Ranger Class Guide (Classic - Prophecy of Ro)
This guide will cover the Ranger Class from Classic all the way until the end of Prophecy of Ro. A lot changes after PoR and I think this expansion marks the end of the classic era of EQ, things start to change a lot after this era as devs balance classes and the game.
During this era Rangers will have many ups and downs, you start out as a rather useless class in Classic and you stay that way until Luclin when you suddenly jump to being the best DPS in the game thanks to Trueshot Discipline. This lasts until the end of Luclin when you will start to slowly fall off from being best DPS.
If you've been playing EQ long enough you have probably heard the joke about Rangers being one of the most useless classes in the game. This joke primarily only applies to raid situations since that is where Rangers will struggle the most - however in group or solo environments as a Ranger you'll do rather fine. IMO this joke only really applies to this era of the game too, eventually Rangers will get enough ADPS that they become a very desired class too.
Rangers are also one of the few classes in EQ that get an extremely powerful AA that lets them solo very effectively. This AA is called Headshot and it will have a low chance to proc with each successful Archery attack (if you're fighting the correct type of target that's the correct level). Soloing by using this AA becomes very common later in this era and during future eras of the game.
Important Stats & Focus Effects
The best way to improve your character in this game until we reach Velious and Luclin is to improve your stats. Once we reach these expansions it will start to become common for people to cap out their stats with gear and buffs. After maxing out your stats the only way to raise them is with AAs. Heroic Stats are also added into the game during this era which we'll talk about in a bit.
Rangers will want to focus on Strength, Dexterity and Wisdom primarily. If you can get gear with Attack on it or Flowing Thought that will increase your damage output as well. For those of you who like solo or group content I would strongly encourage Stamina, Agility and AC to be a concern for you too. These stats will keep you alive.
Strength: This increases your Attack and weight limits.
Dexterity: Increases chance to proc during combat and accuracy.
Stamina: Gives you HP.
Agility: Increases AC.
Wisdom: This gives mana, it scales as you level. At level 1 you get 1 mana per wisdom and at 60 it's about 10 mana per wisdom.
Once Planes of Power is released you will start to notice Heroic Stats on your gear. This will become more and more common as time goes on until eventually every piece of gear will have Heroic Stats on it. Benefits from these stats are kind of like real stats but slightly worse.
Each of these Heroic Stats will give diminishing returns past their soft caps. For this reason it's typically best not to focus entirely on one and to spread them around a bit. As a Ranger you will primarily want Heroic Dexterity, Heroic Stamina, Heroic Wisdom and Heroic Agility. If you're wondering why no Strength, it's because the dps increase is so minor. You'll eventually get HStr on your gear anyway.
Heroic Dexterity (Accuracy/Proc Chance): Heroic Dex increases your accuracy and proc chance during combat; it has diminishing returns later in the game once you start getting a lot of it.
Heroic Agility (Avoidance/Strike Through): Increases AC, Dodge, Block and Many of the most important Mod2s. Use my Heroic Stats Guide for more information.
Heroic Wisdom (MP/Regen): This increases your MP, Mana Regen and Max Mana Regen for Casters. Once you cap Flowing Thought, you'll need more Heroic Wisdom to increase your potential cap.
Heroic Stamina (HP/Mitigation): Increases HP, HP Regen, and HP Regen Cap. It also gives you some Mod2s which help with damage and stun mitigation.
Want more information about Heroic Stats and what they do/how they're beneficial? Curious what Mod2s are? Take a look at my Heroic Stats Guide for more information about what each stat does and why we're getting the ones that we're focusing on.
Important Focus Effects
Starting in Luclin and becoming more common as the game goes on certain pieces of gear will come with Focus Effects. For melee classes you don't start getting tons of Focus Effects until OoW and beyond. Below are the main Focus Effects that you want to get on your gear when they become available.
****Haste: Not really a focus, but this is the most important secondary thing you should get on your gear. Eventually it becomes a staple on your gear in the future and you don't have to seek it out anymore.
****Cleave: Increases your chance to crit with all combat skills by a significant amount. This is the most important focus you should seek out once it's available.
***Ferocity: Your chance to double attack is increased by a small amount. Your second biggest DPS increase will come from this.
***Mana Preservation: Reduces the amount of Mana consumed with each cast.
**Improved Dodge: Chance to Dodge is increased by a moderate amount. Pretty much gives you a bit more survivability.
**Improved Healing: This increases the total amount that you heal for with each cast.
**Extended Range: Increases the range of your spells.
**Spell Haste: Reduces the cast time of your spells (makes your spells cast faster)
**Improved Damage: Increases the damage your DD spells do. This is very important if you plan to deal direct damage (with nukes).
**Sharpshooting: Rangers actually deal some damage using Archery which will gain benefits from this focus.
*Burning Affliction: Increases the damage of your DoT spells.
*Increased Detrimental Spell Duration: As the name suggests, this increases the duration of your detrimental spells. For a complete list of items that do this check out the Allakhazam Focus Page. I think most players will probably use the Jagged Gravestone of Affliction or a similar Aug from OoW to acheive this.
*Extended Enhancement: Increases the duration of your buffs.
*Improved Parry/Block: Chance to Parry and Block is increased by a moderate amount. You should never be using a shield, so you only benefit from the Parry. Increases survivability marginally.
Important Spells, Skills, AAs & Disciplines
Rangers are half Druid and half Warrior so you get many of the same spells that Druids do. Some of the examples are SoW, Heals, Snares, Invis, Nukes, Roots, weak HP Type 1 Buffs and a couple of other basic things. As a Ranger most of your damage will come from melee or archery attacks, your spells will primarily be used for utility purposes and some basic aid while soloing.
Some of your more important spells include Call of Flame, it's a fast casting high damage nuke which you will be using for awhile. Luclin adds in Eagle Eye and many others in the same buff line like it, these buffs will increase your Archery hit chance (which increases your damage). Ykesha adds Icewind which is a fast casting ice nuke, typically you'll want to only use the .5 second cast time nukes.
The nukes and DoTs which take longer than a few seconds to cast are not worth your time during your melee rotations. Your melee damage is much higher so it's typically best to focus on that instead. Like most hybrid classes, you don't get many spells until PoP and OoW which add a bunch for you.
During Velious you will get your first useful raid buff, it's called Call of the Predator. Luclin will add Mark of the Predator too, both of these will stack together. These are the two buffs everyone will be asking you for on raids since they buff Attack and stack with basically every other buff in the game. Each expansion that raises the level cap will upgrade these spells for you in the future too.
Below I created a more organized list of your most important spell lines, some of the ones we already talked about above will be included below.
Self Buffs: One of your most important self buffs is your weapon proc line, the level 60 version is called Call of Fire. You will get two self only lines of damage shield/AC buffs. One of them is Warder's Protection and another is Thorncoat. PoP adds the Mask line of buffs which you share with Druids, it will give you Mana Regen and some other benefits.
Attack Buffs: Velious spell names are above, in PoP this line is called Spirit of the Predator and Strength of Tunare. At first this line of buffs only affects Attack or HP, once OoW hits this line will also buff your Double Attack too, some minor changes happen over time but for the most part these are DPS buffs.
Hail of Arrows: Starting in DoDh you will get a skill called Hail of Arrows, this becomes a core part of your DPS rotation once it's added and you'll also be using this spell for Headshot grinding too.
Threat/Tanking: Until PoP many groups will want you to tank for them, if you're good at it. In order to build and keep threat you'll want to use your Flame Lick spell. This spell is low mana cost and good threat.
Skills
As a Ranger there are actually a few different skills that you will want to use/be aware of. The first two are Forage and Tracking, just like a Druid you will get both of them. When you use Forage you'll scrounge up some junk items as well as food, drink and sometimes even a valuable tradeskill item. Many people who get Forage never use it because it provides very little benefit and forces you to organize your inventory more often.
If you setup a macro that uses Forage though and also has /autoi you'll deposit what you forage and can deal with it later. This will make the task of Foraging a lot less annoying for many players.
Forage Macro: /doability # on line 1 and /autoi on line 2. Set Forage to whatever doability # you want to use.
Tracking is a bit different, when you use Track you'll be able to see a list of NPCs in the zone. You can increase your Tracking range by increasing your skill, at max skill it's not uncommon for you to be able to see an entire zone. Many players use this skill to see if raid bosses are up in a zone and to keep tabs on mobs they're looking for.
Last but not least you will also get Kick and Bash, both of which you can /autoskill. Bash can only be used with a Shield so I advise you to ignore that one completely and instead just do /autoskill Kick. Kick will provide you with a minor boost in DPS but it's definitely worth doing.
AAs
Just like with the other classes, I am only going to cover the clicky AAs that Rangers get. Starting with Luclin you will get access to Innate Camoflauge and Mass Group Buff. Camoflauge is an invisibility and MGB will let you buff an entire AoE area with a group buff. This is useful for raids when you'd like to give the entire raid a buff.
Once PoP is released you will get access to Entrap which is an AA Snare spell, it will free up a spell gem for you. You'll also get Guardian of the Forest which is one of the AAs you'll be using during your burn rotation, it will boost your damage. Gates of Discord adds in Flaming Arrows which buffs your Archery damage.
When Omens of War releases you will get the best AA for your class, Auspice of the Hunter. Pair your MGB with Auspice to give the entire raid an amazing buff during their burns, later on in the game many raid guilds will expect this from you. Last but not least, in DoDh you will get Shared Camouflage which gives you a group version of your invis.
Disciplines
Like most Hybrid Classes, you don't get many Discs as a Ranger during this era. Below is a list of every disc available to you, some are great and some are meh.
Resistant Discipline (51) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy) My advice for finding Classic era discs is to check Warrior Tomes merchants; Teniyu Emua in West Freeport is my choice)
Increases your resistances by a lot temporarily.
Fearless (54) - Classic (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Fear immunity for 1min.
Trueshot Discipline (55) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Increases your Archery skill and damage done with it.
Weapon Shield Discipline (60) - Velious (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Parry chance is increased by 10,000%
Warder's Wrath (69) - DoDh (Allakhazam, Lucy)
Your chance to crit is increased by 200% and your chance to hit is increased by 100%.
How to Play: Ranger Basics
During this era the Ranger playstyle changes a bit, you start out dealing primarily melee damage but then switch to sometimes using your Bow once you get Trueshot Discipline. From Classic - PoP many groups will appreciate it if you're capable of tanking for them and with the right gear you are.
If you plan to do any tanking as a Ranger you'll need to use the Flame Lick spell since it has such high threat generation. This spell is one that's worth always keeping memorized since it will give you something (other than Taunt) which will let you snap agro to you. Even if you're not tanking, this spell can save the life of your squishy healer or Enchanter.
As a Ranger your main dps rotation will typically be Auto Attack + Call of Flame until Planes of Power. You'll also sometimes want to use your main DoT line too, spells like Stinging Swarm, Drones of Doom and Drifting Death. These spells are good to use while mobs are en route to your camp or when you have an opportunity where you aren't meleeing. I find the best advice to be - never interrupt a melee rotation to use one of these spells. They take too long to cast and typically your melee damage is better during those few seconds than the DoT.
Once you get Trueshot Discipline your playstyle will change slightly because you'll want to begin using Archery to deal damage too sometimes. From what I have seen this disc becomes part of your burns and then you go back to melee damage once it's expired. You may need to double check this though and parse yourself with both Archery and melee to see what's better.
Luclin will give you the Endless Quiver AA too which will make it so you don't have to spend time and money constantly making arrows. Even when you are playing on a TLP you can still use the /autofire command which will let you automatically attack with your bow just like you would using your weapons.
Planes of Power and Omens of War change things up a bit again for your class since they add in a few more nukes with .5 second cast times. You'll want to keep 3 memorized at all times and use them all if your mana will allow you. Depending on if you have KEI and/or other regen buffs you may only be able to use one or two effectively. Pay attention to your mana and how fast you burn through it.
More Tips & Tricks
Ranger BiS Lists
I have BiS gear lists for this class which include both Tower and Pre-Tower BiS items. For those of you who care less about a BiS list and just want a list of good gear options, I have included that at the bottom of each page too.
Kunark Ranger BiS Gear List
Velious Ranger BiS Gear List
Luclin Ranger BiS Gear List
PoP Ranger BiS Gear List