Since the ambush/flee in snare/ambush thing is about the only option rangers have at hero ranks...

Well, the basic idea is that rangers could fashion two types of
spears. First kind would be a long spear, the defensive weapon that they could ambush with. The second type would be a short spear, which they could hurl at a target and use it with one hand and with a shield. This would be for level 46 and up rangers. It would be a dexterity based skill. For elf rangers, half elves, felar who cannot wield the axes that humans and clouds can.

The short spears would not be good for fighting melee, they would have little parrying ability and be very easy to parry. Also you cannot ambush with one.

Im not sure about the lag but this is what im thinking.

When a ranger hurls the spear, it lags them 2 rounds before the attack. (Lag before is only when hurling from camo) They get no lag after, and this lack of lag would be based on wild time and hurl % skill. This way the ranger will have time to wield another weapon before engaging in melee combat. Maybe they would get a skill like marksmanship or hurl to accompany spear throwing.

This skill would bring the ranger in combat with its target. If the spear misses, its on the ground in the room. If it hits, it goes in the inventory of the target. Hurl would have one tick or two ticks cooldown, regardless of target. "Your arms is too tired from the previous throw." Unless you are fighting mobs...

Hurling a spear would be a high damage skill but also carry some significant risks since you will have no weapon to parry with if the warrior you hit is quick enough to pincer, cranial, bash you right away. It would cause bleeding to the target. Sometimes maybe, the target gets hit so hard that he gets knocked down by the hit. In this case the target gets lagged for 1 round and has to stand up before he can do any weapon specs/spells etc. Sort of like missed bash.

The chances of hitting a fighting target would be slim. But if you hit them, you do a lot of damage and causes the target to parry/dodge less on the attacks of the original target.

Using hurl vs a target that is wearing a shield is less successful. THe spear gets either deflected by the shield or it gets embeded in it. If the spear gets embeded in it, then the skill of 'shield block' for the person using the shield, drops by 50%.

At hero ranks it would help rangers alot besides the old flee into snare trick which gets REALLY tiresome and makes rangers one trick ponys. This way, a ranger could hurl a spear, flee and ambush right away if he is fast enough. It would not work well vs giants because of the resist weapon.

IN CIVILIZED AND RANGER VS RANGER

This skill you would not be able to use in civilized areas since the lag before the skill will most likely get you killed before you can throw it. (unless in civlized areas or when not camoed, the lag occured after the throw and not before) Rangers could use this skill to fight each other, when fighting each other though, there would be no lag before the skill, but after. I always thought that dirt, flee, ambush is lame.

Anyway, thought this could spice up ranger hero range a bit, because ITS BORING TO DEATH.

I think it would be a great skill for fighting groups kinda like guerilla tactics at upper levels, when you cannot snare and you cannot

How about making some rooms along the road as wilderness? Like near the Ruins along eastern road having vegetation from the Ruins spilling out along the road. About 2-3 rooms, etc? Or even woodland trail entrance spilling out?

I will like to see some parts of the roads covered with slight forest vegetation. Also some parts of woodland areas having clearings for thieves to hide properly. Of course this should be part of the sematic fit and not exist for the sake of existing.

Hope this will get more rangers along the roads to kick ass. I'm not playing a ranger now, so I'm also asking for my ass handed back to me. Oh but what fun!

I've been a proponent of this since my last character - my twist on it was that the "wilderness" area along the main roads (e.g. Eastern) should not be a complete "wilderness" area. Meaning, the ranger cannot snare there, and thieves and assassins can still hide on it without being seen via acute vision.

More or less like the open plains or eregion. Some semi-wilderness rooms around on easter wouldnt hurt. Kinda like a 'delta' of wilderness where woodland trail leads to the grove. All roads have some kind of bushes and trees alongside in RL, especially where wilderness roads run off from the main road.

One of the best ideas I've seen lately.

Hutto, the Sleepy Nitpicker

Snares could be expanded to cover different type of snares, ones that lag, ones that damage, one that blinds/weakens, etc.

Ambush miss rates should be adjusted, right now they are hardly worth it. Also update help files to give more information on which weapon types will help get ambush style. Onslaught should have a higher damage output for the extra round of lag it has compared to waylay. Also, with a spear it should cause impalement Cripple needs a lot longer duration.

Wilderness fam could be expanded so a ranger hits more also in the wild. Not only does it allow them to avoid the blows but it opens up counter-attacks.

Increase entagle growth damage and movement loss. Or maybe increase the duration and amount of dex loss to compare with warrior specials like boneshatter and whirl. For example at hero level an entangle could cuase -10 dex for 10 hours.

Add some other special attack instead of just serpant strike. Maybe head in the direction of ranger only attacks like AP's get with various weapons. Nothing too powerful but something to add spice.

Im beginning to think that Imms really really dont like rangers enough to mess with them. Warriors have gotten mad loving lately.
Low str AP's have gotten some good loving too. Special stuff they can do with weapons that dont require a fire giant to use.

So far, rangers at hero are COMPLETELY prep reliant in toe to toe fighting. If you dont know where to get staves for protections and stuff, you are pretty much screwed. There seems to be no interested from the IMMS in rangers whatsoever. I just didnt have the time to go around looking for preps.

After rank 40 or so, they get really boring. Heros dont rank anymore so they almost never go to the woods unless you get lucky and catch one in transition. This infers a lot of idle time and going around like a warrior being visible even 10% of your online time, pretty much ruins your chances of catching anyone in the woods.

Yes, those ambush types miss often. I think they changed onslaught so it doesnt miss as much, but all the other ones still miss a ton, and they dont do enough damage to be useful. Even after all those ambush types, mad damage + axes + waylay and snare is still the best option, regardless of what it is you are fighting. Yes some warriors have hit me 3 times more often in the woods than i hit them, wild fam should be tweaked at hero to make you hit more often.

There seems to be no interested in changing rangers however. *shrug*

The root of all problems is obvious.
There is not point for other players to go into woods and fight you.
Most of the time they don't need to be there so they don't go.
Change whatever skill you want, people still won't go in forests.
The only solution is to nudge rangers to fight out of woods.
Make them stronger in civilized places and make them weaker in woods.

I think that rangers are woodsy type. Dont want to turn them into half assed civ warriors.

Weaker is the woods is not an option the way i see it. At hero, they still have to deal with nasy hp/preps/gangs etc. It gets pretty dangerous especially if you are always alone like I was. Hero warriors, especially those with lots of hp, will shrug off an ambush then beat the hell outa you. Dont need to make rangers any weaker in the woods.

As far as facing other classes, pretty much all other classes will get away or fight you and win if they are even a little prepped.

What i was getting at is that serpent strike and entangle really doesnt cut it at hero anymore.

I think that rangers are woodsy type. Dont want to turn them into half assed civ warriors.

Then the main problem with rangers will not be solved.

While they do fine at middle ranks ambushing ranking newbies in Battlefield, at hero they will continue to delete from boredom. Heroes do not need to go in woods because they don't see you, can't initiate a fight with you and can't avoid snares. There is no point for them to fight you in woods unless they have huge advantage in numbers or preps.
Making rangers more powerful in woods will not help to solve this problem at all. If you will decrease chances of people to get away ( by adding lagging skills or powerful damage skills, etc ), they will just won't come to woods. And you will have to sit camoed for hours to catch a single hero newbie in woods.

That is generic problem for all classes which are desingned to be powerful in their homes and weak outside.
Look at water majors, people don't fight them in waters and they don't fight people on the land. Hence, no life => boredom => delete.

Let as assume immortals will implement class X which is very strong in deserts ( or in swamps ) and weak outside. They same problem will be applied to this class.

as a hero range ranger i would like to have more options than waylay/snare/ambush. Then i can go after the people who do go in the woods, even in groups. I want to be able to fight toe to toe with a warrior in the woods, without having to get sick preps to compensate for his hp/specs/legacies.

These 'in fight' skills can also be used out of the woods. So at least i got something else besides serpent strike or dirt disarm. Just need some variety on tackling enemies.

A cripple ambush using a dagger in pk?

It seems to me as if this could be a lot more effective than using an axe, or a sword, staff, and probably spear.

Yet I bet no rangers really try it because they are hung up on the advantages of axe etc.

When someone plays a low strength ranger and tries out things like this, then I'll consider the new ambushes tested. The helpfiles explicitly state that weapon type affects success rate and the affect, if I remember right, but people seem to stick with axes at high level.

I do agree with the thing about catching heroes in the wilds though. That's why I deleted my ranger.

If you use a dagger for ambush, yeah it might work. HOwever you wont hit your target much after that. I looked at all these rangers around and it makes me laugh seeing them with daggers and other such toys.
Dagger might be effective for succeeding that ambush but it wont be effective in landing the kill.

People stick with axes because axes provide just raw killing power. I only used staff when i had to ambush a svirf or gnome, maybe non giant APs as well since they cant parry it well.

In my experience with rangers i have not found any use for all the other ambushes, except onslaught and drive. I used drive to drive the tank away from the group while they were ranking on large guards, failed 6 of 8 times.

Im beginning to think that Imms really really dont like rangers enough to mess with them.

Not to deflate the pity party, but we do have some ideas on the table. I don't think the spear idea is anything worth doing, however- adding a new class of weapon is clumsy, and it otherwise looks like a rewrite of Hurl. If we do anything in the near future, it won't look like any other class skills.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

>Not to deflate the pity party, but we do have some ideas on
>the table.

Pity party? I think that a lot of the binder thief ideas that are now in use were originally posted by me, about a year before the thief revamp. I think you replied along the same lines as you do now. Keep your charm for those who like it.

Im glad to hear that something is in the works. Thats always good.
I will try an exploration class next time I play cf, in about a year.

I dont think that skill would be like Hurl at all. It would be quite different, in more than one way. But obviously it must be like hurl if you say so. Ever read "The Animal Farm."?

Why is adding a new weapon class clumsy? I think its nice. A lot of people would like it, especially if you have to make your own weapons to use that skill.

I think that a lot of the binder thief ideas that are now in use were originally posted by me, about a year before the thief revamp.

Sorry, but those skills were outlined more than two years before the revamp got done. The thief project was written up a long time before it ever saw implementation.

What you're seeing is convergent thinking. If you tell 20 CFers to come up with a set of skills for a binding-oriented thief, they're probably going to come up with a lot of ideas in common, like gags.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com

nt

Decrease self-lag to 2 rounds on a succesful backrake. That doesn't seem unreasonable, given that it doesn't always cause bleeding. Moreover make the bleeding drain a small amount of mv each tick (like -5...-10mv), or maybe just halt mv-regeneration for its duration. This would distinguish the bleeding slightly from other similar effects and also complement rangers' other abilities.

Actually, I've drawn up a pretty good list of ideas for a ranger revamp. (Granted, I've drawn up a pretty good list of ideas for new abilities for a lot of things.) If I was a little more active right now I'd probably start work on that project.

That said, I don't at all think rangers are weak right now, even at the high levels -- just, not especially varied or interesting in their tactics compared to some of the other classes.

I can't comment on the actual skill suggestion, but I definitely can agree with the point that Rangers are boring at high levels. Maybe they really need a revamp, or maybe they just aren't for everyone. My opinion is they certainly aren't for me, the way that they are now

Thorny/Nimuweh