Hi, I'm a lvl 60 ranger on FV and really don't have anyone to ask where i should be at this point. I have all my lvl AA's, i think, but i'm seriously lacking something. I have most of my combat skills at or almost at lvl max. So..... i do almost as much dmg from kicking as i do with a melee weapon. With my bow i kick butt, but the close combat is just off. I think i have lvl appropriate weapons for 1H-slash/1H-pierce/2H-slash(meaning the rec/req for the weapon is close to where i'm at). I heard someone say augments are what make the dif. So my question is, what augments should/would fix this? Or is there something else i should be looking at?
I assume you're using auto-granted AA's, so your AA's for level 60 will all be current. At that level for a ranger, bow dps is just objectively better than melee, especially considering you'll have Archery Mastery AA maxed. If you want you can post what melee weapons you're using to confirm they are decent level appropriate weapons, but they aren't going to approach your bow dps at all. At higher levels this will change and melee will be superior. I wouldn't really worry about any melee augments at your current level since you'll just out-level them pretty quickly, and they make very little difference to your dps. If you really want some melee augments, you could grab some from Dragons of Norrath vendors in Lavastorm using Radiant Crystals or Ebon Crystals currency, which are probably available in bazaar on FV. One example is Firecore Geode (req level 70). You'd probably need to sneak (depending on race) or use a rogue shroud to obtain these augments without factioning up in DoN. There's several other types available on the DoN vendors, but don't count on them making any meaningful difference to melee dps.
So, from what you're saying, then it's not odd that the most i've managed w/melee is about 200(usually <100), but with the bow i've gotten 1200+(usually around 600-700, occasionally about 1100)? And the one time, I got 19,000+ critical shot!!! Really surprised me, and totally wasted on a hill giant. For 2H-slash, i have Flawed Defiant EmeraldBlade (@ lvl 65, will go to Timeless Coral GreatSword) I know the emeraldblade seems less than what i should have, but i really wasn't finding anything @ my level that was as good. For 1H-slash, Elaborate Defiant Cutlass. For 1H-pierce, Elaborate Defiant Rapier (@ lvl 70, going to Elegant Defiant NightBlade) For bow, Rushing Wind Longbow (@ lvl 63, going to Cliffwood Bow the wait is truly painful) Sounds like i should only be doing enough blade work to keep up my skills, but otherwise just using the bow (and occasional spell to liven things up).
At 60, I didn't even worry about augments and haven't really gotten serious about them until I could buy the good ones with Marks Of Valor from Vendor in CoTF at like 75, 80, 85, and 90. At 60, they shouldn't make much of a difference. I would highly suggest having a healer box if you're serious, as it will make it much easier to do missions later, and in general make the game a lot more fun.
Having been a ranger since day one, I would agree with Xyroff. Rangers use bows. Your swords etc will never be what your bow will be. Although they will improve your bow will always rule. Get your endless quiver AA, buy or make an ancient arrow (just one cause with endless quiver you reuse the same arrow) and go to town. One thing not to get is any aug on your bow that procs a damage as that usually breaks root and then the mob is really ticked off at you. You may want to get some class 3 wood tip arrows since our arrow spells require those and the spell will eat those arrows. Like casters spells eat their regents. I use snare or root then toss a bug spell on them and go to town with my bow. You should see those lizards in Freerot drop - by the time others in the group are getting ready to attack the mob is dead from headshot.
CatsPaws, if i wasn't so clueless, i think we would get along quite well indeed. However, i am clueless and have no idea what you mean w/ this. "One thing not to get is any aug on your bow that procs a damage as that usually breaks root and then the mob is really ticked off at you." Also, what kind of arrow spells are there? I don't think i've seen any of those.
Melee you should be swinging your mainhand two to three times (I forget exactly when triple attack and then flurry kick in). Your offhand should be swinging once or twice per combat round as well - eventually you will hit two and be stuck there for a long long time. Unless your bow significantly outclasses your melee weapons, your DPS with archery should be less than that of your melee. Do not confuse individual hits with DPS. I’m at work now and really cannot look up your weapons, but do not expect that melee or archery is better just by eyeballing the hits. As far as augs go, back in the day I was looking for HP ones for all my gear. I know better now. Go for the ones that have both AC and HP. The exceptions are (when they become available to you) damage augs for your weapons, and the highest AC aug you can find for your shield. You’re part tank. Under the Trueshot line your archery will generally be your best DPS but not always when not discing. Be versatile, and do not be afraid to tank. A shield can help a lot with tanking. Eventually, when they become available, you’ll be looking for augs with HDex... I look for AC, HP, HDex in all of mine excepting damage and shield augs.
Rangers can melee but really, imo, should be using a bow. Why? HEADSHOTS!!! That is where your big crit on that hill giant probably came from. It's nice to be fighting the appropriate lvl humanoid and just dropping it from 90% health to dead.. I'm guessing w/ the right aa for dual wield etc, damage might equal out some but right now, at 101, my ranger does much better dps w/ a bow than melee weaps equipped. Shoot, ranger even has range in their name If you haven't, get the 90% weight reduction quiver for bow haste. That will output even more dmg w/ the bow
Roth, i've never used a shield before, but i might check into whether that might work for me in a melee. Phiyre, what is the name of the quiver you mentioned? Also, will it interfere w/ endless quiver?
Doesn't interfere w/ endless at all. I have one of the best (can't remember the name) arrow in the ammo slow and one in my quiver and it works like a charm. http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=89583
Here is an old, but still pretty functional list of headshot mobs.. https://www.knightsofinfinity.org/mobile/forum/viewthread/m/34987556/id/25717440-ranger-hs-info This is a comment from Derka on a thread I made a while back on ranger weap augs for a bow. "stone of sharpening is a great entry level and easily available Aug. Once you start grouping more and get away from root rotting, get yourself the Frost Blossom for DD proc. Start experimenting with your imbued ferocity AA to make it go off. You can add up damage quickly in a short time when they twinproc and critical. Good little mini and quick reuse burn"
Ok when you cast snare (slow it down when its running at you) it pretty much stays on the mob till you get it dead. When you cast root you are trying to get the mob to stay rooted - in one place. So hopefully you can run away to another zone or the tank can get aggro. Root does not last as long as snare and it does break after a bit. Now if someone casts a big damage spell on that mob it will break root right then and the mob will come a runnin (slower if you got it snared). Some augs you can put on your bow do the same thing - they cast direct damage when you shoot which in turn will break your root and you will then use our best mana free/plat free "ranger" gate(death). Direct damage augs are better off on your sword. The arrow spells that consume those class 3 arrows are listed here and I think start at level 78 http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=30324
Headshot is a nice trick, if all you want to do is solo or PL people. If you’re interested in actually taking on whites or better, unless your bow is significantly higher tier than your melee weapons, you’ll do better with melee. The only reason people went archery back in the days of PoP was tradable, crafted EP bows were available, but equal tier melee weapons generally weren’t - not unless you were raiding PoP at the time. Superior melee weapons didn’t come readily available to non-raiders until GoD’s Velium Gemmed weaponry. After that, we were melee again- until EoK when archery non-disc was superior DPS than melee non-disc. Discing, archery has generally been superior, though at some point (around TSS, not sure when it ended) popping TS for Hail of Arrows line, while still meleeing, was the best DPS we could do. Obviously, you need to be shooting if you want to proc Headshot (or use the aforementioned Hail of Arrows and its derivative lines). Outside of that limited factor, you’ll be meleeing for your questing and namer camping and whatnot. Don’t forget - Headshot is limited to Dark Blue mobs of the Humanoid variety. Undead, Giant, Monster ... these don’t count and if you need something from them, you won’t be getting it with Headshots. Summoning mobs, as well - you won’t be getting many Headshots off on those, even if they are Dark Blue and Humanoid. They aren’t things to avoid, especially not if they have something you need. All it means is, you have to reach for a different tool in the ranger toolkit. When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail. But, you’re a ranger, and have more than just that hammer. Use the rest of your tools. LadyM, you have two numbers displayed by your AC : a mitigation number, and an avoidance number. That mitigation number is your “real” AC - it is the number used by the game to determine how hard you are hit. The more, the merrier. It used to be, however, that the two numbers were displayed as one composite figure, and that composite figure did NOT take into account the class softcap. That softcap is set low enough that if you’re wearing any kind of level appropriate gear, you’re well over it. Any AC over the softcap is counted only partly. For example, if you have a softcap of 200, and the combined AC on your gear and buffs adds up to 300, you may only have 225 AC (which is arrived at by 200 AC + 25% of the excess). Shields, however, have their AC value added to the softcap, effectively bringing their entire AC under the softcap! If you tack on a 50 AC shield to that 300 you had on, bringing you to 350 worn AC, 250 of that will be your pre-cap, with teh same 25 overcap added on, for 275 AC. Shields can really help you tank something that you otherwise could not. I don’t say go around using sword and shield full time. But it is one of the tools in your toolkit, to help you survive when you need to tank something. Of course, it comes with the obvious drawback of giving up your Offhand DPS, but that beats not surviving the encounter. Equally of course, those numbers for AC and such were illustrative for the concept. I don’t know offhand what the ranger base AC softcap is, though I *think* it has to do with the Defense skill. Defense may be more of an indicator than related to it however.
Roth, i'm new enough to any MMO or RPG that a lot of that went right over my head. But i think i sort of get what you're saying. So, with the 2 AC #s, is the softcap the second one in white, and the actual AC in green? For me the green # is slightly less(533/604), so maybe i should be looking for things to help bring that up. I did get a shield to try out(seems adequate for my lvl), but i'm not seeing a benefit w/ how much dmg i'm getting. At the end of your reply, the part about the Defense skill... is that why earlier today i killed a mob when i didn't even have the melee attack on? I didn't have any weapons out, so when the mob attck'd, it said i punched it for the 19,000+ dmg. For a mob @ lvl50, it was kind of funny. It came up and hit me and then i just knocked it flat. Does that start to happen more and more often if i just keep my defense skill @ max? And am i supposed to suddenly start doing that kind of dmg more frequently? I hope this will all make more sense @ higher lvl's. Right now, the melee dmg i do is usually ridiculously low, w/ the occasional crazy high amount. Is this why all the jokes about low Ranger survival?
This is a combination of two things. First, rangers (and all melee types) have an innate skill called Riposte. Riposte is a chance for any incoming frontal attack (an enemy smacking you in the face) to be automatically blocked and counter-attacked. This will be reported in your combat spam as "a large rat tries to bite YOU, but YOU riposte." You can see your current skill level in Riposte (and all your other skills) if you click the Skills button in the bottom left of your inventory. Second, you have an AA ability (hit V to see your AA list) called Finishing Blow. This AA fires pretty often if you're attacking an enemy that is below 10% health and is low enough level. When it fires, it does an absurd amount of damage in one hit, finishing the enemy off. Assuming you're still level 60, you'll have Finishing Blow rank 3, which means it can work on any enemy up to and including level 54. What you described with a mob wandering up and getting killed without you attacking it sounds like you fired both riposte and Finishing Blow. You would have somehow gotten it below 10% health though before Finishing Blow would fire, possibly via other ripostes or a damage shield. As for the Defense skill. You have a generic Offense skill and a generic Defense skill listed on your skills page. These are passive skills that just influence all of your combat rolls. Higher defense = enemies successfully hit you less often and for lower average amount. Higher offense = you hit successfully more often and for an average higher hit. These skills don't do anything active you'll actually see in game other than influence combat damage.
So sounds like it's a matter of figuring out which AA & combat skills stack up together and when. Does that mean the AA & Skills levels have a much higher importance than what weapon or aug you have/use (assuming the weapon is at least adequate)?
That's a pretty broad comparison, but I guess overall I'd say yes. If you're severely lacking in current AA's or weapon skills, upgrading your weapon from one current era weapon to a slightly better current era weapon isn't going to help you much.
Thanx all. This gives me a better view of the big picture(sort of ). Now i can make some choices w/ slightly better understanding of what's what(maybe ).
When something tries to hit you, the game has to decide a couple things. 1 : Did it actually hit you? 2 : If it did, how hard did it actually hit you for? 1 : You have several skills that can stop an incoming attack dead in its tracks. These are checked in a certain order : Riposte, Parry, Dodge. If an attack is Riposted, then it is stopped dead in its tracks and you get one counter attack with your main hand weapon. If it is Parried, or Dodged, then the attack is simply stopped. LAter on, you’ll get an AA that allows a shield to Block. I’m not 100% positive, but I think this check comes after Dodge. Monks (and Beastlords) have the same skill check order, though theirs is called Block instead of Parry. If none of those “active defenses” stop the attack, the game decides whether the attack was simply a hit or a miss. This check involves the second AC number - which you’ve told us for you is 604. If the mob misses, then no damage is done. If the mob hits, however ... 2 : A mob’s damage actually comes in two parts : Damage Bonus, and Damage Interval. No, I’m not sure where the names came from. The game uses some arcane formula to generate a number from 1 through 20 (whole numbers only, no fractions or decimals). This is where the first AC number (your 533) comes into play - it helps to push the 1-20 number down. More AC means a greater push down, and you want the 1-20 number to be as low as possible! Not that it will stop all 20’s, just that it helps to push the average 1-20 down. The actual hit damage you take will be Damage Bonus + (1-20*DI), but can be modified by a few other factors (which aren’t important towards discussing AC). If a mob has a DB of 10 and a DI of 20, it can hit for anywhere from 30 to 410. The more you are able to squish the average 1-20, the closer to the 30 mark the average hit you take will be. Shield AC, by counting for full and not being subject to the overcap return rate, will have a stronger effect on squishing that 1-20 than the same amount of AC on any other piece of gear. Sorry if this is all too technical. I tried to not let it be. The long and short of it is ... a shield can help you a lot more than just another AC buff would. While the second AC number is harder to increase, the first one you’ll want to get as high as you reasonably can, because you are part tank and can step up to take a few hits, even beyond Weaponshield, in a pinch. On a side note, the reason that first AC number is in green is you have some kind of AC buff on. Whether its a druid’s (or your) skin buff, some cleric buffs, or your own self buffs. On the inventory screen, the game tends to highlight things that are buffed up by turning the numbers green, and things that are reduced somehow are turned red.
