Old Ranger coming back..

[Rian18]

<div>Hey guys,</div><div> </div><div>Well after playing WoW for about a year and doign the whole high end raiding thing, i've gotten a bit bored with it and restarted my EQII account.   Some of you may remember me, I wrote a little guide on how to kite a while back (hehe I learned this is a bad thing to try now).  Well anyway I logged on Nial my 37 Ranger last night and was stunned at all the changes.  </div><div> </div><div>So who can fill me in on exactly what I missed.  I quickly learned that gone are the days of kiting Red ^^^.   My first attempt at that on a greenblood bouncer in Feerotte had me reaching for my escape key.</div><div> </div><div>So as far as I can tell all our ranged CA's except the sniping shot line can no longer be feared while moving.  That makes me sad =(.   </div><div>On the other hand I found that just straight up solo'ing equal level or so mobs seems to be much easier.</div><div> </div><div>Is this true as a whole?  I solo or duo with my brother a Zerker quite a bit, so we need to find content that will allow us to do so.</div><div> </div><div>Also whats the deal with the new CA's?  Most of my current Ca's are all Adept III, but I was flooded with a host of new ones.  Do the new Aggro reduction CA's like Slip (i think it was called) scale up where its worth upgrading them?   Or are they still not worth it like evade used to be?  What about the offense and defense stances adroit and arrow flurry?  At a quick look they looked pretty good but do they really make any dps difference in practice?  Also I noticed that we now have an ability which gives a base aggro reduction (23% I think)?  Is this a constant effect causing all attacks to be less aggro?</div><div> </div><div>Anyway these are just a couple questions, I'm sure you guys have all discussed a million times, parsed and found answers too.  I'd test it all myself  but figured i'd come here first. </div><div> </div><div>Thanks for all your help guys and see you all in came.</div><div> </div><div>NIal Bladestorm</div><div>Antonia Bayle</div><div> </div><div>Btw- I dueled my brother a 36 Zerker a few times last night and all I can say is [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn].  He couldn't even touch me and a quick Snipingshot/OpenShot/Tripleshot combo left him helpless.  We were both out of practice but it looks like I'm really going to love playing my ranger again.  Maybe even more then before.</div>

[Ranja]

<div></div><p>Hey Hey Great to have you back Nial! You are in for a great surprise because we Rangers are now top tier DPS machines. Arguably the best DPS in the game. So much has changed for us I don't know where to start but you are going to be super happy about all the changes.</p><p><strong>Offensive/Defensive Stances:</strong>Arrow Flurry is a proc that you should always have up except when the mob closes on you. But, that won't happen alot since they will be dead most of the time <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> . If you have swindler's luck up with the defensive stance it all but negates the negative hit to the stats so it is not that bad. I switch to this only when I am hurting and the mob is beating on me. I honestly don't use it that much. The offensive stance is awesome though and really ups your DPS.</p><p><strong>Concentration Slots:</strong>We now have concentration slot CAs. Dance of leaves line should always be up which takes a concentration slot. We also ahve primal agility which is a permanent aggro reducer which also takes a concentration slot. Alwasy have this up when grouping and use your de-aggro skills - slip and surveil. Aggro mgt for tanks is much harder now and we as DPS must be very careful.</p><p><strong>Kiting</strong>Kiting is not dead just it does not work the way we used to do it. Kiting is not that necessary anymore because we are so [Removed for Content] powerful. But, you can autoattack while you kite and snare when it is up. The only lines that can be used while moving is Storm of Arrows (50) and the debilitating arrow line. But, with our new offensive stance which procs and posions which proc off of autoattack, you don;t need CAs while kiting.</p><p>You came back at the right time. Rangers are at their height of power. Also, at 52 we get thorny trap which traps gruop of mobs and roots them. Stream of Arrows at 55 which allows us to shoot an arrow every 1.5 seconds for 30 seconds even when meleeing. Uber skill that allows us to solo ^^^. And at 58  we get sniper shot, which does 4400-8800 damage ,plus blur, knockdown, and stun. Yes, it is certainly a good time to be a ranger.</p><p>Get yourself an imbued bow and go to town!</p><p>Elbryan60 RangerBlind GuardiansEverfrost</p><p> </p>

[Zholain]

<font size="2">The only thing I would add is Cheap Shot.  It actually works now and is our primary tool for soloing.  Guaranteed 6 second stun on anything even con with no arrows or below.  2 seconds for anything with one ^ or above. But most of all, WELCOME BACK !!!!  I remember the day you posted 'A Guide to Kiting', and there's no way you could comprehend how many rangers you've helped with that guide.  <span>:womanvery-happy:</span>You'll absolutely love your ranger now.</font><div></div>

[xandez]

WB! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Only thing i would add to previous posts is that our snares indeed work now as they should. You prolly remember they were quite useless before, now they arent... And even after they raised the casting time on triple shot and took away that it cant be fire on the moved, i still love the CA <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />++Xan<div></div>

[GoNom]

<div></div><p>I posted this i a similart thread, the player it was geared towards was level 44, most of the information will be usefull to you, just bear in mind that the CA's will be a little different, but you should still be able to apply most of it.</p><p> </p><p>Kiting is not dead, its alive and well, while you won't be kiting Red ^^^, White and Yellow ^^^ are well withing expectations, and I can handle them regularly. </p><p>---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Not a whole lot has changed strategy wise, we are still dependant on our 1 stun, when it comes to soloing.  My strategy at 55 will be greatly different from yours do to the level 52 CA Thorny Trap, everything changes when you get that.  But I will try my best to scale this to level 44.  I am going to offer 2 "guides"  One for soloing no-arrow and down arrow mobs.  And an intro to kiting, everyone feel free to of course add to this.</p><div> </div><div>Regardless of Mobs let me start off stating that you should already be buffed with a good T5 legendary Poison, (I Prefer the high DD low DoT poisons, but use which ever you enjoy more) Veil of the Forest and Arrow Frenzy (level 45).  Veil is you agility and in combat run speed buff, Arrow Frenzy is an offensive stance that has a 30% chance to launch an additional attack doing about 200 damage everytime you succesfully hit a mob with an arrow, this is critical because in our multi arrow CA's this often results in 4-6 hits plus 1 or 2 poison procs.  It should be on at all times, end of story.</div><div> </div><div>Solo Mobs. (note:  yellow cons are as easy as blue cons and offer slightly better XP)</div><div> </div><div>Start by trying to position yourself behind the bob, at full bow Range.  You have an ability called Culling the Herd, its a great skill and I recommend upgrading to at least Adept 1, preferablty adept 3.  Does decent Damage plus snares the mob, carefull the snare effect of this spell seems to break alot on me, so after you launch it, your next normal bow shot may break the snare making the encounter a "little" tougher, but not deadly by any stretch.</div><div> </div><div>Now the mob is running towards you and is snared about 40% - while he is coming in on you, as fast as culling has gone off you should already have queue'd Sharp Shot, level 44 CA, I say this one and not Triple fire because the cast time is slightly less and you will almost always get it off before the mob gets to you.  With those 2 CA's and the combination of Arrow Frenzy (see above) and poison procs the mob is most likely getting to you Orange/Red health - If the mob resisted or mitigated the arrow shots and is still some what healthy, you have to revert to stuns to burn it down.  Once the mob is in range, stun it.  The stun now lasts 4-6 seconds on solo mobs regardless wether you hit it or not, that was a big change in our favor, you are probably used to having the stun pooched because you didn't turn off auto melee, this is no longer the case, ample time to get off Triple Fire (level 42 CA).  If you are fast enough, which you will be with some practice you will even be able to get off the backstab combo.  Which for you will be pouncing attack untill you get Long Shank at elvel 49.  Open with pouncing attack, then follow with Crippling blade.  If the mob is still alive after all of that, the just melee burn it. </div><div> </div><div>Note:  Don't forget to use your Rip/Tear line as often as possible to recover some arrows, Dirty Tricks lines is also a nice debuff, and spam in HO's when melee burning to make it a little quicker.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Luadiane's  Kiting Guide to Heroic encounters:</div><div> </div><div>See above for propper pre-buffing, making sure that you have at least 3 stacks of arrows in your quiver at all times while kiting, Losing arrows mid-kite is a great way to get smoked.  I am going to break this down a little different then I did with the solo mobs.</div><div> </div><div>Snares:  Critical to kiting, you can no longer spam all of your Ranged CA's while running, SOE nerfed that a while ago.  So now you have to snare the mob, get max distance and stop running to land your big hitters on a mob, before it gets to you and tears you limb from limb.</div><div>          </div><div>            <u><strong> Level 44 CA leg shot</strong> </u>- Cannot be used on the run - Snares for 40-50% depending on level of spell.  Master I snares for 60%.</div><div>           </div><div>            <u><strong>Level 37 CA - Entrap </strong>-</u>  This can be used on the run, very important, while kiting heroics you need to spam this as often as it refreshes, it will be your primary defense of keeping mobs off of you.</div><div> </div><div>           <u><strong>Level 42 CA - Culling the Herd</strong> </u>- This can be used on the run, but by some fricken sick joke, you have to be behind the mob, so in a kiting situation it is only usefull to open the kite</div><div> </div><div>Stuns:  You can use stuns against heroics, but I would not trust them, they only last for about 2 seconds, or as soon as you hit the mob (again this only applies to Heroics).  But it is a good emergency method of getting a mob off of you if your waiting on snare to refresh.</div><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Typical Kite for me. </div><div> </div><div>1. pick your environment well and learn it well, know where the aggro mobs are.  be wary of any pitfalls you may run into, obstacles that will stop you, etc.</div><div>2. Pick your prey well, exploit single mob ^^^ encounters, I prefer Blue and white cons, as they kill faster, but to each thier own.</div><div> </div><div>Open with the same method I outlined in the Solo guide, Culling the herd, you are off to a good start because you have done some decent DD and have started the encounter of by snaring the mob.  Instead of following that with Sharp Shot, use Leg Shot, remember the snare effect on Culling is about the most unreliable, leg shot is the polar opposite, it rarely breaks for me. </div><div> </div><div>Start kiting, keep auto attacking with bow.  You have 1 ability at this point that can be used while running, unfortunately it has a 90 second recast, so because of that you want to get it off early in the kite.  Crippling Arrow, this deals medium damage (prolly 300-400) and debuffs melee mitigation, another bonus.  Fire this off now, follow it with Dirty Tricks, to finish the debuff off.</div><div> </div><div>By this time, leg shot has probably worn off, and the mob is now in a full sprint towards you, they will catch you now unless they are resnared, this is what entrap is for.  At full bow range the mob is too far away for it, so sucker him in a little bit, and as soon as it lights up, nail the mob wit it.</div><div> </div><div>You should start getting further and further away, you will learn over time how much distance you need to get off the 2 big hitters we can use from the front of mobs, Triple Fire and Sharp Shot, learn to gauge it and learn to time it right so it doesn't get interupted.  its a finesse thing you will master with practice.  The idea is simple, while the mob is snared, get into a safe distance, stop running backwards, launch Sharp Shot / Triple Fire, either one, but only time for 1 at a time, then high tail it out of range.  Rinse and repeat this method untill the mobs is dead.</div><div> </div><div>Note: You also have to melee abilities - Deadly Reminder and Blazing thrust that have "extended" Range, and can be used while on the go.  If you use them, remember this will switch your auto ranged to auto melee, swith it back.</div><div> </div><div>Again this is just the basics, you will need to practice kiting alot before you get the hang of it, play with your skills, start off by kiting solo mobs, to get the jist of it, then graduate up to Green heroics, once you get it down, you'll be surprised of the effeciency, plus all those group drops you get to pirate for yourself.</div><div> </div><div>This gets a lot easier when you ding 50, you get storm of arrows, which does huge damage, 2k+ and can be used on the run.  Then gets easier again at 52 - Thorny trap, summons a little trap on the ground, that roots / Snares the mob for an undeterminalble period of time, but allows us the chance to really rip apart a mob at the beginning of a kite if it hold for more then 5 seconds.</div><div> </div><div>Final note, don't even bother attempting to kite Epic encounters, unsnarable = whack - whack - dead Ranja</div><div> </div><div>The class is unbelievable.   my max Parsed DPS thus far is about 1700 at level 55, but that is pefect scenerio, but probably can maintain, normal group DPS of about 700-900.  Thats per second, we have CA's that do in excess for 3k total.  I dueled a swashy the other day, he had 3900 HP's, and once I got him stunned all it took was Sharp Shot and Triple Fire to kill him, with poison procs and Arrow Frenzy procs.  Thats 4000 damage in about 5 seconds of cast times. </div><div> </div><div>Personally I got bored of the class as you probably did and started alts, and eventually left for 3 months.  I am back and am enjoying my Ranger more then at any point since launch.  We're monsters and the envy of every other DPS class. </div><div> </div><div>Good luck hope this helps.</div>

[xandez]

<div></div><blockquote><hr>GoNomar wrote:<div></div><div><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font>The stun now lasts 4-6 seconds on solo mobs regardless wether you hit it or not, that was a big change in our favor<font color="#ff9900">Note: The stun lasts for 6s IF the mob has no up-arrows, if the mob has up-arrows, teh stun lasts for 2s.</font><font color="#ff9900"></font>you are probably used to having the stun pooched because you didn't turn off auto melee, this is no longer the case, ample time to get off Triple Fire (level 42 CA). If you are fast enough, which you will be with some practice you will even be able to get off the backstab combo. Which for you will be pouncing attack untill you get Long Shank at elvel 49. Open with pouncing attack, then follow with Crippling blade. If the mob is still alive after all of that, the just melee burn it.<font color="#ff9900">Note: Against mobs with up-arrows, if you find difficult to launch triple fire after your cheap shot (i do atleast, thats why i usually use the open shot line... heh), SNARE the mob before you stun it, then after stun take a few steps MORE back than usual (for extended range), then you should be able to shoot triple shot easily.</font><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font></div><div></div><div></div><div>Stuns: You can use stuns against heroics, but I would not trust them, they only last for about 2 seconds, or as soon as you hit the mob (again this only applies to Heroics). But it is a good emergency method of getting a mob off of you if your waiting on snare to refresh.<font color="#ff9900">Note: This depends on the mobs lvl and type, but i many times use the 2s stun from the cheap shot with the open shot line CA, its quite reliable actually... just that if the mob is powerful enough, wouldnt do it (ie. a white or bigger named (or regular) +++ mob)</font><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div></div><div>1. pick your environment well and learn it well, know where the aggro mobs are. be wary of any pitfalls you may run into, obstacles that will stop you, etc.2. Pick your prey well, exploit single mob ^^^ encounters, I prefer Blue and white cons, as they kill faster, but to each thier own.<font color="#ff9900">Note: this is quite crucial info! <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></font></div><div><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font></div><div></div><div>Open with the same method I outlined in the Solo guide, Culling the herd, you are off to a good start because you have done some decent DD and have started the encounter of by snaring the mob. Instead of following that with Sharp Shot, use Leg Shot, remember the snare effect on Culling is about the most unreliable, leg shot is the polar opposite, it rarely breaks for me.<font color="#ff9900">Yeah, culling + legshot is a good starter combo</font></div><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font><div></div><div>Note: You also have to melee abilities - Deadly Reminder and Blazing thrust that have "extended" Range, and can be used while on the go. If you use them, remember this will switch your auto ranged to auto melee, swith it back.<font color="#ff9900"></font><font color="#ff9900">Yeah, the DoT these give are not that bad, use em, and indeed remember to switch back to rangedautoattack (i quite often dont <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)!</font></div><div></div><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font><div>Then gets easier again at 52 - Thorny trap, summons a little trap on the ground, that roots / Snares the mob for an undeterminalble period of time, but allows us the chance to really rip apart a mob at the beginning of a kite if it hold for more then 5 seconds.<font color="#ff9900">Yeah, the trap kinda rocks... eheh.</font></div><div></div><font color="#ff9900">*CLIP*</font><div></div><div>Personally I got bored of the class as you probably did and started alts, and eventually left for 3 months. I am back and am enjoying my Ranger more then at any point since launch. We're monsters and the envy of every other DPS class.<font color="#ff9900">I've played our class nearly since the launch, and have to say that now we just rock compared to the earlier ranger, thou i liked it then already... hehe.</font></div><div></div><div>Good luck hope this helps.</div><font color="#ff9900">Happy hunting!</font><hr></blockquote><font color="#ff9900">++Xan</font>