Ranger tactics?

[mayhem111]

I was wondering how people kill mobs with any arrows up on them?  If I try with my 26 ranger I will almost always die or be really close to it.  Yes I can do 1/3 to 1/2 half its health with arrow attack but what then.  The melee skills I have at this level are laughable.  I have 3 skills that all do [Removed for Content] poor damage.  With arrow up mobs you cannot get behind them with stunning attacks cause they just turn around with you.  Am I just at a lvl where its just gonna be a pita or is it always gonna be this way.  Btw I found duoing with my roomates warlock was really [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] good exp cause stuff dies so [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] fast.

[Sollum]

I'm afraid that's the way it is. Mobs with any up arrows are imune to our Cheap shot stun - which is bloody annoying! Guess it's been done to prevent us soloing them. Well its worked, cause I don't touch anything with any up arrows.

[Zholain]

The best you can hope for is to hit them with a good snare(preferably one that also does damage) at or near maximum ranged distance.  Follow that up with every bow attack you have while they're inoming, and pray you have their health down low enough so that when they get to you that you can simply outlast them in melee while you work your HO's. Also, a good stun poison will help.  But that would get just too darned expensive if you want to use up-arrow mobs to gain xp.  XP-wise, it's more efficient to take on non-heroics anyway.

[Jay]

Single up-arrow mobs are not strictly immune to Cheap Shot, they just break the stun if damaged. Unfortunately, pulling with your bow and then stunning when you enter melee will almost always result in a broken stun b/c you most likely poisoned the target with your opening bow attacks. But if there's no DoT in the mix, you can stun, disable melee, and get off a single stealth or ranged attack before the stun vanishes.

There is a variety of factors that impact this situation. What armor and weapons are you using? Do you have the highest DD poison you can use? Are you using debuff poisons to reduce poison resistance or slashing / piercing mitigation? Using snares with ranged autoattack to wear them down? Switching to defensive stance when you close to melee might help, using your temporary ranged attack buff before pulling could too.

[Torle]

What part of the any Up ^ mob concept is supposed to be a more difficult encounter do you not understand?  I can do Single ^s at Lvl 54 but they are a tough fight for me sometimes.  Heroics I rarely never touch because unless every poison and proc hit I am hosed.

[Jay]

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Torleka wrote:
What part of the any Up ^ mob concept is supposed to be a more difficult encounter do you not understand? 

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S/he's 26 and asking how to take stronger solo mobs when soloing. That's perfectly legit question for someone who's only six levels into the class. Nothing in the original post implied that s/he was shocked to find the mobs more difficult, just that he wants to adapt his / her tactics to adapt to that increased difficulty.

[Emperors]

I find that after my initial bow attacks when the mob gets into melee range that if you use your snare and start kiting it become very easy to take it down quickly if you are using your offensive stance and a good poison.  Every once in a while when my triple arrow attack and double arrow attack are up i'll cheap shot the mob and back up a bit and unleash as many arrows as i can.  If the mob breaks, i just resnare and continue kiting.  As would be expected, it does take a little bit longer to kill than normal or down arrow mobs but it is still worthwhile to do once you get your technique down.

[gossi]

I havent had much time to play over the past three weeks, but from what I have glanced at things have not changed.  So you want to take down up arrow encounters, its remarkably easy to do as a ranger....heres how. First, you may want to find an open area because the smaller the space, the more skill it takes to not aggro surrounding mobs.  I am not going to give away specific spots that I used, but outdoor zones are a ranger's best friend (and I am not talking about phyns hunting hawk). Second, make sure you have speed buffs (horse, carpet, etc).  The purpose of these are to get you the most distance between you and the mob quickly. Third, if you have any proc gear, poisons, offensive stance, etc....equip, use, and buff. General Strategy: Now that you have the basics set, get yourself in position behind the mob.  -Open with culling the "x" at max range...mob will take damage and be snared. -At this point I usually drop triple fire, followed by any other fairly low delay bow art. -Leg shot to snare the mob, run away to max distance, you can use arts such as deb. arrow on the move, so use it while moving away. -rinse and repeat.....DO NOT FORGET foresters noose.  Its a ranged snare like legshot, low delay, and buys you plenty of time to move away from the mob.  It can also be used in melee range. -you can also use your trap art, but i have never even used it because the snares are so successful. A ranger cannot go melee on melee with up arrow heroic mobs, you will die.  Use your archery and snare skills to their full potential.   Keep plenty of room between you and the mob.  This should never be a problem if you use foresters noose and leg shot at the correct times.  Remember that you must keep yourself in a relatively close distance to where you initially pulled the mob from.  If you do not, you will break the encounter and you will have to start over.   I have never died while "kiting" triple up heroics, find a good area and use it well.  You will also have to become good at rotating the screen around so you do not accidently aggro other mobs.  While doing this, you will also have to remain focused on the current encounter because you will want to know exactly when the snare breaks so you can resnare.  Add on top of this the need to keep yourself in a close distance to the original pull spot and you have a task that can take some practice. The tactic that I share is by no means the final solution to successfully killing off heroic mobs.  Before I began my break from EQ2 I had found even more efficent techniques and revisions to the basic strategy to maximize efficiency and time.  Play around with it.  There is no reason that solo mobs should even make it to you on a pull.  Heroic mobs should be dead within two to four snare cycles depending on how quickly they break and how your proc damage works out. Linyen Ranger Fires of Heaven

[Raahl]

Just keep shooting, shooting.

Just keep shooting, shooting.

What do we do, we shoot shoot shoot.

 

[King Leor]

At higher lvls it's extremely easy to kill any mob with up arrows. Especially after lvl 52 when you get thorny trap. At lvl 60 I can kill lvl 60 ^^^ mobs solo befor they reach me. Thats with all adept 3 or master spells mind you. Also if your soloing dont forget to use good poisons that will do some nice dmg or stun or debuff againt pierce if using pierce arrows. or if you have the money use all 3 of those poisons and your untouchable. Some of the above rangers above lvl 52 say they have issues soling mobs with just one up arrow. Not sure what they are doing wrong. only way it would be difficult is to autoattack it and walk away and not use your brain. But at lvl 26 your not going to have alot of bow CA's  so if you wait a little bit than it will be cake for you. But dont worry you will be a mad killing machine the higher you get up there in lvls.

Leoric
Level 60 ranger

[Sepn]

Could you explain what process you use to kill your mobs? I remember 26-27 being pretty lame for finding mobs to kill, at least in TS. I just switched off between the little valley at the South Eastern side of TS (24-27 Rocks, Skellies, Crabs, Something else...) and skeletons (25-2 in Karana. At 28 I moved to Enchanted Lands and have had no problems soloing Yellow and Orange ^^ with all app1 spells. I'm 30 now and just bought a bunch of Adepts and I can destroy anything yellow with no breaks what so ever and Oranges are a breeze. Make sure to get your HO's in and use all your CA's.

[TaleraRis]

Gossin, we don't have culling the x or leg shot at level 26, or even 27 where I am. Just got access to Hidden recently. So while those are good suggestions at high levels, it's not plausible at the mid-20s.

Message Edited by TaleraRis on 11-03-2005 08:51 PM

[AdiX__Styxx__]

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Sepnir wrote:
Could you explain what process you use to kill your mobs? I remember 26-27 being pretty lame for finding mobs to kill, at least in TS. I just switched off between the little valley at the South Eastern side of TS (24-27 Rocks, Skellies, Crabs, Something else...) and skeletons (25-2 in Karana. At 28 I moved to Enchanted Lands and have had no problems soloing Yellow and Orange ^^ with all app1 spells. I'm 30 now and just bought a bunch of Adepts and I can destroy anything yellow with no breaks what so ever and Oranges are a breeze.

Make sure to get your HO's in and use all your CA's.

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well orange mobs are tough i seem to miss alot my toon was created oct 19 and am now lvl 43 (dinged today) still when facing orange even soloes (real orange as in 6/7 lvls higher) if i dont use my buffs to raise my ranged skill i barely hurt them! i must say most of my skills are apr 1 tho does this matter at all concerning hitting the mobs? I assumed it was jkust daamge increasers!

Oh well i still love my ranger!

[Te]

Yes your accurasy is dependant on your ranged skill. Try once with a ranged buff firing at a orange con mob and without, you will see less missess.

[Noog]

rangers are horrorable soloers at that level. just try to stomach it till around level 35-40 then you start to become rock solid.

[xandez]

Hmmh... Well i recently rolled another ranger (eh... for fun, and to test how low lvl ranger life is now...) And all i can think now is... stay out of melee! Just kite em with your melee attack.... The best exp i've found are the downarrow solo ones, or actually the small groups with down arrows... Either start with pounce or with backshot + openshot combo (= 1 dead or maybe 2, depends...) and you shoudl do good. Stay away from the ^mobs, or if you need to kill em, use autoattack bow kiting! (Its slow, but you can manage... if you have space also... eheh) And for someone who said rangers are terrible soloers at lvl ~26 range or so... I seriously hope not. Im only 20 with my new toon, but i really think he:s not a poor soloer... :smileyvery-happy: (Hopefully he wont come poor in 5 lvls... of course i have to change my main hunting grounds to TS or some other such zone (hmmh) by then, which will affect, i know...) ++Xan

Message Edited by xandez on 11-07-2005 10:15 AM

[jarlaxle8]

last week, at lvl 43, i needed 2 croc bulls in SS. they were ^, lvl 45 or 46. i was able to solo em (1 at a time) without having to kite. this is how:

- big up front DD poison
- offensive stance on
- at highest range possible: out-of-stealth bow attack (hidden fire for me, hidden shot at 26)
- 2-shot bow shot (flaming shot for me, open shot for you)
- high dmg + defense debuff shot (crippling arrow for me, wounding arrow for you)
- NOW, IMPORTANT: use of a macro that looks like this:

/autoattack 0
/useability cheap shot

this guaranties that you will not break stun with autoattack. the first line turns it off. then i did this:

- back off quickly, but not too long, then triple fire

problem is: you don't have a triple bow attack yet at that level; you get the first 3-arrow attack at 30 i think. but it may be that you can do stalk -> shadow lunge. or shadow flame, that can be used from front.
changing stance if you have to mellee might help too. at least till cheap shot is up again. and open shot should be ready for use again as well when you do second stun. so you can stun, back off and use open shot.

i think most important is: try to stun em and get a shot in as often as you can. and if really necessary, kite till you can try another stun.

anyway, i was able to solo ^ mobs, so if you can't pull it off yet, you should be able to at higher levels. but with any mobs with arrows it is part luck as well. it may be that stun breaks too early, so you couldn't get a high damage in. just kite till stun up again, or even run off and try again. but best is to avoid up arrow mobs, and just take em on if necessary for a quest.

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Ryilan Nightbreeze
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[xandez]

The real problem is that cheap shot is not a stun against those ^ mobs, its a mezz... So you poison procs WILL break the _stun_.Also, at lower lvls rangers do not have very many bow attacks, let alone those which could be fired at range... At lvl 26 we get hidden shot which helps so you can start with big dmg and lvl 28 we get triple arrow which rocks... Until then, i recommend kiting IF you have the space AND you are getting your **s handed to you in melee fights...Also, the starting rangers dont have any offensive stance which procs from bow attacks...Other than that, the advice jarlaxle888 gave in his post is good! :smileyvery-happy:++Xan

Message Edited by xandez on 11-07-2005 02:23 PM

[jarlaxle8]

yeah, lol. in all my post i forgot to mention that any damage may break the stun, which means DoT from poison too. so it's always luck to get in a good high dmg hit while mob is stunned (mezzed). i'm not sure if i was lucky, but it worked quite well. it may be that i was just lucky and got the cheap shot -> bow attack right between 2 DoT ticks :smileyvery-happy:

what i am thinking though: will it really break every time? or is it just a chance to break, and one DoT tick may not be high enough for a high chance to break it? not sure.

anyway, a bit of kiting till cheap shot is up again might work, if you can't take mellee too long.

as for offensive stance: yeah, first one is mellee proc. got me there :smileytongue: but it may be that it ups the bow offense too? not sure though and can't have a look now cause i am at work... *cough*

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Ryilan Nightbreeze
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Message Edited by jarlaxle888 on 11-07-2005 01:43 PM

[TaleraRis]

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Noogan wrote:
rangers are horrorable soloers at that level. just try to stomach it till around level 35-40 then you start to become rock solid.

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I solo just fine. You just have to pick your mobs carefully.

[Mentla]

Dude, I'd look at your armor/weapons.  I have absolutely no problem with such 'mobs' and I'm a bit of a newby. btw, do we - I'm also a lvl 26 - get any CA's that you can use while running?

[jarlaxle8]

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Mentla wrote:

btw, do we - I'm also a lvl 26 - get any CA's that you can use while running?

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all our CAs/spells which are not bow arts can be used while moving (mellee, stealth, buffs, debuffs, stances). of the ranged CAs Back Shot and Wounding Arrow should be useable while moving. at least it's like that with their upgrades.

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Ryilan Nightbreeze
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[Mentla]

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jarlaxle888 wrote:

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Mentla wrote:btw, do we - I'm also a lvl 26 - get any CA's that you can use while running?

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all our CAs/spells which are not bow arts can be used while moving (mellee, stealth, buffs, debuffs, stances). of the ranged CAs Back Shot and Wounding Arrow should be useable while moving. at least it's like that with their upgrades.

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Not so at my level I fear 

[TaleraRis]

Nope, Wounding Arrow interrupts if you move. I've upgraded to Hidden Shot now, and I can't remember for absolute sure about Back Shot, but I don't think you could move with that one, either.

[TransWorld]

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Sollum wrote:I'm afraid that's the way it is. Mobs with any up arrows are imune to our Cheap shot stun - which is bloody annoying! Guess it's been done to prevent us soloing them. Well its worked, cause I don't touch anything with any up arrows.

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Actually it's not that they are immune.. the stun from Cheap Shot wears off as they take dmg / get hit.. if the mob is Heroic you only get 1 hit.. if it's non-heroic but ^/^^/^^^ you get more then 1 shot, but it can break at any time.. Best solution if you have no other choice is hit cheapshot and while it's charging turn off auto-combat so you can circle around behind them and use shrouded strike to go into sneak then hit with one of the backstabs (master strike, or sinister strike, etc.. ) depending on what's not on timer and what will do most dmg in your case.. Only time I have a problem with it breaking to soon is if I'm not solo and someone else is beating on the guy as I circle.. And let me tell you.. there is nothing more satisfying that pulling 2 or 3 ^'s or ^^'s and pulling off the cheap shot / circle behind / shrouded strike / skeleton masters strike and see it hit cause you timed it just right to not get hit while in stealth by the other 2 or 3 in the group  that aren't dead yet .. almost makes me wonder why everyone doesn't play a little sneaky scout :smileyvery-happy: -TW

[Crychtonn]

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gossin6 wrote:

Second, make sure you have speed buffs (horse, carpet, etc).  The purpose of these are to get you the most distance between you and the mob quickly.

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This is very bad advice.  Riding a horse or flying a carpet in combat will actually cost you run speed not improve it.  Horses, carpets, SoW and even Pathfinding give you Out of Combat movement speed increases.  Once you start combat those buffs are negated.  The Viel of the 'x' self buff line gives you an In Combat run speed buff.  Riding a horse or carpet in combat will negate that In Combat speed buff and cause you to move slower then if you were on foot.  At 26 you may not have this buff yet but it should be showing up soon.

 

At your level I'd stick to only taking on ^ and ^^ heroic's.  The ^^^ aren't worth the effort until you hit 42 and get Leg Shot.  Leg Shot gives you a non position snare shot that will completely change what you can and can't solo.  At 44 I strongly suggest taking the master II of it as your training choice.

 

[Cypherus]

wow i been soloing 1 and 2 arrow heroics since like 14 or lower u just kite auto bow them I gotta admit having open shot after a nice cheapshot is a great plus though!

 

 

ALSO U must use poison otherwise the battle will take twice as long!

[valer]

Hi Guys...I'm back to EQ2 from a 6 month layoff.  I feel that I've really grasped the ranger changes and I'll tell you guys what I do.  When I find a herioc ^ or ^^, this has been a successful way for me to kill them.  The problem is you have to find an area where you can avoid aggro, I suggest killing gnolls in TS to get faction up with the horsepeople.  Once I've found my target I go buff up(make sure you're using poison), make sure I have food and water and get into my offensive stance.   In combat speed buffs are key, buy them.

 

First I open with Hidden Shot which we get at 26 i think

 

Then I immediately hit the mob with Crippling Arrow(wounding arrow if you don't have crippling yet) which debuffs the Mob a bit. 

 

The stick the thing with Impede to slow it down, and put as much distance between us as possible running backwards and pumping arrows.

 

When I feel I have enough room to get it off I fire off Tripple Shot (open shot below lvl 2

 

Then quickly engage in melee you should be able to take a few hits i never take more than 3,  when engaged I try to hit it with all my DoT attacks then a cheapshot and impede. 

 

Then run away and use Shadow to quickly go into stealth(stalk for below 2 and by now hidden shot has recharged I'll stick it with that again.

 

Next back into defensive stance and get ready to melee the rest of the way, usually mob has about 10-15% health and it over quick.  Each time its taken me 1 minute minimum to solo a heroic ^ or ^^.  I hope this helps cause its worked for me.

 

Feel free to send me tell in game if you need any help

 

 

Message Edited by valerik on 12-20-2005 08:07 AM