A little more love for Rangers

[Odrin]

I'm aware this is the Lama Discussion, but i wanted to get this idea out there so something may come of it

The following are Idea of how to improve the game play of most rangers or ranger splashing. Seeing the "required ranger" on the follow please note that in order to get the weapon power the ranger lvls are required, still keeping the ranger class open for multiclassing.



Looking at the Ranger class, it seems as if they below a large portion of the other classes in the game. Which with Pallis, and barbs getting improvements, where is the ranger improvement? I'm not asking for rangers to be over power, just a bit more damage or Hp or FvE.

idea's
deepwood
FvE damage now scale with 100% melee power (200% with deepwood sniper tier5)
Heavy draw gives 10 range attack power
Archer Focus upon reaching 15 stacks of archers focus increase range power by 5 and 5 more for every 5 stacks after the initial 5
Leg shot stuns for 2 seconds and then slows (requires 18 lvls of ranger)
FvE gives +1/+3/+5 FvE damage, to hit, saves, AC (requires 5/10/15 lvls of ranger)

Arcane Archer
AA line with top tier grants 10 Range attack power (requires 12 lvls of ranger)
Arrow of Slaying gives you a 5 range attack power lasting for 5 seconds after a successful shot(requires 15 lvls ranger)
Master of Imbuement gives 10 range attack power

Tempest
Dance of Death and A thousand Cuts 5's give 5 melee power
Whirling blades give +3/6/9/12/15 melee weapon power while 2wf(available at 4/8/12/16/20 lvls of ranger)
Possibly top tier which forces you to drop light armor,Requiring you to wear a robe and 2wf, yet you are given a +10 melee weapons power and 10% double strike (would prefer weapon speed) added to capstone

[MangLord]

I'm not really crazy about my ranger anymore after seeing what a swashbuckler can do, but I'm curious to see how he'll be once ranged power hits. I think it's tricky because of the synergy with monk and zen archery, but a pure ranger should definitely get something special for not going the monk route. The existing AA capstone is ok, but it almost encourages me not to use Manyshot often, as I lose all my doubleshot bonuses for the next minute.

[dunklezhan]

Looking at the Ranger class, it seems as if they below a large portion of the other classes in the game. Which with Pallis, and barbs getting improvements, where is the ranger improvement? I'm not asking for rangers to be over power, just a bit more damage or Hp or FvE.

I think the devs see ranger as primarily a MC option so whilst it's viable pureclass, I think you're supposed to multiclass it. There's a reason monkchers and range-adins are so popular.

That is not to say I don't agree with you that they are once again in need of some love, but I think it would be more helpful to outline general areas for improvement rather than making a wish list of specifics.

And the one thing I don't think needs any improvement is their MC synergies, so any improvements need to be at the upper level ranges, where their damage & defense options do level off a bit (although nowhere close to how bad Artificers level off).

So my 'high level wishlist' is more about what flavours of things I think should be in the trees rather than anything else:



Tempest: is about right - melee power with a focus on passives when dual wielding. Seems to lack effective defensive options, e.g. I'd quite like to see them get some stuff similar to swashbucklers - damage dealing when an opponent misses because the Tempest should take advantage of any opening too.

Arcane Archer: toggled ranged weapon stances that don't require SP. SP-required defensive buffs or special attacks that have an arcane flavour (e.g. AOEs), oodles of ranged power on everything, scaling with level to keep pureclasses slightly better than 'viable'.

Deepwood Sniper: favoured enemy bonuses, big-boom single shot attacks (which would get ranged power on those attacks as well as to hit and crit improvements, but would be on reasonably lengthy cooldowns) and tactical attacks (hamstrings etc), with everything being better whilst stealthed.



To look at your suggested areas of improvement.. well the short version is I think I disagree with your general thrust that these are problematic areas for Rangers. But in more detail:

hitpoints: I don't think "hitpoints" are an issue. Any properly built and geared pureclass can get 'enough' hitpoints for heroic and at epic levels the base build seems close to irrelevant with the right ED, and Rangers don't have the stat dependency of monks or even Paladins because they get all those lovely free feats, which they should get, I don't want to see those taken away. I'd quite like to see the option at L2 to choose between two of: free pet/ranged feat progression/2WF feat progression... but that's it. If given this choice though (which we won't be), you'd then need to add Pet bonuses to one of the trees, I suggest DWS. Rangers also get evasion. Characters with evasion aren't supposed to need huge amounts of hitpoints and are supposed to play differently than a character which does need them like Pallies, Barbs and Fighters. Yes a Tempest is a toe-to-toe combatant, but they're not meant to be tanky, they're meant to be pure DPS.

Speaking of DPS... well I don't think their DPS is particularly poor, especially in a ranged burst. Melee wise, if you can't get decent DPS from a TWF ranger with all those free feats being thrown at you even on a pure class, then honestly I don't think the issue is the class, I think its the player. Sorry.

I don't know for sure what "FvE" shorthand means. I'm guessing Favoured Enemy? If so then on this one I agree with you that these need tweaking a bit. The thing is that rangers get a lot of favoured enemies if you do go pure class and you can cover a very wide range of mobs against whom you then get advantages. Compare that to old paladins - they basically got undead or outsiders and had to pick one. That's obviously been much broadened now, which I think was the right call. But I don't want to see a 6 splash ranger with the full range of favoured enemies. I'd be against any kind of homogenising of the favoured enemy selections on that basis, I want a pure class to be more broadly effective than a specialist splash. I wouldn't even want them aligned with the new bane groupings even though that would at least be consistent. I would however like to see the bonuses vs those favoured enemies get buffed - I think current bonuses are underwhelming compared to the closest class equivalent, i.e. Paladins.

I also think that, however it is done, rangers should get the most ranged power of any class, probably included as passive tier bonuses from arcane archer or deepwood sniper. Tempest clearly should be giving some level of melee power, but they don't need tons of it there particularly if they improve the favoured enemy bonuses correctly.

As an aside, because of their damage flatline later on, Artificers should also get lots of ranged power, but again it must go with number of arti levels, not be available as low hanging fruit. I think the simplest way to do that would be to award it through Insightful Attacks/Damage as a side effect of that spell with a max available bonus based on caster level. Exactly what that would look like I don't know. I guess something like 2% ranged power per Int modifier, max bonus = 2x caster level. However that all depends on what exactly ranged power looks like, those numbers could be way, way off.


Edit: Hmm. I just realised this is essentially a duplicate thread of one with more posts in the general forums. I don't know which one is supposed to be 'correct' and I'm not going to go double post. Hopefully relevant eyes will see my suggestions and consider them in the mix anyway.

[barecm]

Pure ranger bow users stink compared to all the other bow using builds that just splah ranger to get what they need from enhancements / free feats. Just like paladin and now barbarians were reworked, they need to do something with the ranger class as a bow user (2/3 enhacement lines are based on it) to make it more viable.

[barecm]

Oops... double post.

[psykopeta]

1st make rangers choose between twf free feats and ranged free feats (as in pnp)

2nd give em something like 5 or 10 melee power or ranged power (depending your selection) per ranger lvl

3rd profit

ofc you can use your non free feats to boost whatever you are lacking, the decision between melee and ranged free feats would simply kill that multiclassing power in the class

[barecm]

1st make rangers choose between twf free feats and ranged free feats (as in pnp)

2nd give em something like 5 or 10 melee power or ranged power (depending your selection) per ranger lvl

3rd profit

ofc you can use your non free feats to boost whatever you are lacking, the decision between melee and ranged free feats would simply kill that multiclassing power in the class

Making rangers more like PnP (having to choose) has been one of those things mentioned from time to time as far back as I can remember with this game... and I started at launch. It unfortunately is not happening despite us wanting it.

Boosting ranged power is probably more appropriate in the core enhancements.... but maybe that is what you meant....

3rd for me would be also adding some additional doubleshot bonus in the core enhancements.

4th Make Manyshot and 10k stars stances that are exclusive from each other. Manyshot bonus based on ranger levels.

[dunklezhan]

Making rangers more like PnP (having to choose) has been one of those things mentioned from time to time as far back as I can remember with this game... and I started at launch. It unfortunately is not happening despite us wanting it.

>snip<

4th Make Manyshot and 10k stars stances that are exclusive from each other. Manyshot bonus based on ranger levels.

My suggestion for a choice would be as I stated above: TWO of ranged/melee/pet. Without pet in there, there's no point changing rangers to be "more like PnP".

Many shot is a feat which can be earned by anyone with the pre-reqs. It comes as part of the 'free ranged progression regardless of stats' that Rangers get, and it should continue to be included in that way. Because it is something which can be unlocked with pre-req feats for nonrangers, Manyshots bonuses are therefore based on BaB and certainly should stay that way.

That isn't to say I don't think pure class or deep-splash rangers shouldn't get more out of it than a 6 splash who only really went that far to get Manyshot for 'free'. I think therefore that the way to boost pure class rangers use of manyshot - or pure/deep splash class' viability in general - is to do it indirectly via passive buffs to enhancement tree core abilities. In the case of Ranger, that would bonuses on core abilities in DWS or AA or both. That would restrict those bonuses to manyshot (or ranged in general, depending on what the bonuses were - if they were ranged power for instance which affected all the Rangers missile damage, I'm fine with that) to people who invest in the relevant number of minimum class levels to get each tier of core abilities.

Re 10K stars/Manyshot exclusivity... I dunno, i have no opinion, never played a monkcher. In general all I know is I want pureclasses to get better, not multiclasses to get worse.

[barecm]

My suggestion for a choice would be as I stated above: TWO of ranged/melee/pet. Without pet in there, there's no point changing rangers to be "more like PnP".

Many shot is a feat which can be earned by anyone with the pre-reqs. It comes as part of the 'free ranged progression regardless of stats' that Rangers get, and it should continue to be included in that way. Because it is something which can be unlocked with pre-req feats for nonrangers, Manyshots bonuses are therefore based on BaB and certainly should stay that way.

That isn't to say I don't think pure class or deep-splash rangers shouldn't get more out of it than a 6 splash who only really went that far to get Manyshot for 'free'. I think therefore that the way to boost pure class rangers use of manyshot - or pure/deep splash class' viability in general - is to do it indirectly via passive buffs to enhancement tree core abilities. In the case of Ranger, that would bonuses on core abilities in DWS or AA or both. That would restrict those bonuses to manyshot (or ranged in general, depending on what the bonuses were - if they were ranged power for instance which affected all the Rangers missile damage, I'm fine with that) to people who invest in the relevant number of minimum class levels to get each tier of core abilities.

Re 10K stars/Manyshot exclusivity... I dunno, i have no opinion, never played a monkcher. In general all I know is I want pureclasses to get better, not multiclasses to get worse.

My idea was a base Manyshot of 2 and then increasing based on ranger levels, not BaB and have a reduction in damage (which could be lessened with ranger enhancements). Doubleshot would need to be adjusted as well if there are to function simulataneously with Manyshot as a stance. Would probably need to be chance to do double base damage, not 2 hits of full damage/procs etc...

I see AA being buff type augments and spell like abilities where as Deepwood should rely on stances and such.

[Inoukchuk]

Pure ranger bow users stink compared to all the other bow using builds that just splah ranger to get what they need from enhancements / free feats. Just like paladin and now barbarians were reworked, they need to do something with the ranger class as a bow user (2/3 enhacement lines are based on it) to make it more viable.

Agreed. First thing is to make manyshot and 10k share a timer, then remove the doubleshot penalty from manyshot. Next, I'd like to see Tempest get 100% stat to off hand at tier 5 or capstone and for DWS to get a huge holysword type bonus while sneak attacking... maybe bigger than holy sword since it would require getting sneak attack. Something like:
Capstone(or maybe tier5):
Sniper: Any attack that qualifies for sneak attack is +1 crit range +1 multiplier +1[W]. You are always considered to be in Point Blank Shot and Ranged Sneak Attack range.

Personally I'd like AA to be more magical, get things like AoE effects, or maybe Wizard based SLAs while DWS is more sniper/sneak/DPS oriented.

And in general the rangers spell list needs a boost. They should add the whole vigor line up to greater vigor at spell level 4, maybe deathward, and maybe even a ranger only DPS spell or 2 like paladin gets zeal and holy sword. Some incentive to want level 4 spells (now that FOM has been nerfed badly).

[Rys]

Agreed. First thing is to make manyshot and 10k share a timer, then remove the doubleshot penalty from manyshot.

And fulltime archers will become nothing but the other boring autoattack build. Timing and positioning with manyshot, 10k stars, fury and IPS is what make these builds fun.