Ranger as "controller"?

[paladinn]

Back in 4e, all the classes were packaged according to the role they performed and by their "power source". Fighters were "martial defenders"; wizards were "arcane controllers". The "martial striker" role was usually taken by the rogue, although some envisioned the ranger in the capacity.

I read that, later in 4e, the ranger was retooled to be more of a "martial controller", which I suppose emphasized the archery aspect. While I dislike pigeon-holing the classes into roles, I do wonder if that is the ranger's real niche now. Should we be focusing on the ranger as the default Archer class? Nothing else really serves as its unique "thing" (even if fighters are archers too).

[moonfly7]

I've seen this question a lot, and honestly, I still don't think it's answerable. The ranger is a class that has a bunch of things going on at once. You can track, hunt, fight, hide, cast and shoot. They're basically a Swiss army knife. I personally see them as filling the role they need to fill.
Now, flavor wise? They're basically just robin hood. Favored terrain=sherwood Forest, favored enemy=the rich. They have epic bow potential, but they also kick but with short and long swords, just like robin hood.

[Damon_Tor]

Back in 4e, all the classes were packaged according to the role they performed and by their "power source". Fighters were "martial defenders"; wizards were "arcane controllers". The "martial striker" role was usually taken by the rogue, although some envisioned the ranger in the capacity.

I read that, later in 4e, the ranger was retooled to be more of a "martial controller", which I suppose emphasized the archery aspect. While I dislike pigeon-holing the classes into roles, I do wonder if that is the ranger's real niche now. Should we be focusing on the ranger as the default Archer class? Nothing else really serves as its unique "thing" (even if fighters are archers too).

Multiple attacks was absolute king in 4e DPR optimization, and the Ranger did that better than anyone else; the Ranger was the gold-standard striker in that edition, not the Rogue.

The versions of the Ranger that came in Essentials (derisively called "4.5e" by some) were deliberately weakened from the original 4e counterparts, but it was never a controller. You might be thinking of the "Seeker", an archery-based controller class that had no connection beyond thematic to the Ranger. The Seeker predates Essentials.

EDIT: Correcting myself, one of the essentials books included the "Hunter", a Ranger subclass that was in fact labeled as a Controller. However, it's difficult to argue it was anywhere near as effective at this role than virtually any other controller, and even several striker, leader and defender classes could perform that role more effectively. I don't blame myself for forgetting it existed.

As for the 5e Ranger, it's difficult to make this sort of comparison because 4e and 5e have such different design philosophies. Yes, the ranger can cast some AoE control spells, like Thorns and Fog and such, but as a half-caster he's always going to be worse at this than Wizards and Druids. Abilities like Volley and spells like Steel Wind Strike give him some AoE damage, but again, this comes far later and weaker than similar abilities we get from full casters. And he heals too: he has Cure Wounds and Healing Spirit, so why doesn't that make him a "leader"?

And he has decidedly "striker" spells, like Hunter's Mark and Zephyr Strike.