Ranger Stat Balancing

[Solaar Wynd]

<p>Yeah, we're all in a holding pattern until we see what the devs do, but in the meantime let's have a constructive discussion.  I'd much rather go down fighting and trying than give up in despair.  Let's throw out some ideas that may actually help our fellow Rangers rather than abandoning them to silence...</p><p>With Sf and its new stats, players of all classes are more than ever having a difficult time juggling / prioritizing stats.  It's no different with Rangers.</p><p>Crit Chance, Crit Bonus, Double Attack Chance, Potency, DPS Mod, Haste, Agility... all of these are important to Rangers in various degrees.  Which are the most important to raise first?  At which threshold do you switch and work on another stat?</p><p>What are you Rangers doing?  What's your strategy for juggling SF stats?</p><p>I'm not uber or all-knowing by any means, but here's what I'm doing:</p><p>1.  I try to use gear with Agility as the highest stat (as in everything, there can be exceptions to this, but I haven't seen many yet - there are usually +agility alternatives around)</p><p>2.  Crit Chance and Double Attack up to (or near) 100% (Ideally, I'd like to end up with each at around 110%)</p><p>3.  Next, work on Crit Bonus and Potency.  No known caps.</p><p>4.  Throw in DPS Mod where I can after the above.  Hits a soft cap in the 150-200 area.</p><p>5.  Haste - I always have at least one piece of 35+ Haste gear.  There's a lot of buffage available for this stat, so not a huge priority.  Hits a soft cap 150-200.</p><p>6.  Ability Modifier - I don't concentrate at all on this, but I tend to get it with gear anyway. Not sure what the cap is here, if there is one.</p><p>My current stat setup (self-buffed):</p><p>Agility:  1214 (don't forget Character Development!)</p><p>Crit Chance:  102%Double Attack:  94% (just weaned myself off JoJo claws, so this is lower than I'd like)</p><p>Crit Bonus:  50%Potency:  30%</p><p>DPS:  28</p><p>Haste:  84</p><p>Ability Modifier:  742</p><p>One problem I have run into is that because so much of my Crit Chance and DA is in jewelry, equipping 2 sets of Brellium resist gear halves my DA and decreases Crit Chance by 1/3 - this is devastating to my dps in raids. </p><p>I'm trying to find as much +crit chance and +da gear outside of wrist/ring/ear as possible (again, while still trying to keep up the CB and Potency if possible).</p><p>Arador StormbowRanger of KaranaLeague of the Extraordinary, Permafrost Server</p>

[Umub]

<p>While I generally agree, I would make one adjustment. I give absolute priority to +DPS adornments, so for chest, neck and waist I always use +DPS. I don't worry about it most other places, because it's just so hard to get. However, I also always use the level 80 Ethernaut's Roundshield of Knowledge which procs for +45 DPS.</p><p>I would also suggest Crit Bonus over Potency when both options are available since Crit Bonus works on Auto Attack and Potency doesn't.</p><p>The biggest struggle I have is double attack. Most of the scout gear pairs Crit Chance with other stuff like ability modifier, crit bonus, potency and Double Attack. But double attack is usually paired with Crit Chance. So when I put on say the Tribunal Cloak for Battlegrounds, I lose a bunch of double attack and have trouble getting back to 100% without ending up at 130% crit chance.</p><p>Also, one big exception to the Agility above all else is the Girdle of Lethality. I have yet to find an equivalent belt with better Agility.</p>

[Solaar Wynd]

<p><cite>Umub wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>While I generally agree, I would make one adjustment. I give absolute priority to +DPS adornments, so for chest, neck and waist I always use +DPS. I don't worry about it most other places, because it's just so hard to get. However, I also always use the level 80 Ethernaut's Roundshield of Knowledge which procs for +45 DPS.</p><p>I would also suggest Crit Bonus over Potency when both options are available since Crit Bonus works on Auto Attack and Potency doesn't.</p><p>The biggest struggle I have is double attack. Most of the scout gear pairs Crit Chance with other stuff like ability modifier, crit bonus, potency and Double Attack. But double attack is usually paired with Crit Chance. So when I put on say the Tribunal Cloak for Battlegrounds, I lose a bunch of double attack and have trouble getting back to 100% without ending up at 130% crit chance.</p><p>Also, one big exception to the Agility above all else is the Girdle of Lethality. I have yet to find an equivalent belt with better Agility.</p></blockquote><p>Umub,</p><p>I fully agree with you concerning dps.  I use those same adornments - they're just the best options for those slots.  If I had that shield I'd probably use it too.</p><p>Crit Bonus vs Potency - Crit Bonus is definitely the one to emphasize, at least for Rangers.  I should have made that clearer.</p><p>Double Attack - Ain't it the Truth!  I stuck with the JoJo claws a lot longer than I wanted to simply because I needed the Double Attack from the set (the dps wasn't shabby either) and there were so few good options in other slots that didn't force me to sacrifice other things.  I ended up finally dumping them because they are unadornable and I wanted to use the crit bonus adornments I'd had made.  It's all such a big juggling act.</p><p>Speaking of adornments, there's a nice thread right now on the other Ranger forum discussing best adornments by slot.  It's worth taking a look:</p><p><a href="http://www.eq2flames.com/rangers/65897-ideal-t9-adornment-set-up-slot.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.eq2flames.com/rangers/65...et-up-slot.html</a></p><p>Arador</p>

[Lightomen]

<p>I self buff:</p><p>Crit Chance - 116%Crit Bonus - 77%Potency - 58%Double Attk - 90%</p><p>In Raids this will put me near the 125% Crit / 100% DA ideal I search for. More likely I will be at 125 / 120.  That being said, I don't know if I plan to boost Ranged, Bonus or Potency. One thing I do look for is incorporating proccing gear into my arsenal as much as possible. I am running Vigilant (x2) whenever possible to get Rib Separator, and will continue to hope Septic Spine Severer drops of the hard-mode twins in P.o.R.T. It has dropped twice since I switched guilds to Has Gone Linkdead and lost bid both times.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>You just don't need that much crit. I know 100 crit doesn't mean 100% crit chance because its bugged but something like 110 gets me 100% crit rate on level 98 stuff.</p><p>After you get about 110 crit and 100 DA, crit bonus > all. Unless you get a proc that is ridiculously high or going to lose  like 5 potency for 1 crit bonus, crit bonus is best. Proc's on melee weapons aren't good to focus on since they will only proc off melee CA's and are not 'normalized' to go off as often as the proc says when just using melee CA's. When other melee classes would have it go off about 30 times I would be lucky if mine went off 10.</p><p>DPS adorns I skipped over except for waist and neck. Along with raid buffs, temp adorns giving some nice DPS boosts, and Killing Instinct as well as Focus Aim giving huge boosts in DPS stat (over 100 each, never use at the same time), and the cap being 200, I can easily get to the DPS cap on a raid. Matter of fact i have seen my DPS stat hit 500 on raids.</p>

[Lightomen]

<p>I still want to see 125% Crit and 100% DA.  If I can self buff to those levels, then I can go in any group and possibly get a Coercer/Dirge, instead of an Illusionist/Troubador.</p><p>IDK why you would say it does not matter that you have Proccing gear. Here is a parse of our last foray into Perah'Celsis. Torrent accounted for 1% of my ZW DPS and I only have it on the legs.  Toxic Tempest is on my bow (Dendroxa) and my off-hand (Wyrmlord Zaos' Toenail) and that accounted for 2% of my ZW.</p><p>One of our major issues atm is no AE avoidance, coupled with a need to be in that 5m range. My DPS on Waansu is @ 8-9k because of the nasty AEs involved. I often get a warden with TShell but that is still not of much help with the DS stun, which I feel we should be immune (along with other casters and non melee).</p><p><img src="http://www.itunlimitedllc.com/images/perahcelsis.gif" width="877" height="664" /></p>

[Neiloch]

<p><cite>Staghorn@Nektulos wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I still want to see 125% Crit and 100% DA.  If I can self buff to those levels, then I can go in any group and possibly get a Coercer/Dirge, instead of an Illusionist/Troubador.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">and the buffs the coercer and dirge give to those stats will be useless. Just throwing away a bunch of crit chance and double attack when you could have items with more crit bonus and potency. </span><span style="color: #ff0000;">You don't need 125% crit to critically hit 100% of the time. You need about 110%. So even if you self buffed to 125% even though its a waste as I explained, it would be overkill.</span></p><p>IDK why you would say it does not matter that you have Proccing gear. Here is a parse of our last foray into Perah'Celsis. Torrent accounted for 1% of my ZW DPS and I only have it on the legs.  Toxic Tempest is on my bow (Dendroxa) and my off-hand (Wyrmlord Zaos' Toenail) and that accounted for 2% of my ZW.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">And i don't know why you say i said that about procs because I didn't. I said sacrificing a bunch of crit bonus for a proc or trying to get proccing melee weapons wouldn't be worth it. The only example of a good melee proc you could give was also on the bow, try taking off the melee weapon with the same proc and see how much it drops. I'd be surprised if it dropped more than one quarter.</span></p><p>One of our major issues atm is no AE avoidance, coupled with a need to be in that 5m range. My DPS on Waansu is @ 8-9k because of the nasty AEs involved. I often get a warden with TShell but that is still not of much help with the DS stun, which I feel we should be immune (along with other casters and non melee).</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">ACT with my own timers helps out a lot here. I get more problems with the dragons position and direction due ot the hitbox than the AE's.</span></p></blockquote><p>And sorry to be so blunt but what was in those merged fights that horrible parse is from? 15k ext DPS? That's terrible.</p>

[Lightomen]

<p>I was not cherry picking parses.</p><p>You said:</p><p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Unless you get a proc that is ridiculously high or going to lose  like 5 potency for 1 crit bonus, crit bonus is best. Proc's on melee weapons aren't good to focus on since they will only proc off melee CA's and are not 'normalized' to go off as often as the proc says when just using melee CA's. When other melee classes would have it go off about 30 times I would be lucky if mine went off 10.</p></blockquote><p> and I disagreed.  I just killed four heroic training dummies using AA only. I killed two using my normal setup, and two without the toenail equiped. I procced Toxic Tempest 18 & 20 times with the toenail and 10 & 12 without. This makes the proc worthwhile and your statement false. Everquest might not normalize the proc as much as we are lead to believe it would, but that is another argument for the devs to deal with. As a side, I killed one heroic training dummy using melee only and Toxic Tempest procced 24 times, confirming the normalization equation is broke since all 5 kills took right around 3 minutes.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>So you were testing this with ranged auto attack only? and saying the melee weapon was procing from ranged auto attacks?</p><p>Just asking because I tried the Rib Seperator for quite a while for its proc, and it was really poor, especially since I could equip my Umbra which has crit bonus, crit chance, 100 ability modifier, and a buff+damage proc of its own to wear instead. The Proc description on the Rib Seperator is the same as the toenail, 'any combat or spell hit'</p><p>Only way I can explain that much difference in proc is that you were melee auto attacking which you shouldn't ever be doing, leaning way too hard on melee CA's (not entirely sure that would even be enough to explain it), or you found a melee weapon that actually procs off ranged attacks.</p>

[Lightomen]

<p>Yea.. The first four were with ranged AA only and the fifth was melee AA only.  Sorry, I am a bit distracted atm..  LoL</p>

[Venez]

<p>there are a few melee weapons that do proc off ranged auto attack, just like there are a few ranged weapons that proc off melee auto attacks now. Ya I know ....hypocrisy at its best in SOE land.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>Hell I tried it with a handcrafted level 80 imbued weapon and it proc'd 8 times of ranged auto attack in 83 seconds. I guess 'any combat or spell hit' actually means any combat or spell hit now heh. Still my Rib Separator proc rate was really low compared to me just randomly melee auto attacking, that was months ago though.</p><p>Still, if your cirtting all the time crit bonus is like potency that works for your auto attack as well. So sacrificing what essentially a 2-5% potency that works on auto attack for a proc that ups your parse by maybe 200 or 300 is still a waste imo. If you can get both though, go for it.</p>

[Sydares]

<p>Neiloch: If it has the wording "Any" in it, it'll work. Otherwise, it will not. This only appeared on several items recently (GU56), so don't feel too bad for not knowing about it.</p><p>Anyhow, 'N'thing the fact that pushing self-buffed crit over 100% is a complete waste of itemization.</p>

[Umub]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>DPS adorns I skipped over except for waist and neck. Along with raid buffs, temp adorns giving some nice DPS boosts, and Killing Instinct as well as Focus Aim giving huge boosts in DPS stat (over 100 each, never use at the same time), and the cap being 200, I can easily get to the DPS cap on a raid. Matter of fact i have seen my DPS stat hit 500 on raids.</p></blockquote><p>Can you explain what you mean by "temp adorns". I'm not sure what those are.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>mastercrafted made by weaponsmiths and last 30 minutes. Ones I use can be applied to main hand weapon and bow. Usually on the broker, oilstone, whetstone, flashstone, slipstone, waterstone.</p>

[Xoris]

<p>My Double Attack is at 109%, but still only about 50% of the arrows actually double.  Is 50% about as good as we're going to get, or can we get better?  If we can do better, how?</p>

[Jemoo]

Are you only double attacking 50% of the time or are you just missing 50% of your double attacks. 100% DA is 100% DA, one of the few stats that works to real life math and not SOE math. You might want to try getting your hit rate up with more +ranged gear and adorns.

[Ranja]

<p><cite>Xoris wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>My Double Attack is at 109%, but still only about 50% of the arrows actually double.  Is 50% about as good as we're going to get, or can we get better?  If we can do better, how?</p></blockquote><p>100 DA is 100 DA. This is one of the only things SOE got right. You are either reading ACT wrong or you are not counting your misses.</p>

[Xoris]

<p>I hit about 99%, or higher, but looking on the combat tracker only about half of the hits double attack.  My ranged skill is 560, so that doesn't look to bad.  I ignore misses for counting the number of double attacks I get.  My agility is only 1060, and working on getting that higher but would really like to get the double attack higher.  That looks like the best increase in DPS I could get now.  And my Crit Chance is 117%, so I crit 100% of the time.  I'm working on lowering that, but it's mainly from armor. </p>

[Venez]

<p><cite>Xoris wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I hit about 99%, or higher, but looking on the combat tracker only about half of the hits double attack.  My ranged skill is 560, so that doesn't look to bad.  I ignore misses for counting the number of double attacks I get.  My agility is only 1060, and working on getting that higher but would really like to get the double attack higher.  That looks like the best increase in DPS I could get now.  And my Crit Chance is 117%, so I crit 100% of the time.  I'm working on lowering that, but it's mainly from armor. </p></blockquote><p>Missed DAs are still double attacks, you cant not count them. If you have 100% DA then your capped, going +100 does nothing to lower your miss rate. Better debuffs and higher +skill will help, not not 100+ DA.</p>

[Xoris]

<p>Double post.  sorry.</p>

[Solaar Wynd]

<p>Xoris,</p><p>I went into a spreadsheet and sorted your data by time.  I think it makes it clearer what exactly you are seeing:</p><p>10:29:37    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3925    TRUE    None    10:29:37    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:29:42    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:29:42    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3647    TRUE    double  10:29:46    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4115    TRUE    None    10:29:46    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5273    TRUE    double  10:29:51    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4638    TRUE    None    10:29:51    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4473    TRUE    double  10:29:56    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3404    TRUE    None    10:29:56    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4055    TRUE    double  10:30:01    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:30:01    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:30:06    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4322    TRUE    None    10:30:06    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:30:11    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5130    TRUE    None    10:30:11    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3564    TRUE    double  10:30:16    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4754    TRUE    None    10:30:16    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4282    TRUE    double10:30:21    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:30:21    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:30:26    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3121    TRUE    None    10:30:26    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:30:31    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:30:31    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3680    TRUE    double  10:30:36    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3473    TRUE    None    10:30:36    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4490    TRUE    double  10:30:40    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3964    TRUE    None    10:30:41    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3637    TRUE    double  10:30:45    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:30:45    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3175    TRUE    double  10:30:50    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4284    TRUE    None    10:30:50    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4586    TRUE    double  10:30:55    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5071    TRUE    None    10:30:55    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4143    TRUE    double  10:31:00    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:31:00    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5302    TRUE    double  10:31:05    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4426    TRUE    None    10:31:05    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5007    TRUE    double  10:31:10    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3418    TRUE    None    10:31:10    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4251    TRUE    double  10:31:15    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:31:15    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    double  10:31:20    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    5106    TRUE    None    10:31:20    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3208    TRUE    double  10:31:25    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    3068    TRUE    None    10:31:25    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4634    TRUE    double  10:31:30    PM    Gayln    crush    crushing    trainingdummy    4450    TRUE    None </p><p>1/2 are "None" and 1/2 are "double" BECAUSE you have 100% Double Attack.  "None" is the first and "double" is the second attack in each time segment.   </p>

[Xoris]

<p>Ah..... now I think I understand.  The first line is the first shot, the second line is it's double attack and so forth.  So I am getting 100% double attack.  Thank you very much.</p>

[Striikor]

<p>I try to get my CB as high as I can as it affects both CA's and AA. I go for potency second as it only affect CA's but I  try to keep potency  high enough to avoid lopping off any mod additions to CA's with the 50% cap.</p><p>Not looking at it right now but I run ~60Pot,  ~70CB and ~1300Mod I think.</p><p>DPS mods are my problem, I run at 114 haste but only 16 DPS without FA or KI.</p><p>Biggest problem for me is really the groups I draw. Best I have been able to get lately seems to be an Illy which is not much help as I am 99Crit and 96Dbl. At least I normally get an Inquis and Warden along with the brawler, Conjurer and Brigand <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>