Venjenz said:On the very specific topic of "nobody loves my ranger" it's because RoK introduced the outdoor path of least resistance, and every ranger in the game figured that as their only calling, so everyone else got that idea as well. They did fine DPS, had most of the druid spells like damage shields/DoTs/snares, and they had dual wield/double attack like rogues. But since evryone only knew them from being outdoor SoW pulers on the LOIO->OT->DL treadmill (even thmselves) nobody saw the "mostly rogue with cool utility and DPS spells, plus archery!" class they were. That was a culture thing, not a class imbalance thing.
This is one of the best replies I have read on these forums. People to this day still bash rangers because that's how they were taught. That's all they've known. A good ranger is one of the most valuable players to know, and so many people will or have never experienced this.
I really wished I picked ranger instead of rogue as my first main in EQ. I would have had so much more utility, diversity and gameplay mechanics than beeing a backstab turret (with deadly strike knife launch-laugh), but back then I was more in the shady business.
A lot of people mocks the ranger, but playing one on P99 made me feel like I could do so much in suck a wide area, from bow kite, to pulling, with some exp tanking, great soloing, travelling, named tracking, etc...
That's one of the reason I'm really tempted by playing a ranger in Pantheon, because it's such a versatile class you can really take a lot of pleasure in doing a ton of different things.
But that's my own deviation of the subject, answering to some of the latest posts.
Porygon said:This is one of the best replies I have read on these forums. People to this day still bash rangers because that's how they were taught. That's all they've known. A good ranger is one of the most valuable players to know, and so many people will or have never experienced this.
A rogue-druid mashup with awesome sustained DPS, the ever vital snare spell, plus DoTs? And oh btw, everyone gets SoW? Rangers were fine.
The LOIO->OT->DL treadmill wrecked the playerbase idea of rangers. They were soooooo useful in dungeon groups. Raids frowned on them because rogues had slightly higher pure melee DPS numbers, and that was all about stacking, but I always found that be as lazy as necros being used for twitch duty, or the idea that only one shaman wa needed because all they did was cast slow/debuff.
Most trinity/quadernity discussions are out of game theorycrafting by people trying to get another class nerfed or their class buffed. In the real game, even on real raids, there is no "one perfect" combination of classes that rules all. Yes, you need tanking, healing, utility and DPS, but that can be accomplished soooo many ways wit all of the classes. It's just lazy thinking to always think WAR-CLR-ENC-ROG + whatever. Any actual raid players with legit raid experience in actual MMOs can speak to that same truth. The defensive disc WAR + 5 cleric CH chain was specific to a very singular game at a very specific point in a very specific niche. MMOs have gone way past all that acorss the board.
You could say the same for every class in EQ. They were all designed very very well. When played right it was a thing of beauty. I've seen a bard pull things better than most monks, I've seen Enchanters single handidly double a groups effectiveness. I've seen SK's pull things that a warrior would wipe a group if he brought back. That was in my opinion what made EQ so great was running into these amazing players. People who said such and such class sucked never had any good experiences with great players.
A lot of the Ranger's reputation was built on twinks that weren't real aware of how to play the class. A lot of people would create a Ranger because they were easy to twink. And also a lot of them got bad raps after PoP+ where they became AFK bow DPS. I don't know how many of them came to tables camp in PoFire wanting to AFK autofire. I told them they cant go AFK...when they did and they wouldn't respond for 15-20 minutes I would tell the group to back up into the hall and I would target the Guardian of Doomfire and they would autotarget/autofire onto him. May have been a little extreme lol
bryanleo9 said: Definitely think outside the tri / quad. I will be trying all sorts of group combinations out. This is a very fun part of these games. So undesirables lfg I will be looking to bring you in and make our own group.
Can't remember the server, but back in the RoK/SoV days, a bunch of magicians got sick of nobody wanting to go to Island 7 in Sky for the crown (mage epic item), so they formed a coalition and ran almost 100% mage only Sky raids. Took the one wizard needed to get them up there, took 2 clerics strictly for rezz duty (since Death Touch and all), and ran weekly Sky raids using just magicians. Iirc, a bunch of necros did the same thing for their epics on some server. Wizard as needed, couple rezz bot clerics, then all necros.
When the culture tosses a problem, hit the solution out of the park. EMERGENT GAMEPLAY.
