Archery is always going to be mechanically better overall.

With that said, UAC brawl can take you from 0-100 just fine.

-farmer

It's reallllly hard to judge combat effectiveness before you even hit 10th level. Archery should be much more effective for you as you gain levels, but let's do some quick check points. Some of these are obvious, some less so, so bear with me.

1. Are you doubled in ranged weapons? (Obvious but worth asking.)
2. Your ranged AS is DEX based. How's your DEX bonus?
3. Are you doubled in perception? Perception is crucial to both open archery and sniping.
4. Aiming will suck until you're about 30ish. By then you should have fairly reliable aimed shots. Until then, I wouldn't bother much.
5. What kind of bow are you using? Short bows have very low DFs. Long bows are the best until you can aim reliably, unless...
6. ...you using a crossbow? If you are, you can get an extra +30 AS if you're prone or kneeling when firing. Heavy crossbows do serious damage with frequent knockdowns. Just don't get caught down there.
7. When you hit 10th level, be sure to get some arrows e-bladed for an extra +20 AS. At 13th level you can use master-fletched arrows for a total bonus of +25. That's with a normal off-the-shelf bow.

As for UAC...

The UAC system is very viable. You're right, you will generally have an easier time hitting a foe with UAC, and there's really nothing you won't be able to take down. But--and this is what kills you later--it's sllllooooowwww. An optimally trained archer can kill most foes in 3 seconds. A brawler hasn't even begun warming up by then, with her first jab. You jab until you get an opening, tier up, repeat, and eventually get a killing blow. Meanwhile the archer has killed three more critters.

Don't get me wrong, UAC is a fun system and it CAN be effective, it's just not as efficient. I play two archers, one a sniping ranger, one a crossbow-toting bard. I also play a brawling UAC bard. Each one calls for completely different tactics, yet they're all effective hunters and fun to play in their own unique ways. I wouldn't steer you away from any training path you have your heart set upon. But there are a few things to consider, aside from the above.

UAC PROS

You don't need a weapon or shield. You can walk around with your hands free, which is pretty cool.
You can hit and take down pretty much anything you can survive being in the room with. Eventually.
UAC is a pretty good disabler, when you are skilled enough to aim punches reliably.

UAC CONS

It's slow. Really slow. Unless you have a stockpile of haste amulets, a Tonis bard, or a pocket wizard, expect your kills to take much longer.
If you're not in Voln, you have no way of effectively dealing with non-corporeal undead.
As a ranger, you won't have access to either the CMANS or spells that make UAC truly effective. That kinda bites.

Archery PROS

It's fast. If you are strong, or use a light bow, you can fire aimed shots in 3 seconds. That's wickedly effective.
Heavy crossbows have excellent DFs, with longbows close behind. They're very good weapons.
Most opponents have a lower DS vs. ranged than vs. melee.
You can stack your enchantments to +50 by using a 5x bow and 5x master-fletched arrows. Wow.
If you add hiding and ambush to your training, you can be a sniper (sometimes). It's very hard to kill someone you can't find.
As a ranger, if you train in CMAN Shadow Mastery, you can preserve your Camouflage AS bonus when you sneak away. Cool.

Archery CONS

Ammo is a royal pain. Let me repeat: Royal. Pain.
Shields and runestaves can ruin your day. Boing!
Some creatures are puncture resistant and/or very difficult (or impossible) to crit. Avoid when possible.
Fletching is a hassle to master (but worth it IMHO).
If your right arm is injured you can be rendered totally useless (unless you're in Sunfist).

Both Archery and UAC are weak when defending against bolts.

These are just a few things off the top of my head. I'm sure others can fill in the details with anything I missed.

~ Heathyr and friends

<Younger you can aim for legs or arms, if you break one or cut it off you will find them much easier to kill. Trolls being the biggest exception to that,>

Actually, most trolls won't heal themselves while they're stunned (tomb trolls and tomb troll necromancers being the only two I know for a fact are exceptions). So breaking or removing a leg will still help kill them faster unless you get bad luck with the d100 roll.

Starchitin

A severed gnomish hand crawls in on its fingertips and makes a rude gesture before quickly decaying and rotting into dust. A gust of wind quickly scatters the dust.

Ranged is really tough in younger levels and brawling is a lot of fun. Based on my experiences with a lvl 20 monk (uac) I have to believe that brawling for life as a ranger will be quite frustrating. I have heard that around cap it's pretty cool, but from what I can see it'll be a nightmare to get there. An example is that my twc rogue was a terror in the warcamps, even solo. Now that he's converted to UAC monk, he can't camp very well. If he's fighting more than two (maybe three) enemies, he's in trouble. And keep in mind that he gets nice cmans/spells to augment UAC. We don't.

Fletching is a great way to gain exp as you level up. I think my ranger quit hunting from lvl 5-10 as I worked on fletching. It didn't take too long and if you go ranged you want to master it anyway.

Have you thought about going sword and board for the first 30 days just to level up easily? I began to appreciated ranged about level 20 and you can hit that in 30 days.

BTW, heather's post below is spot on so it'll give you a really good idea of what your going to face throughout life as either a brawl or ranged ranger.

Another alternative is to go voln-fu. I've kept my ranger in Voln and 2x brawl, 2x ranged. He's not nearly as deadly as a straight up sniper, but he can fight anything from non-corporeal undead to Reivers in full plate. His right arm got busted out on the locksmehr trail the other day and he couldn't fire a bow, cast a spell, or easily get to town for a healing. He just finished his bandit bounty with jab, punch, kick and it worked out well. So while voln-fu is tanked compared to before, it's still pretty cool.

I have a capped ranger that was maxed in brawling, once the USC changes where made I found it a totally ineffective hunting style for her, where she could kick a defender in the temple and kill it in two or three kicks or ten seconds now takes a minute or more.

I have retrained her to a pure archer because USC is extreamly frustrating to me. Much faster to kill say a defender with an arrow in 20 seconds than using USC for a minute or longer with the chance of quite a few more wounds or death. I do have the advantage of not having to keep blessed arrows or collecting them, as I do use an ebow.

In my opinion rangers being great at something was nerfed with the introduction of USC. Yes I know it was overly powerful and needed to be changed, but rangers where at least great at brawling, now they are great at skinning and foraging...We really need some ranger love.

~Shi'larra
One bold fella breaks from the chain and climbs up on Brinret's chest, grabbing a hold of the tufts of hair on both sides of his head and holding him still! A fat, wet kiss is placed before the monkey disappears

I did the same thing. I reactivated this account in November and was really excited to check out the UCS voln fu ranger. I had a hard time with it and everything I heard about UCS for a ranger was so negative that I fixskilled to sniper. A big reason I did this was based on advice which said that a sniper can really uphunt well and I also was having trouble getting the hang of UCS with the tiering up, "favor"ed limbs and aiming.

After the fixskills I just never felt that I gave UCS a chance so I migrated back to it. The migration was brutal. It took 5 weeks but I started using UCS in the middle of it and found it effective. By the time the migration was complete UCS was starting to become my go to combat style. At this time I also bought a 4x bow with heavy sighting.

Unfortunately, the heavy sighting is not game changing. The bow seems to work better than an unsighted bow, but even with two +4 to ranged wristbands, my ranger still can't eye shoot like Robin Hood. While uphunting it's been fairly common to put a dozen arrows into Storm and Frost Giants. In my experience, if my opening shot(s) don't put the critter down, then I'm going to spend the next minute pincushioning the thing 'til it finally dies. It's like there's some mechanic where if you don't get that quick kill, you end up killing through blood loss. A lot of the cricism of UCS is that it's slow, but when you consider the time it takes to make 10 aimed ranged shots then you'll see that in all reality it's not that slow. I'm having a lot of success with kicking a leg and punching to the eye for crit kills in 15-20 seconds. When I compare that to 4 or 5 shots with a longbow the time to kill is sometimes slower with a bow.

Another thing that was important to me is that arrows do great against many of the critters, but are quite ineffective against others. In every situation where the arrows were less than effective because of plate armor, non-corp, turtled casters or level differential UCS has worked and worked well. Ultimately, IMO, Archery has not proven to be a better combat system than UCS and it's definitely LESS FUN!

I'll post my rangers build below. The 1x hiding is enough to hide from bi-peds throughout a wide range of levels and has even been effective against some undead. It's, obviously less effective when, for example, there is a wolverine or a skeletal giant in the same room as that Mezic you're trying to kill, but it does work. Considering Rangers have 601, 608 and 617, 1x stalking/hiding is enough to let a ranger take advantage of this skill and UCS attacks from hiding rock.

No matter what, you can't hurt a ranger. They are so friggin' well balanced as a class you'd have to really make an effort to build a bad one. That being said I'd love to see more people give the UCS ranger a shot and revive all those old Voln Fu'ers.

(at level 33), your base skill bonuses, ranks and goals are:
Skill Name | Actual Actual
| Bonus Ranks Goals In-Game Time to Goal
Two Weapon Combat..................| 5 1 1
Armor Use..........................| 132 36 36
Combat Maneuvers...................| 50 10 10
Ranged Weapons.....................| 170 70 70
Brawling...........................| 170 70 70
Ambush.............................| 122 31 31
Physical Fitness...................| 130 35 35
Dodging............................| 130 35 35
Harness Power......................| 126 33 33
Stalking and Hiding................| 130 35 35
Perception.........................| 170 70 70
Climbing...........................| 62 13 13
Swimming...........................| 58 12 12

Spell Lists
Minor Spiritual....................| 3 3

Spell Lists
Ranger.............................| 32 32

A ranged/brawling ranger can still afford to 1x s/h and ambush so he'll be able to hide AND he's going to be able to aim well for the eye, head and neck. Each one of those on the punch crit table has 9 out 11 crits which provide stuns, RT and even 4/11 (3/11 with the neck though I don't aim neck unless I want him to not be able to cast) chances for a fatal.

If your worried about killing fast while facing a group and standing in the open the ranger has tangleweed, swarm and sunburst. In a room with 4 critters you can disable three of them with those spells and bang away at the fourth. UCS as a whole, puts critters into a lot of rt so you've got time.

UCS ambush from hiding IS great and 608 makes it even better. I like having that option. If I need put a critter on his back fast I'll 608 and kick a leg or even go for quick kill by kicking the head. A lot of times though, I just stand in the open and punch punch punch. It's working out really well and my Voln Fu Ranger is quite viable. I look at it the same way I look at my rogue. He'd be a better killing machine if he didn't lockpick, but it's good to have options.

That's ok. He's 2x ranged and brawling so he can mix it up. Is it possible to be an open archer in Nelemar?

I have a totally UAC/ brawling ranger, he does fine, but there are certain zones.. in training that are difficult and you have to know some spells to make it work till the higher levels.

Perception is key to any aimed attack, so as others have said at the very very minimum you should be 1x or more in perception if you want even minimal success at aiming attacks of any kind

>Perception is key to any aimed attack, so as others have said at the very very minimum you should be 1x or more in perception if you want even minimal success at aiming attacks of any kind

Perception is only relevant if you are using a bow. It has no relevance to any other aimed attack you make.

>I had a question, TPs are tight. Should I try to 1x in cmans or better leave them till later levels(40?) and try to get to 2x ambush instead? Rath, I think, said that 2x ambush gets one great pushdowns?

It gives better pushdowns. I've had issues with not getting good enough pushdown on a level 80s rogue UAC ambusher and a level 20 melee ranger ambusher at 1x. The rogue I took to 1.5x and its a marked improvement but its still a priority to go higher. I suspect a ranger can compensate by spell tactics but level 20 isn't really high enough to get a good feel for that (who cares much if from time to time you hide, ambush for no tier, hide, ambush again and its still at decent, when the critter is being controlled by a vine?)

I haven't got the experience to say you should set 2x ambush as a priority, just to say that you should be aware that its a place where you might get an important boost to UAC. I'd start at 1x and review around level 25-30, or if I played hard enough to get to level 15-20 within the 30 days, I'd bounce it up and down at those levels and check out the effect it had.

Also based on the thread above under spells development or something close, Cman training is very important when you have to deal with Critter maneuvers. From what I am learning in that thread 1.5 or 2x eventually becomes important if your doing bandit and grimswarms

>Thrown also for sure. But I thought it also influenced precision ambushes or attacks for UAC. I may well be wrong, I Havent explored it that much. Then is it just ambush that influences precision UAC? -- GILBERTJ26

>Could you tell us which skills apply to aiming unarmed attacks, both from the open and from hiding?

>>Exactly the same as in melee. Ambush alone when you are hidden, and the average of ambush and combat maneuvers when you are not. - GS4 FINROS

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Hunting%20and%20Combat/Unarmed%20Combat/view/208

>When using an aimed or unaimed UCS attack from hiding, you get the usual ambush benefits (subject to your training in the needed skills, of course). The combat formula numbers won't change if the target is already in an offensive stance and thus there isn't any pushdown. -- GS4-FINROS

http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Hunting%20and%20Combat/Unarmed%20Combat/view/311

The pushdown affects UDF unless the target is already in offensive stance.

Mark

Thanks Rath, I need to re read the UAC docs,

I do know tho for me at least, ambush or in the open I use punch leg alot, and usually get a crit hit in one or two punches, then a stack that quickly finishes them. I think my RT for aimed attacks is about 4 seconds, 5 at the most if im not heavy.

Thanks for the input, Ive used the punch combo to get the stack then ingore the recommended attack and use grapple. It seems to work also. but as you said can be slower.

I do want to try an work the druid build. thats correct. Id like in the end to not really even appear to be a ranger.

But Driot has one huge advantage being a giant. Not to say thats always been an advantage, but it helps now

>Grapple is slower, has a lower DF, and has higher fatal crit thresholds. Use punch.

The only time you'll finish a critter off faster using grapple is if you had a usable opening for it. From hiding this is very rare. Ambush, fail to get the ambush tier and stay at decent but get a grapple opening, is the only time there is actually a mechanical advantage to grapple over punch.

The crits can be fun though, and if you are winning easily and want a bit of fun, grapple fits the bill.