Ranger Archive

To be honest, I'm a little dissatisfied. Seems the only thing I got for all my effort was the ability to craft dath camo, which I can probably buy somewhere. (Yeah yeah, I know I made fun of rangers buying ranger items in another thread.)

Here is what I've noticed, or not noticed as the case may be:

Harvesting: No more than I did before master. Now, I realise each creature type has a max you can harvest from it, but it appears to me that once you get tracking IV, that's it. The master bonus doesn't seem to affect it. (Maybe there isn't one and I thought there was?)

Tracking: Also no difference from Tracking IV. Actually, there is no difference between Tracking I and Tracking IV, other than you get the ability to track npcs and players eventually.

Trapping: Don't care. If I never have to throw another trap, I'll be perfectly happy.

Terrain Bonuses: As I don't tend to crawl much, I have no idea whether this increased or not. Terrain mods stopped applying to me when I mastered scout.

Camoflague: This does seem to last a bit longer, and also it hasn't broken quite as often. HOWEVER, it now seems my maskscent doesn't work at all. I've had it break against crazed durnis, huurtons, etc, where before it rarely if ever did. (As a side note, I've maxed my scout xp and thus no longer receive the convenient feedback as to whether I "made my save" or not.) Dath camo is good, but as I said above, I can probably buy it if I need it. (Anyone know if you can use it without master?)

Frontiering: Obviously no change here, other than the fact that frontiering IV was the last block I needed and high tech field bases > *. GIVE US OUR HUNTING CABIN!

Melee/Ranged Defense Mods: Yeah. Right.

So, I'd like to hear counter-arguments, even flames if you must, to prove to me that my months of work haven't been wasted. Right now, I feel like dumping trapping and wayfaring so I have the extra points to put into my weapon prof.

At least save it until the patch so you can get the badge.

To me Ranger is a bag of mixed tricks.

Trapping - In its current incarnation, no one is going to disagree with you about Trapping. (Weren't we supposed to get a trip-wire last patch?)

Tracking - I do find Tracking rather useful for locating certain creatures or NPCs. It's also fun to see who is around and I have used it once or twice to locate people I have been separated from. The thing I really like about this line is the creature knowledge because I am also a master creature handler.

Frontiering - The High-Tech Field Base is just so awesome looking. There are rumors it is repelling aggressives now as well (I haven't tried). Just the pain of learning this line makes me not want to give it up.

Wayfaring - I agree that as my Wayfaring goes up, my maskscent goes down. I've reported it, bugged it, and it still happens. I think there is left-over code from the split that checks the wrong thing. Poor faction ignoring conceal doesn't help with my impression of it. Were this working correctly, it would be my favorite line. I can really crawl well, too. Unfortunately I am working on a melee combat profession at the moment...

Not exactly a sterling review, which makes me sad. This is a profession with so much potential, but it only gets worked on every few passes. I've been a near master, surrendered most of it, then remastered. I'll likely do it a few more times as well since the only hard part about it is Frontiering.

hopefully, the new traps and camps will give rangers a needed boost, right now the only truly useful line to me is the tracking/harvesting line. I still wish we could make a pvp trap, a snare or something, balanced against melee classes getting a mod to resist the traps

Yep... all you can do is just wait for new stuff. We know its coming. It's just a matter of when.