Ranger Veteran (Cataclysm\Legend) maximum DPS guide (03.06.2020)

This build is based on a shotgun at short and medium range. The main targets - hordes, specials, berserkers and assistance for killing bosses and armored enemies.

Talents

Basic information about ranger veteran
Passive abilities
- Increases ammo capacity +50%
- Increases reload speed +15%
- 10% chance to not consume the item (potions/bombs)
- get ammo from Special`s corpses

Active ability:
Bardin deploys a smoke bomb for 10 seconds that conceals him from enemies whilst he stays inside the cloud (But not save you from damage, you can get hit from enemy anyway). Also gains 50% increased range attack power while concealed.
Smoke bomb staggers enemies around him. That means you can save your disabled teammates from bosses and specials

Talents
2-3-3-2-1-2


Tier 1 - Ranger Reaper
healed from hitting several enemies, for this we took a two-handed mace, it helps to heal on the wave, other talents are useless

Tier 2 - Foe-Feller
Increases attack speed by 5%. Nuff said

Tier 3 - Enhanced Power
+ 7% of the total strength, we need it to enhance the damage from the shotgun.

Tier 4 - Grugni’s Cunning
Yea, the selfish talent, but you realy need it, increases the number of dropped ammunition from 2 to 6, in this build we will shoot a lot, and you can restore ammo to full for 3 drops from zero, without this talent you wont reach your true damange-potential

Tier 5 - No Dawdling!
movement speed + 10%, a sort of save talent, other talents for the shotgun in this dash are not particularly useful, but in this tier you can choose any, depends on your style

Tier 6 - Surprise Guest
allows you to remove the radius-restriction of the smoke screen, if you go out of the smoke, you are save your invisibility

Equipment

In this build we are using a shotgun with a two-hand mace. If you want play on cataclysm, you should roll only those perks/stats bellow:


This dmg against Chaos war allow you disorient him by heavy attack even on cataclysm difficult
And also it allows you killing Berserkers/Maulers from 1 shot on cata (at very short distance, but still)

Gameplay

First of all you should know when to use a shotgun, when - a hammer

1. Shotgun`s targets
The highest priorities are Specialists, Chaosite Executioners(Maulers), Berserkers
Sorcerers (legend: at shrort and medium range they die from 1 shot, cataclysm: 1 shot only near(face-to-face distance, at medium distance - 2 shots)
packmaster are the most tenacious creatures, because they have the same type as the boss - “monster”, on cataclysm they required 2 point blank shots, a little further and you need more shoots
assassins, easily die from 1 shot at medium range
warpfire thrower/poison rat - 2 shots are enough for them (the best strategy would be - 1st shot, if not killed, reducing the distance while he staggered and 2nd shot)
machine gunners - if near or at a medium distance, the same strategy as the thrower , at a long distance - just ignore it, our teammates will kill them
berserkers / maulers are dying from 1 shot at short distance
as well as a crowd in a line or tightly-packed crowd, there is no point in shooting 1 or 2 separate rats, we’ll hit them by a hammer

2. Hammer`s targets
All armored enemies, separated rats, bosses (or crowd if you need healing). It makes no sense to shoot storm rats or chaos warriors, we will meet them with a charged attack (chaos warrior disoriented for a second from a charged attack ) and then only fast attack in his head. The characteristic feature of 2H Hammer is that first attack always goes to the head. On the legeng, the stormrat dies from 2 light attack, on cataclysm - from 3, chaos warriors will have to be attacked up longer.
During the battle with the boss, try to help the group by killing the specials / crowd, as well as everything that distracts the party members from the fight with the boss.

Thank you for your attention!

and a few numbers:

Legend

Cataclysm

Cataclysm (twitch)

[EdgeDancer]

not be relevant today

[BOOTYWARRIOR]

Could the great hammer be substituted for a great axe?

[EdgeDancer]

Rot, yes, agree with you, it`s also a good talent, it`s up to you which style do you prefer, I chose Surprise Guest cause I need more manoeuvrability, it really can save your group, when something going wrong, especially at cataclysm.(If you teammate fall and you can`t save him if you have already used your ult at some distance from him) And this talent always work for you, sometimes you can meet the patrol\boss without granade, (remember we dont get "Scavenger in tier 4 and it can happens with you)

[Tarquinius Superbus]

why don't you use rangers parting gift? fire bombs not only for the damge but it also creates an area that ai will avoid, makes them funnel in as a line. Helps you clear with shotgun and in legend you can just delete a wave with that.I feel like that talent is a must for ranger.

[EdgeDancer]

Gruzz the Grizz, nope, you are wrong, just look at "damage dealt" and if you can, show me another build for 1st gnome, which deal more damage.

[Gruz the Griz]

This isn't maximum dps, this is counting overkill damage to create an illusion of more damage output. Overkill is more exaggerated on grudge and blunder than anything else in game, creating the illusion of effective dps but really just bloat.

[Sir Didymus]

you won't get the passive dmg from your ranged from added to your melee attacks, so you get only 10% vs cw and so on. ranged and melee are strict seperated