Curse

Riotact · Jun 04, 2006, 11:38 AM // 11:38

Im an axe weilding W/Mo and Cannot beat 1 on 1 a Ranger/Necro thanks to Vamp touch. Seems like everyday theres more and more of them too.
How can u avoid Vamp Touch besides running away?
Thx

Haggard · Jun 04, 2006, 11:41 AM // 11:41

Find an effective combo to out-damage their healing. I use a W/R TF sword build which chops them up in seconds, but for w/mo you could always try ragemending.

fb2000 · Jun 04, 2006, 11:44 AM // 11:44

if u manage to somehow get a knock down on them, they are easy catch (provided its not bazillions of them on u)

dunno how ud get that with axe w/mo tho

Sacho · Jun 04, 2006, 01:52 PM // 13:52

Erm...
Build up adrenaline on him or an off-target(if he uses a stance), then do a spike.
Knockdown, a lucky distracting, wild blow, or just wait out his stance, then simply overbear him with damage. Or just ignore him(he has pretty crap damage), and kill the rest of the team. Quoting the last thread about r/n, you shouldn't be thinking "How do I beat a R/N", you should be thinking, "How can my team beat a team with an R/N".

Iraqalypse Now · Jun 05, 2006, 12:05 AM // 00:05

whenever the r/nec gets on you, sprint away until he switches targets. Other ways to win: degen + cripple. Hamstring is less than ideal because its meelee range (plague touch and GG). Caltrops would work, as would crippling anguish. Usually comp arena touchers don't bring vamp gaze (i don't), and OoB > Life Transfer so you usually don't have to worry about the transfer builds.

If you are pro with a mesmer you can deal with the touchers, either crippling anguish and kite him, or Mantra of Recovery + caltrops (my fave comp arena build uses it, its rather funny). Diversion spam works as well, as does blackout. Dshot is less than ideal because of dodge/zojun's haste, so unless you are using seeking arrows...

Honestly though, just get really good at a mesmer build with movement control and spammable shutdown and you should be fine most of the time. That or play a WoH monk.

romO · Jun 05, 2006, 12:35 AM // 00:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iraqalypse Now

whenever the r/nec gets on you, sprint away until he switches targets.

This is random arena. There is no such thing as switching targets. If you are who the touch ranger targets when he first presses "c", you are going to have to deal with him for the rest of the match.

batou · Jun 05, 2006, 12:56 AM // 00:56

most touch necros carry throw dirt, so RUN TO YOUR MONK

Iraqalypse Now · Jun 05, 2006, 02:53 AM // 02:53

I don't bring throw dirt when I play touch necro in random arena - I'm already more than good against warriors and rangers. 2x dodge is very nice vs rangers, and warriors tend to stand still and take the touching like a traumatized twelve year old.

Running to your monk isn't the answer, the answer is to run away from the touch ranger while remaining in range of the monk (if any). Snares are good, pin down suffers from the stances, but most others are fine.

If your team kites correctly and controls movement, you should be fine against touch rangers. Its just that random arena teams often have zero movement control, and often have no clue on kiting.

Zui · Jun 05, 2006, 03:10 AM // 03:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by romO

This is random arena. There is no such thing as switching targets. If you are who the touch ranger targets when he first presses "c", you are going to have to deal with him for the rest of the match

I couldn't have said it better myself. It's almost like you're holding a gear in PvE...

Warskull · Jun 05, 2006, 11:15 AM // 11:15

You would have to take wild blow to knock him out of stances and power through their self-heals to kill him. It would be better for you to wipe out the rest of his team and deal with him last in most cases.

Touch rangers are most easily dealt with using degen and snares.

Red Locust · Jun 06, 2006, 06:28 AM // 06:28

Touch rangers piss me off mainly because they're essentially doing to TA/RA/AB what old ether renewal smite did to tombs, to a lesser extent. Sure there are many ways of shutting them down (hexes being the only really effective way of doing so), but they're dead easy to play, and put out a lot of damage while healing themselves.

ANet conveniently added in 2 vampiric bite skills. They also conveniently added in 2 versions of dodge, which together with jacked up expertise happens to be the best speed boost touch rangers could hope for. 33% speed boost with ~75% arrow evasion to dodge those interrupts. They even have an elite spot open for escape or hell, even oath shot. Whirling defense anyone? Vampiric skills also conveniently ignore dodge/evade stances, anti-spell and anti-attack countermeasures and pretty much everything other than spiteful spirit. Oh look at that, rangers also have the highest elemental armor. Hexes (and endless kiting, which takes you out of the game also) are your only salvation, and those can be dealt with by other classes.

People seem to always assume an idiot is at the controlling end of every touch ranger. There are very easy ways to play it properly and make a killer group of touch rangers and some support character, not to mention how deadly they can be in random fights. They are easily outplayed in GvG and HA, but in pretty much every other place they're a huge pain in the arse. I don't see why ANet had to make duplicates of the few skills that made touch rangers a pain.

JR · Jun 06, 2006, 10:49 AM // 10:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by Red Locust

Touch rangers piss me off mainly because they're essentially doing to TA/RA/AB what old ether renewal smite did to tombs, to a lesser extent.

I wouldn't really agree with that; at all.

Ether Renewal smite was sick, and if you ran it well you would probably have a large amount of success with it. It was actually a good build to run. Touch Rangers are just a gimmick, nothing more.

We went into TA the other day, with two anti-melee/degen hexers, an axe Warrior and a Boon Prot. No snares at all. Came up against a team of four touch rangers... it was over in about two minutes. Good players will beat them.

sir lockt · Jun 06, 2006, 11:23 AM // 11:23

... A comparison to ether renewal dual smite? lol

department historical facts: Ether renewal was stopped by the a) nerf of renewal and b) by the rise of the ultimate counter build, that other gimmick around there: IWAY.

Touch rangers arent nearly that annoying, they are just to gank unsuspected players. Outdamaging their energy heavy life-stealing is not difficult... most of the ideas above are good ones: and reconsider, if you end up 1vs1 I think you have a team-problem...

and ditch the wammo.. that might work even better

Esuna · Jun 06, 2006, 11:36 AM // 11:36

You beat them by kiting, and taking down their teammates as quickly as possible. Remember they have no actual healer, so beat on a single target enough and they will eventually die. And when they die, that's one res sig they will have to use. The key is focus rapid fire. Many teams take the term kiting too lightly. It's not just casters who have to do it - but warriors and rangers too. Basically if you're taking a lot of beating from touchers on you, you HAVE to kite. It always helps if you're on voice communication with your monk, too. Remember that the standard boon prot doesn't have much defense against these guys, and if your team starts to take up too much damage your monk can eventually run out of energy.

makosi · Jun 06, 2006, 12:00 PM // 12:00

I can't bear it when people say "just kite and they can't get you". Yes, its a good idea in theory but that also means that you cannot cast spells or attack because your running. As soon as you stop to cast, they are sucking your life away. They often use running skills to so when you run, they run 33% faster and Vamp you.

Technically it is an exploit - the skills used are skills and not attack skills whereas the defitnition of Expertise states that it reduces the cost of attack skills not simply 'skills'. We all know that these Vampiric skills are arcane/magical and rangers seem to be anti-magical. For example Melandru's Shot and Savage Shot deal more dmg to those under enchantments and casting spells.

Whether they are overpowered or not is debatable but either the skill descriptions should be fixed or the Expertise description should be fixed. Its not within the ethos of Guild Wars.

JR · Jun 06, 2006, 12:29 PM // 12:29

I believe the actual description is "non-spell skills" not "attack skills", making it's interraction with Vamp Touch/Bite perfectly legitimate.

makosi · Jun 06, 2006, 02:40 PM // 14:40

I beg to differ.

JR · Jun 06, 2006, 02:54 PM // 14:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by makosi

I beg to differ.

The first sentence of that paragraph almost seems to sum it up, but then the second in true Anet fashion is complete garbage.

Quote:

Several skills, especially those related to Energy costs and skill recharge times, become more effective with higher Expertise.

'Several skills'? 'especially those'?

Another case of misleading descriptions ingame, I think...

Quote:

Originally Posted by GuildWiki.org

Expertise reduces the energy costs of all non-spell skills from any profession at a rate of 4% per point. Attacks, Glyphs, Nature Rituals, Preparations, Stances, Shouts and Traps are affected. This also affects Necromancer touch skills and Ritualist Binding Rituals.

makosi · Jun 06, 2006, 03:06 PM // 15:06

Yeah its quite a sloppy description. If they re-worded it some of this ambiguity could be avoided. I mean, what skills, related to energy cost or recharge times are more effective with expertise? Serpent's Quickness decreases recharge time but expertise doesn't affect that recharge time or the rate in which skills recharge whatsoever. Maybe this description was more valid during the Beta testings? i don't know. :S

Cyril Aspect · Jun 06, 2006, 03:15 PM // 15:15

I think we can safely ignore the issue of wording since GW is absolutely chock full of terribly or completely misworded skills and attributes.

as most people who are concerned about competition know. In this game the only way to know what something really does is to test it.

regardless touch rangers are pretty low in terms of efficiency. they do tend to run out of energy and kiting makes their life miserable speed boost or not.

When you kite a toucher it doesn't matter as much tha the will use his speed boosts and still hit you, you still delay it and drastically drop his dps just by moving around.

as has already been mentioned degen makes them cry.

If we get really lucky maybe all these threads on touchers will have touch rangers forcing people to learn to kite, something so essential that I find it hilarious in TA when people stand and let me pound on them with my war.