dukefx

In terms of DPS fighter > ranger. As a matter of fact, if you build both as offensively as possible, the fighter will deal more than twice the amount of damage than the ranger. So much for the ranger being a heavy hitter. If you factor in defense the fighter can hold his own while the ranger is toast if you fight teleporting mobs. Both are able to clear out Dryford Village solo (ranger with pet ofc, but no other party members) but the fighter will do it so much faster. @Sock Where are you getting that +20 accuracy from? Afaik there's only a -20 penalty when your pet goes down. My fully offensive fighter has 80 something acc (can't remember exact values since I don't have beta access and I can only test stuff occasionally at a friend of mines), while the ranger has near 100, but the ranger has vicious aim on and is an elf with distant advantage, so that's +15 acc compared to the fighter. Seems about right... there's no +20 acc out of nowhere.

IE games have no such things. In PoE there are so many ifs that rarely ever happen, and when you try to make them happen you get a pie thrown right into your face. I honestly don't understand the logic behind it.

It's Swift Aim, a Ranger's modal. aeonsim referred to it as talent, not ability, and called it "Fast Aim", not Swift Aim. That's why I'm asking if there is a new talent I'm not aware of.

Where are you getting that Fast Aim from?

I'll add something that hasn't been mentioned yet. Rangers have a lot of abilities that are very conditional. Some of these require you to reposition yourself (for example driving flight's 20° angle). Here comes the fun part... while you reposition yourself you suffer a huge reload penalty. So... Josh wants to reward and punish you at the same time for tactical gameplay. Marked Prey needs to be an instant action or at least make it so that it won't alarm anyone (i.e. it won't initiate combat). I imagine it's something like sneaking in and pointing with two fingers at your eyes then pointing at the target. Currently you are wasting a full attack for a miserably low bonus.

And that's why nobody was complaining about those. We (well, I at least) are talking about bows and implements. Those you mentioned were OK in the first place. I even mentioned I want bows on par with arbalests in an earlier post. In short: bows are really bad for everyone, and implements as well unless you are a wizard.

It's not just the ranger. The only class that is kinda OK right now with a ranged weapon is a wizard with an implement. With the proper talents ofc.

I just want bows to be on par with arbalests. Arbalests are fine. Very high damage with long reload time. Bows have lowish damage with average reload time, and that's without taking DT into consideration. If you add that, bows have miserably low damage. If I compare my tests to a BG2 archer and lets say a dual wielding kensai, the BG2 archer is very close to the kensai in terms of damage. Also note that the kensei is purely focused on damage while a PoE fighter is supposed to be a tank and the kensai has defense issues without dual classing while the PoE fighter will remain a tank and damage dealer at the same time. An archer in BG2 also has access to grandmaster weapon specialization. As for your DoT damage idea... bows = spike damage everywhere. In most games and in real life too. DoT damage does not go well with piercing weapons. It's a thing for slashing weapons... or magic.

I did some tests... Offensive ranger with a war bow vs an offensive fighter with dual sabers. Both had padded armor. Difficulty set to easy. Results: Fighter (solo): I slaughtered my way through the village with ease. Ranger (solo): My bear took quite a beating from Merdreth's group, but in the end I managed to kill everyone in the village. It took a lot of time tho. The ranger did ~30-40% less damage per hit than the fighter. The fighter did approx. 3 hits while the ranger did 1. The fighter had no issues staying alive. Even if we add the animal companion's damage (which occurs once every blue moon due to its miserable attack speed) the fighter easily outdamages the ranger. I see three issues here: Bows (no comment on other ranged weapons) being either too slow or doing too little damage. (This isn't just ranger specific - others would perform even worse) Fighters have a lot of both offense and defense, not to mention control, especially with weapon secialization/mastery being fighter exclusive Animal companions being too fragile (mentioned already) If a frontliner outdamages a heavy hitter then there's something terribly wrong imo. Possible solutions: Increase damage and/or speed on hunting and war bows. +50% damage , or +25% on both damage and speed would be justified, especially if we compare bows with lets say an arbalest in terms of DPS. Make weapon specialization/mastery accessible to everyone like weapon focus or scrap it altogether. Add some meaningful ranged weapon style. Marksman (if we consider this a style) is a joke (low bonus and on top of that it's conditional). Animal companions need stats! ^ Preferably all of those

I've voiced my opinion about rangers and possible solutions (if they want to stick to the shared health pool) in the general discussion section quite some time ago.

I'd refrain from any disengagement related abilities. I'm quite sure a lot of people will play with mods that get rid of it altogether and you'll end up with an animal that has nothing to offer.

I didn't say it couldn't be done properly, but it would complicate things and complications mean delay.

A round based system would create the need for APR. If you look at the IE games or DnD 3/3.5 based games like the NWN series you'll notice that every class has something called attacks per round. This doesn't sound bad at all until you realize that a fighter in a full plate swings his greataxe a lot faster than a rogue his dagger in leather armor. PoE has a system that overcomes this nonsense in a very logical way (although numbers still need to be tweaked). Creating a round based system would really complicate things.

My thoughts exactly! I was thinking of allowing each character to raise a skill by 1 on every odd level (you get talents on even levels). Otherwise I'm not sure how someone is supposed to reach mechanics 11 and beyond, especially if those talents are pretty much trap setting talents. The usefulness of those is questionable.

That wouldn't be a bad idea at all, although I think it's quite difficult to implement. Talking of leaps... that reminds me of the other thing that bugged me: animal companion abilities/bonuses. The thing that bugs me most: wolves receive a speed bonus. Wolves (top speed roughly: 64.4 km/h (40 mph)) aren't fast at all; they are agile and stealthy. Antelopes (top speed roughly: 88.5 km/h (55 mph)) on the other hand are quite fast. I'd totally swap the antelope and wolf bonuses with each other. It would make a lot more sense. Boars... Imho boars have the least appealing ability and it doesn't make much sense either. An on demand knock back/launch attack on the other hand would make it on par with the others. To summarize the suggested changes: Antelope: Increased speed Bear: leave as it is or replace with a mauling attack (but that'd be redundant since it's yet another knockdown with added damage) Boar: knock back/launch attack similar to a bull's charge, but since boars have a lower stature and a short neck they don't really need to move. Lion: leave as it is Stag: leave as it is, I couldn't come up with a more suitable ability even if I wanted to Wolf: Increased defenses

Yes, tweaking may help a lot... After giving it some thought I'd increase DT like this: From lvl 1 to 9: 9/11/13/15/17/19/21/23/25 (and +3 for the bear). I think it's balanced this way. I agree with Josh: "it's not a meat shield" and it shouldn't be sent into combat to absorb damage for your PCs, but in its current state it's way too weak to be used as a front liner. Your ranger can easily go beyond 25 DT with proper equipment. Other stats seem pretty much fine to me (except the antelope which doesn't receive the defense bonuses, but that's a bug) Talents can be considered a way of customizatio, but those are limited. If you want them all to improve your ranger you can't customize your animal companion. I also like my #3 suggestion the best. Even one equipment slot for lets say a collar would make a huge difference. Stats on the collar (with my suggested DT numbers) wouldn't even have to be just bonuses. A simple +x to something and -x to something else trade-off would also be OK. You could build it the way you want. If you want a front liner you can do it, if you want an aggressive back line caster killer you can do it. I think some simple tinting could be done without too much work. You can see wolves, bears and boars in various colors, but the others... the only thing I can think of is an albino variant, but it's a fantasy game after all and doesn't have to be that realistic.

Well, there hasn't been any real discussion about animal companions and I think it's one of those gameplay mechanics that needs a lot of polish. Lets start with what we know: Rangers and their animal companions share their health and endurance pool. Animal companions have their own stats (accuracy, damage, action speed, deflection, reflex, fortitude, will, damage threshold and damage resistance), most of them increase by 3 every level without anything other than talents influencing them (I may be wrong here) Each animal companion has a unique bonus Lets have a look at some gameplay scenarios The brainless strategy: you send your animal companion into combat and you both die like flies in a matter of seconds (like using a wizard as a front liner, but even a wizard could survive longer with the right gear) Conclusion: Suicide most of the time Somewhat more strategic: The ranger starts shooting from the back line while the front liners engage the enemy. You send your animal companion in after lets say the 2nd hit trying to make it go around and target an enemy from the back to make good use of Stalker's Link or even knock down a spell caster and interrupt the spell. Conclusion: A lot of micromanagement for little to no benefit. Being cautious: The ranger and the animal companion both stay back. The ranger is shooting while the animal companion is just waiting for something to come and attack them providing some support and additional damage to finish it off quickly. Staying together may be dangerous tho. An AOE spell may hit both and Defensive Bond may help lower the damage by one category at best still taking a lot of damage due to both being hit. Conclusion: Not much benefit from not sending your animal companion in and risk of taking ~1.5x damage. I could come up with a lot more but the conclusion would be very similar: the animal companion seems more of a nuisance. The main issue I see is the lack of customization. All animal companions are very much the same, even the bear with its +3 DT and +15% DR. Lets have a look at the possible solutions. Solution 1: Have the ranger and the animal companion have their separate health pool. Personally I like the way it is right now and would look for some other solution, but it's a start. Of course the animal companion would still die like a fly, but at least it wouldn't take the ranger with it. Solution 2: Lets increase this "strong spiritual connection" and let the animal companion benefit from the ranger's stats (attribute bonuses/maluses and equipment bonuses) that make sense to be shared. I don't expect 100% of everything, maybe even 50% would suffice. I haven't done any calculations here. Solution 3: 2 equipment slots for the animal companion with animal specific gear. It doesn't have to be anything major and it doesn't have to be visible either. I'm sure some of you would like to see an armored wolf while others wouldn't like the idea at all. On top of that it's a lot of extra work for the devs. A good example would be the mabari war paint and collar from DA:O. The TL;DR version You can't adjust the animal companion to your play style due to lack of customization. The fixed bonuses gained per level just don't cut it and the animal companion ends up being more trouble than it is worth. Feel free to discuss!