Ranger wan-... NEEDS.

[Catsby]

Many years ago Ranger was an awesome job but for both mathematical and strategical reasons it was declared "broken" and subjected to the most ham-fisted nerfs in the game's history. Some of that nerf has been undone but not much has been seen to improve or even maintain /ra. As a result Ranger and ranged attacks in general have become largely superfluous. Here is what I believe would vastly improve Ranger and at least make it comparable to other jobs in it's category.

1. More ranged attack.

Ranger requires a huge amount of ranged attack in order to reach the full end of its potential. That amount is completely unrealistic by current standards. By completely unrealistic I mean it requires 2 other players in the party on support jobs, food, temporary items, job abilities on by main and sub job, cruor enhancements, atmas and amazing gear. If you manage to gather all that you can create a small window of time where a Ranger is almost as effective as any other damage dealer with half the amount of enhancements. This is partly due to the fact that Ranger has very limited access to ranged attack gear that it desperately needs. Ranged attack knives/axes are absent from magian trials and many newer pieces of gear actually offer less ranged attack than older and lower level counterparts.

2. Automated attacking.

Another reason Ranger falls far behind other jobs is because it needs to maintain appropriate distance from its target, get input from the player before it can initiate each attack round and then must remain still once the attack round begins. Other melee jobs can run circles around their targets while attacking but a Ranger is penalized if their character doesn't stop moving before or starts moving after they try to shoot. This problem is further complicated when a player wants to shoot multiple times but lacks the accuracy or precision of a computer so valuable seconds are wasted in between shots. To make matters worse there are global cooldowns after job abilities and interrupts which slow down Ranger even more.

3. More ammunition.

One of the most crippling problems with Ranger is the lack of ammunition available. A trip to the auction house will show you that higher level arrows and bullets are either extremely expensive or simply not available. This is probably because of Ranger's general lack of popularity but also because the materials require to make most ammunition are difficult to obtain. Making NPCs that sell or synthesize ammo for you would be awesome. Not only is the lack of ammunition a problem but the lack of variety is as well. Ranger has dozens of bolts, arrows and bullets they can use from level 1 until 60. All of them with different effects and server different purposes. From 60 to 90 ammo quickly boils down to highest base damage. Having higher level equivalents to status effect and elemental effect ammo would be extremely cool.


That about sums up my feelings toward Ranger right now. It was my first job to 75 years ago and it's depressing to see it in it's current state. I'm sure a bunch of other people share my opinion or have very similar thoughts.

tl;dr version

1. Ranger needs more ranged attack gear. badly.
2. Human error hurts Ranger proficiency more than other damage dealers
3. Ammo selection and availability is terrible right now.

[Bilonn]

My thoughts. I know I've not gotten ranger far yet, but I'm looking at doing so eventually. (Ammo and has been my main reason for delay.)

#1 doesn't concern me as much. I don't say it's not important, but it's not as big of a limiter as the other two for me.

#2 should be an additional pair of traits... say something like..

Passive Traits:
Moving Shot I: RNG Lvl 40
Ranged Attack is not interrupted when moving at walking speed (Auto-Run turned Off)
Moving Shot II: RNG Lvl 80
Ranged Attack is not interrupted when moving.

Also agree that an auto-attack option needs to be explored for rng. Maybe set it as an option for /ra, such as '/ra on' and '/ra off' for us to use as macros, but tie these to a passive trait given to rangers at lvl 1.
Thus, using /ra on as a war does nothing... Make it a ranger thing.. or maybe even a RNG/COR ability. Help them out too.

Constant Barrage: RNG Lvl 1, COR Lvl 1
Allows Ranged Auto-Attacking (Trait not available unless Ranger or Corsair is Main Job)

#3 could be, as you say, NPCs. I would say that they would sell lvl 60-70 ammo, and barter materials for lvl 70+ ammo. Really would be useful.

[Hinabi]

Ok well I wrote a nice long reply to this but when I tried to post, it redirected me and said I wasn't logged in so I'll summarize.

#1
I've noticed a lack in power compared to other DDs, this could be the solution.

#2
I don't agree here. I think it separates <Ranger> from other DD jobs that can just auto-engage and AFK. It feels like it actually requires a bit of skill to pull of smooth consecutive shots.

#3
I'd like to see some revisions to current ammo recipes and some new high level status bolts.
Even if an alchemist decided to skillup on Wind Arrowheads and puts them on AH, they will never be turned into arrows because Dogwood Lumber is far too expensive to justify it. Let me use Arrowwood Lumber to craft all arrows and Ash Lumber for all bolts. Also, why can't elemental arrows be turned into quivers? I can't carry twelve stacks of arrows and party leaders get upset when I craft during battle. I could enjoy some level 75 bind and slow bolts or even advanced element arrows: Blizzard Arrows do ice damage and paralyze.

[Mirabelle]

My biggest beef with RNG is that we have no way to do good damage and still keep the mob at optimum ranged distance for best damage. One successful barrage and mob is peeling away from other DD's straight for you. Even BLM's (the other ranged DDer) has access to more -enm gear and Enmity Douse/Mana Wall to help with that problem.

SE needs to solve that more than anything.

So I'd propose that Ranged attacks do 1/4 the enmity they currently do. Even better, Slugwinder should have the acc penalty removed and have a enmity down TP modifier like Wildfire does. If I can shoot at will and not worry about pulling the mob away fro the melee (causing them to miss WS), I'm more likely to get an invite. That and put Hot shot/Flaming arrow on the red proc list.

[Maginmartin]

Bilonn's suggestions are good. Hell, everyone's suggestions here are good.

As for the enmity thing, in a previous update our overall enmity was to be reduced, instead we got left with the Camouflague effect - it's a nice little thing, but I believe it should be changed to allow WSs and barrage to work w/out it wearing off, i.e. make it a 3min -enmity down thing. Either that, or leave it as is and just have ranged attacks generate less enmity, like your previous plans.

Come on SE, RNG needs some love, we've fallen far far far behind other DDs, and we would really appreciate a boost!

[xbobx]

What about crits. You have RR and GA which does wonders for Melee, but not as much for Ranged. Maybe it is time to let Ranged attack do full crits like melee?

[Kyoshin]

What about crits. You have RR and GA which does wonders for Melee, but not as much for Ranged. Maybe it is time to let Ranged attack do full crits like melee?

Since you're referencing atma we'll delve into Abyssea use only. Perhaps enhance the RAtk values on those specific atma to numbers where it'll actually help to compete?

[Dais]

As a corsair, I support most of these Suggestions. We corsairs share in your ammunition frustrations, they have us shooting gold literally now.
I have come to accept my low ranged attack but rangers are there just for attacking and not buffing too. I can sympathize with your issues, I think most of it comes from how ranged damage calculations differ from melee damage. I'm unsure about auto attacking ranged attacks but maybe something along the lines of instantly shooting a second shot as soon as it's ready if you /ra <t> while aiming the first shot? keep the speed mechanical but the choice to shoot intentional.
I like that moving shot trait idea, it would aid in my swashbuckling. as long as I could interrupt my aim on purpose by turning away or something.

[Lascivious]

I agree with Mirabelle on the enmity problem with Ranger, but I think that extends beyond Ranger into how enmity works in this game. At about 7-8k damage or so you cap your enmity, and at that point you will pull hate with every last action. SE really needs to increase the cap on enmity through damage so ALL melees aren't capping it so easily ( especially since 8000 damage is so feasible for everyone inside Abyssea ), which would actually help PLD be a better tank. A solution to this seems like it can only be solved with a complete overhaul of the enmity system, which might just be a pipe dream at the moment! Perhaps making the camouflauge enmity effect/duration a LOT stronger? Or a job trait that affects the amount of enmity you generate based on your positioning in accordance with the monster ( 1/4 enmity per shot when directly behind )?

I can't offer much input as far as enmity, but what I do want to address is Ranger's inability to keep up with other DDs. I think RNG does fine as far as how much damage it deals per shot/critical hits, it's simply the rate at which you can shoot. Snapshot and Rapidshot are nice, but they are hardly as effective as a standard melee's haste or even double attack/triple attack and also not nearly as available without having to sacrifice a lot of damage per shot. We all know dual wield is practically king in Abyssea, and it's unfortunate that Ranger cannot even come close to compare to the amount of damage Ninjas and Thieves put out. I think Double Shot becoming a fulltime buff just like Velocity Shot would put RNG a bit over the top... but it'd be nice! Maybe a double shot effect when True Shot is in effect?

The problem with tweaking RNG is that a small amount will probably go a long way, and if tweaked too much RNG will be top once again ( which will cause an impending nerf! ). I would think that something like reducing the delay after ranged attacks when the next one can be started would be subtle enough to help RNG out a lot. It was great back then when RNG didn't have to rely on DoT for their overall damage, but lately Sidewinder has been falling back behind everything else. Even Arching Arrow in Abyssea, although it puts out better numbers than Sidewinder, isn't significantly stronger. Jishnu's Radiance is on par with other good Empyrean WSs, but that just means it all comes back to how much damage you're doing outside of weapon skills which puts us far behind simply because of the volume of attacks. I don't know really. I'll come back if I have ideas that aren't stupid! Feel free to critique my suggestions.

And by the way, movement while ranged attacking is never going to happen... although the thought makes me drool, that's just completely broken! Infinite arrow kiting!

[Kitkat]

Outside of Abyssea, my DD capabilities are either on par with "decent" geared melee DD, but maybe only 2/3 the capabilities of Uber geared melee DD. I'll agree that the recent addition of 15 levels on Rng has actually seen a decrease in Ratt on gear in favor of Racc or STP+. I love Emp. Artifact armor for Rng, but at the same time I find myself Questioning if the full set is worth using over certain older pieces (C.C.A/P.P.A, Skadi or Relic Feet/A. Mantle) mainly due to the loss of Ratt in the slots. My new Rng set sports an amazing -40Enmity, easy 6hit build, and nice chunk of Racc/str/agi/skill, but only +46~50ratt compared to the alternative of +68~80ratt using older options?

I wonder on the -Enmity since I noticed little difference in the amount of hate I could pull prior to having any -enmity.

DD in abyssea seems ok in the sense of DoT. High 200~400 (high is crits) per hit (based off fighting buffalo in Abbysea - U. Range), but my blu does 120~240 (high is crits) and attacks much more often. WS damage is where I see the weakest numbers, but still relatively strong for a single hit WS, 1800~2900 (Full buffs+stalwarts+flashy shot), but the average is in the 1400~1700 range. This seems...rather low considering the 97D bow and 40D arrow I'm using. I would just like to see better numbers out of a Rng wearing +60Str, +50Agi, +50ratt using a 97+40D weapon (pre-atma).

Maybe the utter lack of +Ratt, or lower Delineation of Str affecting Ratt Dmg is the issue. Being as the Bow is technically considered a 2Hand weapon maybe SE needs to give it the same .75 buff that Scyth/GK/Gaxe/Polearm got a few years back.

[Rambus]

Unlink double shot and Unliminted shot, I want to know why SE did that, no reason for it.

Upgradeable/ or special properties of WS ammo (Aeolus arrow comes from mind, it is a rare ex drop from a NM, Not something i want to shoot without unlimited shot.


3. More ammunition.

One of the most crippling problems with Ranger is the lack of ammunition available. A trip to the auction house will show you that higher level arrows and bullets are either extremely expensive or simply not available. This is probably because of Ranger's general lack of popularity but also because the materials require to make most ammunition are difficult to obtain. Making NPCs that sell or synthesize ammo for you would be awesome. Not only is the lack of ammunition a problem but the lack of variety is as well. Ranger has dozens of bolts, arrows and bullets they can use from level 1 until 60. All of them with different effects and purposes. From 60 to 90 ammo quickly boils down to highest base damage. Having higher level equivalents to status effect and elemental effect ammo would be extremely cool.
People don't want to farm, People want to spend thier time in abyssea so that leads to a big slow down of farming and crafting. With help of a friend and spending about 100k for materals and tips , and 3 hours time farming I got 6 stacks of 12 antlion quivers. I posted my consern about that concept here:
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/874-Abyssea-and-crafting

[Kiba]

So far all the suggestions made in this thread to improve the usefulness of the ranger job I really like. I certainly agree to be comparable to other damage dealing jobs attack power, damage over time by enabling rangers to shoot while moving, and availability of ammo are all areas that need to be improved.

Also on a side note like Rambus mentioned I would like to know as well the reasoning behind double shot canceling unlimited shot. Since unlimited shot only applies to one attack round or using barrage it shouldn't be bad as far
as usage considering the possibility of recycle kicking in.

My question to the Development Team would be what is exactly the intended use for Bounty Shot besides a larger loot pool? When Treasure Hunter is on it nullifies the effect of Bounty Shot. So its use would be more for just farming mats and being a cheaper alternative when there is no Thf in party.

My ideas on improving the job to add onto the list:
4) Archery and Marksmanship do not have any area of effect weapon skills. It would be really nice if the ranger job can join in on the AOE popularity great axe and dagger users are currently utilizing. This would help rangers become more useful in exp parties and farming in Abyssea. So either a new aoe weaponskill or adding an AOE effect when using a job ability in conjunction with barrage would make it happen.
5) With the introduction of bounty shot, Rangers have first entered a different job function other than damage dealing. I would like to see the Ranger job become involved in other uses such as party support abilities. I was joking with my friend the other day that it would be fun if I can shoot him with an arrow to cure him up :P If something like healing arrow is introduced it would be fun if the amount cure depends on ranged distance, critical hit, and cure potency. Arrows that remove status effects, dispel enemy buffs would be cool too.
6) Lastly, just a wild thought that came to mind. The way I look at it fishing and playing ranger are very similar. It would be fun if Rangers had an ability(every 10-20minutes similar to merit abilities) which when activated starts a gauge to charge up a very strong ranged attack. If successful deals damage and inflicts a defense down effect.

That is all I have for now. If my ideas sound silly please excuse me :)

[Militis]

Personally, as a career RNG, I haven't noticed the whole DMG issue you guys speak of. Either it's my career/skill level with the job and/or a lot of the close-range DDs I've played with but I've always felt on par if not superior to their DPS output, and the benefit is ranged attacks give virtually no TP, especially /NIN with subtle blow.. Although I agree it could be better. Also on another note, purhaps it's about time we see another advancement to Wide Scan. previously we saw an upgrade every 20 levels. So what about Wide Scan VI for level 80. Personally the biggest asset I tend to bring to my linkshell when we're out spamming NMs in Abyss is my ability to scan for time-spawn NMs. This would assist in this purpose. And also if Double Shot is going to share a timer with Unlimited Shot, than shouldn't it also be effected by the merits that lower Unlimited Shot recast? We have status bolts/arrows for just about every spell debuff out there, perhaps it's time we get an amnesia ammo too, or a more reliable stun ammo?

[noodles355]

I agree with a lot in this topic and would also like to add some views of my own. Firstly some comments on the above:

The OP is right on ranger damage. Ranger not only has the highest DMG weapons available in the game but it also uses the function fStr2, not fStr like melees, meaning that it only takes 2-3 Str to raise Base Damage by one, unlike the 4-6 Str it takes a melee. This pushes our Base Damage even higher. Ranger's Base Damage is the highest of any job in the game, yet our damage per hit does definitely not reflect this.

Furthermore, as stated above: Critical hits. Critical hits do very little to a ranged attack in comparison to a melee round. If you gave a melee job a 3.5ftp weaponskill with a 30% Agi mod that could critical hit, it would be a very strong weaponskill in abyssea. I would like to compare this WS with Blade: Hi, which is 4.0ftp 60% AGI. Blade: Hi has higher ftp and WSC mod, and also has a second hit. But then please appreciate that a Naked Blade: Hi will be with a weapon that has roughly 70 Base damage if you had around 80 Str naked and were using a 50ish Damage Katana. In comparison, the weaponskill I mention above would be with a 200 Base Damage weapon (150ish dmg gun+bullet, 80 Str naked). Blade: Hi is an incredibly strong weaponskill. That weaponskill I mention above is Heavy Shot. It is a very average weaponskill inside abyssea with Crit Rate/Crit Damage atmas.

This is an example of how Base Damage seems to mean very little, and how critical hits are so weak for ranger.

The 2nd serious point is as Mirabelle makes: Moving the enemy with attacks. There are two types of enmity, Volatile and Cumulative Enmity (VE and CE). With our damage output being lower than melees, we will have lower CE built up and will thus not be tanking the mob, however there is still the issue of VE. A strong weaponskill can generate enough VE to get the mob's attention even if you are low on it's hate list. This will cause the mob to move to you. What this means is either:
a) You move the mob, annoying all the melees and possibly causing them to miss WS through the mob being too far away.
b) You stay in melee distance to stop this problem, but then take a significant hit to your damage output.
This really needs to be addressed.

On a related note: The enmity genreated by Camoflage is too high. If you use Camoflage before a Barrage and land most of the hits, you will have generated less enmity than if you hadn't used camoflage. However if you use Camoflage and only land a few, or miss your barrage, then you've just generated needless extra enmity.

The third point I would like to make is about Ranger's defence. Or lack of defence.
Ranger has no native damage mitigation (Such as Thf and Nin's Evasion, Mnk and War's Counter, Sam's Seigan, Pld's Shield)
Ranger has no native self-healing (Such as Drg's Wyvern, Dnc's Sambers, Pld's Cures)
Ranger has no native enmity-shedding ability (Such as Drg's High and Super Jump, Blm's Enmity Douse)
On top of that it's selection of -Physical Damage Taken gear is pitifully low. We can't equip the Darksteel+1 armor set, the Gavial/Hydra set, the Arhat's Set and none of the Heavy Armor options (Valhalla, Grim, Heavy Gauntlets, etc). The only gear we have access to is the same "All Jobs" equipment that everyone else has access to too.

Furthermore, the way ranged attacks are calulated makes this a large problem, not just a mild-annoyance:
A Melee attack is calulated instantly at the start of the turn. This means anytime during their delay phase they can cast a spell, or use a JA or WS or item etc. Ranger can't. When you fire a shot, you first have Aiming delay, based off the delay of your gun/bow/xbox. The only way to interupt this delay is to move about, but even if you move about the cancelation of the shot is not instant, you still have to wait the same amount of time. After you fire your shot you then have a 2nd phase of delay where you can do nothing at all (The old: "You must wait longer to perform that action" notice. Essentially, once you start a shot, you are stuck shooting untill the shot has completely fired. During this time you can't do anything. If the enemy is attacking you it's very easy to take a lot of damage (especially from NMs) during this time. The only option you have is to throw on -PDT gear, but as I stated above, ranger has very limited access to -PDT gear.
To be honest, if that was a real situation and a monster was attacking me, I wouldn't just stand there and take a beating whilst doing nothing for 5 seconds. I'd stop aiming and try to defend myself! Would it be possible to interupt the aiming phase of a ranged attack, cancelling it, to use a JA or spell?

So ranger has no defence worth mentioning, but to be honest I can understand why: SE's original intent for this job was obviously as some sort of Glass Cannon. That would be fine if the Cannon part was true, but as this thread shows: it's just not. Ranger is more of a Glass Peashooter.

What other DD job in the game conciders Novia Earring as a worthwhile TP piece? What other DD in the game conciders a SJ purely for a 33% Enmity shedding ability? None. That's the state ranger is in now. Regarding enmity there is one thing oh so very very simple that SE could do. Simple and reasonable. Make Camoflage shed enmity. Dragoon can remove 100% of it's enmity every 3 minutes. Ranger has a MUCH bigger enmity problem than dragoon. Why can't Ranger do the same?

Re: Militis, please don't take this as an atatck, it's anything but that. You may feel on par with other DDs, but guess what? I've outdamaged many DDs on Bard before abyssea was released. Does that mean bard is a good melee job? No. Comparing yourself to random DDs is not an accurate way to measure your strength. You must either compare yourself to an equally geared and played job, or compare yourself to yourself on another job. On top of that you will need to parse the results. Eyeballing is also not an effective way to accurately deduce a job's DD potential.

[Mirabelle]

Personally, as a career RNG, I haven't noticed the whole DMG issue you guys speak of. Either it's my career/skill level with the job and/or a lot of the close-range DDs I've played with but I've always felt on par if not superior to their DPS output

Oh I can out damage a lot of DD's on RNG. THis is part do to my damage outut and part due to the fact the mob is always running away from the other DD to my position, causing them to miss hits and WS's. It's amazing how good you look when hate is scattered all over. And its fun to have the WHM's complain about all the Cure's you are needing as you try to tank the mob with minimal skills to do so. Is it any wonder RNG are so rarely invited anymore.
THe dstance penalty is the elephant in the closet. Nobody wants a DD that moves the mob all over the place. Yet that is what we are stuck doing if we try to compete for damage. its either that or stand face to face with the mob and have our damage nerfed.
It's a real problem.
And WS needs to indicate if a mob is claimed or not to be truly useful.

[koyukii]

atma of luminous wings, a lot of enmity- gear, stealth shot, scavenge, Aeolus Arrow + unlimited shot, just that allow me to SPAM ws and the NM never come to see me. with 2 other DD atma (stout arm and VV) i can deal 2K-3K with side and 3k+ with 300tp refulgent arrow all that in a 6 player group.
Hate isn't a matter , i play rng/war every day ok i accept to lose some dmg power with a 3rd DD atma but the survivability is more important and the mage can focus only on the tank.

i want like every rng an other enmity JA ,a way to have a defensive ability (like blm), moving while using arrow will be awesome for the job, separate double shot from unlimited shot (that's stupid i still don't understand it), an other way to save ammo, and of course a a better equality with the critical's ws jobs.

[noodles355]

What the hell is steal shot?
And since when did scavenge do anything useful whatsoever? Also Aeolus Arrow and Unlimited Shot? You can't spam that, it has a 2:30 recast (5/5 merits).

I don't like your post, but it does prove a point: What single other DD job in the game would concider a support Job ONLY for it's 33% Enmity shedding ability (/Drg)? What other Job would concider Novia Earring or Pax Grip or Troopers Ring a fulltime piece of TP gear? None. Enmity needs to be adressed.

I see no reason why Dragoon, a job that can equip a decent amount of -PDT gear (30-40% is pretty accessable) AND can Cure it's self for 400-500HP every 1 minute requires a 100% Enmity shed ability on a 3min recast, and yet ranger has nothing similar.

Just make Camoflage shed 100% of your enmity like super jump. That's a pretty easy fix.


The big problem is that not enough people play ranged jobs to understand the difference in the damage calulations they use, and thus no one will ever make a big enough deal about it, even though it is completely flawed. But this will require another post. Maybe I'll make one tomorrow.

[Hinabi]

That and put Hot shot/Flaming arrow on the red proc list.
This ^

Also, a couple of people have touched on ranger's lack of damage mitigation, curing, evasion, etc and it made me remember the original Ranger that did more damage than most but risked dying if a few hits if they over did it. Now Ranger is on-par with other DDs but still risks dying so easily. Either give us the means to defend ourselves like other DDs or give us the power and damage output to greatly surpass them if we are willing to risk it.

[Militis]

Now what would be awesome is if ranged weapon skills were on the Red proc list and not just the Blue. also tell me why Flame Arrow/ Hot Shot give Ruby light when they are clearly ELEMENTAL! They should be giving Amber, not Ruby.

[Hoshi]

Ranger was my first job to 75 and my absolute favorite job. I played pre-nerf and post-nerf and after the 'fix'. I will always love this job but the respect we get from other players is pathetic. I am not allowed to play ranger for ls events because it has been deemed useless for most endgame activities.

There is an issue of damage output. My ranger had the best gear at 75. With that gear I was able to keep up with all but the best players in my shell. It was upsetting that my gear was equal (or better) than theirs but my damage never equaled or exceeded theirs. I think the thing that puts us at the greatest disadvantage is that we are completely different from other DDs. Haste and march have no benefit for our damage (and these are the primary buffs that other DDs are given). There needs to be something that offsets this full time because in reality other DD will always have haste and march in a group situation and so these DD will always outperform us if we don't get some other kind of buff (perhaps making velocity shot stronger?). SE needs to offset the advantage of these buffs for rangers OR add a buff to these buffs that gives rangers some benefit.

My other large complaint is about abyssea. Because ranger is useless in abyssea, it is rare that we are allowed to bring ranger to abyssea (there's also the issue of atmas for rangers not being as powerful as double attack/crit atmas). Make hotshot and flaming arrow trigger red !!!. My linkshell refuses to use ranger in abyssea because they have no use for farming KI's and empyrian upgrades. I haven't played ranger since we stopped killing Yilbegan before abyssea was added to the game.

I agree that enmity is a bit of an issue but I've looked at this as a tradeoff. We don't get hit by AoEs and so we pay a penalty for that. Before abyssea my linkshell brought rangers to any fight with nasty AoE's and we all subbed dragoon to shed hate. We dealt comparable damage to melee DDs as long as we were given double minuet + chaos roll but we required less mp to heal as long as we watched our hate.

As far as bounty shot goes all I can say is WTF? :P This doesn't stack with TH and THF has more uses for most events (they can deaggro adds, pull NMs, tank, deal great dmg, trigger multiple !!!, help mitigate hate for a party, dispel buffs)... Why give ranger another JA that has little use. I think it would have made more sense to give bounty shot to COR and triple shot to RNG.

I realize there are other jobs that also need to be fixed to make them more important for abyssea (PLD, DRK, SCH, DRG) but the fact is RNG has been broken much longer than these other jobs and I think it's time it was fixed.

[Aeyliea]

Heh. Real rangers use Vulcan's Staff for the ranged attack and the STR, and since that is a 2hand weapon, gain the .75 bonus on attack from STR.

I've been playing RNG since before the patch the practically destroyed the class. Now, though, the real problem is DPS. A Ranger can crank out awesomely high numbers - I can spank out a 4-7K Jishnu's no problem, and critical hits can, with ODD from set bonus and aftermath, reach 2400-3000 damage for a single ranged attack - even with that, a Ranger is a lesser class of damage dealer. Outside of abyssea we still do well enough, inside abyssea, however, we are way down the list.

The problem in abyssea is the kind of atma's we DO NOT get. Any swinging DD can get triple attack and double attack from a variety of atma's that greatly increase their damage output. Rangers get nothing of the sort. A ranger with perfect gear going against a average geared warrior outside of abyssea, and that warrior will get its backside thumped so hard in terms of sheer damage output that it'd be embaressing. Inside abyssea, that same WAR can destroy a ranger, simply by putting on atma of the apocolypse and getting some good procs on triple attack during weapon skills.

There needs to be some kind of atmas that increase snapshot, or grant double shot effect, or increase rapid shot. At current, there are only a few atmas that increase ranged accuracy and attack; the best ranger atma's currently are razed ruins, strong arm, and voracious violet - and those (excluding RR) only for the base stats they grant, not their other effects.

[Crazze]

I am not understanding the person who posted that THF out damages RNG. I have both jobs and if I go balls to the wall on both jobs RNG will win in damage output hands down. The problem is I can't go balls to the wall with RNG or I end up with my face in the ground.

We need some kind of enmity down trait or something otherwise we will never be able to compete with other DD's because I mostly find myself holding back on RNG because of our complete lack of defensive capabilities. We have no native parrying skill whatsoever our evasion skill is equal to a BLM. Yet when I play my BLM I have stoneskin, manawall, and enmity dowse. RNG has camouflage which any RNG knows is next to useless.

As for Atma's we have Stout Arm though the need to make the range attack on that superior since attack is superior. Then we have Drifter great atma for rng acc and att. Then we get the all mighty sea daughter 5/tick regain and the slow doesn't effect us in the slightest.

Damage is in no way at all a problem for a decent Ranger the problem is our enmity and our survivability. Instead of addressing those issues, SE gives us a worthless ability "Bounty Shot" hell at least make it stack with TH and let it be used as an automatic TH +1 proc. THF got mob up to TH9? Ok time to bounty shot and make that TH10. Instead it is worthless and we still can't survive if we pull hate.

Oh and for the person who posted that RNG is useless in abyssea is completely unfounded and wrong. RNG covers half of the blue procs during piercing time. Yea it's stupid that we can't help proc red but what is worse is we can't even help farm amber light since flaming arrow for some reason unbeknown to me it gives ruby light, while other ele ws's even none red proc'ing ones still produce amber light at least.

[Rambus]

Furthermore, the way ranged attacks are calulated makes this a large problem, not just a mild-annoyance:
A Melee attack is calulated instantly at the start of the turn. This means anytime during their delay phase they can cast a spell, or use a JA or WS or item etc. Ranger can't. When you fire a shot, you first have Aiming delay, based off the delay of your gun/bow/xbox. The only way to interupt this delay is to move about, but even if you move about the cancelation of the shot is not instant, you still have to wait the same amount of time. After you fire your shot you then have a 2nd phase of delay where you can do nothing at all (The old: "You must wait longer to perform that action" notice. Essentially, once you start a shot, you are stuck shooting untill the shot has completely fired. During this time you can't do anything. If the enemy is attacking you it's very easy to take a lot of damage (especially from NMs) during this time. The only option you have is to throw on -PDT gear, but as I stated above, ranger has very limited access to -PDT gear.
To be honest, if that was a real situation and a monster was attacking me, I wouldn't just stand there and take a beating whilst doing nothing for 5 seconds. I'd stop aiming and try to defend myself! Would it be possible to interupt the aiming phase of a ranged attack, cancelling it, to use a JA or spell?

There are other things that makes that message pop up thats annoying. If you run around to stop a spell you still have that "You must wait longer to perform that action" you must /heal to stop that and the same holds true for range atttacks. Using items can cause a bigger then needed delay as well. It is just bad programing or ps2 limtations or something.

[Crazze]

Problem with that Rambus is that you can't rest while engaged with a mob.

[Superchicken]

you talk about rng not beign able to put up the dmg like other dd's. That depends on how badass of a rng you are. I have a KC and gandiva and well, i can pretty much embarass the other dd's if a mage can keep me alive

[Superchicken]

Heh. Real rangers use Vulcan's Staff for the ranged attack and the STR, and since that is a 2hand weapon, gain the .75 bonus on attack from STR.

I've been playing RNG since before the patch the practically destroyed the class. Now, though, the real problem is DPS. A Ranger can crank out awesomely high numbers - I can spank out a 4-7K Jishnu's no problem, and critical hits can, with ODD from set bonus and aftermath, reach 2400-3000 damage for a single ranged attack - even with that, a Ranger is a lesser class of damage dealer. Outside of abyssea we still do well enough, inside abyssea, however, we are way down the list.



Real rangers use Kraken Club, and i don't know how you can say RNG is a lesser class of dmg dealer in abyssea. I can put out the massive dmg over any other melee in abyssea. Jishnu's Radiance every 10 seconds will leave the other melee with face in palm

[Hoshi]

Oh and for the person who posted that RNG is useless in abyssea is completely unfounded and wrong. RNG covers half of the blue procs during piercing time. Yea it's stupid that we can't help proc red but what is worse is we can't even help farm amber light since flaming arrow for some reason unbeknown to me it gives ruby light, while other ele ws's even none red proc'ing ones still produce amber light at least.

How often do you proc blue in abyssea? My linkshell rarely does and they target blue proc mobs at blunt mode since tank party has all those triggers covered. Most focus is proccing red for KI and grellow for drops. In fact if red !!! didn't exist I think most DD outside of the tank party would find themselves stuck on BLM BLU or BRD. Also as far as amber goes, get an armageddon. I solo amber light for my ls (sadly on COR since we don't bring RNG to things).

[Neisan_Quetz]

Everyone else also goes for blunt proc because it only requires 2 jobs, if your group is big enough piercing is second easiest only requiring 3 and one is Thf which you should be bringing anyway. The only time which requires a disgusting amount of jobs to 100% proc (although war can cover a bit over half of them) is slashing.
If you're going for armor drops blue+TH so you aren't wasting time is the way to go, if you're missing blunt and spilling over to piercing Rng has some use at least.

[Hoshi]

There have been some nights when we brought a full blue trigger party but items that drop frequently that each person only needs one of (that is equipable on multiple jobs) quickly got checked off wantlists. At this point we spend a majority of our abyssea time farming af3+2 upgrades and emp weapon upgrades. I think most endgame shells would tell a similar story.

[Militis]

Real rangers use Kraken Club, and i don't know how you can say RNG is a lesser class of dmg dealer in abyssea. I can put out the massive dmg over any other melee in abyssea. Jishnu's Radiance every 10 seconds will leave the other melee with face in palm

Everyone will play RNG their own way. So to say a real RNG uses this weapon or that, is an opinion not a fact. In my opinion only gimp RNGs use Kraken Club. Yeah sure you MAY spam weapon skills more often, however and what cost? To make it so you actually hit a decent amount of time on that club you must sacrifice some Ranged Accuracy/Ranged Attack for melee Accuracy. Even if you macro the good Weapon Skill gear in, youa re still sacrificing a Weapon that would benefit your Weapon Skill better. Also, as Superchicken says, it only works IF, and only if, the mages can keep you alive from all the extra enmity. I'm sure I speak for many groups out there when I say the extra attention on a glass jawed job is not desired.

I'm sure at least one numskull who swears by the Kraken Club is going to try and rage and flame me for saying this, but that just proves the point that they truly are NOT a team player, which is what this game is mostly about.

[Superchicken]

Everyone will play RNG their own way. So to say a real RNG uses this weapon or that, is an opinion not a fact. In my opinion only gimp RNGs use Kraken Club. Yeah sure you MAY spam weapon skills more often, however and what cost? To make it so you actually hit a decent amount of time on that club you must sacrifice some Ranged Accuracy/Ranged Attack for melee Accuracy. Even if you macro the good Weapon Skill gear in, youa re still sacrificing a Weapon that would benefit your Weapon Skill better. Also, as Superchicken says, it only works IF, and only if, the mages can keep you alive from all the extra enmity. I'm sure I speak for many groups out there when I say the extra attention on a glass jawed job is not desired.

I'm sure at least one numskull who swears by the Kraken Club is going to try and rage and flame me for saying this, but that just proves the point that they truly are NOT a team player, which is what this game is mostly about.

you got at my point exactly. Everyone plays the job different. Yes i carry the staff as well. And what do you mean have to sacrifice racc ratk gear to get hits with KC. Of course, when you use a KC you have a melee tp set and then of course you have a WS set. You think WS in the KC gear? WS set is the same no matter if using KC or staff as main hand weapon. So the statement about sacrificing ratk and racc for melee acc gear is not even a factor here, cause if you are a KC rng you have a tp build consisting of haste and acc to build your tp from the melee hits of the KC. If i'm tping from bow shots then of course i'm using my Ratk / little bit of RAcc build for that (i dont need much Racc from gear as my merits and torque and some of the archery + gear is plenty).

And of course the KC is situational. It the situation can handle me beating the crap on it with KC and spamming Jishnu's Radiance and my mage can handle it then theres no way a Ranger who's using Ratks solely is gonna keep up in dmg when i'm cranking out WS's every few seconds. if the situation cant handle the massive tp feed a KC brings and me constantly getting beat on from all the enmity of ws spam then yes, i'm in the back pluckign away with Range attacks in my appropriate ratk gear.

Oh and i must add seeing RNGs walk around and shoot in all this Racc instead of Ratk and STR gear makes me ><. I will say this, REAL rangers have merits in their weapon of choice. I've never ever had an issue on RNG where i need to stack Racc in every slot like i see alot of rangers doing

The right to opinion is awesome and yes this is mine. Everyone plays their job different. There's RNGs who swear by /nin so they can dual wield two weapons for stat bonuses. I personally will not /nin as /sam and /war provide more imo. Their's rangers who /drg so they can jump their hate. We all know their comes commen sense when playing any job. Sittign there and spamming WS's or epeening out on those battles that last longer than a couple minutes is not very beneficial when you are laying face down from it due to your constant pulling of hate and you are spending more time dead/weakened than you are fighting and contributing to the fight

[noodles355]

In this topic:

Shooting Ranger: My damage sucks compared to melee.
Kracken Club Ranger: My damage is great

Conclusion: Kracken Club makes Rng not suck.

Ranger has to spend 30-45 million gil to not suck. Great job design.

[Superchicken]

In this topic:

Shooting Ranger: My damage sucks compared to melee.
Kracken Club Ranger: My damage is great

Conclusion: Kracken Club makes Rng not suck.

Ranger has to spend 30-45 million gil to not suck. Great job design.

or get lucky on a BC drop!

But KC or no KC i don't see why people think ranger sucks. You got to look at its role and what it brings to the table. Ranger can stand in the back line and not get hit by AoE's and deal damage. Thats a bonus in my eyes. People need to realize RNG is not SAM, RNG is not MNK, ranger is and never will be anything of those jobs cause Ranger is Ranger. If you want to punch like crazy then level mnk. Want to be able to make skillchains and have tp alot level sam, etc. People need to see the job for what it is. RNG deals great dmg and can do so without taking damage. And mobs that are weak to piercing, well we all know the story on that when a RNG gets in there.

[SNK]

RNG doesn't suck but using a Kraken Club on it does. There's enough Atmas out there where you can easily get a good regain build off it and still pump out solid damage. Not everyone has access to getting a club and even if you do the BCNM, the drop rate is horrid so making the suggestion that you should use a club is a terrible one when you should be offering instead better atma choices and gear which will help you put out solid damage over a 40 million gil item.

[Virjunior]

What about crits. You have RR and GA which does wonders for Melee, but not as much for Ranged. Maybe it is time to let Ranged attack do full crits like melee?

...What? I can crit for between 350 and 643... Double shot and a lot of Recycle help with damage consistency, too.

[Virjunior]

In this topic:

Shooting Ranger: My damage sucks compared to melee.
Kracken Club Ranger: My damage is great

Conclusion: Kracken Club makes Rng not suck.

Ranger has to spend 30-45 million gil to not suck. Great job design.

Wrong. It used to be that DRK sucked unless it bought what used to be 125 million on my server. Ranger was always good, just costly. I love mine now...wouldn't use it for Dynamis, but in EXP parties, camping, Abyssea, and skillchaining whenever possible, I can put out some decent numbers.

A few weeks back, I did between 2800 and 3200 dmg with an Empyreal Arrow to the Iron Giant in Abyssea-Altepa...I can't remember which is was, it was just really friggin high. This is with /NIN sub.

[SNK]

That's not bad at all. You could just spam Arching Arrow with Razed Ruins but I enjoyed playing around with Refulgent Arrow and the damage was constant enough where I pumping out 2.8k average.

[Catsby]

A few weeks back, I did between 2800 and 3200 dmg with an Empyreal Arrow to the Iron Giant in Abyssea-Altepa...I can't remember which is was, it was just really friggin high. This is with /NIN sub.

WS damage is only part of your damage output and any other DD can hit those numbers.

The purpose of this thread was to point on how fundamentally broken RNG is when compared to other jobs in the same category and how little attention it has received lately. Back then it had options to compliment play styles. Your bows and bowguns were quick and had additional effects like elemental damage or various status effects. Guns kind of made you into a glass cannon if you burned all your JA with them. Those types of playstyles haven't transitioned well over the years because;

1) gear, weapons and ammo remained somewhat stagnate.
Examples; the damage/add.eff on elemental bolts/arrows doesn't increase with level and has a cap. Ebow was the best well into ToM (reminder: it's level 55). somebody already brought up kclub and that's pretty self explanatory.

2) very old restrictions remained in place.
Examples; Ranger is forced to wait several seconds before continuing primary functions. In that time several melee attack rounds can occur.
Go into abyssea on your favorite melee class and use these atmas; razed ruins and gnarled horn. Let a couple thousand attack rounds occur and parse your critical hit rate and then do the same with ranger. note the staggering difference.

3) all the other jobs were improved. (this one is just depressing)
Example; Look at any damage dealer other than Ranger around ToAU and then now. Chances are that job received a multitude of new abilities, traits, weapon skills, spells, gear and adjustments that extended across multiple jobs. Ranger received an unimpressive ability to slightly enhance ranged attacks and... bounty shot. Outstanding...

[Virjunior]

Double Shot. I can crit for around 650. Rapid Shot. Snapshot. Maybe I might not feel like I'm doing a ton of damage, but I can still pull hate from a Thief that never stops attacking (RR, VV, Alpha & Omega). They can do crazy amounts of DoT, but I still manage to take hate off of them, even with about -15 enmity on my gear. Sure, crazy DDs can put out 4000s or 5000s, but I don't see that outside of an insane WAR in my shell who spends more of his time eating dirt than fighting (Double Attack at work), or the leader (MNK with fully upgraded 90 Spharai, and Ascetic's Fury). We can also produce a bunch of damage from nowhere in the form of Barrage, which might as well be a paid Sekkanoki or Meditate of sorts.

When it comes to melee WSes or DoT, those are the only 2 who beat me. When I play DRK, I can crit for the same amount as my RNG, and of course around 900-1000ish with a Magnus Scythe, but for all intents and purposes, I find Ranger more interesting, and more versatile than DRK sometimes. If a friend goes to do Carabosse, I can save our RDM and MNK-tank some stress by firing off some acid and blind bolts. It actually does help, and if I need to heal a bit, I can use bloodies. If I need more damage, I'll pull out my longbow. True, I almost always miss Drain I/II, Dread Spikes and Stun, but you can't have everything...

I'm just hoping I can get some +2 stuff to check out:
"Set: Augments Rapid Shot"
"Enhances Velocity Shot effect"
"Enhances Snapshot effect"
"Enhances Double Shot effect"
"'True Shot' +1"

I really don't see how RNGs might complain, often thinking that because they used to pay for broken damage, anything less is for peasants. I agree that additional effects should scale up, as putting on an extra 40 MND hasn't made any changes to Holy Bolts that I can see. Aside from that, I'm just surprised how many people don't want to show restraint in their damage, and each DD expects to be able to dismantle nearly anything by themselves. I wouldn't play this game if things were like that, or it'd be too easy. That, or it'd be WoW.

I like cooperating with others, and of course I like the feeling of saving a mage's ass with a well timed Stun on an add. Still, I wouldn't want a single-player game that just happens to be online, and find plenty of great usefulness for my RNG over my DRK. I find the opposite true in other cases, and that's why I leveled both. I like them both for their different styles and where they can each be awesome at completely different things, at different times, and in different situations.

Clumping together all non-mage DDs and expecting them to all perform the same would invalidate the very fact that there are seperate DD jobs. Not to mention, it would make for a shite game.

[Neisan_Quetz]

hate cap of 8k if it's a long fight, every DD worth their salt is going to cap eventually. Not even going into the Thf using VV bit but file that under bad atma if you have better (sounds like he should if he can get RR) unless needed for gathering TP while idling for procing. Tell that war invest in a PDT/MDT set as well or get a new healer, shouldn't be eating dirt that often, stuff should be dead.

Snapshot needs to be updated with either increased value or the delay of putting the bow away needs to be removed/ignored for ranged shots, outside (inside too) the inability of haste affecting Rng and the poor options in snapshot is what hurts rng in the long run, although the enhances V shot from Caban helps assuming it reduces delay (considering shooting rng and ignoring get a k club debate).

[Catsby]

stuff about hate and snapshot.

This guy is on the right track. Ranged attacks are like job abilities that have been gerry rigged to deal damage and give TP (complete with movement locking and cooldowns). This extends to all ranged attacks but Ranger is hurt most by it.

[Virjunior]

Nah, the Thief is tanking a bunch of stuff, and he can easily keep hate with all the double/triple/quadruple attack he has. RR is just to make sure hate stays on him after he gathers his initial 20 seconds or so of attacking.

The reason why the WAR goes down so much is because he's hell bent on doing all the damage ever to a mob, which reminds me of what was said earlier...KC can make you do retarded damage, but how long is that going to last if you're dead? And how much help are you to anyone when you're lying face down on the ground?

I think the bigger problem has nothing to do with DDs, though there are obvious problems. I totally agree with your idea of Snapshot, but the biggest issue for job interactivity and role should be PLDs, and the fact that their hate cap isn't broken.

[Mirabelle]

I don't think the problem with RNG is a lack of damage. We're relatively on par (despite paying). We still can get hate just like every other DD.
Problem is, when RNG gets hate, it screws everyone else including the RNG. Now the RNG's distance nerf comes into play. Now every other melee DD has missed his WS as the mob comes raging after you. Now every mage is muttering "Gawd damm RNG!" as AoE moves towards them and they have to pump out a ton of Cure V's to save your ass.
Until the enmity formula is changed, the bottom line is that a RNG has to hold back to keep everyone happy and that will always nerf your parse.

[Virjunior]

The only DDs I can think of that don't need to hold back are DRG and MNK

[Kitkat]

I don't think the problem with RNG is a lack of damage. We're relatively on par (despite paying). We still can get hate just like every other DD.
Problem is, when RNG gets hate, it screws everyone else including the RNG. Now the RNG's distance nerf comes into play. Now every other melee DD has missed his WS as the mob comes raging after you. Now every mage is muttering "Gawd damm RNG!" as AoE moves towards them and they have to pump out a ton of Cure V's to save your ass.
Until the enmity formula is changed, the bottom line is that a RNG has to hold back to keep everyone happy and that will always nerf your parse.

I guess this is probably my biggest beef about rng also. Granted my blu and thf, as of now, bury my rng in overall dmg but it is mainly due to the fact that enmity builds fast on rng and survivability is a joke. Have to stand in a "sweet spot" to get ideal damage numbers and when you pull hate you cause it to run away from other melee.
Even without Jishnu's Radiance, rng can still put out decent dmg, but at the same time I don't know any that would...after my last instance on rng, I sure as hell won't. Even spacing out my attacks I pulled hate...over a blm of all things.

I wish SE would have kept the plan to lower rng enmity if out of the sweet spot, shot for shot, cause rng really could have used it. If I remember right this was one of those adjustments they planned about a year ago, but ended up scrapping after test phase for some reason.

[Catsby]

enmity stuff...

This is kind of a problem for any job that deals damage and isn't trying to tank, not just Ranger. It really is a mystery why the dev team chose not to go with the -enmity stuff for ranger though.

[Feliciaa]

This is kind of a problem for any job that deals damage and isn't trying to tank, not just Ranger. It really is a mystery why the dev team chose not to go with the -enmity stuff for ranger though.

I think SE did not add the -enmity stuff because of the advantage bow users would gain over Xbow + Gun users and with the type of -enmity gear we have there was the potential of making it so we just about never pull hate.

However, I think they should have at least given us 2 JAs similar to DRG's High and Super jump. That way there is still a need to watch hate but it's no longer a "I have hate but there is nothing I can do about it besides watch the mob take my face off"

[Kitkat]

Yes, this happens on all jobs, but even with all the -enmity they gave rng this time around I still produce enmity much faster than other DD jobs I have that actually do more in less time. My blu has capped haste in gear+15% from spell+15%DA and in one attack round I can potentially do 2-3x the dmg of one shot and pull less hate than I would on rng. In or out of abyssea I run into this very issue. 2500 Quad continuum and my enmity decays faster than on my rng who does equal/less damage. The best part is, my blu has no -enmity on at all, infact +enmity while my rng is -13 at all times and up to -40 for WS. Something is visibly wrong with enmity generation with ranged attacks considering this, especially when I hold back on purpose as rng and still gain hate.

In abyssea I can understand this since most NM (Tier II and up) generally has some form of hate reset move, but at almost anything I do in or out of abyssea in comparison to other DD jobs I play that has either +enmity or no -enmity...I can't, so this isn't just a matter of "every DD has the problem," so much as it is vastly more noticeable on rng even when holding back. I've also compared the hate generation to other DD jobs I have, not just blu (such as war, drk, blm, thf), just trying to say that either the decay of enmity from ranged attack is lower/broken or that it generates high enough enmity that coupling it with JA most rng use regularly it isn't outlandish for people to request something to help lower it against the job.

[Alkalinehoe]

After about 2-3 WS, all DDs should be capped on hate. So virtually -ENM in abyssea for DDs isn't realistic.

[Saiken]

JA:Sniper Ranged attacks create no enmity. Lvl99 of course as it more pertains to endgame activities.
idk could prolly jusy copy code from the jump hate shed save an animation opa! /happy rngs

edit: no i wont sub drg.

As for Ranged attack gear what is optimal for ws without sacrificing other mods? anybody good at math have some numbers?

[Alkalinehoe]

JA:Sniper Ranged attacks create no enmity. Lvl99 of course as it more pertains to endgame activities.
idk could prolly jusy copy code from the jump hate shed save an animation opa! /happy rngs

edit: no i wont sub drg.

As for Ranged attack gear what is optimal for ws without sacrificing other mods? anybody good at math have some numbers?
What WS do you intend to use?

[Saiken]

Jishnu's Radiance woebow

[Kitkat]

After about 2-3 WS, all DDs should be capped on hate. So virtually -ENM in abyssea for DDs isn't realistic.

That wasn't what the point was about, it was about the fact that enmity builds faster and the fact that being able to strip/negate it would be nice. Especially when any of my other DD jobs don't gain hate nearly as fast even though I would be dealing more damage. I like rng, but at the same time having a mob turn and run at me like I just insulted its mother after 3-5 shots perplexes me when my other DD's will do more damage than those 3-5 shots in a smaller time frame. If I used Barrage or something, yeah I expect the mob to B-line it over to me, but just from standard shots...not so much.

[Emerican]

I guess this is probably my biggest beef about rng also. Granted my blu and thf, as of now, bury my rng in overall dmg but it is mainly due to the fact that enmity builds fast on rng and survivability is a joke. Have to stand in a "sweet spot" to get ideal damage numbers and when you pull hate you cause it to run away from other melee.
Even without Jishnu's Radiance, rng can still put out decent dmg, but at the same time I don't know any that would...after my last instance on rng, I sure as hell won't. Even spacing out my attacks I pulled hate...over a blm of all things.

I wish SE would have kept the plan to lower rng enmity if out of the sweet spot, shot for shot, cause rng really could have used it. If I remember right this was one of those adjustments they planned about a year ago, but ended up scrapping after test phase for some reason.

It's sadly been this way since the huge 2005 nerf. SE just needs to make another ability that would allow you to shoot from any distance and not have changes in accuracy and attack, but your melee attacks would not grant TP. That way we could stay Melee distance and not have to worry about pulling mobs away from everyone else.

The other biggest flaw with RNG is the ammo needs to be sold from NPC's at this point SE, seriously make it happen.

[Raka]

<waits for Bow or Crossbow/Gun to be designed into the Character costume> Not too much of a big deal I suppose, but it would be cool having a bow on your back or a gun at your side. :-3

[Emerican]

<waits for Bow or Crossbow/Gun to be designed into the Character costume> Not too much of a big deal I suppose, but it would be cool having a bow on your back or a gun at your side. :-3

I would like that as well, but won't ever happen as long as PS2 support continues =/.

[Fetus]

<waits for Bow or Crossbow/Gun to be designed into the Character costume> Not too much of a big deal I suppose, but it would be cool having a bow on your back or a gun at your side. :-3

Wouldn't that be neat? I've always wanted to see this implemented.

I agree with the idea that Camo should shed some amount of enmity. It also shouldn't generate any enmity to use. Oh, man... you're concealed... how offensive and wrath-invoking. Scavenge is still the most worthless JA ever. A shame that it'll never turn into a useful ability. There should be some combo with Bounty Shot+Scavenge. Not sure how that would work, though. Auto-shoot is a must, really. It's BS that melee can auto-attack and I have to continually press the /ra macro just to perform the most simple and imperative part of my job as a Ranger...

Some other random ideas...

Job Trait: Sniper - Increases the damage of your ranged critical hits. 3-5% per tier, maybe? I dunno'.

Job Ability: Hawk Eye Shot - Increases the rate of critial hits with ranged weapons. 3-5% per tier? Shares a timer with Unlimited Shot. Has the same cast time, recast time and duration of Double Shot.

Job Ability: Defense Reflex - Instantly moves you some distance away from the target you're currently engaged with. Instant cast time, 3 minute recast or something.

Good or bad, just some ideas I had that seemed to address some of the issues or adjustments some players are looking for.

[Feliciaa]

All 3 of those JAs/JT would be very welcomed without breaking the job. We would gain a decent dmg boost that would make up for our lack of access to march and haste.

I can't think of any additions for Sniper or Hawk Eye Shot as they seem powerful enough on their own.

The only addition I can think of is for Defense Reflex. Maybe have it move the user into the "Sweet Spot" and drop a % (not all) of the user's current enmity? I'm a bow user though so one of the marksmanship/Xbow masters would need to add some input about being thrown into the "Sweet Spot".

Overall 3 really good ideas that I wish SE would really look into. If they don't want to give us access to haste or march at least let us be a job that hits hard. ^^

[Foxx]

Is there any way to know what the exact "sweet spot" is or is it different per mob?

[Hoshi]

Sweet spots are weapon specific. I think someone posted some of those somewhere but it would have been for 75 weapons and I don't remember where ;;. You can find the sweet spot pretty fast though... just try a few different shots at different distances.

[Fetus]

All 3 of those JAs/JT would be very welcomed without breaking the job. We would gain a decent dmg boost that would make up for our lack of access to march and haste.

I can't think of any additions for Sniper or Hawk Eye Shot as they seem powerful enough on their own.

The only addition I can think of is for Defense Reflex. Maybe have it move the user into the "Sweet Spot" and drop a % (not all) of the user's current enmity? I'm a bow user though so one of the marksmanship/Xbow masters would need to add some input about being thrown into the "Sweet Spot".

Overall 3 really good ideas that I wish SE would really look into. If they don't want to give us access to haste or march at least let us be a job that hits hard. ^^

Thank you for your kind words. Oh, yeah, jumping into the "sweet spot" for whatever ranged weapon you have equipped could be nice. I like it. But like you said, any commentary from gun/crossbow users would be useful.

I thought about a enmity shedding effect, but if they would just integrate that as part of Camo, then I don't think it would be needed. Just my thoughts, though.

I thought of a different JA, too. A few people have mentioned something about physical damage reduction being mostly inaccessible for Ranger. I think this might alleviate it to some degree.

Job Ability: (Don't have a name for it.) - Significantly increases your evasion and grants a certain amount of physical damage reduction for the duration of effect. I was thinking the evasion bonus would be something really potent like a wyvern Wind Wall TP move. Coupled with like a -25% physical damage take secondary effect, it could be a really nice OHSHI situation ability, maybe? Something significant, but only lasting a very short time, with a rapidly decaying effect. Maybe like a 30 second duration or less... 5+ minute recast?

Just another idea I had last night. Not sure if it's game-breaking or not. Any input is welcome.

[Hoshi]

The issue with pulling hate doesn't come from the fact that rangers go down in 3 hits. They do by the way. :P With a good healer any job can remain standing (I have a number of deathless Ixions to stand testament to that).

The problem with pulling hate is that you are moving the monster you fight (and this is why your defensive-reflex JA would only be useful for identifying the sweet spot... which you could do on your own pretty quickly). Melee get really angry when you move their monster though ... they can't hit it any more and they lose their tp when they try to ws as the monster runs away. Mages also hate it because they have to reposition and you might be pushing your entire ally into aggro radius of other things or sending a nasty aoe their way if you're standing next to the mages (kind of like people get annoyed when blms pull hate). I think the real fix for this problem is going to have to be reducing the amount of enmity a ranged attack creates or programming the monster's AI in such a way that someone from far away can take more hate than a close range DD without moving the monster (basically even though your hate would be higher than the tank's hate, you would have to hit a certain cap above and beyond the normal one before the monster would move away from what it was already attacking). You might be able to make a feature like that into a job trait which is ranger specific (otherwise I see BLMs abusing that quite a bit).

I like the sniper job trait, that sounds neat. I don't think many people would use hawkeye shot instead of double shot though... you would be lowering your dps by doing so. If it were on it's own timer I would definitely use it though.

[Fetus]

I intended for Hawk Eye Shot to share a timer with Unlimited Shot, not with Double Shot. The whole point was to combine the two to greatly enhance your DPS. Or if that's too OP, putting them on separate timers is easy enough.

I admit that the defensive abilities I came up with don't address the core problem of inflammatory enmity gain for RNG, but I think they do address the "omg im gonna die now" situation if you're in a pinch if used properly and quickly.

But I'm not going to toot my horn like I know jack about Ranger, they're just some ideas I thought up that the community might enjoy and/or to bring back some offensive/defensive capabilities to RNG.

[Alkalinehoe]

I intended for Hawk Eye Shot to share a timer with Unlimited Shot, not with Double Shot. The whole point was to combine the two to greatly enhance your DPS. Or if that's too OP, putting them on separate timers is easy enough.

I admit that the defensive abilities I came up with don't address the core problem of inflammatory enmity gain for RNG, but I think they do address the "omg im gonna die now" situation if you're in a pinch if used properly and quickly.

But I'm not going to toot my horn like I know jack about Ranger, they're just some ideas I thought up that the community might enjoy and/or to bring back some offensive/defensive capabilities to RNG.
But Unlimited Shot shares a timer with Double Shot. :x

[Hoshi]

I guess my thinking is that giving a ranger defensive capabilities is like taking something that's broken and changing the packaging you sell it in. A ranger dying is mostly dependent on how good their healer is. Rangers not being brought to events is not caused by their death, but by the fact that they move the monster. And yeah unlimited shot is shared with double shot already. :P

[Feliciaa]

IMO it sounds like Hawk Eye Shot would be fine if it was not linked to any other JAs. As I think Double shot + Unlimited shot were only linked for easier programing. lol.

As for defensive-reflex, I think having it shed a % of the users enmity would solve the main issue of moving the mob around as long as it was a 20-50% enmity lost. However, after thinking about it just having it shed hate and not move the user would be much easier to add for the design team. (Hope they actually read this stuff as it seems like every RNG is just asking for 1-2 JAs that have timers and work like high jump and super jump. >.>)

IMO I think we should keep building on these defensive capabilities because they can really change how people look at a job. Some really great examples are when SE added JAs like Seigan, Retaliation, and perfect counter. Sure they don't make them invincible but they do make them more desirable.

[majistical]

all very good ideas, id like to add one
a way to see how many arrows you have left in your ammo slot when engaged to a monster.
im tired of pew pew'n my expensive arrows when my stack of tp arrows runs out :/

[Hoshi]

all very good ideas, id like to add one
a way to see how many arrows you have left in your ammo slot when engaged to a monster.
im tired of pew pew'n my expensive arrows when my stack of tp arrows runs out :/

Lol that would be awesome... the number of times I've raged when a ws wouldn't go off only to find out I was out of bullets >.>;;;;;;;

[Catsby]

Those are pretty cool ideas but I think you guys forgot about the deeply seated problem with hate. It seems everything monster and player related is always getting boosted but enmity values remain static.

On a side note, does anybody have any abyssea parses without crit+ atmas to test max crit rate for ranged attacks? I recently lost a lot of my saved parses and before I go out to retest I figured I would ask. If I remember correctly it was 10% and crit+ gear didn't affect it.

[Swords]

I think theres kind of a decaying effect with alot of the updates SE had did to jobs in the past like ranger. If you've been around in FFXI as long as I have you may or may not recall the old Arrowburn parties and how RNG was the big bandwagon job due to their insane power at the time. Now keeping in mind the game was originally designed around level 50, RNG became overpowered because the mechanics designed for level 50 tipped the scales in their favor when the caps were raised to 75. However, the update to ranged attacks balanced out the damage and only the good RNG's could still put out good damage. The problem is the fix for ranged attacks were intended and designed for level 75, now the level cap has risen the mechanics that were designed for 75 comes back to haunt us at 90+.

[Catsby]

...The problem is the fix for ranged attacks were intended and designed for level 75, now the level cap has risen the mechanics that were designed for 75 comes back to haunt us at 90+.

Like not getting a 2-hander bonus for ranged weapons, having distance affect damage, terrible ranged weaponskills and other intentionally lower limits on capabilities compared to melee damage dealers. Keep in mind that all of the jobs couldn't do what they do now when Ranger was first nerfed and if Ranger was never nerfed and all the jobs altered/added in the way they are now Ranger would still probably be bottom tier. Back then you hardly ever saw bards, an X-hit build didn't exist and people tanked sky gods with warrior so naturally being able to get tp from melee+ranged seemed "broken".

[Kirana]

Wrong. It used to be that DRK sucked unless it bought what used to be 125 million on my server. Ranger was always good, just costly. I love mine now...wouldn't use it for Dynamis, but in EXP parties, camping, Abyssea, and skillchaining whenever possible, I can put out some decent numbers.

A few weeks back, I did between 2800 and 3200 dmg with an Empyreal Arrow to the Iron Giant in Abyssea-Altepa...I can't remember which is was, it was just really friggin high. This is with /NIN sub.

You do realize that this NM takes doubled damage after certain abilities? I have done over 10k damage to it on thf.

[Catsby]

Has anybody actually seen ruzor arrows for sale on their server? there's been sales on titan but hardly any

[Khajit]

all very good ideas, id like to add one
a way to see how many arrows you have left in your ammo slot when engaged to a monster.
im tired of pew pew'n my expensive arrows when my stack of tp arrows runs out :/

Ctrl+ E.
Problem solved.

[Glamdring]

the whole auto-attack thing, I see a different problem here. Rng-like a couple of other jobs-has the ability to completely blow hate control with their obscenely high damage. That's why ranged attack and nukes are not on auto I think, so you can ride that hate threshold without a quick course in how easy it is to make ranger puree'. probably better (if that's what you want to do) to set a macro of "/ra <bt><wait 19>" and repeat on every line (the 19 being arbitrary, adjust to your party/prey). Still do damage at a decent rate and hopefully come back from the can without a message asking you to get back up!

[Khajit]

Or you could just turn around to stop attacking if autoattack for ranged attacks existed.

[Catsby]

Or you could just turn around to stop attacking if autoattack for ranged attacks existed.

That works. I was thinking more of a toggle for auto ranged attacks in addition to manually doing it. I see the merits of both so why not have both options right?

[Catsby]

Does anybody happen to know the cap on ranged critical hit rate and how they are calculated? All I can seem to figure out is that increasing AGI will increase crit rate but I can't seem to find any information on what AGI is being checked against. I also can't seem to figure out how much of an effect it has per point relative to DEX for melee crit rate. I think I might have stumbled upon another arbitrary penalty on the job.

[Swords]

I'm not sure, but any crit hit rate atmas effect ranged crit rates as well. Some have said the regular crit rate can go as high as 95-100% which to me is a little exaggerated (with exception of WAR 2hr), but the two may be intertwined with the exception that AGI mods are used instead of DEX for calculation.

[Karbuncle]

I'm not sure, but any crit hit rate atmas effect ranged crit rates as well. Some have said the regular crit rate can go as high as 95-100% which to me is a little exaggerated (with exception of WAR 2hr), but the two may be intertwined with the exception that AGI mods are used instead of DEX for calculation.

There have been tests that (last time i looked) showed 100% Critical Hit Rate achievable. but i think it was 95% Adjusted after a while.

[Miera]

I ses a lot of concerns about ammunition and I'd suggest an ammunition NPC shop. Yes, I understand crafters woes but it really doesn't apply anymore since there are HARDLY ANY ammunition for sale anymore since everyone is all about Abyssea and not farming/crafting much. The Auction House is pretty empty here..

[Catsby]

There have been tests that (last time i looked) showed 100% Critical Hit Rate achievable. but i think it was 95% Adjusted after a while.

Well what I'm saying is that it maybe (unsurprisingly) more difficult to raise crit rate for ranged attacks than for melee attacks. See a couple weeks ago I was in abyssea doing the tests and was simply checking to see which stat increases crit rate. I came to the conclusion that it was AGI but I never tested to see how much it improved it by per point. What I really need is help finding what stat it's checked against and then help finding how much a point of AGI increase the rate. The lolwiki stub says 50 DEX over your target's AGI but I have a feeling it's (unsurprisingly) much higher for AGI vs whatever it is for ranged attacks( making it yet again impossible for RNG to reach its potential).

[Wheels]

The reason no one makes ammo anymore is cause no one wants to level synergy to make the new ammo or farm the items. If you think you have enmity issues try doing 3k-5k triple procs regular range attack with Annihilator(weak to piercing that is) even the aftermath of - enmity does not help. God forbid if a triple proc occurs with Annihilator too especially a 8 hit barrage that does 10k. PreAbyssea i have done alot of 5-6k barrages to DI and was more or less instant death. Enmity really needs addressed either give us an ability to reduce or negate the enmity we earn.

[noodles355]

I would be interested to see the results of this claim that AGI increases critical hit rate for ranger and not DEX.

[Catsby]

I would be interested to see the results of this claim that AGI increases critical hit rate for ranger and not DEX.

It's not terribly hard to test anymore. Just run into abyssea with a stack of cheap ass arrows/bullets/bolts and go see for yourself.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Friend already did it, Put on Razed Ruins critical hit rate on Rng was ~40%, put on GH+RR and critical hit rate was over 70%. if RAttack had a dDEX function his crit rate should have been over 50% with just RR.

[Catsby]

Friend already did it, Put on Razed Ruins critical hit rate on Rng was ~40%, put on GH+RR and critical hit rate was over 70%. if RAttack had a dDEX function his crit rate should have been over 50% with just RR.

When I was testing I used Kirin and Strangling wind along with cruor enhancement for AGI and... VIT(cant remember what AGI pairs with in that menu)? Before that I used Omnipotent and War Lion for DEX and the DEX cruor enhancement. With all the DEX crit rate was below 10% and with the AGI around 20%

[Swords]

Well it may be because the crit rate enhancement through DEX caps out at 20% which is speculated to be +50DEX over the monsters AGI. I would not doubt AGI goes by the same limitations for the ranged crit rate. Any gear, merits, or atma that increase the critical hit rate % works for close and ranged attacks interchangeably.

[Catsby]

Well it may be because the crit rate enhancement through DEX caps out at 20% which is speculated to be +50DEX over the monsters AGI. I would not doubt AGI goes by the same limitations for the ranged crit rate.

This is what I would like to go test though. I have a hunch that there is another bullshit limitation that nobody has noticed yet which makes ranged crit rate more difficult to increase. Since the stat that increases ranged crit rate is different and the damage improvement for a crit is different so I wouldn't be surprised if the rate it increases is different as well.

[Fyreus]

Random note: When i first encountered rangers back on 04 i noticed they'd always run from stuff so i suggest we run a campaign where we get dnc/rdm/blm/whatever to gravity stuff or ask se for a really nice ja/ws with -70% movement till VE calms down or we can recast/ws again lol!

[noodles355]

Come on, we can equip both trotters and wlegs. Kirin is always a bithc, fair enough, but nowadays trotters are a joke to get.

[Fyreus]

Compare 12% movement WITH melee being kited by a target TO a mob walking slow as hell with melee within melee/tp range to understand what i am saying. I may be speaking for every other ranger when i say i rather have a second defensive ability that isn't purely sub dependent. Even while soloing things a rng is soloing--for whatever reason a rng is soloing--boots made for running means you aren't attacking which defeats the point of soloing and as aforementioned ruins party damage/mp which brings us back to ranger needs.

You also have to consider party needs as a rng (non solo job for most of us) and the fact that once you WS and you jump to the top of the hate list, a mob is already toe-to-toe with your avatar even without movement enhance. Ask any ranger if what i say is true and they will agree.

[Deadvinta]

I personally don't see why they don't allow you to move while shooting. So many other games let you do this, and it doesn't cause an imbalance issue.

[Catsby]

I personally don't see why they don't allow you to move while shooting. So many other games let you do this, and it doesn't cause an imbalance issue.

I'm not certain but I think technically ranged attacks are a job ability and every job ability halts your movement when you activate it.

[Fyreus]

At times it feels like a cure IV spell if i stay still.

[Dekoda]

Ranger has no native self-healing (Such as Drg's Wyvern, Dnc's Sambers, Pld's Cures)

SE's gonna argue Bloody Bolts =/ Even though X-Bow is virtually obsolete.


Ranger has no native enmity-shedding ability (Such as Drg's High and Super Jump, Blm's Enmity Douse)
On top of that it's selection of -Physical Damage Taken gear is pitifully low. We can't equip the Darksteel+1 armor set, the Gavial/Hydra set, the Arhat's Set and none of the Heavy Armor options (Valhalla, Grim, Heavy Gauntlets, etc). The only gear we have access to is the same "All Jobs" equipment that everyone else has access to too.

I've been working on a PDT build for RNG, and it's kind of a start that they can equip both Terra's Staff AND a PDT Magian Bow/Gun. With PDT Rings, Twilight Torque, and Denali Wristbands (There's a few more 1%'ers, IIRC), PDT can get up there. It's still not anywhere near as easy to get as other jobs, though.

As far as enmity shedding in regards to Super Jump, I really really hope SE at LEAST lowers the level of Super Jump from 50 to 49 by the time the Lv.99 cap comes around.

[Fyreus]

I forgot we get a solid build but the bow we'd have to use A LOT ; ;

[noodles355]

Of course we can equip PDT staff and gun/bow but thn you're left with the troble of: Keeping gimpshit damage gear on fulltime or losing TP everytime you need to switch to PDT.

[Catsby]

justice bump.

[Catsby]

Hey guys, you excited for the upcoming changes to RNG? :3

[Swords]

What changes?



Exactly...

[noodles355]

It's good to see all the bugs they fixed. It's a really long list.

It's nice to see this wasn't displayed:
An issue where Dead Aim's Critical Hit Damage bonus was not applied to ranged weaponskills.

Are they gonna fix that anytime soon?

[Fyreus]

Maybe we should submit this as a bug. All 15 rangers.

[noodles355]

It's already been submitted 2 or 3 things and "passed on to the dev team" by the bug forum GM.

I still don't understand with issues of "Is it a bug or not?" that the dev team can't take 30 seconds to reply to the bug report stating whether it's a bug or not. Seriously, it takes no time after reading the report to reply "It's not meant to on WS" or "It's a bug". Guess this new communication front with SE is just that, a front, and communication with the dev team is still as terrible as ever? Would love to be proven wrong.

[Catsby]

Indeed. Transparency is extremely important but they seem afraid of player reaction.