Ranger: Tempest Changes

[Grailhawk]

Are you a sock ?

Not just light damage (which scales with melee power), but you also get exalted smite, divine sacrifice, cleave and empowered smite. Let alone sacred defender, for the easy to get prr, saves and +6 strength.

Your not getting all that for 23 AP.

Its either the Simites and Cleaves Or the PRR STR. Maybe some combo of Smites Cleaves and PRR.

20% Doublestrike vs PRR and +6 STR that's a Offence vs Defense choice dont fault any one for going defensive but I'm making offensive comparisons here.

Smites and Cleave vs 20% Doubelstrike is debatable at best but active abilities vs passive is another issue here. Its a wash in my book.

Finally Stalker has some 3d6 Sneak Attack, HP, PRR, +Damage (FE and Thrill of the Hunt), and a lot of Devotion. Its a passive vs active choice IMO you can play as you please. Both are good choices.

[DevilYouKnow]

Your not getting all that for 23 AP.

Its either the Simites and Cleaves Or the PRR STR. Maybe some combo of Smites Cleaves and PRR.

20% Doublestrike vs PRR and +6 STR that's a Offence vs Defense choice dont fault any one for going defensive but I'm making offensive comparisons here.

Smites and Cleave vs 20% Doubelstrike is debatable at best but active abilities vs passive is another issue here. Its a wash in my book.

Finally Stalker has some 3d6 Sneak Attack, HP, PRR, +Damage (FE and Thrill of the Hunt), and a lot of Devotion. Its a passive vs active choice IMO you can play as you please. Both are good choices.

Depends on your play style, so i am not going to debate on that.

[DevilYouKnow]

But over 2 minutes, each version will have the same total downtime. I do not understand, sorry.

The actual pause will be longer still, which overall is going to be a net loss in dps.

[Lonnbeimnech]

But over 2 minutes, each version will have the same total downtime. I do not understand, sorry.

In the 10/15 second version you fight mobs for 10 seconds, and spend the next 5 seconds walking to the next group of mobs.

In all other versions you walk from mob group to mob group with the ability active, but doing nothing since you aren't fighting, then it goes on cooldown for ages and its still doing nothing.

[Dandonk]

The actual pause will be longer still, which overall is going to be a net loss in dps.

As far as I can tell, you'll have the same pause length for each version - when taken over 2 minutes, e.g.

EDIT: Ahh, like that. OK, while running in quests from trash to trash, I see the point. Not all that worried about trash DPS, but fair enough.

[Qhualor]

General question for the audience:
Which of these do you prefer for something like Dance of Death?

1. 10s duration, 15s cooldown
2. 20s duration, 30s cooldown
3. 40s duration, 60s cooldown
4. 2m duration, 3m cooldown
5. 2m duration, once per rest.

10 seconds is too short.

20 seconds is what I call "normal" since a lot of other abilities are 20 seconds long.

40 seconds with a 60 second cooldown, meh.

2 minutes, no thanks.

30/45? otherwise, let's go with 20/30.

[Grailhawk]

Dance of Death should not be touched other then maybe an AP reduction and it doesn't need that, it would just be nice.

[DevilYouKnow]

As far as I can tell, you'll have the same pause length for each version - when taken over 2 minutes, e.g.

No, good sir. It is not going to be the same pause for each length.

Take a look at this again please.

10 sec duration and 15 sec cooldown will result in ---------------> 5 sec pause. (currently).

20 sec duration and 30s cooldown will result in ------------------> 10 sec pause (dps loss).

40 sec duration and 60s cooldown will result in -------------------> 20 sec pause (dps loss).

2 min duration and 3m cooldown will result in --------------------> 1 min pause (dps loss).

[Grailhawk]

EDIT: Ahh, like that. OK, while running in quests from trash to trash, I see the point. Not all that worried about trash DPS, but fair enough.

When it comes to DoD what bossed fights do you use it on.

10/15 is perfect for DoD and other buffs that are not on a charges per day limit

20/30 is good for personal buffs that are have a limited number of charges per day.

[DevilYouKnow]

Dance of Death should not be touched other then maybe an AP reduction and doesn't.

Agreed. I and many others would be happy if it was reduced to (1/1/1) per rank taken. But we will see.

[Qhualor]

No, good sir. It is not going to be the same pause for each length.

Take a look at this again please.

10 sec duration and 15 sec cooldown will result in ---------------> 5 sec pause. (currently).

20 sec duration and 30s cooldown will result in ------------------> 10 sec pause (dps loss).

40 sec duration and 60s cooldown will result in -------------------> 20 sec pause (dps loss).

2 min duration and 3m cooldown will result in --------------------> 1 min pause (dps loss).

Are you really pausing for DoD to be off cooldown? Is it the only thing you use for dps? Are you relying on DoD to be your main source of dps?

[bbqzor]

[*]Some other AP costs may get reduced.[*]Fortification bypass is an interesting idea.

Good on AP costs, theres still a few high ones as mentioned.

On fort bypass.... meh. Tempest has never been about fort bypass, nor does it have any crit boosts or sneak dice, so I really dont think this is the tree for it. If that was going to be a ranger thing, it belongs in Deepwood. For tempest, I think adding burst effects (to highlight twf applying effects on typically large threat range weapons) is a better approach (provided they are burst effects of substance of course).

Something like Bloodletter at the top three cores, doing 5d6 then 7d6 then 9d6, maybe with a T5 that raises it a bump (so 11d6 on pure with T5) is vastly more appealing and thematic than fort bypass, as far as dps adjustments.

Could you please be more specific on where you are seeing a bonus type of Enhancement? To the best of my knowledge that's never been true, nor stated anywhere, but there might be some text I'm personally unaware of.

I will look into this, but as mentioned I wasn't sure if the referenced notes were up to date. If you have looked, and confirmed it stacks with a doublestrike item (easy to test, roll tempest, equip item, check maths vs ui, run a quick log test to be sure) then everything is good. I will ask around, and failing a good answer can test this once it hits lama. Otherwise just trusting you guys to be sure it isn't getting lost like Blinding Speed's Dodge or something (that 1% seems to not stack with dodge feat or some other sources of common dodge, maths on some guys don't add up while others do).

We've done an examination of this distance, yes. It would require a very large amount of work to change, and it's not clear how desirable changing something this would ultimately be.

Desirable yes. Its just not something which can be readily employed otherwise. But given the opportunity cost you imply is attached, maybe not more than other things. Side note, the Shadowdancer epic moment Dark Imbuement supposedly increases melee reach... maybe thats something which will help shortcut the work (or, conversely, is also "broken" and needs to be looked out... mechanically, independent of any relative worth or lack there of for Dark Imbuement).

General question for the audience:
Which of these do you prefer for something like Dance of Death?

1. 10s duration, 15s cooldown
2. 20s duration, 30s cooldown
3. 40s duration, 60s cooldown
4. 2m duration, 3m cooldown
5. 2m duration, once per rest.

Definitely NOT anything over 1m cd. That would just be terrible, beyond terrible. Cthulu would happen if it went over 1 minute, thats all Im saying.

The 10 for 15 just feels short, especially with all the other short tempest bursts. Ive played with this a lot on live doing a few tempest lives and its a lot to keep spam clicking. I really think the Action Boost model is something players are used to, which has been around since the game went live, and really matches the pacing in most places. That would feel right to me, as well as making it easy to do things like pair it with haste boost (an obvious combo). 20s on, 30s off is a great standard, and its fast without being too fast (where you lose half the time to getting into position or waiting on the animations or something). But it also means if you misclick, lose it to being tripped on activation, use it on a boss and run into the next quest, etc whatever its not stuck on cooldown forever penalizing you.

If the 20/30 just isnt going to happen, 40/60 would be bearable... The rogue past life feat is 60s uptime and that feels pretty solid for important fights too. And other similar things work out okay... but I dont think this is ideal. It doesnt let the tempest skirmish and "dance" when they need to, in order to deal with a group of mobs. I just think too much time is going to be lost going from fight to fight or positioning, and there is a far greater risk of losing the click during times you dont want to.

Once you go over that, the ability is no longer an active part of the class (using it as needed, managing cd, etc)... its just sort of a panic button. At that point youve shifted designs away from an active ability to a reactive ability and thats just nothing the game needs, especially here.

I would vote for 20s on, 30s off, by far. Its good for the game, parallel to other options across all classes, and works well alongside other abilities. Yes, losing 5w on one attack every 30s is a "loss" of dps, but theres also a "gain" of dps from better being able to use the ability alongside other options (haste boost, the growing storm, elaborate parry, just to choose others in the tree) and less time spent waiting on animations. I think this holds true of most abilities in the game too... things like Meld Into Darkness are also sometimes difficult to utilize well due to the minimal durations, and are often skipped when going through trees for that reason. When it comes to "boost" like effects that place a buff icon on your bar, 20/30 seems to be the "gold standard" and its a position thats well deserved.

Thanks for the communication on feedback as well. Cheers.

[btolson]

Some more general comments:

• It's no accident that there's a few options that reward Dexterity but not Strength. Strength is rewarding in of itself, for those builds. Only Tempest and Graceful Death directly affects damage differences between STR and DEX, and all they really do is let DEX theoretically match STR for DPS.
• Getting Dexterity improves nearly all Strength builds, for Reflex saves if nothing else. The reverse is not nearly as true - Strength isn't really useful for most DEX builds.
• Some of the details depends on your other choices, and other details such as party composition, possible multiclass options, etc. But even just taking into account things such as Primal Rage, Strength values are just higher than Dexterity.

These things are true, but for a pure 20 ranger who does not have DM or barb rage, the difference between all-out STR and all-out DEX is slim and dex-based really does look like the "right" way to build since a couple points of damage mod do not make up for having working evasion. Beyond that, straight +dam and +[w] have been diluting the impact of your damage stat increasingly more, such that dex-to-dam is substantially more on-par than a simple theoretical STR-score to DEX-score comparison might suggest.

I don't want to see STR propped up as the only "right" tempest build instead, but they are currently trading an awful lot of survivability for potentially only a couple extra points of base dam and I think there is some middle ground that can be reached. Consider an anti-requisite against DM (fluffed as primal communion preventing divine communion) to throw a bone to STR tempests in a multi-selector somewhere.

General question for the audience:
Which of these do you prefer for something like Dance of Death?

40s duration, 60s cooldown
or perhaps 30/45
(but I don't care too much, as long as it stays <= 1 min)

[Dandonk]

When it comes to DoD what bossed fights do you use it on.

10/15 is perfect for DoD and other buffs that are not on a charges per day limit

20/30 is good for personal buffs that are have a limited number of charges per day.

That's a good point. Though a short duration clickie will suffer from more dps loss due to pause after clicking it, but yes.

[Grailhawk]

Are you really pausing for DoD to be off cooldown? Is it the only thing you use for dps? Are you relying on DoD to be your main source of dps?

It is the main source of AoE DPS for a TWF Ranger and is the only GOOD!! source of AoE DPS for any TWFing build.

DoD is what makes TWF viable its a killer app in this game where we have so many waves of trash raising its cooldown would be a horrible move.

/melodrama on
end of the world park your TWF melee toons and forget about them horrible
/melodrama off

Changing DoD is bad.

[Arkai]

My vote is for 10s duration, 15s cooldown, perfect to get in and out of short combats.

[Jetrule]

Any thought on re-visiting the ranger spell list or helping out favored enemies? Either through feat change or through enhancements a bit more. It is my thought that a ranger facing a favored enemy should notice a significant difference than when not. Perhaps ad bane type to weapon?

Tempest really needs the spell "blade thirst". I would suggest the level 4 spell adds bleed and enhanced bloodletter 3 or 4 to slashing weapons.


Over all I think mele rangers should be decent damage dealers and fairly squishy, but against favored enemies they should be great damage dealers and fairly tough. I would also like a way for rangers to receive bonuses in wilderness or outdoor terrain. Better at stealth, faster moving, and a small bump to defence and offence. Is it possible to code for this in each quest? A marker as to whether it is a wilderness area or not?

So there is no chance for a ranger companion at this time? How about a lvl3 ranger spell which calls the Primal avatar "friend of nature" small animals for a slight buff? Or a lvl 8 ranger can summon the druid wolf companion? Or reskin it to a onyx panther?

[Dandonk]

No, good sir. It is not going to be the same pause for each length.

Take a look at this again please.

10 sec duration and 15 sec cooldown will result in ---------------> 5 sec pause. (currently).

20 sec duration and 30s cooldown will result in ------------------> 10 sec pause (dps loss).

40 sec duration and 60s cooldown will result in -------------------> 20 sec pause (dps loss).

2 min duration and 3m cooldown will result in --------------------> 1 min pause (dps loss).

12 times 5 sec pause = 1 min.

But yes, it's better for trash, and DoD is for trash, so sure, keep it.

[Karadon_II]

10 seconds is too short.

20 seconds is what I call "normal" since a lot of other abilities are 20 seconds long.

40 seconds with a 60 second cooldown, meh.

2 minutes, no thanks.

30/45? otherwise, let's go with 20/30.

I wonder if the could employ some sort of "multi-selector" tech for the clickies, like for when you choose +1 to Str or +1 to Dex, or what action boost to take. One is selected the other is greyed out.

The different durations suggested could be the different options for the same ability in the multiselector.

[Qhualor]

It is the main source of AoE DPS for a TWF Ranger and is the only GOOD!! source of AoE DPS for any TWFing build.

DoD is what makes TWF viable its a killer app in this game where we have so many waves of trash raising its cooldown would be a horrible move.

/melodrama on
end of the world park your TWF melee toons and forget about them horrible
/melodrama off

Changing DoD is bad.

Oh I'm not questioning how good it is. I'm questioning the 5/10/20/1 minute that ranger players are doing while DoD is on cooldown. I don't see an ability like this that has a short cooldown as a loss in dps when you have other things to click, your doublestriking, manyshotting, etc. It just sounded to me like it's the end all be all enhancement and it's the only thing worth having disregarding everything else available to a ranger.