Casual ranger - velious weaponry?

[Hroth]

Does Velious hold any weapon upgrades for the casual ranger? Currently I'm using the Woodsmans staff, but I'd rather be dual wielding. Having played a paladin on live, I had plenty of experience with 2h weapons and was hoping for something a little different this time around with my ranger. However, I don't like using considerably inferior weaponry just to have fun with dual wield.

The epic will probably always be out of my reach, even if/when VSR is implemented. Looking at the wiki, it seems like the best realistic options will be a 10/18 Crafted Velium Warsword or 12/20 Exquisite Velium Battlehammer. Will these or any other likely affordable options ever outdamage the Woodsmans?

[Ciroco]

Either of those with basically any decent offhand will outdamage Woodsman's 55+.
Frostbringer / Club of the Ice Ocean will probably be about a wash with Woodsman's.

Maybe Cecily will link that handy dandy spreadsheet for you.

[Cecily]

First I heard of it being useful to anyone haha. Here you go. Hope it helps.

Ranger Weapon Comparison Spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zpdYXrsDbofuQnDbkEKDDNgLjzQEOAUBMdQoqS-8fhE/edit#gid=0)

Input your level, DW skill, DA skill, weapon damage, weapon delay, and haste (as a decimal ie .36 for CoF's 36%). Make sure you use the appropriate column for your 2 hander's delay to make sure you get the proper dmg bonus calc.

What this will do is spit out a dual weapon setup DPS rating and you can see how it compares to a 2 hander at a given level of haste etc. Was helpful for me. 9/17 dagger from HS + Swiftwind is the best DPS setup for Kunark. Woodsman is very VERY good however.

[Daywolf]

Should be a number of proc weapons that come with Vel for the ranger. I don't recall the specifics, but remember various drops such as from giants etc. Some weapon proc spells. Then of course Bows get much better with fleeting quiver (bow haste), makes root-rot & shoot more viable.

[Thulack]

Should be a number of proc weapons that come with Vel for the ranger. I don't recall the specifics, but remember various drops such as from giants etc. Some weapon proc spells. Then of course Bows get much better with fleeting quiver (bow haste), makes root-rot & shoot more viable.

Still doesnt make root/shoot viable because of fleeting quiver. It's only a extra 20% haste. Maybe r/s a mob down while trueshot going but thats about it.

[Daywolf]

Still doesnt make root/shoot viable because of fleeting quiver. It's only a extra 20% haste. Maybe r/s a mob down while trueshot going but thats about it.Wut? 20% haste makes bows "less-viable" then? k........
Maybe you just need a better bow. Those ones you buy off the ranger guild vendor are only meant to be starting equipment.

[Thulack]

Wut? 20% haste makes bows "less-viable" then? k........
Maybe you just need a better bow. Those ones you buy off the ranger guild vendor are only meant to be starting equipment.

Lol i can use my Windstriker i have and its still not going to beat my epic/Sky weapon. It's not less viable with 20% haste but even with the 20% haste its still not a viable way killing mobs unless you love summoning arrows.

[Daywolf]

Lol i can use my Windstriker i have and its still not going to beat my epic/Sky weapon. It's not less viable with 20% haste but even with the 20% haste its still not a viable way killing mobs unless you love summoning arrows.
Well depends on the mob, but you can fletch arrows, it's not that expensive actually. You root, dot and then bow the mob down to whatever % you can handle a melee take down. It's old school bow tactic, especially before fear kiting for rangers came around. And you don't need an epic bow to do it, but better than a vendor bow and with a good delay/damage ratio. Beats pretending you are a tank :p

[Dengarr]

Glowing Black Blade or something like that is a lore 1hs item drops in Kael that adds 20 dex if you are a casual ranger interested in improving bow damage/crit.

Dengarr

[Kich867]

9/17 dagger from HS + Swiftwind is the best DPS setup for Kunark.

Could someone verify how true this is?

A pure ratio comparison suggests that Earthcaller is the best offhand in Kunark. Taking into account the proc damage and the strength (so long as it's not going to waste) puts this rather substantially above the 9/17 dagger, no?

The only weapon even close or maybe better is the Razor Fang of Xygoz according to the wiki.

[Cecily]

Dmg bonus gives it an edge over better ratios. It's not a bad ratio weapon either. Earthcaller is 14/24 primary only. The proc is only 3 dps and you really shouldn't factor in proc damage when evaluating weapons. The ratios and delays give you an idea of how it'll perform all the time. And you absolutely should not factor weapon stats into weapon evaluation either. Having an idea what hand a weapon goes into helps as well. Click my spread sheet earlier in the thread for proof.

Offhands you want pure ratio. The only thing that matters in determining one weapon over another.
Primaries are a little more difficult, because you have to factor in dmg bonus at higher levels. You want a mix of high ratio and low delay.

And you also have to be aware of your situation. If you're fighting a bunch of mobs at once and an enchanter is mezzing around you, the Fayguard is the best possible weapon to kill that enchanter. Razor Fang works in any situation, so it's probably the best overall. Not the highest DPS though.

[Kich867]

Dmg bonus gives it an edge over better ratios. It's not a bad ratio weapon either. Earthcaller is 14/24 primary only. The proc is only 3 dps and you really shouldn't factor in proc damage when evaluating weapons. The ratios and delays give you an idea of how it'll perform all the time. And you absolutely should not factor weapon stats into weapon evaluation either. Having an idea what hand a weapon goes into helps as well. Click my spread sheet earlier in the thread for proof.

Offhands you want pure ratio. The only thing that matters in determining one weapon over another.
Primaries are a little more difficult, because you have to factor in dmg bonus at higher levels. You want a mix of high ratio and low delay.

And you also have to be aware of your situation. If you're fighting a bunch of mobs at once and an enchanter is mezzing around you, the Fayguard is the best possible weapon to kill that enchanter. Razor Fang works in any situation, so it's probably the best overall. Not the highest DPS though.

Ah apologies I mixed the weapons up, I still don't see how the 9/17 beats out the earthcaller though, even disregarding the strength (your assumption is that you'd have max strength in circumstances where it matters?).

I just pointed this out in the thread about monk weapons and what to main-hand / offhand.

Rangers can attain 255 strength and 240 skill in both piercing and slashing right? Unless the equation posted on the wiki for how to calculate max damage is incorrect, not taking into account your modifier toward the weapon is an error. The spread sheet's dps calculation assumes that the modifier for a weapon is always 2, but according to the Wiki with 255 strength and 240 skill the modifier would be 4.2.

Mod = (Skill + Strength - 75) / 100

(((4.2 * 9) + 11) / 17) = 2.87 rating
(((4.2 * 14) + 11) / 24) = 2.91 rating

Even at 200 strength, which would be a modifier of 3.65, the Earthcaller is 2.59 to 9/17's 2.58.

Weapons that have a high ratio and hit slower will naturally rely on the weapon damage bonus less and your strength modifier more, which should theoretically give them favor as strength increases over time given that the weapon damage bonus does not scale and your strength modifier does.

At max strength / skill the 9/17 weapon's max damage is around 77/23, 77% of it's own damage, 23% weapon bonus damage.

The 14/24 Earthcaller is around 85/15 ~ 84/16, which more heavily favors a larger strength pool. The threshold at which Earthcaller begins to overtake the 9/17 dagger is 187 strength (assuming max weapon skill).

The calculations on the spreadsheet are identical to mine except for the part about the mod increasing with your strength and weapon skill. Or on project1999 is it actually always just 2? But that wouldn't make sense since strength does positively increase your damage.

[Gaffin 7.0]

daywolf always postin some false bs foreal dude learn your eq moar

[Kich867]

daywolf always postin some false bs foreal dude learn your eq moar

Ah so maybe it's just misinformation?

I'd agree that the above calculation I used isn't perfect. Realistically, it can't be. Testing on the beta server shows that with 219 strength the swiftwind can hit for in the mid-60's and the earthcaller's highest max hit I've seen is 81, which is way higher than what the wiki's damage calculation suggests. There's something else it's missing.

Would the dev's here disclose the weapon damage calculation?

[Cecily]

Hmm that's interesting. Yeah, if I'm wrong and Earthcaller turns out of be a better weapon than I thought due to STR dmg, I'm pretty happy about that. It's what I use 95% of the time.

[Infectious]

You have a couple different decent delay weaps. Zlandi claw,Tsiraka's claws, willsapper, couple no drops from Dn, frostbite. But for most these you gona need a solid group or 2 to even attempt this.

[dartaniun]

Just finished swiftwind the other day so I've been testing it out with other weapons. The HS dagger (9/17) is only slightly less dps than the earthcaller when paired with the swiftwind.

The one thing that I notice is the HS dagger is more consistent dps, in other words the range on the avg is small compared to the range on the earthcaller avg dps. Killing in KC today I noticed would get avg of 50-55 dps on the HS dagger, earthcaller would range 45-65 dps. This was with shaman buffs most of the time, but selfbuffed my str is around 215.

Another aspect of the fights and the consistency of the faster mainhand weap is that these fights wouldn't last more than a min. On some of the mobs like the dog WL who has over 10k hp, the earthcaller was doing 55-60 dps I'd say. Those longer fights would make the window range a bit smaller.

Would be interested to see anyone else's findings, at the very least we get less agro with the HS dagger since you're not slowing mobs

[Kich867]

Just finished swiftwind the other day so I've been testing it out with other weapons. The HS dagger (9/17) is only slightly less dps than the earthcaller when paired with the swiftwind.

The one thing that I notice is the HS dagger is more consistent dps, in other words the range on the avg is small compared to the range on the earthcaller avg dps. Killing in KC today I noticed would get avg of 50-55 dps on the HS dagger, earthcaller would range 45-65 dps. This was with shaman buffs most of the time, but selfbuffed my str is around 215.

Another aspect of the fights and the consistency of the faster mainhand weap is that these fights wouldn't last more than a min. On some of the mobs like the dog WL who has over 10k hp, the earthcaller was doing 55-60 dps I'd say. Those longer fights would make the window range a bit smaller.

Would be interested to see anyone else's findings, at the very least we get less agro with the HS dagger since you're not slowing mobs

I don't exactly understand the EQ math behind auto-attacks, but I'm a little suspect towards thinking that the dagger has better average dps. It's possible that over short fights this can happen simply due to getting more hits in with better rolls (RNG), but it's not like the Earthcaller is particularly slow and it's average hit will be higher by a decent amount.

It's not exactly scientific yet, but I found when dropping my STR to about 105, then raising it up towards 220 (soon maxing it when I get a shaman over to assist in testing on beta), that my damage moves up about 10 damage on average per hit. At first, I thought this wasn't that significant. But then I thought about it and like, you hit pretty damn fast, an extra ~10 damage on average per hit is actually kind of a big deal. It's not like WoW where you hit for hundreds of thousands of damage a swing haha.