Ranger Kael vs. Skyshrine Armor

[Jimjam]

Originally Posted by feniin [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Are you talking group content or raid content? Raid mobs chunk rangers in a way that they're nearly always getting hit for 90-100% of a mob's max damage, more than a druid or shaman would take. Rangers should be able to take damage as effectively as a bard or rogue but the armor class calculation does not seem to function in the slightest.

Its a design choice from kunark. In classic, classes maxed out their defence at 200 around level 39.

In Kunark all the melees got a boost to defence as they level up to 60, capping around 250. Except rangers who get to keep tanking like they are in their 30s 20+ levels later.

This was eventually addressed in late velious where the 60 ranger defence cap got raised to around 220, but this is still miles behind other classes.

It is said in trilogy era, dodge/parry/etc were calculated quite differently and worked more effectively at those skill levels than they do on p99 which uses a system from much later where skill caps (at higher level) were higher (yet onviously don’t result in most attacks getting stopped).

I’m not sure how true the above para is, but rangers have very generous dodge and parry caps in kunark - it seems the lack of evasion they get due to their mediocre defence skill should be offset by their superior dodge/parry skills … however, as mentioned previously, on p99 such skills are not hugely effective and don’t substantially improve ranger avoidance (certainly not as much as another 20-50 defence skill would).

Anyways, short story long, rogues have much better defence skill than rangers and should be expected to avoid/absorb hits better than rangers on account of that.

[Goregasmic]

Yeah from everything I've seen they're working as expected.

I have about 220ac worn and I did notice in the mid 50s fighting low blues I wasn't getting max hit much. It still looks worse than knights because it is easier to stack AC with plate and you get more gear with sta/hp while also getting more mileage from sta. Lower starting sta too.

It is no surprise that at 57 with 220ac worn I'll get max hit all the time by a raid targets but it isn't because rangers are broken, it is because 230worn is about where you'll max out with tunnel/SS gear while keeping an eye on str/dex/sta/hp/sv. That's the softcap for a level 50 mob or so. If you're facing a 65 you're nowhere near where you'd need to be to mitigate max hits. Unless you have access and the dkp to get the all/all BIS tov gear that's basically where all rangers will end up.

"Yeah but I parsed 1000ac and 1200ac and it did nothing". Yeah you parsed a mob you were softcapped on at 1000ac because parsing against a 55-60 is tedious. A warrior/knight would get the same mitigation.

I mean, I'm open to being proven wrong and if there's indeed something broken I'll be the first to be happy to see a fix getting implemented but so far everything we're seeing from parses line up with the mechanics we know. No one claiming rangers are broken ever provided parses to back their claim so right now it seems like they're working as intended.

[Snaggles]

Regardless of bugged or not, rangers don’t take hits well. They don’t tend to optimize gear for AC and even if going for hps they are at a natural disadvantage. My pally is marginally geared at just over 5.7k raid buffed and the difference on blues or raid trash is a night and day difference. With the ranger I rarely get Aego or even a symbol, I’ve only had CH’s as the main assist during some odd Fear and Hate raids.

SS vs Kael is a non-starter discussion unless you prefer green over brown/gold. One has a ton of hps and svs, the other has AC and mana. Bugged AC or not, the green stuff isn’t quite as good. Glad it looks so damn cool.