As far as I know, the only way to enter first person is to mouse wheel in. Once done, a reticule will appear on your screen, where the best way to aim is to hold down the right mouse button.
Now has an animation associated with it, knocking the ranger out of stealth. Be aware now.
FF adds BIG damage. About 20.5 DPS to my bow for 15sec at 40 and grows every level, and is on a 1min cooldown. Its amazing and your forced to take it.
You can mix and match each side, grabbing many feats from each side that will significantly increase the ranger’s potency. One of them has a chance to root an enemy in place on any shot!
As the awkward title hints, and previously mentioned, the ranger is really two classes rolled into one; the Ranger—Bow, and the Waylayer—Crossbow. And each of these has two “specs”. You can ignore the other line for now, as it does not benefit the ranger in any noticeable way in raw damage, and complements stealthers end game. Im going bow, so I have no advice to give on crossbows.
*This patch has seemed to raise its damage by nearly 25%. Seems unconfirmed though*
Of the three highest DPS classes; Ranger, Barbarian, age of conan gold and Assassin (funny how they are all in the same archetype), the ranger has the highest hit points, the best damage absorption (medium armor/shields), and the greatest survivability. And ranks as the single highest ranged DPS class by far, and is on equal footing with the Barbarian in raw damage output.
III. Aiming-The frustratingly useless FPS aspect of AoC
1. Introduction to the Sharpshooter Tree
2. Stances
*In its current state with the salvo “bug” (God I hope it’s a bug) giving a significant decrease in overall damage, the Ranger is in somewhat disrepair. Shatter Stance nerf also was overkill and so the class as a whole is hurting. Hopefully all will be fixed or at least normalized in the next few days.*
Both are great, and are about even in PvE. In PvP aoc gold Firestance will pump out slightly more dps, because it gives a nice elemental damage, and is unaffected by armor rating.
For the first 9 levels and that beginning quest, you have about the same dmg output as any other “rogue” in melee at that point. Your bow damage is atrocious. No joke, in the time it takes to line up a shot literally dished out 4x the damage in melee. Your regular bow shots deal only about ¾ of that of a normal swing, and you lack any true damaging ranged shot.
Three things; increased range, increased accuracy (as accurate as long as the target is under the crosshairs), and a 10-15% increase in damage modifier. Its gain is marginal, and you’re more likely to miss then to hit. it could be useful in keep defense situations however, other then that, do not enter into it, it will make you quit the class.
Sulfurous Burst/Blast is an aoe stealth detection “flare”, blast makes it a small dmg in the aoe to knock people out of stealth. Its great, but useless for leveling, so at the moment it’s a waste
Quick Shots a good compliment, and best invested at 33 after the root ability in the tier 5 is maxed. Gives shorter CD’s to your combos.
Rapid Stab blows, don’t get it.
The Ranger does not come into its own until 17+ and shines at 20+
New
Cold Nerves add significant stam reduction to all combos. Get it, love it, breath it.
The Ranger might stand as the most powerful pvp class in AoC. Its my opinion, but the way the class is designed with all its survivability, and its sick damage, they are almost impossible to kill if played correctly.
Immolation and its follow up. The fear is a nice oh **** escape tool that will be invaluable later on.
Tier 4- Quick Shots, Silent Shots
Salvo is the first 2part chain combo. It “shoots” three times before it begins the salvo induction. The “three times” comes from activating the shot, and then completing the chain, it then fires three .75(ish)drawn shots that seems to deal around 200%-300% extra damage. This shot is extremely potent and is enough to outright kill any mob without upper shielding once the ranger gets a stance
Splintering Puncture blows, don’t get it.
Tendon Rupture is great. Allows the Ranger better kiting, by giving +5 sec to Pin Down.
V. Feats-The 4-part split personality of the ranger
“Marked” Talents
Sniper Stance gives 30.0 DPS +5 damage (rises by .5 per level it seems) and seems to give an overall additional 9.0 DPS to the bow. It also increase accuracy by 2%. That accuracy does not improve.
Eventually you’re going to want to stick with once stance, even though there is only a 5sec cool down between the stances. And stick with one “ultimate” skill. Volley, or Flame Barrage. Both make your attacks aoe for a short time.
Silent Shots is more pve, and is required for sniper stance. I don’t like sniper stance, and I don’t like this ability. Imo skip it.
Tier 1- Focused Fire
These are you’re two big hitters, the rest of the skills are self explanatory.
*Note*-If you are new to the game, you need to invest attribute points; this is done in the character & attributes tab. I highly recommend maxing out stealth and putting the rest into climbing and the one that increases your running speed out of combat.
There are two lines in each one. Both give “stances”. The Fire side gives Fire Stance, which adds 30.0 DPS to your bow, +20.0 fire dmg (rises as you level slightly) and a fire proc which seems to be about ~20%.
http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=51874
Eagle Eye adds 5m to your attacks, take it, but only age of conan gold after Bow Spec.
*Salvo has gone numerous changes; currently it appears to be somewhat bugged, from my testing, the damage gained from stances aren’t applying to Salvo*
I will later add how to beat certain classes later on in s separate guide unless a mod can add a post below this.
Ricochet is awesome, Adds a small chance to snare the target for 4s by 65%. Aoe is NOW WORKING!
Bow Spec adds about 6.5 DPS. Take it
Tier 6- Sulfurous Burst/Blast, Cold Nerves, Deadeye.
Sulfurous Burst
So what the ranger actually is.
Even a moron can surmise that the ranger is a “ranged” class. So roughly after 20, the melee skills gained from leveling cut off sharply. The ranger is really a combination of two beta classes, the waylayer and the ranger. You can defiantly see elements of both classes in the feat tree (more on that later).
These are what I view as the must haves; I will break them down by Tier.
Available to them, they have two snares, one melee, one ranged—both 65%. And an instant, small radius AoE, 10 second root on a one minute cool down. The root is instant and can be cast on the run, has no stamina usage, and is “chance to break on damage” rather then null when damaged.
With all of these “checks” you might ask what the hell is gained?
The second is the Uper-left, Top, and Uper-right shielding check.
Tier 2- Bow Specialization, Eagle Eye.
Fire Trap It sucks, but it’s a pre-req. grab and max to move down.
These two talents took significant nerfs on 6/2/08 and are nothing more then talent sinkers, as Volley only effects white damage.
At this point it comes down to preference. For PvP grab:
Tier 3- Rapid Stab, Splintering Puncture, Tendon Rupture, Ricochet
Flame Barrage over volley. Flame Barrage is a much harder hitting salvo that fires with out directionals, and causes aoe burn damage. Great skill, defiantly pick it up.
VI. PvP
IV. Skill Breakdown
Critical Aim has an irritating bug associated with it, and at the moment, does not cause the combos to crit. Apparently this is by design…so skip it, white crit damage is not worth 3 talent points.
Tier 5- Firestance, Sniper Stance, Knee-capping
And then it happens…you ding 10. Level 10 marks the unofficial beginning of the ranger career. Two very important things happen at level 10. First you can get a new bow (~20.1 dps bow) from the weapon smith, and you get the godly skill—Salvo.
II. Beginning-And all that it implies
Salvo-What it is, and what it is not.
The Sharpshooter=bow. And it’s the one to stick with, bow just seems to outshine crossbow in many important ways, the most prominent being salvo, which can only be preformed with a bow.
Wont go into the stances again.
Here is Legatos Feat Guide. Its an excellent resource if you wish a more indepth feat explanation. I only give a recomdendation, but little in the way of explanation, his guide is the direct opposite.
Knee-capping adds a small chance on ALL hits (salvo is counted technically as one hit…sort of) to root the target for 4-5sec. its imbalanced in pve and pvp, and you’re an idiot to pass it up.
Tier7+
Still, grab the bow from the quests, and use it to pull.
Thanks for reading
Heartseeker-This is gained at 40 and is the next big hitter in ranger chain. Although I cycle through all skills, it’s a quick recharge, and hits hard. Not as hard as salvo, but its only a 1-part chain, aoc gold and has a quick induction time. It complements the other 1-part chains very well in PvE when salvo is on cool down. It also seems to crit much more frequently, but this is unconfirmed.
Deadeye adds a straight 9% damage increase to all combos. It’s a sexy 3 point talent. Get it
If this weren’t enough, in the sharpshooter line, they can spec for a talent that causes the target to burs into flames, running around in fear (can later be made to aoe…), giving it yet another oh **** button. It should also be noted, their from stealth attack with a bow is a short duration mezz (about 10 sec), but its buggy as hell with Firestance
3. Feats, and my recommendations.
Now that that’s out of the way, why is this skill so age of conan gold damned frustrating? Well, it has two checks; the first is the crosshairs check. Its applied to actually hitting the enemy. ALWAYS AIM FOR THE HEART/CHEST.
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