Hello!

Just started a ranger, right now level 16. I have maxed pathfinding, and dropped the rest of the points equally between slash and celtic dual. I won't put anything into stealth until BG, and want to autotrain bow. So what would be a viable build? I want melee or maybe hybrid. I think 40 (or 42?) in PF and 35 in stealth would be ok. Then I'm not sure how to spread the remaining points between CD, slash and bow.

Any advice is welcome

42 pf
50 composite slash
50 composite cd
50 composite stealth
dump rest in bow after hitting 48.

may reduce cd to reach 30+ bow.
may repec with higher rr to reach higher bow.
may ignore bow and stick to meele.
may ignore bow and push cd for more frequent offhand hits.
may ignore cd and reduce slash/stealth for higher bow.

up to your playstyle mate.

may want to have ip(2), pd(3+) and mos(3).
may want to get thoughness (up to 4) later.

I would spec 35 bow for Rapid Fire, adding even more versatility to a class with a ridiculous damage and ability set.

Thanks for the answer. So I think I'll go for 42 in PF, 30-35 in stealth.

Still not sure about bows, how good is rapid fire? If not that good I'd go for about 25 in bows for stronger melee.

And what about CD vs slash? Which one is most important? So far I'm only using CD styles because they are usually better. But does slash improve DPS more than CD?

CD:
- style damage for CD styels
- offhand hit chance


Slash:
- style damage for slash styles
- increase in base/unstyled damage for main and offhand
- weaponskill


composite 50/51 slash is enough to get into the higher percentages of the damage calculation, for cd the higher the more frequent are offhand hits.

comon example for this reasoning are blademaster specs with 39+11 weapon and 50+11 CD.

1-2 more offhand hits in a fight may be as well more additional damage over the duration of a fight then having a few points more base damage per hit.

you cant spec your weapon type to low or you might suffer from more frequent misses and you dont want to spec CD too low or you might suffer from less frequent offhand hits.

if however you spec high bow, CD > slash might get better damage over time, provided that you use CD styles.

I play a hybrid ranger, and i would suggest not wasting your time in blades (slash dmg type), because there is no evade styles, a rear style with no fallow up , unless you spec real high , which you really cant and nothing special about the side style and fire blade + spectrum blade is ok but not worth it because the debuff on spectrum blade isnt 30% abs debuff its only 7%, so its not a good style. Also you will have better WS with pierc, which makes up for any benifit you think youl get from blades, and blades get nerfed big time vs assasins str/con debuff poison, while pierc only gets nerf by half. Here is my spec and what i would recommand for RR4 at lvl50

39+14 Pierc/blades
18+14 CD
35+14 bow
33+14 stealth
42 PF

This spec gives you in Piercing, a rear style + fallow up, side style + fallow up, evade style with a 5sec stun, 3 hit combo style starting low and scaling up and ends with ABS debuff which is weak also like spectrum blade in blade line. Youl also have ice storm in CD to side stun.

Also with 35 bow, that will give you Rapid fire 1, and volley 1, which is useful to have to kill hiding targets behind walls. Or to just spook them. Also bow dmg isnt the greatest, and specing above 35 , only benifits you a little and i dont believe its worth it.

33+14 stealth will give you 47 stealth, missing 3 stealth vs a lvl 50, so add 75 units to your default being detected range, which the base range is 125 or so, so 125+75=200, which i do not have much trouble with. 3 less stealth is the least i would go, maybe 4 but that is pushing it.

42 PF gives you the best AF and decent buffs, which you will still need Pot /Charge buffing to compete most of the time anyway, that is how uthgard is setup.

With this spec i can easly melee an assasin from only melee most of the time, and also melee some classes, and having decent bow spec gives me utility and the ablitiy to start the fight with a little bonus dmg. If they got a shield, it will be like 2 hits only, for prob 500 dmg total, which may not be much vs those who have 1600+ HP or more. So play smart.

Hope this helps.

Eclipsed wrote:Also with 35 bow, that will give you Rapid fire 1, and volley 1, which is useful to have to kill hiding targets behind walls. Or to just spook them. Also bow dmg isnt the greatest, and specing above 35 , only benifits you a little and i dont believe its worth it.

With 35 bow, items bonuses, and RR6 (+16 total to bow skill), you'll also cap your damage variance. So even though you'll do most of your damage in melee, you can still consistently Crit Shot leather wearers for 600+.

Ive tryed higher specs at like 40-45 and most critshots is for like 500, , to get 600 isnt allwes common. The varience in damage is great with bow.

Thanks for your answers, been really helping me. Got a couple more:

- I'm thinking about respecing from blades to pierce at lvl 40 (I'm 36 right now). CD usually have better styles than both blades and pierce, except for diamondback. Question: if I stun someone with diamondback, can I go to its side and stun him with storm ice, or do the styles share a "stun immunity" timer (much like you can't chain stun someone using the same spell over and over)?

- I'm still not sure of how much I want in PF. It seems to me that damage add is clearly the best one, and there is a big difference between the lvl 36 and lvl 46 ones. So I would stay at 36 and put more into blades/pierce/CD or go for 46 for best damage add buff. How does this sound?

You advice him, he shouldn't specc Blades?

Speccing blades on a Hib stealther makes u're dmg output feeled +20% vs every other stealther Class.

I noticed it so damn often on my SB.


But choose ure own way.

Currently im trying something crazy on my ranger, hes mid 30s and it rocks... Just need several more weeks to lvl 50 and then ill see if its gonna rock in rvr.

Just a small tip, while xping, keep pathfinding at 2/3 of your level, since your buffs overcap your buff-capability especially on lower levels.

Yes Blades is nice vs stealther enemys, because.

Pierc vs =

SB = -10%
Hunter = -10%

Infi = -10%
Scout = +10%

Blades vs =

SB = +10%
Hunter = +10%

Infi = Neutral
Scout = Neutral

So as you can see, yes blades does benifit more in the area of armor bonuses and penalties to weapon type, but after trying out blade for awhile there is things to consider.

With blades

No Evade styles
No matter what youl allwes have less dmg stat vs having pierc, on any race.
Vs assasins expect to lose about 90 str dmg stat, while if you had pierc you would lose only half of that because its based on str and dex.
No stun, exept ice storm in CD

Overall i found that pierc worked out best, on my celt ranger. Plus if your pierc, you can use Dex Pots and Aug Dex to increase dmg stat by 50% per stat and increase bow dmg stat at the same time.

And yes it is true at lower lvl your ranger will kick ass in BG's , even in thid would do good. But exept to hit 50 and notice major changes in game play and difficulty for a ranger. But youl get use to it and improve over time if you have trouble.

Only reason most Hib stealthers go blades on blue servers is because there's been a much better weapon selection(until recently) and it's far easier to temp a single weapon stat than dual. With the lack of artifacts and legendaries here and temps that don't require so much packed into them pierce will be the better way to go stylewise and as mentioned the str/con debuff, unlike WS debuff on blue servers.
Also as mentioned dex helps your bow damage so if that's an issue for you then it's a good thing to have high dex effect two things instead of one.

what about leaving bow at Auto Train only and getting CD,Blades and stealth to bout thirty five ish, and bump pf to fourty six for the highest dmg add. Use teh CD evade style , no stuni know but woud the diffence in blades over pierce on stealther aromor make up the difference? Was thinking about a high mos and just hunt stealthers? Think it would work with the basic RA's purge,aug str,mos,pd,ip?

Yes it is true that blades are better vs SB and Infi , then Pierc dmg type, but at a cost. Naturaly youl have more Pierc dmg stat/WS and while the 118 str/con poison will nerf your blade dmg stat by 84, it only nerf pierc by 42 dmg stat. And i believe that balances the bonuses. So you should pick what ever dmg type you want.