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How good is pure melee ranger?
chocobofarmer
Member Posts: 512 Arc User
I am making a ranger right now, and decided to try pure melee for the lulz and since my ranger's name is Pazzo (crazy in italian). Anyone tried pure melee, or think it may be viable?
Post edited by chocobofarmer on
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I love it so far. Serpent+Pack for party runs and the damage is amazing. You'll have to change regularly to take advantage of all the buffs from changing stances, but it's far more interesting than the lol-Legolas approach.
Will keep you posted!
There are other reasons to shift. Once you're comfortable with it, you've essentially doubled the number of abilities available to you. It's a lot of micromanaging but if you're willing to up in the elbow grease, it's rewarding.
I don't think the HR is meant to be "pure this" or "pure that". Its specific design lends itself well to battlefield mobility and so far I'm liking the style. It's different, but I'm enjoying it. Drop the alpha strike from range, toss on a snare, flip in a couple more arrows, switch to blades, dodge out to avoid red spots, phase back in to land the big slash, drop a snare, phase out, launch arrows ... I certainly haven't dialed in on what's "perfect" but I'm enjoying the process.
I think looking for a pure anything in the HR class is a bad idea. Stay versatile, stay mobile, stay alive.
As for why you'd do it is simple... It's basically playing a combo between TR and GWF, that also has the option to go long range in an instant.
After all, you do know that in PvP you are going to melee a lot and the Pack passive will be always on which is amazing. Drooling over the t1 PvP gear with the Regeneration along with feated 20% more heals. Can't wait to test this in PvP.
As far as PvE goes, everything works as long as you know what you are doing. But I guess not taking advantage of the Combat advantage passive, is really bad.
you hit the nail on this head with this i will post my pure melee build in a separate thread later but get ready its coming
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Looking forward. Keep me posted, and add me in game also if you want. Kudos!
its already up lol its the thread with my name on it although its not a pure melee build
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I'm imagining a build like what I'm going to post below could work. If anyone wants to chime in and add anything for this sort of build please feel free to do so. It'll be a short on-the-spot draft anyway. I'm thinking of this in a PVE perspective with some PVP viability, just for reference.
Advantages of this Build: High defensive capabilities for a squishy class, decent AoE DPS, fun and synergistic effects between gear, stats, and skills. Gear should also be cheap and accessible to hardcore and casual players alike.
Race: Halfling, Drow, Half-Orc. Pretty much anything that gives a boost to the prioritized stats work.
Ability Scores: Prioritize STR for Stamina Gain, next one will be WIS for CC Resist.
Stats: Deflect > Regeneration > Defense.
Gear: Let's try to make it as cheap and accessible as possible.
- Armor Set = T2 PVP Set, Master Predator (Heals 1.5% of HP each time we Deflect an attack, +15% Movement Speed)
- Weapons = CN Set
- Rings = Ring of the Noble Beast (407 Regen, Defense Slot, x2)
- Amulet = Amulet of Flame (119 Regen/Crit, 143 Power, Offense Slot)
- Belt = Belt of Nobility (266 Regen, Defense Slot)
Enchantments: All Enchants minimum of Rank 7. We want this build to be effective and as achievable as possible to casual or hardcore players alike.
- Offense: Azure
- Defense: Silver
- Utility: Dark
Feats:
Heroic:
- Toughness (3/3): More HP pool, better chances for survival.
- Weapon Mastery (3/3): Better chances at dealing increased damage.
- Swift Footwork (5/5): Increased stamina gain for more dodges.
- Lucky Skirmisher (3/3): +3% Deflect on top of our other deflect bonuses.
- Endless Assault (1/3): Point dump.
- Extra Action (5/5): +10% AP Gain. Will be very useful for any ranger builds.
Melee:
- Seeker (5/5): By itself, it's not worth it. But once you start piling up your melee attacks, you'll be able to dodge a lot more.
- Agile Hunter (5/5): Will be reducing the CD of your ranged powers and these powers will be very good high CD support skills.
- Elusive Hunter (5/5): +10% Deflect in melee.
- Lethal Hunter (5/5): +15% melee damage.
- Bleeding Precision (5/5): +10% Crit in melee.
- Expert Skirmisher (5/5): +10% Run Speed in melee.
- Master of Combat (1/1): 17% chance to deal double damage. Looks better if it crits, and would technically proc much more when you hit more than 1 opponent.
Powers: Will be listing down the ones will be using most of the time.
At-Wills:
- Rapid Strike: Fast and reliable. Not much to say here. It's really quick.
- Split Strike: Fast, has a decent range, can strike enemies even when they're casting those small range AoE of theirs. AoE of this power is decent as well.
- Clear the Ground: VERY nice AoE, has a damage boost for hitting enemies that are close to you. Good for mob clearing.
Encounters:
- Fox's Cunning/Fox Shift: Ranged is a very nice free dodge. That's a bonus both ranged and melee HR's can use. Fox Shift is like a Marauder's Rush with a Snare Effect.
- Boar Hide/Boar Charge: Ranged is a nice 10% DR. Gets reduces by 2% each time you are hit so it'll be a nice way to reduce some damage against you. Melee is a Prone CC. Works well in conjunction with Marauder's Rush/Fox Shift. MR/FS to enemy then Boar Charge for the CC. Start stacking attacks while the enemy is prone.
- Marauder's Escape/Marauder's Rush: Marauder's Escape is a useful tool to give you some breathing room after your rotations are over. It'll increase the distance between you and your opponents. Marauder's Rush is a VERY good gap closer, has incredible range and hits fairly good damage.
Dailies:
- Forest Meditation: Usable at 75% AP. It's pretty much just like the TR's ITC except it's a Daily. While it's situational, it will save you when you really need it.
- Disruptive Shot: HR's have a horrendous lack of disruptive skills. This should fix it up for us. Daily accessible at 25% and behaves similar to a TR's Dazing Strike.
Class Features:
- Blade Storm: 25% Chance to deal a 15% damage in the form of an AoE around you. Good boost in DPS.
- Twin-Blade Storm: Deal 12% more damage if you hit more than 2 opponents. You'll more often than not be hitting more than 2.
And that's about it. Basically, this build gets its DPS from its AoE At-Wills. You buff yourself with Fox's Cunning and Boar Hide before using your gap closers to enter the fray. Once you are in the middle of the fight, Clear the Ground should be doing some nice damage for you in the form of an AoE, and if things get to hairy you can always TAB and use Marauder's Escape so you can eliminate some threat on you and give yourself some breathing room.
It's a simple concept to grasp. The gear and stat setup works so that everything will be synergistic to the melee play style. The armor set complements the stat setup, giving your deflect stat an additional purpose which is to heal you for 1.5% of your HP each time you deflect an attack, and in total with the feats and armor set, you will have 25% increase in movement speed. The movement gained from Dark Enchants hasn't been factored yet but it should give you a rough amount of more than 5%, taking our movement speed to 30%. This will be a useful tool for gap closing, kiting, and escape. Regeneration will also help you heal back some of the damage you have taken in the process of AoE-ing the mobs to death. This should give us HR's enough viability to tank hits while dealing a consistent amount of damage for the party.
I haven't done any math for this type of build yet so it's kinda rough right now, but theoretically, this should make melee-speced rangers much more than a possibility.
Edit: Oh yeah, I thought I should add Boons and Artifacts as well while I'm at it.
Artifacts:
- Primary: Emblem of Seldarine: At Legendary tier, heals us for a good amount of damage each time we are hit. Should prevent us from dying much more.
- Secondary: Blood Crystal Raven Skull and Waters of Elah'zad for the Regeneration. With gear, the Dread Ring Boon, and these artifacts factored in, we'll be getting a total amount of 2149 Regen. That's roughly 2150 per tick when you're below 50% HP. I know it's way above the Diminishing Returns but we can use every HP tick we can get.
Boons:
Sharandar:
- 250 Defense.
- 250 Deflect.
- 700 Max HP.
- Elven Tranquility: Chance to heal 400 when hit. Not useful but we gotta have one to access T5.
- Fey Thistle: Reflect 400~ each time we deflect an attack. So our deflect stat gains an additional purpose aside from lowering the opponent's damage, healing us for 1.5% HP per deflected attack, and now we reflect 400 back to our attackers.
Dread Ring:
- 125 Crit/Movement.
- 250 Regen.
- 3% Deflect Severity.
- Enraged Regrowth: Chance to heal 1000 HP in a few seconds and increases our defense by 250 for 10 seconds after this effect ends.
- Augmented Thayan Bastion: Fey Thistle #2, basically. Gives us a chance to create a shield that absorbs 500 damage and reflects it back to an opponent. This'll make us a little tankier.
End Notes: If you guys like the build, maybe I can write a more detailed one sometime in the future. I'm still busy with testing a different build but I should be able to find time to write a roughly made theoretical guide.
Nice, this is basically the way im trying to build my melee ranger aswell. Great guide!
If you are pure melee, then you will never shift between stances. If you don't shift between stances, you gimp yourself.
I was really discouraged about the ranger because of this and now will invest time in a TR and GWF instead.
Only swap stance to stack the serpent stacks, then back into ranged i go.
That is, i go into ranged do afull rotation till i got 5 stacks, then back into melee, i guess i play it like a hybrid, but all my feats are based on melee damage and stamina for shifting around.
same for me, it would be much better if they split it in 2 characters, then id lvl both, now im playing one only because im bored
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FaceRoller- regen recovery TR (put on the shelf for now) 14k GS
Supreme CHAOS - IV GF (put on the shelf for now) 16k GS
White Khalifa- tene/hp/regen CW (retired) 11k GS (tene)
Death From Above- TANK ranger 16kGS
(all halfling everything)
Proud rank 6 of: <Enemy Team>
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Gloom level 60 Control Wizard
Dusk level 60 Trickster Rogue
Dawn level 60 Devoted Cleric
Eclipse level 60 Hunter Ranger
Wrath level 60 Great Weapon Fighter
Jinx level 60 Scourge Warlock
For PVE most bosses abuse melees with spam aoe, you wont be pulling the numbers of any other class...Archery spec will out dmg melee at every turn, havent not been 1 in dps in dungeons unless you out GS me by a good 2k+ -.- Melee HR is a novelty build, I use melee buffs like oak skin, or in pvp the melee version of hinder shot is good when youre out of shots and a GWF is in your face, but pure? no thanks
Going Combat (Melee) tree does not gimp your range damage. You just gain some nice survival & damage to melee.
Exactly. The actual 'push' to the ranged damage was the last tier. The combat tree boost survivability and gives and added bonus to your attacks when you are face tanking AFTER you spend all your kiting potential. HR is always a ranged damage dealer, but going Combat adds lots of levels of depth as far as survival goes.
Pure melee should be an option. They could rework Tab into a stance that would benefit only melee and only archery.
Hybrid is the only non-gimped melee type character.
I was personally looking forward to another dual wielding character, but the TR is the only true dual wielding melee character right now.
Not really.
You basically exchange most of your invisibility and some damage for a a bunch of mobility, much longer/higher damage ranged potential, and crazy deflect. The only thing you'd really be missing out on is high damage dailies.
Edit: You also have crazy synergy with the GG set and a number of boons, due to the amount of deflection you can get.