Scout Archive
Thread: ok...thoughts about bounty hunter and ranger, please read before you get out the flamethrowers :)
My experience has lead me toward the path of marksman/scouting. I matstered marksman last night, and am currently 4242 scout, well on my way to master.
While looking around at ideas for my final profession, the 2 that grabbed my attention the most were ranger and bounty hunter.
I use this site, http://swgcb.yogn.net to check out templates.
What I come up with is master scout, master ranger, marksman 0044, master carbineer, no healing.
master marksman, scout, bounty hunter, med 2000
The second template gives me much more varied attack power, and gives me a pvp capable template if I choose(lets not get into how bh suxxors).
It seems to me a ranger is outclassed by a bounty hunter at his choosen profession, which is hunting! What ranger really gives you is some added bonus to harvest amount, which honestly doesn't concern me or alot of people it seems, and 2 abilities camo and tracking. Camo I've heard isn't really all that, and tracking is pretty much a non-skill considering all you have to do is scour a mission term for the thing you want to hunt and it gives you a wp to the creature!
Its hard for me to find the real value in ranger over scout other than the harv bounus, which would be nice, but not at the expense of having a pve only template without any healing capability.
So I have chosen the path of the bounty hunter. I am not a 12 year old Fett wannabe. I just want to have variety in my gameplay, some effective choices for weapons, and be a sold group member, self-sufficient, and be able to join the GCW when the mood strikes.
It seems to me that bounty hunter offers all these things. That being said, I think scout/ranger are fantastic classes. It just seems that skill point costs for some professions need to be rethought. If ranger was oh say 30-50 skill points to master instead of 63 more people might be willing to give it a go.
What ranger (and scout) does have is a great community. There are some great bounty hunters out there, too, but also a lot of noise due to its popularity with certain subsets of people.
One thing to keep in mind is that if you master bounty hunter, it doesn't give you much in the way of variety due to a lack of skill points. You might consider only taking some of their skills and putting them elsewhere to be a little more diverse. Say take the carbine line, a few carbineer skills, maybe some tracking from ranger and some medical skills or whatever looks like fun.
Jassi,
Glad that you're having fun with your choice.
I would have suggested, if you wanted a fun, more PvP oriented template, you'd have selected Ranger/Rifleman with some Med thrown in. Rifleman is the most powerful ranged combat profession in the game, and will be much more useful to you than BH. In addition, you can take Ranger and get the bonuses to harvesting you were looking for.
Overall, I think that's the best way for you to go. But let us know when you hit Master Scout so we can bring you in the club. 
B
Ranged support is freaking useless and a waste of points. Drop it as you master a weapon. Only warning shot is really any good, and it sucks generally at the higher level of creatures - as it they don't care and continue to charge.
BH does not outclass a Ranger in hunting, as the BHs weapons are limited, and the best are basically useless on the really big stuff. Many larger creatures have resistance to the best weapons - electricity and fire. Also kinetic for that matter. The best weapons of the BH just got flushed. Actually, commandos are the uber hunters, they have better weapons and are faster. It's just a lot of commandos aren't scouts.
Besides harvesting more, the Ranger can see what the resists are and adjust. BHs can't.
Also, the general IQ of a BH is - well to put it bluntly - stoopid. They are too busy doing stuff to hunt. A few can hunt, but don't, as they can get more money doing other things. Just what, I have no clue, but they do.
Go ahead and become a or stay a BH. Personally, they are XP hogs, as bad as commandos. I won't group with them to hunt, not that I need the XP, but the fact they are XP hogs hurts anyone with me out for XP.
just my opinions
Oh yeah, spend that extra money on stuff you need, like weapons and armor, and droids, and pets -
JB
Message Edited by JBMat on 05-07-2004 03:37 PM
If you go Ranger + a ranged combat profession I'd go rifleman, over carbineer. Rifleman is much more powerful in PvE and PvP. Rifleman is also, as Delta pointed out, the most powerful ranged profession in the game. They also get a lot of nice defnesive bonues (block, ranged defense, melee defense).
Ranger + Rifleman would be the best combination if you want to PvP a little, but, mostly do PvE and hunt for resources. The creature harvesting bonuses are nice at MR as well as the area track (if you're looking for specific creature spawns). Trapping and camping isn't all that useful and you probably won't even need to use it.
Bounty Hunter is cool because you get some nice versitility with the weapons and damage type you can do. Nice state effects and KDs and a nice DOT attack in torso shot. If I were you and you were he11 bent on keeping some medic then go MBH, Novice Medic and Pistoleer 0030. This gives you stopping shot, which is a nice random HAM high damage shot and health shot 2 which is shot with the same damage multipler as torso shot and has a health bleed. So with torso shot + health shot 2 you can stack two health dots on one target. This helps a lot in PvE. BHs are also do for some serious dev love. We should be getting a little more offense and a lot more defense in the upcoming combat balance (publish 10).
As a MBH you can make money running Jedi missions (150K) or NPC missions (22.9K) and maybe in the future smuggler bounty missions. You can also use your skills as a master scout to harvest creature resources. So as a BH you have a little more diverse area of income.
One thing about, BH, is the community. The profession does seem to attact a good deal of whiner Fett wannabes. And the forums can be fairly annoying. But, you to settle myself down I just come back to the Scout forum.
If you go master ranger or master bounty hunter, you can still wear mando armor with either one. So it doesn't matter there.
Frankly rifles don't feel right to me. You get 3-5 shots while prone, and then the mob beats the helloutta you while you take 2.5x damage and have -80 range penalty. No thanks, I'll just open up with my carbine and then switch to my pistol for the finish
Don't get me wrong though, ranger is such an interesting looking profession. Its just not well rounded enough and distinct enough from scout to really draw me to it.
Also, seems that TH the dev guy has said BH's are going to get some love in the combat patch, he flat out stated that BH have the problem of being low dmg/low def on the combat scale right now. So we'll see. Ultimatley, I'd love to end up a Master rebel Bounty Hunter, mostly doing pve but occasionally taking dark jedi missions. With the Jedi revamp they posted, I think a natural conclusion is to make it so BH's can choose to hunt light or dark jedi. That would be nice
At any rate, I'm now master marksman 4342 scout, novice carbineer, and am halfway to the combat xp I need for novice BH.
jassi007 wrote:
I'm curious why you think BH is gimped weapon wise comared to ranger? The typical ranger will pick one weapon cert, being rifle/carbine/pistol and master the elite. The bounty hunter has access to all the markman level weapons, the scatter pistol (regarded by some as the best pistol in the game), and the LLC, which without using it seems to be a pretty damn good weapon. Plus, its easy for a BH to dabble in pistoleer or carbineer, to access elite level weapons. BH will end up with pretty good pistol/carbine speed & accuracy.
He's misinformed about BH weapons. BHs have access to just about every type of damage with a host of good weapons to choose from. They can do acid damage (great for geonsians) with scatter pistols and DXR-6 carbines. They can do heat damage with FWG5s and EE3 carbines. They can do energy with republic blasters andlaser carbines (AP2). They can do stun damage with tangle pistols and geo stun blaster (you can get cert in pistoleer tech 2). They can do electricty (helps against SBD) with AP1 in the LLC. My BH carries 3 scatter pistols (all over 200max damage and one over 300max w/o PUP). 2 LLCs (3.2 speed on one and 1000+ damage on the other). 3 different carbines (laser, nym's and dxr-6). A tangle pistol and a republic blaster.
Riflemen do have a lot of versitility in damage type as well. They can do cold, energy with AP3, acid (dxr-6b) and stun with AP1. But, as you said, once something gets close it gets a little tough. But, that's why the devs gave them /takecover and some good bleeds.
I really believe you would be better off with rifleman over carbineer. Carbineer is cool in principle. But, its a lot of state effects and KDs. And that's great for hunting pikets on Dant or regular STs on faction missions. But, the states and KDs just don't work on higher end content like SBDs, novatroopers and night sisters. You need high power attacks with good AP weapons and some good DOT attacks. Plus defense is huge. Rifleman have a ton of defense.
But, I can't fault you by going with BH either. If I wanted to I could probably grind to Rifleman/TKM in a week or two, but, I'm happy with my BH, because I enjoy the versitility.
JBMat wrote:
Ranged support is freaking useless and a waste of points. Drop it as you master a weapon. Only warning shot is really any good, and it sucks generally at the higher level of creatures - as it they don't care and continue to charge.
JB, resistances are shown early in the Scout tree. Bounty Hunters can view them with no problem. I think you've been a Ranger too long.
Jassi,
Me too.
I've got 13 rifles on me right now.
2 Tuskens for grinding (cash, not XP)
2 Lasers for grinding (cash, not XP)