Patch Notes - June 25th, 2022

RESPAWN OPTIONS FEATURE
We are pleased to announce the respawn from hover window feature! Upon dying players will now be able to chose their home or bind as respawn options. Accepting a resurrect request will unlock the Resurrect option; be resurrected without zoning!

L64dTkY.png


DEVELOPER NOTE: Previously, when you died, all the data for your character was removed as you were transported to your bind location. With this change, the server now needs to be aware of your character data, but in a dead state.​
  • Please report any behaviors that might seem unintended while dead.
  • This feature can be turned on and off without a patch. If something goes awry, we may have to disable the feature temporarily.
SEASON
Two weeks after this patch, we will be allowing players to leave the season early via a dialogue option. This option will not be allowed to guest locked characters. The reason for this notification is give players time to properly protect themselves from griefing. Please note that once you have left the season, under no circumstances will you be readded.

RANGER
We primarily see a Ranger as the masters of ranged bow combat. They are a master of all forms of weapons, being closer to the warrior side of a warrior/druid hybrid. Melee weapons are not the preferred choice, only chosen in situations when bowing is not possible or to fill an auxiliary tank roll. As an off/aux tank they focus on avoidance and are not about building threat. The follow changes convert old ranger stances into disciplines, while also building upon the themes and roles of a Ranger.

DISCIPLINE ABILITIES
Rangers may purchase the following disciplines from the Ranger Guild. Be sure to explore for additional ranks!​
  • Pinion Shot
    • Loose an arrow at a flying target.
    • This ability uses the new 'Flying' target type, being usable only on enemies with a flying gravity behavior.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 30s cooldown.
    • Foresight will now indicate whether a target is a valid flying target in addition to it's normal behavior.

  • Gift of the Fields
    • Search the area for materials to craft arrows.
    • Only usable outside and out of combat.
    • Fletching skill increases the amount of arrows foraged.
    • Forage skill increases the success chance.
    • 5 minute cooldown.

  • Hunter's Lash
    • Strike an animal target with hunter's precision.
    • Restricted to animal target types.
    • Requires a melee weapon.
    • 12s cooldown. (Shared with Jagged Arrow)

  • Jagged Arrow
    • Notch a jagged arrow, dealing damage and inflicting bleed on your target.
    • This bleed will deal reverse splurt physical damage over time.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 1 minute duration, 30s cooldown. (Shared with Hunter's Lash)

  • Feral Assault
    • Unleash a focused arrow against your target.
    • This ability's critical strike chance is greatly increased against snared, bleeding, or low life targets. These bonuses are additive.
    • Critical strikes with Feral Assault lower it's cooldown.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 45s cooldown (can be reduced to 30s cooldown) (Shared with Force of Vines and Strike of Seasons)

  • Force of Vines
    • You draw strength from the ground below you, empowering your strike and healing your body.
    • Requires a two handed weapon.
    • 30s cooldown. (Shared with Strike of Seasons and Feral Assault)

  • Strike of Seasons
    • An empowered attack infusing your weapon with the power of the seasons.
    • Deals elemental damage based on the season.
      • Spring - Poison
      • Summer - Fire
      • Fall - Disease
      • Winter - Cold
    • Provides a 2 tick beneficial recourse buff based on the season.
      • Spring - Health/mana regen and poison resist.
      • Summer - Damage shield and fire resist.
      • Fall - Armor class and disease resist.
      • Winter - Spell defense and cold resist.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons.
    • 18s cooldown. (Shared with Force of Vines and Feral Assault)

  • Eye of the Raven
    • Scout the landscape through the eye of your target. (Bind Sight)
    • 1 minute duration.
DISCIPLINE BUFFS
  • Flurry of Shots
    • Unleash a flurry of shots, causing each arrow to split into two shots.
    • 10s duration, 2 minute cooldown. (Shared with Relentless Parry)

  • Relentless Parry
    • Enter a survival state, auto-parrying all attacks for 10 seconds.
    • 10s duration, 15 minute cooldown. (Shared with Flurry of Shots)

  • Blade Guard
    • Switch your offhand weapon into a defensive position, increasing parry and riposte at the cost of offhand attacks.
    • This discipline has no stamina upkeep.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons

  • Savage Strikes
    • Unleashes a hail of melee strikes, granting no fail double and offhand attacks.
    • Moderate stamina drain.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons.
SPELLS
Coat of Arms has been converted to the following spells:​
  • Silent Scroll: Solstice Flare
  • Silent Scroll: Solstice Flare II
    • Channel the heat of the sun to burn your enemies, causing X damage every six seconds for 4 ticks. 1s cast time.
The following quiver spells has been added to lower levels:​
  • Quiver of Fire- Level 29
    • Gives your arrows the chance to burst into flames upon hitting your target, burning nearby creatures for 40 hit points damage.
  • Quiver of Frost- Level 40
    • An arrow coated with frost, which will damage your target for 75 hit points damage.
  • Quiver of Lightning- Level 51
    • Gives your arrows the chance to shock enemies upon hitting them, dealing 100 points of magic damage.
PET MELEE BUG FIX
Pet melee procs with spell ranges less than 50 were failing to complete where the pet's melee attack range was greater than the range of the spell.

Example: A Rangefinder is meleeing a large dragon. The server calculates the melee range at 30 units. Spot will proc, and then fail because the bird is beyond 25 units of range.

We believe this was exasperating player experiences of "Ranger Inconsistency". How many bosses was this effecting? When checked, only one boss in Upper Thaz was small enough to allow spot to land. Seven out of the eleven bosses in Silent Halls were small enough.
  • As such, Pet melee procs with spell ranges less than 51 have been converted to melee range checks.
    • Mage pet procs were generally 50 units. A failed proc would be possible, but only on the largest raid targets. Small improvement here.
    • Ranger pet procs were 25 units. This range was small enough to fail often. Large improvement here.
ARROW USAGE
Arrow consumption is now uniform at all bow delays. eg. Swiftshot, Bow of the Avenger and Ravenclaw will use the same amount of arrows over an equal unit of time.
  • This allows developers the template to create fast bows for future content.
  • Faster bows will provide Rangers an option for more consistent hits.
  • Rangers will continue to consume less arrows than other classes at all levels.
  • The Ranger AA, Returning Shot, will continue to provide a reduction in arrow consumption.
  • The chance to not consume an arrow is clamped between 5% and 95%, so extreme limits of slow or fast bows will suffer a loss.
Because of these adjustments, the following bows have been adjusted:
  • Intermediate Bow
  • Post Intermediate Bow
  • Soul Rake
  • Ravenclaw
  • Starter Bow
  • Learning Bow
  • Yclistinite-reinforced Short Bow
ARROW DAMAGE
In conjunction with the above Ranger patch notes, the arrow damage multiplier has been lowered to 3x (previously 5x). The below two examples will explain this difference:

Pre-Patch:
  • Using a 1 Damage Arrow = 0 added damage
  • Using a 2 Damage Arrow = 5 added damage
  • Using a 3 Damage Arrow = 10 added damage
Post-Patch:
  • Using a 1 Damage Arrow = 0 added damage
  • Using a 2 Damage Arrow = 3 added damage
  • Using a 3 Damage Arrow = 6 added damage
This change softens arrow scaling and allows us to shift a portion of auto attack bow DPS to the new disciplines.
  • Having the best arrows will still be important.
  • It will be easier to add new arrows in the future without shifting Ranger DPS by a large amount.
  • Converting bow damage to discipline damage reduces erratic swings in ranger damage.
  • Moving this damage to disciplines will also reduce the swing between having your bird pet versus not.
GRAVITY BEHAVIOR
We have implemented the client-side support for flying, floating, and levitate. So flying monsters should...fly better. This is more a developer feature, but some might notice the behavioral change. All existing mobs that should fly have been converted to be flying.

ENEMY AI BEHAVIOR
We are going to describe an existing enemy behavior:
  1. A tank pulls a mob without damaging it.
  2. While the mob is running towards the tank, a client begins to cast.
  3. The mob will then redirect it's attention to the caster.
This behavior is coded as part of the enemy's AI, independent of threat. There are a few current problems as we see it:
  1. This is not communicated to a player when it happens. We feel that failing and not knowing why or how to prevent this is bad design.
  2. The mechanic can be completely negated by wearing certain end game gear.
As such, we have made the following changes:
  1. The AI mechanic now checks melee range and melee damage taken with target rather than any damage taken for its primary pass / fail.
    • The mechanic will feel uniform at all levels.
    • It can no longer be mitigated with exclusively high tier gear.
  2. A message will be sent to clients on failure.
    • Rampage filter
    • a large bat redirects their attention to Feron's casting.
SPELL BEHAVIOR
  • Shadowstep spells will now properly move a player.
  • Blind spells will now properly blind clients.
  • Poison/disease counters will now display correctly on buff icons.
BIND SIGHT
An additional spell behavior available to us is bind sight. The following spell/item grant players access to this:
  • Bind Sight - Level 8 (Enchanter), Level 10 (Wizard)
  • Ruxim's Class II Machine of Amplification renamed to Ruxim's Class II Machine of Surveillance.
    • Click effect has been changed to Bind Sight (previously Expansion III)
  • Eye of the Raven - Level 19 (Ranger) Described above
ENCHANTER
  • Charm pet damage has been toned down in raid zones.
  • Charm buff duration will no longer be displayed in pet and target windows.
  • Jinx, Vex, and Hex will now give a unique message indicating when the target misses their attack due to being jinxed.
BARD
  • "Skill: Disarm Trap" will now be learnable for Bards at level 20. For the time being, it will need to be purchased from a Rogue vendor. Just a reminder that this Discipline skill replaces the clients native "Disarm/Set Traps" as a workaround.
ROGUE
Last rank Rogue disciplines provided a significant spike of power during progression play. We have shifted this power away from these disciplines and into AAs to create a smoother growth in power.
  • Poison Trap V - Base damage over time lowered to 418. (Previously 500)
  • Incisive Blade VII - Base damage lowered to 385. (Previously 510)
  • Steel Trap V - Base damage lowered to 2530. (Previously 3570)
  • Blast Trap V - Base damage lowered to 1318. (Previously 1515)

  • Insidious Stab - Increases backstab damage by 4% per rank (in addition to previous behavior)
  • Ambuscade Expertise - Increases trap damage by 4% per rank (in addition to previous behavior)
Twin Fangs has been changed from 35 units range to "Melee Range".

RIVER OF RECESS
A new raid encounter can now be accessed within this zone.

LAIR OF MIELECH (MIELECH C)
  • Observant adventurers may find a new way to get into the zone. It is by no means a free ride. Bring a group, or a very strong group depending.
  • Some random encounters for higher level players have been added, as a bonus. You will find them by killing trash mobs in the zone, assuming your group is strong enough.
ITEMS
  • Windworn Boka's ratio has been adjusted.
  • Windworn Boka can now be transformed in a blacksmith's forge.
  • The hate portion of Jyre's Consuming Flame has been increased to 100 (previously 60)
BUGS
  • Fixed instances of "Crossed-Swords" / stuck in combat bug. This was caused by any source adding aggro to a client who was feigned (Script/ DoT). Example: Imp's Fury barrels adds hate to the entire group when it spawns. If one of your members were feigned, they would be instantly bugged. Special thanks to detailed player feedback for finding this bug. Please let us know if other issues of this crop up. Thanks.
  • Wizard PBAoEs will no longer be blocked when you have no target.
  • Ambuscade Expertise will no longer increase the critical strike of all spell damage.
  • Reckless Strike will no longer be usable outside of Reckless Fury.
  • Cagey Footwork is now properly flagged as a beneficial spell and can be manually clicked off.
  • Forbidden Harvest and Strands of Life will no longer grant mana on kills where the corpse is destroyed. (A destroyed corpse is a scripting mechanic that removes the corpse to not provide loot and experience)
  • Fixed haunted zone global messages.
  • Dwarfs now properly get a mining racial bonus.
  • Wood Elves no longer get a mining racial bonus.
  • Flamecannon's range reduced to 250 (uint8 limits).
  • Gold Onyx Necklace changed to properly boost Dex.
  • Fixed a crash caused by traps.
  • Fixed a crash caused by scripted pets and zoning.
MISC
  • Summoned: Shadow Stalker range check should be more consistent.
  • Starla of the Blue Hurricane bugfixes & adjustments (huddling up during a certain phase should be noticeably beneficial now).
  • Starla has had an additional mechanic added for all versions.
  • Mining nodes have been added to River of Recess, Dreadlands, and Bloody Quarry.
  • An illusionary wards are more illusionary.
  • Emir Sharikahn Vahl should be less buggy.
  • Acumen now classified as a permanent buff.
  • Ranger spell vendors sell the correct level spells now.
  • Spirit Anchor duration increased to 2 minutes (previously 30s).
  • Notab's Nug Special renamed to Rumplesnort's Beetle Bug Special.
  • Notab's Payment renamed to Rumplesnort's Payment.
  • Skrula's Payment renamed to Daerith's Payment.
  • Skrula's Troll Swampbrew renamed to Daerith's Troll Swampbrew.
  • Ysanth's Payment renamed to Yssanth's Payment.
  • Ysanth's Apple Wine renamed to Yssanth's Apple Wine.
  • Prismatic Flurry weapon proc will no longer conflict with Gruplok Attuning Rod.
  • Recently-added damage on charm pets was slightly lowered
  • Main Quest item drop rates from goblin scouts and shadewebs in Heartland Plateau increased by 60% and 40% respectively.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
is season 3 here ?
on a more serious note how will rewards (first to 65 or w/e) be handled if u chose to deflag for season?
 
is season 3 here ?
on a more serious note how will rewards (first to 65 or w/e) be handled if u chose to deflag for season?
Everything is in a data table. Ill just pull the information from there at the end of the season.
 
Cool, thanks for the patch :)

I did find that I enjoyed the AFK friendlyness of knowing charm pet timers on my enchanter. Maybe we could get an AA or something that would allow us to cast Tranquil Link more often to give us a little more freedom to do housework and such?
 
Cool, thanks for the patch :)

I did find that I enjoyed the AFK friendlyness of knowing charm pet timers on my enchanter. Maybe we could get an AA or something that would allow us to cast Tranquil Link more often to give us a little more freedom to do housework and such?

From my thread about the clunkiness of charm in general: Would the staff consider adding a class AA called Mind Probe that lets an Enchanter see if a target is charm, stun, and mez immune without incurring agro? Potentially it could also report out remaining charm duration as a safety measure or indicate magic resistance / mitigation but have a small cooldown. The idea is you could manually check in, but maybe only every few minutes or so. Gives room for randomness, but lets you know. Also could be used out of combat to check for potential pet and crowd control opportunities.
 
Cool, thanks for the patch :)

I did find that I enjoyed the AFK friendlyness of knowing charm pet timers on my enchanter. Maybe we could get an AA or something that would allow us to cast Tranquil Link more often to give us a little more freedom to do housework and such?
We talked about lowering the cooldown to 15minutes. I just have not edited it yet.
 
I am glad, I enjoy being able to switch laundry or whatever when I play without it being a risk to myself and/or my group.
 
RESPAWN OPTIONS FEATURE
We are pleased to announce the respawn from hover window feature! Upon dying players will now be able to chose their home or bind as respawn options. Accepting a resurrect request will unlock the Resurrect option; be resurrected without zoning!

L64dTkY.png


DEVELOPER NOTE: Previously, when you died, all the data for your character was removed as you were transported to your bind location. With this change, the server now needs to be aware of your character data, but in a dead state.​
  • Please report any behaviors that might seem unintended while dead.
  • This feature can be turned on and off without a patch. If something goes awry, we may have to disable the feature temporarily.

  • Appears that when people use this their HP bar in group window will no longer get updated. This will make them appear to be at 100% HP until they die. Might not want to use this currently if you are raiding. Once the person zones, the issue seems to go away.
  • Could we please make it so Death Fatigue starts when you die, and not when you release. This would make the new feature be worth using in raids other that just releasing as soon as possible. Thank you.
 
BUGS
  • Fixed instances of "Crossed-Swords" / stuck in combat bug. This was caused by any source adding aggro to a client who was feigned (Script/ DoT). Example: Imp's Fury barrels adds hate to the entire group when it spawns. If one of your members were feigned, they would be instantly bugged. Special thanks to detailed player feedback for finding this bug. Please let us know if other issues of this crop up. Thanks.

Appears that the Master of the Roll and its PH A roll master in the Citadel of the Claw leaves you stuck in combat.
 
Appears that the Master of the Roll and its PH A roll master in the Citadel of the Claw leaves you stuck in combat.
if i had to guess, its not them specifically, but The Unworthy mob that you kite while fighting those 2 that is giving you the crossed-swords bug.
 
if i had to guess, its not them specifically, but The Unworthy mob that you kite while fighting those 2 that is giving you the crossed-swords bug.
That would make sense. Just wanted to let people know of one mob that I have encountered recently.
 
RANGER
We primarily see a Ranger as the masters of ranged bow combat. They are a master of all forms of weapons, being closer to the warrior side of a warrior/druid hybrid. Melee weapons are not the preferred choice, only chosen in situations when bowing is not possible or to fill an auxiliary tank roll. As an off/aux tank they focus on avoidance and are not about building threat. The follow changes convert old ranger stances into disciplines, while also building upon the themes and roles of a Ranger.

DISCIPLINE ABILITIES
Rangers may purchase the following disciplines from the Ranger Guild. Be sure to explore for additional ranks!​
  • Pinion Shot
    • Loose an arrow at a flying target.
    • This ability uses the new 'Flying' target type, being usable only on enemies with a flying gravity behavior.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 30s cooldown.
    • Foresight will now indicate whether a target is a valid flying target in addition to it's normal behavior.

  • Gift of the Fields
    • Search the area for materials to craft arrows.
    • Only usable outside and out of combat.
    • Fletching skill increases the amount of arrows foraged.
    • Forage skill increases the success chance.
    • 5 minute cooldown.

  • Hunter's Lash
    • Strike an animal target with hunter's precision.
    • Restricted to animal target types.
    • Requires a melee weapon.
    • 12s cooldown. (Shared with Jagged Arrow)

  • Jagged Arrow
    • Notch a jagged arrow, dealing damage and inflicting bleed on your target.
    • This bleed will deal reverse splurt physical damage over time.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 1 minute duration, 30s cooldown. (Shared with Hunter's Lash)

  • Feral Assault
    • Unleash a focused arrow against your target.
    • This ability's critical strike chance is greatly increased against snared, bleeding, or low life targets. These bonuses are additive.
    • Critical strikes with Feral Assault lower it's cooldown.
    • Requires a bow and consumes an arrow.
    • 45s cooldown (can be reduced to 30s cooldown) (Shared with Force of Vines and Strike of Seasons)

  • Force of Vines
    • You draw strength from the ground below you, empowering your strike and healing your body.
    • Requires a two handed weapon.
    • 30s cooldown. (Shared with Strike of Seasons and Feral Assault)

  • Strike of Seasons
    • An empowered attack infusing your weapon with the power of the seasons.
    • Deals elemental damage based on the season.
      • Spring - Poison
      • Summer - Fire
      • Fall - Disease
      • Winter - Cold
    • Provides a 2 tick beneficial recourse buff based on the season.
      • Spring - Health/mana regen and poison resist.
      • Summer - Damage shield and fire resist.
      • Fall - Armor class and disease resist.
      • Winter - Spell defense and cold resist.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons.
    • 18s cooldown. (Shared with Force of Vines and Feral Assault)

  • Eye of the Raven
    • Scout the landscape through the eye of your target. (Bind Sight)
    • 1 minute duration.
DISCIPLINE BUFFS
  • Flurry of Shots
    • Unleash a flurry of shots, causing each arrow to split into two shots.
    • 10s duration, 2 minute cooldown. (Shared with Relentless Parry)

  • Relentless Parry
    • Enter a survival state, auto-parrying all attacks for 10 seconds.
    • 10s duration, 15 minute cooldown. (Shared with Flurry of Shots)

  • Blade Guard
    • Switch your offhand weapon into a defensive position, increasing parry and riposte at the cost of offhand attacks.
    • This discipline has no stamina upkeep.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons

  • Savage Strikes
    • Unleashes a hail of melee strikes, granting no fail double and offhand attacks.
    • Moderate stamina drain.
    • Requires dual wielded weapons.
SPELLS
Coat of Arms has been converted to the following spells:​
  • Silent Scroll: Solstice Flare
  • Silent Scroll: Solstice Flare II
    • Channel the heat of the sun to burn your enemies, causing X damage every six seconds for 4 ticks. 1s cast time.
The following quiver spells has been added to lower levels:​
  • Quiver of Fire- Level 29
    • Gives your arrows the chance to burst into flames upon hitting your target, burning nearby creatures for 40 hit points damage.
  • Quiver of Frost- Level 40
    • An arrow coated with frost, which will damage your target for 75 hit points damage.
  • Quiver of Lightning- Level 51
    • Gives your arrows the chance to shock enemies upon hitting them, dealing 100 points of magic damage.
PET MELEE BUG FIX
Pet melee procs with spell ranges less than 50 were failing to complete where the pet's melee attack range was greater than the range of the spell.

Example: A Rangefinder is meleeing a large dragon. The server calculates the melee range at 30 units. Spot will proc, and then fail because the bird is beyond 25 units of range.

We believe this was exasperating player experiences of "Ranger Inconsistency". How many bosses was this effecting? When checked, only one boss in Upper Thaz was small enough to allow spot to land. Seven out of the eleven bosses in Silent Halls were small enough.
  • As such, Pet melee procs with spell ranges less than 51 have been converted to melee range checks.
    • Mage pet procs were generally 50 units. A failed proc would be possible, but only on the largest raid targets. Small improvement here.
    • Ranger pet procs were 25 units. This range was small enough to fail often. Large improvement here.
ARROW USAGE
Arrow consumption is now uniform at all bow delays. eg. Swiftshot, Bow of the Avenger and Ravenclaw will use the same amount of arrows over an equal unit of time.
  • This allows developers the template to create fast bows for future content.
  • Faster bows will provide Rangers an option for more consistent hits.
  • Rangers will continue to consume less arrows than other classes at all levels.
  • The Ranger AA, Returning Shot, will continue to provide a reduction in arrow consumption.
  • The chance to not consume an arrow is clamped between 5% and 95%, so extreme limits of slow or fast bows will suffer a loss.
Because of these adjustments, the following bows have been adjusted:
  • Intermediate Bow
  • Post Intermediate Bow
  • Soul Rake
  • Ravenclaw
  • Starter Bow
  • Learning Bow
  • Yclistinite-reinforced Short Bow
ARROW DAMAGE
In conjunction with the above Ranger patch notes, the arrow damage multiplier has been lowered to 3x (previously 5x). The below two examples will explain this difference:

Pre-Patch:
  • Using a 1 Damage Arrow = 0 added damage
  • Using a 2 Damage Arrow = 5 added damage
  • Using a 3 Damage Arrow = 10 added damage
Post-Patch:
  • Using a 1 Damage Arrow = 0 added damage
  • Using a 2 Damage Arrow = 3 added damage
  • Using a 3 Damage Arrow = 6 added damage
This change softens arrow scaling and allows us to shift a portion of auto attack bow DPS to the new disciplines.
  • Having the best arrows will still be important.
  • It will be easier to add new arrows in the future without shifting Ranger DPS by a large amount.
  • Converting bow damage to discipline damage reduces erratic swings in ranger damage.
  • Moving this damage to disciplines will also reduce the swing between having your bird pet versus not.

Some of these Ranger changes are pretty cool. It's nice that the class finally has a spell worth using other than Icerend. However, it's a bit disappointing that the largest issues that Rangers have weren't really touched.

  • Issue: Runic 2 bird dies too easily on high end fights. Possible fixes:
    • Give the pet more HP than a level 63 mage fire pet.
    • Make the bird take less spell damage.
    • Let rangers use Corrupt Spell: Mielech's Fury. 2k more HP would help a great deal.
  • Issue: dealing with arrows is a pain and not fun. Having to deal with almost two full bags of arrows just to play your class is a pain. Possible fixes:
    • Give rangers endless quiver
    • Reduce the amount of arrows rangers need to carry around. Bane damage arrows are the best arrows in the game. Not using bane arrows is basically willingly making you do less damage.
      • Lower the amount of bane types. There is far too many.
      • Make arrows that can have multiple bane types.
      • Make worn bane work for range damage. Then remove bane arrows from the game. Rangers would then use elemental arrows.
  • Issue: Healing rangers is more difficult than any other class. This is without even mentioning how difficult it is to keep their pet alive. Group heal is basically always started based off the ranger in the group. When the ranger is in the melee group they do not get healed from reverse DS so they are always the lowest in the group. When the ranger is in the caster group it's even more noticeable since casters get Spell Ward. Possible fixes:
    • Have Deific Brand work (heal) off ranged attacks.
    • Give rangers Spell Ward. Even if it's only half of that other casters get. Druids have Spell Ward and Rangers are half Druid or whatever.
    • Make rangers take less spell damage from some AA or something.



Other additional thoughts:
  • Would it be possible to change Flurry of Shots from 10 seconds to "The next X amount of shots." This would help the ability to be more consistent with the difference bows in the game. It's kinda painful that I could currently only get off three shots in that window. Shots that can miss...
  • Make the short duration buffs from the ability Strike of Seasons scale. Having a buff that doesn't scale at level 24 be useful at 65 @ T14 is pretty difficult. I basically just see rangers using blockspell for these or simply not using this ability to make room for other more important buffs.
    • Could we please fix buffing so short duration buffs are more appealing?
  • Having a whole line of abilities only be able to be used on flying mobs feels pretty bad. Especially when the class has yet another line that can only be used on animals. Then you have a line for 2 handers. Rangers abilities seem to have a great deal more restrictions than any other class so far. Not sure how to fix this issue but it does kinda "feel bad".

I'm sure I have more to complain about later. Hopefully this helps in some form and doesn't just sound like me crying. Thanks for reading, have a good one.

TLDR: I quit my ranger years ago and these new changes don't excite me to log him in.
 
TLDR: Trying to offer constructive ideas on rangers to make them more fun to play.

Speaking on what Kedrin says above, the other big thing about Flurry of shots is the same problem as all other short duration buffs. Server Ticks. On average my Flurry of shots is lasting about 7 seconds instead of ten, due to it interacting with server ticks.
Honestly I feel like the change to Bow Flurry/Flurry of Shots basically destroyed rangers burn phase. As said above, its contingent on bow speed, but also the shorter duration an effect is the more it is crippled by server tick length and weapon delay. On my old burn a bad server tick count would lose me like say 5% damage off the end, now I lose as much as 30%. I don't know what the answer to this is. It triggering off a number of shots would unfairly advantage slower bows, but as I mentioned, the time specific frame has issues as well. I do KEENLY feel the loss of burn phase however, Im legit talking a VERY significant loss of dps.
My old bow flurry would last sometime near the duration of my vah back, so I had an actual burn phase, now it lasts a quarter of the old length or less and the reuse cap puts a second activation outside of mostany burn phase. Burn phase was a pretty significant portion of my overall DPS and while the overall reduction in arrow mult while adding disciplines has left sustained dps roughly the same (until stamina runs out, which is a different issue), the short burn phase is really hurt.
Strike of Seasons: I like the concept of this, but I think it could be implemented in a more useful manner. The actual in game utility of each ability and scaling IS an issue, for sure, as I don't think for the most part, the abilities do enough to be actually useful. I think they need to be beefed up across the board. Further, much like many of the SK spells with recourses, since this also eats a buff slot and essentially has to be continuously maintained, makes it less useful. Eating a buff slot means the spell has to have a very solid effect and I don't think any of the current 'strength of' effects warrant a buff slot. I simply am never going to want to cancel call of the predator or even shaman stats for any of these recourses as currently started. Having to be meleeing (which as I have stated many times is objectively inferior to archery) and chain casting a melee strike that eats a buff slot, to get +resists and 3% spell ward, or a parry bonus, simply isn't enough of an effect.

The biggest issue with this ability, conceptually for me is the inability to choose which effect you are getting.
I think there are two different ways to implement this, either give us 'strike of summer' 'strike of winter' etc. Or give Rangers four stances, one for each season/element whatever, perhaps with a passive bonus, mirroring the element (This could be where the resist bonuses happen...but also: Summer Stance: Ranger gets a passive bonus to parry or proc a fire spell, Winter stance Mitigation/tanking, Fall balanced, Spring, two hander focused). Then have one strike of seasons ability that does some further effect based on which stance the ranger was in. I like this level of control and choice a lot more than the passive 'is it winter' way it is now, because invariably there will be useless combinations with no way to control or affect which effect is being used (oh its winter, too bad I need fire resist for this mob and not cold resist). The other thing is this opens up archery abilities that also trigger off of which 'season' is active. I think this is an elegant solution to the question and gives the player more options and choices.
Just imagine, 'Shot of Seasons' as an archery corollary to this (please give us more archery abilities!!!). Conceptually and mechanically I think this would be a more interesting ability set.
One of my biggest complaints about the ranger change is the lack of ...choice and variety in what to do. All of the above that Kedrin mentioned tie into this, with the final point being about the flying mob shot and the animal only melee strike. Neither really 'do' much of anything outside of just being another button for damage as far as I can tell. The issue I have with this, is that these are just two more buttons to push sometimes, but since the stamina cost is so high on the main, always useful abilities, there is almost no reason to use either the animal strike or the flying shot, save for one extra button during a burn phase, as stamina won't last through most fights anyway, so pushing one extra button two more times just means one of the main buttons gets pushed two fewer times later in the fight.If the devs are so set on giving rangers very narrow mob specific abilities, like vs-animal and or vs-flying attacks, I would argue that they need to be very UNlimited in other ways...for example, make both of the strikes do something unique, or be both melee AND archery abilies or have very very low stamina costs, because the opportunity costs are so high on them in the first place. When an ability can only be used on 5% of mobs, then it should do something very special to compensate.

Rangers also lose their old 'aggressive' archery stance in the change over. It wasn't used much as stamina needed to be maintained for bow flurry, but now would seem to be a good time to think about implementing it in some way:
(8) Avenger's Precision65Increase Archery Accuracy; Lose Avoidance, Parry, Riposte, Dodge.

It doesn't have to be this, but some archery focused stance wouldn't be the worst thing.

I also have further thoughts that I'll refine later
Fake edit: I was super disappointed that ranger pets didn't get looked at and were used as a reasoning to LOWER our dps. Ranger pets are the single most disappointing non change I can speak on. I could write pages on this, but am trying to be constructive.
Arrows: Always a pain, and forage arrows is ...not exciting as it only ever gets 1 damage arrows. If Im down to using 1 damage arrows, melee WILL actually outdamage archery finally, so I'd be doing that.
 
Can't check in game but if rangers are supposed to be an avoidance tank, is the wiki correct in that our dode/parry/riposte all cap at 225. At work so can't check
 
Im legit talking a VERY significant loss of dps
Pre patch we had rangers at 2580 in our test environment with 100% bird uptime, and 2386 with bird at 50% uptime. These parses were very "swingy"
Post patch parse was 2590. This would be with no exhaustion, more consistent bird uptime (bug fix), mid-fight burst options, etc etc.

These parses are full raid buffs/debuffs vah back curses etc etc.

If a ranger is fighting a flying target (think paladin and undead specialty), they will be able to parse a bit higher.

I am sure there is an optimal dps rotation/timing that needs to be re-learned.
 
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