[Malacite]

FINAL FANTASY XI Official Web Site


Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)
The November version update will feature a host of welcome refinements for three time-honored professions: rangers, beastmasters, and summoners. In Part I of our preview, we shine the spotlight on rangers and unveil the adjustments that will have the hunters and huntresses of Vana'diel sharpshooting like never before!

Read on for the details!


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Rangers throughout the realm, sharpen your arrows and polish your rifles!
A host of ability tweaks scheduled for the new version update promise to render your finely honed hunting skills more potent than ever.

Ranger Job Adjustments
Job Ability Adjustments
- Velocity Shot
The duration of this ability will be increased from five minutes to two hours.

- Unlimited Shot
Once activated, this ability will remain in effect until you successfully hit your mark.

- Camouflage
Rangers with this ability in effect will incur less enmity for ranged attacks. There will be a chance that the ability remains in effect even after a ranged attack, depending on your position relative to your target.

Ranged Attack Adjustments
- Ranged attack enmity
Less enmity will be incurred the further away you are from the target of your ranged attacks.

- Detailed damage messages for ranged attacks
Damage messages displayed after a successful ranged attack will indicate the effectiveness of the attack, allowing for players to better gauge their positioning. Critical hit and missed attack messages will remain unchanged.


This concludes our preview of the adjustments scheduled for rangers in the upcoming version update.
Other jobs set to receive fine-tuning will be featured in the coming days, so keep your eyes glued to this space!

[Feba]

wait, RNG is going to have two two hours?

[Ziero]

Wait, people still play Rng?

[Durahansolo]

Originally Posted by Malacite

Job Adjustments and Additions: Part I (10/14/2009)

Ahhh yes! The Warrior update. How long I have waited for you to...

Originally Posted by Malacite

rangers, beastmasters, and summoners.

Wait, people were still waiting on the SMN update? We will never hear the end of this lol.

Originally Posted by Malacite

Damage messages displayed after a successful ranged attack will indicate the effectiveness of the attack,

*Durahansolo hits the Goblin Marksman for 0 damage. The attack is not very effective.*
*Durahansolo hits the Forest Hare for 250 damage. The attack is super effective!*

[Armando]

Fuck yeah.

wait, RNG is going to have two two hours?

Velocity Shot is a buff. It's 5 recast/5 duration, now it's going to be 5 recast/2 hour duration so you don't have to repop it 12 times an hour.

I hope the new /ra messages embarrass people.
"Xxephirothkittenxx is a scrub that's standing way too close to the Goblin Butcher, so her ranged attack only did a measly 3 points of damage!"

[Balfree]

dowant to hear about that BST update...

*looks at credit card*

[Empedocles]

I like the Camouflage change, I might actually use it now.

[Darkhound]

Let's see if they finally add that new avatar

[Ziero]

Originally Posted by Malacite

The November version update will feature a host of welcome refinements for three time-honored professions: rangers, beastmasters, and summoners

Oh crap, I didn't even notice that part. Guess that means another 4 month wait to see if my jobs come up for adjustment

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by Armando

I hope the new /ra messages embarrass people.
"Xxephirothkittenxx is a scrub that's standing way too close to the Goblin Butcher, so her ranged attack only did a measly 3 points of damage!"

Haha! One can only hope.


Icemage

[Vyuru]

This is rather interesting as i've always had a strong hankering to play summoner more and to pick up beast master. Picking up Bst mostly came about because I've switched my main craft over to cooking and can make my own jug pets, which had been a major obstacle. CourierCarrie looks good in some situations, but I wouldn't want to use her 24/7 like I see some Bsts doing.

Besides, I like Diremites. I shall call my LDL either Chuck or Fluffy.

[Grizzlebeard]

Originally Posted by Malacite

- Detailed damage messages for ranged attacks
Damage messages displayed after a successful ranged attack will indicate the effectiveness of the attack, allowing for players to better gauge their positioning.

Really nice change, I only hope it applies to all jobs that can use ranged attacks.

[Romyro]

Oh man...Bst and Smn updates!?! Must be my birthday.

[Lmnop]

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Really nice change, I only hope it applies to all jobs that can use ranged attacks.

Good point. And it seems like it should, considering it's not really tied to any Ranger abilities/traits. Neat-o change. On camoflauge: thinking the chance of it staying is either

a) some mix of how far you are away from the mob and whether or not the mob is looking at you (or if your shot turns the mob towards you -- seems like that'd be a dead give-away that you've been had) orrrrr
b) with the ranged attack enmity changes + camouflage changes, taking shots at max distance sets your enmity gain to 0 and so doesn't dispel camo. This option seems quite infeasible.

"Refinements" indeed, for the most part. About time we get some quality of life improvements that people actually care about (as in: those of us who don't use distance plug-ins).

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Originally Posted by Darkhound

Let's see if they finally add that new avatar

Quiet and wait your turn, its ranger day.

While I don't think it was needed, many of the tweaks are nice.

Making Velocity Shot last two hours is kinda like what they did for Scholars with Addendum, it was always annoying to reapply the ability every few minutes, so constantly having it up is a godsend. This allows RNGs to just keep on shooting.

Unlimited Shot - I can't tell you how annoying it is to miss on a five minute ability that and then lose this effect. This was one of them. It will still be annoying to miss a Barrage, though, then again other multi-hit attacks in the game contain misses as well, so I guess its fair they picked this over Barrage.

Camouflage getting more utility than just a brief invisibility is also nice, and also gives RNGs even more or an incentive to steer clear of the lameass Stealth Shot merit ability.

Ranged enmity adjustment - OK, here's where I'm gonna nitpick. All this does is make Bow even more dominant than ever, but even then, I'm pretty sure if I stick five kaburas in something's ass, I'm going to get some attention.

This update makes the optimal range for bow also the optimal range for less enmity, while nothing really changes for crossbow and guns since their optimal ranges are closer in. Gun is most effective just outside of melee range and crossbow lands in between the optimal gun and bow ranges.

On paper I guess it makes sense that gun users are flashier and should get more attention, but doesn't this put COR in an unfair position given they don't really have a choice in ranged weapons other than gun? Seems like this side of the update only benefits the best two bow users - RNG and SAM.

The adjustment for ranged attack messages will be helpful, though it probably should have come a lot sooner, its better late than never.

Originally Posted by Grizzlebeard

Really nice change, I only hope it applies to all jobs that can use ranged attacks.

I don't see why they wouldn't, all the other ranged updates have affected other ranged attack users.