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Official M19: Ranger Feedback
joebot
Member, Cryptic Developer Posts: 15Cryptic Developer › Cryptic Developer
Good day all! This thread is for providing bug reports and feedback on the changes made to the Ranger in Module 19.
Along with the changes in the M18 Class Balance Adjustments thread, we continue to make adjustments to improve the performance of our classes. It is important to note that while we continue to tune the function and numbers of powers, what you see on preview can sometimes change before launch. However, you know your class best so we wanted to get your hands on these changes as soon as possible.
At-wills
Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, asking a question, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:
Examples:
Bug: Commander in Chief does not increase the damage of my Aimed Shot.
Feedback: I don't like the animation for Aimed Shot.
Along with the changes in the M18 Class Balance Adjustments thread, we continue to make adjustments to improve the performance of our classes. It is important to note that while we continue to tune the function and numbers of powers, what you see on preview can sometimes change before launch. However, you know your class best so we wanted to get your hands on these changes as soon as possible.
At-wills
- Aimed Shot: Reduced charge time to 1 second down from 1.25 seconds.
- Rate of Change: Increased initial buff to 10%, up from 5%, and reduces by 2% every second.
- Forestbond: Increased the cooldown reduction from 5% to 10% for Strong Grasping Roots and Thorned Roots. Weak Grasping Roots remains
5%. - Longstrider's Shot - cooldown reduced from 18 seconds to 16 seconds
- Commander in Chief: Increased projectile buff damage to from 5% up to 10%.
- Biting Snares - no longer requires a stance shift and now grants the player 1% of their Action Points when they apply grasping or thorned roots
- Cordon of Arrows - now applies Strong Grasping Roots instead of a normal root
Formatting Your Feedback and Bugs
For posting feedback and bugs, please follow the following format to ensure your feedback and bugs are seen clearly and processed in a timely manner, thank you!Type: Bug/Feedback (Please only choose one)
If you are listing a bug please have this text in RED, if you are posting an opinion or feedback please use CYAN. If you are replying to another user's post, asking a question, or just engaging in general discussion, please do not color your posts, general discussion is welcome and we will read all of it, regardless of color! You can use BBCode to color your text:
<font color=cyan>This text will display in cyan.</font>
<font color=red>This text will display in red.</font>Examples:
Bug: Commander in Chief does not increase the damage of my Aimed Shot.
Feedback: I don't like the animation for Aimed Shot.
Post edited by noworries#8859 on
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The general feedback is the changes the Devs keep making is Dungeon/group centric dps. Most of NW content is SOLO.
Level 1-80 is solo.
Events are solo.
Your 18 Campaigns are solo(!!!)
Dailies and Weeklies are solo.
Legacy Campaigns weeklies are solo.
What am I driving at ( and I keep repeating this and devs keep ignoring this simple and obvious concept ), you need to provide changes/builds that allow players to solo. Because the newbs who can't effectively solo at their chosen class/tree will quit when they struggle and realize their damage/rotation is subpar and it taking too much time and effort.
Which lead to the Hunter Archer (range only, no melee) feedback:
There's still no synergy/flow/rotation. The damage is actually good. But without synergy/flow/rotation newbies will be slaughtered in mid-high level campaigns when they get overwhelmed by mobs during solo play. And low level campaigns will require extra effort and time vs. other classes.
Some suggested changes:
Dodge (shift+move) - we have HALF the dodge of any other class, so they need significant increase.
Split Shot need damage increase
Marauder's escape need cooldown significantly reduced/damage slightly reduced/extra effect: bonus damage vs. rooted targets.
Rain of Arrows: increase the Area/extra effect: bonus damage vs rooted targets
Hunter Warden (range only, no melee)
Dodge: double the dodge range (half of other classes).
Electric shot (at will): increase damage to 60 (from 40)
Rapidshot (at will): increase damage to 75 (from 50) / bonus damage vs rooted targets
Rain of Arrows: see above.
Split the Sky: instant cast/increase rate of attack or targets getting hit/extra damage vs rooted target.
Binding Arrow: peripheral splash area damage 200/slightly decrease main target damage to 400 from 550/bonus damage vs rooted targets.
Some of these suggested changes only require changing numbers such as at-will. Look how pathetic Rapidshot is. How do you single-target dps with a woefully anemic 50 magnitude with no extra effect?
(note: not an extensive feedback, just on the fly observations from testing preview esp. Hunter Archer)
do your job and balance once for all all classes to normal rating, im thinkin you like blind or you take nubs like examples for dps increases ... i know peoples that are alot over the dps of any other (class comparison), i know rangers making alot less than me...
ranger hunter its the worst path of all game, its under thauma cw!!! what a shame, we level up our characters and then you nerf ranger, cw remain on top dps after fake nerf and then buff Cleric (top dps atm....) you really blind guys... just cause no one its playn dc dps you buff it
shame on you, thats not cool, thats not how a game works and lives
hindering strike still does zero dmg and doesnt proc cooldown
Keep the melee warden where it is and change the other paragon path to something very similar to the old trapper with 0 cooldowns and sizable team buffs.
Literally every other class in the game can do what the Ranger can, but they do it better. Ranger had its niche when it could alternate melee/ranged and be of use in a team setting. Now there is no reason to invite an HR to any group over other classes.
General
- Fox shift/fox cunning needs to be available to both paragons, have its cooldown reduced to around 15 seconds in both stances and melee magnitude increased to 450. Its targeting should be reverted to the less clunky version from before m16.
- Aspect of the lone wolf should give % deflect instead of flat, around 20% base and 4% for every nearby enemy (max 5). It also needs to be available to both paragons.
- Fix hindering strike fail cast.
Warden- Skirmisher's gambit should only reduce critical strike by 5000.
- Focused damage buff should be reverted to pre-nerf.
- To the wind (throw caution feat) is useless and should be replaced by a buff to a usable power, or better yet by a general damage or utility buff.
HunterMelee Warden (formerly know as Combat) used to be as pathethic as Archery (Stormwardedn). When the old Neverwinter developer @amenar was rebalancing the ranger, he got taken advantage by the Combat players and it got overbuffed. This is the time when Trapper was king and literally double/triple the damage of combat/archery with very little effort.
I on the other hand gave him MODERATE/BALANCED suggestions/advice on Archer. I'm not pushing anything broken for archery. I just want balance of the trees and classes. I didn't give the suggestions to make Combat (now called Melee Warden) overpowered.
This all happened before the mod 16 revamp. What niche are you talking about? nobody used to play Combat because it was as weak as Archery. Players gravitate towards strong classes like Warden (Combat) because it got overbuffed.
Changes:
Aimed Shot: it is currently at 1.4 sec (not 1) down from 1.65 (not 1.25). I checked with a stopwatch and it is actually 1.4 as the tooltip says. Going down to 1 sec like listed in the opening post would help a lot but is not yet implemented.
Hindering Strike: it still misses all targets too often and goes to cooldown doing nothing (it doesn't trigger Flurry by the way)
Biting Snares: there's a change (worsening it) to 1% AP generation everytime we apply roots
Overall feeling:
My guess is that the idea is to support two playstiles. A kind of old-style Trapper using roots and pure single-target Archer.
Changes are in the right direction but there are still improvements to do.
Trapper: you still go out of encounters after a while especially against single targets (the meta, considering that Zariel and Halaster are single target fights) and keeping a proper rotation is quite difficult. Plant Growth is seriously underperforming in terms of damage and long cooldown. Bringing back the old Swiftness of the Fox in place of Forestbond would definitely make everything smoother and support this kind of playstile.
Archer: will have to test it with the 1 sec cooldown Aimed Shot but I think it will still be less performing than cookie cutter Melee Warden. The main issue here is very long cooldowns on encounters. A way to reduce those should be available or Aimed Shot dps should be brought at the right level to compensate, or Rain of Arrows should be made stronger to provide more sustained DPS against a single target, or Lonstrider should provide the old buff to beef up at-wills during cooldown of encounters. Please bring Binding Arrow to the Hunter. It's a root power and all feat support for it is on the Hunter side.
Some other issues:
- Ambush and Hawk Shot are dead powers. Nobody is going to use them. Rapid Volley is interesting in some places (say CotDG elevator) but useless most of the time
- several class features are useless (Aspect of the Pack, Pathfinder's Action Cruel Recovery, Primal Instincts)
- old Nature powers are not interesting anymore (Stag Heart, Hawk Eye,...) due to lack of feat/feature synergy. Stag Heart will also interfere with Paladins.
The main question I would have is: what types of playstyles do you want to support? I made some examples in this thread some time ago.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter#/discussion/1253783/state-of-the-ranger
If you tell us what your idea of playstyles is we can try to help getting there. I'm not talking of performance, that one can be easily tweaked lowering or increasing a few magnitudes, I'm talking about achieving certain playstiles.
Hope this helps.
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
The second group of theorycrafters believe that Archers should be higher burst damage that melee and trappers because they must remain in place for longer times and actually use their main hand which thematically should to less hits but greater damage than offhands.
When mod 16 came out most other classes removed one of their feet trees mostly/completely out of existance, Rangers rather than just having one Melee and one Ranged essentially got 4, 1 melee, 1 trapper, 1 single target Archer, one Aoe Archer. When you look at the Wizard it basically became just 2, a single target or and aoe. Warden is a Melee, we can pretend that the Archer sie is aoe but it is at a severe disadvantage even to the melee, the go to atwill for melee is 140 magnitude (70x2 for flurry). That at will is very poor from the archery side, it misses with elevation changes, u have to always be standing below the targets elevation to even hit. the next best is 50 mag? I am sorry 50 mag with longer versus 140 mag it is never in doubt. Which brings us to Hunter or should we say trapper or single target Archer. Top of the list, 30% less Critical severity as base, yes you can achieve 24% after using four disruptive shots for 10 sec, or a climbing scale of severity over 40 seconds, still not equal to 30% sev from Warden and I am not even going to get started on that.
If you really want to start a serious adjustment to Hunter the first thing I would do is change the first feat "Longshot" from "just encounter powers" to "ranged powers" then monitor its performance and reduce magnitudes, the reductions in cast times for Aim Shot are appreciated it has been an issue for a long time, but since it can be interupted or cancelled it will not have a significant increase in dps output in real time battle situations.<\font>
Hindering Strike really needs a fix about its reliability in hitting targets within range.
Change to Biting Snares on preview will get it removed at least from our boss set-ups - was that your intention? (for mob fights there is no benefit in having bonus AP, and the new version is sub-par on bosses)
Stag Heart should give yellow bars instead of blue - pally shields are pillars of your trial balancing and we should not have a power with unspoken tooltip "make the trial run fail".
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80
Hello @joebot#9387,
My namma Sume and I'm known by many for playing as well as making guide videos on the class Ranger. I finally decided to break my forum silence because I believe in you regarding the class balance, more specifically, the recent Hunter changes above. I also understand that you're operating under limited time and resources so I always keep that in mind as I type this post.
Let's start with a bug first since this particular one hinders class balancing for the Ranger as a whole. Whenever Strong Grasping Roots (SGR) or Weak Grasping Roots (WGR) is applied to a control immune target, an extra amount of damage is dealt immediately. That sounds familiar to the second part of the feat Thorned Roots because it is, well, not exactly... This "feature" is always active whether the Ranger has the feat Thorned Roots or not, hence the bug. This means that Warden also benefits from applying roots to control immune targets for the extra damage (approximately 3-4% of DPS in ToMM). I suspect that this a leftover stuff from pre-mod 16.
The extra damage is labeled "Grasping Roots". Note the difference in damage coming from SGR (Constricting Arrow) and WGR (Hindering Shot).
When the feat Thorned Roots is chosen, the Grasping Roots damage is overridden but only for SGR. The Grasping Roots damage from WGR remains the same.
My suggestion for correcting this bug is to either...
- Make it truly a feature by updating the class mechanic Grasping Roots tooltips accordingly, however, this doesn't resolve the issue where taking the Thorned Roots feat overrides the Grasping Roots damage coming from SGR.
- Or remove it from the game completely but doing so would consequently nerf the Ranger's DPS. If you decide to go with this, please consider changing the Warden's feat Focused back to 25% at full stack and/or Skirmisher's Gambit back to 30% crit severity.
Note that melee Warden is currently lacking behind Arbiter, Arcanist, Blademaster, Dreadnought, and sometimes, Assassin. I believe that undoing those nerfs would put the melee Warden somewhere in the middle of the pack.
I understand that you want to prioritize rebalancing the Hunter paragon but I would like to include my suggestions for Warden as well.
Warden:
Deft Strikes
Increase the damage buff from 10% to 15%.
- Focused is much easier to use compared to Deft Strikes and 10% is hardly rewarding for a stance-switching playstyle.
Swiftness of the Fox
Increase the cooldown reduction from 1s to 1.5s and from 0.5s to 1s for Cordon of Arrows and Hindering Shot.
- This change should make the feat more competitive with Storm's Recovery for a stance-switching playstyle.
Aspect of the Serpent
Increase the damage buff from 2% per stack to 4% per stack.
- This change would improve the synergy between this class feature and the stance-switching playstyle for both paragons.
Those suggestions should make hybrid Warden more viable. I'm fairly certain that a lot of Ranger players would like to use both their bow and blades more or less equally. These 3 changes should open up the Warden for another build instead of being in melee stance almost all the time.
Hunter:
Rate of Change
Increase initial buff to 20%, up from 10%, and reduces by 4% every second.
- 10% is still not enough when this feat is pitted against Longshot's 50% that has little drawback on melee encounters which by the way doesn't affect Gushing Wound's DoT and Thorned Roots from Hindering Strike.
Critical Action
Each application refreshes the existing stacks.
- This has been suggested before by RJC but I would like to reinforce this idea. While this change may sound quite powerful but in reality, in an endgame content such as ToMM and ZC (Zariel's Challenge), the boss becomes untargetable from time to time to give the players a short break mid-fight so maintaining the stacks is practically impossible. Also, this would make maintaining the Critical Action buff stacks more dependent on the player's skill with respect to AP generation and consumption.
Thorned Roots
Increase magnitude per second from 50 to 150.
- Depending on how you want to tackle the bug about the Grasping Roots I reported earlier in this post, Thorned Roots needs a serious buff if you truly want to revive the Trapper. Also, please remember that Thorned Roots doesn't stack on the same target and the duration is only 3s. Switching out Seeker's Vengeance or Aspect of the Falcon for Crushing Roots just to extend the duration to 6s is currently not worth it.
Biting Snares
Increase AP from 1% to 5%.
- Because this feat doesn't multi proc from hitting multiple targets at once, the value should go up. 1% AP is nothing compared to Predator, its competitor. "Master Trapper" still pops up when this feat procs, a leftover from pre-mod 16.
Forest Bond
Increase cooldown reduction from 10% to 20% for Strong Grasping Roots and Thorned Roots and from 5% to 10% for Weak Grasping Roots.
- This is a big increase but don't forget that the other feat basically offers a 10% damage buff with decent uptime. Also, this feat doesn't multi proc from hitting multiple targets at once.
Slasher's Expertise
Now decreases target's damage resistance by 10% for 10s.
- Melee damage doesn't quite fit in with the Hunter paragon, especially when the other feat, More Than Disruptive, is technically better which has a much higher uptime due to the relatively cheap AP cost of Disruptive Shot. This change turns Slasher's Mark into a team-friendly daily for setting up for a burst damage window.
Longstrider's Shot
Increase magnitude from 525 to 625.
- Encounters typically do something in addition to just dealing damage, and having a remarkably higher base damage counts as such. This change gives archery playstyle a defining encounter for single target damage similar to Dreadnought's Anvil of Doom Blademaster's Frenzy and Assassin's Assassinate.
Ambush
Increase magnitude from 115 to 350 and duration of added effect from 5s to 10s.
- This encounter has been one of the least used ones ever since it existed. This change would make it a better choice to use for archery depending on whether the player chooses to specialize in roots or pure damage. For comparison, Commanding Shot is currently so much better, especially with the new feat Commander in Chief.
Windwalk Strike
Increase magnitude from 140 to 200. Added effect: Strong Grasping Roots.
- I think it's about time that we have another melee encounter besides Hindering Strike that can apply Strong Grasping Roots. This power has a rather long cooldown and charges which means that it doesn't benefit from cooldown reductions. This change would make it more useful in AoE instead of being there only because Rapid Volley is slotted.
Careful Attack
Increase magnitude per hit from 10 to 30.
- This at-will is currently so weak that it is not worth the time spent to cast it, contributing to only about 1% of Hunter's damage.
While there are many more changes I would like to propose, I'll stop here and wait for your response. The main focus of my suggestion is to buff up underused powers and balance the feats against each other so that every choice makes a difference which hopefully creates variety within the class.
Archery has never been competitively viable ever since melee became the meta DPS build for Ranger since mod 10. Let's show them that the bow isn't just for decoration. It is our main weapon. What say you, joebot? Thank you for reading and I hope to hear from you soon ^_^
In my opinion this originates partly from to the good old „having to move a lot“+ the wardens relatively poor burst-capacity, so i would like to see this addressed, or at least compensated with sth. else. Rebuffing Focused‘s damage maybe, and/or doing things like that.
(If the devs are interested in the logs from the trial to check i can provide them.)
As in, even if it were yellow, it would still conflict with other sources of barrier.
Easiest way to check is the old Wheel of Elements Earth: get Wheel of Elements Earth, then cast a Legendary Lion combat power/get a Paladin healer. The Lion combat power/Paladin barrier will override the Wheel of Elements Earth. Nice job there, you buffed Sume and gave him permanent Ambush out of embarrassment.
:P
But that was a good call - it would be pointless to make any changes based on wrong premises.
I generaly agree with Sume feedback.
make root bug on boss a feature for both paragon with "basic" root and upgrade magnitude with a hunter feat.
in comparison to other class ranger lacks of flexibility: Fighter and barbarian can be tank and dps, paladin can be healer and tank, warlock can be dps and healer (in mod 19), cleric can be dps and healer. wizard, ranger and rogue have 2 paragon with dps role. wizard can be dps with arcanist or buff/debuff with thamaturge (and this is nice because can play what party needs), rogue and hr can't. Please try improve ranger flexibility with buff/debuff role or make viable pure archer and trapper build because we can only play melee from mod 13 and other class can do more damage on boss fight.
melee build have a simple playstyle and costant damage, in comparsion to melee build archer build have two big problem:
- high cd
- crit dependency that make it a coin flip dps
trapper are more difficult (and funny) to play, lower damage don't make it viable as dps.In Warden path player can't choose feat because only one choice is good.
Tier 1: I compared deft strike and focused with a switching rotation in 2 minutes fight with dummy. I do more damage with focused, feat designed for pure melee/archery build but it works well in switching stance (buff all 3 encounter instead only the first) -> Increase the damage buff from 10% to 15/20% .
Tier 2: with Storm's recovery this is the total reduction using marauderer's escape, costrict arrow and hindering shot (cordon of arrow have high CD and low magnitude) in a double rotation (3 melee - 3 ranged - 3 melee - 3 ranged):
- 0 0 0 | 0 0 0
- 3 0 0 | 0 0 0
- 6 3 0 | 0 0 0
- 6 3 0 | 0 0 0
- 6 3 0 | 3 0 0
- 6 6 3 | 6 3 0
- 9 6 6 | 6 3 0
- 12 9 6 | 6 3 0
- 12 9 6 | 6 6 3
- 12 9 6 | 9 6 6
with Swiftness of the Fox player gain less CD reduction, buff it for fit with switching build:6 3 0 | 6 3 0
12 9 6 | 12 9 6
- 0 0 0 | 0 0 0
- 1 0 0 | 0 0 0
- 1.5 0.5 0 | 0 0 0
- 2.5 1.5 1 | 0 0 0
- 3.5 2.5 2 | 1 0 0
- 4.5 4.5 4 | 3 2 1
- 5.5 4.5 5 | 4 3 2
- 6 5 5 | 4.5 3.5 2.5
- 7 6 6 | 4.5 4.5 3.5
- 8 7 7 | 5.5 4.5 4.5
tier 3: blade huricane is a stong feat and allow storm stike to do damage as encounter power, this feat with focused is the core of melee build damage, storm conduit is useless. this tier need a good pure archer feat or another switching stance feat4.5 3.5 3 | 2 1 0
9 8 8 | 6.5 5.5 4.5
tier 4: 25% crit severty is better then a buff on underpower encounter, increase magnitude of throw caution, buff duration of trow caution to 10s with this feat and increase damage buff
tier 5: we dont need nature's envoy for keep up flurry with melee rotation and enhanced conductivity buff the only daily we use in melee stance. rework it for fit better with switching build or design a new feat for pure archer (maybe with snipe daily ?)
encounter: we have 3.5 viable encounter (nice magnitude, casting time, CD)
1) hindering strike (hindering shot have low magnitute but 3 charge and root, maybe a little buff can help): can missfire> (but we dont have better choice so we keep play with bugged encounter), huge aoe damage and roots, works well in aoe and single target
2) marauderer's escape /slash: good magnitude and utility on both stance (that's what we need for play switching build)
3) boar charge. good magnitude, hit fast, usefull only in melee build because boar hide is useless (likes any other ranger buff, outdated for curent state of game, rework all buff pls)
3.5) constrict arrow: with a magnitude buff steal breeze can be nice in aoe, than this can be our 4 viable encounter
all other encounter have at least one problem that don't make it viable:
- low magnitude
- high cd
- useless buff
- high casting time
- "unluky pairnig" in other stance
daily: 2.5 daily viable: snipe and call of the storm, but only CotS have a feat for buff damage so it's better for dps, forest ghost have a nice utility thanks to shappard devotion insignia powerclass feature: 3 viable passive: blade storm, seeker's vengeance and twin blade storm (for aoe)
- some passive are outdated: aspect of the pack (the old one that give all party member combat advantage when stay near to ranger was nice) and aspect of the lone wolf.
- some passive need buff ( aspect of the serpent make viable switching build on both path)
- stormstep action need better cd reduction and maybe it's better for hunter paragon thanks to ap generation feet and disruptive shot
hunter paragon:at will:
- rapid shot vs aimed shot: reduce aimed shot/strike casting time to 1 second from 1.4/1.2 (like tooltip says), i don't like sacrifice mobility for maybe improve dps, rapid shot is a good at will for magnitude and casting time for both paragon, rapid strike have low magnitude but fast casting time.
- split shot: hunter need a good aoe at will like clear the ground, split shot have a casting mechanic that don't work well remove aim (clear the ground don't need target during casting) and allow fast recast, so split shot can be good for both paragon, split strike have higher casting time but same magnitude of rapid strike so it's not viable.
- hunter teamwork/careful attack: buff carefull attack damage, rework added effect of hunter teamwork with something useful during boss fight (damage debuff, damage resistence debuff, marked target effect trigger when ally hit boss) , that can be useful in a "support" hunter build
encounter: (for encounter viable in both paragon see warden encounter feedback)- ambush: short duration, buff to 10s or make all attack affected, buff magnitude
- bear trap: have low magnitude
- longstride: add strong roots
- gushing wounds: i don't like casting time over 1s but this power have good magnitude
- hawk shot: buff magnitude
- Hawkeye: as ambush, duration 10s, reduce cd for better party buff
- comanding shot: reduce casting time to 1.0 1.2 (i dont like long casting time, expecialy on a power that can be use as a party buff)
- stag heart: temporaly hit point works like shield ovveride paladin heal bufgix it so he can add yellow bar and works with paladin, reduce CD
- rapid volley/windwalk strike: increase magnitude and add roots for make it viable in aoe scenario
daily:- slasher's mark: need a better added effect.
class feature:- pathfinder's action and cruel recovery: useless and outdated, rework it
- primal istinct: with a buff rework this passive can be a core class feature in a support hunter build
feat:tier 1: rate of change need buff for switching stance
tier 2: if you leave the magnitude boost as basic root feature boost damage or roots and and a second effect, like a damage resistance debuff on boss and rooted target
tier 3: bittering snare give low ap gain buff it or predator is better in swithcing build
tier 4: buff cd reduction and make trapper great again
tier 5: disruptive shot increase party damage / slasher's mark increse party damage and reduce target damage
From mod 13 Ranger can only play melee build, in this year our rotation change from encounter+ x3 at-will to encounter - x4 at-will. I Hope to see other change soon and try trapper/switching build again because our funny "tab" machanics is useless now.
My suggestions:
1. Add a panel showing time to recharge the skill in another Stance.
2. Reduce the cast time of Commanding Shot, Snipe and Hawk Shot.
3. Make Hawk Shot usable without target.
4. Rework Rapid Volley to "Fires 5 arrows that fly at nearby enemies. If there are less than 5 enemies, then extra arrows fly into a random enemy from them. 5 charges." Now this skill is very difficult to get into the enemy.
5. Class Feature Aspect of the Pack, Cruel Recovery, Primal Instincts completely unusable. They should be replaced with completely different skills.
6. Fix Seismic Shot. Now the fact of damage depends on the angle of the camera. Therefore, very often the damage is not applied.
Also, warden is absolutely not overbuffed at all when you compare it to other classes. The Ranger is very clearly one of, if not the, worst classes DPS wise in the game at the current state. Tell me one thing that the Ranger excels at and I'll tell you a class that does it better.
I'd also echo concerns about changes to biting snares: the 10% gain with a 15sec cooldown, though marginally better than the old 20 sec cooldown, still isn't great; that said, it is far better than the proposed change to 1% ap gain per application of roots.
The only way the new system might be better than the status quo is if the 1% AP gain triggered by Biting Snares did so on a per-target-hit basis instead of a per-successful-application basis. The same could be said for Forestbond (although the changes on preview here are definitely better than the status quo).
When it comes to thorned roots, an alternative to increasing the magnitude of the dot (which is my preference) would be to allow them to stack (especially now that there are more encounters that trigger them). The grasping-root mechanic against cc-immune targets, though, still needs a serious buff (e.g. double the current 150, which would make hunters more viable in boss fights).
While on the subject, why make a distinction at all? Compare the thorned roots feat to the dreadnought feat prepared slam: the latter gives a flat buff of 280 magnitude to all aoe encounters (although it procs as a separate attack, tremor essentially goes from 340 to 620 and onlaught from 420 to 700). If you follow a heavy slash-tremor-heavy slash-onslaught rotation, the target gets hit by prepared slam twice (unlike the dots from roots). Even if prepared slam only procs once, to match or exceed its damage, thorned roots would have to tick 6 times, and against cc-immune targets, it is less than half as good.
RD
IMO the QoL and bug fixes should be where the changes start - I checked what is happening for example for the dps barb and the proposed excessive buff to a single at-will there (in tandem with barb class features and mechanics) will simply annihilate any balance outside the new trial. Such approach will only result in a bunch of hot-fixes once the mod goes live.
We do not need any corner-to-corner attitude here.
The claimed 1 sec cast rate for Aimed Shot would probably give Hunter a reasonable at-will power.
On the test server now more powers abide the root mechanics, which again opens the possibilities a little - the stacking up thorned roots suggested above are actually a really interesting idea.
I do not expect a massive rework - people here mentioned a lot of useless powers, pointless class features and sub-par feats. That is usually not too far-fetched. Though, since M16 went live it looks similarly through all of the classes, so we are not special.
On the other hand, specifically Hunter is at least fun to play. Changes on preview (+1sec cast Aimed Shot) might be a good step forward in terms of damage dealing (granted you will revert the changes to Biting Snares back, because that is a leap backwards).
That said, I have no idea how we will compare to all the other damage dealers - especially in the single-target trials.
I generally tend to ignore powers with more then 1 sec cast time as the difference between the number of attempts to cast it and the number of times you actually deal some damage is abysmal. But one sec is on the verge of being acceptable even for the combat use - especially for targets that tend to stay alive for prolonged periods of time. (=targets where we actually manage to run out of encounter powers)
-make dots from roots stack
-make dots from roots proc on hit effects like careful attack or bilethorn
Additionnally, I would buff that way:
-cooldown reduction applies to all charges of a power with charges. Meaning, if it takes 10 sec to recharge one charge, and you have three, one proc of 10% cooldown reduction would lower the recharge time from 10/10/10 to 9/9/9, allowing some nice ramp up on powers with charges
-thorned roots no longer deal mag150 damage on control immune targets, but inflict a dot of magnitude 100 (which stacks and procs on-hit effects)
Born of Black Wind: SW Level 80