Melee ranger defenses for reaper heroic levels 12-20

[mrphlegm]

Hey,

I'd appreciate any input on defense for a tempest ranger in heroic reaper.

My build is a human pure ranger. 18 dex/18 con/some wis starting stats. +6 tomes, level up into dex.
Currently I'm using repeater xbows but would like to switch at level 12 to primarily melee w/ manyshot off timer.

I'm a bit worried about surviving reaper 3-5ish quests if there isn't a good cc'er in the group.
I'll be using displacement clickys pretty much all the time, ghostly cloak, and cannith crafted dodge/prr/mrr.

It looks like I should pick up dodge and mobility feats to unlock even more dodge from enhancements.

I guess my question is what armor should i use? Is cannith crafted the best or are there named armors that would benefit me more?
If AC is even meaningful in reaper. I have no idea, i mostly play casters. B<

Are there any CC options for a dex base melee ranger? Since I can't even use trip or stunning blow with such a low strength.
I would like to use lit2 scimmies or kukris but maybe earthgrab is better?

Any thoughts or input on the subject is much appreciated.
Thanks.

[Selvera]

Hi, I'm a dex based ranger who's been leveling in reaper 2-4ish depending on the group. Certainly in reaper 4 (or higher) you really want a good CCer in the party. In most parties I find myself the main tank of the group, but that's just because we usually don't have a real tank, so I have the highest general defenses in my pugs.

Displacement is really good, I only have 1 displacement clickie so I save it for the hard fights, and it usually is enough to keep me alive when layered with all the other defenses I have.
I have dodge and mobility; currently I'm sitting on about 18% passive dodge chance, and 35% dodge chance with elaborate parry.
My AC is in the 75ish range (level 17), and I find it hard to think of ways I can get it higher without more martial past lives, but even with the most scary of hit chance forumlas I've heard of in reaper, that's at least a 13% (or more) chance of not being hit, so it's pretty much like having another dodge chance.

I'm wearing black dragonhide armour, it has a pretty decent max dex bonus (which equates to dodge and AC) and has stats that fit well into my gear setup.

The only CC option really available that I've found is the 3rd deepwood stalker core, but it has a fairly low cooldown, so it's pretty good. Also, it gives damage. I stopped using trip when I got this (because I don't like having a million and one clickies at a time) but before I got it I was still sometimes landing trips on foes even with a halfling's tiny strength score. (Some enemies are really easy to trip)

[Eryhn]

for heroics I kinda do like the ML15 light armor from search and rescue. high resistance, and if you add cannith crafted spell resist and insight spell resist with the quality on the armor it actually ends up somewhat viable. however I am not sure how far into higher skulls that holds true, the only toon I run that on atm is a first life alt that hasnt gone above 3 skulls yet

[mrphlegm]

Hi, I'm a dex based ranger who's been leveling in reaper 2-4ish depending on the group. Certainly in reaper 4 (or higher) you really want a good CCer in the party. In most parties I find myself the main tank of the group, but that's just because we usually don't have a real tank, so I have the highest general defenses in my pugs.

Displacement is really good, I only have 1 displacement clickie so I save it for the hard fights, and it usually is enough to keep me alive when layered with all the other defenses I have.
I have dodge and mobility; currently I'm sitting on about 18% passive dodge chance, and 35% dodge chance with elaborate parry.
My AC is in the 75ish range (level 17), and I find it hard to think of ways I can get it higher without more martial past lives, but even with the most scary of hit chance forumlas I've heard of in reaper, that's at least a 13% (or more) chance of not being hit, so it's pretty much like having another dodge chance.

I'm wearing black dragonhide armour, it has a pretty decent max dex bonus (which equates to dodge and AC) and has stats that fit well into my gear setup.

The only CC option really available that I've found is the 3rd deepwood stalker core, but it has a fairly low cooldown, so it's pretty good. Also, it gives damage. I stopped using trip when I got this (because I don't like having a million and one clickies at a time) but before I got it I was still sometimes landing trips on foes even with a halfling's tiny strength score. (Some enemies are really easy to trip)
Super, thanks for the reply. That is reassuring :)
Completly forgot about black dragonhide. Crafting one of those for sure.
Good call on the deepwood ability, that looks good.


for heroics I kinda do like the ML15 light armor from search and rescue. high resistance, and if you add cannith crafted spell resist and insight spell resist with the quality on the armor it actually ends up somewhat viable. however I am not sure how far into higher skulls that holds true, the only toon I run that on atm is a first life alt that hasnt gone above 3 skulls yet
Very nice max dex bonus on that one. SR is interesting. Do you often get blue shield in reaper 3?

[Eryhn]

Super, thanks for the reply. That is reassuring :)
Completly forgot about black dragonhide. Crafting one of those for sure.
Good call on the deepwood ability, that looks good.


Very nice max dex bonus on that one. SR is interesting. Do you often get blue shield in reaper 3?


its a nice armor generally speaking, but I dont wanna say something wrong I havent played that alt in some weeks since its a years old gimp to be played only with friends on level at times. so, ... I dont rly remember it NOT working on that last play session where we ran r2 and r3s, but im also not sure how reliable it actually is for r3 @ lvl. ima go test ingame some time and report back i guess

[Eryhn]

so, little update, it blocks pretty much everything running cannith challenges on lvl16 toon @ CR20 ... (armor + crafted ML15 spell res 25, insight spell res12 = total of 43)

haven't found a chance to get somebody to run with my gimp in r3+ yet, sry

[mrphlegm]

so, little update, it blocks pretty much everything running cannith challenges on lvl16 toon @ CR20 ... (armor + crafted ML15 spell res 25, insight spell res12 = total of 43)

haven't found a chance to get somebody to run with my gimp in r3+ yet, sry

Nice, thanks for the update.

[mrphlegm]

Alright dance of death is cool and all, but without someone to cc the mobs in place twf dps approaches 0. Completly useless compared to the repeater ranger. Respecced back to repeaters and now I'm 50% of group kills instead of 10%.

I'd only consider playing TWF ranger for end game raiding at this point. Str base with dire charge is probably ok for quests i suppose.