Curse

Garis · Jul 15, 2005, 12:10 PM // 12:10

Spend more time reading then posting here, but my dear wife managed to convince me to share the love as it were. These builds were primarily tested in the pvp random, and team arena. Should fair rather well in the ides of HoH, with some effort and team work as usual.

Also as a general note, I expect people that wish to use these builds. If you wish to 'carbon copy' them go for it. I'd personaly be much more satisfied if someone took the idea, and customsed it to fit there playstyle and what works for them.

Light Tank Build:

R/W: Base Stat Set

Sword: 10
Tactics: 10
Expertise: 5
Wilderness Survival: 10

Skill Set

Seeking Blade
Savage Slash
Thrill of Victory
Gladiators Defence
Troll Ungent
Whirling Defence
Storm Seeker
Apply Poison

Use: In general this is a light tank, designed to soak up some melee damage but your primary options are speed and support of a 'main tank build' . Options are to wait until your target caller has engaged an enemy, kick off storm chaser and be there to posion them and join in cutting them down with seeking and thrill, savage obviously saved for those caster types.
Gladiators defence, at that level will last roughly 9seconds more then enough time to seriously damage any warriors that are feeling frisky enough to come in your direction with posion and styles applied in a liberal method.
Other possible methods of use are to hunt the fringes for other rangers, mages and the like that are attempting to be 'sneekay' and get shots in from the side. I've also had some decent combat value with monks, for the simple reason most monks tend to run when under dedicated attack. When they run, you should already be moving 25% faster then them and can continue to chop away heedless of the little jog.

Swamp Trapper:

R/M Base Stat Set:

Inspiration: 10
Expertise: 8
Wilderness Survival: 12

Skill Set

Barbed Trap
Spike Trap
Flame Trap
Dust Trap
Troll Ungent
Muddy Terrain
Mantra of Resolve
Energy Tap

Use: Pretty obvious how to play this one if you consider it, but there are some tricks of the trade. Use Muddy Terrain to start control of the flow of combat, speedy people charging in and accosting you or your fragile casters is unwelcome. Mantra is used if you wish to follow in with the party and drop traps under peoples feet, energy tap to gain back energy from trapping. Well that and to really bust down on some poor monk thats already been healing his tail off. - righty past the segway, once muddy is down you have two base options, trap stacking, or trap spreading. Depending on your team, and choke points stacking can do some serious damage to a single or couple of targets. Spreading often ends up being the more viable option, either way your role will be primarily defensive. Give your folks a safe place to back off to when they are in need. A place not in the least safe for your opponents, and dear god prey they listen. I've had several teams charge head long into combat, ignorant of the option of retreat and die where they stand. To have, well, as amusing as it can be. To have the opposing team chase me around for quite a time as I bop around dropping traps here and there.

Black Blade

Me/W Base Stat Set:
Fast Casting 4
Domination 12
Inspiration 7
Sword 10

Skill Set:

Sever Artery
Hamstring
Power Drain
Blackout
Ether Feast
Backfire
Shatter Enchantment
Chaos Storm

Use: Blackblade, aka the blackout blade. Yep, another pretty easy to use build, take your time find a good monk/caster backfire him, close the distance, shatter or chaos storm as needed.. smack them some to charge sever, hit it, hamstring them, black them out. At this point you should also have some group mates crawling all over said caster too. In a more defensive method, you can hamstring warriors charging you, dropping chaos storm on them again as needed. Shatter enchantment works wonders on mending w/mo's that have already took a bit of a beating.

Thats it for now, enjoy. As a side note, these builds were listed lacking runes.. some of those skills with proper armor and runes will be 16's some won't as they are intended to be multi role characters. Have a good time.

Minwanabi · Jul 16, 2005, 06:02 AM // 06:02

For your first build, the defensive skills are useless, glad, and whirling especially, unguent is questionable. When that's the case, why go R primary? Switch to a more adren focused sword build as a w/r if you want to use apply poison, both because a wep attribute at 16 is invaluable, and strength is much better than expertise, except in a few builds, almost all of which will use hammer.

Your second build is OK, trappers are fun, but as rangers go it's a lot easier to do a lot more damage as a quickshot/kindle type of build, and you should also consider oath shot, or, in rare cases, marksman's wager to lay more traps/replenish your energy.

The third build, on the other hand, is a fun one, and the blackout melee character always has a lot of potential, but, personally, I prefer w/me to me/w every day, both because fast casting isn't all that useful, and you get more armor. Your skills are looking pretty good, but you probably want to drop chaos storm (casters just move out of it), and ether feast (self heals are a no-no, especially ones with cast times this long), and even backfire is questionable. You can replace them with better sword skills, such as gash, galrath, final, or, since you don't have an elite, hundred blades.