Ranger Archive
Thread: Do I really want to be a Ranger?
Geaux Darkcloud Try it you might Like it 
, but beforwarned, its not a profession for the Impatient
Ebe
"Yes, you DO want to be a Ranger."
Seriously, I love the profession, bugs and all. I love just going out in the wild for days at a time hunting and killing and harvesting. However, patience is the key to this profession. Camping XP was a pain to get, but otherwise I got all my other XP from doing group hunts with a few friends. Try it out, you might like it!
Whatever you decide, happy hunting to you, and remember....
Once you start down the Ranger path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will, as it has those in this forum!
Geauxx wrote:
Hello All,
I was thinking about becoming a ranger. My question to you is "Is it worth it"? No I am not a hologrinder. I just wanted to create a new character and try two new classes that you do not see too often (Pikeman is the other class). I know that I am glutton for punishment for choosing those two classes but WTH!
1) What are the advantages to Ranger?
2) What are the disadvantages?
3) Are you primarily a hide hunter?
4) Is it profitable?
5) What are some of the main bugs?
6)Is Ranger a sought out class for any particular missions, events,other reasons?
Any input would be appreciated.
O_o this is a tough one to answer honestly.
Advantages:
Rangers are really good in situations where a certain resource is being dropped by creatures that you can't get missions for. For example, corellian avian or rori avian -- here, we clean up because /areatrack helps us find spawns more efficiently than other players and our harvesting bonuses really help when we're after such relatively low yield creatures. Of course, you will need to learn where creatures are more likely to spawn on a planet for this to be useful, and this can be time consuming.
Our harvesting bonuses are also really nice (though we seem to harvest only 30% more than master scouts), but you have to look at the bonus as a long term thing -- for example, a master scout might harvest 100 units of something from a piket, whereas a master ranger will only harvest 130 units. 30 units isn't much, but if you multiply that by 10 or 100 then the differences become much more appriciable (though not as high as they should be).
Disadvantages:
In situations where people can get missions for creatures and harvest, we might be out harvested by elite combat types with only an investment in the scout hunting tree -- here, the hard part (finding creatures) is done by the mission system, so the speed at which these professions can kill creatures makes up for their lower harvesting ability. Rancors on dath. are a good test case.
A lot of our technologies are only marginally useful to the solo hunter (and we take a 40% reduction to our harvesting if we are grouped). For example, my maskscent skill (with bio-enhanced clothes) is so high at master ranger that I only rarely use camo kits when I'm hunting solo. But when I'm grouped with players who don't have as high a maskscent skill as I do, I usually camo them once I get annoyed enough at them getting agro'ed by every agressive creature they pass.
Primarily a Hide Hunter:
Well, I actually hunt meat more often than hides (pays better), but I think this is the same difference. I think a lot of us are primarily resource hunters, but there are other uses for our profession -- you can use your tracking + creature knowledge + camo skills to find rare babies for creature handlers or to help bio-engineers when they are sampling, etc.... Tracking helps for player bounties as well, but a lot of BH's just pick up our tracking tree for those abilities. Oh, and your people tracking ability means that you can find the escapee outside the warren right away.
Is it profitable:
Yes, hunting resources is very profitable, but I think that this is more a function of no-one wanting to harvest things from hard-to-find or low-yield creatures than of any ability inherint in our profession -- well, here again our harvesting bonuses help a little as does areatrack. Once your name gets out as someone willing to harvest, you'll be turning people away on a daily basis.
Known Bugs:
Hmmm... camo breaks a little more often than it should (esp. against kreetles); you have no chance -- absolutely no chance -- of foraging a rare item (unless you consider a fur-cle onion rare); and there are reports of the last trap in a stack always failing to hit. The other things are really functionality issues -- ie., we would like to harvest more -- we think that doulbe the skill point investment should equal double the amount of stuff harvested, etc....
Are we sought out
Well, sort-of, esp. when people want hard-to-find resources or creatures in any quantity. When people want to track things like krayts and albatrosses, they usually ask for our help.
I don't know -- my recommendation is that you get the tracking tree first, as that's where our core abilities lie. Once you have that, if you find it useful, then consider picking up the other trees.
I wonder what everybody else think though-
Iseult
Master Ranger / Mediocre Pistoleer
Bloodfin
Message Edited by Iseult on 04-27-2004 12:08 PM
#1 Cool title "Master Ranger" and nobody else gets it!
#2 Too many to list but what it boils down to is not much return on investment considering the skill points required to reach Master Ranger.
#3 I do not bother with hides at all, but really this is up to you. My main focus: meat.
#4 Short answer: it depends on what you mean by profitable. Long answer: you aren't going to get rich by just being a Ranger, as compared with some of the crafter professions. I was able to make oogles more money as a Master Chef than Master Ranger. If you are in it purely for cash, don't bother.
#5 Bugs? The main bug is kreetles. They are nasty and render camo useless. And they are everywhere. Lookout behind you!!!!
#6 Ranger is not a sought out profession. The few, the patient, the Master Rangers! Sometimes I get asked to locate a creature for a CH or BE, but that's about it. Every now and again a doctor or BE will ask me to harvest a specific high quality resource that just shifted in.
while we will get more units per kill, in the time it takes us to kill 1 tough critter, you will have taken down 3 or 4.
It isa fun class with few bugs, but there isn't much meat to it. Many of us have fun playing Rangers and are too stubborn to quit. If you want to try out a new class, then by all means try Ranger, but it has limited utility.
Geauxx wrote:
Hello All,
I was thinking about becoming a ranger. My question to you is "Is it worth it"? No I am not a hologrinder. I just wanted to create a new character and try two new classes that you do not see too often (Pikeman is the other class). I know that I am glutton for punishment for choosing those two classes but WTH!
1) What are the advantages to Ranger?
Tracking, Camo kits (maskscent you can apply to others), we crawl really fast, pocket cities
2) What are the disadvantages?
Tracking depends on the server spawn rate. Camo breaks easily against low level mobs and costs resources to use. Harvesting abilities are not that much better than scout levels. The skill points to master Ranger limit you to 1 master elite Combat profession, or much dabbling. If you look at my current sig, you can see I have become a dabbler.
3) Are you primarily a hide hunter?
Meat, myself. I have a Doc/CM buddy that I try to keep happy.
4) Is it profitable?
I don't sell resources or my tracking abilityand therefor have no money.
5) What are some of the main bugs?
As I mentioned, spawn rates determine what you can track, so if no one has been through the area to spawn critters, you can't track them. The last trap in a stack always fails(?). Camo breaks easily on small critters.
6)Is Ranger a sought out class for any particular missions, events,other reasons?
People will mainly ask you to gather resources or track for rare critters.
Any input would be appreciated.