Yo i dont know why you got so defensive I was agreeing with you, I was just trying to tell you its not a big deal who voted because the ones who voted are the sample that you can use.
I feel like making minigames out of combat gameplay where it doesn’t make a lot of sense isn’t the right direction for archery based combat in VR. I already do not like how Musketeer orbs rotate around the gun (however easy it is to deal with) since it feels like a gimmick.
If the dev’s wanted to strike a balance between both rapid-fire styles and charge up styles, why not just allow both to deal the same amount of dps? You can have your 3 shots per second, or deal the same damage with one shot per second if you hold the arrow (without using charged show). This way people who want to fire slower but precise shots from long distance can get that big damage or people who want to spam at long or short can also get that same damage divided up between faster shots.
Instead of “degrading” after 1 second, just have the damage stop at max after 1 second. Again not a fan of minigames for the sake of “difficulty” when a person in VR expects a bow to behave like a bow when they pick it up. In other words, drawing the bow back for longer than one second shouldn’t make you deal less damage (its counterintuitive for aiming at long distances too).
This solution allows both playstyles and both short and long range to work. People who want to spam at long ranges can spam, people who want more precise shots can shoot at 1 second per shot and not worry that they lose damage. The guys who spam might get a few more procs in that give them an edge but maybe that’s OK.
I think endurance is something that shouldn’t be factored into the gameplay when talking about the very basic mechanics of gameplay. If someone plays 3 hours they play 3 hours. If someone plays for 10 minutes they play 10 minutes. They still experience the exact same issue brought up here though, spamming shots which feels bad for a lot of rangers, vs shooting arrows like you imagine you would normally (1 second per shot is still very very fast).
Skill comes in on distance and say, hitboxes if there are hitboxes for things in the future.
This is an important point. I play regularly with the best rangers and some of them feel that because they were really good at spamming arrows they think the system now is bad due to their bias from past success where they could fire even faster than 3 per second.
I take almost no damage when soloing because I also use traps. But I still spam shots because that maximizes the damage while my special arrows are down. The extra damage from the longer distance shots charged don’t hold a candle to a shot ranged charged shot into spam. And I think that’s an example of how spamming arrows is basically one of the most efficient ways of killing anything as a ranger due to it maximizing your DPS. And that’s why I am suggesting that the devs make both spamming AND 1 shot per second viable by letting slower firing rates build up damage up to 1 second.
3 Likes
I haven’t been playing ranger for very long but I agree that spamming arrows isn’t very fun nor does it have that more realistic feal. I like the idea of the quiver because it does add more of an immersion effect, but I can understand how taxing that would be on the body. It’s a neat idea though since each class has something similar. The rune mage has want control, muskateer has to load their bullets in what seems like a minigame and warrior has combos as well as maintaing rythem between blocks. In my opinion ranger seems a little drab compared to the other classes. I don’t think just adding a quiver will do it though. The class could probably use an overhaul so I am happy to hear the devs mention no class being the same in three months. So my ideas is for one lose the trap. It’s neat as solo or as an escape method but I haven’t found much use for it in group play. I suggest instead exchange it for something like caltrops which can act as slight aoe but instead of just throwing it allow it to be attached to an arrow (Haha maybe that’s a little unrealistic). Also change some of the arrows for ranges or give them one or two more, I would love to see maybe a teathering arrow so you can bind the enemy at range giving more reason for long distance shots in solo without having to wait for them to get close for your trap and losing your globes. I also like the idea of variants in bows short bows and long bows which could vary in speed and strength. As for my last idea I think precision should be key for ranger but hit boxes are a little funky and this may be a grand idea but I think shots that target close to the same area as the first should deal more penetrating damage, think of it like a bullseye. The first shit cracks the armor and makes it weak so in my opinion any shot that hits an area that is already week should do more damage. Overall this is just ideas I got while reading this I hope everyone has a good day and sorry for the grammar I am speed typing at work.
Sorry, I honestly had no idea what you were trying to say. It sounded like you were dismissing the poll outright. As for my comment about the sample size, that was to acknowledge that the just because the poll was showing results that match my opinion doesn’t mean that it actually represents the real majority opinion of the playerbase. In order for the poll to do that (statistically speaking) it would need to both be much larger and have been administered in a more random way. It could be that the kind of player using the forums frequently are biased in some way to agree with my opinion, though it’s also possible that the forum users are a good representative sample and we just need more respondents.
I also agree with Riley that just because a majority of players think something is a good idea doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good for the game. It could prove to be a terrible mechanic in application even though it sounds great on paper.
Riley spoke up to try and get the conversation back on track to ideas and away from personal attacks, not to declare the topic closed.
1 Like
“I take almost no damage when soloing because I also use traps.”
You said you also don’t take much damage because you also use traps. Since traps heal mobs 100%, how are you using traps? To just escape when you won’t win?
I’ve been using traps only to control adds on multi-pulls or adds I pick up kiting. In groups, I use traps to CC any mobs coming after me that I need the tank to pick up.
I haven’t looked at whether my traps stopped healing for a while, so I’m wondering what you meant because it would be awesome if my traps were changed and I could use them to hold a move without healing it so I can move back for another charged shot and to keep kiting.
Polymorph heals mobs. Traps don’t. We changed that back in Beta. Let me know if there’s out of date info on that someplace that didn’t get changed.
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no my point is that everyone is trying to make ranger 10x easier than it is because THEY are biased cause they can’t do it well. I like it cause its tiring and takes practice just like runemage but everyone wants to do comparable damage to runemage without the practice and sore arms
Well, no one is saying they want it easier. They’re saying they just don’t like it.
Me, for example. I don’t like ranger spam. Not because I’m not good at it, but because it doesn’t feel like I’m being a ranger. Even though you could say it’s challenging, it’s not the challenge I’m looking for when it comes to shooting a bow and arrow. I don’t want things to be easier. I do want it to be difficult to master.
2 Likes
May be things would change if headshots would matter? just saying:wink:
I dont think people think spamming arrows is something “difficult to do”. What they don’t like about it is that it contradicts how archery would normally work in a video game, where you fire long distance shots precisely at very small targets to deal massive damage. They dont feel that spamming a lot of shots at close range (or further range if its a world boss) to deal max damage fits how archery would work even in a video game, especially how orbs are supposed to work. What turns people off is how different it is from their expectation of how archery should work in VR (nevermind drawing arrows from the quiver and the offset aiming). Plus, like the warrior, its physically exhausting, much more than two other classes.
If this is what the devs intend then ok. But I think both playstyles can be supported. And yes there are a few of us who can “spam” at the minimum orb distance and thus deal insane amounts of damage beyond what is probably intended.
Also its really easy to counter-argue that veteran rangers “get used to” the system and know how to exploit it which is why they are ok with it (due to the advantage they get over newer rangers or preserving their higher damage outputs). Then you could say the people at the top are protecting their own interests instead of support what might be the game dev’s best interest in making rangers viable and more accessible since this ultimately can translate into additional revenue down the road. And there are ways to make changes without affecting the veterans.
After working on a warrior for a while, I wanted to level up my ranger. I do see how some people could do a spam, but I think in some cases it is ineffective. Maybe it’s different at higher levels, but I’ve been finding my rotation on single targets to be poison arrow, a charged arcane (whatever the other single target arrow you have) arrow, then a couple of well placed shots before I start the rotation again. Occasionally, as kind of last ditch effort on the last hp I might do a few spam shots, but I don’t find myself doing it all that much.
That being said, I was doing this in conjunction with a runemage who is still practicing, so the creatures go down quite quickly.
I am glad to see discussion about it regardless, although I don’t think I’m able to contribute too much on it until I level my ranger more.
I’ve done the math for Rangers at level 20.
Powershot is only worth it when using it on a basic arrow/poison arrow when your ultimate is not active because it does 7.55x the damage as a basic shot. When your ultimate is active, it becomes only 3.33x the damage.
Here is the math.
Basic Arrow: 566 Damage
Piercing Arrow: 2800 Damage
Charged Basic Arrow: 4274 Damage (7.55x)
Charged Piercing Arrow: 6833 Damage (2.44x)
Charged Basic Arrow + Piercing Arrow = 7074 Damage
Charged Piercing Shot = 6833 Damage
This damage gap only gets bigger when factoring in ultimate, hunters mark, 35% orb damage increase and factoring in that you can critical strike on both of the shots.
Also instead of using Charged Basic Arrow, it’s better to use a Charged Poison Arrow since a poison arrow is essentially a basic arrow shot with the poison applied and they both have the 10 second cooldown.
Secondly, spamming arrows is better DPS than doing a charged shot because:
Basic Arrow + Ultimate = 1796 Damage
Charged Basic Arrow + Ultimate = 5504 Damage (3.06x)
Considering that Charged Shot takes 2 seconds to charge, you can do 10,776 (1796 x 6) Damage within that 2 second window. Also considering that 6 of those shots can critical strike, which theoretically can become 21,552 Damage vs 11,008 Damage.
Although spamming just becomes overall better during boss fights because your ultimate is active basically 80% of the time.
If anyone I said was wrong, please correct me.
Also i’m not saying Ranger Spam isn’t fun, I don’t mind the workout as a 23 yr old with the energy. I’m just telling everyone that it’s the best DPS currently.
3 Likes
I played QuiVR on steam, which is an archery game with a quiver mechanic, and have to say that I will not touch ranger if you have to use a quiver. After 25 minutes on that game, my shoulder was sore for 3 days. Not the good kind of sore (like post-workout), but the bad kind where my arm was going numb. However, I’ve moved away from ranger already because of the spam feature.
Honestly I really wanted to like the archer, but I spent about half hour playing, realized how absolutely braindead it felt and completely unrewarding of anything but flailing and quit 
There is so much potential in Orbus, but some of the balancing seems really… off to me :c
Hi, I just started playing recently and I chose Ranger as my first skill to work on. Now, are you all really saying the mechanic of spamming arrows as fast as you can does more damage overall than using your special arrows?
If that is the case I have to agree that is really disappointing as I assumed the special arrows were important (as in, choosing which ones for a fight etc).
I think Justin’s post is mostly talking about what’s best to do while your Ultimate is active.
In addition to that, he is specifically doing the math on the Charged Shot, which takes 2 seconds to charge up, versus just spamming arrows instead.
It’s always going to more damage (obviously) to include special arrows such as poison inside your rotation, whether you are talking about spamming arrows or not.
That said, and I really can’t stress this enough, the Ranger class is going to continue to be balanced in general and via the Talent system in the near future. Spamming arrows has never been intended to be the “best” or “only” way to play the class. The intent is that you are supposed to have to make decisions about your shots to some degree. So at any rate, we’ll keep iterating on that.
But just pointing out, I don’t think you should read that one post and draw the conclusion “special arrows are all worthless” because that’s not how the math works out, nor what the post is claiming.
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This sounds like one of the bigger issues to me. It sounds like the Ranger might be getting way too much Ultimate charge out of spamming arrows…the Ultimates are meant to be something you might get to use once a minute, not something that’s active for 80% of a 3-minute fight.
EDIT: Looking into this, that’s absolutely the case. The Ranger’s Ultimate build-up is basically based around the idea of one shot per second, it was not correctly reducing the Ultimate charge if you were spamming 3 arrows/sec. So I will be correcting that in a future patch.
4 Likes
On that note, I feel the warrior charge is a bit too slow if that is the intended charge rate. As it is now a warrior spamming combos every fight can unlock an Ultimate once, MAYBE twice if the fights are slow, during the Wenderwood dungeon. Considering the Ultimate is only useful for tanking and not really intended for damage dealing this seems like it use a small boost in generation rate.
Back on topic though, I would have to chime in and say I put my bow in the house chest and never looked back when it was more apparent that simply spamming basic arrows as fast as you can was the way to play the class. It just feels wrong, like going around as a Mage smacking things with your wand. Sure you could make mages work that way but I’m pretty sure no one would enjoy doing it.
Archery IRL and in games has always been about accuracy and utility. Current archers in Orbus have some utility down with their arrow types but lack in the accuracy department as long as shotgunning arrows is more viable.