Ranger Archive

In my own experience, Rifleman complements Ranger very well. Right now I'm Master Rifleman/Master Ranger, and 0-0-0-0 Medic, and I'm quite enjoying it. But be forwarned that the road to Master Rifleman is a long, hard one.

I use pistols, some use rifles. Personally, I think carbines are broken and am waiting for them to be fixed to see if I want to switch. Some even use melee weapons, swords and pikes, or no weapon (TK) - it's all personal preference. Whatever you have the most fun at.

You can master any combat skill, or close to it, and still have some points.

Personally, I am keeping medic with pharm 1, so I can use stimBs.

Regardless of your combat skill, my opinion is you need one and to be good at it to hunt bigger game. A Master Marksman will get his butt handed to him quick, lots of skills, no big skills in any one area. Showed this to a MM last nite while hunting sharnaff... I am doing 1000 pts dmg with a pistol, he is no where close to that with his rifle. Specialize in one, and you get better damage.

Whatever you pick, have fun in doing it, be it TK, fencer, rifles, pistols or a stun baton.

JB

Just some random quick thoughts:

• Rifle makes a great compliment to Ranger as an archetype. You're deep in the jungle with your camoflauge outfit. You got prone and sneak up on the mob. Wham! Damage done. Thing's confused, looking around. Wham! Dead.
  
• Carbines are good all around weapons in my opinion. A bit shorter on range than Rifles but very powerful. You can do the above sneak approach or run right into the middle of a lair and lay waste to the whole play in a spray-shot.
  
• Pistols are up close and personal. In my opinion, if I were to do two weapons, I'd do two lines of Rifleman and two lines of Pistol. You never know when you'll need to kite (run and shoot).


• Bounty Hunter. This is my current path. I am a Novice BH and working both Scatter Pistol and Lightning Cannon (LLC). I won't be doing the whole tree (can't afford it anyway) since I've no interest in hunting people. I just want to try the weapons. Problem is that this requires Master Marksman, so is expensive.
  
  
  
  • One-shotting mobs for 4k damage with the LLC is a really nice way to feel uber. It misses quite a bit though, so you need to use /aim frequently. LLCs cannot accept powerups either, so if it's 4.0 speed, it's staying 4.0 speed. Between needing to use /aim (which is a few seconds) and the slow speed of the weapon, you better hope to kill the mob before it, or its friends, sees you.
    
  • The Scatter Pistol is nice too. Makes a cool sound and looks flashy. But it's not all that powerful at range. Heck, a BH needs both anyway.
  
  
• Novice Medic. Critical in my opinion, particularly if you enjoy hunting alone. Don't leave home without it.
  
• Creature Handler. The other way to hunt Forget Medic and weaponry altogether. Just let the Gurrcats or Rancors take over. A friend of mine went this path and it's really very impressive to watch. I took Novice CH so I could use CL12 pets that another friend (a BE) was having more luck making. But it's the first skill I'll be dropping when I need to fund BH skills, or to move over to another advanced weaponry line.

I'll put in a vote for carbine. Sure, they're a little high on HAM right now, but that may change when combat is overhauled. I am going up the carbineer tree (AGAIN!). I find it to be a good overall weapon and the range coincides nicely with the ranges for throwing traps. As a Zabrak, I have bonuses to regenerating my mind bar, so I've pumped up my action bar and dropped my health and mind a bit. I think my action is 1400 right now. I had mastered marksman at one time, but I enjoyed the carbine arm of the tree, so I've decided to stick with it.

Give some melee skills a try, nothing like getting up close and personal to your prey to get the adrenaline flowing

Shaden

Rifle.

At master you don't miss from any range, you fire once a second with a monster T21... Strafe shot 2 decimates multiple targets... ..

BUT.. the BIG combat balance is coming.. so who knows after that

Rifle you get........whammo!! more crawling speed

Rifles win it for me............

Solo'd my first Bull Rancor the other night using camouflage and conceal shot.......It never even knew I was there

Master Fencer, Master Ranger .

Nothing like treking across the country with a sword in hand, only stopping to track prey.
Kind of makes you feel like Aragon from LOTR .

Master ranger, master ch 0/3/0/0 rifle. Nothing (PVE wise) will give you trouble again.

I highly recommend Browaler: Unarmed. Not only do you save money on having to replace weapons, but you don't need Ranged Support so you can apply the skill points toward Teras Kasi: Power Tech. You can take on some powerful creatures that way. As a master Teras Kasi it only took me a day and a half to (re-)master the Wayfairing and Tracking columns.