Ranger: Just returned, suggestions on what to do?

G

Garnax

Dalayan Beginner
Just returned to the game from a 3 year absence. I had just dinged 65 and grabbed about 10 AA before I took my absence, needless to say coming back has been both exciting and overwhelming.

fomelo: http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=garnax

I have shaken off most of the rust over the past few days and am doing well in groups and soloing. I also have most of my bow AAs. Lately I have just been bow kiting orc fort in EW and doing bounty quests when I can find a group.

Any suggestions on what I should be doing? My gear obviously needs a big upgrade (Although almost all of it is from doing tmaps when I originally played).

Is there any gear I should look into buying? I am pretty patient and like raiding/grouping/soloing to get my gear instead of buying it from others -- but if theres some good things to be had I'd be willing to buy them.

I haven't gone too far in my main quest, I believe I am at the part now where I choose a heartlands faction.

TL:DR: newbie 65 ranger returns after 3 year absence, looking for suggestions regarding gear/adventures

*EDIT* Wanted to include that I am not currently double boxing.
 
Last edited:
I'm on my phone so this will not look as pretty as I would like however I'm going to be out of town and wish to help a bit before I get back...

AA's
Archery Mastery 3
Deadeye 3
Combat Fury 3
Fury of the Ages 1 / 2 / 3

There are the main aa's that are good for bowing. You can do them in that order if you like. I would suggest you do these before anything else. Pinning Shot is kinda cool but I don't think it's super awesome or anything. Combat Ferocity and Unerring Precision will not help your bowing in any way.

Gear

I would say the most important thing you can get right now is a good bow. Crippling Longbow (http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Crippling_Longbow) is the best bow, I feel, that you can buy. The only other option would be to deal with doing bounty quests. I have never felt the need to do any other then for getting my random alts seeds so perhaps asking someone else for more information would be good if you choose to pick this route. I would also advise you to keep an eye out for CW, Clockwork, raids/PUGs. People tend to run these often and you could possibly pick up a Shooting Starmetal Ballista ( http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Shooting_Starmetal_Ballista) quite easily due to it having poor stats making only rangers really want it.

The next thing you want to get is the best haste item you can find. Quickstream Bracers ( http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Quickstream_Bracers) have 32% haste. This is far better then your current 12% and should really not cost you more then 1k. Hell someone might even feel bad for you and give you one for free. Other haste items you can buy really jump in price quickly. You might just want to hold out till you get a haste item from raiding unless you have good money farming skills.

Getting a Seed of Health (http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Seed_of_Health) as soon as possible would be a great idea. It's best to get this item when you are relatively low on exp so you can just level it up as you go. This will turn I to basically an ear you will never replace, unless you play the game for a year + and get to T11 or so.

If you're doing maps you should get the quest pieces. The ear is simply amazing for melee dps Peerless Golden Earring (http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Peerless_Golden_Earring) If you stick with the game you can even upgrade this ear with a side quest in the Vah line.

General

I killed EW orcs for a super long time before the expansion came out. I think that they are still rather good exp for how much hp they have. Once you get more powerful you can even keep the names and their place holders down and make some ok money.

Now that the expansion is out killing random "easy side" animals in The Remnants of Old Ikild might be better exp. They will have more hp and might take too long to kill however they do give more exp.

Perhaps the best thing to do would be to just rotate between both of them so you can mix it up a bit. It's not very fun to kill the same crap for a long time. I did farm out most of my Codex of Powers solo in remnants when I was a noob ass ranger and that was a lot of killing to say the least. A Codex of Power is about 110 AAs so you know. I still can get more exp soloing in remnants now then I can in 90% of the groups in the game. I however make the zone KoS and kill on the harder side of the zone. I basically love that zone, maybe you will hate it.

I will try to think of things to add to this. Hope it helps a little. Feel free to ask more questions here or look me up in game. I don't log on much anymore however.

Oh. Doing the quest for Amice of the Golden Dawn would be a great idea. Also try to get a Tainted Pirahna Eye to save some trouble with trying to keep firefist up on you all the time.
 
Last edited:
Fantastic information, going to be following up on all of these leads for sure.

Thanks for all the time spent wildly slapping your phone's keyboard.
 
Also, if you're doing maps loot up an Ebb. It would basically be the best primary weapon to use when you're bowing for about forever.
 
The Ebb would be good due to stats aye?

Also a question, how often should I be using my stances: /s 7 (2x arrow per shot) and /s 8 (increased ranged accuracy, reduced melee/dodge skills) ?

I imagine I should use them as soon as they refresh in steady exp groups/solo? Or is there a penalty to being exhausted.

Is /s 8 even useful (despite lasting longer) compared to /s 7?

EDIT: Doing the amice for the golden dawn, thanks for the info -- I would've never found that until much later.
 
Last edited:
Ebb will give you 1% haste that will stack with anything.

I basically never use /s 7 ever. Perhaps I am just bad. There is very little times that I found it to be useful.

j883376 said:
When you become exhausted, you resume your normal combat stance which has no modifiers on its own. However, the following applies to clients, mobs, and pets while they have 0 stamina remaining:

  • A 10% reduced chance to hit any target in melee combat
  • A 10% increase chance for you to be hit by others in melee combat
Click to expand...

/s 8 is kinda nice. It's just rather meh in general. I guess it's more helpful when you don't have your pet bird. Feel free to use it whenever you like. I just remove one of my melee weapons to drop the stance before I hit zero stamina.

I mainly just stay in /s 4 forever when I'm soloing with my bow.

Amice of the Golden Dawn*is an item I always have on me. You can click it from your inventory, quite nice.
 
Last edited:
I have a few maps I have opened and need to run to clear up inventory space. We can hook up in game and see if we can get you some loot/quest pieces.
 
(didnt read all of Kedrin's post)

quote Garnax:
"Is there any gear I should look into buying? "

Filling the aug slots on your bow will take a long time if you dont get daily bounty groups,I
suggest buying a crippling longbow,sells to ~1400 to Vendor,going price is 5k.

Quickstram Bracer,32% haste,sells for ~1400p to Vendor,going price is 2k.
There is a 40% haste 1hand weapon with otherwise crap stats and ratio - good for bowing,
rather easy to get,but alas I forgot the name or where it drops. :)

Other than that I would be very careful what to spend my money on.
Try to get in map groups,people often do them just for the quest pieces and they may drop
a few upgrades for you especially considering there are empty slots on your fomelo.


Dont do EW Orcs,they drop crap,DN rats have considerably more cash,a few might be light blue though.
Remants crocs are nice especially for Rangers,you can make a super cheap "natural" bane
damage bow,the augs just cost r1 tokens.
Generally,money is of overwhelming importance on SoD because of the charms,in the long(er) run you should aim for a Trueshot charm.

quote Garnax:
"I haven't gone too far in my main quest"
Very worth to finish,and you will need it later for Ikilid anyway.
Also a deity aug is easy to get,first augs are basically a little running around to get,I suggest
Althuna,never did another,maybe others have better ideas which deity to choose.

quote Garnax:
"Wanted to include that I am not currently double boxing."
Though not mandatory it certainly makes things *MUCH* easier,I suggest Druid or Cleric,maybe Shammy if you can live with their limitaions(no group heal mostly),I couldnt :) .
 
Might want to avoid the advice of people who lack the knowledge to quote others on a message board. Anyhow...

Crippling Longbow has a 1.282 ratio and some very nice stats. I also think the proc is quite nice for the Decrease Armor Class will let your bow shots hit harder on the mobs it has procced on.

You currently have a White Wyvern Longbow with a base 0.933 ratio. Quite terrible if you look at this Bow Progression guide I helped make; it shouldn't be hard to get a bow with a > 1 ratio. I know this is only the base of the bow however so let us look at how hard it would be to make this bow on par with or better then the Crippling Longbow linked above.

Slot 1 type 10: Minor Dragoons's Core - 5
Slot 2 type 11: Minor Dragoons's Core - 1
Slot 3 type 12: empty
Slot 4 type 13: Inscription of Major Poaching - 6

The best item I saw, using rank 1 Token's, to fill the type 10 slot is the Minor Dragoons's Core. It will add 8 dmg to the bow as well as adding 80 HP. This will make the bow 1.066 ratio. Still well under 1.282 found on the Crippling Longbow.

To fill the type 11 slot I guess adding +10 dex to the item would be your best bet.

I don't think there is a way to purchase type 12 augs with rank 1 bounty tokens.

For the last alot, the type 13, Inscription of Major Poaching, to add +8 Nature dmg to the bow might be the best bet. This will only help you if you're killing mobs of that type like the animals found in Remn. With this aug it would bring the bow up to 1.2 ratio only when fighting mobs of the nature type. Still under that of what the Crippling Longbow would be doing 100% of the time. It would still also have less stats as well as having no proc. This "completed" bow would also set you back 12 bounty tokens.

I am really not sure that doing this work is worth the time. I know the higher end bow you can get from hard bounties is much better, maybe you should look into that? I wouldn't be so surprised however if they are simply too hard for someone like you to do.
 
It seems all of the bounty bows are the exact same stats the only difference being the aug slots it accepts.

Based on what I've been looking into, the rank 1 bow has the best augment slot selection assuming you use rank 3 augments. The other two bows seem to mainly focus on augment slots that either add +Stats or +Procs. -- Could be wrong about this.

Regardless, definitely looking like crippling long bow is the best one to get because of the proc, ratio and time to acquire.
 
Kedrin seems to have hit most of the major points - get a good bow/haste item and a few aa's and you are mostly set for DPS.
All I can add - /s 7 only lasts for like 15-20 seconds and as noted above, you do get a penalty for being exhausted, so only use it when you really really really need something to die quickly. Otherwise, /s 2, 4, or 8 are all viable options and it's just a matter of personal preference really. You'll quickly figure out what works for you.

Side note - is the item in game really called "Minor Dragoons's core" or is that just a typo on the wiki? That extra "s" is burning my eyes.
 
Alright since my initial post I have gained all of my ranged DPS AA and a lot of new gear (including some of the suggestions listed here, great items thanks)

http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=garnax

Now I am wondering what should the rest of my Pre-Tome AA be spent on?

I am thinking that survivability in a raid is pretty important so I have been putting some AA in my defensive abilities (planning on finishing weapon shield and lightning reflexes first)

Past that, I imagine innate resists to magic and fire will be good?

Is innate strength/cha/sta worth it at this point?

Or any other suggestions as to which AA route to take?

I figure over time I will eventually get most if not all, so at this point I am just looking at getting the most use out of my pre-tome AA.
 
Last edited:
If you are looking to raid I would suggest survivability AAs. All resists, combat avoidance/ natural durability/ stamina. Other than that I haven't really played a ranger too far so I would not have much else for advice, but these AAs are super important.
 
Looking pretty good Garnax!

As Rience stated, survivability AA's are going to be your best bet. HP, resists, then avoid/weapon shield. Eventually you'll want to get all of them... but those are now your best bang for the buck.

I'd look to get an Ebb (1% haste that apparently now works with autofire) and swap your cane to offhand. Then after that beg to PUG clockwork (or even valorA, but no one pugs that unless its for tokens/ maybe IP for a Woe).

Right now maxing your dps is the easiest way to gain power and be more desirable.... archery charm (the cheap one), max crit strike... then later on try to max worn attack. A tmap ear, or even cheap(ish) BoE crit stuff will do wonders for your dps. Earring of enforcement, hungry eyes, VD gloves.

I'd make a druid (for ports/buffs) or at least find one to use, do/finish MQ... work on some maps for QP and PP. I'll hit you up in game if you want to just borrow a druid/ tank for maps


Edit: oh and try to track/find/ ask someone to do Ganzese in Fire Grottos. Crit Ring and an archery/crit 2ndary... can be easily 1 grouped, and people will kill it for EF key.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom