A Question for anyone who has played a ranger a lot...

[Uberbandit]

Just a quick list of why I played Ranger.

1) Tracking spoils you when pulling, now on a Monk I miss it so much.

2) Spells that break up the press one button over and over until it's dead. (Which is why I don't play rogue)

3) Spirit of Wolf all the time w/o the hassle of jboots.

4) Snare can save lives in a group w/o casters to root or when it fails.

5) Clutch heals that just barely save that tank when the main heal went oom.

[Snaggles]

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

Scenario A: You are preparing a group for a dungeon crawl, and you have one slot left to fill and since all your bases are covered it can be anything. Which is the LAST class you pick?

Answer: Ranger. Brings nothing to the group but average DPS and a huge xp penalty.

This assumes you properly filled your slots. If it's a basic kickball game pick the Rogue offers way more than the Ranger with damage numbers. If you have heavy dps already there are plenty of reasons to pick a Ranger. Hopefully one of the factors is, "Oh that's ____, he/she's cool!" There is the player behind the toon which is the most valuable part of a quality group.

You can see hybrids as a exp robbing less efficient version of the pure class(s), or you can see them as a highly versatile class offering a skilled player a chance to shine.

A pure melee is just as good as it's equipment. With a hybrid that's just where the game starts. They have more than 3 buttons to mash. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

In the end it doesn't matter. The game is meant to be enjoyed. Luckily a Ranger has some ability to solo which as it seems is more fun than perma-LFG. [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[mitic]

i didnt care about the exp penalty to find groups as a ranger cause i STARTED them and everyone was happy to be in that groups i made since i pulled/tanked nonstop in unrest, MM afterwards with harmony and finaly root/park pulled in solb

when you start to think about exp penalties or the pros and cons of a class, then you shouldnt have considered that class in the first place. play the class you feel like you want to play and dont come here to ask if a class is good or not cause this just indicates that you arent 100% comfortable to play it anyways.

[YendorLootmonkey]

From a WHY WOULD I WANT TO GROUP A RANGER perspective:

If you have a tank, cleric, crowd control, dps, dps, and you're a min-maxer, you add another dps or a shammy for slows/buffs. Chances are, a ranger won't add much to a full group.

If you have a tank and cleric and you want to keep the group small, you add a bard or ranger for that third slot for the versatility.

That being said, most high level rangers on P99 know the odds are stacked against them, and those who have lasted to level 51+ have something to prove, and are damn good players because we know we have had to earn that spot in every group we have ever been invited to.

From a WHY WOULD I WANT TO PLAY A RANGER perspective:

Although soloing is a bitch, you are fairly self-sufficient and it's a fun class to play because of the versatility. You aren't hitting the mob until someone lets you die like a warrior. You aren't medding/casting/afking like a caster. You're tanking, pulling, dragging corpses, asking for rezzes, crowd controlling, slowing (with Swarmcaller), ripping mobs off your AFK casters, buffing, etc, etc, what everyone else said, sometimes changing roles on a moment's notice. Equivalent to a bard, except with less carpal tunnel syndrome.

The problem is, min-maxers don't care you being able to be jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

[Rieve]

can we just sticky one of these threads already so that every 3 weeks Yendor, Duies, Mitic, and Aadill don't have to come and repost the same thing over and over again

[YendorLootmonkey]

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

can we just sticky one of these threads already so that every 3 weeks Yendor, Duies, Mitic, and Aadill don't have to come and repost the same thing over and over again

Then we'd have nothing to do while sitting at our bind points waiting for a rez, or while LFG.

[Aadill]

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

Then we'd have nothing to do while sitting at our bind points waiting for a rez, or while LFG.

[Xanthias]

What Yendor and Aadill said [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[nocookiesforme]

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

The scenario you chose minimizes the impact of the hybrid exp penalty as much as is possible. Most groups are not full, and rarer yet is a case of nobody else having an exp penalty.

Any class that can solo, can exp significantly faster soloing then duoing with a hybrid. Given how much soloing goes on here, this scenario alone has more impact then full group scenario, and it isn't good for the community.

Not that these discussions actually matter, exp penalty will stay until that point in Velious when it finally became widely understood and was thus removed.

That's all true. Here was my logic in using the scenario I did:

• Somebody playing a Solo class CAN exp faster without a Hybrid - that's true, and a perfectly valid point. I don't blame anybody playing a solo class for not wanting to duo with a Hybrid. But hey, that's why they're playing a solo class.
• Somebody in a less than full group - won't adding ANYBODY who's not AFK allow you to kill things faster, and reduce downtime enough that you're going to get more experience than you would without that person? Even if the person added is a Hybrid? I understand that this won't be the case you're camping static spawns, and you're always at full health/mana by the time they pop. But in any other case, I feel like having an additional player means reducing downtime, which means more kills per session, which should outweigh any experience penalty, however slightly. Am I wrong? I'll freely admit I've never gotten to a particularly high level in either classic OR P99, so I'm not speaking from actual experience here.
• Somebody in a group that's already got people with experience penalties - if you're willing to overlook the ones you already have, why start complaining now? Granted, if hybrids make up the MAJORITY of any group, I can see that being a problem. But that seems like it would be a poor group composition anyway.

I dunno, those were just my thoughts.

[Diggles]

I played one on Live just because I liked tracking and I was too young for bards and i didn't want a druid