Tempest Rangers

[noinfo]

Self-healing makes up for lower d8 hit-dice and no toughness Enhancements.

Not really pallies have both. It is a nice bonus though.

[noinfo]

I have! Before the TWF nerf. It's ok, but it needs some help. The cool down was way too long to make it worth while.
As for the rest of this thread.... OP,
1) go play AA for a while
2) stop comparing rangers to anything else, you'll just keep getting frustrated. Take the class at it's face value.


Sure rangers need some help, but, Rangers are always supposed to be a supporting role and not the star of the show. Along with clerics, they need the strength of a party to make their class shine. Can you make both classes into a solo-able build? Sure, but why?
I've taken 6 rangers to cap, 5 Tempest & 1 AA, The AA was respec'ed to tempest when the twf nerf came along, and all perform as planned.
They have good gear, and all are strength based, and do as much damage if not more than the majority of builds. I don't care about kill counts, thats misleading, I never try to make them super-uber, that's not a rangers forte.

I've used this patform for all the rangers, and havent been disappointed yet ;
Human (bastards for extra feat) max strength (all points into swim & jump) Dex starts at 17 ( remainder of points into dex) Con as high as possible (28 or 32 pt build) and wisdom at 10 (when you get owls wisdom you can get that stat high enough for lvl 4 spells) Also, a few tweaks here & there I won't list.

I have never posted my builds, as there are too many experts to pick apart what I know for a fact works. Surprisingly, my builds are loosely based on a PnP scout build, and do just fine.

Don't try to define your build based on what you read here, as most people are into the min/max concept, and have zero clues about a ranger going true to cap, until you do, and invest time into a true ranger with all of it's shortcomings and strong points, then you're just listening to your own words & carnal knowledge like the majority of people that make posts here.
There are a few old timers here on forums that can really help with your build, send them a PM and get the facts, and not opinions.

Hey Ferd I do appreciate your trying to be helpful and all but here are a few things:

1. Any class can be support (well maybe not as much fighters and barbs but hey)
2. If I want my ranger to be the star of the show it will. Having soloed VOD, Sins elite and 3 man TOD where I tanked Horoth and whatever else on them I am well aware of their capablilities, and weaknesses and how they compare to other classes as I have a significant number of toons to base this off including 3 other ranger variants though no AA which is why I will not comment on them.

3. Its not the class that is the issue it is the enhancements that make up bonuses and PRE. When you modifiy other ones it has a significant impact on others.

All in all most agree, rangers just simply need a bit of luv as they are currently at the bottom of the dps ladder and their other abilities certainly don't make up for it. While I don't think they should ever be the DPS star that Barbs, Kensai or KOTC vs outsiders are, they should be the next in lines and I don't believe my suggestions would OP the class in anyway and provide a much needed boost to the class.

[Schmoe]

I'd like to see:

- 100% STR to off-hand attacks on Tempest III. Tempest II right now is fine for a Tier II PRE

That would be awesome. It would be even better if it was 75% at Tempest II, and 100% at Tempest III. As it currently stands, Tempest II is nothing to get excited about.

- Double-strike equal to 5% + DEX bonus for Tempest III
- A few additional FEs resettable via enhancements. One at 6, 12, and 18 respectively
- The "ranged pass" to actually happen though with are off to a good start with the U11 increase to RoF.

Some very nice ideas. I think they would make rangers, and specifically Tempests, more interesting options than they already are.

[noinfo]

I'd like to see:

- 100% STR to off-hand attacks on Tempest III. Tempest II right now is fine for a Tier II PRE
- Double-strike equal to 5% + DEX bonus for Tempest III
- A few additional FEs resettable via enhancements. One at 6, 12, and 18 respectively
- The "ranged pass" to actually happen though with are off to a good start with the U11 increase to RoF.

While I agree with you that Tempest 111 needs the most work, to say that tempest 2 is fine is not exactly true.

You can certainly take T2 without feeling you have completely gimped yourself but no one ever takes ranger to 12 just so they can have access to T2 Tempest, it is because they want the other ranger abilities to level 12. You can see this by the majority of splits being ranger 6 and fighter 12 (normally for kensai) but even if it was for SD you would get better benefits especially now.

Tempest 2 needs a boost just as rangers in general do.