Rifleman Archive
Thread: Near Master Rifleman Wants to Know the Best Sub-Profession and Skills to Chase
ironman727 wrote:
I'm closing in on Masta Rifleman, and would like to know what the best supporting profs and skills would be to maximize my playing enjoyment.
I'm considering Masta Ranger, for obvious reasons. Anyone have any reasons why I should/shouldn't go Rifleman/Ranger? Any other skills or whole professions I should look at?
Thanks,
B
For some people, the reasons *not* to master Ranger are as follows:
The camping tree is worthless. When was the last time you saw anyone using a camp for anything other than grinding out wilderness experience or roleplaying? Save the 14 skill points, and spend them on something else that you will actually use, like Novice Medic. Any revamp to the camping skills will probably come after the mythical "Combat Rebalance", and those of us who have been waiting 9+ months to see it know how soon that's going to happen...
The trapping tree is almost worthless. You only get *two* traps out of the four skill boxes, and those traps do the same thing as your scout traps, only they have an area effect. Rescue is worthless unless you're an uber melee profession; if you are not an uber melee profession, you're probably going to die even faster than the guy you rescued. The only really useful thing from the trapping line is the additional trapping skill, which makes it easier for you to land traps on high levelcreatures... but how often do players actually use traps on creatures for any purpose other than grinding trap experience (answer: very rarely)? The trapping line needs a major overhaul, with the addition of many many new and useful traps, before it will really be worth the 14 skill points you spend on it.
The exploration tree is pretty useful, if you're one of the people for whom camouflage actually works successfully. As I recall, the only camo kit you get from the master box is for Dathomir, which is probably the most likely place in the galaxy for your camouflage to fail frequently. The additional terrain navigation does nothing to help your running or walking speed; terrain navigation over 50 merely increases your crawling speed. This would really only be useful to a Rifleman who needs to crawl to sneak up on NPCs and creatures for sniping, or for Bio Engineers who need to crawl up to Mutant Rancors and other nasty creatures to sample DNA. The effects of using camouflage while sniping NPCs is vague at best, and non-existant at worst. If anyone can post more specific information, please do!
The shining star of the Ranger skill list is the tracking line of skills. Rangers get Area Track at Novice, but it's really not useful for anything; it doesn't really matter if you know what kind of creatures are within 500m of your position, when you have absolutely no idea which way they are or how far away they are. In order for Area Track to become useful, you must get at least the first tracking box, which tells you which direction to go. The second tracking box allows you to track NPCs, which may or may not be useful to you; most Rangers with tracking skills seem to be focused on harvesting creature resources. At the third tracking box, you will see how far away the MOBs are, as well as the direction, so it helps you find MOBs very easily... providing that those MOBs have already spawned in the world. Almost every MOB spawn in SWG is dynamic; it won't spawn until a player goes near the area to trigger it. This means that if you're the only person around, and nobody has been in the area for a long time, there will not be any MOBs to track until you start moving around to trigger the spawns. The fourth tracking box simply allows you to track other player characters, and if you don't do much PvP combat, this box is practically worthless to you, except for the bonus to creature havest and knowledge, and the slight bonus to hit creatures with ranged weapons.
My personal preference was to go with Creature Handler and Rifleman, while still keeping most of the tracking tree from Ranger to facilitate my creature hunting and taming (Mask Scent from Master Scout helps a lot!). Rifleman is the most ranged of the ranged combat professions; you need to keep your targets at a distance, because if they get right up in your face you can get into a lot of trouble. While being sneaky and sniping can work very well in some situations,when you havelots of creature pets available you can hold groups ofMOBs at bay with your pets, while you do yourGunner thing (cone attack, cone attack, cone attack, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, you get the picture
). As an added bonus, if you have creature pets to do the tanking for you, you really don't need any armor or buffs at all; the pets are your armor and shield, and a swig of brandy is the only buff you really need. My Wookiee has been pretty successful with this template, and it's been a lot of fun too.
Vaelorn wrote:
ironman727 wrote:
I'm closing in on Masta Rifleman, and would like to know what the best supporting profs and skills would be to maximize my playing enjoyment.
I'm considering Masta Ranger, for obvious reasons. Anyone have any reasons why I should/shouldn't go Rifleman/Ranger? Any other skills or whole professions I should look at?
Thanks,
B
My Wookiee has been pretty successful with this template, and it's been a lot of fun too.
Vaelorn wrote:
ironman727 wrote:
I'm closing in on Masta Rifleman, and would like to know what the best supporting profs and skills would be to maximize my playing enjoyment.
I'm considering Masta Ranger, for obvious reasons. Anyone have any reasons why I should/shouldn't go Rifleman/Ranger? Any other skills or whole professions I should look at?
Thanks,
B
For some people, the reasons *not* to master Ranger are as follows:
The camping tree is worthless.<snip>In all practicality, yes -- it is worthless; its currently broken, and camps don't repel creatures at all. One thing a lot of people don't realize, though, is that sitting in a High Tech Field Base actually heals your wounds (albeit very slowly) just like a medical center does. However, they don't offer much other than coolness/roleplay, since speeders and droids pretty much fubared camps.
The trapping tree is almost worthless. You only get *two* traps out of the four skill boxes, and those traps do the same thing as your scout traps, only they have an area effect. Rescue is worthless unless you're an uber melee profession; if you are not an uber melee profession, you're probably going to die even faster than the guy you rescued.It'svery useful if you're hunting with a CH or a BEand they get agroed.If you stand farenough away from the lair, they de-agro you after awhile. It's also funny to watch two rangers /rescue eachother, confusing the hell out of the creaturelol.The only really useful thing from the trapping line is the additional trapping skill, which makes it easier for you to land traps on high levelcreatures... but how often do players actually use traps on creatures for any purpose other than grinding trap experience (answer: very rarely)?I use them a lot; but,I'll admit,nine out of ten timesI use scout traps. If I'm soloing rancors and I get agroed,I canroot and snare them and get away or kite them endlessly (great if youhunt without uber-armor all the time). But I definitely don't use them going into every battle.The trapping line needs a major overhaul, with the addition of many many new and useful traps, before it will really be worth the 14 skill points you spend on it. Agreed.
The exploration tree is pretty useful, if you're one of the people for whom camouflage actually works successfully. As I recall, the only camo kit you get from the master box is for Dathomir, which is probably the most likely place in the galaxy for your camouflage to fail frequently. Only if you're stupid, lol.I've had my Dath camo kits last almost as long as mybrandy, but that'sonly because I don't fly through lairs on my swoop and jump off, guns ablazing (this is with BE clothing, though). The additional terrain navigation does nothing to help your running or walking speed; terrain navigation over 50 merely increases your crawling speed. This would really only be useful to a Rifleman who needs to crawl to sneak up on NPCs and creatures for sniping, or for Bio Engineers who need to crawl up to Mutant Rancors and other nasty creatures to sample DNA. The effects of using camouflage while sniping NPCs is vague at best, and non-existant at worst. If anyone can post more specific information, please do! It works against NPCs, but it not consistantly. I freaked a friend out by walking through a group of Nightsisters without armor/buffs, and they didn't do a thing; yet, when I'm hunting down Storm Troopers and the like, they seem to agro whenever I get within 120meters of them -- but that could be the fault of a TEF... I haven't bothered to test it out much. /shrug
The shining star of the Ranger skill list is the tracking line of skills. Rangers get Area Track at Novice, but it's really not useful for anything; it doesn't really matter if you know what kind of creatures are within 500m of your position, when you have absolutely no idea which way they are or how far away they are. In order for Area Track to become useful, you must get at least the first tracking box, which tells you which direction to go. The second tracking box allows you to track NPCs, which may or may not be useful to you; most Rangers with tracking skills seem to be focused on harvesting creature resources. At the third tracking box, you will see how far away the MOBs are, as well as the direction, so it helps you find MOBs very easily... providing that those MOBs have already spawned in the world. Almost every MOB spawn in SWG is dynamic; it won't spawn until a player goes near the area to trigger it. This means that if you're the only person around, and nobody has been in the area for a long time, there will not be any MOBs to track until you start moving around to trigger the spawns. The fourth tracking box simply allows you to track other player characters, and if you don't do much PvP combat, this box is practically worthless to you, except for the bonus to creature havest and knowledge, and the slight bonus to hit creatures with ranged weapons. Tracking is, no matter what people say, very useful. If your harvesting meat, natural lairs tend to give a lot more spawns, so that's what you'll be looking for. It boosts up the hunting efficiency a lot.
My personal preference was to go with Creature Handler and Rifleman, while still keeping most of the tracking tree from Ranger to facilitate my creature hunting and taming (Mask Scent from Master Scout helps a lot!). Rifleman is the most ranged of the ranged combat professions; you need to keep your targets at a distance, because if they get right up in your face you can get into a lot of trouble. While being sneaky and sniping can work very well in some situations,when you havelots of creature pets available you can hold groups ofMOBs at bay with your pets, while you do yourGunner thing (cone attack, cone attack, cone attack, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, /harvest, you get the picture
I have to agree about the CH/Rifleman/Ranger0030 template above... IMO, that's a lot more flexible, if only for the tanks you'll have. However, you could get Rifleman/Ranger/CH0003 (or three up in any of the trees) and have similar tanking with BE pets -- right now, I'm Master Ranger/Master Rifleman/Medic1000, and that's what I'm thinking about doing.... But, I don't know if I could give up those stims with the massive HAM costs of Rifleman... /shrug. We'll see how it works out (I'm working on it right now).
However, there is NO CHANCE that I'll give up camo... so I'm sticking with Master Ranger (that's just one of many reasons, actually). A lot of people saw camo is useless and they just use maskscent more; but I swear by it. Right now, it's just way too built into my play-style to ever give up, lol. Catch me if you can, spellweaver!! MUAHAHAHAH!
Ok, enough of that.
One thing I will say about my template, though, is that it's not as useless in pvp as you might think. Yep, I get owned in duels a lot; but in raids, I can run up hills fast (especially with the burstrun eff)
As far as PVE goes, I'm not afraid of much. It's real weak at pvp, but I don't think it's as bad as most people might think.
What's my favorite thing about Ranger? We have, in my highly biased opinion, the absolute best community in SWG. Go look at our forums -- nothing but pure awesomeness.
On top of that, it's fun to play and roleplay -- if your idea of fun isn't mindless uber pvp warz, and you can get past the Chef foods that fubar our harvesting abilities.
But the profession definitely takes a certain kind of temperament... That's about all I can say.
Have fun.