Another Sad Ranger Thread

My alt ranger has hit 125 and I was excited to use the toolkit and play the class. However, I am somewhat saddened by what I have. I maintain a lot or my issues are gear (2400 hDex) and AA related, but I talk to rangers who inform me that even with raid gear and augments, I am limited to what the class is nowadays.

I can solo HS mobs, using snare/root, autofire, called shots, focused arrows and a DOT. I throw in accuracy and guardian forest, but I guess I expected... more.

And I am told on a raid to hit Auspice then autofire. And that is the extent of the tool kit. Sure I will cast some spells, but I am going to run OOM quickly due to gear and AA.

I feel in the group game I cannot do anything alone, save for old content and HS mobs. Whereas I play other classes that can solo mercs, partisans, named, and I feel useful.

I just don't feel useful as a ranger. I feel group invites are pity invites. And while I attribute that to gear and AA, when I talk to far more superior rangers I get the same dissatisfaction. I hope the class gets a boost because I want to feel valued and do more than Auspice and autofire on a raid. Or do more than just HS mobs for some AA.

Don't let this thread or other rangers discourage you if you are having fun. To put it in perspective, you're at half of my hdex with trophies/Tribute.

You're not limited to what you can do, if you're proper geared and AAed you can molo most expansions merc/partisan.

Whoever told you to just hit auspice and autofire told you wrong. You may be at a disadvantage because of AAs, gear and augs but once you get caught up you WILL contribute. Given a good supporting group if you take a short burn raid like Bidils there's no reason a ranger can't hit 4 mil+ DPS. Our shortfalls are raids that take 10-20 minutes because most other classes burns refresh before ours.
If you try hard you will be rewarded. It's not an easy road and without supporting ADPS yes it is frustrating. I do also get disappointed with parses but LS has quite a few mechanic raids that rangers excel at. Pal omen archers( mana batteries), Tim falls bearers, Unkempt spotters and catapults.

If you're enjoying the class don't get discouraged, there's a reason some of us have been maining it for over a decade or two.

You must be talking to the wrong rangers as far as what the class limits are. Your gear and aas make up a lot of what you are lacking. The raid force I am in usually fields 4-8 rangers on any given night. If your Raid Leader knows how to set up dps groups, you probably have shaman and bard support. However you won't see it being that undergeared and aa'd because any RL would know which rangers to put in those groups. We rotate Auspice and a 20 minute raid fight means you get to use it twice (once with a pre-fight Tranquil Blessing and again with your MGB). In your own group, you should be rotating these tools - (Guardian, Group Guardian, Spires, and Outrider's Accuracy). That covers a lot of your fight with your own adps. You should also be looking at what your group can do that supports everyone in the group with their group abilities. You should only be draining your mana like that if you are thrown in a group without any kind of support. You have a mod rod you should click as soon as you get below 90% mana to get that timer going in a fight. Autofire is great, are you using your kicks for synergy and your focused blades line? There is a lot you could be doing to improve your playing. I know monks's and rogues' dps have taken off lately, but rangers aren't slacking as bad you think. A lot of it depends on the player, how you build your character (heroic dex), and how you use your abilities and spells. I rarely post on here, but if you need help send an ingame email to Docmoon on the Tunare server.

I agree. Rangers are fun to play....

I think you touched on a major reason too. Our burns take more than 2x longer to come back up than it does for other burns. We can kill a mob, go to the next raid, start the next event.... and my primary DPS disc (which came out 10 YEARS ago) is still down.

Not trying to derail the topic at hand but 8 rangers? That's 4 too many. I sure hope alliance/conjunction gets procced in 1.28 gigawatts (seconds). What a headache that must be keeping track of because if ranger 3, 4, 5, etc doesn't cast when they're supposed to, i sure am. Same w/ auspice. But, i guess auspice can be handled with a ranger guild channel (ew). Lastly, i bet 5-8 have crap adps classes. Bummer.

We deal with who shows up to raid. I have the rangers go by abc order with Auspice and Alliance with a message in channel and a tell to the next person up. Some days I have to post a reminder or who's next, etc.,. Our groups are made so other classes benefit from other group's abilities and regular raiders work with the same players so you can build that teamwork on burns. This year's expansion hasn't been to much of an issue mana wise especially as everyone's dps picks up as we gear up. One thing (and I am assuming most do), as soon as I get below 90%, I click the mod rod to get that timer going and be able to ask for the second one towards the end of the fight.

Docmoon

I could be wrong but I think what he's getting at is that 4 rangers can keep Auspice on the raid pretty much the whole time. The events die fast enough for that.

On a side note, there's no way we could use chat channels for Alliance. The lag when we send something and when it actually shows up is far too long.

In game audio triggers are the best way I have found to deal with alliance rotations. Worst case scenario you are simply counting casts and fulminations till it your turn if your chat channels are lagging.