Weapons & Equip Ranged may require some tweaks...

[DarkVenom]

The extra defense isn't much. At all. Especially on Normal Mode.
The ranger's REALLLLLY hard to get high damage with, meanwhile all you really have to do with Melee is pick up a Influx Waver or a Possessed Hatchet and it's GG. And they have high range.

Shroomite is SO much weaker compared to the other armors, Beetle makes you either a killing machine or a unstoppable tank. Spectre can heal you a TON OR give you a super huge amount of DPS. Shroomite gives extra damage when standing still for long periods of time..... yay?

Even if it is just a bonus, it NEEDS to be on par with the other armors of that specific tier.
Don't get me started on the fact that helmets limit how much damage you can do. My god.

Those helmets were a Pain in the
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Ranged is simply not satisfying.

This pretty much is the Answer why we dont want to play Ranger anymore...

Ranger is Lame compared with the Other Classes!

 

[Kats]

Pretty interesting, though there would be several problems with it (ex. damage increase when firing or actually hitting enemy; buff working on nearest enemy only or all in radius; what about multitargeting weapons). Though if these would be passed, I'd like to see it as new Shroomite armor set bonus (together with only one helmet for it), as IMO vorte needs something really cool

Basically it would be on an area around the cursor, most damage in the middle, basically on the cursor, if that touches the enemy then you'll get maxed damage output, imagine a dart board.
It would be AoE and would work on however many mobs, say you have a million zombies knocking at your door, they would all recieve the increased damage so long as the cursor is around their location.
Multitargeting Weapons would be same, it would have increased damage on whichever enemy is the closest to the cursor.
Damage increase is only when hitting the enemy, basically the cursor would give the mobs a debuff with a 0.1 duration or something, so that you can't just sweep the mouse across the screen to give every mob on screen the debuff lol.

They can probably do something about the damage increase only triggering when shooting or something though.
Could probably be made better but this is what I imagined.

 

[Kardfogu]

This pretty much is the Answer why we dont want to play Ranger anymore...
Ranger is Lame compared with the Other Classes!

Even if there weren't other classes to compare, I don't want to hold a dolphin while flying extremely slowly. Even worse a rocket launcher that was designed after a trashcan. On top of this, they are not exactly good. Phantams deals the same DPS as the S.D.M.G. at a lower ammo consumption and the trashcan is actually one of the weakest rocket weapons.

The only thing the Moon Lord drops for us is Luminite which we require for ammo, he's practically an ammo source which we must defeat - read: waste ammo on - in order to farm ammo. Farmception!

 

[DarkVenom]

Even if there weren't other classes to compare, I don't want to hold a dolphin while flying extremely slowly. Even worse a rocket launcher that was designed after a trashcan. On top of this, they are not exactly good. Phantams deals the same DPS as the S.D.M.G. at a lower ammo consumption and the trashcan is actually one of the weakest rocket weapons.

The only thing the Moon Lord drops for us is Luminite which we require for ammo, he's practically an ammo source which we must defeat - read: waste ammo on - in order to gain farm ammo. Farmception!

Terrariaception!

Anyway....My Problem with the SDMG is that its Lame! the Sprite is just Lame!...Dont get me started on Celebration

 

[PulseFox]

Rangers do need a bit of new stuffs... Celebration was a dissapointment for me, since... whats to celebrate? That you spent time preparing for the end boss of the game, and end up with some fireworks? (At least you can use it for finding caves... Oh look spelunker potions .-.).
Stealth is useful for mutliplayer though, as a ranger can stand on a platform above an arena, while a melee or ranged player runs below and attacks enemies. MUTLIPLAYER. the one place where stealth actually became useful.

 

[Kardfogu]

Anyway....My Problem with the SDMG is that its Lame! the Sprite is just Lame!...Dont get me started on Celebration

Not to mention the ammo consumption... ...if I'll ever use a fishgun again, I'll run multiple worlds on dedicated servers in the background in order to farm crystals. No joking. At this time I'm literally talking about multiple worlds of automated Crystal farms.
Why?
One ranger in one world may find enough crystals on his own - while the other players are having fun with building or fighting instead of farming ammo - to fuel these, but most worlds can't keep up with more than one ranged player using a bullet weapon. Well, at least I was forced into loving the Elf Melter...
...and a lot else, like the Pulse Bow and my alltime love the Snowman Cannon.
Generally anything that shoots high damage projectiles at a slow fire rate and/or converts crappy ammo into powerful special projectiles.

As all of us can see, the abscence of "anything that shoots high damage projectiles at a slow fire rate and/or converts crappy ammo into powerful special projectiles" is pretty much the source of our ammo problems post Moon Lord.
S.D.M.G. eats ammo, Celebration is weak.
Only Phantasm deals considerable damage while preserving our precious ammo at the same time, but it doesn't work well with our cheaper arrows, it demands our highly valued Luminite...

 

[TMB50]

Not to mention the ammo consumption... ...if I'll ever use a fishgun again, I'll run multiple worlds on dedicated servers in the background in order to farm crystals. No joking. At this time I'm literally talking about multiple worlds of automated Crystal farms.
Why?
One ranger in one world may find enough crystals on his own - while the other players are having fun with building or fighting instead of farming ammo - to fuel these, but most worlds can't keep up with more than one ranged player using a bullet weapon. Well, at least I was forced into loving the Elf Melter...
...and a lot else, like the Pulse Bow and my alltime love the Snowman Cannon.
Generally anything that shoots high damage projectiles at a slow fire rate and/or converts crappy ammo into powerful special projectiles.

You can sort of avoid the problem with crystal ammo by making farms, which work similarily to Vile/Vicous Mushroom farms, but with Pearlstone, can't be automatically broken without actuators, and don't have competence for space.
Alternatively, you can make an Ichor farm, which is quite easy to do, or a Cursed Flames farm, which is somewhat harder but can be done by using a corrupt Underground Desert.
Another alternative, which is better than Cursed Bullets, is to switch to Venom Bullets, at they deal the second highest damage in the game and can be easily obtained, as they only require items sold by vendors.

 

[Kardfogu]

You can sort of avoid the problem with crystal ammo by making farms, which work similarily to Vile/Vicous Mushroom farms, but with Pearlstone, can't be automatically broken without actuators, and don't have competence for space.
Alternatively, you can make an Ichor farm, which is quite easy to do, or a Cursed Flames farm, which is somewhat harder but can be done by using a corrupt Underground Desert.
Another alternative, which is better than Cursed Bullets, is to switch to Venom Bullets, at they deal the second highest damage in the game and can be easily obtained, as they only require items sold by vendors.

I know, I even have a plan to automate Crystal farms by connecting Actuators to hallowed stone blocks, triggering them by a minecart track. The player rides the minecart left and right - automatically with a loop - and the actuated hallowed stone blocks drop down the crystals that grow on them.
The crystals fall down, the player in the minecart picks them up.

I'll run those farms in the background so the crystals can grow on them. I'll have them connected to additional ports and so anyone knowing my IP and password will be able to farm Crystal.

I'll run an Ichor farm too, but I'll use Ichor Darts instead of Ichor bullets or arrows so that I can switch to a dart firing gun, shoot an ichor projectile and change back to any arrow/bullet weapon I wish to use.

 

[Neutral Effect]

Balanced in the fact it deals decent damage and has decent defence compared to Melee's high defence but (slightly harder to obtain) DPS and Mage's high burst damage but low defence. The only reason both Mage and Melee have lifesteal is because they need it for certain situations. Melee because they're always in direct combat, and Mage because they're already frail and easily destroyed.

I've never had a problem with Shroomite, though the bonus in itself is pretty ty. Though when you look at it, what are the other bonuses before hand? The only one I can think of that isn't something that only effects stats is the armour right before it, which has a useless crystal that shoots things. But I'm pretty sure Shroomite actually gives more bonuses statistically, and has more defence, so you're more powerful on that front, and the set bonus is just that:

A bonus.

Think of it has something that is beneficial should it happen, but not something you should be basing your entire strategy around.

Also, I'm crazy, arguing on a thread about buffing Rangers when hardly anyone's going to see my opinion.

Mages can and do base their strategy on their set bonus, both with Nebula and Specter armors.
Warriors ("Melee") generally don't do it, istead basing it on weapons (Star Wrath, Vampire Knives, Possessed Hatchet...).
We cannot base our strategy neither on Armor (Shroomite set bonus is imposible to use, Vortex will render You dead in minute or two), nor on weapons (S.D.M.G. is just machinegun, nothing special. The same goes to Tactical Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, damned Celebration...).
Reason for which Shroomite bonus is impossible to use:
It grants You bonus while not moving; to activate it, You cannot also shoot for a moment. Taking damage resets it.
So, tell me: How will You manage not to take damage while not moving and not firing? Melee and Mages can use their bonuses (Turtle/Beetle, Spectre), and even do it passively. We can't do it at all.

Wait a minute...
I just realised that You don't play ranged. Don't even say that You "have much experience with it" or sth like that, because if You did, then You would know that both our armor and weapons are not something special, while debuffs do nothing in fight (except for Ichor, but it can only help). So, why do You post here without any knowledge about it?
I could answer for You, but I won't repeat myself. That's what I feared, and said it in my first post on this thread.

 

[GawenStarTeller]

Mages can and do base their strategy on their set bonus, both with Nebula and Specter armors.
Warriors ("Melee") generally don't do it, istead basing it on weapons (Star Wrath, Vampire Knives, Possessed Hatchet...).
We cannot base our strategy neither on Armor (Shroomite set bonus is imposible to use, Vortex will render You dead in minute or two), nor on weapons (S.D.M.G. is just machinegun, nothing special. The same goes to Tactical Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, damned Celebration...).
Reason for which Shroomite bonus is impossible to use:
It grants You bonus while not moving; to activate it, You cannot also shoot for a moment. Taking damage resets it.
So, tell me: How will You manage not to take damage while not moving and not firing? Melee and Mages can use their bonuses (Turtle/Beetle, Spectre), and even do it passively. We can't do it at all.

Wait a minute...
I just realised that You don't play ranged. Don't even say that You "have much experience with it" or sth like that, because if You did, then You would know that both our armor and weapons are not something special, while debuffs do nothing in fight (except for Ichor, but it can only help). So, why do You post here without any knowledge about it?
I could answer for You, but I won't repeat myself. That's what I feared, and said it in my first post on this thread.

...

Don't come to conclusions. Ranged is the only class that I've actually beat the entire game with, so yes, I know my when it comes to playing it. Maybe not as much as you supposedly know, but this statement actually offends me. The only reason I'm posting on this thread at all in fact, is because I can beat the crap out of everything with the class and personally believe that it doesn't have to be buffed in any way even if it is lagging behind other classes.

Again, I don't even understand why people complain; the only time being weaker than a mage or melee user even frigging matters is in PvP situations and in anywhere else, you can simply enjoy having the extra DPS on your side. I know I do when playing with my brother, who is also a Mage (in fact, if you complaining about how 'weak' Ranged is, I beg to differ, because he's had to rely on me at times during boss fights because of my near constant DPS output compared to his small burst damage). And who cares if the endgameweapons of the other classes are better?

They're endgame weapons!

And last time I checked, you can still destroy things with the S.D.M.G. too.




Now, I had already unwatched this thread because obviously, there is no way that I can convince anyone here that Ranged is a half decent class and had used all of my arguments, and I'm not getting pulled back into it because of some ignorant accusation that actually offends me. Good day.

 

[Neutral Effect]

Text

So, if I understand correctly, Ranged is your favorite, chosen class, for which reason You want it to lag behind other classes and be less awesome than them?
Yeah, if that's how You think, then I could have been wrong, and You really are Ranger. But don't expect me to respect You because of your wicky-flicky thinking. I always want my favorite things in games to be in line with other of the same tier (not stronger), so there's no way I could understand You.
EDIT: Back on topic, Crystal Bullets can somehow make your weapons more accurate, but only a bit. Though their real strenght is small AoE DPS.

 

[TMB50]

In the case of Shroomite armor, another improvement, if the current set bonus were to be kept for some reason, as it's at least usable when not dealing with bosses (And used to be usable against the PM and FM until Pumpkings and Ice Queens begin to appear, respectively), would be to remove the mechanic that causes it to stop working upon taking damage, along with buffing it's damage AND making it begin to work more quickly. Of course, that would be only if it were kept as one of the set bonuses, as there are 3 helmets and there is no point in having only 1 set bonus, specially as the other armors at that tier have 2 set bonuses, and could possibily even have 3 to match the hypotetical revamped Shroomite.

 

[XiaoThePotato]

I'm hearing lots of people complain about ranged being underpowered, but I think it's just a bit too generic. We shoot bullets with guns. Yay.
There's not really much underpowered-ness going on here if I can take down Ice Queen with the SDMG in 10secs without stealthing in Vortex armor.
My fastest Moon Lord kill was in Vortex, with the SDMG and Luminite Bullets. I guess you can say mage class DPS is superior to ranged at the moment, but ranged has much better sustained DPS, which makes it worth when you're fighting bosses and events.

That being said, ranged isn't the only "use this weapon, or don't get superior DPS" class. Last Prism, anyone?

 

[TMB50]

I'm hearing lots of people complain about ranged being underpowered, but I think it's just a bit too generic. We shoot bullets with guns. Yay.
There's not really much underpowered-ness going on here if I can take down Ice Queen with the SDMG in 10secs without stealthing in Vortex armor.
My fastest Moon Lord kill was in Vortex, with the SDMG and Luminite Bullets. I guess you can say mage class DPS is superior to ranged at the moment, but ranged has much better sustained DPS, which makes it worth when you're fighting bosses and events.

That being said, ranged isn't the only "use this weapon, or don't get superior DPS" class. Last Prism, anyone?

The main problem isn't due to the SDMG.
The problem is actually with the set bonus from both Vortex and Shroomite armors, which are barely usable, and from the Celebration's complete awfulness.

 

[Neutral Effect]

I'm hearing lots of people complain about ranged being underpowered, but I think it's just a bit too generic. We shoot bullets with guns. Yay.
There's not really much underpowered-ness going on here if I can take down Ice Queen with the SDMG in 10secs without stealthing in Vortex armor.
My fastest Moon Lord kill was in Vortex, with the SDMG and Luminite Bullets. I guess you can say mage class DPS is superior to ranged at the moment, but ranged has much better sustained DPS, which makes it worth when you're fighting bosses and events.

That being said, ranged isn't the only "use this weapon, or don't get superior DPS" class. Last Prism, anyone?

Ranger class is not that much underpowered, though it surely is. Biggest problems are:
1. Unusable endgame armor set bonus (yeah, it's only useful in rare situations. Very rare, especially compared to Warrior and Mage, who can use thir bonuses whenever needed.)
2. Lame endgame weapons - one is powerful fishgun (fishes are lame for me), while second is weak, inaccurate firework with little range, just huge hitbox. And yeah, it's just firework - it's explosions look exactly like those caused by coloured rockets bought from Party Girl. Do I have to say that others have lasers obliterating everything, powerful airstrike traveling through blocks, star raining blade which causes everything to run from you, a projectile which shoots projectiles that home in one enemies, and even two of them can be used at a time? Even Nyan Cat Spam, though lame looking, is powerful. Summoners minions, while not really helpful during some fights, are at least totally awesome (really, how could someone consider laser-shooting blackhole and explosion-spawning crystal not cool?).
3. Chloro bullets give you only 70 bullets per bar. To make full stack of them (consumed in two minutes of continiuous firing S.D.M.G.), you need 14 chlorophyte bars. Considering that FM and PM last 9 minutes, while first minute is not continuous firing (about 1/2 of time), we need 4,5 stack of chloro bullets for S.D.M.G. to last entire fight (we don't have to use them - but I'm counting that we want, as they are one of three bullet types that will keep up with the enemies). Thus, we have to waste 63 chlorophyte bars for one fight. This is sick.

Our point is to find ways to solve these problems with possibly simpliest, most effective and easiest to implement methods. We don't want any type of overhaul, as we know that we're not only class that needs work, so we're trying to make it so taht Devs wouldn't have much effort with implementing it, while still making it not stronger, but balanced with other classes.

 

[XiaoThePotato]

Ah, speaking of ammo. I know this isn't a solution to the game's balance, but I just downloaded TerrariaPatcher and added "Ammo Reservation" to my list of persistent buffs. While this is only a temporary solution to an issue Re-Logic may need to fix, some types of ammo being too expensive to craft and all (with the addition of another two insanely fast machineguns), it's a solution.
If you can't be bothered to "cheat", then you can just craft ammo res potions. It makes your life a lot easier if you like to spam-fire chlorophyte during the events. I personally like to use Luminite Bullets, since they're not that difficult to farm for and it's 3 bars/999 bullets.
My advice would be either to hack that persistent ammo res buff, or to just switch over to Luminute Bullets.

EDIT: As for the SDMG being "lame", it's also powerful, which means it and the Meowmere are pretty much in the same boat here. That being said, the SDMG can be placed nearly on par with the Last Prism in terms of DPS if you have the correct gear on, no need for stealth. I was able to deal 18K DPS on a single target dummy with Luminite Bullets and an Unreal SDMG. I won't list the exact accessories and stuff I used for the sake of making long story short. However, in my opinion, the SDMG is in no way a "lame" fishgun. It's just boring.

 

[Neutral Effect]

Ah, speaking of ammo. I know this isn't a solution to the game's balance, but I just downloaded TerrariaPatcher and added "Ammo Reservation" to my list of persistent buffs. While this is only a temporary solution to an issue Re-Logic may need to fix, some types of ammo being too expensive to craft and all (with the addition of another two insanely fast machineguns), it's a solution.
If you can't be bothered to "cheat", then you can just craft ammo res potions. It makes your life a lot easier if you like to spam-fire chlorophyte during the events. I personally like to use Luminite Bullets, since they're not that difficult to farm for and it's 3 bars/999 bullets.
My advice would be either to hack that persistent ammo res buff, or to just switch over to Luminute Bullets.

EDIT: As for the SDMG being "lame", it's also powerful, which means it and the Meowmere are pretty much in the same boat here. That being said, the SDMG can be placed nearly on par with the Last Prism in terms of DPS if you have the correct gear on, no need for stealth. I was able to deal 18K DPS on a single target dummy with Luminite Bullets and an Unreal SDMG. I won't list the exact accessories and stuff I used for the sake of making long story short. However, in my opinion, the SDMG is in no way a "lame" fishgun. It's just boring.

When I said "lame" I meant it's looks. I agree fully it's powerful (what I stated more than once, even in my previous post).
But while all other classes have at least one serious weapon, we have to jokes, only one being really endgame. Second, damned Celebration (I'd like to have "Damned" prefix in game just to reforge Celebration to it) is both weak and joke. It's not even original, as firework rockets use the same explosion sprite. So, other classes have two serious weapons, both powerful (Warriors have Terrarian to compensate Meowmere joke), we have two jokes, one powerful. I don't ask for much on this front, just Celebration being replaced with something more potent and non-joke (it could stay in game, just not as ML drop).
EDIT: Two minutes of firing S.D.M.G., while wearing Vortex set, with Ammo Box and Reservation Potion buffs. You know, it's still too short. At least it could have 66 or 75% chanc not to consume ammo.

 

[XiaoThePotato]

66% reduced ammo consumption would be nice, actually. I agree with you on that.
The looks aren't so bad, honestly, for the sake of being a reference to EoS. If you don't like the sprite that much, all I can say right now is "too bad", since the devs likely won't change that no matter what.
On the topic of Celebration, it's a lost cause. I just don't bother. Though, for the people saying it's worse than Snowman Cannon, it actually does a good 1.5-2k more DPS, so...

 

[Neutral Effect]

66% reduced ammo consumption would be nice, actually. I agree with you on that.
The looks aren't so bad, honestly, for the sake of being a reference to EoS. If you don't like the sprite that much, all I can say right now is "too bad", since the devs likely won't change that no matter what.
On the topic of Celebration, it's a lost cause. I just don't bother. Though, for the people saying it's worse than Snowman Cannon, it actually does a good 1.5-2k more DPS, so...

In my case, it causes around 3k DPS on single target (3,5 for Snowman Cannon) and 8k dps on six targets (9-10k for Snowman Cannon). I tried it both on dummies and real enemies (mimics and Plantera). So, it has slightly only lower DPS than Snowman Cannon...
But unlike Celebration, Snowman Cannon destroys terrain when used with proper rockets, has very long range and better accuracy, homes on enemies, and - most important - is totally badass
EDIT: I used it with Rocket IIIs, Vortex Armor, Celestial Stone and Sniper Scope, with all accesories reforged to Menacing. This gives me approx. 76% damage and 39% critical chance increase from basic stats.

 

[XiaoThePotato]

In my case, it causes around 3k DPS on single target (3,5 for Snowman Cannon) and 8k dps on six targets (9-10k for Snowman Cannon). I tried it both on dummies and real enemies (mimics and Plantera). So, it has slightly only lower DPS than Snowman Cannon...
But unlike Celebration, Snowman Cannon destroys terrain when used with proper rockets, has very long range and better accuracy, homes on enemies, and - most important - is totally badass

Really? That's weird. Everyone's saying it has lower DPS but that's obviously not true from what I've been testing out, I'll provide comparison screenshots later between the two. There's actually a good 1-2k DPS difference between the two, with the Celebration at the lead.