[CLASS BUILD] Riptide & The Pit Fright (dps & offtank melee ranger double team supreme)

[Mocker22]

Man I don't posses the stones to try Cali at level 6 lol. I'm thinking like 8-9 I'll give it a go. Still might be a bit challenging.

[Boeroer]

Guys - in beta patch 3.0 stunning shots also works in melee. This makes this build even more powerful. I nearly finished a playthrough with this build and some of my others (Dull Runner, Fulmineo Prondroni, this build, Backlash Beldam, Mad Hornet and Zeblastian Hurtstacker) - and these guys are really the best - even without stunning shots. They do tons of healing in a huge area, they so ridicolously high damage and the best thing - they can start with it very early in the game. With stunning shots this build will also add very strong single target CC into the mix when you reah lvl 11.  

[chickenhed]

Guys - in beta patch 3.0 stunning shots also works in melee. This makes this build even more powerful. I nearly finished a playthrough with this build and some of my others (Dull Runner, Fulmineo Prondroni, this build, Backlash Beldam, Mad Hornet and Zeblastian Hurtstacker) - and these guys are really the best - even without stunning shots. They do tons of healing in a huge area, they so ridicolously high damage and the best thing - they can start with it very early in the game. With stunning shots this build will also add very strong single target CC into the mix when you reah lvl 11.  

I'm surprised this build doesn't get even more hype. It was a blast before stunning shots. Now? It's massively entertaining.

[Boeroer]

Thanks a lot!

[oldweasel]

This looks really neat! If I wanted to create a similar party with your builds (Dull Runner, Fulmineo Prondroni, this build, Backlash Beldam, Mad Hornet and Zeblastian Hurtstacker) which of them would be the Main Character [sorry if that info is mentioned in one or more of the builds and I missed it! ]

[Boeroer]

The Backlash Beldam doesn't work as intended and as I described anymore because retaliation no longer gives you focus, sorry.

 

It would either be the Dull Runner because you get a better bonus from Faith and Conviction as the MC - or the Mad Hornet because you can side with the Doemenels and get +0.3 crit damage multiplier and later +0.1 from Dungeon Delver I guess.

[peddroelm]

My melee party advanced to lvl 8 and I decided to run just a few quick tests on melee ranger + pet pair.

 

The pets are much stronger (scale) than I remember them .  Sadly no luck so far managing to read their max level stats via console (I have a vague feeling it is possible to do).

 

But just glimpsing the combat log they reach respectable ~100 ACC at level 15 and tons of DR. The high DR score + the heal companion perk makes them reasonably durable.

 

On the offensive front not much can be done to speed up their attack so I wouldn't spend waste many perks on boosting pet damage.  (durable companion, stalker's link and perhaps the pet healing should be enough). You can speed up the ranger's attack speed so focus on maximizing damage there. 

 

The key perk to melee superiority of the pair is IMO stunning blows. 

Sadly ranger's stunning blows fortitude hit check doesn't benefit from on weapon ACC or weapon focus and has very low duration ... STILL

 

Possible endgame ACC for the stunning blow hitcheck 

30 base + 42 lvl + 9 per (-7+5) speed modal + 15 lvl + 10 STALKER's LINK + 6 paladin aura= 110. 

 

Dumping perception pretty terrible idea. Dual weapons should help landing hits fast enough to keep the victim perma-stunned. Flanking - very useful.

High accuracy on weapons useful to score crit chains vs deflection debuffed victim. Special effects on crit very likely to happen(just avoid the ones with stun on crit ) ..The big deflection debuff will also help the pet score hard hitting crits (even without perks). Apprentice Sneak attack a no brainer after stunning attacks.

 

Sadly the stalker's torc is a random drop ? didn't get it this play-trough ..

 

Disorienting weapon in main hand useful. Will cip fortitude before the stunning blow hit check. Doesn't work like that for monk stunning blow (debuff will for the next swings)... 

Edited November 21, 2016 by peddroelm

[Boeroer]

Yes, Stalker's Torc is a random item. The Lost Periapt of the Winding Path is an even better late game alternative for this build. It will give you Concentration which you'll lack with this build, additional +2 RES and an additional use of Consecr. Ground 1/encounter for when your boots stop emitting. 

 

I disagree that it's of no use to boost the pet's damage. On the contrary.

The trick of this build is to combine constant wounding damage with Predator's Sense and the "no health" mechanic of pets with Consecrated Ground (and pet healing, which wasn't available when I did this build). Wounding will constantly let your pet use Predator's Sense which boosts the already high base damage by 50%. Because you flank, you will always trigger Merciless Companion (+30%), too (and also with stunning shots of course) and you can add +15% and +3DR bypass with Vicious Companion. The high (scaling) base damage of the pet will be boosted by +95%. It's not compareable to normal kith weapons with low base damage. Here, the whole damage will profit, not just whimpy weapon base damage. With Stunning Shots + Flanking you will also crit a lot, which means additional +50%. If you also take Takedown and Brutal Takedown (+20 crush dmg) your pet can one-shot a lot of squishy but dangerous targets, and if the foe isn't dead after one bite it's stunned or prone and your Tidefall finishes the job - so attack speed is not that important as with low dmg weapons. This also works extremely well against high DR foes because the damage per hit is so high. You don't even have to stun-lock an enemy because he's dead in seconds anyways. So stunning Shots is a nice addition, but it's not as important as with faster weapons. It's ok if you miss a few attempts to stun. With the high DEX, Swift Aim and Durgan Steel as well as Gauntlets of Swift Action (if you feel you need them) it's still possible to stunlock most of the time though I guess.

 

It may be better to retrain all that in the late late game and put all your dps efford into your ranger instead of the pet. But in early and mid game a damaging pet with all the things I listed makes most fights so much easier. With the support of the ranger, it kills most foes so quickly with one or two bites... 

 

This also works with Drawn in Spring of course. You could even duplicate it for dual wielding, but I think it's not necessary to do that.
I chose Tidefall because you can get it rel. early and it also heals you a bit which is nice. Wounding works very well with high MIG by the way. 

 

If you don't use Takedown with Brutal Takedown there's enough room for improvements on your ranger's melee skills: Swift Aim, Marked Prey, Wounding Shots is quite awesome with a slow but hard hitting weapon, Weapon Focus Soldier, Two Handed Style, Appr. Sneak. And nowadays I would take Veteran's Recovery, too, because high MIG and INT are the perfect preconditions for it - like with Cons. Ground.

 

I did this build when Stunning Shots didn't work in melee, hence the lowish PER. With Stalker's Link and flanking there was enough ACC for my weapon's attack. Now, with Stunning Shots working in melee (and funnily, also with Driving Flight in melee ) I would agree that higher PER would be good.  

[peddroelm]

Back when I tested the pet damage there were no multiplicative bonuses from skills, only additive (sneak,carnage,vicious ..etc). But since the base scales high - you could say the base acts as a high multiplier for all those additive bonuses.  Only multiplicative thing that comes to mind would be chanter(which I don't have in my melee party)  burn lash aura ..

 

Still I cannot over how slowly they attack . Perhaps I should also check wolf (maybe bear attacks much slower ? ) .. 

Also top of the line gear is kind of out of the question.. In a potentially 6 dual wielder melee party tough choices must be made regarding weapon/equipment quality.. At level 8 some of my guys are criminally under equipped .. Perhaps I'll manage to raise more gold later ..

Edited November 21, 2016 by peddroelm

[Boeroer]

Yes, the bear is very slow. In fact, the bear is one of the worst pets, only second to lion. The wolf not only hits a bit faster and runs faster than the bear but also has more base damage (which is great for the dmg mods). I love it. His damage numbers per hit were usually around 100 at highter levels.

 

A good thing for raising pets' attack speed is that martyr amulet: onnce the character with that amulet gets knocked out he casts a speed boost in an AoE. When you revive it's still there. I used that with a build that was meant to get knocked out: The Immortal Martyr, a barb focused on Vengeful Defeat. It's a late game item though.
Another possible speed boost would be "Behold the Martyr", but this stops once you revive.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Boeroer

[peddroelm]

not being able to see the stats makes it hard to compare at a glance the value of each pet type. Will have to respec the ranger soonish to switch to dual wield and I'll take the wolf out for a spin. 

 

I went bear first because I used him as the first to engage the blob from my melee line. (extra DR) .. Once blob formed barb could carnage it. Fighter and monk could join or dart for back line casters/archers with the rogue. Pala would join close to the barb (carnage needs the aim aura the most and I didn't get the braces of accuracy this time  ..Bear would often drop eventually but by that time the battle would be already won. Lay on hands helped the bear but I ditched it for FOD - much better mix with dual wield paladin .. 

 

Now I need that stalker link so after beefing up over a few levels fighter + barb + monk can usually engage the blobs directly..  Pet + ranger go for stragglers with the rogue..

Edited November 21, 2016 by peddroelm

[Boeroer]

I found it to be a good build for offtanking and intercepting those guys who wanted to reach my squishy casters. Since they kill single enemies very quickly (faster than any rogue I ever had) while being sturdy enough they got rid of those annoying swarmers prettxy quickly. The other benefit of this is that the ranger can stay in the center of the party where his consecrated ground will heal them all.

[peddroelm]

I found it to be a good build for offtanking and intercepting those guys who wanted to reach my squishy casters. Since they kill single enemies very quickly (faster than any rogue I ever had) while being sturdy enough they got rid of those annoying swarmers prettxy quickly. The other benefit of this is that the ranger can stay in the center of the party where his consecrated ground will heal them all.

 

Ironically in my melee party the ranger is almost as squishy as my rogue (both 17 CON) - but he dropped more times since I tend to pay more attention to the rogue (engage even later with her) and use the ranger to "pull" with wounding shot  archebus. Barb holds dearly to the boots of cheese (shod faith).

 

He is  dead last in damage inflicted in my melee party (fighter and rogue are ~tied for 2nd and 3rd place way behind the barb). The best gear however sits on barb, rogue and fighter. I'm confident his damage output/utility will greatly pick up when I'll be able to give him decent weapons and stunning shots ... does the damage inflicted include pet damage ? I doubt it.. 

Why no stats window for pets like all characters get ?

Edited November 21, 2016 by peddroelm

[Boeroer]

The pet's damage doesn't get added to the ranger's in the character sheet. Melee rangers' damage alone isn't very impressive.

Rangers have decent starting deflection, but low endurance. My ranger in this build had Shod in Faith and that was enough to keep him alive because normally the pet would engage first if an enemy reached them, not him.

Edited November 21, 2016 by Boeroer

[peddroelm]

since I'm currently attempting to figure out the attack speed mechanics I decided to take a peek at the bear and wolf companions. 

 

I did not expect to see such a huge difference. The wolf attacks slowly but the bear is much much worse. Delays between attacks are in realtime seconds (normal game speed)

 

Bear delay between attacks 

Timediff:     5.241 Damage : 11.533  

Timediff:     5.240 Damage : 3.704  

Timediff:     5.225 Damage : 3.374  

Timediff:     5.243 Damage : 6.494  

Timediff:     5.258 Damage : 14.414  

Timediff:     5.207 Damage : 3.061  

Timediff:     5.242 Damage : 6.224  

Timediff:     5.276 Damage : 1.836  

Timediff:     5.240 Damage : 2.393  

Timediff:     5.256 Damage : 2.518  

Timediff:     5.224 Damage : 4.223  

Timediff:     5.241 Damage : 6.780  

Timediff:     5.240 Damage : 3.729  

Timediff:     5.242 Damage : 5.400  

Timediff:     5.241 Damage : 15.541  

 

wolf delay between attacks

Timediff:     3.186 Damage : 1.642  

Timediff:     3.188 Damage : 4.925  

Timediff:     3.190 Damage : 13.482  

Timediff:     3.179 Damage : 3.424  

Timediff:     3.178 Damage : 4.749  

Timediff:     3.192 Damage : 2.074  

Timediff:     3.166 Damage : 5.882  

Timediff:     3.171 Damage : 15.993  

Timediff:     3.177 Damage : 5.207  

Timediff:     3.143 Damage : 5.897  

Timediff:     3.177 Damage : 14.611  

Timediff:     3.195 Damage : 5.350  

Timediff:     3.157 Damage : 10.565  

Timediff:     3.182 Damage : 18.196  

Timediff:     3.175 Damage : 15.110  

Timediff:     3.189 Damage : 3.633  

Timediff:     3.193 Damage : 11.489  

Timediff:     3.192 Damage : 3.712  

Timediff:     3.177 Damage : 7.453  

 

Values don't seem too far of MaxQuest's attack speed thread. 1.546 + 3.6 + 0.2 = 5.346;  0.918 + 2.142 + 0.2 = 3.26 

Edited November 30, 2016 by peddroelm

[Boeroer]

I told you bear sucks.

[Blades of Vanatar]

I was thinking of tweaking a similar build using Peasant or Adventurer as the weapon category. Are there any DoT weapons in these categories?

[Blades of Vanatar]

Also thinking of using Stag. What abilities/weapons effect the Stag's carnage?

[Boeroer]

Only weapons with wounding are Drawn in Spring (dagger), Tidefall (great sword), Acuan Giamas (morning star) and Persistence. And also Boar Tusks (unarmed), but that's not for rangers.

 

You can still inflict DoT with Wounding Shot and Envenomed Strike. And there are items with spell bindings - like Rotfinger Gloves with Touch of Rot for example. Maybe it's AoE works with stag's carnage + Predator's Sense.

Edited December 1, 2016 by Boeroer

[QuiteGoneJin]

I noticed this graph is off now, at least in regards to gloves of manip at the bed and stalkers torc near wolves in the vale. relevant because it used to be the earliers torc you could get for builds like this.

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6undqgpuzwsk9g1/PoErandom-no-pics-1.01.xlsx?dl=0

 

Any thoughts on stunning shots, doesnt that work in melee now? What would you substitute for it if at all? Anything else you'd change knowing this is one of your older builds.

[draego]

Yes stunning shots works in melee. Its been that way for a while now. My favorite builds are melee rangers and stunning shots is great.

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[QuiteGoneJin]

Yes stunning shots works in melee. Its been that way for a while now. My favorite builds are melee rangers and stunning shots is great.

What companions do you prefer for melee rangers (potd), just curious. Story companions not animal. Well, animal too. lol. 

Edited March 5, 2017 by QuiteGoneJin

[draego]

Well i generally go wolf best offensive animal. I know boring but from what i understand any animal but lion and bear can be used effectively in their own way. It depends on what your are doing but my go to companions are Pallegina (for coordinating attacks and i give her marking weapon if i am roleplaying certain scenarios).  Hiravias for cc and dots. Maneha with tidefall for dot. I believe Kana Rua offensive chants count as dots but i generally dont keep him for the whole game but can be powerful and even tanky if you need (this is not a mechanic issue but a roleplaying one for me). Grieving Mother for flanking spell (if going with heavy survival skill) and character buff for either main or animal she may have a dot power alos. i give either her or sometimes kana or even Hiravias if needed persistence bow for more dots. I generally havent played a tidefall ranger because i never really liked greatsword (only an asthetic issue for me). For me i like dual wielding so later in game drawn in spring is nice or i ran a poleaxe ranger with the marking poleaxe and the dozens talent to buff pet accuracy and mine at same time and there is a morning star that has wounding i never tried that. I am sure i am missing stuff but generally if i am not chanting with Kana Rua and i generally dont (again this is not a mechanic issue but roleplaying aesthetic because once i am done with his quest i like to finish others)  i am looking for dot effects to make my pets Predator's Sense hit. I look to get talents to boost my pet and survival skill can boost your flanking damage and accuracy if fight to hard. Durance is nice for lots of parties because he can buff you or your pet or both. Aloth i go cc spells to help keep you ranger and pet from getting attacked. 

 

I actually end up playing with every character to some extent. I like to try a lot of mixing and matching and i like to finish their quests. The least used companions for me are Zahua and Devil of Caroc. I dont like monks ( i know its sacrilege Boeroer) and devil because i am the flanking single target dps guy i dont want to share roles. 

 

Its sad because when i run a ranger i dont generally take Sagani but making her bow ranger with you melee ranger would work but it depends on how much micro you want to do. I like microing my pet and main but having to do two rangers seems a bit much for even me.

Edited March 5, 2017 by draego

[L4wlight]

Stunning shots works for the primary target and one secondary target via driving flight.

 

For meele rangers I'd go for a broad frontline. Melee Rangers can hold their own pretty well (against 1-2, max. 3 foes) but tend to be on the squishier side of the spectrum. You'd definitely want to go for a broad and sturdy frontline. Palagina (Lay on Hands, Zealous Focus or Endurance, Reinforcing Exhortation, Coordinated Attacks, Liberating Exhortation) with a marking weapon and Kana (Ancient Memory, Aefyllath Ues Mith Fyr) would be my first choice to achieve that, both support and survivability wise. Your best buddy would be Hiravias as Thundercat or Batsh!t Crazy. The amout of crowd control and the extraordinary debuff capabilities (Relentless Storm (!!!),Tanglefoot, Venombloom, etc.) coupled with Form of the Delemgan (imo the best melee survivability buff in the game and it stacks with Zealous Endurance or Armor of Faith!) results most of the time in near immortality (not to mention how good the Tanglefoot + Form of the Delemgan combo is to prevent enemies from swarming you). Furthermore, keeping Predator's Sense and Merciless Companion up is very easy with a druid buddy (but you can achieve that on your own for at least one target with a wounding weapon). Last, but least I want to mention priests (Durance) for their unmatched support capabilities; not really mandatory but nice to have.

Edited March 5, 2017 by L4wlight

[L4wlight]

Grieving Mother for flanking spell (if going with heavy survival skill)

Not really needed imo. It's very easy to achieve that on your own with the help of your animal companion. Micro intesive, yes, but one of the main benefits for going into melee range as a ranger. The rest of your post is very valid.

 

As for the animal companion (max dps): either wolf (single target dps) or stag (aoe dps) - the rest sucks. True story.

Edited March 5, 2017 by L4wlight