Rangers and Epics - What are you doing to make urself viable?

[Nick_RC]

Hi Ranger players.

DISCLAIMER: I am NOT trying to flame rangers. (I dont like them personally for thematic reasons but thats here nor there) I'm honestly trying to figure out how rangers feel they are performing in epic content. I would love to have some good ranger players chirp in and help me change my opininons on them.

I know coming to the ranger forums and questioning viability at end game is likely to get myself neg-repped and flamed but having finally finished my TR's I've been running Epics solid for 3-4 weeks now and have some questions for the ranger players, just to get my head around it all - not too flame but too learn.I dont play rangers. I've played 6 rgr splashes but never the 'real deal'.Anyway these are my thoughts and Id love to have some thoughts from those who do play their rangers on epic and how they address certain inherent 'shortcomings'.

DPS.

1. Favored Enemies. The common exploiter has 4. The rare pure has 5. Once u lose this bonus you are by far and away the bottom of the heap dps wise. Considering the mass of creature types encountered in all the epic series how do you feel ur dps is like? What FE do you carry? Consider the following just for desert and Vons (Off the top of my head).
Desert: Abberation, scorpions, drow, Undead, Constructs, Hyenas(Animals), Gnolls, Mephits, Elementals, Efreets and Djinn
Vons: Dragon, Construct (WF, Arachs knight, Marut), Giant, Monstrous Humanoid(Gargoyles, minos), Reptiles (Kobold shamans but still!!) Goblin, Evil Outsider, Elemental
2. Tactics. The exploiters and pures will NOT have viable tactics at end game and now with the weighted changed you arnt stunning/tripping/sundering anything. The odd exceptionally well equipped Dwarf/WF with the tactics line might be able to land them but I cant see any other types doing this.
3. Lack of burst 'autocrit' DPS. By this I mean for example palis can Divine sacrifice and exalted smite the snot out of held mobs. Fighters Haste booost 4 rips through stunned mobs. Because of the passive nature of ranger damage bonuses they really have nothing to maxmise these opportunities.
4. Too Hit. A bit lacking often ul need to switch off PA just too hit reducing ur dps further.
5. Weapon choices. Rapiers bleh on epic for autocrits - and i still see many of these running around. Hopefully rangers are toting around picks/dwarven axes(if dwarf) by now seeing as apart from racial bonuses they arnt restricited by kensai favored weapon. In fact this is the only thing i can see them being viable is grabbing a pair of picks and going to town with full hands proccing.

MY CONCLUSION ON DPS:

People may say that trash dies so quickly it doesnt matter but the little voice in my head keeps sayin 'no thanks to you (lol)'. Rangers arnt stunning, often wont have the FE bonus, U will often have to run with PA off... and it just gets worse if you are using rapiers full time. Against the Queen you wont have the str and hp to go toe to toe with her so will have to plunk away waiting for manyshot to come back to do good damage. Against velah, ur fine IF you have FE Dragon...thereby reducing you're FE to 3 Exploiter and 4 pure.

I feel intuitively my pali is better dps wise on epic than a ranger and my pali does about 50-60% of the dps my Main (Blitz build) does (feel not numbers).

SURVIVABILITY

Not a big analysis but just some thoughts.

1. HP. I dont think I would be too far off by saying a little squishy.
2. DR. Barbs running around with close to permanent stoneskin is pretty nice damage mitigation.
3. Evasion - yup u got it and it will likely work on spells. In my eyes the only survivability bonus they have.


So really what are you're thoughts on rangers in Epic? In my eyes I see melee rangers being in pretty bad shape end game atm. Are you just speccing them for raid bosses and just running them? Are you paying real money for respecs of FE every time new content comes out? Have you gone AA for pew pew power...? From lookingat an overall picture I cant help but feel the heavy dwarven ranger using DA with too hit and toughness bonuses are in the best shape of the bunch.

Note: My last EV6 run is what prompted this post. I had been mulling it over for a while but this is what led me to post this. Melees were a barb, monster, 4 rangers and 2 palis. It was the longest beat down I have ever seen. This was a channel run - the players were all adequate and not noobs. I asked the rangers if any of them had FE dragon. No answer. The lack of dps in the raid group as far as i can see were the palis (I was on pali btw) not fighting undead or Evil outsider and the rangers not having FE up.

Anyway Cheers and like I said i would love to have some ranger players comment on what they have going for them from a DPS standpoint in epics not 'Im a scout!" or "But i have no fail heal scrolls!". I guess at least the well built exploiters can open the locks and disable the traps in CoF...

N

[moops]

LOL--well me and my ranger friends have been running Epic just fine and not dying. And i myself am a Gimp Finesse build.

And really, again, these quests are all being solo and duo'd--if not the whole thing, till at least the end fight.

But for a full group Here is what I have found when on my ranger
Ill use Into the Deep since that currently seems to be the more popular longer Epic that can't be run in 8 mins. Our Tactic is Mass Hold and Dance--I ran with another exploiter who had a decent kill lead over me and the Barb ( there were only 3 melee in the group) He was using Trap the Soul Weapons. But most of the time my kill count is the same as everyone else in this quest if I am not piking, so I will prob make some trap the soul weapons because they look fun. I have Power Attack on Most of the time except against a few things in all Epics.

Honestly many people are running the Carnival Quests and a Couple Red Fens quests on every alt we have just about every day Gimp alt or not--because everything binds to account--so even if a player has less DPS than another I don't see it as mattering.

As for Big Top, I find that being able to use Multi Shot against that Squirrley jumping around all over Succubis to be a huge Plus:)

[Aalric]

I'm on Cannith and a dwarven ranger. I mainly tend to do the desert epics. My main role is dps & I do fine (I slip out of my Icy pajamas into my warmer armour of destruction before entering the epic and that helps everyone a bit). I will be a lot better after I TR but I'm not at theat point yet.

I tend to find that what's most important in epics is actually knowing what to do and working as a team/ following instructions. Wipes happen due to bad play, not becuase some's dps is slightly less.

Just my 2 cents

[Merlocke]

Personally I'm still trying to figure out a way to do it. In the meantime my Exploiter is just a shroudbot....

[phalaeo]

I'm no expert at melee builds, but we have two Exploiters in guild that I'd take any day of the week into Epic runs.

[Gunga]

Love Rangers.

Hi Nick.

[Junts]

I think there's a few things you're discounting, Nick:

FE for non-dangerous mobs isn't that necessary. Aberration is a lot better in epic (beholders, scorrow), but vermin or elf in OOB for example are simply not necessary. Those particular trashmobs tend to die incidently.

It's equally not necessary that everyone has a form of stun. In fact, neither of my paladins has it, and I rarely pull out the weighted and I haven't finished earthgrabs, but it isn't that big an issue: autocriticality is easily accessible, especially via mass hold monster. You want a couple reliable sources of autocrit in a full epic group, but the idea that every melee needs it is simply overdoing it. Yeah, its a good thing to have, but it's not that necessary.

A lot of ranger perks are still quite useful in epic: fom in oob comes to mind (web spam), and a lot of rangers are self-healing viable from the mana bar (quickened heals > scroll heals when melee is for 90+).

Further, manyshot is tremendous in autocrit situations because bows are 3x multiplier. There is nothing - not even a crit fw - that clears out a group of mass held **** as fast as imp precise+manyshot blazing through it.

I'd certainly agree that epic forces the hybridier (pal/ran) melee to make more use of their hybridness and take advantage of their other class features in order to be equally useful to a more focused dps class. However, I don't think that makes them as bad as your post suggests. I know you love stunning blow, and I love autocrit ****, but its not actually necessary that every melee be able to.

What I do think take it in the teeth are the rapier-using exploiter ac types: rapiers are just so bad in epic. I hope those builds have some nice picks to swap to. Khopesh builds are fine, and in a majority of epics I run, the caster is the main source of autocritness anyway. When doing shortmans or oddly configured groups its nice to have that option, which is why my twf paladin has been (forever now) trying to get the power shards for an earthgrab set, but even after I make them, I don't expect to use them all the time. I'll probably still use my lightning2s more often on other people's autocrits. Theirs are more reliable and targetted instead of random and obnoxious. People should be focus-firing epic mobs, not each stunning and dpsing their own, unless no cc is present whatsoever.

[Sweyn]

Hi Ranger players.
Yo
DISCLAIMER: I am NOT trying to flame rangers. (I dont like them personally for thematic reasons but thats here nor there) I'm honestly trying to figure out how rangers feel they are performing in epic content. I would love to have some good ranger players chirp in and help me change my opininons on them.

I know coming to the ranger forums and questioning viability at end game is likely to get myself neg-repped and flamed but having finally finished my TR's I've been running Epics solid for 3-4 weeks now and have some questions for the ranger players, just to get my head around it all - not too flame but too learn.I dont play rangers. I've played 6 rgr splashes but never the 'real deal'.Anyway these are my thoughts and Id love to have some thoughts from those who do play their rangers on epic and how they address certain inherent 'shortcomings'.

DPS.

1. Favored Enemies. The common exploiter has 4. The rare pure has 5. Once u lose this bonus you are by far and away the bottom of the heap dps wise. Considering the mass of creature types encountered in all the epic series how do you feel ur dps is like? What FE do you carry? Consider the following just for desert and Vons (Off the top of my head).
Desert: Abberation, scorpions, drow, Undead, Constructs, Hyenas(Animals), Gnolls, Mephits, Elementals, Efreets and Djinn
Vons: Dragon, Construct (WF, Arachs knight, Marut), Giant, Monstrous Humanoid(Gargoyles, minos), Reptiles (Kobold shamans but still!!) Goblin, Evil Outsider, Elemental
My exploiter carries the norm: EO, Constructs, Ele, and Undead. Against FE, i find my dps fairly high, and against non-FE i still consider it high. My exploiter is at a standing 44 str most of the time, with burst str of 52 using titans grip and double madstone. IMO, your average ranger's dps will suck, but a well built ranger will keep up, and if not exceed their peers.
2. Tactics. The exploiters and pures will NOT have viable tactics at end game and now with the weighted changed you arnt stunning/tripping/sundering anything.
This is a very rash assumption, one that is very wrong
The odd exceptionally well equipped Dwarf/WF with the tactics line might be able to land them but I cant see any other types doing this.
My exploiter (human) has stunning blow, and rolls with a 37 standing DC. When i use titans grip, it goes to 40 DC, and i find i can stun a good number of things, 50-80% of the mobs i use it on.
3. Lack of burst 'autocrit' DPS. By this I mean for example palis can Divine sacrifice and exalted smite the snot out of held mobs. Fighters Haste booost 4 rips through stunned mobs. Because of the passive nature of ranger damage bonuses they really have nothing to maxmise these opportunities.
Besides stunning blow/weighted, my ranger also carries 2 earthgrab heavy picks. Against autocrit mobs, i am getting 190-200 damage per swing, and against FE i am getting 250+. (Highest i have seen on my ranger was around 280) i consider my autocrit dps pretty good. Keep in mind exploiters have rogue haste boost I
4. Too Hit. A bit lacking often ul need to switch off PA just too hit reducing ur dps further.
With the ranger set bonus from ToD (+3) epic spectral gloves (+2-4) and a standing 44 str, I am able to hit everything out there on a 2 with PA on, if it is a high ac named, i can use HV-Attack boost to give me another +5
5. Weapon choices. Rapiers bleh on epic for autocrits - and i still see many of these running around. Hopefully rangers are toting around picks/dwarven axes(if dwarf) by now seeing as apart from racial bonuses they arnt restricited by kensai favored weapon. In fact this is the only thing i can see them being viable is grabbing a pair of picks and going to town with full hands proccing.
Using weighted warhammers/Greensteel picks are the best in the game for epic, my ranger is using the same things a TWF fighter or barb would use.
MY CONCLUSION ON DPS:

People may say that trash dies so quickly it doesnt matter but the little voice in my head keeps sayin 'no thanks to you (lol)'. Rangers arnt stunning, often wont have the FE bonus, U will often have to run with PA off... and it just gets worse if you are using rapiers full time.
All of your assumtions are false for the well equipped ranger. I AM stunning things, i am using x4 crit weapons, and i can have PA on 100% of the time
Against the Queen you wont have the str and hp to go toe to toe with her so will have to plunk away waiting for manyshot to come back to do good damage.
You can still flank the queen and not get run over. Rangers may not have the STR of a barb, but with 44-52 STR, i have no problem doing it on my ranger. This is just another horrible assumption.
Against velah, ur fine IF you have FE Dragon...thereby reducing you're FE to 3 Exploiter and 4 pure.
Again, a horrible assumption, i am still getting 50 base damage against Velah with lightning II khopeshes, and getting 100% off hand procs, just cause you don't have FE doesn't mean your dps goes to sh!t.
I feel intuitively my pali is better dps wise on epic than a ranger and my pali does about 50-60% of the dps my Main (Blitz build) does (feel not numbers).
That's because you are comparing a well geared pally with your average ranger, take a well geared ranger, and they are, imo, more effective than a pally. Pally's don't have any advantage over rangers in terms of stunning, they only have 80% off hand attacks, no favored enemy, and don't have enough smites to keep them up all the time inbetween shrines.
SURVIVABILITY

Not a big analysis but just some thoughts.

1. HP. I dont think I would be too far off by saying a little squishy.
I'm at a standing 595 HP, 635 with madstone. Give me another 20 to both once i get a +4 con tome. That's far from squishy imo.
2. DR. Barbs running around with close to permanent stoneskin is pretty nice damage mitigation.
Rangers do not have this, but neither does half the other classes, you can't hold this against rangers.
3. Evasion - yup u got it and it will likely work on spells. In my eyes the only survivability bonus they have.
This is huge

So really what are you're thoughts on rangers in Epic?
My thoughs are they can be just as effective, if not more effective than other classes. I think there is a very big stereotype agaist their capabilities, the OP is a perfect example.
In my eyes I see melee rangers being in pretty bad shape end game atm. Are you just speccing them for raid bosses and just running them? Are you paying real money for respecs of FE every time new content comes out? Have you gone AA for pew pew power...? From lookingat an overall picture I cant help but feel the heavy dwarven ranger using DA with too hit and toughness bonuses are in the best shape of the bunch.
The important raids where dps matters are going to be covered by FE evil outsider, there is not much to spec for raids.. but just because im not fighting a FE, doesnt mean my dps goes down the drain, that's another horrible stereotype: "If rangers aren't against FE, then their DPS is horrible"
Note: My last EV6 run is what prompted this post. I had been mulling it over for a while but this is what led me to post this. Melees were a barb, monster, 4 rangers and 2 palis. It was the longest beat down I have ever seen. This was a channel run - the players were all adequate and not noobs. I asked the rangers if any of them had FE dragon. No answer. The lack of dps in the raid group as far as i can see were the palis (I was on pali btw) not fighting undead or Evil outsider and the rangers not having FE up.
The lack of FE was a small contribution to the beatdown, but is so minimal that it would only cause it to take 1-2 rounds longer if that was the only difference, there must have been other problems.
Anyway Cheers and like I said i would love to have some ranger players comment on what they have going for them from a DPS standpoint in epics not 'Im a scout!" or "But i have no fail heal scrolls!". I guess at least the well built exploiters can open the locks and disable the traps in CoF...

N

Green - this post is a great example of all the false stereotypes out there.

[Consumer]

Green - this post is a great example of all the false stereotypes out there.

The large difference between Rangers and high DPS builds has been proven several times on the forums. There is no denying that Rangers are lower DPS than several other classes in the majority of situations.

However when you start auto critting the difference in DPS is not great. All classes will break 1k DPS (with picks) and at those levels the extra DPS of a Fighter/Barb makes far less difference than it does under normal circumstances.

If your not facing your FE you may as well be replaced by a battlecleric or WF FvS, they will have just as much DPS while being able to single handedly support a raid party.

[smithtj3]

I love playing my AA ranger more than any of the other builds I have but this debate has been going on since the dawn of DDO as far as I can surmise. They just need to can ranger spell casting and virtually every feat pertaining specifically to the class because employing any ranger specific capabilities is like screaming in Spanish at conservative Americans, it will both confuse and enrage fellow players.

I told a cleric not to worry about casting heals specifically on me, I had it covered. He proceeded to chastise me for making his job that much more confusing. I guess because he had to remember not to heal me. On a separate raid I made no such declaration and was later accused of being a mana spunge.

Bow rangers were incessantly ridiculed for being just awful abominations who would be lucky enough to complete Durk's got a Secret at level cap. Then manyshot got super awesome and suddenly everyone hated rangers because everything was dead before anyone could run up to hit it with something. Then they made it less awesome and now everyone is back to griping about how worthless bow rangers are.

I covered heals on a 12 man raid of VOD with cure critical wands and whatever was left of my 650SP after buffs and people still thanked the cleric who DC'd after things started going South. We still completed (granted the healing got substantially easier when there were only four people left alive to heal).

I even had some guy get indignant after I used sprint boost to snatch his soul stone out of raging horde of troglodytes at the beginning of Coalescence Chamber and run it to a safe location to rez him with a clickie. Apparently he though I was using some sort of |337 h4x0rz to be ub3rz at the game. Seriously, If rangers were Neo from the movie, "The Matrix" back up off our sh*t then, we will end you. It's not that I can see the matrix, I can just see when someone's a tool and that's not a super power.

Bottom line, Rangers can be gimped pretty severally if the person making the build has no clue what they are doing. Overall, however, rangers have the highest survivability of any class in the game. I am never surprised when a raid or dungeon goes bad and the rangers are the ones going Alamo all over everyone's a**es and putting it back together. Granted, there are a lot of those "My Name is Timothy, friend me on Facebook, pew pew pew" rangers out there. . . but that's a whole different ball game.

P.S.
Favored Enemy is passive and it's 10 additional points of damage a hit against that foe at level 20. So right there, it's not like FE is popping out 80 million points of damage extra DPS AND FE comes in such broad sweeping choices as "Things that Don't Like You" and "Bad Guys". If you picked your FE's at random you would still be throwing 10 extra I-hate-you points of damage against 50% of whatever came your way at end game/epic content. On top of which, you have to take them as a ranger, they aren't optional feats.

To conclude: Every ranger has FE and it's always "on". Secondly, the additional damage dealt due to FE (assuming best case scenario) isn't going to be a deal breaker.

[Merlocke]

Overall, however, rangers have the highest survivability of any class in the game.

Not so much. Their HP ARE a bit lacking. Evasion (and the ability to heal scroll for the rog splashes) is something they have going for them.

Rangers have been hit hard.

-AC is not useful in epic from what Ive seen, since that grazing hit bs was brought in (even though I hope they make AC viable) so write that off.
-Stat damage has been nerfed since forever ago and dosent work in epic.
-The tempest attack speed nerf was HUGE.
- A crappy capstone

Whenever I look at my Ranger I cant help but think that a Rog can do everything he does only with improved evasion and alot more SA damage.

[NaturalHazard]

There are a lot of people it seems who dont like rangers for some reason of some sort or another. With those people you cant win, if rangers do some things well, they scream and cry for them to be nerfed. When they get nerfed they gloat, and at the same time complain that they are gimped, not doing their fair share and pike parties.

Geez i liked the idea of rangers long before i picked up a dritzz whatever book or watched legoless or whatever his name was in lotr. Rangers to me are hunters and warriors. they use their knowledge of the natural world, and stealth and cunning to defeat their foes, just as much as force of arms.

[Nick_RC]

Hey guys thx for the replies. And Hi gung.

I should Have my made my Op clearer. I'm not suggesting that rangers should not be included in epic runs by any stretch. Im just curious - espeically with the dex based ones as to what you are doing. Responses in red.

N


LOL--well me and my ranger friends have been running Epic just fine and not dying. And i myself am a Gimp Finesse build.

Hey again Moops. If you dont mind me asking a few questions about what you are running seeing as you are a powergamer and all i think you will be reasonably typical of what finesse rangers are doing.

1. What are ur FE?
2. Do you use rapiers full time or do you switch to light picks on trash?
3. How many HP are you packing?
4. What sort of damage are you doing bard buffed against FE and non FE (Crit and base - Just first number)

I guess what im looking at is more stats rather than 'just fine'. A ranger doing 'just fine' in epics could be due to exceptional player skill, running with very good groups, running only certain quests (I.E spec for the raids). Im trying to take the other factors of a successful harder epic run ( take chains of flame for e.g - My favorite one atm - dropping alot of seals too.) out of the equation and just focus on the ranger.

But for a full group Here is what I have found when on my ranger
Ill use Into the Deep since that currently seems to be the more popular longer Epic that can't be run in 8 mins. Our Tactic is Mass Hold and Dance--I ran with another exploiter who had a decent kill lead over me and the Barb ( there were only 3 melee in the group) He was using Trap the Soul Weapons. But most of the time my kill count is the same as everyone else in this quest if I am not piking, so I will prob make some trap the soul weapons because they look fun. I have Power Attack on Most of the time except against a few things in all Epics.

Cool. Thx for that. Interesting on trap the soul weapons. I cant help but feel they are a little like vorpals - better everyone use them or none as they wont stack so well...saying that bursting trap the soul heavy picks get the best of both worlds i guess. Thats quite a few larges tho .... and im soooo sick of the shroud now I try to run it only on my main for tomes hehe.

Honestly many people are running the Carnival Quests and a Couple Red Fens quests on every alt we have just about every day Gimp alt or not--because everything binds to account--so even if a player has less DPS than another I don't see it as mattering.

Right. I ran smatterings of epics since they came out just to gauge where my too hit/saves/hp etc needed to be before I finished my TRing. Honestly I hope they increase the difficulty of the newer epics - fens and carnival are jokes dificulty wise. I havnt had much experience in sentinels. I would like to see more quests like ECoF difficulty wise as thats fun because its challenging. But i Digress. Thanks for the feedback:)



I think there's a few things you're discounting, Nick:

Hey Junts thanks for taking the time to reply. Just snipped a couple of things to make it clearer for me to reply too and hopefully not taking it out of context.


FE for non-dangerous mobs isn't that necessary.


It's equally not necessary that everyone has a form of stun.You want a couple reliable sources of autocrit in a full epic group, but the idea that every melee needs it is simply overdoing it.

These are arguing that the negatives arnt so bad. And to me at least 11-13 damage a hand is pretty significant. Same goes for stunning - if you arnt bringing it it means you are relying on following a monk/ftr/barb around waiting for autocrits. Casters take care of alot of this but still seems a little limited in my eyes. Im more looking for what is positive about bringing a ranger to a group. I see you adress a couple of reasons below. For me its the combination of often no FE bonus and un-reliable stuns that sorta has me questioning things. A G2wf Str based/DM Cleric wont be too far behind a ranger without FE. And heals the whole group. Rogues will put out godly dps to make up for there lack of stuns.



A lot of ranger perks are still quite useful in epic: fom in oob comes to mind (web spam), and a lot of rangers are self-healing viable from the mana bar (quickened heals > scroll heals when melee is for 90+).

FoM cna be handled by divines and bards easily enough - a handful of sp is all that brings. Self healing IS really nice for sure - in fact thats the main thing my pali has going for him in epics as far as I can see - that and exalted smites/DS on autocrit mobs sees 1000-1500+ points of damage (with khops not picks...palis not very well equipped) takes a fair chunk out of things.

Further, manyshot is tremendous in autocrit situations because bows are 3x multiplier. There is nothing - not even a crit fw - that clears out a group of mass held **** as fast as imp precise+manyshot blazing through it.

Yup moops said essentially the same thing and this is pretty sweet also - but limited because of cooldown.

What I do think take it in the teeth are the rapier-using exploiter ac types: rapiers are just so bad in epic. I hope those builds have some nice picks to swap to.

Agreed

When doing shortmans or oddly configured groups its nice to have that option, which is why my twf paladin has been (forever now) trying to get the power shards for an earthgrab set, but even after I make them, I don't expect to use them all the time.

Yup. Guildie just crafted twin freezing Ice weapons and they seem to be rocking (in fens at least) and they are frozen for alot longer than earthgrab procs for. Twice the larges tho but they look fun. In fact he rented Mr Freeze batman movie just so he could whip out some pnchy one liners everytime it goes off lol.

People should be focus-firing epic mobs, not each stunning and dpsing their own, unless no cc is present whatsoever.

Actually funny you mention this. Recently i have been playing around with sap a bit. Me and my tactics buddy can go in and handle up to 6 epic mobs very easily on just tactics melees. Sap was always pretty junk in my opinion as stuff died way to fast. But with epics it really has begun to shine in my eyes in these oddly configured groups. 18 seconds of not getting whomped on is nice. cool down is shorter than the duration so you can keep them immobile indefinately. Sap one, trip the next stun the last rinse and repeat. Fun times.



Anyway thx for the feedback man. Basically im looking for what a ranger brings to the table that isnt done better by another class. So far we have

1. Self healing with sp bar (certain builds only)
2. Many shotting with Impr precise shot (Cooldown limiting)
3. Saving sp by passing out buffs.





Hey man thank very much for the detailed reply this is sort of what I was looking for. I just spent half an hour typing back to you but I hit a button on my keyboard and the **** thing was deleted. So im just gonna cliff notes it as I can actually get in game now.

My exploiter carries the norm: EO, Constructs, Ele, and Undead. Against FE, i find my dps fairly high, and against non-FE i still consider it high. My exploiter is at a standing 44 str most of the time, with burst str of 52 using titans grip and double madstone. IMO, your average ranger's dps will suck, but a well built ranger will keep up, and if not exceed their peers.

I can agree against FE rgrs dps is fairly high. I cannot agree against non FE this continues to be the case let alone exceed their peers. You are losing 11 damage a hand. Thats like one and a half bard songs. You dont have the str/weapons spec/speed of a ftr or the brute str and visious damage of a barb. How do you beleive they exceed their peers?

2. Tactics. The exploiters and pures will NOT have viable tactics at end game and now with the weighted changed you arnt stunning/tripping/sundering anything.

This is a very rash assumption, one that is very wrong
My exploiter (human) has stunning blow, and rolls with a 37 standing DC. When i use titans grip, it goes to 40 DC, and i find i can stun a good number of things, 50-80% of the mobs i use it on.

37 dc is nothing to write home about at all - with that dc you will be stunning the odd mage/rog low fort types semi reliably but thats it. The 40dc that u get with titans gloves starts to work a little more reliably but between toggling madstone (which u allude to in hp section) 12 second cool down on stun, activation time etc that 40 dc is not maintainable. Couple that with the fact that you need to use a weighted weapon to get it that high and its no where near as effective as a ftr/barb can do. A ftr/barb can easily get a 40 stun without picking up a weighted weapon and just go to town full time with heavy picks. Im currently rolling with 45 stun DC before weighted (62 str [26] 2 ftr PL, 2 kensai,3 ftr stun, 2 wf tactics 10 base) and I still have a reasonable shot at missing some of the tougher mobs(scrags saves are pretty high for eg.). I Rarely need to pull out a weighted weapon allowing me to just smash away with no delays.

Im going to swap things around here format wise and compare ur crit numbers.

Besides stunning blow/weighted, my ranger also carries 2 earthgrab heavy picks. Against autocrit mobs, i am getting 190-200 damage per swing, and against FE i am getting 250+. (Highest i have seen on my ranger was around 280) i consider my autocrit dps pretty good. Keep in mind exploiters have rogue haste boost I

Honestly you're ranger sounds like one i would very much like to run with and Im not replying with any intent of being a ******. I wish more were similarly equipped. As a point of reference I will compare what im running with yours. Bare in mind I have nothing better than a +2 tome and the only raid loot I have better than shroud is the frenzied beserker set. I have spent the majority of my time TRing and am on my 7th life currently. Seeing as the benefits of tring can be roughly proxied to make up for missing lootz it can be reasonably comaparable. Just yesterday i switched out my khopesh proficiency for heavy picks spec and saved a feat - for reference I am a 12 ftr /6 barb/2 rog. My crits with picks and bard songs are landing for 330ish give or take in my main hand. Against everything. With haste boost 4. This is sustained - no titans grips, only single madstone etc. I figure once i get tweaked out and stars aline il be closer to 400. For example none of you're FE apply in offering of blood and crittable creatures in Chains of flame. Im doing 130p more damage in my main hand with every swing, swinging faster. That to me is significant. And how a well equipped rangers can exceed this is beyond me.

4. Too Hit. A bit lacking often ul need to switch off PA just too hit reducing ur dps further.
With the ranger set bonus from ToD (+3) epic spectral gloves (+2-4) and a standing 44 str, I am able to hit everything out there on a 2 with PA on, if it is a high ac named, i can use HV-Attack boost to give me another +5


Cool - this was one area i should have probably looked into a bit better. Apologies and I stand corrected. Hopefully another too hit item will be around so u can equip the claw set for more dps.

All of your assumtions are false for the well equipped ranger. I AM stunning things, i am using x4 crit weapons, and i can have PA on 100% of the time

Yeah but you are stunning things at a much lower rate, sacrificing ur off hand dps weapon, at a 44 str often without FE without the haste boost 4/WS of a ftr or the viscious/str of a barb. You are doing it all but less effectively.


Against the Queen you wont have the str and hp to go toe to toe with her so will have to plunk away waiting for manyshot to come back to do good damage.

You can still flank the queen and not get run over. Rangers may not have the STR of a barb, but with 44-52 STR, i have no problem doing it on my ranger. This is just another horrible assumption.

This is much more difficult to do when shes not exhausted when she goes to war. Needing to be a few steps ahead of her to hit her will be tough next mod.

Against velah, ur fine IF you have FE Dragon...thereby reducing you're FE to 3 Exploiter and 4 pure.
Again, a horrible assumption, i am still getting 50 base damage against Velah with lightning II khopeshes, and getting 100% off hand procs, just cause you don't have FE doesn't mean your dps goes to sh!t.

It doesnt go to **** but its terribly average.


1. HP. I dont think I would be too far off by saying a little squishy.
I'm at a standing 595 HP, 635 with madstone. Give me another 20 to both once i get a +4 con tome. That's far from squishy imo.

Thats actually quite impressive and substantially higher than i thought they would be. Very nice. Would u assume yours is the average number? I thought they would be closer to 500 than 600. Hats off.


My thoughs are they can be just as effective, if not more effective than other classes. I think there is a very big stereotype agaist their capabilities, the OP is a perfect example.

Just comparing numbers I cant see them being MORE effective. I like ur post and im sure there is some valid reasons why they should be more effective. I just cant see them.



Answers in magenta this time.

Edit: Nice 2 neg reps already.

[stockwizard5]

My rangers are parked - many of us with lots of builds have done the same.

Simply put: Raid = Yes (as in not horrible), Quest = No (as in yes horrible) :(

All I do is yell at the monitor, complain in guild chat, and stick pins in my dev voodoo dolls. Its especially bad when you just ran the same thing on something usefull.

ps: mine even get the traps and its still not worth it.

[Aspenor]

A better question is "has Nick finally made a build that's viable?" :eek:

[Nick_RC]

A better question is "has Nick finally made a build that's viable?" :eek:

Bwahahah stop trolling noob and get ur ass back in game

[QuantumFX]

Hey Nick,

- Favored Enemies: Personally I still enjoy Evil Outsider, and Elemental the most. I think out of the epics currently available I would add Monstrous Humanoid (add Sauhaugin to your list for the mod 6 stuff.)

- Tactics: I usually leave that to the other guys in the group. Most of my rangers get Radiance or Destruction duties. Also, I use the old manyshot + mean bow combo for pulling if we’re using kiting tactics.

- Weapons: Khopesh is still nice for Radiance duty and Dwarven Axe is still nice on a stunned mob. I think the only epic that I enjoy on my elf is the DQ raid. (No, he’s not an Arcane Archer.)

- Survivability: Rangers are still my favorite characters when I know I’m gonna get hammered by energy spells. Self casting Energy Prots and Self cures is always better than having to hope your caster knows his stuff.

[maddmatt70]

I will not deny it I tend to focus my ranger on the certain quests where I have FE. I consider undead to be pretty poor right now what with only epic wiz king and the red fens ziggarut quest having some undead. Prior to the red fens I had elf, construct, evil outsider, dragon, and giant on my ranger and I ran OOB, Von 3, Von1 and 2, von6 and dq1 and dq2 nearly all the time on my ranger.

Since I rarely run the Vons anymore and I run the red fens more in earnest I will probably drop dragon and pick up monstrous humanoid and maybe drop elf and pick up scorpion or something similiar in the red fens. I think that is what ranger is all about focusing on X number of quests where you have FE it is not like I can not just run another character in a the quests where I do not have FE.

[Sweyn]

I can agree against FE rgrs dps is fairly high. I cannot agree against non FE this continues to be the case let alone exceed their peers. You are losing 11 damage a hand. Thats like one and a half bard songs. You dont have the str/weapons spec/speed of a ftr or the brute str and visious damage of a barb. How do you beleive they exceed their peers?
I may have been acting bias towards the exploiter, which is capible of using damage boost and rogue haste boost at the same time and, IMO, is as high as a barb/fighter I don't think you can say "Rangers don't have the speed of a fighter", because their haste boosts won't last them all the way inbetween shrines, they are a great source of dps, but it's not sustained.

37 dc is nothing to write home about at all - with that dc you will be stunning the odd mage/rog low fort types semi reliably but thats it.
Against caster mobs, i can reliably stun, agains some fighter mobs, i am aroung 50/50, but i will agree i cannot land on high fort mobs.

The 40dc that u get with titans gloves starts to work a little more reliably but between toggling madstone (which u allude to in hp section) 12 second cool down on stun, activation time etc that 40 dc is not maintainable. Couple that with the fact that you need to use a weighted weapon to get it that high and its no where near as effective as a ftr/barb can do.
IMO, it will not make a difference whether you are using x3 or x4 weapons. When you have 3-5 melee beating down an auto crit mob, having a x4 might kill it 1 second faster, and when you are killing it in 2-3 seconds, it doesn't really make a difference. But from a min/max standpoint, yes, rangers will be less effective.


Honestly you're ranger sounds like one i would very much like to run with and Im not replying with any intent of being a ******. I wish more were similarly equipped. As a point of reference I will compare what im running with yours. Bare in mind I have nothing better than a +2 tome and the only raid loot I have better than shroud is the frenzied beserker set. I have spent the majority of my time TRing and am on my 7th life currently. Seeing as the benefits of tring can be roughly proxied to make up for missing lootz it can be reasonably comaparable. Just yesterday i switched out my khopesh proficiency for heavy picks spec and saved a feat - for reference I am a 12 ftr /6 barb/2 rog. My crits with picks and bard songs are landing for 330ish give or take in my main hand. Against everything. With haste boost 4. This is sustained - no titans grips, only single madstone etc. I figure once i get tweaked out and stars aline il be closer to 400.
400? If my numbers are right, then you should be getting around 90 base damage TWF with picks? I may be missing something, but it seems a little unreasonable, but if you can get that then wow.

For example none of you're FE apply in offering of blood and crittable creatures in Chains of flame. Im doing 130p more damage in my main hand with every swing, swinging faster. That to me is significant. And how a well equipped rangers can exceed this is beyond me.
Maybe not exceed, that was me being bias again, but considering 3-5 melees beating on it, that little bit may kill a mob 1-2 seconds faster? Speeding up the quest 1-2 minutes at the most?

Yeah but you are stunning things at a much lower rate, sacrificing ur off hand dps weapon, at a 44 str often without FE without the haste boost 4/WS of a ftr or the viscious/str of a barb. You are doing it all but less effectively.
Less effective? Yes.. Still pretty effective? Of course

It doesnt go to **** [against the dragon] but its terribly average.
Again, this is my bias against the exploiter. Activating haste and damage boost at the same time does make my rangers dps above average, but normally, i would consider it average.



Thats actually quite impressive and substantially higher than i thought they would be. Very nice. Would u assume yours is the average number? I thought they would be closer to 500 than 600. Hats off.
Average? Hell no, i usually see most ranges at 450-500 range, which is squishy. But rangers are capible of reaching 600-700 HP with a 14 starting con and 1 toughness feat.


Just comparing numbers I cant see them being MORE effective. I like ur post and im sure there is some valid reasons why they should be more effective. I just cant see them.
More effective? Probably not, but again they can still be very effective, much to the point where it is close to unnoticeable unless you're looking at it from a min/maxer perspective. I am talking about your Awesome geared ranger vs. your awesome geared fighter. But your average geard ranger i will agree is not that good in epics.

I guess rangers take a lot more TLC to be effective in epics, but built properly, they can still be awesome. My post may have been a little bias, and a fighter or barb will be more effective.


I should Have my made my Op clearer. I'm not suggesting that rangers should not be included in epic runs by any stretch. Im just curious - espeically with the dex based ones as to what you are doing.

IMO, dex based rangers are horrible in epic


Edit: Nice 2 neg reps already.

One of those was me, i was in a bad mood earlier, and thinking back now i can't see a reason you deserved it, i apologize and will give you pos rep when i can.

[justagame]

Green - this post is a great example of all the false stereotypes out there.

I have a genuine question: How in the world does an exploiter have 44 "standing" strength, excluding Titan's grip and madstone? I would really like to know if I am just clueless about some strength bonuses that I'm not taking advantage of.

Even if you started with 18 str, and were human, the max I can see is:
18 + 5 levels + 1 human enh + 4 tome(!) + 7 epic item +3 exceptional = 38.

And that 38 is with a +4 tome, +7 epic item, max exceptional str, and a start of 18 (which not all exploiters take). And that's still 6 short of the 44 standing str.

Even if one assumed a rage potion and a yugo potion (which I assume you don't, for a "standing" strength quote), that's 42.

What else am I missing?

[Sweyn]

I have a genuine question: How in the world does an exploiter have 44 "standing" strength, excluding Titan's grip and madstone? I would really like to know if I am just clueless about some strength bonuses that I'm not taking advantage of.

Even if you started with 18 str, and were human, the max I can see is:
18 + 5 levels + 1 human enh + 4 tome(!) + 7 epic item +3 exceptional = 38.

And that 38 is with a +4 tome, +7 epic item, max exceptional str, and a start of 18 (which not all exploiters take). And that's still 6 short of the 44 standing str.

Even if one assumed a rage potion and a yugo potion (which I assume you don't, for a "standing" strength quote), that's 42.

What else am I missing?

15 - Base
5 - Level
4 - Tome
7 - Item
3 - Exceptional
1 - Human
1 - Litany
2 - Rams
2 - Rage
2 - Yugo
2 - Mastone
-------------
44 - Standing STR



Even if one assumed a rage potion and a yugo potion (which I assume you don't, for a "standing" strength quote), that's 42.


I said standing, not unbuffed. Standing is being able to maintain that value for 95-100% of the quest

I call it standing because with 3 pairs of boots, 99% of the time you can be at lease single madstoned, every other buff there can be kept up 100% of the time.. hell, you could even add +2 airship for 46 standing str..

[Alabore]

With those people you cant win, if rangers do some things well, they scream and cry for them to be nerfed. When they get nerfed they gloat, and at the same time complain that they are gimped, not doing their fair share and pike parties.

Rangers do manage to pull an amazing stunt: they never manage to be about right on the "viability" scale.
Balancing them must be a nightmare for devs.

:rolleyes:

...

I tend to dislike this kind of threads - the underlying messages sounds a bit like "your character sucks, hence you do too for playing it, what are you going to do so you are worthy of teaming up with the rest of us decent folks?".

And most players won't even get past the couple intro lines, they'll just stop at "class X is not viable" and take assumptions on the rest.
Pugging becomes more of a chore than it should be, until the next best or worst thing hits the forums, and everybody is looking for the new grail...

...

Sigh...

:rolleyes:

You can't fight maths, but spreadsheets alone won't win fights.
I could tell my share of tales about that min-maxed loud-mouth or another I carried in my gimp's backback, in soul-stone form...

...

What should I do about my rangers?
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
Chances are, devs will tweak rules.
Again.
And again...
Viability is just a matter of riding change as it happens.

:)

[Inspire]

On Outland; Trap the Soul longbow + Improved Precise Shot + Many Shot.


If you dont think thats a very powerful combination feel free to run Epic Chains of Flame or Into the Deep with me anytime.

[RS-Makk]

How do you activate haste and damage boost at the same time? (I have an exploiter and didn't know I could do that)

[Junts]

not just saving sp, Nick: being able to cast fom is a big deal in a quest like EOOB where dispel is even more frequent than web. People without boots or who can't fom themselves are gonna get wbbed in that quest, pretty reliably.

What I was arguing re: the damage not being that big a deal is that +10 damage per hand is, yes, surely a big deal, but its a lot less of one vs the 3k hp drow that are gonna go down fast either way. You don't ***** about a ranger in an epic quest because it may take it a second longer to kill the autocrit drow archer. In fact, he probably still kills it faster because he has 100% offhand procs, so he really is hitting it much more often in the same timeframe than anyone else, which almost surely is making up the damgae differential. The 100% offhand attacks for tempest 3 is ar eally big deak that people are really under-estimating because of the double-strike change. In fact, rangers are comparably just as good twf wise as they were prior: before the change they got 5 offhand attacks per cycle to everyone else's 4 (4 main, 5 off due to the bizzare stwf feature of tempest 3). They now get 100% procs to everyone else's 80%, which is still 25% more offhand attacks. While they lost a few offhand attacks to the double strike nerf, they lost far, far less than a twf fighter or paladin!

I would be willing to suggest that this feature alone is probably making up al ot of the damage differential that you're discussing. If anything, the major limiting factor is the difficulty of getting stunning blow unless you go 18/1f/1m instead of /1r. Even so, as Sewyn demonstrates, rangers have no difficulty getting sb and probably do it better than paladins, since they have an easier time hitting 18 str and have a stacking str buff.

I'd suggest that the problem isn't so much with the class mechanically as that there are a lot of particularly obsolete or suboptimal builds due to players that have not adapted well to the game changes. rapier users, icy raiments users, etc have been disadvantaged by the last year of game changes and are no longer well designed characters. Those of them that do well do so by overgearing the quest, which is possible even on epic. A ranger designed with today's endgame in mind remains a versitile and effective melee, and isn't so far behind that stuff like the manyshot 1/6th of the time, kiting ability, self-healing ability (something more people need to spec for these days) can't make up that gap.

It isn't too hard to set up your FE to optimize to today's game: evil outsider, aberration, construct, and undead would be my choices. Elemental is no longer a major endgame need, as there are precious few elementals that require heavy dps in epic quests. Giant is similarly pretty niche.

Rangers also have the considerable to-hit advantage over most other twfers, which shouldn't be underrated

As to freezing ice, it's advantage is that it's longer, its disadvantage is that it's a fort save instead of a reflex save. This makes it good in the red fens, where fort saves are actually fairly low. However, earthgrab remains the optimal general-use ability because reflex saves are almost uniformly bad across epic content. There are a lot of situations for which freezing ice weapons will not be very effective due to the high nature of enemy fort saves.

[Junts]

How do you activate haste and damage boost at the same time? (I have an exploiter and didn't know I could do that)


Human versitility is on a separate cooldown because it is a racial enhancement instead of a class enhancement.

You can operate it independently of haste boost, and it has a separate usage ticker as well, unlike the class based action boosts which share a use pool.

[QuantumFX]

Edit: Nice 2 neg reps already.

Hopefully I wound up offsetting one.

[Gunga]

A better question is "has Nick finally made a build that's viable?" :eek:

Translated: I need to run with Nick's "viable" toons so he can protect my underperforming fleshling caster.

+1 back for ya, Nick.

[HeavenlyCloud]

Hi Gunga.

[Hadrian]

Wow. Rangers are bad again? I didn't get the memo. Someone keep me informed of these things!

[Riggs]

A debate that perfectly highlights the broken nature of the absurdity of the whole 'epic' mechanic.

Auto crits, and crit damage modifiers - as opposed to using base damage and adder modifiers - have been breaking the game since the khopesh was first made into a broken super weapon on day 1, then barbs getting the overpowered increased crit bonuses ever since.

Debating class vs class is a waste of time when what is clearly broken is the massive over-reliance on bigger and more crits to get through a type of endgame mechanic.

[spyderwolf]

ranger do fine in epics. anyone who thinks differently is an idiot. point blank period.

and i dont have rangers. i dont like playing them personally. but i at least understand that no class is useless.

as for stunning, if the sorc in the group doesnt have mass hold or fts then the sorc sucks. most epic groups the melees shouldnt even need to use stunning type weapons.

[Bacab]

I run epics a decent amount...

I generally will not trust a "pug" ranger. I have run with rangers that I know and they do really well.

It just seems SOOOOOO much easier to screw up and make a 300 HP 75 AC (which does not matter in epic) rapier using ranger.

Barbs are easy to make...max CON and STR...level ups into STR. Get FB and swing big weapons.

Fighters are easy to make. Either the 2WF or 2HF.

The sad thing is...of those 3 builds I just mentioned...the Dex based ranger that pew pew pews...takes the most time to gear and will still be way inferior to the other 2 in terms of DPS.

STR based rangers can do well, but be honest with yourself. You do not do the damage of the ultra hasted Kensai. You do not do the damage of the 60+ sustained STR Barb.

The HP problem is from ranger lacking class toughness enhancements...obviously.

Barbs get lotsa HP from the d12 and the bonus CON from raging.

Fighters get lotsa HP from having more feats than they know what to do with; so they can stack more than one toughness feat.

So yeah...*MOST* rangers do not DPS as *well* (not saying bad) as the geared out Kensai's and FB's. But well played rangers are great.

BTW someone said a ranger is the "most survivable" class. I disagree with that statement. I would say a Warforged Favored Soul is the most unkillable race/class combo in the game by far. It is seriously broken. Leap of Faith and quickened Heals...plus all those inherant resistances...

Anyway...my stance is this...take your Friend's Rangers into epics. Do not take random Puggers that you never heard of (yes if you have run with them on other content before and they did well...they will prolly be ok in epic).

Oh...many shot + precise shot absolutely tears things apart. Sadly...many rangers do not realize this and suck...and make Baby Jesus cry...

[JDCrowell]

From my experience there are is a reason why this topic gets such a heated debate:

Those who know how to build good toons, read and participate in the forums.
Those who the OP and others are concerned about don't, and frankly don't know what MyDDO is anyways.
This isn't all, but reflects a large majority though.

So in a sense...the OP is right in his argument, but then so are all the Rangers who respond.

I will admit I have come across some real knuckleheads in the forums and they do exists, but they aren't the majority.

[Beherit_Baphomar]

With my AC build I pike, as I have been for many, many years now.

With my earthgrab guard, earthgrab heavy pick, 659 HP having WF ranger I...pike.

[BossOfEarth]

Hi Ranger players.
Hi Nick!

I am one of those infamous F2P people. I've got a Tempest III with 2 fighter splash dwarf using dwarf axes. I only have access to the VoN epics atm. I farmed favor across all servers with Dwarf Clerics.

I chose Ranger because I wanted to make this toon completionist so I wanted to start with the class I hated most. The dang Ranger, the moron class that always runs off and gets killed despite the best efforts of my clerics. Now however, I love the Ranger class so much that I plan on TRing as another Ranger. No strategic reason but it's just a fun and effective class so I wanna try it again.

1. Favored enemy
Yeah, I fight lots of stuff that isn't my FE. But lacking FE is not the big deal that say, running out of arrows is.

You mentioned asking a bunch of rangers "WHO HAS FE: DRAGON?!?!!" but hearing only akward silence. Personaly, I wouldn't dignify that question with a response either because it's an odd thing to ask and anti-Ranger screeds frequently start with odd questions.

2. Tactics.
I didn't build my 28 pt Ranger for tactics. I just bounce between Holds and Stuns as they occur. Since all Tempests have spring attack, I figure we're supposed to bounce in combat like a spring.

3. Lack of burst 'autocrit' Divine sacrifice / Haste booost 4 DPS
If I wanted those clickies I'd play other classes. Personaly, I'd rather have reliable DPS from offhand since it artificialy inflates my kill count and for me, kill count is a better metric. (Note: I am aware that DPS is a non-biased parameter and therefore more suited to forum discussions but Kill Count is a better metric for comparing effectiveness on a per quest basis as long as you can mentaly estimate the interaction effects. In other words, because I'm a Statistician and I say so. That's why. :p )

4. Too Hit.
It's a problem for my bow since I'm gimped for archery so I wait to multishot until an opportunity arises. Melee wise I'd like more toHit but I'm not willing to eat the tomes since I'm very close to TRing.

5. Weapon choices...Rapiers bleh ...dwarven axes(if dwarf)
Yup. I'm a dorf with dorf axes. Regarding rapier wielders? Ah pity the foo'!

DPS
I agree that my undergeared 28 pt dorf Tempest Ranger is not top DPS, but DPS is not a big concern of mine. My combat goal is neutralizing threats by destroying them. My prefered style of combat is to trade DPS for vorpal kills. Not only is it more deadly as a function of time, it's also less predictable and therefore more tacticaly interesting. Looking forward I'm planning on building some Trap the Soul weapons since I've heard that vaccum II doesn't suck in Epic!.

SURVIVABILITY
I've survived plenty of near TPKs with ranger healing and dwarven hp. It seems that the other classes you mentioned should be easier and yet they die while my Ranger lives. It seems immodest to presume that is due entirely to my mad skillz.


So really what are you're thoughts on rangers in Epic? In my eyes I see melee rangers being in pretty bad shape end game atm. Are you just speccing them for raid bosses and just running them? Are you paying real money for respecs of FE every time new content comes out? Have you gone AA for pew pew power...? From lookingat an overall picture I cant help but feel the heavy dwarven ranger using DA with too hit and toughness bonuses are in the best shape of the bunch. I'm not scared of Epic content. Sure, my character is NOT an easy button compared to some of the other builds. I know that I do less DPS because I'm undergeared, 28 point, and not specialized for DPS forum wars, but I've got the skills or patience or whatever to play the hand I was delt and enjoy it. And just to be clear, I do it all for free. I've spent exactly $0.00 USD on this game to date.

For me, the big appeal of my Dwarf Tempest III fighter multiclass is that he's a jack of all trades. If you can't handle playing a jack of all trades you can't handle playing my Ranger. Seriously, you'll cry.

[stockwizard5]

Rangers also have the considerable to-hit advantage over most other twfers, which shouldn't be underrated

Really - I would love to see how you come to that conclusion?

Bottom Line: I didn't park (pike) my rangers because of "ranger hate" or "bad builds" or "outdated thinking" or "bad player" or "gimp". I parked them because I have versions of all the main choices and right now, for most quests, the ranger option is un-fun! I am not bashing rangers, people who play rangers, or claiming skills dont matter, I am simply saying when someone says grab DPS for Chains - the game has dictated that I have an array of better choices than my rangers.

[Bacab]

To BossofEarth, Vorpals do not work in epic.

Bragging about not spending money...good for you. But this conversation is more/less about content you have not experienced.

The Jack of Trades arguement...many people feel a Jack of All Trades is a piece of garbage at end game. If a FVS or a Cleric can match your DPS...why bring the RNG? The FVS and CLR can also heal others...really quickly.

I am glad you like your toon. But I really do not feel you grasp what the intention of this thread was.

The "others will stun for me" arguement is kinda silly. If a stunner can out DPS you...why not just have a stunner/DPSer over a non-stunner/light DPSer.

BTW I personally like well played rangers. But rangers are a lot like Rogues. Well built rangers/rogues are extremely powerful. While the not well built ones...*ding!*

I think a major problem with rangers is the focus or lack of. Lets say "John" has a Barbarian and a Ranger. Both are geared up equally. A couple of "John's" friends say "Hey lets do Epic Chains of Flame". John then will grab his ranger. After that they say "Lets do Epic OOB, Epic WIZ-King and some Epic VoNs and some Elite Amrath stuff". Which toon will he grab? Which of those quests get run moe often?

That is the problem. Rangers shine in certain situations...but those situations do not come up as often.

Ranger=Wizard

Barbarian/Fighter=Sorceror

Ranger is awesome at a few quests. Wizard's (ability to have ooze puppet comes to mind) can change their spells so they do exceedingly well at certain quests.

Barbarian/Fighter/SOrceror are better than the Ranger/Wizard in 95% of the "other" content because its tank/spank and of course Firewall/dance.

I must reiterate...I like well played/well built Rangers. It just seems harder to gear up a Ranger than a Barb or Fighter.

[grodon9999]

It's really simple, we're simply better players since we do fine in epics with obviously "inferior" characters :)

My Standing STR for Epics is 42 and I'm a n00b who started after F2P. Get me a bard and I hit everything on a 2 with power attack on. Even with the weighted nerf, stunning weapons still proc all the friggin time. I can break 600 HP with buffs, scroll heal, and I'm at the point now where I can nail almost any trap.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Personally, I try to do Epics (and all quests) with five people who don't think they are better than everyone else that way we all get to have fun and no one has to feel like they dont live up to someone else's standards. :cool:













( I also have found that any quest goes smoother, the more Rangers you have in the party.)

[grodon9999]

I'd suggest that the problem isn't so much with the class mechanically as that there are a lot of particularly obsolete or suboptimal builds due to players that have not adapted well to the game changes. rapier users, icy raiments users, etc have been disadvantaged by the last year of game changes and are no longer well designed characters. Those of them that do well do so by overgearing the quest, which is possible even on epic. A ranger designed with today's endgame in mind remains a versitile and effective melee, and isn't so far behind that stuff like the manyshot 1/6th of the time, kiting ability, self-healing ability (something more people need to spec for these days) can't make up that gap.


Dead on, it's VERY easy to build a useless ranger.

[grodon9999]

It just seems SOOOOOO much easier to screw up and make a 300 HP 75 AC (which does not matter in epic) rapier using ranger.


I don't understand why anyone would do that when you can get 600 HP and 80 AC. Why make billions when we can make millions?

[Bacab]

I don't understand why anyone would do that when you can get 600 HP and 80 AC. Why make billions when we can make millions?

Exactly!

BTW, Junk, I had you in mind when I said I LOVE questing with Rangers I know.

If we are not careful this can turn into a good ranger list lol.

I will limit it to like 6 in no particular order.

Bronko's Dwarf ranger (not his Halfling thrower)
Coitfluff
BigJunk
Turbo's Ranger (the tempest one)
Peechie (shes done east wing on Hound/hard solo due to others inexperience)
Whyspa (Wayne is really good at pretty much every class)

These are the 5 people I have quested/raided with a lot. These PLAYERS (its not the toon) are always welcome.

I am pretty sure any of those people could be playing a ROG and itd be done right...or some weird multi-class abomination...

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'm also surprised that people still think Epics are so hard.



And amazed at how many people feel it necessary to defend their build to someone else in an attempt to measure up to their standards.

[grodon9999]

I'm also surprised that people still think Epics are so hard.

Epics are NOT hard. It's the dumbest content in the game where we've got more than enough cheap tricks to make them easy. It's not for the "best of the best," it's for the the "bored of the bored." Elite Amrath is by far harder, I'd even go as far to say Bastion of Power on Normal is harber than Big Top on epic for an average pug. It's got great gear, it's the only reason anyone runs this stuff.

That said I LOVE Epic Dragon and DQ, the raids are awesome. Actually I like a lot of the quests but I'm not that smart of a person.

Did anyone else find it amusing that the OPs making a big deal about lack of stunning-blow? It's SO not needed since they easy-buttoned mass-hold. As mentioned earlier "weighted" weapons still proc all the friggin time, especially with 100% off-hand attacks. I do cheat with mine as it's also a curse-spewer so once curse they ALWAYS fail their save . . .





And amazed at how many people feel it necessary to defend their build to someone else in an attempt to measure up to their standards.

It's much more fun to make light of their ignorance. What else would you expect from a barbarian? :)

[grodon9999]

Exactly!

BTW, Junk, I had you in mind when I said I LOVE questing with Rangers I know.

If we are not careful this can turn into a good ranger list lol.

I will limit it to like 6 in no particular order.

Bronko's Dwarf ranger (not his Halfling thrower)
Coitfluff
BigJunk
Turbo's Ranger (the tempest one)
Peechie (shes done east wing on Hound/hard solo due to others inexperience)
Whyspa (Wayne is really good at pretty much every class)

These are the 5 people I have quested/raided with a lot. These PLAYERS (its not the toon) are always welcome.

I am pretty sure any of those people could be playing a ROG and itd be done right...or some weird multi-class abomination...

There's at least 10 very capable rangers in my guild alone, but I know where your coming from on our server. I feel like an "Uncle Tom" having to question people of my own class but it's just the reality of the game.

[BossOfEarth]

To BossofEarth, Vorpals do not work in epic. That's why I said I was looking forward to replacing them with something that doesn't suck in Epic!. ;)


Bragging about not spending money...good for you. But this conversation is more/less about content you have not experienced. Please note the section I responded to, Nick asked "Are you paying real money..." and my answer is no, I'm not spending real money on TRing, I'm not spending any real money at all.


The Jack of Trades arguement...many people feel a Jack of All Trades is a piece of garbage at end game. If a FVS or a Cleric can match your DPS...why bring the RNG? The FVS and CLR can also heal others...really quickly. Last week they were happy to have me along because I was better at running through traps. Jack of all trades remember? Overspecialize and you breed in weakness. Of course, if there's a master trapdancer all means I let him do his thing.


I am glad you like your toon. But I really do not feel you grasp what the intention of this thread was. The thread is an eliteist screed against Rangers in which I successfuly argue that even when it's true that my ranger has gimpy DPS, he still has enough DPS.


The "others will stun for me" arguement is kinda silly. If a stunner can out DPS you...why not just have a stunner/DPSer over a non-stunner/light DPSer. As Jack of all trades, I don't try to beat other characters in their specialties. If they have a room full of stunned mobs, I break out the manyshot.


BTW I personally like well played rangers. But rangers are a lot like Rogues. Well built rangers/rogues are extremely powerful. While the not well built ones...*ding!*

I must reiterate...I like well played/well built Rangers. It just seems harder to gear up a Ranger than a Barb or Fighter. No one ever said Rangers are the easy button. Lots of stuff about playing a Ranger is difficult, I would have saved myself many Shroud runs by picking a class that uses one weapon instead of three (as in bow + duel wield). But personaly I enjoy the challenge that comes with playing a Ranger and to get back to the subject of the thread, the DPS of even a gimpy f2p ranger like mine is sufficient if not optimal.

[LeLoric]

I think the ranger debate is due to people to locked into the ac based finesse stat damaging state of mind. This build is just not viable in epic. Too many of it's valued perks are lost in epic or other recent game changes.

It may just be time to think about regearing those builds and doing what ya can. Swapping over to higher crit multiplier weapons would be your first big change. Getting non-ac item swaps to use for epics where your ac doesn't matter enough to be viable. Get something for autocrits when needed. Earthgrabs are probably the most effective and least expensive to do here. Some builds may be able to take advantage of SB also though.

Finding a way to get maximize in your build. The power of your heals with maximize and some healing amp is more than enough to keep yourself up and spot heal others in oh **** moments in many epics.

Think about going pure. That extra FE can make a pretty big difference at times. The capstone may be crappy but it does increase your manyshot rate of fire by enough to get a couple more arrows in per shot and well timed manyshots can be game breakers in Epic content.

Is AA better for your specific build? Going AA will lower your twf dps but not by that much in exchange you gain some nice benefits. The ability to do really good dps at range as opposed to average. More sp and feat flexibility for self healing. Less AP intensive frees up room for more racial enhancements or to hit. Extremely strong manyshots can clear a room fast when overwhelmed.

I had a halfling dex based multiclass ranger built for endgame at lev 12 that I lessered into a AA build. In doing so I was able to take Maximize to amp up the self heals. I ditched all ac stuff leaving room better gear for epics and better ap placement. I have a pretty good sneak attack dmg boost to my melee and situationally my ranged. I took heoric companion so not only can i boost my own dps but get to help others do more too.

Benefits rangers have is the ability to do strong damage while taking little even if for only 20 sec out of every two min. Many times these 20 seconds can be crucial in big mob spawn points or similar. Rangers also can do good damage when noone else can get to the mob. In DQ raid a well geared ranger can bring her back to the center platform the first time much faster than a sorc or wiz can. Many times I've still had some manyshot up to fire at here while she slowly makes her way to the group doing damage while everyone else just waits. Rangers can also effectively CC any ranged mob in the game just by strafing taking no damage at all. Sure any character with a bow can but most don't carry one or know how to do so and even if they do they won't be doing much damage while a ranger will still be killing it off. Many times I do this keeping them busy while also healing the other melees taking down some other mob.

I know that when we 4-manned epic velah I had the choice of which character to bring and my ranger seemed to be the best choice. The two biggest obstacles in there were getting the bases down and doing enough damage to her to overcome her regen. The fact that my ranger can pretty easily solo 1st base was huge and the mass dps increase when manyshotting with a AA specced ranger was probably one of the biggest reasons we completed in time.

[TiberiusofTyr]

n/m math fail

[SyrianSB]

Rangers are a not so high HP and not so high DPS class (due to inability to cover everything with FE) even STR based decent starting CON ones like mine. This indeed does not make them the best characters for epic. If monk splashed AC worked better... that would be a step in the right direction to make rangers desirable again.

What I did to make mine viable in epics is the following:


Crafted earthgrab picks (after making boss beaters ofc)
Gotten quicken, maximize, empower healing, torc, concordant opposition, ranger devotion IV, maybe some healing amp and SP clickies / Majors. This turned me from a squishy to a nearly indestructible self healer.
Pumped my AC really high and yet this only works on a few mobs. A radiance guard for the rest.
Got some sort of DR. Loads of SS clickies in my case.
And of course various other typical things like maximizing reflex to make sure evasion works, maximizing HP and DPS (to hit especially), carrying destruction/improved destruction for the few high ac bosses, etc

And I am still not completely happy with how my ranger fares in epic. Will be crafting trap the soul kama's soon to cover the mobs I still have trouble with (like for example 1 million hp elementals).

But as you can see this is tons of gear whereas in contrast a high DPS, high HP fighter or barbarian would need a whole lot less work for epics.

[grodon9999]

But as you can see this is tons of gear whereas in contrast a high DPS, high HP fighter or barbarian would need a whole lot less work for epics.

My first epics were with 400 HP, a 32 sustainable STR, and weighted 5% handwraps. You don't need ubber-toys to be viable. You just need to have half a brain and know when to duck. Yes, it's MUCH easier now with the better gear, it's even easier still with the saves nerfs.

The sad thing about epic is it really boils down to just heavy-picking the **** out of stunned-mobs. What sadder still is that players have accepted this as a good game. Let's see what this Epic "reboot" they have planned will do.

[Bracosius]

Love Rangers.

Hi Nick.

Lol, I love the Tarrent edit.

[SyrianSB]

My first epics were with 400 HP, a 32 sustainable STR, and weighted 5% handwraps. You don't need ubber-toys to be viable. You just need to have half a brain and know when to duck. Yes, it's MUCH easier now with the better gear, it's even easier still with the saves nerfs.

The sad thing about epic is it really boils down to just heavy-picking the **** out of stunned-mobs. What sadder still is that players have accepted this as a good game. Let's see what this Epic "reboot" they have planned will do.

I have indeed done epics before I had a lot of my gear. Hell most of my runs where with gimpy old me packing crappy stuff.

But just because I have done it, it does not mean some other class would not be able to do better even with less gear.

[grodon9999]

I have indeed done epics before I had a lot of my gear. Hell most of my runs where with gimpy old me packing crappy stuff.

But just because I have done it, it does not mean some other class would not be able to do better even with less gear.

There's a wide variation in the word "better." How much "better" are we talking about? I don't dispute that, I dispute the allegation that rangers aren't viable.

Oh wait, I just realized Tarrant is reading this. Yeah, you're right, Rangers are SOOOOOO gimped, we need a buff in the next update to compete! :)

[SyrianSB]

There's a wide variation in the word "better." How much "better" are we talking about? I don't dispute that, I dispute the allegation that rangers aren't viable.

Oh wait, I just realized Tarrant is reading this. Yeah, you're right, Rangers are SOOOOOO gimped, we need a buff in the next update to compete! :)

It does not matter much by how much "better" they are. What matters is the fact that they are and that rangers have very few things to make up the gap. At least in my opinion.

And I do not mean to say that you should automatically decline rangers for epics or something, just that they need more work to be on an even footing with some other melee classes. The root of the problem here is the lack of an innate ability to put monsters into auto-crit status. Which is what epics are all about. Other classes like fighters/barbs/monks need just a stun +10 weapon while rangers need to craft eartgrab picks. And even then the stun is more reliable.

[Aaxeyu]

If your post focuses "my ranger is doing just fine" or something similiar, or nothing but anecdotes, you really aren't helping the OP at all.

Also, saying that rangers are weaker than other classes in many ways is not the same as saying thet they're useless and can't contribute to questing in any meaninful way.

[grodon9999]

. . .The root of the problem here is the lack of an innate ability to put monsters into auto-crit status. Which is what epics are all about. Other classes like fighters/barbs/monks need just a stun +10 weapon while rangers need to craft eartgrab picks. And even then the stun is more reliable.

I've got a great stunner, it's called my guildie's wizard, gets everything in Auto-crit for me with mass hold. People really bother with this still since they easy-buttoned mass-hold? It's a red-herring.

"Weighted" weapons still work fine when you have to kick it old-school, used them the other day when our caster was a Tukaw build. Try them, they work well enough that I'd have trouble spending the larges on earth-grabs.

[Gunga]

Lol, I love the Tarrent edit.

Believe me we've discussed it before. He knows that's the word under those pretty stars.

[SyrianSB]

I've got a great stunner, it's called my guildie's wizard, gets everything in Auto-crit for me with mass hold. People really bother with this still since they easy-buttoned mass-hold? It's a red-herring.

"Weighted" weapons still work fine when you have to kick it old-school, used them the other day when our caster was a Tukaw build. Try them, they work well enough that I'd have trouble spending the larges on earth-grabs.

I value my characters worth on how he fares on bad runs. Not on perfect runs.

And once again we come back to the same old. Just because you where able to do something does not mean an other class would not be able to do it better.

I imagine a barbarian or a monk with stunning blow would make far better use of those weighted weapons.

[grodon9999]

Also, saying that rangers are weaker than other classes in many ways is not the same as saying thet they're useless and can't contribute to questing in any meaninful way.

Any rational person who knows a **** thing about this game will have to admit that Rangers are weaker epics. I'm actually looks forward to taking my 12/6/2 in there and seeing how well he does, I expect him to do better. My point is the margin is not as big as the OP presents. He had a bad experience with possibly a bunch of gimps.

I have to throw out anecdotes as they are real-life examples of what happens in the game and not on paper. I've been in a 9-minute EVoN6 where the DPS were all Rangers and monks, 3 of which were Arcane Archers. I've 4-manned EVoN1 with 2 casters and two rangers and we dealt more than our share of damage. No healers were present. I've held aggro on that stupid box thing in Snitch with fighters hitting it in the back so the healer only had to hit one guy, same thing with the devil boss at the end. If my DPS was that much behind that shouldn't have happened even with a 10-20 second head start.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see changes made to the game so my favorite glass would be more viable. There's an epic 'reboot' in the works that'll hopefully make it less stupid so more character types can shine. As it stands right now, we're fine. Not optimal but fine.

[grodon9999]

I value my characters worth on how he fares on bad runs. Not on perfect runs.


In bad runs I'm raising people and popping them with heal scrolls. See my obnoxiously large screenshot in the "Ranger best bow" thread http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=3278391&postcount=11




I imagine a barbarian or a monk with stunning blow would make far better use of those weighted weapons.

We keep talking about fighters and barbs, I think monks are the ubber-class in epics right now anyway.

[Gunga]

Any rational person who knows a **** thing about this game will have to admit that Rangers are weaker epics. I'm actually looks forward to taking my 12/6/2 in there and seeing how well he does, I expect him to do better. My point is the margin is not as big as the OP presents. He had a bad experience with possibly a bunch of gimps.

I have to throw out anecdotes as they are real-life examples of what happens in the game and not on paper. I've been in a 9-minute EVoN6 where the DPS were all Rangers and monks, 3 of which were Arcane Archers. I've 4-manned EVoN1 with 2 casters and two rangers and we dealt more than our share of damage. No healers were present. I've held aggro on that stupid box thing in Snitch with fighters hitting it in the back so the healer only had to hit one guy, same thing with the devil boss at the end. If my DPS was that much behind that shouldn't have happened even with a 10-20 second head start.

Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see changes made to the game so my favorite glass would be more viable. There's an epic 'reboot' in the works that'll hopefully make it less stupid so more character types can shine. As it stands right now, we're fine. Not optimal but fine.

No man. You think Nick had a bad pug and posted here? Wrong.

No offense, but you're the new guy here. Nick has been around for a long time and knows his stuff. You think he's knee jerking to a bad pug, but you're just reacting to some well observed truths about your main toon...this thread stings if your main is a ranger.

If you listen to what Nick's saying instead of dismissing him as an overreactive newb, you'll walk away with some insight that will make the game even more fun for you. Or at least broaden your perspective.

[SyrianSB]

We keep talking about fighters and barbs, I think monks are the ubber-class in epics right now anyway.

I can agree with that one, hehe.

[grodon9999]

No man. You think Nick had a bad pug and posted here? Wrong.

Did you read his post? "My last EV6 run is what prompted this post . . ." That's exactly what he did. Perhaps I'm reading too much into that one line.



No offense, but you're the new guy here. Nick has been around for a long time and knows his stuff. You think he's knee jerking to a bad pug, but you're just reacting to some well observed truths about your main toon...this thread stings if your main is a ranger.

A new guy with 100+ ToD completions and close to 100 epics. Newer than many but I know the game. I know what works and what doesn't work. I've seen the zero-versatility mana-sponge-DPS-apes die more time than I can count while I'm ressing people so we can keep going, in both standard and epic content.



If you listen to what Nick's saying instead of dismissing him as an overreactive newb, you'll walk away with some insight that will make the game even more fun for you. Or at least broaden your perspective.

What is he saying besides "rangers suck?" How does that "broaden my perspective?"

[RS-Makk]

All

IMO, this has been a great discussion.

I myself have a ranger (that happens to also be a drow variant of the exploiter and is thus focused on rapiers) that I am going to be taking to epics soon. At this point, that's all I have that could go to epics and as such, I'd like to know what I need to do to increase my effectiveness to play epics.

So given all that's been said, especially the comments around how tricky it is to build a ranger that will be suited for epics, what advice do folks have? There's been some of that already, any more?

[Junts]

Did you read his post? "My last EV6 run is what prompted this post . . ." That's exactly what he did. Perhaps I'm reading too much into that one line.



A new guy with 100+ ToD completions and close to 100 epics. Newer than many but I know the game. I know what works and what doesn't work. I've seen the zero-versatility mana-sponge-DPS-apes die more time than I can count while I'm ressing people so we can keep going, in both standard and epic content.



What is he saying besides "rangers suck?" How does that "broaden my perspective?"

Congrats.

I would be willing to wager that Nick has 2-3 times as many completions of both the things you listed; he's been a productive and knowledgable player of this game for several years, and done a wide variety of things that I suspect you'll probably never do, like two man the shroud at level 16 - before PREs were in the game (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=173653). Sheer number of raid completions isn't really even that indicative of anything: I doubt I've bothered to get more than 80 completions of The Titan Awakes, but I'm still one of only like 6-7 people who's ever soloed it, and I did it without anything but a throwing weapon (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=185801). A brief examination of Nick's posting history should demonstrate to you that he's probably one of the 30 or so most accomplished players posting on this forum.

While I don't think this thread was particularly well advised, if you read the first post it's clear he's asking how rangers are specifically addressing the things required to be a high-quality melee in epic content: namely, good damage to a wide range of foes and the ability to autocrit targets on your own. The reality is that if you -dont- do that, you are not a good melee for any epic group, and require other characters to support your effectiveness. There are a wide range of ways to do this, a lot of which have been discussed in this thread (from earthgrabs to tanking ac and just getting stunning blow, etc) and some of his impressions about rangers are wrong (eg re ranger dps on nonfavored), but the question isn't inherently bad: epic favors abilities that rangers don't have or don't easily acquire, and while 2 years ago they were bette than every other melee class in the game by a factor of 2 or 3, that's no longer the case and they're arguably the hardest of the dedicated melee classes to make effective (along with paladins), primarily due to the lack of easily acquired, guarnateed-dc-quality autocrit and the fairly narrow focus of their dps ability. You need much better gear or a build with some more fighter levels (or wf/dwarf) to hit the kind of quality stunning ability that is easily achievable in barbarian, fighter and monk.

I appreciate that you're convinced you're an elite quality player, but you would be well-advised to familiarize yourself with other posters before you denigrate their abilities relative to your own, especially in context of how the game has changed in the interim (dungeon scaling, frenzied berserker and other melee pre lines, exhaustion slowing raidbosses, etc).

[grodon9999]

All

IMO, this has been a great discussion.

I myself have a ranger (that happens to also be a drow variant of the exploiter and is thus focused on rapiers) that I am going to be taking to epics soon. At this point, that's all I have that could go to epics and as such, I'd like to know what I need to do to increase my effectiveness to play epics.

So given all that's been said, especially the comments around how tricky it is to build a ranger that will be suited for epics, what advice do folks have? There's been some of that already, any more?

Gear, the solution to anything in DDO is throw gear at the problem

Do whatever you can to get your to-hit as high as possible. This is where rangers are kinda schtupped, it's true as we don't have the fighter bonuses or the barb STR. Get the right gear and you'll hit on a 2 with PA on. Get the Tempest ToD set and Spectral gloves or the Arrow Head from Weapons shipment, that's +5 to-hit right there. If you're DEX-based your might be SoL as STR-based toons have more ways of booting our STR and thus our to-hit. If you're not hitting the target you do zero DPS.

Get Tharnes Goggles, that's another +5 to hit when you don't have aggro. You shouldn't have aggro in epic often, if you do it's time to duck. Most normally using cheesy aggro-tricks with fire-walls to get the aggro on the caster who then gets on a perch or hits while we beat on senseless and defenseless mobs.

Get some heavy picks for when you've got good stunners in the group with you or casters who can nail them with mass hold.

Gets some +10 stunning weapons. They are not as good as they used to be but they still proc a lot in epic. This will work when there isn't a better stunner around.

The most important thing to do when playing epics though is to shut-off your brain and pretend it's not the dumbest gaming experience of your life and it's actually kinda fun.

[Nick_RC]

I will not deny it I tend to focus my ranger on the certain quests where I have FE. I consider undead to be pretty poor right now what with only epic wiz king and the red fens ziggarut quest having some undead. Prior to the red fens I had elf, construct, evil outsider, dragon, and giant on my ranger and I ran OOB, Von 3, Von1 and 2, von6 and dq1 and dq2 nearly all the time on my ranger.

Since I rarely run the Vons anymore and I run the red fens more in earnest I will probably drop dragon and pick up monstrous humanoid and maybe drop elf and pick up scorpion or something similiar in the red fens. I think that is what ranger is all about focusing on X number of quests where you have FE it is not like I can not just run another character in a the quests where I do not have FE.

Thanks for the reply Matt - I like this approach focus on where ur FE strengths lie and run other characters where they dont.


On Outland; Trap the Soul longbow + Improved Precise Shot + Many Shot.


If you dont think thats a very powerful combination feel free to run Epic Chains of Flame or Into the Deep with me anytime.

Very cool. Honestly havnt run with many using trap the soul weapons yet. The trend is just catching on in argo atm. As a great player with many toons how do you feel you perform in you're cooldown to monks/ftrs/barbs?

N



ranger do fine in epics. anyone who thinks differently is an idiot. point blank period.

Maybe the original post didnt translate well. Im sure I cleared it up in later posts but its not about doing 'fine'. Like I've said earlier there are many ways to do 'fine' - esp seeing as nearly all of them are silly easy. You can do 'fine' by being an exceptional player, or running with an exceptional group or being exceptionally overgeared. What I was attempting to look at is what a ranger brings to the table that other classes dont do better. Not for ranger bashing purposes but to better wrap my head around the situation. Anyone who can't understand that is either an idiot or needs to learn to read. point blank period.


Hi Nick!

Hey Dude thx for the reply! It actually gave me a fair few chuckles. Its sorta good to get the imput from someone newish to the game.

1. Favored enemy
Yeah, I fight lots of stuff that isn't my FE. But lacking FE is not the big deal that say, running out of arrows is. You mentioned asking a bunch of rangers "WHO HAS FE: DRAGON?!?!!" but hearing only akward silence. Personaly, I wouldn't dignify that question with a response either because it's an odd thing to ask and anti-Ranger screeds frequently start with odd questions.

Heh I think ur underestimating the power of FE. Why do you think its an odd question to ask? Seeing as ur confronted by a massive red dragon I would think it perfectly logical that someone would ask whether you have FE dragon :D

2. Tactics.
I didn't build my 28 pt Ranger for tactics. I just bounce between Holds and Stuns as they occur. Since all Tempests have spring attack, I figure we're supposed to bounce in combat like a spring.

Thats cool - having read the other folks DC's etc I think this is the option I would go for too if i were to play one.


DPS
I agree that my undergeared 28 pt dorf Tempest Ranger is not top DPS, but DPS is not a big concern of mine. My combat goal is neutralizing threats by destroying them. My prefered style of combat is to trade DPS for vorpal kills. Not only is it more deadly as a function of time, it's also less predictable and therefore more tacticaly interesting. Looking forward I'm planning on building some Trap the Soul weapons since I've heard that vaccum II doesn't suck in Epic!.

Well vorps dont work in epic... there really only is DPS so that should def be a priority. Trap the soul weapons are intriguing - honestly I cant see myself building them. Having been running the shroud for literal years now I just cant bring myself to grind for the stuff anymore :(


For me, the big appeal of my Dwarf Tempest III fighter multiclass is that he's a jack of all trades. If you can't handle playing a jack of all trades you can't handle playing my Ranger. Seriously, you'll cry.

Heh I play my bard for Jack of all trades :D each to their own. Thanks for giving ur perspective.

N


Bottom Line: I didn't park (pike) my rangers because of "ranger hate" or "bad builds" or "outdated thinking" or "bad player" or "gimp". I parked them because I have versions of all the main choices and right now, for most quests, the ranger option is un-fun! I am not bashing rangers, people who play rangers, or claiming skills dont matter, I am simply saying when someone says grab DPS for Chains - the game has dictated that I have an array of better choices than my rangers.

+1 - nice summary and probably better worded than i can manage. I dont play rangers but I play a paladin and in some ways they are comparable to rangers. I dont really enjoy playing my pali in epic. Hes just not that much fun for me as i see him as doing maybe 60% of the DPS my main does, with no tactics/options. I love his self healing but as you say hes not my strongest choice.

Reading through some of the replies all I can see is phrases like 'well my rgr has xxx and does fine'. I hate that word. Doing 'fine' is so relative and is so prone to bias its silly. Im NOT bashing rangers either im just wanting to hear feedback from them and see if there is something im not factoring in. Some have been very honest and some just get so wound up its like its a personal attack against them lol.


Personally, I try to do Epics (and all quests) with five people who don't think they are better than everyone else that way we all get to have fun and no one has to feel like they dont live up to someone else's standards. :cool:

Is this a shot at me? If so its petty. Dont pretend to know how I play in-game and what my attitude is. I have been trying to keep this all rather nuetral as I'm genuinely interested in the responses.

One of the main reasons I posted this is because I have been asked by a few ranger friends what they should do with their toons as they dont feel up to snuff. I have very little working knowledge of rangers as stated in the OP. The closest thing I have is 6 rgr splashes. I know alot about the mechanics of the game, but also know to really have an idea of the capabilities of a pure or near pure version u need to spend some time at cap with them to discover their intricacies. I posted here because I was hoping that I would get some good constructive feedback from the exp ranger players so I could in turn offer friends educated advice. Fortunately I HAVE got some good points from many of the posters. Its just a shame I have to wade through the knee-jerk drivel. Not everything that is posted is posted to create a flamefest.


I'm also surprised that people still think Epics are so hard.

Im not sure where I mentioned that they were difficult. In fact difficulty really has no baring on what I'm discussing. Im discussing mechanics within epics through a side by side class discussion.


N


Epics are NOT hard. Agreed but its not the point of the post.

That said I LOVE Epic Dragon and DQ, the raids are awesome. Actually I like a lot of the quests but I'm not that smart of a person. I had only done all of the epics a couple of times before the last month or so just to guage numbers/hp/styles I would need to hit to maxmise my effectiveness. I personally was really disappointed at how easy they were. I was hoping that It would be challenging once again. Sadly no. There are the odd quests with the odd class makeup that becomes interesting but thats about it.

Did anyone else find it amusing that the OPs making a big deal about lack of stunning-blow? It's SO not needed since they easy-buttoned mass-hold. As mentioned earlier "weighted" weapons still proc all the friggin time, especially with 100% off-hand attacks. I do cheat with mine as it's also a curse-spewer so once curse they ALWAYS fail their save . . .

I dont run around insisting the caster mass hold everything for me to be in autocrit situation. I find it amusing that you say mass hold is the easy button and that stuns are not needed and in the very next sentence imply you're CS of stunning weapon is so good its like cheating. I also find it amusing that anyone swinging an offhand weighted weapon (a cursespewing - i.e non-bursting/double bursting) for a significant period of time 'hoping' for a fail on a DC 33(i.e they roll a one) (or 37 when they eventually roll a one vs CS) is contributing significant dps in their offhand.

It's much more fun to make light of their ignorance. What else would you expect from a barbarian? :)

Its probably a mix of my ignorance and you're bias towards ur main toon realistically. Thankyou for this reply and ur previous replies. I have tried to keep it civil but when someone patronises me I dislike it. Comments in red.


Let's see what this Epic "reboot" they have planned will do.

Yeah looking forward to this myself.


There's a wide variation in the word "better." How much "better" are we talking about? I don't dispute that, I dispute the allegation that rangers aren't viable.

Oh wait, I just realized Tarrant is reading this. Yeah, you're right, Rangers are SOOOOOO gimped, we need a buff in the next update to compete! :)

Apologies if the OP seemed unclear and more like an allegation. I was more aiming at what rangers are doing to make themselves more 'better' (lol) to compensate for what 'I' see as some inerent weaknesses. Again its from a giving advice perspective. Honestly It seems somewhat unfair that rgrs need to spend turbine points to spec around new content. I wouldnt mind seeing an enhancement line at 2/4/6 offering more FE to help this out.


I think the ranger debate is due to people to locked into the ac based finesse stat damaging state of mind. This build is just not viable in epic.

Get something for autocrits when needed.

Finding a way to get maximize in your build.

Think about going pure.

Is AA better for your specific build? Going AA will lower your twf dps but not by that much in exchange you gain some nice benefits.

I took heoric companion so not only can i boost my own dps but get to help others do more too.

Benefits rangers have is the ability to do strong damage while taking little even if for only 20 sec out of every two min.



Hey man very nice responce and a good read. +1. I snipped the key points so i can reference them later. Heroes companion is awesome. I run with quite a few halfling monks and I must say they are my favorite class after a bard to run with as a melee.

N


What is he saying besides "rangers suck?"

I actually havnt said that at all. Not once. Im just trying to work it out from an optimisation stand point and where rangers fit in.


I think monks are the ubber-class in epics right now anyway.

Agreed. I like to be the big ftr/barb running next to them taking advantage of all the stuns they are poping out.

Anyway thats it for me for the day looks like i can get in game now. Appreciate the pos reps that people have been handing out to make up for the negs (up to 5 now lol:D). It didnt really worry me as I'm not close to being moderated atm but still appreicate it.

N

[Junts]

Thanks for the reply Matt - I like this approach focus on where ur FE strengths lie and run other characters where they dont.



Very cool. Honestly havnt run with many using trap the soul weapons yet. The trend is just catching on in argo atm. As a great player with many toons how do you feel you perform in you're cooldown to monks/ftrs/barbs?

N




Maybe the original post didnt translate well. Im sure I cleared it up in later posts but its not about doing 'fine'. Like I've said earlier there are many ways to do 'fine' - esp seeing as nearly all of them are silly easy. You can do 'fine' by being an exceptional player, or running with an exceptional group or being exceptionally overgeared. What I was attempting to look at is what a ranger brings to the table that other classes dont do better. Not for ranger bashing purposes but to better wrap my head around the situation. Anyone who can't understand that is either an idiot or needs to learn to read. point blank period.



Heh I play my bard for Jack of all trades :D each to their own. Thanks for giving ur perspective.

N



+1 - nice summary and probably better worded than i can manage. I dont play rangers but I play a paladin and in some ways they are comparable to rangers. I dont really enjoy playing my pali in epic. Hes just not that much fun for me as i see him as doing maybe 60% of the DPS my main does, with no tactics/options. I love his self healing but as you say hes not my strongest choice.

Reading through some of the replies all I can see is phrases like 'well my rgr has xxx and does fine'. I hate that word. Doing 'fine' is so relative and is so prone to bias its silly. Im NOT bashing rangers either im just wanting to hear feedback from them and see if there is something im not factoring in. Some have been very honest and some just get so wound up its like its a personal attack against them lol.



Is this a shot at me? If so its petty. Dont pretend to know how I play in-game and what my attitude is. I have been trying to keep this all rather nuetral as I'm genuinely interested in the responses.

One of the main reasons I posted this is because I have been asked by a few ranger friends what they should do with their toons as they dont feel up to snuff. I have very little working knowledge of rangers as stated in the OP. The closest thing I have is 6 rgr splashes. I know alot about the mechanics of the game, but also know to really have an idea of the capabilities of a pure or near pure version u need to spend some time at cap with them to discover their intricacies. I posted here because I was hoping that I would get some good constructive feedback from the exp ranger players so I could in turn offer friends educated advice. Fortunately I HAVE got some good points from many of the posters. Its just a shame I have to wade through the knee-jerk drivel. Not everything that is posted is posted to create a flamefest.



Im not sure where I mentioned that they were difficult. In fact difficulty really has no baring on what I'm discussing. Im discussing mechanics within epics through a side by side class discussion.


N



Its probably a mix of my ignorance and you're bias towards ur main toon realistically. Thankyou for this reply and ur previous replies. I have tried to keep it civil but when someone patronises me I dislike it. Comments in red.



Yeah looking forward to this myself.



Apologies if the OP seemed unclear and more like an allegation. I was more aiming at what rangers are doing to make themselves more 'better' (lol) to compensate for what 'I' see as some inerent weaknesses. Again its from a giving advice perspective. Honestly It seems somewhat unfair that rgrs need to spend turbine points to spec around new content. I wouldnt mind seeing an enhancement line at 2/4/6 offering more FE to help this out.



Hey man very nice responce and a good read. +1. I snipped the key points so i can reference them later. Heroes companion is awesome. I run with quite a few halfling monks and I must say they are my favorite class after a bard to run with as a melee.

N



I actually havnt said that at all. Not once. Im just trying to work it out from an optimisation stand point and where rangers fit in.



Agreed. I like to be the big ftr/barb running next to them taking advantage of all the stuns they are poping out.

Anyway thats it for me for the day looks like i can get in game now. Appreciate the pos reps that people have been handing out to make up for the negs (up to 5 now lol:D). It didnt really worry me as I'm not close to being moderated atm but still appreicate it.

N

Psh, see if i type you a 4 paragraph response next time (page 2 noob)!

[grodon9999]

Congrats.

I would be willing to wager that Nick has 2-3 times as many completions of both the things you listed; he's been a productive and knowledgable player of this game for several years, and done a wide variety of things that I suspect you'll probably never do, like two man the shroud at level 16 - before PREs were in the game (http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=173653).

While I don't think this thread was particularly well advised, if you read the first post it's clear he's asking how rangers are specifically addressing the things required to be a high-quality melee in epic content: namely, good damage to a wide range of foes and the ability to autocrit targets on your own. The reality is that if you -dont- do that, you are not a good melee for any epic group, and require other characters to support your effectiveness. There are a wide range of ways to do this, a lot of which have been discussed in this thread (from earthgrabs to tanking ac and just getting stunning blow, etc) and some of his impressions about rangers are wrong (eg re ranger dps on nonfavored), but the question isn't inherently bad: epic favors abilities that rangers don't have or don't easily acquire, and while 2 years ago they were bette than every other melee class in the game by a factor of 2 or 3, that's no longer the case and they're arguably the hardest of the dedicated melee classes to make effective (along with paladins), primarily due to the lack of easily acquired, guarnateed-dc-quality autocrit and the fairly narrow focus of their dps ability. You need much better gear or a build with some more fighter levels (or wf/dwarf) to hit the kind of quality stunning ability that is easily achievable in barbarian, fighter and monk.

I appreciate that you're convinced you're an elite quality player, but you would be well-advised to familiarize yourself with other posters before you denigrate their abilities relative to your own, especially in context of how the game has changed in the interim (dungeon scaling, frenzied berserker and other melee pre lines, exhaustion slowing raidbosses, etc).[/QUOTE]

I don't think I'm elite by any stretch but I'm not right off the boat from Kothos either. I'm sure the OPs done a hell of a lot more than I have as he's been here longer (shocker there). I sure would be hard for somebody born in 2010 to invent the computer as well.

In the OP's questions were hypothetical. He already had his mind made up before he posted it.

You on the other hand posted an excellent and objective analysis of everything. You show a great knowledge of the game and no bias. Your posts here were all spot on.

[Junts]

I appreciate that you're convinced you're an elite quality player, but you would be well-advised to familiarize yourself with other posters before you denigrate their abilities relative to your own, especially in context of how the game has changed in the interim (dungeon scaling, frenzied berserker and other melee pre lines, exhaustion slowing raidbosses, etc).

I don't think I'm elite by any stretch but I'm not right off the boat from Kothos either. I'm sure the OPs done a hell of a lot more than I have as he's been here longer (shocker there). I sure would be hard for somebody born in 2010 to invent the computer as well.

In the OP's questions were hypothetical. He already had his mind made up before he posted it.

You on the other hand posted an excellent and objective analysis of everything. You show a great knowledge of the game and no bias. Your posts here were all spot on.[/QUOTE]

You should note from Nick's responses that he's actually learned quite a bit here and made the thread primarily because he has minimal experience with rangers (because he rather famously hates the class). Nick was killing things with stunning blow and DPS when I was still running around 5 shotting everything with my s/b paladin using a wop rapier. He's probably the single player you have the most to thank for the prevalance of autocrit strategies in epic, because the initial discussion of how to handle epic basically consisted of someone reminding us how Nick's stunning blow barb soloed Stealer of Souls up to Sor'jek at level 16 .. by DPSing everything with stunning blow! Remember, pre-dungeon scaling: when that **** had the hp that it has for a full party of 6 these days. (eg 4-5k per trashmob).

[grodon9999]

I've probably been a bit of a jackas. My fighter's 18 now, almost capped and should be able to get a pretty decent stunning-blow DC. I'll probably come back here whining about how much much ranger sucks in a few days :)

[Aspenor]

A better question is "has Nick finally made a build that's viable?" :eek:

LoL, not that I care, but neg rep for making a joke with a friend? Really? If his post immediately afterward wasn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what is....

So goes the awesomeness that is the forum rep system.

[Hadrian]

People are knocking 75 AC. I don't know if you've taken the time to check lately, but since the fairly recent changes, 75 AC does make a big impact on trash.

[TiberiusofTyr]

One thing I've considered with my ranger is respecing into Ran12/Ftr7/x. With 7 levels of fighter I would gain toughness 3, stunning blow 3, haste boost 3, fighter str 2, and kensai. I would lose 2 FE, 5% double strike, and FOM (ouch). The last level could be another fighter level for weapon mastery 1 and another feat, barbarian for speed and a baby rage, rogue for umd and a little SA, or monk for AC.

[moops]

Hey guys thx for the replies. And Hi gung.
.

Nick,
I can't get it to quote what you replied to me.

When I say Just Fine, its because I was LOL at what I felt to be a rather funny and vaguely over the top insulting OP.

We must just come from 2 different schools of play. And I know you are an awesome player, so it really shocked alot of us that you made a post like this, because your post makes it seem like Epic is super hard or something, like MAx DPS is needed for some reason. . ..

Unless Im going for a Speed record, I do not care if I have the Max DPS in group. Even when I was shortmanning raids I did not go for TOP DPS, I went with Survivabilitly--in fact our Shroud/VOD speed records at that time had as much to do with survivability and strategy as DPS. And yes, at the time I was concerned with these things there were builds I did not want in the group as the healer--but I never came to the forums and wrote an all out assault against them--asked them to justify why they are viable, or refused them for any other content in game--Just Speed Record Runs and 2- 4 man VODs/hounds back in the day when lvl cap was 16 and b4 everyone was doing them.

I like DDO because of the variety of characters one can build and customize, but sadly posts like yours are going to lead to people with accounts consisting of 9 Half Orc/WF barb/Kensai and one WF sorc within a few months.

Enough people already LR/GR/TR'd into just DPS machines with the WOE change that happened--I was in a TOD with plenty of these folks the other day that failed in part 3 as soon as something went wrong, boy I can't wait for when this changed back. I am a strategy person, not a numbers person--ill take any group into any content and make it work and usually just as fast as a more optimal group, and to me that is fun. My mains are healers, but when Im on my melee I do love when things go sideways and I can save the day, and to me, when anyone is one of the last people standing and they save a raid--this is where the game really shines.

You don't even need my combat numbers--I told you that Im a finesse build, obvious my DPS isn't going to anywhere near uber, yet--I still hold aggro on Into the Deep on the Red Nameds and various other things that cant be held or danced in EPic unless there is another ranger most of the time.

I have 445 HP standing--40 Dex/28 Str buffed without Madstone--which because I am a control freak I usually do not wear so I can throw heals on other people if need be. I never get ship buffs. My Ac is 72-75 with bard song, but without CE depending on which gear I wear,and withe the changes it does make a difference in some EPic against trash mobs, and a few red nameds and bosses.

And obviously my ranger is geared out since Ive been playing this game forever, and while its true that an ungeared Barb or Kensai can do awesome damage pretty much out of the box in Epic if they have a proper weapon, even these folks suck to keep alive if they are not geared. Everytime one of these players has to back off because of damage or death--they are not DPSing.

I will not be remaking 4 sets of Greensteel just to be the flavor of the month--and only to have turbine then make a new flavor a month later.

I already have a Khopesh user, a 2hf, etc--I want all my alts to be uniquely different so that its like a different game when I play each of them. Epic is not the end all be all to me, I like questing, and I agree with previous poster that even Bastion on Normal is harder than most Epic--and Ill keep my AC build so that I can keep soling this, which I do because it is fun.

What I wonder, is why all you super uber DPS even run epic if y'all already so perfect? The only reason I run it is to help people get shards and seals so that they one day can be super uber perfect just like you:).

[cpito]

My ranger wears pigtails and carries pompoms and distracts everyone and everything with all her bouncing!!!! :eek:











This thread is about Epic party wipes, right? :D

[NaturalHazard]

[QUOTE=justagame;3278114]I have a genuine question: How in the world does an exploiter have 44 "standing" strength, excluding Titan's grip and madstone? I would really like to know if I am just clueless about some strength bonuses that I'm not taking advantage of.

Even if you started with 18 str, and were human, the max I can see is:
18 + 5 levels + 1 human enh + 4 tome(!) + 7 epic item +3 exceptional = 38.

And that 38 is with a +4 tome, +7 epic item, max exceptional str, and a start of 18 (which not all exploiters take). And that's still 6 short of the 44 standing str.

Even if one assumed a rage potion and a yugo potion (which I assume you don't, for a "standing" strength quote), that's 42.

What else am I missing?[/QUOT

Rams might spell +2 str, airship buffs +1 or +2 str.

[Gunga]

A new guy with 100+ ToD completions and close to 100 epics. Newer than many but I know the game. I know what works and what doesn't work. I've seen the zero-versatility mana-sponge-DPS-apes die more time than I can count while I'm ressing people so we can keep going, in both standard and epic content.

You use 3 digit completion totals to argue vet status? Ahem.

If you stop listening with your mouth you would learn something. Stop posturing and absorb the knowledge, my man. Make your ranger the ranger that everyone wants in their epics and use this thread, the thread that your senior vet started, as your map.

Do it.

Be the bow.

[grodon9999]

People are knocking 75 AC. I don't know if you've taken the time to check lately, but since the fairly recent changes, 75 AC does make a big impact on trash.


I tested 80 briely and got barely got missed enough to make it worth the trouble. Against what epic trash was 75 working? My tests were hardly scientific, just had the group stand around and let a mob swing at me for a bit.

[Alabore]

I would politely point out that the game changed a lot, and the very same vets claiming superiority because they know the ins and outs, elsewhere complained because the changes made the game different and unfamiliar to them.

This very thread testifies how - admittedly frequent - tweaks to rules and mechanics can make or break a build - to the point of turning a certain class or class combination into the flavour of the month.

Telling newer players to shut up and listen to the wisdom of the elders might fall on deaf ears.
Basically because this game changes too often for elders to be always wise enough.
Also because telling people to shut up, well, usually results in diametrically opposite reactions.

If we really want to assume "elders" carry weight in their words, maybe they should weigh their words carefully.
Lest players willing to listen only glean the very basic gist, without going below the surface, causing a domino effect of "omg, rangers suck, omg half-orcs rule"...

It would be a non-issue, were this a self-contained single-player game.
It is not.
When I run one of my alts, and I can't find a group willing to team up, because the particular flavour of the month happens to be something else from my chosen race/class combination, I end up being rather annoyed.
When I'm annoyed, I look for somebody to put the blame on.
You vets claim to be wise. Act accordingly. Don't be that somebody. I bite kneecaps off.

;)

[spyderwolf]

[
Maybe the original post didnt translate well. Im sure I cleared it up in later posts but its not about doing 'fine'. Like I've said earlier there are many ways to do 'fine' - esp seeing as nearly all of them are silly easy. You can do 'fine' by being an exceptional player, or running with an exceptional group or being exceptionally overgeared. What I was attempting to look at is what a ranger brings to the table that other classes dont do better. Not for ranger bashing purposes but to better wrap my head around the situation. Anyone who can't understand that is either an idiot or needs to learn to read. point blank period.




so you make a post that insinuates that rangers cant run epics becuase they cant do anyhting as good as any other melee. and when people comment that rangers can do anything that needs to be done in epic by a melee , you say that maybe the post wasnt clear, and they need to learn to read?

i have no doubts your a great player just from some of the accomplishments you have attained. but if you dont play a ranger yourself because you hate them, and you dont have any difficulties running epics regardless of the group makeup.... then why do you care what rangers bring to the table?

theres not a single epci that cant be soloed/duoed, so wh yexaclty does it matter if 1 person isnt absolutely min-maxxed? most people arent gonna be min-maxxed for epics regardless of class. you can find barbs,ftrs,pally, rog,etc,etc that absolutely suck when they step into epics.

rangers can do anything you need a melee to do in epics even despite their "gimpness".

[Alabore]

rangers can do anything you need a melee to do in epics even despite their "gimpness".
Eh.
Don't sweat it.
Chances are, devs will tweak some other rule or mechanic, they'll nerf this and boost that, and some other class will be gimp of the month.

If you remember posts from a couple weeks ago, barbs were deemed unworthy of leaving Korthos.
Now it's rangers.
Next month will be dwarves and WFs, compared to half-orcs - until somebody finds a new exploit or synergy and everybody cries gimp or uber.

Yes, some class combos are weaker than others.
Some are outright broken, since they can't cover any role in an effective way.
Players can unwittingly break their chars, with bad feat/skill/multiclass selection.
But few people can realistically claim they can ride the change curve.
The rest, make do.
Player skill still counts for something.

:)

...

As an aside: I don't usually like playing a healer.
I haven't touched a cleric in months, and a favoured soul ever.
I usually refrain from giving advice or providing opinion about a class I disagree with.
You lose some credibility when you claim "class x is weak, even though I've never played it"...

;)

[Talon_Moonshadow]

Is this a shot at me? If so its petty. Dont pretend to know how I play in-game and what my attitude is. I have been trying to keep this all rather nuetral as I'm genuinely interested in the responses.

One of the main reasons I posted this is because I have been asked by a few ranger friends what they should do with their toons as they dont feel up to snuff. I have very little working knowledge of rangers as stated in the OP. The closest thing I have is 6 rgr splashes. I know alot about the mechanics of the game, but also know to really have an idea of the capabilities of a pure or near pure version u need to spend some time at cap with them to discover their intricacies. I posted here because I was hoping that I would get some good constructive feedback from the exp ranger players so I could in turn offer friends educated advice. Fortunately I HAVE got some good points from many of the posters. Its just a shame I have to wade through the knee-jerk drivel. Not everything that is posted is posted to create a flamefest.



Im not sure where I mentioned that they were difficult. In fact difficulty really has no baring on what I'm discussing. Im discussing mechanics within epics through a side by side class discussion.


N


N

Not a direct shot at you, but you come across as saying that rangers are gimps in Epic, so why should anyone take them? Or play them...etc.

if that is not what you meant, great.


But you are saying that one class is inferior...and seems to me to be implying that they shouldn't be brought along because of it.

My comments are also to others who have chimed in here, and not a direct shot at anyone.

But the general attitude that gimps are just piking along next to the top DPS builds of the week is one I do not like.

From what I read, if you are not ready to link your epic SoS when you apply for an LFM, you are a piker.....as anyone without it is clearly doing inferior DPS.


Rangers are viable at end game.....without doing anything special at all.

For one reason end game ain't so hard that you need to do anything special.
But their DPS is just fine.


Gear makes more difference than anything else in this game.
And playstyle and tactics goes a real long way too.

If you are serious and want to know some good Rgr epic tactics....without critisizing them as inferior..I can give a few.


We all know that stunning rocks in epic. So stun them. Weighted can work well. Bring two. And swing fast.

I got a second Tenderizer for epics......but lately seldom use them. Cause if we have a monk to stun or something is held, things will die faster if I just use the green steel.

Evasion still rules in epic, just like it always had in the whole game.
Cause if you cannot stay alive, you are worthless. And epic is tough enough that people need to be able to keep themselves alive.

Ranged is still useful. Anyone who thinks Manyshot is gimped is fooling themselves.
But the epic HP do make non-manyshot feel like you are just plinking away at them.

Still it has uses.
Especially when you learn how to not get hurt as you plink away at something.

You work together. control agro, gang up on things....and it will go well.

You need resources on epic....no coming back if you run out. I've seen two epic fails because people just were not equiped with consumables. (healing mostly)

Resists go a long way....just like everywhere else. and Protects at times.

A real high stealth can still work.

AC is not totally useless.

Self sufficient is more important than ever IMO. (back to runing out of resources)

Destruction and Improved Destruction have value.
Attacking from behind to get flanking bonus to hit.
if you have a real hard time hitting, most chars can get a boost (by eliminating penalties) by using only one weapon.

HP have always ben for those people who plan on getting hurt. If you do not have enough to survive excessive agro, try not getting it.
Epic can really show the value of all those careful, pulling tactics that we all have forgotten.

The early way to complete epics was to have a catser get al agro and the rest of the party take on one at a time.
It doesn't take max DPS to do that. It takes cooperation and smart play.

If your group is actually weaker than most, it just requires you to play smarter.

Learn what works and doesn't work.
Bring weapons for the foes you will face.
Bring resources and plan to keep yourself alive if needed.
Bring your "A" game.

Nothing else is required.
No special class or build.

But you do have to be up to it.
What that means exactly I do not know. But the good players will succeed.
And a certain amount of good gear is required.

That good gear gives you more HP, more DPS, and IMO the most important thing, is more survivability.

My first Epic Von 3 saw my char shuttling the whole party back to a shrine, over and over again, cause they just could not keep themselves alive.
Then they all quit.

So IMO, survivability is more important than ever before. And good Rgrs got that in spades.

But playing smart is very important. And part of that is bringing the right gear and weps and taxctics that work and make it easier.

[Hadrian]

I tested 80 briely and got barely got missed enough to make it worth the trouble. Against what epic trash was 75 working? My tests were hardly scientific, just had the group stand around and let a mob swing at me for a bit.

Have stoneskin on when you try this sort of thing out. It makes a large difference in how those grazing hits affect you.

I am prepared to heal myself from SPs, so I have a good sense of the rate at which I take damage. I can notice a significant reduction in damage taken as I adjust my AC, and do things like turn on/off defensive stance or cast barkskin just to see if it does anything.

No, I don't use defensive stance over power attack. I was just attempting to see if I could notice the small increase in AC.

If you define "working" as only being hit on a 20, then it wouldn't pass by that definition, but that is not what I am claiming.

[grodon9999]

If you define "working" as only being hit on a 20, then it wouldn't pass by that definition, but that is not what I am claiming.

My definition of "working" is "missed more than hit."

[Gunga]

My definition of "working" is "missed more than hit."

That's a good definition.

[Nick_RC]

so you make a post that insinuates that rangers cant run epics becuase they cant do anyhting as good as any other melee. and when people comment that rangers can do anything that needs to be done in epic by a melee , you say that maybe the post wasnt clear, and they need to learn to read?

I actually made the post from a purely technical comparison standpoint. Not whether or not they CAN run epics but from an efficiency standpoint. Im looking at it from a comparison standpoint and wanted to hear what rangers are doing to bump up their effectiveness. It was nothing more than that. I have no reason to post something purely to grief ranger players. I dont have the time or energy to do something as silly as that. If you read my responses its more about learning as I do not play rangers and I would like to see if I was missing anything.

i have no doubts your a great player just from some of the accomplishments you have attained. but if you dont play a ranger yourself because you hate them, and you dont have any difficulties running epics regardless of the group makeup.... then why do you care what rangers bring to the table?

I honestly dont know where my player skill came into it. It certainly wasnt brought into the conversation by me. Again I care because alot of the fun about the game is character building and options that can make a character as strong as possible. I thought the intent was clear - trying to find out what rangers are doing to maximise their efficiency when the game seemingly (and as I state in the OP - 'MY' conclusions) has changed enough around them to make the question tenable.


rangers can do anything you need a melee to do in epics even despite their "gimpness".

Again I dont think I ever claimed they were gimped - just sub optimal - THATS why I posted to find out what they are doing to make there characters do really well. People might step into quests and be gimped as ur previous parargaph states. But im sure they arnt going to enjoy themselves knowing they are gimped. Again what is wrong with trying to find out the strongest approach.



Comments in red.



From what I read, if you are not ready to link your epic SoS when you apply for an LFM, you are a piker.....as anyone without it is clearly doing inferior DPS.

Eh I have exactly two epic items crafted. The hruvayans medallion and the antique greataxe. Both of which are sitting in the bank until I have collected enough gear to turn my main into a battlemage (OG gasp at the 'gimpiness' of that proposition) If you had read the posts in the thread I have said that I have only been running them solidly for a month. And by solidly I mean leading/doing all the epic content other than sentinels at least 3x and Chains, oob, fens, von 1,2,3 daily. Before that it was smatterings to gauge where I had to be numbers wise for too hit etc. Maybe alot of this is negative reaction is due to people assuming that I am uber twinked out with epic gear. This is not the case at all.


Rangers are viable at end game.....without doing anything special at all.

For one reason end game ain't so hard that you need to do anything special.
But their DPS is just fine.

The vague 'just fine' is what I was trying to avoid. I like to see things as they are from an effectiveness standpoint - numbers wise. Thats my perogative and is what makes playing this game fun for me trying to find ways to make my guys better. If you are suggesting that thats not what it is all about then we simply have different views on what is fun. Now the OP was genuine when I asked what are they doing to make themselves viable as im clued into the fact that numbers arnt everything. Hence the asking for input as to what they are doing to bump their effectiveness up.

If you are serious and want to know some good Rgr epic tactics....without critisizing them as inferior..I can give a few.

This was the intent of the OP and I challenge you to find anything ive said that isnt about this. I'm scratching my head as to why people would think I would make a post just to say that rangers suck. I dont have the time or energy to make silly statements like that.


We all know that stunning rocks in epic. So stun them. Weighted can work well. Bring two. And swing fast. I got a second Tenderizer for epics......but lately seldom use them. Cause if we have a monk to stun or something is held, things will die faster if I just use the green steel.

Right. Firstly thankyou for the genuine replies appreciated. Having read the feedback I think you are right in using GS full time. I think If I were to play a ranger I wouldnt even bother with the stuns and jsut keep dpsing the whole time as getting ur dcs high enough to count is rough and waiting for a possible autostun whilst using inferior dps weapons isnt that appealing.

Evasion still rules in epic, just like it always had in the whole game.
Cause if you cannot stay alive, you are worthless. And epic is tough enough that people need to be able to keep themselves alive.

Bleh evasion is a nice sidebenefit and I must say its been nice on my current build in epic. Its never ruled the whole game - epic is the first time you cant shrug off nearly all the dmg via resists good saves and decent equipment. For the first time I have actually seen that evasion actually does something useful that cant be avoided or easily shrugged off. Still not mandatory but more useful than before.

Ranged is still useful. Anyone who thinks Manyshot is gimped is fooling themselves.
But the epic HP do make non-manyshot feel like you are just plinking away at them.

Agree and definately dont think its gimped. As stated in the opening sentences of the OP I have played 6 ranger splashes before and know the power of it. Ive never played with impr precise shot and junts stated earlier that that combined with manyshot is sick. Inspire added manyshot with trap the soul bow is awesome. Great tactical points.

A real high stealth can still work.

Yeah I have been frequently riding on a splash rangers coat tails in claw of vulkoor using stealth and ranged dps at the end. Very cool. This is exactly the type of things im looking for. Stealth rocks in parts esp if you just have to get a key or do an obejctive and skip a fight. Noted. Do you think many rangers invest in stealth?

So IMO, survivability is more important than ever before. And good Rgrs got that in spades.

Cool. I snipped all the other tactics as they are generic and was looking specifically for ranger tactics. I DO appreciate the time you spent writing it out tho. +1.




Comments in Red.


Nick,
I can't get it to quote what you replied to me.

NPs

When I say Just Fine, its because I was LOL at what I felt to be a rather funny and vaguely over the top insulting OP.

Never meant it to be insulting. Just breaking it down from an efficiency standpoint as thats what appeals to me. The fact that most of them are easy and that anyone can do them is irrelevent to what I was looking at. Apologies if it insulted :)

We must just come from 2 different schools of play. And I know you are an awesome player, so it really shocked alot of us that you made a post like this, because your post makes it seem like Epic is super hard or something, like MAx DPS is needed for some reason. . ..

Thankyou for the compliment. In fact im going to quote junts here as he says it alot better than I could.




While I don't think this thread was particularly well advised, if you read the first post it's clear he's asking how rangers are specifically addressing the things required to be a high-quality melee in epic content: namely, good damage to a wide range of foes and the ability to autocrit targets on your own. The reality is that if you -dont- do that, you are not a good melee for any epic group, and require other characters to support your effectiveness. There are a wide range of ways to do this, a lot of which have been discussed in this thread (from earthgrabs to tanking ac and just getting stunning blow, etc) and some of his impressions about rangers are wrong (eg re ranger dps on nonfavored), but the question isn't inherently bad: epic favors abilities that rangers don't have or don't easily acquire, and while 2 years ago they were bette than every other melee class in the game by a factor of 2 or 3, that's no longer the case and they're arguably the hardest of the dedicated melee classes to make effective (along with paladins), primarily due to the lack of easily acquired, guarnateed-dc-quality autocrit and the fairly narrow focus of their dps ability. You need much better gear or a build with some more fighter levels (or wf/dwarf) to hit the kind of quality stunning ability that is easily achievable in barbarian, fighter and monk.


I like DDO because of the variety of characters one can build and customize, but sadly posts like yours are going to lead to people with accounts consisting of 9 Half Orc/WF barb/Kensai and one WF sorc within a few months.

I completely agree. Character customisation is my favorite part of DDO too and is the main reason that prompted this post. So I could see what specific tactics and tricks rangers are using to make their specific customisation work effectively. In fact My next TR project is converting my 7 life melee into a battlemage because im convinced i can do 100% of what a caster can do and 60% of what a melee can do with sneaky skillz to boot. Now most would consider that Gimped but i figure I can pull it off. I can see you're point and my OP was probably poorly worded. I'm looking at gaining knowledge so I can pass it on to friends who are underwhelmed by their rangers atm.


What I wonder, is why all you super uber DPS even run epic if y'all already so perfect? The only reason I run it is to help people get shards and seals so that they one day can be super uber perfect just like you:).

Oh this is probably where we arnt seeing eye to eye. Like i said earlier to Talon I have TWO epic items which are sitting in my bank until i build my Battlemage. I have spent my time TRing getting that base sorted out as gear changes so much i figured I get my base sorted THEN work on gear. I even stated in my OP i have only been running epics for a month solid and before that it was only smatterings to get the requesit knowledge on what numbers i need for too hit and tactics dcs, hp levels etc. I dont have an ESoS (though i have the shard now - my battlemage will often need the too hit :D) and am by no stretch super uber perfect lol. Simple fact is alot of people are TRing on my server and I play at awkward time zones ususally with auditioning and fiance limitiations lol. Quite often I will have to pug and while I tend to perform well I will quite often get questions from people as to how to improve on what they are doing - and alot of those are rangers. Like I said the post really wasnt a flamefest but to get some inside knowldge on what tactics rangers specifically are doing as I couldnt get the numbers for them to compare to others. And i like number but know that thats not all that counts. Hence the post.:) Thanks for the reply and I hope this has cleared up any confusion.


N



not just saving sp, Nick: being able to cast fom is a big deal in a quest like EOOB where dispel is even more frequent than web.

The 100% offhand attacks for tempest 3 is ar eally big deak that people are really under-estimating because of the double-strike change. In fact, rangers are comparably just as good twf wise as they were prior: before the change they got 5 offhand attacks per cycle to everyone else's 4 (4 main, 5 off due to the bizzare stwf feature of tempest 3). They now get 100% procs to everyone else's 80%, which is still 25% more offhand attacks. While they lost a few offhand attacks to the double strike nerf, they lost far, far less than a twf fighter or paladin!

I would be willing to suggest that this feature alone is probably making up al ot of the damage differential that you're discussing.

I'd suggest that the problem isn't so much with the class mechanically as that there are a lot of particularly obsolete or suboptimal builds due to players that have not adapted well to the game changes. rapier users, icy raiments users, etc have been disadvantaged by the last year of game changes and are no longer well designed characters.



All really good points man and I cant beleive I missed this in my first run through. In fact ur insight throughout the thread has been spot on. Much kudos. If i could give you more rep I would. And thanks to you and gunga for leaping to my defence much appreicated. I might have to take a trip to ghallanda to visit that cretin Gunga you and bacab. :D


Probably my last post in this thread have learnt alot - Thanks guys! Update 7 is looking like alot of fun so il be perusing those threads now hehe.

Tace care

[BossOfEarth]

Hey Dude thx for the reply! It actually gave me a fair few chuckles. Its sorta good to get the imput from someone newish to the game. Only sorta good, or solid sorta good? :p


Do you think many rangers invest in stealth? I dunno about most Rangers but most noob guides recomend no more than a few ranks in move silent and an invis pot.

I took max stealth & silent ranks and got the free Ranger's feat Hide in Plain Sight. I only have minimum Dex for Tempest III (14 stat + 2 enhancement), no stealth gear, no dex gear, and I don't rack cammoflage. But even with that halfhearted attempt I can stealth in Epic!. My ankles flash red occasionaly and the mobs aggro on my location, but as long as the hallway is wide enough I just keep moving and stay out of trouble. Stealthing Epic! VoN is a low hanging fruit for Rangers, but like you said, stealth only rocks situationaly. I think Epic! VoN is the first time I've had a good reason to use stealth since level 8.

[cpito]

I might have to take a trip to ghallanda to visit the cretins Gunga you and bacab. :D

Come to G-land! Meet some smokin' hot rangers! We've got a few :D



(ps fixed that for you ;) )

[first_wolf]

Things that make up for lacking dps on rangers, compared to barbs and fighters:

Spellcasting!

This intire tread only mention maximised cure serius wounds, FoM and resist/protect energy and a little rams might.

What about all the other spells?

Many AC builds include +5 barkskine spells and i havent send that come from potions.

Mass longstrider also helps (some) people run faster and a good spot with a bow eguipted as default can warn everyone about a mob sneaking around ahead bye shotting (and hitting, since i'm dex build).

when i was running around lvl 16-20 i was using around 400 spellpoints just un buffing the party, so i would say that makes up for my missing dps saving the cleric or wizard the trople doing thouse spells, notis that resist energy is considered lvl 1 spell, costing only 10 spellpoints and protect from energy is lvl 2 for rangers (mass protect from elements run out sooner or later)

Also fun shooting off spiked growth and see that 1 digit damage come up together with a "save" word XD

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Hi Ranger players.


N

Hi Nick!

Let's see..

I don't know too many rangers that are still running around with rapiers, except for the dex based ac builds, or the ones who built radiance rapiers way back when, and haven't felt motivated to change those out. Some of those are fine, in that they still have a decent strength score, and they don't take a lot of damage.

But on the whole, most of the rangers that I run with on a regular basis are str based dps builds. They use either khopesh or dwarven axes, or sometimes longswords, depending on the race.

There are also a few decent arcane archers running around that will do some obscene amounts of damage with manyshot up, and then swap back to their melee weapons the rest of the time.

My dex based exploiter/intimidator has been pretty much shelved for a bit now.. Can't really hit the needed ac numbers to be useful in epics without a lot more gear grinding, but is still fairly decent in the non epic quests. I made him to be able to intimidate trash mobs, and do a decent amount of dps on boss mobs through backstab damage, and in that respect he still does okay. I've also done the traps in epic chains of flames, but I'll admit that I'd need some more practice on the trap locations to do it on a regular basis.

My str based dwarf uses dwarven axes, and doesn't have any real problems contributing in epics. Before the last round of weighted changes, I'd just use dual tenderizers when we didn't have a dedicated stunning build or crowd control caster along. Currently, I just target the mobs that others have stunned/held, and beat them down for them. I've definitely noticed the slower attack speeds from the last round of twf'ing changes, but I haven't really noticed mobs going down any slower, so I guess the double strike stuff is working allright.

The reason I still enjoy playing the ranger in epic isn't because of the dps however... It's still because of the flexibility of the build.
Need some dps? I'm there(Not the highest dps unless against favored enemies, but still pretty reasonable).
Need some ranged dps? I'm there.
Need some buffs? Got it.
Need some quick emergency maximized quicked cure serious wounds? Got that too.
Need some sneaking done? Got it.

However, I do admit that I tend to play my caster(or healer) much more often in epic quests than my ranger, but that's more because I (in my own humble opinion :) ) play a **** good caster!

[Peoxly]

Just a quick reply, probably a repetition... but.. ranger in EPIC...

2 heavy pick earthII, DT with guard eartgrab and here u go.. DPS boost and autocritcs x4 ^_^ that s the only way to make melee ranger usefull on epic ;)

[Qezuzu]

There are no weak classes. All classes have abilities that other classes don't that make them useful. Do Rogues have as high HP as Barbarians? No. Can Rogues use heal scrolls easily? Yes.

There ARE, however, weak players who play class X like class Y and don't magnify the strengths of class X. Rangers, though perhaps not as lethal as a Barbarian, have moderate healing abilities (a good friend of mine, a pure ranger, saves Cleric SP in epics by healing after fights), can give out useful buffs like Resists and FoM (thus protecting the Clerics'/Arcanes' more valuable SP), and have some of the best ranging abilities in the game (in close tie with Rogue Mechanics).

Furthermore, a good player who doesn't depend on the numbers can play even the gimpiest toons well. Many useful tactics don't depend on stats or gear, but just on the player's experience. Simply having good gear can make a Ranger far more powerful than a Barbarian with sub-optimal gear.

The prevelant judgements on how useful a class is are often made by those who have never played that class. Rogues have exceptionally high DPS, despite sterotypes contradicting this. Rangers have many strengths that outshine their supposed low-end DPS, despite PUG Raids who exclude them. FvS CAN heal, Clerics can do other things than just heal, and my favorite class, Rogues, are **** useful dammit.

[Alabore]

There are no weak classes.
There ARE, however, weak players who play class X like class Y and don't magnify the strengths of class X.

I tend to agree to a point - after all, that's my motto: "don't sweat numbers, pass the whetstone".

BUT... DDO end-game and epic in particular is not a balanced gaming environment.
Some combinations are not equally viable for some quests.
The underlying issue here is not tweaking classes, but creating more diversity in quests.
Of course, there is also the two-fold matter of vocal minority and ease of coding.

There might be truth in your "weak players" remark, though.
The TR'ed guy who wouldn't stop lecturing me on how gimped my char was, only to end up cluttering my backpack, was really precious.

;)

[Qezuzu]

Well the majority of tokens I got to TR were from Chains of Flame, one of the most brutal epics out there. We were in a staticish group and the leader was a TRed pure ranger. He had dual-GS weapons (A MinII and a LitII I believe) and was just chewing up those Gnolls.

Our group was generally Me (Rogue), Him (Ranger), 2 Arcanes, a Barbarian, and a Cleric. Could we have had a fighter/barbarian instead of a Ranger? Yah sure. But all players were experienced enough that we were able to overcome this supposed "drawback". The Ranger was a very experienced player and knew the quest well. Would a Barbarian have given a bit more DPS? Yah sure. But this slight handicap was far eclipsed by the Ranger Class's other abilities and the player's experience.

Toons are 50% the player behind them, 30% their gear, 10% their stats, and 10% their class. *Their are no weak classes*, Period. In some situations class X is more useful than class Y, but in other situations class Y is far more useful than class X. There are weak builds, there are weak characters, there are shoddily equipped toons, but there is no class superior too the rest in *all* aspects. Many classes are more powerful than the prevelant sterotypes might lead one to believe.

I admit thsi game is mostly combat and requires an emphasis on DPS. But what is the difference between a well-equipped ranger and a well-equipped barbarian? 10%? Even 20%? Does that mean a Barbarian is better? Can a Barbarian (efficiently) self-heal, buff, range, etc? Does a Stone in your bag do more DPS than a ranger who knows how to survive if the healer is unable to heal him at that time?

The misconceptions made by those who have never played the class they criticize make this even worse. Too many "pros" only look at select numbers and conclude class X is superior to class Y because certain numbers are higher, and then disregard the strengths or flexibility class Y inherently has. One misconception I encounter too often is that Rogues aren't DPS, expecially on Harry and Sally and the like. Weapons-grade Bull****. Rogues have exceptionally high DPS, and it will get higher with U7. Not only do they have high DPS, they can self-heal like mad, can resurrect more than once per rest, and not to mention all the generic rogue stuff like screwing with a trap. Another one I see is that FvS can't heal. FvS don't have Radiant Aura, that's about it. They have the same spells and enhancments as Clerics, but they're stuck with only having the spells that actually get used.

[Gunga]

Love Rangers.

Hi Nick.

Whoever negged me for this yesterday, please reply here or just send me a PM.

It would be nicer for the list of people I have to now go through GUESSING who negged me and neg repping all of them.

thx bye

[SiliconShadow]

Mellee rangers:
Epic pros -
A good set of spells and good dps, built correctly won't miss and are reliable to stay alive if things start to head south.

Epic cons -
Heavily dependent on the player, a bad to average player will suck sorry to say an above average to good player will just about cut it, it takes a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of work to shine. They also tend to be squishy as there are quite a few will and fortitude saves to be made, these to stats tend to be around the 20 mark on a ranger unless really pumped and this can be an issue.

Tips -
Build for hp and strength, use picks/khopeshes/dwarven axes OR epic sirroco / limp choppers etc something that will proc a lot vs your enemy with your attack speed that will benefit the party as a whole, remember you need to get your attack rate up above +48 to hit. Humans are best for this choice.

Exploiters:
Epic pros -
Solid, reliable, fast, strong and easy to play. Gear wise they can pretty much do anything but built right with the right weapons thier survivability and damage are just above average.

Epic cons -
Still not the top dps but to combine evasion with good hp, when blurred and stoneskin can out survive any fighter, at max they can match a tank in staying power but still throwing out lower dps meaning the fight will last longer making this crucial.

Tips -
Pretty much the same as rangers but easier to do.

Arcane Rangers:
Epic pros -
Slaying arrows work on everything. Many shot combined with flesh to stone, mass hold etc is unbeatable dps, during this 20 seconds you have the ability of ripping apart the key target held mobs and then maybe 1 or 2 more in the time 3 mellee will go through one. Good useful spells and shouldn't need much healing.

Epic cons -
They pull ALOT of agro making them dangerous to play, with a maxed attack speed it required intimidate or a hold spell to stop the kiting, making it extreme team work for this play to work, but when it does it works well.
The epic AA also takes some work, an elf is best and a even dex/str build a total bow collection for epics can set you back anything up to 30 mill platinum without your greensteel bows purely to squeeze as much dps vs every type of creature you can face as you can.

Tips -
As above your benefit is using 2 handed weapons that take up less bag space than a single weapon, take as many bows as you can aim for one for everything and think about damage, ie dont bother with holy if it is going to be immune or elemental etc and get greater bane bows and greensteel bows, Lightning 2, radiance 2 and triple pos are all worth having and are situational, for the most part lightning 2 only constributes to around 4% of your DPS however used right the other bows can contriubute to alot more. Stay ranged in epics, go mellee your in trouble and hitting wont be easy. Go elf and go balanced strength and dexterity, you need to aim for 32 dex and 34 strength which you need 2 TRs to acheive really, this will give you the right amount of to hit and min damage. (A greater bane bow is better than a insta kill outside of epics and in epics insta kill are useless)

Tips for all -
Your FE feats, tailor them to the gear you are farming, ie I run EDQ, Wiz king a lot but never EDragon so my feats are geared towards outsiders, undead(important anyway bludgeon isnt common for rangers), giants (inc trolls,minos,ogres etc remember that) etc.

Don't skimp when buying weapons, check your DR requirements and cover them from every angle, silver/cold iron is the most common round these parts. Also pure good / anarchic so Chaotic Neutral is more often or not the best way to be. (Portals, Devils, wraiths, blackbones are lawful and Demons are Chaotic but it is easier to find holy of greater evil outsider bane than anything.. then you make your triple pos weapon and it doesn't matter anymore).

Greensteel items is a good way of getting all the bonuses you need but don't forget about epic items, epic sandstorm goggles for example can be built right to free up enough slots elsewhere, 2 tod rings, shav necklace, a shav belt, sos robes (next update no excuse not too) OR epic dragon cloth (http://i153.photobucket.com/albums/s220/jgould2005/DDO/Unlimited/Items/Robes/EpicRedDragonscaleRobe.jpg).

And overall SAVES ARE THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT STAT TO SURVIVE IN EPICS.... HP IS FIRST.

Mellee: 500+ (600+ optimum with extra healing amp)
Ranged 400+ (500+ optimum with extra healing amp)

Have fun guys.

[die]

all i know is kahza is the best toon ive built ledhead the "all con all str fighter barb"cant even come close too the solo ability of kahzadoom, now yes he has more str "base" and more con "base" but kahza still can hit over a 40 str .. i know iknow ... and my hp is well over 500 .. and at the end of every quest ive ever been in im always on top of kills or right thier any , LOL any way i love my str based ranger, i do have a barb "dredking" who rocks also.. but i have to carry a hireling every were i go but thier is no question he is a monster.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Whoever negged me for this yesterday, please reply here or just send me a PM.

It would be nicer for the list of people I have to now go through GUESSING who negged me and just neg repping all of them.

thx bye

Heh..

I don't have enough positive rep to neg rep anyone yet.... :(

[Faent]

When it comes to epic content, there will always be a build that can play whatever role you want that ranger to play better than the ranger can play it. I've completely resigned myself to this fact. Should anyone really care about that fact, when it comes to actually running epic content? No. Why worry about someone else being able to play the DPS role a little bit better than you can play it, especially when playing that role has no bearing on finishing the epic quest quickly? Yeah, theoretically speaking, rangers lose on epic content. They do. Who cares in practice? When it comes to running epic quests, having a ranger dealing DPS as opposed to a barbarian dealing DPS makes little to no interesting difference with respect to completion time or anything else. Nobody really cares, in practice, including the OP. But yes, rangers do lose in epic content, theoretically speaking. If you wanted to put together the most flawless, fantastic, epic run ever, you wouldn't have a ranger in the party. There is nothing that rangers can do to make up for this fact.

[grodon9999]

. . . But yes, rangers do lose in epic content, theoretically speaking. If you wanted to put together the most flawless, fantastic, epic run ever, you wouldn't have a ranger in the party. There is nothing that rangers can do to make up for this fact.

Best way to put it, but who wants to wait an hour for the "perfect" group to form?

Finally got my "Monster" build fighter up to 20 and took him into OoB on Epic last night. We were hardly an "ubber" group by the power-gamers definitions. Was two halfling Clonks, a halfling wisdom-based Monk, a halfling DEX-based tempest-rogue, a Fleshie caster who was an elf, and my 12/6/2 dwarven-monster build. I was the only one who'd even done OOB on epic before but didn't have trouble in the quest. Two deaths on the traps but that was the only time it even got hairy.

The big difference between my fighter and my ranger is stunning-blow. That is really nice especially since I have his DC up to 41-42 without power surge. I only wish the cool-down was shorter . . .

[maddmatt70]

I will not deny it I tend to focus my ranger on the certain quests where I have FE. I consider undead to be pretty poor right now what with only epic wiz king and the red fens ziggarut quest having some undead. Prior to the red fens I had elf, construct, evil outsider, dragon, and giant on my ranger and I ran OOB, Von 3, Von1 and 2, von6 and dq1 and dq2 nearly all the time on my ranger.

Since I rarely run the Vons anymore and I run the red fens more in earnest I will probably drop dragon and pick up monstrous humanoid and maybe drop elf and pick up scorpion or something similiar in the red fens. I think that is what ranger is all about focusing on X number of quests where you have FE it is not like I can not just run another character in a the quests where I do not have FE.

I do not normally pay attention to neg repping, but this has to be the strangest post I have ever gotten neg rep for. It is good strategy to focus on quests where you have your FE especially if you have multiple characters. I will run my fighter almost definitely in dungeons where I do not have FE at least if I have that option.

[grodon9999]

I do not normally pay attention to neg repping, but this has to be the strangest post I have ever gotten neg rep for. It is good strategy to focus on quests where you have your FE especially if you have multiple characters. I will run my fighter almost definitely in dungeons where I do not have FE at least if I have that option.

+ rep to even it out. That simply makes no sense.

[Nick_RC]

I do not normally pay attention to neg repping, but this has to be the strangest post I have ever gotten neg rep for. It is good strategy to focus on quests where you have your FE especially if you have multiple characters. I will run my fighter almost definitely in dungeons where I do not have FE at least if I have that option.

Nother + to better it. People are just silly sometimes.

[NaturalHazard]

(what could turbine do? to make rangers more viable in epic?)

[Osharan_Tregarth]

(what could turbine do? to make rangers more viable in epic?)

Hard to say, really. Anything they do to balance them out better in the quests without favored enemies, will put them back to being overpowered in quests with favored enemies.

Right now their main strength is in flexibility, and that's not really the best option for a lot of epic quests where extreme specialization is the best way to run them.

[grodon9999]

Hard to say, really. Anything they do to balance them out better in the quests without favored enemies, will put them back to being overpowered in quests with favored enemies.

Right now their main strength is in flexibility, and that's not really the best option for a lot of epic quests where extreme specialization is the best way to run them.

The real answer is to make the quests less ********. Let's see what happens in the epic "reboot" they are planning.

[smithtj3]

Best way to put it, but who wants to wait an hour for the "perfect" group to form?

Dare you speak of the perfect group?! IT DOES NOT EXIST I TELL YOU! Such a thing has only been mentioned by some wise person in a movie starring George Clooney and boat.

I think when you form the perfect group the highlander and the A Team break into your house and Mr. T punches you until you start playing WoW.

[NaturalHazard]

dare You Speak Of The Perfect Group?! It Does Not Exist I Tell You! Such A Thing Has Only Been Mentioned By Some Wise Person In A Movie Starring George Clooney And Boat.

I Think When You Form The Perfect Group The Highlander And The A Team Break Into Your House And Mr. T Punches You Until You Start Playing Wow.

I Pity Da Fool!!!

[FengXian]

(what could turbine do? to make rangers more viable in epic?)

They could make the capstone work as it should :P

Seriously I don't feel like rangers need to be more viable, it really depends on the player and on the gear. I have no problems staying in the top-killer zone, and since mass hold is the way to do epics now, rangers are hardly inferior to any other dps class. Tempests can deal a lot of damage with picks or even khopeshes while AA's hit 2/3 mobs per time with improved precise shot being able to keep up even during manyshot cooldowns. Evasion is very nice for survivability as well as self buffs like fom/resists when u get dispelled. Being more self sufficient than a barb can really help sometimes.

[Arcaenium]

As an exploiter, i treat epics like i treat training dummies, some stunning 10/dr breaking handwraps, haste, rogue haste boost, lesser storm stance, and all the lovely two weapon fighting feats...does rpetty well...also, when using my khopesh's i crit very often, and just know when to back off so as not to pull aggro. fast attack speed, with good gear, you can survive more than well enough, with good planning you can get the traps, and with the sneak attack bonus from the rogue level i'd say as a tempest explouiter (or even ranger for that matter) flanking dps is good. "suppoirt" as opposed to "main" dps. it's nice in non epics too to spam tab and watch everything around you drastically lose heath for others to finish off.

However, if (as it is the case in some circles) a support toon is mnot tolerated and you must come in with yopur best solo toon, then rangers well....better be **** good players......

[WruntJunior]

As an exploiter, i treat epics like i treat training dummies, some stunning 10/dr breaking handwraps, haste, rogue haste boost, lesser storm stance, and all the lovely two weapon fighting feats...does rpetty well...also, when using my khopesh's i crit very often, and just know when to back off so as not to pull aggro. fast attack speed, with good gear, you can survive more than well enough, with good planning you can get the traps, and with the sneak attack bonus from the rogue level i'd say as a tempest explouiter (or even ranger for that matter) flanking dps is good. "suppoirt" as opposed to "main" dps. it's nice in non epics too to spam tab and watch everything around you drastically lose heath for others to finish off.

However, if (as it is the case in some circles) a support toon is mnot tolerated and you must come in with yopur best solo toon, then rangers well....better be **** good players......

Awesome necro.

Aside from that, rangers are awesome in epics....assuming they're decently geared and played by people who know how to play them....just like any class (barbarians played by idiots are hilariously bad, as many people know, for example).

[Malky]

Awesome necro.

Only 2 years old, he could really have done better :D

[WruntJunior]

Only 2 years old, he could really have done better :D

My best necro is only a few months. By comparison, his is awesome. Doesn't quite live up to the...4 year(?) one of late, though. :P

[goodspeed]

this has inspired me to find the most awesomest necro of all!!

[Zyerz]

Ranger is my favourite class. Mainly because of his all around type survivability. I play tempests (I have an AA but I dont really like ranging much at all). I can run quests on any difficulty and if the whole group wipes, I'm usually the last one alive and mostly I end up saving them. (Due to decent saving throws)

As for epic, I aint the super mega dps build that most other classes can be, but I deal a decent amount of dmg and rarely miss. I self heal quite well, and I can support heal when necessary. Also, my AC hangs in the 50's, and buffed With a pally around I can get to 60.
In my opinion, rangers are a great all around class.