Really want a ranged build

[Elopados]

I've read a lot in the forums, bur nothing peaked my interest. So maybe someone can help me here. I'd really like to try a ranged character. Ranger or Arti, pure or multi, doesn't matter. I solo, so something with heals would be cool - I can just use a Cleric hireling for heals if I have to. I have character builder lite & DDO character gen. I tried an 11 Ranger/8 Fighter/1 Rogue. That's 12 feats, traps & all Ranger feats. I chose: precision, dodge, mobility, point blank shot, weapon focus: ranged, power critical: ranged, improved critical: ranged, improved critical: slashing, weapon finesse, greator weapon focus: ranged, weapon specialization: ranged, lightning reflexes.

Then I thought, "Maybe I should go 14 Ranger for the 4th lvl spell Cure Serious Wounds." That would leave 6 lvls. Maybe 4 Rogue for xtra sneak attack dmg, trap sense, trapmaking & uncanny dodge, & 2 Fighter feats. I chose: precision, dodge, mobility, point blank shot, weapon focus: ranged, power critical: ranged, improved critical: ranged, improved critical: slashing, weapon finesse.

I know a WF Arti can self-heal, has traps, ranged & spells. I'm confused. Any & all help is much appreciated.

[unbongwah]

A couple of questions:

First, what P2P options do you have? Harper, Artificer, etc. That limits your build possibilities. Also build pts, tomes, etc.

Second, are you wedded to a particular weapon style? Ranged builds basically come in three forms: throwers, archers, and xbow users (usually repeaters, but you also see the occasional gt xbow build too). Mechanic just got some major buffs, so they're the new FotM hawtness, but other options still abound.

[Elopados]

A couple of questions:

First, what P2P options do you have? Harper, Artificer, etc. That limits your build possibilities. Also build pts, tomes, etc.

Second, are you wedded to a particular weapon style? Ranged builds basically come in three forms: throwers, archers, and xbow users (usually repeaters, but you also see the occasional gt xbow build too). Mechanic just got some major buffs, so they're the new FotM hawtness, but other options still abound.

I'm Premium, just purchased the collector's edition Shadowfell Conspiracy & have Menace of the Underdark. I have all the classes. 32 pts. I don't have in game tomes but I'm not afraid to buy from the store, & I will. lol

I'm not interested in a thrower. Bows & xbows are my choice. I also have Iconic and can start at lvl 1, 4 or 7. I got those a while ago but got into LotRO. So I never played. I've always liked DDO. Came across something the other week and thought I'd give it a shot. I rolled a Pally & am gonna try him pure. But I really prefer ranged toons. I've been playing with the builders but I don't know what's best. Thanks for the help.

[Stinging_Bee]

I'm Premium, just purchased the collector's edition Shadowfell Conspiracy & have Menace of the Underdark. I have all the classes. 32 pts. I don't have in game tomes but I'm not afraid to buy from the store, & I will. lol

I'm not interested in a thrower. Bows & xbows are my choice. I also have Iconic and can start at lvl 1, 4 or 7. I got those a while ago but got into LotRO. So I never played. I've always liked DDO. Came across something the other week and thought I'd give it a shot. I rolled a Pally & am gonna try him pure. But I really prefer ranged toons. I've been playing with the builders but I don't know what's best. Thanks for the help.

I really think you should go pure artificier warforged and use the crossbow. You will be able to reconstruct yourself and deal a good amount of damage with your crossbow.

[EllisDee37]

I really think you should go pure artificier warforged and use the crossbow. You will be able to reconstruct yourself and deal a good amount of damage with your crossbow.

I second this suggestion. (Using a repeater, of course.)

[dontmater]

don't forget improved precise shot

[MalkavianX]

I really think you should go pure artificier warforged and use the crossbow. You will be able to reconstruct yourself and deal a good amount of damage with your crossbow.

I'll third this suggestion. Pure WF arty is (or was, it's been a few months since I played last) the ddo easy button. At least in heroics, as I haven't taken my WFarty into epics yet.

Prior to my ddo break my favorite build was an elven 13 rogue/6 ranger/1 arty using a repeater. Stealth, trapping, wicked nice ranged damage with SA and without, etc. Down side is not a heck of a lot of healing options aside from scrolls. The up side to the down side is nearly everything is dead before it gets into melee range. All that and the build isn't even fully optimized. The level of arty could even be switched with just about anything. I chose the level of arty for the "free" conjure bolts and the cute metal lever pulling puppy. I also made her elven for the Dmarks. Free invisibility and displacement is nice.

But, for the easy button road, I'd stick with pure WF arty.

[Elopados]

Funny, I actually rolled a WF Arty but thought I'd ask because, tho I'm familiar with p&p D&D from my teenage yrs, I'm not familiar with everything DDO. I'm interested in unbongwah's opinion too. Thanks.

[nibel]

As someone that really loves ranged combat in general, your choices basically start with you asking yourself if you want Improved Precise Shot, because this feat requires Dexterity 19, and this means heavy dex investment, or some tomes. IPS is a huge game changer for all ranged characters, but writing it off the table from the start allow you to focus more on other stats and start (and end) with dex 13 for the other ranged feats.

After that, you also have to decide if you will go for Combat Archery (usually by this level you WILL be dex-focused if not on a TR2+ life) or not. Just like IPS, Combat Archery requires a huge dex value (21), but is less of a game changer. It is a decent damage boost (+1[W] on all ranged weapons), but by no means absolutely mandatory.

And after that, you have the class limitations to work within: If you are using a bow, you have the option to go Monk 6 for 10k Stars (And that will requires a huge Wis investiment). If you are using a crossbow, you have the option to go Artificer 2 for Runearm proficiency (And lose your capstone, if not going pure artificer). And then, the options for going variable levels of ranger for free feats (1: Bow Strength, 2: Rapid Fire/TWF, 4: Precise Shot, 6: Manyshot/ITWF, 11: IPS/GTWF). Up to level 6, this is more free feats than splashing Fighter, but then, going 11 levels allow you to get IPS without Dex 19 (which is great if you go to the 10k stars route).

Rogue Mechanic got a large boost for crossbows as well, but I have not played with them enough to know how they affect the ranged builds on a splash yet.

Easy and safe route is either pure ranger or pure artificer. They are not hard to build, have enough free feats to be able to add some flavor (like a dragonmark or casting feats), and are very powerful at heroic levels. Pure rangers can be of any race, or elf if you want to do damage with Dex instead of Str. Artificers shine as Warforgeds because of self-repair and plenty of buffs that only work on constructs, but with Scroll Mastery and Scroll Knowledge, you will be throwing 260 HP Heal scrolls (before heal amp), and that is enough to keep a flesh-bound artificer alive if you are not playing exclusively Epic Elite.

[Elopados]

As someone that really loves ranged combat in general, your choices basically start with you asking yourself if you want Improved Precise Shot, because this feat requires Dexterity 19, and this means heavy dex investment, or some tomes. IPS is a huge game changer for all ranged characters, but writing it off the table from the start allow you to focus more on other stats and start (and end) with dex 13 for the other ranged feats.

After that, you also have to decide if you will go for Combat Archery (usually by this level you WILL be dex-focused if not on a TR2+ life) or not. Just like IPS, Combat Archery requires a huge dex value (21), but is less of a game changer. It is a decent damage boost (+1[W] on all ranged weapons), but by no means absolutely mandatory.

And after that, you have the class limitations to work within: If you are using a bow, you have the option to go Monk 6 for 10k Stars (And that will requires a huge Wis investiment). If you are using a crossbow, you have the option to go Artificer 2 for Runearm proficiency (And lose your capstone, if not going pure artificer). And then, the options for going variable levels of ranger for free feats (1: Bow Strength, 2: Rapid Fire/TWF, 4: Precise Shot, 6: Manyshot/ITWF, 11: IPS/GTWF). Up to level 6, this is more free feats than splashing Fighter, but then, going 11 levels allow you to get IPS without Dex 19 (which is great if you go to the 10k stars route).

Rogue Mechanic got a large boost for crossbows as well, but I have not played with them enough to know how they affect the ranged builds on a splash yet.

Easy and safe route is either pure ranger or pure artificer. They are not hard to build, have enough free feats to be able to add some flavor (like a dragonmark or casting feats), and are very powerful at heroic levels. Pure rangers can be of any race, or elf if you want to do damage with Dex instead of Str. Artificers shine as Warforgeds because of self-repair and plenty of buffs that only work on constructs, but with Scroll Mastery and Scroll Knowledge, you will be throwing 260 HP Heal scrolls (before heal amp), and that is enough to keep a flesh-bound artificer alive if you are not playing exclusively Epic Elite.

I rolled a WF Artificer. I also want to try a bow wielding, twf. They're so iconic. Robin hood, Legolas, Aragorn, Tanis Half-Elven (Dragonlance).

So the higher Ranger levels is appealing to me. But why stop at 11? 3 more gets you to 14. As I said in the op

14 Ranger gets the 4th lvl spell Cure Serious Wounds. That would leave 6 lvls. Maybe 4 Rogue for xtra sneak attack dmg, trap sense, trapmaking & uncanny dodge, & 2 Fighter feats. I chose: precision, dodge, mobility, point blank shot, weapon focus: ranged, power critical: ranged, improved critical: ranged, improved critical: slashing, weapon finesse.

I'm not a DDO expert, but this looks like it would be effective. It seems like Dodge, Uncanny Dodge, Mobility, Monk ac bonus, all the Elf Dex bonuses from enhancements & tomes and spells would make him nearly impossible to hit. Can even add 1% Dodge & 2% saves from Ocean Stance.

Idk. Can you give me an opinion about this?

[Ykt]

Iconic Bladeforged: 14 Paladin (for holy "sword"), 5 rogue (for great crossbow bonuses, pew pew pew) and 1 artificer for free feats (rapid reload).
Most points invested in Rogue Mechanic (up to max tier), some points in BF tree for Reconstruct.

Mine is lvl 14-15 (8-9 pal 5 rog 1 arty) and it does nice damage, too bad holy sword only kicks in at lvl 20.

[Elopados]

Iconic Bladeforged: 14 Paladin (for holy "sword"), 5 rogue (for great crossbow bonuses, pew pew pew) and 1 artificer for free feats (rapid reload).
Most points invested in Rogue Mechanic (up to max tier), some points in BF tree for Reconstruct.

Mine is lvl 14-15 (8-9 pal 5 rog 1 arty) and it does nice damage, too bad holy sword only kicks in at lvl 20.

Sounds good. I posted asking "ultimate survivability" and so many said pure. So I rolled a Pally but haven't played him yet. If I decide to multi, I'll re-roll him & go with this. Thanks.

[unbongwah]

Funny, I actually rolled a WF Arty but thought I'd ask because, tho I'm familiar with p&p D&D from my teenage yrs, I'm not familiar with everything DDO. I'm interested in unbongwah's opinion too.

In terms of heroic soloing, I agree it's hard to beat WF arty. Downside to pure arties these days is their ranged DPS falls behind at higher lvls; Battle Engineer + Deadly Weapons just can't keep up with all the DPS goodies which Mechanic just got.

So one alternative would be WF rog 5 / arty 15: most of the ranged DPS goodies from Mechanic+Assassin plus the extra feats, RAs, and spells of arty. Main downsides would be only getting one lvl 6 spell slot (probably Deadly Weapons or Reconstruct); losing two feats (arty lvl 16 & 20); and not getting the crit bonuses from Expert Builder (which beats Deadly Weapons). Which leads to the hvy pally-based builds instead for Holy Sword, like:

I also want to try a bow wielding, twf. They're so iconic. Robin hood, Legolas, Aragorn, Tanis Half-Elven (Dragonlance).

Right now I think the strongest TWF+Manyshot builds are either:

• pal 14-15 / rgr 5-6 (see my drow paladin thread) - 15/5 split has higher single-target melee DPS thanks to Zeal (+10% doublestrike), while 14/6 gives you two more free feats (ITWF+Manyshot), so you have a bit more flexibility.
• barb 18 / 1 / 1 builds like Cetus (but tweaked for TWF). barb 18 / rgr 2 would also work well if you have Harper and can take KtA instead of Div Might, since rgr 2 gets you two more necessary feats.

If you wanted a full-time archer, monkchers are still the way to go; and the current FotM is monk 6 / pal 14 for 10K Stars + Holy Sword. See this build as one example.

Iconic Bladeforged: 14 Paladin (for holy "sword"), 5 rogue (for great crossbow bonuses, pew pew pew) and 1 artificer for free feats (rapid reload).

This combo only works if you have Harper; otherwise you need pal 14 / rog 6 to get INT to dmg, but you lose a feat and hvy repeater profs.

It would also work as SDK: downside is losing Reconstruct SLA; upside is net gain of +4 DEX (-2 BF vs +2 SDK) and +1 INT from racial tree, maybe some extra SAs if you can spare the APs. That makes hitting your DEX pre-reqs for IPS & CA a lot easier, particularly on a first-lifer.

[Elopados]

If you wanted a full-time archer, monkchers are still the way to go; and the current FotM is monk 6 / pal 14 for 10K Stars + Holy Sword.

I read about 10k Stars & it says it only gives 3 shots. So what's the difference between 10k Stars & Manyshot?

[Wh070aa]

I read about 10k Stars & it says it only gives 3 shots. So what's the difference between 10k Stars & Manyshot?

30 second uptime, 60 cool down vs 20 second uptime, 2 minute cool down. 10k does consume ki, and need to be centered to use. Also its Wis based, not BAB based, so you can theoretically get it faster(42 Wis for 3rd projectile, vs 16 BAB).

[Elopados]

30 second uptime, 60 cool down vs 20 second uptime, 2 minute cool down. 10k does consume ki, and need to be centered to use.

If 10k needs centered then why Pally? I've read about so many different builds & it gets confusing. Some say, use this class, splash Rogue for Evasion. But it no longer works with hvy. So why multi a class that must be centered, aka no armor, with a class that depends on full plate?

[nibel]

So the higher Ranger levels is appealing to me. But why stop at 11? 3 more gets you to 14. As I said in the op

I'm not a DDO expert, but this looks like it would be effective. It seems like Dodge, Uncanny Dodge, Mobility, Monk ac bonus, all the Elf Dex bonuses from enhancements & tomes and spells would make him nearly impossible to hit. Can even add 1% Dodge & 2% saves from Ocean Stance.

Idk. Can you give me an opinion about this?

Ranger 11 give you IPS and Greater Two Weapon Fighting, giving you basically most relevant ranged feats for free, and a solid backup melee option. Ranger 12 and 13 don't give you nothing worth of notice, 14 give access to a single 4th level spell (CSW or FoM), and 15 give you enough slots to prepare both useful level 4 spells AND a 4th favored enemy. If you go to 14, there is good benefits for pushing to 15. And after that, there is almost no reason to splash anything else.

So usually is either 2, 6, 11 or pure ranger.

[unbongwah]

So what's the difference between 10k Stars & Manyshot?

Manyshot provides 4 arrows per shot w/BAB 16 or higher; 10K Stars also provides up to 4 arrows per shot if you can hit WIS 42 or higher. So the idea behind monkcher builds is to alternate between MS & 10K to keep your sustained ranged DPS as high as possible.

If 10k needs centered then why Pally?

The main reason is to get Holy Sword, which turns longbows into 17-20/x4 weapons w/IC:Ranged; or 17-18/x4 19-20/x6 w/Overwhelming Crit + Master Earth stance. Ironically, no single bonus from rgr is nearly as good for ranged DPS as HS. But you also gain pally buffs like Div Favor and some self-healing: CMW, Lay on Hands, I also usually take Sovereign Host for an extra emergency heal (Unyielding Sovereignty).

So why multi a class that must be centered, aka no armor, with a class that depends on full plate?

The only thing in paladin which "depends" on heavy (or medium) armor are the Greater Sacred Defense enhancements in the Sacred D. PrE. In the case of the build I linked, though, I sacrificed pally PrEs entirely in order to focus on ranged DPS, plus a few perks from Henshin & Ninja Spy.

[Knight_slayer]

If making a build that uses ranged combat 100% of the time you should consider halfling, infact I'd go as far as saying there is no other choice. The only reason I would make a ranged character in a different race would be because I'm building for a specific raid where IPS is not a factor. Let me explain.

Halfling shoots its arrows much lower to the ground than any other class, this is important because arrows will fly straight over the top of mobs if the mob height is shorter than the distance your arrows fly over the ground. Human, bladeforged and half elf all lose IPS damage on just about all the mobs in the game, its a massive loss of damage and trash clearing capabilities. The dual boosting classes will do more damage vs single targets but the majority of this game is facing multiple targets. You can do 20% more DPS to the boss with a human or up to 700% more DPS to trash with a halfling, maybe even more depending on your skills.

Here is a halfling build you can look at.

[EllisDee37]

Unless you want to go dex-based with a longbow, in which case the only option in the entire game is to be an elf. (Not half-elf, drow or morninglord; just elf.)