Are rangers worthless?

[Romeon]

Title

[Heavydrop]

No

[Romeon]

What do they do in a group?

[Raden]

Not the death touch tank we deserve, but not the one we need right now.

[Heavydrop]

A Ranger is not typically an ideal tank but that doesn't mean they
can't serve as one.
They DPS, snare, root, harmony, buff, heal, and track.
On raids they are usually offered up as the sacrifice to eat the Death Touch
and while that sucks for the Ranger it does open it up for everyone else to get
the raid mob.
Everyone and every class has a role and a job.
People are critical of Rangers and all that but I like Rangers just fine myself.
In my experience its the player not the class that makes things work or not

[hdawg06]

Only good ranger is a dead one.

[Galaa]

if there are no rangers, it'll be hard to determine which class is gonna take the death touch.

Bringing a ranger on a raid will solve this dilemma:D

[Ephirith]

If you use the search function you'll find this topic has been discussed to death in the past.

I'll summarize my perspective for you:

A monk does almost everything better than a ranger. A monk also does almost everything better than a paladin or SK, but rangers get singled out for some reason.

Rangers generally do no more dps than warriors or monks, with some exceptions.

A ranger has the ability to hold agro like paladin or sk, while generally doing dps roughly similar to a warrior or slightly lower than a monk (generally, not accounting for outstanding players on both sides). At the same time they bring the ability to root park adds and snare, which is of situational usefulness. A ranger's defensive skillcaps are significantly lower than tanking classes, monks, and even a rogue, so they take a lot more damage. They are still more than capable of tanking a slowed mob 45+ without running the healer oom.

Harmony is invaluable for outdoor pulling, making Mistmoore, City of Mist, Karnor, etc your playground. I've been complimented on my pulling in these zones numerous times.

Rangers have many bells and whistles, but if you have a solid group with an enchanter, shaman, and cleric that's looking for dps, they have no reason not to just take a rogue, monk, or any other superior dps. If they are looking for a tank, they have no reason not to take a warrior or monk.

Does that make rangers bad? I don't think so. That opinion isn't universal.

[Karafa]

Forgetting the BFG that Rangers can wield in their primary come Velious. Gun was pretty uncommon on live back in the day, and the few facts and numbers posted about Ranger dps with one is pretty incredible.

I played a Ranger to 54. You can tank anything in seb/kc with root and decent weapons, and that makes it pretty easy to form your own group as well.

I'm pretty sure we're going to see some crazy Ranger dps from players like Zilo/Internode come Velious.

[Llodd]

What a stupid question.

Perhaps you meant, are rangers not really worth playing in comparison to xxx?

Rangers are great, now fuck off!

[utenan]

In my experience its the player not the class that makes things work or not

[fohkure]

I also like how the question "are rangers fun to play" is completely ignored here. I played a ranger as an alt on live and it was the most fun toon I have ever played. Granted that was post PoP and I had AAs and gear that made a ranger much more formidable, but I believe there is still some truth in it. I thoroughly enjoy playing a ranger as an alt, even here on P99. They are fun to gear since they can wear such a wide range of gear. They are expensive to twink; I would definitely not create one as a main.

Who cares if they are the worst character in the game? If you have fun playing one, then play one.

If you manage to get one up to 60, then you are set. The odds of their being 2 rangers in a single raid aren't too good usually!

Just one guys $.02

Chris

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

EQ would not be eq without rangers. Especially in the context of this server, with people who know and love this game, anyone who doesn't respect someone who plays a ranger obviously does not know the history of this gameworld.

If only there could be such a thing as a gnome ranger, then it would be perfect. Because you could /punt the ranger to take the death touch.

[webrunner5]

From a Healers viewpoint Rangers SUCK without a Fungi as a tank. :eek: But if they have good haste and a fungi they are pretty damn good. They have a LOT of good spells they can use.

[Maze513]

I recently leveled a ranger and let me say first they are a BLAST to play! I fell in love really quick and I was quite surprised by that.

BUT I did encounter alot of resistance to grping. No one seems to want to xp with a Hybrid and if there is already one in the grp, forget about it. People seem VERY concerned with XP per person per kill. (and we all know why) But I found it very hard to find grps at the 20-50 ranger. Luckily I had the means to twink myself pretty nicely and alot of nice friend to help me with quest gear (Sky-Epics) so I made an easy go of soloing.

But if you are will to be poked fun at, not allowed in grps and then eventually Death Touched!! Then I think you can find rangers very personally rewarding. And with such few numbers of rangers loot isnt to hard to track down. So, Worthless, to SOME grp yes. But overall they are most underrated class in the game imo.

[koros]

Fuck you all. Rangers tank fine in xp groups - zero problems even without a cleric healing. With clarity they can throw fast cast nukes between swings to bring dps up above a war/close to a monk.

Now of course if you're grouped with a shitty ranger who sacrificed hp/ac gear for a couple extra str, then yeah, they're gonna suck.

Worst? Definitely not.

[Itap]

Rangers are what that person makes of it. Will you be tanking raid targets? No. And you should have known that when you rolled your character.

Can you be a decent tank/CC/utility in exp groups? Absolutely.

[Doors]

Rangers are fine, this isn't world of warcraft where you need to min/max anything its classic EQ where raid targets get zerged by 100 people sitting on a trak spawn. It's not that hard.

[Vellatri]

Send your snaring rangers to me. Fearful times will be had by all!

- Vellatri, Knight of the Temple of the Dead

[Nordenwatch]

why is nobody talking about the ridiculously large track distance of rangers?

[melkezidek]

Love my ranger. Replacing my 60 epic monk with one.

[Snagglepuss]

I think the problem with rangers is that they are misclassified under DPS. Ranger in my mind has always been a "utility class" or the swiss army knife of EQ.

No, they aren't the best at anything, and you probably won't need one with a classical group set up of tank, healer, cc, dps, dps, dps, but as a utility class, they can fill the roll of others like a jack of all trades puller, tank, dps, cc, etc.

[Hathes]

they are not worthless, they are awesome tracker alts!

[melkezidek]

They actually still do good dps. Just a tad below a monk. Only thing they lack is a burst disc at this point.

[agdros]

...a "utility class" or the swiss army knife of EQ.

This.

This is what makes people play a ranger. You will never become bored with a ranger because you have the opportunity to "change jobs" very quickly depending on what is required.

[Ele]

A class is only as good as the person playing, Unfortunately people on here have made rangers the crap class by assuming they have to eat the DT and are the most expendible class at the time. Baddys be bad bro.

Shamans eat DTs better.

[Frogie305]

Shamans eat DTs better.

This is True ... But yet Not True.. Let us Never Forget Drui Sacrifice in the field of battle.


11-12-2012 - Never forget...... Hurley- I Ran to Him! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_Pq0xYr3L4

http://www.project1999.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=3447&stc=1&d=1352737113

[Thulack]

SSHHHH can we stop this thread before people actually realize how good rangers are. Ranger was main on live for 9 years. I played a rogue from classic til halfling rangers were created and then made Thulack. Best toon i ever had. Can do anything well enough to get by and does a few things exceptionally. What hurts them right now is the xp penatly. Once that goes in velious i'm sure there will be 100's of rangers running around because of their awesomeness.

[Elements]

Rangers are the best trackers. Rangers are often the best at pulling outdoors where they can harmony. Rangers are terrible at xp due to their penatly which is why everyone hates them since almost every group pre 60 is more concerned with xp than accomplishing a dungeon crawl or camping x mob for y loot. If yout not concerned with xp or at 60 your utility can make for an easier time taking a small duo or trio to camp specific mobs. On raids your basically just a warm body for dps with the occassional snare kite. The value of snare in dungeons also cant be understated.

Worthless? No. But there will be a better class to fill every role other than tracking and pulling outdoors.

[SamwiseRed]

SSHHHH can we stop this thread before people actually realize how good rangers are. Ranger was main on live for 9 years. I played a rogue from classic til halfling rangers were created and then made Thulack. Best toon i ever had. Can do anything well enough to get by and does a few things exceptionally. What hurts them right now is the xp penatly. Once that goes in velious i'm sure there will be 100's of rangers running around because of their awesomeness.

ya man first toon i tried to make was halfing ranger :( too bad we will never reach that timeline because i think it was after velious

[Thulack]

ya man first toon i tried to make was halfing ranger :( too bad we will never reach that timeline because i think it was after velious

Yep :(

------------------------------
March 19, 2002
------------------------------
- Halflings and Gnomes have new classes available to them: Halfling
Rangers and Paladins as well as Gnome ShadowKnights and Paladins. All
of the necessary NPCs and items should be available for these new
classes.


Maybe after velious this could be one of the custom changes the dev's make. /hint /hint :)

[Dark Team]

There are probably a couple halfling rangers running around blue :P

I really, really hope that they allow the new short team hybrids eventually...

[kotton05]

why is nobody talking about the ridiculously large track distance of rangers?

Rangers forever tracking raid mobs across the zone....
no mob should never not be snared with a ranger around....
Spirit of wolf on a melee....
Snap aggro with flamelick....(saving a caster)

what kinda question is this? seems not thought out..... being a ranger youll get jokes made as a DT eater, but most the time you have a role. I forever see the player not the class tho...

[Grimmly Fireforge]

Rangers are probably my favorite class in EQ but discrimination on them here makes it inevitable that you will "give up" and reroll.

I got my Ranger to level 40s before I quit. I remember sitting in Dreadlands for like 7 hours with LFG my tag on. In front of me stood three groups, each with openings/LFM. I was shouting LFG every once in a while for the entire time. All declined to invite me not because I'm a bad player or have a bad rep, but because nobody wants a Ranger.

It was that exact moment I camped out and rerolled.

[Itap]

Rangers are probably my favorite class in EQ but discrimination on them here makes it inevitable that you will "give up" and reroll.

I got my Ranger to level 40s before I quit. I remember sitting in Dreadlands for like 7 hours with LFG my tag on. In front of me stood three groups, each with openings/LFM. I was shouting LFG every once in a while for the entire time. All declined to invite me not because I'm a bad player or have a bad rep, but because nobody wants a Ranger.

It was that exact moment I camped out and rerolled.

Honestly made me sad. Should have made friends with a necro

[tekniq]

p99 needs rangers. who else is going to sit there for hours at a time hitting the 'Track' button until mob X spawns, where then you can jump out of your seat and type " MOB X POP, MOB X POP!!!!!!" in your guild chat and frantically run to zerg a mob down...oh wait, druids can do that too and they can port -_-

[TWDL_Prexus]

Rangers are far from worthless. However besides track theres nothing else they do better then any other class.

[stormlord]

This.

This is what makes people play a ranger. You will never become bored with a ranger because you have the opportunity to "change jobs" very quickly depending on what is required.
That's what makes rangers fun.

I started a ranger in 1999 and 2001 and played it off/on until 2010. I created a few alts here and there but they never got past ~30, except for the paladin, but the paladin was a later creation.

My ranger on live got to 85 with 1200+ aa.

My ranger in 1999 had 13+ days /played. Never played that ranger after 1999 (different server).

The problem is that in groups the versatility of a ranger is greatly diminished because more specialized classes take on those roles. This, in combination with changes to EQ at the higher levels over the course of a year, is what led the EQ developers to remove the penalties on hybrids. If you want, you can read about it here:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/editorial/011401_EQ_Producers_letter.html

(deeper review... they added an experience penalty pre-release because in order to keep rangers competitive somewhat in groups they had to beef up their skills/stats while also giving them extra versatility, otherwise they'd have to take too much from one area to feed it into another. what i'm saying here is they took from dps and tanking (and other primary skills/stats) and put that in snaring and rooting and healing and dotting and dding and archery and buffs and so on, but they couldn't take out too much or rangers would be severely non-competitive in groups. so to avoid cutting back too much on dps and tanking they added an experience penalty. however, an experience penalty doesn't work as a balancing mechanism when everyone is capped. additionally, they made changes to the game at the upper levels that evened out the classes. lastly, the experience penalty was making it impossible for hybrids to level alongside friends at a similar rate. what they did was remodel the game so classes are balanced and obsoleted experience penalties as a counterweight. note that they kept the smaller experience penalties at first, but they later removed them in the years after.)

One issue is that the generic classes were not as versatile (is true even much later in EQ's evolution). As a result, they're not as fun, especially solo. Additionally, most classes are not fun in groups because their roles are so specific. As a ranger in a solo situation, I had to use most of my skills. However, in a group I would often be stuck in a dps role and we'd camp one spot for hours. Only the fact that I had a group of people to talk to and the occasional disaster was my interest kept intact. I'll admit that when I was solo I often wished for company because there's nothing worse than doing the same ol' solo-route you've been doing for a month.

The worst thing about classic EQ is its camping because it leads to so many other problems. The repetitiveness of group and solo play could have been reduced if camping was less effective, for instance.

I've tried to play warriors and rogues and other classes. But I inevitably find that they're too specific. There's just not enough break. It's not fun to do the same thing over and over.

Bottom line, a warrior is tank and spank. That's boring. A ranger can tank and spank too, but they can also snare and kite with dots/dd's and bow/arrow. Using root, they can better handle an add. If they get into a bad pull, they can snare/root and run for the zone line. If they're lost, they can track and use that information to locate their destination. Warriors can use bandages, but so can rangers. And rangers can also heal and they can do all this while in-combat by rooting/snaring. I could go on and on how a warrior is very boring.

Increasing HP/DPS is not the way to make a warrior or generic class fun. That's easy-mode. Lots of "modern" mmorpgs make that mistake. The key to making fun gameplay is diversity and consequences.

What I'm trying to say is that versatility is FUN. Versatility doesn't mean pressing a win button or leveling without challenge, it means having lots of tools and having to be wise about when you use them.

Not all "generic" classes in EQ were necessarily boring. The warrior is just an extreme example of how things can get too boring. The enchanter can be a very exciting class to play in the right situations, for example.

[Silo69]

What a stupid question.

Perhaps you meant, are rangers not really worth playing in comparison to xxx?

Rangers are great, now fuck off!

/thread

[purist 4.0]

stormlord you know nobody reads your long-winded posts right?

[Smilkers]

stormlord you know nobody reads your long-winded posts right?

dawww, Stormlord is just trying to help. :o
keep on keepin' on, SL.

[Nalanthius]

It's jealousy, we duel wield weapons and shoot fireballs when were bored.

[Cippofra]

Dont understand why people think a ranger's dps is similar to a monk's, or "a tad below" as many people are saying. In my opinion, this is utter BS. And hold back on the trolling, I dont care, it's my opinion, not yours, and I won't be back to this thread to hear any crying. As far as groups go I don't see a need to ever have a ranger (other than tracking). To me a ranger is just for snare. Which a druid can do as well as back up heals, and utility. Necros and bards are the "swiss army knife". Rangers are just the last choice, with wizards coming in a close second.

That being said, if you want to play a ranger, and you enjoy being a ranger, what's it matter what anyone else thinks? As useless as rangers are, I would gladly group with 5 good rangers over the average melee classes that fumble, pull while the puller is pulling, runs ahead of the puller to look around, casters that are AFK 95% of the time and monks that use cool weapons rather than the higher dps weapons that are half the cost. These forums are nothing but a poisonous outlet for children to cry, brag, and bicker (you'll see this in the responses I get to my post). Just play the game and enjoy.

[gotrocks]

Dont understand why people think a ranger's dps is similar to a monk's, or "a tad below" as many people are saying. In my opinion, this is utter BS. And hold back on the trolling, I dont care, it's my opinion, not yours, and I won't be back to this thread to hear any crying. As far as groups go I don't see a need to ever have a ranger (other than tracking). To me a ranger is just for snare. Which a druid can do as well as back up heals, and utility. Necros and bards are the "swiss army knife". Rangers are just the last choice, with wizards coming in a close second.

That being said, if you want to play a ranger, and you enjoy being a ranger, what's it matter what anyone else thinks? As useless as rangers are, I would gladly group with 5 good rangers over the average melee classes that fumble, pull while the puller is pulling, runs ahead of the puller to look around, casters that are AFK 95% of the time and monks that use cool weapons rather than the higher dps weapons that are half the cost. These forums are nothing but a poisonous outlet for children to cry, brag, and bicker (you'll see this in the responses I get to my post). Just play the game and enjoy.


agree with almost everything you said.

especially the dps thing. rangers are not "a tad below" monks/rogues.

[ArumTP]

Ranger DPS is just a bit lower or close to Warrior DPS. Given that all their melee caps are lower than a warrior.

[Scratch&Sniff]

/GU The Spiroc Lord in 92s, 24k @266dps --- Brennard - 4k @45dps (16.24%) --- Wanyo 3k @41dps (13.33%) --- Brainz 3k @37dps (12.17%) --- Smedy 3k @28dps (10.32%) --- Vabann 2k @24dps (8.54%) --- Jantik 2k @32dps (8.09%) --- Ezpk 2k @49dps (6.96%) --- Xintao 2k @19dps (6.84%) --- Bronkar 1k @19dps (5.75%) --- Maximilien 1k @30dps (4.31%)

Brennard 60 rogue

Wanyo /smedy 55+ monks

Brainz - 59 ranger + 3 castings of Calefaction for 1500ish dmg

Ezpk 60 war

[ArumTP]

Ill bite.
Was Ezpk the main tank and using defensive?

[Elements]

/GU The Spiroc Lord in 92s, 24k @266dps --- Brennard - 4k @45dps (16.24%) --- Wanyo 3k @41dps (13.33%) --- Brainz 3k @37dps (12.17%) --- Smedy 3k @28dps (10.32%) --- Vabann 2k @24dps (8.54%) --- Jantik 2k @32dps (8.09%) --- Ezpk 2k @49dps (6.96%) --- Xintao 2k @19dps (6.84%) --- Bronkar 1k @19dps (5.75%) --- Maximilien 1k @30dps (4.31%)

Brennard 60 rogue

Wanyo /smedy 55+ monks

Brainz - 59 ranger + 3 castings of Calefaction for 1500ish dmg

Ezpk 60 war

Was the warrior tanking? Was he using dps weapons or agro weapons? What buffs/gear/stat caps? Did anyonedisc? Was the war in zerker? What weapons were the ranger and warrior using? Was the warrior hitting from the back? Was everyone haste capped?