Shock Sniper Questions! (Build Included, please help)

Shock Sniper (Classic Build, taken off Ranger Basics post)

Expertise 14 (Rune/Hat)
Marksmanship 12 (Rune)
Beastmastery 2 (Rune)
Air Magic 10

Penetrating Attack: +3-15 DMG, 20% Armor Penetration
Hunter's Shot: +3-13 DMG, Moving/Knocked Down foes suffer from bleeding
Punishing Shot [E]: +10-18 DMG, Interrupts Target
Pin Down: 3-13 Second Cripple
Read the Wind: Arrows move twice as fast, +3-9 DMG
Favorable Winds (Spirit): Area - Arrows move twice as fast, +6 DMG
Tiger's Fury: +33% Attack Speed, All non-attack skills are unusable (5 sec)
Conjure Lightning: Attacks do an additional 1-13 Lightning Damage

My questions are:

- Do I really need conjure lightning? Can't I replace this skill with Ignite Arrows or Kindle Arrows and raise Wilderness Survival instead of Air Magic? Wilderness Survival comes with a lot of effective skills that can be switched in an out (Troll Unguent, Serpents Quickness, etc.) that really make it worth it.

- If so, what secondary for ranger is worth taking? Warrior for Fury/Frenzy? I'm really looking to make a Ranger for PvE to cross over to PvP, but I seem to have trouble finding a good secondary class to mix in there.

I want to do as much ranged damage as possible while mixing things up. Is ranger the class to do it? I know Elementalists run out of Energy if they're not careful. Can rangers compete/beat Elementalist single-target damage?

Thanks!

edit: I was thinking about Ranger/Necromancer, taking out the Favorable Winds skill in place of a Hex or Curse, but I know how quickly these can be dispelled in PvP. I'm really looking for a Ranger PvE -> PvP character (don't mind switching skills for PvP, but I want a Ranger class combo that works well in both), and it seems like the Ranger can do everything himself...

edit2: in which case, would it be better to do Ranger/Elementalist anyway, and just toy around with the ranger skills, getting an energy boost from the Elementalist secondary? Or am I missing something?

Well you can only have one prep, and you already have Read the Wind. The since you have so much marks and no wilderness, it makes sense to use it instead of kindle. If you want to take wilderness, you will either lose points in other attributes, or lose air magic entirely. (so you will trade RtW and conjure L for kindle... not so great a trade in terms of damage)

rangers are the class most independent of a secondary, but you are already using your /ele for conjure. /nec would give you rend and weaken armor.... the rest are sketchy considering the shock sniper build is what your aiming for.

also, I realized that Conjure lasts a little more than twice as long as kindle. I didnt realize kindle and Read the Wind don't stack, so that makes it a different story.

So, the best damage output I can get as a ranger is a shock sniper, right? And the plan is to stack:

Read the Wind
Conjure Lightning
Tiger's Fury

with whatever shot? Or does Tiger's Fury override something? Also, how does this damage compare to that of a... lets say, Air Elementalist for a single target? is it at least close?

Also, do the fire/ice/lightning strings have differen properties? Like, does the ice string do less damage but have a chance to slow attacks, does fire have a chance to burn, does lightning have a chance to pierce armor?

no, the strings dont have those properties, they just add taht elemental damage

conjure air doesn't have the 25% armor penatration, so if ur looking for a quick spiked kill it wouldn't work as well as an air ele.

Judge's Insight will generally beat a Conjure in terms of overall damage over time. It also allows you to use a real bowstring, (I prefer Vampiric or Zealous) instead of a lousy elemental one.

I use:

Kindle Arrows
Conj flame
Tigers fury

and im pretty happy with my dmg

I use the kindle and tiger combo, and add in a poison arrow

You can also use conjure flame without a fiery string if you use kindle arrow.

Quote: Originally Posted by White Designs

I know you want to focus on single-target damage, but I tried this for a while and I liked it; thought you might want to consider it:

R/E - conjure flame pre-battle, then pull a mob & glyph of lesser energy+firestorm -> tiger's fury+barrage.

For single-target damage though, R/M is good: judge's insight+read the wind+tiger's fury+penetrating shot.

(Excuse my newbieness, only trying to help. )

I've found Kindle + Conjure Flame to be unmatched in terms of damage. Now I wish I had a real bow string instead of going ice string... []

Judge's Insight is good, but it's efficiency is flawed by the fact that it lasts soo short, isn't affected by expertise, and can be removed easily.

WEll if you are going pure damage then you should drop punishing shot for quick shot. Theres a couple threads on quick shot ranger, read them if you dont understand but basically it will deal way more damage than this shock sniper. Switch our RtW for kindle switch all points from air to wilderness, drop conjure element. Use a zealous string.

You will be much less reliant on dispellable enchants, spend way less time preping, and be able to go nearly the entire fight without running out of energy. On top of all that, you'll deal more damage.

Yukito, am I wrong in thinking that JI, an enchantment, is no more easily removed than Conjure XXX, also an enchantment?

I have a lot of success in random/team pvp just fooling around with a ranger/ele (Using conjure), but I think the ranger/monk might be a better idea since you can bring many forms of rez and you'll most likely be the last one alive.

I don't know. R/Mo's accel at doing damage, not healing. Plus, if you're against a paranoid team, the fact that you have /Mo may make you a high-priority target...

I would say R/Mo is better for damage yes. But don't get caught up in res, a R/Mo should take a res signet rather than a hard res, generally.

You're missing a key skill that pretty much *made* the classic "Shock Sniper" build: Thunderclap. That's why Conjure Lightning was in the build.

Quote: Judge's Insight will generally beat a Conjure in terms of overall damage over time. In terms of energy efficiency, Conjure will beat out JI.