Finally building a ranger

Let me start by saying that I've developed a whole new appreciation for those who have built Rangers.

For me (my playing style) this is the hardest class to play and build.

So I started my little ranger yesterday, hit lvl 10, jumped over to Q1, M1 and began the journey. The rng gods instantly fell in love and reigned good drops down. I was getting better than average gold base line drops and legs fell like I've never seen before on this map with my other characters.

Sadly, they fell out of love with me today and I'm getting my normal crap, but it was nice while it happened.

I'm currently at lvl 23. So far, so good.



Now that my drops have gone back to normal, I'll be grabbing the best green gear that I can find and use the gops to beef them up.

I know the main advice is always to level up to end game as fast as possible, but even with skipping all the regular map quests, I'll still hit max level in about 40 days, far outpacing the wisdom points which hurts more than it helps. I don't want to be too weak once I open up the harder maps.

My plan is to stick with Q1,M1 to level up simply because it is easy and on the ghost server I can get in the top 20 or so in the leader-boards gaining loads of gold for future crafting.

So any advice is certainly appreciated as I learn how to play this class.

My question for now is what skills to focus on and what points to put in them.

This class is nowhere near as intuitive as the others.

 

Interesting. I'll provide my advice based on your character level, regarding skill points to use that is. I am not exactly sure how many skill points you have though, is it 18?

Starting with hunting arrow, I'd put only 2 points for "Fortified String" because you're not really going to use it that much and your attack speed isn't that high yet.

Next up is precision arrow. I'd put 5 in "Steady Aim" because this is your main source of damage.

Then Hunting Trap. Since you don't have thicket of thorns and EA unlocked yet, you can utilize this skill for marking a group of mobs while dealing moderate poison damage. I'd say either put skill points in the first two, or use all 3. The 3rd one(Stunning Witch's Ring) can help you keep a certain mob constantly stunned to interrupt skills that are annoying such as fire novas or the purple ball thing.

Then, one of my favourite skill - deadly blow. This skill is an all-round sustainability skill. Put 2 skillpoints for the 1st and 5 for the last.

Bird of Prey - not the best skill for pve late game, but very useful early on. Since you have space to use it, i'd put 2 skill points for the 1st point to increase the bird's damage by 20%.


I am not sure how many skill points you have left by now, but the other two skills you could use are net and deathsweep. I personally am not a big fan of death sweep. Net is another source of marking a group of mobs easily while also stunning them, but you deal no damage and it's slower than hunting trap obviously - however, it is safer.


When fighting bosses, you can remove all skill points from hunting trap, deadly blow and net/deathsweep and put them all in Hunting Arrow, Precise Arrow and Dive. This will help you kite bosses easily while keeping a safe distance.

 

I have 23 points (using 22).

So far I've selected hunting arrow 2 - 3, scattershot 3, net 2 - 3, precise 2 - 5, dive no points used, bird 2.

I'm still trying to figure out the melee part of this class. I don't want to get caught up in acting like a tank which after playing a DK for so long is my natural thought.

However the ranger is a weird crossover between ranged and melee and the available skills really don't make a lot of sense yet. I'm sure that once I put some time in they'll be obvious.

Right now it is easy just acting like a ranged character for general mobs. I won't be doing boss fights until I hit the cap. That way all my farming while leveling builds a ton of resources. The materi frags alone will enable me to buy anything I want once I'm ready to go after the bosses.

With the other 3 classes the playing style is obvious.

Dk - Bring a huge mob in, jump in, banner of war, swing, kill em all.
SW - Bring in huge mob, mind control, singularity, guardian, drop the meteor, kill em all.
SM - Bring in huge mob, drop turrets, run around in circles, they all die.

With each it was easy to figure out what you need and how to play the most effective way (for soloing like I do most of the time).

I'm shooting for around 3K dmg, 15K HP, 50% crit, 250% crit dmg, 40% resist by the time I hit level 55. I think that is about all I can do until the wisdom points catch up.

I'll only have about 23 or maybe 24 in wisdom at that point.

 

Rangers are a very interesting class and no you cannot play it like any other class.

The first and the most important point to understand is that when you mark you do double damage.

So when you do PvE, the most important thing to keep in mind is that if you mark your enemies then only you will do your full potential.

I would chose the following setup at level 23:

Hunting Arrow 2 3
Precise Shot 2 5
Death Sweep 2 3
Deadly blow 2 3

You don't need Net or Bird for PvE.

What you do now is to mark the monsters, slow them down and add a dot (200% of your base damage) all at the same time with a single swipe from the death sweep, and now hit them with Deadly blow over and over until they are dead, and keep hitting them with Death Sweep every 4 seconds to keep the mark on them.

When you have concentration, you can use Precise Shot, but remember to use either Hunting Arrow or Death Sweep to mark them first.

 

Thanks cdeepal.

Death Sweep and Deadly blow are both melee attacks which I've kind of been avoiding, but I'll give them a try today and see how well that works for me.

 

I'm only level 16 with my Ranger. Is it possible to build a decent summoner with her? By your lack of appreciation for the "Bird of Prey" skill (no end-game value), along with the fact the wolves have a set duration (I wish they'd stay alive until they die), it seems like I'll have to rely mostly on my traps and shooting skills to survive. But I'll live and learn as I level up with my Ranger.

 

@Rhysingstar Combos. Look for ways to combine skills.

When my ranger was up and coming, I used a Hunting Arrow/Precision Shot combo. Fire Hunting Arrow to mark the target, Precision Shot to deal damage and then follow up with more Hunting Arrows until I could get off another Precision Shot. Rinse and repeat.

I also used a Hunting Trap/Dive/Scatter Shot combo. I would allow targets to gather around me, drop a Hunting Trap, Dive away, and Scatter Shot them to death...or as much to death as I could. Follow it up with a HA/PS combo.

I stayed away from melee, but I have seen others use it successfully. I couldn't combine it with anything and I wasn't strong enough to sit there hacking away.

I tried an Exploding Arrow/Hunting Trap combo and a Hunting Arrow/Exploding Arrow combo, but the concentration cost of the skill outweighed the damage I was able to do with it so I ditched it in favor of Precision Shot. However, I was weaker than your average Ranger, so they may work better for you if you happen to try them.

I agree with @Please_enter_a_name about the Bird Of Prey being great for the early game and not as useful later on. I used it all the time. Nowadays I use it for extra damage in a boss fight.

I would also pair a stun skill like the Bird of Prey or Net with the HA/PS combo so I could get a jump on doing damage.

@RyanED It's certainly something you could work up to and experiment with. When you get Wolf Pack, you could try this: release Bird of Prey, wait until it gets close to the target and then release the Wolf Pack, but then when the Bird's stun ends, hit the target with a Net to keep it stunned or stun it again while the Wolf Pack keeps attacking.

The thing with the Bird of Prey in the end game, is your character would theoretically be attacking so fast that the Bird of Prey would feel like a slow attack and sometimes by the time it reaches the target, the target would be dead already.

Also, the wolves/elemental do only show up for about 9 or 10 seconds but there is a skill value that reduces the cool down time once they're gone. I use the wolves versus the elemental because there's three of them...focus from a target can shift and the three can spread out and engage other targets.

Happy Hunting
Jocom