Always wanted to try a ranger, started leveling one up recently. Anyone have any write up on advice, current abilities, quests/gear to aquire? Probably one of the only classes I have never played. Thank you in advance.
http://forums.eqfreelance.net/index.php?topic=16647.0 Just updated it today, probably skipped over things that I'll remember later. Mainly raid oriented but it's what I use for most group content as well.
Fin, Just trying to help. You mentioned Squall instead of Gale, that on purpose? Where do you use your chest clicky? Great post, thanks!
Yeah this is awesome, seems a lot more complicated than monking, very good just what I'm looking for. Appreciate it.
What about the self buffs? I see a lot of different ones on rangers besides the atck and ac/dmg shield buff. Can someone explain these? Should I always have them all up? What about the AA unity buffs?
You have the Focused Storm of Blades (98) instead of it's upgrade, Focused Squall of Blades (103). Other than that I immediately shared this my guild. Thank you for putting this together.
I fixed Storm to Squall, I spliced together my old post with new information but didn't quite get everything changed over, my apologies. Added BP portion to the tale end of the post. (BP Clickies - These clickies will typically be flat damage that does roughly the same amount of damage no matter when you use it. Since it has an up time of around 3 minutes I hit mine before we start and make sure to get in a 2nd click towards the event's end to max out on damage capabilities. Some people use the old mana regen clickie from COTF, DON'T. This is a net DPS loss, you're trading 750k damage for 7.5k mana AND a DPS DEBUFF for 30 seconds. Overall it's a net loss, scrap that garbage and stick to the new damage clickie.) For self buffs I use most of them. I cast Wildstalker's Unity, Roaring Blades (If I pull agro and am forced to melee to try for parry procs), Lavastorm Cloak (Again, if I have to tank), Copsestalker's Enrichment and Nature's Precision (Extra attack, not very important but why not.) I'd also like to mention how impactful the Dragonmagic Focus and Purified Mana Tonic potions are for Rangers. If you have a limited supply of the Conflagrant Kunark Powders I would recommend using them to make the Mana Tonics first and sticking to Hedgewizard Brews if need be.
Don't really raid with my ranger, so I use the BP clicky on a burn or just keep it on cooldown during exp groups that don't have any headshooting going on. Thanks for telling us how you use the BP clicky on raids. For self buffs I use Vaporous Veil, not sure if needed on raids, but I do use it in group. I use both DS spells, Shield of Nettlebarbs and Grasping Nettlecoat. I use Jolting Steel since I am grouping. I could probably get away with using something else, but if I am boxing with my mage, I use it. If not getting buffed by Shaman, then I also use Wildstalker's Vigor as a self buff. I can do burns good, but need to practice my sustained DPS, so your guide will help me there Fintank. Most of my ranger playtime was CC and Puller in groups. Chain pulling singles, doubles and queuing up mobs near group when I was playing mine in the old days. Now it is more of dps for me, though I still pull and CC for my mage while also adding dps. When I started playing in '99, I never had much of a chance to dps as I was pulling most of the time. Got good with pulling and CC, but now I get to improve my dps. I do appreciate the guide!!
Yes awesome guide, I was also wondering so the bow spells you scribe are the only ones you use? I see a bunch of others, just wondering your rotation when just standard dps, the most basic stuff.
99% of the time I have that exact spell setup loaded. If you run into real mana issues you can use Boon and 2 of the Fire and Ice nukes to try and score gift of mana procs at a reduced mana cost. You're losing DPS when you do this though. Most of the other arrow spells are trash, there's 2 others on the same line as Focused but they have dreadful cast times and don't get modded by BP focus. *I will have to check when I get home to confirm BP focus but I remember something about it*
Alright so rechecked the focus and I was right, it only applies to the Focused line and not to either of the AOE lines.
Interesting choice to put Silent Shot as the first spell. I can see it being useful on maybe a handful of raids: Gorowyn, (arguably) Skyfire, Drusella's Vault, Kluzen the Protector Event (but only if you're on the up top team) and Talendor. Even then they will have low cast counts maybe 5-10 total per event. Basically only where the big bad boss is not always in aggro with you, and YOU can get out of combat entirely on a regular basis. I also know Cover Tracks will no longer drop you out of combat with raid bosses, and the essence of cazic-thule can reset you but that is a long cooldown and imo better used to save yourself at the end of weapon shielding/trying to prevent pulling aggro from a tank in the first place such as raids in VP w/ the dragon breath AE's I see it more useful as a group engage spell where it can be cast on a regular basis, it does have a large range and could also be used to pull, but most mobs summon once damaged below 98% so you risk possibly getting summoned and killed. Would love to hear thoughts on that spell I guess. I find it an odd spell to use since you need to be out of combat to use it and if your using a DoT in a raid scenario, unless it is a raid where there are multiple bosses and add spawns do not instantly aggro on you, I can't really seem to justify in my mind giving it a slot for a very limited amount of casts (or in some raids just one cast). I can see it being useful in group play, but your post seems to have more of a focus on raiding.
Silent Shot is the first spell because if you can't use it there is no lag/delay and it automatically cycles to the next spell. I tend to start spamming spells before my first Arrow from autofire actually reaches the mob, so I generally get that low mana high dmg nuke at the start of most events. It's simply a min/max thing, if it happens great, if not no biggie. As far as spell slots/gems go, you only ever truly need to have 6 spells up at all times, so there's 7 free for whatever you want. I choose to use Silent Shot and 2 heals as apart of my 7 "extra" spell slots.
Don't raid much at all but I use heartcleave or whatever the highest lvl one is. It can crit for about 80k and sometimes procs GoM. Right now I have the grim memento and stone of sharpening in my bow. I'm saving up pieces of eight to get a Siren's Demise and will get a Frost Blossom to try out in it. Don't have enough progression to try to go further than Caverns in TDS. Lazy~ Want to get the blood draining spike though. In my weapons I have a sigil of thokk in primary and conch of singing seas in secondary, looking to get the spike when I can. Why do you use a frost blossom in melee over a life tap? I tend to not want to have disease anything in my melee weaps - too lazy to switch out if we go do damsel - haven't beaten enslaver yet. What do your type 5s look like? I have the 3 40dex from TBM, 2 42dex from EoK and the conflagrant 48dex from RoS. All the rest are sulstones of deftness minus one draconic celerity, which will be replaced with draconic proficiency if it ever drops. I've crafted the others but I wish to max out dex as much as possible. Haven't done progression in RoS and only know a few people who can even request the missions on Test, but I do wish to replace the sulstones with the new RoS ones. I remember reading something about not spiking one stat but try to even them out more, but for us with headshots it just makes sense to me to max dex. Do you amp your spell damage up as much as possible or do you mostly do the ac/dex augs and it kinda falls in place? I'm at the point now where the last type 7/8 I want is the krazzi stone. Final note I guess is that most of the time, unless tight quarters just prevents it completely, I use the bow full time. I picked up an Oathbound Hammer and a Tome of Obulus and got that on bandoleer. Great post btw, thank you again. Tour
I just use the Frost Blossom in secondary because the proc is slightly higher, all about DPS to me. I have the Spike to swap in if certain circumstances arrive where I'm relying on lifetap heals (soloing/moloing nameds). Procs don't count against the disease immunity on Damsel event so you don't have to worry about that. My type 5's are all Dexterity. Draconic Proficiency, Conflagrant Proficiency, Nathsar Diamond (Or Forgotten Gemstone if no raid achievements) and Scale-Touched Proficiency are all I use. As far as augs go I go for pure DPS. I don't really pay attention to anything outside of Heroic Dex, Spell Damage and at times Heroic Strength. With that being said there are tradeoffs to make with some aug upgrades that you'll have to decide on. I pretty much just eyeball them and don't have a "standard" for which becomes better etc. The order I go with is Heroic Dex > Spell Damage > Heroic Strength though in general. While Old Seb is up go farm yourself the Darkened Cone of Mystics if possible, it's much better to have in Primary slot. I don't have the Trak raid sympathetic wep unfortunately, but if I did I would most likely choose that over the Cone. Here's a link to the mob that drops the Cone ( https://special.eqresource.com/bloodofchottal.php )good luck!
What do you use for secondary if that's in the primary? This is just for shooting the bow right? Just any shield?
Thoughts on running two sympathetic heal targets target weapons? See a ranger on xegony running that combo says he can make it pretty high on the heal parses while still doing excellent dps bc the heals proc off our nukes
It depends on the event. Marathon raids that require ice and fire specific nukes are just rough not using an Orb in main. The Dex loss not using a properly auged Book of Obulus is no small loss in dps potential. On Sathir Line, constantly refreshing DoTs on two bosses can get you in trouble if a Tank dies - having the shield on helps survive an initial volley of attacks to hit weaponshield or click off bow disc to weaponshield. I personally want my cast count to be high from nonstop casting nukes and getting a little extra mana from an Orb every so often just casting nukes helps with that. My Ranger is holding that Orb and Book combo so much I receive Skin buff requests from applicants. It was fun for a while making heal parses but it's a little bit of a gimmick. If all the Rangers in a raid force are being relied on to use HoTT heal procs to help keep tanks up by any measurable difference you're healing ranks need to consider how they can play better. Likewise, if a raid forces tanks aren't using discs correctly to allow your healers to keep them upright they need to consider how to play better. That's what makes it a gimmick. A Ranger can do better at their main job on raids - doing damage - by other means much more efficiently. In no way am I saying heal sympathetics are dumb and anyone using them is making a poor decision. I just personally prefer the Orb and Book standard. I'm sure at some point throughout a raid week that one heal proc was just enough to allow a good heal to save a tank - I'm all about saving the tanks that die for our loot so much, especially before Farm has started. Raid mobs dying a little quicker can also close that gap and lower tank deaths as well. Spread that damage across the average raid force of 4 or 5 rangers and it's a nice chunk of dps added. That does just as much if not more than heal procs that landed on a tank at 100% health already the instant the proc healed. Now Bards on the other hand using these weapons, that's another thing entirely!
