Ranger Archive

Yup, I think not having a correspondent is not doing us any favours at them moment....

Oooops, that reply sounds a bit nasty, and I really didn't mean to make it sound that way

here, have some smileys, I'm sorry, I'm not getting at you, and that post reads differently than it sounded in my head

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Calculus_Entropy wrote:
Let's try to sound off in a mature manner, without sounding like we are whining (is there a even a way to?).

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So would it be safe to say that we should sound off like we got a pair? lol

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Jez3an wrote:
Oooops, that reply sounds a bit nasty, and I really didn't mean to make it sound that way

here, have some smileys, I'm sorry, I'm not getting at you, and that post reads differently than it sounded in my head

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Doesn't sound nasty to me. But I'm still going to argue with your appraisal of smuggling (although not that much). Although I must disagree with your appraisal of dirty fighting. With just a bit of dirty fighting and novice pistoleer and ranged support, I was having no trouble taking out tatooine mynocks (while the panic shot delay did make this easier, my method wouldn't be that much different with the new design). These are mobs that I was using to finish up TKM. And people keep saying that TKM is overpowered. Just to make sure we are on the same footing, I will list my method below:

1. Use a bleed shot to pull a single mynock.
2. Once they are out of assistance range, use low blow to knock them down.
3. Use a panic shot to keep them down a bit longer.
4. Use a last ditch to severly damage them (used to be two but now the delay ends after the first hit so this needs to be modded a bit)
5. Use suppression fire to keep them off again.
6. Here you should still be able to last ditch twice.
7. Low blow and repeat (the second last ditch is because they stay down a bit longer and it gives about enough time to reset the knockdown timer).

Now, this let me kill red con mobs with no problems. If they got too close, I just feigned death. I had something close to a 90% hit rate with just dirty fighting and novice pistoleer--seemed extremely reasonable to me for the skill point cost spent on fighting. There was also nothing stopping me from repeating an attack if one of the above missed. As long as I kept at range (I was using a combination of an FWG5 for close up and a republic blaster while they were farther away), I was rarely in danger (and almost never needed the feign death). And, given that they were rarely moving, it wasn't hard to keep at range. This might have a bit more trouble on something like a rancor but you should not be killing rancors anyway (even at master pistoleer you are not meant to). Smuggler is not all about fighting but it does have some really nice fighting moves in it. If there were enough skill points for Master Ranger/Master Smuggler, I probably would have kept it.

Spices and Underworld I can't really disagree on. They really need help (although I quite enjoyed the underworld tree, it is not exceptionally useful).

As for Slicing, the method of getting xp is not much worse than trapping xp or survival xp (although they really should fix the screwy xp caps). Admittedly, you do need to rely on finding lots of locked containers before you can start on terminals or weapons but Meatlumps gave me plenty of those (and decent pistol xp as well). With some planning, it was easy to do the slicing tree. And it was MUCH faster than doing trapping or frontiering. Especially once you can do weapons (meatlumps drop tons of those). And, once you get the xp, you have no end of business (I actually ended up taking down my Master Smuggler tag because of all the tells I was getting--I've never needed to do that for Ranger).

As it is, I don't see smugglers as being all that much different from Rangers. We both have 2 trees with easy xp (pistol xp for underworld and dirty fighting, scout xp for wayfaring and tracking). We both have a tree that has essentially become a crafting grind (frontiering and spices, although it took me a bit less time to grind up the spicing tree). And we both have a tree that just requires grinding through (Trapping and Slicing).

But, overall, I'd say that a Master Smuggler has more useful skills than Master Ranger. Skill point costs are not too different (Ranger is slightly more but Smuggler does need two novices and two combat trees to get in). I still would say that Dirty Fighting is an extremely useful tree (many Smugglers would argue but I would say that most of those don't think about the skills in a more tactical sense--I can't be sure about all of them but I had no trouble killing quite strong creatures with almost nothing over the minimum needed for smuggler). Slicing is one of the most sought after skills in the game. Underworld is nice if you are interested in the GCW (ok, level one is just about pointless but buying and selling FP is nice as is the reduced FP loss on death). But I won't bother arguing about it working at all. And the same for Spices. So, overall, I would say that you have 2 trees that are actually useful (although one of them mainly if you get Master).

Ranger, on the other hand, keeps looking worse and worse. Terrain Negotiation is almost pointless from Ranger and is becoming much less useful on the scout end (because of speeders). /conceal seems to work decently well for about 1/10th of the Rangers around (it works quite well for me but I know plenty of people for whom it doesn't work at all). And, again, speeders almost remove the need for it anyway. Then we move onto Frontiering. Do I really need to say anything here? Right now, the camps are only good for natural healing and looking cool. And natural healing is better done in a med center (med centers do naturally heal mind AND BF). Now we move onto tracking. /areatrack is a nice skill but, again, speeders make it almost pointless. The harvesting bonus is a joke (see my post comparing a Novice Scout to a Master Ranger). The to hit bonus is minimal (I get more from hitting /aim and that stacks with specials). This leaves Creature Knowledge. I like it even if it isn't especially useful. But do I even need to go into Advanced Trapping?

I don't know about you but I can't imagine much of a counterargument to the above. Can you really say Smuggler is worse off than Ranger? Admittedly, I've been a Ranger much longer than I was a Smuggler so I know a bit more of the Ranger problems. But I see quite a bit that works decently well in Smuggler. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing anything like that in Ranger. Both need help but I'm really struggling to see how Smuggler is worse off. Any thoughts? I'd really like to know what someone whose smuggled a bit longer thinks about all this.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master Rifleman
Eclipse Server

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theshagnasty wrote:

...and on that note, what are the Stats, anyone know. How many "Master" Rangers are on the servers, what are the % of players with the Master title and what % just have a few boxes. I would really love to know.

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I have been hinting at getting the same stats from the devs, but we have no way to ask them yet.

Admitedly I did not read the entire thread, just the first few posts, and I want to leave me two cents.

BH and Jedi Whine and get their fixes. It seems rangers want to take the "high road" and be above that. Sorry to say this but, what is it getting us? Nothing thats what.

Maybe it is time to whine, nothing else seems to work.

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Jez3an wrote:
Oooops, that reply sounds a bit nasty, and I really didn't mean to make it sound that way

here, have some smileys, I'm sorry, I'm not getting at you, and that post reads differently than it sounded in my head

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not nasty at all. I was just calling it as i saw it from outside the proffesion. im glad to see a smuggler give thier point of view. Now i think we can agree that both proffesions need work im just a little bias when i say ranger should come first because i am a ranger

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Jalen-COMIA wrote:
Maybe it is time to whine, nothing else seems to work.

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I cant argue with that, I really cant. Its just so not me thats the trouble. I'm guessing that its not you also?

If we were to try whining I bet we couldnt pull it off anyway, we would just sound silly.

A bit like watching your dad dance...?

I personally know 2 or 3 master rangers on Kettemoor, there are probably still more though. I also know about 4 working their way up to master, including me. We may be less in number, but I'm kinda proud of that. We're doing what no one else wants to do, and doing a damn fine job of it. Being a master ranger (not there yet, but soon) is more than just a title, it's a commitment.

Regarding the disease and bleed heals, I think we should be able to half the duration or something, but only at master, so as dabblers can't achieve the extra effects.

Gang,

I hear all of this, and trust me - I'm trying to push TH as hard as I can. But there is a lot of other stuff going on that's drowning me out.

I'm going to focus on the camping issues for now, as I said, and hopefully when the new Ranger Correspondent gets selected we can put our heads together and figure out a plan to get both our professions some attention.

This isn't a zero sum game, though, so keep that in mind. Because Jedi get something, it doesn't mean they matter more. They just are - honestly - more broken than we are.

B

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Jalen-COMIA wrote:
Admitedly I did not read the entire thread, just the first few posts, and I want to leave me two cents.

BH and Jedi Whine and get their fixes. It seems rangers want to take the "high road" and be above that. Sorry to say this but, what is it getting us? Nothing thats what.

Maybe it is time to whine, nothing else seems to work.

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Perish the thought. I will never be a party to whining. As Delta said, we just aren't broken enough (or at all for that matter).

Message Edited by Calculus_Entropy on 03-18-2004 11:16 AM