Disclaimer: This is mostly a leveling build. It does work well at level 30, but it isn't refined for level 30. I TR constantly and haven't been able to fully play test at 30.
Current for U31
Introduction
Hello, my name is Strimtom and I am here to share my award winning build for the ranger class. The idea was to build a ranger using the newly revamped Arcane Archer enhancement tree. What I found was a build that was new player/F2P friendly and the highest damage I could possibly find. If you are looking for a guide that maxes INT and uses acid arrows for 100% of the damage, check
HERE.
Lets start with the pros and cons:
Pros
- Playable at full damage capacity on a first life/28 point build.
- Requires only one item (Silver Longbow) for maximum damage, and that item comes from a free to play quest.
- Is ranged, so it takes almost no damage.
- It's so easy to play it makes warlock look like a challenging class.
- Playable with one hand.
- It will give you increased sex appeal.
- Life will turn from a bleak tunnel into a bright and sunny future.
Cons
- Has trouble raising allies from the dead.
- You'll level so fast you won't know what to do with your time.
- Other players will have less fun since all other monsters will be dead.
- This build can't make Elminster talk faster.
There is a joke that to play warlock effectively all you have to do is hold down W and the right mouse button and you'll go from 1 to 20 in no time. However, when making this character, I found that using both hands to play the game was too taxing on my body. Thanks to the auto attack command this character and be played with just one hand, using W to move and Tab to target, allowing you to use your other hand to eat a sandwich, read Nietzsche, or practice caligraphy.
The Meat
Let's start with where all the damage comes from. Bows don't have too fast of an attack speed when compared to melee, and getting ranged power can be quite tough. Fortunately, Turbine beefed up the arcane archer tree and made the elemental damage options much higher than normal. Additonionally, gaining Dex to Damage from the Deepwood stalker tree allows you to stack only one stat, making it a very easy character to build.
Starting Race
This doesn't matter. All races are good for this build. Elf/Halfling/drow give +2 dex, human gets a feat, and warforged are cool as ****, dwarves get more life, half orcs and half elves get nothing. This build doesn't take any points in the racial tree, so play
whatever you want. My character was an elf but if I was to do it again I would be a dwarf for the extra life and to be a stumpy dude with a bow. Or a warforged because warforged are cool.
Starting Stats
Strength - This only affects carrying capacity. I like having 16 by end game, so starting with an 8, +2 from ship buff, and a +6 or better item is plenty. Strength has no other purpose.
Dexterity - To hit, Damage, Armorclass, reflex saves, balance checks. Max this and put all your level ups into it.
Constitution - Gives you more life. The more life the better, so get this as high as possible.
Intelligence - This stat gives you skill points that you don't need, and slightly boosts spellpower. Not worth putting any points into unless you focus 100% on spellpower, which this build does not do.
Wisdom - So I thought you would need lots of this, but there is almost no way to spend spellpoints and the DC abilities like paralyzing arrows don't let you use acid damage at the same time soooo.... as long as you can get 14 to cast all your spells, you can probably dump this stat too. Will save is kinda nice tho.
Charisma - Embrace ugliness and bad manners. Dump this stat.
Ideal stats are as follows:
Be aware, that having 36 points doesn't give you any more damage than 28 points, just some life and some free strength for carrying capacity.
Skills
Since you are likely a dumb rock, you only get 5 skill points to play with. More than enough. Priority is as follows.
- Spellcraft - DAMAGE AH HA HA HA HA HA HA
- Spot - Useful to see monsters and traps if you aren't like me and have every trap and monster location in the game memorized.
- Heal - Gives positive spellpower for self healing. Easily able to get 300 spellpower by level 20.
- Balance - Wolves trip you, and that is bad. Use this to get up.
- Swim - No cap on this skill, so maxing this and using merfolks blessing gives hilarious speeds that are faster than walking.
If you have extra points, you can put some into jump, but jump has a hard cap of 40, and you will start self casting jump at level 6 making putting points kind of unnecessary.
Feats
These are the feats I took as an Elf. I will label the unimportant/subjective ones and give suggestions.
Level 1 - Point Blank Shot (Really good early game)
Level 3 - Precision (Really good always, definitely take this)
Level 6 - Dodge (Meh) Good time to take Mithril plating for WF.
Level 9 - Improved Critical: Ranged (Best damage feat in the game)
Level 12 - Mobility (Meh) Could take quicken for consistant healing.
Level 15 - Shot on the Run (No -4 while moving is kinda good, and 4 ranged power is cool. Worth 3 feats? IDK)
Level 18 - Weapon focus: Ranged (+1 to hit and 2 ranged power, pretty nice IMO)
Favoured Enemy
These are the ones I think are the best, and in the best order:
Level 1 - Undead
Level 5 - Giant
Level 10 - Evil Outsider
Level 15 - Construct
Level 20 - Aberration
I feel like this is best, since undead are always prevalent and suck to fight as ranged, giants are also everywhere, and evil outsides/constructs/aberration sums up the hardest monsters/raid bosses.
Enhancements
This is where
ALL the damage comes from. Just two trees, Arcane Archer and Deepwood Stalker.
41 Points
The super important
enhancements in this tree are as follows:
All Core Enhancements - Negating all damage reduction, and 20% doubleshot
Acid Arrows and Elemental damage - Most of your damage comes from here. Scales off Spellpower and Elemental Damage dice
Conjure Arrows - Carrying arrows is annoying
Force Arrows - Allows you to hit ghosts/do full damage to demons/devils. Scales off Spellpower and Elemental Damage dice
Soul Magic - Grants spellpoints when you shoot people, which is every second shot once you get enough doubleshot. This gives you infinite healing
39 Points
The super important
enhancements in this tree are as follows:
All Core Enhancements except Horizon Shot - 20 ranged power is not as good as 20% doubleshot since this build scales from multiple sources
Survivalist I, II, and III - Life and physical resistance. Pure fictional awesomeness
Improved Weapon Finesse - Allows you to do insane physical bow damage instead of 0 because it lets you use dex for damage instead of strength
Action Boost Damage - Gives you a nice buff to combo with manyshot
Favoured Hunter - +3 to hit and damage against all favoured enemies is super useful
Killer - Since you are always top damage, you will get all the kills. This gives you more double shot when you get kills, making you do more damage and get more kills. Best passive ever
Extra Favoured Enemy - Pick whatever you want here, I chose human. What matters is +8 damage against all favoured enemies. That's insane
Heavy Draw - Really good. Really strong, +5 base damage is awesome. -5 to hit kind of sucks. Might not be good at level 30, but until then you should have so much extra to hit that it doesn't matter
Strikes Like Lightning - 20% Doubleshot. Enough Said
Improved Archers Focus - Improved Precise shot doesn't stack archers focus, but it does let you have +5 ranged power. Pretty good
With these trees, the path is simple.
- Get Improved Weapon Finesse ASAP
- Go into AA and start taking Acid damage
- Get acid damage to the 4th tier and take soul magic
- Spend points in Deepwood stalker until 39 spent
- Spend rest of points in AA for capstone
If you follow this build, damage and good bones will come to you.
Items
There is really only 1 required item and it's the
Silver Longbow. The reason this bow is so good is 4-fold. First, it has a base damage of 1-10 instead of 1-8 like a standard longbow, giving it a higher top end. Second, it has a way better critical profile with a base 18-20 (15%) crit rate that stacks with improved crit. Third, it's holy allowing it to deal good (the damage type) damage and bypassing almost any damage reduction with metaline arrows active. Finally, it has an augment slot so that you can keep it updated with the best acid spellpower augment and keep ontop of your acid damage. Eventually, you will construct a hilarious tooltip like
this.
The Gameplay
The first thing about this character is to make sure you have auto attack on your bar, and that you leave it on. Using RMB to auto attack will cause arrows to mysteriously disappear, so make sure to let the game fire for you. It isn't as fun as running down a hallway all gung ho and gunning people down, but it aint about fun. It's about killing monsters with super charged acid arrows.
Time to focus on the level by level information.
Level 1
Start out by buying the barbarian hireling
Byron Swordscout. He will solo all quests that are level 1 and 2 for you on elite. You don't have rapid shot, and you don't have dex to damage so just summon him and put him on agressive. Then smash boxes with a melee weapon. Ranged weapons are useless at this level. Put all ehancement points into Deepwood Stalker. Make sure to get your character into a guild and go buy cure serious potions from the guild vendor in the House K square.
Level 2
Oh boy, rapid shot! Now that you have rapid shot and soon to have improved weapon finesse, strap on a regular longbow and go to town. The damage isn't amazing, but
Byron will still slay things for you for the most part. Your bow damage will start to be able to effectively kill enemies that start to attack you instead of your hireling making you a little more survivable.
Level 3
This level is sweet since you can now get acid damage to your bow. It's small, but it will grow soon. Buy the level 3 barbarian hireling
Frenzy who will continue to solo all of the quests in the game for you. Take precision here and activate it for those sweet critical hits on undead targets. Just stay at ranged, always summon
Frenzy, and drink those pots. Easy Elites.
Level 4
Level 4 is fun. You get morphic arrows to give full damage to undead, and more acid damage! You also get
Ram's Might, a first level spell, to give you an extra +2 damage. Make sure to add the spell to your book and keep it up at all times.
Level 5
Take Giant as your next favoured enemy here. Ogres and trolls count as giants, and they will be a huge portion of your enemy pool over the next few levels. Your damage is going to start increasing pretty fast at this point, so you may want to consider using a level 5 cleric hireling instead of
Frenzy.
Level 6
Oh baby, the motherload. You get
Manyshot, your bread and butter. Manyshot gives you 100% chance to shoot 2 arrows for 20 seconds with a 20% chance to shoot three! This is an insane damage boost, and since your acid is hitting pretty hard about now, the extra shots will boost your damage like crazy. The feat you take here doesn't matter, but if you are warforged make sure to take mithril plating. You should be using a level 6 Cleric hireling. I generally prefer favored soul hirelings, but Storm doesn't heal very much and prefers to melee. You get a second first level spell here, and I recommend
Jump as the best contender for the spot. If you are good at using the mouse to turn you can jump over enemies while still shooting at them. You should also have metalline arrows at this point. Remember to swap between morphic and metalline arrows based on whether it is an undead/rakshasa or a construct/outsider.
Level 7
More acid damage, more happiness. Same gamestyle, just run and shoot and stay at range.
Level 8
Silver Longbow time! This weapon will dramatically improve your damage. This is when your physical damage will start to catch up to your acid damage, since critical hits will be more frequent and really start to augment your damage. You are getting a 200% increase in crit chance as you are moving from a meager 5% (20) to a 15% (18-20). This is the main reason the physical damage starts to catch up, so always make sure you are using the right type of damage type. You also get a level 2 spell, and I recommend
Bark Skin for a better armorclass. If you are always updating your armor you can get pretty good numbers and stay pretty tanky.
Level 9
Evasion at this level will help you avoid all those silly traps and fireballs. Feel invincible, dodging all attacks and constantly raining down a hail of acid arrows. Did I mention that you get improved crit at level 9? Your crit chance is going to go from 15% (18-20) to 20% (17-20). This is a big damage spike, however at this point you are going to notice your AOE (Area of effect) is lacking and that those pesky barbarians will clear rooms faster than you. Just wait and keep pinging away at enemies.
Level 10
Evil outsiders for a favoured enemy will help you with killing those hard to kill demons and devils. If you happen to have some spare dragoncraft relics from gianthold, I recommend picking up a
dragoncraft leather armor set (or
docent). It won't give you damage like some other body armors, but you likely won't have a protection or shield bonus to armor class and this gives a total of 8 extra armor. It also gives 75% fortification, making you almost impossible to be critically hit. At this point, you should have 30 points in the arcane archer tree and can start working on pumping up the Deepwood Stalker tree for some extra life and PRR. Again, your AOE is lacking, but just give it one more level.
Level 11
Improved precise shot. Oh. Baby. This ability should be placed on your bar and turned on. It makes your arrows pierce targets, hitting everything in the way. This ability is so broken it is really why this character works so well. When you enter a hallway, just click the target at the back and let the auto attacks tear the whole room apart. This is where being a more skilled player will reap you more rewards. The better you are at positioning monsters in between you and your target, the more damage you will deal and the more your teammates will be jealous of your amazing character build. This is the most complicated part of the character, but if you can master it you will feel like an unstoppable god. Just click on manyshot, empty a room, and watch people type curse words in chat because they don't even get to attack. Also you get level 3 spells so take
Cure Moderate Wounds. You get a lot of positive spellpower from the heal skill and the Deepwood stalker tree so keeping yourself alive will become much easier than using potions.
Cure Moderate Wounds only costs 8 spellpoints and thanks to soulmagic you will almost always have spellpoints to cast a cure. It also lets you heal allies which you should do whenever possible. Topping people up and saving desperate melee are what makes you a great team player.
You should also have Sniper Shot from DWS core abilities at this point. Sniper shot has a huge crit chance, does extra big crit damage, and makes enemies turn around. It has no cost and a 6 second cooldown so use it whenever it comes back up. When enemies are running at you try to fire it in a line and make them all stop for a moment. If you are about to use manyshot, make sure this spell is off cooldown first so that you can use it 3 times during manyshot. If you shoot 3 arrows when you use this ability all 3 arrows will count as sniper shots, leading to bursts of about 2k at level 11. It isn't even that uncommon, since you have a 25% critical hit chance with sniper shot, meaning you will triple crit 1/32 times which is pretty good over a dungeon. 1-shotting bosses feels amazing and will make your party members jealous.
Level 14
You get level 4 spells at this level. Take
Freedom of movement and make sure to keep it on 100% of the time. Also cast it on all your team mates during annoying quests like Spinners Prison and
What Goes Up because being stuck in web sucks monkey butts.
I don't really have any more to tell since the build just takes practice at this point. I do have some pro tips however.
- Practice using improved precise shot to shoot through people. Don't get lazy, just do it until it becomes natural. You will be very happy you did.
- Consider quicken spell, as once you get a second 4th level spell you will be able to use cure serious to heal yourself for over 100 life per cast.
- Always focus champs first, and prioritize using sniper shot on champion monsters.
- Merciful shot is bugged and works like 30% of the time. So if you use it and it doesn't work don't worry, it isn't just you. When it works it feels great but it generally will only go off on red named end bosses, and even then it sometimes just chooses not to work.
Congratulations on level to level 20. How does this build fare in epics? I'm not sure as I am still doing that as we speak but I will update this guide with an epic segment. Just use shiradi, it's OP.
Maximizing Damage/effectiveness
- Keep acid spellpower at maximum. Use cannith crafting to make a ring or slot an augment in your silver longbow. Get an item to boost your spellcraft and keep it pumped up. Spellcraft items (suffix: Spellsight) are hard to come by and are mostly only lootgen. Get lucky or fork over some dough on the AH.
- Get this quiver from Grimm and Barrett.
- Use VoM and Mantle of the Worldshaper for true seeing and swap to force arrows when fighting incoporeal creatures to make sure you hit 100% of attacks.
- Always use a damage and accuracy item.
- Whenever you see a caster type enemy cast any type of buff make sure you shut it down with a dispelling arrow. Taking the displacement off a skeletal enchanter in Madstone Crater will make you look like a God to the melee in your party. (Although TBH it should be dead before they get to it you if know what im saying pew pew pew)
The following is a chart showing the rough scaling of acid damage in this build (With all enhancements taken)
I'm not entirely sure how the math works, but at 200 Spellpower I have never seen under 40 damage, so I feel like there is some rounding going on. Either way getting 200 spellpower really only requires one augment gem at level 20 and adding the chance for a 126 top end hit on every auto attack is unreal in how strong it is. The acid damage makes it so that even if you don't crit you are still applying a very large amount of damage on every strike that helps with consistency.
FAQ
I don't have a Silver Longbow. Do I need one?
No, but it comes from a free to play quest. Go get one.
This build is 20 Ranger, but I want to multiclass it with X. What should I do?
Less damage. You might gain trap skills or healing or a pet or something, but you will always do less damage. If you choose to multiclass you give up on the capstone which is a flat 20% damage increase. I don't recommend it, but if you really want to be a trapper than go for it.
By using this guide I was promoted to Mega CEO of my company, have had a non-stop rush of both men and women soliciting me night and day and have acquired $100,000,000,000 as a result. Now that I am the supreme ruler of the planet and a God among men, what should I do with my time?
While those things are nice, remember not to get complacent.
Have you found any insightful spell power stuff from random loot yet? ~Virtualgib
Yes, and it's amazing. The fact that you are able to easily get spellpower from chest pieces, rings, necklaces, and gloves means you can focus on having a good weapon while keeping up your magic damage.
Have you tried Final Strike?
I haven't personally, but I have heard bad things about it, which is that it doesn't do enough damage. Twisting in Energy Burst Acid from DI solves your AOE problem, which I would recommend.
Conclusion
This build is easy, new player friendly, and really cool to play. Makes you feel like Legolas when you are jumping over chasms and laying down the hurt with acidic burning arrows. This guide is a max DPS guide, so it isn't 100% focused on the acid damage but instead uses it as a supplementary tool to help in the early game and give more damage options in the late game. I will be building my next character as a full intelligence Harper ranger to maximize spellpower to see how well that works, and I will be posting an associated guide. I think it will go poorly.
EPICS
Getting a Thunderforged bow with Acid spellpower is an insane damage boost. Do that ASAP. You can start epic hard right away with no destinies, it's extremely strong. You do good damage for epic elite, but everything will squash you like a bug in one hit. Avoid epic elite unless you can be carried. As for Epic Destinies...
- Shiradi Champion - Required to level for access to Pin and Otto's Whistler. Not the best, but is certainly playable. Inferior to Draconic incarnation.
- Legendary Dreadnought - Highest Single Target DPS by far. If you don't get unlucky and can quickly get a full blitz combined with full archers focus stacks you can pull 200+ ranged power. You also get 180s of +30% attack speed from the attack speed action boost for maximum single target destruction. Difficult to compare with Fury, both are very strong.
- Fury of the Wild - Extreme burst makes this very good for EE with access to Expose Weakness + Pin. Very good for level 30. Easy to cause helplessness, stacking Fury with Sniper shot is OP.
- Draconic Incarnation - Most fun. Energy Burst, Breath, and Vortex do crazy damage. When doing epic hard or lower monsters will still fail saves even though you don't have a very high int/cha, and the damage is insane. Makes AOE packs much easier to clear. Flyby attack is fantastic for moving over open pits. Makes the class more dynamic. A lot of fun and gives you some punch when manyshot is down.
For feats, Combat Archery, Epic Reflexes, and Scion of the Plane of Earth are really really strong. The rest of your feats don't matter as much.
Try it out as your next life and let me know what you think!