Touch ranger

A touch ranger (also known as "Touchie" or "Toucher") is a Ranger/Necromancer archetype that embodies a vampire. It centers on using the energy reduction of Expertise to allow the normally expensive Vampiric Bite and Vampiric Touch to be spammed with greater effectiveness. The builds require 16 Expertise and 12 Blood Magic and have some uses in both PvE and PvP.

The touch ranger's main advantages are the armor-ignoring life stealing to a single target and the difficulty of defending against touch skills. This means that its main uses are against PvE bosses (especially those with very high armor rating), general PvE, and in Alliance Battles/Competitive Missions. Touch rangers are almost never used in HA or GvG anymore because the organized teams typically carry simple counters that make touch rangers ineffective in the metagame.

It is a particularly good build when used against martial professions, due to the effectiveness of such skills as Throw Dirt and Whirling Defense.

Runes and insignias
The most basic requirement for these builds to work is a Rune of Superior Expertise attached to a headpiece. The "spare" slots (i.e. those left over after the Expertise rune) are usually filled with a combination of Runes of Attunement and Radiant Insignias for extra energy, a Rune of Minor Wilderness Survival if appropriate and the condition reduction runes Rune of Restoration and Rune of Recovery to aid survivability unless using either Plague Sending or Plague Touch.

Weapons
Blood Magic staves, wands and foci are the main weapons of touch rangers due to the ideal mods, additional energy, attribute requirement and dark damage, which ignores bonuses to physical and elemental resistance typically found on warriors and rangers. Aggressively built weapon sets might combine 15% extra damage, more energy and a 20% chance for +1 Blood Magic, while defensive sets might include a +10AL staff or focus to mitigate damage. Multiple weapon sets can be held in inventory for various circumstances, including high and low energy sets to modify energy by up to -7 or +30, of Enchanting mods to extend enchantment durations, or a +45 health 'while enchanted' mod to partially counter the health sacrifice of Blood Renewal.

Attacks
The main two skills are currently Vampiric Bite and Vampiric Touch. Previous to the release of Factions, the skills used were Touch of Agony and Vampiric Touch, with the health sacrifice of the former being recovered by the latter. The original Prophecies combination is less energy intensive, but it is also less effective than the now far more common post-Factions variant.

Elite skill
Aside from the previously stated touch damage skills, a touch ranger is largely defined by the choice of elite skill. The most common elite is Offering of Blood, which converts some health to energy, and that energy is used to steal back the lost health, and so on. Another classic elite skill in use is Escape, which grants mobility and defense that is second to none. Additional elites that are occasionally used include Life Transfer and Vampiric Spirit.

Defenses
Touch Rangers use their Expertise skills to protect themselves and their allies. If the elite is aggressive like Offering of Blood, stances such as Whirling Defense, Lightning Reflexes and Dodge can be taken to block attacks and move quickly. If the elite is Escape, additional stances can be dropped to make space for more utility skills. In addition to defensive stances, touch rangers can take Throw Dirt for personal defense as well as to protect allies. Throw Dirt can be followed by Oppressive Gaze to further debilitate foes with Poison and Weakness.

Healing and recovery
Although touch rangers are infamous for their life-stealing touch, self-healing is also available. Blood Renewal is the most powerful self-heal available and is most effective when it is in constant use and refreshed immediately after it expires. Troll Unguent is another option, in which case Wilderness Survival should be raised to 4 with the aid of a Rune of Minor Wilderness Survival. In either case, the effectiveness of self-healing is greatly enhanced by foresight and defensive tactics.

A second threat to a touch ranger's well-being that they have a great deal of control over is conditions. There are 3 main options for condition removal: Antidote Signet, Plague Touch and Plague Sending. In the hands of a typical touch ranger with no points in the Curses attribute, Plague Touch and Plague Sending will transfer a single condition at a time to an enemy or cluster of enemies at the cost of little energy and perhaps some health. Antidote Signet is the simplest method to cure conditions quickly and for free, simply removing them.

The final area of recovery is recovering energy. Offering of Blood is the elite choice, yet another option is to use Blood Ritual in a partnership, discussed below.

Utility skills
Utility skills cover skills that benefit allies, or remove beneficial effects from an enemy.
 * The main beneficial skill is Blood Ritual, which gives additional energy regeneration to an ally. While the caster cannot use this skill on themselves, a pair of touch rangers (such as a player and a hero) can use Blood Ritual on each other to double their natural energy regeneration rate. Blood Ritual can be used on allies of any class that need help recovering energy for their skills.
 * Blood Bond is a strong healing skill in the right circumstances that will particularly aid Minion Masters and physical attackers. Well of Blood can also heal you and your allies.
 * Demonic Flesh and Awaken the Blood both boost the touch ranger directly, the first by radiating damage and the second by boosting Blood Magic by 2.
 * Enchantment strips such as Rip Enchantment, Strip Enchantment and Gaze of Contempt. While removing enchantments from enemies isn't usually beneficial for the ranger directly, it may debilitate the enemy or aid an ally's attack.
 * Distracting Shot, which requires a bow. Distracting Shot can interrupt and disable an enemy skill for 20 seconds, which can sometimes prove decisive.
 * Poison Tip Signet, which greatly augments a staff or wand's dark damage with additional poison damage. A Rune of Minor Wilderness Survival to take Wilderness Survival up to 4 will give 10 second duration poison, which is the equivalent of 80 damage if it lasts the full time. A dark damage weapon should not be underestimated as a ranged weapon, especially if it can be poisoned.
 * Barbed Signet, Oppressive Gaze, and/or Throw Dirt can be used to inflict conditions on foes.

Counters
A touch ranger needs to be in melee range to touch his target, and this can be prevented if the target is able to keep their distance either through kiting or the use of snares. To remedy this the ranger can use speed boosts such as Dodge or Escape to catch the target, and either remove or transfer the cripple condition with Antidote Signet or Plague Sending. The most dangerous form of snare the ranger faces are hexes, which the ranger is unable to remove. Snare hexes are carried by Elementalists, Mesmers and Assassins. The best a touch ranger can do against hex snares is play defensively, use their self healing, and possibly try to interrupt and disable a hex snare with Distracting Shot if they have it. Alternatively if there are support characters with hex removal, they might be able to help as snare hexes are a very common threat in PvP and the vulnerability is not unique to touch rangers.

Diversion is a threat common to all characters that spam skills, and the counter is to be alert and simply wait for the hex to expire naturally.

Touch rangers are heavily reliant on energy and its efficient use, so another devastating counter they face is having their energy depleted by Mesmers and Necromancers. Mesmers can steal and burn energy with a wide variety of Domination and Inspiration skills. Necromancers can inhibit energy regeneration with Malaise and Wither, deplete energy with Depravity, or negate the effect of a ranger's Expertise with Atrophy and Wail of Doom.

Raw healing is also able to counter the touch ranger. Although the raw damage from Vampiric Bite and Vampiric Touch are reliable, it is only moderate and easily healed by a monk or ritualist.