Rangers

Discussion in 'The Newbie Zone' started by Boxerpaws, Apr 19, 2020.

  1. Fluid Augur

    This may sound a little silly. I have two Halfling Rangers and while I could be wrong, it seems sometimes they are too short to see over tables or obstructions. There's a sweet spot in character height between the little people and the huge like Ogres. You want to be small enough that you don't get stuck in tight spaces but large enough that you don't have to hit the space bar to jump over big steps and rocks. There isn't a lot of reason to spend time in Misty Thicket/Rivervale where the size thing hurts even getting into the bank.

    I'm pretty comfortable with my Human Rangers and a lot of people chose a Wood Elf because of cultural fetching. At higher levels I can't tell the difference between the Halflings and Humans except for the occasional targeting issue. You feel kind of silly with a Halfling having to jump on top of a table to acquire a target: Defeats the whole root and shoot strategy.
  2. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur



    Ahhh... but surely great stories are to be had at the tavern for sure, is worth the inconvenience of having to hop onto the tables to continue the fight to the enemy, ehhh? ^^! Of course the stories of emerging into the crotch of a taller species is better left unsaid... ._.

    But yes I did notice the smaller POV. It is charming in a way, but also possibly gives me headaches, the verdict is still out on that. Everything feels so different. I understand why it does it, I am just not sure I like it. I am assuming a wood-elf will not have quite as low a stature and thus viewing angle. I had never played a small race before, so I had no idea the consequences. Makes sense though.

    They say the wood elf can escape danger more easily because it is quicker on it's feet. But looking at the character creation screen on the game itself, the halfling ranger surpasses or at least equals everything that a wood-elf ranger could be potentially, at least where it counts. So does the halfling also get the quick on their feet bonus, or that is a wood-elf only trait or it is just talk for rpging? I did notice that wood-elves do get forage and I think I read fletching, but I am not sure foraging is even a problem now as everything seems to drop some form of food these days. Fletching might be an issue though.
  3. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    By the way, has Track and Find always been in the repertoire of a ranger? And have they always been so useful? After hours roaming the fields very carefully choosing my quarry, I decided to try track and it just finds automatically what is in the area by level and then tells you by prompts in what direction they are. And then someone mentioned Find and now I am hand held and directed to the next exit or person in question. Is that how it has always been? Has it always started out maxed or ready to use so simply? Or back in Classic you had to level it up? Or things were added over time to what they are now? Pretty helpful stuff if it is a ranger only feature.
  4. Fluid Augur

    I haven't run my Halfling Rangers in the last couple of months, I need a refresher. :) I still do a fair amount of questing because of sneak and hiding, Halflings are my favorite character to run. The hide during a hand in gets me to at least indifferent for the exchange. The other types of Rangers get sneak and hide too, just that it is at a higher level instead of out of the box.

    Track if you use its capabilities is important. I have track and forage both bound to my forward movement key along with the auto inventory function. Just a for instance, everyone wants a Ranger<or Druid or Bard> for things like their Epic. If you know who the place holder is, you just set tracking to normal and the replacement place holder or named will appear at the top of the list when they pop. That way, you only have to kill one MOB per spawn cycle instead of a whole zone. I usually have it on Alpha so any named appears at the end of the list. I've used Rangers on both TLP servers and Live servers. I like them on Live, especially the higher leveled ones to group with a lower level character. Let's say you are doing a Teek quest with a level 40 character, just group that character with your high level Ranger in the quest zone and while they won't get experience for the kills, they get credit. Makes it so you only have to kill the 5 MOBs in question and can get it done in maybe 20 minutes.

    Some of the early stuff, like the Stonebrunt quests Wakizashi of the Frozen Skies and Swiftclaw Sash, you really need a Ranger to complete. I really play a boring game with my questing most times. I mean I get at least one character that can do the Prayer Bead quest https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=2351 and use the shared bank to deliver them to my <level 10 characters on a TLP server. I just FINALLY did the Gnoll Slayer quest on Mangler, 20 years late. Odd set of circumstances with the revamped Split Paw such that it was harder on a live server. hehe
  5. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    But was it a skill in the past (Classic era) that needed to be trained and leveled or it always started out as it works from the start? Like Sense Heading you had to train it. Now it starts maxed. I can not believe a brand new ranger gets such a powerful tool right out of the box. I would assume you'd have to train to Track and Find.
  6. Lockdown Elder

    I love Rangers. The one class that dies more often than I do.
  7. runecrow Elder


    Rangers always got tracking at level 1. At least I'm pretty sure. I can't be 100% certain because 1999 was a long time ago. All I really remember about that time was Bind Affinity was used maliciously and when my friend handed the Tome of Discord(whatever it's called) in to the dude I asked, "What did it do?" and he replied, "Nothing. It did nothing." But as far back as I confidently recall (and on every era iteration of an EQ I've played) rangers begin the game with tracking skill.

    It doesn't start maxed like Sense Heading, it has to be skilled up. A starting ranger has a basic tracking range which expands as the skill is raised. Rangers are also the only tracking class that can also sort their track results by distance, alphabetical, spawn time, con. Or, that's how it's been for the longest time unless maybe they changed it in more recent times, I'm not sure about that.

    I don't know about "powerful" I guess it depends on how you define power but it's definitely very useful - hands down my own "best ability of all" winner. But that may be because I spend a LOT of time with quests and needing to find specific roaming mobs, and placeholders into mobs, and such. It didn't take me much of running a non-ranger around a zone trying to blindly stumble across a mob (or five of them) I was looking for (if it was even up at the time, who knows?) before I decided to go ranger.

    If you're playing the game to level quickly and don't care what the xp comes from, tracking isn't that useful. If you're playing the game to quest and need to find mobs then tracking is the best thing ever. My ranger is the only one of my PCs that I will log on while playing another PC just because of the tracking ability.
  8. SmoochyOfWolfington Augur

    Thanks for the enlightenment. Now I know why, or at least in part, why rangers are always called upon.
  9. Zinth Augur

    some of the innate stuff + diety can be quite helpful too (sneak + karana/tunare) fletching the "easy" way to max or sneak = banking when ppl don't like you, questing and so on is VERY helpful even at high lvls