Taking Up a New Melee Skill

[DarkArtist]

Well, I'm approaching lvl 30 soon and i was wondering when/if it would be a good idea to take up another melee skill?

I have 145 1hs, and was thinking about the benefits of 1hb in the long run. I feel a combination of 1hs and 1hb will offer more eq opportunity (meaning more stat modifiers available), than other skills such as 2hs or 2hb, (seeing that i have max dual weild and double attack for my lvl).

I realize it will take a long time to raise 1hb, to even max at my lvl, i believe max for lvl 28 being 145. And some of the dps and stat modifiers offered by blunt weapons is enticing.

But is it worth it to raise another melee skill such as 1hb, meaning some of my other stats might be neglegted in doing so, and does it matter in the end game, being that lvl 40-60+ rangers seem to use a combination of/either 1hs whip primary, and 1hs knuckles/sword/axe secondary?

Are item primary stat modifiers that much better on a high end blunt weapon compared to a 1hs that they might warrent spending exp points and pp?

Also, seeing that lvls 40-65 may introduce spells under the conjuration skill (if some of them are currently implemented), and conjuration is extremely low for my char due to non use of those spells, i may have to invest alot of points in conjuration later on as well.

I am rather new to all this so some thoughts, experiences, comments, help, criticism, or flames would be of some use at this point, and might even save me the humiliation of miss-spent points in the end game.

Thx,
~DarkArtist

 

[Dujek]

I would suggest you raise any skills you intend to raise as early as you possibly can. For a ranger, the main skills I personally would focus on are:

Archery
One hand slash
Alteration
Conjuration
One hand blunt
Evocation
Divination

Raising one hand blunt will benefit you towards the high level end of the game. You might have seen the quest for the Bloodletter, which is a very nice, very doable 1hb weapon that I use most of the time (primarily because it looks so cool. ;D), and has nice stat modifiers. There are also a few dropped 1hbs that are ranger usable.

However, that being said, slashing weapons are predominant later on. You will rarely see a dropped 1hb weapon that you will use, outside of a drop from a hardish raid encounter (aside from Bloodletter). As a ranger, you will be using one hand slash weapons the majority of your time.

If I were you, I would make certain to keep your archery skill maxed as a given (in recent DPS tests, my ranger did approximately 85dps with melee weapons and approximately 110dps with a bow), keep your 1hs skill up high as the server is flooded with slashing weapons at the moment, and make sure your casting skills are high enough to save you five or six fizzles in a row. Aside from that, I would only begin to increase tertiary skills if I had my sights set on a certain weapon that used that skill, or if I had just obtained one and wanted to use it. A ranger will always do good damage with a bow, so it doesn't really matter what's being held in the hands (I think of them as two extra slots for raising my stats) unless they want to lower their DPS for some reason or need to tank, and most exp groups will be fine with you trying to raise a combat skill if you ask them first.

As always, how you build your character depends on your personal preferences. If you need examples of any highish end ranger weapons, equipment, tactics, etc, feel free to send Kionn a tell any time. Good luck.

 

[DoctorGonzo]

Where is skeleton in First Ruins at? There USED to be a guide up but now all the pictures and info have been deleted.

Any help please?

 

[DarkArtist]

Hey, great reply Dujek, thx very much.

Well, I realise (finaly) that I need to raise archery skill a bit more. Currently archery is 120, at lvl 29...I believe max is 150 for that lvl. Thats a lot of points...and I just raised archery 14 points, spent over 100 pp. (gonna have to sell that troll skull helm, unwearable for my race, pretty soon just to pay for stats...)

One handed slash, Alteration, and Evocation are maxed, with Abjuration close behind. However, I only recently got the ranger spell list, and came to realize Conjuration would soon become an important factor in the future. So i raised it to 10, and raised parry 10 more points (it was pretty low, but almost maxed now), therefore archery suffered a little. Divination, is a little higher than Conjuration right now...(looks like I need to stand around and use 'summon: dance of fireflies' for a little while, raise conjur a bit more.)

So yea i'm just going to raise Archery for a while, get it caught up, then worry about tertiary skills such as 1hb, by then i should be around 35-36, and getting ready for lvl 39 spells.

Thx for all your help.

One other question though..A bit off topic : (

Could you please explain your root/snare combo tactics? I really have no idea how to properly use both successfuly on mobs, i know i'm doing something wrong, or not at all.

Thx again,
~DarkArtist

 

[Phelios]

I don't know how well it will work for ranger, because I have never gotten one past lvl 14 (and that was on eqlive), but druid is similair to ranger, so here's what I do.

Snare
Root
Dot
Sit
Recast Root/Dot when they wear off
Hope Snare doesn't wear off
Keep Sow on
Twiddle My thumbs
Collect the xp 10 minutes later
Rinse
Repeat


For ranger, I'd imagine using your bow instead of dot would work...and would prolly be much more effective. oh well. just guessing. Im not sure which spells ranger actually gets. I'll have to check up on that sometime....

 

[Dujek]

Phelios is pretty much correct. Slightly different for rangers, though.

Since killing blue mobs is usually quite arrow-intensive, make sure you're packing a couple of backpacks of hooked arrows. If you run out of those, you have a long way to walk to get more.

Obviously, when you find the mob you want, you need to pull it with snare. Your choice at this point is to kite it around with arrows and snare until it dies, or to root and shoot. Unfortunately, every arrow you fire has a fairly high chance to break root, so you might only end up getting in one or two shots before it wears off (which was a waste of mana). You'll pick up the whole concept as you go along, it's really quite simple.

Aside from being simple, bowkiting is also one of the most efficient ways to solo. You don't get hit much, you don't use up much mana, it's not that expensive and your safety margin is really quite large. All this being said, though, you'll soon grow to hate bowkiting, since it requires you to manually hit your archery key every three seconds or so, it requires you to constantly walk in circles and make sure that you don't pick up extra aggro (I've had to run for the zone a few times because my attention drifted to something more interesting. Like my roof.) and requires you to constantly go back to the shop when you run out of arrows. Not to mention the fact that replying to tells, group chat, guild chat, etc just detracts from your DPS.

Still, it's one of the draws of a ranger. You're a decent tank, able to carry your group if they can't find a good plate tank. You're a somewhat active form of crowd control (you can pull adds to the side, root them, and continue firing arrows at the first target). You're very good DPS, both with melee and archery (when it's tweaked a little ) and you can run off to solo whenever your heart desires.

 

[DarkArtist]

Ahhh..that's great to know, tyvm.

In breaking news...I took some time to practice bow kiting on green mobs then worked up to blue ones, and not only am I getting the hang of it, but I actually caught up my archery skill to max for lvl 30. I think I'll save my points for raising conjuration/divination as I lvl up, and just keep my archery maxed the hard way..by doing.

Also, in spare time before lvling up again I started down the long, tedious road to raise 1hb..the hard way.

Once conjuration/divination is high enough to save me from fizzles, all points will go into 1hb..which will be awhile.

Besides....I'm not in a rush to lvl anyway...I could use some more time learning things and raising skills while I lvl to 40, when it will be high time to consider joining a Guild.

Update: Well, I spent 10 hours grinding and maxed 1hb at 160 for lvl 31, not one point was spent, I maxed it the hard way. When I started I thought I would never get to max 160...but I did.

Not so worried now as I was before...I see now it will be fairly easy to keep almost all of my skills maxed well before each lvl.

Conjuration is slow and will require points to be spent as I lvl up. Divination is unbearable...for the most part it will be neglected, though it will get some points over time, but not until Conjuration is doing well, seeing that some of the nicer DoT's that come up in later lvls are Conjuration based.

Thx again,
~DarkArtist