Ranger Love

[Praut_Ektor]

Alright, there's plenty to debate here and with Mod 6 bringing us ranger lovin' I decided it was time to start playing mine again. I actually stopped playing him for a bit after I heard about the new enhancements coming out for them, I wanted to be able to use them, and need to decide to re-roll or not. Before it's asked, the level of Sorc was before I knew about the Arcane Archer enhancement and was added to let me use Flame Arrow wands. I don't have the CHA to be a UMD spec.

Currently, I'm 14 STR, 20 DEX, 10 CON, 14 WIS, 8 INT and CHA at level 1, adjusted based off of gear and levels, since I'm really 6/1 Ranger/Sorc.

I'm an arcane archer, and don't do shabby at all with the bow and multishot.

Last night it hit me that with a little bit of proper speccing in feats I could be a killer with the bow as well as TWF.

How best to get to this though?

At the moment, I'm looking at a 13 Ranger, 2 Fighter, 1 Sorc. Doesn't seem that bad of a build. These are the feats that I'm looking at so far:

Weapon Focus: Longbow (arcane archer req)
Point Blank Shot (arcane archer req)
Weapon Finesse
Dodge
Mobility
Shot on the Run
Spring Attack
Improved Crit: Bow
Improved Crit: Piercing

From my count, that will make me 1 feat short of what I wanted which is a bow-wielding, TWF-ing nightmare machine.

At the moment, I'm thinking of keeping shot on the run over spring attack because I wanted to make him an archer primarily (thus arcane archer as well) and then swap him for Tempest/TWF if I need the DPS at 16.

I could probably make the build that I want if I dropped the arcane archer routine and bought arrows like everyone else, but it seems like a bigger pain than the payoff.

Knowing that there are plenty of smart people with opinions out there, I decided to post for some help.

What are your thoughts on how to better build the ranger? Weapon Finesse and the improved crits seems like a must. Having the ability to banish at range is going to be nice in certain quests. I've thought about dropping arcane archer for the deepwood sniper, but can't get over the fact that 75% of my inventory will probably be arrows unless I run to the bank between missions.

Any suggestions from you ranger players? I know Dalharil has a higher level ranger alt. Just looking for suggestions.

[Tharris]

I also took the Arcane Archer route, although Pure Ranger 15, then a level of Wiz.

One thing I can recommend, maybe drop the SoTR and swap to the Extend Meta feat. I got it for free by taking Wiz, but being able to cast 30 mins of Rams, Resists, Barkskin and FoM, is Great.

Is even better in new content as Shrines are further apart, and on Leet etc don't reset.

Just my 2cp.

[Queleri]

I'd agree with Tharris drop SotR, if you're going Ranged/TWF then if the creature gets close enough for melee you're going to switch to TWF anyway, so why run and shoot? With WF (and you didn't specifify a race but if you're going piercing and WF perhaps Drow? This would also help your CHA score for UMD and then you can take the Drow Melee Enhancements) and improved Crit there is no reason not to stand and fight if it comes to that. And if you need to range something you could always have a shield wall set up so you don't need to run and shoot. Either way I think it's easier to lose SotR then Spring Attack, and then you don't have to worry about switching feats if you want to go the Tempest Route at 16.

I would also agree with Tharris about taking Wizard instead of Sorc as your arcane level to pick up Extend, that way you can avoid needing shield Clickies and can just cast it naturally, being a ranger you'll likely only have light armor on anyway so the spell failure chance would be minimal. I like the idea though, I hope you let us know how it works out for you.

[Praut_Ektor]

Thanks for the tips guys, will keep you posted on the status if I remember.

Dropping SotR is a good idea, not something I had originally prepared for, but I like the reasoning behind it and it makes sense.

I'm actually a 32 pt Elf build. 14 STR, 20 Dex 14 Wis base if I remember right.

I took the sorc level because my INT and CHA were both 8 and I felt the SP would be more helpful. Another opportunity missed, but not worried about the feat to reroll him over it, I have about 300 SP right now already and only level 7 overall. Since the ranger stuff is mostly going to be 10-15 SP for what I use, that's plenty of buffing power for me, though I may have to double cast :-O

Tonight I go 7/1 Ranger/Sorc I'm about 5k xp away, so moving forward slowly but surely.