Do rangers really need a nerf?

[Raxrenol]

Hooo boy, this topic has been steaming in my head for quite some time, and now the perfect thread to express my thoughts has surfaced. Brace yourselves, this is gonna be a long one.

Anyways, Rangers are honestly too good. The most consistent AOE damage weapon is at their disposal and wrecks all of the small mobs easily. And whatever it doesn't kill, it stuns

Exactly. Yes, rangers do need a nerf, they simply have too much damage, too much utility and their weapons are too exceedingly good for the 2 key scenarios in this game's gameplay.

Launchers devastate any form of area clearing grind or code farming quest. Humongous AOE, divine launcher does absolutely obscene damage, if PP runs low base launcher shots also have that same enormous AOE, run off Ratk, and have solid range (lol "rangers" durh).

Not having to move an inch while putting out ludicrous unmatched dps, that's Rangers.

Oh, well I suppose I forgot that occasional moment when an El Arda comes flying straight at you like one of your rockets. I guess you do need to use that awful side roll every once in a while. Must be a hard life for you guys.

I like how everyone keeps linking that one video of a player doing 9999 damage for their arguments.
Afterall, it's outdated. Rangers should be having an extra 120 damage through Tranmizers soul.

Lol icwutudidthar.

Assault Rifles, such an underpowered amount of damage compared to the Launcher, guess this is what a Force feels like when using Gunslash Ratk shots or Rod Satk based melee swings to regen PP huh? (Anyone bringing up Talis for PP regeneration should read the Item Rod vs Card thread before expressing their opinion)

Oh wait, there's Weak Bullet! How could we forget about that! The best DPS boosting skill for solo AND group play, bar none, no other class even comes close. Stick a few points into it and you get a debuff that increases damage done by 3 times, for everyone! Sounds balanced to me, wait no it doesn't.

If you decide to put 10 points into weak bullet (like the guy in the JP video) which I honestly think is the way to go for the sickest amount of utility you can give to parties, and enhance your own solo play, you can keep weak bullet up 75% of the time on bosses (like snow banther/banshee). Some rangers feel 6 points is the best, I disagree.

So, let's compare what a Ranger brings to a boss hunting party compared to a Hunter or Force. A Force/Hunter brings 100% player based damage (their own). Hunters have no party buffs, so we'll leave them at that. Hunters can exceed a Force in terms of damage, because they're badass brutes like that, but the focus here is Ranger comparison so I won't go too deep into Hunters v Forces.

A Force can use Lvl 9 Shifta (that's the highest rank) on the party to give roughly 18% more Base damage (just counting base+skills+mag, weapons and units are not factored in), your weapons and units count for more than 50% of your primary Atk stat at Lvl 40 (if you have decent ones) so Shifta only gives 18% / 2 = 9% of your TOTAL damage at most. And it has this clumsy mechanic of requiring the recipient to sit in a stupid AoE for it to tick 4 times for maximum duration. With fights being hectic and players generally dodging all over the place, needless to say Shifta will not have 100% uptime. This grants a Force at most 9% x 3 supportive damage to the party if Shifta is constantly refreshed (it won't be), that's 27%, for a total of 127% damage contributed by the Force.

A Ranger will bring 100% of their own damage, +200% additional damage for each party member for 75% of the time against bosses. That's 600% x 75% = 450% on top of their regular damage, for a whopping 550%. Now before Rangers start screaming out "Hey! You can't shoot to regen PP with Weak Bullet shots loaded!" Well, you're still doing enhanced sneak shooter damage (for up to >9000! lol jk actually not really jk), but let's say we cut out your portion of the damage all together, that's 550% - 100% = 450%. Oh look, it's still more than Hunters and Forces by a landslide.

So, if you're the sole ranger of your regular boss farming group, enjoy your coveted position as Most Valuable Player, and the best part is, you didn't have to work any harder than anyone else to attain it!

If your group doesn't have a ranger, you automatically have an enormous disadvantage compared to one which does. If your group has two, you get 100% Weak Bullet uptime (with decent basic communication). If you have more than two, the additional Rangers are still party members who contribute as much damage as a Force or Hunter. This vast discrepancy makes Rangers almost mandatory, and no class should be mandatory.

And then that launcher is so useless for bosses that can kill you because you have that low 600 health and tons of rare armor that conveniently increases your S-Def a ton while also adding on to the massive R-Def.

This. Rangers already have more base HP than Forces, add on the fact that you can, if you so desire, invest points into Rdef (29 to 47 points minimum, depending on your race/gender) and get beastly 8* units that grant 55 HP, 1 PP each and sickeningly high defensive stats when grinded to +10. This outclasses Epsilon Stamina Sub Units (which Rangers can wear naturally btw due to their Skill Trees spoon feeding 28 Ability points at minimum, Forces need to invest 13-20 Ability into their mag to wear those).

And then you might say, well if we invest points into Rdef we don't get amazing Ratk do we! Well no, it wouldn't be as optimal for damage, but you have options. Maybe if you hate your godawful dive roll so much you can turn yourself into a bona fide RANGED TANK FUFUFU. Additionally, Weak Bullet doesn't give a damn what your Ratk is, it's going to multiply your party damage, and your own damage, regardless of what you say about its mother.

Force nerf lock on also, you can manual aim rafoie etc... Maybe limit how it locks on, locking onto a part and then stay away from the boss rest of fight or until you need to lock onto a new spot is pretty cheap.

Forces already do far far less damage than Rangers, both in personal and contributive damage for a group. Hunters can go toe to toe with Forces, and sometimes exceed Force damage with skill, this is fine. Unless you give Forces a way to put out comparative damage, nerfing the small perks they have would be asinine.

Adding on to that, Rangers can buy every buff a Force provides, Shifta potions, Deband potions, Resta potions (trimates lol), Sol Atomizers, etc. Can Hunters or Forces buy Weak Bullet? If you answered no, you'd be right.

In conclusion, Rangers in the current state of the game are the most overpowered class. They are the outliers that's trivializing already trivial content and peeing in the pool for everyone else. Before you say this isn't a competitive game, yes, it isn't, but the gap is too wide and there is still Interrupt Ranking and general meseta/rare farming. All this imbalance primarily spawns off how ridiculously good Weak Bullet is, with Launcher's amazing consistent AoE as a bonus. Will this change in the future? Who's to say, MMO balance has never been described as "stable". So enjoy your crutches while they last Rangers, but try not to get too dependent.

tl;dr Do rangers really need a nerf? Yes.

they don't

get out

[Daiyousei]

I wouldn't mind a nerf if it doesn't make rifle damage more suckier, I can't even get my PB to charge up fast and sometimes not at all, unless I deliberately get hit on purpose, and I do go up close, I just love the shotgun PA, and other PAs and regular shots work best for me up close as it doesn't spread as much closer.

It's bad enough that my hunter and force buddies have higher damage output than me without weak bullet.

[DemonMike]

Just to chip in a little further.

I think people may be being a little too harsh on the ranger class and most of these suggestions on what to nerf would eventually completely underpower the class.

What I do agree with:
Weak Bullet should not stack when fired at the enemies base weakpoint
Launcher damage should go down(or have reduced range), rifle base damage goes up

Rangers have arguable the worst dodge in the game, a significant amount of dud PA's and currently (though this will change in the future), a good support role to fulfill thanks to the lack of debuff techs available to forces. Rangers do need some slight tinkering, but not a full blown nerf like some people are suggesting.

On a similar topic, I'd like to tap on the 'must have' issue regarding skill trees some people were talking about earlier. Though in principle I do agree with the poster that said there shouldn't be 'must haves' for every player so there's an incentive to diversify their characters, the unfortunate reality is new skill trees currently cost over $6, so 'must have' class skills are to be expected as people try to maximise their class efficiency without spending.

[Kondibon]

What I do agree with:
Weak Bullet should not stack when fired at the enemies base weakpoint
Launcher damage should go down(or have reduced range), rifle base damage goes up

Rangers have arguable the worst dodge in the game, a significant amount of dud PA's and currently (though this will change in the future), a good support role to fulfill thanks to the lack of debuff techs available to forces. Rangers do need some slight tinkering, but not a full blown nerf like some people are suggesting.

This is a very nice way to put it.

[Hentai_Kittie]

Doesn't change a thing considering that, as I mentioned, they do their area of effect damage faster than literally everyone else, which makes their single target damage catch up.

They do AOE damage faster only with the fire tree for the glory of ablout 5 seconds for 5-8 consecutive volleys (assuming they have Flame tech S charge and Charge pp revival). Otherwise it's un-noticably (not) faster! AND for only 4-6 volleys (4 with Gizonde which is the only other aoe spell that you can use easily at any range. 4-6 with anything else). After that your going to have to decide how your going to get your pp back.

Launchers on the other hand, the AOE volley never ends. So isn't it fair that the launcher fires slower? Burst damage vs continues damage....

No it isn't. Period. Plus, Launchers can't hit things behind you and have a massive windup.

How did that go from "rafoie's AOE is considerably smaller" to "launchers can't hit anything behind you". Only Gizonde can hit behind you (only AFTER hitting something in front of you first), and Gifoie / gibarta / gigrants hits around you, and not anywhere specific UNLESS using a talis.

Never challenge me to prove you wrong; I'm very good at it.

I wish you didn't say this because you basically proved him right...

Bolt PP Save is fantastic. The only thing that stops the constant barrage of death Forces deal is PP, and using less of it, and stacking more of it, means the barrage lasts a lot longer. Fire's biggest weakness is not only that it has to stop quickly, but often, and it has Flame Tech Charge to thank for that.

Bolt pp save is manageble, but not perticurly good. what it does is help you cast for 3 times as long but limits you in more ways. Zonde is really the only skill that benifits, but zonde in itself is useless and outclassed by every other tech (except for razonde) in any department. Your not going to be using Razonde in any way, so i don't even need to say anything about that. Your most useful attack is going to be Gizonde, which will cost 4pp less then Rafoie..... that's not much of a benifit to me. What it does is basically let you have ok constant single target dps. Some people may like it, but i personally think using the lightining tree by itself isn't good.

It's also worth mentioning that lightning techs are inherently slightly stronger than fire techs, and Tech Just Attack Advance never hurts, either, even though it's not a match for the power boosts Fire's tree gets, but it's not meant to be the mortar cannon fire is; it's more of a machine gun.

The only thing worth getting on the lightining tree is Bolt pp save. Anything else and your just wasting sp to be slightly less mediocre. Lightining is not good in close combat. normal tech advance with JA tech advance makes JA with techs still not worth it. It must be said just how useless uncharged techs are.

Ice is the only tree that doesn't have anything to compete over the long haul. Freeze Ignition is hilariously powerful, but it's highly situational, and Photon Flare is flat out terrible thanks to its bafflingly short duration. It's still enhanced by Forces overall strengths, and can still make the other classes feel bad about themselves, but it just doesn't do it as well as the other two.

Freeze ignition is great if your solo. It is really really powerful. But if anyone else is fighting with you, It's useless. Photon Flare is good, but like you said it doesn't last long enough, cuts your hp alot, cooldown is far too long, and doesn't do much for basically going out of your way just to get it. Ice makes up for itself by having good techs all around. "flinch locking" enemies with (gibarta / Rabarta) make it great for close combat or keeping eneimes in one place. Sniping from long distances wth regular barta is great too. Freezing enemies is one of the best status effects too.

Every tree is overpowered in the right hands, though, and that's a good thing; fire is just the best on the whole. Nobody's perfect, thus perfect game design doesn't exist, so something's going to be the strongest. You're seriously going to have to get over that.

Ice and lightining skill trees are vastly inferior to fire. You basically admitted it yourself. As a force user with 3 different forces, I can say that fire has the best tree. Though Ice and fire have the most useful techs

And despite everything, whether a Ranger's damage is arguably enhanced by the damage everyone else does through Weak Shot, the fact remains that Forces have the potential to do substantially more damage than everyone else in every situation no matter the circumstances. If the Ranger didn't use Weak Shot, the Force would come out on top. If the Ranger used Weak Shot, the Force would come out on top. It's really simple.

Forces would only come out on top if there are large groups of enemies. They are the AOE masters afterall. Otherwise hunters and Forces do comparable damage differing in certain situations especially considering how badly force's have to rely on the small amount of pp that they have since the actual damaging attacks they have depend on it. So no, forces would not be any type of clear winner. Weak shot is still the undisputed winner which only the ranger has.

Just to say. Forces do burst damage better then anyone else. Photon Flare + charge pp revival + Shifta + Photon blast pp recharge + tech charge advance + Flame tech charge + Rafoie does do awesome damage, but you will almost never be able to set that up easily. And it's still mostly reliant on the fire tree.


To the person that mentioned "must haves" (DemonMike). I can say that "charge pp revival" on the force's fire tree is a must have for any force AND should be the first thing you get no matter what you do. It makes managing any tech (not just fire) in dire situations much more managable. It's sad that it takes 11SP to get, but i feel that putting that 11 sp anywhere else would do more harm then good. But from there you may as well get do something else in the fire tree since your already invested heavily in it.....

ON TOPIC:
Weak shot should be the only thing nerfed. It's obviously needed for rangers, but i don't think it should stack on weak points and multiply damage the way it does. If it must stack, weaken it. If it doesn't then i think that in itself is the only change that should happen.

[Macman]

People who think Assault Rifles are underpowered really need to learn how to aim with Sneak Shot. That does more damage than Divine Launcher could ever hope to achieve.

[MelancholyWitch]

This is too much people thinking and saying Rangers are OP who have never even played ranger, umm I saw the OP say somewhere in the first few posts that rangers can just keep shooting,

Could you eleborate further on that? Take in mind every magic requires PP in comparison to where a ranger can just shoot endlessly

um ROFL!??! when you use a weak bullet, it is used from your normal attacks in other words you can't regen your PP until your last weak bullet (only by standing there doing nothing can you regen your pp...), so you get 3 shots of sneak shot in and then have to wait for your PP, how is that endlessly shooting? I'm utterly confused as to why something with a huge delay needs a nerf, we're still in hard mode, if bosses are being killed in less than a minute in ultimate mode then the nerf bat needs to take a few swings but as of now it is perfectly fine Rangers support more than anyone in this game currently considering Shifta/Deband isn't that great compared to using weak bullet on breakables in case you didn't realize YOU also benefit from weak bullet.

[Xaeris]

I think some of you aren't quite understanding the big complaint with Weak Bullet. It's not a matter of Rangers being more powerful than the other two classes (or even whether or not that's even true), but about an item in their toolset being ridiculously more powerful than the content available. If we had DPS meters and the Rangers came out on top every time? Fft, fine, whatever, it's a co-op game.

The problem comes in when a boss monsters shows up on the field, goes "rawr" and barely has a chance to put up a fight before it drops its loot. It's a little amusing, but I'd get considerably more amusement out an actual fight. Take Ragu nee-chan, for instance. In an average multi party (the only place I'll get to see her, since, hey, who finishes missions anymore, right?), she'll get to stay up for maybe 40, 50 seconds if you have a Ranger who isn't mouth breather in the area. She'll spend 30 or 40 of those seconds nursing a broken leg because of that same Ranger.

While I suppose the following is an opinion, that's not fun.

I'm utterly confused as to why something with a huge delay needs a nerf, we're still in hard mode, if bosses are being killed in less than a minute in ultimate mode then the nerf bat needs to take a few swings but as of now it is perfectly fine Rangers support more than anyone in this game currently considering Shifta/Deband isn't that great compared to using weak bullet on breakables in case you didn't realize YOU also benefit from weak bullet.

The content is heavily gated. I don't think Ultimate was even on the road map. I should not have to wait months and months to get balanced gameplay. And that aside, it doesn't matter how much HP bosses in Ultimate have. The problem is the damage multiplier of Weak Bullet. A party with Weak Bullet is doing vastly more damage than a party without. So, if an Ultimate boss lives for an appreciable amount of time against the former party, than the latter party is just going to have a miserable experience. You can't really balance around a game changer like that.

[MelancholyWitch]

weak bullet doesn't make that considerable amount of change you still aren't realizing the cooldown it has and how short it actually lasts, I've seen groups without a single ranger in it kill bosses in under a minute too, you just have to know how to use your PA's/abilities wisely and go for breakables instead of just facerolling on keyboard, for example seeing people use strong AOE on bosses (yes I know hunter doesn't have much non aoe but that's besides the point, it's till doable without a ranger in that time limit.) That's just how the content is right now, things are easy I've grouped without rangers and had a breeze.

[Xaeris]

I main a Ranger. I know exactly how long the target lasts compared to the cooldown. It lasts plenty long enough for its purpose.

If you've seen groups without a Ranger down a boss in under a minute, than that same group, with one member exchanged for Weak Bullet, would have out and out evaporated it. You can't l2p a 4x damage modifier. That's just math.