Wed Sep 21 19:44:31 2005

At 12 o'clock AM, Day of Freedom, 18th of the Month of the Shadows
on the Theran calendar Rhaebryn perished, never to return.

So I come up with this role for a ranger that I think will go out and kill both outlanders and tribbies.

But I rank a bit, and his personality develops a bit, and I learn more about what outlanders is a bit, and I find that I think Rhaebryn's philosophy might lead him to outlander.

So I talk with Kazren, thinking to start the ball rolling to maybe get into outlanders at some point. And I was blown away to be inducted after that first conversation. Thanks!

My first outlander after about 3 years worth of Law characters, sure opened my eyes to the other side.

I was kindof dissapointed that all of these elf outlanders could see me camo, and to tell the truth, Rhaebryn came VERY close to praying for uninduction just so I could kill a number of the more "goodly" outlanders.

In hindsight, I probably should have, I might not have lost interest in the character had I done that.

Some may think I was rank sitting, and that was never really my intention. Sure, I wanted to wait around and enjoy a bit at the rank where rangers are at the Zenith of their power, but I was never going to stay there long enough to distend or anything. I was hoping to have my fun, then power up to snare, and have more fun, then, if I had any con left, try to hero.

Thing is, by the time I was ready for the 5 rank dash to snare, everyone to rank with was either deleted or hero already, with no new allies in sight. So being stuck in the no-mans-land between 35 and 40, and not being able to effectively hunt half of the people who Rhaebryn wanted to kill (goodie outlanders) kindof killed it for me.


Oh, and if anyone missed it, He was a braggart. He talked a *MUCH* bigger game than he had. And he knew it. It was fun for him to talk the game. (Think basketball, talking smack, etc.)

I might someday pay for his pb, but strapped at the moment.

You would have been ininducted pretty quick I think. It's one thing for the occasional brawl between two outlanders. It's another thing to actively hunt 1/3 of your own cabal.

That which does not kill us,
makes us stronger.

Before joining, Rhaeb thought that outlanders were all happy-happy-huggy-huggies who just wanted to turn the wilderness into a glorified parkland. All safe, happy, bright, and peaceful for the city folk to go picnicing on sunday in peace without worrying about danger.

He hated that, that's why he first talked to Kaz, to see if he had to kill all of the outlanders.

He found, in that conversation, that outlanders were NOT like that, for the most part. But that didn't change the fact that he wanted to kill any outlanders who WERE like that.

Of course, he probably would have been uninducted for hunting the goodies of his cabal (which he would not have done IN the cabal, but only while they were ranking or exploring, and never when the cabal was in a state of war) And he would have taken it as proof that the Outlander ideal of "Do what you want, whenever, whatever" that Kaz preached was a lie, and then moved to hunting ALL outlanders.

That would have been fun. heh.

>Some may think I was rank sitting, and that was never really
>my intention. Sure, I wanted to wait around and enjoy a bit at
>the rank where rangers are at the Zenith of their power,

As an aside, I think the people who think ranger is as tough as it's going to be at ~35 or that ranger sucks at hero are on crack. It's not likely to rack up a tremendous number of kills, but if I were to rank classes that, at hero, are capable of solo-killing even very skilled players, ranger would still be in my top 3 without question. As a player, that's more what I'm personally after rather than a tally of most newbies killed.

("Boring" or without as much variation or depth as many other classes is a separate argument.)

My intention was never to wrack up a ####load of kills, or tally up a crapload of newbie-kills. It was to have fun.

I've played rangers past 35 before, and PERSONALLY, I have trouble competing in the hero ranks with rangers. I'm sure others don't have the troubles I do. Although, I personally have never had trouble not dieing to rangers much with my heroes of other classes, as opposed to fighting hero bards/shaman/necros/warriors/air-off shifters.

If I wanted to wrack up the newbie-kills, I'd have stayed at 16-21. In my opinion, taking on ranking groups of 3 solo (which I think was the majority of what I did outside raid situations) in the mid to late 30's range, is hardly newbie killing.


Yes, there were points, especially once I got up to 36/37, where having snare would have landed 3 kills, instead of all 3 getting away, but I have always had trouble landing solo kills with rangers after 35/36.

And here is why.

Warriors get loads more hp, a second spec, legacies...making a single ambush mean progressively less dangerous to them.

Shifters get their most powerful forms, often more trains into hp, and access to far more + hp gear (at least in my opinion). And get high enough in rank to start using dam redux


Bards get the distort, the fire and ice, the illusion, to name a few.

Necros start walking around with armies of really powerful zombies. And get high enough in rank to start using dam redux

Shaman get rot and wither (in my opinion, they are by far the bane of ranger existance)

Assassins get ways to effectively lag + do lots of damage, on top of the maladicts and mark of the prey

AP's get unholy blessing, and get high enough in rank to start using dam redux.

Conjies get much more powerful servitors, for either ubber tanking, lots of damage, or even maladicting goodness. Not to mention gaunts.


I could go on. The point isn't that Ranger is weak post 40 or post 35, it's that every single one of it's foes seems to gain ALOT more power and survivability after 40, whereas rangers get snare at 40...then nothing. It's just that for me, at my skill level with rangers, they are weak*er* in relation to their foes, after 40, than they are at 35.

*And I won't go into how dissapointed I have always been with bearcharge on an enlarged human, even one with lots of wilderness time and carrying both less than 1/4th max weight, and carrying 10 lbs less than max weight, one of these days, I'll find a decent whip and actually learn lash to see if that's any better*

b

You, and Brack, and Kaz, mixing it up in the hero pk made me wish I had made a warrior. I've had hero lvl warrior chars in the past who have competed fairly well (much better than my hero level ranger chars).

That, and the ability to carry all of your arsenault against foes that fled from wilderness to civilization made me somewhat jealous.

Even though I really enjoyed hunting alone most, I did have a desire to see how much we could lay waste to our enemies if we consciously joined forces more than we did.