Ranger Archive

Sucks that taking Master Ranger and Master $WEAPOND00D only leaves you 18 points to play with, 14 of which will most likely go into Ranged Weapon Support in the Marksman Tree.

I'm currently a:
4/0/0/3 Marksman
4/4/4/4 Artisan
4/0/4/3 Scout
2/1/2/1 Rifleman

I have recently decided that it would be a big help to my business model (selling animal-based resources) to dabble in Ranger and take the Tracking line. I also want to add that last box in Ranged Weapon Support (under Marksman) to get Suppression fire.

Problem is, to do that I will need to either need to drop to a 4/4/1/1 Artisan or stay a 4/0/0/3 Marksman and drop to 4/4/0/3 Artisan.

Or I could just drop all the Artisan skills completely and be a Master Rifleman, Master Scout, Master Ranger, 4/1/1/4 Marksman. Which intrigues me, I confess, but man, I make a LOT of my money from selling pet food and crafting tools, both of which really require maxed out Engineering and Domestic Arts trees.

Are the Survival, Trapping, and Wayfaring lines useful enough to give up my primary source of income? This is the question I face.

Decisions, decisions...

Master Ranger and in process of mastering Pistoleer, and my extra pts are in Medic, not silly Ranged Support, which about doesn't work anyhow. The only shot worth anything is warning shot, drives off the friend in social animals, but if you are good, you can take on two and live.

My advise:

Dump the extra skills you have inMarksman, keeping only rifle, as you are mastering it anyhow. Keep your artisan skills. Master Ranger, or go as far as you can. If so, you are now a Ranger who can solo with his rifle, you get better harvests, can areatrack and find what you want animal-wise, you pretty much can kiss medcenter visits bye, your camps do that.

Decent combo, you supply your self with what you need to make stuff with. Saves on supply costs, pure profits all the way around.

Really, ranged weapon support is about useless, I was a Master Marksman at one point, and realized this and dumped it second, right after the totally useless carbine skills.

Personal opinions only... but give it a think

JB

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JBMat wrote:
The only shot worth anything is warning shot, drives off the friend in social animals, but if you are good, you can take on two and live.

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I ain't that good.

As a Rifleman saddled with the 2.5x melee damage penalty, Warning Shot is a pretty crucial part of my repertoire. I can solo any critter that isn't BAF (or any critter that is BAF but doesn't have any friends around) with Warning Shot. I soloed an Ancient Bull Rancor last night. No pet, no group, nada. Just me, my T21, and my Spraystick. May not be impressive to some of you more experienced folks, but taking down a Heavy armor, 40% Energy Resist critter all by my lonesome certainly gave ME a big ol' thrill. It's the toughest critter I've taken down to date.

But yeah, I hear what you're saying in general. So far, push hasn't come to shove yet skill-point-wise, so I won't have to really make a decision for a while. Just getting myself ready for that point, I guess.