Ranger Start Tree feedback

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Fruz wrote:

It just took me 10 sec to count 13 range nodes ( so not talking about things that benefits both ) within the very starting area, there are at least twice more a little bit further away ( like just after ).

I was counting notables, the big nodes that aren't keystone-sized. Nodes are only a means to the end, i.e. notables. And in that regard (and node count), there are more melee passives than ranged. If you're referring to the immediate starting highways, there's 13 ranged passives vs 12 melee passives. But my issue isn't just with her starting highways, it's that her entire tree could use a facelift.

My favorite melee is a full dex one, please make the melee portion good. Viper strike is a great one for shield players but there's no decent green aoe skill that uses weapons, at least not one I consider good, I don't count cyclone, that's too expensive on mana to use.

I know I shouldn't mention skills, but for a dex melee build an AoE skill is required.

Well, just don't mess it up like you did with the Duellist's revamp, replacing Mana Flows sweet spot with more 10stat passive point wasters. [edit]which was a nerf to Ranger actually

I'm trying to stay positive on whatever you'll change but just in case that after the patch

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Islidox wrote:

... there's not much reason to roll a Ranger since every other class does it better...

I'd suggest this:
Let us use the ranger model for other class (Duelist or Shadow).

Reference thread for ranger passive area
Improve. The. Ranger. Area.

[edit]

One premise of the revamp is to make Ranger workable as a standalone class.
So why not start on this, add all the keystones and utility passives as well as defensives and offensives and make them purchaseable for a 80-point budget (or whatever the benchmark is) build.
Then move the passives around to balance them for cross-class builds too.
i.e. the more powerful passives = little bit harder to get for other classes.

I play a LA ranger that doesn't go for the marauder/templar nodes. Since I don't have any experience with a melee ranger, I'll focus on ranged.

I believe that evasion is a good thing to have and there should be viable builds that solely go for evasion. However, with it's current state, that doesn't seem feasible at all. Having no armour and little immediate access to resistance nodes (besides the one near mana geyser) means that our hp fluctuates a lot more than most other characters. My idea of a ranger is one that is very manoeuvrable and can dispatch enemies quickly. In contrast to a bow user with marauder/templar nodes that focuses on straightforward survivability, a dex-based bow user in my opinion would be a character that requires considerable skill to operate and consequently deal out huge burst damage, enabling her to deal with a pack and quickly move on to the next.

Large fluctuations in life should still be common, though they shouldn't be drastic enough to cause OHKOs. Here are a couple of suggestions (aside from reworking evasion, better access to life nodes):
1) Rework the acrobatics cluster. As much as a flat dodge rate sounds nice, it doesn't seem to synergize well with the only stat that it doesn't penalize. Here's my idea:

Acrobatics: Gives a chance (for example: 20% of evasion rate) to avoid lethal damage. If
the character were to be hit for more than his/her max life, there's a chance that he/she
survives with (for example) 10% life left.

2) Replace some of the avoid stun nodes to move speed. Shadows have crit, marauders have lots of defensive passives, duelists have more aspd nodes. It only seems right that rangers should have something that defines them. Although move speed confers no offensive advantage, it is in line with the fast paced burst damage style of gameplay.

3) Increase the base critical chance of bows. It seems kinda ironic that there are a good number of bow critical nodes but bows have a miserable 5% base crit chance.

Edit: Thinking about it a little more, I realize that my idea for the replacement of acrobatics isn't exactly feasible since players will hardly ever want to be in a situation where they might take lethal damage. So here's another idea:

Acrobatics: So long as you have more than (for example (1-chance to evade)*(max life)) amount of life, you cannot take lethal damage.

So for example, if you have a 20% chance to evade an attack, then you cannot take lethal damage if you have more than 80% of your health. It sounds a little overpowered but perhaps it will be feasible with a little tweaking to the formula. One drawback is that low life builds can't be used with this since with low life you're always at or below 35% of your max hp. It also needs to be adapted with CI, either it doesn't work with CI entirely, or it uses energy shield as an indicator instead, I'm leaning towards the former.

I think there should be some sort of damage reduction aspect to Evasion for Dexterity+Evasion+Frenzy Charges to be competitive with Strength+Armor+Endurance Charges.

My solution is to reduce damage by 10% of your chance to evade - so if you have a 42% chance to evade an attack and that attack hits then its damage is reduced by 4.2%.

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I was counting notables, the big nodes that aren't keystone-sized. Nodes are only a means to the end, i.e. notables. And in that regard (and node count), there are more melee passives than ranged. If you're referring to the immediate starting highways, there's 13 ranged passives vs 12 melee passives. But my issue isn't just with her starting highways, it's that her entire tree could use a facelift.

there are 7 different node types for melee weapons ( not counting daggers, claws and staves here ), and only 2 for bows ( not counting accuracy/IAS for both cases ).
I find it normal to allow people to choose what they wanna do, changing this would be giving less choices, or would need to remove specialized nodes to give more general but less powerful melee nodes ....
There are axes, maces or even DW nodes in the witch/templar area, that doesn't make their trees useless.


I agree that we would really benefit for a melee dext AOE skill, considering whirling blade as an AOE dext dps skill is a freakin joke, and I heard it already ....


The problem is not much the tree, the problem is how evasion and accuracy work, evasion just doesn't fit well in this game it seems.
I would like to see some nodes such as "3% increased movement speed and 2% increased dodge chance", or 3% increased movement speed and 4%increased dodge chances while moving.
This would not help melee, then for melee we could think about "1% increased dodge chance for each ennemy in a radius of 10 around the character", or something like that.
It would need to remove/rework acrobatics probably too then.

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My solution is to reduce damage by 10% of your chance to evade - so if you have a 42% chance to evade an attack and that attack hits then its damage is reduced by 4.2%.

this would mean almost nothing, the problem would just be the same, except we would reduced the huge hits from bosses by 5% at most.

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Fillmore wrote:

I think there should be some sort of damage reduction aspect to Evasion for Dexterity+Evasion+Frenzy Charges to be competitive with Strength+Armor+Endurance Charges.

My solution is to reduce damage by 10% of your chance to evade - so if you have a 42% chance to evade an attack and that attack hits then its damage is reduced by 4.2%.

Let's say you have a 75% chance to evade and a boss does roughly 1000 dmg , you reduce the damage by 75 and now the boss does 925 dmg. Not a very significant change and does not make having more evasion worth it for a small fraction of damage reduction.

I like the idea of having dodge on notable passives along with movement speed or attack speed. Perhaps the ranger's concept needs a big overhaul altogether. What I mean is that what is a ranger known for? Most would say projectile attacks and some even resent the melee aspect and possibility.

The ranger's concept in general should be thought about as well and not just about evasion survival. Some concepts like that of hunting, natural survival, one on one combat, traps, avoiding elemental status ailments, healing wounds, speed, accuracy, taking out a target with a well placed blow or shot, animal companions, being one with nature and her surroundings.

These should all be reflected in some way in the notable passives for sure.

Examples: "Tiger's Pride" - +5% movement speed, +30% chance to critical hit, +5% attack speed.

"Heart of the Panther" SHOULD be something like +10% life, +20% physical damage, +10% to all resists and should be moved further out from the starting area.

"Eye of the Hawk" - +30% Chance to Critical hit, +30% Critical Hit Multiplier, +10% physical damage.

"Light of the Forest" - +10% life, 1.0 life regeneration, +10% increased recovery from flasks.

"Natural Healing" - +2.5 life regeneration

"Path of the Monkey" - +20% evasion, +10% dodge, +5% movement speed.

"Serpent Skin" - +20% chaos resist, +0.5 life regeneration.


Just some other ideas to add to the mounting pile of others here. I know I keep posting here but I really like the ranger and want to see it succeed!!!

IMHO, the problem isn't so much the layout, but dexterity doesn't have a defensive bonus that is unaffected by monster abilities. This problem means that it doesn't matter what changes are implemented to the skill layout, since players will always want to leave the area unless it is completely overpowered.


Strength and Intelligence have max hp and max es as their defensive buff, and there are currently no monster game mechanics that effect those values. On the other hand, dexterity has evasion that can be offset by accuracy. Before making any layout changes I think it would be prudent to first address this issue.


My proposal:


1. Eliminate accuracy.

2. Add precision in the place of accuracy, and this would effect damage by raising the minimum damage value.

Something else to think about. Due to the ranger's position and being surrounded by Dexterity nodes, it's *the* only class to never become a good caster/magic user. Even the Marauder gets the chance to be a good caster due to Iron Will. All of the other classes make better elemental/physical bow users than the ranger. The ranger can become a physical bow user but is trumped by the Maurader using a bow and Iron Grip in both damage and surviving.

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