Newbie questions about Rangers

[sirmorte]

<p>I had a few questions for your experienced Rangers out there.</p><p>1. Are rangers desired in groups?</p><p>2. With Necros, tney can feign death to avoid aggros. Some classes have strong armor. What does a ranger do if he/she gets aggroed?</p><p> 3. How survivable are rangers?</p><p>4. Are they good soloers in both forests and dungeons?</p><p>5. What are the primary stats for rangers/assassin?</p><p>6. What race would meet these stats best and have other good attributes for rangers?</p><p>Thanks.</p>

[Zaurus]

<cite>sirmorte wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I had a few questions for your experienced Rangers out there.</p><p>1. Are rangers desired in groups?</p><p>2. With Necros, tney can feign death to avoid aggros. Some classes have strong armor. What does a ranger do if he/she gets aggroed?</p><p> 3. How survivable are rangers?</p><p>4. Are they good soloers in both forests and dungeons?</p><p>5. What are the primary stats for rangers/assassin?</p><p>6. What race would meet these stats best and have other good attributes for rangers?</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote><p>1. Yes, all groups need DPS and rangers are very good at that.</p><p>2. Rangers wear chain armor, the second best kind of armor in the game (plate being the best of course). Also they have decent (not great) avoidance, and they have 2 threat reducing abilities as well as an always on buff that reduces the amount of threat that all our attacks generate by a certain percentage (which is getting nerfed in the next game update). Also, they have an offensive and defensive stance, so if you do get aggro you can switch to defensive quickly which will help you survive at the cost of DPS (of course you don't really want to be doing damage anyway if you get aggro cause that would only make it harder for you to lose that aggro).</p><p>3. See number 2.</p><p>4. Rangers are probably one of the hardest classes to solo with because most of our really good attacks need to be used from a distance. But that doesn't mean they suck at soloing though, they can solo pretty well actually but it just takes a good bit more skill and strategy.</p><p>5. I would say AGI and STR. A lot of people will say INT too for your poison damage, but I've never noticed that much of a difference when increasing my INT. If you plan on raiding you might want a second opinion on that. I don't raid much, but AGI and STR seems to help me the most when soloing and grouping. STA is a good 4th choice too just for the extra HP boost which will help increase your survivability.</p><p>6. Race does not matter at all at higher levels. The little differences that there are won't be noticed. It's best to play whatever race you would like to look at for a long time. Though if you must know, Wood Elves get a +2% ranged crit chance as a racial trait choice. It's not that big a deal though. Kerras probably have the best AGI / STR combination for a predator...plus they are just cool. <img src="/smilies/b2eb59423fbf5fa39342041237025880.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[Deterre]

You should pick wood elf for the ranged crit. Scout equipment (and your shroud of forest type buffs) gives so much AGI anyway that you won't be worrying about it. In terms of priority for me it's STR > INT > AGI, although due to equipment and buffs INT is always the lowest in practice.

[Vatec]

<cite>sirmorte wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I had a few questions for your experienced Rangers out there.</p><p>1. Are rangers desired in groups?</p><p>2. With Necros, tney can feign death to avoid aggros. Some classes have strong armor. What does a ranger do if he/she gets aggroed?</p><p> 3. How survivable are rangers?</p><p>4. Are they good soloers in both forests and dungeons?</p><p>5. What are the primary stats for rangers/assassin?</p><p>6. What race would meet these stats best and have other good attributes for rangers?</p><p>Thanks.</p></blockquote>1. Sure. We do good damage. 2. A. Don't get aggroed in the first place by using stealth. B. Run using superior movement skills (Pathfinding + enhancement from Agility AA line + enhanced Pathfinding AA line). C. Evac to zone entrance using Escape. 3. We're no tanks, but we can survive a fair number of hits, especially in defensive stance. 4. Frankly, IMO, we suck soloing anywhere that restricts our line of sight. That includes both forests and dungeons. We can still do it, but it's annoying. Thundering Steppes and Zek ftw ;^) 5. STR, AGI, STA. In fact, I'd even say STR, STA, AGI, because we get plenty of AGI from gear and most rangers I've met pursue the Agility AA line anyway. STA = hit points, which is good for soloing. I've had more than enough fights that went down to the wire with both the mob and myself deep in the red. In situations like those, another 50 or 100 health can make the difference. Poisons work just fine without the minor increase due to INT. 6. Wood Elf is the "best" because of the +2% ranged crit chance.  As for stats, they'll be quickly overshadowed by gear, so in that respect any race will work just fine.

[FiveFootStep]

Don't listen to these kids, go arasi/fay for the cool racial traits! Who needs ranged crit when you can freaking glide!

[Shallow]

<cite>FiveFootStep wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't listen to these kids, go arasi/fay for the cool racial traits! Who needs ranged crit when you can freaking glide! </blockquote>No need to glide, we have safe fall <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Gareorn]

<cite>sirmorte wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I had a few questions for your experienced Rangers out there.</p><p><span style="color: #009900">My opinons are in green</span></p><p>1. Are rangers desired in groups?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">Yes. As long as you hold up your end and do good DPS, you'll always find a group.</span></p><p>2. With Necros, tney can feign death to avoid aggros. Some classes have strong armor. What does a ranger do if he/she gets aggroed?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">Run to the MT while casting elude and sureillance and hope the MT gets aggro back before you die.  Draw aggro too often and you'll see your desirability for groups start to drop.  It's best to have good aggro control from the start so you don't get aggro.</span></p><p> 3. How survivable are rangers?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">We typically wear chain, so in groups we do pretty well.  In raids, chain is one of the worst for survivabilty.  Not strong enough to take more than a couple hits and it has poor resistance to magical attacks.  Compounding the problem, scout armour very seldom has + wisdom.  Until you get some decent fabled items, the AE's will tear you up.  But for most encounters you can stay outside of AE range anyway, so this is very situational.</span></p><p>4. Are they good soloers in both forests and dungeons?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">Open areas, we do well in.  Dungeons, not so much.  Just not enough room to move around.</span></p><p>5. What are the primary stats for rangers/assassin?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">Primary stat is STR, it determines the damage of your auto attacks and Combat Arts.  STR and AGI make up your power pool, plus AGI helps with avoidance.  INT determines the damage of your poisons and magical damage procs.  STA is good for taking beatings and WIS is good for magical resists.</span></p><p>6. What race would meet these stats best and have other good attributes for rangers?</p><p><span style="color: #009900">If you intend on raiding, Wood Elf for the +2 to range crits.  If not raiding, it doesn't matter.  Heck, even if you are raiding, it really still doesn't matter.  The +2 doesn't make that much of a difference in the end.</span></p><p><span style="color: #009900">These are my opinions and they are only opinions.  We don't all think a like, but the nice thing about being a Ranger is that you can really personalize your own play style.  Most other classes don't have this kind of flexibility.</span></p></blockquote>

[FiveFootStep]

<cite>Shallow wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>FiveFootStep wrote:</cite><blockquote>Don't listen to these kids, go arasi/fay for the cool racial traits! Who needs ranged crit when you can freaking glide! </blockquote>No need to glide, we have safe fall <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </blockquote>True for you maybe... But as for me, I am on a pvp server, and that means that the beauty in glide isn't avoiding damage, but in getting to places that are otherwise unaccessible... Sure you can get the jump boots, but there are several places that I like getting up to that I have to be going at 70%+ run speed to get to, and that is a lot easier to do when I can use jboots. So until I get my fae wing cloak I am regretting not being a fay/arasi the whole way.

[gfx]

I don't know about you guys, but if you say that Rangers can't solo in dungeons then you probably have to reroll or something. Rangers are easy to solo with, in open areas and dungeons.

[Gareorn]

Vinasaar@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote>I don't know about you guys, but if you say that Rangers can't solo in dungeons then you probably have to reroll or something. Rangers are easy to solo with, in open areas and dungeons.</blockquote>Nobody said they "Can't" solo in dungeons, only that it's more difficult than in open areas.   /boggle

[gfx]

not as difficult as you guys make it sound like..

[BlueFalcon13]

Vinasaar@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote>not as difficult as you guys make it sound like..</blockquote> if we are all wrong, please do tell us how, not just "you are wrong." i for one find it alot easier to solo in open areas, compared to say cliffs in BBM as you dont need to worry as much about what ledge you are up against, or which one you are about to fall off, but it is do-able, just not easiest.

[gfx]

Well, I've never tried to solo in BBM, since I'm level 70, but yeah, it is EASIER to solo in open areas, no doubt about it, but it's not THAT hard to solo, say nest, sanctum, uhm.. you name it.

[FiveFootStep]

Yeah, I've never done SoS, but I solo nest every now and then, but I am a very social person, so I usually bring along someone else just to make it go faster and to have someone to talk to lol. I dont have any problems soloing it, it just goes faster when I have a buddy with me to help pass the time.

[gfx]

I talk to myself ... <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Gareorn]

Vinasaar@Nagafen wrote: <blockquote>Well, I've never tried to solo in BBM, since I'm level 70, but yeah, it is EASIER to solo in open areas, no doubt about it, but it's not THAT hard to solo, say nest, sanctum, uhm.. you name it.</blockquote><p>Ahhh... I see you are talking about soloing greens and low blues.  I just assumed that he was talking about soloing level appropriate mobs (white/yellow) because that's what I solo'd when I was coming up through the ranks.  Back in the day, greens and blues gave almost no experience, but that has since been changed.</p><p>In the open, I could take down white heroics and yellow non-heroics quite easily because I had the space to use all my skills.  Trying to take these same mobs on in dungeons is much more difficult.  It just depends on your perspective I guess.</p>