There's no question a lot of people are very upset, even despondent, about the combat revamp. Don't give up hope, we can and will survive this, just like we've survived and excelled in the past. Take heart. I know it takes some adjustment, and I know a lot of you are really frustrated, but stick with it. Our class is not broken - try and look beyond the linear comparison of various abstract numbers from last week versus numbers from this week; throw your old expectations out the window. I know our avoidance plummeted; everyone's did. I know stats changed; I know some of our CAs had damage reduced; I know our stealth got changed and I know we can't fire bow CAs on the run anymore. (See my post on Cheap Shot for some ideas about adapting your solo game.) Try your best to persevere if you're committed to playing a ranger regardless of the adversity you encounter. If playing a ranger is more of a casual interest and you don't want to bother trying to adapt to the changes, consider switching classes. I don't want to lose anyone - especially in our hour of glory - but I'd rather have more happy people playing different classes than more unhappy people playing rangers. Apologies if this seems presumptuous; I'm in damage-control mode right now, b/c it's apparent that we have a sharp dichotomy in our class. Seems like low-level rangers are having a WAY harder time, while high-level rangers are generally pretty happy with the changes. So there's some weird disconnect there that I hope to investigate in the coming weeks, so we can help SOE fix the problems we have. Trust me, it will get better. Those of us that have been playing the ranger class for the better part of a year can remember the dark times when we were seriously broken, and SOE did the right thing and addressed many of our concerns, bringing our class to a point where most of us were very content and felt capable of filling the role we were designed for. Until I'm given reason to feel otherwise, I have faith that our concerns will be addressed again, and that rangers as a whole will be better off after the revamp than we were before. So please, don't let these feelings of surprise and frustration overwhelm you. Do what you need to in order to cope with them, but after the dust settles, get ready to buckle down if you're committed to your class. I'm not giving up. We've always been an underdog class, and we're now poised to become even stronger and more effective than before. Just give it a little time, and have some faith and trust in your fellow rangers. This is OUR class, and it's on us to help the Devs address our concerns. Good luck, be safe, and enjoy the hunt. As always, you can PM me here or send a /tell in-game (/tell butcherblock.kaeros) if you have any questions or need help. RANGER FOR LIFE!!!
Great Post Jay. Spent a lot of last night helping some of the newer rangers in our guild come to terms with their skills and abilities after the revamp. As a 50, I think we are now a seriously competant class and can excell in what we do, however some of the skills we use come late in life and are not available to our younger bretherin, however, after last night thay are all once again happy. Here's how we did it... 1) Make sure everyone has encounter locking off.. 2) Get a healer 3) Get all your rangers together. 4) Get each ranger to pull solo mob after solo mob to an area where they can fight it.. preferably white con... let them try different tactics one after another, but always be ready if they start to drop into yellow to get in a heal, or to triple shot the thing to death. (This is not powerlevelling, its training before anyone screams, and with the removal of encounter locking, let's use it for our benefit) The poin here is that no-one wants to get frustrated by dying when working out their skills, so it didn't work this time, but the next one will.. dyeing will only stop you exploring the options. 5) Practice each and every combat style to give them the confidence to ignore all the whining and sky is falling posts and give them the skills to survive in the new Norrath. Yes, I stil think some skills need slight tweaks, but overall, confidence is high Remember, were trying to cram 10/20/50 levels of learning how to play a class into our first 5 hours on the server, and if its taken 200 hours to learn to get the best, we really can't expect to be doing our best after the first day on live As a ranger, pleae hang on, it is possible to relearn, and you are deffinately going to enjoy the class Message Edited by Moria15 on 09-14-2005 10:46 AM
The people that complain the most about the ranger combat revamp seem to be the ones that are not even 50 or dont understand how to play the class. I drop solo mobs in two or three bow shots, thats not a radical strategy so I dont understand what the gripe is. Linyen Ranger Fires of Heaven
My life as a ranger is as follows: Solo-Find solo mob, Yellow +.... Invis, Hidden shot MasterII, Legshot, couple of auto range attacks while its limping toward me, Snipe, Entrap, Deadly reminder, Blazing thrust, cheapshot, move behind mob, shadow lunge, crippling blade or tangleflame. collect loot and exp. Repeat with Culling the herd, triple shot and Sniping shot while Hidden shot refreshes. Continue till I run out of arrows. Group-Buff up, load up poisons, turn on arrow frenzy, agro reduce mobs, fire off normal range of Ca's, dodge a few swings from angry mob anyway, deagro again, continue ranged and melee CA's. Repeat till group is done. Message Edited by Rahmn on 09-14-2005 12:13 PM Message Edited by Rahmn on 09-14-2005 12:13 PM
Linyen, With all respect as my Ranger brother, I am a Ranger who loves my class and am looking forward to learning how to wield my new skills. I let my voice be heard when I got the first whiff of the 'kiting' nerf, and became very pleased as more information got out. But please don't belittle the opinions of your fellow Rangers just because we are not yet at max level. I know I'm picking on your word choice, but I deserve to have a balanced and playable class regadless of my level. I do, of course, agree with you if someone is complaining and don't know how to play their class. Now, I know I just jumped on you, so let me dust you off. I recognize you as a respectable Ranger who's acheived the top of your class. Thank you for every post you've made that gave me insight into this class and Thank You for defending our class, but please don't belittle me for my level.
I am a level 33 ranger and have been working on making a excellent and effective ranger for a little less than a year now. At first (pre-revamp) i hated being a ranger. I was doing poor dps and wasn't able to solo crap and found it frustrating. Around level 24 I started doing heritage quests, and invested in legendary posions. In addition I learned how to properly kite which saved my life time and time again. Effectively I learned how to make my ranger a effective killing machine. I then began to take pride in being a ranger and the fact for the first time I could kill yellow beasties. Being a ranger has NEVER been a easy class to master. It is possibly the most difficult class besides a illusionist to learn how to use the character properly. Then the revamp. The number one killer for me was the inability to effectively kite. The second killer was the nerf on the Polished Granite Tomahawk, which confused me since I thought I read that they were going to make legendary weapons even better. And then of course the other nerfs like mitigation and avoidance which I was actually happy to see. Rangers in groups now are extremely effective killing machines with massive DPS, however soloing the ranger seems a much more difficult task. The problem that I see is that most of the powerful skills that I have are bow skills, but given that I can't kite anymore I can only use one, maybe two skills at the beginning of combat. Of course I use hidden shot given its the most powerful. Another thing I have noticed is that going into stealth mode to use the stealth attacks is a much greater challenge than it use to be. So in essence 2/3 of my skills I am unable to use when soloing which hampers my combat. Lets face it, ranger's meele skills are subpar. I see several people are stating that cheapshot is being used to get behind their targets. I suppose that I will try this, although I was under the impression that beasties tend to resist lower level spells. I suppose that it will taking some time to learn how to use the ranger effectively again. However I much rather see the ability to kite brought back into the game, but perhaps just lengthen the reuse timers on the bow skills so that people can't do extended kiting. I know in the past that I would unleash 3 arrow skills right at the beginning of the battle which would take the target down 3 bars of hp. Unfortunetly lower level rangers dont have the privilage of having bow skills that slow the enemy down from a range location unlike level 50 rangers. This means we have to get within a foot of the beast to slow it and then try and run away quick enough and shoot a bow at it: most of the time it doesn't work. I have confidence in sony that they will fix rangers up a bit making them once again effective killing machines.
Update from Fledgling Ranger Soloist Under 30 Second Kill 26 Ranger vs. 27 Mob. Tactic was thus: Hunt -> Hidden shot -> Open Shot HO -> Dirty Tricks -> Pierce -> Cheap Shot Jump over the target, Shrouded Strike -> Shadow Lunge Dead We are now more powerful than we used to be but I feel as if we are now also less versatile. I found for myself that if my kill was not swift, in so far that I didn't do enough damage to my opponent in, what is now, a significantly shortened time frame, then I failed. Additionally, the maneuver is not necessarily easy. 1st, upon opening, the range for Hidden Shot is less than the range for other bowskills. While Dual Shot fires faster than Open Shot, it does less damage. Open shot must be primed immediately after Hidden Shot is initiated or the Mob closes the gap too quickly. Being thus, while sneaking up to the enemy, you must try your Hidden Shot from an out of range area, and close the gap while tapping the button to get the furthest range possible. 2nd, with cheap shot, there is not enough time to use sneak nor hunt nor anything really except for Shrouded Strike. The problem comes in that you hit Shrouded Strike and don't immediately fire off your Shadow Lunge, chances are that you are going to hit with your melee weapon, thereby cancelling your sneak. Additionally, I found for myself that I really really crave Cheap Shot Adept III or Master I now, because the window of opportunity with CS App IV is rather small. Being that the additional damage from linked mobs is significant, and our avoidance, including our change to the evasion-line skill (now rendered obsolete to a solo ranger) with our as always less than mitigating armor, I have found that I am no longer allowed to engage grouped mobs. I had a 24 link on me while taking a 26 (no arrows) and got my velveeta shipped back to the manufacturer faster than I could yank my doodle dandy, which is pretty quickly to the uninformed.
I was talking with some other Rangers last night (mine is only 23) and what they said plus my own experiences playing last night agree with your statement - lower level Rangers are having a much harder time, while higher level Rangers may have ended up more effective. If this is true overall there could be lots of reasons. Maybe part of this is skill - higher level Rangers have learned to optimize their skill usage - but I think part of this may be the game mechanics. Lower level Rangers don't have as many skills, and so a higher percentage of the skills they have are bow related - mostly useless for soloing now. I know I reordered all of my useful soloing skills last night and ended up with extra spaces on my soloing combat bar. I actually moved some buffs from my buff bar over to the soloing combat bar to fill empty slots. It seems I am taking a lot more damage for the same cons I was fighting last night. Do higher level rangers get hit less because of higher stats / more skills oriented to buffing avoidance? My low level brawler is awsome now. I noticed a significant increase in his ability to solo. I thought the patch was supposed to lower his ability to rake in exp by himself. But most of the damage the brawler does is in constant HO's. My ranger's HO's don't compare. Any, just my experiences... Your individual results may vary.
Also, I haven't used the stun -> backstab technique in a while because it appeared that the targets instantly woke up, even if I turned off combat after the stun fired. At the time I thought it was the DOT on my poisons waking them up. Does the stun hold if a mob takes DOT damage or should I try to find some poison with no DOT to it?
as frustrated as I am with my low 30's ranger and fully intending to give him up, i've had a hard time doing it. while I haven't played since saying I was giving up, I have been thinking on it. I agree, it seems the high lvls are having an easy time of it, soloing and scoffing at the lower levels frustrations. They've bene at the top long enough they have forgotten the lower levels. I think you partially hit it, the high levels have a number of skills in the efective range that they have had plety of oppurtunity and reason to upgrade as far as they can and th emeans to do it, while a low 30's like me has a pretty limited selection, worse now then before the upgrade since many of the utility spells have been altered or deleted. theres also one other key differnce that I think is even more telling. That is resources, by the time an average char hits 50, they have been accumalting gear and money that is highly effective, including heratige and fabled gear that is excellent for them since the the 40's. A lower level is constantly scrapping by with limited resources, using stuff that is green and blue because they can't afford or find better. I see many of the players saying they are having an easy time of it also say they have master 1 abilities etc. Very few low levels can afford the platnium cost masters and gear on the vendor, let alone participate in raids for master chests.
Umm, I got my PGT at level 29 and I'm now halfway through level 31.....all I wanted was to hit level 32 so I could finally use the PGT. I'm afraid to ask, but what was nerfed about it?? ~Nyght Reign~ 31 Ranger on Grobb "The Brotherhood"
Well as a 27 Ranger (got carried away tradeskilling and forgot to level up :smileytongue: ) I think we have become far better then before. I never bothered with the kiting lark so don't miss it and as far as i can see almost everything else is better. I waltzed through Harclaves, killed the Arena Champion with 60% health left, grouped up and had a blast in TS and Nek (gotta be more careful about aggro in groups) and had a great time. First time in a long time I have not got bored playing EQ2.
I'm not a ranger just yet as I just dinged 18, but from the lower end of the spectrum I'm not having trouble at all. I take down blues way faster than I ever did, and I even managed a yellow only getting down into yellow health myself. Back Shot has become my favorite skill, as even with just the vendor bought poisons I can bring a blue mob down to orange health with one shot. Hopefully if I can get some playtime this weekend I can post the newly-dinged ranger's perspective, but as a predator I'm doing fine post revamp.
Soloing a yellow was never a problem for me back then. I was soloing the gnoll Hero and the Ghost of Vhalen (both ^^ named yellows if I remember correctly) with my predator at level 18. I don't think that is possible anymore. ~Nyght Reign~ 31 Ranger on Grobb "The Brotherhood" Message Edited by Exordus on 09-15-2005 03:25 AM
I am a level 20 Ranger, about 70% to level 21. Just got into Harclaves and didn't even try it against the mobs I saw since most where linked. However I do love the changes done with this class so far and have been enjoying learning how to play as primarily an archer even if I only have 3 arrow combat abilities so far. Btw why do we get a pet if it doesn't do anything but look really pretty? Charice 20 Ranger - Highkeep
I'm a 23 DE Ranger. I started EQ2 just a couple months ago, so it's not like I'm relearning a ton of stuff. I've found that my battles where taking a bit longer than before, but I've started to relearn the character and startd going through them quicker last night. I was killing the camp for the Sabertooth Tormentors for Ian's quest last night and had a 24 Brigand bent out of shape at how fast I was cleaning up. :smileytongue: Kept trying to challenge me to a duel, then ks'd one of the Tormentors. I guess he hasn't learned how to play his character yet... :O\
First half of Harclave is solo mobs, once you have the braziers lit and receive the Spirit of Harclve buff you are equipped to take on the grouped mobs.
life as a 50 ranger is great, I have constant aggro issues unleasing my arsenal of bow shots and actually have to hold back a fair bit to keep the tanks happy, cheap shot is superb and i hope it works on raid mobs! the spell upgrades now make it worth while, natural selection master used to do 200 damage max now it does 1100 on the encounter, follow that up with storm of arrows and everyone is asking what happened to the mobs as they bite the dust. Only niggle I have is our invis, I really wish we could get a full speed sneak. All in all people are now asking for rangers to be in the group due to our awesome DPS and long may it continue
Some info about our stun, cheap shot: From what I've read, it will last the FULL 6 seconds on solo mobs - anything with one up arrow or less (I think). This should give you plenty of time to get behind the mob and use your stealthy backstab, or to run back to a safe distance and use a few bow skills and ranged auto-attacks. If the mob is heroic, the stun will last until it is damaged (how it used to work on everything before the update). This can be a problem if you're using posion or DoTs. However, if it's heroic, you should really be in a group, and so you should already be behind the mob using your backstab and ranged skills If you haven't tried using the cheap shot->stealth->backstab while soloing, give it a go Like someone else has said, you can use this in a HO - advance the HO with cheap shot, finish it off with your backstab or whatever. Another thing - it looks like upgrading our snares and slows will make a lot of difference - master II leg shot slows the target by around 62%, which is pretty nice. Might be worthwhile getting appIV or adept1 of the other snares to see if they make much of a difference. Slowing the mob by this much should give us time to put some distance between us and the mob, which will let us fire off some more ranged attacks. As for the PGT, I haven't checked it yet to see what's changed, will do that tonight.
We are not scoffing at the frustrations of the lower level rangers, nor have we forgotten the lower levels ourselves. If we had, we would not be posting on this thread trying to determine the cause of the problem, and subsequently come up with a solution. The rangers who have been posting on this board regularly for nearly a year truly care about the class, and are always looking for ways to improve it, and/or report problems to development. We have put a lot of time and effort into building our characters and want to make sure that it remains a fun class to play...for all levels. But you must understand, before the development team will investigate something as being a problem in design, we have to prove that the class is flawed even after a character has been played properly and has used all the abilities that the character has been given. It's not that anyone doubts you, but those are the things that must be known before a problem can be reported. For insance, one of the above posters mentioned that he had not used Cheap Shot in a while because it always broke early and was a low level spell. Well, this was changed in the update. It now scales and grows with you. No belittlement to that poster...he just didn't know...and truly, it was a crappy spell before the update. But now...it kicks butt. It's things like this that everyone needs to explore, including myself. There are several CA's that I had removed from my hotbar prior to the update...well, they're back on there now because they're truly effective spells now. There are a couple of more things I"d like to say, but I don't want this post to get too long. I will only say that in general, the game does not get any easier when you get to 45+(current frustrations of lower-level rangers aside). It just gets more fun. The CA's we get at higher levels are awesome, without a doubt. But the mobs are also much more difficult, as are the situations/environments in whch you're forced to fight. Believe it or not, in some circles rangers are considered worthless and quite frankly are given a bad rap. It's not as bad as it used to be, but it still exists What we, as a community, must do is make sure that we are doing whatever we can to erase that opinion of us and make others realize that a ranger can make a difference in success or failure in any given encounter. What I ask is that you please not say that we have forgotten or that we don't care, because that could not be further from the truth.
