Ranger Archive
Thread: Rangers quickly becoming obsolete
First off, allow me to start by saying Patience. We got a lot of attention early on, many things that were broken were fixed. We share a Dev with other professions, time for them to get some loving (you ever see any use in being a Smuggler, besides the pistol line??)
New stuff is coming, just not right now.
Sure, people are speeding around on bikes and stuff, guilty. But during dismounted combat, and y'all noticed no vehicles during combat, who is hauling butt up hills and kiting beasties - us. We run up the hills, letting the others get eaten (well, not really...wait, really...too bad for the slowpoke)
Areatrack is great. I use it all the time to recon what's ahead at my target. Sure, I could zoom on through, and that works to some extent, except in PvP. Then it gets ya dead. Meanwhile, 200m out, I /ar and tell the group who is ahead, by name, with distances.
Complete overhaul - no. Promised changes - yes. We will be upgraded soon. Maybe not next patch, maybe not for a few patches. Until then work around the bad spots and have fun. Don't go stagnant, learn new things. Go places, explore. Do the theme parks. Just because you made Master doesn't mean you are done, means you are just starting.
JB
I have been a Master Ranger for some time and, in fact, started off the game when it went live working towards it. But we really are lacking in things we can actually use. I think the problem is developers think in terms of theory rather then practicality.....or a skill that is used only undera very specific set of circumstances once in a blue moon...
The theory is the camps with crafting devices can only be made in Ranger camps and people going deep into the wilderness will have access to them if a Ranger is in the group...the practicality is, rarely are they used...for several reasons including camps are generally short lived and who wants to use all the resources if a small camp will work. In addition, there is normally somebody in the group that need camp exp so typically they make the camp. On the last 11 group outings I have gone on I have made one HT camp...because I ran out of the other camps...we kept the HT camp up for about 3 minutes. It hit me that the HT camp is almost worthless when I found myself considering whether it was worth the space to keep the kit in my backpack...
Tracking is only mildly useful..I once posted I thought it was great for tracking generic babies as a CH...Then I took a tour of Naboo and just in "chance" encounters collected at least as many babies in the same time period.
I rarely trap anymore...head out in a group and any particular creature dies quickly...a creature is going to survive 30 seconds whether you use a trap or not so you might as well use your weapon and gain exp...unless you need trapping exp but don't believe you are contributing to the kill...
Climbing speed...get a vehicle
Maskscent,stay a master scout........Conceal, to bothersome in groups....
It's not that our profession doesn't have a lot of "nice ideas"...they just don't work well in a practical way....
I hate to leave but I am considering a change....If I stay a master scout I will maintain about 95 percent of what I use consistently
Sadly, all the points raised here have been weighing heavily on my furry little head. I never thought I'd consider dropping Ranger - I loved being unique, and I brought something very different to large groups. However, with CH already getting a major nerf (no matter what anyone says to the contrary), and vehicles making camo, camps and /areatrack pretty much useless, there is little keeping me in the profession 
Rangers are going to need some SERIOUS loving from the devs soon, or we'll become extinct.
I used to be 4/0/4/0 Ranger, having decided to ignore the Trapping and Survival trees (boring!). Once achieving Tracking IV I dumped it, as for RP purposes I didn't feel it was appropriate for a Ranger to have the ability to track players. People, yes. But players struck me as a BH thing, or something that shouldn't have been there at all.
Finally, when the Mask Scent nerf occured, I dumped Ranger entirely. I climbed the Wayfaring tree specifically for the Mask scent bonuses, and the elimination of Mask Scent in favor of Camouflage was the nail in the coffin. I left two months ago, and don't plan on coming back.
mmaughme wrote:I left two months ago, and don't plan on coming back.
Not to be rude.. but if you never plan on coming back, then I don't know why you are posting non-constructive posts like this in the Ranger forum.
I have to agree to an extent. JBMat is right though we did get a lot of attention early on. We got our mask scent fixed,, which is actually scout. We got camo kits and area track, and rescue(I know I know)added. How many professions can say they have had 3 whole new abilities added to the profession?
We wandered and were concerned about Mounts and vehicles making us less desireable. Mounts did a little, but not completly they were slow and you still got agroed and attacked. Speeders totally made como not needed. I'm sorry, but if you are even hunting, you hop on it, drive to your target(avoiding all the agros) and hop off at it. Start your shooting. Then jump back on and head the next target. The only thing the camp is needed for is healing wounds, but more so, pulling out pets and vehicles.
I still think area track is cool and useful. Yes you can toot around on your speeder to look for stuff, but you are still hit mor miss as much as before. With area track, (which I made maco to use on mounts/vehicles) you can find the creature exactly, and get there in no time on speeder.
Our traps have always been useless in Rangers. Yes most master rangers dont use them, because they have no real effect. Rangers need different and new traps. They need to be about 3-4 times more effective. We need ones against NPC's. And now with vehicles, what about a similar Trip Wire trap, that will Knock players off their speeders? Wouldn't that rule for PvP?
I still enjoy Ranger, and won't be dropping it, but with speeders implemented, we are less and less practical and useful. Sorry to say it. To many of our abilities were changed in usefullness do to mounts and vehicles. No other profession can say that.
JBMat wrote:
First off, allow me to start by saying Patience. We got a lot of attention early on, many things that were broken were fixed. We share a Dev with other professions, time for them to get some loving (you ever see any use in being a Smuggler, besides the pistol line??)
Are you serious? Smugglers are one of the wealthiest professions due to their slicing ability and spice crafting. Also they have some formidable special attacks. Smugglers for the most part are very unbroken and very unique.
The attention we got early on I feel was misrepresented. We were promised a LOT more than we got. And we have ALL been waiting patiently for patch after patch for the rest of what we were promised. What did we get exactly? Camopacks-Mildly useful. /areatrack-Was more useful until speeders were released. Now it's more of a party trick when standing in a camp you can say, "Hey, there's some kreetles 200m NW of here."
Sure, people are speeding around on bikes and stuff, guilty. But during dismounted combat, and y'all noticed no vehicles during combat, who is hauling butt up hills and kiting beasties - us. We run up the hills, letting the others get eaten (well, not really...wait, really...too bad for the slowpoke)
Must you be reminded that your speed on foot is maxed at the scout level not the ranger level. We as rangers get increased crawling speed. When was the last time you kited that beastie up a hill on your belly? I didn't think so.
Areatrack is great. I use it all the time to recon what's ahead at my target. Sure, I could zoom on through, and that works to some extent, except in PvP. Then it gets ya dead. Meanwhile, 200m out, I /ar and tell the group who is ahead, by name, with distances.
Area track has mostly become a novelty with the introduction of speeders, Not to mention the crazy server spawns. I spent an hour running around on Dantooine with two other people trying to show my value tracking FS. Unfortunatly the spawns on the server were either all messed up or I just wasn't having any luck. So finally I recomended we all get on speeders, split up and senda WP when one of us found one. Well, we eventually found some FS NPC's...but it wasn't the ranger that tracked em down. BLAST....out tracked by a commando on a speeder!!
Squidwalker wrote:
I have to agree to an extent. JBMat is right though we did get a lot of attention early on. We got our mask scent fixed,, which is actually scout. We got camo kits and area track, and rescue(I know I know)added. How many professions can say they have had 3 whole new abilities added to the profession?
I distinctly remember masked scent working just fine THEN it got borked. So all they did was fix something they messed up. They attempted to balance it to try and make camo kits more useful, but all they really did was destroy it, piss a lot of people off and had to fix it.
I will have to totally agree. Ranger needs to be completely change, and overhauled. Every ability that we have has been underdoged by something esle added to the game. Im not complaining about the addition of vehicles etc., but the ranger class just plain sucks. I enjoy the class so much over a period of time, but it is slowly dying, and my patient with the lack of any content in the class is dying with it. Hopefully the devs will save us.......hopefully......
Yes, we need better traps.
Yes, we need better camps.
Yes, we need better running speed.
Yes, we need better area tracking.
Yes, we need better ranger only weapons.
Yes, we need better Creature-to-Hit modifiers.
NO, I WOULD NEVER DROP RANGER!
It's not about being the most powerfull - it's about having the most fun. I have fun being a ranger. I like throwing traps. I like putting up the big camp. I like running up mountains to evade pretty much anything that aggros me. I like being able to quickly locate critters in the area. If it get's better - GREAT! If it stays the same - I'll still have fun.
Kharr Khomak
Antarian Master Ranger
Master Creature Handler
Now, is that necessarily true. Not in its current state. I am currenlty Master Ranger/Rifleman 3-1-4-4. The goal is Master/Master.
Now even though I am having fun being a Ranger, the truth is Master Rifleman/Master CH is the best hunter in the game.
As a Ranger, I can't pull the missions I want. I have to area track for everything. If area track worked the way it should, no biggie. But it doesn't. As a Master CH, I can get whatever missions I want by grouping the right pets. I can deal the damage as Rifleman, keep Master Scout (an honorable profession), and get Master CH to be the best hunter possible.
I love Ranger, and have no immediate plans to give it up... even if the folks making the decisions have everything to discourage many of us into doing so. But come ON guys... TOSS A DOG A BONE!