Rangers and wisdom/mana/FT

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Malkavius, Feb 17, 2021.

  1. Malkavius Augur

    So I was going to make a new ranger on aradune and was wondering if mana for rangers is a factor at all for grouping/raiding scene? I know beastlords and even shadowknights benefit heavily from extra mana and mana regen but how important is it for rangers? Would you dump 20 wisdom at creation and try to get gear that has wisdom? Or get say earring of solstice or something with more ac/melee stats?
  2. Zinth Augur

    the more mana the more dps ya can do... a proper ranger should be oom like all the time ;-) I would NOT bother with wisdom during char creation though but I would get any and all FT items I could until capped (which I doubt ya will be anytime soon)
  3. a_librarian Augur

    I'd probably suggest dumping starting points into stamina over wisdom. An alive ranger with no mana can still contribute a ton of damage in a fight.

    When you start looking into getting the most out of your spells I think focus effects is the priority, then mana regen, then mana pool. Some focus effects like affliction efficiency are extremely strong in effectively prolonging your mana pool similar to how flowing thought would.

    Take a look at various potions for mana regen and preservation too. There's a lot of really strong stuff that's very cheap for the effect, like greater concentraiton, awareness and spirituality potions.
  4. a_librarian Augur

  5. sieger Augur

    Starting stats are w/e but having raided on an alt as a TLP ranger up through DoDH I can say mana is really important for your DPS. Mana Pres is big, FT often is less key but it's good to have it capped. Rangers will do more damage via spell casts than raw melee in the level 70 eras if they're being played correctly and outside of something like a Trueshot burn.
    Zinth likes this.
  6. Fred_Bear Lorekeeper

    Ok.
    If you want to be all you can be. You need to cast ALOT.

    BUT, in group scenario, you're more likely to offtank a mob or drag one away to root/snare than you are to sit there an nuke like a wizard.

    Get your Str and Sta up so you can Melee and Take a hit. Mana and Flowing Thought will come from gear as you get higher. I wouldn't dump any into Wis. I can't think of a single time in any raid where I needed more Wisdom than I had.

    I boxed a Bard with my Ranger from Classic to DodH specifically because i wanted the extra mana regen, resists, and Overhaste all the time.
    Zinth likes this.
  7. taliefer Augur

    Mangler was my first time playing a ranger, I dont claim to be an expert, and i'll just share my experiences and thoughts:

    I put points in wisdom to start with, and im glad i did. It was much easier to max melee stats than wisdom in early EQ.

    Mana was never really an issue in classic and kunark(I did not play much during kunark, cause, well its kunark and the raid game sucks in kunark) however.

    but in velious and luclin I was mana starved on the long fights. firestrike/dustdevil spamming with a 2hander in velious(once i got https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=5916, the best 2hander ranger useable i could find) was much fun and significantly more dps than dual wielding.

    timing nukes between bowshots in luclin is annoying, but even if you arent great at it its a dps increase, and those fights are long. so mana is money.

    Starting with planes of power, I found casting any nuke besides the 1/2 second cast time nukes not worth it, so mana wasnt as much of an issue until you get all 4 different timer version of those nukes and can cycle all 4 of them. Gates is pretty much the same story.

    with omens I decided to go with anguish augs for the extra mana/hp instead of ac augs, since most of the time I grouped it was with friends who played a tank. I dont regret that decision to this point up through DoDH, since im constantly casting the 4 nukes and a dot, tossing out an occasional heal, and even with minimal ac augs(I have one in my boots, and like one other random ac aug i think) the raid gear is plenty strong enough to allow me to tank any group content with ease. I even keep a shield handy for times when i want to tank some lower ranked/older raid bosses, and thats enough of a bump when extra ac is needed.
  8. sieger Augur


    If you are using a Ranger off tank as CC in an xp group at any point in EQ things have gone pretty far down the path of "bad decisions."
  9. Fluid Augur

    The only reason I would dump a lot of Wisdom into a Ranger is if I was planing on maxing a trade skill like Fletching. Casting spells is about as crucial as it gets, I oft times run a Ranger with a Magician and for stuff like healing the Pet, Ranger is so much better it makes the Magician heals a joke. Mostly it is spot utility like Snare or Root a MOB, SoW & buff Pets, occasional heal, that kind of stuff.

    Personally I would never run a Ranger down to zero on manna just because I consider mine a SHTF character. Since Aradune is into the AA stage of expansions, that is where I would put my game time into maxing. I last time I ran a character up for Fletching, it was in the initial stages of Mangler and that was a high intelligence Magician just for making money in the Tunnel. Once again, Aradune is into the Bazaar stage so it is unlikely you would be making money selling Trueshot bows.

    IDK, yes you are likely to get a tough MOB that heals itself you will be DOTing, blasting, whacking, the snot out of just to get it down. I just don't think you will be doing that consistently or often. Assuming you are going to join a guild, everybody and his brother tries to top the damage parse. Adding a Ranger to it is kind of teats on a bull. Ranger utility for me comes mostly from Archery AAs, DOTs, buff spells, and a really nice bow. Some haste via the quiver and Archery buffs are nice too. I constantly, well for 20 years, complain that a Ranger is just to squishy to use as a tank or for more then a minute or two of off tanking: The Clerics will complain you are sucking up all their manna and it can be hard to keep up aggro vs a MOB going after the Cleric. In the 'balance' game, I feel we got nice bows instead of nice armor so it just isn't in the stars.
  10. Zinth Augur


    sit there nuke like a wizard? ya forget a ranger would MELEE too while also casting their spells, the damage adds up... yes they might drag an add off and root it and get back on the main mob (or off tank that mob) in both cases they should be using their mana to make that stuff DEAD... while also swinging their arms with dem weapons
  11. WaitingforMoreEQ WaitingforTBC

    Raw wisdom/mana is pretty meaningless. STR for starting stat can also do AGI for mini max anything else is trolling.

    You shouldn't sacrifice any meaningful melee mods for FT/Mana pres

    In Luclin Rangers don't need FT or Mana Pres you will basically have infinite mana
    In PoP you unlock 3 more quick cast nukes to cycle FT/Mana pres starts mattering a little. FT and Mana Pres typically won't matter on raids because you'll oom slower then healers. FT/Pres is pretty nice to have for XP groups
    In OoW you'll start to oom quicker then the healers and Mana Pres/FT starts mattering more, but with the way the game is itemized at this point it just comes free on the gear you already want in most cases.
  12. Anduven Journeyman

    In Velious, mana mattered a lot. Dots/nukes were a significant chunk of Ranger DPS.

    In Luclin, it matters fairly little. Dots/nukes fall far behind in DPS compared to bow damage, to the point its not even worth casting depending on the situation.
    Zinth likes this.
  13. Fred_Bear Lorekeeper


    I remember on my First ranger ever (coming from a necro) in the LDon era, I was pulling, Off-rooting, and tanking the LDONs for my groups. I came from a solo class so I didn't rely on others to do it if i could do it myself. I loved the flexibility of the ranger and that became my main shortly afterwards.

    So maybe you need to actually play with a competent ranger?




    You do realize that at low levels the casting duration of our nukes and dots are like 2-3 seconds? And a raid geared ranger is putting out probably 200 melee damage in the 3 seconds you're casting a dot.

    Not until PoP/Gates do we get 0.5s cast nukes that don't interfere with the /autofire or /attack durations.

    in Luclin (Where Aradune etc are) ::: Drones of Doom - 287 mana - 3 second cast -- 116 / tic for 8 ticks.

    287 mana for 928 damage. in 48 seconds ----19.3 dps.

    If the mob lasts 48 seconds....

    How much mana does a Raid Geared Ranger have at 60? (Best Magelo for Aradune is 4700 mana with +8 mana regen)

    So this RAID GEARED BEST ranger has to cast 5% of his mana to do 1k dmg. and it will take him 3.6 minutes of combat to regen the mana used (35 ticks = 3.6 minutes).

    You may BURN mana on raid bosses but in a group you shouldn't be burning mana like this. An OOM ranger cannot Snare, Root, or Heal. . . . But dang, you added 20 dps on each of 20 mobs before you OOM'd yourself. Congrats.
  14. Fred_Bear Lorekeeper


    ^^^^^^
    THIS guy Rangers. Thank you.

    All of my parses in VT and NTOV etc. during Ragefire's romp through that era showed exactly the same.

    In Velious, before you get really good weaps, the spells were a big portion of dmg.

    Luclin the Melee / Range overtake the spells, and the time lost casting actually lowered the overall damage you could do.

    Only when the quick nukes come into play does it make sense to stop the attacks to cast.

    In POP, even featherwood bows will put out 400 Damage EACH second on average.... if you stop to cast a 3 second nuke, you lose 1200, Mana-Free damage, from your bow on the mob..... for what? 1200 damage over the next 50 seconds if the mob lives that long? It's not practical.

    Now by 65 you get two 0.5 second cast nukes that do 500-600ish damage each and those I kept on cooldown rotation on burns and used sparingly as mana allowed in groups. But I wanted to keep above 70% mana normally incase there was a bad pull that required ranger response.

    Rangers can BURN through mana really fast in the early game and the results are not usually worth the effort.

    We're getting off topic mostly, but I still think that while Wisdom and Charisma cap later than Str/Dex/Agi for a ranger in era gear, the gained mana early on (lvl 1-50) doesn't help as much as the extra ATK/HP/AC gained from STR/STA/AGI.

    No amount of WIS is going to prevent you from going OOM if you really want to.
  15. Indigo_Quarmite Augur

    Everything said here is wrong. Let me Ranger 101 you as I have about 15 years of ranger experience (anything GoD and older)

    You can't really range the gflux on blobs/AHR in VT. Most Ssra mobs you can get to cast range with extended range III and be out of AOE range while arrowing. Since you aren't at max distance you should be able to cast.

    As soon as an arrow rips, call of flame (essentially an instant nuke between shots, crits, dmg focus etc - very important if you are a ranger without this spell delete and re-roll)

    On engage dot with swarm. get BAIII and AHIII for faster casts and dmg focus. Keep bees up at all times, call of flame between arrow rips. Without the focus effects the dot might not be worth it due to cast time. Never cast anything but bees/call of flames. I would make sure bees are up before you fire Trueshot. When discing don't cast. This is maximum DPS. In PoP / LOY its even more important to get an ice focus and nuke AA. You will have 3 near instant nukes, 2 cold and 1 fire. Technically you would have 4 because of call of flames but by PoP that's a good one to retire. Pretty much casting all of them as long as you weren't so far away on must dodge AE.

    I always maxed my FT during PoP and would end Luclin around 8-11 FT depending on DKP spent. Fire focus is important or ID3 if you don't raid a lot of VT yet. But wisdom is a safe allocation of points or sta. I personally always went sta. Earring of solstice is a great buy.
    Zinth likes this.
  16. Boze TLP complaint factory

    Think the point for Luclin is you don't ever run out of mana on a raid because only those two spells are worth casting. During raids I keep flames on cooldown and magic dot up at all times when not trueshotting and I'm almost always at full mana with only 4 FT (and KEI of course). Even then, dot + nuke only adds around ~20-30DPS max which is within the margin that you can see bow DPS swing, particularly during shorter encounters (i.e., most non-VT fights). Yeah the story is a little different for PoP since you get better/spendier/more nukes, but for SoL mana really doesn't matter.
  17. Fluid Augur

    There are some times when I do like a Ranger casting, it is just more fluid<sic> and depends on circumstances. As a for instance, if I am min/maxing, something I seldom do anymore, I will cast Flame Lick because it has a minor AC debuff component. I seem to recall calculating strength buffs and the max I calculated at the time was ~3% more DPS. There's a full spectrum of players, everything from 'don't bother' to 'cast it or I will kick you out of the group.'

    This also holds true in the minor for other spells depending on the group makeup.

    Off times you find yourself in a crowd that runs the gamut from only knowing their own class to knowing more about your class then you do. For instance you may have a SK who insists on the Engulfing Darkness line of spells for its Snare component. You may have a Root class of character in the group who insists on rooting the MOB vs a snare. Heck, there are areas of undead that don't even need a Snare or Root. There are some boss MOBs that riposte so well, people expect you to switch to a 2 handed weapon just so you don't require constant attention from the healers. IDK, I've never had someone ask, I'd imagine there are even times when the group leader would prefer you add a shield for bash/stun when the healer is having trouble keeping the main tank alive or you need to interrupt the MOB casting.

    Best to use the flexibility of the class. I mean if I have a Ranger in a group with a Druid, unless the Druid is going oom, I prefer to let the Druid take care of runners. Even this is hard sometimes as maybe a third of the other players are always going for the kill shot. Nothing quite like a Druid or Wizard going for kill shot instead of a Root or Snare, getting a resist, that is when my Ranger fills that position. After <5 minutes in a group with that problem you know to switch.
  18. Machen New Member


    In a group setting, high enough dps means the ranger doesn't need to snare, root or heal. It's great that the ranger has those tools in a pinch, but generally if the ranger has to use them regularly, the group is not functioning as efficiently as it should be.
  19. Zinth Augur


    and this is when SHTF ;-) when people "feel" like that... that is when EQ turns around and bite ya
  20. Machen New Member


    In my group the mobs don't have time to run.