Curse

Mr_eX · Jan 25, 2006, 12:12 AM // 00:12

I know most people reading this want to cut right to the build, so here it is:

Marksmanship: 12+1+3
Expertise: 8+1 (magic number...the game rounds the 36% energy discount up to 40%)
Smiting Prayers: 9
Wilderness Survival: 5+1
Unused points: 3
1. Judge's Insight
2. *Barrage
3. Savage Shot
4. Open
5. Troll Unguent
6. Favorable Winds
7. Remove Hex
8. Resurrection spell of your choice

Desirable gear: Short bow (for fire rate,) horn bow (for inherent armor penetration,) zealous bow string (energy boon.) I use a Zealous Short Bow.

I'm really successful with this build in the random arenas and in a good PvE team. I imagine it could be useful in team/guild matches as well.

The Zealous Bow String is a must for this build, given the number of arrows you'll be firing you'll regenerate your energy very quickly.

The method: Cast Favorable Winds before the fight. Right before your targets get inside casting range, cast Judge's Insight on yourself and start spamming Barrage. This is my favorite part of the build; the Holy damage and armor penetration bonuses allow you to do a lot of damage to any class--even Warriors! With a Zealous mod and 9 expertise, Barrage should pay for itself, even if you're only attacking one enemy, so spam, spam, spam it.

Other than that, use the rest of the skills as necessary. In particular, Remove Hex is important because hexes like Empathy and Spiteful Spirit will take you out in an instant if you're Barraging 3+ enemies at once. Also, I've noticed that monks don't tend to bother putting Remove Hex in their builds, so you can also support your teammates with it. If you're familiar with your party and your monks are solid then Troll Unguent shouldn't really be necessary, but it's a cheap heal that puts those extra points to use. Savage Shot is in there because it too does a lot more damage with Judge's Insight and makes for a nice killing blow if you interrupt a spellcaster.

As for the open slot, you could put anything there. Whirling Defense or Throw Dirt are always nice. Again, Troll Unguent isn't 100% necessary, so feel free to swap that out (and the att points in WS) for something else as well.

As for another Ritual, I tend to avoid rituals like Predatory Season which can come and bite you in the ass in case your monks can't heal you well enough because of your own ritual. Same with Winnowing--you're not going to like the extra physical damage if you have 2-3 IWAY axe noobs running after you (Winnowing wouldn't help this build in the first place because your Barrages will generally be dealing Holy damage.) Favorable Winds is great because it only benefits other Rangers, and most enemy Rangers that could benefit from Favorable Winds probably have it anyway.

First post. Let me know what you think.

E Power · Jan 25, 2006, 12:19 AM // 00:19

remove hex is way to much casting time for a ranger to use.
troll unguent isn't worth using with 6 ws.
dual shot works well for most ranger spikers.
ressurection spell is rez signet.
16 marksmanship should be lowered a bit to say 12-14.
whirling defense as you stated in that tiny paragraph or little verse should be included in most ranger spike builds.
never really tried judges insight with barrage but it could work :P.

Dodo The Extinct · Jan 25, 2006, 03:05 AM // 03:05

In my opinion, R/Mo for a barrager is not that good if you are just using it for judges insight. Judges really doesnt do much. I would suggest being either R/E for a conjure, or being R/N for mark of pain. I like to use the R/N tactic for tombs. It actually works really well.

SnipiousMax · Jan 25, 2006, 04:37 AM // 04:37

Didn't they make it where Barrage only counts as one shot? Or was that just for Vampiric Strings?

Yolanda Kai · Jan 25, 2006, 07:26 AM // 07:26

It was like that very briefly in one of the MANY builds released last weekend. Apparently it got changed back almost immediately. I posted a threat about a Barrage Nerf as soon as I noticed my weapon swap w/ Barrage was useless, and then got a million responses saying I was crazy/hallucinating by the end of that night.

imrik32 · Jan 29, 2006, 04:01 PM // 16:01

Troll Unguent may not be hot with that little of stats, but I imagine it'd still help with hexes to stem or atleast slow down an assault of degen

XvArchonvX · Jan 30, 2006, 04:34 PM // 16:34

Sounds nice, but it's very much based on hitting large groups of enemies by being based on barrage. Basically if you use barrage on one target, you get one hit, so that kind of screws the use of a zealous bow. If you can find a large group of enemies tho, I can see this really working. Perhaps penetrating shot would work in here for that extra bit of armor penetration...