Curse

JYX · Jun 13, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29

I'm looking for a ranger that can spam barrage. Just Barrage, pure barrage user, basically I'm looking for something that can take over an Ele in the department of AoE nuking.

At first I started thinking ranger/mo with judge's insight, barrage, tiger's fury and favorable winds. This way he can keep the zealous string, would need less expertise to get along, and do awesome damage in 1 go. But...this didn't work out on the builder, I had to put points into Expertise, Beast Mastery, Marksmanship and Smiting.

...Looked at the possibility of using a ranger with conjure...that was even worse. All the problems and none of the advantages.

So, I think I'm gonna have to come to some sort of settlement on this one. First of all:

Is having Tiger's Fury on permenantly worth it? I'm investing 10 points into beastmastery for this one skill...how much in terms of damage does it actually increase. I know it means 50% more damage for normal attacks, but...how does that work when you're spamming barrage? I'm having trouble getting my head round this one. Can we simply assume that if its on half the time its 25% more damage? If so then I think we'd be better off dropping it altogether and shoveling the points into our other skills.

Is Judge's Insight worth it? The thing costs 10 energy to recast should the enchantment be removed, and it really dosen't last very long anyway. How much of a boost in damage does it give anyway? Is it more or less than a conjure?

Kishin · Jun 13, 2005, 02:59 PM // 14:59

Quote:

Originally Posted by Everous

I'm looking for a ranger that can spam barrage. Just Barrage, pure barrage user, basically I'm looking for something that can take over an Ele in the department of AoE nuking.

At first I started thinking ranger/mo with judge's insight, barrage, tiger's fury and favorable winds. This way he can keep the zealous string, would need less expertise to get along, and do awesome damage in 1 go. But...this didn't work out on the builder, I had to put points into Expertise, Beast Mastery, Marksmanship and Smiting.

...Looked at the possibility of using a ranger with conjure...that was even worse. All the problems and none of the advantages.

So, I think I'm gonna have to come to some sort of settlement on this one. First of all:

Is having Tiger's Fury on permenantly worth it? I'm investing 10 points into beastmastery for this one skill...how much in terms of damage does it actually increase. I know it means 50% more damage for normal attacks, but...how does that work when you're spamming barrage? I'm having trouble getting my head round this one. Can we simply assume that if its on half the time its 25% more damage? If so then I think we'd be better off dropping it altogether and shoveling the points into our other skills.

Is Judge's Insight worth it? The thing costs 10 energy to recast should the enchantment be removed, and it really dosen't last very long anyway. How much of a boost in damage does it give anyway? Is it more or less than a conjure?

Well, I dunno if you can ever really hope to outstrip an Elementalist (at least, a Fire Elementalist) in sheer AoE damage, being that that is their specialty, but there are a few things you can try. Furthermore, Barrage is really more useful in PvE than PvP, as people in PvP tend not to be clumped closer together.

First things first, I wouldn't bother putting 10 points in Beast Mastery. Put in 3 or 4 at the most, then use a minor rune on it. That should give you 7-8 seconds of Fury, where 10 is only going to give you 2 or 3 more than that. Really almost a waste. Also, this way you can do an 11/10/9/3 build (With the 11 of course, being in Expertise. You want to have 14 Expertise as a Ranger, no matter what, as it will drop 10 energy skills to 4 and 5 energy to 2.) Also, Tiger's Fury's speed boost will effect the time in which you use skills. Just watch the animation and you'll see.

And yes, Judge's Insight seems to be standard fare for a Barrage build, for two reasons. 1) 20% armor penetration effectively makes someone with 60 AL into someone with 48 AL, which is quite significantly. 2) It turns your damage into holy damage, which bypasses all those nasty resistances some types of armor have (such as Warrior resistance to physical damage, or anything with piercing resistance). It also generally lasts longer than its recharge period, so you have the option of almost always having it up, which is a distinct possibility when you have 14 Expertise (It is extremely difficult to run out of energy with a 56% reduction in skill cost, unless you're speed boosted).
I wouldn't worry about anyone removing it in PvP, either. Honestly, if someone is Rending or using any sort of Enchantment Removal on a team's Ranger, there's one of two things going on:

1) They're not a good team, and not at all together on issues of targetting, in which case, more power to you.
2) Everyone else is dead except Warriors, in which case you've already lost.

So, it really is a perfectly viable build, but Barrage really shines more in PvE than PvP. My personal preference, however, is toward Mark of Pain + Barrage on a group of somewhat tightly packed enemies. That's some absolutely savage damage output, but a bit harder to set up and maintain compared to Judge's Insight, as it requires the enemies to keep together.

Anyway, hope that's helpful.

Sting · Jun 13, 2005, 07:24 PM // 19:24

Yeah unless your trying to listen to the "uber" rangers who 2 hit people all the time your simply not going to out damage an elementalist and will get nothing but frustrated if you try LOL. At best youll do ok damage and alot of DoT.

rii · Jun 13, 2005, 09:21 PM // 21:21

hehehe, i remember rangering in just after the searing areas. i mean, ignite arrows, duel shot, mark of pain, and favourable winds and i was barraging :S. its good.

As for Ji, its a spell, so expertise doesnt affect it. Therefore it is 10 energy.
I have a feeling to be running something like ji constantly youll need 14 expertise. 11+3 isnt so bad tbh. Recasting ji is 10 energy every 17 seconds.... the equivalent of half the energy youll regen in that period. (3 pips = 1 energy per second, 17 seconds = 17 energy, 10 for ji.) That means to break even you need to spend 7 energy in 17 seconds :S. not going to happned tbh, so your in for a loss. At 14 expertise barrage is 2 energy, so assuming a cast once every.... 1.5 seconds (whats bow rate with tigers) then thats a total of 25.5 energy. Take one off for the recast and thats 24 energy.Therefore every 17 seconds you make a loss of energy of 18 energy :S. Ouch. With a 30 pool, thats a rough running time of 20-25 seconds.

omfg. i forgot tigers fury in there :S. thats 4 energy every 10 seconds. Which is 2 less barrages every 10 seconds. Not the most pleasant. It seems that ji is somewhat impractical, if your going for endurance. And I think that’s best. As has been said above, your not going to out damage an ele, but you can beat them in sustained aoe. They haven’t got the marathon ability.

Then the damage. To run expertise, smiting and beast mastery, your not going to be using marksmanship :S. Which means no good bow for you. You could spread the love and abandon my beloved three attributes, and go
expertise: 11+3
beast mastery: 9 tigers runs 9 seconds out of 10.
smiting: 8 ji runs 15 seconds.
marksmanship: 8+1 (most bows are 9 marksmanship required) +9 on barrage.

So thats do-able, but lots of energy. The dps is (assuming a bow of average damage per shot 20) and on a 60AL target (i.e. caster classes):
20
+9
then 48AL is 125% damage. so 29 to 125% = 36.25
call it 32dps for the fire rate. aoe to 5 people. so combined its 160dps.

erm
a bit too much energy.

Ok lets look at conjure.
First, the element best suited would probably be water. Fire and Air are the most protected, and I don’t know whether this is still the case but people with fire used to have minus against water. Woohoo. Using the same attribute distribution except water instead of smiting, and it adds a grand total of 9 cold damage. You don’t get the ap of ji, but, your using water ele attacks, which means youll be facing basic armour for 99.99% of applicants. This alleviates the crappyness of running ji every 15 seconds, its possible that in most fights youll get away with casting it once at the beginning and that’s it. This means in turn, you only really have to use your 4 energy to run tigers. With a minor on bm, you’ve got it running 10 seconds, and that’s less than your regen is giving you. So from a pool of 30, you have -10 from conjure (which should regen before the battle), then assume say -4 every 10 and then say 8 shots every ten seconds is another -16. so every ten seconds your loosing 20 energy. You regen ten in this time, so you can run (from 30 start) barrage for thirty seconds without halting. Which is longer than ji, more efficient than ji, but is it more damage>?
20 basic
+9 marksmanship
+9 conjure
=38 per shot. :S this is more than ji?? Ouch. Maybe I went wrong somewhere but I think it ends up the same more or less for damage. Whatsmore, if im right, its more. \

a couple of things. If you put points into bm you can take fertile season and youll be loved underworld

.

Favorable winds bonus is the same for both of em. Running a zealous string …..with high expertise why not. Overall…….. it ends up as your-basic-attack-plus-some but on 5 peo

Kishin · Jun 13, 2005, 11:43 PM // 23:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by rii

hehehe, i remember rangering in just after the searing areas. i mean, ignite arrows, duel shot, mark of pain, and favourable winds and i was barraging :S. its good.

As for Ji, its a spell, so expertise doesnt affect it. Therefore it is 10 energy.
I have a feeling to be running something like ji constantly youll need 14 expertise. 11+3 isnt so bad tbh. Recasting ji is 10 energy every 17 seconds.... the equivalent of half the energy youll regen in that period. (3 pips = 1 energy per second, 17 seconds = 17 energy, 10 for ji.) That means to break even you need to spend 7 energy in 17 seconds :S. not going to happned tbh, so your in for a loss. At 14 expertise barrage is 2 energy, so assuming a cast once every.... 1.5 seconds (whats bow rate with tigers) then thats a total of 25.5 energy. Take one off for the recast and thats 24 energy.Therefore every 17 seconds you make a loss of energy of 18 energy :S. Ouch. With a 30 pool, thats a rough running time of 20-25 seconds.

omfg. i forgot tigers fury in there :S. thats 4 energy every 10 seconds. Which is 2 less barrages every 10 seconds. Not the most pleasant. It seems that ji is somewhat impractical, if your going for endurance. And I think that’s best. As has been said above, your not going to out damage an ele, but you can beat them in sustained aoe. They haven’t got the marathon ability.

Then the damage. To run expertise, smiting and beast mastery, your not going to be using marksmanship :S. Which means no good bow for you. You could spread the love and abandon my beloved three attributes, and go
expertise: 11+3
beast mastery: 9 tigers runs 9 seconds out of 10.
smiting: 8 ji runs 15 seconds.
marksmanship: 8+1 (most bows are 9 marksmanship required) +9 on barrage.

So thats do-able, but lots of energy. The dps is (assuming a bow of average damage per shot 20) and on a 60AL target (i.e. caster classes):
20
+9
then 48AL is 125% damage. so 29 to 125% = 36.25
call it 32dps for the fire rate. aoe to 5 people. so combined its 160dps.

erm
a bit too much energy.

Two words: Zealous bowstring. And thus was the energy crisis solved.

Furthermore, the holy damage aspect of Judge's Insight counts for quite a bit, what with a) ignoring nasty resistances and b) putting some serious hurt on the undead.

You also really don't need 9 Beastmastery for this to be effective. 4 or 5 is enough. Thereby allowing you to boost your Marksmanship, and thereby the damage of Barrage.

sino-soviet · Jun 14, 2005, 01:21 AM // 01:21

Unfortunately a conjure and a zealous isnt viable, so I think monk is the ONLY secondary for this kind of build. I would run the following:

11 Marksmanship +3 rune
10 expertise +1 rune, +1 mask
9 smiting prayers
4 Beastmastery +1 rune

Barrage (elite)
Tiger's fury
Judge's Insight
Favorable winds
?
?
?
?

Im not sure about the other skills. Zealous + barrage + 12 in expertise + druids armor = an instant solution to energy problems. Barrage will actually gain mana, Judges still 10, tigers about 4. Energy engine looks pretty good.

As far as buffs, Tiger's fury increases your damage by 50%. That is a HUGE amount. With 5, it will last around 7-8 seconds, which I think should suffice.

Judge's insight is a must too. If you even hope to compete with a AOe fire ele in terms of sheer damage output, you'll need both of these buffs running whenever possible. Actually, what about Kindle arrows? Doesnt seem like too bad of a choice.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Jun 14, 2005, 02:20 AM // 02:20

14 is the bare minimum you want to have in Expertise if you're running a lot of Ranger skills... period.

Also, whoever said Barrage is more useful for PvE is mistaken... it's excellent in either.

All barrage REALLY needs is Tiger's Fury or Frenzy... throw 4 points in Beast Mastery (3+1 minor rune) to get 7 seconds out of Tiger's Fury, and try to make sure that it's always up...

Picking up a zealous bowstring and slapping it on a short or half moon bow is also recomended.

Kishin · Jun 14, 2005, 04:23 AM // 04:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shrapnel_Magnet

14 is the bare minimum you want to have in Expertise if you're running a lot of Ranger skills... period.

Also, whoever said Barrage is more useful for PvE is mistaken... it's excellent in either.

All barrage REALLY needs is Tiger's Fury or Frenzy... throw 4 points in Beast Mastery (3+1 minor rune) to get 7 seconds out of Tiger's Fury, and try to make sure that it's always up...

Picking up a zealous bowstring and slapping it on a short or half moon bow is also recomended.

I'll defer to your significantly superior Ranger-ness in this matter Shrapnel. But I hope you won't mind me picking your brain. You'd take Barrage over something like Poison Arrow for PvP? Even Melandru's Arrows, what with enchantments running rampant in the environment, seems like it would go further. (Although admittedly, your target should be nicely Rent/Shattered/Devoid of enchantment goodness in an ideal world). It just seems like going the Barrage route places the emphasis on DPS, and is that an efficient use for a Ranger in a team build situation? (I ask this because I simply haven't had the opportunity to run a 8 man team build for synergy in PvP). Ensign has said on these boards you folks in iQ run a Ranger in your standard HoH build, is that with Barrage? (Not to pry into your build at all).

Anyway, just thought I'd ask your reasoning behind it, in order to gain some insight.

sino-soviet · Jun 14, 2005, 04:58 AM // 04:58

Thats interesting..I always thought of punishing shot as the clutch pvp elite for a ranger.

StoneDrunk · Jun 14, 2005, 05:34 AM // 05:34

Your best bet with Barrage imo is using multiple Mark of Pains and then having your Barrage trigger each one to cause added area damage. Using Quicking Zephyr and Serpents Quickness you can easily toss 2-3 mark of pains on targets then let loose with barrage. Theres a pretty hefty energy cost involved though, so best incorporate your teammates into tossing Marks as well.

Stone
Sissy Boys

Zyuu · Jun 14, 2005, 05:59 AM // 05:59

mark of pain is the way to go

consider quick shot though

Z

Shrapnel_Magnet · Jun 14, 2005, 06:55 AM // 06:55

Barrage over Poison Arrow? 100% of the time, yes. Reasoning? Monks on reasonable teams remove conditions. Sure, Poison Arrow is what, 4 pips of degen? Ok, add that to the usual Ranger/Mesmer out there who's (for God knows why) running Conjure Phantasm (5 pips of degen) for a total of -9 pips of degen.

Sure, that sounds really deadly... but when you're sitting on 455+ hp (Sup Vigor + at least 1 Sup Skill Rune is assumed) it's just not that scary.

Poison can take its toll over time if left unchecked, but this just isn't the case with any teams that are worth beating.

As for multiple Mark of Pains running... unless you're switching to your Wand and Focus for +Energy, how are you going to keep casting 3 of them? Not only that, monks see skills like that and on Dias maps... they remove them. In GvG this isn't even less of an issue because the person with Mark of Pain on them might move away from team-mates... rendering its effects useless. That said, if they don't remove them, you're doing some serious damage, no doubt... but I'd consider it pretty situational.

I like Mark of Pain, I really do, but so do a lot of other people... and for good reason. This is also why it's not uncommonly targetted for removal.

Melandru's Arrows... hmm, I have limited experience with this skill, but I would consider it to be a "Read the Wind on Crack"... which would make it a half-decent skill. I might be tempted to run it, but I'd severely miss the Barrage.

First look at Barrage for a second and see why it's so good. It costs any Ranger worth his salt, 2 energy. It recharges in 1 second... and it immidiately adds damage to his attacks. Not only this, you can catch multiple targets with it. When you hit 4-5 people with Barrage and you've got Tiger's Fury going... you should be striking for around 30-60 damage per shot, depending on the opponent. Ideally, you could hit 50 damage x5 opponents for 250 damage, spread among them. With Tiger's Fury on, you're probably going to hit that group at least twice. Assuming we get similar numbers, you've just hit for upwards of 500 damage. Compare that to the single target Poison Arrow which under the MOST Ideal of situations does a slow drain of -4 pips for what, 15 seconds? I'll be taking Barrage, thanks.

Punishing Shot would definitly have it's perks, no quams there, but Distracting Shot is easily the most effective and damaging interrupt the Ranger has to offer. In recharges decently fast and fires FASTER than Quick Shot... sure it only strikes for 15 damage (ideally), but I've been known to use it for the damage alone, believe it or not. I'll tell you why. If you fire Penetrating Shot + Distracting Shot, you're doing the damage from Penetrating Attack followed almost instantly by +15 damage from Distracting Shot and you might hit something important... it's nothing special, but it's such an expendable skill, why not? Back to Punishing Shot, however... I like it, but there'd have to be a good case for it for me to give up Barrage.

Quick Shot... people have tried to convert me to the Quick Shot side before and I gave it a try... to mixed results. I wasn't dissapointed with it... but I wasn't overly impressed with what I saw. Maybe with something like Choking Gas? I dunno, I'm not too familiar with it.

I've always had a secret love of Called Shot... but I never run it... lol... I think it's better off left at home.

JYX · Jun 14, 2005, 09:10 AM // 09:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sting

Yeah unless your trying to listen to the "uber" rangers who 2 hit people all the time your simply not going to out damage an elementalist and will get nothing but frustrated if you try LOL. At best youll do ok damage and alot of DoT.

...I can out-damage an elementalist on the basis of DPS with my mesmer. Eles excel in spike damages but in terms of pure DPS, they are generally quite poor. I agree absolutely with Shrapnel_Magnet that Barrage is good in PvP or PvE, the +13 damage is worth it even if you're just looking at one target.

>.>

28 dmg from bow
+10 from Judge's Insight +13 from Barrage +6 from favorable winds

thats 57 damage per shot due to the armor penetrating bonus of Judge's Insight.

Flatbow has a massive range and the fastest refire rate of 2 secs. Tiger's Fury buffs the DPS by 50%...

57/2 * 1.5 = 42.75 DPS to an area. None stop. Stand on a hill or something...much more.

In fire you got wonderful AoEs like...Fireball, Rodgort's Invocation and Searing Heat. In terms of DPS fireball continually recast is only 10dps. Rodgort's invocation gives you 8.4 DPS. Searing heat? ...5 DPS >.>

...this sir...is shocking DPS, even if you echo it and have it all going at the same time. As well as having huge casting times for some of them and being very energy intensive. The Ranger barrage user has absolutely no energy problems, and on top of that, better DPS. Though I don't doubt that if you want to kill somebody quickly by piling on the damage immediately, eles are the way to go. Here, I'm looking for something with high AoE DPS.

Mark of pain? Yeah ok, but thats getting into the conditional damages, the way to counter mark of pain?...take a step away from your teammates. The area of effect is not large, in fact its downright small. Not too hard to do to counter something with such slow recharge and long casting time.

So according to Shrapnel, I don't need Judge's Insight at all? Thats going to affect my DPS more than I can stand I feel.

I just realised that one of the major perks of having Judge's Insight over a conjure is that you don't have to invest so many points into it. The damage from a conjure depends on you piling in the points, the only way that Judge's Insight is affected is it lasts longer. I can deal with having to recast every 15 secs tbh. I worked out the potential energy gain from using barrage on 3 targets at once, and the energy gained is more than what I'm losing. I can in theory afford to go on forever.

This is the best dispersion I can come up with: assuming that we're using Judge's Insight, Barrage, Favorable Winds and Tiger's Fury.

Expertise: 10 +3 rune +1 hat
BeastMastery: 6 (rune won't make any difference but ...+ 1 rune if you feel like it)
Marksmanship: 11 +1 rune
SmitingPrayers: 8

That'll give you, 2 energy Barrage, +13 damage Barrage, 15 seconds of Judge's Insight, 8 seconds of Tiger's Fury, 2 minutes of Favourable Winds with a level 8 spirit.

Originally I wanted 13 marksmanship, but this worked out to be 201 attribute points with 7 seconds of tiger's fury. So I settled for 12, and stuck a few more points into beastmastery.

Shrapnel_Magnet · Jun 14, 2005, 09:21 AM // 09:21

Favorable Winds? For one, Judge's Insight is a nice skill, no doubt... IF you're a R/Mo. Personally, I like to play a R/N, where I have a few more options.

But yeah, you're losing out by using the Flatbow... switch to a Half Moon or Short Bow... Also, I highly suggest dropping Favourable Winds for a useful skill...

Genos · Jun 14, 2005, 10:12 AM // 10:12

persoanlly, ive done the+barrage conjour route.. it aint pretty. barrage+Ji.. possibly. as to 14 expertise? i prefer 13.. why? simply, unless i use a superior rune, i can take my skills (unmodified) to this - 10/10/10/5 - which Imho, is very nice. i personally use posion arrow a lot - its nice, fun to spam, and you can drive a monk nuts trying to keep his tema de-poisened. or just FF the monk and do let him look after his team mates.. lol. aslo flatbows are very nice, i prefer to let my opponets come to me... not me come to them.

go with what works. thats my ho.

JYX · Jun 14, 2005, 10:54 AM // 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shrapnel_Magnet

Favorable Winds? For one, Judge's Insight is a nice skill, no doubt... IF you're a R/Mo. Personally, I like to play a R/N, where I have a few more options.

But yeah, you're losing out by using the Flatbow... switch to a Half Moon or Short Bow... Also, I highly suggest dropping Favourable Winds for a useful skill...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ensign on February 5, 2005

Flatbow 2.0 seconds 100' 1.0 seconds

Half Moon 2.0 seconds 70' 0.65 seconds

Shortbow 2.0 seconds 70' 0.65 seconds

I don't see how I'm losing out here. Yes 1 second is a bit much, but I'm not planning on interrupting here, when I start out the Barrage, I'm going to keep going, thus refire rate is the important factor surely. Also favorable winds was put in there in part to counter the rather long flight time of the Flatbow. Also, 4-5 more DPS...not great, but it helps, especially when you consider you're spamming it onto multiple people. As for people dodging, warriors can dodge all they want...the casters ie. the people we really want to target, surely strafing for them is going to be more of a hassle than a boon. Monks can't heal, mesmers can't shut down, eles can't nuke when strafing...

Does 0.35 of a second difference in flight time really make the difference for a non-interrupting ranger? I'm not a ranger by trade...but it just seems on paper, a 42% increase in range is more helpful.

...although I'm running out of ideas on what a ra/mo can do to buff the Barrage. I wouldn't put Favorable Winds there...but I can't find anything else.

Zyuu · Jun 14, 2005, 02:03 PM // 14:03

judge's insight is only worth it on the actual ranger if you can maintain the energy, which only happens in the case where you hit like 4 people with barrage every time you shoot (zealous)

since we all know this rarely happens except for altar, I don't like JI.. must spend 8ish points in smiting to get ~15 duration, or something like that.. 10 energy, 2 recast.. I dont like it. Ive played with it for a looooong time, believe me.. i wanted it to be great, but its just mediocre (imo)

yeah mark of pain is a liability, any build based on a single hex will be (ie fragility, etc).. im not saying rangers are great for this type of thing, but mop has the most potential, and thats what the original poster was asking about, ae dmg

dont have a lot of time but.. here is some advice

I always use 3 superiors (vigor, expertise, marks).. along with a 20hp grip (still cant find a 30 for sale :/) you'll be at 400 health. For a ranger this is fine

14 expertise always, always bring tiger's fury in any dmg based build, 3+1 in beastmastery

marks up to 12 gets good benefit, marks after 12 still has good benefit imo if u are based solely on dmg from the bow, although the actual dmg / pt is reduced significantly, it still adds quite a bit, and in addition it will increase the chance to land critical hits, which is essential

quick shot is nice with preps, choking gas is alright but not with quick shot, consider oath shot or practiced stance with gas. qs is good with things like kindle or mop, that benefit from lots of attacks

14 ex
15 marks
9 wild
4 bm

is a nice pure ranger qs attribute line (3 sup), qs, pene, distracting, tigers, kindle, -, -, - depending on the team

qs is also great with apply poison, and distracting (which u are right is great for an extra attack because it is so fast). apply poison, tiger's fury, normal attack, tab quick shot, tab distracting, tab quick shot = fast poison

conditions have been overused to all heck lately though and people are bringing martyr a lot because of the abundance of tainted necros, so probably not such a good idea to run atm..

necro is a great secondary, rend <3 rigor mortis is alright too for physical heavy teams, but I prefer enchant removal than hexing in either case

also that degen build u are talking about, you're correct that it sucks in organized pvp, it would be nice in pug since there is rarely any reliable enchant removal, and degen is armor ignoring obviously.

also favorable winds is bad, what if there is a ranger on the other team, or two... i know its not that common but it happens.. just take something else rather than having a potentially useless skill

lastly, barrage is a cool elite because it is great by itself along with a high marksmanship. it basically allows u to have it for altar (the only time its really that good).. while letting u have ~6 other skill slots to use for say interrupts, spirits or w/e else

Z

JYX · Jun 14, 2005, 03:06 PM // 15:06

...Thats great, thanks. Although its not really what I was looking for. Nice information about rangers in general though.

As I said in the beginning, I'm looking for a ranger that can deal out AoE damage, using Barrage. Zyuu, you need to hit 2 people regularly and 1 person occasionally for Judge's Insight to be on all the time alongside Barrage and Tiger's Fury. People being grouped close together isn't so outrageous, its common practise for PUGs in tombs to be grouped close and focus regligiously on 1 guy, also with any group employing wards this is going to be useful.

No favorable winds ain't great. But unless you can think of something else to use with barrage, which is what we're going to be spamming all the way, its the only thing we have. Also since you're attacking multiple enemies it means that the effect of +6 is multiplied for you, unless they're doing the exact same thing, I don't see how they're going to get more out of this deal.

Ripper · Jun 14, 2005, 03:52 PM // 15:52

Great thread. Lots of good insight.

Corack · Jun 14, 2005, 06:30 PM // 18:30

what about combining barrage with choking gas? Seems that oposing casters tend to be somewhat clustered enabling the ranger to easaly shut down 2-3 of them for choking gas's duration.