Ranger Archive

This is one of the biggest questions that need to get answered before Ranger would get a revamp, that is where does it fit in the Combat Upgrade schematic?

If you have forgotten what the CU Profession role schematic is, here it is for reference...

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Combat%20Upgrade:%20Profession%20Roles%20Overview

WHatever SOE does, it has to fit into that schematic, especially if we are to be an actual combat profession

SO there is the big question, where do we fit in at? Right now we are in limbo, we have a CL but no actual combat abilities (all our stuff is passive and does not do damage)

SOE cannot simply make our traps work on NPCs & PCs w/o defining a CU role for us. (we would have to be balanced out against all the other professions, and any combat skill mods would have to be balanced out as well)

I think we ought to end up smack dab in the middle. I think the Ranger ought to combine a variety of roles that make the profession the jack of all trades. Rangers could have:

* Traps to provide some crowd control, and other state effects
* Physical defense bonuses to provide for a bit of tanking ability
* The ability to forage for natural medicines to provide healing, natural foods for buffs etc
* The ability to use traps and devices to do additional damage.

When I think of "Ranger" I think of 2 things: 1) The frontiersman able to handle himself under all circumstances in the wild, tough, resourceful, wily and often alone, and 2) The First-In/First-Out military Scout who goes in ahead of the main forces to sneak behind the lines and gather intel, perform sabotage etc.

These two distinct images are not necessarily at odds at all. I think that we could be redesigned to reflect that role and become a useful adjunct to most existing classes - without being better at any one role than anyone else. The price for this flexibility is that we become Jack of All Trades, Master of None as the phrase goes.

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Kinshi wrote:
This is one of the biggest questions that need to get answered before Ranger would get a revamp, that is where does it fit in the Combat Upgrade schematic?

If you have forgotten what the CU Profession role schematic is, here it is for reference...

http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/content.jsp?page=Combat%20Upgrade:%20Profession%20Roles%20Overview

WHatever SOE does, it has to fit into that schematic, especially if we are to be an actual combat profession

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Man, I love that schematic. Everyone in there but us. Hell, there's even even a hole opposite commando between crowd control and damage dealing (leaning more towards crowd control), and they couldn't be bothered to stick us into it.

Although, I can (grudgingly) see why we can't just be plugged ino it. The other three profs in that middle area all have offense 4 at the least. Assuming that we were given the ability to control non-creature crowds, that plus a strong offense would totally overpower/negate the pistolier's role. However, putting us in there without giving us the offensive capabilities that would justify such a placement would be, frankly, identical to our current situation. The equivalent of getting the CL bonus and none of the commensurate ability to back it up.

On the other hand, pistolier 'states' aren't resisted in the way that the standard blind/dizzy/stun states can be. When a pistolier applies warning shot or stopping shot or whatever, it only fails to stick if they miss. That advantage (not to mention the advantage of applying those states on the run, and not having to stop and do the old heave-ho), might be seen as large enough to differentiate them from us. Maybe not, I don't know. I had a clear direction when I started writing this, but I think I lost it somewhere.

Anyway, I think we could fit nicely in that hole. Nothing to do with healing or tanking, a slight ability to damage (on par with carbineer and nowhere near rifleman or swordsman), and an emphasis on debuffing. If smugglers mezz, pistoliers control attacks, and carbineers control position (did reality end up matching that blueprint? I don't know much about those profs), then we can debuff. We'd be like an outdoorsman combat medic who doesn't heal. Now that npc's will actually have to pay for specials and will act a little more like players, certain states (that we can apply) will begin to have some use outside of pvp.

And to those of you who automatically attack Kinshi no matter the topic... put that aside for a bit. This is something that needs to be discussed.

al-djinn'i

Master Ranger

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Temujin23 wrote:

quite a bit

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Actually your wrong in the hole in CU schematic, it applies to a tanking, crowd controler. Which to me fits the role of a Ranger perfectly. In a group the Ranger (the big old grizzled hunter) will be up the front taking agro and dealinng out state attacks. Sounds like traps plus some new defense mods to me.

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CuchulainnDarklight wrote:

Actually you're wrong in the hole in CU schematic, it applies to a tanking, crowd controler. Which to me fits the role of a Ranger perfectly. In a group the Ranger (the big old grizzled hunter) will be up the front taking agro and dealinng out state attacks. Sounds like traps plus some new defense mods to me.

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Wouldn't a CH be more of a tanking crowd controller, what the tanking, special-using pets? Not really sure how that hole means tanking crowd controller-- carbineer is not a healing crowd contoller, nor isfencer a healing damage dealer, yet they hold the same position relative to the flip side of the chart.

I don't really see us as tanks. I don't take down krayts by letting them chew on me; I make damn sure they don'tbite me at all. Hmmm, but now I'm seeing that my definition of tank is pretty narrow. I suppose holding aggro and avoiding like hell is also tanking, which our traps and TN make us perfect for. Maybe instead of crazy defenses, what if we got a minor defense boost and (dare I say it?) a slight boost to normal movement speed? Make that TN over 50 worthwhile outside of a crawl race.

al-djinn'i

Master Ranger

[edited as a part of a new initiative to be more constructive]

Iseult
Master Ranger / Mediocre Cabineer
Bloodfin

Message Edited by Iseult on 09-04-2005 03:03 PM

Message Edited by Iseult on 09-05-2005 01:36 AM

We were outside the scope of the CU so dragging in that diagram has as much relevance to the current state of Rangers as pulling up a list of intended changes to the Entertainer or Chef profession.

We only recieved attention during, not as part of, the CU because it was patently obvious that we would end up with negligable health no increase in CL other than from the ONE combat skill we could specialise in.

As a sop we were thrown a boost to health, a boost to CL and then pretty much left alone while the CU dev team concentrated on what they were meant to be concentrating on. The professions that WERE within the scope of the CU.

Maybe we shouldn't have complained and petitioned QUITE so well. If we'd been left well alone and then popped up after the CU 'implementation' saying "Okay, now you can't deny that this profession is well and truly rolloxed" we might have got different attention. As things seem, at the moment at least, we're somewhere in the "well we did somethign for them within living memory so what's their problem" category.

Rangers ROle Post CU? Let's face it, we're still super-scouts with some big old tents and a few obscure skills. We are creature centric, but having a 'normal' combat skill lets su compete against NPC's and, if you're mad enought, to get into some PvP if you can find a role there.

Pre-CU our role was not clearly defined, the Rangers themselves created their own roles (note the plural), post-CU we still lack a clear defimition and we still create our own roles.

Ranger is neither a combat nor a non-combat profession, it is a UTILITY profession that one way or another enhances, or at least alters, the way a player uses whichever other skills they've got. Until we see some sort of discussion from the dev team of where they see Ranger it's pretty pointless trying to second guess them.

Anyhow, that's just my opinion, rant, venting, whatever. Feel free to disagree. No doubt most will as that seems to be the main focus of the forum these days.

If I HAD to, I would put us on the line between Crowd Control and Damage Dealing (if we get our way).

As Almagill pointed out, we were not within the scope of the CU, so I suppose we don't have to try to squeeze our way into the diagram.

The hole in that diagram is for a crowd control profession.

Yellow, green, red and blue are used to define the 4 directions.

It fits Ranger because of our traps and with /rescue and the posibility of adding self-buffing herbs to our /forage they could easily turn us into the TKA of crowd control, but I wouldn't mind being a Carbineer with a ranger 'skin', og, I already am

Let's get this into circulation. The Devs can't remember this diagam anyway.

Message Edited by Oculus on 09-05-2005 12:41 PM

During the CU the dev team distributed all the roles in combat. They did not leave a unfulfilled role for rangers, because combat was designed to work with out us. So if Ranger are to have a role in combat, then it have to be either invented or copied from someone else.

Now I think one of the most imported things with a "ranger rewrap" is not to leave out range rangers or melee rangers. Moreover, of cause, we should leave out creature centric role somewhat behind, not totally but at least to the point where our special powers over creatures are just a small bit of the profession.

The "role" that fits that best might be the guerrilla fighter. By giving ranger some good defences, make traps work on everything we can attack and be useable while moving, perhaps even add some trapping speed, and then most of the work will be done.
With a high degree of mobility, good defences and a small selection of efficient traps to apply stats rangers would be well off in combat.


Now another point that has to be considered, we do not want ranger to become the ultimate soloing profession. So keeping the profession at its best when helping out in a group would be the 2nd most imported concern.