Curse

UberRusty · Sep 13, 2005, 07:10 PM // 19:10

It's time for Rusty to contribute something. IWAY groups are easy to counter. Easy as in, extremely easy. Kill Necro/Non Warrior, bunch up, heal ball, smite yourself, Meteor Shower, dead IWAY group. Or use some Mesmer skills. But what if you added in some ranged attackers? You have more than one method of attacking. Whether people who run crappy IWAY builds (yes, there are crap IWAY builds much like there are crappy Smite groups) will implement a Ranger or two into their IWAY group, I don't care.

This is a build I've tested AND works, and since I'm not going to use it, I've decided to post this build and hopefully contribute to GWG.

If you wish to flame me, go ahead. But make them entertaining, I want to flame back.

If you have some useful suggestions, please don't hesitate to add them.

Tiger's Fury
Melandru's Arrows [E]
Hunter's Shot
Determined Shot
I Will Avenge You!
Revive Animal
Charm Animal
Rez Signet.

Seems basic. It is basic. It's simple and basic to run. And it works. The fact that the enemy will heal ball and slap on Healing Seed means you already have an enchantment to work with on your Mel's Arrows. Under a 66% attack increase speed (IWAY + Tiger's Fury), you will probably be doing around the same damage as a Warrior if not more (depends, haven't worked out the math yet).

The order of skills goes like this. Mel's Arrows once. Tiger's Fury once. Hunter's Shot and Determined Shot whenever they're ready. Once your Tiger's Fury is out, shoot normally until Mel's Arrows recharges. Prep it, Tiger's Fury. Rinse and repeat. When animals die, IWAY yourself.

Instead of having someone else carry Revive Animal, since you have Expertise, go around around and cast Revive Animal when you need to move.

Now as if all builds, there are some glaring "counters" and disavantages. I state the obvious for those who cannot see it.

1) You will be attacked first if everyone else is a Warrior. Or, you will be attacked second after the Necro/Other char goes down.

2) Revive Animal requires you to run into the fray, you may get AoE'd.

3) You will take more damage than a Warrior, and you will only get 3 health regen as opposed to the 6 a Warrior gets.

Comment.

Zeru · Sep 13, 2005, 07:53 PM // 19:53

Are you sure attack speed buffs stacks?

It might be overlooked because all other speed buffs autocancel each other but I'd be rather surprised if they didn't have a stacking cap like every other skill out there.

There are two key skills missing here that would aid you greatly: Pindown (vs IWAY builds) and Debilitating Shot (vs any other build).

Revive Animal just doesn't seem worth it to me. Subbing this and hunters out will let you take the previously mentioned skills and add a whole lot more disruption capability.

mr_boo · Sep 13, 2005, 08:27 PM // 20:27

Just a quick question: why do you have Determined Shot in there? It recharges too slow for my taste...sub-in Penetrating Attack.

smurfhunter · Sep 13, 2005, 09:29 PM // 21:29

yeap, a mix of the barrage build i posted above and this and a standard IWAY is pretty mean

personally id have maybe 2 rangers, one with melandrus an 1 with barrage but its your choice. barrage is better IMO only because the team will ball up, but hey melandrus does more damage to one target. so w/e.

oh and correct me if im wrong, but IWAY is strength attrib (right?) so it wont work as well in a ranger primary. (you only get like 3 pips i think)

zehly · Sep 13, 2005, 10:00 PM // 22:00

Can someone give me a quick discription of what IWAY is? Search yielded references to it, but no definition.

ElderAtronach · Sep 13, 2005, 10:05 PM // 22:05

IWAY = I will avenge you

Smurfhunter: the regen isn't the important part of IWAY.

I Farm Sigils · Sep 13, 2005, 10:24 PM // 22:24

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehly

Can someone give me a quick discription of what IWAY is? Search yielded references to it, but no definition.

Quote:

For each dead ally nearby, you gain 10 seconds of increased attack speed and health regeneration of +3-6.

3 dead pets = 9 regen and 30 secs of 33% attack speed. 5 dead pets passes the 45 second recharge, and maxes your regen at 10(15). The power of IWAY, is the fact that it's a shout. There is no way to remove it, it cast instantly, and it stacks with other stance related speed boost.

UberRusty · Sep 13, 2005, 10:25 PM // 22:25

Quote:

Just a quick question: why do you have Determined Shot in there? It recharges too slow for my taste...sub-in Penetrating Attack.

Because it only costs 5 energy.

Quote:

oh and correct me if im wrong, but IWAY is strength attrib (right?) so it wont work as well in a ranger primary. (you only get like 3 pips i think)

You're right, but I already mentioned this in the first post.

Quote:

Are you sure attack speed buffs stacks?

Yes, I have tested it. I've tested the whole build... you don't believe me? *cries*

IWAY = Shout, speed buff = stance. Shout + Stance = OMG WTF SO FAST ATTACKENINXXX. It's incredibly insane.

Quote:

There are two key skills missing here that would aid you greatly: Pindown (vs IWAY builds) and Debilitating Shot (vs any other build).

Well, pindown is a good skill, but since a 3 second snare won't do much for an IWAY group, I didn't decide to bring it. Some of the Axes Warriors could bring Axe Rake too. I say 3 seconds, because an E/Mo Smiter will just draw condition off the target, IF it's an organized team.

But basically, let's just pretend all teams you're going to be fighting will be organized teams. Why so? IWAY mows down the unorganized. That's why so many of them get into HoH only to lose.

Quote:

Revive Animal just doesn't seem worth it to me. Subbing this and hunters out will let you take the previously mentioned skills and add a whole lot more disruption capability.

Well, you see, that's the thing. IWAY requires your pet's corpses, and if you're in a 6 v 8, unless you're planning on camping your own spawn, you're going to need to move the pets around. On Altar matches or whatnot, it's okay to swap out Revive Animal for something else... assuming you get to Altar matches without it.

P.S. Don't think you HAVE to stick to my skillset, you can obviously change it and run variations as you see fit.

I Farm Sigils · Sep 13, 2005, 10:37 PM // 22:37

IWAY is mainly meant for HoH, and any Ranger build without distracting shot in HoH will have trouble with Altars. And Dual Shot seems like a necessity skill with Melandru's. Those are probably the two changes I would make.

Glasswalker · Sep 13, 2005, 10:43 PM // 22:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by zehly

Can someone give me a quick discription of what IWAY is? Search yielded references to it, but no definition.

To answer your question a little more thoroughly:
I Will Avenge You

fuzzybulldozer · Sep 13, 2005, 11:53 PM // 23:53

i discovered this nifty little skill a long time ago, and now all these noob w/rangers with pets are using it. grrr

ElderAtronach · Sep 14, 2005, 12:06 AM // 00:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by I Farm Sigils

3 dead pets = 9 regen and 30 secs of 33% attack speed. 5 dead pets passes the 45 second recharge, and maxes your regen at 10(15). The power of IWAY, is the fact that it's a shout. There is no way to remove it, it cast instantly, and it stacks with other stance related speed boost.

Wrong. The regen does not stack, no matter how many dead allies are in range, you'll still get +3-5.

UberRusty · Sep 14, 2005, 01:19 AM // 01:19

Quote:

And Dual Shot seems like a necessity skill with Melandru's.

In the LMM's quickshot build thread, or some other popular thread in the endless thousands of Ranger threads, someone concluded that using Dual Shot with Mel's Arrows won't really make a difference in damage if you used, let's say, a single arrow bow attack such as Penetrating Shot etc. They were right, at least in my experience.

Quote:

Wrong. The regen does not stack, no matter how many dead allies are in range, you'll still get +3-5.

Thankyou, I was about to make that correction. Obviously someone hasn't played this build. *cough cough, shifty eyes.*

Quebec Osti · Sep 14, 2005, 01:27 AM // 01:27

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

Wrong. The regen does not stack, no matter how many dead allies are in range, you'll still get +3-5.

Right, but its 3-6

smurfhunter · Sep 14, 2005, 01:39 AM // 01:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

IWAY = I will avenge you

Smurfhunter: the regen isn't the important part of IWAY.

i wouldnt totally dismiss the regen of it, but yea the attack speed is far more important. and ive seen builds like this in the halls - i heard this from a friend of a friend but i think atm the guy named microsoft excel is running a pug of this build

and at 10 strength IWAY gives 6 regen.

the best way to see what IWAY is would be to go tombs for like 3-5 matches. at least 1 will be IWAY or a variation.

and i would personally take barrage over melandrus for another reason: if you simply use melandrus the other team can safely stay in a ball and do the regular strategy, only problem being that after the warriors die the necros/monks/rangers are still left. barrage will encourage them to scatter which will most probably be the last thing they do.

Neo-LD · Sep 14, 2005, 02:55 AM // 02:55

Very nice. I dont know why you were worried about being flamed, the build is very solid. About a month ago (before typical guild wars palyers knew IWAY existed) my guild tried a very funny arena team consisting of shouting rangers: they would shout random stuff like shields up/fear me/watch yourself/for great justice/but the most funny part was when someone died and they all shouted IWAY!!!!!!

we got a lot of "lol"s for that.

anyways, IWAY rangers are perfectly valid and usable, mostly b/c they circumvent most of the typical IWAY counters.

UberRusty · Sep 14, 2005, 03:26 AM // 03:26

Quote:

Very nice. I dont know why you were worried about being flamed, the build is very solid.

Thankyou. But I wasn't worried, I was actually eager to see what responses this thread would generate, along with trying to contribute. I was beginning to think GWG had people who flamed EVERYTHING, and it is not the case. If it was though, then I WOULD be worried. :P

Quote:

and i would personally take barrage over melandrus for another reason: if you simply use melandrus the other team can safely stay in a ball and do the regular strategy, only problem being that after the warriors die the necros/monks/rangers are still left. barrage will encourage them to scatter which will most probably be the last thing they do.

Barrage will trigger the Healing Ball even if you're not attacking the Heal Seeded target, and heal for MORE than what you damage each target for. The fact that Mel's does 21 dmg at 10/11 Wilderness (forgot), coupled with your bow damage, means you're doing MORE damage than Healing Seed is generating for that target. That is half the purpose of this build.

The second is that Barrage has a 1 second recharge, and takes off all your preparations. With IWAY + Tiger's Fury you're attacking faster than you can Barrage. And you can't put any preparations on your arrows either. Therefore, Barrage would be a horrible elite for the purpose of this build.

Keure · Sep 14, 2005, 03:57 AM // 03:57

First:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeru

Are you sure attack speed buffs stacks?

I would like to confirm that they stack, at least partially - there might be an attack speed buff cap somewhere.

Second:

I like the build. MA is a great choice.

When you've got IWAY&TF attack speed, the ratio of attack skills/regular attacks goes down, plus you have a high damage MA buffing every shot. Both of these means that your +damage skills aren't contributing as much to your DPS as they would in your traditional TF build.

I would thus have the tendency to switch in debil (pain in the ass energy denial) for at least one of your attack skills - probably Determined Shot because its cooldown time makes it weak for this build. Maybe hunter's can go too for another disruption skill like distracting.

I Farm Sigils · Sep 14, 2005, 05:37 AM // 05:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by ElderAtronach

Wrong. The regen does not stack, no matter how many dead allies are in range, you'll still get +3-5.

Hehe, shows how much I play it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by UberRusty

In the LMM's quickshot build thread, or some other popular thread in the endless thousands of Ranger threads, someone concluded that using Dual Shot with Mel's Arrows won't really make a difference in damage if you used, let's say, a single arrow bow attack such as Penetrating Shot etc. They were right, at least in my experience.

I'm not sure if that's a good thread to reference information from. I remember some kid thinking Favorable and RtW stacking and being modified by JI or something stupid. Anyway, you seem to tiptoe around Distracting... You gotta agree that is probably one of the best Ranger skills.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Keure

I would thus have the tendency to switch in debil (pain in the ass energy denial) for at least one of your attack skills - probably Determined Shot because its cooldown time makes it weak for this build. Maybe hunter's can go too for another disruption skill like distracting.

I agree with this.

Lews · Sep 14, 2005, 06:31 AM // 06:31

Hi Rusty!