Can we talk about the Ranger's abilities (or lack of)?

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#13

Ranger interrupt is bad generally. the trap is a minute cooldown and has to be thrown, Ranger needs at least 15 meters minimum for there damage orbs and 30 meters for some of the talents (I use the 30 meter talent so will always be far away). Mobs interrupt roughly every 20 - 30 seconds? (as a guess) so the trap isn’t a viable option even if you can throw and aim it like a god (its extremely hard to do plus the trap has other issues enough that people forget it even exists).

The charged shot is the more viable option but still sucks for an interrupt. it takes 2 seconds to charge without fast charge talent, with the talent it takes 1 second. It then has roughly an 8 second cooldown and is one of the main sources of damage for a ranger - it adds a debuff to mobs that increases all players damage to it by 5% and if hit into a ‘weak spot’ counts as 2 weak spot hits. So to use a charged shot purely for the interrupt on mobs is a lot of damage loss (as mobs seem to take reduced damage/no damage when they need to be interrupted).

Taking into consideration tiles that most rangers use, the charged shot is used with the piercing arrow so interrupting either losses your tiles that rotation or makes the charged piercing become wasted when shot into say a link shield interrupt. Also (from my experience) once your slightly off rotation its extremely hard to get back without skipping at least a second rotation.

That last paragraph is only true if your charged shot is actually up for the interrupt as generally you want to use it asap or your wasting DPS and with the roughly 8 second cool down its easy to not be able to use it the whole time the interrupt bar is there.

Sorry for the slightly rambly post but as a ranger main its an annoyance for me that ranger is the only class that can’t reliably interrupt on demand.

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#14

Would you opt to get rid of smoke arrow if it was replaced with an interrupt shot?

#15

People would still just use poison and pierce. That would just make one useless arrow into another useless arrow.

1 Like
#16

I think a permanent third arrow just for interrupting could be an option. like sift said if its replacing the others it likely not going to be used.

2 Likes
#17

I like that idea because it adds some much-needed complexity to the ranger. Having to balance another arrow into your rotation would help raise the skill cap. It would be great if they could rework the trap or replace it with this new ability, but that might be asking a lot of the already overworked dev team.

Although, in the end, I’d still be happy getting rid of smoke arrow in exchange for any other abillity…

#18

Apparently spread arrow does the highest DPS, per the Orbus Wiki?

“…if you’re close enough (or skilled enough) you can actually strike the same enemy with all five arrows. Doing so is the largest amount of damage that you can deal to an enemy in a single shot”.

Has anyone actually tested to see if this is the case? I don’t think I’ve ever hit one enemy with all five arrows, not that I’ve intentionally tried…

#19

I don’t think the Wiki is run by the Devs. It’s written by players, and not always the most knowledgeable.

#20

Ranger is a distance fighter so spread shot would not be the highest DPS in the normal way you’d be playing ranger. Maybe highest damage ability up-close (even so, precision shot would yield better results) but the cool down would off-set any dps for that ability, that and you’d have to be up-close to get every arrow to hit so it’s not exactly effective in dps.

#21

That’s a shame. I’m going to run a few tests and see what kind of DPS it puts out. Next to smoke arrow, it’s gotta be my second least-used ability.

Has anyone run any sort of DPS trials on ranger to see which rotation does the highest damage? I’m interested in seeing how the different abilities stack up.

#22

Yeah alot of ppl did their calculations. Basically piercing charged on weakspot is highest dps increase. Followed by poison arrow. Rotation wise without tilesets is shoot on the cooldown. With tilesets delay shoot poison to keep repeatable rotation up. Thats thr base. More to it then just that but that would be hours talk. xD

#23

Damn dude, you know a hell of a lot about the class. I’ve been trying to put together a good tileset. Have any advice on how I should build it out?

#24

Just copy Landru’s tiles and rotation.

#25

Looking to keep the conversation going and get an official response.

#26

Watching: Alternative arrows for the ranger

1 Like
#27

This seems like a perfect way for devs to maybe introduce a companion system? Would work for a better interrupt solution while setting up for possible future player companions. Wouldnt need to be overpowered companion, but good for a slight distraction to set up for spreadshot at close range.

#28

Or possibly adding a confusion buff on smoke arrow for strafing on target with other arrow shots

#29

Yep. Plz buff shadow arrow.

#30

Now, a companion system? That’s an interesting thought. Reminds me of the Beast Master archetype for Ranger in 5e. imo, it would make a lot of sense. Ranger in general has been in need of a rework for some time, and this would be a fine way to do it and increase its versatility. I don’t know the specifics of how it would work, but maybe the AC would have abilities determined by a talent, or maybe by the type of animal it is(Perhaps you could tame wild animals and make them the AC)? It would make Ranger a more interesting class for sure. Maybe some way to command the AC as to, say, what abilities to use, where to move, what to attack, etc. And perhaps the Ranger could have some more support-like arrows/abilities, like increased speed, lower aggro(On self or ally), minor HOT(heal over time), an arrow that functions similarly to Instrument of Defense(Decreases enemy projectile strength), and the like. Ranger doesn’t shine in DPS, so making it DPS/Support would open it up to a new audience. Like Bard, for example. Bard I and many others see as Support/DPS, even if the damage it does it small compared to that of, say, Scoundrel, it still does more than Muskie by a fair amount, at the cost of manual healing(Which isn’t that bad of a thing, depending on the scenario). Healing aside, Bard has many buffs and debuffs they can use, like the aforementioned Instrument of Defense. Rebuilding Ranger to be like this and have an Animal Companion would be building the class for a completely different role, and would add a lot more diversity to the class lineup.

Or, y’know, you could just buff smoke arrow or somethin’, but a class rework would be nice.

#31

Maybe just the last point.

#32

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