About Last Night...

I love my Ranger. She looks great, especially in her new furlined suit, which replaced the first upgraded armor because she's now in Borliss Pass and she looked cold. As much as I love her, she's not a heavy-duty character; she takes a lot of damage per hit, and even with her current level in marksmanship and skills, doesn't seem to inflict much either. So I prevailed upon my husband to bring one of his level 20 chars with her last night to do the Borliss Pass mission, which he agreed to do because he'd never gotten the bonus with one of them.

We pick up the henchies, and enter the mission. Things are going quite well, though we would have picked up the bonus a bit faster if one of us (OK, it was me) had read all the way through the Prima guide description about the snow wall first. We complete the rest of the mission, watch the entire cut scene, I pick up the magic torch and.....

ERR=7.

Yes. No mission XP for my ranger!

So I make dinner (trust me, it was fast food even if I didn't go anywhere, because I wanted to get those XP). We sign on, do the mission (faster this time). Great. My ranger gets those points and levels up!

Meet up with a bunch of guildmates, one of whom needs to do...Borliss Pass. So I drag out my elementalist who needs to do this, and off we go. My ele kicks a**. It seems like half the drops are for her, up to the Beastmaster Boss that's there. And that was for her too, and it was a GOLD drop. My first.

So last night...from the low, to the high.

I do love playing this game!

later in the game your ranger will be a major damage dealer...you just don't have the skills yet. Playing a ranger is a labor of love for a long long time

He's right, Cynhounds. I do admit though that I bought my ranger a couple of VERY nice bows (not max but -1 point off max) that help her out a LOT. She's not nearly as tough as my mesmer or even my monk (with henchies) but I sure enjoy playing my ranger a LOT more than any of the other classes.

I've got a bunch of 15-28 bows (one of the perks of having a husband with ascended chars). Are they max damage? She's up to 9 in marksmanship, which I thought was pretty good.

Anyway, as a putative senior citizen, I love it in the towns when some kid behind me types in "female rangers are hot!" One of the reasons I do love her so!

alot of the skills you need to do some massive dmg you get later in the game.

there's nothing quite like a ranger using throw dirt whirling defense barbed trap flame trap and barrage while tanking 7 ettins and being onlooked by a group of 5 just standing there wondering "how come they aren't hitting him???"

Max damage on bows, I believe, is 16-28, but that one point off the min dam isnt' going to be a noticeable thing. If one of those bows don't have any other mods on them or you don't plan on selling them, you might want to customize it. That 20% damage is VERY noticeable.

You should also consider upping your wilderness survival score to compliment your shooting.


Actually, I'm more into female warriors myself.

max dmg for a bow is indeed 15-28

Really? Could have *sworn* I saw a 16-28... Hehe, must be old age or something.

Whirling defense + throw dirt is fun to use on flesh golems with 3 other henchies :P I just love how they cannot hit me!

The other day I found a gold Sundering Short Bow of Fortitude, 15-28 dmg (10 markmanship), with +29 health, +16% dmg (while health is BELOW 50%), and +10% armor penetration (8% or 10%)

Now I do not know if this is a good bow or not, but I like using penetrating shot with kindle arrows on enemies :P

Now my question is, when I put 10 into markmanship, my bow is maxed out, however if I have 11 in markmanship, does my Bow do more, or does it just effect things linked to the attribute then? Becuase if it doesn't make the bow do more than its max, then I can just put more points into expertise and wilderness.

I'm not 100% sure if you squeeze out any more base damage with increased marks, but you will get more damage from the skills that require marks, so effectively the answer is yes. But like you seem to indicate, it's a balancing act.

Okay I will just max it out at 10, and then I will put some into expertise and wilderness so I can begin trying some new kinds of builds and such!

Now I just need lots of gold to finish my druids armor =/

I always thought that marksmanship is linked to bow damage and the marks skills much like warrior weapon attributes are (Hammer, Sword & Axe), so I think that more marks points = more damage from a bow.
Keep 10 in marksmanship and use a minor rune of marksmanship (+1) and a vail of +1 to marks for a total of 12. Then use the rest of your att. points elswhere. Unless the damage calculator has changed the output from an attribute of 11 to 12 is almost 9% more, but from 12 to 13 it is cut down to around 4% and it gets worse as you go up.

When I go into full trapper mode, I drop marks down to an 8 and wind up with Wilderness of 15, so don't be afraid to play with lower numbers if you're pretty much keeping the bow in your back pocket.

All weapons do more damage if you have a higher related attribute (bows, axes, swords, hammers).

I've generally found that Mesmers and Rangers really take a while to ramp up. Other classes are pretty fun right from the start (in Presearing, even), but I haven't liked Rangers and Mesmers as much until I got some slightly more advanced skills, at least.

Ah, you took the words right out of my mouth. It is indeed a beautiful sight, and one of the reasons I absolutely adore my ranger.

And, the bow won't be doing its full damage until you have a marksmanship of 12. Meeting the req on the bow, simply means the game doesn't treat it as a basic weapon. For example, my warrior has no marksmanship, but I've given her a bow, simply to hit things at range when necessary. Her typical damage is 2 with this bow, the bow is the pre-order bow so it normally does way more than 2 with the right stats

Rangers dont do too well until they have high expertise and high wilderness or marksmanship (or both)

they must play rather conservitively early on, and dont really get good til after ascension