Curse

Lock · Aug 02, 2005, 03:43 AM // 03:43

Ranger/Mesmer Melee/Beast Build
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This is a theoretical build im planning for my ranger "The Crazy Weasel". Its build around using Illusion and beast mastery to do damage from 3 different points: melee from IW and tigers fury, pet melee + a pet skill, and DOT with conjure phantasm. I figure with this set-up, if IW is shut down, i continue on with my pet and CP, if my manna is stolen or blasted, I continue swinging and let my pet attack, and if my pet dies, i rez him. My major weakness is the lack of a self heal, but I dont see anyway around that short of a compleat retool of the build. Any and all criticisms and suguestions are welcome, thanks!
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Illusion Magic 12
Beast Mastery 11 (10 + 1 rune)
Expertise 12 (8 + 3 rune + 1 headgear)

Skills

Illusionary Weaponry (availability) Description: For 30 seconds, you deal no damage in melee, but whenever you attack in melee, target foe takes 8-34 chaos damage. This is an elite skill.
Manna: 15

Tiger's Fury (availability) Description: All your non-attack skills are disabled for 5 seconds. For 5-10 seconds, you attack 33% faster than normal.
Manna: 10
Manna w/Expertise lvl 12: 5

Charm Animal (availability) Description: Charm target animal. Once charmed, your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Charm Animal equipped.

Comfort Animal (availability) Description: You heal your animal companion for 20-87 health. If your companion is dead, it is resurrected with 10%-48% health and all your skills are disabled for 8 seconds.
Manna: 10
Manna w/Expertise lvl 12: 5

Brutal Strike (availability) Description: Your animal companion attempts a brutal strike that deals +5-17 damage. If that attack strikes a foe whose health is below 50%, that foe takes an additional +5-17 damage.
Manna: 10
Manna w/Expertise lvl 12: 5

Distortion (availability) Description: For 5 seconds, you have a 75% chance to evade attacks. Whenever you evade an attack this way, you lose 3-1 energy or Distortion ends.
Manna: 5
Manna w/Expertise lvl 12: 3

Conjure Phantasm (availability) Description: For 2-12 seconds, target foe experiences health degeneration of 5.

Throw Dirt (availability) Description: Target touched foe and foes adjacent to your target become blinded for 3-13 seconds.

Gear:
Druids Set Armor
Short Sword w/ +20% Enchantment length
Illusion Focus w/ +12 to energy and +4 to armor

EDIT: skill info excerpts taken from www.gwonline.net

Enigmatics · Aug 02, 2005, 01:14 PM // 13:14

Alrighty. Without Call of Protection, your pet will die once someone sees you spamming Beast Mastery skills. When using IW, you won't be doing much DPS without that TF running, and with TF running, you won't be able to use pet skills.

byoo511 · Aug 02, 2005, 03:03 PM // 15:03

I was trying a beast mastery build for the competition arenas and it was pretty fun. No one ever attacks the pet for some reason.

can't remember my attributes, but my skills were:

ferocious strike (e)
predator's pounce
troll unguent
charm animal
comfort animal
res signet
apply poison
hunter's shot / whirling defense

i hate how you need to have charm animal to use your pet. I feel like charm and comfort should be a combined skill, but that's me.

rii · Aug 02, 2005, 03:06 PM // 15:06

I ran a pet build (which kicked ass, considering the crappiness of it), and the only time my pet got attacked was when it ran into an aoe. and surely that doesnt count.

ShadowWrath · Aug 03, 2005, 07:09 AM // 07:09

I recently tried a pet build, and the pet was never killed. He was always the last person on our team alive in the battle. The only problem is that he can't kill anything. I wish pets could be made a little more powerful.

Rajamic · Aug 03, 2005, 07:46 AM // 07:46

Problems with the OP's build:

Illusionary Weaponry is easily removed and has a very long recast time. This is true of any build using IW, just thought I'd mention it.

Tiger's Fury (for some assinine reason) disables pet attacks. So half the time you won't be getting enything extra from your pet.

You expect one pet attack to do enough damage to justify spending 3 skill slots on a pet?

12 Expertise is a waste. The high cutoffs are 13 and 14, depending on the mana costs of your skills. If you aren't going to go up there, you may as well keep it at 9 or 10. All those listing you have for 10 mana skills costing 5 are wrong. They will cost 6. 12*4=48. 48% off is 52%, and mana costs are always rounded up.

Pippy Bloodstocking · Aug 03, 2005, 08:03 AM // 08:03

Having personally tried several iW builds, one involving a Ranger, I can say with some confidence that there are better, and safer ways to deal melee damage. For example, get yourself Riposte, or its nastier cousin Deadly Riposte (this one costs 5 energy and causes bleeding, along with up to 32 damage) and Gladiator's defense. Load up the rest of your bar with pet skills and weapon attacks and you should be alright.

Yukito Kunisaki · Aug 03, 2005, 04:07 PM // 16:07

Riposte only works on warriors as does Gladiator's Defense {E}. If you're going for a pet build where the pet actually has a use, I HIGHLY suggest burning 5 skills into it. You read me... Five...

The reason why some people don't like pets and think they do no damage is because they think the pet needs only 1-2 actual skills of its own. Unless you want your pet to just whack away, which is weak.... Then you've wasted the poor guy.

Focus on the pet. If you look at a pet's energy costs vs. its effects, you'll easily find that it can be one of the most efficient ways of disrupting, landing conditions, dealing damage, etc. Since all pet skills with 10 expertise is either 3 energy or 6 energy, you should give more abilities to the guy. You yourself only needs to either move or stay alive. Your pet is doing the dirty work.

Lock · Aug 03, 2005, 10:05 PM // 22:05

Thanks for the help. i wasent aware that Tiger's Fury disables pet skills for more than the 5 seconds it disables all non-attack skills. The point of the pet is not for his dmg alone, but too complement my damage from IW+TF, and CP, plus theyre cool anyway. I need the High BM anyway to get an efficent TF, so I might as well make use of it. I am considering switching throw dirt out for another pet attack, though as distortion may be enough defence to cover me when im not flailing away at my enemies. If not, theres 74 other skills to look into :-)