Curse

Magic Gan Man · Jun 18, 2005, 07:30 AM // 07:30

Ok I make this for a little in between of anti cast and also dmg this is a R/ME, Ibealive this is a good mix between offense/defense. 1 question what is damage from a bow based on because all my skills are from 3 classes. Im not sure is it just the bow?? any info on that or build will be helpful. ty guys

1) Conjure Phantasim

2) Poisen Arrow

3) Arcane Conondrum

4) Distracting Shot

5) Kindle Arrows

6) Throw Dirt

7)Whirling Defense

8)Troll Urgent

burianek · Jun 18, 2005, 04:15 PM // 16:15

As far as the stats affecting your bow, bow dmg is completely dependent on your marksmanship skill. There's a relationship with increasing benefits to increased marksman until you hit 12 points, at which point you get diminished returns. So if you care about your direct damage, you should throw a 12 on marksman (no more) and never look back.

As to the build, you should post how you're going to try to distribute your other attribute points as well.

It's kind of hard to say, since this build lacks a bit of focus. You're trying to do a lot here. Looks like you're trying to be a distractor with conundram, and a dmg dealer with kindle. It's really hard to spread yourself around in this way. You won't be distracting as well as a primary mesmer could, and you won't be dealing damage as well as pretty much anyone else. You'll need points in wilderness, expertise, illusion, and marksman to make this work.

I'd guess the best you could do is something like:
Expertise: 8 + 1
Marksman: 8 + 3 + 1
Wilderness: 9 + 1
Illusion: 11

You won't be able to have a high expertise, and I guess you don't really need one since you don't carry a lot of Ranger attacks here. So you're sort of disregarding one of the best strength of a ranger in terms of ranger energy reduction to skills.

I think you're going to have energy problems. Looks like what you're planning on doing is turning on kindle and then tossing on a poison arrow and conjure phantasm on the enemy, that's gonna run you 16 energy or so, with a 9 expertise, and the phantasm isn't going to last very long with an 11 illusion stat, 10 or 11 seconds. So you're talking about at full tilt getting off probably 4 shots in 10 seconds, and dealing maybe 250 damage maximum, spread out over 10 seconds, between the conjure and the poison and the physical attacks, while tapping out most of your energy. (that's a generous estimate) A good monk will easily heal this, using little energy, and then you're in trouble since you've used a good chunk of your energy.

Unfortunately, when you play a primary ranger, you really need to stick to builds that have a very high expertise. Otherwise, you're ignoring pretty much the only redeeming quality of the class. 14 is more or less a requirement since it brings 10 point attacks to 4 energy. If you have a funky build with no 10 energy skills, you can get away with 13, but either way you need an ultra high expertise.

Once you lock your mindset into the fact that you're bringing high expertise, you need to pick skills that make the best use of it. This means bringing at least one ranger bow attack, most people choose hunter's I think. If you're speccing out for damage, then tiger's fury is practically a requirement. For a small (3+1) investment in beastmastery, you get pretty good results with tiger's fury. Once you test it out, you'll never go back.

Just some comments. I just think you need to realize that as a primary ranger, you will never be as good at dealing mesmer damage as a primary mesmer. So you shouldn't really try. The mesmer skills you bring (if any) should be relatively low cost and serve a specific function other than raw damage. (Spike damage, shutdown, etc.)

Conundrum isn't a bad choice, but then again, once you inflict this and the opponent starts taking a long time to cast, what do you have left? One distracting shot? Big deal. That's got a 20 sec recharge, so you'll only use it once and stop one spell before conundrum runs out. (costing you 13 energy) Just kind of getting back to the fact that since this build is a little bit of distracting, a little bit of conditioning, a little bit of direct dmg, and a little bit of illusion dmg, it's not really going to be good any anything.

Just my opinions. I'm no expert either. Don't take my comments for gospel, just trying to give you something to think about.
Cheers.