Ranger solo

[demokatt]

Hello!

I played an SK to level 42 and its been very fun. I made it since I was planning to group alot but now it seems that I almost enirely solo.

So I was thinking of making a ranger too and try it out. I was wondering how good do they meele compared to an SK for solo? I probably wont be using arrows much but a Woodsman staff and I can use the same armour on my ranger as on my sk.

Do rangers have slightly better DPS than SK and therefor can take down solo blue mobs faster which makes up for the lesser defence than the SK?

[Pyrion]

Rangers have dual wield, SKs don't. Dual wielding 2 weapons usually is better DPS than just one big 2 hander (if those 1 handers are any good). Ranger damage spells are also more damaging then the Sks + you get a weak damage shield. So all in all, you can kill mobs faster while being more squishy.

From level 22 up you can fear kite with your ranger for very little mana investment. It's restricted to animals though. The best thing about rangers is tracking... i am really missing it on other chars.

[gildor]

that comment about 2 dual wield over one 2h is false, post 20 the woodmans staff is the best dps item in game for rangers until epics...

rangers have some awesome utility and outdoors harmony/track are unmatched..they make great soloers

dont overlook the power of you bow, root/shoot is a great way to finish off mobs when you are low health

[demokatt]

Arrows dont break root?

[gildor]

Not every shot, no

[demokatt]

Okay cool. What draws me to solo Ranger is that I get a few more utilities than SK, like Buffs and SOW that can be cast on other players, I like to help sometimes.

I will never do any raid and probably never get more than 50-55 levels so then perhaps a Ranger is more fun to play with than an SK.

[jolanar]

Rangers should do a pretty fair amount more dps than a SK. As far as soloing goes, the biggest difference will be that rangers will have to rely on fear kiting animals while SKs can fear kite a larger variety of things.

From a solo leveling perspective, the gameplay is probably quite similar.

[demokatt]

How about rooting the mob, put dome dots on it and shoot some and then start meele it when its down to 50-60 %? Or is he too squishy even for half the hp?

[jolanar]

Been a while since I played my ranger. But I remember the dots being pretty useless if you plan on them getting the mob to 50% in any reasonable time frame. You'd be spending too much mana on root.

[blondeattk]

`they make great soloers`

not pre luclin they dont unless you have a fungi.

they lvl on par with rogue or sk.

they constantly run out of mana, whihc is used to support their ave melee abilities.

dont believe the hype rangers suffer from alot of down time. With no autofire, using arrows to solo is not much fun, and also a limitning factor pre L45.

rangers are underwhelming on p99.

[demokatt]

I noticed there are alot of rangers nowadays.. I guess it's because the removed class xp penalty? Well I'm used to solo SK so if it's not worse than that I will suffice and probebly have some more tools to play with.

[Superranger]

If you can find a lot of animal to kill, ranger will probably be easier and faster than SK as both fear and panic animal use very little mana compared to darkness and fear + better dps with ranger. Ranger best class

[jolanar]

Also worth mentioning, fear kiting as a melee is a pretty miserable existence.

[Cecily]

Snare and sow.. it's not that bad. Alot of people seem to hate it, but I think it's more fun than getting hit.

[blondeattk]

Also worth mentioning, fear kiting as a melee is a pretty miserable existence.

true, but stun weapons help with that one. keeping in the hitbox though can get irritating; try duo the animals with a lower lvl mage, pet stuns, but you hover up most of the exp. I found fear kiting ogres in oggok (with necro)worked like this.

[Superranger]

fear kiting tip, don't chase the mob from behind, strafe on it's side, i find it easier to stay in it's hit box this way

[Imago]

Having soloed thru a solid 20% of 59, 50% of 54 and all of 30-45, I'd like to point out that it isn't that hard if you find the right mobs.

Though, I also enjoyed soloing as a rogue from 20-40 and 51-55. So it's understandable if you are having trouble.

[LethClaypool]

It may not apply to your question about soloing but find a druid friend and absolutely wreck any outdoor zone with animals by chain puiling.

[blondeattk]

I luv a bit of puiling in the mornings...really sets me up for the day!

[Cecily]

I think it's worth mentioning that rangers are absolutely fantastic at killing greens at 60, particularly with a sky cloak. Much more efficient than my druid at farming.

[Troxx]

I think it's worth mentioning that rangers are absolutely fantastic at killing greens at 60, particularly with a sky cloak. Much more efficient than my druid at farming.

Bards are better :p

The day I realized I could stack 388 a tick in dots (4 targeted + 2 aoe) on my bard WHILE giving myself 40hp/tick regen AND slowing the mob 35% ... jesus.

At 60 bard can sustain ~65dps in dots + pitiful melee (hand to hand) + slows + self heals solo on greens, blues and light blues.

Moral of the story? Bards win :D

[Crawdad]

Bards are better :p

The day I realized I could stack 388 a tick in dots (4 targeted + 2 aoe) on my bard WHILE giving myself 40hp/tick regen AND slowing the mob 35% ... jesus.


By twisting 7-8 songs at once? :confused:

[Cecily]

Bards are better :p

The day I realized I could stack 388 a tick in dots (4 targeted + 2 aoe) on my bard WHILE giving myself 40hp/tick regen AND slowing the mob 35% ... jesus.

At 60 bard can sustain ~65dps in dots + pitiful melee (hand to hand) + slows + self heals solo on greens, blues and light blues.

Moral of the story? Bards win :D

Yeah? Well I regen 25 a tick, slow the mob 50%, and self haste for 90%, ds for 26. Without carpal tunnels.

And did you say 65 dps? (if you're gonna mention AE that's not a fair comparison)

http://i.imgur.com/5zEX8LU.png

Some blues today:

Froglok forager in 111sec, for 6012HP and your 54dps at 4/4/2016 12:21:13 PM
Froglok forager in 203sec, for 6087HP and your 30dps at 4/4/2016 12:24:31 PM
Froglok forager in 90sec, for 6004HP and your 67dps at 4/4/2016 12:29:20 PM
Froglok forager in 108sec, for 5995HP and your 56dps at 4/4/2016 12:31:38 PM
Froglok forager in 82sec, for 5935HP and your 72dps at 4/4/2016 12:36:39 PM


That's with a Swiftblade of Zek (+earthcaller on frogs) / Swiftwind at 200ish STR. Would get better with NToV stuff or really any additional Velious gear.. haha.

Not saying we're the best. Not saying what I did is particularly noteworthy. Just I'm very pleased with how my ranger performs with farming self buffed.

[Troxx]

By twisting 7-8 songs at once? :confused:

6 dots

One song is 50/tick for 1 minute (35% slow as well)

71 single target
71 single target
48 single target
72 aoe (per mob)
76 aoe (per mob)

For single pulls that comes out to 388 damage per tick. For each extra mob add another 148 per tick.

Can keep all 6 dots up without really dropping while working regen in once per dot cycle. If we're talking really low cons the 2 aoe song damage will be multiplied by the number of mobs in the pull. One button click every 3 seconds and an instrument swap every ~10 seconds is hardly carpal tunnel.

[Cecily]

I turn on auto and kick things.

[Troxx]

And bards use no mana and have no down time apart from how long it takes to find another mob. Mobs at seafury cyclops level and below can't out-damage the regen song.

[Troxx]

Rangers solo just fine for casual play. Twinked to the teeth they do pretty damned well but will still fall behind monks, bards, and most casters.

[jolanar]

And bards use no mana and have no down time apart from how long it takes to find another mob. Mobs at seafury cyclops level and below can't out-damage the regen song.

And require no gear, unlike the top end raid gear Cecily is referencing. Not hating on Rangers, just saiyan.

[demokatt]

So far I am level 15 and Having fun with my new ranger. Though Im not sure why it would be more dps than an SK with a good 2h weapon using fear? But for casual solo play Im falling in love with tracking :-)

[Superranger]

At lower level it will be similar to SK (ranger used to get the edge because they could get the very nice Woodman's staff for cheap whereas SK didn't have similar option, not as true now with Verious weapons) but at higher level, ranger's offense and weapons skills cap at much higher skill level than SK, + they get dual wield

[demokatt]

Level 18 now.. still Havent started using bow yet.. I guess that is a must or I get thrown out of the ranger club :-) What ingrediens should I start combining for arrows? Som vendor selling them near SK?

[jolanar]

Level 18 now.. still Havent started using bow yet.. I guess that is a must or I get thrown out of the ranger club :-) What ingrediens should I start combining for arrows? Som vendor selling them near SK?

Aside from access to some pretty sweet ranger only bows at the end game, there isn't really anything particularly special about rangers ability to use bows. Yes you can crit, but that doesn't mean you'll be 360 no scoping mobs for exp. Bow kiting is not an efficient way to level at all, especially when compared to fear kiting.

You can search the wiki for vendors that sell Fletching Kits. I'd wager there is at least one somewhere in the Karanas.

[Cecily]

Level 18 now.. still Havent started using bow yet.. I guess that is a must or I get thrown out of the ranger club :-) What ingrediens should I start combining for arrows? Som vendor selling them near SK?

Takes a point, shaft, fletching, and nock to make an arrow. There's pieces called vanes which look like shafts but are extremely expensive. Just please double check the names before you buy, because an accidental stack of wooden / ceramic vanes could easily wipe out all of your plat.

[Jimjam]

When fletching I make the cheapest arrow possible to get started. From there I just make the next cheapest arrow with increased range until I am making 150 range arrows. Sometimes I'll make arrows with a slightly higher trivial to further raise my skill and improve success rates on the 150 range arrows, once you are at 90 skill the combine seems to be more or less as reliable as it will get. http://wiki.project1999.com/Fletching includes a table that shows the stat mods different components result in and a table showing most of the possible combinations.

[Pyrion]

In east karana close to bridge you can buy fletching supplies.

[vouss]

Cecily could tell me a little more about vanes & shafts

[Cecily]

Of course I can! You have your whittling knives?

[Cecily]

Also if you have your smithy hammer ready, I know quite a bit about boning.

[blondeattk]

Also if you have your smithy hammer ready, I know quite a bit about boning.


you use that line at, national elf parties ?

:cool:

[jolanar]

So rangers can solo blue con mobs from 22 to 60 using panic animal? Just curious, where would you hunt from 51 to 60 using this tactic? Panic animal was never around when I played my ranger.

[Cecily]

So rangers can solo blue con mobs from 22 to 60 using panic animal? Just curious, where would you hunt from 51 to 60 using this tactic? Panic animal was never around when I played my ranger.

There may be a better spot for low 50s, but Western Wastes basically. Mastodons are 45-50, brontotheriums are 45-51, and Velium Hounds are 48-53. I checked out the area a couple days ago (at 60 mind you) and was downing mobs with a snare and about 5 fears. If you kill slower, say twice as long, that's only an extra 50 mana. Pretty excited for all of you that get to chain kill level 50s instead of 2 lv 45s every 15 mins with an exp penalty.

Just make sure you're friendly with CoV or it'll get ugly quick. Besides that the only danger is the ice burrowers which can be easily avoided in the field with a little paranoia. I felt extremely safe hunting there.

[Yinikren]

You can level straight to 60 in WW, but it's honestly easier to suffer in EW until 52-53 before heading over because the mob HP pools are just enormous. At 51 (with FPD/CSS, CoF, Sky cloak - I'm no gimp) it took around 10 to 12 fears per mob, per kill - the mana wasn't an issue, but it gets tedious, especially with the tiny brontotherium hitbox. It gets easier as you outlevel the mobs and do more dps, I'm sure.

[demokatt]

Ok now Im 31 and I like it. What I notice compared to SK is that I need to keep a few more spells up than SK so a bit more mana needed. Or are buffs like firefist and feet like cat to low to be cared about keeping up? talking about solo play now.. om mostly just tank and spank.. prob doing it wrong but I feel the dots are to low to root rot at this level?

[demokatt]

Cecily, what would u recommend for armour 30-50? I have stuff like sebilite and such that gives ac and str but would it be better trade up to Tolans armour to get more ac even is STR goes down a bit?

By that I mean affordable stuff, like 2-800 per piece and not end-game stuff I cant afford

[Cecily]

You're playing a different game than I did. Untwinked vs heavily twinked rangers play differently. I also didn't have fear kiting as an option, so overall mana might be more of a consideration for you. And you're playing in a different expansion with more of mid level gear options that I never had a reason to get familiar with. Also I hear AC does stuff now. Kunark kids avoided AC so not sure how important that is either. I'm a poor choice of fashion consultant! Let me try anyway.

As far as general gearing guidelines, this is a bit more relevant in Kunark also but, I always saved up for higher end purchases per slot getting as close to the best I could and could reasonably afford. My thinking was, I didn't want stepping stone gear because then I'd have to sell it and EC tunnel sucks, especially when you're selling overfarmed Kunark / classic stuff. Cheap stuff is generally tougher to get rid of. It also ensured I'd have something I liked for a long time. Basically, I think you'd be happier in general with a few 3k+ items instead of a bunch of 800-1k pieces. Happier with a really nice 10k item vs a few 3k items. Etc. This isn't true in every case, but that was my gear philosophy when I was leveling my first character.

Regarding Tolan's, you'll get the most use out of a bracer for clicky arrows. I would still probably go for AC / stat gear instead of heavy on one or the other. Crystal Chitin stuff seems really nice. Barbed Ringmail Tunic is pretty good.. All a bit out of your price range, but I think you'd get longer use from them. Besides boots / cloak, stay away from Tigeraptor because that set otherwise sucks AC and stat wise. Woodsman Staff is still overpowered. Simply too much stuff to go over.

The best thing you can do is to check out this wiki page (http://wiki.project1999.com/Category:Ranger_Equipment) and familiarize yourself with your gear options. Learn what's out there and set a goal to save up for. STR stuff is good. HP stuff is good. High AC stuff can't hurt. Dex/WIS can be nice.

[demokatt]

Yeah so If I hade the choice between 13 AC and another piece with 8 AC and +4 STR I should probably go for the combined. I Wonder how how low is ac softcap for each slot? Is it Way above 20?

[Baldrek]

Back in the original EQ (pre-Velious), as a lvl 50-60 Ranger, what I would do when soloing:
1) Root target
2) Cast Ensnare on target (12 minute snare, if memory is correct)
3) DoT monster (not a lot of damage, but usually more than enough to cancel-out the target's regen).
4) Dual-wield and melee target until my health is at half.
5) Root target
6) Use bow and re-root as necessary until my Regen (Chloro at 55) heals me up to full. Add in a DD every now and then if mana is not an issue.
7) Repeat steps 3-6 until target is dead.

Without the Endless Quiver AA, that takes a lot of arrows, but it worked pretty well for me. Ensnare will allow some room for error. Your DoTs and damage-shields will add some extra damage.

Granted, this was a long time ago and I'm guessing some strategies have changed.

I hope this is helpful and happy hunting.

[demokatt]

Now I'm 37. Any good suggestions on where I can fearkite animals apart from OT and Emerald Jungle? Any good spot in old world or should I head IC/EW?

[Karta]

Sorry to interrupt, but where's a good place to use panic animal when you first get the spell at 22 up to the 30s ? I'm an untwinked ranger main, just banded armor, no jewellry and a silver swiftblade.

[demokatt]

South Karana has elephants and there are lots of wolfs and lesser friffons you can hunt in east karana.

[demokatt]

I'm 44 now still having fun :-)

Since I will never get my hands on epics, and I already got the woodsman staff it seems I already got the best ranger weapon I can get. But sometimes I just like the look of two swords, so I was wondering - what do you think is the best dps 1h weapons I can get apart from epics? Lammies seemed to be the old time favorite?

How about two Wurmslayers? They also add 10 AC and 10 STR - while being giant - I suppose they look big in hands?

Also, for solo tank and spank - is it worth using a swarmcaller and hope for an early slow before switching back to the staff?

[RDawg816]

I'm not up to date on my ranger weapons. Sorry...
Wurmslayers are primary only.
Slow is great if you can get it to proc early.

[demokatt]

Oh its primary only.. my bad :-)

[Thiefboy777]

- what do you think is the best dps 1h weapons I can get apart from epics?

Swiftblade of Zek 11/18, Horn of Hsagra 13/20 mainhand

Blade of Carnage 15/23 offhand.

Those are top of the line droppables.


Some more realistic options, skyfury scimitar 13/23, Winters fury 13/23, scimitar of the emerald dawn 20/34, crafted velium warsword 10/18, silver sword of yalrek 13/24, EoN 14/25, frost bringer 12/22 (but agro proc), fayguard partying dagger 9/17 (no drop)

[demokatt]

thanks I check those up

[gildor]

Lupine dagger..gives your a wolf form proc you don't get until much much later in levels as a spell

[Ivory]

I've been soloing a TON on my ranger.....

1-25 - Bows!!! So strong being able to kite anything around. It might take a little longer to kill, but there is no downtime.

25-35 - More bows!!! Yea, running around shootin stuff is pretty powerful if you try and get a bow of the huntsman at about level 30-35..... duoing is pretty easy being able to hate-kite stuff with a partner (though I still soloed a lot).

35-44 - This got a little harder....bows were good, but I also found myself fear kiting a bit (not because my bow + spells were that much worse, just I was far away from arrow merchants).

Then I got my skydarkener at 45 or 46....and....I became so strong!!!

46-51 - AE kiting in dreadlands with my bow :3 Having a bow that procs a 184 AE with high dexterity is kinda crazy....

51-52 - I've been soloing ice giants a lot....I can hold the 2 spawn pretty easily outside of permafrost. I never get hit....I don't think I've really been hit too much my entire ranger career...... people say we are squishy or something? I dunno, I guess things need to be able to catch me to find that out.

Bows are really strong!!! Sure the raw DPS alone (ignoring spells) isn't as high as meleeing (at least not unless you have a dragon bow). But it makes up for it in being able to use your spells and meditate while fighting (kind of like shaman canni dance).

Dots + nukes + bow shots plenty makes up for anything lost in melee.....and there is no needing to heal yourself up after, and if you need more mana you can just go more bow and pull back the magic.....or, if you need dps, go full magic and nuke between every 2 shots.

And now that I've gotten the double damage in group situations....my shots easily hit for 100-150 a shot when someone is distracting it. Combined with call of flame (204 damage) and careless lightning (99 damage) with immolate (24 damage dot)...and the random 184 damage proc (the best string I've had is 6 shots with 6 procs.....hue hue hue)..... yea, it isn't so bad at all :D

Though, even with just the bow of the huntsman....you still get a really nice 81 damage proc !! on a fast bow!!

Basically...what I'm getting at is..... use bows, bows are awesome :D

[Cecily]

You use a bow in group as dps? lol.



How you see yourself:

http://i.imgur.com/8d14ZVG.jpg


How others see you:

http://i.imgur.com/Po6up46.jpg

[Cecily]

Please read.

Lune's Ranger Tips (http://www.project1999.com/forums/showthread.php?t=156572)

[blondeattk]

` fayguard partying dagger

that used for squewering the chesse and nibbly bits at Dryad parties in Faydark ?

[Wiley]

Bows...

http://i.imgur.com/RdCu9Ay.gif

[Ivory]

You use a bow in group as dps? lol.

Leveling up I mostly soloed....

Around 20-30 I grouped a couple times and generally used melee. Though I would still bow stuff (like when pulling the mobs would get to the group with 70-80 percent life :P). or if people were OOM and needed to slow down pulls...I would go pull something for myself to bow down while I waited (since I can med while bowing).

Smaller groups though (duo with a mage, or team without a healer) I would hate-kite for the group (So no need for tank or healer). Flame lick and snare and run around bowing.

But solo is where I liked a lot. I made level 40 necromancers jealous of my ability to solo with a bow :P

Now that I'm 51, I would use my bow in a group to DPS as long as it is outdoors (since my proc works there). Double damage + procs + spells = not bad! I'm fairly sure I am stronger bowing than I am with melee....and if not, it is superrrr close.

Bows are insanely strong!!! I think the biggest realization of how strong I was was the other day when I teamed up with a level 59 shaman....we were playing around with giants.

I pulled some... and things were going fine....but then we started to get adds (and I was grabbing more I saw hehe). We had like 8 giants on us! The shaman was trying to root and slow and dot stuff....but he quickly ran oom....so I was flame licking to taunt off of him, running around, everything snared, bunched them up and was hitting them with my AEs (so much that the shaman got jealous and switched to his ae spell too).....the shaman almost died a couple times even o.O Under 30% life, where I ran to him and healed him out of low health agro....then kept moving and shooting....

Basically, I was dancing around them like they were nothing! 1 giant....10 giants...-shrug- no problem as long as I got arrows.

Maybe I should write an archery guide....

[Priceline]

Maybe I should write an archery guide....

I'm all for people playing the game how they want but please don't destroy the souls of others by doing that in groups.

If people wanted someone not knowing how to play there class and doing almost no dmg they could just invite an aoe kiting bard.

[Naethyn]

I'm all for people playing the game how they want but please don't destroy the souls of others by doing that in groups.

If people wanted someone not knowing how to play there class and doing almost no dmg they could just invite an aoe kiting bard.
Ivory is right. Bows are great dps. Ivory has a woushi bow which is an aoe proc. Imagine endless quad kiting never running oom. That is what this is and it works. Anyone who says different is just a sheep with no real context of what is actually going on. Just because this play style is outside your realm of what is possible doesn't mean it isn't efficient. Rangers are below Rogues, Warriors, and Monks for dps at the top end so dispel your belief that a bow can't work. It does. The art of archery is not just firing arrows - it is doing everything Ivory has described above.

[RDawg816]

I'm all for Ivory writing a guide. There are many ways to play EQ. That's one of the great things about EQ.

[Doctor Jeff]

I'm all for Ivory writing a guide. There are many ways to play EQ. That's one of the great things about EQ.

Naw, the only way to play EverQuest is to get bard Pl'd 1-60 and then AFK in the back of the raid until you retire. /s

[jolanar]

+1 for a guide. -1 if it requires an expensive bow at level 1.

[Ivory]

Ivory is right. Bows are great dps. ....

Rangers are below Rogues, Warriors, and Monks for dps at the top end so dispel your belief that a bow can't work. It does.

But!! Let's talk some numbers!!!

At 60, bow skill is 240.

Let's say you are in a decent guild and go to ToV and got a silver fang bow....

35/42....ok, nice bow.

Throw on some +8 arrows. ....ok, 43/42....yea, neat....but bows aren't like weapons, their damage is actually halved to compare to a sword.

21.5/42...ick....without double attack.

BUT, 51 means double damage. Back to 43/42 sword.

Trueshot.

Suddenly 240 skill goes to 269 (trueshot is a 12% increase is skillchecks) ....interesting.....

Oh, also that becomes an 86/42 weapon :o

Rangers happen to also have some amazing haste items.....

Throw in some high dex (crits) and you have an archer throwing down some serious firepower for 2 minutes on an alpha raid boss!!

So, even throwing out all the stuff about archery being more useful in non traditional groups (mage pet tanking, ench pet tanking, druid pet tanking, shaman pet tanking...basically all the situations where stepping in to melee becomes a burden without a dedicated healer) ....throw out all of the advantaged of sustained damage without mana (if you have arrows, you can kill it....even stuff you shouldn't be able to, like the sand giant I soloed at level 20)......

If you want to have ONLY the conversation about "can a ranger competitively DPS with a bow in an ideal raid situation"....the answer is yes. ((Oh, and she will be doing it out of range of the AE fear and damage...so....that is pretty neat too)).


((And if you are using the best bow in the game, 43/45...with +8 arrows....you are swinging around a 102/45 sword that crits with 269 skill check :P))

[Wiley]

Sounds fun on paper and at max level with a good bow, what about leveling? Pre 51 a bow like raincaller with standard arrows is only doing like 11 ((20+arrow)/2) dmg before Dex/atk is added in right?

[Ivory]

Sounds fun on paper and at max level with a good bow, what about leveling? Pre 51 a bow like raincaller with standard arrows is only doing like 11 ((20+arrow)/2) dmg before Dex/atk is added in right?

The hardest levels with a 20 damage bow was 42-46 (likey up to 49 before bow of the huntsman starts to proc).

If you are still using a raincaller past 40....that is a bad idea :P You can almost solo the bow of the huntsman quest by 40 :P

The reasons were

1 ) TONS of arrows being used up with a faster bow! I was hunting kind of far away from town and just couldn't go too heavy on the arrows. I had to stay in wakening lands during this time....to try and hunt wuoshi....tolans bracer at 46 woulda fixed this problem.

2 ) DEX vs STR - this was before I knew that dex and str were bugged for archery on this server :( Bows use str here....so my damage was suffering a LOT because of this.... Fear kiting tigeraptors was just so tempting.....though I did find myself using bows also (pulling back to my spot I would take them to 80-90% life before they got back to me).

Or if the king raptor, rapticor, would show up....using bows was pretty handy if I got too hurt.


If I were leveling up again and had actually focused on str (instead of sitting at 95 str most the time :P) ....it would have been even stronger than it already was. In firiona vie, I was making necromancers jealous of my soloing along the cliff :P

[RDawg816]

2 ) DEX vs STR - this was before I knew that dex and str were bugged for archery on this server :( Bows use str here....so my damage was suffering a LOT because of this
Are they still bugged? Sounds like good info to have on the ranger guide to archery. :D

[Wiley]

2 ) DEX vs STR - this was before I knew that dex and str were bugged for archery on this server :( Bows use str here...

if the STR being used as the dmg calc for bow damage is a bug it will probably get fixed with enough evidence? the post in the bug forums seems to have some good links to the past.

another question, the wiki states:

Haste affects bow delay the same way it effects melee.

But archery uses one more kind of haste, stacking with the others : quiver haste (QH). It follows the same rules than all the other kinds of haste : only the best QH is used if more than one apply. To have a QH, you just need to have a Weight Reducing quiver in your inventory.

QH = WR of the quiver / 3.


is the bold true on this server? something like FBSS stacking with a Fleeting Quiver?

[Ivory]

is the bold true on this server? something like FBSS stacking with a Fleeting Quiver?

Had a ranger test it a little bit the other day....and he was saying his held epic wasn't effecting the bow (seems to be the same bug as rogues are experiencing with their epics)....BUT that the haste belt was helping him (and yea it should stack with quiver).

Also, spell haste obviously helps bows too.

[Cecily]

Ivory is right. Bows are great dps. Ivory has a woushi bow which is an aoe proc. Imagine endless quad kiting never running oom. That is what this is and it works. Anyone who says different is just a sheep with no real context of what is actually going on. Just because this play style is outside your realm of what is possible doesn't mean it isn't efficient. Rangers are below Rogues, Warriors, and Monks for dps at the top end so dispel your belief that a bow can't work. It does. The art of archery is not just firing arrows - it is doing everything Ivory has described above.

That's a very very unique playstyle given by no drop piece of raid loot. You can hardly generalize "bows" talking about a particular bow. I use a windstriker with a sky cloak and fleeting quiver. It hits really, really hard. It's still bad dps compared to my melee damage and I wouldn't dream of using it as primary source of damage in a party w/o trueshot. Not that it's bad by any stretch. I used bows extensively face tanking to 60 solo before Velious. On a rooted mob it's a great source of dot damage while you time med ticks / regen.

[Ivory]

It hits really, really hard. It's still bad dps compared to my melee damage and I wouldn't dream of using it as primary source of damage in a party w/o trueshot.

Really depends on the party.

You've never been in unconventional groups? Where you have a mage and a rogue? Or something else that makes the conventional "tank and heal" gameplay fall apart?

That is where a hate-kiting ranger with a good bow can be pretty handy (especially one with a windstriker that stuns!!!).

The skydarkener is nice...the proc is pretty neat...but the ratio on it is actually worse than a bow of the huntsman. So really the only difference between the two is 100 damage between their procs.

I wish I had a parser so I could do some tests on my melee vs my bow ....I think it would be interesting.

I would like to see the level 51 ranger that can melee the 2 spawn of ice giants outside of everfrost and keep up with the spawns. If obviously melee is stronger than bows :P

[Cecily]

Well there's groups and there's groups*. Yeah, absolutely fire arrows while you agro kite.

[Wiley]

Now I'm 37. Any good suggestions on where I can fearkite animals apart from OT and Emerald Jungle? Any good spot in old world or should I head IC/EW?

where did you hut to get from the above too the below???

I'm 44 now still having fun :-)


I've been in Icelad, started with cougars from 32-36 by the gnomish pirates then moved over by EW zone and have been killing dire wolves. Only issue with the wolves is they share a spawn with giants, and of course we can't fear kite giants, so after several hours it became slim pickings.

Now a yellow into 38, I'll probably stick out till 39 as exp is still doing fine but wondering where to go from there.. The wiki is kind of no help as a ton of the mob levels are wrong.

[Jimjam]

On my ranger I found the best solo xp was killing the entrance of CoM. Not animals, but could facetank the lowest tier of golems. Hill giants and griffons also gave xp pretty easily.

At 47 it is possible to solo sonic bats in SolB, but it is a lot of work.

This is with just cheap kunark weapons, haste and ~ivy etched kinda tier gear. No fungi or anything silly.

[demokatt]

I am level 51 now. So let´s say I sell my woodsman staff and get 5k for it. What dual wield weapons would u get for 5k that are as close as possible DPS? I don't care much for procs.

[Jimjam]

I don't know if it is as close as possible, but since you are early 50s, perhaps a Wurmslayer would make a good primary. Nice long delay for casting between swings so you don't lose too much melee dps.

I know you said you don't like procs, but maybe a lupine dagger would be handy for the off hand? Otherwise I don't really know.

I suppose if you want to stick with duel wield, late 50s you may want to swap out the wurmy for something quicker/newer (and obviously upgrade that off hand too!).

[Trungep99]

you can find groups as an SK at lvl 42. you just need to hunt in the right zones. or bring some guild mates with you.

[Jimjam]

I've got the chance to play on my ranger a little the past couple of evenings.

I've found the Griffons and Rabid Griffons in North Karana have been very easy XP with fear kite to go from 47 to 48. However, they aren't exactly plentiful and the zone can only really support a single player XPing on them.

[Jimjam]

Btw Demokatt, what did you XP on from 48? Did you find a duel wield set up yo were happy with?

[Darguth]

Is there a decent guide out there of solo/fear-kiting progression spots for Rangers?

Also, are there any decent farmable (i.e. reasonable loot) animals out there?

[Freakish]

Kodiaks for high quality tundra Kodiak pelts in eastern wastes. The pelts sell decently but rare and there's no condensed area of kodiaks.

[demokatt]

Jimjam - Woodsmans staff was the only weapon I have used level 1 - 54. I did 48-50 in City of mist and then 50 - 54 in KC

[Jimjam]

Is there a decent guide out there of solo/fear-kiting progression spots for Rangers?

Also, are there any decent farmable (i.e. reasonable loot) animals out there?

I did cougars in iceclad till maybe 37.

I know I did 37-40 with a monk and druid in crystal caverns basement.

From there I did City of Mist (some grouping, some face tank soloing golems) or fear kiting in Emerald Jungle (various mobs, they tend to really hit hard so refear early).

46 I ported to tox forest and ran across Norrath to get to EC, did the full level killing any xp con on my way (Antonius Bayle, Hill Giants, Griffons, Spectres, Sand Giants, etc).

47 I did Sonic Bats in Naggy B.

48 I returned to North Karana and am doing (Rabid) Griffons and hill giants.

Griffons are pretty easy fear kites, but are sometimes a little thin on the ground if you planned to stay logged in for extended periods. I find they are best for logging in, killing like 5 griffons and going back to IRL.

Grimfeather in NK you can get a quest item for Ivy Etched Sleeves.
Ancient Croc in guk you can get gator-scale arms/legs.

Gotta go ;)

[Porky]

Fear kited 52-56 in permafrost, was pretty fun, super safe, and quick xp. Will probably return to grind to 60, just haven't been playing much lately.

On my server, Vox is always up so she just banished me if I ever wanted to leave or got PvP'd.

I assume Vox isn't up all the time on blue, but unless you get real dumb and somehow train yourself without enough mana to root/camp, I don't see any trouble you could get in on that server.

You can always just bring a Gate, Everfrost, Swamp, or FoB pot so you can leave any time you want.

[Jimjam]

What area were you actually doing the kite? Surely the other animals are going to add in?

[Darguth]

I did cougars in iceclad till maybe 37.

I know I did 37-40 with a monk and druid in crystal caverns basement.

From there I did City of Mist (some grouping, some face tank soloing golems) or fear kiting in Emerald Jungle (various mobs, they tend to really hit hard so refear early).

46 I ported to tox forest and ran across Norrath to get to EC, did the full level killing any xp con on my way (Antonius Bayle, Hill Giants, Griffons, Spectres, Sand Giants, etc).

47 I did Sonic Bats in Naggy B.

48 I returned to North Karana and am doing (Rabid) Griffons and hill giants.

Griffons are pretty easy fear kites, but are sometimes a little thin on the ground if you planned to stay logged in for extended periods. I find they are best for logging in, killing like 5 griffons and going back to IRL.

Grimfeather in NK you can get a quest item for Ivy Etched Sleeves.
Ancient Croc in guk you can get gator-scale arms/legs.

Gotta go ;)

Any recommendations prior to Iceclad? I rolled a new ranger who is 14 now, but trying to figure out where I could solo at 22 when I get Panic Animal. I want to group mostly, but would also like to have locations identified for those times I can't find a group or can't dedicate a multi-hour play session and just want to kill a few mobs before logging.

I'll also have a Shaman buddy to duo with much but not all of the time, so face-tanking will be more viable than it might be otherwise.

[Jimjam]

Pretty much anything blue you should be able to grind down safely as long as you have a reasonably good weapon.

Things that drop crushbone belts or legionnaire pads will be good. If in crushbone you can keep killing emissaries and the task master solo, or do the throne room with your shaman friend. Once the xp really slows down is the best time to hand in your belts/pads. Use kelethin bank to save them all up.

Oasis is pretty easy xp and can take you to 22.

Kurns tower isn't a bad option (if you are crazy enough you can save up all the bone chips to hand kaladim, it takes about 1000 bone chips to do a level in the 20s, iirc).

Highpass is alright, save orc/gnoll scalps to hand in for xp once the area greens out. The PGT can be a fun off-hand weapon to use for the proc until duel wield/double attack actually become viable enough to put a dps weapon in your off hand. There is also a big Str pad shield that drops there and an invulnerable aura potion (ECmarts for circa 700pp).

[Darguth]

Its too bad you are being forced to solo. I would recommend joining the red server and enjoying the huge xp bonus with an additional bonuses applied for groups. There are always powerleveling groups going on and most people reach lvl 46 in their first week and start raiding their second week.

On blue you wouldn't be able to reach 46 by christmas soloing on a ranger.

I can honestly say I play EQ to enjoy the journey as much as the destination. I'm not being "forced" to solo, I just want the option when I can only jump on for an hour or two and getting a group just isn't economical or respectful to other players.

[Darguth]

For a ranger you can panic animals in everfrost until 30ish. After that you can move to velious and fear kite walrus or other animals you can find. Rangers are not a very good solo class.

That's great you like the journey or whatever. For me, I would much rather be killing dragons and getting fat loots with all my pals than fear kiting animals in an empty classic zone by myself.

To each their own, but I think you're misrepresenting my intent/question. I don't intend to fear-kite animals solo to 60.

[Darguth]

I think your intent to solo for xp at all on a ranger is foolish.

I can't commit to 2+ hour play sessions every time I log in, yet I want to play a Ranger because I like them. Often getting to a zone, getting a group, clearing to a camp, etc. will eat up 30-60 minutes. That's all the time I have some week nights. I'd still like to be able to play though, so I might fear-kite for an escape to a fantasy world and then go dunjun spelunking when I have longer play sessions.

If you can suggest a more meaningful way to advance in EQ *as a Ranger* in short play sessions, I'd be interested to hear advice.

[Cecily]

I think your intent to solo for xp at all on a ranger is foolish. Your only two options are to fear kite animals or to fill up all your bags with arrows every time you want to kill one mob.

You're a pretty bad source of advice and input on these boards. I personally face tanked my ranger to 60 before Velious.

[Ciroco]

It's certainly faster than bow kiting. Swarmcaller and chloro make soloing somewhat viable post-50.

[Cecily]

And every single one of those days spent with over 100 people on my server. How is red these days?

[Semmysosa]

<Thunderdome> is a lot of fun. No smell of shit filled socks on this server.

[georgie]

I really don't know how they do it on blue

[Cecily]

Red is pretty amazing. No need to ever wait in line for a camp you want. With serverwide OOC you can find groups immediately. No need to ever solo on a ranger. Necromancers don't even solo on red.

Red's group bonus makes it dumb not to group. On blue, with real Everquest rules and a high population, it's nice to solo time to time to get away from people.
The point is rangers can efficiently solo, to 60 even, if they feel like it. It's a nice change of pace for rogue like myself instead of LFG. And fun.

[Deji]

Recommendations on mobs/zones/strategies for Level 54 Ranger to solo at? I have a fungi and woodsmans but no epics, can buy consumables if that'll speed things up some.

Thanks

[Darguth]

Are there any decent cash spots/spawns that a Ranger can solo, and at what level brackets?

[Cecily]

Recommendations on mobs/zones/strategies for Level 54 Ranger to solo at? I have a fungi and woodsmans but no epics, can buy consumables if that'll speed things up some.

Thanks

54... Seafuries will probably work out pretty well for you. Gets a little easier with chloro. I killed them mid 50s till they were green, 57 I think, and stayed there to farm until 58. Very slow exp for that last level, but w/e I made 30k.

Mid 50s, with some CoV faction, consider checking out WW animals for fear kiting. A guild mate was having problems with resists at 52, but it should be pretty good exp if you can get your fears to stick.

Permafrost fear kiting like the guy from red suggested sounds intriguing as well. Maybe give that a go 56+

[Cecily]

Actually he did perma 52-56... I say 56+ because that's when roots got reliable for my druid, but rangers never do get an OP root so yeah.. If you can figure that place out and survive the double spawns, Permafrost will be the absolute best exp in game for you. Bad place to find a rez though.

Bring a skinning knife and some threads to make leather padding while you're down there. You'll have enough HQ skins and padding to max smithing and enough hand made bags for every alt you ever make.

[renordw]

Arrows dont break root?

No - never

[Cecily]

No - never

DD procing bows will though, however. Bow of the Huntsman, Windstriker, Warbow of Rallos Zek, etc. It's usually worth the extra mana to re-cast root for the damage.

[demokatt]

Cecily, what did u face tank solo from 51+ ?
Im having real problem trying to solo stuff in DL and KC.

Are there any stuff I can solo in old world? Someone mentioned bard in HHK?

I know I have fear animal but I wanna do something different.

[Jimjam]

Cecily, what did u face tank solo from 51+ ?
Im having real problem trying to solo stuff in DL and KC.

Are there any stuff I can solo in old world? Someone mentioned bard in HHK?

I know I have fear animal but I wanna do something different.

I believe mobs had a quad attack buff since Cecily levelled up. It seemed fairly recent, maybe the start of this year.

If you run through SolA to get to the bats zoneline in SolB you should be able to safely solo sonic bats there. Two pathers and two static spawns. Chance for one of the pathers to spawn as guano hunter (a mid level goblin that drops a small weight reduction bag and a weightless cloak of shadows which is high ac, dex and dr).

Often there will be shaman, monks, druids hanging around for you to team up with.

[Cecily]

I remember DL mobs kicking my rogue's butt unless I got a fear off back when intimidate worked better. And KC I wouldn't touch until mid / higher 50s solo. Those mobs were always pretty tough fights.

I'm super hazy on low 50s, but I think I did a mix Highkeep nobles (outdoor zone and rogue mobs) and the 3 barbarian guards near the tundra in Everfrost. Those guards are on a 6 min timer and fairly tough, but were a nice uncontested camp. I wanna say that took me to 55-56 and then I did seafuries till 58, very very slowly, and walked out of OoT with 30k in gems.

LDCs in SolB make a good duo camp with a fungi monk. You can split the damage between the two of you and provide some crowd control / support buffs. I did that at 57 with a 53 monk and it was pretty nice exp.

A guy on red suggested permafrost bear pits and fear kiting. This is something I want to check out and verify / figure out how to do it. CR from hell and hard to get there, but that's gotta be the absolute best exp option mid 50s to 60s rangers have.

[demokatt]

Thanks, I check those Nobles out in Highpass Keep, never been xping in that zone. But I suppose I will be kos in there after a few kills, are there a nice spot near zoneline I can stand or how do I avoid being killed?

[Cecily]

Hmm.. harmony. It's an outdoor zone. Failing that, run away with SoW really fast. And yeah, it'll make you KoS pretty quick in Highpass / WFP.

[blondeattk]

Thanks, I check those Nobles out in Highpass Keep, never been xping in that zone. But I suppose I will be kos in there after a few kills, are there a nice spot near zoneline I can stand or how do I avoid being killed?

pull to one of the bedrooms. harmony from outof line of sight.

nobles are tuff to melle if you arent twinked.

dont kill isabella cellus....she just gets in the way when kos._faction issues_

[jolanar]

Thanks, I check those Nobles out in Highpass Keep, never been xping in that zone. But I suppose I will be kos in there after a few kills, are there a nice spot near zoneline I can stand or how do I avoid being killed?

Assuming you are a Ranger there isn't any reason you should be killed doing nobles. Harmony for single pull and make sure the mob is snared. If things get hairy, root and back off. Don't turn your back and run because they will backstab you so hard you will delete your ranger and reroll a rogue.

If you can't handle one noble you can try Captain Boshinko hes a little easier mob and is right next to the zone. Think he's on a 6 min or maybe 10 min spawn.

Don't kill the bards or Isabella and it will make your life a lot easier.

[Cecily]

I think what I did at that level range was just look up monk soloing suggestions, and figured I can do anything a monk can do. And w/ slow regen ds root, snare splitting.. You pretty much can.

[demokatt]

Thanks for advices! I started killing some Freeport guards and dwarfs since It came to my mind that I never go there anyway so I don't mind the faction drops.

Its been very very slow killing guards, much faster just group up in KC and dps/pull. But I want to make some money too. Im 52 now and its painfully slow as solo, using magic/bow and melee at 60% hp health of mob.

Getting Chloroplast at 55 helps alot for solo melee?

[Jimjam]

You're in the 50s. Of course it's painfully slow ;).

If you haven't a cloak of shadows or soiled bag now is a good time to solo in SolB at bats zone line to earn them. Keep selling the soiled bags until you get your cloak as that is the rarer drop (both are pretty common though; the mob that drops them spawns 25% of the time every 20 minutes, bag drops 75% of the time, cloak the other 25%).

[Cecily]

Thanks for advices! I started killing some Freeport guards and dwarfs since It came to my mind that I never go there anyway so I don't mind the faction drops.

Dwarves... Do you have your epic? Because there's a Kaladim portion.

[Loke]

I know this thread is about solo, but really, just do a /who for priesr classes and get a duo going. At 52 if you can find a 39+ cleric you're golden. One of my main strategies when leveling a melee is to find a preist significantly lower than myself, because it is a win/win situation. They get crazy exp because they're killing mobs way higher than they would normally, and you get good exp because they take so much less due to the level difference. With shaman and druids levels are a little more important because you're relying more on buffs than just complete heal - for druids I want to say 44 is a big level in that regard.

If you are going to solo, definitely do it outdoors. DL seems like the best option because you have plenty of room to fight around KC, and can even sneak inside to beg for buffs. Finding an enchanter enroute to KC who will give you VoG or C2, or druid to toss you a potg will speed things up a lot solo. Outdoor is also nice because you have room to kite if necessary. Root/snare a mob and regen up a bit if a fight is close. It'll definitelt be slower than a duo though.

Seriously though, don't be shy and just send people unsolicited tells. I've gotten a ton of exp by just doing "/who all 39 50 cleric" (or shaman/druid) and sending a tell to everyone who wasn't already in an exp zone to see if they wanted to duo.

[demokatt]

Im 54 now but loosing interest in my ranger.. what did you do 50+ that was fun? Got any advice for fun stuff u can farm solo that sells for a few hundred pp?

I feel that druid is so much easier solo just sittning down while dotting and regain mana instead of standing up bowing to 50% before melee and then mana is gone on roots and dots. Or else I just end up assisting in KC...

[Aaramis]

Im 54 now but loosing interest in my ranger.. what did you do 50+ that was fun? Got any advice for fun stuff u can farm solo that sells for a few hundred pp?

I feel that druid is so much easier solo just sittning down while dotting and regain mana instead of standing up bowing to 50% before melee and then mana is gone on roots and dots. Or else I just end up assisting in KC...

At 50+, I'm trying to remember what my gameplan was - it's been a long time since this era on live, and I'm not quite there yet on p99. But I seem to remember Seb being ideal. Sol B should still be good xp too, especially on FGs (and good plat too).

I seldom used bow to whittle things down unless they were *really* nasty. For the most part, you should be able to melee stuff down, root and take a step back to heal up when needed, and then finish the job.
Or look up some higher level animals and snare + panic animal.
Worst case scenerio...group up. Things should always be fun, especially as you can function as the puller in a lot of areas due to harmony, invis, sneak, and ranged attacks. If things are boring, then add some spice and bring mobs faster :p

If it's plat you're after, there should be plenty of ways to make money at 54. I won't begin to list them all, but there's a *lot* of options. You can solo most of the old world at 54, so...have at 'er.

[Jimjam]

Thinks to do in 50s:

Lots of different camps in Seb with a few fun ranger loots mid 50s.

Work on epics (swiftwind pretty easy with a guild as no particularly rare parts required, and the worn effect gives a big boost to your mainhand dps). Joining sky raids to work on the cloak and bow quests there might be fun for a few weeks.

Group some Pillar dragons in Western Wastes. Joining Ring Wars... Just get your nose out there and see whats happening. If nothing else /who all your level and ask those people what they are upto and if they 'need' ranger assistance.

Okay, not much of this is solo stuff, but really the late game is about team work.

[demokatt]

Thanks for the advices, gonna check them out later. I think Im gonna go ahead start a new character.

So tell me... WHAT CLASS RACE? :-p

[RDawg816]

So tell me... WHAT CLASS RACE? :-p
You went from sk to ranger, right?...and you're wanting to solo?

Druids are versatile (root-rot, charm, fear, quad kite, group when you can....)

Necromancer and enchanter can solo pretty easily as well.

Monk and shaman are good in groups and solo, but they are very common.

Bard is super fun if you can handle it....preferably in a group or regular kiting. Swarming is lame...

[demokatt]

Yeah I have my level 41 druid so I go back to her.

[Jimjam]

Liquidate the ranger and roll an iksar monk, see if the hype is true for yourself ;).

[demokatt]

Iksar are so 2000

[demokatt]

I stayed with my ranger, finally got to level 55 :-) Been playing very seldom these days so 54 took forever.

I was thinking of swithing out my SCHW + TBB for a Sash of the Dragonborn + Crystal Chitin Gauntlets. It must be better for solo right? I go from 13 AC, 22 haste and 15 STR to 20 AC, 24 haste, 10 STR and 35 MANA. That must be a nice gain from loosing 5 STR right or am I thinking wrong?

No, I dont think I can afford any of the better haste items sold :-)

[RDawg816]

I go from 13 AC, 22 haste and 15 STR to 20 AC, 24 haste, 10 STR and 35 MANA. That must be a nice gain from loosing 5 STR right or am I thinking wrong?
That's a net 7AC 2% haste 35 mana -5STR. Probably not a huge change, but I'd put it in the upgrade category...

[Jimjam]

I stayed with my ranger, finally got to level 55 :-) Been playing very seldom these days so 54 took forever.

I was thinking of swithing out my SCHW + TBB for a Sash of the Dragonborn + Crystal Chitin Gauntlets. It must be better for solo right? I go from 13 AC, 22 haste and 15 STR to 20 AC, 24 haste, 10 STR and 35 MANA. That must be a nice gain from loosing 5 STR right or am I thinking wrong?

No, I dont think I can afford any of the better haste items sold :-)

Good job on 55! Where were you fighting? I still think your best path is getting a Swiftwind somehow. The stone from KC is pretty common now!

[skarlorn]

Rangers are strong solo, even untwinked. Grt a good bow and arrows, then snare kite shit with your dot and flame lick while shooting them down to 60. Then you only have to melee 40% before mob runs, conserving your hp.

[skarlorn]

I see now that u have already succeeded. Grats

[demokatt]

Thanks! I often end up choosing between AC And STR, I wonder how much dps gain from going STR 220 -> 250 compared to the defence gained from AC 950 -> 1000?

[Cecily]

1000 ac is pretty hard to get w/ 200 def cap. Once we get the 220 patch... maybe not, but Cecily crushes Zalea in AC atm. I think at your level, just go for nice items. Solid, expense upgrades that do a bit of everything which you'll use for the foreseeable forever. Multistat gear helps a bunch (fiery might / RBG / Eyepatch of Plunder/ BoBenvolence x 2/ Helm of the Tracker). Belt of the Great Turtle isn't a bad idea, but I think its regen still doesn't stack with fungi which sucks.

[demokatt]

Im at 950 (with self buffs) now and If I change some eq I can reach 1000 but then I probably looses some 20 STR. I wonder if its worth it.. THink I need to parse STR to see how much damage it actually does +200

[Stonewallx39]

Many people have said Rangers will do better DPS than and SK solo, with dual weild and dots etc.. SK's get stronger dots than Ranger and a pet which can act as another dot when fear kiting. Could someone explain why Rangers would do such better DPS?

In Lune's guide he says to use 2h weapons all of the time. I understand Woodman's Staff after 20 if you can afford it. What would be the advantage of using the Silver Swiftblade over Sword of Skyfire until 20?

[demokatt]

I think its harder and more expensive to get weapons with same dps as Ranger?

[Aaramis]

Many people have said Rangers will do better DPS than and SK solo, with dual weild and dots etc.. SK's get stronger dots than Ranger and a pet which can act as another dot when fear kiting. Could someone explain why Rangers would do such better DPS?

In Lune's guide he says to use 2h weapons all of the time. I understand Woodman's Staff after 20 if you can afford it. What would be the advantage of using the Silver Swiftblade over Sword of Skyfire until 20?

Generally speaking, if both are using 2h weapons, and all other things being equal, the Ranger is going to pull ahead due to "burst" dps. You have your DoTs ticking, as an SK does, but you also have nukes, buff spell procs (i.e. Call of Fire), etc. And you'll have a higher attack rating due to things such as Firefist, (Greater) Wolf Form, Call of the Predator, etc, meaning less misses.

The SK's DoTs will do more damage *over time*, so if the DoTs run their full length, that'll add up, sure - but it also drains a ton of mana. They can only keep that up for so long before having to stop and med. As for their pet, it's often more trouble than it's worth, and isn't the most reliable form of dps either due to the level disparity.

PS - I wouldn't use the Swiftblade over Skyfire pre-20, unless you really want the skillups. Skyfire + shield to 17, then dual wield to 20 (GJB is another cheap offhander), then you can choose to either go the dual-wield route or the 2hs route (or both, preferably, but not everyone has the funds for that).
I've gone the dual-wield route so far on my guy, which feels more traditional to me, and haven't noticed my dps really lacking next to the guy with the Woodsman's. So to each their own.

[Superranger]

rangers get higher offensive skill + some decent nuke at higher level to use between swing if using 2 handers

[Ciroco]

Many people have said Rangers will do better DPS than and SK solo, with dual weild and dots etc.. SK's get stronger dots than Ranger and a pet which can act as another dot when fear kiting. Could someone explain why Rangers would do such better DPS?

Higher combat skills.
Side note, I used dots while soloing basically never (I could see the use while bowkiting, but I didn't do that a ton). You want to save your mana for pulling, buffing, and healing.

What would be the advantage of using the Silver Swiftblade over Sword of Skyfire until 20?

Because it's a better weapon. 16/24 obviously beats 10/22. Dual wield brings the SoS closer, and then Silver Swiftblade really starts to suffer at higher levels because it doesn't get the 2H damage bonus, but it's great for low levels.

[demokatt]

Does anyone happen to have the Kallis and Protector of Zek's heads to help me MQ Helm of tracker?

[mefdinkins]

I just read through this and I feel like I just watched a movie about demokatt's journey as a ranger... beautiful thread haha

[demokatt]

Hehe yeah it's been an adventure for sure. But now I been sitting at level 55 long time, I kinda lost interest in the game unfortunately..

[mefdinkins]

I know level 54 can be really frustrating and 55+ can only seem like even more of an uphill battle but the truth is level 54 itself requires more total experience than each individual level 55, 56, 57, and 58.

Level 55 is a sort of unspoken cutoff level for Sebilis, as a ranger you can probably tank a few of the camps pretty easily or help DPS or pull in some scenarios. It's easier to get back/forth from there now being able to port to EJ from anywhere, as long as you're willing to LFG for a few or be pro-active and try to organize a group of your own! Also you can LFG in seb while in Trak's Teeth killing the Hunter/Forager Cycle. Duo'ing that can be good XP and decent plat. Also, Velious dungeons are underrated. Sure it might be harder to kill mobs in Velks than KC but you can get some decent drops and chars are more geared now so it's still efficient!

Beyond leveling, at 55+ I'd say most of EQ is open up to you. Some guilds require level 60 apps and some raids are going to prefer a level 60 but at 55+ you can join most leveling, entry, or mid-tier raiding guilds. You can also participate/help with most almost all content! Then you can balance getting experience with raiding and working towards solid upgrades and adventuring with others. I've seen level 55 mains with epics and full thurgadin or skyshrine quest armor and quests like Helm of the Tracker completed.

I know you've sort of lost interest but if you plan on coming back there's plenty to explore!

[demokatt]

Thanks for your advice, since I play so short times these days I try focus on solo. I have been fearkiting in WW and it works pretty good, just that I need better weapon to wear them down a little faster - currently wielding a Defiance + winters fury = 2,15 DPS at level 55. I think Im gonna play my druid some and get some money for a better mainhand, even a jade mace would raise it to 2,23.

[Darguth]

Any advice for a ranger thinking about fear kiting in WW for the first time? Haven't spent much time in the zone.

[Aaramis]

^^ being non-KoS to dragons is a huge plus.

[demokatt]

Yeah that is a must! Then u just have to worry about the iceburrowers and sometimes velium hound add.. they have an awfully big aggro range. Perhaps we could duo? I play mostly european times though

[Muggens]

I made a ranger twink, this thread is nice to have. Where to go after blackburrow? Solo and turn in drops would be great. Full on twinkmode(haste, fungi, weaps galore etc). Permafrost goblins an option? Nice exp and less explored places are a draw

[demokatt]

If I would redo my ranger I would use bow alot more. If you twink, buy a Exquisite Velium Reinforced Bow or Wrapped Velium bow and kite the shit out of stuff with a Tolans Bracer. Since level of mobs dont matter with bows as they do on melee you can easily shoot down yellow and red stuff :-) But above 50 when mobs get more HP it gets more boring.

[Muggens]

Just dinged 30 on my ranger twink. Been using Woodsman's Staff primarly since lvl 20 with swaps to train the other weapon skills. Without a doubt the staff is the best dps compared to dual wielding(jade mace, lupine dagger, lammy). The way I understand it my ranger will be using Woodsman's Staff untill (if)getting epics at lvl 50+...
How does Skyfury Scimitar+Winters Fury dual wield compare to Woodsman's Staff pre/post 50 as a ranger?

Also have not used bow at all so far. I got a Rain Caller and some arrows, but it just doesnt seem usefull besides pulling. Perhaps at higher levels, but any point to it if you have a fungi?

Whats a good ranger solo spot at lvl 30?

[Aaramis]

Just dinged 30 on my ranger twink. Been using Woodsman's Staff primarly since lvl 20 with swaps to train the other weapon skills. Without a doubt the staff is the best dps compared to dual wielding(jade mace, lupine dagger, lammy). The way I understand it my ranger will be using Woodsman's Staff untill (if)getting epics at lvl 50+...
How does Skyfury Scimitar+Winters Fury dual wield compare to Woodsman's Staff pre/post 50 as a ranger?

Also have not used bow at all so far. I got a Rain Caller and some arrows, but it just doesnt seem usefull besides pulling. Perhaps at higher levels, but any point to it if you have a fungi?

Whats a good ranger solo spot at lvl 30?

I can't comment on the Skyfure+Winter's Fury combo - I use Lupine + Defiance personally at lvl 48 and find it works well, but then again I don't have a Woodsman. I'd wager Woodsman would still win out, unless you have high dex and can proc a lot in which case they might win out.
I just find that dual wield is more *reliable* dps than 2h weapons. Misses or single hits on the 2h weapons tend to give less dps, but then those double hits all make up for it :)

As for bow - no, it's mostly useless at that level unless sneak pulling stuff.

As for solo spot, I soloed 30-35 very quickly in Iceclad fear kiting snow cougars, then switched to griffons in the Karanas to well into my 40s. They went xp green at 47 I believe it was. With a fungi, hill giants are probably easily on the menu too at 40+.

[Jimjam]

At 47 you can switch to sabretooth tigers in The Overthere, where plenty stay blue until 51. At that point work on you swiftwind, with VSR spawning so often it is very easy to get the pusling green gem.

[Darguth]

Are there any places to fear kite at 55+ other than WW which is just a pain to get to?

[demokatt]

It's not hard to get to. Have a druid port you to cs then follow you and zone into sirens. Then you both succor and you will end up at WW zoneline. :-)

[Jimjam]

As a ranger, you can sneak round the sea horses in SG without drawing aggro btw. Make sure you have an invis on to get past the mobs at zone in.

[demokatt]

I tried that once but those damn seahorses saw me dispite being invis and I ended up dead on the bottom. Fortunately, the one who helped me show the way was a Cleric :D

[Darguth]

Anyone have any experience trying to fear kite bats/bugs in SolB and any tactics they might suggest in doing so?

[MikeXG]

Ive been toying with making a semi twinked alt. I dont have the funds for things like fungi tunic, but certainly a decent set of armor, a woodsman staff, etc. i know rangers are not top tier soloers and have read through this thread and various guides linked. My main is a shaman (closing in on 50) and a bard who i strictly duo with my buddy (shaman) in the mid 40s. I am interested in making an alt because I miss just running around and exploring the early content. Ranger just seems like a fun class with the tools they have. So my question is. Given a rangers ability to solo, be it face tankng, bow kiting, fear kiting animals, etc. if I stick to camps that are 6 minute spawns ie bard diet, deputy guards, easy camps where one can set a timer and walk away. Will the 6 minutes of downtime be enough to recoup my hp and mana? Is this doable as far as kill speed? Again I know ranger is not the best soloer or the fastest. I just want to know if it is viable without sinking more than 8-10k in the character. Also for this play style, wood or half elf?

[Doctor Jeff]

I tried that once but those damn seahorses saw me dispite being invis and I ended up dead on the bottom. Fortunately, the one who helped me show the way was a Cleric :D

you didn't read the post..

You need to use SNEAK to get around the seahorses, the invis is just for walruses

[RDawg816]

You need to use SNEAK to get around the seahorses
I know it's obvious, but so we're all clear - you have to remain behind mobs for sneak to work.

[Jimjam]

http://i.imgur.com/2TqYDZ8.gif

Anyone have any experience trying to fear kite bats/bugs in SolB and any tactics they might suggest in doing so?

Use bats zoneline. I'd fear them at the top and root them if they got too close to other bats. Others suggested refearing to change their direction.

You can calm animal to reduce chance of adds while breaking in. Hopefully someone will be keeping the nox PH down to make it extra safe. Fighting with sneak on can help too. Remember bugs can't be calmed or feared by you.

Was good xp with 47 ranger (no fungi, no epic.), but was kinda edgy. The level of the bats means xp starts to slow down by 54, which is compounded by the fact 54 is a hell level.

[fastboy21]

Rangers have dual wield, SKs don't. Dual wielding 2 weapons usually is better DPS than just one big 2 hander (if those 1 handers are any good). Ranger damage spells are also more damaging then the Sks + you get a weak damage shield. So all in all, you can kill mobs faster while being more squishy.


**best Trump voice** WRONG

Not only will a good two hander out parse most 1 hander setups (like...most meaning until you have your epics) you will take less damage from riposte and ds effects on mobs while meleeing.

[Aaramis]

**best Trump voice** WRONG

Not only will a good two hander out parse most 1 hander setups (like...most meaning until you have your epics) you will take less damage from riposte and ds effects on mobs while meleeing.

Splitting hairs here.
I use both 2h and dual-wield and found the results to be comparable.

2h will get less ripostes, true, but it's also more unreliable dps. Sometimes you take a nice chunk off the enemy's hps; sometimes you whiff and your dps goes down the toilet. Dual-wield is, in general, more reliable dps - if we're both at, say, 40% life, and it's a race down to 0, I'd generally stick with dual-wield as I know exactly how fast I can get an enemy down. With 2h, it's a bit of a crapshoot. But it's not a huge difference either way, really, assuming similar ratio weapons.

[jolanar]

Splitting hairs here.
I use both 2h and dual-wield and found the results to be comparable.

2h will get less ripostes, true, but it's also more unreliable dps. Sometimes you take a nice chunk off the enemy's hps; sometimes you whiff and your dps goes down the toilet. Dual-wield is, in general, more reliable dps - if we're both at, say, 40% life, and it's a race down to 0, I'd generally stick with dual-wield as I know exactly how fast I can get an enemy down. With 2h, it's a bit of a crapshoot. But it's not a huge difference either way, really, assuming similar ratio weapons.

It's going to greatly differ depending on what level you are. Due to skill caps and damage bonus, dual wield gets a lot better the higher you are. Up until the mid 40s, 2H is going to be much better, especially as a ranger that can cast spells between swings. Also, everything you said about being reliable is basically nonsense, there has never been an actual parse that backs up that statement.

[Aaramis]

Also, everything you said about being reliable is basically nonsense, there has never been an actual parse that backs up that statement.

And I have absolutely no intention of parsing to satisfy the neckbeards of this game.
Take 5 minutes and melee down some mobs using 2h and then dual wield. The kill speed overall will be similar, but the dual wield will be more reliable in the *time required*. 2h has a bit of variance based on misses.

That's all I'm saying, and anyone who's played must have noticed this.

[Troxx]

Numbers don't lie.

You're wrong Aramis.

[Darguth]

Numbers don't lie.

"They lie all the time. They lie when 72% of Americans say they're tired of a sex scandal, while all the while, newspaper circulation go through the roof for anyone featuring the story."

[fastboy21]

And I have absolutely no intention of parsing to satisfy the neckbeards of this game.
Take 5 minutes and melee down some mobs using 2h and then dual wield. The kill speed overall will be similar, but the dual wield will be more reliable in the *time required*. 2h has a bit of variance based on misses.

That's all I'm saying, and anyone who's played must have noticed this.

On one hand, I know what you are saying and I can see why you feel intuitively from game experience that this is the case. And, it isn't entirely wrong. The more swings the larger the number of swings...the larger the number of swings per fight the more likely to get expected results. Slower 2-hand smaller the number of swings...the smaller number of swings per fight the more likely to get unexpected results. Yes, its true that the more you roll the dice the more your actual results will map to the predicted probability. Nonetheless...

On the other hand, objectively speaking, I know the parses from 2-handers vs 1-hander setups that I've done on every melee character I've rolled on p99. 2-handers are almost always better dps.

(statistically, I see where you are going: you could contrive a scenario where using 1-handers (even with a statistically lower dps) would create a smaller chance of losing the fight...like fighting a low hp mob that does lots of damage. You might smartly chose to do less damage statistically to get a smaller chance of critical failure using the 1-handers. However this would seem to me a very unusual scenario...and almost always, I'd still opt for the higher dps over a larger sample.)

I'm not sure why you have to call someone a neckbeard for turning their parser on to actually see the numbers.

Running a parser isn't a difficult thing to do; you run the program in the background and it collects log data and organizes it for you. Not sure what is so awful about that.

What makes more sense: trusting your intuition to answer a question or using the data you collect over days of gameplay using both setups on your character as your fight different mobs?

Back to the original question, the other advantage of using a good 2-hander (aside from the objectively higher dps it gives over most 1 hander set ups) is that you'll be able to cast between swings without losing nearly as much potential damage from melee.

[jolanar]

And I have absolutely no intention of parsing to satisfy the neckbeards of this game.
Take 5 minutes and melee down some mobs using 2h and then dual wield. The kill speed overall will be similar, but the dual wield will be more reliable in the *time required*. 2h has a bit of variance based on misses.

That's all I'm saying, and anyone who's played must have noticed this.

Unless you have measured it then you are just making stuff up, treating it as fact, and insulting anyone who disagrees with you. Way to go.

[Kich867]

And I have absolutely no intention of parsing to satisfy the neckbeards of this game.
Take 5 minutes and melee down some mobs using 2h and then dual wield. The kill speed overall will be similar, but the dual wield will be more reliable in the *time required*. 2h has a bit of variance based on misses.

That's all I'm saying, and anyone who's played must have noticed this.

This is very false. Dual wielding will always underperform against two-handers of equivalent ratios barring other circumstances like procs or something (and even then, really..). If your DW weapons are better than your two-hander, obviously you'll do more damage with them, but if they aren't you're doing a lot less damage.

There isn't any feeling to this, this is just really simple math stuff.. If you have two 1-handers and they're both 15/30 weapons. If you have a 2-hander and it's 30/30, even though additively they're the same ratios, 2-hander is substantially better.

You don't always hit with your offhand, even at level 60 with maxed out dual-wield skill your chance to trigger your offhand attack is like ~70% or something.

This is obviously napkin math, but in ~5 minutes with a 30 delay weapon you attack every 3 seconds, getting in 100 attacks. If you do 200 damage with your two-hander and 100 damage with your one-handers each..

200 * 100 = 20000 damage.
100 * 170 = 17000 damage. (accounting for the times dual-wield does not occur)

You can try and say things like misses affect a two-hander more, they don't. They affect them equally. You don't have a higher chance to hit while dual-wielding..

From the above numbers, if you had a 20% chance to miss:

200 * (100 * 0.8) = 16000 damage.
100 * (170 * 0.8) = 13600 damage.

There is no such thing as a variance based on misses, they both miss equally as often and the damage they put out is equally affected by misses. That's how percentages work.

[Danger]

might start a ranger den

[gizmo]

Anyone have any experience trying to fear kite bats/bugs in SolB and any tactics they might suggest in doing so?

gotta make sure to land a snare and it helps to clear the bathing beetle, buys you more room. maybe carry a tash stick, the bats are a little resistant in the early 50s

[Valura]

Looking for upgrade suggestions on legs/vambs.. I have mithril legs and vambs at the time.. looking to possibly upgrade to peerless dragonleg breeches and peerless dragonspines vambs. i think my other slots are fine. i would gain a lot of ac and some sta but lose a little str. do you think theyre worth it over mithril?

[Jimjam]

Crystal chitin arms are pretty nice too. Seen quite a few of them drop in velks, but I am crazy enough to make the habit of XPing there. I don't think the legs in that set are quite as good though.

[Doctor Jeff]

I love that this thread is basically 18 pages of people disagreeing with Amaris and him replying, "I'm right, I'm not going to present any evidence though!"

is this izmael's other account?

[Aaramis]

I love that this thread is basically 18 pages of people disagreeing with Amaris and him replying, "I'm right, I'm not going to present any evidence though!"

is this izmael's other account?

*sigh*. FFS people, seriously, do I need to justify my identity now?
For the record, it's Aaramis. Scroll up, man. It's not that hard to spell. It's not even unique. It's one of the 3 musketeers, with an extra "a" in there. I'm sure 18 years ago it seemed positively witty and unique, but now just strikes me as boring and unoriginal. But it is what it is, and it's the name people associate me with, so I've stuck with it throughout the years. I have no idea who this Izmael guy is, but it shouldn't be too hard to do some background checking on me if you're so inclined. I played a Human Ranger since day 1 of Lanys through PoP, and played as Aaramis or Aara in dozens of other MMOs through the years.

Secondly, it was 3 or 4 disagreeing posts over the course of what, 2 pages? Hardly 18 pages of people disagreeing with me. No need for the dramatics.

I haven't presented any "evidence" as you call it, because I don't see the point. I don't see the point in going tit for tat on whether 2h beats out dual-wield, ruffling even more feathers, and eventually getting a perfectly good thread on Ranger soloing locked and/or deleted.

As I said previously, I'm not posting data, whether it's parsed logs, or math formulae or algorithms, or whatever, because I can't be arsed. We're splitting hairs here, and the reality is "who cares?". Do we really care if one weapon type kills 2 seconds faster than another? Is it worth it to come to forums and fight about it? The truth is that as long as we grab the best ratio weapons we can get our hands on, we're going to be fine. We're Rangers, after all. We can root, snare, harmony, fear, heal, DoT, nuke, etc. A second or 2 killspeed difference isn't going to make or break us.

Besides, I argued that I *feel* as though dual-wield has always been more reliable for me. Your mileage may vary. And I'm not even sure how to quantify a feeling anyways. I'm simply going on my 18 years of playing a Ranger on and off, from casual to hardcore raiding, that dual-wield has always performed well for me, and has been the most reliable. 2H may indeed be slightly better - it is at least on paper. But my gut feeling in game, when offhand procs are accounted for, Call of Fire procs, and everything else, that I end up coming down to the wire and/or dying much less with dual-wield than I do with 2H. Again, your mileage may vary.
But to each their own. This is hardly worth the dramatics.

[Doctor Jeff]

sorry I hurt your feelings, morris.

[ralph v2.0]

Level 46 ranger with a fungi and both epics. Solo level guide anyone?

[MikeXG]

How hard is ranger epic to get if you dont have a raid guild behind you?

[Maner]

How hard is ranger epic to get if you dont have a raid guild behind you?

Fairly sure you can 1 group just about anything in the ranger epic now

[thebutthat]

Well hate mini's are locked down fairly commonly by Awakened 3-4man crew, because twats. So chances of a hate stone thingy aren't good.


Can confirm this is rubbish. Not in A/A, probably did 4-5 hate runs this last few weks, no A/A clearing minis. Just us filthy casual try hards.