if so what would be the most effective spec?

Possible but I'd wait till rr5 cl10 pls you need at least purge 3 and as many hits as you can. Assasins are gonna be a birch if you can't land stun right off too.

I wouldn't forgo bow altogether wry at least 40 bow you can stop a
Caster cOld from root.

 

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Yeah, I'd agree if you made one to wait until MINIMUM RR5-6. You need Purge 4-5 (against every assassin you'll be needing to burn it) and MoS 7-8-9 unless you feel like being chain farmed by Assassins. I'd honestly suggest rolling a Nightshade, you lose out on IP, Zephyr and PS but you gain huge damaging poisons, Vanish, Mez and superior evade rates.

This is my opinion, I'm sure there are a few out there that will show me how wrong I am and tell me how leet their melee ranger is... but IMO, not worth the headache at this stage of the game

 

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you could try but I think its really hard to find the right situation where this is worth it.

At this point, nightshade poisons will be far greater than reinforced armor in a 1v1 tank fight, and sojourner isn't gonna help you to kill anyone, though it will compliment your playstyle of running away from fights cuz you don't want to die.

I've really tried thinking of doing a hybrid ranger before but again it seems like this is a hard thing to accomplish, especially without much RR. You could try to use the level 42 root style a long with a decent level point blank shot but your weapon skill would be quite low.

 

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With the low defense they have atm I'd say no.

I personally wouldn't go melee until after RR7, but, thats just me

 

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There just isn't much of a reason to, when you can just spec hybrid instead and get about 90% of both worlds. I would never drop Archery below 46 on any Archer, because whatever you're buying in return will not amount to a whole lot in melee effectiveness. So spec hybrid, but RA spec and temp for melee if you want to be more melee focused.

Even at RR4 you can be 46 Archery, 42 CD, 28 Pierce, 36 Stealth. Sure 44 CD is neat for that "once in a blue moon" chance to stun, but it doesn't offset what you lose in PB. Sure 36+ Pierce would be optimal, but again the difference is so minimal that dropping the 46PB over it is silly.

Another point for 46 Archery is the self Damage Add buff, that probably will add more damage to your melee then any further investment into melee ever would. (Adds roughly 50 damage to a dual-swing round. That's easily +20%.)


You will still do plenty of melee if you choose to not play a kiting playstyle, but you at least always have the option to kite and use your bow against tougher opponents. Frozen Comet is a really powerful style for Rangers, but not very useful if all you're doing is meleeing. If I was hell bent on some higher melee spec, then I'd absolutely never drop below 41 Archery for the second best PB that is still pretty good. (And second best DA.)

Hunters make considerably better pure melee Archers then Rangers, but I still wouldn't spec mine that way. It's unrealistic to expect to beat most visi melee classes in toe-to-toe melee on any Archer. (Didn't say it can't be done, but it's just not favorable to the Archer.)

Softening things up with the bow a bit before you melee, and having the ability to use Sojourner as a tool for offense make things a lot easier.

 

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I tried to play a ranger a few weeks ago(1L=>4L1), i wanted it hybrid so i made a shar(a mistake, i should've picked celt). PL'ed the toon ,equipped it nicely with probably more potential in melee than in archery(99con/370hp= >2530hp, 10melee/6style/8spd, 101str/75qui ~30AF on gear).
Honestly it was the hardest experience at grinding ranks on a toon i've known since trying to play my light mentalist back in 2003(nukes were ~2s casting time, dmg looked like: 250(-260)).

Most RPs i made leeching in the latest Cathal Valley Event or leeching in the lab. Other than that i couldn't kill casters, i couldn't kill tanks, i couldn't kill supports, and stealther zerg -which seemed to see me miles away- neither(technically i was always "solo".
Worst thing is, my fights were so unbalanced there was no way i could make any progress in terms of improving my gameplay.

When i tried my luck in NF i did even fewer rps overall. Not that i died all that much(could finally buy MOS6-7), but outside of bridge stealther zergs there's not much to fight, even low RR casters could just flee with low hp since my archery damage was too low (370ish dex,10% casting spd, 5%piercing, 9% range, 4% damage).
But when i did make solo rps, it was on archers, occasionally on bad SBs(bad management of poisons) or low RR SBs/infs.

The few hunters or scouts i met solo in the frontier would fire at me before i saw them, and i closed in with 40% hp left, sometimes less. And i just tore them apart in melee with my cuulduraach fang+champ weapon combo, which was my only comfort with this toon. I remember a fight with a RR10 sword hunter(grey con wolf) who put me to 40% before melee, used IP3, and still died with me having 15% hp left.

Other than these few moments of glory, playing that toon was a pain, and after a night where i totalled 25 deaths in the lab in 2 hours for a mere 8k/hour, i stopped. Assassins just trounced me as soon as they were past RR2 if they hit me with WS/con poison: dex/con was a very hard uphill battle(often lost to an off-evade stun), WS/con was un-winnable. Assassins with high viper, whichever their level of play or evade luck, put me in the red way too fast. More often than not, they had an archer friend anyway.

Melee ranger is pointless unless you have some RR

Might as well go with a Nightshade

If anything hybrid is more interesting, still retain bow damage with the option of throwin out some melee dps if needed.

 

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fixed.

meleeranger is the only class/spec combo thats even worse than a meleescout.

too much love for everyone else, so too much passive nerfes.

 

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