Pure Ranger Attribute Distribution

Mr_Slice

Ascalonian Squire

Join Date: Jul 2005

Spirit of Elijah

E/Me

Well, I'm rapidly approaching Lv. 20, got my Droknar's armor to hold me over until 15k, and need to settle my attributes/runes/upgrades in to some good solid numbers. I'm focusing on the three attributes below, so please keep your comments relative to these only. Thanks. (These are my base numbers at Lv. 19 with one attribute point leftover.)

Expertise 9
Wild Survival 7
Marksmanship 11

After looking at the chart for Expertise, it appears that 12 or 13 should be the target number. I'd prefer 13, but if that would cause me to drop other things it might not be worth it.

Wild Survival I love for traps.

Marksmanship is connected to most of (obviously) my arrow attacks.

I'd really like to get some experienced advice from my fellow pure rangers. Also, be sure and tell me whether you focus more on damage or support. Thanks!

Epinephrine

Epinephrine

Master of Beasts

Join Date: Mar 2005

Ottawa, Canada

Servants of Fortuna [SoF]

I do support really, though my damage is not laughable.

I play the same three attributes (and the leftover in Beast Mastery for Tiger's Fury), with a superior expertise rune to get to the 13 or 14 expertise I want (depends on what I'm doing) though I've run with less expertise when I decide to go trapping, as I end up pumping my wilderness survival to 15 with w/Superior rune there instead. I am one of the few I suspect who has a lower Marksmanship than you do, as I don't focus on my bow alone for damage - but a support role doesn't need the same damage output, and the poor monk boss caught poisoned, bleeding and being hit with choking gas every second or so isn't getting anything off to save himself.

Last night I changed my attributes around 3 times I think, I ran 14/12/10/4 in Expertise/Wilderness/Marksmanship/BeastMastery for a while, ran 12/15/9/4 after that for a bit, and played with 13/11/11/7 to try to deal a bit more damage (more bow damage, quickshot only took a 13 expertise and got an 8 second TF out of the 7 BM). It helps that I have more than one ranger outfit, and that I can swap the pieces around a bit. Ignoring Beast Mastery and Tiger's Fury is not a good choice if you want to be able to deal damage effectively - a 4 Beast Mastery and TF will bump your damage by 35%.