moonvball wrote:I can tell ya that the Ranger nerf is quite the suck! It won't be bad after finding the sweetspot but it is VERY touchy. One step too far back and complete whiff, too close and your damage is cut in half and that's just for normal shots, weaponskills are a whole other monster.... an example from last night:
Sidewinder (at optimal range, w/e that is) - 868
Sidewinder (at melee range, same mob) - 556
That's a pretty damn big difference in damage >.< Granted it is still higher than most other's WS but losing 312 damage because being litteraly 5-6 steps closer to a mob may be a bit too much.
With all that said, it's not going to make a bit of difference to !@#$%^&* about it. Just need to adapt to the new play style and press on to 75.
I've heard the Shadow = -enmity isn't nearly as bad for the Ninjas as everyone expected.
That's all I got for now...
I'm quite reluctant to call SE's adjustments "nerfs"... I'm an "old school" RPG player, and I'm used to having this issues with rangers and archers.
But... now that SE has shown the stick to those who play classes with non magical ranged attacks they should also show the carrot.
There's a feat present in quite a few RPGs called "Point Blank Shot". If you want a good description on how that feat works I refer you to the 3rd edition rules of D&D.
Basically after obtaining that feat and under certain circumstancies you can overcome the huge impact in your damage output that attacking the mob from close range has.
I think that a feat like that would be fantastic to be implemented as a hi-level job hability for ranger only.
I also forecast this update is going to have a severe "weeding" impact in those RNGs that have become such by having IGE directly linked to their bank accounts.
This is no D&D or Warhammer... there's no squares (but in square enix

) or metric tape to calculate your position in relation with the mob. Therefore getting consistently those "sweets spots" you mention is going to demand much more dexterity and skill from the player.
Just having peacok charm, sniper's +1, optical hat, e-bow..., consuming s.sushi+1 like water and tossing the most expensive arrows/bullets as they were falling from the sky like the mana is not going to make a RNG the great DD it can be anymore.
It will also (sigh) open a whole new world of possibilities to scripts like "Ranger Helper" though...
Anyway, as I am no Nostradamus, take my forecast with a grain of salt. Time is the only thing you need to prove a theory being wrong.