Standard poison-interrupter ranger

From Guild Wars Wiki

The Standard poison-interrupter ranger refers to a common PvP setup for a ranger that pressures the opposing team through well-timed interrupts and poison.

[edit] General principle

The poison-spreading, interrupting ranger is a popular setup in most forms of PvP. It utilizes powerful ranger interrupts along with a poison skill to pressure the opposing team through various tactics. With the ranger's inherent defense against elements coupled with a block stance and/or speed boost, this ranger proves to be very self-sufficient.

[edit] Basis

The most common variant's staple skills to this setup are Savage Shot, Distracting Shot, and Apply Poison. Natural Stride is taken as both a block stance and speed buff. In the lower end arenas or for split tactics, it is not uncommon for a ranger to bring Troll Unguent as a self-heal. Also taken in Random Arenas and Team Arenas is Resurrection Signet, since a powerplay can completely change the outcome of a match. A damage skill such as Sloth Hunter's Shot can be taken as well.

The beauty of this build is that there are many different elites that you can take to complement your team. Burning Arrow is taken as a spike or gank skill. Melandru's Shot and Crippling Shot are taken as a snare. Magebane Shot can be taken as well, for a unblockable and powerful interrupt. If you take Magebane Shot, it is advised that you drop one of your interrupts. Incendiary Arrows is used to apply Area of Effect burning to the enemy team. Using Escape is not unheard of, as it provides a near maintable speed boost and block stance. Another elite skill that is not unheard as being used by a ranger, but requires being a secondary class Monk, is Empathic Removal. This skill helps alleviate some of the pressure from the opposing team, while still dealing out tons of pressure.

A common secondary class is the Monk, due to the skill Mending Touch. This skill is good for not only removing conditions from yourself but also removing conditions from fellow team mates. The monk class also provides Healing Breeze, which can be used in place of Troll Unguent. The downsides to using Healing Breeze are that it can be stripped and it is not in a ranger attribute. Another secondary class used is the Necromancer for enchantment removal skills, such as Rend Enchantments.

This ranger makes use of armor with Survivor Insignia. You can use Radiant Insignia, but a high rank in expertise renders that superfluous. The suggested weapon types are: Longbows for hitting far away players, Shortbows for the closer players, and Flatbows for ganking NPCs.

[edit] Side skills

In situations where you can't bring Mending Touch, Antidote Signet can be used in its place. Lightning Reflexes serves as a good attack speed buff and as a block stance. If you're bringing along a damage skill, you can choose from Keen Arrow, Sloth Hunter's Shot, Needling Shot, Forked Arrow. Good bow attacks that cause conditions are Pin Down and Screaming Shot. Another good pressure skill is Debilitating Shot. If running a Monk secondary, any skills you can use to make your monk's job easier, such as Purge Signet or Remove Hex are good.

[edit] Battle behavior

In general, this has three primary functions. The first is to spread poison all over the enemy team. Sapping away the life of the enemy team is awesome as it pressures the opposing monks. The second purpose is to interrupt important skills depending on the situation. If the opposing team is applying too much pressure, interrupting offensive skills on their midline would be beneficial to the survival of the party. If your team is doing well in applying pressure and pushing kills, taking down Guardian, Weapon Spells, Word of Healing or even Blinding Surge will help force wipes as it debilitates the opponent's ability to mitigate damage. The third is to split off to wherever you are most needed, as well as preventing foes from splitting off to wherever they are needed most.

Random Arena: Since you aren't guaranteed a monk or even a good team, a self-heal plus Resurrection Signet are musts. When a team mate is down, you need to bring them back as quickly as possible.

Team Arenas: Unlike Random Arenas, there is more coordination, and thus a self-heal is not quite as vital.

Alliance Battles: This ranger is great for surviving by himself. However, he is not great at killing things by himself. The best strategy is to stuck with your team-mates and support them the best you can. However, in the situations that you do find yourself alone, here are a few tips. If being chased by a front-liner, do your best to snare them and move away from them. Casters will have to stop to cast spells at you, so in most situations you don't need to worry about getting out of their range. Fighting fellow rangers is much the same as casters, except they're harder to hit and more likely to snare you followed up with an interrupt. If trying to solo cap shrines, switch to a Flatbow and spread the poison among the Shrine NPCs. For warrior NPCs, use your Longbow and draw them out one at a time.

GvG: Running this in GvG requires you to play multiple roles. You must be able to snare, pressure, gank and support at different times, depending on how the much is playing out. Your ability to interrupt is much more important here than in the lower arenas. Splitting is another important facet of this particular build. You must be able to drive foes out of your base, force your foes to split their healers and offensive characters up in order to push kills at stand as well as to cope with pressure.

Heroes' Ascent: Your role is similar to GvG. The difference is that you might be running a Paragon secondary with some shouts as support.

PvE: Not really used in PvE, though there are some situations where interrupts are very important.

[edit] Disadvantages

This build is not designed to dish out damage constantly. As such, it sees very little, if any, use in PvE. This builds main counter is anything that prevents your arrows from hitting your target, such as block and blind. Another counter is anything that punishes you for attacking, such as Empathy or Insidious Parasite.