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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.
how to fix ranger in duels
Chicago
Member, Alpha One, Alpha Two, Early Alpha Two
now i know this game is not balanced around 1 v 1s, and this is not a rant post i would like to hear everyone's thoughts on this
currently i am a level 25 ranger, done quite a few duels v every class, i have very decent gear, not bis but not far off and these are the thoughts i have about ranger pvp
in mass pvp ranger is fun, it shines mostly in an 8v8 environment, however other than the vine field we get, there is next to 0 outplay potential and ranger just becomes a class where your only real option is to burst someone down before they burst you down. i feel sad about this as in most games hunter/ranger etc have always not just had damage, they have had skills that let them control the battlefield, they can make outplays, they can reset, they can escape and none of this is really possible in ashes
ranger is currently seen as '' the most mobile class available '' in practice this is so far from the truth, in a dueling environment there is not much way to utilize this mobility, a good fighter will always catch you, a good tank will pull you, CC you for 10 seconds, and if they want to they will just kill you with a bow from range, a cleric will wand you to death, a mage as spoken about here will kill you before you get them to 50%, a bard for what ever reason can straight up out heal our damage and just wand you down. Right now with 0 way to gain an opener in a dueling environment the entire play style of ranger is to just do as much damage as you can and hope you kill them before they kill you. and in world pvp, yes you can get an opener a little easier but it just plays like a rogue? big damage from stealth and thats it
lets talk about our CCs, we have vine field and bear trap, now i like vine field in mass pvp, it definitely has its use cases, however the fact that intrepid is going the route of retail wow and giving everyone an ability for every scenario ( other than ranger iwth our 0 defensives ) sort of makes it a bit useless, in duels tank/cleric/fighter/mage/ and ranger can just straight up remove your root, so in practice it is not as good as it looks on paper, bear trap, great in pve, trash in pvp. its area is way to small, travel time is to long for reactive plays and just way to easy to avoid. we also have a silence that after an hour of testing i have concluded that it just does not work.
i expect they are doing an overhaul on ranger because after checking every other classes' skill tree's, ranger is so far behind in so many ways, so lets add some things here we would like to see and hope intrepid notice
a hard CC, every other class has one why not ranger
Vine field passive options, maybe an option for this not to be able to be removed or if it is removed gives them snare stacks or something, make it less useless in a 1v1 environment
an entire re work around silence, as of right now to use silence, you need to use concussive ammo, once it procs you cast Thundering shot, this spell already has a cast time, but then it proceeds to shoot up into the sky and back down instead of straight at your opponent, so its already slow, as it is right now, silence is pointless to even use because the setup it requires just makes no sense in a dueling environment, it needs to be instant and reactive not a 6 second setup time.
camo is nice for ganking but is that all ranger is going to be? a gank bot, the issue is like all of our passives, its absolutley useless in a 1v1 environment, it does not ensure that you get an opener, infact it does nothing, targets don't drop you as a target when you use it, they can still see you from 30 yrds, a fix i would like to see is on use targets drop your nameplate from their target and have to retarget you, also maybe make the first 5-10 seconds true stealth not just '' harder to see ''
Regen although i can see them working on it still sucks, and this goes into ranger defensives in general, Mage gets a 3600 ish absorb shield ( scales with magic power rating ), bard well is a bard, fighter can full heal and has a passive 1%/s heal, cleric ...
and tank has so many defensives theres no need to even list them, where as ranger does not have 1 defensive, nothing at all
i would like to see a reduce damage by 80% or something for 5 seconds or something situational added to the ranger tool kit, i would like to see regen changed to a self hot that is not in use 100% of the time but situational
and lastly i would love it if they fixed kiting, ranger mobility is a big part of the class fantasy, and in an open world the mobility is fun, disengage is a cool ability ( even though it does not work most of the time ) and strider is oaky i guess, but in a dueling space our mobility is ass and there is absolutely no option to kite, this is a huge issue that needs to be fixed
whats everyones thoughts on this
currently i am a level 25 ranger, done quite a few duels v every class, i have very decent gear, not bis but not far off and these are the thoughts i have about ranger pvp
in mass pvp ranger is fun, it shines mostly in an 8v8 environment, however other than the vine field we get, there is next to 0 outplay potential and ranger just becomes a class where your only real option is to burst someone down before they burst you down. i feel sad about this as in most games hunter/ranger etc have always not just had damage, they have had skills that let them control the battlefield, they can make outplays, they can reset, they can escape and none of this is really possible in ashes
ranger is currently seen as '' the most mobile class available '' in practice this is so far from the truth, in a dueling environment there is not much way to utilize this mobility, a good fighter will always catch you, a good tank will pull you, CC you for 10 seconds, and if they want to they will just kill you with a bow from range, a cleric will wand you to death, a mage as spoken about here will kill you before you get them to 50%, a bard for what ever reason can straight up out heal our damage and just wand you down. Right now with 0 way to gain an opener in a dueling environment the entire play style of ranger is to just do as much damage as you can and hope you kill them before they kill you. and in world pvp, yes you can get an opener a little easier but it just plays like a rogue? big damage from stealth and thats it
lets talk about our CCs, we have vine field and bear trap, now i like vine field in mass pvp, it definitely has its use cases, however the fact that intrepid is going the route of retail wow and giving everyone an ability for every scenario ( other than ranger iwth our 0 defensives ) sort of makes it a bit useless, in duels tank/cleric/fighter/mage/ and ranger can just straight up remove your root, so in practice it is not as good as it looks on paper, bear trap, great in pve, trash in pvp. its area is way to small, travel time is to long for reactive plays and just way to easy to avoid. we also have a silence that after an hour of testing i have concluded that it just does not work.
i expect they are doing an overhaul on ranger because after checking every other classes' skill tree's, ranger is so far behind in so many ways, so lets add some things here we would like to see and hope intrepid notice
a hard CC, every other class has one why not ranger
Vine field passive options, maybe an option for this not to be able to be removed or if it is removed gives them snare stacks or something, make it less useless in a 1v1 environment
an entire re work around silence, as of right now to use silence, you need to use concussive ammo, once it procs you cast Thundering shot, this spell already has a cast time, but then it proceeds to shoot up into the sky and back down instead of straight at your opponent, so its already slow, as it is right now, silence is pointless to even use because the setup it requires just makes no sense in a dueling environment, it needs to be instant and reactive not a 6 second setup time.
camo is nice for ganking but is that all ranger is going to be? a gank bot, the issue is like all of our passives, its absolutley useless in a 1v1 environment, it does not ensure that you get an opener, infact it does nothing, targets don't drop you as a target when you use it, they can still see you from 30 yrds, a fix i would like to see is on use targets drop your nameplate from their target and have to retarget you, also maybe make the first 5-10 seconds true stealth not just '' harder to see ''
Regen although i can see them working on it still sucks, and this goes into ranger defensives in general, Mage gets a 3600 ish absorb shield ( scales with magic power rating ), bard well is a bard, fighter can full heal and has a passive 1%/s heal, cleric ...
and tank has so many defensives theres no need to even list them, where as ranger does not have 1 defensive, nothing at all
i would like to see a reduce damage by 80% or something for 5 seconds or something situational added to the ranger tool kit, i would like to see regen changed to a self hot that is not in use 100% of the time but situational
and lastly i would love it if they fixed kiting, ranger mobility is a big part of the class fantasy, and in an open world the mobility is fun, disengage is a cool ability ( even though it does not work most of the time ) and strider is oaky i guess, but in a dueling space our mobility is ass and there is absolutely no option to kite, this is a huge issue that needs to be fixed
whats everyones thoughts on this
5
Comments
But other than that, I agree very much with most points in the post. Ranger really feels like a Rogue - you engage first, or you die. It does not feel like there is any outplay potential in the kit - the long cast times and limited mobility that most classes can either match or simply play around. And that is very unfortunate because turning the table on an attacker is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world when it comes to OWPvP.
Snipe - Change the effect from bleeding to Dazed. It would allow synergy with Thunder shot to silence an enemy, currently it's convoluted to proc, and it also synergises with Headshot.
Disengage - Default needs to be omnidirectional, change one of options to reduction of Snipe cast time.
Traps - one option should be an aoe procd hard stun.
Ammo - Make concussive shot an ability with a decent cool down or something.
Marks - Make them stay on target for much longer than they currently do. I'd change Raven to movement speed buff or evasion increase.
Air strike - Go back to the original animation from the showcase and make it so when in the animation you're immune like whirlwind.