Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Alpha Two Realms are now unlocked for Phase II testing!
For our initial launch, testing will begin on Friday, December 20, 2024, at 10 AM Pacific and continue uninterrupted until Monday, January 6, 2025, at 10 AM Pacific. After January 6th, we’ll transition to a schedule of five-day-per-week access for the remainder of Phase II.
You can download the game launcher here and we encourage you to join us on our for the most up to date testing news.
Ranger Feedback
Rym
Member, Alpha Two
Hello! I've been playing ranger for a bit, got to lvl 12 with it, and I'm what you would call "stacked". I have a 202 Sons of Fortune greatsword, a 156 shortbow and a 288 longbow (longbow is bugged btw, auto attack dmg is zero, submitted a bug report and made a few videos which I'll see if I can upload later). I'm also using scrolls and food. My physical offensive power is 180~ with shortbow, 220~ with longbow.
And what I have to say, in short and overall: disappointing
And here is why:
I think the Ranger suffers from lack of identity, it's 100% missing the "death from afar" part of it's lore. The damage it does is lackluster compared to my mage.
Snipe for example hits for about 750 damage on targets with average armor (bears), and crits for around 1.1k. Wow, big damage right? No not really.
My mage has a 262 Sons greatsword, and a 177 brass longbow, and I hit 750 with fireball, which further burns the target for another 200% dmg that combusts into a conflagrate. Not only that, but fireball can be spammed, costs less mana than Snipe, and is cast faster. All the while while it's doing the same damage!
And you might say, well mage needs to setup properly to do that damage, it takes time to cast.
Actually, mage burst is both higher and faster than ranger, and it's not fireball into combust that does the damage. You can combo hoarfrost into cone of cold freeze into a near insta cast thunder which does 400% dmg + triple firebolt into combust. Well unless the target is gigastacked tank they're not living through the firebolts anyway. But if they do live then Frostbolt is ready to proc the shock effect on the target.
Frankly, at my current level 13 mage, a burst combo like that does about 3500 damage, to which I can add prismatic beam for an extra 1200.
Scatter Shot is good on paper, but I'll just be honest, it sucks. It LOOKS good, it feels nice to use, but has several issues:
1: Casting it takes too long, it should be instant cast for the 250% frontal damage it does.
2: There is an 80% chance it simply misses the target dead-on.
3: It costs too much mana.
Headshot is another great ability on paper, but the fact remains it's weak in practice. It has a long cast time, a long cooldown, and low damage. It does at best 300% damage. As a finisher, this is pathetic, since this is an execute skill.
The vine field and trap look and work okay, albeit they're weak as well. Root is basically the only CC Ranger has, please guys, 3 seconds? I think mage freeze lasts longer.
As it's the only CC I think it should last at least 10s in PvE, and give it an option to last for 5s at least uninterruptible in PvP, meaning CC breaks do not affect it. REMEMBER ranger has no stun and no sleep.
The upper skill tree selections are indeed lackluster as many others have said, with skills being meh, worthless or otherwise not useful outside of niche scenarios. The party mov speed buff is cool tho.
Barrage looks cool, I like it. It suffers from low damage however, and feels like it's specifically tuned for max level gameplay where you have over 1000+ attack speed so you can use it faster.
So my complaints about the ranger are:
- Lack of clear class identity, why am I in this group? What do I provide? My damage is mediocre, I have no mitigation, my roots get immune'd because mobs have 10s immunities as well.
- Extreme reliance on Bards for mana, and in fact so mana hungry even a bard can't keep me up for long.
- Too low damage for the effort. I'll be frank, the overall damage of the ranger should be DOUBLED on some skills with it's current iteration and an overhaul is in order for the upper skill tree abilities. Snipe should do AT LEAST, AT LEAST 800% weapon damage, with crits doing AT LEAST 1200%. It's a SNIPE, no amount of crying "ranger already oneshots" will save you from a mage doing 1500% weapon damage burst in 4 seconds on your face, with the option of an additional 500% for the lulz with prismatic beam. Did I mention mages have a 500% shield as well as sleep and blink? Must've slipped my mind. Btw, I didn't consider thermal equilibrium or the other conflagrate enhancing skill here.
- Headshot specifically should do 300% base weapon damage, and +700% as an execute. It's an EXECUTE, not a peashooter. You're getting shot in the face by an arrow that's arguably a sniper rifle round as it's magic enhanced.
- Scatter Shot should really do about 200% damage instead of 125%, and 350% charged. The animation for the charged shot is also weird, it could do with a bit of polishing so it looks more like an arrow. Currently it kinda looks like a half cut log with stripes on it or something.
- Barrage damage should be upped by 50%.
- Overall mana usage should be dropped by 50-75% so we don't run out of mana after every 2 mobs.
I'm sure these damage numbers seem surreal to people who main other classes, they're also damage numbers which take into account the fact that ranger's defense is running away, that's it. That's ranger defense.
What can be done immediately, as a band-aid fix, one day to the next:
- Increase ranger overall damage significantly, maybe not literally double it but it should be a very significant increase.
- reduce mana usage significantly.
Long term, I feel like the class requires an overhaul in some areas. Skills like scatter shot, snipe, headshot, barrage, they all look beautiful. But there is no "Death" in "Death from afar". There is only "why should I take you over a mage lol, at least they can shield up when a pyro does a 2k flame shot on their face so they don't die and they do more dmg too". The lore part is damaged to me, because the class overall feels weak, and it's identity is partially damaged.
The marks have too long of a cooldown, I think they should be on a 30s cd, or at most 45s.
The ammo options aren't great outside of Snare which helps with kiting. But it procs immunity which isn't great. I would like to see more options added such as Explosive Ammo, Freezing Ammo, Venom tips and so on. Each useful in specific scenarios, one for AoE, one for slowing, one for single target and so on.
I would like more options added to the skill tree, things that truly embody and focus on the aspect of Death.
I'm not sure which class is supposed to be the highest damage dealer in the game, it's either Rogue+Rogue Assassin or Ranger+Ranger Sharpshooter going by my logic. Rogue is often lower on dps because it brings so much utility, and going by the lore, they do focus on opportunity in Ashes as well.
Lastly, there's no need to link vids of Grapplr mowing down hordes of monsters with his ranger, because I can do that as well with my mage, I can do it better, survive longer, and deal more aoe damage. It doesn't help the "ranger is fine argument". I can also do the same with my ranger, albeit not as efficient as my mage.
Also might I sensibly draw your attention to fighter, which can do the same thing, again better than ranger, because they happen to have a giga sustain ability with 45s CD. Conveniently timed with their other AoE skillls.
Cleric can take even more hordes of goblins and slaughter them, I actually clipped a video of this happening here: https://www.twitch.tv/kuldar1994/clip/EnchantingGrotesqueEyeballSaltBae-Lz3_332spfs-0OD2?tt_content=clip&tt_medium=mobile_web_share
Anyway that's about it for now. Writing on my phone is kinda annoying so I won't go into more details.
And what I have to say, in short and overall: disappointing
And here is why:
I think the Ranger suffers from lack of identity, it's 100% missing the "death from afar" part of it's lore. The damage it does is lackluster compared to my mage.
Snipe for example hits for about 750 damage on targets with average armor (bears), and crits for around 1.1k. Wow, big damage right? No not really.
My mage has a 262 Sons greatsword, and a 177 brass longbow, and I hit 750 with fireball, which further burns the target for another 200% dmg that combusts into a conflagrate. Not only that, but fireball can be spammed, costs less mana than Snipe, and is cast faster. All the while while it's doing the same damage!
And you might say, well mage needs to setup properly to do that damage, it takes time to cast.
Actually, mage burst is both higher and faster than ranger, and it's not fireball into combust that does the damage. You can combo hoarfrost into cone of cold freeze into a near insta cast thunder which does 400% dmg + triple firebolt into combust. Well unless the target is gigastacked tank they're not living through the firebolts anyway. But if they do live then Frostbolt is ready to proc the shock effect on the target.
Frankly, at my current level 13 mage, a burst combo like that does about 3500 damage, to which I can add prismatic beam for an extra 1200.
Scatter Shot is good on paper, but I'll just be honest, it sucks. It LOOKS good, it feels nice to use, but has several issues:
1: Casting it takes too long, it should be instant cast for the 250% frontal damage it does.
2: There is an 80% chance it simply misses the target dead-on.
3: It costs too much mana.
Headshot is another great ability on paper, but the fact remains it's weak in practice. It has a long cast time, a long cooldown, and low damage. It does at best 300% damage. As a finisher, this is pathetic, since this is an execute skill.
The vine field and trap look and work okay, albeit they're weak as well. Root is basically the only CC Ranger has, please guys, 3 seconds? I think mage freeze lasts longer.
As it's the only CC I think it should last at least 10s in PvE, and give it an option to last for 5s at least uninterruptible in PvP, meaning CC breaks do not affect it. REMEMBER ranger has no stun and no sleep.
The upper skill tree selections are indeed lackluster as many others have said, with skills being meh, worthless or otherwise not useful outside of niche scenarios. The party mov speed buff is cool tho.
Barrage looks cool, I like it. It suffers from low damage however, and feels like it's specifically tuned for max level gameplay where you have over 1000+ attack speed so you can use it faster.
So my complaints about the ranger are:
- Lack of clear class identity, why am I in this group? What do I provide? My damage is mediocre, I have no mitigation, my roots get immune'd because mobs have 10s immunities as well.
- Extreme reliance on Bards for mana, and in fact so mana hungry even a bard can't keep me up for long.
- Too low damage for the effort. I'll be frank, the overall damage of the ranger should be DOUBLED on some skills with it's current iteration and an overhaul is in order for the upper skill tree abilities. Snipe should do AT LEAST, AT LEAST 800% weapon damage, with crits doing AT LEAST 1200%. It's a SNIPE, no amount of crying "ranger already oneshots" will save you from a mage doing 1500% weapon damage burst in 4 seconds on your face, with the option of an additional 500% for the lulz with prismatic beam. Did I mention mages have a 500% shield as well as sleep and blink? Must've slipped my mind. Btw, I didn't consider thermal equilibrium or the other conflagrate enhancing skill here.
- Headshot specifically should do 300% base weapon damage, and +700% as an execute. It's an EXECUTE, not a peashooter. You're getting shot in the face by an arrow that's arguably a sniper rifle round as it's magic enhanced.
- Scatter Shot should really do about 200% damage instead of 125%, and 350% charged. The animation for the charged shot is also weird, it could do with a bit of polishing so it looks more like an arrow. Currently it kinda looks like a half cut log with stripes on it or something.
- Barrage damage should be upped by 50%.
- Overall mana usage should be dropped by 50-75% so we don't run out of mana after every 2 mobs.
I'm sure these damage numbers seem surreal to people who main other classes, they're also damage numbers which take into account the fact that ranger's defense is running away, that's it. That's ranger defense.
What can be done immediately, as a band-aid fix, one day to the next:
- Increase ranger overall damage significantly, maybe not literally double it but it should be a very significant increase.
- reduce mana usage significantly.
Long term, I feel like the class requires an overhaul in some areas. Skills like scatter shot, snipe, headshot, barrage, they all look beautiful. But there is no "Death" in "Death from afar". There is only "why should I take you over a mage lol, at least they can shield up when a pyro does a 2k flame shot on their face so they don't die and they do more dmg too". The lore part is damaged to me, because the class overall feels weak, and it's identity is partially damaged.
The marks have too long of a cooldown, I think they should be on a 30s cd, or at most 45s.
The ammo options aren't great outside of Snare which helps with kiting. But it procs immunity which isn't great. I would like to see more options added such as Explosive Ammo, Freezing Ammo, Venom tips and so on. Each useful in specific scenarios, one for AoE, one for slowing, one for single target and so on.
I would like more options added to the skill tree, things that truly embody and focus on the aspect of Death.
I'm not sure which class is supposed to be the highest damage dealer in the game, it's either Rogue+Rogue Assassin or Ranger+Ranger Sharpshooter going by my logic. Rogue is often lower on dps because it brings so much utility, and going by the lore, they do focus on opportunity in Ashes as well.
Lastly, there's no need to link vids of Grapplr mowing down hordes of monsters with his ranger, because I can do that as well with my mage, I can do it better, survive longer, and deal more aoe damage. It doesn't help the "ranger is fine argument". I can also do the same with my ranger, albeit not as efficient as my mage.
Also might I sensibly draw your attention to fighter, which can do the same thing, again better than ranger, because they happen to have a giga sustain ability with 45s CD. Conveniently timed with their other AoE skillls.
Cleric can take even more hordes of goblins and slaughter them, I actually clipped a video of this happening here: https://www.twitch.tv/kuldar1994/clip/EnchantingGrotesqueEyeballSaltBae-Lz3_332spfs-0OD2?tt_content=clip&tt_medium=mobile_web_share
Anyway that's about it for now. Writing on my phone is kinda annoying so I won't go into more details.
4
Comments
hard agree with most of this, i am lvl 25 ranger atm and i can out dps a mage, but the skills just feel off, i really dislike that every single skill we have roots you in place, headshot is really bad, i dont even use this in my rotation even if the target is under 50% its just a flat dps loss, and having 0 hard CC feels really bad, ranger is for the '' most mobile class '' or second most just feels bad lol its almost impossible to get out of cc i hope they rework it for p2
So you disagree with most of this because we have skills that roots you in place? You mean the vines? That have 60s cooldown and roots for 2-3 seconds? If they root at all because a lot of mobs have immunity?
What we have are some slows, namely snares, and that is if you spec into them.
I agree with the takes of the OP. You said that you outdps a mage. What? Same gear as you? Same level? I doubt it. The damage output a mage and a ranger does in 4-5 seconds are so different. The burst damage that a mage does AOE in 4-5 seconds is in another class compared to the 4 seconds time rangers take to fire 1 snipe on 1 target.
The ranger feels nice. But it does not excel at anything. It is just there, casting arrows and complaining to the bard that has no mana and doing mediocre damage.
Essentially underwhelming in all areas. Outdone in dps both single and aoe by mage if not fighter, mobility is worse than bards, and arguably fighter, even though it was supposed to be second to rogue, marks are almost useless with long cooldowns and very short window of 8 seconds and can't stack with other marks, hunts are very weak, our high level skills do extremely little damage with long cooldowns, our mana costs are triple that of other classes, our range is the same as mage which kinda defeats the fantasy of ranger. No health regen except a very weak one that's useless in combat and no defenses except the thorns which is also very weak compared to shields and buffs of other classes
- Ranger bow mastery (Currently makes bow finishes reduce barrage/scatter shot CD by 3 seconds) and change this to apply to all ranger skills, currently every ranger skill CD is way to long for what it does and this would allow for an active way for rangers to weave in Autos to get more bang for there buck with skills
- Expeditious barrage kinda a usless skill currently since it only applies to barrage i would make this also apply to all bows weapons attacks this helps seperate mages and rangers a little more since would give rangers a little leg up on the mobility game over mages and allow for better kiting
- Snipe needs a buff considering it does less dmg than fireball from mages I wouldnt stright up increase dmg however have it get a bonus for what ammo you use when u cast it (so basicly the already promoted debuff version of the skill).
- Barbed = Applies Hemorrhage
- Weighted = applies root
- Concussion = applies silence
-Beartrap need seem diversifying CC effect atm ranger just root and snare which they pretty much be immune too half the fight anyway due to ur base kit so i would change there root to a stun instead it will work well allowing ranger a second CC to use while the target is immune to snares, You would need to change muiltitrap to something else entirely however since 3 stuns would be excessive i would make the trap AoE i think instead with that one
*edit* Evade change - Make omni evade default and replace that passive with after evading next snipe cast within 6 seconds is half the time atm snipe is basicly impossible to get off in pvp this would allow it to be castable mid combat
I think these changes would go a long way to put rangers back on a better path mechanicaly
Regeneration/thorns also need a buff
headshot also probaly need a dmg buff for under 50% hp
I'm doing about 4000 dps as a ranger ATM so yeah I can out dps a mage, but it's a boring rotation
i dont think you can out dps a mage with equal gear just looking at skil dmg numbers there dmg % are alot higher than most of ranger counter part skills however i cant say for certain since i havant played the mage but just going skill dmg number mages skill typicaly have more dmg value less cooldown and less mana cost to ranger counter part skills.
I really don't believe you.
It takes 4 seconds only to fire up 1 snipe. That does at most, for me at least, with critical, on a non-tank npc, 1700 damage. But it takes me 4 seconds for this to charge up the snipe. I have a mage in my guild that does 1800 critical damage with the fireball. I really don't believe when you say you can outdps a mage. Most likely because your reference is weak. Find a good mage, as strong as you, and you will see the difference.
That is major issue, yes, its not that ranger doesnt have enough damage, its just that mage is insanely overtuned, mage can burst you down before you can even cast your snipe, and mage is AoE class
Compared to ranger 20 second CD snipe 400% dmg 3second stationary cast no way to hasten it.
im not realy fussed about balance number though since they havant realy started doing that at this stage im mainly focused on mechanics of the kit and ranger is not quite there yet, i made a post on 3 changes that would help that too here https://forums.ashesofcreation.com/discussion/63480/3-tweaks-to-put-rangers-in-a-better-place-mechanicaly#latest
DM me your discord and I'll show you how
It's not the damage of the ranger that's really in question, it's how it feels to use your abilities, I do think now with Camo being fixed that snipe will feel better but right now there is no point in using alot of your abilities and when you do, you get instantly countered
very much so it about the mechanics and how the kit functions dmg number will be changed when they do balance and stuff but right now the kit kinda lack synergy with eachother skill wise
This is the thing that has been making the Ranger feel off for me. Fighters can easily proc bleed/hemorrhage for a big DOT, they can easily proc stagger/trip for a CC. Mages can easily proc frozen/shatter and burn/conflag for big burst or a DOT. The Ranger doesn't have these options to easily set up synergies.
Definitely agree, and ranger also can't really kite in PvP which feels bad for a mobility class with 0 hard cc, the way that the weapon systems are designed make it almost impossible, you cant attack whilst sprinting which means if you do stop to attack even for a moment the target has caught up, and if you do anything other than auto attack you are hit with a hard snare or full character lock in place, ranger abilities need to be way more reaction based and instant, furthermore you can't root most classes as almost every other class can remove it, if a warrior or tank catch up you are hard cc'd for enough time to just die, even with the stun removal, we are the only class with 0 self healing, or defensives, and our only heal ( regeneration ) would take about 9 minutes to heal our full HP lol whilst other classes are insta healing 70-80%
i kinda hope they make expedious barrage to also apply to bow basic attacks aswell as barrage to allow for abit more kiteability potential
you can say that but OP claims ranger should have its damage number increased by about 50%, its insanity
Well for some abilities I agree, for example my headshot if used on an ability over 50% does about 1000 damage, that's at level 25 with cinder bow lol
Actually I was saying to the fact that with one of the best bows it only does 1000 damage with a long CD where as a mage will do more with a fireball
my level 10 fighter alt is criting for 900-1.2k aswell atm on like 3 of the 6 skill he has unlocked on thing higher level than him