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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
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Alpha Two Phase III testing has begun! During this phase, our realms will be open every day, and we'll only have downtime for updates and maintenance. We'll keep everyone up-to-date about downtimes in Discord.
If you have Alpha Two, you can download the game launcher here, and we encourage you to join us on our Official Discord Server for the most up to date testing news.
For Rangers, By Rangers - A Feedback Discussion
Dezemi
Member, Alpha Two
Okay, so I finally decided to actually write a proper post to collect all of my feedback in one place. There will be a TL;DR in the bottom for those who have limited time (I completely understand. xd ). A very important note before I start: this is a feedback based on feel. It is not that technical nor advanced, it is simply a (perhaps unwanted) take on the feel of the ranger.
1.1 Quick background:
I've played MMORPGs since I was 9 years old (I am 30), with WoW as my lead MMORPGs. Yes, I know - scandal. Across all my years ranged bow-focused archetypes have always been my go-to class; including hunters in WoW, rangers (not exclusively ranged) in DnD/Pathfinder, ranger in BDO, ranger in Guild Wars 1+2, demon hunter/(ranged) rogue in Diablo (3 + 4), ranger in Path of Exile 1+2, ADC/"marksman" in LoL, Ivara OTP in Warframe etc... I have been competitive when I was younger in pretty much all games above except for the hack n slash titles - both in PvE and PvP content... but since I now have 2 small children time no longer allows me to be competitive (and to be fair, I am probably nowhere near as good as I was when I was younger when time and motivation came in endless amounts x] ).
That aside, all in all, I have a very specific gameplay fantasy that I enjoy and have stuck with for 21 years.
2.1 Ranger - the class archetype fantasy of Intrepid's 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. 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. Rangers also use this natural magic to enhance their mobility on the battlefield by leaping out of harm's way. Be wary, for it is said that when a ranger marks you for death, it’s time to get your affairs in order."
The above qoutation is from the first phrase of the Wiki, as well as the official description of the ranger on AoC's own website. On the website, the ranger's description is followed by the following keywords: "Marks", "Scouting", "Ammo Inbues" and finally Mobility. Lets start with those keywords as they are identifying Intrepid's ranger.
2.2 Marks
Marks is the unique mechanic of rangers, and has since their stream reveal been their identifying class feature. The ranger enters a "hunt" (raven, tiger or bear) which has 3 functions:
1) While in the hunt, which can be upheld at all times save for during (2) below, the ranger gains a rather hefty passive bonus to either accuracy (raven), crit chance (tiger) or penetration (bear).
2) Hunts can be activated to temporarily mark a foe, granting a debuff to the foe that affects anyone attacking the marked foe. The debuff is based on the hunt; lowering the targets defenses against the specific trait that the hunt is buffing (i.e, lowered evasion from Mark of the Raven, lowered crit evasion from Mark of the Tiger and lowered defense from Mark of the Bear). For the duration that the target is marked, the player loses the benefit of the Hunt (1) above.
3) When a hunt is completed (after 8 or 10 seconds, the duration currently escapes my memory), the ranger gains the Appeased effect of the Hunt which is a temporary defensive buff based on the Hunt. Evasion for Raven, crit evasion for tiger and defense for bear. They also regain the Hunt buff (1) in itself (unless the target died while marked, in which case the player has to reactivate it manually - I assume this is a bug).
All in all, I like the current mechanics. 1 & 2 feels fun, interactive and gives a very satisfying feeling when it is well coordinated with the rest of the group, especially since we had a duration buff to the Marks (2). The Appeased buffs (3) does not feel as great - first of all the Tiger Hunt does not feel particilarly useful as a defensive mechanism, nor is it in general a very reliable as a defensive cooldown since it is "time gated" behind the the 8 second mark, and it is tied to our one burst mechanic. It is much more useful in solo content as the defensive Appeased buff often comes just as mobs reaches the ranger after their opening - which does line up with what I can only assume is Intrepid's idea of the ranger being an "opener" archetype - but it feels very non-useful in group combat. My suggestion to make it feel better in group-play is that the Appeased buff should always go to whoever the ranger has buffed with Regeneration (or perhaps Thorn if it was redesigned completely to match the current Hunt) - this way, the effect can instead be transferred to the tank (or some other VIP in the party) when the ranger is safely protected by the team, and out of harms way.
2.3 Scouting
Camouflage allows the ranger to enter a semi-stealth that makes them difficult to see, especially when standing still. Any actions besides sprinting breaks the effect, as does taking damage. Camoflague does not have a time limited, but it has a 60 seconds cooldown. It is probably one of my favorite skills when it comes to the ranger, and definitely one of the reasons I cannot imagine playing another archetype. Being able to sneak around mobs while gathering (though camouflage breaks at the end of a gathering action) and lose mob aggro by entering camo is just on point. I have no complaints nor suggestions to improve or change this ability; it is different from the rogue's stealth in a good and fair way while still letting the ranger hold on to their scouting potential.
2.4 Ammo Imbues
The ranger has 3 different types of ammunitions that they can use to enhance their weapon. The ammo impacts many of their abilities, and grants weapon procs based on the ammo type upon finisher effects.
1) Enhance Arnament: Weight - applies the "Snared" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I feel like "weight" is not an appropriate word for an ammo type that slows foes. I am no expert, but weighted ammo does as far as my knowledge goes not have any "slowing" effect - that would be a better named for the daze-ammo. Perhaps "webbed" ammo would feel a bit more nature-y and appropriate to the snared effect?
2) Barbed ammo - applies the "Bleeding" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I don't really have much to note here.
3) Concussion ammo - applies the "Daze" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I feel like the name of this ammo must be a placeholder since "concussion" is not really an ammo type. As stated above, I think this would be an appropriate effect of "weighted" ammo, and instead name the snaring ammo something else.
All in all, the ammos are probably my second biggest issue with the ranger "key" features thus far. I swap between ammo imbues often to attempt to suit my current situation; but all in all it just feels like I am picking an extra level of weapon talents. Is this perhaps the purpose of the ammos? I do not know, but it does not feel very much like a unique key-worded archetype mechanic, and for someone who *adored* the ammo types that survival hunters had between cata-WoD it feels extremely underwhelming. But at the same time, I see why we cannot have poisons and the like since that is a part of the rogue kit. Credit where credit is due, though! The visual effect of the arrows based on ammo type is a really neat feature that I love!
2.5 Mobility
And finally we've arrived to mobility. Lets be clear on one thing; I love the Strider buff. I love the Party Stride buff. I love that I can apply them to mounts, and other players. I think they are excellent additions to the ranger's kit, and I love buffing random mounts as they pass by; especially if I see the player carrying a crate.
But as a lot of players much more dedicated than I have noted in ways that I cannot phrase any better myself; the ranger does not *feel* mobile. It feels acrobatic, and it is fun getting up on vertical surfaces, climb and experiment... But in terms of mobility in combat; we are not even in par with the mage. Lets list our mobility features:
1) Stride - a singular buff that lasts for 15 minutes, granting the character/creature 10% increased speed during the duration. Party Stride buffs the party, including mounts with a similar buff that does not stack with the regular Stride. This ability feels good, imo, and if *anything* I would make it an always active toggle/passive for the ranger (but keep the buff so we can use it on other players and mounts) and make Party Stride just extend this buff to any nearby player/creature in your party within lets say 30m. (Party, not raid!)
2) Disengage - makes the character vault backwards (with a passive to make it vault towards whichever direction the ranger is moving - this talent is VERY buggy and has gotten me killed on multiple occasions). The general feel of the ability is okay, but it is moving so slowly that in combat it does little else than animation-lock your character. Against mobs its fine enough, but against players its a waste of time unless you're attempting to get higher ground as players can just sprint or dodge roll to catch up.
3) Air Strike - a very cool ability as a concept, but quite frankly useless you're climbing vertical surfaces. It does not hold up to a t3 talent in terms of damage, and it is *unreasonably* slow; literally gliding in the air in slow motion. Players dont even have to sprint to keep up.
On top of our not-so-impressive kit for mobility, the true issue comes when we realize that almost all ranger abilities require the ranger to stand just about still. Snipe is (understandably) a stationary ability. Powershot and Headshot is too. Vine Field, Raining Death, Scatter Shot and Thunder Shot requires the ranger to stand just about still (the movement allowed, if any, is so slow that you might as well stand still). Even our auto attacks slow us down to about 25% speed as we fire. Thus, there is a conflict; we're playing like stationary archers (or mages...), not as mobile rangers. This brings the ranger to an awkward position; we can't really kite melee opponents if we want to damage them; and to make things even more awkward every single class has access to ranged weapons. I won't go into a long detailed explanation regarding the PvP issues, @Chicago has summoned it up better than I ever could in many previous threads already. All in all, regardless if its focused on PvP or PvE we definitely come back to the isse that mobility is, by Intrepid's own words, a key feature for rangers, but we don't really have, nor feel, that in combat. Surely ranger mobility is not meant to be "just" about having slightly better mount speed?
3.1 Ranger abilities
To avoid repetition, I'll do my best to keep this brief. In the ranger's kit, there are a few abilities that I really want to comment on. Some of them feels out of place in the kit, some does not feel very good to play with and some just dont really seem to work as intended. I'll focus on the abilities as I imagine them being intended to work:
1) Snipe and Powershot - Powershot was a nice addition to the game, but I can't help but wonder why we need both Snipe and Powershot. If we want to keep snipe as an opener, then why do snipe even have the addition that it applies hemorrage to bleeding targets? Snipe is hardly worth using in our rotation once it's been used to open combat. My suggestion would be to give that quirk to Powershot instead; and make the Hasting Snipe and/or Heartseeking Snipe inherent effects of Snipe. I'd personally vouch for Hasting Snipe as it plays well into the ability being used as a heavy opener followed by a rain of arrows. Perhaps a great way of keeping the two abilities would be to make Snipe be an out of combat-ability that becomes Powershot while in combat? Technicalities could make that nightmareish ingame though.
2) Salvo and Barrage - to a point the same issue as Sniper and Powershot, it is two abilities that simply feel too similar. I like starting with Salvo as a baseline at the start, but once you start gaining all abilities it just feels needless and clunky.
3) Thundering Shot - probably the only ability I outright dislike in the ranger's kit. It is our only interrupt, it is dependant on a specific ammo or external help to apply daze, and it has an absurd casting time. It is not even reliable against predictable NPCs due to it's hideously slow cast and travel time, and it is 100% pointless in PvP. Even the slowest of abilities will have gone off before I get to cast my Thundering Shot, even if I do my best to interrupt current attacks to press it instantly. (In)effectivity aside, I am not sure why we have a sudden thunder-related damage ability in our kit. It feels extremely out of place, and its bonus talent is weird and mostly pointless. It deals too little damage to be worth the cast time when you can just continue to use Scatter Shot when you've specced into both side talents. I think I understand that Intrepid wants to force the daze effect to make the ranger be versatile in the sense that they need to specalize before they fight: "Do I need to kite? Pick snaring ammo. Am I facing spell casters? Pick daze ammo" etc, Thats okay, I can get behind that. But Thundering Shot just feels terrible. I would urge Intrepid to completely scrap this one and change it for a more reliable interrupt.
4) Bear Trap - it is just a mandatory part of any ranger/hunter's kit, isn't it? But I can't be the only one that is simply not using it. Unless I am killing stuff on my own, in which case I rather use Vinefield that I also use for party content, it is just useless. In PvP, nobody is ever going to get caught by the bear trap unless they are AFK, and everything the trap does, Vine Field does better. The one singular thing Bear Trap does better is being placed at a spot to assist in quick-tagging named mobs... You could argue that this niche use makes it all worth it; fine - by all means. But why on Verra do we have two talents related to this ability? Has anyone ever, outside testing purposes, unironically specced into them?
5) Thorns - thorns is a mystery to me. I do not know why it is in my kit, nor what function it is supposed to fill. It grants a very unreliable bleed effect when struck, which feels... odd. Usually, we apply bleed either through our weapons; or through our ammo. Usually, we dont really tank mobs enough to be triggering this in a meaningful way, and in group content all mobs are often bleeding from other sources. I like the concept of giving buffs, but this one just doesn't really have any meaning on its own. Could it perhaps be scrapped for something like "Barkskin" - the tiniest armor increase in history? Or a defensive buff based on our current hunt? Movement speed from Hunt of the Tiger, a tiny bit of armor from Hunt of the Bear or Evasion from Hunt of the Raven. Anything! Just... something else than a super unreliable bleed (especially when we're already having an ammo causing bleed; make choice matter). Hell, I'd even say make talents that we can modify Thorns with -- anything to make it interesting and fun!
6) Hunt of the Raven. Okay, I am sorry Intrepid but I have to say it. Ravens are not birds of prey. Ravens do not hunt, they - like crows - scavange. They are intelligent and interesting birds, absolutely, but they are not hunters. Hunt of the Eagle, Hunt of the Hawk, Hunt of the Owl - there are many magnificent birds of prey; pick one of them instead.
4.1The Talent Tree
I have to say that out of all the things when playing the ranger, looking at our talent tree is one of the things making me most sad. The first tier of talents is great. Absolutely no complaints.
The second tier is where problems start arising. First we have Snipe that we pretty much exclusively use as an opener, that for some reason needs 3x talents. Then we have that trap, that pretty much nobody uses. Then our horrendous but mandatory interrupt. We also get Salvo 2.0 in the form of Barrage. Vine Field and Lightning Reload are both great. We also get access to a second hunt and second ammo.
The third tier is where stuff becomes absurd. Party Stride is amazing, and Siphoning Regeneration is okay - but why are they third tier talents? Air Strike is underwhelming unless you're climbing, Raining Death is nowhere near as fun nor as cool as any other class' tier 3 abilities and Call of the Wild is .... Well, mandatory PvP stuff. We also now for the first time gain access to a way to ACTUALLY interrupt by ourselves, without relying on either specific weapon procs or other players.
I would love to see a complete rework of the ranger talent tree, and I was beyond disappointed to see that we hadn't gotten it for P3 (I remember hearing rumors about it, but seems like it got scrapped.) I am not sure exactly what can be done to salvage the situation without completely changing some abilities or adding new ones, but our talent tree is just a tree of disappointment right now. I realize that Intrepid probably does not want to force us to choose ammo types due to wanting us being able to swap midcombat etc; but could there perhaps be other important choices related to our talents?
Just throwing some general ideas based on our ammo:
When picking Weighted Ammo - choose between bear trap or vine field. Buff bear trap to make it an actual viable choice.
When picking barbed ammo - choose between two passives; a small AoE bleed on deadly/extended finishers, or a triggering hemorrage on bleeding targets upon deadly/extended finishers.
When picking cuncussion ammo - choose between a interrupt (not Thunder Shot!) or a staggering ability.
This way the ranger would probably have all ammo types on them, but only being able to have one active at the time. Would it be disasterous ingame? Perhaps. I don't know. I just wanna see some of those fun choice-abilities in our tree, and not having to respec mid-combat all the time. <.<
5.1A few final words
I want to give credit where credit is due. I do like the new Focus resource that rangers have. It is currently not very impactful, but the moreI've played now in P3 the more I've come to like it. Rangers are also, all in all, often fun. It has, in my opinion, a very good balance between being a offensive support and being a strong damage dealer; and I like respeccing depending on my party's needs. If I am in a party with slightly lower damage, I'll build full damage and blast away, if I have a group with strong damage dealers, I respec into buffing, interrupts, control and debuffs. That kind of versatility is what makes a class - in my opinion - fun. I also like having the option to go full shortbow singletarget "brrrr" build, and more powerful raw damage longbow.
While at it, I also want to give endless praise to the team for the breathtaking world they've made. Character hiccups aside, the scenery of Verra is nothing short of amazing. I've had so many "just wow!"-moments while exploring. Keep at it, and Verra will be remembered as the most beautiful MMO world ever.
I think that is all I've got for now. Thank you, Intrepid for your hard work, and to any reader making it this far. I am endlessly curious to see what secondary archetypes will bring the ranger, and what the future of AoC will be.
6.1 Wayyyy TL;DR
Ranger is in a pretty decent spot, but we're still having the same core issues we've had for a while. Mobility feels completely MIA in combat (especially in PvP), some of our abilities feel extremely out of place or unfinished. The ranger kit still doesnt really synergize with itself, most abilities feel like they were designed by themselves without any regard to the entirety of the kit/archetype.
Have a great one!
EDIT: Caught some grammar errors (sorry, I am tired) and added the talent section that I forgot.
1.1 Quick background:
I've played MMORPGs since I was 9 years old (I am 30), with WoW as my lead MMORPGs. Yes, I know - scandal. Across all my years ranged bow-focused archetypes have always been my go-to class; including hunters in WoW, rangers (not exclusively ranged) in DnD/Pathfinder, ranger in BDO, ranger in Guild Wars 1+2, demon hunter/(ranged) rogue in Diablo (3 + 4), ranger in Path of Exile 1+2, ADC/"marksman" in LoL, Ivara OTP in Warframe etc... I have been competitive when I was younger in pretty much all games above except for the hack n slash titles - both in PvE and PvP content... but since I now have 2 small children time no longer allows me to be competitive (and to be fair, I am probably nowhere near as good as I was when I was younger when time and motivation came in endless amounts x] ).
That aside, all in all, I have a very specific gameplay fantasy that I enjoy and have stuck with for 21 years.
2.1 Ranger - the class archetype fantasy of Intrepid's 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. 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. Rangers also use this natural magic to enhance their mobility on the battlefield by leaping out of harm's way. Be wary, for it is said that when a ranger marks you for death, it’s time to get your affairs in order."
The above qoutation is from the first phrase of the Wiki, as well as the official description of the ranger on AoC's own website. On the website, the ranger's description is followed by the following keywords: "Marks", "Scouting", "Ammo Inbues" and finally Mobility. Lets start with those keywords as they are identifying Intrepid's ranger.
2.2 Marks
Marks is the unique mechanic of rangers, and has since their stream reveal been their identifying class feature. The ranger enters a "hunt" (raven, tiger or bear) which has 3 functions:
1) While in the hunt, which can be upheld at all times save for during (2) below, the ranger gains a rather hefty passive bonus to either accuracy (raven), crit chance (tiger) or penetration (bear).
2) Hunts can be activated to temporarily mark a foe, granting a debuff to the foe that affects anyone attacking the marked foe. The debuff is based on the hunt; lowering the targets defenses against the specific trait that the hunt is buffing (i.e, lowered evasion from Mark of the Raven, lowered crit evasion from Mark of the Tiger and lowered defense from Mark of the Bear). For the duration that the target is marked, the player loses the benefit of the Hunt (1) above.
3) When a hunt is completed (after 8 or 10 seconds, the duration currently escapes my memory), the ranger gains the Appeased effect of the Hunt which is a temporary defensive buff based on the Hunt. Evasion for Raven, crit evasion for tiger and defense for bear. They also regain the Hunt buff (1) in itself (unless the target died while marked, in which case the player has to reactivate it manually - I assume this is a bug).
All in all, I like the current mechanics. 1 & 2 feels fun, interactive and gives a very satisfying feeling when it is well coordinated with the rest of the group, especially since we had a duration buff to the Marks (2). The Appeased buffs (3) does not feel as great - first of all the Tiger Hunt does not feel particilarly useful as a defensive mechanism, nor is it in general a very reliable as a defensive cooldown since it is "time gated" behind the the 8 second mark, and it is tied to our one burst mechanic. It is much more useful in solo content as the defensive Appeased buff often comes just as mobs reaches the ranger after their opening - which does line up with what I can only assume is Intrepid's idea of the ranger being an "opener" archetype - but it feels very non-useful in group combat. My suggestion to make it feel better in group-play is that the Appeased buff should always go to whoever the ranger has buffed with Regeneration (or perhaps Thorn if it was redesigned completely to match the current Hunt) - this way, the effect can instead be transferred to the tank (or some other VIP in the party) when the ranger is safely protected by the team, and out of harms way.
2.3 Scouting
Camouflage allows the ranger to enter a semi-stealth that makes them difficult to see, especially when standing still. Any actions besides sprinting breaks the effect, as does taking damage. Camoflague does not have a time limited, but it has a 60 seconds cooldown. It is probably one of my favorite skills when it comes to the ranger, and definitely one of the reasons I cannot imagine playing another archetype. Being able to sneak around mobs while gathering (though camouflage breaks at the end of a gathering action) and lose mob aggro by entering camo is just on point. I have no complaints nor suggestions to improve or change this ability; it is different from the rogue's stealth in a good and fair way while still letting the ranger hold on to their scouting potential.
2.4 Ammo Imbues
The ranger has 3 different types of ammunitions that they can use to enhance their weapon. The ammo impacts many of their abilities, and grants weapon procs based on the ammo type upon finisher effects.
1) Enhance Arnament: Weight - applies the "Snared" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I feel like "weight" is not an appropriate word for an ammo type that slows foes. I am no expert, but weighted ammo does as far as my knowledge goes not have any "slowing" effect - that would be a better named for the daze-ammo. Perhaps "webbed" ammo would feel a bit more nature-y and appropriate to the snared effect?
2) Barbed ammo - applies the "Bleeding" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I don't really have much to note here.
3) Concussion ammo - applies the "Daze" effect upon Finishers and Extended Finishers. I feel like the name of this ammo must be a placeholder since "concussion" is not really an ammo type. As stated above, I think this would be an appropriate effect of "weighted" ammo, and instead name the snaring ammo something else.
All in all, the ammos are probably my second biggest issue with the ranger "key" features thus far. I swap between ammo imbues often to attempt to suit my current situation; but all in all it just feels like I am picking an extra level of weapon talents. Is this perhaps the purpose of the ammos? I do not know, but it does not feel very much like a unique key-worded archetype mechanic, and for someone who *adored* the ammo types that survival hunters had between cata-WoD it feels extremely underwhelming. But at the same time, I see why we cannot have poisons and the like since that is a part of the rogue kit. Credit where credit is due, though! The visual effect of the arrows based on ammo type is a really neat feature that I love!
2.5 Mobility
And finally we've arrived to mobility. Lets be clear on one thing; I love the Strider buff. I love the Party Stride buff. I love that I can apply them to mounts, and other players. I think they are excellent additions to the ranger's kit, and I love buffing random mounts as they pass by; especially if I see the player carrying a crate.
But as a lot of players much more dedicated than I have noted in ways that I cannot phrase any better myself; the ranger does not *feel* mobile. It feels acrobatic, and it is fun getting up on vertical surfaces, climb and experiment... But in terms of mobility in combat; we are not even in par with the mage. Lets list our mobility features:
1) Stride - a singular buff that lasts for 15 minutes, granting the character/creature 10% increased speed during the duration. Party Stride buffs the party, including mounts with a similar buff that does not stack with the regular Stride. This ability feels good, imo, and if *anything* I would make it an always active toggle/passive for the ranger (but keep the buff so we can use it on other players and mounts) and make Party Stride just extend this buff to any nearby player/creature in your party within lets say 30m. (Party, not raid!)
2) Disengage - makes the character vault backwards (with a passive to make it vault towards whichever direction the ranger is moving - this talent is VERY buggy and has gotten me killed on multiple occasions). The general feel of the ability is okay, but it is moving so slowly that in combat it does little else than animation-lock your character. Against mobs its fine enough, but against players its a waste of time unless you're attempting to get higher ground as players can just sprint or dodge roll to catch up.
3) Air Strike - a very cool ability as a concept, but quite frankly useless you're climbing vertical surfaces. It does not hold up to a t3 talent in terms of damage, and it is *unreasonably* slow; literally gliding in the air in slow motion. Players dont even have to sprint to keep up.
On top of our not-so-impressive kit for mobility, the true issue comes when we realize that almost all ranger abilities require the ranger to stand just about still. Snipe is (understandably) a stationary ability. Powershot and Headshot is too. Vine Field, Raining Death, Scatter Shot and Thunder Shot requires the ranger to stand just about still (the movement allowed, if any, is so slow that you might as well stand still). Even our auto attacks slow us down to about 25% speed as we fire. Thus, there is a conflict; we're playing like stationary archers (or mages...), not as mobile rangers. This brings the ranger to an awkward position; we can't really kite melee opponents if we want to damage them; and to make things even more awkward every single class has access to ranged weapons. I won't go into a long detailed explanation regarding the PvP issues, @Chicago has summoned it up better than I ever could in many previous threads already. All in all, regardless if its focused on PvP or PvE we definitely come back to the isse that mobility is, by Intrepid's own words, a key feature for rangers, but we don't really have, nor feel, that in combat. Surely ranger mobility is not meant to be "just" about having slightly better mount speed?
3.1 Ranger abilities
To avoid repetition, I'll do my best to keep this brief. In the ranger's kit, there are a few abilities that I really want to comment on. Some of them feels out of place in the kit, some does not feel very good to play with and some just dont really seem to work as intended. I'll focus on the abilities as I imagine them being intended to work:
1) Snipe and Powershot - Powershot was a nice addition to the game, but I can't help but wonder why we need both Snipe and Powershot. If we want to keep snipe as an opener, then why do snipe even have the addition that it applies hemorrage to bleeding targets? Snipe is hardly worth using in our rotation once it's been used to open combat. My suggestion would be to give that quirk to Powershot instead; and make the Hasting Snipe and/or Heartseeking Snipe inherent effects of Snipe. I'd personally vouch for Hasting Snipe as it plays well into the ability being used as a heavy opener followed by a rain of arrows. Perhaps a great way of keeping the two abilities would be to make Snipe be an out of combat-ability that becomes Powershot while in combat? Technicalities could make that nightmareish ingame though.
2) Salvo and Barrage - to a point the same issue as Sniper and Powershot, it is two abilities that simply feel too similar. I like starting with Salvo as a baseline at the start, but once you start gaining all abilities it just feels needless and clunky.
3) Thundering Shot - probably the only ability I outright dislike in the ranger's kit. It is our only interrupt, it is dependant on a specific ammo or external help to apply daze, and it has an absurd casting time. It is not even reliable against predictable NPCs due to it's hideously slow cast and travel time, and it is 100% pointless in PvP. Even the slowest of abilities will have gone off before I get to cast my Thundering Shot, even if I do my best to interrupt current attacks to press it instantly. (In)effectivity aside, I am not sure why we have a sudden thunder-related damage ability in our kit. It feels extremely out of place, and its bonus talent is weird and mostly pointless. It deals too little damage to be worth the cast time when you can just continue to use Scatter Shot when you've specced into both side talents. I think I understand that Intrepid wants to force the daze effect to make the ranger be versatile in the sense that they need to specalize before they fight: "Do I need to kite? Pick snaring ammo. Am I facing spell casters? Pick daze ammo" etc, Thats okay, I can get behind that. But Thundering Shot just feels terrible. I would urge Intrepid to completely scrap this one and change it for a more reliable interrupt.
4) Bear Trap - it is just a mandatory part of any ranger/hunter's kit, isn't it? But I can't be the only one that is simply not using it. Unless I am killing stuff on my own, in which case I rather use Vinefield that I also use for party content, it is just useless. In PvP, nobody is ever going to get caught by the bear trap unless they are AFK, and everything the trap does, Vine Field does better. The one singular thing Bear Trap does better is being placed at a spot to assist in quick-tagging named mobs... You could argue that this niche use makes it all worth it; fine - by all means. But why on Verra do we have two talents related to this ability? Has anyone ever, outside testing purposes, unironically specced into them?
5) Thorns - thorns is a mystery to me. I do not know why it is in my kit, nor what function it is supposed to fill. It grants a very unreliable bleed effect when struck, which feels... odd. Usually, we apply bleed either through our weapons; or through our ammo. Usually, we dont really tank mobs enough to be triggering this in a meaningful way, and in group content all mobs are often bleeding from other sources. I like the concept of giving buffs, but this one just doesn't really have any meaning on its own. Could it perhaps be scrapped for something like "Barkskin" - the tiniest armor increase in history? Or a defensive buff based on our current hunt? Movement speed from Hunt of the Tiger, a tiny bit of armor from Hunt of the Bear or Evasion from Hunt of the Raven. Anything! Just... something else than a super unreliable bleed (especially when we're already having an ammo causing bleed; make choice matter). Hell, I'd even say make talents that we can modify Thorns with -- anything to make it interesting and fun!
6) Hunt of the Raven. Okay, I am sorry Intrepid but I have to say it. Ravens are not birds of prey. Ravens do not hunt, they - like crows - scavange. They are intelligent and interesting birds, absolutely, but they are not hunters. Hunt of the Eagle, Hunt of the Hawk, Hunt of the Owl - there are many magnificent birds of prey; pick one of them instead.
4.1The Talent Tree
I have to say that out of all the things when playing the ranger, looking at our talent tree is one of the things making me most sad. The first tier of talents is great. Absolutely no complaints.
The second tier is where problems start arising. First we have Snipe that we pretty much exclusively use as an opener, that for some reason needs 3x talents. Then we have that trap, that pretty much nobody uses. Then our horrendous but mandatory interrupt. We also get Salvo 2.0 in the form of Barrage. Vine Field and Lightning Reload are both great. We also get access to a second hunt and second ammo.
The third tier is where stuff becomes absurd. Party Stride is amazing, and Siphoning Regeneration is okay - but why are they third tier talents? Air Strike is underwhelming unless you're climbing, Raining Death is nowhere near as fun nor as cool as any other class' tier 3 abilities and Call of the Wild is .... Well, mandatory PvP stuff. We also now for the first time gain access to a way to ACTUALLY interrupt by ourselves, without relying on either specific weapon procs or other players.
I would love to see a complete rework of the ranger talent tree, and I was beyond disappointed to see that we hadn't gotten it for P3 (I remember hearing rumors about it, but seems like it got scrapped.) I am not sure exactly what can be done to salvage the situation without completely changing some abilities or adding new ones, but our talent tree is just a tree of disappointment right now. I realize that Intrepid probably does not want to force us to choose ammo types due to wanting us being able to swap midcombat etc; but could there perhaps be other important choices related to our talents?
Just throwing some general ideas based on our ammo:
When picking Weighted Ammo - choose between bear trap or vine field. Buff bear trap to make it an actual viable choice.
When picking barbed ammo - choose between two passives; a small AoE bleed on deadly/extended finishers, or a triggering hemorrage on bleeding targets upon deadly/extended finishers.
When picking cuncussion ammo - choose between a interrupt (not Thunder Shot!) or a staggering ability.
This way the ranger would probably have all ammo types on them, but only being able to have one active at the time. Would it be disasterous ingame? Perhaps. I don't know. I just wanna see some of those fun choice-abilities in our tree, and not having to respec mid-combat all the time. <.<
5.1A few final words
I want to give credit where credit is due. I do like the new Focus resource that rangers have. It is currently not very impactful, but the moreI've played now in P3 the more I've come to like it. Rangers are also, all in all, often fun. It has, in my opinion, a very good balance between being a offensive support and being a strong damage dealer; and I like respeccing depending on my party's needs. If I am in a party with slightly lower damage, I'll build full damage and blast away, if I have a group with strong damage dealers, I respec into buffing, interrupts, control and debuffs. That kind of versatility is what makes a class - in my opinion - fun. I also like having the option to go full shortbow singletarget "brrrr" build, and more powerful raw damage longbow.
While at it, I also want to give endless praise to the team for the breathtaking world they've made. Character hiccups aside, the scenery of Verra is nothing short of amazing. I've had so many "just wow!"-moments while exploring. Keep at it, and Verra will be remembered as the most beautiful MMO world ever.
I think that is all I've got for now. Thank you, Intrepid for your hard work, and to any reader making it this far. I am endlessly curious to see what secondary archetypes will bring the ranger, and what the future of AoC will be.
6.1 Wayyyy TL;DR
Ranger is in a pretty decent spot, but we're still having the same core issues we've had for a while. Mobility feels completely MIA in combat (especially in PvP), some of our abilities feel extremely out of place or unfinished. The ranger kit still doesnt really synergize with itself, most abilities feel like they were designed by themselves without any regard to the entirety of the kit/archetype.
Have a great one!
EDIT: Caught some grammar errors (sorry, I am tired) and added the talent section that I forgot.
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