[YendorLootmonkey]

Best way to utilize a ranger in a group with a tank is to send him out for chain pulls in an outdoor zone. According to everyone they do shitty DPS anyway, so just have them continuously bring you mobs... you won't be missing their DPS, right? If you have a chanter or bard, great... they'll just bring in whatever and kite it around to avoid taking hits until the adds are locked down. If not, they'll pull singles with harmony and meter the incoming mobs on their own. Or rootpark their pull and help finish off the current mob. Or help with the current mob until it's at 50% and then run out to get another pull. It really depends on what the group is comfortable with and how fast shit is getting killed.

Rangers, know the zones you'll be expected to pull. I fail at KC because I don't know the layout of the basement. :P Completely my fault there, I understand that.

The ranger isn't going to use their mana for much anyway (unless they're idiots and want to nuke and risk drawing aggro), and their healing isn't that great until they get Greater Healing at 57. So aside from some minor utility buffs, their mana is probably best used for ghetto crowd control... snaring and/or rooting. Make sure the group understands to switch targets to casting mobs if needed, so we can rootpark all the melee mobs.

Since groups are already fucking hard to find for a ranger, any post-45 ranger worth his salt is going to bring Swarmcaller to the mix. Getting it to proc a slow early on the mobs your fighting if you don't have an enchanter, bard, or shammy in the group is pretty damn useful. Just need to have root ready in case the proc draws aggro, and switch out to their regular DPS weapons after the proc.

If the ranger gets aggro, until they add Jolt to the game or if they're below 55, they need to turn off auto-attack and let the tank regain aggro. We can all tell when the mob's starting to turn on us and we're surpassing the tank's aggro... we should be turning that shit off for a few moments to save our healer some mana.

On planar raids, you'll be fielding questions from everyone on the raid about how many of their particular armor-dropping mob is up, while you're DPSing and helping enchanters do some crowd control by snaring shit and kiting it around until they get it locked down.

The fundamental problem with rangers is that those who play them enjoy the versatility of being able to change roles and perform different functions, whereas the people who have slots to fill in groups don't look for a jack-of-all-trades, they want the specialists.