How to ranger

like a boss

It was. Akai picks were (unsurprisingly) crazy.

Really, best I can tell, the beauty of ranger shines in its diversity, and for a certain play style, ranger is amazing. Truthfully though, unless I've misread something somewhere, the actual combat potential between a ranger and an assassin isn't so large a gap as to be insurmountable. A ranger should obviously be using slashing or chopping to fight an assassin. Doing so will cripple the assassin's potential to really defend against them, you're absolutely right. In reality though, the current fetish is bludgeoning, and that goes for warriors and rangers. Only a few really long lived rangers still use slashing, and I think that has to do more with the fact that warriors or other rangers in the south or north in the beginning get those bonuses, and the average player says 'Hey, this is my bonus, I get a head start. Gonna do this!', level that skill really high first, so some rangers try to plan for that make a skill like bludgeoning their 'real' hitter. Cause when's the last time you've seen an assassin around long enough to really get up their offense and defense? Bludgeoning puts you on fair ground with the warrior then. Assuming you're not going to poison up. In which case, you're already limiting your potential to fight an assassin, and a small slashing weapon is your go to. Only seen one in game of anything less than shit quality. It isn't easy even for less squishy characters. Obviously any well and long lived ranger is going to try to get everything up a ways, but I'm just talking general aspirations for the starting and mid range character. Most people never see the higher plateaus of skills on a character, for a variety of reasons. Overall though...nice post.

I guess my only real issue with it is the logic of 'you can do this and this'. When some fella rolls up on you, dual wielding his crystalline long knives, laced with heramide and perraine too, are you going to be thinking 'He's an assassin!'...probably not. There's good odds he's a ranger. So you won't switch. The game will be...relevantly, even. If he backstabs you, and you happen to have one of all four types of weapons within easy reach to consider swapping to cause on the spot you knew you needed your 'specially designed to kill the assassin who just dropped me to poor condition slashing knife', then sure, you'll know he's an assassin, you can do what you will. Assuming when you suddenly change from your 'help me kill warriors' plan to your 'shit its an assassin' plan, and you reach for them, you don't get stabbed in the throat.

Again, just to clarify, really loved the informative post. My cynicism isn't an attempt to discredit the information, by any means.

The current ranger meta of bludgeoning could have been (ego ahead people) because of Elrum and Zarah in Tuluk. Both of them were very well known in the combat circles and they both espoused the benefits of bludgeoning. Also Zarah won the Luirs pitfight with a 2 handed baobab staff (she got from me). There is also the mathematical fact that bludgeoning is more efficient than other weapons due to the dual dmg it deals. It is especially efficient against PCs because they will often have listen/scan running reducing their stun and are often waying and thus have reduced stun from that and a head shot can do 80+ stun.

Edit - The reason I link it to them is bludgeoning didn't seem popular outside the delves until they started it and started teaching everyone ICly about it in tuluk but that is ancedotal experience of 2 years.

wat abot asasin brede owtdoresmin?

Eh. I'm not counting extended subguilds. As far as I know, you can only app them once a month. You need to special app them instead of how they should be treated, which is as just another karma option in the character creation process...and everyone knows when you special app something, you get a shit stat roll.

So yes. Sure, you can't go wrong with hardly any extended subguild. And if it was treated like karma race/class options are, I'd be all over them. If you get lucky, that's great. And I'm sure extended subguilds are why a lot of people are wandering around with subpar stats. They don't want to suicide their special app.

It's kind've like being a mul. If you app a mul, get great stats, and get welcomed into some kind of clan setting where you have protection and freedom and sparring partners. Good for you - you've won Armageddon. But realistically, your average mul is going to suck because they can't even remotely twink off/def and their skills to the level that a human or dwarf gets away with. A dwarf with exceptional strength/endurance is incredible, and I don't even care what their agility/wisdom is. Although, ideally, it'll be 10+ each at least (so around average). And no one cares what a dwarf does.

I will say - there's been far more muls on Armageddon, than there's been players who've twinked their offense/defense to absurdly high levels. People that think they have a high off/def often don't. Because regular, decent people often need to play in combat heavy rolls for 80-100 days plus (brawling a lot to boot), and even horrible twinks need at least ~35-45 days to even get 'up there'. Let alone, retardedly high. No one has ever gotten 'retardedly high' without fist fighting a lot of stilt lizards. Even punching gith will only take you to 'fairly high'.

Most people just want to be king shit in the sparring circle. Which a ranger totally can be, against all but ancient, master warriors with advanced weapons and sparring versions of those advanced weapons. If you see anyone break out like, wooden razors - fuck that guy. He can spar someone else! If a warrior is easily defeating you in the sparring circle with regular weapons, then your off/def isn't actually that high. Or you have neglected one of your four weapon skills and so aren't getting a parry bonus.

In a real fight, say out in the wastes, that warrior either has no-hands ride, whereupon he's a smart and worthy foe, and is death incarnate if he has an advanced weapon like trident and shield to boot.

Or he doesn't have no-hands ride, and should be an easy kill.

Or if you were an assassin - you backstab him and either hope he dies/falls paralyzed, or sit there for 12 seconds in skill lag as he disarms and reams you. If he's a good warrior. My examples tend to suggest 'the reasonably best you can expect'. Obviously, a 3 day warrior will get raped by a 20 day assassin.