My merc is a dark elf called sullila i think. Raid gear does not equate to skill. Does it make things easier or the difference in dps make an impact, absolutely. I'm too lazy to make all the group gear to prove a point that I could molo the same mission sans raid gear.
no... it's a lot of words to say, there's a lot to do without raid gear. And if you want raid gear, then work to get it. Raid gear makes things much easier...but there is no question I could do all progression (except for missions) up to and including NOS with only group gear, with the possible exception of the Defeat the Reishicyben step of Big Claim Hunter in Paludal Depths. Could I do all the missions without any raid gear? No, I probably could not - at least not reliably... I might be able to do some of NOS missions, some of TOL, and Probably all of CON and before with just group gear.
Please prove it. We have people saying "i can do it in raid gear fine. I've never played in modern group gear but I'm positive you can...". For reference, modern content is t2 NoS missions and named. Not old velious stuff.
For tier 2 solo/moloing with a ranger if you can headshot the trash / keep them rooted and they do not summon - this is going to be your best way of handling that content. simply put you keep them at a distance, they cannot hurt you and you can hurt them with impunity. The generic practice is going to follow the premise of Snare it into Root it, into /autofire it, into big magic dot it and when autofire / arrow nukes / or summers (if your spamming this), breaks root you will fluster/blusterbolt the monster back and re-root it until it runs out of HP. ----- If you handling multiple monsters, simply vinelash is a great ae root and snare to handle them very easily every 30-s, simply rinse and repeat the process of killing 1 monster by however many you pulled. If your solo/moloing in this fashion --- IDEALLY --- you are at a camp where you can split the mobs either with a form of pacify or combination of bluster / fluster memory blurs + roots or snares (or both) and are able to split the camp making future pulls easier. However, most of tier 2 isn't going to be that simple: In the event of not being able to root CC something you're hunting then what your able to tackle is going to bring a lot more factors into play: The biggest factor is can you survive the trash / placeholder hits, if your unable to survive the hits even with a mercenary (including blocking stuff like their promised healing lines), then chances are the named is going to practically wreck you, and you should proceed back to tier 1 until all group items have been flushed out and the best augs you can get have been acquired and see if you can take the hits then. Tsiawdroi makes a few great points about using the BEZA self unity buff (primarily the buff -- Vociferous Blades) line as this allows you to effectively have a 30% chance when you proc with weapon swings to get a mini free Weapon Shield buff on you (i have had this proc several times in a row -- not often -- but it can and does allow with some frequency to extend the 12-s duration longer than it normally would've lasted, primarily 1 proc though with give your mercenary a moment to patch you up on healing). I normally run a 2-handed weapon IF** I am going to go into melee, but this is simply one of the times where dual wield has a better chance for more procs and therefore (in theory) more mini-weapon shield procs from the above mentioned buff Keeping the buff - Luclin's Darkfire Cloak -- will keep a 15% base melee mitigation buff on you, it will not feel as if it does anything in practice, but parses have shown this to help reduce the amount of damage you take vs when it is not on vs other chain wearers Self healing is going to also come into play as we are (at concept at least) a hybrid style tank class -- paladins have stuns, stuns with heals, healing proc effect, SK's have lifetaps, etc --- we have non of the those fancy things, we have the following: Darkflow Spring Lunar Balm and Desperate Geyser Desperate Geyser is a 30-s recast, big bomb heal that (when it critically lands) can effectively take us from near death to full health. Darkflow Spring is a 2-s cast heal (in grp gear) that has a stronger healing base than lunar balm, but no cure component, Lunar balm is a weaker heal, on a hard 1.5-s cast time with a multi-cure component to it. Effectively you should have all 3 of these on your bar and use them to assist your healer mercenary when its heals are not getting you back to safe HP levels. Additionally as far as heals go we have an AA Convergence of Spirits AA which is a once every 10 minute HP boost and small regen and then Reflexsive Rimespurs Discipline (again once every 10 minutes) that gives us a decent group HoT effect. Additionally Guardian of the Forest AA has a HP Regen effect to it and Group Guardian of the Forest has a weaker HP regen effect to it. Effectively using all of the these for both damage (primary use) and (healing regen - secondary use) should allow you to 1v1 a mob no problem. Tanking AA/discs Protection of the Spirit Wolf -- long reuse AA with a 50% melee and spell mitigation effect. Outrider's Evasion - short recast (5 or 6 minutes) boosts melee avoidance by a decent amount (roughly putting you at a normal tank w/ chain group armor). Bulwark of the Brownies - must have your current hit points below 50% for it to take effect, once condition is met, immediately fires off a 12-s weapon shield discipline song buff - will over-write Weapon Shield Discipline (as a side note) Weapon Shield Discipline - melee immunity from the front for 24-sec using discipline window The above are disciplines / AA available to the base class without farming extra items or using vet rewards which are niche being once every 20-24 hour type deals. Rotating these when you expect to take lots of damage can help with survivability but generally your going to use these to actually allow you to take hits from monsters you cannot otherwise root / shoot or straight up tank with current gear. Typically I use one or more of these with the intent of popping burn / adps abilities to kill it before it kills me in the 1-2 mins of class defensives I have going. Keep in mind all of the above is with the idea your soloing/moloing. Certain missions (i.e., mean streets, Darklight Caverns, etc) you may not be able to (or even want to) tackle them simply due to yourself and/or the mercenary needing to be the Tank + healer + DPS & potentially CC. That isn't to say that rangers are not in a bad spot but certain camps we can excel and thrive in and other activities you're just going to downright struggle with (even with raid gear). I tested all of these back in NoS beta solo and they were all doable with group gear, yet certain events may have taken me 45-60 minutes and maybe 90-135 AA (for dragon glyph AA) to complete i.e., Mean Streets with group gear and needing to wait on certain cooldowns or making sure I had multiple defensives I cannot imagine most people wanting to spend 90-135 AA (for 2 or 3 dragon glyphs or even 45 for just 1) and potentially up to an hour invested to solo/molo mean streets for example when it is simply much easier to get a tank, a healer, and an actual group and just blow it out of the water in less 20 minutes. But technically anything is solo/moloable in this game if your willing to spend the AA / Time / the death & xp losses, etc to learn how to beat it. Otherwise I am going to say get a few groupies and just keep grinding away at whatever it is your need to get done. The class overall is in a fair spot, but if I am being frank, this class has a lot of weak points (regardless of group or raid gear) that are simply solved by grouping with other players and the game gets easier with more friends.
rangers are pretty amazing. great dps, good utility, MGB auspice, can tank in a pinch. Not sure what's broken
Rangers are not broken. They are quite often overlooked and thought to be but that's because you're not playing them correctly. I've always considered Rangers to be a Jack of all Trades type of class. We've never been one class that is perfect in DPS, Healing, or Tanking. Rangers are probably one of the most well rounded classes that can do multiple things in a pinch. I've saved raids multiple times when tanks went down and the Main boss was loose. Weapon Shield holds for 24 seconds and your additional AA's for melee reduction can help hold the boss for longer than 40 seconds. Long enough time to give tanks a rez and some buffs before they take back over. I've also gotten quick heals on tanks and done healing rotation with another ranger on the main tank while healers were rezing and buffing. Our group ADPS is among the top as well with our kicks giving additional hits to other melee in the group along with group guardian and MGB auspice for the raid. I can go on and on about what rangers can do within raids, that's for you to finally open your eyes and see their potential. I've been in the top 10 (dps parse) many times as a ranger during raids. It's how you play your class and how it's setup (augs, gear, aa). Rangers solo are just fine. Back in ToV and above expansions, there have always been a group of Head Shot'able mobs that did not summon. Root / Shoot is prolly one of the best things out there where you can easily solo mobs and gain more xp solo and with half the groups you are with. That's outside high dps groups and can mow mobs down like swiss cheese. Biggest thing is to make sure you are not using any augs or buffs that will cause nuke damage to the mobs. Dots are perfectly fine, but anything that can cause a nuke or magic damage will usually knock the root off. Rangers have the best snare in game and it lasts 14 min. 4 different roots (including both punts which mem blur) and there is a ring from the original VT raid u can get that is another repeatable root cast. If you want help with setting things up or even learning the class in depth please feel free to reach out to me or others who have already posted here. Rangers have always been a laughing joke about how we die so often but if played to their full potential, REAL rangers hardly ever die or are among the last to die now days. If you're complaining because your ALT ranger isn't doing the same as every other class with just autofire this isn't even an argument. IF there was any argument about the class, it should be how rangers are suppose to be considered a melee class but their ranged (bow) does far better dps. We will find out with the new melee weps and increase damage ratio on how melee vs bow really is going to be. A well rounded ranger should be able to do virtually the same dps in melee vs bow damage. Best of luck out there fellow rangers!
There are certainly issues with the class. I play one as "correctly" as anyone in EQ and at 125 with max AA and raid gear fully evolved BiS items, etc. a Cheetah burn dumps my mana with around 50 charges left on it. If you think that is intended, then I don't know what to tell you. In NoS I'd get through all charges of Cheetah with ~40% mana left, you know, so I can actually do something during the rest of the event. We're dumping 100% mana now and leaving a third of the charges of Cheetah to rot.
Eh, git gud? Just kidding. Using new spells is pretty dumb right now. In testing I'm OOM in about 30 seconds and that's with upwards of 600k mana with superior standard and buffs. I'm not sure what the solution is other than using old spells, but leaving 30 plus charges of cheetah on when I'm OOM is less than a fun experience.
Rangers are absolutely pathetic right now. Thanks to class degradation over the last 5-6 years and absolutely 0 response from ANYONE in at least the last 7 years. Merry Christmas!
I enjoy playing my ranger my main complaint is getting mana back we need some type of mana harvest aa or something.
Alas, being paired with the druids, giving us any kind of way to get an actual meaningful amount of mana back apparently breaks the internet. At least, that's what I'm told when I advocate for it
Mastery of the Past is one of the next in line for me, which got me thinking is it crazy to want to use old spells given how Gift of Mana works now and I see I'm not crazy to think of doing it Very sad state of affairs when classes go years with zero Dev responses. Just ask your Monk and Berzerker friends...oh wait they all quit EverQuest. Devs, seriously snap to it and start listening to your players. Not seeing too many Wizards these days, too! There's been some great, ignored feedback on that class on these very same forums.
i still keep my CotF t3 raid BP, it does have a small mana regen effect, but thats the last year we had that, they changed it to dps and now we have ZERO ways to regain mana during combat. worst thing about being a ranger by far, always scrounging for mana.
yea now im leveling up my druid (25% from 122 skin and bst is only 104 so long way still lol) and bst for mana regen buffs lol. I mean what can you do /shrug
Not 30 minutes. Either much less or much more, depending on Derka's implication. Potion - Refined Mana Tonic is mana preservation, it lasts many hours. It's pretty fabulous to have in the absence of Empowered Banner/fires. It's only clicked once per night or per death. Doesn't help for Scarlet Cheetah-ing, but nothin' does Potion - Heroic Rejuvenation Tincture (or Champion's Restorative from /overseer ingredients!) is the shot-in-the-arm of 7k mana (6k for Champs') every *2* minutes
