Ranger Rant

[Jayd]

I’m sick and tired, Obsidian Board. Sick and tired of the disrespect Rangers face in this video game. It’s time to publicly record my grievances. I’m going to defend two theses in this post:

• Rangers are underrated by the community.
• Obsidian kinda hates Rangers.

If I’m persuasive, you should come away from this thinking, “Rangers are really neat” and “Rangers deserved better”.

Rangers are underrated

When it comes to martial DPS classes, Rangers don’t get much clout. They aren’t recommended much compared to Rogues, Monks, Barbarians, and Fighters, and where they are discussed some core strengths are unacknowledged or undersold, and weaknesses are exaggerated. 

1. How important is accuracy really? First thing you tell a new player on PotD is that they need to pump perception so they can actually hit things. Accuracy is king, they say. Meanwhile, Rangers have effortless accuracy bonuses well beyond what other classes are capable of, so why aren’t they the kings? Either accuracy isn’t all that or Ranger aren’t being given the respect they deserve. I hear the objections coming in: “accuracy has diminishing returns after a certain point!” maybe, but do Rangers really go far past that point, especially when tougher enemies can have such high defences? Rangers give you a consistent stream of crits against trash mobs and the ability to maintain damage against higher defense enemies. That’s not just good – it’s great. Objection: “Even if accuracy is so good, it doesn’t matter if the damage isn’t there and Ranger damage can’t compete with something like a Rogue!” This leads us to 
2. Rangers get an intrinsic damage bonus! That damage bonus is called an Animal Companion. Every piece of damage your AC does is bonus damage you get for picking a Ranger. If you’re auto-attacking and you hit for 35 and your AC hits for 25 (moderate example), you just did 60 damage by auto attacking. Unlike sneak attack, this damage bonus gets applied whether you are casting or doing weapon damage and targets whoever you want it to. Just because you don’t see a fat red 60 pop up when you hit doesn’t mean that the damage is any less real. People treat ACs as weak because they are thinking of them as full party members instead of as free damage on top of everything else you do. Their damage keeps on at its own pace independent of your own actions and recovery (you are contributing bonus damage even as you cast heals or buffs on a multiclass). They should be compared to stuff like Sneak Attack and Carnage, not Eder. They also have advantages like being used for flanking, blocking enemy movement (off-tanking), and can be buffed with spells to be more effective. Something like Sneak Attack doesn’t have that flexibility. Of course there is a downside too: you need to keep your AC alive or else you lose this advantage and get debuffed on top. But
3. Animal Companions aren’t hard to keep alive! The number of times I’ve seen people recommend using Ghost Heart to ignore the AC altogether is absurd. That’s a core damage bonus of the Ranger class and people will dismissively say it’s “too hard to keep alive – btw check out my unrelated melee class build with 3 RES and 5 CON”. It’s not hard to keep an AC alive. Just heal it, don’t main tank with it, and use common sense. When you get Play Dead it becomes very easy to keep alive even in dicey situations. If you want to use Ghost Heart, use it so you can be much more aggressive with your AC, not just because you don’t like having a pet.

In conclusion, Rangers get easy and massive boosts to the supremely important Accuracy stat, in combination with a versatile and significant damage bonus in the form of their animal pal who is not nearly as prone to dying as people are fond of claiming. This community frequently ignores or downplays all these points, leaving Rangers underrated and underappreciated as a damage class.

Obsidian kinda hates Rangers

As much as I’m a Ranger fan, they can be very frustrating to build and enjoy because of some baffling choices as well as blatant neglect by Obsidian.

1. The Ranger skill tree is ridiculously bloated. Why are there FOUR animal companion perks at level 1, with bonuses as mundane as “do some more damage” and “be tougher”. It’s not like you’re investing in playstyle options with your AC – these are just sucking up ability points to make the AC better in utterly boring ways. Vicious and Resilient Companion shouldn’t exist – these should just be AC base stats. Have us choose the other two. Then there’s the completely unnecessary separation of some perks into two. Why are Protective Companion and Stalker’s Link separate? Why Defensive Bond and Strengthened Bond? Why does Concussive Shot exist? Concussive Tranquilizer is one of the best abilities in the game but you have to spend two points on it by picking an initial ability that’s JUST an interrupt – not even a prone. It’s like Obsidian decided that Rangers shouldn’t be allowed to do much so they force you to waste points on mundane, boring talents that are nonetheless very important. I hate it.
2. Wounding Shot and Arcane Archer imbue spells are permanently broken. Wounding Shot never did nearly as much damage as its description indicated and it still doesn’t. Why wasn’t this fixed? That’s the Ranger’s signature damage ability and it sucks. Imbue spells still don’t scale properly, so they are missing out on damage and penetration that they should have. That’s the subclasses entire thing and Obsidian left it broken even as modders at least patched the penetration. This is just neglectful.

Players would be more excited to roll a Ranger if they didn’t feel like they were fighting against the game to build the character how they want and enjoy working abilities. I know I would.

 

Rangers are really neat.

Rangers deserve better.
 

[3x0du5]

People neglect AC and go for GhostHeart for the very reasons u described as you have to pick 5 talents to even make AC do anything and its also additional character to micro as it will die very easy on AI and ranger companion usually causes a lot of body blocking issues and cant find their path to targets ,you can takedown combo with ghost hearts AC whenever it suits you without investing 5-10 ability points in to AC. Other similar option is to play Maia or use mod that unlocks Gunhawk class , bird AC can be played without any AC passives and just spam takedown combo when needed and Gunhawk subclass has no penalties and the bird is basically another bonus compared to other subclasses.

Melee Rangers are kinda liked by the community and can be built to be very strong but honestly if I want to play ranger I want it to be ranged as there are plenty of other interesting melee classes.

Arcane archer is just massive derp by obsidian but community patch fixes some of the problems and then you can build that one multi class build with paladin by Boeroer and its kinda fun, however any martial class is fun when played with paladin because you can spam FoD once you ran out of your other class resources and flames hits so hard that enemies explode into little pieces of meat  

Basically for me biggest issue about ranger is the AC and that it feels incomplete if you neglect AC , AC causes more trouble than good in long run and are too weak in general unless you dump more than half of your talent points into making AC useful but then you end up with weaker ranger.

Edited September 12, 2019 by 3x0du5

[Elric Galad]

Ghostheart is good because of its animal companion, not as a way to ignore it. Spammable instant summon is a crazy ability and it is also good to help position it.

Concussive Shot is the only 1 ressource interrupt on graze that works with RANGED weapons. Ranged interrupt are far more convenient than melee ones.

Overall I agree with you that Rangers are better than the credit they get but that their tech tree is incredibly ability points hungry. Furthermore most of pet related abilities are meh, especially compared to Paladin ones that can target any party membres...

Edited September 12, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Powerotti]

1 hour ago, 3x0du5 said:

Melee Rangers are kinda liked by the community and can be built to be very strong but honestly if I want to play ranger I want it to be ranged as there are plenty of other interesting melee classes.

Why not both? Mele weapon with Instruments of pain works like "ranger should be ranged, but stalker is melee exception, BUT this one is still ranged" kind of.

Animal companion, on PotD, will do poor damage because of penetration lack, aspd and quite low base dmg, but can be good at tanking.

Or try sniper/cipher with enormous crit rate and veilpiercer, which skips recovery on crit and frostseeker for aoe damage.

Rangers are not underrated for sure.

[thelee]

(Sorry for post formatting, it's real hard to selectively quote multiple things from a post)

"How important is accuracy really? First thing you tell a new player on PotD is that they need to pump perception so they can actually hit things. Accuracy is king, they say."

Who says this? Because they're wrong. Dex and int are kings. Perception is only slightly better than might, and that is pretty conditional. That being said...

"Meanwhile, Rangers have effortless accuracy bonuses well beyond what other classes are capable of, so why aren’t they the kings? Either accuracy isn’t all that or Ranger aren’t being given the respect they deserve."

The latter I agree with. It'd be one thing if rangers only got like a +5 acc bonus here or there, but they get so much accuracy that it overwhelms the sorta-marginal status of perception. It's not like any other class can get up to +50 dex or int (which would make them king), but even if perception/acc were weaker than it is now, a base +50 accuracy (stalker's link, marked prey, maxed hunter's claw, survival of hte fittest) would still be absurd just based on sheer quantity.

"Animal Companions aren’t hard to keep alive! The number of times I’ve seen people recommend using Ghost Heart to ignore the AC altogether is absurd. "

Animal companions are ridiculously hard to keep alive on PotD with upscaling on, even with Resilient Companion. IME you basically need to abuse Maia's pet's ability to avoid engagement or have a Bear + Hardy/Robust to really lean on your pet staying alive. Anyway, if people are really saying to use Ghost Heart to avoid the AC and this isn't a strawman, then this is definitely wrong. Ghost Heart's advantage is their pet ignores engagement, not that you don't have to worry about an AC. But! Sometimes the pet not staying alive is a feature, not a bug, thanks to various items and ranger skills that interact with a downed pet (and I don't think this works with Ghost Heart).

"The Ranger skill tree is ridiculously bloated. Why are there FOUR animal companion perks at level 1, with bonuses as mundane as “do some more damage” and “be tougher”. It’s not like you’re investing in playstyle options with your AC – these are just sucking up ability points to make the AC better in utterly boring ways. Vicious and Resilient Companion shouldn’t exist – these should just be AC base stats. Have us choose the other two."

I think this is purely an artifact of playing on upscale+PotD. On PotD Vicious and Resilent Companions basically become mandatory, whereas on lower difficulty they are much more purely playstyle choices.

"Then there’s the completely unnecessary separation of some perks into two. "

I think you're underestimating how viable a skill might be on its own without the upgrade, like Concussive Shot. Have happily used it just for the interrupt without upgrading it to do -30s (which while great, is really not that great if you have other sources in your party like Arcane Dampener, Arcane Cleansing, or even just Street Sweeper).

"Wounding Shot and Arcane Archer imbue spells are permanently broken. Wounding Shot never did nearly as much damage as its description indicated and it still doesn’t. Why wasn’t this fixed? That’s the Ranger’s signature damage ability and it sucks. Imbue spells still don’t scale properly, so they are missing out on damage and penetration that they should have. That’s the subclasses entire thing and Obsidian left it broken even as modders at least patched the penetration. This is just neglectful."

I suspect Obsidian never realized how broken Wounding Shot was - there's a lot of complex mechanics, they have fewer eyeballs and resources than the collective fanbase of forumgoers, so it probably just never rose to much prominence. Maybe they overestimated Wounding Shot being valued for triggering Predator's Sense, even though there are a bajillion other ways to trigger it. Does the community patch fix it?

As for Arcane Archer, I was under the impression they did fix it - guess not. Kind of the problem with making such huge changes in a near-end-of-lifecycle patch.

 

Anyway aside from those specific points, I do agree that people seem to undervalue the ranger, though I don't agree that Obsidian doesn't care about the ranger - they literally added several new skills ot the ranger over time, which is why the ranger is as awesome as it is today (hunter's claw line especially). I'm not sure any other class got straight-up new abilities.

Edited September 12, 2019 by thelee

[Boeroer]

I would always say that accuracy is king. Not PER and certainly not DEX or even INT (although I value INT over DEX a lot). But accuracy itself. Or let's be more clear: your chance to hit. This also includes enemies' defenses (and the debuffing of those). If your chance to hit is low then all the DEX and INT in the world will not help you much. Try to play a Soulblade with low accuracy (3 PER + Large Shield) with 20 DEX and 20 MIG, miss 80% or soue Aoul Annihilation attempts and you'll see what I mean. 

On the other hand: one problem with the Ranger - as damage dealer - is his lack of good AoE. Even his accuracy bonuses often only work on one single target.

Marked Prey: one single target (I mean you could apply it to all enemies in range seperately, but who does this?)

Stalker's Link: one single target.

Wounding Shot: one single target (doesn't work with AoE weapons and not woirh Driving Flight!)

On PotD this is a problem. Not so much if you want your Ranger to be your single target specialist, but a big problem if you need an AoE damage dealer.

This narrows his role down quite a bit: Single Target Damage Dealer(TM). Meh...

I agree that most players don't seem to be able to process and acknowledge the contribution of the AC correctly. I also don't find it hard to keep the AC alive. I currently have two of them in the party (wolf with melee Stalker/Bloodmage with Willbreaker and boar with Trickster/Sharpshooter with Watershaper's Focus). This is my first boar AC and I'm actually pretty suprised by its tankyness (it basically has endless health). Of course you can't send the ACs into the fray where they get pummeled relentlessly. That doesn't work. But they are easy enough to handle on PotD. It's true though that they can get into the way. Especially the bigger ones (Lion, Boar, Bear) tend to block my way because they don't fit into gaps where kith could pass.

My biggest gripe with the Ranger isn't his power - it's his lack of intereresting abilites. Somebody at Obsidian really loves Monks. Ciphers and Rogues, too. You can tell by the awesome abilites and subclasses they have. Rangers have rather boring subclasses (Arcane Archer could be an exception if it would scale properly). They have an overnerfed Wounding Shot (it was totally OP in the beta but the current state is bad) and the have several unexiting passives. And PL 8 and 9 are truly a disappointment. Who decided to turn Twinned Shot from a modal into an active ability deserves a spanking.  Shadowed Hunter - huh! Turning invisible without any other means of profiting from invisibility - weird. And of course the enemy gets -10 Deflection if same enemy misses my AC. Which has a lot of ways to stack up defenses. Not... 

Only two exceptions: Takedown Combo and Driving Flight. Now those are cool. I would say if they made Stunning Shots doing actual stuns again (if you hit the enemy which is also attacked by your AC like in PoE) and Twinned Shots a modal we wouldn't have this discussion - at least not for SC Rangers.

I personally find Hunter's Claw etc. rather boring. More of the same (+ACC). Also depends heavily on meta-knowledge. Again: if it would be a passive or modal (woth pro/cons) it would be fine. But the current mechanics of it are not to my liking.

Edited September 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[Powerotti]

10 minutes ago, Boeroer said:

Who decided to turn Twinned Shot from a modal into an active ability deserves a spanking.

Fire in the hole + driving flight + twinned shot modal + avenging storm - that would be real spanking. And stunning shots for garnish

[Boeroer]

It already is. You can do that - only with Twinned Shots as an active.

The real spank is Hand Mortar with BLinding Smoke though: the cone counts as weapon attack and thus triggers Avenging Storm...

By the way: since when is the Stalking Cloak no longer working from invisibility? It only works from stealth now. RIP Shadowed Hunter's last resort. 

Edited September 12, 2019 by Boeroer

[Powerotti]

+blinding smoke, of course. But with twinned shot as modal, you could also use abilities like AA imbue shots. Now it's a bit limited by bond spending.

Wasn't twinned arrows from poe usable only with bows? But still frostseeker or veilpiercer would get some nice addition, even with reduced acc.

Don't get me wrong, i think it was cool ability, but now rangers and multiclass have many more new cool stuff. "Old cool" + "new coll" = "facemelting coll". Simple math. Do you want your face melt?

[Elric Galad]

Twinned arrows was one of the most OP abilities in PoE1, good enough to make the entire Rogue Class obsolete as single target damage dealee.

Stunning Shots were pretty good too, but Interrupt on Croit isn't Bad now that interrupt is basically 2s Crowd Control.

Ranger abilities are pretty varied IMHO, with Single Target, AoE, dispell, improved Halt, mobility stuff, combo.

"Pet heal/rez" are pretty unimaginative as well as bad and Play Dead feels/Shadowed Hunters are quite redundant though. The Tier 8 pet buff is overcosted and recovery is too long... The entire pet care Line is what makes ranger disappointing...

[Boeroer]

Did you guys know that Hunter's Claw can be used with ranged weapons as well? Just put a bashing shield in the offhand (or any 1h melee weapon). The trick is to use an AoE weapon like Fire in the Hole or a Blunderbuss to generate a lot more hits than you could do with a melee weapon (even Sun & Moon). Driving Flight does work as well. 

I knew this for long but didn't actually use it in a playthrough. Now I just managed to get 11 stacks from one shot with Fire in the Hole. Haha. 

@Elric Galad: I always wanted to try if Vengeful Grief + Revive Companion is a good combo. Vengeful Grief has 15 sec base duration which isn't too bad. And if you AC goes down anyway you can at least prifit from that - and get it back up. Luckily enough ACs don't get injuries.

And somthing I just remembered: they nerfed Evasive Fire which was a really good ability. Now it's just meh.

Binding Roots, even Thorny Roots is quite cool. Very long lasting CC. You can use it together with Vion-ceth hatchet to always unlock its 30% dmg bonus. Which is cool. Hatchet Gang Ranger...

Edited September 13, 2019 by Boeroer

[Jayd]

Not quite the talking points I was expecting. First mea culpa: I think I had the idea of people recommending Ghost Heart to escape companions through a combination of fextralife sorta mentioning it, the hate ACs get in threads like this that I've read, and the fact that so many Ranger builds choose GH. But ultimately what I wrote wasn't justified.

What I will absolutely stand by is the claim that it is not hard to keep ACs alive. My first character was a Ranger and my antelope did not go down more than other party members even though I was trash at the game. I've played two Rangers since then, most recently a currently mid-level Beastmaster with a lion, and he's fine. I didn't even pick resilient companion because of perk bloat (may try to fit it in later). I just built him for damage and so far this Beastmaster does more damage than a Pathfinder I rolled just before. Also more fun to play. My lion crits  30+ damage with fast attack speed, and I didn't have to forgo a ton of abilities to make him that good. All this is PotD upscaled. I don't know if it's a playstyle issue or what that makes some people struggle with keeping ACs alive, but I can't imagine it's that hard to adjust with a little effort. Just mind enemy aggro and tank properly.

[ArnoldRimmer]

I'm playing a ranger now - no subclass on potd upscaled and don't find that my wolf dies to often, if ever. Withdraw is sometimes useful but I need that for other characters too sometimes. I would guess that 80% of fights he never even in danger of dying. I spent points on the pet early to toughen him up - I don't consider points for pet only abilities to be wasted points. Mid level I got mostly passives and only started getting pet actives later in the game. Playdead & deadly surprise - better than wasting points on heal or revive with so little health that he dies again straight away - it's like your own version of withdrawl.

I also like bonded fury a lot and sometimes furious call is usefull if enemies get through the front line.

I think if your pet dies too often you are using him like a substitute Eder

Edited September 13, 2019 by ArnoldRimmer

[Boeroer]

Maybe if you play a lot solo you can get the impression that the AC is dying often. Not the case with a party though. At least not generally.

[thelee]

Man I must just suck with controlling the AC then. I feel like I was constantly triggering Vengeful Grief on Maia (which itself wasn't a total bad thing).

[Boeroer]

How come? Her Animal Companion is even immune to engagement. You can retreat the bird at any time.

As I asked: wouldn't Vengeful Grief + Revive Companion be a good thing? The bonus might last ('cause it has a 15 sec base duration) even though the malus is gone because the AC is back up again?

If you have a SC Paladin in the party: even more so...

 

Edit: nope... Vengeful Grief gets removed as soon as you revive your companion.

Edited September 13, 2019 by Boeroer

[3x0du5]

i guess it depends how you are using AC if you keep him in the back waiting for enemies to rush your backline - AC wont die but then you gain nothing from him for half of the combat 

second option is use him the way he is supposed to be used - once your tank engages and enemies settle in place you send your AC to enemy back line and your ranger starts sniping enemy back line - your ac will die and will do it often unless you dedicate a healer to follow him arround 

[Elric Galad]

7 hours ago, ArnoldRimmer said:

Playdead & deadly surprise - better than wasting points on heal or revive with so little health that he dies again straight away - it's like your own version of withdrawl.

I also like bonded fury a lot 

It's not that Playdead is useless. But it's only a (better) version of withdrawal that works only on 1 specific team member and cost 2 bonds from your desperately needed ressource pool. That plus recovery.

Bonded fury is good on paper, but once more cost a bunch of ressources just to buff your pet and has a quite high recovey time. It's not exactly a Passive pet buff for SC rangers. Everybond spent on the pet is less spent on offensive abilities (which are quite decent for SC Ranger). Tier 2 Resolve isn't that useful on the pet, and I wonder whether Intellect Inspiration has an effect. Is the additional PL even apply to Takedown ? Do pets have a PL ?  

Edited September 13, 2019 by Elric Galad

[Jayd]

4 hours ago, 3x0du5 said:

i guess it depends how you are using AC if you keep him in the back waiting for enemies to rush your backline - AC wont die but then you gain nothing from him for half of the combat 

second option is use him the way he is supposed to be used - once your tank engages and enemies settle in place you send your AC to enemy back line and your ranger starts sniping enemy back line - your ac will die and will do it often unless you dedicate a healer to follow him arround 

This might be the crux of the matter. I've never used a Ranger as a backline sniper, sending the AC off alone as early as possible. But doing that with any character isn't easier. A rogue, for example, needs to lean on Escape to do that - your AC can lean on Master's Call. 

Of course no one ever told you that this is how ACs are "supposed to be used". And leaving it in the backline for "half of the combat" is definitely not the only other option. You can use your AC to flank or engage enemies who aren't out in Timbuktu. There are plenty of important squishies to kill that don't require your animal to be out in no-man's land. And Rangers even make good tank killers because of their accuracy and cleanse. If you really want your Ranger to be dedicated only to sniping backliners, pick Ghost Heart.

1 hour ago, Elric Galad said:

It's not that Playdead is useless. But it's only a (better) version of withdrawal that works only on 1 specific team member and cost 2 bonds from your desperately needed ressource pool. That plus recovery.

Bonded fury is good on paper, but once more cost a bunch of ressources just to buff your pet and has a quite high recovey time. It's not exactly a Passive pet buff for SC rangers. Everybond spent on the pet is less spent on offensive abilities (which are quite decent for SC Ranger). Tier 2 Resolve isn't that useful on the pet, and I wonder whether Intellect Inspiration has an effect. Is the additional PL even apply to Takedown ? Do pets have a PL ?  

Animal companion-focused abilities use the AC's own action and recovery, not the Rangers. That applies to Play Dead and I would think Bonded Fury as well. Your AC can use them even while the Ranger is in recovery or CC'd. Think of Play Dead more as a powerful self-heal and aggro reset for the companion itself rather than a healing spell for the Ranger. Something closer to giving your AC Unbending when it comes to logistics of use. It's just that you share resources.

All tier-2 inspirations is nothing to scoff at and it seems kinda unfair to focus on the two least useful (not useless) ones and ignore the other 4 to make your point. That said I agree with your point about heavy resource strain. 

Edited September 13, 2019 by Jayd

[Elric Galad]

3 minutes ago, Jayd said:

Animal companion-focused abilities use the AC's own action and recovery, not the Rangers. That applies to Play Dead and I would think Bonded Fury as well. Your AC can use them even while the Ranger is in recovery or CC'd. Think of Play Dead more as a powerful self-heal and aggro reset for the companion itself rather than a healing spell for the Ranger. Something closer to giving your AC Unbending. It's just that you share resources.

All tier-2 inspirations is nothing to scoff at and it seems kinda unfair to focus on the two least useful (not useless) ones and ignore the other 4 to make your point. That said I agree with your point about heavy resource strain. 

Oh, I didn't know that. 

Bonded Fury has to be compared with Fighter Inspired Discipline which is... good enough. Same Tier, same duration, and same general principle.
Difference are :
- Recovery : inspired Discipline being basically instant.
- Inspiration Tiers : Many Tier 2 are roughly twice as good as Tier 1. I would say it is true for Tenacious, Hardy, Aware and Nimble. But not for Acute and Resolute in the case of pet. So not really twice as good, but not much less.
- Target : I would say that a SC fighter is roughly twice as good as a pet, but it might be underestimated. Some of the Improved Clear Out abilities combined with the right weapon really kick arses.

I would say that Bonded Fury would be good if it had 0 recovery and 2 Bond Cost. Or maybe lasted twice. Or some combination of all these.
The truth is that I would like SC Ranger Pet to be really superior to MC ones, and that a slightly OP Bonded Fury would really be good for this.