Looking for opinion on rolling Ranger for new TLP

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by ggny, Dec 7, 2015.

  1. ggny New Member

    Having a bit of trouble deciding what to play. Everyone seems to be rolling Wizard/Necro or Mage and wanted to do something different.

    So with the 50% melee buff does it actually make Ranger a viable choice if you are looking to Raid? Looking for opinion from someone that raided in Classic and Kunark on RF and LJ about how they do DPS wise in raids
  2. Banai Augur


    Ranger doesn't become viable really until Luclin timeframe iirc. They get better in Velious but in classic/kunark they are nothing more than DT fodder really
  3. Getafix New Member


    agreed I was about to say same thing...

    I see a lot of monks, mages, necros, wizards, sk, rogues in that order of popularity being rolled to start. with druid, cleric, warrior secondary. Everything else is on the bottom of the list for classes.

    Rangers are only viable if there are no other tank options while leveling. That's it.
  4. Vaclav Augur

    So woefully misinformed... they trump all "real tanks" in Classic grouping for starters... poor aggro kills people in classic, not the tank being 50 AC and 200 HP shy of a real tank. (ranger with cleric buffs out stats a real tank w/o cleric buffs...)

    Ignore the stupid stigma - they were bad back in the day in Kunark especially - but most of those problems no longer exist (mostly related to skill caps, that are now basically identical to warrior, 15 less parry and 10 less defense, I think?).

    ENCs and WIZs are the ones that end up eating DTs in Classic unless your raid leader is clueless.
    Drexll and Thash like this.
  5. Moranis Augur

    I agree with Vaclav...some of the best aggro management I've experienced has been with a ranger tanking. They don't mitigate nearly as well as a warrior, but they'll actually *take* the damage. Groups with warriors seem to have the mob flying all over the place from caster to caster.
    Drexll likes this.
  6. Banai Augur


    His post was in regards to DPS not agro generation. Early on rangers can tank well because of horrid threat generation of most tanks but post lvl 30 they will not generate more than any of the tanks. They become a sub par dps with agro abilities.

    I'm not saying rangers are terrible but early expacs they just lacked so much and were never on par with any of the other dps. Rogues sit in the same boat for awhile. After a few xpacs and especially with AA's they start to shine
  7. Rhodz Augur

    Monks are never as prolific in these TLPs as people think they are going to be.
    The only ones that stick with them are the players that wanted to play Monk for its own sake.
    For one it requires some serious attention to skills that cant really be done in group and the fact they are not OP as people claimed tends to hold down numbers. Yeah lot of lvl teen monks get abandoned.

    Casters always win the TLP popularity contest because that is what the game favors, gearless flexibility and dps.
    Rcbauer likes this.
  8. Banai Augur


    Sounds like you've had some bad warriors. I leveled on LJ as a warrior and never had any issues at all with threat unless we had a mage/wiz that was just clueless and spams nukes at 90%. As I said pre 30 rangers could steal agro if they wanted (flame lick OP threat) but once a warrior gets provoke they shouldn't be losing threat. Especially with the ability to get augs to boost it even further.
  9. Weverley Augur

    I group with rangers ,monks and rogue on lockjaw and it was very apparent compare to full caster groups how slow mobs were dying so melee still have a long way to go to get interesting for grouping but when phinny launch there will be so many groups that people won't care gonna take anything.Personally not planning on playing a ranger til at least velious when they start to get better.
  10. Moranis Augur


    Well, it could be a function of the sample sizes...considering I probably only ever grouped with 4 warriors and maybe 4 rangers. Flame lick does seem to be pretty sweet taunting.
  11. Iyvy Augur

    Rangers are tanks untill Luclin, and considered the "worst tank", but they're not really that bad.

    Rangers used to have lower defense than the other tanks and so were bad tanks, now they do not, a Ranger could easily tank every raid boss in classic and Kunark. Is it a great idea? No. Will your guild let you? Probably not. But they are perfectly capable.

    They're one of the better group tanks, I would argue the best. Snare and root and sow is really strong. Ranger tanks very rarely lose a mob to running, they're excellent pullers ( split pulling, just bring a and mez) relatively tanky, get some good utility and track is amazing.

    A lot of people hate on them but if you want a tank in a group a ranger is arguably just as good as any other. Ranger dps is relatively high for a tank in classic, higher than a pally or warrior, not sure about SK. Their threat is also quite good. They're probably higher dps than a rogue until rogues start getting serious gear (like in kunark). Their heals aren't terrible in a pinch.

    The main problem with a ranger is how underrated they are by everyone, but I don't see any raids explicitly banning them and I hope at least one guild runs a ranger as a main tank for classic-velious before handing all his gear to a warrior and going dps in luclin. I doubt they will but it would be cool to see.
  12. ElaidaTL Augur

  13. Usethekamehamehawave New Member

    You'd have to go way out of your way to get a ranger to tank any of the buffed bosses. It's not worth it.

    Dps is good, but in classic you have zero aggro management, so it's worthless. Monk or rogue puts you to shame because they have higher dps and can drop aggro in Sky. You'll have lower dps, higher aggro, and your spells can't land.

    All in all, play something else until archery AA's. You might have fun on the ranger, but you are not even close to other classes' usefulness in raids.
  14. Massimo_Bertoxx Augur


    What's "threat?" In EverQuest we have aggro.
  15. Tarmor of Surefall Journeyman

    Okay here's the deal, skill cap wise rangers are slightly (meaning by a percent or so due to the 10/15 point difference in caps) behind warriors in raw mitigation. The primary differences during Classic/Kunark/Velious/Luclin come about due to itemization. During Kunark warriors have more gear available to them which is itemized along the HP/AC stats. When you add up all the little 5AC stat differences across the planar armor, it ends up being significant.

    For the ranger in thorny it gives: +110 AC, +50 HP, +45 Mana, +23 STR, +15 STA, +28 AGI, +33 WIS, +7 all resists of "valuable" stats.

    In contrast the warrior set gives: +155 AC, +50 HP, +35 STR, +25 STA, +10 AGI, +15 PR/DR, +7 MR/FR/CR.

    The delta in terms of tanking on this is 45AC, 10 STA. When you include all the other slots that you can itemize on, you end up talking about a delta of 100ish AC and about 100-150ish HP more that the warrior will have. This isn't huge but its noticeable and ends up giving a 10-15% overall mitigation advantage to a warrior (or any plate wearing class).

    The trick that rangers found back in Kunark/Velious (2000) was to simply have two sets of gear. One was an HP/AC "tanking set" and one a STR/WIS/(DEX) "dps" set. Rangers still don't get the defensive disciplines that the warriors do, but for most encounters (and offtank roles) you don't need a full defensive build anyways.

    In terms of DPS, again it's not skill caps that limited rangers, it was itemization. Because we have to balance both ATK and mana pool, stats get split along STR and WIS (while pure melee can focus up on STR and pure caster can focus on their mana stat). With the right itemization and play style, rangers are a very strong DPS role. The ranger epics or various other ranger specific Kunark weapons (meaning woodman's staff, or hot/cold boom dagger + 41% haste and proper stat stacking) are of course required, but they don't get outclassed till the end of Velious (NToV/Sleepers loot tables). Luclin/PoP are better itemized weapons wise and also re-align the ranger armor to be more balanced.

    In terms of agro utility, no class has better agro control than the ranger. If you find a ranger who can’t hold agro, it’s a ranger that doesn’t understand primarily their spell line up. “Agro-lick” (yes old flamelick), Call of Flames and Jolt are your friends. A good ranger can lock a mob to them almost instantly and can maintain (or shed) that lock at will.

    The point is rangers are not bad tanks or bad dps. They just require proper itemization and play. It’s “easier” to play the tank roll with a warrior or a dps role as a monk, but you also don’t have the utility that you do with the ranger.

    One of the other problems with rangers is that back a while ago (2003?) one of our best resources (Rangers Glade hosted from interrealms) got destroyed and with it so to did a lot of the knowledge about the game mechanics of the class. It’s been hard for me to resurrect a lot of the tools we had back then and to adjust them to the tweaks that have happened since those days.

    Tarmor of Veeshan
  16. Kolani Augur

    A lot of the stigma attached to rangers on the TLPs comes from people who haven't touched the game in any form other than P99 since 2000.
  17. Massimo_Bertoxx Augur


    This.

    The skill cap rebalancing from a few years back makes a huge difference from these actual eras in the game and that other server, alone.
  18. ElaidaTL Augur

    Still a lot of misinformation being tossed about in this the ad. Use whatever dps weapons you want. Ranger dps is near the bottom of the list for all classes till velious. Most your damage is coming from chain nuking. Myself and a few others have played tlp rangers from classic to near current. This info it's from recent play throughs. Not outdated or revisionist memories. If you plan to go ranger plan to be a payable but sub par class till later eras. At least on the raid scene.
    Kolil-EQ likes this.
  19. Delphwind Augur

    There are two options for Rangers in Classic.

    Stack Wisdom and chain nuke, this is where most of your damage is going to come from, even once you get 2x Short Sword of Ykesha. (good luck getting the king camp)

    Stack AC and chain cast Flame Lick and tank. Its weird but a well played ranger can group tank really well as Flame Lick is ridiculous aggro, low mana cost, and fast casting.

    As others have said, you wont be top DPS, but if you find enjoyment from being a ranger then by all means roll with it.

    Click the link in my sig and go to the recruitment tab, there are quite a few guilds there that are in open recruitment. Your best bet as a ranger is to get into a guild early and gear up with them.
  20. Iyvy Augur


    That and they think Ranger = dps. Which it absolutely isn't. It is a tank in classic-velious. The highest dps tank but not a dps. If you play it and treat it as such you will be fine. When I desire a tank rangers are some of my favourites.