Curse

Kereminde · May 11, 2008, 08:18 PM // 20:18

Tobias Trueflight
Ranger / Whatever

Notes: Secondary prone to change depending on what Elite Skill I'm hunting or if I need to pack a Resurrection skill personally.

Beast Mastery 7
Expertise 10 + 2
Wilderness Survival 7 +3 +1
Marksmanship 11
(6 Unused)

Notes: This is about where I want to be, though I might get two minor runes to bolster the other two attributes.

Beastmaster Traveler's Mask of Superior Wilderness Survival
Radiant Krytan Vest of Superior Vigor
Pyrebound Drakescale Gloves of Major Expertise
Pyrebound Drakescale Leggings of Vitae
Pyrebound Drakescale Boots of Attunement

Notes: See all that Pyrebound? That's a holdover from before Insignia; I saw lots of mobs using fire spikes or area-effect skills and decided Drakescale was where I wanted to put my money when buying my top armor set. Now I'm almost wanting to pull the insignias and put Beastmaster's Insignia there. What's stopping me? Not wanting to infuse a new set in case my salvaging ruins the armor!
Why the Krytan Vest? I like the coat . . .

Skills
Power Shot (Being experimented with recently; currently changed to Sloth Hunter's Shot)
Savage Shot
Apply Poison (Currently loaded Read The Wind since I wasn't fighting fleshy creatures)
[Open Slot] (Currently Troll Unugent for regeneration)
Broad Head Arrow (Stapled to slot 5)
Comfort Animal
Charm Animal
Never Rampage Alone (Sunspear Rank: Castellan)

Notes: I've been listening to the talk in another thread about Power Shot being inferior and trying some other skills. I'm not convinced YET of Sloth Hunter's Shot or Screaming Shot being more useful. (Sometimes I need a skill which doesn't rely on 'fleshy' status, like while in 75% of Tyria.)
Current pet is a Hearty Wolf from Pre-Searing. It has sentimental value.

Heroes NOT unlocked (It's easier this way): Acolyte Sousuke, Margrid the Sky, Master of Whispers, Goren, Norgu, General Morgahn, Razah.

I have all four 'games', plus the Bonus Mission Pack. I have finished the Prophecies Campaign (Proudly a "Tyrian Defender"), and have cleared Factions up to Tahnnakai Temple (Minus Master's for Vizunah Square), cleared Nightfall up to Kodonur Crossroads, and have two Asuran Main Quests left before descending to 'Heart of the Shiverpeaks'.

I'm not finished 100% with the other areas in GW:EN . . . The Bison Tournament has made me give up on it, and I haven't quite finished all the quests for the Ebon Vanguard, Shining Blade, or Asurans yet. I haven't gotten CLOSE to getting started clearing out Sorrow's Furnace (Grenth's Footprint is a deathtrap!), nor finished the other post-campaign quests available from Glint yet.

There you have it.

Edit: Corrected the Sunspear skill name.

I'm looking for advice on what to improve and what people think would be a better use of a Ranger. I'm not sure I agree with 100% of the comments but I'm willing to try some changes and see if there's a notable change in overall effectiveness. As far as Attribute Points go, I'm still a little uncertain of where to put them all as dumping them all into two "skill sets" doesn't seem to be a good answer to me.

miskav · May 11, 2008, 08:23 PM // 20:23

You don't have to salvage an armour to put new insignea in it.
Just use it on the armour, it'll over-wride the old one.

snaek · May 11, 2008, 08:28 PM // 20:28

wut was the point of this?
r u lookin for a critique?

ur runes/insignias look pretty random
sup wilderness? for an extra 3 seconds for [apply poison]?
and u should at least put on minor marks

btw, the pve skill is called [never rampage alone], not [rampage as one]

Tyla · May 11, 2008, 08:31 PM // 20:31

A superior rune is a bad idea. Let alone a superior rune and a major.
You're also using it in a selfheal attribute.

The most commonly used setup for attributes, is:

Marksmanship 9+1.
Expertise 12+1+1.
Wilderness Survival 9+1. -- This is usually only for [[Natural Stride]. If you don't have it, don't bother and go for [[Whirling Defense] or [[Lightning Reflexes].

And the common Ranger setup of skills is:

[Put Elite Here][D-Shot][Savage Shot][Volley, or X Preperation][Secondary Profession Skill][Natural Stride][Troll Unguent][Resurrection Signet]

A smart secondary profession skill is [[Mending Touch] (Can also remove conditions from the party, extremely strong for non-elite.) and [[Epedemic] (Only good for long-lasting conditions such as [[Broad Head Arrow]'s Daze.).

A good elite choice is:
[[Burning Arrow] for strong degeneration pressure and a little +damage.
[[Crippling Shot], mainly for PvP for the spammable and unblockable snare.
[[Broad Head Arrow], because it's the strongest skill a Ranger can bring on his / her bar in PvE.
[[Magebane Shot], instead of [[Savage Shot] on your common bar, replaced by [[Pin Down], or for PvE, [[Sloth Hunter's Shot] or [[Screaming Shot].
[[Barrage] is only good if you have Prophecies, which you do, so don't bother with it.

And a note about the insignias. Survivor's are FAR better than extra armour insignias because they defend against any sort of damage.

Joseph Leito · May 11, 2008, 10:03 PM // 22:03

Superiors aren't always bad, I run a superior in Expertise and it's perfectly fine.

snaek · May 11, 2008, 10:20 PM // 22:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph Leito

Superiors aren't always bad, I run a superior in Expertise and it's perfectly fine.

no, they're not in pve...
but sup expertise is a pretty bad option
10en skills get cut-off @ 14expertise...so havin it any higher will have no effect

sup marks makes sense in pve, if u want to be able to do as much dmg as possible
but rangers tend to be more shutdown, than straight dmg dealers

Kereminde · May 12, 2008, 12:33 AM // 00:33

What was the point of this, Snake? Well, it was because the other topic and post was getting into my build more than the topic. And nobody else seems shy about asking for advice or input. I thought "what the heck, I'm not despised as a n00b enough yet. Let me pull some real n00bish s*** and then I can live down to the mark!" Though I think I'm more a newb than a n00b . . . ill informed as opposed to screaming obscenities and believing I know better . . .

Yes, I'm throwing this out there and going: "So, suggestions for improvement, what would you do differently . . . and why?" That last bit is important, you know, because simply saying "X Skill sucks and everyone knows it" is lame. I want to know reasoning why some people do X over Y, or sometimes they do Z. I need to know that to evaluate it myself and go: "Okay, you have a valid point".

Why are my Insignias random? Told you, I set my armor up before Insignias and they inherited what I had made armor for. I anticipated needing extra armor vs Fire more than Druid's "Radiant" ability. Now that I HAVE options, I'm not sure what to work with so much. I thought about Beastmaster's because I have a pet all the time and having an extra 10 armor might help out a bit.

I can see the point of Survivor's but I thought a +10 armor boost is not negligible against damage . . . as opposed to having more health to get eaten up, I'd rather have higher armor and soak a bigger piece of damage pie. I may be wrong on this, sure . . .

Why the runes? Well they're what I happen to find through play. Not proud of it, not ashamed of it either. I suppose it'd make sense for me to knock my Superior Rune down a notch but I don't see an attraction to getting that health back. I'm not running too badly with the health and when I die it's usually not going to make a difference to have an extra 30 health or so. It's because everyone else is dead, or I ate an attack or some spike of INSANE damage.

@ Tyla
As far as elites go, you've listed a fair amount of what I've used. But you're not listing very many others of the elite skills. I like Burning Arrow, that's why Acolyte Jin or Pyre Fierceshot has it loaded

I've also used Incendary Arrows from time to time. I've never looked at Barrage and gone: "Darn that's a useful skill" until I started doing Hard Mode and almost any ranger mob in the world started firing it off repeatedly. I haven't YET captured Magebane Shot but I think I will sometime soon now. Crippling Shot doesn't seem useful at ALL in PvE. Heck, Crippled doesn't seem as useful as Poison or Dazed . . .

@Miskav
Well, if I salvage the Insignia, I can resell them to the Rune Trader for a little extra money . . . or keep them in storage in case I want to go back.

Age · May 12, 2008, 01:13 AM // 01:13

Barrage is a core elite in all campaigns anyway instead of using powershot use keen arrow.It has been fixed and using a pet go full BM or not at all.

the savage nornbear · May 12, 2008, 02:39 AM // 02:39

Your build minus the pet minus the major rune minus the superior rune+[[distracting shot]=semi acceptable

snaek · May 12, 2008, 05:09 AM // 05:09

well i was jus wonderin...
cuz in the op, u never aksed for advice or never really stated whether u jus wanted to show off ur build or sumptin
so i was confused how to reply to it 0__o

but if u want some tips...

for armour insignias:
spells will always target the chest piece (unless its a projectile spell)
so its best to put pyrebound on ur chest only

the only time u'll have to worry bout fire dmg from other sources
is from wanding and fire dmg martial weaps (i.e. [conjure flame])

so if u really want an armour buff
jus stick on the chest only (and maybe legs)
and then everything else survivors

and if u use a perfect salvage kit, u can get the insignia off 100% without breakin it
but tbh, the only thing really worth savin in ur equips is the sup vigor & radiant

for attribs:
spreading accross 4 attribs in most cases is not a very good idea
im a pet person myself (even tho in many cases, they'll be regarded as useless)

focus on expertise+marks+beastmastery (11-10-10 or 12-10-8 r the most common spreads)
and take out everything in wilderness (asside from leftover pts)
[apply poison] can still work @ a low wilderness stat
if u really really want poison, the other alternative would be [poisonous bite]
altho its not that great, it'll atleast allow u to run a different prep

Kereminde · May 12, 2008, 01:43 PM // 13:43

@ Snake

It's not so much spread over four, as I put my Marksmanship to 12, discovered there wasn't a huge difference between 11 and 12 for that and took a rank down, put that into the others. Expertise seemed to be most balanced between investment and usefulness at 12 so I put in a rune and used the points I didn't use to support my pet.

Wilderness Survival was mostly being used because Troll Unugent works rather well for keeping me on my feet; it overcomes 90% of the health degen mobs stack on me long enough for H/H monks to get to removing the cause.

But, looking around at the posts here, people seem to be saying there aren't any Insignia worth using except Survivor's . . . or is it just for Ranger?

Lykan · May 12, 2008, 02:05 PM // 14:05

If your always going to stick with apply poison or read the wind you could go for Scouts Insignia's or otherwise your best bet for pve is probably survivor or radiant if you have energy problems. You wont lose the armour just over apply them.

Your runes really need work, you should work on getting new ones, they dont cost much. I suggest:
Expertise Mask + Expertise Minor Rune so you can spec 14 Exp if needed.
Major Marksmanship, Minor Wilderness and Minor beast if you insist on having a pet with you.

As for skills [savage shot][distracting shot] add these two to your bar, never take them off.
[keen arrow] and [sloth hunters shot] are good for pure damage so look at them and if your really dependant on [troll unguent] in pve then your monk hero skill bars are probably in need of work, selfs heals are rarely necessary in pve.
Tyla added some nice elites i wont talk about them.

As for the pet, im sure it might have some sentimental value but you might want to consider getting rid of it unless you take a full beastmaster build or are doing barrage/pet or RaO, its just a waste of 2 skill slots.

Kereminde · May 12, 2008, 04:22 PM // 16:22

I edited the main post, just to correct my skill name.

I've also replaced the Sup Wilderness Survival rune with a Maj Marksmanship Rune I had laying around on an alt. Been clearing out some old junk this morning, not really finding a home for a lot of it but it's been tossed out anyway.

I'm not noticing many energy problems, I have thought about replacing the Radiant Insignia in the chest with Survivor's. The only time I reach energy problems is when a fight goes on for over a minute; this mostly would be GW:EN dungeons or a couple mission sticking points. I've also listed my thought about putting Beastmaster's in there for the armor boost.
(What exactly is a "good Beastmaster Build", and is it a viable option? Well, more useful than this one at least . . .)

I've not been using Troll Unugent much in a normal day, but when I do use it I'm glad it's there. I probably DO need to work on my monk heroes but I don't have a good touchstone on what would be decent as far as skills for them go.

(Isn't it obvious I don't know good skills?

)

Tyla · May 12, 2008, 04:38 PM // 16:38

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joseph Leito

Superiors aren't always bad, I run a superior in Expertise and it's perfectly fine.

You can get away with alot of things in PvE, and that is the beauty of it.
Tell me, is -75 health worth any amount of extra energy management worth it?

Just because something works in PvE, doesn't mean that it isn't bad.

snaek · May 12, 2008, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kereminde

Wilderness Survival was mostly being used because Troll Unugent works rather well for keeping me on my feet; it overcomes 90% of the health degen mobs stack on me long enough for H/H monks to get to removing the cause.

But, looking around at the posts here, people seem to be saying there aren't any Insignia worth using except Survivor's . . . or is it just for Ranger?

[never rampage alone] is all the health regen u'll ever need

so u dun need [troll unguent] and therefore dun need the points in wilderness survival

like i said earlier, [apply poison] works jus fine at a low spec

as for +armour
i think they're worth it in pve
in pve, armour dmg can actually be more dmg than armour-ignoring dmg
and dun forget, more dmg = more dmg reduction from armour

plus as an added bonus, enemy ai usually target the ones wit the lowest armour/hp

which is also a reason not to use sup runes--ur makin urself a priority target
the only reason to justify a sup rune in pve is for more dmg (or to meet a cut-off point for a skill)
a sup wilderness will not achieve this...at least not wit ur build, maybe if u were runnin [incendiary arrows]
even then, 1 sec is hardly justifiable

Rift · May 12, 2008, 07:36 PM // 19:36

You seem to be all over the map with your build. You need to figure out what the focus of your Ranger will be. Is it DPS (Power Shot), Interrupt (Savage Shot), Condi-Pressure (BHA + Apply), Beast Master?

After you've figured it out, you should rework your attribute lines. You should only invest in 2 or 3 attributes, never 4. Since you're a ranger, you'll have no other choice than to put some in Expertise, which leaves you a max of only 2 others.

I would personally drop the pet for PVE. I know it's a hard thing to do to let Fluffy go, but since its corpse isn't even exploitable anymore, he does very little in terms of helping your party. If you're looking to create a buffer between your party and the enemies, a necromancer Jagged-Minion Bomber does this job much more efficiently. In fact you should strive to unlock all the Necromancer heroes since they'll be very helpful throughout your PVE experience.

That said, here are a couple of PVE builds that I like to use.

Pure DPS:

[barrage][finish him][distracting shot][splinter weapon][flesh of my flesh][pain inverter][nightmare weapon][triple shot]

Interrupt + CondiPressure

[savage shot][finish him][distracting shot][burning arrow][pain inverter][apply poison][mending touch][rebirth]

Notice that I dropped most Wilderness Survival and all Beast Mastery, to focus on the core attributes of each build.

If you want to hold on to your BHA for shutdown, I would consider looking into Epidemic to spread the Daze.

If you want to use your experience in PVE to practice for PVP, the standard BA bar works fine too, without PVE-only skills. Only keep rebirth to save your stranded heroes (this would otherwise be a rez sig)

[savage shot][troll unguent][distracting shot][burning arrow][natural stride][apply poison][mending touch][rebirth]

or use the Magebane build provided posts above without the snare (not that important in PVE).

Kereminde · May 12, 2008, 08:04 PM // 20:04

It's a strange thing, you say corpse isn't exploitable but I've had those . . . frigging . . . Stone Summit Gnashers pull up Bone Fiends from poor "Fluffy"

I'll be giving some of these a whirl. Mostly the points got dropped to Beast Mastery (It HAD been at 3 for the longest time) because I couldn't get enough to make another attribute rise.

Oh, I don't have "Finish him!" because Magni keeps leaving me on the floor broken and . . . well, lifeless. Nothing has worked (not even Ursan; I'm probably doing that wrong, not being a melee class in the first place) and I've been seriously contemplating doing the cheesy/shady Ritualist spirit-spam. Except so far my build has done almost no trouble against the enemies to this point. (Save the nice Kurzik monk who breaks the rules. Those two rot wallows . . .) I never, ever, had problems shutting down Mhenlo or some of the others . . . it's Magni and Kahmu who give me notable problems . . .

Rift · May 12, 2008, 09:37 PM // 21:37

I don't know how long ago you've visited the Far Shiverpeak's, but since November, I'm afraid Fluffy doesn't leave a corpse: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Game_updates/20071113

For Magni, the spirit build works, but if you prefer a more Ranger approach, consider dshotting his form and degening him to death while kiting his attacks:

[savage shot][troll unguent][distracting shot][crippling shot][natural stride][apply poison][mending touch][screaming shot]

Age · May 12, 2008, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kereminde

I edited the main post, just to correct my skill name.

I've also replaced the Sup Wilderness Survival rune with a Maj Marksmanship Rune I had laying around on an alt. Been clearing out some old junk this morning, not really finding a home for a lot of it but it's been tossed out anyway.

I'm not noticing many energy problems, I have thought about replacing the Radiant Insignia in the chest with Survivor's. The only time I reach energy problems is when a fight goes on for over a minute; this mostly would be GW:EN dungeons or a couple mission sticking points. I've also listed my thought about putting Beastmaster's in there for the armor boost.
(What exactly is a "good Beastmaster Build", and is it a viable option? Well, more useful than this one at least . . .)

I've not been using Troll Unugent much in a normal day, but when I do use it I'm glad it's there. I probably DO need to work on my monk heroes but I don't have a good touchstone on what would be decent as far as skills for them go.

(Isn't it obvious I don't know good skills?

)

I would stick with radiants and drop the major in Marks I use two masks one in minor and one in sup.Beast Masters are good in explorable areas not to be brought in coop or elite missions.

I will never understand the Pet/Barrage Ranger thing as there are better elites to use in the situation.

Arkantos · May 12, 2008, 09:53 PM // 21:53

Radiant armor on a profession with their primary attribute being energy management is, well, really stupid.

Don't spam skills and you won't run into trouble. Use a zealous bow if you have to. But don't run +energy runes. Energy management > energy pool.