General Patch Discussion [merged]

nldixon.8514

#1 - Nov. 15, 2012, 3:01 p.m.

Patch notes are here. The specific Ranger changes are listed below.

Ranger

Improved the effect chance on ranger spirits to 35% base and 50% when traited.
Beastmastery minor traits now use the correct icon.
Splinter Shot: This skill’s damage is increased by 150%, and its bleeding duration is increased from 3 seconds to 4 seconds.
Counterattack: The blocking portion of this skill can now be used while moving. Ranged attacks will not trigger the second half of the skill.
Protecting Screech: This skill now states the correct duration of 4 seconds.
Call of the Wild: The Wilderness Survival trait Off-Hand Training now applies to this skill.
Throw Torch: The speed of the projectile has been increased.
Maul: This skill’s damage has been increased by 40%.
Sun Spirit: The tooltip for this skill now displays the proper burning time of 3 seconds.
Whirling Defense: This skill was updated so that it interacts better with combo fields.
Splinter Shot: This skill is now a small projectile combo finisher.
Coral Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
Feeding Frenzy: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.
Mercy Shot: This skill is now a projectile combo finisher.

JonPeters

#132 - Nov. 15, 2012, 4:04 p.m.

Hi Anders, I’m totally not here so skip this post and read on…

We made the improvements we had time to test. There are still more ranger improvements but when our time is limited we have to focus on things we know we can fix. Signets and shouts are still on the docket, and I suspect some of each of these will get some love in the next time around. As you can see a lot changed in this build for every profession and we have to test these changes as well.

I do still believe ranger is the profession in most need of improvement after this patch and we will continue to make those improvements. If we could fix everything at one time we would, but the reality is there are a limited # of hours to make changes.

I see a lot of talk about ranger weapons, but I don’t think that is the real problem. I think sword and longbow are both good weapons, which is why the changes take longer. The problems are deeper, in pets ability to hit moving targets, trait lines with not enough viable choices and skills that are often too specialized to really compliment the weapon builds. These aren’t things we can change overnight. The change to Greatsword block was in fact a very difficult change, but we made it because we knew it was the right thing to do.

There are >500 skills in this game, 480 traits, and 2 designers working on this. Even then often we are bottle necked by other issues. I’m not going to say we are not working on these things, nor can I say there are things we could have changed but just ran out of time on, but this was a patch that contained ranger improvements and it will not be the last one that does so. Maybe you want more than honesty but that is what I currently have to offer.

Jon