Ranged 'fighters' can't come to the dance?

[corwyn77]

While I'm happy with many of the changes in 4e but something that is starting to bug me is that str melee is now king, as opposed to spellcasters.

Ranged strikers seem to be the red-headed step-child now. Wizards and clerics have their own thing to do and aren't primary damage dealers any more and that's fine but Warlocks and ranged Rangers seem to really suffer in comparison to their hth teammates in Paragon, and especially Epic tiers. I know Warlocks have a lot of controller-like effects but their relative damage still seems lacking.

When you introduce high tier power attack (which have no ranged equivalents) and the fact that there is no possible way, afaict, to improve the chance for a crit to anything other than a 20 for ranged attacks. It seems that Fighters and even Leaders if they go heavy on str can do more damage than any ranged attackers.

Unless this all turns out to be unfounded in actual play at high levels. But I have my doubts.

 

[Zurai]

I disagree. I actually think Archer Rangers are the top damage at the moment, barring the brokenness that is Blade Cascade.

 

[Dice4Hire]

Archers seem quite good right now. A couple of the low-level encounters look very nice form a damage perspective. Archery has always been a bit harder than swinging a basic weapon, but it should be fore balance purposes, as th archer also takes a LOT less hits, unless they really don't know how to manouver.

 

[TimeOut]

Archery rangers are fine and really really fun to play.

 

[Lurker37]

Playtest reports suggest that Archery rangers may be the top damage dealers, the main exception being a rort melee rangers can pull with one power. Any bets on how long before that rort gets errata?

 

[jeffh]

If you want an archer, the Ranger, not the Fighter or Rogue, is supposed to be the go-to class, and it seems to be the best class in the game at dealing high damage reliably at most levels.

 

[Nifft]

My very limited experience with an Archery Ranger says that they are fun and awesome.

Cheers, -- N

 

[Moon-Lancer]

lets look at the math. Sly Hunter lets a ranger do +3 damage to stray targets, at epic levels power attack does +6 damage for giving up -2 to hit. Hit ratios stay the same so a -2 is a big deal. If we take away the -2 to hit and take away -2 damage its only a net gain of +1 damage over the ranger, in a strange kind of way. The ranger makes up for it with hunters quarry.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Ranged attacks now add dex to damage, and Power Attack, tiered or not, still can't output anything like the hurt it could in 3.5, so I'm not seeing it. A high level ranger should have a high DEX adding to the damage of his ranged attacks, he gets numerous x[W] and/or two-attack powers to amp that up, and he gets to tack on his Hunter's Quarry to whichever attack hits in a given round. I can't imagine how he'd fail to do a lot of damage, overall. Maybe not as much damage in one hit as sneak attacking rogue (or same-level greatweapon fighter's top daily exploit), nor as much, potentially, as a Blade Cascade (melee ranger power that really needs a cumulative attack penalty), but, overall, he should be outputting a lot of damage.

 

[Zaruthustran]

Don't forget that rangers and warlocks can add damage dice to each and every attack, thanks to Hunter's Quarry and Warlock's Curse.