Zef's ranger balance - the source
Zef’s Return command improvement
Goal of this change
Making return command more useful defence-wise
Proposed Functionality
When using “return command” have pet stand right at ranger’s side, not few meters away from him. It’ll position it to be inside whirling defense bubble when needed. No more mobs getting pulled because certain pet stands few meters too close unlike the ranger. Less headaches with huge aoe damage rings avoiding, because pet likes it’s space.
Zef’s Pet secondary attribute change
Goal of this change
Better customization and meaningful values for pet’s secondary attributes.
Proposed Functionality
Pet receives 1/2 of master’s secondary attributes (critical damage, condition damage & duration, boon durations, healing) and 100% AR & magic find.
The percentage traits for pet’s critical damage, condition and boon duration stay as they are, and stack with ranger inherited values.
Traits that give flat number increase to pet healing and condition damage get buffed up to 800 at lvl 80. Current values do nothing for the pet and its value in combat.
With those two changes in place pet gets both a decent start with master inherited values, as well as it’s own, meaningful secondary stat customization via traits.
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Pet mobile combat improvements.
Many call pet a lost cause because of it’s inability to hunt down moving targets. With this in mind few changes can be made to improve it or at least make the situation less tragic.
Firstly as someone pointed already, pets being able to jump up and down after their targets would be great help in pursuit of human targets. Not every pet has to have it, but felines, canines, spiders & moas should have it, while birds should be able to chase their prey no matter the vertical distance, as long as there’s a clear air route to it and it’s not underwater.
The less fortunate families of pets, such as drakes, bears, boars and so on, should have a passive ability reducing their and master’s damage taken from projectile attacks, so anyone wanting to shoot down the ranger from afar, will face reduced damage output, bringing him closer to petless ranger dps.
As for horizontal mobility there have been proposals of increasing pet attack reach, which i fully support. Be it build into every pet henceforth, or achievable by easy to get trait, make it happen.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
II. Utility skills improvements.
Zef’s Signet improvements:
Goals of this change
Bringing signet of the hunt back from the dead as damage support utility.
Giving signets more unique boosts from signet of beastmaster.
Making signet of stone active meaningful without waiting for signet traits.
Proposed Functionality
signet of the hunt - active: for 12 seconds ranger’s non critical attacks do 50% more damage (great for taking down structures and damaging crit immune bosses). passive: 10% chance for your critical attacks to become an opening strike.
signet of stone - active effect applies to ranger, and not the pet by default. With pet ward
implemented (check my signature for it), ranger can share it’s effects with pet from get go, making it a really useful signet to have even without any trait support.
Signet traits:
Signet of beastmaster - changed functionality. Increases signet effects when pet is out.
- signet of the hunt – passive and active affect pet as well.
- signet or reneval – passive effect removes 2 conditions every 10 seconds. Active removes 3 conditions from pet after pulling them off players.
- signet of stone – 3s extra duration. (This assumes pet ward mechanic is implemeneted for sharing it’s effects with pet).
- signet of the wild – same as now – signet active affects ranger as well.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Zef’s Spirit rewamp
Goal of this change
Making spirits far more flexible and sustainable in PvE.
Proposed Functionality
Changes in general spirit mechanic:
- summoning a spirit is a ground targeted skill with 1200 range.
- spirits are treated like structures (immune to crits and conditions)
- spirits go on cooldown after they’re casted and not after they die.
- normally spirits get 75% uptime - 60s duration vs 80 sec cooldown.
- spirit actives can ignore their cooldown, but each “rule breaking cast” costs spirit it’s duration equal to active’s remaning cooldown. Cannot be used if spirit doesn’t have enough duration left.
Example: you just summoned the water spirit and used its aqua surge, putting it on 25 sec cooldown. Pinned to the wall 10 seconds later you can use it again, but it’ll cut spirit’s remaining time by 15 seconds, because that was the cd left on aqua surge.
Specific spirit changes
- Water spirit – see healing skills
- Sun spirit - Passive gives chance to blind for 2s. Active burns enemies in 360 radius for 10s.
- Stone spirit - Active changed to aoe stun (2s) with 60 sec cd on it. Stun duration affected by traits and runes.
- Frost spirit - Damage increase passive effect buffed to 15%.
- Spirit of Nature - duration 120 seconds. cooldown 160 seconds. Nature’s renewal cd increased to 75 seconds. Passive healing per sec: 200 + 0.25 * ranger’s healing. Passive heal radius: 360.
Spirit Traits
- Vigorous spirits - hp enhance effect replaced with 25% spirit cooldown redution.
- Sprits unbound - asides from spirits following you, spirit actives have 20% decreased cooldowns.
- Unstoppable nature - replaces vengeful spirits. Spirits becomr untouchable (like warrior banners).
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Zef’s Opening strike improvement:
Goal of this change
Giving a ranger a crit debuff for monsters, to compete with warrior’s banner of dicipline.
Proposed Functionality
Opening strike – attacked opponent receives 5 stacks of vulnerability and 7% extra chance to receive critical hits for 10 seconds. (Now it adds extra crit chance for everyone vs affected monster). It can stack in intensity up to 2 times.
Utility skills affecting opening strike
Signet of hunt passive – 10% chance for your critical strikes to become an opening strike
Traits affecting OS
Alpha training – stays as is.
Precise Strike – opening strike adds extra 7% critical damage vs affected monster.
Remorseless – regain opening strike when you crit at 20% chance. Opening strike can now stack in intensity up to 3 times.
Zef’s Trap skills PvE improvement
Goal of this change
Improving trap gameplay for PvE, in terms of utility, damage and group oriented play.
I. Manual trap control
Goal of this change:
Giving the ranger option to fire off trap combo fields without monsters around and to trigger trap manually for smarter usage then plain auto.
Proposed Functionality
Manual trap control could be achieved by pressing trap button once the trap itself is set. First press stops trap from triggering, second triggers it manually. That of course works only if trap wasn’t placed under a monster triggering it instantly.
II. Utility trap skill improvements
Goal of this change:
Improving each traps performance based on it’s combo field and general purpose.
Proposed Functionality
- Flame trap - increase duration to 5 seconds (for combo field), increased physical damage per pulse (210). This is the straight up raw damage and fire combo field trap.
- Spike trap - add 5 stacks of torment lasting 5s each. This trap is about brutal burst of condition damage and movement crippling. Tormet fits like a glove here.
- Viper’s nest - add 2 stacks of confusion (3s) per pulse for some serious condition damage.
- Frost trap - no changes here.
III. Trap related traits tweaks
Goal of this change:
Easier access to trait supporting trap group play, and clear separation of this trait from the one
focusing on offensive benefits for traps.
Proposed Functionality
- Trapper’s expertise: trap cooldown reduction 20%, Traps last 2 seconds longer (including combo fields). Traps can be thrown in 900 range (no ranger weapon matches 600 max range playstyle).
- Trap potency. Increased damage, radius, condition duration of traps. Traps immobilize on activation. Physical damage per pulse +25%. Trap & combo field radius +90. Base condition duration +100%. Immobilize duration:2 sec (PvE), 1 sec (PvP).
As you can see trapper’s expertise is the party play upgrade – longer combo fields, shorter cooldowns, and ability to toss it into the fray.
Trap potency offers far greater offense giving conditions 2x their base duration, and making trapping easier with increased trap radius (combo fields included) and immobilize on activation.
Zef’s Survival Skills tweaking
Goal of this change
Balancing survival skill’s usefulness with eachother and other trait boostable skill sets.
Proposed Functionality
[b]Muddy terrain[b] – additionaly pulses weakness (2s) each pulse. Being knees deep in mud means pretty bad startup for dodges, or landing powerful blows without firm footing.
Sharpening stone - cooldown reduced to 20 seconds. Grants 5 stacks of bleeding (10s) and 1 stack of torment (10s) to both your and your pets attacks.
Quickening Zephyr - no change needed.
Lightning reflexes - cooldown reduced to 30 seconds, since it’s self-skill only that doesn’t
boost damage.
Check out my pet secondary stats suggestion above.
Zef’s Shouts rewamp
Idea behind shout changes
Let’s be honest. Majority of shouts are about controlling your pet behaviour and as such should be profession mechanic free of utility slot skill trappings. Since they’re not, at least proper reliability and additional effects are a must.
Proposed Functionality
“Protect me!” - to existing effects two more are added. Pet is healed for 50% max hp on cast, and it takes only 33% of incoming damage for the duration of the skill.
- Reason behind this change: This skill is not “let’s kill my pet for not being a bear” button.
With these additions it becomes your pet heal and emergency panic button as well.
“Search and rescue” - 15 sec cooldown. Shout works on deafeted. If you have a downed/defeated ally selected, pet will go to revive that person. Will not activate without fallen ally in range. Revival speed 30% faster then normal.
*Reason: I can have pet do attacking and revive defeated players myself without any fuss. Why should opposite scenario be a mountain climb? Using this shout costs utility slot and a cooldown, thus faster revival speed on it. Since pet sent to revive an ally can be killed and is a major damage loss to the ranger i see no reason to cripple this shout with long cooldown. Infact only reason it has one is to prevent shout triggered effects abuse when sorrounded by corpses.
“Guard” - instant cast not 1s. Pet ignores any enemies on it’s way to designated spot, and only after reaching it engages enemies in protected zone.
*Reason: Else why not just select an enemy and order attack without wasting utility slots?
“Sick’em” - this one works just fine.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Zef’s healing skills adjustments
Goal of this proposal
Ranger is a class with powerful healing options. But not all are equal or have unique functionality. These skill changes should help with that.
Proposed Functionality
Heal as One - If pet is alive, then its healing x 2 is added into healing value formula. If it’s
defeated, then only ranger’s healing is used, but pet is revived and healed for that value.
Cooldown increased to 30s.
Base healing value lowered.
Note: check my pet’s secondary attributes rewamp idea.
Troll unguent - instant cast. Removes 1 condition with each pulse. number of pulses reduced to 7. Healing coefficient increased to 0.25. Cooldown reduced to 20s.
Reason for change - “keep yourself alive” is the song of troll ungent. Adding condition clensing to regeneration is doing just that, and giving healing spring some competition. Instant cast is a must because danger of death is not going away the moment you sucessfully cast it. You still have to keep yourself relatively unscathed for next few seconds to be out of danger.
Healing Spring no changes needed. It’s great as it is.
Water spirit - passive effect refreshing each 4 seconds , lasting 20 seconds. Unused passive charges can stack up to 5 times. healing value adjusted to give same average healing per second given as the earlier 10 second version.
active: cooldown increased to 30 seconds. Triggers any inactive passive stacks for those in range.
check out spirit rewamp suggestion affecting spirits above.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Zef’s weapon revamp suggestions
Torch
Goal of this change
Increasing torch utility as damage and crowd combat weapon.
Proposed functionality
#4 Explosive torch - throw torch with gunpowder attached that explodes on impact dealing aoe damage and burning.
Explosion radius: 180.
Blast finisher.
Burning duration 4s.
Damage: 900 (2.0 coefficient).
Cooldown: 15 seconds.
#5 Bonfire - base radius increased to 180. Pulses blind(1s) & burning (1s) each second. With offhand training, radius increases to 240. Physical damage per pulse increased to 2x current value.
The torch is about damage and that’s what’s happening right here. Rather luckluster Throw torch now becomes an aoe with serious damage and blast finisher, retaining it’s old cooldown.
Bonfire receives more utility for crowd melee situations, by adding blinds and larger radius.
Axe (mainhand & offhand)
Goal of this change
Adjusting mainhand axe skills to match it’s purpose. Dealing with erronous skill descriptions.
Proposed functionality
#1 Ricochet - increased attack power the closer you are to enemy. Reverse situation to longbow auto attack.
.
- Reason - axe auto deserves damage buff, but without putting sword out of business. Doing it this way gets the job done – more risk, more damage. It also greatly synergizes with rest of mainhand axe skills and longbow auto.
#2 Splitblade It’s good the way it is.
#3 Winter’s Bite Pierces opponents between ranger and target.
Axe is about ranged mob damage, and conditions. Piercing is the hardest way to pull off mob hits, suitable for a move that has very valuable chilling and long weakness on a relatively short cd.
#4 Path of scars - Increased pull range when traited with offhand training.
#5 Whirling defense - Description adjusted to reflection rather then just blocking projectiles.Reflection bubble size increased to 120, 180 with offhand training. Reflection bubble center always at average character height/2.
- Reason By picking offhand training ranger picks the “I want my whirling defense to be a group reflect”. The bubble positioning should ensure that after traiting offhand training, bubble’s max radius is still at height of the player characters and not 5 meters above them.
Sword
Goal of this change
Increasing sword’s responsivness and reaction speed[/b]
#1 Auto attack
No more rooting with each blow, preventing dodges from being used.
#2 hornet sting/monarch’s leap
Faster sting execution. Evasion skills are immediate response tools, they can’t be sloggish before evasion kicks in.
Serpent’s strike Added 3 stacks of torment (8s).
Sword is the main melee damage weapon of ranger. Adding some extra, escape punishing stacks of torment fits it’s theme perfectly.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Longbow
#3 Hunter’s shot - Fires a powerful shot that deals damage, stuns (1s) and grants opening strike. Cooldown increased to 20s.
cast time: 1s
Damage 700 (2.5 damage coefficient)
stun: 1s
100% projectile finisher.
cooldown: 20 s.
Having stealth and swiftness is nice, but that’s not what longbow is supposed to do. The purpose of longbow are powerful, armor piercing, focused long range attacks, that yield tromendous effects if they hit. Hunter’s shot becomes just that, rather then pretending to be thief with longbow.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Shortbow
To be done.
Dagger (offhand)
4. Stalker’s Strike - added one stack of opening strike to current functionality.
Being unique ranger mechanic that can support group damage Opening Strike should be more then just one traitline feature. It should be also available through some weapon skills.
Dagger is the perfect weapon for melee source of it. Lacking a clear group utility at bosses unlike all other offhands, and being the “surprise attack” weapon it fits like a glove.
Since we want to apply it at close range, Stalker’s Strike is the only choice.
It also adds some tactic to the move (use it as evasion, or pop it the second it goes off cd for opening strike).
Note Be sure to check my opening strike upgrade above.
(edited by ZeftheWicked.3076)
Trait suggestions post #1 (out of 3)
Trait suggestions post #2 (out of 3)
Trait suggestions post #3 (out of 3)
The End.