Ranger Archive
Thread: The Offensive Ranger (:D)
Owen-Lars wrote:
If your a ranger you ARE a crafter mate, simple as.
You have 3 tiers devoted to it hehe
Camo
Camps
Traps
Allowing you to customise your camps by dropping modules on a kit can only be seen as an improvment in my eyes.
No not really, not how I think of it. I don't experiment on camps and traps. I just throw in the resources, no matter the stats on them and make what I need. I like it that way. Camo kits allow a little experimentation for uses, but I never bother with that. For as many as they make in a stack anyway, and as infrequently I use them, it's not woth the time and errort to "go to a crafting station" and worry about the resources.
I don't want to have to think to much about the cafting I need to do. Ranger is not a crafter in the sence a WS or AS, or chef is. Those are crafters. They make something, for someone esle to use. We make something for us to use. Crafting is not the purpose or focus of ranger, is all I was saying.
I'm still opposed to a ranger specific weapon guys. Maybe some of you don't want to pick up a combat profession, and thus want a ranger weapon. But what about those of us that do have a combat profession? What if we want to enhance that to fight animals? And if you put a ranger weapon in, then you still have the situation of others, gettting ranger and able to use the weapon.
Remember what I said about post combat balance? Our accuracy will be lowered a lot, according to the devs. So keep that in mind when you say you have no problem hitting the animals. That's now, it could very well change later. But I'm not opposed to also getting a damage increase for the reasons I stated above about Creature Knowledge.
But in thinking about this, I realized why the melee professions seem to be so much better for hunting then the ranged ones. Besides obvious overpowered of the melee combat over ranged, the melee guys have Melee Damage Mitigation. What do 95% animals fight with? Melee. So the Melee professions have that further advantage over ranged for hunting. So as I think Calc was hinting at, a Animal Mititgation in Ranger would be cool. Yes the melee would still have that and their melee mitigation, but at least the ranged would have the same Animal Mitigation.
Squidwalker wrote:
Owen-Lars wrote:I just don't know if there is a way to make us better at creature combat without having everyone else whining that we're too powerful and need to be nerfed. I'm not sure how to make us better AND keep it fair and balanced.Actually ive found that most people who dont know anything about ranger EXPECT we can kill creatures better than anyone. They think we are the best hunters in game.Also you will find the powergamers (the idiots that moan all the time they cannot kill this/cant be a jedi god) only moan when another class can loot npcs better than they can, if they can killsteal from them and beat down on them in pvp.As we wont be uber in pvp and not so clever against npcs we shouldnt get alot of abuse on this matter. We SHOULD be the ultimate creature hunters and even the devs agree on this so we have a good shot at this.Very very true. someone said that dabblers now take tracking 4 so whats the big deal about a combat line. Well tracking is not nearly as helpful and pure combat related as a combat line in ranger would be.
I had a further thought on this, and I'm sure Calc is having fun lurking around reading our thoughts and dicussions. /looksupforasecond What if we just dumped the whole Frontiering line in Ranger? I know I know we would love for the camps to be cool and useful, and to have better ones then scouts. But hear me out.
Dump it entirely. Only thing in it, is camping skill and forage skill, and the camp schems. Not loosing much. According to TH scout is complete and novice profession so not getting any major changes. So then it's hard to imagine a lot happening to only ranger camps. And really, what all cool can they do to them. I mean some minor stuff like my "hidden from track" idea is neat, but..... If we replace the Frontiering with a combat skill line as being discussed here. It will have even more creature to hit bonus then we have now, and this could be further enhanced by tying in the creature knowledge bonus to it. This means that dabblers to get further bonus, need to get the old Fronteiring line, as well as Field Bioscience. This new Creature Combat(CC) line will also have the damage mitigation or creature defences in it. Again these can be further enhanced with bonuses in Creature knowledge. The new CC line will also have a damage bonus in it, that is also further enhanced by creature knowledge. The disease and poison resists can either go here, or in Field Bioscience actually so it ties in with creature knowledge.
A way I thought of limiting the creature knowledge so it only give combat bonuses in ranger and not also scout, is this. Do it like TN only add to running up to +50. What ever the max creature knowledge gets to at master scout, say +50, at +51 and up creature knowledge also adds to your combat effectiveness against creatures.
Not sure how long its been since anyone really looked. But I just did. We only get a +15 on the Creature to hit bonus in ranger, and a +10 in scout. No wonder we don't notice a difference. Also, we get +10 to both melee defence and ranged defence at Ranger. Didnt realize that. So they do have some plain non creature combat in there for ranger
What do you think? to far out? I know others have proposed new skill line structures, and I think I saw one very similar to this. But with this threads topic, I figured why not.
step one for devs. Add a lot more Creature To Hit bonus to ranger, its there and all you got to do is add it to the skill boxes.
step two, fix our dizzy trap to do something useful, and give us a lot more traps.
step three rename Frontiering to Creature Combat(or what ever) and give the above or similar combat effectiveness bonsuses to this new Creature Combat skill line. With further mods to them all at master.
step four, or part of step 3, revamp Ranger.
Message Edited by Squidwalker on 07-08-2004 03:03 PM
Wouldnt it be better to spread the bonuses out over the entire tree to prevent a BH (as an example) from just taking one branch of Ranger? Kinda like in the CH revamp where the skills were spread out to prevent dabling enough to gain the uber pets. It makes more sense to me.
sada wrote:
One thing I really hate is having to master a combat profession to get attention. The more creative bunch of people around here are getting nothing out of this deal. Ranger right now are support. That is all, If you look through nearly every application of the word ranger it means defender, protector, etc. of the wilds to some degree. That is why we have things like rescue, camo kits, higher level camps to defend versus aggressors to help and guide people through the wilds. A damage multiplier versus creatures I don't think is really suited for ranger. It doesn't matter if a stacker stacks, he isn't going to do more damage with his VK because he has a stun baton, that is pure defense. Though a rifleman, tkm, or fencer with a x2.5 to creatures would be so utterly unbalanced it boggles the mind. Considering that most of the enemies in this game are creatures, that is unacceptable. Lowering resists with traps is kind of iffy, though it would allow others to help combat the creatures with 100% resist since some professions do not have the luxury of having multiple damage types. Though an innate, passive ability to disregard these resists is also a thing I do not want to see.
I would rather see a new weapon(s) than having ranger powerups with DoT and status effects being applied to current ones. A compromise would be having these mods with ONLY(AND maybe to a lesser degree on other weapons, hopefully not) these ranger weapons. It would allow efficient creature take down, with limits on what you can use. Say having a compound bow with heavy armor piercing and damage modifiers as you go up the trees (You could make arrows perhaps with bone increasing the amount of trapping potential, making it where you would have the mods in one tree and the abilities/crafting in others. IE: Trapping having arrows that could confuse a creature to attack his brethren, distinctive things to make us creative but still being open to interesting profession combinations). Maybe different arrow heads to apply different damage types, thinking outside of the box and not trying to quick fix is what we need. Quick fixes lead to flavor of the month ordeals and really can create more bitching. Take it slow if you need to but do it right (IE: slowly adding and testing the features, not bundling it into one huge patch).
Back to the rant: Also maybe a knife with certain attacks, not broad attacks you can use with both but specific ones (DoT poisons possibly being added to the knife would be interesting, just something raw not relying on your other profession). Also the stalk idea sounds interesting, and an ability to deal a critical hit while sneaking or stalking would be a interesting idea (Think backstab knife attack maybe). Though this is all just brainstorming, probably not want you want to hear either. There are alot of creative combinations out there not getting love. Like that complete support template of MCH, Master ranger with medic. You HAVE to have medic or pet stims to even attempt to let your pets heal (even fight) in the field. Camps do little to nothing for pets, I would personally like to see that changed since I am shooting for MCH, Master Ranger, but that is just me. Now I know this is a hell of alot of work but I think that just adding mods isn't going to cut it (Wilderness mod and more to hit is a great idea, an extra damage mod is not in my opinion, nor is a ranger special attack usable with all weapons. I mean that becomes what the rangers are known for, and who wants to see a T21 with that kind of attack. Not me). Sorry if my rant wasn't very constructive or want you wanted to hear but it is my opinion. I am new to the profession but I notice things pretty fast
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Your opinion is well noted Sada, and you as a ranger (you are I hope) have every right to be heard.....however (and please dont think I am meaning to be rude or flaming - just frustrated)
/rant_on......Many of us HAVE been in the profession for most if not all our in game career and there is no bigger letdown than to see a commando, BH....heck even a pistoleer walk up and kill a critter faster and harvest almost as much as a Master Ranger that has sunk so many skill points into a profession that is supposed to be able do what that other combat profession just did as well if not better than us. How do you think that combat profession would feel if a Master Ranger could go and take down another player or NPC faster than he after that combat troop has has spent all that time perfecting his trade and sunk all those skill points into it? We are not asking for the mods being applied to PvP or NPC's, just OUR home environment....the critter end of things. Overpowered?
The mods we are piecing together here are bandaids to a profession that is far from being overpowered by adding a x2.5 ability to bring creatures down and harvest more than a scout. It is our sole purpose in the game. You want all-out PvP, take up a combat/PvP centric profession.
- Tracking/Hunting Skill Line = Offensive bonuses
- Survival Skill Line= Defensive bonuses
- Creature to-hit bonus
- Make it work with ALL weapons
- Increase it to +100, but take it the same direction as Terrain Negotiation
- 1-25 =increase chance to hit (offensive)
- 26-50 = increase damage to creature on non-special attacks (defensive)
- 51-75 = increase chance to put a random state on the animal (defensive)
- 76-100 = increase chance to multiply a special attacks (offensive - critical hit)
- Spread this out through the Tracking/Hunting (offensive) & Survival (defensive) lines
- Group creature to-hit bonus
- As a master hunter I should be able to help my groupmates make their shots count with my advice and ideas.
- +25 or +50 up to Master, again spread out over our offensive/defensive lines
- Skill works the same as regular creature to-hit outlined above
Only the Ranger with the highest group bonus is added to the group members-EDIT-- Only applies ifthe Ranger is the leader of the group
- Skill mod only adds to non-rangers. Rangers already have a creature to-hit bonus.
- Creature Toughness
- up to +50
- Add to Survival skill line (defensive)
- Only applies to damage dealt by creatures
Well that all I have for now. Wow I've actually stayed at work 15 minutes longer then I needed to 
Message Edited by NerfBurger on 07-12-2004 07:21 PM
Message Edited by NerfBurger on 07-12-2004 07:21 PM
I have not heard anything about toughness though.
Seiryuu wrote:
Supposedly mitigation is going away with the combat balance.
I have not heard anything about toughness though.
NO crap? Where did you hear that? Dev post, forums, other website, fan fest? First I heard of it. Not that its false, just first I've heard of it.
But what about "Creature Toughness" would do same thing, if not better for the ranger. Get that baby up to +100 or so at master.
Squidwalker wrote:How would people feel about either the "animal damage mitigation" idea Calc hinted at that work on top of any other Melee/Ranged Damage Mitigation.OrRanger has within it Melee Damage Mitigation 1-3.I ask about the normal melee mitigation because 95% of cratures fight in melee. Even the ones with ranged attacks will go into melee combat most of the time. This would have two effects. Help the Ranged combat Rangers by giving them the same benefit that the Melee combat rangers have. But it would of course be no benefit to the melee rangers. But also, the melee rangers run up to melee ranger to fight animals. At that point, the animals with ranged attacks don't back up, they fight with melee attacks. So it would seem to balance out for both ranged and melee rangers.An additional benefit is for rangers that have no real combat professions. Say master ranger master medic, or with master squad leader. They would at least gain the benefit of the melee damage mitigation from ranger, and get that melee defence bonus.This also adds an effective benefit to rangers for non ranger combat such as other PvE or PvP. Admitadly it will only effect ranged combatants, or non combatants in ranger, not the melee combatants. This is why I'm asking you guys about your thoughts.Another option is to put both Ranged and Melee damage mitigation into ranger up to level 2 for both. Spread them out, and the level 2 is at master.Thoughts?
While this is not a bad idea, I don't think it solves the main issue. Most ranged combatants would prefer to stay away from the creature as a rule. If a rifleman is near enough to a creature to sustain a melee attack, he is already in trouble because the range is too close to hit the beast. While this is a good way to compensate for when things go wrong, it doesn't help that rifleman take that creature down any faster. If we need to rally together to call for a single addition to ranger so we get something sooner than later, I think it should be a direct offensive bonus, like a ranger special attack or a dammage modifier.
Calc? you started this, what do you think so far? care to focus our thoughts a bit? Where were you hoping to go with this thread in the end?
