The proposed changes to the wynguard rangers in season 9 are far too much of a nerf. I understand that silk bowstrings means there needs to be a small change but they do not need to be nerfed in range AND increased in gold cost.
Nerf the range by 1 that is fine but leave the cost as it is. These units require a landmark to unlock and can only be trained there, these were rarely used anyway over wynguard footmen and now they will be used even less due to the prohibitively high gold cost when regular longbows cost wood.
No it doesnt like a killing nerf but with bowstring tech it make necessary i guess.If the english can take that tech Ottoman should have Serpentine Powder tech.
Really? Isn’t it like +50 gold for a pack of them? They have 10 range with Bowstrings, and 11 range on a stone wall. They’re like walking siege units. They can focus down Bombards.
These units should be good because they are locked behind an imperial landmark, there’s no other benefit to wynguard other than these units.
The range was their biggest bonus over just going longbow now you’re just getting 1 extra range. Is the unit otherwise worth making over longbow now is the question.
In comparison to the longbow on current patch you are getting 31% more HP, 33% more attack and +2 range and it costs you 50% more wood than a longbow and slightly more gold than a longbow costs in food. In imperial you need gold for other stuff like crossbows/knights/siege etc.
Overall you are looking at just over a 29% additional cost which on paper looks worth the stats, certainly in terms of pop efficiency but the issue is they cost wood and gold instead of wood and food. They cost more than double the gold of a man at arms and you are limited in how many you can train as only wynguard can train them. Now with an additional 50 gold cost the unit becomes even more costly and more gold heavy.
I’d say they’re fine if you’ve got trade up and have a high gold income but otherwise you’d be better just going berkshire and longbow.
Just to compare the unit to the wynguard footmen, the footmen is almost 3% cheaper than a standard maa in total resources but costs 3.3x as much of that in gold. Each ranger now will cost 50 gold each, almost as much gold as a footmen but for much less stats. Considering the unit has had its range nerfed, a cost decrease would have been more understandable than an increase, the unit certainly is not so good that it warrants an increase in cost after nerfing the range.
You have one of the most reliable free gold bonuses in the game in Imperial, and as you said yourself you can’t spam Rangers anyway, so +50g shouldn’t bankrupt you. If 1 extra range is worth it or not it’s up to you to consider, but the devs clearly found that strong enough to warrant a nerf. I personally find 10 range archers batshit insane and would prefer they didn’t benefit from Bowstrings, and keep their former range and cost.
You have to consider how they will be on the patch compared to how they are currently. Currently they have 2 more range than a longbow, on the new patch we get bowstrings so longbow goes to 9 range and ranger should be 11 which means it maintains its range advantage over other archers and longbows in the same amount. However because they added bowstrings the ranger is being unfairly nerfed and will now have less of a range advantage than it does on current patch. Not only that but now they are increasing their cost to make them even more gold heavy despite them being worse on the next patch than on this patch.
What rank are you?
I don’t see a pro player complaining wynguard rangers being overnerfed.
Show us a game where you played English and get wynguard rangers and you lost because they are overnerfed, it will be more convincing than arguing about maintaining so-called fair 2 range advantage.
conqueror 3 since season 2. 1800 elo in aoe 3 de as well, played since legacy so likely before you were born.
I’m not a pro even though I am fairly highly ranked as there are probably just like 5 pro players.
Anyway rank never disqualifies someones opinion and I dislike people that think they’re clever calling rank.
I don’t even main english I main byzantines so this change doesn’t effect me much however I dislike unnecessary nerfs and for me this feels like a hugely unnecessary nerf. I’ve seen rangers made probably like 20x over hundreds of games and never once thought they were too strong, this seems like devs watched a youtube video of wynguard rangers on top of walls and decided to nerf them based on that alone.
Yeah, but there might be a limit where range becomes too much, which I presume is when it starts outranging most siege units in the game, considering ranged units can now counter siege. So cost-to-benefit might not be proportional to pre-patch.
If I’m not mistaken Mangonels now have 8 range, upgradeable to 9. So Rangers are the only archers that can actually outrange Mangonels.
When you are good at something, your opinion matters more.
Rank doesn’t disqualify facts but for opinion, which is something subjective, it does change how seriously people take your words.
We have to wait for S9 to be sure if they are overnerfed. English is one of the best civs in the game and the have infinite gold in Imperial Age. Also, the Silk Bowstrings will be still available and mangonels will be nerfed a bit compared to S8 (and buffed compared to Pup). Maybe these nerfs are in line with the other changes.
I’ve noticed that the buff to mangonel range with their late game upgrade means that longbows will have the same range as a mangonel now once longbows have silk bowstrings so they won’t out range mangonels as long as both units have their upgrades and prior to that mangonels out range them.
Rangers will still have +1 range so they can still out range mangonels once they get silk bowstrings but won’t out range them without silk bowstrings now. So for rangers to comfortably beat mangonels you need silk bowstrings.
Also longbows with silk bowstrings and on a wall will out range mangonels by 1. Rangers now always need silk bowstrings to out range an upgraded mangonel whether on walls or not.
Both units comfortably out range nest of bees late game, even more so on walls. Though nest of bees is much more mobile than a mangonel.
But remember it is not only about range. We need to test the resistance (that was first nerfed and them buffed again) and the AoE damage. On the Pup, mangonels were very weak and the AoE was small, so in Line formation (Z) they only deal damage to 2-3 archers + projecticles were not tracking (buffed again). A Mangonel needs to kill like 8 archers to be cost effective, and on the Pup they barely killed like 2. I think we need tests before discussing this.
Personally, I’m not totally sure if they are overnerfed or not. I mean, I think they will still be good, but I’m not sure if it would be just better to create Longbows. Both units have good damage and range. We should save this post for the next week
