Ranger Casting Order

[patrickhvr]

<p>I'm trying to get my parse's up with what I got.  Mostly Rok gear and just about have my epic.</p><p>Now, what kind of casting order's do you other Ranger's use in order to maximize DPS in Groups?</p><p>Just running groups right now.  On names I hit about 3100 on ACT with Temp Buffs.  Is that good or bad?</p><p>And what's a good casting order and how can I optimize my DPS?  Tips and Tricks would be most helpful.  I have all Adept 3's and all that too.</p>

[Ranja]

<p>It is tought to gauge DPS in groups. The mobs die so fast and that skews the numbers. For instance, if I do 20k damage and the mob dies in 2 secs that is 10K parse. 3100 sounds pretty good. I can usually hit around 5-6k on names in RE2 and I only have my epic and some RoK fabled.</p><p>In raids I use this casting order, but it is too long to use in groups since the mob would be dead before you even got past the first few CAs. In groups, I would just spam all of my highest CAs that were up. In raids this is what I do:</p><p>Pull>AA>Hawk>HO MAcro (applies bloody)>AA>Longblade>Kunark Blade>AA(Brig calls Dispatch)>Focus Aim>Blame>Triple>Rain>AA>Precise>Rear>AA>Miracle>Vunerable>AA>Surveil>Veiled>AA</p><p>(AA = Ranged Auto-attack)</p><p>After vieled, focus is usually out and I begin to cycle through my melee CAs until the Ranged ones refresh.</p>

[dbmoreland]

<p><cite>patrickhvr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm trying to get my parse's up with what I got.  Mostly Rok gear and just about have my epic.</p><p>Now, what kind of casting order's do you other Ranger's use in order to maximize DPS in Groups?</p><p>Just running groups right now.  On names I hit about 3100 on ACT with Temp Buffs.  Is that good or bad?</p><p>And what's a good casting order and how can I optimize my DPS?  Tips and Tricks would be most helpful.  I have all Adept 3's and all that too.</p></blockquote><p>Sounds to me like you are doing just fine. 3100 w/o your epic is imho very good.</p>

[dbmoreland]

<p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is tought to gauge DPS in groups. The mobs die so fast and that skews the numbers. For instance, if I do 20k damage and the mob dies in 2 secs that is 10K parse. 3100 sounds pretty good. I can usually hit around 5-6k on names in RE2 and I only have my epic and some RoK fabled.</p><p>In raids I use this casting order, but it is too long to use in groups since the mob would be dead before you even got past the first few CAs. In groups, I would just spam all of my highest CAs that were up. In raids this is what I do:</p><p>Pull>Hawk>AA>HO MAcro (applies bloody)>Longblade>Kunark Blade>AA(Brig calls Dispatch)>Focus Aim>Blame>Triple>Rain>AA>Precise>Rear>AA>Miracle>Vunerable>AA>Surveil>Veiled>AA</p><p>(AA = Ranged Auto-attack)</p><p>After vieled, focus is usually out and I begin to cycle through my melee CAs until the Ranged ones refresh.</p></blockquote><p>I agree it is hard to judge dps on trash fights in groups, but the named mobs usually last for 30 sec or more, so that is enough to get in all of our best stuff. 5-6K on the RE2 names is excellent. What kind of group is that with? I can never seem to get quite that high and our gear is almost the same. The only time I hit over 5K on a named was when I was with a crazy DPS group run through CoA: Paly, Illy, Brig, Dirge, Assassin and Me (No healer). Hit 6K on the next to last named, killed him in 10 sec, 30K DPS for the group. Was insane but fun.</p>

[Tobann]

<p>I'd say 3100 is very good. I rarely get that high unless Im in a good buff group with a dirge etc... But then again I always seem to have a low DPS. Ive ben trying to slow down mashing the buttons to let my AA go off and I hope this helps.</p><p>Buaf Befallen.</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Danean@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is tought to gauge DPS in groups. The mobs die so fast and that skews the numbers. For instance, if I do 20k damage and the mob dies in 2 secs that is 10K parse. 3100 sounds pretty good. I can usually hit around 5-6k on names in RE2 and I only have my epic and some RoK fabled.</p><p>In raids I use this casting order, but it is too long to use in groups since the mob would be dead before you even got past the first few CAs. In groups, I would just spam all of my highest CAs that were up. In raids this is what I do:</p><p>Pull>Hawk>AA>HO MAcro (applies bloody)>Longblade>Kunark Blade>AA(Brig calls Dispatch)>Focus Aim>Blame>Triple>Rain>AA>Precise>Rear>AA>Miracle>Vunerable>AA>Surveil>Veiled>AA</p><p>(AA = Ranged Auto-attack)</p><p>After vieled, focus is usually out and I begin to cycle through my melee CAs until the Ranged ones refresh.</p></blockquote><p>I agree it is hard to judge dps on trash fights in groups, but the named mobs usually last for 30 sec or more, so that is enough to get in all of our best stuff. 5-6K on the RE2 names is excellent. What kind of group is that with? I can never seem to get quite that high and our gear is almost the same. The only time I hit over 5K on a named was when I was with a crazy DPS group run through CoA: Paly, Illy, Brig, Dirge, Assassin and Me (No healer). Hit 6K on the next to last named, killed him in 10 sec, 30K DPS for the group. Was insane but fun.</p></blockquote><p>Yes the standard group i run in is a high dps one. That is why it is really hard to measure DPS in groups<img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> It was Pally, Brig, Dirge, Me, Illy, Quizzie. We all our geared out in RoK t1 + t2 fabled and void shard gear.</p><p>As we all know the faster stuff dies the higher our parse will be hence the damage per <em>second. </em>If your group lives and you accomplish your task, I think that is good enough DPS.</p>

[patrickhvr]

<p>My order is as follows when pulling names with this group and this is just close guildies...</p><p>Wizzy</p><p>Guard</p><p>Warlock</p><p>Warden</p><p>Ranger (Me)</p><p>Necro</p><p>With Temps Up..(I'm not at my keyboard so excuse me if I get an order wrong)</p><p>HR>(The other DPS Buff)>Stealth>FA>SF>Coverage>Sniper Arrow>Debuffs>BA>SS>TB>(Side Attack)>AA>Shower>Reapeating Arrow>Start with refreshed CA's.</p><p>I almost never use my melee attacks</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>patrickhvr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My order is as follows when pulling names with this group and this is just close guildies...</p><p>Wizzy</p><p>Guard</p><p>Warlock</p><p>Warden</p><p>Ranger (Me)</p><p>Necro</p><p>With Temps Up..(I'm not at my keyboard so excuse me if I get an order wrong)</p><p>HR>(The other DPS Buff)>Stealth>FA>SF>Coverage>Sniper Arrow>Debuffs>BA>SS>TB>(Side Attack)>AA>Shower>Reapeating Arrow>Start with refreshed CA's.</p><p>I almost never use my melee attacks</p></blockquote><p>Just a couple of comments. Please take them in kind<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Why are you popping honed reflexes and Focus Aim at the same time. This puts you way over the cap and is an absolute waste of haste. Or DPS if you use our instinct line. Either way neither one should be used in cojunction with Focus Aim because it will either put you way over the cap in haste or way over the cap in DPS - depending on which one you pop.</p><p>Also, you should be spamming CAs during Focus Aim and using Sniper during hte cycle kills about 4 secs of FA doing nohting. Plus you are de-buffing during the FA cycle as well.</p><p>If you solely group, you really dont have a need for melee CAs as everything is dying fast enough that you can really on ranged CAs. However, when you raid, the mob can take upwards of 5 minutes to kill so you need to cycle your melee CAs in there or you wind up standing around doing nothing <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p>

[EQ2Magroo]

<p>A lot of our DPS over a certain point depends on gear and group makeup, so 3k DPS seems fine assuming you're not in complete fabled/mythical setup.</p><p>In TSO I've found it's sometimes better to "work smarter" and not "harder" in that I don't obsess about DPS so much, but try to time my debuffs/CAs to help the group.</p><p>For example, I've been in groups that had supposed high DPS but have wiped to the final named in Scion. A quick change of tactics to concentrate on debuffs/stuns/stifles and it was a breeze. For the ultimate ghetto stun, go dig out that Raincaller and have some fun !</p><p>So sometimes, less is more <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Giliad]

<p>I assume you are using the /auto 2 macro.  Caustic poisons vs other poisons helps as we get bonuses to it.  Also get seb croaking dirk.  I put up nox intox when it is available and in raid debuf, which starts the aa cycle.  then wait for dispatch before FA and ranged CAs.  I can usually get 3 melee cas off between an aa.  Non mythicaled I am at 3k-4k, once mythicaled it jumps up 2k at least.  also then the sweet spot helps.</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Giliad@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I assume you are using the /auto 2 macro. Caustic poisons vs other poisons helps as we get bonuses to it. Also get seb croaking dirk. I put up nox intox when it is available and in raid debuf, which starts the aa cycle. then wait for dispatch before FA and ranged CAs. I can usually get 3 melee cas off between an aa. Non mythicaled I am at 3k-4k, once mythicaled it jumps up 2k at least. <strong>also then the sweet spot helps.</strong></p></blockquote><p>No matter what kind of bow you are using, you should always be in the sweet spot.</p>

[Giliad]

<p>Agreed, I stay in the sweet spot but some joust.  In my guild there is only 1 ranger and one sin, meaning both of us have nox enfeeb from the TSO line.  Usually only one of us is on so we assist the mt to nox enfeeb the entier fight.  I am just saying that in the sweet spot damage increases the damage the aa puts out.</p>

[Walford]

<blockquote><p><cite>Danean@Guk wrote</cite></p><p>Yes the standard group i run in is a high dps one. That is why it is really hard to measure DPS in groups<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> It was Pally, Brig, Dirge, Me, Illy, Quizzie. We all our geared out in RoK t1 + t2 fabled and void shard gear.</p><p>As we all know the faster stuff dies the higher our parse will be hence the damage per <em>second. </em>If your group lives and you accomplish your task, I think that is good enough DPS.</p></blockquote><p>This is a pretty sweet group.  The thing you neglected to mention is that you have the three most effective debuffing classes in the game.    And the brig also buffs one of the other two, so it just gets even better.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />PS My alt is an inqui so I gotta give some props to them as a great groupmate for rangers.  Just don't rip aggro and we will all get along fine. haha</p>

[Zizzu]

<p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p>

[DarkzFlamez]

<p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>How do you macro melee CA's to autoattacks w/bow?</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>DarkzFlamez wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>How do you macro melee CA's to autoattacks w/bow?</p></blockquote><p>1. /usea <melee CA></p><p>2. /autoattack 2</p>

[Giliad]

<p>but don't que your buttons.  if you do this is the way it will work:</p><p>1stCA</p><p>/Autoattack2</p><p>/auttoattack2</p><p>2ndCA-which will put you in melee AA</p><p>Also Focus Aim should be used alone but the other 2 temp buffs, Honed and ferral can be used together.</p>

[Seiffil]

<p><cite>patrickhvr wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My order is as follows when pulling names with this group and this is just close guildies...</p><p>Wizzy</p><p>Guard</p><p>Warlock</p><p>Warden</p><p>Ranger (Me)</p><p>Necro</p><p>With Temps Up..(I'm not at my keyboard so excuse me if I get an order wrong)</p><p>HR>(The other DPS Buff)>Stealth>FA>SF>Coverage>Sniper Arrow>Debuffs>BA>SS>TB>(Side Attack)>AA>Shower>Reapeating Arrow>Start with refreshed CA's.</p><p>I almost never use my melee attacks</p></blockquote><p>You're hurting yourself by not using your melee CA's.  Especially on a longer fight, Bloody reminder will generally end up being the CA that is probably highest on your parse.   If i'm using FA, I'm not going to pop Honed or Killing instinct, honed and killing instinct don't provide much benefit at all during that same time period.  Also if you're popping FA then using stealth fire to get into coverage, consider using rear shot, it's usable on the move and casts faster.</p><p>If you want to debuff, debuff then hit FA.  Otherwise you're wasting time when you should be using range CA's.  Not sure why you're using repeating arrows, but please at least say you aren't using it for the full duration.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>Just an FYI - players have had warnings doing this as its needed for a quest and the GM's count it as monopolising content.</p>

[Raahl]

<p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>DarkzFlamez wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>How do you macro melee CA's to autoattacks w/bow?</p></blockquote><p>1. /usea</p><p>2. /autoattack 2</p></blockquote><p>Is this just for high level rangers or should all rangers be doing this?</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Raahl wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>DarkzFlamez wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>How do you macro melee CA's to autoattacks w/bow?</p></blockquote><p>1. /usea</p><p>2. /autoattack 2</p></blockquote><p>Is this just for high level rangers or should all rangers be doing this?</p></blockquote><p>All rangers. You should never be melee auto-attacking. Time both your ranged CAs and melee CAs around your ranged auto-attack.</p>

[Huntress Jellica]

<p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>All rangers. You should never be melee auto-attacking. Time both your ranged CAs and melee CAs around your ranged auto-attack.</blockquote><p>Or if you're soloing gray mobs and you're a) cheap like me and don't like wasting arrows and b) too lazy to summon the crappy ones.</p><p><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Raahl]

<p>Ok Thanks.  <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Neiloch]

Don't underestimate your melee CA's especially bloody reminder and your backstabs. Lately i have been saving most of my range CA's for when I have FA up, except for snaring shot and trick shot since they recast fairly fast. Rest of the time I concentrate on melee CA's and using Killing Instinct and honed reflexes, usually together if possible. Leaving FA up when using melee CA's is pretty much a waste though unless you only have like 2 seconds until some more ranged CA's come up. if not I would say just toggle it off so it can start refreshing for when you have more ranged CA's up.

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Neiloch wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Don't underestimate your melee CA's especially bloody reminder and your backstabs. Lately i have been saving most of my range CA's for when I have FA up, except for snaring shot and trick shot since they recast fairly fast. Rest of the time I concentrate on melee CA's and using Killing Instinct and honed reflexes, usually together if possible. Leaving FA up when using melee CA's is pretty much a waste though unless you only have like 2 seconds until some more ranged CA's come up. if not I would say just toggle it off so it can start refreshing for when you have more ranged CA's up.</blockquote><p>nope. funny how our two most powerful CAs are melee CAs considering we are rangers.</p><p>bloody and rangers blade.</p>

[Geoclaw]

<p>Was curious why some of you put -----    /usea -------macro in a ranger line. Not needed IMO.</p><p>The only thing you need to do is -----   /autoattack 2 ---- on your melee attacks and you should be good.</p><p>Everyone agree or am I missing soemthing?</p><p>/autoattack 2</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Geoclaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Was curious why some of you put -----    /usea -------macro in a ranger line. Not needed IMO.</p><p>The only thing you need to do is -----   /autoattack 2 ---- <strong>on your melee attacks</strong> and you should be good.</p><p>Everyone agree or am I missing soemthing?</p><p>/autoattack 2</p></blockquote><p>/useability</p><p>/autoattack 2</p><p>You are omitting the first part. If you right click the melee CA, you just need the 2nd line but if you are creating the macro from scratch you need both lines.</p><p>is the complete macro</p>

[Solvantis]

<p><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Zizzu@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I suggest using the wall in KJ and check your ACT parses.</p><p>Suggestion: find out what CAs should go first and make a solid rotation. I'm assuming you have all melee CA's macroed to autoattack w/bow.</p></blockquote><p>Just an FYI - players have had warnings doing this as its needed for a quest and the GM's count it as monopolising content.</p></blockquote><p>Seriously? What do they call Avatar camping? isnt that monopolising content also? If its contested its contested......</p>

[Webin]

<p>Hehe.. a contested wall.  That's funny.</p><p>Honestly, it should never be a problem.  Rangers can knock the wall down fairly quickly, so if someone's waiting, they don't need to wait long.     I once sat and watched a warden poke the wall for 15 minutes (or something) and literally make no progress.  That would get annoying.</p>

[Huntress Jellica]

<p><cite>Webin@Befallen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hehe.. a contested wall.  That's funny.</p><p>Honestly, it should never be a problem.  Rangers can knock the wall down fairly quickly, so if someone's waiting, they don't need to wait long.     I once sat and watched a warden poke the wall for 15 minutes (or something) and literally make no progress.  That would get annoying.</p></blockquote><p>Maybe that was my alt warden! =P</p><p>Now she's level 80 with some dps shard gear, so the wall would die faster.. if I cared to beat it up again.</p>

[Thraking]

<p>If you want to dps well, download the Double Attack plugin from ACT and use the ranged cast timer on your UI. Find the sweet spot on the mob where you can use both melee and ranged CAs. Without delaying any of your ranged auto attacks, cast all of your highest DPS CAs first. I always start out with blood reminder. You should be able to get every single one of your CAs greyed out after 3 or 4 auto attacks(melee and ranged). If your not able to use them all that quickly, then your just too slow. The thing is, unless u have all your CAs up, your not going to have a casting order. After 3 or 4 auto attacks its all about using whatever is up atm because you should be waiting for your CAs to refresh by that time. Just always make sure you are casting the CAs that cause the most damage first.</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Thraking wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>If you want to dps well download the Double Attack plugin from ACT and use the ranged cast timer on your UI. Find the sweet spot on the mob where you can use both melee and ranged CAs. Without delaying any of your ranged auto attacks, cast all of your highest DPS CAs first. I always start out with blood reminder. You should be able to get every single one of your CAs greyed out after 3 or 4 auto attacks(melee and ranged), if your not able to use them all that quickly then your just too slow. The thing is, unless u have all your CAs up your not going to have a casting order. Basically after 3 or 4 auto attacks<strong> its all about using whatever is up atm because you should be waiting for your CAs </strong>to refresh by that time, just make sure you use the CAs that cause the most damage first.</p></blockquote><p>It iis really about using your highes DPS art that is up not whatever is up. And depending on your haste you may or may no be able to use them all in 3-4 auto-attacks.</p><p>Just some clarification.</p>

[Donilla]

<p>I'll add a word of caution concerning the macro to add autoattack to all your melee CAs. Be prepared to hit ESC ot toggle off the auto ranged attack manually after every fight. If the tank switches targets yoiu have an excellent chance of shooting off an arrow before the group is ready and presto, you, and they are dead. I prefer to turn on rnaged autoattach manually for that reason. There is also a bit of a bug with ranger auto attack that contributes to that problem. It won't always happen, it depends on the cast order, time between targets and other factors, but just saying.</p>

[Silkmyst]

<p><cite>Ranja wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>It is tought to gauge DPS in groups. The mobs die so fast and that skews the numbers. For instance, if I do 20k damage and the mob dies in 2 secs that is 10K parse. 3100 sounds pretty good. I can usually hit around 5-6k on names in RE2 and I only have my epic and some RoK fabled.</p><p>In raids I use this casting order, but it is too long to use in groups since the mob would be dead before you even got past the first few CAs. In groups, I would just spam all of my highest CAs that were up. In raids this is what I do:</p><p>Pull>AA>Hawk>HO MAcro (applies bloody)>AA>Longblade>Kunark Blade>AA(Brig calls Dispatch)>Focus Aim>Blame>Triple>Rain>AA>Precise>Rear>AA>Miracle>Vunerable>AA>Surveil>Veiled>AA</p><p>(AA = Ranged Auto-attack)</p><p>After vieled, focus is usually out and I begin to cycle through my melee CAs until the Ranged ones refresh.</p></blockquote><p>Hi Ranja,</p><p>I had been out of the game for awhile, and just joined a raiding guild.  I have my fabeled epic, the AA set up from eq2 flames, 190 AA, and just T1 shard armor so far.</p><p>Just got ACT up and running again, which was tough as I don't use profit UI (yet) having not actually seen that, and I had to reinstall ACT and find all the old "expressions" to load.  The plug in didn't work as well for me as loading the old school expressions.</p><p>I'm working on the training wall and I think I pretty much suck.  I got 2150 about my third try.</p><p>I'm using the first part of your casting order and working with that using ACT dings last night.  Questions:</p><p>What is your HO Macro?  You mean Heroic Op?  What is precise? </p><p>Do you use exploding arrow in your rotation?</p><p>How do you order your melee CAs, and do you macro /autoattack 2 after each one?</p><p>I really don't want to suck anymore! lol</p><p>Thank you for your continued patience and help for all of us here. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Silk</p>

[Huntress Jellica]

<p><cite>Silkmyst wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi Ranja,</p><p>I had been out of the game for awhile, and just joined a raiding guild.  I have my fabeled epic, the AA set up from eq2 flames, 190 AA, and just T1 shard armor so far.</p><p>Just got ACT up and running again, which was tough as I don't use profit UI (yet) having not actually seen that, and I had to reinstall ACT and find all the old "expressions" to load.  The plug in didn't work as well for me as loading the old school expressions.</p><p>I'm working on the training wall and I think I pretty much suck.  I got 2150 about my third try.</p><p>I'm using the first part of your casting order and working with that using ACT dings last night.  Questions:</p><p>What is your HO Macro?  You mean Heroic Op?  What is precise? </p><p>Do you use exploding arrow in your rotation?</p><p>How do you order your melee CAs, and do you macro /autoattack 2 after each one?</p><p>I really don't want to suck anymore! lol</p><p>Thank you for your continued patience and help for all of us here. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Silk</p></blockquote><p>Ranja's post was made before the spell name changes. Precise = Searing Shot.</p><p>There are a few things I would suggest changing in the casting order he posted: Switch Emberstrike with Kunark Blade (now Ranger's Blade). Save Ranger's Blade for when Dispatch lands. You will be able to cycle through all of your ranged CAs in combination with Focus Aim while Dispatch is up, and when Focus Aim is over, you should still have time to land a Ranger's Blade. That CA packs a huge punch (it is actually our 2nd best CA, after Bloody Reminder), so try to couple it with Dispatch whenever possible.</p><p>Use your 3 fastest casting/recast arrow shots first in your Focus Aim cycle. That is Snaring Shot>Searing Shot>Trick Shot. You want to do this because the faster the combat art comes back up, the more DPS it will net for you. Especially Snaring Shot, which refreshes every 5 seconds (if you have AA in it, which you should if you don't already). After those three, an auto attack will fire, followed by 3 ranged CAs (2 of your choice and Snaring), auto, then 3 ranged CAs (2 of your choice and Snaring). You see where I am going with this? I usually try to do Crippling Arrow early in the rotation to knock the mob's defenses down a notch.</p><p>Definitely make sure to get Veiled Shot (now Hidden Shot) out there when Dispatch has landed.</p><p>Of course it all depends on the amount of haste you have. Generally on raids I have a delay of 4.1 on my bow, which gives me plenty of time to squeeze in those 3 ranged combat arts. It could be more or less depending on your situation.</p><p>Exploding Arrow is an awesome addition to our arsenal. When up against a group encounter (meaning multiple mobs) it should be one of your top priority CAs, right after Storm of Arrows. And it's nice because it refreshes pretty fast compared to our other AoE CAs. And it's single target DPS is pretty nice too. I've seen it hit somewhere in the 9-10k range, which is pretty significant for us.</p><p>Just some tips from my point of view on things. :)</p>

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Huntress Jellica wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Silkmyst wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi Ranja,</p><p>I had been out of the game for awhile, and just joined a raiding guild.  I have my fabeled epic, the AA set up from eq2 flames, 190 AA, and just T1 shard armor so far.</p><p>Just got ACT up and running again, which was tough as I don't use profit UI (yet) having not actually seen that, and I had to reinstall ACT and find all the old "expressions" to load.  The plug in didn't work as well for me as loading the old school expressions.</p><p>I'm working on the training wall and I think I pretty much suck.  I got 2150 about my third try.</p><p>I'm using the first part of your casting order and working with that using ACT dings last night.  Questions:</p><p>What is your HO Macro?  You mean Heroic Op?  What is precise? </p><p>Do you use exploding arrow in your rotation?</p><p>How do you order your melee CAs, and do you macro /autoattack 2 after each one?</p><p>I really don't want to suck anymore! lol</p><p>Thank you for your continued patience and help for all of us here. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Silk</p></blockquote><p>Ranja's post was made before the spell name changes. Precise = Searing Shot.</p><p>There are a few things I would suggest changing in the casting order he posted: Switch Emberstrike with Kunark Blade (now Ranger's Blade). Save Ranger's Blade for when Dispatch lands. You will be able to cycle through all of your ranged CAs in combination with Focus Aim while Dispatch is up, and when Focus Aim is over, you should still have time to land a Ranger's Blade. That CA packs a huge punch (it is actually our 2nd best CA, after Bloody Reminder), so try to couple it with Dispatch whenever possible.</p><p>Use your 3 fastest casting/recast arrow shots first in your Focus Aim cycle. That is Snaring Shot>Searing Shot>Trick Shot. You want to do this because the faster the combat art comes back up, the more DPS it will net for you. Especially Snaring Shot, which refreshes every 5 seconds (if you have AA in it, which you should if you don't already). After those three, an auto attack will fire, followed by 3 ranged CAs (2 of your choice and Snaring), auto, then 3 ranged CAs (2 of your choice and Snaring). You see where I am going with this? I usually try to do Crippling Arrow early in the rotation to knock the mob's defenses down a notch.</p><p>Definitely make sure to get Veiled Shot (now Hidden Shot) out there when Dispatch has landed.</p><p>Of course it all depends on the amount of haste you have. Generally on raids I have a delay of 4.1 on my bow, which gives me plenty of time to squeeze in those 3 ranged combat arts. It could be more or less depending on your situation.</p><p>Exploding Arrow is an awesome addition to our arsenal. When up against a group encounter (meaning multiple mobs) it should be one of your top priority CAs, right after Storm of Arrows. And it's nice because it refreshes pretty fast compared to our other AoE CAs. And it's single target DPS is pretty nice too. I've seen it hit somewhere in the 9-10k range, which is pretty significant for us.</p><p>Just some tips from my point of view on things. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote><p>yea that post was sometime ago and I was going off the top of my head. Looking at my casting order now (we have better tank so dispatch comes sooner and I can unload sooner now):</p><p>Pull>Hawk>AA>HO>(dispatch)Focus>AA> Snaring >Blame >Precise >AA>Triple >Crippling>Snaring >AA>Exploding> >Storm> AA>Longblade>Veiled>Snaring>AA (focus is over)>Surveil>Rangers Blade></p><p>My HO is the defense debuff and bloody</p><p>And yes most rangers macro their ranged auto off their melee or remember to switch AA on after each melee attack.</p><p>My melee order is from best to worst melee art bloody>arrow>immobilizing>jolting>bladed opening>piercing stab(racial)>pbs>poison combo</p>

[Silkmyst]

<p>Thanks Ranja and Jellica!</p><p>I printed this out and I have some study/work to do.  Really appreciate</p><p>you sharing this. </p><p>Silk<img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /></p>

[gdawg311]

<p>keep in mind, snaring shot is one of our highest parsing ranged attacks and has the fastest recast with max aa. i cast it whenever its up</p>

[Kulaf]

<p>You sure you mean Snaring Shot?</p><p><a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/rangers/42774-getting-better-dps-guide.html">http://www.eq2flames.com/rangers/42...-dps-guide.html</a></p><p>Safana's guide has it as one of our lowest prioritized ranged shots.  Perhaps you are parsing well with it in short fights or because you are prioritizing it.</p>

[Upir]

<p>Not too sure what you're referencing to think that Kulanae, go take a look at some of Saf's parses in the parse thread on flames and you'll see where snaring/roped shot ends up on the list.  Make sure youre looking at a merged parse and not just a pull on a single mob.  Gdog is right, cast it when you can...</p>

[Neiloch]

Also if you look at that chart in safana's post you can see snaring shot is actually one of the BEST DPS'ing CA's in the first DPS column. The last DPS column doesn't consider recast, the first one is for prolonged fights. Snaring Shot is second only to emberstrike.

[Ilavatar]

<p>To try and get a better understanding of the best CAs I took Safana's spreadsheet and worked with the far left column and sorted by the far left value, i.e. dps, to see which are the overall best CAs. I also summed all the dps done by mutliple-hitting CAs to get a single value for simplicity. Thus, assuming that all other things being equal (which they often are not) these should be the priorities.</p><p>I saw the mention where we should sometimes use the first dps column instead of the last so I'll look at that later today if I get a chance. In the chart "-m" means that it's a melee CA, to distinguish from ranged. Is this list a correct overview? bloody reminder -m 22792 ranger's blade -m 12232 storm of arrows 9058 explosive arrow 8986 sinister strike -m 8840 sniper shot 8412 triple shot 7440 trick shot 6407 emberstrike -m 6145 searing shot 5887 evasive maneuvers -aa tso l5839 hidden shot 5178 arrow rip -m 4826 rear shot 4782 sneak attack -m 10m 4771 crippling arrow 4064 miracle shot 3993 immobil lunge - m10m 3960 noxious enfeeblement -m 10m -aa tso 3540 lightining strike -m 3495 snaring shot - 35m 3422 natural selection 3059 bladed opening -m -aa str 4673 point blank shot 2364 poison combin - aa int 1811</p>

[morprulz]

<p><cite>Donilla@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'll add a word of caution concerning the macro to add autoattack to all your melee CAs. Be prepared to hit ESC ot toggle off the auto ranged attack manually after every fight. If the tank switches targets yoiu have an excellent chance of shooting off an arrow before the group is ready and presto, you, and they are dead. I prefer to turn on rnaged autoattach manually for that reason. There is also a bit of a bug with ranger auto attack that contributes to that problem. It won't always happen, it depends on the cast order, time between targets and other factors, but just saying.</p></blockquote><p>sorry for the late reply but that is no longer an issue if u create a macro for targeting and assisting the tank. a friend of mine helped me set up a macro that will target the tank then assist the tank so that when the mob is down even if he targets the next mob u are not targeting the mob until u hit the macro. for me because i can reach up without looking and hit the 3 key i made a macro slaved to it that quite simply follows as such:      </p><p>/target <name of tank></p><p>/assist <name of tank></p><p>now yes it may be redundant to have the target and then assist but when u are pulling several of the trash mobs in WoE it seems that an arcane that the mobs use will cause u to detarget the mob with just /assist so had to add the /target first to fix this issue. yes it can be a pain in the rear but ur dps will suffer even more if ur autoattack is still up when the tank targets the next mob.</p>

[Neiloch]

I don't have to manually turn off ranged auto attack after every fight, only in the instance where the /autoattack 2 command executes after a mob is dead for whatever reason. Usually when I'm trying cram a few more Ca's in before the mob is dead and I end up hitting a CA with the command a split second after it dies. I found it easier just to assign one of my keys to assist target, made mine the V key. I raid mostly and we use 3-4 tanks, our main tank being a guardian but we use the SK or zerker for AE fights, not to mention if one of the tanks goes down I'll have to assist a different tank. So its much more flexible if I just click on them manually then hit my assist key (V key). Its that or make 4 macros to assist each tank and have them filling up macro slots at pretty much all times.