Hopefully my earlier explanation on why this page isn't updated will suffice. Remember, I read every single bit of feedback that I get!

Okay, this page is the one that needs the most work as of right now. I have all your e-mails, Herald Feedbacks, PMs, and threads bookmarked for consolidation. Basically what I will do is cut and paste what you have to say, then look for a place to add it in to the ranger pages, I just use this page to keep track of all the different ideas. Hopefully this will be of use for you as well as for me. Don't be offended if you made a feedback somewhere and it's not included here. Either I have not got to it, I need some time to think about it, Mythic has told me to drop the issue upon pain of death, or it is simmilar to another feedback. I will also use your feedbacks for inclusion on my concerns lists, ideas for abilities and spells, or issues to look into. So, again, if you don't see your feedback here, then feel free to look over the rest of the page, and see if it's there.

Review of the Ranger Class,

With a special attention on the Ranger

PvE Groupability

Patch 1.62 lowers the built up aggro by critical shots from Rangers. Though this was a good intention, I regret to say that this was never the point. If a Ranger is in a group, he can pull, of course, and with this patch he is better suited for this. But nevertheless, classes like champions are still going to pull :

a) They can taunt by magical styles, so they don’t have expenses like the costs for arrows.

b) They will have the aggro, so the mob is attacking “the right one” at once

c) They are much faster

In PvE a group will also kill purple mobs (seldom red). Rangers will hardly hit these mobs, so their critical shot is wasted, and even more important, even if he hits his target, the damage is negligible. A Ranger has the problem that he neither fulfils any job in a group :

a) Support classes heal and provide group aiding skills like songs or buffs; the Ranger can’t.

b) Magical classes (Nuker) will deal the damage to the mobs; the Ranger’s amount of damage dealt is far less; also nuker deals this damage to several mobs (normally a group will pull three mobs at a time), so a Ranger’s damage output is even more inferior.

c) Fighter classes (Tanks) will absorb damage by high lifepoints, high parry or shield values and guard and defend their teammates. They will also taunt and built up aggro in order to detract the mobs from the casters. The Ranger has few life, and can’t protect his team (the Scout has at least a shield-skill, which makes him superior to the Ranger !)

The Ranger is normally a character for the “pity” slot of a group - he will be taken if no better suited player is online or if his guild is merciful with him. He will take up a tankslot and has to be healed especially often and carefully. As a tank he has to built up aggro ! So this change is quite counterproductive…

Rangers need to have skills which make them more useful for the group. Either they get more tank abilities… this is not recommended as they shouldn’t replace tanks or be as effective as tanks in melee. They could deal more damage. This would also make soloing easier and groupability, though it’s not the deal… they would still deal less than mages (and though cannot replace a caster / fill a casterslot), and they wouldn’t be able to use their bow then, as they fill up a tankslot, remember ? The only solution is to grant Ranger more skills which are useful for the whole group. These skills should be passive (e.g. non interruptable songs or buffs) as their task is still to tank. They can be included in the Pathfinding (ranger) / Beastmastery (hunter) Line. Scouts, which don’t have magic, could be granted other skills and abilities (proposals see below).

Pulsing Magic Turn (Group Chant): (antagonist of PBT)

A "bubble" that absorbs a single magic spell. Non-Damaging Spells are fully countered; Spells which deal damage will penetrate the bubble to a certain amount. The caster of the bubble is always protected by the bubble, magicturns cast on the group / realm mates provide a certain percentual absorbance based on the level of the PMT. The values of damage absorbance is matched to the values of PenetratingArrow - the high pulse frequencies are used to give casters a favour. Though at first sight this ability seems to be odd, it is nothing else than the pulsingbladeturn does, except for magic. So it is fair, that there is an ability, which does the same thing which negates melee, that now will work on casters. As the pulse durations are very high, normally in a fight just the first spell will be countered, so the use and balance of this ability is regulated in a fair way. In PvE this ability will help archers to find groups easily, as it also negates lifedrains / DDs etc. from Mob! s.

PMT1 : 50% absorbance of damage inflicted by spells. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

PMT2 : 75% absorbance of damage inflicted by spells. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

PMT3 :100% absorbance of damage inflicted by spells. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

Ablative-Aura (Group Chant) :

This chant sets up a health buffer. Each pulse the buffer is refreshed. 50% of inflicted damage is applied to the buffer, 50% to the character, until the buffer’s value is used up. The values of health buffer is matched to the values of reactive proccs, but still lower in favour of the proccs.

AA1 : 40 health. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

AA2 : 60 health. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

AA3 : 80 health. 10s pulse duration. 2power/pulse.

Increase-Ranged-Attacks-Aura (Group Chant) : (antagonist of CombatSpeed Buff)

This chant enhances ranged attacks. It will increase the speed of such attacks. The values of speed increasement is matched to the values of combat SpeedBuffs, but still lower (30% versus 38% max) in favour to melee classes.

IRA1 : 10% Speed. 0 power.

IRA2 : 20% Speed. 0 power.

IRA3 : 30% Speed. 0 power.

To make scouts not be disadvantaged, they should also receive new abilities. In order to be certain of their lack of magic and to give the archer classes more individuality, here are some proposals of unique scout abilities :

1) Fortification/shield wall : the scout sets up his shield as cover and shoots from behind his shield. He therefore gets an extra bonus of 10% to all melee resistances and blocking rate (also against arrows), but cannot move or change facing. This would also put the scout back as the classical longbowman as known from medieval films. ReUse timer 10secs (to avoid misuse in melee). Setting up the shieldwall : 3 secs.

2) Group Stealth : the whole group of a scout gets temporarily stealth ability. This ability is incompatible with camo. The stealth lasts as long as no one moves / casts a spell / engages in a fight. This ability is great for setting up ambushes. Each character uses a stealth value of half of his level or his own skillvalue, whichever is higher. Recast Timer 30mins.

3) Enhanced Sight : Scouts get as Masters of scouting an additional 300 units of clipping range, so they can spot enemies earlier than any other class can do.

Archery-Countermeasure-Balance

With patch 1.62, finally there are some countermeasures-balances made, and we appreciate these changes. The Perforating Arrow now has an impact on PBT, while leaving casters and PBT-casters “unharmed”, providing a balanced solution for both sides. The fumble rate reduction will further help archers. But there are still some topics left :

To-Hit-Rate

Though the to-hit-rate of melee and archery attacks may be the same, the impact is different: if an archer misses an arrow, 25% of his damage dealt to a target are “gone” and he won’t be able to win this fight in most cases. In contrary, if a tank misses a swing, a mere 5-10% of his attacks are missed, and this doesn’t change much to a combat. By different styles and to-hit-bonuses tanks can also increase their to-hit rate, an archer can’t. We therefore like to see the archery-to-hit-rate increased over the values of melee, as the effect is much more significant. A solution would be to upgrade the to-hit-rate of the arrow types used by an archer.

Shield-Blocking

Tanks can counter 95% of our primary attacks by engage - this doesn’t sound fair to us; archers don’t have a skill which will counter 95% of all melee attacks in opposition, and we guess tanks would be very upset if we had. Tanks still benefit of higher lifepoints, better armour, and lower costs for IP. We recommend to enhance Perforating Arrow also to shields : PA1 will bypass shields and do 50% damage, PA2 75% and PA3 100%. Shields are still useful in melee and grant skills like guard / defend or styles like slam which have a huge impact on the game. See below for a new PA-skill and why so many archers ask for these changes.

Truesight

Truesight : we recommend a timer of 10 minutes of true sight. 10 minutes true sight will give an assassin 10 minutes time to find and kill an archer, while the archer has every 10 minutes a chance to kill an assassin (ratio 10 : 1). Actually truly fair values would be the same amount of time for every side, though, but camo grants a little protection, correcting these values. Nevertheless we recommend to lower the cost of TrueSight to 8 realmpoints : this is the value of see hidden, and makes each antagonist cost the same.

RvR-Groupability

The same as for PvE-Groupability is true for RvR. Archers have to be helpful for a whole group in RvR situations. Therefore skills are needed which affect every member. Recommendations have been done under the topic PvE-Groupability for each archer class.

See other Stealthers in Group

Stealther groups are quite common. In order to enhance smoothness of gameplay and teamwork, each stealther should be able to see each other stealther in his group.

Ranger-Specific

Pathfinding

The pathfinding/beastmastery line is at its current state not comparable to these of other classes and does not match in effectiveness for the skillpoints spent in. A redesign is recommended : the line could be brilliantly used to introduce group friendly skills (see above). Additionally, the dex/con buff is compared to buffs of other classes too low; the values should be raised to up to 73 dex/con at the highest buffs. The Str Buff should be a Str/con Buff. Please keep in mind, that these are only Self-Buffs ! So they aren’t overpowered or decrease the use of druids / shamans, as they can provide buffs for every character, which is a better/stronger ability.

5 Skill-lines

The Ranger is the only archerclass which has 5 skill-lines. While other classes with 5 skill-lines receive up to 2,5times skillpoints per level, the Ranger doesn’t. This imbalance even further increases when the new changes to bow-Skills apply. A Ranger can’t archieve a high bow-skill to use the new styles and abilities without further neglecting the other skills. A raise to the amount of skillpoints granted per level is badly needed. In a survey on archer-Forums, about 90% of scouts admitted, they have Longbow on 50 or are planning to reskill on 50, while only 10% of rangers were able to archieve a value of over 45 recurvebow. This leads to imbalances, were rangers are excluded from the new game mechanisms and abilities provided to the bow line (which were designed to put the archer classes into balance again). They simply can’t afford them. As explanation, I might add these maths : a class which gains 2times skill per level has accumulated 2979 points at level 50. It is proposed to have skills at about 2/3 of your level and an equally balanced distribution. This leads to : 2979 divided by 4 skill-lines ~745 points per skill  Skill at 38. when you are nailed to 5 skill-lines, 2979 divided by 5 is ~ 596 points per skill - a huge difference !  skill at 34. While stealth at a level of 34 is considered sufficient for archer classes, the 4 skill-line classes can even use these points on other lines to archive values of about 39 to 40, which enables them to get the level 39 melee style (in comparison to 34 melee of the 5 skill-line one more melee style !) and with 40 bow PA2 and RF1 ( in comparison with just PA1 and no RF at 34 Bow on an even distributed 5 line Spec.) We really really think that rangers should be granted a little more skillpoints per level, to be on par with archers with 4 skill-lines, to allow them the easy access to the new bow-skills. With 2.2 points per level this would lead into ~650 points per skill, with 2.5 points/level about 741 points per skill. We think that in between these values a fair balance can be archieved. While this sound a lot on first sight, the difference form 596 to 650 points is about 1 more skillpoint at an evenly distributed template (e.g. instead of 34 stealth 35 now) which won’t get the ranger class to be overpowered in the endgame, but this would also help to decrease the problems of low RR rangers : with 35 + 11 Items + RR5 they can hit 50  they “only” need to hit RR5 now to benefit of full damage instead of RR6, which is a lot more difficult. Scouts for instance with a skill of 38 + 11 Items only need RR2 to get to 50 for maximum damage. Please consider this.

Buff-Bots

Passive characters, with the single task to provide superior values, are disturbing the game balance and fairness. These characters are skilled in a manner which “normal” characters which have to pass everyday situations like levelling in a group or joining RvR aren’t able to ill afford. So these BuffBots provide unnatural high buffs and, additionally, as they are passive, they are untargetable. We all know that Mythic is making money by all the 2nd Buffbot accounts, and so for a commercial company it’s a tough decision to take steps which would eventually lead in loosing a source of income. Nevertheless, Mythic has also made several nerfs (e.g. to Archers or Left Axe) which lead in players quitting the game, but helped the general balance. We think that it is time to search one’s conscience and have a fair and straight line in game balance. It’s not the point that in the current situation it’s very capitalistic : if you are rich and can afford 2 PCs, 2 Internet connections and 2 Accounts, you can buy yourself advantages. If you exaggerate it, the future of such behaviour will lead to such things : “Normal Mythic account : 12.95$; Executive Account with 50% more Life and 25% more Damage : 25.00$; Platinum Account with 200% more Life and 1 Instant Enemy Kill per hour : 100.00$” - got the point ? Second argument is, that there isn’t another Char and it will never be accepted that there could be another char, which can kill / provide his skills without being killable - An Eldritch which would be parked safely in Druim Ligen and could kill enemies in Emain would rise anger and appeals in seconds. But that is just the thing Buffbots do : They are “parked” in the Teleportation Keeps, behind thick walls and well defended by NPC guards, so they cannot be killed. Normal players have huge disadvantages : buffing characters are no longer wanted in groups : they can neither provide such high buffs, and they can be killed in RvR. Solo chars encountering a buffed char won’t be able to eliminate his source of power, nor will they be able to stand an one on one situation (e.g. a ranger has unbuffed solo about 1200 HP, buffed 1650 HP - so do the assassins and other archer classes as well: they get about 50%-75% more life. In an one-on-one this difference is unbeatable ). The solution to this problem is quite easy, and the first step was introduced by patch 1.62 : all buffs should be range restricted. If the buffed char moves out of a certain range of his buff provider, the buffs will extinguish. A range of about 2000 to 5000 units seem to be reasonable. This gives room for a radius, which is large enough to send a scout scouting ahead a bit or letting someone go chasing an enemy for some distance without loosing buffs. Players which won’t forgo on their BuffBots still can use them : they can either stick their BuffBot at their chars, or hide them in the RvR Region next to them. They will still benefit of their buffs, but the other players now have a chance : they are able to kill the BuffBot, making the situation fair again. We don’t want to completely extinguish BB or take Mythic’s source of income, but change the mechanism of BB so, that they still can be used, but that other players have a change to cope with them as well.

LOS

Well, there have been a lot of complaints, so I just mention it : the LineOfSight system needs to be redesigned. Especially at keeps, it is hard to archieve a LOS, and the “jump and fire technique” doesn’t seem to be intended, to be honest. Archer classes should be able to get LOS more easily, and so also be “effective” at keepraids / defenses. At the current situation, mages control the field by GTAE or “jump-cast-and diminish into safety” tactics.

Critshot

The design of critshot is very hard to use in RvR. Even slow moving targets (e.g. stealthing Chars) are immune to critshots. This leads to disabling our main damage style. The use of Critshot is by now already very restricted, as the first shot at “immobile casters” will be negated by their bladeturn. Other classes are advancing towards you (tanks), making critshot impossible by moving. We think that the critshot should be useable in RvR and be the main style of an archer when the archer has the initative of a fight. Therefore, critshot should be altered in the following manner as in roleplay critshot represents a masterfull aimed and precise shot, which is worth of an expert archer :

- Critshot will be fireable at any target, regardless of its moving speed or whether it is in combat or not.

- Critshot gets a timer of 10 seconds to prevent its misuse

Evading while stealthed

We also disagree that stealthed charactes should evade while being stealthed. When stealthed, they are moving too slow and are mainly concentrated on being hidden, so they shouldn’t be able to evade at all.

Changing target

Changing targets with an arrow knocked, and before the release timer is up, is horribly buggy.

The arrow will ALWAYS try to release at whatever you had previously targeted, regardless of whether you had auto-release on or not. If you fire at target A, and the target dies, your next arrow will also hit target A, although you selected target B in the meantime.

Volley

Volley is used by ground target. The GT can be set by holding F5 and arrow keys to position the GT. While holding F5 no movement can be done.

* First, setting the GT isn’t easy, and sometimes impossible. Especially at slopes, where you are looking “downwards”, you can’t move your GT. By pressing F5 and your arrows, you will keep on moving your Char instead of the GT or at least it will be interrupted a lot by moving yourself then moving the GT then again moving the char - the maximum range of setting a Ground target can’t be archieved. This happens more often at certain regions, as there are : the side slopes at the Midgard Main Gate in Hadrian’s Wall for instance.

* Second, there is no real reason why Volley is prohibited in Darkness Fall. (in the current German Patch 1.60 it is theoretically working, though in 90% of the places you can’t set a GT by the described bug above) Volley is a RA which does the same as abilities of other characters (e.g. casters) do : firing at a GT without LOS. Casters may cast GTAEs in DF, and there seems no problem. Additionally, there is no other RA which is regionally restricted : for instance tanks would also “cry” if they couldn’t use IP in DF. Archers have a huge drawback in dungeons, as they cannot use their strength of their high range due to the restricted LOS and narrowness of a dungeon. By further restricting the use of their RAs this imbalance is further boosted.

* Third, the range of Volley seems to be miscalculated. [this needs to be proofed] Heigth differences are taken into account, decreasing the range of Volley even when firing downhill. The most impact seems to be when you are on one side of a valley, and you are firing to the other side. The range is as short as if the range would be calculated “downwards the hill, then towards the GT, and upwards the other side of the valley again” instead of a straight line, so height is taken into account two times.

* Fourth, as a minor “bug”, Volley will be stopped, if a stack of arrows contains fewer than 5 arrows. Correctly, a new stack should be used for the missing arrows.

I just wanted to thank you for the hard work you're putting into your new Team Lead position as our Ranger TL.

I for one, am very quiet about our class, although I feel I think Ive been through the weeds with him through thick and thin. If anything I ever would wish for, at this very moment. One thing? Make the Ranger PF Damage Add group castable, 10min, based on the specc'd lvl of PF. Im a purely grouped ranger. I dont solo in RvR at all. (1+9 spec in stealth should be sufficient explanation). So I will admit I am biased to boosting Ranger grouping strengths. The class needs to offer something beyond what it does already.

That would fix the ranger's issues of grouping by leaps and bounds (PvE and RvR), even without the availability of the Determination RA (which is fast becoming the RvR req for the primary tank(s) in group, further creating rifts and censorship between classes within a realm).

I have no other concerns honestly.

At any rate, thanks again for being so involved more than I think I could have been given the same responsibilities.

Caesu ItchyClaw

50 Ranger Palomides

Rank 10L7 Emeralde Ridere.

Hiyas!

Well, 1.64b fixed the problem by making all the new weapons 16.5 DPS, like all the level 51 weapons. The only problem that I can see is the range of the two new recurves, the Exceptional and the Fortified.

As you would expect, they have less range than our regular Recurve. Performance-wise, they seem to do damage between our Recurve and our Great Recurve.

From what I understand, the Albion bows are going to speed up the bow they use mostly, the Longbow. This I believe is the one that has the most range, 2200. I sure wish one of our bows, if not both, were set to our maximum range, 2100.

~Ryana~

None of the new bows are marked as regular recruves, so we rangers dont get our range bonus with them. new speeds are 4.8 and 5.1, both 16.5dps, neather grants us our range bonus(i just tested it on pend). PLZ PLZ PLZ get this changed, not having a 16.5DPS reg recurve is so unfair since scouts get their range bonus on their 16.5DPS crafted bows and hunters dont have one at all to worry about.

~Kilwen Wyrmstalker

50 ranger Guinevere

Hi Larian, i have a RR6 ranger, Jaxi, on bedevere, and one of the things that very much annoy me is having camo and stealth on my quickbar, in your next report can you please request having camo placed automatically when you stealth instead of using up two space on the quickbar.

If this gets changed i will very much appreciate it.

Jaxi Quiksilver

an idear for procs on bows could be that if hit by a melee atacker the bow could proc a snare or root of some kind this i think would make senes

or if hit with a range attack the bow could proc a majical arrow to fly out of it an hit target :))

First of all grats for the TL job, i'm sure you'll do great :)

Secondly: an idea which would make rangers more group friendly in RvR and also worth specing to high bow, "Power-hit". A shot that drains about 25-40 % mana out of target. It would be specable at 35 and 45 or so...

Just an idea I thought i could send it to you :)

Regards,

ranger from hibernia/prydwen

i need to take up 2 quickbar slots for stealth...one for stealth and one for camo......any chance of requesting to mythic that they make camo activate automatically when the 10minute timer is up and you stealth? would free up a quickbar space which would be kinda handy

After reading the replies to your TL report, I think I have some ideas for PF fixes and stealth changes.

PF:

The issues with PF aren't in spell duration, but in how bad the spells are. We have no way of boosting HP (adding a con and a str/con buff would help here).

Our damage add diminishes with range - the result is that the damage add does less on our bow than it does on our melee weapons, unless we're shooting at point blank.

Our armor buff doesn't stack with good armor. We appear to have a maximum of 595 AF, regardless. That means that in epic armor or better, the AF buff is a moot point.

Our speed burst does little to help with scouting.

As it stands, a mid-30's buffbot is better than speccing PF to full. The whole purpose of having buffs, especially considering the way Mythic is "encouraging" (with a gun) that we group, is to prevent needing a healer to waste conc on buffing us. With a decent self-buff line, we'd not only gain survivability, but also possibly gain groupability, since we wouldn't soak buffers' conc, allowing them to put more buffs on others.

So here are my suggestions:

Fix the damage add bug.

Fix the armor factor bug.

Improve our existing stat buffs to 1.3x spell level (leaving constant the lower level ones that are even and possibly tapering off at the top level of the buff or maxing the buff's value at 45 or 50 - diminishing returns).

Add comparable con and dex buffs. I'd suggest con at 17 (for 22), 26 (for 33), 35 (for 45), and 44 (57). I'd suggest dex at 22 (for 28), 32 (for 41), and 41 (for 53)

Add a str/con buff at half that. I'd suggest at 24 (for 17), 33 (for 23), and 44 (for 31).

By improving our buffs, we'd need to take away all the casting improvement RA's from the ranger list.

Evidence suggests that with lvl50 buffbot buffs, rangers don't miss nearly as much.

One of the primary arguments against giving rangers 2.2 spec is that they'd still get buffbots and just boost their melee. I agree that would make us overpowered. By a considerable boost to PF (as outlined above), this would make speccing PF to about 36 a very viable option (almost as good as a buffbot, but with duration buffs), while preventing the "uber" melee/bow ranger with the buffbot from getting any better.

Other ideas would include adding group speed chant at hastener level (we find better trails) and a self runspeed chant at chanter or hastener speed (we're used to covering long distances). Both of these would need to drop (not just go dormant) when fighting...you'd need to recast afterwards.

Now...I'm not thinking all of the changes together would be good, but I think most of them together would make PF decent while not helping those who get around the PF issue by botting.

Another possibility would be (in conjunction with the 1.3x lvl idea) making the str buff a str/con, and adding .7x lvl con, dex, and str buffs (maxing the 1.3x lvl buffs at 50 and the .7x lvl buffs at 30).

I know that's a long read there, but as we all know PF is in desperate shape and since nobody's tossed out decent numbers and ideas for fixing it, I give you these. Hope that helps!

Bow utility, your standard elemental damage DoTing arrows (light DOT, maybe the equiv of styled bleed damage), BT arrows (think animist BT pets here, shoot a friend, give him bubble), *MODERATE* snare arrows (ie: I shot you in the leg deal -- you run at 15% less speed than normal)

maybe some other various buff/debuff arrows

IMHO that would solve some group utility problems, the animist has already shown that we can use friendly fire to buff our allies -- so the tech is there

since we have volley an AE would be out of the question, since we have LS, an increased range shot would be out of the question

naturally, all archers would be able to share the abilities

Even though my ranger is only 35 and i will probably not play him anymore, there is one little thing i wanted to suggest. What about archers in general being able to fire their bow even when they run out of endurance? i found it a major annoyance that every other class can still do some damage even without endurance, while archers are not. This could be achieved through completely wipe endurance costs for shooting with a bow, would not be a significant change in terms of balance but would still give archers the chance to still deal some damage even after having to run away.

Mini Mouse - Give an insta spell, usable while stealthed. Turns caster into a mouse (remove title flag, all mice look the same. Allowing them to slide under the milegate doors without opening them. Lasts 30 Secs and on a 5 mins timer.

How about an ability that lets you move faster while stealthed, but with a timer so that you can not attack while stealthed, but also for an amount of time after you use this stealth speed-burst. Would be perfect for scouting, and would make it so people wouldn't use it to line up for attacks. I'm not talking like 30 second timer, but more like a 2 minute timer. Should drain endurance, as well.

Also, tree climbing I'd love to climb trees in the game with my Ranger

Rangers main weapon is bow so why not bow masteries ?

1) One could be increased range at decreased chance to hit. Ranger shoots in a upward arc to increase his range but at high chance to miss. Damage should not be effected.

2) Point Blank shot - Works like QC but for archers, allowing them to get 1 last shot with bow before going into melee even when getting hit.

3) Aimed shots - Give acces to new shots you can put on QB like Crit.

------Leg shot - acts like snare with reduced damage

------Arm Shot - Atack debuff with reduced ddamage

------Gut shot - Adds a bleed

Just a few :-)

Its nice they asking you for that.

Falcon pet:While the concept is appealing, I really dont see how this can be implemented without it overpowering the class. A stealth class that can send a small, very fast 'pet' to scout an enemy keep would give hibernia a rather good advantage in RvR. If you think about it, it'd be like allowing Albion's ministrels to use speed song while stealthed.

How about utility arrows?

For example,

-Flare arrows. Fire it, it lands on target and burns in place for 10 seconds.

Useful for night and dungeons and other stuff.

-Poisoned arrows. Arrows that do very light damage on impact but deliver a poison to target. Poisons would be limited to lev 20 dots, 10 second lasting disease, Confusion (like mentalist confusion spell) effect.

-1 shot volley ability: Since volley lets you fire off 5 arrows, why not give all archers the ability to ground-target fire ONE arrow? Would be useful for keep takes.

Other things that would be good:

Scavenge: Something that would give rangers groupability. Scavenge would be given to rangers at lev 20. It increases the number of items dropped per kill and gives a 5% chance per 20 levels of player (aka at lev 20 has 5% chance, 40 10% 50 12.5%) to drop an item (aka, weapon, staff, armour with +s on it).

Staff spec: I'll say it again: Giving up dual wield to use a slow weapon 2H is not going to overpower the ranger.

Climb Trees: add keep-like ladders to trees and let us climb up. If WW2OL can do it, so can DAOC!

Elven Bows: Add a new type of bow, the Elven Bow. Elven bows cannot be used to critshot with, does not use arrows (they fire an energy arrow of spirit damage, damage is based on INT..giving elven rangers a nice niche...and each arrow fired consumed end as well as power) and has a draw time of 4 seconds regardless of qui, archery spec or RA's and who'se shots have medium chance to hit. Its a fluff bow that would be good for all levels while they XP (cuts the cost of arrows to 0).

Skills for setting traps and snares. I figure both shades and rangers can use this. I don't see it as a major damage dealer, but maybe something with a snare or root component. Like a mini-tangler pet. Usable every 15 min, lasts for 3 min. Chance to resist vs. body or something.

Flip side would be an additional skill to detect traps/snares. Make it passive and set traps as a prereq.

Imagine setting one up on the climb points for keeps. Or in the mile gates. Or Darkness Falls.

Bow styles!

It's been said tons already and I think that should be proof enough it would be a very good addition.

I don't see snare/damage debuff/bleed styles with 15% damage reduction as asking too much. It would add so much utility to the archer classes.

Falconry is a good idea but the suggested rules are silly. As they stand now noone would ever use this skill...ever. It should be:

Ranger goes into stealth with 50% detection radius reduction and assumes control over falcon avatar. The falcon is only attackable by long range spells and archery attacks, and assumes the resists of the player. If the falcon dies, the ranger suffers 25% damage of overall HPs. The falcon tether should be a set range, but should be over clipping, maybe 150% clipping range. Ranger cannot move while controlling the falcon (obviously).

Climb trees is cool but I don't know if all three archer classes should get it.

Rangers: climb tree. While in a tree you cannot deal damage in any form, but can detect all hidden characters with Camoflauge down at 50% clipping range.

Hunters: snare trap. Works in the same way as a rune trap but does very reduced damage and a 10% snare. The radius should be one avatar wide, so only one person can get caught in it.

Scouts: head count. Set a ground target with a GTAE spell radius that gets a count of exactly how many enemies are in the radius.

Just some ideas

If tracking goes to anyone, it should be rangers exclusively. It was supposed to be part of what separated rangers from the other archers...and it never showed up. I could see hunters and scouts getting it, too, but not being as good at it. There's no justification for anyone else having it.

The falconry idea isn't very practical...I wouldn't use it as described unless the falcon had a huge range...it leaves you too vulnerable otherwise. How do you respond to "looking through the falcon's eyes, falcon gets killed (come on...it's a falcon, it can't be that tough), you return to your own sight at 1/10th health and there's someone about to kill you." You don't go scouting unless you're worried about someone being there, so why would you sign your own death warrant by losing your ability to move, defend yourself, or hide. There'd be no reason to use it...ever. BUT if you could sit in a keep, next to the lord, and send a falcon out scouting...that's a lot better.

I like the idea of a mez-breaking arrow to use on realmmates. It's a targetted effect, and it requires the ranger to be unmezzed obviously, and it would mean the ranger isn't inflicting damage on the enemy while he's using it. I think that's pretty handy.

How about a friggin' arrow quiver?

Specialty arrows/shots have been requested for eons...how about coming through? I like the flare arrow idea...you could add to it "prevents stealth for x time (maybe an extra 15 seconds or something)."

Climbing for archers - if minstrels can.... I like the climbing trees idea. There's no reason why archers shouldn't do ANY damage from trees, though (what hunter has never put up a blind in a tree and then shot from it?). If they can be hit, they should be able to hit back. I'd say reduce damage from being in a tree. Since melee couldn't reach (maybe spear and polearm could? giving them more utility), maybe reduce damage from an archer in the tree by 1/3 or 1/2?

I DON'T like the slipping under milegate idea. The whole reason why you can't climb milegate walls is so assassins can't break into a frontier w/o at least opening the door and making it obvious to any scout that someone came through.

Targetted shots are per styles? Sure...but you'd have to be careful to make them utility and NOT overpowered. Damage would have to be significantly reduced.

For arching shots to increase range, Sphig is true to a point. Most archers shooting at a high angle have reduce accuracy...so you could certainly extend range beyond "effective range," but you'd reduce both range and damage (arrows penetrate more at close range). I don't think this is a good utility skill, though.

I like the ground target shot idea.

I like the scavenging idea (increasing loot for a group with a ranger), but I can't see it being implemented. Same with anything that reduces arrow use in pve.

I like Ciraich's idea for hunter and scout abilities.

New poisons, as mentioned, would be easily abused by swapping weapons more.

I don't like any of Epiz's ideas except one. I like the alarm idea. You'd have to modify it, though...you need to be in the keep itself (maybe in the relic room itself), alive, and there have to be visible enemies nearby. You hit the gong and it pops up messages for people. But that's not a new utility skill - you set that up in the RvR patch and just put a gong in the relic keep. I like the mechanics (but not the description or recipients) of his tracking. Tree climb should not make you invulnerable to any damage - it'd be too easy to scout with impunity then log while everyone waits at the bottom. Suicides? Come on...people who run to guards to suicide while in a fight are lame to begin with. Don't help lamers like that. Decoy? That's actually unbalancing...makes it too easy to lure enemies to their death.

Here's my thoughts on it...

Introduce three new abilities to the game.

Falconry, Tracking, and Arc Shot (or GT shot, whatever).

Each archer class gets them all. However, based on which realm they hail from, their proficiency in the abilities will differ.

Scouts are modeled after Welsh bowmen. To say they can't get tracking or falconry is ridiculous. Falconry was a major sport in medieval times, and while not many bowmen were actually falconers, there were a privileged few. Hence, Master Abilities. Also, they were hunters and had to hunt for their own food many times. Even most farmers had some hunting and tracking ability, back then. But they are best known for their arcing volleys into the enemy ranks... so I propose that Scouts receive Arcing Volley III (or whichever third idea you approve the most of), while Rangers and Hunters receive only Arcing Volley I or maybe II.

To say Rangers are the only ones who should get tracking... that is preposterous. Hunters! Hello? I think that Hunters should be the ones to get Tracking III in this case, with a bonus if they are controlling a wolf pet at the time.

And as for Falconry... yes, Rangers level III and the others I or II. "Why?" you ask. Well, for Falconry to be viable the character must be able to see through the Falcon's eyes. And that requires magic. And which of the three realms is most attuned to magic? Hibernia.

-I'd like to see some new melee styles that can be used anytime. Not all rangers rely solely on bow

-I'd like to see some sort of augmentation for our pathfinding, maybe additional spells that could be added, like a base dex or str/con, or possibly a buff improver, perhaps doubling the strength of our buffs at the cost of half the duration.

-Another nice idea is a duplicate image lure or escape trick, like mirror image.

-Perhaps also some sort of animal empathy that automatically makes animal based creatures assume a neutral stance with us.

-Perhaps short term scouting abilities, like faster stealth movement, or shortened camo duration.

-Maybe a throwing of voices, making a /shout come from another direction via /groundtarget, allowing for the luring away of enemies.

-Perhaps an "aggro arrow", something to draw mobs onto unsuspecting invaders.

-Perhaps an early-warning detection spot on the ground, a sort of throwing of leaves or other noise maker to alert you to the approach of someone, whether friend or foe.

-Perhaps the ability to "disguise" your realm rank from the enemy, making them think you are a lower rank, up to two ranks below you or above you.

-McGyver ability , fashion "stinkbombs" or something, much like the EQ forage ability, a slight de-buff, nothing on spell scale or poison scale, but maybe -20 to some resist or stat.

-A boost to the magical enchantment of a weapon temporarily, a channeling of the veil into your weapon for a very limited time, perhaps to 40% for a short time.

Edit: I'd also like to see racial weapons and armor, designed with each race in mind, allowing for suitable bonuses/penalties, and only wieldable by that certain race. Races get certain resist bonuses, so why not allow certain skill bonuses as well, albeit minor at best. It would also be nice to implement a racial language similar to EQ, especially for the rp aspect.

That falcon pet idea really is perhaps the most useless thing I've heard. If a useful implementation was given it wouldn't be so bad, like being able to kamikaze beak first into the eye of someone's buffbot at APK, instantly killing them then it might be worth it

A more serious suggestion though, it would be ok if it couldn't be killed, maybe it could be a magic falcon seeing as we have some form of magic to us that expires after a set time, perhaps make it drain mana from our mana pool, thus giving us a point in having mana for anything other than self buffs in the first place but being invulnerable at the same time? It wouldn't change balance of the class, but it would allow us to scout like we're ment to be able to, currently assassins make better scouts than us due to being able to climb walls and having real stealth, this idea would perhaps fix our scouting issue all in one. The ranger would still be a sitting duck to a See Hidden assassin whilst flying around scouting.

Climb trees would be nice and something, that afaik was promised to one, or all of the archer classes earlier in the game? Making it so we can't shoot whilst up a tree sounds fair enough.

I think the only abilities we're going to see that don't change the classes power are scouting abilities, because they're helpful, fun but really don't change the sway of battle, at best they let us stop realm mates running into a zerg and getting slaughtered without a chance in hell.

I don't suppose it would be practical to allow us to move faster when there's no enemies within a set radius? This could fit in with the lore that we're masters of the forest but would want to slow down to avoid being seen by enemies when we sense there are some around. It'd just alleviate tedious in-realm travel times somewhat and make the run back to emain less tedious after being eaten by 30 See Hidden Infils, 20 Minstrels and 20 Scouts all at once.

Can't think of anything else right now

Mastery of Pathfinding, this ability would literally allow a ranger to trace the essence of enemies within ones frontier (who aren't stealthed ofcourse) and allow the ranger to follow/scout them out even if they run far out of sight due to the ranger being stealthed/them being on speed. Possibly if another realms archer/stealther gained this ability the ranger could also be granted the ability to hide the essence of the realm mates he was with etc, making them untraceable out of los/guard patrol spam etc, as well as possible diversion's or something like loot bags/lagged pets heading in one direction as opposed to the direction they went in

My Suggestions:

1) Definately some kind of Bow utility. A shot that does reduced damage but snares the enemy (shot in the leg/foot), reduces melee speed (shot in the hand) and the gut for bleed was a very cool suggestion also. I was also thinking a no dmg Head Shot/Eye Shot for something like Near Sight (this one is stretching it). I think this utility alone would make Rangers much more likeable in groups.

2) Falconry is a very nice concept, but the first suggestion about the 1/10th HP left over and can be hit in shade form is a bit excessive IMO. I like Ciriach's idea better. But why have Falconry at all when you can have.....

3) Tracking. I would like to see this skill implemented more so than anything else suggested. This would again greatly increase our use in groups AND in soloing. This is the one skill I missed most coming from a Ranger in EQ. I think if thought out and implemented properly this would be a very nice Master Abililty to attain.

Most of my thoughts have been centered on the Tracking and Bow/Arrow Utility. Putting poisons on our arrows would be a very nice tool to work with also.

A lot of these archery related ideas might be good for general fixes or as general archer ToA Master Abilities. Especially a leg shot that snares. But I don't think appropriate for a special ranger ability.

As for what would be cool for rangers in particular, I keep thinking of the one thing that would make me happiest and fits perfectly into any role-playing conception of a ranger.

What is it right now that old Strider and Legolas had that DAOC Rangers don't?

The ability to run for hours on a time through the terrain, that's what.

What I want for our Ranger Master Ability is the ability to run at like 50% greater speed for 5 minutes on a 30 minute timer. It would be interruptable, but we could keep going at speed so long as the 5 minutes wasn't up. The idea is that you can run a long period of time, but then you need to rest. This fits perfectly with our class and would not be overpowering in any way. Think how nice this would be for running to Uppland or scouting.

Also, I think we need to combine this with some kind of stealth advantage. Perhaps have this 5 minutes of speed work when we are in CAMO. Think how great that would be for scouting.

Focus on something like this.

Falconry sounds like a pain in the ass. If I wanted a pet, I would have made a hunter.

I can't overstate how much I would enjoy a 5 minute speed buff to move around places.

I don't think some of the posters are getting the real idea of falconry. The purpose would be to scout and only to scout.

Not intending to start a flame war, it sounds like many here are thinking like a solo or stealth group player (something most of us have been forced to do forever).

The MAJOR benefit of falconry would be its group appeal. I don't know of a reasonable group that wouldn't want the ability to scout areas of the frontier where enemy forces were suspected to be.

I do agree:

* It should have a range (2x clip?)

* It should have a recast timer (10 min?)

* The ranger should stand still while the falcon is in flight

* The viewing screen should not replace the ranger's view but should be a split screen view that allows the ranger to see whats going on in the immediate area while also scouting the area in the falcon's path.

* The ranger should not be fully stealthed while the falcon is in flight

* In the event of an attack, the ranger should have a release ability that instantly releases the falcon and returns the ranger to all of his/her normal abilities.

I do NOT agree:

* The falcon should NOT do damage

* The ranger should NOT lose health if the falcon dies

* The falcon should NOT see through stealth other than at the same level/distance the ranger would see through it.

* The falcon should NOT be an easy kill ... killable? possibly, but try to shoot a flying falcon with a bow or targeted spell. maybe they should have low hit points and very high evade/resists

* The falcon should NOT be usable from inside any permanent structure. Open country for sure, maybe keep courtyards, milegate ramparts, etc but not in any building.

Yes, while scouting the ranger would be somewhat vulnerable BUT, a caster is vulnerable alone in the frontiers and groups are often built to protect that caster. While scouting, unless very well hidden using the terrain, trees etc, the ranger would need some level of group protection.

The execution (certainly inclusive of my personal suggestions) is NOT perfect, but the concept, with refinement, could be a HUGE utility increase for rangers that would first and foremost, make them APPEALING to non-stealth RVR groups.

I would challenge my fellow rangers to try to refine this concept so that it is both useful AND practical.

Mythic is not going to allow a scale plated falcon dive bomber with steel talons and a fire breathing beak. They aren't going to allow it to fly forever from Druim Ligen to Emain Macha. They aren't going to allow it to be a sniper's one shot cross-hairs from 5000 distance units.

BUT, they may consider a scouting ability that does NOT overpower the class AND makes it more likely the archer will participate in grouped battles much of the time.

Falconry is the most promising suggestion I have seen for rangers in almost 2 years and I would gladly donate alot of my time to working on refinement and the associated testing to effectively execute the ablity.

Go Go Falconry!!

A summary reiteration of my falcon ideas.

Falcon flies by an f11 view switch.(ever seen beast master) It casts only a weak nearsight spell. It should have enough hitpoints that it would require an anemy 50 archer at least 2 regular shots to kill it. and it would have a low atack ability but enough to land a hit on a 50... but for like 50-60 damage on a cloth, 35-345 on leather etc.

Arrows with grappling ropes or similar such to allow us to climb up places(keep walls, milegates, buildings such as the ones at beno-Y.

A baseline heal spell for friendly targets. Not something you'd use in big combat... just a last resort heal. Every fantasy elven ranger was always an herbalist who could pick some grass and weeds up and put them on your wounds to help heal you.

PBAE snare. About a 20% unbreakable snare. Lets face it. we're toast if we run into a heavy melee. Give us a real chance to run besides some gimped speed spell that breaks when someone farts.

The ability to 'trap' a weapon and render it unuseable for a round. Passive ability, put it in like evade 1 or 2 (5-10%) chance of going off. I took this from some novice level martial arts. Suits high dex classes well.

The ability to redirect an enemies attack on himself. Not novice, but still martial arts. Also suits high dex well. Target takes full damage, effect, as if he styled himself.

Advanced stealth; rangers want safe fall and detect hidden. Apprehensive about climb walls, but lets add it for posterity.

Add an effect to the shout that does damage, or has an effect. Righ now the shout is just a tickle. Stamina debuff is an interesting option, or stamina tap. If i could tap endurance...mmmm. That one should make the TL report.

'Twist the knife' skill when you land a hit, twist the hilt for an extra damage add, bleed, or debuff.

AF debuff, ABs debuff.

The abilitie to 'throw' your weapon at a ranged target. Shortbow range, unstyled attack. You take two melee rounds to 'recover' your weapon. Factor CD/DW/LA offhand into the mix, factor procs into the mix.

'Disengage', enhanced ability to pentrate a shield tanks defense. SS tanks would love hate this, and its probably more appropriate fro them to have it, but still cool.

Higher dps weapons should be available all around, and slower offhanders. Make it worthwhile to be a master of the poke n thrust.

Limited ethereal travel, say, warp behind someone. Target has to reaquire you on their combat meter. I guess you could consider the target as the center of the 'travel' equation, and be permitted to choose two directions (arbitrary side, back) to reposition yourself. Nice side/back styles would result for the rounds before you are retargetted and /faced. 7 minute timer. Obviously classes with the long duration side-back stuns would be exempt.

The ability to 'hush' a player. Make communication impossible for one minute. Hushed guards wold not indicate the strength of oposing forces at all. Maybe a passive guard only ability, anything to beguile a guard patrol when 140 invaders attack it.

1, tracker, ranger, hunter skill, only workable in your own frontier, your able to traverse from keep to keep really quickly (something like port) to scout your own area out, so like from ail to bolg, from bolg to either crim to DC, helps us be real scouts.

2 If the idea falconry comes out, should be 2 times the clipping range, the bird dies your down to 1/10th hitpoints, it can't attack just watch.

3. doesn't matter what ability make it group friendly.

4. Quivers!!!!!!

5. Tracking. but with the idea one or 2 it'll help us scout around as is if it can be worked in

The only idea I could come up with, which I really like: Summon Portal. Once every hour or something you can portal yourself to any of the standard destinations. Perhaps even including friendly keeps. It would be a nice fluff ability to be able to portal yourself to the hib MK, for instance. Make the timer big to prevent overuse and abuse. It wouldn't add greatly to anyone's "power" but it would be a nice reward of convenience for all that hard work.

1) Tracking would rock. It would give archers something they've been excited about for a long time, while solving the groupability problem people seem to have.

My favorite implementation for Tracking would be for everyone to leave invisible footprints behind them. When a Ranger turns on Tracking, he sees the footprints. If he is a skilled tracker, the footprints fade slowly.

2) Wilderness Sense. I would set a GT in an area, say on the road outside a border keep or at a milegate. I leave the area. Later, I trigger my Wilderness Sense ability and it says: "You focus your senses on a distant area. There are 12 enemies in the area! There are 2 allies in the area!" It would only count RVR targets, not mobs. A higher level of this ability could detect stealthers.

Wilderness Sense is obviously limited by GT (i.e. you lose your ability to monitor an area when you set GT for Volley). It could also be limited by range or a reuse timer.

3) Climbing trees. That's a cool idea! Not sure what use there is for it, though.

4) Master Shot. An ability with a 1 minute duration and a 15 minute reuse timer. Or it could work like Arrow Salvaging (every shot has 10% chance, etc.) While active, every shot fired will hit as though it is the target's vulnerable damage type.

5) Safe Passage. This was suggested in another thread, so it's not my idea. When activated, monsters are less likely to uncover the stealther when stealthed, and less likely to aggro him when unstealthed.

Go go TOA!

How about Mirror Image?

You cast a spell, and a mirror Image of yourself appears at the Ground Target and acts like a pet.

Can be used for baiting enemy away from your position, or luring stealthers out of position.

You can't tell a Mirror Image from a normal toon.

1) Since rangers hunters and scouts should have knowledge of the forest and surrounding areas I propose a grp speed buff of perhaps 10%. So a grp with a bard going speed 5 could add a ranger and have speed 6.

2) Since rangers hunters and scouts should have knowledge of the forest and surrounding areas maybe they could camo their grp for 30 seconds reducing the distance the grp could be seen by 1/2.

3) Since ranger path is useless as is i propose the adding of additional buffs like a bow haste spell or a con buff or a short duration Celtic Duel buff.

4) An ability to buy 1 realm point skill without having to purchase the prerequisites might be nice for everyone.

5) I would like to see archers get a quickshot with similar mechanics as the mage quickcast.

6) Rangers could always use a pulsing spell turn spell(Ok I would be thrilled with a Single Spell turn on a timer)

7) The ability to purge one negitive effect by using shift right click on an icon at the top of the screen. Much like how u cancel buffs.

Magic Arrows. Toggle them on/off like Rapid Fire. When it's on, instead of using an arrow out of your pack, power is used (Wow, a use for that power bar!). Different versions would use different resists (Heat resist for fire arrows, cold resist for ice arrows, ect).

Mythic could also add different effects to the different types if they wanted. Say, AoE on the fire arrow, some kind of root/snare on the ice arrow, DoT/poison on a matter arrow, there's a lot of different things they could do.

1) Magically charged arrows.

Using power, the Ranger can add a spell effect to his next shot. Examples include single-target DD (fire and ice arrows) or AE (a good reason to use Volley). Please note these effects will be nowhere near as powerful as regular spells, and that the effect is wasted if the shot misses. Not usable on critical shots.

2) Tree climbing.

I like the concept, but I do have one gripe. Unlike others, I think that archers SHOULD be able to attack while in a tree. Why? If an archer can't attack from a tree, the only way for an archer to survive while doing so is to prevent others from attacking him. The ability to jump from his perch should also be added (in case Mythic decides that others can attack an archer up in his perch).

3) Trueshot.

An archer-only ability. The archer casts a spell that allows his next shot to hit, regardless of any defensive measures. This ability is on a 30-minute timer, so it shouldn't be used lightly. Also, it does not stack with any other special abilities mentioned here or already implemented.

4) Multiple Shots.

Again, archers only. For each level in Multiple Shots, an archer fires one extra arrow per shot (2 arrows per shot, 3 arrows per shot, etc. up to 5). Shot time is increased 50% per extra arrow fired, and there is no guarantee that all of the arrows will hit. Cannot be combined with RF, Longshot, or Volley. Unsure at this time what an appropriate timer on this ability should be.

5) Falconry.

Give me a break. Some of the suggestions for this ability are really crazy. Here's my idea on how it should work (again, this is IMHO; YMMV.):

--Ranger must be in the wilderness (not a dungeon, town, MG, keep, or city).

--While using Falconry, the Ranger must remain seated and cannot be in combat. Moving, entering combat, or being damaged in any way (melee, poisons, AE spells, falling, etc.) BREAKS Falconry and allows the Ranger to act normally. The Ranger can end Falconry as easily as pet classes dismiss their pets.

--Ranger's power pool is being drained while using Falconry (larger power pool = longer duration). Once power pool is drained, falcon goes poof and the Ranger must regain his full power pool to use the ability again. There should also be a short timer (1 - 5 minutes) before this ability becomes available again to avoid abuse.

--The Ranger's spirit takes the form of a falcon. The falcon has 1/2 of the Ranger HP's, no ability to enter or perform combat, and can enter/exit stealth like the ranger can. The falcon's Stealth can be dependent on the Ranger's stealth spec or by how many levels of Falconry he takes.

--The falcon can be attacked normally. Given that it will most likely be flying all of the time, spells and ranged attacks will be the most effective against them. If the falcon is killed, the Ranger loses 1/2 of his HP; this damage can be healed by any means.

6) Bow styles.

A lot of good suggestions for adding snares, bleeds, and slowing effects were mentioned already. I can't think of anything to add on this front.

7) Infiltration/disguise abilities.

Think about it - what else does an assassin do besides kill people? They get into places quietly, without being detected. This idea expands upon stealth and turns a regular JoeAssassin into an honest-to-God spy.

--The assassin effectively becomes a member of an opposing realm, taking on the appearance of an assassin from the selected realm. Guards will normally regard the assassin as a friendly PC, but everyone will have a chance to see through the disguise (mechanics for this are up to Mythic). Entering RvR combat with any NPC/PC of the realm the assassin is impersonating (not /dueling) has a chance of breaking the disguise.

--While using this ability, the assassin CANNOT communicate with any of his "true" realm-mates by any means. This effectively stops cross-teaming (something I know someone will say something about). However, the assassin will be able to talk freely with characters from the realm he is currently impersonating.

--This ability cannot be used to enter a realm's normal PvE areas.

--This ability can be used for up to 2 hours at a time, and it has a 24 hour timer. If the disguise fails while you're in an enemy keep... expect to /release back home unless your buddies just kicked in the doors.

This ability will require some modification for use on the PvP/Co-op servers... but I think it can work there just as equally.

That's all for now. Comments?

Well, if MA's can only be "fluff", mind as well ask for some fluff that's useful that doesn't overpower anyone in RvR.

MA Adventurer

You are a hardy veteran of many adventures, and easily explore places others dare not go. You may now bind at Innis Carthaig (this should have been in the game ages ago).

MA Wind at your Back

You are blessed by good winds and soft trails. You may now ride a special horse Northbound! to DL from TnN and Ardee (this should have been in the game ages ago).

MA Human Resources Manager

You are somehow top of the foodchain. You may now fire Glasny's a$$ for being such a slacker that takes too many coffeebreaks. You may continue to fire her co-workers with similar poor work habits throughout the realm and abroad. You may hire singular replacements like Domnann Grove's hard-working Seria who will teleport you on command (this should have been in the game since the addition of SI).

MA Cowboy

You have killed so many monsterous threats to the land, that Hibernia finally recognizes the fact that you should be able to get to work faster to protect the land from constant threats even more efficiently. As such, they bestow upon you a magikal horse statue... pull it out of your pack and drop it on the ground. Voila! Insta-horse. Don't want to leave your horse roaming the countryside while you clear a dungeon? Right click your horse and "G"rab it. Voila! Your pony is stored safely in you pack. (Hey, if I can fit multiple elf house servants into my pockets, I'm sure there's room for a horse too.)

MA Craftsong

You have the right to remain sane while crafting. Your green craft bar will now begin to trickle by as opposed to slowly oozing by. You always skill up when you successfully craft an oj item. (I don't know who designed the crafting sytem, but it has been bad since original implementation. All those poor SC'ers... you guys really screwed them).

MA Mr.Fix-it-Guy/Gal

You now can restore lost durability to any item at double the cost that it would take to rebuild the lost portion. Your trusty axe has lost 25% durability? You may now fully restore its durabilty for 50% of the original create price. (Why? Because we like you, and acknowledge there are enough time and money sinks already entrenched in this game).

MA Be your own person

You have fought enough monsters and drank enough tavern ale to have some personal character. O look, your keen hero likes the pub too much. He has a beer belly. Looks like maybe he gets mouthy when he's drunk, because that scar kinda looks like a firby footprint on his flat head. At least he has a cool tattoo, unlike the dorky celt beside him with the bad eye make-up on. (It wouldn't hurt to make the toons just a little more customizable would it? Nevermind, I take it back. Tattoos and beer bellies would probably just add to the insane lag that already exists in housing and even in empty Druim Cain).

Yeah, I'm still having a hard time thinking of something that is useful that doesn't affect RvR/class balance. Why not just give us a free patch or five, and implement ideas that are at least useful for gaming pleasure if not killing pleasure? It would be better than me paying $35 just to solve a riddle and learn to be the best baton-twirler ever.

/you will log out in 5 seconds

/game of pin the tail on the pessimist is now off

Black Fire Arrow - It would be a ground target shot that will show all stealthed and camouflaged enemy players in the area for 10 seconds (the duration or radious of the effect could depend on the level of the ability)

I have a few ideas that will not give an advantage in RvR, but will improve the PvE experience noticeably.

1) Ability that decreases visibility penalty in fog/rain, so you can see easier. Torch has to be on for it to work. (Torch on so that you can still be seen in the frontier at a distance, but in PvE that won't matter)

2) Nightvision. Makes it almost as bright as sunlight at night.

3) An effect where you can make a ground target and force a light source there for a limited amount of time. Note that this could be used as a scout ability to light up an area at night where there are suspected enemies, so it might be overused in the frontier and provide an unfair advantage. I'm not sure of a good way to prevent this, but it's still a nice idea.

4) Animal calls. Would act as a way to call animals near WITHOUT drawing aggression from them. Would be an interesting alternative for pulling a critter from a mob.

5) Salvageable corpses. Click on a corpse before it disappears with this ability active (on a lengthy re-use timer) and have a high chance to salvage another drop from the critter's body.

Well, I have a lot of ideas and I always try to come up with realistic features that will have a shot of actually getting implemented... since we were asked for Fluff and Utility only... here is what's left:

1.) Celerity: For all stealthers: Allows you to "sprint" while stealthed for a 25% increase in speed over your current stealth speed while burning endurance at half the rate of normal sprinting. End regen doesn't help maintain endurance while using Celerity though long wind would assist it.

2.) Cloak of the Forest: Rangers Only: While in any grove of trees a ranger can use this to become 100% undetectable. The ranger can not move or take any action while using this ability or they revert to "normal" stealth. Camo must be up in order to activate this ability.

3.) Flaming arrows: All Archers: This ability allows archers to shoot keep doors for additional "bleed" damage as the fire burns the doors and weakens them. Perhaps 6 ticks of 10-8-8-6-4-2 damage or so. The ability in only usable on keep doors.

4.) Honor Among Theives: All stealthers: Allows you to see groupmates who are stealthed so that you can stop having to ask for /loc every 5 minutes. Only groupmates are viewable since the exploitability of seeing all realmmates this way is obvious.

5.) Falconry: Rangers Only: Not my idea, but I like it. Nice utility while grouped with others to protect your shade-self.

6.) Keeper of the Watch: All: Allows you to bind in the lord room of a keep owned by your guild. This ability renders the user unable to earn realm points for 30 Minutes.

That's about all I got. Hope something is helpful.

"With the recent addition of Rapid Fire, how many rangers still feel the need to switch bows in combat? "

Answer: Those that dont have it.

I would request you add something on your next TL report if would please:

Take into account lower levels as well as higher levels when making changes to the class.

Best example of this is the arrows. Only the highest $$$ arrows offer the thrust/slash/blunt damage option. How can a level 10 afford 1 gold+ stack of 20 arrows? And why is said level 10 forced to use slash arrows against mobs he knows are slash resistant or who are vulnerable to other damage types?

Why the lower arrows weren't given this option too is beyond me.

At certain levels, archers could receive a UTILITY style in their bowshots.

For example, at level 10, give them a style that increases chance to hit by 10% but at twice the end cost of a normal shot. (helps lower levels hit grapes with bow when in group and high levels can consider this their 'to hit bonus' style)

at 20 give them a style that is ground-target, light damage AOE fire arrow (makes it very useful for keep takes/defense) that again, takes twice the end as a normal shot AND adds 1 second to the draw time.

at 30 give them a style that puts a 2 second stun on target, does light damage (regardless of arrow used) and costs twice the end. of a normal shot.

40 give them a style that takes 2 seconds longer to aim than a normal shot and has dex debuff on target (scales based on level)

50 bow give them a style worthy of a lev 50 style: A shot that will penetrate bladeturn (even self bladeturn),bubble, etc... that takes half the archer's endurance and takes 2X the draw time (think of it as a *really* well aimed shot) and has 20% bonus to hit.

All the above cannot be used as critshots of course (critshot is a style)

Love the new responses...

Here is what I'm interpreting from what they said:

Mythic Devs to English:

We just put this patch in the works, and we're confident, that over time these changes will pan out. The Ranger class is better off than most although we are eager to hear your concerns about the Pathfinding line and Groupability issues. The Ranger does not need to be made more powerful, but we will entertain suggestions that would improve their utility. Their bow skill and melee abilities are what we have envisioned the class being.

Ok, knowing this, here are some things that I would start pushing them to look at.

Quivers Maybe they aren't out of reach... They don't seem too fired up about them though.

Pathfinding

Ask for a damage shield spell.

Ask for increased duration/shorter timer for speed buffs.

Make DAMN sure that the timer on self buffs get increased with everyone else.

Ask for a bladeturn.

Ask to make our Damage Add castable.

Ask for a castable end regen spell (with range similar to Shaman's)

Overall Utility

Falconry - Ranger takes shade form similar to a necro. Flying pet can do no damage, ranger cannot move, and assumes the vision of flying pet. Pet gets killed, Ranger has 1/10 hp left. Ranger CAN be killed in "shade" form.

Specality Shots - Snare shots, etc. Non damaging shots. Blinding shots, whatever, use your imagination.

Group Hide - You have the ability to stealth everyone in your group for as long as they remain stationary. Success depends on your stealth skill.

I think you should kill two birds with one stone. Use our pathfinding line to enhance our groupability.

You have some responses to work with, let's hash out some ideas and present them with something solid and well thougt out.

Quickdraw (archer version of mage quickcast)

This will do nothing to help archers with a pet interrupting them, since they have no utility option to get away. One arrow is not going to do anything. Mages can do a quickcast nearsight/stun/mez/root, etc., so quickcast is viable for them.

Give archers a point blank, quick draw stun to give them a chance to get away from a melee opponent.

Name me one ranged class in daoc other than archers, that don't have some mechanism for defense from melee opponents. (Understanding that scouts already can spec shield for a stun.)

How about a Bow Smash ability. It can either be like a 3 second stun to get away from someone engaging you, or you can have it do damage maybe around the damage of a normal shot arrow?

I'm normally a pessimistic bitter bastard when it comes to Mythic but I actually found that report quite encouraging which is REALLY saying something for me

I think as a community we shouldn't ignore what was said there, we definetely need to do what he said and make a case about things such as pathfinding. Keep pushing duelists reflexes, his response to that sounded quite promising, a very different response to the bullshit "No way we're getting DR" like Taco gave us without ever giving an explanation or reason why.

Quickshot is something I've always wanted, but although I agree it wouldn't be as useful as a mages quickcast when they can just qc stun/mezz/root and return to ranged nuking but it would solve my one biggest problem as an archer when using bow, the fact that the second you shoot a mage and pop their BT, they can QUICKCAST on you and prevent you firing another shot whilst you're interrupted by their QC and following nukes and it's THAT reason why I'd like to see Quickshot, to bring back our first strike ability that was taken away by the mages BT/QC combo. I started playing an Enchanter and Animist as well as my ranger after about 12months of playing my ranger and it really is too easy to defeat an archer right now. Sure it wouldn't solve the pet issue but it would solve the glaring mage issue.

As a community we need to:

"Pathing could use a review at some point. Get together with the community and get some ideas on what could be done to improve the line."

Get a list of ideas for pf, compile them together, decide what we want, what's feasible etc. It sounds pretty much like they're willing to change the pathfinding line from those comments.

"we haven't really been planning on adding anything here. We can look into the speed while stealthed issue if a solid case can be made."

Push that, I don't see it as being in the slightest bit unreasonable that we move faster when camo'd, it's not like it can be used in combat it'd allow us to scout like we're ment to, the second we go into combat we lose our ability to scout for 10mins, that, to me, sounds perfectly fair. Definetely worth pushing imo as again it sounds like they're willing to make the change if we can prove a need.

Stealth, Bow, CD sound like dead horses, I don't think it's worth us spending any energy there at the moment, we should concentrate on the stuff that's been given positive ideas imo. I'd imagine we could get CD style changes even tho mechanical changes don't seem likely through the style review?

Blades, Peirce, pretty much just a style review thing it seems.

No more spec points, not a problem now especially if we get DR imo, but my worry is if PF gets some love, will we need to spec high for it? Even worse if Peirce/Blades/CD get some pretty essential styles high up also. If so then we're DEFINETELY going to be short on spec points. I'd personally leave this issue for now though.

To-hit bonus with bow solved in the upcoming expansion? I sure as hell hope that doesn't mean you have to buy/download an expansion for a class fix, it wont effect me but I imagine there was some people who wont be able to afford ToA or don't have the bandwidth to download it which sucks for them.

"Valid arguement to make. Let the dust settle from the feedback and start a TL forum discussion on this in a week or two."

- Evading arrows, sounds like they're willing to fix that, get testing, get logging I guess

"3.) Longshot and Volley: Many in the ranger community still feel slighted that these skills were made Realm Abilities instead of being included in the Bow Spec Line. This won't change."

- No longshot and volley in the bow line, Mythic HAVE been known to do U-turns if pushed hard but I think time is better spent elsewhere for now.

"When we're doing the RA review, we should have some discussion on what RAs could be added to various classes."

- Again, sounds like they MIGHT add duelists reflexes to our RA list.

"Well, they can still melee. And while this is a valid point, casters suffer the same issues. Not sure there's really a need for a change here."

- Have to agree with Mythic, they're right, casters can't do anything OOE, remember I play both a caster and an archer, it's really not funny running OOE in a long battle as a caster, I just /stick myself to a healer or mage, slap F6 and watch myself interrupt the buggers until a friendly tank/mage obliterates them. Mages do however have MCL and tireless to slightly aleviate the problem. Maybe ask for an improvement to tireless and a 3 point 40%, 10 secs out of combat end restoration RA like MCL and like FA? That or decrease the endurance cost of using bows.

"We have no plans to enhance ranger melee at this time, although the style review may result in the class having a lot more options when forced into melee."

- Hopefully any pathfinding and style love love would solve any issues here, making our AF buff work over the cap and making it better than the baseline one naturalists get perhaps?

"8.) Nearsight Debate: With most RvR battles lasting under 45 seconds, the 2 minute duration of Nearsight seems excessive. The immunity timer is a welcome addition though.

We feel this issue was solved with the recent change."

- Not very promising but we should keep pushing this imo, 1minute duration on nearsight was plenty long enough, there's no excuse to negate archers from combat for 1min 30secs with a mere 1minute gap including usual resists. With the same resists (roughly 25%) being negated for 45 secs on a one minute duration is quite painful and still somewhat overkill. Nearsight lasting so long really does cause serious harm to ALL archers. We need logs of long keep or MG standoffs where archers are negated for a VERY large proportion of the duration of the battle.

"Interrupt system will not be changed. After we're able to accurately assess the results of the recent archery changes, we can further examine this to see if archers need something like quickdraw shot or other abilities."

- We do, push for "quickdraw shot" imo, since mages have bladeturn and quickcast our first strike ability has been completely nullified as mentioned above. As I say I play a couple of mages and a ranger and I know how easy it is to his your /face macro and quickcast upon the archer then chain nuke him leaving him with no counter whatsoever. At the same time I know what it's like being the archer having your crit shot bladeturn then being quickcasted upon.

"Come up with some new ideas on this and we can look into adding them down the road, provided they add utility and not overall damage."

- Sounds very very promising, perhaps poison arrows like assassins get, debuff, snare etc. although not as powerful as assassins poisons as that's their earmark pretty much and would be unfair on them. They said they don't want extra utility not damage so I guess a flaming heat damage or poisonous DoT procing arrow would be out the question?

"With the recent addition of Rapid Fire, how many rangers still feel the need to switch bows in combat?"

- Me. I still make use of the extra range on the regular recurve if a target has managed to limp just out of range of the heavy for example.

All in all I think the groupability issue would be pretty much solved if the PF, style, and new utility arrow types were brought in.

As I said though, he's asked us to make some cases so let's make them and not ignore our chance

Pathfinding suggestions:

-Change Strength buff to Str/con.

-Add a baseline or spec dex spell to go with the dex/qui spell.

-Add a self-only run spell similar to the enchanter's effervesence spell, although not as powerful.

-AF buff should allow us to go over cap.

Archery Concerns:

-Re-institute the to-hit bonus on sitting targets. (sitting down in enemy territory = bad)

-Fix LOS issues

Melee Concerns:

-Add dualist reflexes to our RA list

-Re-vamp pierce and blades lines for rangers/shades to make it more compatible with the class(s).

Stealth Concerns:

-Add safe fall. Tumbling down a hillside and getting hurt doesn't show too much in the way of mastery of the outdoors.

Just off the top of my head...

Just a possible suggestion for the quick changing of arrows. In Weaponcrafting they have various symbols that might be used rather than just the generic icon for arrows that it now used. The Dagger, I think it is is a straight line, might be useable as the blunt, Current for the Slash type and that would just leave the need for one new icon for the Barbed arrow. These could be placed on the Quickbar and when the button is pressed that is the type of arrow you will shoot (greyed when the type runs out).

Do you have any idea how much actual utility "falconry" would add to a ranger?

Look specifically at groupability - what group wouldn't want a player class in their group that could "scout" to say 2x or 3x the normal clip range?

Some possible elements of falconry:

* visible to all enemies so they know they are being scouted - some warning

* put the falcon on a timer so it can only go so long before losing sight

* set a recast timer so the ranger doesn't have unlimited extended vision (which would be paramount to radar)

* make the ranger incapable of inflicting damage without releasing the falcon first

* make the ranger incapable of stealthing while the falcon is active

The graphics possibilities alone make this addition worthwhile ... what medieval gamer wouldn't wet him/herself when shown a falcon springing from the master's arm to seek out enemies? With Mythic's already excellent graphics this capability would likely WOW prospective customers.

So you have the perfect solution to several longstanding problems in one addition:

* rangers become very group friendly (at least in RvR)

* they are able to actually "scout" as was originally intended

* Mythic adds a visual that will appeal to a wide range of prospective players

Other very desirable suggestions:

1. Spellcraftable procs on bows

2. need some ability to snare an enemy - rangers lose a huge percentage of fights because it is far to easy to get away if a ranger attacks at maximum range.

3. greatly reduce or totally eliminate the completely unrealistic chance for a target to "evade" an arrow

Having been in the game virtually since release, falconry is the most innovative and useful idea I have seen yet if properly designed and implemented ... should be right at the TOP of the list!

Thanks for the info ...

Raven

I would like to see the str/con buff in place of the str buff. Additionally, an AF buff that works like the paladin AF buff would be in order I would think. However, a celt ranger with more AF and more con might be not something we want. BM's would be hurting.

I've seen lots of requests for speed while stealthed to allow for archers to scout, so here is my 2cp:

Benefits

1. Spec for it in stealth, equivalent to chanter speed. This would allow all archers to have access to it.

2. Stacks with other external speed songs (bard/warden/chanter).This would allow you to stay ahead of your group, and provide info. Note though, once you get out of range, you'd be pushed along with the speed bubble, so you can't get too far ahead at uber speed.

Overpowered? maybe not...

Limitations:

1. 5 minute duration

2. 5 minute timer after combat.

3. 10 minute recast

4. While you are moving and for 10 seconds after you stop your stealth is modified by the following formula:

(effective/speed)*0.5

Assuming effective stealth=45, then your stealth while moving would be

Speed 1 = (45 / 1) * 0.5 = 23 stealth

Speed 2 = (45 / 2) * 0.5 = 12 stealth

Speed 3 = (45 / 3) * 0.5 = 8

Speed 4 = (45 / 4) * 0.5 = 6

Speed 5 = N/A

5. You can't attack while the song is up. You can, however, target players.

6. You can't attack for 1 minute after you cancel the song or it ends. Please note, if you were to take damage, you could then attack.

As I said, this would be a tool for scouting, but not for setting up a tactical archer kill zone.

Cheers,
-Serdic

Pathfinding:

Maybe have the baseline buffs scale to 50 like bards and druids, and have the dex/quick, damage add, and speedboost speccable only. AF buff could stack with naturalist AF buffs.

There should be more benefit to speccing Pathfinding, there is no reason to as of now especially with buffbots. If there was a snare, DD, anything, it would be welcome. Maybe a charm line, but without the insta pet that the hunter gets. Just the charm.

Quivers:

Glad they are changing it, but can they also add an actual quiver graphic to our backs? Right now we pull arrows out of a dimensional pocket situated behind us!

Stealth:

Need a solid case to change speed while stealthed?

Camoflauge should increase stealth to walking speed (or very close to) while stealthed. It fits perfectly with the role of scouting I think, once you go into combat, your ability to scout effectively is gone. I really think this makes sense! It would bring back the archers ability to scout!

Variety in arrows:

Mez or Stun arrows should NOT be added under any circumstances. At most, a snare bow style that does no damage, only snare could be suggested.

A powder arrow that increases fumble or miss rates similar to mercenary's "dirty tricks" but on a severely decreased timer could be implemented, so much that it would only help a groupmate in IMMEDIATE melee combat instead of being able to open with this style if you were solo hunting, and have it on the target while you close in for melee.

Realm Abilities:

Please, PLEASE review bladedance RA for rangers. This is a decent realm ability, but entirely too expensive! Not only that, it is on a 30 minute timer. Testing on pendragon shows that on average it does 150 damage on a lvl 50 opponent with capped spell resists...

The hardiness of a ranger is a characteristic that has been in every fantasy setting, so maybe decreasing the point costs of Avoid Pain would not be too overpowering.

If anything, maybe decreasing the point costs of the archer related RAs would be acceptable, like the tank RAs decreased cost.

Versatility with bows:

"With the recent addition of Rapid Fire, how many rangers still feel the need to switch bows in combat?"

I feel the need to switch bows in combat. Please, do testing on pendragon as I have and see that rapid fire mode with a lvl 51 material heavy recurve will hit consistantly lower than the fastest short recurve bow lvl 51 material, at zero sacrifice in speed.

This means there is absolutely NO REASON to use rapid fire. I don't even have it on my hot bar. Why? Because not only is it INCREASED ENDURANCE USAGE, but it hits for LESS DAMAGE THAN SHORT RECURVE BOW !!!

If anything, please fix the rapid fire damage to be at least the same damage as if we had switched to a short recurve bow and THEN there will be no reason to switch bows.

See Hidden:

Other than the fact that I think increasing stealth to normal speed while camoflauged, See Hidden is fine as is with the new fix. Not only that, most assassins don't even spec it so it is a dead issue.

This is all I can think of atm...prolly add more later.

"6.) Lack of Melee Survivability: Due to many problems already stated (lack of “style to hit” and inability to shoot without endurance) we are often FORCED to melee, but we do not have the survivability for this. Leading to the joke of being a healer’s mana sponge.

We have no plans to enhance ranger melee at this time, although the style review may result in the class having a lot more options when forced into melee."

It seems to me that Mythic is missing the point here. Some how they interpreted Lack of Melee Survivability to mean that we think Rangers need more damage output, hence the statement “We have no plans to enhance ranger melee at this time”. What I’m finding and have found since my BG days is that my Rangers melee ability is quite nice, in fact much better than I ever expected it to me. I’m also finding, however, that once something starts pounding on my Ranger he goes down quickly, too quickly, and I think that is what you were trying to convey to Mythic.

Am I correct? If so, maybe you should suggest that Mythic consider increasing Ranger evade rate to increase survivability. Increasing the evade rate would not “enhance ranger melee” but would help to alleviate the problem of “Lack of Melee Survivability”. I personally would like to see Evade V at level 50.

Also you might suggest that the PF AF buff stack with the baseline naturalist AF buff. I know that has been talked about before but it might be appropriate to add it here so that Mythic sees the issue you are trying to address.

It is pretty common sense that you make things happen in positions like a TL by focusing on what is fair and realistic and what is practical.

Getting str/con isn't fair or realistic. Getting Falconry isn't practical.

Here are the easy ones because fair, realistic and practical:

(1) Beefing up the damage for Piercing's anytime chain.

(2) Giving Blades or CD a medium stun in an evade chain, namely Blizzard

(3) Boosting our dex/qui self buff. This is something Mythic indicated was realistic for Thanes I think. Our str buff already aproaches cap at 39 and is fine.

(4) Making self-buffs last longer.

(5) DoT reactives should have 300 range just like charges. This is total BS

Other goals that are worth pursuing, but may not happen because would be too good or not practical to program into game:

(a) Making AF buff go over cap. Currently AF self-buff is a worthless joke. But going over cap would make rangers even better at melee when everyone thinks we are too good already.

(b) Duelists Reflexes. I'd love it. Makes sense. But, again, are they really going to make rangers' melee better?

(c) Increased speed for CAMO. Again, this would be great, because we could actually scout. And us low-stealth rangers could actually still use stealth in a group friendly way, while still having big bubble of being detected.

(d) Being more group friendly. Sure, this would be nice. But how practical? Don't see this happening. Maybe letting everyone in group see when we use Truesight would be an easy step. Maybe our worthless AF buff could be turned into a groupwide AF buff, which would at least save other conc (hard to figure out the roleplaying reason for that).

(e) Changing Bows. Since RF doesn't work for Crits, having the right speed bow for sequential critting is important. But is it practical?

(f) Reducing chance to evade from arrows. This makes common sense and is fair. Is it practical from a software point of view? (I would miss evading arrows myself, with Dodger2.)

(g)A snare bow shot. This would be used just like a crit shot, have a to-hit penalty, but would snare target if hit. Basically a leg shot. Fair and realistic. Not sure if practical though. _

________________________

Anyway, focus on the important and acheivable goals Larian, and you'll do a great job.

i still like my idea of having an "evade chant" in pathfinding

adds 1 to your group's evade at 25 adds 2 to your group's evade at 45

What if the speed burst would apply to a Ranger's whole group (within a certain range), rather than just the Ranger herself?

Pros:

Doesn't make the Ranger herself more powerful, so more likely for Mythic to consider.

Handy trick that might make Rangers a bit more desireable for grouping.

Not overpowered for a group, since any hit will break the speed and CC still affects the group normally.

Fits the mythos of the Ranger, since (like the name of the spec line) the Ranger is 'finding a path' for the group.

Any cons? Thoughts?

I think this sums up what is fair changes:

This 3 changes would complete the ranger IMO:

-Change the self AF buff to a SPEC AF buff like clerics have, make it castable on our realmates with a 20 minute timer. This would also incrase the groupability of the ranger class.

-Change all self buffs to 20 minute timer, leave their delve as they are now.

-Add dualist reflexes to our RA list.

Been saying these same things for a long time, but, one more time...

1. Mastery of Stealth in RA line.

2. Duelist Refexes in RA line.

3. Str buff changed to Str/Con buff in pathfinding.

4. Shorten Camo timer.

5. Procs on bows.

good luck