This may be an odd question, but of all the MMOs out there, which one has the best/most fun ranged archer type class? I've played a Hunter in WoW, but hated the use of a pet. I've played Shadow Warriors in WAR and hated the feel of the class... a bit sluggish to me. I've played Rangers in RF Online and although I like the feel of them and the look of their weapons, I hate the small number of skills they get. I've messed around with Rangers in EQ2 and liked them for the most part, although the appearance of gear was somewhat dismal IMO.

So which game gets it right as far as self-sufficiency, fluidity, looks/appearance of their gear, and overall fun-ness goes?

*F2P or P2P, it doesn't really matter.*

Im surprised you didnt like the Hunter in WoW.

From all the mmos Ive played, the hunter in WoW is not only fun but a very well rounded class.

Originally posted by logangregor

 

Im surprised you didnt like the Hunter in WoW.

From all the mmos Ive played, the hunter in WoW is not only fun but a very well rounded class.

Honestly, I liked the Hunter a lot. Like I said, I didn't like having a pet at all but who am I to complain. I'm somewhat burned out of WoW atm tho so that's why I'm against getting back into the Hunter.

Being an archer in darkfall.

Vanguard and Lotro have very good ranger/hunter class.  If you don't like the idea of having your pet playing too big of a role.

i'm playing as an archer in the shadow of legend,  i guess its the most aggressive and has the most powerful ATK in the game. archer can do  ranged attacks and his lethality is also fierce. the vision effect when the archer is attacking is also dazzling. hope this will help you.

What kind of playstyle do you prefer? PvP or PvE? Also not sure what you mean by fluidity.

I really liked archers in DAoC because they felt like archers, at least in the older version of the game. I don't know how they are now. Rangers were in particular really fun with being balanced between decent ranged and melee skills. However, it does take time to ratchet up shots on your bow, from what I remember. If you don't like having to set up your shots you won't like either the DAoC archers or the Hunter in LotRO.

Hmm..I think LoTRO had a pretty good hunter class. But, actually WoW's was pretty good. And on top of that, an all around better class in the game. A hunter in WoW can be pretty deadly if played right :). EQ has a pretty good ranger class too. But some of the graphics might be kinda outdated for you.

Has to be Guild Wars by a long shot.

Definitely GuildWars... I loved my ranja

ugh guildwars....to each his own I guess.

Eh now that I think about it....while I still wasnt crazy about the game the rangers had alot of fun stuff between traps and buffs etc

Shadowbane is not bad either for bow users, there are a few bow classes. In Shadowbane, not everyone is the same, you build a toon any way you like.

The Scout is a ton of fun - stealth and reveal stealth

The Huntress is a ton of fun - nice AoE and poison

The Ranger - heals, snares and buffs

The Crossbow warrior - fantastic damage

The bow Thief - A load of skill points to work with

These classes may also use other weapons besides bows such as daggers, swords and crossbows. Melee weapons will let you back stab a person while you are in stealth.

The higher you build the crossbow or bow skill in game the more skills/spells you will get for that weapon aside from being a class and having all the class spells. Each race in Shadowbane also has its high points and low points. I really liked my bird scout playing Shadowbane, she was fast as hell and hard to kill.

Originally posted by Angie-PvP

Has to be Guild Wars by a long shot.

Nice pun

DarkFall online has the best Archery of any MMO.

GW Rangers are really different because they are so strategic and lock down targets. I liked them a lot though GW became boring after a while. You can choose to play a 'pet' Ranger or not at least in GW. There is a lot of flexibilty of what you can do in the game.

A question to the OP though: what about ammunition/lack of ammunition? Do you dislike carrying ammo around with you or don't mind it? That could also impact on the answer.

To the OP,

I am in the same boat and enjoy my hunter in WoW, but really get frustrated with the pet.  One thing I did to improve this is to make controlling the pet as easy as possible.

What I did was bound my pet's attack along with my pet's submissive and stay command to my mousewheel.

For attack, I made a macro that puts on hunters mark and also makes my pet attack.  Something like

/cast hunter's mark

/petattack

/petdefensive

When I need my pet to not attack and be by my side, I use the simple command

/petpassive

So, when I see a mob to attack, I simply scroll up on my mouse wheel.  When Im running away from a mob or I dont want my pet to attack something thats attacking me, I simply scroll down. 

i know its a little off subject but what i dont understand is  LOTR is the story that actually invented the ranger class but the game only has the hunter class?

hunter in LOTRO is the best.

vonlasha, it has the ranger class, also. it just isnt playable. if you read anything about the lore, you would know why they aren't playable (they are way too powerful), just like the wizards.

I'm going to say rangers in Guild Wars, for several reasons.

1)  Yeah, you deal damage, but that's hardly all you do.  A typical build will also have some interrupts, and having to watch things and figure out what to interrupt makes the combat a lot more engaging than just picking a target and firing damage skills.

2)  You can easily respec to a wide variety of very different builds.  You can mainly base your build around extensively using your pet.  You can have a pet out to take some hits but otherwise mostly ignore it.  You can reasonably put the pet away entirely and put your attribute points in other things.  You can do a build based around applying conditions to mobs.  In some cases, you can take some blocking skills and go body block mobs and "tank" about as much as the game allows (which isn't really very much, but that isn't the point).  You can even put the bow away and go full trapper.

3)  It's expected that a ranger will have several different bows that he uses extensively.  This can be for different types of bows, or different mods on the bows.  Some have considerably longer range than others.  Some fire arrows in a higher arc so that it takes longer for the arrow to get there.  Some have a faster firing rate than others.  This isn't a case of bow X is clearly better than bow Y as is usually the case in a gear-based game, but genuine pros and cons where you'll switch between bows a lot.

4)  Mobs can dodge.  This isn't merely a gear/stat based percentage chance.  Mobs can dodge by getting out of the way.  If the arrow isn't in the air for very long, they really can't, but a flatbow at full range will leave the arrow in the air for well over a second.  This creates more tactical complexity than merely, pick a target and fire away.

Originally posted by APRAurore

A question to the OP though: what about ammunition/lack of ammunition? Do you dislike carrying ammo around with you or don't mind it? That could also impact on the answer.

It doesn't make a huge difference. Carrying ammo is somewhat annoying, but not enough so that I would choose one game over another because of it.

To the poster who didn't know what i meant by fluidity, I meant that I want to play something that doesn't run fast but then take 5 seconds to animate a shot, get caught in an animation, shoot opposite the way they're facing, etc. I'd prefer something quick and non-sluggish that just kinda... flows right if that makes sense haha.