The Current State of the Ranger

[Waldo52]

I love rangers in principle, but I can't really bring myself to make one. I feel like the class has experienced a bit of neglect. I'm going to share my issues.

1) The selection of animal companions is limited and in some cases poorly executed.

The totem system is a big improvement. The fact that we can use a spider's appearance for bear stats or a wolf's appearance for big cat stats is fun. But we have dozens if not hundreds of animal skins that go unused. Arelith uses a bunch of animal models: roathes, deer, crabs, beetles, reptiles and more. Hell, the familiar reskin update contains a few models that I assumed were about to get extended onto rangers. Why weren't we given turtles, wasps, jaguars or attack hounds?

I hate to say it but World of Warcraft seems a lot more engaging in this one regard. There are a bunch of cool animals in the world and their ranger equivalent can use basically any of them.

What's worse, two of the more exotic totem options use very weak models when the game has better alternatives. The snake is tiny and nondescript, and Arelith uses a much better model for the shrieking eels near Sencliff (and probably other places). The bat is so small that I can barely tell when it's attacking. You can find bigger, better looking bats in pretty much any newbie cave area.

I had an approved suggestion about expanding the animal companion/totem list and there were other similar suggestions that I think were approved as well.

2) The totem path is a mess.

The totem path confers no mechanical benefit, which is fine by me. But it's a path, so it conflicts with other paths. What this means in practice is that if your story involves you being a two weapon fighter who befriended a parrot at a young age and grew up fighting alongside a parrot, you're in the clear. Is you're an archer who befriended a parrot and grew up fighting alongside him, you're out of luck. Because archer is a path as well, and you can't take two paths. This feels very arbitrary and limiting.

3) Animal Companions aren't strong

My last PGCC experiment was sad. My panther started pouncing on a guy and couldn't even touch him. They're great against random orcs and other mobs, but animal companions aren't an asset in PvP combat. Their unique abilities like poison, disease and fear don't seem to work against other characters.

4) Dexterity based rangers will track you down, pop out from stealth and...?

Do 2d6 additional damage thanks to bane of enemies. Without the glory of sneak attack or some other interesting mechanic, dexterity based rangers are often described as "playable" or otherwise not-that-bad. Let's compare rangers to other Dex based melee options: Swashbucklers can have great AC with class bonuses and parry, and have unique access to epic Dodge on a 10HD chasis. Rogues have sneak attack, grenades, crippling strike and slippery mind. Rangers don't even get trap bonuses, and I'd argue that trapping is even more key to class identity for rangers than it is for rogues.

5) Fighting styles are limiting

Later iterations of DnD gave access to additional fighting styles. Why can't a woodland bounty hunter or sworn defender of the forest fight with a shield or just one big weapon without gimping his build?

6) Get used to red glowy weapons

This might seem like nitpicking and complaining but I don't care. I like edgelord rangers and hope to make another one in the future, but the satanic weapons for everyone angle is SO FREAKING RANDOM. A lot of rangers are really wholesome characters and this is such a random look.

You can make an argument for mandatory VFX on blackguards and paladins but this becomes a real problem for me in terms of aesthetic direction and personal expression. Not to mention how silly it looks on your typical green-clad forest warrior.

7) To Conclude

Rangers are in an okay-ish place mechanically but they're not particularly great if you don't go for strength because dexterity rangers feel like watered down versions of similar classes. The class feels like it could be a lot easier to personalize and customize. They don't feel fun. You have all of two options for fighting style, bizarrely mandated weapon colors and a handful of animals to pick from when you run into countless species on the server.

[Sincra]

On 1:
This is on the docket, also having giant sized animal companions to match WoW or the giant variants we have is a goofy idea.
Personally prefer some discrete options.

2:
Can you confirm if the FOIG method to get a totem is stopped if you have the archer path?

3:
This requires you to use Greater Magic Fang + Awaken + pet food stuff.
Animal companions are incredibly strong if buffed correctly.

4:
Most bows come with mighty at end game.
You can buff your strength to fill that out for extra damage.
As for melee, you have something strength does not, AC and better reflex, this means if you are guarding your companion you will be taking less damage + your blade thirst is still healing you.

As for traps, they can take the skill which already does quite alot if you invest into it.

5:
Balance.

6:
This lets evil vfx users hide so is fine.
Red also doesn't mean evil, it can mean savage or blood.
Ie, blade thirsts for blood.

[stoneheart-]

Rangers should be able to select skins for their companions as wizards can do for their familiars. There are lots of options that are cool now. For example I really like the fox and rabbit models and wish a ranger could have one. Other than this the animal companion is pretty good though honestly with a significant level investment in Ranger, which I believe is the intent. Dual wield rangers and archer rangers have significant damage, this is their natural niche and always has been (in Arelith and beyond). However I do agree that both Ranger and Druid have been sort of "left behind" as far as development goes. Most other classes have been changed drastically and updated to be newer and better, but not Ranger/Druid. Sad!

agreed about the blade thirst vfx, I would prefer it goes away.

[Sincra]

I also do not want any devs to read this and start adding appearances randomly.
We first need to fix the fact only 2 of the animals are worth picking, better yet we remove all current animals and make it three archetypes you choose from + then apply the appearances.
This is what should have happened with Familiars but now we have to unwind it all to seperate them out.

[Waldo52]

On 1:
This is on the docket, also having giant sized animal companions to match WoW or the giant variants we have is a goofy idea.
Personally prefer some discrete options.

2:
Can you confirm if the FOIG method to get a totem is stopped if you have the archer path?

3:
This requires you to use Greater Magic Fang + Awaken + pet food stuff.
Animal companions are incredibly strong if buffed correctly.

4:
Most bows come with mighty at end game.
You can buff your strength to fill that out for extra damage.
As for melee, you have something strength does not, AC and better reflex, this means if you are guarding your companion you will be taking less damage + your blade thirst is still healing you.

As for traps, they can take the skill which already does quite alot if you invest into it.

5:
Balance.

6:
This lets evil vfx users hide so is fine.
Red also doesn't mean evil, it can mean savage or blood.
Ie, blade thirsts for blood.

1) Absolutely not. I'm not advocating for giant everything by any means. IMHO the snake and the bat are two examples where larger and often better models exist all over the place. Personal opinion here, but the slightly bigger bats and snakes just look cooler while still being realistic in terms of size.

2) For me this is still a problem. Why would a guy who fights with two weapons have no issue bonding with a specific animal at a young age where an archer would? Why is the archer randomly stuck using a FOIG system? I've never been faced with the problem in pen and paper where as a consequence of selecting archery my animal selection was arbitrarilly alerted or forced through hoops with "Find out in game" dangled in front of me to get the creature I wanted.

3) I PGCCd them a couple of times. I probably took two animal feats, got them to thirty and didn't do much else. I'll take you word on this and assume I was wrong and they're actually strong.

4) Again, not an expert in the class so I'll just generally assume you're right and I've been corrected.

5) I'm sure we could throw in another fighting style or two without getting massively unbalanced.

6) We'll have to agree to massively disagree on this one.

Sincra, your plan going forward with animal companions is a very good one. Will it obsolete the totem?

[Griefmaker]

2:
Can you confirm if the FOIG method to get a totem is stopped if you have the archer path?

3:
This requires you to use Greater Magic Fang + Awaken + pet food stuff.
Animal companions are incredibly strong if buffed correctly.

As a preamble, in solo play (in group play, the ranger with his pet is the king of utterly ravaging a single creature) I am going to say that Ranger can be pretty dang strong for PvE, though it can lacking in PvP against anything with AC. For the animal companions, I find their best use is when I play a melee ranger and let the foe focus more on the ranger, with the animal being more of a distraction for 1 or 2 baddies in a group whilst chewing their faces off. This can be really strong so that neither the ranger nor the pet are overwhelmed.

When I made an archer ranger...the animal companion was really great in the lower to mid levels. But the truth is that it cannot really tank much in epics for long. The immunities and defenses of elementals, outsiders, and undead really do make them far superior, with the animal companions suffering greatly from debuffs and critical hits other summons do not.

I would love a more WoW-esque sort of animal companion where you could have it either be more of a tankier sort with significantly less damage (though maybe minor AoE to help keep aggro) or one focused more on damage like the current bear where its AC is okayish but it has the ability to hit things, hit them hard, and penetrate DR and the like.

Now as far as Sincra's questions, I can answer two of them:

2:
I can confirm that you can take the archer path and still do the FOIG for the totem.

3:
This is very true for a level 30 bear with GMF, Awaken, pet food, and a lesser arcane candle (in my opinion the 50% concealment is necessary otherwise the animal takes some serious abuse. Even with the concealment, it is best to consider it another weapon and not a tank because it will die quickly if swarmed so you want the foe to focus on the ranger or someone else if possible).

Note that bloodlust and call of the wild feats are necessary too (maybe not bloodlust for the creature, though I am a sucker for its sustain after battles because i am oldschool and we like to hoard our consumables. The extra AC from call of the wild is useful as is the SR).

A level 30 bear (I choose this for its max sustained damage because to be frank all of the other options do not really add anything useful and do not have enough defenses to truly be a tank like elementals or undead) with its +10 weapon, 10/- DR, 1d10 additional damage, +1 APR, bloodlust and call of the wild feat bonuses, and sequencer is definitely a really strong "additional weapon" for a ranger.

For melee rangers, unless you are sacrificing all the other necessary stats for a ranger to max out AB, the fully buffed animal companion usually has better AB than the ranger, especially if the ranger is in expertise or improved expertise.

[Xerah]

I did a TWF gnome pure ranger to 30 and it was one of the easier leveling times because of the animal just like Griefmaker said.

Overhauling animal companions is a huge pain (so are familiars, which is why it's not really "finished") so it's not a huge surprise why it hasn't been done.

[Wethrinea]

Shelved my ranger a few months ago, but having played a str ranger for a few years I want to give my input too:

1 & 2) The companion skins are quite OK, but I wouldn't mind more. Cue rabbit skin for more or less funny Monty Python references.

3) There are two animal companions that are usable (Dire Wolf and Bear) while the rest are trash. The D-Wolf can tank mobs with AC, and the bear could shred dragons before they were buffed, as long as said dragon was trying to chew the ranger and not the bear. Without -guard, the bear's survivability is about the same as a sturdy barn-door with. The lack of any kind of immunity that elementals and other high level summons have make the animal companions situationally useful, but otherwise a chore to manage.

I'd love to see more thematic choices, ie companions that are flankers (jaguar?), tank (dire badger?), DPS (Bear) etc, but I know rebalancing there is hard and time consumiing. For now we have two functional choices, that with care and planning, can make a lot of difference for a ranger.

4) Having BT work on ranged weapons would open a niche for archer rangers. Following the same progression as on melee weapons, giving +5 AB and Mighty at level 26 would make deep ranger archers a viable choice. Won't be as good as AA's, but at least you would not need pointy ears to use a bow effectively. I believe there was an approved suggestion to that effect.

5) I would love to see sword'n board and two-handed fighting styles, in particular the latter. Maybe something as simple as granting the same dualwield AC to two-handing rangers.

6) I disagree. Rangers are often portrayed as goodly protectors of the natural world, but many of their abilities are downright horrific when you think about them. BT giving a red glow is on point for what the spell does.

7) I enjoy playing rangers. They are incredibly flexible characters both in terms of mechanics and RP. Many of your suggestions would make them even more so, but I still think they are in relatively good place.