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Comprehensive Hunter Ranger Feedback
ambisinisterr
Member, Neverwinter Moderator Posts: 10,462 Community Moderator
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Swords - Okay. When single edges swords are on the hip the blade should be facing forward and the curve leaving the point face backwards rather than to the ground. When you hold a single edged sword the sharp side should be facing to your enemy and not towards you. Please fix this! It drives me crazy!
It is not every weapon but it bothers me so much if you give me a go-ahead I will go hunt down every backwards weapon there is.
Female Ranger Bows - Please fix the way the bows rest on their back. This has to be the biggest complaint I hear from female rangers and it bothers them almost as much as the swords bother me. *whistle innocently*
Melee Stance
The melee stances seem to have very strong encounter powers but the class is just extremely squishy. It is not uncommon to die just because of one missed dodge.
The Risk vs Reward is close because of some key encounter powers such as Fox Shift but the damage from the At-Wills and a few of the Encounter Powers such as Rain of Swords is a bit lacking.
At Wills
Split Shot/Split Strike - I don't really want to say overpowered because it is on the verge of being appropriate. It's more that the rest are underpowered compared to it.
Rapid Shot/Rapid Strike - Single Target damage should do significantly more damage than an AoE. The fact that people can debate whether Split Shot/Strike does similar damage to Rapid Shot/Strike is a cause for concern. If there is a damage benefit to using this single target attack over the split attacks it is only a 10-20% increase at most but needs to be much greater.
Electric Shot/Clear the Ground - Clear the ground is awesome! I would consider it a must have for melee/hybrid rangers but electric shot is...well...to put it nicely the worst power in the game. Electric Shot needs to be brought to at least 1,000 damage per second, AoE, to compete with Split Shot which can easily do 1,500 DPS. 300 is far too low.
Aimed Shot/Aimed Strike - Aimed Strike is fine how it is. Aimed shot has a 4 second interruptable charge. One of three things needs to be done to make this a bit more viable.
- Allow players to charge the shot and release whenever the want for reduced damage
- Upon interrupt fire the attack for reduced damage
- Remove the basic attack interrupt effect
Encounter Powers
Rain of Arrows - Attack animation lock causes major headaches. Please fix this!
See Bug section for more details.
Boar Hide - Please add a buff animation so players know when this is applied to them.
Fox's Cunning - The dodge effect does not prevent CC. Is this intended?
Also please add a buff animation so players know when this effect is applied to them.
Fox Shift - This one is so bad it's borderline bugged. Please make HR's immune to CC during this attack!
If players Fox Shift and end up positioned into a splat during the animation they will get controlled. I am fine with taking damage, although I would prefer not to, but getting controlled during this effect is horrendous. This is an awesome power but because of the way the CC works it is only truly viable in single target circumstances and even then with extreme care.
Daily Powers
Forest Meditation - Players and Mobs alike can still quite easily DPS HR's down during this daily. Please increase the deflect severity to 75% to make this completely defensive power more appealing.
Interrpting Shot - This is a half bug issue. It doesn't interrupt a lot of elites or mobs in general. It sounds awesome but while it's still a common mainstay it is mainly for the damage more so than the interrupt.
Cold Steel Hurricane - Hard to aim. Minimal CC Effect (if any?) and basically nonexistent damage. This power needs a hefty buff all around.
Bugs/Issues:
Most of the bugs/issues revolve around the dodge mechanic. Simply put it doesn't always work as intended.
Dodge Doing NOTHING
Sometimes dodging just doesn't work. Just look at this.
Dodging and still receiving damage.
This happens constantly. I will typically see "dodged" above my head while still getting hit with damage and/or CC.
The 2,356 Damage in this video is from the attack I "dodged." (2 Seconds In)
One easy way to check is fighting a dragon. I haven't ever seen me dodge the damage. Every other class can dodge the damage but get CC'd while the HR seems to be unable to dodge it at all.
Dodging and still getting CC'd.
Dodge notification appears, damage is avoided, CC effect is still applied. As a user it seems like this is caused because of a time difference between when the "dodge" and "immunity" effects which seem to be different (for some reason).
Dodging into splats does not count as a dodge
Many of the issues I fall into probably are under this issue. If you dodge early you are often successful but if you dodge into another splat there is a good chance dodging out of one splat and into another would be no better than standing still. Dwarf King's Crypt is a place this likely happens a lot but here is a video of me dodging into a troll splat.
DoT effects are still applied even if attacks are dodged.
The easy way to see this is if you "dodge" a spike trap. The bleed effect still goes through. But even dodging DoT splats such as magma splats or acid circles will cause the DoT effects to still apply.
Rain of Arrows Animation Lock - I know I said it was too easy to break the attack/animation but this is not good either.
Breakdown of Rain of Arrows Attack Animation:
- 0.0-0.5 Seconds - Animation started, still interruptable, will break attack effect
- 0.5-0.75 Seconds - Animation is locked in place. Cannot Dodge. Cannot break.
- 0.75 Seconds - Animation breakable. Attack effect will remain
Foxes Cunning
- Occasionally procs Master of Archery buff even though it can't crit.
- Will use a stored Master of Archery buff upon activation
Oak Skin
- The regenerative effect can be deflected.
I have not tested how extensive this issue is but another Wood Elf Hunter Ranger deflected the Oak Skin buff.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
The armor variety is great and it's clear that a lot of the feedback given in since launch is why the Hunter Ranger has been put in from the very start for Hunter Rangers. The complaints we saw about armor and weapon variety for the initial three classes just aren't there for the Hunter Rangers.
-Do you guys agree with my feedback? Disagree?
-What would you suggest to improve the Hunter Rangers?
Have you run into the same dodging issues I have?
The more information we can get onto the various issues with Hunter Ranger Dodging the better so please provide any information you can regarding any dodging issues you have had in this thread.
Overall I really like the Ranger class, but it's absolutely clear as now it's very underpowered, expecially if you compare it to a CW. It looks like that the CW can do everything a Ranger could, but he's just better than him in every possible way: more CCs, more DPS, more survivability, better usefulness in PvE, more control, and even more movement.
Ranger itself is a really funny class to play, but its main role as DPS can be too much undershadowed by other classes. Also he lacks mechanics to fight against melee fighters like GF and GWF: even if you somehow control them, your only option to stop them is Constricting Arrow, as Binding Arrow slow most of the time either doesn't work, or slows them so little is almost non existant. Also, your damage output is almost always too low to drop them (I'm a 12k full PvP HR and I PvPed since level 20, so don't bother telling me that's because I'm undergeared), while you're so **** squishy that 2-3 hits are more than enough to kill you. It's also quite depressing that even for an archer, your most affordable way to damage a melee fighter is Fox's Shift, as your arrow powers are either ridicolously underpowered (Rapid Shot will tick them for no more than 25% of their health at max range), or totally interruptable.
When I'll get the opportunity to post a new thread I'll go deeper into an analisys of each skill, but most of them seems to suffer from some kind of bug actually.
I'm only lvl17 so i can't really contribute much to this but another thing that I'm not too keen on is the fact that, in dungeons, i end up feeling like some guy that stands there hacking and slashing because there's just nowhere else to go, making the bow pointless.
If the shift were to be more effective then yes i could get that distance between me and the MoB's but it just ends up being too close quarters and I'm fighting/holding off 3-4 Mob's at a time. It is awesome and all but it just doesn't seem very realistic to me and, to be honest, starts to feel like a hack and slack, constant clicking MMPORG and not an action one.
I'm not saying re-design the dungeons to accommodation for rangers but you can't spell ranger without range, and you can't get range in short amount of time in such close quarters.
Dodge not working against Flame Spiker: IMO you dodged that attack too late based on the video. If you had started the dodge a tad earlier, it wouldn't have damaged you.
Dodging and still getting DoT damage: That seems to be "normal" behavior based on how all other classes are affected too, and is a known bug for all classes.
Fox Shift/Cunning not avoiding CC: Actually a patch after module 2 stated that the CC immunity was unintended and was removed for that reason.
Split Shot: IMO way too strong. Pre level 40, even with junk equipment that isn't even of my same level or if I am in a group with CW/GWF/TR who are 5 levels higher than me, I will still top damage by 2-3 fold of the next person's simply by ONLY using split shot. Damage needs to be reduced by at least 30% and that would also make Rapid Shot/Aimed Shot more worthwhile as a result, and force the HR player to also use encounters for damage rather than utility only.
General feedback: My main gripe is that melee encounters have very fast execution while ranged encounters when used seem to have you doing nothing for a second before starting an animation to cast the encounter. A bit more fluidity would be welcome there (primarily for stuff like Seismic Shot, Thorn Ward and that 3 charge rooting encounter)
I disagree with nwnghost about Split Shot
Split Shot is not too strong.
Yes it does alot of damage.
Yes it is an at-will power.
One just has to weigh in some factors to this, such as;
1. Firing this shot may allow an enemy to get closer to you and/or kill you, both in PVE and PVP.
2. looking for a safer distance takes time from actaully doing damage, not to mention, that safer distance you chose, is only safer for a limited time. This is apparent in PVP. In PVE quests, the mobs are always on you even with a aggro getting companion.
3. Recovery isnt as easy to get as other stats, and therefore the encounters powers take time to recover, even with some t1 t2 sets. Split Shot helps alot during this CD time. If you get/use Recovery items/enchantments, you are negatively affecting other needed stats.
4. HRs are high DPS, therefore, they are extremely squishy. Yes even squishier than a CW and a dps DC.
I agree, I've learned to compensate for such things. It's all about tactics and that's why i love this game so far
What I like
- Extremely mobile class with a high situational awareness requirement. We're basically the AoE equivalent to Rogues. Both are focused primarily on dps, but while a Rogue is all about burning down a single target quickly a Ranger is all about death en masse. If I had to give this a 1-5 star rating for difficulty (1 being easy and 5 being extreme) I think this would probably rate somewhere between 4 and 5. Anybody can stand back and spam Split Shot and do halfway decent, but if you take the time to learn what you're doing and maximize both your ranged AND melee skills regardless of specialty then this class will take you way into the next level. If they fixed the glitches and retooled some of the less-than-functional skills we have then this class could be a highly desired contribution to a party instead of the (wrongly labeled) fifth wheel that nobody wants.
- I absolutely love the versatility of this class. You can run as a ranged dps, a melee dps, or even an offensive support class augmenting what the Cleric already does. You can even multipurpose into all three if you really desired. The fact that we don't have much for control abilities is fine too, that's not our job. We're raw dps, we make things die very quickly, and we do that job very well
Split Shot - I love this skill and it's perfectly balanced right now for our role in a party, don't touch it. This skill alone is what makes it possible for Rangers to act as add management in conjunction with a Wizard to wipe out everything on the map. @nwnghost It already has a 5 target limit and it only hits for roughly twice that of a single Rapid Shot when you give it a half charge. If you spam it there's very little difference in damage between Rapid and Split save that Split is AoE
What I don't like
Dodge - Okay, it's not really a dodge but more of a shift in position. You only move half the distance of any other class's dodge, but you can do it twice as many times. This gives us fantastic mobility in a fight with the ability to shift ourselves around the field with ease. The downside is if you want to actually dodge an attack you have to shift extremely early as most AoE abilities are beyond the range of a single shift, forcing you to double-shift where other classes only need a single dodge in x direction. This means it takes us twice as long as other classes to get out of harms way, which means we need to cut our attacks earlier and restart later. More time dodging = less time dpsing = less damage dealt on a class who's only real definitive party role is as an extreme damage dealer
Also dodge has a nasty habit of not applying when you dodge something. Drow assassins are perfect examples, though as nwnghost mentioned this seems to apply to all classes in general. You get the little dodge exclamation, you reach your destination "unscathed", but when you look at your health bar you find you're now missing half your health to that heavy AoE you were attempting to dodge. I've also had this happen on the final boss of "Retake the Bridge" when he uses his frontal leash. You dodge his attack, it gives you the exclamation, but when you reach your destination you're knocked prone and again you're missing half your health. The only explanation I can conceive for this is that either (a) it's bugged or (b) it was never designed as a dodge but rather as a mobility skill giving us the ability to rapidly traverse the battle field that was later multipurposed as a dodge skill. If it's the former it needs to be fixed, if the latter then serious consideration needs to be given to retooling it. I love the mobility it gives me, but if this is supposed to be our dodge ability it needs to act as a dodge ability and not some RNG "oh maybe I'll dodge it this time" skill.
Rain of Arrows - I have a love hate relationship with this skill. I love the damage it does and the synergy it has with Master of Archery, but I hate the fact that its AoE is so limited. If this was designed with single target in mind then it needs to be a single target skill with a single target skill's target focus. If it was designed with AoE in mind (I suspect it was as Ranger has a great deal of formidable AoE skills) then the skill needs to be retooled. The range needs to be at most doubled to accommodate for AoE fights. Please don't make it huge like Split the Sky or Thorn Ward, that would just be rediculous and even with a damage nerf would make the skill overpowered in a huge way.
Split the Sky - Not sure whether this is intended or not but this does not seem to affect stealth rogues. Every other aspect seems to work properly, except for that. Needs investigation and correction
Hindering Shot and Storm Step Action - Broken skills, everybody knows they're broken. Need fixes on these immediately before any retooling of other skills
Aimed Shot - Kay just going to say I love this skill. That said it's an extremely clunky skill to try to launch. It takes 4 seconds to fire, and if you take ANY damage in that time (you get hit, you have a DoT tick, Valindra farts somewhere in Calimshan) it completely cancels the skill and forces you to restart it. This needs to be fixed one of two ways: Either reduce the cast time or remove the interrupt mechanic.
Forest Meditation - Doesn't do squat if you have more than one monster on you, and even then it doesn't do much. After everything's said and done you're still alive, but you've taken hits the whole time so you only really gain maybe 5% of your health back. Total waste, and one that I don't even keep on my Dailies slots any more. The skill needs either increased healing or increased deflection severity. Pre-60 you could get away with this skill, not that you used it very often anyway. Post-60 it's worthless as designed.
That's all I can really think of right now. I'll probably add more after I get some sleep and clear the cobwebs from my brain
I don't disagree that it should be a powerful AoE atwill, but it should be considerably weaker against single targets compared to the actual single target At wills. And right now, because it deals such high damage in AoE compared to what other classes can do (i.e. Reaping/Wicked/WM Strike GWF or Storm Pillar/Chilling Cloud CW) even at minimum charge (or rather especially at minimum charge), reducing Split Shot damage will make the single target at wills more desirable for single targets whilst also not making HR completely OP especially on the road to 60. Because balance is not only about what happens at 60 with min/maxing, but also the balance of classes pre 60.
For the Fire Giant leash, this is explained in that it is a CC attack with 2 phases:
1. Immobilize + damage
2. Pull + damage
Any other class dodging early andevading the first phase would also still be hit by the second phase. If this did not occur, dodges would have to grant CC immunity for considerable duration after the animation had ended, which would do all kinds of wacky things (and in fact, almost every dodge already grants additional CC immunity for 0.5 seconds after the dodge has ended, which is why you sometimes notice people not getting CCed in PvP even though your CC effect was used and hit them after they finished their dodge.)
I run a combat ranger. Tempest in most other games.
Difference is... a Tempest in most other games I've played, has single target melee DPS close to if not better than a Rogue... but the caveat is definitely squishier. HR has no where near the melee DPS of TR in this game...
The range DPS is pretty much the same... so is the aggro. Problem here is.... we don't have the same type to heals to be a Combat class. Trying to combine the paths to truly make one, takes too much from one area or the other.
I'm going to respec... but there are so many archers in the game, and I wanted a true hybrid.... which isn't rarely plausible with this game. Too many druid powers were combined into ranger.
I think better feat paths would have been:
1) Sniper (ranged based, extra damage)
2) Archer (ranged 3/4, melee 1/4)
3) Tempest (melee 3/4, ranged 1/4)
with buff bonuses from the third tier spattered in to the section it would benefit most.
The main issues I found was that Clear the Ground was too awesome to have as a melee attack but Electric Shot was too horrible to use as a ranged attack.
So now I have this stupid setup where I spam Split Shot as a ranged attack and switch between Split Strike and Clear the Ground as melee attacks. Why? Split Shot's single target damage is too comparable to Rapid Shot for me to care compared to not having Split Shot.
The only difference between my opinion and nwnghost's on this is that he feels Split Shot is blatantly overpowered. I think another slight reduction in power is in order but in my opinion the bigger issue is that the other attacks have to be brought up to par. Rapid Shot should get a 50% damage increase, electric shot should get a 100-125% damage increase and split shot should get a 25% damage reduction.
Right now the biggest hindrance to removing Rapid Shot off my bar is that I have less control over mob pulls but the answer to that is spam split shot more.
So the key issue which has to be solved is rewarding a single target attack with significantly superior damage to an AoE attack while also adding in a comparable, even if weaker, AoE at will so Split Shot isn't a must have.
As for being squishy, I am fine with that.
I tend to die due to just one missed dodge more often than not. Just one mistake and I die.
Well there are two issues with that.
1. Sometimes the fault is not mine but is the dodge mechanic malfunctioning.
2. The melee DPS is just a little under-rewarding for the Risk vs. Reward
I honestly think it is close. It's just not quite there and it's exemplified by the dodge mechanic still applying CC when you dodge attacks, getting damaged even though you "dodged" the attack, or just not working at all.
And it's not the distance that is the issue. I play my Devoted Cleric very similar to my HR and spam dodges left and right often dodging into splats as often as I dodge out. You don't have to get out of splats in order to dodge them, you just have to time them so the immunity phase is proc'ed and the intermittent behavior of the immunity phase is what is causing more issues than the dodge distance.
I agree with much of the op's statements, and I'm very melee focused when it comes to building, but to go into more detail:
Visuals:
I haven't seen the variety the op mentions. So far at lvl 42, I've seen about as much variety in armor and weapons as I did for on my rogue. I don't know if this changes soon or at 60, but so far I can recall about three different armor styles through normal leveling. Weapons aren't much better, the long knives in the beginning, the axes, some almost kukri type blades and the mulhorand blades are it. I've seen pictures of other weapons, but those were level 60.
Also while I'm at it. I'd like to see more swords. Rogues have the daggers, and short swords. Rangers have always been shown with two swords (or axes) their melee claim to fame has been the ability to wield two of the same sized weapons that were typically longsword length. It was a sign of their swordsmanship. Lets get away from the small knives and give the class the option to use what they've iconic-ally used for years.
Powers:
At-Will
Agree with most of this. And I want to question rapid strike vs split strike. It makes no sense to me to have the damage of the former be less then the greater. I could be missing something and I'll be grateful if someone points it out, but shouldn't their damage values at least be switched? The single target should be hurting things more than the aoe.
I agree about aimed shot, but I love aimed strike. What I don't like is that it's the only other single target at will, which leads me to Clear the Ground.
I'm not going to even touch Electric Shot, except to say for what it does, it could fire a little faster.
Clear the Ground is great, but what is its purpose when I have split strike available? It's a pbaoe which can be useful, but the damage is much less. Split strike has the advantage of a short jump to the target and back again, sometimes I can attack from outside a red splat safely. Clear the ground doesn't have anything else going for it. I haven't seen any noticeable amount of damage when enemies are at the edge of the attack radius or right ontop of me. I think something really needs to happen here.
Encounters
I was a little surprised to see how much aoe we had. In 4th edition pen and paper I always thought the Ranger was subpar for aoe damage in melee. Ok, things are different in game, it's not pen and paper nor should it have to be, but I was surprised anyway.
The encounter powers are really what did it to me and I think we have to much aoe. We have Marauders Rush and Boars charge. That's it. I'm not even sure what to make of Thorn Strike, is that single target or is the aoe just really small? Either way I'd like a little less Druid in my Ranger, means I'm more likely to get a real Druid someday.
Hindering Strike, Rain of Swords, Steel Breeze, Fox Shift. We don't get anymore melee attacks between Fox Shift and Clear the Ground. That in itself is a problem. Theoretically If I don't want to have buffs on my bar, I have nothing to put points into beyond a certain point. I do like that rangers can buff the party, it's my favorite secondary job. But I'm here for the melee and I'm not getting as much of it as I would be if I was focusing on archery.
Stag Heart and Oak Skin should be rolled into one skill, the effects of each being separated by ranks and Nature path feats so that the benefits of both are still strong when you max it. Throw Caution and Hawkeye as well can be rolled into one. Giving the Ranger that berserker like power while boosting a party members damage.
I think we need some more single target damaging skills. If nothing else was changed and we had to keep all our buffs as they are, then only one other skill would be enough. I nominate Steel Breeze, HR have plenty of ways to recharge our stamina, but even with the sub effect, make the skill single target on par with something the TR might have. Not one of its strongest abilities even, but a high damage skill that can help burn a target down. We wouldn't be replacing them for single target dps since it would just be one skill, but it would be an option that felt different enough from the rest of our skills to make a difference. Better still, give us a single target skill that is nothing BUT damage, something multi-hit and flashy.
I love this class, but it just feels like in an effort to make it feel complete, it lost its focus. It's trying to be an archer, a dervish and a druid. It's trying to do ranged dps, melee dps, CC and buffs. 4th edition rangers aren't so magically inclined as their previous versions and that's a lot for the HR's plate. Lets move some of the Druid into an actual Druid class and boost up some of the melee aspects. Lets get some single target dps so the HR can sit between the TR and GWF in terms of function.
Class Features
Not so much to say here, I think with all the shifting we can do, we should have some offensive punch to it. Maybe add a little damage to Stormstep Action so that when we shift through things we cause some hurt.
And for the love of all that is leafy and wooden, can get get another animation or two that isn't a spin slash?
Split Shot
I don't feel it's overpowered at all. Yeah it's strong, and it's spammy, but actually, given the overall damage output of a ranger, its damage is quite balanced, expecially as it somewhat slower than any other dps class attack, so in raw DPS terms, it balances out. Problem isn't how strong his AoE effect is, but how stupidly low Rapid Shot and Electric Shot damages are, making those skills useless compared to this one.
This is the main, and probably only uniquely useful skill of a Ranger that makes this class viable in dungeons and PvP. Remove or nerf this skill, and you will find no more reasons to choose an HR over any CW.
Rapid Shot/Electic Shot
As previously stated, those skill damage pretty much suck. Also while you "rapidly shot" you're glued to the ground, making this skill even less useful. At least with split shot you can fire - dodge - fire - dodge and move around. With Rapid Shot you're just a sitting duck. I only use it against bosses where I need to focus only on them while avoiding getting aggro from adds, as Aimed Shot will get too often interrupted unless I've got a really pro tank/kiter.
Aimed Shot
This is a great skill in theory, but it really needs a fixup, as it's utterly garbage now. Not only it takes far too long to shoot, and it's widely too easy to interrupt (making it utterly useless, unless you're 100% sure nobody is even -watching- you fire it), but its damage output is widely unpredictable, and totally unaffordable. Sometimes I hit for up to 30k (with a crit), sometimes I just hit them for as low as 5k (on the same target, with the same stats), wich is roughly the damage of a full charged Split shot strike (wich takes half the time to shot, it's AoE and can't be interrupted). If at least I'm sure that I would strike them for 10-15k minimum, that could be acceptable, but 4 seconds of suicidal standing for 5k? Are we serious here people?
Not to talk about how easy is to just outrange this skill or turn behind a column while you slooooooooowly charge it. Never saw such an overestimated useless skill in a MMO.
Maybe lower its casting time to 3 secs and making it uninterruptable would greatly help, giving the ranger its true role as long distance super-squishy assassin as it was intended.
Fox Shift/Cunning
A really great skill, probably the best in Ranger's set, sadly plagued with bugs. Many times the Fox Cunning dodge simply doesn't apply, expecially if you move a second before clicking, or a second after, or if you're hit during the animation (not by a CC, even by normal damage). You hear the sound, and see the Icon on yourself, but no dodge, and skill didn't work. Fox Shift attack many times will just interrupt itself midway, expecially if you're CCed, as previously described, or doesn't properly damage foes, just jumping around doing nothing.
Constricting Arrow and Hindering Shot
Great skills, the bread-and-butter skills for every HR, wich will make the difference in almost all situations. Nothing to be said here, they're just great. Still the root mechanics while nice, allows you to move far too much to be of any real use in either PvP or PvE. Mostly it's just a 3 times per 3 seconds interrupt, wich sounds good (and it is), but you don't even notice there's a rooting effect in place there.
Binding Arrow
Another broken skill it seems. I never saw this skill really slow another target other than the first, even if tooltip describes it as a sorta-Varus binding skill. Also the overall slow seems to be minimal to non-existant at all, as most people will just run like bulls toward you, and hit you like a wall of bricks in 0.5 secs. Maybe there are too many CC/Slow reduction mechanisms to be viable, maybe it doesn't work as intended, but as funny as it can be, I still find Hindering shot to be more useful than this one. The regen/defense buff also is so minimal that's not even noticeable even if you're almost dead.
All the Buffs
While I do agree this mechanic is really nice to have (I like to give some help to my party and be a secondary buffer), it still suffers from poor balancing. All the buffs are so minimal, that most of the time you won't even notice they're there. The only one worth applying is Fox Cunning: all the others are almost non-existant.
Hawk Shot
Another completely broken skill, and when I say completely, I mean not even worth investing one point on that. The buff is just ridicolous (most of the time is like a +250-500 damage buff on a single shot... on a 20 second CD? LOL), and the Hawk Shot itself is complete garbage. Its (tested) maximum damage at max range is roughly comparable to a normal Split Shot attack (!!), while at short distance is zero... and you've got a 3 second firing animation to shoot this wet noodle? Seriously? Why?!
Cold Steel Hurricane
Broken, zero damage. Nuff said.
Seismic Shot
Nice... unless you see HOW FAR other classess throw people/mobs around. You just give them a small push, like a really delicate touch, wich is also so slowly animated, that most of the time mobs are just out of its AoE by the time you finished the animation. Also the damage itself is quite low for a 100% Action Points Daily, expecially compared to other classes daily wich may completely nuke you.
Make this push distance greater, such as GF or CW skills, and it could be somewhat viable to throw mobs off from bridges and chasms, otherwise it's just a waste of slots.
Forest Meditation
Nice if you're solo and without a cleric companion. Other than that, it's useless.
Forest Ghost
Somewhat useful to escape aggro (even if it's horribly slow to cast... as almost every other skill you have), but other than that, it's only useful for a melee oriented Stormstep Action HR. Wich makes me guess why you should go melee with such a squishy class, instead of taking a real melee DPS like a TR or GWF.
Passives
One of the few things that seems to work as intended for this class
Thorn Ward
Nice skill, great for PvE but with a really short range to be truly viable in PvP (also it only hits ONE target at time, so it's not a real AoE). I still find myself extensively using it tough.
Split the Sky
Nice for PvE to get all the mobs in the dungeon aggro you: even those in other dungeon will come to kick your sorry ranger's face. Really too slow to fire and non-damaging to be of any use in PvP tough (one 2k lightning every 4-5 second is negligible damage, and the slow effect is either broken or minimal). Maybe let the lightnings strike for more damage, or shorten up the animation to give it some viability.
Commanding Shot
Never bothered using it as it's slow and its damage is quite low. May be worth for the boss debuff... if it's applied at all. Could be useful, I just skipped it. The buff could be nice, but it's overall a waste of a slot.
Rain of Arrows
Really, I wonder -why- people still keep using this skill. It's a slap in the face for a ranged shooter! It's almost melee ranged, it's slow to cast, it's so easy to just avoid this minuscle red spot that you don't even need to dodge/roll/shift/dash: just move two steps away and it's over. Its PvE damage could sum up to mediocrely good, but well... just throw a Thorn Ward: it's better in every way, and it even debuffs the enemy it hits.
Boar Hide/charge
Didn't even bothered to put one point in that. As I previously stated... why going melee with such a glass cannon as a Ranger?
Marauder's Escape
Nice for the first 15 levels. Then you will just forget it exists, as it's a waste of slots. The whole mechanics behind it it's nice tough, but you cant -seriously- use a whole slot just to jump around once each 15 seconds doing no damage at all. Would be nice to see this thing as "full stamina" shift/dodge animation, or maybe if the ranger shoots an arrow during the jump doing some additional last minute damage/root effect together with the escape.
I think it's all, sorry if it's too long, I'll copy-paste that as a whole new thread when the forum allows me.
It's really interesting seeing your takes on issues. As I read this I see a lot of similar thought patterns while each one still has it's own unique spin.
And that is what I do want to stress they got right about this class. There is not right or wrong and each one plays completely differently based on how the person playing prefers to play.
For instance, my main three encounter powers are Boar Hide/Rush, Rain of Arrows/Swords, and Fox's Cunning/Shift.
But the reason I use these is for the hybrid style fighting. I spam split shot like any good archer should and then when the horde is thinned I use my ranged powers to buff my defenses, I run in, cast Rain of Arrows, Boar Rush the elite in the Rain of Arrows, use clear the ground and when the elite stands up Fox Shift normally finishes off the fight.
Is it the way you would do it? Maybe not. But it works well for me just as I am sure each of you has your own spin on attack combinations.
But despite this success in diversity of powers and playstyles certain powers and buffs are just a little on the underpowered side. When you read past the preferences there are some overwhelming underwriting issues with some of the Hunter Ranger Powers.
And don't worry about putting long posts of your personal feedback in here. The developers would actually rather read one thread with a lot of differing views and thought out feedback then read hundreds of single post threads. It allows for a more diverse and comprehensive understanding of the concerns the players have. The bigger and more in depth the discussion the better!
I don't mind rapid shot getting say a 5-8% damage buff if split shot gets hit with a 13-18% reduction or having its total damage split between number of targets hit.
Meaning at rank 3, it no longer has 100% deflect chance. THAT needs to be fixed.
I think all the at wills are fine. Only thing needed is to increase the attack damage of electric shot. its incredibly weak for how slow it is.
Though what Im seeing is alot of people giving thier input, is quite biased on a particualar playstyle, and not thinking about other playstyles.
I think its better that way. It means people can focus on talking about what they know from experience, and lets others cover the areas they don't. That way, with all the examples we're getting of different playstyles and the thoughts behind them, the Dev's can get a clearer picture of the different facets of the class, from people who know those facets. It's up to them to figure it out, it's up to us to provide feedback.
Oh I have no problem with that.
The only thing I mean is people are proposing changes solely based on thier playstyle without throught about others.
I play a hybrid but mostly melee oriented ranger. And alot of the propositions of changes to skills and things would only hurt my playstyle more.
For instance, i think the At wills are all fine. They dont hit TOO hard, though I feel Electric shot either hits too soft, or hits too slow for the little speck of damage it does.
I also think Steel Breeze could use a slight damage increase, but all in all. I think its fine.
Boar Hide/Charge I use all the time. And think its great.
Rain of Swords needs some work, as well as Rain of Arrows.
Aimed shot is perfect as it is, the most powerful At will in the game with the draw back of being interruptable.
I feel rapid shot is fine for what it does, though i wouldnt argue against a slight damage increase.
I think split shot too is fine. If anything, I say most of the damage should go towards how much is charged instead of just the initial draw and release spam.
Forest Meditation is bugged at rank 3, and loses the 100% deflect chance it gained from rank 2.
Siesmic shot could use a damage increase, or a longer push back and wide vortex radius. Other than that I think its fine.
I dont even use hawk shot. Cant speak about it or Fox Shift.
1) Cold Steel Hurricane: First, this daily costs 100% AP but the description does not state that. Second, the animation is fancy but super slow. Finally, the damage is unacceptable low for a daily that costs 100% AP, the slow is also unimpressive, and it does not last long like split the sky. It needs a huge buff and/or a huge AP reduction to be worth to use.
2) Thorn strike: The description is very vague. It seems to be the less hp of target has, the more damage it is. However, the damage is still very low and the animation is also slow. I saw it crit for about 2k damage on a dying lvl 60 mob. That equals to 2 strikes of rapid strike. Obviously, its damage needs a huge buff.
3) Electric shot: The damage is just too weak and the speed does not help either, it is as slow as rapid shot but with a half of damage. There is no reason to use this skill over split shot.
Other skills needs to be more descriptive and/or slight buffs:
Aim shot: 2 full charge of split shot deals almost the same damage of aim shot, but split shots are quicker and cannot be disrupted. Risk vs Reward? Not worth it. The cast time should be reduce to the one before released.
Throw caution: It is another encounter with vague description. It needs to provide the damage buff number along with the damage resist debuff.
Oak Skin: It is another encounter with vague description. Please state how much defense it gives instead of just saying increase defense. The healing over time amount is not that great either.
Some key points;
If split shot is decreased in power every other power needs a 10-20% increase in power. Yes split shot is a strong power, but nerfing it will destroy a class that already struggles to get a place in dungeons in all too many people's minds already. It was nerfed below the current effect during play test, thankfully they restored it to its current level (which is still lower than its original level). Just leave it alone.
Rapid Shot still needs a 5-10% damage buff as it does less damage per strike than a tap of Split Shot and this increase would put it on par or slightly above making it a better single target power and better in situations where control of what you are hitting is more important.
Aimed Shot: all good here.
Electric Shot: really needs a buff. Clear the ground is fine, but Electric shot is dead in the water.
Cold Steel Hurricane: needs a siginificant improvement in function. Firstly it needs a clear targeting tool like Seismic Shot. Secondly it needs either more damage (lots more) or far better CC. As it stands now even for Nature spec this is a 0 points power, there are just much better things to spend points on all around.
Commanding Shot: I can choose Commanding Shot or Thorn Ward for debuffing. Commanding has a long and overblown animation and about have the debuff of Thorn Ward (& they are multiplicative not additive when combined). Commanding's advantage is it is a controlled target attack, its disadvantage is it does about half the debuff of Thorn Ward and significantly less damage. So in any situation where you will only hit one target or don't care which target gets the debuff Thorn Ward is just better. As such commanding shot needs to double its base damage, have its casting time decreased and have its buff brought up to equal Thorn Ward. The temp HP could use a bit of a buff as well, maybe another 5%.
Rain of Arrows: should increase in radius as more is invested in it not increase the damage of each arrow. When the radius increases the density of shots needs to increase as well (otherwise the increase in radius will result in a significant dps drop). Alternatively just increase it to a flat 10" diameter power and otherwise keep it the same.
Hawk Shot/Hawkeye: this power was badly nerfed during testing and never restored. It should offer at least the same peak damage as Aimed Shot and its minimum damage should not fall below 1. Hawkeye should gain a duration instead of just being next attack only or have a significant boost to its effect. The current power is not worth a single point for any build.
Fox's Cunning: yes its functioning as intended since the patch, however it is a totally terrible function. If you dodge the attack you dodge it all. Put it back the way it was before patching where Cunning included the CC effects in its dodge, ie the way it worked all the way through testing. I'm sure the PvP community will cry foul because they will have to adjust their tactics, but give it a clear animation so they can see it going into effect and it should be fine (after all any simple at-will will burn the buff).
Feats:
The Nature Tree is a mess. The Fox's Cunning buff needs to be where the Boar's Hide buff is, and the Boar's Hide needs to be where the Hawk Shot buff is, and finally Hawk Shot's buff needs to be where the Fox's buff is now.
Boar's Hide feat should increase the effectiveness of the buff for each point you put in it (ideally up to 5% per stack).
Hawk Shot buff should go to 100% strong grasping at 5/5 if Hawk Shot itself is not significantly improved as described above.
Master of Archery needs to either have a smaller cooldown or affect all attacks not just encounters.
Obsidian Oath - Warlock
A whole lot of other Obsidian toons as well.
I generally agree with all of this. I think Split shot is more or less fine the way it is now. It doesnt nessecarily need touching.
Rapid shot needs a slight increase perhaps.
Alot of this is much of the same stuff we said in preview.
I agree. In fact I really stand behind buffing Rapid Shot/Strike and Electric Shot no matter what happens to Split Shot.
As has been said, the damage output, even to single targets, it just too comparable.
Looking through these forums I see a lot of people saying that Hunter Rangers are underpowered and/or are just not good enough to take the place of another class in dungeons. I don't agree with this at all.
I have done some amazing things with Hunter Rangers since release. Heck, one time I did Frozen Heart and Caverns of Karrundax with a GF, DC and 3 HR.
They are not underpowered and can easily get through dungeons. If you want to be a elitist the three Control Wizards, A TR and DC party is still going to be the ultimate group but that's a flaw in party compositions incentives and will have to be looked into at a later time I am sure.
However, I hate to say it but if Split Shot gets a damage reduction or rebalancing in some way without also buffing the other powers the HR will end up in the same pit GWF's were in until Module 2.
Split Shot may in fact be a bit on the overpowered end but it can't be touched without giving buffs to the other powers which is why I skimmed past Split Shot and tried pushing to buff other powers to bring them in line where they should be rather than push for a Split Shot nerf.
how ever the hunter rangers do have only a select few skill's that do atleast a fare amount of damage are
Rain Of Arrow's nice if droped onto a cw's arcane sing.but the area of effect is extreamly small and needs to be inlarged.
Thorn ward seems to be very useful also. nice area of effect
storm cloud can be useful if it worked better. like snaring/stunning targets like its supposed to
the hunter ranger does need a bit more tweeking i mean some skills just hardly do any damage like rain of daggers i guess the name is. cast that skill the first hit hits only a few mobs for 2k then after that you only see damage ticks of 200.
Splitshot's damage is right where it should be compare that to a cw's Shard of Endless Avalanche
Also, yes HR encounter power damage is lower than that of other classes but that doesn't mean HR is weak or underpowered.
If you go back to the intro video that presented Hunter Rangers, the devs clearly stated that to maximize your HR potential, you need to be swapping stances constantly and use encounters of every stance as they come off cooldown.
With Split Shot as powerful as it is currently, there is just about no incentive to swap stances (other than transiently to use a buff or to trigger the "swap stance feat damage bonus"). Outside of high end competitive PvP I am not seeing any HR in dungeons or PvE content who actively use both Ranged and Combat Powers. And therein lies the issue really - if people were to actually learn to use the class as it was designed, then it is actually significantly more potent and powerful. Having Split Shot as powerful as it is currently just lets players ignore swapping stances mostly and just completely focus on Ranged stance where most of the money is.
I don't expect many or even any players to agree with me, simply because hardly any person playing and loving their current playstyle on a class wants it to change in a way that makes their current style more difficult or weaker as opposed to adjust and get the full potential. Comfort zones and all.
I actually button mash about as much as possible. I actually spec'ed into everything that benefited stance switching by increasing damage and decreasing cooldowns through various feats and class features.
Range Encounters tend to buff me and make me survivable.
Melee encouunters are my burst damage.
At wills are the bread and butter.
My guild could tell you just how much I complain about Split Shot being overpowered. It is.
However the HR is only truly viable at this time because of its damage output.
I tried not using it but it is an uphill battle.
The other powers, particularly at wills, have to be buffed in order to consider another Split Shot nerf.
Which is why I am painfully trying to avoid the nerf Split Shot card. The only thing worse than having to have Split Shot on my bar in order to be viable would be to have the class gimped and unable to compete or fill a roll in a dungeon.
Main damage in dungeons comes from split shot, ecnounters are utility/addition (some situational burst aka rain of arrows).
Hunters are not CWs, whos main damage come from encounters and atwills are combo fillers.
Nerfing split shot will destroy this class.
About overall feedback:
Something relly need to be done with shifting, immunity frame like 0.2 sec or even not working at all sometimes.
electric shot/clear the ground-electric is dealing way too low damage to be usefull, clear the ground looks cool and deal dmg around u, but still is dealing too low dmg.
Split the sky- cool concept of a skill but the way it works makes this skill garbage, melee buff is pretty nice tho.
Rain of arrows- the only burst skill, situational due to very small aoe, good for valindra hands etc.
rapid shot- dmage should be buffed.
Fox shift- pretty nice skill but doesnt tooltip says one target can be hit only once?After correction this will be useless melee skill.
Also about roots ignoring cc immunity, i wonder how HRs will deal with GWFs if shifting wong get fixed...
Weapons hovering off the back is annoying but this is ridiculous!
If you don't, you'll think the spec isn't hybrid and that you should just be able to stand and cannon away, which is not what the class is made for. The best Hunter Rangers will always employ a mix of encounters being used in Melee and At Wills being used at ranged. If you can control distance and know how to anticipate heat/AoE/dodge movements, you'll kill anyone elses damage.
This class isn't too balanced PVP wise though, as any class can chew it like butter as long as they get the first hit on it.