Thread: Starting stats
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Old 02-26-2026, 09:49 PM
bcbrown bcbrown is offline
Fire Giant


Join Date: Jul 2022
Location: Kedge Keep
Posts: 782
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Put it all into charisma and be the prettiest, most charming ranger you can be.

Seriously though, strength is the easy answer, but I'm going to answer your question from like four different frames of perspective for the sake of being comprehensive. First perspective: it really doesn't matter. Stats just don't have much of an impact, and you can still be really successful even if you put all your points into intelligence. You can pick whatever feels good and have a lot of fun without worrying whether you made the optimal choice.

Next, let's look at the possible candidates. Strength gives two benefits: more carrying capacity and more damage. The extra damage is fairly minimal but over 60 levels it adds up. The carrying capacity is a huge bonus at lower levels if you're untwinked. Stamana adds hp, minimal at lower levels, up to about 80hp at level 60 for an extra 20 stamina. Dex gives you more procs and at some point after the next patch might have a small impact on bow damage. Wisdom gives a little extra mana, maybe as much as 200mana for 20wis at level 60 if I'm reading the wiki right. Charisma makes Calm Animal less likely to crit fail, but that's very niche. The other stats have even less impact.

Another perspective is through what you want to do with this character. Are you starting out untwinked? Strength becomes more important. Are you twinking the hell out of the toon and racing up to start raiding? Stamina might make sense. Do you just want to fuck around on a decently-funded toon and are intrigued by all the cool procs rangers get? Dexterity's got your name written all over it (and maybe try to get yourself an Infestation). Are you hoping to push the class to its limits as a solo artist after getting all the cool toys? That's the only reason I'd consider wisdom, or even, god forbid, charisma.

The last perspective is through the various roles you can play in a group or raid. Rangers make excellent pullers for leveling groups and if you're chain pulling I guess the only stat that really matters is wisdom to let you go longer without a med break, although that was never significant for me pulling in CoM or KC. If your role is mostly DPS then strength is the clear choice. Rangers make shitty tanks but they can do it in a pinch and in that case stamina is a good choice.

One more point I'll make is that especially while soloing a Swarmcaller proc has the most impact on how smoothly a fight goes; an early proc can easily be the difference between getting the kill or having to zone. And lastly, when considering the advice given in this thread I'd urge you to consider how much experience the advice-giver has with playing ranger. For example there's very few people active on this forum with more experience than Snaggles on raiding as a ranger, whereas my ranger recently hit 59 and I'm just beginning to dip my toe into raiding on him.

To summarize, I'd say that from 1-45 the most impactful stat will be strength; from 45-59 it's (imo) dex, and at 60+ it's probably strength until your gear becomes good enough that it becomes stamina or wisdom.
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