Rangers! Like beating a dead horse....

Submit and discuss your ideas for the MUD.
Zukal
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Rangers! Like beating a dead horse....

Postby Zukal » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:16 am

I know many suggestions have been made about improving the ranger class but I'm going to make a few more. When I think of rangers I think of highly skilled warriors, I don't think of them as mighty tanks, or hitting rogues, but I see them as considereably more capable than they truly are. They accomplish the amount of damage I feel a ranger should be able to do, but they don't have enough of the warrior side as I see them. I feel they could be made more so with a few simple changes. If you were to increase the Maximum for Rangers Dodge/Parry/MC/Rescue to 80 @ level 50 they would actually be a viable option as a 3rd tank in a Major zone such as Musp invasion.

Many people who play rangers and many people who don't will acknowledge that rangers are a broken class. Useful in some zones or only among highly skilled players. And of the people I've talked to about rangers a common theme is that all they need is a god to champion their cause. But I personally feel that why does a god need to champion this? That's what the Ideas section is for isn't it? :)
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Postby Thilindel » Wed Sep 14, 2005 3:40 am

what would make a ranger a really great class is if they would have triple attack, sneak AND hide in nature, cast globe and haste on self only since this spell is prayed, it could be coded/limited to self only. I agree with the 80 on the tank skills but they should be better hitters than rogues but using swords OR archery instead. Rangers are made to be archery only really. The damage I saw kiry's ranger doing was far more than a ranger in melee mode. Typically, a ranger thread usually degrades to a rogues are too strong thread - which thanks to khanjari, they are :P
teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:09 am

A master archer risks aggro'ing a Lvl 57 tracker up to four rooms away, will lose all of their arrows, and isn't going to be capable of doing any of the arrow quests without significant help (when they aren't being farmed by certain players). Furthermore, in general archery lacks the utility of melee attacks (arrows don't proc or have elemental effects or poison), they interfere with too many skills (no kicking, no bashing, no nada), arrow management is a virtual nightmare.



Archery is broken. Rangers are broken. End of story.

Do I have any suggestion to offer about how to fix both, that are reasonable from a utilitarian standpoint?

Yes.

But it's impossible to draw very many conclusions without actually knowing how archery operates (code).




We'll just have to wait for some imm to start caring (or a player that cares to become an imm).
Last edited by teflor the ranger on Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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kiryan
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Postby kiryan » Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:13 am

if a warrior can't tank without spells, what makes you think a ranger could even with improved defensive skills? My cleric tanks fairly well with max ac, why wouldn't a ranger also tank well if dressed properly?

Its as much a image thing as it is a eq selection thing and a lot less a lack of defensive skills.
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Postby teflor the ranger » Wed Sep 14, 2005 6:15 am

kiryan wrote:if a warrior can't tank without spells, what makes you think a ranger could even with improved defensive skills? My cleric tanks fairly well with max ac, why wouldn't a ranger also tank well if dressed properly?

Its as much a image thing as it is a eq selection thing and a lot less a lack of defensive skills.



My ranger wears the same gear as my warrior.

The warrior tanks better - but it's supposed to be that way.
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Zukal
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Postby Zukal » Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:08 pm

Adding those spells is going overboard, I'm not talking about making rangers the best class. I'm talking about the fact that rangers are just underclassed. My warrior can tank decently well without spells, I can't tank forever but I'll last way longer in a fight than Kiryan will, without spells that is.

It is just that rangers need some improvements, improvements in their tanking skills would be enough to change them into a more useful class. Rangers should definitely not do more damage than rogues, as far as hitters are concerned rogues have always had more damage with rangers trailing along. Rangers are supposed to be good hitter damage but not as good as rogues, and ok tanks but not as good as warriors.
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Postby kiryan » Wed Sep 14, 2005 7:06 pm

the mud has moved towards a role model. In the old days, a sorc could be a stoner at the cost of damage and vice versa. A cleric could choose to have better vits at the cost of some healing...

Today's model is of extreme specialization. Shamans and elementalists in general don't cast stones because they aren't as good at it as enchanters. Druids and shaman don't cast heals because they aren't as good at it. Rangers don't tank because they aren't as good as warriors or paladins.

The change is part code and part human. Obviously code has encouraged specialization with enchatners and invokers ect... The human part of it is that people generally don't try things that are outside the box. They get the same group that steamrolled spob last week and steam roll it again this week. Who is interested in trying something new when you have something that works.

Your not going to fix anything much less rangers by making them better tanks. Matter of fact, you'll be ruining the one thing they are good at which is doing damage via archery. And several people have now realized the truth that rogues are not that far ahead of rangers in damage. A ranger can easily outdamage the rogue in several situations and provides very comparable damage in general without the hassle of spellup.

Another thing, one of the dominate views of ranger is that they should be the most powerful single target damage class, a focus on damage where rogues focus on utility with sneak/hide/garrotte/pick lock/detect trap/ect. The idea that rogue should be the maximum damage class and have all this extra utility is no longer very popular.


you don't seem to have given this topic much thought, go read the hundreds of rangers thread and get some perspective.
Zukal
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Postby Zukal » Wed Sep 14, 2005 9:22 pm

Of course I've given this topic thought. Now rangers may be good at archery damage and they do that without spellup, but their melee damage isn't that far behind rogues with the proper set of equipment. That can be kept with a few minor changes to make tanking survivable and a few code changes to make them more capable of tanking.

The problem isn't specialization, I don't know how many times I've taken Dexil in to Psuedochant zones or taken my shaman as the only healer in a group to do a zone. The problem is partly people, and largely code, I have no problem taking a few select rangers to do things that other rangers are way too afraid to try, Belleshel and Weylarii have proven themselves time and again to be decent tanks.

Giving rangers the ability to tank would give the "decision" you stated before, they can lose a little of their archery damage in favor of some melee damage and rescuing of key group personnel.
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Postby Eilorn » Wed Sep 14, 2005 11:19 pm

How about making rangers a remort class? Remort starts over at, say 35.

Lose shieldpunch and headbutt on remort; gain range specialist, archery, wilderness sneak, surprise, awareness, and missile snare. Spells would be pared way down: detect magic, sense life, detect invis, invisibility, protection from animals, barkskin, nature's blessing, pass without trace.

They keep warrior hitpoints.

They'd be pretty buff, but, there'd be many that remained warriors because of the utiliy of shieldpunch and headbutt.

Eilorn.
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Postby Latreg » Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:04 am

I don't know if I'd consider rangers a broken class, they do need some expanding, especially in gear. this has been mentioned many many times, rogues get all these nice poisons which is similar to spell effects not to mention all the nice weapons, haste sleeves stuff like that. Rangers get um let's see, on rare load bow and um.....gee guess that's it. poisons much easier to get than the nice arrows by comparison.

Consider Troll and Ogre tanks, how could a dire possibly compete with those races tank wise?
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Postby Thilindel » Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:20 am

I like the idea for rangers questing. There was a mud I was on a long time ago that you would be teleported to solo a mob in order to level. That kinda challenge would be neat to give rangers more stuff or whatever. Desirablility? :P
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Postby belle » Thu Sep 15, 2005 3:34 am

In this case Kiryan is right about rangers, adding some tanking skills wont help the class, its about specialization nowdays, being just 'good' at something doesn't help. Melee combat itself is pretty busted imho, defensive spells are far FAR to powerful, making skills much less important than they should be. Things that have been suggested in the past that are far more intresting for rangers...

Hide/Sneak outdoors (reducing rogue's outdoor hide/sneak effectiveness)
Change bash to trip or springleap
Add surprise as an outdoor only backstab type attack
Add frenzy (double attacks for the round at the expensive of a temporary str drop)
Self haste
Outdoor leadership (increased combat effectiveness for the group when outdoors)

There were plenty of other intresting ideas back a few years ago when the old rangers still had some hope left;)

Belle
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Postby Corth » Thu Sep 15, 2005 3:40 am

After all these years rangers still haven't found their niche...

I'm going to flesh out someone else's idea from above.

Abolish the way sneak and hide interact with each other (sneaking and hiding at the same time no longer allow you to walk into a room full of aggros and not be hit as you stand there). Then take this effect you just removed, and create two separate skills, one for rangers and the other for rogues. Rangers can use their sneak/hide like skill in the outdoors. Rogues can use their's indoors. Make it a skill that is failable.. please. This would be great for the mud in that it limits the ridiculously broad sneak/hide power that rogues have, and give the rangers some CR credentials.

I would also make rangers rescue as well as warriors. They might go splat quicker, but I can't think of any reason why rangers should be less proficient at rescuing than warriors.

Melee damage, all around, needs to be increased, while area damage lowered. At least, thats how it was last time I played and I don't get the sense that much has changed.


Corth
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teflor the ranger
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Postby teflor the ranger » Thu Sep 15, 2005 8:15 am

Corth wrote:They might go splat quicker, but I can't think of any reason why rangers should be less proficient at rescuing than warriors.


Teflor doesn't crush beer cans on his forehead. Obviously, this would mean he can't rescue quite as well.
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