The thought that 2h sword wielding mage will be viable is just not realistic. Spear ranger possibly. But this thought that hybrids will be super viable to extremes is not reality. No game mechanics would allow this unless it's singleplayer and this is not.
I did in the original post they are as follows:
Weapon Bow Mastery
Snipe shot (And it's upgrades)
Call of the Wind
Air Strike
We always knew that some Active Skills would be weapon-locked.
I think Air Strike, Call of the Wild and Snipe are not necessarily locked to a Bow and likely works fine with a Wand or Sceptre or Tome.
However multiple of those mention arrows in the description, have their animations crafted to bows, and shoot out arrow projectiles in the animation. Maybe this is just because we haven't seen a wand ranger yet (although being locked out of 4 skills, and potentially 7 is a huge reason not to try and use wand and probably why we haven't seen one yet) but they still overall *feel* like specifically bow skills not just ranger overall skills. Which is to my original point, the class feels and looks like the *bow and arrow class* (with some ranger-like abilities) and not the *ranger* class.
The possibility of 7 Ranger Active Skills being weapon-locked to Bow is a great reason to try to use a Wand or Tome as a Ranger during Alpha 2.
I think we don't know for sure what the Ranger Primary Archetype looks like or how it feels while wielding weapons which are not Bows.
We'll test it during Alpha 2 and see.
We always knew that some Active Skills would be weapon-locked.
I think Air Strike, Call of the Wild and Snipe are not necessarily locked to a Bow and likely works fine with a Wand or Sceptre or Tome..
At least according to the wiki, which tries its best to keep information up to date with active screenshots of the tooltips and such skills *are* currently locked to the bow. We will have to test it for sure, but as far as the information we currently have says they are locked. If they're not locked in A2 then great!
The thought that 2h sword wielding mage will be viable is just not realistic. Spear ranger possibly. But this thought that hybrids will be super viable to extremes is not reality. No game mechanics would allow this unless it's singleplayer and this is not.
I disagree with this for a few reasons (ESO does weapons on any class to good success) but the the viability of the builds is a detraction from the current conversation and something we can't possibly known until the start of A2
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
At least according to the wiki, which tries its best to keep information up to date with active screenshots of the tooltips and such skills *are* currently locked to the bow. We will have to test it for sure, but as far as the information we currently have says they are locked. If they're not locked in A2 then great!
The wiki does not state Air Strike, Call of the Wild and Snipe are locked to Bow.
Air Strike: Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Call of the Wild: Remove all movement impairing effects and increase movement speed by 20% for 8 seconds. Snares and Roots effects applied to the caster are ignored.
(No mention of a Bow. No clue why you think a Bow would be required.)
Snipe: Charge a powerful ranged attack, dealing large damage after charging for 3 seconds. Deals 300% physical damage.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Even Imbue Arrows mentions Ranged Attacks and not Bows specifically.
So…no. The wiki doesn’t really tell us anything about which Ranger Active Skills are truly locked to Bows.
For the record, ‘ranger’ has nothing to do with using a bow. They are wanderers in the wilderness - it’s the verb ‘to range’ as in Aragorn ranging the wilds of Middle Earth.
I'm completely ok with certain abilities being weapon locked. I'm also ok with certain weapons being less than optimal for some classes. If you want to be a wand and bow Fighter or a sword/shield and book Rogue...good luck, enjoy, but don't complain about balance.
As far as Rangers in particular, I think they will end up getting some melee abilities. They will probably also get some augments that turn certain ranged abilities into melee. At least enough to go with bow and melee weapon as the 2 equipped weapons.
At least according to the wiki, which tries its best to keep information up to date with active screenshots of the tooltips and such skills *are* currently locked to the bow. We will have to test it for sure, but as far as the information we currently have says they are locked. If they're not locked in A2 then great!
The wiki does not state Air Strike, Call of the Wild and Snipe are locked to Bow.
Air Strike: Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Call of the Wild: Remove all movement impairing effects and increase movement speed by 20% for 8 seconds. Snares and Roots effects applied to the caster are ignored.
(No mention of a Bow. No clue why you think a Bow would be required.)
Snipe: Charge a powerful ranged attack, dealing large damage after charging for 3 seconds. Deals 300% physical damage.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Even Imbue Arrows mentions Ranged Attacks and not Bows specifically.
So…no. The wiki doesn’t really tell us anything about which Ranger Active Skills are truly locked to Bows.
but as i said before. if these aren't locked to weapons then that's great. fantastic. That's exactly what i want is the ranger to not have to suffer because they chose not to use a bow.
I've also decided to throw in the ones while likely not bow required as still very bow flavored.
Here is also the animation for the imbued ammo skill which has to slap arrows directly onto your bow.
I know we're well past the ranger showcase but as more and more classes have come out, it's become more and more apparent to me that rangers as they currently exist really feel counterintuitive to Ashes of Creation's design and I think they miss out on the class fantasy.
To Clarify, currently rangers feel like "bow-the class" as opposed to a more hunter/nature aesthetic. Which is fine if Ashes of Creation had classes locked to a weapon... but they don't. I've been on a trend of looking for unique combinations in Ashes of creation recently to see how they might work, 2h sword wielding mage (which they even showcased in a livestream!), bow mage, PI members have gone to talk about battle clerics with maces and heavy armor instead of wands, and all of the different weapon varieties each class can carry. there are only 3 examples I can really think of that fly in the face of this incredible diversity. Everything else besides these 3 examples is truly diverse and unique and allows the user to do whatever kind of stuff they want to do.
1st, the fighter as a whole feels pretty locked into melee weapons. There are several skills that i simply cannot picture working with ranged weapons. Like how would a spellbook work with Whirlwind? for example. But in this example, fighters still have a large range available to them. If we look at the planned weapons we can see that "melee" weapons would incorporate:
- Axes - 1h/2h
- Clubs
- Daggers
- Hammers
- Lances
- Maces - 1h/2h
- Polearms/Halberds
- Spears - 1h/2h
- Swords - 1h/2h
Fighters will still have plenty of options to them to really customize and diversify their class to make fighters feel unique, and none of the fighter skills feel required to have any specific of these. Plus I'm not sure that whirlwind wouldn't work with a wand or a scepter.
2nd, the tank has 1 skill that is weapon locked and that is shield assault. that's it.
Rangers in comparison to these two have 7 skill specifically locked to bow(Weapon bow mastery, Snipe shot+upgrades, the 3 Imbued Ammo techniques, Call of the wind (no idea why this requires the bow, but it does per the wiki), Air strike) (The imbued ammo techniques don't actually specify bow as a requirement but do say "When the target is hit by your bow" in the description.)
And then have 4 more skills that are clearly bow and arrow themed, use arrows in the animations, and/or list bows and arrows in the description of the skill. (Thundering shot, Scatter shot and it's variants, Barrage, Raining Death, and you count the 3 imbued ammo techniques here if you didn't count them above),
For a total of 11! of the rangers techniques being clearly themed for 1 weapon type and that alone. In fact it would have been easier to tell you all the things the rangers can do that aren't bow and arrow themed! which is the hunts and marks (which i love and feel very thematic), the bear trap, disengage, camouflage, and the vine field. 11 skills feels crazy in comparison to all of the other classes for weapon locking.
Despite this I think some skills can be reflavored/reworked slightly to work with any weapon, Barrage, call of the wind, airstrike, thundering shot, the imbued ammo, headshot and honestly Snipe as a targeted charge up dash for melee weapons would be awesome. All of these could easily work with melee weapons let alone other ranged weapon options. A ranger with a staff cosplaying as a druid sounds awesome! and hunting with a spear is an incredibly common depiction.
I think one of Ashes of Creations biggest draws is the customization of build crafting and building something that feels unique and fits your own playstyle/personal vision for a class. One of the biggest components of that is the ability to use any weapon you want with any class, and in it's current iteration Ranger does not allow for that freedom, and currently feels more like a class dedicated to a specific weapon than anything else. This feels like a miss from intrepid given how well they've crafted everything else and how cool the hunter/nature fantasy of the ranger class feels.
TL:DR - I think the ranger class is more of the "bow and arrow" class, and having a class so rigidly attached to one specific weapon feels counter to the general design stance that they have taken of "Any class can use any weapon"
Disclaimer - I know ashes of creation is still in alpha! the game isn't even close to release yet and several things are still a work in progress! Ranger isn't done yet, I get it! I'm more hoping that this post and subsequent discussion can help guide intrepid to getting the ranger into a better overall place and get the same sort of customization that all of the other classes get to love and enjoy. This isn't coming out of hatred or anything like that for the ranger, actually quite the opposite as someone who loves the ranger in d&d and just want it to be as free as everything else.
Edit: forgot to include camouflage under the things Rangers can do without a bow, now fixed, and is a very hunter/naturey thing i like about ranger. Originally forgot to include it cause it's not directly on the skill tree on the wiki.
I'm pretty excited for Ranger personally, but yeah it feels like it's absolutely weapon locked.
I invite those intrerested in your future AoC characters, which is obvious since you started your own threads on a topic that for years didnt get a serious attention from the community, to join this proposal.
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DygzMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
I guess I'm just hallucinating these?
You're also just reading the snippets in the lower section if you go the wiki page itself for each skill it lists more details about the skill:
but as i said before. if these aren't locked to weapons then that's great. fantastic. That's exactly what i want is the ranger to not have to suffer because they chose not to use a bow.
OK. I see it when hovering over the icons in the Skill Tree diagram.
Still needs to be tested in Alpha 2 for veracity.
Comments
We always knew that some Active Skills would be weapon-locked.
I think Air Strike, Call of the Wild and Snipe are not necessarily locked to a Bow and likely works fine with a Wand or Sceptre or Tome.
The possibility of 7 Ranger Active Skills being weapon-locked to Bow is a great reason to try to use a Wand or Tome as a Ranger during Alpha 2.
I think we don't know for sure what the Ranger Primary Archetype looks like or how it feels while wielding weapons which are not Bows.
We'll test it during Alpha 2 and see.
At least according to the wiki, which tries its best to keep information up to date with active screenshots of the tooltips and such skills *are* currently locked to the bow. We will have to test it for sure, but as far as the information we currently have says they are locked. If they're not locked in A2 then great!
I disagree with this for a few reasons (ESO does weapons on any class to good success) but the the viability of the builds is a detraction from the current conversation and something we can't possibly known until the start of A2
Air Strike:
Leap a great distance forward and into the air while firing three projectiles in a line along the path, each dealing area damage and rooting targets hit for 3 seconds.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Call of the Wild:
Remove all movement impairing effects and increase movement speed by 20% for 8 seconds. Snares and Roots effects applied to the caster are ignored.
(No mention of a Bow. No clue why you think a Bow would be required.)
Snipe:
Charge a powerful ranged attack, dealing large damage after charging for 3 seconds. Deals 300% physical damage.
(No mention of a Bow being required)
Even Imbue Arrows mentions Ranged Attacks and not Bows specifically.
So…no. The wiki doesn’t really tell us anything about which Ranger Active Skills are truly locked to Bows.
As far as Rangers in particular, I think they will end up getting some melee abilities. They will probably also get some augments that turn certain ranged abilities into melee. At least enough to go with bow and melee weapon as the 2 equipped weapons.
I guess I'm just hallucinating these?
You're also just reading the snippets in the lower section if you go the wiki page itself for each skill it lists more details about the skill:
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Air_Strike
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Call_of_the_Wild
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Snipe
but as i said before. if these aren't locked to weapons then that's great. fantastic. That's exactly what i want is the ranger to not have to suffer because they chose not to use a bow.
I've also decided to throw in the ones while likely not bow required as still very bow flavored.
Here is also the animation for the imbued ammo skill which has to slap arrows directly onto your bow.
I'm pretty excited for Ranger personally, but yeah it feels like it's absolutely weapon locked.
I invite those intrerested in your future AoC characters, which is obvious since you started your own threads on a topic that for years didnt get a serious attention from the community, to join this proposal.
Still needs to be tested in Alpha 2 for veracity.
Bow/Arrow is definitely a major aesthetic theme for Ranger Primary Archetype, but most of the visuals appear to be Essence-based.