Ranger Status - Pre Launch

[Sensuki]

Not sure man. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in there that kept them to a minimum of level-1 though.

[GreyZ]

Not sure man. I wouldn't be surprised if there was something in there that kept them to a minimum of level-1 though.

I reaaaally hope so, one thing I dont need from IE games is the equivalent picking up companions at a higher level and having them be stuck with low hp rolls and terrible weapon proficiences and terrible thief skill distributions 

Edited March 21, 2015 by GreyZ

[Sock]

I agree with the sentiment that rangers make excellent tanks. Take Weapon and Shield + Hold the Line, have a Fighter companion with a 2H weapon and the defender modal. You then have 7 engagement slots, and can lock down a battle field. 2 engagement slots are the pet, and it's not great for withstanding two things at once, so you have 5 reliable slots. 

 

With the pet granting a massive +20 bonus to accuracy, they have the ability to really maximize on crits. It's also worth mentioning that the pets (wolf at least) can easily manage 20-30 damage hits, and I have seen crits up to 42. The pets are capable of significant damage in their own right, which really benefits using them for flanking/dps while the ranger itself tanks. 

 

Are they the most effective single tank for the entire party? No, but pair them with any other strong off-tank, and they really shine as the perfect hybrid of offense and defense, so long as you can keep your pet alive.

[rheingold]

Well courtesy of this thread I just rolled another a ranged ranger. Some thoughts

- it's a very understated class, and a case where the stats don't tell the whole story.

- the pet is VERY useful, a full time summons with knockdown and a minor sneak attack. It also runs interference and acts as a minor tank. It works beautifully with a dual wield rogue, it's quick, flanks, sneak attacks and tanks for the rogue. All the while the ranger is steadily plinking away with his bow/gun.

- a couple of reasons why people think it sucks.

- there is no radical change in the characters power because you have to share talents with the pet and it's hard to quantify how much they add to the party. For this reason many people won't like it, you end up having to give talents away in order to make your character stronger.

Overall it's a very useful add to the party, has good ranged abilities, does good damage and has a great summon. It's by no means the weakest class, maybe it's not overpowered, but weak, I doubt it. Frankly it's a unique take on an old class.

BTW I probably won't even play one, I prefer Druids and rogues and I like the idea of the ranger companion.

[Frog Man]

So if you are disagreeing with others on this thread by saying it is 'by no means' the weakest class, then who is?

[wolfstriked]

My oh my fighter just doesn't sound right for a character that is just a tank and not good at dealing damage.Lineman sounds better to me and that took 5 seconds.Guards,shields etc,something better than fighter can give a better feel to what they actually do.

[mutonizer]

My oh my fighter just doesn't sound right for a character that is just a tank and not good at dealing damage.Lineman sounds better to me and that took 5 seconds.Guards,shields etc,something better than fighter can give a better feel to what they actually do.

 

Fighters can be DPS as well, not a problem and afaik they are the only ones who can get weapon masteries.

[dukefx]

In terms of DPS fighter > ranger. As a matter of fact, if you build both as offensively as possible, the fighter will deal more than twice the amount of damage than the ranger. So much for the ranger being a heavy hitter. If you factor in defense the fighter can hold his own while the ranger is toast if you fight teleporting mobs. Both are able to clear out Dryford Village solo (ranger with pet ofc, but no other party members) but the fighter will do it so much faster.

 

@Sock

Where are you getting that +20 accuracy from? Afaik there's only a -20 penalty when your pet goes down. My fully offensive fighter has 80 something acc (can't remember exact values since I don't have beta access and I can only test stuff occasionally at a friend of mines), while the ranger has near 100, but the ranger has vicious aim on and is an elf with distant advantage, so that's +15 acc compared to the fighter. Seems about right... there's no +20 acc out of nowhere.

[morhilane]

@Sock

Where are you getting that +20 accuracy from? Afaik there's only a -20 penalty when your pet goes down. My fully offensive fighter has 80 something acc (can't remember exact values since I don't have beta access and I can only test stuff occasionally at a friend of mines), while the ranger has near 100, but the ranger has vicious aim on and is an elf with distant advantage, so that's +15 acc compared to the fighter. Seems about right... there's no +20 acc out of nowhere.

 

Stalker's link was changed to +20 accuracy when the Ranger is attacking the same target as his pet...it's a passive.

Edited March 21, 2015 by morhilane

[Odd Hermit]

Wolf best pet IMO for the potential kiting and to get on squishy targets fast.

 

If your wolf goes around harassing casters you can often have it run around while they fail AoE spells @ it because it's moving too fast. For hard hitting melee enemies you can of course just run in circles.

 

Ranger is a very, very micro-heavy class 'cause it's like 2 characters - even though they don't have a ton of abilities the pet's strength is distraction.

 

Most of my experiences with ranger have been quite poor but they get relatively better when you build them for path of the damned due to accuracy being a much stronger bonus against the higher deflection enemies, and because the pet has much more application when you're micromanaging fights more carefully.

 

I've had a similar experience with Wizard, as their Eldritch Aim spell is amazing on PoD and a lot of their debuffs are more substantial since you actually want/need to lower enemy defenses more rather than simply nuking first and then mopping up survivors after.

[mutonizer]

In terms of DPS fighter > ranger. As a matter of fact, if you build both as offensively as possible, the fighter will deal more than twice the amount of damage than the ranger. So much for the ranger being a heavy hitter. If you factor in defense the fighter can hold his own while the ranger is toast if you fight teleporting mobs. Both are able to clear out Dryford Village solo (ranger with pet ofc, but no other party members) but the fighter will do it so much faster.

 

• You need to count the pet (and proper utilization of it) with the ranger and if so, in a pure DPS fighter vs a pure DPS ranger, the ranger will completely cream the fighter. Ranger class talent and pet bonds are really good when used properly. This of course is offset by the fact that without the pet, DPS rangers just can't do anything, while the fighter is easy maintenance and will just keep going, and going, and going. To each his own.
• Fighter has 5 more base DEF than the ranger. A DPS fighter will have 5 more DEF than a ranger, that's it. A Tank based fighter will tank a wee bit better, but will get creamed by a tank based ranger, because the fighter won't hit anything ever, while the ranger (and the pet) will hit him constantly.
• Fighter tanks are great because they can really ultra specialized as tank and gain a good boost to engagements but the main issue usually is that they just can't do anything else whatsoever. Meanwhile ranger tanks are slightly less specialized, but are more versatile.
• Clearing something solo at level 4 means nothing really. As said, rangers are high maintenance characters, that's how they "balance out" in a way.

Finally, any non PotD difficulty doesn't really mean anything when discussing classes to me because enemies ACC and DEF stats are just irrelevant. You can play on Easy to Hard with anything doing whatever and it doesn't matter, Josh clearly demonstrated that a couple times (and no, his party wasn't over leveled) and you can try it out yourself in BB. If you start specializing builds on these difficulties (both defensively and offensively), you'll immediately end up with blind clickfests mowing down everything on sight. Of course this is as it is currently, it could be very different at release but I doubt it.

[rheingold]

So if you are disagreeing with others on this thread by saying it is 'by no means' the weakest class, then who is?

I don't know, I suspect there are a few classes who are bunched together, and then you have the overpowered classes. But ranger is not far off the others. I suspect the problems people have with it are more related to gameplay and style. If you play it as it was envisaged it's actually a good summoner class. Obsidan are partly to blame because by calling it a "heavy hitter" people are comparing it to a rogue. Nothing compares to a rogue damage wise. But a ranger does really good damage - but you have to add the damage of the pet to get the full potential. It also has serious utility as well.

[Gromnir]

 

I think it would be good to look at them again in the expansion like what happened in D&D 3.5E 

 

oddly enough, many o' the ranger 3.5 improvements were available much earlier.  sure, they weren't official wotc, but given that d20 were ogl that were kinda irrelevant. monte cook, a guy who had worked on d&d 3e, came up with a ranger alternative. 3.0 were 2000.  monte cook' released revised ranger earlyish (maybe) in 2001. 3.5 weren't released til 2003.  

 

yeah, crpgs is different.  am understanding that it takes more for obsidian to make wholesale changes to a poe class than it does for a pnp gm to do something similar.  given all the re-balancing and bug fixing that will inevitably require obsidian attention in the coming months, one realizes that there will be a need to allocate resources efficiently, and a substantial re-tool o' the ranger seems unlikely given what one must assume is gonna be an otherwise full workload for the developer.  even so, the ranger is currently the one class we got 0 interest in playing, and that is unfortunate.  it is the one class we feel is bordering on being broken. we would hope that improvements to the ranger would be a high priority, even if we can't get a monte cook kinda fix in the near future.

 

...

 

monte cook's ranger may actual be a verboten subject on these boards given the iwd2 issues.

 

 

HA! Good Fun!

[dukefx]

 

In terms of DPS fighter > ranger. As a matter of fact, if you build both as offensively as possible, the fighter will deal more than twice the amount of damage than the ranger. So much for the ranger being a heavy hitter. If you factor in defense the fighter can hold his own while the ranger is toast if you fight teleporting mobs. Both are able to clear out Dryford Village solo (ranger with pet ofc, but no other party members) but the fighter will do it so much faster.

 

• You need to count the pet (and proper utilization of it) with the ranger and if so, in a pure DPS fighter vs a pure DPS ranger, the ranger will completely cream the fighter. Ranger class talent and pet bonds are really good when used properly. This of course is offset by the fact that without the pet, DPS rangers just can't do anything, while the fighter is easy maintenance and will just keep going, and going, and going. To each his own.
• Fighter has 5 more base DEF than the ranger. A DPS fighter will have 5 more DEF than a ranger, that's it. A Tank based fighter will tank a wee bit better, but will get creamed by a tank based ranger, because the fighter won't hit anything ever, while the ranger (and the pet) will hit him constantly.
• Fighter tanks are great because they can really ultra specialized as tank and gain a good boost to engagements but the main issue usually is that they just can't do anything else whatsoever. Meanwhile ranger tanks are slightly less specialized, but are more versatile.
• Clearing something solo at level 4 means nothing really. As said, rangers are high maintenance characters, that's how they "balance out" in a way.

Finally, any non PotD difficulty doesn't really mean anything when discussing classes to me because enemies ACC and DEF stats are just irrelevant. You can play on Easy to Hard with anything doing whatever and it doesn't matter, Josh clearly demonstrated that a couple times (and no, his party wasn't over leveled) and you can try it out yourself in BB. If you start specializing builds on these difficulties (both defensively and offensively), you'll immediately end up with blind clickfests mowing down everything on sight. Of course this is as it is currently, it could be very different at release but I doubt it.

 

 

Pets don't do much damage, they do less than the ranger itself, have an insanely slow attack speed and when I say the fighter does more than twice the damage that's still twice even if you add that tiny amount of pet damage. Tested with dual sabres (because I like sabres - no other reason) fighter with weapon spec/mastery vs a ranger with a war bow (because I like bows and the hunting bow is terrible). Stats were the same on both and if you look at sabres and war bows, they are both the middle ground, so I'm not compaing apples to oranges. Tested with level 12 characters.

 

Fighters will tank better due to critical def., constant recovery, higher base def., higher base HP/Endurance, and armored grace allowing them wear 1 category higher armor while maintaining the same speed. I'm not even counting other skills like defender and such.

 

@morhilane

Ah, that... I didn't factor in situational stuff. If you count on that, you can also count on the -20 when the pet dies making it actually a -40.

[mutonizer]

So...you compare two classes, remove 50% of what defines one of them, and decide that the other is obviously better?

 

"Look, I just compared fighter and wizard DPS and wizard just plain sucks! I mean, I didn't factor in situational stuff like wizard spells but if you count on that, then you need to count the fact that they need to rest for them"

 

Look, it's simple. Ranger are very high maintenance because of the pet. If that's fine with you and you manage it proper, he'll out DPS other DPS classes by far, apart from maybe the Rogue (which is very high maintenance as well) and Monk (not only very conditional, but also high maintenance).

Fighters are very stable, which is their strength really. They (and barbarians, and paladins) are perfect low maintenance melee DPS, you click on a mob, and they'll keep going without you even needing to look at them. It'll be slower, but that's the price to pay I guess and how it all brings "balance".

 

Same is true for tanking. Fighters (and Paladins) are very low maintenance tanks, who can't do anything else apart from a couple abilities. They won't kill anything, ever. Ranger tanks are very high maintenance tanks who, while slightly less well off than what Fighter and Paladin tanks can be, will actually kill what they tank, sometimes pretty fast while providing very nice (but again, high maintenance) utility via their pet.

If that doesn't matter for you, just go Paladin/Fighter. If that matters and you want to handle the maintenance, Ranger's a good pick.

 

As a note, pets actually do pretty decent damage on their own, no idea where that idea came from. And not combining ranger with his pet is just silly, they are one class.

Edited March 21, 2015 by mutonizer

[rheingold]

Look, it's simple. Ranger are very high maintenance because of the pet. If that's fine with you and you manage it proper, he'll out DPS other DPS classes by far, apart from maybe the Rogue (which is very high maintenance as well) and Monk (not only very conditional, but also high maintenance).

Fighters are very stable, which is their strength really. They (and barbarians, and paladins) are perfect low maintenance melee DPS, you click on a mob, and they'll keep going without you even needing to look at them.

 

As a note, pets actually do pretty decent damage on their own, no idea where that idea came from. And not combining ranger with his pet is just silly, they are one class.

 

This

[Gromnir]

 

As a note, pets actually do pretty decent damage on their own, no idea where that idea came from. And not combining ranger with his pet is just silly, they are one class.

 

 

on this point we agree... kinda.  am not certain why some folks, when considering the damage potential o' the ranger, ignore the animal companion's damage.  that is wrong.  

 

even so, is becoming obvious that the ranger don't work very well as presented.  given the features o' the class, and obsidian commentary, one would expect the ranger role to be a ranged weapon "heavy-hitter." this is not a particular viable build at the moment, and there still appear to be quirks with the animal companions.   

 

HA! Good Fun!

[dukefx]

 

So...you compare two classes, remove 50% of what defines one of them, and decide that the other is obviously better? 

 

"Look, I just compared fighter and wizard DPS and wizard just plain sucks! I mean, I didn't factor in situational stuff like wizard spells but if you count on that, then you need to count the fact that they need to rest for them"

 

Look, it's simple. Ranger are very high maintenance because of the pet. If that's fine with you and you manage it proper, he'll out DPS other DPS classes by far, apart from maybe the Rogue (which is very high maintenance as well) and Monk (not only very conditional, but also high maintenance).

Fighters are very stable, which is their strength really. They (and barbarians, and paladins) are perfect low maintenance melee DPS, you click on a mob, and they'll keep going without you even needing to look at them. It'll be slower, but that's the price to pay I guess and how it all brings "balance".

 

Same is true for tanking. Fighters (and Paladins) are very low maintenance tanks, who can't do anything else apart from a couple abilities. They won't kill anything, ever. Ranger tanks are very high maintenance tanks who, while slightly less well off than what Fighter and Paladin tanks can be, will actually kill what they tank, sometimes pretty fast while providing very nice (but again, high maintenance) utility via their pet.

If that doesn't matter for you, just go Paladin/Fighter. If that matters and you want to handle the maintenance, Ranger's a good pick.

 

As a note, pets actually do pretty decent damage on their own, no idea where that idea came from. And not combining ranger with his pet is just silly, they are one class.

 

 

I'm not even sure if we are playing the same game. Tell me... how is a pet high maintenance? You basically send your pet in just like you send in your fighter and play it exactly like a fighter, but it won't last as long as a fighter.

 

Edit: to answer your edit... pets have low damage due to lack of gear. You can equip your ranger to do decent damage, you can't do anything to boost your pet.

Edited March 21, 2015 by dukefx

[dunehunter]

Built my own heartorlan melee ranger, very solid build and soloable IMO.

 

Selected bear companion, it tanked a lot and due to the AI of the game, enemies will attack pet in priority. With stalker's link, swift and steady and minor threat from heartorlan, my ranger does tons of damages while my bear tanks a lot. Wonder why so many complaims that rangers are weak.

Edited March 21, 2015 by dunehunter

[mutonizer]

Rangers are high maintenance because of the pet mechanic, and you can't take their pet as a separate entity. 

1) No you don't treat them as a fighter, you treat them as an extension of the ranger and need to make sure that the pet and the ranger are always in tandem, unless you need the pet for something in case damage is not your priority. That means for 1 class, you need to manipulate 2 characters, that needs to be synchronized to be effective. They also take space, which can make things difficult to handle in tight areas. That's why I consider them high maintenance.

2) Pets lack power scaling in a sense, that's true and sadly is often the case with classes linked to pets. PoE seems pretty heavy on "itemsplozion" so that might become a factor at very high level (and in extensions, etc). Wouldn't be surprised however if at some point either items will get bonus that applies to pet AND user, or, even better, if ranger gained a slot to equip their pets. We can only judge with the level 4-8 content available so far and overall pet keep up (you gain talents, etc which make up for it I guess). No idea how anything will go after release, for any class really. I do agree it's an issue though.

Edited March 21, 2015 by mutonizer

[dukefx]

Now there's something I can agree with, although I still don't consider pets high maintenance. Rogues and casters are high maintenance.
 
I've gone through my screenshots, fortunately I made a lot. The combat log pretty much speaks for itself.
 
Gear:
Ranger has one of the best bows: The Rain of Godagh Field (superb with +20% speed). This ranger build uses Swift Aim (I wanted to try that out because I usually go with VA when I test). No armor, therefore no recovery penalty.
Fighter has superb sabres with +0.5 crit damage. Leather armor with -30+16=-14% recovery penalty.
Both have +damage gloves
 
Stats: both have 19 might and 19 dex
 
Talents: both are specced for offense. The ranger has no Predator's Sense nor Merciless Companion, and no Vicious Companion either, so the pet could do slightly more damage, but then the ranger would do less.
 
And here's the combat log... it shows roughly the same interval. The ranger's is a bit longer because of stunning shots and the bear adding to the amount of lines. Note, that you see lines starting with "Bear" only twice and even then damage is very low.
 

 

 
Fighter's overall damage: 447
Ranger+pet's overall damage: 161
I'd need a much much longer combat log for statistics. The fighter probably got better rolls, but lets say a 2:1 damage ratio would be somewhat accurate.

 

I made so many suggestions to improve the ranger, but they were all ignored. I suggested something like 2 item slots for pets to customize them. So many have asked for better stats on pets. I've suggested shared stats i.e. the pet would benefit from the ranger's stats/gear; even half of it would be great. Josh just doesn't seem to care.

 

Edit: fixed typo

Edited March 21, 2015 by dukefx

[Odd Hermit]

Now there's something I can agree with, although I still don't consider pets high maintenance. Rogues and casters are high maintenance.

 

I've gone through my screenshots, fortunately I made a lot. The combat log pretty much speaks for itself.

 

Gear:

Ranger has one of the best bows: The Rain of Godagh Field (superb with +20% speed). This ranger build uses Swift Aim (I wanted to try that out because I usually go with VA when I test). No armor, therefore no recovery penalty.

Fighter has superb sabres with +0.5 crit damage. Leather armor with -30+16=-14% recovery penalty.

Both have +damage gloves

 

Stats: both have 19 might and 19 dex

 

Talents: both are specced for offense. The ranger has no Predator's Sense nor Merciless Companion, and no Vicious Companion either, so the pet could do slightly more damage, but then the ranger would do less.

 

And here's the combat log... it shows roughly the same interval. The ranger's is a bit longer because of stunning shots and the bear adding to the amount of lines. Note, that you see lines starting with "Bear" only twice and even then damage is very low.

 

 

Fighter's overall damage: 447

Ranger+pet's overall damage: 161

I'd need a much much longer combat log for statistics. The fighter probably got better rolls, but lets say a 2:1 damage ratio would be somewhat accurate.

 

I made so many suggestions to improve the ranger, but they were all ignored. I suggested something like 2 item slots for pets to customize them. So many have asked for better stats on pets. I've suggested shared stats i.e. the pet would benefit from the ranger's stats/gear; even half of it would be great. Josh just doesn't seem to care.

 

Edit: fixed typo

 

 

I think the problem here could be that you're using a bow. Bow's suck. And Swift Aim probably doesn't help.

[morhilane]

 

Edit: to answer your edit... pets have low damage due to lack of gear. You can equip your ranger to do decent damage, you can't do anything to boost your pet.

 

Ranger's pet get bonuses to damage, DR and accuracy on top of normal level increase (accuracy/defenses) every couple of levels to compensate for the lack of gear.

Edited March 21, 2015 by morhilane

[GreyZ]

Now there's something I can agree with, although I still don't consider pets high maintenance. Rogues and casters are high maintenance.

 

I've gone through my screenshots, fortunately I made a lot. The combat log pretty much speaks for itself.

 

Gear:

Ranger has one of the best bows: The Rain of Godagh Field (superb with +20% speed). This ranger build uses Swift Aim (I wanted to try that out because I usually go with VA when I test). No armor, therefore no recovery penalty.

Fighter has superb sabres with +0.5 crit damage. Leather armor with -30+16=-14% recovery penalty.

Both have +damage gloves

 

Stats: both have 19 might and 19 dex

 

Talents: both are specced for offense. The ranger has no Predator's Sense nor Merciless Companion, and no Vicious Companion either, so the pet could do slightly more damage, but then the ranger would do less.

 

And here's the combat log... it shows roughly the same interval. The ranger's is a bit longer because of stunning shots and the bear adding to the amount of lines. Note, that you see lines starting with "Bear" only twice and even then damage is very low.

  

Fighter's overall damage: 447

Ranger+pet's overall damage: 161

I'd need a much much longer combat log for statistics. The fighter probably got better rolls, but lets say a 2:1 damage ratio would be somewhat accurate.

 

I made so many suggestions to improve the ranger, but they were all ignored. I suggested something like 2 item slots for pets to customize them. So many have asked for better stats on pets. I've suggested shared stats i.e. the pet would benefit from the ranger's stats/gear; even half of it would be great. Josh just doesn't seem to care.

 

Edit: fixed typo

 

 

Sorry but you are comparing dual wielded sabers to a bow. That is a complete oranges to apples comparison, since you are much more comparing the weapon groups than the classes itself.

If we just wanna compare whatever loadout, then here I'll go with lvl 8 offensive dual saber specced fighter against a blunderbuss ranger, both solo:

 

 

fighter:

 

 

 

 

ranger (weapon swap):

 

 

 

 

 

ranger (no weapon swap):

 

 

 

 

End results? Fighter dies, Ranger wrecks the entire enemy party in less time than it takes the fighter to die if you weapon swap, and if you don't swap will still win the fight easily.

If you wanna argue that ranged weapons have poor sustained damage, then by all means, but the ranger class in itself isn't the culprit then.

And I really don't agree personally that all ranged weapons are subpar. Bow's are overall pretty meh, but Arbalests and Rifles? They're pretty damn good at gibbing people. And thanks to swiftaim the Ranger has by far the highest attack speed with those in the game aside of weaponset swapping.

Edited March 21, 2015 by GreyZ

[morhilane]

 

I think the problem here could be that you're using a bow. Bow's suck. And Swift Aim probably doesn't help.

 

A superb warbow shouldn't do that low damage though. It's about the same damage range as a saber so it should hit in the same range for the same might, quality and damage multipliers and it's clearly not doing so in those screenshots.