Comparison of melee hybrid classes.

[Crenshinabon]

So I am so psyched about this server it is crazy. I only played classic and kunark RZ in the day and came back to luclin/pop to feel like the game had changed for the worse including pvp. I always played an enchanter, loved having tash and all the dispells.

Here is the thing, as much as I love enchanter mechanics I have always wanted to play a main melee class. I have played lots of classes on VZTZ boxes but I know this will be different and I have never really played on Project1999 to test classes.

Basically I have never been able to tolerate rolling around as a large race as I like to roleplay a good amount. I am trying to get the main pros and cons of all the hybrids and trying to find what I think will be better. I am down to either a ranger or paladin in my head.

If you guys could let me know if I am mistakin or something I am leaving out please let me know!

-I am assuming that basically all hybrid melee damage is about the same at a decent level with Rangers maybe taking the lead slightly with higher skillcaps and potential duel wield. Also Rangers have highest bow skillcap. So Ranger really wins this category. Paladins with a max bow skill of 75 I am thinking will miss a LOT in pvp. So Rangers will constantly be hitting their targets regardless of being kited around.

-Paladins have by FAR the best healing capabilities with greater healing. Ranger heal is more of an out of combat thing and shadowknight lifedraw of max 45 damage in classic sounds super subpar. Especially assuming that damage spells will do 80%.

-Paladins lack utility except for stuns (which will never land late game) and soothe. Rangers get SOW and Track and snare (which seems like the best cc out of all the hybrids). Shadowknights get FD and Shadowstep which I am sure some people choose just because FD is awesome.

-Rangers have lowest defense with shadowknight and paladin being similar.

With all these considered I seem to think I would love the Ranger. I am pretty good with kiting and I played a Paladin on VZTZ and was running around a lot of fights not doing damage where if I was a ranger I would be constantly hitting them for a small to medium amount doing more damage once in melee range which is easier to achieve with sow.

Not to mention rangers get kick.

Am I missing something or does it sound like I should be a Ranger?
Only reason I am kicking over on this subject so much is I do not have as much game time these days and multiple chars on P99 like xp is not doable.

Thanks guys, heres to hoping server is up soon!

[vinx]

havent tested it on P99, but back in the day (classic-pop) ranger bow for kites or chasing worked aight
The bow would interupt so i got to stop some casters from gating/healing this way
and vice versa:
like i would be kiteing around a ranger on my druid, and the relentless bow shooting was annoying
but i remember killin all rangers on my druid..being a ranger, i remember winning some /boggle

[Palemoon]

Same boat, can't decide. Narrowed it down to some classes i've not leveled up before, but still not certain.

[Bockscar]

Rangers are not very good except for the fact that they have great tracking. It's just not a strong class yet, and there are hardly any decent 2handers that rangers can use pre-Kunark. That's gonna be a big problem in PvP, because jousting is really critical for warriors and hybrids. If they code the resists like classic, you can't rely on root/snare in the higher levels, and wailing on someone with a pair of ebony swords quadding for 20s really pales in comparison with a jousting tank who can smash you for 200 per round and move out of your melee range while weapon delay refreshes.

Rangers also lack a class power-skill. Paladins have lay hands and shadowknights have harmtouch. They can't be used often, but it makes a huge difference when you have it up.

There's a few pieces of key utility that can make a big difference.

Paladins get endure magic and cure poison/disease, as well as many more junk buffs than rangers and especially shadowknights. Stun and blind are insane before people get full resist gear while root and snare are somewhat less amazing because they don't really disable the target. Paladin heals are really decent and they can be almost impossible to kill.

Shadowknights get both types of invis which is really useful for getting to people in dungeons, and feign death is HUGE in high-level PvP. Having a pet up is very useful even if it doesn't do any real damage, because it can interrupt non-channeling classes using clickies, and it'll show you exactly where someone is if they attack you from range/hiding or try to juke away. Shadowknights also get detect invis which paladins don't, and according to the p99 wiki spell list, rangers don't either; I remember them having the see invis spell later on, but it might have been added after Velious. Without that ability, you're a lot worse off against anyone who can invis or hide. It isn't easy to get from items until Kunark.

Ranger spell damage is ass pre-Kunark and they pretty much just rely on their melee damage for DPS, and their melee is ass as well. I think the best jousting weapon you can get is like a 20dmg bibs or something. Archery damage is mostly pitiful unless you somehow get the sky bow, and your bow really isn't something you can reliably kill with until Velious. To top it all off, rangers can't bash/slam or interrupt spells in any other way which is absolutely clutch for melees.

[Tarwine]

Real men play paladins.

[vinx]

Ranger spell damage is ass pre-Kunark and they pretty much just rely on their melee damage for DPS, and their melee is ass as well. I think the best jousting weapon you can get is like a 20dmg bibs or something. Archery damage is mostly pitiful unless you somehow get the sky bow, and your bow really isn't something you can reliably kill with until Velious. To top it all off, rangers can't bash/slam or interrupt spells in any other way which is absolutely clutch for melees.
Thats why i brought up the bow interupts.. not sure if that works in pvp here or not since i didnt get to witness any ranger duels on P99
rangers dont ever get see invis i dont think... wtb bracer of the hidden come kunark!

[Galacticus]

Rangers are not very good except for the fact that they have great tracking. It's just not a strong class yet, and there are hardly any decent 2handers that rangers can use pre-Kunark. That's gonna be a big problem in PvP, because jousting is really critical for warriors and hybrids. If they code the resists like classic, you can't rely on root/snare in the higher levels, and wailing on someone with a pair of ebony swords quadding for 20s really pales in comparison with a jousting tank who can smash you for 200 per round and move out of your melee range while weapon delay refreshes.

Rangers also lack a class power-skill. Paladins have lay hands and shadowknights have harmtouch. They can't be used often, but it makes a huge difference when you have it up.

There's a few pieces of key utility that can make a big difference.

Paladins get endure magic and cure poison/disease, as well as many more junk buffs than rangers and especially shadowknights. Stun and blind are insane before people get full resist gear while root and snare are somewhat less amazing because they don't really disable the target. Paladin heals are really decent and they can be almost impossible to kill.

Shadowknights get both types of invis which is really useful for getting to people in dungeons, and feign death is HUGE in high-level PvP. Having a pet up is very useful even if it doesn't do any real damage, because it can interrupt non-channeling classes using clickies, and it'll show you exactly where someone is if they attack you from range/hiding or try to juke away. Shadowknights also get detect invis which paladins don't, and according to the p99 wiki spell list, rangers don't either; I remember them having the see invis spell later on, but it might have been added after Velious. Without that ability, you're a lot worse off against anyone who can invis or hide. It isn't easy to get from items until Kunark.

Ranger spell damage is ass pre-Kunark and they pretty much just rely on their melee damage for DPS, and their melee is ass as well. I think the best jousting weapon you can get is like a 20dmg bibs or something. Archery damage is mostly pitiful unless you somehow get the sky bow, and your bow really isn't something you can reliably kill with until Velious. To top it all off, rangers can't bash/slam or interrupt spells in any other way which is absolutely clutch for melees.

Agreed

[Runya]

But on the gimp side damage-wise

[Bockscar]

Thats why i brought up the bow interupts.. not sure if that works in pvp here or not since i didnt get to witness any ranger duels on P99
rangers dont ever get see invis i dont think... wtb bracer of the hidden come kunark!

Bows don't interrupt any more than melee swings do, and since you land so few individual attacks with archery, it's pretty shit for interrupting. How many shots can you get off in the time it takes to cast an ice comet? Maybe two or at the very most three with a typical bow. Two or three melee attacks will not routinely interrupt a high-level caster, they'll channel right through it.

[Crenshinabon]

Thanks for tips so far guys, as far as interupts go if you are not a large race then using a 2hander neither sk or paladin gets one so ranger wins with kick for + little damage.

I can see where HT and LoH makes a huge huge difference in small pvp.

Also ranger can use the bibs.
Ahh I am so on the fence it is crazy. I think its gonna come down to how bow damage fairs in classic. Also if the bow can consistantly interupt. Anyone know a bit more info on bows on P99? Also I know on VZTZ it was pretty cool to chain spells with the bow CD. Can you still do that on P99? For example, i cast the ranger 100 damage nuke, then right after it finishes i hit bow attack into another spell. So I am chain shooting and casting for even better damage?

*Edit* Just saw the post before mine after I made this one! Can anyone confirm that bows do not interupt very well?

[Bockscar]

Also ranger can use the bibs.

That's what I said. And if bibs is the best PvP weapon for your class, you're just not gonna do very well considering all the other weaknesses of rangers.

[vinx]

Bows don't interrupt any more than melee swings do
this is true, or was on live
but the fact remains.. it DID interupt. not constantly but enough to annoy my druid and enough for my ranger to get in a killing blow

[Tombom]

Dwarf pally is what its all about bros

[Gnar]

rangers suck til kunark and velious period. any paladin or SK worth a damn could rape a ranger in classic. probably worst class to be other than a rogue in classic

[mitic]

as a ranger u got one thing that outplays the other 2 hybrids in certain situations: /autoattack off, hide, /autoattack on

(as long you dont play de sk)

[Tarwine]

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/522/kingbronze.jpg

[valithteezee]

I'll have to disagree with some of the ranger comments.

If you dual wield Ebony Bladed Swords casters will be scared shitless of you
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=282

[Tombom]

http://img833.imageshack.us/img833/522/kingbronze.jpg

king of the warrens? cool story lol you get killed by Ni..erudites on the reg

[lethdar]

as a ranger u got one thing that outplays the other 2 hybrids in certain situations: /autoattack off, hide, /autoattack on

(as long you dont play de sk)

Uh what, hide is a shadowknight skill, even ogres do it.

Also, yeah dude... go for it ranger dual wielding those... casters gonna be TERRIFIED.

[Cast]

TB (TomBom) please do not doubt bronze pally.

He is a king among his people. I kneel for such men.

[Titanuk]

TB (TomBom) please do not doubt bronze pally.

He is a king among his people. I kneel for such men.

wish u had vent recording of chasing him from Sro to lguk

[tmoneynegro]

rangers suck til kunark and velious period. any paladin or SK worth a damn could rape a ranger in classic. probably worst class to be other than a rogue in classic

Guess I'm making a ranger again just to piss Gnar off, never lost to a SK or Paladin before.

[Yukahwa]

I think a paladin is a better class for pre kunark and even for kunark really. You can actually be a main tank in a group and you have good survivability and get to be a dwarf.

[Aesop]

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/d/a/dae6a3f45eb3c1d3091ce7cb62d0be09.png

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/2/e/2ecd958f1447f86552ed32497f338a61.png

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/0/d/0de528f48d725eb31d1ccdfb9371c4eb.png

Are any of these available in classic? Granted we're talking items not available to your average bear here, but maybe some nerd wants to be shit on until he can get 'em.

[Yukahwa]

Even though I think a paladin is pretty much a better choice..rangers are the fashion queens of everquest so I think its a pretty stylish decision for a person to make. Give it a shot. Just remember that any ogre is like a super twinked elf right from the get go.

[mitic]

Even though I think a paladin is pretty much a better choice..rangers are the fashion queens of everquest so I think its a pretty stylish decision for a person to make. Give it a shot. Just remember that any ogre is like a super twinked elf right from the get go.

thats true, and they have the best looking epics imo

[vinx]

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/d/a/dae6a3f45eb3c1d3091ce7cb62d0be09.png

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/2/e/2ecd958f1447f86552ed32497f338a61.png

http://zam.zamimg.com/images/0/d/0de528f48d725eb31d1ccdfb9371c4eb.png

Are any of these available in classic? Granted we're talking items not available to your average bear here, but maybe some nerd wants to be shit on until he can get 'em.
scimmy does
flux axe does but you need to wait until fear opens
ashenbone doesnt

[Yukahwa]

Really every class paired with a good group of people and played well is a great class. People keep saying how bad rogues are on classic? Please. They do plenty of DPS and with a good little group a rogue is going to be a lethal caster executioner.

[Muaar]

That's the best thing about this game. Not all classes are 'balanced', but that makes the people who make them work all the more awesome.

[bakkily]

k what do you mean by jousting in pvp? or jousting in general?

[Bockscar]

k what do you mean by jousting in pvp? or jousting in general?

You... haven't heard of jousting? Might wanna keep that to yourself. People are gonna laugh you off the server. I thought even the bluest farmer knew what jousting was.

[valithteezee]

Rangers usually got outjousted by sk/pally/warrior until kunark/velious unless they landed a snare. Not sure why everyone thinks they suck though. I remember in kunark I had a ranger with centi-ls and wurmy and he hurt like a bastard.

[Bockscar]

No you didn't, centi longsword is a Luclin item. Snare can't be expected to land on anyone with proper gear, and this discussion is about pre-Kunark anyway.

[bakkily]

fine what ever, can just explain, but thanks for not wanting to answer, what ever

[bakkily]

k so i see what it means now, thanks, i figured it out myself =} still what ever bock

[lethdar]

Rangers usually got outjousted by sk/pally/warrior until kunark/velious unless they landed a snare. Not sure why everyone thinks they suck though. I remember in kunark I had a ranger with centi-ls and wurmy and he hurt like a bastard.

I remember when i had primal brawlstick on my lvl 30 classic monk in 1999, it was fucking awesome amirite?

[Bockscar]

k so i see what it means now, thanks, i figured it out myself =} still what ever bock

You're better off finding out by googling a guide. If I'd told you here in one or two sentences, you'd probably still have only a vague idea.

[valithteezee]

oh yeah, centi was luclin haha my B. Snare CAN be expected to land. What do you mean? It's got a very very low casting time and any ranger worth his salt is going to make sure he spams the hell out of it until it lands. Especially in the beginning people are not going to have MR resist items maxed.

[Crenshinabon]

Yea Valith thats what I was also thinking. Not to mention when it lands doesnt it last for minutes? Unlike root which you spam to have it stick finally for 4 seconds.

Also yea Bak, jousting is taking a big ass slow 2handed weapon and hitting someone with it then running away while swing timer is resetting, then running by them again for another large hit.

[lethdar]

Roll rangers bros, they're a powerful pvp class heh heh heh

[Bockscar]

oh yeah, centi was luclin haha my B. Snare CAN be expected to land. What do you mean? It's got a very very low casting time and any ranger worth his salt is going to make sure he spams the hell out of it until it lands. Especially in the beginning people are not going to have MR resist items maxed.

It depends how they code resists in the end, but assuming they try to get it as close to classic as possible and do a decent job of it, it's plenty possible for melees to get enough MR for spells like snare to virtually never land. If you want to spend the first 45 seconds of every fight trying to snare somebody, you're welcome to do so - you'll probably just die. Even if you do snare someone, you can't take any melee class toe to toe except maybe rogues, and most people will just pumice any root/snare that lands anyway.

The real problem with the ranger class is that it lacks raw power. They have lots of little tools and utility, but without the power to back it up, they're nothing. Unimpressive DPS, complete inability to do burst damage (jousting, big nukes, HT, melee crits, backstab etc.) and no real survivability the way paladins and priest classes have. Maybe if rangers were the ones with feign death instead of shadowknights, they'd have a place in high-end PvP. Since they don't have anything unique or valuable at all and lack an area of expertise worth mentioning, they're just the bottom-feeder class in classic.

[valithteezee]

Bock, I wholeheartedly agree man. Rangers get the bard syndrome in classic where they don't really excel at any one thing. But this isn't a BOTB competition where we are going to be 1vs 1 an SK in a joust match. People are going to be rolling around with crews so having a ranger around is going to be AWESOME. Rangers have insane utility, decent sustained dps, chain armor etc and are the best trackers. They have great synergy with bards and bow-kiting also. Hopefully there will be no MQ so a ranger will actually be needed. And in the off-chance that snare does land and it gets buried deep that's pretty awesome.

[Bockscar]

They don't have insane utility. The only thing they do well enough for anyone to care about is tracking, and any crew is gonna have a druid and bard anyway. Ranger spells are basically druid spells -20 levels and the only really valuable spell they have that pretty much every other caster doesn't have is SoW, again also provided by the two most overplayed classes.

What insane utility would you say rangers have that makes it worth taking a ranger over a druid or shadowknight, for instance?

[valithteezee]

I'm not adding resists into the mix really. Since from 1-40 nobody is going to have resist gear. 1-40 will be at least the first few weeks of the server and rangers can be pretty annoying with keeping people rooted/snared/dispelled all the time so i consider this utility. There's going to be a lot of casters without shit for resists so a ranger that's constantly in their face and making sure they are disabled is pretty powerful imo. They also aren't targeted in PVP like a druid would be and have considerably higher hp's than a druid. The ranger is probably going to be the last to be targeted as well so he can stay in the mix a bit longer.

I'm not saying in a 3vs3 it wouldn't be better to have another class, but I just think rangers are a bit underrated is all.

[Cast]

only read lethdars replies, definitely roll rangers dudes snare+melee will kill anyone, pretty sure you'll have flamelick and light healing too bros go get em

[Bockscar]

Any melee except monks can have 90-100MR by level 30 if they spend the extra time to get it instead of just sitting in one zone grinding endlessly. Most of the classic resist gear is shit like bs mantle, drt and JC items.

[Graym]

This thread is total horseshit. VZTZ was not even remotely similar to live and was a joke of a server because of changes they made which completely changed how PVP worked and instead of rewarding skill, rewarded people who played on VZTZ the longest with all too important magic resist gear. The vast majority of the "changes" screwed Rangers. In reality, on Live Rangers were the #1 or #2 best pvp class through Velious.

First big advantage, they could cast Spirit of the Wolf. On live you practically never got hit by an MR spell if your resist was 100 or higher which almost everyone on the server could easily obtain. Players routinely stacked their movement buffs at the bottom, Jboots / Spirit of the Wolf and there was a constant fight to debuff using the casted pumice stones (post nerf) versus people clicking items to keep their buffs up. Basically before engaging you could spend as long as you wanted constantly removing buffs until you got rid of that SoW. Sometimes it took me 10-15 minutes, but I started every fight SoW versus Jboots and even if someone removed my SoW I would immediately run away, throw up a couple junk buffs then recast it. Even the people using potions once the crap buffs hiding it were gone you could easily take it off again or interrupt the person trying to recast it. I always had the speed advantage in EVERY SINGLE FIGHT because of this and when you are trying to catch a running caster, or jousting with another melee, it's a HUGE advantage. Fights never went like this on VZTZ because with MR changed, and people rootable, snarable there is no reason to fight over the best Speed Buff.

Which goes to advantage #2. Fast dual wielding weapons. On Live, every melee hit caused a push of the caster. The further the caster was moved from the spot they started casting, the higher the interrupt rate was. Since Rangers didn't have any interrupt abilities like a Bash, they had to rely on fast hitting weapons to do it and their items were itemized that way. The Ranger only whip from the planes was one of the fastest items in game and if a Ranger was using it, it was extremely hard to get a cast off. The interrupt rate for Rangers on VZTZ was no where near where it was on live and part of the reason was the removal of physical push when a melee hit landed. On Live a caster would never sit there and try to channel a spell while being hit because it was nearly impossible against a dual wielding Ranger and they would quickly die yet on VZTZ standing still and channeling was ROUTINE and the vast majority of the time the caster would channel the spell even while getting hit the entire time they were casting........

The Ranger only Haste Cloak which I had on live was a clickable 50% haste. In Kunark my Ranger had self-buffed 90% haste with the fastest weapons in game. No caster on Vallon Zek tried to channel their spells through my melee or they died, very quickly.

Against melee's, Rangers had the speed advantage and for any good jouster that made the difference. The fact that Rangers could Heal, Nuke and toss up a damage shield meant they could easily beat any Melee one on one and if you always made sure to have the speed advantage you could always get away before you died if the battle was going against you. In my entire time on Vallon Zek from Pre-Kunark to mid-Velious (I gave away my account in Luclin) there were 5-6 classes that I never died to a single time, including Rogues, Necromancers and Druids and the main reason for it is simple, even if a rogue outjousted me they couldn't stop me from running away and all I had to do was quickly heal, track back to them and finish the job. As long as I maintained the speed advantage, there was nothing they could do.

However, how many people actually played Rangers before the Archery AA's? Pre-Kunark on Vallon Zek we only had what, 4 max level Rangers? Probably on all 3 PVP servers a total of 15 or so? Of those 15, how many were actually good at PVP? Maybe 2-3? So it's obvious why people think the class sucked when in reality they actually were the best pvp class for quite some time.

If these pvp servers would like to code the servers like the ORIGINAL pvp servers were coded and not take away pretty important details like melee interruption from pushing the characters and changing how MR works so that people had to joust where SoW was a big advantage as opposed to waiting on snares, roots, and stuns you would see that.

[Graym]

Another VZTZ Ranger nerf was Snare duration. It was a very effective way of dealing with pets because the Snare didn't wear off in the fight so it forced the Magician to deal with it as opposed to VZTZ where the snare would wear off the pet in very short order. This made pet classes in VZTZ quite a bit more powerful than they were supposed to be. Magicians were very easy kills for Rangers on live because of snare/ensnare and unlike players on Live where tracking occasionally bugged out, it NEVER bugged out on the pet so it was a 100% guarantee I could always find the Mage whenever I wanted.

It was also effective against heavily debuffed players in guild on guild pvp or if you ever stalemated someone who kept running, you could cast snare 100 times because if it lands ONCE it would last the full duration. The only class who could really take advantage of that was the Ranger because after if it landed the Ranger gets in melee and you can't dispell it. Most players would be forced to use pre-nerf pumice to get it off, so it didn't actually lead to a kill against them, but it did force them to strip their buffs to get it off. It was the only viable crowd control spell because Root would instantly wear off if it did manage to land on someone with high MR on Live although very few players on live ever bothered trying to Root because of how infrequently it landed. The reason it was worthwhile to cast snare was because regardless of how high your MR is if Snare miraculously landed it would not wear off, you either had to dispell it or die. Snares extremely long duration was a very HUGE advantage for Rangers on live servers that did not exist on VZTZ and while it usually only led to a full debuffing of a player because of egg-shaped pumices, it was always an extremely viable crowd control for pets.

Trueshot was also probably the best discipline in game against Casters. While nobody really got it until Kunark on Live, the Dark Cloak of the Sky (clickable 50% stackable haste, Ranger only) was a pre-Kunark item.

[Crenshinabon]

Anyone know if P99 or Red99 has pushback with melee?

[valithteezee]

Graym said what I couldn't. Although a lot of rangers power is POST classic, which is not what we are debating here, he proves some valid points. Rangers get those classic 5/17 whips which can interrupt a caster no problem. VTZT was very different from live.

[Giovanni]

One night, Mippo got drunk and told me the real reason rangers were the best pvp class in eq.

Forage


No one can outlast a ranger in a prolonged pvp fight. No one!

[Graym]

Another VZTZ Ranger nerf was Snare duration. It was a very effective way of dealing with pets because the Snare didn't wear off in the fight so it forced the Magician to deal with it as opposed to VZTZ where the snare would wear off the pet in very short order. This made pet classes in VZTZ quite a bit more powerful than they were supposed to be. Magicians were very easy kills for Rangers on live because of snare/ensnare and unlike players on Live where tracking occasionally bugged out, it NEVER bugged out on the pet so it was a 100% guarantee I could always find the Mage whenever I wanted.

It was also effective against heavily debuffed players in guild on guild pvp or if you ever stalemated someone who kept running, you could cast snare 100 times because if it lands ONCE the player was dead. The only class who could really take advantage of that was the Ranger because after if it landed the Ranger gets in melee and you can't dispell it. Good players would be forced to use pre-nerf pumice to get it off, so it didn't actually lead to a kill against them, but it was still a very cheap tactic solely available to Rangers because other MR spells like Root would instantly wear off if it did manage to land on someone with high MR on Live although very few players on live ever bothered trying to Root because of how infrequently it landed. The reason it was worthwhile to cast snare was because regardless of how high your MR is if Snare miraculously landed it would not wear off, you either had to dispell it or die. Snares extremely long duration was a very HUGE advantage for Rangers on live servers that did not exist on VZTZ.

[Giovanni]

Mage can insta dispel that sow, what's your next move?

[lethdar]

PLAY RANGERS BROS.

[Graym]

Mage can insta dispel that sow, what's your next move?

It didn't exactly take a lot of skill for a Ranger to kill a Magician on live. In fact, I never lost to either a Magician or a Necromancer on Live. Necromancers were better suited to play the Ranger to a draw if they were smart because they could keep their health up during a long fight with lifetaps, but the longer they stuck around the better the odds were the Ranger would break through and finish them off. Basically best case scenario for a Necromancer was getting away alive.

The game is a lot different when you can't rely on MR spells to finish players off. Classes that HAD ways to prevent an escape, even by luck, or heavy burst damage to get the job done were in best position to finish people off. Pet classes like Magicians and Necromancers didn't have any way of preventing the Ranger from kiting and unlike Necromancers, Magicians couldn't keep their health up so a Ranger slowly wearing down the Magician, even with old school archery / weak DoTs, would still get the kill and there was nothing the Magician could do about it. I think a lot of you played Magicians on VZTZ which was NOTHING like live PVP so you have this really skewed view of how it was. Not only did Magicians not have as good of a defense that the other casters had, their OFFENSE was not as good either. Unlike Wizards who could land spells, Magicians had more problems with resists than the other casters did.

Magicians were a nice addition to guild on guild pvp with damage shields on everyone and their pets buffed to the max and SoW'd. However, in normal one on one PVP Magicians were simply average to slightly above average. I would venture a guess quite a lot of you never played back then to know how things were. There is a reason a lot of the best magicians on Vallon Zek (like Caud) rerolled to other classes. They weren't this overpowered class that VZTZ made them out to be.

[Bockscar]

Sounds like you only ever did meaningless 1v1 outdoor PvP.

[Graym]

Sounds like you only ever did meaningless 1v1 outdoor PvP.

Ummm ok. I just don't think any of you claiming what you are claiming actually played on the old school PVP servers. Magicians had serious resist problems back in the day, ESPECIALLY in Kunark and Velious. Indoors, in small areas where people can LOS and there wasn't much room to move around, they got destroyed. There were many guild fights where our Magicians, especially in Kunark and Velious, were trying to debuff / protect their pets instead of Nuke because it was a far better use of their mana. Why do you even think Magicians got a resist debuff? HINT: It had to do with the resist rate of their spells.

Again, VZTZ was NOTHING like live. They changed the resist rates on that server drastically from what live was. Magicians were slightly above average pre-Kunark and went downhill in Kunark and Velious. In contrast, Hybrids continued getting stronger and were easily the top pvp classes in Velious.

[Titanuk]

ALL FEMALE HYBRID CLASSES SUCK

/thread

fix

[Giovanni]

Mages can bury their damage shield. You will kill yourself dual wielding against them.

[Graym]

Yeah and it's impossible to dispel. There is no way you played on a PVP server.

[vinx]

It didn't exactly take a lot of skill for a Ranger to kill a Magician on live. In fact, I never lost to either a Magician or a Necromancer on Live. Necromancers were better suited to play the Ranger to a draw if they were smart because they could keep their health up during a long fight with lifetaps, but the longer they stuck around the better the odds were the Ranger would break through and finish them off. Basically best case scenario for a Necromancer was getting away alive.

The game is a lot different when you can't rely on MR spells to finish players off. Classes that HAD ways to prevent an escape, even by luck, or heavy burst damage to get the job done were in best position to finish people off. Pet classes like Magicians and Necromancers didn't have any way of preventing the Ranger from kiting and unlike Necromancers, Magicians couldn't keep their health up so a Ranger slowly wearing down the Magician, even with old school archery / weak DoTs, would still get the kill and there was nothing the Magician could do about it. I think a lot of you played Magicians on VZTZ which was NOTHING like live PVP so you have this really skewed view of how it was. Not only did Magicians not have as good of a defense that the other casters had, their OFFENSE was not as good either. Unlike Wizards who could land spells, Magicians had more problems with resists than the other casters did.

Magicians were a nice addition to guild on guild pvp with damage shields on everyone and their pets buffed to the max and SoW'd. However, in normal one on one PVP Magicians were simply average to slightly above average. I would venture a guess quite a lot of you never played back then to know how things were. There is a reason a lot of the best magicians on Vallon Zek (like Caud) rerolled to other classes. They weren't this overpowered class that VZTZ made them out to be.
I played mage on VZ, and i would beg to differ on the 1v1 and group scenerio
1v1 mage rocks.. even 2v1
greater than that and you might as well gate.. if your pet gets rooted/mezzed you were done for without heals and roots

and you NEVER just stood there dispelling pets > nuking...chances are your pets going to get CCed.. you debuff first then spam quick nukes. takes to long and to much mana to summon a new and decent pet, so you need to be as fast as a wizard :p

sure a few got resisted but you could outnuke ranger heals. (couldnt outnuke shaman/druid/cleric heals without pet melee or stun)
and once debuffed melees were rooted by the earth pets

[deneauth]

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j156/ShVa6rA/3v3v3v3TournamentWinners2.jpg

http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j156/ShVa6rA/Serverwides.jpg

[Humerox]

I plan on playing a ranga. I'm a masochist. Besides, I can use it as an excuse...srsly.

YOU SUCK AT TEH PVP!

I"M A RANGA!

:D

[Galacticus]

Another VZTZ Ranger nerf was Snare duration. It was a very effective way of dealing with pets because the Snare didn't wear off in the fight so it forced the Magician to deal with it as opposed to VZTZ where the snare would wear off the pet in very short order. This made pet classes in VZTZ quite a bit more powerful than they were supposed to be. Magicians were very easy kills for Rangers on live because of snare/ensnare and unlike players on Live where tracking occasionally bugged out, it NEVER bugged out on the pet so it was a 100% guarantee I could always find the Mage whenever I wanted.

It was also effective against heavily debuffed players in guild on guild pvp or if you ever stalemated someone who kept running, you could cast snare 100 times because if it lands ONCE the player was dead. The only class who could really take advantage of that was the Ranger because after if it landed the Ranger gets in melee and you can't dispell it. Good players would be forced to use pre-nerf pumice to get it off, so it didn't actually lead to a kill against them, but it was still a very cheap tactic solely available to Rangers because other MR spells like Root would instantly wear off if it did manage to land on someone with high MR on Live although very few players on live ever bothered trying to Root because of how infrequently it landed. The reason it was worthwhile to cast snare was because regardless of how high your MR is if Snare miraculously landed it would not wear off, you either had to dispell it or die. Snares extremely long duration was a very HUGE advantage for Rangers on live servers that did not exist on VZTZ.

While you are prolly right about VZTZ, you are having some serious illusions of grander for rangers in Kunark and velious. I too played a ranger but I Know half the shit your saying is bullshit.

You said if someone dispelled your sow you would just run away. How did you do that without sow? Chances are you relied on sow while others had Jboots and they would never let you run away.

Ranger pushback from weapons made rangers able to stop casters casting? If that were true, war, rogue and monk all would be better at this then a ranger. What stopped casters from casting was bash. You were lucky in live to even touch a good caster let alone just have him stand there while he tried to cast on you. That's why you use 2h Most of the time unless your target is snared, so when you do get that second and a half to hit the caster , your doing the most damage. A caster will run run run until he has the advantage to cast on you because he hillbugged or turned the corner over the hill or something.

You really don't remember resists ? 100 mr makes 8/10 snares resist. That was a fact.

Necromancers getting owned by rangers? You act like the ranger is gonna land all his snares and the necro won't.

Some serious memory lapse issues or you just dont know much about why you owned noobs that couldn't play their class right.

[tmoneynegro]

Ranger pushback from weapons made rangers able to stop casters casting? If that were true, war, rogue and monk all would be better at this then a ranger. What stopped casters from casting was bash.

This is wrong. When I tested with monk epic (9/16 fists) + 40% haste + monk epic haste up against a 60 necro during velious, he would have a hard time getting off a lifetap as I hit him with dual wield and no slam. We estimated a 3-4% chance to interrupt per hit from the push. All in all, it seemed like there was at least a 50% interrupt rate from swinging that much.




You really don't remember resists ? 100 mr makes 8/10 snares resist. That was a fact.

I pvp'd 1 vs 2-30 with only 120MR during velious and never got rooted unless I got tashed. The tash had a 50% bonus to debuff or whatever on SZ.

[lethdar]

Yeah and it's impossible to dispel. There is no way you played on a PVP server.

It is impossible to dispell against a competent prepared player unless you're gonna wand it off.

Moron.

[Titanuk]

lol@ team ranger

[Bockscar]

We should encourage his ambitions of PvPing with an ultra-fast 4dmg weapon. He knows what he's doing.

[Galacticus]

This is wrong. When I tested with monk epic (9/16 fists) + 40% haste + monk epic haste up against a 60 necro during velious, he would have a hard time getting off a lifetap as I hit him with dual wield and no slam. We estimated a 3-4% chance to interrupt per hit from the push. All in all, it seemed like there was at least a 50% interrupt rate from swinging that much.





I pvp'd 1 vs 2-30 with only 120MR during velious and never got rooted unless I got tashed. The tash had a 50% bonus to debuff or whatever on SZ.


Tash never had a bonus. It was good by itself. Your also comparing a monk in VELIOUS with bard haste from the epic against a Kunark ranger. In velious monks could also triple attack like warriors and flying kick. Thats way way way more then a Kunark ranger could put dish out and way faster. What 9/16 weapons u gonna find in Kunark for a ranger?

[Palemoon]

He means that eventually when resists got very high, one of the things Verant did to help out casters was make all of the resist debuff type spells (malo/tash/etc) debuff for 50 percent more in pvp.

It helped somewhat, and I imagine debuffs here will evolve that way too (if it follows "classic" )

[Galacticus]

He means that eventually when resists got very high, one of the things Verant did to help out casters was make all of the resist debuff type spells (malo/tash/etc) debuff for 50 percent more in pvp.

It helped somewhat, and I imagine debuffs here will evolve that way too (if it follows "classic" )

Ahh that wasn't clear to me.

[Graym]

While you are prolly right about VZTZ, you are having some serious illusions of grander for rangers in Kunark and velious. I too played a ranger but I Know half the shit your saying is bullshit.

You said if someone dispelled your sow you would just run away. How did you do that without sow? Chances are you relied on sow while others had Jboots and they would never let you run away.

Ranger pushback from weapons made rangers able to stop casters casting? If that were true, war, rogue and monk all would be better at this then a ranger. What stopped casters from casting was bash. You were lucky in live to even touch a good caster let alone just have him stand there while he tried to cast on you. That's why you use 2h Most of the time unless your target is snared, so when you do get that second and a half to hit the caster , your doing the most damage. A caster will run run run until he has the advantage to cast on you because he hillbugged or turned the corner over the hill or something.

You really don't remember resists ? 100 mr makes 8/10 snares resist. That was a fact.

Necromancers getting owned by rangers? You act like the ranger is gonna land all his snares and the necro won't.

Some serious memory lapse issues or you just dont know much about why you owned noobs that couldn't play their class right.

You obviously did not play on a PVP server back in the day, or you were one of those players who always got killed because they sucked yet want to blame it on the class. First off, EVERYONE worth a shit in PVP had Jboots, including Rangers. If you debuffed a Ranger's SoW, Jboots went up.

Secondly, 100 MR was not 8 in 10 resists, it was more like 99%. The resist rate was high enough that for specific classes that NEEDED their mana to kill people, like casters, they couldn't try to spam snare spells because the risk vs reward ratio was just not worth it. Rangers were different because unlike Necromancers and Druids that rely on mana to kill people, Rangers didn't rely on their mana for kills. Recasting a SoW is irrelevant to a Ranger and it's easy to get back on *IF* somebody was able to get it off.

Yes, anyone could use a potion but who is in the best position to keep their SoW on? The Ranger with 397427997342 useless buffs to throw it 15 deep, or other classes with only 1-5 buffs to protect it. All of those worthless buffs Rangers had were worthless on normal servers, but on PVP servers it meant Rangers could completely protect their most important buffs with TONS of protection at the top. Other classes could not do that self-buffed. Without resorting to egg-shaped Pumices, the Ranger would almost always win that debuffing battle and under normal circumstances, always had the speed advantage in every fight. If someone actually did get the Rangers SoW off first, then you can simply put on Jboots and run around until you lose your opponent or create enough space to recast SoW, which wasn't that hard to do.

[Graym]

It is impossible to dispell against a competent prepared player unless you're gonna wand it off.

Moron.

This is yet another person who obviously did not play on a PVP server and it's completely false for two reasons.

1) Dispells could be resisted. The way the spell worked was it would check against the top spell on the list BUT if that spell resisted, it would check the next spell down. The resist rate was low, but it was possible to cast a dispell on someone and instead of it taking the top spell it could also bypass the junk buffs on top and take off a spell in the middle or on the bottom. Trust me, I remember being EXTREMELY annoyed when that shit would happen. The difference being that a Magician recasting a damage shield, if he can get it off without interruption which is no guarantee, costs WAY MORE MANA then a Ranger recasting his buffs, especially SoW.

Most quality players always kept the top spots empty so that they could dispell DoTs when they landed. Some good players even knew this so they would first cast a shitty DoT THEN their good DoT to try to get it underneath all the buffs. With a low cast time on dispell, it was nearly impossible to defend all your buffs with everything going on. For example, I could snare/DoT the pet so that every DoT tick the Pet would run towards me. The Mage either needs to dispell that DoT taking up time where he is not focused on defending his buffs, or pay 100% attention to his pet because if the pet got out of range of his orders to stay back, it would continue following me anywhere in the zone and I could kill it. A good Magician would recast the pet and send their old pet away when I was gone, but then you're losing a significant amount of mana recasting the new pet. Or, chain casting dispells you could simply catch the Magician in the middle of a long casting spell and he can't get his junk buffs up in time before the 2nd dispell lands.

It was basically impossible to do what you are claiming and you're forgetting the most important part.

2) Everyone worth a shit had egg-shaped Pumices. Instant cast dispells that were rechargable on the server. Let's say you were one of the ~5% competent Magicians that managed to do all of the multi-tasking required of a Magician and still got lucky and could keep the damage shield up, I could still take it off instantly with an egg-shaped Pumice and there was nothing you could do about it. Whenever I fought a Magician inside of a dungeon, I always used egg-shaped Pumices on damage shields because with how fast I hit, I would die to them. An egg-shaped Pumice on the damage shield, then stick to the Magician like glue, he'll never be able to recast it before dying.

I even had players on Vallon Zek chain cast egg-shaped pumices on me solely to remove my Jboots for the .2 seconds before I reclicked it so they could slightly catch up and try to get in a hit in. Slamz did that shit all the time to me.

Put egg-shaped pumices on the PVP server and allow them to be recharged just like how it was on the old Zeks and we'll see how well you can keep your damage shield up. Basically, it's impossible.

[Graym]

With the interrupt rate that was in the game at the time, it was nearly impossible for someone to get off a spell when I was hitting them. In Kunark my Ranger had 90% self-buffed haste on Vallon Zek. Think about it for a second, 90% self-buffed haste with ridiculously fast weapons. If I was on you, you did not get a cast off, period. It was very rare for someone to be able to channel a spell and only if I got to them right near the end of it. The channeling rate was nearly 0% if I was hitting you at or near the start of your casting. Any good caster on Vallon Zek, If I got to them in the middle of a cast they would immediately break their cast and run. NOBODY ever tried to channel casts, and if they did, they usually died very quickly. It was a losing strategy. The interrupt rate on melee was very high.

Again, reputation from Rangers on normal servers affected people's decisions to play Rangers on the PVP servers but certain spells that were USELESS on a normal server, were extremely useful on PVP servers. The amount of useless buffs Rangers had meant they could stack all of the important buffs deep and they had tons of pvp utility. A lot of their spells were lesser versions of other classes but a lot of those spells had a lot of PVP utility. For example, cure poison is useless on a normal server, but it meant a Ranger could always immediately remove tash when it was cast on him unlike the vast majority of other classes. Rangers had low resist rate, low damage DoTs which are useless on normal servers, but meant a Ranger could cast it on himself to break mez and cast it on Pets to repeatedly try to pull them away. In Jousting, Rangers had a Regen buff which was huge. Look how much of an advantage Troll Warriors had in PVP simply because of their racial regen bonus. You guys had a very skewed reality of Rangers when in Kunark they were easily the top PVP class. I'd only put Shadowknights ahead of them in Velious.

[Galacticus]

I assume you are not trolling because your posts are so long.

You aren't grasping the idea that we are talking about classic and Kunark. I bet you didn't even get to 50 before Kunark came out.

Some of what you say is true but wouldn't be for this server. Everyone having jboots is going to take months after the server starts.

I have killed alot of rangers as well as played one to 65 and rolled with alot of them. They are way more powerful in velious and are the powerhouse you somewhat describe but this server won't release as velious or even Kunark.

[Galacticus]

Go look at the wiki for the fastest ranger 1h weapons you can get before 50 and explain how those are so fast u can stop casters with mega pushback...

[Graym]

Because the interrupt rate was very high per hit against high level spells. There was not a flat rate on interrupting a spell with melee. The formula took into account the skill level of the spell being cast and the channeling level of the player and another factor was the location at the start and finish of the spell. That's why melee classes with little to no channeling spell easily got interrupted when casting Crystallized Pumice. Usually just one hit would interrupt a Warrior using a Crystallized Pumice, another huge advantage hybrids had.

The higher the skill level of the spell being cast, the better the chance of interrupt was. That's why casters who would cast Gate could sometimes channel through 15 hits and still get the spell off on occasion, but get hit just 5-7 times and interrupt nearly 100% of their highest level spells. Nobody worth their shit in PVP ever tried to channel spells through fast melee because the vast majority of the time it led to an interrupt and heavy damage taken by the caster. Just a few hits against a high level nuke and it was all that was needed to interrupt it so in some cases the interrupt rate per hit was EASILY over 15% per hit.

[Ravenlof]

I assume you are not trolling because your posts are so long.

You aren't grasping the idea that we are talking about classic and Kunark. I bet you didn't even get to 50 before Kunark came out.

Some of what you say is true but wouldn't be for this server. Everyone having jboots is going to take months after the server starts.

I have killed alot of rangers as well as played one to 65 and rolled with alot of them. They are way more powerful in velious and are the powerhouse you somewhat describe but this server won't release as velious or even Kunark.

agreed

[Humerox]

only the most masochistic, the hardcore of hardcore, the quintessential underdogs, will be playing Rangers.

like me.

:D

[Palemoon]

The higher the skill level of the spell being cast, the better the chance of interrupt was. That's why casters who would cast Gate could sometimes channel through 15 hits and still get the spell off on occasion, but get hit just 5-7 times and interrupt nearly 100% of their highest level spells. Nobody worth their shit in PVP ever tried to channel spells through fast melee because the vast majority of the time it led to an interrupt and heavy damage taken by the caster. Just a few hits against a high level nuke and it was all that was needed to interrupt it so in some cases the interrupt rate per hit was EASILY over 15% per hit.

There is no way this is right.

[Nirgon]

Dispel getting resisted. lol.

[Doors]

Ogre SK > rest

[Graym]

There is no way this is right.

It very much is right. In fact, the interrupt rate on spells was one of the biggest factors in determining who won the Cleric Best of the Best and was a very large complaint from participants. Even CLERIC MELEE was enough to interrupt spells from being cast and depending on LUCK as to who channeled and who didn't, it helped determine the winners. Some Clerics were getting interrupt rates as high as 80% from opposing Clerics only hitting them a few times. Clerics don't exactly hit that fast.

http://www.afterlifeguild.org/Thott/BotB.php

The randomness concept was most obvious at the cleric BotB. Arele fought another cleric, and both were hitting the other during CH to interrupt. Every time Arele hit, the other channelled. Every time the other hit, Arele didn't. Chance to channel is completely random. There is no skill involved. Chance to hit with a weapon is again, completely random. The only thing that helps in this case is time spent obtaining equipment, since there is no way to practice channeling (beyond gaining levels and in game skill points, which I assume are all at max for every participant). Without equipment to somehow differentiate those that prepared for years and those that prepared for months, it would come down to who gets the best die rolls. Even with an equipment advantage, sometimes it does anyway.

If Clerics were getting interrupted that much from other Clerics, and Clerics hit pretty slow, I don't get why you would think fast hitting Rangers wouldn't have a very high interrupt rate? As I said, against high level spells, 5-7 hits usually was near 100% interrupt rate. If you find any old videos of PVP with casters and melee, I'm pretty sure you'll see what I said is true. Casters rarely ever tried to channel a spell unless it was right near the end of the cast because the interrupt rate was so high they usually never got it off and only ended up taking high amounts of melee damage while standing still. The only casters who ever tried to channel spells on the Zeks were the really bad ones who died to everyone.

[lethdar]

Holy random garbage batman, troll status confirmed.

PS pal, next time just say "i spammed OP insta pumice on int casters to get rid of DS" don't pretend you were doing anything skillful.

[Palemoon]

Graym, is what you are saying apply to mobs/pets too, or just when another PC hits you?

[Graym]

Graym, is what you are saying apply to mobs/pets too, or just when another PC hits you?

No, mobs have different skill levels then Players. They also made specific changes to some formulas that only affect PVP.

[Scribbles]

graym aka roachthewarhero aka wehrmacht aka bad troll/pvper

[Graym]

Regardless of which expansion or area you want to focus on, things keep getting skewed in favor of casters.

For example, pre-Kunark Pet Control was HORRIBLE. In fact, there were MULTIPLE patches that kept trying to fix it. It was a very easy and viable strategy to separate the Magician from his pet. However, these emulator servers are not going back to the horrible control issues that existed Pre-Kunark. That's a pretty huge advantage for pet users on these emulators that did not exist on the live servers.

The most retarded change that was made? On VZTZ they allowed pets to zone with their casters. On live servers, one of the BIGGEST DISADVANTAGES of pet classes was the fact that pets DIED upon zoning. If somebody zoned over, which was common enough that there is a thread about "disconnecting when zoning" stickied in these very forums, Magicians were at a huge disadvantage because they no longer had their pets.

Pet's also had MULTIPLE damage nerfs applied to them in PVP, pets on VZTZ hit better and harder then they ever did on the live pvp servers. If you want to sit here and reminisce about the old times, then treat the classes fairly. Pet classes had shitty control of their pets and pet classes could not zone with their pets, both of which were huge disadvantages in PVP that you conveniently ignore.

[Graym]

graym aka roachthewarhero aka wehrmacht aka bad troll/pvper

Yeah except that I was the top Ranger in the best guild on Vallon Zek during the expansions in question. I think that kind of puts me in a better position to comment on these things, especially considering if Rangers sucked so bad how come nobody posting here, many of which played on Vallon Zek, were never able to kill me? The only person I've ever seen post here or on the VZTZ forums that ever killed me was Karsten, who only managed it one time from a harm touch late in Velious right before I quit the server. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

[Darksinga]

charm also poofed pets, so for Christ sakes implement that.

[canardvc]

Young doctor confirmed

[Graym]

charm also poofed pets, so for Christ sakes implement that.

Yeah, there's a reason there was a lot of Enchanters.

[Graym]

self proclaimed best ranger on vallon, not one person on these forums agrees with you, nobody even thinks your good except urself..

even the trash players here have friends who stand behind there "skill" ... and nobody will ever take anything you say seriously

Well, opinions don't equal reality. Ten years later bad players remember themselves as being good and seem to use selective memory when recalling events. It's not exactly a surprising outcome. I was the top Ranger in Prophets on Vallon Zek, and the top Ranger in Afterlife on Mithaniel Marr.

Maybe it's just a weird coincidence I was the top Ranger in 2 of the best guilds that ever played the game. Maybe I just got lucky, right place, right time?

[Lord Binky]

worst player on sullon zek checking in. gonna choke the server with my corpses

[canardvc]

Well, opinions don't equal reality. Ten years later bad players remember themselves as being good

I was the top Ranger in Prophets on Vallon Zek, and the top Ranger in Afterlife on Mithaniel Marr
Top ranger quotes too

[lethdar]

Just realized this delusional fellow is none other than mippo from vztz! Too lazy to look through the old posts but he used to cry about how casters were overpowered because he would eat 3 ice comets in a row on 1 root (too bad to dispell himself even on a class that could mem cancel magic) and proved himself to be incapable of basic math.

[canardvc]

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/attachments/mmorpg-general-discussion/158717d1292122363-new-p1999-no-hax-emu-non-mippo.jpg

[Bockscar]

People who proclaim themselves the best rarely are.

[canardvc]

I haven't been as lazy as Lethdar. You can start reading from this page on for much fun. There's like 10 pages of it

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/43540-new-p1999-no-hax-emu-103.html

[Graym]

Just realized this delusional fellow is none other than mippo from vztz! Too lazy to look through the old posts but he used to cry about how casters were overpowered because he would eat 3 ice comets in a row on 1 root (too bad to dispell himself even on a class that could mem cancel magic) and proved himself to be incapable of basic math.

Because I didn't try in PVP, as posted repeatedly on those forums. I joined the server without realizing the huge changes in PVP that they made. I just figured it would be a good waste of time and I could try to help the FOH forum guys out in PVP. If I would've known how badly they screwed up PVP, I never would've joined. Since I spent the time leveling, I wanted to try to get them to fix the bullshit changes they made but after realizing how impossible that task was I quit. The only reason I even pvped was simply to make observations about the changes in PVP to try to get them fixed on the forums.

There is no point in a skilled player playing in an environment that does not reward skill in PVP. That's why every skilled player that I know that played on that server, quit very shortly thereafter. The server was filled with second rate PVPers who couldn't hack it on the live servers but loved the emulator because PVP rewarded longevity (most magic resist gear) as opposed to skill. Suddenly players like Lethdar who routinely died on Live servers could actually KILL PEOPLE......

Yeah, sorry for not caring about that server.

[beentheredonethat]

i played a ranger to 40 something back in classic (live). It was a lot of fun actually, I was dual wielding. All the fun utility spells that I wanted, at 39 you get sow too, which is finally nice to no longer beg for.

Never played a paladin, can't comment. They seem fun though.

[Graym]

I haven't been as lazy as Lethdar. You can start reading from this page on for much fun. There's like 10 pages of it

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/mmorpg-general-discussion/43540-new-p1999-no-hax-emu-103.html

Arguments with James are always fun. The only reason James was even a member of Twelve Prophets is because he was real life friends with Taelon, one of the leaders in the guild. In fact, it's a MAIN REASON the guild split up because so many people hated James but nobody could do shit about it because of Taelon.

[Graym]

dispelling root is too hard

It's obviously not. The point is that root should not be an integral part of a PVP fight. Rather then understand it's a valid point, you choose to call me a "noob" for pointing out the stupidity of the pvp system you guys chose to use on that server.

[Darksinga]

it is if your an earth elemental pet is on you and you're a pure melee. Or if you get sup stunned ;p

[Graym]

Since people seem to be surprised that the interrupt was so high, I actually went and found an archive of a developer chat discussing interrupts here.

http://www.thesteelwarrior.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-14831.html

Relevant developer responses:

For the purposes of channeling, kick is basically a bash. It just has a flat (high) chance to interrupt casting. Channeling doesn't get used when kicked. No change here.

Question:

If I get hit by a normal swing and movement takes place I have to make 2 channeling checks one for the hit and one for the movement it generates?

Developer Response:

Not quite. If you move more than what is allowed, you just fail the cast. No channeling check takes place there. Moving too much during the casting process simply interrupts your spell unless you're a bard. If you didn't move far enough for it to matter, then you'd make the channeling roll to see if you continue casting. Again, no change here.

Question:

I also have another question each hit generates a channeling check so if a mob quads on me and hits me 4 times. I know make 4 channeling check vs each hit and a channeling check vs the movement they generated? So my chance of passing any one check is 90%, but the chance of passing all 4 is what 64% or something. Going to be hard to channel spell if 2 or 3 mobs hit you that for sure.

Developer Response:

Correct, for each hit you take, you make the roll. The more you're getting hit, the harder it is to continue casting a spell.

Question:

I also trust Prathun's description of movement interrupts; I'm surprised, though, because it's inconsistent with my anecdotal experience of a more probabilistic thing. That is, he says it's "X distance = interrupt," whereas my experience has seemed... softer. You move a little, maybe you get interrupted, maybe not. You move a lot, odds are, interrupt. You run in a big circle and come right back, and if you're close enough, you just might channel. How big is X distance, anyway?

Developer Response:

You're right. I just took another look at it and there is some wiggle room in there. If you move more than a few inches, but less than what it takes to automatically break the spell (which is about 1 foot), you get a channeling check to keep the spell. So to answer the other person's question, if you moved a little, but not enough to automatically lose the spell, and got hit at the same time, that would be two channeling checks you'd have to succeed to keep the spell. That'd be why sticking your back up against a wall helps you get spells off easier.

Which is exactly what I've been saying and that last developer quote is why. A spell has a 100% rate of interruption if the character is moved too far during casting which Rangers and their very fast hits, routinely did. My interrupt rate pre-Kunark was not as high as it was in Kunark but it was still very high. Enough so that no caster would stand still and try to channel. That also doesn't take into account levitation, which increased the rate of interrupt considerably. In fact, based on where on the terrain you were, on occasion you could get an interrupt while levitating without even moving your character during the cast. The absolute worst place in game to try to cast a spell was underwater with ridiculously high levels of interrupts because of the character movement.

[Nirgon]

Funny, I remember on live that you could start a cast in a corner, run all over the place and it would cast just fine when you returned to the corner with no message of regaining concentration.

In b4 no.

[Graym]

Funny, I remember on live that you could start a cast in a corner, run all over the place and it would cast just fine when you returned to the corner with no message of regaining concentration.

In b4 no.

Yeah, depending on how far you ran away and how close you got to the exact spot that you started the cast then yes, it is true. However, there was definitely a limit to how far you could move before it interrupted. More importantly, it has absolutely nothing to do with PVP because getting moved by being hit forces another channeling check from the hit itself in addition to the movement.

On very rare occasion I saw it done on the live PVP servers but the interrupt rate was still ridiculously high, high enough that it wasn't worth trying it. Usually when casters tried it, it was for a spell like Gate as they were trying to get out just before dying.

[Bockscar]

It all has to do with the /loc you're at when you start and finish the cast. That's why you can get off a spell even if you run around while actually casting it, as long as you finish it in the exact same spot you started. When in a corner, that's pretty easy because you're guaranteed to be in the same spot. You can start casting CH in a corner, frolick around like a French person for nine seconds, and then squeeze back into the corner just before the spell finishes. It'll always work, assuming you do it right. Anyone with a bit of smarts will just go and stand in that corner so you can't get back to the same loc to finish the cast, of course.

You could theoretically do it without a corner, but the odds of hitting the exact same loc by sheer aim are pretty much nil. You can occasionally get close enough that it allows a channeling check, but it's not consistent enough to be worth trying in any serious situation. You can also cast certain very fast spells like Yaulp while running at base speed, because the spell is so fast that you don't run far enough during its cast to guarantee failure. It just gives you a really difficult channeling check instead.

What you can easily do to counter melee pushback is take a tap-step towards the attacker. With a bit of practice and attentiveness, you can usually negate most of the push and get an easier channeling check.

[Graym]

It all has to do with the /loc you're at when you start and finish the cast. That's why you can get off a spell even if you run around while actually casting it, as long as you finish it in the exact same spot you started. When in a corner, that's pretty easy because you're guaranteed to be in the same spot. You can start casting CH in a corner, frolick around like a French person for nine seconds, and then squeeze back into the corner just before the spell finishes. It'll always work, assuming you do it right. Anyone with a bit of smarts will just go and stand in that corner so you can't get back to the same loc to finish the cast, of course.

You could theoretically do it without a corner, but the odds of hitting the exact same loc by sheer aim are pretty much nil. You can occasionally get close enough that it allows a channeling check, but it's not consistent enough to be worth trying in any serious situation. You can also cast certain very fast spells like Yaulp while running at base speed, because the spell is so fast that you don't run far enough during its cast to guarantee failure. It just gives you a really difficult channeling check instead.

What you said is correct, but there is a distinct difference between trying this in PVE and PVP.

1) PVP has additional channeling checks from the hits / damage and the damage by itself can cause interrupts.
2) A caster using Levitate, which a lot of casters do in PVP, increases the odds of an interrupt from additional movement.
3) Standing in the corner and trying to channel spells through melee is not a viable PVP strategy so we can assume 99.9% of PVP will involve a random location where it is hard to find the exact spot and not simply a corner as in your test situation.
4) The interrupt rate also increases with higher level spells. The higher the level of the spell, the more likely it will be interrupted.

What you can easily do to counter melee pushback is take a tap-step towards the attacker. With a bit of practice and attentiveness, you can usually negate most of the push and get an easier channeling check.

This is where I will disagree with you and Foxx. Casters who stood still and tried to channel spells against me were the easiest kills. Yes, moving forward to counter the push is theoretically your best chance at channeling the spell however the interrupt rate is STILL HIGH enough that it's a losing strategy. Your risk is the damage you took while trying to cast the spell, and potential reward is if you actually channel the spell through the two checks. More often then not, the spell will still get interrupted and you took heavy damage trying to cast. It might not be the 100% interrupt rate people who get moved too far get, but it's still high enough that this is a losing strategy. As I posted, the ONLY TIME this was used was when someone was in a desperate situation and needed to try to channel something like a gate before they died or get off a heal on a groupmate. While Foxx likes to think this meant "skill" in PVP, the reality is the opposite, this strategy is something to be aware of for when you need to get off that desperate gate, but not something to do on a regular basis as you're implying. It's something that sounds good to people who probably never played on a PVP server, but you wouldn't find too many casters doing that on the old school Zek servers.

It simply makes far more sense, if you are getting hit early on in your cast, to cancel the cast and run away so you can try to lose the melee chasing you long enough to get the cast off without getting hit. Why risk your health in order to have a low chance at channeling a spell? It's a losing strategy. The whole point was simply to show how interrupts are calculated which helps to explain why Rangers had such high interrupt rates. It wasn't just the hits / damage, but the additional interruption caused by constantly moving your opponent during their cast.

[dogbarf]

Kick was only ever a bash for warriors. Rangers kick didn't interrupt for shit.

[Galacticus]

I would like to hear how casters casted spells at all in pvp if they got interrupted so easily.

I think your also not factoring channeling skill, and the higher you got that skill, the more hits you could take and still complete a cast.

I could be wrong but i don't remember being pushed around because of Melee hits. I remember the only people who could move you were bards clerics pally and Druids who had spells that would move your character back a foot or two.


Also, I remember you couldn't cast on people in the water because you couldn't see your target, so casters would cast a nuke then run in the water to heal so u couldn't cast on them. There was no movement in the water that made it hard to cast.

Levitate was used all the time. It never increased your possibility to have your spell interrupted. I played my necro with dmf and had it up all the time with no interupts or spell fails. Even on my Druid I would farm bat wings to cast levitate myself just because I thought it was cool looking to float around while I healed groups.

If it fucked with spells, no one would use it for pvp or pve.

[Galacticus]

Also the devs you quoted don't confirm the % that the people refer to when asking questions, simply the concept.

[Graym]

Kick was only ever a bash for warriors. Rangers kick didn't interrupt for shit.

Yeah, don't think anyone was claiming that it was. As I said a few pages back, Rangers had fast melee through itemization because they didn't have any specific ability to interrupt (like bash) and had to rely on melee hits to do it.

[Graym]

I would like to hear how casters casted spells at all in pvp if they got interrupted so easily.

I think your also not factoring channeling skill, and the higher you got that skill, the more hits you could take and still complete a cast.

Everything we are talking about has to do with channeling. In fact the lack of channeling is why pure melee were very routinely interrupted with a single hit if they tried to cast an item spell like Crystallized pumice. As for how casters casted spells, it depends on the class they are playing against. A slow hitting class like a Paladin or a Shadowknight is not going to be able to push interrupt anywhere near the success rate of a fast hitting melee class like a Ranger or Rogue. That's why they get skills like Bash to compensate however those skills did miss.

The fact of the matter is though that casters were able to get off spells by taking advantage of terrain and losing the melee following them. All it takes is for the melee to get turned around for a few seconds so the caster can get the cast off without getting hit. Running around objects like trees, levitating off hilltops (the melee had to line up the Z axis EXACTLY underneath in order to land a hit if they didn't have levitate). Most importantly, in old school PVP players tended to ghost. That was the main way they got spells off. Everquest had a funky way of trying to predict where a player would be, and if you confused the client, your character would ghost and it would appear to your opponent you are running in a different direction. For a melee, that was horseshit because by the time it corrected the caster had the cast going and you wouldn't even get there in time to interrupt it.

Rangers had an advantage against ghosting in that tracking usually recorded the correct direction of the player as long as they stayed close. Sometimes if a player got too far away it would bug out tracking but not all the time. Tracking pets almost never bugged out either, even full on across zones. Some people were very skilled at sticking on a caster and some weren't. I ALWAYS had tracking running against the person I was fighting so even if I lost someone for a split second, I'd immediately get an update as to which direction they were in. On these emulators I'm sure the vast majority of people are cheating, but back in the day tracking was a big advantage for Rangers so to answer your question, casters got off spells by kiting the melee around and getting to a spot where they could cast without getting hit. Some casters were really good at it, just like some melee were really good at sticking on a caster and you could definitely tell the difference between the good players and the bad.

I could be wrong but i don't remember being pushed around because of Melee hits. I remember the only people who could move you were bards clerics pally and Druids who had spells that would move your character back a foot or two.

You are wrong, melee pushed characters just like it routinely pushed raid bosses into trees.

Levitate was used all the time. It never increased your possibility to have your spell interrupted. I played my necro with dmf and had it up all the time with no interupts or spell fails. Even on my Druid I would farm bat wings to cast levitate myself just because I thought it was cool looking to float around while I healed groups.

If it fucked with spells, no one would use it for pvp or pve.

Well, levitate does not cause a recalculation of the location if you don't move so if you simply float in place, it's perfectly fine. However, that's not what we are talking about here. The good part, and why people still use levitate is because it provides a distinct advantage over a melee class because it's harder to match up the Z axis to hit someone among other advantages. It's still worthwhile to use. I think the problem here is that people don't realize how PVP used to work back in the day. Casters rarely ever stood still and tried to channel a spell, only the worst of the worst on the server did that. The majority of the skilled casters were excellent kiters that used the terrain to their advantage and were good at getting their characters to ghost. Most of the casts they got off without getting hit, or only getting hit at the very end of the cast. The problem with VZTZ was that the interrupt rate was so far off from how it was on the live servers, and with the addition of crowd control spells like Root working, the gameplay was completely different then how it was on live servers.

[Jessie]

So after 13 pages of forum posts, are you trying to tell us that you are rolling a ranger?

[tmoneynegro]

graym aka roachthewarhero aka wehrmacht aka bad troll/pvper

dude, are you stupid

Mippo (ie:graym) doesn't = wehrmacht

You would need full blown down syndrome to believe that.

With both people online at the same time, both playing rangers, that's a hell of a conspiracy theory to 2box rangers.

The only person I've ever seen post here or on the VZTZ forums that ever killed me was Karsten

I did in upper guk

[Graym]

I'm just trying to fix people's very skewed views of reality because if anyone is basing their opinion of the classes on VZTZ, it's a ridiculous comparison considering VZTZ was NOTHING like PVP on the live servers. Hopefully this server does not make the same boneheaded mistakes.

[Graym]

dude, are you stupid

Mippo (ie:graym) doesn't = wehrmacht

You would need full blown down syndrome to believe that.

With both people online at the same time, both playing rangers, that's a hell of a conspiracy theory to 2box rangers.



I did in upper guk

I'm not Wehrmacht whoever he is. I played Graym on Vallon Zek until about mid-Velious, then I gave the character away because I started raiding with Afterlife. My last guild on the server was Vexare for a brief few week stint in Velious, beyond that there was somebody else playing the character through Luclin and Planes of Power, but it wasn't me.

I never died in Upper Guk, so I'd venture a guess that kill had to have occurred later on the server after I was gone.

[tmoneynegro]

I never died in Upper Guk, so I'd venture a guess that kill had to have occurred later on the server after I was gone.

Your last words were "Stop I'm in your guild"

[Graym]

Your last words were "Stop I'm in your guild"

That definitely was not me. The guy you killed was this retard who took over the account.

http://www.fohguild.org/forums/retard-rickshaw/4503-windstriker-bow.html?highlight=graym

[Graym]

I've never let anyone play any of my accounts ever since that retard played Graym. I can't count how many stupid stories I've heard from people who think they killed me. I guess it didn't help that Graym was one of the most hated players on the server when I gave the account over to this retard. Quite a few of these players had been trying to kill me for a long, long time so I guess I can kind of understand how their lasting memory of me is a fight with this apparent retard and not the myriad of times I killed them.

However, it's just kind of funny to me that the people I routinely killed are usually the ones who have this vivid memory of killing Graym and this retard saying something really stupid before he dies. There was a Mercenaries of Darkness group that I used to kill all the time and always fought them 1 on 4/5. Never once died to them, but in the VZ thread from the VZTZ forums they posted how not only did they kill me in CT but that I was begging in OOC for them not to cause me an XP death like that's something I would do. Completely ignoring the fact I routinely killed these guys by myself against their whole group and that's completely forgotten, all they remember is what that retard did in CT.

I guess for people who routinely died it's good to have a selective memory and I bet most of these people think they finally got me, perseverance paid off! The triumph of finally killing Graym, yay!

[Jong]

Rangers suck unless you get mistwalker, dragon haste and plane of sky bow

[Titanuk]

Rangers suck unless you get mistwalker, dragon haste and plane of sky bow

even then they still suck

[Tarwine]

Paladin or bust

[Titanuk]

i should of ninja'd that cloak

[Bockscar]

Rangers are okay and nicely self-sufficient, but they don't do any particular thing well enough to shine in any given role. This goes for both PvE and PvP. Whatever your crew is trying to do, a ranger adds less towards that goal than one or more other classes could. If you just run around picking 1v1 fights, ranger is alright. The fights that mean something rarely have any need for a ranger, because they tend to take place in dungeons where rogues and monks are better, or they're large group battles where the ranger's utility isn't needed because most classes are there and can do it better. Rangers only shine with Graym's apparent playstyle: running around selectively picking 1v1 fights on his terms against sub-par players.

[Tarwine]

i should of ninja'd that cloak

You are a true White Knight sir.

[Scribbles]

dude, are you stupid

Mippo (ie:graym) doesn't = wehrmacht

You would need full blown down syndrome to believe that.

With both people online at the same time, both playing rangers, that's a hell of a conspiracy theory to 2box rangers.



While I know they aren't the same people irl, they are literally the exact same person

[Graym]

Rangers are okay and nicely self-sufficient, but they don't do any particular thing well enough to shine in any given role. This goes for both PvE and PvP. Whatever your crew is trying to do, a ranger adds less towards that goal than one or more other classes could. If you just run around picking 1v1 fights, ranger is alright. The fights that mean something rarely have any need for a ranger, because they tend to take place in dungeons where rogues and monks are better, or they're large group battles where the ranger's utility isn't needed because most classes are there and can do it better. Rangers only shine with Graym's apparent playstyle: running around selectively picking 1v1 fights on his terms against sub-par players.

This is absolutely ridiculous. In most of our guild PVP, myself and Aaliyl usually accounted for about 30-40% of the killshots BECAUSE of tracking. As I said, ghosting was a big problem back in the day. The servers tried to predict where your player would be and a lot of times, with fast movements, that was different then where your character actually was so to everyone else your character would run off into space until it updated. Rangers with tracking never had that problem because even if someone ghosted, the tracking would point to the right direction so while other melee would get lost, the Rangers were usually the first ones to get back on the target. As well, while the character is running they could shoot their bow and do more effective damage then other classes. In old school PVP it wasn't as powerful as it was in Luclin with AA's, but it still did damage.

Now, it's probably not how it works here as I doubt ghosting will be anywhere near as big a problem as it was on Live and tracking probably won't be nearly as big an advantage because, I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of people playing here will be cheating like they were on VZTZ, but claiming that Rangers were a one trick pony is ridiculous. Backup healing, and being able to Snare was simply an added bonus. Yes, Rangers excelled at outdoors one on one PVP, but they were also good at guild on guild PVP. In Kunark most hybrids were at the top of the PVP food chain and in Velious basically all of them were.