13 str ranger is better off with an axe than a bow

[goldgolem]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

[burningwind]

yea that is the common problem with range dps.. until you reach epic and get your destiny unlocked....

p.s. pre epic artificer are much better..

edit: are you an elf? if you are not you do not get dex to damage.. coz if you are not, you only get bow strength which use your str to modify your range damage

[Gremmlynn]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(I'm guessing you also take far more damage using a greataxe than a bow too.

[Holleyz]

Arcane Archer Rangers seems to be broken at the moment. I can't quite put my finger on it yet but something is definitely wrong with them and have been since U22. It appears to me that my Monkcher actually done more damage Pre U22 than after U22 was released. Now I get cheated out of manyshots, I hit it, the timer starts for the cool down but there sure ain't no extra arrows coming from my bow. And Slaying arrow used to go off on the first 4 arrows from hitting manyshots at the same time. NOW its just one arrow. Also bow damage seems to be lower and firing the bow her action is slower. And what really gets me ticted is having to fire at a crate or a barrel 3 to 4 times before it shatters.
We all know that the developers and NON bow users hate AA Rangers. A few months ago so many people complained and cried that they caused the AA Ranger to get the AXE yet Again! I cannot speak for epic rangers as I do not have one yet, all my rangers are in heroic.
Oh and another thing before I go. I was told to take bow strength so that I could apply my Strength score to bow damage.....Yeah that don't work it still counts your dexterity for bow damage instead of your strength so that was a total waste of several feats to obtain.

The best thing you can do is find a high level crafter and have them craft you a Longbow of Screaming and Bleeding with a red augment slot in it. This will make up for the current gimpness of the AA rangers bow damage.

[blerkington]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

Hi,

The low rate of fire combined with the fact that you currently can't hit more than one target at once with your arrows means this is going to continue for quite a while. Things will get somewhat better when you get manyshot and especially improved precise shot.

Ranger is a class which has both melee and ranged combat skills. You are likely to be more effective overall if you switch between the two styles depending on what is more useful for a particular encounter.

Thanks.

[gwonbush]

Something to mention: to get dex to damage, you need the Grace Enhancement in the Elf Racial tree.

[TheLegendOfAra]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

This has to do mostly with ROF, or Rate of fire. Bow attack speed works off of a few things, ranged alacrity, Base attack bonus, etc.
At low levels, bows are just really painful to use because they are so slow. And there is not much you can do to make that change before around level 10-12.

Your very small str bonus also has a lot to do with your poor damage on a bow if you're not an elf with the dex to damage enhancement from the elf tree. Since you're only level 4 I'll guess you don't have that. You get your damage with a bow from your str bonus with the bow str feat, so the higher your str, the better your DPS. Dex is really just a to hit stat, unless you build otherwise for dex/wis.

This game also favors greataxes at low levels for ALL classes and builds.
Casters are better of with an axe from level 1-6 than they are casting spells most of the time.
DDO is just strange that way.


Arcane Archer Rangers seems to be broken at the moment. I can't quite put my finger on it yet but something is definitely wrong with them and have been since U22. It appears to me that my Monkcher actually done more damage Pre U22 than after U22 was released. Now I get cheated out of manyshots, I hit it, the timer starts for the cool down but there sure ain't no extra arrows coming from my bow. And Slaying arrow used to go off on the first 4 arrows from hitting manyshots at the same time. NOW its just one arrow. Also bow damage seems to be lower and firing the bow her action is slower. And what really gets me ticted is having to fire at a crate or a barrel 3 to 4 times before it shatters.
We all know that the developers and NON bow users hate AA Rangers. A few months ago so many people complained and cried that they caused the AA Ranger to get the AXE yet Again! I cannot speak for epic rangers as I do not have one yet, all my rangers are in heroic.
Oh and another thing before I go. I was told to take bow strength so that I could apply my Strength score to bow damage.....Yeah that don't work it still counts your dexterity for bow damage instead of your strength so that was a total waste of several feats to obtain.

The best thing you can do is find a high level crafter and have them craft you a Longbow of Screaming and Bleeding with a red augment slot in it. This will make up for the current gimpness of the AA rangers bow damage.

A lot, and I mean a whole hell of a lot of misinformation here. AA's are not broken, you just have to know how to build them correctly.

Your manyshot bug is a visual bug. you click manyshot, and the timer goes off on the hotbar but it doesn't actually go off at all. if you click it again you will actually activate manyshot and get the correct timer. Annoying, yes. But not that terrible.

Arrow of Slaying works the same for me as it has since its release. Either you have a very specific bug, that only you have afaik, or you're doing something wrong.

Firing at crates is a targeting issue affecting ALL ranged weapons atm, I've tested on live and I had the same issues with Xbows of all kinds and even a TF shuriken(my only thrower to test with). Again, annoying but really not that big of a deal.

When did Rangers get the Axe a few months ago? I'm not aware of any huge nerfs to Rangers recently, and I play a ranger as my main. Have since '09. I haven't noticed much difference in my build than before, although if you're reffering to them fixing the multiple imbues exploit, that was a QOL fix and nothing else. you should be happy.

Bow str is given as a free feat to any ranger at level 1. You don't have to work for it at ALL. And it does work.
But if you take the elven enhancements that give you dex to damage then it takes whichever is higher I believe.
You're building your rangers way wrong.

And the best weapon for you to get would be the Silver Longbow. ML: 8 and it comes with a slot and expanded crit range.
Also works as a good poor mans DR breaker for a lot of content while leveling.

[xberto]

Low level archer Ranger DPS is indeed low. If you want to use bow at low level and your on a second life, you might try filling your inventory with Denith +3 returning arrows, before TRing, to use at these low levels. ( I used to fill with +5 AA arrows back before the enhancement pass) That will help a little. Next time the ice festival rolls around, make sure you Icy Burst a good lvl 2 bow bow.

[Gremmlynn]

Your manyshot bug is a visual bug. you click manyshot, and the timer goes off on the hotbar but it doesn't actually go off at all. if you click it again you will actually activate manyshot and get the correct timer. Annoying, yes. But not that terrible.This also isn't limited to many shot as it also affects casted spells, SLAs and other boost type powers.

[TheLegendOfAra]

This also isn't limited to many shot as it also affects casted spells, SLAs and other boost type powers.

Yep, I get it depressingly often with clickies and cocoon.
I know it's gotten me killed a couple of times because I'd hit cocoon and nothing would happen and I'd just assumed it was me taking to much damage. Lol

Also affects 10K stars, and I'm not 100% sure but I think it also affects abilities like Lay Waste and Momentum Swing from LD.
But that could just be the cleave reset thing being wonky. I know for certain I've seen a regular cleave put Momentum Swing on cooldown right after it's come off a cooldown. I'm not sure if that's related though, or it's own entirely different thing.

[Scrabbler]

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(
Because of serious mistakes by the designers, bow combat is not worthwhile until you obtain Manyshot at level 6. Before that you can use the greataxe (technically you could try two melee weapons, but prior to level 6 that's also very weak)

Note that even once you do have Manyshot, it will probably remain a good idea for you to use melee weapons for the 2 minutes it takes to recharge that special attack.

[Maldorin]

I usually play my rangers as Tempest through heroic (stilll using many shot) and then switch to AA once epic. You are given the TWF line of feats for free.

[Chauncey1]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

You're only lvl 4. Stick with it. You will be happy later on.

[FAQ]

And what really gets me ticted is having to fire at a crate or a barrel 3 to 4 times before it shatters.


Unfortunately this is not exclusive with ranged. My TWF assassin usually also has to swing more than once to break boxes.

[Rykka]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

That sounds about right. What's the issue?

[Gremmlynn]

Yep, I get it depressingly often with clickies and cocoon.
I know it's gotten me killed a couple of times because I'd hit cocoon and nothing would happen and I'd just assumed it was me taking to much damage. Lol

Also affects 10K stars, and I'm not 100% sure but I think it also affects abilities like Lay Waste and Momentum Swing from LD.
But that could just be the cleave reset thing being wonky. I know for certain I've seen a regular cleave put Momentum Swing on cooldown right after it's come off a cooldown. I'm not sure if that's related though, or it's own entirely different thing.Lay waste/momentum swing seems to sometimes suffer from what I'm guessing is the client and server not agreeing...until the server updates. I've also noticed sometimes there is a delayed reset, sort of the opposite occurring. It could be the same issue, different only in there not being an auto-correct built into the other powers as they are not on a cooldown timer with a situational reset.

[Gremmlynn]

I usually play my rangers as Tempest through heroic (stilll using many shot) and then switch to AA once epic. You are given the TWF line of feats for free.Personally, I tend to play them as THF until level 6 regardless of what I plan to do later. TWF simply starts in a hole so deep that THF with nothing in the build to support it is better until a ranger gets that far and many other classes are generally better off doing so until the get the full feat line at level 11 minimum.

[TheLegendOfAra]

Lay waste/momentum swing seems to sometimes suffer from what I'm guessing is the client and server not agreeing...until the server updates. I've also noticed sometimes there is a delayed reset, sort of the opposite occurring. It could be the same issue, different only in there not being an auto-correct built into the other powers as they are not on a cooldown timer with a situational reset.

I've noticed that as well. It's very strange, and can be annoying.
These are the little things I wish turbine would look into that while not super important would certainly be really nice to see in general.

[goodspeed]

As a ranger until the day comes when using manyshot doesn't Nerf your arrow output, and your in one of 2 maxed ED's, that axe is always gonna be better then that bow.

in.. I can't even remember how many years time it hasn't been fixed for animation. I don't expect it to improve any time soon either. About the only change toward ranged combat was the creation of 2 feats and a call out to splash monk lol.

[Sam1313]

Im a lvl 4 pure elf ranger, maxing everything for ranged damage. I have a good bow, all enhancements towards bow damage etc

I have 26 Dex and 13 str and I still do far more damage with a greataxe than a bow :(

Hang in there little Ranger. Use that great axe or great sword until your around level 8. You will get manyshots at level 6 but I believe even then it will only fire off 2 arrows at one time per draw. I think you get another arrow added at level 8 or 9 and then another one added at level 12? I'm not 100% sure about the levels but as you level you will eventually be able to fire up to 4 arrows per draw while manyshots is going on. For right now like someone had mentioned get a high level crafter to craft you a longbow of screaming and bleeding with a red augment in it. Use that until you can get the Silver Longbow. As soon as you can, start working on building your Green Steel Longbow. Your Green Steel Longbow will carry you from heroic levels all the way up to around level 24 to 26. But I believe at around level 22 or 23 you can get the Pinion Longbow. That is the best bow in the game period.

If you are on the cannith server I would be happy to craft you a longbow of screaming and bleeding just hit up the character Isamuel when your on.
Again just tough it out because it will pay off for you in the end. At around level 12 you will feel like a god. And when you reach Epic levels you will survive where others will perish. One other thing I should say here is "know when to lay the bow down" There is a time to use it and then there is a time when NOT to use it. If your being mobbed by 4 or more bad guys then pull out your blades. Other than that stick to the bow and stand your ground. Don't go running around kiting them because then your party wont be able to Heal/Help you beat them down. Stay put. Stand your ground and blast them.

[Sam1313]

Some good low level bows I would like to mention is the Cloven Jaw Longbow. Minimum Level 2. The Great bow of the Scrag, Minimum level 4 Both of these bows do some decent damage at that level. Another option would be to get someone to sell you a bow of lacerating but good luck on that because they don't make them anymore and when they did they would bind to character.

[Chauncey1]

Hang in there little Ranger. Use that great axe or great sword until your around level 8. You will get manyshots at level 6 but I believe even then it will only fire off 2 arrows at one time per draw. I think you get another arrow added at level 8 or 9 and then another one added at level 12? I'm not 100% sure about the levels but as you level you will eventually be able to fire up to 4 arrows per draw while manyshots is going on. For right now like someone had mentioned get a high level crafter to craft you a longbow of screaming and bleeding with a red augment in it. Use that until you can get the Silver Longbow. As soon as you can, start working on building your Green Steel Longbow. Your Green Steel Longbow will carry you from heroic levels all the way up to around level 24 to 26. But I believe at around level 22 or 23 you can get the Pinion Longbow. That is the best bow in the game period.

If you are on the cannith server I would be happy to craft you a longbow of screaming and bleeding just hit up the character Isamuel when your on.
Again just tough it out because it will pay off for you in the end. At around level 12 you will feel like a god. And when you reach Epic levels you will survive where others will perish. One other thing I should say here is "know when to lay the bow down" There is a time to use it and then there is a time when NOT to use it. If your being mobbed by 4 or more bad guys then pull out your blades. Other than that stick to the bow and stand your ground. Don't go running around kiting them because then your party wont be able to Heal/Help you beat them down. Stay put. Stand your ground and blast them.


Also, ^this.

[kmoustakas]

To the op: very early, power attack on a two handed weapon is practically +10 dmg. You are kinda supposed to do more damage with an axe. Hells, not that long ago low level wizards would master touch a maelstorm and go nuts. The real problems only start when monsters start hitting you back.

[lethargos]

Isnt pretty much everything shadowed by grabbing carnifex till lvl 8-9. Then you get firewall, improved critical feat etc.