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Alpha Two Phase II testing is currently taking place five days each week. More information about testing schedule can be found here
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.
Ranger Archetype Changes
It's been a few days since our list of changes and fixes for the Ranger.
Have you had a chance to play a Ranger since March 27? If so, what are your thoughts on the changes?
Have you had a chance to play a Ranger since March 27? If so, what are your thoughts on the changes?
Ranger Archetype Changes
- New Ranger Archetype Resource - Focus
- This resource starts and caps at 100. Ranger abilities deal up to 15% more damage depending on how much Focus is stored when damage occurs, and consume a proportional amount of Focus after the hit. 3 Focus regenerates per second, and weapon combo finishers restore 10 Focus
- New Ranger Ability - Salvo
- Fires all charges to deal 50% damage to the target enemy per shot when activated
- Stores up to 6 charges
- Generate 1 charge every 3 seconds and from weapon finishers
- Salvo replaces Barrage as the Ranger starting ability
- Triggers Enhance Armament effects
- New Ranger Ability - Power Shot
- Deals 200% damage to target enemy. Generates 25 Focus and does not consume Focus on hit
- This has been added as a tier 1 Skill Tree ability
- Power Shot can be Lightning Reloaded
- Ranger Mark and Hunt Revamp
- Mark of the Tiger, Bear, and Raven have been combined into a single ability, Mark Prey. Mark Prey will apply the Tiger, Bear, or Raven Mark to the target depending on what Hunt is currently active
- When a Mark is used, the Hunt buff effect temporarily leaves the caster and applies a debuff to the target. When the Mark duration ends or the target dies, the Hunt buff returns to the caster and also grants them a temporary defensive buff
- Mark cooldown has been reduced from 60 seconds to 30 seconds
- Mark of the Bear mitigation debuff has been decreased from 25% to 15%
- Barrage Ability Changes
- Moved to being a tier 2 learned Skill Tree ability
- Cooldown has been increased from 12 seconds to 15 seconds
- Weapon combos no longer refresh partial cooldown
- No longer triggers Enhance Armament (ammo) effects
- Removed Expeditious Barrage passive
- Arrowstorm - Fixed a bug causing this to trigger many more times than intended with certain abilities
- Removed self knockback from Scatter Shot
- Increased chance for Enhance Armament: Concussive to apply dazed effect from 50% to 100%, to be in line with other enhancements
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Comments
I think the changes are the step in the right direction, but they are overshadowed by bad TTK. I will elaborate.
I think the gameplay around focus and trying to max it out before using big hitters is engaging.
The idea of having decent hunts, sacrifising them to get even stronger debuff on the enemy. So now the effect is stronger, but you are limited to just the target you marked. And then getting defensive after job well done.
The problem is that this defensive means nothing because you are getting smoked in 1/2 hits anyway. Caring about high focus does not matter because you oneshot ppl without it anyway.
And outside of those changes ranger for me still have 4 issues:
- the class that usually has exceptional range does not have range advantage over other range classes which kinda misses the class fantasy (pls, give ranger abilities the range of the bow he is using and give the passive in the skill tree that allows you to invest a point to increase the bow range by 15% or so)
- ranger skills are relativly long cast time, meanwhile mage can just instacast thundershot and instacast firebolt and destroy targets before ranger is done with even one cast. But this issue is mainly that mage is overloaded class with good mobility, defensives, aoe and single target. And also the issue of TTK that allows for those oneshots.
- ranger lacks reliable oh shit button defensive, while higher damage counterpart, mage, gets very strong self shield.
- Ranger mobility is lacking. It was supposed to be second most mobile class after rogue and for now bard has 2 dashes and big speed buffs, mage blink has more range than ranger disengage and its faster.. fighter has several dashes that are longer.. you get my point. Ranger disengage is only decent ranger mobility because due to wind up time of airstrike, it's not good mobility too and most often it's used offensivly as another root. Both disengage and airstrike have the problem that you are stuck in the flight animation while you are getting shot at. In my opinion wind up time of airstrike should be removed and disengage should get 2 more passives in the skill tree. One that gives it 2 charges, and other one that increases evasion of the ranger during disengage.
Some other notes about the changes:
- i like the salvo, its good weaving ability. But it often keeps shooting at dead target and there is no convinient way of stopping that
- i think power shot is also nice ability, good way to weave in the combo for some focus jump
- right now for me barrage became ability that I use only when other stuff is on cooldown, i'm not sure if that's good or not
- removing knockback on scatter shot is nice, but it also took away small dash, would be nice to get this mobility somewhere else
- concussive ammo having 100% chance is huge, before that ranger being useful was very coinflipy. Multiple times i used barrage, 2 scatter shots, weapon combo, and still didnt get a single daze. Now it feels much better to use.
PS. Sorry for typos, its 2 am.
General Issues (TLDR)
Ranger's "class mechanics" are very lackluster, the skill ceiling is very low, and the class fantasy is not present
Reasoning
I think the ranger is in a very balanced state. It has decent single-target damage, decent AoE damage, decent mobility, decent utility, decent sustain, and decent CCs.
My biggest problem with Ranger is not that the class is weak, as I don't think it is (I don't think Ranger is weak compared to Mage, I think Mage is just too OP rn). My biggest problem with Ranger is that I believe it lacks in both class fantasy and mechanical complexity/skill ceiling.
You usually choose one mark and one hunt and stick with it. The same thing goes for ammo enhancement.
he ranger lacks in its ability to be more of a long-range killing machine, which is one of the main class fantasies of a ranger archetype. The Mage's abilities have the same range as practically all the Rangers' abilities. The ranger is not rewarded for being able to snare/root a mage and then increasing the distance and having that distance advantage. If you are hitting the Mage, the Mage will be hitting you with the same full force. And that goes for classes like bard and cleric as well. Not to mention, this game right now has a ton of mobility throughout all archetypes, and a universal mobility ability (dodge) that can close that gap super quickly. So, even the abilities that have a small range advantage on the ranger are meaningless, as that gap is closed very quickly.
Last but not least, Ranger is not only an archer/sniper type of archetype. Ranger class fantasy is of the hunter, the tracker. Some abilities for that are present, but either fall short or are missing elements to make it work/feel good.
1. Bear trap
Trap Slinger passive is useless, as the time for the trap to land is sometimes bigger than 1 second (initial arm time). I would suggest trading this passive for a passive in which the trap would become camouflaged after a few seconds (add to the hunter class fantasy, making traps more useful)
2. Air Strike
Very underwhelming ability, as it's not quick enough for it to be a mobility skill, not enough damage for it to be worth the time you spend on air, and the root is not very effective. I think this ability should have a boost in damage, and a distance traveled increase, and its animation speed should be tied to either the player's attack or move speed.
3. Raining death
I think it is too OP. It does 200~240% damage and applies 2 stacks of wounds in a huge area. You could max stack wounds for a whole party with 5 rangers in 2 seconds.
It needs its AoE Size and reach reduced for sure. Maybe something with a ground template before we shoot, so we can aim.
4. Vines
Also, too OP. It needs an AoE size reduction by quite a lot.
5. Hunts and ammo
Completely underwhelming design. You'll only choose one of those, and you'll stick with it. It's not a class mechanic at all. It doesn't reward you for playing your role, it doesn't create a mechanical complexity, it just fails completely.
Right now, we have 3 Hunts, all offensive. The main issue is that the situational advantage of the Hunts is not good enough to warrant ppl to use multiple. If you are making a crit build, you'll only use the crit Hunts. If you're building penetration, you'll stick with the Hunts of the bear. Hunts of the Raven is used by ppl who are building for attack speed. Either way, you won't be switching Hunts realistically, especially since you spend skill points on the Hunts. Ammo can be a bit more diverse, but since they require an animation, are not off GCD, and require skill points to spec, it's not worth picking more than one. That's fine if these were simple buffs and not the whole "class mechanic" situation.
6. Missing abilities
I'd like to see some melee abilities on the ranger. Rangers should have some tools when it comes to hand-to-hand combat. They should be able to disarm an opponent, push them away, maybe trip them. Not enough damage (initially in the base archetype) to be a melee DPS, but enough tools to feel like they can handle themselves in a brawl.
I'd also love to see Rangers have a tracking tool. Footprints, scents, and any way a ranger can track a player in the region would be cool.
Rangers should also have poison arrows and the ability to cleanse poison (on themselves and others).
If i wanted to play a mage i would play a mage.
The current iteration of ranger feels and plays alot more like a spell caster than a ranger, your end up playing with walk animation basicly on cause every skill you use make you walk or stand still, you attacks feel sluggish and ur movement skill feel just as bad. Compared to rogues feint disengage passive ranger disengage feels so bad and floaty
It seems like you want to make ranger a more AA based with chaining ability imbetween with salvo (and previous bow mastery) however no skills can be weaved inbetween AA and you cant even dodge cause it interupt AA Chains aswell
As a shortbow ranger this weapon is no longer viable after these changes with the removal of bow mastery passive aswell as the barrage nerf combined with arrow storm dmg being reduced by bout 60%, ive nowswapped to a shortbow rogue because it plays more like a ranger than an actualy ranger which like i said above feels like a mage.
Some changes i would make personaly
1 - Passive in skill tree for bonus range +10m on bow attacks skills, this will help with ranger class idenity
2 - Vine field should mechanicaly work like caltops from rogues (casting vine field feel clunky compared to caltops) remove the root on the vinefield however have it snare and disable mobility skill/dodges, give it a passive bramble field which causes it to deal dmg when moving inside the field (kinda like how caltrop works aswell)
3 - reduce the amount of slowing cast skills in the ranger tree most people play rangers cause they like the kiting capability they have in games however having every attack slows you stops this being possible having a couple of heavy hitting/high impact skills slow you down of make you stationary is fine but every single skill shouldnt be this way however the option below can suit both play styles
4 - Personaly i would bring back bow mastery passive but instead make it do something like this when Shortbow is equiped you get the effect to reduce/remove movement penalty on ranger skills walking skills can be used while running and stationary skills put you at a walk for example and Longbows get bonus range or damage when they been stationary for 3 seconds.
5 - If you want ranger to be more AA related they have the issue of the weapon attacks realy doing no dmg compared to skills so this would need to be address in some way and tbh i think it would be better if focus increased weapon combo damage by a decent amount then the higher it is and maybe allow skills to be weaved into without interupting combo chain for the cost of some focus.
The changes:
Focus is erm interesting and a damage boost is always welcome, but feels like an addon to the class, I don’t think about or play around it, I just have it there.
Salvo is good new ability, it has meant the barrage is pretty much redundant now and should be replaced (see below) It would be nice that if you use the ability and the target is killed, the remaning charges are stored so you don't just shoot the dead body.
Power shot is a good new ability, but i would like to see a change in the animation so it’s not just a sped up version of Snipe.
Hunts and marks were bloated so happy to see them getting streamlined although, given what they do, you’re still just going to pick one and stick with it. The actual effects of these hunts need to be looked at. If this is a key identity of the Ranger then make them highly effective, they are already on a 30s cooldown so could do with beefing up a bit.
The change to enhance armament is quality, love this change!
Barrage is now pretty useless. I would like to see some creativity with this ability to give us something new. Knock back has been removed from Scatter shot (which is much appreciated) so maybe Barrage could become a knock back ability with low damage. The augment could be a cone knock back to try and keep with the Ranger identity of actually keeping players away so you can kite and play around them.
Airstrike. It's the big ability of the Ranger and it's lackluster, the animation, the ability itself just leaves a lot to be desired. It was so much better in the Ranger showcase. I think it needs more mobility to take you higher and further and I'd actually like it if the "airstrike" felt a little like one and came down and caused players hit to be tripped.
Disengage, please fix this. Half the time I am still hitting an invisible wall, it doesn’t feel as fluid/effective as the Rogue’s feint. It needs more range so we can actually escape and kite. The Ranger is also supposed to be the second most mobile class and it feels like one of the worst, please give us some more mobility in skills and abilities to enable us to play with distances of engagements.
Traps. I would advocate that you could play into your described Ranger identity by removing the thrown trap and making it camouflaged and making the activation area of the standard trap bigger to make it effective.
Ultimately, I still think the Ranger is lacking an identity. Too many abilities slow you or have cast times and it seems like we’re playing a physical Mage at the minute but with much less mobility and survivability. We need more range! Give a passive or built in mechanic or something that allows us to actually play at range. The Ranger is described as being able to “track” why not add this as a counter to Rogues, don’t reveal them from stealth but show their delayed footsteps whilst in stealth? I feel the team could push the boat out a bit more and lean into the Ranger being able to “harness nature’s fury” and use of “crippling weapon strikes”.
It has a cool kit but it doesn't work, and it's not fun to have classes that are only viable in raid content.
There has been an insane amount of power creep with the bard and rogue classes taking the podium in almost all categories, it would just be much better if some of the older classes like ranger actually received some innovation and interesting changes (NOT just giving us barrage 2.0 and power shot 2.0), rather than shoveling all of the new and powerful skills into new classes.
Focus. The introduction of a class resource is huge for ranger. While this is the case, it definitely feels a little shallow in comparison with the advantage of the rogue and some of the other class resources but obviously this can be tuned. The damage boost is nice though.
Salvo. Salvo is definitely a nice ability and the charges that regenerate so quickly gives the ability to back to back silence and combo in our ammo imbues more efficiently and at will. Has decent damage although the cast time feels long when hitting all 6 charges.
Power shot. This ability is honestly one of my favorite. Its a long range ability added to our kit that actually gives some feeling of class fantasy with the longer poking range than other classes. This I feel should be more leaned into making many more of our abilities have the edge on classes in range by 5-10 meters as options to extend our auto attack range to give us the feeling of keeping the enemy at bay and being able to poke the enemy if not hit them decently hard from long range. I cannot overstate how impactful this would feel to the class to give us the role of long range skirmishers and punishing the enemy for getting to close to siege defenses before their team is ready.
Hunts and marks. This one kind of confuses me. Replacing the hunts effect while casting the mark seems like it is almost entirely only useful when fighting in a group to help them land a crit or some other debuff. I think it felt much better when it stacked. Sure its on a reduced cooldown but at least in the crit department its at the moment better to keep the hunt of the tiger and never hit mark unless you have a group targeting them. The streamlining of hunts and marks in the ability tree definitely feels better but I'd love some more ability synergies than we currently have. Comparing our skill synergies to the bard and rogue we see an obvious difference. This is probably because of when the different classes were designed.
Barrage. This skills feels fine but again has nearly no synergy with skills except snipe. In reality, snipe is too much of the rangers dps. It has too long a cooldown and is very punishing to try to pull off. Unfortunately its the one that also has the most synergy with other abilities as it has shaken and increased attack speed after casting so its necessary for a good dps burst especially once the ttk is fixed.
Removing the jump from scatter shot was good and adjusting the reliability of concuss ammo is very nice making thundering shot much more viable.
Overall though ranger still definitely has a way to go. I do feel like we have too many effects that need multiple abilities to set up and those ability have cast times that make pulling off combos to get effects surprisingly punishing in smaller scenarios and even larger ones as we are slowed or in the case of snipe, stuck in place for 3 seconds by which point we have been run over or the enemy has died, backed out of range, or broken line of sight. Without snipe, it feels like we are spamming abilities and praying the enemy dies before jumping back out of range as we have no defensives or heals. Also, our t3 damage abilities feel practically useless and I don't really use them unless I'm out of abilities.
Overall the main issue with the ranger still remains class fantasy. It still feels quite bland compared to the other classes and especially compared to rogue and bard(understandably but still) There are various ways you can fix this I'm sure but I think the easiest and most universal would be extending the range. By increasing the range of the ranger, it would increase the need for them as skirmishers with the enemy and make their casts more viable as they could hit them from further away without being punished quite as harshly. This would also give us a higher skill cap as we strive to keep away from the enemy while skirmishing with no defensives. Giving us more synergy with our abilities and even making some of them instant cast or free movement would give us some more mobility which many classes are surpassing us in. Any healing or regen would be welcome and silences or cc shots that don't require as much set up would also feel good I think. Obviously I'm no game developer but these are just some things to consider when looking at the future of ranger. This update was definitely a step in the right direction and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this class goes in the future as I'm dedicated to playing it no matter what. But I am particularly partial to long range and abilities that pierce multiple targets or explode, whatever feels powerful in a fantasy sense.