Exactly how bad are rangers?

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by Cecil, Feb 3, 2015.

  1. Cecil

    Cecil New Member

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    So me and my friend are going to level together, both of us 3-boxing. I've been curious about a ranger for some time now and want to fit it into our 6-some. He says he wouldn't mind running it but likes to stress how *awful* rangers are -- essentially useless (with the exception of their tracking) Just wondering what everyone things of rangers and how they'd fit into the following group of 6

    Cleric
    Ranger
    Wizard
    Enchanter
    Monk
    Bard

    wherein the ranger, perhaps not optimal, would be fine because it'd always be a group of 6; a pretty solid 6 at that.

    just wondering your thoughts -- ranger: absolute waste of time? Just go something better? Or a fun alternative. thanks for your input
     
  2. Sturmm

    Sturmm Well-Known Member

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    Rangers are "ok" tanks but very good at DPS. In your group though you don't really have a vaid tank (warrior, paladin, shadow knight), so while I like the ranger (I had a 65 ranger Rickk on AK, and a lvl 28 ranger here so far) I think you'd be better served with one of the aforementioned tanks. Personally I'd go with either warrior (turn on attack and forget so you can use your other two boxed toons) or paladin (with stuns, very good at holding agro)
     
  3. nikaya

    nikaya New Member

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    drop the bard for a mage and coast EZ mode.
     
  4. Ransom

    Ransom Well-Known Member

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    This group will be fine until Kunark, when the tanking gap between rangers and the three tanks will grow. It only gets bigger with Velious, Luclin and PoP.

    Rangers are a fantastic class. High DPS, tracking, snare, outdoor utility, invis, etc. Come AA's, they can instant invis and use archery as their main damage. They are anything but awful.

    In terms of tanking, they lack in the ability to take a hit as well as the knights and warriors can. For that group, I'd suggest a tank. Can a ranger do well? Absolutely. With slows from the enchanter, cleric buffs and heals, you'll do just fine.

    If we are rethinking the make up of that group to add a tank, assuming you're the tank and ranger, I would go:
    Cleric
    Ranger
    Knight (Paladin or SK)
    Enchanter
    Monk
    Mage
     
  5. Torven

    Torven I Feel Loved

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  6. Trosh

    Trosh New Member

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    Hahahaha, nice.

    But seriously the only real complaints rangers get is their squishyness later in game, and on raids they have trouble gaining too much agro, for not as much dps as a rogue or something. I like rangers, though I would probably go a knight class over them. A huge drawback that you don't need to worry about in TAK is their class exp modifier, which I think is what gave them such a bad rap in classic. If you are going to get 30% less exp, may as well make it a tank.. I dunno.
     
  7. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    If you gear Rangers for high AC/HP (see Vex Thal/HoT Loot for example), and you have a slower it's no problem.

    Rangers tanked fine in PoWater/PoFire with a shaman slower and cleric in the high end areas. Just a shaman was sufficient for the easy areas.

    But without raid gear on the ranger tanking becomes much less viable. This is why many boxers chose their tanks as their mains. Gearing a tank is infinitely more useful than anything else with raid gear due to high AC/HP values.
     
  8. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    413
    Rangers are by no means useless, even in classic. They make decent tanks, and dish out pretty good damage. Rangers have the highest base attack rating, over any other class, and can buff their attack even further with Nature's Precision stacking with force of nature, and in PoP stacking with Protection of the Wild. For long term aspirations, rangers are very dominant in Luclin/PoP with some really nice AAs. When Luclin comes out, expect to see an army of ranger boxes crowding up Kelethin.

    Edit: Also a well geared ranger makes a pretty formidable tank. On AK my ranger tanked T1/T2 in Plane of Time with no problems. I think Utdaan tanked Xegony once even.
     
  9. wharhogg

    wharhogg Member

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    I have higher attack than rangers in classic on my monk, due to fists having a higher cap than all other skills.....and i get the sexy ranger attack buff. Having a ranger or two on the raid is like having a pally....they have lovely buffs, can track, and can off tank in a pinch. But until archery becomes a main stay with aa....their dps is lower than monks and rogues.
     
  10. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    Edit: I guess the ranger innate attack increase doesn't start until level 55. Thanks Trukx for the clarification.

    Huh.. Perhaps that's the case in classic. I am pretty sure a ranger's base attack is higher than all other classes at level 65. This DOESN'T mean mean a ranger's melee > monk/rogue melee since rogues get back stab, and I think monks get triple hit (never played a monk, so not sure).

    At level 65, a ranger with max skills / stats, and max worn attack, his/her ATK will be: 1620 without buffs. 1635 with nature's precision (self only buff that stacks with most if not all other attack buffs)

    A monk at the same same level, with max everything will be at: 1566 without buffs.

    A ranger's nuking ability isn't to be underestimated with AA's either. At 65 a ranger has two fast casting 30 sec recast nukes that can crit between 1200-1700 depending on gear. This can add to their overall dps considerably.

    How a 65 ranger with comparable gear does dps wise next to a rogue or monk with melee, I'm not sure. We never really parsed it on AK. I think the rogue would reign supreme, followed by the monk, followed closely by the ranger (assuming ranger is allowed to nuke during the parse).

    Archery however, is a whole other discussion ;) .

    Edit: Other melee attack rating with max everything unbuffed:

    Rogue: 1561
    Warrior: 1561
    Beastlord: 1561
    Bard: 1561
    Paladin: 1525
    SK: 1525
     
  11. Trukx

    Trukx New Member

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    In classic monks had the highest attack. They have 230 offensive and 240 weapon skill to other classes 210 offensive and 200 weapon skill. The rangers innate attack buff does not start till level 55.
     
  12. Esildor

    Esildor Member

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    This. 100%. Always.
     
  13. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    Oh! This makes sense. I did not know the innate attack increase started at 55. I always figured it started at level 1. Thanks for the clarification :).
     
  14. scythic

    scythic New Member

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    For a more immediate and current information, I play a 50 Ranger on this server with an Enchanter box. My friend played a Cleric and BL combo, after farming the tough camps in classic it became apparent that while the Ranger was doing fine tanking, we needing something more. So we started a Shadow Knight box to go along. The Ranger did tank Lord with Enchanter slows, and we killed Efreeti camps, fine. BUT...

    I will tell you, for as much favoritism as I have for my Ranger, the SK out tanks him by leaps and bounds. And the Ranger's DPS does not come close to a Monk or any of the pet classes. Often time we found that the Cleric box could go unplayed when the SK tanked while we focused on DPS elsewhere, this was not the case when the Ranger was tanking.

    Conclusion: If you aren't a die hard, born to play Ranger wait until Luclin and jump on the Legolaszxx bandwagon then.
     
  15. Cecil

    Cecil New Member

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    3
    I error'd in my original post about the setup, I meant to put warrior instead of bard (d'oh) for a the following setup:

    Cleric
    Wizard
    Ranger
    Enchanter
    Monk
    Warrior (or SK or Pally)

    I guess the ranger could function as an offtank/dps/tracker/shit off healer
    sounds kinda like what was expected: yeah yeah, they can work, but they're just aren't as good as everything else. they have one important raid role which would probably make my raid apm more manageable...

    thanks for anymore commentary

    also, what would theoretically be the race of choice...?
     
  16. Ransom

    Ransom Well-Known Member

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    I like that group a lot, and you'll find the ranger useful for snares, tracking and peeling off casters. If you have an itch to play one, you wont regret it when they're not the tank.

    Halflings have the best stats and an experience bonus. Otherwise go for looks.
     
  17. Verdent

    Verdent People Like Me

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    So halflings
     
  18. Faults

    Faults I Feel Loved

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    If you make a ranger in classic you do it for one of a few reasons. A) you like rangers B) you have a desire to be a shitty warrior for classic, kunark and velious. or C) you understand the immense difficulty in actually garnering http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=6054 and you wish to have this amazing item that never loses its incredible nature.
     
  19. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    This sounds about right for classic :) .
     
  20. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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  21. poursoul

    poursoul Member

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  22. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    Well on AK I can assure you the blessed mithril champion arrow was king. Elemental damage gets calculated the same way as regular damage as far as potential max damage is concerned ( I thoroughly tested this on AK ). The only difference is that the elemental damage has a higher chance of being resisted than regular damage (conjectural). But 4 or 3 elemental damage is always going to be better than 1 physical damage. So in the case of a mob being fire resistant, you would use the 11 dmg, 3 ice damage arrow instead of the blessed mithril champion arrow.
     
  23. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    Delorne confirmed this very thoroughly on AK. He did several long parses comparing a 16/29 weapon and an 11/29 +5 magic dmg weapon (both 1hs) in his offhand against a very low level, low resist mob (Bella Helsin), and found that the magic damage weapon produced about 89.6% of the DPS of the standard weapon. He then did a series of parses with Bella's MR debuffed to different degrees up to a maximum of -70, and saw the gap close in a more or less linear fashion until the magic damage weapon did 98.6% of the standard weapon's DPS at -70 MR.
     
  24. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    Ya, I remember Delorne talking about that. Thanks for the numbers :D .
     
  25. Lyrad

    Lyrad Member

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    127
    Rangers are really terrible. No one should ever 'play' one.

    Now, if you ARE one, in the depths of your soul, there really is no substitution for this massively versatile class.
     
  26. Ravenwing

    Ravenwing I Feel Loved

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    I think it's true, by the way, that rangers come into their own in a lot of ways in Luclin. And they really shine in PoP, when fewer targets are walled, everything is a burn-'em-down-or-else fight, and far too many encounters are ranged-only. (Really, PoP is a great raiding expansion, but the extent to which casters and rangers outshine melee DPS is horrendously stupid.)
     
  27. Elrontaur

    Elrontaur People Like Me

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    When the day comes that you are faced with a ranger specific raid target, you will wish that archery line was longer.
     
  28. scythic

    scythic New Member

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    Yep, the pop AA's really don't add anything to Archery but Headshot.. Headshot is so money though.
     
  29. Darchon

    Darchon I Feel Loved

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    In fairness, melee outshined casters in the previous 4 expansions. EQ, like most societies, works like a pendulum. At one point, one group is vastly favored, then it swings to opposite side to favor the other group. In the spirit of fairness the devs always over corrected.

    There were some times when melee were preposterously OP compared to casters and vice versa. It just so happened in PoP Casters finally got to experience what melee had during Velious/Luclin.
     
  30. Linkamus

    Linkamus People Like Me

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    Watching 7-8 rangers all disc and let loose on fennin ro is a beautiful thing to see.
     
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