Ranger Archive

Ahh, the big debate. I started with rifle as scout, but I didnt like getting pounded on at point blank by creatures. I'm bothan and dont' have many health points. Originally I liked the idea of staying back and sniping at things and staying hidden. You, the hunter/ranger thing.

I started using a pistal when I bought my first good scout blaster. For my play style, like you with lots of traps, the pistal seems to work better. I still have rifle up to level 3 in marksman. I find it is to slow, and after 2 hits, they run up and nail me. The pistal works well for me, as I run around, throwing traps, and staying away from it. Using suppresion fire, warning shot, and the P. Dart, keeps them away from me and I take them down.

Its a lot of fun for me running around up there in fight. As someone said here, it depends on your playing style and what is fun for you.

It is extremely difficult (if not impossible) to solo tough mobs with your only combat skills being Rifle... but it seems the more fitting companion to Ranger for some reason. ~J

I use pistol. At this point my pistol speed is insane and I rarely miss. And you get bleedshot, warning shot, and suppression. The last two compliment traps very well. Root, (/healtshot1;/healtshot2) let gun fire,Snare, let gun work, bleeding starts, Root, fire fire fire, Snare - Trap Failure - suppression fire, Snare, fire fire fire, animal dead.

Works likea charm.

-- YP

I use a pistol for a variety of reasons.

1. Quicker. The rate of fire on an unsliced rifle is like bang... get a beer...bang... eat some chips...bang. Most decent pistols are under 2.0, sliced mine are down in the low 1's, then throw on a decent powerup and you are sub 1. In the time that a rifle has fired 2 shots, I have cranked off 7 or 8, including a stopping shot or two.

2. Variety. Takes up less inventory space than rifles, carry a pistol for every situation. Use examine, find out what works best and equip that pistol. I carry a Scout, a DX and a FWG5 in my tool bar. Not a lot of variety in rifles.

3. Hand to hand. Granted, rifles can reach out and touch someone. But, prone, scentmasked (let's not talk about concealed) I get 3 or 4 shots before Beastie figures out where I am. It charges, I go to kneeling, crank out 3 more. I stay kneeling and finish it off. With a rifle face to face, you get negatives, not so with the pistol. Pointblank shots work great.

4. Running away or the Monte Python shot. I did an informal study, sorta kinda, when I was a Master Marksman. Shot at durnis while I was running, both rifle and pistol. I hit more shots with the pistol, according to observers and my combat screen. Did the same with gubbers then with bagerasets - same deal, pistols hit more.

Right now I am slowly climbing the Pistoleer columns (0-2-3-2 final will be 0-3-4-2) and I gotta tell ya, it's a ton of XP to get there. If it moves, I shoot it. But **edit** skippy I am killing large beasties solo with a pistol, to include hard reds (STs).

JB

who in real life went to pistol schools on Uncle Sam's dime

I am a rifleman/ranger. I also use a variety of rifles. Usually I use a Jawa Ion Rifle (does stun damage, lots of creatures have a weakness to.) An E11, pretty fast, decent damage. and a prepatch T21 (only use that on AR3 creatures, like Greater Canyon Krayt Dragons) Reason I don't use the T21 more often, is because it IS prepatched, I've had it a couple of months now and just NOW had to repair it the first time. It is 150-400 base damage, non-sliced and without powerups (will change VERY soon). With a decent powerup, It can climb into the 500's, I do deal on average 2k hits to AR0 creatures (when I have it equipped and a bunch of evil hermits attack or something).

Also, as stated, the Jawa Ion rifle and E11 has a optimal range of 40-50m, great for trapping ranges. Where as the T21 is optimal at 64m out. I originally took rifleman for the camo bonus + ranger bonus (not sure if it was supposed to work like that but oh well). But with Cover being borked (perma-walk mode after comming out of cover for some reason) It makes hunting harder. I admit, I used to sit in cover and conceal shot away, it's fun that way, until his 3 friends up and notices you shooting for some reason :/

Again, do what you like to do, not what everyone likes to do.

Ypiana JBmatt

Thanks for the input...I became a novice pistoleer yesterday (and with all my extra combat xp went up 3 boxes)

So far I have been much more effective than before. The pistol suits my style of play and complements my traps very well. Yesterday on Dathomir, my group took down 2 dark Jedi Masters and I could actually see the damage that my pistol's bleed was doing to it.

oh, and JB I too learned how to shoot on the gov's dime.

Thanks for the reply,
Lastly The ranger posts and community are 25% of why I remain a ranger. Ypiana your posts are invaluable and amazing. I have learned much because of your posts.

Draknev (Lowca)
soon to be master ranger (only frontiering IV to go)

(4.3.4.4)
thanks again

Thank you all for the input... i was about to give up on ranger for a couple of different reasons, but readin all of these posts made me realize that i love this profession. there is nothing like taking down a group of rav tortons by yourself with a pistol anyways, just wanted to agree with an earlier post- all rangers are brothers... be it reb, imp, neutral. if i see a fellow ranger in distress i'm gonna help him before i shoot... does that make mea bad imp

Sunrunner:Ranger 0.2.3.1, pistoleer 0.1.0.0 (workin on that though, lol)

I'm not to Ranger yet, but working on it. I'm a Scout backed by pistol and 1-hand melee skills.

I like combining shooting with trapping and melee. It gives a lot of flexibility. Start with the shooting. Try to hold the critter at bay with shooting and trapping. Switch to melee when they get close (by then, hopefully, the critter is close enough to death that I'll finish him before he does me).

With this model, you want complementary ranged and melee skills. Pistol and 1-hand both go for health specials. Rifle and 2-hand go for mind specials. In hindsight, Rifle and 2-hand probably would have fit better with the profession in general and with the traps that are availalbe, but I made the combat choices before getting into scouting, and I'm not ready to abandon them yet.

jb