Ranger Archive

I've been a Master Ranger on Tarq for about a two weeks now. After playing as a Ranger (using Ranger Abilities as much as I could), I'm coming to the realization that it's a pretty useless class. Not that the skills couldn't become useful, but I don't see them as adding any value either solo or as a supporting member of a group. There is nothing in the tree that the scout can't do 'almost' as well, without wasting 63 skill points on the ranger tree.

Here's the bugs I've found so far, and probably the reason I'll give up my master ranger title.

Wayfaring: Maskscent is bugged. very very bugged. I purchased several maskscent enhancements, added them to my custom 4 slot clothes, and finally got maskscent all the way up to 152 (Bothan + Master Ranger = 115) + 37 enhancement points. I STILL get detected constantly by non-aggro mobs. And of course, the NPC's see right through it anyway. 'Travel Anywhere?'. I think not. With their new 'aggro if detected' fix, that's going to make the skill even worse than useless, since I'm always detected by non-aggressive creatures.
Benefit : Minimal.. If Maskscent works, it's ok. 60 seconds delay can kill you. No 'running in a straight line', nope, have to walk around like everyone else does. Don't need any scout xp anymore, so what's the point. The extra 2 shots you get on creatures while masked is one of the plusses though.

Frontiering: Camps. For starters, the High Tech Field Base is totally bugged. Crafting Stations do not work. Healing does not occur. Repel Creatures? It seems to attract them. It 'looks' very nice, but, there's no point to it. If I want to do crafting outside a city, I can buy a crafting droid (which all crafters have anyway) to craft in the field. Even the base Ranger Camp is just a glorified scout camp.
Benefit : None. Except you get to grind and camp forever

Field Bioscience: The Creature to Hit bonus and Harvesting bonus are good. I'd keep this skill if I were going to keep just one skill in the entire tree. However, it provides no 'group support' ability, and since only one person can get scouting xp, I always give up the looting to someone who needs the xp, thus bypassing any benefit this has in a group.
Benefit : Minimal, if you like to spend all day solo harvesting, otherwise zilch.

Advanced Trapping: Umm. Nothing works here. Nothing. Flash Bomb and Sonic Trap are both bugged. They hit sometimes, and when they do, only affect the single creature. They are expensive to make, and offer zero benefit. There's only 2 new traps in the entire line, and they 'appear' to be area-affect versions of the traps,but don't work.
Benefit : Less than zero. Since the traps don't even work, cost more that the scout trap of the same ability, it has no reason.

Not to say that 'Ranger' isn't a good thing to have in your title, but those 63 skill points could be much better put to use somwhere else (Combat Medic). In order to solve this problem, first they are going to need to fix the broken parts of the class, then add some features to make it worthwhile. Add in a 'Group Bonus' feature on Creature to Hit for instance, Make High level camps heal very fast, then people would WANT a ranger to come along in a group, as it is, most people have scouting skills, and use basic camps just as well. Add in a group 'Maskscent' bonus. Imagine 2 master rangers in a group adding big bonuses to maskscent, and a group would be able to travel endor and lok safely.

Granted there are other classes that are in much worse shape than the ranger, but being a glorified scout is really all the ranger is at the moment.

End of Rant

Poobear Hu'gsalot Tarquinas Master Ranger

Loved yer post.

IMO, first they need to fix the bugs, then they need to give us more useful abilities. Concealing is the only thing useful in PvP, and this so called 'tracking' skills we have (from the SWG Manual) actually need to exist. Imagine being able to find a spawn in 1 minute through tracking, instead of 10 minutes through wandering around and hoping for the best.

Hey you just saved me from spending 63 skill points =)

Do the terrain navigation bonuses that the Ranger tree gives any good? They seem to just give fast crawling bonuses.

Ummm...57 points. I maintain that Novice Ranger is a great deal for Master Scouts, BH's & CH's. You get the bonuses & the seven person camp. Otherwise...yeah. Kinda worthless compared to almost any other Elite class.

If a dev doesn't address every single one of your points, then we should all start thinking of where we're going to spend our points when we retrain out of this wannabe class.

- Zarn

I am a Nocive Pistoleer now and about to become a master scout. I have switched from Combat Medic to Squad Leader to Creature Handler. I just dont know what i want to be, except pistoleer But I have read all of the message boards and one thing that hits me is everyone says the same thing. My profession is broken or there are broken parts. I am talking all of the professions. If I were you I would just wait til they have time to fix the problems. For some odd reason I think this will happen pretty quick.

quote "If I were you I would just wait til they have time to fix the problems"

hehe... 'fix all problems'....they should have worked it out before they shipped this game.

If you haven't already noticed, all of the points you bring up have been included in our correspondent's report to the developers. I still intend on becoming a Master Ranger/Master Pistoleer, in spite of the current problems. I am enjoying it so far (then again, I am not the kind of player who feels the need to be the uberest character type or the flavor-of-the-week character type). The way I see it, when the class does become all it is intended, I will already be there. I won't have to spend any additional time leveling it up.

Also, regarding the Mask Scent skill enhancements... I believe I have been reading all over the boards that the skill enhancing objects are all bugged. Even though they appear to add to your skill, they don't actually do anything. Having said that, I do think Mask Scent isn't working as effectively as it should.

I do like Ranger, and I think it does have nice potential, IF they get around to making improvements. If not sometime soon, I guess I'll be moving my points elsewhere...sadly

i think TEST CENTer currently it testing fixes to the the CRAFTING classes. armorsmith weaponsmith etc.

you want to get this classs fixed JOIN TEST CENTER NOW!!! AT-ATS are on Test center join just to see those.

So true Vyshen! I'm waiting for them to nerf my Rifleman skills for some "percieved" inbalance. My Data Droids are already eyecandy, and they keep breaking things that work, while leaving things that don't work at ALL (our traps, the entire commando tree) alone. I'm going to stick it out I guess. I do have SOME fun while I'm playing, so maybe if I remain hopeful, I'll get to see some meaningful improvements, instead of the downward trend we're experiencing. God.. and they wondered why all of us beta players screamed that it wasn't ready.

I'm slowly climbing my way up the Ranger tree to Master.

I agree with the originalpost on all the topics. But, i'm gonna stick it out and have faith that the devs will fix all our bugs, than eventually give us some luv, make us more useful and wanted to the team/grouping environment.

Hopefully these issuses will be addressed while i'm slowly grinding my way to the top.

I made a similar post/rant back in beta.

As for release I tested the scout abilities to see whether they got any improvments. In particular, I tested traps against my weapons. It turned out that the time I loose throwing a trap can be better used firing an extra pool-shot. So traps haven't been usefull. So I simply kept exploration for speed purposes and hunting as an additional trade skill (headed for CH). Everything else is borked, useless and not worth the extra skillpoints. Improve your mecical abilities instead of camps, improve your weapon skills instead of traps (so that you have usefull skills for PvP, too), and instead of rescue ...use your camping downtime to improve combat strategies.

kinnah