The Squishy Ranger Help Thread - Better Survivability

[Thayion516]

OK. So i just broke LV 23 and with everyone interested in Reaper Mode and/or Epic Elite runs through the epic levels, I am feeling Squishy. Often times I am 2/3 shotted in Reaper and EE. Often my Self Healing is just not enough and getting heals from other people in a PUG is very undependable. I am in a nice guild with good players and they often play really well covering some heals, but even then I should not be dependent on other players! Often my playtimes make Pugging the only option also. I see other players able to take the hits and keep on moving, Mob groups of 4 go down and the player's red bar did not move much at all. How did they do that?? Is it common place that other Players have the BEST Gear in game and are Completionist?? If so, that sucks for me!


My Stats are not bad I think but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I mean I am a Casual Weekend Warrior that has been playing for 5 years.

23 Ranger

10 TRs
All Epic Destiny Spheres with 4,3,1 twist
740 HPs
38 MR
52 PR
62 AC
14 Dodge
10 Concealment

I am NOT looking for The Apex of gear, setup and stats. Because honestly I will never get there. I am looking for solid suggestions to get me through EE and Reaper 1, 2 maybe 3, and stay at LV 30 for several months. I don't mind dying I just want a fighting chance.

How Do You Do Survivability? What do Rangers need to focus on for Damage Mitigation specifically WITHOUT having to give up a lot of DPS? Specific Items? Enhancements? Feats? Stats? Items with Aug Slots?

I would like this thread to be a resource for Rangers over all so if anyone has a sizeable chuck of Ranger knowledge please drop a primer or a write-up!! I would read it all!

[Stoner81]

Gear, past lives, build and game knowledge in a nut shell... can you show a screen shot of your current stats and list what equipment you are using?

Stoner81.

[the_one_dwarfforged]

OK. So i just broke LV 23 and with everyone interested in Reaper Mode and/or Epic Elite runs through the epic levels, I am feeling Squishy. Often times I am 2/3 shotted in Reaper and EE. Often my Self Healing is just not enough and getting heals from other people in a PUG is very undependable. I am in a nice guild with good players and they often play really well covering some heals, but even then I should not be dependent on other players! Often my playtimes make Pugging the only option also. I see other players able to take the hits and keep on moving, Mob groups of 4 go down and the player's red bar did not move much at all. How did they do that?? Is it common place that other Players have the BEST Gear in game and are Completionist?? If so, that sucks for me!


My Stats are not bad I think but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I mean I am a Casual Weekend Warrior that has been playing for 5 years.

23 Ranger

10 TRs
All Epic Destiny Spheres with 4,3,1 twist
740 HPs
38 MR
52 PR
62 AC
14 Dodge
10 Concealment

I am NOT looking for The Apex of gear, setup and stats. Because honestly I will never get there. I am looking for solid suggestions to get me through EE and Reaper 1, 2 maybe 3, and stay at LV 30 for several months. I don't mind dying I just want a fighting chance.

How Do You Do Survivability? What do Rangers need to focus on for Damage Mitigation specifically WITHOUT having to give up a lot of DPS? Specific Items? Enhancements? Feats? Stats? Items with Aug Slots?

I would like this thread to be a resource for Rangers over all so if anyone has a sizeable chuck of Ranger knowledge please drop a primer or a write-up!! I would read it all!

completionist or the associated past lives by themselves are not going to have the most or the highest relative impact on character performance. player "skill", will, then probably a tie between gear and build (trivial comparisons aside).

it depends on who/what you are comparing your observations to. a blitzing pure fighter should have no less than 1k hp and 130 prr at level 23. clearly from a stats standpoint they are going to be significantly more survivable. they dont have access to csw or emp heal like a ranger does though, and dont have a very reliable bluff attack like exposing strike. having more dps can also help as things that die faster have less time to kill you.

the most obvious suggestions i can throw out there are to just keep getting divine and primal epic past lives, possibly martial ones but less priority on those. keep getting better gear. craft a bunch of displacement clickies, which are very easy to make since you only need to make them t2.

other suggestions that i would say will be more impactful both immediately and int he long run regardless of stat improvements would be to play differently. most people prefer to walk up to things and attack until they or the target is dead. its much better to move to avoid damage. in a large mob, running in wide circles to gain time to heal is the general go to. against a single enemy i prefer to jump over them though. if possible sometimes you can manage to reduce melee damage from bosses or champions by circle strafing them, though they wont work with all enemies (size matters, so does the attacks they use) and will be harder with twf than thf. make sure you use exposing strike to bluff enemies so they arent attacking you. use line of sight. there are so many ways to manipulate the braindead ai in this game with line of sight that its probably the most op thing in the game, it is its own cc. use trip if youre str based. pull mobs with your bow if you are approaching a difficult fight. use meld into darkness (insanely valuable ability) to easily win fights that would otherwise kill you. let others pull aggro.

at cap even for very tanky melees 1-3 shot is a very common reality in legendaries and high skull reaper. being bale to adapt to it sooner rather than later is beneficial, as stats will only take you so far regardless.

[AbyssalMage]

OK. So i just broke LV 23 and with everyone interested in Reaper Mode and/or Epic Elite runs through the epic levels, I am feeling Squishy. Often times I am 2/3 shotted in Reaper and EE. Often my Self Healing is just not enough and getting heals from other people in a PUG is very undependable. I am in a nice guild with good players and they often play really well covering some heals, but even then I should not be dependent on other players! Often my playtimes make Pugging the only option also. I see other players able to take the hits and keep on moving, Mob groups of 4 go down and the player's red bar did not move much at all. How did they do that?? Is it common place that other Players have the BEST Gear in game and are Completionist?? If so, that sucks for me!


My Stats are not bad I think but I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I mean I am a Casual Weekend Warrior that has been playing for 5 years.

23 Ranger

10 TRs
All Epic Destiny Spheres with 4,3,1 twist
740 HPs
38 MR
52 PR
62 AC
14 Dodge
10 Concealment

I am NOT looking for The Apex of gear, setup and stats. Because honestly I will never get there. I am looking for solid suggestions to get me through EE and Reaper 1, 2 maybe 3, and stay at LV 30 for several months. I don't mind dying I just want a fighting chance.

How Do You Do Survivability? What do Rangers need to focus on for Damage Mitigation specifically WITHOUT having to give up a lot of DPS? Specific Items? Enhancements? Feats? Stats? Items with Aug Slots?

I would like this thread to be a resource for Rangers over all so if anyone has a sizeable chuck of Ranger knowledge please drop a primer or a write-up!! I would read it all!
52 PR = PRR?
Is so, that is really low
740 HP's is also really low.

Increasing both will increase survivability.

[Ryan220]

Hello OP

I built my last Ranger life (and subsequently the following Monkcher life) as a CC Para build.

Its prob not considered the optimum way as you give up a fair chunk of Dps but because you can lock down pretty much everything the rest of the party can just concentrate on killing things rather than worry about their health.

It was paricularly useful in quests where you can use ips to Para large groups - one Guildy remarked "its like they're queuing up to die"

[Assassination]

My ranger trainer recently pulled me aside from the other ranger cadets and whispered this, " Don't pass this on, but some of the toughest rangers i know train with that shiny paladin fella over there for about 2/3 of their trainings....( that's appoximately 14 lvls)".:cool: "The real zealous ones take a bit more (15 trainings)".

My trainers math skills aren't that strong but he is a ranger. That looks like about 3/4 of trainings to me...

[Kodwraith]

Are you mostly doing melee or ranged? Getting 2-3 shotted in reaper/LE is not that abnormal in melee range. You want to not get hit (kiting with a bow ftw).


For a ranger, the game is the same as for a monk, slot as many damage mitigating layers/things as you can. You fit as many different ways of avoiding getting ht as you can.

My elven ranger sits at around 100 PRR, 80ish AC, 15% dodge, 10% incorp, 25% displace at cap. At lvl 23, I was in a pretty similar spread as you. By cap, the name of the game is even more "don't get hit".

The basics are always run with 15% dodge, 20% blur, 10% incorp, and as much PRR as you can slot in from DWS + items. I tend to ignore AC.

[Jetrule]

lvl 23 is a good level for Cannith crafting I would look to level up enough and collect the gear to make a lvl 23 necklace with 11 con, 5 insightful con, and either 28 sheltering or 42 falselife, which ever helps you more.. At level 24 you can get some iron mitts for 40 vitality 60 healing amp, and tier 2 thunder forged weapons will help some too. As to running reaper I would suggest putting all reaper points in the Tanky tree focusing on the dodge line and wearing leather and trying to max out dodge and max dodge bonus. Building some heroic green steel staves with displacement is a worthy investment. and points spent in diplomacy and threat reduction are also wise.

[Thayion516]

Thanks for the responses guys and gals!

Been on vacation for a week and after some reading here, I went through my bank and mules to see if i could update my gear some. I ended up finding a few good items on the auction hall and I had some lv 20ish gear in my banks. My AC/PR/MR went Up some, as well as my STR/CON/DEX/INT/CHR. Unfortunately my HP did not change much as I lost both Vitality and GFL on my gear. It was offset by a +4 insightful CON item. I have Ghostly and Blurry due to Ring of Shadows now.

Lv 23 Tempest Ranger - Human

HP 804
AC 60
PR 88
MR 41
Conceal 20%
Incomporial 10%
Fort 130%
Dodge 18%

Some things i am noticeably missing are Healing Amp, Devotion, GFL and Vitality. Unfortunatly Cannith Crafing is not an option for me as I am just unwilling to invest the time in grinding crafting levels. Also I am strapped for plat to invest.

Iron Mitts would be a great pull. Any other grat that is great for a Tempest Ranger that is pretty easy to score?

[Selvera]

I'm trying to mathcraft my own tempest ranger and what it will look like at 20. I have TR gear (ML 15, so not the best at level, but still pretty kickass) and a couple of past lives (about 5 heroic 5 epic). Unfortunately I'll have to run in a primal-tree in order to get karma for my next ETR, so I'm guessing Primal Avatar is probably my best bet.

So far my math says I will have:

HP 660
PRR 95
MRR 50
AC 87
Dodge 19%
Conceal 20%
Incorp 15% (are you remembering the tempest core lvl 18 here? It says it stacks)
Fortification 94% (I don't see much way I can fit in more into the build, and an augment slot for +6% seems kinda meh)

I'm still a little baffled at how other people manage to get such high HP all the time, while I'm running +11 con items on this build as well as best at level vitality and elemental energy. However, I'm hoping that I'll have good enough defenses to not instantly get gimped in Reaper/EE with these stats.

[unbongwah]

Incomporial 10%
This should be 15%: 10% from a Ghostly item, +5% from Whirlwind. Or did you just forget to list the latter?

Dodge 18%
This seems low too. ML:22-23 armor like Hide of the Goristro or Restored Giantcraft Leather is MDB 14 + 2 Mobility feat + 3 Imp Mobility + 2 ship buff + 3/4 Armor Mastery (e.g., Daggertooth Belt (http://ddowiki.com/page/Item:Daggertooth's_Belt)) = MDB of 24 or 25. Should have 8% Dodge from feats + Imp Dodge enhs. Hmmm...could've sworn you could hit 16 or 17% Dodge from gear at that level, but danged if I can find more than 10% Dodge item now...might've been thinking of pajama builds or Swashbucklers.

Iron Mitts would be a great pull.
Agreed: I use PDK gloves for lvls 20-23 until I can equip these.

[Selvera]

At level 23 you can get 11% enhancement + 5% insightful dodge on cannith crafted items and random loot items (total 16%). However this is reduced to 10%/4% for level 22 items, so it is very unlikely to get this much dodge without crafting. (Although, in theory, you could get more in random, this is very, very rare). If you find some pretty good doge and insightful dodge items, I would not be surprised if it adds up to 14% (items) + 8% (feats/enhancements) = 22%

However, insightful dodge only shows up on boots and belts; so fitting it into the build even if you luck out and find an item with good insightful dodge might be a little tricky.