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I hate flanking

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

It does seem silly to design a bow and class around DOTs and then restrict the way you apply those DOTS where the only other class that has these kinds of limitations are thieves really, and they gain insanely more DPS and burst on top of it.

While I don’t mind the mechanic because in PvE it’s easy enough to handle, I’m not sure I understand why the mechanic is there either.

I think a lot of people overlook the fact that the short bow has such a rate of fire, so a bleed on autoattack of a bow is much stronger than a bleed on autoattack of something like a pistol.

It also changes things up and keeps the ranger from just standing in one place spamming auto attack.

While valid points, the Ranger’s damage with those auto-attacks is also much lower than the damage from Warriors and Rogues who still get the bleeds and such without directional limitations.

Pet idea.

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Nah, I odn’t like the idea being an aura type gimick. I’m fine with the pet being a functional part of the class. I’m 110% against that function accounting for 50% of my total DPS though.

This is how I’d approach pets.

Make pets account for about 10-20% of our total damage depending on where you invested your traits (obviously 20% would be for fully capped BM). This would then obviously mean increasing the Ranger’s damage by a sizable margin. Considering the ranger would be lucky to hit for 50% of the damage a Warrior is hitting with his rifle for auto attacks, it seems reasonable though.

Make pets automatically take 85% less damage from AEs of any kind (this includes the clumsy melee mechanic as well). If a player wants the pet dead in PvP they should be expected to invest actual effort into killing it. Not expect the pet to be a casualty of war when attacking the ranger.

Make it so the action skill for pets trigger instantly. I don’t care if the pet still needs to play through the entire animation before moving again, but when F2 is hit, the effect should go off. There is no reason for this not to be the case.

With these changes alone you’ve made the pet effectively a DOT and made it a reliable DOT in PvE and PvP. Now we can go about improving the pet to fill the other problems the class has with burst damage and PvE utility.

What I would do from this point is make it so all pets do the same damage, but they all fit into 3 categories.

DPS Pets – Pets that have a higher chance to crit.
Utility Pets – Pets that provide an aura around the pet or Hunter and who’s F2 abilities are focused on PvE.
Defensive Pets – Pets that provide an aura and who’s F2 abilities are focused on PvP.

DPS Pets can consume bleed stacks and deal XXX damage for every stack of bleed on the target. They can also consume Daze, Cripples, etc for even more damage.

Utility Pets are just DOTS and do nothing special outside of their utility.

Defensive Pets can consume the same things as DPS pets but their effects are more control oriented. Like remove a daze and turn it into a root where the animal tackles the opponent to the ground and holds him there for 8 seconds or until the pet is almost dead.

Things like this. This way the pet is still a valuable addition to the class, but we don’t see our raw damage penalized for something that is ultimately out of the player’s direct control.

I hate flanking

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

It does seem silly to design a bow and class around DOTs and then restrict the way you apply those DOTS where the only other class that has these kinds of limitations are thieves really, and they gain insanely more DPS and burst on top of it.

While I don’t mind the mechanic because in PvE it’s easy enough to handle, I’m not sure I understand why the mechanic is there either.

Ranger close to perfection??

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Hey guys! Ofcourse we are doing better! This patch was a buff what do you think happens when something gets buffed? That it does worse?

When your buffs were largely quality of life changes it doesn’t mean things got better either.

Why the lazy unimaginative longbow skills?

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Why not give the longbow a finisher, high-burst shot. Change the number 4 skill and allow this shot to do extreme damage to targets 600 yards away or do half damage but knock targets back if they’re closer than 600 yards. You can make the animation one of those ritual arming of the bow attacks like you see in asian movies.

Signet of the hunt not reading 25%

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Tooltip wasn’t updated. I figured it would have been fixed in the patch we just had. It wasn’t?

Are the times you feel like it’s not working when you’re in combat…?

Search & Rescue - The new F5

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

they did nothing to address shouts this patch.

False, both search and rescue and Sick’Em were buffed this patch, both of these shouts are now really hard for me to give up now…

@OP as much as I’m screaming yes at my computer I don’t think it’ll happen, it’d be to powerful for a ranger to be able to super Rez someone/ Rez 2 people simultaneously without a single draw back.

Being a ranger isn’t drawback enough?

Ranger close to perfection??

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

This class won’t be near complete until it has SOMETHING that can be used for controllable burst at range, pets can actually be used for something in real WvW (not just roaming solo), and utility spells are meaningful and viable for the class (something as simple as making spirits auras for example).

But when you’re out damage by pretty much everyone (most would love to do 50% damage a warrior/thief did without the pet, but 0 burst and about 25% sustained?) and you can’t get invites to real PvE or PvP because everyone knows your class mechanics are crap, oh well.

Lack of Ranger`s skill animation

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

To improve the Ranger’s skill animations they must first make the Ranger use more than auto attack for their bow skills.

The animations for the melee weapons, with the exception of axes, look pretty good though.

Pets: WoW vs GW2

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Pets need to take dramatically less damage from AE’s in both PvE and PvP. In WOW they accomplished this by making pets take like 80% less damage from AE’s and forcing them to move to the side/back outside of the cleave arc. Both these mechanics should be adopted in GW2.

Another thing about the Hunter in WoW was the pet was effectively a DOT. The buffs that the Pet’s gave were more passive in nature and handled through talents. The pet also accounted for a far less substantial amount of the Ranger’s overall damage. about 10%. This most certainly should be adopted in GW2 as the pet amounting for 50% is just absurd. 20% or less is reasonable.

WoW also had pet abilities that were instantly cast. Not all of these necesarilly finished their animations instantly and allowed the pet to move, but when you hit the ability button for the pet, it instantly went off. This allowed the pets to actually function more fluidly with the Hunter. This is also something this game desperately needs as pushing F2 and waiting 1.5 seconds for Howl to go off is completely stupid. I’m fine with the pet staying rooted for the full duration, but the affect should go off instantly.

Another thing WoW provided with their pet system was sprinting when recalled back to their owner. This way the pet stood a realistic chance of getting out of AE’s and moving away from danger. This combined with the pet actually stopping everthing it’s doing and running directly back to the hunter in a straight line added great functionality to the pet. This should also be brought over to this game.

And this is coming from a top-tier raiding and PvP hunter who played WoW through the Frozen Throne in a top 10% raiding guild.

In all the MMO’s I’ve played, WoW probably handled the pet class Hunter the best. While GW isn’t the worst I’ve seen, the fact that they even released the class in the state it’s in when you can look at a real working pet class in another game to see what does and doesn’t work is entirely unforgivable. At least in other MMO’s they were working in the dark.

Class Balance Philosophies-Range

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

PvE damage I imagine would be comparable if the pet were up and you spec’d for pet damage. We all know better I presume though? Ideally, the Ranger’s damage would be balanced with a realistic pet up-time rather than 100%.

But the real issue is PvP IMO. The Ranger has no burst, the pets are unreliable at best, and there is no real escapes. It’s why the class is fighting for last place with the Engineer and there’s a distant 3rd place reserved for the Necro.

I've tried every race and every class but....

in Norn

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

I just wish the norn males had an even slimer look and the height range at least somewhat overlapped with the humans.

The smallest Norn is still a head taller than the tallest Human. I wanted a Norn female because they look a little more realistic for a woman, but she’s still too tall.

(edited by Atherakhia.4086)

Lots of white hair everywhere

in Human

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

When you cycle through the premade human characters when choosing your class, the thief is the only one that doesn’t look kitten And by coincidence, she has white hair (not light blue stark white, but platinum sandy white).

My female ranger has dark gray hair.

[Suggestion] Option: auto-swap pet if dead

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

The whole pet mechanic in this game promotes being lazy though. Otherwise you wouldn’t be swapping between 2 pets like we do. Pets are an afterthought for this class.

Drakes F2 skill charge WAY too long!

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

ALL F2 options should be instantly cast. I don’t care if they still need ty cycle threw the animation afterward, but when you push F2 the effect should go off instantly.

Same with pet recall… it should recall immediately (it should probably sprint back too at 150% movement speed) and do so in a straight line…

So 1.5~ hours until ranger buffs

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

I suspect what we’ve heard is what we’ll get. And then we can all go back to our warriors.

No emotional attachment to pets

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Braxxus, that’s why I said in the other thread that pets in this game have more in common with some sinister owner to a dog fighting ring where you throw puppies into the pit to get the dogs started. It’s exactly how Rangers use their pets in this game. It’s almost like they were planning to make Rangers in this game like Rangers in GW1 until they said ‘Oh noes! We forgot about the ranger’s focus skill’

A suggestion relating to the Pet mechanic(s).

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Another issue I have with pets in general is we’re supposed to be rangers where we build a bond with a pet. Perhaps in GW2 lore we’re supposed to build a bond with every animal out there, I don’t know… but you’d think we would be encouraged to use a single and not a whole zoo.

Why not send us out to get the zoo just for the skills and allow us to train those skills to a pet of our choosing so we have a real connection to one in particular. Granted giving your pet Lion swoop may be silly, but /shrug. Could be fun to customize a pet.

Busting the Myth of Useless Pets

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Atherakhia.4086

Still don’t see the issue with making pets naturally avoid AE damage or at least drastically reduce it. In PvE, the class is balanced around 100% up-time on their pet, which is automatically not possible, and then doesn’t work on 25% of the content out there. Removing the AE issue seems like an obvious fix. And in PvP, what’s wrong with players needing to actually focus on the pet to bring it down instead of just hit it occasionally with melee swings?

As a side note, can we get improved controls on the pets? We should only need a single key to tell a pet to attack and return. If the pet is actively attacking my target and I hit F1, the pet should return to me. If the pet is actively attacking something that isn’t my target and I hit F1, it should change priority to that target. Made a script to do this in WoW and it was really handy.

[Suggestion] Option: auto-swap pet if dead

in Ranger

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Atherakhia.4086

This isn’t needed perse, but I don’t see the harm in allowing you to put the swap pet on auto-cast or something. It would probably only be useful for those who keep the pet on aggressive though as an auto-swapping pet for someone who’s oblivious to the animation and sound that plays when the pet dies is probably going to be oblivious to their newly cycled pet sitting next to them waiting for an action.

A suggestion relating to the Pet mechanic(s).

in Ranger

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Atherakhia.4086

I don’t know… the pet mechanic for the class right now is more frustration than fun. The last thing I’d want is added frustration to get a pet and such. I see no problem with making the method more involved though as the current method is beyond stupid and makes you wonder if they decided to randomly add pets to this class somewhere along the line.

And as long as the games and special privledge pet things are just color swaps to bog standard pets, I don’t mind. Some people don’t want to spend eons getting a pet as the above poster said. People who do shouldn’t be given an unfair advantage. The whole driving force behind this game is cosmetics… may as well make this a cosmetic only thing.

Trait overhaul - Marksmanship (suggestions!)

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Atherakhia.4086

Personally, and given the large split in the Ranger community on their opinion on pets, I’d like the see the trait trees used to encourage different styles of play for the ranger if we were going to legitimately have a real review of the traits.

The marks tree should focus on improving the ranged weapons and leave the pet options to the beast mastery tree.

Sharpening Stones is also not great. Why not make this thing make our critical damage increase by XX% for 10 seconds, or just increase critical strike chance by XX% for 10 seconds? The extra bleeds is not needed and is one of those things in PvE where once they’re up they’re fine and the trait is waste until movement issues come up but someone can usually keep it up.

Predatory Instincts is also kind of a waste, especially if you use short bow since you’re never using your skills anyway because it’s a loss of damage and you’re saving the cripple and daze for runners anyway. This is another place we could see something more fun and useful to make the marks tree feel more like a ranged support tree and less like BM lite. A critical strike will cause you to have a 25% chance to crit again for the next 10 seconds. Can only proc once every 10 seconds. Consumed on crit.

I also feel the grandmaster trait is a bit weak, don’t you? I would rather see opening strike changed to provide fewer stacks or shorter duration but apply more often. Like 50% chance for your crits to provide it for example. Move grandmaster down and make it so opening strikes have 100% chance to crit and deal +50% crit damage. And make the grandmaster talent something like Shortbow has +10% chance to crit, Longbow has +10% crit damage, Axe crits regain vigor.

At least this way opening strike is more useful on longer encounters or against swarms where you may not leave combat often. Unless someone knows a trick to drop combat that I don’t?

Some of your traits seem fine though. I was under the impression spotter did increase our precision though? If it doesn’t, then that’s just stupid.

I was also surprised to see no ranged attacks open up with skill points. Why was everything traps and terrible spirits? But that’s for another thread I suppose.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

in Ranger

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Atherakhia.4086

I fail to see how reducing pet damage by 50%, increasing ranger damage by 25%, and giving the class the utility and burst it needs to actually get brought along to the above amounts to a complete redesigning of the class.

You keep talking about moving the damage onto the ranger and removing it from the pet, but you can’t seem to actually read what I’m saying: damage was moved from the ranger onto the pet because during the beta the ranger being able to belt out so much damage on it’s own murdered balance. You’re saying “Let’s return to the beta,” the one that made the ranger get quite drastically changed to what it is now.

They moved too much damage from the ranger to the pet… they also changed too much in beta too quickly to offset the rangers damage without concern for the value of the class.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

The class isn’t taken in PvE groups because it has no utility.
The class isn’t taken in PvP because it has no burst.
The class isn’t taken on X, Y, Z because the class does 50% of the damage it’s supposed to because the pet doesn’t work.

I fail to see how reducing pet damage by 50%, increasing ranger damage by 25%, and giving the class the utility and burst it needs to actually get brought along to the above amounts to a complete redesigning of the class.

But hey, we’re not going to agree apparently, but I’ve yet to see a single suggestion come from you to make it so pets legitimately deserve to account for 50% of this class’ damage even though they’re only up about 75% of the time and even when up, this is still just half a class because no one seems interested in bringing rangers along for anything.

Should I get to 80?

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

If you don’t have instant gratification with something in this game I strongly suggest moving on to something else. They have a very bad reputation of not balancing their classes for PvE or PvP. Research GW1 and the 6 year blight.

Just wondering, what game has balanced classes? Because that’s completely impossible unless all classes are the same. GW1 didn’t do that bad balance wise.

Few games have true balance, but few games also have completely broken classes remain completely broken for the length of the games lifespan too. And I can’t recall the last time an MMO had a game mechanic remain insanely broken for a long period of time. WoW took the cake with Rogue stunlock taking something like a year to fix, and only then the solution for half the classes was the PvP trinket iirc. Been a while and I’ve long since lost interest in caring.

And it should also be said that other games have far more diverse classes with far more variables involved and are much more balanced than your typical game too. Shadowbane for example easily had the most complex PvP system I’ve ever seen with far mor classes, options, and builds and somehow managed to remain very well balanced.

(edited by Atherakhia.4086)

Everyone gets a speedbuff

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Rangers have some of the best abilities to snare enemies in the game, so it doesn’t matter really what run speed your enemy has if you’ve hit them with chill from your axe, crip shot from your short bow, kick from your sword, immobilize/cripple from muddy terrain, barrage from long bow, crippling talon from dagger, frost trap, spike trap, or any of the many, many abilities that pets have which also snare targets.

It’s a little misleading posting things like this, since we can’t have them all at once!

It’s also only half the story… while there are ranged snare options, they aren’t adquate at keeping people where we want them given most classes have more ways to close distance and remove snares than the ranger has abilities to apply them and stay at range.

Should I get to 80?

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

If you don’t have instant gratification with something in this game I strongly suggest moving on to something else. They have a very bad reputation of not balancing their classes for PvE or PvP. Research GW1 and the 6 year blight.

Any News on the Ranger Pet being Fixed

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Atherakhia.4086

Any chance you could tell us what % of the Ranger class you feel the pet should be accounting for with their DPS? Is it supposed to be a 70/30 split or 50/50? Next to nothing? etc.

Just trying to get an idea of what the designers feel the class should be capable of and what it’s currently doing.

I don’t remember where, but there was an ANET employee stating that the pet should account for about 45% of the Ranger’s DPS, which seems to be supported by some rough dps number crunching.

Someone in the Ranger forums said that our ranged dps was behind engineers by at least 50%, which would support the ANET’s ‘pets=~45% of ranger dps’ (paraphrasing).

Well that’s completely asanine then. It shouldn’t be any more than 20% of the class’ total damage. And that’s assuming pets actually worked as planned. Considering the sorry state they’re in, and considering how even ANet approaches pets as an afterthought (Pet dies, just switch to the other and hope the new one can live for 30 seconds so you can repeat, what an amazing mechanic to base a class around…) this class is such a dead end.

It is my opinion that if a pet is to account for nearly 50% of our dps that they have survivability to not die in one hit on certain boss’s or get rolled by agony in fractals. And also be reliable in other ways. Which they seem to be working on.

Honestly, given the state these classes are always in with other games, I am not holding out much hope for a solution to the numerous problems plaguing the class. This is why so many people want the pet’s impact on the class scaled down or outright removed. And who can blame them really? The game went through a long beta process and has been out long enough now where if the problem hasn’t been fixed, a solution or goal would have been outlined and provided to the players to not give up hope.

All we have seen is that they’re going to try to help pets hit moving targets more often, but even that isn’t a major concern with how many other issues that need to be fixed.

Everyone gets a speedbuff

in Ranger

Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Perhaps what they need to do is cap movement improvement at 25% to resolve the issue entirely.

Or allow the Ranger’s signet to override the movement reduction due to combat and allow them to move at 100%.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Atherakhia.4086

Pets aren’t broken if you know how to use them. If your pet is dying all the time, it’s because you aren’t paying attention to its health to swap it for a different pet or call it back from a dangerous attack or aoe. I personally despise this idea. Pets are an incredibly fun and powerful mechanic for those who can use it right. It’s just that those who don’t know how to use it like to blame their failures on the mechanic rather than on themselves. Once I started swapping my pets almost every time the CD was up, and healing it even when I didn’t need a heal, I’ve had few problems with survivability.

And this is yet another reason the pet really doesn’t do anything for this class. Instead of a player trying to invest in the pet, they just send the pet into the fray and pray it lasts 30 seconds so it can be swapped out to give you haste just like some merciless dog fighter would throw puppies into a ring to get the dogs all riled up.

The mechanics behind pets aren’t complicated or difficult to learn. They simply don’t work as advertised. They don’t fire off their utility when asked, they don’t return when pressed, they don’t path correctly, and AE in some situations is simply unavoidable when you have to risk your pet being hurt or losing half of your class’s damage on an encounter.

Thankfully this is MMOlite and we can just cycle the pet every 30 seconds. Any other MMO would have resolved the problem in a meaningful way.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Atherakhia.4086

Loki, this is a suggestion thread… I listed those issues because the suggested resolution to those problems is to move the damage away from the pet and move the utility and burst to the pet to compensate for moving the raw damage for the class to the ranger itself.

Once we have an acceptable baseline to work from they can then work on fixing the traits so beastmastery gives more damage to the pet, marks can give more damage to the bow etc.

But right now we have, what others claim, is a 50/50 split between ranger damage and supposed pet damage (which given how terrible the class is, it’s probably assumed the ranger will have a pet up 100% of the time dealing damage 100% of the time). This is simply too much focus on a pet that a player has next to no real control over, has numerous game breaking bugs, and simply doesn’t work and hasn’t worked since its implementation.

If the pet was working perfectly, the split should still be something closer to 80/20 which is still miles above what other games with pet classes offer.

Everyone in this thread understands your stance that you don’t want this class to function without the pet. I honestly don’t want it to function without it either. But I want you and ANet to at least be realistic: there is never going to be a legitimate reason for the pet to account for 50% of this class’ worth. Even 20% is pushing it even if the pet actually worked as intended.

Never crafted before

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Atherakhia.4086

In every game I’ve played I’ve always ignored the crafting aspect of it. For some reason in this game I’ve been keeping my reagents instead of just selling them. Is crafting in this game something worth the investment for other than just for XP reasons? Like are the items from crafters something you’d continue to use even at 80? Or outside of getting to 80, there’s no real use for any of them?

Also, are there any benefits to the crafter, other than XP? Like unique things that only a crafter can make that are actually worth having?

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Atherakhia.4086

I may be alone here… but does anyone else approach their pet like some merciless owner to a dog fighting ring throwing bait animals into the pens to rile up the dogs? I mean this is how ANet encourages us to play… throw pets into the fray with the hope they’ll last 30 seconds so you can simply swap pets, bet your BM buffs, and keep moving.

This is about the limit to ANet’s thought process for pets and the ranger’s damage is being drastically reduced for this?

I still say unlinking the pet from the ranger’s damage entirely so the pet is little more than a basic DOT from another class and then putting much of the ranger’s utility and burst damage in the pet is the best option to this class. If anything, doing this will make pets more significant to the class, not less.

No emotional attachment to pets

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Personally, I wish they’d just make the class as dependent on the pet as we are ‘emotionally attached’ to them. I mean the way this game approaches pets is like you’re some merciless owner to a dog fighting ring in charge of throwing bait animals into the ring to get the dogs riled up.

If this is how much a Ranger cares about pets, perhaps we should lessen their use to the class.

Unless of course I’m the only one that simply throws pets in to the fray in hopes the pet can at least last the 30 seconds to cycle to the next pet?

Shortbow vs Longbow Damage Calculations

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Atherakhia.4086

You would have expected the bows to do the same damage at close range but the longbow to outshine the shortbow at long range, at the very least. Hopefully they’ll decide to improve longbow damage or increase its rate of fire.

Any News on the Ranger Pet being Fixed

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Atherakhia.4086

Any chance you could tell us what % of the Ranger class you feel the pet should be accounting for with their DPS? Is it supposed to be a 70/30 split or 50/50? Next to nothing? etc.

Just trying to get an idea of what the designers feel the class should be capable of and what it’s currently doing.

I don’t remember where, but there was an ANET employee stating that the pet should account for about 45% of the Ranger’s DPS, which seems to be supported by some rough dps number crunching.

Someone in the Ranger forums said that our ranged dps was behind engineers by at least 50%, which would support the ANET’s ‘pets=~45% of ranger dps’ (paraphrasing).

Well that’s completely asanine then. It shouldn’t be any more than 20% of the class’ total damage. And that’s assuming pets actually worked as planned. Considering the sorry state they’re in, and considering how even ANet approaches pets as an afterthought (Pet dies, just switch to the other and hope the new one can live for 30 seconds so you can repeat, what an amazing mechanic to base a class around…) this class is such a dead end.

Any News on the Ranger Pet being Fixed

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

@ Jon , we appreciate your replies

Any chance of taking a look @ our traits they seem in a bit of a mess and i think need rearranging a bit

cheers

Need a lot more than rearranging imo. Half of them make no sense

Rifles... I want one

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Atherakhia.4086

Conflicted here. I’d be fine with Rangers using guns as it will carry a kind of native american vibe and I could see it working, but image alone in this game kind of restricts it.

That said, more options is nothing but a good thing so I’m all cool with it.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Atherakhia.4086

There even been a real decision on how agro works in this game? Was under the impression it isn’t your typical agro table but instead was related to toughness rating?

I want to understand why this difference

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Atherakhia.4086

Burst is what wins PvP and thus why the Ranger is frowned upon in PvP. This class desperately needs an execute move. Put it on the longbow, make it channeled and root, and call it killshot

Any News on the Ranger Pet being Fixed

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Any chance you could tell us what % of the Ranger class you feel the pet should be accounting for with their DPS? Is it supposed to be a 70/30 split or 50/50? Next to nothing? etc.

Just trying to get an idea of what the designers feel the class should be capable of and what it’s currently doing.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Atherakhia.4086

In trying to move the ‘weight’ off the pet and put more onto the ranger, you do remove being penalized for things outside of your control, but you also lessen the gameplay.

It’s only natural that somebody would think to resolve this issue is by lessening the impact of the mechanic as a whole. But a mechanic without solid rewards for playing well is hardly worth playing at all.

This is why you move class defining mechanics to the pet. While you move the bulk of the dps to the ranger, you still would rely on the pet for all of the ranger’s burst damage, almost all of their group utility, and you force the Ranger to make some tough choices on trading burst for utility.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Loki…

I’m not trying to remove the flavor of the class. I’m trying to suggest ideas that would fix the problems this class has while still working within the constraints of the game. There’s nothing wrong with the ranger doing Warrior level damage. It doesn’t have the health or armor of the class and in exchange it has a few more escapes and range (which also isn’t a real advantage because Warriors have similar range and gap closers etc).

The problem is the pet mechanics aren’t working in this game.
The problem is the class has no utility in PvE and it’s not being brought along.
The problem is the class has no utility or burst in PvP and can’t compete.
The problem is the class has such a horrible list of traits and powers to choose from.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this class toning down the pets in favor of boosting the Ranger’s damage. Especially when you consider the problems related to the pet are largely technical and will likely NEVER be fixed. And even if they were, the above problems would still remain with this class and it would still be useless.

So if you can think of a better way to give this class the utility and burst damage it needs without attaching it to the pet, feel free to suggest it. Personally, I think my idea is the most acceptable method to resolve everything plaguing this class without turning it into a petless wonder.

Signet of the Hunt is still useless.

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Bri, it’s a PvP trait. Just don’t take it if you don’t PvP. You will never have every trait be useful for PvE and PvP otherwise there wouldn’t be any real variety and everyone would be identical.

If anything, the PvP crowd should be complaining that the trait is so good it’s compulsory at this point. You honestly don’t have a legitimate complaint imo.

Idea to fix rangers: Stow Pet Change

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Should just make the best of both worlds.

Reduce the pets damage so it accounts for about 10% of the Rangers total damage.
Rebalance the Rangers damage so it does 105% of the damage of other top tier DPS classes to account for the impossibility of 100% active pet up-time.

These 2 things will then make the Ranger do about 95% of the damage of any other class without a pet active.

THEN you adjust the pet to provide the class’s utility and burst damage. You drastically improve the pets AE utility by debuffing enemies and drastically buffing party members. These buffs should either be unique, or combine numerous qualities of other buffs from other classes so a ranger is more enticing to a group. This way the Ranger is being brought for PvE for buffs and damage.

For PvP you make the Ranger consume some of their conditions/debuffs to make the pet do very large amounts of DPS. The amount of damage should still be less than the debuffs themselves, but the reason you do it is for the burst. For example, you would want to keep your bleeds fully stacked in PvE because they would do say 5,000 damage over 10 seconds and take about 10 seconds to fully stack. Whereas in PvP you would want to consume those bleeds instantly to do the burst, but the amount of burst damage would only be about 4,000 this way it isn’t a DPS advantage to do it in PVE except as a killing blow.

You would then do the same thing for dazes and criples where you could send your pet in to consume a daze or cripple for a ton of damage but in PvE since many things are immune to these mechanics they couldn’t be consumed and the pet isn’t doing any damage.

THEN AFTER ALL OF THIS you can divide the pets into classes. DPS pets that offer the burst outlined above, Utility pets with even more powerful buffs/debuffs, and defensive pets that would consume things just like the DPS pet, but would do other effects like tackle the opponent by rooting them to the ground until the pet is down to 25% life etc.

This way you maintain the pet aspect of the class and ensure it’s even more evident, you give the class its much needed PvE utility, and you give the class its much needed PvP burst.

Ranger Rework

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

That’s a lot of damage increases for the short bow, something most people feel is pretty good. Longbow is where the damage increase needs to be but I’m not sure 10% more damage and 33% reduction in fire speed will be enough.

Honestly, I wish the Ranger got a ‘finisher/execute’ type move where instead of being a closer like you’d expect for the shortbow, it would be a channeled stationary shot that did immense damage to open the fight.

Rangers there weakness destroys class balance

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

That DAOC Scout was nerfed in like 3 months though iirc.

And yea, my favorite in Shadowbane was the xbow warrior. It was absolutely amazing. Especially with a marksmanship trait. You could fire over castle walls and kill the defenders. Shadowbane, if it was stable at launch, could have been amazing.

Rangers there weakness destroys class balance

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

As I said, I’m not arguing to make the pets eye candy…

I’m arguing to move them in a direction the game can currently support. Having them make up more than 5-10% of the class’s DPS simply isn’t ever going to work given the limitations of the game.

Instead, work within the boundries they’ve set.

Make it so AE’s do 95% less damage to pets so if someone wants to take out a pet, an honest effort must be spent to do so. This also allows the class more room for error in PVE as well.

Make pets move to the rear of targets so they’re out of the way of most of the AE’s anyway so they can further reduce their impact on other members of a party and instead can be controlled more reliably by the ranger alone.

That’s what it will take to at least make the pets a realistic option in PVE.

You then have the issues holding the ranger back from just getting invited to PvE and PvP: Utility and Burst.

Utility is easy as the pets currently have the group buffs they can provide. Make these more valuable and longer lasting. Example: Wolf Howl can place an AE marker on the ground. Allies inside do X% more damage while the boss does X% less. You can then divide the pets into Burst, Utility, and Defensive where they all do the same damage overall, but their “on use” actions are different.

For example:
Cats: Burst Type Pet – Consume ranger bleeds from target and deal 500 damage * # of bleeds. The amount should be balanced by the fact that a PvE ranger wouldn’t want to use it because the burst damage would still net less DPS than leaving the bleeds, but would be awesome in PvP.

Wolves: Utility Type Pet – Howl demoralizing enemies and buffing allies.

Bears: Defensive Type Pet – Consume a Daze or Cripple effect and the pet will tackle the target rooting them in place for 10 seconds or until only 25% HP remains.

You get the idea. The pets are now baseline the same for damage, and that damage alone doesn’t impact the class that much as far as overall damage is concerned. Maybe 5-10% at an absolute max if you consider that a Ranger should be doing 105% damage of another DPS class because you have to account for pet inactivity/downtime.

You’ve given the ranger some utility for PvE because groups will no longer be penalized by wonky pet controls and the class is now bringing something valuable to the group. You’ve given the ranger some utility for PvP because the main things they’re lacking right now is finishers/burst and this is something that can be improved some by the pet (mindful that the above probably still wouldn’t be enough). And you haven’t killed the class because pets are still a very fundamental aspect of the class that everyone will still use 100% of the time, but they just aren’t expected to micromanage it to an ungodly level while still having the server/system still not do what you want it to half the time.

Rangers there weakness destroys class balance

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

Because as much as you may want to deny it, certain trends don’t work for a reason and a pet class is one that has never worked in an MMO without first designing the whole MMO around them in the first place.

And don’t limit your experience to WoW. Many MMO’s in the past have allowed Warriors to do more than melee. Shadowbane for example had Warriors being the strongest archers outside of scouts.

And it should also be said that GW2 isn’t breaking any new ground either.

Rangers there weakness destroys class balance

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Posted by: Atherakhia.4086

Atherakhia.4086

The thing about Hunters in WoW were the pets were worthless. They were effectively DOTs with limited/no real value to the class. This is how they should be in this game too. Make them a little DOT that doesn’t amount to much of the ranger’s overall damage and give them some valuable group utility so the ranger can be brought along for pvp.

Like how GW2 should have a dedicated healer, the warrior should be unable to fight in ranged combat, ect? You said it yourself, Hunter pets were worthless, yet they’re the ranger’s main class mechanic. So you want to make the ranger’s defining part of the class useless?
I respectfully disagree with that.

You missed the point entirely. Just because the pets damage is reduced to the point where the pet is effectively a DOT doesn’t instantly make it a useless mechanic to the class as a whole. It just makes it useless for damage. If you would have actually read the post, you would have seen the areas I suggested expanding the value of the pet to fill the other areas the class is sorely lacking.

For example:

Group Utility: Allow the pets to provide large AE buff/debuff zones so ranged casters would stand in a ranged pets aura/buff circle and melee could then get a similar buff circle and any mobs in the circle are debuffed.

PvP Utility: Allow a pet to consume bleeds, dazes, confuses, etc. that are applied by the range and convert that to very large damage. So say you put a bleed stack to 11 on a target. The pet would consume that 11 stack bleed and convert it to 500 damage per stack (numbers are only an example). And then you can seperate the pets into categories where some do huge burst by consuming these effects and others could convert a daze to a long duration root etc etc.

(edited by Atherakhia.4086)