Ranger Archive
Thread: What's so good about Rangers?
A bit of background: I'm playing this game, as I play any game, to enjoy myself. I'm not here to be Uber, I'm not a powergamer, I don't really care about DPS and the like. I enjoy playing out-doorsy kinds of characters. I enjoy resource collecting rather than item crafting. I like combat solo or in a group, but I like being self reliant. I love toys and gadgets: vehicles, camps, mounts, pets.
I'm close to mastering Scout. After that I am planning towork onPistoleer and a third profession. There is a posibility that I might slowly try and migrate from pistols to rifles at some point rather than master Pistoleer
Currently I am undecided between Creature Handler and Ranger. Even with various nerfs going onI find the CH profession very attractive. I like pet classes and there are some pretty cool pets in this game. Another advantage of CH is that I can drop some of my scout trees I don't need much andI won't need to master scout, this gives me a bit more wiggle room if I change weapons.I guess my problem is that I really don't know enough about the Ranger class to weight the two of them up well.
Does anyone want to try and convince me to be a Ranger rather than a CH? I figured this was the best place to ask!
I was trying to think of what to tell you, but it seemed kinda lame in my head... Camps? Harvesting? traps? AREATRACK!!! Thats the key seller t\as an exciting option... You can track creatures, NPC's and eventually players...
But other than that i couldnt think of what to tell you other than... experience it, you'll either love it or not. I love it. I honestly think it takes a certain kind of player to be a Ranger in this game. One who wants to be valuable to multiple classes and be unique and not concern yourself with being better than everyone and pwn'ing everyone.
Of course I talk out of my a$$ alot.
That's a complex question, my friend -- and one without a definite answer. As it is now, Ranger is the logical extension of the scout tree. We're Superscouts, to a degree. Our traps aren't that much better, but they are AoE (in theory at least). Camo is good for helping out the folks in your group who aren't scouts (and therefore don't have maskscent themselves), but as a general rule I use maskscent on myself. Our camps, though, absolutely rock -- although I'm sure some will disagree. They are a huge boost to healing, are great for whipping up a few Stim Bs or Cs in the field for the medics or doctors in the group (those crafting stations are like the best idea ever), and hopefully they will soon repel aggros.
The biggest toy of the Ranger class, though, is tracking, which has been an invaluable skill to my guild. You honestly have no idea how cool it is until you've either used it or been in a group with someone using it.
To be honest, even with two very cool trees to our advantage, it is my opinion that Ranger is more a state of mind than a fully realized profession -- although there is hope for things to come.
But despite our few shortcomings, I will say that this is the single best sub-community in the game. We have the best Correspondent ever. Ever. And if you need help with anything, there is alwaysa fellow Ranger that will gladly give you a hand or two 
Some of the real benefits to being a member of the Ranger community are just that. The Ranger Community. I have lurked these boards for sometime. I will from time to time drop in and say something or ask a question. The veteran users of this interface for mass communication do not jump down my throat nor do they be-little me. They treat me as an equal and answer my question or direct me to where the answer may be found. I owe many on here a debt of gratitude for helping me, through advice, to attain my Master tag.
As to in-game Ranger benefits. Well there is a freedom of movement associated with being a ranger. Through conceal or maskscent combined with wayfaring, there is no planet or area that I am afraid to go through. I can avoid detection better than anyone, I can outrun almost anything. I get to see areas that most people seem to avoid.
I have recently had to regain my Master Ranger tag. I had given it up for some skill or another. During that time I found myself regretting that decision to the point that I obsessed with getting it back. I dropped all my CH and went running back into the Ranger fold. It felt as if there was something missing, and I wasn't happy until I could wear that tag again.
Allot of the benefits from being a Ranger seem to be more personal than statistical. There are other classes that can do more damage, there are other classes that may seem less broken. But they aren't Rangers. Sure its only a word, but that word carries with it a tremendous history in both the real world and fantasy realms.
Your decision is yours to make. Travel Well.
JokitoRoyo wrote:
Sure its only a word, but that word carries with it a tremendous history in both the real world and fantasy realms.
Very true, and almost enough to bring a tear to the eye. Thanks for the answers and feel free to add more. I will be checking back. The "Ranger" profession is always going to have a lot of appeal to many in a lot of games. It is such a solid fantasy archtype and a lot of people (myself include) will be drawn to it. My character looks like a Ranger, I pick clothes/armor not on their stats but on their looks because I think it's the sort of stuff a Ranger type character would wear. So yeah, I guess I'm a Ranger at heart.
So I guess I don't need much convincing!
I'm now thinking about mastering scout and trying to balance three classes CH/Ranger and Pistoleer, in which case I'd probably only master at most one of those. One advantage to this is that the XP I'll get will compliment the three classes well. Pistols/Scouting/CH don't cross over much and are all relatively easy to get. Another advantage isI can pick and choose which trees to develop more than others.
This just strikes me as a fairly archtypal Ranger build. Right down to enough Creature Handling for a companion, but not enough for a beast that can out damage you
A more technical question.... do people see this sort of mix as being viable. As a Ranger do you really need to be able to master an advanced combat skill to be self reliant in the fieldor can you survive with a little bit of advanced combat weapons.
"As a Ranger do you really need to be able to master an advanced combat skill to be self reliant in the fieldor can you survive with a little bit of advanced combat weapons."
It all about degree of self reliance...
- If a player doesn't mind ever fighting anything more powerful than a nuna, then they can get away with very little skill in a weapon profession.
However, many of us preferto opt to have a little more content within our grasp (down Kimo down!)...
- And therefore require much more extensive weapon skills.
Last night I was doing some PVP with a small group. It seems that several of the group members had a vendetta against a particular player. When I told them he was 342M to the SW, it made their day.
During our weekly guild hunt, we camp in style with my high tech field bases, complete with Weapon and med crafting stations. It's tough for a group of 15 to crowd into a master scout tent, but in a HTFB there's plenty of room for everyone. People always appreciate a nice camp.
Again last week during our weekly guild hunt, we all had missions, but I tracked a lair of Rancors. We dedided to take it down, and it was the most fun of the entire hunt. One of the CH's in the group even got a baby rancor.
Sometimes we guild hunt for a particular meat or hide. I collect more than anyone else in group, sometimes 2-4x more.
I help keep medical types in the group alive. When a MOB aggros on them. I drop a Phen Dart trap on them, or resuce/burst run. That's how I get free buffs, and my damage treated first.
I made 151k credits yesterday selling 6k of avian meat I had laying around. I also got a tell from one of the buyers friends asking if I had anymore of that meat. He offered 30cpu.
All of the above happened since Sunday night. Ranger is a fun profession.
Ranger is da bomb, to me. With what you said about yourself and play style, I think there is a very high chance you will truly enjoy ranger. I am very similar in how I am, like being solo, exploring, being helpful in a group, and being unique. The ranger is all of this. You can spend all of your time out solo, of course being near master scout you know probably know this. You mask scent is topped out, and your TN is topped out. The camo kits help a lot in traversing adv planets, or avoiding annoying agro NPC. The camps are neat looking, but thats about it. The ranger traps are only helpful if you are in a group, and have melee tanks up there. The harvesting bonuses are great, I pull a lot of resources off of stuff.
My main thing is hunting for the fun of it, or to get specific resources for customers. Another idea that not all rangers do is, load up a camo, and hit a city that does a lot of missions. Start wandering around, and using areatrack helps, and doing search on all the lairs. Eggs sell for a lot. That way you are not hunting the lairs of peoples missions.
Areatrack is awesome, whether solo or with a group. It helps greatly in just wandering around hunting things, both NPC and animals. It's helpful using player track to hunt down rebels, or Imps depending on your preferance. :-) The ranger is fun, adventenurous, and a bit unique. I back it up with pistal, but rifle is a great combo with it, because with the sniper line, you can truely be a sniper, combining it with camo. I know a few rangers that are working rifleman, and ranger, they primarly hunt solo, and are doing amazing things.
CH seems cool and fun, and compliments Ranger well. If you are trying to decide, thing of this also. With CH you don't really need a high end weapon skill.The pets are your weapons, and meat sheild. The weapons are just a backup to help the pets. With the addition of even just some new cool traps, ranger could be very cool. It has a lot of potential as a profession.
I'm now thinking about mastering scout and trying to balance three classes CH/Ranger and Pistoleer.
This is a good combination and what I am at the moment. You can master both Ranger and Creature Handler while having enough skills to get Novice Pistoleer and either two first tier boxes or three in one line. With a pet to take the damage and the two bleeds, chest shot 2, and the nice variety of pistol types at your disposal, you can handle the majority of encounters you face.
By taking less in either Ranger or Handler, you can increase your pistol skills or add the support line from Marksman.
And now with the current frenzy for holocrons, /areatrack is helpful when looking for those random force-sensitive characters that spawn in the wild in areas like Dantooine.
Also, when groups go hunting Krayt Dragons, it's hit or miss if they find anything. With /areatrack, if there is one spawned somewhere then I'll find them. Sometimes you'll even get paid to do this, and invited along. When your group takes a dragon down you can harvest the corpse for well over 700+ hide, meat, bone. And for those that still need scouting xp, I've been getting 2k xp per dragon harvest.
I've been a ranger a while, and I find myself asking this question all the time. I've sunk a lot of skill points into ranger (2-1-3-2) and although I love the idea of being a ranger, and the role-play aspects, and going out into the wilderness, there just isn't much ability-wise that you seem to get out of the ranger class.
Mask scent seems better than cammoflauge, at least at my level. Breaks less often and is obviously much much more convenient to use.
After 2 skill boxes of trapping I've gotten only a single new trap, and it's nice, but not *that* much better than the scouting ones.
You get a really nice new tent with the novice ranger box, but one box into the camping skill line has given me absolutely nothing in return. No new tents, and the extra foraging ability seems to do nothing at all over what master scout gives you. The "rare items" it mentions in the skill tree seems to be total BS, and there are only a dozen or so items total that you seem to be able to forage.
As far as hunting goes, the tracking ability is cool. Very cool in fact. But as far as being a better hunter, well, you can find stuff better, but extra harvesting abilities seem pretty minimal, and you don't seem to kill animals any more efficienty.
So for me, if you look at Ranger objectively, about the only thing of real value here is tracking. Very little else of any big significance.
Godly Scouts.
That is all a Ranger truly is, in essence at least. If you enjoy harvesting, selling meats for cash, and camping to your hearts content. It may be a profession for you. But if you'd rather just shoot stuff and have no real use for their corpses in a long term sense, anything else works fine. It's apparent you'll still be able to harvest with your skills as a Scout, so really it looks as if you don't need to become a Ranger.
Your combat aspirations are something which require you show more devotion to than Rangering.
for ne thing they are great in groups.
you can track NPCs/crits for hunting, i was on tat yeaterday using tracjing to find krayts.
camo is great, you can camo the whole party to hide them from NPCs