Tweet
The past couple of weeks I've been trying a ranger character. Played six games--no wins, though two characters were CL45-50 when they got killed--which was enough for some initial impressions.
The biggest change is the completely different spell selection, which seems awful. So far as I can tell, the new ranger only has around a dozen spells, and some of them are useless, or nearly so, or of limited utility, while some are simply boring. Remove hunger has mild utility but is boring. Cure poison is an extremely minor spell. Stone to Mud is handy but merely a utility spell. Resist poison is a useful defensive spell, though very narrow, providing resistance to only one thing. Sense surroundings is very handy, although the high frequency of artifact lights and rods of magic mapping make it less uniquely useful than it would have been in older versions of angband.
Cover tracks is something I haven't used much but it didn't seem that useful, because it seemed to go away if I ever attacked something. Create Arrows seemed largely useless to me. First it requires staffs, most of which players ignore. Second, it too often just created +0 +0 arrows, which I can frigging buy in infinite numbers. By the late game, a ranger is usually swimming in good arrows, anyway, and the ranger also has Ammunition Brand spell to help fill any gaps at no real cost. Herbal curing is a joke. Decoy is something I've only tried a few times so far, not enough to truly evaluate. Haste is of course very important.
The class is now missing all those handy spells that help weak rangers survive at lower levels (except haste, which it does have), plus most of the useful mid level spells, and all of the powerful spells. There is not a single awesome spell for rangers now (with the possible exception of Decoy, which I have not yet fully explored). The lack of Destruction and Teleport Self/Other is particularly irritating (some might find that with Teleport Level, too, but I don't like that spell).
So with only a handful of spells to choose from, almost all utility-type spells, the magical aspect of rangers basically lost all interest to me. The only spells I used a lot were stone to mud, sense surroundings and haste.
The ranger retains all of his other early disadvantages. I thought at least his missile use at low levels would be more effective but it's as bad as anybody else's. Hit points are bad. Melee damage is bad. If it weren't for the fact that powerful artifacts drop a lot earlier and more regularly in newer versions of angband, the character would be at even more of a disadvantage.
The ranger now also seems to do a lot less missile weapon damage than before. In fact, by the late game, my melee weapons typically did more damage than my missile weapons could, which seems ridiculous. The weapon I used with my last character did around 450 to 475 damage per round, based on item swaps. This was more per round than almost all my arrows except those of Holy Might could do. So I mostly meleed, which did not ever used to be the case.
It seemed to me that bows were not better than other missile weapons now, but perhaps I am mistaken.
The class does still suffer from its previous biggest weakness, which is how weapons dependent it is. Great missile weapons are in very short supply and it is easy for a character to simply not get one during a game, or not get one until way late (as opposed to melee weapons, where it is very common for someone playing the new versions of angband to get a great melee weapon in the midgame). Perhaps I've just been very unlucky the past few weeks, but it does't really matter if a player is better with missiles if all he gets are limp noodles.
I would *love* for a ranger to have combat bonuses against all animals, all trees, and against kobolds/orcs/ogres/trolls/giants.
I would like the ranger to have three spellbooks, with some more and better spells.
It would be interesting if sneaky rangers (this could also be applicable to rogues) had a movement bonus when out of sight/awareness of monsters.
It would be nice to have some sort of ammo type only usable by rangers.
The biggest change is the completely different spell selection, which seems awful. So far as I can tell, the new ranger only has around a dozen spells, and some of them are useless, or nearly so, or of limited utility, while some are simply boring. Remove hunger has mild utility but is boring. Cure poison is an extremely minor spell. Stone to Mud is handy but merely a utility spell. Resist poison is a useful defensive spell, though very narrow, providing resistance to only one thing. Sense surroundings is very handy, although the high frequency of artifact lights and rods of magic mapping make it less uniquely useful than it would have been in older versions of angband.
Cover tracks is something I haven't used much but it didn't seem that useful, because it seemed to go away if I ever attacked something. Create Arrows seemed largely useless to me. First it requires staffs, most of which players ignore. Second, it too often just created +0 +0 arrows, which I can frigging buy in infinite numbers. By the late game, a ranger is usually swimming in good arrows, anyway, and the ranger also has Ammunition Brand spell to help fill any gaps at no real cost. Herbal curing is a joke. Decoy is something I've only tried a few times so far, not enough to truly evaluate. Haste is of course very important.
The class is now missing all those handy spells that help weak rangers survive at lower levels (except haste, which it does have), plus most of the useful mid level spells, and all of the powerful spells. There is not a single awesome spell for rangers now (with the possible exception of Decoy, which I have not yet fully explored). The lack of Destruction and Teleport Self/Other is particularly irritating (some might find that with Teleport Level, too, but I don't like that spell).
So with only a handful of spells to choose from, almost all utility-type spells, the magical aspect of rangers basically lost all interest to me. The only spells I used a lot were stone to mud, sense surroundings and haste.
The ranger retains all of his other early disadvantages. I thought at least his missile use at low levels would be more effective but it's as bad as anybody else's. Hit points are bad. Melee damage is bad. If it weren't for the fact that powerful artifacts drop a lot earlier and more regularly in newer versions of angband, the character would be at even more of a disadvantage.
The ranger now also seems to do a lot less missile weapon damage than before. In fact, by the late game, my melee weapons typically did more damage than my missile weapons could, which seems ridiculous. The weapon I used with my last character did around 450 to 475 damage per round, based on item swaps. This was more per round than almost all my arrows except those of Holy Might could do. So I mostly meleed, which did not ever used to be the case.
It seemed to me that bows were not better than other missile weapons now, but perhaps I am mistaken.
The class does still suffer from its previous biggest weakness, which is how weapons dependent it is. Great missile weapons are in very short supply and it is easy for a character to simply not get one during a game, or not get one until way late (as opposed to melee weapons, where it is very common for someone playing the new versions of angband to get a great melee weapon in the midgame). Perhaps I've just been very unlucky the past few weeks, but it does't really matter if a player is better with missiles if all he gets are limp noodles.
I would *love* for a ranger to have combat bonuses against all animals, all trees, and against kobolds/orcs/ogres/trolls/giants.
I would like the ranger to have three spellbooks, with some more and better spells.
It would be interesting if sneaky rangers (this could also be applicable to rogues) had a movement bonus when out of sight/awareness of monsters.
It would be nice to have some sort of ammo type only usable by rangers.
Comment