Ranger Archive

When I heading towards Master Ranger, I was still relying on the basic scouting Traps. Wire-Mesh, Glow-wire, and either the Noise Maker, Stinkbomb, or LepDart (depending my mood and tatics du jour.) But the realy "powerful" traps are useless for the Melee'er. The PhenDart and the Adhesive Mesh are useless because they are ment to keep the creatures away, but as a Melee'er you need to get up to the creature fast and hit them.

So I am trying to think what types of trap effects would be useful for a Melee'er. I would love to see some type of Knockdown Trap. That way the Melee'er can get some safe hits, much the same way that a Marksman can get safe hits in when the Adhesive Mesh works.

Any other ideas?

-gustavef, The old Bothan

Well, when and if the traps the devs discussed for Ranger in our correspondant response a week or so ago get implemented, 2 of them are a trip wire and bear trap that you can place on teh ground. According to the devs, the trip wire will knock down(back?) NPCs and Critters while the bear trap is basically a "root" that holds a creature in place. I'd think both would be useful for a meleer

I know what you mean. I use the wire trap exclusively to start my combat.

The problem is I realy see no difference in lowering the melee defense of a creature. I hit creatures or miss with the same regularity as I do with or without using the trap.
I do not appear to do any more damage for using the trap.

The only advantage I know I get is I get trapping experience and I see a message float above the head of the creature I succesfully hit, that says "melee defense has been lowered", even though I do not get to see physical evidence of this, it still makes me feel better for some reason.

Before I made Novice Fencer, I would notice a bit of a difference from using the wire mesh and not using it. But once your bast "To-Hit" gets high enough, you don't miss the creatures you will be fighting. So lowering their melee defence is moot. On the creature that it would make a difference (things CL 35 and up) you would not be fighting in melee (except in a very large group) since they would kill you in one hit

I think this is just part of my "disillusionment" with Melee as it currently is in the game. Though I still think it is cool. I just wish the Ranger had more to offer in support the Melee character. But I am not sure what would be useful but not unblancing.

-gustavef

I find Adhesive Mesh to be useful to keep an add (an additional mob) at bay as well as for rooting a mob that I can see I am about to lose to. A little "Root and Scoot" goes a long way.

I (as a TK novice/Ranger) have found that the adhesive mesh is very useful to hold a creature in one spot while I throw even more traps at it or deal with his friends.

thats my 2c anyway

I use wire mesh trap right now, but that wont last long once my accuracy gets higher. The only other 2 traps (and only kinda sorta on one) that I think are useful are noise maker and lec dart. Noise maker is good for the stun effect, which lowers the dmg the critters do(granted not much) but on creatures that normally bring me down to 1/4 or lower (sometimes beating me if i miss too much) in HAM by the time I kill them will only bring me down to 1/2 to 3/4 in a HAM bar with noise maker. It makes me feel safer fighting, and theres less downtime after fights since i take less damage. The only other usefull one I can think of is the lecepanine(sp?) dart. I think you get it at novice scout, the dizzy effect is nice because you can use it with lunge 1 to hopefully make your opponent fall down, and it takes less ham than the combat move(i know fencers have dizzy specials, not sure of others.) But this is where I'm not so sure about it actually being useful, because it only works on creatures and I have yet to get a creature to fall over from using dizzy/lunge combo, and I dont think its ever going to work, and since traps cant be used on NPC's....

I wish there was an edit button.

I also find adhesive mesh and phecnacine dart to be useful, but only now and then. For me they are only useful when there are two creatures that will BAF. I throw the trap on one so I can fight the other first, by the time the root breaks the one im fighting isdead already or very very closeand I can use a stim b real quick then kill the other.

I'm a huge trap fan, made trap IV within a day of making ranger. PhenDart is life, but I'm a kiting pistoleer type ranger. A slow trap would be nice say cut the mob's attack speed by 25% or so, stacking of course.

A rage trap would be nice too where the mob goes nuts and agros on it's pack mates, good for that I pulled 2 sictuation. Also maybe something that would drop the kinetic resistance of a mob if it has some. As a side bar I've read the posts here and I have to agree it would be real nice to get more traps as a ranger. I guess the best would be traps you could customize, pick your effects an there effectiveness- I'd love to use my long duration, slow, rooting, bulls eye on your back uber trap. But I'm off topic.

Better tohit -slowermob attack speed- more misses from the mob any of those would seem to be nice.

How about a trap with a chemical agent that causes the mob to attempt to run away in fear? Sort of like warning shot? This way a melee'er could hit them with a p-dart, hit them with a "fear" trap, and their back would be turned...

Don't quote me on this, but I think the phecnacine drops the attack speed of the animal as well as the movement.

I guess I will run some tests to make sure, but I've always casually observed that a animal with a phecnacine is much more safer at melee range than without one. While the dart works, that is

Also, anyone know if glowires are stackable? It says the animal 'has grown more vulnerable' to attacks on the second throw, but I haven't seen improvement in my hits as reported in the combat window.

-- YP

The wire mesh and glowire traps do stack as in you can throw multiple ones onyour target in succession. However the effects do not stack as in they do not make the creature any more vulnerable.