Let's not argue about play styles. This has long been regarded a hallmark of the Ranger class - versatility.
Some of us play exclusively archery, and that's ok.
Some of us play exclusively melee, and that's ok.
Some of us play hybrid, and that's ok.
Some of us play nature path, and that's ok.
Some of us love PvP, and that's ok.
Some of us never PvP, and that's ok.
Some of us are looking forward to the new Pathfinder paragon, and that's ok.
All are valid play styles, and no player should be ashamed of how he or she plays. Likewise no player should be forced to play a certain way.
My hope is eventually the game will get to a point where each class is viable to end game content no matter what feats or powers are chosen or what the player's preferred play style. This isn't to say to make the game easy, but to be more flexible with the many ways we can create a character.
Please, let's return to the topic of discussing the changes to the game proposed in the preview release notes and giving ideas on how to make things better.
BAM!. thats precisely how I look at it. Options is what makes the game (and DnD as a whole) interesting and fun. And this was my outlook on HR when they were first introduced on the preview shard, and remains til this day.
Let's not argue about play styles. This has long been regarded a hallmark of the Ranger class - versatility.
Some of us play exclusively archery, and that's ok.
Some of us play exclusively melee, and that's ok.
Some of us play hybrid, and that's ok.
Some of us play nature path, and that's ok.
Some of us love PvP, and that's ok.
Some of us never PvP, and that's ok.
Some of us are looking forward to the new Pathfinder paragon, and that's ok.
All are valid play styles, and no player should be ashamed of how he or she plays. Likewise no player should be forced to play a certain way.
My hope is eventually the game will get to a point where each class is viable to end game content no matter what feats or powers are chosen or what the player's preferred play style. This isn't to say to make the game easy, but to be more flexible with the many ways we can create a character.
Please, let's return to the topic of discussing the changes to the game proposed in the preview release notes and giving ideas on how to make things better.
Think that is what I have been saying...and it is the truth.
Hey guys, we just finalized the list of changes (that I believe will be hitting next Friday, but that is subject to change). I will update the OP as well so feel free to look there for updates in the future.
The changes we are making next week are as follows.
Fox Shift: This power may now strike any one target a maximum of 2 times.
Thorn Strike: Base Damage of this power increased by roughly 40%.
Split the Sky: Base Damage of this power increased by roughly 40%. Additionally fixed a bug with the way weapon damage was calculated by this power. There should be no net change from this fix.
Aspect of the Pack: Now correctly grants Combat Advantage to allies instead of only granting it to the Ranger. The Ranger still benefits from this effect as well.
Hawkeye: *REWORK* This power now grants you 15% bonus damage on the next attack. Allies gain half this benefit (based on the rank of the power).
Oakskin: Healing increased by 150%.
Commanding Shot: This power now also gains +10% damage when it ranks up.
Boar Charge: This power now requires a target to be fired.
Electric Shot: Damage increased by roughly 100%. *It should now be in line with Split Shot.*
Clear the Ground: Damage increased by roughly 50%. *It should now be in line with Split Strike.*
Slasher's Mark: Damage increase by 300%.
Thank you all for your continued feedback!
On the subject of QOL changes for Boar's Charge; there is a full second after the animation ends while the enemy is prone that you also cannot move, you cannot hit another encounter, etc. This is extremely counter productive and one of the reason this ability is taking a back seat. Not that having to have a target isnt a huge help, but this too is needed to make the ability run as intended.
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rougedrogueMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 25
Fox Shift: This power may now strike any one target a maximum of 2 times.
Thorn Strike: Base Damage of this power increased by roughly 40%.
Split the Sky: Base Damage of this power increased by roughly 40%. Additionally fixed a bug with the way weapon damage was calculated by this power. There should be no net change from this fix.
Aspect of the Pack: Now correctly grants Combat Advantage to allies instead of only granting it to the Ranger. The Ranger still benefits from this effect as well.
Hawkeye: *REWORK* This power now grants you 15% bonus damage on the next attack. Allies gain half this benefit (based on the rank of the power).
Oakskin: Healing increased by 150%.
Commanding Shot: This power now also gains +10% damage when it ranks up.
Boar Charge: This power now requires a target to be fired.
Electric Shot: Damage increased by roughly 100%. *It should now be in line with Split Shot.*
Clear the Ground: Damage increased by roughly 50%. *It should now be in line with Split Strike.*
Slasher's Mark: Damage increase by 300%.
Any idea when these changes are slated for arrival? Or did I miss the something and they have already been implemented.
Bug: Thorn Strike The new version does not get any damage bonus when enemy's hp drops.
Thorn Strike The effect area is too small and the skill tends to miss targets on both sides.
Split the sky This skill animation should be quicker. It is too slow for a fast pace class like ranger.
Bug: Hunter's teamwork Supply dropped from the killed mob does not give any AP, Stamina or HP.
Bug: Careful Attack Most of the time, it does not do any damage. It seems to be using other skills or DoT/Damage boons before/after will trigger its damage but this is also very randomly.
AIMED STRIKE: if u are far enough, despite the animation, target doesn;t gets hitted (checked on dummies) in the trade of blades...
BTW. I know that it isn't closely related with the topic, but it's very important, so I will say this due to the occasion: Could u put a "Bobby The Puncher" or something like that to the Trade of Blades ? Some people want also to test defensive skills and stats, not only offensive. OFC it would require some enlargement of actual Trade of Blades...
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frozenflame22Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 56
AIMED STRIKE: if u are far enough, despite the animation, target doesn;t gets hitted (checked on dummies) in the trade of blades...
I don't know that this is entirely true. When using Aspect of the Falcon, I am sometimes at the far edge of my range and I don't see the numbers pop up when I use Aimed Shot. I noticed it almost every run through Respen's Game because the grid lines on the floor made it easy to find my favorite spot for the end boss. On the same runs that I didn't see my damage totals, I still got the most damage under the Paingiver tab of the end leaderboards. Since I was mostly running with level 60 players of varying classes, I don't see how I could get that much damage if I was effectively sitting out the final fight. Have you pulled up the combat data in the chat options to verify your claim? I strongly suspect that it is just an issue with not showing the nifty numbers rather than not doing damage at all.
Yes, I checked, problem is the same as was with the Boar charge - it doesn;t need a target, so sometimes u can think that u will score a hit, bu u don't...
Fox Shift: This is still -35% (or -33.5% ?) damage vs. a single target when compared to live. Furthermore, it makes the interaction with Agile Hunter much worse: -4 seconds to ranged encounter cd on live vs. -2 seconds (vs. a single target) with this proposed change.
Thorn Strike:This skill is still displaying much higher damage in the tooltip than it can actually hit for. Versus dummies, tooltip min / max damage is the min or max non-crit damage you should see. The skill always does less damage than the minimum displayed in the tooltip, making it impossible to tell whether or not the up to +30% damage as target health decreases aspect of the skill is working. That aside, in pvp, this skill misses far more often than it hits. Quicker activation was a great addition to the skill, but it needs to become targeted to become remotely usable. Also, +50% damage really was not very much. Maybe try +75% damage of what is on live server.
side note - Thorn Ward(ranged version): Critical attacks are not procing cooldown reduction from Prime Critical.
Boar Charge:This change is absolutely fantastic, and is exactly what needs to happen to Thorn Strike. The only thing left wrong with the skill is the ~1 second delay after using it. The user is stuck and unable to use any skill of any sort for about 1 second after using Boar Charge, which seriously hinders it's performance.
Electric Shot:I thought you were out of your mind giving this skill such a huge buff, but the sad truth is that it is honestly still pretty much unusable due to the animation time.
Clear the Ground: This change is less of a buff than I thought, but I also thought that the skill didn't really need a buff.
General Comments:
When the dust settles with these changes, regardless of anyone's personal feelings, what will be very obvious is that the real loser in all of this is the Combat paragon tree. As it currently stands, Archery is a vastly more offensive tree and Combat is slightly more defensive.
Bloodthirsty nearly matches Lethal Hunter, plus Archery has the option of Spinner's Aim and tier 1 Black Arrow
Correcting Aim increases my overall crit by about 9-10%, vs. +10% only while in melee with Bleeding Precision
Prime Critical is totally amazing and can't be compared to Agile Hunter (which IS a tier 2 feat so that is fair), but Agile Hunter is about to become much less useful in pvp due to the Fox Shift changes.
Master of Archery is probably a bit worse than Master of Combat in terms of damage, but +100% crit on next encounter is incredibly synergistic with the Prime Critical and Black Arrow, making it much better overall.
What is Combat left with? Elusive Hunter. From parses, this is about +6.5% deflect overall. That is not very inspiring. Expert skirmisher is also ok, but it is nothing to write home about.
With the changes to Stormstep Action and Fox Shift, Archery becomes less of a personal choice and more of a requisite - Archery can just churn out so many more encounters per pvp match than Combat, making Combat seem incredibly slow and clunky.
Adding some additional small utility to tier 3 and above combat feats could go a long way in making it an actual option again. Maybe something like +x% deflect / crit severity on Elusive Hunter / Bleeding Precision. Master of Combat could really use an overhaul, too. 17% is a nice D&D number (essentially rolling a d6), but it is also too low. Even bumping this up to 20% would probably make a noticeable difference.
Reading this and thinking, "Maybe the Archery tree is too strong, we should reduce some effects!" would be a terrible mistake. The Archery tree is not too strong, Combat is just far too weak.
Hello and thanks to all that test preview server.
It's bad for me that I am not at home and cannot go to try it too
Because that I will ask here, can someone see what happen with damage on RoA/S, Hawk Shot/Eye, Commanding Shot/Stag Heart please.
Edit:
What about feat for Archery tree to speed up animations for At-Wills (some of them or all) ?
Bug: Hunter's teamwork Supply dropped from the killed mob does not give any AP, Stamina or HP.
Have seen this only once. Could not pickup one of the tiny bags in Vellosk.
However I found this ability quite useless considering you get 200-450hps (crits) back at my lvl for each supply drop.
Electric Shot:I thought you were out of your mind giving this skill such a huge buff, but the sad truth is that it is honestly still pretty much unusable due to the animation time.
Not only this but Split Shot does ~30%-50% more dmg if you use it repeatedly plus it has a much better cone vs the aoe range from ES. I have still no reason to switch to ES.
I hope this is not a bug, but it is not listed in the patch notes. You can now move if you use Ambush, it no longer breaks the stealth but dmg from aoe attacks will break it instantly. I hope it stays this way......
I have easily gotten 2500 HPs heals from the dropped hunters cache. I will note if the random effect the drop is going to give me, if I am full it will not do anything and remain on the ground.
Feedback: Ambush The stealth goes off from you as soon as one of the dots you already had on people hits, for example if you use a plaguefire like me currently the stealth doesn't last more than half a second. I suppose it's the same case for all bleeds on powers. Unless you don't use any DOT powers or enchants I find this stealth would be rendered useless.
I've been wanting a trap like power for ages but to get it currently I'm going to need to remove any powers that have bleeds and change from plague fire to something else just to make ambush not as pointless.
OAK SKIN: The buff it received is good and necessary considering most of my HP regeneration was from Split Shot life steal.
SPLIT SHOT: Still will be need to be slotted for dungeons with massive amount of adds, but HR's shouldn't be relying on it over encounters anymore.
ELECTRIC SHOT: Much improved, but the only reason to use it over Split Shot is for it's melee counterpart. Adding a secondary effect might give people a reason to use it.
FOX SHIFT: Is still good when facing 2 or more targets, lost some usefulness against single targets (pvp). It would be nice if the cool down on it was reduced by a few seconds to compensate.
COLD STEEL HURRICANE: Still a waste of points. I know no changes were made to this, but I feel like it must be mentioned.
AMBUSH: Only good for getting in and out of combat unnoticed. If that's the intention then it's perfect. If it is meant to help during combat then it needs some tweaking (I haven't tested the latest patch). It seems like this encounter should go hand-in-hand with Aimed Shot, but as soon as you click the mouse button your stealth drops allowing Aimed Shot to get interrupted by mobs that quickly find you. - Issue w/ Aimed Shot fixed. HR stays in stealth until shot is released.
BUGS(?):
HUNTERS CACHE: I seem to only be able to pick up the cache randomly. I can run over it's location over and over but I will not pick it up. If it's a health issue, I should be able to pick it up even if I'm at full health due to party members that may need it.
BOARS CHARGE: Unless it was fixed in the latest patch (I didn't test it), you can still activate the ability when out of range of a target, which will result in nearly the same problem it had before. - Tested today, seems to be fixed.
I didn't notice any improvement to oak skin, I don't know if it's capped or something like that.
In the previous patch my oak skin gave 3.2k healing at 4.5k power, now it gives 2.9 since yesterday patch (that should have improved it a lot). Nothing was changed in my stats, nor in the 'healing buff' gained from power. In NW (dragon server) I heal 2.8k with oak skin. With a 100% improvement it whould give roughly 4k (at least!) , but I got only 900 healing ( and didn't it get 250% more healing?). Maybe it's capped at that? >.< I really don't know if the problem is only mine.
Ambush applies it's damage to team mates and companions when a buff power is used directly after Ambush. I have confirmed this with both Boar's Hide and Oaken Skin. It's probable that all team wide buffs are showing this behavior when paired with Ambush. When I first came across this behavior I was using the Nature feat capstone and the corresponding feats of the powers that dealt friendly fire damage.
Feedback
1) Please consider severely curtailing the sound effects attached to Careful Attack. It will drive you bat**** insane after using it for more than two minutes considering you can hold the button down and it just...keeps...going. When paired with the added sound effect from Careful Attack's damage ticking...it add's to up a cacophony of unrelated sound effects almost immediately when paired with the bleed damage from Rain of Swords. (Or any other applied DoT.)
2) Would it be possible to consider Ambush as a buff to either the healing or mitigation buff's as well as damage? I.E. cast Ambush and your next heal or buff power is increased by X percentage. As read, that is what I was attempting to do when I discovered I could murder my own companions. It seemed logical considering the tool tip description does not specify damage dealing powers as the sole beneficiary of this encounter.
3) To make off-heal/mitigation buff spec from Nature slightly more viable, I feel like the heal from Hunter's Teamwork should perhaps be slightly reduced and the heal over time effect from Oaken Skin be raised by another 75%-100%. The HoT effect still feels like it's not enough to really justify using it when considering Binding Arrow is it's flip-side; which isn't of any real use in most of the upper content with it's exceedingly low hit-count and unreliable snare.
I would almost suggest getting rid of the ranged option and reworking it to either hit more targets or provide a 100% root effect on it's two targets. Something feels off about it in general; and I think the two target maximum is what really hinders this from being useful. A standard 5-target snare for a ranged class isn't too much to ask, but in doing so the damage it does would clearly need to drop.
Otherwise I really like pretty much everything about Pathfinder without actually taking it into T1/T2 content. It's a solid paragon to back up the somewhat lackluster Nature spec, although I think ultimately the best performance will likely come from pairing it with Archery or Combat feats to drive damage while providing heals/buffs almost entirely through Hunter's Teamwork.
Really good job on this one, it's not quite there but it's definitely a great direction for buff/off-heal/debuff/mobility minded players. DPS folks aren't going to be excited about this one I don't think, and with the other changes (Split Shot in particular) this still doesn't offer a great Paragon option for Ranged DPS players going forward. At least in the AoE department, it would seem.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
ok, been messing with HR on preview since the update,
truthfully, in my opinion the class is ruined. there is no reliable heavy damage. i find no fun now, when virtually anything i do i gets interrupted. if our abilities are gonna be so easily interrupted then they should **** well be devastating when we do hit.
aimed shot is a one use ability in combat, on an a twill 0.o think about that, you get to use it one time per combat. its easily interrupted and animation plus root, makes it almost not worth it, though it is about our highest damage skill.
ambush, really? aimed shot cancels stealth; o.0 really? any dot skill on the field that you have already cast, cancels it; o.0 really?
electric shot still not worth it, too slow, not reliable.
our best damage coming from aoe placement powers o.0 really? abilities that everything just walks through to avoid?
as an archer, there is not much going for us with these changes, our damage output has gone down, our range "advantage" is not helping when our best abilities freeze us in place while we spend 10 minutes charging up a shot.
think i am out of here with these changes, call me when you have a RANGED STRIKER CLASS, i will not be the only HR leaving the game with these changes.
it was hard enough to get into dungeons, so much so, i stopped even trying along time ago. because HR"S where not needed, or wanted in dungeons. none of these changes will help the HR, in the long run it makes it a much harder class to PLAY, and have fun with. DEVS have you even played PVE with an hr? do you realize that in solo pve content everything comes right at you, and if you do not have enough damage output you will be sucking potions into poverty.
you have turned a ranged class, into a semi-do everything not really good class. spend **** near 2 times longer killing things, spend more on potions, so 2 times the work, with alot less reward. GOD we already have 3 melee classes, we needed a ranged striker, the player base wanted a ranged striker class. not this semi-half good at all crud.
this, is doing nothing but driving people away, i will put money on it. people came to the game for CO-OP pve, but you are running all your changes around PVP, shoving pvp down our throats. ruining a class because cry babies in pvp had a hard time killing us O.0.
you have not once come to us to explain anything, these changes will ruin the game for casual players.
ya from a disgruntled player, i will not be the only one.
CRUEL RECOVERY: 200-250 temporary HP every critical feels like too weak of an effect.
BEAR TRAP:
1.) The time it takes me to deploy the Bear Trap (how long it takes me to aim and click) is not equal to the amount of damage and stun time it applies. I could do more damage w/ rapid shot in the time it takes to deploy the bear trap and the stun doesn't make up for that. I would suggest 2500-3000 damage instead of 1200-1400.
2.) This will be easy to avoid in PvP unless it's dropped right on top of a stationary target. I suggest a 15' area of effect trigger, but still only do damage to the first target that triggers it. Increasing the radius of the trigger area would help the first issue as well.
CAREFUL ATTACK: This isn't good. I think just totally changing this one around to do something else would be the best. An PBAOE DoT and debuff with a cast time similar to aimed strike maybe?
ambush, really? aimed shot cancels stealth; o.0 really? any dot skill on the field that you have already cast, cancels it; o.0 really?
With the latest patch, you can now move with ambush and fire from stealth. Abilities like Aimed Shot don't cancel it, so you can use Ambush(stealth)->dodge->fire one Aimed Shot from stealth->fire next Aimed Shot half from stealth (without the new feat). Vs. PvE mobs at my lvl I can shot always 2 Aimed Shots if the don't drop some aoe/dot on me.....
However I agree it would be better if dmg would not cancel Aimed Shot and just increase the time it takes to fire one shot. Only full cc (stun/hold) should cancel it, but maybe we run into PvP issues here....................
FEEDBACK: (Probably) Due to power stat rework, Clear the Ground is too weak. CtG are fast, but small dmg slashes. Changing the definition of power from +x dmg to +x% dmg is disadvantage to this skill. In effect we can observe max 25% boost for CtG instead of mentioned 50%.
I'm in total agreement with bulletdancer.
The Hunter Ranger as a valid class in Neverwinter PVE is currently dead.
I would go so far as to say unplayable.
I tried solo, I tried running alongside a rogue. I was unable to survive a single encounter.
I havn't tested the new paragon as i have no interest in playing a Druid with a bow.
ok, been messing with HR on preview since the update,
there is no reliable heavy damage.
It seems to me that there's actually a lot of heavy damage options now that you can add another 15% damage onto an aimed shot with Hawk Eye, then Ambush to Hawk Shot, then another aimed shot and you can repeat. Ambush seems to be a deaggro while you're stealthed, and I didn't notice Aimed Shot cancelling stealth until it actually fired.
It's just that a lot of the damage is single target, although I didn't play around with Ambush in an AoE setting yet to see what the damage redux on multiple targets looks like. Now you just need to chain your encounters into buffing your at-will powers it would seem, seems more useful in PvP though given single targets overall PvE performance is rather poor.
i find no fun now, when virtually anything i do i gets interrupted. if our abilities are gonna be so easily interrupted then they should **** well be devastating when we do hit.
There are a lot of ways around the interrupt on Aimed Shot, but none of them are complete immunity from it. Honestly, I think changing Aimed Shot so that DoT's don't interrupt it would be best. There are some dungeons where you simply can not use Aimed Shot because everything that hits you applies at least one damage over time effect and with these changes Aimed Shot becomes a lot more central to get as much as you can out of that 15% buff from Hawk Eye.
At least those are my thoughts on Pathfinder, Storm Warden isn't the subject of this thread so I'll try to refrain from going there beyond saying it's still good for Combat at the very least.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
Bug: Ambush / Aspect of the Serpent Interaction
Ambush builds up to 5 stacks of melee-buff Aspect of the Serpent stacks almost instantly during it's stealth window. This may, or may not, be working as intended but the damage tick from Ambush appears to be consuming 4 out of 5 of those stacks. This results in the following chain of events...
Cast Ambush > Stay in Stealth, build 5 melee-buff stacks of AotS > Fire Hawk Shot > 1 stack of AotS remains.
It's hard to judge if Ambush is taking full advantage of the 4 consumed AotS stacks in Ambushes applied damage tick without in depth parse analysis that I do not have time for. It's unclear what exactly is consuming that many stacks off one attack, when as read it's supposed to only consume one.
It also seems like it shouldn't consume any melee-buff stacks given that it is a ranged attack that ticks the Ambush damage. Perhaps the Ambush tick itself is considered a melee attack within AotS?
Regardless that still doesn't explain the increased stack consumption which may, or may not, result in larger than intended damage numbers in a shorter time frame than intended.
Feedback: Bear Trap
Bear Trap is incredibly difficult to use without making Hawk Eye's damage buff very unpredictable.
It seems that with Bear Trap's damage being delayed by a second or two even if thrown under a living target, it can consume both Ambush and Hawk Eye's buff. This is further exacerbated by Bear Trap being a mid-length-duration deployable with an unpredictable damage time if used preemptively; meaning that it's difficult to know when it's 'safe' to use damage boosts without 'wasting' them on a Bear Trap snapping shut.
This isn't such a big issue with Ambush, and is even a good thing, as it doesn't have any bearing on the size of Ambush's proc damage to use it with a relatively low damage single-target mez.
With the new 15% flat increase attached to Hawk Eye it becomes a lot more frustrating to 'waste' it's damage boost given that it's size is dictated by the power that proc's it.
I.E. This means I want to be able to accurately judge which power is going to receive that extra 15%.
This same issue is likely present with Rain of Swords bleed ticks as well, and I will test that at a later time.
MoF/Thaum CWSS/Thaum CWIV/Protector GFSW/Combat HRSM/Destroyer GWFWK/Executioner TRDO/Faithful DC
Comments
BAM!. thats precisely how I look at it. Options is what makes the game (and DnD as a whole) interesting and fun. And this was my outlook on HR when they were first introduced on the preview shard, and remains til this day.
Think that is what I have been saying...and it is the truth.
Any idea when these changes are slated for arrival? Or did I miss the something and they have already been implemented.
From what i understand they will be implemented today in a new build.
Hoping we have a new build today.
Thank you for the continued feedback!
The new version does not get any damage bonus when enemy's hp drops.
Thorn Strike
The effect area is too small and the skill tends to miss targets on both sides.
Split the sky
This skill animation should be quicker. It is too slow for a fast pace class like ranger.
Bug: Hunter's teamwork
Supply dropped from the killed mob does not give any AP, Stamina or HP.
Bug: Careful Attack
Most of the time, it does not do any damage. It seems to be using other skills or DoT/Damage boons before/after will trigger its damage but this is also very randomly.
Edited: Updated what I recently found.
BTW. I know that it isn't closely related with the topic, but it's very important, so I will say this due to the occasion: Could u put a "Bobby The Puncher" or something like that to the Trade of Blades ? Some people want also to test defensive skills and stats, not only offensive. OFC it would require some enlargement of actual Trade of Blades...
I don't know that this is entirely true. When using Aspect of the Falcon, I am sometimes at the far edge of my range and I don't see the numbers pop up when I use Aimed Shot. I noticed it almost every run through Respen's Game because the grid lines on the floor made it easy to find my favorite spot for the end boss. On the same runs that I didn't see my damage totals, I still got the most damage under the Paingiver tab of the end leaderboards. Since I was mostly running with level 60 players of varying classes, I don't see how I could get that much damage if I was effectively sitting out the final fight. Have you pulled up the combat data in the chat options to verify your claim? I strongly suspect that it is just an issue with not showing the nifty numbers rather than not doing damage at all.
Thorn Strike: This skill is still displaying much higher damage in the tooltip than it can actually hit for. Versus dummies, tooltip min / max damage is the min or max non-crit damage you should see. The skill always does less damage than the minimum displayed in the tooltip, making it impossible to tell whether or not the up to +30% damage as target health decreases aspect of the skill is working. That aside, in pvp, this skill misses far more often than it hits. Quicker activation was a great addition to the skill, but it needs to become targeted to become remotely usable. Also, +50% damage really was not very much. Maybe try +75% damage of what is on live server.
side note - Thorn Ward(ranged version): Critical attacks are not procing cooldown reduction from Prime Critical.
Boar Charge: This change is absolutely fantastic, and is exactly what needs to happen to Thorn Strike. The only thing left wrong with the skill is the ~1 second delay after using it. The user is stuck and unable to use any skill of any sort for about 1 second after using Boar Charge, which seriously hinders it's performance.
Electric Shot: I thought you were out of your mind giving this skill such a huge buff, but the sad truth is that it is honestly still pretty much unusable due to the animation time.
Clear the Ground: This change is less of a buff than I thought, but I also thought that the skill didn't really need a buff.
General Comments:
When the dust settles with these changes, regardless of anyone's personal feelings, what will be very obvious is that the real loser in all of this is the Combat paragon tree. As it currently stands, Archery is a vastly more offensive tree and Combat is slightly more defensive.
What is Combat left with? Elusive Hunter. From parses, this is about +6.5% deflect overall. That is not very inspiring. Expert skirmisher is also ok, but it is nothing to write home about.
With the changes to Stormstep Action and Fox Shift, Archery becomes less of a personal choice and more of a requisite - Archery can just churn out so many more encounters per pvp match than Combat, making Combat seem incredibly slow and clunky.
Adding some additional small utility to tier 3 and above combat feats could go a long way in making it an actual option again. Maybe something like +x% deflect / crit severity on Elusive Hunter / Bleeding Precision. Master of Combat could really use an overhaul, too. 17% is a nice D&D number (essentially rolling a d6), but it is also too low. Even bumping this up to 20% would probably make a noticeable difference.
Reading this and thinking, "Maybe the Archery tree is too strong, we should reduce some effects!" would be a terrible mistake. The Archery tree is not too strong, Combat is just far too weak.
Can you still be knocked out of Fox Shift?
It's bad for me that I am not at home and cannot go to try it too
Because that I will ask here, can someone see what happen with damage on RoA/S, Hawk Shot/Eye, Commanding Shot/Stag Heart please.
Edit:
What about feat for Archery tree to speed up animations for At-Wills (some of them or all) ?
Have seen this only once. Could not pickup one of the tiny bags in Vellosk.
However I found this ability quite useless considering you get 200-450hps (crits) back at my lvl for each supply drop.
Not only this but Split Shot does ~30%-50% more dmg if you use it repeatedly plus it has a much better cone vs the aoe range from ES. I have still no reason to switch to ES.
I hope this is not a bug, but it is not listed in the patch notes. You can now move if you use Ambush, it no longer breaks the stealth but dmg from aoe attacks will break it instantly. I hope it stays this way......
Part 1: NW-DMFKR9RPL http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?427711-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-1
Part 2: NW-DLBTN8W28 http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?444281-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-2
Icewind Dale campaign Osthafen sehen & sterben (German)
NW-DMC3IOWAE http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?477201-Osthafen-sehen-amp-sterben
The stealth goes off from you as soon as one of the dots you already had on people hits, for example if you use a plaguefire like me currently the stealth doesn't last more than half a second. I suppose it's the same case for all bleeds on powers. Unless you don't use any DOT powers or enchants I find this stealth would be rendered useless.
I've been wanting a trap like power for ages but to get it currently I'm going to need to remove any powers that have bleeds and change from plague fire to something else just to make ambush not as pointless.
A Playlist of my CO PvP video's
OAK SKIN: The buff it received is good and necessary considering most of my HP regeneration was from Split Shot life steal.
SPLIT SHOT: Still will be need to be slotted for dungeons with massive amount of adds, but HR's shouldn't be relying on it over encounters anymore.
ELECTRIC SHOT: Much improved, but the only reason to use it over Split Shot is for it's melee counterpart. Adding a secondary effect might give people a reason to use it.
FOX SHIFT: Is still good when facing 2 or more targets, lost some usefulness against single targets (pvp). It would be nice if the cool down on it was reduced by a few seconds to compensate.
COLD STEEL HURRICANE: Still a waste of points. I know no changes were made to this, but I feel like it must be mentioned.
AMBUSH: Only good for getting in and out of combat unnoticed. If that's the intention then it's perfect. If it is meant to help during combat then it needs some tweaking (I haven't tested the latest patch). It seems like this encounter should go hand-in-hand with Aimed Shot, but as soon as you click the mouse button your stealth drops allowing Aimed Shot to get interrupted by mobs that quickly find you. - Issue w/ Aimed Shot fixed. HR stays in stealth until shot is released.
BUGS(?):
HUNTERS CACHE: I seem to only be able to pick up the cache randomly. I can run over it's location over and over but I will not pick it up. If it's a health issue, I should be able to pick it up even if I'm at full health due to party members that may need it.
BOARS CHARGE: Unless it was fixed in the latest patch (I didn't test it), you can still activate the ability when out of range of a target, which will result in nearly the same problem it had before. - Tested today, seems to be fixed.
In the previous patch my oak skin gave 3.2k healing at 4.5k power, now it gives 2.9 since yesterday patch (that should have improved it a lot). Nothing was changed in my stats, nor in the 'healing buff' gained from power. In NW (dragon server) I heal 2.8k with oak skin. With a 100% improvement it whould give roughly 4k (at least!) , but I got only 900 healing ( and didn't it get 250% more healing?). Maybe it's capped at that? >.< I really don't know if the problem is only mine.
Ambush applies it's damage to team mates and companions when a buff power is used directly after Ambush. I have confirmed this with both Boar's Hide and Oaken Skin. It's probable that all team wide buffs are showing this behavior when paired with Ambush. When I first came across this behavior I was using the Nature feat capstone and the corresponding feats of the powers that dealt friendly fire damage.
Feedback
1) Please consider severely curtailing the sound effects attached to Careful Attack. It will drive you bat**** insane after using it for more than two minutes considering you can hold the button down and it just...keeps...going. When paired with the added sound effect from Careful Attack's damage ticking...it add's to up a cacophony of unrelated sound effects almost immediately when paired with the bleed damage from Rain of Swords. (Or any other applied DoT.)
2) Would it be possible to consider Ambush as a buff to either the healing or mitigation buff's as well as damage? I.E. cast Ambush and your next heal or buff power is increased by X percentage. As read, that is what I was attempting to do when I discovered I could murder my own companions. It seemed logical considering the tool tip description does not specify damage dealing powers as the sole beneficiary of this encounter.
3) To make off-heal/mitigation buff spec from Nature slightly more viable, I feel like the heal from Hunter's Teamwork should perhaps be slightly reduced and the heal over time effect from Oaken Skin be raised by another 75%-100%. The HoT effect still feels like it's not enough to really justify using it when considering Binding Arrow is it's flip-side; which isn't of any real use in most of the upper content with it's exceedingly low hit-count and unreliable snare.
I would almost suggest getting rid of the ranged option and reworking it to either hit more targets or provide a 100% root effect on it's two targets. Something feels off about it in general; and I think the two target maximum is what really hinders this from being useful. A standard 5-target snare for a ranged class isn't too much to ask, but in doing so the damage it does would clearly need to drop.
Otherwise I really like pretty much everything about Pathfinder without actually taking it into T1/T2 content. It's a solid paragon to back up the somewhat lackluster Nature spec, although I think ultimately the best performance will likely come from pairing it with Archery or Combat feats to drive damage while providing heals/buffs almost entirely through Hunter's Teamwork.
Really good job on this one, it's not quite there but it's definitely a great direction for buff/off-heal/debuff/mobility minded players. DPS folks aren't going to be excited about this one I don't think, and with the other changes (Split Shot in particular) this still doesn't offer a great Paragon option for Ranged DPS players going forward. At least in the AoE department, it would seem.
i was just about to say that
truthfully, in my opinion the class is ruined. there is no reliable heavy damage. i find no fun now, when virtually anything i do i gets interrupted. if our abilities are gonna be so easily interrupted then they should **** well be devastating when we do hit.
aimed shot is a one use ability in combat, on an a twill 0.o think about that, you get to use it one time per combat. its easily interrupted and animation plus root, makes it almost not worth it, though it is about our highest damage skill.
ambush, really? aimed shot cancels stealth; o.0 really? any dot skill on the field that you have already cast, cancels it; o.0 really?
electric shot still not worth it, too slow, not reliable.
our best damage coming from aoe placement powers o.0 really? abilities that everything just walks through to avoid?
as an archer, there is not much going for us with these changes, our damage output has gone down, our range "advantage" is not helping when our best abilities freeze us in place while we spend 10 minutes charging up a shot.
think i am out of here with these changes, call me when you have a RANGED STRIKER CLASS, i will not be the only HR leaving the game with these changes.
it was hard enough to get into dungeons, so much so, i stopped even trying along time ago. because HR"S where not needed, or wanted in dungeons. none of these changes will help the HR, in the long run it makes it a much harder class to PLAY, and have fun with. DEVS have you even played PVE with an hr? do you realize that in solo pve content everything comes right at you, and if you do not have enough damage output you will be sucking potions into poverty.
you have turned a ranged class, into a semi-do everything not really good class. spend **** near 2 times longer killing things, spend more on potions, so 2 times the work, with alot less reward. GOD we already have 3 melee classes, we needed a ranged striker, the player base wanted a ranged striker class. not this semi-half good at all crud.
this, is doing nothing but driving people away, i will put money on it. people came to the game for CO-OP pve, but you are running all your changes around PVP, shoving pvp down our throats. ruining a class because cry babies in pvp had a hard time killing us O.0.
you have not once come to us to explain anything, these changes will ruin the game for casual players.
ya from a disgruntled player, i will not be the only one.
BEAR TRAP:
1.) The time it takes me to deploy the Bear Trap (how long it takes me to aim and click) is not equal to the amount of damage and stun time it applies. I could do more damage w/ rapid shot in the time it takes to deploy the bear trap and the stun doesn't make up for that. I would suggest 2500-3000 damage instead of 1200-1400.
2.) This will be easy to avoid in PvP unless it's dropped right on top of a stationary target. I suggest a 15' area of effect trigger, but still only do damage to the first target that triggers it. Increasing the radius of the trigger area would help the first issue as well.
CAREFUL ATTACK: This isn't good. I think just totally changing this one around to do something else would be the best. An PBAOE DoT and debuff with a cast time similar to aimed strike maybe?
With the latest patch, you can now move with ambush and fire from stealth. Abilities like Aimed Shot don't cancel it, so you can use Ambush(stealth)->dodge->fire one Aimed Shot from stealth->fire next Aimed Shot half from stealth (without the new feat). Vs. PvE mobs at my lvl I can shot always 2 Aimed Shots if the don't drop some aoe/dot on me.....
However I agree it would be better if dmg would not cancel Aimed Shot and just increase the time it takes to fire one shot. Only full cc (stun/hold) should cancel it, but maybe we run into PvP issues here....................
Part 1: NW-DMFKR9RPL http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?427711-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-1
Part 2: NW-DLBTN8W28 http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?444281-Brunnen-des-Lichts-Teil-2
Icewind Dale campaign Osthafen sehen & sterben (German)
NW-DMC3IOWAE http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?477201-Osthafen-sehen-amp-sterben
The Hunter Ranger as a valid class in Neverwinter PVE is currently dead.
I would go so far as to say unplayable.
I tried solo, I tried running alongside a rogue. I was unable to survive a single encounter.
I havn't tested the new paragon as i have no interest in playing a Druid with a bow.
It seems to me that there's actually a lot of heavy damage options now that you can add another 15% damage onto an aimed shot with Hawk Eye, then Ambush to Hawk Shot, then another aimed shot and you can repeat. Ambush seems to be a deaggro while you're stealthed, and I didn't notice Aimed Shot cancelling stealth until it actually fired.
It's just that a lot of the damage is single target, although I didn't play around with Ambush in an AoE setting yet to see what the damage redux on multiple targets looks like. Now you just need to chain your encounters into buffing your at-will powers it would seem, seems more useful in PvP though given single targets overall PvE performance is rather poor.
There are a lot of ways around the interrupt on Aimed Shot, but none of them are complete immunity from it. Honestly, I think changing Aimed Shot so that DoT's don't interrupt it would be best. There are some dungeons where you simply can not use Aimed Shot because everything that hits you applies at least one damage over time effect and with these changes Aimed Shot becomes a lot more central to get as much as you can out of that 15% buff from Hawk Eye.
At least those are my thoughts on Pathfinder, Storm Warden isn't the subject of this thread so I'll try to refrain from going there beyond saying it's still good for Combat at the very least.
Ambush builds up to 5 stacks of melee-buff Aspect of the Serpent stacks almost instantly during it's stealth window. This may, or may not, be working as intended but the damage tick from Ambush appears to be consuming 4 out of 5 of those stacks. This results in the following chain of events...
Cast Ambush > Stay in Stealth, build 5 melee-buff stacks of AotS > Fire Hawk Shot > 1 stack of AotS remains.
It's hard to judge if Ambush is taking full advantage of the 4 consumed AotS stacks in Ambushes applied damage tick without in depth parse analysis that I do not have time for. It's unclear what exactly is consuming that many stacks off one attack, when as read it's supposed to only consume one.
It also seems like it shouldn't consume any melee-buff stacks given that it is a ranged attack that ticks the Ambush damage. Perhaps the Ambush tick itself is considered a melee attack within AotS?
Regardless that still doesn't explain the increased stack consumption which may, or may not, result in larger than intended damage numbers in a shorter time frame than intended.
Feedback: Bear Trap
Bear Trap is incredibly difficult to use without making Hawk Eye's damage buff very unpredictable.
It seems that with Bear Trap's damage being delayed by a second or two even if thrown under a living target, it can consume both Ambush and Hawk Eye's buff. This is further exacerbated by Bear Trap being a mid-length-duration deployable with an unpredictable damage time if used preemptively; meaning that it's difficult to know when it's 'safe' to use damage boosts without 'wasting' them on a Bear Trap snapping shut.
This isn't such a big issue with Ambush, and is even a good thing, as it doesn't have any bearing on the size of Ambush's proc damage to use it with a relatively low damage single-target mez.
With the new 15% flat increase attached to Hawk Eye it becomes a lot more frustrating to 'waste' it's damage boost given that it's size is dictated by the power that proc's it.
I.E. This means I want to be able to accurately judge which power is going to receive that extra 15%.
This same issue is likely present with Rain of Swords bleed ticks as well, and I will test that at a later time.