Hello there

I played with all variations of ranger, it’s my favorite class by far, but I wanted somenthing more versatile, and returned to the spellblade. 
 Why not go trickster? One of the things that I miss on rangers and rogues are good aoe attacks, and the mage can provide this, along another advantages. And my favorite rogue class is the SF, I love how he can get fast and strong. And the Illusionist is because the idea is to be an untouchable killer, high deflection. I know that I will miss good spells, but I’m ok with that.

I can mix spells, ranged attacks with Blunderbuss modal in one hand e pistol in another, and melee.

you're not *really* going to get good aoe with a trickster/ranger though. That doesn't happen IMO until tier 8, which is only for single-classed tricksters.

 

you'll get some good debuffing though and a lot of extra survivability. in such a case going melee ranger would be good imo.

Speaking of Ranger + AoE:

Am playing an Arcane Archer/Troubadour as hireling atm and I love her. Plenty of AoE - and the synergy between Sure-Handed Ila (which applies both its recovery and reload bonuses to reloading weapons) and weapons such as Spearcaster (+modal = great) or the Red Hand is great. 

But then... anybody tried Imbue:Web + Imbue:Eora with high INT, Driving Flight and Waterhaper's Focus and combined it with being energized (Their Champion)? If you shoot from stealth you'll apply 6 pulsing AoEs (3 webs + 3 pulls) with insane accuracy in a heartbeat. And all pulses will interrupt enemies if they crit. At the same time they can't move and get pulled together. It's just not fair.

Also, with high Arcana very useful against hard to hit enemies because Imbue Shots get Arcana as accuracy bonus - and Spearcaster does that, too. I just leave the modal on . With SH Ila I'm still fast enough to prone-lock those enemies. 

Edited July 13, 20214 yr by Boeroer

3 hours ago, Boeroer said:

Speaking of Ranger + AoE:

Am playing an Arcane Archer/Troubadour as hireling atm and I love her. Plenty of AoE - and the synergy between Sure-Handed Ila (which applies both its recovery and reload bonuses to reloading weapons) and weapons such as Spearcaster (+modal = great) or the Red Hand is great. 

But then... anybody tried Imbue:Web + Imbue:Eora with high INT, Driving Flight and Waterhaper's Focus and combined it with being energized (Their Champion)? If you shoot from stealth you'll apply 6 pulsing AoEs (6 webs + 6 pulls) with insane accuracy in a heartbeat. And all pulses will interrupt enemies if they crit. At the same time they can't move and get pulled together. It's just not fair.

Also, with high Arcana very useful against hard to hit enemies because Imbue Shots get Arcana as accuracy bonus - and Spearcaster does that, too. I just leave the modal on . With SH Ila I'm still fast enough to prone-lock those enemies. 

That’s great, but I am trying solo and think would be hard to make this work.

The illusionist streetfighter is working good so far. Chillfog, Arkemyr Dazzing Lights and Blunderbuss are doing a good job. 

Ah, you didn't say. It sounded like a party setup to me.

Illusionist is cool for some spells but so limiting in a solo run imo. For example no Phantom (which can be very useful in solo runs). You said you don't care about that too much - but at the same time the benefits of the Illusionist subclass aren't outweighing the drawbacks imo. At least for a solo run.

About Streefighter: I'm regularly playing Edér as Fighter/Rogue tank and it works well with a large shield + modal.

The cool thing about any solo Spellblade is that you can use the large shield Cadhu Scalth + modal in combiation with Adept Evasion and high Reflex to just shower yourself and the enemies with AoE friendly-fire AoE spells that target Reflex. All grazes will get turned into misses and the rare hits will get softened a lot by the modal + shield passive. I can cast almost everything I have on an enemy group with my spellblade tank in the center - and he will hardly get scratched. You don't need a Trickster for that so I'd say Streetfighter is good enough, too. But I personally would pair it with a Bloodmage (although that's everybody's choice for solo and thus that might be a bit lame) - also because Blood Sacrifice can be a tool to actively bring you down do flanked + bloodied and profit from the On the Edge passive - even if you don't get hit at all. If you tank around you also wouldn't need Powder Burns to get flanked. You'll just get flanked the "natural way".

But I guess Illusionist also works.  

   

Edited July 13, 20214 yr by Boeroer