So, is it agreed? Rangers are the only class clearly needing a buff?

[Nexus0]

I've been reading through the class wars on reddit/obsidan.net/gamefaqs and such, and I've seen all kinds of wonky but effective builds for just about any class a person might be struggling with, but I'm not seeing any love for rangers. Personally I heard the wolf companion tears things apart, but that was not my experience, and I'm still playing on normal difficulty.

[Strange_Trees]

I've been playing with a ranger as my main char, and can't really complain. I wouldn't mind more stuff to play with though, the class seems pretty hands-off most of the time, except maybe when positioning around groups to try to harass enemy casters.

Can't say my wolf tears things apart much. Usually it off-tanks just long enough to thin out larger groups a bit

[Nakia]

I am playing with a moon godlike ranger with bear companion and am happy with him.    He does seem best for taking out other ranged foes and when melee enemies gang up on you front line.  The bear gets extra health and you should take companion passive bonuses.   

[TT1]

Ater 1.06

 

Classes:

- Ranger, for sure.

- Could be better: paladin, monk and priest.

 

Races:

- dwarf (all of them. Mountain dwarf specially)

- nature godlike

- pale elf.

[Zwiebelchen]

Rangers are actually pretty darn good. Vicious Aim and Piercing Shot can stack. Equip a warbow and DPS-city everywhere.

 

They kill spellcasters at maximum range so incredibly fast it's not even funny. Also, they are low maintenance, which is always good if you want some reduced pause spam.

 

 

Paladin sucks giant balls, though. And I'm not even sure if the 1.06 changes are enough.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Luckmann]

Rangers "suffer" because they are easy to suck with. There's actually not much wrong with the class itself - I'd like to see more generalized abilities/talents, not just in practice, but also in wording, which may seem like semantics, but it's important for clarity. For example, take Wounding Shot - it doesn't have to be a Shot at all, but because of how it's named, it would seem that it's ranged-only. Which I consider a problem.

 

I also do not like how the Ranger's focus is so split between the animal companion and the ranger itself. Bonuses are spread all over the place, in Talents and Abilities, while you also want to maintain an effective "main" character. My suggested 'fix' to this would be to move most Class-specific Talents and passive Abilities into a third "Feat" or "Perk" system, and have you gain that every even level, Abilities every odd level, and Talents every level. Or something to that effect. But I digress.

 

The ranger can be incredibly effective, and there's several viable builds, and oddly, one of the best builds I've discussed with people is a melee ranger that flanks opponents with it's pet. But it can also suck donkey balls, worse than most other classes (I played a truly terrible Paladin, but it was still much better than my terribly-built Ranger).

 

I think that the ranger needs work, and that the split focus between the general build/character effectiveness and the class gimmick (the pet) was a mistake, for the same reasons it was a mistake for the druid (spiritshift). I think that the change to a more generalized approach to role was good (allowing you to choose between melee or ranged, for example) was good, but suffer in execution (Vicious Aim works for melee, but Swift Aim doesn't; why is the choice dichotomy clear for ranged, but melee doesn't even get one?).

 

The ranger needs work. Not buffs.

 

Rangers are actually pretty darn good. Vicious Aim and Piercing Shot can stack. Equip a warbow and DPS-city everywhere.

 

They kill spellcasters at maximum range so incredibly fast it's not even funny. Also, they are low maintenance, which is always good if you want some reduced pause spam.

 

Paladin sucks giant balls, though. And I'm not even sure if the 1.06 changes are enough.

I agree with one assertion - that rangers can be pretty darn good.

 

But I have no idea how you can say that they are low-maintenance. The added character (the pet) actually adds a lot of extra maintenance if you want to stay really effective. Yes, you can put them on auto-attack on enemy X, but that'd be a waste of an opportunity.

 

And Paladins are actually amazing, but only if you build them in specific ways. They are the the only class that is completely pigeon-holed in role, partly because Obsidian seems adamant to never fix the Attribute issues. Much like rangers, Paladins need work, not buffs, and I think they actually need a more substantial rework than rangers, especially with the current Attribute line-up (which will likely never change, because reasons, I guess).

Edited June 1, 2015 by Luckmann

[Crucis]

I think that the best way to fix/tweak/etc. Rangers would be A) to remove the AC related abilities/talents and make AC progression automatic by type, and B)  replace those removed AC abilities and talents with ones specifically for the Ranger itself, with some of them being dedicated to melee abilities.  Some could be nature magic-like "spell" abilities, sort of like the entangling root.  For example, maybe a barkskin like ability to buff up the ranger's DR.  Or maybe some sort of "nature's berzerker" ability that enhances the ranger's melee accuracy, melee damage, and attack speed for perhaps 20-30 seconds, maybe once per rest.

 

Just some ideas....

[MunoValente]

One thing that is effective with my current ranger is gave him three different weapons, an arquebus with kith slaying and lighting, an arbalest in beast slaying and corrode and hunting bow with spirit slaying and fire and its really helped a lot.  I've also given him a few of pieces of gear that adds magic attacks like rotfinger gloves and amulet of summer solistice for when I want group attacks or something that doesn't require a reload.  For the pet, I'm using a lion, the roar is useful especially near the start, the only skill I've added is takedown.  Overall I'm pleased don't feel like this ranger is a liability, but some of the other rangers I've used aren't nearly as good.  

[Zwiebelchen]

I agree with one assertion - that rangers can be pretty darn good.

 

But I have no idea how you can say that they are low-maintenance. The added character (the pet) actually adds a lot of extra maintenance if you want to stay really effective. Yes, you can put them on auto-attack on enemy X, but that'd be a waste of an opportunity.

 

And Paladins are actually amazing, but only if you build them in specific ways. They are the the only class that is completely pigeon-holed in role, partly because Obsidian seems adamant to never fix the Attribute issues. Much like rangers, Paladins need work, not buffs, and I think they actually need a more substantial rework than rangers, especially with the current Attribute line-up (which will likely never change, because reasons, I guess).

 

 

If you play your ranger more or less as a ranged damage dealer, ignoring the melee potential, they are low maintenance. I don't really consider using your pet to flank the attacked enemy as something that requires a lot of user input. Most if the time, you can't attack the high priority targets with the pet anyway, as the melee access is blocked by other enemies.

Rangers are so strong because they can take out the most dangerous foes safely from distance with just a few shots. Especially on PotD when fighting hordes of enemies, I mostly assign Sagani to use wounding shots on enemy clerics/mages, then auto-attack them to death and just use the fox to offtank one or two enemies.

 

Yes, the pets takes damage very fast, but due to how pets and summons work in PoE, this is not really a problem (both health and endurance recover to 100% after every battle, instead of endurance only, so they pretty much are throwaway meatshields).

If you drop some healing spells on the pet, they become incredibly potent tanks, soaking up a lot of damage basicly for free, with no permanent penalty.

 

Overall, I've found Rangers to be incredibly useful in my games so far (Rogues deal better ranged damage, but the pet offers an additional meatshield, which is always nice). Much more useful than Paladins, for the reasons listed below:

 

 

- Lowlevel Paladins have bad defenses AND bad offense. Defender and Vary Defender put Fighters way ahead of paladins in every way possible; compared to that, they talents and class abilities are incredibly weak; Fighters get 2 knockdowns per encounter for free; Paladins get what? A single target one-shot lash effect? Call me impressed...

- Even on high levels, Paladins completely lack a clear purpose. They are neither true tank nor true support. The auras suck* (low range and don't stack with priest abilities), Lay on Hands doesn't scale with level, their damage is terrible and they don't have the same tactical fidelity in abilities as Fighters.

 

*This is incredibly emphasized as soon as your party hits level 9. All their auras can be completely devaluated by level 1 priest buffs and at level 9 you can even spam them on every battle. And you can't even activate two auras at the same time! Paladins are literally the only class that is completely devaluated by the existance of one other.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[Crucis]

Rangers "suffer" because they are easy to suck with. There's actually not much wrong with the class itself - I'd like to see more generalized abilities/talents, not just in practice, but also in wording, which may seem like semantics, but it's important for clarity. For example, take Wounding Shot - it doesn't have to be a Shot at all, but because of how it's named, it would seem that it's ranged-only. Which I consider a problem.

 

I also do not like how the Ranger's focus is so split between the animal companion and the ranger itself. Bonuses are spread all over the place, in Talents and Abilities, while you also want to maintain an effective "main" character. My suggested 'fix' to this would be to move most Class-specific Talents and passive Abilities into a third "Feat" or "Perk" system, and have you gain that every even level, Abilities every odd level, and Talents every level. Or something to that

 

Luckmann, speaking for all classes, not just Rangers, I would like to see the class specific Talents moved over into the abilities category (and at the same time, perhaps remove some of the far less useful ones, if there are deemed to be too many).  The problem I have with the class talents is that they seem to me to distract from a character's ability to make selections from the general list of talents.  Yes, no one's outright stopping you from picking general talents.  But at times, the class talents can seem so necessary that they get in the way of picking extremely useful general talents.

[Crucis]

If you play your ranger more or less as a ranged damage dealer, ignoring the melee potential, they are low maintenance.

 

 

The thing is, as long as you leave a weapons slot for a melee weapon, you don't really need to select any melee related talents just to enhance their melee abilities, beyond perhaps picking a weapon focus group.  Since they have the same high accuracy in melee as they do ranged, they can still be effective in melee if absolutely necessary, say, if a shadow has jumped into your rear.  So, you can mostly ignore their melee ability and still end up with a respectable emergency melee combatant.

 

There is one thing that you seem to lose by playing a ranger though and it's related to party composition.  I personally think that it's nice to have two good frontliners.  Only one needs to be a true defensive tank, but it's nice to have a second front liner that's more offensively oriented, though 2 mostly defensive hold-the-line frontliners can do in a pinch.  And I like having a Rogue.  It's a personal preference to maximize the thieving skills.  And also, at the same time, this rogue can fill the slot of strong ranged DPS combatant.  Then after that there's 3 more slots that you can fill with casters, preferably one who can do healing (usually a priest), and then a couple of more offensive casters (i.e. wizard, cipher, or druid).  Now, the thing is that if a Ranger takes the ranged DPS slot, you lose the thieving skills character.  Yes, it can be filled by someone else, though not as well.  Or alternatively, you can still take the Rogue in addition to the Ranger, but at the cost of a caster.    In truth, for most of the so-called trash mob battles, this isn't a problem.  But against the bosses, it certainly helps to have 3 casters. 

 

Of course, I suppose that the Ranger could take a bunch of Lore and turn himself into a bit of a "scroll caster" for emergencies, though to be really useful in those boss battles, you'd probably need 8 or 10 points of Lore to cast the really nasty scroll spells like Paralyze or Maelstrom.

 

Anyways, just a few semi-random thoughts...

Edited June 1, 2015 by Crucis

[Zwiebelchen]

 

If you play your ranger more or less as a ranged damage dealer, ignoring the melee potential, they are low maintenance.

 

 

The thing is, as long as you leave a weapons slot for a melee weapon, you don't really need to select any melee related talents just to enhance their melee abilities, beyond perhaps picking a weapon focus group.  Since they have the same high accuracy in melee as they do ranged, they can still be effective in melee if absolutely necessary, say, if a shadow has jumped into your rear.  So, you can mostly ignore their melee ability and still end up with a respectable emergency melee combatant.

 

There is one thing that you seem to lose by playing a ranger though and it's related to party composition.  I personally think that it's nice to have two good frontliners.  Only one needs to be a true defensive tank, but it's nice to have a second front liner that's more offensively oriented, though 2 mostly defensive hold-the-line frontliners can do in a pinch.  And I like having a Rogue.  It's a personal preference to maximize the thieving skills.  And also, at the same time, this rogue can fill the slot of strong ranged DPS combatant.  Then after that there's 3 more slots that you can fill with casters, preferably one who can do healing (usually a priest), and then a couple of more offensive casters (i.e. wizard, cipher, or druid).  Now, the thing is that if a Ranger takes the ranged DPS slot, you lose the thieving skills character.  Yes, it can be filled by someone else, though not as well.  Or alternatively, you can still take the Rogue in addition to the Ranger, but at the cost of a caster.    In truth, for most of the so-called trash mob battles, this isn't a problem.  But against the bosses, it certainly helps to have 3 casters. 

 

Of course, I suppose that the Ranger could take a bunch of Lore and turn himself into a bit of a "scroll caster" for emergencies, though to be really useful in those boss battles, you'd probably need 8 or 10 points of Lore to cast the really nasty scroll spells like Paralyze or Maelstrom.

 

Anyways, just a few semi-random thoughts...

 

 

Mages also get a bonus point to mechanics (and a second one with appropriate background), if that is what you're aiming for. So no reason at all why a rogue in a party setup would be mandatory for the thieving skills. I didn't come across a single lock in the game I couldn't pick with a mage at appropriate level.

 

Needless to say, I couldn't disarm all traps I found throughout the game. But then again, one additional point in mechanics would probably not make a difference here aswell. And you can always take the trap to the face if nothing else helps.

 

 

I agree that rogues and rangers pretty much dwell into the same general direction. You probably don't want them both. But that isn't much of a problem considering that there is no premade rogue companion anyway.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Zwiebelchen

[KDubya]

I think adding a class ability that changed the malus to the Ranger when the pet dies to a berserk type of buff would help a great deal. Similar to how a Paladin can take a class ability to overcome not following their Order's behaviors. If someone hurt my dog I'd be more likely to try and kick their ass rather than cry like a little bitch.

 

Also let vicious shot affect melee as well as ranged, similar to how Swift Aim works for both ranged and melee.

[Nexus0]

 

I agree with one assertion - that rangers can be pretty darn good.

 

But I have no idea how you can say that they are low-maintenance. The added character (the pet) actually adds a lot of extra maintenance if you want to stay really effective. Yes, you can put them on auto-attack on enemy X, but that'd be a waste of an opportunity.

 

And Paladins are actually amazing, but only if you build them in specific ways. They are the the only class that is completely pigeon-holed in role, partly because Obsidian seems adamant to never fix the Attribute issues. Much like rangers, Paladins need work, not buffs, and I think they actually need a more substantial rework than rangers, especially with the current Attribute line-up (which will likely never change, because reasons, I guess).

 

 

If you play your ranger more or less as a ranged damage dealer, ignoring the melee potential, they are low maintenance. I don't really consider using your pet to flank the attacked enemy as something that requires a lot of user input. Most if the time, you can't attack the high priority targets with the pet anyway, as the melee access is blocked by other enemies.

Rangers are so strong because they can take out the most dangerous foes safely from distance with just a few shots. Especially on PotD when fighting hordes of enemies, I mostly assign Sagani to use wounding shots on enemy clerics/mages, then auto-attack them to death and just use the fox to offtank one or two enemies.

 

Yes, the pets takes damage very fast, but due to how pets and summons work in PoE, this is not really a problem (both health and endurance recover to 100% after every battle, instead of endurance only, so they pretty much are throwaway meatshields).

If you drop some healing spells on the pet, they become incredibly potent tanks, soaking up a lot of damage basicly for free, with no permanent penalty.

 

Overall, I've found Rangers to be incredibly useful in my games so far (Rogues deal better ranged damage, but the pet offers an additional meatshield, which is always nice). Much more useful than Paladins, for the reasons listed below:

 

 

- Lowlevel Paladins have bad defenses AND bad offense. Defender and Vary Defender put Fighters way ahead of paladins in every way possible; compared to that, they talents and class abilities are incredibly weak; Fighters get 2 knockdowns per encounter for free; Paladins get what? A single target one-shot lash effect? Call me impressed...

- Even on high levels, Paladins completely lack a clear purpose. They are neither true tank nor true support. The auras suck* (low range and don't stack with priest abilities), Lay on Hands doesn't scale with level, their damage is terrible and they don't have the same tactical fidelity in abilities as Fighters.

 

*This is incredibly emphasized as soon as your party hits level 9. All their auras can be completely devaluated by level 1 priest buffs and at level 9 you can even spam them on every battle. And you can't even activate two auras at the same time! Paladins are literally the only class that is completely devaluated by the existance of one other.

 

 

My understanding was that Pallys are suppose to be fighter minus offense and defense plus spell like abilities, like the +6 accuracy bonus for everyone. So a champion type. Also, that coming buff to lay on hands, much needed.

 

Also you are absolutely correct, always protect your rear.

Edited June 1, 2015 by Nexus0

[MunoValente]

There is one thing that you seem to lose by playing a ranger though and it's related to party composition.  I personally think that it's nice to have two good frontliners.  Only one needs to be a true defensive tank, but it's nice to have a second front liner that's more offensively oriented, though 2 mostly defensive hold-the-line frontliners can do in a pinch.  And I like having a Rogue.  It's a personal preference to maximize the thieving skills.  And also, at the same time, this rogue can fill the slot of strong ranged DPS combatant.  Then after that there's 3 more slots that you can fill with casters, preferably one who can do healing (usually a priest), and then a couple of more offensive casters (i.e. wizard, cipher, or druid).  Now, the thing is that if a Ranger takes the ranged DPS slot, you lose the thieving skills character.  Yes, it can be filled by someone else, though not as well.  Or alternatively, you can still take the Rogue in addition to the Ranger, but at the cost of a caster.    In truth, for most of the so-called trash mob battles, this isn't a problem.  But against the bosses, it certainly helps to have 3 casters. 

 

Of course, I suppose that the Ranger could take a bunch of Lore and turn himself into a bit of a "scroll caster" for emergencies, though to be really useful in those boss battles, you'd probably need 8 or 10 points of Lore to cast the really nasty scroll spells like Paralyze or Maelstrom.

 

Anyways, just a few semi-random thoughts...

 

 

You can always make your rogue a front liner, reckless assault lets them do some nasty front line damage or you alternatively you could try to pump their deflection instead and use riposte, although I've not had as much success with that, that is a build I feel like should exist, but needs work.  I kind of like my traps guy as a front liner anyway, then you can set your formation up so they are always in front.  Chanters would probably make be pretty good trap guy/tank.

 

On the last part you sort of answer your own question, you say rangers are good against trash mobs, but weaker against bosses, but that using scrolls/gear for abilities is only good as against bosses, so sounds like one plays right into the other; and why not put points in lore?  Not like there are many other good skills; a lot of backgrounds add lore as well.  Abilities from gear like rotfinger gloves don't even need lore.

[Crucis]

 

There is one thing that you seem to lose by playing a ranger though and it's related to party composition.  I personally think that it's nice to have two good frontliners.  Only one needs to be a true defensive tank, but it's nice to have a second front liner that's more offensively oriented, though 2 mostly defensive hold-the-line frontliners can do in a pinch.  And I like having a Rogue.  It's a personal preference to maximize the thieving skills.  And also, at the same time, this rogue can fill the slot of strong ranged DPS combatant.  Then after that there's 3 more slots that you can fill with casters, preferably one who can do healing (usually a priest), and then a couple of more offensive casters (i.e. wizard, cipher, or druid).  Now, the thing is that if a Ranger takes the ranged DPS slot, you lose the thieving skills character.  Yes, it can be filled by someone else, though not as well.  Or alternatively, you can still take the Rogue in addition to the Ranger, but at the cost of a caster.    In truth, for most of the so-called trash mob battles, this isn't a problem.  But against the bosses, it certainly helps to have 3 casters. 

 

Of course, I suppose that the Ranger could take a bunch of Lore and turn himself into a bit of a "scroll caster" for emergencies, though to be really useful in those boss battles, you'd probably need 8 or 10 points of Lore to cast the really nasty scroll spells like Paralyze or Maelstrom.

 

Anyways, just a few semi-random thoughts...

 

 

You can always make your rogue a front liner, reckless assault lets them do some nasty front line damage or you alternatively you could try to pump their deflection instead and use riposte, although I've not had as much success with that, that is a build I feel like should exist, but needs work.  I kind of like my traps guy as a front liner anyway, then you can set your formation up so they are always in front.  Chanters would probably make be pretty good trap guy/tank.

 

On the last part you sort of answer your own question, you say rangers are good against trash mobs, but weaker against bosses, but that using scrolls/gear for abilities is only good as against bosses, so sounds like one plays right into the other; and why not put points in lore?  Not like there are many other good skills; a lot of backgrounds add lore as well.  Abilities from gear like rotfinger gloves don't even need lore.

 

 

Actually, Muno, you somewhat misread what I said with your final comments.  It's not that I think that rangers are weak against bosses as much as I think that it's arguably better to have 3 casters in a party than 2 when facing bosses.  The advantage of 3 vs 2 casters can be seen in a few ways.  One, the most obvious is that you can have a salvo of 3 spells rather than 2 cast at the same time.  That could either be more damage, or more disabling spells, of course.  Secondly, as a fight progresses, occasionally one of your casters may be distracted, charmed, or whatever, thus meaning that in 3 vs 2, you still have 2 active.  And thirdly, if you take 3 different types of casters, you probably have a 3rd type of spells available to you, which may be a significant advantage depending on the nature of the battle you face.

 

Still, a Ranger with 8 or 10 Lore will be able to cast some scroll spells, though potentially at the cost of some or all of their potion slots.  And this means that if you're looking to drop a Paralyze and a Maelstrom onto a target at the same instant, it helps to have all the available casters possible, even if they're just "Lore casters".

 

As a ranged damage producer, people go back and forth over whether rangers or rogues are better.  I think that one might make the argument that in big boss battles, maybe rogues have one significant advantage of rangers, and it's the ability to produce a single massive attack through the stacking of their various abilities (sneak attack, deathblows, finishing blow, etc.) with spell produced afflictions.  Being able to drop an attack of over 100 damage points (sometimes well over that) is a great way to finish a wounded enemy much faster than just grinding away those final 100+ END points on the target. (One thing I decided in my last party when I did this very thing was that when I saw a potential Finishing Blow opportunity, I had my Rogue drink a potion of Arcane Accuracy, because I wanted that big boost to accuracy to make certain she hit and increase the chances of a crit.  IMO, it's well worth the cost of losing a regular attack to drink that potion right before using Finishing Blow in a really major fight, since who wants to miss on an attack you can only make 2/rest IIRC.)

 

OTOH, Rangers are still great for grinding down big bosses pretty quickly even if it's not with one major death blow like rogues.

 

 

[manageri]

This has nothing to do with balance exactly, but the reason I hate rangers is the pet. I do not want to micromanage two chars for the price of one. An option to exhange your pet for something else at char creation would be great.

[Clicks]

I think you have to be careful to choose the right skills with a ranger. If you do that, they can be pretty powerful. No complaints here.

[Certus]

Seems like some people write off a class because they don't understand that some classes have more defined roles than others. A pet bear shouldn't be able to tank as good as a guy in full armour. Period. Can it be used to hold up someone who has managed to get by your tanks and is threatening your squishes? Certainly. A ranger can put out consistent ranged damage and has a useful interference tool. Wether it works for you depends on your party composition.

 

Paladins are another maligned class. I want an alpha strike(flames of devotion)leader(conversation skills) who has can tank pretty good and at later levels is pretty much immune to spells. I don't want a mad dps machine, got other guys for that. Otherwise I'd run all paladin. Does that work for you? If not pick another of the eight or so classes.

 

Btw, if I don't want to pick a rogue, I shouldn't have to, just to find traps. That aggravated me in bg series that I had to have a thief. If I don't want a dps machine dependant on de-buffs, I shouldn't be forced to take one. So I'm glad that other classes can do just as a good as a rogue in that critical role. And I believe mechanics is a critical skill, all the others are just fluff.

 

IMHO priests are the worst class, boring buff bots that do very little actual damage and can be a liability at times when you need them most. If i wanted a robe wearing pansy who begs for a living id be pretty happy. Other people love them and that's great, they are probably using them the way they we meant to be used and enjoy what they do best. Me, I'm happy with my not so effective buffing pally who can do other stuff, like survive on the front lines long enough for my ranger/rogue to do what they do best.

[Crucis]

Seems like some people write off a class because they don't understand that some classes have more defined roles than others. A pet bear shouldn't be able to tank as good as a guy in full armour. Period. Can it be used to hold up someone who has managed to get by your tanks and is threatening your squishes? Certainly. A ranger can put out consistent ranged damage and has a useful interference tool. Wether it works for you depends on your party composition.

 

Paladins are another maligned class. I want an alpha strike(flames of devotion)leader(conversation skills) who has can tank pretty good and at later levels is pretty much immune to spells. I don't want a mad dps machine, got other guys for that. Otherwise I'd run all paladin. Does that work for you? If not pick another of the eight or so classes.

 

Btw, if I don't want to pick a rogue, I shouldn't have to, just to find traps. That aggravated me in bg series that I had to have a thief. If I don't want a dps machine dependant on de-buffs, I shouldn't be forced to take one. So I'm glad that other classes can do just as a good as a rogue in that critical role. And I believe mechanics is a critical skill, all the others are just fluff.

 

IMHO priests are the worst class, boring buff bots that do very little actual damage and can be a liability at times when you need them most. If i wanted a robe wearing pansy who begs for a living id be pretty happy. Other people love them and that's great, they are probably using them the way they we meant to be used and enjoy what they do best. Me, I'm happy with my not so effective buffing pally who can do other stuff, like survive on the front lines long enough for my ranger/rogue to do what they do best.

 

I'm the opposite.  I wish that rogues were more necessary.  If I want a serious arcane spellcaster, I pick a wizard.  If I want a serious traps and locks guy, that should be a rogue.  That's just how I look it it.  Is it cliched?  Probably, but I don't care.  That's how I see the genre of fantasy games.  Different classes have different roles.  And to me, perhaps the primary role for Rogues in my view is as sort of a combat engineer, i.e. traps and locks, and combat is secondary.

 

As for priests, exactly why do you have a priest wearing nothing more than a robe?  Sure, you can do that, but I certainly wouldn't.  I guess that I'm stuck in the cliche of the DnD battle cleric who wears fairly heavy armor, and while he may not be a true 110%  front liner, he's not unwilling or incapable of helping to hold the line if necessary.  Maybe I'm not getting the most of our priest spellcasting by playing this way, but it's the way I'm used to running clerics .... er, priests.  So I stick with it.  Then again, I'm not one of these all or nothing min-maxers who believes that the front liners should never be in anything less than full plate and everyone else should never wear anything but regular clothes.  I try to put characters in what I think they'd want to be wearing if they were thinking rationally.  But that's just me. 

[FlintlockJazz]

It always pissed me off how the rogue would basically ring-fence a bunch (if not all) the essential non-combat adventuring skills and sit there picking it's snotty little nose saying "But its MY niche!!!!  WAAH WAHH!!"  Stealth should be a skill considered essential for all adventurers, sure you may have people even better skilled at it, but when infiltrating ruins you can't afford someone who can't pull their weight in such an essential area.  Even Conan the Barbarian film (the original Arnie one) had him (and the entire party) sneaking about and ninj-ing people, and the Rob E Howard books he does it even more. 

 

Everyone is happy to acknowledge that every class should have some degree of combat capability as essential adventuring skill, why not other skills too?  Why can't I have a mage engineer who can go invisible and pick a lock while the rest of the party fights?  Why can't the warriors sneak in and back up the rogue in case things go **** up or to get into position for an ambush?  I believe the reason why people think combat is essential for all but not things the rogue hoards like a self-centred prick is because tabletop RPGs started off as pretty much wargaming through a sequence of rooms where the monsters in the next room sit picking their noses waiting for their turn.  In many systems the rogue class should be smashed into the ground, grinded up as he squeals and his stuff divided amongst the rest of the party, and I say this as someone who is currently playing a rogue in Pillars, but then the rogues there are not defined by denying other classes things.

[Crucis]

It always pissed me off how the rogue would basically ring-fence a bunch (if not all) the essential non-combat adventuring skills and sit there picking it's snotty little nose saying "But its MY niche!!!!  WAAH WAHH!!"  Stealth should be a skill considered essential for all adventurers, sure you may have people even better skilled at it, but when infiltrating ruins you can't afford someone who can't pull their weight in such an essential area.  Even Conan the Barbarian film (the original Arnie one) had him (and the entire party) sneaking about and ninj-ing people, and the Rob E Howard books he does it even more. 

 

Everyone is happy to acknowledge that every class should have some degree of combat capability as essential adventuring skill, why not other skills too?  Why can't I have a mage engineer who can go invisible and pick a lock while the rest of the party fights?  Why can't the warriors sneak in and back up the rogue in case things go **** up or to get into position for an ambush?  I believe the reason why people think combat is essential for all but not things the rogue hoards like a self-centred prick is because tabletop RPGs started off as pretty much wargaming through a sequence of rooms where the monsters in the next room sit picking their noses waiting for their turn.  In many systems the rogue class should be smashed into the ground, grinded up as he squeals and his stuff divided amongst the rest of the party, and I say this as someone who is currently playing a rogue in Pillars, but then the rogues there are not defined by denying other classes things.

 

A.  I have no problem with anyone using stealth.  To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively.  To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all.  It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car.  Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!!  It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty.  For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth.  After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character.

 

B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). 

 

 

Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen.  But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines.  Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous.  Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive.  Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent.  Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores.  And Survival?  Not sure.  Perhaps INT, or maybe CON.  Yes, maybe CON.  I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based.  CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much.

 

 

As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters.  Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery?  Hmmm?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

[FlintlockJazz]

 

It always pissed me off how the rogue would basically ring-fence a bunch (if not all) the essential non-combat adventuring skills and sit there picking it's snotty little nose saying "But its MY niche!!!!  WAAH WAHH!!"  Stealth should be a skill considered essential for all adventurers, sure you may have people even better skilled at it, but when infiltrating ruins you can't afford someone who can't pull their weight in such an essential area.  Even Conan the Barbarian film (the original Arnie one) had him (and the entire party) sneaking about and ninj-ing people, and the Rob E Howard books he does it even more. 

 

Everyone is happy to acknowledge that every class should have some degree of combat capability as essential adventuring skill, why not other skills too?  Why can't I have a mage engineer who can go invisible and pick a lock while the rest of the party fights?  Why can't the warriors sneak in and back up the rogue in case things go **** up or to get into position for an ambush?  I believe the reason why people think combat is essential for all but not things the rogue hoards like a self-centred prick is because tabletop RPGs started off as pretty much wargaming through a sequence of rooms where the monsters in the next room sit picking their noses waiting for their turn.  In many systems the rogue class should be smashed into the ground, grinded up as he squeals and his stuff divided amongst the rest of the party, and I say this as someone who is currently playing a rogue in Pillars, but then the rogues there are not defined by denying other classes things.

 

A.  I have no problem with anyone using stealth.  To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively.  To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all.  It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car.  Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!!  It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty.  For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth.  After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character.

 

B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). 

 

 

Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen.  But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines.  Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous.  Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive.  Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent.  Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores.  And Survival?  Not sure.  Perhaps INT, or maybe CON.  Yes, maybe CON.  I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based.  CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much.

 

 

As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters.  Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery?  Hmmm?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

A.  While wearing any armour will make stealth harder, plate armour is nowhere near as noisy as you make out.  On the contrary, you know all the clanking you hear in films and TV from people wearing plate?  Added in by special effects, because they find that people are so attached to the idea of noisy plate that they won't accept it unless they add in the noises.  Stealthing in plate is possible, ambushes in plate was done all the time, and actually it's leather armour that makes a lot of noise, it squeaks.

 

B.  It might seem like that to you, but it's more modified by quick thinking and understanding.  Pillars deliberately avoids basing skills on attributes because in real life your skill at something is modified by a collection of different attributes.  Being dextrous is by no means a guarantee that you will be good at being stealthy and being someone who is patient, observant, methodical, and knowing what they are doing is more effective than being nimble at stealth.  Pillars deliberately did not want to force people into specific builds to use certain skills, because there is always a different way of justifying it.

 

And as for the 'fighters hogging al the skill in weapons", ahem no they don't and thanks for proving me right!  Fighters may specialise in combat but if you read my post you'd have realised that I stated that all classes are traditionally expected to be able to fight to some degree: rogues can still usually wield weapons and even have special backstab and sneak attack skills, wizards can blow stuff up and fall back to knives when necessary, etc.  If you had a system where only the Fighters could fight, you'd complain right?   So why not the same for other skills?  There are many systems where the rogue is the only one who can do these essential skills, but name a system where only the fighters can fight?

 

EDIT: In fact, this brings me to another point: you say fighters hog all the combat skills but they don't.  Not only do rogues get combat skills but if I don't want to bring a fighter along there is usually other options, I could take a Barbarian or Paladin for instance.  If I don't want a mage I can take a sorcerer.  But very rarely do you get an alternative to the rogue: in NWN 2 for instance I realised that I needed to have at least one character with a level in rogue in order to detect the traps, due to the Detect Traps talent only rogues got. 

Edited June 2, 2015 by FlintlockJazz

[Gorionsson]

Ranger is mostly fine, IMO.

The most important thing I would like is a buff to AC survivability. Another change could be some more melee specific talents.

 

Some people are upset that rogues dish out more ranged dps, but I don't see a problem with that.

After all we could build a much better fighter or wizard based archer in other games too.

 

IMO, the Priest,Chanter and Pally needs more work. 

 

Oh, and Sagani is a great companion.

[Crucis]

 

 

It always pissed me off how the rogue would basically ring-fence a bunch (if not all) the essential non-combat adventuring skills and sit there picking it's snotty little nose saying "But its MY niche!!!!  WAAH WAHH!!"  Stealth should be a skill considered essential for all adventurers, sure you may have people even better skilled at it, but when infiltrating ruins you can't afford someone who can't pull their weight in such an essential area.  Even Conan the Barbarian film (the original Arnie one) had him (and the entire party) sneaking about and ninj-ing people, and the Rob E Howard books he does it even more. 

 

Everyone is happy to acknowledge that every class should have some degree of combat capability as essential adventuring skill, why not other skills too?  Why can't I have a mage engineer who can go invisible and pick a lock while the rest of the party fights?  Why can't the warriors sneak in and back up the rogue in case things go **** up or to get into position for an ambush?  I believe the reason why people think combat is essential for all but not things the rogue hoards like a self-centred prick is because tabletop RPGs started off as pretty much wargaming through a sequence of rooms where the monsters in the next room sit picking their noses waiting for their turn.  In many systems the rogue class should be smashed into the ground, grinded up as he squeals and his stuff divided amongst the rest of the party, and I say this as someone who is currently playing a rogue in Pillars, but then the rogues there are not defined by denying other classes things.

 

A.  I have no problem with anyone using stealth.  To me, stealth is an exceptionally generic skill. THAT SAID, I don't like how in PoE, the armor you were has no effect on your ability to use stealth effectively.  To me, it's utterly ridiculous that characters with equal amounts of stealth skill should be equally stealth when wearing plate as opposed to wearing no armor at all.  It seems to me that trying to be stealthy while wearing plate armor is tantamount to be trying to be stealthy while dragging along a bunch of empty cans like those that get strung behind a just married couple's car.  Clunkity-clunkity-clunk!!!!  It just shouldn't be possible, or not at least without a massive penalty.  For that matter, DEX should probably also modify one's Stealth.  After all, a graceful, light-footed character is more likely to be a skillfully stealthy person than a heavy-footed, clumsy character.

 

B. It also seems to me that Mechanics skill ought to be modified by DEX when trying to disarm traps and open locks (it's kind of hard to do those things when you're a fat-fingered, clumsy sort of person), and the Searching functions should probably be modified by Perception (obvious reasons). 

 

 

Of course, having attribute based skill modifiers would probably necessitate rebalancing things, so it likely won't happen.  But the advantage of having such modifiers is that it would cause the characters who were meant to be seriously capable in certain skills to be built along certain lines.  Extremely stealthy characters would be fairly dextrous.  Good traps, locks, and hidden searchers would be dextrous and perceptive.  Those were true Lore masters would probably be rather intelligent.  Athletes would probably have some combination of good Might, Con, and Dex scores.  And Survival?  Not sure.  Perhaps INT, or maybe CON.  Yes, maybe CON.  I say CON, only because the most functional usage of the Survival skill is in extending potion/food durations, rather than things like tracking or knowledge of the wilderness, which could seem more INT based.  CON doesn't have much value, so this would be one way to give it "some" value, even if it's still not much.

 

 

As for your "wah! it's my niche" rant, well I could say the same thing about Fighters.  Why are fighters hogging all the skill in weapons, i.e. weapon specialization and weapon mastery?  Hmmm?  What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

A.  While wearing any armour will make stealth harder, plate armour is nowhere near as noisy as you make out.  On the contrary, you know all the clanking you hear in films and TV from people wearing plate?  Added in by special effects, because they find that people are so attached to the idea of noisy plate that they won't accept it unless they add in the noises.  Stealthing in plate is possible, ambushes in plate was done all the time, and actually it's leather armour that makes a lot of noise, it squeaks.

 

B.  It might seem like that to you, but it's more modified by quick thinking and understanding.  Pillars deliberately avoids basing skills on attributes because in real life your skill at something is modified by a collection of different attributes.  Being dextrous is by no means a guarantee that you will be good at being stealthy and being someone who is patient, observant, methodical, and knowing what they are doing is more effective than being nimble at stealth.  Pillars deliberately did not want to force people into specific builds to use certain skills, because there is always a different way of justifying it.

 

And as for the 'fighters hogging al the skill in weapons", ahem no they don't and thanks for proving me right!  Fighters may specialise in combat but if you read my post you'd have realised that I stated that all classes are traditionally expected to be able to fight to some degree: rogues can still usually wield weapons and even have special backstab and sneak attack skills, wizards can blow stuff up and fall back to knives when necessary, etc.  If you had a system where only the Fighters could fight, you'd complain right?   So why not the same for other skills?  There are many systems where the rogue is the only one who can do these essential skills, but name a system where only the fighters can fight?

 

EDIT: In fact, this brings me to another point: you say fighters hog all the combat skills but they don't.  Not only do rogues get combat skills but if I don't want to bring a fighter along there is usually other options, I could take a Barbarian or Paladin for instance.  If I don't want a mage I can take a sorcerer.  But very rarely do you get an alternative to the rogue: in NWN 2 for instance I realised that I needed to have at least one character with a level in rogue in order to detect the traps, due to the Detect Traps talent only rogues got. 

 

 

In all honesty, Flint, I disagree with just about everything you say above right down the line.

 

I will say that perhaps PoE made a decision to go a certain direction, but frankly I think that that direction was wrong.  I think that certain mixes of attributes SHOULD impact skill effectiveness.  I think that doing otherwise is silly and nothing more than trying to ram square pegs into round holes with a warhammer.

 

I didn't say that fighters hog all the combat skills.  Read more carefully please.  I said that they hog the WEAPONS skills.  They're not the same thing.  I'm not talking about those fighter abilities like knockdown or stances, etc.  Just weapons skills.  And while I wouldn't be horribly bothered if non warrior classes couldn't reach higher levels of skill in weapons, it bugs me that classes like paladin, rangers, and barbarians can't gain higher levels of skill in weapons.  Why shouldn't a paladin be just as skilled with a greatsword as a fighter?  Why is it that a Ranger can't have mastery in ranged weapons when they've been constructed to be such supposedly highly skilled ranged combatants?  And, OK, maybe barbarians might not be quite as highly skilled as more highly trained fighters.  OTOH, couldn't they at least gain "specialization" in their weapons?  (Darn, I hate that term "specialization".  Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization sound so utterly dorky.  Weapon Mastery is fine.  But couldn't they have come up with less dorky terms for the first and second level of weapons group skill?  Jeez.)