I want to love rangers, but I've been trying to figure out why it's so hard. When you play them you may notice there aren't too many combat options so naturally I build them to compensate as much as possible. I wasn't sure how accurate I was on this observation so I ran the numbers. Below is a table of the active combat skills of some classes.

At ranks	Warrior	Assassin	Invoker(6 path)	Transmuter	Orc	Ranger (forest surv)	Ranger(bedouin hunter)
1-10	5	6	3	5	8	4	4
11-20	11-13	11	6	9	6	6	6
21-30	8-9	6	11	8	8	3	5
31-40	1-2	5	5	7	5	1	2
41-51	second legacy: 4-6	3	4	4	3	0	2
Total active combat skills:	29-35	31	29	33	30	14	19

I chose the most vanilla build and one I thought would have a few more skills. Its hard to even come close to the combat options of the other classes.

If new combat skills are added they should work in civilized. Rangers, while less dynamic than most classes in the wilderness can still beat most (even at hero) solo.

Playing a ranger can be boring, but if civilized play became a viable option (maybe if each terrain got an appropriate civilized skill, and bearcharge/savage blow worked there for the logical specs) it would solve so many problems. Or just give rangers a warrior weapon spec!

I'm gonna repeat that: give rangers a warrior weapon spec!

PS: I realized that giants with ambush/flurry will be sick. Maybe make it so they only get spear/staff (for obv. reasons) spec and non-felar rangers just got a whole lot better.

I'd go for it if only because I love rangers.

Up to 45, if you play it right, you should not lose a single fight
that you start and the combos that can take you down or cause you
serious problems are few.

The problems for most rangers start at hero because it is much harder for
you to play the solo hunter. Possible victims rarely have a reason to spend
time in the wilderness, and if they come, they're usually grouped and
prepared to the degree that a single ranger is not much of a threat, since
they only have to take away one skill and then you have no way to win. Also,
lagging and options for keeping ppl in fights is hit/miss with most combos
ppl actually play.

Finally, compared to other classes, rangers really gain nothing from
44+. Whilst warriors and mages reach the pinnacle of their power at hero,
rangers are actually weakened significantly since their skills remain the
same, their opponents get harder to kill with 1 or 2 ambushes, if they even
allow you to ambush them, and your weaknesses are magnified to a large
degree.

There are exceptions of course, but they usually involve leader positions and powers.


Edited to mention that (imo) rangers also get the short end of the stick
when it comes to edges (compare to assassins everyone?). There are enough
(again imo) skills that are plain broken and useless for hero PK that could
be possibly tuned with a couple of edges (if not fixed outright).

That's interesting, I never considered rangers meh for lack of PK options. I mean, ambush, using terrain with pathfinding, entangle, snare, bearcharge, backrake, dirt kick, scrolls/staves is enough for me to keep interested PK wise.

What makes them meh for me are the PK targets. There just aren't alot of wilderness wandering targets at hero. And if you're good aligned, it's even worse trying to find some evil dude in the wild. I always seem to burn up the ranks with a fun new good align ranger idea and then get hopelessly bored once I get there.

Maybe if you narrowed your option list even more to just cover the PK stuff they can use in civilized rooms, that would express the point even better. :)

I really, really liked having the "track" skill. Knowing which wilderness area someone traversed in the past helps you know where they're likely to be in the future.

.

Why you add 4-6 for second legacy? Are we assuming this is Balance being chosen?

Rangers aren't about active combat as much as baiting and exploiting your victims. Things like snare, call lightning, herbs, and camouflage play a significant factor in combat. Don't expect to go toe to toe with just about anyone, even in your home terrain. Use your hit and run advantage to its fullest.

They are indeed vanilla if you play them like a mediocre warrior with backstab (ambush), but if you work hard to incorporate your various non-combat, but combat affecting skills you may have more fun. Finally, don't forget to incorporate scrolls/talismans for the appropriate ranger builds.

Personally I would re-count with "fight changing abilities". As in those thing that can change a loss into a win or otherwise change the expected outcome. That is much harder to define though.

I did count every single combat ability. Although things like elbow, thrust/pierce and lash are pretty useless, you can come up with situations where they could be useful.

The second legacy should have been at 40, not 41. That was a mistake.

Rangers are a 'Wilderness warrior.' That's how they are described in the help files. I disagree when you say they shouldn't be about active combat.

I assume by "active combat" you mean melee + commands like kick/serpent strike etc?

Never seen rangers or "wilderness warriors" as the type to be focused on engaging their foes. More like hit and run. Suppose we have different ideas.

Nobody is stupid enough to sit there and die while
you "hit and run".

Ranger *NEEDS* to be a *BEAST* in wilderness. Given the constraints that
they have, the time needed to engineer situations (snare/deadfalls) to take
down tough chars and to *actively* be on the hunt in general with all that
this entails, it is only fair that they get substantial benefits in return
when in their element.


I would argue that this *IS* the case, today, up
to the mid 40s but definitely not at hero where you lose a significant part
of these benefits.

Typically if you are starting off with ambush you are doing it wrong. I'd go into more detail, but it occurs to me the conversation is probably focused on hero in which I don't have much experience.

Ambushing as a ranger is "doing it wrong"? On what planet do you play rangers?

I mean, what non-bearcharge build is going land a kill without ambush outside of "enemy is rager/has no transportation potions, tanks like crap and lets me entangle them to 0 moves"?

I realize you say STARTING with ambush, but if you don't, someone who's smart enough to know they're losing will get out, and have the time to do so. Ambush cuts down on their time 'til dead to make smart decisions drastically.

You start with ambush, target will flee and quaff. Happens every time to me. Even if they don't have a potion, ambush lag is long enough for them to get a sizeable head start on the pahtfinding chase.

You start with murder, or entangle, or a scroll/talisman, they will not flee immediately.

Then, you use low lag moves, ie. serpent strike, (if you can't hold them in place with bearcharge), so that when/if they flee, you have time to chase/ambush (pathfinding = no lag while moving) hopefully.

You'd be surprised how many kills you can get just chasing and using murder too. Forget ambush altogether if you can out melee them.

Again, no idea what proper tactics are at hero, but I'll never start with ambush pre-hero unless they are already hurt and I might one-shot them.

EVERYONE will flee if you ambush first, only the "smart enough" people will flee if you try to use ambush later in the fight ;).

Other tip:
Don't ambush someone in a snare if you want the next command. Waylay them and you can get the next one in. Such as a bearcharge to get a couple extra rounds since they will flee anwyway.

I play rangers on planet Thera, where tricking your opponent into thinking they have the heads up is how you win.

I've logged a lot of hours playing rangers, mostly pre-hero
(because that's where most of the fun is) and what you describe
doesn't really work. I'm talking about levels 35-39 btw.

You might pull it once or twice to someone who's never fought
you before, but, if you play the class right, NOBODY who knows you
will want to fight you. When they're ranking in the woods and
you arrive, they will get the hell out the moment they figure out
you are there. Sure there are exceptions with groups of 3+ or some
combos that can laugh at anything you have to throw, but for the most
part your enemies will fear you.

What works best for me at these levels, is the brute force approach. You
have to hit like a truck and be able to kill them in 1-2 rounds, which is
not that hard to achieve. Then, all you need is opportunity and timing
in order to seal the kill. I almost never use ambush at these levels, waylay
is more than fine.

Maybe they are fighting a mob, so you waylay when the mob lags them then
finish them. Maybe they are spamming directions, so you waylay and _finish
them before they know what happened_. Surprise is KEY, if they know they are
in a fight it gets a lot harder to seal the kill. When someone doesn't
expect you and suddenly sees CAPS damage on his screen, he panics. Even
veterans panic. It is _very_ hard to think fast at that moment and _do the
right thing_, whatever that may be depending on circumstances. That is a
tremendous help and the major source of your kills at mid levels.

After you get snare lots more tactics open up so you don't really need to
hit and run. Again, brute force is what lands the kills IMO not finesse and
cute moves. I may be wrong but this is the style that's always worked
for me and i had no reason to change it :-)

Not bad advice, and it's the exact advice I was giving. Don't ambush first. Big damage plus too much lag = they get away. There are some rare instance where you do (for instance if they just flurried a mob for some reason). In most cases, you don't ambush first. Waylay is a completely different skill.

Few points:

-Ranger has the strongest concealment ability in the game.
-Rangers have good healing abilities in form of herbs and camp.
-Rangers have a powerful combat-initiating surprise attack move.

These three combined are what makes rangers strong. If you just ambush and try to toe-to-toe, you're not using the class to its fullest potential. For warriors, toe-to-toe is pretty much all they have. If rangers were superior in that as well, warriors would not have a chance to win the fight.

-Ranger has the strongest concealment ability in the game.

True. But I would gladly give up camo for more skills. In my opinion all hiding skills lead to inactivity, become a crutch and remove you from the game. They do greatly increase survivability, but instead of running around Thera you have the option of camping and waiting for someone coming to you. This has a chilling affect on the camper and to some extent other players.


-Rangers have good healing abilities in form of herbs and camp.

True. But assassins are not too far off with bind wounds considering the timer on herbs out of hometerrain. Bards have far better healing abilities that can be done anywhere. Both of these classes have double the combat options of rangers. Herb can be useful in PK, but camp is more difficult to see as beneficial in PK. I view it as a convenience when ranking or mob killing.


-Rangers have a powerful combat-initiating surprise attack move.

And how many kills will this get you at high ranks? How many against skilled players? Which would you prefer, 15 more combat skills or ambush?

Since obviously, finding prey in the wilds that would fight you is a problem.

>-Ranger has the strongest concealment ability in the game.
>
>True. But I would gladly give up camo for more skills.

Play a warrior. It's obvious to me you don't want to play a ranger, you want to be a "warrior in the wilderness", so be a warrior in the wilderness...and everywhere else.