Ranger Discussion

Hello everyone, Damocles here once again!
This discussion is about one thing in particular that they talked about in in the latest livestream.
There was a question, where they were asked what their favourite class was.
Steven chose to not name a specific class, but dropped a hint, that it was countered by the ranger.
Jeffrey said that his favourite class currently was the ranger.
The reason for it: "The ranger plays really fun. The tactical piece of that, moving in and out of melee combat is exciting and fun[...]"
That tells us a bit more about the ranger and one of his possible playstiles, which is pretty interesting!

What do you think, would you like to see this ingame or are you a fan of the simple ranged combat?
(I know that most abilities are augmentable)
I for one would really like to see this in detail some more, and cant wait for the siege mode.

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Comments

Ishka

I am not a fan of ranged combat in general, but regarding the ranger as I know it in MMO's is quite different each time. In RO, its gameplay is based around traps and his pet. In Aion its gameplay is around mobility and CC etc...

Regarding what Jeffrey said, it seems that the ranger will have many tools around mobility, which can be interesting gameplay wise, but the way I see a ranger is more about CC'ing the enemy and playing by using the maximum range possible.

I can imagine that the AOC's ranger class have a lot of dashes, what I wonder is does its dashes need to have a target to be usable, or you can use it like you would use a blink from a mage. Or like kicking your target pushing him back, and as you kick you leap into the air taking some distance backward.

Then my question is, does the ranger mobility revolves around a target or not ? What do you guys think ?

I guess that with the many ways of building a character, we will see all kinds of ranger but if we take the "regular route", I would prefer having a "classical" ranger shooting from afar.

Damokles

They could also go the engage type gameplay.
The ranger would soften up the target from range, and then engage in ccq to finish the job.
Give them a couple gapclosers and hp scaling abilieites and it would be awesome^^.

Example:
1. Ranger engages from range to target. Bow shots deal more damage the higher the percentage of the targets hp.
2. Kite the enemy, until he reaches a certain hp threshhold, maybe something around 1/3rd of his max hp.
3. Once enemy reaches 1/3rd hp, ranger closes in with a dash and deals devastating close combat burst damage.
4. Ranger disengages after delivering melee combo, and continues kiting.

I would love it, if the rangers also had a ton of out of combat mobility for repositioning in open world pvp etc.

Ishka

To summarize what I understood from your description, it's like a long range assassin, that "exhaust" its target, then executes it when he gets low hp.

Its tools being a high mobility to keep the distance. I guess the dps won't be very high considering the time taken in kiting and repositionning you and your target. What I wonder is, can it "evade" in close combat ? Or only keeping a specific distance. As its primary weapon is a bow. Or maybe a hybrid with a perfect balance between daggers and bow, with a proper weapon switch, maybe it can be decent in damage in both ranges, not strong, but more like a jack of all trade.

I can see the class working nicely in 1v1, but it could be very hard in group fight. With enemies hard focusing the ranger.

It could be nice to play indeed, but I guess it would not comes from a ranger alone, but ranger/rogue or rogue/ranger.

Ventharien

I'd hope that ranger ends up being a more ranged specialized class (mostly) but also can exchange some blows to either stall or give the ranger a chance to pull back for more ranged combat.

Gimlog

I feel like ranger ganker will be the most hateful being out there ...

T Elf

I'd like to see rangers having bow skill with different types of damage/buff/debuffs depending on type of arrows used; then duel weld for melee. Perhaps a limited combat pet.

Ravudha

The option to move into melee and back out to ranged does sound like it would make combat interesting. Not a ranger player myself, but it makes me wonder if there are synergies between the melee and ranged attacks. E.g. looking at the ranger abilities maybe it's a way to stack bleeds *shrug*.

Damokles

Ravudha wrote: »

The option to move into melee and back out to ranged does sound like it would make combat interesting. Not a ranger player myself, but it makes me wonder if there are synergies between the melee and ranged attacks. E.g. looking at the ranger abilities maybe it's a way to stack bleeds *shrug*.

It would be interesting if the ranger had a dot heavy vuild.
Maybe inflict bleeding and poison stacks from range, and then use up the poison stacks in melee for strong attacks that consume them to deal extra damage.

Ishka

Damokles wrote: »

It would be interesting if the ranger had a dot heavy vuild.
Maybe inflict bleeding and poison stacks from range, and then use up the poison stacks in melee for strong attacks that consume them to deal extra damage.

Aion's Assassin got the same kind of mechanics, it uses runes carving skills that he can stack up to 5 times on a target, then detonates the runes with the skill he chooses to stun, silence, air-bind, life-steal etc... As you can guess the more runes stack there is, the stronger the effect will be. Note that regarding the CC, the duration is not increased but the success rate of the CC going through the target's resistances.

I guess they could do something like this, based on different debuffs.

Noaani

Damokles wrote: »

The reason for it: "The ranger plays really fun. The tactical piece of that, moving in and out of melee combat is exciting and fun[...]"
That tells us a bit more about the ranger and one of his possible playstiles, which is pretty interesting!

I know I'm sounding a bit like a broken record here, but this sounds like the ranger from EQ2.

While it was possible to play the ranger purely at range, if you wanted to maximize your effectiveness, there absolutely was a melee component to it.

Also had some attacks that needed to be performed in front of the target, and some that needed to be behind the target.

consultant

Well main thing I like about rangers is pets. Would like variety of pets from bears and wolves to more magical pets like psuedodragons (little dragons). Not really asking for overpowered pets. But pets having abilities that help out ranger are really cool.

One of my favorite abilities was like a x percent heal from sprit beasts in wow. The pet would automatically cast it when health was low so made it look like he saved you if you survived. Plus masters call would break roots for you. Plus in certain fights like when you were cacooned by spider webs you could tell pet to attack webs and break you free.

Not particulary asking for Overpowered abilities but minor abilities add a huge role playing value even if they are on a 2 min or 3 min cool down so they are not so OP.

Plus becuase you can get different abilities from different pets then that helps you have particular set ups. One example is having a tanky turtle with defensive cooldown could be used to off tank and tank mobs in open world.

Sounds pretty standard but ability to change out pets is important. You may need to off tank a little but in one area just go with dps pet in n another area go with pet that has interupt spells or extra slow needed in another.

Pets got nerfed in WoW not going to aurgue if it was needed or not but for me personally pets lost a lot of Role Playing Value as the trusted campanion.

Would also like to option it have quiver on back.

Plateau

(This comment has been labeled for your convenience.)

(Initial reaction to thread:) If they want Ranger to be a mobile melee/ranged hybrid then I hope/expect that they'll have abilities specifically for engaging and disengaging from melee range. That could be two abilities, one for dashing at a target and one for jumping away, or it could just be one freely-aimed ability with two charges or a low cooldown. Those options could also play into the difference between a tab-targetting vs. action focused build. I expect the options to be fairly open.

(What I care about seeing:) Personally, Ranger isn't my favorite archetype. But if I were to make an alt for it, I'd hope that it's the most mobile class. Like, for me, the two core elements to a Ranger are long-range and mobility, but I think mobility is more interesting and fun. Pets can also be important, but Summoner already has dibs on that motif, and supposedly everyone is going to get some kind of battlepets anyways.

(Uh oh time to ramble about arm-chair game design:) Speaking of which, anyone who's played any game that's remotely tactical can tell you that the combination of range and mobility is incredibly powerful, because it provides the most agency and consistency. Naturally, I think the Ranger class is going to have to give a lot up in other areas (damage, CC, defense). And that is one of the best reason for giving Ranger melee abilities: Because they can provide more powerful effects and high-moments for the player (fun), while temporarily giving up one of the Ranger's biggest strengths (balanced).

(Rambling has reached peak pointlessness:) Range, mobility, crowd control, defense, fast damage, high damage, sustain/regen, flexibilty. Everyone gets to pick 2-3 major (all-the-time) strengths, and 1-3 minor (sometimes) strengths, but then the rest have to be weaknesses. Ranger will probably have several choices for their strengths and weaknesses. The only things I expect to be relatively constant are at least a minor strength in range and mobility, and a weakness in defense.

Amist

consultant wrote: »

Well main thing I like about rangers is pets. Would like variety of pets from bears and wolves to more magical pets like psuedodragons (little dragons). Not really asking for overpowered pets. But pets having abilities that help out ranger are really cool.

One of my favorite abilities was like a x percent heal from sprit beasts in wow. The pet would automatically cast it when health was low so made it look like he saved you if you survived. Plus masters call would break roots for you. Plus in certain fights like when you were cacooned by spider webs you could tell pet to attack webs and break you free.

Not particulary asking for Overpowered abilities but minor abilities add a huge role playing value even if they are on a 2 min or 3 min cool down so they are not so OP.

Plus becuase you can get different abilities from different pets then that helps you have particular set ups. One example is having a tanky turtle with defensive cooldown could be used to off tank and tank mobs in open world.

Sounds pretty standard but ability to change out pets is important. You may need to off tank a little but in one area just go with dps pet in n another area go with pet that has interupt spells or extra slow needed in another.

Pets got nerfed in WoW not going to aurgue if it was needed or not but for me personally pets lost a lot of Role Playing Value as the trusted campanion.

Would also like to option it have quiver on back.

I'd expect for this to only apply the only Ranger class that is combined with the Summoner, i.e Ranger/Summoner or Summoner/Ranger, as Summoner is likely to be the primary summoning/pet class in the game. Considering that there will also be pets that are able to fight in battle - which are available to all classes - it seems unlikely that the Ranger will have fighting companions by default.

Damokles

consultant wrote: »

Well main thing I like about rangers is pets. Would like variety of pets from bears and wolves to more magical pets like psuedodragons (little dragons). Not really asking for overpowered pets. But pets having abilities that help out ranger are really cool.

One of my favorite abilities was like a x percent heal from sprit beasts in wow. The pet would automatically cast it when health was low so made it look like he saved you if you survived. Plus masters call would break roots for you. Plus in certain fights like when you were cacooned by spider webs you could tell pet to attack webs and break you free.

Not particulary asking for Overpowered abilities but minor abilities add a huge role playing value even if they are on a 2 min or 3 min cool down so they are not so OP.

Plus becuase you can get different abilities from different pets then that helps you have particular set ups. One example is having a tanky turtle with defensive cooldown could be used to off tank and tank mobs in open world.

Sounds pretty standard but ability to change out pets is important. You may need to off tank a little but in one area just go with dps pet in n another area go with pet that has interupt spells or extra slow needed in another.

Pets got nerfed in WoW not going to aurgue if it was needed or not but for me personally pets lost a lot of Role Playing Value as the trusted campanion.

Would also like to option it have quiver on back.

I think that the Ranger/Summoner will be pet bases, and there will also be standard battle pets for all classes i believe

consultant

Hope fully I will be ablt to tame dragons really if Ashes of Creation had the Ranger Summoner be able to tame small dragos then ALL the other hunters and rangers from most MMOs would come to play in Ashes of Creation I think. What is cooler than have a a dragon as campionion. Most MMOs out there do pút dragons into category of not tameable. Think there is one game that does have soemthing like that but is the whole theme of that game call Dragonshire. Any of you know of any MMOs were dragons are tameable.

Ishka

Can't really say it's taming, but in lineage II you can have some sort of baby dragon, then a grown up one. And then finaly you can transform it into a wyvern if you're the owner of a castle.

Ravudha

@consultant I don't know about Ranger, but they said Summoner can get dragon-type summons...so it'll be interesting what a Ranger could get if a Ranger/Summoner does get pets.

HumblePuffin

If you look at the chart it is summoner/ranger that is labeled beast master. I feel like that makes it safe to assume you will have your normal ranged physical damage pet class, and with summoner as the main I can see it making sense that you won’t be as limited to the usual hunter like pets.

Ranger/summoner is the falconer, and I like to see that combo as a class that does focus heavily on its pet, but has more of a symbiotic relationship with it, relying more on working together and team work with your single pet, as opposed to the beast master that commands the pets, and gets most damage through their pet. More like 75/25 pet/player, instead of 50/50 pet/player

Damokles

HumblePuffin wrote: »

If you look at the chart it is summoner/ranger that is labeled beast master. I feel like that makes it safe to assume you will have your normal ranged physical damage pet class, and with summoner as the main I can see it making sense that you won’t be as limited to the usual hunter like pets.

Ranger/summoner is the falconer, and I like to see that combo as a class that does focus heavily on its pet, but has more of a symbiotic relationship with it, relying more on working together and team work with your single pet, as opposed to the beast master that commands the pets, and gets most damage through their pet. More like 75/25 pet/player, instead of 50/50 pet/player

I somehow imagine the Falconer as someone who call for a flock of flcons or calls for one falcon that supports him for a shirt duration.
Maybe some attacks that mark the target and he can then summon falcons to attack all targets that have this mark.

mcstackerson

I feel like I should mention that Combat pets are something that everyone has access to. We haven't heard what the trade-off for using one is but as a ranger, you can pick up a combat pet.

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