Curse

Thanato · May 19, 2005, 07:18 AM // 07:18

during the BWE i was using my Mo/N, or as i called him, the walking contradiction

. i found it quite spiffy as well. raise some minions, heal em to full, send em out and smite smite smite

although now i'm a R/Me and have no regrets. mind you i mostly use ranger skills but epidemic and backfire have earned a place on my skillbar

pHobac · May 19, 2005, 08:49 AM // 08:49

Personally, i love my N/mo, hes my main character, lvl 20, beat the game, done underworld and fissure more times than i care to think about, and i still love to play him.
The skills I use are,

Deathly Swarn
Grenths Balance
Heal Area
Animate Bone Horror
Animate Bone Fiend
Veratas Sacrifice
Healing Breeze
and either Rebirth, restore life, or vengence, depending on the mission

I find that with my high soul reaping i can summon constantly and never have energy problems, plus the area heal and veratas sacrifice give me great minion raising power.
My playing style is basically to get so many summons, all lvl 17 btw, that the enemies wont know what hit them, my best ever was 25ish, although i never have the presense of mind to get a screen until i lose a couple, so ill just say 21 cause that is what i can back up. My average is only 15-20 though. But even 15 lvl 17 horrors and fiends can overwhelm most enemies.
In pvp however, i suck big sweaty monky balls. I'm just about about as usefull as a screendoor on a submarine

none · May 19, 2005, 09:06 AM // 09:06

most rare builds are probably all that use only abilities from one class. and within those, it's of course rangers and mesmers coming first.

pretty rare though (i've only seen once) are Mo/R. i'm playing one, but mostly abandoning the ranger abilities, except for the occasional - how fun it is to tame something - game.

Akshara · May 19, 2005, 11:07 AM // 11:07

Smiting Prayers Monk, regardless of the secondary.

BezoomnyDroog · May 19, 2005, 11:15 AM // 11:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by Synthite

Im trying N/R at the moment. I feel it has some potential with its traps and curses.

We must be the only 2 N/R in the game

I dont even see it mentioned anywhere in this thread. (BTW I specialize in Death Magic)

Obsidian Dragon · May 19, 2005, 05:04 PM // 17:04

My current Mesmer/Nec build looks like this, and its a real pain for opposing casters. I'll also my optional spells in here that I sometimes use depending on what my group wants.

Dom 10 + 2
Ill 10 + 2
Ins 9 + 2
Death 7

Backfire - Interupt +119 dmg
Conjure Phantasm - 12 sec -5 H degen
Mantra of Persistence - 74 seconds Illusion spells last 79% longer
Migrane - for 25 seconds -3 H degen and spells take 100% longer to cast
Power drain - interupt and I gain 23 energy
Power leak - interupt they lose 22 energy
Power spike - interrupt +86 damage
Phantom pain - H degen -3 for 17 seconds suffers Deep wound lowering max health by 20%

Underlined is affected by the mantra

My extra spells are these 2 combinations:
Rotting Flesh - disease for 17 seconds, slowly losing health OR
Enfeeble - suffer from weakness
Epidemic - spread the above 2 around to all enemies in the area.

shawn23233 · May 19, 2005, 05:37 PM // 17:37

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cymboric Treewalker

I am doing Me/N and enjoy the build so far. I am only level 9 though so the tough part has yet to come.

ROFL me too level 9 as well. Its my first toon in GW but I really like it great combo of skills. Should be good in team strategy PvP too I expect, dont know about 1v1 though.

Davin Kabak · May 19, 2005, 09:09 PM // 21:09

Quote:

Expertise is more helpful to warriors than the strength is to a ranger, and without expertise the ranger abilities would be too pricey for most warriors.

First of all, W/R does not get Expertise. It is Ranger Primary only.
Secondly, R/W does not get Strength. It is Warrior Primary only.

I personally play a R/W, and have since the World Premier. There are not a lot of us around, but the ones I have seen, have been EXCELLENT players.

The strength of this build is that they can be spec'd to be either an entirely Ranged character (As mine is), or entirely Melee. They CAN be split down the middle, and played effectively, but it takes an EXTREMLY skilled player to carry this off in serious PvP play. It is not easy.

Rangers as a whole are very underrated. I can't count how many times that I have joined a party, only for them to find out I'm a Ranger, then kicked out. They don't even bother to ask me what my Fame is, or how experienced I am. They just assume I'm a gimp player, can't tank, etc.

As I've said in many threads before, the flexibility of the Ranger is his/her strength. This is not a tangible, math-based philosophy. I cannot give you an equation which will show you why I can do more damage than X. It's not about the math. It's about the strategy. Rangers, more than any other class, are about making the key plays in a game, that brings victory.

Example:

- Pinning down that key monk from 60' away, so the chasing warriors can kill it. Then attack the next one 2 seconds later.
- Putting poison/bleed on the enemy preist who's mobbed by his team, blocking your warriors' advance.
- Scouting the enemy stronghold, and finding a weakness in their defenses
- Taking the aggro from that troublesome Elementalist, tanking their elemental damage (because your armor protects you from it) so your warriors are free to kill him.
- Sitting on that hill up there, calling targets for the team, so they can focus fire and kill quicker.
- Sitting on that hill up there, and killing/distracting the troublesome warrior harrassing your monk.
- Staying in the back, conditioning that one target, allowing your Mesmer to epidemic those conditions to the whole enemy team.
- Attacking a key enemy target, while still being able to keep an eye out for ambush from a second team.

I could go on and on. Its a subtle thing, which is why it takes a special kind of player to truly become a master at being a Ranger. Many consider a Ranger just a support class, but it's not. They have EXCELLENT survivability, and are usually one of the last members of the party alive (for many different reasons). The truth is, a good Ranger will not shirk away from taking on nearly any role you want to assign him/her. They can do it all, and do it relatively well. Just tell 'em what needs done, and it usually does get done.

Ashock · May 19, 2005, 10:17 PM // 22:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davin Kabak

They have EXCELLENT survivability, and are usually one of the last members of the party alive (for many different reasons).

I'm not going to argue with you about your other points, as I simply do not know enough about Rangers. However, the single biggest reason for the above is really very simple. Rangers are furthest from where the fight is, pure and simple. All other reasons are minor.

-A

Mirail · May 19, 2005, 10:36 PM // 22:36

Well I decided to make a monk/ranger for full support alreadu thoughd it out, might change a few things here and there

Healing prayers 9+1
Protecting prayers 9+3
Divine Favor 3+1
Beast mastery 12+3 (I see you can get a skill up to lvl 16, I wonder how but If I can I might make this one lvl 16)

Ranger skills :

Fertile Season - Nature Ritual
Create a level 1-8 Spirit. For creatures within its range,maximum health is increased by 50-474 and they gain +24 armor. This Spirit dies after 30-78 seconds.

Symbiosis - Nature Ritual
Create a level 1-8 Spirit. For creatures within its range, for each enchantment on a creature, that creataure's maximum health is increased by 27-125. This Spirit dies after 30-126 seconds

Monk Skills :

Infuse Health - Spell
Lose half your current health. Target other ally is healed for 100-129% of the amount you lost.

Heal Other - Spell
Heal target other ally for 35-151 Health.

Aegis - Enchantment Spell
All party members are enchanted with Aegis. For 5-10 seconds, they have a 50% chance to block attacks.

Life Barrier {Elite} - Enchantment Spell
While you maintain this "Enchantment", damage to target other ally is halved. If your health is below 70~46% when that ally takes damage, Life Barrier ends.

Light of Dwayna - Spell
Resurrect all nearby dead allies.

Essence Bond - Enchantment Spell
While you maintain this "Enchantment", whenever your target ally takes physical damage, you gain 1 energy. (I might change this skill with healing spring)

I´m still sorting out wich skills are best for this tactic. (And im not sure if its a common used one, I for one havent seen one yet.

The basic goal of this build is to be supportive to your party, giving them an huge amount of extra hp. And reducing the amount of damage they take..

Mallich · May 20, 2005, 12:20 AM // 00:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loralaiy

Thank goodness for that. If more people figured out the ass-kickery possibilities of our class Guild Wars would be in trouble.

Amen.

I play a N/Mo for my PvE stuff mostly, and since I've ascended her now and pretty much finished up I'm starting out my Me/R. I can't say exactly how my build will be in PvP yet... but if I can relate it to the other PvP games I've been involved with I'd imagine it'll be really good.

The classes no one tries are always the best ones, people just don't know what to expect when they see something new and almost always underestimate you, leaving it open for some serious butt kicking.

Morat · May 20, 2005, 09:02 AM // 09:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by deolmstead

I agree that Rangers are seriously underrated - just look at all the "why do Rangers suck?" threads on this forum.

I've played so far as Ranger, Warrior and Elementalist, and by far Ranger is the more challenging build, since you have to keep track of so many elements of gameplay at once to be any good at it. I think they're disparaged in PUGs because their contribution is subtle (ie, not very visible physically) and supportive. If a ranger in a group is doing their job, then EVERYONE else on the team should be having an easier time of it.

Personally, I play as a R/W and see that occasionally, but not as much as other R/combos (ie, R/N or R/Me).

I'm R/E and I think I may be missing something here. Should everyone else be having an easier time because I'm using ranged attacks to take out support chars (charr shamens and the like) or should I be equipping some support skills/spells for more direct support?

ginetti · May 20, 2005, 05:09 PM // 17:09

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lazarus

The most under used (I am not sure about under rated) build I see is Me/anything. I am not sure if it's the low AL, the fact their skills have little VISUAL effect on a battle, or that fruity-tootie River Dance that is putting people off of playing a Mesmer.

Lazarus

is this the same Lazarus from WOW?

GoldSpider · May 23, 2005, 03:10 PM // 15:10

Right now I have a relatively young (level 8) Warroir/Ranger that is, so far, doing very well in PvE. I'm focusing on Beast Mastery, Swordsmanship, and Tactics.

Eventually I'd like to wander into PvP, but I'm worried that my pick of W/R will handicap me. I know they say that every combination has its place, but I've seen next to ZERO discussion here about the W/R combo.

Any suggestions on what I might want to start practicing, or what I should change? Would be most appreciated.

Lim-Dul · May 23, 2005, 07:05 PM // 19:05

Haha! I love the fact, that people uderestimate Mesmers. They underestimate them until they see ME on the battlefield. I'm playing two kinds of builds and have to switch attributes constantly BUT that is no problem for me.

I'm playing as a Me/W (Illusionary Warrior of course) BUT as a pure Me, too. You COULD think that my pure Me build would be a shutdown-char, but in fact I use it for damage's sake. Most people think that Mesmers can't do a lot of damage - that's where they are wrong: Mesmers can't do a lot of damage with a single skill BUT they can stack dmg FAR better than any other class. It just takes one wrong move to make your character EXPLODE with damage, if a Mesmer (that is me ^^) manages to stack his hexes - and with the right amount of Fast Casting he'll do this for sure. There are SOOO many Mesmer combos, that I'm having a hard time selecting skills before missions and PvP. ^^ It's not a question of "is this combo good", but rather "do I want to massacre the enemy with this combo, or another one which just looks different". ^^
I have crafted myself two sets of armor - a Rogue's set and an Enchater's set - depending on how I want to make myself useful for the team I don the one or the other.
Hands down - a pure Mesmer build is the only PURE build (besides some Ranger builds) that can 0wn you bu using just single class skills - the Mesmer has everything - from energy management (Inspiration Magic) to Interrupts and Damage-Dealing spells (Illusion and Domination). Many people also fail to see the relevance of fast casting - it isn't a BAD primary attribute - it's just less obvious than the attributes of the other classes. When you think of the above mentioned hex stacking it would simply suck without Fast Casting - usually a right score in this attribute makes the difference between casting e.g. 2 hexes and 3 hexes. And you have to keep in mind, that the hexes will most likely be dispelled, so you have to use them in combos so as to reach their full effect.
All in all my opinion is that Mesmers might be the best and most underrated class in GW - there ARE people who know how to use their full potential - but not many. You really see the difference between a party with a Mesmer in it and one without - you will ALWAYS see that the first kind of party will be like 150% more effective than the latter one. Of course GW is a team game so you shouldn't forget about all the slots you have to fill (healer, nuker, tank etc.), but it's far better to include a Mesmer in your roster, than to add another tank, monk or other straight-forward build.

Sarah Mengorran · May 23, 2005, 11:04 PM // 23:04

I'm playing a Ne/El for PvE, and haven't seen too many others in my travels. Specifically I'm a Blood Magic/Fire Magic damage dealer. A Boiling Blood Necromancer, if you will.

wgregory87 · May 23, 2005, 11:12 PM // 23:12

Im not sure if its rare, but im really liking my N/E build. Range caster with crazy leech powers... Health when cast from that one elementalist skill and leech from enemy from so many different necromancer skills.

Again I'm sorry if its a common build but I dont think I've seen any of them around the towns; mind you I dont really pay attention.

EDIT: I didn't read the whole thread. It seems the guy that posted before me feels the same way haha.

Axelia · May 23, 2005, 11:54 PM // 23:54

I started out with a R/W and never invested into any Warrior skill line. I was doing well up to around level 18 but decided to re-roll just for giggles. My Ranger died a LOT since I just did not understand how to use the skill line (TROLL URGENT is your friend learn to use it wisely). Anyway, I made a R/N and then started learning a new way to play and understand the skills and how they relate to each other.

Currently she is level 12 and I found a great Skill chain that does a lot of massive damage to groups of mobs. This build may already be around but I have not seen to much information. I would guess it to be a PvE build. I just have no interest in PvP so haven't tried it out. I always use Henchmen which leads to more successes. In fact my ranger has only died 2 times so far and once was when I ran into a group Ethins when I hit the tab key for next mob and did not look to see where she was running. The other death was due to lagg.

Without futher delay here is the build.

Enterprise - 10 + 1 (currently 4)
Wilderness Survival - 10 + 1 (currently 4 +1)
Markmanship - 7 + 2 (currently 3)
Curses - 9 (currently 6)

Equip skills - This may change but for now I think this is the best combination. I will explain how these work together at the end of this post.

The numbers shown are for a full level 20 build in the description FYI

Slot one -----------------------------------
Hunter's Shot (Bow Attack)
If Hunter's Shot hits, you strike for +14 damage. If this attack hits a foe that is moving or knocked down, that foe begins bleeding for 17 seconds.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 0 sec
Recharge time: 5 sec
Relevant attribute: Marksmanship

Slot 2 ----------------------------------------
Dual Shot (Bow Attack)
Shoot two arrows simultaneously at target foe. These arrows deal 25% less damage than normal.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 0 sec
Recharge time: 5 sec
Relevant attribute: None (Ranger)

Slot 3 ---------------------------------------
Ignite Arrows (Preparation)
For 12 seconds, your arrows explode on contact, dealing 14 fire damage.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 2 sec
Recharge time: 12 sec
Relevant attribute: Wilderness Survival

Slot 4 -------------------------------------------
Troll Unguent (Skill)
For 10 seconds, you gain health regeneration +9.
Casting cost: 5 energy
Casting time: 3 sec
Recharge time: 10 sec
Relevant attribute: Wilderness Survival

Slot 5 ------------------------------------------
Suffering (Hex)
For 20 seconds, target foe and all nearby foes suffer health degeneration of 2.
Casting cost: 15 energy
Casting time: 2 sec
Recharge time: 20 sec
Relevant attribute: Curses

Slot 6 -------------------------------------------
Mark of Pain (Hex)
For 30 seconds, whenever target foe takes physical damage, Mark of Pain deals 28 shadow damage to adjacent enemies.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 2 sec
Recharge time: 30 sec
Relevant attribute: Curses

Slot 7 -------------------------------------------
Comfort Animal (Skill)
You heal your animal companion for 20 health. If your companion is dead, it is resurrected with 10% health and all your skills are disabled for 8 seconds.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 1 sec
Recharge time: 1 sec
Relevant attribute: Beast Mastery

SLot 8 ---------------------------------------------
Charm Animal (Skill)
Charm target animal. Once charmed, your animal companion will travel with you whenever you have Charm Animal equipped.
Casting cost: 10 energy
Casting time: 10 sec
Recharge time: 0 sec
(Ir)relevant attribute: Beast Mastery

What I do is keep the mobs in small groups if possible. I usually lead off with Ignite arrow a few seconds before I cast Suffering this gives time to recharge a little and see if any tank mobs are charging. In the meantime my pet is on route toward the group I try to hit a Hunters shot on charging mob then focus on the caster group while my pet is tanking. I then cast Mark of pain on one of the groups and fire away at them. With dual shot. Remember that Mark of Pain deals damage to a group and my exploding arrows are also dealing damage along with the suffering. The battles usually last only 20 to 30 seconds I recharge Ignite arrow. I also sometimes get tanks ontop of me which I use Troll Urgent. When I finish off one I switch to the next mob which usualy drops in a few arrows.

I am still in development with this build but it look promising.

hell's boss · May 24, 2005, 01:09 AM // 01:09

i need good bulids and skills for a elemenlist/ranger if you have anaything to help me plz post it

hell's boss · May 24, 2005, 01:12 AM // 01:12

i need good skills and help for a elemenlist/ranger i mean were to get eleit skills armor weapons that stuff if you can help me pzl post back