U28 Lamannia - Ranger: Deepwood Stalker Feedback

[blerkington]

• Hunter's Mercy is now a single enhancement that grants both Merciful Shot (the Ranged version) and Merciful Strike (the Melee version).
• Head Shots is now a single enhancement that grants both Head Shot (the Ranged version) and Head Strike (the Melee version).
• "With Bow and Blade" has been rolled into Improved Archer's Focus, granting the passive +10 Melee Power and +10 Ranged Power.
• Mark of the Hunted now passively grants 10% Fortification Bypass and +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.
• Horizon Shot now passively grants 10% Fortification Bypass and a total of +3 Sneak Attack Dice (previously 1).

Hi,

So does this mean there will be one cooldown for the multiselector attacks? If so, were the cooldown periods going to the changed or left as is?

Internal DPS tests (including the changes above) put a DEX-based, primarily DWS character in Fury using both Bows and TWF about on par with a similarly-geared Swashbuckler in Divine Crusader. (Sometimes a little ahead). If you're going only Melee or only Ranged with Deepwood Stalker as your primary tree, our DPS tests show that as behind Swashbuckler, though not by massive amounts. That's about what we are aiming for with this tree, on par with Swashbuckler if you're utilizing both your Melee AND Ranged options.

Also, can you tell us a bit more about your DPS calculations? A swashbuckler running in DC should have a pretty good crit profile, and also has a high attack speed relative to someone using their bow part of the time (unless it's manyshot only).

It's very surprising to hear that the adjusted DS tree is putting a hybrid ranger anywhere near close in DPS, especially if the ranger's destiny is Fury (not one of the better DPS destinies, especially for a melee).

Thanks.

[Qhualor]

Internal DPS tests (including the changes above) put a DEX-based, primarily DWS character in Fury using both Bows and TWF about on par with a similarly-geared Swashbuckler in Divine Crusader. (Sometimes a little ahead). If you're going only Melee or only Ranged with Deepwood Stalker as your primary tree, our DPS tests show that as behind Swashbuckler, though not by massive amounts. That's about what we are aiming for with this tree, on par with Swashbuckler if you're utilizing both your Melee AND Ranged options.

That doesn't mean we're done with the tree yet, just that we're getting closer to the balance target. As Vargouille said in the Tempest thread:

That's just as applicable to Deepwood Stalker, pending the above changes.

curious if you tried testing other EDs like Dreadnaught in DWS as the main tree. are you saying that Fury is the better melee/ranged ED? ive heard that LD is a pretty good ED for both melee and ranged, but usually ranger players focus one or the other play style. Fury is popular among ranged rangers.

[Grailhawk]

Hi,

So does this mean there will be one cooldown for the multiselector attacks? If so, were the cooldown periods going to the changed or left as is?



Also, can you tell us a bit more about your DPS calculations? A swashbuckler running in DC should have a pretty good crit profile, and also has a high attack speed relative to someone using their bow part of the time (unless it's manyshot only).

It's very surprising to hear that the adjusted DS tree is putting a hybrid ranger anywhere near close in DPS, especially if the ranger's destiny is Fury (not one of the better DPS destinies, especially for a melee).

Thanks.

Ample use of Fury shot make it very believable to me.

[blerkington]

Ample use of Fury shot make it very believable to me.

Hi,

Thanks for your contribution.

If the assumption is that fury shot is being used every time manyshot comes off cooldown, perhaps the claim about equivalent DPS is more plausible than I first thought.

I do wonder if in practice the performance of the two builds mentioned in the example will be anywhere near similar, because there is a lot more potential for unused or wasted damage with the fury build.

On my hybrid I don't cycle manyshot every two minutes, because often there's not something worth using it on. But if it is there for strong damage against bosses when you need it, it may not be such an issue.

Take care.

[Thar]

Another quick note, which I pointed out in the pre-Lama thread:We're definitely looking for Lamannia playtest feedback at this point. Theorycrafting is great (and we're still listening for that, but data based on test-driving the tree is especially important at this point in the process. So if you can, check it out on Lama and let us know if you did! Thanks!

i was on lam and my character is 18/1/1 ranger monk rogue. on life i am completionish with 1.5w grandmaster twist for additional damage. on lam i didn't want the hassle of doing that to test so i build the character as close as possible. The tempest changes were allowing the lam character to do slightly below the damage on live. live is 80-120 per hit with short swords (1pt in ninja spy for monk stance) lam was 70s to 100s. with 1000 cuts it would jump to 250s for short times but not consistently.

defense was mixed result. leather blocks earth stance of course so AC went down approx 13 pts but prr went up 5 for a total of 99 with max 28 gear and all prr enhancements etc. not really sustainable in EE as people were finding out getting 2 shot. but, definately an improvement for leather armor. not so much for cloth users. needs a little more defensive help here.

CC - none, spells are still useless as wisdom based.

buffs - natural armor - probably less useful as you can find items that are more powerful than the spell. should scale to epic level results.

healing - same no heal amp in the trees

cost of trees. getting better but tempest is still top heavy and has too many 3 tier abillities. you should be able to take all tier 5's by the time you hit 40 so you can use 41 and jump to race and a partial in another tree. tempest is still a little above that for the tier 5's since some were added. the top of whirling blades should be 1 pt since the line costs so much. 10 pts for 7pts of damage. nice for heroic but too expensive for that endgame.

end result, 30-40% more dps but it was too low with dex weapons to start with. something needs to boost those weapons like swashbuckler. defense better but needs a bit more all around. AC, prr, saves, other. other items are useless at some point at epics - buff spells, cc spells useless much earlier.

[barecm]

How do you compare the DPS of Coup De grace? How much DPS does an insta-kill do?

Or a charisma based PDK freeze bard using a short sword with a huge crit range and ability to freeze groups of mobs or single targets with multiple freeze abilities that render mobs helpless? How does that compare? Or a rogue heavy repeater / great xbow or a shuriken thrower vs deepwood bow user? How do those stack up? I am betting not favorably if you are the DWS toon.

[liston33]

Lets think about an archer... As an archer you use a weapon that using the correct penetrating material you can penetrate anything for a critical shot. and massive damage. Seems that archers are limited to plinking and hoping for a status effect..

[Mindos]

Or a charisma based PDK freeze bard using a short sword with a huge crit range and ability to freeze groups of mobs or single targets with multiple freeze abilities that render mobs helpless? How does that compare? Or a rogue heavy repeater / great xbow or a shuriken thrower vs deepwood bow user? How do those stack up? I am betting not favorably if you are the DWS toon.

I would combine the damage per second of the character you wish to test, and subtract the DPS of the mobs you are facing. For example, put your test toons into one square room with 10 mobs each. If your toon does 1000 DPS, but each mob you face does 100 DPS, you will subtract the mobs from yours. So in our example, if my Ranger can do 1000 dps, but am facing 10 mobs each doing 100 dps, my effective (for measuring purposes) DPS is ZERO.

Compare my Ranger to a Bard using any kind of crowd control: Let's assume the Bard can do 1000 DPS just like the Ranger, but after one disco ball, or fascinate, we assume again that every one of the 10 mobs are now dancing. There fore their combined mob DPS is zero. Which would give the Bard an effective DPS of 1000 compared to the Ranger's ZERO. This way of comparison allows us to take into account insta-kill effects, etc.

Although, we should probably change the name from effective DPS to something that shows we are really comparing power and survivability of builds. How about we call this metric Relative Build Power?

[FlaviusMaximus]

• Hunter's Mercy is now a single enhancement that grants both Merciful Shot (the Ranged version) and Merciful Strike (the Melee version).
• Head Shots is now a single enhancement that grants both Head Shot (the Ranged version) and Head Strike (the Melee version).
• "With Bow and Blade" has been rolled into Improved Archer's Focus, granting the passive +10 Melee Power and +10 Ranged Power.
• Mark of the Hunted now passively grants 10% Fortification Bypass and +2 Damage when attacking Favored Enemies.
• Horizon Shot now passively grants 10% Fortification Bypass and a total of +3 Sneak Attack Dice (previously 1).

Excellent changes. Thank you for listening to player feedback.

In terms of getting the Sneak Attack portion of Mercy Shot, try using Called Shot right before Mercy Shot. The Bluff portion of Called will make them vulnerable to Sneak Attacks.

On this topic, changing Called Shot to grant both Exposing Strike and Sniper Shot would make sense because it would ensure being able to follow up with either Merciful Strike or Merciful Strike while keeping the same weapon equipped.

From what I could tell when testing on Lamannia a few days ago, Merciful Shot was not benefitting from Adrenaline. Is this working as intended?

[Wallwalker]

Excellent changes. Thank you for listening to player feedback.

Sadly I have to disagree Flavmax, there were well over 20 pages on the other DWS thread and a good deal here, and Steelstar has completely ignored the core issues:

• Critical buffs, either range or multiplier
• Rate of fire for long and short bows, requires buff comiserate with that given assorted Xbows

Now this doesn't mean that the Dev's have to give a crit buff or ROF buff, but they do need to help us to understand why they are choosing to do so and thereby making the DWS DOA when U28 goes live. The silence of the Devs on these crux issues is deafening and amplified when they choose to
'cherry-pick' the easier issues to address while those two massive Elephants are in the room.

If the team has decided to pull back on crit ranges, they really need to help us to understand why so we can then perhaps get on board. Personally I am dying to find out why after giving significant crit profile boosts to every previous relevant pass that they decided to throw the switch on Rangers and dreadfully underpowered class.

So really It's good that we acknowledge some positive moves when they makes them but it is essential that the Devs address these two issues head-on even if it is to tell us news that we might not like.

[FlaviusMaximus]

Sadly I have to disagree Flavmax, there were well over 20 pages on the other DWS thread and a good deal here, and Steelstar has completely ignored the core issues:

• Critical buffs, either range or multiplier
• Rate of fire for long and short bows, requires buff comiserate with that given assorted Xbows

I feel that when player feedback is utilized and adjustments are made, it should be recognized and met with positive feedback. If I had said, "Excellent changes. I believe all the necessary changes have been made, DWS is complete, and you have listened to all player feedback," then I could certainly understand taking issue with the sentiment, but I was merely recognizing the changes that were made so far and saying "thanks".

You make good points in your post. DWS will not, at least as far as I observed on Lamannia, make a good full time bow user without adjustments to the rate of fire. It will also probably not be top tier dps with melee weapons without crit adjustments. It does, however, seem like a tree where one is supposed to melee for a minute and a half and then pull out the bow for manyshot. Combining the two styles might not quite be enough to make the tree worth using by itself, but if it can be bolstered enough by dipping into an improved AA and Tempest tree, it might work out. I'm not sure I'm in favor of the continual crit expansion that is going on, but if it is indeed needed for balancing and for making classes appealing, perhaps the + crit melee weapon abilities could be located in the Tempest tree where a DWS could access it if they decided to invest heavily. As for bow rate of fire, I believe this either needs adjusting overall or doubleshot and/or + rate of fire abilities need to be added to trees like AA and Kensai (if bow is specialized in).

[Grace_ana]

I wanted to do some serious playtesting today comparing DWS to Mechanic, but Lamma is down. When will it be up again?

[Wallwalker]

I feel that when player feedback is utilized and adjustments are made, it should be recognized and met with positive feedback. If I had said, "Excellent changes. I believe all the necessary changes have been made, DWS is complete, and you have listened to all player feedback," then I could certainly understand taking issue with the sentiment, but I was merely recognizing the changes that were made so far and saying "thanks".

You make good points in your post. DWS will not, at least as far as I observed on Lamannia, make a good full time bow user without adjustments to the rate of fire. It will also probably not be top tier dps with melee weapons without crit adjustments. It does, however, seem like a tree where one is supposed to melee for a minute and a half and then pull out the bow for manyshot. Combining the two styles might not quite be enough to make the tree worth using by itself, but if it can be bolstered enough by dipping into an improved AA and Tempest tree, it might work out. I'm not sure I'm in favor of the continual crit expansion that is going on, but if it is indeed needed for balancing and for making classes appealing, perhaps the + crit melee weapon abilities could be located in the Tempest tree where a DWS could access it if they decided to invest heavily. As for bow rate of fire, I believe this either needs adjusting overall or doubleshot and/or + rate of fire abilities need to be added to trees like AA and Kensai (if bow is specialized in).

Thanks for your post I appreciate how you laid out your thoughts.

-They have ignored the 'input' they solicited almost entirely, and have only made very small changes that served to refine their initial view, and were never even commented on in 'input', so while I understand your impulse to acknowledge the small changes they made I myself am very hesitant to do so. This is because of the alarming habit of the last 6 months; the Devs seize of the most mild or transparently sycophant praise and raise it's profile by thanking the poster, portraying it as a great 'exchange of ideas' while offhandedly making comments that attempt to minimize and mitigate the vast body of concerns and testing results that contradict the company line. With that being the case I feel like we have to be very careful of how we express the small praise we may have for their work to avoid it being used as ammunition to shoot down and ignore genuine problems and community concern and will. It's similar to not pouring wine at a table a recovering alcoholic is sitting, everyone at the table cares about him and want's him to succeed but you also know he has bad self-destructive tendencies that are best not indulged lest it damage him and everyone else.

-I think most of us have given up on DWS becoming top-tier anything at this point and are more concerned that the emerging tree makes a shockingly sub-par toon in the light of the game today, including the intial trees and all passes up til now.

-Very interesting point about it becoming a tree where you have to melee for a minute and a half and then manyshot, repeat. I agree that is what this pass is driving towards, which is dreadfully ironic in that the Dev post so often spout that they are making changes to encourage "options and varied play" as it stands now if you try to run DWS in any different way then what is the driven melee/many goal the performance tanks, it drops like a stone going from sub-par to gimp in the blink of a eye. Constrictive design is poor design, the Devs know this but the current pass is all about constricting the Deep Wood Stalker into some vague theme that is not all at odds with the origin and source material of rangers, but would appear to be understood goal by the team.

-For example, speaking to the above point: If you want to run a top of the line version of a mechanic, it needs to be a GxB mechanic or at the very least a repeater mechanic. All the pluses and buffs go to the GxB, with a few to the repeater. The intelligence bonus only applys to xbows and ignores bows and thrown even after Sev and other Devs repeatedly stated the Mech tree should encourage variety. The bows, repeaters, thrown weapons don't get any of the massive sneak attack dices increases, etc... So again a case of the Devs preaching variety but forcing conformity.

-I'm not sure how I feel about the ongoing crit expansions of the last 18 months either friend, I hear you there. But what I can say is that the choice was not ours and it was made 18 months ago. To abruptly cease to make it a aspect of every class during the pass process at this late date will only serve to hollow out any of the classes left without it. That's why my call was for the Team to explain to us, to let us know what is their hoped for endgame, or if they are going to retroactively rescind the plethora of crit expansions they have overseen for the past 18 months. Clarity is what we need if the Ranger is going to be the first of future classes to not receive that kind of game-changing buff.

-Rate of fire is crucial at this point, more importantly a solid consistent world-view regarding ROF. Currently a mechanic is firing a Gxb at a vastly hight rate of fire while doing a magnitude higher of base damage on each shot with a much larger crit range. Add to this the excellent doubleshot bonuses available you end up with the bow firing slower, much weaker damage, lower crit threat range, lower crit multp, and seriously handicapped by many shot. Yes you read that right, the -100% doublshot begins to eat in to the benefit of manyshot in overall performance, better that I should have a full doublshot on a GxB running all the time giving a steady stream of doubled special range attacks the moment the each come off timer with enormous +[w] increases.


I am also still stunned at the ridiculous decision to put off sorting out Manyshot before doing the ranger or completing the ranged update, this kind of procrastination is unfair and unprofessional when it impact the play of so many paying customer who are waiting for them to sort it all out. Since Sev has become executive producer there is a real apparent habit of pushing tricky things back and hoping time will fix them, on example is Holy sword. I will not say how I feel about Holy Sword one way or another, but I can say that when Sev comments on Holy Sword needing a change but then doing nothing about it but at the same time letting his comments stand, well that kind of thing stirs up trouble withing players needlessly.

It has gotten to the point that I am beginning to feel it is a manipulative tendency on the part of Sev and his team, they float comments about controversial subjects but do nothing and at the same time don't expand on the comments in a way that will inform the community. One might say that they purposefully are stirring the pot to see which complaints are the loudest, or die down the fastest, tremendously unprofessional. And not unlike posting these ranger changes with no crit expansions without comment to how significant of a change of tack that might indicate. [/LIST]

[blerkington]

I feel that when player feedback is utilized and adjustments are made, it should be recognized and met with positive feedback. If I had said, "Excellent changes. I believe all the necessary changes have been made, DWS is complete, and you have listened to all player feedback," then I could certainly understand taking issue with the sentiment, but I was merely recognizing the changes that were made so far and saying "thanks".

You make good points in your post. DWS will not, at least as far as I observed on Lamannia, make a good full time bow user without adjustments to the rate of fire. It will also probably not be top tier dps with melee weapons without crit adjustments. It does, however, seem like a tree where one is supposed to melee for a minute and a half and then pull out the bow for manyshot. Combining the two styles might not quite be enough to make the tree worth using by itself, but if it can be bolstered enough by dipping into an improved AA and Tempest tree, it might work out. I'm not sure I'm in favor of the continual crit expansion that is going on, but if it is indeed needed for balancing and for making classes appealing, perhaps the + crit melee weapon abilities could be located in the Tempest tree where a DWS could access it if they decided to invest heavily. As for bow rate of fire, I believe this either needs adjusting overall or doubleshot and/or + rate of fire abilities need to be added to trees like AA and Kensai (if bow is specialized in).

Hi,

The more I think about this, the more I start to think a DWS hybrid build is going to be significantly down on other DPS builds.

Although we haven't heard back from the developers about what exactly their DPS tests were, it's starting to seem like they might have used a single high HP red named enemy for a test which lasted somewhere well under two minutes. I'm concerned that what they did was pick a test which makes their proposal perform very favourably within narrow test conditions only.

While red named DPS is an important ability, it's certainly not the whole game. Nor would a test that assumes the use of a furyshot a realistic indication of how experienced archers play outside of boss fights. It's not efficient to use manyshot every two minutes on the dot, because doing so will either put you on cooldown for when you really need it or just be overkill and wasted damage for trash mob fights.

I think it would be very revealing to hear more about the tests used, and also to hear about how well the proposed DWS changes perform in destinies other than Fury.

It would be pretty silly if DWS builds had to run in Fury to be competitive, and were performing well below other builds in other destines when the massive spike damage from furyshot wasn't being included to raise the average damage output to acceptable levels.

The people who have been arguing for alacrity and crit profile changes are spot on. I don't know why the developers are so set on ignoring the core problems with bow builds, and why they apparently won't consider making changes to critical hits for rangers in the same way they have for every other melee and ranged class.

Thanks.

[Grace_ana]

Alacrity is vital. I like the suggestion made by a few people of adding crit bonuses to favored enemies. It ties in to specific ranger abilities, making them "best at" killing those particular things. It also gives more benefits the more levels of ranger you take, as you get more favored enemies that way.

I absolutely agree that if the DPS is being measured by using furyshot, it isn't a valid measure. It's unreasonable to pigeonhole ranged toons into one viable ED because that was what was used as the yardstick.

[Wallwalker]

Hi,


I think it would be very revealing to hear more about the tests used, and also to hear about how well the proposed DWS changes perform in destinies other than Fury.


Thanks.

So true Blerk, the very same thought occurred to me when Varg posted that they had tested the Tempest and it was on par, and a little ahead of a Swashbuckler. 5 other nerds I play with regularly had been steadily working our way through a entire battery of test since Lamma went live, testing evey possible build and version we could versus the current top end builds, and not one of those Tempest or DWS variants could keep up with a contemporary build, not one. The only builds that could make any stab at being comparable in DPS or mitigation was when we used 14 levels of Paladin and splashed 6 of ranger.

I have to say that I don't think the team is going to be in any rush to let us know what types of test they used. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but their conclusion on the Tempest so quickly followed by shutting down Lamma tells us a lot about what is really going on, and the lengths they are willing to go to preempt any contradicting voices.

It's disheartening to see them ignore, dismiss, and hide from a community that want's to help make the game better. A community that has grown and matured in regards to game-theory, balance, themes, and most importantly testing. The past year has seen just a explosion of solid testing and reporting with builders across the servers as people take each eagerly awaited new update and factor in the changes. Just two or three years ago you couldn't find much less get access to all the spreadsheets, videos, strike based algorithms, and 2nd party verification protocols that are so prevalent among serious builders today. Builder/tester Guilds exist on every server these days, and while some carefully guard their data for in house builds, others are happy to share, have testing nights, and even server-hop to help other noobs figure it out. Turbine can't be ignorant of this growing segment of the population, so it is so surprising when they make claims like the one about the Tempest that are so inaccurate and easily disproved, and entirely at odds with live lamma results.

[blerkington]

Alacrity is vital. I like the suggestion made by a few people of adding crit bonuses to favored enemies. It ties in to specific ranger abilities, making them "best at" killing those particular things. It also gives more benefits the more levels of ranger you take, as you get more favored enemies that way.

I absolutely agree that if the DPS is being measured by using furyshot, it isn't a valid measure. It's unreasonable to pigeonhole ranged toons into one viable ED because that was what was used as the yardstick.

So true Blerk, the very same thought occurred to me when Varg posted that they had tested the Tempest and it was on par, and a little ahead of a Swashbuckler. 5 other nerds I play with regularly had been steadily working our way through a entire battery of test since Lamma went live, testing evey possible build and version we could versus the current top end builds, and not one of those Tempest or DWS variants could keep up with a contemporary build, not one. The only builds that could make any stab at being comparable in DPS or mitigation was when we used 14 levels of Paladin and splashed 6 of ranger.

I have to say that I don't think the team is going to be in any rush to let us know what types of test they used. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but their conclusion on the Tempest so quickly followed by shutting down Lamma tells us a lot about what is really going on, and the lengths they are willing to go to preempt any contradicting voices.

It's disheartening to see them ignore, dismiss, and hide from a community that want's to help make the game better. A community that has grown and matured in regards to game-theory, balance, themes, and most importantly testing. The past year has seen just a explosion of solid testing and reporting with builders across the servers as people take each eagerly awaited new update and factor in the changes. Just two or three years ago you couldn't find much less get access to all the spreadsheets, videos, strike based algorithms, and 2nd party verification protocols that are so prevalent among serious builders today. Builder/tester Guilds exist on every server these days, and while some carefully guard their data for in house builds, others are happy to share, have testing nights, and even server-hop to help other noobs figure it out. Turbine can't be ignorant of this growing segment of the population, so it is so surprising when they make claims like the one about the Tempest that are so inaccurate and easily disproved, and entirely at odds with live lamma results.

Hi,

I think both of you have made some really good contributions to these discussions, so thanks for that and also for replying to my comments.

The very limited information we've been given about testing makes me extremely suspicious of the claimed results. It reeks of cherry picking to me. Whether or not it's intentional, it's a great disservice to that part of the community which likes the ranger class and wants a fair and balanced game.

For a developer team that claims to be interested in community input and fostering a game which allows real diversity of choice (not just being able to choose between the first rate and the second rate), these discussions have been incredibly disappointing. The gulf between the claims and the reality has never seemed so large to me.

I have become increasingly critical of the game's developers in recent years. On some of the occasions I've made those criticisms, I've regretted them later, thinking perhaps I didn't give them the benefit of the doubt. Then something like this ranger pass happens, and if anything, I'm starting to think I haven't been anywhere near critical enough.

Take care.

[Wallwalker]

It's out of our hands so what can you do but laugh and roll with the changes?

[red_cardinal_]

I agree with some players who say that there has to be a reason to go Ranger 20 because of a capstone in one enhancement tree.

For Deepwood Stalker you might consider creating a new multishot clickie for the capstone.

"Fire 2/3/4 arrows depending on your base attack bonus at once. Does not break sneak mode. To each arrow is applied a double shot chance scaling with 400% ranged power. Cannot be activated if Manyshot is active. 15 seconds cooldown. "

The idea behind this is to try to snipe the target(s) while in sneak mode. This goes well with some theory that it's like a ranged assassinate, but it's not actually because it doesn't have "save or die" rule.

[BigErkyKid]

-They have ignored the 'input' they solicited almost entirely, and have only made very small changes that served to refine their initial view

They have taken this stance since they messed up with SWF and bards. Their initial proposal was weak sauce, they listened to players and got out of hand. This and several other situations (barbs, paladins DPS) makes me think they really don't have a good model for DPS simulations. This also comes out in certain enhancements (when they give +1d6 or +3D6 light damage) that are simply amazingly underwhelming in the current game.

-I think most of us have given up on DWS becoming top-tier anything at this point and are more concerned that the emerging tree makes a shockingly sub-par toon in the light of the game today, including the intial trees and all passes up til now.

They simply offered a melee version of long cool down single enemy special attacks and slapped some MP to the tree. Hardly a pass.

-Very interesting point about it becoming a tree where you have to melee for a minute and a half and then manyshot, repeat. I agree that is what this pass is driving towards, which is dreadfully ironic in that the Dev post so often spout that they are making changes to encourage "options and varied play" as it stands now if you try to run DWS in any different way then what is the driven melee/many goal the performance tanks, it drops like a stone going from sub-par to gimp in the blink of a eye. Constrictive design is poor design, the Devs know this but the current pass is all about constricting the Deep Wood Stalker into some vague theme that is not all at odds with the origin and source material of rangers, but would appear to be understood goal by the team.

The problem is that they don't have a good handle of the game. So either they pigeon hole us into builds or they might end up with amazingly unexpected combinations. They are quick to shut down some of them (monk healing and magic backlash) but others go on for years. For instance, tree builds or wolf exploits.

-For example, speaking to the above point: If you want to run a top of the line version of a mechanic, it needs to be a GxB mechanic or at the very least a repeater mechanic. All the pluses and buffs go to the GxB, with a few to the repeater. The intelligence bonus only applys to xbows and ignores bows and thrown even after Sev and other Devs repeatedly stated the Mech tree should encourage variety. The bows, repeaters, thrown weapons don't get any of the massive sneak attack dices increases, etc... So again a case of the Devs preaching variety but forcing conformity.

I agree that there is nothing or little left out for creativity with builds. Everything is hard coded to the point that you just take 18+ levels of the class and the supported weapons. Cookie cutter, completely, with little room for any interesting combinations.

-I'm not sure how I feel about the ongoing crit expansions of the last 18 months either friend, I hear you there. But what I can say is that the choice was not ours and it was made 18 months ago. To abruptly cease to make it a aspect of every class during the pass process at this late date will only serve to hollow out any of the classes left without it. That's why my call was for the Team to explain to us, to let us know what is their hoped for endgame, or if they are going to retroactively rescind the plethora of crit expansions they have overseen for the past 18 months. Clarity is what we need if the Ranger is going to be the first of future classes to not receive that kind of game-changing buff.

My gripe with that is that they keep adding passive power to classes but the actual gameplay (different abilities and what not) becomes more and more boring. You swing the same just kill faster. Single target abilities are quite often not even used because things die to quickly anyway and you don't want to slow down animations.

It has gotten to the point that I am beginning to feel it is a manipulative tendency on the part of Sev and his team, they float comments about controversial subjects but do nothing and at the same time don't expand on the comments in a way that will inform the community. One might say that they purposefully are stirring the pot to see which complaints are the loudest, or die down the fastest, tremendously unprofessional. And not unlike posting these ranger changes with no crit expansions without comment to how significant of a change of tack that might indicate. [/LIST]

It is good you are using a sock, otherwise you would get to the ignore list. Truth is a few of the best people with comments have recently turned very bitter (no I am not referencing myself). The devs proceed to ignore their comments and those tend to be the best informed comments in the feedback threads. Also their dismissal of hard worked evidence makes it very unappealing to put the effort to truly test or work out some numbers. They will just reference some obscure DPS testing they use and say you are wrong. Well that DPS test they are using is not very reliable if it let HS fly...