Ranger Archive

Creature Mitigation sounds cool but I have a question about it. How would it work?

Say your a Master Ranger/Master Rifleman so you have range mitigation...will the creature mitigation act like melee mitigation. If you are a Master Ranger/Master TKA will the creature mitigation act as ranged mitigation?

Being that creatures mostly fight in melee it makes sense for it to act as a form of melee mitigation but then it seems like melee rangers have a bigger advantage over ranged rangers. I like the idea but how could it be balanced?

Having it as a form of melee mitigation would benift both ranged and melee rangers(im assuming the mitigation would work with whatever weapon you have equipped) but melee rangers would benefit more because they already have melee mitigation plus another form of melee mitigation in the form of creature mitiagtion. The only way i see it as being balanced is that if you are melee it gives you ranged mods without having to equip a rifle or pistol or carbine or if you are ranged it gives you melee mods without having to unequip your gun. But that idea seems to give the advantage to ranged Rangers because the majority of creatures attack in melee. I do like the idea but i think we need to figure out how it will work.

*added spacesbecause i was rambling and it was hard to read*

Message Edited by ScoerFusou on 03-25-2004 04:16 PM

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GTOfire wrote:

Short list:

- +20% damage against wild animals

- Creature Defense +40

- to-hit -0.15

- defense vs poison/disease +10

- foragable poison cures/decreases (not stackable)

Long explanation:

= Our damage vs creatures: I'm just gonna name it. +3. +3 +3 +3 +3 +5 percent spread over the novice-knowledge-master path. that's a total of 20% damage increase against wild animals over our non-Ranger friends. That's cause we know where to strike to do the most damage.

I like this idea, but the numbers (and distribution) should be handled carefully lest we become "overpowered."

= Creature Defense +40: the number is just a number, but the idea is valid. We know how the animal will strike, so we can avoid the damage it does. I don't mean mitigation that decreases their max damage, I mean toughness that takes the damage they're doing that specific strikeand decreases it.

Toughness (not mitigation)vs. all creature attacks (meleeand ranged)would make sense seeing as how our supplementing combat professionprobably already has mitigation of some sort anyway. It also goes along the line that we'rehardy survivors when it comes to nature. Supplementary combat profession shouldn't be a factor, defense is defense. I would only have something like this available at master though to avoid stackers.

= Creature accuracy vs us: We anticipate a critters moves, allowing us to avoid being hit and if we are hit, to block the strike a little. Creatures therefor have a tougher time hitting us then other people.

Again, I agree.

= Poison/Disease: Because us Rangers are tough boys and girls, we don't get sick as quick as other people. A small Defense vs Poison/Disease is in order (not too grand, we're not that tough compared with others).

Also, I believe most of all that a Ranger should be able to forage certain herbs that decrease the poison, slowing down the heavy stuff, curing the minor stuff (doesn't stack, two herbs won't cure a poison one herb doesn't cure). This does not go for disease.

Maybe instead of something passive like poison/disease we could be more protected against the elements of the "wild" (Though I DO like the foragable cure idea not only for effectiveness, but as an additional source of income). Defensive mods vs. intimidate, dizzy,and/or stun would reflect the Ranger'sability to keep his focus when under pressure. Perhaps an additional bit of melee defense? Nothing TOO big, butthese kind ofwould help nonetheless.

The goal here that will take some number-adjusting is to make a Master Ranger better in PvE then a Master Bounty Hunter. For example, a Master Ranger, Master Swordsman with Novice Medic should be able to kill wild animals faster and with less damage to themselves then a Master Bounty Hunter with Novice Medic, though because of the power of BH's, the difference won't be that great.

Ok, if I'm not mistaken, Master Ranger and Mastery of a REQUIRED (to be an effective hunter) supplementary elite combat profession actually takes MORE skill points than MBH. So if you look at things by way of skill point cost, MBHs get much more bang for their buck and are (on average) more capable of taking down tougher prey than we are as rangers. Traps just don't hold water in most combat situations, they aren't worth the time and resources it takes to throw them (with the exception of roots). It would make sense to makeRangers more combat capable versus that which our entire profession's life blood(and money) circulates around: the wild animal.

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All in all I agree with GTO's Idea's for added combat capabilty

This is actually the #2 issue for me behind harvesting.

Message Edited by FallingByTheWayside on 03-25-2004 05:48 PM

So you are saying mitigations would stack? Thats the problem i see. Melee people already take less damage from creatures and if creature mitigation stacked it would be like melee players have melee mitigation 6 and ranged mitigation 3 and ranged would have ranged mitigation 6 and melee mit 3. To me that seems unbalanced because there are more melee creatures then ranged creatures and melee people would have a significant advantage.

What about something similar to CoB? It would only work against creatures and give a slightly better chance of a creature missing the Ranger then regular CoB. That way a melee person could use CoB or "Ranger CoB" but they wouldnt stack and while either would work the "Ranger CoB" would be more effective verse creatures for the Ranger.

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
No matter how you handle it, a melee profession Ranger will be better off against a creature than a ranged Rangerwill. That is the nature of the beast. If we are worried about stacking (a very valid point) then maybe we should focus more on the resist aspect of preventing damage. I will say getting both would be nice, but not likely. I also like the idea of handling creature damage through a Toughness mod instead of mitigation; either method is fine. I think the main goal is to make Rangers more resistant to creature damage versus non-Rangers. It will be hard to balance melee vs. ranged Rangers becuase so few critters have ranged attacks; most critters use melee attacks.

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As a ranged Ranger, I try to avoid getting hit. I would be willing to bet quite a bit that I take less damage from creatures than a meleer would. I just take a lot more every time I get hit (no armor, no melee mitigation, no toughness, etc). I think just adding in the toughness and mitigation mods will be fine. I don't mind taking more damage than a meleer--I get hit a lot less anyway.

As for mitigation, it currently doesn't stack. So if you have TKM and Master Fencer (or something similar), the mitigation is the same as if you had just TKM. I'm guessing they could make the same true for this. It would just be both ranged and melee mitigation but only against creatures. It doesn't matter all too much anyway, though, as most creatures have such a small damage range that mitigation 3 only subtracts a few points (I seem to remember most of my pets having a damage range of 10--that means you save a maximum of 6 damage at mit 3). Although they seem to be giving creatures larger ranges now so I'm guessing it will be more and more useful.

I think you hit on the main point, here, though. We just want to make sure we have a use when fighting creatures. I don't think this should necessarily mean we can kill a creature faster than a double combat master. Just easier (i.e. less damage taken, less wear on our weapons, some reason to take us on group hunting, ...). I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of solo effectiveness if I can help my group find and take down that krayt much easier.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

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GTOfire wrote:

the basic point of the mitigation as I personally hope to get it is not mitigation as is defined by the game's current two mitigations. What melee mitigation does is take the max damage and cut it down, decreasing the range of possible damage outputs to be lower on average. If a critter hits a normal player for 300-400, it would hit a melee mitigated player for 300-340 (not sure on the math, but stuff like that).

What I want is creature toughness, though the terms are used mixed in our forums. So a creature that does 300-400 still does 300-400 potentially. It's first strike is for 385, the toughness kicks in and you only receive 300 of it, that then counts as the creature's hit and is THEN subject to your various other stats and toughnesses and mitigations and such.

This stacks for melee players just as much as it does for ranged players, because the mod is independant of weapon used.

Oh, and BH was just an example, we should also be more effective against animals then a Master Brawler/Master TKA/Master Medic, you name it.

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What you want is toughness here. There is unarmed toughness and 2 handed toughness and .... And that has the effect you describe. But mitigation would be really nice as well. Melee professions get both. I'd be willing to trade the mitigation for more toughness but I have a feeling that both will give a better effect. I haven't looked at anything like a krayt recently (why are they so hard to find!) but I believe they have a damage range of several hundred. And mitigation plays a big part there. But, admittedly, it does nothing for most creatures. I'm not sure what the Devs will end up doing but we might as well bring up both ideas for them. It's likely the Devs would come up with both if they seriously thought about it but mentioning it will, at worst, save them a bit of time.

As for being more effective than Master whatever, that is hard to define. In terms of shear killing power, we probably shouldn't be. We do get other skills as well. But we should be extremely useful for a hunting party or for gathering resources. Using tactics we should be able to kill anything that any other class would kill through brute force. It might take us longer but not to the point that our harvesting rate is at all hurt. Whereas they might go in and tank 3 rancors, we would pull one with a trap, use other traps to weaken it, kill it, skin it, and repeat. And we should come out ahead. We SHOULDN'T get the ability to wander in and tank those three rancors just because we are Master Ranger. I think it is quite important how we specify all of this. We want to be good creature hunters, not just good creature killers.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

Message Edited by Nemo0 on 03-26-2004 12:55 AM