Ok, first and foremost, this is not my write up. This came from Tuldan, a member of Sacred Fyre and who raids with the Fyre raid team.
With that said, this is the method used by end game raiding rangers serverwide. The key to putting out top notch dps is know what stacks and when to cast stuff.
It is also worth noting that bow dps is only better when BURNING. Outside of that, melee dps far surpasses ranged dps and, there for, outside of certain circumstances ranged dps should not be used over melee.
A final note, this is a slightly dated write up. With that said, the only change is the names of some spells and the lvls/effectiveness of some aas.
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Rangers need spell casting reinforcement mastery to increase the duration of certain aa's and discs by 70%.
Outrider's Attack 2/2:
2: Increase Chance to Hit by 30% with All Skills
3: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 20% with All Skills
4: Skill Damage Amount (120)
12: Increase ATK by 200
Outrider's Accuracy 6/6:
2: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 46%
4: Increase Chance to Hit by 130% with All Skills
5: Increase All Skills Minimum Damage Modifier by 26%
Guardian of the Forest 20/20:
2: Illusion: Black Wolf
4: Increase Haste v3 by 25%
7: Increase Hitpoints v2 by 1700 per tick
8: Increase ATK by 294
9: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 56%
Group Guardian of the Forest 3/3:
4: Increase Haste v3 by 15%
7: Increase Hitpoints v2 by 525 per tick
8: Increase ATK by 144
9: Increase All Skills Damage Modifier by 26%
Auspice of the Hunter 15/15:
1: Spell Crit Chance (24)
2: Increase Accuracy by 185%
3: Critical Heal (24)
4: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 180% with All Skills
10: Increase ATK by 165
Falcon Strike (epic click):
10: Increase Chance to Critical Hit by 170% with All Skills
11: Increase Accuracy by 170%
Forceful Rejuvenation
Poison Arrows
Imbued Ferocity
Scout's Mastery of Fire/Ice
Big burn is while bowing: Click Poison Arrows (this ability is an agro beast and not neccessary since it does a minimal % of damage), Auspice and then epic when it fades, Bullseye disc(3min 24s duration with extension aa's), Guardian of the Forest(102 secs with aa's), Group Guardian of the Forest after GotF fades(102 secs with aa's), chaining Called Shots and Focused Tempest of Arrows with nukes(mainly summer's storm) between CS/FToA blasts. Use Forceful Rejuvenation immediately after the second FToA blast after your first Called Shots. Use Third Spire to increase your crit dmg and spell dmg if you're not taking ae dmg and there is no zerker in your group. Third spire/zerker aura do not mix. When Bullseye fades, run in and melee.
Epic and auspice coexist but don't stack so don't waste the two together. Always melee for more dps when bullseye drops as long as it's feasible. Goes without saying but if the fight is long enough, waiting to pop dmg modifiers like oaccuracy and gotf with shaman epic and your epic yields the best results. Glyph of cataclysm is a nice one to pop while you're meleeing and chaining nukes.
With UF there is also the Scout's Mastery of Fire/Ice aa's and Imbued Ferocity aa. Combine your two highest ratio weapons with matching fire/magic or ice/magic procs for this ablility. Imbued Ferocity makes you proc every round and the Scout's Mastery line increases your spell dmg, including procs, by 300.
I've tied Called Shots, FToA, Burning Ash, Biting Wind, and Summer's Storm to a single keyboard shortcut for fast casting. To do this, mem those 5 spells in that order from top to bottom in your spell bar. Go to your options window. Click your Keys tab. Sort it to Spell Casting . Put the same command for all 5 of those spell gems. I use the X key. Now when you're burning, just tap that key and it will cast Called Shots when it's up. If Called Shots isn't up, it checks the next spell, then the next spell, and finally Storm if the first 4 aren't up. (Edit, I (Tinyfamilyguy) have also tied kick and jolting kicks to the same key. Im not sure if he mentioned that or not. It is possible to be in range to use jolking kicks and still be far enough away to bow. This helps increase dmg and decrease aggo at the same time.)
Here's an example picture of doing this for the first 4 spells of your spell bar.
Now, here is my base main burn macro, it only has 3 abilities in it, but those 3 are the most crucial to make sure a ranger gets running
I title macro "BURN"
line 1 /alt activate 184 (guardian of the forest)
line 2 /alt activate 872 (outriders attack)
line 3 /di bullseye discipline rk. III
You must type out full disc name of best rank u have or disc may not activate.
In ranger channel in raids i was asked why my burn macro only has 3 things in it. I do activate other abilities but they are situational on your group make up and if auspice is going to be mgb'd. If i have no zerker in group and there is no ae spell damage (rare i know, but fights like Al kabor u can) i fire third spire at burn start, it adds 20% damage to crits where zerker aura overwrites it and adds 30% damage to crits. Retardedly sony put a 200 (yes Two hundred) spell damage absorb on third spire, so if u take 200 spell damage it poofs. If u have zerker or ae damage fire first spire to help with reduced spell agro.
I activate fire arrows before fight so its refreshed to fire poison arrows at last 30% of bullseye. I have always had agro problems when i run poison arrows the entire duration of bullseye.
If u do ever get agro mid burn pop covered tracks ASAP or die
Always make sure shaman epic is clicked before u start castign called shots and FToA. If u have clicked burn macro and yer shaman hasnt clicked his epic yet just sit there and autofire till epic is running or u will be missing some dps. This is a good tiem to manually cast some dots while waiting on sham epic. Also, always make sure auspice or your own epic (works on archery damage also) is clicked the entire time of bullseye. Generally on burns we have a mgb auspice rotation running. If u have clicked your burn macro and auspice hasnt been mgb's yet click your epic to fill the gap, or if the first mgb auspice fades and there is a delay in the 2nd ranger mgb'ing auspice click your epic to fill the gap. If your mgb is down u can also group cast auspice to fill these gaps but i use epic first if its up as it is just a 3 min refresh.
Along with tieing those 5 spells to a single keyboard key I have also tied my kick button and jolting hook kicks button to that same key to minimize the things i have to click. You will kick every time it refreshes without interrupting other dps and doesnt hurt your dps when not in range to kick, it just wont fire. Jolting hook kicks fires in between spells so really not much delay in nuking there either and will maximize your agro reduction casting it as soon as it refreshes.
Now for my melee burn.
I have made a small macro to combine Imbued ferocity and scouts mastery of fire/ice as these 2 abilities are best used if combined.
I just titled the Macro "IF"
line 1 /alt activate 9203 (scouts mastery of ice)
line 2 /alt activate 2235 (imbued ferocity)
Scouts mastery of fire is 9202, but most weps in voa have ice procs so ice will maximize dps
click that macro, then epic, then outriders accuracy for best results and continue to press your spell casting button that casts those 5 top dps spells. If you have extra aa's and use glyphs "Glyph of the cataclysm) is great to fire with this combo, will get more out of glyphs with this combo then u will running it with bullseye burn. I dont have 7th vet yet but I have heard it is even better to use with this combo then a glyph is and will get more out of 7th with this melee combo then with bullseye. Again, the info about 7th is just hearsay as i dont have it to try out yet.
Something to think about for aa choices for rangers that arent max aa yet. Passive dps aa's get very minimal upgrades after SoD expansion. I usually tell rangers that ask me abou aa lines to only get passive dps aa's up to max SoD lvl then get all levels of activated aa's and hasten activated aa's. There is a bunch more dps to be gotten out of activated aa's then the minimal gains we have gotten the last 2 expansion on passive dps.
I will edit these posts as i think of more, dps'ing is second nature to me now so its hard to remember everything as im typing this up.
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I bolded the one paragraph because that step is important to maximizing dps.
Also,
http://www.eqoutrider.net/eqforums/index.php is the ranger boards and has a lot or important information pertaining to rangers.
Rangers also have a serverwide (gamewide) chat channel that links you to end game and very experience rangers who can answer any questions you may have. Always check the boards first for answers since most questions probably already have answers.
serverwide.outrider:outrider
Feel free to hit me up in game if you have questions.
