So when did classic get rid of xp penalties?

[Zuranthium]

Originally Posted by Thoughtseize [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

No one is saying rangers didn't suffer a bad rep prior to Kunark.

Rangers were the most popular class in the game for awhile pre-Kunark. When Everquest first came about, people treated it as an actual RPG and they loved the fantasy flavor of the Ranger class (inspired by characters in the genre such as Aragorn, no doubt). This love for the idea of the class was backed up by them being relatively overpowered in Original EQ, during the time when all of the Chain and Plate wearing classes used the same armor, Rubicite, and thus Rangers were very close to Warriors in terms of tanking/melee ability and had spells on top of it (with their ability to snare being VERY important back in the day, because monsters would sometimes flee at full run speed and create insurmountably devastating trains).

After Rubicite armor was removed from the game and more players became higher level and Warriors became much better tanks (and necessary for the big raid encounters), the Ranger class lost some popularity but their status was still healthy. The only class that people actively shunned in Original EQ (aside from roleplaying reasons), at times, were Rogues.

Kunark then came along and turned Rangers into a joke for the most part. They became vastly inferior to Warriors/Monks/Rogues, while at the same time knowledge of how the hybrid exp penalty negatively affected groups became more widespread.