Curse

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 14, 2005, 11:03 PM // 23:03

I don't have much time to explain so I'll make this quick. Weaknesses are things like Purge signet and hex + condition removal...

stats:

7+1 marksmanship [just enough to wield my stormbow max dmg]
10+2 wilderness
9+1 Expertise
10 Illusion

Hunter's Shot
Pin Down
Apply Poison
Throw Dirt
Whirling Defense
Antidote Signet
Fragility
Conjure Phantasm

Take note that I didn't put an elite in there. Can't think of one that would benefit it. It's a high damage + Damage over Time sniping build. With four conditions in here that don't last long due to low marksmanship, Fragility should be massive. Bleeding + Poison + Phantasm = 10 degen I think. Blind on yourself isn't a problem and if you're inflicted with weakness, you shouldn't care. Poison and disease won't hinder you either so this build will be tricky ^_^

Zeru · Jul 14, 2005, 11:11 PM // 23:11

The title is an oxymoron. You can't spike with dot

A few things:
throw dirt and whirling defense both suck due to recharge time. Drop them.

Conjure phantasm is not a wise idea on a ranger because it's not affected by expertise and the whole point of playing ranger is to spam skills.

Expertise is by far too low as well. And if you want max bow damage marks needs to be at 12 no exceptions.

Fragility builds are kinda fun but I don't know about their effectiveness. This doesn't seem to strike out as something that will pull out that much damage and it has no interruption capabilities at all.

UberRusty · Jul 14, 2005, 11:25 PM // 23:25

If I were going to go Fragility, I would go Incendiary Arrows, and then Apply Poison with 0 Wilderness... but your build seems quite solid at Fragility damage.

Neo-LD · Jul 14, 2005, 11:32 PM // 23:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

throw dirt and whirling defense both suck due to recharge time. Drop them.

lol I guess you dont like Spell Breaker either? Comon, those are both amazing skills, with their recharge times being offset by their sheer power and their infrequent need to be used. Rangers should always take at least one self-defense skill to help out their monk if they are being focused. And it shouldnt be troll unguent.

Zeru · Jul 14, 2005, 11:56 PM // 23:56

Spellbreaker is actually a good skill though.

TW/WD are mediocre at best. Rangers should never take a self-defense skill unless they're going alone for some wierd gvg mission or you're playing random arena.

Thom · Jul 15, 2005, 12:16 AM // 00:16

Most rangers swear by whirling defenses and/or throw dirt. They are some of the best defenses in the game in an attibute line that you are already using. Warriors see an evade or two and they move to the next target. You don't lose time having to run from warriors or getting drained by archers. Doesn't make a ton of sense in the caster craven meta-game, but that will change. Best test builds were always well balanced and included some non-casters (shock of shocks). Ranger counters are worth the time and throw dirt is included because it is a condition.

Original build--I'd take melandru's arrow instead of poison and hunters; one less condition, but it is an extra slot that is open.

EDIT:To clarify, WD and TD both nullify most of those annoying things a warrior/ranger does to shut you down. This includes knockdowns and interrupting attacks allowing for long casting spells. Both are good for running flags and relics while being chased. These are by far the most functional of self defenses in the game and unlike warriors and elementalist, rangers require fewer attack spells to do need damage so there is less opportunity cost to carrying self defense.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 15, 2005, 01:47 AM // 01:47

Nice responses. However, changing up Whirling Defense for Melandru's Arrows doesn't sound like a bad idea. Don't need Hunter's Shot then. AH, but then I can't use apply poison either! [fook] Oh wait, Crippling Shot is cheaper than pin down... hmm...

I'm not chucking Throw Dirt. It's a condition and that's part of this build's plan. yes the title is an oxymoron but hey, it's DoT with Conditioning + Fragility. A nice mix. Sure Purge Signet or something can kill it, but hey, anything is counterable.

Question is, people see a R/Me on the field they expect interrupts. This one is out there to dmg you and ignore your armor in the process. How to keep conditions coming at a premium energy use?

new skills

Crippling Shot {E}
Hunter's Shot
Apply Poison
Throw Dirt
Antidote Signet
Whirling Defense
Fragility
Conjure Phantasm

Ah, four skills that condition you so Fragility does its job. Druid's Armor and maybe a focus for the start of the battle would be a good idea since Conjure + Fragility makes a nasty combo energywise. I'd like to run Marksman's Wager or some other energy management skill but I know that having two of the same ranger skill type isn't very meaningful since they don't stack.

Question, if I do Dual Shot with Apply Poison, does that mean my poison counts twice? As in 75% x 2 arrows and x2 Fragility damage? If so, then I might drop Whirling. I've seen something odd happen with my current R/E though: Conjure Frost and Ignite Arrows do stack. One dual shot and it's 6 numbers of damage.

edit*

Wait a second, would Fevered Dreams work well with Fragility? Don't know about that, but if a warrior train is headed my monk's way, nailing all of them with crippled, poison, bleeding, and blind sure would be fun.

ElderAtronach · Jul 15, 2005, 01:58 AM // 01:58

I would seriously drop conjure phantasm from that build. Degen maxes out at 10. Bleed + poison = 7 degen, and that's almost constant if they run when you use hunter's shot. Since you're using illusion anyway I'd go with Phantom Pain, since when it ends it causes deep wound which is yet ANOTHER condition to stack onto fragility.

If your teammates need more defense I'd suggest Sympathetic Visage, the most effective warrior counter next to blind.

Rajamic · Jul 15, 2005, 05:24 AM // 05:24

A standard Tiger's Fury + Incendiary Arrows + Fragility might actually do more damage, I think cost less mana, and take less skill slots, in exchange for more of a lull in between spikes. With 4 BM, <4 WS, and 10 Illusion, heres how it turns out:

In roughly 9 seconds, the target gets interrupted (whatever they are doing, even just normal attacks) 6 times, takes 6 seconds of On Fire (in short bursts, so condition removals are a waste of time), and get 12 hits of Fragility. At the above stats, that ends up being 384 armor-ignoring damage on top of whatever damage your bow is doing! Feel free to make some of those shots things like Penetrating Shot to increase it more, since that doesn't hurt it at all. I was using 14 Exp, 12 Marks, 10 Illus, and 4 BM, and regularly killing lone monks without help (I'm not exaggerating, my teams regularly didn't focus fire on the lone monk)

If you really want the Fragility damage, throw something like Conjure Phantasm on after the Fragility. Personally, I like a more sinister method: Throw on Arcane Conundrum first. If they remove the Conundrum, they shouldn't have a chance to remove the Fragility before you start hitting (with all interrupting arrows due to Incendiary Arrows). If they do remove the Fragility (do to lucky timing usually), they still have double casting time and interruptions on the way.

Someone other than your target removing hexes hurts badly (so it's severely limited for 8v8), and you can only do this 1/3 of the time. But this + Res Signet only takes half your skill bar, so you aren't completely useless. And it's almost unfair in a 4v4 match.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 15, 2005, 07:28 AM // 07:28

Well said. I don't want to put points into Tiger's Fury due to spreading out wayy too thin.

I need marks at 8 so I can get max weapon dmg [not total dmg] out of my Storm Bow.

Incendiary Arrows huh? hmm... If not Tiger's Fury, then perhaps Serpent's Quickness instead? I don't shoot as fast, but I have more repetitions...

hmm, new analysis...

stats same

Hunter's Shot
Determined Shot
Dual Shot / Precision Shot
Incendiary Arrows {E}
Serpent's Quickness
Throw Dirt
Fragility
Antidote Signet

Ok, thanks for the input and now this is the new build. Throw Dirt alone should be fine for those nasty point blank battles and piles onto Fragility. If the Dual Shot + Incendiary triggers Fragility 2x, then I'm bringing Dual Shot. If not, I'd replace with Precision Shot.

I read through and learned that Determined Shot is the poor man's Oath Shot. If the enemy is blocking/evading, you just recharged your skills. Then another Precision Shot can come out, if the beforesaid combo doesn't work.

Serpent's Quickness allows skills to come out rapid fire and the long recycle times of things like Throw Dirt and Fragility are reduced. Aside from Fragility, I'm certain I can manage energy now that there's an anti-condition signet in here and everything else is Expertise affected.

[new build using 9/9/9/7/7 spread...] 0 stats left

9+3 Wilderness Survival
9+1 Expertise
9 Illusion
7+1 Marksmanship
7+1 Beast Mastery
[totaled up: 12/10/9/8/8] I'd need a Major Vigor to cancel out the Major Wilderness though...

Hunter's Shot
Determined Shot
Dual Shot
Incendiary Arrows {E}
Tiger's Fury
Throw Dirt
Antidote Signet
Fragility

I'm guessing your mentioned build resembles something like this?

ElderAtronach · Jul 15, 2005, 08:05 AM // 08:05

Incendiary arrows... last 8 seconds with a 24 second cooldown. And determined shot only recharges attack skills, not preparations or anything else. You'd have 16 seconds of cooldown between incendiaries. Not worth the elite IMO, unless you ditch beastmastery completely from that 2nd build in your last post and pump up wilderness some more to use serpent's quickness instead of TF. In which case, you'd have only 8 seconds of downtime while SQ is up. SQ also helps recharge on throw dirt too.

Rajamic · Jul 15, 2005, 08:13 AM // 08:13

Personally, I don't like putting BM above 3+1 for Tiger's Fury. That will let you keep it up 70% of the time for very very few attribute points.

Also, to get much of anything out of the Incediary + Fragility setup, you need your Wilderness Survival really low. I think 4 or higher puts Incendiary at lasting 2 seconds. If it goes 2 seconds, Tiger's Fury will apply the arrows too fast and you'll get one long On Fire, rather than the many little On Fires you need for Fragility. For many people, this is a problem (Troll Unguent and almost all other preparations become useless). Unless I'm missing something, Incendiary is the only WS skill in your current build, so you could do it no problem.

The build I go with is:
10+1+3 Expertise
11+1 Marksmanship
3+1 BeastMastery
9 Illusion

Tiger's Fury
Incendiary Arrows
Pin Down
Distracting Shot
Whirling Defense
Arcane Conundrum
Fragility
Res Signet

Max damage Longbow (nothing special, just in case I need range for something)
collector's Max Damage Zealous Shortbow (worthless grip)
Illusion Cane and Icon (Icon is +12 20/20 collector's; haven't got a good wand yet)

I pick a target at the beginning with the cane equipped. Arcane Conundrum. Fragility. Incendiary (Switch to Shortbow while setting Incendiary). Tiger's followed closely by Pin Down (to prevent fleeing and add one more fragility hit).

Off topic: Yukito, I think I figured out why so many people comment on your avatar. In IE, it does about 2-3 headbutts a second. In FireFox, it looked like it's about 20 headbutts a second! Probably they are using FireFox.

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 16, 2005, 08:43 PM // 20:43

Yeah, IE actually displays animated avatars PROPERLY. Too bad it doesn't warrant that Firefox is still better and some of my avatars are just funny with firefox...

Yukito Kunisaki · Jul 16, 2005, 08:46 PM // 20:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rajamic

Personally, I don't like putting BM above 3+1 for Tiger's Fury. That will let you keep it up 70% of the time for very very few attribute points.

Also, to get much of anything out of the Incediary + Fragility setup, you need your Wilderness Survival really low. I think 4 or higher puts Incendiary at lasting 2 seconds. If it goes 2 seconds, Tiger's Fury will apply the arrows too fast and you'll get one long On Fire, rather than the many little On Fires you need for Fragility. For many people, this is a problem (Troll Unguent and almost all other preparations become useless). Unless I'm missing something, Incendiary is the only WS skill in your current build, so you could do it no problem.

The build I go with is:
10+1+3 Expertise
11+1 Marksmanship
3+1 BeastMastery
9 Illusion

Tiger's Fury
Incendiary Arrows
Pin Down
Distracting Shot
Whirling Defense
Arcane Conundrum
Fragility
Res Signet

Max damage Longbow (nothing special, just in case I need range for something)
collector's Max Damage Zealous Shortbow (worthless grip)
Illusion Cane and Icon (Icon is +12 20/20 collector's; haven't got a good wand yet)

I pick a target at the beginning with the cane equipped. Arcane Conundrum. Fragility. Incendiary (Switch to Shortbow while setting Incendiary). Tiger's followed closely by Pin Down (to prevent fleeing and add one more fragility hit).

Off topic: Yukito, I think I figured out why so many people comment on your avatar. In IE, it does about 2-3 headbutts a second. In FireFox, it looked like it's about 20 headbutts a second! Probably they are using FireFox.

hmm, topic is getting hotter every minute...

Low wilderness to ensure rapid changes in conditions?

stats: 9+1 expertise, 10 illusion, 7+1 marksmanship, 10+2 beast mastery? lol

hunter's shot
pin down
dual shot
incendiary arrows {E}
Tiger's Fury
Throw Dirt
Antidote Signet
Fragility

Ok, fire, cripple, bleeding, and blind. Still 4 conditions. High tiger's fury with low dmg and FAST recovering on fire status. hmm...