Curse

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 12, 2005, 04:51 AM // 04:51

I've felt a bit remiss at not having done a build review in a while. I have a few in the works, honestly, but they're very involved and, above all else, lengthy undertakings. They don't happen overnight and I just haven't had the time nor the enthusiasm to really get through with one lately. Still, I'd like to offer my build advice as much as possible to our community so what I'd like to do is revive something I used to do long, long ago. I call it the anti-build.

What I do is take a build, analyze it's strengths and weaknesses and then try and come up witht he best ways to neturalize that build. If it's an interrupting Mesmer i'm looking for something that can stop them from interrupting lon enough to give my Monks time to cast. If it's a damage dishing Warrior I'm looking for a way to reduce if not eliminate their damage. And I'm looking to do it in ways that don't involve coming up with a narrowly specialized build dedicated to solely defeating that strategy.

Anyhow, I think it's an interesting little exercise and one I'd like to start up here. But I'd also like to have a bit of fun with it. So, here's how it'll work. We're going to make a little game of it. I'm going to pick a skill or a set of skills out of my hat, basically, and then you'll post a build using that skill here. I'll pick the build I like best or the build everyone's settled on and apply it to the anti-build formula.

So, for the first go around I'm looking for a build using the skills......

Virulence and Plague Touch.

It can be primary Necro, it can be secondary Necro, but use those two skills and you just might be a winner and receive....not much, I guess. But, c'mon, what else have you got to do while waiting for the BWE?

Edited to add :

Round 2! The chosen skill is the Ranger's Oath Shot. With a request to avoid spamming attack skills with it.

Apr 12, 2005, 04:54 AM // 04:54

Oh no, Virulence!!!!!

You need a new hat

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 12, 2005, 04:54 AM // 04:54

Blame it completely on Swiffle. If he'd picked a good skill, why...

Apr 12, 2005, 05:00 AM // 05:00

Well, before we go any further I'd like to state Virulence should be used as a support skill by another class, and not a necromancer. It just doesnt mesh well with necro abilities since as it states:

If target foe was already suffering from a condition, that foe suffers from Disease and Weakness for 3-13 seconds.

That skill is already advocating one condition that only the necromancer can cause anyway, which is very hostile to everyone, and Weakness which can be done without the elite slot by 2 other necro skills in curses.

This means to get a kick out of virulence you want it with someone else, like an Ele with On Fire or a Warrior causing bleeding or deep wound. It doesnt combine well with fragility though, even though it looks like it should right off the bat but it requires atleast 2 players to get it to work decently(like most fragility builds)

Virulence is also in death magic. Have fun.

Lazarous · Apr 12, 2005, 05:40 AM // 05:40

So a question before i get too deep into this challenge - in the conditions page, you have listed both death penalty and exhaustion. Are these two things really considered 'conditions' and thus are transferrable?

Apr 12, 2005, 05:51 AM // 05:51

Neither of those are transferable. Death penalty, exhaustion and burning dont act like regular "conditions" at all. DP and Exhaustion arent affected by things like Fragility or Crystal Wave either.

Lazarous · Apr 12, 2005, 05:55 AM // 05:55

That certainly makes this...harder.

Nec/Ele
Soul Reaping 8
Death Magic 11
Air Magic 11
(runes to increase air + death as possible)

Animate Bone Minions
Spell, 25en - 3cast - 5recharge

Death Nova
Enchantment Spell, 5en - 2cast - 0recharge

Virulence {Elite}
Spell, 5en - 1cast - 10recharge

Necrotic Traversal
Spell, 5en - 3/4cast - 0recharge

Plague Touch
Skill, 5en - 3/4cast - 0recharge

Shock
Skill, 10en - 3/4cast - 10recharge

Lightning Orb
Spell, 15en - 2cast - 5recharge

Glyph of Lesser Energy
Glyph, 5en - 1cast - 30recharge

Here goes - so the plan for this build is two-stage. Until someone dies, you're basically a gimped elementalist, using your wand and ele skills to cause whatever damage you can.
Once somone dies, you can start using animate minions. From what i understand, a.net is working on improving targetting of pets, so you want to create 2 corpse points by sending your minions to their deaths. first is ideally near a big cluster of enemy melee types, second is near the enemy support. Melee corpses are first, and you should cast death nova on your caster targetted minions before you send them out. Once you have the two corpse points available, you're going to use necrotic traversal to jump to the enemy casters, poisoning them, then cast virulence on someone. After that ideally you want to just unload your damage spells on one target, use plague touch to remove disease from you if you contracted it from being near someone after virulence, and then necrotic traversal back to your second corpse point near the melee guys (hopefully poisoning them), where you can either animate more minions, use your ele powers to damage or whatever you really feel like.

The elemenatlist part of this build i'm really unsure on, as i was really unsure what this characters role would be aside from his silly teleport/virulence trick. Figured being able to dish out decent dps in a short time would make it more of a shock build, where all of a sudden the poor targetted caster would be hit with a bunch of conditions that give him health degen as well as outright damage. Chose Necro primary over ele since this build is really a modified death lord, where most of its power comes from its summoned minions (or as i like to call them - walking time bombs), so soul reaping seems like it'll give more return when the build starts to get going.

Yes i know its silly.

Laz

Greco · Apr 12, 2005, 08:33 AM // 08:33

The Ranger seemed like a good choice to base Virulence around. With their numerous condition inflicting skills, you would have multiple ways to spread virulence around. Unfortunetly, plague touch isn't used effectively as I would have liked, delegated primely to a defensive role.

Class: Ranger / Necromancer

Attributes: (cost) '+' indicates Rune attributes
Expertise: 10+4 (61)
Marksmanship: 11+1 (77)
Wilderness Survival: 8+1 (37)
Curses: 4 (10)
Death Magic: 5 (15)

Total attribute points used: 200/200

Skills: [Attribute] (Energy, Cast Time, Recharge TIme)
1) Apply Poison [Wilderness Survival] (15,2,12) Preparation: For 12 seconds, enemies struck by your physical attacks become poisoned for 10 seconds.

2) Hunter's Shot [Marksmanship] (5,0,5) Bow Attack: If Hunter's Shot hits, you strike for +17 damage. If this attack hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, that foe begins bleeding for 21 seconds.

3) Barbed Trap [Wilderness Survival] (15,2,20) Trap: When Barbed Trap is triggered, all foes in the area take 60 piercing damage, become crippled, and begin bleeding for 16 seconds. Barbed Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted.

4) Pin Down [Marksmanship] (15,0,15) Bow Attack: If Pin Down hits, your target is crippled for 13 seconds.

5) Serpent's Quickness [Wilderness Survival] (5,0,45) Stance: For 24 seconds, recharge times for your skills are reduced by 33%. Serpent's Quickness ends if your health drops below 50%.

6) Virulence [Death Magic] (5,1,10) Spell: If target foe was already suffering from a condition, that foe suffers from disease and weakness for 7 seconds. This is an elite skill.

7) Plague Touch [none] (5,1,0) Skill: Transfer a negative condition from yourself to target touched foe.

8) Rend Enchantments [Curses] (10,3,30) Spell: Target foe loses 4 enchantments. For each Monk enchantment removed, you take 40 damage.

Use the multiple condition attacks to spread Virulence around.

Rend Enchantments is used to round out the build a little, and give it more versatility. It could be dropped for Flame Trap perhaps, would be funny to set-up someone to be 'onfire'/bleed/cripple/weakness/disease/poison'd from a Virulence/Flametrap/Barbedtrap/Applypoison combo.

Serpent's Quickness is used to set-up traps/Rends quicker. I'd be worried that the constant threat of inflicting yourself with disease, might cause Serpent's to drop prematurely. I think Plague Sending could be used as a more offensive solution to removing disease, instead of Touch. Even Antidote Signet would be better as a "reset" button for disease.

Overall, nothing mind-blowingly inventive. I was originally looking at a pet-oriented build, it would definetly be more fun. The idea would be to try and get your pet infected on purpose, and than having it run from target to target spreading disease. Maybe if the pet AI is improved enough, it could be something to look at.

cpukilla · Apr 12, 2005, 12:07 PM // 12:07

Ummm

War/Nec with sword/death artifact
12 Sword, 10 Death, 8 Strength

Virulence (Elite)
Plague Touch
Malign Intervention
Vereta's Gaze/Vile Touch
Rush
Sever Artery
Gash
Final Thrust

Ideas to stack deep wound and malign to reduce healing then final thrust em when they are ready to go down. Hit em with virulence to speed the process and plague touch disease off of yourself if you have to.

Vanquisher · Apr 12, 2005, 03:55 PM // 15:55

Wouldn't you just get the disease condition back, if you used plague touch?

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 12, 2005, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Plague Touch is instant recharge. If you get Diseased back you give it right back again. If they already have Disease you'll lose it and extend the duration of their condition.

Also, Disease doesn't work *instantly*. It takes a bit of time before it affects you. Not a long time but it's a few seconds or so.

WNxTyphoon · Apr 12, 2005, 05:12 PM // 17:12

Elementalist / Necromancer

Attributes: (cost)
Energy Storage: 10 (61)
Earth Magic: 8 (37)
Blood Magic: 10 (61)
Death Magic: 8 (37)

Total attribute points used: 196/200

Skills:
1) Kinetic Armor - (15,3,60) For 8 seconds, you gain +26 armor. Whenever you cast a spell, Kinetic Armor is renewed for 8 seconds.
2) Life Siphon - (10,2,2) For 20 seconds, target suffers health degeneration of 3 and you gain health regeneration of 3.
3) Barbed Signet - (0,2,30) Sacrifice 10% max health. You steal 46 health from target foe.
4) Touch of Agony - (5,34,3) Sacrifice 10% max health. Target touched foe takes 45 damage.
5) Signet of Agony - (0,34,15) Sacrifice 10% max health and suffer from bleeding. All nearby foes take 32 damage.
6) Dark Aura - (10,1,10) For 30 seconds, whenever target ally sacrifices health, Dark Aura deals 29 shadow damage to adjacent enemies, and you lose 13 health.
7) Virulence (elite) - (5,1,10) If target foe was already suffering from a condition, that foe suffers from disease and weakness for 10 seconds. This is an elite skill.
8) Plague Touch - (5,34,0) Transfer a negative condition from yourself to target touched foe.

I was thinking of just going War/Nec with Signet of Agony/Virulence/Plague Touch + Whatever skills (probably axe) but it didn't really take "advantage" of the points in Death Magic.

I like the Ele/Nec because it has lots of energy to fuel the Dark Aura sacrificing and can probably maximize the use of Kinetic Armor because of the Touch of Agony spammage.

Greentongue · Apr 13, 2005, 01:51 AM // 01:51

Kooties

Me/Ne

=== Soul Reaping ===
=== Curses ===
Enfeeble [5,1,5] (Spell) Target foe suffers from Weakness for 5..17 seconds.
=== Death Magic ===
Virulence [5,1,10] ELITE (Spell) If target foe was already suffering from a Condition, that foe suffers from Disease and Weakness for 3..13 seconds.
Necrotic Traversal [5,1,0] (Spell) Exploit target corpse to teleport to that corpse's location and all nearby foes become Poisoned for 5..17 seconds.

=== General ===
Plague Touch [5,1,0] (Spell) Transfer a negative Condition from yourself to target touched foe.

=== Illusion Magic ===
Fragility [15,1,15] (Hex Spell) For 8..18 seconds, target foe takes 5..28 damage each time that foe suffers or recovers from a new Condition.
Illusion of Haste [10,1,5] (Enchantment Spell) For 5..10 seconds, you move 33% faster than normal and the effects of the Crippled Condition are removed. When Illusion of Haste ends, you become Crippled.
Illusion of Weakness [10/2/30] (Enchantment Spell) You lose 50..202 Health. Illusion of Weakness ends if damage drops your Health below 25% of your maximum. When Illusion of Weakness ends, you gain 50..202 Health.
Distortion [5,0,5] (Stance) For 5 seconds, you have a 75% chance to "Evade" attacks. Whenever you evade an attack this way, you lose 3..1 Energy or Mantra of Distortion ends.

Suggested Attributes of Soul Reaping (12), Illusion Magic (12)

The intent of the build is to take advantage of Fragility.
Use Enfeeble, Necrotic Traversal, or even Illusion of Haste + Plague Touch to give an initial condition to a Fragility target.
Virulence triples the number of conditions and with low Attribute points the duration is short.

Illusion of Weakness gives you a health buffer and Distortion provides some protection.

-= Note =-
Soul Barbs [10,2,20] (Hex Spell) For 30 seconds, target foe takes 15..27 damage when an Enchantment or Hex is cast on that target.

Soul Barbs may make a good replacement for Enfeeble since it is one of the conditions of Virulence.
On the other hand, having Enfeeble available if a Warrior is wailing on you isn't bad either.
----

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 13, 2005, 02:46 AM // 02:46

A tough task this first time around, I'll grant. But not a bad result, I think. Anyhow, first I'll share my own thoughts on how I would have met my own challenge.
Personally, I think the advantage of Virulence would be that you impart Disease, which is nasty DOT on the enemy, especially in a PvE setting. It's not the best skill around (Blame Swiffle!) but it can be used to good effect. It's low energy, low casting time, with a good recharge. It just has a not very good effect. Disease can be nasty but it affects *everyone* not just your enemy. And Weakness is a condition good only to torpedo a Warrior or Ranger. And, of course, it's conditional, so to speak, as you have to set it up first. It's an afterthought, mostly, but it's not like Death is swarming with good elites. Plague Touch is nice, 5 energy and .75 seconds with an instant recharge to transfer conditions to an enemy. It should work rather well on a Warrior or other melee ranged character.

Anyhow, I wouldn't want to use Disease with a Warrior, though, so I would have gone with range. Plague Touch becomes a backup, an emergency skill which is unfortunate as I'd like to work it in better, but there you are. And, since it's going to trip up melee characters a lot, that's what I'd be gunning for. Fortunately, Necromancer has a lot of Warrior hate. So does Ranger but I think I'd stick with Elementalist. I'd go with an Elementalist/Necromancer although, unlike Blackie (whom I loathe with the passion of a thousand burning suns, by the way :P) suggests though, I wouldn't use the On Fire condition to chain into Virulence. That's 7 pips plus 4 pips so I'd lose a pip's worth of damage there thanks to the cap. So, that puts me out of Fire, which is pretty weak overall anyway. Instead, I'd pick up Air Magic which offers some good Warrior hate of its own. Enervating Charge, for example also causes Weakness. But, I don't want to waste the efforts of Virulence so, instead, I'd use something like Blinding Flash. A Blind, Weakened, Diseased Warrior is a Warrior in a lot of trouble, after all. However, they'll be close to my team and might be spreading that Disease so I'll also use something like Gale to knock them on their behinds so we can keep away. Throw in some skills to deal damage and I'd have a build something like this :

Elementalist/Necromancer

Energy Storage: 6+1
Air Magic: 12+4
Curses: 6
Death Magic: 10

Virulence {E} (Death)
Blinding Flash (Air)
Gale (Air)
Lightning Orb/Lightning Strike (Air)
Conjure Lightning (Air)
Faintheartedness (Curses)
Rend Enchantments (Curses)
Plague Touch (Death)

Admitedly could use a bit of work, but I thought I'd put that out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Laz

Yes i know its silly.

Ah, that's the point, though. Just a harmless little diversion. As I said a decent turnout given the rather suboptimal skills selected.

Lazarous, a nice little minionator. A lot of AoE poison and damage floating around. And a Shock+Plague Touch combo seems like something nasty to pull. I'm not too certain about GLE although I suppose you need it for ABM. I might go with Bone Horror instead and pick up another skill somewhere like Malign Intervention, for example.

Cpukilla, I think I stated my concerns about Disease in melee well enough above. Plague Touch helps but it's pretty expensive for a primary Warrior to run. In fact, I'm not sure you'll have enough energy for what you want to do at all. Still, can't argue with Sever+Gash+Final and that's a nice lead in to Virulence while Plague Touch protects you against any Disease blowback. That's 8 degen, +16DPS, Weakness, and a Deep Wound on a single target as you lower the double damage boom. Pretty nasty. Malign+Verata's is a nice little combo, too.

Typhoon, another person who went Ele/Nec, I see. You went Earth, though, for the PBAoE route. Not a bad idea although since you're in Earth I don't see why you wouldn't pick up a Ward to throw down. The Blood AoEs and Death DDs leave a bit to be desired, I'd stick to Aftershock+Crystal Wave (nice thing to pull as their conditions, etc, start to fade, I think) past what you need to Touch away a condition for Virulence.

Greentongue, just under the bell. Fragility seems an obvious coice here. You're doubling up on Weakness with Enfeeble, though. I'd try and find a beter way to set up Virulence.

I could go on about all of them, I'm sure, but now we come to the winner, Greco and his Ran/Nec (I like the idea about a plague carrying pet, by the way...).

The strengths of this build are fairly evident. It's a very solid build and one that might work well in the Arena, for example. It's a bit too broad and diverse to take to other PvP, you've got Bows and Traps and all the rest, in the midst of an established team you're better off finding some more focus. But in the Arena you have no set team so being more well-rounded at the sake of some efficiency isn't a bad way to go.

So, yes, you'll be able to spread a lot of conditions, a lot of DOT, and you'll have decent enough damage to back it all up. Or, you can switch to traps and Plague Touching when they get in close. Serpent's Quickness lowers all your recharge times and lets you do everything faster. High Expertise lets you absorb the costs easily. And you're a smart little Necro as you've remembered to include Rend Enchantments on your build. You're right, it adds a lot, letting your team or yourself punch through defenses as needed. Enchantment removal isn't very good overall but Rend's the best of a bad lot and removing enchantments is vital enough that you'll be glad you have it even if it could be better.

The weaknesses are a symptom of your well-roundedness, though. You're spreading yourself thin so you're not packing the overall punch you could. Dropping Plague Touch (Yes, it's a contest requirement. I never said I was going to *keep* it in your builds :P) and the trap you could add in some more bow attacks to become a much better ranged attacker. Or you could ditch the ranged attacks and concentrate on being a trapper with a lot of Warrior hate - a good character to stick in the back row with the Monks for when Warrior trains come around, for example. By being so diverse you've sacrificed the ability to really shine at things. Not that such an approach can't work, of course, but you might get better results with a bit of a more narrow focus you could be more effective. DOT is a nice thing to apply but it's not going to win fights for you by itself as it tops out at 20DPS. You need to back it up with something else to take advantage of it and I'm not sure this build makes the most of that.

Since I'm looking at this as an Arena build you're also lacking a bit in defense. You've got Pin Down and Barbed Trap and Plague Touch but that's about it. I'd consider something like Healing Spring here to provide some healing while you're attacking away or laying your traps and all. If you're attacked quickly and fiercely enough your Serpent's Quickness can go down and that'll hurt especially if you've caught some Disease from an enemy.

As for countering this build the obvious answer is, of course, condition removal. A Protection Monk is your worse nightmare here as they'll get rid of your Poison or Bleeding before you can tag someone with Virulence, wasting that effort. And even if you do manage to put a lot of conditions on the rest of the team, you wouldn't expect them to last long in the face of adequate removal. In short, if the enemy's worried about conditions you're in for a rough time. Disease can be difficult for the removers to handle, though, as it can spread out of control and cause some nasty DOT to several opponents at once. However, that can be twarted by the simple expidient of your opponents managing to spread out and to not cluster together. That's just smart Tactics for the most part as they'll want to avoid AoEs in any event. If they do get Diseased, though, and lack the removal to get rid of it, a nice move is to run into range of people on your team, spreading Disease amongst *your* teammates.

Beyond that, you're a Ranger so you can be expected to get tagged with Weakness and attack speed debuffs of your own. You're not entirely vulnerable to that because a lot of your offense doesn't come from rapdily attacking but just from landing a few attacks at the right time. Still, it'll lower your output and that's a good thing from your opponent's standpoint. You can Plague Touch it away but that's a lot of time and energy and might put you in range of your own Disease. In any event it distracts you from pressing your advantage as much as you could. Traps are a lot harder to deal with as, beyond staying away from them, there's no counter.

Far from the best build ever but considering you made it in a few hours, not a bad one. If you were going to tweak it and tighten it the first thing you'd lose would proably be Virulence which opens up a lot of possibilities but rather wrecks the whole "lotsa conditions thing".

Anyhow, as a reward you get the satisfaction of knowing you can deal with being handed a rotten skill. But, as a little added bonus, I'm going to let you pick the skill and/or skills you want the next anti-build to combat.

lhurgrokoyv · Apr 13, 2005, 02:48 AM // 02:48

i think this would make a great pve char, try it out!!!

Greco · Apr 13, 2005, 06:56 AM // 06:56

I'll go with oathshot.

Any build will do, but I'd rather see builds that tried to get around long refresh spells, rather than spamming bow attacks.

Ranger/Eles, Ranger/Monks, Ranger/Mes

etc.

Sausaletus Rex · Apr 13, 2005, 07:02 AM // 07:02

Now that's a skill to build with. Very well, Oath Shot it is. Same rules as before. Make a build with Oath Shot in it and you just might get picked on. Er, analyzed...

Spura · Apr 13, 2005, 01:09 PM // 13:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sausaletus Rex

Plague Touch is instant recharge. If you get Diseased back you give it right back again. If they already have Disease you'll lose it and extend the duration of their condition.

Also, Disease doesn't work *instantly*. It takes a bit of time before it affects you. Not a long time but it's a few seconds or so.

Disease spreads almost instantly. Here is why it may seem to you like it was a few seconds. Disease comes in batches. You cannot get affected twice by the same batch.

Ok consider this situation. You affect a ranger with disease. 5 sec later a warror comes by and gets disease as well and runs away. Then monk removes disease off the ranger and warrior comes near again and ranger won't get infected because it is the same disease batch on the warrior. At least that's how I have seen it work. If you shake it off and someone affected by same disease batch comes around you don't get affected. Transfering with martyr or plague touch creates a new batch that will again infect everyone. At least that's how I see it.

cpukilla · Apr 13, 2005, 01:29 PM // 13:29

Just a random idea, how does this look :

Nec/Mes or Mes/Nec

Illusionary Weaponry (Elite)
Illusion of Haste
Illusion of Weakness
Plague Touch
Vamp Touch
Vamp Gaze
Life Siphon
Demonic Flesh
(Power drain optional)

Lots of health, regen, and self heals. Good damage with illusionary weaponry and the vamp skills. Layer the 2 other illusion spells on top of weaponry and it can only be taken off with rend. And if they do that you also gain 200 health as a bonus. Its a bit expensive, so maybe throw in some inspiration too to cut the costs.

Jia Xu · Apr 13, 2005, 02:55 PM // 14:55

Okies - Oath shot seems to make this interesting. I figured that seeing as Oath shot allows me to spam a lot of long cooldown spells, i should check out what the ranger has to offer first of all in terms of powerful long-cooldown spells. : rituals and preps are practically the only spells with long cooldowns. Hence, i went for other class i should use - the main ones were Necro's Curses, or the Elementalist's Fire or water magic. Here are my two builds based one on Necro's draining and boosting, one on Elem's snaring and slowing magic.

Class: Ranger / Elementalist

Assumed items:
+2 to Expertise
+1 to Wilderness Survival

Attributes: (cost)
Expertise: 10+2 (61)
Wilderness Survival: 11+1 (77)
Water Magic: 10 (61)

Total attribute points used: 199/200

Skills:
1) Oath Shot (elite) - (10,0,20) If Oath Shot hits, all your other skills are recharged. If it misses, all your skills are disabled for 10 seconds. This is an elite skill. (50% miss chance with Expertise attribute of 7 or less)
2) Choking Gas - (15,2,24) For 10 seconds, your arrows deal 7 more damage and spread Choking Gas on impact. Choking Gas interrupts foes attempting to cast spells.
3) Barbed Trap - (15,2,20) When Barbed Trap is triggered, all foes in the area take 74 piercing damage, become crippled, and begin bleeding for 21 seconds. Barbed Trap ends after 90 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted.
4) Healing Spring (10,2,20)For 10 seconds, all allies in the area are healed for 51 health every 2 seconds. While activating this skill, you are easily interrupted.
5) Glyph of Lesser Energy - (5,1,30) Your next spell cost 15 less energy to cast.
6) Ice Prison - (10,2,30) For 16 seconds, target foe's legs are encased in ice, causing that foe to move 66% slower than normal. This effect ends if target takes fire damage.
7) Deep Freeze - (25,3,15) You cause a deep freeze at target foe's location. All foes near this location are struck for 65 cold damage. For 10 seconds, all foes move 50% slower than normal.
8) Ice Spikes - (15,2,15) Target and nearby foes are struck for 60 cold damage and are slowed for 5 seconds.

Use water magic as snares for your team, utilising the Glyph. - this should be done when your team needs it. Stay near your monks, and drop barbed trap and healing spring if possible. you should be pretty low on energy now, so recharge for a moment then oath shot. recharge your energy more and repeat. Choking gas is there as another monk defense - target mesmers and other repeated-casting characters (here's lookin at you, elems). ice prison is a good focus-fire snare - the others are more for warrior trains or if you are rolling in energy (that's gonna require a spare BiPer). my main wish for improvement is to slip in Marksman's Wager, but silly oath shot takes up my Elite

Class: Ranger / Necromancer

Assumed items:
+2 to Marksmanship

Attributes: (cost)
Expertise: 8 (37)
Marksmanship: 10+2 (61)
Curses: 12 (97)

Total attribute points used: 195/200

Skills:
1) Oath Shot (elite) - (10,0,20) If Oath Shot hits, all your other skills are recharged. If it misses, all your skills are disabled for 10 seconds. This is an elite skill. (50% miss chance with Expertise attribute of 7 or less)
2) Dual Shot - (10,0,5) Shoot two arrows simultaneously at target foe. These arrows deal 25% less damage than normal.
3) Called Shot - (10,0,4) Shoot an arrow that moves 3 times faster than normal and cannot be blocked or evaded.
4) Read the Wind - (5,2,12) For 12 seconds, your arrows move twice as fast as normal and deal 15 extra damage.
5) Hunter's Shot - (5,0,5) If Hunter's Shot hits, you strike for +17 damage. If this attack hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, that foe begins bleeding for 21 seconds.
6) Mark of Pain - (10,2,30) For 30 seconds, whenever target foe takes physical damage, Mark of Pain deals 34 shadow damage to adjacent enemies.
7) Barbs - (10,2,30) For 30 seconds, target foe takes 8 more damage when hit by physical damage.
8) Weaken Armor - (10,3,30) For 30 seconds, target foe has an armor penalty of -22 against physical damage.

This build is geared around dealing damage through the hexes. slap on mark of pain, barbs and read the wind, hit with a few dual shots, normal shots etc. to cause the hex damage, letting energy regenerate, then oath shot and choose another target. if enemies approach, run away. you can't really afford to be melee'd, as you have no independent healing spells etc. This build could become quite powerful if combined with a BiPer as well, spamming several marks of pain into enemies that any of your team can hit with a sword / axe / bowstring to cause reasonable damage, and weakening armour and dropping barbs to increase physical damage. As you may notice, this build works far better with a couple of warriors or maybe a Barrage ranger (ooh, the multiple marks of pain!) but with my feeble abilities these are the best i could do. Feel free to pick them apart, especially about the severe lack of energy management. (btw, that's one of my issues with Oath Shot - when i was making these, you really wanted to take mesmer or be a primary ele, but expertise is needed and most mesmer skills don't take long to recharge, so oath shot is wasted anyway)

Thanks for reading