Best solo melee class?

[Cecily]

If you don't have mana recovery, those cheap spells will eventually tank your mana and the recovery is bad. You can maintain a semi-homeostasis longer with more mana.

And yeah in a raid situation, SoN/CoTP will nuke your mana if you're the sole ranger and that happens a lot. That's mainly the whole utility for mana raiding.

The class is for running around and killing blues. Solo artist/raiding perspectives from people who don't have rangers in the first place aren't adding anything to the conversation about what boils down to MY preference and playstyle for a bad class I enjoy. Mana isn't bad to stack on a ranger and I respectfully disagree if you fucking morons think otherwise.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

That's a great question and if you had any reading comprehension I assume you would already know whether or not I med to full every encounter. You're the second person to bring up solo artist challenges and that's fundamentally not what the class is about. This is a class that chases frogs across Trak's Teeth. I posted Hektor's excellent solo video because I think it's cool, but it's not where the class shines at all.

Let me know if you have any relevant questions I haven't already answered.

I read your previous post just fine. I ask for clarity because I don't want to be accused of putting words in your mouth.

It is safe to say you do NOT meditate back to full mana before the next pull in a group.

This means you understand that you aren't using your max mana most of the time in this scenario. That is the point everybody is making.

[Cecily]

More mana not go out longer

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

More mana not go out longer

There are other ways to save mana while tanking in a group. Using Tolan's Gloves for snare/agro and using Herbalist's Spade for root procs are two easy wins. You can also just alternate between who roots in a group. Chances are there will be someone else in the group who can root, and they will probably be meditating more often.

If the group is constantly having agro issues, it's probably not solely the Rangers fault. Fixing the group's issues is more efficient than stacking max mana.

[Cecily]

Lol. Did you know you can use 4 second cast items and proc weapons as a replacement for near instant cast, low mana spells? Thank you for sage insights as always.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Lol. Did you know you can use 4 second cast items and proc weapons as a replacement for near instant cast, low mana spells? Thank you for sage insights as always.

If you are having mana issues, the better way to save mana is by not spending it in the first place. Clickies, procs, and other group members (if applicable) help you do this.

I use clickies all the time on my Troll SK to save mana. They work great.

[sammoHung]

Necro is the best melee class because they get damage shield, lifetap proc, pet DPS to help, and they can use Staff of the silent star.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

Lol. Did you know you can use 4 second cast items and proc weapons as a replacement for near instant cast, low mana spells? Thank you for sage insights as always.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGMz5gpf_EY

Here is a video of me using nothing but Blood Ember Gauntlets to maintain agro while my 20% hasted pet with dual wield beats a Geo down to 20%. In case you don't bother to watch the video, I am purposely running away from the Geo to show that the agro is on me instead of the pet. This is because mobs will prioritize the player over the pet anyway if they are in melee range.

Am I suggesting that players spam Blood Ember Gauntlets/Tolan Gauntlets to maintain agro? Of course not. But you can see that the gloves generate decent agro by themselves, even with a 5 second cast time. Landing 1-2 Tolan Gauntlet clicks while the mob is running into camp will already give you a decent leg up hate-wise for 0 mana. Tolan Gauntlets are also 1 second faster than Blood Ember Gauntlets, so Rangers have a bit of an advantage there compared to SK's.

[Danth]

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

Here is a video of me using nothing but Blood Ember Gauntlets to maintain agro while my 20% hasted pet with dual wield beats a Geo down to 20%.

I use the gloves the same way to aggro-kite ice burrowers once in awhile when I have some other melee partner. Works best with feigners who can blur themselves regularly, but I've also done it with folks who can't. Not something that can or should be used 100% of the time, and nobody's suggesting that, but it's a tool and has its place in the toolbox. In the shadowknight's case I'd say its place got a little bit larger after Disease Cloud got (wrongly) nerfed, but that's of no relevance to a ranger.

That being said I get where Cecily is coming from as well. It's nice having a larger mana pool, don't have to stress it as much, can go longer without needing to sit to meditate. Especially in a raid setting where your meditate breaks are usually timed with raid-wide breaks, you don't want to have to stop when nobody else is stopping. All a matter of building your character to do the jobs you're using it for.

[DeathsSilkyMist]

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

I use the gloves the same way to aggro-kite ice burrowers once in awhile when I have some other melee partner. Works best with feigners who can blur themselves regularly, but I've also done it with folks who can't. Not something that can or should be used 100% of the time, and nobody's suggesting that, but it's a tool and has its place in the toolbox. In the shadowknight's case I'd say its place got a little bit larger after Disease Cloud got (wrongly) nerfed, but that's of no relevance to a ranger.

That being said I get where Cecily is coming from as well. It's nice having a larger mana pool, don't have to stress it as much, can go longer without needing to sit to meditate. Especially in a raid setting where your meditate breaks are usually timed with raid-wide breaks, you don't want to have to stop when nobody else is stopping. All a matter of building your character to do the jobs you're using it for.

Indeed.

And don't get me wrong, I understand that having a larger mana pool has benefits. Any stat increase your character can use will help you.

But one of the problems with Velious-era melee gear is it often lacks +WIS/INT and +Mana. This means increasing your max mana on a melee character often comes at the cost of other stats.

https://wiki.project1999.com/Magelo_Blue:Blerv

Snaggle's Ranger is only getting like 36 WIS and 200 Mana from his current setup if I counted correctly. Obviously if he got more BiS/Near BiS items like white Dragon Helm/Crown of the Kromzek Kings/Crown of Rile, Ring of Destruction, Eye of Cazic Thule, etc. he could have the best of both worlds. But that is a lot of time/DKP.