Having trouble with my ranger

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I find it much more difficult to play this class than any other.

DPS aside, Split arrow skill seems to spend A LOT of mana.
I can't drink enough potions to make it worthwhile. And DPS from the skill doesn't seem to do do wonders for me even when active.

I am currently level 14.

Does anyone else have trouble playing the class or am I doing something wrong?

Ranger IS a lot harder to play now. Wait until you hit Old Fields. It's a whole new world of pain. I've abandoned both my bow ranger and my claw ranger because neither of them are capable of surviving there until level 20+.

Prepare to have plenty of people chime in and say you are imagining things, but something is not right with them. They drink mana like it is going out of style, and even with zombies, it's difficult to survive. I think the experience awarded per kill has changed so that it's tougher to level. My advice is try to run places at least 3 levels lower than your character.

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aerows wrote:

Ranger IS a lot harder to play now. Wait until you hit Old Fields. It's a whole new world of pain. I've abandoned both my bow ranger and my claw ranger because neither of them are capable of surviving there until level 20+.

Prepare to have plenty of people chime in and say you are imagining things, but something is not right with them.

It's not exactly that you're imagining things but rather you need to reevaluate your playstyle. There can't be anything inherently 'wrong' with the class if a bunch of people can play it just fine. Perhaps we utilize a different mentality while playing, perhaps we build a different way, perhaps we just get lucky with drops. If you're having trouble putting the right shaped pegs into correct holes.. yet other people manage fine.. It's probably not the system that's flawed but rather your approach. Even with the numerous possibilities you have in PoE to approach certain aspects, there will always be right and wrong ways of doing it.

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aerows wrote:

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I find it much more difficult to play this class than any other.

DPS aside, Split arrow skill seems to spend A LOT of mana.
I can't drink enough potions to make it worthwhile. And DPS from the skill doesn't seem to do do wonders for me even when active.

I am currently level 14.

Does anyone else have trouble playing the class or am I doing something wrong?

Ranger IS a lot harder to play now. Wait until you hit Old Fields. It's a whole new world of pain. I've abandoned both my bow ranger and my claw ranger because neither of them are capable of surviving there until level 20+.

Prepare to have plenty of people chime in and say you are imagining things, but something is not right with them. They drink mana like it is going out of style, and even with zombies, it's difficult to survive. I think the experience awarded per kill has changed so that it's tougher to level. My advice is try to run places at least 3 levels lower than your character.

I knew I wasn't crazy! :)

Anyway, I gave it a shot for a couple of hours more, and I find that that rain arrow skill to be much more satisfying to use than Split arrow, both visually, practically and DPS wise.

Splits somehow miss a lot of times, and when they do hit from close range, you don't get a feeling that something has been hit, as they are hardly visible then.

Anyway, playing in low levels definitely doesn't make you feel overpowered.
If you don't have an updated equipment, it's a lot of work...

I think they should make these skills less mana intensive - there is nothing wrong with spamming spells, quite the contrary, it is quite enjoyable and a goal of the game, but the player should not be overpowered or broken while doing it.

look at HC ladder, rangers are fine.

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scorpitron wrote:

look at HC ladder, rangers are fine.

People in hardcore play a lot more cautiously than those in default. It looks like the problem, at least for me, is that I needed to have a few more levels before hitting Old Fields. The bandits hit HARD and there are a lot of them, so if you aren't of a high enough level you will die a lot.

It's a bit frustrating to need to out level the map to the point where you get reduced drops to survive, but that's the way I've experienced it.

Understand that when people are making comments it is because this is what we are in the beta to do. Just because someone has something a tad critical to say or an experience that runs counter to yours, it doesn't mean they are whiners or bad players. It just means they are testing.

Someone new to this genre and new to the game could easily get frustrated with the current situation and stop playing - that's why I bother to contribute with my comments. If GGG just wanted only hard core, highly experienced players that say everything is fine regardless of what some players perceive, they wouldn't have held a beta.

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People in hardcore play a lot more cautiously than those in default. It looks like the problem, at least for me, is that I needed to have a few more levels before hitting Old Fields. The bandits hit HARD and there are a lot of them, so if you aren't of a high enough level you will die a lot.

It's a bit frustrating to need to out level the map to the point where you get reduced drops to survive, but that's the way I've experienced it.

now you get it and it mirrors what i said in my personal feedback thread, although many of us are not very cautious since the game is still fairly easy even on non-defense builds. you cant just spray and pray like before without regard to life or mana. i disagree that you need to "over level" to survive as i am typically even or 1-2 lvls behind most HC maps i am in.

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If GGG just wanted only hard core, highly experienced players that say everything is fine regardless of what some players perceive, they wouldn't have held a beta.

ahh but this goes both ways eh? if the HC crowd does not speak up then all GGG hears is how hard it is and they may water things down until we move on to a game that will challenge us. 7 of top 20 in HC league are rangers, to me that says the class is very viable and still fun, why else would lvl a ranger that high if it was not fun? they nerfed us and we came back even stronger.

if all you want to do is spam your way through the game while never needing mana or hp then yeah i guess they made rangers less fun for you. dont get me wrong i loved my .9.4 spamming ranger, but it was just too OP and easy this new patch made it more challenging and fun imo.

I know what you're saying scorpitron, but I would like to mention the following:

The fact that a lot of rangers are in top10 or whatever, is not an argument that everything is ok.

People in there MIGHT (and I stress 'might'), play rangers because they are alot of fun, because they have emotional attachment to the class, it fits their playstile, etc.., and the reason they are in there, is because they persevere in their playing the character (sticking to the maps they overleveled), they are unusually accomplished and talented gamers...

None of these are indicative of gameplay balance.

Ranger is all about the bow, if you can find or craft a good bow then you will be fine. Your main priority has to be to craft a decent bow! Put everything aside.

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szesan wrote:

Ranger is all about the bow, if you can find or craft a good bow then you will be fine. Your main priority has to be to craft a decent bow! Put everything aside.

True, after I found better bow, things got a lot better, but I wonder if this is a good direction for a game to go.

It creates a lot of pressure on maximizing one aspect of the game, and if this aspect isn't met, the experience isn't enjoyable any more.

As I said, I think players should be able to spam spells a lot, but not get overpowered in process.

Increasing mana requirements isn't a solution.

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szesan wrote:

Ranger is all about the bow, if you can find or craft a good bow then you will be fine. Your main priority has to be to craft a decent bow! Put everything aside.

needs to be said more often in these threads i guess, but yeah +1 to this too. find a great bow roll a bow ranger immediately!