I've seen a lot of people call Ranger a worse Blademaster in terms of damage, but people fail to recognize that Rangers have a very powerful self damage add buff.

The damage add buff adds a lot of damage and stacks with Warden's damage add buff. The only other class that gets such a damage add buff (but for group) in Hib is Enchanter with Enchantment spec. You will never find an Enhcantment spec Enchanter because all Enchanters go Mana spec for Exping and some combination of Mana/Light for RvR.

Taking into account the damage add buff, Rangers easily do damage on par with or better than Blademasters.

Please consider Rangers for your melee groups because Hib races (Lurikeen, and to a lesser extent Elf) have the best stats for Rangers out of all the realms. Ranger is also the best ranged bow dps class out of all the realms.

All i have to say is: Hahahahahahaha

What a troll... GL getting in 8 man groups with a ranger

No Determination, no group!

Blademaster's weaponskill is higher, and they gain more point overall in dex/str during their leveling. So they have much more weaponskill than the ranger, even if he's full melee spec

I don't think the add damage will be enough to compensate for that

Also BM got more HP, and access to shield spec if needed


Unbuffed, BM will most likely have less damage since Ranger have access to self buffs



edit : I do hope you are talking about PvE though

I assume that he is refering to -PvE- melee groups. And yes, sometimes I think that people should be a little more open minded and group more stealthers in PvE. As long as you have a hero/bm tanking, they can atually deal some very nice damage with positional styles.

If you are thinking about RvR then unfortunately no, you are not a viable group class. There are some cases when groups would actually group archers (relic defence), but otherwise playing a stealther you have to understand that you'll spend 99% of your game time either solo or grouped with other stealthers.

Autotraining ns's and rangers are indeed solid melee dps in pve melee grps, as long as bard can actually mez and a hero/bm can actually tank, like some1 mentioned above.

Throw protect on such a ns or ranger and u barely have to taunt to keep aggro as a tank.

This is all obviously dependent on spec, level and gear. Crappy gear and tank can barely stay alive and dps can barely dps. A lowbie bard with no music spec will also have a hard time mezzing high purps.

9 second slam, DET, 4 RA point purge, prevent flight...

Assuming were talking about rvr... /thread

I was talking about PvE group. I'm aware of lack of DET.

Synderen wrote:All i have to say is: Hahahahahahaha

What a troll... GL getting in 8 man groups with a ranger

No Determination, no group!

Well played Ranger in 8v8 is actually pretty devastating if you stealth on inc and assist shield slams w/ crit shots. Then you just keep rupting enemy healers/casters ftw. Problem is you will not be given the chance to show your skills unless you run with the same people who know what you can bring to the table and are willing to give it a go.

Edit: Many times you won't even be touched in a fight for quite some time. I've had enemy tanks run right by me multiple times as I've plinked arrows into their support. You have the advantage at first of them not knowing you're not an adder.

My intentionality is two-fold:

1) To open people's mind to allowing Rangers to have a spot in PvE melee groups. I believe they are competitive in PvE melee groups for the aforementioned reasons.

2) This is more controversial: I believe that Rangers can be a boon to the hib realm in RvR in general. While I'm not arguing for them having a spot in the traditional RvR group, I can still see them being effective in niche non-traditional scenarios such as in stealth groups, solo, or keep defense groups. I may be wrong in this regard, and it may be the case that there are hib classes that consistently outperform Rangers in all of the above non-traditional scenarios.

This is of particular importance to hibernia because as I've said before Rangers are the best ranged bow dps class out of all the realms and secondarily hib races are the most optimized for such a class (highest base Dex and Quickness combo out of all the realms).

It can be debated that Rangers and stealth characters in general are worthless in RvR and are always inferior to traditional roles. If this is true, it's disconcerting because one of hibernia's greatest strengths is not a strength at all.

I for my part have often grouped ns and ranger while lvling my bm and was pleased with their damage... at lvl 44+ i also saw many ns and rangers grouped in bog melee zergs

40+ when we started bog groups, we often had rangers/ns/bms... any dw class does good dmg with dmg add... so, dont see the problem, who wouldnt take a ranger for a melee grp

I've had a guildie archer in rvr with us when running with the zerg and had another in a pve group last night.

I definitely enjoyed having them and seemed their dmg was quite good. not sure why anyone wouldn't take one. Both of the stealther classes bring good dmg to groups, so in pve I don't see any reason why someone would not invite one.

I haven't tried 8v8 with a range but I personally wouldn't be against it.

8v8 w ranger LOL, just LOL.

XP w Ranger is doable but subpar in a melee xp grp, I would still much prefer a real melee class still for higher DPS/Armor.

Bottom Line... Your DPS will always be lacking compared to your counterparts for multiple reasons. You knew what you were getting yourself into when rolling a NS/Ranger.

During leveling, the Damage Add may make Ranger actually hit a little harder in melee than Blademaster, despite having to spend points to get it. However since it doesn't scale at all with weapon's quality and stats, the Ranger eventually becomes much weaker.

Geff wrote:My intentionality is two-fold:

1) To open people's mind to allowing Rangers to have a spot in PvE melee groups. I believe they are competitive in PvE melee groups for the aforementioned reasons.

2) This is more controversial: I believe that Rangers can be a boon to the hib realm in RvR in general. While I'm not arguing for them having a spot in the traditional RvR group, I can still see them being effective in niche non-traditional scenarios such as in stealth groups, solo, or keep defense groups. I may be wrong in this regard, and it may be the case that there are hib classes that consistently outperform Rangers in all of the above non-traditional scenarios.

This is of particular importance to hibernia because as I've said before Rangers are the best ranged bow dps class out of all the realms and secondarily hib races are the most optimized for such a class (highest base Dex and Quickness combo out of all the realms).

It can be debated that Rangers and stealth characters in general are worthless in RvR and are always inferior to traditional roles. If this is true, it's disconcerting because one of hibernia's greatest strengths is not a strength at all.

You are absolutely correct - but the fact that folks have to defend ranger/scout/hunter dps in a group after 17 years is mind-boggling.