Rangers

I was Reading the necro post and my own class came to mind
Because like necros. rangers are usually lowball'd because of the numbe rof people who have miss conceptions of rangers or just don't know how to play the class period, i've been playing since open beta summer 04 and the reputation of rangers has gone steadily down hill since then partially because alot of noobs think they would be the easiest class to play and at the start they might be but in higher end Pve and PvP the classes of Ranger and Necro become quiet difficult to use well. Part of the big reason that rangers have also lost reputation is cause marksmanship got nerfed the a month later bow max damage got nerfed and then 2 months later pets got nerfed. so people believe that rangers are useless, and some are. I for one am glad when my team leader says it was good to have a skilled ranger on the team but i know what its like to have a noob on there with me and everyones just calling us useless rangers. although its hard to find rangers do have a power point but it doesn't revolve around one set or even to it involves an good knowledge of your skills their ups and downs and your attribute points. Noobs need to know that because of rounding expertise 6 is the same as 7 and 8 is the same as 9 for all but 15 and 25 mana skills. I will admit i miss the days when a ranger was a physically dominate force at range and dealt large damage and when a pet was as good as a warrior and when bows maxed at 38 i think it was and not 28 but these are just hurdles we must leap if we want to have our ranger reputation back. We rangers are good for more than ritual walls and annoying people.

Could someone explain to me exactly what a ranger does? For a while I was one of those people who thought they were just damage dealers, until I started one. I was doing fine with that mentality for a while, but very suddenly I found myself doing very little damage overall. When I hit this hurdle as a Mesmer, I just thought to myself, what should I be doing? I'm trying the same now as a Ranger...But I can't quite think of an answer. Would someone educate me, please?

Maybe the title "ranger" is just cursed. I remember back in EQ1 they were by far the most worthless class, and don't think that ever really changed.

I can't think of ANY RPG where Rangers/Archers aren't at least considered the worst class, and I struggle to think of one where they aren't they worst class.

So yeah, I'm a Ranger, of course. How foolish.

I'm in Ker's spot currently. In Shiverpeaks poison and bow damage was enough to keep me a valuable damage dealer, but in Comp/Team arenas I just plain suck. What do Ranger actually DO?

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enjoy

That doesn't quite answer my question, Zeru...That's how rangers do what they do. But what do they do?

They do just about everything every other class does. What don't they do?

This is my stradigy. Stay waaay back. Your defence is your range. Let warriors soak up the agro and the hits. If your getting hit, evade and run. If you run pass the warrior the enemies will give up on you and stick to him. If its pvp, hopefull your not fighting up hill, keep your distance, no one can compete against you for rangeded hits.

If your going to lay traps in PvE (this is a grip of mine too) Have warrior stand next to you and stay put, every other class that isnt a tank say behind him. If you or another warrior pulls, run behind the warrior standing on the trap.
Traps like dust trap are miracles in places like underworld, but people got to know what traps can do for them and how to make the most of them.

The low damage and the none garrentee that your pindown/distraction/concussion/whatever shot will hit sort of does make the ranger a bit of a high skill character. (imo) There are some skills things that make you more valuable in certain situations. But, my growning pains was learning to stay behind everyone to never get targeted, picking of targets as my team needs and my skillbar lets me. This usually helps me to be the last to survive, escape and rez the team after we muck up.

rangers can do many things.

they can supplement damage from afar,be a caster's worst nightmare, a condition giving machine, and at the right times; a tank

it all depends what you bring to the table so to speak....or would that be (skill) bar? and also depends on what the situation calls for.

and that , my friend, is a ranger. jack of all trades (almost) master of none

Just not as well LOL. fairly weak damage (with the exceptions of the rangers who say they 2 shoot people all the time LOL). And interupt fairly well but mesmers and to an extint Elementalists interupts do better (at least in PvP where most bring 0-1second cast skills, and you have to figure in the arrows flight time). The thing most of us Rangers do excell at is waiting in Tombs for a group .

Actually, in Final Fantasy 11, Rangers are unanimously considered to be the best class, and overpowered. Just thought id point out that the archers dont always suck ^.^

A ranger is about making choices.

1) go beastmaster
don't go 'charm animal & comfort animal' and the rest bow attacks. that is spoiling your skillslots. if you want an animal, go for it, but load up on beastskills, else its just a pillow in pvp.

2) go casterharrassment
one of the more tempting ways. the response time is kind of low, so either pick that ressurrection spell and 2s+ skills, or just spam? not easy to play, that's for sure. still can be a nice play. tried a ranger with delibrating and anothr energy drainer to keep casters dry. worked for a while, but wasn't really happy with it. Incendairy arrows and co. should do the job probably...

3) conditions
i really like this part of rangers. lay it big time. poison one enemy, then a second an third, try to inflict bleeding as they run (hunter's shot), cripple the warriors chasing the monk or you, etc. With this approach i'm currently having some fun in random arena's. blind (throw dirt) and dazed (concussion shot) are also in the skillstore of rangers. But be selective in your picks here.

I believe the key to being a successfull Ranger is understanding that beastmastery in hardcore PvP is very hard to use and should be dropped. Plus you need to put pts in only 4 attribute areas and if you have good runes and the extra 30 attribute pts this will work nicely. Mark, expertise, and wild are very important. Wild maybe not depending on your second class and strategy. The 4th area is your secondary class. In my experience this is the most important for a ranger. I am a R/Mo and I love thos warriors who come up to me. I start w/throw dirt and then go into a couple of high dmg smite skills (which ignore armor ratings) keep whirling defense on and the rest you can fill in as needed.

Okay, thanks Makkert. Your list gives me a good idea of what I'd be doing in PvP...

...Now what about PvE? I don't have any traps yet (I'm at Druid's Overlook atm), and I know mobs don't respond to harrassment like players do. I do mediocre damage at best.

The whole argument reminds me of the historical role of the archer in massed combat. Up until the advent of the professional English archer, bowmen were considered inferior, second class battle fodder and for the most part, they were. Only with proper training, discipline, and equipment did the longbowman become a feared military unit instead of just a nuisance in battle, designed to pick off unarmored and/or unorganized cannon fodder. Even that was short lived as armor became heavier and the crossbow was introduced.

Alright I'm rambling.

You have to think though, it might work in extreme team builds. What would happen if you had say, 8 beast masters. If you call targets you could take anyone down quite fast.

Synthos you bring up a good point......that would be cool. Kershent, you need to find good bows and specialize them. I keep several on me, all maxed and one w/each type of string. Some are specialized w/bonuses vs the more common creatures. You also have to understand thy enemy in PvE. Undead do not like holy stuff, so I use the monks enchant weapon or watever its called with a max dmg short bow, 20% dmg vs undead, fire string and whatch the bodies hit the floor. Sometimes with dual shot I can do 200+ dmg. Don't forget to use a stance and a good spirit like serpents quickness and maybe favorable winds. Most enemies have a weakness, you just need to plan for them and take advantage of them.

Well I for one have seen 6 MMOs and out of the 6 all the range classes have taken a beating. The ranger is suppose to be powerful at range but at close range they are suppose to be weak. In DAoC the ranger was at an advantage so they did the same thing and nerfed them. The nerf was so bad that any bow user was lucky to win a one on one fight with a mob equal level. While a paladin was still capable of tanking a deep con grape (+10 levels). The reason was that a ranger dished out so much damage on the opening shots that the other players felt disavantaged and cried nerf. Yet because a Pally could sustain a long drawn out fight where DPS was lower, they did nothing to nerf them.

I have played with GW for several weeks now and I see the same problem I saw in the other 5 MMOs. The arrows do not do enough damage to be effective in PvE. I built a warrior and played for awhile but I do not like a warrior. I tried a caster but I do not like a caster class. I like playing an archer class. Well it does not matter anymore I just decided to stop playing.