You must Unlearn What you have Learned.

Not to sound arrogant, and there is still a long way to go. But I have a feeling a lot of people are trying to use old ranger tactics and expect the same numbers then complain how broken we are when they can't do anything.
Ive been adapting a lot and had to completely change my playstyle in order to maintain decent dps. I can no longer spam combat arts, hit stream and repeat and get top dps with little effort.
I need to melee, I need to debuff, apply dot's ,use short term buffs and utilize tier appropriate arrows.
Post Lu20 Rangering isn't a walk in the park, you have to actively be moving dodgeing weaving to attain some dps, I think a lot of people got lazy post Lu13 and just stopped meleeing all together. I used to use my melee skills a ton before LU13, stopped using them completely after and now have gone back to using them again.

I was parsing 400dps last night, JUST FROM MELEE damage and arts in group. We did a couple fights where I used no bow skills (i.e any skill that uses an arrow)
Everyone needs to breath and give it some time instead of automatically writing off these changes as game breaking, could we use adjustment? Of course everyone could. Am I happy with our DPS? Not particularly but I'm managing to make the best of it and I have to say Im saddened to see rangers spamming 7 different forums like sorcerors do with the same posts demanding fixes and ranting. It really leaves a sour taste in my mouth to see such little restraint and control on the parts of our community.
So to all the Doomsayers and such please give it some time to settle in, a LOT and I mean a LOT of rangers still haven't learned how to replay the class and until they do you will see subpar DPS across the board. When the raids start rolling in we might be able to get a more accurate view of overall DPS.

p.s I know we aren't assasins, but we aren't an archer class either, While the majority of our attacks are Bow based we have melee skills and will need to utilize them in order to function at maximum effectiveness, just like every other class has to.

i agree, its simply the fact that bow attacks are useless, and they make up far more than 50% of our ca's.

And I'll add one more thing that my Guildmate Ranger said.
"Before Bow Auto Attack was what you did inbetween Combat Arts, now combat arts are what you do inbetween Autoattack"
I'm finding a much smoother pace to DPS when I time my combat arts inbetween bow shots and making sure it goes off every 6/7 seconds. Meleeing is must now to maintain decent DPS. Stream of Arrows has gone from one of our Best skills, to one of our worst.

I will do as u say, chaos-san.

That is a good Idea for some. But I didnt roll a ranger in 2004 not to use my bow. I would have rolled a swashy or an assassin if I wanted to melee close up 90% of the time. Its an insult to me you and the ranger class itself that we are forced into it.

BedlamX

I never said melee all the time did I? I said use all the skills available to you. We have too many melee skills to just write them off and then people wonder why we can't dps.
You guys wanted to know how to get high dps as a ranger, you got it.

I'd love to use tier appropriate arrows but the damm jewelers are all either slacking or hiding I even have a moonstone just waiting to be turned into adept 3 reclaimed arrows. Guildy already has it and grizzle's bow so I know how much it would add. Being stuck using T5 arrows instead of T7 is no fun.
I do think it will be hard on rangers in their 50's. That's the one level gap they will not be able to summon tier appropriate arrows. They really need to redo the summon arrow skills to go up every 10 levels instead of 14 like the other skills. Summoned arrows skips from T5 to T7 and just screws over rangers from 50-60.

I agree that we have to modify our playstyles and basically relearn the "new" ranger from the ground up. I don't think this prescription is one that a lot of people want to use, though. Props to Khalan for taking his time to pass on the experience, but unfortunately these are workarounds at best. These are "how to get the best out of your current class," and that's good - cuz we need to do our best with what we got - but most of us don't even want to play the new "Rassassin" class.
Anyway, I think we all agree that this isn't exactly what we signed up for - melee autoattack with the occasional bow CA thrown in for flavor - but thanks to Khal for posting the ideas about new tactics. We'll need them for the forseeable future, unfortunately.
EDIT: Crych, it's worse than 50-60, given that you don't get the new summoned arrows until a ways into T7. I'm 61 and I'm still stuck using freakin' fulginate. It's ridiculous.
Message Edited by Jay42 on 02-28-200601:25 PM

let me say few things as a ranger who started playing after LU19 and has only 80 hours of play as a ranger of 1000+ hours in the game and as a person with some knowledge of medieval combat history and experience in historical fencing and archery.

1, as a gamer in a MMORPG: Rangers are given ranged and melee skills since day 1. Not using big part of your skills is decision of a player. The devs only offer tools (combat arts) and its up to the player how to use them. You can still hold on shooting arrows only as its your choice (and more viable with point blank shot) or you can be more effective using all of skills at your disposal. And i say it even i enjoyed enourmously the ability to kill a mob with few ranged combat arts befoe it got to me.

2, as a history fan: The most famous bow users of all times were always trained in close combat. Take the great mongols, ancient egyptians or the mbest known english archers - all of them were using swords/sabres/daggers as well as their bows. English archers were trained equally in archery and swordsmanship. Their expertise in both made them the most valuable military force of their time (and they were paid the best too).

that should be enough to prove a point but since we are in a fantasy game, i will add one more point. Take the ranger/strider archetype -Aragorn of Lord of the Rings. What was the main weapon of this uber-ranger? Yes, his legendary sword.

The choice is up to individual. With AAs we have even more options to play in style we preffer. Some ways may be harsher and some mey be easier. Just do not say rangers hsould not use melee skills because its not part of being a ranger.

Umm, if the French knights at Agincourt had been able to close with the English longbowmen, the bowmen would have been slaughtered!
Message Edited by Mary the Prophetess on 02-28-200610:36 AM

So basically, I have to forget that we ever did decent DPS?
I wont forget, I will let my account expire...

I don't mean use melee autoattack either, I'm 100% bow autoattack almost all the time.

But let me ask you guys all an honest question.
We Have 6-7 Melee Skills that can be used in groups.
Rip Line (DD)
Blazing Thrust Line (DD)
Mortal Reminder Line (Dot)
Lunging Blade Line (DoT)
Tangle Flame Line (Backstab, Need's Stealth)
Longblade Line (Backstab, Put's you into stealth)
Ranger's Blade Line (Big Back stab, need's stealth).

If your a ranger and didn't use these at all ever before LU20, raise your hand.

/raises hand

I could get 1400DPS on a raid, and Not use 7 of my Damage Based Skills, I could Outdps Every other tier 1 class with only half my skills.
No other class can make that claim now or ever, no other class could get away with only using half their abilities and people got USED to it.
People are used to not "Ever meleeing" as a ranger, Rangers never melee "I" Used to post. I told people I never use melee skills and meleeing as a ranger is dumb, you get more dps from range.
That is not true any longer, we need to use all our skills, melee, ranged etc.
How many people used Brutal Instinct/Haste and Focus fire short term buffs before LU20?
I know I didn't and I still got top DPS every fight without ever needing any of my short term buffs.
Do we need adjusment still? Absolutely, but not the the extent some are claiming.
Once people have learned to play the "New Ranger" (Wether we like it or not, hell I wish I never had to melee) we will be able to understand where we stand a lot better.

That was a nice one, Mary.
I will not argue the tactics of english and french armies at that time. There is no reason to. Distance between warring parties is always an advantage to ranged weapon users and so it is in EverQuest 2. If you gather a full group of rangers, i seriously doubt that there will be many heroic creatures who will live long enough to hit the members of the group.

I do not imply that rangers are stronger at close combat, their advantage is the damage they can deal before their enemies hit them. I only try to say that its "natural" for a ranger to finish off an enemy once it gets too close. "Bow only" is simply not "the only" or "the only right" way to play a ranger.

I'm not playing anymore, but using the Auto-attack stuff requires high tier (expensive) arrows. You use more arrows than you can summon, so isn't that bad even if it were the same DPS? Not only do you get hit on poisons but also ammo.

But that is why we are the Ranger class and not the "Archer" Class.

I've personally reverted back to my playstyle pre-LU13 because that is what we are again. It works for the most part, if you can pull that playstyle from the back of your mind.

In terms of soloing I haven't had any issues taking on yellow con evens or white con ^. You just have to be sneaky and understand how your skills actually work. 2 second Cheap Shot on a ^ con sucks but you can still manage a stealth combo attack from that if you are fast enough. Even with KoS lag I'm hitting the mark 75% of the time but don't expect to be able to tag the mob with Dire Blade. You must use Tangleflame for reliablity purposes. Brutal Instinct is freaking love. Use it when you can if you need the extra firepower. USE THORNY TRAP. This skill can turn a close fight into a cake walk. Understand what it offers and plan your arts accordingly around the use of the trap. Like Khalan pointed out, DoT early. I personally end my first HO with a DoT.
Message Edited by Stormhawk on 02-28-200610:57 AM

Now I missed out on a lot of the poison benifits that we had because I started trolling these boards too late. Now solo I use alot of melee arts waiting for cheap shot to refresh, then back up for 1 to 3 (if I am lucky and have the right ones up) bow CA's.
Group dps is something I don't understand, We have positional CA's that require us to be behind the target so we can get closer to the back of the enemy without worying about frontal AoE atacks right? If you edge closer you can find the gap where all combat arts are available (melee and bow) to maximise your dps, why would this be a problem?
Poisons still proc some and being a lower level (35) ranger missing some of the bigger seperator CA's might make a big difference but I can still make the health bar drop conciderably faster than any other person in most groups I am with. Timing helps alot with auto attack continuing to help up dps (starting a CA right after the AA fires) now I have to get someone with a parser to travel with me and check my dps to see how bad it may be.

What i'm personally tired of is the major overhauls. We started out as melee with decent defensive capabilities and lousy ranged, save kiting. Then we went 180 degrees from that: lost the kiting, lost the defensive, lost some meleee and became bow casters. Now we lose the bow and are left with our already weak melee and mitigation.

Can we figure out a way to milk more DPS out? Sure, and I really do appreciate the OPs point, but that doesn't change the fact that we are playing a persistent character is a world where the rules keep changing and we are left trying to relearn and re-equip and re-strategize... and that goes for any class.

There are always ways for more DPS. What reanger doesn't know about the stun, run behind the mob, longshank, crippling blade combo. Don't tell me that SOE ever intended that to be used in such a manner. If players figure tactics out like that, so be it, but this type of acrobatic play shouldn't be the norm, nor should we be qualified as one tier or another by it.

This is ENTERTAINMENT, not work. I shouldn't need to solve differential equations to be able to kill a freaking mob. Forcing one class to work twice as hard to kill anything seems like much more of a balance issue that doing too much DPS, doesn't it?

Tuning is one thing. Radical changes to playstyle that force me to "unlearn what I have learned" are not a normal part of a mature game. I'm not playing EQ to start a new character every major update, and I especially don't appreciate these changes coming with a new expansion.

I can't tell SOE what will make me happy at this point. This entire class seems so confused now that I doubt it will ever be sorted out so that the CAs, abilities and DPS congeal back into some sort of themed class that isn't a lukewarm combination of several others-- with track.

This last change is causing a lot of verteran EQ1 and 2 players to sincerely re-evaluate EQ2 as an investment in time and money. I don't care what's balanced, right or wrong, or even what DPS I'm doing at this point. All I know is that after the last patch, EQ2 hasn't been fun, and that's all that matters to me.

I've got a lot of time invested in multiple characters, and I'm always willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for a week or two. With that said, however, my 6 accounts will be gone if this isn't resolved in some manner that makes this game fun again, soon. If this happens to one class, it will happen to others. I'd rather be elsewhere by then.

I need to melee screw that i dont need to melee. I AM NOT AN ASSASIN melee is not what I am for. I have a bow and arrows and have swords for decaration cause all the cool kids wear them for show. We have complained that master strikes were with melee weapons and not the bow. Have you guys forgotten that? I mean do we give up and throw in the towel and become the good little goody assasin they want us to be or do we fight for the bow? I am fighting for the bow the only friend I have had through my levels I will not give up the bow nor will I melee call me a die hard I do not want to melee to me if I am meleeing something has gone seriously wrong.

maybe you need to reroll as a sorceror then if you can not accept that ranger archetype is mix of ranged CAs and melee CAs then.

It is really becoming old. If ranger's DPS is below Tier 1, it shoudl be looked into. And its is being looked into according to BG. If someone is willingly not using full potential of given class, then its theri fault, not a flaw in design.