New Ranger... Macros?! Tips?!
 

Starting a new Ranger! Never played one... EVER.

Any good macros I can create? Tricks to skilling forage & track? Suggestions? I'm all in with Ranger so don't try and talk me outta it! Oh I am going human. Maybe not as sexy but stats are solid. 15pts in STA 5pts in DEX? Ya?

Thanks! :)

I just put forage on one of my directional keys, like I do sense heading. Then you're hitting it basically every time it refreshes, so it will skill up fairly quickly.

- Put Forage/track/sense heading on hotkeys so you can spam them to level them up

- Those stats are fine, some people scream STA but you really shouldn't be getting hit all that often, but you may be used as OT when there are no tanks available. (Remember you are technically part warrior, although your defense abilities are very low)

- Keep in mind, DEX is great for bows, but its generally accepted that Melee is the best DPS for rangers which would be STR. Up to you, because STR also increases total weight capacity and being constantly overburdened is BS and extremely frustrating when all you can carry is 1 item before your screwed


- Although if I played a ranger id definately have a big focus on archery for kiting and such :)


Group tip: Rangers get a bad rap for pulling agro, keep in mind that instant high damage bow shots will pull agro unless the tank has had a bit to hit the mob. Depends on the group but people seem to have a pretty bad view on rangers as it is but they can shine if you just play em right.

I've heard that bow DPS is god-awful in P99 compared to melee for rangers. Is this still true?

Dont think I heard "God awful" but cant compete with melee

It''s god awful. Having a ranger w/ maxxed archery, I can attest to that. Velious will make it better for some encounters tho.

Are bows worthless outside of pulling then? I remember back on Live, pre-Luclin era I used my bow quite often with my Half-Elf Warrior, and boosted up his fletching skill just for that. They always seemed pretty useful to me, but I never went and actually crunched the math.

You will be using it for pulling only, or for inefficient bow-kite soloing if you're really desperate. On some encounters in Velious the raid may have the post-55/sub-60 rangers use /trueshot instead of /weaponshield for emergency tank transitions, but with the proliferation of midnight mallets and other aggro generating tools, /weaponshield transitions might not be as prevalent here.

IIRC bows don't really come into their own until PoP

Bohab not sure if you wanna listen to my advice, but check this out

I started a human ranger, i figured i would pump all my points into Str. I played this ranger to 30 lvl, then i noticed something that made me rethink my ranger. You see we Rangers get a Str buff, so basically you dont need to waste your points on Str, unless you wanna have 160 strength, like i had when i got my lvl 30 Str spell.

So I restarted my Ranger as a half-elf. By starting as a half elf, you are already getting 15 points more into melee stats than a human gets, so i put 15 in Dex and 5 in Str. This got my Ranger to Str-80, Sta-80, Agi-100, Dex-100.

The low Str is tough early, you will go overweight quick, but if you get some good str gear, you can get over 100, and then when you get 30 lvl you will get your Str buff. Anyways i thought i should let you know, still if you wanna roll a human Ranger, i wish you luck.

P.S. Sta and Agi dont really help, they only give you marginal HP and AC. Unless you are going to tank, you should put your points in Str and Dex.