Curse

Cuilan · Nov 27, 2011, 08:12 PM // 20:12

Then don't bring a cancel stance.

NRA with Comfort Animal at least gives you a pet and can be maintained.

Swingline · Nov 27, 2011, 08:56 PM // 20:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Then don't bring a cancel stance.

NRA with Comfort Animal at least gives you a pet and can be maintained.

So now you have to bring prot spirit and constantly maintain it on yourself by microing a hero. The less time you micro heroes the better. You also have to watch it in case it's stripped.

The pet is near useless. Even if its set to heel it can die in many situations and then your useless for 8-10 seconds. When it dies you must spend more energy to rez it and NRA costs another 7-10 energy depending on the level of expertise.

With LR + DS you have 8% more IAS and 75% block is better than 3 pips of hp regen. You can just sit where you are without moving for 22 seconds and kill everything.

HigherMinion · Nov 27, 2011, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Frenzy->bar compression. LR+DS at max rank isn't even maintainable so wtf are you suggesting it for?

Splinter Barrage · Nov 28, 2011, 10:58 AM // 10:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

With low BM your pets damage is irrelevant and you risk being useless for a few good seconds if it should die.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

The pet is near useless. Even if its set to heel it can die in many situations and then your useless for 8-10 seconds. When it dies you must spend more energy to rez it and NRA costs another 7-10 energy depending on the level of expertise.

I understand where you're coming from, as I've always been against pets myself, until about one week ago. (So most of my builds still don't use them, only the latest variations.) I completely agree that they do no damage worth mention unless you have BM skills equipped (which is like fighting vicariously . . .); and, moreover, they'll die instantly if they try to attack in HM. However, damage is not at all what I bring one for: I bring it to increase my survivability--which it does by a considerable degree.

If you use Beastmaster's Insignias on your armor, you get +10 AR vs. both physical and elemental damage as long as your pet's alive. If you bring a hearty pet, and tell it to "heel," it should never die. It has 540 health and 80 armor of its own; if it's standing next to you, it will distract some enemy fire, thus effectively increasing your health as well as your armor. You're a lot tougher as a result of this, maybe even twice as tough depending on the situation (i.e., there's two of you).

I'm usually the last person to die on those fun occasions when my party wipes (unless there's a Paragon with us--for some reason they never get targeted), and my pet is usually still alive when I do. Pets also don't get DP when they die. In NM, vs. easy crowds, you can relax the avoid-combat rule and even use your pet to pull. Enemies then ball up around it while you pummel them with AoE attacks. Finally, if you have a good monk in your party with nothing else to spend energy on at that moment, it's trivial for him to heal your pet.

It's true you could use Scout's insignias, but those only last as long as your preparation. What happens while you're reactivating your prep, and you get interrupted? You're screwed out of a significant amount of armor for several seconds. How could having a constant armor bonus plus a 540 HP 80 AR tank standing next to you distracting fire ever be a bad thing? . . . To my own chagrin, one week ago, I admitted it couldn't. ^_^;;

Comfort Animal + Never Rampage Alone uses the same number of slots as the combo you suggest (not a bad suggestion either, I will definitely give it a whirl); however . . .

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

LR+DS at max rank isn't even maintainable[.]

. . . whereas CA + NRA can be kept up perpetually. NRA should only cost 7e about every half minute, which is also a quite manageable cost, and better than the cost of both LR and DS (you'll have to pay full price for the latter since it's a spell, and unless Exp is 14 LR will also cost 5, so that's 10e, 9 at best). As an added bonus, the regen also makes it so you never need to swap from your vampiric bow. As with the constant armor bonus, no downtime is just . . . convenient.

*shrug* My 2 cents.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Lightning Reflexes with Dwarven Stability is wasteful use [sic] of skill slots when you have Frenzy, Drunken Master, and Never Rampage Alone.

Umm, Frenzy is a Warrior skill.

And it's arguably the worst warrior stance at that (far better, as a warrior, to bring both Flail and Rush, and alternate between them during a fight depending on whether your target is moving or not). Rangers have several superior IASes available to them, so why would you ever choose a Warrior secondary just so you could use an inferior one? I am genuinely curious: do you actually have a build which uses it (I'd like to see), or were you just listing stances off the top of your head and made a mistake? ^_^;;

HigherMinion · Nov 28, 2011, 02:42 PM // 14:42

Frenzy, for teams with heavy prot in them, like ER eles or ST rits, is a brilliant IAS with almost no downside (prots negate the only downside)

NRA for normal teams, yeah, works well. Critical Agility? Why bring that up? You need to critical to maintain it...

Malganis · Nov 28, 2011, 06:23 PM // 18:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

You should look into getting a new bow. Poison Tip Signet and Poison Arrow are extremely useless in PvE and there's no reason why you would want to extend it.

Lightning Reflexes with Dwarven Stability is wasteful use of skill slots when you have Frenzy, Drunken Master, and Never Rampage Alone.

Then people complain about rangers being bad.

I respectfully disagree. Poison causes 4 degen, inflicts a condition for those skills that require one, and negates regen skills such as healing breeze or troll unguent. For non-fleshy monsters immune to poison, I switch preparations and bows. Add in Toxicity, because I'm bringing a pet + NRA, and it really hurts. But EoE or Favorable Winds is a better Nature Ritual to bring.

Frenzy is a warrior skill and shouldnt even be mentioned, and Drunken Master is only good with alcohol. When I'm not bringing a pet, I use Expert's Dexterity, which is almost maintainable and provides extra benefits over Frenzy and DM.

HigherMinion · Nov 28, 2011, 06:34 PM // 18:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malganis

I respectfully disagree. Poison causes 4 degen, inflicts a condition for those skills that require one, and negates regen skills such as healing breeze or troll unguent.

OK, Poison is bad BECAUSE it causes 4 degen. That's all it does. There is no use for pressure in PvE, you want to let your heroes rupt them to hell and smash them quickly. Not painfully slowly, not 10dps. Rupt Troll Bottle, don't negate it's effectiveness afterwards.

Cuilan · Nov 28, 2011, 07:08 PM // 19:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

I am genuinely curious: do you actually have a build which uses it (I'd like to see), or were you just listing stances off the top of your head and made a mistake? ^_^;;

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDeco...ame=&Go=Submit
With zealous and major expertise rune. It's one of a couple variants I have for that elite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malganis

Poison causes 4 degen, inflicts a condition for those skills that require one, and negates regen skills such as healing breeze or troll unguent.

Inflicts a condition isn't a valid reason since there are other conditions in the game. Regeneration isn't normally an issue since you can just kill the foe with damage instead of slightly negating it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malganis

Frenzy is a warrior skill and shouldnt even be mentioned

Using a secondary doesn't mean it should be mentioned if the option is open to you.

Splinter Barrage · Nov 28, 2011, 07:10 PM // 19:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

Frenzy, for teams with heavy prot in them, like ER eles or ST rits, is a brilliant IAS with almost no downside (prots negate the only downside)

I suppose it has some potential in a team setting. But only if you're dependent on a particular preparation already, because otherwise I'd just bring Rapid Fire, and give the monks more leeway. But even if the monk requirement weren't an issue, Frenzy still only lasts 8 seconds, so you'll need to reapply it frequently, and that could get energy intensive compared to other options. A perpetually maintainable 25 seconds of 25% easily beats sporadic and/or prot- and energy-heavy 33%, any day. Your monks and energy pool will both thank you, and you won't get tired of pressing the same key every 8 seconds, if that counts for anything. ^_^ You could even bring more than one IAS; but since you only have 8 slots, I'd pick the most easily maintainable one and just go with that. And quite simply, Frenzy's demanding requirements place it very low on that list (War secondary is another one, since that's not really good for anything else); in fact, all things considered, it's probably the absolute last IAS I would ever use. Just saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HigherMinion

OK, Poison is bad BECAUSE it causes 4 degen. That's all it does. There is no use for pressure in PvE, you want to let your heroes rupt them to hell and smash them quickly. Not painfully slowly, not 10dps. Rupt Troll Bottle, don't negate it's effectiveness afterwards.

Actually--it's interesting--if you bring every condition-inflicting Ranger skill (well there are redundant ones, so just say, PTS, Hunter's Shot, Burning Arrow, Pin Down, and Throw Dirt), and the no-attribute Mesmer spell Epidemic, you can quickly put 10+ degen (so even if they heal, they'll still have 10) on entire mobs, as well as slow them down and blind them. I've tried it, and it actually worked pretty great, it was just more energy intensive than my Ignite or Barrage builds, and required more micro (like running away while skills recharge, then re-engaging). It also might be more useful to spread Dazed than Burning, but again it'll be expensive. Cost is really the only downside though, so it at least has potential.

Perhaps if you only brought a couple conditions and Epidemic, then did something more normal with the rest of your build. In any case, Epidemic makes conditions viable in PvE. Also for the record, in terms of damage over time, 4 degen > many +dmg bow attacks, and PTS is free, so it can definitely be worthwhile. Apply Poison is kind of a waste of a preparation, though.

Cuilan · Nov 28, 2011, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Still no point in spending multiple skills to reach the degeneration cap in order to counter healing when you can simply kill the foe with damage. The point that was made was there isn't a good reason to use such degen in PvE.

Frenzy being sporadic would be fault of the player. Warrior secondary also offers Save Yourselves and that's always strong to offer when not locked into a secondary for some other skill.

Splinter Barrage · Nov 28, 2011, 08:36 PM // 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Still no point in spending multiple skills to reach the degeneration cap in order to counter healing when you can simply kill the foe with damage.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

Also for the record, in terms of damage over time, 4 degen > many +dmg bow attacks[.]

Degen doesn't just "counter healing"; it actually does damage.

10 degen is a fair amount of DPS, with minimal effort on your part. Depending on the type and level of mobs, it can be very worthwhile.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

Frenzy being sporadic would be fault of the player. Warrior secondary also offers Save Yourselves and that's always strong to offer when not locked into a secondary for some other skill.

"Sporadic" applies to certain other recently-mentioned options (like LR), it was the part after "and/or" that applied to Frenzy. However, if you don't constantly have Frenzy up, it would indeed be sporadic. (And would you constantly want to take double damage?)

As for S.Y., it only affects other party members. "I'm a ranger, not a protector." ^.^ Why not simply let the monks who've been healing your double-damage-taking self instead spend their energy protecting everyone else? That would be the more traditional approach, certainly. . . . NRA also heals you for a bit, so really you'll be a lot less of a bother to monks with it. It's nice to be self-sufficient, even when playing in a group (and if that group contains other human players, it's also nice to them); and in general it's better to do your given job as well as you can, rather than try to take on another's job as an afterthought (i.e. bring more damage instead of SY).

Of course, the thing that makes this game complex and interesting is the ability to make virtually infinite combinations of skills and rearrangements of roles. I can definitely see the place of your build, I just question whether you couldn't achieve the same end through different means. For example, if you used Rapid Fire for your preparation, you'd free up an elite and a stance (you could even use an elite stance--Practiced Stance--to make the prep last longer). There are many other possibilities as well, and I'm pretty sure most of them are going to be better in more situations, if only because they're less dependent on monks.

Wenspire · Nov 28, 2011, 09:40 PM // 21:40

Applying conditions are nice and all, but there really is only one condition I would apply to any enemy which is DeepWound. Blind and Daze are also good but are dependant on what type of enemy you are using them on (i.e. caster vs physical).

Amy Awien · Nov 28, 2011, 09:46 PM // 21:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

....
The pet is near useless. Even if its set to heel it can die in many situations and then your useless for 8-10 seconds. When it dies you must spend more energy to rez it and NRA costs another 7-10 energy depending on the level of expertise.

You may want to look at your attribute distribution, if your expertise is not high enough to reduce the cost of NRA to 7 then it's not high enough for LR. Secondly, if your pet dies frequently, you and/or your team are doing something wrong.

Lightning Reflexes plus Dwarven Stability costs 9E, NRA is 7E. NRA lasts 25 seconds and can be kept up, DS+LR about 22 and is on a 31 sec cycle (cast + aftercast). NRA nets you 1.33 times the amount of attacks, DS+LR nets (22*1.5 + 9) / 31 = 1.35 ... which is a bit less then 2% more, not 8%. With some spending in BM the damage you can get out of your pet is likely to be more, not to mention the extra hits for Barbs and mark of Pain.

The block is mostly relevant when you go in melee, the pet, again with attribute up, gives you access to one of the better non-elite energy skills (+1E/sec, or 3 pips), Scavenger's Strike.

Splinter Barrage · Nov 28, 2011, 09:50 PM // 21:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenspire

Applying conditions are nice and all, but there really is only one condition I would apply to any enemy which is DeepWound.

I played around with Phantom Pain in that R/Me build too. More degen, then when it's over they get deep wound, so it kind of does both. Trouble is, you have to wait 10 secs before you can spread it with Epidemic.

It's too bad Enraged Lunge is an elite. Do you know of any clever ways to inflict DW as a ranger?

Wenspire · Nov 28, 2011, 11:26 PM // 23:26

Other than EnragedLunge or FinishHim, nothing too usable. I would use FindTheirWeakness with a necro/p hero but the hero AI doesn't use that skill on bow-users, which is a real shame. Don't know if that's a bug or not since they use it on every other weapon (minus rods/staves).

Swingline · Nov 28, 2011, 11:44 PM // 23:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

I bring it to increase my survivability--which it does by a considerable degree.

The problem here is everyone is underestimating the power of LR's second ability and that's a 22 second 75% chance to block attacks. With 100 armor vs ele damage your a tank. A good one. I just flag heroes back, pull, tank and deal crazy damage at the same time. With that 75% chance to block you don't need a pet for survivability and you have 33% IAS on top of the block so NRA isnt needed. The 9 second down time is irrelevant because a group of mobs shouldn't be alive for 20+ seconds unless it's a dungeon boss.

Splinter Barrage · Nov 29, 2011, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cuilan

http://www.gwpvx.com/Special:PvXDeco...ame=&Go=Submit
With zealous and major expertise rune. It's one of a couple variants I have for that elite.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

For example, if you used Rapid Fire for your preparation, you'd free up an elite and a stance (you could even use an elite stance--Practiced Stance--to make the prep last longer).

Here's the perfect elite for that build: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Expert%27s_Dexterity (in case the link doesn't work because of the apostrophe, that's Expert's Dexterity). It replaces both your current elite and Frenzy, so it frees up a slot.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

The 9 second down time is irrelevant because a group of mobs shouldn't be alive for 20+ seconds unless it's a dungeon boss.

Or if you're playing in Hard Mode, or solo, or there's more than one group in close proximity and no downtime between fights . . . just saying. It's true that skill combo is one of the better ones presented here (being a tank, even 2/3 of the time, beats needing a monk to keep you alive while you use your IAS, lol).

Cuilan · Nov 29, 2011, 02:31 PM // 14:31

The build doesn't use any skills outside of expertise, unlinked, and PvE.

Swingline · Nov 29, 2011, 08:28 PM // 20:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Splinter Barrage

Or if you're playing in Hard Mode...

I was referring to HM.

Splinter Barrage · Dec 01, 2011, 01:45 AM // 01:45

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malganis

Another option for energy gain if you're using a pet is Scavenger Strike.

I only recently began bringing a pet; I never imagined I might have three pet-related skills in my bar, but:

1. Never Rampage Alone
2. Ignite Arrows
3. Ebon Battle Standard of Honor
4. Incendiary Arrows
5. Triple Shot
6. Dual Shot
7. Scavenger Strike
8. Comfort Animal

. . . seems to work fairly well, with the leftover points in Beast instead of Curses. Incendiary inflicts Burning, so it's just a matter of using #7 right after #4 when you need the energy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Wenspire

(vs. 80AR via WeakenArmor) [. . .]
Ignite Dmg (per packet) = 9.2

(vs 100AR with ESoH at r3) [. . .]
Ignite Dmg (per packet) = 16.5

You're right, the damage is more impressive. Because S.S. has a recharge of 10, and Burning lasts so briefly, I have yet to attain independence from my zealous swap with this build, but it may still outperform my little experiment with W.A. in terms of DoT.

And, alternatively . . .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malganis

Spirit Rift on your SoS Ritualist hero will cause cracked armor as well.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Swingline

LR + DS is 22 seconds of 33% IAS and 75% block. By the time its up everything will be dead or close to dead and it allows you to tank melee/physical ranged. Healers loved me for this

. . . take the 10 from Wilderness and put it in Channeling instead:

1. Splinter Weapon
2. Spirit Rift
3. Ebon Battle Standard of Honor
4. Barrage
5. Volley
6. Body Shot
7. Dwarven Stability
8. Lightning Reflexes

(I like how N.R.A./C.A. is also two slots, so I still have a version with that combo instead. The difference in the template name is "w- Pet.") Note this is hero-independent. A hero-dependent version would free two slots and a lot of attribute points; any suggestions?

Setting it up uses a lot of energy, but alternating between the two bow attacks is virtually free, and once Rift kicks in you can gain energy twice through Body Shot, just as with W.A. Since you're not getting hit by anything but hexes, I was using Survivor insigs.

I'm not satisfied with either build yet, but thought I'd share the experiment-in-progress. Biggest problem is delay (before pet reaches target/before Rift kicks in); sometimes I never get the energy I'm depending on. But perhaps this can be surmounted through practice.