Ranger disappointment

I think this post is intersting because I felt the same way when I first build my ranger. "Man! These guys cant put out damage as hard or as fast as these other builds. Rangers must be gimped. They need fix'in."

I play a r/e hoping that I would be a major damage dealer. As it turns out, it seemed I only supported the damage that was really being done by warriors or some other class. As a means to be useful I found that watching the battlefield and hiting the right enemy at the right time was far more effective.

Now I dont play a damage dealing ranger. I play a support role that looks for targets then shuts them down. My teams mates get a better ranger now that I dont consentrate on damage but instead, I scan the battle and pop the biggest threat I can find. And like its been said in the post here before, ..no one knows what your doing to contribute as a ranger if you do your job well. The team takes less damage and the foes drop faster and it seems like only I know that I stopped meteors, earthquakes or healing on top of healing etc.
The ranger class is under appreshated because of the lack of obivous flash or damage. Going unnoticed goes to thier advantage. And once you find its nitch its really gradifying. As a support character, I know what to do, and Im glad I didnt give up after my first disappointment with his damage skills. Although! Ive read (havent actually seen) some great builds that compete with elementist for fast and ferious damage.

In short, for me, rangers are...slower on damaging. Probably a harder character to get some henchies or PUG and be successful in tougher missions.
But in a good team. They really can turn the tide.

Also, it seems odd to me that people often par up warriors vs. rangers and not rangers vs. elementist. It seems kind of obvious that good warrior would be more successful in beating a good ranger on average. But just as true a good elementist would have a hell of a time taking out a good ranger. And damn! a good elementist would probably have a significant advantage over a good warror due to warriors low magic armor and elementist water and lightning spells. I think the game set up that way. Like a scissors, paper, rocks type balance for classes. I was thinking like this as well and you can see that in a thread I made earlier. Basically I was expecting something similar to my EQ Ranger, one of the best dps'ers there is. But instead I was doing not much damage and this frustrated me. However I've been reading through all of these builds people post and I've changed my setup quite a bit and it seems to work alot better. I try to do interupts more often and not focus on dps.

This is not what I had hoped for when I made my ranger, but I can see now that this is how they were designed and I'm trying to adjust to suit this but I still kind of think it sucks.

Troll Inguent is +9 health regen at rank 12, and you call it horrible? Are you joking? Also, is Whirling Defense and Storm Chaser part of your horrible stances category? They last for close to 20 seconds at a time, and the Ranger has multiple skills to reduce skill cooldowns by a considerable amount.

Everyone uses these skills, and they are even part of the new ranger template. You might want to re-think your opinion. For one, simply because it is in a premade template, does not mean that it's a skill that is good. Also, no, not everyone uses these skills and even if they did, it wouldn't change the fact that they simply aren't great skills in most cases. I never said Whirling Defense was "horrible", I said it's recharge was ridiculous (same for Storm Chaser). Both are in the neighbourhood of something like 30 or 60 seconds. 20 seconds of 75% Block is nice... waiting another 40 for it, isn't. However, coupled with a skill like Oath Shot... you have a nice combination (Whirling Defense + Oath's Shot is used by some Trapping Rangers).

Troll Unguent on the other hand IS awful. If you have to heal yourself (as a ranger) in a PvP match, you need to find a new team. Also, +9 Regen is only reached with quite a few points in Wilderness Survival. If your build supports that... then great, but not all of them do. My R/N for example has zero points in Wilderness Survival... making Troll Unguent a mere +3 regen over 10 seconds... hardly worth raving about. Not to mention, it has a 3 second casting rate... this, above all things, kills this skill. 3 Seconds in PvP is pretty long... depending on the results. Something like Rend Enchantments, for example, is well worth it's 3 second casting time... +9 Health Regen with a lot of Wilderness Survival for 10 seconds of self healing... isn't worth it at all. Not to mention, it's taking up a valuable skill spot that could be put to better use.