LE, Melee Rangers, And You!

[Arlathen]

The code they use for to hit is known: http://ddowiki.com/page/Ac

Player's chance to hit: (Player's Attack Bonus + 10.5) / (Target's Armor Class * 2) + 20% proficiency bonus, rounded to nearest 5%

This means that the die roll is extremely important. Let's look at an attack bonus of 110, vs. target AC of 120.

(110 + 10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.70208, so rounded to 70%. This means that a roll of 7+ on the die is needed to hit.

Later in your attack chain, you could have +10 more to hit.

To hit percentage is VERY important, and since Precision adds 5 percentage points bonus (not 5% to your to hit, but a 5% point bonus to final to hit chance), it is extremely powerful in higher levels.

(120+10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.74375, so rounded to 75%. In this case you'll need to roll a 6+ on the die to hit.

So, while a 5+120 will graze (total of 125), an 7+110 (total of 117) will hit. This is a result of the new combat system workings, and WAI. It's counterintuitive, and the system is buggy for TWF offhand and shield bashes, but the formula is known.

EDIT: Forgot to add that 20% proficiency bonus, bah.

This is what makes the Elf Accuracy enhancements attractive, too. +6% To Hit up for grabs there.

[Wipey]

1. Playing a straight-up 20 Ranger or some super-secret-awesome multiclass?

18 ranger/1rogue/1barb shadar. Cause full trap skills and barb run speed + 50 sprint boost is addictive. While Shroud is nice, 90% of gametime I spend getting moar xp.

2. Do you (honestly) feel you do enough damage, mano-a-mano, with a LE Mob?

The damage is off the charts, it's easily the strongest character I've ever had.

3. HOW are you doing that damage?

Good gear, Blitz. Dunno

And the Million Dollar question:

4. How are you surviving the hits?!

170 ish prr Blitzing, 25 ish Dodge, Displace Clickies, 1.2k hp, Stun Blow, Balanced attacks and Dire charge. 600 Emp Hjeal ed CSW and Cocoon.
The damage of mobs in LE quests is not dangerous enough.
There are two groups doing LE Shroud and there's always cc wizzy. As long as you can survive one hit, you're good.
Building for Sorjek or red named Shrouds minibosses tankage or surviving two trash hits would require drastical rework ( affirmation LGS, better con gear, 874 trillions xp for prr past lives, better con tome, 2 piece LGS, Earth scion or whatever ) so I don't care that much.
Blitz and Hunter's Mark portals, , toss Resurrections, "don't be stupid and fight in discos and kill held/danced/pwsed trash" - that's what I did in few elite Shrouds and "legendary elite" quests are rather easy already.

[Phil7]

does this mean we should be using ''Oversized Two Weapon Fighting" and "Spring Attack" again?
for the extra to-hit

[Dandonk]

does this mean we should be using ''Oversized Two Weapon Fighting" and "Spring Attack" again?
for the extra to-hit

It might make a difference. But then again, it might not.

Let's take the theoretical 120 AC mob again with a character with 110 to hit:

(110 + 10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.70208, rounded to 70%.

To get to 75% in this case, you'll need to get to 72.5% and get it rounded to 75% from there.

So,

(x + 10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.725
=>
(x+10.5) = 0.525*2*120
=>
x = 126 - 10.5 = 115.5

In this case, assuming you were moving while attacking and using heavy offhand weapon, the +6 would put you in the next bracket, and help you hit one better on the die.

Of course, if your to hit had been 104, getting you barely to hit the mob at 70% (with rounding from 67.5%), you'd need 12 more to hit to get to next bracket. So... go fish? Sometimes it'll help, sometimes it won't.

(In general, getting to hit 5 percentage points better against a mob will require more to hit bonus equal to 10% of its AC)

[AbyssalMage]

The code they use for to hit is known: http://ddowiki.com/page/Ac

Player's chance to hit: (Player's Attack Bonus + 10.5) / (Target's Armor Class * 2) + 20% proficiency bonus, rounded to nearest 5%

This means that the die roll is extremely important. Let's look at an attack bonus of 110, vs. target AC of 120.

(110 + 10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.70208, so rounded to 70%. This means that a roll of 7+ on the die is needed to hit.

Later in your attack chain, you could have +10 more to hit.

To hit percentage is VERY important, and since Precision adds 5 percentage points bonus (not 5% to your to hit, but a 5% point bonus to final to hit chance), it is extremely powerful in higher levels.

(120+10.5)/(2*120) + 0.20 = 0.74375, so rounded to 75%. In this case you'll need to roll a 6+ on the die to hit.

So, while a 5+120 will graze (total of 125), an 7+110 (total of 117) will hit. This is a result of the new combat system workings, and WAI. It's counterintuitive, and the system is buggy for TWF offhand and shield bashes, but the formula is known.

EDIT: Forgot to add that 20% proficiency bonus, bah.

So in your example, the "to-hit" number was less important than the dice roll, which is exactly my point of the post. Precision adds 5% to the end of the roll yet the base dice roll is what carries more weight. That is why you will not see a statistical difference (RNG) between Power Attack (-5 to hit, or more in some cases) and a person with precision. The weight of the dice is more important. I am not advocating to ignore "to-hit" but if you properly equip your toon for LE adventures, your "To-hit" will automatically be taken care of.

[Dandonk]

So in your example, the "to-hit" number was less important than the dice roll, which is exactly my point of the post. Precision adds 5% to the end of the roll yet the base dice roll is what carries more weight. That is why you will not see a statistical difference (RNG) between Power Attack (-5 to hit, or more in some cases) and a person with precision. The weight of the dice is more important. I am not advocating to ignore "to-hit" but if you properly equip your toon for LE adventures, your "To-hit" will automatically be taken care of.

I'm not sure you quite understand. Precision will effectively let you hit one better on a die roll - that's what the 5% to hit bonus means. If you hit on a 6 without it, you'll hit on a 5 with it. This is a large bonus in many cases, since in end game your hits do large amounts of damage.

(You might even be unlucky and hit two worse on the die roll if comparing Precision to PA, if the -5 to hit brings you down in the next lower to hit bracket for your target)

[Morroiel]

I'm not sure you quite understand. Precision will effectively let you hit one better on a die roll - that's what the 5% to hit bonus means. If you hit on a 6 without it, you'll hit on a 5 with it. This is a large bonus in many cases, since in end game your hits do large amounts of damage.

(You might even be unlucky and hit two worse on the die roll if comparing Precision to PA, if the -5 to hit brings you down in the next lower to hit bracket for your target)

This is exactly the reason why you roll with precision over power attack in endgame. Grazing hits are REALLY bad at end game - on most builds they effectively are a miss in terms of calculating your dps. +5 damage and +1[w] is not worth the loss of 5% to hit, let alone that plus the fortification debuff.

[kgoodson3]

This is A LOT to give up. There isn't 5 levels of anything that will be worth this. If you want to multiclass with ranger, your best bet is looking at 2/5/6/12 split points (e.g. 12 ranger/x/y or x/y/2 ranger , etc).

I promise you, I have done the math - there isn't a net dps benefit from splashing 1-5 levels of other classes in.

That may be true, but the OP wasn't asking about maxxing his DPS was he?

Adding CC add extra defense via multiclassing is viable means of surviving LE if you are having trouble. And honestly ranger is powerful enough that once you hit 12 ranger you will be doing enough damage.

[AbyssalMage]

This is exactly the reason why you roll with precision over power attack in endgame. Grazing hits are REALLY bad at end game - on most builds they effectively are a miss in terms of calculating your dps. +5 damage and +1[w] is not worth the loss of 5% to hit, let alone that plus the fortification debuff.

Really bad? That is probably a start to where we disagree. So that is fine.

I'm not sure you quite understand. Precision will effectively let you hit one better on a die roll - that's what the 5% to hit bonus means. If you hit on a 6 without it, you'll hit on a 5 with it. This is a large bonus in many cases, since in end game your hits do large amounts of damage.

(You might even be unlucky and hit two worse on the die roll if comparing Precision to PA, if the -5 to hit brings you down in the next lower to hit bracket for your target)

Exactly, the difference of a dice roll of a 5 or a 6 (hit vs grazing) is effectively irrelevant at the speed and damage dealt in LE content. If you are going for min/max, sure I can see your argument, but DDO still isn't a min/max game, yet (Although WB/Turbine is probably trying to head the game in that direction, with or without the support of its developers).

I guess some tests can reconfirm the fact that the difference isn't noticeable (after all, the test was done for SA and Precision vs SA and Power Attack). Just remove the SA variable, and find a relatively safe target with lots of HP's (i.e. Chronoscope or quite a few other targets) and swing at it with the same weapon (probably a crafted Silver Flame weapon or similar) so killing it is possible, but not being slaughtered with a TF. Then you are just looking at times - Base, Precision, and PA. If the times are within 3-8% of each other, then there is no statistical difference between the 5% precision gives you and using PA (or nothing).

[Morroiel]

snip

And this is exactly why you have no bearing on how the game works.... you can't just choose any target... you need to choose an LE high ac target where precision and to-hit actually matter. For example, precision is optimal in LE conditions against targets like red names, and kittykat.

Let me just elaborate on how precision works:

Let's say you get grazing hits on 2-5 (1 is a miss) with precision {scenario A}, with power attack you get on 2-7 (1 is still a miss) {Scenario B}. If on a ac naive target (no grazing hits, only miss on a 1), your dps is X and assuming grazing hits are negligible in terms of total dps.

Scenario A:

(19/20)*(15/19)x = Y = 15/19 x

Scenario B:

13/19 x = Z


Y / Z = ratio of dps in scenario A to dps in scenario B = 15/13 = 1.154


15.4% increase in dps is not negligible. Target dps numbers for melee are roughly 7000-9000 sustainable. You are talking roughly a 1000 dps difference between precision vs power attack. Some of this difference is made up for by the fact that power attack gives you +5 damage and +1[w] if in LD. However, its nowhere near the 15.4% it would need to be at to overcome.

[EvilGremlin]

To hit percentage is VERY important, and since Precision adds 5 percentage points bonus (not 5% to your to hit, but a 5% point bonus to final to hit chance), it is extremely powerful in higher levels.

Wow, I did not know that. All I knew was that I can tell the difference with and without it. That explains why.

[relenttless]

To get back to the Op,
I'm on my second ranger and etr life with my main and am sitting at cap for a bit in order to raid and have time to play other toons.
Went strength khopesh build pure tempest. Largely using zergods build which has its own thread.
I diverted somewhat from his "max dps " fetish in order to accomodate a dodge item, and although I did originally run her in LD I'm currently running quite successfully in Primal Avatar which is surprisingly effective. It allows the full 2wf line, symetric strikes gives a 5% bonus to damage, allows me to get 4 points of str ( with clickies rages and a pot I can hit 75), I get cocoon for free and means at 30 I'm currently twisting sense weakness, fighter haste boost,brace, fighter tactics and primal scream.primal travel is quite fun....
A triple pos mainhand is a godsend and I back this up with a TOEE set lightening khopesh. Prr is standing around 160, mrr about 100 and melee power has topped 180 when buffed up. Standing doublestrike is 49% iirc which rises with killer etc
But the big winner is dire charge, especially when combined with dance of death. Dc is well over 90 when buffed, and this not only provides cc but also dishes out extra damage.
It keeps this toon alive and allows me to dish out a lot of damage on multiple mobs very quickly.
I do have a decent gear set up but don't currently have any lgs items, just a weapon. If I do get any then that is going to cause a major gear headache. The only gear i'm truly unhappy about are my gloves which are iron mitts which seem a bit meh, but I can't slot 60 amp and 40 vitality elswhere....if only there were augments for both of those!
Might also consider changing to dual lgs khopeshes plus celestial armour but giving up the TOEE set bonus is tough.
The toon is epic completionist but not heroic, although she does have 3 fighter lives for the tactics dc, and 2 pally for the amp
Does ok on LE

[AbyssalMage]

And this is exactly why you have no bearing on how the game works.... you can't just choose any target... you need to choose an LE high ac target where precision and to-hit actually matter. For example, precision is optimal in LE conditions against targets like red names, and kittykat.

No, actually any target will do with high HP's, fixed AC, and survivable "DPS." You are still trying to argue "DPS" when "To-Hit" is the thing we are looking for. There ARE multiple NPC's in the game where you will not get a hit on a "2" or better, then again maybe you don't understand that quite yet. Ideally we want to choose a target that we will get miss/grazes on rolls of 3 through 9 (or higher) too without Power Attack or Precision. Then it is simply testing all three scenarios, Base, Precision, and Power Attack. I know it doesn't sound fancy, but actual scientific studies are not.

Let me just elaborate on how precision works:

Let's say you get grazing hits on 2-5 (1 is a miss) with precision {scenario A}, with power attack you get on 2-7 (1 is still a miss) {Scenario B}. If on a ac naive target (no grazing hits, only miss on a 1), your dps is X and assuming grazing hits are negligible in terms of total dps.

Scenario A:

(19/20)*(15/19)x = Y = 15/19 x

Scenario B:

13/19 x = Z

Y / Z = ratio of dps in scenario A to dps in scenario B = 15/13 = 1.154

15.4% increase in dps is not negligible. Target dps numbers for melee are roughly 7000-9000 sustainable. You are talking roughly a 1000 dps difference between precision vs power attack. Some of this difference is made up for by the fact that power attack gives you +5 damage and +1[w] if in LD. However, its nowhere near the 15.4% it would need to be at to overcome.

So run the above examples in actual game play. You have your theory, but putting it to the test is all that actually matters. You will either confirm that your times are ~15% faster or not. Not sure what the standard deviation would be +/- but if you start hitting those deviation boundaries:

• your theory is incorrect
• multiple other variables could be in play
• your theory is bunk.

I would argue the 2nd or 3rd honestly with #2 being the strongest candidate.

[clagor]

1. Playing a straight-up 20 Ranger or some super-secret-awesome multiclass?
My favored race is somehow elf-ish and playing around with multiclassing I found 12 Ranger / 6 Barbarian / 2 Rouge the best in my favor.
Up to level 12 you get most of the Ranger feats automatically, 6 levels of Barbarian gives you more toughness and damage as well as healing amp from enhancements, 2 Levels as Rouge ensure traps kills and UMD.

2. Do you (honestly) feel you do enough damage, mano-a-mano, with a LE Mob?
I use the Tempest enhancement tree in combination with Occult Slayer and Ravager enhancements and the Fury of the Wild Epic Destiny for additional damage.

3. HOW are you doing that damage?
TWF and use gear with deception, seeker etc., also add feat power attack with Barbarian Power Attack enhancement and add Improved Power Attack from Legendary Dreadnought Epic Destiny as twist of fate Slot.

4. How are you surviving the hits?!
High Healing Amp and Devotion spell power in combination with Cocoon for self-healing is a must with 1300 hit points and 110 prr.

[Selvera]

Just bounced off level 30 back to 20 to ETR my tempest ranger. While I didn't get much time playing at level 30 and didn't get a LE shroud or TS group, at level 28 I did get a R3 dalies group (memoirs, tavern brawl, grim and barret) and at level 26 I did R1 shroud flagging (Creeping death, to Curse the Sky). So technically the only LR I ran was when I was still level 26...

LH and EE feel really easy in comparison to the above mentioned.

1. Pure ranger, dex based (because I like it that way), with weapon finesse and dual wielding rapiers (mostly, occasional scimitar) (because rapier is the type of weapon I've farmed in previous lives)

2. Holy hell yes. Pure ranger DPS is insane; even with the bugged out critical multiplier. At lower levels then 30 and with less pastlives then seems to be the norm these days; I was consistently the top DPS character in my groups. After Memoirs a 11-year-vet (who happened to be a healer) told me that "I've seen the damage you do, and we should be able to do reaper slave-lords" (but we ended up doing reaper Grim+Barrett instead).

3. Umm... same way any class does that damage. Seeker, deadly, double strike, dexterity, armour piercing, relentless fury, melee alacrity, sneak attack item, ghostly, true sight.
General rotation is: The Growing Storm, Dance of Death, A thousand cuts, Exposing Strike, Merciful Strike. At this point pretty much any trash is dead, but if it's not then auto-attack a few times before Merciful Strike. For bosses start with mark of the hunted then double boost (if reaper) or single boost (if not) to burn their HP faster.

Power attack vs Precision -> Precision is better.
Restrict to single set of weapons vs have bugged out weapons -> Depends on the quest and the group. If you can get away with using your boss beaters all quest; use them, if you have to swap out for some reason (need to kill oozes or raise a party member or something) then let the weapons bug out and use your toolkit like it was intended.

4. Lots of tips for here. #1 option is don't get hit. On all quests at this difficulty level I only tried them with a good CCer in the group. the LR I did at 26 had a CC-spamming warlock while the R3 dailies had a CC-mage pulling the agro (and CCing it before he was hit, usually). However, even with this I was attacked in pretty much every quest at some point; be it because I drew agro I shouldn't have, the mobs couldn't be CC'd or the CCer died. Dance of Death -> Exposing strike can buy you a few seconds of nothing attacking you, in which time you can often kill all of it. And make sure to twist balanced attacks, I've stun-locked mobs with it.

So onto surviving the hits: Max dodge change; PRR is good. Since I wasn't 30 I wasn't able to use my full set and was missing a chunk of HP from insightful con, but regardless, HP is good and get a lot of it. AC is worthwhile and I felt a huge surviveability loss whenever I was medium encumbered. 20% blurr and 15% incorp are things I would not go into melee without. For times when tanking something is needed I have 1 displacement clickie and elaborate parry bumps that dodge up above 50%. There's also Thick Skinned which you're automatically granted as a LD, use it whenever you feel like you might take damage. High healing amp and devotion are good to have; having a healer in the party is better, especially for reaper.

For this life I largely used the exact same gear as my "Whirling Stick of Truth" build used (except for weapons+armour obviously); and it's still good. Stats were (approximately) 1100 HP, 150 PRR (w/o blitz), 90 MRR, 26% dodge (w/o elaborate parry), 120 AC. (At level 29, missing an insightful con item and a lot of past lives).

[valkrei]

I have a thread about melee in general with some ideas in the idea section. Some of my ideas would help rangers out as well if melee anyway.