Endgame Fox Status

Hello all,

I am sure you have seen posts titled as such, and most of them are mindless rants on how their class or level has been wronged in some way. I will do my best to avoid such verbatim in this discussion. The main purpose of this post is to state my observations and hopefully hear a few of yours' responses.

Endgame fox is quite simply lack luster in comparison to the relative strength given to the other classes. That being said, I do not feel that fox is extremely underpowered. The main issue at the moment is that in 1v1, fox is next to useless, and in FFA it is okay, but not nearly as strong as bird (which has comparable damage and better tankiness). I simply feel that fox could use a slight buff to help the class compete in 1v1 settings, and even in most FFA circumstances.

My observation has been one that I have pondered over for some time but have came to a rather simple conclusion. I believe that fox would better balanced given a slight armor increase. For instance, for those of you that did not know, the endgame fox 4pc set gives 1053 armor, whereas the archer gear gives a much more desirable 1300+ armor while the mage gear gives 1110 armor.

I personally find this somewhat backwards as fox typically needs to get close in order to do its damage. I would argue that fox needs about the same amount of armor as a bird. I understand that giving fox more armor than a bird could in fact make ranger the new standard dps class, which I personally would need deem advantageous for the game (given that the archer was one of the original classes). That being said, I do believe that a 150-250 armor buff to the fox gear set would enable it to be a more viable class at endgame.

All in all, I am very happy with endgame PvP and its overall balance, however I do feel that fox is slightly underpowered. Thus, I feel that a slight armor buff would be ideal, but that being said I have no background in game balance, so I may not know what I am talking about (but I do feel that this change would be somewhat minor).

Any of you who made it thus far, thank you for reading! :)

Agreed. That's exactly the type of buff I think it needs too. I support this thread.

^ sounds good.

Also, Evasion, the skill used to break freeze/root/stuns on the fox, has a cooldown of 15 seconds. Once you use evasion for the buffs you lose your ability to break freeze/root/stuns until the long cooldown passes. In comparison of cooldown times across the five classes, the fox has to wait 5x as long as a mage, 3x as long as a bear/rhino, and 2x as long as a bird between being able to break those freeze/root/stuns.

Perhaps reduce the cooldown of the fox Evasion skill, -or- move the break freeze/root/stun effect of that skill over to the Fox Howl skill, which has a 5.5 second cooldown.

I'm in favour of slight buff of fox but not much, not like that much, 30-50 overall armor would be enough. There are lots of possible exploitation with fox, if people don't wanna take that as exploitation, lets just call it advantages, and with those advantages considered, it shouldn't be considered under powered much.

I don't wanna hand count that all but it's always possible to escape buffs and come back for ez kills, sudden attack, ctf exploitation with flag just to name few.

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Originally Posted by Waug

I'm in favour of slight buff of fox but not much, not like that much, 30-50 overall armor would be enough. There are lots of possible exploitation with fox, if people don't wanna take that as exploitation, lets just call it advantages, and with those advantages considered, it shouldn't be considered under powered much.

I don't wanna hand count that all but it's always possible to escape buffs and come back for ez kills, sudden attack, ctf exploitation with flag just to name few.

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I feel like 30-40 armor wouldn't be enough of a buff in order to compensate for the fox having to be close to do damage AND still having the lowest armor in the game (at lv 100).

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Originally Posted by Draebatad

^ sounds good.

Also, Evasion, the skill used to break freeze/root/stuns on the fox, has a cooldown of 15 seconds. Once you use evasion for the buffs you lose your ability to break freeze/root/stuns until the long cooldown passes. In comparison of cooldown times across the five classes, the fox has to wait 5x as long as a mage, 3x as long as a bear/rhino, and 2x as long as a bird between being able to break those freeze/root/stuns.

Perhaps reduce the cooldown of the fox Evasion skill, -or- move the break freeze/root/stun effect of that skill over to the Fox Howl skill, which has a 5.5 second cooldown.

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Firstly, thank you for bringing this up, because I had completely forgotten to mention it in my post.

I feel like the inability to unroot as a fox is somewhat critical to the character model of dealing high damage but being somewhat defenseless. I would like a lower cooldown of evasion, as you stated, however I feel that reducing the cooldown too much could lead to fox losing its assassin identity and becoming more of a generic burst class (like pure int mage). I personally would prefer Evasion to have a 10-12 second cooldown, which I think would be a minor enough change to give ranger some relative power without accidentally overcompensating.

Again thank you for bringing this up because it is a very valid aspect of the ranger balancing discussion.

EDIT: I would personally find it more viable to integrate either the armor buff or evasion buff first, see how the changes affect the class, and then either integrate the other buff accordingly or omit it completely if ranger is brought to a relatively good strength after the initial change.

waliefordev


also, does the second dash skill still have the bug where it doesn't dash after level 3, or is that just in towne?

I don't think it's a bug. You can dash but only if you are close enough to your opponent in order to hit them.

Foxes could use some serious help.... the evasion skill is a 10 second buff with a 15 second cooldown time. Vs birds buff that lasts only 2 seconds shy of the cooldown time. It seems like heal would be the most viable option to remove debuffs to me.... it is heal after all, mage and rhino heal both remove debuffs, so that makes sense to me.

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Originally Posted by Burningdex

waliefordev


also, does the second dash skill still have the bug where it doesn't dash after level 3, or is that just in towne?

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It actually doesn't dash (without a target) above level 1. Essentially, this means that the skill needs to be level one to have any strong utility, which is the the best thing fox has going for itself at the moment. However, I can skill cast the skill if I am within 8m of the target I am locked onto, thus it acts as a normal ability with range requirements when the skill is leveled above lv 1.

P.S. ty for the dev shoutout! XDDDDDDD Made me chuckle :P

100% I support this, buff the fox!

I propose that the higher your Fox levels the better bandage Regeneration should give out. I may be wrong though. When i sparred with you walie on my rhino i see where fox lacks the most. Fox has very low armor, we can all agree on this. I do propose a increase in armor but i think to be fair for a assassin type class fox is, it lacks dodge. I believe a major bump in foxes dodge and a increase on how much bandage Regenerates would allow fox to compete more. Foxes damage is great and so is it's hit but armor, Regeneration, and dodge lacks alot. If that's fixed then foxes would be able to compete more and probably beat out rhinos in fights.

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Originally Posted by MageFFA

I propose that the higher your Fox levels the better bandage Regeneration should give out. I may be wrong though. When i sparred with you walie on my rhino i see where fox lacks the most. Fox has very low armor, we can all agree on this. I do propose a increase in armor but i think to be fair for a assassin type class fox is, it lacks dodge. I believe a major bump in foxes dodge and a increase on how much bandage Regenerates would allow fox to compete more. Foxes damage is great and so is it's hit but armor, Regeneration, and dodge lacks alot. If that's fixed then foxes would be able to compete more and probably beat out rhinos in fights.

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I totally agree, bandage seems like a fairly weak skill. That being said, I like the dodge where it currently is. The fox isn't necessarily meant to be good in 1v1, I just would like it to be competent.