Enduring Cry

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yamface wrote:

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demon9675 wrote:

Overall enduring cry is no longer a viable option for archers or casters who can’t get instant use. Endurance charge generation in general is now reserved for the bottom left of the tree.

That sort of make sense. The bottom left of the tree is melee, melee needs an upper edge on theoretical tankyness because it's melee.

Absolutely. I totally agree.

But Rangers need an alternative form of defense as a replacement for Enduring Cry and endurance charge generation. The incoming damage in this game is just too high to rely purely on avoidance, either through evasion/dodge or by manually running around.

The melee attack section of the tree should indeed be tankier than the ranged attack section. But if rangers are TOO rippy, which IMO they are right now without very expensive gear, then that's an issue as well. Each archetype needs its own unique defenses, and currently Rangers are pretty limited in theirs.

Besides, casters have the same dps and range as archers and have far more defensive options (including the new support spells just introduced in 3.12).

There's a big hole where dex-based guard skills should be.

Phase Acro 30% + Atziri's Step 16% + Hyrri's Ire 10% + Hinekora's Sight 10% + Oskarm 8% = 74% spell dodge. This is reliable uptime against Sirus, unlike Elusive, Quartz flask, or Vaal Grace. Since we don't get hit much, Wind Dancer directly becomes more effective. 26% life gained as ES from Replica Soul Tether is justified because ES can recharge with little interruption. Trigger Enfeeble from Asenath's Chant or whatever. Ryslatha's pantheon for life flask charges in Sirus fight. Problem with this build would be the zDPS and getting enough chaos res with Oskarm and so many other uniques equipped, as well as Acro cutting 30% of that ES.

The underlying problem with avoidance is and will always be that it's completely binary. If you don't get hit you are fine, if you do you are dead. Avoidance as a second layer on top of mitigation/buffer is really powerful, but as a Ranger your options to get either are severely limited and none of the options you do have are on your end of the tree. I guess there is Kintsugi + Winddancer for a decent mitigation core to use along with high avoidance but beyond that it looks grim.

I think a good start would be to remove acros down side of cutting ES/Block/Armor. Stack evasion, convert to armor, use VMS and put blind + dodge on top and you'd have a decent defensive set up. Similar if you want to go ES + Evasion. The way things are now you can't take acro if you want to stack on either armor for mitigation or ES for HP leaving it as an option solely for pure avoidance builds and they just suck if you want to get them past 95.

The issue is that you’re both talking about setups that would funnel all rangers into being built the same way with the same gear. What rangers just lost was endurance charge generation from enduring cry; that’s a skill gem. I’m advocating replacing it with another ranger-specific skill gem.

GGG has been embracing the concept of active defenses that require clicking a key to use. Let’s stick with that design direction and revisit guard skills. Perhaps this is as simple as a steelskin rework so that it’s dex/str based instead of requiring 155 str. Or reworks to skills like withering step or phase run, to give them more of a defensive role. But I think adding one or two guard skills unique to rangers is the way to go, although GGG would have to figure out what they do.

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demon9675 wrote:

Absolutely. I totally agree.

But Rangers need an alternative form of defense as a replacement for Enduring Cry and endurance charge generation. The incoming damage in this game is just too high to rely purely on avoidance, either through evasion/dodge or by manually running around.

The melee attack section of the tree should indeed be tankier than the ranged attack section. But if rangers are TOO rippy, which IMO they are right now without very expensive gear, then that's an issue as well. Each archetype needs its own unique defenses, and currently Rangers are pretty limited in theirs.

Besides, casters have the same dps and range as archers and have far more defensive options (including the new support spells just introduced in 3.12).

There's a big hole where dex-based guard skills should be.

I would wait for next league and how the core harvest mechanic is added. Technically there is enough stuff in the game to make rangers super defensive but they're gated behind influence mods that convert damage taken into something else. Having even 2 damage taken conversion mods in your gear can turn deadeyes from jokes to real hc viable classes.

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demon9675 wrote:

The issue is that you’re both talking about setups that would funnel all rangers into being built the same way with the same gear. What rangers just lost was endurance charge generation from enduring cry; that’s a skill gem. I’m advocating replacing it with another ranger-specific skill gem.

GGG has been embracing the concept of active defenses that require clicking a key to use. Let’s stick with that design direction and revisit guard skills. Perhaps this is as simple as a steelskin rework so that it’s dex/str based instead of requiring 155 str. Or reworks to skills like withering step or phase run, to give them more of a defensive role. But I think adding one or two guard skills unique to rangers is the way to go, although GGG would have to figure out what they do.

While i am not opposed to dex based guard skills or even a warcry, i kinda expect either of those to end up being avoidance based since it's a dex skill after all and the theme for dex is avoidance. With that in mind, i don't really expect either of those to help much. If i want a dex based guard skill then vaal grace basically fills that role already. Problem is just that it's just more of the same thing i already have plenty of.

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Baharoth15 wrote:

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demon9675 wrote:

The issue is that you’re both talking about setups that would funnel all rangers into being built the same way with the same gear. What rangers just lost was endurance charge generation from enduring cry; that’s a skill gem. I’m advocating replacing it with another ranger-specific skill gem.

GGG has been embracing the concept of active defenses that require clicking a key to use. Let’s stick with that design direction and revisit guard skills. Perhaps this is as simple as a steelskin rework so that it’s dex/str based instead of requiring 155 str. Or reworks to skills like withering step or phase run, to give them more of a defensive role. But I think adding one or two guard skills unique to rangers is the way to go, although GGG would have to figure out what they do.

While i am not opposed to dex based guard skills or even a warcry, i kinda expect either of those to end up being avoidance based since it's a dex skill after all and the theme for dex is avoidance. With that in mind, i don't really expect either of those to help much. If i want a dex based guard skill then vaal grace basically fills that role already. Problem is just that it's just more of the same thing i already have plenty of.

You could be right. Or GGG could come up with something more creative than additional dodge chance. I’m just hoping for the latter is all.

I think my basic point is that the enduring cry change was essentially a nerf to ranger, shadow, and witch defenses. Witch got some new utility spells as compensation, while ranger was lacking in defenses to begin with.