does shield ac count towards the worn ac cap for rangers?

Taking into account all things waybackmachined, rangers probably should do a bit more damage with bows on p99, even without factoring rooted dragons in to that equation. The fact that rangers were given two epics, both being melee weapons, suggests that close quarters combat was meant to be their go-to method of damage, with the bow serving as a backup option (and yet their class icon is bow + quiver). Even the ranger-only item off Vulak is a sword.

Despite an emphasis being placed on melee damage, rangers were only briefly allowed to have triple attack in Velious, with monks being spared that nerf. They have the ability to taunt, but also two versions of jolt and a few weapons with similar proc effects. Of course, the more versatile the hybrid class, the more it can appear to be a walking contradiction.

In retrospect, the devs seemed to be figuring out the ranger class as they went, more so than any of the other classes, even monk which abandoned its classic minimalism to join in the loot fest, having some of the most desirable drops in Velious.

It's common knowledge that the devs often fought over design decisions, reportedly even coming to blows on occasion. So it's likely that they had the same or similar arguments about which class should get what, no different from what's posted on Allakhazam or these forums. Robe of Living Fungus got nerfed but then, one expansion later, there was an even better monk robe in ST with the same worn effect, Shroud of Longevity. The ranger epic wasn't a bow, but then BFG was shoehorned into Velious and Oakwynd was made a reward at GM events for each server. The list goes on.

IMO the ranger epic should have been two-in-one, like the warrior's, with the bow being broken in half to create two 1hb weapons.

Rangers had treble attack?!

Yep, on the test server at least.

https://web.archive.org/web/20041130...hp?t=47828&amp

https://web.archive.org/web/20021109...cID=1505.topic

ah right, they ended up giving ranger a small +attack bonus instead (perhaps the extra swing hate from treble attack was complained about by testers?)

Back then. The only unknown here really is their group viability...

...take a top tier ranger, find average HP then divide by # of mobs you want him to solo and you'll know what defense they need to make it so #1

If you're above the AC softcap, the -15 from hoop is also reduced by the same percentage that the softcap mitigates. For the same reason that a +15 AC earring would only give a few points of actual AC if above the softcap, a -15 only costs a few points. The game just applies a numbers squish to all worn AC above the softcap, even if it's minus. Since ears are a low AC slot for most people (is there anyhing besides Vulak earring with more than 10 AC?), it's a very small sacrifice in return for far better stats than any other non-raid earring will give.

That's the conclusion I'm coming to but we have a ranger AC thread in the melee forums and it seems like how the soft cap works and where it actually is has yet to be determined. So the logic is good but its hard to implement at the right point due to lack of data. So far it seems the soft cap might be based on the mob's level and its closer to a hard cap but we need further testing.

The thread in question: https://www.project1999.com/forums/s...d.php?t=438517

I don't have any hard numbers, but the first player to hit Level 60 was a Ranger, and they complained very loudly on the official EQ forums that Ranger tanking was terrible in Kunark. Not only was tanking terrible, they were drawing aggro away from Warriors, despite doing less damage, because their typical low delay weapons created more aggro (which is why Jolt got put in the game).

Combined with the hybrid exp penalty becoming more widely known, Rangers during Kunark era went from being one of the most popular classes to being considered one of the weakest.

Keeping rangers at their level 39 defence skill through to 60 was a terrible, terrible decision. No amount of dodge/parry/riposte made up for that. Thankfully they partially walked back that decision late velious, throwing rangers a +20 to their max skill cap.