Returning Ranger - Low-cost Bows for a 77 Ranger?

[Malchore]

<p>I'm returning after nearly 5 years away from the game. The last expansion I bought was RoK (Kunark.) Before RoK was released, the best bow I could aquire was the Raincaller. After RoK, I had a Treasured bow that was slight upgrade to the Raincaller that I used mostly for completing all the solo quests.</p><p>Now that I've returned, pretty much all my equipment had a lot of Strengh on it. Back then, we needed Str to improve our damage. But now that Scouts use AGI/STA for everything, STR is no longer needed. So I am basically without equipment.</p><p>And my bow - Thankfully I still have that old Raincaller. It appears to have been updated with Ranger-friendly stats. That's the only bow I have. I'm a 77/(137AA) Ranger with a Raincaller and little other equipment. A few Mastercrafted Rings and one or two other random peices of jewlery and that's about it. I have a few random armor peices. Some Fabled raid gear from the KoS expansion.</p><p><strong><span style="color: #00ffff;">Anyways, can anyone recomend a decent Bow that can be bought from the broker? I have about a total of 20plat to my name. (Spent it all on LON stuff before I quit.) Is the Master crafted bow any good? Any decent Legondary Bows for 20 (or less) plat?</span></strong></p><p>I spent a few hours re-familarizing myself with all the AA choices. I spent all my 137AA points in trees that will benifit me as a Solo ranger. (Mostly the AGI and INT lines in the Predator tree for 53 points. All the rest in the Ranger tree.)</p><p>I have a Silver account, and RoK is my last expansion, so keep that in mind when making a suggestion. I'm not apposed to buying the latest Velious expansion, but would rather not if I don't have to. I need to just focus on gaining AAs for now.</p>

[Regolas]

Probably the best bow you can get is made from a level appropriate Reactant. Search the broker for a "Reactant" at your level range (70-80) You can see what the reactant makes on the thumbnail pics when you inspect them. You can pick up all but the highest one (colossal) for under 5pp each. I expect you could buy one for each slot and they would all be major upgrades. Id recommend starting to get Reet faction in Kunzar Jungle so you can do yoir epic quest when you hit 80 also. The stats won't be better than a reactant but the effect is needed all the way to max level (with epic repercussions quest)

[Regolas]

You don't have to have the velious expansion until 86 or even 90. So don't buy it till then. If you don't want to buy unlockers for legendary or fabled gear then just search the broker for treasured or mastercrafted gear in your level range. For bows you want highest damage ratio and if you can find stuff with Multiattack then this is a good idea as it helps kill things quicker.

[Malchore]

<p><cite>Regolas wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>You don't have to have the velious expansion until 86 or even 90. So don't buy it till then. If you don't want to buy unlockers for legendary or fabled gear then just search the broker for treasured or mastercrafted gear in your level range. For bows you want highest damage ratio and if you can find stuff with Multiattack then this is a good idea as it helps kill things quicker.</blockquote><p>Thank's Regolas. I'll look for those. Appreciate the help.</p>

[Malchore]

<p>Which should I prioritze: Multiattack Chance or Crit Chance? Also, do these apply to Combat Arts? Or only autoattack?</p><p>Which effect increases the chances of a combat art crit?</p><p>By the way, good to see rangers can actually Multi attack now. When I left, that was seen as a primary reason our damage output was so low (compared to rogues.) Actually rangers had a crap ton of problems when I left.</p>

[Regolas]

Multiattack gives you a chance to hit twice, or more, up to a soft cap of 600. Crit chance gives you a chance to critical attack, which improves the damage. It is better to multiattack and each attack has a chance to crit as well. Both are important, but I think MA is more important as 2 attacks will do more damage than 1 crit attack, plus you could crit on both those anyway. You can crit your CAs I believe, although I've never taken the time to observe it.

[Regolas]

In fact I'm positive you can crit your CAs, but you can't multiattack them. Crit Bonus also adds damage to the crit so that is useful, as is potency which adds damage to the base of your CAs and autoattacks. Ability modifier also adds damage I believe though not sure how.

[Jemoo]

Multiattack will allow you to hit additional times on the Autoattack, 100 points = 1 guaranteed extra hit up to 600 (6 extra hits). Flurry is pretty much the same thing, but occurring on multiattacks adding addition hits after the multiattack hit. Crit Chance affects both Autoattack (including MA and Flurry) and Combat Arts. This mechanic has changed drastically in the past few expansions. Now ever mob above 80-85 has a buffed Crit Avoidance and you need 100% more than that to be able to Crit. Once you've gotten to 80, keep your Crit Chance above the minimum for the content you're working on, then focus on MA. If you aren't critting on attacks then there's no point to hitting more than once, your DPS will be at teh bottom of the barrel no matter what you do. My priority of stats for the majority of scouts is usually Crit Chance (Crit Avoid + 100) > MA (soft cap of 600) > DPS/Haste (both with a soft cap of 200) > Crit Bonus (extra damage on any crit) > Potency (additional base damage %) > Ab Mod (additional base damage number that caps at 1/2 the base damage of a given ability)

[Neiloch]

<p>Crit bonus is a pretty big stat since it effects both CA's and auto attack while most other stats only impact one or the other. Crit bonus is my top priority behind proper amount of crit chance and multi attack since I can get them both topped out and crit bonus does not have any kind of soft cap/diminsihing returns.</p>

[Jemoo]

I would completely agree that Brit Bonus is very important to any scout, but here's why I put DPS and Haste ahead of it. Upgrades from tier to tier only jump .5-3% Crit Bonus but will jump 5-15 Attack Speed or DPS. Also when an item shows up that includes an upgrade of DPS or Attack Speed, that almost always includes an upgrade of Crit Bonus but not always the other way around. I would rather upgrade my DPS, attack speed, or MA by 5-15 and lose a bit of Crit Bonus than the other way around, even with reforging.

[Regolas]

So what's the min crit chance you should have for 92 heroic content ie Skyshrine contested and instances

[Jemoo]

Minimum? 285 for the instances including Underdepth, I believe, Challenge mode is most likely higher. Raids are higher, close to 350 or more but I haven't seen half of Underdepths yet so I don't know for sure.

[Regolas]

Good to know. I spotted it is -110CC in Skyshrine contested. Im sitting on 285 atm but still have lots of heroic upgrades to get and I need to get adornments for most of my gear still so should be able to add another 100+ CC no problem.

[Malchore]

<p>How can you guys determine these stats on Mobs? Is there an item you use to "inspect" a mob to derive these stats?</p><p>Also, is there a good guide somewhere that goes into more detailed explanation of all these blue stats in items? I'm quickly getting lost on things like Potency and Ability Modifier. The short descriptions don't make any sense.</p><p>By the way, just this weekend I finally completed the Heroic version of the Epic quest. I have my fabled Eagle's Talon. So Yay! for me. I relied heavily on my Merc to get it. Was disappointed with the damage on the bow. The stats were so-so, but the damage rating was less than expected. I figured since the Raincaller had a huge boost to damage, so would Eagle's Talon. Maybe the Mythical version got a big boost.</p>

[Neiloch]

They determine their crit avoidance by targeting them and looking at their buffs. The whole crit avoidance things is a relatively recent thing, so you'll have to get to Velious content to start seeing it I believe. Potency: Potency increases the amounts of all abilities. Potency does not affect Auto-Attack. This does not cap. Ability Modifier: Ability Modifier increases the amounts of all abilities. It caps at 50% of the base amount (factoring in Potency) of the ability. Heres some good info. <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=518492#5761967" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...=518492#5761967</a>

[Malchore]

<p>Define an "ability." What is it, and what is it not.</p>

[Jemoo]

<p><p>Everything that does damage or heals is modified by potency, crit bonus, and ability mod.</p><p>If you want a little more in-depth of each blue stat and what it really affects scouts (more meant for 90+ but can help for what you want to look for and what each does) you can look at the blue stats section <strong><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=518938" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p></p>

[Regolas]

Well done on epic. The stats aren't great anymore but the effect of the mythical buff is the main thing you want. Look up ranger epic repercussions on eq2 wikia or eq2 zam for the info on how to get it.

[Regolas]

Also, the crit avoidance stat on mobs i was talking about shows on your detrimental buff bar when you zone in, like a curse that can't be removed. I hover the mouse over it and it shows -xxx crit chance (in Skyshrine anyway)

[Rhymers]

<p><cite>Ferk@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Everything that does damage or heals is modified by potency, crit bonus, and ability mod.</p></blockquote><p>Wrong,</p><p>No not all damage is affected by potency, the largest part of a rangers DPS isn't affected by potency at all.</p>

[Jemoo]

<p><cite>Rhymers@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ferk@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Everything that does damage or heals is modified by potency, crit bonus, and ability mod.</p></blockquote><p>Wrong,</p><p>No not all damage is affected by potency, the largest part of a rangers DPS isn't affected by potency at all.</p></blockquote><p>Yes Autoattack is not affected by potency, but every ability that does damage is, that's what the question was.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p><cite>Rhymers@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Ferk@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Everything that does damage or heals is modified by potency, crit bonus, and ability mod.</p></blockquote><p>Wrong,</p><p>No not all damage is affected by potency, the largest part of a rangers DPS isn't affected by potency at all.</p></blockquote><p>I love that you got all uppity about the clarity but then didn't say exactly what you were talking about (auto attack). If you are going to rudely call someone out it better be followed by a very specific correction, since doing otherwise contributes nothing.</p>

[Rhymers]

<p>lol I got all uppity? I just said he was wrong, that not all damage is affected by potency. Sorry if you feel correcting someone is being all uppity but I don't think so. About not saying autoattack; the OP obvously is looking at his parse and would know that autoattack is "the largest part of his DPS". Again, it wasn't done rudely and I didn't call anyone out. I simply corrected their statement. </p><p>Geesh some people...</p>

[Malchore]

<p>A quick FYI for anyone who cares and wasn't already aware:</p><p>Items with a large amount of Ability Modifier can be reforged into a large amount of Multi Attack. I was surprised by the gain I could get from that stat. I have a No-Trade Legendary Shoulders (can't recall the name right now) which had something like +178 Ability Modifier. I reforged them to +19% Multi Attack.</p><p>Sucks that you cannot reforge into more Crit Chance. I'm stuggling to get that to 100%. I'm at something like 76% right now. Difficult to get that one up from just Solo rewards and the occasional Molo adventure into a heroic zone.</p>

[Regolas]

The level 70 and 80 reactant belts give over 20% crit chance. You're doing pretty well to get as high as you are. Keep up the good work.