Ranger Archive

"I just do not just look at trees, I sometimes even hug them or rub myself against it singing about the bare necessities in life."

:X Now that bleedin' song is stuck in my head.

I hate you.

Maybe I should go to Tatooine to live, few trees, I could look at rocks for a change.

just wnated to see that one again

now, about ranger being a glorified scout, if you said that a month and a half ago, you would have been on to something. but apparantly you don't know about our tracking skill and camoflage skill and other key differences, and since they were mentioned in detail previously in this post, i'll talk about them very simply, using small easy to understand sentences:

camoflage can fool npc's and animals.maskscent can only fool animals. camoflage can be applied to another player. maskscent is self only.

area track can spot a player, npc, or animal from 500 meters away. there is no scout equivalent.

ranger has area affect traps. scout has single target traps.

high level camps have crafting stations.

there. that's as easy as i can say it. but i'm probably jsut wasting my breath, so to speak, as you probably think that doctor is just a glorified medic too. and a musician/dancer/image designer are just glorified entertainers with 1 tree instead of 3 trees. and a weaponsmith is just a glorified engineer. they are called elite professions because they expand upon the skills of prerequisite professions.

Honestly if you do not like the idea of being a Ranger than you shouldn't. I on the other hand enjoy most of the time I spend playing, and I've spent all of it shooting for Master Ranger.

Vectinn

Ranger/Pistoleer

Corbantis

JB,

Tat has lots of nice rocks!

I'm a Trando TKA\Ranger. I love to hunt. It's the Trandoshan way. I love to use my traps and maskscent to strategically take out my prey. I like hunting an area, staking out a camp, finding a great spawn of Bull Rontos and taking them out. The only time I'm back in town is for a quick drink at the local cantina. After that I'm back out in the wilds. I have my probot and Kahmurra for company. Sometimes they hunt with me.

I am master of all I survey. If a creature or thug trespasses in my domain, I will find a way to take them out. Or they will take me out. Either way, one of us is going.

I think the lure of Ranger for me was one of exploration and hunting. These are the things that are most fun for me ingame, so I took them up as a profession. I started out as a Jack of all Trades, but I'm slowly giving those up to specialize. Giving up my Rifles is gonna be the toughest though 'cause I love rifles. I'll probably have a WS I know craft me a killer CDEF to use for pulling when I give up Marksman. I just think a hunter needs a rifle.

How can you tell a good Scout/Ranger? They'll come and sit in your camp!

I'm not going to argue for or against being a ranger. The question "What is the point of being a ranger?"seams a bitnegative and loaded. You can ask that question about any of the professions. My simple answer is, it's the profession that has been the most fun and makes the most sense for my style of play. Plain and simple.

Just like the original poster, I tried a bunch of things until I figured out what I like about the game and then went with Ranger. I didn't start out with the notion of ever being a ranger. As a matter of fact, before the game came out, I decided I was going to be a bounty hunter. Since I was a little kid, I've been a big fan of the Boba Fett character.

As I played the game, I found out that I enjoyed the scouting aspects of harvesting kills, making traps and camps and sneaking around with /maskscent. I enjoyed those things more than training three separate weapon categories to reach master marksman. I think that is plenty of time to figure out what style of play I was apt to like and pursue.

I can't stand the comments about rangers just being a glorified scout. My response:A weaponsmith isn't just a glorified artisan? A doctor isn't a glorified medic? A TS student isn't a glorified brawler? Which brings me to my feelings about the Bounty Hunter just being a glorified master marksman with the pain-in-the-arse known as the investigation line. The point is, different people like different aspects of the game. I have a friend who LOVES crafting in the game and that is all that she does. I don't see the thrill in it, but she doesn't like to go around killing things either. So there you go.

Sorry...got off track there. Things that I see as bonuses to and adding to my game-play as a ranger - tracking, concealing, better terrain negotiation, higher creature harvests, way better camps and area-affect traps. My weapon of choice is the carbine and I'm working up the carbineer skill tree, as well.

Most professions can go places that you can, there is no inherent skill that Rangers have that make them better hunters, or better at seeing sights.

I believe that, if it wasn't for masked scent and burst run, I would not be as successful as I am to get to certain locations (like the Krayt Graveyard). It doesn't mean I can't get there, it just increases the likelihood that I won't get seriously injured on my way to there.

I'm not clear on how effective the to-hit creature bonus is for Rangers, but having that does, in general, make us better at hitting creatures than if we didn't have the bonus. Being a ranger also increases harvest yield. Anyone have any hard numbers on how effective a ranger is vs. master scout in regards to creature yield?

I love the camps and the ranger traps. The flash bomb makes bringing down mobs easier. I plan on working on some skills to make the sonic pulse, dizzy trap more effective.

Being a Ranger suits my personal playing style. I'm sure that for others, it's not their thing and they would find being a ranger not particularly useful. For me, it is very useful and I'm far more successful at I want to do as a Ranger than I was as a Master Scout.

I look at the ranger to-hit bonus this way, it negates some of the penalty to hit when you are kiting. I think that is a huge benefit for a ranger. When I first got the ranger to-hit bonuses, it actually threw me off my game a bit. I used to be a kneel-and-take-the-pain carbineer if a creature ran up on me.Or I would trap and run, then kneel and shoot. I've found that the ranger to-hit bonus allowed me to hit a lot more often when I was distancing myself from critter.

I have to agree that under the current implementation, Rangers are Not Worth It. You're paying 63 skill points for slightly increased harvests and a marginally useful tracking system. The improved camps are pure eye candy, and the stealth abilities and traps don't work. (Rangers do not get area effect traps, because the traps don't actually have any effect on what they hit.)

Still, Rangers are what I play, and if I could endure the Dark Times in EQ I can endure this silliness for a while.

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DFH wrote:
(Rangers do not get area effect traps, because the traps don't actually have any effect on what they hit.)

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You are incorrect. I use the area effect traps all the time to pull lair fulls of mobs to me for easier killing. They work in that regard.

I use the area effect traps all the time to pull lair fulls of mobs to me for easier killing.

Well, if you're going to do the entire lair at once, why not simply run into the middle of them?

For most mobs, a CDEF pistol will pull the entire lair...

I also note the irony in the fact that no one mentioned the only unique ranger combat skill, Rescue. Why it's a ranger skill, I have no idea. When it will work, again I have no idea.

Rescue works fairly well when I have used it.

Essentially, when I am in a group I tend to protect the medic/entertainers. I watch for when they are attacked (huzzah for those little Xs) and when they do, I rescue them. I'm a bit more "expendible" than the doctor, since he/she can revive me while I cannot do the same.

I still think the Ranger traps are really great. The camps are very spiffy too, the crafting stations are invaluable since I do make schematics and use factories to make crated items.

What's the point? Well...

If you enjoy money, try this on for size - I went out hunting with a party of about 5 people and some pets, and harvested 25k of Endorian wooly in ~4 hours. I promptly sold it all for 372,000 credits. Cha-ching!

If youknow people who like to hunt a certain thing (Krayt dragons, for instance) YOU are the guy they come to when they need to find one.

You can walk across entire planets without getting attacked ONCE. I walked to the Crystal Caves on Dantooine alone in about 15min. Whee!

If you're a Rifleman, the crawl speed is killer. However, they need to fix the warping issues so I can go prone where I want to instead of being thrust into a melee battle I can't win (Wookiee with no brawling skills and no armor to wear = instaCorpse)

And as mentioned before, it's a great supplement to Creature Handler. You can find babies and tame them faster than anyone else, so you can make money this way as well, or give them away to make friends like crazy.