AOC - Ranger

[Deward]

Well I used my Father's day gift and bought this game. I am currently playing a ranger and am up to level 16. Levelling is so damn fast in this game. I think I got to level 10 in the first hour. I am still stuck in Tortage and pretty much doing every quest imaginable.

I am by no means an expert on the Ranger class but these are my observations so far.

I have tried both bow and crossbow so far and both have their advantages. Bow is nice because it is very fast and you can use salvo. My problem is that I can never get those two button combos to work. Crossbow is nice because it has greater range and usually does more damage in a single hit. I recently found an upgrade for my bow and switched to that. I plan to switch back and forth depending on what I find.

Ranger also has the ability to hide. When he shoots from this hidden state it mezzes the mob for a short time. That is nice but the hide ability takes too long to reset so you can't use it all that often.

Being low level, I have not really found the feats that useful yet. I have also found that melee does a lot better than the ranged for me. In a group the bow does a good job but I have rarely been grouped and find that my melee is used a lot. Luckily, there are a lot of easy melee combos that seem to do good damage. I find that I can take on 5 even level mobs or one big one 4 levels higher than me.

The Bads:
Now rangers are supposed to be the premiere ranged class in this game. I haven't seen it so far though. You get a skill called leghold that will trap a mob but it is only for a few seconds. Maybe enough time to get one or two shots off and that is it. The mobs also run so fast that I haven't really had a chance to try kiting. As I said, you usually get one or two hits with the bow and then they are on you. Sometimes this is all you need though. I have one-shotted mobs multiple times but that leads to my next frustration:

How the hell do I start out with a combo!!! It seems like my character always wants to shoot a regular shot and then launch the combo. By that time the mob is on you. I must be making some kind of noob mistake.

Also if anyone knows what I am doing wrong with the two button combos or if there is some kind of trick. I have gotten them to launch before but maybe 20% of the time only. That opening shot always seems to screw things up for me. Are you supposed to hit the two buttons right away after you hit the move button? I have no problem with the one button combos.

I don't know how it is with other classes, but the ranger has a crapload of different combat moves. I have to have separate bars for melee and bows and I am still leaving combos off.

[Ashur]

I've a 16 Barbarian and I noticed that I always seem to have to break steath with a normal attack (1-3) instead of a combo starter. I haven't researched to see if there is a way to do that (like holding down another key or something).

Hell, I just noticed last night for the first time that I got some sort of advantage when I beat this Red Hand Guard's ass after sneaking up behind him in the Underhalls. I don't have any combos I can use with my bow (that I'm aware of), so I always use "2". More often then not I just sneak up and unleash my great scimtar of whoopass with some good UR moves to kill a bunch at once.

[miir]

There are only specific combos that can be used from stealth.

How the hell do I start out with a combo!!! It seems like my character always wants to shoot a regular shot and then launch the combo. By that time the mob is on you.

Target the mob (or player), turn around, start the combo, do the lead up steps then face the mob (or player) for the last step.

Combos are just a lame-ass mechanic to make players think that combat is more than just mashing a single button.
It doesn't even matter if any of the lead up attacks for a combo actually hits the target.
In pvp, I will charge up a powerful combo as I'm running towards a target, pop a Hellfire Breath (so they have no idea that I have a reallyfuckinghugenasty combo already loaded) then pop the last hit for the combo.

Also if anyone knows what I am doing wrong with the two button combos or if there is some kind of trick. I have gotten them to launch before but maybe 20% of the time only. That opening shot always seems to screw things up for me. Are you supposed to hit the two buttons right away after you hit the move button? I have no problem with the one button combos

Heh.. you don't hit them simultaneously.
Start combo then step through the directional hits.
As you level up you'll get combos with 4-5 steps.

Another tip is to take off auto-face and use mouse to turn.
Turning with keyboard will fucker up your combos and it's too slow.



Rangers are little owners in PVP up until about level 50.
At that point other classes start catching up in power.

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Are they more like EQ's rangers (ranged primarily) or EQ2's rangers? (some melee too)