I'm R/Mo right now.. should I change?

Hey everyone,

My first character was a fire Elementalist/Mesmer. I liked this character quite a bit and leveled it to 13. Me and my cousin decided to start new characters just because we never got the chance to play at the same level (he was way ahead of me). I started a Necromancer but for some reason didn't really like it. Now, I've created a Ranger. I like this profession a lot. I picked Monk as my secondary.. I'm not sure if that was a good choice or not? What do you think?

I'm mainly trying to cause as much damage as I can from a distance but still be able to stay alive and survive the ranged attacks. This is for PvE by the way. Any tips towards a secondary profession and maybe some skills to look for?

Thanks,
Joey

Any secondary profession can be made to work, and /Mo gives you plenty of offensive and defensive opportunities. And if it doesn't work for you, you don't have to use it; many rangers stay "pure" and don't use any skills from their secondary profession. Rangers, IMO, are the profession with the most reason to stay pure, as expertise (the most important ranger attribute) doesn't affect spells, and unless you're a R/W, your secondary skills will be made up of lots of spells.

One you can, using vigorous spirit and live vicariously on yourself can net you roughly 15-20 points of health per hit you make on something, I like doign taht witha ranger monk

Quote: Originally Posted by Tellani Artini

for PVE JUdges Insight and Barrage are supposed to be good. For tightly packed mobs Ignite arrow, TIgers FUry, DUal Shot, and and occasional psn arrow can be nice. A pet can also be a decent mini tank to draw some attention away from you, but remember that if/when they die your skills are disabled for 8 seconds. As for secondary ele is nice for damage, necro has some flexability, monk has heals/res/damage too. Many rangers use mostly all ranger skills anyway, ranger is a very flexible class, so 2nd class doesnt usually matter as much. I'm probably switching to R/Mo just for the Res/rebirth instead of using that darn Res Signet. Judges Insight can be nice too vs undead. Before we can suggest many skills we need to know what style of play you like or plan on doing since rangers are flexible. Do you plan on using henchies a lot, going out in a well balance group w/other players, do you want a lot of instant damage, do you wanna sit back and snipe and apply conditions such as bleeding/psn/crippling while ur team does most the damage?

I myself play an R/Mo so I can probably help you on a few things...

Firstly I really dont use my monk skills except resurrect, why? It requires no attribute points to be effective, and, as rangers tend to spend their timeat the back and are tougher than spell casters, I find my ranger is often the last man standing and can resurrect people quite handily.

If your worried about the healing aspect of your R/Mo, it can easily be addressed by a painfully understated skill belonging to rangers: Healing Spring. It heals quite a bit of health over 10 second, currently my lvl 15 R/Mo at wilderness survival 7/8 (this is its attribute) is healing 39 for 2 secs, so in 10 secs thats over 160 health regained. This skill is very versatile, because if your are a stand-back ranger it helps the spell casters A LOT because they are mostly targeted in PvP and PvE. It's also useful if you want to be an in-the-fray ranger, supporting nearby warriors. As for healing yourself quickly, troll unguent works every time. Another handy skill which I would only recommend if your far from the fight is Fertile Seaon, it gives you a nice armour bonus and silly amounts of health which your spellcasters will love you for, it also works well when your are resurrecting because you can take a lot more damage whilst going about your good buisiness.

If your still concerned about your damage gealing capabilities because your not something like an R/E I would look to your ranger bow/animal companion skills, Smites I feel are a waste of time with R/Mo's.

Hope that cleared a few things up for you! (Sorry for my long windedness...)

Healing spring can heal for a lot but takes 3 secs to cast and is so easy to interupt, while Troll Urgent can give you 90 health in 10 seconds , takes 2 secs to cast, and isn't as easily interupted, but i guess you could cast Dirt/Whirl Def to help use Healing spring. Decaff have you ever tried Judges Insight? I'm thinking of using it for pve and pvp, since holy damage is hard if not impossible to resist unlike elem damge and physical. I'm thinking of switching from R/N to R/Mo for Rebirth and possibly Judges insight.

Quote: Originally Posted by cdepue79

ok i was a little off on the cast times, but Troll I think only heals for around 90...it says for 10 secs you gain health regen of up to 9. So I assume that means 9 life per second, but could be 9 pips of regen which would be much better. Still Troll you can cast without being interupted so easily and run away while still getting healed, while healing spring you have to stand still and is interrupted so easily, in which case you have to wait another 20 secs to use again. But combined with Dirt or Whirl Def could be pretty effective.

Each pip of health regen is 2 health per second. Troll Unguent actually heals for more than Healing Breeze does.

I'd say that a R/Mo is a good choice. It gives you access to skills like Mend Ailment (goodbye Blind), Vengeance, Resurrect, Rebirth (best PvE res, by far), Remove/Smite Hex, Healing Breeze, Vigorous Spirit, Judge's Insight, Infuse Health (doesn't require any points into Healing Prayers to be effective and it can save a dying Monk), and Healing Hands.

Yeah Healing spring is easily interrpted, but look again at my post; I recommend using it to help your spellcasters who will be takin damage (rather than you the ranger) or your warriors (who again tend to have more damage aimed at them). I guess in PvP it's mildy less useful than PvE because someone will notice what your up to, but either way it remains a very effective group heal thats not a monk skill.

And no as I said I don't use many monk skills, so no Judge's Insight. Why? Is it particularly handy for an R/Mo?

Thanks for all the replies guys. One of the posts above asked what kind of style I want to use in a fight. Well I'm aiming to use the max amount of henchmen and just cause lots of damage to an opponent. I usually like attacking one opponent at a time and killing it, then the next etc. I'm not sure why.

If you're looking to do damage as a R/Mo, a Barrage set-up is probably the best way to go.

Copied from http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/s...ead.php?t=2806
Quote: Originally Posted by Ensign

Barragebot
Ranger/Monk

Expertise 10, +3 Rune, +1 Hat
Marksmanship 11, +1 Rune
Beastmastery 3, +1 Rune
Smiting Prayers 7
Healing Prayers 7

Barrage
Penetrating Attack
Hunter's Shot
Debilitating Shot
Pin Down
Tiger's Fury
Judge's Insight
Restore Life I use something similar to this set-up, and do about thirty to fourty damage per hit to several monsters. However, to make this build work effectively, you will need a zealous bow string to make up for the energy cost of Judge's Insight.

For Esrever's build, I'd switch Rebirth in for Restore Life, in PvE.

Esrever, i've a Barrage build is very nice in pve, but how is it in pvp? Wouldn't Melandrus arrows be better for the bleeding and increased damage for enchanted ppl? In pvp many times ppl aren't going to be close enough for barrage to be effective. Or instead of Barrage would Kindle arrows or psn arrow be effective? Another thing with Pets armor getting increased i was thinking of bring just Charm animal to take some hit and if my spider is ignored then he gets a few hits in and does some damage...i know i've taken a few decent hit from animals in pvp. If you attack them then the ranger is hurting you, if you ignore them then the pets can do some damage.

Decaff, from what i've heard Judges insight can be very effective. Warriors have great armor vs phys attacks, rangers vs elemental damage, other characters i'm not sure of but i know nobody has armor protection vs holy damage which is what Judges insight does. It converts your damage to holy damage and has 20% armor penetration and can last for up to 18 seconds. In pve holy damage does double damage to undead creatures.

Just looking at the description of Jdges Insight now and I can certainly see why it would be effective.

The problems with it however would be that a.) I would have to put some attribute points into Smiting Prayers to make it effefctive, and I never use any smite because my Ranger Skills more than compensate. B.) It only transfers your damage to holy rather than like the ranger preparations which add extra elemental/poison/piercing damage which is extra to the damage of the actual arrow. I could see that if used in conjunction with ranger preparations it could be very effective against the undead, but not so much in PvP.

As a ranger the people you tend to target are the weaker spell casters who are going to take a lot of damage from your physical and elemental attacks anyhow, with the exceptoin of the elementalist I suppose.

You can still use attacks such as Penetrating Arrow, Dual shot, Melandrus arrow which will still add the damage, but it's converted. Not sure though if you use kindle arrow/ignite, if the fire damage is converted to holy. I assume it is.

About judges insight

The holy damage does not ignore armour - but it does ignore armour vrs physical and armour vrs elemental. Also there is no such thing about armour vrs holy.

So it only ignores the extra bonus bits of armour, not all of it - and then it also ignores 20% of the straight up armour.

So ranger 70 armour + 30 armour vrs elemental + 15 armour vrs ice, while under th eprotection of the spirit that turns all physical damage to fire damage, and the spirit that turns all elemental damage into ice damage - well - that ranger has 115 armour vers everything!! And then judges insight comes along, and the armour acts like it is only 56. Take that !!

And yes - double damage to undead

I understand everything about the spirits and converting damage, but not the "armor acts like it is only 56". Could you explain the 56 armor? I know that Using Greater conflag to convert to fire damage then Winter to convert elem damage to cold and wearing cold armor, but how would Judges insight play a role in this strategy? Would be, because everyone elses damage would be cold, which your are almost immune to and you're doing holy damage? Or just for the 20% armor penetration? Although the spirits wouldn't affect bleeding or psn correct? So life degens/conditions would still hurt you pretty bad.

i think what aranador is geting at is that despite a ranger goin to all the lengths of converting all types of dmg into cold dmg and then having armour equipped that is highly resistant to cold dmg, judges insight (ie. holy dmg) completely overides these efforts. sorry i didnt make that as clear as possible. maybe arandor could just clarify on this cause i am curious myself.

sidenote - problem with that build is that i like druids armour for the extra energy and u have to equip those two nature rituals to make it work. I wonder if it would be wiser (less skill consuming) to equip the ranger armour (+15 cold dmg) and just use "Winter" to reduce ele dmg? or fire armour for physical protection against warriors?

i dont know - so many choices...