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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Ranger ArcheType Feedback-Week 3 Testing
muthatuckaaa
Member, Alpha Two
I wanted to address what I saw as issues for the Archetype after last weekends testing, and provide feedback on potential ways to balance the class by correcting these issues. I spent some time mulling it over this week before posting. My goal is to provide context on what I see as an issue, then provide a possible adjustment that could be made to balance it versus other classes. I'm aware Steven said the Class needs some balance. First thing's first, the description of the class versus what we get:
https://ashesofcreation.com/archetypes/Ranger:
"Rangers have a profound connection to the world around them, which gives them an ability to track enemy targets that borders on the supernatural, and a skill for camouflage that gives them an enormous advantage in any terrain." etc. etc.
How so? As a Ranger, I have no tracking skill whatsoever in-game. If it were similar to a Ranger in EverQuest, where I gain some Tracking style ability to see a roster of mobs in my area, based on skill that grows over time, providing more directional accuracy and range on what I can see, that would be excellent. Perhaps they could implement a list of mobs on the map in my area, with a Radius that grows based on skill or level? Not sure, but as things stand, the class description feels misleading and slightly disappointing in that regard for starters. Every class can hunt, can they not? Perhaps we should inherently gain a bonus to hunting and taming as well. In regards to our camouflage ability, it is visually bugged and often, whilst standing still and not even being in combat, if I cast it, it bugs out and doesn't resolve. I then have to recast it. It barely functions, and it's only merit currently is that it still manages to be more useful (somehow) than Regeneration. Regeneration...IDK what to even say about it, to be honest. It's awful and weak. Replace it, please.
Next:
"Their magical acumen is based on their strong affinity with the natural world, allowing them to harness nature’s fury in battle while destroying foes with devastating hails of arrows, and crippling weapon strikes."
We have just two Elemental damaging shots, with Air Strike acting as a Physical damage ability that provides little to nothing in terms of damage. It currently isn't even worth slotting into my rotation unless I'm playing Solo, which is far from optimal. Thundering Shot is weak, Raining Death is weak, and Air Strike is incredibly weak, especially for the mana each of them costs compared to the Bard or Mages top-end ranged capabilities. 200%/100%/150% Physical damage respectively, with a fairly long amount of channel downtime that interrupts our auto-attack (and thus our bleeding or other triggers/DPS). The only one of these top-end skill tree abilities that buffs another of ours is our Thundering Shot into Raining Death for the slight buff vs. Shocked targets, which is 25%. I believe this alone merits a priority buff to the class so that changes could be tested before before the Dec 20th wipe.
For comparison, look at the Mage as another pure Ranged DPS. The Mages various abilities all stack to buff one another based on what was recently applied, with many of them providing several stacks of Shocked, Burning, Conflagrating, and Chilled to their targets; this inherently provides synergistic stacking damage, and DoT ticks are longer and deal far more damage than a Ranger's. On top of a generally higher base damage, many of their abilities affect things in an AoE around their target, resulting in the Mage far outstripping the Ranger's current DPS at similar levels and gear. The only reason at all a group might take a Ranger currently is for our Ranged DPS if they completely lack a mage, or for our Marks, which leads me to my next point...
Marks are weak. They need a buff, and this might be the biggest priority for our class, as it defines it and Steven already addressed this as an issue. Mark duration is far too short. It lasts for just a few seconds. I like that we can charge Snipe and the apply it right before the channel of Snipe resolves, but regardless, this provides us with an incredibly small window to attack; the issue is, we need to get our other abilities on cooldown. By the time we Snipe> Apply Mark>Headshot>Barrage>or some other similar opener, the Mark is already gone. Our burst damage for single target is then lost to the overwhelming throughput damage from all other DPS classes. Should we do this same opener for AoE in a group but then apply Thundering Shot (with Explosive Shot skill taken) into Raining Death for AoE, or charge and fire our two charges of Scatter Shot, the buff is already worn off; and it only would've applied to one target anyway. Which leads me to my next point...
Marks should have a form of AoE or spread to other enemies in a radius after the initial target, over time. For example, they could be applied in an AoE of up to 3-4 targets; or you could apply it to one target, then it could spread to other enemies in an area, spreading to each enemy within say 3-5 meters or so per second and capping at perhaps 3-5 targets or something similar. This would allow the class to compete somewhat similarly versus Mages, who have similar but far better abilities already built in, but in a different way. The Ranger would have better single target sustained damage, whilst the Mage has better AoE; however, the Ranger can work with the Mage by Marking targets at an opportune moment, like a Burn phase in a fight vs. a Raid boss where we would want to Nuke down some adds that are spawning. To show how bad our abilites stack, by comparison, let's look at a mage again. For a Mage, Chain Lightning into a Frostbolt with Shattering Shards skill chosen: they hit for 175% vs 1 + up to 5 more targets with Lightning and apply Shocked, then take cast Frostbolt and the enemy trakes 250% from a direct Frostbolt, which with Shocked applied from the Chain Lightning then Spreads to 3 more targets for 150% frost damage, on top of proccing more Shocked charged to damage the enemy. Those are some of their starter and mid-tier abilities. Their tree is synergy soup, whilst ours is...well, not.
Finally, weapons.
Currently, in the available map area, most classes have a named mob that drops a 20+ named weapon. There isn't a named mob that drops a 20+ 1h mace or spear, but those classes can instead use the sword from the Monitor, or the Gorbo goblin 2h. For Rangers, the only named mob that can drop us a 20+ bow are the World bosses. This means that in order to get a bow, we have to farm the Tower of Carphin and pray. In over a day there last play period, I never saw a bow drop whilst killing a variety of mobs.
Loot is whatever though. There's time for that to get added. What we truly need for testing is a buff as soon as possible so that balancing changes can be implemented through these subsequent testing phases.
Much love to the team, sorry readers if this was a bit tedious or long, but I played a Ranger in EverQuest for a long time. I love the potential for the class in this game and how fun it feels, yet I can't help but notice the class underperforms currently... to a worrying degree.
https://ashesofcreation.com/archetypes/Ranger:
"Rangers have a profound connection to the world around them, which gives them an ability to track enemy targets that borders on the supernatural, and a skill for camouflage that gives them an enormous advantage in any terrain." etc. etc.
How so? As a Ranger, I have no tracking skill whatsoever in-game. If it were similar to a Ranger in EverQuest, where I gain some Tracking style ability to see a roster of mobs in my area, based on skill that grows over time, providing more directional accuracy and range on what I can see, that would be excellent. Perhaps they could implement a list of mobs on the map in my area, with a Radius that grows based on skill or level? Not sure, but as things stand, the class description feels misleading and slightly disappointing in that regard for starters. Every class can hunt, can they not? Perhaps we should inherently gain a bonus to hunting and taming as well. In regards to our camouflage ability, it is visually bugged and often, whilst standing still and not even being in combat, if I cast it, it bugs out and doesn't resolve. I then have to recast it. It barely functions, and it's only merit currently is that it still manages to be more useful (somehow) than Regeneration. Regeneration...IDK what to even say about it, to be honest. It's awful and weak. Replace it, please.
Next:
"Their magical acumen is based on their strong affinity with the natural world, allowing them to harness nature’s fury in battle while destroying foes with devastating hails of arrows, and crippling weapon strikes."
We have just two Elemental damaging shots, with Air Strike acting as a Physical damage ability that provides little to nothing in terms of damage. It currently isn't even worth slotting into my rotation unless I'm playing Solo, which is far from optimal. Thundering Shot is weak, Raining Death is weak, and Air Strike is incredibly weak, especially for the mana each of them costs compared to the Bard or Mages top-end ranged capabilities. 200%/100%/150% Physical damage respectively, with a fairly long amount of channel downtime that interrupts our auto-attack (and thus our bleeding or other triggers/DPS). The only one of these top-end skill tree abilities that buffs another of ours is our Thundering Shot into Raining Death for the slight buff vs. Shocked targets, which is 25%. I believe this alone merits a priority buff to the class so that changes could be tested before before the Dec 20th wipe.
For comparison, look at the Mage as another pure Ranged DPS. The Mages various abilities all stack to buff one another based on what was recently applied, with many of them providing several stacks of Shocked, Burning, Conflagrating, and Chilled to their targets; this inherently provides synergistic stacking damage, and DoT ticks are longer and deal far more damage than a Ranger's. On top of a generally higher base damage, many of their abilities affect things in an AoE around their target, resulting in the Mage far outstripping the Ranger's current DPS at similar levels and gear. The only reason at all a group might take a Ranger currently is for our Ranged DPS if they completely lack a mage, or for our Marks, which leads me to my next point...
Marks are weak. They need a buff, and this might be the biggest priority for our class, as it defines it and Steven already addressed this as an issue. Mark duration is far too short. It lasts for just a few seconds. I like that we can charge Snipe and the apply it right before the channel of Snipe resolves, but regardless, this provides us with an incredibly small window to attack; the issue is, we need to get our other abilities on cooldown. By the time we Snipe> Apply Mark>Headshot>Barrage>or some other similar opener, the Mark is already gone. Our burst damage for single target is then lost to the overwhelming throughput damage from all other DPS classes. Should we do this same opener for AoE in a group but then apply Thundering Shot (with Explosive Shot skill taken) into Raining Death for AoE, or charge and fire our two charges of Scatter Shot, the buff is already worn off; and it only would've applied to one target anyway. Which leads me to my next point...
Marks should have a form of AoE or spread to other enemies in a radius after the initial target, over time. For example, they could be applied in an AoE of up to 3-4 targets; or you could apply it to one target, then it could spread to other enemies in an area, spreading to each enemy within say 3-5 meters or so per second and capping at perhaps 3-5 targets or something similar. This would allow the class to compete somewhat similarly versus Mages, who have similar but far better abilities already built in, but in a different way. The Ranger would have better single target sustained damage, whilst the Mage has better AoE; however, the Ranger can work with the Mage by Marking targets at an opportune moment, like a Burn phase in a fight vs. a Raid boss where we would want to Nuke down some adds that are spawning. To show how bad our abilites stack, by comparison, let's look at a mage again. For a Mage, Chain Lightning into a Frostbolt with Shattering Shards skill chosen: they hit for 175% vs 1 + up to 5 more targets with Lightning and apply Shocked, then take cast Frostbolt and the enemy trakes 250% from a direct Frostbolt, which with Shocked applied from the Chain Lightning then Spreads to 3 more targets for 150% frost damage, on top of proccing more Shocked charged to damage the enemy. Those are some of their starter and mid-tier abilities. Their tree is synergy soup, whilst ours is...well, not.
Finally, weapons.
Currently, in the available map area, most classes have a named mob that drops a 20+ named weapon. There isn't a named mob that drops a 20+ 1h mace or spear, but those classes can instead use the sword from the Monitor, or the Gorbo goblin 2h. For Rangers, the only named mob that can drop us a 20+ bow are the World bosses. This means that in order to get a bow, we have to farm the Tower of Carphin and pray. In over a day there last play period, I never saw a bow drop whilst killing a variety of mobs.
Loot is whatever though. There's time for that to get added. What we truly need for testing is a buff as soon as possible so that balancing changes can be implemented through these subsequent testing phases.
Much love to the team, sorry readers if this was a bit tedious or long, but I played a Ranger in EverQuest for a long time. I love the potential for the class in this game and how fun it feels, yet I can't help but notice the class underperforms currently... to a worrying degree.
2
Comments
Thorns - at level 25 does like 4 damage? and we are not tanking anyway .. useless
Regeneration - at level 25 regens like 5 hps? .. useless
Strider - seems decent but then we get it again as a skill in our top tier skill tree, ( witch lets be honest is super lackluster ) so again ... useless, have it as a passive or a skill, not both
Camouflage - i think this ability could be good, but for the love of god, put a day into fixing it, some of the updates pushed through are so much further down the priority list than fixing game breaking skills, as of right now, your nameplate is still visible whilst using, it only works maybe 2/5 times, any action whatsoever breaks it wich is not compatible with the tooltip ( we should be able to sprint disengage etc in camo, why not? ) and it seems like it does absolutely nothing to making mobs not see you as a level 1 will still Argro you from 20 meters lol furthermore if someone is targeting you and you use camo, they should drop target
some of the synergy with the rest of our skills is decent, but waaaaaaay to many skills require cast times, infact every single skill we have has a cast time bar none, thundering shot should be instant as its our silence, snipe as someone said earlier should get its cast time halved after disengage or something, even the bonus on snipe does nothing because as of right now its only an opener, but you seem to get a benefit if the target is already bleeding? no one is hard casting a 4s aimed shot mid fight,
headshot damage is lackluster, especially if its above 50% hp, and this should also be instant cast, everyone elses execute is instant, just feels bad to use.
marks as you said, way to small up time to be worth even taking, ammo imbues are also pretty bad as every single imbue we get are also weapon procs, so they are not very innovative
all this said and done, ranger is still fun to play, and i am enjoying it, but please for the love of god, give it some love lol, we have classes on their 3rd pass, give ranger a once over
yeah so do i, but feels bad one of our passives just being another buff for the tank lol, if you make a tank and just check our their talent tree and compare it to ranger its night and day