Ranger

[mgb64029]

I want to play a ranger, but I am curious as to why exactly they are considered a joke in this game. Are they viable in raiding at all?

[Legidias]

When they walk in a forest and get lost from track bugs, they trip and die from fall damage.

[bigjeff100]

Today a ranger scolded me on littering my foraged items around Toxx. He gracefully picked them up, lectured, and went on his way.

[stebbins99]

Originally Posted by bigjeff100 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Today a ranger scolded me on littering my foraged items around Toxx. He gracefully picked them up, lectured, and went on his way.

Hahah that's hilarious!

But, OP, one of my buddies plays a ranger and loves it. Like many melee classes, they seem to scale better as their gear improves. Also, being able to "track" stuff is pretty dang cool and rangers are the best in the biz.

My ranger buddy's main complaints: he's a "paper tank" and requires an attentive healer in order to group. Rangers generally do pretty good DPS and, coupled with their spells, tend to draw agro pretty easily. Rangers don't have the same type of defensive skills and HP as true tanks, this can cause them to go down fast if things go sour.

My ranger buddy's compliments to the class: great DPS (especially as gear improves), the ability to cast SoW (which helps to improve survivability), and being an awesome group puller in outdoor zones (thanks to the spell Harmony). Harmony is an awesome spell that allows you to separate outdoor mobs with virtually no risk-- I'd suggest reading up on it.

I bet it would be a fun class to twink-out if you had a ton of cash! But, even if you don't have the means to twink-out a ranger, I'd still strongly suggest playing the class you are interested and invested in. Good luck!

[Jimjam]

A ranger is a clerics best friend!

You know why?

That group with four fungi twinkled monks? They are never going to need a heal; there is no incentive to add a strong heal class.

That group with a ranger tank? They are literally dieing for the best heals and extra AC buffs in the game.

Plus, with all the Rez donations you're going to be putting the church of Innoruuk's daughters through college without them having to moonlight at the Maiden's Fancy.

[Crede]

Originally Posted by mgb64029 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I want to play a ranger, but I am curious as to why exactly they are considered a joke in this game. Are they viable in raiding at all?

Any class that isn't optimized for raiding generally gets blown up to some degree, especially on the forums. Rangers aren't the best dps, they really can't tank, and their spells kinda blow.

But yet I posted a thread about the most overall fun class at 60 a few months back and ranger won by far. Just one of those classes where you need to acquire a lot of things in your toolkit to start to really make a difference. Epic, haste cloak, good gear, etc. Combine all that, you have a class that can raid dps, do a lot of solo/track stuff, farm greens, group dps/pull, "tank" in certain situations, easy porting to Fay for banking, etc. You also finally get some decent spells at 55+ like chloro, sln, DS(can PL noobs to some extent) and their beloved atk buff. Hardest part is getting to that point.

Good luck

[Meiva]

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

A ranger is a clerics best friend!

You know why?

That group with four fungi twinkled monks? They are never going to need a heal; there is no incentive to add a strong heal class.

I mean, no.

I have nothing against rangers, and they can tank just fine in many situations. That group with four fungi twinked monks and a cleric finds a good, quiet, ZEM zone and pulls as much as the cleric could possible handle.

An Enchanter is a clerics best friend.

[YendorLootmonkey]

Originally Posted by mgb64029 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I want to play a ranger, but I am curious as to why exactly they are considered a joke in this game. Are they viable in raiding at all?

If you want to have fun playing a class that can fulfill many different roles and adapt to a changing situation in a group, try a ranger.

If you want to be constantly sought after in groups, do not try a ranger. Unless you're willing to go /anon, wear silver plate armor, not cast any spells, and sell yourself as a warrior with shitty HP. Which I did to get groups in some level ranges while the hybrid XP penalty still existed. Not proud, but whatever it takes to get some XP, right?

If you want to feel important/needed in raids -- outside of a 2-minute Trueshot window with an endgame bow, eating a death touch, being a Weaponshield transition for your main tanks, your raid leader ran out of food/drink and you have to spend the entire raid foraging off to the side out of everyone's way (at least that's what I was told) or the occasional outdoors dragon pull because no bards showed up -- do not try a ranger. No one has ever said "Oh fuck, we don't have enough rangers... send tells for ports/TLs outta here."

[Veleria]

Ranger is a great class. Honestly, if you are this late to the server they are a great class unless you absolutely want to be the best at one thing. You won't be the best tank or the best dps but you will do enough to justify your place in most groups. They are not the best at anything but good enough at what they do to do well in a variety of situations. Rangers are very gear dependant like all melee classes except "maybe" monk. You have a lot of tools that can help in many situations but since they have a bad reputation mostly based on mechanics that are no longer relevant there is a bit of an uphill battle for respect. If you like the playstyle go for it because a level 60 character that is suboptimal is better than a level 40 that you don't like to spend time on. Until level 60 you won't really add anything unique to a raid when you will get a situational but useful discipline and a group buff that is yours alone.

[deezy]

playing a ranger is definitely hard mode, but that was part of the fun for me. once those obstacles are overcome rangers become a very powerful class. they are very gear dependent, but once that gear is acquired they can complete with monks and rogues in raid dps, can tank in any xp group camp, and offtank in many raid situations.