Let's discuss optimal gear

With crafting 2.0 around the corner and the ability of people to, given enough time, essentially pick and choose any mods / items in the game, what would you say is the optimal setup for a ranger?

Having crunched some numbers I now think I'm going to aim for:
Dragan set
Dragonache set
Gloves 4 * Attack speed mod
Belt 4 * crit rate mod
Armour 4 * Increased damage % mod
Longbow 4 * Increased weapon damage % mod
Boots 4 * Movement speed %

and then an interchangeable shield / quiver depending on PvP / PvE etc.

Shield 1* Increased block rate % 3*Increased block strength
Quiver 4* Increased crit rate

I looked over all the sets and uniques in the game and decided this setup was the most superior but I would love to hear other veteran's opinions. I'd prefer to stick with a long bow because of the bonus' from Dragan and the fact it keeps my essence costs down when playing on Fatal.

Whilst I look the look of items with crit dmg %, with the above build my crit rate won't exceed 50% without a quiver so it seems like I will get more DPS from crit rate, dmg % or attack speed on my items.

 

Well for me such high crit rate without any crit damage would be a waste of the huge potential that crit damage has to offer.
for crit , the thing to focus is the product of crit chance % and the multiplier (in form like 2, 3 or so..)

 

You will want 2 longbow if your after crit.

Ether 3 * Wep % 1 crit % (or)
2 Wep % and 2 crit%

You will want amulet all crit with crit gems
Armor with 4x crit value %

Quiver with 4x crit lines

Rings with 2x critical and 2x crit %


You will notice that you are going to loose a lot of damage doing this.

Yes there is a trade off up to you to figure out of it is worth it.

 

But he cant use the helmet with increased crit value as he wants to use the full dragan set.

 

I said there is a trade off. Up to him to deside.

 

My PvE build is going to be:
4xDark set
4xSpeed Gloves
2xCrit and 2xCrit Dmg quiver
Longbow with 2xDmg and 2x%Dmg or 1xSpeed 1x Dmg and 2x%Dmg
I haven't fixed stats for a particular item on the left side but they will be worth (No I won't be using Dragonache set) :

~1000 Crit (4 lines)
60% Crit Damage(4 lines)
Rest all Damage lines ( I might just try farming Rings of Death from Mortis)​

With these items I should have ~62% crit with 300% crit damage and over 2k min damage. With proper gems, my speed should be well over 1.60.
I have not decided what I want to use for PvP. It will probably be the same set cause I'm too lazy to switch.
Thanks to Trakilaki for helping me decide .

 

No one is using weapon with critical hit. It is a kind of sacrilege to do so.

 

I really feel like the dark set over all is underwhelming compared to Dragan. I considered for a while just to use Dragan shoulders only as Dark helmet looks pretty good. I made my own DPS calculator and I still feel like crit dmg % whilst it's good is still not worth dropping below like 60% crit rate. Acquiring 60% crit rate with tons of crit dmg % then makes your base damage so low.. I figure in the end my 'max' damage should be around 3.5k with greens on. With a crit of 2.4x or something and crit of 60% that's got to be a lot more than with higher crit dmg and only ~2.5k base damage.

It's interesting to see so many differing opinions. I actually thought for the longest time of skipping ALL crit and crit dmg in exchange for nothing but dmg, dmg% and speed %. But I concluded that just a few points in crit would then scale so well with dmg that the trade off is simply too good to miss out on.

 

Dragan set is not good for rangers ... especially with long bow.

 

I agree with him. Dragan set on rangers is not as good as it is on other classes. It is a purely defensive set and does not help at all with your crit or crit damage. You may say that you use it for damage but its only a 15% increased longbow damage for rangers (Longbows, which have lower damage than 2h of other classes) compared to the 10% increased damage from dark set (with 4 pieces, you get +55% and ~616 crits too).
For a PvE build, I feel that even a legendary set beats dragan set as it is more of a defensive set than an offensive one. And for PvE your primary focus should be an offensive build.

 

I agree in regards of pve. For pvp, there's nothing better than dragan.

Crafting 2.0:
The first thing i'll try to craft are 4x speed gloves with at least 36%speed.
And then I guess I will need a lot of time and gold for a great 1xspeed 3x weapon dmg or 4x weapon dmg or 1xdmg 3x weapon damage long bow...

 

Arguably ... but even if so ... it is because PVP is broken.
The devs said: we want to bring versatility in the game ...
So where the hell is their versatility when all players from all classes are using only one setup.?
In the past we had less items/sets and yet players were using different combinations .... now we have more items/sets yet players are using only one set.
To be even worse ... we are talking about all classes with one set.

 

Well I've reevaluated my numbers and you're right that Dark Set looks pretty good on rangers. I can't understand why some people say to get 3*weapon damage % and 1*damage, as far as I can see, assuming you are using 5 rubies, the damage is lower than 4*Weapon damage %.

 

Lets look at a little math, assuming stats that are at respectable for crafting 2.0:
Longbow 1:
Base Damage: 171-317
Damage, Rubies: 110
3x 45% Weapon Damage
1x +65 Damage
2.35(346)---2.35(492)
813-1156
Average: 985

Longbow 2:
Base Damage: 171-317
Damage, Rubies: 110
4x 45% Weapon Damage
2.8(281)---2.8(427)
787-1196
Average:992 damage

The truth is, they are very close. The difference only becomes significant once you move past full flawless into the area of sacreds and royals. The first bow will be better for a newer player where as the second will be better for the older veteran player.

If you want to see just how good various bows could be, check out my DPS spreadsheet here.
Here is a screenshot of a RA using 4/5 of the dark set with a nice damage torso, a nice crit damage/crit quiver, and 2 nice RoDs and a crit damage/crit amulet and full sacred rubies/sapphires:

A 4x % Damage Bow is very nice, but you'll see that a 3x% Weapon Damge 1x % Attack speed edges it out, just slightly. Yes, I am well aware that attack speed break points factor into this and accounting for speed break points is beyond the scope of the spreadsheet, but you gain the flexibility to PvP with a faster long bow and you gain some flexibility to hit and run easier in PvE. That being said, if essence use if your concern, then the 4x % Weapon Damage Bow is your best bet.