I'm new to the game, the franchise, and these forums. In Farglow I tried out the three combat styles and decided to play as a Ranger, specifically as an archer, and I've been doing alright so far. I generally rely on my maneuverability to dodge as much as I can (strafing, rolling, or jumping) while using my regular bow attacks and poison arrows, with an occasional stun arrow.

I'm now at Sentinel Island, but the recent fight with Amdusias has me wondering about the long term viability of this build. Right now the only weapon I carry is a bow, but I'm wondering if it might be beneficial to hold onto a melee weapon, and whether I should start putting points into strength.

It's not a big deal, and I understand I'll have the ability to respec later should I need to, but I would appreciate any advice from other Ranger players on this forum.

If it matters, I'm playing on the Normal difficulty, and quite enjoying the game so far.

Rangers start out as underpowered, and then start going up, eventually reaching godlike levels of overpoweredness by the end. I'm talking in the range of 50,000 damage from a single attack (albeit spread out to several targets). Nothing in the game comes close to that amount of HP, even on Nightmare skills.

Specifically, invest heavily in Splitting Arrow, Way of the Ranger, and Death Blow, and pump points into both Dex and Intelligence, and you'll be on your way to breaking the game and making it cry.

Amdusias is the first hard boss in the game, and there's another unpleasant fight on Sentinel Island as well, but it shouldn't be too hard after that.

Once you get to the shipwreck camp you'll be able to buy a better bow.

I played a ranger on nightmare difficulty, and didn't get around to learning Splitting Arrows until the end of Sentinel Island. I assigned that skill to the long-unused melee attack slot, and never missed it (early in the game I had sometimes fallen back to unarmed combat, before switching to a more run/jump combat style and adding Stun Arrows to supplement Poison Arrows). After that, most opponents in melee range were easily taken out by a point blank splitting arrow.

I usually don't bother with temporary boost spells, but after buying a bow on level 40 with a Way of the Ranger skill bonus, I tried it out, and put a few skill points into it myself (and later maxed it). It is quite helpful, especially using before heading into range of a group of opponents or a boss fight.

You don't need strength, except a bit early in the game for the healing rate boost. IMO you don't need intelligence except for resistance to Stun Arrows (that's pretty much all I had trouble with, anyway, not boosting intelligence or spirit); Mana Efficiency and Increased Mana enchantments (once you get armour with 2 slots; I generally went with Life Line first) can take care of your mana requirements.
FWIW I stopped distributing stat points after level 15, to keep the game challenging. I described my playthrough in the topic Who's playing DKS on nightmare difficulty ?, along with a couple other people, so you would have to be careful of spoilers.


Welcome to the forum.

Have Fun !!

And I can only give you (and all players) this suggestion :
Try certainly EVERY possible Skill !

Each Skill has it's nice quality :
some are Powerful,
some are a good Tactical choice,
some are really Funny to Look the Effect(s),
some have more than one of this qualities ...

And after a while playing :
some Skills become Your Favorite Ones

And sometimes it can be you really CAN'T stop playing this Gem for months !
Like me !

Thanks for the advice, and the welcomes. It's nice to know that Rangers get more powerful as the game progresses because I was worried of the opposite. And thanks for the link Raze, but I think I'll hold off on reading that thread to avoid spoilers. I don't yet know if I'll be replaying this game (simply due to a backlog of games to play) but so far I'm liking it a lot.

I understand this yeah ... I've also a backlog of games to play, but strange enough (no, it isn't strange if you know how amazing DKS can be, still after lot's of replays!) I started to forget my "backlog of games**" since more than a few months because DKS keep holding my attention and so my "problem" with a backlog I can easely forget and even IF I notice the other games (somewhere in a box in a cupboard in a room) I can only smile thinking how I love playing DKS !!

** plus: I've sell away a part of my backlog of games which are not worth spending my time on .

Have big fun with the DKS !
Playing a Ranger is funny ...

"Ranger Build" ? Played too much DDO ?

Um... No. What does DDO have to do with anything?