The latest complete class is THE RANGER, who is totally my favourite of the new classes. Though really that’s down to this fella:
See, stuff gets way more tactically interesting when you’ve got a semi-autonomous allied character to control and look after. You have to worry about flanking, line of sight, managing two health bars and so on. It makes the game a bit slower and more involved, but I think that’s okay for one class! It’s a fun change of pace.
The Ranger’s talent tree is split into three main branches: archery, Dog and survival.
There are only two simple stat boosts – Toughness and Camouflage for HP and stealth respectively. Archery and Well Trained are also fairly straightforward upgrades, boosting the damage of your bow and your dog.
Blood Link is the first fun one. It’s the Ranger’s unique healing talent, granting you health whenever Dog picks up a health orb and vice versa. Since you’d normally have to choose which one of you gets to heal in these circumstances, it’s a significant boost.
Sense Danger lets the Ranger use his survivalist skills to identify enemy movement, allowing him to detect threats nearby even if he can’t see them – including invisible enemies, which he then gets to shoot at. 🙂 It’s not directly applicable to combat but it can keep you out of trouble.
The big exclusive choice in the Ranger tree is Poison Arrow and Distract. The former is a new skill, a special arrow which slows enemies and deals damage over time – making you an even more lethal archer. The latter fully unleashes Dog, making him cause enough trouble that enemies he’s attacking get distracted and drop their guard.
There are a few natural play styles suited to the Ranger – hanging back and using archery, fighting alongside Dog in mêlée, or sneaking around and backstabbing people. In practice a successful Ranger may have to use all three as the situation demands. It’s a complex and fluid class to play.
That’s half of the classes covered! There’s one more done and I’m currently hammering out the last two, so more class updates soon 🙂