A true story of a fight

[mwatt]

Today, with my 46 Ranger, I decided to hunt in the Emerald Jungle for a bit. I picked an Erollisi Bloodthorn. These are Warrior mobs, around level 39 at highest.

I snared one to pull it back to a bit safer area. The snare stuck, but my, this thing ran pretty fast, even snared. Still it did not catch me.

I began to do battle and it was hitting hard and fast. My AC being a Ranger, is not great - low 800s - but it was ripping me up with hits up near the max of it's range.

I decided to root, dot and heal. I dotted with Stinging Swarm from my arms, and cast Root - all good. I healed a little and sat down to med. I knew that the duration of the root could/would last as long as the swarm. However, it broke early. So I melee a little more and it keeps ripping me up. I decide to free dot, snare, and arrow kite it some. Cast snare, resisted! Cast again, stuck. Cast Stinging Swarm, resisted! Cast snare, stuck. So I turn to run to get distance to arrow kite... .and the thing smacks the crap out of me from about 50 yards behind me.

I do make the distance, and start trying to arrow kite... but it is so fast, even snared! It gets too close and smacks me again. Suddenly I am 19 health and afraid. I give up and bail out of the fight - I do manage to run away and get safe, as I am sowed.


So... level 46 me against a level 39 mob. I lost, fighting with the tools of my class. This is not a story about the weakness of Rangers. It is just one fight... but the untoward mishaps that occurred within this fight are not uncommon. It is a story that is intended as a lead-in to pose this question...

Have adjustments gone too far? Is this game HARDER than classic? It seems to me that maybe AC, resists and mob run speed might all need to be looked at.

[pufen]

tldr; rangers suck

[iruinedyourday]

Originally Posted by pufen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

tldr; rangers suck

lmao [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Cecily]

A level 50 ranger has a tough time with a level 40 mob. A level 53 ranger has a tough time with a level 40 mob. Around 55, the mob will start feeling like something you can easily handle and it will turn green the next level. What do we learn from this? Fight the lowest level mobs that give you full exp (dark blue) for best results. Lv 39 mob vs Lv 46 melee is just asking for hurt feelings

tl;dr: rangers suck

[mwatt]

Originally Posted by Cecily [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Level 40 mobs give you great exp until level 56, I think. A level 50 ranger is has a tough time with a level 40 mob. A level 53 ranger has a tough time with a level 40 mob. Around 55, the mob will start feeling like something you can easily handle and the mob will turn green the next level. EQ for you.

tl;dr: rangers suck

You folks are all missing my points.

* Root broke early, as it is commonly doing these days.
* Stinging Swarm was resisted. Very uncommon.
* Mob is running at near standard speed when snared.
* Mob was hitting for max quite frequently.

I might add, that I am rather well geared.

[Cecily]

You haven't waited for me to finish editing my thoughts. You're picking a fight that is difficult for rangers, "rather well geared" rangers even, until their low 50s. There's a point in time which twink gear, epics / haste / fungi / sky cloak, becomes leveling gear. At level 46, you're pretty much at that point.

Source: A rather well geared ranger.

[Cecily]

All the things you mentioned in that last post were tweaked with (or broken) recently:

• Resist rates (especially greens)
• Snare speed (lawl raptors)
• AC (??? like normal for P99)

[mwatt]

Originally Posted by Cecily [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

All the things you mentioned in that last post were tweaked with (or broken) recently:

• Resist rates (especially greens)
• Snare speed (lawl raptors)
• AC (??? like normal for P99)

In this case, it seems that we are more or less in agreement. I am going a bit further in claiming that this is not "classic" - an accusation that I am sure that if I were a dev, I would NOT want to have leveled at me. I DON'T want to appear or be ungrateful. I'm very grateful for this game. However, I do think that some stuff needs to get adjusted, for the good of the game.

[Estu]

Originally Posted by mwatt [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In this case, it seems that we are more or less in agreement. I am going a bit further in claiming that this is not "classic" - an accusation that I am sure that if I were a dev, I would NOT want to have leveled at me. I DON'T want to appear or be ungrateful. I'm very grateful for this game. However, I do think that some stuff needs to get adjusted, for the good of the game.

First, whether or not these things are classic is clearly in dispute. But more importantly, I take issue with this kind of reasoning. This game is not meant for people to solo in (maybe for some classes, but not overall and not to the extent that is possible and efficient - even pretty tame stuff like fear kiting and snare kiting were not anticipated by the devs, if I recall correctly). The game is meant for grouping. The game is intended as kind of a D&D simulator, where you have a party and go and take down a bunch of monsters together. As a ranger in particular, you are not supposed to be good at soloing; you are supposed to go and find a group that can take down monsters effectively (of course, in practice on P99 since rangers are a crap class in classic era, this is not so easy to do).

I like changes which beef up mob resists. Spellcasting is incredibly powerful in EverQuest and lets you accomplish huge feats - like pulling five monsters to a camp and calmly taking down one at a time thanks to stuff like roots and mezzes. Or like charming one monster, using it to attack another monster, and ending up killing both for practically no mana investment and two fast kills' worth of EXP. Or like AE groups. All of these things are really cool and make the game interesting in one way, but in another way they run completely counter to the spirit of the game because they trivialize content.

When you can sit around root-dotting a mob by yourself, you are not dependent on a group in order to get EXP; you are getting EXP effectively and with little challenge all by your lonesome. Look at how D&D spells work and you know that you can't just crowd control everything willy-nilly; you actually have battles with multiple enemies that you have to deal with at once, and spellcasting is, while very useful, also very limited compared to EverQuest in this regard.

So I really don't think that pushing resists back down is "for the good of the game" in any way. It trivializes the content and makes soloing easier. You end up saying "aha, I can easily keep this mob rooted and not have to worry about it - easy solo EXPs!" instead of "aha, this mob refuses to stay rooted and is knocking me around a lot - I'd better find some other people who can help me fight it!"

[mwatt]

Originally Posted by Estu [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

First, whether or not these things are classic is clearly in dispute. But more importantly, I take issue with this kind of reasoning. This game is not meant for people to solo in (maybe for some classes, but not overall and not to the extent that is possible and efficient - even pretty tame stuff like fear kiting and snare kiting were not anticipated by the devs, if I recall correctly). The game is meant for grouping. The game is intended as kind of a D&D simulator, where you have a party and go and take down a bunch of monsters together. As a ranger in particular, you are not supposed to be good at soloing; you are supposed to go and find a group that can take down monsters effectively (of course, in practice on P99 since rangers are a crap class in classic era, this is not so easy to do).

I like changes which beef up mob resists. Spellcasting is incredibly powerful in EverQuest and lets you accomplish huge feats - like pulling five monsters to a camp and calmly taking down one at a time thanks to stuff like roots and mezzes. Or like charming one monster, using it to attack another monster, and ending up killing both for practically no mana investment and two fast kills' worth of EXP. Or like AE groups. All of these things are really cool and make the game interesting in one way, but in another way they run completely counter to the spirit of the game because they trivialize content.

When you can sit around root-dotting a mob by yourself, you are not dependent on a group in order to get EXP; you are getting EXP effectively and with little challenge all by your lonesome. Look at how D&D spells work and you know that you can't just crowd control everything willy-nilly; you actually have battles with multiple enemies that you have to deal with at once, and spellcasting is, while very useful, also very limited compared to EverQuest in this regard.

So I really don't think that pushing resists back down is "for the good of the game" in any way. It trivializes the content and makes soloing easier. You end up saying "aha, I can easily keep this mob rooted and not have to worry about it - easy solo EXPs!" instead of "aha, this mob refuses to stay rooted and is knocking me around a lot - I'd better find some other people who can help me fight it!"

Some people feel that soloing is inherently against the theme of the game. You appear to be one such. It is ok to have that opinion and I understand it (though I do not agree). However, the fact of the matter is that, in Classic EQ it was a wholly viable way to go and one could in fact root a mob much of the time (not always, no, which is good) and rely on root to allow you go win via dotting (if you were a Necro or Druid at least) without a ton of breakage. This is one of the good parts of playing a caster like this. To offset, casters cannot melee very well. This is by design of course.