Analysis of the Elven Ranger

[Marshal_Lannes]

What follows is an in depth analysis of the Elven Ranger based on actual gameplay situations.

Levels 1-6

Starting Stats are:

STR: 12
DEX: 20
CON: 15
INT: 10
WIS: 9
CHA: 8

I am building an Elven Ranger whose background would be military training within the Elven army based on archetypes like Tauriel from the Hobbit or the armies of Kith-Kanan. While some elves may have functioned as pure archers, the core fighting arm of the elves would be skilled in both archery and the traditional elven weapon the longsword. Starting stats are flexiable except for DEX which is the primary stat. Ultimately taking 15 CON and the 30 extra HPs outweighed an extra +1 hit/dmg and 1 wis DC. Doesn't really matter aside from a max dex and 14 CON though one should not dump STR.

Initial Feats - Dragonmark of Shadow, Point Blank Shot, Precision. (1/3/6)
Alignment - Lawful Neutral. This I believe is the primary alignment of traditional or 'high' elves. Many sources incorrectly define elves as being chaotic good. I believe this perception has been altered by elven characters from literature who may have acted in this manner, but they were usually rebelling against an elven society that was very traditional. Examples include Legolas and Tanis Half Elven. In much of fantasy literature elven society is very structured and they are quite haughty in their relations to other races. As such, I have chosen to go with Lawful Neutral.

Skills - Maxing Heal, UMD, Search, Spot. Spreading excess points around balance, hide, move silently

Gear - I am using mostly found gear to test out the usefulness of the new random loot except where noted.

The First 24 APs -

Elf: Elven Accuracy, DM Focus, Aerenal Training
Tempest: Shield of Whirling Steel
AA: AA, Morphic Arrows, Conjure Arrrows, Corrosive Weapons
DWS: Far Shot, Sneak Attack, Sniper Shot, Increased Empathy 2, Tendon Cut 2, Survivalist 2, Melee/Ranged Boost 1

Questing -

L1 - Skipped with daily die rolls
L2 - Korthos: Being pretty much naked except for a rusted mail outfit made these quests somewhat challenging on elite. Started using the ember great ax, quickly found a L2 mastercraft greatsword with 1d6 Law dmg. This and a Barb hireling took me thru Korthos. Class played as a weak fighter swinging a big sword.

L3 - Harbor and vorpals: Pulled a ML3 vorpal shortbow. This is a godsend vs elite kobolds. Had to solo much of Harbor despite LFM up for Harbor elites, just aren't many players on. Frenzy the Barb and my shortbow went forward, still switched over the mastercrft greatsword when I was swarmed. ML3 vorpals seem ok and balanced. They are not game breaking but allow an undergeared character to get thru elite content. Several times I found myself muttering roll a 20, roll a 20!

L4 - Cerulian Hills and quests, Misery Peak, finish Harbor: Added Greater Nimble Trinket, big increase to defense. Pulled a ML4 vorpal longsword. Combined that with a Timeblade for TWF now, ditched the THF weapons. Some grouping, some solo. Felt moderate to underpowered. TWF combination better than the shortbow at this point.

L5 - Catacombs, Waterworks, Kobald Assault and Magnificient Cabal chain: I have noticed right off the jump that there is a decided lack of stat items in the new loot. I am running only with a +3 Dex item and a +1 Wis item! My DPS has a large increase though with both a corrosive equipment bonus and an insightful corrosive bonus. Corrosive arrows from vorpal shortbow now doing better than normal DPS vs other characters in group. TWF combination still very useful when in midst of mobs, especially without agro. Favored enemy Undead was very useful for catacombs. Small groups at this level, a trio for Cats chain, a duo for WW, a trio for Kobald Assault and a few others. Good group for Cabal chain, being under level I was weak but still useful ranged support though much weaker than the mechanic in the group.

L6 - Shan to Kar, Sharn, Proof Poison, Depths, Start Tangleroot, other L4s: Added Silver Bow. With this, many shot and sniper shot there is a huge DPS increase. Now at or near top of kill counts in groups. Noticed there is a serious lack of useful armors. 3 or 4 armor choices from every quest reward and all are of marginal use. Still no stat items. With fort and insightful fort able to have 96 fort. Other than fort and vorpals none of this new loot is particuarily great or invalidating. Used the trapblast goggles from STK right away for example. Using cloak of the asylum from Cats and silver bow replaced the vorpal shortbow. Reports of random loot being over powered seem vastly overrated.

Summary

A fun beginning, as long as you aren't in a group with a mechanic, then you wonder why your rate of fire feels like you are in quicksand. However, this is balanced by the high crit numbers attainable from sniper shot/many shot. Also nice versatility - there are many options where it is great to be able to switch over to swords for indepth fighting, especially when you don't have the agro. A class that is both solo friendly and group friendly. Initial spells of Ram's Might and Jump thru L6 are both very useful.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Level 7

AP - Aimed Shot, Dmg Boost II, DM focus II

Gear - Interesting set of armor that gave +4 CON and some Corrosive Enhancement. Finally got another stat item.

Quests - Started with a pure piking of Pit coming in 12 mins into the quest and then finishing just as penalty wears off. Then led a serious run thru 3BC. All quests done, Ranger build holding up very well. Fun to play, high Spot lets you hit a target before they can ever see you. At this point I am almost exclusively ranged mainly because it is working well and also because I have not upgraded my longswords. Completed L5 quests in Tangleroot, House K tavern and started Necro I which bled into the next level on a hard cap. Ranger is highly effective in the long corridors of 3BC. Favored enemy and the turn in ghostbane bow for the Necro1 quests makes for a very decent undead beater.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Level 8

AP - DWS Dex I, Melee/Ranged Power boost III, Favored Hunter I

Gearing - Added a +5 set of Dex boots and a Wis/fire resistant cloak. Stat items now +5 Dex, +4 Con, +4 Wisdom. Also upgraded helmet to +63 SP/+3 saves.

Grouping continues to be vacant. Very few groups so most quests again solo'd or done in duos. A solo of Bloody Crypt was a nice accomplishment, the ghostbane Longbow turn in really showing dividends. Valek's Mauseleum is really a fantastic quest. Challenging at level, timed, levers to find and pull. A hidden classic. Bounty Hunter was a thrill to play, a fun game of hide and sneak. There are lots of stealthy ranger types in the quest and it offers good opportunities to spot/shoot. Nimeth Celihal the L8 FVS is an outstanding hireling. Very offensive with the SPs but a real asset in quests.

Gameplay all longbows this level, never drawing swords once. Silver Bow the standard and Ghostbane Longbow for undead. Search good enough to find all secret doors. Spot really offers a different style of gameplay and continues to allow my ranger to take down most enemies before they can even engage. Many of these L6 quests continue to have very long hallways or outdoor zones.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Level 9

AP - Survivalist III, Killer I, Merciful Shot
Feats - Evasion (!) and Improved Critical Ranged

Grouping finally starting to pick up. Had a solid group for the Delera's Chain. Rangers really are nice undead killers with favored enemy undead and morphic arrows, did excellent in all 4 quests. Another group went thru a long session of the Sentinals chain plus the rest of the high profile L7 quests, Gwylans, Tear of Dalkan, Taming the Flames and Graverobber. A strong diverse party, with 2 Rangers, a rogue/ranger mechanic, a Warlock and a sorc. Myself and the Sorc alternated at the top of kill counts. Other ranger had paralyzing arrows but much lower DPS. I think this was part not having a Silver Bow and part not going into the DWS tree. There seems to be good balance between mechanic and longbow at this level. The mechanic has a high RoF but the Alpha damage from my Ranger is outstanding. Sniper Shot + Manyshot functions very much like a fury shot and kills pretty much anything. Once again never drew swords at this level. This might cause me to consider how much I eventually go into the Tempest tree vs AA tree. Of course the nice thing is can always reset enhancements.

The Ranger enjoyment level is extremely high at these levels. Stealth, evasion, useful clickies w/o too many of them. One note - spells, using Ram's Might, Barkskin and Jump atm.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Level 10

AP - Leg Shot, DWS DEX 2

Gear - Finally two good longswords, Sirocco and a Shocking Burst of Lacerating

A Fairly epic level. Solo quests in Haunted Library, the two Cult of Six L8s and Shadow Knight. Controlling a cleric and rogue while killing incorporeals was a great challenge in Shadow Knight. A Duo in Stormcleave was a fun quest. It felt like a hunting trip with various degrees of elevation and the many enemies. Highly entertaining bow hunting. Most fun experience of the level was Shadow King. Had a three man party of myself, another ranger and a warlock. The warlock was one of the OP builds lamented about in these forums and was zerg/soloing till he was moving too fast and died in a trap. With the red DA he left my self and the other ranger were overwhelmed and killed. As is typical of players with the zerg mentality he immediately left the party, despite him causing the deaths. Our two rangers would not be detered though. I released (bound way back at the Information is the Key inn!) and came back in the quest with a cleric hireling, raised my ranger companion and we proceeded to slowly clear the rest of the quest. A really good achievement for two rangers on elite with all those mobs and relying only on our bows. We followed that up with duoing Shadow Lord, also a really epic experience for two rangers relying on bows and having to split. Finally we knocked out Spies in the House (other ranger was rogue splash able to get traps). The Ranger spell prot from energy really came in handy here. All in all we were pushed to the max and able to overcome some really difficult quests when you don't have access to AoE spells. Highly, highly fun and a good example of DDO at its finest.

Thru ten levels an elven ranger feels like one of the more fun and balanced classes in DDO.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Levels 11-12

AP - Advanced Sneak Attack, Strike Like Lightning, Head Shot, Lesser DM of Shadow, Aerenal Weapon Training II
Feat - Took Empower Healing for some punch on my heal spells and eventually cocoon

Level 11 goes by quick even with doing all quests. In fact I hard capped before I even go to the Red Fens. A couple quests stand out from L9. First, Keeper's Sanctuary. This is a fantastic quest. The map is so beautifully detailed with gothic architecture. I highly recommend this quest to those who usually blow past the L9 quests because of Shadow Crypt. I also did ToEE pt1 at this level. Had a great time in with a group of players. We went pretty slow, saw a lot of the quest and felt like we were playing a D&D module.

Level 12 I solo'd the Therenal chain and had good success with the long corridors. Leg Shot worked great vs the Renders. In Tempest Spine my ranger had almost twice as many kills as the next character. In VoN raid I led by over 20. At this level I feel Ranger is better than the Mechanic. Manyshot does big time damage with head shot and IPS and clear out a room quickly. Very strong DPS and I don't often get hit as leg shot can slow foes advancing on you. Still using silver bow from level 6.

[FranOhmsford]

What follows is an in depth analysis of the Elven Ranger based on actual gameplay situations.

Levels 1-6

Starting Stats are:

STR: 12
DEX: 20
CON: 15
INT: 10
WIS: 9
CHA: 8

I am building an Elven Ranger whose background would be military training within the Elven army based on archetypes like Tauriel from the Hobbit or the armies of Kith-Kanan. While some elves may have functioned as pure archers, the core fighting arm of the elves would be skilled in both archery and the traditional elven weapon the longsword. Starting stats are flexiable except for DEX which is the primary stat. Ultimately taking 15 CON and the 30 extra HPs outweighed an extra +1 hit/dmg and 1 wis DC. Doesn't really matter aside from a max dex and 14 CON though one should not dump STR.

Initial Feats - Dragonmark of Shadow, Point Blank Shot, Precision. (1/3/6)
Alignment - Lawful Neutral. This I believe is the primary alignment of traditional or 'high' elves. Many sources incorrectly define elves as being chaotic good. I believe this perception has been altered by elven characters from literature who may have acted in this manner, but they were usually rebelling against an elven society that was very traditional. Examples include Legolas and Tanis Half Elven. In much of fantasy literature elven society is very structured and they are quite haughty in their relations to other races. As such, I have chosen to go with Lawful Neutral.

Skills - Maxing Heal, UMD, Search, Spot. Spreading excess points around balance, hide, move silently

Gear - I am using mostly found gear to test out the usefulness of the new random loot except where noted.

The First 24 APs -

Elf: Elven Accuracy, DM Focus, Aerenal Training
Tempest: Shield of Whirling Steel
AA: AA, Morphic Arrows, Conjure Arrrows, Corrosive Weapons
DWS: Far Shot, Sneak Attack, Sniper Shot, Increased Empathy 2, Tendon Cut 2, Survivalist 2, Melee/Ranged Boost 1

Questing -

L1 - Skipped with daily die rolls
L2 - Korthos: Being pretty much naked except for a rusted mail outfit made these quests somewhat challenging on elite. Started using the ember great ax, quickly found a L2 mastercraft greatsword with 1d6 Law dmg. This and a Barb hireling took me thru Korthos. Class played as a weak fighter swinging a big sword.

Considering the aim to "roleplay" I've got a couple of problems with the above:

1) I'm sorry but UMD does NOT fit this archetype!
Move Silently, Hide or Balance would all be better choices to max if you're gonna stick with the "roleplay". {Move Silently would be the obvious one of course}.

2) You're an Elven Ranger and the first weapon you choose is the Ember Greataxe? You Mini-Thor you!
Jeets even had your Longsword there waiting for you!

3) You spent an extra 3 pts in Con over pushing your Wis up to 12 or your Str to 14 and Wis to 10?
Just No!

[Marshal_Lannes]

I ended up having the skill points to max Hide as well (so I have the option of taking the L30 hide/SA feat). I think UMD does fit as Elves are a magical race by nature. It makes sense they would have an affinity for scrolls. Balance is already high due to Dex. Basically I had more than enough skill points to mess around with.

I don't get all this Rangers can't use THF ideas. Aragon used a THF sword! While it is true Jeets did have a longsword available, I have to solo low level quests basically naked since I was mostly taking what I found in the chest. In that regard THF weapons worked out nicely at low levels when there aren't a lot of options to group.

I probably would go 14 CON and 12 WIS if I could do it again. I didn't realize how many HPs you got from the DWS tree.

[FranOhmsford]

I ended up having the skill points to max Hide as well (so I have the option of taking the L30 hide/SA feat). I think UMD does fit as Elves are a magical race by nature. It makes sense they would have an affinity for scrolls. Balance is already high due to Dex. Basically I had more than enough skill points to mess around with.

Elves are a magical race yes but you're a Ranger NOT a Bard!

More to the point your own flavour as you as having trained for battle NOT for adventuring so again UMD doesn't fit UNLESS you're Meta-Gaming!

I don't get all this Rangers can't use THF ideas. Aragon used a THF sword! While it is true Jeets did have a longsword available, I have to solo low level quests basically naked since I was mostly taking what I found in the chest. In that regard THF weapons worked out nicely at low levels when there aren't a lot of options to group.

Actually Aragorn most likely used a B-Sword one handed and two handed depending on the situation.

Aragorn is a Lord of the Rings character NOT D&D, Lord of the Rings Rangers aren't the TWFighting Specialists of D&D, They're closer to a Fighter/Ranger Multiclass {P.S. I don't know or care what they're like in LotRO only what the Books say!}.

Aragorn is also a Super-Human last of the Dunedain and an Epic Character in his own right NOT a Lvl 1 Elf who's been trained in Longsword and Longbow but for some reason is using a Greataxe!

I probably would go 14 CON and 12 WIS if I could do it again. I didn't realize how many HPs you got from the DWS tree.

You realise 15 Con gives no more HP than 14 right?

The reason you went 15 was so a +1 Con item would up your HP rather than having to wait for a +2 item which again is Meta-Gaming and Min/Maxing as opposed to Role-Play and Flavour which was supposedly the point of the build!

[Sunnie]

Your flavour is not tasty! You're doing it wrong!

Now, people often have differing ideas about things, but telling someone what they're doing is just metagaming and not roleplaying because it doesn't conform with one's own ideas is when it's time to take a step back, a deep breath, and ask oneself whether it really is a discussion worth having.

Also, Aragorn was a big inspiration for the D&D ranger, the class is not a carbon copy of him, but a lot of elements from the books flowed into the designs.

[kendo]

Now, people often have differing ideas about things, but telling someone what they're doing is just metagaming and not roleplaying because it doesn't conform with one's own ideas is when it's time to take a step back, a deep breath, and ask oneself whether it really is a discussion worth having.

Also, Aragorn was a big inspiration for the D&D ranger, the class is not a carbon copy of him, but a lot of elements from the books flowed into the designs.

totally agree. you can, and should, make some choices in the game to help improve your character, still within the overall context of the build, and I really don't see where what Marshal has done would be considered metagaming, in my book. and yes, that's just my opinion

Marshal, I have really enjoyed reading this and I think it is fantastic that you took the time to post this information. threads like this can be a big boost to new players going through the forums and reminds us that fun can be had with new characters without complete sets of twink gear sitting in the bank.

[adrian69]

Also, Aragorn was a big inspiration for the D&D ranger, the class is not a carbon copy of him, but a lot of elements from the books flowed into the designs.

The original PnP ranger actually used a great sword or a one handed axe and shield, if I remember being a teenage boy preparing to play one right. They also had a following. The ranger of DDO is more based on the Salvatore and Cunningham rangers of later fan loved books. However, the original ranger back from the days of imagination was based on part on Aragon.

[Marshal_Lannes]

You realise 15 Con gives no more HP than 14 right?

The reason you went 15 was so a +1 Con item would up your HP rather than having to wait for a +2 item which again is Meta-Gaming and Min/Maxing as opposed to Role-Play and Flavour which was supposedly the point of the build!

If you go back to my reasoning on ability scores you will see that I opted for the extra CON for the extra 30 HPs. This is clearly only going to happen at L30, so no, I did not consider what a +1 CON item was going to do for me at all. It is also certainly logical that warrior elves would be the most hardy of all Elves so I don't feel a high CON is out of character.