At first I thought about posting this on the daoc.catacombs forums but since I've seen a few threads over the past time asking questions regarding melee rangers on FH, and I got some spare time on my hands today, I thought I'd try and clearify some things.
Before reading this read:
Evade: See https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=171961
Bow: Damage Is based 100% on dex. Drawrate is based on dex/qui.
Weaponskill: Your chance to hit your opponent, depending on your own and his weaponskill. I havn't been able to find a thread on how to calculate it, if someone has one please send me a pm with the link and I'll include it. In this post relate weaponskill to weapon damage aswell, I don't look sepperatly at these since the times I mention it, it will be under str/dex discussions and these will affect both.
Celtic Dual Offhand Swing Rate: Can't find the formula for this one, I saw it some time ago but couldn't find it. I know the hardcap is 50%. Someone please send me a link in a pm if they come across it
Your first challenge is to pick a race.
Races Avaible:
- Lurikeen 40 str, 80 dex, 40 con, 80 qui.
- Celt 60 str, 60 dex, 60 con, 60 qui.
- Sharr 60 str, 50 dex, 80 con, 50 qui.
- Elf 40 str, 75 dex, 40 con, 75 qui.
Now to be able to pick the "best" race for your new melee ranger you have to make up your mind whenever you want to be a Piercing or Blade ranger.
The most common arguements for chosing Piercing are:- GS / TD or GS / Crocs Tooth weapon combo.
- DB off evade chain. (5 second stun.)
- Dex / str based weapons which means you will always have a higher weaponskill than with blades. More on that later.
- Less vulnerable to Str/con and str debuffs.
The most common arguements for chosing Blades are: - Malice/Battler weapon combo.
- Str based weapons which means it's easier to work 101 str into your template rather than 101 str and 101 dex. (On this note I'm a bit unsure, your base str/dex is 75 and you can add 25 cap increase with ToA, but ingame my stats says 101/101. I havn't been able to find a test result pointing at anything final.)
- Slower weapons, which means more damage per swing. But on the other hand piercers will swing faster. But then again you can cap your swing rate with blades which means you will be hitting as fast as possible but at a higher damage rate. Of course it's easier to cap piercers swing rate.
- Has a 2 style anytime chain compared to Piercings 3. It's easier to land 2 hits in a row rather than 3.
Info on the weapons mentioned can be found here: http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/
Now chosing your weapon style is purely up to yourself, pick whatever you think seems the best. You could argue for eternity over which style that would be best without ever reaching a final result.
Now back to the races:
Seeing as Piercing is str/dex (50% dex, 50% str eg. 50 str + 50 dex = 100/2 = mod of 50.) based we have to look at the diffrent races at level 50.
Sharr has a base 75 str, 95 dex giving you a total mod of 80.
Celt has a base 75 str, 105 dex giving you a total mod of 90.
Lurikeen has a base 55 str, 125 dex giving you a total mod of 90.
We can outrule elf because it only differs from the Lurikeen in having 5 less dex/qui and in return they have 10 additional int. Which you won't need as a melee ranger. But if you really are keen on playing an elf ranger treat them as Lurikeens in this post.
Now the Celt and the Lurikeen will have a higher weaponskill than the Sharr leaving them as first choise, but here the con and qui stats comes into play.
Sharr has a base con of 80. And a base qui of 73. 153 points here.
Celt has a base con of 60. And a base qui of 83. 143 points here.
Lurikeens has a base con of 40. And a base qui of 103. 143 points here.
Now the Sharr will have more con, meaning more hps, but a lower qui which means you will swing slower.
The celt will have a medium range con and qui meaning they will be balanced but not specialised.
The lurikeen will have much lower hps than the Sharr, but they will swing much faster as well as Evade more.
Later on you will go closer to the swing rate cap so a Sharr will suffer less from the disadvantage of slower swing rates.
A short summary:
Lurikeens will have a high damage, fast swing rate, high evade rate but low hps.
Celts will have a high damage, medium swing rate, medium evade rate, medium hps.
Sharrs will have medium damage, low swing rate, low evade, high hps.
Please notice that the expression high, medium, low is just a comparission of the races, eg, "Low evade" doesn't mean you won't evade much ingame it just means you will have a lower evade than the others.
Now picking a race for Piercing styles are up to you, personally I'd consider either a Celt or Lurikeen for this purpose.
Seeing as Blades are 100% str we will have to go over the races again.
Sharr has a base 75 str giving you a total mod of 75.
Celt has a base 75 str giving you a total mod of 75.
Lurikeen has a base 55 str dex giving you a total mod of 55.
Now the Sharr and Celt will have an equal weaponskill and damage, where the Lurikeen will be much lower.
We then have to go over the other stats again.
Sharr has a base con of 80. And a base qui of 73. 153 points here.
Celt has a base con of 60. And a base qui of 83. 143 points here.
Lurikeens has a base con of 40. And a base qui of 103. 143 points here
Now seeing as we could cap the swing rate later we negate the Lurikeen advantage of a faster swing rate.
A short summary:
Lurikeens will have a low damage, fast swing rate, high evade rate but low hps.
Celts will have a high damage, medium swing rate, medium evade rate, medium hps.
Sharrs will have high damage, low swing rate, low evade, high hps.
Please don't relate this to the Piercing model since they are sepperate, once again this is ONLY in between the diffrent races concerning Blades.
Seeing as the Lurikeen has low hps and low damage we could outrule these as a "good" choise for melee Blade rangers. Although there is some good ones around the Celts and Sharrs should do better Technically. Whenever you chose a Celt or Sharr mainly depends on which you prefer. The Sharr will have more hps, but a lower qui and dex.
Now your next issue is how to spec.
You have 6 diffrent spec lines at your disposal:
- Blades
- Piercing
- Stealth
- Bow
- Celtic Dual
- Pathfinding
http://daoc.catacombs.com/cbuilder.cfm Can be used to play around with a Char builder.
Time to explain the terms.
Blades/Piercing - You should only pick one of these. They will affect your Style damage, Unlock new styles, and it determines your weaponskill.
Stealth - Affects how close to enemies you can stealth, how fast you move in stealth, and how far off you can spot/be spotted by enemy stealthers depending on how high their stealth is compared to yours.
Bow - Unlocks new styles, affects damage per shot, affects drawspeed, affects range.
Pathfinding - Selfbuffs.
Celtic Dual - Dual wielding styles, offhand swing rate, style damage.
Now we have to distinguis between Piercing and Blades once again.
Let's start with Piercing.
As a base for both Piercing and Blade you will have to aim for a combined 50 weapon spec. You can get +11 from items at level 50, and then +1 for each RR you gain past RR1, eg. RR 2 = +1 bonus to all specs, RR3 = 2+ bonus to all specs.
A mimimum of 34 is recommended. 34+11= 45. This means your 5 points from the combined 50, so you would have to be RR6 (+5 bonus to all specs.) to reach your combined 50. Seeing as RR6 ain't easily obtained you will have to raise your Piercing. Most people go 39 for Copperhead (follow up on sidestyle.). 39+11 = 50 at RR1. At 25 Piercing you gain the Diamond Back (DB) style. Some people tends to spec 50 Piercing for max damage output with piercing styles.
Now looking at blades:
It's exactly the same grind except the final part. Blade doesn't get a off evade stun, so the best option would be to stay at 39 Blade and go for a "Wyrd spec" More on that to come in the Celtic Dual part.
Now moving on to Stealth
You will again have to aim for a combined 50 stealth. Anything above 50 stealth will only affect your moving speed in stealth, not your detection range so it's a waste to go beyond 50.
The most used spec is 35 stealth.
35+11 item bonus= 45. This is very low.
You could spec 36 or 37 to go higher.
But the RR3 or 4 is quite easily obtained so you would quickly have 35+11+3 = 48 which is enough for a start. Saves you spending a lot of money on a respec stone in exchange for being detected a bit more often, but your a melee ranger so if people come to you, things are great The reason to why you can go with a lower stealth than Piercing/Blade is due to RA's. More to come on that.
Bow
THIS SHOULD NOT BE TRAINED -This thread is ONLY about pure melee rangers and not hybrids. On this note, there's something called Autotrain. It means you don't train in bow while leveling to 48. (Copied what I wrote in another thread and pasted it here.)
About the 12 bow issue, here's an example.
Your lvl 50 ranger has NOT been autotrained and has a total of 2979 Skill points:
- It will train your baseline bow to 12, no matter what respec stone you use.
- It will use up points from your lvl 50 pool.
Your ranger will have 2909 points left to play with.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your level 50 ranger HAS been autotrained and has a total of 3056 skill points:
- It will train your baseline bow to 12, no matter what respec stone you use.
- It will use up points from your lvl 50 pool.
Your ranger will have 2979 points left to play with.
So in short, if you don't autotrain you will have less points to put into the other speclines. And please don't think I'm wrong here, I've tested it 3 times with the same result, it will always train 12 bow for you no matter which respec stone or whatever you use.
Celtic Dual (cd)
Now there's 2 diffrent ways of speccing Celtic Dual. The first is a full cd spec of either 44 or 50 using the CD styles. The second is having a 50 Pierc/blade and having put some points into cd for more offhand swings. Personally I prefer the 44 or 50 CD, since you will have more offhand swings and at the same time you will have a 44 or 50 spec for determining damage output on your styles.
Pathfinding (pf)
Perhaps the most discussed specline.
Some people doesn't bother with speccing this since they use a buffbot (bb).
I will base this thread on a ranger being fully buffed by a druid with 25% toa bonus. Even though your buffed I would still spec in PF.
You get 5 diffrent buffs.
- A base str buff.
- A spec dex/qui buff.
- A dmg add buff.
- A spec AF buff.
- A Speedburst buff.
The base str, and spec dex/qui does NOT stack with druid buffs.
The speedburst does NOT stack with any other kind of speed buffs.
The dmg add buff does NOT stack with any other dmg add buff.
The Spec AF DOES stack with druid base AF, but on my ranger the druid base AF only gives me 1 AF so the spec AF is important.
Now the absolute minimum is 9 pf. This will give you a small AF buff, dmg add buff and the first speedburst buff. The dmg add won't add more than 5 damage or so per hit, the AF isn't changing much and the speedburst hardly outruns sprint.
The next point is either 21 pf or 23 pf. It gives you a decent spec AF, a rather low speedburst and a good dmg add considered the points spend.
You can raise your pf to 27 for an even better dmg add and speedburst. But considered the points spend on this account it becomes too expensive.
However if you raise it to 31 for the new spec AF you can manage.
Speccing 36 pf for a better dmg add again is like from 23 -> 27, a waste of points. And raising to 42 pf seems a bit expensive in points to me, considered your being buffed. Although I know people runnign with it and they're quite happy so it's up to the reader.
Let's have a look at some diffrent specs: (These are without autotrain.)
Spec 1:
44 cd
39 weapon (Piercing or Blades)
31 pf
34 stealth
12 bow
This spec will be using cd styles. It has a high offhand swing rate, your weaponspec will reach a combined 50, you have a decent AF spec, a decent dmg add and a decent speedburst (the speedburst is invalueable like a tin can of cookies.) You will have a rather low stealth but then again, your a melee ranger.
Spec 2
50 Pierc
38 cd
23 pf
35 stealth
12 bow
This spec is using the 50 Pierc spec as mentioned above, it has decent stealth, a bit lower PF than the one above, but your buffed so the loss is manageable. You have a decent offhand swing rate aswell.
Spec 3
50 Pierc
44 cd
9 pf
35 stealth
12 bow
This spec is very similar to spec 2, only diffrence is a pf lowered to 9, which means you will almost lose out the pf line, but in exchange you gain 44 cd for a very high cd offhand swingrate.
Spec 4
50 cd
39 weapon
23 pf
33 stealth
12 bow
A very low stealth for a low RR, but 50 cd for max offhand swings possibly gained from your specline and a combined 50 weaponskill, aswell as decent selfbuffs.
There are a lot of diffrence choises out here, these are just examples. Check out http://daoc.catacombs.com/cbuilder2.cfm?Ranger as mentioned above to play with this.
At higher RR's you can lower stealth/weaponspec and raise PF/CD.
Now your next choice is Masterlevels (mls)
Rangers have 2 diffrent lines avaible to them:
- Sojourner
- Battlermaster
Please have a look at http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/ to view which mls is needed for the diffrent abilities I mention.
Sojourner has:
- Unburdened Warrior (Increases your encumbrance, it's a nice ability, makes you able to carry more rams.)
- Water Breath (Enables you to breathe underwater and move at 90% landspeed, it can be replaced by potions but this ability is a luxuary beyond anything.)
- Reveal Crystalseed/Unmake Crystal Seed (Used to detect runes on the ground and destroy them, completely useless since it uncovers your stealth and im yet to discover a rune before I walk on it.)
- Ancient Transmuter (Summons an Arrow/poison merchant, yet again a completely useless ability.)
- Gateway/Mass Gateway (Teleports you/Your group to your bindpoint, can't be used in combat - yet another luxuary like Water Breath.)
- Resistance of the Ancients (Protection against Essence Magic. Essence Magic is ml magic, The only ones I really see spamming these styles are hib wardens and you won't be fighting those much so this one is rarely used.)
- Forcefull Zephyr (Now it's getting intresting, carries your target to your groundtarget, it moves 1000 units at 100 units/sec so you have 10 secs free beating on your target. He is unable to do anything at all while being zephyred, and it's un-purgeable.) More to come on Purge.
You can quickly make a macro for setting your GT by doing "/macro GT /groundset 1500" And if you want to bind it to a key on your keyboard you can do /qbind #1 #2 #3. #1 = Bank, #2 = Slot, #3 = Quickbar.
- Phase shift (10 seconds immunity to all forms of attacks, costs roughly 45% end. You can't attack or cast spells while using this ability.)
Now the Sojourner Path is a lot of Luxuary abilities but the FZ and Phase Shift are really good for solo'ing/duo'ing. The most used ml path for rangers.
Battlemaster has
- Sapping Strike (Costs roughly 50 end and takes 25% off your opponent.)
- Faultfinder (Used for hitting siege objects and gates, your damage isn't divided by 30, but it uses up 50 end aswell.)
- Power Leak (Uses 50 end aswell and drains 25% power.)
- Grapple (This ability is best used when grouped with a ranged player. It "Grapples" your target making them unable to hit or be hit with melee attacks, but it does not hinder ranged attacks. Lasts 8 seconds and can be used several times.
- Essence Flames (Not sure of the end cost, someone please pm me it so I can update it. Procs an essence flame which is a direct damage.)
- Throw Weapon (Does a ranged attack at 700 units using melee damage formulas, can't use melee for 2 rounds afterwards. Once again im unsure of the end cost.)
- Essence Sear (A style that follows up on Essence Flames, and it procs an Essence resist debuff on nearby enemies. Still dunno about the end cost.)
- Bodyguard (The bodyguarders evade chance is lowered by 20% but he protects a groupmember standing still next to him so the Bodyguarder has to be killed before the Bodyguarded target can be harmed. If the Bodyguarded target moves the Bodyguard breaks.
- Essence Dampen (Style that procs a PBAE suppress that reduces the value of strength/con buffs by 40, removing them if they go below zero. Still unsure of end cost.)
- Essence Shatter (removes a random buff from an opponent, this is really a pain in the ass. Dunno about end cost.)
Seeing as most Battlermaster styles takes up A lot of end, (a normal char has a base of 100 end.) the Battlemaster line isn't used much. Only grapple and Bodyguard is good. And the Sojo has FZ to make up for it so personally I would go for Sojourner.
Before reading this read:
Evade: See https://forums.freddyshouse.com/showthread.php?t=171961
Bow: Damage Is based 100% on dex. Drawrate is based on dex/qui.
Weaponskill: Your chance to hit your opponent, depending on your own and his weaponskill. I havn't been able to find a thread on how to calculate it, if someone has one please send me a pm with the link and I'll include it. In this post relate weaponskill to weapon damage aswell, I don't look sepperatly at these since the times I mention it, it will be under str/dex discussions and these will affect both.
Celtic Dual Offhand Swing Rate: Can't find the formula for this one, I saw it some time ago but couldn't find it. I know the hardcap is 50%. Someone please send me a link in a pm if they come across it
Your first challenge is to pick a race.
Races Avaible:
- Lurikeen 40 str, 80 dex, 40 con, 80 qui.
- Celt 60 str, 60 dex, 60 con, 60 qui.
- Sharr 60 str, 50 dex, 80 con, 50 qui.
- Elf 40 str, 75 dex, 40 con, 75 qui.
Now to be able to pick the "best" race for your new melee ranger you have to make up your mind whenever you want to be a Piercing or Blade ranger.
The most common arguements for chosing Piercing are:- GS / TD or GS / Crocs Tooth weapon combo.
- DB off evade chain. (5 second stun.)
- Dex / str based weapons which means you will always have a higher weaponskill than with blades. More on that later.
- Less vulnerable to Str/con and str debuffs.
The most common arguements for chosing Blades are: - Malice/Battler weapon combo.
- Str based weapons which means it's easier to work 101 str into your template rather than 101 str and 101 dex. (On this note I'm a bit unsure, your base str/dex is 75 and you can add 25 cap increase with ToA, but ingame my stats says 101/101. I havn't been able to find a test result pointing at anything final.)
- Slower weapons, which means more damage per swing. But on the other hand piercers will swing faster. But then again you can cap your swing rate with blades which means you will be hitting as fast as possible but at a higher damage rate. Of course it's easier to cap piercers swing rate.
- Has a 2 style anytime chain compared to Piercings 3. It's easier to land 2 hits in a row rather than 3.
Info on the weapons mentioned can be found here: http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/
Now chosing your weapon style is purely up to yourself, pick whatever you think seems the best. You could argue for eternity over which style that would be best without ever reaching a final result.
Now back to the races:
Seeing as Piercing is str/dex (50% dex, 50% str eg. 50 str + 50 dex = 100/2 = mod of 50.) based we have to look at the diffrent races at level 50.
Sharr has a base 75 str, 95 dex giving you a total mod of 80.
Celt has a base 75 str, 105 dex giving you a total mod of 90.
Lurikeen has a base 55 str, 125 dex giving you a total mod of 90.
We can outrule elf because it only differs from the Lurikeen in having 5 less dex/qui and in return they have 10 additional int. Which you won't need as a melee ranger. But if you really are keen on playing an elf ranger treat them as Lurikeens in this post.
Now the Celt and the Lurikeen will have a higher weaponskill than the Sharr leaving them as first choise, but here the con and qui stats comes into play.
Sharr has a base con of 80. And a base qui of 73. 153 points here.
Celt has a base con of 60. And a base qui of 83. 143 points here.
Lurikeens has a base con of 40. And a base qui of 103. 143 points here.
Now the Sharr will have more con, meaning more hps, but a lower qui which means you will swing slower.
The celt will have a medium range con and qui meaning they will be balanced but not specialised.
The lurikeen will have much lower hps than the Sharr, but they will swing much faster as well as Evade more.
Later on you will go closer to the swing rate cap so a Sharr will suffer less from the disadvantage of slower swing rates.
A short summary:
Lurikeens will have a high damage, fast swing rate, high evade rate but low hps.
Celts will have a high damage, medium swing rate, medium evade rate, medium hps.
Sharrs will have medium damage, low swing rate, low evade, high hps.
Please notice that the expression high, medium, low is just a comparission of the races, eg, "Low evade" doesn't mean you won't evade much ingame it just means you will have a lower evade than the others.
Now picking a race for Piercing styles are up to you, personally I'd consider either a Celt or Lurikeen for this purpose.
Seeing as Blades are 100% str we will have to go over the races again.
Sharr has a base 75 str giving you a total mod of 75.
Celt has a base 75 str giving you a total mod of 75.
Lurikeen has a base 55 str dex giving you a total mod of 55.
Now the Sharr and Celt will have an equal weaponskill and damage, where the Lurikeen will be much lower.
We then have to go over the other stats again.
Sharr has a base con of 80. And a base qui of 73. 153 points here.
Celt has a base con of 60. And a base qui of 83. 143 points here.
Lurikeens has a base con of 40. And a base qui of 103. 143 points here
Now seeing as we could cap the swing rate later we negate the Lurikeen advantage of a faster swing rate.
A short summary:
Lurikeens will have a low damage, fast swing rate, high evade rate but low hps.
Celts will have a high damage, medium swing rate, medium evade rate, medium hps.
Sharrs will have high damage, low swing rate, low evade, high hps.
Please don't relate this to the Piercing model since they are sepperate, once again this is ONLY in between the diffrent races concerning Blades.
Seeing as the Lurikeen has low hps and low damage we could outrule these as a "good" choise for melee Blade rangers. Although there is some good ones around the Celts and Sharrs should do better Technically. Whenever you chose a Celt or Sharr mainly depends on which you prefer. The Sharr will have more hps, but a lower qui and dex.
Now your next issue is how to spec.
You have 6 diffrent spec lines at your disposal:
- Blades
- Piercing
- Stealth
- Bow
- Celtic Dual
- Pathfinding
http://daoc.catacombs.com/cbuilder.cfm Can be used to play around with a Char builder.
Time to explain the terms.
Blades/Piercing - You should only pick one of these. They will affect your Style damage, Unlock new styles, and it determines your weaponskill.
Stealth - Affects how close to enemies you can stealth, how fast you move in stealth, and how far off you can spot/be spotted by enemy stealthers depending on how high their stealth is compared to yours.
Bow - Unlocks new styles, affects damage per shot, affects drawspeed, affects range.
Pathfinding - Selfbuffs.
Celtic Dual - Dual wielding styles, offhand swing rate, style damage.
Now we have to distinguis between Piercing and Blades once again.
Let's start with Piercing.
As a base for both Piercing and Blade you will have to aim for a combined 50 weapon spec. You can get +11 from items at level 50, and then +1 for each RR you gain past RR1, eg. RR 2 = +1 bonus to all specs, RR3 = 2+ bonus to all specs.
A mimimum of 34 is recommended. 34+11= 45. This means your 5 points from the combined 50, so you would have to be RR6 (+5 bonus to all specs.) to reach your combined 50. Seeing as RR6 ain't easily obtained you will have to raise your Piercing. Most people go 39 for Copperhead (follow up on sidestyle.). 39+11 = 50 at RR1. At 25 Piercing you gain the Diamond Back (DB) style. Some people tends to spec 50 Piercing for max damage output with piercing styles.
Now looking at blades:
It's exactly the same grind except the final part. Blade doesn't get a off evade stun, so the best option would be to stay at 39 Blade and go for a "Wyrd spec" More on that to come in the Celtic Dual part.
Now moving on to Stealth
You will again have to aim for a combined 50 stealth. Anything above 50 stealth will only affect your moving speed in stealth, not your detection range so it's a waste to go beyond 50.
The most used spec is 35 stealth.
35+11 item bonus= 45. This is very low.
You could spec 36 or 37 to go higher.
But the RR3 or 4 is quite easily obtained so you would quickly have 35+11+3 = 48 which is enough for a start. Saves you spending a lot of money on a respec stone in exchange for being detected a bit more often, but your a melee ranger so if people come to you, things are great
The reason to why you can go with a lower stealth than Piercing/Blade is due to RA's. More to come on that.Bow
THIS SHOULD NOT BE TRAINED -This thread is ONLY about pure melee rangers and not hybrids. On this note, there's something called Autotrain. It means you don't train in bow while leveling to 48. (Copied what I wrote in another thread and pasted it here.)
About the 12 bow issue, here's an example.
Your lvl 50 ranger has NOT been autotrained and has a total of 2979 Skill points:
- It will train your baseline bow to 12, no matter what respec stone you use.
- It will use up points from your lvl 50 pool.
Your ranger will have 2909 points left to play with.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your level 50 ranger HAS been autotrained and has a total of 3056 skill points:
- It will train your baseline bow to 12, no matter what respec stone you use.
- It will use up points from your lvl 50 pool.
Your ranger will have 2979 points left to play with.
So in short, if you don't autotrain you will have less points to put into the other speclines. And please don't think I'm wrong here, I've tested it 3 times with the same result, it will always train 12 bow for you no matter which respec stone or whatever you use.
Celtic Dual (cd)
Now there's 2 diffrent ways of speccing Celtic Dual. The first is a full cd spec of either 44 or 50 using the CD styles. The second is having a 50 Pierc/blade and having put some points into cd for more offhand swings. Personally I prefer the 44 or 50 CD, since you will have more offhand swings and at the same time you will have a 44 or 50 spec for determining damage output on your styles.
Pathfinding (pf)
Perhaps the most discussed specline.
Some people doesn't bother with speccing this since they use a buffbot (bb).
I will base this thread on a ranger being fully buffed by a druid with 25% toa bonus. Even though your buffed I would still spec in PF.
You get 5 diffrent buffs.
- A base str buff.
- A spec dex/qui buff.
- A dmg add buff.
- A spec AF buff.
- A Speedburst buff.
The base str, and spec dex/qui does NOT stack with druid buffs.
The speedburst does NOT stack with any other kind of speed buffs.
The dmg add buff does NOT stack with any other dmg add buff.
The Spec AF DOES stack with druid base AF, but on my ranger the druid base AF only gives me 1 AF so the spec AF is important.
Now the absolute minimum is 9 pf. This will give you a small AF buff, dmg add buff and the first speedburst buff. The dmg add won't add more than 5 damage or so per hit, the AF isn't changing much and the speedburst hardly outruns sprint.
The next point is either 21 pf or 23 pf. It gives you a decent spec AF, a rather low speedburst and a good dmg add considered the points spend.
You can raise your pf to 27 for an even better dmg add and speedburst. But considered the points spend on this account it becomes too expensive.
However if you raise it to 31 for the new spec AF you can manage.
Speccing 36 pf for a better dmg add again is like from 23 -> 27, a waste of points. And raising to 42 pf seems a bit expensive in points to me, considered your being buffed. Although I know people runnign with it and they're quite happy so it's up to the reader.
Let's have a look at some diffrent specs: (These are without autotrain.)
Spec 1:
44 cd
39 weapon (Piercing or Blades)
31 pf
34 stealth
12 bow
This spec will be using cd styles. It has a high offhand swing rate, your weaponspec will reach a combined 50, you have a decent AF spec, a decent dmg add and a decent speedburst (the speedburst is invalueable like a tin can of cookies.) You will have a rather low stealth but then again, your a melee ranger.
Spec 2
50 Pierc
38 cd
23 pf
35 stealth
12 bow
This spec is using the 50 Pierc spec as mentioned above, it has decent stealth, a bit lower PF than the one above, but your buffed so the loss is manageable. You have a decent offhand swing rate aswell.
Spec 3
50 Pierc
44 cd
9 pf
35 stealth
12 bow
This spec is very similar to spec 2, only diffrence is a pf lowered to 9, which means you will almost lose out the pf line, but in exchange you gain 44 cd for a very high cd offhand swingrate.
Spec 4
50 cd
39 weapon
23 pf
33 stealth
12 bow
A very low stealth for a low RR, but 50 cd for max offhand swings possibly gained from your specline and a combined 50 weaponskill, aswell as decent selfbuffs.
There are a lot of diffrence choises out here, these are just examples. Check out http://daoc.catacombs.com/cbuilder2.cfm?Ranger as mentioned above to play with this.
At higher RR's you can lower stealth/weaponspec and raise PF/CD.
Now your next choice is Masterlevels (mls)
Rangers have 2 diffrent lines avaible to them:
- Sojourner
- Battlermaster
Please have a look at http://www.visionofsages.net/toa/ to view which mls is needed for the diffrent abilities I mention.
Sojourner has:
- Unburdened Warrior (Increases your encumbrance, it's a nice ability, makes you able to carry more rams.)
- Water Breath (Enables you to breathe underwater and move at 90% landspeed, it can be replaced by potions but this ability is a luxuary beyond anything.)
- Reveal Crystalseed/Unmake Crystal Seed (Used to detect runes on the ground and destroy them, completely useless since it uncovers your stealth and im yet to discover a rune before I walk on it.)
- Ancient Transmuter (Summons an Arrow/poison merchant, yet again a completely useless ability.)
- Gateway/Mass Gateway (Teleports you/Your group to your bindpoint, can't be used in combat - yet another luxuary like Water Breath.)
- Resistance of the Ancients (Protection against Essence Magic. Essence Magic is ml magic, The only ones I really see spamming these styles are hib wardens and you won't be fighting those much so this one is rarely used.)
- Forcefull Zephyr (Now it's getting intresting, carries your target to your groundtarget, it moves 1000 units at 100 units/sec so you have 10 secs free beating on your target. He is unable to do anything at all while being zephyred, and it's un-purgeable.) More to come on Purge.
You can quickly make a macro for setting your GT by doing "/macro GT /groundset 1500" And if you want to bind it to a key on your keyboard you can do /qbind #1 #2 #3. #1 = Bank, #2 = Slot, #3 = Quickbar.
- Phase shift (10 seconds immunity to all forms of attacks, costs roughly 45% end. You can't attack or cast spells while using this ability.)
Now the Sojourner Path is a lot of Luxuary abilities but the FZ and Phase Shift are really good for solo'ing/duo'ing. The most used ml path for rangers.
Battlemaster has
- Sapping Strike (Costs roughly 50 end and takes 25% off your opponent.)
- Faultfinder (Used for hitting siege objects and gates, your damage isn't divided by 30, but it uses up 50 end aswell.)
- Power Leak (Uses 50 end aswell and drains 25% power.)
- Grapple (This ability is best used when grouped with a ranged player. It "Grapples" your target making them unable to hit or be hit with melee attacks, but it does not hinder ranged attacks. Lasts 8 seconds and can be used several times.
- Essence Flames (Not sure of the end cost, someone please pm me it so I can update it. Procs an essence flame which is a direct damage.)
- Throw Weapon (Does a ranged attack at 700 units using melee damage formulas, can't use melee for 2 rounds afterwards. Once again im unsure of the end cost.)
- Essence Sear (A style that follows up on Essence Flames, and it procs an Essence resist debuff on nearby enemies. Still dunno about the end cost.)
- Bodyguard (The bodyguarders evade chance is lowered by 20% but he protects a groupmember standing still next to him so the Bodyguarder has to be killed before the Bodyguarded target can be harmed. If the Bodyguarded target moves the Bodyguard breaks.
- Essence Dampen (Style that procs a PBAE suppress that reduces the value of strength/con buffs by 40, removing them if they go below zero. Still unsure of end cost.)
- Essence Shatter (removes a random buff from an opponent, this is really a pain in the ass. Dunno about end cost.)
Seeing as most Battlermaster styles takes up A lot of end, (a normal char has a base of 100 end.) the Battlemaster line isn't used much. Only grapple and Bodyguard is good. And the Sojo has FZ to make up for it so personally I would go for Sojourner.
