Ideas for a solo ranger

[Ranndar]

Hello guys, I played a bit more with various classes, and concluded that I like the Ranger. Now I want new ideas to start a new solo try.

I already used Stalker/Skald and Stalker/Lifegiver.

Now I want to try these combinations 

Furyshaper/Stalker (don’t know how would be the survivability with this one)

Trickster/Stalker or GH (maybe mix ranged and melee)

Soulblade/Stalker

 

Any ideas?

[Boeroer]

Bloodmage/Stalker (Bear companion) was a great solo run for me.

Besides the usual benefits of wizards I used the Willbreaker + modal to lower Fortitude for spells and Takedown Combo. The auto will reduction of Willbreaker worked beautifully for my Essential Phantom who used Draining Touch (which targets will instead of deflection). 

Saru Sichr is good against non-poison immune tough enemies. Its DoT stacks like Bleeding Cuts - but it has no PEN issues since it's not based on the weapon damage you score. The DoT ticks slowly but with enough stacks foes will melt.

Beast's Claw is great in combination with Wizard spells in general.

I used Gloves of Greater Reliability + Make them Flinch (enchantment on Willbreaker). I think miss to graze conversion is very, very underrated by most players. Especially because Body Blows and other on-hit effects already work with grazes.

It lets you graze enemies with stellar deflection often which you otherwise would miss all the time.

 

 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Boeroer

[Faraleth]

Furyshaper/Stalker is a bad idea, the totems counts as pet, and you'll have Bonded Grief due to them.

Furyshaper goes well with Ghost Heart.

I'm currently playing an Island Aumaua Berserker+Stalker, its your classis animalistic tribal warrior with a bear, I like this build.

[Ranndar]

1 hour ago, Faraleth said:

Furyshaper/Stalker is a bad idea, the totems counts as pet, and you'll have Bonded Grief due to them.

Furyshaper goes well with Ghost Heart.

I'm currently playing an Island Aumaua Berserker+Stalker, its your classis animalistic tribal warrior with a bear, I like this build.

But are you going solo? I like the idea but solo with a berserker is too hard for me yet

[Ranndar]

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Bloodmage/Stalker (Bear companion) was a great solo run for me.

Besides the usual benefits of wizards I used the Willbreaker + modal to lower Fortitude for spells and Takedown Combo. The auto will reduction of Willbreaker worked beautifully for my Essential Phantom who used Draining Touch (which targets will instead of deflection). 

Saru Sichr is good against non-poison immune tough enemies. Its DoT stacks like Bleeding Cuts - but it has no PEN issues since it's not based on the weapon damage you score. The DoT ticks slowly but with enough stacks foes will melt.

Beast's Claw is great in combination with Wizard spells in general.

I used Gloves of Greater Reliability + Make them Flinch (enchantment on Willbreaker). I think miss to graze conversion is very, very underrated by most players. Especially because Body Blows and other on-hit effects already work with grazes.

It lets you graze enemies with stellar deflection often which you otherwise would miss all the time.

 

 

I forgot about the wizards, because I think would be a bit similar to the Druid ( in terms of gameplay) , but it’s a good idea too

[Faraleth]

1 hour ago, Ranndar said:

But are you going solo? I like the idea but solo with a berserker is too hard for me yet

nah, I like the npcs too much

[uuuhhii]

ranger struggle with pen more than many other class

multi with chanter or cipher will help with it a little

[Boeroer]

6 hours ago, Faraleth said:

Furyshaper/Stalker is a bad idea, the totems counts as pet, and you'll have Bonded Grief due to them.

Furyshaper goes well with Ghost Heart.

The Wards of the Furyshaper count as summons (not Animal Companions) and also count towards your summoning limit. I never heard that Furyshaper Wards will trigger Bonded Grief - but I also haven't played a Furyshaper/Ranger yet. So while I can't dismiss this with absolute certainty it sounds like false info to me. If I'm wrong I'll happily accept that new knowledge though.

Wards do give you a PL debuff if they "die", but you can simply cast Withdraw (Priest) on them: they will still work but be untouchable. Can even be used to block choke points then. Also works with Withdraw scrolls of course. 

Furyshaper + Ghost Heart do not go well together because the Wards count as summon - same as the GH's Animal Companion does. That means you can only have a Ward XOR your Animal Companion on the field - not both at the same time. Which somewhat cripples this combination imo. Unless you didn't want to use the Animal Companion anyways but only view Ghost Heart as a Ranger without Animal Companion. That's an ineffective use of a Ghost Heart - but in that case it wouldn't hurt the Furyshaper's wardshaping.

[Boeroer]

1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

ranger struggle with pen more than many other class

Aha... which are those "many other" classes? 

Anyway: more PEN certainly doesn't hurt. 

[thelee]

many ranged weapons lack a way to boost PEN, or have low PEN to begin with, so one could argue that therefore the ranger has some special problems given that they tend to be built as a ranged class. but it's definitely not unique to ranger.

and anyway, a warbow or an extremely high accuracy helps a lot (for crits). the ranger has a bunch of the latter. 

 

2 hours ago, Boeroer said:

I never heard that Furyshaper Wards will trigger Bonded Grief - but I also haven't played a Furyshaper/Ranger yet. So while I can't dismiss this with absolute certainty it sounds like false info to me. If I'm wrong I'll happily accept that new knowledge though.

i played a stalker/furyshaper and wards will definitely not trigger bonded grief.

[Ranndar]

3 minutes ago, thelee said:

 

i played a stalker/furyshaper and wards will definitely not trigger bonded grief.

Did you played this solo? Can you tell me more about this please?

[thelee]

I did not play this solo. But wards do not count as pets. My stalker would flee away from the wards, or get it destroyed, and that was never a determining factor in getting bonded grief. Only distance from pet or pet knock out would do it.

[Boeroer]

That's what I thought, wards being summons and all that. But as I said I didn't play this combo myself so I couldn't be 100% sure. With Deadfire you never know...

I also had fun with a Stalker/Forbidden Fist using Stalker's Patience + Tuotilo's Palm with Swift Flurry + Heartbeat Drumming. The spear has an enchantment that lets you skip recovery every 5th crit (or in other words: 20% of crits). But since you can get crit-chains with Swift Flurry + HBD which will always proc main hand attacks (even if the shield triggers Swift Flurry/HBD) you will experience the recovery skip rel. often.

Beast's Claw + Stalker Passives + preferred Forbidden Fist stats (maxed RES) made the char pretty sturdy. You'll always have a crush dmg backup with the Forbidden Fist ability. And it also prolongs the raw DoT of Stalker's Patience. I didn't play this solo though so I can't say if it's really cool for a solo run. However it was a good mix of offense and defense. 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Boeroer

[Ranndar]

I liked the idea of the FF. Will try it this weekend. Thanks

Edited July 3, 2021 by Ranndar

[freddfranca]

I had an idea of an Illusionist Stalker, using illusion spells (obvious) and the White Witch Mask.

What would be the best option, Trickster, Wael or Illusionist?

[Helz]

I made an Illusionist Rogue that I thought was cool. Illusionists miss out on some really useful spells though. If I'd known how good Enchanting and Conjuration were, I probably wouldn't have done it.

[freddfranca]

2 hours ago, Helz said:

I made an Illusionist Rogue that I thought was cool. Illusionists miss out on some really useful spells though. If I'd known how good Enchanting and Conjuration were, I probably wouldn't have done it.

I agree about the good spells you miss, but what worries me in a solo run is the lack of sustain. I don’t know how can I survive like this