Ranger builds suggestions

[smokejumper89]

I'm looking to create another alt for rainy days and noticed I haven't got a ranger in my collection. When I played rangers on my main, I liked being able to two-weapon fight, then pull out a bow when things need range and doing ok. I'm looking at a few different ideas, but I'm kind of getting tired of pure builds. Are there any fun ranger splashes?

This is going to be a first life/no tomes/play straight to 30 and park build.

[unbongwah]

"Casual" Manyshotters haven't been a thing since the revamp to Manyshot, so ranger splashing isn't really common anymore. The buffs to Deepwood Stalker has me mulling ranged+melee builds again. Nothing to post yet.

[smokejumper89]

Just trialing on an iconic, Bladeforged 3 paladin/5 wizard/12 ranger. I did the same with Fighter instead of Ranger a while back and it was a lot of fun. 3 paladin gives you access to a some good PRR in Sacred Defender, 5 wizard gets you EK/displacement. There's not a whole lot more after 11 ranger so not sure what to do with that last level just yet. It seems like it could work pretty well.

[unbongwah]

It's mostly a question of APs. For most melee ranger builds, you're going to want to spend ~40 APs in Tempest for the +1 crit multiplier and tier-5 goodies like Dance of Death; and 24 APs in Deepwood Stalker for Killer and +1 crit range. That only leaves 16 APs (+racial PLs) to spread between Bladeforged (Reconstruct SLA), Sacred Defender (defensive stance), KotC (Divine Might etc), and possibly Eldritch Knight or Archmage for a couple of SLAs.

One of the workarounds has been ranger 5-6 / paladin 14-15 builds: you get your crit bonus from Holy Sword so you don't need DWS (or level 12 Tempest) anymore. That frees APs for racial and/or paladin trees. Basically they're for someone who wanted TWF DPS that was a bit behind pure ranger but also a lot less squishy. See my Faithsworn Hunter (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/451302-Revisiting-the-TWF-Drow-Paladin-for-New-Players-(U23)?p=5468602&viewfull=1#post5468602) and Eth's thread (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/466161-Noyellowbar-2-0-a-Tempestadin) for examples. Note that they predate Epic Defensive Fighting, though, so the +20% HPs from Tenacious Defense was a bigger deal in epics back then.

[smokejumper89]

What I look for in these kinds of oddball builds is heavy versatility, EG the ability to drastically change exactly how the character plays simply by respecing the enhancements. It doesn't have to be the best of the best, just has to be able to change up periodically.

I'm now toying with 4 fighter/5 wizard/11 ranger. Still Bladeforged Iconic for the reconstruct SLA and using +1 heart to get out of the paladin level. Fighter provides access to the highly similar Stalwart Defense, and the 4 fighter levels add a ton of extra feats.

Then again, looking over Tempest, I'm seeing how that 12th ranger level could have some serious advantages. Might forget fighter completely and stick with 3 paladin/5 wizard/12 ranger. Paladin is nicely front-loaded and would save me a heart. I got a little play-time in on my test character running 1 paladin/11 ranger/3 wizard and he was doing pretty well. Well enough for me to keep trying at least.

I appreciate the paladin build links, but they're woefully outdated. 2014 was an eternity ago in DDO.

[Kaboom2112]

Just go pure, there is no better option.

[Arlathen]

"Casual" Manyshotters haven't been a thing since the revamp to Manyshot, so ranger splashing isn't really common anymore. The buffs to Deepwood Stalker has me mulling ranged+melee builds again. Nothing to post yet.

I'm currently working on a new Hybrid Ranger build. I've just about polished off 3 Paladin builds for U45 that I'm very happy with, but the Call of the Wild is music to my ears again.

Another Profane Experiment to toy with....