[InsainArcaneBirdbrain]

*Cracks knuckles*

Aight, gonna throw in my own thoughts on the Ranger situation, as it's been historically my favorite class, and its continuous downward spiral since GR2 first dropped makes me a very sad arrow-slinger. To keep it simple, I'm going to address what has already been brought up, and point out some other things too as necessary.

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.

Ranger I feel was very much designed to be a jack of all trades type deal, with many tools you can selectively pick out to suit your playstyle needs. That is fine actually! While the skill point costs are awfully high in total, I usually don't have that many issues fitting everything I need in the 36 points at my disposal- though that is somewhat related to another issue I feel, that being that most of the ranger kit isn't worth using most of the time. Skills like Agile Androcobra, Deos Danzai, Ghost Arrow, Twin Shot, and Forest Fiend all range from extremely meh/niche to laughably bad, even if they are annorum boosted. This issue gets furthered by the point brought up with....

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.

"Imagine, if you will, if in order to get your spell effects on Evoker, you needed to use Charge Mind. (And I don't mean if you just want that spell to immediately delete something.)
Or if you needed to use Pray before any Priest spell to get their effects.
Annorum is a tax. Most of the additional effects on Ranger AREN'T worth making the spell a 6m investment."

Annorum, the biggest holdback to the class's skill kit in my opinion (In a unfun/clunky way, and less for balancing purposes). While yes, many of the Arcane skill effects would be too potent if they didn't need Annorum to pop, they are NOT worth the 6m in most cases. The only skills I can remotely argue is worth the full 6m and 50+ combined fp cost would be Thunderbolt in PvE, and Cherry Blossom for the substantial global heal for a non-dedicated healer (Which by the by, requires you to use 9[!!] momentum to use the effect of due to the targeting requirement). Back in GR1, I could also argue for Sonic Arrow and Pressure Fletch to be ok situational Annorum uses as they both could hit and deal with dodge builds your basics might not otherwise be able to handle (Frozen status, and the ability to null buffs respectively), but in GR2, it's absolutely not worth against a dodge since you can glance and miss, which makes that Annorum momentum sink all for naught. If you aren't a mainclass duelist, you have pretty much NO room for making Annorum worth your time at all. I absolutely agree that there should be some means of gaining Annorum via other class features, or a reduction in the momentum+FP needed to use the skill if that would be easier (a less ideal fix than the former imo, but Ranger could use anything at this point).

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?

The lower damage overall for the bow weapon type was partially the balancing factor to the range in the past, which was understandable. With GR2 scalings in play though, along with how harsh farshot applies even as close as 6 range, Rangers absolutely suffer the worst for all of it. Even Arbalests with how ancient they are design-wise hold up better mechanically than Ranger, as someone who plays both quite often. This is partially due to how Arbs get less range buffs in general, and they often use STR for BW and sub weapon purposes anyway. Ranger only really get... HP out of it most cases, and their amazing range (which is advertised as a selling point for the class) is completely dumpstered by their inability to adequately build enough GUI to offset the farshot without completely foregoing DEF/RES/CEL. They don't even get flank for building that GUI, as closeshot negates the benefit. I covered this in more detail in my past Ranger threads, which you can dig up easily by my post history. (Yes, I've stressing Ranger's issues for a while now, some of you are probably tired of me at this point, but I will die on this hill.)

These issues are partially why most Rangers are railroaded into Ghost mainclass, along with a mutated weapon. Fleur fixes the Annorum inefficiency issue sort-of, Wraithguard helps makes up for non-existent DR, Claret Call makes up the otherwise abysmal damage Ranger suffers from being so stat thin, poise to make up the shaky crit, and rebound as an emergency FP recovery. To use the two primary mutated bows as examples, Tamaki even without an enchant, with tool tag scaling, AND the -5 mutation hit still has more damage output than the rival non-mutated bow, Bow of the Green Forest, simply due to having better base poison, full GUI scaling, better Crit DMG mod, along with other minor benefits. Electric Axe as a mutation furthers the issues GR2 bows face in that even a weapon with the same scaling as them is simply a superior option due to having a MUCH stronger effect than any normal bow, having remains instead of wood as a material type, and having axe Crit DMG mod + parts.

I see people argue the hit/crit passives/parts bows get make them amazing despite all that, but I strongly argue they are the sole reason the class and weapon type hasn't disappeared into irrelevancy- a life support if you will.

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.

Cripple arm is the sole reason to use mainclass Ranger-  and that's not even part of the promotion's kit. Before GR2, MC Ranger had a *tiny* niche when the effect was +30 Evasion and Crit Evade. That was substantial, and honestly worth considering over Fleur or Install along with the forced use of (at the time) inferior Light Armor for dodging. It actually made Ranger feel like THE Light Armor class like how BK is THE heavy armor class...  but not only did the evasion effect get completely removed instead of being changed to passive evade, but the crit evade was nerfed anyway! It makes no sense that an armor restricted crit evade passive that is locked to MC compared to BK's, has a lower value than said BK passive. Makes it a bit of a joke more than anything.

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.

Yup, combine that with the GUI, and LUC, and STR tax, and you have the leading reason why Rangers are currently miserable to build, especially in a non-minmaxed environment (They aren't good feeling even in said min-maxed environment mind you). It feels like you're trying to patch up a sinking ship, but more holes keep popping up every time you fix something, and even in a completely patched up state- it feels shaky and not really worth the hassle.

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.

Rain Trap doesn't see much use at all for that reason, yeah. With how many taxes you already have to pay elsewhere in Skill Points, Stats, FP, and momentum, for a very minor effect that won't matter in most cases, it's not hard to see why it's rather unappealing. It really needs something other than soak as its sole purpose, whether that be damage or some other sort of bonus.

Were I to do anything to Ranger, it would be a ground up reconstruction. Call it Spellbow or something, because it's bow-mage, and give the spells effects that make them /worth/ picking over one another.

Hard agree-  though more on the concept more than actually calling for a rework. I don't think the class needs a complete rework, rather than these unaddressed issues pointed out thus far getting looked at. Streamlining and modernizing costs/effects would already go a long way alone imo.


TLDR: Rangers and their weapon of choice have are really weighed down more than any other class by the changing battle systems, and continue to catch L after L with their main gimmicks continuing to get neutered. As I said before- being forced to run Ghost or Bonder MC to make up for its massive issues should NOT be necessary for a class pushed as a jack-of-all trades master-of-none Spellbow deal. MA does the jack-of-all trades niche much better in the fact that the class is able to hold its own with absolutely no outside help, and has a lot of little tools that make it a good utility base to build a character from compared to more specialized powerhouse classes. 

On an unrelated note, I do find it hilarious the issues Ranger here is currently facing is ironically similar to how Rangers suffer in DnD 5E in their overall over-situational/clunky mechanics holding them back.