[Class Build] Rangerer

[the streaker]

Don't get why you have to say the same thing about roleplaying in every thread posted on this sub-forum. You don't need to put everyone in their place, just say your piece once and let it be. It's the character builds forum, of course the discussion is going to break out into build efficiency...... is it your mission to teach everyone that they can roleplay in a roleplaying game?

 

On topic: arquebus is king for ranger, pistol maybe a close second if you don't mind the range and slight reduced damage, and if you're also going to switch to blunderbuss to insta-gib low-DR targets. Don't forget the stalker's torc amulet (is this a random loot drop? I haven't played enough games to be able to tell) which adds another 20% damage on top of the +10 accuracy you get from stalker's link.

Edited May 27, 2015 by the streaker

[Exoduss]

You guys keep talking about Arquebus being best for ranger have you tried using 3 Blunderbusse's ( LEad Splitter, Micar Roar + Exceptional/Superb ) and Dulcanale with vicous aim , no arquebus build comes close to damage for me mostly due how there are no good unique arquebus'es to quick switch who could compare to those 3 unique blunderrbuss/pistol

[Blovski]

Just updating this quickly for 2.0 and above. Not really all tested in the field yet but the logic should hold out.

Systems changes:

PER is more valuable for the Ranger now, you can still focus down enemy squishies fast enough that the def. loss shouldn't hurt you and the accuracy gain is a nice addition.

Some enemies (I believe Fire Elementals in particular) are now completely immune to piercing damage. You will need an alternative source of damage (scepter, spellbound stuff & Stormcaller stand out) more than was previously the case. This is a nice change.

New items:

Of the soulbound weapons, Stormcaller is the relevant one and is a significant upgrade even over Lenas Er. As proficiencies transfer to soulbound weapons, this doesn't change the balance of power towards peasant weapon proficiency at all.

Sabra Marie is of interest to Warbow users. Higher crit damage is *really* good on Rangers and it generally looks very substantial with potential to confuse on Crit. Worth considering.

New talents:

Of the cross-class talents, the most interesting one for the Rangerer build is Enigma's Charm, which gives you an early source of single-target crowd control targeting a different defence and, as always, benefits from high accuracy. Prestidigitator's Charm would give you another damage type but I'm not sure it's worth it. Gallant's Focus is a tad more accuracy but it's not a big bonus and I honestly feel you could get something more intriguing instead. The rest aren't terribly relevant, it's a shame the Barbarian one is per rest.

Of the new Ranger talents, Play Dead looks fun but I don't think it's competitive with Stunning Shots in terms of utility and uniqueness. Twinned Shots seems like a shoe-in for this build. I don't know whether it's compatible with Vicious Aim.

---

Overall, that's a couple of really big new things for this style of Ranger and a few interesting little options. I'll probably report back once I've tried some of this stuff out.

[Elric Galad]

The major change for the 2.0 ranger is the pet buff. You have to take it into account too. Taking pet damage talents and abilities now worthes it, as well as choosing a damage pet.

[Blovski]

The major change for the 2.0 ranger is the pet buff. You have to take it into account too. Taking pet damage talents and abilities now worthes it, as well as choosing a damage pet.

Cheers, didn't know about this - looking them up quickly, I'd definitely say that bears, wolves and maybe lions stand out a bit more and that the Resilient Companion trait is definitely in the interesting choices list now.

[Elric Galad]

Check this thread. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81952-range-dps-build/

 

The build I detailed there is now 100% tested and 100% efficient. My preferred weapon is Stormcaller. Lenas Er might be good, but you need to sacrifice Durgan Steel.

Ranger does almost as much damage as monk on character sheet but character sheet does not add pet damage to the total, so...

 

Pet damage from wolf are great with this build. Really great. Possibly as high as ranger. Maybe even higher.

 

They doesn't die so often (in my experience) and can even offtank with a little support.

 

A very important thing to consider is Pet Base Attack speed.

Pet Attack speed is not based only on their Dexterity. They seem to have an intresic attack speed that depends on pet.

 

 

Basically Antelope, Wolf, Deer, Boar have 1.5 attack speed of Bear and Lion (plus dexterity difference). 

Antelope>Wolf>Deer>Boar=>Lion(forgot but lion for sure isnt faster)>Bear Quoted from :

Check https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80430-ranger-class/page-2

 

So yeah, Wolf or Antelope seems to be the most powerful ones at the moment.

Edited November 10, 2015 by Elric Galad

[Blades of Vanatar]

 

 

 

 

 

 

For rangers to be #1 (at least #1 auto attack) ranged dps their talent that gives their AC +50% damage against targets under DoT should work on ranger himself. That would be ranger's SA equivalent. This way rogue has SA + melee modal (reckless assault) and ranger has his own SA equivalent + ranged modals.

 

However, I'd prefer to see ranger's AC buffed first. If AC is decent throughout the whole game ranger doesn't necessarily need to be better than rogue at shooting.

DoT?

 

Enhance the AC? Meh. Personally, I wish that having an AC was a choice for rangers rather than a requirement. Once I learned that having an AC go down in battle gave the Ranger a penalty, I got a LOT more cautious with my AC, which honestly was a pain. My first choice would be to make AC's optional. Second choice might be to do away with the ACC penalty if the AC goes down in battle. Third choice, buff it.

 

Regardless, I still think that the Ranger should be better than a Rogue as a ranged combatant. Seems to me that that's the entire point of the Ranger class, to be the masters of ranged combat. And let's face it, Rogues aren't masters of ranged combat so much as they're opportunists who take advantage of the Sneak Attack ability to do more damage than Rangers. It's OK with me that Rogues do a lot of damage if handled well. It's not so OK with me that they're better at ranged combat than Rangers. Seems to me that Rangers get the short end of the stick in these games. The real short end. But if they're supposed to be masters of ranged combat, then it should be reflected in the game and in the damage they do, AC's be damned. But that's just my opinion.

DoT = damage over time.

 

AC offers a sizable advantage to the ranger at low levels atm, it just doesn't scale well. Ditching it seems like redefining the class completely. Leaving it in its current state is undesirable for me - I don't like gimmick features. But if ranger was better than rogue at ranged combat AND provided a decent free offtank rogue would become UP compared to the ranger...

DoT: Ahhh. Thnx.

 

Perhaps, but as I said above, I don't really like the AC in the first place and removing it wouldn't bother me. Another reason that I don't like the AC is that the Ranger in PoE isn't really the same as a DnD Ranger conceptually. PoE Rangers don't strike me as forest guardians in the same way as they do in DnD, which in turn seems to me to make having the animal companion feel out of place. The animal companion would make more sense (at least to me) for a DnD style forest guardian Ranger. But I get the sense that the PoE ranger is more of a ranged weapons expert than a forest guardian because so darned few things about the class have anything to do with nature. About the only 2 things that link to nature are the AC and the binding roots ability, and I could deal with not having either of those if rangers were truly masters at ranged combat.

 

But others may see rangers different than I do.

I don't see PoE Rangers as an equivilant of AD&D because they weren't meant to be. AD&D CRPGs are based off the much broader PnP rule system. PoE Rangers are created for a computerized battle system, not for a Wilderness campaign as most CRPG systems can't handle a complete RPG rule system.

[Blovski]

Check this thread. https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/81952-range-dps-build/

 

The build I detailed there is now 100% tested and 100% efficient. My preferred weapon is Stormcaller. Lenas Er might be good, but you need to sacrifice Durgan Steel.

Ranger does almost as much damage as monk on character sheet but character sheet does not add pet damage to the total, so...

 

Pet damage from wolf are great with this build. Really great. Possibly as high as ranger. Maybe even higher.

 

They doesn't die so often (in my experience) and can even offtank with a little support.

 

A very important thing to consider is Pet Base Attack speed.

Pet Attack speed is not based only on their Dexterity. They seem to have an intresic attack speed that depends on pet.

 

 

Basically Antelope, Wolf, Deer, Boar have 1.5 attack speed of Bear and Lion (plus dexterity difference). 

Antelope>Wolf>Deer>Boar=>Lion(forgot but lion for sure isnt faster)>Bear Quoted from :

Check https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/80430-ranger-class/page-2

 

So yeah, Wolf or Antelope seems to be the most powerful ones at the moment.

Good research in that thread - didn't know about the different endurance and attack speeds. I've kind of seen the point of the pet in this build as an extra engage and way of applying flanked and stunning shot (and stalkers link if you take it) (but that's partly due to how buggered the ACs were by fatigue on release). Going to give a 2.0 PotD ranger a go after my current Paladin game.

 

Theorycrafting - 

 

With the big buff to resilient companion, Bear is no longer a big improvement with an extra 2-6 DR on the cards for all ACs and apparently his bonus cut from 3 to 2 DR. AC deflection isn't great anyway and has presumably been lowered by the perception change, which means that I feel the extra 7 from Antelope is probably less meaningful. The Boar's much bigger endurance almost certainly makes it the best tanking pet.

 

Wolf/Antelope are, curiously, more effective for damage than the big ones but I'm not sure about how the maths works out compared to the Boar's undefined might bonus. Lion's AoE debuff is still a useful unique help for your frontline and benefits from accuracy increases, as well as making it a little easier to hit with other spells, Lion's tanking is up to scratch with basically all of the pets except Bear and Wolf. One last note is that the Wolf has the highest intelligence, so if you're planning on going for takedown or the like, the Wolf gets more out of it.

 

Really good changes to the pets overall. Think it's a boar for me on the next run.