Ranger Archive

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Osiraos wrote:

I guess... technically... you can be in a group and just harvest what other people kill.

And not participate in the combat (or just help with others by throwing traps).

But yeah...

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Actually, when you throw a trap, it engages combat. So, in order to level up the trapping tree, you must participate in combat, even if you never fire a shot or throw a punch.

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JBMat wrote:

So y'all know, both Owen and myself posted on this subject in the Corr forums.

Basically, we are the skillpoint hog profession if you think about it. Doctors need to master Medic. They can technically never leave the confines of an NPC city and master. No combat required. We have to Master Scout, then Ranger, and to be any good at our jobs, a combat profession. The only profession so encumbered.

Rangers/Scouts on the other hand by defintion are PvE killing machines. I think that in the average day I probably do more HAM damage in PvE than any PvP kiddie in the game. In the average "day" said PvPer may have a set of friendly duels and might, if he is lucky, get to have a real to the death contest. 90% of the PvPers time is spent spamming for duels and generally being a pain in the azz.

Meahwhile, regardless of combat profession, we go out and harvest countless animals. No, we are not standing outside of Tyrena in a macro slaying Meatlumps for loot - at ONE XP per Lump. Instead my grind is to get 6k Tortur missions on Talus or 12k Gleaming Lantern Bird missions on Endor. Doing one mission gets me the same xp the lumps would give up in a week.

Maybe we can get through. They do let us wear Mando armor - (all together now - oooooh, ahhhhh)- but we are too smart to be fooled by shinies, we want substance.

Just so ya know not all is lost.

JB

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the corr's aren't the only ones on this problem... but this is a massive problem with THEORY, and it won't be changed overnight.

MEDIC: makes sense.
ENTERTAINER: downtime and regen. ok.
BRAWLER: yeah, melee combat, we know.
MARKSMAN: yup, ranged combat. got it.
ARTISAN: someone gotta make the toys.
SCOUT: er. yeah.

harvested organics: required for artisan+elite, medic+elite, and scout+elite. scout works, ranger works SLIGHTLY better. ranger mods need a large boost, else novice scout will continue to be the most dabbled profession behind novice medic. why not make stim-A's work for ALL professions?
traps: yeah. those.
camps: we used those a long time ago, didn't we?
CREATURE KNOWLEDGE: huge. we have the ability to look into the code. we can also hop onto swgcreatures.com and SHARE that knowledge without spending a single skill point.
terrain negotiation: huge... if you don't have a mount or vehicle.
maskscent/camoflage: good. unless there's a kreetle in the area.

I don't mean to paint a bleak picture of scout (and the SUPER-scouts, rangers), but right now the profession is more a mindset and RP deal than a set of skills that differentiates one player from another.

scout is, all MMORPG's and RPG's considered, the closest to the 'thief' class... ranger is a step above scout. neither can function outside a group (see all: Squad Leader) or without a combat profession (see also: effective Creature Handler). any respectable 'thief' can operate independently... and with the skill points available, a scout/ranger can afford to pick up some skills in the ranks of combatant. for the cost, however, scout (and worse, ranger), isn't justifying itself as a valid mode of gameplay, outside stubborness, RP, and such.

that said: I'm at least a ranger thrice, and a scout many times more than that. when my ranger/scout skills fail me, I fall back on tactics... no matter which toon I employ.

the requirement of combat efficacy for a noncombat profession has long bothered me.

and for the record, CH and BioE are as bad off as anyone.

BioE: 15 points for novice scout, 15 points for novice medic. 14 points for organic chemistry. 14 points for hunting. 58 skill points spent BEFORE novice Bioe.

for a crafting profession: no survey skills. no merchant skills.


CH: 15 points for novice scout. 14 points for exploration, 14 points for hunting. 43 skill points to open up another 6 points for novice CH.

for a 'combat' profession: no combat skills.


part of the problem is the scout requirement (novice or otherwise). SCOUT is a support profession, yet it requires combat. RANGER is an elite support profession, yet it requires all that scout does, and more. when entertainers, artisans, and medics travel with fully equipped parties (with benefits for such grouping), then everything is in balance. that's not going to happen, and it's an extreme example.

scouts, and therefore rangers, need a more specific professional role than "the folks that find meat for the crafters". failing that, they need a more effective justification in 'skill points spent' than their "opportunity costs" of 'skill points sunk' into poorly designed professions.

Thanks to my Bloodfin roots, I see everything through a PvP tint. A Master Ranger's only "PvP" skill is areatracking for other players. Were I a straight MR, I would not be a combat class in my own eyes. Yes, I kill creatures for their hides, but I've killed creatures and skinned them as a Nov Scout/Nov Ent/Nov Artisan before. When the call comes in that Valor is rolling out the troops, I don't throw my traps, or harvest the corpses - I use my pistols. I agree that Ranger is not a non-combat profession, but I certainly wouldn't call us a combat profession either. I can hope that one of the upcoming Revamps will fix this, but I am a Ranger eitehr way.

Oh, and JB - 3/4 of the Bloodfin PvP crowd must be that cool 10% of PvPers that don't spam for duels. Many Bloodfinians are PvPers (I've even seen Ent buff-bots jump in the fracas before) and very few of us spam for fights. We just declare at the local base and roll for the evening, 5/7 nights a week.