Rich’s Ranged Ranger (Or as no one calls it RRR)

[mckennaric]

Do you want to play a character that exclusively shoots bow? Do you like people looking at you funny and thinking something is wrong with you? Do you get super excited when you get a couple of kills while others in your group are racking them up? If you answered yes to all of these questions then good news! You have found the perfect build for you.

All jokes aside I have been playing DDO for many years and almost exclusively run bow users. Usually I just run 20-30 and stay at cap sometimes when I feel like doing raiding, occasionally I do an iconic and once every few years when I am feeling particularly like grinding my life away I’ll do a 1-20. As a disclaimer bows aren’t in the best place in the game right now but the new ED pass has given out some extra tools and I have seen a few people asking for some build advice so I figured I’d shoot some knowledge at you all. I don’t post on the forums a lot at all but I’m hoping that my many years of running exclusively bow builds might pay off for those of you interested in the frustration of missing a target with your fury shot.

This is by no means a comprehensive guide but I will give you a pure ranged ranger build that I’m running currently through epic lives which I like quite a bit and I will also break down my thoughts on different gear, feat, and epic destiny choices as well. There are a ton of different builds by people more skilled than I am (Strimtom's Acid Arrow, Kluege's Ranged Ranger) but if you find this helpful then my years of playing an under appreciated fighting style will not be in vain! Your character will vary based on your gear, Tomes, and past lives but hopefully this will give you something to build on. This isn't reinventing the wheel or anything but I hope you can get some useful information out of it.

Benefits: DEX based for both to hit and damage means that all your stats can be dump stats! Except CON, what are you nuts? Don’t dump CON you fools! Also this build is pretty good at self healing and staying alive. You have decent burst damage and reasonable sustained damage with 100%+ doubleshot and 100+ ranged power. Also even if your speakers don't work, you can still make the Pew Pew noise with your mouth as you shoot. PRO TIP: Groups love hearing you make the Pew Pew noise so invest in a decent microphone! Also with this build you can solo some raids like ADQ, FOT, TOD. And you're always going to contribute to parties and raids as long as you know what you're doing and don't lose focus by eating snacks.

Weaknesses: You have to use a bow.

20 Levels Ranger
Race Wood Elf

Starting Stats:
Str: Dump
Dex: Max
Con: Max
Wis: Dump
Int: Dump
Cha: Dump

Put all your points into DEX to max it, then put all your points into CON after. If you have left over then whatever you feel in your heart. Int for more Skills, Wis for more mana, Cha for more UMD.

Put all level up points into DEX.

At Level 30 you will have around 1400-1500 hp, 115-130 AC, 150-200 Healing Amp, Capped Dodge to your Max Dex Bonus around 22-25%, and OVER 100% Doubleshot and Ranged Power.

Skills: UMD, Hide, Balance, Heal, Spellcraft

So there isn't much to say here about skills. You want to max your UMD as much as you can, maybe buy a tome for it. That gives you access to a lot of good scrolls like raise dead, Tenser’s Transformation, Greater Heroism, Displacement etc. And you should be carrying stacks of these. Hide works well with the Legendary feat and you should be able to get it to at least 120 which is a lot of extra damage. Balance is good for, um, balancing. Heal is going to help bump up your Cure and Cocoon to help keep you alive. Spellcraft will help your elemental arrow damage a bit.

Feats:

1: Point Blank Shot (Mandatory for all Bow Builds)
3: Precision (Helps you hit, which helps you kill)
6: Quicken (This lets you skip concentration. Can be replaced)
9: Improved Critical Ranged (Mandatory for DPS)
12: Weapon Focused Ranged (Very Good, borderline Mandatory)
15: Empower Healing (Heals are good, self heals are great)
18: Toughness (Lets you take Epic Toughness)
21: Combat Archery (Mandatory for Bow Builds)
24: Overwhelming Critical (Mandatory DPS)
26: Epic Spell Power Positive or Holy Strike (Here is a little choice between DPS and Survival)
27: Blinding Speed (Unless you’re exclusively using Epic Saphire Sting or Chaos Bow)
28: Doubleshot (For shooting double.)
29: Harbinger of Chaos or Fount of Life (Again DPS or survival)
30: Epic Toughness
30: Scion of the Ethereal Plane (With a hide skill at 120 this is a lot of damage)

So the feats for any bow build are going to look similar. There are a few mandatory feats that I have marked and there are a few flex slots. Quicken, Empower healing, Weapon Focus and toughness can all be swapped if you want. I have done a lot of experimenting and have found them to be the best choices but other choices include Dodge, Mobility, Shot on the Run, Spell Focus, and Greater spell Focus (if you go the CC route). Personally in Epics I tend to make sure that my heals are hitting for around 400-500 on average because self healing is all the rage with the kids these days but if you gear correctly and put in some work then you should be able to take all DPS feats in epics and still be a nice self healer.

Enhancements:
Arcane Archer - 41 points
All Cores
T1- Conjure Arrow, Energy of the Wild, Corrosive Arrows, Awareness
T2- Force Arrow, Elemental Damage, Energy Resist 2/3
T3-Terror Arrow, Soul Magic, Elemental Damage, DEX
T4- Banish Arrows, Paralyzing Arrows, Smite Arrows, Elemental Damage, DEX

Arcane archer is a decent damage tree but unfortunately the ranger enhancements aren't great. The keys to pick up from this tree are whatever elemental arrow you like best (I go with acid because the Legendary Stone Shoes make boosting acid spellpowerp easy), 2 DEX enhancements, and the capstone which adds Dex and 20% doubleshot which is huge. Some people like to build towards CC and Paralyzing arrows and if that’s your thing then go nuts.

DWS - 39 points
All core up to Mark of the hunted.
T1- Stealthy, Increased Empathy, Versatile Empathy
T2-Survivalist, Imp Weapon Finesse
T3- Survivalist, Favored Hunter 2/3, Dex
T4- Survivalist, Killer, Merciful shot, Dex
T5- Faroved Enemy, Strikes Like Lightning, Head Shot, Improved Archers Focus

OK so again, you’re playing a ranger, bummer I know, but you need to make the best of it! This tree gives you some extra HP, some positive spell power, a few Sneak Attack dice, Merciful Shot and Head Shot (don't underestimate the blind effect), and the real reason to spend 39 points in this tree; Strikes Like Lightning! This plus the AA line will give you 40% doubleshot (not including stacks of killer.) This helps us get over 100 standing doubleshot.

Epic Destiny:
Shiradi Champion? Wait are you sure? Short answer: Yes

Long Answer: Yes and here is why!

T1-Wildshots, DEX
T2-Prism, Pin
T3-Rainbow, Whirling Wrists
T4-Double Rainbow
T5-Stand and deliver, Nerve Venom
T6-Audience with the Queen, Rain of Arrows, Hunts End

So wild shots is decent and will do a nice chunk to multiple targets when they don't all stand in a straight line for you (inconsiderate monsters). We get another point of dex here yay! Double rainbow plus all the core procs plus nerve venom means that you almost always are having something proc on your target. Yea I know that mathematically thats not true, but it feels true you know what I mean. And feelings are more accurate than math right? Guys? Ok moving on. Audience with the queen is pretty meh, but its a full heal and takes you out of combat for a few seconds so its a cute panic button. Rain of Arrows doesn't have charges anymore and adds to your overall DPS which is the goal. Now lets talk about Hunts End. It’s not as good as adrenaline from Fury since it has a cool down and doesn't have overload to let you unleash massive burst DPS while Manyshot is going. But you probably get to use it on average a few times more per quest than adrenaline, it packs a hell of a punch, and your overall DPS will be higher since this tree now has a lot more ranged support adding a bit of doubleshot and a lot of ranged power.

Fury of the Wild, Legendary Dreadnaught, even Unyielding Sentinal can all be decent destinies too but I believe Shiradi Champion is optimal for DPS.

For Twists you need Primal Hymn and Rejuv Cocoon. Primal Hymn gives 10% stacking attack speed with bows. You need that. Rate of fire is so important. Cocoon is going to heal you for a lot with all the work you put into positive spellpower and healing amp. Other twists that are good are Critical Damage (Nice DPS boost for Crits), Sense Weakness (More DPS especially with pin), Lithe (adds to Max Dex if your dodge is too high), Dragon Heritage (30 more spellpower). You can kind of play around with your twists but you need Primal Hymn, it does everything you want plus some.

Oh my God I love your outfit, who are you wearing?

So here is where I post all the gear you should grind away your life for which will be obsolete as soon as another group of gear comes out. Fun. Love that gear grind. At least the drop rates are bad.

Anyway.

Head: Legendary Wallwatch Circlet
Hands: Legendary Wildwood Gauntlets
Armor: Legendary Wildwood Vest

This is the Wallwatch set. 20 Ranged Power, 20 Doubleshot. Other stuff. This is great.

Bow: Legendary Twisted Willow

This is a good bow. There are others but this is the easiest to get good DPS bow.

Rings: Legendary Celestial Saphire Ring, Sigil of the Triumvirate

Cloak: Legendary Cloak of the Cities Champion

Boots: Legendary Stone Shoes (if acid based)

Goggles: Legendary Collective Sight

Trinket: Icon of Ravenloft

Belt: Legendary Outpost Snipers Belt/ Legendary Braided Cutcord

Bracers: Legendary Hallowed Castigators

Neck: Legendary Family Recruit Sigil

I use the sharn and ravenloft gear for most of the slots for gear. Just make sure you have Dex, Insight Dex, Quality Dex if you can and the same for Con. Improved Deception, Accuracy, Fortification, Dodge, and the best Doubleshot item you can. Then Healing amp, Positive Spellpower, things like that. All the gear gets out dated very quickly. If you really need help with it, just leave a comment and I’ll respond with my current level 30 gear set up. I also switch gear slots a lot. Sometimes I want more healing, sometimes more DPS. It depends on if I'm grouping or soloing so gear slots are just guidelines. There is a lot better gear out there too. This is mostly what I wear though at the moment.

Final thoughts:

You can also do fine with ranged toons by making them some combination of Fighter/Monk/Ranger I find that 12/8 Fighter/Monks or Monk/Fighters are great bow users too. Pretty much build them the same as this, ignore the self healing and take either the Fighter feats like Weapon Specialization, or the Monk feats up to the Ocean. Add in 10k stars and you'll find you have tons of variations. Monks have lots of dodge, Fighters get tons more feats. Just basically use this as a guide for what's useful. I like rangers because they get 40% doubleshot which is unavailable to other classes, as well as good self healing and FOM but you can do a lot with the Fighter and Monk trees too.

I’m writing this at work so I’m sure it’s filled with errors and I know it’s incomplete. If you have any questions, I’ll answer as many as I can. If you hate this then idk maybe you shouldn't have wasted your time reading the whole thing.

Hope you in enjoyed it or found it useful.
-Rich (Kaluen on Orien)

[janave]

I had a similar one for a TR it was doing fine . Since the character was already padded with hp, i just went with extra dodge

[Thunder-Monkey]

Excellent write-up, thanks. Passed this to a guildie who's new to DDO and plays a ranged ranger.

TM

[mckennaric]

Excellent write-up, thanks. Passed this to a guildie who's new to DDO and plays a ranged ranger.

TM

I'm glad you liked it. Ranged rangers get a really bad reputation because it's very easy to build and play them wrong. But honestly this is a very viable build that can do anything. Currently soloing all the Halloween content on CR 35 with no issues and am just quickly blowing through it all. This build also did a Project Nemesis raid with a max level guild who didn't want to let me join because I was pure ranged, but since they didn't fill up they let me join. Then I led the kill count (granted not the most impressive thing) and didn't die once while they had a few deaths. I also can solo a lot of the epic raids with this build. I did a wheeloon run on R6 with a group and was either the 1st or 2nd highest killer every quest (again not super important) with no deaths. So tell your guildie it's possible to have a very good toon but there are a LOT of ways where you can mess it up, either by not knowing the quests very well or not using your abilities to their max potential or buy just carrying a bow and having people automatically not want to group with you because you're 'one of those.'
If you or your guildie has any questions about the build or anything just have them post on this forum or message me in game if you can find me. I'm Kaluen on Orien.

[barecm]

As a fellow ranged ranger, here are the big questions (as I see them at least) you need to ask yourself and answer before starting down the ranged ranger path. Do you want to build pure dps or do you want crowd control; or maybe something in between? Pure wisdom based paralyze/fear arrow builds may want to go pure monk and go into Falconry. Pure dps will want to max dex and heavy into sneak attack damage and ranged power. Personally I would go pure ranger and utilize the Deepwood tree for all its sneak attack goodness.

For you build, you are staying dps and I agree with most of your points but would offer a few suggestions.

For twists, you should not run sense weakness AND primal hymn as they are both t4 and you would burn like 22 points on two slots. I would suggest sense weakness as the dps output is way better than a 10% rate of fire increase. Or, even better, run FoTW and get sense weakness within your tree and have a better dps source and more hps. Sure you lose some ranged power, but you still be in the 100-200 range if you are doing things correctly.

For feats, you are burning 2 feats for heroic and epic toughness and only gain 82 hps. Not exactly what I would suggest.

Also, for twists either in fotw or Shiradi, at tier 1 you want a dance of flowers for +1[w]. You may want grim precision from the rogue tree if you can fit it as well.

FWIW, the answer I came up with was to get as much dps as possible while achieving over 100 dc for paralyze/fear and have over 100% double shot. Understanding there is a ranged power trade off. But that is just my way. Everyone does it different and that is the beauty of DDO.

Happy hunting!

[mckennaric]

As a fellow ranged ranger, here are the big questions (as I see them at least) you need to ask yourself and answer before starting down the ranged ranger path. Do you want to build pure dps or do you want crowd control; or maybe something in between? Pure wisdom based paralyze/fear arrow builds may want to go pure monk and go into Falconry. Pure dps will want to max dex and heavy into sneak attack damage and ranged power. Personally I would go pure ranger and utilize the Deepwood tree for all its sneak attack goodness.

For you build, you are staying dps and I agree with most of your points but would offer a few suggestions.

For twists, you should not run sense weakness AND primal hymn as they are both t4 and you would burn like 22 points on two slots. I would suggest sense weakness as the dps output is way better than a 10% rate of fire increase. Or, even better, run FoTW and get sense weakness within your tree and have a better dps source and more hps. Sure you lose some ranged power, but you still be in the 100-200 range if you are doing things correctly.

For feats, you are burning 2 feats for heroic and epic toughness and only gain 82 hps. Not exactly what I would suggest.

Also, for twists either in fotw or Shiradi, at tier 1 you want a dance of flowers for +1[w]. You may want grim precision from the rogue tree if you can fit it as well.

FWIW, the answer I came up with was to get as much dps as possible while achieving over 100 dc for paralyze/fear and have over 100% double shot. Understanding there is a ranged power trade off. But that is just my way. Everyone does it different and that is the beauty of DDO.

Happy hunting!

Yea there are a lot of ways to build ranged rangers for sure! I have played just about every combination of builds and Epic Destinies and Feats and Twists and they're all pretty fun and since all I do is play pure bow rangers I make notes and write ups for my own personal use when I try different builds and feats and things. I can say that Fury of the Wild used to be the way to go but with the updates that's no longer the case. Adrenaline is the only reason to go FoTW and you can still have fun doing massive burst damage over 30 seconds but overall I haven't had any trouble doing burst damage. The twist for the extra attack speed isn't optional for any bow build in my opinion. I haven't done the math on it but the rate of fire is the most important factor for bows whether you are looking to do damage or paralyze mobs. So if I could only have one twist that would be the one I chose. Sense weakness can be traded out for sure if you're low on points. Dance of flowers is really nice, grim precision is really nice. There are a few options that you can use to customize based on your playstyle or racial AP or what have you. As far as toughness and epic toughness yea, I mean a lot of the feats in the game just aren't that impressive. There are a lot of 'flex feats' in heroic levels. You could actually take anything you want in those slots because there just aren't better options. I take toughness just for a small boost in HP but that's only because I don't really think there is anything else worth taking. Currently with this build I am very resilient and almost never die even in medium reapers. I also tend to be either the top or second top killer in every quest/raid I'm in and I also can solo any normal quest on EE or higher depending and can solo a lot of raids as well.
Pure ranged rangers get a really bad reputation but if you are really careful with your choices and do a lot of grinding for gear you can get your character to be as good as anything besides the "god build of the week" and sometimes you're not even that far behind. It's up to people like us to show others the true fun of going pew pew pew as we shoot everything that moves!

Keep up the good fight!

[Blah2]

1 minor gear suggestion is the dynamistic (SP?) quiver from grim. It s an extra 4 ranged power if no other gear pieces have ranged power

also i use the legendary twisted willow which has keen on it so different feats are an option . Improved critical ranged is not needed and overwhelming critcal is lost (but can twist in from legendary dreadnought extra crit damage)

[Thunder-Monkey]

I haven't done the math on it but the rate of fire is the most important factor for bows whether you are looking to do damage or paralyze mobs.

I can help out there, i counted animations over a minute on my pure 30 ranger and without the twist (from memory) it was ~82/min; with the twist it was ~85/min - that's 1 extra animation every 20 secs. I discounted it as a valuable twist, expensive too.

YMMV.

TM

[barecm]

Yea there are a lot of ways to build ranged rangers for sure! I have played just about every combination of builds and Epic Destinies and Feats and Twists and they're all pretty fun and since all I do is play pure bow rangers I make notes and write ups for my own personal use when I try different builds and feats and things. I can say that Fury of the Wild used to be the way to go but with the updates that's no longer the case. Adrenaline is the only reason to go FoTW and you can still have fun doing massive burst damage over 30 seconds but overall I haven't had any trouble doing burst damage. The twist for the extra attack speed isn't optional for any bow build in my opinion. I haven't done the math on it but the rate of fire is the most important factor for bows whether you are looking to do damage or paralyze mobs. So if I could only have one twist that would be the one I chose. Sense weakness can be traded out for sure if you're low on points. Dance of flowers is really nice, grim precision is really nice. There are a few options that you can use to customize based on your playstyle or racial AP or what have you. As far as toughness and epic toughness yea, I mean a lot of the feats in the game just aren't that impressive. There are a lot of 'flex feats' in heroic levels. You could actually take anything you want in those slots because there just aren't better options. I take toughness just for a small boost in HP but that's only because I don't really think there is anything else worth taking. Currently with this build I am very resilient and almost never die even in medium reapers. I also tend to be either the top or second top killer in every quest/raid I'm in and I also can solo any normal quest on EE or higher depending and can solo a lot of raids as well.
Pure ranged rangers get a really bad reputation but if you are really careful with your choices and do a lot of grinding for gear you can get your character to be as good as anything besides the "god build of the week" and sometimes you're not even that far behind. It's up to people like us to show others the true fun of going pew pew pew as we shoot everything that moves!

Keep up the good fight!

I have to disagree with your reasoning on FoTW. It is more than just adrenaline. It is unbridled fury and the removal of the stacks required. Also, with Hunts End you only get 1 adrenalized shot per Manyshot while in FoTW, the adrenaline has only a 6s cool down so you theoretically can get 4 off, which is a huge difference. Both are good destinies and for different reasons, but if dps is your goal, FoTW offers more. Shiradi has some dps added with Hunts End and ranged power , but is really more for crowd control since you get stay frosty. Pin, ottos arrow, and nerve toxin. I run Shiradi while solo in reaper and FoTW for raids and group play.

[mckennaric]

I have to disagree with your reasoning on FoTW. It is more than just adrenaline. It is unbridled fury and the removal of the stacks required. Also, with Hunts End you only get 1 adrenalized shot per Manyshot while in FoTW, the adrenaline has only a 6s cool down so you theoretically can get 4 off, which is a huge difference. Both are good destinies and for different reasons, but if dps is your goal, FoTW offers more. Shiradi has some dps added with Hunts End and ranged power , but is really more for crowd control since you get stay frosty. Pin, ottos arrow, and nerve toxin. I run Shiradi while solo in reaper and FoTW for raids and group play.

FOTW is not bad. I ran it for over a year while testing ranged ranger builds. It offers much higher DPS during manyshot when you pop all your cooldowns so against a single boss with a ton of health it is a really great option. When I switched from FOTW to Shiradi when the new ED pass came out my overall DPS skyrocketed though. I went from doing the most boss damage once or twice a quest to leading the kill counts in R6's and watching my average damage go up by a huge margin. It does depend on what quests/raids you're running and stuff and neither one is a bad choice. And it might even work out to be very close overall DPS. I just prefer to have my DPS spread out a little more evenly instead of all packed behind fury shot but honestly both are good. In my several years of testing ranged rangers I just think that I do more DPS in Shiradi than I did in FOTW although you're correct that the highest DPS for a 20 second period is in FOTW and it is higher by a lot. I should go back and test FOTW again since it's been a few months of me testing Shiradi though. Thanks for the input! I always like tweaking to try and find the best ranged ranger!

[mckennaric]

I can help out there, i counted animations over a minute on my pure 30 ranger and without the twist (from memory) it was ~82/min; with the twist it was ~85/min - that's 1 extra animation every 20 secs. I discounted it as a valuable twist, expensive too.

YMMV.

TM

What have you been using in its place for DPS? I'd have to do the math on what that works out to in terms of DPS and compare it to a different twist. What twist do you use?

[Thunder-Monkey]

What have you been using in its place for DPS? I'd have to do the math on what that works out to in terms of DPS and compare it to a different twist. What twist do you use?

I'm running with the Martial Hymn right now:

+1 STR/DEX/WIS (benefit from 2 of the 3)
+2 Sneak Dice
+20 HP
+10 PRR/MRR
+5 AC
+10 MP/RP

I run DEX to-hit/dmg and WIS to paralyze/fear, mostly only in raids as he's parked at 30 for the time being so all the above are helpful. In group questing I'd probably switch back to Sense Weakness if there's lots of helpless.

Other twists: Dance of Flowers (t2) Enchantment Specialist (t2) and cocoon (t1).

TM

[barecm]

What have you been using in its place for DPS? I'd have to do the math on what that works out to in terms of DPS and compare it to a different twist. What twist do you use?

Since you are running Shiradi, I would twist sense weakness. Other twists that I run are cocoon, enchantment specialist, dance of flowers, and grim precision.

If I’m in FoTW, I’ll swap sense weakness with echos and grim precision with pin.

My build goal is high (not max by any means) dps and reliable paralyze. In reaper my DC is close to 105 I think? Which seems to do the trick pretty much no fail. Not 100% but close enough. Depends on the mob type I guess.

[Komradkillingmachine]

Ranged rangers, roflmao!

When are you gonna learn?

[mckennaric]

Ranged rangers, roflmao!

When are you gonna learn?

Ranged Rangers are not the #1 Top tier DPS build in the game and probably they won't be ever. But they are really fun to play, I never die when playing them, I can solo every quest on either EE or R1 and in groups I lead the kill count up to R6 unless I'm grouped with one of the most uber characters on the server. Plus I can solo a ton of the epic raids. So if you want to play a ranged ranger because you think they're fun or for any of the reasons I just said then this is the build you want to use. If you want to run R10 solo then yeah obviously play a different character lol.

[Swimms]

I am really just disappointed that you did not call the build "Ranger Rich"

[Komradkillingmachine]

I don't think there exists a worse insult than being called a Ranged Ranger

Press F to pay respects to all stumbling in the dark, trying find their way out.

[janave]

I don't think there exists a worse insult than being called a Ranged Ranger

Press F to pay respects to all stumbling in the dark, trying find their way out.

Xbow Rangers are all the rage.

[mckennaric]

I am really just disappointed that you did not call the build "Ranger Rich"

I too feel shame over this. Not much shame mind you. I do run a Ranged Ranger after all.

[shores11]

I like this build in general. Can you elaborate with some possible stats?

- General non-crit damage
- Range of crit damage