Ranger Twink Advice

[Nisei]

So, after leveling an Enchanter to 60 about a year ago, quitting for 6 months, and coming back recently, I stripped the gear off my Enchanter to level a Magician to 30, and a Necro to 30. And, eh, wasn't really enjoying it as much as I thought I would.

When the servers are back up, I'll be twinking a Ranger with all of the funds I've been able to scrounge up selling all my caster crap. I intend to make this Ranger a Wood Elf, what would you put your starting stats into?

This is what I've come up with so far. Items highlighted in green have already been acquired. Any input is greatly appreciated.

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Ears - Black Sapphire Electrum Earrings X2 / Diamondine Earrings X2? / Forest Loops X2?
Fingers - Platinum Fire Wedding Rings X2
Neck - Black Sapphire Platinum Necklace
Head - Sebilite Scale Cap / Executioner's Hood
Face - Mask of Wurms
Chest - Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate / Tree Weave / Ivy Etched Tunic / Sebilite Scale Coat
Arms - Sebilite Scale Vambraces
Back - Hooded Black Cloak
Waist - Sash of the Dragonborn
Shoulders - Sebilite Scale Mantle
Wrists - Hardened Clay Bracelet / Hero Bracer
Legs - Sebilite Scale Leggings
Hands - Gauntlets of Potence
Feet - Dwarven Work Boots
Primary - Silver Swiftblade until 20 >>> Woodsman's Staff
Secondary - N/A
Range - Rain Caller

[Aaramis]

Honestly? Throw some +HP rings on, equip a decent 1h weapon (such as GJB, sword of skyfire, etc.), and either fungi / ceremonial iksar, and you're good to go until 50ish.
Pick up haste when you can, and that's about it.

I wouldn't worry too much about a top-line bow - it's mostly just for pulling until 51, at which point it suddenly becomes reasonable damage.

As for sebilite scale - depending on how close Velious is to releasing, I'd either stick with that or farm up some ry'gorr chain (which is awesome twink armour).

Happy hunting.

[Nisei]

I can't afford a Fungi, and my intention is to have the best possible gear with the amount of plat that I have. I want to stretch out this plat as far as it can go, as this will be my new main.

I was thinking about selling the Ceremonial Iksar Chestplate around level 20-25, and selling Sash of the Dragonborn to buy an RBG.

[ghost182]

Just scoped out your gear list. you've got it down pat. for head slot you might consider the hammer head helmet from kedge. I would do the diamondine earrings.

As for starting stats, STR is really clinch during those low lvls. dex is cool but you wont be using much proc weaponry or bowing that it makes much diff. I'd honestly say go stamina, the extra HP is going to be good for solo, youll have 200+str with that set anyway. and the stamina is nice later too.

Don't knock a pair of jboots on a ranger if you plan to solo until 39. or stock up on sow potions.

[ghost182]

if youre going to buy anything for over 40k get the tolans BP and have the ability to port from lvl 45+

[Nisei]

if youre going to buy anything for over 40k get the tolans BP and have the ability to port from lvl 45+

I'll probably pick one up in my 50s when I get bored and sell Quillmane cloak loot rights.

[fishingme]

i strongly recommend not playing a ranger. Maybe a bard instead. I quit after spending 300k on a ranger twink, just came back and sold all his gear. ranger is incredibly boring and not particularly fun seeing or doing anything.

[Nisei]

i strongly recommend not playing a ranger. Maybe a bard instead. I quit after spending 300k on a ranger twink, just came back and sold all his gear. ranger is incredibly boring and not particularly fun seeing or doing anything.

Not interested in playing a Bard, I already leveled one on Live.

[Aaramis]

i strongly recommend not playing a ranger. Maybe a bard instead. I quit after spending 300k on a ranger twink, just came back and sold all his gear. ranger is incredibly boring and not particularly fun seeing or doing anything.

Funny, I strongly recommend playing a ranger. Especially in the Velious era.

Call of ___ line of spells boost your dps even higher than it already is; Call of the Predator is an awesome self/group/raid spell, boosting +ATK; Cinder Jolt finally giving them a reliable means of aggro reduction (regular Jolt sucks); panic animal allows for fear kiting of animals, allowing Rangers to solo places others wouldn't dream of (i.e. WW); Weaponshield giving you a nice invulnerability - generally long enough for a tank to regain aggro without you dying; and the nice ratio bows (i.e. 33/35) combined with Trueshot discipline adds up to 2 minutes of pure, unadulterated, slaughter.

Added on to the already amazing lineup of abilities and spells, such as SoW, camo, tracking, snare, root, lull, sneak, slow (via Earthcall from epic), regen (chloroplast)....yeah, Rangers are in their prime in Velious. And to make it even sweeter, the hybrid xp penalty should be going away in this era.

[Nisei]

slow (via Earthcall from epic)

Don't forget http://i.imgur.com/AdNU4bc.png for the rest of us scrubs.

[dartaniun]

I second Aaramis' statements. Current ranger spell set and skill caps are not bad, but they get a very nice boost in Velious. DPS boost is very nice, the discs are extremely useful in raids. Our dps with trueshot and a good bow is fantastic, and it's pretty much agro free. Ranged dps agro doesn't get increased until PoP when they gave us archery mastery AA and realized it was too strong to not have agro. But for right now, you can stand back and do as much dmg as possible and not worry about agro.

Don't forget to pick up a swarmcaller, starts procing at 46 and it's a extremely useful weapon to have. Rangers aren't the best at melee dps or pulling (at least indoors), but we excel at multiple things. It's really a great hybrid class in the multitude of things that we offer to groups. Swarmcaller is one of those things that is a must have if you don't have epics.

As far as stats go for a wood elf I would dump everything into str. If you plan on doing a bit more soloing come Velious, Wood Elf is a great choice due to the higher wisdom. If you want you could put a couple points into that also. I wouldn't waste much with sta because you don't really have enough points to make that much of a difference, str and wis are your primary choices. Dex will become very useful when you start to use ranged dmg in the higher levels but by then you can increase that with gear. Very nice 1hs from Kael that procs a dispel on yourself but it has a ton of dex on it, very nice piece to keep for +dex gear when you want that extra ranged dps. Whenever you have to melee, just switch the weapon out or you'll proc and lose buffs. I wish I had placed more stats into str when I started this toon, but I balanced it between str/dex/wis

[Nisei]

Thanks for the useful information, Dart.

[fiveeauxfour]

Maybe Mithril Vams for the arm slot for the str and mr

[ghost182]

The variety of tools, buffs, and utility is so overwhelming! I am playing in Velious right now, and I've got to keep up:

1. Diamondskin
2. Thorncoat
3. Storm Strength
3. Feet like Cat (lol)
4. Greater Wolf Form
5. Call of the Predator
6. Call of Fire
7. Chloroplast
8. Shield of Spikes

It takes a lot of mana to self buff everything up I'm noticing; granted, most of these (minus call of fire, chloroplast, and shield of spikes) lasts for 30mins - 1hr. I'm keeping the 3 short duration buffs memorized along with my 2 quick cast nukes (calefaction((spell?)) and call of flame), snare (or root), greater heal, and harmony.

What i'm not liking so far:

1. When I nuke I'm not auto attacking, where as rogues, monks, and warriors get to add burst damage while still meleeing (backstabs, kicks, crits).

2. My earthcaller causes more aggro than i'd like, and I don't want to be casting cinder jolt, so I use a different weapon in group situations.

3. Weaponshield is very useful, trueshot is cool but we should have had this all along as the equivalent to lay on hands and harmtouch.

4. This is the biggest one, if i'm solo I have to click this sky quest cape WAY to much >_<


All in all, beta buffing a ranger has definitely been a cool experience, I like it, but would like to have messed around with panic animal (oh well). solo is definitely still hard, even beta buffed. My ranger is currently lvl 50, and I love it.

[fishingme]

Funny, I strongly recommend playing a ranger. Especially in the Velious era.

Call of ___ line of spells boost your dps even higher than it already is; Call of the Predator is an awesome self/group/raid spell, boosting +ATK; Cinder Jolt finally giving them a reliable means of aggro reduction (regular Jolt sucks); panic animal allows for fear kiting of animals, allowing Rangers to solo places others wouldn't dream of (i.e. WW); Weaponshield giving you a nice invulnerability - generally long enough for a tank to regain aggro without you dying; and the nice ratio bows (i.e. 33/35) combined with Trueshot discipline adds up to 2 minutes of pure, unadulterated, slaughter.

Added on to the already amazing lineup of abilities and spells, such as SoW, camo, tracking, snare, root, lull, sneak, slow (via Earthcall from epic), regen (chloroplast)....yeah, Rangers are in their prime in Velious. And to make it even sweeter, the hybrid xp penalty should be going away in this era.

My previous post was purely for fun of a character. Personally I like lots of interaction and having plenty of things to do. I never got my ranger past 18 here, but i did have a 50 ranger in velious, they are definitely better in velious than kunark. But in reality they don't really hold a candle to some of the other classes. The bard I just find particularly interesting because of everything that you can do, Aoe mez, single target mez, twist 4-6songs, run speed, levitate+speed, aoe kite, swarm kite, and fear kite. A ranger isn't bad imho purely for the fact that there's very few and once you're raid level upgrades come quickly. Ranger is nice, but i prefer to be able to solo nearly anything i want in HS/old seb.

[dartaniun]

Easy way to fix the "needing to constantly click the dark cloak of the sky" is to just bind one of your directional keys (turn left or right, for instance) to trigger the cloak. It's all I do when i'm not chanter hasted

[abazaba]

Easy way to fix the "needing to constantly click the dark cloak of the sky" is to just bind one of your directional keys (turn left or right, for instance) to trigger the cloak. It's all I do when i'm not chanter hasted

^ Did the same thing for a while but I ended up binding the cloak to the same key I use for kick. Much less spammy imo and won't break invis on turning.

[Lartanin63]

Head-Hammer head helm
Ears- Diamondine earrings or waste some of your life getting sarnak earrings of stature.
Neck-Lava rune pendant
Shoulders-Crested pauldrons.
Arms - Mithril Vambraces or ivy etched arms.
Chest - Tree weave or regen bp rubi/ikky swap out.
Belt- FBSS/haste item
Legs- Mithril leggings.
Boots- Dwarven work boots.
Bracers- Hero bracer and Granite bracer. Tolans is good for later on just to make arrows.
Face - Mask of wurms
Hands- Guantlets of Potenence.
finger 55hp rings.
Back Hooded black cloak
Weapons I likes using a lammy and green jade broadsword at lower levels then get a woodsman staff and a swarmcaller later on.
Range - Rain caller is nice for the stats and range.

I like bumping strenght for more DPS. this is just my thought on ranger gearing. Not to expensive and easy to farm these items.

[Cecily]

^ Did the same thing for a while but I ended up binding the cloak to the same key I use for kick. Much less spammy imo and won't break invis on turning.

Yeah mine is bound to kick as well. Kick refreshes faster than the buff fades so it'll stay up constantly.

[Waedawen]

On my ranger I went with HP --> AC --> Resists

I'm sure the degree of twinking has something to do with it, but between a cof a fungi and a woodsman staff my ranger is -by far- my favorite character.

I don't know if I'm going to re-itemize him in the 50s, but I doubt it. I think strength is highly overrated for itemization, -especially for leveling-, but for base points it's the best.

[Aztefano]

High STR = hard average hits and quicker kills, don't think this is overrated in terms of survivability when you cannot afford CoF/Fungi?

[kaev]

On my ranger I went with HP --> AC --> Resists

I'm sure the degree of twinking has something to do with it, but between a cof a fungi and a woodsman staff my ranger is -by far- my favorite character.

I don't know if I'm going to re-itemize him in the 50s, but I doubt it. I think strength is highly overrated for itemization, -especially for leveling-, but for base points it's the best.

When I'm on my cleric, the difference between a ranger who emphasizes tanking gear (hp+ac) vs. one who goes for promqueen gear (str+dex) is hugely obvious. Ranger in group is often pulling & root/off-tank CCing, occasionally even MTing, they get smacked around legitimately and should be geared to deal with it. The ac from Tolan's pieces is worth it unless you're strictly dps in the group (in which case please avoid agro dammit.) A ranger puller with enough gear ac+hp that I can give him all three buffs and then CH every 10 minutes or so is much more cleric friendly than the fancypants shiny stats enthusiast who needs a spam heal every minute or two.

Speaking of ac from gear, I find that my ranger does a lot better solo with his Tolan's pieces equipped. Also, my favorite pieces of ranger gear are the tolan's bracer (I have learned to hate fletching), and the lupine dagger (it's a long ways to 56 on a seldom played alt.)

[Cecily]

Wonder if my ranger is a tank or prom queen. Probably in between, a hybrid if you will.