Ranger?

[D_SW_108]

Hi guys, I'm new to this game and I'm trying to make something damaging. But I have no idea how to start builds. which guides you'll recomend or can you give any tips?

[KamiND]

Hi. If you want to deal damage, you can build some like that
Balanced strenght build for figher, strider, warrior and ranger
1-10 lvl Fighter, 11-50 lvl warrior, 51-200 lvl assassin
with that lvlup you take:
health 3920 stamina 3970 strength 916
OR you can build hybrid for all classes in game
1-10 lvl strider, 11-26 warrior, 27-100 assassin, 101-200 sorcerer
so, you take:
health 3923 stamina 3923 strength 621 magick 577

but if this is the first pass, it's better to forget about all these builds and play the way you like.

Not so long ago, I started a new pass, my pawn is now at level 69. I'm pumping in the tank, if you want you can add me as a friend and use it.

[zadymek]

Originally posted by WaasMoon:

Hi guys, I'm new to this game and I'm trying to make something damaging. But I have no idea how to start builds. which guides you'll recomend or can you give any tips?

Pick Ranger and remain Ranger. Easy. You don't need anything else, unless you'd like some extra Augments from other Vocations.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Ranger. period. Dont try min-maxing it's pointless and will make the game unecessarily obnoxious for you. High level weapons and the way some skills work will make your offensive stats trivials to irrelevant.

What matters the most is your stamina to deal lot of damage (stamina is basically your ammo pool to spam skills) and ranger has the highest stamina growth of all vocations.

Just beware that your health growth will be a bit lower compared to other yellow vocations (strider and assassin) so you will need a master ring with some health at end game. Though this will only be important against the hardest hitters on hardmode (you need at least 3.5K health to survive a bite from a cursed dragon on hardmode).

Tips as a ranger:
Concerning daggers: Dont try to deal damage with your daggers. They should be enough for small fry but, your longbow is way more powerfull aswell as your longbow skills (even core skills).
Only purpose of your daggers as a ranger is to get access to dodge roll, double jump and instant reset (mandatory skills, get them all asap).
Then the 2 other skills you will need at all time in your skill barre are:
- scarlet/hundred kisses (for climbing ennemies mostly, but only once they're knocked down and only ennemies that give you a bonus damage when you climb them).
- dazzle blast. This skills is tricky to figure out, you aim it the same way you aim throwable items (bottles, throwblasts, etc...). His purpose is to instantly disable your attackers by staggering them long enough for you to use a longbow skill. It's even better if you use it in combination with instant reset (to cancel the end animation of dazzle blast and so be able to chain it faster with another skill). It also allow you to debilitate ennemies from a range with special daggers, but it's not the best way to debilitate as a ranger....

Concenring your longbow: It's your main weapon, it's the one you must use to deal damage. In ddda bow damage depend on range, longbow optimal range is around 12 meters.
For longbow skills, my favorite are:
- heptad/endecad shot. First it's one of ranger's rare AOE skill (to get ride of swarms of small fry, aim at heads...), second it also have a powerfull shotgun effect at pont blank against big ennemies. It's deadly if you can hit a weak spot with the entire shot. For short range
- Dire/Reaper/Deadly arrow: this skill have 3 rank (you need a special ring to unlock the last rank). It's tricky to use it properly because it's a timing sensitive skill. This mean that you need to releaase the shot the exact moment it's charged to get the full power. For medium range
- Whirling/spiral/corckscrew arrow: ranger best skill.... a bit weak before you can get your hand on the right skill ring to unlock the last rank of that skill, but this skill is the most efficient way to apply debilitations in the entire game.
Combine it with an upgraded rusted longbow, special arrows (petrifying, sleep, oil, etc...) and morbidity (ranger augment), and you'll be able to neutralize any ennemy not immune to a debilitation in a single shot.
Its ability to deal a lot of hits also make it very good to deal tons of damages while crowd controlling too. It also have the ability to pierce trough targets, allowing you to hit multiple foes with a single special arrow.... good at short to medium rages.
- core shot. Dont underestimate the simple normal attack from a longbow. That weapon has a very high stagger/knockdown power, it's the same difference between a longbow and a shortbow than between a longsword/warhammer and a sword/mace.
Dont hesitate to spam it if you're in a situation where you cant charge a better skill (out of stamina, or just not enough time).

[Leoscar]

Ranger has amazing stat growth with the highest stamina per level and a very respectable 4 attack per level, you really don't need to play other classes to make a good one. As said above the only problem is that you'll end up being quite fragile, which isn't a problem if you don't plan to play in hardmode.

The good thing is that even if you want to change your class mid playthrough, having a lot of stamina is always a good thing and will benefit most classes. You could even respec as a viable magic user with 3 magick attack per level if you wanted to.

[EolSunder]

yea min/maxing for other plays, don't worry about it first time.

[Guh~hey~hey~♫]

Others small advices:
- When you'll get enough gold (around end game if you do a normal slow playtrough), get yourself a bezel crown from the black cat. This longbow as the ability to double your exp (for the cost of doubling your stamina consumption).
This might sound a bit tricky to use, it's a rather weak longbow, but the exp from killing an ennemy is calculated only when you actually kill it.... if you use the brezel crown only for the last hit, you get the full exp bonus without the hassle of the weakness of that bow (and if you kill your target by making it take a deadly fall....errr.... death... you can swap weapon after knocking it down, before it gets killed by the fall... ;3).
If you combine that bow with an exp booster (pilgrim charm, etc...) and on hardmode.... your exp will get multiplied by 6.... (death gives 999 999 999 exp).
That also concern amount of discipline points earned per kill.
- Another black cat weapon to consider: the hydra tusk. When looking at his stats, this bow is rather weak, but against hydras it has deadly bonus and advantages. Dragon forge yourself one and take it along when you'll have to fight an hydra. With such a bow a few volleys of endecad shot is enough to kill an arch-hydra (first volley will cut off all/most heads, the successive volley will just be finishing off a knocked down, defenseless and headless hydra)
- If you dont like swapping weapons too much in combat, prefer carrying powerfull daggers (for climbing damage) and a gold dragonforged rusted longbow as your default set-up, and use it to spam corskcrew arrow mindlessly (eventually with special arrows to make it even more efficient, mostly silence, sleep or petrify arrows).
Only swap to a more powerfull bow against ennemies immune to torpor (for giant ennemies already torpored and kncoked down/asleep, finish them with your daggers by grabbing their weak spot and using hundred kisses on it).
- When you'll get yourself a dragon glaze (only permanently enchanted lognbow, BBi level 2 weapon), first dragon forge it and second always keep it with you in BBi. Equip it when fighting ghosts (wraith and second stage living armor), it will booster affinity spells more than normal longbows (thanks to its magic attack stat). Without that you wont even be able to damage wraith, even with a holy affinity spell on your weapons (dont hesitate to pop a few demon periapts too and prefer very high damage per hit skills like deadly arrow or normal core shots over high amount of hits skills).
- Quickly learn to ponctuate anything you do (even cancelling a sprint) with instant reset (second rank of reset)....this need to become a reflex... that skill is what make yellow vocation much better.
Its purpose is to cancel any animations, allowing you to spam skills way faster, canceling animation lock after some skills, but also cancel staggers and knock downs from ennemies attacks (another usefull feature: return to a neutral stance before opening your inventory to swap weapon, to be sure that you'll be able to swap weapon....).
- about blast arrows: it's tempting and very powerfull to use blast arrows with tenfold flurry. But I'd advice agains this. This require carrying tons of blast arrows that weight a lot.
What makes blast arrows very efficient is to use them with single shot skills to booster even further the damage multiplier of that skill and more importantly the knock down power.
It's particularly efficient if your goal is to knock down your target quickly. A pre-emptive attack (hitting the ennemy before it spot you or while it's out of combat stance) with reaper/deadly arrow or great gamble, 2 barbed nails (accessories that boost KD power, the eliminator armor and helmet also have a kd power boosting effect), a single blast arrow and a powerfull physical GDF (gold dragon forged) bow is enough to instantly knock down death on hardmode....
- special arrows: always carry a handfull (15-30) of silence,sleep, and petrify arrows, learn which ennemy is sensitive to which debilitation and use those arrows against them with spiral/corckscrew arrow (pay attention to pawns that tend to attack asleep ennemies with very weak attacks, wasting the opportunity to damage them heavily or kill them straight away given by the debilitation). Of course dont waste more petrifying arrows on an ennemy that's already affected, just let him turn into stone slowly (that's why it's better to use a rusted bow that will torpor it at the same time).
Also carry a handfull of blast arrows and use them with either normal core shot or even better reaper/deadly arrow, to maximize knock down power of those skills.
- BBi ring: ranger band with deadly arrow + corkscrew arrow. That's the skill ring you need to find in BBi for your vocation. For the master ring, find one with health first and then anything else (except magic) as second stat (strength is a good pick).
You can also replace it with a savior ring (+500 health an dstamina, reward for a board quest available at the arisen refuge in BBi) if you cant get a good master ring first.