Going Into Second Life As Human Pure Ranger, Viable Non-Stealth Arcane Archer Build?

[GSilvermane]

Hello there,

I am currently approaching level 20 with my Warforged Artificer, and I plan to use my first TR to turn him into a Human Ranger. I love the Arcane Archer tree, and I plan to go with a longbow build. I am terrible at sneaking, so I want to go with the Arcane Archer tree, although everyone says to go Deepwood Stalker instead. Is there a viable pure Ranger build that can make the most of either acid or terror arrows?

Thank you very much for your time.

[Maelodic]

You can find a bunch of builds here: https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthrea...=1#post5759361

I'd recommend checking out Stritom's Acid Arrow, The Classic Archer, and the White Feather Sniper.

[unbongwah]

I am terrible at sneaking, so I want to go with the Arcane Archer tree, although everyone says to go Deepwood Stalker instead.

On a pure rgr, you'll want to invest heavily into both PrEs: at least 31 APs AA for Shadow Arrows (+1 crit multiplier & +5% doubleshot) and 24 APs DWS (+1 crit range & max Killer for +20% doubleshot). Then it's largely a question of which tier-5 + capstone abilities you want; and if you want to invest in Tempest and/or Harper. You can read the various threads for different AP spreads and their pros & cons. I think for FotW, Slaying Arrow + Adrenaline is still king of burst DPS, but for other EDs it's more of a wash.

[CThruTheEgo]

I am terrible at sneaking, so I want to go with the Arcane Archer tree, although everyone says to go Deepwood Stalker instead.

There is nothing inherent in the ranger class or any of its enhancement trees that requires you to use a sneaking playstyle (i.e. sneaking through quests to minimize kills instead of slaughtering everything that moves). You can sneak if you want to, and rangers in general have some synergy with that playstyle, but so do a variety of other classes, even some you wouldn't normally consider "sneaky." But that is a playstyle choice for each of those builds, not a requirement. The only build that requires sneaking as an inherent part of the playstyle is the assassin, and that is because you must be in sneak mode to use assassinate, so sneaking is something you are simply going to be doing on that build. But no other build "requires" sneaking.

Deepwood stalker does get some sneak attack damage, but this has nothing to do with the sneaking playstyle. Anytime an enemy is not aggroed on you and you are attacking them, you automatically get sneak attack damage. That's just how sneak attack damage works for any class. There are also a number of abilities and effects that can "induce" sneak attack damage on an enemy or enemies even if they are aggroed on you (e.g. deception, improved deception, bluff, exposing strike/sniper shot). So going deepwood stalker has nothing to do with sneaking. Don't let that deter you.

Is there a viable pure Ranger build that can make the most of either acid or terror arrows?

White Feather Sniper in my sig can be adapted for acid arrows, which are the better option for leveling. I designed the build for endgame so I list electric arrows in the OP. Even though I designed the build for endgame, it should be solid for leveling as well.

Terror arrows are somewhat problematic. First, if you group with others, no one likes mobs that run away. If you're goal is crowd control, then you'd be better off with paralyzing arrows in that situation. And if you're goal is to kill them outright, then you'd be better off with elemental arrows, which offers a lot of damage when you keep your spell power up. Second, phantasmal killer only procs on a vorpal (i.e. 5% of the time) and the enemy must fail 2 saves - first a will save, then a fort save. If you are keeping your DC up, then the will save probably won't be an issue, but fort saves can get pretty high on mobs, especially as you get higher in levels. Third, it's unclear what the DC is for the phantasmal killer portion of terror arrows. The fear effect uses the standard Will save vs. DC: 20 + Wisdom Modifier + Enchantment Spell Bonuses, but there is no indication how the DC is calculated for the phantasmal killer effect, which is an illusion spell. It may very well be the same formula, but as far as I know, no one knows for sure.

So overall, terror arrows just don't seem that great imo. I'd be reluctant to build around them. During heroics, you can probably kill most stuff before it reaches you with just elemental arrows. As you get into epics and things aren't dying as quickly, you can switch to paralyzing arrows and keep them in place while you and the group take them down. The CC of paralyzing arrows is particularly valuable in legendary elite content where mobs will one shot most players.

Regarding deepwood stalker vs arcane archer, I'd mostly agree with unbongwah's comments. To some extent, you want to invest in both. Beyond that, it's a matter of what you want your build to emphasize - burst dps or consistent dps. If you want to focus on burst dps, then tier 5 arcane archer for slaying arrows while running in fury of the wild destiny is still the optimal choice. But archers are no longer limited to only burst dps as they were before the revamp. They have some solid options for consistent dps now. If you want to focus on consistent dps, then tier 5 deepwood stalker is the better choice. Dreadnaught will offer the most consistent dps with the lowest burst dps, whereas divine crusader will offer a middle ground of consistent and burst dps between fury and dreadnaught.

The difference between the deepwood stalker capstone and arcane archer capstone is build dependent. I did dps calcs for my specific build and the deepwood stalker capstone came out ahead. I can't say that will be true for every build though. For my build, the difference was almost non-existent with no burst effects (e.g. manyshot, zeal of the righteous, ranged power boost), but deepwood stalker pulled way ahead when all boosts were at their peak simultaneously.

So, aside from the basic investments mentioned by unbongwah, what enhancement trees you choose to focus on will depend more on what you want your build to do.

[GSilvermane]

There is nothing inherent in the ranger class or any of its enhancement trees that requires you to use a sneaking playstyle (i.e. sneaking through quests to minimize kills instead of slaughtering everything that moves). You can sneak if you want to, and rangers in general have some synergy with that playstyle, but so do a variety of other classes, even some you wouldn't normally consider "sneaky." But that is a playstyle choice for each of those builds, not a requirement. The only build that requires sneaking as an inherent part of the playstyle is the assassin, and that is because you must be in sneak mode to use assassinate, so sneaking is something you are simply going to be doing on that build. But no other build "requires" sneaking.

Deepwood stalker does get some sneak attack damage, but this has nothing to do with the sneaking playstyle. Anytime an enemy is not aggroed on you and you are attacking them, you automatically get sneak attack damage. That's just how sneak attack damage works for any class. There are also a number of abilities and effects that can "induce" sneak attack damage on an enemy or enemies even if they are aggroed on you (e.g. deception, improved deception, bluff, exposing strike/sniper shot). So going deepwood stalker has nothing to do with sneaking. Don't let that deter you.



White Feather Sniper in my sig can be adapted for acid arrows, which are the better option for leveling. I designed the build for endgame so I list electric arrows in the OP. Even though I designed the build for endgame, it should be solid for leveling as well.

Terror arrows are somewhat problematic. First, if you group with others, no one likes mobs that run away. If you're goal is crowd control, then you'd be better off with paralyzing arrows in that situation. And if you're goal is to kill them outright, then you'd be better off with elemental arrows, which offers a lot of damage when you keep your spell power up. Second, phantasmal killer only procs on a vorpal (i.e. 5% of the time) and the enemy must fail 2 saves - first a will save, then a fort save. If you are keeping your DC up, then the will save probably won't be an issue, but fort saves can get pretty high on mobs, especially as you get higher in levels. Third, it's unclear what the DC is for the phantasmal killer portion of terror arrows. The fear effect uses the standard Will save vs. DC: 20 + Wisdom Modifier + Enchantment Spell Bonuses, but there is no indication how the DC is calculated for the phantasmal killer effect, which is an illusion spell. It may very well be the same formula, but as far as I know, no one knows for sure.

So overall, terror arrows just don't seem that great imo. I'd be reluctant to build around them. During heroics, you can probably kill most stuff before it reaches you with just elemental arrows. As you get into epics and things aren't dying as quickly, you can switch to paralyzing arrows and keep them in place while you and the group take them down. The CC of paralyzing arrows is particularly valuable in legendary elite content where mobs will one shot most players.

Regarding deepwood stalker vs arcane archer, I'd mostly agree with unbongwah's comments. To some extent, you want to invest in both. Beyond that, it's a matter of what you want your build to emphasize - burst dps or consistent dps. If you want to focus on burst dps, then tier 5 arcane archer for slaying arrows while running in fury of the wild destiny is still the optimal choice. But archers are no longer limited to only burst dps as they were before the revamp. They have some solid options for consistent dps now. If you want to focus on consistent dps, then tier 5 deepwood stalker is the better choice. Dreadnaught will offer the most consistent dps with the lowest burst dps, whereas divine crusader will offer a middle ground of consistent and burst dps between fury and dreadnaught.

The difference between the deepwood stalker capstone and arcane archer capstone is build dependent. I did dps calcs for my specific build and the deepwood stalker capstone came out ahead. I can't say that will be true for every build though. For my build, the difference was almost non-existent with no burst effects (e.g. manyshot, zeal of the righteous, ranged power boost), but deepwood stalker pulled way ahead when all boosts were at their peak simultaneously.

So, aside from the basic investments mentioned by unbongwah, what enhancement trees you choose to focus on will depend more on what you want your build to do.

This is VERY good and useful information. Thank you very much! I think I want to focus mostly on burst DPS and the acid arrows, because I know that most things I fight while leveling can take acid damage (the exception being the later game Lord of Stone quests). I will avoid terror arrows, and focus on the paralyzing ones. They can't hit me if they can't move, after all.

Everyone has been very helpful. I will do a mix of AA/DS and see what kind of awesomeness I can come up with. Combined with the extra human feat and the inherent Ranger feats, my second life will be a good lead in to my third life.

Thank you all so much!

[KodeWraith]

To expand on what CThru says above:

TL;DR: You'll switch between elemental arrow and paralyzers depending on the situation, sometimes in the same fight. Be good at both.

When you're leveling, and especially while soloing, I find elemental arrows to be awesome damage in heroic. Strimtrom's build is a great one to look at for inspiration. I maxed this first. I built something substantially similar with a max acid spell power and was doing around 80/90 acid damage per hit consistently by level 12. It eats mobs pretty quick. For everything under level 6, I can almost one shot any kobold and I don't have a particularly great build. one shotting/two shotting mobs is so much better than 5 shotting it's not funny how much this speeds up the lower levels. In this case, it's for speed of completion. I don't mind if I kite, since it's just me. Or if I'm running with a ranged caster toon who's also kiting.

When I can't just two shot the mob/at cap/while running with a melee DPS party, I usually switch to paralyzing arrows simply because it let's me stand still and lets the barb and pally smack the target into oblivion. There's nothing more annoying to a melee toon than chasing a mob chasing a ranger who won't stand still.

So you should be good at paralyzers too. In my case, I took SF:enchant to allow for the +3 magister enchant DC twist. I also took smiting and banishing since they both grant +1 DC to enchanted arrows.

For electrical vs acid, take whatever you can find the best spellpower for. ice and fire tend to be less effective just because they are resisted by devils and there's a bunch of those in 15-20 and at cap.

I just always look for whatever the best necklace: Charmed of [Corrosion, Magnetism] I can find. I have a +4 Charmed of Corrosion 109 on at the moment.

As for AP, you can be perfectly happy with 31 points in AA for core 18 + all the T4s. Then it's up to you. The normal loadout is t5 DWS + cap + human dps boost.

[Mindos]

This is VERY good and useful information. Thank you very much! I think I want to focus mostly on burst DPS and the acid arrows, because I know that most things I fight while leveling can take acid damage (the exception being the later game Lord of Stone quests)

The AA tree has a solution for this: Force Arrows. Take a look, they also benefit from your elemental damage extra dice, giving you the option to switch to if a mob is acid resistant without losing your investment.

[CThruTheEgo]

The AA tree has a solution for this: Force Arrows. Take a look, they also benefit from your elemental damage extra dice, giving you the option to switch to if a mob is acid resistant without losing your investment.

I would consider force arrows to be a good option in late heroics and epics, but not so much in early and mid heroics. The reason for this being the AP cost. It's 2 AP per rank and there's 3 ranks. That's 6 AP total. AP are a valuable commodity when you don't have many to go around. To get any of the additional damage dice to elemental/force arrows, you have to get the initial elemental arrows which is 2 AP, so you're going to get 1 element no matter what. If you're using force instead of that element, that's basically 2 AP that you aren't using on top of the 6 AP for force arrows. Personally, I'd rather spread my AP around more and grab as much low hanging fruit as I can. So while I definitely think force arrows is worth having in your final enhancement setup, I think it's something I'd put off getting until I had most of my AP available to spend, or until level 12 when you can get tier 5s, and then only if I were going for arcane archer tier 5s.

[Talon_Moonshadow]

/cry

[CThruTheEgo]

/cry

OK, I'll bite. What's the matter?

[GSilvermane]

OK, I'll bite. What's the matter?

I'm curious, myself. Is everything okay? I hope my post didn't upset you. I'm still learning some of the finer aspects of DDO, such as second lives and such. I really do enjoy this game, I just need to be more prepared for it, is all!

[Talon_Moonshadow]

OK, I'll bite. What's the matter?

Stealth lover.

And pet peeve of mine, that people keep wanting to make Rangers that do not use all of the classes abilities. (like ranged or melee Ranger...)



....anyway, it was more of a joke than anything else....

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I'm curious, myself. Is everything okay? I hope my post didn't upset you. I'm still learning some of the finer aspects of DDO, such as second lives and such. I really do enjoy this game, I just need to be more prepared for it, is all!

...no, you didn't upset me....
(see above)

I just enjoy stealthy characters, and Rangers are my favorite class.

[CThruTheEgo]

Stealth lover.

And pet peeve of mine, that people keep wanting to make Rangers that do not use all of the classes abilities. (like ranged or melee Ranger...)



....anyway, it was more of a joke than anything else....

I can understand that. My only point was that there is nothing about rangers that requires stealthy play, like there is with assassin. Rangers certainly make great stealth builds and arguably have more synergy with that playstyle than many other classes.

I can also understand not liking the specialization of rangers. I think a result of the revamp is that a ranger who specializes in either melee or ranged is so much better at what they specialize in, that the other option loses a lot of its appeal. Deepwood stalker is the obvious choice if you want to build for both melee and ranged, but then how to split AP between the other two trees? The level 12 core in deepwood stalker provides +1 crit ranged to all weapons. The level 12 core in tempest provides +1 crit multiplier when dual wielding. The level 18 core in arcane archer provides +1 crit multiplier with bows. These are arguably the most valuable enhancements to their respective fighting styles. If you get all 3 of them, that's 73 AP already accounted for. That also means you are forced to take tier 5s in arcane archer, which has no benefit for two weapon fighting, and that you can't get a capstone from any of the trees. Giving up any of those cores means weakening either your melee or ranged. Taking tier 5s in either arcane archer or tempest means weakening the other style. Deepwood stalker is the only tree whose tier 5s and capstone appeals to both styles, but if you focus on deepwood stalker, then you are going to lose the crit multiplier from either arcane archer or tempest.

So it's really a problem with how the enhancement trees are set up. They essentially force you into specializing. You can still build for the fighting style you don't specialize in as a backup, but you won't be nearly as good at it as you are with your primary style or compared to another build that specializes in your alternative. That's probably a good balance overall to be honest. A single character shouldn't be the best at everything. But we do still have the option to build for both if desired.

[GSilvermane]

I can understand that. My only point was that there is nothing about rangers that requires stealthy play, like there is with assassin. Rangers certainly make great stealth builds and arguably have more synergy with that playstyle than many other classes.

I can also understand not liking the specialization of rangers. I think a result of the revamp is that a ranger who specializes in either melee or ranged is so much better at what they specialize in, that the other option loses a lot of its appeal. Deepwood stalker is the obvious choice if you want to build for both melee and ranged, but then how to split AP between the other two trees? The level 12 core in deepwood stalker provides +1 crit ranged to all weapons. The level 12 core in tempest provides +1 crit multiplier when dual wielding. The level 18 core in arcane archer provides +1 crit multiplier with bows. These are arguably the most valuable enhancements to their respective fighting styles. If you get all 3 of them, that's 73 AP already accounted for. That also means you are forced to take tier 5s in arcane archer, which has no benefit for two weapon fighting, and that you can't get a capstone from any of the trees. Giving up any of those cores means weakening either your melee or ranged. Taking tier 5s in either arcane archer or tempest means weakening the other style. Deepwood stalker is the only tree whose tier 5s and capstone appeals to both styles, but if you focus on deepwood stalker, then you are going to lose the crit multiplier from either arcane archer or tempest.

So it's really a problem with how the enhancement trees are set up. They essentially force you into specializing. You can still build for the fighting style you don't specialize in as a backup, but you won't be nearly as good at it as you are with your primary style or compared to another build that specializes in your alternative. That's probably a good balance overall to be honest. A single character shouldn't be the best at everything. But we do still have the option to build for both if desired.

Indeed. It does seem as though you need to specialize. It wasn't a hard choice for me, though. My idea of class fantasy for a ranger has always been a man of the wilderness, agile and sturdy, hunting down specific enemies with vigor, befriending even the most feral of beasts, but most of all, sniping their opponents from a distance, and using Shot On The Run to keep that distance while they take down their foe. I reincarnated as a human, took Dodge and Mobility as my first feats, then PBS will be level 3, followed by Shot On the Run at level 6 (since Ranger tree gives me Precise Shot at level 4). I liked the Arcane Archer T5s and Capstone, so I am going to invest 41 points into it, and dump the other 39 into Deepwood Stalker for the crit and other bonuses.

Thank you guys so much for all your help and advice! It has really helped me improve my game. I appreciate it!