Degen build I came up with

Alright here is a build I came up with today.

anyways, this is it:




You can see what the attributes, runes and skills are in the picture. Note that I am also using a fiery bow string. This build will not work properly without.

Heres the strategy:

use your energy signet before engaging, then use hunters shot while your opponent is running toward you. Now hit mark of rodgort and whirling defense. The attack using your poison arrow. Stop any nasty spells/healing with your distracting shot and use throw dirt when whirling defense runs out. Heal with troll unguent. Your opponent will be constantly burning, bleeding and poisoned. Believe it or not, this is enought to take down an opponent with ease. The fun thing is, even when it is close your opponent will still have all the crap on him, killing him after you died.

Good to use in: basically anywhere. PvE, PvP it all works. Tried it.

beware of: plague touch etc. You do not want to get your own stuff on you.
beware of: stances. You are a ranger using arrows, so a stance could very well shut you down.

you can take out throw dirt for whatever the situation calls for. A running skill in AB would probably be a good choise, or a rez sig.

comments? feedback?

One cool idea i thought of was taking a Virulence Spiker or some other Fragility user... every time the burning ends after 3 secs they take dmg plus when u put the burning back on.... the poison and bleeding too
Virulence Spiker and Tainted Flames ("your" ranger build) IMO would PWN TA

Hmm I'm going to be the a****** who only point at the bad points - sorry

But burning (and you probably have your target burning during 30 secs if you don't miss) = 7 arrows degen. Poison = 4 arrows degen. Bleeding = 3 secs degen. Total = 14 arrows degen, when the max is 10. Ok it helps prevent regen but erm... do you need to sacrifice a skill for that? I'd take out hunters shot and replace it either by pin down or simply an attack skill like penetrating attack (if you have enough energy for that).

Another flaw: I don't understand why you bring poison arrow while you're not using any other preparation. You could use apply poison instead and save the elite slot for something else. Or keep poison arrow and bring a preparation. Kindle seems to fit with the build.

i believe you posted this on the rangers beacon...since i dont know many people who choose 11 as their expertise level, especially based around mark of rodgort. so i've already left the majority of my feedback. and called shot can always be used if a stance is being used to keep the burning.

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate it!

Virulence WOULD make this build 100x better, why didn't I think of that Thanks for the heads up, yeah im going to try this out with a virulence partner.

Sir Mad, pointing out bad points is fine by me. The burning is 25 seconds actually though. (yeah, less). I decided to go for a little extra on the degen because of healing breeze. Theres just so many W/mo out there with a healing breeze, I like killing them anyway. You are right, in general it would probably be overkill. I will experiment with other skills. But those extra points come in handy pretty often.

I considered using conjure flame, kindle arrows or the poisonous preparation. The thing is, I'm not a big fan of preparations. I tried conjure flame, but I find it doin gonly 4 extra damage very often because of armor. Kindle arrows was possible, but I don't like the casting time on preparations. This is also why I dislike the poisonous preparation. I don't want to be sitting on my knees fiddling with my arrows while someone attacks me. I don't want to have to run from a fight to use a preparation when I can just use say, poison arrow to poison the guy without fleeing.

Nivryx I really like your called shot idea. I had been wondering how I could easily get around stances. Thank you. I will consider taking out hunters shot for this skill.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but expertise does not go towards spells. In other words, rodgort costs 25 no matter what your expertise is. Is this what you were getting at?

I am still debating about my attribute distribution myself, don't really know what I value most. That's why I made expertise and markmanship 11 for now, since I can't decide ^-^

Thank you all of the critisisms, keep them coming

Well 11 in expertise is not a break point for the skills you have (costing 5 and 10 energy).

With 12 exp, your skills costing normally 10 energy are reduced to 5, and the skills costing 5 energy cost 3 energy.
With 9 expertise, 10 energy -> 6, and 5 energy -> 3.
With 8 expertise, 10 energy -> 7, and 5 energy -> 3.

So unless you wanna raise your expertise to 12 (which may not be that a good idea with a build using 4 different attributes), you'd better go with 9 or even 8 as all your non-spell skills costs 5 energy except WD. Of course the duration of WD and throw dirt would be slightly reduced, but you could boost marksmanship to 12 without runes and deal more damage.

Assuming you're ok with the current level of fire magic, that would be:

Marksmanship: 12 + 1 + ??? (minor/major/sup rune)
Expertise: 7+1
WS: 8+1
Fire: 8

With 1 att point left I think.

On a side-note, what I said about pin down in my other post may also help you with one big flaw of this build, as you pointed out: plague touch users (including touchies). They won't plague touch you if they're crippled. It may also help you with the wammos rushing upon you.