Question for all you rangers

[Elcarim]

Been trying to find a way to maximize my DPS as a Ranger in raids. Parsing around 1000 to 1400 to me simply isn't good enough. I've the <span class="postbody">Ancestral Sarnak War Bow and nearly all my ranged attacks are master I.  Now from what I'm reading to maximize your DPS its a simple matter of timing. After haste my bow has a 4.7 second delay which means I can safely get most CAs off between each AA. But in long fights this leaves you after a few rounds waiting on skills to recharge and leaving you with nothing but AA until then.  Would it be best to use a CA on every other AA on long fights? Also I understand that buffs are rather important, ie. Illusionary Arm, STR buffs, haste/dps. But these aren't always possible seeing as Rangers tend to be put into groups with the left overs.  So I ask, is 1000 to 1400 dps about right for having no buffs other than self, or should I be parsing higher, between 1500 and 2000 every fight? My gears alright, my AA are set up correctly (maxed int/agi lines, double arrow & extensions with enhance: caustic poison... took enhance: pathfinding over enhance: snaring shot however), and I've around 600str... I've a 28dps mod from armor as well, and 70 haste. Back in the AA I'm thinking about getting rid of Intoxication and putting the extra AA points into INT Any info back would be splendid. Thanks. P.S. I'm sure this has been talked about more than once, but I couldn't find anything on the subject worth reading.</span>

[Elcarim]

Something else I'm thinking about as well... Being as the only thing we need spell crit for are poisons, would it be better to take the str line?  Honestly, you get higher str, melee crit chance and it lowers the reuse time on Sniper Shot and Rain of Arrows which are a rather powerful attacks.  Mind I only use Sniper Shot as an opening attack.

[Stubbadub]

I would recommend keeping intox as you can get more int from adornments. Just before the tank pulls i tend to hit my intox and have Poison Combo macro'd to go off with my Mortal Reminder, so i start with AA then confounding arrow to give the tank some help then run in and hit mortal to get a DoT on the mob with intox. The poison combo hits straight after my intox'd mortal and lowers the mobs resistance to all the consecutive intox ticks.What arrows are you using? What poisons?

[Deterre]

<span class="postbody">I use Ghostly Bow of Bylze (level 59 treasured) with adamantine arrows (make sure you are using the highest level arrows possible, by the way).Self buffed (which is usually the case in pickup raids <img src="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />) I get 1500-2100+ DPS per fight, with my ZW something like 1600-1700+Some stuff that I do (not in order or anything, just general stuff):- Try to use Intoxication on the mob sometime near the beginning of the fight- Use ranged auto attack as much as possible- Use CAs in between auto attacks so that I don't miss any- When I don't have any ranged CAs up I use melee CAs (but I still ranged auto attack as much as possible)- I use the temp buffs when they are up - they really are a ridiculously good boost.Oh, and don't get STR, that's a really crap line, get AGI and INT (and multishot and focusing).</span>

[Gareorn]

<cite>Elcarim@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote><span class="postbody">Also I understand that buffs are rather important, ie. Illusionary Arm, STR buffs, haste/dps. But these aren't always possible seeing as <b>Rangers tend to be put into groups with the left overs</b>.  </span></blockquote><p>I'd have to give this some thought, but right up front I must say that this is most likely the largest contrubuting factor to your problem.  But there is something more too.  A Ranger with an ASWB and all masters should be able to break 1400 regardless of group set up.</p><p>Work on the most obvious first.  Get yourself in the scout group.  You should see a significant improvment in your DPS if you can accomplish this.  Also, do you parse yourself?  Or, do you just read the parse that gets thrown up in the parse channel?  I recommend DPS classes run their own parses.  This way you can go back and analyze your parse afterwards.</p><p>One more thing, what is everyone else parsing?  You can't really compare your parse with those in other raid forces.  Some parse 15K, others parse 30k.  Where do you fall in your raid's parse normally (second, fifth, etc.)?  It's all relative to your raid force's capability.</p>

[Elcarim]

Arrows: Adamantine field point.Poisons: GM Caustic and GracelessnessI'm always in the top 10 on the raid parse (and yes I just follow the raid parse, don't do my own). mostly I land in the top 5, swashbuckler and casters above, sometimes a berserker.So your saying I should "joust" more?  You can get close enough for ranged CA's and Melee CA's  but then but you won't get any melee AA damage.  granted you could run in/out none stop like a yo-yo, but that seems like a rather large headache <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />... Also if your going to be using Melee that falls back on using the STR line over INT. The more crits you get from doing so will out weigh the crit damage from poisons I would think.

[Deterre]

<cite>Elcarim@Venekor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Arrows: Adamantine field point.Poisons: GM Caustic and GracelessnessI'm always in the top 10 on the raid parse (and yes I just follow the raid parse, don't do my own). mostly I land in the top 5, swashbuckler and casters above, sometimes a berserker.So your saying I should "joust" more?  You can get close enough for ranged CA's and Melee CA's  but then but you won't get any melee AA damage.  granted you could run in/out none stop like a yo-yo, but that seems like a rather large headache <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY<img mce_tsrc=" />" />... Also if your going to be using Melee that falls back on using the STR line over INT. The more crits you get from doing so will out weigh the crit damage from poisons I would think.</blockquote>No, STR is TRULY useless in raids. You won't be doing any melee autoattacks because you don't have time before the next ranged auto attack. Plus melee auto attack damage is ridiculous.And no, you get MUCH more damage from the 52% proc crit than the melee crit. 13% of my damage in raids is poison, 9% is the offensive stance. So that's already 22%. My melee CAs account for something like 5% of my DPS, if even that much. I have crappy legendary, treasured and mastercrafted gear so I have low int, but still my poisons crit for around 1.4k and my offensive stance for something like 700 + so it's definitely worth it.And the sniper's shot recast time reduction from the STR line is nothing. Snipers shot takes so much time to cast that it will [Removed for Content] your DPS if anything.Oh, and I HEAVILY suggest that you get your own parser.

[Elcarim]

Heres a question... When you use a melee CA it turns your auto attack on.. is there a way to disable this? so that you can use a melee CA and keep ranged AA on vs melee AA?

[Ultharandor]

<p>The only thing I would assume is to create a macro for every Melee CA which activates Ranged AA after applying it.</p><p>Mhh I#m going to test that a little bit later.</p>