Curse

G.S. · Sep 13, 2005, 07:54 AM // 07:54

I'm using this build that can solo griffons/minotaurs/hydras etc for a while so I decided to post it here:

Attributes:
Beast Mastery: 12+1+3 = 16
Expertise: 11+3 = 14

These are actually only 2 attributes that are important so you can put the rest where ever you want. Also notice that 2nd proffesion also isn't important but you can always improvise and add some skills to make this build better.
Maybe you don't need 2 sup runes because FS is really great so be free to lower your expertise.

Skills:
1) Ferocious Strike {E}
2) Comfort Animal
3) Disrupting Lunge
4) Feral Lunge
5) Scavenger Strike
6) Otyugh's Cry
7) Call of Protection
8) Charm Animal

Armor:
Any armor, it isn't important. You may want to use Druid's, but with 14 expertise and Ferocious Strike, your energy will actually never fall under 10.

Weapon:
If you decide not to put your points in Marksmanship, you can even use a staff. I use a middle ranged bow (80', see Link for more info).

Actually, I'm sure you can solo with only Ferocious Strike and Comfort Animal so you can replace any other skill. Someone would like to take self healing skill or running skill if something goes wrong, but if aggroing is done correctly, it isn't neccesary, although you will take few hits. You also dont' need both Otyugh's Cry and Call of Protection, but together they make your pet really hard to kill. Maybe Predator's Pounce would be even better than Comfort, didn't try that yet.
This build allows so many variations in skills because your *skill* is what is really important here.

The only thing important for soloing with pet is that YOU must stay outside the battle. You must keep attacking (or your pet will run back to you), but your pet should be attacked and not you. Now that is the hard part because your pet won't start attacking unless you do, so you will be the first one attacked. To "change" their target (on the pet) you must run away for a bit - sometimes they will attack the pet immediately and sometimes you will have to run in circles around him. Maybe you could take dodge instead Disrupting Lunge because you only need DL for hydras and they have some ranged attacks so you can easily escape them.

To be honest, soloing with pet is very boring. The reason is that you can attack only one target which means that taking a group of 3 minotaurs/griffons can take 2-3 minutes. But in the beggining I was really proud to find out that rangers can also solo (note that solo actually doesn't describe this build very good

) so try it, you may get lucky with your drops.

P.S. I'm sorry if this text sounds confusing, sorry about my not-so-good english.

I hope that you will have fun using this build, at least in the begging. And don't give up if you fail first few times. Soon you will learn how to trick those minotaurs and griffons

).

Post your comments and suggestions, please.

Yukito Kunisaki · Sep 13, 2005, 02:39 PM // 14:39

With this build, I can easily see why it's boring.

if you want to solo, you need 3 things to make it exciting...

Stronger tanking power [fighting 5 enemies is definitely more exciting to me than fighting 1-3, bah*]

Better fear factor [when you're soloing and almost dead/dying, and you care about it... It's more fun...]

Stronger killing power [your build is boring because you don't use your secondary. I use Balthasar's Aura for my walking nuke of a pet and it does me great in terms of all your base are belong to us... I'm going to easily guess it takes you upwards of 3-5 minutes to kill maybe 6 foes...]

Lebdan · Sep 13, 2005, 03:36 PM // 15:36

Well, at least he uses a build that doesn't rely on MONK smiting spells. If you told me you could kill the same ammount of monsters in the same ammount of time without them, I'd be impressed.

I'd take Call of Haste for a faster attacking speed. It should help some. I don't know what to drop though. Probably one of the attacks.

Gomezie · Sep 13, 2005, 03:51 PM // 15:51

yeh seems a bit boring to me.. but i reckon ill give it a go

G.S. · Sep 13, 2005, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Well, I decided to post this build after a discussion here: Link.
The title says *Pure* Ranger soloing build so this is - a pure ranger soloing build. Ofcourse, I agree, even a little help from your secondary (balth. aura as mentioned or any other, fire storm maybe?) could speed up things.

wsmcasey · Sep 13, 2005, 07:56 PM // 19:56

As far as farming goes with a pure ranger I would have to say that traps/poison arrow/ingnite arrow/throw dirt/storm chaser/troll unguent are much more efficient skills for farming than trying to use a pet. I'm sure it can be done as you've stated in your build, but I doubt that your pet is taking down a solo hydra in 10 seconds or less. The other problem that I see is that pets are just to unpredictable for farming. Until A-Net has an update with commands to control your pet I will stay away from them. Here's a prime example from your own words:

"You must keep attacking (or your pet will run back to you), but your pet should be attacked and not you. Now that is the hard part because your pet won't start attacking unless you do, so you will be the first one attacked. To "change" their target (on the pet) you must run away for a bit - sometimes they will attack the pet immediately and sometimes you will have to run in circles around him.

(as a ranger you shouldn't have to run in circles)

I'm not knocking your build, infact I appreciate that your coming up with original ways to farm. IMO though there are faster ways to farm with a ranger, the main goal of farming is to make money fast, your not gonna make money fast if it's taking you 3 minutes to kill a mob of 2-3 monsters.

I really enjoy farming with my ranger over my monk because it requires more strategy, even though my monk can take down a group of 10 hydras in less than a minute. You should try setting up a group of 4-5 trappers and go farming underworld sometime, thats loads of fun for rangers.

G.S. · Sep 13, 2005, 08:35 PM // 20:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsmcasey

Until A-Net has an update with commands to control your pet I will stay away from them. Here's a prime example from your own words:

"You must keep attacking (or your pet will run back to you), but your pet should be attacked and not you. Now that is the hard part because your pet won't start attacking unless you do, so you will be the first one attacked. To "change" their target (on the pet) you must run away for a bit - sometimes they will attack the pet immediately and sometimes you will have to run in circles around him.

(as a ranger you shouldn't have to run in circles)

I agree - pet AI still needs some improvements and commands like stay/atack etc.

I noticed that you constatly use word *farming*. I never said anything about *farming* with pet or even mentioned that word because, like you said,

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsmcasey

(...) your not gonna make money fast if it's taking you 3 minutes to kill a mob of 2-3 monsters.

This is a *solo* build, and not a farming build. I know that many people think these are the same, but after I watched few Mo/W and W/Mo farming videos I was just happy to find a way my ranger can also solo that same griffons. It was never my intention to go and kill 10000+ griffons to become incredibly rich.

wsmcasey · Sep 13, 2005, 09:01 PM // 21:01

My mistake in reading your post. I did assume that your build was made primarily for farming. The main reason that solo builds are created are to either farm for items and gold, or run from point A to point B. After I beat the game 3 times, I got bored and went back to Ascalon with my lvl20 w/mo to see just how many missions I could complete solo. I made it to Gates of Kryta. It was fun and challenging. Haven't tried that with my ranger, but I have gone back to help guildies thru Ascalon missions and my over all damage and versatility is much greater with my ranger vs. warrior.

Yukito Kunisaki · Sep 13, 2005, 09:06 PM // 21:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lebdan

Well, at least he uses a build that doesn't rely on MONK smiting spells. If you told me you could kill the same ammount of monsters in the same ammount of time without them, I'd be impressed.

I'd take Call of Haste for a faster attacking speed. It should help some. I don't know what to drop though. Probably one of the attacks.

My warrior already uses Mark of Pain but I'm sure a pet's target can use it too. Impressed now? I knew you would be...

G.S. · Sep 13, 2005, 09:19 PM // 21:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by wsmcasey

My mistake in reading your post. I did assume that your build was made primarily for farming. The main reason that solo builds are created are to either farm for items and gold, or run from point A to point B.

Well, actually, I did make this build for the purpose of farming

. But after few runs, I realized that it's just too slow and too boring so I gave up using this build to farm. I guess I should have written "I WAS using this build that can solo griffons..." because "I'm using this build that can solo griffons..." does sound like I'm using it all the time, so it's no wonder you assumed I'm farming.

G.S. · Sep 13, 2005, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by G.S.

It was never my intention to go and kill 10000+ griffons to become incredibly rich.

Quote:

Originally Posted by G.S.

Well, actually, I did make this build for the purpose of farming.

I just noticed how stupid this two sentences sound together. So to make it clear: once, I did get carried away with that Mo farmers so I thought it would be nice to make some money that way. It *was* my intention to go and kill 10000+ griffons to become incredibly rich. Later (after i failed

) I came to conlussion that money isn't everything (yeah, right) so I gave up farming.
Well, I confused myself now so I just don't know anymore - do I want to farm or I don't? Arghh... Give me some time to think about that please

.

Yukito Kunisaki · Sep 13, 2005, 09:43 PM // 21:43

Instead of farming, I find that re-running some of the higher end pve missions [like the new Sorrow's Furnace or maybe any southern shiverpeaks expeditions] will wield more rares and better fun factor than solo farming... Now my W/N doesn't farm due to just it being boring and no return on time invested....

leafish_dylan · Sep 14, 2005, 12:54 PM // 12:54

Ranger/Warrior.
Apply poison.
Cyclone axe.
Troll Unguent
Either healing signet or predatory season
Fill up the rest of the spaces with defensive stances.

With 60 seconds of defensive stances, you can solo almost any of the common farming spots. It's not as easy or efficient as a monk combo, but it'll work.

There's a short movie (xvid format) of me taking on some of the desert mobs here:

www.demolicious.org/you_are_a_retard/example.avi

You're wasting your time with pets.

musefanalert · Dec 04, 2005, 09:29 PM // 21:29

My fave char by far is the ranger, simply for its versatility and im constantly experimenting with builds in pve and pvp and this isnt bad :P
Ill prob do some more experimenting with the skills when i unlock some more ele skills (only unlocked the ones needed for this build)
I have my own solo ranger build which doesnt rely on monk smiting, merely barrage + zealous weapon + live vicariously + pred + vigourous spirit with stances which i mite post on here sometime (its not perfect but it works well)

fallot · Dec 05, 2005, 02:58 PM // 14:58

I can solo Minotaurs with Traps, Oath Shot and Throw Dirt. For Ettins I use Apply Poison, Hunter's Shot, Greater Conflagaration and Mantra of Flame. Thats pretty much all I can solo at this point. Ettin farming is useful, you can get a Sup. Vigor or a Sup. Absorption once in a while, makes up for all of the time consumed.

Ezekiel Prophet · Jul 20, 2006, 10:58 PM // 22:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yukito Kunisaki

Instead of farming, I find that re-running some of the higher end pve missions [like the new Sorrow's Furnace or maybe any southern shiverpeaks expeditions] will wield more rares and better fun factor than solo farming... Now my W/N doesn't farm due to just it being boring and no return on time invested....

Hehe, not even re-running(incompetent groups with tanks who want to be the next Leeroy Jenkins) Thunderhead Keep, I would get 3-4 golds from chests and drops. None of them that great, but I got some runes and mods. Also, I got impatient and solo'd Borlis Pass with my tank. Got a 20/20 axe haft out of that. Re-doing some missions are indeed profitable.

antoninus · Jul 21, 2006, 06:31 AM // 06:31

i think the pets are going to get DP now so...

Sir Mad · Jul 21, 2006, 11:12 AM // 11:12

Yeah, and the 8 secs of skills disabled is awful. I think it's the first I whine because of a nerf, ever, but sorry I'm going to for this one. ANET wanted to nerf bunny thumpers and killed the beastmasters. Great Job.

I wonder how solo BM builds could now work with dp... Now it's gonna be just as bas as if you were going dual and you're teammate died when you pet is killed.

Amy Awien · Jul 21, 2006, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Worse actually, as pets don't get morale boosts and don't loose DP

Stormstaff · Jul 21, 2006, 07:33 PM // 19:33

Nice. tag for later