Ranger Archive

Ok people, listen up - yes, this means you.

Standing in one spot, having your pet tank while you shoot the beast into oblivion is not tactics. While this may be a viable option now, what are you gonna do when the pets are nerfed to level 10 and you got zilch for CH (like me).

I have wandered around enough to know that very few people use any tactical knowledge besides what I call the "Duke Nukem method" mentioned above, yanno, the pet tank thingus.

We got a few traps that work well, pdarts and glow wire to name two. Adhesive works, especially to stop that friend your target brought along. Or if you are a rifleman, warning shot is a great tool. But from personal experience, not a lot of people are getting it. I am gonna make a new sentence to tell y'all a secret I have learned -

YOU CAN'T SOLO THE BIG BEASTS WITHOUT A TACTICAL PLAN

Even

I really hate hitting the wrong keys...sigh... I continue....

Even knowing in advance what traps you are gonna use is a tactical plan. Making the traps in advance, and having a load, is a tactical plan. Telling your partner what is going on is a tactical plan. Planning, wow, novel concept. I have left hunts as the people on them had the idea of, shoot everything, the ones left alive will get xp, you die, too bad. Not fun.

I am not saying you have to plan to invade Normandy... but at least know your targets and plan to avoid the worst of their attacks, like friends, stun, etc. Know what weapons work on what, use examine to your advantage, carry extra weapons. Ever examine a rancor? I have yet to figure out what to kill it with, other than a thermonuclear device and a lot of friends, but we have dropped a few, with minimal losses.

Pets are leaving us people, a sad fact. We have to adjust, or the decay monster is gonna hit some of us really hard. Droids will take up part of the slack, but not much (IMO).

If you have any particular tactics that work on certain beasts, share em. We are all Rangers, semi but not really in competion with one another, and anything that helps me stay alive I will and do share.

Nuff said - back to whatever - Have a good day, and avoid dying, the cloner is a boring place

JB

"Know what weapons work on what, use examine to your advantage, carry extra weapons."

Yes... Learnt that the hard way last night.

1. "Hmmm... That Gurreck sure seems easy enough"


2. "Wait a minute, why am I not doing any damage to this thing?"


3. * checks /examine *


4. "80% Kinetic Resistance!!! Oh crud..."

I did eventually beat it aftera quick dirt nap (thank youDoc )...

• But this humble Tera Kasi will be avoiding those creatures from now on.

Heh I know what ya'll mean by people either shoot things at random or just using a "tank" I'll admit I've been one of these run in rambo-like peeps and either live or die. But the other day I was driving to a jobsite at at work and rather than paying attention to where I was goin I thought up myself a lil tatic.

First of all I'm a pistoleer/ranger so parts of this will need to be adjusted/changed to your class and skill lvl.

1st. Always carry a variaty of guns I myself carry a Scout Blaster, FWG5, and a DX 2 so when I use /examine I can pick the best gun for the job. (and as a side note it's wise to invest in powerups they are worth it)

2nd. I shouldn't have to say this but use /maskscent when closing in to get within trap throwing range.

3rd. When attacking a aggro mob (this is assuming it's alone or not BAF) I open up with Surpression Fire to snare the mob for a moment. This also allows me a few moments to to remember where my trap macro keys are.

4th. Traps. Know em. Use em. Love em. In the tatic I've been practicing lately I throw a Sonic Pulse ( area effect stun and dizzy), followed by a Glow-Wire trap (meele and ranged defense down).

5th. Now this is where the fun begins. I got a mob that iskneeling and if I'm lucky can't stand back up due to the dizzy, and is also open to both meele and ranged attacks. So now what sit back and watch it act like it just drank a few beers to many??? Nahhh I run in and Pistolwhip em upside the head which usually causes a KD cause the meele defense down mod and they tend to stay down thanxz to dizzy status.

6th. Well as every combat class should know a KD'd oppoent takes more dmg than a standing one (I think it's double). So this is where the big choice comes in. At this point I either slam it with a combo of Stopping Shots/Body shot 2 or if it still has too many HP's for that to kill or near kill it I toss a Health Shot 1and Health Shot 2 on it and start getting my distance hopefully before it gets up and use a combonation of Warning shot/Surpression Fire too keep the mob from closing the distance and eating me

Aye, and for those of us without as much power in the gun department. I use my FWG to hit them from afar and my DX2 up close. Almost always, I hit them with the Healthshot2 first. That novice pistoleer is all I have, and I can't count how many times I've gone incapacitated and had the animal die while I was on my back.

Know your bleeds, use warningshots. That's about all I do. It's all I CAN do, so it's whatI do. Warningshot is the only thing that keeps social animals off me, hit one with a warning and try to keep it back and forth to make sure they stop hitting you. Pretty effective, if you'd rather run the opposite direction. Traps help out, but I seem to just work on "Luring" them out if they're aggro, by walking in close and letting one attack me. That keeps the social activity down and you "alive".

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Some of the things I do...

• Phec Dart and Glowwire... (but Phec Darts dont last nearly long enough IMO Should be 30 seconds, not 10 so I can get more than 1-2 special moves in)


• Learn which creatures run fast, and which dont... Did you know that some dont run any faster than us without burstrun?


• Burstrun... Im a big fan of this... I use it all the time,not only when I am in trouble, but when some creature is pretty tough, (No, not that Rancor)... I will use burstrun to kite stuff around that is moderately tougher than me.


• Alot of creatures have natural enemies... use them to help. If something is chasing you, and you run it to a bunch of its natural enemies, it will fight them since they are right next to them... then fire away. Sure, you are sharing xp with NPCs... but its better than zero xp cause you cant do it yourself. (Here is a hint... Faction NPCs will help you even if you are covert)


• Alot of creatures have trouble going up hills... use that to your advantage since you can haul ass up them.


• Each Profession has some useful attacks... Warning Shot, Various KD moves, Etc.

Comically enough... new tactics will not be so quick to come... since death has a penalty now, I suspect people will take less chances.

I know I used various things I listed above on an Ancient Gnarled Rancor (or whatever it was called but it was level 95) and I managed to get it down to about 80% health. Thats right, I knocked 20% off the life of something that was level 95, solo andwith out using any pet or helpat all. Wont want to try that again after the next patch though lol.

oh,I only have 0/2/0/1 in carbineer for weapon skills... so I am not some commando or rifleman.

Good Luck... and I look forward to seeing what other people do as well.

Well I have only just made the rank of ranger but with the limited experiance I have had Traps are the key to staying out of harms way for longer especially with theagro animals. Not having had a pet till a couple of days ago I learnt rather soon that standing toe to toe with anything other than durni is stupid drawning out single beasts and luring them into other lairs has proved to be my best tactic, hit them with a stunning trap to get them interested in you the coax them into the other lair and then using one of the snaring traps to hold them there for longer, with a glow wire for good effect to insure it takes as much damage as possible whilst there.

Also remembering the peace key can be usefully when shooting up the lair to give you just enough time to hit that stim pack before the new spawners see you. Examine is good but also holding the curser over the ham bars to see which has the most health can be useful for creatures taht don't use giant infont of there name.

Oh and I use an FWG5 and a scout blaster for beasts and a SR combat pistol for NPC's i have the DX2 cert but not found one that fires as fast or lays down thedamage as the guns i already have.

Some tactics for melee Rangers, TK in particular:

First, you need to come to terms with the fact thatat some point, you'regoing to get mobbed. With the petchanges (I won't call it a nerf, since I'm pretty much down with it) coming in,you won't be able to use your pet to tank.And with the creature AI bug fix on TC, you will no longer be able to taunt one creature in order to pull a couple of his buddies while he wanders around oblivious. We'll still be able to pull stalkers if we're careful, and I've heard of a method for Probot pulling, but you should know how to tank at least 2 mobs at once, just to be safe.

You know those Ranger traps that all the Marksmen whine about, saying that they're useless? Well, you'll learn to love them. If you're going to have to fight 3 grand wrix at a time, they might as well be blinded, stunned, and dizzy when they get within range, right? Incidentally, at the current time dizzy doesn't do a **edit** thing to creatures from what I can tell, but the recent TC patch is supposedly going to fix that, so that a KD'd and dizzied creature will behave more like a KD'd and dizzied NPC (ie, once he goes down, he'll be there for awhile). In the meantime, you'll want to KD and Warcry once he goes down. This will delay the creature for 10 or 20 seconds, depending on whether or not you have Warcry2. Right now I'm 1/1/1/1 in TK, and a KD+warcry1 gives me enough time to equip my VK and get in 3 or 4 specials before the creature stands back up.

If you're mostly solo, it's proably a good idea to take novice medic if at all possible. Stim B's will keep you in the fight much longer, espescially as a TK, since our HAM costs are pretty harsh. Also, wear armor. If you're going to be fighting more than one mob at a time, you'll need it.

As for scout traps, p-dart, wire mesh, and stink bombs are what I use most often. With the trap bug, I consider adhesive mesh to be pretty useless.

I can take on 2 yellow cons with a good chance of coming out on top, and 3 if I'm lucky. In a situation where I figure my target will be bringing a friend, I'll start out at maximum trap range and throw a wire mesh to get their attention. As they're charging, I'll hit em with the Ranger traps so that they've got state effects by the time they get to me. When they're close enough to hurt, I'll hit the armor macro (it will vary, butI save 15 action per trap by throwing them without armor on). Then it's a matter of AoE attacks, KD+warcry, and watching my HAM bars to see when to stim. Hopefully I'll havekilledone or two mobs by the time I start to worry about my mind bar, and then I decide whether to stay in the fight or throw a p-dart and make a break for it.

Well, I won't be affected by the creature changes as much as most of you (I'm a master CH) but I do occassionally skip the pets (it gets boring after a while). As a rifleman (3/0/0/0) with no ranged support, the main way I fight is to bleed and run. This means a phenacine dart or two and, hopefully, a few hills. I usually start with the dart and then put on the bleeds. I can usually get around 2k worth of bleeds so they go down quite quickly. This works very well (unless the mob warps). I have managed to take down the occassional ancient bull rancor [CL 95]like this (although they are winning by more than 10 to 1, trap effectiveness really needs to go up). Fambaas [CL 30]will almost always drop with this tactic (although make sure they don't have a bunch of friends around before throwing the trap). Just make sure to hit them at least once on top of the bleeds. Otherwise you can't loot/harvest. Oh, and don't run towards other agro mobs. That is bad.

Lythender Nirou
Master Ranger/Master CH/Rifleman (3/0/0/0)
Eclipse Server

Don't feel bad Nraas i did the same thing. I had been icing so many (crazed and hilltop) gurrecks when i saw the red con prowling gurrecks i thought nothing of it. Went in for the kill on one, the other two joined, 10 hits later, i had notice little change in its health.

I did the examine, saw the kinetic defense and then high-tailed it outta there.

LOL

Ummmm....I have rifleman to complement my ranger hunting skills.

Normally I use Conceal Shot to kill creatures. The only problem is that damit bug that makes every friend that the creature have find you instantlyand attack you before the creature you are shoting know that you are shoting it. I hope that the devs fix this bug soon, but I can use conceal shot when the creature is alone, then I need be carefull to wait the creature go far away the creature group. Sometimes I get near aggro creature without maskscent to make a creture stalk me and when it is distant from the groupI maskcent, got to a secluded distance to shot and start to use the conceal shot. Too there's some creatures that live alone (here at Naboo you can find the Peko Peko Albatross, the Plains Hunter, the Rogue Falumpaset) and these creatures are good targets to conceal shot.

The good thing about conceal shot is that I can kill creatures that are red con to me. I know that some guys used conceal shot to kill Peko Peko Albatross and Kimogilas. Theorically, it is possible kill Krayts Dragons using conceal shot. The bad thing is that I never need use traps to kill a creature, then I don't grinding the trap skills...but I grinded fast the wayfaring and the hunting skills because these red con creatures give a good quantity of harversted organics and, as a consequence, a lot of scouting xp.

Other bad thing with conceal shot is that you have an incentive to hunt alone, because no other skill can complement it and the pistoleers shot will dismiss your concealed shots and tell to the creature that you are shoting it. Then you too will have dificult to grind the survival skills because there isn't a group to give more survival xp with the camps.

I too constantly examine the creatures I am shoting to see if they are vulnerable to someattack. I have 6 rifles that I can use to maximize the damage: spraystick, SG82, Jawa Ion, a krayt E11, laser and a T21.

Nice thread. Some really good tactics in here.

As a Rifleman/Ranger, this is what I do:

My laser rifles optimum range is at 60m, so I close to 60m with /maskscent on, wait 5 seconds and then go prone (so to avoid the prone warp bug). Then depending on the mob I'll hit with mindshot1 & mindshot2 (or just mindshot2 if they're not yellow or red cons). After that I'll hit headshot3 once.I can usually at least get these 2 or 3 shots off before the mob figures out where I am and starts charging at me. Once it starts charging, I'll use Adhesive Mesh (the creature is within 50m by this point), followed by another headshot3. By then the mesh has warn offand I'll alter between warningshot & headshot3 until the mob is dead.

This tactic works sometimes, but more often than not the mob will be right on top of me (either properly or by warping) before I can get the mesh on him, simply because your weapon attack speed dictates how fast you can throw traps as well. That's right, throwing 2 traps in a row, there's a long pause between the throws simply because of the rifle. With a slow rifle and not enough skill in rifleman, there's a ton of lag between shots or throws. Kind of a pain, and what makes this tactic fail often.