The state of ranged attacking

Ranger and to a lesser extent Corsair are jobs that center themselves on dealing damage from a distance yet in recent years the entire concept of ranged attacking has been put out to pasture. Going beyond Abyssea - the current gamechanger - ranged attacking has suffered dramatically from the improvements made across the board to other classes. Things have been going downhill since the conclusion of the Aht Urhgan expansion pack. The damage to these classes has been so extreme that these jobs are bordering on extinction to the majority of players.

Here are just a few problems with ranged attacks:

1. Ammunition.

The bread and butter of a ranged class yet prices are obscenely high due to the rare materials often backing the creation of these items. What exactly is the process that goes into choosing materials to make new ammo and why does it always involve shooting a king's ransom?

An example:

Oberon Bullets
This is staple level 80 ammo for RNG/COR yet the synthesis materials to make these and stock the AH require Gold Ore - a rare mining/BCNM result or a drop from a handful of monsters and Fool's Gold Ore which only comes from one place - Campaign Battles.

Couple those rarities with the high Goldsmith requirement and synergy and you'll easily see from AH records that this ammo is usually overpriced or in such short supply that no reasonable RNG or COR would shoot these. Worse, the classes are often forced to use inferior ammunition instead that is reasonable in supply on the AH instead.

This example works with pretty much all of the new ammo. Did someone forget that these were meant to be used up?

A running joke is that by 99 we'll see arrows made from Khimaira horns, bolts made from Hydra fangs and Bullets made from Cerberus saliva. Why can't ammo simply be made with cheaper materials coupled with newer drops?

Iron Ingot + Firesand + Goldsmithing Jewel = New Ammo. Tada.

2. Ranged Attack Speed

Unlike other melee, RNG and COR need to shoot ammo using the /ra command which already puts this form of attack at a disadvantage to engage and melee auto attack. As capping gear related haste has become so simple, the idea of using /ra to attack is slow, clunky, prone to human reaction speed and outdated.

In the time it takes you to hit /ra and launch off a ranged attack, a melee has already hit the enemy target numerous times. Snapshot which is the equivalent "ranged haste" simply does not compare. On easy targets it isn't surprising to see melee defeat a monster before a ranged attacker can even get off a shot. This leads to terrible DPS which makes all of the high damage ammo - if you can get any - fhe or naught.

While I understand that a few years ago such limitations were needed to keep ranged attackers from being too powerful, in todays XI world built on buffs attack speed increases and JAs cause RNG and COR to be simply too slow.

3. Enmity Control

If you've managed to snag some overpriced ammo and come to grips with shooting slow, you've now run into the problem of enmity control. Hey, no one said being a ranged DD was easy.

The whole purpose of being at a distance is to ease the burden on your support line. Less people up front means less AOEs hitting DD but the problem becomes that because you take no damage, you become a target and thus the whole purpose of being at a range is self-defeating.

Enmity patches were planned for Ranger some time ago yet were canceled because they would be too powerful. Perhaps before Abyssea yes but what about now? Would this patch be more powerful than the dominance WAR has right now on pure DD?

Ranged attacks require being at the proper distance in order to optimize damage yet without enmity control tools you are faced with being penalized, becoming a burden on mages, possibly putting mages into AOE risk when the enemy comes chasing and dealing less total damage than a typical front-liner.

Are we seeing why few play Ranger or shooting COR yet?

IMO the only way to fix RNG is to make ranged attacks affected by haste and march, and let them build next to no enmity from /ra and ws's.

I don't know about giving a ranged attack zero enmity, but maybe decreasing it by like half if you're out of the mob's line of sight would be an interesting change.

I like that idea of reduced enmity if out of the line of sight of the mob.

I could live with the ammunition cost if our damage was superior to a melees. But it's not.
I could live with reduced damage compared to a melee's if ammo was reasonably priced. But it's not.

I'm fine with doing less damage than a melee for the fact we get the bonus of being out of AoE range. But the simple fact, as the OP outlines is that:
1) The cost is too great
2) Distanced attacking isn't effective because of ranger's enmity.

If there were planned enmity fixes to ranger (lolCamouflage was not a fix) then I hope SE realises canceling them was a mistake. You were worried about overpowering the job? Well look at us now. Our damage is pitiful in comparison to an equally geared melee, the ammunition is either too expensive, unavailable or both, and we have no utility apart from DDing. We can't support, we can't tank, we can't heal, etc. We are a pure DD, yet we are unable to DD because ranged damage is inaffective with the low hate cap, and because there is no available ammo.

I mean come on.
Today on Asura right now there are NO Steel Bullet Stacks, Pouches or Pouch stacks. None at all. There are three stacks of Silver Bullets, no pouches, no pouch stacks.
Those aren't even the newest or best ammunition. Those are just the cheap Pre-75 ones, (well, "cheap" isn't accurate because they go for around 20-30k for 1 stack, and you go through a stack very quickly.)

What upsets me even more is instead of fixing the problems with ranger, SE decided to just give it a new purpose, as a second treasure hunter role. We don't want to be TH bitches who sit there and bounty shot every few minutes. Also guess what? There are thousands of thieves online. Everyone and their mother has Thief leveled. The argument "It's nice if a thief isn't available" is poor because 95% of the time a thief will be available. Thief is a VERY common job.

I play both RNG and COR @90. I have a love-hate relationship with them. I love them because they are fun, and I hate them because SE neglects them over and over and they are wrought with problems.

I've said it once and I'll say it again. At the moment SE is playing catchup with the old system, the limitations that were introduced at 50 and 75 strengthened jobs like MNK but adversely hurt jobs like RNG and RDM. Now there are two ways to go about fixing said issues

1. Go back and adjust the current limitations. Including but not limited too readjusting formulas, accessability to gear that jobs were exempt from (for fear of overpowering), and tweaking job traits/abilities for balance.

or

2. Add more stuff and hope it fixes the problem and not create new ones.

I can understand SE's apprehension at trying to totally "fix" a job. The game can totally change again from 90-99 and the power balance can shift again, at the same time some jobs were hardly given any attention to begin with and are still awaiting that face lift.

The rng nerf was cuased by them being able to do good dmg with really cheap ammo, not to say all rngs used crap ammo the good rng wiped the floor with everyone. Instead of SE just fixxing the low lvl ammo were it wouldn't work well on any thing higher and adjusted ra ingoring Def they added in the sweet spot which really did lot more to the job then the rest of that update. It ment that they had to either shot for TP and WS or melee on the mob then run back out to the sweet spot WS(gl with that). If they just get rid of the sweet spot that would help with the least amount of effort on SE part.

That idea about RNG becoming some kind of Treasure Hunter job sounds bogus. RNG should always be a DD.

And what also should be looked at is how much use is it, to actually stay away from the mob nowadays? Bosses that fly, or require "distance tactics" are next to none. Adding more enemies that require actually being shot at from a distance would help.

Flying bosses, Bosses that do ridiculous AOE Damage or long lasting AOE effects (such as Terror, or Stun, or Petrify). Enemies with Aura's that make melee'ing crappy compared to ranged attacks (something like Amnesia Aura comes to mind, but maybe that combined with Blindness Aura as well?)

Last time I remember, there were not even a handful of Bosses or Enemies like this. Adding more would certainly make people want to bring RNG's and COR's to battles more often.

Quote:

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I could live with the ammunition cost if our damage was superior to a melees. But it's not.
I could live with reduced damage compared to a melee's if ammo was reasonably priced. But it's not.

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I'm just posting to emphasize that it is not always about cost...Sometimes there just isn't any to buy because the mats just aren't there to be crafted into useful ammo.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GlobalVariable

I'm just posting to emphasize that it is not always about cost...Sometimes there just isn't any to buy because the mats just aren't there to be crafted into useful ammo.

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I agree. It does need emphasizing.
Now it is several hours after my last post. And my last update on available ammunition. Let's have a look ont he auction house:

No Dark Adaman Bullet Stacks (80k) - Yes, 80k for one stack of expendable ammunition.
One Oboron's Bullet (30k) - Yes, one single bullet, not a stack, just 1 bullet
5 Dweomer Stacks (25k)
No Steel Bullet Stacks (30k)
4 Silver Bullet Stacks (20k)

No Dark Adaman Bullet Pouches - Two sold ever
No Dweomer Bullet Pouches (50k)
No Dweomer Bullet Pouch Stacks (300k)
No Steel Bullet Pouches (25k)
No Steel Bullet Pouch Stacks (310k)
No Silver Bullet Pouches (10k)
No Silver Bullet Pouch Stacks (150k)

3 Ruszor Arrow Stacks (50k)
5 Antlion Arrow Stacks (25k)
1 Kabura Arrow Stack (15k)
4 Demon Arrow Stacks (10k)

No Rusuzor Quivers - None ever sold
No Rusuzor Quiver Stacks (450k)
No Antlion Quivers (30k)
4 Antlion Quiver Stacks (280k)
3 Kabura Quivers (8k)
1 Kabura Quiver Stacks (200k)
3 Demon Quivers (8k)
3 Demon Quiver Stacks (100k)

No Crossbow is worth using anymore.
There is enough for an Archery Ranger, however:
There is not enough available ammunition to play Marksmanship Ranger effectively (Without using a Kracken Club)
There is no Corsair Ammunition whatsoever.