Rangers! Woo Woo!

[Simba]

Purge does not protect against quake or any type of physical attack so that doesn't make much sense. If somebody is going to have enough rangers to squad zeus/mannam with stampede more power to them. I doubt it is possible. Now there could be an argument for making Zeus/Mannam/etc type mobs !stampede if there ever became ranger squads. As Mal pointed out using a Thief would be more efficient. Though, if stampede were changed it might change eq groups giving rangers more of a chance to tank...stampede/grapple right away. For the other !magic mobs this would become the old steal/dodge since there is no delay for stampede atm.

[ching]

Jun 23, 2009 19:21:26 GMT -5 Simba said:

Purge does not protect against quake or any type of physical attack so that doesn't make much sense. If somebody is going to have enough rangers to squad zeus/mannam with stampede more power to them. I doubt it is possible. Now there could be an argument for making Zeus/Mannam/etc type mobs !stampede if there ever became ranger squads. As Mal pointed out using a Thief would be more efficient. Though, if stampede were changed it might change eq groups giving rangers more of a chance to tank...stampede/grapple right away. For the other !magic mobs this would become the old steal/dodge since there is no delay for stampede atm.

Quake is an 'earth' based type damage. A pet can hit them, but then should be purged, so I guess I could see stampede still hurt a mobile. But the whole idea of the purge proc is to force people to use magic or hitting on a more personal level. Not that stampede is not magic. Anybody know if a mob reflects magic (say drow maidens?) if stampede is reflected? If not then that should be fixed. Unless you can get a 'nature' type damage.

[Mal]

Ok.

Lets look at this from a different perspective. Instead of asking what stampede should do, let us just analyze the effects of a unnamed spell/skill on a ranger that we want added to replace / compliment stampede.

If we want a magical spell, then perhaps Elemental Storm would be more appropriate. There would be less ambiguity especially if the description was done appropriately.

I personally like the name Stampede, but I am sure we could think of a different name if required.

What I want is a spell/skill for a ranger that
1. deals physical damage (bypasses magical reflect)
2. can be used in a !magic room
3. does area effect damage
4. costs moves or moves/mana
5. not berserk (based off dam eq/weapon)
6. 0 or 1 round delay

So based on this criteria, I want to know what problems might arise.

The problems I see:
- stampeding pets (which is illegal as far as I know).
- making Ranger Swarms to drop a mob in a !mag room (zeus) but Thief/Cleric would much easier and faster at this time, so I think this is a non-issue until the !stab flag is added...

Questions:
- is 0 round delay worth it? (this will up the cost of the skill/spell to keep the game balanced.)

Drow Maidens will be quivering in fear, but I think they should be, suddenly rangers have a specific spot to use this skill that no other class can, zerk aside.

Once we have evaluated any potential problems with this skill/spell I'd like to then take a look at ml, cost, damage, etc.

Thank you for your posts Ching, Simba & Rox

[hazel]

Since when is attacking your pets "illegal"?

[Mal]

Attack your pets to your hearts consent. Just follow the rules in doing it.

Pets were changed to not like being stabbed in the back, so trying to find 'some way' to stab them in the back is a deliberate attempt at bypassing the admin's intentions.

As for area-spelling pets... People (myself included) were warned to not area pets any more on punishment of icing.

The reflect-mag proc was added to pets to help enforce this, so the higher ups could go back to more important issues at hand instead of trying to police people. Forcing admin to police is a waste of our limited admin resources. The fact we are not supposed to area pets is crystal clear.

Unfortunately, this results in changes often for the worse, pets have resist-mag which is neat, but if all mage pets become resist-mag as well, mages can't edrain their pets anymore to solo. The consequences of forcing the admin hand is usually for the worse.

BUT on the topic of what I am suggesting, it would put the admin back to having to police players (waste of resources) which is why I put it as a negative point. As Ching suggested, a 'nature type' damage with a 'nature type' reflect damage may have be added so people can't abuse it accidentally.

[gambler]

Ranger's need some TLC with 6.0 coming on and it needs to start with skinning. Below are the actual results of 2,000 skins by a ranger with 23 remorts, 150 Mreg and 150 Mvreg at exceptional stats 19/100STR 22I 24W 25D 18C 24Cha. It took 20 hours to peel 2,000 skins without clerical assistance and resulted in a full damage skin set every 4.4 hours.

Damr: 2.9% Str: 2.7% Int: 3.5% Wis: 3.0% Con: 3.4%
HitR: 3.6% Dex: 3.7% Cha: 3.3% Hit: 3.3% Mana: 2.8%
Mov: 3.3% mreg: 3.5% hreg:2.9% vreg: 3.0%

This includes double stated skins (which are exceptionally rare).
The actual success rate of getting anything at all is 46.2%.....
which does not include 'botched' skins.

Here are my suggestions to improve ranger playability as well as stave off cleric bots every reboot at the statues:

Increase uptimes: (Already looks improved)

Increase substancially the success rates with improved stats. My suggestion would be to simply double it across the board. If a perfect ranger can't pull this off in 4 hours right now, a single remort ranger would take 8-10 hours minimal. That's too long.

Add 'focus' skill to rangers at level 30, for those wanting to increase the probability of skinning a particular stat or feature! The focused stat would appear 'always' in the 2nd slot occurance.

Add the potential for ranger skins to have 'affects' at random. This would include the usual array of lower level magic affects.

Increase the rate at which rangers regen moves by 25%.

Increase the rate at which double stated skins can occur.

Increase the number of Wis/Dex, Wis/Mvregen in game currently.

That being said: Decrease the amount of movement given back by the 'restore' spell from clerics. Decrease the amount of movement given back by the rejuvinate spell from clerics.

I'll make another post regarding some ideas on improving the leveling options for rangers. Currently, they are quite possibly one of the more boring classes to level and while they really do not require an entire set of skill/spell changes, some small modifications would help tremendously.

Gambler. (Xon)

[Austinpowers]

There quite a few good suggestions in here. I will put this past the admin and get their feedback. Thank you for providing such detailed information.

Class changes, modifications were not going to be in the initial upgrade. That being said, I wanted to take a look at classes a little more, and get feedback from the admin on suggestions for tweaking classes. Do not take this as we will or wont, its to early to speculate until Jedi 6.0 comes out.


AP.