Some balance fixes are going in. More are to be expected. The general philosophy on skills is there should be few "must have" skills, and more skills that give people options. Taking into account responses to my question on whitie board, some changes will go in before others are done.
Changes this time around are:
SHIELD SPELL: Bug fixed. Shield now should, as intended, take much more mana than before -- a nasty bug prevented it from working properly. After bug fix, mana taken was reduced a bit, to make shield slightly more powerful than intended (but still much less so than it was before the bug fix). Note that it was intended as a situational spell -- it should not be a no-brainer to keep it up all the time. To help with that, its casting time has been reduced.
AMBSUH: Damage and probabily of success depend less on level and skill now than before (though both are still very important). Ambush was never intended to be a one-shot kill, but it should still do quite a bit of damage. Lower level rangers will findd ambush easier, while higher level rangers will find it do less damage.
SNEAK: Sneak delay now depends on ranger level, the higher ranger level, the less sneak delay
-Dim