you end up firing off a normal shot instead.
So what's wrong with splitting arrows or multishot? Warriors also primarily use their default attack, with a couple special attacks, and a couple methods to get in range quickly, that a ranger doesn't usually need.
Well, I build my Warrior as a tank. So, a typical battle for him involves using "Fear" and "Crushing Fist" as crowd control, "Lower Resistances" and "Encourage" as debuffs and buffs respectively, "Rush" as an intercept, and "Dust Devil" as an AOE melee attack when an appropriate amount of MOBs are around him (which is hopefully always). Between all that busyness the default melee attack gets thrown around as needed, and it's rare enough that I look forward to simply smacking something via the "default" attack.
For the Ranger, "Barrage" has a long enough cooldown that it rarely is used more than once in the fight, as does "Splitting Arrow" (which is reserved for whenever the MOBs are appropriately lined up). They also have high action point costs which can require the Ranger to have to reserve AP from a previous turn. We've never needed "Tactical Retreat", as my Warrior is usually doing a decent enough job of keeping targets away from the Ranger. Silence sees some occasional use whenever appropriate (but honestly doesn't seem to work very well).
Sure, the Ranger could pick up a number of more useful skills like my Warrior, but that requires splitting points between Survivor abilities and either Wizard or Warrior abilities. Unless you're trying to make a Wayfarer, a Ranger is probably going to turn to the specialty arrows. And now we're back to a class that has to essentially launch gold (in the form of expensive arrowheads) at MOBs in order to kill them, a problem only bow users seem to have to deal with. Mages, for example, don't have to use consumable reagents to cast their spells and are much more interesting and entertaining to play because of it.
Meanwhile, in the beta Mages have received a new ability to use their staff to launch projectiles. This was done so they're not sitting around on their thumbs while waiting for other offensive abilities to come off cooldown. And yet, the Ranger has a similar problem - once the one or two offensive specials are spent, they're choices for the remainder of the battle is either repeatedly using normal bow attacks, or spending money by using a specialty arrow.
At first glance the Ranger looks like a lot of fun - she has a host of specialty arrowheads at her disposal, like the Green Arrow or Hawkeye (superheroes). But the cost makes players want to avoid using them, especially when you don't *need* them to win these fights (at least the ones we've had access to thus far). I just wish these arrowheads were handled differently. Give Rangers a chance of recovering them after they've been fired, or make them drop as additional loot, a lot more often so bow users are closer to breaking even financially after every fight.
