Ranger Weapons [BPM (No Nerfs) + CP Enabled]

[patronkus]

Gonna start marking my threads with the BPM + CP stuff for context. 

Looked at Veilpiercer and Ranger and thought they'd work out well together. The idea is to combo Twinned Shot, Driving Flight and Weightless Draw to spam shots from the bow. After testing it out it works super well (Intuitive from Shadowed Hunters helps this a lot) but has a big problem in that you run out of Bond super fast. I tried it with Ghost Heart and by the time you start spamming Twinned Shot you've already spent 5 Bond. 1 to summon the pet, 3 for Shadowed Hunters and 1 for Hunters Mark. Tbf it does work really well, you nut out a ton of damage super fast and it has the added benefit of stripping beneficial effects of enemies (-20% of 2 enemies per Twinned Shot). There are ways to get more Twinned Shots off, Devil of Caroc for +2 Bond and Brilliant but once you bottom out on Bond (which happens in like 10 seconds btw) you are pretty screwed if your foe isn't dead.

Besides Veilpiercer, what other weapons are good for Ranger and what ways are there to get more Twinned Shots off with Veilpiercer?

[masterty66]

Frostseeker is good for AA especially with CP/BPM which iirc fix some of the scaling issues for Arcane Archers. Red Hand (especially for Maia) is always good.

Constantine found some nice synergies recently with Whirling strikes. Might not be exactly what you are looking for because it's more used for but he listed out a bunch of weapons in his thread "Ranger & Driving Flight Weapons" which features a bunch of weapons with powerful aoe effects when used with either Swift Flurry (Monk) or Whirling Strikes (Ranger).

St Omaku's Mercy is fairly solid and can be gotten pretty early. I've always wondered if that one might be nice for a Geomancer (Blood Mage). It has an upgrade which increases allied attack speed that scales off health lost. Maybe would be good for a char that likes to use Blood Sacrifice to stay bloodied. Not sure how well that particular ability scales - need to test it some time.

[Elric Galad]

I think a good starting point is that Ghostheart subclass has a pretty mediocre synergy with your build while costing bond.

BPM Shadowed Hunters make positionning your pet super easy, and makes it significantly more resilient for 30s. Even if the pet is killed, BPM SC Ranger can pick BPM Vengeful Grief, which provides infinite duration of Tenacious and Nimble ; basically having your pet killed isn't that bad.

Finally by picking Ghostheart, you also miss the opportunity of getting this sweet 15% Hit to Crit from Sharpshooter.

 

On another note, BPM Distraction Training provides 15% chance of Bond when pet is missed or grazed (you can even pick an anteloppe for this  ). This is a good source of both deflection debuff (for more crits) and Bond. I'll skip Prestige for this one.

 

BPM includes a specific package called Potion of Enlightenment which provides 1 ressource every 30s. That's still something for long fights. It is extremely expensive though.

 

But well, when your power pool is depleted, you're indeed left with a mere auto-attacker... but it is the case for all martial, ney ?

[patronkus]

6 hours ago, Elric Galad said:

I think a good starting point is that Ghostheart subclass has a pretty mediocre synergy with your build while costing bond.

BPM Shadowed Hunters make positionning your pet super easy, and makes it significantly more resilient for 30s. Even if the pet is killed, BPM SC Ranger can pick BPM Vengeful Grief, which provides infinite duration of Tenacious and Nimble ; basically having your pet killed isn't that bad.

Finally by picking Ghostheart, you also miss the opportunity of getting this sweet 15% Hit to Crit from Sharpshooter.

 

On another note, BPM Distraction Training provides 15% chance of Bond when pet is missed or grazed (you can even pick an anteloppe for this  ). This is a good source of both deflection debuff (for more crits) and Bond. I'll skip Prestige for this one.

 

BPM includes a specific package called Potion of Enlightenment which provides 1 ressource every 30s. That's still something for long fights. It is extremely expensive though.

 

But well, when your power pool is depleted, you're indeed left with a mere auto-attacker... but it is the case for all martial, ney ?

Sharpshooter is actually a great call, nets you another 15% Hit to Crit, compounding with Intuitive that's 40% total. I thought the invisible on kill boots (Shadow something I forgot the name) plus Ajamuts Hunting Cloak would be a great combo with this too. I noticed the Distraction Training change but it can be hard sometimes I find to have the enemies actually attack the pet. It feels like the best tanking setup in Deadfire is to have your tank run in while your party is stealthed, get surrounded and then nuke it all down. Can be a uncertain whether the enemy will leave the tank alone, engage the pet and then miss the pet just to roll that 15% chance.