test content
Logo
What is the Arc Client?
Install Arc
What do Rangers Need: An Approach on Bug fixes Combat Issues and Adjustments Including Warden Buffs
This forum post was created using gathered information from experienced rangers throughout the game.
It involves a careful analysis of encounters that need tweaking or bug fixes in order to match the current meta of other classes.
Starting with bugs
for both Warden & Hunter
Common Major Bug:
In AoE Hindering Strike when activated will NOT deal damage or proc Strong Grasping Roots, the encounter will still be put into cooldown. I managed to produce this bug, and you can reproduce it too this bug can occur not only when shifting but also during some moments where the player's internet is not at its peak, in other words (quite regularly)
Another issue rangers face is when encounters that do not activate when the player tries to cast them. This could be assumed as Animation cancelling, but it is a major issue for Hunter Rangers in content where net code isn't all that great. This affects our rotations, making us fall behind in damage, slowing us down for at least a second or two.
Cordon of Arrows: One major bug/issue of this encounter is that it never crits, why shouldn't it? It's an encounter after all. This allows Thorned Roots to not deal crit damage. Why is this an issue? Say for example if a ranger uses Hindering Strike and procs a crit, Thorned Roots will crit too, BUT if a ranger right afterwards applies cordon of arrows the critted Thorned Roots gets overlapped into non-crit thorned roots. Might as well use Rapid Volley instead
Sum-up:
The class needs a more fluid experience when casting encounters without any encounter being cancelled or dealing 0 damage. An important thing to note is that Rangers are the only class with 6 encounters, so in order to compete with other dps we need to cast all our encounters as quickly as we can with a set rotation, the rotation can be messed up due to encounters not activating as intended.
Warden class Fix:
Throw Caution: Cast time says 0.3s, but the recovery time is much longer than hindering strike & steel breeze. You can test this using Clear the Ground At-Will after casting each encounter, notice the recovery time on each. See the difference?
Hunter Class Fix:
Gushing Wounds: This encounter if it doesn't hit the target it cancels the encounter completely, wasting a whole second or two trying to recast it (Which can also happen again), this doesn't fit the gameplay with other classes making us fall behind in dps.
Adjustments:
Rangers struggle to keep up with other dps such as warlocks/rogues primarily in AoE mostly because we are lacking in encounters that do not work as intended, hence the Cordon of Arrows bug.
Plant Growth Encounter: This is more of a personal opinion, but Plant Growth would make more sense if it applied Strong Grasping Roots and not Weak Grasping Roots. As an overall this encounter is extremely weak considering the amount of overall magnitude it produces within 4 seconds (Total of 150 magnitude) + 150mag instantly, Plant Growth's Cooldown is just too long
Seismic Shot: (Hunter)
I am not complaining about the magnitude of the daily, but the range of seismic shot is determined on the distance that the target is on. It shouldn't be like this, since it can affect how many enemies we will attack. Also, the enemies are supposed to be pulled into the blast, but that is not the case. So a conclusion for this daily is that it needs a lot of tweaking. The community stated that an AoE daily such as Cordon of Arrows that can pull the enemies together sounds like a more appropriate daily
Aimed-Shot At-Will: (Hunter)
According to the community, Aimed Shot gives 16 Action Points which is not a lot, considering how long the cast time of the At-Will is. I do agree that Aimed shot could use a buff in terms of how much AP it gives because as is, Aimed Shot alone gives barely any AP considering the cast time.
Slasher's Mark: (Hunter)
Great daily, love it, but most rangers have ended up jumping off of platforms in trials or dungeons. For example, Cradle of Death god, during the Turtle fight in Fang Breaker Island. As well as the new Tiamat trial when fighting the heads or positioning at the side of the chest in the last phase.
Warden is very powerful, but deserves some more love and quality of life.
the biggest issue that warden has is a lack of significant aoe hits, generally the aoe powers are the exact same as the single target ones, and yes you could always swap out boar charge for Steel Breeze, but even then I don't think it's significant enough of a change, Flurry + Clear the Ground is really what is keeping Warden strong in aoe, if they didn't have either, it would be really hard to justify using at all
Blade Hurricane feat:
It is a great feat, but it can be very problematic since the duration of Flurry ends too soon. The main issue with this feat is that it doesn't get refreshed, and it is hard to track when Flurry is active or not. A better solution is to either increase the amount of time Flurry stays up or allow flurry's duration to refresh with each encounter cast. That would be amazing for the warden class.
The 4th feats of the Warden Paragon aren't competitive enough:
I have attempted to make a build using "To The Wind" feat, which increases Throw Caution's dmg by 5%, but that's a very small buff considering all the other feats in the game. Then there is the Skirmisher's Gambit, the trade-off feat both feats are not great, in fact they're awful compared to most feats in the game. I believe the best option for an adjustment here would be a complete revamp on those two feats or buff both feats".
It involves a careful analysis of encounters that need tweaking or bug fixes in order to match the current meta of other classes.
Starting with bugs
for both Warden & Hunter
Common Major Bug:
In AoE Hindering Strike when activated will NOT deal damage or proc Strong Grasping Roots, the encounter will still be put into cooldown. I managed to produce this bug, and you can reproduce it too this bug can occur not only when shifting but also during some moments where the player's internet is not at its peak, in other words (quite regularly)
Another issue rangers face is when encounters that do not activate when the player tries to cast them. This could be assumed as Animation cancelling, but it is a major issue for Hunter Rangers in content where net code isn't all that great. This affects our rotations, making us fall behind in damage, slowing us down for at least a second or two.
Cordon of Arrows: One major bug/issue of this encounter is that it never crits, why shouldn't it? It's an encounter after all. This allows Thorned Roots to not deal crit damage. Why is this an issue? Say for example if a ranger uses Hindering Strike and procs a crit, Thorned Roots will crit too, BUT if a ranger right afterwards applies cordon of arrows the critted Thorned Roots gets overlapped into non-crit thorned roots. Might as well use Rapid Volley instead
Sum-up:
The class needs a more fluid experience when casting encounters without any encounter being cancelled or dealing 0 damage. An important thing to note is that Rangers are the only class with 6 encounters, so in order to compete with other dps we need to cast all our encounters as quickly as we can with a set rotation, the rotation can be messed up due to encounters not activating as intended.
Warden class Fix:
Throw Caution: Cast time says 0.3s, but the recovery time is much longer than hindering strike & steel breeze. You can test this using Clear the Ground At-Will after casting each encounter, notice the recovery time on each. See the difference?
Hunter Class Fix:
Gushing Wounds: This encounter if it doesn't hit the target it cancels the encounter completely, wasting a whole second or two trying to recast it (Which can also happen again), this doesn't fit the gameplay with other classes making us fall behind in dps.
Adjustments:
Rangers struggle to keep up with other dps such as warlocks/rogues primarily in AoE mostly because we are lacking in encounters that do not work as intended, hence the Cordon of Arrows bug.
Plant Growth Encounter: This is more of a personal opinion, but Plant Growth would make more sense if it applied Strong Grasping Roots and not Weak Grasping Roots. As an overall this encounter is extremely weak considering the amount of overall magnitude it produces within 4 seconds (Total of 150 magnitude) + 150mag instantly, Plant Growth's Cooldown is just too long
Seismic Shot: (Hunter)
I am not complaining about the magnitude of the daily, but the range of seismic shot is determined on the distance that the target is on. It shouldn't be like this, since it can affect how many enemies we will attack. Also, the enemies are supposed to be pulled into the blast, but that is not the case. So a conclusion for this daily is that it needs a lot of tweaking. The community stated that an AoE daily such as Cordon of Arrows that can pull the enemies together sounds like a more appropriate daily
Aimed-Shot At-Will: (Hunter)
According to the community, Aimed Shot gives 16 Action Points which is not a lot, considering how long the cast time of the At-Will is. I do agree that Aimed shot could use a buff in terms of how much AP it gives because as is, Aimed Shot alone gives barely any AP considering the cast time.
Slasher's Mark: (Hunter)
Great daily, love it, but most rangers have ended up jumping off of platforms in trials or dungeons. For example, Cradle of Death god, during the Turtle fight in Fang Breaker Island. As well as the new Tiamat trial when fighting the heads or positioning at the side of the chest in the last phase.
Warden is very powerful, but deserves some more love and quality of life.
the biggest issue that warden has is a lack of significant aoe hits, generally the aoe powers are the exact same as the single target ones, and yes you could always swap out boar charge for Steel Breeze, but even then I don't think it's significant enough of a change, Flurry + Clear the Ground is really what is keeping Warden strong in aoe, if they didn't have either, it would be really hard to justify using at all
Blade Hurricane feat:
It is a great feat, but it can be very problematic since the duration of Flurry ends too soon. The main issue with this feat is that it doesn't get refreshed, and it is hard to track when Flurry is active or not. A better solution is to either increase the amount of time Flurry stays up or allow flurry's duration to refresh with each encounter cast. That would be amazing for the warden class.
The 4th feats of the Warden Paragon aren't competitive enough:
I have attempted to make a build using "To The Wind" feat, which increases Throw Caution's dmg by 5%, but that's a very small buff considering all the other feats in the game. Then there is the Skirmisher's Gambit, the trade-off feat both feats are not great, in fact they're awful compared to most feats in the game. I believe the best option for an adjustment here would be a complete revamp on those two feats or buff both feats".
9
Comments
Make seismic shot an aoe we can aim (like celestial prominence) - problem solved on this one.
Reduce plant growth cooldown to be in line with others like hindering strike/cordon. In its current state its a completely unusable skill in aoe and single target.
The bugs involving fail casts of gushing wound and hindering strike have been around since pre mod 16. I've been begging the devs for a fix to these ever since..
Warden suggestions:
Buff conduit feat and give it an additional 5%
Throw caution feat - have this grant 15% damage for 10 seconds, otherwise its very lackluster because you are giving up a higher damage encounter to use an encounter with an at will magnitude.
Change skirmishers gambit to be -5% accuracy, +10% crit strike. There are way too many sources of crit severity in this game, and this will bring it in line with other feats
These changes would make warden at least average in aoe damage. Right now they are bottom in single target and passable in aoe.
Hunter damage is perfect where it is, and the plant growth cooldown reduction and bug fixes will not have much of an impact on single target damage, just quality of life changes.
Hindering strike :
The bug isn't due to netcode, more like because enemies' hitbox. You can see it easily (and reproduce it) during mimics at Arcturia (1st LoMM boss) if you put yourself in front of the mimic, let yourself get pushed and use hindering strike.
Ambush encounter :
Very weird and bad too play, causes bug if you use an encounter ASAP after the use of ambush, and sometimes doesn't do anything.
Bear trap, as it's name indicates, is a trap but for players. Even bears wouldn't go in there. If they were to go in there, they wouldn't take any damage, as this cc is just useless.
Fox's cunning :
Same issue as Slasher's mark, but somehow worse. Instead of teleporting at where the enemies are at and going back, you teleport to the ground "under" the mob. Making it an insta death upon use in CoDG (tentacules and probably atropal), probably the same on tiamat (never got to try it there).
Cold steel hurricane :
Feels a bit too strong compared to the other alternatives, only OP part of warden imo.
Feats :
Hunter
• Longshot : Just not viable, even for burst (due to CD's) it's not worth it.
• Commander in chief : Boosting your own range damage is useless, especially considering the counterpart.
• Critical action : Forces you to spam daily more frequently than we can generate it
• Biting snares : Bugged, alongside with Crushing roots it somehow boosts your roots to 9 seconds.
Warden
• Blade hurricane : Make it refreshable
• Skirmisher's gambit : What a gambit, loosing a hardly capped stat for an easy capped stat
• Nature's envoy : Forest ghost isn't interesting enough to take.
Features
Hunter
• Pathfinder action : Not worth it for playstyle. Shepherd's devotion is the same, but better (make it a group buff, and more useful)
• Cruel recovery : Why ? 200 seconds to be full life ?
• Primal instincts : Increases "by" 20% and not to "20%". Shield is going from 15% (of a DPS' hp) to 17.5%. Damage buff goes from 5% to encounters for 5 seconds to ... 6%.
Warden
• Stormstep action : Just ... no
• Crushing root : Not in line with warden's playstyle and encounters available (parangon not based on roots)
Lots of those feats / class features need to be adressed.
It's a nice AoE damage source, but since it does not crit, we miss a lot of damage.
Too many bugs hold some classes back or make them stronger than they should be. Class balancing is impossible before the bugs are fixed.
The features I'm mostly leaning on, are Cordon of Arrows not critting AND Aspect of the Falcon + More than Disruptive not working on Cordon of Arrows either.
Hindering Strike when activated going to cooldown without dealing damage.
This bug was reproduced in this video
Could you kindly take a look at this topic too?
Thank you.
Thanks for the ping @borbaranger#3645, and thank you all for your feedback.
I think that the dev team is currently focused on the upcoming Paladin updates, but I will forward this thread and it will be really helpful, especially when the Ranger's turn comes.
Regards,
EU Community Manager @ Gearbox Publishing
----------
Neverwinter: Discord - Facebook - Twitter - YouTube - Customer Support - Terms of Service