Rangers bad again?

[Takkik]

Agreed, I would never ever pick Heal/Revive pet, I'd rather rely on party support or item/scroll use for that instead of sacrificing the (already somewhat subpar) damage potential of the class. I also agree that there are too many passives for the pets, I would like to see some of them consolidated or simply rolled into the pet scaling. I feel like the heal pet ability should be part of the base Ranger kit, while leaving Revive an optional ability with opportunity cost.

 

 

too much passives/actives for the pets. A stance/modal could have removed most of pet passives and consolided them in a 2 way modal (like monk) or a stance like fighter (with upgrade for each option), allowing you to switch from an offensive pet to defensive one (and perhaps a stance where the pet buff you when standing near you).

 

if you remove all active pets skills (that revolve too much around keeping it alive), the ranger don't have many options. A call to multiclass it to unlock more actives skills (and make the pet even less interesting).

[GuyNice]

 

Agreed, I would never ever pick Heal/Revive pet, I'd rather rely on party support or item/scroll use for that instead of sacrificing the (already somewhat subpar) damage potential of the class. I also agree that there are too many passives for the pets, I would like to see some of them consolidated or simply rolled into the pet scaling. I feel like the heal pet ability should be part of the base Ranger kit, while leaving Revive an optional ability with opportunity cost.

 

 

too much passives/actives for the pets. A stance/modal could have removed most of pet passives and consolided them in a 2 way modal (like monk) or a stance like fighter (with upgrade for each option), allowing you to switch from an offensive pet to defensive one (and perhaps a stance where the pet buff you when standing near you).

 

if you remove all active pets skills (that revolve too much around keeping it alive), the ranger don't have many options. A call to multiclass it to unlock more actives skills (and make the pet even less interesting).

 

I like your stance/modal idea for the pet. Remove a couple of pet passives, make heal pet baseline, add a 3-in-1 stance ability with 3 passive upgrade options to replace heal on the tree, and the class will be better off (imo). I don't think making the pet heal baseline would be that bad, maybe add a couple of optional (mutually exclusive) upgrades to the heal, that give Inspirations for a time, so you wouldn't lose overall upgrade options. Just give a bit more baseline. It's not like any of the pets deal massive damage right now, even when fully upgraded. They seem to have been downgraded from PoE.

[ntavanga]

Ranger is a little boring but it's not a bad class. It multiclasses extremely well and has some really nice accuracy bonuses through the mark and upgraded wounding shot. Major problem with the class are the ****ty pet actives and the high bond cost for some skills

[Boeroer]

 

Right now, if pet scales according to character level and all good abilities are PL 1-7, it means that Rangers are not a bad class.

What are the good abilities? Gunner and Marksman? 

 

I have to repeat myself: Evasive Fire is good. Apparently nobody ever used it because nobody answers when I bring it up. It's a very good mobility skill that also does decent single target damage and is very fast.

 

But they keep saying that ranger's abilites are bad... 

 

Accurate Wounding Shot (Full Attack with +20 ACC and a bit of raw damage for only 1 Bond) is pretty good, too.

 

Marked for the Hunt is also decent. 

 

Just because there are several pet abilites doesn't mean that the whole class is bad. As I said before: having an animal companion is a huge advantage per se. If people don't like the animal companion and feel that the rest of the ranger's abilites that don't include the pet are not exactly OP (surprise surprise!) then why not take another class for a ranged build instead of trying to play a crippled ranger?

 

I agree that high level abilites feel pretty uninspired and not thought through. Twinned Shot is just bad.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[Cylion]

 

 

Right now, if pet scales according to character level and all good abilities are PL 1-7, it means that Rangers are not a bad class.

 

What are the good abilities? Gunner and Marksman? 

I have to repeat myself: Evasive Fire is good. Apparently nobody ever used it because nobody answers when I bring it up. It's a very good mobility skill that also does decent single target damage and is very fast.

 

But they keep saying that ranger's abilites are bad... 

 

Accurate Wounding Shot (Full Attack with +20 ACC and a bit of raw damage for only 1 Bond) is pretty good, too.

 

Marked for the Hunt is also decent. 

 

Just because there are several pet abilites doesn't mean that the whole class is bad. As I said before: having an animal companion is a huge advantage per se. If people don't like the animal companion and feel that the rest of the ranger's abilites that don't include the pet are not exactly OP (surprise surprise!) then why not take another class for a ranged build instead of trying to play a crippled ranger?

 

I agree that high level abilites feel pretty uninspired and not thought through. Twinned Shot is just bad.

Do you think skills like heal pet and rivive are necessary?

[Nague]

evasive fire is kinda OP and out of place.

 

you can instantly traverse like 2 screens without cooldown while firing bullets without any reloading.

It does not fit in.

 

 

Maia is pretty good in my party, i bet a bow ranger would be even better.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Nague

[Elric Galad]

Ranger is about pet, deal with it and play a devoted/rogue archer. I disliked playing monk in PoE1 but I thought they were great design.

Multiclass Ranger is at its right place as beastmaster + sort of fighter with great ACC.

Single Class ranger should be a top tier archer on top of that so :
- Make stunning shot actually Stun for 2-3s on crit.
- Make twin shot an instant buff that lasts 10s so it works with ANY ranged weapon (with similar bond cost)
- Buff Sharpshooter to Ranged Devoted level

That's all Ranger needs IMHO.

EDIT : Well and maybe the pet has to be buffed too, but i have no high level pet to check.
Was it nerfed a lot from PoE1 ?

 

And also prevent Obsidian to add ANY sort of HealPet, RevivePet, HidePet or PetIsDeadNot to the next DLC. We love you Obsidian but enough is enough ^^

Edited May 15, 2018 by Elric Galad

[theBalthazar]

I agree that high level abilites feel pretty uninspired and not thought through. Twinned Shot is just bad.

 

 

Problem dear Boeroer, there is also new system of health.

 

In POE1 I used Pet for tank. Best tank of the game because all his health was restored. And at the mid-game end-game, the animal can do HIGH damage with good investment and a chanter.

 

Here in POE2 it is really disapointing. Ranger is not a good choice for multiclass and not even for single class (like you said)

 

For +10 accuracy passive (bond link), you must spend 2 points. It is awful to optimize something.

 

So your evasive fire is OK, but not worth it overall.

Edited May 15, 2018 by theBalthazar

[dunehunter]

 

I agree that high level abilites feel pretty uninspired and not thought through. Twinned Shot is just bad.

 

Problem dear Boeroer, there is also new system of health.

 

In POE1 I used Pet for tank. Best tank of the game because all his health was restored. And at the mid-game end-game, the animal can do HIGH damage with good investment and a chanter.

 

Here in POE2 it is really disapointing. Ranger is not a good choice for multiclass and not even for single class (like you said)

 

For +10 accuracy passive (bond link), you must spend 2 points. It is awful to optimize something.

 

So your evasive fire is OK, but not worth it overall.

Stalkers link = 10 acc = 2 points = 10 Perception.

 

Weapon Mastery = 5% damage < 2 Might = 1 point.

 

Who is worse

[Climhazzard]

Maia is pretty strong, she's sniping the enemy backline all day long.  She hits from so far away they probably don't even know where the shots are coming from.  Unfortunately I feel like her rogue subclass is adding more to this playstyle than her ranger subclass, lol.

 

I think it's a great combination, as you can pull from both pools to make an ideal ranged sniper, but I'm not sure about ranger alone.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Climhazzard

[Unreason]

I wish that the Animal Companion was optional for all Ranger types, not just Ghost Heart. Rangers make fantastic ranged DPSes (especially Ranger/Fighter and Ranger/Rogue), but I don't want to have to deal with microing the extra body (and for that matter, dealing with Bonded Grief). I would be extremely happy with an option that gave you no Animal Companion and instead gave you... I don't know, +1 to all Skills or something.

[hilfazer]

I want a ranger subclass that has no pet and in return gets... nothing.

 

Nothing right away. This subclass would be affected by pet passive talents. This way a player would be able to decide what (s)he wants for not having a pet and the more (s)he wants the more (s)he would pay in talent points (balanced!). As an additional bonus pet talents would not be useless.

Maybe some active talents could be used as well.

[Boeroer]

evasive fire is kinda OP and out of place.

 

you can instantly traverse like 2 screens without cooldown while firing bullets without any reloading.

Exactly. It also doesn't matter which weapon you use. 

 

 

 

Problem dear Boeroer, there is also new system of health.

 

In POE1 I used Pet for tank. Best tank of the game because all his health was restored. And at the mid-game end-game, the animal can do HIGH damage with good investment and a chanter.

Pets don't get injured. And they can still do good damage.

 

Takedown Combo is very good in combination with a heavy hitting weapon.

 

Evasive Fire + Furious Call is a very powerful combination.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Boeroer

[Elric Galad]

I want a ranger subclass that has no pet and in return gets... nothing.

 

Nothing right away. This subclass would be affected by pet passive talents. This way a player would be able to decide what (s)he wants for not having a pet and the more (s)he wants the more (s)he would pay in talent points (balanced!). As an additional bonus pet talents would not be useless.

Maybe some active talents could be used as well.

 

But... why don't you play Rogue, Helwalker, Devoted ? 

It is not like if it was impossible to play a ranged martial character.

 

Ranger himself isn't even pure ranged since he has even a pure melee ability and even has a "melee subclass" !

[GuyNice]

 

evasive fire is kinda OP and out of place.

 

you can instantly traverse like 2 screens without cooldown while firing bullets without any reloading.

Exactly. It also doesn't matter which weapon you use. 

 

 

 

Problem dear Boeroer, there is also new system of health.

 

In POE1 I used Pet for tank. Best tank of the game because all his health was restored. And at the mid-game end-game, the animal can do HIGH damage with good investment and a chanter.

Pets don't get injured. And they can still do good damage.

 

Takedown Combo is very good in combination with a heavy hitting weapon.

 

Evasive Fire + Furious Call is a very powerful combination.

 

Please enlighten me on how pets can do good damage (no sarcasm). I feel like Ishiza (Maia's hawk) does so little, it's hardly worth investing talents for him. He attacks so slowly too. Even with double lashes from Herald Pallegina he feels like he hits for half the damage of an unbuffed hit from one of my main's 1-handers, but at 1/4 of the frequency. And that's with damage talents. My party is only level 10 (I'm taking a break until PotD difficulty is improved, or at least until scaling works), so maybe it changes at higher levels. But right now I regret making Maia single class (and supposedly her pet does the most damage!).

[hilfazer]

 

I want a ranger subclass that has no pet and in return gets... nothing.

 

Nothing right away. This subclass would be affected by pet passive talents. This way a player would be able to decide what (s)he wants for not having a pet and the more (s)he wants the more (s)he would pay in talent points (balanced!). As an additional bonus pet talents would not be useless.

Maybe some active talents could be used as well.

 

But... why don't you play Rogue, Helwalker, Devoted ? 

It is not like if it was impossible to play a ranged martial character.

 

Ranger himself isn't even pure ranged since he has even a pure melee ability and even has a "melee subclass" !

 

 

Well, i didn't say anything about ranged combat but thanks for suggestions. I think i should have used capital "R" in "ranger" since i was talking about a class.

I will not play Helwalker nor Devoted because i don't like their penalties. I might try Devoted once i'm armed with metaknowledge. I might try Helwalker if/when Obsidian balances it.

[Enuhal]

I played as a ranger during my first playthrough and didn't find him to be weak. I decided to go with the basic class (didn't like the downsides of the various subclasses); While I agree that the pet is weaker compared to PoE 1 (where Stormcaller-Rangers were my favorite dps build for PotD) and a lot of the pet abilites aren't that great (the passives are okay, but I ended up using almost none of the actives), my ranger ended up dealing tons of damage.

 

This was, however, mostly because of the unique war bow Frostseeker (which can be obtained very early on in the game), which shoots three projectiles and deals AoE damage on crits. I got as many accuracy bonuses, crit damage bonuses etc. as I could find, and with twinned shots (yes, that's 6 projectiles) and driving flight, it was common to completely explode two enemies with every single shot. With any other weapon, though, the ranger felt quite average.

 

I'm sure that many cookie cutter powerbuilds can deal more damage, but in my party (which only consisted of official npcs, so nothing too optimized), the ranger was causing the most havoc. So, not unlike PoE 1, where Stormcaller made the ranger into a real force to be reckoned with, it might be that Frostseeker does the same in PoE 2.

[Elric Galad]

 

I'm sure that many cookie cutter powerbuilds can deal more damage, but in my party (which only consisted of official npcs, so nothing too optimized), the ranger was causing the most havoc. So, not unlike PoE 1, where Stormcaller made the ranger into a real force to be reckoned with, it might be that Frostseeker does the same in PoE 2.

 

Well, in PoE 1, Stormcaller was nice but really not the reason why Rangers were so good. Persistence Ranger, while a bit less flashy, did even more damage.

Stormcaller was great because it didn't need many components.

 

The reason why Rangers was so great in PoE1 were :

- Twin Arrows

- Stunning Shot

- Pet Damages

- Driving Flight

 

Given that many OP stuff from PoE1 were nerfed, it makes sense that some of the above were nerfed too. But maybe it was a bit too much.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Elric Galad

[Enuhal]

True, I might have overstated the impact of Stormcaller in PoE 1 (the pet, especially when upgraded with a few passives, really did make the early game much easier). Still, I do think that Frostseeker is a gamechanger in PoE 2, and I would encourage anyone who thinks rangers are weak and can't deal significant damage to try it out (and yes, I'm aware that other classes can use Frostseeker as well, but the bow does work very well with high accuracy, driving flight and twinned shot).

 

Not that I don't agree that some of the nerfs were a bit too much - the fact I needed a specific item to be really happy with my damage does mean that maybe the class itself has a few problems.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Enuhal

[Cylion]

 

evasive fire is kinda OP and out of place.you can instantly traverse like 2 screens without cooldown while firing bullets without any reloading.

Exactly. It also doesn't matter which weapon you use.    

Problem dear Boeroer, there is also new system of health. In POE1 I used Pet for tank. Best tank of the game because all his health was restored. And at the mid-game end-game, the animal can do HIGH damage with good investment and a chanter.

Pets don't get injured. And they can still do good damage.Takedown Combo is very good in combination with a heavy hitting weapon.Evasive Fire + Furious Call is a very powerful combination.

This may be asking a lot, but when I played PoE1 I mostly used your guides. Do you think you could make one for the ranger class? I for once really enjoy it.

[theBalthazar]

Weapon Mastery = 5% damage < 2 Might = 1 point.

 

Who is worse   

 

 

Totally agree.

 

5 % is a bad joke. The famous 1/2 of the first number is ridiculous here. Why not 2 % ?

 

But finally, the rule is : 1 POINT = 10 %. And the second = 5 %. I can stopped at the first. Here with ranger I am forced to invest the first if I want the bonus.

 

Obsidian balancing is crazy. The best choice for me is Witcher 3.

1 = 10 %

2 = 20 %

3 = 30 %

 

No more no less.

 

Why not 10 % hit to crit with zealous focus ? (5 = 2.5 % crit+ When you have paralyse, you are at... 27,5 %. Yeah...)

Why not 10 % for the second invest with fighter mastery ? (5 % of damage is truly nothing)

Why 5 accuracy is always erased by a superior number ? (Stacking rules...)

Why I don't want invest second and third step of frenzy ? (For 2 mandatory point actually, previous version disapear...)

Why personnal bonus of FoD is 10 % and shared 20 ?

Why Obsidian ? Why ? : p

Edited May 15, 2018 by theBalthazar

[cycloverid]

True, I might have overstated the impact of Stormcaller in PoE 1 (the pet, especially when upgraded with a few passives, really did make the early game much easier). Still, I do think that Frostseeker is a gamechanger in PoE 2, and I would encourage anyone who thinks rangers are weak and can't deal significant damage to try it out (and yes, I'm aware that other classes can use Frostseeker as well, but the bow does work very well with high accuracy, driving flight and twinned shot).

 

Not that I don't agree that some of the nerfs were a bit too much - the fact I needed a specific item to be really happy with my damage does mean that maybe the class itself has a few problems.

 

The only argument you seem to be presenting here is that the balance of Frostseeker should be looked at - especially with how early you can get it.

[BijaT]

Well kitchen stove (blunderbuss) is better then the bow, i got it down to 1.8sec (coud get it down lower with more dex, currently 15). It hits 4 times and jump twice and hit those 2 also 4 times. If theres 3 enemies pritty close (4m from eatch other) thats 12 hits evry 1.8sec and even if you only got 20% to crit the swift strike proc shoud proc with 3 foes evry shot and therby proc itself over and over until 1 of the 3 is dead. Agenst 1 or 2 foes it woud proc itself pritty often aswell and even if not the attack speed woud make it close to it. The downside is the major attackspeed and foe jump ability is 2/per rest. They stay for 20sec eatch tho and i somehow got +25% duration from level at lev 10? and 40% from int, thats (20*1.4)*1.25 (yes they work like that) 35sec. So woud prob be enuff with 1 use per fight. Becuse it´s 1h you get bonus accuracy and can take the 20% of hits to crits. So a rogue/monk woud have 45% of hits to crit or fighter/monk 60% of hits to crits. 

 

So a fighter/monk with Kitchen stove is the best ranger (only 4m tho) and after that a fighter/monk with frostseeker. Becuse the 33% of crit gets new attack give you 4/3 (kitchen/bow) new attack that can proc it agen there is no other "build" that come close to it. If this is not true (have not tried myself) then prob monk/rogue with kitchen stove(with evrything and anything uppgrade) & lightning strikes is the best build (with a chanter/paladin turning 35% of your damage to bonus fire damage & -20% reload time)

[Enuhal]

That's not the only argument I'm presenting. The premise of this thread is that rangers are bad, period. My claim is that, with the right build and a specific item, they are actually quite powerful.

 

A Frostseeker-Ranger is perfectly capable of dealing high amounts of damage on PotD. The possibility of other classes doing even better doesn't really matter that much (at least to me) since this is a single player game, so there's no need for perfect class balance. A ranger still can do a decent job.

 

What I'm saying is: Sure, I'd be happy to see some buffs for rangers, especially when it comes to the pet, which doesn't feel impactful enough right now. However, dismissing the class entirely is an overreaction.

Edited May 15, 2018 by Enuhal

[BijaT]

That's not the only argument I'm presenting. The premise of this thread is that rangers are bad, period. My claim is that, with the right build and a specific item, they are actually quite powerful.

 

A Frostseeker-Ranger is perfectly capable of dealing high amounts of damage on PotD. The possibility of other classes doing even better doesn't really matter that much (at least to me) since this is a single player game, so there's no need for perfect class balance. A ranger still can do a decent job.

 

What I'm saying is: Sure, I'd be happy to see some buffs for rangers, especially when it comes to the pet, which doesn't feel impactful enough right now. However, dismissing the class entirely is an overreaction.

Ain´t a blunderbuss ranger better (getting to use that 20% reload talent) and shoots more bullets and with the 20% reload talent some blunderbusses is shooting faster then frostseeker.