Why does everyone hate rangers?

[Elmarnieh]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I think rangers are a pretty cool class, and I was really looking forward to playing one, but after investigating how bow damage works, the experience penalty, their lower damage output than other melee classes, their inability to tank compared to other tanks, I genuinely don't see the point to playing one outside of novelty. Or to be a maverick, or because you genuinely just enjoy the way the class plays and min-maxing be damned.

And those are all fine reasons but the problem still is that very few of those comments are unique to rangers. A lot of these are, "Because I'm a ranger and not quite as good as everyone else at doing something I have to do this really roundabout thing to look useful". You can make those sound like separate actions, but almost all of those are tantamount to the fact that rangers just aren't tanks and they don't do particularly great damage and are awful at healing.

The rest of them are made to imply that the group is incompetent and somehow by being a well played ranger you fix all of that, which is a pretty loose road to travel down since you're predicating your usefulness on the stupidity of others. This makes your argument that rangers can only actually be useful if they are played to their fullest while the rest of the party is not.

I wouldn't ever turn someone down because they were a ranger, because quite frankly I don't care, but it's pretty hard to try and argue that rangers bring something unique to the table that merits their XP sink. For instance, a druid has no exp penalty and could satisfy better almost all the criteria you mentioned. They have better snares, roots, CC's in general, they offer better healing, and their damage output is pretty solid between the DoT's and Nukes they offer. They also offer substantially better buffs.

They cannot tank, but this is fine as rangers can't either (they can just not tank longer than druids can by a bit), and would resort to similar tactics to alleviate tank damage (probably snaring and rooting).

Like I said though, I wouldn't turn a ranger down--but if this thread is asking "Why does everyone hate rangers?" it's for the reasons listed: They have a 40% experience penalty while offering the worst of damage of the dps classes, the worst healing of the hybrid classes, the worst tanking of the hybrid classes, the weakest buffs of classes that can buff, and their only real benefit is that they simultaneously provide the worst of everything so that in the event you need them to, they can go full-blown gimp-healer, gimp-tank, or mediocre-dps.

I don't think we should really misinform people about the state of that class, they should know full well what they're getting into if they're interested in playing it. I was planning on making a ranger as my alt, but after reading all the material on this site and the wiki and other sites, but as a bit of a min-maxer I just can't find an applicable reason to do so.

The perks of playing a ranger however are: they get very cool weapons, despite how much they suck they also get critical hits with bows which are cool, I prefer the look of chain mail to plate, they get to turn into a wolf and fight bitches.

I've tanked plenty of things from Karnors to Sebilis to the planes. I've been MT on planar clears and in more groups in more camps than I can count.

In a lot of those situations the druid would be sub-optimal to a ranger. Say in peeling and root parking...sure they have the same spells but mana is their prime resource so every tic spent not medding when not at fm is a greater negative than a ranger. The ranger is also dramatically more resistant to damage while root parking. The ranger again when pulling can take a few hits on a multi-pull to root and snare and draw out the mobs coming into camp far more reliably than a druid. The druid should be dedicated to heal/dps in a group role.

While you can make an efficient group without a ranger a ranger is a great all around safety valve for when things get out of control. Unless we are in late luclin or PoP or the next two expansions there is no reason to think of using a ranger with a bow. We are melee until we are ranged and then we are mostly melee again. That's just how EQ rangers are. If you want to play a bow class - you don't want to play on P99.

If you want your character to be the best at something in the game by all means please play another class. If you want yourself to be the best at the game you can be then play a ranger.

[Elmarnieh]

Originally Posted by Kich867 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I probably am exaggerating it, I know early on they can tank just fine--especially if twinked, but I recall even starting in their thirties that their ability to main tank a group diminishes compared to others pretty rapidly.

I don't think it's terribly related to the min-max attitude, I think it's more about sort of a "relative min-max attitude". For instance, the reason not all players roll ogre warriors is because warriors are, regardless of race, the best tanks late-game and are useful and desired throughout the game.

The real case is: If I'm looking for a damage class because the other roles are filled, would I take that ranger over that rogue? No. If I need a tank would I take that Ranger over that SK? No. And you'd never consider them as a healing role.

If all the roles are covered, you can safely default to looking for more damage, where rangers sit lower than other classes.

And it's not to say people shouldn't invite rangers--it's not that they don't do anything at all, I think these impact much more the late late game than they do earlier on.

You're getting bad information if people are telling you the tanking changes in mid thirties. It changes post 50. Defense skill caps changed per level when the new levels were added. In Velious ranger defense cap gets tweaked upwards which given how the formula works (at least on live) is a major benefit. Still if you focus primarily on AC with your equipment as a ranger in Kunark you will be able to tank most situations just fine. (I've tanked Prot and Emp in Seb and been MT for clearing juggs no issue, I've also tanked named in sky after defensive tanks wen't down). Yes you'll never be as tankish as a person wearing plate who went for AC or a warrior in defensive. Rangers aren't meant to be.

Sure in a perfect group you don't need backup. I don't know how many perfect groups you've been in but it tends to be very few. Even in a great seb group with a shaman and enchanter for charm dps in group the ranger gets to keep it snared, off tank the pet and perform duties while the enchanter is otherwise busy recharming. That is the nearest to perfect group you can get in seb and its the perfect group for a ranger as well.

Play what you want though.

[kruptcy]

There seems to be confusion between being the best at one thing and being the best for a role in a group. There are three aspects to tanking, right? Aggro, ability to take a hit, and dps ability. If we break it down one aspect at a time:

#1 Aggro - Need enough aggro to sit above everyone else in the party on the aggro table consistently. After you reach this point, more aggro is simply wasted.

#2 Ability to take a hit - Need enough mitigation / hp to keep your healer relatively comfortable and stable in the mana department while healing you. After you satisfy this requirement, additional mitigation / hp is fairly meaningless.

#3 DPS - The higher your DPS the better.

If you are choosing between two players of ANY class that can satisfy #1 and #2, whoever scores higher on #3 should be taken as the tank. While it certainly is true that a ranger is not the very best class at any of those 3 aspects, it is possible that you will come across one who is the best option for your group.

[Jaleth]

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

There seems to be confusion between being the best at one thing and being the best for a role in a group. There are three aspects to tanking, right? Aggro, ability to take a hit, and dps ability. If we break it down one aspect at a time:

#1 Aggro - Need enough aggro to sit above everyone else in the party on the aggro table consistently. After you reach this point, more aggro is simply wasted.

#2 Ability to take a hit - Need enough mitigation / hp to keep your healer relatively comfortable and stable in the mana department while healing you. After you satisfy this requirement, additional mitigation / hp is fairly meaningless.

#3 DPS - The higher your DPS the better.

If you are choosing between two players of ANY class that can satisfy #1 and #2, whoever scores higher on #3 should be taken as the tank. While it certainly is true that a ranger is not the very best class at any of those 3 aspects, it is possible that you will come across one who is the best option for your group.

I agree with most of what you said; (Paraphrasing) If in any form you can increase dps after the first two criteria as a tank were met the better. The part I have an issue with is that groups in general should hold no expectation for greater dps from one tank than the rest. Points one and two should honestly be the only consideration when choosing a tank.

However, I do feel rangers mitigate this problem due to their higher dps output over the other tank classes. My point was being just between tank classes.

I wish we all had the ignorance and naivety of our past while playing here. It was considerably more fun to just play with others, without worrying about numbers. I also thought rangers were just one of the most awesome classes, for their versatility and utility, though I never played one. I just had a lot of good experience playing beside them.

[Kich867]

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

You're getting bad information if people are telling you the tanking changes in mid thirties. It changes post 50. Defense skill caps changed per level when the new levels were added. In Velious ranger defense cap gets tweaked upwards which given how the formula works (at least on live) is a major benefit. Still if you focus primarily on AC with your equipment as a ranger in Kunark you will be able to tank most situations just fine. (I've tanked Prot and Emp in Seb and been MT for clearing juggs no issue, I've also tanked named in sky after defensive tanks wen't down). Yes you'll never be as tankish as a person wearing plate who went for AC or a warrior in defensive. Rangers aren't meant to be.

Sure in a perfect group you don't need backup. I don't know how many perfect groups you've been in but it tends to be very few. Even in a great seb group with a shaman and enchanter for charm dps in group the ranger gets to keep it snared, off tank the pet and perform duties while the enchanter is otherwise busy recharming. That is the nearest to perfect group you can get in seb and its the perfect group for a ranger as well.

Play what you want though.

Ah I feel like this post and the previous post are misunderstanding my response a little. The question of the thread was, "Why do people hate rangers?". The answer is that their XP penalty on top of the fact that they fill no role as well as other class groups do.

I spoke about relative-min-max before, I feel like I should clarify that a little to better explain myself. It's not that rangers can't tank. I was being facetious and hyperbolic before, apologies. It's not that rangers can't deal damage. It's not that rangers don't offer good support and fulfill roles. And it's certainly not the case that you'll just never get a group.

On the contrary, I believe relative-min-maxing to be less of an issue on this server given that we're limited on population. A limited population means that you're less likely to have optimal group choices at all times, this causes the issue to be less noticeable and happen far less often than say a server with 12 or 20 thousand users.

What I mean by relative-min-maxing is the following: there are classes that are good enough at something to still be considered for that role despite not being the best at them and any class that falls into said category will be chosen before a ranger for whatever role is desired.

This concept isn't unique to rangers at all either; druids and shamans likely get put into similar situations. Why take a druid when a cleric is LFG and your group needs a healer?

And so that's all I'm saying. When presented with a set of options, the ranger will be the last choice from a purely class-power perspective. While other classes can fulfill similar roles well enough to still be considered despite not being the best at them.

It sort of upsets me a little that the team here isn't going further with the game and improving upon it's obviously flawed class balance; making rangers bow DPS good enough to consider them next to a rogue or monk or something would be phenomenal. I totally respect their strict code of sticking to classic, but rangers being as cool as they are it makes me sad that this is the case.

[Tuljin]

One of my best p99 memories is doing Chef camp in Seb trio with something like 54 ranger, 55 monk, and 57 wizard. This was back in the days of invis pulling, and between Monk and Wiz we had plenty of options to keep our pulls clean. The Ranger had his slow proccing sword and with the Wizard chainstunning spells and holding caster agro we could kill the mobs fine without anybody getting wrecked. The Ranger was tanking very well and the utility of the Ranger was a big part of making this happen. No nubs need apply to this trio, however :P

[Estu]

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

If you want your character to be the best at something in the game by all means please play another class. If you want yourself to be the best at the game you can be then play a ranger.

That's a funny way to spell 'bard/enchanter' [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I mean, sure, rangers require nuance and know-how to play well, but come on now.

[Jaleth]

Not sure why, but this thread makes me want to roll a ranger. :-D

[Mac Drettj]

play a ranger on pvp server


have an awsome time

[Elmarnieh]

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

Not sure why, but this thread makes me want to roll a ranger. :-D

You should. Especially with velious around the corner. Our defensive caps get fixed, xp penalty vanishes, and you can fear kite the plentiful animals in velious.