Can anyone weigh in on this? I'm having trouble deciding what I want to play once the server goes Live.

I like the Self buffs, Avoid Pain, IP, True Sight from Ranger but without MoS, and with Camouflage on cooldown, I feel like I'd be a sitting duck against assassins with See Hidden.

Any advice?

Play what u like more

If u are casual, I suggest u NS, but if u play often go Ranger

depends on playstyle;

looking for duels? -> NS
more into large scale or guerrilla Warfare? -> Ranger
enjoying fullspecc melee? -> Ns
having fun sniping ppl? - > Ranger

Are melee rangers viable?

Something like 12 Bow, comp stealth, 40 PF, rest between cd/pierce.

JacksonTown wrote:Are melee rangers viable?

Something like 12 Bow, comp stealth, 40 PF, rest between cd/pierce.

Yes it's viable. You want 40 or 46 pf from my testing (48pf only adds 8 actualy dex/qui so not really worth the points)

12 bow doesn't hit much less than 27 bow which would be the next logical stopping point. (my testing was 27 vs 35 bow and the dmg increase was 10 per shot)

CD wants to be a min of 18 for side stun and higher pierce for weapon skill. You could go comp pierce and use CD.

40pf 44pierce 30cd 35stealth 12bow seems better to me.

Now on to see hidden. At equal stealth levels (comp 50) an assassin will see you at around 800 units. So you better hope your melee ranger can survive the perf chain. Basically without IP up you wont beat a decent assassin.

peter1986 wrote:

JacksonTown wrote:Are melee rangers viable?

Something like 12 Bow, comp stealth, 40 PF, rest between cd/pierce.

Yes it's viable. You want 40 or 46 pf from my testing (48pf only adds 8 actualy dex/qui so not really worth the points)

12 bow doesn't hit much less than 27 bow which would be the next logical stopping point. (my testing was 27 vs 35 bow and the dmg increase was 10 per shot)

CD wants to be a min of 18 for side stun and higher pierce for weapon skill. You could go comp pierce and use CD.

40pf 44pierce 30cd 35stealth 12bow seems better to me.

Now on to see hidden. At equal stealth levels (comp 50) an assassin will see you at around 800 units. So you better hope your melee ranger can survive the perf chain. Basically without IP up you wont beat a decent assassin.

is it even worth playing if you cant compete in the solo game? why not just go NS?

Hojo1 wrote:

peter1986 wrote:

JacksonTown wrote:Are melee rangers viable?

Something like 12 Bow, comp stealth, 40 PF, rest between cd/pierce.

Yes it's viable. You want 40 or 46 pf from my testing (48pf only adds 8 actualy dex/qui so not really worth the points)

12 bow doesn't hit much less than 27 bow which would be the next logical stopping point. (my testing was 27 vs 35 bow and the dmg increase was 10 per shot)

CD wants to be a min of 18 for side stun and higher pierce for weapon skill. You could go comp pierce and use CD.

40pf 44pierce 30cd 35stealth 12bow seems better to me.

Now on to see hidden. At equal stealth levels (comp 50) an assassin will see you at around 800 units. So you better hope your melee ranger can survive the perf chain. Basically without IP up you wont beat a decent assassin.

is it even worth playing if you cant compete in the solo game? why not just go NS?

NO PD my Inf will eat a 'melee Ranger' easy please roll more, hybrid is the way to go; that way you're able to play all play styles.. if you want to go melee Roll a Shade

Beg a friendly NS to poison your weaps with a disease+snare and run !!!

Hojo1 wrote:

peter1986 wrote:

JacksonTown wrote:Are melee rangers viable?

Something like 12 Bow, comp stealth, 40 PF, rest between cd/pierce.

Yes it's viable. You want 40 or 46 pf from my testing (48pf only adds 8 actualy dex/qui so not really worth the points)

12 bow doesn't hit much less than 27 bow which would be the next logical stopping point. (my testing was 27 vs 35 bow and the dmg increase was 10 per shot)

CD wants to be a min of 18 for side stun and higher pierce for weapon skill. You could go comp pierce and use CD.

40pf 44pierce 30cd 35stealth 12bow seems better to me.

Now on to see hidden. At equal stealth levels (comp 50) an assassin will see you at around 800 units. So you better hope your melee ranger can survive the perf chain. Basically without IP up you wont beat a decent assassin.

is it even worth playing if you cant compete in the solo game? why not just go NS?

Camouflage will let you negate the see hidden buff. But its a 10 min cooldown after combat. So after a fight you need to find a safe place for 10 mins, ideally 30 mins for purge because even though the inf cant see you with camo you'll still die in the 9sec dragonfang stun (this also applies to NS).

Back to bow I thought I'd show you some numbers:

This shows average shot damage and then the dmg add damage.

12bow 46pf - 97dmg 35da = 132dmg per shot
27bow 46pf - 117dmg 35da = 152dmg per shot
35bow 40pf - 133dmg 27da = 160dmg per shot
50bow 40pf - 152dmg 27da = 179dmg per shot

So going something like 31bow and 46pf would give same dmg as 35bow 40pf. The 46pf damage add would benefit the melee damage massively but you lose Rapid Fire from 35bow. You have to work out how worth Rapid Fire really is.