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Check out general Announcements here to see the latest news on Ashes of Creation & Intrepid Studios.
To get the quickest updates regarding Alpha Two, connect your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Ranged Fighters and Melee Rangers
ShivaFang
Member, Alpha Two
With the ability for all archetypes to use every weapon, there should be enough in each base kit to make the builds interesting enough until secondaries come online for further refinement. I'd like to see enough 'seeds' for the weaponmaster, strider and hunter to start with, the way it's clear that battlemages and tellswords currently do (my current main is a bard who mostly uses a spell greatsword)
Last weekend I played a ranged fighter and melee ranger. These are core archetypes to the Pathfinder style players you seem to be wanting to give a nod to.
Melee ranger is actually in a really good spot right now. There's enough untility and self-buffs that allow you to spec around the bow skills. Disengage can be specced at a gap closer, not just as a gap widener. Right at level 2 you can take aspect of the bear to increase tankiness. You could get away with changing nothing on this class and it'll feel 'good enough' to get to level 25 (even if not strictly optimal.) Currently the ammo skills work with melee attacks - and I hope you do not change this.
Ranged fighter is in less good of a spot. Momentum works with a bow, and once it comes online it's impactful. However the lack of versatility in the skillset pretty much makes it impossible to spec around and you are required to take more melee skills that you are trying to avoid using.
Ranged fighters fill a different class fantasy than ranged rangers. Ranged fighters favor slower big hits at the cost of mobility and 'nature magic'. They are the only archetype right now that genuinely would want to use a longbow. Every other class that uses a bow at all favour the shortbow for more 'pew pew' attack speed.
I'd like to see passives that reward 'big hit' weapons like the longbow and greatsword. Perhaps a skill that will deal increased damage multiplier once every x seconds - which is attack speed agnostic and favours the slower, big hit, numbers of both the longbow and greatsword. I'd like to see the fighter to more with weapon finishes, especially if they are conceptualized as the master of all weapons. Perhaps give them more options for weapon procs (from any of the physical conditions). right now they can get wounded. Right now it feels like ranger gets more of this with their ammo and bards get more of this with Resonant weapon. Give fighters more of a a reason to use their basic attacks and trigger weapon combos and you will automatically make them interesting with a bow without sacrificing anything towards the default melee style.
Last weekend I played a ranged fighter and melee ranger. These are core archetypes to the Pathfinder style players you seem to be wanting to give a nod to.
Melee ranger is actually in a really good spot right now. There's enough untility and self-buffs that allow you to spec around the bow skills. Disengage can be specced at a gap closer, not just as a gap widener. Right at level 2 you can take aspect of the bear to increase tankiness. You could get away with changing nothing on this class and it'll feel 'good enough' to get to level 25 (even if not strictly optimal.) Currently the ammo skills work with melee attacks - and I hope you do not change this.
Ranged fighter is in less good of a spot. Momentum works with a bow, and once it comes online it's impactful. However the lack of versatility in the skillset pretty much makes it impossible to spec around and you are required to take more melee skills that you are trying to avoid using.
Ranged fighters fill a different class fantasy than ranged rangers. Ranged fighters favor slower big hits at the cost of mobility and 'nature magic'. They are the only archetype right now that genuinely would want to use a longbow. Every other class that uses a bow at all favour the shortbow for more 'pew pew' attack speed.
I'd like to see passives that reward 'big hit' weapons like the longbow and greatsword. Perhaps a skill that will deal increased damage multiplier once every x seconds - which is attack speed agnostic and favours the slower, big hit, numbers of both the longbow and greatsword. I'd like to see the fighter to more with weapon finishes, especially if they are conceptualized as the master of all weapons. Perhaps give them more options for weapon procs (from any of the physical conditions). right now they can get wounded. Right now it feels like ranger gets more of this with their ammo and bards get more of this with Resonant weapon. Give fighters more of a a reason to use their basic attacks and trigger weapon combos and you will automatically make them interesting with a bow without sacrificing anything towards the default melee style.
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