To those who Raid with thier Rangers. Help needed with CA rotation and AA Spec

My Guild is trying to get a raid force going and while I do have a spot I want to make sure I have the best dps I can. I have one piece of raid gear from dragons lair, 3 pieces of mark 2 armour 2 battleground pieces(looking for raid pieces to exchange them for) and various legendary jewelry and charms to help my dps with a full set of the resist jewerly to put on when neccesary.
any help with CA rotation and AA spec would be appreciated.

And to forstall those who troll betraying to Assasin is not an option my Main is a Ranger and will always be a Ranger.

Hi Alenna. You should switch to an assasin (j/k, had to put that in hehe)
First of all an AA spec. A lot of Non PvP rangers use this as their spec (or slight variation of) http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?g02s18...55@1551@35@1511

As far as CA rotation goes that is very subjective to your own gear, and master levels on CAs. If you have not downloaded ACT (advanced combat tracker) that is the first thing you need to do. As this, for me personally, was the single best thing that helped me up my DPS. If you have questions on it, would be glad to help.
Second, auto attack timing bar. If you dont have it, get it. It is imperitive to not delay your autto attack going off. For Rangers their auto attack damage makes up between 20-30% of our overall DPS. Which is why the auto attack bar is so important.

Using bloody reminder is a big key. By far my highest parsing CA is bloody reminder. Get that on the mob, and keep it there. On your melee CAs, make them a macro where the last step is /auto 2. This makes it so when you hit a melee CA, it does NOT have you melee afterward. It keeps you firing your ranged weapon. Find the sweet spot on the mob which for Rangers is roughly 5 meters from the mob. The area where you are still firing your bow, but you can hit all your CAs, melee included.

Back to your CA rotation again its pretty dependant on each ranger. I can give you a list of mine, but that doesnt mean its going to be best for you (aside from bloody reminder). This is kind of obsesive, but what i did was turned on ACT. Got an epic training dummy out of the Ghall, and used only 1 ca (for example storm of arrows), recasting evertime it was up. Did this for about 10 min per CA and noted my DPS with it. Then moved to the next CA, rinse and repeat. This gives an order tailored for you. As you upgrade from adepts to experts and masters this may switch around a bit. I am constantly going back to ACT and tweaking things.

Hope this helps

Not sure what arrows you are using, but the Field point arrows are going to be the best for raiding, because of the 10% hit bonus.

Thank you for your Help.
To answer your arrow question Fieldpoint of course been using them since the day I made my ranger my main, and for raids if I can get the void warped wood, spirit blessed.
So you wouldn't go down the stamina line to get surrounding attacks and get that pretty high on the predator tree someone suggested I might try that or was that for solo and grouping. would need to test it out I guess.
I can see the other sentinals fate AAs as being benificial but opening volley? don't we rangers have a problem with agro control as it is not having any transfers at all just moving us down the line. Wouldn't Opening Volley get the hate on me rather then keep it on the tank early on in the fight?(that btw has always peeved me the Assasins get a huge hit they use towards hte end of the fight when there is less chance of pulling agro off hte tank) we do have some great tanks in our guild but I don't like to make their job harder for them if I can help it. and I may have to do some pick up raids in the lower end raid zones of SF so dont' want to be feeling like a complete noob and constiantly pulling agro off the tank. Willing to try it though to see if I can still control my agro.
As for the TSO tree yeah that is basically how I went.
Yeah I do have Act and try to use it as much as I can and the custom UI I have has an auto attack bar so I try to use tha that also. I'll try and get the macros for my melee. and yes I know to find the sweet point have tried to keep in that spot from the day I started my Ranger as my Main. and take some of your other suggesting in mind.

When AE auto came out on ranged weapons, i switched to it and tried it out. Its fun, i have Plvled quite a few characters with it. But honestly, thats about its only usefulness imho. Running zones in SF sure, lots of group mobs to pull, but for raids single target DPS is whats its all about for us (except for very few occasions, or wanting insane numbers on some Hole trash pulls). Grab an AA mirror and save a raid spec, and a AOE spec, for grouping/solo. For the AOE spec i just dropped the INT line for it.
Once i changed to the AOE spec i did see a pretty sizeable drop from my Zonewide, and Single target parses on raids. So i scrapped it pretty quickly.

In raid situations there just is not that many situations where it is going to be useful. Raids you really want your single target DPS to be as high as possible, because there just isnt enough group pulls of mobs to justify it. About all we bring to raids is DPS, and even our DPS is sub par to what it should be the higher up you go. So any decrease in that is not good.
Which brings me to opening Volley. Ive never really had an issue with over aggroing on GUILD raids. If you have pretty good tanks, an assasin in the MT group for hate transfer it shouldnt be an issue, your tank should be able to keep his hate at the cap. But opening Volley does up your DPS a good chunk, so you certainly want to have it. There is acouple of things that you can move around in your cast order to limit your aggro at the begining (moving Evasive manuevers up in your cast list etc) if its a problem. You wont really know till you do get going on raids. But it is a MUST have for Rangers.

Here's the AA spec I run with 24/7
http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?g02i18...55@1551@2555511
First I'll explain the seemingly odd parts.
I put points into deity pet in TSO because I have bristlebane. This gives a pet that buffs agility, with those points it is now a pet that gives me 54 agility. Agility = increases all of your DPS.
I don't have any points in offensive prowess because I easily reach the amount of weapon skill where any more would be useless on raids. Increasing it any more would be a waste. Self buffed i'm 647 once you start reaching high 700's you don't get any more benefit from it.
Hunter's Accuracy in TSO. Again, more AGI = more DPS. Plus I really didn't have a better spot to put those 5 points.
I haven't switched from my AE spec to poison in a long time. Most of the fights I deal with now have lots of adds/trash with them and even if I am doing a single target fight I can still easily keep up. But if I don't have my AE spec on a AE fight I get trounced. I really like having AE on lots of the higher end raid fights. I didn't notice much a drop in my DPS from abandoning poison line outright either.
Odd as it seems there are some melee attacks that will be some of your highest parsing CA's that you will want to use often. Especially "Bloody Reminder", "Sneak Attack" "Rangers Blade" and "Emberstrike"

Its Not really odd parts at all Neiloch. They make a lot of sense. I will probably switch up to something pretty similiar once my guild starts doing Underfoot and Hardmodes.
The Diety pet in TSO is a good one to get i agree, especially with Bristle. Would probably take the 5 off of enhanced minds to get that for sure.
Offensive prowess for Alenna would be very beneficial as she is just starting to raid and would proabably be nowhere near the cap.
Hunters accuracy is a must for sure. Had to double check to see if it was on the spec i had posted. Scared me a minute there, that it was overlooked. =P
I love your spec and may steal it once we progress further if you dont mind =P

hehe np. Have to agree, until you get more ranged weapon skill the offensive stance AA will be good, because thats a big part of actually landing hits. But it does eventually become a waste with the better equipment you start getting.
Probably happened with the poison AA as well. Good for low end equipment but eventually your auto attack gets better where having more auto AE any time there is stuff to AE yields better DPS overall.

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

Hmm looks like I'd better get busy and re do my diety way back when I started it was suggested I get marr for the cloak then switch to bristlebane well I think there are better cloaks out there now so might as well just go ahead and switch to bristlbane now. I will probalby be able to get the pet in time for when my guild starts raiding again.

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

hmm so looks like until I get some more raid gear with ranged weapon skill I should go with the spec Xaiveir posted with the eye on going with Neilochs's or should I at least keep that surrounding attack I have right now I sacrificed intoxication becuase I wanted to max out surrounding attacks I use that when the tank says it is ok too. but i did get pretty high in toxic expertise.
way back when i started I had at the suggestion of Ranja and others who were here I started with Marr so I could get the cloak and hten planned to go with bristlebane for the diety pet as well as some of the miricals and blessings well since I've since out grown the cloak(before I got the chance to get it, had to take a forced eight month break from game, sigh. ) better get working on bristlebane now should be able to get the pet very quickly.
thank you all for the advise I now know where to start.
will keep an eye on this thread for anymore hints.

Alenna@Guk wrote:

Grab an aa mirror off the broker, and then make a spec for your surrounding attacks and have a "raid spec" that way you could have best of both worlds =P

Hope we helped you out a bit. If you ever need anything else Give me a holler anytime.

Xaiveir wrote:

well AA mirrors are commission but yes I have one and will go ahead and do that.
You both have you gave reasons for why you did what you did which is always good to know.

Just a little note to let you know how it is going. I used Neiloch's with a little modification run speed till I get my diety pet and offensive prowess till I get enought stats to cap out. yesterday did the library, and DB our guild tank said my dps was much improved last night we did group abandoned labs and made it all the way through no prob on my part. today we did ZUA easymode for the first time and I really felt I was contributing this time had a blast.and today while running the daily solo mark quest I kept one shotting the yellow con nightmares and beat the hua mein champion in 12 seconds I think less time then usual with out me breaking up a sweat at all. I was also down 70% on my armour at the time(doh, forgot to repair before I started my day on EQ2. ) Thank you both for your help. Now to get the equipment so I can do the Vigilant zones.
and Xaiveir, your suggestion about the macro I Love it was a lot easier to keep going and not having to keep pressing range auto.
Thank you both and if I have anymore questions I will be sure to post them.

ok haveing trouble with the auto attack macro it seems to leave me in auto attack after finishing the fight and I end up pulling hte mob instead of letting the tank do it unless i remember to hit the escape key on my keyboard. any way to set the macro up so it will stop when the fight does?

no unfortunately. I just remember not to hit those particular macros after the mob dies by being mindful when something is almost dead.

Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:

I"ll try that when i'm with my guildmates before trying it with PUGs and PURs
ty for the reply.

Yeah, unfortunatly there is not a way that i have found yet. I just got into the habbit of getting used to hitting esc key when the mob dies, it is habbit now and i dont even think about it.

http://www.beetny.com/eq2aa/?g02k14...155@1551@355511
Well, casting order is important for sure... Bloody Reminder will ALWAYS be first.. unless something changes with Velious AA's. But I've tried several different variations of my casting order and in a raid situation it certainly is NOT the #1 factor to good dps for a couple reasons, (And would not be the first thing I would focus on)
1. We don't have many debuffs we need to get in first like Brigands
2. We don't rely an pre-abilities for 90% of our abilities, like Assassins (we dont even have to be behind the mob for most of them .. but it does help)
3. Your Auto-Attack is your best friend, and many times using a CA at the wrong time can actually hurt your dps.
The thing that really accelerated my dps to the top of the charts, was following 4 simple rules.
1. Nothing is too expensive for your DPS (Get all Masters, Specialized Poisons/Potions, Spirit Blessed Arrows, Temp Adornments, Quel'el Potions... USE IT ALL.. during raids that is)
2. Know your buffs! (Unfortunately we are buff ******... will probably always be buff ******.... so know what you're getting and what you're not getting in the way of buffs.... Having or not having "Arms of Imagination", or "Battle Cry" or "Upbeat Tempo" can sway your dps 10k+ in some cases... If the dirge has BC on himself smack him upside the head and take it lol, you're Teir1 dps for crying outload... if the Mystic is in with the mages, cry-a-foul, and get him in with the scouts for Stampede... "KNOW EVERY SINGLE BUFF IN THE GAME THAT CAN IMPROVE YOUR DPS" ... guild leaders will listen if they want to get the most out of you)
3. R.A.I.K.! (Ranged Auto-Attack .... IS ... King! ... Never .. ever interfere with your autoattack firing, and never leave melee on, Autoattack is your King, you must obey it! lol ... make it strong and its kingdom will flourish ... Focus on things like DPS-mode upgrades, and things that improve Quick-Shot, and better arrows, and better bows etc etc)
4. A.B.F.! (Always be firing ...... as soon as a fight starts ... run into your 5 meter spot (10 if you have the MMP charm)... and just go to town... mind your Autoattack bar still.. but just unleash hell, as long as you're watching your autoattack bar, there should almost never be a time when your ability bar isn't spamming abilities.. you have MANY MANY CA's... and there are many buffs that trigger off those (Stampede for example).. and the quicker you spam the more you'll do)

Learn it... Live it.. Love it .... the term "DPS" .......... is really just short for Ranger

Just wanted to let folks know I"m still loving the new spec and we did VigX2 last week got through the fourth mob before we had to call it a night and making sure I hit the esc key helped me be able to keep the macros.
Our alliance also finished Tox easy mode and I was able to keep up I even went to do a group labs and managed to get 20K on the parse something I'd never done before.
thank you all this has helped me get soem good t1 pieces on my way to getting more hopefully we will be able to do some palace soon.

Thats great to hear! Congrats.