07-11-2022, 06:29 PM
This may seem like it's coming at a strange time so soon after Korvara. To be honest, My first Korvara character is a ranger and it simply opened my eyes to how painfully mediocre it is as a class. Not bad, just very mediocre. The main reason that I'm making this post is to make a case for it receiving some love at some point, mostly because it sits in a weird middle ground where its very antiquated as a class but its also not glaringly bad and obviously in need of changes. It leaves me feeling like its unlikely to ever get an update unless the issues are outlined.
I'll outline a few key issues here, point by point.
1) Incredibly skill point thirsty compared to other classes. It has a laundry list of offensive skills, each costing 5 points each without exception. The total amount of points needed to unlock everything on ranger (which other classes can actually do when destinied) is 88 points. Even destiny ranger, something that isn't reasonably doable given that one of its sibling promos uses a different weapon and the other is arbalest, is often left wanting.
2) Jack of all trades, master of none. It has an arcane arrow in literally every elemental flavor and scaling, giving lots of flexibility in how you build it but making it difficult to build high elemental attack for all of even the small handful of arrows you'll be able to afford. It is accompanied by admittedly one of the most powerful basic attack skills in the game for kiting, but the basic attack support ends with just that and free long draws.
3) Slightly lacking damage. This is probably the slightest of all things mentioned here, but it's something that I've definitely noticed while experimenting with the class. Its not bad by any stretch, but I think the damage output is slightly lower compared to other classes and simply being held up by that all powerful SWA + element scaling combo.
4) Low range. Never thought I'd be saying this about a bow class, but many of the arcane arrows have a strangely low 5 range for bow attacks. This is reasonably well supported by bow basic attack range, as well as a few outliers like cherry blossom's 7 and the likes of thunder bolt and ghost arrow breaking the mold entirely, but nonetheless comes off as strangely lacking for a bow class. Could they not at least be effected by long draw or something?
5) High fp costs. It's not as insurmountable as pre-rework verglas, but it's enough that a hefty fp pool and a reasonable amount of fp regen is mandatory. When you toss an insulting 25 fp just to activate annorum on top, the damage output for fp spent is certainly harsh.
6) Annorum is expensive and clunky. 3 momentum, 25 fp and a 3 round cooldown to boot, usually just to activate a one time debuff on hit. If it at least boosted the damage of your next arcane arrow I could tolerate all 3 of those things and it would also help with the slightly lacking damage. If not, I think one of those 3 things should be lowered at least.
7) Unappealing main class skills. A side-grade one on one that only works against one subset of races, some passive crit evade that's worse than black knight's (not main class required) version even post nerf, and a one time damage boost to your next basic attack on opponents that trigger your traps. Over all, I'd say its definitely one of the worse sets of main class stuff.
8) Rain trap requires too much setup. Although soaked synergizes very well with the class and its variety of available elements, it just requires too much. 14 fp for a trap that does nothing but inflict a status effect that also does essentially nothing by itself, has to be activated first which is almost impossible without hand trigger given the amount of movement skills around now that don't count as moving through tiles, then the status has to be reapplied again every time you want to retrigger it with an element again. Soaked works great with the class, but what you can get out of it just isn't worth the effort 90% of the time.
Over all, overwhelmingly meh. It has no real glaring issues that someone unfamiliar with the class would flag up as being a real ball and chain to its success, but I think its a class that just needs a little dust off and update for sure.
I'll outline a few key issues here, point by point.
1) Incredibly skill point thirsty compared to other classes. It has a laundry list of offensive skills, each costing 5 points each without exception. The total amount of points needed to unlock everything on ranger (which other classes can actually do when destinied) is 88 points. Even destiny ranger, something that isn't reasonably doable given that one of its sibling promos uses a different weapon and the other is arbalest, is often left wanting.
2) Jack of all trades, master of none. It has an arcane arrow in literally every elemental flavor and scaling, giving lots of flexibility in how you build it but making it difficult to build high elemental attack for all of even the small handful of arrows you'll be able to afford. It is accompanied by admittedly one of the most powerful basic attack skills in the game for kiting, but the basic attack support ends with just that and free long draws.
3) Slightly lacking damage. This is probably the slightest of all things mentioned here, but it's something that I've definitely noticed while experimenting with the class. Its not bad by any stretch, but I think the damage output is slightly lower compared to other classes and simply being held up by that all powerful SWA + element scaling combo.
4) Low range. Never thought I'd be saying this about a bow class, but many of the arcane arrows have a strangely low 5 range for bow attacks. This is reasonably well supported by bow basic attack range, as well as a few outliers like cherry blossom's 7 and the likes of thunder bolt and ghost arrow breaking the mold entirely, but nonetheless comes off as strangely lacking for a bow class. Could they not at least be effected by long draw or something?
5) High fp costs. It's not as insurmountable as pre-rework verglas, but it's enough that a hefty fp pool and a reasonable amount of fp regen is mandatory. When you toss an insulting 25 fp just to activate annorum on top, the damage output for fp spent is certainly harsh.
6) Annorum is expensive and clunky. 3 momentum, 25 fp and a 3 round cooldown to boot, usually just to activate a one time debuff on hit. If it at least boosted the damage of your next arcane arrow I could tolerate all 3 of those things and it would also help with the slightly lacking damage. If not, I think one of those 3 things should be lowered at least.
7) Unappealing main class skills. A side-grade one on one that only works against one subset of races, some passive crit evade that's worse than black knight's (not main class required) version even post nerf, and a one time damage boost to your next basic attack on opponents that trigger your traps. Over all, I'd say its definitely one of the worse sets of main class stuff.
8) Rain trap requires too much setup. Although soaked synergizes very well with the class and its variety of available elements, it just requires too much. 14 fp for a trap that does nothing but inflict a status effect that also does essentially nothing by itself, has to be activated first which is almost impossible without hand trigger given the amount of movement skills around now that don't count as moving through tiles, then the status has to be reapplied again every time you want to retrigger it with an element again. Soaked works great with the class, but what you can get out of it just isn't worth the effort 90% of the time.
Over all, overwhelmingly meh. It has no real glaring issues that someone unfamiliar with the class would flag up as being a real ball and chain to its success, but I think its a class that just needs a little dust off and update for sure.
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