I wasn't really done with this but since people are taking pieces from it already (you know who you are!) and are making threads about flip shot I feel pushed to go ahead and put it in.
It's clear that Ranger has issues on both sides of the aisle. It has highs that other classes have difficulty touching, with builds like Ghost/Ranger and Hexer/ranger (especially when piloted by doriads) while also having massive lows if you don't play one of the cleared class combos or you decide, for some foolish reason, to use strength-based bows.
I'm going to look to equalize some of the highs and some of the lows here in order to make it not so bipolar on whether you completely shred an enemy before they touch you, or they just completely destroy you.
We'll start with **Archer**
Starbow and Aerial Razor are both fine.
Snake Shot: Gives a power malus on hit (-30/25/20/15/10), drop the poison to (2/4/6/8/10). If the target is poison immune, instead inflict snake wrap (I see you, Glykin). Keep it at 10 FP for all ranks.
Pulling Shot: Remove the damage bonus. It's a massive utility spell already and doesn't need extra damage.
Cripple Arm/Cripple leg: 20% hit reduction is absolutely massive and should not exist on spells in the modern CEL landscape. Make it like cutthroat and have it be minus a set amount. You want Leg to hurt dodgies but it'll never hit a dodge in its current incarnation.
Fortune Wind is one of the worst pure evade skills there is. It’s a markedly worse distortion pre **50** scaled luck and is then worse on duration. Make it 4 turns pretty please?
Entangle is adequate.
Knock 1 range off longdraw.
Moving onto Ranger
Retreat Flight: This thing looks terrible compared to Flip shot, worse in every way save for very niche cases where it can save you 1M as a flier. Reduce its FP to 13/10/7. Let it be variable for length between 1 and 5.
Flip Shot: Here it comes.. Reduce range by 1 and add a 1 turn CD
Twin Shot: This is pretty nuts since the rework. Make it 110/120/130.
Forest Fiend: Just make it a 3-range AoE for a spell that's already never used.
Frigid Arrow: Just fine
Wind Runner: Let it become a 1-6 range spell and have it leave lingering damage (slash) for 10/20/30 for 2 turns. On Annorum, make it do 40 in addition to other effects.
TBolt: It's awesome. Yay.
Agile: Please please please stop its targeting pattern from existing. I wanna see how it plays without that.
Gentle Garden: Change it to 80 + 1.1 SWA at max. (50/65/80)/(90/100/110% SWA)
Example calcs: 110 Swa = 201, 130 SWA = 223. Spirited it becomes 227, 251
This makes it always worse than current version and doesn’t let people offhand a bow for ranger heals for nothing.
Cherry Blossom: Heal component changed to(40/50/60)/(90/100/110% SWA)
Example calcs: 110 Swa = 181, 130 SWA = 203. Spirited it becomes 202, 226
This makes it always worse than the current version and doesn’t let people offhand a bow for ranger heals for nothing.
Forest Walk: 2 turn CD or nerf it's range (or both)
Annorum: The gauge is kinda tough sometimes. Can we make it so all archer spells build gauge to 3? This is just fortune wind added on. Shouldn't be a big deal.
This is also kinda setting up things so that bows can be something like Skill or Guile (Guile works out better probably cause we already have dagger mutates) scaling without having so much power. Most of the ‘good’ ranger builds currently run mutates or howling handshot regardless. Please.
It's clear that Ranger has issues on both sides of the aisle. It has highs that other classes have difficulty touching, with builds like Ghost/Ranger and Hexer/ranger (especially when piloted by doriads) while also having massive lows if you don't play one of the cleared class combos or you decide, for some foolish reason, to use strength-based bows.
I'm going to look to equalize some of the highs and some of the lows here in order to make it not so bipolar on whether you completely shred an enemy before they touch you, or they just completely destroy you.
We'll start with **Archer**
Starbow and Aerial Razor are both fine.
Snake Shot: Gives a power malus on hit (-30/25/20/15/10), drop the poison to (2/4/6/8/10). If the target is poison immune, instead inflict snake wrap (I see you, Glykin). Keep it at 10 FP for all ranks.
Pulling Shot: Remove the damage bonus. It's a massive utility spell already and doesn't need extra damage.
Cripple Arm/Cripple leg: 20% hit reduction is absolutely massive and should not exist on spells in the modern CEL landscape. Make it like cutthroat and have it be minus a set amount. You want Leg to hurt dodgies but it'll never hit a dodge in its current incarnation.
Fortune Wind is one of the worst pure evade skills there is. It’s a markedly worse distortion pre **50** scaled luck and is then worse on duration. Make it 4 turns pretty please?
Entangle is adequate.
Knock 1 range off longdraw.
Moving onto Ranger
Retreat Flight: This thing looks terrible compared to Flip shot, worse in every way save for very niche cases where it can save you 1M as a flier. Reduce its FP to 13/10/7. Let it be variable for length between 1 and 5.
Flip Shot: Here it comes.. Reduce range by 1 and add a 1 turn CD
Twin Shot: This is pretty nuts since the rework. Make it 110/120/130.
Forest Fiend: Just make it a 3-range AoE for a spell that's already never used.
Frigid Arrow: Just fine
Wind Runner: Let it become a 1-6 range spell and have it leave lingering damage (slash) for 10/20/30 for 2 turns. On Annorum, make it do 40 in addition to other effects.
TBolt: It's awesome. Yay.
Agile: Please please please stop its targeting pattern from existing. I wanna see how it plays without that.
Gentle Garden: Change it to 80 + 1.1 SWA at max. (50/65/80)/(90/100/110% SWA)
Example calcs: 110 Swa = 201, 130 SWA = 223. Spirited it becomes 227, 251
This makes it always worse than current version and doesn’t let people offhand a bow for ranger heals for nothing.
Cherry Blossom: Heal component changed to(40/50/60)/(90/100/110% SWA)
Example calcs: 110 Swa = 181, 130 SWA = 203. Spirited it becomes 202, 226
This makes it always worse than the current version and doesn’t let people offhand a bow for ranger heals for nothing.
Forest Walk: 2 turn CD or nerf it's range (or both)
Annorum: The gauge is kinda tough sometimes. Can we make it so all archer spells build gauge to 3? This is just fortune wind added on. Shouldn't be a big deal.
This is also kinda setting up things so that bows can be something like Skill or Guile (Guile works out better probably cause we already have dagger mutates) scaling without having so much power. Most of the ‘good’ ranger builds currently run mutates or howling handshot regardless. Please.
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