Which melee DPS for Mangler?

Bottom line play the class that will interest you to play long term. The arguement over who is best dps on raids is so lame, as each class does well enough, and tbh if you do raid guilds just want folks who show up consistently now days.

For a lot of people what is "interesting to play long term" is what is actually good at what it supposedly does. Making a rogue and watching every epic monk out dps you while also being more survivable, able to pull, and getting better non weapon gear thanks to leather? Not so fun anymore.

Way too many people take make what you enjoy to be some rpish love for a class just as a concept. This is nuts. Figure out what role or purpose you enjoy - pulling, soloing, dps burst numbers, afking without getting in trouble - and make the class that fits best. Anyone who says if you want to make a rogue make a rogue isn't being good to you - decide WHY you want to make a rogue and if the answer is "big dps numbers" bail out.

This is the exact right attitude for the most part. I disagree that competing for numbers is lame (keeps people motivated), but I'll take someone who shows up and just pays attention / listens / executes any day.

Everquest is braindead easy, who cares what class has the biggest number on deeps meter. Contrary to popular belief, that number is not correlated to your size. Play what's fun (ie. not the game of Everquest)

For all that Everquest is braindead easy, you've just shown that it is too complicated for your brain.

DPS is EVERYTHING in Everquest.

Mhm. I'm sure a raid consisting of a tank, some healers, and 30 dps warriors is going to fail where the same setup but with 30 monks instead of warriors would succeed. Once you have the basic necessities covered, the rest is just fluff.

For quite a lot of raids, that's exactly what would happen.

DPS matters.

More importantly, the raid with 30 monks can two split whatever the raid with 30 warriors is doing, for twice the loot.

Play whatever you enjoy playing.

Full transparency: My guild allows us to declare an alt as a “second main” giving them loot priority second to actual mains. That said, mine is a Ranger.

The low hanging fruit of a Ranger is their DPS in Luclin/PoP is top tier once equipped with an elemental bow and EQ/AM3. The golden expansion for Rangers no doubt (I ran 3 myself!). However, a tough lesson comes with the subsequent expansions where Rangers leave much to be desired if they do not switch to a melee focused play style. Aggro management becomes key going forward for reasons that take too much time to explain now.

However, in hindsight I will provide you this recommendation for Rangers: if you intend to play one well and to DPS, be prepared to juggle gear choices as the hybrid nature of the class will require BiS of the following to parse well:
BIS In-Era Bow
BIS primary and Secondary when TS is down
BIS melee augments for PRI/SEC weapons (and eventually the one from DSK for your bow)
BIS melee crit focus
BIS melee double attack focus
BIS archery accuracy focus
Capped hDEX (becomes less relevant the further you get away from PoP)
BIS spell damage (which could be all damage, or two focuses one for each fire/cold)
BIS mana preservation for detrimental spells
Capped flowing thought
Capped worn atk (also becomes easier the further you get from PoP)

The worst part of the above is not simply getting it, but that these focuses rarely stay in the same slot so you’re constantly having to plan / weigh when to give up a focus for a BiS focus in each expansion. That requires a high degree of planning and a super high raid attendance as often the BiS are all/all or shared across all melee (like melee crit focus for example).

I personally enjoy parsing better than rogues, zerkers and some monks as a Ranger but it’s a far more complex process than /autofire was in Luclin/PoP.

And having a taunt button + flame lick + weapon shield as a DPS to save a raid on the brink of a wipe is something no other DPS class can do. Many a time Rallos in PoTime ate our tanks and rangers carried the raid to success via weapon shield.

Folks talk about Monks being able to pull, and Rangers being able to taunt/ws as if they are always good things.

I told my buddy this when he was trying to pick a class...if you play a Monk, you will be expected to pull for hours on end...period. So if that sounds terrible, don't pick a monk.

To some, the benefit of a Rogue is that you can do great DPS once geared, it's easy to get geared since there are few Rogues in guilds, and you can go on cruise control during raids. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but the class may fit some folks well, and I'd rather have a 100% attendance Rogue over a 75% attendance Monk/Ranger any day.

Plenty of monks are "camp monks" who can't or won't pull. Same for bards. The current group meta isn't heavy splitting so almost anyone can pull - I routinely do on my cleric. On raids, you only have a couple pullers anyway, so some people HAVE to sit down even if they wanted to pull.

If you just want to dps without responsibility I guess rogue works. That's pretty telling of course: play this class because expectations are low and nobody else wants to!

Do people just jack it to a name or concept of a class? No? People enjoy playing a role, and the class they enjoy is going to he the one who best fulfills that desired role. So telling someone "if you want to play a rogue just play a rogue" is absolutely rotten advice because people don't want to play "a rogue", they want to play "stealth and dps" or "high sustained damage" or "low expectation free loot raider" or whatever else. So if a rogue is bad damage, suddenly it's not fun, and the people who said to just play and enjoy it wrecked their game experience. I've seen it numerous times on these tlps. Players need to know up front what they are getting with a rogue so they aren't burned and miserable later.

If you enjoy being top dps you will not enjoy playing a rogue. Facts don't care about your feelings.

I don't believe I ever told him 'play a rogue'. Try thinking before you post.

The only things Rangers need to parse well that other Melee DPS don't is a dot focus and cold/fire focus and these normally come on gear you want to prioritize and nobody else wants anyway. For example http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=30265 are the BiS boots/dot focus for 3 expansions GoD, OoW and DoN. It's actually a lot easier to gear a Ranger then a monk simple because monks have so much more competition for their weapons.

Having BiS as a ranger is nice but really not necessary for DPS, it's a big deal for soloing and tanking... but not DPS