aggro management with ranged weapons

[Slapphappy]

With my ranger (and my bard with a repeater) I like to kill things without getting much aggro. In the opinion of the uber-rangers out there, is it a better habit to focus on one enemy with a ranged weapon until they are dead... or to shoot once at a bunch of targets so as not to hurt any one too much?

Thanks!

[Zenako]

Rule of thumb for playing a ranged attacker. Only shoot what you expect to kill. If you shoot them all, you had better expect to kill them all.

Best advice is to be selective. Pick out the enemy casters and target them. They are the most deadly foes. Take them out and the grunts should be easy. Now mob mentality being what it is, once you hit one and it comes your way, all its friends in the area will also come your way too.

[Elleron]

Rangers are cool as they can bring some really good things to the group.

Using a cursespewing bow or slaying arrows are a cool way to go.
2 things

1. A good way to not get aggro is to attack an enemy that a fighter type is already hitting on (kind of like what mages will do to keep aggro down). AI sometimes gets confused when attacked but multiple targets. Should I choose the fighter that keeps hitting me, or that mage that just burnt my britches?

2. Also using paralyzers to set up the fighter types is cool too.

Happy Hunting.

[redoubt]

Ell has it there.

I have a capped ranger and a capped sorc that I play a lot and I'm building a melee bard.

With my ranger (dex/finesse build) I seldom kill at range. When I do, its usually with my paralizer and I just take my time. Or sometimes I will kite. Both of these are things I do mostly solo. In groups when I'm ranging I do one of a couple of things.
1. Pull mobs to the group of melees. This means I stand with the melees and I DO NOT run away when the mobs arrive.
2. I stat and/or debuff everything. (Includes paralizing.)
My ranger can get over a 50 AC so I can swap to melee and stand there swinging till the melee or a caster pull the agro off of me. (Then I get backstab damage! )

So why did I mention the sorc? He handles agro a little different. He is more the, only hit it if I can kill it type. (Can also apply to rangers.) If I don't think it will be dead before it gets to me, I let the melee start first. If need be I can help with DPS after they have good agro/worked off enough HP that I know it won't get to me before it dies.

The bard if there as an example of what happens if you miss manage agro. As I've been leveling him, I've been in with a lot of rangers. Many will do enough damage before the mob gets to me that the one swing I get on the way by does not pull the agro away. That leave me (or any other melee you are with) two choices...
1. Chase the mob around and probably never hit it (unless you stop moving.) or...
2. Let it go and hope you don't die. I've been doing this a lot lately. I tend to just pick one of the other mobs that came with the first one to kill.

Of course if you kite back to the melees, I'm sure most will help you out... but if you kite away from the melee... you need to be ready to kill it yourself.