User:Gelbrekt/Heroic Refrain Team/Ranger Builds

General Stuff

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• When going through the list of ranger skills, I found very few ranger skills that are directly disprop, However almost all ranger skills are indirectly disprop due to being affected by Expertise (80% reduction!). In addition, expertise applies to all Binding Rituals, Touch Skills and Attack skills, opening many more possibilities!

• The ranger feels a bit tricky to write a document about, because i see many different roles that a single build could fill simultaneously. For example:
  • Touch Ranger
  • Spirit support, e.g QZ, Tranquility or EoE.
  • Using Expertise for marksmanship and/or
  • Trapper with Trapper's Focus.
  • "Together as One" party support + Whirling Defense tank.

• As such, there should be a general discussion here about which skills are viable, so that they can be MODULARIZED into a single build more easily. Remember to not repeat yourself; much discussion is already made at: User:Gelbrekt/Heroic Refrain Team.

Particular skills to use when Ranger SECONDARY

• I don't know what to put here on this page, but this section is USEFUL to avoid repeating yourself on multiple pages.

Generally useful skills - General Discussion

• Here i just discuss skills that can be safely assumed are good for all ranger builds.

General Elites

• "Together as One!" - Great general skill for the healing, however at the time of writing, the team comp does NOT have many martial fighters aside from minions, which are unaffected.
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Wilderness Survival

• GENERAL NOTE: Remember that this attribute is already REQUIRED if going for Tranquility! Also this entire attribute is DISPROP since it is normally avoided due to limited attribute points!
• Tranquility
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Skills that appear good, but actually are not

• Serpent's Quickness - IS very clearly [disprop]. Also attractve to the touch ranger because it can reduce the vampiric touch to 1 second, which technically allows only using 1 of these duplicate skills. HOWEVER, SQ is a stance, which disables Whirling Defense, which is far better.

Other skills

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Touch Ranger - General discussion

Central skills (REMEMBER that this build might cover other roles as well, so only list the MOST IMPORTANT here)

• Vampiric Bite & - Key skills; they steal 89 hp when maxed, for just 3 energy if Expertise is Maxed.
• Vampiric Touch
• Whirling Defense - A complete no-brainer for several reasons already discussed elsewhere.
• Oppressive Gaze - Potentially strong due to inflicting 2 conditions.

Other interesting skills

• Verata's Gaze - Discussed elsewhere. HIGH prio for this build since it is already a necromancer (unlike e.g mesmers who lose access to rit res, or ranger serpent's quickness).
• Blood Ritual - Strongly consider, since it has significant impact on multiple characters here who have PERCENTAGE DECREASE on their skill costs (so they benefit disproportionally from energy), including other Rangers, Ritualists (with AwS) and Dervishes.
• Dwarven Stability - Very good for players due to the power of Whirling Defense.

Elites (List only elites that are SPECIFIC for the touch ranger here)

• Offering of Blood - Standard skill for touch rangers. While this is only linearly (not exponential), It is affected by Ebon Wisdom Ward, and all energy management skills are also disprop.
• Scavenger's Focus - Worth experimenting with: Even at low wilderness survival, e.g 8 (which is very low considering all of the available boosts), it grants 8 energy per hit, which can grant much more energy than OoB without sacrifice. These hits can easily be achieved by bringing bow INTERRUPTS. Again, since the build is meant to cover several roles at one, just one skill is necessary:
  • Concussion Shot - Normally WAY TOO EXPENSIVE for this build, considering what it already has, but remember that it now only costs about FIVE energy for a very powerful skill. It also triggers fragility.
  • Savage Shot - Has the advantage over Concussion Shot that it is able to interrupt non-spells, on top of dealing more base- and conditional damage.
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Other skills

• Unholy Feast - Interesting since it is DISPROP; when maxed it steals 83 health from 5 targets
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Nature Rituals - General discussion

Optionals

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Attack Skills, including Marksmanship, Beast Mastery and weapons from other professions - General discussion

Marksmanship

ADVANTAGES with marksmanhsip

• Compared to ranger melee versions (including touch rangers and "Trapper's Focus" trapper-builds) Marksmanship has the advantage of being further away from the enemies, allowing spirits like Tranquility to be more protected.
• If using Heroes: Using a skill line Point Blank Shot, the Hero AI positions itself between the melee fighters and the casters, which makes the party less vulnerable to AoE.

DISADVANTAGES

• Loses ability to use Whirling Defense (An epic skill here) effectively due to not being adjacent to foes.
• It can be speculated that the DPS here isn't as good as other professions.

MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS (remember to only list the most important here, since this opens up for the possibility of covering multiple different roles)

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Other skills

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Beast Mastery

MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS (remember to only list the most important here, since this opens up for the possibility of covering multiple different roles)

• Comfort Animal - Required unless using Heal as One.
• Feral Aggression - No-brainer
• Brutal Strike - Almost a no-brainer considering the extreme energy management.
• Scavenger Strike - Completely removes need for Bip; this also opens up for using bow instead of touch (i.e better basic attacks than with staff).
• Edge of Extinction - Extremely powerful if used right, but risky. Also puts the user in danger.

• Elites:
  • Enraged Lunge - Epic if deep wound isn't covered.
  • Heal as One - Nice extra damage & heal.

Other skills

• [[Image: Melandru's Assault.jpg|25px| Melandru's Assault|link= Melandru's Assault]] [[ Melandru's Assault]] - NOT GOOD - It seens decebt at first due to AoE, but it is really weak (a single trigger of fragility deals more dmg!)
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Hammer Mastery

MOST IMPORTANT SKILLS (remember to only list the most important here, since this opens up for the possibility of covering multiple different roles)

• Renewing Smash - GREAT skill; the KD is easily met by the mesmers using PI, and this skill then grants a NET POSITIVE ENERGY since expertise reduces it to just 1 energy!
• Auspicious Blow - Great due to granting energy, which scales exponentially due to the massive energy reduction. As indicated above, this is INFERIOR to Renewing smash though (at least under the proper circumstances). One OPTION though would be to use Renewing Smash to more quickly get adrenaline for this skill, allowing a TRAPPER build to then have energy for expensive traps like Dust Trap.
• Crude Swing - Good for the AoE, as well as for granting adrenaline for Auspicious Blow
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Other skills

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Other

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Trapper - General discussion

• Trapper's Focus Ranger With Whirling Defense:
  • Traps have good synergy w Fragility (Which the mesmers can easily bring), and Whirling Defense is a great tanking skill; especially since it triggers Mark of Pain due to bug.
  • This could even be hero-compatible if the ranger is equipped with an axe or even using Renewing Smash (See below)

Optionals

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• Piercing Trap - Becomes interesting because Trapper's Focus allows it to actually be placed on top of targets, allowing it to actually trigger it secondary effect. This is 140 damage when maxed, which is decent. However it does have a CD of 30 seconds..
• Serpent's Quickness - Great due to being linked to wilderness survival, and because traps have long CDs. However Whirling Defense might be better.
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BUILDS

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• [Attributes]

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Optionals

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Touch Ranger Beast Master

IDEA

• Beast mastery should be a pretty good combo here, since (1) The attributes can be high enough to actually justify both blood magic and beast mastery. (2) While the user is occupied casting the touch skills, the pet can deal damage.

• [Attributes]

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Optionals

• Optionals already included under:
  • general beast mastery skills
  • general touch necro skills.

[PROMISING] Suggestion 1

EVALUATION

• Just by looking at them, it is hard to tell which one would be best; I think both are pretty good. If nobody inflicts Deep Wound, the Enraged Lunge should be used.

Heal as One version

	Elite

Enraged Lunge version

	Elite

[Promising build - see below] Binding Ritualist

SUMMARY

• General Idea: Due to the extreme expertise, it should be possible to just fill the bar with expensive binding rituals.
• NOTE: This is likely a GREAT IDEA provided there is another Channel Rit; Channel rits are great for multiple things such as Splinter Weapon, and can use Painful Bond to increase spirit damage.

• [Attributes]

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No-brainers

• These are the only non-elite Communing attacking spirits:
  • Pain
  • Shadowsong
  • Anguish
  • Disenchantment
  • Dissonance - Expensive, but there should be enough energy if maxing Expertise (15+5).
• Point Blank Shot - Very likely a good idea, since this makes the hero automatically go away from the party, reducing vulnerabiliy to AoE for the spirits. Also linked to expertise, which is maxed. Also allows the hero himself to deal extra damage (remember to get at least 9 marksmanship after buffs).

Interesting non-spirit skills

• Concussion Shot - In theory there should be enough energy for this, especially if the player can get some sort of energy from other allies,
• Body Shot - As mentioned; very good energy management skills for rangers.
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Elites

• • Barrage - Nice because it gives the ranger something to do while not making spirits. Also there is most likely energy for
  • Broad Head Arrow - Pretty good PROVIDED that some ally has Extend Conditions or Epidemic.
  • Signet of Ghostly Might - Good general skill., but Barrage will likely deal more damage overall and is better used by the AI.

• • Heal As One Heal As One - Provides pet, life steal, self heal for just 1 slot. But requires beast mastery investment, which is somewhat inconvenient since it already needs Marksmanship, Expertise & Communing.
  • Comfort Animal - To bring the pet

• Lower Prio:
  • Weapon of Quickening - Great skill which there is space for on this bar, since not many great elites are here. HOWEVER, it isn't reduced by expertise, has no spawning power to extend duration, and collides with weapon spells from other professions.
  • Scavenger's Focus - NOT interesting; while it does give much energy, Body shot is most likely superior for energy management due to being dirprop, and non-elite.
  • Wanderlust - NOT good; even though it is disprop, it has 45s cooldown and no damage.

Spirits

• Soothing

SUGGESTIONS

	Elite

Strengths

• Has enough energy to spam spirits and Barrage, unlike a regular spirit spammer that just stands doing nothing.
  • Has all of the attacking, non-elite communing binding rituals.
  • Can get expertise close to 20, reducing skill costs by 80%.
  • Body Shot provides excellent energy management; The build should have no problem with it.
• Point Blank Shot puts him (the hero) away from the party.
• POTENTIAL PROBLEM: The Ai might spam Barrage too much, preventing him from using the other bow attacks.
  • If this is a problem, bring Comfort Animal instead of PBS (or maybe even drop Body Shot, since the build might have enough energy anyway).

Weaknesses

• No Self-heal.

[PROMISING BUILD] Trapper (No whiring defense)

• [Attributes]

SUMMARY

• Mazimises traps; Inflicts 5 different conditions triggering fragility, while dealing AoE. Due to verh high expertise there is enough energy.
• I THINK the Ai can use this with a staff (i.e he still gets close to the enemies), if NOT: Use sword and a necromancer OFF-HAND for raising energy.
• Use Verata's Gaze to get minions from the rits.

	Elite

Optionals

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Trapper

• [Copied from previous doc] Example: Hilarious combo that could in theory be vialble while being ABSOLUTLEY UNTHINKABLE during normal circumstances: A ranger with 20 Expertise, 20 WIlderness Survival and 20 Hammer Mastery.
  • He uses the 80% energy discount on expertise to lay traps (Synergizing with Fragility used by a mesmer) togehter with Trapper's Focus
  • He uses Renewing Smash, dealing +50 damage per attack (1s actication), costing 1 energy due to expertise, and and granting 3 energy.
  • He uses Whirling Defense + Dwarven Stability for massive AoE damage while in melee range.

SUMMARY

• Maintains Whirling Defense using "on your knees", potentially causing lots AoE if focused.
• Used Renewing smas on targets KD:ed with PI.
• Lays Traps, inflicts 4 different conditions synergizing with Fragility [Flame Trap Not used since burning is already covered by the paragon]

	Elite

Optionals

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