Larian Studios Forums Divinity II The Dragon Knight Saga / Flames of Vengeance (English) Divinity II - The Dragon Knight Saga Survivable class?

Level 14, Ranger

stats:
vitality:23
spirit:3
strength:14
dexterity:27
intellect:2

skills:
hide in shadows:1
mana efficiency:2
splitting arrow:2
stunning arow:1
ranger strength:2
poison arrow:3
lock pick: 3

Bow:
ranged damage:12-36
crit chance:7%
+24 hit points
empty charm slot
life leech


and i just get pwned

Did you skip a bunch of stuff in Broken Valley? Aside from your level I don't see anything wrong with your stats or skills.

When you get up another level Explosive Arrows will help with groups (and you can also learn level 1 of the Healing spell).

I always used Increased Damage enchantments first in bows, then Increased Magical Damage and then Butcher.

Derk the smith in the Broken Valley village sells a bow a little better than you have. Alternately, you can get one as a quest reward saving someone from a troll. From Lancet's DKS Guide, D2:ED bow section:

Did you check merchants each level, either for equipment upgrades, or anything with a higher level enchantment you could remove to get the formula?

I had Lockpick at level 4 going through Maxos temple, IIRC, and hung on to Jagon's necklace for that skill bonus (maxing the skill eventually and turning the quest in). If you are keeping track of chests you couldn't open, you may want to go back for them before taking over the battle tower.

If you wish you can teleport back to Broken Valley and then head to the fjords. You may need to do a little jumping backwards to avoid melee combat (or not, depending on how well your two hander does), but the opponents there are fairly spread out, relatively easy for a ranger to defeat (I entered the fjords at level 13), and give lots of experience points. Save periodically, though, as a miss-jump on the mountain path could have you falling of the edge, and having to deal with a few opponents on the way back up (Hide in Shadows could help with that, though).

My stats on L14, nightmare difficulty, just before entering Maxos temple.

Stats: (base) - (after items)

VIT: 1-10 (I pumped this to 40 base at level 15)
SPIRIT: 1
STR: 1
DEX: 4-13
INT: 3

Skills: (base) - (after items)

Evade: 1
Lockpick: 4
Mana Efficiency: 3
Poison Arrow: 1
Regenerate 0-1
Split Arrow: 1-2
Way of the Ranger 0-2

Bow dmg: 28-54 +(6-13) /Wild Dwellers bow with two other set pieces.

Are you moving around in combat? With ranger early on, it's very important you don't just stand around like a duck while enemy mages/rangers pummel you. You can actually avoid like 90% of all enemy attacks by moving when your enemy shoots at you, and once you've dodged the enemy attack, fire yourself... before dodging again. Later on you can just press 1-2 and everything on the screen dies.

Wild Dwellers set has the best low level bow, so getting three pieces of that set before Maxos temple is a good idea. You can find the locations in Lancet's FAQ that's already posted. If you're already on sentinel island however, mindread Vacca to get Mr.Shooty (you need a good dmg enchantment for this to rock though).

You could also try rolling for jewelry with explosive arrow or way of the ranger from the killer bunny. It spawns when you kill enough rabbits. Just quick save when it has a sliver of health left, and quickload until you get something useful. You can easily kill it with a ranger even at level 10, just jump on a big rock or a tree (whatever) so it can't get to you, then just shoot at it for five minutes while it stands around helplessly.

Also, if you get a weapon with +75 physical damage enchantment from the bunny, pick that one. Go de-enchant it, so you get the recipe, and then enchant your weapon with +75 damage (Moonstone x3, Black Rock x1, Red Ore x3). When you have +75 dmg at that point in the game, it doesn't even matter what bow you have.



Melee weapons do more damage than bows in this game (mostly). On the other hand, rangers get +588% BASE damage boost with L15 way of the ranger, and then the said damage get's multiplied by 2.6 when you do a critical hit, which leads to insane damage.

Honestly I think rangers kinda got a raw deal in DKS. I'm at L25 working on Orobas Fjords quests and have yet to see a truly convincing bow. The Bow of Nericon is the one Raze just mentioned that you buy from Sam, and it's the best one I've seen so far. Still, it pales in comparison to most of the better one-hand melee weapons, and of course you get to use 2 of those. Dual-weilding seems clearly the way to go, to the extent that I think Larian will have to work on the combat system a bit for D3. Unless I'm completely missing something, dual weild is so far superior to every other weapon option that it makes it a serious mistake to try any other setup.

However, I still use bow a fair amount on enemy rangers and mages. I've had the best luck going for crit rate with bows. Also don't waste any charm slots on any of your gear with Heightened Reflexes. If you get 4 HR that's all you got, but if you get 4 DEX you got the 4 HR from the DEX pts, in addition to getting the ranged damage and ranged defense boosts. The same holds true with Conditioned Body and Indomitable Will, don't bother with those either (although not that you would if you're a ranger, but I'm just saying the same principle applies).

But I think in the end the honest answer is, you're just plain not going to make a ranger that's going to outdamage a well-equipped dual weild. It's all about dual weild getting 2 sets of charms/enchantments and every other setup getting 1. My best bow does about the same damage as ONE of my hand weapons, and it doesn't quite attack as fast, so the math is pretty simple. Can you make an effective ranger? Absolutely. Can you make one that has the absolute best possible damage output in the game? I don't think so.

Also, as annoying as it may be, it really helps to use the reload trick Cowking mentions above when talking about the Killer Bunny. This guy hits like a freight train btw, so be ready to move fast when he pops, his melee will still chew you up at L25. But any enemy character with a name will likely give a high-end item when killed, so it's a good idea at least at low levels to save when such a character (I always get good low-lvl drops from Antumbra at the end of Buad Blood in BV) is about to die, and reload until they drop something good for your build. It's tedious, but effective. Just make sure you save BEFORE they die, once the loot bag has appeared the drops are locked.

Duel wielding is much more effective than it was in D2:ED. A lower damage per second for bows doesn't matter too much if opponents can not get to you alive, though.

Once you are in the fjords (after the battle tower), check the smith in the harbour building to see what he has for bows.

The killer bunny can not climb or swim, so jumping onto a rock/platform or standing in water can make it an easy fight (though still slow, since you are probably not going to be doing damage very fast at low levels).

wow just got a new bow and explosive arrow and raised vitality, im like invincible now, thanks raze!

what charms do you put in your armor raze?

I don't use charms. Early in D2:ED I didn't want to waste charms on equipment I might be replacing soon, and when I had better equipment I didn't really need the boost. In DKS I just never bother with them, especially since after level 15 I stopped distributing stat points (at first because I wasn't sure where to put them so wanted to keep them in reserve, and then later just to keep the game from becoming too easy). If I started running into trouble and decided to use some of the charms I've been collecting, I would focus on primary stats first (for a ranger dexterity, vitality and maybe strength), and only if they were maxed, or I had a particular vulnerability, would I consider secondary stats (armour rating, conditioned body, etc).

For enchantments, I always go with Life Line first on armour, and then usually Increased Mana (though late in the game I have way more mana than I need). Since equipment started showing up with 2 enchantment slots, I have also had one or two Magic Protection enchantments, since I tended to be weaker against magic than ranged (melee armour rating isn't too much of an issue with Splitting Arrows at level 4 or 5 and the ability to run/jump away, turn and attack if anyone gets too close).

For jewellery, I go with Static Charge first, then Magic Damage Aura. After getting the battle tower I finally found an item with a level 10 healing aura (offered as a quest reward) so I could get the formula, and after exploring the fjords a bit added a healing aura to a belt. If you don't want to use a malachite gem, for a third enchantment there are not any great choices for a ranged character (proximity auras don't get triggered very much and you don't usually take a lot of melee damage).