Best solo classes in Classic?

[Meiva]

BEST doesn't necessarily mean FUN. I've been intrigued by players claiming to solo well on a Ranger. The class seems to be quite fun. A strong consideration for my first alt once I'm ready. Slinging arrows while moving and having a snared mob stumbling after sounds neat.

I noticed rangers come Velious are fucking badass as well. Possibly long before Velious, though that was the era I certainly took notice.

[YendorLootmonkey]

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

BEST doesn't necessarily mean FUN. I've been intrigued by players claiming to solo well on a Ranger. The class seems to be quite fun. A strong consideration for my first alt once I'm ready. Slinging arrows while moving and having a snared mob stumbling after sounds neat.

I noticed rangers come Velious are fucking badass as well. Possibly long before Velious, though that was the era I certainly took notice.

Don't be bamboozled by Ivory. You will snare/bowkite something exactly twice (a 2nd time to see if the time and number of arrows it took was a fluke, or if it was indeed that tedious) before it gets old, unless you are a glutton for punishment.

I'm talking average player (non-BIS raid geared) equipment here:

Classic era, if you're going to go toe-to-toe and doing anything higher than high greens/lowest of the blues, you will be doing a lot of rooting and backing off to heal. Rubi BP helps here, and at least one Ebony Bladed Sword will help conserve mana so you can back off every time it procs to med/heal/nuke/DoT. Oh and all of your heals, nukes, DoTs? You get them like 10-15 levels after druids do, so they're all underpowered against the mobs you will be using them on or the damage you are trying to heal from. They are supplemental to your melee damage output.

In Kunark, at a minimum you need Swarmcaller for the slow proc. I don't think it procs until a certain level though (40?), if I remember correctly. If you are lucky enough to get epics, Earthcaller is key for the better slow proc. Fungi Tunic probably a must, and you will be sticking to Classic-era mobs that con blue but don't hit as hard as their Kunark counterparts. If you still want to bow-kite... you will need a Tolan's Bracer to summon arrows. This was the era where rangers became a joke... our damage avoidance/mitigation did not scale well from 51-60 and we were all using low delay weapons to maximize DPS, which shot us up the hate list faster than warriors could. Devs threw us a bone called Jolt to help us manage our aggro.

In Velious, you get Panic Animal at 22 and can finally efficiently solo animal mobs outdoors. Tigers and rhinos in Overthere, snow cougars in Iceclad/Eastern Wastes, non-undead gorillas and tigers in Emerald Jungle, Tigerraptors in Wakening Lands, and if you're dragon-aligned and careful of adds in Western Wastes, glacier mastadons. Snare/Ensnare and Panic Animal are minimal mana cost and you can pretty much keep this up indefinitely, only limited by the amount of animal mobs available. Hybrid penalty goes away so you can XP faster. If you started a ranger alt in Classic, you are probably 60 by the time Velious hits and Panic Animal and the hybrid XP changes don't impact you anyway.

In every case above, obviously the more equipment haste you have, the better. Dark Cloak of the Sky from your Plane of Sky quest is a game-changer as it adds clicky spell haste and therefore stacks with your item haste (and quiver haste, once that change goes in).

[Fawqueue]

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

Don't be bamboozled by Ivory. You will snare/bowkite something exactly twice (a 2nd time to see if the time and number of arrows it took was a fluke, or if it was indeed that tedious) before it gets old, unless you are a glutton for punishment.

I'm talking average player (non-BIS raid geared) equipment here:

Classic era, if you're going to go toe-to-toe and doing anything higher than high greens/lowest of the blues, you will be doing a lot of rooting and backing off to heal. Rubi BP helps here, and at least one Ebony Bladed Sword will help conserve mana so you can back off every time it procs to med/heal/nuke/DoT. Oh and all of your heals, nukes, DoTs? You get them like 10-15 levels after druids do, so they're all underpowered against the mobs you will be using them on or the damage you are trying to heal from. They are supplemental to your melee damage output.

In Kunark, at a minimum you need Swarmcaller for the slow proc. I don't think it procs until a certain level though (40?), if I remember correctly. If you are lucky enough to get epics, Earthcaller is key for the better slow proc. Fungi Tunic probably a must, and you will be sticking to Classic-era mobs that con blue but don't hit as hard as their Kunark counterparts. If you still want to bow-kite... you will need a Tolan's Bracer to summon arrows. This was the era where rangers became a joke... our damage avoidance/mitigation did not scale well from 51-60 and we were all using low delay weapons to maximize DPS, which shot us up the hate list faster than warriors could. Devs threw us a bone called Jolt to help us manage our aggro.

In Velious, you get Panic Animal at 22 and can finally efficiently solo animal mobs outdoors. Tigers and rhinos in Overthere, snow cougars in Iceclad/Eastern Wastes, non-undead gorillas and tigers in Emerald Jungle, Tigerraptors in Wakening Lands, and if you're dragon-aligned and careful of adds in Western Wastes, glacier mastadons. Snare/Ensnare and Panic Animal are minimal mana cost and you can pretty much keep this up indefinitely, only limited by the amount of animal mobs available. Hybrid penalty goes away so you can XP faster. If you started a ranger alt in Classic, you are probably 60 by the time Velious hits and Panic Animal and the hybrid XP changes don't impact you anyway.

In every case above, obviously the more equipment haste you have, the better. Dark Cloak of the Sky from your Plane of Sky quest is a game-changer as it adds clicky spell haste and therefore stacks with your item haste (and quiver haste, once that change goes in).

This is fairly accurate. As a 60 Ranger with epic, planar armor, and sky cloak during Kunark I could solo any blue and do certain bosses inside places like Seb. Nothing like a caster mind you, but it was absolutely feasible to melee for a bit and then root and back off to heal or bow it to the finish line.

[cd288]

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

BEST doesn't necessarily mean FUN. I've been intrigued by players claiming to solo well on a Ranger. The class seems to be quite fun. A strong consideration for my first alt once I'm ready. Slinging arrows while moving and having a snared mob stumbling after sounds neat.

I noticed rangers come Velious are fucking badass as well. Possibly long before Velious, though that was the era I certainly took notice.

Unfortunately, arrow DPS is mostly insignificant such that it's not really a viable leveling method. It was always strange to me that the original EQ devs/Brad never gave Rangers much ranged DPS ability...I guess they were worried they'd be OP?

[YendorLootmonkey]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Unfortunately, arrow DPS is mostly insignificant such that it's not really a viable leveling method. It was always strange to me that the original EQ devs/Brad never gave Rangers much ranged DPS ability...I guess they were worried they'd be OP?

They didn't worry much about it while designing AAs for Luclin and elemental bows in PoP, that's for sure. =) Made rogues cry to Kendrick so hard.