Expand Weapons for ranger

What about trying to understand the point of view of the other people first?

The 'Problem' with Rangers is, you have just one attribute for a weapon. Every other profession got 2 (warriors 3). And that is the complaint.

Let's say a Staff of Beastmastery or Staff of Wildernesssurvival would do the job. A Rangers should not be forced to carry a bow. Of course, a bow opens up all the Marksmanship skills, but what if I want to go Beastmastery/Wildernesssurvival/Expertise. Currently this is not possible due to lack of a good weapon.

It is not a primary concern, because Bows are obviously best for most rangers. But there _should_ be the possibility to use an other attribute for a staff/wand or maybe some kind of knife or whatever. Just not to be forced to use the Bow would be nice.

And that is the point. Expertise req for a bow would be weird, as Strength req for a sword would be. But there are other weapons...

Yes, I've tried understanding other points of view, and it just doesn't work for me either way. I've made an effective ranger that doesn't use a bow, and instead uses a wand, and shield(7 base defense, no req on it). I get more defense, and I get the energy I need to cast the spells my pet uses, so he's stronger in battle. Plus, the energy helps with traps, spirit spells, etc.

Just because a weapon doesn't say Blunt Dmg: 12-22(Lvl 10 Beast Mastery Required) doesn't mean you can't use it. If you're not going to use a bow, you're not going to be playing Ranger for your physical damage output...simple as that.

No, but every little bit of damage helps. Which would you rather have as a monk? A Raven Staff (~4-9 dmg) or a 11-22 (9 divine favor) staff with +10 energy? Both staves have +10 energy, but I highly doubt you'd find anyone who would pick the raven staff over the other. Besides, a staff cannot compete with a long bow in terms of range.

Ignite Arrows (wilderness) + Dual Shot (no attribute) is still effective for a non-marksmanship ranger, but you still need a bow. If I wanted to be a poisoner, again with a bow because Apply Poison (wilderness) and Poison Arrow (wilderness) only work with bows, and I think the only poison upgrade for a weapon comes on a bow.

Rhunex, why do you insist on telling people their complaints have no merit simply because you don't mind playing your character in a crippled fashion? Does the desire for a bow with expertise or wilderness hurt you, the balance of the game, or anyone else?

Wow... Dude how many Necros, mesmers, elementalists, monks etc. have you played recently that had ANY attribute related to weaponry? Except for certain bonuses ofcourse. Warriors are meant to be about weapons and power/health whatever, so their attributes reflect this.

As far as strebgth required for a warrior weapon... strength isnt just about skills, each point of strength gives you 1% armor penetration. That means if you max strength, which a lot do, you do more damage to heavilly armored players than other warriors do. Strength in my view is almost a necessity for your weaponry. Sure you might have builds that ignore strength, those are probably all the warrior monks you see running around failing to cut margerine with their swords, let alone anything with a hint of armor.

Rangers in my view were meant to be a physical damage dealing class like warrior, but from range.. I dont think bow attacks lack compared to other types of attack, and if you LEARN YOUR PROFFESION, you will find ways to do crazy amounts of damage. Rangers from my experiance are tough little feckers too. Ranger/monk is a hell of a tank, and with very little energy cost.
Plus there is AoE damage, traps etc.

no personally I dont think they need nerfed, I think they need learned...

how about:

muskets? for expertise or something. hunting knives for wilderness survival? ok yeah it's highly unlikely, but it would be cool. wouldn't rule out some kind of firearms for one of the expansions though.

U FORGOT TRAPS DAMNIT! lol.

i agree that ranger have many types of bows so dont need a great variety of other weapons...since we also have traps. BUT what would be neet it ranger had a dagger or somthing. fast low damage dealing but easy to disable the attack so its easier to run to get inot better advantage point. just an idea :P

hmm like a throwing knife...interesting..

poison
fire damage
blind
cripple

Hoboy *Smacks forehead* It's starting again. One of the reason I quit AO was inbalance. Two professions ended up ruling over every other player in the game. Mainly because of wanting more and getting more since the admins played as those two professions. I think the combat and PVP system is absolutely fine the way it is. If you want more weapons, have a warrior as your second class. If your gonna update weapons, you gotta give something to everyone in the end. 'nuff said.

[QUOTE=Phaedrus]Rangers have how many variants on the bow?

Unlike other classes, each bow has a different fire rate/flight time/range.



QUOTE]

not really, all they do is look different, if you check the stats i thinkthere are 3 bows.

[QUOTE=shady_knife]
Hum actually, if you TEST different bows, they APPEAR to fire different distances, different Rates.

I know that iv fired bows that even when high would barely reach outside an ooponent just outside my aggro circle, other bows iv fired can spank mobs half a mile away! (quite far outside my aggro circle)

Now whether this is my perceptions playing up or what I dunno, but until told otherwise im faily confident what im seeing is (virtual) reality.

I'd agree with the whole ranger weapon with wilderness survival, expertise or beast mastery as another attribute idea.

At the moment I use lots of traps and poisons etc to help me, and prefer to keep my marksmanship down to the minimum I need for the bow (9 at the moment)

If there was a dart gun or something that used marksmanship I'd drop those 9 points in an instant. Afterall what Ranger isn't using something like ignite arrows or conjure to provide enough damage for other classes to go "Oh wow, the ranger isn't sucking so hard today"?

Now if marksmanship provided an inate speed increase (not even a very fast one, just something minor) to your bow, that would be amazing. Maybe even making a set of bows that can be machine gunned but do less damage.

My wand and icon req death magic...

Lemme try to explain my reasons for making this post.

Sword: Slashing Damage: Req Swordsmanship

Hammer: Blunt Damage: Req Hammer Mastery

Bone Staff: Cold Damage: Req Death Magic

Accursed Staff: Dark Damage: Req Curses

Smiting Staff: Holy Damage: Req Smiting Prayers

Holy Staff: Fire Damage: Req Divine Favor

Flat Bow: Piercing Damage: Req Marksmanship

Short Bow: Piercing Damage: Req Marksmanship

Long Bow: Piercing Damage: Req Marksmanship

Half Moon: Piercing Damage: Req Marksmanship

Composite Bow: Piercing Damage: Req Marksmanship

There is not a ranger weapon that does not require marksmanship. All I want is a ranger weapon that I can use that DOES NOT require me to take valuable points from my other atributes just so I can use a bow that requires MARKSMANSHIP! I'm not saying right now, but it would be nice in an expansion.

I could see the reason for wanting more than one attribute type for ranger weapons but is it neccesary? Beast mastery isn't a very good skill especially for pvp, pve it isn't so great either. Expertise possess effects that support skills linked to bows. Wilderness Survival Traps are the only thing i can really imagine that have a category, and even the, i doubt they'll make a "Traps for Dummies, 10-20 damage, Req. 9 Wilderness Survival). Bow's have variety, if you want to try new weapons then it might be time for another character.

I agree - after all, there are tons of Expertise skills that depend on a bow to use, and same is true for Wilderness Survival. Having an Expertise requirement bow might be too powerful, but might work; afterall, there is a Divine Favour Staff, right? Expertise already has good skills linked to it, and all rangers use it pretty much, but it wouldn't open up bow use for others who might be trying to pick up ranger skills. A Wilderness Survival requirement bow would allow secondary rangers another way to use a bow - after all, if you are picking up the bow as a necromancer to deal some ranged damage, spread poison and such it'd be nice to be able to do it without needing Marksmanship as well - that's a problem you see, because most lines capable of dealing damage (all of the necro lines but SR, all the elementalist lines but ES) get a weapon with them - that way when you invest in a line with offensive value you get a weapon with it. Every line has an off hand item otherwise, the non-offense lines like inspiration, protection and healing, for example, all have foci, and Strength and Tactics have shields, yet rangers get nothing to use unless they take marksmanship or a secondary with a weapon, and casters choosing to try to apply poison/ignite arrows and fire a bow get nothing for their efforts, as they need to invest in two lines to do it.

Note - I do not want new weapons like blowguns, crossbows, etc... just a few bow types that use Expertise, most probably with the same ranges/rates as existing bows. I'm actually going to repost the focus part separately, as it is a separate idea.

So you want another weapon line for Rangers? You obviously can't have a weapon with the same DPS as a Bow tied to another Ranger attribute. That wouldn't be balanced. You site Monk/Elementalist/Mesmer/Necro weapons as examples, but they don't have the same DPS as a Bow. Nor any of the utility powers that Rangers have with Bows.

It's not like a Warrior can ignore Axe/Sword/Hammer and be viable with any of those weapons. The same is true for a Ranger. You can't ignore Marksmanship and be viable with a Bow.

Did you guys really want a Blow Gun attribute with a set of skills? Because that's what would have to happen to give you another weapon choice that wasn't based off Marksmanship.

I have no complaint about making a Crossbow model and associating it with Marksmanship, if it shares the same DPS as a Bow.

i think all bows should require Markmanship...

but i do think there should be other weapons for Rangers that require maybe WS or BM... just cause if i wanna go all out BM then i prolly wouldn't have any skills in Markmanship... prolly Expertise:14 BM:12 and maybe WS: 8 ...i think there should atleast be a .. maybe a staff or something that a Ranger could use that gave bonuses to BM ..same goes for WS...

i redirect you all to my ranger off hand idea

I'd like to have a gun of some sort. Like, a flintlock musket. Slow reload time, fast flight time, lots of damage, misses a lot, and pierces all armor.

Guns reminde people of the present and reality. Reality is what people play games to get away from.

i think its a good idea to have another weapon for Ragers
Hunter's Spear (req. 9 Beast Mastery)
Krytan Blow Dart gun (req. 3 Wilderness survival)
don't sound bad to me and if there were blow guns for wilderness survival i'd have my W/R stop using swords because it'd be great to see the big warrior blowing away at that little bamboo straw.