Ranger At-Wills, no choice?

[JesperKT]

It annoys me that a Human Archer Ranger has no use for his 3rd At-Will.

He can take Twin Strike and Nimble Strike as any other Archer Ranger must do, but he has no third power that could be even remotely useful... ever!

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I had hoped for a new At-Will in Martial Power, but as the only class the the book, the ranger got no new At-Wills that could be used by an existing ranger.

Now I can only hope that someone finds an errata on Careful Attack, or a replacement, so that totally useless power no longer takes up one of the four ranger At-Will slots.

Just to clarify: The general idea of Careful Attack is not bad, it's just a worthless power when the ranger has twin strike as an alternative (which is better in every way).

Careful Attack vs. Twin Strike has been discussed at length, but just to recap: Careful Attack is only better if you need to roll exactly 20 on a basic attack to hit. Any higher or any lower and twin strike is just as good or better. A player should never encounter an opponent where such a high number is required to hit, and even if you did, you would never know the exact number, so you would stick to twin strike.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

The fact that you even get Twin Strike should make you not care that you don't have a selection of powers; you wouldn't even use them! It's sorta like the level 9 dailies. You can take Close Combat Shot and deal 4W+ to an adjacent enemy...or you can take Attacks on the Run (like every other ranger, ever) and move 6+ for free while dealing 3W+ and another 3W+ from 20+ squares away. It's not even a choice.

 

[JesperKT]

I realize other classes (e.g Cleric and Paladin) has a similar problem, with only 2 At-Wills, that match your specialization, but these classes all have three advantages on the ranger:

1) They are still waiting for there class specialization book (e.g. Divine Power) to appear. This book will add more At-Wills to the class, which will most likely include a valid alternative.

2) These classes currently have two secondary (as in not using your primary stat) At-Wills to choose from, and might get more in the specialization book.

3) The secondary At-Wills has a side effect that differs from the primary At-Wills, which might make the powers useable in special circumstances. An Archer ranger's secondary power is Hit and Run, which has the same effect as his Nimble Strike power (actually a bit worse). I cannot think of any situation where Hit and Run would be useable for an archer ranger.

 

[mach1.9pants]

IMO every class needs about a doubling of at wills. In some combats you use a lot of them so having a great selection to choose from would be better (even better, maybe, if everyone got 3 at wills or mare)

 

[Pickles JG]

Do not think of it as a lack of choice think of it as a class defining power.

 

[Mengu]

Hunter's Teamwork is kind of a fix. You get conditional combat advantage which is essentially a +2 attack, and you keep dex modifier to damage. If you have some other feats or items that add to damage when you have combat advantage (like Talon Amulet), or if you are a superior crossbow ranger with rogue multiclass, this could be a handy at-will power.

Our ranger uses Nimble Strike maybe once an adventuring day. He's not completely unhappy with it since it got him out of a jam a few times.

But Twin Strike is still the ranger's bread and butter power.

 

[JesperKT]

The fact that you even get Twin Strike should make you not care that you don't have a selection of powers; you wouldn't even use them! It's sorta like the level 9 dailies. You can take Close Combat Shot and deal 4W+ to an adjacent enemy...or you can take Attacks on the Run (like every other ranger, ever) and move 6+ for free while dealing 3W+ and another 3W+ from 20+ squares away. It's not even a choice.

I realize Twin Strike probably deals the most damage of any at-wills in the game, and it's great. But most battles are more than just dealing out damage, you need a bit of flexibility in order to handle those special situations, in these cases I often find Nimble Strike very usefull.
Still my char is human, and one of the great things about a human is his 3rd At-Will, unless you are a ranger archer, then its just wasted :-(

I know that several power levels are f%&ked up for most classes. While annoying, I can live with that. They are not as defining for you character as your At-Will powers are.

 

[Ryujin]

Do not think of it as a lack of choice think of it as a class defining power.

... as with Warlock where you simply don't get a choice at all, because the second at-will is defined by your sub-class.

 

[JesperKT]

... as with Warlock where you simply don't get a choice at all, because the second at-will is defined by your sub-class.

The warlock gets no fewer choices than a cleric or a pala, in fact a constitution based lock has 3 at-wills to choose from...

That said, I can see that a charisma based human warlock, would have a very bad 3rd At-Will... but at least this might be fixed in Arcane Power. And if your constitution are not that bad (which it probably won't be), you still might find situations where Hellish Rebuke or Dire Radiance is usefull.

 

[Ryujin]

The warlock gets no fewer choices than a cleric or a pala, in fact a constitution based lock has 3 at-wills to choose from...

That said, I can see that a charisma based human warlock, would have a very bad 3rd At-Will... but at least this might be fixed in Arcane Power. And if your constitution are not that bad (which it probably won't be), you still might find situations where Hellish Rebuke or Dire Radiance is usefull.

Actually no, since you get Eldrich Blast automatically and are given a second that is dependent upon your Pact. You choose the Pact, not the power. If you have something that gives you an additional power, like being human, that's about the only way that you'd get a "choice."