Another Update without Ranger Luv?

[BOgre]

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. This bow is the Ranger's Excalibur and you will never have to use any other weapon.

[JasonJi72]

Yes, but Rangers aren't the best at ranged combat anymore.

I do think the new enhancement system will help Rangers substantially. Remember, they were at the top for a long time, and they may get there again soon.

[Yan_PL]

18/1/1 barbarian half elf can get manyshot, can get slayer arrows from racial PrE, massive bonuses to str, and glorified barbarian crits. Rangers are not the best at ranged combat, possibly. Half elf fighter monks with zen archery/10k stars, as some alternative to manyshot when it's on timer.

[NaturalHazard]

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. This bow is the Ranger's Excalibur and you will never have to use any other weapon.

why waste being a ranger to use the bow? why not roll up one of those monk/AA or kensai/AA builds they would make much better use of that bow.

I made mine to be a tempest, yes to use his bow when manyshot is off timmer but not to have his bow welded to his hand, stuff that.

[noinfo]

over who? over barbs and fighters swinging epic antiques, linking eclaws in party chat etc. if i proc my stuff often, it's not hard to do the same if not more. i have a very well geared barb and prefer my ranger over it in most runs cause it does about the same and is much more fun to play

I have a ranger hybrid that is very very well geared and has done all sorts of stupid things just because he can and surive. He has solid dps due to gear and in a PUG in most situations he is going to dominate heavily, however against my barb in a dps situation? It is not even close and I will be honest here IF an Equally geared ranger in melee without loading up with all the threat gear under the sun pulled agro off my Barb over an extended period I would re-roll, its not even close. Sure you might get lucky with burst effects early on but in an extended period not so much.

There are enough dps calculations that can and do show this to you and while calculations don't show the whole story there is just not enough fuzy math in the world to back your statement up. (not the you having agro but your dps)
To add insult to injury, the barely adequate dps of the Ranger takes a relative downturn when the barb in question decides to use his damage boost adding another massive % to his damage output.

[noinfo]

Yes, but Rangers aren't the best at ranged combat anymore.

I do think the new enhancement system will help Rangers substantially. Remember, they were at the top for a long time, and they may get there again soon.

Rangers were not on top for a very long time, ranger 6 splashes were (for melee cause no one bothered with range at all).

[noinfo]

Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying. This bow is the Ranger's Excalibur and you will never have to use any other weapon.

Cool since everyone can get manyshot I will take this to mean that everyone is going to dump their feats and take up ranged? I look forward to trading my Barbs eSOS for this nice new shiny.

1. There are so many other classes that make better ranged than rangers the statment is just...
2. Ranger does NOT mean ranged. They get the ranged feats but that provides some degree of versatility for melee rangers.

[noinfo]

why waste being a ranger to use the bow? why not roll up one of those monk/AA or kensai/AA builds they would make much better use of that bow.

I made mine to be a tempest, yes to use his bow when manyshot is off timmer but not to have his bow welded to his hand, stuff that.

This is exactly right. Rangers were the king of 2WF in DND long before there were fancy feats in 3rd Ed.

[BOgre]

why waste being a ranger to use the bow? why not roll up one of those monk/AA or kensai/AA builds they would make much better use of that bow.

I made mine to be a tempest, yes to use his bow when manyshot is off timmer but not to have his bow welded to his hand, stuff that.

Cool since everyone can get manyshot I will take this to mean that everyone is going to dump their feats and take up ranged? I look forward to trading my Barbs eSOS for this nice new shiny.

1. There are so many other classes that make better ranged than rangers the statment is just...
2. Ranger does NOT mean ranged. They get the ranged feats but that provides some degree of versatility for melee rangers.

double sarcasm check fails.

And I'm well aware that a Ranger isn't the best range-er (which is a shame). I would never have capped at all if I thought that... But even with my gimpy 28pt TempTrapmonkey I make a decent range-er, when the need arises. Anyways, beside the point. All I was saying, for those that somehow missed it, is that blunted ammo is nice, and seeing the effect in a u13 weapon brings me some hope for the future of ranged combat in general.

[NaturalHazard]

double sarcasm check fails.

And I'm well aware that a Ranger isn't the best range-er (which is a shame). I would never have capped at all if I thought that... But even with my gimpy 28pt TempTrapmonkey I make a decent range-er, when the need arises. Anyways, beside the point. All I was saying, for those that somehow missed it, is that blunted ammo is nice, and seeing the effect in a u13 weapon brings me some hope for the future of ranged combat in general.

The ranger class is not named after ranged combate. Never was, something that so many people don't get.

My favourite charactor is my 28 point ranger.

Anyway I don't see why a ranger has to be the *best* possible class for ranged combate, make it so that AA's are up there and Ranger AA's are comparably viable with the other types and that would be enough for me.

[grandeibra]

The ranger class is not named after ranged combate. Never was, something that so many people don't get

This! So true. Even native English speakers seem to confuse these two words.

[noinfo]

double sarcasm check fails.

And I'm well aware that a Ranger isn't the best range-er (which is a shame). I would never have capped at all if I thought that... But even with my gimpy 28pt TempTrapmonkey I make a decent range-er, when the need arises. Anyways, beside the point. All I was saying, for those that somehow missed it, is that blunted ammo is nice, and seeing the effect in a u13 weapon brings me some hope for the future of ranged combat in general.

Which is fair enough, the problem is that people are always misassociating the name that that is very annoying.
Blunt ammunition is nice but has completely nothing to do with a Ranger buff at all.

[BOgre]

Which is fair enough, the problem is that people are always misassociating the name that that is very annoying.
Blunt ammunition is nice but has completely nothing to do with a Ranger buff at all.

misassociating? really?

Ranger:

Prestige Enhancements

Arcane Archer
Deepwood Sniper


Advancement Table

1st Bow Strength
2nd Rapid Shot
6th Manyshot
11th Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot

It's pretty clear that the Ranger class was intended to be DDO's Ranged Combat specialist. We all know it didn't quite work out that way, but to say we're misassociating the word is wrong.

And saying 'completely' and 'not at all' in reference to a ranger buff, also wrong.

[kutscd01]

And now that they have the Arty pets in the game, when can we expect to see animal companions for Rangers?!? Clearly it is doable now and what's a ranger without an animal companion? Oh yeah, a fighter...

[licho]

misassociating? really?

Ranger:

You skipped Tempest! But considering state of Temp III and lack of capstone i understand it.

As a side note, just if one of class features cover some aspect it dosnt mean that class is dedicated to perform this action, or the action is limited to this only class.

For example Wizzards have CC spells, and enhancement (like Archimagi Conj/Ench) but that dont mean that CC is a sole purpose of Wizard, or the CC is allowed to be performed only by Wizies.

In the same way is with ranged combat and rangers.
They have ranged tools, but it dosnt mean that every ranger must use bow more than 20% of the time.
Also it dosnt meant that only rangers should be able to use bow effectivly.

And the big fail/flaw of the game is a design in that opposite way.

I suppose most ppl wish that:
- Ranged (bow) combat was just a style choice, similar to going 2wf or 2hf. And with similar effect considering expendes.
- We will see around Bards/Rogues/Divines/Monks... and every other class with a bow. And it will be not a worse choice than walking around with axe are one of named sword.
- Arcane Archer will be just a PrE, but not the only way to build meaningful bow user.
- Even with close to 0 investment range and bow using will be the option, in the same way as anybody can pick a axe and use it effectivly.
- Each feat will count, and if you spend 9 feats you will actually get something more than style with just a 5.
- The Ranger class will be usefull to something. And you can go pure ranged and still dont suck.
- The dps of ranger will be comparable, and when it comes to FE exeed other classes.
- The Rangers will have a way to buff/support/boost in other way performence of the group. And have spells/abilities for that.

[NaturalHazard]

misassociating? really?

Ranger:

Prestige Enhancements

Arcane Archer
Deepwood Sniper


Advancement Table

1st Bow Strength
2nd Rapid Shot
6th Manyshot
11th Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot

It's pretty clear that the Ranger class was intended to be DDO's Ranged Combat specialist. We all know it didn't quite work out that way, but to say we're misassociating the word is wrong.

And saying 'completely' and 'not at all' in reference to a ranger buff, also wrong.

So what? rogues have a ranged prestige as well, so does that mean that rogues where *meant* to be ddo's ranged specialists? In d&d rangers could choose between two different paths, ranged or two weapon fighting. In ddo they gave them both and took away the animal companion. If anything they might of intended rangers to be special because they where meant to be good at both fighting styles in DDO. With two prestiges for more power in ranged combate and one to be more powerful in melee combate.

[lopkon]

misassociating? really?

Ranger:

Prestige Enhancements

Arcane Archer
Deepwood Sniper


Advancement Table

1st Bow Strength
2nd Rapid Shot
6th Manyshot
11th Precise Shot, Improved Precise Shot

It's pretty clear that the Ranger class was intended to be DDO's Ranged Combat specialist. We all know it didn't quite work out that way, but to say we're misassociating the word is wrong.

And saying 'completely' and 'not at all' in reference to a ranger buff, also wrong.

But maybe getting all this feats and PrEs easily (without 19 base Dex even) is the main benefit rangers are supposed to get for ranged combat? Not saying rangers are overpowered or anything, but they surely have the easiest access to somewhat useful ranged combat abilities (okay we can argue about Artificer, but thats like comparing a monk to a palading, really). So while I agree that rangers could use a general boost, I disagree that they should be top ranged specialist, for me their strongest point is the inherit abilities in ranged and TWF combat, without any feat investment.

[NaturalHazard]

their strongest point is the inherit abilities in ranged and TWF combat, without any feat investment.

True but they do have to invest in some feats if they want to get tempest or AA.

[Thar]

it really didn't

I was on the Lamania tests where 10 Tempest Rangers still bogged a shroud down with SO much DPS lag I though my PC was going to catch fire.

it wasn't until Turbine raised the bandwidth cap per player that DPS lag got better.

The U5 TWFing changes didn't help in that regard, it was a nerf and nothing more.

I don't have a link... but one of the devs at the time did confirm that the TWF change had nothing to do with lag but was more for class balance.

If I wasn't lazy i'd look it up but I remember being highly annoyed at the time after reading that.

Seriously, if an extra 10% calculations are dragging down your servers then you have a bigger problem. I'm sure that we've lost way more people than that to swtor so there should be absolutely no lag... no that's not the problem...

The other changes they put in at the same time did help lag so it was seemless.

[lopkon]

True but they do have to invest in some feats if they want to get tempest or AA.

Indeed. The PrEs are even quite feat intensive, which is especially bad since some of the required feats are not really useful.
Just saying the basic abilities are there. Getting all the feats for either ranged or TWF (especially ranged) on a non-ranger is rather feat intensive and slims the build choices by a lot, getting both is even worse (except for fighters).