Not super impressed with Ranger Dailies/Encounters

[Otterscrubber]

With the obvious exception of Blade Cascade, is anyone else out there not super thrilled with Ranger encounters/dailies? They all seem to be Burst 1, possibly with the benefit of pushing an enemy or knocking them prone. As I kept reading the higher level powers I had to keep checking the page # to make sure I wasn't re-reading powers as the only thing that seemed to change is the name. I'm talking of melee of course. There seem to be several examples where a lower level power is actually better than a higher level one. And none of their dailies are reliable, they do give half damage on a miss, but that just means at best the daily does damage equal to a hit. Kind of underwhelming. And boring. You do get Twin Strike, which rocks, but it would have been nice to get some more interesting martial talents with the higher level powers.

 

[Gladius Legis]

1) Reliable is overrated. It's the ultimate feel-good keyword. Half-damage misses are better.

2) Immediate action counterattacks = teh awesome.

3) Armor Splinter.

4) Tiger's Reflex.

5) Follow-up Blow.

6) Cruel Cage of Steel.

Melee rangers look just fine to me.

 

[Otterscrubber]

Replies listed below, thanks for the input :

1) Reliable is overrated. It's the ultimate feel-good keyword. Half-damage misses are better. - I can see a point on this, but its nice as at least you get to use it again in the hopes of not only doing damage but also getting any special benefit that the daily might activate only on a hit.

2) Immediate action counterattacks = teh awesome. - Can't argue with that, I do like a lot of the ranger utilities.

3) Armor Splinter. - Meh, I'm not a big fan of debuffs that only last one round. It's one of my gripes with 4e in general. Plus this isn't that great if you are trying to have a high Str and a high Dex, which is usually the case for a melee ranger. Wis will not be that great unless you wish to sacrifice attack/damage or your AC for the side benefits of some powers. Frankly haven't seen to many that make that worthwhile. It would take a lot for my striker to lose some of his strikeriness for some controlling/debuff ability.

4) Tiger's Reflex. - This is plain awesome, again, I do love the utilities, its' mostly the encounter/dailies I find lacking.

5) Follow-up Blow. This does rock as well, at level 29

6) Cruel Cage of Steel. -This is nice, get a bonus to hit, and can still shift even if you miss. Solid damage as well.

Melee rangers look just fine to me.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Consider trying a str/wis build and investing in heavy armour?
Sure it sods your reflex, but reflex = damage, whilst low will = status effects.
No sneaking or acrobatics, but .. wis skills!

 

[Otterscrubber]

Well, goal is to go stormwarden, and scimitar dance is hard to pass up, even though it will reduce my accuracy. Can't really justify losing all that damage that I will eventually get from Dex (not to mention AC and Reflex defense) just to push an enemy a few squares extra or chap his AC a skosh more for 1 round. Just feels like I won't be a striker anymore, at least a good one.

 

[Victim]

Yeah, if you go Stormwarden, then Armor Splinter isn't so great. But a STR/WIS ranger in heavy armor can take Pathfinder or multi into another paragon path. And the one round debuff isn't bad, especially since you can use AP to make the most of it every encounter or if you have plenty of other AC attackers.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Fighter PPs are awesome for tin can rangers .. pit fighter or kensei come with damage bumps.
For those builds, wis can be a deal breaker .. as armor splinter leads into blade cascade.
But .. for a stormwarden, sure .. dex is a must.

 

[toxicspirit]

4) Tiger's Reflex. - This is plain awesome, again, I do love the utilities, its' mostly the encounter/dailies I find lacking.

Tiger's Reflex is a Daily Power, not a Utility.

 

[wujenta]

Our group played the adventure in the DMG and wanted to test things in a higher lvl...so we all made lvl 19 characters and I did a ranger. No complaints for his encounters and daily powers yet, im the highest damage dealer in the party, followed by the fighter and then the rogue... the rogue got bad luck and missed some of his key attacks, thats why he is in the third place. Here is my build...more or less:

Human Ranger (multiclass fighter) lvl 19 (kensai paragon)

STR 24 CON 14 DEX 16 INT 10 WIS 16 CHA 11

FEATS: weapon focus heavy blade, two weapon fighting, two weapon defense, student of the sword, armor proficiency chain, armor proficiency scale, armor spec scale, action surge, quick draw, acolyte power (to get iron warrior from fighter), back to the wall and blood thirsty

The character wields 2 longswords of terror (one +4 and one +3) (i know bastards swords are better, but i like longsword for conceptual reasons), deals lots of damage and have a decent AC (35 or 36 if fighting adjacent to a wall)

Thinking about it...if i Hit with armor splinter the two times and activate the daily form both the swords, will the enemy get a -9 to AC (5 from armor splinter and 2 for each weapon) or only -7( 5 form armor splinter and 2 for a weapon beacuse they dont stack)

 

[Gloombunny]

Rangers have great dailies. I mean, compare Jaws of the Wolf to Brute Strike. It's like a bad joke at fighters' expense.