Rangers should lose call lightning

I haven't been particularly impressed with ogre rangers over other rangers. Thorg is not significantly more powerful than Zehava was. Corinkorth is not particularly more powerful than Festy's drow cleric Tribunal was. None of the Nexus ogre rangers were more powerful than Morchial - if they had been, they would've couped him.

If you can't beat an ogre ranger, it's not because they're overpowered. It's because you're doing something wrong, or you just happen to be a class that rangers do well against, IE - blademasters.

And in a straight up fight, I would've put my money on Rhazhakhar over Kronit (no offense, Calron).

well this isnt in the spirit of WWF, where "you can never beat me!" the whole point is that an ogre ranger can steamroll at a whim. and he can get wasted too of course. but he's going to steamroll far more often, whereas many other ideal combos will fail. but you know what, why not do nothing at all to the class, or the class/race combo, and everyone just annihilate ogre/rangers on sight to punish those who choose an easy power combo?

I've yet to hear a reasonable solution as to how this should be changed.

And if you didn't catch that subtle hint, that means I don't think this change is reasonable.

If it's not broke, don't fix it. And if you still think it's broke, provide a solution, don't just whine.

i actually agree. players who choose such a ready-made combo will stick out like a sore thumb now anyway, and will probably be treated accordingly.

...

I give up. I still don't understand why ogre rangers are a ready-made combo, or a power combo, or overpowered, or anything else.

But hey, if you're agreeing, I'll stop arguing the point.

I agree that the problem lies with ogres, not rangers. See my 10million posts on the subject.

As for festy's drow cleric, they finally got a minister change. People just roll up combos that work well at the time. Fire clerics, drow clerics, blms, ogre rangers...

EVENTUALLY the balancing will come, as it did for all of those.

My recommendation still stands at -1 size and -2 str for ogres...

Whats the base str for ogres?

24, beat only by fires, tied with stones, and stronger than storms/everyone else

but -1 size -2 STR is ludicrous, it kills the race. rangers are the only real power ogre combo out there. can anyone think of another? you give ogres -1,-2 and all you're doing is making even crappier ogre warriors and berserkers. and yes, taking care of the ogre/ranger problem. but is it worth that? i think not. but now that the whole ogre/ranger thing is out in the open on the forum, it's only a matter of time before some players become experts at wasting them, to a degree.

that's my guess anyway

ogres + any class = better than (almost every, if not all other) races that can do the same class

Who trumps ogre warriors? Stones? Fires? Minos? Half-elves?

Zerks? Rangers?

This isn't only a ranger combo problem..who plays non-ogre warriors? Maybe a fire or two..how well do they do?

How about zerks in general? Zerks need a large tone-up to match ranger/warrior with ANY race.

wow, 24 is too high in my opinion. I agree with your point celerity.

well celerity, i'm not saying that ogres make crappy warrior/zerks, it's just that the classes of warrior and zerk are crappy unto themselves. their skillsets arent competitive in enough situations to spawn anywhere in the same neighborhood of successful characters that good classes have. so an ogre playing a warrior or zerk is probably the best you can do with those classes. yes.

but they still get owned at 50, at will. the ogre race shouldnt get punished for this. the classes need renovation. serious ones. or other races need a tiny boost (giants in general, even giving them a +1 wis or int or anything at all). but your ogre suggestion would just make them unidentifiable play-doh.

even if you boosted war/zerk, ogres would still dominate those classes. That is why you need to boost the melees and slash ogres...if you just slash ogre rangers then boost warriors/zerks, you'll need to slash ogre warriors/zerks too..at which point you should have slashed the race in the beginning.

first balance the races in each class, then balance each class against each other...trying to balance each race/class combo individually is probably very counterproductive and too hard to balance evenly

Well the problem I think is definitely with the revamp, since for most of FL's history rangers were probably the weakest class other than bards. So I would recommend arrows lose 50 % accuracy with each room away from the target, damage be halved, the third beast be rank 30 or something, and perhaps tracking be done away with. Problem is with the beastmaster or archery paths you really outdamage warriors, and frankly most classes. That wasn't so much the case before.

I dont think ogres are really the main thing. I think they are a bit jacked but -1 size and -2 str is too much. Maybe just -2 str is enough. They do make great warriors zerks and rangers, but I do not think they are the best hands down for each of those classes. The other giant races each have something going for them, and there have been other very good rangers that were feral, halfling and even beastmaster. I do think ogres might need a sliiiiiight tone but not much, they are very vulnerable until they get ample magic protection. As for rangers here are the skills I think are questionable.

Dual parry. No other hybrid gets this, not thieves, ninjas, pally's, dk's. I just dont see it as a ranger skill. I say if they want to dual wield let them lose a defense.

control weather/thunder storm. They dont need either. They have more than enough skills to cope with various situations, I think having these spells gives them an extra tactic they would be string enough without. (afterall they have staves if they need to make the weather better against that pesky invoker or whatever)

Flail. I think rangers should lose that weapon. Just dont see it with the class, spear sword dagger whip axe and staff are enough.

Weapon expertise. They arent warriors, if a Pally or DK doesnt get an expertise in a wepaon why should a ranger?

Blind fighting. I really dont see why they should have this skill.

jesus, if you took all those away, rangers would be like they were 4 years ago. but even worse.

i'd like to remind the playerbase, IMMs to look at the PK history and pantheon of generally successful characters. and check for dominating rangers. other than ogre. i think the results (0) will point to no *major *changes needed. rangers definately were a lame class before the renovation, please please please dont send this class back to the stone age again.

Re Mister E: First of all, rangers are not a hybrid class. They are pure melee - one spell doesn't change that.

As far as control weather/thunder storm... not too long ago, people were complaining that rangers had no commands to use in combat. People discovered a spell. Soon enough, other people will learn how to counter it. Hint: It's not hard to counter - use what you already know.

Re Ex-D&Der: Almost every class has a way to deflect arrows in some way or another. Learn how to use it. Also, beastmasters are gimped enough as it is. Yes, they'll do better against warriors/zerks. But Blademasters will ruin them, as will all the other classes that archery and tracker give an advantage over (Necros, Invokers, Battlemages, etc.)

Re Celerity: Usually you and I get along fairly well. But in my opinion, you are dead wrong on this one. Ogres, just like blademasters, Tribunals, and vampires, are not overpowered. A select number of people have learned how to play them in recent times. And over the next few months, people will learn how to fight back. Cariousus' decline toward the end of his reign wasn't due to toning - it was due to people learning how to fight vamps. You want to know what happens when you go trying to balance things like you're suggesting?

You get the current heap of useless crap that is the Psionicist class.

you have to not only consider the strong characters, but their potential strength also.

Austa was a werebeast ranger...had he been an ogre, would have have dominated more or less?