Do Rangers Still Need Buffs?

[Stardusk78]

The consensus seems that they are still pretty weak. What do the experts think?

Edited January 3, 2019 by Stardusk78

[uuuhhii]

animal companion certainly need buff

so does the druid spiritshift

[MaxQuest]

Yes.

 

- fix the Wounding Shot DoT damage calculation

- make a new subclass, or adjust Ghost Heart dunno. But personally I'd like a ranger that can be played without animal companion, and has action speed or damage advantage over the base ranger.

Edited January 3, 2019 by MaxQuest

[djinnxy]

I'm using a hireling arcane archer/trickster that paces my blood mage/ancient for damage. It's been + or - 1000 for total damage the whole game. Just get the mechanics to work right on the abilities and I'd say it's good to go.

[Boeroer]

If the animal companion would do comparable damage to those of PoE1 I would be ok with the class.

[uuuhhii]

If the animal companion would do comparable damage to those of PoE1 I would be ok with the class.

really miss itumaak

in deadfire almost every class have higher dps then poe1

but animal companion and spiritshift somehow much weaker

[Boeroer]

Animal Companions hit much faster than in PoE though.

[Ensign]

The class needs a Wounding Shot fix pretty badly.

Also, animal companions need to scale better at high level - they blow up fast enough that they become more liability than strength as the game progresses.

 

Otherwise I think they are in a reasonable place. Plenty of places to tune, but those are the major pain points.

[MaxQuest]

Animal Companions hit much faster than in PoE though.

I was under impression that they have 0.7s/4.0s base attack/recovery in Deadfire, no?

 

And they had 1.0s/2.33s (aside from Bear and Lion) in PoE1 (source).

 

If the animal companion would do comparable damage to those of PoE1 I would be ok with the class.

That be good...

 

Ideally ranger's talent tree could include some mutually-exclusive directions:

- animal companion damage

- animal companion sturdiness

- no animal companion, but more bonuses to ranger himself (...I'd like to have an extra reason besides Driving Flight to multi-class with cipher... and AC doesn't generate focus)

[Vaneglorious]

Driving Flight can be pretty nice with Tranquilizer (interrupt and -30 sec buff duration on 2 targets), especially with the warbow Veilpiercer.

 

I made a SS/Devoted. It's nothing fancy or OP, but it's pretty straightforward and works fine in most situations. Very high acc and hit to crit with decent pen.

 

Other than the really weak companions, they seem ok. What if there was an option for a ranged companion?

Edited January 3, 2019 by Vaneglorious

[Boeroer]

 

Animal Companions hit much faster than in PoE though.

I was under impression that they have 0.7s/4.0s base attack/recovery in Deadfire, no?

They got a substantial speed buff with a patch some time ago. But I don't know the actual numbers. Only that they attack faster than before. And Lion attacks even faster because that's his thing in Deadfire.

 

Looking at the absolute numbers they still might be slower than in PoE - but you have to take into account that the combat speed as a whole was tuned down a lot. So... maybe I should have said "attack faster than in PoE compared to global combat speed" or something.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Boeroer

[hollerer]

It's really hard to talk about balance when there are difficulty settings. If you ask what is good, I ask what difficulty. In harder difficulties some weapons don't do any damage to enemies.

 

In longer and harder fights ranger runs out of bond, so he's just a fighter after that.

[Ensign]

The power level of a pet can only be so high since there is a class power budget to work within here, but their durability is really a problem.  When fighting enemy Rangers you just ignore the pet and assume it'll get knocked out by the Chill Fog / Combusting Wounds or some chip damage from summons or something.  Your own pet frequently can't go into melee late in the game without just popping and putting bonded grief on the Ranger.

 

That's a problem when a lot of the Ranger's power is loaded onto the pet - the pet damage passives are pretty good (though Predator's Sense is kind of dependent upon Wounding Shot not being, well, Wounding Sh*t), Takedown and the upgrades are pretty brutal, etc - and the pet just dies, making all those abilities dead weight.  On top of that the pet support skills (Heal, Revive, Play Dead/Master's Call) are all priced like they are powerful, versatile skills, consuming full actions with substantial bond costs, when they are anything but.  You're supposed to pay 2 bond - and a full cast time! - for a pet-only Lay on Hands?  It's not like you're going to stack healing modifiers or spellcasting bonuses on a Ranger for faster pet heal, why is it so trash?  Ghost Heart losing access to those skills is doing you a favor - they are all trap choices!

 

The pet really needs a balance pass.  I disagree with Boeroer on pets hitting like trucks - that gives them some power, but doesn't solve the core problem of them being micro intensive and dying to a stiff breeze.  I suspect most players want a pet they don't have to micro-manage without it being a major liability; to that end, a more durable pet, or at the very least drastically improved support skills, are necessary.

[thebizcuit]

I'm using a hireling arcane archer/trickster that paces my blood mage/ancient for damage. It's been + or - 1000 for total damage the whole game. Just get the mechanics to work right on the abilities and I'd say it's good to go.

Did you abandon your Blood Mage / Fury run? Why Ancient?

[Nssheepster]

If Bonded Grief didn't exist, the class would be less problematic. If the pets didn't immediately keel over in all the important fights, that'd be good too. Until one or both of those happen, I'm using the No Companion mod and just ignoring the problem entirely.

[djinnxy]

Did you abandon your Blood Mage / Fury run? Why Ancient?

 

 

 

I did not abandon the blood mage/ fury shaper. It's level 12ish. I just got an idea to try the blood mage/ ancient to see how a pure caster with massive variety and limitless spells would do.

 

In that play I needed eder as pure fighter tank and pellagina as a tank which left a hole for a mechanic type rogue. I wasn't in a position to get Ydwin that early in the game and I'm greedy for those locked chest items. So the trickster/AA was born. My last spot is xoti as pure priest. As always PotD. I can't imagine a reason to play any easier.

 

The blood mage fury shaper is tough to beat. I'll try a play with both the blood mage/ancient and blood mage/ fury shaper (perhaps the aa/trickster too) side by side at some point so I can play my "favorite game. Who's the better killer."  (Chronicles of Riddick)

 

https://youtu.be/B_g54fbKEsk

Edited January 3, 2019 by djinnxy

[brasilgringo]

How about a talent pick that let's you remove the pet...

[Boeroer]

That would be quite bad if it didn't give you some bonus in return. Because having two bodies is a big advantage and the class is balanced around that. If you remove it by spending an ability point you should get some decent buff.

 

Honestly I really think so many people think Rangers are bad because their either totally forget the animal companion or don't know how to use it properly.

[baldurs_gate_2]

Yes.

 

- fix the Wounding Shot DoT damage calculation

- make a new subclass, or adjust Ghost Heart dunno. But personally I'd like a ranger that can be played without animal companion, and has action speed or damage advantage over the base ranger.

Wounding Shot etc. should be a real full attack, so it hits the enemy twice and with twin shot, four times. Bla bla it's too OP, but without that, melee dual wield just out-dps a ranger always and you don't want to pick one. Not to mention the useless pet.

[TheWeaver]

Question (that I honestly don't know the answer to) -- how is Wounding Shot's damage calculation/application different from that of Deep Wounds?

 

I always assumed that they were the same (in terms of how the damage is calculated/applied).  Is that untrue?  Note -- I understand that one power is active and the other is passive, but it is also the case that one power is PL 1 and the other is PL 4 (IIRC).  Does Wounding Shot benefit from PL scaling at all (might be answered in the PL thread, but I'm too lazy right now to go digging through that)?

 

Personally I see no point in a Ranger without the pet (which is not the same as saying I think the pet is perfectly fine/balanced/etc...).  Basically what I think a lot of folks want is a way to multi in Ranger to pick up the ACC bonus and not hassle with anything else -- accommodating that doesn't seem like it should be the primary design concern for any class.  Besides, you can use Ghost Heart for that if you want.

[TheWeaver]

One of the reasons I think I like AA a bit more than the rest of the sub-classes (apart from just loving the concept) is that the "extra toys" (imbues in this case) are given as free picks in the levels they appear.  This gives you a lot more flexibility in how you build.  If there was one change I would make to the other sub-classes it would be to do something similar for them.  Wouldn't necessarily have to be new powers either, could adapt existing ones.

 

That and I'd take a hard look at scaling for the pet (as has been mentioned repeatedly).  I understand this is challenging since the pet cannot be as good as an actual character or the Ranger becomes unbalanced.  For example, it would not be reasonable (IMO) to allow you to create a pet which could be used as a door stop with no micro (even if it did no damage).  Maybe the answer lies in downward adjustment of the debuff.  Perhaps it could start out as it does and then wane over time as the Ranger gets over their grief and soldiers on, not sure.

[brasilgringo]

That would be quite bad if it didn't give you some bonus in return. Because having two bodies is a big advantage and the class is balanced around that. If you remove it by spending an ability point you should get some decent buff.

 

Honestly I really think so many people think Rangers are bad because their either totally forget the animal companion or don't know how to use it properly.

Yeh, I think they could have it give you some extra buffs but not too much to outweigh being able to avoid bonded grief.

 

For me, the micro of the animal companion (I think you have to tell it to attack?) plus the fact that it dies very quickly (IMHO) makes the class less fun to play.  You can go Ghost Heart for sure, but then you miss the goodies like Arcane Archer (welcome to the goodie room, this is where the job gets fun).

 

Even if the talent just let you avoid bonded grief, maybe that's enough.

[theBalthazar]

Like said before,

 

If ranger START to catch up (not really the high tiers, obviously... more the mid tiers), but now Druid need a little buff.

 

Sorry but after a lot of analysis, I don't see any interrest to pick a druid actually. (Except for the fun and the RP)

 

Druid was one of the best single DPS for a short period of time in POE1. Now...

 

He is nothing. Wizard is the best for solo buff / AoE.

Rogue best for single DPS.

Paladin beat him with damage in or out spirit****ing...

 

All the spells are weak. Early, difficult to beat a fire ball for example (3s / 3s for a good amount of damage)

 

So now, ranger is not the priority...

 

I am all the more touched that Druid was my favorite class in the first opus : p ^^

 

But optimization > style.

 

One day, I will restart the famous topic on classes and subclasses : p... But before I must test the new ones of patch 4.0 and finish the game again : p

Edited January 4, 2019 by theBalthazar

[Elric Galad]

All that druid needs is a patch.

A pollen patch.

[Rimiu]

I'm using a hireling arcane archer/trickster that paces my blood mage/ancient for damage. It's been + or - 1000 for total damage the whole game. Just get the mechanics to work right on the abilities and I'd say it's good to go.

 

I'm interested in the build and tactics you use for Arcane Archer/Trickster. Care to share? c:

Arcane Archer was something I wanted to try too at one point but hearing it was "bugged" made me not do it.

Edited January 4, 2019 by Rimiu