[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

[Atomic_Skull]

You guys realize that if they replaced the ranged damage formula with the same one used for melee rangers would do even less damage right?

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Level_Correction_Function_and_pDIF#Ranged_Attack

[Wheels]

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.

I have a huge enmity issue even with coronach, i pull hate regardless and i won't use any other ja like barrage just coronach and end up with hate. The PLD has been doing his job for 8+ years so i know he is doing all he can, it's just with the lvl 90 introduced the enmity was not balanced right imo.

[Catsby]

You guys realize that if they replaced the ranged damage formula with the same one used for melee rangers would do even less damage right?

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Level_Correction_Function_and_pDIF#Ranged_Attack

Currently it wouldn't make a difference. The amount of ranged attack gear/abilities/enhancements we have access to is pathetic, our STR is pathetic and our ammo/weapon selection is pathetic.

[Fyreus]

I doubt se would make super jump-like abilities for rng (although i wonder why post penta spam drg really NEEDS it or utilizes it in a party) because they like to see us die lol. super jump would be the best ja we could give with no issues like a sub job crying that they are somewhat useless like ye old' sam and war. what i would consider an enmity fix is to allow us to ws with camouflage ON and a fixed duration with the appropriate af body boost.

iit's a 5min ability and -25 enmity so atleast allow us to keep it on...

[noodles355]

Adding means like camoflage that purely slow the rate of enmity gain will never be a real fix to ranger's enmity problem for the simple reason that hate caps. If you had fulltime camoflage, all it means is hate would cap slower and that doesn't really fix the problem.

[Kerfuffle]

Well its easier not to pull hate when you still use silver bullets lol. I gave up constantly hounding friends to make me the new ones or to sit in pt while I made them. And I have the gil but not paying 60k/stk for drkadaman for anything but ws and barrage. Still coronach saves my ass a lot....

[Mirabelle]

Adding means like camoflage that purely slow the rate of enmity gain will never be a real fix to ranger's enmity problem for the simple reason that hate caps. If you had fulltime camoflage, all it means is hate would cap slower and that doesn't really fix the problem.

What really would be nice is an enmity decay job trait. Dropping a specified amount of hate per tic potentially merit able or improved with gear. That would be better than less enmity per shot.

[Fyreus]

Maybe allowing stealth shot to stay up for 30 secs would be nice too. The reason i suggest things that slow down hate is because i doubt they will give us a shed ability sice they nerfed /hide */pissed* and left /drg untouched for hate shed abilities. They obviously won't fix ranged attack enmity but SE showed that they will take steps to slow it down gradually.

From a design POV everyone in range of a mob has signed an agreement that they will get aoe'd and mages out of aoe (i consider rng an arrow mage lol) know they have to hold out to keep the mob from running to the back which is something you have to balance as a party. Since we have to accept the mage pov we also have to accept the damage vs. enmity limitations they also have as well. The best thing se can do knowing this and keeping in mind the arrowfest of earlier times is to give rng equivalents that whm gets and blm gets in form of enmity management.

This is why i personally feel an active ja fix to camouflage and stealth shot would be the most feasible at least from a party position stand point. I'd love hide/super high jump/enmity douse but mana is ones limitation in many cases, taking plague/drain/paralyze/spikes/sleep/etc ruins melee potential, where as we as rng have no real penalties except enmity and ws distance.

[Feliciaa]

Problem is you can't really look at Ranged attacks the same way you look at melee or magic based attacks. Ranged attacks are more of a hybrid of the two. Mainly because we are constantly attacking like melee but from a distance like blm and we are not just relying on a high dmg spell every few seconds to balance our dmg/enmity.

The thing is we are designed to do damage from a distance however, because of the fact I mentioned above we end up pulling hate even while holding back because of how enmity works in this game.

As Noodles355 said:
Adding means like camouflage that purely slow the rate of enmity gain will never be a real fix to ranger's enmity problem for the simple reason that hate caps. If you had full time camouflage, all it means is hate would cap slower and that doesn't really fix the problem.

The job doesn't need more tools to slow enmity gain down. We need a true fix that deals with enmity once it is capped so we can continue to do our job and not burden every other class in the PT.

[noodles355]

What really would be nice is an enmity decay job trait. Dropping a specified amount of hate per tic potentially merit able or improved with gear. That would be better than less enmity per shot.Yeah, this is a nice idea. To be honest, so is every idea that gives a rng a means to lower it's enmity.

Also I'm sorry Fyreus, your argument appears to be "we get to DD out of AoE range". Yeah, great, except you still need to run into 15"ish to fire your WS unless you're using detonator/empy arrow. And Most dangerous difficult mobe where you'd want RNG have AoEs that span either 15" or 20" (more often than not, 20")

Feliciaa pretty much nailed it. The idea of an outside-aoe DD is a nice idea but it doesn't work because the enmity system has not been changed. The enmity system was maybe sensible for like 6-8 years ago, but with the lvl cap increase, new gear, new abils/traits, and the epic destruction that is atma, the hate cap hasn't changed. It's far tooe asy to cap hate on any DD on a monster. RNG included.

[Fyreus]

Also I'm sorry Fyreus, your argument appears to be "we get to DD out of AoE range". Yeah, great, except you still need to run into 15"ish to fire your WS unless you're using detonator/empy arrow. And Most dangerous difficult mobe where you'd want RNG have AoEs that span either 15" or 20" (more often than not, 20")


What i said was misinterpreted and there was no argument, purely how things look from an angle that isn't ours as the player. What i'm saying is looking at how things work and the updates (atleast the english notes) SE is considering slower enmity gain over time and SE is aiming in that direction but they too are trying to ws at 20). I think there's a mechanic in mind we don't care to see or can't see that they don't want to trip up while tip toe around sorta like smn bp timer. I can see them tweaking what we have but maybe not until they show us what's up next content-wise.

Dousing or shedding is nice but like i stated in my third paragraph proper fixes to what we have would be far more likely since arrow enmity hasn't changed since most of us first picked up rng and they haven't mentioned any of the sort. An active stealth shot we can pop and fire off ws > sekk > ws > SS+Ba >ws under -30 or 40 enmity under a short duration seems sexy to me without having a bandwagon or rng alliance insurgency (again). Fully active camo we can shoot/ws behind is icing on my cake.

We gotta realize they won't help us but will throw us a bone.

[Alkalinehoe]

I'll repeat myself, similar to how PLD should get a higher enmity cap, I think RNG should get a lower enmity cap.

[Catsby]

I'll repeat myself, similar to how PLD should get a higher enmity cap, I think RNG should get a lower enmity cap.

People complain that the game has no challenge now but something like this would guarantee it. Ranger's enmity problem isn't Ranger's enmity problem. The enmity system as a whole is stuck at level 75.

[Mirabelle]

People complain that the game has no challenge now but something like this would guarantee it. Ranger's enmity problem isn't Ranger's enmity problem. The enmity system as a whole is stuck at level 75.

How would changing PLD and RNG enmity make the game less challenging? By making those jobs not have to level NIN, THF or MNK to be useful? Its about job balance which typically takes a jobs weaknesses and adjusts them to make them more useful.
I'm not sure adjusting enmity caps for different jobs would do that but its not the most ridiculous idea. Certainly less ridiculous than allowing MNK's 4k HP and WHM's unlimited MP.

[Catsby]

How would changing PLD and RNG enmity make the game less challenging? By making those jobs not have to level NIN, THF or MNK to be useful? Its about job balance which typically takes a jobs weaknesses and adjusts them to make them more useful.
I'm not sure adjusting enmity caps for different jobs would do that but its not the most ridiculous idea. Certainly less ridiculous than allowing MNK's 4k HP and WHM's unlimited MP.

Allowing a tank job to exceed other job's total possible hate is similar to giving a healer infinite MP. The challenge that a lot of people keep referring to was pacing, anticipation and micro management. Nowadays you just zerg because total HP and cure spells exceed the possible damage a monster can do to you and because a single weaponskill can pretty much cap your hate.

[Mirabelle]

Allowing a tank job to exceed other job's total possible hate is similar to giving a healer infinite MP.

Exactly. Then things would be balanced again ;p

But seriously, there many things that allow enmity to change in a fight, such as monster abilities that reset hate and damage taken by the tank. So a higher enmity cap doesn't ensure the mob stays adhered to the tank, nor does it ensure said tank can stay alive. But it does allow DDs to be a bit more free flowing with their damage which is really the point of getting the best gear. If you have to intentionally gimp yourself to maintain hate on the tank, then what's the point of great gear? Look at me I have superior gear but I can only shoot an arrow every 30 sec or I'm dead. I'm so much better than the guy in average gear that can shoot continuously for just as much damage.

[Glamdring]

Better idea (I think), keep the hate generation as is, but give ranger the ability to transfer their hate to another party member, kinda like beast with snarl. 1 minute cool-down would work I think. And why not a thief-like ability, isn't that what Bounty Shot is? Seriously, this would give ranger back some much-needed love in the player community. And all the enmity down in the world is meaningless solo, unless you sub a pet job or are using NPC.

[Fyreus]

Faster decay with camo UP.

[Fyreus]

That reminds me...

What is bounty shot? Is it TH for rng? the update says it improves TH and my screen says the same thing but i wanna know if its similar type, different type, weaker type, or if its a suppliment ja. Going to gather test screenshots between gloves off, +1, and +2.

[Feliciaa]

It's the same as THF TH only in JA form.

[noodles355]

Stacks with the Thf's (In that if a Thf procs TH6 on a mob, and you get a successful bounty shot it goes up to TH7) iirc.

[Catsby]

That crit damage bonus we got isn't half bad.

[Feliciaa]

The test on BG are saying it's a 40% increase to crit dmg. Which is much much higher then anyone expected. lol

[noodles355]

Yeah, that's a really significant boost.

[Atomic_Skull]

Yeah, that's a really significant boost.

Melees still out damage RNGs by a huge margin though.

[xbobx]

In abyessa. but how to rangers fair outside? I saw an emp bow ranger completely destroy other emp melee jobs outside of abyessa hitting 1k+ crits

[noodles355]

I'm wondering if theres a glitch and it's not working on weaponskills. Try out a few Heavy Shot/Arching Arrows (because it's easy to see when it crits, only 1hit WS etc) the increase in damage from a critted Heavy Shot over a regular heavy shot is much smaller (relitively) than the damage increase from a critted regular shot over a normal regular shot.
Anyone else noticed this?
Like, I went out and played about with it when it came out. On a regular shot a crit did 2.4x the damage of a regular one, but on Heavy Shot a crit only did 1.75x the damage of a regular heavy shot...

Have people's jishnu's numbers shot up by 40% after the update?

[Keade]

My Jishnu's damage hasnt changed a bit since the update, unless i stack crit dmg+ atma's ofc, but thats got nothing to do with the trait >.<

I'm pretty sure someone submitted a bug report about it not working on ws's

[Catsby]

Would suck if it intentionally didn't go off on WS. On a side note it's hard to find anything that isn't overkilled by JS or survives past the 2nd shot besides bosses.

[Keade]

Indeed. Even before the update, i loved Jishnu's, it totally revived my Rng for me. Was my favourite job pre-abyssea, getting a Gandiva just put me back up there with other DD's =D, is fun having ws dmg fights with my War friend (Ukon). Not saying Rng is perfect, but i enjoy it non the less.

On topic, a 40% increase to the crit dmg of Jishnu's may be a bit op, which imo would be why it doesnt proc on ws's, unless its a big and im totally wrong

[noodles355]

I would really like to hear a statement from SE about whether it's meant to proc on ranged WS or not

[Nynja]

Post it in the bugs/comments section

[xbobx]

yes post in bugs/comments section and title it, I wish we had a feather on our af hat, and you will probably get a developer read it.

[noodles355]

It's already been reported and passed on apparantly. Here's hoping it is a bug and it is meant to affect ranged WSs.

[Fyreus]

I don't think a 40% bonus on jishnu would be bad. There's a such thing as fell cleave which destroys multiple mobs so why not allow us to destroy a single mob? You fight more normal mobs, no?

[Ashido]

Pro Tip. Dont be a idiot ranger .

[Keade]

Pro Tip. Dont be a idiot ranger .

Thanks for the contribution.

[Mojo]

I don't think Dead Aim being applied to Jishnu's Radiance would be over powered in any way. Jishnu is actually somewhat lackluster outside of Abyssea. 60% DEX mod ranged WS with the ability to crit might seem impressive, but with 3.750 total fTP, 3.945 if you're using Gorget/Obi, it's really not that great. Even if all three hits are critical (and even land, for that matter,) you're looking at 4.6875 (or 4.9316) psuedo fTP. So you're already behind Sidewinder fTP (and 200TP+ Refulgent Arrow alsp.) You truly need critical attack bonus for Jishnu's to have an edge over those other weaponskills other than just the aftermath and at this point there aren't many options for Ranger critical damage bonus.

[Catsby]

Aftermath is almost negligible on ranger since the time it takes to wade through all the bullshit phases of your attack and positioning put you at like 0-2 shots during that time frame( also depending upon mob placement and aftermath level).