Melee ranger and vicious aim

[Kehldael]

Hello there !
I was wondering if vicious aim works with melee attacks.

I was planning on taking vicious aim and Vulnerable attack, but I'm not sure those work on melee.
The ranger uses sword and shield

So maybe swift aim + Vulnerable attack would be better ?
It means 5 DR by pass at the cost of only 2 acc.

[Singrave]

Wounding Shots and Swift Aim works for melee.
Vicious Aim must work too, but Swift Aim would be better.
Don't worry about -2acc, you'll get +10acc with Stalker's Link.

[Kehldael]

Alright so I'd go for swift aim, and Vulnerable attack to increase my damages, and let go of the vicious aim.

Thanks for the intels :)

Also: stalkers' link doesn't seem to add accuracy:

"When a ranger's animal companion Engages a target, the target is automatically Flanked if the ranger has a ranged weapon equipped and is opposite the target."

[Singrave]

What?
Stalker's Link "The ranger gains an Accuracy bonus when fighting any enemy engaged by their animal companion."

[Singrave]

Here is quote from tank\dd melee ranger build.

This is a melee ranger. Surprisingly enough, lots of his abilities do work in melee. And whereas previously he suffered from the lack of damage, the 2.0 speedy shield approach gives him the edge he needed. It's a nice option because it gives you 2 frontliners in one slot. On the other hand, keep in mind that some dungeons are real narrow and your front is not exactly finite so, in some parties, that may come as a flaw, not as a boon.

Role: first line tank and damage dealer

Race: anything goes – both offense & defense is good here.

Stats (Boreal Dwarf, the Living Lands bonus included):

M 21
C 16
D 10
P 10
I 3
R 18

This is the reliable build – Con & Res make you a fine tank while Might compensates for the lack of ranger's innate damage bonuses. If you wish, you can go in the more aggressive direction by switching Con with either Per or Dex. You can also go with the 3 Dex, 17 Per – it's a tiny bit of net loss but it makes you a better persuader. In terms of the summon you go for the wolf here.

Weapon of Choice: small shield & any +20% speed one-hander.

Talents and ability choices:

1st level: Wounding Shots - despite the “Shots”, these are actually perfectly usable with melee weapons. As usual, it's all about Predator's Sense enabling.

2nd level: Resilient Companion – this build is carebear-style, btw.

3rd level: Predator's Sense – boosting our pet at this point will do more than boosting ourselves. This build shines offensively a bit later into the game.

4th level: Weapon and Shield style – well, we will delay the pet's development a bit, simply so our ranger also counts as a tank..

5th level: Swift Aim – the 20% of attack speed here also work for the melee attacks. So once we get some sort of +20% speed weapon (as usual, Sword of Daenisys is already available for sale) and get our armor penalty real low, we'll get a great boost that way.

6th level: Faithful Companion – you really don't want to delay this one.

7th level: Stalkers' Link — great way to compensate for the Swift Aim's penalty.

8th level: Vulnerable Attack – if you go to White March at level 5-6, you should have some durgan steel for your shield at this point, meaning you can now strike both fast & hard.

9th level: Defensive Bond – this build strongly profits from it as this thing is almost always on. And +15 defenses is nothing to sneeze at.

10th level: Strengthened Bond - +25 works even better.

11th level: Arrow Sense – unfortunately, Stunning Shots live up to their name and don't work in melee. It's not the end of the world, of course, and the build is still decent enough, it's just that it's disappointing – it's not like the description of the talent says “ranged only”. But it totally is. So we just take another defensive talent instead.

12th level: Vicious Companion – it got really delayed but what we can do. Lots of higher priority stuff here.

13th level: Play Dead – or maybe Mark? Not a lot of difference.

14th level: Merciless Companion .

[Kehldael]

Well thanks for the build ! It looks really great, but I don't have the expac, I'm building my own here:

15 MIG
10 CON
15 DEX
14 PER
10 INT
14 RES

(can't play a retarded character :/ so no 3 INT)

lvl 3 atm:

Wounding shot
Vicious companion
Swift Aim


Planing on going to

sword/shield mastery

stalkers' link (was watching at the wiki description, which is apparently not updated), knock down (to add some control via pet).
Defensive bond is good, but I don't know if there's so much AoE in the vanilla game (never finished it, so I really don't know...) It becomes really interesting with strengthened bond.

And maybe Hold the Line (not sure about this one), maybe some sword mastery instead, or Envenomed strike, that completely ignore DR.

Vulnerable Attack, obviously

I'm not sure predator's sense is really useful early, since the wounding shot only lasts 3s, and is only 2 uses per fights, while vicious companion is a great passive early on.

I want to add that I got Eder with me, built as a tanky fighter, the ranger is more of an off-tank/DPS

[Singrave]

Stats here are just numbers and %. Don't mind to dump any stat.
PER, INT and RES are most valuable stats in conversations, so make one of them at least 18.

[Kehldael]

INT: "a character's logic and reasoning capabilities", "deduction, sudden realizations, and problem-solving"

I'm a roleplay player by heart, I really can't tell myself to make a dumb character xD