Ranger

[xarilzir]

So currently i have my ranger at 15 he is in karanas at the mo actually enjoying the class must say.!

Im thinking maybe hitting up oasis not sure but out of interest to other rangers out there what was your chosen path.

Also im using swiftblade and at 20 plan to go for the ranger staff.. Would that be the best or say 2 lammys?

[Buriedpast]

woodsmans is so far better than 2 lammies.

Ugh, its a 14 yo game people.

[filthyphil]

I did blackburrow gnoll fangs till 21 :S

[Pint]

I did lava storm and najena then sola, xp is good in all of them an they are close to the hub

[Bazia]

Swiftwind easily a good weapon till 40 if you're broke

Ranger is a good solo class you can pretty much level in any outdoor zone.

My favorite was HHK from 25-52.

At 15 I would try out Unrest trash till like 18, even when half of it light blues out its still really good solo exp.

[phacemeltar]

arbitors combine greatsword + flowing black silk sash = pwnage. give you time to cast without losing melee dps.
fizzles suck, but eventually you literally can fire blast between every swing. can use reckless lightning too.

[Lartanin63]

I did sister camp till 19ish i think in Lfay. Then hit up mistmoore. Hill giants in RM. Ogre guards after that. If you are going to duel wield go with a lammy main hand and a green jade broadsword or something else in your off hand. I would not worry about a woodsmans staff till you get a bit higher. haste item is a need for sure. Start working on your fletching you are going to need it :)

[Lemiddar]

So currently i have my ranger at 15 he is in karanas at the mo actually enjoying the class must say.!

Im thinking maybe hitting up oasis not sure but out of interest to other rangers out there what was your chosen path.

I'm not huge on the popular zones like Unrest and MM. I chose to stay in East Karana and do gnoll reavers/undead reavers at your level (or perhaps 1/2 higher?) and then just moved over to crag spiders unti around 26 or 27.

Staying close to home as long as I could makes it feel more like I'm growing up and venturing out as I level. Maybe that's just me.

[blondeattk]

anyone twinked a ranger with a windetched staff @ 15 ?

dual wield with jade mace at 17 would be interesting....assuming a dex of 100+

[Malone88]

Oasis is good for 15-20. No loot at all though.
Can solo or get groups for crocs/orcs.
Plenty of peeps in zone.

Once you hit 20, you can try orcs in Kith also (solo) or orcs/gnolls in
Highpass (group). Orc/Gnoll Scalps give extra HP and good faction or
you can sell them for up to 10pp per scalp in EC.

Mid to late twenties you can move into Highkeep and kill gobbies.
Gobbies drop ears that give bonus quest XP or can be sold to players
for around 30pp a pop.

[Lune]

anyone twinked a ranger with a windetched staff @ 15 ?

dual wield with jade mace at 17 would be interesting....assuming a dex of 100+

Tried double proccers, it sucked

Silver swiftblade til 20, woodsman til epic

[blondeattk]

Oasis is good for 15-20. No loot at all though.
Can solo or get groups for crocs/orcs.
Plenty of peeps in zone.

Once you hit 20, you can try orcs in Kith also (solo) or orcs/gnolls in
Highpass (group). Orc/Gnoll Scalps give extra HP and good faction or
you can sell them for up to 10pp per scalp in EC.

Mid to late twenties you can move into Highkeep and kill gobbies.
Gobbies drop ears that give bonus quest XP or can be sold to players
for around 30pp a pop.


I think this route depends on how much exp of EQ you have. IF you are new to server or or have played eq for aroudn 6-9 months then yes thats a very viable route.....or via crushbone/unrest/mistmoore

However if you are more experienced player, then you probably want a more niche route. Personally I look for high zem areas that arent too crowded.

Rangers are an odd class to lvl up in some ways, as they have a oddball skill set....a jack of all trades, and master of none.

Non twinked rangers, probably need to depend on kiting/puller model. eg outdoor zones

Twinkies can go solo in the niche areas.......not sure its a good plan to give those away tho :)

[Malone88]

However if you are more experienced player, then you probably want a more niche route. Personally I look for high zem areas that arent too crowded.

High ZEM zones many times are either indoors (not good for rangers) or popular
spots for PLers. Zones that have droppable quest items that can be turned into
XP (Crushbone/Blackburrow/Highpass/Highkeep/Overthere/etc.) more than make
up for a lower ZEM, IMO. Plus you have the option to use these items to level
your toon or sell to other players to make money. A place like Highkeep is a
goldmine because it has good ZEM + quest items + ultra convenient.

Also, as a ranger, I feel your far better off going to lower-ZEM zones which
have active grouping opportunities vs trying to solo. Even better, some lower
level zones (like Oasis) offer both soloing and grouping.

[Aborath]

Swiftwind easily a good weapon till 40 if you're broke
.

What, the ranger epic? Did you mean to type something else?

Also (not worth starting a new thread), right now I'm following the typical Silver Swiftblade 'till 20 route, and then I planned to swap to a Springwood Stave, as suggested in another thread. However, unless I come into some cash, it will be some time before any haste item becomes a possibility. So should I swap to dual wielding instead--until I can get a haste item?

[Tecmos Deception]

Whether you have haste or not doesn't affect how good a certain weapon is compared to others. I don't think you'll be able to match the springwood stave with 1h weapons unless you pay several times as much money AND are up near 50; I think dual wield doesn't really shine until higher levels, especially for rangers since they get such awesome 2h weapons.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Soloing as a ranger is not efficient unless you cannot find a group at all, or you are twinked out with at least a fungi tunic. Untwinked, I highly recommend against soloing until Velious spell revisions happen and we get Panic Animal and the hybrid XP penalty is removed.

In the time it takes for you to bowkite one mob, you could have been in a group that killed 10+ blue mobs. In the time it takes for you to melee one mob, root it, back off, heal, kill it, sit to med for the next one, etc, you could have been in a group that killed 10+ blue mobs.

Live in Blackburrow from levels 5-15 and XP off the gnoll fang quest. You should be okay soloing early on.

Beyond that, if you ARE going to solo and are not twinked, pick up at least one Ebony Bladed Sword at level 25. Then you at least have a mana-free root proc so, if needed, you can back off of the mob and heal yourself. After it procs, you can swap out to your regular melee weapons.

Pick up Swarmcaller at Level 46 for soloing after that, and make sure you worked on your 2HS skill your entire levelling career, so you can hopefully proc a slow on a mob you intend to solo.

The only time I felt soloing was more efficient than grouping was between level 42-46ish when I soloed the first room in Kedge. You can split out the fish with Lull/Calm Animal, but if you get anything but a lancer swordfish spawn, you're F'd.

Bloodgill goblins in LOIO are soloable too in your late 40s, with some rootparking/Careless Lightning before going in to melee, but good luck finding them open... the lowest HP mob for their level in the game, I believe, and everyone knows it this time around.

But honestly, just make some friends and get into groups. At level 22 after you get harmony, you are one of the kings of pulling in Mistmoore and can probably stay there until early 30s and get groups if you make a reputation for yourself as an awesome chain-puller, bringing in the XPs to your group. You won't be able to really solo anything after level 50 unless you're twinked out, and that's when you'll become heavily dependent on grouping and you won't have any practice in doing the versatile things rangers can bring to a small group ... pulling/crowd control/tanking/DPS/healing/buffing. The only way you can get a group is by having a reputation of being able to switch between all of those roles as needed, effortlessly, without being told, and bring more to a group than just sub-monk, sub-rogue DPS.

This all gets much easier once we get Panic Animal in Velious and the hybrid XP penalty drops. I tell anyone trying to start an untwinked/unpowerleveled ranger this late in the game to just wait it out for those two huge game-changers.

[Aborath]

Whether you have haste or not doesn't affect how good a certain weapon is compared to others. I don't think you'll be able to match the springwood stave with 1h weapons unless you pay several times as much money AND are up near 50; I think dual wield doesn't really shine until higher levels, especially for rangers since they get such awesome 2h weapons.


Why near 50 for dual wield to become more viable than 2h? Is it the skill cap?

[blondeattk]

`Soloing as a ranger is not efficient unless you cannot find a group at all,`

Have to admit that my relatively untwinked ranger has a crutch; my main is a shm, so i can feed the baby, sow potions, and +10regen potions. Tried ds potions too , but they come out at 3ds at low lvl.
Havent worked out yet if the haste potions are worth it, suspect they give low haste at low lvl.
Cant afford haste or regen itmes for this toon atmo so potions are a temp fix.

Prob keep this going till ~lvl 20, then reconsider where am hunting. Might move continents then and see if upper guk is worth it.

[Aborath]

`Soloing as a ranger is not efficient unless you cannot find a group at all,`

Have to admit that my relatively untwinked ranger has a crutch; my main is a shm, so i can feed the baby, sow potions, and +10regen potions. Tried ds potions too , but they come out at 3ds at low lvl.
Havent worked out yet if the haste potions are worth it, suspect they give low haste at low lvl.
Cant afford haste or regen itmes for this toon atmo so potions are a temp fix.

Prob keep this going till ~lvl 20, then reconsider where am hunting. Might move continents then and see if upper guk is worth it.


I can vouche for this. On my level 15 ranger, I can solo, but spamming light healing (or whatever it's called) as a recovery mechanic is horribly tedious, and only barely more effective than just sitting. I can only assume that it just gets worse from here. So duoing or grouping--if at all possible--is the answer. If you see Fingalad looking for a partner, be a pal and invite him. :p

That said, I'm still really digging my ranger. He is the soul reason why my gnome is still sitting at level 47. Sorry, Knights. :(

[Malone88]

But honestly, just make some friends and get into groups. At level 22 after you get harmony, you are one of the kings of pulling in Mistmoore and can probably stay there until early 30s and get groups if you make a reputation for yourself as an awesome chain-puller, bringing in the XPs to your group. You won't be able to really solo anything after level 50 unless you're twinked out, and that's when you'll become heavily dependent on grouping and you won't have any practice in doing the versatile things rangers can bring to a small group ... pulling/crowd control/tanking/DPS/healing/buffing. The only way you can get a group is by having a reputation of being able to switch between all of those roles as needed, effortlessly, without being told, and bring more to a group than just sub-monk, sub-rogue DPS.
Great advice here! Rangers can shine as pullers/root parkers/etc in many of the popular zones because they are outdoors: Unrest/Mistmoore/Overthere/CoM/Karnors...to name a few.

[baalzy]

Why near 50 for dual wield to become more viable than 2h? Is it the skill cap?

It's when the damage bonus on your main hand overcomes the fantastic ratios of rng only 2h weapons.

For reference to these weapons:
http://wiki.project1999.com/Woodsman%27s_Staff has a .89 ratio for 8k and is the best 2h weap money can buy for a ranger.
http://wiki.project1999.com/Springwood_Stave has a .74 ratio for like 200p
http://wiki.project1999.com/Arbitor%27s_Combine_Greatsword has a .7 ratio for 500p

Damage bonus is a static +X damage per hit from your main hand. This bonus is applied every time a hit lands

Damage bonus is (Level - 25) / 3 rounded down. So at level 50 you have a damage bonus of 8.

In 350 delay the woodsman staff swings 10 times and will do 80 points of pure bonus damage (if all attacks hit).

In 350 delay a Jade Mace will swing 19 times and will do 152 points of pure bonus damage.

Max damage for a weapon is Damage*2.
The Woodsman staff can potentially do another 10*(31*2) = 10*72 = 720 damage for a total of 800 damage.
The Jade Mace can potentially do another 19*(9*2) = 19*18 = 342 damage for a total of 494

We'll say the off-hand weapon is also a jade mace. I'm not sure what the dual wield attack rate is like at level 50 is but if it swings 17 times (I don't think this is terribly likely) then dual wielding jade maces at level 50 would be roughly equal DPS to a woodsman staff. You don't get better weapons than jade maces on a ranger without spending 30-60k on each of those weapons.

Because I've gone this far and now I'm curious, at level 60 the damage bonus is 11.

This would be:
830 damage done by the woodsman staff due to higher bonus
703 damage done by the jade mace due to the higher bonus

That means dual wielding jade maces you'd need to dual wield successfully 7 times to do the same damage as a woodsman staff. This seem incredibly likely.

TL;DR - As damage bonus increases, dual wield becomes better than 2h. For a ranger, this doesn't happen until 50+ and not until 55+ unless you have really good/expensive weapons.

[Aborath]

Good infoz...

Wow, alot of great information. I'm embarassed to say that, even though I played a monk in classic EQ, I had no idea about damage bonuses.

I'm glad to know that my ranger is set until I happen to scrounge up 7k for a Woodsman (currently using SilverSwftb/SpringwoodStv... possibly swapping to Stave full-time once I hit 20).

[Bazia]

Whoever is complaining about spamming heal spells as tedious you know you can just make a macro for it, even throw in some /sit in between the casts in the macro and you'll barely even lose mana.

[koros]

It's when the damage bonus on your main hand overcomes the fantastic ratios of rng only 2h weapons.

For reference to these weapons:
http://wiki.project1999.com/Woodsman%27s_Staff has a .89 ratio for 8k and is the best 2h weap money can buy for a ranger.
http://wiki.project1999.com/Springwood_Stave has a .74 ratio for like 200p
http://wiki.project1999.com/Arbitor%27s_Combine_Greatsword has a .7 ratio for 500p

Damage bonus is a static +X damage per hit from your main hand. This bonus is applied every time a hit lands

Damage bonus is (Level - 25) / 3 rounded down. So at level 50 you have a damage bonus of 8.

In 350 delay the woodsman staff swings 10 times and will do 80 points of pure bonus damage (if all attacks hit).

In 350 delay a Jade Mace will swing 19 times and will do 152 points of pure bonus damage.

Max damage for a weapon is Damage*2.
The Woodsman staff can potentially do another 10*(31*2) = 10*72 = 720 damage for a total of 800 damage.
The Jade Mace can potentially do another 19*(9*2) = 19*18 = 342 damage for a total of 494

We'll say the off-hand weapon is also a jade mace. I'm not sure what the dual wield attack rate is like at level 50 is but if it swings 17 times (I don't think this is terribly likely) then dual wielding jade maces at level 50 would be roughly equal DPS to a woodsman staff. You don't get better weapons than jade maces on a ranger without spending 30-60k on each of those weapons.

Because I've gone this far and now I'm curious, at level 60 the damage bonus is 11.

This would be:
830 damage done by the woodsman staff due to higher bonus
703 damage done by the jade mace due to the higher bonus

That means dual wielding jade maces you'd need to dual wield successfully 7 times to do the same damage as a woodsman staff. This seem incredibly likely.

TL;DR - As damage bonus increases, dual wield becomes better than 2h. For a ranger, this doesn't happen until 50+ and not until 55+ unless you have really good/expensive weapons.

2 Jade maces almost equals but never exceeds woodsmans staff.

Code is:


// Sep. 19, 2000 until Oct. 8, 2001, delay adjustments.
else if (RuleI(Combat,TwoHandedDmgBonus) == 2)
{
if (Weapon->Delay <= 27)
return (GetLevel() - 22) / 3; // Just 1h bonus + 1.

int32 base;
if (GetLevel() > 50)
base = ((GetLevel() - 7) / 3);
else
base = ((GetLevel() - 25) / 2);

if (Weapon->Delay <= 39)
return base;
else if (Weapon->Delay <= 42)
return base + 1;
else if (Weapon->Delay <= 44)
return base + 3;
else
return base + (Weapon->Delay - 31)/3;

[baalzy]

2 Jade maces almost equals but never exceeds woodsmans staff.

Code is:


// Sep. 19, 2000 until Oct. 8, 2001, delay adjustments.
else if (RuleI(Combat,TwoHandedDmgBonus) == 2)
{
if (Weapon->Delay <= 27)
return (GetLevel() - 22) / 3; // Just 1h bonus + 1.

int32 base;
if (GetLevel() > 50)
base = ((GetLevel() - 7) / 3);
else
base = ((GetLevel() - 25) / 2);

if (Weapon->Delay <= 39)
return base;
else if (Weapon->Delay <= 42)
return base + 1;
else if (Weapon->Delay <= 44)
return base + 3;
else
return base + (Weapon->Delay - 31)/3;

The damage bonus for 2handed weapons is currently the same as it is for 1h weapons. We haven't hit the Velious 2hand update which changes the bonus for 2handers to bring them more in line with dual wielding for dps.

[koros]

The damage bonus for 2handed weapons is currently the same as it is for 1h weapons. We haven't hit the Velious 2hand update which changes the bonus for 2handers to bring them more in line with dual wielding for dps.

// Sep. 19, 2000 until Oct. 8, 2001, delay adjustments.

There was a change in Kunark too.

Rogean himself posted that code...

[baalzy]

Ah, you're right. I missed that.

So the damage bonus for the Woodsman at lvl 50 would be (50-25)/2 = 12
At 60 it would be (60-7)/3 = 17.

That changes things dramatically.

Also, that sucks.

2HB animation is fricken retarded.

[blondeattk]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Two_Handed_Practice_Sword

this proc only a 6pt DS or it higher?

[Thulack]

http://wiki.project1999.com/Two_Handed_Practice_Sword

this proc only a 6pt DS or it higher?

only 6 points. garbage weapon.

[blondeattk]

`only 6 points. garbage weapon.`

yes the ratio is awful. WOndering if the procced DS is on the same slot as the DS potions?

OR could I get em to stack? a DS of 10+ is actually useful.

[baalzy]

It's the level 9 druid DS. You can just get one of them to cast it on you and see if it stacks w/ the potion.

[lecompte]

Ranger shines in an outdoor duo. Find an enchanter to be your best bud until he hits 56 and leaves you for chardok AE