Actually the Rangers expertise line is (imo) beter then the warriors tactics line.
My grounds for this are that the warrior stances that block attacks
(like bonetti's defence) do NOT allow you to use skills while in a stance.
The rangers expertise line however houses three 75% dodge skills (actually it's 4 but to use the fourth one at max dodge you need 12 expertise methinks) and has the 'throw dirt' blinding skill.
Rangers however can use skills and the like while in stance and with expertise decreasing energy costs those 3 dodge skills and throw dirt can be stacked in such a way that you have 75%+ dodge for 45secs every minute. (or all the time if you add in serpents quickness)
Ontop of that, if you choose sword is your main melee weapon you can use the sword skills to attack, since they require adrenaline your sp is preserved for defence.
I personally use this build (or am working towards it) with my lvl 15 R/W and have no PvP experience yet but in theory this plan seems foolproof.
Of course I am aware that your defence alone takes up half of your skills bar (4 slots) but if you add 2 attack skills (sever artery and final thrust, once I get final thrust that is) and one healing skill (troll unguent) you still have one slot left open to fill up in your own liking. (perhaps gash or another sword attack skill)
With well distributed attribute points you can get both marksmanship and swordsmanship to 12, expertise to 10 and have a couple of points spare.
Unfortunatly, by having low/no tactics you can't use any shields with more then 8 defence but since I'll be dodging 75% of the time I'm sure I can take that little bit of extra damage.
I hope this indeed is a good way to mix Ranged and Melee combat into one character.
=EDIT=
I've come to the conclusion that my build is doing way little damage then it could do for some reason, thus it is for your best interest to disregard this post untill I find out why I'm doing so little damage.
Last edited by sanderke; May 15, 2005 at 11:23 AM // 11:23..
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