Talk:Ranger/@comment-4424333-20120708113345/@comment-76.236.85.90-20120711025324

Ranger will have higher damage than an Assassin. You can go the route and be the Assassin awhile to get the strength but if you take a mage to enchant your weapons the ranger gaining 1 more magic than the Assassin is worth the the 2 strength it loses.

You do however want to switch to the Assassin at lvl 100 since the Ranger no longer gets the Magic advantage and the Assassin gets a 1 point strength advantage at that point. They also get equal stamina at 15 so you only lose the Magic Defence at 100+ so IMO the Assassin level ups just plain beat out the Ranger at that point.

I prefer the fighter stats to the Strider's stats from 1-10 you lose some stamina (50 points) and you miss out on the magic balance (20 points), but you get hp (70 points) and you get some attack (20 points) and since phys defense is better than magic defense you have that advantage aswell (10 points).

So I recommend

Fighter (1-10) -> Ranger (10-100) -> Assassin (100-200) -> Ranger (200)


 * requires enchanter to see the higher numbers than staying the assassin from 10-100, starting as a fighter gives higher survivability due to higher base hp and higher hp growths along with defenses rooted in the better defense (phys)

For maximum damage though

Strider (1-10) -> Ranger (10-100) -> Assassin (100-200) -> Ranger (200)


 * requires enchanter to see the higher numbers than staying the assassin from 10-100, starting as strider gives higher damage than starting as a fighter due to higher stamina growths along with stat growths and base in the better damage (magic)*

For max damage without requiring an enchanter

Fighter (1-10) -> Assassin (10-200) -> Ranger (200)


 * The fighter has better starting strength than the strider and better growths and the assassin has the best strength growths in the game so pure phys damage will be maximized, switching back to the Ranger at max level gives you access to the better bow and better skills albeit costly skills stamina wise, luckily the Assassin has high stamina growth just slightly behind the Ranger.*

In general though Ranger beats Assassin in Bow damage which I'm assuming that's what you're after since it's between those two for you. Assassin has a better Melee game than the Ranger though either way you'll want the assassin augments to maximize your damage, if you're running the Ranger with an Enchanter use the Magick and Strength Augments which capitalizes on the mixed damage. If you go Assassin don't take pawns and use the extra boost from Autonomy venturing out at Night stack the boosts on pure strength Augments. Don't rule out the Strider as an end-game class though if you're going bow heavy they have trap abilities and aoe while weaker than the Ranger they have arguably better bow skills than the assassin while the short bow has more mobility and faster rate of fire than the long bow albeit weaker.