The Ranger: analysis and suggestions

[Haldir Quindiniar]

This is what I wrote in the book we got in our backpacks the other day. It's quite long and I ended up writing 2 full books so expect quite a bit of text.
I break everything down, abilities and spec skills. And for the record: I love playing a Ranger and would never change class but it could use some changes.

I'll start of with the Ranger abilities.
In short: They are all pretty much useless.
And now the more detailed explanation! I'll write comments under every ability pointing at it's flaws. And in the end I make a few suggestions for new abilities.


Animal Companion:
It's a strong ability if you stay away from strong magic users with him.

Elemental Creature:
Why does a Ranger get this ability? It only affects spellbook summons while a Ranger summons with a druid bag or, codex or by using the Animal Companion ability. No Ranger will ever summon from a spellbook since we don't even have access to the summons spells without scrolls.
On top of that I'm convinced that the [spellbook] thing was added to the discription later on the wiki so I wasted exp on this ability.

Etherial Shot:
Woot! A chance to kill a summoned creature. Even if it would always insta kill a summon it's still too situational to ever consider.

Kick:
As Ranger you want to stay away from melee so this is not too useful either. On top of that the description on the wiki is different than the one in game last time I checked (very short paralyze vs extra dmg) so I don't even know what it does.

Master Marksman:
This could be good but 80% of the mobs are not affected by it. At least it looks like that. I never see a dragon for instance take extra damage that could be more than a critical hit when this ability activates. But it's still the best bow ability that we get and a must have.

Rapid Shot:
It sounds good on paper but after having used it I can say it's not that good. You lose a lot of damage per arrow by doing rapid shot and the arrows will hit allies all the time (players & summons). It's only useful vs solo low armor casters and even then Master Marksman is still more useful.

Pindown:
A 2 sec paralyze isn't useful. That offers you one extra shot if you get lucky or time to run away from the target. And it's only a chance to activate as well.

Steady Shot:
When you already can go to 145/155 Archery there is no point in getting 20 more. The damage doesn't even come from the Archery skill as is proven by the Assassin and Rogue who seem to do the same or more damage with lower Archery. Sure it could be a good ability if you don't spec Archery as special ability but we have no other abilities to take (more on that later) instead...

Trackdown:
Lol, I assume that this ability was added because the Ranger ability list would be very short otherwise.

Spiritual Attunement:
I guess it can be useful but since you can just resummon the Druid Wolves when they respawn this is not not needed for anything. And I guess it's the same for Necromancy.


I think that the Ranger needs some good new abilities or at least changes. For instance some ability that can raise their Dexterity just like the Assassin or Rogue have. After all, everywhere the Ranger is considered to be a class with good reflexes and handling to master the bow and that requires Dexterity.

Our Pindown should be more like enrapture from the Rogue. Small cost, lasts longer and always works.

Maybe add an Ability for the Ranger:
"Concussion Shot": your targets gets struck so hard that it leaves him confused. The target forgot who he was attacking and searches for another target. If no enemy is around he will attack one of his allies for 10 seconds. Cooldown 2 minutes.
This would give the Ranger another option next to running away or blocking the enemies path to use the bow for a longer time.



So far for the abilities. I'll carry on with the .spec possibilities.

If you look at the classes all of them have 6 options from primary slots except for 2 classes. The Ranger (who has 5) and the Bard (who has 4). I think that this should be balanced out. I don't understand why it would be ok for some classes to have 6-8 skills >95 and others can only have 4 or 5. This is quite unfair in my opinion especially because the gap between skills is rather big.

2 of the 5 skills that a Ranger has access to are never a consideration to spec. We get Camping + Tracking, there is absolutely no reason to get these 2 higher than 95. Camping will do +7 at 95 and you won't use Tracking anyway. So this really only gives us 3 options in primary. However, both Camping and Tracking can and should stay as Primary option. We just need something added to balance it out so here are some suggestions:

Suggestion A:
Move Taming to primary and add Veterinary to secondary. Reasoning:
Whoever you ask will tell you that a Ranger can usually be found in the forest, in trees amongst wildlife and not rarely with pets by their side. And also in an undead world you can find forest and wildlife (be it dead) so this goes for both Druidry & Necromancy Rangers.

Suggestion B:
Move Arms Lore to primary and Poisoning to secondary. Reasoning:
When you talk Ranger you say "Massive damage with a bow matched by no-one". As it stands now a Rogue or Assassin for instance can deal just as much or even more damage because the Archery skill doesn't really affect how much damage you do. That's more for Arms Lore and Tactics. And Poisoning well... a ranger is supposed to be "one" with nature and poison is a natural element so they should be more skilled at it.

I personally think that suggestion B is the most realistic one because suggestion A might make the Ranger too much like a Tamer since you don't really need to spec Taming above 95 (105 or 115 with items and Racial bonus).

Possible extra primary options: Arms Lore, Taming
Possible extra secondary options: Poisoning, Veterinary



And finally, it might be good to lower the agro rate with a bow. You grab attention of them too quickly if you can't body block the opponent. So when group hunting it frequently happens that you can only get a shot or 2-3 off before the enemy turns towards you. Unless you wait a while with attacking after your friend started hitting.

Allowing us to do what we are supposed to do for a longer time (shooting arrows) without having to use the environment or blocks would be a very good thing.

I think these changes would close the gap a bit to the much stronger classes and it would make the Ranger a more viable option to choose as class.


Feel free to counter my comments or support them because more voices are better than one.
Thanks for your time. I hope that something will chance to all classes that are considered weaker to close the gap with some more powerful classes.

[Solomon]

hey...although a lot of these ideas/thoughts have been brought up before it's nice to see them all condensed into one post. It's true not all of the rangers abilities are helpful, but like other players have said before...changing abilities isn't really a long term fix.
it would be better to fix the basics of the class first. In my opinion one of rangers main problems is the aggro...which you also mentioned near the end. if the aggro caused from archery was removed it would fix the class drastically. (im not sure if this should apply to all classes, probably just ranger). since rangers get the choice of secondary druidry or necromancy you could summon wolves/undead and while they attack the monster your fighting, you dominate them with range from a distance. it would give the ranger a little uniqueness and a way to use archery, there special skill to the full potential.

[Haldir Quindiniar]

The fact that the things that I wrote here have been mentioned before probably means that they didn't do anything with it? I have no idea since I've been gone for so long, didn't even know this was brought up before. Never hurts to let it be heard again!

While I agree that changing abilities isn't a long term fix it would be nice if it actually did change to some useful things instead of what we get as choices right now because some abilities make absolutely no sense at all.

Seeing the agro from using bows as a Ranger disappear completely would be very nice. I won't say no to that. but maybe no agro at all is a bit too much but there definitely has to change something there.

[Hannibal]

I'm a long time supporter of rangers, having played one for years in the past, and I agree with a lot of what you have brought up.

In my opinion, a lot of classes have "filler" abilities, not just the ranger. I think most people would be happy having half the abilities available if they were actually useful abilities.

As for Rogue and Assassin being comparable in terms of range damage, that is true, however their effectiveness with a bow does not compare. A rangers high archery results in rarely having their shots parried/evaded, followed by a more constant stream of damage (which I believe is why they draw aggro so quickly), and classes such as Rogue and Assassin, get the high damage only every so often, leaving the ranger still unmatched with a bow. (not that that means much...)

In the past, drawing aggro was compensated with giving the ranger the "duel wield" ability (possibly offhand I don't remember exactly), so that they could do decent damage while toe to toe with their opponent. I for one would like to see this returned, as rangers are quick and agile, and should be able to use 2 balanced weapons effectively (maybe they can be given duel blades master or offhand dagger 1 and 2, something like that to balance out the fact that you only do you so much damage with a bow before your face to face with the monster you're fighting)

I'd also like to see Rapid shot exchanged for any of the evasive abilities. I think they are much more effective, as they would help while shooting with a bow and make you much harder to hit while in close combat. (Which ranger can't avoid, and shouldn't be able to completely avoid in my opinion...)

Just my two cents on helping ranger through the ability aspect....(using abilities that already exist and just applying them to the ranger class)

As for the skills mentioned,

I think poisoning and wrestling would be a great addition the secondaries (providing they got some sort of duel blade ability). Otherwise, poisoning alone would still be a good help be it at a distance or far away. Their primaries are pretty limited, as being primarily a ranger, I'm not sure there could be much changed there that wouldn't sway the class in the wrong direction (lemme know if anyone has some ideas...)

And about aggro....I don't think anyone who's played a ranger can disagree there. What a pain.

Straight forward post Haldir, you have my support.

-H4K

[Solomon]

maybe they can be given duel blades master or offhand dagger 1 and 2

I'd also like to see Rapid shot exchanged for any of the evasive abilities

As for the skills mentioned,

I think poisoning and wrestling would be a great addition the secondaries (providing they got some sort of duel blade ability). Otherwise, poisoning alone would still be a good help be it at a distance or far away. Their primaries are pretty limited, as being primarily a ranger, I'm not sure there could be much changed there that wouldn't sway the class in the wrong direction (lemme know if anyone has some ideas...)

-H4K

I agree that offhand's and evasive's would be great additions to rangers abilities. Also poisoning and wrestling in their secondaries sounds good to me. As far as primaries go, how about moving healing from secondaries to a primary skill? I think that would improve them a lot and help set them apart from being similar to some other classes.

[Haldir Quindiniar]

Moving Healing to primary and adding Poisoning to secondary sounds good to me. I don't know how much use Wrestling is to us at the moment.


I was mainly thinking Arms Lore primary and Poisoning secondary but the Healing idea is definitely good as well.

[Haldir Quindiniar]

I'm maybe active again and wondering if anything has changed lately to the ranger class.
In particular if anything came ouf of these posts and suggestions.

Does anyone know?
Thanks.

[Anonymous]

You can move while shooting now...

[Haldir Quindiniar]

You can move while shooting now...

Does that require you to do anything special?
Or does it always work? And does it work when you are walking as well as running?


Also, is it a ranger unique thing or can everyone do it with a bow? (The other questions I could test :p)