Ranger Archive

I tried posting this in the rifleman forum only to have it pretty much ignored.... Sorry it was 3am when I wrote it.

here it is

Currently I'm a 3-1-1-3 Rifleman,(maxed out rilfe xp) Master Ranger, 2-3-0-4 CH (Maxed out CH exp) , I spend about 95% of the game doing hide/bone harvests (PVE), and the rest of the time faction missions and the very rare PVP Encounter.

I've played from day 2 of launch and even made the dummy mistake of unlearning Novice Sharpshooter by accident. So I have played rifleman for quite a while. Just that I dabbled to 3-3-4-4 in CH before the big CH nerf. Anyways here are some of my findings. and play about 2-3 hrs a night

For PVE (ham over 3k) low energy res My usual tactic is (Laser Rifle ) Mind1/Mind2, HS3, switch to E11 HS2 , send in pair of pets, HS2 until dead, most of the time I can kill the creature soon as the pets start to take some damage. If I'm lucky

For PVE (any ham with energy res) Jawa/sg82 (see above)

For PVE (ham under 3k that bafs) Send pets to attack lair, dot biggest creature and flurryshot 2 the lot of em with Laser (until half mind) then cycle to E11 rifle for rest of it.

For PVE (ham over 3k that bafs) Succumb to the Dark Side of CH and call out my biggest pet/pets, load up on Muon and either flurry1/2 or hs3/2 with mind1/mind2 combos, If I can do it fast enough I can dot everything and get back to fire support for my pet.

Example, Kill everything at lair first, then one tap lair, wait for spawn (as mind regens) one pops up , kill it, then attack lair, of course it never fails and one warps to me, /tellpet attack, then run away like little girl with pistol in hand, pets have blocked for me , equip rifle, resume fire. pets attack lair creatures swarm pets flurry2 on lair , creatures die, 2 pets stims, next lair

Now here on the forums there appears to be a few schools of thought's.

1: Sniper Role 2: Fire Support Role 3: Useless untill Master.

My question is

A: If one is happy with their current speed and ablities in Rifleman is there really a reason to Master?

Other than SS2 and Speed bonuses?

B: In the Sniper line there appears to be two useless skills (for 5 skill points) sniper shot and surpise shot, with the current status of accuracy. Would that even make a differance.?

I understand the ability to db from a distance is a powerfull skill, but useless in my eyes if your not into pvp.

C: Currently I fire my e11/laser rifle at 2 seconds on auto fire, which I am more than happy with. The rate my human (600 will, 550 focus, 800 mind) ham goes down firing specials, speed is more of a hinderance than an bonus. I under stand that the aoe attack of strafe shot2 is awe inspiring sight but my skill points aren't there.

D: It seems to me that the fire support role would best be utilized with the special abilites line and counter sniping lines, ? of which i have one of those columns.

So how does this fit for someone that is a Ranger first, Rifleman Second and Uses CH as a defensive measure.

My role in PVE (Grouped) is flank guard or rear guard, PVP/NPC is covert recon , tracker

Now before someone pops a gasket about how I can think such things, I've had a rifle in my hand from the start before I even realized there was a 2.5 melee damage mod. I got to Master Ranger by harvesting a ton of creatures of which I hardly ever grouped. (ninja harvesting killed my want to group from the very start) Even now grouping is rare. I don't even group with my pets due to Harvest issues. All in all I do 90% of the damage I do before I send the pets in (nice no pet regen in camps, ) no medic skills, only over priced pet stims.

Comments or suggestions?

Well..if you're really doing 90% of your damage before sending in pets, it seems like Master Rifleman would benefit you more than CH...but I guess a master rifleman/master ranger who gave up CH would be able to comment on that better than I. Thanks for the post...I'm thinking of giving up pistoleer for rifleman and find these issues interesting.

Jamga Gibbrad

Master Ranger
Novice Medic
Novice Pistoleer

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JamgaGibbrad wrote:

Well..if you're really doing 90% of your damage before sending in pets, it seems like Master Rifleman would benefit you more than CH...but I guess a master rifleman/master ranger who gave up CH would be able to comment on that better than I. Thanks for the post...I'm thinking of giving up pistoleer for rifleman and find these issues interesting.

Jamga Gibbrad

Master Ranger
Novice Medic
Novice Pistoleer

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You offer a valid suggestion and is duelly noted. How ever according to my Calculations if I Master Rifleman I will have 18 Skill points Left over, Just enough for 1-1-0-0 in CH. Now that does allow one to yield some good creatures gsp/grw.

It Just Unlearning Hard work is always hard But after having 2 pets out for a while its like an evil addiciton

There may be a cheaper way and get all but really high social ones (you may have to go for the Ranger/MCH/Pistol template for that one). I have a goodlow level pet (Wrix) on guard and a 2-handed sword. 2-handed has mind attacks and is a great finisher.

I will be giving back the CH when I am done with the pet commands that I need and end up with full rifle sniper and support (rifle 4/0/0/4) and heavy sword (brawler 0/0/4/0) with a pet. What that does is provide for ranged AoE, Melee AoE and a pet to draw off exessive numbers when "bad things" happen, as they usually do to rifleman. I would not recommend Master in both rifleman and ranger just yet as rifle would be your ONLY weapon (4 points left) and a low level pet will be squished if you are not helping. The reason I say this is pure rifleman are gimped with x2.5 damage (this is a REALLY BAD limitation, I die fast if I can't switch to sword in time) and accracy is not well thought out by the devs. You have a very tight range that you can be reliable for. Now you could trade all the points in sword/brawler for CH and get pretty far too, perhaps better then my way but I don't know enough about CH post-nerf to know how much of it you can be viable with and live with running when things go bad.

Thanks for the Feed back, now that you mention a few things

"If you want to keep Master Ranger I don't think you need to get Master Rifle to be effective with it. Ideal would prob be 4/0/4/4 or even 4/0/3/4, startle 2 seems to do about the same damage for me as Flush 2. Also, with the possible speed nerf coming that may change to 4/0/3/2, since you wont gain any speed bonuses past that and with flush2 you dont need flurry2 (especially with the dizzy/knockdown nerf).

Personally I would recommend, with keeping Master Ranger and the way you hunt/explore:
Master Ranger, Rifle 4/0/4/2, CH 2/2/0/0."

I Actually Think, I will attempt to Do the following, 4-1-4-4 in rifle (i have marksman at 4-0-0-0), I really Like concealed shot, and stick with ch at 3-3-0-0, or 3-2-0-0 Im gonna mess with the counter-sniping line tonight and call it good. with the pending speed nerf You have some valid points,

But since I am a glutton for punishment I might actually unlearn countersnipe 1 , go to 3-4-2-4 in ch, release alot of my pets I know I won't be using and go tame about 6 grauls. Fill up with stored pets and unlearn all of manament line and go down to 3-2-0-0 or 3-3-0-0 in ch, crazy tank, , then everything else in rifle
Thanks for the feedback

Well, I went up that tree cause the speed is there. Untill they fix this warping mob thing I'm hanging onto my sword till the last possible minute and I wanted close to the speed of a master while having some kind of AoE. As long as it can kill an assistive pack of slicehounds it will work for me. I'll see how FS2 compares when I'm ready to try that (gonna suck bad when I have to worry about melee again).

You see I don't PvP (might skew my view on this)and I need to run up to a body b 4 the rot hits to maximize my harvest. I do need a replacement for the brawler spin move and I solo on easy planets a lot to wait for my friends to log. In my explore missions the initial clearing has to be timed well and each one dropped fast before anyother critter poping out. To me the most important things were speed and accuracy.

I have heard wonderful and magical things about strafeshot2 and I would like to get there someday (not to mention near all rifles shoot at an effective speed of 1 sec). Sadlythat wouldmean only 4 SP left and the explore missions at that level rolls really rare critters that takes weeks to find in the numbers given. I have used Tabbage and Violent Krahbu to make my supplemental money while harvesting meat and hide from these to sell to the crafters/doctors. It would probably end this kind of solo-ing.

Dammit Jim, this needs and edit button...

change from:
"(not to mention near all rifles shoot at an effective speed of 1 sec)"

change to:
"(not to mention near all rifles shoot at an effective speed of 1 sec, but of course this is proposed to be nerfed so probably shouldn't be mentioned)"

wheni hit master ranger i decided to focus on scouring the galaxy for only high quality resources and thought i was a fairly efficient hunter with a little patience a rifleman ranger can conceal shot almost any mob. Everything changed when i it master ranger master rifleman the speed bonus and strafe shot 2 combined with your ranger harvesting abilities is awesome. The same lairs i had to carefully pick apart with conceal i can now decimate without a problem. At the moment i have held onto novice medic but as you pointed out you can put skills into ch and still be able to get a reasonable tanking pet. The climb up the rifleman tree can be dicouraging but don't judge the proffesion tillyou hit master the difference is unreal.I can walk up to a midnight vir vur lair on rori and andtake the lair and all its spawns out in less than a minutewithout a scratch.

IMO master ranger/master rifleman/chis the ultimate harvesting combination.

I'll try to answer generally here rather than each one individually, sorry if I miss anything. Right now my char is set-up similiar to yours rifle/ranger/ch except I have my skill points distributed diferently. The benefits you'll gain from getting CS3 and having Flushing2 are def worth it, its a more powerful shot than Flurry2 every time, that along with Rifle Special 4 will up your speed and power alot. Unless you're selling pets to other CH's alot and using it a source of income to stay away from missions, I would drop Manage 4 to 1 or just drop it altogether if you have pets you use a lot and dont release/tame new ones often). With only 2/3/0/4 theres not really any great combos you can call (that I know of, offhand) so losing commands you already have trained and the extra pet out is no biggie. Also, with Flush2 you'll deal alot more damage and your creature will take less.

If you're staying with rifle, max your will and focus out if you havent already (sorry I can never remember that numbers so if you already have ignore this ), if you're still having trouble with mind drain find some couplers that will provide +31% dmg/-15% Mind, you get bonuses to two key areas and the -15% can help alot if you get in a fight with a big group of critters.

As for the sniping line and the accuracy bonuses. Yes, both surprise shot and sniping shot are pretty much useless, especially once you have even the weakest of the 4 AOE attacks. For the acc bonuses, I "think" they help, I've had Sniping IV for awhile now so its hard to remember. We still miss way too much even then but I would say my accuracy at less than ideal ranges is improved.

If you want to keep Master Ranger I don't think you need to get Master Rifle to be effective with it. Ideal would prob be 4/0/4/4 or even 4/0/3/4, startle 2 seems to do about the same damage for me as Flush 2. Also, with the possible speed nerf coming that may change to 4/0/3/2, since you wont gain any speed bonuses past that and with flush2 you dont need flurry2 (especially with the dizzy/knockdown nerf).

Personally I would recommend, with keeping Master Ranger and the way you hunt/explore:
Master Ranger, Rifle 4/0/4/2, CH 2/2/0/0.
That'll give you the skills you need to hunt: accuracy + two powerful shots (flush2 and startle2), speed but not so much you drain yourself dead, and some nice pets to guard/tank with. Also, thats 250 points assuming you have Marksman 4/0/0/4, though with the supp fire nerf and CH abilites Ranged IV could be a good contender for the chopping block for Rifle spec 3 and 4.