Hexus

Don't mistake me saying that level 80 arrows with rare materials means that I want it that way, I just want level 80 arrows and don't care how we get them. I understand your concern and while not masochistic it's just seemed the norm that I have stacks and stacks of poisoned seeds of the tender, along with the rare arrows. We've always had to pay for our DPS, been doing it for so long now that it's not even worth bitching about any more.

-Hexus-

Merkades

I agree that it is the norm, I even switched my tradeskill class and am now a level 80 Alchemist. I am used to this much, but I would think that we would want to further prevent being restricted like that. Even more so for non raiders, or raiders who are members of cheap guilds. My guild will pay for all expenses incurred by raiding, some don't.

And regardless, I want full functionality, SOE screws us enough. I just don't think that leaving any room for negotiation about arrow levels is good. SOE has proven itself to be ignorant about Rangers for years now, give an inch, and they will take a foot, and we will be adding rare arrows to our "must have" collection of consumables, along with crit potions and poisons.

I blame SOE for my lack of faith in them these days, but then I have been a customer/Ranger since EQLive's early days.

Merkades, 80th Ranger.
Siege, Najena.

Crychtonn - Bylar

Rare arrows existed once upon a time. But they were removed many many moons ago. I find it highly unlikely they will ever be re-entered into the game. Just not the way SOE works for the most part.

chappy59

I believe we should have a mastercrafted arrow. It should work just like the EH seeds (Maybe not as many). So a piece of mahogany (T8 Rare Wood) would yeild, lets say, 300 Arrows. I like the fact that I may never find Legendary or Fabled lvl 80 arrows till my guild reaches certain raid zones.

T8 Handcrafted Arrows - Lvl 70
T8 Mastercrafted Arrows - Lvl 75-77
T8 Legendary / Fabled - Lvl 80

This way you are still granted an increase to damage but you still do not recieve the MAX till you manage to loot an item that summons lvl 80.

If this was mentioned prior, my appoligies, I was too tired at work to read through the whole post.

Mixer

I would just like the same consideration for gear that melee DPS get. All I ever see is melee crit this + melee that, granted we have gotten more consideration this expansion. But my god our swashy was able to gear up so quickly he is now outparsing alot of the guild. I must eat my humble pie til I can get just as geared up as him and with the mechanics being screwed up it might still be just as jacked. I love my ranger, he is my main. I will not succumb to SOE's ignorance. That is my mantra every night before bed.

redz

I don't even play a ranger, but my GF does.

Obviously the arrow mechanics are badly broken, and need to be addressed fast, but you're also bringing up a whole new issue - what should be made by woodworkers.

The other problems I see are also pretty important.

The near-zero utility of a ranger makes it pretty much a pure dps class.
To achieve their dps they have to pay for legendary poisons, and arrows.

Not only this, once they've paid this, their dps is generally lower than mages, other scouts (save bards), even enchanters, etc unless they have one of the top 3 bows perhaps.

Most of the other classes have some form of utility, and yes, you could expect them to parse slightly lower than the pure dps mages, as they can wear chain, if there were any other pure dps scouts, they should be slightly lower than them, as they can pull off most of their dps outside AE range.

Merkades

Some of you people I will never understand. Some of these posts are basically just saying "I love to be shafted" and "what, no lube? no problem, I don't mind". I think I will maintain that Rangers are our own worst enemy, and this time it is through masochism rather than the melee or ranged fight that EQLive had.

Aside from ammo issues, there are still bow issues, insofar as I know, only 1 bow drops from the first two tiers of RoK, and that is from the overking, but there are a crapload of decent to great (throatripper) melee weapons, and more than I can count in a week worths of mage crit/+spell damage gear in those same two tiers.

And on top of that, almost every bow out there has the same ratio (125 or 127) with just varied stats/proc. No RDA or RCrit on any of them. (not to mention truly nice melee weaps..dual wield types, have 110ish DR).

Ah well, feel free to label me an easy mode wanna-be I guess, I am not so hardcore as to want to suffer for some abstruse reason.

Merkades, 80th Ranger.
Siege, Najena.

Crychtonn - Bylar

Come now, the new bows are perfect for upping the DPS of all the melee classes. Haven't you figured that out by now that is what they are there for. I mean they have those nice big stat numbers on them and the nice DPS mod to help out with melee auto attack. Those silly damage proc's of the past were no good for the melee classes you know. Getting all those bonus stats and 18-19 DPS mod (bow + adornment) is a no brainer for the melee'ers.

Don't fret though. I'm sure there are lots of melee weapons with nice DPS mods and DPS adornments out there also. We're just unlucky on that RNG and can't get them. It's not like they'd just say 'hey that T7 weapon is so nice we should leave it as the best next expansion' because that would just be crazy.

Never forget the three magic words: Working As Intended!

Azleya

Yep, the bows suck compared to the melee weapons. To give you an idea, a bow that is a similar upgrade over Rigid Scale Bow that Empowered Talon is over Axe of Natural Order (T7 weapon with same delay and max:min damage ratio) would have a DR of about 145 and a max damage of about 1050. It would also have to have similar crit/DA bonuses and a damage proc, too, to make up for the fact that melee classes get a second weapon with another effect. Even if you throw out the Empowered Talon as an overpowered outlier, RoK bows still come up well short of RoK melee weapons as upgrades over EoF. I think I've posted this before on another thread, but oh well. =p

Combined with other itemization issues and parity issues with respect to buffs, it's clear that merely fixing the obviously broken arrow mechanics would be insufficient to fully address the problems with the ranger class. I'll be pretty pissed if Sony stops at just fixing arrow mechanics and disappointed if rangers settle for that alone.

Vaanir

I heard Aeralik fixed Smokebomb to make it summon level 80 ammo when the smoke disappears, true story.

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