Ranger & 1H Weapon

Hi,
I'm fairly new to the game (lvl 38) and have been seeing a lot of people saying 1H is horrible for Ranger. I know i've been struggling trying to find good 1H weapons since I didn't want to give up the shield, but held on to a couple of 2H'ers in case I was in a group and wasn't taking hits as much. I play solo, for now at least, and wondering if I should just go ahead and focus on a 2H build and why? Thanks in advance for any help & advice!

 

In PvE, a Longbow/quiver build is reasonably viable at end game, and obvious a Siege Bow build is too. You will also occasionally see a shield based build in end game PvP. However, there is no end game PvE RA build that uses a shield. The solo play style is all about "run 'n gun," crowd control, and killing them first. You need some defenses for the occasional hit you will take, but an end game RA depending on high defenses with a shield will never be soloing with the best of the best because it cripples your DPS in the highest difficulties... and in those difficulties, the saying "The best defense is a strong offense" is incredibly true. The extra survivability won't mean much against the higher damage and you will have a hard time killing even easy mobs.

My advice is to start adapting your play style and start focusing on either a longbow/quiver build or a 2H build. Avoid short bows all together and only use a shield in PvP.

 

Thank you very much for the detailed explanation. I've definitely been struggling taking down some of the bosses on painful & 30+ minutes running around trying to take them down sucks after awhile! I have a decent Empowered & a quiver I held onto so I'll give those a try. I don't care about PvP at all so I can dump the shield altogether. Thanks again!

 

You need to be much stronger to do painful mode. Just do normal mode until level 55. Then do some runs in Desert or get into groups and do painful until you get stronger.

 

Thanks, I'll do that.

I was trying to farm better gear (mainly bow) by doing painful and stock up on some of the boss keys for later on and thought extra xp would be a bonus. I really didn't see a notable difference on the drops and since it took me a lot longer clearing a board on Painful I was probably losing xp vs doing quicker normal runs.

 

I'm still a n00b myself, so what I'm sharing qualifies as opinion, not solid fact. My main is a ranger, running at level 55 with an extraordinary (pink) longbow with 2 gold lines in damage. I was lucky enough to get a high tier Beast shield, which I use if I need a bit more protection as I fight. Some random suggestions as you grow:

1. Those wisdom points make ALL the difference. Until you get your wisdom up, you will be weak comparatively. A second toon created and grown at the same time will let you make use of the mentor bonus in wisdom points. Super valuable to know.

2. We love the super enchanted unique gear, but it's expensive to glyph up to higher levels, and you can glyph ahead more easily on the green and blue equipment. Sometimes such gear will give you better stats than the legendaries and uniques.

3. Concentration is really key for my ranger build, and there are ways through skills and equipment to increase access to concentration. Something to look forward to-- you WILL get explosive arrow someday.

Of all of these, the wisdom point tip is one I wish I'd have known about when I started. Anyway, cheers! There are lots of people on this forum site with loads of experience with rangers. It's a great resource to use, along with the wiki site.

 

Thanks for the tips!

I was just reading about the leap frog strategy on another thread about daily challenge stuff and wish I'd knew that starting out. I may try that out after this event is over.

I usually pick up all the bows since I've also noticed they can have better stats too. Thought that was odd though

I'm skimming the forums when time allows for these kind of tid bits, thanks