RNG updates

[Spider-Dan]

Camouflage
The only change to Camouflage (from a standpoint of mechanics) seems to be that firing ranged attacks will no longer cancel your invisibility (much in the same way that activating Trick Attack will not cancel your invisibility). I imagine that if the mob comes after you, you'll lose invis (and presumably Camo's -enmity), but so far, every time my Camo expired, it either simply timed out or something I did cancelled it (see below). RNGs, break out your AF bodies...

Camouflage wears on WS every time. I'm not sure that the enmity reduction even applies to WS. It also wears after you fire a Barrage (Sharpshot->Barrage->Camo->fire), but I didn't pull any hate after my Barrages. So I'm not sure about whether the -enmity applies to those.

New ranged attack message
Bad:
http://venomweb.150m.com/ffxi/bad.jpg

Better:
http://venomweb.150m.com/ffxi/better.jpg

Best:
http://venomweb.150m.com/ffxi/best.jpg

The message is always the same on a crit (it's the same as the old crit message), so you're on your own for those.

The thing I found surprising is how sharply the dropoff occurs up close compared to far away. With O-bow, the range was something like:

Mob <--bad--<btr<--best--<----better----<--bad--

[Hushigoshi]

Some more info:

A friend of mine and I were leveling Ranger last night. One thing we noticed about Camouflage was that it was random whether or not we would keep it after shooting a mob. Sometimes we could shoot 7 or 8 times before Camouflage will naturally wear off (red message about Camouflage's effect wearing off in chat log), sometimes Camouflage will wear off after a single ranged attack. We were both fulltiming AF Body (since we were level 61). It felt similar to how Seigan+Third Eye would just sometimes wear off after anticipating one or two attacks.

For at least Bow/arrow, the new ranged attack messages just confirm the distances people thought were to be optimal for shooting distance. We were getting the "attack strikes true" message from about 10.3-10.8 distance from the Colibri according to Windower's Distance plugin.


edit: One more thing. Camouflage wore off 100% of the time after a weaponskill. During the 2 hour party, not once did we ever keep Camouflage after Sidewindering a Colibri.

[jester2937]

Didn't they say they canceled the enmity reduction thing?

[Zieara]

As a function of distance they did.
They left -enm built into camo now though.

[TacoTaru]

I had always read the values for optimal distance was:

Gun: 7.5
Xbow: 7.7
Bow: 8

From Hushi's post, Bow looks to be about 10.3-10.8. Any distance confirmations on the others?

[jester2937]

Ah. My bad. Didn't pay close enough attention to the update details after having bought Dragon Age during maintenance I guess.

[jester2937]

I had always read the values for optimal distance was:

Gun: 7.5
Xbow: 7.7
Bow: 8

From Hushi's post, Bow looks to be about 10.3-10.8. Any distance confirmations on the others?

Bow ideal always was a bit more than 8; I always seemed to get the best results at 10-11. From the results I got last night in Limbus though, mob size plays a larger role than I always thought, but I've never been hardcore ranger with the exact numbers crunched.

I did Apollyon NE last night. With EBow, Mandragoras were around ~9. The small birds were ~9 while the Roc types were ~10. Dhalmel and other "large" mobs were ~11. Think that was about right. Think those sound about right for what I was finding. I never found anything where the sweet spot was closer than ~9 with Ebow. I don't tote a gun or xbow with me anymore unless I feel like breaking it out for the fun of it.

Edit: Result seems to be that anything smaller than a certain size, the minimum bow optimal range is ~9 and it goes out from there as mobs get increasingly larger. ~11 -seemed- to be the max optimal, as I don't think most normal mobs get bigger than dhalmel.

[Amastacia]

I had always read the values for optimal distance was:

Gun: 7.5
Xbow: 7.7
Bow: 8

From Hushi's post, Bow looks to be about 10.3-10.8. Any distance confirmations on the others?

Always thought Gun was a bit shorter than that as well (start getting acceptably close to max damage shortly after stepping out of melee range), and I was never sure if there was a difference between shortbows and longbows.

For a while, I just followed the numbers on Otherwiki, until I started noticing that being < 8 didn't do anything good for my damage with EBow, while I didn't really suffer standing a hair out past 10 to avoid Imps' Tantaras.

[Mojo]

If the message procs in campaign, maybe some kind soul can go through every 0.1 distance difference on a fortification with each different weapon type and report the results. It would be some awesome information. Comparing different weapons of the same type (Eurytos' Bow/Selene's Bow) could be helpful as well to see if it varies for each weapon or just weapon type.

[Amastacia]

If the message procs in campaign, maybe some kind soul can go through every 0.1 distance difference on a fortification with each different weapon type and report the results. It would be some awesome information. Comparing different weapons of the same type (Eurytos' Bow/Selene's Bow) could be helpful as well to see if it varies for each weapon or just weapon type.

I can probably start taking a stab at that after I don't-claim KA on server up.

I have, on hand, to test with:
EBow
Lamia Kaman
Lightning Bow
OBow
Zamburak +1 (yay ERon!)
Hellfire +1
Shark Gun
Musketeer's Gun

[Pharaun]

The message does show up for campaign mobs, I was messing around last night just to see what they looked liked. I didn't bother checking distances precisely, but using bow the messages lined up with what I had experienced previously, that being 10'-11' for most things.

[Narse]

I haven't played with Ranger since the update, but I'm imagining that you will not only see a difference in optimal range between different weapon types (bow/gun/x-bow/chakrams/etc), but that you will probably see a difference in type of each weapon as well (kamans vs. longbows, rifles vs. hexaguns).

[Mojo]

I can probably start taking a stab at that after I don't-claim KA on server up.

I have, on hand, to test with:
EBow
Lamia Kaman
Lightning Bow
OBow
Zamburak +1 (yay ERon!)
Hellfire +1
Shark Gun
Musketeer's Gun

Awesome! Also, upon further thinking, it's not necessary to test every 0.1 occurrence. The points at which the message changes are the only important ones. There should only be 4 (or 8 if you count each message at the point where it changes) occurrences, the work is in finding them. I guess it's like playing battleship?

[Eleven19]

I think they might have screwed something up with ranged attacks and bloody bolts being used on RNG. Friend last night at Lv28-30 in the jungle was draining mandies for over 100, I don't recall that ever being so high.

[Amastacia]

Awesome! Also, upon further thinking, it's not necessary to test every 0.1 occurrence. The points at which the message changes are the only important ones. There should only be 4 (or 8 if you count each message at the point where it changes) occurrences, the work is in finding them. I guess it's like playing battleship?

Yeah, I wasn't planning on testing every .1, since doing so won't return relevant data.

I just want to isolate the transitions from "bad" to "better" to "best" and vice versa, and see how it changes, both between weapon types, and between weapons of the same type (if it does).

Edit: .1 test would have value, just not on Fortifications/Campaign mobs, and doing it properly to isolate the penalty applied to RAtt would take forever if you want to be rigorous about eliminating variables.

[Velecic]

Wow, that is high, best I ever got was something like 50s or 60s off something weak to magic and low level lol. 100+ would be an awesome buff if it's not a glitch!

[Byrthnoth]

Bloody bolts have always drained mandies for 90+, and additional effect damage past that depends on your INT. I remember them being about a Cure II per contact for me when I was soloing THF/RNG from 25 to 37 on mandies.

[Eleven19]

Bloody bolts have always drained mandies for 90+, and additional effect damage past that depends on your INT. I remember them being about a Cure II per contact for me when I was soloing THF/RNG from 25 to 37 on mandies.

Ah, gotcha. Sorry then, just seemed ridiculous that he was hitting drains for 103. Highest I've ever seen them.

[hagun]

I think they might have screwed something up with ranged attacks and bloody bolts being used on RNG. Friend last night at Lv28-30 in the jungle was draining mandies for over 100, I don't recall that ever being so high.

Yeah, that seems a bit high, emergency maintenance will probably fix that.

[Snprphnx]

A friend of mine and I were leveling Ranger last night. One thing we noticed about Camouflage was that it was random whether or not we would keep it after shooting a mob. Sometimes we could shoot 7 or 8 times before Camouflage will naturally wear off (red message about Camouflage's effect wearing off in chat log), sometimes Camouflage will wear off after a single ranged attack.

From update notes

- 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.

It stays up depending on your position to the mob. I tested this, and it seems directly behind, like SATA positioning