Koros, grats on having a 53 ranger. That's an accomplishment. Not many get that far. Rangers, along with paladins and SK's, are only a very small percent of the population. Look at my signature. This primary reason for this is group-based classes are always better at their specific roles. Rogues would do better dps than a ranger. Warriors would tank better than paladins. Enchanters would cc better than bards. And so on.
I have to agree with webrunner. I played a ranger in 1999 for 14 days /played. Then I made one in 2001 and played until 2010. Rangers are a fun class. I love their diversity and I love the baddass feeling I get wielding two weapons and being able to use a bow. However, rangers progressively lose the ability to tank anything worthwhile. At a certain point, SK's and Paladins start to become better campers because of their ability to fight up close and personal. Necromancers are also very formidable with all their abilities.
However, if a SK or a Paladin can't quite do a camp then it'd be good for you to join em. I've always felt that rangers mix well with paladins and sk's as a 2-person group. I always loved that combination.
At the end of the day, we traded tanking for dps and utility. SK's lost some utility and tiny bit of dps to boost their tanking; no track, no heals, no sow, no ds, etc. Paladins are the same as SK's except they traded dps for heals and hp buffs. This is how htey chose to balance rangers against the other hybrids in the higher levels.
This is why I created a paladin alt and leveled to 65 and so on. In all the years I played a ranger I regretted not being able to tank tougher named for better items in order to twink or make money. I also envied their ability to off-tank in groups or in raids. As a ranger, I could only root or kite adds of that nature. While I did levle that paladin to 65 and got him some aa, ultimately I stuck with my ranger until the very end.
Just remember that a ranger is a better kiter than a SK or Paladin. Our snare is bar none, alongside the druid. And we got bows with our dots and direct damage spells for decent ranged dps. You have to keep in mind that there're a lot of factors to consider. If EQ had made high damage named that paladins or sk's couldn't solo then we could if it's kite-able. Because a paladin would eventually run out of mana rooting and healing and a sk would run out similarly. But I think eq mostly made named to favor tanking, but this may not always be the case. Bottom line, high damage melee named would have made close combat ineffective compared to kiting them. And of course there're those named that need to be tracked as opposed to camped in one spot.
The grass always looks greener on the other side, especially when you lose interest.
I guess what I'm saying is don't judge rangers only based on this one criteria. As soon as htey remove the experience penalty, your judgment on all this is going to change dramatically too. But if you're really wanting to camp the tough stuff and don't care about utility, you need to reroll as a different class.
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