Rangers in current (Windows) nightly

[jevansau]

Hi, played through a HE ranger on the latest windows nightly build with randarts and have a few observations.
1) Decent bows are very rare - never saw a Lothlorien and was past L30 before I found anything better than my +18 damage sling even allowing for the extra shots with a bow. Eventually got a pretty decent randart bow.
2) The book 1 spells are all useful, but mana isn't a priority for a ranger.
3) Rangers make pretty decent stealthy warriors
4)Book 2 spells are mixed - never found a use for Cover Tracks or Herbal Curing, Haste Self is obviously nice as is Create Arrows, and Decoy is wildly overpowered.
5) Decoy combines nicely with stone to mud and stealth to allow you to get monsters stuck tracking the decoy and ignoring you. This makes killing anything without passwall or kill wall almost trivial, and permanent walls in vaults cover the rest.

[Selkie]

So I couldn't get my head around decoy. I tried it a couple of times and just thought meh. What's this trick of yours exactly?

[jevansau]

Basically it is just a matter of making the only short path to your decoy be through a wall. Having stealth and unlimited stone to mud makes this much easier to set up.

#______ M_________#
######__########
###############
###### ; ########
######__########

With a setup like this, the monster, M, will move into the adjacent empty space closest to the Decoy,;, and will just stay there taking no actions. Thus it can be safely damaged with the method of your choice.

Even in less ideal setups the monster will still just try to get to the decoy so in many case it will just move between a few squares and can be safely damaged from behind.

With pass wall monsters, you hide the decoy behind a wall with the monster(s) having to pass through a room to get to it. You damage them on their journey.

It is important with any monster that isn't pure melee to hide the decoy as any spell cast on the decoy will destroy it.

[bughunter]

Where is @ in that setup?

I'm guessing on the knight's move spot where he can see but can't be seen?


#________@____##
######_M########
################
###### ; #######
######__########

[jevansau]

Actually, it doesn't matter where @ is. Even when right next to, and attacking the monster, @ will be completely ignored.
The only risk is with monsters with some random movement, or where there are 2 or more squares that the monster moves between and you move to one of them. If the monster tries to move where @ is, this will result in a melee attack.

#______@_____##
######M########
################
###### ; #######
######__########

is safe for monsters without random movement.