Curse

Makkert · Jun 06, 2005, 07:49 AM // 07:49

I want to pose a question.

I see most of you stating 13-14 expertise. Currently i use 9 expertise. up to 11 expertise, there is no change in costs of 5 and 10 energy skills compared to 9. and 13 expertise brings a 1 energy cost less on those skills. If one uses mainly 5 and 10 energy skills, is the cost in attributepoints warranted?

Another question:
What is suggested in rune use in general? is one superior rune advised, or mulitple? does this not way heavily on health even with sup vigor?

a third question:
my ranger/mesmer has been doing fairly nice in random arena's, but an Illusionary Waririor (mes/war) just about kicks me so hard its a lost cause. Any tips against them?

Weezer_Blue · Jun 06, 2005, 10:50 AM // 10:50

Rangers have several of the best stances in the game. Use them. Whirling Defense and Dryder's Defense... And obviously Escape (but it's elite) are all great for staying alive. Rangers are great at conditioning. Throw Dirt, Poison Arrow, Apply Poison, Melandru's Arrows, and so on. Rangers have natural rituals which can save a team at the Hall of Heroes. Look at Fertile Season and Symbiosis and so on. Rangers have traps. Watch as their team runs head long into Dust Trap and Spike Trap and becomes blinded, bleeding, and crippled. Rangers have interupts in the form of Distracting Shot, Concussion Shot, Choking Gas, and Incindiary Arrows.

Now my view on rangers? I love them. But I don't know how they compare to other classes. Least not the Ranger/Mesmer. /Necro is probably better, if you were thinking of doing the quest to change it. But that's just my oppinion (I play R/Me but only use the /Me for unlocking stuff.)

Aranador · Jun 06, 2005, 11:41 AM // 11:41

I believe that - if you are going to have expertise - you need to have either 3, 8, or 13 in the attribute. Obviously exactly how much depends on how strong you want the skills from there to be as well, but those numbers are the ones that give you best bang for buck on energy savings.

piercehead · Jun 06, 2005, 03:47 PM // 15:47

I disagree. Unless all the skills you use are 5-energy skills, 4, 9 and 14 are better sweet-spots for expertise.
Personally, I have 14 expertise because most of my skills are 10-pointers so they only cost 4, where they would cost 5 with 13 expertise.

Falconer · Jun 07, 2005, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Once again... meaningfull values for expertise are as follows. (this assumes that the bulk of your skillbar is 5 & 10 with maybe a 15 energy or two in there... which amazingly enough is what your typical ranger bar looks like).

02: 10->9
04: 10->8, 5->4
07: 10->7
09: 10->6, 5->3
10: 15->9
12: 10->5, 15->8 (half round up)
13: 5->2 , 15->7 (half round down)
14: 10->4

Values between 2-7 are given for low level ranger... as a low level ranger I like to keep my points split between survival (most points), expertise at a 10 energy breakpoint, & beastmastery last (fluffy the wonder tank). Leverage your survival preps (I'm partial to ignite over kindle) to do most of your damage as opposed to your marksmanship (on a 25 energy budget and low expertise... you can't afford to chain bow attacks yet).

In PvP, you should never have less than 9 expertise if you're using ranger skills... Classic case of a build where 9 expertise can work well is a barragebot, 3 energy for a barrage is definately doable especially with a zealous string, saving more attrib points to go into your conjure or smiting skill line (typically I prefer to have someone else like a smiting el/mo to toss out the judge's insight if that's your poison since they can easily run up a full 12 ranks and keep it cast on 2 different players constantly). This ONLY WORKS if your bar is dominated with cheap 5 energy attacks.
If you have a significant number of 10 energy attacks... nothing less than 14 will really do... 12 is still serviceable though... if those extra 20 attrib points are really badly needed elsewhere.

Use skills from your secondary sparingly and only if you can leverage them to be worth the energy cost. If it's 5 energy it's normally a good deal but always remember your energy. 10 energy think long and hard. Exception to this rule is warrior since your expertise bonuses pass over... in which case go hog wild on all those delicious 5 and sometimes 10 energy skill attacks!

Howling Wind · Jun 07, 2005, 12:38 AM // 00:38

Warriors can be a tough ass to get rid of for a ranger but shouldn't be hard with the help of secondary professions skills like a necromancer.
Enfeeble + faintheartedness / shadow of fear and you'll be laughing at the warriors in their face, atleast until those hexes and conditions are removed but by then you could have pulled off a few hits and tricks. Also the classic example of a greater conflag + dreak scale = harmless warriors but that combo is too old and easily countered.

And now forget about secondary professions, rangers aren't just interupters but trappers too, lay down some traps in a way that the warrior will have to go past the traps in order to get to you. Now he can either wait for thet traps to set off on their own 90 sec which is beneficial to you or take the risk and come charging which is also beneficial to you.

Axelia · Jun 07, 2005, 03:02 AM // 03:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComMan

I'm seriously about ready to give up on playing a Ranger, despite the fact that I've put as much time into this character as I have into some of the longer games that I own.

Seriously, Rangers are cool, fun to play, and versitile. I'll grant you all of that, and wholeheartedly agree. But they're so gimped that it's not even funny.

I feel the same but I try to continue anyway I am seriously thinking about going back to DAoC. The character is gimped but not near as bad as GW.

Zyuu · Jun 07, 2005, 05:19 AM // 05:19

rangers aren't gimped lol

problems are:

1) abundance w/o the need
2) abundance of rangers that lack skills/runes
3) abundance of rangers that dont perform all that well
4) rangers perform better in team builds
5) the reasons 1-4 causing everyone to think rangers suck
6) everyone spits out whatever they hear.. someone says rangers suck, they believe it, and regurgitate it to everyone else, and those people believe it.. etc. and the same works in the opposite direction (such and such is good)

draw your conclusions

after all... without 3 air ele and 3 monks, everyone loses right?

.......

Z

ComMan · Jun 07, 2005, 06:04 AM // 06:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zyuu

draw your conclusions

At first I didn't believe what people said about Rangers. I thought they had tons of potential. My conclusion, at this point, is that I was wrong.

I've started experimenting with other builds, mugh to my dismay. Current setup (which I know is still terrible, possibly even worse than ever):

Incendary Arrows {E}
Distracting Shot or Beastial Pounce
Kindle Arrows or Choking Gas
Charm Animal
Pin Down
Tiger's Fury
Drain Enchantment
Rez Signent

Wilderness Survival- 10 (9+1)
Marksmanship-8
Beast Mastery- 9
Expertise -10
Inspiration- 3

Still trying to NOT rely on Bow damage, since everything seems to be more than well armored against it.

Incendary Arrows & Tiger's Fury can be helpful in bringing people down provided I'm actually backing up a semi-competent attacker, but since the duration is so short I can't keep it up for multiple targets. The mana cost and short duration of Choking Gas make it less apealing than Kindle Arrows, which I can use to do SOME damage while waiting for the Incendary to recharge (without using much mana).

I'm currently using a Longbow, which even with Tiger's Fury seems to have a slow refire rate. Does anybody have any advice for something that would work better with Choking Gas/Incendary Arrows?

rii · Jun 07, 2005, 07:29 AM // 07:29

Once ive bothered to ascend, im gonna give this a go:

Ranger/x

Punishing Shot [e]
Distracting Shot
Savage shot
Serpents quickness
Hunters Shot
Pin Down
Choking Gas
Debilitating Shot

Try to stop doing damage, is my advice. Youve got a r/me, the two best classes for interrupting, yet your still trying to dish it out. Incendary arrorws is offensive, so is kindle, and so is bestial. With the build above, whilst running serpents quickness you can knock out an interrupt anything about once every 2 seconds or something like that. Debilitating Shot every 6/7 seconds as well. Personally, that is one hell of a monk shut down. Without timing, simply spamming, you can reduce a monks efficiency by 50%, more if you hit distracting shots right.
The ranger niche lies at the melee side of the mesmer. The mesmer cant shutdown as effectivly, due to hex removal being quite hot at the moment. However, when he does intterupt, o boy does everyone noitce. Just taking backfire, its quite punishing.
However, he can be shut down by another mesmer, whereas the ranger is trickier. Armour suited to elemental damage, and a high level of simple interrupts (without fanfare) allow a much more down to ground, yet more effective anti caster effect. Whatsmore, the arrows used interrupt 'all actions', which means if your bored you can do it on a warrior as well :S. While its not as punishing as a mesmers shutdown, you get much more stamina and reliabilty.

Rajamic · Jun 07, 2005, 07:52 AM // 07:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComMan

I'm currently using a Longbow, which even with Tiger's Fury seems to have a slow refire rate. Does anybody have any advice for something that would work better with Choking Gas/Incendary Arrows?

Longbows have such a long refire rate that I feel they are pretty close to garbage. Refire rates are the key factor in increasing DPS. Short, Halfmoon, or if you really feel you need huge range Flat, all have 2.0 second refires, as opposed to the Longbow's 2.7 second. Any of the three bows with 2 second refires combined with choking gas will limit the options of an opponent to spells with sub-2-second casting times. And that's assuming you don't have Tiger's Fury running at that time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ComMan

Marksmanship-8

Still trying to NOT rely on Bow damage, since everything seems to be more than well armored against it.

With that level of Marksmanship, you are only doing 70% of normal damage. That's a big reason your damage output with the bow is feeling weak.

It's also probably time to ditch the pet. I know they are fun, but they really are a bad investment of Attribute Points and skill slots, at least unless you go full-on beastmaster. Remove some or all of the points in beast mastery (you really don't need Tiger's Fury on all the time), and you can put them in Marksmanship or your Mesmer Line.

While we are on the Mesmer topic, why Drain Enchantment? To gain about 12 mana? The only expensive skills you have are Choking Gas and Pin Down. You won't be using Pin Down terribly often. And in any event, your Expertise will greatly reduce the cost, down to about 8 mana for each of these. Almost everything else in your arsenal starts out at 5 mana.

I would say if you want damage as a Ra/Mes, change to Illusion and use Fragility (and maybe Conjure Phantasm or Imagined Burden as a cover hex) in place of Charm Animal and Drain Enchantment. But this creates a problem for your build: For the Fragility build to work, you need LOW Wilderness Survival, so the on fire status wears off inbetween shots. You could very easily dump you WS points into Illusion and have a kick-ass Fragility, but the WS would gimp Choking Gas and Kindle Arrows. So you'd need to find a replacement for that slot. Maybe Penetrating Attack? Or something as simple as Read the Wind to use while Incendiary is recharging? If your team's OK with it, Quickening Zephyr might be good to get everything going faster.

Yezah · Jun 07, 2005, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Ok - my thoughts:
It looks like you've just looked at a skill list and picked out 8 random skills you think look decent. Pick skills that complement each other well, but don't go overkill on it, theres no need to make every slot an interupt. If you run out of skills that fit in just take something that will help the rest of the team out, like throw dirt.

And like Raj I would drop the pet, it's taking up attribute points, and you don't even have comfort animal so it's obvious you're not bothered with using the pet as an actual weapon. If you drop the pet, you have 48 extra attrib points to spread about and an extra skill slot

ComMan · Jun 07, 2005, 06:02 PM // 18:02

Keen observation Yezah! An actual "build" still eludes me. At this point, just figuring out what actually works for the Ranger class is my goal, so I'm messing around.

The Beast Mastery was mainly for Tiger's Fury, I admit it. I wanted to mess with Distracting Lunge and Beastial Pounce, which are both pet-based interrupts, to try and sidestep the issue of Distracting Shot's travel time. It didn't work so well as I had hoped, which is why I tried to use Tiger's Fury with Kindle Arrows to spam interrupts. This is also no good, as it only lasts for 8 seconds.

I think I just picked up a Half Moon that has 1 more damage than my current Longbow, but I wasn't planning on using it at first because my Longbow has +10 armor. Ah well, I suppose I can always switch back if that +10 Armor proves to be all that valuable.

Drain Enchantmen is there because I'm too used to having an enchantment removal to go without one. Since Drain Enchatment is cheaper than Shatter Enchantment, and can still be used with low Inspiration, I kept that instead. I might change to a Necromancer sub just to get Rend Enchantments if I don't find some betters uses for Mesmer-ing.

drowningfish999 · Jun 07, 2005, 06:27 PM // 18:27

This is my farely decent R/N build, it works well in PvP, but you probably wouldn't use it in PvE.

Marksmanship: 12
Expertise: 8
Curses: 12

Debilitating Shot
Concussion Shot
Distracting Shot
Pin Down
Marksman's Wager
Barbs
Faintheartedness
Insidious Parasite

I use the ranger skills(first 3) against spell casters and I use the necro skills(last 3) against enemies like tanks.

Pin Down is to stop running targets(especially healers) or to help run from warriors. Marksman's Wager is just for when I'm low on energy, and can probably be replaced by something else.