Start with range or not?
Recently, I got annoyed with being multiaggro'ed alot. (lol). I thought I might start range because I had all the basic melee skills done (minus final hit, which I never use). The problem is, i have practically no range skills.
The problem is AP of course. I can probably only get about 1k AP by the standard marker of G13. If I had continued with melee, I could probably have r1 Down attack, r1 of all masteries, and be almost done with r1 Final Hit.
If I started range now, the 1000 AP could give me r1 Refine (53), r1 Range (100), r5 crash shot (230), r1 magnum (200), r1 AR (~210), and probably some life skills with the remaining 200+ AP.
I really like the benefits of ranged, but I don't know how effective I will be able to make it. I won't be using it alone, but mixed with melee.
Here are the basics of what skills I have now:
r1 Critical Hit
r1 WM, r1 Combat mastery, r1 Smash, rA final hit, no Carpentry
r7 range, rF AR, rF magnum, rF all life skills (or I don't have them)
Lag: approximately 200-300ms (normally)
I do free 3 week rebirths from 17 to 20, so I get NO DEX bonuses from levelup. Base Dex = 82
I get about 75 AP per rebirth (25 AP a week).
So here are some questions I need answered:
What's the easiest way to raise 40 DEX after refine, ranged, magnum, AR, and crash shot to a decent AP-manageable level? (Training and AP-wise)
How important is critical compared to damage? Should I focus on a critical set or a damage set of equips, or a mix?
(Most importantly) Which path do you recommend? Just focus on melee or ranged, but nothing in between.
Thanks in advance for all answers that don't contain tl;dr