Ranger Archive

I had suggested this a few months back but now with more information I can revise this proposal.

Facts:
Survival has become a useless skill tree
/forage has no real purpose
CH has been greatly weakened and is without a unique niche in the game

Proposal :Merge CH with scout and ranger

Why this makes sense:
Most hunters have a companion, a pet that flushes out prey or retrieves them.
Replaces a useless skill tree
Benefits BE’s who will now have a market for creatures again.
Would give Scouts and Rangers some combat ability.
Would require no extra skill points from current CH’s (master scout and 2 trees of ranger instead of 2 trees of scout and master CH)


Changes:
CH go bye bye.
Survival and Exploration trees get merged into 1 tree (scouting principles or something similar). These skills compliment each other. This way camps are not eliminated nor is /forage
Tame moved to novice scout and +4 stored pets moved to novice scout.
In Place of survival goes the CH tree.
Hunting and CH trees merged.
Essentially so that Hunting IV and CH IV would be the equivalent of a 2/2/2/2 CH

Novice ranger +1 pets +4 stored pets.
Again survival replaced by CH and explore and survival merged, hunting and CH merged
Eliminate +3 pets as it was stealth eliminated by raising the CL of most pets.
A Ranger with Hunt IV and CH IV would be the equivalent of a master CH.

This way all current Master CH’s could easily switch over to being a ranger equivalent, and there would be no extra skill points needed.

I would like to hear the opinions on this especially from the correspondents, I realize this is probably a waste of time and even if it is liked and worthy of consideration it would be months before it gets implemented, but it’s worth a try.

I have a better idea, why dont we just get rid of the scout and ranger professions? Thats what it sounds like to me what you're saying. So the poor CH has to now master two professions to equal a Master CH.

/veto

Yeah TAMPA BAY!

Message Edited by EV500 on 06-07-2004 11:38 PM

I can accept the fact that you disagree, but I am far from saying eliminate the scout or ranger professions. If anything I am saying eliminate CH .

I have often said we should be able to mount creatures and tame them...I am leary of saying a merge though!! I think they started out with giving RANGER these skills and then realized CH as a skill by itself!!

If we are the "RANGER" we should be all knowing of CREATURES!!

/agree 100%
that makes the most sense of anything I have heard on the relationship of Ranger and CH.

At least give rangers creature handling bonues. Creature handler itself comes from scout so I mean why not?

I like it.

Except I really would like to see CH gone completly from the game. Never once in a movie or in any of the many EU books I've read have I heard of a CH. (granted Jabba had a CH, but he didn't take his rancor out hunting with him, now did he.) I have heard others mention it, that maybe a droid handler would be a better decision than merching these 2. After all whats one of the things that make SW so great, DROIDS! So why not have DH?

NO FREAKING WAY

I don't see any facts backing up your premises, just opinions. Survival is not dead, camps are great, if you know what to use them for.

I kill creatures, I don't make them pets. I want a pet, I buy a droid.

CH was overpowered, still is in some ways, as the pets can't be trapped or killed. That should be our focus, making Rangers the PvP foil to CHs and their pets.

Face it, CH is on the decline. Y'all had your moment in the sun, with uber pets, mounts and multiple pets out at one time. Now that you have been nerfed - seems to me the entire profession is more or less useless. Not to say that Ranger hasn't been nerfed - we have taken multiple hits. But you don't see us asking for other profession's skills.

Sorry, this idea flies like a lead balloon.

Off to play with your critters -

JB

if I didn't know better, I'd think this was written by a BH

Getting rid of a profession is not a solution. There are plenty of ways to improve the Ranger tree without taking away CH (and remember that CH is post Combat Balance already). This idea is just a quick way out. CH should be similar to an elite combat profession after the Combat Balance (as long as you remember that CH is completely suplementary to a combat profession). It does not need to be changed more (although it does have some bugs that need fixing). The combat professions need changing. I would be extremely unhappy if the Devs decided to merge Ranger and CH just to save some programming effort. If you are a Ranger and want a pet, pick up CH.

CH was overpowered, still is in some ways, as the pets can't be trapped or killed. That should be our focus, making Rangers the PvP foil to CHs and their pets.

Considering TISSUE PAPER is a foil to Creature Handlers at the moment, that isn't asking for much...

As I said on the Scout copy of this, I don't expect it to happen, but I will speculate on what I would want to see if it were to occur:

- Leave scout as it is, or only modify it slightly. It is an entry profession and a good one as is. I could maybe see giving the very basic taming skills and control over essentially newbie pets within the survival tree. (Note that from fan-fest Bounty Hunters may no longer need the entire Scout tree, so it fits.) Having a hunting companion is very common with real hunters and this would fit that philosophy.

- The rest of the merger would occur within the Ranger tree. Add a line's worth of the current CH bonuses into Frontiering or sprinkle them throughout the tree. (We have three lines that could use boosting, so something is workable.)

- Then add two "optional" lines for the more heavily-oriented creature portions. Learning any four of the specialist boxes lets you buy the Master box. This used to not be possible, but with the Jedi revamp it now is (again, this was mentioned to the BHs).

Why do I like this? Orginally these professions were meant to go together. Not all Rangers want much to do with creatures (see JB, et. al.) but some do. They are complimentary professions that cost a lot to get for little benefit. Both are combat professions but not really.

It also gets us away from this horrible necessity to have only one route to Mastery. In the orginal design of the game professions did not exist and it was more open ended. Now they try to cram every profession into 18 boxes and it simply feels...limiting. If done right neither profession is hurt, you can make the same build using almost the same skillpoints, it allows more diversity and they build off one another.

But then I don't expect to see it happen. It is a lot of work and those opposed to change (even though there doesn't have to be any beyond semantics) will protest.