The most underpowered class depends on what you value most. You can categorize EQ roughly into three levels of gameplay: solo, group and raid. No class is great at all of them (except maybe shaman, but the act of playing a shaman on raids isn't exactly thrilling), so the title of most underpowered class is completely subjective depending on what you care most about. A class like warrior could be the worst in the game for someone who doesn't raid at all, or the best for someone who focuses on raiding.
Ranger is excellent for more casual players who just want to live in Norrath. They're good enough tanks to do the job for just about any group content, and they're good enough DPS to fill that role as well. One of the worst things for a group's longevity is if the tank leaves, so being a backup tank is amazing for keeping a group going. They're great pullers outdoors, and while they aren't particularly awesome soloers, they can do it. And just having SoW and healing spells is a huge boon for a casual player who wants to see the world. Nothing's worse than getting knocked down to 30% hp on a class that has no healing ability at all, it takes absolutely forever to regenerate naturally.
But it's not a powerful class, and it carries that stigma from ancient times when nobody understood that it's actually great for a ranger to fill one of the group's DPS spots because their output is good enough and they bring snare and serve as an adequate backup tank. If I'm taking a group somewhere where it's really inconvenient to replace the tank, I'll gladly bring a ranger as DPS. They're weak on paper because theorycrafting doesn't take into account all those times when the tank goes "oh gotta go sry" and it takes an hour to find a new one. They're great in practice because that shit happens all the time.
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