Ranger Archive
Thread: State of the Profession (Dec. 5)
As always NRaas great job. I only read through the yellow stuff, there is just to much of it and it didn't look like it changed much.
I'm lately thinking along the lines of the creature to hit bonus, and the addition of some kind of higher damage dealer for us. I think the Ranger in SWG is, and maybe should be, a combination of the "Nature Ranger" and the "Big Game Hunter". We are masters of the outdoors and nature, as well as the best at hunting animals. Now of course nearly all of the PvE part of the game is animals, so this brings the Rangers skills very diserable to either have on in the group, or to be one.
To go along with this, we should be doing more damage to animals then non Rangers. I'm trying to keep this in line with the 4 stages of combat revamps. So hopefully this is something that will be done for us in phase 4. But it should be desireable to have a Ranger along if you are going big game hunting specifically. They can assist and help control the hunt with traps, better improved/helpful, Ranger traps, and can help bring the thing down faster. Because of the Ranger having a method to do more damage. Whether it be the critical hit idea, or just something based on the already in game Creature To Hit bonus we have. Which seems low. I think at master ranger its only +40.
I saw an entry to be able to /areatrack while mounted. I disagree. Think about what is involved in actually tracking something. You are checking the ground for foot prints, depressions, checking branches for broken lims, etc. This really is not something that can be done up in a saddle of a beast that is not going to sit still for you. If it's a real big hassle running around on mount and tracking, just make a macro.
With the mount targeted: /dismount; /pause 2; /areatrack; pause 5; /mount
This should get the track done and show you the list before putting you back on the mount. Then you can peruse the list and track as normal.
I am not sure if this has been spoken of yet, but wouldn't it be nice if you could get a waypoint made of the target that you are tracking. Not saying that it would move with them , but it could be as accurate as your last track.
Start up area track; pick player animal or people scroll down the list; highlight a target and hit OK. Now a waypoint of the last known position +-60m is created. We are limited to one such waypoint at a time, so it is refreshed/destroyed with the next area track.
Bravo12 wrote:Rangers are pretty much useless in PvP.
I for one would like to stop you right there and point out that when it comes to combat, rangers should have no real advantage in PvP. I feel that we are a nature/creature oriented profession. In my opinion it is gearing some professions to be more useful (or less useful in the case of CH) in PvP is what ends up ruining them. Bounty hunter for example has been misunderstood as to be the king of PvP when I feel it should be more of a content based profession focusing on stalking, sneaking and capturing NPC's and hopefully someday other players in a 1 on 1 situation. Sure give us a few tricks like that tripwire trap to be used on other players who have enemy tefs or the ability to hide ourselves from other players, but as far as face to face combat is concerned, the ranger should be useless. I don't intend to flame you, I just feel this is something we should be mindful of.
I do agree that all things that work for us in the wild should work on player's pets, only if their master has a tef of course.
Rangers/Scouts throughout history have been used to tell the military where the enemy is what his capabilities are. The tracking ability should translate better to PvP for this reason.
Camo should work in PvP. Its not a stretch that a consumate hunter could conceal himself from humanoids with far less honed senses than creatures.
If a trap can work on 10ton Malkloc, it should work on a kiteing Pistoleer.
While I do not think Rangers should or could EVER take the place of the hardened battle-tested soldier... the consumate hunter of animals has transferred his skills to the hunting of man throughout history and it should be so here as well.
Beausoleil wrote:
I would have to disagree in part. Rangers are the consumate hunters. And hunting skills DO translate to warfare.. especially in a natural setting.
Rangers/Scouts throughout history have been used to tell the military where the enemy is what his capabilities are. The tracking ability should translate better to PvP for this reason.
Camo should work in PvP. Its not a stretch that a consumate hunter could conceal himself from humanoids with far less honed senses than creatures.
If a trap can work on 10ton Malkloc, it should work on a kiteing Pistoleer.
While I do not think Rangers should or could EVER take the place of the hardened battle-tested soldier... the consumate hunter of animals has transferred his skills to the hunting of man throughout history and it should be so here as well.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mean for Rangers to be fully ineffective when it comes to a support roll in PvP, that would make sense. And Ranger speciffic weapons would be cool, I realy like the compound bow idea, I just don't want to hear someone say somewhere down the line that their ranger got beat by a pistoleer so we should nerf this or boost that to "balance" the game. but anyways, were getting off topic and it's because of my coment so that is all I'll have to say about that.
1. Creature-to-hit bonus and Melee. Please let us have this. I can't see any reason why it wouldn't apply to melee proffesions. It would also help make up in combat for some of the skill points ranger takes. I'm a Master Heavy Swordsman and really don't have the skill points for Master Brawler, and Ranger. If the bonus worked right though it would kinda make up for it as i would have better damage/accracy against creatures.
2. Dizzy traps are worthless. In my experierence, the dizzy effect traps have never knocked down a creature when posture changing. Again i'm biased as a swordsman (we have 7 posture change moves and not a single KD or a dizzy) but traps could supplment this very nicely. It should concern every ranger though because as i understand it, dizzy has no other effect other than knocking down a target if their posture is changed. So, if their not falling down when dizzy+ posture change what point is there at all to having a dizzy trap?
Also the idea of a ranger weapon is sweet, a compisite bow would make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Serisouly shoot em with a poison arrow and then whack em with a sword
Jokito, this is actually the part in this post about "what is the status of /track command." That was the idea behind /track, is that is would spawn the type of creature you looking for, and give you a wp to it. Depending on your skill in it, and the probability factor, you would either find what you wanted at the wp, or something else. The something else could be a lesser creature, a much nastier creature agro creature, or nothing at all.
Hey NRaas, I was talking with a fellow ranger last night about somethings we could use. Our convo turned to the trapping line and traps. We know that more traps for rangers is on or list and supposedly going to get worked on. But something we came up with goes along with that, and the request to make traps work better as you progress.
The idea is that we would get better versions of some of the scout traps. Better meaning they would have a better, stronger effect on higher level creatures, and last longer. For example if they combined the L. Dart and P. Dart traps, into one, and made it so they lasted longer, and had a greater effect. And what if we got a better glow wire trap, that lowered their defences even more, and lasted longer.
This might be some place for the devs to start. Just give us biefier scout traps, not all just the common ones, at different levels of our Advanced Trapping. They would require a little more resources maybe.
That's why the profession should accomadate all those images of Rangers. I think they should make it balanced between the different views.
I never meant to imply that Rangers should be boosted to compete one-on-one with the likes of Commandos and Pistoleers in PvP. What I meant was, that even in a support role, we don't add much to a group when encountered with PvP - we can set up a camp when combat is over, and we can track another player, but when the blasters let loose, we're taking cover and keeping a distance (at least I am, if I want to live through it).
If we could at least use our existing skills to distract/defeat players' pets while our combat-trained buddies hit the handlers, we would be much more valuable (and it would be more realistic). Example: A CH attacks the group with a few Grauuls. The team leader turns to the Ranger and says "You're the big-game hunter, Mr Outdoorsman. Do you have something to take down those Grauuls?!" Right now, the Ranger has to respond /shrug"Um,...they're pets, so all we can do is blast them until they fall..."
And overall, I am willing to go along that direct military type combat is not our specialty - in which case, we should be as effective against creatures as BH's are against Players and NPCs. Just as we take a backseat role in PvP, when the creatures start to swarm, we should be able to take the front line.
I would have to disagree in part. Rangers are the consumate hunters. And hunting skills DO translate to warfare.. especially in a natural setting.
Rangers/Scouts throughout history have been used to tell the military where the enemy is what his capabilities are. The tracking ability should translate better to PvP for this reason.
Camo should work in PvP. Its not a stretch that a consumate hunter could conceal himself from humanoids with far less honed senses than creatures.
If a trap can work on 10ton Malkloc, it should work on a kiteing Pistoleer.
While I do not think Rangers should or could EVER take the place of the hardened battle-tested soldier... the consumate hunter of animals has transferred his skills to the hunting of man throughout history and it should be so here as well.
Actually, I disagree a bit too:most of usseem to agreethat Rangers are supposed to be Nature/Big Game Hunters. The folks that hunt down peopleare called Bounty Hunters. I think that should stay the way it is. I wouldn't mind seeing some logical extension of the Nature/Big Game Hunters concept translate into being more effective in PvP, but this class shouldn't be geared towards increases inPvP combat. If anything, this should be the ultimate PvE profession....
If any of use ranger get any that for chrismas i be happy for awhile especialy if argo sheild on camps work right hate argo when argo me in a tent when go right though like a peice of cake. Love idea of ranger specify weapon like compound bow and more traps that effective for use at master ranger.