Ranger Archive

I'd like to say swordsman is a good combo for ranger.

I was novice swordsman/pistoleer/ranger and dropped the pistols to get master ranger/master swordsman because the swordsman line takes critters down faster. I have a macro of 6 headhits bound to F12. I put other specials on the other keys. To kill a rancor, I can cause a mind bleed, lunge to lower the beast's posture and then hit the mind pool 24 times by pressing F6, F10, F12, F12, F12, F12. This works very fast - that's why I like it. You actually see huge chunks coming off the beast's mind pool. I rarely need to do this twice.

If a nightsister or 2 comes along, I hit F11 to intimidate every 7th turn or so and they die to the same combo.

Swordsmen have area attacks that lower the posture of many enemies so that the spin attacks kill many at once. These work well with ranger traps. But if its a serious threat like squill or rancor, the sonic burst and flash bangers slow them down and I find taking them out one by one works even if 4 or so are pounding me. The area attacks work especially well against massed npcs who are on their knees while you whack them.

The swordsman's scythe is a truly magnificent weapon in terms of kinetic damage. But if a nightsister with kinetic resist comes along, a good power hammer doing blast damage will make short work of her.

Negatives:
Being a swordsman is expensive. My best scythe cost me 2 million credits. My others all cost over 400k. My speed tape cost me 5 million credits. Even with stat migration, I am permanently using brandy and ahrisa.

A swordsman must be buffed to hunt. In theory, you can just make do with good composite armor BUT you can only sparingly use your specials and you will need novice medic to heal yourself with stim B every 4 specials. Simply put, you are more likely to incap yourself than be incapped by your prey because the specials really do hurt you. Last iem I was slain on a hunt, it was when buff ran out while surrounded by rancors. I was fairly relaxed until I started seeing "No Valid Medicine Found" messages. For some stupid reason, you can't pop a crate in combat so I had a chance to see the wallpaper in the Science Outpost cloning center ;-)

It is worth saying that you should consider stat migration to use a scythe. If I were to run the sequences above with a brawler or scout mind, I would die. Even with a power hammer, a swordsman unbuffed and with a brawlers mind pool will be a feeble hunter. I finally did move from my scout stats to 400 on everything health and action related with the rest in the mind pool and since then I have felt very safe even when surrounded by enraged rancors.

Another thing to take into account is that swordsmen are vulnerable to knockdown in PvP. A fencer can dizzy me and have me on my back pretty easy. That said, their batons doesn't seem to do near as much damage as a scythe. And frankly I suck at pvp so people on the swordsman forum might take say it's the bad workman blaming his tools.

If I were to make a criticism, it's that having this huge power and having macros to focus it means that ordinary hunting gets dull. Right now I am harvesting leathery hide on Endor. To be honest, knowing there is nothing there that can hurt me takes a lot of the fun out of the game. The good old days of being a novice scout burst running to escape from the Tusken Raiders were a lot more exciting. Yesterday I did Nym and Jabba quests to get a bit glowy and both were very boring. Combat lasted a second on each mission so it was just 3 hours on my bike on on Tatooine and then 2 hours of it on Lok. First time since finishing Wilderness xp that I felt I was grinding.

Master sword gives you blast and kinectic damage which is really nice and its a great mind killer. I liked being a Master Sword for the amount of damage you do in such a short amount of time. Defenses are low but if your going novice medic it doesnt matter

I see many posts from scout/rangers who don't wear armor. Just how do you do it? I mean when the nightsister swings that big old lance, do you duck faster than someone in composite armor?

Serious question - just wondering.

On the combat profession question, avoid 2 handed swords. For you, with no buff and no armor, a scythe would be instant death.

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pkirk25 wrote:
I see many posts from scout/rangers who don't wear armor. Just how do you do it? I mean when the nightsister swings that big old lance, do you duck faster than someone in composite armor?

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They have to catch me before they can hit me! Honestly from months of being an armorless wookiee I got too used to my specials not taking huge chunks out of my HAM. Now that I have armor I rarely use it. I dislike killing myself faster than the NS can.

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pkirk25 wrote:
I see many posts from scout/rangers who don't wear armor. Just how do you do it? .

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pkirk25 wrote:
I see many posts from scout/rangers who don't wear armor. Just how do you do it? I mean when the nightsister swings that big old lance, do you duck faster than someone in composite armor?

Serious question - just wondering.

On the combat profession question, avoid 2 handed swords. For you, with no buff and no armor, a scythe would be instant death.

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I'm TKM so the distance option that most give doesnt help me , the main things are:i have a wide variety of foods for various occasions (often shopping for food looking for something else that can help me), I still use spice (mainly pixie), I actually use our traps at times, rarely have my weapon equipped (cuts down on me killing me ), and a pet with 60% kinetic resists for when things get really bad

I'll sometimes use Ubese, but thats rare. As for dath I havent tried that yet unbuffed, but I do hunt anything/everything (critter wise)on endor, yavin, and dant often. I have more downtime than the average fully buffed player, but I have a lot more fun with the challenge and am still learning new tactics to help