Ranger q's

[EZ_Orcmauler]

Ok I know this is predominatley (sp) a rogue board, but I am looking for some advice and some clarification.

I play a ranger, and was told by a 40 ranger in my realm that slash/dual etc dont affect damage output with higher skill levels, just open up special attacks.

Instead he told me to keep bow/pathfinding maxxed and essentially forget the rest.

So my lowbie ranger at 12 is
Stealth 4
Piercing 1
Slash 8
Bow 12
Celtic 4
Pathfinding 9

Was that advice legit or should i start respending points?
Obviously I want to keep bow maxxed no matter what but im wandering about the rest.
Thanks

[EZ_Xumten]

Your damage does increase as you raise your weapon skill along with opening styles.

Also look at the fact that Mythic is consistenly reducing the damage of an archers bow... future reductions will come.

Right now most archers can kill most targets before they get to them. If Mythic continues the trend of archer nerfs, I think you definately see more of a need for a decent weapon skill.

I have seen all sorts of people talking about diminishing returns on take Pathfinding and Weapons up to higher levels, but I havent seen anyone really examine the benefit of keeping ones bow maxed vs keeping it at 2/3 spec. Anyone know of any tests done on this?

Whats the difference in damage between a 30 ranger with 30 in bow and a 30 ranger with 20 in bow?

[EZ_geliel]

The difference is that you can only land a crit shot on mobs that are equal or lower in level then your bow skill. Gets pretty rough to kill yellow and blue mobs if you can't crit them.

[EZ_Orcmauler]

I wish i could shoot a mob to death before it reaches me, the only time that has happened has been low greens.

Secondary question to the first, how is it that everyone i meet is wearing red or better gear (envy question :P)

either way then it appears that i'll want to keep putting points into slash and dual as i have spares, concentrating on pathfinding and bows.

Now if i could just find some groups soloing is boooooring after a while :P

[EZ_Xumten]

Quote: The difference is that you can only land a crit shot on mobs that are equal or lower in level then your bow skill. Gets pretty rough to kill yellow and blue mobs if you can't crit them.

Ummm that has to be wrong. My 28 ranger has a 25 in bow and I land crit shots on oranges all the time. By your theory no archer could hit anything above an a yellow con unless they were fully specc'd and had +bow items.

Quote: I wish i could shoot a mob to death before it reaches me, the only time that has happened has been low greens.


The life of an archer revolves greatly around either their bank account or their fletching skill. Arrows make all the difference in the world.

Quote: Secondary question to the first, how is it that everyone i meet is wearing red or better gear (envy question :P)


Most likely they have a higher level character funding them in some manner. But I can assure you its not a good idea to use any items that are red to you. If you aquire some, put them in the vault and wait till they become orange.

Quote: either way then it appears that i'll want to keep putting points into slash and dual as i have spares, concentrating on pathfinding and bows.


Again, I would be very interested to see some numbers from someone fully spec'd in bow and someone 2/3 spec'd in bow. I've never seen the difference and Im currious as to how much it varies. But regardless here is a template for you with full spec bow in mind.

lvl 50 Ranger:

50 Recurve Bow
39 Stealth
29 Pathfinding
25 Weapons
17 Celtic Dual

In this template your full spec bow, half spec weapons, and your stealth will be in the 40+ with magic items. Seems like a study was done somewhere that taking pathfinding past 29 had diminishing returns.

Quote: Now if i could just find some groups soloing is boooooring after a while :P


The problem with playing a Hibernian ranger is that so is half your realm. Its not that groups dont like rangers, its that odds are most groups have at least two already.


Edited by: Xumten at: 2/19/02 12:47:37 am

[EZ_Orcmauler]

Ok next question.
Does anyone know the difference between the Recurve bow types (ie short/standard/great) as far as right clicking goes its just delay increases along with the cash increases.

Is there anyone out there that knows if they maybe hit harder or something per size increase.

Thanks again.

[EZ_Tugger Merlin]

38 celt ranger on merlin here.

I play a ranger, and was told by a 40 ranger in my realm that slash/dual etc dont affect damage output with higher skill levels, just open up special attacks.

speccing in a melee skill (blades, piercing) does definitely raise the damage of your normal attacks, both regular swings and styles.


Instead he told me to keep bow/pathfinding maxxed and essentially forget the rest.

this is tragic advice. with the pathfinding nerf, I lost 23 stones carrying capacity (240 less arrows I can carry), and quite a bit shaved off my shooting time. I think every ranger should have about 16 pathfinding at least, just for the small benefits. but I would not spec pathfinding much higher. you will have to of course weigh your own options and determine if increased arrow carrying capacity and slightly less draw times are worth losing a lot of melee speccing. I'm at 30 path now and feeling very angry at mythic. those points would have been better off in blades skill. because when your target gets to you and you cant finish them off, well what good is that.

Right now most archers can kill most targets before they get to them. If Mythic continues the trend of archer nerfs, I think you definately see more of a need for a decent weapon skill.

I agree.. I have lost so many fights because my weaponskill was at 10 blades. I am going to be looking for ways to sacrafice other skills and build weaponskill for sure.

Whats the difference in damage between a 30 ranger with 30 in bow and a 30 ranger with 20 in bow?

I think what he was trying to say is you can only score a crit which is 2x your normal damage on mobs the level of your recurve skill or less. so a 30 ranger with 30 recurve can score a crit doing 2x his normal shot damage on creatures level 1-30, but one with 20 recurve can only do that on creatures level 1-20. average damage goes down a bit too, but it doesn't seem like too much. i'm level 38 with 36 specced recurve and a bow that gives me +4 recurve. doing just fine.. archery has no styles past spec 27 when you receive crit shot 9. perhaps in the future if longshot/volley/etc are added, at that point specced recurve will be more important. right now you can let it go a bit. but i wouldnt let it fall to 20 if you are level 30. maybe .. 27, or 28. that is, unless you intend to be a melee ranger.. see grixxit's thread on the daoc ranger site for details.

Secondary question to the first, how is it that everyone i meet is wearing red or better gear (envy question :P)

They are most likely twinks? dont use red gear unless you are low level. if you are low level you will be leveling within minutes to hours, so red gear wont stay red all that long. if you hit level 30 and wear red gear it will get thrashed because the time to level is so great. as a general rule i tell low levels to not worry about magic gear so much, because they will be leveling fast. just get some good player made armor and weapons, and start picking up drops as they become available to you. see the one time drops thread on vn hibernia board for details.

Does anyone know the difference between the Recurve bow types (ie short/standard/great) as far as right clicking goes its just delay increases along with the cash increases.

other then speed, the main difference between the bow types is other bows have a range of 25 "paces", while recurve has a slight 5% range bonus and can shoot a target at 27 paces. level 35-39 will be your toughest levels as a ranger, because the only 2 good bows you can obtain are the level 30 epic(which is VERY nice, but loses a lot of power past 34-35 and starts blueing out) and the great ursine, which I personally hate.. you run into the same problem at level 25-29, with the 20 epic turning blue too soon. in cases like this i recommend you try to seek out a higher level ranger and offer to buy their old epic bow, and start using it early. as long as its orange to you or less you'll be fine.

generally bow progression for rangers is like this:
level 5 - bow the trainer gives you
level 8-15 player made bows
level 15-19 bow that sheevra miners drop east of howth
level 20-29 level 20 epic bow. 20 epic blues out at 26-27
level 30-39 level 20 epic bow. 30 epic blues out at 36-37
level 33-39 great ursine (dont like this one at all, far too slow, gets you killed in rvr because you keep getting interrupted)
level 40 guardian hru bow, use your 40 epic quest to obtain a piercer or slasher
level 45+ not sure yet, lots of options here from drops

[EZ_Orcmauler]

thanks for the great info tugger-im needing to head towards the sheev area now for the nuada's silver quest, so maybe ill get lucky and get a bow drop.

Thanks for your help again

[EZ_Xumten]

Ok now Im lost. When I shoot an orange con with my Crit Shot and hit it.. I hit for generally 2x damage of my normal shots. What am I missing here? Has this changed since the recent patch? I havent played my Ranger in about a month, so is this new or has always been the case? Edited by: Xumten at: 2/23/02 2:10:09 am