Ranger Start Tree feedback

I know this would be more difficult to implement, but as of right now, there are almost no pure dex melee weapons, so an easy way to make the Ranger a better melee character would be to add a new weapon class directed towards the ranger. As well as add a couple weapon specific clusters. I would personally love Tonfas because it requires much speed and dexterous movement, but this is simply me wanting something more because I want it than because it's needed (tonfa animations would probably be really hard to make too). oh well.. one can hope lol

Edit: why not change iron reflexes to something like; reduces evasion rating by 35% and add that number to armor rating? This way pure armor users won't be significantly buffed by using grace + IR, while evasion users would gain a good amount of armor so they have a chance at surviving that massive hit that does land. Just a thought.

This thread encompasses what I feel should be done to evasion

THREAD

In short

Evasion should return back to pure rng. Entropy system does not work with the game's design of horde after horde of monsters attacking you.

Evasion character should be able to reach higher numbers on this new pure rng evasion scale (60% avg for evasive characters, 70-75 for those speccing a bit into evasion, and 80-90% for evasive tanks)

Grace should become percentage based, like determination so it only helps those with evasion gear.

Dexterity should give more of an evasion percentage. 5 dex should give way more than 1% evasion rating.

Dexterity should also give way more accuracy.

The only thing saving shadows and rangers are Energy shield, and Iron reflexes.

Evasion and dexterity need to be attractive so that every shadow isn't using ES, mostly CI, and racing to witch/templar. So that every ranger isn't using IR and racing to duelist/marauder.

Str gives you flat life (survivability), and physical dmg (more offense)

Int give you energy shield (survivability), and mana (offense and defense)

Dex give you accuracy (which is nothing unless you don't go RT and you have to stack a ton of it), and evasion (which doesn't increase your survivability unless it works and is strong)


Str and Int increase survivability and offense. Dex doesn't increase either. Even if evasion worked it would only increse your survivability. Accuracy doesn't increase your offense.

Also, Str and Int increase general survivability and general offense.

Dex increases evasion. So you have to use evasion. It increases accuracy. So you have to use weapons and not be tempted to go resolute. This is very important for crit weapon users.

That's fine, but since they are specific, then they have to be strong.

Accuracy is mainly good for crit builds that use weapons. Every can bypass that by going resolute technique.

Another problem is the things that dex was made for can be bypassed without putting a single point into dexterity.

How many nodes on the tree give flat life like str?
How many nodes on the tree give flat mana like int?

Apart from giving very good flat bonuses, they also give % bonuses that are very useful as well.

You also have mods on gear that give like 300 accuracy. That is 150 dexterity. There are no mods that give 300 life or 300 mana.

Dex needs to give things that can't be gotten elsewhere.

Dexterity is about being faster than your opponent, in movement and attack speed. It's easy to stack attack speed without stacking dex. Movement buff from quicksilver is mostly all that people need.

Dex is also about avoidance. Now you can say it gives an evasion bonus, but avoidance doesn't have to come from evasion. The ranger tree has avoid stun, avoid status ailments, dual wield block.

You can have "+13 dex = +1% chance to Parry". Parry meaning "Avoid dmg that would be taken(spells and attacks) and reflect half of it back to it's source". This is a separate calculation and is not additive to anything else. Or you can make parry, "avoid dmg (spells or attacks) that would be taken, and avoid stun".

All in all

Dex
+1 dex = +10 accuracy
+5 dex = +5% evasion rating (this depends on how well evasion scales)
+13 dex = +1% chance to parry



Dex needs an extra mechanic that makes it interesting.

Evasion returning back to pure rng and scaling to higher numbers
Dex giving more accuracy
Dex giving more evasion
Dex having a parry mechanic, something that can only be gotten by stacking des

Then you will start to see people going to dex. Stacking dex will become a strong point.

A change you'll need to make to iron reflexes is "You can't parry attacks". Depending on how much evasion scaling is handled, you might need to make it reduce evasion rating before it converts. With evasion being strong and getting a parry bonus for stacking dex, iron reflexes won't be so attractive anymore.

The reason for the parry mechanic is so that evasion characters can have low life and still be effective. It gives them an extra evasive checkpoint, that can't be gotten anywhere else besides dexterity. Just like how str and int give strong flat bonuses.


By simply buffing evasion, and dexterity, rangers would become very strong, and any shadow/duelist would benefit greatly as well. ES/AR won't become the mandatory defense types anymore. There would be a reason to stack dex.

The ranger is weak because the idea behind him, (avoidance, moving/attacking fast), doesn't work. So this has to be improved. Dex gaining a parry mechanic. Evasion going back to pure rng with high numbers. Dex giving more accuracy, and more evasion. Grace being percentage based.

With those in play the ranger would be buffed without buffing any passive nodes, then the ranger nodes, such as Hearth of the panther, and adding additional mana nodes can come next.

I'm not that experienced with the Ranger skill tree, but I have a couple of minor suggestions that I think might help her starting area. I'll refer to the cluster to the right of the initial 8% attack speed node as Cluster A, and I'll refer to the cluster to the bottom-right of the 18% evasion node as Cluster B.

I quite like the organization of the Duelist starting clusters, each with two rows of three nodes, and I think the Ranger starting clusters can implement the same organization effectively. In Cluster A, the top row could have three 8% projectile damage nodes and the bottom row could have three 10% melee physical damage nodes. These two rows would both be accessible from the initial 8% attack speed node, and I think both rows should meet at a 12% attack speed/+20 dexterity node like Acceleration in the Duelist starting tree. I think this notable passive should either replace Perfect Aim entirely or Perfect Aim should just be located somewhere else.

As for Cluster B, I think it should have the same organization as my new Cluster A with two rows of three nodes, and each row should be accessible from the initial 18% evasion node. The first row could contain the three 10% evasion nodes that already exist in the current Cluster B. The second row could perhaps have three 3% movement speed nodes instead of three 8% avoid stun nodes. I think that these two rows could meet up at some sort of Leather and Steel notable passive including +20 dexterity (and perhaps less than 24% of an evasion/armor bonus for balance reasons).


Some other general thoughts:

1. Ranger doesn't need more life, she needs her existing life nodes to be relocated to more useful parts of the tree.

2. Ranger needs more attack speed. I think this could be remedied with my addition of an Acceleration-type node to the end of Cluster A though.

3. Perhaps there could be even more projectile damage bonuses (not projectile ATTACK damage bonuses). I always wanted to try a spellcaster Ranger who acquired her damage from projectile bonuses and even Point Blank, but there are very few pure projectile damage bonuses in the entire skill tree. This is perhaps a HUGELY controversial move, but what if Point Blank modified all projectiles and not just projectile attacks?

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SoujiroSeta wrote:

Str gives you flat life (survivability), and physical dmg (more offense)

Int give you energy shield (survivability), and mana (offense and defense)

Dex give you accuracy (which is nothing unless you don't go RT and you have to stack a ton of it), and evasion (which doesn't increase your survivability unless it works and is strong)

Most of what Soujiro says borders on stark raving mad, but I think he actually has a decent point here.

I'm not particularly enamoured with his particular solution to that problem -- I'd more likely do something like this link -- but in terms of identifying the problem he does a pretty good job.

The actual solution varies by designer, but the point is that Str and Int both add things that matter, and the things that Dex adds all too often mean nothing at all.

I play a lot of bow rangers, but no melee ones.

Honestly I feel like having one of the two starter paths dedicated to melee dedicates too many passives to too few builds. I'd almost rather see those promised dex pets already and have a path dedicated to them. Then shadows and duelists who wanted to have pets would be motivated to come into ranger start.

Instead I think you could dedicate one starter path to generic defense and one to generic offense with specific 3 pt nodes off them.

As far as specifics to make the starter area appealing to other classes... Why not give the ranger some dodge nodes or some kind of spell defense. These would be unique to rangers and give other classes reasons to come to them.

Instead of a starting a defensive tree with 18%-10%-10%-10% evasion

Start it 30%/12hp branch A - 4% dodge - 3% dodge - 3% dodge - keystone node 10% reduced
branch B - 6% all resist x3 - spell dmg

then continue it with some thing else

Honestly a lot of the problem is that HP is still far too important after the patch. I can almost foresee you guys removing HP entirely from the passive tree if you want to actually see builds based on what we'd like to take instead of what RNG spike damage forces us to take.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

"

SoujiroSeta wrote:

Str gives you flat life (survivability), and physical dmg (more offense)

...
I'm not particularly enamoured with his particular solution to that problem -- I'd more likely do something like this link -- but in terms of identifying the problem he does a pretty good job.

...

That's quite possibly the best suggestion of fixing stats that I've seen yet. Would really allow every stat to provide some use.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

this link

Seems solid to me.

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DarkLegionary wrote:

"

ScrotieMcB wrote:

this link

Seems solid to me.

Just for reference, the main points are:

• Each attribute would add accuracy rating, but with a subset of weapons. For example, Strength would give accuracy with maces, axes, scepters, staves and swords, while intelligence would add accuracy with caster weapons. Dexterity would only give accuracy to axes, bows, claws, daggers, and swords. (Resolute Technique would still be good, but much less mandatory.)
• Dexterity would add flat evasion, not percent evasion. I'm thinking 3 evasion per dex (which would then be multiplied by % modifiers), but the number would be subject to tuning.
• Dexterity would increase attack speed 0.1% per point.

And the secondary points are:

• Spells would be subject to evasion; however, spells would have a special property that evaded damage is halved, not reduced completely (old-school D&D homage). Curses could also be evaded, negating them, and spell criticals could be reduced to regular hits through evasion. Intelligence would increase spell accuracy. Spell damage would be increased slightly to compensate for miss chance. (Alternate idea: allow spells to miss completely, but give AoE damage abilities the half-damage rule; you could full evade an Ice Spear, but only partially evade a Ground Slam.)
• New green support gem named Spellshot. This would convert a projectile spell into a projectile attack, adding weapon damage to whatever damage the spell had previously. A bow or wand would be required. Since it's now an attack, it would use attack speed instead of cast speed. (The idea here is to give Dexterity its own Iron Will.)

Evasion nodes should be coupled with slight movespeed increases. This means you get more statistical evasion as well as the ability to manually evade.

The ranger can get up to 75% chance to avoid shock with a hefty point price. I tried this once because I feared Vaal's lazer, only to find out that it doesn't work VS Vaal's lazer. Allowing it to could be a strong buff, and in all honesty you should get the bang for your buck.

Has it been considered to allow evasion to work against physical based spells such as EK? (might be OP)

Also, resolute technique counters evasion hard in pvp.