After playing around and investing into my Ranger a decent amount (it's in an Edge now), these are my feedback points:
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Upfront damage is underwhelming. I would rather have faster decaying marks on unselected targets than lower upfront damage and more marks. It takes me a minute or so to build up to full power and yes while the full power IS stronger than my gunner (1.6m to 2.8m depending on setup I'm playing around with), my gunner can immediately bzzzzzrt 2m burst damage with 1m ship window dps and 1.5m combined dps with fighters, missiles, and bots included.
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The need to deal more upfront damage because a lot of dgs and custom zones have high radar ai that hurt a lot (emp, for example, despite being "just T20", can see me from the gate and immediately apply constant non-so-insignificant pressure damage).
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Being hit from big ol' tanky bosses is grit that you can't get rid of until you burst down the boss, hence 2) and the need for more upfront damage.
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Bots on ranger (and seer and zerk) feel very underwhelming which is a net negative to the class(s) because the game seems built around having bots. This may also be where zerk's overtuning feel comes from: zerks generally don't have non-tank bots.
5) The tracking nerf hurts a lot. Blanket tracking nerf. Then immediately give SD a super that circumvents it. It feels like it should have been a tracking degrading nerf where tracking at close range can remain high but degrades as the projectile reaches the end of its range. Lasers can keep the blanket nerf. Not hitting things with pulses, mags, and torps is a massive let down with two +tracking augs in the ship.
- Things that get in your face are very dangerous because you're basically stuck on the 8-second empowered shot rotation, your non-empowered shots are very weak, and tracking was nerfed.
Continued in comments:
ranger is great for bossing, trackers and roaming, and okayish at dgs 