Introduction
Good morning everyone, I am Dark and this is my Endgame Combat Hunter Ranger build MOD13.
NOTE: If you are not in the 14k+ IL category or have at least 90% critchance with bondings proc’d this is not the build for you, refer to my other build Darks Combat Hunter Ranger MOD 12.
Race
I prefer people to play what they think looks cool and what they want to role play. That stated, to squeeze the most out of your character in endgame the Hunter Ranger scales off of Wisdom and Dexterity. I personally play the Drow since this race gets boosts to both of those stats.
Stat Rolls
What ever race you choose, get your DEX roll as high as possible, coupled with the best WIS roll you can get. Shoot for at least 20 points on your DEX roll after racial bonus is applied (if applicable) 18 if choosing a race that doesn’t receive a DEX bonus.
Paragon
This build is a Storm Warden, Combat build with focus on endgame content. While the AOE clear speeds of this build are insane, that is a secondary biproduct, the focus of this build is single target boss crushing damage for dungeons like TONG, FBI, MSPC
Feats
This is my current feats build,
Heroic Feats
Predatory Action – 1/5 minor increased daily damage
Weapon Mastery – 3/3 [we will lose 10% crit for 50% crit severity, so this helps offset that.]
Toughness – 3/3 [A little extra health, allows us to drain tank through most any scenario]
Swift Footwork – 0/5
Battle Wise – 0/3
Agile Combatant – 3/3 [All our damage is in melee stance, I’ll explain how to abuse this in the rotation description]
Endless Assault – 3/3 [Little extra bonus damage, but encounters main purpose is to proc blade hurricane.]
Natures Enhancement – 0/5 [have the chance to deflect is more important.]
Lucky Skirmisher – 2/3 [Being melee range deflect is much better than even defense.]
Scoundrel Training – 2/3 [If a tank or someone else has agro, its free damage increase for our primary source of damage.]
Disciple of Dexterity – 3/3 [6% extra damage from DEX.]
Extra Action – 0/3
Paragon Feats
Row 1: Top, Blood letting 5/5 More life steal keeps us alive dealing damage.
Row 1: Bottom 0/5
Row 2: Top Fluid Hunter 5/5 Increases deflect and crit while in melee stance by 2.5%
Row 2: Bottom 5/5 This further improves throw caution, reducing the defenses lost and increasing the damage dealt
Row 3: Top Skirmishers gambit 5/5 Get a Transcendent Vorpal worth of crit severity, but lose 10% crit chance.
Row 3: Bottom Lucky Blades 5/5 After crit’ing or deflecting gain 15% encounter power damage for 6 seconds. We do both alot. (don’t care about the AP gain portion)
Row 4: Top Piercing Blade 5/5 increase our damage by 50% and make it ignore armor… yes please?
Row 4: Bottom Wilds Medicine 0/5 (this is an endgame build survivability shouldn’t be much of an issue at this point
Row 5: Top Scything Blades 5/5, increases our total damage by 5% and by an additional 5% per enemy within 25′ this can be a lot of free damage increase. The more enemies the fast we kill.
Row 5: Bottom Battle Crazed 5/5, attacking in melee stance gives us 3% increased deflect chance and damage, stacks up to 5 times and last six seconds. Thats 15% of each for free and is almost always up and at max stacks.
Final Feat Blade Hurricane 1/1 every time we use a melee encounter power, for the next 2 seconds we hit two extra times on every strike, each extra hit dealing 165% normal damage. This feat melts everything and the entire build is around maximizing its effect.
Powers
As a Combat hunter ranger you can adjust to do almost anything your team needs. However a few powers are more important to others and as a result should be brought to rank 4 as quickly as possible.
At-Wills: Split Strike (primary single target dps, deals damage in a cone infront of you) Aimed strike (applies a mini gushing wound to the target, does not stack) Both of these to 4
Encounters: The encounters you initially want to get to rank for are as follows (these will be your primary build and used the vast majority of the time)
Thorn Strike: Short cooldown to keep blade hurricane active, and deals increasing damage as the enemies health decreases
Plant growth: Huge aoe spell with a large dot after initial burst of damage, best AOE clear spell
Throw Caution: Short Cool Down, fast cast ability that lowers our defense to increase our damage output (with a good DC/OP this should be up 100% of the time in combat)
Gushing Wound: This is used for boss fights in dungeons, biggest single target dps spell in our list, as long as you have allies to advance the bleed.
Dailies: Forest Ghost, this is a decent amount of extra damage, but more importantly you stealth and have a chance to drop agro from bosses (happens that you will steal agro… alot sometimes XD).
Features: We use different features for different situations, I’ll give some combos below
Aspect of the Pack / Blade storm (best mobclear combo, and with aspect of the pack rank 4 working properly with the artifact off hand bonus even better, also use in bossfights that you won’t be behind the boss (like second boss of TONG)
Aspect of the Pack / Seekers Vengeance. THIS is your single target boss features (get behind them and let them have it)
Boons
I’m going to attach pictures of the boons I have from each campaign, the focus of this build is Armor Pen to 60% (85% for some mobs in chult) after that priority is Crit>Power>Lifesteal/hp>anything else
Gear and Stat Priority
Gear is pretty straight forward, anything that gets your armor pen to 60% after that focus on crit, power, life steal. With the current gear set up you see below and bondings (currently rank 13, all companion gear double offense slots, slotted 4 rank 13 brutal, 2 rank 13 azure)
All offensive enchants in my gear is Brutal, defensive is also currently brutal, however black ice is another great option and works amazing with assassins cov mount bonus.
My current weapon enchancement is a Trans Vorpal (someday I’ll get a Trans fey to try out)
The artifacts I run are Heart of the Blue Dragon, thayan book of the dead, latern of revelation (active, team damage buff to effected targets), and horn of vahalla (all of these artifacts give crit (other than sigil) and power or armor penetration.
Mounts/bonus
when you shoot for an epic mount, choose either crit, power or armor pen based on what you need most at that time.
below are the mounts I use for their insignia bonus
At this point all of my insignia’s are either power or crit since I have no problems with armor penetration.
Companions
Picture is slightly off, I run the following companions
Tiger, Air and earth archons, Batari Runt, Wild Boar
Rotation
Rotation Trash Clear (positioning is key since you no longer run clear the ground, line it up to hit multiple with your split strike)
Tabx2 >Throw Caution>Plantgrowth>at-willx2>Thornstirke>repeat (Tab x2 needs to be done fast, and can be cast during the at-will animations to keep the agile combatant buff up at all times)
Rotation Boss (single target)
Tab x2>Throwcaution>Aimed Strike>Gushing Wound>Plantgrowth>splitstirke x2>Forest Ghost. Repeat (always cast aimed strike immediately after throw caution, it allows it to proc bladeflurry on every tick) In tong or any double DC or good dc with an OP group, between hastening light, and aura of wisdom, you will very rarely have downtime on encounter powers, but any time something isn’t up just spam a few extra split strikes. If possible always cast gushing wound after throwcaution/aimed strike to make sure you are getting the most damage out of all gushing wound ticks.)
Good Luck Fellow HR’s. Feel free to ask any questions