Rangers damage vs Healing Signet. Newbie confused

Ok, I am kind of lost on this game. I have played about every MMO that has come out for some length of time or another sense Everquest 1 came out so I consider myself pretty good when it comes to picking up a new (to me) game. This one seemed about the same, not a horribly steep learning curve, fun to play moving right along with my ranger/mez in Prophecies (I have the trilogy) and then it hit.. I can't do enough damage to kill someone if they have "healing signet". Honestly it's about to be a game breaker for me because no one heal should be a "complete heal" that can be spammed over and over like they do in this game (not in PvP, but PvE). Healers I can understand, like the shaman, because they are squishy enough I can kill them between casts. The ones I am talking about are more the "paladin" types (for lack of a better term). The ones that fight with melee weapons, wear amour and still spam that heal like it's got no recharge.

At 6th level I had a hell of a time killing a quest mob by himself because of this spell and he was only level 4. I just can't generate enough damage (and this is with the special poison bow from the trilogy, not great but better then "starter bow" by far). Is this how the rest of this game is going to go for a ranger, not able to do enough damage to be worth a crap? In every other MMO I have seen Rangers are more damage dealers, not top of the DPS, but they are damage dealers of sorts at least. Am I simply off base and in this game that's not rangers forte? Any help would be great because up till this point the game seems very fun. I think I am just frustrated that I eventually had to log off the game because I was in a fight for 45 minutes vs a computer mob my same level while I had a cleric henchman and a 6th level pet and while I couldn't be killed by him I had zero chance of beating him either.

The Ranger's most used abilities are those of interrupting and condition-spreading. Poison/Burning/Bleeding for starters, then interrupt Heal Sig. A ranger should almost never leave home without Distracting Shot on his/her bar.

(Edit) Thanks, Mr B - you beat me to it. I think my version is somewhat more polite, though

I played my ranger through prophecies exclusively and you shouldn't worry, they can deal significant damage, spread conditions or pinpoint serious conditions like cripple and daze, survive and support a team quite well (not to mention the option of a pet with decent function).

Just make a habit of analyzing skills that give you a problem in this game, in this case healing signet has had a pve buff since my ranger days but regardless it's a large heal when used, but the user suffers from -40 armor making even the warrior class soft.

Also, the ranger is one class that decides what skills the enemy uses via interrupts, if you don't have any you will get them soon since prophecies has the bulk of them for ranger.

Just use the rangers tools and you will be fine once more skills are obtained you will have tons of options for pvp and pve.

Disrupt the healing signet, makes sense, except I don't have that skill. This is where this game is different that other MMO's also, as you level you don't automatically gain skills, you don't even go back to a trainer to buy them, you are kind of left to fend for yourself as far as getting the skills, even in the link you gave me it doesn't have a level to it (if there is a minimum level even). This is obviously one that I am going to have to hunt down. Bastage healing freaks.

Thanks for the link!

*edit* Thanks for the fast response, I really think I am going to like this game, and the community.

got tired of reading half way through 2nd paragraph. Sry its later here.


For healing sigs problem bring an interupt skill on ranger. Like distracting shot or savage shot.

Game starts at lvl 20

rangers forte is condition and interrupts along with exploiting expertise to be touch ranger scythe ranger and probably some other shenanigan i can't be bother to put nito detail now.

http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Distracting_Shot

you don't get skill from leveling, prophecy you get them through quest and buy, nf and faction you get them by heroes point or buy. once you buy or get a skill through quest you unlock it so your lvl 1 noob can use a tome to get it right away without going over to the end point to get so and so skill.

btw using heal sig gives the war -40 armor so a good attack can do him in too :P

You don't gain skills when you level, but you may acquire them from skill trainers and from quests. You also gain a skill point every time you level, or every 15,000 experience after level 20. Until level 20, you gain attribute points you may spend to make your skills more effective. There are also 2 attribute point quests later on; be sure you don't miss them. The wiki is a great tool for new players, and it is also integrated in game(press F10, and it'll open a window with links which open the page on wiki).

There is also an excellent guide in the campfire section if you are new to the ranger profession, unless you would rather learn yourself or wish to avoid spoilers or whatnot.

There's 2 sites that will help you a lot:

* http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
Here you can check for all around information like missions, classes etc

*http://pvxwiki.com
And here you can check a lrage database of builds for any class in the game

Good luck

If you're using the bow from the bonus, chances are you don't meet the 9 marksmanship requirement for it at your level, which will seriously impact your damage output.

Not being able to outdamage healing signet means you're doing something wrong... such as not meeting the requirement for your weapon. You really shouldn't even need dshot especially with a max damage weapon.

Like Lux said above, a big part of the problem may be how you're using that bonus bow. If you don't have 9 in Marksmanship (press K while in town to see and adjust,) then you should be using that bow yet. Try using a bow with a lower requirement that you're able to meet.

Another thing about that bonus bow, you mentioned it's poisonous. I just want to make sure you understand that the bow alone won't poison things. You have to use a skill to poison things. Early on in Prophecies, you don't get access to such skills yet. Once you have skills that make your bow attacks deal poison, that "poisonous" property on your bonus bow will lengthen the duration of poison degen you apply to your targets.

Lastly, are you using a full team or just going out you and the healer henchman? The areas around Ascalon are designed for teams of four. Try adding a couple more henchmen to your party if you haven't already.

It seems like you're trying to play the game as they intended rather than be power-leveled and/or run through, so I'd like to see you able to solve this without someone coming to help with their tricked-out level 20 character. If you get very stuck, I'm sure someone here will be glad to come help you. If you have trouble finding a bow you can meet the requirement for, let us know. It wouldn't take long for a veteran player to go get you a more suitable low-level bow from a collector or crafter somewhere.

Indeed, i'd recommend the same.

- Use an interupt if you have it. You get skills as quest rewards (based upon your proffesions at the time of doing the quest), trough a point-award system (in factions/nightfall) or by buying it from skill trainers.
All skill trainers sell a select set of skills. However, all skills you have unlocked on your account (trough a previous character or pvp) are available from all skill trainers, provided the skill is a core skill or that skill is in the same campaign.
I.e. a prophecies only skill, once unlocked, can only be bought from skill trainers in the prophecies campaign.

- Use the maximum team size. The reason there are henchman, and heroes later on, is because the game is designed arround party play. Not using the maximum party size will significantly affect your game.

- Guildwars isnt designed about levelling, but about tactics. Lvl20 is the maximum you can reach, which is generally about 2/3 into prophecies... then you still got the entire factions, nightfall and possible eye of the north.
If you got a problem, analyze the situation and change your build/gameplay accordingly.
F.ex. Use your current healing signet issue. Its got a 1 or 2 second cast time, so you can interupt it and prevent the heal.
However, during the cast time the user is also under -40 AL which means taking double damage from all attacks. So instead of interupting it, you can also keep up your preparation (most likely read the wind at your stage) and make sure Power Shot is available when the signet is used and basicly take him out before the heal hits.


- Another note is attributes. Your weapon and pet's regular damage from attacks is also based on your attribute score. If your weapon's requirement is higher then your current investment in that attribute, you will only deal a small portion of the min-max damage.
If the requirement is the same aor more s your investment, you will deal exactly min-max damage (ofc lowered by armor).

I'm not certain what you are trying to say here, but in order to deal a martial weapon's stated damage, you must meet or exceed the requirement, and have 12 points in its attribute.

For example, if you have 9 points in Marksmanship while wielding a req. 9 bow, you deal ~77% damage, or ~11-21 on a max bow.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Damag...#Weapon_Damage

No, read again. Its not the official information.

People for a long time believed this in fact to be true, arround the wammo era. Once testing showed that normal damage (just attacking, no skills or enchants or the like) was applied when meating the requirement, people went for as low as possible.

Hence ancient builds still use 12+1+3 sword, where nowadays its req 9 sword unless you can afford a max req 8 to save points.

Because, lets face it, if this was true (which it isnt) people would've found out and req 8/9 weapons would be useless instead of highly demanded.

You can test it in the Isle Of The Nameless if you want.

And r8/9 weapons are highly demanded because they have a small % to drop.

EDIT: Show me any "current" good build with only 9 sword, please.

You are still wrong. The reason your weapon appears to deal stated damage at 9 att. on a req. 9 weapon is probably due to customization and the 15% bonus. On a bow, that puts the damage range to ~16-29, or ~11-21 before those bonuses, like I said, and like the formula on the link states.

I don't know if this is the case, but in your OP you seemed to say that you had only yourself and the healer hench. If you're out of presearing (which you are to get henchmen) then you should have party space for 4 players, heroes or henchmen.

If this is indeed the case then you can bring along another 2 henchmen for bigger domage.

I can agree with Revelations. If you can bring 3 people (party of 4), bring them. If you can bring 7 (party of 8), do so.

Because of lootscaling, in general, you won't get much more loot when killing with a lesser-than-possible party.

Well, grabbed a full party and everything is moving much better. The original quest said grab a henchman (even suggested strongly I pick the healer) so grabbing more then one never really crossed my mind. I am loving the game and the community here is more helpful, and friendly, then most other MMO's. I'm just wishing I had found this game earlier.