Let's go over the basics first before we get into the girth of rangering.
Spell Set:
The first 7 spells should ALWAYS be on your hotbar, casting is about 40% of ranger DPS. The last 6 slots you can do whatever you need to with them depending on events but my spell set is generally always the same and is what I have below. You'll notice I have 2 Summer's loaded. Sometimes when using this multi-bind your cast will fire before the CD has been reached on Summer's and it will skip to the next spell, since I use the same bind keys on all my characters I have the next best Summer's loaded to stop myself from randomly wasting Conjunction or casting the DoT.
1. Inevitable Shots
2. Focused Frenzy of Arrows
3. Ecliptic Fusillade
4. Summer's Deluge
5. Summer's Torrent
6. Hotaria Swarm
7. Dusksage Stalker's Conjunction
8. Quenching Geyser
9. Therapeutic Balm
10. Flex
11. Flex
12. Flex
13. Flex
MULTI-BIND TIME! The way I have my spell key setup is just going down the list basically. So for spells 1-5 all the arrow nukes will fire whenever they pop up and then once all are on cool down Summer's will be cast over and over. I manually click Ice Burrower Swarm, you're going to want to keep this on the boss and adds as much as your mana will allow, it's a chunky DoT now but does take some mana. Be smart about it with its global cooldown. If 1 of your arrow nukes is about to pop up, wait to hit this till they're all on comfortable cool downs.
Combat Abilities:
Kick
Jolting Drop Kicks
Focused Tempest of Blades
Maelstrom of Blades
Reflexive Rimespurs
MULTI-BIND TIME! I have another key that is DIFFERENT from my spell key. The reason for this is because you want to be casting spells when they're up and using combat abilities during the universal cooldown. Spells are more DPS, combat abilities are to fill the gap with something meaningful. My Combat Ability key has the following abilities on it: Kick, Jolting Drop Kicks, and Focused Tempest of Blades. Focused Tempest of Blades is lower damage and single target as opposed to Maelstrom of Blades. I keep Focused in always to avoid mez breaks, I manually click Maelstrom of Blades when we're not mezzing and I can position myself to line up mobs. (Tempest is frontal, caps at 8 targets.) Reflexive Rimespurs I use as a HoT for the group if together we are low a lot, otherwise I hit it during the main burn whilst all the adps is running for maximum damage.
*Do not use Maelstrom of Blades AOE whilst doing Archery. It will not reach your targets unless you are actively firing at something away from your pile of mobs. The spell Data will suggest it does but it does not actually connect with the mob in practice.
Group Makeups:
Group makeups are important for rangers and ever changing depending on AFK's, late comers, odd groupings for events etc. Generally speaking your best group ADPS will be a Shaman, Bard, Beastlord and Berserker. With that in mind you should acquaint yourself with their various ADPS abilities/spells and what they do for you. Druids and Enchanters will also be thrown into the mix sometimes but to a lesser extent. It's possible that you may find yourself "thrown to the wolves" and just be shit out of luck for ADPS. But, it wouldn't hurt to have a plan for when/if that happens. As far as your personal burns they will not change much at all. BUT you will have to vigorously conserve mana as well as you can while actively spamming still. For example don't DoT unless you have a gift of mana proc, and try and hold off on Dissident for a few seconds for a gift of mana proc. This also applies when you don't have a bard, not just for when you're groupless/ADPSless. Do the best you can at keeping your mana regen clicks and potions on CD. You'll also find it in your best interest to make several hotkeys to several different people for Paragons and Quiet Prayers. The way I do it is as soon as I hit 90% mana send a tell for paragon, as soon as I hit 70% I send a tell for QP. You can hold off on Paragon a bit but it's imperative to get that QM timer on you as soon as possible so you can have 2 in an event as opposed to 1. This all of course depends if the clerics have already used it on others or died and required Veturika's. For Paragons I've found it's better to just cycle through beastlords, don't just hammer 1 person for it the whole event. (In modern EQ you likely won%u2019t get Focused Para unless you%u2019re lucky, so don't bank on it.)
Empowered Blades + Arbor Stalker's Discipline:
Now the best route to take in using a disc like Arbor Stalker's or Empowered Blades is to use them with hundred hands effects. The reason behind this is that both of these discs just add a FLAT amount of damage to weapon strikes, further augmentation of the strikes has no affect on Arbor Stalker's or Empowered Blades. However the rate at which you swing your weapons IS important when maximizing your gains from both. Weapon delay scaling goes off your base delay and will not affect HHE's.
The Burnering:
This is where coordination of everyone else and yourself are going to come in. Now as far as ADPS goes, as soon as you see shaman epic go off you go buck wild on arrow nukes (assuming all your personal burns are running at that time of course.) I try to hit my burns as best I can based on duration time especially if we're hitting them before we trigger a flash burn type mob. So here's a run down of how I press my burns most of the time:
Auspice (Don't go out of rotation, this may already be running)
Pureshot
Scarlet Cheetah Fang
Outrider's Accuracy
Spire of the Pathfinders
Imbued Ferocity
Glyph (In absence of shaman epic / when shaman epic fades)
Guardian of the Forest (Once Outrider's Accuracy fades)
Group Guardian of the Forest (Once Guardian of the Forest fades) [Be sure to check for Group Bestial Alignment first, it is slightly better and SPA 185 doesn't functionally stack]
Things to keep split up for Sustained DPS. These are things you can combine for a slightly larger Burn in the few circumstances where the event lasts less than 2 minutes.
Hit Damage Mods:
Guardian of the Forest {96%}
Outrider's Accuracy {82%}
Intensity of the Resolute {55%}
Group Guardian of the Forest {50%}
Hunter's Fury (Killshot Proc) {55%}
Group Bestial Alignment (Beastlord ADPS) {60%}
Critical Hit Damage Mod:
Prophet's Gift of the Ruchu (Shaman Epic) {110%}
Glyph of Destruction {60%}
Critical Melee Chance %
Falcon Strike (Epic 2.0) {170%}
Auspice of the Hunter {225%}
Circle of Power (1-4) {40, 80, 120, 130%}
Provoked Effect (Killshot Proc) {366, 370, 375%}
Cry Carnage (Berserker ADPS) {100%}
Keep Poison Arrows on at all times. They clipped its wings to the point where its consumption of mana isn't noticeable whatsoever, and doesn't consume a debuff slot now.
Perhaps the most important thing you will have to do every raid is take control of your ADPS. YOU run the show. The main thing you want to control is getting Quick Time for Pureshot%u2019s duration. Everything else in regards to Shaman Epic, Bard Epic, Fierce Eye etc should be hit on CD. Aside from lining up your full burn you need to continue your CD's regardless of your ADPS. Rangers are a sustaining class, trying to line up certain abilities with ADPS does very little for us once we've gone through our burst (Scarlet/Pureshot). The only worthwhile semi-coordinating to do after the full burn is trying to use Imbued/Spire/Auspice together. This will more than likely be dependent on the other rangers in the raid maintaining the Auspice rotation.
SPA 185 Sustainment:
Mentioned above in our burn order is splitting of our SPA 185 abilities. In-game these are the abilities that classify as increase base melee damage by X%. If you look on parsing sites for spell data they'll say Increase Hit Damage by X% v185%. This is a non-stacking damage modifier of which there are quite a few abilities with it present in-game, rangers have the most, at least in terms of present and combinable abilities.
A few of these abilities will have other components to them but the main component we are looking for is that SPA 185 modifier. Their effectiveness is listed in order below % wise for all abilities that we encounter, including those of other classes. (This list will stay in this order mostly as you get these AA's on TLP).
Guardian of the Forest
Outrider's Accuracy
Group Bestial Alignment
Hunter's Fury
Intensity of the Resolute
Group Guardian of the Forest
War March of X
*Pureshot Discipline is also a SPA 185 modifier, however it is for a specific skill so it DOES stack with regular base SPA 185 Mods. At least until another Archery specific one gets introduced.
With all that said, there is a hefty burden or requirement if you will to actually capitalize on all of these for your sustained damage. Remember, we are not a Burst class so our toolkit is best utilized through micromanagement of these abilities specifically. There's not a lot I can put into words going through an actual live sequence of events and CD's.
The best advice I can give is to be conscious of your timers and your song window. Some overlap will happen at times and that's ok. There will also be times where it's best to hold off for a few seconds to a minute on certain more powerful mods just to ride out your current one. On the fly adjustments will occur a lot that you'll have to do quick napkin math for.
*Example: Hunter's Fury is on and your Outrider's Accuracy just repopped. Guardian of the Forest still has 1:41s on CD. You know that Outrider's will be up for a max of 1:12. So, it's best to hold off on Outrider's for that extra 30-36 seconds riding out Hunter's Fury. Again, this is for sustaining DPS and loses its shine on short burst type events.
Forceful Rejuvenation:
If you plan on using Forceful Rejuvenation during your main burn what I do is use it after the 4th arrow nuke. So it'll look something like this:
Dusksage Stalker's Conjunction
Inevitable Shots
Focused Frenzy of Arrows
Ecliptic Fusillade
Hotaria Swarm
Summer's
Summer's
Focused Frenzy of Arrows
*Forceful Rejuvenation
Dusksage Stalker's Conjunction
Inevitable Shots
Focused Frenzy of Arrows
Ecliptic Fusillade
Auspice:
This is in it's own sub section because it's special. With Auspice it should always be on during the main burn and for the majority of the raid as a whole depending on how many rangers are there. Everyone should load a TB so that for long events multiple rangers can MGB Auspice twice. As simple as hitting TB before the event starts and refraining from hitting Shout until you've used your Spice.
Survivability:
Rangers are agro whores, it's a hard truth but the sooner you get used to it the better you'll be at controlling your agro. We have 4 defensive discs/abilities, 1 agro drop, 1 buff and 1 fade.
Outrider's Evasion
Protection of the Spirit Wolf
Bulwark of the Brownie
Chameleon's Gift
Cover Tracks (Fade)
Weaponshield Discipline
Shalowain's Crucible Cloak
I use Chameleon's Gift and Bulwark of the Brownie in a similar fashion. Chameleon's Gift is a 40k agro drop from whatever mob drops you below 50%. You will also get a buff on you for 36s that decreases your agro generation by 60%. This can also be used on other players so if you see someone climbing like a Berserker it may be better used on them. Bulwark on the other hand will fire 9-15 seconds of full frontal parry if you get dropped below 40%. I try my best to use both of these before I burn or for when I'm climbing up the agro list considerably fast, I try and use Cover Tracks as little as possible since it consumes mana now. Outrider's Evasion is minimal in the grand scheme of defensive disciplines but it works well enough to be useful on adds in an event, not so much for the main bosses. Protection of the Spirit Wolf however will be useful on a main boss for a round or 2, as the damage cap will be absorbed quickly. It also works for spell damage, not just melee damage! 55% mitigated up to a max of 330k damage for any of you curious types! Weaponshield is a whole different story, you may have to cover an add cause tanks are down or cover the boss while the MTO gets buffed. Shalowain's Crucible Cloak is a full up time 15% mitigation buff we get, keep it on always. (It fades early due to damage absorb cap if actively tanking regularly).
Raid Tanking:
If the circumstance arrives that requires you to help out and tank things or if you can potentially take over a crumbling MTO then here are some things you can do. Firstly, always keep your Crucible Cloak buff up whether grouping or raiding. Remember that it does have a damage cap and will normally fade before the strikes or timer are met.
*Outrider's Evasion - Burning Cloak buff made this mostly useless on raids. The Avoidance check may be somewhat helpful now with heroic strikethrough being reduced though. I best use this when my Cloak buff fades to give me a minute to get it back on and continue healing/nuking.
*Bulwark of the Brownies - Always pop this whenever I yank agro on things, it does last for 4 minutes. Be careful if you hit this during Weaponshield, if you are below 40% it will fire regardless.
*Protection of the Spirit Wolf - Typically I will use this for a giant AOE that might have been set up. In regards to actively tanking I will normally utilize this last. It gets eaten through really fast and has a very long CD for what it is. Very helpful for the round or 2 it lasts though.
*Imbued Ferocity - Your best bet is going to be with 2 Vampiric Consumption 1handers that have Heal Target's Target augs in them. Alternatively, you can use the Vampiric Consumption 2hander which can help cut down on riposte quantity in exchange for slightly less healing. This alone is not always enough to actually keep you alive but most of the time it's just enough of a bump for healers to keep you going.
*Weaponshield Discipline - Everybody knows what this bad boy is. I do try to exhaust everything before I use it as a personal preference. You can do quite a long stretch without it if you focus and have some decent support.
*Armor of Experience - Great stopgap ability to utilize in hopes of Sheltering Thunder procs. Can also use it to somewhat count down to the next tank and hopefully live after the swap.
*Glyph of Dragon Scales - Obviously this works great. If combined with Vampirice duel wield/2hander you can mostly keep yourself alive on your own for its full duration. It's a little stressful but is attainable through peppering heals and spamming Summer's for heal procs.
Auging:
Heroic Dexterity is the top thing to worry about as a ranger. For slot 3 augs you'll want to get 3 Spell Focus augs (Summer's, Ice Burrower, Jolting), and the rest of the slots there are LDON Heroic Strength augs. For your bow you'll want to get the Reactive Velium Infused Gem of Striking (15 DMG + 1600 Proc) and Reactive Goliath's Amphibian Skin (+21 Damage & 3100 HTT Proc). As of Laurion's Song we are full time Archery.
Silent Strikes - Silent Strikes is somewhat ok. If you use it during your burn you may notice it somewhat helping. Just remember that it isn't a fix for your agro, don't build a reliance around it working. Complaining to the tanks likely has better results than purely just using Silent Strikes.
DoT's - Hotaria Swarm is amazing, if at all possible you should keep this up on anything and everything. It's in your best interest to not bother casting the other DoT line we have during raids. Unless you're super skinny on DoT type classes and debuffs and also have plenty of spell gem space. It is very underwhelming and the DS portion of it is a non-factor.
Elemental Arrow - Season's Wrath will now co-exist with Elemental Arrow, they don't functionally stack though so be sharp on add events. Both are on a 1m duration/recast. Druids should be keeping Season's Wrath on the boss full time and Rangers can best serve the raid by peppering in Elemental Arrow on adds.
Bandolier Setups: {Laurion's Song Degradation have made all of these mostly not matter whatsoever, will update when it becomes a thing again.}
*Wrath/Arrow - Emptied till new options become available.
*2Hander - Spectral Luclinite Spear (Reactive Luclinite Ensanguined Gem of Devastation)
This is your general Archery setup if you're either being a little lazy or just don't have debuff coverage on mobs. This is also your go-to melee setup when you have a Bard or Beastlord specifically and are unable to use Archery.
*Ferocity - Spectral Luclinite Hooked Dagger (Reactive Phantasmal Luclinite Gem of Striking) + Spectral Luclinite Axe (Reactive Luclinite Ensanguined Gem of Striking)
*This is for your second lineup of the Imbued Ferocity/Third Spire/Auspice combo. First iteration should ALWAYS happen during Pureshot. Also will typically be slightly better DPS than 2hander if you are lacking a Bard.
Shots Cycling - During our Archery expansions the Called Shots Effect debuff is very potent for us. It's very important you try to ensure mobs have this on at all times if possible. Playing smart and being ahead of the MA will play into adding more DPS to yourself. You may also have some other rangers with you to help pick up the slack when it comes to spreading the debuff efficiently.
*Example: Current target is at 30%, Shots comes back up in 3 seconds. Best use it to target the next mob and pop it with shots then return to the current mob before it's dead. You want to make sure you get your debuff and then also make sure you're in the running for killing spree procs.
Hunting - For maximum sustained DPS you're going to have to hunt for killing sprees or snipe mobs as they drop low. Due to our only innate mana recovery being tied fully to the Hunter's Fury killing spree proc. As a companion you'll also get your Provoked procs 100% of the time on slaying mobs. For Archery this isn't helpful but it will at least affect your Blades combat abilities.
I cannot stress enough how useful this can be, especially on longer events with lots of adds. This is probably the most neglected portion of raiding on a Ranger that I have seen and is by far the most rewarding. This alone ties into your mana, hit modifiers and crit rate all in 1. Be vigilant of opportunities and take as many as you can. You can also utilize swarm pets and player pets that may populate the extended target window when people get charmed. Alternatively, you can (at the moment) duel people to kill pets off as needed. Be careful what classes you choose though. (I do not personally do or recommend this, but it is something you can take advantage of if you work out the kinks).
Area of Effect Arrows - Focused Arrows is your general spam spell for most events and strategies. There are events that you can benefit from swapping to AoE Arrow spells for decent gains. For starters you need at least 3 mobs that you can reliably hit with your cast. Focused Arrows itself is slightly less DPS when 2 mobs are present but you%u2019ll lose too much DPS to the cast time of the AoE spells which is why you need 3. As of the House of Thule expansion we have 2 options for AoE Arrows. We have the OG Frontal and the newer Free-Target spell.
*Frontal Arrows - 20 degree cone with 100 range.
*Free-Target Arrows - 30 range splash target with 200 cast range.
My personal preference is using the Free-Target Arrows spell. It does slightly more damage and is more reliable and easy to utilize correctly. There is a very large margin for error using the Frontal Arrows. You also have the benefit of putting the Free-Target Arrows in your spell spam. You can continue spamming spells whilst you aim the target so that you aren't forced to aim during the cast itself. You can also predict mob movements a little better and with higher accuracy than the Frontal Arrows. This is personal preference, some people will likely prefer the Frontal Arrows instead. There is a small DPS difference between them, however use whichever spell you can actually land reliably.
Area of Effect Blades - This ability does do more DPS than the Focused line of Blades. As long as you *can* AoE in your setting this will always outperform Focused Blades of the SAME 5 level range. Do NOT use this if you are using Archery. The only time this ability will land during Archery is if you are shooting a mob further away from whatever is in front of you. Note that the range for AOE Blades is the same as Focused Blades. They are not actually interchangeable, the cast range is 50 for both but the AE range is only 30. It will never land on the mob you are actively shooting.
*Example: Swarm Commander is being tanked away but the pile of adds is at a closer location. You can continue to shoot the Swarm Commander and use AOE Blades on the pile of mobs in-front of you.
BP Clickies - These clickies will typically be flat damage that does roughly the same amount of damage no matter when you use it. Since it has an up time of around 3 minutes I hit mine before we start and make sure to get in a 2nd click towards the event's end to max out on damage capabilities. Some people use the old mana regen clickie from COTF, DON'T. This is a net DPS loss, you're trading 1.34M damage for 7.5k mana AND a DPS DEBUFF for 30 seconds. Overall it's a net loss, scrap that garbage and stick to the new damage clickie.
Tribute/Trophy - Here's the Tribute and Trophies I use! Arm of the Hero, Eyes of the Hunter, Fury of Combat, Hero's Deftness, Juggler's Grace all at max rank.
Crest of Heroism, Subterranean Lily Bloom, Shadow Torchiere, Temple Torchery, Rallos Zek's Axe Replica, Mortal's Ethereal Wonder, Scavenger's Prize, and Lost Wayfarer's Tent.
*Use Highest Heroic Dexterity trophies basically, or ones that offer a decent package altogether.
**This is personal preference, I choose to use Fury of Combat still due to lack of good options and randomly meleeing in raids for niche purposes.
Potions:
Refined Mana Tonic - Decrease the mana cost of spells by 3-7%. (Doesn't functionally stack with Empowered Banner Buff or Circle of Mana)
Spectral Focus - 14k sympathetic DD proc (Poison resist) on nukes/DoTs, can trigger on each portion of Summer's (1 cast can be 2 procs).
Salubrious Smoothie - 105 mana regen that stacks with everything, only available during Anniversary.
Champion's Restorative - Roughly 6k mana per click.
Fortified Drink(s) (All 3 potions do exactly the same thing) - Increase to stats, will do slightly more DMG but this potion is not a noticeable difference.
Kohtal's Tonic of Clarity (Summoned) - Roughly 3,465 mana per tick for 24s.
Powersources - I use DPS powersources always. Some people make arguments for the tank ones cause dead DPS do no DPS, it's a stupid argument. Fact of the matter is, your job is to DPS. Is it HIGHLY UNLIKELY the MINOR stat bump you get going to a tank powersource will at any point save your life. Emberquartz Slayer Source > Luclinite Attacker Source > Velium Assaulter Source > Enchanted Dragon Scales > All other sources.
Special Clickies:
Rod of Dark Rites - Best used during Scarlet to load up multiple mobs with Hotaria Swarm. If there aren't multiple mobs to do this with blow it on Hotaria Swarm, Composite Fusillade and Dusksage Stalker's Conjunction.
Bifold Focus of the Evil Eye - Only ever use this on Hotaria Swarm, it is the absolute most bang for your buck. You can even combine it with a gift of mana proc for maximum savagery.
Mantle of Inasch - Circle of Mana 4, used for relatively obvious reasons. Don't double up on Circle clicks, check your song window first.
Rage of Rolfron - Circle of Power 4, used to fill a crit gap that is relatively hard up in occuring. Typically more CoP clicks than Mana on raids.
Kiss of Erollisi Marr - 10k mana click once a day, pick your favorite parsing event basically!
Miniature Horn of Unity - 600 Mana Regen per tick for 5 ticks. Doesn't stack with Unified Phoenix Feather.
Unified Phoenix Feather - 1k Mana Regen per tick for 5 ticks. Overwrites Miniature Horn of Unity.
Blood Drinker's Coating - Super Micro SK epic, 2% melee tap. (Does not work for Archery).
Spirit Drinker's Coating - Super Micro SK epic, 4% melee tap. (Does not work for Archery.)
Valia's Unyielding Bravery - Mega Rune for 8 hits. Will absorb 8 Hits, DD's or DoT ticks fully before fading.
Venenium - Really easy to get now, 35 poison counter cure to help replace the need to use Balm on yourself. (Vanquisher of Calix Quirinus to unlock)
Shield of Immaculate Light - Really easy to get now, 35 disease counter cure to help replace the need to use Balm on yourself. (Vanquisher of Tower of Rot to unlock)
Intensity of the Resolute - This is a 55% Hit Damage mod and also a spell critical chance mod for us. I've found it's best used when split dotting mobs. It alone takes us to 90% DD and 85% DoT crit chance. If you use it for DoT's and also time it around your Guardians and Outrider's AA gaps you can really squeeze the max from it.
Slot 18/19 Augs - For the slot 18/19 augs in the evolving items here is what I focus on getting. 4 Melee Procs (Ice+Magic) > 4 Sympathetic Procs (Ice+Magic) > 4 Attackers > Enhancements. Once you get maxed out mostly it is in your best interest now to drop the Evolving Gloves and upgrade to CoV+ raid gloves for the Ice damage focus.
Belt Focus - In Torment of Velious there is an aug upgrade to Velium Infused Gem of Security that gives you the option of adding the Boon of the Restless focus or a Sympathetic Casting Ice DD focus to it. Currently whilst in a state of permanent Archery, the Sympathetic Aug will pull ahead of the Boon Proc focus. If we ever return to pure melee (At this rate it is unlikely) then the Boon focus may pull slightly ahead depending on 1H vs 2H.
I have included the triggers I use when playing my ranger below. They may or may not be for some people but they are available. Auspice is not included in them as I have a different folder for it with the way I run it on raids. If anyone is curious in setting it up I'd be more than willing to help.
YouTube Video:
https://youtu.be/kusZPl5Q5mE?si=ja72bjStOUOccHDMRanger Discord:
https://discord.gg/84KKsvRP73
