Lorekeeper
And Pun-isher
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Constructive criticism is ideal for driving change due to being far more informative. In order to derive something constructive from this criticism, I would have to ask what these same effects that we always see are. I've struggled to find such a repetitive pattern through the three years I've written for AQ. Particularly in quest-related armors and MC sets, as I've designed the concepts for those while Kam and IMR have never dismissed me to instead repeat an existing effect. If anything, armors have experienced a certain complexity creep and are often dismissed unless they have several skills.
The one exception I can point out is Muscle Mage, which was too indistinct from Werepyre due to an error on my end -- I came up with a concept that would've required very specific math changes to be properly distinct, and didn't convey this accordingly.
FD armors aren't created in some tautological expectation of, or outright pigeonholing, of rangers using them. It's an established build being catered to -- Defensive rangers and wand/defensive spellcaster mages are the resource-efficient counterparts to the time-efficient FO builds. Beast builds can also benefit from defensive armors, as the lean doesn't impact their pet damage.
As of the reason there aren't many recent armors oriented towards offensive rangers specifically, it's precisely because we're aware of the ranger identity crisis, and it can't be solved from the item side. I still suggest spear rewards periodically, as there will need to be some amount of recent spears when the problem is addressed, but armors can't cater to an identity that has realistically disappeared until such a time as the stat revamp provides a chance to properly define it. Offensive rangers have very little that is exclusive to them because there is no line between them and warriors right now. We're aware of this problem, and it's as painful for us as it is for you, but it'll take a major stat update to give a satisfying solution before items can properly cater to this archetype again.
To illustrate the issue, let's go over established and well-defined build archetypes, with their associated stats/damage types. By this, I mean the broader builds that can be succinctly defined in a few sentences, rather than smaller subsets or build-agnostic strategies. I'm specifically leaving Ranger for last for the purposes of explanation.
Warrior: Typically offensive, melee damage. STR and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Dealing full damage with weapon attacks allows for good sustained damage independent of fight duration, but falls behind on immediate burst damage.
Mage (Offensive): Magic damage. INT and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy respectively. INT provides MP as an additional resource for spells (Baseline 200% melee) and other effects, but sacrificing 25% of weapon damage for this means that it sharply drops off in long fights.
Hybrid: Typically offensive, any damage type. Traditionally uses no secondary stats in order to use STR, DEX, and INT, effectively making it so that only two stats are usually active in any given action in exchange for a broader variety of tactics and equipment. Lower performance, higher adaptability.
Hybrid (Werepyre): Offensive, melee or magic damage. Werepyre logic requires STR and INT for its damage and accuracy, with LUK as a third stat. Because DEX is universally required for accuracy outside of this, this higher-performance hybrid has very low baseline accuracy outside of armors with werepyre stats. (Note: This is its own identity issue for another disucssion)
Mage (Defensive): Magic damage. INT and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Focused on 100% proc Magic weapons, this mage has a resource-efficient standard attack after spellcasting. They sacrifice the higher performance of a Spellcaster lean, but take reduced incoming damage instead of extra damage for their trouble.
Ranger (Defensive): Ranged damage. DEX is essential stats for damage and accuracy, but STR contributes as well. Focused on 100% proc Ranged weapons, this ranger has a resource-efficient standard attack. hey sacrifice the higher performance of an offensive lean, but take reduced incoming damage instead of extra damage for their trouble.
Ranger (Offensive): Ranged damage. STR and DEX are essential stats for damage and accuracy. Dealing full damage with weapon attacks allows for good sustained damage independent of fight duration, but falls behind on immediate burst damage. Slightly lower damage due to accuracy leans on spears.
Variants:
LUK - Initiative and lucky strikes make LUK the predominant tertiary stat.
CHA - Used for beast variants of the aforementioned builds. Anybody can do this, but it's optimal done for defensive builds, as pet damage is unaffected by your lean.
END - ...It exists. It's sometimes used for extra health during lower levels before being phased out, if one is willing to spend a lot of time retraining.
These are all of the established, mechanical archetypes, before getting into anomalous niches or the narrower scope of playstyles.
If you read them all, you'll notice a few identity problems. One such problem being that defensive rangers are barely distinct from defensive mages. In fact, the greater variety of bows than wands is one of the few things propping them up, alongside the fact that they make the ideal beastmasters due to being far less concerned about allocating two stats for higher performance with their weapon attacks.
More egregiously, though, offensive rangers are built identically to warriors and have ever so slightly lower damage. They have no identity of their own beside the damage type. This isn't something that armors can solve, and in fact makes it range from harder to pointless armor specifically for offensive ranger mechanics that stand out from warriors. It can be done, of course, but they'll be the same build using a different damage stat.
That should thoroughly address that tangent, as well as exhaust its relevance to the current thread. If you would like to continue this discussion, feel free to create a separate one.
To refocus this information on the topic of the MC set: Please note the combinations of elements and aforementioned archetypes already discussed in this thread, although there are of course many outdated ones. Rest assured, we're well aware of this coverage, and I didn't suggest a set for the exact same combination of element and archetypes for two consecutive years.
The Lost Talon set is not enough to the Haunted Dragonlord set to warrant such concerns. They're very different sets, meant to cater to different archetypes. Hopefully you will see this within the day, I'm very eager for you to get your hands on this quest and set.
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