4 Player vs Player / Strategies and Tactics

PvP is the end game of Dark Age of Camelot.  As such the Ranger is in a great position to have a lot of fun here.  At times it can seem like an uphill battle trying to get through another player’s innate defenses.  Here I hope to arm you with a couple of great tools, tricks, and sneaky ideas that many people won’t expect, or know how to deal with.  In some cases, there is nothing they can really do about it aside from run the other way.

4.1 How to get the most out of Desperate Bowman

The Ranger realm rank 5 ability is Desperate Bowman, this ability has a lot of utility that most people never seem to use, or even consider.  The ability itself is:

Desperate Bowman
300 Damage and 5 second stun (non resistible.)
Bow and Melee cannot be used for 15 seconds after use.
900 sec (15 min) reuse timer.

The key to this ability is realizing that it does two things.  First it does 300 damage, which is roughly about 10% of most health bars, heavy tanks aside.  If a fight is coming down to the wire, or you need to end it quickly and get out of dodge this is a great way to finish it up.  Secondly, this ability stuns the target for 5 seconds and they cannot purge it away.  5 seconds is plenty of time to create some distance between you and your adversary.

Get extra health:
During a close fight even gaining as much as 400 hits can be a huge fight turner. One way to do this is use Desperate Bowman, while they are stunned and switch in a health myth, hit /use2 hot on your champ weapon and use a heal pot. When they come out of stun either use PS or FZ. During the 15 seconds that they cannot hit you, the hot will tick at least 3 times and health myth probably twice, so you have gained at least 600 hits, not counting the heal pot.

If you need to use Phase Shift, it works best if you have a Traitors Dagger pet on them at the same time. I have had times were they did not turn to kill the pet and I would manage to go from 20% health to around 60% just from this trick alone. Some people are not aware enough of Phase Shift and will continue to melee while it is up. Others will notice and start casting champ heals, if they do this just move away to get some distance and count to 7, then /face and start firing away. You'll usually get 2 shots off which will do a good job of negating anything they healed.

If you are able to use Forceful Zephyr however, you can stealth mid way through this and land a new crit shot as soon as they come out of the zephyr.

If you happen to have First Aid, you can forgo using the /use2 hot and instead before stunning use a javelin, from Golden Spear, to land a dot on them. Then use Desperate Bowman and count to 4, next use Forceful Zephyr (so they can't hit you.) This allows you to stealth before fz is done and then use First Aid and restealth. By using it in that order they will not see how much health you have gained until you pop on them with the crit shot.

Just kiting:

Desperate Bowman can also be used for just normal kiting. Kiting can be defined as a “controlled run”.  You will appear to the opponent as running, which many times makes them think they are in control, but really you are just setting them up to get some ranged attacks, or waiting on an ability timer. 

Sure Desperate Bowman is only 5 seconds, but 5 seconds if you are sprinting right away is more than enough time to get outside of Mastery of Stealth 5 detection range.  This will allow you to restealth fire a crit shot. This also works great in water as you can move downward and away at the same time, making it that much harder for them to get to you.

Wasting purge:

Many people do not realize that db is non purgeable, or think that they have just been stunned by a normal stun and will use purge right away. A good trick I have found is, when you are at around 80% health, land snowshower for the asr debuff then hit db. They will use purge and since you have a negative affect (asr debuff) it will waste their purge allowing your real stun to stick. From that point you can then use fz to gain ground and shots on them, ps, just kite, etc.

Grouping with Desperate Bowman:

When grouping with others sometimes you will come up against a target that has very high defenses.  Desperate Bowman, because it is a stun, will completely trump those defenses for 5 seconds.  Using Desperate Bowman in this case can sometimes allow for your group to get a kill that it might not other wise.  It can also be used in this same situation to stop someone from using their own abilities, such as Ignore Pain.

Distraction (anecdote):

This is more of a funny story. I was stealthed but in the open and saw an enemy Infiltrator near me, he had not seen me yet. I was about to shoot him when I saw a group of mids running toward us. Instead of shooting since we would get run over I moved stopping my shot. The Infilitrator at this point realized I was there and came over to hit me anyway. Whether he realized a group was there or not, I do not know. However, as can be expected the group turned and immediately ran toward us.  At this point I used Desperate Bowman, stunning him and sprinted / speed burst away. The group paused to kill him, giving me some rps, and the distraction gave me just enough time to get away and restealth.

4.b How best to utilize Frozen Comet

Frozen Comet is the level 42 style in the Ranger Celtic Dual line.  Rangers are the only class that has access to this style, which will root your opponent for 15 seconds when it lands.  Because it is a root any damage will break the root, this includes damage from damage shields and armor procs.  If you intend to use this style either do not use a damage shield, or drop it before using the style.  Once the root has been broken your opponent will gain 1 minute immunity to roots and snares, so keep this in mind whenever you use Frozen Comet.

Frozen Comet is quite good, but isn’t as effortless to use as Desperate Bowman.  One advantage it has over Desperate Bowman however is that it does not have a reuse timer, this means you can use it against multiple targets if you have time.  All of the Desperate Bowman tactics will generally work with Frozen Comet.  However, since your opponent can do ranged attacks while rooted you will need to work at either; getting distance fast, or getting out of your opponents line of sight.

4.c Realm Abilities and Progression

Complete listing and values: http://www.camelotherald.com/realmabilities/ra.php?c_id=25

Passive Abilities
Augmented Constitution – Increases con by the specified value
Augmented Dexterity – Increases dex by the specified value
Augmented Quickness – Increases qui by the specified value
Augmented Strength – Increases str by the specified value
Avoidance of Magic – Increases your resistances to non-physical damage.  This is a second tier resist.
Determination – Increases resistance to crowd control related effects.
Ethereal Bond – Increases power pool by specified amount.
Falcon’s Eye – Increases critical chance of archery shots
Lifter– Increases max encumbrance
Long Wind – Decreases the amount of endurance used when sprinting
Mastery of Pain – Increases critical chance of melee attacks
Mastery of Stealth – Increases stealth detection and stealth movement speed.
Serenity – Increases regeneration of power
Toughness – Increases health by a specified value
Veil Recovery – Reduces duration of resurrection illness.

Timed Abilities
Arrow Summoning – Summons arrows.  Useless and outdated since Archery no longer uses stacks of arrows.
First Aid – Heals the user by a specified amount; must be out of combat for at least 10 seconds to use.
Ignore Pain – Heals the user by a specified amount instantly.  Can be used during combat.
Mastery of Concentration – Grants a 100% chance to be uninterrupted when firing a bow or casting spells.
Mystic Crystal Lore – Recovers a specified amount of power; must be out of combat for at least 10 seconds to use.
Purge – Removes nearly all negative effects.  Desperate Bowman is not affected by this.
Raging Power – Recovers a specified amount of power instantly.  Can be used during combat.
Second Wind – Recovers 100% of the user’s endurance; can be used during combat.
The Empty Mind – Increases resistance to magical abilities by a specified amount.

Realm Rank 5 – Unique to Rangers
Desperate Bowman
300 Damage and 5 second stun (non resistible.)
Bow and Melee cannot be used for 15 seconds after use.
900 sec (15 min) reuse timer.

After looking at all of the possible realm abilities it is obvious some are less useful than others.  The primary realm abilities a Ranger is interested in are: Ignore Pain, Purge, and Mastery of Stealth.  Purge will help you remove bad effects, Ignore Pain will allow you to live long enough to finish a fight and Mastery of Stealth will assist you in moving around more quickly and getting the drop on other stealth classes.

On the way to realm rank 5 you will want to spend your realm ability points on Ignore Pain, Mastery of Stealth and Purge in that order of Importance.
 
By realm rank 5 you will want the following RAs:
Mastery of Stealth 3
Purge 2
Ignore Pain 2

These will represent your core abilities than all Rangers should have.  After this is it largely personal preference.  Some would prefer to have Mastery of Stealth 5 quickly, which allows them to move much faster and sometimes start off fights with assassins with one or two bow shots.  Others will choose to be more sturdy and will pick up abilities like Aug Dex, Aug Con, Toughness and Mastery of Pain.

For a more hybrid play style I would suggest getting First Aid 1 as soon as possible; this way you can use Frozen Comet or Desperate Bowman to create space and heal in the middle of a fight.  First Aid is only on a 3 minute timer, where as Ignore Pain is on a 10 minute timer.  With timers in mind it is much nicer to only use up a short 3 minute timer than to use a 15 minute timer if you can help it.  Along with First Aid you should also get Longwind as quickly as possible, as it will allow you to sprint more easily without using up all of your endurance.

If instead, your intent is to use the bow more, or to spend a lot of time in keep seiging situations your points will be better spend on abilities like Falcon’s Eye and Augmented Dexterity.  This will increase your Archery damage over time and your spike damage, which will help you to kill someone before they can get hidden or out of your range.

4.d Master Levels

Rangers get to choose between two master level paths, Sojourner and Battlemaster.  The easiest way to discuss the merits of either path is to just go through the abilities, so we will do just that.  First let me say, most people pick the Sojourner path as it has some of the better general purpose abilities.

Sojourner:

1) Unburdened Warrior – 20% bonus to encumbrance

2) Unending Breath – Provides you and your group with water breathing and allows you to move faster in water breathing than someone just using a potion.

3) Reveal Crystalseed – Ground targeted and requires you to unstealth to cast it.  Will reveal any traps within a 1500 radius of the ground target.

4) Unmake Crystalseed – Requires you to unstealth to cast it, and will destroy one targeted trap.

5) Ancient Transmuter – Summons a merchant.  This merchant has arrows, poisons, and some crafting supplies.  The merchant will also allow you to sell if you need to.

6) Gateway – Casted spell that teleports yourself to your last world bindpoint.

7) Resistance of the Ancients – Casted buff that lasts for 20 minutes.  Provides you and your group with resistance to essence damage.

8) Forceful Zephyr – Spell that causes a target to be picked up in a tornado like burst of wind and send them in a random direction for 7 – 10 seconds.  The target cannot be damaged within the Zephyr, but spells such as dots and diseases will land on them and take effect after the Zephyr is over.  FZ is easily the most potent ability within the Sojourner line.

9) Phase Shift – Self buff that provides nigh-invulnerability to spells and melee attacks for a 10 second duration.  While phase shift is up you cannot cast spells or melee yourself.

10) Mass Gateway – Teleport your group to your last world bindpoint.  Group members that wish to teleport must be within 1000 units of you.

Battlemaster:

1) Sapping Strike – Style which procs a pointblank area effect that drains endurance from enemies by 25%.

2) Faultfinder – Style that gives a 20% damage hit bonus against siege equipment.

3) Power Lead – Style that procs a point blank area effect which drains powers from enemies.

4) Grapple – Melee range effect that stuns the target for 12 seonds.  It roots the target and keeps them from meleeing for the duration; however the target can still cast spells and use ranged attacks.

5) Essence Flames – Style that procs a buff giving the target a 10% chance proc an essence damage attack with each weapon swing while in melee.

6) Throw Weapon – Ranged attack; cannot attack with in melee for 10 seconds after the attack.

7) Essence Sear – style that procs a point blank area affect that debuffs resistance to essence damage by 15%. Pre-req: Essence Flames

8) Bodyguard – Ability that protects a groupmate from enemy melee attacks.  The target of body guard cannot be attacked by melee until bodyguard is removed to they move out of range.  The target of bodyguard must not be moving, or they will be able to be attacked.

9) Essence Dampen – Style that procs a point blank area effect that reduces agility of enemy targets by 15%.

10) Essence Shatter – Style that procs a point blank area effect that randomly shears on positive buff from nearby enemies.  Pre-req: Essence Dampen

Most people that decide to go Battlemaster do it for grouping with bodyguard, and for the shear styles.  All styles within Battlemaster are endurance hogs, and you will need to keep endurance potions on you at all times and it is recommended to get Second Wind.  Essence Flames and Essence Sear are underrated and highly useful styles.  They can greatly increase your damage over time.