Why a ranger used to be fun

[mactru]

When I first started playing, I loved my ranger. He was awesome, he wasn't the best in the game, I probally wasn't the best person playing a ranger, but I had fun.I remember back when I, a lvl 33 ranger, pulled a 34^ orc in zek using my hidden shot, I immediatley press my "A" and "S" keys simultaneously(sp?) to give me a circular movement. I'd then begin my flaming shot and que up my triple shot because back then flaming shot had a longer casting timer and triple shot was real quick. After just those three hits usually the orc was down around 50% health. I'd start doing some of my other bow CA's while always going in that circular movement. Every once in a while I'd jump in, finally for the orc, in range for him to hit me, but I'd hit my melee attacks and I'd be out before he could do any significant damage. Before I got out of range I'd always use my Cheap Shot, and run behind and do my back bow CA. I'd keep doing all the bow CA's until he was finally dead. My biggest problem was, I could never have enough arrows(hehe). Most of the rangers know exactly what I'm describing, kiting. Kiting was awesome. It made the game so much fun.I took a a 4 month break, came back and I only had 2 moving bow CA's, Culling the Herd and Dehabiliating(sp?) Arrow. But I could still do damage, so I adjusted and learned to start of with culling  the herd and then leg shot so the target wasn't going to get to me anytime soon. I'd then use Triple Fire and by the time he was in melee range he was pretty low on health, I then used cheap shot and got behind him as much as possible seeing as most of the rangers hits are from behind. I could still kill, so I was still happy.Now, for all my bow attacks, I have to be standing still. If I do the same sequence as above, the target is still in the green and since my cheap shot doesn't do anything, I have to melee fight. Which, seeing as I have wear heavy armour and a bunch melee hits, I can do easily. NOT. We are rangers, we can't take hits. How are we expected to solo if we can't use what we are given to use.I don't know why you guys changed it, nor do I even care why you changed, but give me my fun back, let me play my character how it's suppose to be played.<div></div>

[Bro]

Don't try to overanalyze it too much & just accept the fact that for some reason, MMO designers hate Rangers/Archers.There's a long tradition for this, stretching waay back to UO. Everyone hates archers for some reason. UO used to make archers stand still to take their shots for years. EQ2's just caught up with that idea (even though UO eventually changed it). At least mobs don't outrun arrows in EQ2, although we can miss things like Darathar with remarkable ease.Dragon? What dragon? ohh... That dragon.. sorry, was just distracted (flirting with that cute elf standing behind us)Ya see we're hard to fit into the mindset of most people, and history proves this.The romans didn't really know what to do with horse archers when they first encountered them. They formed their groups, they died, while the archers ran/rode around them picking them off. Eventually they sussed it, and asked them to group & incorporated them into their tactics.Or ask the French what they thought of the English archers.. They hated them as well. The English didn't care too much & were happy to stick two fingers up to them,Bringing it up to date.. ask any infantryman what they think of snipers.. They're maaaybee ok, so long as they're on your side.We kill, we move, we kill again. We do damage, we're hard to catch. We see you, you die, you get close, we may die.Bring it into the fantasy world.. well, we don't get as much PR.If you're a geek cutting code, I guess it's easier to identify with a dress wearing, highly intelligent spell chucker than the agility & hand-eye co-ordination of a Ranger. They'll never be the musclebound hero either.. remember things like Conan. The results of 200lbs of muscle with a 4-5ft razorblade meeting 120lbs of intellect & no mana aren't pretty. But possibly easier to clean up.We're something in between all that, and I think it makes people nervous. We're harder to put in a nice, neat little box.. Unless we're dead. Otherwise, we're out there, waiting, stalking out prey..Folks don't like that, so they try to make us conform to 'fair fights', standing toe-toe with things much bigger than us, wearing armour that suits our needs for concealment & manouverability.. But that's not what we're about.. Only a fool or a hero picks a fair fight.<div></div>

[mactru]

That was a sweet post.Kudos to you sir!<div></div>

[defect9]

<div></div><p>Very well said.  Even though I don't play a ranger (atm) I've seen what they've done to them.  Sure, they don't want all rangers to be kiting the mobs, but if they can't avoid damage then they really need to have a higher DPS so that the mobs don't splatter them from qeynos to everfrost.</p><p> </p><p>-J</p>

[Steezi]

<div>extremely well said... i dont even care as much about the soloin ability, because i think  only about 4 classes are desperately overpowered at it, and no class should rilly be able to solo even conned heroic mobs...thats the point of them bein heroic. But yah, put us into a group situation, and we have the worst of the tank and dps worlds, while regularly bein out dps'd by fury's, who have the best of healer and mages worlds... Make us wear leather armor, make our avoidance lower, just give SOME of our dps back! we dont want top dawg, just to be wanted /sob....</div>

[Bro]

/blushThe way I look at it is if Harry Potter had been a ranger, we'd probably have been ok.It's about the balance, rather than just DPS. Remember the time when our agility used to count for something? We used to be able to dodge or avoid a lot of melee attacks. That got nerfed a good while back & then tweaked again with the leather/chain mitigation Vs avoidance patch.That's the bit we need to get balanced, if we're going to stay with a low DPS, make us a lil more survivable. It's not  just the low DPS thats killing us, its the combination of DPS, mitigation, avoidance & defence. Most other classes seem to beat us on all those skills now. Rasing our defensive skills would bring back the balance, and help for both solo & groups.. Tank goes down, we jump in, we may not be able to kill it, but at least we can keep it distracted until the healers get the tank back on their feet.<div></div>

[Dark_Moons_Rising]

<div></div><p>:smileywink:</p><p> two words to discribe us</p><p>SCORPION KING</p><p>great with a bow,,</p><p>agil as all get out</p><p>and ( SUPPOSED ) to be good with weapons of any sort</p><p> </p><p>I have been playing rangers since the days of Dungeons and Dragons, late 70's early 80's, then the Advanced version</p><p>We rule,, by wits,, by agility and by our tactics,, not pure muscle power like the tanks,,</p><p>Ledoakain MIstrunner</p><p>56 RANGER,,,,, thats right, Ranger,, not archer</p><p>Butcherblock</p>

[Jay]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>Brolo wrote:Don't try to overanalyze it too much & just accept the fact that for some reason, MMO designers hate Rangers/Archers.<div></div><hr></blockquote><p>ROFL</p><p><settles tinfoil hat firmly on head></p><p>Yes, and the Illuminati secretly control an army of rabid gerbils via radio signals sent from Egyptian tombs through my fillings. No, really! <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Bro]

Oh, how very witty & constructive you are Jay, perhaps you could point me in the direction of Illuminati Online? I have the card game..Or perhaps we could discuss how other games have handled the ranger issue.. pick out the good bits & bad bits, do something useful..I can name UO, SWG, EQ1 & 2. SWG's kind of an interesting one, same stable after all. Rangers there went from having useful skills like tracking, harvesting and making nice camps, to..erm.. total non-existance. SWG gave up trying to manage a pretty complex & fun skill system and collapsing it into a smaller set of classes. Perhaps in time, the same will happen here. We're more melee now, perhaps we'll be rolled into a more generic good scout/bad scout class. Much simpler to maintain.<div></div>