to be great for crowd control/AoE, but aren't even the kings of that any more... Which to be honest was great for scoreboards but never truly made a difference in the fights that mattered. Before M18 we were already 3rd/4th best dps, and you nerfed us. Why? IDC how/what you do to fix it, but plz do something as I've thought about just giving up multiple times by now. As all these people have said, start by fixing hindering strike. It misfires far too often, and when it does.. it does ZERO damage, doesn't proc encounter cooldowns, doesn't proc flurry, and yet somehow the mobs still flinch like they've been hit and still end up rooted.
  • lillijendrilillijendri Member Posts: 11 Arc User
    Having played and cleared the new trial with a warden on owlbear and the regular preview server, i feel that the path is underperforming in comparison to the other dps-classes.

    In my opinion this originates partly from to the good old „having to move a lot“+ the wardens relatively poor burst-capacity, so i would like to see this addressed, or at least compensated with sth. else. Rebuffing Focused‘s damage maybe, and/or doing things like that.

    (If the devs are interested in the logs from the trial to check i can provide them.)
  • rjc9000rjc9000 Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 2,405 Arc User
    rikitaki said:



    Stag Heart should give yellow bars instead of blue - pally shields are pillars of your trial balancing and we should not have a power with unspoken tooltip "make the trial run fail".

    What if I told you that Temporary HP (yellow) no longer works the same as it once did?
    As in, even if it were yellow, it would still conflict with other sources of barrier.

    Easiest way to check is the old Wheel of Elements Earth: get Wheel of Elements Earth, then cast a Legendary Lion combat power/get a Paladin healer. The Lion combat power/Paladin barrier will override the Wheel of Elements Earth.
    cust0mx said:

    Following feedback is from a friend whom i agree with, i'm just reposting here to insure visibility :

    My namma Sume and I'm known by many for playing as well as making guide videos on the class Ranger. I finally decided to break my forum silence because I believe in you regarding the class balance, more specifically, the recent Hunter changes above. I also understand that you're operating under limited time and resources so I always keep that in mind as I type this post.

    Nice job there, you buffed Sume and gave him permanent Ambush out of embarrassment.

    :P

  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    rjc9000 said:

    rikitaki said:



    Stag Heart should give yellow bars instead of blue - pally shields are pillars of your trial balancing and we should not have a power with unspoken tooltip "make the trial run fail".

    What if I told you that Temporary HP (yellow) no longer works the same as it once did?
    Then the easy fix would be a direct heal instead of a shield. Don't take me wrong - I consider the power rather irrelevant. And that is the reason I mentioned it. It technically has no place in the end game - and in solo play the difference between small barrier and small heal is so marginal, that it is an acceptable trade.

    But that was a good call - it would be pointless to make any changes based on wrong premises.
  • simoerbysimoerby Member Posts: 2 Arc User
    First thing, sorry for my horrble English, I will try give you a feedback of ranger state.

    I generaly agree with Sume feedback.

    make root bug on boss a feature for both paragon with "basic" root and upgrade magnitude with a hunter feat.

    in comparison to other class ranger lacks of flexibility: Fighter and barbarian can be tank and dps, paladin can be healer and tank, warlock can be dps and healer (in mod 19), cleric can be dps and healer. wizard, ranger and rogue have 2 paragon with dps role. wizard can be dps with arcanist or buff/debuff with thamaturge (and this is nice because can play what party needs), rogue and hr can't. Please try improve ranger flexibility with buff/debuff role or make viable pure archer and trapper build because we can only play melee from mod 13 and other class can do more damage on boss fight.

    melee build have a simple playstyle and costant damage, in comparsion to melee build archer build have two big problem:
    1. high cd
    2. crit dependency that make it a coin flip dps
    trapper are more difficult (and funny) to play, lower damage don't make it viable as dps.

    In Warden path player can't choose feat because only one choice is good.

    Tier 1: I compared deft strike and focused with a switching rotation in 2 minutes fight with dummy. I do more damage with focused, feat designed for pure melee/archery build but it works well in switching stance (buff all 3 encounter instead only the first) -> Increase the damage buff from 10% to 15/20% .

    Tier 2: with Storm's recovery this is the total reduction using marauderer's escape, costrict arrow and hindering shot (cordon of arrow have high CD and low magnitude) in a double rotation (3 melee - 3 ranged - 3 melee - 3 ranged):
    1. 0 0 0 | 0 0 0
    2. 3 0 0 | 0 0 0
    3. 6 3 0 | 0 0 0
    4. 6 3 0 | 0 0 0
    5. 6 3 0 | 3 0 0
      6 3 0 | 6 3 0

    6. 6 6 3 | 6 3 0
    7. 9 6 6 | 6 3 0
    8. 12 9 6 | 6 3 0
    9. 12 9 6 | 6 6 3
    10. 12 9 6 | 9 6 6
      12 9 6 | 12 9 6
    with Swiftness of the Fox player gain less CD reduction, buff it for fit with switching build:
    1. 0 0 0 | 0 0 0
    2. 1 0 0 | 0 0 0
    3. 1.5 0.5 0 | 0 0 0
    4. 2.5 1.5 1 | 0 0 0
    5. 3.5 2.5 2 | 1 0 0
      4.5 3.5 3 | 2 1 0

    6. 4.5 4.5 4 | 3 2 1
    7. 5.5 4.5 5 | 4 3 2
    8. 6 5 5 | 4.5 3.5 2.5
    9. 7 6 6 | 4.5 4.5 3.5
    10. 8 7 7 | 5.5 4.5 4.5
      9 8 8 | 6.5 5.5 4.5
    tier 3: blade huricane is a stong feat and allow storm stike to do damage as encounter power, this feat with focused is the core of melee build damage, storm conduit is useless. this tier need a good pure archer feat or another switching stance feat

    tier 4: 25% crit severty is better then a buff on underpower encounter, increase magnitude of throw caution, buff duration of trow caution to 10s with this feat and increase damage buff


    tier 5: we dont need nature's envoy for keep up flurry with melee rotation and enhanced conductivity buff the only daily we use in melee stance. rework it for fit better with switching build or design a new feat for pure archer (maybe with snipe daily ?)

    encounter: we have 3.5 viable encounter (nice magnitude, casting time, CD)

    1) hindering strike (hindering shot have low magnitute but 3 charge and root, maybe a little buff can help): can missfire> (but we dont have better choice so we keep play with bugged encounter), huge aoe damage and roots, works well in aoe and single target
    2) marauderer's escape /slash: good magnitude and utility on both stance (that's what we need for play switching build)
    3) boar charge. good magnitude, hit fast, usefull only in melee build because boar hide is useless (likes any other ranger buff, outdated for curent state of game, rework all buff pls)
    3.5) constrict arrow: with a magnitude buff steal breeze can be nice in aoe, than this can be our 4 viable encounter

    all other encounter have at least one problem that don't make it viable:
    1. low magnitude
    2. high cd
    3. useless buff
    4. high casting time
    5. "unluky pairnig" in other stance
    daily: 2.5 daily viable: snipe and call of the storm, but only CotS have a feat for buff damage so it's better for dps, forest ghost have a nice utility thanks to shappard devotion insignia power

    class feature: 3 viable passive: blade storm, seeker's vengeance and twin blade storm (for aoe)
    1. some passive are outdated: aspect of the pack (the old one that give all party member combat advantage when stay near to ranger was nice) and aspect of the lone wolf.
    2. some passive need buff ( aspect of the serpent make viable switching build on both path)
    3. stormstep action need better cd reduction and maybe it's better for hunter paragon thanks to ap generation feet and disruptive shot
    hunter paragon:

    at will:
    1. rapid shot vs aimed shot: reduce aimed shot/strike casting time to 1 second from 1.4/1.2 (like tooltip says), i don't like sacrifice mobility for maybe improve dps, rapid shot is a good at will for magnitude and casting time for both paragon, rapid strike have low magnitude but fast casting time.
    2. split shot: hunter need a good aoe at will like clear the ground, split shot have a casting mechanic that don't work well remove aim (clear the ground don't need target during casting) and allow fast recast, so split shot can be good for both paragon, split strike have higher casting time but same magnitude of rapid strike so it's not viable.
    3. hunter teamwork/careful attack: buff carefull attack damage, rework added effect of hunter teamwork with something useful during boss fight (damage debuff, damage resistence debuff, marked target effect trigger when ally hit boss) , that can be useful in a "support" hunter build
    encounter: (for encounter viable in both paragon see warden encounter feedback)
    1. ambush: short duration, buff to 10s or make all attack affected, buff magnitude
    2. bear trap: have low magnitude
    3. longstride: add strong roots
    4. gushing wounds: i don't like casting time over 1s but this power have good magnitude
    5. hawk shot: buff magnitude
    6. Hawkeye: as ambush, duration 10s, reduce cd for better party buff
    7. comanding shot: reduce casting time to 1.0 1.2 (i dont like long casting time, expecialy on a power that can be use as a party buff)
    8. stag heart: temporaly hit point works like shield ovveride paladin heal bufgix it so he can add yellow bar and works with paladin, reduce CD
    9. rapid volley/windwalk strike: increase magnitude and add roots for make it viable in aoe scenario
    daily:
    1. slasher's mark: need a better added effect.
    class feature:
    1. pathfinder's action and cruel recovery: useless and outdated, rework it
    2. primal istinct: with a buff rework this passive can be a core class feature in a support hunter build
    feat:
    tier 1: rate of change need buff for switching stance
    tier 2: if you leave the magnitude boost as basic root feature boost damage or roots and and a second effect, like a damage resistance debuff on boss and rooted target
    tier 3: bittering snare give low ap gain buff it or predator is better in swithcing build
    tier 4: buff cd reduction and make trapper great again
    tier 5: disruptive shot increase party damage / slasher's mark increse party damage and reduce target damage

    From mod 13 Ranger can only play melee build, in this year our rotation change from encounter+ x3 at-will to encounter - x4 at-will. I Hope to see other change soon and try trapper/switching build again because our funny "tab" machanics is useless now.
  • chemodan007chemodan007 Member Posts: 64 Arc User
    Good day! :)

    My suggestions:
    1. Add a panel showing time to recharge the skill in another Stance.
    2. Reduce the cast time of Commanding Shot, Snipe and Hawk Shot.
    3. Make Hawk Shot usable without target.
    4. Rework Rapid Volley to "Fires 5 arrows that fly at nearby enemies. If there are less than 5 enemies, then extra arrows fly into a random enemy from them. 5 charges." Now this skill is very difficult to get into the enemy.
    5. Class Feature Aspect of the Pack, Cruel Recovery, Primal Instincts completely unusable. They should be replaced with completely different skills.

    6. Fix Seismic Shot. Now the fact of damage depends on the angle of the camera. Therefore, very often the damage is not applied.
    Drider
  • arsenalatxarsenalatx Member Posts: 22 Arc User
    zerappus said:


    Get your history straight, first and foremost.

    Melee Warden (formerly know as Combat) used to be as pathethic as Archery (Stormwardedn). When the old Neverwinter developer @amenar was rebalancing the ranger, he got taken advantage by the Combat players and it got overbuffed. This is the time when Trapper was king and literally double/triple the damage of combat/archery with very little effort.

    I on the other hand gave him MODERATE/BALANCED suggestions/advice on Archer. I'm not pushing anything broken for archery. I just want balance of the trees and classes. I didn't give the suggestions to make Combat (now called Melee Warden) overpowered.

    This all happened before the mod 16 revamp. What niche are you talking about? nobody used to play Combat because it was as weak as Archery. Players gravitate towards strong classes like Warden (Combat) because it got overbuffed.

    You don't seem to get what I was saying. You should be pushing for something broken for archery because that playstyle is dogshit and will never compete.

    Also, warden is absolutely not overbuffed at all when you compare it to other classes. The Ranger is very clearly one of, if not the, worst classes DPS wise in the game at the current state. Tell me one thing that the Ranger excels at and I'll tell you a class that does it better.
  • levdbronsteinlevdbronstein Member Posts: 67 Arc User
    edited May 2020
    I posted this last August in the wilds forum. I see a couple of the suggested changes on preview, but to save time, I'll paste my suggestions below in full.

    Before mod 16 dropped the argument being made was that going from a choice between two paragon paths and three feat trees was fine because we'd get two legitimate choices (instead of not really having a choice given the superiority of the meta build). With rangers, at least, they have failed miserably: they grafted trapper feats on to archer but in so doing, they both gutted the synergy that had made trappers playable and failed to keep the features that made archers hit so hard (at least situationally).

    For those rangers who, like me (maybe only me), stubbornly refuse to abandon the trapper playstyle, the following would be helpful (to a lesser degree for those unicorns that play archer-style hunters):

    1. Rate of change: diminishing returns means that, to consistently benefit from the 5% buff, you need to *constantly* switch stances. Make it last a set time (5 sec) without the diminishing or keep the diminishing and bump it to 10%.
    2. Longshot: unless I'm misreading it, adding 50% to ranged (1:1.5) at the cost of reducing melee by 50% (1:0.5) is a bad deal, especially since hindering strike tends to account for the most damage. Either bump the ranged buff to 100% or reduce the melee penalty to 33%
    3. Thorned roots: the base magnitude (50) is terrible as is the hit control-immune targets take (100); all told they account for very little damage. The base should at least be doubled and the hit against control-immune targets should be comparable to hard-hitting encounters (400ish)
    4. Critical action: so, wardens get a permanent 30% crit severity buff at the relatively insignificant cost of 3000 crit. Hunters, meanwhile, *could* get up to 24% for 10 sec upon daily use. Methinks a rethinks is in order.
    5. AP gain: I know, everyone could use more, but the reduction of Biting Snares to 10% from 35% (or whatever it was before) + adding a 20 sec cooldown = pitiful AP gain
    6. Predator: a tier 3 feat that gives a 5% buff for 10 sec against one target? No thank you. This would need to be in the 15-25% range to make it worth considering.
    7. Better cooldowns: Commander in chief is useless (2 sec reduction) and Forestbond gives a measly 5% reduction *if* roots are applied. Compare this to Storm's Recovery which reduces encounter cooldowns by 3 sec on encounter *use*. Bumping Forestbond to at least 10% wouldn't bring back the old capacity to spam encounters endlessly, but it would make rotations far smoother and more tolerable. For Commander in chief to be useful, it would need to be at least 5 sec
    8. Plant Growth/Cordon: the addition of weak roots to PG helps with cooldowns, but other than that, one of the best pre-mod 16 encounters is now decidedly mediocre. To make it useful for more then added cooldown relief for the hunter/trapper, upgrade PG to strong grasping roots (in conjunction with buffing thorned roots) and make cordon hit harder. Also, 24 sec cooldown for PG and 20 sec for CoA? When it was a beast, sure, but now those times are just silly
    9. Careful attack: put it out of its misery or make it useful already; 10 magnitude per hit (when it isn't bugged, that is)? Seriously, call a priest.
    10. Casting times: 1.65 sec for aimed shot, especially given that all the other at-wills are awful (and don't benefit from flurry like warden) is ridiculously long. Same with Commanding Shot and, to a lesser degree, GW and aimed strike.
    So, I look forward to the above being implemented. I also think its time for the devs to either call uncle insofar as trying to make people enjoy archers, or actually putting some thought into how this might actually work.

    RD

    I'd also echo concerns about changes to biting snares: the 10% gain with a 15sec cooldown, though marginally better than the old 20 sec cooldown, still isn't great; that said, it is far better than the proposed change to 1% ap gain per application of roots.

    The only way the new system might be better than the status quo is if the 1% AP gain triggered by Biting Snares did so on a per-target-hit basis instead of a per-successful-application basis. The same could be said for Forestbond (although the changes on preview here are definitely better than the status quo).

    When it comes to thorned roots, an alternative to increasing the magnitude of the dot (which is my preference) would be to allow them to stack (especially now that there are more encounters that trigger them). The grasping-root mechanic against cc-immune targets, though, still needs a serious buff (e.g. double the current 150, which would make hunters more viable in boss fights).

    While on the subject, why make a distinction at all? Compare the thorned roots feat to the dreadnought feat prepared slam: the latter gives a flat buff of 280 magnitude to all aoe encounters (although it procs as a separate attack, tremor essentially goes from 340 to 620 and onlaught from 420 to 700). If you follow a heavy slash-tremor-heavy slash-onslaught rotation, the target gets hit by prepared slam twice (unlike the dots from roots). Even if prepared slam only procs once, to match or exceed its damage, thorned roots would have to tick 6 times, and against cc-immune targets, it is less than half as good.


    RD
  • mparcher#3106 mparcher Member Posts: 192 Arc User
    Bug: When our at-wills crit, the proc from the Bilethorn does not crit. This has been an ongoing issue, though, and not specifically a MOD19 issue.
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    If I take a step back, I think the top priority would really lie in fixing the reliability of Hindering Strike. That power is a core aspect of most of the builds and random duds are simply annoying.

    IMO the QoL and bug fixes should be where the changes start - I checked what is happening for example for the dps barb and the proposed excessive buff to a single at-will there (in tandem with barb class features and mechanics) will simply annihilate any balance outside the new trial. Such approach will only result in a bunch of hot-fixes once the mod goes live.
    We do not need any corner-to-corner attitude here.

    The claimed 1 sec cast rate for Aimed Shot would probably give Hunter a reasonable at-will power.
    On the test server now more powers abide the root mechanics, which again opens the possibilities a little - the stacking up thorned roots suggested above are actually a really interesting idea.

    I do not expect a massive rework - people here mentioned a lot of useless powers, pointless class features and sub-par feats. That is usually not too far-fetched. Though, since M16 went live it looks similarly through all of the classes, so we are not special.
    On the other hand, specifically Hunter is at least fun to play. Changes on preview (+1sec cast Aimed Shot) might be a good step forward in terms of damage dealing (granted you will revert the changes to Biting Snares back, because that is a leap backwards).


    That said, I have no idea how we will compare to all the other damage dealers - especially in the single-target trials.
  • hastur905hastur905 Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    @rikitaki I think the issue i have found with Aimed Shot is that in practice against a dummy the ENC dps does increase tot he levels of the other classes, but in practice in a fight u cannot simply stand there and maximize it with the amount of stuns, interupts and moving out the red that happens. As I earlier communicated, changing the first feat of the Hunter side from encounters only doing 50% more damage to all ranged doing 50% more would not only bring the Hunter Ranged more in line with what the Warden has from 25% more crit severity on everything. Then as the Dev's and we see how that increase in damage traslates in battle situations they can adjust individual powers magnitudes to ensure it is not overpowered. This of course will do nothing to help with the stance switching build, but it may at least give Rangers the option of one Melee Build and one Archer Build that would be viable.
  • rikitakirikitaki Member Posts: 926 Arc User
    @hastur905 The aimed shot on live is 1,65 sec cast, on preview 1,4.
    I generally tend to ignore powers with more then 1 sec cast time as the difference between the number of attempts to cast it and the number of times you actually deal some damage is abysmal. But one sec is on the verge of being acceptable even for the combat use - especially for targets that tend to stay alive for prolonged periods of time. (=targets where we actually manage to run out of encounter powers)
  • flublblbluflublblblu Member Posts: 25 Arc User
    I don't know if these are bugs or features, but my advice would be:
    -make dots from roots stack
    -make dots from roots proc on hit effects like careful attack or bilethorn

    Additionnally, I would buff that way:
    -cooldown reduction applies to all charges of a power with charges. Meaning, if it takes 10 sec to recharge one charge, and you have three, one proc of 10% cooldown reduction would lower the recharge time from 10/10/10 to 9/9/9, allowing some nice ramp up on powers with charges
    -thorned roots no longer deal mag150 damage on control immune targets, but inflict a dot of magnitude 100 (which stacks and procs on-hit effects)
  • gabrieldourdengabrieldourden Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,212 Arc User

    I don't know if these are bugs or features, but my advice would be:
    -make dots from roots stack
    -make dots from roots proc on hit effects like careful attack or bilethorn

    Additionnally, I would buff that way:
    -cooldown reduction applies to all charges of a power with charges. Meaning, if it takes 10 sec to recharge one charge, and you have three, one proc of 10% cooldown reduction would lower the recharge time from 10/10/10 to 9/9/9, allowing some nice ramp up on powers with charges
    -thorned roots no longer deal mag150 damage on control immune targets, but inflict a dot of magnitude 100 (which stacks and procs on-hit effects)

    Seconded. Thorned roots should inflict a dot on control immune targets and should stack.
    Le-Shan: HR level 80 (main)
    Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
  • hastur905hastur905 Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    @gabrieldourden @flublblblu I think all of the root and dot damage was basically nerfed in previous mods because of the carry over to PVP and how it became overpowering in there. Any suggestions on how to keep the increases relative to PVE so we don't have an uprising in PVP?
  • hastur905hastur905 Member Posts: 173 Arc User
    @rikitaki that the improvement in Aim Shot with the cast time is not significant, it is very significant. When tested on Preview we found that ENC dps on the Hunter increased to over 300k which puts in in the range of other dps classes when using Aim Shot, but that was on dummy. When we tested it in a dungeon run it ended up at 192k. Granted this is not scientific in any way, and there are so many additional variables when it comes to doing a dungeon or trial run. But 2/3rds the damage of other dps classes is not close. My argument is still that if at-wills were included in the 50% from "longshot" feat that gap would close. If Aim Shot or any of the other at-wills were over-performing then their magnitude to be adjusted down.
  • kythelion#3210 kythelion Member Posts: 348 Arc User
    hastur905 said:

    @gabrieldourden @flublblblu I think all of the root and dot damage was basically nerfed in previous mods because of the carry over to PVP and how it became overpowering in there. Any suggestions on how to keep the increases relative to PVE so we don't have an uprising in PVP?

    It was overperforming in all content. At one point. Roots were ridiculous good. And, as they do with all overperforming things instead of a small reduction, they changed it so that it couldn't do anything. It was the same as the CW holds. They stacked, and actually provided control against enemies. HR was one of the most wanted characters to do dungeons because you'd root everybody, then everyone sweeps in and kills it all. Or, as a CW, you'd apply chill to lock them in ice, then same deal. All control effects were effectively removed when they saw that we were controlling enemies to kill them easier. Which is the point of cc, so I'm not sure why they got so upset about it tbh. But, because we aren't allowed to actually control enemies, I don't forsee a return of roots at any point, not as a control, nor as a stacking DoT mechanic even without the concerns of PvP taken into account. Probably the *best* we could hope for is if it was swapped to something else entirely. Which is quite sad.
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