Ranger Double-Shot Stance

S

shanoma

Dalayan Beginner
After playing a ranger for a while, I've come to realize how useless the "Flurry of Shots" stance is. This stance is intended to give a momentary chance for double dps, and exhausts the ranger. The real problem with the stance is that it exhausts too quickly, and very little bonus dps is gained because of misses and the short duration, unless it's used during a melee striking curse.

While it may be possible to remedy this by removing the exhaustion or slowing the rate at which stamina is used, this stance will still probably not be used by the majority of rangers because of the quality of our "Avenger's Precision" stance. What I would like to request instead is that the "Flurry of Shots" stance be changed to an AOE stance ("Hail of Arrows") that would have the same rules as any other AOE and that would drain stamina at the same rate as "Whirling Strikes" and "Avenger's Precision." I feel that an AOE stance would be used quite more frequently and have many more applications than "Flurry of Shots" because the downfalls of flurry greatly out-weigh its benefits.
 
In about 2.5 years of having style 7, I have used it 3 times, and twice I was testing it. The lackluster effect and the severe penalty of being exhausted (compared to having stamina for parry or using style 8 over a fight) make it pretty much useless.

But TBH the replacement you suggested would be equally bad, as AE effects are not something rangers already do, and it would be as niche an ability as style 7 already is or even more useless because it would break mezz.

Flurry of shots is a great idea but in its current state it just isn't worth using. I don't have any solid replacement proposal at the moment, but, it's in the works.
 
It's true that an AOE stance would definately be niche, but it would be much more greatly applicable than the double-shot. Rangers do already get a few AOE's, but they're all really low level and have no application post-45. An AOE stance would help multi-kiting and take down mobs during multi-pull groups, but other than that it wouldn't have a lot of use - meaning in essence, that making the stance AOE would give rangers some cool variation without adding any power except in certain circumstances. As far as breaking mezzes goes, don't use an AOE stance with mezzed mobs nearby, the same as you would with weapons that proc AOE's.
 
In general, each class has several stances only rarely useful. If a dev agrees that this particular stance should be looked at, I believe we will open the floodgates to interpret each classes' underused stances. I'm not attempting to shoot your idea down, just suggesting that perhaps they had something in mind when they made these stances we don't use that much.
 
tbh I'd rather have flurry than an aoe stance. My main gripe about flurry is for 20 seconds you increase ur dps by around 200% but after that, for 15 minutes ur dps goes down 50%. I know its unrealistic to expect the devs to let us do double damage for a longer amount of time, but a lesser penalty would certainly be nice.
 
How about this:

After flurry is used, make rangers exhausted for 5 minutes but put a 15 minute timer before it is able to be used again.

That way we can't chain use it, but we aren't cutting our dps short for 15 minutes after the fact. After 7-8 minutes we can go back to using avenger's precision.
 
The reuse timer is 10 minutes, not 15, and it's not going to go down. An increase in duration might be possible though.
 
Wiz said:
The reuse timer is 10 minutes, not 15, and it's not going to go down. An increase in duration might be possible though.
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You're right, it is 10 minutes but I didn't get to full stamina until 15 minutes.

An increased duration would be terrific! I was playing with this stance today while kiting and with self buffs it lasted 16 seconds...

[Sat Jan 26 01:24:29 2008] Finkk 's hand moves in a blur as they begin a flurry of shots.
[Sat Jan 26 01:24:45 2008] Finkk appears completely exhausted.

So basically I got an extra 7 or so shots in but then for the remainder of that fight as well as the next 2 fights I was doing poor dps due to exhaustion. An increased duration would certainly help, but I would also welcome a decrease in the amount of time spent exhausted (not the same as reuse timer). Any difference in DPS between DoubleShot and Avenger's should be enough to justify the 10 minutes of exhaustion that DoubleShot yields.
 
Lets say your boting, its like hell to do that.. even use /s7 or /s8 while boting i hell.

Flurry should be revamped into something else with bow imo
 
Rangers aren't really a bot-friendly class. I like the stance in theory, but it still needs tweaking to be worth the amount of exhaustion that you have to deal with afterwards.

As it stands right now, I'm willing to bet that you would see a bigger improvement in dps by using /s 8 (accuracy stance) the entire fight than you would using /s 2 (aggressive) for most of the fight and then /s 7 (double shot) at the end for an extra burst of damage.

Wiz said:
The reuse timer is 10 minutes, not 15, and it's not going to go down. An increase in duration might be possible though.
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If this new duration lasted long enough to allow me to outperform the dps I would have achieved with /s 8 (accuracy stance), then I welcome it. As it stands now, 15-20 seconds only allows for 6 or so extra shots (some of which will probably be misses).
 
using the stance self buffed is not a good vantage point....not to mention the little solo/doing I do as a rogue I *never* use /s 10 (double damage) because i'd just be exhuasted for way too long. However, on a raid situation the ranger doulbe dmg stance, as well as the rogue double dmg stance come in very handy on boss fights - and seeing as i've hardly ever raided without an enchanter, striking curse + doulbe dmg stance for both our classes is absolutely insane. I honestly think it's fine as it is, but thats just my 2cp
 
sometimes, it helps, if i have some sta left at the end of a boss fight so i can use flurry. But in general, once you use it, you become like shit for the rest of the fight. In the end, an increased duration would be awesome and make this stance wothwhile, especially with high end bows that have 44+ delay since you get so few shots before its gone and you're exhausted
 
Perhaps the solution would be to keep the 10 minute reuse timer but end exhaustion sooner. That seems to be everyone's main gripe with it and I don't see this as being particularly overpowering.
 
Finkk said:
Perhaps the solution would be to keep the 10 minute reuse timer but end exhaustion sooner. That seems to be everyone's main gripe with it and I don't see this as being particularly overpowering.
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Yes, let's unbalance every exhausting style because ours is broken. :psyduck:

The point of exhausting stances is to give you a whole lot of power for a short time in return for a longer period of reduced power. This stance seems to do that at first but the devil is in the details. The problem here is not that the stance causes you to be exhausted for a while, that's the point, the problem is that the return does not match the cost. But as far as I am aware the other exhausting styles are all balanced in this respect.

So, the solution is not some significant change to the way exhausting styles work, it's adjusting this one style so that what you get out of it matches the penalty you pay. The problem is, in order to do that the length of the style might have to be increased to the point that it far outlasts the similar stances of other classes. It might even have to be long enough that it won't make much sense for your character to do something for that period of time if it totally exhausts them (i.e. all the other exhaustive styles are short not only to balance their power but because it makes plain sense for them to be short, that's the whole point).

So, I had another idea. A duration increase would be nice but there's an upper limit before it gets ridiculous, so how about increasing the number of attacks per round given? For example (roughly representative numbers):

Before:
Duration: 10 rounds
Total shots given: 20

Increase duration by 100%:
Duration: 20 rounds
Total shots given: 40

Increase output to triple:
Durations: 10 rounds
Total shots given: 30

Not only does it keep the principle of the style, but it makes it even more like it's name. Some combination of increased shots per round and increased duration is needed for this style. I honestly think it might take as much as 4 attacks per round to make this style really useful at the current duration; obviously some testing needs to be done. But essentially, the dps increase from using this style, say, with Striking Curse, should be greater than or equal to the dps increase gained by using style 8 over the course of a fight (also with striking curse).
 
Llanoldar Lluindar said:
Yes, let's unbalance every exhausting style because ours is broken.
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I don't understand where you extracted the word EVERY from my suggestion. I don't see how my suggestion would affect all other exhaustive stances. Please elaborate.

Llanoldar Lluindar said:
it's adjusting this one style so that what you get out of it matches the penalty you pay.
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That's why this thread is specifically named after one stance and not called "Changing Alll Exhaustive Stances".

Llanoldar Lluindar said:
:psyduck:
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Edit: I actually liked your suggestion of increasing the hits per round, but your opening addressed to me seemed unfounded, unless I don't understand the implications of my suggestion. That's why an explanation would be great.
 
Llanoldar Lluindar said:
I'm pretty sure that this affects every exhausting style.
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I don't see how. Are you implying that Wiz is unable to programmatically differentiate between how often someone can use /s 7 and when exhaustion ends? Or are you saying that what he does to rangers he must do to other classes?

Keep in mind that he is already enforcing a time window when he restricts a change in stance to once every 15 seconds. That same logic can be applied to how often you can successfully use the /s 7 command.
 
Out of sheer morbid curiosity since I don't raid a ranger....how many of you use this during striking curse on boss fights, and how many dont; and why/why not?
 
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