Advice on Ranger/Arti/Mechanic

[chessmonger]

Hi folks. I currently have a first life Ranger who is ready to TR. He has +2 tomes and a decent set of named items. I want to TR into a repeater build, and have a set of runearms and xbows waiting in the bank.

I have a pretty good idea of the build I want but would appreciate some advice in a few areas.

Requirements of the build:
1: Must be eligible for ranger past life, so 7 ranger.
2: Xbow user, at least 2 arti for runearms.
3: Transient build, will TR again at 20, so just want fast leveling with good dps and utility.

My plan is to go ranger7,arti6,mechanic7. Probably dump dex, max int, decent con. The dex dump sacrifices imp precise shot but I can live with that. Int will double up on dmg and AB once I level to arti3 and mech6, and reflex saves with the feat.

I'm undecided on race. Human is nice for the feat, halfling for sneak dmg and boni, dwarf for hp and saves. Since I'll be semi-dumping str, halfling might have issues with carrying stuff. Elves are gimp and WF doesn't make much sense with only 6 lvls of arti. I'd consider drow if I decide I do want IPS. I don't have helf and rogue dil isn't useful in a mech build anyway.

Core feat picks are: Toughness, PBS, focus:ranged, IC:ranged, insightful reflexes.
That leaves 3 (4 for human) feats for: extend, more toughness, Imp precise shot (if i decide not to dump dex)

If anyone has experience with this sort of build I'd be interested. Need to finalise the race, stat distribution and feats. Thanks!

[savingsoul]

You are on a path I've travelled before. The first question likely to come up is: since you have bow str and manyshot, why not tap into longbow as well, especially since longbow uses so many of the same ranged combat feats as xbow? The second question will be: why don't you go elf or half-elf and take AA? Another question will be: why not incorporate some melee capability, especially since you have twf and itwf and decent SA? Should you agree with the suggestions embedded in these questions, soon enough you will end up with one or another form of the Uzy builds: http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=361322

If you insist on sticking with making xbows the focus of your build, then naturally others will wonder why you didn't simply go pure or nearly pure artificer. So what? Since you want a transitional build for a ranger life, and you seem to like xbows, the build may be suboptimal abstractly speaking, but it will be optimal for *your* needs. However, I can see ways in which it will still serve purposes for others as well, primarily in terms of utility and some dps.


Some relevant threads:

http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p=4017108
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?p=4237045
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=360350
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=334927
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=341147
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=359759
http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php?t=359581