Ranger spec

[Qbic]

Hi guys,

I am levelling a ranger at the moment and I read some guides on how to spec but those are all quite old so I was wondering if someone could give me some up-to-date tips on how to spec. I would like to go for an allround spec. I didn't autotrain in bow and I have a bb at my disposal. Any tips and feedback (also about ra's) would be highly appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,

Martin.

 

[Elrandhir]

Depends what you like really, but atm it seems as 50 CD, 34 weap, 29 stealth,36 PF, rest bow is a spec some uses for pure melee.

another way to go is 35 CD, 39 weap, 35 Bow, 27 PF, 33 stealth for getting nice bowdamage and okay melee damage.

Hard to say really so many different specs you can do on a ranger really, atm I guess the melee specced ranger is best by far, but it all depends on how you want to play it I guess.

 

[Chrstffr]

29 stealth seems well fuckin low imo :S

 

[Craft]

..

www.critshot.com

the above website is excellent, i would reccomend to any ranged stealther, many specs are out there but also taking into consideration available weapons (artifacts etc) and wether or not youll have access to a buffbot. My rangers stats are:
45 Bow - Rapid fire 2, and Penetrating arrow
36 Pathfinding - 7.2 or 7.4 DPS melee damage add (around 30 extra damage with bow hits, 15-25 with rapidfire) and self af buff, self dex and self con.
34 Stealth - i think this is fine to sort me out until higher realmrank, currently 2L7 so 34+12 atm.
34 Pierce - I went higher pierce rather than balancing out my cd and pierce to increase my main damage
13 Celtic Dual - Remaining points and a niceish evade style..

 

[Elrandhir]

29 stealth seems well fuckin low imo :S

aint really a spec to start of with, but not that bad if you higher RR.

 

[Chrstffr]

aint really a spec to start of with, but not that bad if you higher RR.

yeah around rr11

 

[Thlauni]

My spec is
45 bow
35 stealth (gets u 50 stealth at RR5, which is a good place to aim at to start with)
44 Pierce
23 CD
11 PF

And I got a BB.

If u wanna bleed the money for a respec, u could start with ignoring melee until u are fully ToA'ed and a higher RR, as you wont be able to compete anyway, that would allow u to lower ur pierce till fx. 34 and add in PF.

 

[Elrandhir]

yeah around rr11

na, know one at RR5 using it, and he seems to win most fights.

Still so many ways to spec really, hard to say what way is the best tbh.

 

[Deadnala]

If you want the pure sniper spec:

- 50 Bow
- 34 Stealth
- 46 PF (only if autotrained) the AF stack on buffs and dmg add + red speed rox
- 10 Pierce
- 4 Celtic Dual

Melee damage with this spec on RR4 = average 135 a hit a weapon + dmg add of about 50.

with 39 pierce 25 CD the damage is average 175 but no dmg add now.

So the sniper spec 135+50=185
The allround spec 175

The only thing you dont have with low melee spec is sidestunn or the chain of 3 in the pierce line allso no evade stunn wich is a true minus

NOTE: Before the flames begin, This damage was tested on my rog teplated BB with my ranger at RR4 toa templated but no RA's trained.

The RA's i like to hav with my ranger wich is RR5L0 atm...
- mos 5 (got 3 atm)
- Aug dex 4
- FE 5 (got 2 i think)
- Trueshot 2 or more (got 1)

After you got these you can aim for others but youll need some RR then 1st

 

[Kaun_IA]

Depends what you like really, but atm it seems as 50 CD, 34 weap, 29 stealth,36 PF, rest bow is a spec some uses for pure melee.

im a pure melee ranger, and all i have to say, that specc is pure s***

first 29 stealth is WAY TOO LOW. you will be detected miles off. you cant avoid stealth zergs or enything.. visuals WILL see you further and faster... = more rolled over by fgs. we are not US servers where ppl run around with 30 stealth.

50 cd = only thing good about this specc.

34 weapon = only if your rr7. you will need 51 composite... thats 34 + 11(items) + 6 (rr bonus), or els your base dmg and over all dmg wil suck.

im rr4 atm (soon 5) and my specc is 50 cd, 36 blades, 25 pf, 12 bow. works uber atm

 

[Elrandhir]

im a pure melee ranger, and all i have to say, that specc is pure s***

I can only say that your wrong, not much more to say, I have already seen that it has worked fine.

Don't just spit out something is sh*t because you belive another spec to be right mate.

The stealth is rather low though and I wouldent really want to have it on my ranger, still it works fine.

 

[tierk]

Totally depends on yer playstyle. I have what is called a hybrid spec which runs like 35 bow 35 pierce 39 cd 25pf and 34 stealth (need to respec though now i am RR7). This spec works for me but this doesnt mean it is the best spec out there or anything. You need to see how u enjoy playing the game and then maybe decide what u wanna do. One thing i would definatly say though is that you should make sure that u have a modified stealth of 50 or u is going to be easy pickings for the assassin classes out there. Also having had a spec were i was 50 bow spec i can honestly say that it is a total waste of points to take bow that high and that you would be better served spending those points trying to round off yer class with a stronger melee spec.

http://daoc.catacombs.com/cbuilder2.cfm?Ranger

That is a link to the character builder (sorry if u have it already) and try out a few different specs on there and see what takes yer fancy. Dont, i repeat dont take anyones advice as gospel as i have found that different specs have worked for me just depending on what way i was playing the game. i.e dock camping or tower humping, or running grped or ungrped.

Also u wanna get ml'd as quickly as possible and ideally u wanna go Battlemater while you are low Ml's for the grapple (ML4) which is a great and easy way to get rp's, just grp with a fellow ranger and grapple opponent and let yer mate fill his arse up with arrows. Then switch to Soujourner at Ml8 for FZ and the Ml9 phase shift is quite nice as well.

My current spec: 35 Bow 35 pierce 39 cd 25 pf and stealth 34 but this is at RR7 which makes it a lot easier to spec and harder with RA's and therefore more able to compete in all types of situations. Pre RR5 i was 40 bow 39 Pierce 25 cd 10 pf and 39 stealth.

thats me two cents worth

 

[Solari]

1) 35+ stealth spec when your starting out - Anything lower will simply get you killed and at lower rr's you won't even have a high mos to negate the low stealth.

2) If you got for a hybrid, eg. melee and bow orientated the cookie cutter spec usually includes 35 bow.

3) As a ranger you can put Wyrd's theories to use, if your unfamiliar with that please ask and I will explain it - But seeing as 99% if the daoc population are familiar with it I'm not gonna waste my time explaining it.

4) If you have a buffbot at your dispopsal I would recommend looking over the char builder - Keep an eye out for which levels the DA, speedburst and spec AF buffs are. A minimum of 16 pf would be my recommendations though.

5) RA's - hmm depends on bow, hybrid or melee.
Aug 3+ dex if bow.
Aug 3 str if melee.
Purge 2+
IP 2 if melee.
FE 3+ if bow.
PD 3+ either way, mostly melee.
AoM 3+ either way again, mostly bow.
MoS 2+ I'm running MoS 2 atm with a melee ranger - bows might need 3.
Probably missed something... RA respec stones are cheap make your own impressions imo...

6) In reply to Deadnala's damage... I'm sorry to say mate but there's no way you can generalise. It will depend on Race, starting points, template stats/toa bonuses, weapon damage type, weapon qual, weapon speed, styling (e.g. item bonus, rr, weapon spec - combined with style growthrate.) Armour type, AF on target, buffs, resist tables ect.

7) Regarding spec, I copy/pasted this off a guide I wrote down earlier but can't find it anymore... some of it might be useless crap and spam but you might find something that would help you choose: (Bear in mind this is from a melee concept POV.)

U]Now your next issue is how to spec.[/U]

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.

*END of copy/paste*

8) I'm specced 50 cd, 34 blade, 31 pf, 32 stealth, 14 bow - 6L9 ml 10 so I'm not sure how much insigt that spec will give you since running with it below RR5 is just suicide.

Hope it helps or your welcome to drop me a line ingame... Sorry for the long post

 

[Kaun_IA]

I can only say that your wrong, not much more to say, I have already seen that it has worked fine.

Don't just spit out something is sh*t because you belive another spec to be right mate.

The stealth is rather low though and I wouldent really want to have it on my ranger, still it works fine.

i have tryd alot of specs. and all i can say. the lower you go from 50 compsoite stealth and weapon.. the more you die. i tryd 30 stealth, becouse on critshot ppl suggested to me that its a good idea... but hell, i attracted soo much stealth zerg that it was impossible to get to enyone whitout them seeing.

you need composite 50 on weapons if you dont want to gimp yourself in melee (that goes more for pure melee)

and im not spitting out shit.. 34 weapon needs rr7 and 29 stealth = you dead 90% of the time due to being over run by zergs.

 

[Raven]

stuff

jesus, rep just because you put so much effort into it

 

[Qbic]

Guys thanks a million for all the information and tips. It is really helpful.
A guildie of mine proposed this spec: 44 pierce, 35 bow, 29 cd, 34 stealth (a tad low I know) and 25 pf. I guess I will have to read a bit more on the issue and compare a few specs.
Anyway thanks again.
Have a great evening.

Cheers,

Martin.

 

[Kaun_IA]

Guys thanks a million for all the information and tips. It is really helpful.
A guildie of mine proposed this spec: 44 pierce, 35 bow, 29 cd, 34 stealth (a tad low I know) and 25 pf. I guess I will have to read a bit more on the issue and compare a few specs.
Anyway thanks again.
Have a great evening.

Cheers,

Martin.

seems ok specc... will be hard at low rrs but at rr4 and so on(if you stick to it), it will be easyer.

main styles you will be useing are: piercing taunt as enytime, off evade + chain. cd side stun to start and back style to stop them from running away.

you could allso spec...

44 pierce
29 cd
35 bow
35 stealth
23 pf (that 3rd speed aint alot better than the second one you get)

but sad thing whit this is, that you will have 23 skill points unused

 

[Elrandhir]

and im not spitting out shit.. 34 weapon needs rr7 and 29 stealth = you dead 90% of the time due to being over run by zergs.

Well you'r dead cause of zergs neways when you have started fighting often, and when in a fight your stealth wont help you much, I myself have about 33 stealth on my ranger and I have never been spotted by anything else then other stealthers.

as the one using 29 have higher RR he should be able to avoide zergs if I can tbh, and for avoiding other stealthers I don't think he cares much about that, and he only fights 1 vs 1 fights, or tries to do so.

 

[Thlauni]

I personally have MoS4 and 35 stealth. And yes, these points could be used in a different way I know, but

I go absolutely ballistic at the slow moving stealth speed u get when not near 50 + at lower mos levels. This way u can actually walk around, see the country, meet some of the interesting people, and ... hopefully, kill them!

But not that much fun in the free for alls, at the main drop of points.

So as everybody keeps saying, it is also to a large degree a question of what playstyle you favour, which you wont know until u played some.