[dev1010] Ranged update details

[noodles355]

* The recast time of the job ability Bounty Shot will be reduced from 5 minutes to 1 minute, and a successful hit will occasionally enhance the effect of Treasure Hunter.
* The job ability Barrage will launch an additional projectile at level 90.
* Accuracy calculations for Barrage will be eased in proportion to the maximum number of shots.

Dear Square-Enix,

You're increasing ranger's critical hit damage, which suffers due to the stupid cRatio numbers, and improving barrage's accuracy. This is a nice update thank you.

However, you will have to forgive me for not being enthusiastic. Do you remember camouflage? You know of Ranger's enmity problems? How the biggest fundamental flaw in the design of the job is enmity? The "great buff" to help with our enmity was the change to camouflage. The change to camoflage was pathetic. Especially concidering it was only worth using on a weaponskill or barrage and with the Enmity of actually using the ability generated, if you miss said WS or barrage, you actually gained more enmity than if you hadn't used it at all.

Camoflage was worthless before the update and it's still worthless afterwards. That single pathetic update was your attempt at fixing ranger's enmity and it failed.

With this in mind, you will forgive me I hope for expecting this critical hit damage increase to be nothing but traits similar to warrior's and thief's that work only for ranged attacks. I really hope I am wrong because in all honesty just giving ranger a Critical Damage +5% +8% or even +10% JA would not be enough to fix the imbalance between ranged and melee critical hits and the problems caused by the different cRatio limits.
Again, I really hope I am wrong. Because if this is your "fix" to ranger's critical hit damage problems then it is the same story as the enmity fix with camouflage from before: It's like pollishing a number two - it's shiney, but it's still a number two.

Also, an adjustment to make landing barrage easier is nice, however ignores the fact that accuracy still caps and barrage still misses with capped accuracy. Would it really be so hard to remove the "subsequent shots miss after one shot misses" clause from barrage? It's fairly unnecessary especially concidering it's long 5 minute recast.

Again, this is a small step in the right direction but it is not enough.
Why not just make Camoflage work like Super Jump? 100% enmity shed on a 5 minute or 3 minute timer is not a broken ability. Afterall Dragoon gets it and high enmity is nowhere near as detrimental for Dragoon as it is for Ranger. Not only that: high enmity on ranger, due to moving the mob, is detrimental for both the ranger and the rest of the alliance. This is a simple fix that would alleviate a lot of problems.

Thanks for the update, but please don't you dare think this is enough to fix the job because it's not. Not even remotely.

[Catsby]

I invite, no challenge, anyone to go out on ranger and find a relevant monster they can reach that magic 3.0 pdif on without the help of another player. I'll be here waiting...

not really.

[Feliciaa]

No idea why they keep ignoring the Enmity issues with RNG.It's great that they are trying to fix our crit and Bounty shot issue. But all it really means is we will pull hate faster and lower not only our DD output but the other melee we are teaming up with.

We can't even truly take advantage of the extra dmg from the "sweet spot" nor True Shot. Granted, I'm not saying we should never pull hate at all but fixing Camouflage to work as Noodles355 suggested would greatly change how people look at RNG in a group setting and increase its overall performance the most.

[noodles355]

They really should just make ranged and melee attacks have the same cRatio ranges. But as not enough people play ranger, it's unlikely SE will ever change the damage formulars like they did with 2H weapons years ago.

(Vicious circle: Ranger has issues, majority dont play it > Majority dont play it, nothing is said to SE > Nothing said to SE, SE doesn't fix ranger > Ranger still has issues, majority still dont play it > ad infinitum)

Concidering the fundamental flaws in the damage calulations for ranged attacks most likely will never be changed, adding significant buffs to ranger is probably what SE should do. Key word: Significant. Giving us a +8% Crit damage trait (potential interpretation of update notes) is not Significant. The old Camouflage change was not significant.

Making Camouflage work like Super Jump and removing the "subsequent shots after a missed shot also miss" clause from barrage would be a good start.

[Swords]

You'll have to forgive me on this point, but what exactally is wrong with Camoflauge? I keep hearing it doesn't do shit (or very little) for our hate control but doing Barrage > Camo > R.A. or Camo > WS seems to do wonders for my hate control. I dare say I've even been bold (or stupid) enough, to use Camo along with barrage or WS right after a tank finished pulling a mob back off me and somehow manage to not reassert hate even after doing 1k-3k more dmg.

But I digress, I'm really just trying to get an idea what exactally your doing that makes Camo seem worthless for hate control. I'm not denying enmity issues with RNG, I know they exsist and need to be addressed (so many nightmares with Fauth O.o) I just want some insight about Camo on your end.

[noodles355]

The problem isn't what camouflage is, it's what it's not. It's not an enmity shedding ability. That is what ranger needs. The reason Camouflage gets so much stick (rightly so) was because it was SE's idea at an "enmity fix" for Ranger. a 5 minute timer that only slows down the enmity generation of your next few shots is NOT an enmity fix.

Now Stealth shot... THAT is a worthless JA at 1/5 merits. It's a percentage based buff, not a static -enmity amount per merit. The problem with Stealth Shot is that activating it generates 300 VE. So say you do a 2k damage WS against a Lv90 mob with -25 Enmity in gear. That will generate 1950 VE. Popping Stealth Shot will make that WS generate 1755 VE + 300 VE from popping the ability = 2055, 105 enmity more than if you hadn't used it at all. For Stealth Shot to be worthwhile it needs many merits meaning you have to take merits away from catagories that increase your damage.

In all honesty, Stealth Shot should be what Camouflage is now and not a merited ability, and Camouflage should work like Super Jump.

[Laitha]

I honestly feel the only way that I have been able to overcome my enmity issues as a Ranger is by using Coronach constantly. It is sad that the only decent way not to pull massive hate on ranger over time is to have a relic gun. I feel that it would be nice if SE fixed enmity issues for ranger but then the utility of my weapon would go down considerably.

[noodles355]

The utitlity of many relic weapons, even the pre-abyssea good ones have now become uselss anyway (Apoc was epic on drk because it let you cap gear haste easilly and also cured you each WS. With WHM spamming C5/C6 and the fact that drk can cap haste in gear easillly without cata, Cata is now a completely useless WS inside abyssea (90% of current game content).

I do not mean to want do make relic weaponskills useless but if an enmity update in ranger's general favour caught relic WSs in the crossfire, I wouldn't care too much. To be honest, they should have a complete update of relic WSs and their aftermaths, but this wont happen, so we need to find other ways to balance the systems in place by broken stupid damage formulas.

[Atomic_Skull]

Apoc was epic on drk because it let you cap gear haste easilly and also cured you each WS.

Apoc is still good because it lets you wear AF3 head/hands/feet/legs + adaberk + goading belt.

[noodles355]

Wow, that was some awesome grammar by me: I do not mean to want do make