Why didn't rangers get dual wield at level 1?

Again, the OG ranger Aragorn never used a bow.

You might want to rethink that one. I was playing my Monk Melchizadek Cain in college during the all night D&D games.

EQ might be D&D inspired, but in EQ terms ranger is a hybrid and by early EQ class design philosophy hybrids pay the hybrid tax. It's probably more suitable to compare them to a multiclassed character in D&D rather than a D&D ranger, specifically the slower growth rate.

Is this bow worth to have ? Seems to be a lvl 1 item.

I didn't think this was possible since the quest to get out of the jail cell with Arias (which then ports you to the mines of Gloomingdeep) dings you to level 2. However, you can bypass the jail. At the character select screen, deselect the tutorial option. After you enter the world, camp to character select. Then press the "Enter Tutorial" button instead of "Enter World."

I don't recall Gandalf ever fizzling any of his spells in Lord of the Rings either.

The fact of the matter is that Rangers are the de facto bow/archer class in EverQuest. It's time to correct a 23 year old oversight. They should have a bow from level one.

I had no idea. Thanks for this info.

I hope that the EQ dev team will take a fresh look at the newbie experience both live and TLP before the new UI is released in 2023 and correct many of the oversights and deficiencies in the new player experience. Adding bows to level one rangers would be one thing that would be appreciated.

There are a couple bows you can twink your level 1 ranger with but that requires aid from a higher player. I remember researching bows thru all my levels and finally giving up around level 75 cause there just didn't seem to be a good bow.

And seeing so many good bows that are not ranger usable ...what was up with that?

Then level 85 hit and headshot exploded the entire bowing experience for me. Now we still don't have good bows that you can easily get but we have good AA and augs and what not to help.

Give them a bow and they quickly run out of arrows and need to switch back to melee anyway. Not to mention a bow would be useless for them unless they have someone (or a merc) in the group to hold agro and keep the mob from getting to close for bows to work.

It's as simple as "Rangers are the master's of the bow" if you read the character description on the character select screen. While this was intended, the original developers seemed to have not completed the task out of the gate at level 1. Sometime in the original Kunark, bows were able to hit for double damage on stationary, not rooted mobs. Because Bows don't work at all like melee weapons, it was the easiest solution at the time to make Ranger's truly standout with a bow. It's been too long, I don't recall when Rangers were first able to critical hit with a bow. Even at level 1 in March 1999 if that was when we could crit like a Warrior with all weapons, an arrow strike crit paled by comparison to any melee weapon critical hit of a Warrior.

Not having a bow was often the motivation to start fletching for rangers and bows are not hard to get. I think that they do get sold in some starting cities like Kelethin and even in the ranger guilds.

Rangers were able to become strong bow rangers during PoP but melee combat is still a good option for them beyong PoP and they are not a pure archer class. I don't see the point why archery should be their best combat skill before PoP. From the perspective of newer expansions I always had seen the lower levels as a training phase where archery does slowly get stronger. Pet classes do face the same situation with their pets and I don't see a problem in that. Same for the rogue's backstab and stealth attack, cleric healing spells and so on. It would be a bad concept if everything is already as powerfull at lvl 1 as in lvl 120.

I had the same revelations, although, I am glad to be an ENC.

And what no one seems to understand is that EQ classes are NOT LotR classes. They called him a ranger, but he had many titles too so, that's irrelevant. What he DID makes him a Warrior. Legolas was the obvious ranger in EQ terms though they never called him such, maybe even used the term warrior at some point I forget.

Gandalf also never had ports or evac, and most of the time his best dmg was with his staff not spells, so he may be closest to a shaman, while the brown wizard was more like a druid with his affinity for animals as well as the healing and speed of travel. In LOTR, really anyone with magic was either a wizard, a necro, or an elf(and that was only magicassisted healing).

Gimli obviously was a zerker but that was more about his race than class, the hobbits were god only knows with their weaponry and despite the lack of any magic or healing they acted and were treated mostly like EQ druids or clerics.

LOTR classification of Aragorn or anyone else means absolutely nothing to EQ classes. The parallels should be drawn from collections of characteristics, not randomly mentioned labels.

Aragorn also would have been better off if he wore plate boots.