Curse

JYX · Sep 26, 2005, 07:37 PM // 19:37

I decided to check out the new fad that was up with the ranger interrupters. Normally I don't play Ranger, apart from a fun echo/serpent's/debil shot every-shot-is-debil-shot build. But because of the ruckus, I wanted to give it a try since I had the skills anyway, heres what I ran:

Expertise 14 (10+1+3)
Marksmanship 13 (10+3)
Wilderness Survival 10 (9+1)
Fire Magic 7

Kindle Arrows
Conjure Flame
Serpent's Quickness
Punishing Shot
Distracting Shot
Savage Shot
Dual Shot
Rez Sig

This build intrigues me, theres so much about rangers I don't know, its such a technical class to play. I can take a soft target down ~70% of the way with a full barrage, sometimes less, sometimes they die outright. Problems I have are the following:

After the combo, I stand around scratching my ass waiting for things to reload, even with Serpent's, its not like I can keep firing them off as long as I have energy. 8 seconds is a long time to make a guy wait, 6 seconds isn't much better. Serpent's itself has a downtime of some 20 seconds.
After a bit in the fight, my preps go down, I am low on energy and can't recast, my DPS drops like a stone. The attacks themselves are quite energy intensive (I think around 10 e for a full run) but it takes 10 full energy just to cast a conjure. I can't afford this.
People dodge my arrows, this makes my DPS like poo. They also outmaneuver me, run away, hide. All of this makes my DPS like poo.
Points spread too thin. Its a regular ranger problem, I was ok with 380 (410 with bow) health, no chance of getting spiked, but I'd rather not do it tbh.

Even with these problems, 70% of enemy health down every time I did the combo wasn't bad. But I went away and started to get creative. What if...I dropped Conjure for Favorable Winds, FW only gives 2 less damage bonus, its linked to marksmanship, it costs half the energy of Conjure (very important to me), it lasts much longer (=less recasts=less energy), it makes my arrows fly pretty fast. The points I blew on Fire can be respent on Wilderness Survival to give my kindle a couple more damage and a longer Serpent's Quickness.

Dual Shot I just stuck in because I had nothing else, I don't think it actually did that much damage though I can't be sure, a snare would be good, pin down perhaps?

So I ended up with the following build, as of yet just theory, untested. I don't have all the skills needed.

Marksmanship 11
Wilderness Survival 14
Expertise 14

Favorable Winds
Kindle Arrows
Serpent's Quickness
Pin Down
Punishing Shot
Savage Shot
Distracting Shot
Rez Sig

Um. Still 380 (410) health, mainly because this way I'm getting a +23 dmg Kindle as opposed to +21 with a major rune. Should be fine. If its not, I'll drop down to a minor rune for a +20 Kindle. Also Serpent's lasts about 29 secs now which is good, but with a minor rune still lasts a fair amount. Not tested this out, but it should mean: less energy usage, less recasting, more accuracy, less people running off with a strand of health, less enemy use of geometry, more constant DPS.

So I started to get...REALLY creative, got out the database of all ranger skills and ordered their casting times. Seems Quickshot has a casting time of 1 sec. Now, I should still have gaps in my combo where I'm not doing anything, I haven't found a suitable fix to that yet. Would it be at all possible to replace Punishing Shot with Quick Shot? Obviously it won't do as much damage, but I'd be able to use it 3/4 times as much as Punishing Shot.

Any ideas? Suggestions? Theres gotta be some master rangers out there somewhere...

cookiehoarder · Sep 26, 2005, 09:10 PM // 21:10

You can only use 1 superior to make this build work.

14 expertise10+4
10/11 Marks 10+1 / 9+1
12+ Wilderness

The damage from ranger spike doesn't come from marks, but from the damage of kindle. Hence the more wilderness the better.

funkho · Sep 26, 2005, 09:39 PM // 21:39

What is your Elite here? Perhaps you should add oath shot to this so all your skills are recharged immediately. Less sitting around. Assuming you have energy.

JYX · Sep 26, 2005, 10:15 PM // 22:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by cookiehoarder

You can only use 1 superior to make this build work.

14 expertise10+4
10/11 Marks 10+1 / 9+1
12+ Wilderness

The damage from ranger spike doesn't come from marks, but from the damage of kindle. Hence the more wilderness the better.

Yep. This is why in the second build I dropped Marks down to 11 and boosted Wilderness to 14. Any lower on the marks and Punishing/Pin Down/Favorable Winds gets gimped, I could go 10 marks including rune...but it dosen't make a difference with point allocation.

We're stuck with 11/10/10 or 12/10/8. Either way, 1 sup rune and 2 sup runes is gonna make a difference. I mentioned in the first post I could go 11/10/10 with 1 sup in expertise, getting 12 in wilderness for a 20 damage kindle. We'll see, I've not had too many issues with getting spiked to death before I blink etc.

Quote:

Originally Posted by funkho

What is your Elite here? Perhaps you should add oath shot to this so all your skills are recharged immediately. Less sitting around. Assuming you have energy.

My elite is punishing. Oath shot won't do much for the rate at which I'm using these skills.